PeaceNic Names Registry System | Domain Name Registration | Protecting Your Brand Names

TLD Transfer-ins at Zero Markup

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:07:00 +0000

TLD Transfer-ins @ Zero Markup

PeaceNic gives you the opportunity to consolidate your entire Domain portfolio under a single account with the Transfer-ins @ Zero Markup Promo. Avail of Transfer-ins at zero mark up and allow your Customers to move in their .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ & .NAME Domains at the best possible pr...ices in the industry.

Promo Pricing:
TLD Promo Price

.COM $7.99
.NET $5.99
.ORG $7.99
.INFO $7.99
.NAME $6.99

http://www.peacenic.com/domain.php?action=domain_transfer#

PeaceNic Names Registry System

.COM @ $7.99 - Promo Instructions

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:23:00 +0000

The .COM Promo is all set to start on the 1st of October at 12:30 UTC. Here's some important information that you should make a note of, especially since it is our first ever Opt-in Promo.

What is an Opt-in Promo?
The .COM @ $7.99 Promo will be offered to you through the PeaceNic Promo Engine. However, unlike our previous Promos, it will NOT be automatically activated for you. If you wish to Opt-in for this Promo, you will need to manually set your pricing in the Promo Engine on the 1st of October.

What is the Barrier Price?
The Barrier Price for this Promo will be $8.99. What this means, is that if you would like to avail of the special price of $7.99 on .COM Domains, you will need to set your Selling Price for Resellers and Customers to less than $8.99 in the Promo Engine. If you set a Selling Price that is higher than $8.99, you will not be eligible for this Promo and your Cost Price for .COM Domains will be your regular Slab Based Pricing and not $7.99.

How Do You Opt-In?
On the 1st of October, after 12:30 UTC, login to your Reseller Control Panel and go to:

Settings » Set Pricing Plans and Promos » Click here to set your .COM Domain Promo Pricing

Now enter your Selling Price for your Customers and Resellers in the text fields provided. You will also need to specify an RC2 pricing for your Resellers. The RC2 pricing will be applicable to your Resellers who do not opt-in for this promotion. Now click on the Submit button and you will have successfully Opted-in for .COM @ $7.99.

Very Important

* If you set your pricing to lower than $8.99 in the Regular Domain Registration Pricing Page, you will NOT be eligible for the Promo. You will have to set your Pricing in the Promo Engine from the path mentioned above.
* If your Selling Currency is not US Dollars, do not set your Selling Price as the same or very close to the Barrier Price. The system compares the Barrier Price and the Selling Price in USD for every invoice raised and accordingly charges you. If there is a forex fluctuation on that day, your Selling Price may exceed the Barrier Price when converted to USD and this would mean that you are not be eligible for the Promo Pricing.

Resellers: http://www.PeaceNic.org
Customers: http://www.PeaceNic.com
Domain Panel: http://www.PeaceNic.Name
Blog: http://www.PeaceNic.info

Gumblar Attack - How to Clean your PC and Web Hosting Account?

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

Gumblar Attack - How to Clean your PC and Web Hosting Account?

Follow these steps to clean your system and hosting account.

A. Clean Your System:

Download and Install following Softwares
Scan your Full System through both Softwares
Disconnect your System from Internet During Scan.
Restart your System after Successful Scans

Download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition:
http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html?part=dl-10044820&subj=dl&tag=button&cdlPid=11014801
Download Free Ad-Aware by LAVA Soft:
http://download.cnet.com/Ad-Aware-Anniversary-Edition/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5

B. Clean your Hosting Account:

Change your Passwords for All FTP, WebMail, Databases and Browser Saved Passwords
Don't Save Password in FTP Clients
Delete All Data on Web server or Simply change Hosting Account.
Upload Fresh Data
Create Your XML Sitemap and Submit it. Click here to Generate Free XML Sitemap
Upload sitemap.xml file in home Directory under (public_html folder)

C. Use Google Webmaster Tools:

Please use Google Webmaster tools login through your Gmail Account.
www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Verify your Site Ownership.
Submit your XML sitemap using Google Webmaster tools.
Then Submit your Site to Google for Review regarding badware.

Always use FireFox or Chrome browsers

You can read more about such attacks here:
http://www.stopbadware.org/home/security

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.

http://www.PeaceNic.com

2 GB USB Free with every dot ASIA Domain

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Good News to PeaceNic Resellers:

Adding to the suite of highly profitable promos we’re currently running, PeaceNic brings to you a unique promo, directly from the .ASIA Registry!

All .ASIA Domains registered will now be eligible for a FREE 2 GB USB Memory Stick! The .ASIA Registry now gives your Customers the opportunity to get a .ASIA branded USB Memory Stick with every .ASIA Domain registered.

Once the 5 Day Grace Period of a newly registered .ASIA Domain has passed, your Customers will get a white-labeled confirmation mail from the Registry with the Redemption Code for the Domain Name.

This will allow Customers to login to FreeB.asia and confirm the shipping address for the USB Memory Stick.

Note:

* A Domain must be registered for a minimum duration of 2 years for this Promo to be applicable.
* The Promo will be valid for Domains registered after 00:00 UTC on 6th July, 2009 and will end on 6th October, 2009.
* This Promo is not applicable to Renewals and/or Transfer-Ins.
* Click here to read the FAQ of this special promotion.

So make the most of this innovative promo which helps add further value to your Product Portfolio!

http://www.PeaceNic.com
http://www.PeaceNic.org
http://www.PeaceNic.Name
http://www.PeaceNic.Tel
http://www.PeaceNic.us
http://www.PeaceNic.pk
http://www.PeaceNic.in
http://www.PeaceNic.eu
http://www.PeaceNic.Asia

Google to launch its own PC operating system

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:06:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO: Google has plans for its own personal computer operating system, it announced on its blog, setting up another clash between the Internet search giant and PC software supremo Microsoft.

"We're announcing a new project," said the Mountain View, California-based company, revealing the system would be based on its nine-month-old Chrome browser and would be an open source operating system initially targeted at netbooks.

The move is "our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be," Google said in a statement posted late Tuesday.

The search engine giant said it would open-source the code for "Chrome OS" for user input and that netbooks running the system would be available by the middle of next year.

"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds," the company said.

Google noted that in deciding to embark on the new venture, they took heed of its user messages, namely that "computers need to get better."

People "want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them," they want to access the Internet instantly, and they don't want to worry about losing their computer or failing to back-up files, Google said.

"We're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision," the company added.

The Chrome browser was originally launched last year but has failed to match the spectacular success of Google's search engine.

The company floated its first US television advertisements in recent months for Chrome, as the browser has only captured a tiny share of a market dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Microsoft's freshly launched search engine Bing, meanwhile, aimed to hit back at Google's gains in the search market, although it still lags behind its rival.

Web analytics firm StatCounter said last week that Bing had carved out an 8.23 percent share of the US search market in June, up from 7.21 percent in April and 7.81 percent in May.

By contrast, however, Google continued to dominate the search market with a huge 78.48 percent share last month.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has downplayed expectations for the success of Bing, but said the company was committed to challenge Google over the long-term. Google already has an operating system -- Android -- but the company said that while there was some overlap, they were separate entities.

Android is only used for mobile phones at the moment, but the software has showcased Google's keen interest in expanding beyond its search engine base.

"Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems," said the company.

All the web-based applications developed by users, Google said, "can be written using your favorite web technologies" and will not be limited to just its new operating system, but on "any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform."

US telecom carrier T-Mobile said last month the latest version of its touch-screen smartphone featuring Android software would be available in August.

As it reaches into the operating system market, the move on the handhelds is being seen as Google's answer in the highly competitive smartphone market to the newly released Apple iPhone 3GS, the Palm Pre and the latest BlackBerrys.

GUMBLAR ATTACK WORSE THAN CONFICKER, EXPERTS WARN

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:51:00 +0000

The website cooperation move famous as Gumblar has added newborn field obloquy that are downloading malware onto trusting computers, concealing protocol credentials to cooperation more sites, and tampering with scheme traffic, a section concern said on Thursday.

The Gumblar move started in March with websites existence compromised and move cipher unseeable on them. Originally, the malware downloaded onto computers accessing those sites came from the gumblar.cn domain, a Asiatic field related with Slavonic and Baltic IP addresses that were delivering cipher from servers in the UK, ScanSafe said terminal week.

As website operators clean up their sites, the attackers replaced the example vindictive cipher with dynamically generated and obfuscated JavaScript, making it arduous for section tools to identify. The scripts endeavor to utilise vulnerabilities in Adobe’s Acrobat Reader and Flash Player to have cipher that injects vindictive see results when a individual searches Google on cyberspace Explorer, as substantially as see the victim’s grouping for protocol credentials that crapper be utilised to cooperation added websites.

The field was denaturized to martuz.cn before both domains were closed down. And now, the malware is reaching from sites including liteautotop.cn and autobestwestern.cn, among others, according to ScanSafe.

“Fortunately, it appears the study servers themselves are existence closed down,” the consort said in a statement. “However, modify after Gumblar-related attacks subside, cybercriminals module ease possess the botnet of pussy computers obtained via Gumblar.”

ScanSafe contends that Gumblar is worsened than Conficker, a insect that spreads via a mess in Windows finished extractable hardware devices and meshwork shares with anaemic passwords, as substantially as unhealthful section code and instalment imitation antivirus software.

Gumblar, which was answerable for 37 proportionality of every malware closed by ScanSafe during the prototypal digit weeks in May, has more invasive activity it intercepts and monitors scheme traffic, and installs a data-theft Dardanian that steals individual obloquy and passwords from pussy computers, ScanSafe said.

In addition, erst a Conficker incident is remediated there is no boost distribute of the worm. However, Gumblar crapper use the protocol credentials it steals to cooperation modify more websites, potentially exposing some more victims, the consort said.

