Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Growth in Online Advertising Slacking Off
There's good news and bad news in the latest Internet Advertising Revenue Report, newly released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The good news is that Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. are still growing, topping US$23 billion in 2008. The bad news: That growth appears to be flattening. Indeed, it did not take this report to alert the industry that growth in this once hot category has been on a downward slope recently.
"The ad buys on our site are in line with the IAB's findings," said Brian Gluckman, manager of media relations for AutoTrader.com. "The growth in purchases here by both dealers and manufacturers has flattened from years past, though it's certainly not stopped entirely," he said. "In these times, some advertising makes more sense and other advertising makes less," Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl said. He noted that Edmunds.com -- whose audience is a very focused group of car shoppers -- is experiencing growth in ad sales, "but I'd imagine a media outlet that serves a more general audience has a tougher sale to make these days."
To be sure, 2008 was a year of economic anomaly -- the financial system equivalent of the 100-year flood. The fact that Internet advertising topped 2007's total of $21.2 billion -- a record year -- by 10.6 percent is significant. Still, 10.6 percent is the smallest yearly increase for the industry since 2002. In year-over-year growth, 2007 topped 2006 by 26 percent.
One reason for the slowdown, of course, is that the four main verticals that use Internet advertising have been severely impacted by the recession. The top sectors to advertise online in 2008 -- as in 2007 -- were retail, financial services, computing and automotive, the report found.
Notably, consumer packaged goods increased its share of total Internet ad revenues in 2008 by 60 percent over 2007, the report said. Online ad growth "is flattening for the same reason as all else -- the economy," Tracy Tuten, associate professor of marketing at Longwood University and author of Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.
"Ad budgets are tightening overall, and this is causing the flatter growth curve," she said. "Still, things will not become too dire for online advertising because of the efficiency of buys in the online space, and because of the measurement and accountability benefits."
There is another story hidden in these numbers that bodes better for the online advertising space. Online ad buys are making up a much greater percentage share of advertisers' budgets, noted AutoTrader.com's Gluckman, with big cuts coming from traditional print mediums. "Auto dealers and manufacturers are still spending some on TV, but more for brand-awareness campaigns," he said.
"My opinion is that the report gives a high-level snapshot of what is happening -- but to get the true story, you have to dig deeper," Anand Subramanian, CEO of ContextWeb and the operator of the ad exchange Adsdaq, said.
"If you look specifically at growth for targeted advertising versus run of network or run of site, it's a different picture. What we're seeing is that targeted advertising, be it contextual or behavioral or geographical, is actually going up," Subramanian said, "and untargeted buys, like run of network [or] run of site, are coming down. This blended effect is what's reflected in the IAB report."
This is further evidenced by Google's data, which shows advertisers continuing to spend on search and contextual advertising, he said. Untargeted vendors, like ValueClick or AdNetworks, are seeing a downward trend. It was inevitable that online advertising growth would slow, Ray Lyle, principal at Driving Revenue, said.
"Don't worry," he remarked. "With the newspapers and magazines dropping by the dozens, expect online advertising to continue to grow for the foreseeable future."
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"The ad buys on our site are in line with the IAB's findings," said Brian Gluckman, manager of media relations for AutoTrader.com. "The growth in purchases here by both dealers and manufacturers has flattened from years past, though it's certainly not stopped entirely," he said. "In these times, some advertising makes more sense and other advertising makes less," Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl said. He noted that Edmunds.com -- whose audience is a very focused group of car shoppers -- is experiencing growth in ad sales, "but I'd imagine a media outlet that serves a more general audience has a tougher sale to make these days."
To be sure, 2008 was a year of economic anomaly -- the financial system equivalent of the 100-year flood. The fact that Internet advertising topped 2007's total of $21.2 billion -- a record year -- by 10.6 percent is significant. Still, 10.6 percent is the smallest yearly increase for the industry since 2002. In year-over-year growth, 2007 topped 2006 by 26 percent.
One reason for the slowdown, of course, is that the four main verticals that use Internet advertising have been severely impacted by the recession. The top sectors to advertise online in 2008 -- as in 2007 -- were retail, financial services, computing and automotive, the report found.
Notably, consumer packaged goods increased its share of total Internet ad revenues in 2008 by 60 percent over 2007, the report said. Online ad growth "is flattening for the same reason as all else -- the economy," Tracy Tuten, associate professor of marketing at Longwood University and author of Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.
"Ad budgets are tightening overall, and this is causing the flatter growth curve," she said. "Still, things will not become too dire for online advertising because of the efficiency of buys in the online space, and because of the measurement and accountability benefits."
There is another story hidden in these numbers that bodes better for the online advertising space. Online ad buys are making up a much greater percentage share of advertisers' budgets, noted AutoTrader.com's Gluckman, with big cuts coming from traditional print mediums. "Auto dealers and manufacturers are still spending some on TV, but more for brand-awareness campaigns," he said.
"My opinion is that the report gives a high-level snapshot of what is happening -- but to get the true story, you have to dig deeper," Anand Subramanian, CEO of ContextWeb and the operator of the ad exchange Adsdaq, said.
"If you look specifically at growth for targeted advertising versus run of network or run of site, it's a different picture. What we're seeing is that targeted advertising, be it contextual or behavioral or geographical, is actually going up," Subramanian said, "and untargeted buys, like run of network [or] run of site, are coming down. This blended effect is what's reflected in the IAB report."
This is further evidenced by Google's data, which shows advertisers continuing to spend on search and contextual advertising, he said. Untargeted vendors, like ValueClick or AdNetworks, are seeing a downward trend. It was inevitable that online advertising growth would slow, Ray Lyle, principal at Driving Revenue, said.
"Don't worry," he remarked. "With the newspapers and magazines dropping by the dozens, expect online advertising to continue to grow for the foreseeable future."
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Innovation in a World of E-Commerce Woe
It's been nearly a decade since the Internet bubble burst in 2001, and the intervening years have seen the rise of powerhouse companies such as Google, MySpace and Facebook, which have helped broaden the scope of what was once referred to as the "Information Superhighway."
The Internet was once limited primarily to email communication, file transfers and other rather mundane purposes. It's now evolved into a global social gathering place with as many diversions as the local mall, multiplex and fairgrounds combined. Users turn to the Web to read and post news and opinions on a smorgasbord of topics from politics to food.
However, as the impact of an ongoing global economic crises continues, is the outlook for online businesses and services as rosy as it has been for the past eight years? The world -- both online and off -- is still coming to grips with the economic downturn that hit full force in September 2008.
Disappointing fourth-quarter figures that saw ad sales increase less than one-half of a percent have lowered expectations for online ads over the rest of 2009.
"When we ran the numbers for Q4, we were pretty shocked, because it was much worse than we thought it would be," Karsten Weide, an IDC analyst, said. "Overall growth in Q4 year-on-year was just 0.4 percent. It was essentially flat, and the only reason why it was still at least a little bit of growth was because search grew by 10 percent. But display [advertising] declined by 7 percent, and classifieds dropped by 18 percent."
The first quarter of 2009 will not see much improvement for online advertisers, according to Weide. "We think that the search growth rate will still go down to 8 percent, display will be worse than last quarter, and classifieds will be as bad -- maybe a little better -- with a big loss but not quite as much. If you count these all together, we think the bottom line is that online advertising may decline this quarter by as much as 4.8 percent," he explained.
That would make this the first time since the bubble in which the segment will see losses for the second quarter in a row, Weide observed. Sales will likely hit the bottom around the middle of 2009, he said.
The economy is unlikely to recover with the same speed that it tanked, in Weide's view. "We think it's not going to be a U-curve, recovering as quickly as it went down. We expect a long, protracted recovery phase with growth starting again in 2010."
Companies whose advertising formats or venues are still considered experimental will take the biggest hit, according to Weide. "That includes social networks, even though they made US$50 million dollars last year."
Google is in a good position. Because the company focuses primarily on search, it is insulated somewhat from the turmoil. Microsoft and Yahoo have seen ad sales decline, but their display businesses have not been as deeply impacted as those of other, smaller companies.
Given that advertising is the bread and butter of a wide array of online businesses and services, the loss of revenue could have a significant impact on what companies will be able to do in terms of developing new technologies and business models.
Despite the loss of advertising revenue, smart companies will invest even more in research and development, according to Weide. "It should prompt them to spend even more money on research. You need to explore the market segments that are just coming online, like online video -- and mobile, to some extent. Plus, you need to put money into technologies that make your advertising offer more attractive to advertisers," he said. "We're talking performance advertising here: behavioral targeting, semantic targeting, social advertising and things of that nature and things that have a service quality to them -- media planning, integrated dashboards, in-gaming and possibly creative services as well."
Despite concerns about user privacy, behavioral targeting, semantic targeting, and advertising on social networks are very promising fields. "There's a lot of pressure on marketers to deliver online for the same money or less money for advertisers," Weide said. "Yahoo is the big guy, and [there are] a number of small players like Q Interactive.
The biggest risk there is privacy concerns, and most of them are not evil," Weide said. In a few years, it is possible that advertisers will have come up with multiple new methods of reaching consumers, all designed to offer up ads that are the most relevant for them based on location and other demographics.
When it comes to search engines, there are a number of technologies from larger and smaller companies that could still shine despite the tough economic conditions, Susan Feldman, an IDC analyst, said. "When I looked at Kumo from Microsoft Live, I thought 'Oh, yeah.' We're beginning to see inklings of what they're going to do -- some of the stuff that Yahoo is doing and Google is starting to copy with drop-down, type-ahead suggestions to related queries," she noted.
Older search utilities could also benefit. For example, Clusty, a clustering search engine from software maker Vivisimo that's been around for years, is one alternative to a traditional search engine.
"You have to have a way of describing very succinctly what you are looking for, and sometimes you just don't know how to do that. You know it when you see it. StumbleUpon is getting there, but is still not exactly what you need," she explained.
MrTaggy, an experimental site developed by the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) uses metadata to help users find what they're searching for. "MrTaggy has all kinds of information. The keyword search is a tool, but not one I want to use all the time," Feldman pointed out.
For example, when Feldman was preparing to give a speech on innovation, a keyword search for serendipity, innovation, industry, etc., did not yield the results she sought. However, when she put the term into MrTaggy, the application returned the phrase "Ah ha moment."
"That is what I should have been searching for, and there has been a lot written on it," Feldman said. "I wouldn't have found it. That's the kind of thing we need so we can explore things that are tangential. All of those are coming to market. Just today, Endeca released a new platform called "McKinley," which is different way of introducing people to what is going on in the world."
Netbase has created a technology that moves beyond traditional keyword search and instead uses advanced linguistics to read every sentence of documents and extract rich information and relationships. It then organizes that data into meaningful categories for researchers.
"Suppose you're a medical researcher and you want to find causes of a particular type of tumor. Netbase has indexed Medline and returned relevant results that would take days to find in 10 seconds, including drugs that have an effect [and] genes that are related to a particular condition," she said.
This next generation of search goes beyond simple words and looks at the relationships between various words and the ideas they represent. It will pull out information in a way that can help users shorten the time they spend looking for what they want to know.
"The semantic Web is nothing compared to what these guys are doing," Feldman said. "This is using text analytics. This is what the semantic Web ought to be and should be. It will be amazing."
The mobile Internet continues to be a major source of innovation, as existing and emerging companies seek new ways to bring an ever-expanding mass of content onto smartphones and other handheld devices. On the other end of the spectrum are the huge in-home systems like home entertainment centers, which are also being built with Web-facing features. The drive for building Web access into multiple devices will feed the ongoing demand for video content online.
"Individual access to the Web is probably the biggest change we've seen in the last 10 years. It will continue to push innovation because you need more content available for more devices, which means more opportunity for services in the cloud and greater importance placed on things like storage on a device," Joshua Martin, a Yankee Group analyst, said.
As video content moves online and broadband moves into the living room, look for a migration away from traditional cable and satellite subscriptions. "This is going to be earth-shattering, because the Internet is no longer restricted to the computer for the mass market. Now that the average Joe Consumer will be able to do that, it will really change the game," Martin noted.
However, an old hiccup remains for online video companies: how to monetize the business model. Even though owners have worked in advertising models to a certain degree, the rise of user-generated content on sites such as YouTube More about YouTube has generally not resulted in great amounts of revenue. Fans of these sites may soon find themselves paying a subscription fee to check out the latest antics of Joe Schmoe.
"It is probably harder now more than ever for companies to develop ways to monetize their content, particularly with the advent of user-generated content that is becoming increasingly compelling. With so many options for people, it will be interesting to see what happens," Martin said.
Sports is one entertainment genre that enjoys a great deal of attention. For example, online viewers may soon be able to view each hole of a major golf tournament, Martin said. Recently, college basketball buffs were able to watch NCAA playoff games online, and advertisers bought sponsorships.
However, tangles still remain. Professional football will likely be one of the last sports to come online, given the exclusive contract the National Football League signed with DirecTV for its NFL Sunday Ticket offering. Once that contract expires, the organization may head online.
In terms of movies and TV shows, Netflix continues to be a leader in online video content and is an example of the kind of innovation other companies should pursue, Martin said. The company has launched numerous partnerships with hardware makers that allow Netflix subscribers who own devices like Xboxes and TiVos to stream content directly to their TVs.
"This is more of an evolutionary phase," Martin noted, "where the convergence we've talked about that makes services and the consumer experience more valuable is coming to fruition."
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The Internet was once limited primarily to email communication, file transfers and other rather mundane purposes. It's now evolved into a global social gathering place with as many diversions as the local mall, multiplex and fairgrounds combined. Users turn to the Web to read and post news and opinions on a smorgasbord of topics from politics to food.
However, as the impact of an ongoing global economic crises continues, is the outlook for online businesses and services as rosy as it has been for the past eight years? The world -- both online and off -- is still coming to grips with the economic downturn that hit full force in September 2008.
Disappointing fourth-quarter figures that saw ad sales increase less than one-half of a percent have lowered expectations for online ads over the rest of 2009.
"When we ran the numbers for Q4, we were pretty shocked, because it was much worse than we thought it would be," Karsten Weide, an IDC analyst, said. "Overall growth in Q4 year-on-year was just 0.4 percent. It was essentially flat, and the only reason why it was still at least a little bit of growth was because search grew by 10 percent. But display [advertising] declined by 7 percent, and classifieds dropped by 18 percent."
The first quarter of 2009 will not see much improvement for online advertisers, according to Weide. "We think that the search growth rate will still go down to 8 percent, display will be worse than last quarter, and classifieds will be as bad -- maybe a little better -- with a big loss but not quite as much. If you count these all together, we think the bottom line is that online advertising may decline this quarter by as much as 4.8 percent," he explained.
That would make this the first time since the bubble in which the segment will see losses for the second quarter in a row, Weide observed. Sales will likely hit the bottom around the middle of 2009, he said.
The economy is unlikely to recover with the same speed that it tanked, in Weide's view. "We think it's not going to be a U-curve, recovering as quickly as it went down. We expect a long, protracted recovery phase with growth starting again in 2010."
Companies whose advertising formats or venues are still considered experimental will take the biggest hit, according to Weide. "That includes social networks, even though they made US$50 million dollars last year."
Google is in a good position. Because the company focuses primarily on search, it is insulated somewhat from the turmoil. Microsoft and Yahoo have seen ad sales decline, but their display businesses have not been as deeply impacted as those of other, smaller companies.
Given that advertising is the bread and butter of a wide array of online businesses and services, the loss of revenue could have a significant impact on what companies will be able to do in terms of developing new technologies and business models.
Despite the loss of advertising revenue, smart companies will invest even more in research and development, according to Weide. "It should prompt them to spend even more money on research. You need to explore the market segments that are just coming online, like online video -- and mobile, to some extent. Plus, you need to put money into technologies that make your advertising offer more attractive to advertisers," he said. "We're talking performance advertising here: behavioral targeting, semantic targeting, social advertising and things of that nature and things that have a service quality to them -- media planning, integrated dashboards, in-gaming and possibly creative services as well."
Despite concerns about user privacy, behavioral targeting, semantic targeting, and advertising on social networks are very promising fields. "There's a lot of pressure on marketers to deliver online for the same money or less money for advertisers," Weide said. "Yahoo is the big guy, and [there are] a number of small players like Q Interactive.
The biggest risk there is privacy concerns, and most of them are not evil," Weide said. In a few years, it is possible that advertisers will have come up with multiple new methods of reaching consumers, all designed to offer up ads that are the most relevant for them based on location and other demographics.
When it comes to search engines, there are a number of technologies from larger and smaller companies that could still shine despite the tough economic conditions, Susan Feldman, an IDC analyst, said. "When I looked at Kumo from Microsoft Live, I thought 'Oh, yeah.' We're beginning to see inklings of what they're going to do -- some of the stuff that Yahoo is doing and Google is starting to copy with drop-down, type-ahead suggestions to related queries," she noted.
Older search utilities could also benefit. For example, Clusty, a clustering search engine from software maker Vivisimo that's been around for years, is one alternative to a traditional search engine.
"You have to have a way of describing very succinctly what you are looking for, and sometimes you just don't know how to do that. You know it when you see it. StumbleUpon is getting there, but is still not exactly what you need," she explained.
MrTaggy, an experimental site developed by the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) uses metadata to help users find what they're searching for. "MrTaggy has all kinds of information. The keyword search is a tool, but not one I want to use all the time," Feldman pointed out.
For example, when Feldman was preparing to give a speech on innovation, a keyword search for serendipity, innovation, industry, etc., did not yield the results she sought. However, when she put the term into MrTaggy, the application returned the phrase "Ah ha moment."
"That is what I should have been searching for, and there has been a lot written on it," Feldman said. "I wouldn't have found it. That's the kind of thing we need so we can explore things that are tangential. All of those are coming to market. Just today, Endeca released a new platform called "McKinley," which is different way of introducing people to what is going on in the world."
Netbase has created a technology that moves beyond traditional keyword search and instead uses advanced linguistics to read every sentence of documents and extract rich information and relationships. It then organizes that data into meaningful categories for researchers.
"Suppose you're a medical researcher and you want to find causes of a particular type of tumor. Netbase has indexed Medline and returned relevant results that would take days to find in 10 seconds, including drugs that have an effect [and] genes that are related to a particular condition," she said.
This next generation of search goes beyond simple words and looks at the relationships between various words and the ideas they represent. It will pull out information in a way that can help users shorten the time they spend looking for what they want to know.
"The semantic Web is nothing compared to what these guys are doing," Feldman said. "This is using text analytics. This is what the semantic Web ought to be and should be. It will be amazing."
The mobile Internet continues to be a major source of innovation, as existing and emerging companies seek new ways to bring an ever-expanding mass of content onto smartphones and other handheld devices. On the other end of the spectrum are the huge in-home systems like home entertainment centers, which are also being built with Web-facing features. The drive for building Web access into multiple devices will feed the ongoing demand for video content online.
"Individual access to the Web is probably the biggest change we've seen in the last 10 years. It will continue to push innovation because you need more content available for more devices, which means more opportunity for services in the cloud and greater importance placed on things like storage on a device," Joshua Martin, a Yankee Group analyst, said.
As video content moves online and broadband moves into the living room, look for a migration away from traditional cable and satellite subscriptions. "This is going to be earth-shattering, because the Internet is no longer restricted to the computer for the mass market. Now that the average Joe Consumer will be able to do that, it will really change the game," Martin noted.
However, an old hiccup remains for online video companies: how to monetize the business model. Even though owners have worked in advertising models to a certain degree, the rise of user-generated content on sites such as YouTube More about YouTube has generally not resulted in great amounts of revenue. Fans of these sites may soon find themselves paying a subscription fee to check out the latest antics of Joe Schmoe.
"It is probably harder now more than ever for companies to develop ways to monetize their content, particularly with the advent of user-generated content that is becoming increasingly compelling. With so many options for people, it will be interesting to see what happens," Martin said.
Sports is one entertainment genre that enjoys a great deal of attention. For example, online viewers may soon be able to view each hole of a major golf tournament, Martin said. Recently, college basketball buffs were able to watch NCAA playoff games online, and advertisers bought sponsorships.
However, tangles still remain. Professional football will likely be one of the last sports to come online, given the exclusive contract the National Football League signed with DirecTV for its NFL Sunday Ticket offering. Once that contract expires, the organization may head online.
In terms of movies and TV shows, Netflix continues to be a leader in online video content and is an example of the kind of innovation other companies should pursue, Martin said. The company has launched numerous partnerships with hardware makers that allow Netflix subscribers who own devices like Xboxes and TiVos to stream content directly to their TVs.
"This is more of an evolutionary phase," Martin noted, "where the convergence we've talked about that makes services and the consumer experience more valuable is coming to fruition."
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The Fact And Fiction Of Online Shipping Costs
You search, you find, you click "buy." Your e-commerce quest is nearly complete. You get to that checkout screen, and you think it's all good. Then the shipping charges get tacked onto your total, and you're left thinking that US$9.95 deal didn't end up being such a bargain after all.
Then there are those times when you need to make sure your package gets to its destination before the holidays -- a day late makes it a wasted effort. So you fork over the few extra dollars to guarantee the delivery date -- but did you really need to do that?
Countless online shoppers are asking themselves whether paying a premium for express shipping and handling fees is really necessary. After all, there have been many times when they've ordered an item for the "week-to-10-day" delivery and received it within three business days without paying the premium.
So what gives? You might think the retailer is charging extra for a service you don't need, and that it's all a sales ploy to hit unsuspecting consumers with extra charges just to beef up profit margins.
However, shipping and handling is a growing expense for retailers, and in these trying economic times especially, it's hitting their bottom lines more than ever.
"We work with many major retailers and can tell you that the vast majority lose money on shipping, especially during the holidays," Fiona Dias, executive vice president of partner strategy and marketing for GSI Commerce, a specialist in online business services More about business services, said.
The reason retailers are willing to take the hit on shipping and handling is that shipping costs represent the single biggest deterrent for consumers shopping online, Dias explained. "They pretty much have to offer free shipping or add constraints -- such as a minimum purchase amount."
With the tumbling stock market last fall, retailers actually "took a bath on shipping," she added. "Then [the] Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were more compressed. [To encourage purchases,] retailers were either offering express delivery for free or subsidizing it greatly."
Today's price-sensitive consumers, for their part, are being extra careful when assessing shipping costs for an online purchase, confirmed Kevin Brown, director of marketing for Newgistics, a transportation system provider.
"They didn't think anything about shipping and handling costs. Today, a lot more that used to want next-day delivery now realize that five days is fine. They've decided they paid a premium for something they didn't really need."
These perceptions about gouging consumers on shipping and handling may have come from other retail channels, such as infomercials, where unsuspecting shoppers have sometimes been hit hard with hidden costs after placing that order for those too-good-to-be-true deals.
The online flower delivery business, for example, is another industry that may have gotten a bad rep when it comes to charging express premiums, Aron Benon, CEO of HonestFlorist.com, said. "A lot of 'practices' weren't up to where they should be," he explained "There were florists that charged extra for express delivery. That's ridiculous [in some cases], because delivery could usually be made within four hours anyway. Some have made a lot of money in shipping and handling."
Today, the only premium that should be paid is for a guaranteed delivery time, according to Benon. "You can assume it will get there in reasonable time, but a premium will get you that guarantee if you need it."
If there is confusion among consumers about shipping costs, it's more around setting expectations, Dias said. "The No. 1 call center complaint is the 'where's my order' inquiry." That's one of the main reasons why retailers will tend to overestimate the standard shipping times. "It's better to under-promise and over-deliver," she said. "If you say it will take a week and the package comes in four days, then you have a happy customer. If you say it will be four days and it's longer, a disappointed shopper is complaining to your call center."
As far as express shipping is concerned, the extra costs are necessary since retailers need to use more expensive delivery services versus the U.S. Postal Service More about USPS.
"It's less about the labor and more about the carrier,"" Dias said. "Sending through the US Postal Service is cheap. But once you get to UPS or Fedex, there is a lot more involved."
Given the fluctuations in fuel prices and the like, retailers have had to absorb those transportation costs, Brown added. "You're not seeing those rate increases being passed on to the consumer, which means costs are going up on the retail side. There's a point consumers won't go beyond, and shipping fees is one." There are a number of things online retailers can do to avoid problems and keep customer expectations in line.
One is to provide clear messaging on your site about shipping options, associated costs and delivery times. During holidays, spell out deadline dates for orders to avoid disappointment.
Second, do not put items on the site that aren't in stock. "I'm not a big fan of back orders," Dias said. "If it's not in inventory, let people know before they get to the shopping cart."
