• Business Blogging is highly effective at building reputation and perceived expertise online. It is the perfect PR path to establishing you as a/the expert in your niche and for online reputation management.
• Branding is accomplished through repeated contact. Blogging is an effective vehicle for brand building through return website traffic.
• Competitive Differentiation - Repeat readers of your blog will more easily see the differences between you and the competition.
• It is efficient at distributing time-sensitive and time-relevant information as it is indexed significantly faster in the search engines than static website content.
• Blogging can distribute content days and/or weeks faster than print to your client base.
• If your business is personal (as real estate is), it can help establish rapport and respect with potential clients.
• If your business is "big business," blogging can help make customer service and satisfaction more accessible and allow a conversation to develop between customers and staff. Customers appreciate corporate transparency and honesty.
• If you already have a website, blogging allows you to make regular, easy additions to the site content; and the search engines love fresh subject-focused content on websites.
• If you need to publish any news or updates concerning product recalls, shipping delays, etc…, blogging can save you from an avalanche of phone calls and emails by providing a focal point for offical distribution of company "news."
• The act of writing will provide you with new ideas and help you formalize the general concepts floating around in your head.
• RSS syndication feeds produced by your blog software make your content accessible outside of your website and the traditional path of search engine traffic.

On the subject of idea/content theft, people can "steal" anything, especially considering that the basis of most creativity is mimicry and inspiration from prior "art," but you will have to determine the value of presenting the content vs the value of its duplication. The reality is, very few people take the time to duplicate people’s successful efforts no matter how much they talk about it or say how "easy" it would be. If someone sees your brilliant yard sign, for example, they may consider copying it but will not likely follow through. However, I would imagine that that yard sign will bring you significant returns vs any theoretical theft. Same with online content. On the flip-side, blogging does allow people to easily quote you and redistribute your ideas and content to a larger audience while driving the credit back to you. Any derivative works will also establish you as a quality resource.

Also, the golden rule of copyright is that creative works are the copyright of the creator at the moment of creation, whether you file an official copyright request or not.

On the subject of frequency, I recommend "publishing consistently." If you can only post one article per week, that’s fine, but do it every single week. Subscribers will expect it and you will not gain a long-term audience by writing 12 posts tomorrow and none for a week. Many blogging platforms allow you to apply a future date to an article, allowing you to post-publish any excess articles that you have written so as to spread out the content. Every 3 days is better than every two weeks, but it is imperative that whatever schedule you choose (more being better), it must stay reasonably consistent.

Further thoughts?

Many of the new technologies used on Web 2.0 sites, and most specifically the rise in Ajax, are meant to provide a more seamless user experience with less visible page changes in favor of updates to the information already present on your page. This, however, has meant that many Web 2.0 sites have not been able to reflect their popularity and traffic volume as highly as sites with high page changes, like Google Search or MySpace.

Pageviews will still be important in the overall ranking, but this change in policy will reward sites like YouTube for their high ’stickiness,’ or time spent on site.

From the article :

“For example, MySpace may have 10 to 11 times more page views than YouTube, but myspace.com users spend only three times more minutes on the site, Ross added. Therefore, measuring total time spent on a site will make it easier for advertisers to mold their ads to how users are actually accessing content”

I have had to make this decision with several properties that I have built, choosing not to use Ajax and other technologies simply because, in the beginning, these properties needed their pageviews to reflect their popularity. This has been a major issue for internet advertisers for several years and I’m glad to see this move. I use Google search and Wikipedia all day long for quick searches and information lookups. This results in high pageview counts. However, I also use Meebo for all of my instant messaging needs, and the Meebo window can stay open for 12 to 15 hours per day while only showing 1 single Ajax-happy page. This will surely be news for happy celebrations around the Meebo office.

-Ethan

Conversions can be sales, downloads, newsletter subscriptions, really any on-site activity that you would like to track.

Google Website Optimizer is integrated as a free service into Google Adwords. Website owners will need a Google Adwords account to make use of the optimizer.