This article was originally posted on CNET News.

Dot .hk for Everyone

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:42:00 +0000

Similar to other cities in the world, Hong Kong has been confronting the challenges brought by rapid climatic change in recent years. Four tropical cyclone warning signals number 8 or above were issued in Hong Kong last year, a record since 1999. The rainstorm and typhoon season is now approaching. The public often expresses concerns around this time of the year over the difficulties in getting timely updates on weather information. This is more a matter of personal safety than just convenience.

During emergency, respective organizations usually broadcast information to the public via television, radio or their websites. This one-way communication model is not an effective and efficient way of message delivery because the recipient needs to know where to look for the information in the first place. Moreover, nowadays most people communicate using their mobile phones upon emergency; causing congestion of the mobile phone networks. The situation can be much better if there are one or more interactive communication channels between the locals and the respective organizations.

Instant notification during emergency
To effectively improve communications, related authorities should consider implementing an initiative which might be called“ '.hk' for Everyone”. Every Hong Kong people will be given an online identifier just like their ID cards or birth certificates. The online identifier comes with a virtual file folder and a personal email address ended with the Hong Kong top level country code domain (.hk), e.g.me@sammy.idv.hk. One of the benefits of this approach is that a citywide communications network could be implemented instantly and effectively, without extra efforts in collecting personal data or email addresses. Whenever an incident occurs, all government departments, public or private organizations or institutions, and schools, could send their messages to everybody's virtual file folders. Messages would then be instantly broadcasted via mobile phone text message reminders.

Since messages could be deposited directly to these personal folders and retrieved by numerous means, even during mobile phone network congestions, people could access the information via various mobile communications devices, e.g. laptop computers, PDAs, mobile phones, etc. They could know the latest situations by checking their personal folders and give a good assessment on the way forward. Some US websites now offer free warnings and announcements broadcasts through wireless and email for the locals. The free broadcast minimizes the damages brought to human lives and the economy.

Furthermore, we can store our information and documents (such as passports) in the folder, and instantly submit the documents to related departments and authorities when needed. It saves time and resources on photocopying. At a broader level, this initiative will consolidate Hong Kong's position as a leading international digital city, and foster a new generation of digital public services for our people.

Application of Information and communications technology in Hong Kong should be able to advance to the next level in view of the high penetration rate of Internet, our extensive and mature network infrastructure and the lifestyle of Hong Kong people who are ready to embrace new gadgets and ideas. According to the government statistics, there are more than 7,800 Wi-Fi hotspots in Hong Kong as of February and the number is increasing. Hong Kong has the highest rate of mobile phone usage in the world with a penetration rate as high as 154%. Moreover, according to Census and Statistics Department, only 30% of the population used the Internet in 2000; but the percentage rose to above 65% in last year. It can be seen that Internet usage has become more and more popular, and that Hong Kong people are ready for the new digital age.

Strengthened security needed to protect privacy
There are a number of considerations for the success of“ '.hk' for Everyone”, e.g. how personal privacy should be protected and how to combat phishing and spamvertising sites, so that personal information will not be unduly obtained for promotional purposes. Also, the “law and order” in the Internet world need to be maintained and the security be improved, so that hackers find no way to steal others' fidentity. As an initiative for the benefit of the public, necessary measures should be implemented and managed by a neutral organization which looks after public interests.

If Hong Kong is determined to become a digital city, we should consider how to integrate advanced communication technologies with our public services. The said“ '.hk' for Everyone ”initiative with personal email and virtual file folder can then be provided. This will not only utilize more effectively our edge as a wireless city; but also promote the notion of personal information platform as a key component of an e-society. The notification mechanism mentioned earlier is just a starting point. Only with a sustainable development which leverages on the different communication channels and optimizes the whole communication network can the ever-changing demands of the society be met and people's livelihood be improved.

Mr Jonathan Shea is currently the CEO of Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited (HKIRC). He has profound experience in the telecommunication and Internet services industry, and has held senior positions in Henderson Cyber Limited, New World Telecom and Telstra (Australia) before joining HKIRC.

Official Gmail Blog: Get your Gmail stickers

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:13:00 +0000

Official Gmail Blog: Get your Gmail stickers

INBOX.PK Your New Passport on Internet. Get 5 GB Windows Live ID for Instant Messeging and Lots of other Features.

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:12:00 +0000

INBOX.PK Your New Passport on Internet. Get 5 GB Windows Live ID for Instant Messeging and Lots of other Features.

Your Social Web Presence

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Streamlining Your Social Web Presence in 6 Steps
By Deltina Hay (c) 2009

Following the advice of social media and Web 2.0 experts, you have established your own blog and joined a number of social sites, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LibraryThing, and Upcoming.org, among others. Now, the experts say you must add content to each of these accounts regularly to keep them dynamic. So, how's this supposed to make your life easier?

Relax. With some careful planning, you can streamline the process of keeping all of your Social Web accounts fresh and engaging without breaking your back or the bank. The trick is to make your social accounts work together. Most social sites use the concept of open source to make it easy for developers to write applications that enhance the features of the site. For our purposes, we will look at applications that can help us streamline our existing presence in the Social Web.

To demonstrate what I mean about streamlining the process, I'll start with an example. Imagine that you have the following social media tools and accounts already in place on the Social Web:

A WordPress Blog
A Facebook Profile
A Facebook Page
A MySpace Page
A YouTube Account
A Flickr Account
A Twitter Account
An Upcoming.org Account
A GoodReads Account

Your 6 Step Plan to a Streamlined Social Web Presence

Step 1: Optimize Your Blog Feed

The very first step in streamlining your presence in the Social Web is burning your blog's feed to Feedburner. This is a free service, and obtaining a FeedBurner account will help you to easily manage and track your feed subscriptions. Once you have burned your feed to FeedBurner, note the URL of your new feed, which will look something like this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MyBlogName .

Step 2: Feed Your Blog Now

You want to make sure that you are getting the most mileage from your blog posts. To do so, feed your blog entries into all of your social accounts that offer blog feeding applications. Remember that each social site may provide its own different way of accomplishing this.

Facebook, for example, allows you to feed your blogs into the Notes section of your Facebook page. Click Edit in the Notes box of your Facebook page and find the option that allows you to import notes from an external blog.

Feeding blog entries into MySpace is a little different. Find and add the application RSS Reader. You can access many MySpace applications by clicking More/Apps Gallery from the main menu of your MySpace homepage.

It is possible to feed your blog posts into Twitter, but blog posts are typically too long for this purpose. If you read on, I will clue you in to a better solution for streamlining your micro-blog entries.

Step 3: Maximize the Use of Your Multimedia

Maximize the exposure of your images and video clips by adding galleries and badges to your blog or Website, and by feeding your images and videos into your social networking profiles and pages.

WordPress has many plugins available for integrating Flickr images. My favorite right now is Flickr Tag, a plugin that allows you to easily place your Flickr images right into your blog posts, and create galleries.

A Flickr badge is a snippet of Flash or HTML code that you can place on the sidebar of your Website or blog that will pull in and highlight random or specific photos from your Flickr account. Find out more by going to: http://www.flickr.com/badge.gne.

Similarly, you can embed video galleries into your blog or Website by using your YouTube channels. After you've added videos to your YouTube channel, you can generate code for a video gallery and place this code on your Website or blog.

To feed images from Flickr into your Facebook page and MySpace profile, find the appropriate application and add it. For Facebook, I use an application called My Flickr; for MySpace, use Happy Flickr.

You can place videos on your Facebook page by implementing an application called YouTube Box, and using the application YouTube Favorites, you can display video clips on your MySpace profile.

Step 4: Integrate Other Social Tools

The way in which you proceed in step 4 depends entirely upon which social tools and Websites make up your Social Web presence. In the example I have created, we have accounts with Upcoming.org (a social event calendar) and GoodReads (a niche book sharing and author site) that have not yet been integrated. By searching the applications in Facebook and MySpace, you'll find that Facebook offers an application that allows you to integrate your Upcoming.org events, and both Facebook and MySpace include applications that allow you to display your GoodReads books and book reviews.

Step 5: Take Advantage of Streamlining Tools

Using the social tool, Ping.fm, you can add short posts to your mini feeds on Facebook, MySpace, and your micro-blogging sites like Twitter and Jaiku. Ping.fm is a useful tool that lets you post one brief entry, or often a status update, and feed it into a number of social sites.

Step 6: Research and Repeat

The very nature of the Social Web is connecting people through social platforms and applications; therefore, when deciding whether or not to invest time and resources into a new social tool, it's best to research the ways that tool will accommodate your existing Social Web presence. Can you feed in your blog posts? Does it allow you to import images from a photo sharing site or video clips from from your video sharing community? Have sites like Ping.fm integrated the new tool yet, or do your existing social sites offer applications to integrate the new tool?

When you do decide to integrate a new social tool or Website, do so as best you can by repeating the applicable steps presented above.

About The Author
Deltina Hay is the principal of Social Media Power, and founder of the new social media Website service, Plumb Social. Ms. Hay's graduate education in computer science, applied mathematics, and psychology led her naturally to social media consulting. Her new book, A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization, will be released in March 2009.

How to Create a Bad Website and Frustrate Your Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:38:00 +0000

How to Create a Bad Website and Frustrate Your Visitors
By Jason OConnor (c) 2009

If you're a sadistic kind of webmaster or website owner and have a burning desire to royally frustrate and anger your site visitors each and every time they visit your site, these three lists are just for you. If you want to have a terrible website that looks bad, works horribly and breaks fundamental marketing rules, read on.

First let me explain why there are three lists. One way to look at any website is to break it up into three equally important segments; design, technical and marketing. In other words, every site on the Web contains these three components.

They all have a design or look and feel (design), they all have to be on a server and coded properly to be live on the Internet (technical) and they all have ways in which they attract visitors and make sales (marketing).