Third is to have a system in place to fulfill orders in a timely fashion. Where deliveries may have to cover lots of ground, partner with someone that offers regional warehousing services. On-site pickup at a store is an option that has proven very successful for retailers like Sears and Nordstrom, Dias said.
Providing visibility into shipments on the move can also ease consumers' minds and reduce the load on call centers. "It can cost $4 to $5 per call for a customer service engagement," Brown explained. "If consumers can track a shipment themselves, that can help reduce that cost."
For shoppers who are simply unhappy about shipping and handling fees, Avivah Litan, senior analyst for Gartner who offered the following advice: "Remember, it's a free world. If you don't like shipping terms on a site, shop somewhere you do."
Guardian eCommerce Privacy Seal Program.
Then there are those times when you need to make sure your package gets to its destination before the holidays -- a day late makes it a wasted effort. So you fork over the few extra dollars to guarantee the delivery date -- but did you really need to do that?
Countless online shoppers are asking themselves whether paying a premium for express shipping and handling fees is really necessary. After all, there have been many times when they've ordered an item for the "week-to-10-day" delivery and received it within three business days without paying the premium.
So what gives? You might think the retailer is charging extra for a service you don't need, and that it's all a sales ploy to hit unsuspecting consumers with extra charges just to beef up profit margins.
However, shipping and handling is a growing expense for retailers, and in these trying economic times especially, it's hitting their bottom lines more than ever.
"We work with many major retailers and can tell you that the vast majority lose money on shipping, especially during the holidays," Fiona Dias, executive vice president of partner strategy and marketing for GSI Commerce, a specialist in online business services More about business services, said.
The reason retailers are willing to take the hit on shipping and handling is that shipping costs represent the single biggest deterrent for consumers shopping online, Dias explained. "They pretty much have to offer free shipping or add constraints -- such as a minimum purchase amount."
With the tumbling stock market last fall, retailers actually "took a bath on shipping," she added. "Then [the] Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were more compressed. [To encourage purchases,] retailers were either offering express delivery for free or subsidizing it greatly."
Today's price-sensitive consumers, for their part, are being extra careful when assessing shipping costs for an online purchase, confirmed Kevin Brown, director of marketing for Newgistics, a transportation system provider.
"They didn't think anything about shipping and handling costs. Today, a lot more that used to want next-day delivery now realize that five days is fine. They've decided they paid a premium for something they didn't really need."
These perceptions about gouging consumers on shipping and handling may have come from other retail channels, such as infomercials, where unsuspecting shoppers have sometimes been hit hard with hidden costs after placing that order for those too-good-to-be-true deals.
The online flower delivery business, for example, is another industry that may have gotten a bad rep when it comes to charging express premiums, Aron Benon, CEO of HonestFlorist.com, said. "A lot of 'practices' weren't up to where they should be," he explained "There were florists that charged extra for express delivery. That's ridiculous [in some cases], because delivery could usually be made within four hours anyway. Some have made a lot of money in shipping and handling."
Today, the only premium that should be paid is for a guaranteed delivery time, according to Benon. "You can assume it will get there in reasonable time, but a premium will get you that guarantee if you need it."
If there is confusion among consumers about shipping costs, it's more around setting expectations, Dias said. "The No. 1 call center complaint is the 'where's my order' inquiry." That's one of the main reasons why retailers will tend to overestimate the standard shipping times. "It's better to under-promise and over-deliver," she said. "If you say it will take a week and the package comes in four days, then you have a happy customer. If you say it will be four days and it's longer, a disappointed shopper is complaining to your call center."
As far as express shipping is concerned, the extra costs are necessary since retailers need to use more expensive delivery services versus the U.S. Postal Service More about USPS.
"It's less about the labor and more about the carrier,"" Dias said. "Sending through the US Postal Service is cheap. But once you get to UPS or Fedex, there is a lot more involved."
Given the fluctuations in fuel prices and the like, retailers have had to absorb those transportation costs, Brown added. "You're not seeing those rate increases being passed on to the consumer, which means costs are going up on the retail side. There's a point consumers won't go beyond, and shipping fees is one." There are a number of things online retailers can do to avoid problems and keep customer expectations in line.
One is to provide clear messaging on your site about shipping options, associated costs and delivery times. During holidays, spell out deadline dates for orders to avoid disappointment.
Second, do not put items on the site that aren't in stock. "I'm not a big fan of back orders," Dias said. "If it's not in inventory, let people know before they get to the shopping cart."
Third is to have a system in place to fulfill orders in a timely fashion. Where deliveries may have to cover lots of ground, partner with someone that offers regional warehousing services. On-site pickup at a store is an option that has proven very successful for retailers like Sears and Nordstrom, Dias said.
Providing visibility into shipments on the move can also ease consumers' minds and reduce the load on call centers. "It can cost $4 to $5 per call for a customer service engagement," Brown explained. "If consumers can track a shipment themselves, that can help reduce that cost."
For shoppers who are simply unhappy about shipping and handling fees, Avivah Litan, senior analyst for Gartner who offered the following advice: "Remember, it's a free world. If you don't like shipping terms on a site, shop somewhere you do."
Guardian eCommerce Privacy Seal Program.
The Flourishing Fraud Economy
Online scammers who sell stolen credit card numbers, bank account data or Social Security information haven't felt much pain from the economic problems facing the rest of the world, according to new research. One factor is a steady supply of raw materials -- phishers have targeted the growing number of people looking for mortgage and credit fixes with specially crafted scams to steal their info.
One economy apparently isn't hurting these days -- the one run by identity thieves in the dark corners of the Internet. Demand and prices remain stable for stolen credit cards, Social Security numbers and other private information, according to a new study by security software maker Symantec.
Meanwhile, the supply of such data is steady too, thanks to the way the recession has inspired new scams targeting people who are worried about work and their finances, according to the Symantec report and another study from Gartner. "There's no pricing pressure at all -- it's not dropping, they're not negotiating down," said Alfred Huger, vice president of Symantec Security Response. "That tells us that there are still the same number of buyers. The underground economy has not been affected by the recession."
One reason is that the prices for some records have been falling for years and can't go much lower. Stolen credit card numbers now go for as little as 6 US cents each, if they're bought 10,000 at a time. The price can be $30 per card for smaller orders.
Access to hijacked e-mail accounts: 10 cents to $100.
Bank account credentials: $10 to $1,000.
Scammers can hire people to "cash out" compromised bank accounts for between 8 percent and 50 percent of the amount they're stealing. Hosting for scam Web sites ranges from $3 to $40 per week.
Stay in Line
Symantec says sellers appear loath to undercut each other. Many cyber gangs are believed to be affiliated with organized crime, and crooks who don't play by the rules risk being locked out of future business, or being targeted with Internet attacks or possibly even physical violence.
"It makes you wonder if there's some collusion among the sellers," Huger said. "And it's a very heavily self-policing industry. I think people there would take a very dim view of significant undercutting of prices that would affect the whole industry."
Security experts not involved in Symantec's study say prices for booty like stolen credit card numbers might not be falling anymore because they have hit a bottom. The usefulness of stolen credit card numbers is waning because of anti-fraud measures -- crooks now need additional details, like PIN numbers or the security codes on the back of the cards, to sell as a package deal.
"The value of just the front side of your credit card has gone to almost zero -- the bad guys need to get more and more data," said Peter Tippett, vice president of research and intelligence for Verizon More about Verizon Communications' business security solutions division. That division investigates many large data breaches.
Gone Phishing
The pipeline for stolen data is being replenished by phony "phishing" e-mails that are becoming more common as the economy worsens. Three-quarters of the phishing e-mails Symantec examined were banking-related, for things like low-interest loans and mortgage refinancing. When people pay for those services, their money vanishes.
Symantec found a startling 66 percent increase in the number of phishing Web sites from the previous year.
Symantec studied data from more than 200 million personal computers running its antivirus software, 200 million e-mail accounts that do nothing but collect spam, and information from large corporations that use Symantec's products.
Gartner's study reinforced the finding that phishing scams are proliferating. It estimates that more than 5 million U.S. consumers lost money to phishing attacks from September 2007 to September 2008 -- a 40 percent increase over the estimated number of victims a year earlier.
Each victim is losing less money, though. Criminals have changed their tactics and are now pursuing a higher volume of lower-value attacks to evade banks' fraud detection systems, said Avivah Litan, a Gartner vice president.
Go Guardian eCommerce
One economy apparently isn't hurting these days -- the one run by identity thieves in the dark corners of the Internet. Demand and prices remain stable for stolen credit cards, Social Security numbers and other private information, according to a new study by security software maker Symantec.
Meanwhile, the supply of such data is steady too, thanks to the way the recession has inspired new scams targeting people who are worried about work and their finances, according to the Symantec report and another study from Gartner. "There's no pricing pressure at all -- it's not dropping, they're not negotiating down," said Alfred Huger, vice president of Symantec Security Response. "That tells us that there are still the same number of buyers. The underground economy has not been affected by the recession."
One reason is that the prices for some records have been falling for years and can't go much lower. Stolen credit card numbers now go for as little as 6 US cents each, if they're bought 10,000 at a time. The price can be $30 per card for smaller orders.
Access to hijacked e-mail accounts: 10 cents to $100.
Bank account credentials: $10 to $1,000.
Scammers can hire people to "cash out" compromised bank accounts for between 8 percent and 50 percent of the amount they're stealing. Hosting for scam Web sites ranges from $3 to $40 per week.
Stay in Line
Symantec says sellers appear loath to undercut each other. Many cyber gangs are believed to be affiliated with organized crime, and crooks who don't play by the rules risk being locked out of future business, or being targeted with Internet attacks or possibly even physical violence.
"It makes you wonder if there's some collusion among the sellers," Huger said. "And it's a very heavily self-policing industry. I think people there would take a very dim view of significant undercutting of prices that would affect the whole industry."
Security experts not involved in Symantec's study say prices for booty like stolen credit card numbers might not be falling anymore because they have hit a bottom. The usefulness of stolen credit card numbers is waning because of anti-fraud measures -- crooks now need additional details, like PIN numbers or the security codes on the back of the cards, to sell as a package deal.
"The value of just the front side of your credit card has gone to almost zero -- the bad guys need to get more and more data," said Peter Tippett, vice president of research and intelligence for Verizon More about Verizon Communications' business security solutions division. That division investigates many large data breaches.
Gone Phishing
The pipeline for stolen data is being replenished by phony "phishing" e-mails that are becoming more common as the economy worsens. Three-quarters of the phishing e-mails Symantec examined were banking-related, for things like low-interest loans and mortgage refinancing. When people pay for those services, their money vanishes.
Symantec found a startling 66 percent increase in the number of phishing Web sites from the previous year.
Symantec studied data from more than 200 million personal computers running its antivirus software, 200 million e-mail accounts that do nothing but collect spam, and information from large corporations that use Symantec's products.
Gartner's study reinforced the finding that phishing scams are proliferating. It estimates that more than 5 million U.S. consumers lost money to phishing attacks from September 2007 to September 2008 -- a 40 percent increase over the estimated number of victims a year earlier.
Each victim is losing less money, though. Criminals have changed their tactics and are now pursuing a higher volume of lower-value attacks to evade banks' fraud detection systems, said Avivah Litan, a Gartner vice president.
Go Guardian eCommerce
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Bounce Rates Count
Of late there has been a lot of discussion about bounce rates and whether or not the search engines count these in their algorithms. As far back as late 2007, there were reports that webmasters were seeing a difference in their rankings for major keywords within a few weeks of drastically changing their bounce rates. However, none of the tests and reports seem to be complete enough or repeatable enough to constitute proof.
As a result, there are plenty of naysayers who believe that such things as bounce rates are not now and probably won't ever be part of the search engine algorithms.
I am of the opposite view; bounce rates will certainly be part of the search engine algorithms and probably already are.
What I would like to do here is share with you some of the common naysayer objections and refute all but one of them. But first, for those who are scratching their heads about what bounce means, we are referring to people leaving a website. A bouncy website is the opposite of a sticky website, one where people stay a long time.
Objection 1: There is no definition of "bounce rate".
Response: This is the flimsiest of arguments. A bounce is when someone leaves a website, going back where they came from.
Objection 2: I don't like how Google Analytics defines a bounce.
Response: Sadly, Google doesn't ask me for advice, either. But cheer up, the bounce rate in Google Analytics might not be the same as they use in their algorithm, just as the little green bar is not necessarily the PageRank they use in their algorithm.
Objection 3: Many sites don't have Google Analytics turned on, so Google would have very incomplete data.
Response (scratching my head in confusion): What does Google Analytics have to do with anything? This is about Google (or Yahoo, or MSN, or Ask, or some other) tracking their own traffic and how their own users move about and - most importantly - how their users return to their website.
Objection 4: What is the threshold for a bounce? After 5 seconds? After 10 seconds? After 15 seconds? This is a mess! (This is often part of the how-do-we-define-a-bounce debate.)
Response: A bounce is a bounce, whether it takes a person one second or one hour to bounce back, it is a bounce. How the search engines choose to treat bounces with varying lag times is another matter. Let's be clear; they won't tell you, just as they won't tell you how many links on a page they index, how many they follow and how many they count in their ranking algorithms. Furthermore, it is a moving target. Just like every other algorithm input, bounce rates and bounce lag times will not be treated in the exact same way one day to the next.
Objection 5: What if people quickly click on an external link and leave my site? They found the site useful because they found a useful link on it, but they bounced.
Response: That is not a bounce, that's a referral. A bounce is when someone hits the back button.
Objection 6: What if the user quickly closes the window?
Response: That could be any number of things, but it is not a bounce. Who can guess how the search engines might treat that, or even if they treat it at all. However, it need not be considered a bounce unless the search engines believe it should be.
Objection 7: Doesn't a bounce mean the person has found what they want? Can't a bounce sometimes be good?
Response: Sometimes, perhaps, but rarely. After 5 seconds, a person has no time to read a page. After 30 seconds, they might have found something useful. So lag times matter. More importantly, the search engines can determine what a person does next. If a person returns to the search results and clicks on another link, that is a sign they did not find what they want. If they return to the search results and conduct a similar search, that might also be a sign they did not find what they want. If they return to the search results and conduct an unrelated search, that might be a sign that they found what they want. Search engines can weigh various bounces in light of the user's next action.
Objection 8: For some searches, people look for multiple sources, such as comparing prices, comparing products, seeking varying opinions, etc. Too many sites would be penalized if all those bounces were to be counted in the rankings.
Response: This is an example of false logic. If someone clicks on one website, then bounces, clicks on another website, then bounces, clicks on another website then bounces...all the high-ranking websites for that particular search query would be equally affected. Nobody would suffer a ranking disadvantage because rankings are relative.
Objection 9: Can't I just set up a bot to visit all my top competitors and leave their site after varying numbers of seconds to make it appear that their sites are all bouncy.
Response: Yes, you can. And you can get very creative. I have even heard of couriers in China travelling from one Internet café to another to click on a particular site as a means of increasing its rankings. I have no answer for this, other than that the search engines will have to control for this, just as they have found ways to control for automated link-building.
So have no fear. Good websites that provide what their visitors want or who help them find what they want will prosper. Sticky SEO looks at conversions and stickiness as integral elements to SEO. Cheap sites that do a lot of link-building - bouncy SEO - counting on large volumes of traffic to offset poor conversion rates, will suffer - because the search engines will stop sending them that traffic. It's just a matter of time. Or perhaps it has already started.
Guardian eCommerce Helps Expose Trustworthy Websites!
As a result, there are plenty of naysayers who believe that such things as bounce rates are not now and probably won't ever be part of the search engine algorithms.
I am of the opposite view; bounce rates will certainly be part of the search engine algorithms and probably already are.
What I would like to do here is share with you some of the common naysayer objections and refute all but one of them. But first, for those who are scratching their heads about what bounce means, we are referring to people leaving a website. A bouncy website is the opposite of a sticky website, one where people stay a long time.
Objection 1: There is no definition of "bounce rate".
Response: This is the flimsiest of arguments. A bounce is when someone leaves a website, going back where they came from.
Objection 2: I don't like how Google Analytics defines a bounce.
Response: Sadly, Google doesn't ask me for advice, either. But cheer up, the bounce rate in Google Analytics might not be the same as they use in their algorithm, just as the little green bar is not necessarily the PageRank they use in their algorithm.
Objection 3: Many sites don't have Google Analytics turned on, so Google would have very incomplete data.
Response (scratching my head in confusion): What does Google Analytics have to do with anything? This is about Google (or Yahoo, or MSN, or Ask, or some other) tracking their own traffic and how their own users move about and - most importantly - how their users return to their website.
Objection 4: What is the threshold for a bounce? After 5 seconds? After 10 seconds? After 15 seconds? This is a mess! (This is often part of the how-do-we-define-a-bounce debate.)
Response: A bounce is a bounce, whether it takes a person one second or one hour to bounce back, it is a bounce. How the search engines choose to treat bounces with varying lag times is another matter. Let's be clear; they won't tell you, just as they won't tell you how many links on a page they index, how many they follow and how many they count in their ranking algorithms. Furthermore, it is a moving target. Just like every other algorithm input, bounce rates and bounce lag times will not be treated in the exact same way one day to the next.
Objection 5: What if people quickly click on an external link and leave my site? They found the site useful because they found a useful link on it, but they bounced.
Response: That is not a bounce, that's a referral. A bounce is when someone hits the back button.
Objection 6: What if the user quickly closes the window?
Response: That could be any number of things, but it is not a bounce. Who can guess how the search engines might treat that, or even if they treat it at all. However, it need not be considered a bounce unless the search engines believe it should be.
Objection 7: Doesn't a bounce mean the person has found what they want? Can't a bounce sometimes be good?
Response: Sometimes, perhaps, but rarely. After 5 seconds, a person has no time to read a page. After 30 seconds, they might have found something useful. So lag times matter. More importantly, the search engines can determine what a person does next. If a person returns to the search results and clicks on another link, that is a sign they did not find what they want. If they return to the search results and conduct a similar search, that might also be a sign they did not find what they want. If they return to the search results and conduct an unrelated search, that might be a sign that they found what they want. Search engines can weigh various bounces in light of the user's next action.
Objection 8: For some searches, people look for multiple sources, such as comparing prices, comparing products, seeking varying opinions, etc. Too many sites would be penalized if all those bounces were to be counted in the rankings.
Response: This is an example of false logic. If someone clicks on one website, then bounces, clicks on another website, then bounces, clicks on another website then bounces...all the high-ranking websites for that particular search query would be equally affected. Nobody would suffer a ranking disadvantage because rankings are relative.
Objection 9: Can't I just set up a bot to visit all my top competitors and leave their site after varying numbers of seconds to make it appear that their sites are all bouncy.
Response: Yes, you can. And you can get very creative. I have even heard of couriers in China travelling from one Internet café to another to click on a particular site as a means of increasing its rankings. I have no answer for this, other than that the search engines will have to control for this, just as they have found ways to control for automated link-building.
So have no fear. Good websites that provide what their visitors want or who help them find what they want will prosper. Sticky SEO looks at conversions and stickiness as integral elements to SEO. Cheap sites that do a lot of link-building - bouncy SEO - counting on large volumes of traffic to offset poor conversion rates, will suffer - because the search engines will stop sending them that traffic. It's just a matter of time. Or perhaps it has already started.
Guardian eCommerce Helps Expose Trustworthy Websites!
Top Ten Search Engine Myths
We've all done it at some point in our professional lives. We search a keyword that describes our business only to scratch our head as to how our competitor's website shows up on the top of the líst instead of ours. If you've gone one step further and read about Search Engine Optimization, then surely you have come across the conflicting information online.
One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe?
This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods.
So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around.
1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name: It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly improve your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.
2) Google Partnership: If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the opposite direction. There is no such thing as a "preferred" relationship with Google and in fact on Google's website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google.
3) Meta Keyword Tag: It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag was given a lot of weight in the early days of Search Engine Optimization, but people abused it and now it does very little. You may still want to include your keywords here, but know that it will not do much and in fact most search engines won't even check it.
4) Bold or Italicized Text: Adding emphasis to certain keywords like using bold or italics can make your text easier to scan for the reader if done properly, but has little to no effect on your search engine ranking.
5) Content Length: There is no search engine rule stating that your content needs to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Any recommended length is more to assist the reader in understanding what you do than to aid the search engines.
6) Duplicate Content: Posting specific content like an article or blog entry on your site and then on another site will not get you penalized. In the search results, Google will recognize that the content is the same and only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.
7) Avoid Flash: Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn't mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still very successfully incorporate Flash into your site through rotating pictures or a header on the page. Just don't have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.
8) Pay-Per-Click: Some say that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic listing while others say it will hurt. Both are false. The fact is that Google has gone to great lengths to separate the two departments of organic and paid listings to a point where the two departments don't communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.
9) Update the Site Frequently: Updating your site often is a good idea if you have something new to say. Just don't change around a few words to accommodate the search engines as that won't help your listing at all. Regularly adding legitimate content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help though.
10) Doorway Pages: Many companies will sell this idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page sites loaded with keywords that link to you from various domains. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. If you properly optimize your site and focus on the correct way to get listed, you will improve your ranking much quicker than these doorway pages ever could.
Of course there are many other myths out there confusing the general public about what works and what doesn't work. Some of them are spread by people who don't really know the truth and others are spread by SEO companies in an attempt to make search engine optimization confusing... mission accomplished!
Regardless of where the myths come from, if you or the SEO Company you hire use common sense and do things the right way, you will have no trouble finding the proverbial Bat Cave and when you get there please tell them that I want my utility belt back!
Go Guardian eCommerce Today!
One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe?
This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods.
So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around.
1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name: It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly improve your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.
2) Google Partnership: If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the opposite direction. There is no such thing as a "preferred" relationship with Google and in fact on Google's website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google.
3) Meta Keyword Tag: It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag was given a lot of weight in the early days of Search Engine Optimization, but people abused it and now it does very little. You may still want to include your keywords here, but know that it will not do much and in fact most search engines won't even check it.
4) Bold or Italicized Text: Adding emphasis to certain keywords like using bold or italics can make your text easier to scan for the reader if done properly, but has little to no effect on your search engine ranking.
5) Content Length: There is no search engine rule stating that your content needs to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Any recommended length is more to assist the reader in understanding what you do than to aid the search engines.
6) Duplicate Content: Posting specific content like an article or blog entry on your site and then on another site will not get you penalized. In the search results, Google will recognize that the content is the same and only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.
7) Avoid Flash: Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn't mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still very successfully incorporate Flash into your site through rotating pictures or a header on the page. Just don't have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.
8) Pay-Per-Click: Some say that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic listing while others say it will hurt. Both are false. The fact is that Google has gone to great lengths to separate the two departments of organic and paid listings to a point where the two departments don't communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.
9) Update the Site Frequently: Updating your site often is a good idea if you have something new to say. Just don't change around a few words to accommodate the search engines as that won't help your listing at all. Regularly adding legitimate content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help though.
10) Doorway Pages: Many companies will sell this idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page sites loaded with keywords that link to you from various domains. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. If you properly optimize your site and focus on the correct way to get listed, you will improve your ranking much quicker than these doorway pages ever could.
Of course there are many other myths out there confusing the general public about what works and what doesn't work. Some of them are spread by people who don't really know the truth and others are spread by SEO companies in an attempt to make search engine optimization confusing... mission accomplished!
Regardless of where the myths come from, if you or the SEO Company you hire use common sense and do things the right way, you will have no trouble finding the proverbial Bat Cave and when you get there please tell them that I want my utility belt back!
Go Guardian eCommerce Today!
Internet Marketing Strategy For Tough Times
As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get - regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you!
Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession?
But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many.
As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives "6 Top Tactics For Tough Times." It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google's advice can be applied to your general online marketíng.
These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out)
1. Focus your ads on low prices and savíngs.
2. Use Value-related keywords.
3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.
4. Don't waste money on irrelevant clicks.
5. Make it easy for customers to buy.
6. Focus your money on your high-performers. (End Quote)
Sound advice and I especially like the idea of focusing your marketing on low prices and savíngs mainly because people want bargains in tight economic times. I also like the fact that you must make it easy for your customers to buy... something as simple as putting your "order/buy link" above the fold can improve your conversions.
Also, targeting value-related keywords, is a very effective marketing tactic. Relating your keywords to "discounts, bargains, cheap, inexpensive, lowest prices..." will help improve your sales. So too, is catering to phrases that suggest the searcher is in a buying mind-set: gifts, presents, gift ideas, wedding gifts... shoppers searching those words are ready to buy.