By adding a few javascripts to your landing page, Google will automatically create and track different variations of Headings, photos, quotes and paragraphs to determine the highest converting combination.

For more information, Google has an overview video and video user guide available.

Everyone at the event expressed their enjoyment over the quality and varied backgrounds of the attendees and are all excited for our next rendezvous. In the past two days, I have received another dozen or so confirmations for the November 18th event. I am working to officially form “Réseau Montpellier” amidst everyone’s enthusiasm and offers of assistance.

Thanks again for your efforts, contributions and attendance. I look forward to the incredible places we will take each other’s businesses.

-Ethan

From the group’s ‘About’ page:

The Internet Marketing Strategy Group is open to anyone interested in, passionate about, or simply curious of everything Internet Marketing and Internet Business.

Internet Marketing Strategy is your openBC resource for:
- Understanding and Learning about Internet Marketing and Internet Business
- Internet Marketing Ideas and Inspiration
- Discussion and Debate of methods and tools
- Resources to help you achieve online success
- Networking with others who share these interests

Any topics related to Internet Business and Marketing are welcome such as:
- Business Blogging / Corporate Blogging
- Email Marketing / Newsletter Marketing
- Viral Marketing / Buzz Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- Contextual Advertising
- Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO/SEP) / Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Keyword Research
- eCommerce Enablement and Best Practices
- Peer to Peer (P2P) Marketing
- Virtual Community Development
- Social Network Marketing…

We group the whole idea under Internet Marketing Strategy because it takes a mix of these tools to truly maximize your success.

You are encouraged to share observations, best practices, trends, success stories, questions… anything that you feel can help us all grow as Internet Marketers. Together we can make this group a significant Internet Marketing resource for your online success.

(if you prefer a different term, feel free to substitute Online Marketing or eMarketing everywhere above :)

————————-

Feel free to network with me on openBC. You may also visit the openBC Internet Marketing Strategy Group.

openBC is the leading international social business networking website. Similar to LinkedIn, Ecademy, Ryze and others, but with a significantly more international userbase, much more personalized profile pages, active forums and accessible, reasonable subscription levels.

Tags: openBC, LinkedIn, Ecademy, Ryze, Viaduc, Social Networking, Business Networking, Internet Marketing, Internet Business

If you are interested in networking with any businesses located outside of the United States or with International businesses with offices in the US, I highly recommend using openBC. From Indian outsourcing to Chinese start-ups to high-profile Japanese and German firms, it is helping me make facile connections to an excellent cross-section of very talented individuals.

A significant amount of openBC’s functionality is available for free, but the premium access offers many search and contact improvements. openBC allows me to offer a free month of premium access to new users if you sign up through my openBC invitation link.

If you have any questions about openBC or online business networking, feel free to drop me a line through here or through openBC. I look forward to our future opportunities together. You may also network with me through LinkedIn, Ryze and MeetUp.

-ethan

Tags: openBC, LinkedIn, Ryze, MeetUp, networking, social networking, business networking, professional networking, business contacts, business connections, six degrees of separation, six degrees

Topics covered in the weekly Skypecasts, though they vary based on participants’ questions and needs, are:

• Internet Marketing Strategy
• Internet Business Development
• Business Blogging
• Virtual Community Development
• Viral Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• CPM/PPC Advertising
• Search Marketing
• Email Marketing
• eCommerce Enablement
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Keyword Research
• Product Merchandising
• PR and Promotions
• P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Marketing
• Social Network Marketing (MySpace, LinkedIn, TagWorld, etc…)
• Article Marketing

A guide to Internet Marketing Resources referenced in the Skypecasts contains many useful tools, products and programs.