Let's look at the top ten ways in which you can annoy your website visitors and basically fail miserably at the whole website endeavor in each of the three segments. The following is a list, broken up into the three categories, defining exactly what NOT to do.

Top 10 Web Design Mistakes:

1. Not using Web conventions, instead use crazy and wacky formats that no one's ever seen and no one can understand.

2. Writing trite, predictable, boring or copied content only and not updating your site.

3. Creating totally different and unique navigation for every page so that your visitors need to waste time re-learning your navigation every time they go to a new page. Also creating totally different look & feels for every page so that your visitors don't know if they're on the same site or clicked away.

4. Using confusing, obfuscated and mysterious labels for all your links and buttons so that no one ever has any idea where they're going if they click. The more confusing, the better.

5. Making it impossible to search the site. Offering no search box, no site map and basically no possible way to find anything on your website.

6. Including content that only talks about you. Not mentioning anything about your visitors or how you can help them, just talk about you and your history and all your achievements. Including a big picture of you and your office building right on the home page.

7. Including only poorly-written copy with lots of grammar mistakes, and ubiquitous, curious and horrendous spelling and punctuation mistakes throughout your site.

8. Not including any text. Making every page on your site one big picture. So for instance, on your home page have one giant picture of you and your office building and have no text so search engines can't see your site at all.

9. Using buttons for your navigation only, or use complicated JavaScript drop down menus that complicate your site's navigation. Either way, if you do this and include no text links, the search engines won't be able to spider (navigate and record) your website.

10. Making your site as difficult to read as possible. Use teeny, tiny fonts that are hard to read against some funky-colored background. For instance, use blue fonts on a black background.

Top 10 Technical Mistakes:

1. Making your website take forever to load in people's browsers. The longer the better.

2. Making it so that your site looks completely different on everybody's computer. So for Macs your site looks one way, and for PCs it looks another way. Or having it look totally different in Internet Explorer, Chrome and FireFox.

3. Making it so that any functionality on the site is confusing to figure out and works improperly and inconsistently every time it's used.

4. Including lots of broken links and missing images throughout.

5. Setting it up so that it regularly crashes. For example, if more than three people are visiting the site at the same time, the home page becomes inaccessible.

6. Has no form validation. Allowing visitors to enter any thing under the sun into your website forms. Maybe some smart hacker-types will enter executable code that corrupts or takes over your server.

7. Making all your site visitors have to download and install lots of plug-ins to view your site properly. If they don't, too bad.

8. Telling people that they have to view your site in a specific browser and browser version only.

9. Making it so that there are tons of pop-ups, moving newsletter sign-up boxes, running videos, animations and Flash movies that take forever to download before you can view the site.

10. Using lots of frames.

Top Ten E-Marketing Mistakes:

1. Making your website completely bounce-friendly. In other words, make it 'un-sticky' so that when people arrive on one of your pages, they leave immediately.

2. Including no calls to action so that your site doesn't ever ask your website visitors to do a thing. Making it so that every page is a dead end that leaves your visitors scratching their heads and then clicking away.

3. Does absolutely nothing to build your brand.

4. Has no terms or policies page.

5. Evoke no emotions. Making your site flat, boring, gray, dull and forgettable.

6. Making sure there is no way for anyone who visits your site to sign up for anything or give you their contact info or email address. Certainly don't use your site to build any kind of email list.

7. Converting absolutely no one who visits your site into a paying customer. Ever.

8. Including no phone number, email and absolutely no other way to contact you. Hide behind your website.

9. Not using any kind of an analytics program like Google Analytics or Web Trends and not measuring or even looking at your website activity.

10. Making it so that search engine can't read your site and make it so that people can't really read your site either.

Follow these three lists perfectly and you'll be well on your way to having a bad and useless website and frustrating and angering everyone who visits.

About The Author
Jason OConnor owns and operates Oak Web Works, LLC, www.jasonoconnor.com and writes a periodic, free web design and marketing newsletter www.thenetgazette.net .

A Beginner's Guide to Google Website Optimizer - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:39:00 +0000

HTML clipboard

A Beginner's Guide to Google Website Optimizer (Part 1)
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008

We all know that the most effective Pay Per Click advertising campaigns use landing pages that are matched perfectly to your target search keywords and designed to follow through with the idea or theme that your PPC ad has hinted at.

But how do you determine the effectiveness of those landing pages? How do you know what design or page features will trigger a better response in your audience and lead to more conversions? The answer is that you don't, unless you test.

Benefits of Landing Page Testing

Whether they are a part of a PPC campaign or not, there are countless benefits to testing your web site pages, including:

Improve the effectiveness of landing pages

Increase conversions / sales

Attract more leads / sign-ups

Increase time spent on your site by visitors

Reduce the Cost Per Acquisition of new customers

Eliminate guesswork. Improve your site design via information from your site's end users

Avoid staff disputes – let your customers decide what design elements should be changed

Google Website Optimizer

The Website Optimizer is a tool that allows marketers and webmasters to test variations of pages on site visitors automatically, to see which pages or variations of pages perform the best (i.e. lead to the most conversions).

In April 2007, Google took their Website Optimizer tool out of BETA and made it available to the general public. I had been wanting to use Google Website Optimizer to test our landing pages on Search Engine College for some time and I finally found the time to trial it in October this year. After what we learned from our experiments, I wish we'd implemented it months ago!

Website Optimizer helps you study the effects of different content on your users and identify what users respond to best so you can alter your web site accordingly. You can test any kind of site elements from individual copy blocks and images to complete page layouts. Perhaps the best thing about Website Optimizer is that you can test ANY page on your site, including landing pages you have designed for other PPC programs like Yahoo or pages designed for non-PPC purposes.

Google Website Optimizer allows you to perform 2 different types of tests:

1) A/B Split Testing
2) Multivariate Testing

You can view a 5 min overview of Website Optimizer here.

A/B Split Testing:

Through the use of code added to the "A" (original) page, Google is able to serve the A/B variations (there can be many more variations than just the "B" page) to site visitors and then provide results of which page was most "successful", commonly through reporting which of the A/B pages lead traffic to a "results" page.

A/B Testing compares the performance of entirely different versions of a page. Google suggests using it if:

> your page traffic is fairly low (i.e. less than 1,000 page views per week)

> you want to move sections around or change the overall look of the page

In Figure 1, you can see an A/B Testing experiment being set up in Website Optimizer.

Figure 1 – Website Optimizer A/B Experiment Set-Up

Setting Up A/B Experiments in Website Optimizer

To set up an A/B testing experiment in Google Website Optimizer, you first need to prepare three things:

1) Your "original" web page
2) Your variation/s of this original
3) Your conversion page (e.g. the "thank you for subscribing/purchasing" page)

In the example you see in Figure 1, we set up an experiment on SearchEngineCollege.com consisting of our original page (/add-me.shtml) and a single variation (/add-me.shtml), with our conversion page being /seo-starter-course-sample-download.shtml.

Next, you need to add some javascript to each of these pages to enable Google to track your experiment. Then it's simply a matter of uploading all your test pages and having Google validate your URLs to confirm you've set up your experiment correctly.

Multivariate Testing:

Testing can be made not only with A/B pages, but with different possible versions of a single page.

This allows you to trial different types of layouts and page text to see which combinations lead to the highest conversions on your site.

Multivariate Testing compares the performance of content variations in multiple locations on a page. Google suggests using it if:

> your page traffic is high (i.e. more than 1,000 page views per week)

> you want to try multiple content changes in different parts of the page simultaneously

Setting Up Multivariate Experiments in Website Optimizer

To set up a Multivariate testing experiment in Google Website Optimizer, you need to do the following:

1) Choose the web page you wish to test.

2) Decide with your marketing/technical teams which page sections you wish to test e.g. headline, image, call-to-action, copy etc.

Figure 2 – Website Optimizer Multivariate Experiment Set-Up

3) Add the JavaScript code to your page's source code. This includes the Control Script, the Tracking Script and the Page Section Script.

4) Identify your conversion page and add the Conversion Script to that page's source code.

5) Upload your revised test and conversion pages.

6) Validate your pages. If you've set up your experiment correctly, you will see a confirmation message.

7) Create the code variations for each page section you are testing (see Figure 3).

8) Review and launch your experiment.

About The Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running a daily Search Engine Advice Column, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Link Bait: Attracting Links To Your Website

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:43:00 +0000

HTML clipboardLink Bait: Attracting Links To Your Website
By Trey Pennewell (c) 2008

You know it is funny in a way. Webmasters have learned that the most important thing that they can do to improve the traffic to their website and to attract attention from the search engines is to build links to their website.

But when it comes time to actually start building links to one's website, people typically pick the hardest way to accomplish the task and then they get to work.

Working Hard

People have been told about various ways to build links to one's website, and they go through the process of picking out the method that they would prefer to use. It is kind of ironic that most people pick the method that they believe will be the easiest and least expensive to achieve, and when all is said and done, they will have picked out the hardest, least effective method of building links.

For example, most newcomers to online business choose:

Reciprocal links;

Directory submissions.

With Reciprocal Links, people buy a software package that helps them to search out websites that are supposedly "related" to theirs and then they send an email to the person who owns that website, proclaiming the benefits of trading links and asking for the link.

With directory submissions, webmasters can get software that is supposed to help with the process, but it takes hours just to submit one's website to a few dozen directories. Fortunately, there are service providers who also provide submissions to web directories. Regardless of how you get links submitted to web directories, you generally have to pray that those web directories are approving submissions, since most owners have abandoned their directories.

Beyond the time required setting up links in this fashion, and the frustration of getting very few links for the amount of time spent, the worst part of the equation is that the search engines tend to ignore links gained through these methods, and few humans find and follow those links.

Internet newcomers using these methods frequently spend a lot of time trying to promote their websites, and in the end, they have accomplished nothing more than wasting a lot of their time and energy.