Plus, focusing your time and money on your high-performers is solid advice. Sometimes succeeding online is simply finding a market niche that works/performs - then running with it. Once you have found the keywords and products that perform well with your site or sites - focus the majority of your time and energy developing those niche markets.
Now here are some of my most effective marketing tactics that have worked for me and tactics I will be relying on in the coming years - even in these hard times.
Make Keywords Your #1 Goal: This is the single most important factor for my own online success. You have to make keywords and ranking high for them in all the search engines your main objective if you're marketing online. Might sound obvious, but many beginning marketers don't truly understand how important getting top rankings for your chosen keywords will be in your online success.
Target less competitive long tail (multi-worded) keywords to get started and slowly work your way up to more popular keywords. Center your marketing around getting those first page listings (Top Five) for your keywords. Achieve this goal, (especially in Google) and it will be almost impossible for you not to succeed and make a profit with your online marketing even in bad times.
Autoresponders, Líst Building & Online Relationships: Keeping in contact with potential buyers is mission critical. You must use autoresponders to send follow-up messages to build trustful relationships with your potential customers.
So building a large contact líst is essential. That's why the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace can be very effective marketing tools for building this online contact and trust. Truth be told, all these social networks are, more or less, just glorified autoresponders and líst builders!
Your Unique Selling Position: You must give potential customers some very good reasons for them to buy from you or your links. Offering special bonuses and discounts works wonders for your sales. Some of my most successful pages simply consist of coupons and discounts offered by different companies. If buyers can save $100's OFF by buying thru your links, they will.
Always remember, besides looking for the best deal or bargain, consumers are also looking for a quality product. If you're into affiliate marketing, only pick top quality products to promote. Picking top brand names also makes it easier to make sales. So too is only promoting popular online merchants like Amazon which can be an effective marketing strategy. Most importantly, always remember consumers are also looking for INFORMATION on the products they are considering buying, give them helpful information and you will succeed.
Go With The Flow: If you're marketing online, you have to follow what's working for you. Most times you will try countless ideas or tactics - once you have found a process or system that works, really work it or scale it up. Making your first dollar is the hardest, but once you do something that earns you that dollar, just repeat that "something" a thousand times.
Tracking what works is very important so keep a close eye on your site's traffic logs to find where your customers are coming from. Something like Google Analytics is simply priceless for "fine-tuning" your site and your internet marketing. It will tell you what's working and what's not.
Target Recurring or Residual Income: One of my most effective marketing strategies is to promote and sell products and services that give you a recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paíd for years or for the life of that referred client. Concentrate on services like web-hosting, telephone, marketing programs... once customers sign up to these services, they will likely keep them for years. I am still earning income from sales I made five years ago.
Building a large residual income could be the key to surviving in tough economic times. This will be income which will carry you or your business over the rough patches since it is based upon past performance and not on your current selling situation.
Automate Everything: The real beauty of marketing online and using computers... you can automate just about every process in your marketing system. Make it a point of automating everything you do... use autoresponders to follow-up with potential buyers, use automatic check-outs, automatic reporting... just set-up your whole internet marketing system that runs itself with little or no supervision from you. This will free up your time to concentrate all your efforts on marketing/promoting your site or product. Besides, nothing beats coming back from a vacatíon and finding out you have earned the cost of your vacatíon and then some - all the while you were lying in the sun and miles away from any computer.
Find The Top Online Marketers: If you're just starting with internet marketing, you need to find the top successful marketers and "model" what they're doing. This is relatively a new industry and you have to seek out the experts and pioneers who have set the groundwork. When I first started marketing online, I was quite fortunate to come into contact with some web marketing heavy-weights such as Marlon Sanders, Ken Evoy, Neil Shearing... and SEO experts like Brad Callen and Aaron Wall.
Make Google Your Friend: Whether you love or hate Google doesn't matter, you just have to make it your number one ally in your online marketíng. Google has just about conquered the world-wide search market, Yahoo and MSN are still important, but Google is the deal-breaker when you're selling stuff online. Consumers have enormous respect for Google, a number one listing for a lucrative keyword simply means money in the bank.
I have found using Google Search, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense have played a more than significant role in the success of my own online sites and marketing. Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Webmaster Tools... all have been invaluable and an enormous help in achieving my "web-based" lifestyle and livelihood. Of course, Google has also driven me around the bend more times than I can count, but no one is perfect. Besides, when it's all said and done, anyone marketing on the web must truly embrace Google if they want to reach their highest level possible.
Titus Hoskins (c) 2009
Go Guardian eCommerce!
Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession?
But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many.
As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives "6 Top Tactics For Tough Times." It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google's advice can be applied to your general online marketíng.
These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out)
1. Focus your ads on low prices and savíngs.
2. Use Value-related keywords.
3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.
4. Don't waste money on irrelevant clicks.
5. Make it easy for customers to buy.
6. Focus your money on your high-performers. (End Quote)
Sound advice and I especially like the idea of focusing your marketing on low prices and savíngs mainly because people want bargains in tight economic times. I also like the fact that you must make it easy for your customers to buy... something as simple as putting your "order/buy link" above the fold can improve your conversions.
Also, targeting value-related keywords, is a very effective marketing tactic. Relating your keywords to "discounts, bargains, cheap, inexpensive, lowest prices..." will help improve your sales. So too, is catering to phrases that suggest the searcher is in a buying mind-set: gifts, presents, gift ideas, wedding gifts... shoppers searching those words are ready to buy.
Plus, focusing your time and money on your high-performers is solid advice. Sometimes succeeding online is simply finding a market niche that works/performs - then running with it. Once you have found the keywords and products that perform well with your site or sites - focus the majority of your time and energy developing those niche markets.
Now here are some of my most effective marketing tactics that have worked for me and tactics I will be relying on in the coming years - even in these hard times.
Make Keywords Your #1 Goal: This is the single most important factor for my own online success. You have to make keywords and ranking high for them in all the search engines your main objective if you're marketing online. Might sound obvious, but many beginning marketers don't truly understand how important getting top rankings for your chosen keywords will be in your online success.
Target less competitive long tail (multi-worded) keywords to get started and slowly work your way up to more popular keywords. Center your marketing around getting those first page listings (Top Five) for your keywords. Achieve this goal, (especially in Google) and it will be almost impossible for you not to succeed and make a profit with your online marketing even in bad times.
Autoresponders, Líst Building & Online Relationships: Keeping in contact with potential buyers is mission critical. You must use autoresponders to send follow-up messages to build trustful relationships with your potential customers.
So building a large contact líst is essential. That's why the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace can be very effective marketing tools for building this online contact and trust. Truth be told, all these social networks are, more or less, just glorified autoresponders and líst builders!
Your Unique Selling Position: You must give potential customers some very good reasons for them to buy from you or your links. Offering special bonuses and discounts works wonders for your sales. Some of my most successful pages simply consist of coupons and discounts offered by different companies. If buyers can save $100's OFF by buying thru your links, they will.
Always remember, besides looking for the best deal or bargain, consumers are also looking for a quality product. If you're into affiliate marketing, only pick top quality products to promote. Picking top brand names also makes it easier to make sales. So too is only promoting popular online merchants like Amazon which can be an effective marketing strategy. Most importantly, always remember consumers are also looking for INFORMATION on the products they are considering buying, give them helpful information and you will succeed.
Go With The Flow: If you're marketing online, you have to follow what's working for you. Most times you will try countless ideas or tactics - once you have found a process or system that works, really work it or scale it up. Making your first dollar is the hardest, but once you do something that earns you that dollar, just repeat that "something" a thousand times.
Tracking what works is very important so keep a close eye on your site's traffic logs to find where your customers are coming from. Something like Google Analytics is simply priceless for "fine-tuning" your site and your internet marketing. It will tell you what's working and what's not.
Target Recurring or Residual Income: One of my most effective marketing strategies is to promote and sell products and services that give you a recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paíd for years or for the life of that referred client. Concentrate on services like web-hosting, telephone, marketing programs... once customers sign up to these services, they will likely keep them for years. I am still earning income from sales I made five years ago.
Building a large residual income could be the key to surviving in tough economic times. This will be income which will carry you or your business over the rough patches since it is based upon past performance and not on your current selling situation.
Automate Everything: The real beauty of marketing online and using computers... you can automate just about every process in your marketing system. Make it a point of automating everything you do... use autoresponders to follow-up with potential buyers, use automatic check-outs, automatic reporting... just set-up your whole internet marketing system that runs itself with little or no supervision from you. This will free up your time to concentrate all your efforts on marketing/promoting your site or product. Besides, nothing beats coming back from a vacatíon and finding out you have earned the cost of your vacatíon and then some - all the while you were lying in the sun and miles away from any computer.
Find The Top Online Marketers: If you're just starting with internet marketing, you need to find the top successful marketers and "model" what they're doing. This is relatively a new industry and you have to seek out the experts and pioneers who have set the groundwork. When I first started marketing online, I was quite fortunate to come into contact with some web marketing heavy-weights such as Marlon Sanders, Ken Evoy, Neil Shearing... and SEO experts like Brad Callen and Aaron Wall.
Make Google Your Friend: Whether you love or hate Google doesn't matter, you just have to make it your number one ally in your online marketíng. Google has just about conquered the world-wide search market, Yahoo and MSN are still important, but Google is the deal-breaker when you're selling stuff online. Consumers have enormous respect for Google, a number one listing for a lucrative keyword simply means money in the bank.
I have found using Google Search, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense have played a more than significant role in the success of my own online sites and marketing. Google tools such as Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Webmaster Tools... all have been invaluable and an enormous help in achieving my "web-based" lifestyle and livelihood. Of course, Google has also driven me around the bend more times than I can count, but no one is perfect. Besides, when it's all said and done, anyone marketing on the web must truly embrace Google if they want to reach their highest level possible.
Titus Hoskins (c) 2009
Go Guardian eCommerce!
Four Steps To A Web Site Brand
Do you have a plan? Most companies spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and money planning what to do and how to do it.
Let's say you need a website, so you develop a plan, present it to a bunch of website designers, and get quotes or proposals. You're not going to get caught with your pants down like the last time by some nerdy geek, you know the skinny kid with the scraggly beard, whose techno-babble gave you a headache, or the bizarre young lady dressed in gothic chic with the black lipstick and tattoo to match - yikes, no thanks, not this time, this time you got a plan.
You read all the blogs on website design, you know all the ins-and-outs of search engine optimization, and Google Adwords. No one is going to pull a fast one on you. You know your business, your market, and your needs. Or do you?
How much do you really know about how real people interact with your website? How much do you really know about what we call Human Motivational Optimization? All the stats, logs, and number crunching analysis that forms the basis of many website development plans does not truly give you the visceral understanding of how to connect to an audience, and isn't that what you want your website to do?
So maybe your plan is the wrong plan; it's like planning a trip to Home Depot to buy a cabbage; it just doesn't make sense. So how about a plan that does make sense, something simple, understandable, easy to implement, that is if you hire the right people to do it. But before we tell you the four steps to creating your very own Website Branding Plan, let's talk about Don LaFontaine.
Chances are you don't know who the late Don LaFontaine was, but you've heard his voice many, many times. Don was the most famous and influential voice behind thousands of movie and television trailers. He had a distinctive deep, gravely voice, and a writing style that reinvented the entire movie trailer format. But why should you care? Simple. Movie trailers are the ultimate elevator pitch, a short memorable performance that compels you to action, kind of like what a mission statement is suppose to do, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning, or rather, the end.
Branding Starts With Thinking Backwards: Most people like to start a project at the beginning and work their way through until they reach the end. Makes sense, or does it? If you don't start with where you want to end-up, it's unlikely you'll ever get where you want to go. Remember our cabbage? Planning a shopping to trip to Home Depot because they got cool stuff, doesn't help if what you want is a cabbage.
Branding is no different. If you don't start with how you want your audience to think about you, they will probably never think about you at all. So now that we got that straight let's start our plan where it makes sense, the end.
The 4 Step Web-Branding Plan...
1 - The Slogan:
Your slogan, you know the thing that sits underneath your logo, that simple little phrase somebody in your office came up with that makes you sound important, stuff like "the cool air conditioning company." Most small and medium size companies don't think too hard about this little marketing gem, and as a result they either have something really cheesy, or some meaningless platitude that has no memorable meaning at all, like "the best people for the best job."
Just because you're small and don't have millions of dollars to spend on television ads promoting your pithy little motto, doesn't mean you shouldn't have one. That catchphrase is who you are, and how you want people to remember you, short, memorable, and to the point. I remember my sons arguing over some complicated bit of business when one of them in frustration finally said, "Enough already. Give it to me in one word or less!" a demand to articulate what was important without all the peripheral issues; a lesson all businesses should pay attention to.
2 - The Story Line (Logline):
To my mind, mission statements are a totally dysfunctional marketing element, misused and abused by a bean-counter attitude, born out of trying to squeeze every last drop of information into a statement that won't offend anybody. A wise man once said, "If what you're saying doesn't offend somebody, maybe you're not saying anything" and most mission statements that are full of meaningless platitudes and toned-down amendments, fall into the category of not saying anything, at least, anything worth hearing.
Okay so let's forget about mission statements, after all this isn't the military, and we're not planning the next Desert Storm. Instead let's think loglines, or what you can think of as your brand story line.
You know those short statements you find in TV Guide, or your weekend television insert, prompting you to watch the next episode of 'House,' or 'Desperate Bimbos.' They are a short form text version of a trailer, intended to get you to watch the movie or television show. For our purposes, we want people to go to our website, and stay-tuned long enough to get our core marketing message, and not walk out half way through the presentation. So, how do we do that?
The Six Elements of Effective Web Trailers: In order for us to come up with a compelling statement that prompts people to view our website presentation, we need to refer back to our old pal Don LaFontaine. What if Don LaFontaine wrote our website trailer. How would he do it?
Don had a very distinctive style that you've heard a thousand times for a thousand different movies, but they all followed a similar format. Each trailer needs to cover six distinct elements, who, what, where, how, why, and when. All the things businesses should be presenting in their elevator pitch, but with one extra ingredient, personality.
Here's the format used in many movie trailers: "In a place (where), one man (who) brings stability to chaos (what), in an epic tale that will both amaze and inspire (why)! Coming soon (when) to a theatre near you." Sound familiar?
Let's take our air conditioning example, you remember, "the cool air conditioning company." Let's say our fictitious company is called Kool Air Conditioning, their website trailer might sound something like this:
"In a town where summer heat melts the cool of the coolest homeowners, one air conditioning company comes to the rescue. When the mercury rises to eye-popping, mind numbing numbers, the men from Kool spring into action, bringing relief to the sweltering masses. The Kool Guys will amaze you with their prompt service and installation know-how. The heat is on. It's coming sooner than you think; it's coming this summer to your town, your neighborhood; your house. Kool, the cool air conditioning company."
Over-the-top? Maybe, but we've covered all the bases, we know who (Kool), what (air conditioning), when (this summer), where (your house), why (the heat) and how (prompt service and installation know-how). Now that's a mission statement; one with a little style, panache, and personality; one that will get you remembered and prompt your audience to action.
3 - The Personality:
Movies like businesses all fall into certain genres or categories. There's the action movie format that's suitable for sports related businesses, the chick flick style that's ideal for cosmetic or fashion industry businesses, and the family comedy format suitable for entertainment and recreation based companies, and of course the kids movie version perfect for any business selling things for children. The point is that every company and website has to have a personality.
Many hardnosed business executives scoff at the idea of spending money on such seemingly trivial marketing concepts as company personality, but ignoring your website persona, is a big mistake. You can either invest a little in developing, creating, managing, and promoting this personality or you can let the marketplace decide for itself, or worse, find you completely redundant and irrelevant.
4 - The Delivery:
You may be asking yourself, this sounds good on paper, but can it really be done, and can it be done for my business, on my website? The answer is damn straight it can. Like most things in life, and in business, it's not grasping the concept tha's so hard, it's implementing it.
With a little investment and a willingness to take some chances, you can be the market leader. But if you thought you could simply take your newly created movie trailer style website elevator pitch and slap it onto your website in text form, you would be mistaken. How you deliver the message is as important, and in many cases more important, than what you say.
Whether you sell lipstick, licorice, or lingerie, you probably have lots of competition, so how you deliver your message is what's going to make the difference.
You want your website presentation to motivate people to email or phone. You want to deliver a compelling performance that is more than a sales pitch, a presentation that uses voice, visuals, words, and music to create a website personality, a lasting impression; one that is going to allow you to stand out from the crowd and give you a competitive advantage.
Nothing will convince better than seeing an actual example, and guess what, we just happen to be able to provide you with one: check out SonicPersonality.com and see what an effective website presentation sounds like. If nothing else, you may get a chuckle or two.
By Jerry Bader (c) 2009
Visit Guardian eCommerce, Get The Credibility You Deserve!
Let's say you need a website, so you develop a plan, present it to a bunch of website designers, and get quotes or proposals. You're not going to get caught with your pants down like the last time by some nerdy geek, you know the skinny kid with the scraggly beard, whose techno-babble gave you a headache, or the bizarre young lady dressed in gothic chic with the black lipstick and tattoo to match - yikes, no thanks, not this time, this time you got a plan.
You read all the blogs on website design, you know all the ins-and-outs of search engine optimization, and Google Adwords. No one is going to pull a fast one on you. You know your business, your market, and your needs. Or do you?
How much do you really know about how real people interact with your website? How much do you really know about what we call Human Motivational Optimization? All the stats, logs, and number crunching analysis that forms the basis of many website development plans does not truly give you the visceral understanding of how to connect to an audience, and isn't that what you want your website to do?
So maybe your plan is the wrong plan; it's like planning a trip to Home Depot to buy a cabbage; it just doesn't make sense. So how about a plan that does make sense, something simple, understandable, easy to implement, that is if you hire the right people to do it. But before we tell you the four steps to creating your very own Website Branding Plan, let's talk about Don LaFontaine.
Chances are you don't know who the late Don LaFontaine was, but you've heard his voice many, many times. Don was the most famous and influential voice behind thousands of movie and television trailers. He had a distinctive deep, gravely voice, and a writing style that reinvented the entire movie trailer format. But why should you care? Simple. Movie trailers are the ultimate elevator pitch, a short memorable performance that compels you to action, kind of like what a mission statement is suppose to do, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning, or rather, the end.
Branding Starts With Thinking Backwards: Most people like to start a project at the beginning and work their way through until they reach the end. Makes sense, or does it? If you don't start with where you want to end-up, it's unlikely you'll ever get where you want to go. Remember our cabbage? Planning a shopping to trip to Home Depot because they got cool stuff, doesn't help if what you want is a cabbage.
Branding is no different. If you don't start with how you want your audience to think about you, they will probably never think about you at all. So now that we got that straight let's start our plan where it makes sense, the end.
The 4 Step Web-Branding Plan...
1 - The Slogan:
Your slogan, you know the thing that sits underneath your logo, that simple little phrase somebody in your office came up with that makes you sound important, stuff like "the cool air conditioning company." Most small and medium size companies don't think too hard about this little marketing gem, and as a result they either have something really cheesy, or some meaningless platitude that has no memorable meaning at all, like "the best people for the best job."
Just because you're small and don't have millions of dollars to spend on television ads promoting your pithy little motto, doesn't mean you shouldn't have one. That catchphrase is who you are, and how you want people to remember you, short, memorable, and to the point. I remember my sons arguing over some complicated bit of business when one of them in frustration finally said, "Enough already. Give it to me in one word or less!" a demand to articulate what was important without all the peripheral issues; a lesson all businesses should pay attention to.
2 - The Story Line (Logline):
To my mind, mission statements are a totally dysfunctional marketing element, misused and abused by a bean-counter attitude, born out of trying to squeeze every last drop of information into a statement that won't offend anybody. A wise man once said, "If what you're saying doesn't offend somebody, maybe you're not saying anything" and most mission statements that are full of meaningless platitudes and toned-down amendments, fall into the category of not saying anything, at least, anything worth hearing.
Okay so let's forget about mission statements, after all this isn't the military, and we're not planning the next Desert Storm. Instead let's think loglines, or what you can think of as your brand story line.
You know those short statements you find in TV Guide, or your weekend television insert, prompting you to watch the next episode of 'House,' or 'Desperate Bimbos.' They are a short form text version of a trailer, intended to get you to watch the movie or television show. For our purposes, we want people to go to our website, and stay-tuned long enough to get our core marketing message, and not walk out half way through the presentation. So, how do we do that?
The Six Elements of Effective Web Trailers: In order for us to come up with a compelling statement that prompts people to view our website presentation, we need to refer back to our old pal Don LaFontaine. What if Don LaFontaine wrote our website trailer. How would he do it?
Don had a very distinctive style that you've heard a thousand times for a thousand different movies, but they all followed a similar format. Each trailer needs to cover six distinct elements, who, what, where, how, why, and when. All the things businesses should be presenting in their elevator pitch, but with one extra ingredient, personality.
Here's the format used in many movie trailers: "In a place (where), one man (who) brings stability to chaos (what), in an epic tale that will both amaze and inspire (why)! Coming soon (when) to a theatre near you." Sound familiar?
Let's take our air conditioning example, you remember, "the cool air conditioning company." Let's say our fictitious company is called Kool Air Conditioning, their website trailer might sound something like this:
"In a town where summer heat melts the cool of the coolest homeowners, one air conditioning company comes to the rescue. When the mercury rises to eye-popping, mind numbing numbers, the men from Kool spring into action, bringing relief to the sweltering masses. The Kool Guys will amaze you with their prompt service and installation know-how. The heat is on. It's coming sooner than you think; it's coming this summer to your town, your neighborhood; your house. Kool, the cool air conditioning company."
Over-the-top? Maybe, but we've covered all the bases, we know who (Kool), what (air conditioning), when (this summer), where (your house), why (the heat) and how (prompt service and installation know-how). Now that's a mission statement; one with a little style, panache, and personality; one that will get you remembered and prompt your audience to action.
3 - The Personality:
Movies like businesses all fall into certain genres or categories. There's the action movie format that's suitable for sports related businesses, the chick flick style that's ideal for cosmetic or fashion industry businesses, and the family comedy format suitable for entertainment and recreation based companies, and of course the kids movie version perfect for any business selling things for children. The point is that every company and website has to have a personality.
Many hardnosed business executives scoff at the idea of spending money on such seemingly trivial marketing concepts as company personality, but ignoring your website persona, is a big mistake. You can either invest a little in developing, creating, managing, and promoting this personality or you can let the marketplace decide for itself, or worse, find you completely redundant and irrelevant.
4 - The Delivery:
You may be asking yourself, this sounds good on paper, but can it really be done, and can it be done for my business, on my website? The answer is damn straight it can. Like most things in life, and in business, it's not grasping the concept tha's so hard, it's implementing it.
With a little investment and a willingness to take some chances, you can be the market leader. But if you thought you could simply take your newly created movie trailer style website elevator pitch and slap it onto your website in text form, you would be mistaken. How you deliver the message is as important, and in many cases more important, than what you say.
Whether you sell lipstick, licorice, or lingerie, you probably have lots of competition, so how you deliver your message is what's going to make the difference.
You want your website presentation to motivate people to email or phone. You want to deliver a compelling performance that is more than a sales pitch, a presentation that uses voice, visuals, words, and music to create a website personality, a lasting impression; one that is going to allow you to stand out from the crowd and give you a competitive advantage.
Nothing will convince better than seeing an actual example, and guess what, we just happen to be able to provide you with one: check out SonicPersonality.com and see what an effective website presentation sounds like. If nothing else, you may get a chuckle or two.
By Jerry Bader (c) 2009
Visit Guardian eCommerce, Get The Credibility You Deserve!
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Promoting New Web Sites
A few weeks ago I wrote about building your website from the ground up. This article did not dive into great detail on any specific topics, but rather touched on the key points you will want to address. In this article I will place most of the focus on the promotíon aspect of this previous article. Image of bullhorn saying 'Promoting Your New Website'
While at times new websites can experience organic search rankings in a matter of months, for the most part, it can take well over a year before you start to see any progress, and that is if you start promoting right away!
SEO
If your new website has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a necessary first step you must take. Ensure that your new site has integrated the appropriate keywords into all the fundamental areas of the site. Without this critical step of optimizing your site, in many cases no level of promotíon will help you get those search rankings.