Website owners, small businesses, entrepreneurs and other inquisitive Internet Publishers are encouraged to view the details of the next Internet Marketing Teleconference.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Skype, Skypecast, Teleconference, Internet Marketing Strategy, Internet Business, Business Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, Search Marketing, Email Marketing, Teleseminar

This week they released an incredible new product, their ‘Meebo Me’ service. Meebo Me is a flash application that you place on your website, blog, MySpace, etc… that allows visitors to those pages to chat directly with you through Meebo. This allows potential customers, clients, readers and fans to communicate in real-time with you through your site. Meebo Me communicates directly to your Meebo Account and doesn’t use, or show, your Instant Message account contact information (i.e. Noone’s going to find out your AIM name unless you tell them ). This ‘privacy’ aspect is a great side benefit for many website publishers as it leaves the Instant Messaging access completely up to you. If you don’t have time to chat, you can simply go offline or ‘Away’ and be contacted no more.

Meebo’s client is a feature-rich (and richer and richer each release) instant messenger replete with all of the features people have grown accustomed to: buddy lists, emoticons/smilies, sounds and group chats. You can also set your online status to ‘Hidden’, preventing other users from seeing that you are online. This is common for some Instant Message clients, but is a welcome addition for AIM users. In most AIM clients, if you can even hide yourself, you also cannot see who is on. By leaving your status set to ‘Hidden’, you can choose with whom and when you are available to chat, thereby avoiding the Time Suck™ that often comes from too much time spent IMing.

When used properly, Instant Messaging is an extremely powerful networking and connectivity tool. Meebo simply makes it better.

Tags: Meebo, Instant Messenging, Instant Messenger, AIM, AOL, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, GTalk, iChat, IM, Ajax, Web 2.0

Tags: Yahoo, Google, Adsense, Adwords, Panama, SEM, Search Engine Marketing, PPC

From the Driver Networks Press Release:

“Professional truck drivers manage numerous regulations regarding the weight of their trucks, weight distribution and logged driving hours. Those policies differ by state and enforcement/tolerance can differ by weigh station. CoopsAreOpen.com provides drivers with a complete reference to those policies and their individual application as well as detailed contact, location, and helpful details for each weigh station.”

Example State Page: Texas State Weigh Stations, Scales and DOT Rules and Regulations

Example Station Page: Desert Hills, Banning, California Truck Weigh Station and Scale

Advenir developed the complete infrastructure of the site as well as the Internet Marketing and Business strategy and implementation. The site development consists of an account management system, databased content for over 1200 scales and states, comment management system, an ecommerce system for product sales and recurring site access subscriptions, blog and message board systems, complete web-based analytics, and a web-based content management system for Driver Networks’ updates. The site is based on web-standards and accessibility with specific attention to the search engine optimization and visibility of the over 1200 weigh station scales and respective state DOT informations.

The Internet Marketing and Business Strategy includes online press release distribution, blog marketing, article marketing, affiliate marketing programs through Commission Junction and Linkshare, Google AdSense advertising program management, Google Adwords search marketing program management, thorough search engine optimization (SEO), newsletter marketing with opt-in email, strategic partnerships with concurrent industries, as well as offline networking and promotion strategy.

Since 1997, Advenir has provided Internet Marketing and Business Development services and related comprehensive Corporate Training to 1000’s of employees and small to Fortune 500 businesses throughout the United States and Western Europe.

Tags: truck weigh station scales, state DOT rules and regulations, Internet Marketing, Business strategy, web-standards and accessibility, online press release, blog marketing, article marketing, affiliate marketing, Google AdSense, search engine optimization, SEO, newsletter marketing, promotion strategy

Here’s a list of the addresses we have seen:
Bcc: Hollowiog1503@Aol.Com
Bcc: Frekiforbes@Aol.Com
Bcc: Voiettag@Aol.Com
Bcc: jrubin3546@aol.com
Bcc: mkoch321@aol.com
Bcc: wnacyiplay@aol.com
Bcc: kshmng@aol.com
Bcc: homeiragtime@aol.com
Bcc: bergkoch8@aol.com
Bcc: tlccooperfamlly@aol.com
Bcc: tlcc00perfamily@aol.com
Bcc: jmpatton2OOO@aol.com
Bcc: bajfIa@aol.com
Bcc: bajfIa@aol.com
Bcc: bajfla3@aol.com
Bcc: bajfla1@aol.com
Bcc: bajfla2@aol.com
Bcc: hellothere@ToughGuy.net
Bcc: Markt8@ToughGuy.net
Bcc: punk65@PunkAss.com
Bcc: magnetic54@SexMagnet.com
Bcc: andagain@GameBox.net
Bcc: Montana88@GameBox.net
Bcc: india901@HotPop.com
Bcc: onemoreaddress@hotpop.com
Bcc: esau908@BonBon.net
Bcc: battsl1005@aol.com