Working Smart

What if I could show you a better way? Would you be intrigued enough by my methods to try them for yourself?

My point in sharing this with you is not to annoy you, but to help you get better results in much less time.

When we launch new websites, we ignore reciprocal links and web directories altogether. We consider both to be a complete waste of time, effort and money.

Let me put this into perspective for you by giving you a real life example.

On November 18th, 2008, we bought and built a new niche domain: http://www.shoppingtraveldeals.com/blog/

Today is December 27th, so this site has only been active for just under six weeks.

We purchased the domain on the 18th, had it set up with content on the 19th, and then on the 20th, we started promoting this website. We released our first and second reprint articles, promoting this site on the 20th of November. We released our third article on the 24th and the fourth on the 25th. Then we released our fifth article promoting the website on December 15th.

We also set up bookmarks for the main page of the website in Stumbleupon, Digg and Propeller.

In the 39 days since we bought this domain, our website has seen 520 unique visitors. The site had 86 visitors in November and 434 so far in December.

Now here is where it gets interesting.

We got traffic from 66 unique web pages, and we drew click-through traffic from Google and Windows Live, with 86% of our search traffic coming from Google.

On our search engine traffic, we have traffic on 171 unique keyword phrases. In order to better understand this search engine traffic, we ran the top 25 search terms through Google to see where our website ranked in the search results, and this is what we came up with:

Two #1 listings;

Ten listings that were ranked from #2 to #4;

Ten listings that were ranked from #5 to #10;

Two listings on page two of Google's search results (#11 to #20);

One listing on page three of Google's results (#21 to #30).

We built this website with the express intent of earning affiliate commissions in the travel industry. The prognosis is good, as we have already started earning money from this website, and in terms of our current earnings, we expect to be in the black against our initial investment into this website, within about three months.

More About Reprint Articles

The concept of the reprint article is to write an article and give it to other webmasters to use in their websites and newsletters, in exchange for a link back to your website.

Those articles that seek to teach something of value typically get published more frequently than those articles geared to sell a product or service. It is our fervent belief that the Author's resource box - the paragraph that follows the article - is the only place where a writer should try to sell his or her wares. The goal of the resource box is to get a reader to your website, and your website is where the real selling should take place.

Reprint articles provide good value to the people who use them wisely. But the online marketer must first be willing to invest the required time or money to have appropriate articles written and/or distributed.

While it is true that I work for an article distribution company, it is important to note that our guiding principle is that each article distribution company will reach a different and unique audience. As such, we always use our own service to distribute articles and occasionally we use our competitors' article distribution companies as well.

We distribute ALL of our own articles through our own company, because we know that our service does provide real value. But for some articles, we do go to some of our competitors to expand our reach and to reach new audiences.

We actually learned to do this from some of our more successful customers, who suggest that there are certain publishers that only we can reach, while our competitors also have certain publishers that only they are able to reach. As a result, many of our customers use two or three article distribution companies, and we do too.

Working Smarter

While reprint articles is a tool that we consistently utilize to build links and to grow traffic to our websites, there remains a more long-term, yet more valuable approach to building links for our websites.

Link Bait is an idea where you create a resource that people find so useful that they feel compelled to link to it from their own websites.

Look at it this way. With reprint articles, we have to write the article, and then distribute it through the sources we choose to use to get it into circulation. All told, we will invest several hours into writing, and then we will invest another hour to distribute the article.

All told, we will have spent four to five hours to write and distribute this article. In turn, we will receive dozens or hundreds of links from related web pages (the links are from "related web pages", because we designed the article content to look like what we are trying to promote). Writing and distributing articles typically creates a great return of value for our businesses.

But consider this. Last week, we created a resource page on one of our websites. This page is an enumeration of the +1200 article directories we know to exist on the Internet. We were not the first website to provide such a list, but we may be the first to give the Internet community an easy method to add new sites and to flag bad sites, automatically from the page where the sites are displayed.

If you are able to create a page such as this that people find extremely useful, then people are more inclined to link to your page, without you even asking them to do so. The beauty about building pages like this on the Internet is that all you have to do is to let people know it is there, and then the links will roll in steadily.

One Link Bait page we built on May 1st, 2004 has been used by the public more than 38,000 times according to its built-in counter. And according to a Yahoo search, it has more than 10,000 inbound links from third-party websites.

We built this page in a day, wrote one article to let people know it was there, and then we left the page alone for more than four-and-a-half years.

Do you see how it is much easier to build one link bait, notify the world, and then to let people link to your web page for you? The time invested in our Text To Hyperlink Converter was less than 12 hours, yet it has attracted +10,000 links with almost no promotion on our part. And this article will generate +100 links in exchange for five hours of our time.

In Conclusion

We are working smart when we write and distribute articles to promote a website. The Shopping Travel Deals site attests to the value of reprint articles to build links and traffic to a new website quickly.

But we are working smarter, when we invest the additional time to build a link bait web page that people will appreciate and link to for us, without any additional effort on our part.

HTML clipboardAbout The Author
Trey Pennewell is part of thephantomwriters.com support staff. In the quest to bring more effective Internet promotion tools to their customers, The Phantom Writers is proud to announce this week that in conjunction with professional video editors and voice-over personalities, they now provide professional Video Creation Services. It has been made possible for online marketers to easily convert their promotional articles to Video Articles. Explore the unlimited possibilities of Video Marketing at: thephantomwriters.com/video-article-marketing.html

Accelerate your site performance

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:03:00 +0000

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	Best-of-breed tracking/reporting of site rankings and link popularity		Affordable advanced Web analytics package
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Google Marketing Tools

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:00:00 +0000

10 Most Useful Free Google Marketing Tools
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008

Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Happy Birthday Google!

One way Google is celebrating this event is through funding 10 million dollars for the idea that can help the most people. An idea that could have the most impact on our world.

It's an ingenious way to celebrate Google and what it stands for... a birthday gift to everyone.

You can find out more about Google Impact Project here: 10 to the 100

Google Has Already Impacted Many People

Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there, I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because Google has been very good to me and has made my online livelihood possible with organic rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords...

Maybe I could have done it without Google, but it would have been a much more difficult job. And it's very hard to imagine a world without Google.

It's also hard to believe Google has only been around for 10 years... it has made all the difference to my onlíne marketing. I have used Google and Google Tools every day for the last six or seven years.

And it seems Google is only getting stronger and better. The new Google Chrome browser will only add to the long líst of Google's helpful offerings to the public.

With this thought in mind, here is my (biased) líst of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google has produced.

10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools

Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.

For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a staggering pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.

Don't be fooled by the 'free' label, these marketing tools might be free but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run. By providing these free tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free.

Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI.

You may be placed on a waiting líst for this highly in demand service from Google.

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is a XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to líst or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.

6. Google eBlogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact líst of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into onlíne marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra íncome from your site.

For professional marketers, using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.

Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.

10. Google Docs

A recent addition to Google's stable of free products. Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, is that it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Let's face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

Honorable Mention - Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.

Final Note

Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.

About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: BizwareMagic.com . If you liked the SEO tips above, why not try this Free 7 Day Traffic Course

3 Simple Tips

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:34:00 +0000

3 Simple Tips to Make
Your Website User-Friendly
By Lindsay Glass (c) 2008

The one assumption you need to make to follow along with me in this article is "People Buy People." It can be a hard concept for many people to understand and agree with. However, millions of spent dollars have proven this premise to me, so I consider it more of a law than a theory.

If you understand the rule that people buy people, then your website MUST have a pleasant atmosphere that allows the visitor to connect with you, your company and your products.

By now, you've heard me talk about our Celebrity Branding philosophies, and the fact that you need your picture on your website goes without saying. But, there are some smaller, often overlooked, areas that shouldn't be forgotten.

Here are three simple tip to make your website user-friendly:

1. Navigation

The navigation on your site is probably its most important element. If visitors find your site confusing or cannot successfully navigate through it, they will leave. Make your navigation bar as simple as possible. One of the worst mistakes is using an expanding navigation bar that makes the visitor scroll over it in order for the menu to reveal their options. Most often, this type of navigation bar has too many choices; your visitor doesn't know where to go, so they get flustered and leave.

Navigation on your site is an art, and you should direct your visitors through a logical path to where YOU want them to go (not to where they think they want to go). One way to do this is through call to action buttons or CTAs. We use these buttons on all of our sites; a visitor will go to a main page, and then we can direct them to the parts of that site that we want them to be aware of. We use this method instead of an expanding menu, because we find that it is more logical for visitors. With this method, you can direct visitors to where you want them to go, allowing you to control the buying process.

Quick Tip: most "expanding menus" are created in Macromedia Flash. Search engines cannot read Flash, and therefore they will not pick up these links on your website. If the search engines do not pick up the links on the navigation bar and these links are nowhere else on your site, they cannot accurately crawl or index your site. This is search engine suicide, because without even knowing it, you are stopping search engines from understanding what your site has to offer and from driving traffic to you.

A good rule of thumb is that a visitor should be able to get to every page on your site with two clicks from your home page. Now, this is not realistic for very complex sites. If your website is complex, you can have a sitemap to help visitors navigate. Some sort of search function may also be a good idea for your site.

2. Page Load Speed

It's hard to believe that some people are still stuck using dial up. Even if you have entered the world of high-speed Internet, no matter what you do, some websites will load slowly. (If you're frustrated using high-speed Internet, imagine the frustration of those on good 'ol dial up!)

Page load speed is VERY important. I know that when I am surfing the Internet and I stumble upon a site that loads slowly, I get annoyed, frustrated, and don't browse the site for very long. If your website is loading slowly, you are probably losing out on valuable customers, no matter what business you are in.