Note: Extreme numbers of inbound links can sometimes cause an un-optimized site to rank, but an optimized website will seriously reduce the number of links needed, and its associated cost. This varies from industry to industry, but is true as a general rule.
Ideally the optimization of your site occurred during the planning and building stages, but if it did not be sure to get this completed as soon as possible.
Press Releases
The first thing you should do when your site goes live is issue a press release. Be sure to include a link back to your website, preferably with your target phrase hyperlinked as well. Submit this press release to an aggregator such as PRWeb. This will help get the word out that your site is live, draw some attention from the public, and also get you that first valuable link to your website.
Search Engine Submission
These days search engines will find your site on their own, and submitting to them is not necessary. If you feel you must submit your site to the engines, submit it only once and shortly after the site goes live.
In order to help the search engines fully spider your new site, the best thing you can do in terms of submissions, is to create and submit an XML sitemap. Submit this sitemap to your Google Webmaster Tools account, and also be sure to include a call to it within your robots.txt file by adding the following line including a complete path to your sitemap:
Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
There are many tools out there to help you build your xml sitemap. Google has placed a líst of some of these tools on their "Third Party Programs" page.
Directory Submission
Back in August I wrote about using Directory Submission to help build links. The general gist of it is to be sure that there is a high level of relevance in the directories you submit your site to, especially if it is a paid directory. Currently DMOZ still has a high level of value as it is seen as a strong authority at Google. Make the attempt to have your site listed here in the most relevant category possible.
Link Building
There are a number of ways you can work to grow your back links. In July I wrote about 13 ways to help build links. Links are one of those strategic tools that won't ever be a bad investment. Today they play a significant role in search rankings for most industries, especially in Google. While the future will almost undoubtedly still see search value in links, even if that value declines, or disappears entirely, quality links can still help drive traffic as well, and a strong base of inbound links can deliver you customers well into the future.
Explore the different ways to build links to your site. A steady progressive rise in inbound links will help Google look positively in your direction. Do not be afraid of reciprocal links either. If you are trading with highly relevant websites to your industry, then you should have nothing to be afraid of.
Social Media
Promotíon largely consists of building links and becoming recognized by the search engines, but in order to help you build those links, getting your name and brand out there can really do wonders. By increasing awareness of your site and product, the public will often help create the buzz you need, and often, this can result in fresh links to your website.
To help get your site in the eyes of as many people as possible, take a look into Social Media and consider creating profiles on some of the popular platforms. This can include creating a YouTube account and uploading instructional, informational, or interesting product videos. You can set up a Facebook page, and work to build a community around your product. Create a profile page on Squidoo, MySpace, and Flickr, amongst many others.
These pages often act as backlinks to your site, and also help spread awareness. Be sure to keep your social endeavors updated regularly or any viewership you have will dwindle as people lose interest. If you are able to build a strong following, this can result in many individuals linking to your site and spreading the word, resulting in long term benefits for you and your site.
Your use of social media does not have to be exactly about your company. For instance, let's say you sell cars. Your use of the social platform, while it may note your business, can focus on other car info including trivia, news, photos, etc. The key is to keep it relevant, not identical - you are not looking to create a mirror of your site.
Article Writing
Write articles about the subject of your website and submit them to various services such as EzineArticles. Consider also writing for your blog to help grow your site content. By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a nice cushion of relevant incoming links. By writing articles that closely match the topic of your site, and including a link back to relevant content within your site, you can help out not only with search engine rankings, but by creating an extra traffic stream for your site.
Pay Per Click
While Pay Per Click (PPC) will not give you many long standing benefits, it can help you to start making sales immediately which in turn can give you the funds needed to promote your site via other means. If you need that immediate traffic, this is one way to get it, but at a cost, and as soon as you stop paying, your traffic stops, so it is far from a reliable long term means. In some industries however, it can pay off, so it is definitely worth considering.
Summary
In general, reference your website everywhere possible. Get links from every relevant source you can think of, issue a press release, and get your site lísted in the key directories for your industry. The more eyes you can put your URL in front of and the more relevant sites you can get to link back to yours, the sooner you will start to see progress in the search engines.
For many industries it can literally take years to get those coveted first page results - in some industries it may be near impossible, but if you want a chance, you need to start promoting that new site of yours immediately.
Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Go Guardian eCommerce!
While at times new websites can experience organic search rankings in a matter of months, for the most part, it can take well over a year before you start to see any progress, and that is if you start promoting right away!
SEO
If your new website has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a necessary first step you must take. Ensure that your new site has integrated the appropriate keywords into all the fundamental areas of the site. Without this critical step of optimizing your site, in many cases no level of promotíon will help you get those search rankings.
Note: Extreme numbers of inbound links can sometimes cause an un-optimized site to rank, but an optimized website will seriously reduce the number of links needed, and its associated cost. This varies from industry to industry, but is true as a general rule.
Ideally the optimization of your site occurred during the planning and building stages, but if it did not be sure to get this completed as soon as possible.
Press Releases
The first thing you should do when your site goes live is issue a press release. Be sure to include a link back to your website, preferably with your target phrase hyperlinked as well. Submit this press release to an aggregator such as PRWeb. This will help get the word out that your site is live, draw some attention from the public, and also get you that first valuable link to your website.
Search Engine Submission
These days search engines will find your site on their own, and submitting to them is not necessary. If you feel you must submit your site to the engines, submit it only once and shortly after the site goes live.
In order to help the search engines fully spider your new site, the best thing you can do in terms of submissions, is to create and submit an XML sitemap. Submit this sitemap to your Google Webmaster Tools account, and also be sure to include a call to it within your robots.txt file by adding the following line including a complete path to your sitemap:
Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
There are many tools out there to help you build your xml sitemap. Google has placed a líst of some of these tools on their "Third Party Programs" page.
Directory Submission
Back in August I wrote about using Directory Submission to help build links. The general gist of it is to be sure that there is a high level of relevance in the directories you submit your site to, especially if it is a paid directory. Currently DMOZ still has a high level of value as it is seen as a strong authority at Google. Make the attempt to have your site listed here in the most relevant category possible.
Link Building
There are a number of ways you can work to grow your back links. In July I wrote about 13 ways to help build links. Links are one of those strategic tools that won't ever be a bad investment. Today they play a significant role in search rankings for most industries, especially in Google. While the future will almost undoubtedly still see search value in links, even if that value declines, or disappears entirely, quality links can still help drive traffic as well, and a strong base of inbound links can deliver you customers well into the future.
Explore the different ways to build links to your site. A steady progressive rise in inbound links will help Google look positively in your direction. Do not be afraid of reciprocal links either. If you are trading with highly relevant websites to your industry, then you should have nothing to be afraid of.
Social Media
Promotíon largely consists of building links and becoming recognized by the search engines, but in order to help you build those links, getting your name and brand out there can really do wonders. By increasing awareness of your site and product, the public will often help create the buzz you need, and often, this can result in fresh links to your website.
To help get your site in the eyes of as many people as possible, take a look into Social Media and consider creating profiles on some of the popular platforms. This can include creating a YouTube account and uploading instructional, informational, or interesting product videos. You can set up a Facebook page, and work to build a community around your product. Create a profile page on Squidoo, MySpace, and Flickr, amongst many others.
These pages often act as backlinks to your site, and also help spread awareness. Be sure to keep your social endeavors updated regularly or any viewership you have will dwindle as people lose interest. If you are able to build a strong following, this can result in many individuals linking to your site and spreading the word, resulting in long term benefits for you and your site.
Your use of social media does not have to be exactly about your company. For instance, let's say you sell cars. Your use of the social platform, while it may note your business, can focus on other car info including trivia, news, photos, etc. The key is to keep it relevant, not identical - you are not looking to create a mirror of your site.
Article Writing
Write articles about the subject of your website and submit them to various services such as EzineArticles. Consider also writing for your blog to help grow your site content. By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a nice cushion of relevant incoming links. By writing articles that closely match the topic of your site, and including a link back to relevant content within your site, you can help out not only with search engine rankings, but by creating an extra traffic stream for your site.
Pay Per Click
While Pay Per Click (PPC) will not give you many long standing benefits, it can help you to start making sales immediately which in turn can give you the funds needed to promote your site via other means. If you need that immediate traffic, this is one way to get it, but at a cost, and as soon as you stop paying, your traffic stops, so it is far from a reliable long term means. In some industries however, it can pay off, so it is definitely worth considering.
Summary
In general, reference your website everywhere possible. Get links from every relevant source you can think of, issue a press release, and get your site lísted in the key directories for your industry. The more eyes you can put your URL in front of and the more relevant sites you can get to link back to yours, the sooner you will start to see progress in the search engines.
For many industries it can literally take years to get those coveted first page results - in some industries it may be near impossible, but if you want a chance, you need to start promoting that new site of yours immediately.
Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Go Guardian eCommerce!
Three Hot Trends to Watch Out For
Since the new year is right around the corner, bloggers and marketers alike are posting their predictions as if a psychics convention has come to town. So in keeping with that tradition, I'd like to post a few of my own. But unlike those who post their predictions in point form, I won't make a specific líst but rather share with you some of my thoughts.
(Near the end, however, this post will culminate in what I believe will be three major trends to watch out for and dive into, if you want to make some serious money in 2008 and beyond.)
First off, let me state that you may or may not agree with me on these. But something is definitely going on right now that points to these three trends. All the clues are pretty evident, and you've probably seen some of these yourself.
What I'm talking about is...
... Internet marketing is correcting itself.
When the stock market tumbles, short of a full-on crash, they call it a "correction." Sometimes it happens precipitously. Other times, it takes place over a period of time.
Likewise, I believe that Internet marketing, right now, is going through a similar correction. It may not be as precipitous as the stock market, but it's indeed quite significant.
To explain what I mean, let me back up a bit.
If you've read Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing The Chasm", then you understand the product adoption curve. (In marketing and academic circles, they call it the "Diffusion Process.")
In plain English, it means that new markets go through a certain adoption process that looks very much like a bell curve.
At first, new products are consumed by the innovators and early adopters (i.e., niche and early markets). They're the type of people who buy new things the moment they come out.
Then, they are consumed by the majority (i.e., mainstream markets, at the top of the bell curve, where products get widely adopted by the majority of people).
Finally, the laggards make up the late markets. They usually wait until everyone else has tried the products, which are no longer new.
According to Moore, between the niches and the mainstream, there's a gap. A chasm, as he calls it, especially with technology. It's where things seem to slow down once a product has saturated the early markets.
But then, after a while, something happens.
The product, if and when it crosses the chasm, enters the mainstream (often called the "middle" or just the "majority"), and becomes widespread.
This is where the bulk of the market lies (about 68% of the market pie, according to studies). And often, it happens fast. Very fast. (For example, Moore's follow-up book, "Inside the Tornado," explains this in detail.)
What does this mean in terms of Internet marketing?
It means that the geeks (e.g., the risk-takers, innovators, Internet enthusiasts, and the like) are the first ones to penetrate the Internet market. They set many precedents that shape the way we do business, whether it's through a new method, software, business model, or teaching.
(That's why we often call them "gurus.")
We've seen this happen. Top marketers have entered the market, sold many a product, and made massive amounts of money. But now, things are starting to change. We're hitting - if not crossing - the chasm.
One obvious piece of evidence is the recent flurry of "death of" reports. Whether they're meant to promote something or not is a moot point.
Clayton Makepeace listed his own predictions recently , and I not only agree with them wholeheartedly but also view them as part of this crossing of the chasm. To me, the most salient point is that only 18% of the world's population is online - but it's growing at a rapid rate, particularly in Asia.
If you don't believe me (or even Clayton), watch this video:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
It's a presentation by a statistical researcher about income distribution around the globe, and how quickly some countries are growing in terms of wealth and gross national product, once the Internet enters them.
In short, the video shows that the Internet, while still in its infancy, is growing at a rapid rate, and that there is hyper-growth occurring right now in Asian and middle-Pacific countries, such as Singapore, India, and of course, China.
Let me put that aside for just a moment, and share with you a few observations. (I will tie all of this together very shortly, I promise.)
Here's a question:
Haven't you noticed lately how Internet marketing seminars are changing?
I mean, for many years seminars were not only filled to the rim but also filled with the usual suspects who seem to congregate there all the time.
I remember going to seminar after seminar, and seeing the same faces over and over again. The same million-dollar marketers. The same "big names." The same expert speakers. And very few newbies or unknowns.
But in 2007, a shift started to happen. Some of those faces are not showing up at seminars anymore. The number of old-timers seems to be shrinking, while new faces are making their appearances for the first time.
With each passing seminar, it seems, the audience is slowly being replaced with new marketers and total newbies - people who are completely new to Internet marketing and even to the Internet in general.
More and more veteran marketers are retiring. Some are leaving the Internet marketing field altogether. Many are no longer attending seminars, speaking at them, or teaching Internet marketing at all.
Is it because the Internet marketing industry is dying or jumping the shark?
Not at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. While some Internet marketers have moved on, many of them have simply refocused their businesses on those three major markets I was referring to earlier.
To give you a hint, let me tell you a true story...
At the last seminar my wife and I attended, I was surprised to see that the vast majority of attendees was completely new. The event was still packed to the rim (and even bigger than before). But many of them admitted to us that this was the first seminar they've ever attended.
In fact, they were so new that, at a previous seminar where my wife and I spoke, we were both surprised by the kinds of questions they asked us.
After speaking on stage and walking towards the back of the room, Sylvie and I were asked questions like, "What is an autoresponder?" Or, "How do you create a text file?" (No joke!)
And it didn't just happen once or twice. It happened many, many times. And it happened at almost every single seminar we've attended or spoke at in 2007.
Now, what does all this mean?
It means several things: Internet marketing is shifting. We are seeing more and more people entering it for the first time. We are seeing less of the successful, seasoned marketers who have made their wealth and moved on.
In other words, what we're seeing is a shift to people who are completely green, entering the world of Internet marketing, and launching a business online for the very first time - with very limited knowledge about it to boot.
And many of the existing, top marketers we have learned from in the last few years have either retired or decided to go after... well... the "majority!" That is, they are going offline.
Yes, offline.
And that, my friends, is the golden key.
More importantly, we're seeing - and we'll see more of - the Asian market, too, entering the Internet marketing sphere.
The more Asian citizens gain access to the web, the more Internet marketing will change, too, to reflect this shift. China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and others are definitely going to be forces to be reckoned with.
We're seeing this already.
(Sylvie and I are speaking in Singapore next spring, by the way. Some of these events pack as many as 3,000 people.)
Bottom line, these shifts represent not only a major correction affecting the world of Internet marketing, but also show the three major markets to watch out for in the coming year:
The newbie market; The offline market; The Asian market. And that's my prediction for the new year and beyond. Watch out for these markets. Enter them. Serve them. Or get out of the way.
That said, I do have a few technology-related predictions. (A blog post on new year's predictions wouldn't be complete without them, eh?)
Some of the ones I made last year did come true - and we'll see more and more of them in 2008 as well.
For example, online video will become ubiquitous. The web will become increasingly "widgetized." People will demand for more simplification. And interactivity will become vastly more popular and sophisticated.
But what about some of the major technology companies?
Well, I hate to make those kinds of predictions because Internet marketing is as volatile as the stock market. But I agree that some major acquisitions are in store for the coming year. My guess? Any one of the following...
AOL by Yahoo!;
Yahoo! by Microsoft; Technorati or SixApart (makers of MovableType and TypePad) by Microsoft or Yahoo! (likely to compete in the blogging space against none other than giants WordPress and Google's Blogger); Or Facebook - maybe by Microsoft, Yahoo!, or someone else. Speaking of Facebook, whether or not it does get acquired, it's going to see the same kind of decline in popularity in 2008 that MySpace saw in 2007.
In fact, when my kids got me onto Facebook earlier this year, and I refused at first because I told them I already had a MySpace account, in a pretentious tone they replied, "But Dad, MySpace is soooo last year!"
I think Facebook will face the same fate, I fear. Anyway, there you have it.
Until next time, thank you for your support this year. I appreciate you and wish you a peaceful, healthy, profitable, happy, and prosperous new year!
By Michel Fortin (c) 2008... Go Guardian eCommerce.
(Near the end, however, this post will culminate in what I believe will be three major trends to watch out for and dive into, if you want to make some serious money in 2008 and beyond.)
First off, let me state that you may or may not agree with me on these. But something is definitely going on right now that points to these three trends. All the clues are pretty evident, and you've probably seen some of these yourself.
What I'm talking about is...
... Internet marketing is correcting itself.
When the stock market tumbles, short of a full-on crash, they call it a "correction." Sometimes it happens precipitously. Other times, it takes place over a period of time.
Likewise, I believe that Internet marketing, right now, is going through a similar correction. It may not be as precipitous as the stock market, but it's indeed quite significant.
To explain what I mean, let me back up a bit.
If you've read Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing The Chasm", then you understand the product adoption curve. (In marketing and academic circles, they call it the "Diffusion Process.")
In plain English, it means that new markets go through a certain adoption process that looks very much like a bell curve.
At first, new products are consumed by the innovators and early adopters (i.e., niche and early markets). They're the type of people who buy new things the moment they come out.
Then, they are consumed by the majority (i.e., mainstream markets, at the top of the bell curve, where products get widely adopted by the majority of people).
Finally, the laggards make up the late markets. They usually wait until everyone else has tried the products, which are no longer new.
According to Moore, between the niches and the mainstream, there's a gap. A chasm, as he calls it, especially with technology. It's where things seem to slow down once a product has saturated the early markets.
But then, after a while, something happens.
The product, if and when it crosses the chasm, enters the mainstream (often called the "middle" or just the "majority"), and becomes widespread.
This is where the bulk of the market lies (about 68% of the market pie, according to studies). And often, it happens fast. Very fast. (For example, Moore's follow-up book, "Inside the Tornado," explains this in detail.)
What does this mean in terms of Internet marketing?
It means that the geeks (e.g., the risk-takers, innovators, Internet enthusiasts, and the like) are the first ones to penetrate the Internet market. They set many precedents that shape the way we do business, whether it's through a new method, software, business model, or teaching.
(That's why we often call them "gurus.")
We've seen this happen. Top marketers have entered the market, sold many a product, and made massive amounts of money. But now, things are starting to change. We're hitting - if not crossing - the chasm.
One obvious piece of evidence is the recent flurry of "death of" reports. Whether they're meant to promote something or not is a moot point.
Clayton Makepeace listed his own predictions recently , and I not only agree with them wholeheartedly but also view them as part of this crossing of the chasm. To me, the most salient point is that only 18% of the world's population is online - but it's growing at a rapid rate, particularly in Asia.
If you don't believe me (or even Clayton), watch this video:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
It's a presentation by a statistical researcher about income distribution around the globe, and how quickly some countries are growing in terms of wealth and gross national product, once the Internet enters them.
In short, the video shows that the Internet, while still in its infancy, is growing at a rapid rate, and that there is hyper-growth occurring right now in Asian and middle-Pacific countries, such as Singapore, India, and of course, China.
Let me put that aside for just a moment, and share with you a few observations. (I will tie all of this together very shortly, I promise.)
Here's a question:
Haven't you noticed lately how Internet marketing seminars are changing?
I mean, for many years seminars were not only filled to the rim but also filled with the usual suspects who seem to congregate there all the time.
I remember going to seminar after seminar, and seeing the same faces over and over again. The same million-dollar marketers. The same "big names." The same expert speakers. And very few newbies or unknowns.
But in 2007, a shift started to happen. Some of those faces are not showing up at seminars anymore. The number of old-timers seems to be shrinking, while new faces are making their appearances for the first time.
With each passing seminar, it seems, the audience is slowly being replaced with new marketers and total newbies - people who are completely new to Internet marketing and even to the Internet in general.
More and more veteran marketers are retiring. Some are leaving the Internet marketing field altogether. Many are no longer attending seminars, speaking at them, or teaching Internet marketing at all.
Is it because the Internet marketing industry is dying or jumping the shark?
Not at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. While some Internet marketers have moved on, many of them have simply refocused their businesses on those three major markets I was referring to earlier.
To give you a hint, let me tell you a true story...
At the last seminar my wife and I attended, I was surprised to see that the vast majority of attendees was completely new. The event was still packed to the rim (and even bigger than before). But many of them admitted to us that this was the first seminar they've ever attended.
In fact, they were so new that, at a previous seminar where my wife and I spoke, we were both surprised by the kinds of questions they asked us.
After speaking on stage and walking towards the back of the room, Sylvie and I were asked questions like, "What is an autoresponder?" Or, "How do you create a text file?" (No joke!)
And it didn't just happen once or twice. It happened many, many times. And it happened at almost every single seminar we've attended or spoke at in 2007.
Now, what does all this mean?
It means several things: Internet marketing is shifting. We are seeing more and more people entering it for the first time. We are seeing less of the successful, seasoned marketers who have made their wealth and moved on.
In other words, what we're seeing is a shift to people who are completely green, entering the world of Internet marketing, and launching a business online for the very first time - with very limited knowledge about it to boot.
And many of the existing, top marketers we have learned from in the last few years have either retired or decided to go after... well... the "majority!" That is, they are going offline.
Yes, offline.
And that, my friends, is the golden key.
More importantly, we're seeing - and we'll see more of - the Asian market, too, entering the Internet marketing sphere.
The more Asian citizens gain access to the web, the more Internet marketing will change, too, to reflect this shift. China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and others are definitely going to be forces to be reckoned with.
We're seeing this already.
(Sylvie and I are speaking in Singapore next spring, by the way. Some of these events pack as many as 3,000 people.)
Bottom line, these shifts represent not only a major correction affecting the world of Internet marketing, but also show the three major markets to watch out for in the coming year:
The newbie market; The offline market; The Asian market. And that's my prediction for the new year and beyond. Watch out for these markets. Enter them. Serve them. Or get out of the way.
That said, I do have a few technology-related predictions. (A blog post on new year's predictions wouldn't be complete without them, eh?)
Some of the ones I made last year did come true - and we'll see more and more of them in 2008 as well.
For example, online video will become ubiquitous. The web will become increasingly "widgetized." People will demand for more simplification. And interactivity will become vastly more popular and sophisticated.
But what about some of the major technology companies?
Well, I hate to make those kinds of predictions because Internet marketing is as volatile as the stock market. But I agree that some major acquisitions are in store for the coming year. My guess? Any one of the following...
AOL by Yahoo!;
Yahoo! by Microsoft; Technorati or SixApart (makers of MovableType and TypePad) by Microsoft or Yahoo! (likely to compete in the blogging space against none other than giants WordPress and Google's Blogger); Or Facebook - maybe by Microsoft, Yahoo!, or someone else. Speaking of Facebook, whether or not it does get acquired, it's going to see the same kind of decline in popularity in 2008 that MySpace saw in 2007.
In fact, when my kids got me onto Facebook earlier this year, and I refused at first because I told them I already had a MySpace account, in a pretentious tone they replied, "But Dad, MySpace is soooo last year!"
I think Facebook will face the same fate, I fear. Anyway, there you have it.
Until next time, thank you for your support this year. I appreciate you and wish you a peaceful, healthy, profitable, happy, and prosperous new year!
By Michel Fortin (c) 2008... Go Guardian eCommerce.
Landing Pages: Mix 'Em Up, See What Works Best!
The job of the modern Web site is more important and more difficult than ever, especially when it comes to a multichannel sales strategy. Visitors arrive at your Web site through a variety of online channels: pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search, e-mail. Once there, they need to fulfill the objective of acting upon a promotion, or buying a specific product.
If their entry leaves them cold because they don't see anything relevant to what drove them there, they're most likely to leave, having wasted their time and your marketing dollars. Landing pages are an effective technique to help visitors cross the channel between the marketing message that brought them to the site and the site functionality for them to take action like making a purchase or submitting a lead.
A Web site landing page is simply a page that keeps the momentum going from the referring channel's message. A common attribute might be the pay-per-click search terms that brought them to the site, or a specific e-mail offer that was clicked on.
In fact, targeted landing pages with keyword search terms appear more relevant to visitors who have come via a specific search engine query. As a result, fewer "bounces" occur. A bounce is a visitor who hits the landing page, stays for a few seconds, then hits the back button to return to the search engine page -- effectively a totally wasted paid click. Customized landing pages reduce this risk.
For example, an e-mail offer for a discounted travel package would bring the visitor directly to a landing page that reassuringly describes the offer in more detail and provides links to check availability and book the trip. It sounds simple enough, but put yourself in the visitor's shoes and do a few Web searches of your own. You'll be surprised at how many merchants still aren't using landing pages.