This technique is called email header injection. In many programming languages, especially PHP, it is very easy to take the contents from a form submission and email them. If programmers don’t plan ahead, these scripts are easily hacked by sending the script extra email header information in one of the form fields. This extra header information can override your intended To:, From:, and Subject: fields, siezing control of your contact form’s email output.

To determine if you being spammed, look at the raw source for one of the bounced emails you are receiving. Search for a line that says Bcc: followed by an email address at AOL or one of several domain names like ToughGuy.net, PunkAss.com, SexMagnet.com, or GameBox.net. If your email contains this line, it is a product of one of these spam attempts. You will probably then see one of the above-listed email addresses after Bcc:. This is an attempt for the spambot to send itself an email through your form.

There are many potential solutions to injection attacks. Doing some field validation on your form fields to verify they only contain basic characters, no linefeeds, and no email headers like content-type:, mime-type:, bcc: or subject: is a great start. Some bots may submit information directly to your script page, bypassing your form entirely, so limiting your script to accept only submissions from your website (referrer validation) would also help.

Not only is it annoying for you to receive all this bounced mail in your Inbox, but if the bots are successful in spamming other websites or email addresses through your site, you could be held liable. If you are one of the many companies, small business website owners or hobbyists being hit with a deluge of contact form spam, contact us for a free consultation. We can rewrite your form scripts and protect your site.

Tags: Contact form, spambot, hacking, email header injection, email header, injection attacks, field validation, referrer validation, spamming, contact form spam

Introduction

Ajax is accomplished using a combination of:

• Standards-Based Markup and Styling using XHTML, and CSS.
• DOM manipulation via JavaScript, Jscript or some other ECMAScript variant.
• The XMLHttpRequest object for asynchronous interaction with the web server. (or possibly an IFrame object)
• XML/XSLT, HTML, plain text or some other data interaction with the server.

Like many other acronyms we’re familiar with, DHTML - Dynamic HTML or LAMP - Linux Apache MySQL PHP, Ajax is a collection of technologies working together, not a particular technology in and of itself.

The use of Ajax in web development will often be transparent to the average surfer. In fact, many of the Web 2.0 sites that people loveThey will merely appreciate the speed and interactivity of the sites they are using, for instance, dragging around a map on Google Maps or working with photographs on Flickr. The new Windows Live site from Microsoft is a dramatic improvement over Google’s offering and provides a visual and content rich homepage alternative.

Google’s continued development and acquisition of websites that use Ajax to deliver Rich Internet Applications would suggest a potential shift from desktop applications to Internet-based applications. For users, this would be welcome progress, allowing access to their applications and data from any Internet connected computer and an end to desktop software updates and licensing.

Some Ajax applications of note:

• Productivity: Basecamp collaborative project management and Backpack organization.
• Office: Writely Word Processor, NumSum Spreadsheets, Kiko Calendar.
• Entertainment: Iron Sudoku, Babble.
• Music: Pandora.
• Maps: Google Maps.
• Search: Google Suggest.
• Social: TagWorld.
• Messaging: Meebo Multi-IM Client, Zimbra Enterprise Messaging.
• Mail: GMail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail.

The Good News

Interactivity

Ajax is perfect for developing mini-applications within a webpage such as small search engine requests and results, web form automation, editing records, profiles, or account options, sorting tables or expanding individual areas of content.

Compatibility / Portability

Currently, all major browsers support Ajax applications.

The Bad News

Usability Issues

Bookmarks - Since pages are no longer completely static, a bookmark of a particular page may not return the expected page contents.