In today's web world, we are seeing more and more images, audio files and videos. These things are useful, but you have to be careful that they do not affect the inner workings of your site (in this case, the time it takes for a web page to load). You want to be careful about the size of the images on your website. Both large-sized images and using too many images can cause your website to take too long to load, resulting in visitors leaving. Another tip is to convert videos into a jpeg (image) that only loads and plays the video when a visitor clicks on it. Yes, you may be adding more images to your website, but these are usually small image files; in the hierarchy of the web, a video will slow down your website much more than a small image.

Another factor that can influence the load time of your website is the amount of excess code you have on your site (that is a topic for another day - but ask your webmaster, and they will know what I am talking about).

3. Information

The number one thing that visitors look for is information. They are coming to your site to be educated about your products and/or services and, most of all, how THEY can benefit. With this in mind, it is critical for the information on your website to be accurate, complete and up-to-date. Visitors will leave your site in a split second if the information you are providing is old news.

What's that best way to provide up-to-date information on your website? The best way we suggest is through blogs and articles. By having a section on your website for blogs and articles, you can provide new, relevant and educational information to your visitors. Adding them is not only simple, but it is fast too!

So there are my three simple tips for the month on how to make your website user-friendly. Although this covered just the beginning of what your website should contain, don't worry, I won't leave you stranded-- I'll reveal even more tips in next month's article!

About The Author
Known as the "Online Celebrity Producer," Lindsay Glass helps her clients tell their stories in the online world. Lindsay began freelance writing in 2000 and soon after launched her own PR firm that thrived by offering an in-your-face "Guaranteed PR" that was one of the first of its type in the nation. She is now a founding partner of DNG Media Group, LLC. For more information, please visit http://www.dngmediagroup.com .

The Mysteries of SEO

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:45:00 +0000

The Mysteries of SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the most important element in building a successful website. Most people online have heard the term SEO and have some idea of what is involved yet itremains a mysterious process to many. One of the reasons SEO is so mysterious is that it can be a complicated endeavor and search engines are constantly changing the way they rank sites and the way the recognize the many tools of SEO.

At the forefront of the SEO check and balance system is the leading search engine Google. They have pretty much set the standard for technology in search engine algorithms that can track the relevancy of a website to its content and SEO efforts. Their ranking system remains one of the most popular methods of determining a web site's quality because of their diligent efforts of weeding out the bad apples that have little to offer a consumer other than skilled manipulation and the ability to 'play the system' to their advantage.

Of course taking advantage of the system makes perfect sense from a business standpoint but from the search engine outlook of wanting to provide the best quality sites on their results for the viewer it can become difficult to differentiate the site that is good quality wise from the site that is good because it has a very manipulative operator at the helm.

Because the rules for SEO evolve and change rapidly the mystique of search engine optimization continues to confuse website owners. Many people build their websites thinking the only SEO tool they need is key word density. While key words are an important aspect in SEO they are not the only means to an end, they are simply a part of the puzzle. There is another tried and true method of SEO that is as relevant today as it was at the start of the concept of web 2.0 marketing and that is back linking. While back linking remains one of the most successful ways to get your site to rank high on the search engines it also has undergone some changes making the types of links important so that search engines do not penalize a site for bad incoming links.

The term "back link" refers to an outside link on another site that points to yours. In the past any link from another site would have a positive impact on your site by the search engines. Because there were so many gimmicks developed in the last few years to garner massive back links to websites such as link farms, and irrelevant reciprocal linking Google began to develop a way to weed out links that were purchased, or had little meaning or relevancy.

Even though back linking is used to manipulate search engine popularity there are many very legitimate reasons for using the system of back linking. Finding web sites that have a common interest to your own who are willing to place your link on their site can get you extra exposure. When their visitors come to their site they will see your link and likely visit your site as well.

The fact that onsite links like that have such a perceived relevance to the visitor makes them a valuable marketing tool, but that perception of quality is also why Google works so hard to be sure they are real quality links. You will get higher ranking on a search engine for a number of truly appropriate back linking partnerships however if the sites linking to you do not share any common information or products Google will penalize you for the link. There are new programs in the works with Google where your site could even be devalued if the site that links to you is determined to be bad quality so it is important who you choose to link to, and also who links to you.

In the past many web site owners would open up multiple websites with the sole purpose of promoting one principle site. They would use the extra websites as a means of placing back links to the main site. Google now watches for sites that are created with the same IP address. Creating a large number of websites on the same IP address and putting back links on them to quickly develop a number of links is known as link bombing. That is not to say that you cannot ever link to your own website from a site you own. If there is a reason to show your visitors some additional
information a few well placed back links are fine. It is when there are many links from each site all pointing to a single 'main' site that the search engines look at them suspiciously.

The system Google is working hard to put in place to discount a link from a bad site is why it is very important to know who is linking to you and if their site stacks up to your standards. It is no longer true that all inbound links to your site are good links. There are very good tools available online for free that can show you who is linking to you. If you find a site that is linking to you that you feel is questionable in terms of how they relate to your website either in information or product you should contact the webmaster of the site and demand that they remove the link to your website to avoid being penalized by the search engines.

Probably the best way to obtain a back link to your site is through anchor text. That is when you have another website with content that is relevant to your own (relevancy is ALWAYS important) including your site in the actual content of their site with a hyperlink inside the text. These back links are valued much higher than a simple sidebar link as long as they appear in the text in a way that has a fluid and meaningful association with the content of the article. There are several ways
to get such back links.

Providing articles to content sites with your link built into the article is one method. If you write very compelling information on your website is another as someone else with a similar site may wish to point it out on their own. You may not even realize they are doing it unless they tell you about it. This is one of the main reasons it is important to keep an eye on who is back linking to you. While the majority of those types of links are wonderful and you should thank the site owner for their inclusion, if you feel the site that is linking to you does not meet your standards, have similar information, or the content is not relevant to your site you should definitely ask them to remove your link.

Back linking is an extremely important aspect of SEO development and it is something you need to understand well in order to implement and control it properly. There are many secrets and mysteries in the SEO world that diligent study can clear up. Keeping your website in good standing with the search engines and popular with your visitors is the best way to ensure a vital and profitable future for your business online.

About the Author:
My name is Rick Youngblood, and I am the web designer and owner and operator of Spyglass Studios, Website Design. Living and working in Redding, California, I have been designing websites for seven years.

Adwords

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:38:00 +0000

HTML clipboard

Putting The "Ad" Into Adwords
By Peter Astley-Sparke (c) 2008

When you're new to AdWords, it's tempting to devote far too much time and energy in trying to craft that "killer" ad. But the truth is that writing ads is a science, not an art. Here are a few of the rules.

1) Don't Fly Blind...

In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we've haven't ever seen a profitable example that didn't track conversions.

AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Clíck-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it's delivering. We've seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate.

Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results.

Finally, don't forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy.

2) Cut out the Middle Man...

In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it's vital to put yourself in control as far as possible:

Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you don't exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain times of the day. If you have a limited budget, spend it when you'll get the best return. We recommend running campaigns using Accelerated delivery. Keep an eye on your daily budget and adjust accordingly.

Ad Serving: If you're running multiple ads, Google will automatically start favouring the one with the highest CTR once a certain volume of clicks have been receíved. We don't use the default Optimize option, and recommend you select Rotate for ad serving.

We have AdWords campaigns for some of our clients that have been running for over three years, but we always maintain at least two ad variations per ad group. Even if there's only a single word difference, one ad will ultimately prove superior and deliver an improved ROI.

The Rotate option also gives you more granularity when testing ad variations. Say you want to do a 1/3-2/3 split; you simply create two copies of ad "A" and one of ad "B". Using the same principal allows you to create 60/40 and 70/30 splits, which are very useful in some circumstances.

Network Options: Start your testing using Google's Search network only. Uncheck both their Partner and Content networks. Once you have some solid data from mainstream search traffic, you can add their Partners. Google's partners are a pretty "mixed bag", and you may decide to exclude them altogether (we often do).

Finally, enable the Content network and Content Bids. Don't run on the Content network with the same bid as Search - you're just handing Google money. By default, we set Content Bids at 1/10 of that on the Search network: so if your Search bid is 0.50p, set your Content bid to 0.05p for openers.

If you find your product or service has "traction" on the Content network (true in about 25% of cases in our experience), it may be worth running separate campaigns for Content searches.

All these options can be set from the Campaign Management tab in your account. Select a campaign and clíck the Edit Settings button.

3) A Stitch in Time...

It's important to optimize your ads (and separately your keywords and bids) to a fixed schedule. By default, we run a three-month cycle: Every three hours for the first day. Every day for the first week. Every week for the first month. Every second week for the second month. At the end of the third month.

You can adapt this schedule to suit your clíck volume, but make sure you have a schedule and stick to it. You'll learn more about your target audience, and employ your time more efficiently. Don't forget to take weekdays, weekends and seasonal trends into account.

4) Study your Competition First...

Before writing your first ad, take time to study your competition using a selection of core keywords and phrases.

This is particularly important if you're thinking of using Google's Keyword Insertion feature. This is becoming increasingly popular and can be counter-productive; making your headline look identical to the competition.

5) All for One and One for All...

Achieving a good Quality Score, and providing visitors with a rewarding experience, means treating your keywords, ads and landing page as a single unit.

Ensure your most popular keywords appear in your ad's headline and copy. If you cannot accommodate core keywords in your ads, segment your ad groups further.

Make sure core keywords follow-through to your meta data and landing page copy. Try to write ad copy that flows naturally and qualifies visitors to your site. If you sell software for Microsoft Outlook, for example, a headline such as "Using Microsoft Outlook?" will help avoid Apple users, who might find your product of interest, but are unlikely to become customers.

6) Simplicity Sells Harder...

Capitalize letters and words in your ad copy for emphasis (not all the time). Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your copy actually makes reading more difficult.

Be honest and don't use words like "free" unless you're really giving something away for free within 3 clicks of your landing page.

7) Understand what Matters...