Creating a successful landing page isn't difficult, and you can easily experiment and learn as you go. First, decide on which page you'll use as the landing page for a specific campaign. You may very well have an existing Web page that you can use (one that's more specific than your homepage), but if you don't, consider publishing a new landing page. If that's the case, keep in mind these 7 best practices:
* Write a clear, concise, and compelling headline and offer copy that speaks to your audience's problem. For example: "Bank fees got you down? Check out our no-fee guarantee!"
* Include an image along with the offer for visual appeal.
* Reduce or eliminate navigation to keep visitors focused on the goal and reduce distraction.
* Keep the look and feel of your primary Web site so consumers will immediately recognize your brand.
* Don't forget a compelling call to action that should tie in to the offer. For example, the copy for the no-fee banking offer above could have a call-to-action such as "Apply Now," or "Sign-Up in 90 Seconds."
* Minimize data collection as much as possible to decrease abandonment. If you must collect additional information, try moving those fields to a form on a second page; the effect is that by the time visitors click through to this second page, they've already built some momentum in the conversion process and are less likely to bail out.
* Whenever asking for personal information, include privacy and security statements to help establish trust.
Landing pages for lead-generation sites typically should focus on a single, specific goal: getting the user to register or submit a lead. These types of landing pages should have a minimum of unrelated navigation or content, and should present only relevant, reassuring messages that encourage visitors to immediately and efficiently take the next step in the registration process. There are many similarities to direct mail. Every piece of literature, every page, every image and every word in a direct mail piece serves a very specific purpose -- there's no waste. Everything is focused on getting the recipient to respond. The same goes with lead-generation landing pages.
Also, remember that you'll need to include the landing page's URL in the hyperlink of the message on the referring channel. For example, PPC search, e-mail, and print hyperlinks should all point to your specific landing page.
Once you've adopted landing pages as part of your marketing toolbox, you should set your sights on optimizing them for greatest effectiveness. Direct marketers have used A/B split testing for decades to find out which competing ad or sales letter works best, and you can do the same with landing pages.
For example, does putting your product's price on the landing page drive more sales than if you required the visitor to click onto a subsequent page before showing price? Using A/B testing, or more sophisticated multivariate testing, you can determine exactly which combination of alternate offers, headlines, copy, images and calls-to-action are most persuasive to visitors.
Beyond A/B and multivariate testing, you can also use behavioral targeting techniques to present visitors with landing pages that are customized based on whether the visitor is new vs. returning, time of day or day of week, and so on. Using behavioral targeting along with testing, you can easily optimize offers and other factors that will drive higher conversions and increased loyalty. For example:
* Leverage and test multiple landing page strategies to learn which is most effective on a segment-by-segment basis.
* Dramatically increase leads and conversions generated by PPC traffic, without increasing your SEM budget.
* Identify search terms and keywords that will yield the best quality traffic, then target those segments with specific, highly optimized offers and correlating landing pages.
Landing pages are an important component that should be in every web marketer's toolbox. Try out the techniques outlined in this article to produce landing pages for your visitors. By optimizing landing pages through the steps of testing and targeting, you'll not only increase the effectiveness of your Web marketing dollars, but you'll gain unique and valuable insights into what persuades your visitors to take action.
Trust Is Key, Visit Guardian eCommerce Today
If their entry leaves them cold because they don't see anything relevant to what drove them there, they're most likely to leave, having wasted their time and your marketing dollars. Landing pages are an effective technique to help visitors cross the channel between the marketing message that brought them to the site and the site functionality for them to take action like making a purchase or submitting a lead.
A Web site landing page is simply a page that keeps the momentum going from the referring channel's message. A common attribute might be the pay-per-click search terms that brought them to the site, or a specific e-mail offer that was clicked on.
In fact, targeted landing pages with keyword search terms appear more relevant to visitors who have come via a specific search engine query. As a result, fewer "bounces" occur. A bounce is a visitor who hits the landing page, stays for a few seconds, then hits the back button to return to the search engine page -- effectively a totally wasted paid click. Customized landing pages reduce this risk.
For example, an e-mail offer for a discounted travel package would bring the visitor directly to a landing page that reassuringly describes the offer in more detail and provides links to check availability and book the trip. It sounds simple enough, but put yourself in the visitor's shoes and do a few Web searches of your own. You'll be surprised at how many merchants still aren't using landing pages.
Creating a successful landing page isn't difficult, and you can easily experiment and learn as you go. First, decide on which page you'll use as the landing page for a specific campaign. You may very well have an existing Web page that you can use (one that's more specific than your homepage), but if you don't, consider publishing a new landing page. If that's the case, keep in mind these 7 best practices:
* Write a clear, concise, and compelling headline and offer copy that speaks to your audience's problem. For example: "Bank fees got you down? Check out our no-fee guarantee!"
* Include an image along with the offer for visual appeal.
* Reduce or eliminate navigation to keep visitors focused on the goal and reduce distraction.
* Keep the look and feel of your primary Web site so consumers will immediately recognize your brand.
* Don't forget a compelling call to action that should tie in to the offer. For example, the copy for the no-fee banking offer above could have a call-to-action such as "Apply Now," or "Sign-Up in 90 Seconds."
* Minimize data collection as much as possible to decrease abandonment. If you must collect additional information, try moving those fields to a form on a second page; the effect is that by the time visitors click through to this second page, they've already built some momentum in the conversion process and are less likely to bail out.
* Whenever asking for personal information, include privacy and security statements to help establish trust.
Landing pages for lead-generation sites typically should focus on a single, specific goal: getting the user to register or submit a lead. These types of landing pages should have a minimum of unrelated navigation or content, and should present only relevant, reassuring messages that encourage visitors to immediately and efficiently take the next step in the registration process. There are many similarities to direct mail. Every piece of literature, every page, every image and every word in a direct mail piece serves a very specific purpose -- there's no waste. Everything is focused on getting the recipient to respond. The same goes with lead-generation landing pages.
Also, remember that you'll need to include the landing page's URL in the hyperlink of the message on the referring channel. For example, PPC search, e-mail, and print hyperlinks should all point to your specific landing page.
Once you've adopted landing pages as part of your marketing toolbox, you should set your sights on optimizing them for greatest effectiveness. Direct marketers have used A/B split testing for decades to find out which competing ad or sales letter works best, and you can do the same with landing pages.
For example, does putting your product's price on the landing page drive more sales than if you required the visitor to click onto a subsequent page before showing price? Using A/B testing, or more sophisticated multivariate testing, you can determine exactly which combination of alternate offers, headlines, copy, images and calls-to-action are most persuasive to visitors.
Beyond A/B and multivariate testing, you can also use behavioral targeting techniques to present visitors with landing pages that are customized based on whether the visitor is new vs. returning, time of day or day of week, and so on. Using behavioral targeting along with testing, you can easily optimize offers and other factors that will drive higher conversions and increased loyalty. For example:
* Leverage and test multiple landing page strategies to learn which is most effective on a segment-by-segment basis.
* Dramatically increase leads and conversions generated by PPC traffic, without increasing your SEM budget.
* Identify search terms and keywords that will yield the best quality traffic, then target those segments with specific, highly optimized offers and correlating landing pages.
Landing pages are an important component that should be in every web marketer's toolbox. Try out the techniques outlined in this article to produce landing pages for your visitors. By optimizing landing pages through the steps of testing and targeting, you'll not only increase the effectiveness of your Web marketing dollars, but you'll gain unique and valuable insights into what persuades your visitors to take action.
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A True Internet Model for E-Commerce Fulfillment
The old-school approach to order fulfillment doesn't fly for many Internet retailers. Warehousing, packing, shipping and return-order processing are labor-intensive and time-consuming. This has led to a growing trend among online sellers --the use of Web technologies to automate order fulfillment.
I'm talking about e-commerce fulfillment providers (EFPs). They take the "friction" out of order fulfillment. In a typical scenario, a consumer will buy merchandise at a Web site. This triggers an order that is sent electronically to an EFP who processes the order. A shipper such as FedEx or UPS is then automatically notified. Upon shipment of the order, an automated notification is sent to the consumer and to the merchant. There is almost no human intervention. In other words, it's a true Internet fulfillment model.
From a strategic perspective, one of the most important benefits of this model is that the retailer doesn't have to make a capital investment in infrastructure Rackspace is the expert when it comes to delivering Windows and Linux hosting solutions. Click here to learn more.. Yugster.com is an example. The Web site has grown by nearly 500 percent in the last year and is similar to other e-commerce sites, such as Woot.com and 1SaleaDay.com. In the past, such rapid growth for an e-commerce operation would have required an enormous investment in processes, systems, personnel and physical space. Aside from the obvious fact that it's not easy to raise capital, such an investment could be risky because there's no guarantee the business will continue to grow. By eliminating the need for a capital investment, EFPs remove a significant barrier to entry for would-be online retailers.
Of course, EFPs do more than ship orders. With advances in Web technologies, EFPs can add value in numerous ways. For example, EFPs can assist with automated inventory management by sending alerts to merchants when inventory levels drop below certain thresholds. Restocking can be done without an employee doing a physical count. This means online retailers can market and sell their products without having to physically handle the merchandise. And even though the EFP holds the inventory, the retailer still manages and monitors everything through a Web-based dashboard. The retailer has access to historical reports as well as real-time visibility into order status, shipment tracking, inventory quantities, and item-level sales data.
Level Playing Field
EFPs are doing for fulfillment what Google Latest News about Google has done for advertising Learn how you can enhance your email marketing program today. Free Trial - Click Here.. They are taking cost out of the equation. Google has allowed companies to reach targeted audiences for just pennies per ad click. It's a highly automated process that can fit into nearly any business model. Likewise, EFPs are taking cost out of order fulfillment. The cost of the EFP is covered by shipping and handling charges that consumers pay. And just as Google has nearly perfected online advertising, and has certainly improved advertising efficiency by orders of magnitude, EFPs are built from the ground up to make order fulfillment as efficient as possible. It would be nearly impossible for a retailer to match an EFP's level of efficiency with an in-house fulfillment operation.
EFPs can support a variety of business models. These include pure-play e-commerce Web sites, multichannel retailers who sell through third-party Web sites such as Amazon, eBay, Overstock and Yahoo, and even merchants who sell through TV infomercials and brick-and-mortar stores. EFPs fulfill orders for all of these sales models. They can provide continuously updated reports that allow retailers to track the sales volume of each channel.
There are several EFPs. Yugster.com uses Webgistix. Amazon is actually the largest EFP, although most people think of Amazon only as a retailer. These two companies take different approaches to fulfillment services. Webgistix offers a customizable solution that is integrated with a retailer's order-entry system. Amazon offers a self-serve solution that allows retailers to plug into Amazon's fulfillment infrastructure. Other EFPs, such as WeFulfillIt, are also emerging as demand for these services continues to rise sharply.
The fact is that using an EFP can be a game changer. It makes online retailers more scalable by essentially providing unlimited capacity on demand. Retailers can ship 100 orders one day and 1,000 orders the next day. EFPs can be invaluable whether an entrepreneur is just trying to get a company off the ground, or expand their operations, or protect their profit margins by reducing manpower and overhead. With an EFP, retailers don't have to lease warehouse space, hire shipping/receiving clerks, or buy shipping supplies and equipment.
And, as every retailer knows, customer satisfaction is critical. This is yet another area where EFPs provide an important benefit. The speed and accuracy of order fulfillment is usually guaranteed by the EFP, which is what a business person should expect when hiring a company that only does order fulfillment. Most merchants are good at sourcing and marketing retail merchandise. They want to focus on that and keep getting better at it. They don't want to divert resources and time to order fulfillment.
Many Internet retailers are seeing the positive impacts that EFPs can have on their businesses. It would be smart for any online retailer to consider adopting this fulfillment model. It works. It's easy. And it'll benefit the retailer's customers and its bottom line.
Visit Guardian eCommerce SSL Privacy Seal Program
I'm talking about e-commerce fulfillment providers (EFPs). They take the "friction" out of order fulfillment. In a typical scenario, a consumer will buy merchandise at a Web site. This triggers an order that is sent electronically to an EFP who processes the order. A shipper such as FedEx or UPS is then automatically notified. Upon shipment of the order, an automated notification is sent to the consumer and to the merchant. There is almost no human intervention. In other words, it's a true Internet fulfillment model.
From a strategic perspective, one of the most important benefits of this model is that the retailer doesn't have to make a capital investment in infrastructure Rackspace is the expert when it comes to delivering Windows and Linux hosting solutions. Click here to learn more.. Yugster.com is an example. The Web site has grown by nearly 500 percent in the last year and is similar to other e-commerce sites, such as Woot.com and 1SaleaDay.com. In the past, such rapid growth for an e-commerce operation would have required an enormous investment in processes, systems, personnel and physical space. Aside from the obvious fact that it's not easy to raise capital, such an investment could be risky because there's no guarantee the business will continue to grow. By eliminating the need for a capital investment, EFPs remove a significant barrier to entry for would-be online retailers.
Of course, EFPs do more than ship orders. With advances in Web technologies, EFPs can add value in numerous ways. For example, EFPs can assist with automated inventory management by sending alerts to merchants when inventory levels drop below certain thresholds. Restocking can be done without an employee doing a physical count. This means online retailers can market and sell their products without having to physically handle the merchandise. And even though the EFP holds the inventory, the retailer still manages and monitors everything through a Web-based dashboard. The retailer has access to historical reports as well as real-time visibility into order status, shipment tracking, inventory quantities, and item-level sales data.
Level Playing Field
EFPs are doing for fulfillment what Google Latest News about Google has done for advertising Learn how you can enhance your email marketing program today. Free Trial - Click Here.. They are taking cost out of the equation. Google has allowed companies to reach targeted audiences for just pennies per ad click. It's a highly automated process that can fit into nearly any business model. Likewise, EFPs are taking cost out of order fulfillment. The cost of the EFP is covered by shipping and handling charges that consumers pay. And just as Google has nearly perfected online advertising, and has certainly improved advertising efficiency by orders of magnitude, EFPs are built from the ground up to make order fulfillment as efficient as possible. It would be nearly impossible for a retailer to match an EFP's level of efficiency with an in-house fulfillment operation.
EFPs can support a variety of business models. These include pure-play e-commerce Web sites, multichannel retailers who sell through third-party Web sites such as Amazon, eBay, Overstock and Yahoo, and even merchants who sell through TV infomercials and brick-and-mortar stores. EFPs fulfill orders for all of these sales models. They can provide continuously updated reports that allow retailers to track the sales volume of each channel.
There are several EFPs. Yugster.com uses Webgistix. Amazon is actually the largest EFP, although most people think of Amazon only as a retailer. These two companies take different approaches to fulfillment services. Webgistix offers a customizable solution that is integrated with a retailer's order-entry system. Amazon offers a self-serve solution that allows retailers to plug into Amazon's fulfillment infrastructure. Other EFPs, such as WeFulfillIt, are also emerging as demand for these services continues to rise sharply.
The fact is that using an EFP can be a game changer. It makes online retailers more scalable by essentially providing unlimited capacity on demand. Retailers can ship 100 orders one day and 1,000 orders the next day. EFPs can be invaluable whether an entrepreneur is just trying to get a company off the ground, or expand their operations, or protect their profit margins by reducing manpower and overhead. With an EFP, retailers don't have to lease warehouse space, hire shipping/receiving clerks, or buy shipping supplies and equipment.
And, as every retailer knows, customer satisfaction is critical. This is yet another area where EFPs provide an important benefit. The speed and accuracy of order fulfillment is usually guaranteed by the EFP, which is what a business person should expect when hiring a company that only does order fulfillment. Most merchants are good at sourcing and marketing retail merchandise. They want to focus on that and keep getting better at it. They don't want to divert resources and time to order fulfillment.
Many Internet retailers are seeing the positive impacts that EFPs can have on their businesses. It would be smart for any online retailer to consider adopting this fulfillment model. It works. It's easy. And it'll benefit the retailer's customers and its bottom line.
Visit Guardian eCommerce SSL Privacy Seal Program
Sunday, July 20, 2008
8 Ways To Increase Web-Audience Response
It's always a good idea to stick to the basics. When businesses stray too far from the fundamentals, problems arise, but sticking to the basics doesn't mean boring people into a state of unconsciousness. If Web-visitors' eyes glaze-over upon entering your site, you've lost them before you've begun. Web success is based on creative implementation of the basics, and that's where your Web-marketing presentation should begin.
1. Web-Audience Response Demands Communication: The Web has a lot in common with television but there are fundamental differences; it is important for Web-entrepreneurs to understand these differences and similarities, and learn from them.
Television and the Web are both communication environments, but television, like magazines and newspapers, are primarily advertising platforms. Of course there are plenty of websites around that follow the advertising financial model, but for the average business website, depending on third party advertising not only dilutes their marketing message and brand, but it also makes for a confusing and cluttered visual presentation. Just because your website presents information, doesn't mean it's communicating it to your intended audience in any meaningful way. The manner in which you communicate your message is as important as the message itself. The medium is increasingly becoming the message, and even in situations where it isn't, it definitely shapes the message.
2. Web-Audience Response Demands Content: You have repeatedly heard the comment, 'content is king,' but we think, 'communication is king' because without communication your content is meaningless. But here's the dilemma, your information is basically advertising, after all you're in business, and business is about selling something - a product, a service, an idea, or your know-how. So the real underlying purpose of your website is to make that advertising message worth listening to, and to do that, you need to turn it into content. To turn advertising into content you have to accept that sales take time. You have to be patient. You can't hurry a sale, you first have to build confidence; stop rushing the close and start thinking of selling as a courtship. You would never ask someone to get married on a first date, so why would you expect to get an order from a potential Web-client on their first visit.
3. Web-Audience Response Demands Courtship: No one is going to make a substantial financial commitment without reaching some level of comfort with who you are and what you do, and that requires some repeated contact: a courtship, or negotiation if you prefer. Therein lies the similarity and difference between websites and television: the success of a television program is based on habituation. If you get people to tune-in every week on the same night, at the same time to see their favorite program, you will be able to keep delivering your marketing message through the commercials that pay for the content. In the same regard, if you can make your website interesting enough through the compelling presentation of content, you will get visitors to return again and again, each time gaining confidence and respect for what you do and what you sell.
The difference is people accept television commercials as the price they pay for free TV programming, but the same cannot be said for the Web. People want free information on the Web without the irritation and bother of ads; so the challenge for website owners is to turn their marketing message into compelling programming that creates habituation which is just another form of negotiation, or courtship of potential clients.
4. Web-Audience Response Demands Consistency: You hear the word strategy bandied about with little relevance to its precise meaning. In marketing terms, strategy is a big idea, a sustainable concept that you can build a business around. Successful companies rarely change their strategies, a concept that should not be confused with tactics, which are the various methods used to implement strategy in order to secure the ultimate objectives. Business has to be resilient and open-minded enough to adapt to an ever-changing business environment by constantly updating tactics, but strategy needs to be a constant, a touchstone or benchmark for implementing action. Staying on course requires confidence in the strategy with a vigilant eye on the big picture.
Websites that are nothing more than brochures or catalogs of product that anyone can purchase at the local mall or box store is a tactic that delivers little relevance to today's Web-savvy consumer. And the same can be said for the blatantly obvious direct marketíng sites based on old magazine subscription techniques. The new multimedia communication-based Web requires new presentation tactics in order to successfully implement marketing strategy.
5. Web-Audience Response Demands Expectation: Successful marketing is not just about persuading people that what you have is what they need, it's about creating a series of deliverable expectations. If you expect a product to be easy to use because that's what the marketing communication states, then that product better be easy to use. Effective marketing presentations not only prompt action but just as importantly they create a set of realistic, deliverable expectations. Ask yourself, why do people mistrust politicians, car salesmen, and telemarketers? We all know the answer: many will say, and promise, just about anything to get your vote or order, and the result is a disgruntled, cynical voter or customer. Read my lips, no false expectations!
6. Web-Audience Response Demands TrustL: When customers' expectations are met, you begin to create trust, and trust is one of the hardest things to achieve on a website that lacks any kind of human connection to the audience. I can't tell you how many websites I've visited that make no effort to humanize their presentations, and consequently their businesses. When you go to a contact page and all that's there is a form to fill-in, with no contact name or phone number, it says to people, 'I really can't be bothered talking to you.' Hiding behind email tells people not to trust you, and if they don't trust you, they are not going to do business with you.
Business is about connecting to people, whether they are consumers, purchasing agents, or suppliers. If your website doesn't have some kind of human element like a video Web-host, audio message, or even a contact name and phone number, how can you expect to connect and build confidence, and trust in your intent to satisfy their needs?
7. Web-Audience Response Demands Personality: By building trust with your Web-audience you are also building your brand and defining your corporate personality. Here again we have a bit of a dichotomy since personality is a human-based characteristic, so how then can we create a personality and instill human characteristics into an inanimate entity like a business? Corporate personality does not derive from a logo, packaging, or your website's aesthetic qualities. Corporate personality is the sum total of the collective experiences your audience has with your company. In the brick and mortar world, corporate personality is a result of dealing with people, sales people, receptionists, and telemarketers; in short personality is derived from interaction with real human beings.
Clever, well written website copy can help create personality as long as it is written in a distinctive human voice, but we know that 70% of all website text is never read; people skip to bulleted points and captions. But the same material delivered by a real person either through Web-audio or video, not only delivers the marketing message in the most memorable and compelling fashion, but it also defines the business personality and humanizes the website.
Two caveats: avatars are not people, and unless you can afford to hire the creators of the Simpsons to develop your animation, you best forget it; as well, using yourself or a non-professional as a spokesperson or Web-host is a dangerous practice, and speaks more to ego than it does to effective business development.
8. Web-Audience Response Demands Motivation: Lastly your website must communicate content that excites and motivates people to do business with you. The ability to motivate people isn't about what you're selling; it's about how you present it.
Motivational speakers, whether in the business, entertainment, personal coaching, or sports arenas, all deliver a similar message; but the ones that truly stimulate people to act, are the ones that know how to present their ideas in the most exciting and compelling manner. If you want to motivate your Web-audience to respond, your presentation has to be delivered by a real human being: a professional with charm, charisma, and a distinctive character.
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1. Web-Audience Response Demands Communication: The Web has a lot in common with television but there are fundamental differences; it is important for Web-entrepreneurs to understand these differences and similarities, and learn from them.
Television and the Web are both communication environments, but television, like magazines and newspapers, are primarily advertising platforms. Of course there are plenty of websites around that follow the advertising financial model, but for the average business website, depending on third party advertising not only dilutes their marketing message and brand, but it also makes for a confusing and cluttered visual presentation. Just because your website presents information, doesn't mean it's communicating it to your intended audience in any meaningful way. The manner in which you communicate your message is as important as the message itself. The medium is increasingly becoming the message, and even in situations where it isn't, it definitely shapes the message.
2. Web-Audience Response Demands Content: You have repeatedly heard the comment, 'content is king,' but we think, 'communication is king' because without communication your content is meaningless. But here's the dilemma, your information is basically advertising, after all you're in business, and business is about selling something - a product, a service, an idea, or your know-how. So the real underlying purpose of your website is to make that advertising message worth listening to, and to do that, you need to turn it into content. To turn advertising into content you have to accept that sales take time. You have to be patient. You can't hurry a sale, you first have to build confidence; stop rushing the close and start thinking of selling as a courtship. You would never ask someone to get married on a first date, so why would you expect to get an order from a potential Web-client on their first visit.
3. Web-Audience Response Demands Courtship: No one is going to make a substantial financial commitment without reaching some level of comfort with who you are and what you do, and that requires some repeated contact: a courtship, or negotiation if you prefer. Therein lies the similarity and difference between websites and television: the success of a television program is based on habituation. If you get people to tune-in every week on the same night, at the same time to see their favorite program, you will be able to keep delivering your marketing message through the commercials that pay for the content. In the same regard, if you can make your website interesting enough through the compelling presentation of content, you will get visitors to return again and again, each time gaining confidence and respect for what you do and what you sell.
The difference is people accept television commercials as the price they pay for free TV programming, but the same cannot be said for the Web. People want free information on the Web without the irritation and bother of ads; so the challenge for website owners is to turn their marketing message into compelling programming that creates habituation which is just another form of negotiation, or courtship of potential clients.