Back Button - As with bookmarks, using the back button may not present the user with the last Ajax interaction on a particular page, but instead, an entirely different preceding page.

Network Latency

Because the user is not requesting the entire page to be reloaded, Ajax applications can cause confusion if the delay between each user’s request and the server’s response (network latency) becomes significant. Allowing the application to provide a visual display of progress or status can help minimize any user confusion.

JavaScript

Ajax requires JavaScript to be enabled in a user’s browser for any updating to the DOM to be processed. If a user has disabled JavaScript, they will be unable to see any updates to the page they are viewing and will need to be redirected to a static page containing the new content. (Internet Explorer 6 and earlier also need ActiveX to be enabled to utilize the XMLHttpRequest object, though Internet Explorer 7 will move this functionality to JavaScript)

Accessibility

Developers wishing to keep their pages WAI accessible may wish to provide a way for their Rich Internet Applications to degrade gracefully for users who are not using a visual browser. Users who are not viewing the web page visually will need an entirely refreshed page to view any server interactions.

Supported Ajax Browsers

Any gecko-based browsers like Firefox or Mozilla or Netscape 7.1+
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0+ and derivatives (non-Mac)
KHTML API 3.2+ based browsers like Konqueror 3.2+ and Apple Safari 1.2+
Opera 8.0+

Non-Supported Ajax Browsers

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and below
Opera 7 and below
Text based browsers like Lynx
Speech-synthesis or Braille browsers for the visually impaired

Tutorials

IBM developerWorks : Brett McLaughlin, the master of all things Java and XML, and his authoritative Ajax Introduction.

Tags: web development tools, Rich Internet Applications, Ajax, usability, XML, Tutorials

Results Unlimited contains helpful articles, industry trends, product reviews and other information to keep you up-to-date and informed. However you make money from the Internet: through helping your employer excel and lead in its industry to earning your own income online, you’ll find Results Unlimited to be a great resource to help you maximize your Internet Return on Investment.

Don’t miss out on your chance to win. Enter our promotion today! Refer your friends for even more chances to win.

Tags: Blackberry, iPod, sweepstakes, promotion, free, contest

Google already offers a 60 day window to request reimbursement for clicks advertisers believe to be invalid, but this settlement will apply to complaints dating back to 2002. Considering the billions of dollars in Adsense revenue, this would seem to indicate that click fraud is a miniscule problem in the Adsense system.

Google will be writing the legal fees off as an expense and the settlement costs will be charged against revenue in the affected periods.

Tags: Google Adwords, Google

MailTemplate from MacTank is a great piece of software that helps alleviate some of this effort. It works side by side with Apple Mail and allows you to create standard replies or new emails from templates. Those templates can automatically include data from your customer’s email message, like name, email, subject, and headers.

This is a great small business customer service tool and a helpful email marketing utility. Thanks MacTank!

Tags: email, customer service, Apple Mail, small business, email marketing

• bartering
• sharing with others
• neatness
• opportunities to upgrade
• partial payment plans
• articles and columns in publications
• speed
• designated guerrilla

You shouldn’t miss Jay’s 100 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons at The Guerrilla Marketing Association.

Tags: Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing, Guerrilla Marketing Weapons

Read more in the FTC Search Engine Rank Report.

Tags: search engine, Federal Trade Commission, FTC

To see just how incredible this technology can be, check out Basecamp and Backpack from 37signals or the new Windows Live start page from Microsoft.

Also, check out our Ajax Introduction.

Tags: AJAX

Tags: iPod, Giveaway

A few notable statistics:

34% blog to increase/maintain visibility as an authority in their field compared to 32% as a means to record their thoughts.

38% blog every few days compared to 26% daily and 18% multiple times daily.

When it comes to corporate trust, on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (complete trust), information from PR firms only scored a 4.6, whereas information direct from the company rated a 5.5.

Tags: blogging behaviour, blogosphere, Edelman, Technorati, corporate blogging, business blogging