According to research undertaken by Google in 2005, the headline of your ad represents 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line 20% and the Display URL 15%.

AdWords' power comes from the ability it gives you to intercept prospects at the exact moment they're looking for what you sell. The basic PPC ad format is simple, and works best with a single clear message and a strong call to action.

About The Author
Peter runs AdWords Magic, one of the UK's leading AdWords training and campaign management providers.

E-Commerce Websites

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:21:00 +0000

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What's Wrong With E-Commerce Websites?
By Jerry Bader (c) 2008

What is going on with e-commerce websites? It appears that online entrepreneurs spend so much time worrying about website traffic that they ignore the customers who actually want to buy something.

Recently, I tried to order a product we spotted at a trade show. It was perfect for our application so we did a Google search to find the manufacturer and a list of dealers who sold the item.

Almost all the websites that distributed the product had proper contact information and invited people to call, which we did. After six frustrating phone calls to dealers we still hadn't found anyone willing to answer the telephone. Since we had to leave a message almost everywhere we called, we decided to try California even though we are located in the east, and it was far too early for any reasonable person to be at work.

We finally got in touch with a friendly salesperson in Boston, who was very helpful but unfortunately the company was out of stock. Despite not being able to fill the order, we kept their information on file because they were friendly, accommodating, and dealt with all our questions. They tried their best to meet our needs but if we would have ordered using their online system and found out later that the product was back-ordered we would have been very upset since we had a deadline to meet.

Next we reached the manufacturer who told us he was too busy to check if he had any stock, and maybe he could get back to us by four o'clock. Just as we were ready to give up, the phone rang; it was the owner of the California dealer, who had the product in stock, took the order, and shipped it out the same day.

Businesses, especially website businesses cannot run on autopilot; customers are people and they expect to be treated like human beings. Now it is not always possible to answer every phone call the minute someone calls, or to have every product in stock when people need it, but the more human interaction you can build into your website the better your sales will be. To paraphrase that old saying about horses, "you can lead search traffic to your website, but you can't make them order."

Why Should Anybody Buy From You?

Ask yourself this simple question: why should anybody buy anything from you? You probably aren't the only company that sells your product or service, and even if you are, there are most likely substitutes available from competitors.

When potential customers find you on Google they are also finding all your competitors. So unless you sell a totally unique, non-fungible (non substitutable) product, service or brand that is also the lowest priced on the market, then you best give people some compelling reason to buy from you.

The product we were looking for was available from a dozen different website businesses, spread all over the United States and they all sold the same product at the same price. In the final analysis we purchased from the supplier that was the furthest distance away in a time zone three hours earlier than us; but we purchased from that supplier because we were able to talk to a someone who answered all our questions in a friendly, intelligent, and engaging manner.

It's what used to be called customer service before businesses were turned over to database programmers, number crunchers, and search savants who think of human interaction as something to be avoided.

The Human Touch Creates Confidence and Sales

Websites are a very efficient method of lead generation and potential sales as long as you engage your audience with a presentation delivered by a real person who explains as much as possible about the things you sell, and how you sell them. And that includes things like delivery, which is one of the major complaints and points-of-contention that online customers have. Nobody likes surprises, especially when they cost time and money.

Web sales success has little to do with features, benefits, or technical advancements, in fact a barrage of features and specifications is just as likely to confuse visitors, and paralyze their purchase decision. The one tactic that overcomes this problem, that inspires confidence in your advice, trust in your ability to deliver, and convinces people to purchase, is information presented by a real human being.

You Can't Always Handle Things Personally

Understanding you cannot always be available, the next best thing is Web video. A video provides a complete, consistent, error-free, professional presentation of the information you want customers to receive. Hiring, training, and managing staff is expensive, and their handling of customers is often unreliable, resulting in a negative impression of your company.

Lest We Forget Tricky Dick

And that brings me to the Web entrepreneur who thinks that they are so charming and persuasive that they are going to be their own Web-video host.

Anybody who studies audience behavior is familiar with the classic case of the 1960 Presidential debate between Nixon and Kennedy. Most people who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon won, while the people who watched on television thought Kennedy won. This was a seminal example of how auditory and visual performance influences content, impression and response.

This lesson has been well learned by politicians but has somehow escaped the attention of business leaders and Web entrepreneurs.

Human Motivational Optimization

Web entrepreneurs' obsession with search optimization, and their fascination with technical solutions to human problems, has created an e-commerce environment that is decidedly remote and unfriendly. Sales are a motivational exercise in people-problem solving: people buy things that fulfill physical, emotional, and psychological needs. The answer is to adopt a Human Motivational Optimization approach to the presentation of your website material.

What is Human Motivational Optimization? It is a mindset used for designing Web experiences for human beings, not just search engine spiders.

Human Motivational Optimization For E-commerce

Let's say you have an online business that sells clothing. The best way to display clothing is on a model who twists and turns so the audience can see the item from all sides, as well as how it hangs or drapes on a real person. A garment displayed flat looks like a rag, and just doesn't do the product justice.

Even quality still photography doesn't show how a garment looks when someone moves; and high quality fashion photography is more expensive than short fifteen to twenty second Web videos.

You can also add some professional voice-over narration that explains all the fabric details, design features and options available. A Web video fashion catalog is the most effective way to sell clothes online.

Perhaps you sell cosmetics. Another product ideally suited for Web video. Teaching visitors what products look best together based on particular facial features and coloring as well as different makeup styles for work, play, and evening are ideal opportunities to up-sell and build confidence in you and your products. Customer education is one of the best Web marketing tactics you can employ in order to distinguish yourself from the competition.

Not Every Product Is Sexy

Clothing and cosmetics are both high profile products, but let's say you sell something that is not quite so sexy, something like sandpaper. Sandpaper is boring but, if you need an abrasive product, you better pick the right one or you'll make a mess of whatever you are trying to build.

Teaching customers what products to use turns one-time buyers into long-term customers. When customers buy the wrong thing, they invariably blame the supplier, while suppliers that provide valuable purchase advice create a significant barrier to competition.

Even major box store retailers have learned that they cannot afford to have a bunch of part-timers helping customers. Best Buy has their Geek Squad and Apple Stores have their Geniuses.

Returns on electronics and computer equipment are too costly, and that goes double for online businesses where shipping is a factor. And that doesn't take into account customer ill will created by the aggravation and frustration of being sold the wrong thing. Rather than being an expense, a professionally produced Web-video e-commerce catalog is actually a tactic that saves time and money, both in the sales process, and customer relations.

Web video engages audience attention; informs viewers of product advantages, details and options; and explains who should purchase, as well as who shouldn't. It educates people on how to get the most out of what you sell, and it does it in the most compelling and memorable manner. It establishes a trust-based relationship with clients and that is something competitors cannot overcome with high pressure, price-slashing tactics.

The Geeks are Killing Your Business

Today we have a generation of entrepreneurs trained in highly specialized technical areas like search engine optimization, database development, statistical analysis, and Web-based programming. All of these disciplines view business, even marketing, advertising and public relations as if they are somehow quantifiable, scientific disciplines that can be measured and managed without consideration of that messy notion called human nature.

The biggest problem in business is dealing with people, and just because your business is Web-based, doesn't mean people no longer count.

We know 'if you build it, they will come' is not a viable marketing strategy, and the idea 'if they find you, they will buy' is just as wrong. Start thinking in terms of Human Motivational Optimization: start designing websites for people, not search engines.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit MRPwebmedia.com, 136Words.com and SonicPersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Source for Leads

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:29:00 +0000

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The Most Valuable Source for Leads

Would you like to tap into the most valuable source for leads? You might be surprised to discover that you are climbing over the low hanging fruit in an effort to get to the top of the tree. In your haste to shout your message to the masses, you could be shouting over the heads of the potential business that is already in a queue at your door. Slow down and reflect for just a moment. Then tap into the most valuable source for leads.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has just completed a study of channel executives, distributors, resellers, and other channel representatives. The results of the surveys may not surprise you, but the contrasts of the responses provide a shocking insight into the sheer volume of missed opportunities. This is good news for you, because missed opportunities by others can create new opportunities for you. While you may agree with the initial results of the survey, consider how you can adjust your approach to the market and leverage these opportunities.

According to the survey results by the Chief Marketing Officer Council, most valued source of leads is from customer referrals.

54% Customer Referrals

14% E-Mail or Direct Marketing

8% Internet

7% Events

7% Leads from Vendors

3% Third Party Lead Generation Organizations

8% Other

Would you agree that the best leads come from the referrals of satisfied customers? Is it surprising that customer referrals were ranked as four times more powerful and valuable than E-Mail or Direct Marketing campaigns? Customer referrals were ranked nearly seven times more likely to result in sales and new business than leads derived the Internet.

Customer referrals are a means of providing immediate credibility. With the increasing ability for consumers to share personal expression on the Internet, Blogs, E-mail, and word of mouth, the ability to communicate has enhanced the voice of the customer. In business-to-business transactions, a customer referral is more likely to lead to an appropriate contact with a relevant message, which is far more powerful and likely to result in success than a cold call from a third party lead generation. Events and trade shows can be a powerful platform to market a brand, but fall short in delivering valuable leads.

With all of this insight, how did the same channel executives, distributors, resellers, and channel representatives respond to the survey by Chief Marketing Officer Council with regards to tactics for generating new leads in the coming year?