4. Web-Audience Response Demands Consistency: You hear the word strategy bandied about with little relevance to its precise meaning. In marketing terms, strategy is a big idea, a sustainable concept that you can build a business around. Successful companies rarely change their strategies, a concept that should not be confused with tactics, which are the various methods used to implement strategy in order to secure the ultimate objectives. Business has to be resilient and open-minded enough to adapt to an ever-changing business environment by constantly updating tactics, but strategy needs to be a constant, a touchstone or benchmark for implementing action. Staying on course requires confidence in the strategy with a vigilant eye on the big picture.
Websites that are nothing more than brochures or catalogs of product that anyone can purchase at the local mall or box store is a tactic that delivers little relevance to today's Web-savvy consumer. And the same can be said for the blatantly obvious direct marketíng sites based on old magazine subscription techniques. The new multimedia communication-based Web requires new presentation tactics in order to successfully implement marketing strategy.
5. Web-Audience Response Demands Expectation: Successful marketing is not just about persuading people that what you have is what they need, it's about creating a series of deliverable expectations. If you expect a product to be easy to use because that's what the marketing communication states, then that product better be easy to use. Effective marketing presentations not only prompt action but just as importantly they create a set of realistic, deliverable expectations. Ask yourself, why do people mistrust politicians, car salesmen, and telemarketers? We all know the answer: many will say, and promise, just about anything to get your vote or order, and the result is a disgruntled, cynical voter or customer. Read my lips, no false expectations!
6. Web-Audience Response Demands TrustL: When customers' expectations are met, you begin to create trust, and trust is one of the hardest things to achieve on a website that lacks any kind of human connection to the audience. I can't tell you how many websites I've visited that make no effort to humanize their presentations, and consequently their businesses. When you go to a contact page and all that's there is a form to fill-in, with no contact name or phone number, it says to people, 'I really can't be bothered talking to you.' Hiding behind email tells people not to trust you, and if they don't trust you, they are not going to do business with you.
Business is about connecting to people, whether they are consumers, purchasing agents, or suppliers. If your website doesn't have some kind of human element like a video Web-host, audio message, or even a contact name and phone number, how can you expect to connect and build confidence, and trust in your intent to satisfy their needs?
7. Web-Audience Response Demands Personality: By building trust with your Web-audience you are also building your brand and defining your corporate personality. Here again we have a bit of a dichotomy since personality is a human-based characteristic, so how then can we create a personality and instill human characteristics into an inanimate entity like a business? Corporate personality does not derive from a logo, packaging, or your website's aesthetic qualities. Corporate personality is the sum total of the collective experiences your audience has with your company. In the brick and mortar world, corporate personality is a result of dealing with people, sales people, receptionists, and telemarketers; in short personality is derived from interaction with real human beings.
Clever, well written website copy can help create personality as long as it is written in a distinctive human voice, but we know that 70% of all website text is never read; people skip to bulleted points and captions. But the same material delivered by a real person either through Web-audio or video, not only delivers the marketing message in the most memorable and compelling fashion, but it also defines the business personality and humanizes the website.
Two caveats: avatars are not people, and unless you can afford to hire the creators of the Simpsons to develop your animation, you best forget it; as well, using yourself or a non-professional as a spokesperson or Web-host is a dangerous practice, and speaks more to ego than it does to effective business development.
8. Web-Audience Response Demands Motivation: Lastly your website must communicate content that excites and motivates people to do business with you. The ability to motivate people isn't about what you're selling; it's about how you present it.
Motivational speakers, whether in the business, entertainment, personal coaching, or sports arenas, all deliver a similar message; but the ones that truly stimulate people to act, are the ones that know how to present their ideas in the most exciting and compelling manner. If you want to motivate your Web-audience to respond, your presentation has to be delivered by a real human being: a professional with charm, charisma, and a distinctive character.
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Judge: Knockoff-Tracking Not eBay's Job
In the case of Tiffany vs. eBay, a U.S. district judge has presented the e-commerce giant with the best gift it could get in this litigious, digital age: a victory in a four-year-old trademark protection lawsuit. Judge Richard Sullivan of New York found that eBay's process of vetting suspected counterfeit items is sufficient and that Tiffany bears more responsibility for watching over its brand in cyberspace.
The ruling is a rare win for eBay in this rapidly evolving arena, and it could have an impact on its legal challenges overseas. European courts this year have found in favor of LVMH group, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Rolex in trademark lawsuits involving counterfeits against the online auction house.
"The implications are enormous," Benn Konsynski, a professor at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, said. "In an age where we're moving toward social networking and more information brokerage than pure direct commerce, and all the democratization trends, it's critical to know how much responsibility you have for policing content. How far do you have to go to ensure that your content providers are respecting all rights and trademarks?" he added.
In eBay's case, Sullivan ruled the company went far enough in removing suspected counterfeit goods upon receiving complaints from Tiffany. Additionally, Sullivan agreed with eBay that it didn't have to pre-emptively remove the items even if Web site officials had their own doubts about the validity of the products. The ruling means more work and money for retailers like Tiffany, Heather Kliebenstein, an intellectual property attorney for Merchant & Gould in Minneapolis, said.
"E-commerce companies can avoid infringement actions even if the Web site provider has general knowledge of the infringement or counterfeit goods being sold on their Web sites," she said. "Brand owners will need to be able to point out or document specific instances of trademark infringement to succeed in court, based on this precedent. This will increase the burden on brand owners and their in-house counsel."
The same concerns -- spending more time and money -- may still await eBay in Europe. It's unclear whether the New York ruling will have any effect as the company appeals trademark decisions it lost in Germany and France. Nevertheless, eBay still faces an uphill struggle overseas, Anita Ramasastry, law professor and director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce + Technology at the University of Washington, said.
"The European courts are going to be looking at the European market and the concept of the European consumer and seller -- even though we think of these as global marketplaces and [e-commerce companies] want to trade with the same rules in place. Trademark infringement is different in Europe regarding presumption and in terms of who has responsibility for not only infringement but contributor infringement," she added.
While it would have cost eBay -- and potentially its customers -- more money to vet goods had it lost the Tiffany case, the company will still have to ensure its global business complies with European courts, Konsynski noted. "eBay will have to adjust its patterns of market practice for the legal environment in different venues. It can do that -- it can adjust -- but the question is what constitutes fairness. ... Is it equal treatment for all parties?" Konsynski questioned.
Indeed, "eBay will have to take a more active role to police its users in Europe." Kliebenstein commented.
Guardian eCommerce Privacy Seal Program
The ruling is a rare win for eBay in this rapidly evolving arena, and it could have an impact on its legal challenges overseas. European courts this year have found in favor of LVMH group, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Rolex in trademark lawsuits involving counterfeits against the online auction house.
"The implications are enormous," Benn Konsynski, a professor at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, said. "In an age where we're moving toward social networking and more information brokerage than pure direct commerce, and all the democratization trends, it's critical to know how much responsibility you have for policing content. How far do you have to go to ensure that your content providers are respecting all rights and trademarks?" he added.
In eBay's case, Sullivan ruled the company went far enough in removing suspected counterfeit goods upon receiving complaints from Tiffany. Additionally, Sullivan agreed with eBay that it didn't have to pre-emptively remove the items even if Web site officials had their own doubts about the validity of the products. The ruling means more work and money for retailers like Tiffany, Heather Kliebenstein, an intellectual property attorney for Merchant & Gould in Minneapolis, said.
"E-commerce companies can avoid infringement actions even if the Web site provider has general knowledge of the infringement or counterfeit goods being sold on their Web sites," she said. "Brand owners will need to be able to point out or document specific instances of trademark infringement to succeed in court, based on this precedent. This will increase the burden on brand owners and their in-house counsel."
The same concerns -- spending more time and money -- may still await eBay in Europe. It's unclear whether the New York ruling will have any effect as the company appeals trademark decisions it lost in Germany and France. Nevertheless, eBay still faces an uphill struggle overseas, Anita Ramasastry, law professor and director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce + Technology at the University of Washington, said.
"The European courts are going to be looking at the European market and the concept of the European consumer and seller -- even though we think of these as global marketplaces and [e-commerce companies] want to trade with the same rules in place. Trademark infringement is different in Europe regarding presumption and in terms of who has responsibility for not only infringement but contributor infringement," she added.
While it would have cost eBay -- and potentially its customers -- more money to vet goods had it lost the Tiffany case, the company will still have to ensure its global business complies with European courts, Konsynski noted. "eBay will have to adjust its patterns of market practice for the legal environment in different venues. It can do that -- it can adjust -- but the question is what constitutes fairness. ... Is it equal treatment for all parties?" Konsynski questioned.
Indeed, "eBay will have to take a more active role to police its users in Europe." Kliebenstein commented.
Guardian eCommerce Privacy Seal Program
The Rise Of Peer-To-Peer Online Lending
Some people are finding it tougher than ever to get a bank loan amid the nation's credit crisis, but many are getting a warmer welcome at the "teller window" on the Web. People are flocking to social network sites such as Prosper.com and Zopa.com, which connect lenders and borrowers at the grassroots level, using an eBay-style auction of loans and interest rates.
Sites and players have multiplied in the nascent industry -- known as peer-to-peer online lending -- which is barely 2 years old. Traffic has increased at a double- or triple-digit pace in the past year, according to Compete, a Boston-based online research firm.
"More people are turning to these alternative loan providers to get their cash as it has become more difficult to get a loan from the established providers," said Mike Perlman, director of Compete's financial services practice.
Jerry R. Brown of St. Cloud, Fla., said he turned to peer-to-peer online lending after conventional banks rejected his bid for a loan to expand his firearms business. He landed a US$10,000 loan at 15.4 percent, which enabled him to establish a holster factory at his business.
"That was significantly better than I could have gotten with a conventional bank," he said. "The whole process has gone without a hitch. I'd do it again in a second."
Brown used the site run by Prosper Marketplace, the San Francisco-based company that dominates the peer-to-peer lending space. He registered on a Prosper.com auction, told his story, described his need and identified his desired loan amount and rate.
Prosper managed his loan "application" and analyzed his personal financial information to develop a credit grade it provides to potential lenders. More than 30 of them responded to Brown's auction, and they became his financiers.
Prosper's loan approvals and dollar values have increased 20 percent to 30 percent during the past year, the company said. Nearly 12,700 borrowers received more than $84 million in financing from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008.
With small business lending declining -- SBA loans decreased nearly 20 percent last year -- many entrepreneurs are tapping into online social lending, although the loans typically are capped at $25,000, officials said.
Prosper has also seen a big increase in the number of people with good credit who are using the service, spokesperson Tiffany Fox said. About 40 percent of its borrowers have credit scores higher than 720 -- considered prime creditworthiness -- she said. Only 5 percent are now subprime borrowers (people with a sketchy credit record), compared with 25 percent when Prosper was introduced in 2006.
"There's a flight of people in the higher end of the credit spectrum turning to alternatives like Prosper," she said. Prosper's site drew nearly 777,000 unique visitors in June, a 31 percent increase from the same month last year and almost 15 times more traffic than the second-largest player, the British site Zopa.com, according to Compete.
The demand for online social lending has attracted a flurry of new players in the past year or so, including Zopa, Lending Club, Virgin Money USA, GlobeFunder Ventures and On Deck Capital. Each has its own niche: Lending Club takes an approach similar to Prosper; Zopa matches borrowers with a network of credit unions; GlobeFunder appeals largely to high-end customers; Virgin Money (formerly Circle Lending) focuses on family and friend loans; and On Deck focuses on small-business loans.
The growth spurt in online social lending is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, according to a recent report by Celent Communications, a high-tech consulting firm in Boston. Loan volume is projected to reach $1.6 billion this year, a nearly threefold increase from 2007, the firm estimated. It is expected to double in 2009 and reach nearly $6 billion in 2010.
However, despite such growth projections, those using peer-to-peer online lending are still "a very small subset of the overall number of people in the market for loans," Perlman said.
"It hasn't quite become as established and commonplace as eBay, for example, which says that people are much more willing to buy and sell goods online than borrow their money," he said. "We're still very much in the early adopter stage for social online lending."
Guardian eCommerce Privacy Seal Program....
Sites and players have multiplied in the nascent industry -- known as peer-to-peer online lending -- which is barely 2 years old. Traffic has increased at a double- or triple-digit pace in the past year, according to Compete, a Boston-based online research firm.
"More people are turning to these alternative loan providers to get their cash as it has become more difficult to get a loan from the established providers," said Mike Perlman, director of Compete's financial services practice.
Jerry R. Brown of St. Cloud, Fla., said he turned to peer-to-peer online lending after conventional banks rejected his bid for a loan to expand his firearms business. He landed a US$10,000 loan at 15.4 percent, which enabled him to establish a holster factory at his business.
"That was significantly better than I could have gotten with a conventional bank," he said. "The whole process has gone without a hitch. I'd do it again in a second."
Brown used the site run by Prosper Marketplace, the San Francisco-based company that dominates the peer-to-peer lending space. He registered on a Prosper.com auction, told his story, described his need and identified his desired loan amount and rate.
Prosper managed his loan "application" and analyzed his personal financial information to develop a credit grade it provides to potential lenders. More than 30 of them responded to Brown's auction, and they became his financiers.
Prosper's loan approvals and dollar values have increased 20 percent to 30 percent during the past year, the company said. Nearly 12,700 borrowers received more than $84 million in financing from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008.
With small business lending declining -- SBA loans decreased nearly 20 percent last year -- many entrepreneurs are tapping into online social lending, although the loans typically are capped at $25,000, officials said.
Prosper has also seen a big increase in the number of people with good credit who are using the service, spokesperson Tiffany Fox said. About 40 percent of its borrowers have credit scores higher than 720 -- considered prime creditworthiness -- she said. Only 5 percent are now subprime borrowers (people with a sketchy credit record), compared with 25 percent when Prosper was introduced in 2006.
"There's a flight of people in the higher end of the credit spectrum turning to alternatives like Prosper," she said. Prosper's site drew nearly 777,000 unique visitors in June, a 31 percent increase from the same month last year and almost 15 times more traffic than the second-largest player, the British site Zopa.com, according to Compete.
The demand for online social lending has attracted a flurry of new players in the past year or so, including Zopa, Lending Club, Virgin Money USA, GlobeFunder Ventures and On Deck Capital. Each has its own niche: Lending Club takes an approach similar to Prosper; Zopa matches borrowers with a network of credit unions; GlobeFunder appeals largely to high-end customers; Virgin Money (formerly Circle Lending) focuses on family and friend loans; and On Deck focuses on small-business loans.
The growth spurt in online social lending is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, according to a recent report by Celent Communications, a high-tech consulting firm in Boston. Loan volume is projected to reach $1.6 billion this year, a nearly threefold increase from 2007, the firm estimated. It is expected to double in 2009 and reach nearly $6 billion in 2010.
However, despite such growth projections, those using peer-to-peer online lending are still "a very small subset of the overall number of people in the market for loans," Perlman said.
"It hasn't quite become as established and commonplace as eBay, for example, which says that people are much more willing to buy and sell goods online than borrow their money," he said. "We're still very much in the early adopter stage for social online lending."
Guardian eCommerce Privacy Seal Program....
Friday, June 20, 2008
What Google Thinks Of Your Site
How Google views your site does matter if you want to succeed online because Google has become the dominant search engine on the web. It now has over 60% of the U.S. search engine market. In other countries around the world that percentage rises to 80% or more. In addition, the Google Brand Name has solidly permeated the popular psyche and any top rankings within Google will bring much weight and prestige along with all that traffic.
If you're a webmaster, you will already know how vital Google is to the success of your site, especially if you rely upon organic keyword rankings for your traffic. This free organic traffic from Google is highly desired by webmasters because it is extremely targeted and delivers high conversion rates.
In trying to reach the highest rankings possible, I (like most webmasters) have to be constantly aware of what Google thinks of my site and content. As a webmaster and marketer I have always geared my onlíne marketing towards Google. I have spent years building my keyword rankings within Google; if you take out the fact that it has nearly driven me insane, it has mostly been a positive experience.
This experience has also shown me it is indeed important for anyone to know how Google views and rates your site or content. The more knowledge you have, the better able you will be to tackle any obstacles and challenges that will come your way.
And like most webmasters, I try to find out as much about Google as is humanly possible, but Google doesn't give up its secrets easily. In fact, many webmasters would argue the only true opinion Google has of your site is shown in their SERPs - if your keywords/pages are ranked in the number one spots in Google's "Search Engine Results Pages" then Google must think your site or content deserves to be there.
However, there are other ways of finding out how Google is viewing your content. Below are several Google webmaster tools and things you can do to discover just how Google views your site or pages. They will give you a better picture of what Google thinks about your site.
One handy tool that will show you what Google thinks your pages consist of is located here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Just type in your URL and tick off website content and you will get a listing of the major keywords Google has for your content. If your targeted keyword or keywords are not listed, then you have to do some re-writing.
If you want to find out how many backlinks your site has in Google, just open up Google Search and type in:
link:yourURL
and it will show you the number of backlinks you have.
Since Google doesn't give you all your existing backlinks, many webmasters also use Yahoo! to find a more exact number of links your site has on the web.
Just open Yahoo! and type in: linkdomain:yourURL
Now whether Google is using or considering all these backlinks is the big question? Finding the exact number of backlinks you have in Google has always been a problem because Google is not giving you the exact number or at least this is the general opinion of most SEO experts.
Another way I monitor my links in Google is to place quotation marks around my site name or my name "bizwaremagic" or "titus hoskins" and do a search in Google. This gives me the pages containing references to me or my site. This is usually 50,000 to 100,000 pages, I have also noticed my online income usually correlates as this number goes up or down.
Obviously, it is very important for you to know what content the search engines have indexed from your site. You can also check to see how your links are displayed and to see if any titles or descriptions are missing from your pages. You can see how many of your pages are indexed in Google by using the site command.
Just type into Google Search:
site:yourURL
A little while back, having your pages indexed in Google's Supplemental Index caused webmasters much stress as it seemed Google was judging these pages as "second class" pages. Since then, Google no longer uses the Supplementary Label in grading pages but that doesn't mean a supplementary index doesn't exist; just that Google has promised to crawl and consider these pages as well in any search query.
From my own experiences, I have receíved more traffic when my site was at PR4 than I receíved when it was at PR6. What's important is getting high rankings for your targeted keywords... if you get top spots, it doesn't matter if your main index page (site) is PR4 or PR6, you'll still get the same amount of traffic. In other words, don't become too fixated on PageRank because Google in many cases is not letting you see the true PR of a webpage.
I would like to add one point to the whole PageRank issue and that has to do with perception. If you're running an online business, then having a PR8 site does matter for it will bring in more business and customers (especially if you're in the SEO industry) mainly because of the "perceived value" of your site or business.
What Google thinks does matter! In other words, what Google thinks of your site can play a major role in your success. Mainly because, like it or hate it, Google has become the supreme authority on the web and what they say, counts. Therefore, you should always be paying special attention to just what Google is saying about your site and acting upon that knowledge accordingly.
Site Credibility Pays! Get Site Certified Today!
If you're a webmaster, you will already know how vital Google is to the success of your site, especially if you rely upon organic keyword rankings for your traffic. This free organic traffic from Google is highly desired by webmasters because it is extremely targeted and delivers high conversion rates.
In trying to reach the highest rankings possible, I (like most webmasters) have to be constantly aware of what Google thinks of my site and content. As a webmaster and marketer I have always geared my onlíne marketing towards Google. I have spent years building my keyword rankings within Google; if you take out the fact that it has nearly driven me insane, it has mostly been a positive experience.
This experience has also shown me it is indeed important for anyone to know how Google views and rates your site or content. The more knowledge you have, the better able you will be to tackle any obstacles and challenges that will come your way.
And like most webmasters, I try to find out as much about Google as is humanly possible, but Google doesn't give up its secrets easily. In fact, many webmasters would argue the only true opinion Google has of your site is shown in their SERPs - if your keywords/pages are ranked in the number one spots in Google's "Search Engine Results Pages" then Google must think your site or content deserves to be there.
However, there are other ways of finding out how Google is viewing your content. Below are several Google webmaster tools and things you can do to discover just how Google views your site or pages. They will give you a better picture of what Google thinks about your site.
One handy tool that will show you what Google thinks your pages consist of is located here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Just type in your URL and tick off website content and you will get a listing of the major keywords Google has for your content. If your targeted keyword or keywords are not listed, then you have to do some re-writing.
If you want to find out how many backlinks your site has in Google, just open up Google Search and type in:
link:yourURL
and it will show you the number of backlinks you have.
Since Google doesn't give you all your existing backlinks, many webmasters also use Yahoo! to find a more exact number of links your site has on the web.
Just open Yahoo! and type in: linkdomain:yourURL
Now whether Google is using or considering all these backlinks is the big question? Finding the exact number of backlinks you have in Google has always been a problem because Google is not giving you the exact number or at least this is the general opinion of most SEO experts.
Another way I monitor my links in Google is to place quotation marks around my site name or my name "bizwaremagic" or "titus hoskins" and do a search in Google. This gives me the pages containing references to me or my site. This is usually 50,000 to 100,000 pages, I have also noticed my online income usually correlates as this number goes up or down.
Obviously, it is very important for you to know what content the search engines have indexed from your site. You can also check to see how your links are displayed and to see if any titles or descriptions are missing from your pages. You can see how many of your pages are indexed in Google by using the site command.
Just type into Google Search:
site:yourURL
A little while back, having your pages indexed in Google's Supplemental Index caused webmasters much stress as it seemed Google was judging these pages as "second class" pages. Since then, Google no longer uses the Supplementary Label in grading pages but that doesn't mean a supplementary index doesn't exist; just that Google has promised to crawl and consider these pages as well in any search query.
From my own experiences, I have receíved more traffic when my site was at PR4 than I receíved when it was at PR6. What's important is getting high rankings for your targeted keywords... if you get top spots, it doesn't matter if your main index page (site) is PR4 or PR6, you'll still get the same amount of traffic. In other words, don't become too fixated on PageRank because Google in many cases is not letting you see the true PR of a webpage.
I would like to add one point to the whole PageRank issue and that has to do with perception. If you're running an online business, then having a PR8 site does matter for it will bring in more business and customers (especially if you're in the SEO industry) mainly because of the "perceived value" of your site or business.
What Google thinks does matter! In other words, what Google thinks of your site can play a major role in your success. Mainly because, like it or hate it, Google has become the supreme authority on the web and what they say, counts. Therefore, you should always be paying special attention to just what Google is saying about your site and acting upon that knowledge accordingly.
Site Credibility Pays! Get Site Certified Today!
eBay To Boost PayPal Protection
In its latest effort to increase user confidence in its e-commerce platform -- and to boost use of its PayPal payment service -- eBay will offer full protection against fraud to purchases made with PayPal. eBay buyers who complete eligible transactions with PayPal will be able to get 100 percent of their purchase price back, with no price cap, the company said. Sellers who are paid via the service will also gain enhanced protections.
The auction giant made the announcements during its annual eBay Live trade show, held this year in Chicago. The moves represent an extension of efforts put in place earlier this year by relatively new CEO John Donahoe, who has pledged to revive growth in eBay's core auction platform by boosting user confidence that transactions will be completed. The new protections will "give all buyers and sellers more confidence and trust," said Lorrie Norrington, eBay's president of marketplace operations. "Buyers who pay with PayPal on eBay will be covered, with no limits, on most transactions."
In addition to the PayPal protections, eBay announced it will offer its highest-rated Power Sellers discounts of 20 percent on final value fees -- a perk meant to get them to list more items for sale -- and additional discounts on UPS shipping services.
PayPal is already used on the vast majority of eBay auctions, but the company is eager to see its use expanded even further both on its own platform and elsewhere on the Web. Currently, 97 percent of eBay.com listings offer PayPal as a payment option, eBay said, and more than 90 percent of active eBay users in the United States have PayPal accounts.
The buyer protection plan will cover eligible transactions on eBay in cases where the item is paid for but not received or received but not the item the buyer thought he was getting. Later this year -- in time for the holiday shopping season -- PayPal will remove coverage limits on the buyer protection, allowing items of any size to be fully refundable.
Sellers will also gain more PayPal protection, gaining a buffer against claims, charge-backs and reversals in instances where a payment was made without authorization by the account holder or when an item never reached its destination. The protection will extend to shipments made to 190 markets where PayPal is now accepted.
The enhanced benefits for PayPal underscore both eBay's desire to boost its payment subsidiary and its understanding that increasing consumer confidence in its platform is essential for additional growth, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said. "Buyers need to trust eBay sellers will deliver what they say they will when they say they will," she said. "Especially at the holidays, users will go to someone they trust to get their purchases to them on time and accurately."
eBay has said it believes it is well-positioned to thrive in a tougher economy or even a recession, as consumers seeking bargains will turn to the site. Still, even bargain-hunters want to be confident they'll get what they pay for, Mulpuru added. "The bigger picture for eBay itself is to get more buyers to show up, which will convince sellers to list more and help build out the platform."
eBay stirred up significant dissatisfaction among its users in Australia when it announced a plan to require that all transactions on its marketplace in that country be paid for with PayPal. The outcry was loud enough for eBay to say it will not move to implement the change immediately.
Still, that is clearly the direction eBay wants to move, since it essentially gets paid twice on every transaction paid for with PayPal -- once when it receives a cut of the auction proceeds and again when it takes a fee for processing the PayPal payment.
Perhaps just as important to eBay is growing PayPal use overall, something that would logically follow if more users get into the habit of paying with the service on eBay. The market for alternatives such as PayPal that don't require a credit card number to be entered for each transaction is growing due to worries about identify theft and privacy, distinguished analyst Avivah Litan said. "Consumers are interested in alternative payment methods right now," she said. "This is an important window of opportunity for the PayPals and BillMeLaters to get shoppers comfortable with their services."
Merchants are beginning to recognize that consumers want more choices and are rapidly adding alternatives alongside traditional choices such as credit card payments, with the trend likely to be even more noticeable during the coming holiday shopping season, Litan added.
The recent initiatives were not enough to help eBay avoid being caught up in a Wall Street downdraft, with the stock losing more than 2.7 percent in afternoon action to US$28.40.
Guardian eCommerce Exposes Trustworthy Web Sites!
The auction giant made the announcements during its annual eBay Live trade show, held this year in Chicago. The moves represent an extension of efforts put in place earlier this year by relatively new CEO John Donahoe, who has pledged to revive growth in eBay's core auction platform by boosting user confidence that transactions will be completed. The new protections will "give all buyers and sellers more confidence and trust," said Lorrie Norrington, eBay's president of marketplace operations. "Buyers who pay with PayPal on eBay will be covered, with no limits, on most transactions."
In addition to the PayPal protections, eBay announced it will offer its highest-rated Power Sellers discounts of 20 percent on final value fees -- a perk meant to get them to list more items for sale -- and additional discounts on UPS shipping services.
PayPal is already used on the vast majority of eBay auctions, but the company is eager to see its use expanded even further both on its own platform and elsewhere on the Web. Currently, 97 percent of eBay.com listings offer PayPal as a payment option, eBay said, and more than 90 percent of active eBay users in the United States have PayPal accounts.
The buyer protection plan will cover eligible transactions on eBay in cases where the item is paid for but not received or received but not the item the buyer thought he was getting. Later this year -- in time for the holiday shopping season -- PayPal will remove coverage limits on the buyer protection, allowing items of any size to be fully refundable.
Sellers will also gain more PayPal protection, gaining a buffer against claims, charge-backs and reversals in instances where a payment was made without authorization by the account holder or when an item never reached its destination. The protection will extend to shipments made to 190 markets where PayPal is now accepted.
The enhanced benefits for PayPal underscore both eBay's desire to boost its payment subsidiary and its understanding that increasing consumer confidence in its platform is essential for additional growth, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said. "Buyers need to trust eBay sellers will deliver what they say they will when they say they will," she said. "Especially at the holidays, users will go to someone they trust to get their purchases to them on time and accurately."
eBay has said it believes it is well-positioned to thrive in a tougher economy or even a recession, as consumers seeking bargains will turn to the site. Still, even bargain-hunters want to be confident they'll get what they pay for, Mulpuru added. "The bigger picture for eBay itself is to get more buyers to show up, which will convince sellers to list more and help build out the platform."
eBay stirred up significant dissatisfaction among its users in Australia when it announced a plan to require that all transactions on its marketplace in that country be paid for with PayPal. The outcry was loud enough for eBay to say it will not move to implement the change immediately.
Still, that is clearly the direction eBay wants to move, since it essentially gets paid twice on every transaction paid for with PayPal -- once when it receives a cut of the auction proceeds and again when it takes a fee for processing the PayPal payment.
Perhaps just as important to eBay is growing PayPal use overall, something that would logically follow if more users get into the habit of paying with the service on eBay. The market for alternatives such as PayPal that don't require a credit card number to be entered for each transaction is growing due to worries about identify theft and privacy, distinguished analyst Avivah Litan said. "Consumers are interested in alternative payment methods right now," she said. "This is an important window of opportunity for the PayPals and BillMeLaters to get shoppers comfortable with their services."
Merchants are beginning to recognize that consumers want more choices and are rapidly adding alternatives alongside traditional choices such as credit card payments, with the trend likely to be even more noticeable during the coming holiday shopping season, Litan added.
The recent initiatives were not enough to help eBay avoid being caught up in a Wall Street downdraft, with the stock losing more than 2.7 percent in afternoon action to US$28.40.
Guardian eCommerce Exposes Trustworthy Web Sites!
Is Social Marketing Your Online Store's Top Friend?
Today's savvy consumers want products from a business they can trust, learn from, relate to and "be friends" with. The two most popular social networking sites on the Internet -- MySpace and Facebook -- are potential springboards for friendly lead generation. These sites give online business owners the ability to place their products and services in front of thousands of potential customers in a more personal, and easily accessible environment. With the ability to reach large and targeted audiences, the customizable, interactive and user-friendly interface of sites like MySpace and Facebook introduce social networks as an ideal platform to expand online businesses.
The rapid growth online shopping had in the past years has drawn many new small businesses to the online arena. As online stores grow and the amount of revenue these stores acquire continues to tick higher, the amount of revenue potential that social networking sites provide continues to increase as well. Think back to about five years ago, when half of the brick-and-mortar businesses in the market didn't have a Web site. Now it's unlikely to see a television commercial without also seeing a Web site address or online special attached to it.
This applies to all products in today's market. No longer are cereal boxes and bottle caps offering immediate savings and benefits; instead they are used as tools to drive consumers to their Web sites. For online businesses, the opportunity to gain additional exposure online is especially important, and it's beneficial to utilize all tools available to increase brand awareness.
Signing up for a profile with MySpace or Facebook is relatively easy -- and it's free. There are several resources available to utilize when creating and designing a page for your business. Remember to keep your page current and informative, with a personality that matches your online store. Give a concise overview of your company and how it may benefit your target audience. Use common sense and creativity to spark your visitor's interest. Not only can these profiles compliment your online site, but they can also be used to find targeted consumers.
An ultimate social networking profile would be one in which you were sought out to become a friend. If you're a small business with limited exposure, however, a more realistic approach would be to seek out others instead. Once these friends are found, posting MySpace bulletins and Facebook notes are great tools to use when spreading the message about new products and special deals.
Several niche markets have been able to expand the visibility of their product line due to social networking sites. Music bands offer up an interesting case study for the opportunities within this new channel. It is estimated that more than 5 million bands are now using MySpace.
If these bands decide to take the next step and start selling their music and merchandise to their online fan base, they can realize significant gains. Another example can be found with fashion designers such as Ed Hardy. With more than 35,000 MySpace friends, all it takes is a simple bulletin post to inform each of these thousands of customers of a new product line or monthly special.
A successful e-commerce solution company should help consumers to further promote their online store by allowing merchants to easily add products from that store directly into their social profiles. Then customers would have the ability to check out securely from that merchant's online storefront. This type of integration allows businesses to take full advantage of the potential that social networking sites have to offer.
Once these savvy businesses drive traffic from MySpace and Facebook to their online stores, it's important that they take advantage of the other aspects involved in social selling to close the deal. Web site design, site usability and quality of the site user's overall experience are key factors in gaining customer loyalty when online shopping.
Other features such as e-mail a friend, wish list, customer reviews and affiliate marketing tools can also help to socially spread the word about a store's products and services. Again, it's important for online store owners to take advantage of all of the tools available to market their items via the World Wide Web.
We've found that there isn't a single magic bullet for being successful online, and it's important for merchants to be creative and open to new opportunities when introducing their products to customers.
When entering the social networking world, a business is among thousands of potential leads all with the same vehicle for giving and acquiring information. Be honest, be personal, be a friend and in return, your new friends may become your lifelong customers.
Guardian eCommerce Helps Increase Online Sales!
The rapid growth online shopping had in the past years has drawn many new small businesses to the online arena. As online stores grow and the amount of revenue these stores acquire continues to tick higher, the amount of revenue potential that social networking sites provide continues to increase as well. Think back to about five years ago, when half of the brick-and-mortar businesses in the market didn't have a Web site. Now it's unlikely to see a television commercial without also seeing a Web site address or online special attached to it.
This applies to all products in today's market. No longer are cereal boxes and bottle caps offering immediate savings and benefits; instead they are used as tools to drive consumers to their Web sites. For online businesses, the opportunity to gain additional exposure online is especially important, and it's beneficial to utilize all tools available to increase brand awareness.
Signing up for a profile with MySpace or Facebook is relatively easy -- and it's free. There are several resources available to utilize when creating and designing a page for your business. Remember to keep your page current and informative, with a personality that matches your online store. Give a concise overview of your company and how it may benefit your target audience. Use common sense and creativity to spark your visitor's interest. Not only can these profiles compliment your online site, but they can also be used to find targeted consumers.
An ultimate social networking profile would be one in which you were sought out to become a friend. If you're a small business with limited exposure, however, a more realistic approach would be to seek out others instead. Once these friends are found, posting MySpace bulletins and Facebook notes are great tools to use when spreading the message about new products and special deals.
Several niche markets have been able to expand the visibility of their product line due to social networking sites. Music bands offer up an interesting case study for the opportunities within this new channel. It is estimated that more than 5 million bands are now using MySpace.
If these bands decide to take the next step and start selling their music and merchandise to their online fan base, they can realize significant gains. Another example can be found with fashion designers such as Ed Hardy. With more than 35,000 MySpace friends, all it takes is a simple bulletin post to inform each of these thousands of customers of a new product line or monthly special.
A successful e-commerce solution company should help consumers to further promote their online store by allowing merchants to easily add products from that store directly into their social profiles. Then customers would have the ability to check out securely from that merchant's online storefront. This type of integration allows businesses to take full advantage of the potential that social networking sites have to offer.
Once these savvy businesses drive traffic from MySpace and Facebook to their online stores, it's important that they take advantage of the other aspects involved in social selling to close the deal. Web site design, site usability and quality of the site user's overall experience are key factors in gaining customer loyalty when online shopping.
Other features such as e-mail a friend, wish list, customer reviews and affiliate marketing tools can also help to socially spread the word about a store's products and services. Again, it's important for online store owners to take advantage of all of the tools available to market their items via the World Wide Web.
We've found that there isn't a single magic bullet for being successful online, and it's important for merchants to be creative and open to new opportunities when introducing their products to customers.
When entering the social networking world, a business is among thousands of potential leads all with the same vehicle for giving and acquiring information. Be honest, be personal, be a friend and in return, your new friends may become your lifelong customers.
Guardian eCommerce Helps Increase Online Sales!
Make Your Web Site Work for You
Wherever your Web site ranks on your list of things to work on, move it up to the top. It's that critical.
Your Web site isn't "about" your company, it's an extension of your company. If it's unprofessional, you're unprofessional. If it's cluttered, you're cluttered. If it's hard to work with, you're hard to work with. By contrast, if it's well put together, smart and easy to use, so is your company. At least that's what people will perceive. Most small business Web sites don't do their companies justice.
When you invite prospects to your site, it's no different from offering them a free sample, a trial period or a formal introduction to your business. Even in the age of technology, there's nothing more powerful than a first impression, and your Web site increasingly is your introduction. I used to counsel startup companies not to underestimate the need for a professionally designed logo. I stand by that advice, but now I extend it to their Web presence as well. You simply can't afford to look anything less than first-rate online.
With this in mind, and with their permission, I recently evaluated a few small consumer companies' Web sites and offered suggestions. I analyzed their online branding strategy based on my experience clicking around on their sites the way a prospective customer might.
Stacey Antine has a great idea in Health Barn -- an idea that I could see taking off across the nation as she rides the dual trends of "green" living and nutrition. She's clearly no slouch when it comes to generating public relations for her fledgling operation. However, the Barn's online garden could use some tending.
The Flash introduction is a little cheesy, but it does seem to capture the personality of the company. What it doesn't do is communicate anything about what Health Barn is or does. That's a big missed opportunity, especially given the short amount of time parents can spare. The first thing you are led to click on is "press room," which I'm not sure was intended. Throughout the site, the press coverage is a little overemphasized for my taste. While it does provide credibility, it should be a spice, not the main dish.
I read the entire welcome page and still wasn't clear on what Health Barn did. Is it a curriculum for kids? An online seminar? It took me several minutes before I understood Health Barn is a children's educational program. I was bothered by the way the font size grew smaller and larger as I scrolled down each page -- it just seemed careless. Health Barn may be losing prospects by taking people off the site when they click on the links to media coverage or registration forms, instead of opening them in a separate window.
The "barn store" (a shop within the site) is not only charming but also well organized, with simple signage, attractive displays and products easily accessible to its four-foot customers. Health Barn should apply the same principles to its Web design -- displaying information in a more organized and appetizing manner.
Revat, which describes itself on its site as "the leading self-defense program for adults living in an urban environment," appears to be off to a good start, but it's missing the drama. The fear of being accosted is powerful, yet the Web site doesn't capitalize on that. Imagine how compelling a mini-movie dramatizing Revat training would be to its prospective customers.
However, first, the company needs to decide who exactly those prospects are. My first impression was Revat was created to serve all city dwellers, offering them an innovative approach to self-defense without having to go through years of martial arts training. Yet the company also seems to pride itself on being a finishing school of sorts for elite-level martial arts professionals. Trying to appeal to both scares off a big market of individuals in need of self-defense training, and at the same time turns off martial arts experts. By targeting both, Revat might not reach either.
The company is definitely in need of a step up in how it presents itself. It's difficult for small operations to look professional right out of the gate, and it's apparent Revat is a boutique operation, which could be a bonus to those in its target market of Chicago. However, the company could look more put together. For example, the home page of the Web site, while simple (a good thing), is unimpressive.
The Revat logo appears bitmapped, and little thought was given to layout and design. The photos used on the site look somewhat intimidating -- which may appeal to martial arts pros looking for the next step, but probably not to novices. In addition, there's no clear path through the Web site. The testimonials are difficult to find -- and their diversity reinforces the confusion about who the company is trying to serve. The blog is a complete departure, design-wise, and features a cliched stock photo.
The longer I spent on the site -- and I would fall into the "novice" category -- the less I felt that Revat was for me. If Revat can decide who it's really trying to serve, and invest in a professional Web design company, it could fill an interesting niche.
What on earth is Walker and PingPing? That was my first question when I visited this Web site. I had no idea what this site was about, as it seemed to presume some sort of advance knowledge. Is it a series from Nickelodeon? A new educational program? A Disney Channel initiative? Who's behind it? Filling a first-time visitor's mind with questions isn't a great way to start.
Who is the Web site for? Kids, it appears, yet the most prominent space is given to a sales message: "Buy the DVD!" As a parent, I'm not crazy about that. The links the site provides at the bottom, to an About.com review and "About Little Emperor, LLC" were helpful, but not easy to spot. They didn't give me enough information to know whether or not this was something I wanted for my kids.
I was intrigued once I learned about the company's goal of using animated series to help kids "explore the world." However, I still wanted to know more about who was behind it -- when you're selling to kids, you're selling to their parents as well, and you must offer them plenty of information.
The company may want to consider having an easy-to-find "for parents" section with company background, customer testimonials, independent ratings and more, and also keep the sales message on that side of the site. Then they could feel free to make the main site all that it should be for kids. Instead of simply pushing trailers of the first two episodes, the Web site itself could be an episode of sorts, entertaining the kids and impressing their parents.
The animation isn't up to Disney standards, but it's probably fine for kids. As a father, I would definitely want to know more before I made the buy. There are simply too many other well-crafted, trustworthy educational materials out there.
Site Credibility Pays, Get Your Web Site Certified!
Your Web site isn't "about" your company, it's an extension of your company. If it's unprofessional, you're unprofessional. If it's cluttered, you're cluttered. If it's hard to work with, you're hard to work with. By contrast, if it's well put together, smart and easy to use, so is your company. At least that's what people will perceive. Most small business Web sites don't do their companies justice.
When you invite prospects to your site, it's no different from offering them a free sample, a trial period or a formal introduction to your business. Even in the age of technology, there's nothing more powerful than a first impression, and your Web site increasingly is your introduction. I used to counsel startup companies not to underestimate the need for a professionally designed logo. I stand by that advice, but now I extend it to their Web presence as well. You simply can't afford to look anything less than first-rate online.
With this in mind, and with their permission, I recently evaluated a few small consumer companies' Web sites and offered suggestions. I analyzed their online branding strategy based on my experience clicking around on their sites the way a prospective customer might.
Stacey Antine has a great idea in Health Barn -- an idea that I could see taking off across the nation as she rides the dual trends of "green" living and nutrition. She's clearly no slouch when it comes to generating public relations for her fledgling operation. However, the Barn's online garden could use some tending.
The Flash introduction is a little cheesy, but it does seem to capture the personality of the company. What it doesn't do is communicate anything about what Health Barn is or does. That's a big missed opportunity, especially given the short amount of time parents can spare. The first thing you are led to click on is "press room," which I'm not sure was intended. Throughout the site, the press coverage is a little overemphasized for my taste. While it does provide credibility, it should be a spice, not the main dish.
I read the entire welcome page and still wasn't clear on what Health Barn did. Is it a curriculum for kids? An online seminar? It took me several minutes before I understood Health Barn is a children's educational program. I was bothered by the way the font size grew smaller and larger as I scrolled down each page -- it just seemed careless. Health Barn may be losing prospects by taking people off the site when they click on the links to media coverage or registration forms, instead of opening them in a separate window.
The "barn store" (a shop within the site) is not only charming but also well organized, with simple signage, attractive displays and products easily accessible to its four-foot customers. Health Barn should apply the same principles to its Web design -- displaying information in a more organized and appetizing manner.
Revat, which describes itself on its site as "the leading self-defense program for adults living in an urban environment," appears to be off to a good start, but it's missing the drama. The fear of being accosted is powerful, yet the Web site doesn't capitalize on that. Imagine how compelling a mini-movie dramatizing Revat training would be to its prospective customers.
However, first, the company needs to decide who exactly those prospects are. My first impression was Revat was created to serve all city dwellers, offering them an innovative approach to self-defense without having to go through years of martial arts training. Yet the company also seems to pride itself on being a finishing school of sorts for elite-level martial arts professionals. Trying to appeal to both scares off a big market of individuals in need of self-defense training, and at the same time turns off martial arts experts. By targeting both, Revat might not reach either.
The company is definitely in need of a step up in how it presents itself. It's difficult for small operations to look professional right out of the gate, and it's apparent Revat is a boutique operation, which could be a bonus to those in its target market of Chicago. However, the company could look more put together. For example, the home page of the Web site, while simple (a good thing), is unimpressive.
The Revat logo appears bitmapped, and little thought was given to layout and design. The photos used on the site look somewhat intimidating -- which may appeal to martial arts pros looking for the next step, but probably not to novices. In addition, there's no clear path through the Web site. The testimonials are difficult to find -- and their diversity reinforces the confusion about who the company is trying to serve. The blog is a complete departure, design-wise, and features a cliched stock photo.
The longer I spent on the site -- and I would fall into the "novice" category -- the less I felt that Revat was for me. If Revat can decide who it's really trying to serve, and invest in a professional Web design company, it could fill an interesting niche.
What on earth is Walker and PingPing? That was my first question when I visited this Web site. I had no idea what this site was about, as it seemed to presume some sort of advance knowledge. Is it a series from Nickelodeon? A new educational program? A Disney Channel initiative? Who's behind it? Filling a first-time visitor's mind with questions isn't a great way to start.
Who is the Web site for? Kids, it appears, yet the most prominent space is given to a sales message: "Buy the DVD!" As a parent, I'm not crazy about that. The links the site provides at the bottom, to an About.com review and "About Little Emperor, LLC" were helpful, but not easy to spot. They didn't give me enough information to know whether or not this was something I wanted for my kids.
I was intrigued once I learned about the company's goal of using animated series to help kids "explore the world." However, I still wanted to know more about who was behind it -- when you're selling to kids, you're selling to their parents as well, and you must offer them plenty of information.
The company may want to consider having an easy-to-find "for parents" section with company background, customer testimonials, independent ratings and more, and also keep the sales message on that side of the site. Then they could feel free to make the main site all that it should be for kids. Instead of simply pushing trailers of the first two episodes, the Web site itself could be an episode of sorts, entertaining the kids and impressing their parents.
The animation isn't up to Disney standards, but it's probably fine for kids. As a father, I would definitely want to know more before I made the buy. There are simply too many other well-crafted, trustworthy educational materials out there.
Site Credibility Pays, Get Your Web Site Certified!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Top 10 Reasons Why Websites Fail To Perform
You've taken the time to finally build a website, and now it is online. Months go by. Maybe you get a few visitors now and again. Maybe you land on the search engines. Mostly though, it just sits there. Is the website you paid for pulling its weight? A website is a tool and can be of significant help to your business. It can cut a lot of time you put into giving information to customers. It can answer questions and perform tasks for you. Find out where websites fail to perform and how you can figure out where to make it better.
1. Undefined Website Objectives -- Some sites try to do way too much at once, or worse, they have no definable purpose. Many provide no clear objective. A site can do more than look good and flashy and have your contact information. Websites can be informational, storing content and articles based on a topic. Sites can run eCommerce solutions that help you with your sales process. It can also generate leads, asking customers to fill out forms with their information and interests. It can also be a hybrid site, with mixed purposes, like offering a free ebook or free access to information (informational) in return for contact information (lead generation).
Defining the purpose of your website gives a clear direction to your customers. Where should customers arrive when they find your website? Where do you want them to end up? Using a clear path and clear objectives, you can lead them through your site, your products, and your information, depending on how you need to sell your products. Not all products or services can be sold directly in an eCommerce situation. Maybe you prefer just getting to know your customer a bit more, and being able to forward marketing materials, so a lead generation type of site might be more suitable.
Assign a secondary objective. Maybe after visitors sign up for free access, or an ebook, they are encourage to ask more by contacting your sales reps, or perhaps they can make a direct purchase online. Use a clearly definable call to action. "Email for more information." "Clíck here to sign up." Tell visitors where to go.
2. Unidentified Target Audience -- Demographics have been used in marketing for generations. Marketers use the information because it works. Knowing who your audience is defines the purpose to your website and calls out those who qualify and would be interested in your products. Marketing is the one area where discrimination is actually a good thing! You don't want to waste the marketing dollars that draw people to your site who won't need your products in the first place.
Get to know who your clients are. Are they male or female? How old? Where are they located? What do they do for a living? Habits, income levels, preferences, they can all be discovered with a quick email, phone call or have your current customers take surveys and help you figure out what your clients want.
3. Building for the Wrong Audience -- Your site can have a purpose and a select audience, but if it doesn't appeal to audiences, they tend to go elsewhere. Finding preferences is only the first step. Once you figure out what your demographic is, it is time to find out what appeals to them, and use that to your advantage. It could be something as simple as site colors and images, to where and how they prefer to use navigation systems and the type of content presented.
Maybe you need simple content, easy to read and understand for younger audiences. Perhaps you need something a bit more technical for professionals. You can even see if you need to add features for those who are visually impaired. Paying attention to your demographic and their preferences can mean building your website around their likes and getting more responses.
4. Oblivious to Web Traffic Sources -- A link on a Harry Potter fan club forum to your website can bring in traffic, but does it really bring in the right customers? If you're not directing traffic from sites relevant to yours or where a matching market exists, you might end up with empty hits to your website. It looks pretty on stat pages but it doesn't really do anything.
Refocus your efforts on search engine optimization and focus on keywords that do fit, not just what might be popular. You can plan the sort of traffic you want and focus your outreach efforts on that. Planning your search engine campaigns can make them more effective, bringing the right customers to you. You don't need 1,000 random visitors a day, when 100 qualified visitors will do.
5. Underestimating the Competition -- Who says you can't grab ideas from your competition? Find out what they are lacking and draw customers to your site by adding more features and information. Your target audience is searching the web for your product. Don't let your competition become more appealing.
Understand your competition by observing their sites. Where are your competitors linking? Where aren't they? What designs do they use on their site? Does your target audience like that type of design or do they want something better? Figure out how to improve your site and make it better than your competition.