14% Plan to use Direct Marketing and E-mail campaigns

13% Plan to use Sales Brochures and collateral

10% Plan to focus on Tradeshows for lead generation

8% Will use Seminars to generate leads

7% Will rely on Print Advertising

7% Plan to use Public Relations and Article Placement

7% Plan to use the Internet and Online Advertising

6% Will revert to Telemarketing

6% Plan to invest in Internet Search Engine Marketing

5% Plan to engage customers in User Group Gatherings

4% Plan to rely on Yellow Page Advertising

4% Will experiment on the Internet with Blogs and Social Networking

3% Will use Online Directories

3% Will create Webcasts

1% Plan to use Content Syndication

2% Will try something completely different

The results of the survey regarding lead generation tactics for new business acquisition are hardly surprising. Very little has changed in the planning and tactics as conveyed by the survey response, and yet, the contrast in comparison to the most effective and valued leads is staggering. Even though 54% of respondents acknowledged that the most valued leads are based on customer referrals, the first mention of leveraging this goldmine occurs in the 4% of respondents that plan to engage customers in user group gatherings.

Fortunately, it would appear relatively that fourteen percent of respondents believe the most valuable lead generation comes from Direct Marketing or E-mail, and fourteen percent plan to use this tactic for lead generation in the coming year. However, even though only seven percent believe that the best leads come from trade shows, there are ten percent planning to take this tactic, and another eight percent who will augment this activity with seminars.

Although only eight percent believe that the highest chance for success comes from leads acquired by the Internet, there is a staggering number of diverse plans to leverage this channel of communication. The tactics include seven percent Internet and Online Advertising, six percent investing in search engine marketing, four percent using blogs and social networking, three percent using Online Directories, and another three percent experimenting with webcasts. The Internet provides an exciting vehicle to be creative, showcase the brand, and communicate to a very large audience. However, is it targeting the most valuable audience by engaging the most valuable leads that come from customer referrals?

As you can see, the tactics are not groundbreaking or unusual. On the contrary, the approach to market is contrived on establishing a brand, shouting a message to the masses, and hoping that the merit is recognized by the appropriate lead. The Internet, Trade Shows, Brochures, and Advertising, provide effective, if not innovative vehicles for spreading the slogan. While it may be necessary to invest in these channels of communication to maintain competitive placement, there remains untapped opportunity for higher rates of success when tactics engage customer referrals.

Stop what you are doing right now and imagine how referrals from satisfied customers could generate valuable leads and grow your business. It does not matter what kind of business you are in, or what responsibilities you have in the organization. Every member of an organization contributes directly, or indirectly, to customer satisfaction. Your actions may results in testimonials, endorsements, or positive word of mouth. If you could harness the power of customer referrals, your sales force would blossom with representation from independent trusted advocates.

So, how do you encourage and empower customers to grow this incredible pipeline of valued referrals? You ask them, of course. However, before you make such a bold request, your customers must know that you are fully engaged and obligated to their aspirations. When customers are assured that you are a trusted advocate, committed to customer satisfaction, they have the confidence to share referrals and recommendations.

Once customer confidence is established and the relationship is mutually rewarding, then it is just a matter of creating the appropriate opportunity for referrals to occur. This can be as simple as asking for referrals, or as formal as creating gatherings for existing clients and potential prospects to meet and exchange experiences. Introducing existing clients to potential prospects demonstrates immense confidence in your own relationship with your customers, because you are not fearful of losing the mutually rewarding relationship. Group gatherings and communications creates a unique opportunity to endorse your customers, grow their circle of influence, and for them to provide a third party endorsement of your efforts.

There are many ways to empower customer referrals by engaging individuals in group gathering or discussions, leveraging the Internet or Advertising, or by collecting a powerful collage of testimonials. The tactics for getting the most out of this goldmine pipeline are as diverse as the markets and customers in them. It all begins with recognizing the most valuable source for leads, acknowledging the value of these resources, and creating specific action items in a plan to unleash these untapped opportunities. Actively and effectively mining the most valuable source for leads will give you an advantage over 95% of your competition.

About the Author: John Mehrmann is author of The Trusted Advocate: Accelerate Success with Authenticity and Integrity. The book that is changing everything by reawakening personal values in business as a competitive edge.

How to Write Articles

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:16:00 +0000

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How to Write Articles
for Improved Search Engine Rank
By Peter Nisbet (c) 2008

If you are looking for improved search engine rank for any page on your website, you have to learn how to write articles in order to make use of one of the major and most useful resources online: article directories.

Just as website directories can be used to promote your website online, article directories can be used to publish your articles. These articles can in turn be used to promote a specific page on your website, and in this respect are more useful than a website directory listing that promotes only your home page.

You have few opportunities to direct search engine spiders directly to a page of your choice, and when one arises it should be made good use of. In fact, other than article directories and links on your website, you are unlikely to find such an opportunity, and it should be seized whenever it arises. However, very few people actually know how to make best use of such an opportunity and to use their articles intelligently to drive masses of traffic to their site.

You can use your Author's Resource to achieve that, but in order to get the Resource read, you have to get the article read. For that to happen, you have to write a good article and then make people read it. To do that your title must be good enough to persuade people to read it. To achieve that you must be able to write a good title. So how do you achieve all of these things? That is the purpose of this article: to teach you how to craft a title that will get you article read, and then to craft a resource that will compel the reader to visit your website - or the web page that you want them to see.

So, first the title: Before you can craft your title you will need a good topic or subject to write about. There are several ways to decide what that should be, but that is another article. Let's assume that you have decided to write about how to cure a slice in golf. The obvious title would be: "How to Cure Your Golf Slice".

Would that really be a good idea? How many web pages are there online with that title? A few thousand? A few hundred thousand? In fact if you use the term as a Google search you will find it is 387,000. You have 387,000 other websites competing for these keywords. Now, let's change it to "How to Cure a Golf Slice". You get 71,500 competing sites. Just one small word change: 'your' to 'a' reduces the competition by almost 82%.

What that means is that with fewer competing sites you have a lot better chance of having your website listed close to the top of the listings for the keyword. However, you also have to take the demand into consideration: if nobody is using these keywords in their search you won't benefit by using them. Using Word tracker I get three times as many people, searching for 'cure A golf slice' than 'cure YOUR golf slice'. So based upon keyword research the title will be: How to Cure A Golf Slice

This has three times the demand and over a fifth of the supply of the alternative with 'YOUR' in the keyword. That's the difference that one simple word can make to the success or failure of a keyword or key phrase.

In practice it will make little difference, unless the prospect uses the exact phrase, in which case 'how to cure a golf slice' is the more likely of the two terms for somebody to use. Were the term 'cure my golf slice' used, both would have the same number of results.

You then write the article, making it as interesting and as useful to the reader as possible, and try to persuade them that they have to find out more by visiting your website. However, the purpose of this article is not to show you how to write articles, but how to use them. You do that using your Resource Box. This is a section that some directories provide in which you have to persuade the reader to visit your site. The directory won't describe it as such, but that is basically what it is. In fact not all directories provide a separate data box for this, so you have to add it to the end of your article, but either way you design it the same way.

Keep in mind that the resource box should not be used as a bio. Even though the directory might ask you to provide info about yourself, you should use it to promote your website. Here are some ideas for your resource box.

1. Provide more information and a free gift "For more information on this topic and a free gift check out Pete's website at xxxxxx" .

2. The Second Part Offer "You will find Part 2 of this article at xxxxxx . com, in which you will learn how to put this information to practical use."

3. The Final Offer "If this article interests you, you will find a limited period free offer on xxxxx . com, that will help you to cure your golf slice."

These are various uses to which you can put the resource box, and they are all effective in getting the important clicks. However the format that works best for me is something along the lines of: "For more information check out xxxxxx where I will show you how to make every article rock with cash generating pizzazz that makes you more in a month than your website does in a whole year."

That's how to use your articles and your resource to make money. Some people don't want the resource to look like an advert. Why not? Advertising is your life's blood and your resource is the only place in your article where you really can advertise.

About The Author
If you want to learn more visit Pete's site Improved-Search-Engine-Rank.com and find out how to make money from a rapid and high listing on Google and the other major search engines. You can't beat free and powerful search engine advertising.

Yahoo Opens Up

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Yahoo! Opens Up...To Third Party Apps

Yahoo! kicked off Open Hack 2008 today at its headquarters in
Sunnyvale. The company has already demonstrated new components of
its "open strategy". The below video is a teaser for the event.

Yahoo! is opening its sites up to third-party applications in an
effort to keep users from leaving its web properties. I'm thinking
that this is a concept similar to what Google is already doing with
Google Gadgets and iGoogle, but it sounds like third party apps will
be available across a wider range of Yahoo!-owned sites.

"Like Facebook with its widget platform, Yahoo wants people to do
as much as they can without leaving its site," says Vasanth
Sridharan at Silicon Alley Insider. "That is, after all, the point
of a portal, and if Yahoo needs to offer some screen real estate to
other companies to keep users happy -- and keep them coming back
to Yahoo -- it's probably worth it."

Keep The Sale - Does this sound familiar?

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:10:00 +0000

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Keep the Sale

After dozens of phones calls and emails as well as several face-to-face meetings, you finally reach an agreement with a prospect who is intent on buying your service, product or solution.

"Whew! Another sale done," you think to yourself.

But, wait. Before you start counting your commission it is critical that you keep the sale. Just because a prospect has agreed to move forward it does not mean that the sale will move forward, especially if you sell a complex system or solution. Dozens of things can happen to derail your efforts.
Your key contact may change companies or positions. The person you are dealing with gets cold feet, loses interest, or decides to change vendors. The company may be acquired or sold. A competitor may approach your prospect with a better offer. There is no such thing as a guaranteed sale even if you are holding a signed contract. That means you need to ensure that you keep the sale. Here are several strategies you can incorporate into your business that will help you achieve this.

First, send some form of acknowledgement or thank-you. I know this sounds like an elementary concept but most sales people think of doing this. They take the sale and move on to the next prospect. However, if you send a thank-you card immediately after you confirm the sale, you differentiate yourself you're your competition. You can also use postcards. The key is to show your new customer that you value his or her business and thanking them is just one small gesture that demonstrates this.
The next thing to do is regularly update your new customer. Keep them informed about things like delivery or shipment status and installation dates and schedules. If you sell a highly customized product, make sure you advise them on the progress of the development of their product. Frequency of updates will depend on a few factors.

- What does your key decision-maker expect or want? If they are detail oriented person they will require more frequent updates than someone who is less detail-oriented. The easiest way to determine this is ask this question, "How often do you want me to send you updates?" A simple question but one that will give you tremendous insight into your customer's expectations
.
- Another factor is the length of time that occurs between the time of your agreement and when your services will be rendered or your product will be delivered. The more time that elapses between these two, the more important it is for you to update your customer. For example, in my particular business, it is not uncommon for a company to book me for a keynote speech or training workshop up to a year in advance. During this time, I try to send them some form of update so they know I have not forgotten about their event.
Send them additional information of value. This includes articles, magazine and newspaper clippings, or other information that is relevant to their business. You could send them an article that mentions a strategic move one of their competitors is about to make or an article on a topic that relates to your key contact's interests. You may come across a newspaper article about their company-clip this article and send it your client. It does not matter if they have already read the article because your gesture shows that you are paying attention to their business. And most sales people do not do this. One word of caution. Do NOT send information about your product! This is not about you! It is about giving your new customer a reason to keep the sale with you.
Depending on the size of the sale, you could send a book that will help them with their business. There are a multitude of books on the market today, addressing virtually every business situation. If your client enjoys reading then it makes good business sense to send them a book that will help improve their results. I have sent books to my clients that focus on communication, leadership, sales, and customer service. Attach a brief note explaining why you sent this book.
Lastly, reinforce their buying decision. The easiest way to do this is to send them testimonials from satisfied customers. An even more effective approach is to ask one of your existing clients to call your new customer. People want reassurances that they have made a sound buying decision so just imagine the impact if they heard a voice mail message from one of your clients stating how satisfied they were with your product, service or solution.

These may sound like simple concepts. However, I can guarantee that very few sales people actually use them. Integrating these strategies into your routine will not only help you differentiate yourself from your competition, you will increase your odds of keeping every sale you make.

About the Author: Kelley Robertson, author of The Secrets of Power Selling helps sales professionals and businesses discover new techniques to improve their sales and profits. For information on his programs contact him at 905-633-7750 or Kelley@RobertsonTrainingGroup.com.

On Page SEO Tips

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:44:00 +0000

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On Page SEO Tips

It requires a lot of effort in designing and building a site, but it can be all in vain if you can't attract enough traffic towards it. You put all your efforts in an attractive design of your website and the next step you do is to put it in front of the online world.

You can't get success only by uploading your website on the www; the target is to attract well-qualified visitors towards your website, which can't be done unless you put your site in the eyes of the search engines.

Today, all of the internet users use search engines to find the site relevant to their interest. For example, if a person is interested in finding information about on-going and up-coming cricket events, he/she can easily do so by typing in the keywords in Google, Yahoo or any other search engine. The search engine, as a result, will present a list of most relevant websites on the basis of their keyword. So, in short, to get more traffic towards your website, make it more optimized and put all efforts into keeping your website in the eye of the search engine. This traffic is, without any doubt, the life of a business. No e-business can run without adequate traffic.

How to optimize your website for search engines?

There are two ways of doing it.

* Off Page Search Engine Optimization

* On Page Search Engine Optimization.

This article will focus on the tips useful for On Page Search Engine Optimization.

All search engine optimization techniques are usually classified into On Page Optimization Techniques and Off Page Optimization Techniques. Both help in achieving one common goal; to get higher ranks in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Useful On Page SEO Tips

Following are some of the most common tips for better On Page Search Engine Optimization:

The most important word; The Keyword: it is always suggested that before you upload your website, put all your efforts into the keywords since users will be using keywords to find websites of their interest. Each page of your website should be treated as a separate entity having its own title and targeted keywords.

Always try to name your webpage files starting with your targeted keyword like crickethome.htm etc. For instance, if your website is about Telescopes then the title of each of your webpage should always start with the word Telescope and name each webpage file starting with word Telescope like Telescopereview.htm because the search engine robots look at filenames.

Always remember that you have to make your website attractive for the human visitors as well as for search engine robots. Attractiveness for both of them can be achieved through better keyword optimization.

You should keep in mind the keyword density and never over-optimize your web page. It is not necessary that the greater the optimization level of your web page the better it will be.

Title Tags are considered to be one of the most important factors of On Page Optimization. You can say in other words that it is mandatory for you to include the main keyword as part of your title.

You should always use Header tags with lots of care. Most of the SEO experts recommend having a single H1 header tag that should contain the main Keyword in order to attract human visitors as well as the search engine robots. Other H2 tags can contain secondary keywords.

Putting the main keyword in the URL is always beneficial in the eyes of the search engines. Most of the users are usually not bothered with that but it will help in better SEO. If it is not possible to include the complete keywords or a phrase in the URL then try at least to include the most important keyword in the URL.

There are many more On Page SEO tips but the above mentioned tips are the most common and recommended by experts. You can add additional features on your website to make it more Search Engine Optimized, for instance, adding blog sections, feedback areas, guestbooks etc.

About the Author: Colm Byrne has been working in the SEO arena for 4 years now and runs a blog to give tips on Internet Marketing and how to do Ethical Link building. His numerous articles provide a wonderfully researched resource.

Court Orders Google

noreply@blogger.com (PeaceNic) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:31:00 +0000

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Court Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Data
By Donald P. Schweitzer (c) 2008

A federal court has ordered the giant of all Internet companies - Google, to hand over documents concerning YouTube's viewing data to another media monster - Viacom. Viacom and Google are currently entangled in a no-holds barred lawsuit, concerning allegations of infringement of intellectual property rights. Viacom wanted the viewing data to help it determine the extent to which YouTube's success was built on the popularity of copyrighted clips that were illegally posted to the site. Google contended that YouTube's viewing data should be kept from Viacom to protect the privacy of its users.

Unfortunately for the millions of people who view YouTube videos, the judge granted Viacom's request. The court's ruling has caused many advocates of privacy rights to cry foul. For the following reasons, I believe the federal judge was correct in ruling against Google.

The Court's Powers To Access Records Cannot Be Denied

Like millions of Americans and other people around the world I love Google. I can say without a doubt that Google has been very good to me and my family law practice. And if Google wants to be viewed by it's customers as the champion of privacy rights, so be it. But, let's get real... , the court's access to private records under appropriate circumstances cannot be denied. We cannot let people hide behind their computers to commit crimes or torts. It would be absurd, for example, to give a child molester safe haven to either post or view child pornography. It would be equally absurd to give a person safe haven to infringe upon the property rights of another, to commit defamation of character, or to violate someone's privacy rights.

No Right Is Absolute!

The fact that the federal court did not buy into Google's privacy right argument comes as no surprise to those of us who go to court for a living and who know that the right of privacy is not absolute. Our courts are vested with the power to issue search warrants and subpoenas to allow lawyers access to private records. On every work day throughout America, judges are granting motions similar to the one filed by Viacom.

Within my family law practice, for example, I serve subpoenas for personal and employment records almost on a daily basis. Personal records frequently lead to hard evidence concerning the opposing party's true income for the purpose of paying child and spousal support. Likewise, data collected from the opposing party's computer usage can also lead to damaging evidence concerning the issues of child custody, community property, or domestic violence. Thank goodness for those incriminating little e-mails. There is nothing like cross examining a perpetrator of domestic violence as to why he thought it was necessary to send 40 messages to my client concerning her new boyfriend!

In case this information is beginning to scare you, keep in mind that our legal system allows parties the right to object to invasions of their privacy. In California, for example, before a subpoena for personal or employment records can be served, the attorney serving the subpoena must give notice to the opposing party and wait numerous days before sending the subpoena out for service. In addition, there are special rules when it comes to any attempt to obtain medical records, in which case the court is usually going to scrutinize the request for said documents. So if your ex is trying to get your phone records to obtain your friend's phone numbers, there are certain hurdles that need to be cleared before the court will release such records.

Can you say . . . , "protective order?"

There is nothing new about the possibilities of an attorney or party releasing confidential information. In the cruel world we live in, people misbehave and private information is often dispensed to people who have no right to the records. I'm sorry if I've just burst your bubble, but this happens all the time, especially in divorce cases.

Fortunately, the court has a pretty strong remedy to this problem. Courts issue "protective orders" that forbid the release of private documents to third parties and impose huge sanctions on people for violating such orders. And let us not forget the fact that an attorney's license could be in serious jeopardy for intentionally releasing such information, which is a pretty strong incentive for not violating the court's order.

Again, borrowing from my experience in litigating family law cases, I often find it necessary to obtain protective orders on behalf of my clients. In one case, where my client was an attorney who owned his own law practice, his wife demanded copies of all the records pertaining to his clients' files. She purportedly wanted the records to assist her forensic accountant in determining the value and cash flow of his law practice. Obviously my client was concerned about the confidentiality of his client's files, especially since his wife was on the war path to destroy him. We could not get into court quick enough to obtain a protective order, which was granted without hesitation!

What About Viacom's Underlying Motives?

For the purpose of this discussion, Viacom's motives are irrelevant. Viacom has the right to our system of justice as any other company or person. It is, after all, the court's responsibility to ensure that Viacom does not release the information to third parties. If Viacom violates the court's protective orders, well, look out for an astronomical monetary sanction.

Be Careful!

The bottom line is that the information obtained by Viacom will be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers or others. The lawyers representing Viacom will probably make sure the protective order is obeyed. Nevertheless, it behooves all of us to think twice about the sites we choose to view within the privacy of our homes. After all, the right to privacy is not absolute, and you never know who may get their hands on your records.

About The Author
Written by Donald P. Schweitzer.
Law Offices of Donald P. Schweitzer
201 South Lake Avenue, Suite 700, Pasadena, California 91101
(626) 683-8113 PasadenaLawOffice.com

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