6. Poor Site Communication and Inconsistency -- If you're building a website, is one page orange and another blue? Does one page have your logo and another doesn't? People love consistency. Does your content and images display the right message? Your website might have pretty pictures of your children, or a fun story about what happened to you last Christmas, but is it really what your customers want to know?
Skip the personal info, unless it's relevant and your audience wants to hear about it. You also need to make sure you present your brand in its best light, and consistently give visitors the same presentation every time and on every page. Let your brand stand out.
7. Outdated and Antiquated Site Features -- Out with the old. Check your site for old content and images and delete them. Remove old links that go nowhere too. Forget pop ups and old methods of keeping visitors around. Content is great, but if it's so old that it's irrelevant, you'll lose respectability and your expert status. Stick to new information. Don't be afraid to get rid of old articles and delete old images. Do an update on your site features, like navigation systems and contact forms.
8. Poor Overall Site Performance -- You've plastered all there is to know about you on a few pages. Is this the right way to do it? Maybe not. Yes, you've given them something to look at, but you have to remember, your time to impress people on the Internet is limited to just a few seconds. Long passages of text, lengthy forms, even poorly constructed or confusing navigation can slow people down, which leads to people leaving.
Making your website flow is all about making your site easy to read, easy to browse and easy to find what you're looking for. Include a search function, highlight popular pages, and make it simple for people to give you their information. Start with short forms, only the essentials, and a few simple questions. You can get more info later.
9. Lack of Commitment -- When was the last time you updated additional information to your website? Remember those "Website Under Construction" images from the early years of the Internet? Over time, people have learned those images are pointless. Your website is ever evolving, ever needing updating. Your website is isn't ever finished.
You must make a commitment to update information and to improve interest in your site from visitors. It could be as simple as updating a blog once or twice a week, or updating about sales and special events. Give visitors something to come back to, and let them turn into regular guests.
10. Not using an Experienced Web Firm -- You do a good job with what you do, and a good business and website owner knows when to call for help. Maybe you're okay with writing content, but you need help with creating navigation and setting up forms. It's okay to ask someone else for help, either with a few pages, or for the entire site design, and leave it to a professional.
It also saves money and time getting someone else to do the complicated things for you. Are you spending weeks on figuring out a web page design set up when it takes a professional a few hours to produce? When you're in business, you consult with professionals who will help you build a better website, develop methods of search engine marketing strategies, and find out how to appeal to your target audience. You save tíme, money, and plenty of headaches.
Site Credibility Pays. Go Visit Guardian eCommerce And Get Site Certified!
1. Undefined Website Objectives -- Some sites try to do way too much at once, or worse, they have no definable purpose. Many provide no clear objective. A site can do more than look good and flashy and have your contact information. Websites can be informational, storing content and articles based on a topic. Sites can run eCommerce solutions that help you with your sales process. It can also generate leads, asking customers to fill out forms with their information and interests. It can also be a hybrid site, with mixed purposes, like offering a free ebook or free access to information (informational) in return for contact information (lead generation).
Defining the purpose of your website gives a clear direction to your customers. Where should customers arrive when they find your website? Where do you want them to end up? Using a clear path and clear objectives, you can lead them through your site, your products, and your information, depending on how you need to sell your products. Not all products or services can be sold directly in an eCommerce situation. Maybe you prefer just getting to know your customer a bit more, and being able to forward marketing materials, so a lead generation type of site might be more suitable.
Assign a secondary objective. Maybe after visitors sign up for free access, or an ebook, they are encourage to ask more by contacting your sales reps, or perhaps they can make a direct purchase online. Use a clearly definable call to action. "Email for more information." "Clíck here to sign up." Tell visitors where to go.
2. Unidentified Target Audience -- Demographics have been used in marketing for generations. Marketers use the information because it works. Knowing who your audience is defines the purpose to your website and calls out those who qualify and would be interested in your products. Marketing is the one area where discrimination is actually a good thing! You don't want to waste the marketing dollars that draw people to your site who won't need your products in the first place.
Get to know who your clients are. Are they male or female? How old? Where are they located? What do they do for a living? Habits, income levels, preferences, they can all be discovered with a quick email, phone call or have your current customers take surveys and help you figure out what your clients want.
3. Building for the Wrong Audience -- Your site can have a purpose and a select audience, but if it doesn't appeal to audiences, they tend to go elsewhere. Finding preferences is only the first step. Once you figure out what your demographic is, it is time to find out what appeals to them, and use that to your advantage. It could be something as simple as site colors and images, to where and how they prefer to use navigation systems and the type of content presented.
Maybe you need simple content, easy to read and understand for younger audiences. Perhaps you need something a bit more technical for professionals. You can even see if you need to add features for those who are visually impaired. Paying attention to your demographic and their preferences can mean building your website around their likes and getting more responses.
4. Oblivious to Web Traffic Sources -- A link on a Harry Potter fan club forum to your website can bring in traffic, but does it really bring in the right customers? If you're not directing traffic from sites relevant to yours or where a matching market exists, you might end up with empty hits to your website. It looks pretty on stat pages but it doesn't really do anything.
Refocus your efforts on search engine optimization and focus on keywords that do fit, not just what might be popular. You can plan the sort of traffic you want and focus your outreach efforts on that. Planning your search engine campaigns can make them more effective, bringing the right customers to you. You don't need 1,000 random visitors a day, when 100 qualified visitors will do.
5. Underestimating the Competition -- Who says you can't grab ideas from your competition? Find out what they are lacking and draw customers to your site by adding more features and information. Your target audience is searching the web for your product. Don't let your competition become more appealing.
Understand your competition by observing their sites. Where are your competitors linking? Where aren't they? What designs do they use on their site? Does your target audience like that type of design or do they want something better? Figure out how to improve your site and make it better than your competition.
6. Poor Site Communication and Inconsistency -- If you're building a website, is one page orange and another blue? Does one page have your logo and another doesn't? People love consistency. Does your content and images display the right message? Your website might have pretty pictures of your children, or a fun story about what happened to you last Christmas, but is it really what your customers want to know?
Skip the personal info, unless it's relevant and your audience wants to hear about it. You also need to make sure you present your brand in its best light, and consistently give visitors the same presentation every time and on every page. Let your brand stand out.
7. Outdated and Antiquated Site Features -- Out with the old. Check your site for old content and images and delete them. Remove old links that go nowhere too. Forget pop ups and old methods of keeping visitors around. Content is great, but if it's so old that it's irrelevant, you'll lose respectability and your expert status. Stick to new information. Don't be afraid to get rid of old articles and delete old images. Do an update on your site features, like navigation systems and contact forms.
8. Poor Overall Site Performance -- You've plastered all there is to know about you on a few pages. Is this the right way to do it? Maybe not. Yes, you've given them something to look at, but you have to remember, your time to impress people on the Internet is limited to just a few seconds. Long passages of text, lengthy forms, even poorly constructed or confusing navigation can slow people down, which leads to people leaving.
Making your website flow is all about making your site easy to read, easy to browse and easy to find what you're looking for. Include a search function, highlight popular pages, and make it simple for people to give you their information. Start with short forms, only the essentials, and a few simple questions. You can get more info later.
9. Lack of Commitment -- When was the last time you updated additional information to your website? Remember those "Website Under Construction" images from the early years of the Internet? Over time, people have learned those images are pointless. Your website is ever evolving, ever needing updating. Your website is isn't ever finished.
You must make a commitment to update information and to improve interest in your site from visitors. It could be as simple as updating a blog once or twice a week, or updating about sales and special events. Give visitors something to come back to, and let them turn into regular guests.
10. Not using an Experienced Web Firm -- You do a good job with what you do, and a good business and website owner knows when to call for help. Maybe you're okay with writing content, but you need help with creating navigation and setting up forms. It's okay to ask someone else for help, either with a few pages, or for the entire site design, and leave it to a professional.
It also saves money and time getting someone else to do the complicated things for you. Are you spending weeks on figuring out a web page design set up when it takes a professional a few hours to produce? When you're in business, you consult with professionals who will help you build a better website, develop methods of search engine marketing strategies, and find out how to appeal to your target audience. You save tíme, money, and plenty of headaches.
Site Credibility Pays. Go Visit Guardian eCommerce And Get Site Certified!
The Web-Content Conundrum
The Web consumes content like a teenager at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Lots and lots of content makes you more search engine friendly, helps establish your knowledge and expertise, explains in detail what you offer, and justifies that offer with all the explanations, statistics, and rationale you can muster. The problem is no one reads it.
Well that's not exactly true: some people read every scrap of information on your site; they just happen to be the tire-kickers, the people looking for ways to get stuff they don't have to pay for, or they're competitors looking for ways to copy what you do, or worse find something wrong. This is definitely a dilemma that needs to be addressed.
The Answer Lies In The Questions -- The answer is obviously not to eliminate all the good stuff you've worked so hard to create, or to bury it where no one will ever see it. When it comes to Web-content ask yourself:
1. Is our content meaningful and relevant, or is it just hype and bunkum?
2. Is our content understandable by our audience, or is it so inarticulate that people just give up, even when they are desperate to find out what you have to say?
3. Does our content hold our audience's attention? Does it just explain, or does it engage, excite, and entertain while at the same time persuade on both a rationale and emotional level?
4. Is our content so intimidating and technical that it leads to more confusion and questions than answers?
5. Is our most important content buried in volumes of extraneous information or advertising copy, making it difficult to access and understand?
If any of these questions describe the text-based information on your website, then perhaps you need to find a way to make that important information more useful to your clients, not just search engines spiders.
When it comes to website content there are five things you need to keep in mind in order to make that content meaningful: Relevance, Clarity, Effectiveness, Memorability, and Personality.
Relevance: The Appropriateness of The Material -- The material on your website has to be relevant, it is good for search engine indexing and it is good for establishing your expertise and trustworthiness, a quality that is an absolute necessity in a Web-based business environment, but exactly what constitutes relevant content? In order for content to be relevant it must serve your overall marketing agenda and at the same time it must be useful to your target audience.
If your goal is to generate long-term clients by establishing a relationship with your website visitors then that relationship has to be symbiotic, that is, it must benefit both you and the your prospective clients. There are far too many websites around that are based on the P.T. Barnum principle that everyone is a sucker and can be conned. At the other end of the spectrum there are also way too many sites that are nothing more than catalogs, a kind of, here it is, take it or leave it approach. Then there are the sites that provide pages and pages of specifications and features that confuse more than clarify. And finally there are the websites that are nothing more than business cards or display ads, an approach that says to the visitor that you are too cheap, too lazy, or too unimaginative to bother creating an appropriate marketing website.
The fact that search engines seek out relevant content is merely a positive by-product of good content, it is not the ultimate marketing objective, which should be to open up a communication with your audience and start a productive and profitable relationship.
Clarity: The Ability To Be Understood -- Is there anything more important than being understood? I assume you have a website because you want to promote and expand your business, but if visitors do not understand who you are, what you do, and why they should pay you to provide them with a product or service, then exactly what are you doing? Being understood sounds like a simple thing, but it is not. Ask yourself, to whom am I trying to communicate? Is it a search engine robot or a real person? If your main concern is the ever changing search engine indexing machinery then you risk the danger of not being completely understood by the people who visit your website.
There is a certain comfort in dealing with the illusion of certainty that speaks to the mechanics of search engine optimization: all you have to do is follow the rules and you'll be successful. The problem is the game is fixed and the rules keep changing, and more importantly it's the wrong audience. Any order you ever generated was from a real person and if real people don't understand your marketing message, then all that traffic to your site is wasted.
Effectiveness: The Ability to Serve Your Marketing Objectives -- Being clear and to the point is important but it doesn't necessarily make your site effective. Dragnet's Sergeant Friday may have wanted, 'just the facts, nothing but the facts' but in the real world people need more.
People are busy and they do not want to waste their time on things that have no meaning for them, and that is the key. Things become meaningful when they engage while they enlighten, educate while they entertain, and persuade while they present. People spend hours upon hours on the Web doing things that could be considered a waste of time and non productive, so the idea that people will not invest their time on your website is just plain wrong. If they won't spend the time, then they aren't really interested or your presentation stinks.
What makes the Web such a powerful marketing tool is its multimedia capability, the opportuníty to communicate using text, images, motion graphics, video, and sound (audio) design. And of all these delivery options the two most effective communication techniques are video and sound (audio) design.
Memorability: The Ability To Stick In Your Audience's Minds -- Clarity and effectiveness are vital but if people don't remember who you are, all your hard work will be lost. Maybe you've convinced your audience that your way is the answer, but if they don't remember it was you that told them, then you've wasted the opportuníty.
There are lots of sites around that expect instant response. They present their material and expect you to press a button and give them money. It's not that this can't happen, but it certainly is not what usually happens.
How many times have you wished you could remember that website that had that thing that you didn't need then but you need now? Not every potential customer is ready to buy right away, and if they forget who you are, someone else will benefit from your effort.
Let's put it another way, sales is like sex, while marketing is like a seduction. If you're not prepared to invest in romancing your audience, they'll immediately forget you exist and the sale will go to the business that gets remembered.
In order to create that memory, your website has to be an experience, an experience that resonates and entertains by delivering your marketing message with style and flair, using real human beings, analogy, and the classic story format in a professionally executed performance.
Personality: The Ability To Distinguish You From The Competition -- Every business has a personality, an image, an identity that is the sum total of every experience anyone who has ever had contact with your company has ever had. Success online and offline depends on how well you manage that personality.
Your website is part of your public face and in many cases it is your only public face. Your business is not what you sell and it is not you, it is a separate and distinct entity that needs to be treated like a precocious child in need of care and feeding, and development.
Personality starts with a point-of-view and an attitude strong enough to make an impact. And the more mundane your offering, the more important it is to make a statement. Victoria's Secret has little trouble grabbing people's attention, but if it's sandpaper you sell, you better try harder. We especially see this identity crisis with distributors, whose own personality often gets sublimated to the major brands they carry.
Perhaps you remember the J. Peterman character from the old Seinfeld television show. The character was played by, actor and voice-over specialist, John O'Hurley, who is nothing like the real J. Peterman. But the characterization was so strong, and so memorable, that O'Hurley was able to single-handedly rescue the company from financial trouble.
If you're looking to create a Web-personality as effective as John O'Hurley's J. Peterman, you should consider adding a video or audio host to your Web-presentation, one that engages your audience's attention and captures their collective imagination.
At the end of the day there is one thing about websites that should guide you in your decisions as to what you present and how, and that is simply, websites are for people not search engines. If the people coming to your website don't hear what you have to say, understand what you're offering, and remember who you are, then your website isn't doing what it needs to do for your business.
Gain Trust In Your Website, Go Guardian eCommerce!
Well that's not exactly true: some people read every scrap of information on your site; they just happen to be the tire-kickers, the people looking for ways to get stuff they don't have to pay for, or they're competitors looking for ways to copy what you do, or worse find something wrong. This is definitely a dilemma that needs to be addressed.
The Answer Lies In The Questions -- The answer is obviously not to eliminate all the good stuff you've worked so hard to create, or to bury it where no one will ever see it. When it comes to Web-content ask yourself:
1. Is our content meaningful and relevant, or is it just hype and bunkum?
2. Is our content understandable by our audience, or is it so inarticulate that people just give up, even when they are desperate to find out what you have to say?
3. Does our content hold our audience's attention? Does it just explain, or does it engage, excite, and entertain while at the same time persuade on both a rationale and emotional level?
4. Is our content so intimidating and technical that it leads to more confusion and questions than answers?
5. Is our most important content buried in volumes of extraneous information or advertising copy, making it difficult to access and understand?
If any of these questions describe the text-based information on your website, then perhaps you need to find a way to make that important information more useful to your clients, not just search engines spiders.
When it comes to website content there are five things you need to keep in mind in order to make that content meaningful: Relevance, Clarity, Effectiveness, Memorability, and Personality.
Relevance: The Appropriateness of The Material -- The material on your website has to be relevant, it is good for search engine indexing and it is good for establishing your expertise and trustworthiness, a quality that is an absolute necessity in a Web-based business environment, but exactly what constitutes relevant content? In order for content to be relevant it must serve your overall marketing agenda and at the same time it must be useful to your target audience.
If your goal is to generate long-term clients by establishing a relationship with your website visitors then that relationship has to be symbiotic, that is, it must benefit both you and the your prospective clients. There are far too many websites around that are based on the P.T. Barnum principle that everyone is a sucker and can be conned. At the other end of the spectrum there are also way too many sites that are nothing more than catalogs, a kind of, here it is, take it or leave it approach. Then there are the sites that provide pages and pages of specifications and features that confuse more than clarify. And finally there are the websites that are nothing more than business cards or display ads, an approach that says to the visitor that you are too cheap, too lazy, or too unimaginative to bother creating an appropriate marketing website.
The fact that search engines seek out relevant content is merely a positive by-product of good content, it is not the ultimate marketing objective, which should be to open up a communication with your audience and start a productive and profitable relationship.
Clarity: The Ability To Be Understood -- Is there anything more important than being understood? I assume you have a website because you want to promote and expand your business, but if visitors do not understand who you are, what you do, and why they should pay you to provide them with a product or service, then exactly what are you doing? Being understood sounds like a simple thing, but it is not. Ask yourself, to whom am I trying to communicate? Is it a search engine robot or a real person? If your main concern is the ever changing search engine indexing machinery then you risk the danger of not being completely understood by the people who visit your website.
There is a certain comfort in dealing with the illusion of certainty that speaks to the mechanics of search engine optimization: all you have to do is follow the rules and you'll be successful. The problem is the game is fixed and the rules keep changing, and more importantly it's the wrong audience. Any order you ever generated was from a real person and if real people don't understand your marketing message, then all that traffic to your site is wasted.
Effectiveness: The Ability to Serve Your Marketing Objectives -- Being clear and to the point is important but it doesn't necessarily make your site effective. Dragnet's Sergeant Friday may have wanted, 'just the facts, nothing but the facts' but in the real world people need more.
People are busy and they do not want to waste their time on things that have no meaning for them, and that is the key. Things become meaningful when they engage while they enlighten, educate while they entertain, and persuade while they present. People spend hours upon hours on the Web doing things that could be considered a waste of time and non productive, so the idea that people will not invest their time on your website is just plain wrong. If they won't spend the time, then they aren't really interested or your presentation stinks.
What makes the Web such a powerful marketing tool is its multimedia capability, the opportuníty to communicate using text, images, motion graphics, video, and sound (audio) design. And of all these delivery options the two most effective communication techniques are video and sound (audio) design.
Memorability: The Ability To Stick In Your Audience's Minds -- Clarity and effectiveness are vital but if people don't remember who you are, all your hard work will be lost. Maybe you've convinced your audience that your way is the answer, but if they don't remember it was you that told them, then you've wasted the opportuníty.
There are lots of sites around that expect instant response. They present their material and expect you to press a button and give them money. It's not that this can't happen, but it certainly is not what usually happens.
How many times have you wished you could remember that website that had that thing that you didn't need then but you need now? Not every potential customer is ready to buy right away, and if they forget who you are, someone else will benefit from your effort.
Let's put it another way, sales is like sex, while marketing is like a seduction. If you're not prepared to invest in romancing your audience, they'll immediately forget you exist and the sale will go to the business that gets remembered.
In order to create that memory, your website has to be an experience, an experience that resonates and entertains by delivering your marketing message with style and flair, using real human beings, analogy, and the classic story format in a professionally executed performance.
Personality: The Ability To Distinguish You From The Competition -- Every business has a personality, an image, an identity that is the sum total of every experience anyone who has ever had contact with your company has ever had. Success online and offline depends on how well you manage that personality.
Your website is part of your public face and in many cases it is your only public face. Your business is not what you sell and it is not you, it is a separate and distinct entity that needs to be treated like a precocious child in need of care and feeding, and development.
Personality starts with a point-of-view and an attitude strong enough to make an impact. And the more mundane your offering, the more important it is to make a statement. Victoria's Secret has little trouble grabbing people's attention, but if it's sandpaper you sell, you better try harder. We especially see this identity crisis with distributors, whose own personality often gets sublimated to the major brands they carry.
Perhaps you remember the J. Peterman character from the old Seinfeld television show. The character was played by, actor and voice-over specialist, John O'Hurley, who is nothing like the real J. Peterman. But the characterization was so strong, and so memorable, that O'Hurley was able to single-handedly rescue the company from financial trouble.
If you're looking to create a Web-personality as effective as John O'Hurley's J. Peterman, you should consider adding a video or audio host to your Web-presentation, one that engages your audience's attention and captures their collective imagination.
At the end of the day there is one thing about websites that should guide you in your decisions as to what you present and how, and that is simply, websites are for people not search engines. If the people coming to your website don't hear what you have to say, understand what you're offering, and remember who you are, then your website isn't doing what it needs to do for your business.
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Seven Ways to Make E-Marketing Work in a Tough Economy
In a challenging economy, you must find new ways to make marketing work more effectively, get more out of marketing investments, and measure and account for marketing decisions. In short, you must make changes. Doing the same things in an uncertain economic environment and expecting the same results is, at worst, a definition of marketing insanity. At best, it is a flawed strategy.
How can your company be one of those success stories that market and grow their business during challenging economic times? The following strategies will help you allocate marketing investments to better performing programs that will carry your company through the economic downturn and beyond.
1. Get Targeted -- A fundamental but sometimes overlooked marketing tenet is to "fish where the fish are." In other words, invest in those specific, targeted media where you know your customers and prospects will be exposed to your message. Research shows that virtually all engineering, technical and industrial professionals now use the Internet throughout their work process.
The same holds true in most business-to-business markets. However, the Internet is vast, and the fish you are looking for may be using specific Web sites where the content is directly related to their information needs. Work with your media partners to identify and target those sites.
2. Measure Performance -- While it's always the right time to purge marketing programs that don't perform, it may be time to scale back any marketing plans whose results you can't measure or are unsure about. In other words, reallocate and "right-size" marketing budgets to measurable programs. Online programs -- which are built around delivering visibility, impressions, clicks, leads and customers -- are easy to measure.
3. Think Integration -- Integrated marketing means your marketing strategy takes advantage of multiple media, resources and customer touch points to create a whole that's greater and more effective than the sum of its parts. The more that marketing efforts are integrated and comprehensive, the greater impact you can achieve in gaining visibility in your market, qualified leads and sales.
4. Maintain Frequency and Consistency -- The benefits of regular visibility in the market tend to compound over time as more prospects recognize your company. This improves your opportunity to get on a prospect's short list of potential vendors and also shortens the sales cycle. A consistent online presence where your customers and prospects are looking for information -- including Web sites, directories, search engines and e-newsletters -- will help your company stay visible as well as provide measurable lead generation benefits via online contact.
5. Push and Pull Your Way to Success -- Most marketing can be classified as either push or pull: companies push their message out through tactics such as direct mail, advertisements and e-newsletters; and they also establish a presence in online directories, Web sites and search engines to pull customers in real-time when prospects are searching for information, products and services like those your company offers.
Rather than struggling over whether to allocate resources to push or pull marketing, seek out a media partner that has your target audience captive and can offer both push and pull programs under an integrated program.
6. Focus on Quality Over Quantity -- If marketing efforts focus solely on quantity over quality, fewer leads will convert, more sales resources will be wasted, and sales people will begin to distrust marketing's lead generation programs.
Commit to programs where quality is a key attribute: programs that can deliver interested prospects, provide prospect contact information, and offer reports of program performance .
7. Seek Assistance From Media Partners -- The economy is likely forcing you to make harder and smarter decisions about allocating budgets. While you may be facing challenges, you don't have to face them alone. Ask media partners to demonstrate how their marketing solutions help your company achieve the strategies mentioned above.
Ask them:
-Do they have your target audience's attention?
-Can they keep your company visible to prospects and customers at all times?
-Do they offer a variety of integrated marketing solutions aligned with your goals?
-Can they provide both visibility and lead generation?
-Do they deliver targeted, quality leads with full contact information?
-Do they provide reports you can use to measure the performance of your marketing
and justify your marketing investments?
During challenging times or when thing are going well, industrial marketers need to clarify goals and create a tailored, integrated marketing solution that complements your current media mix and extends your company's ability to compete and win business in the market.
Utilize a wide range of e-media advertising and marketing solutions. Consider keyword ads, e-mail marketing, searchable product catalogs, banner ad networks and industry-leading e-newsletter advertisements. Figure out the right combination, and you will deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience and integrate with your traditional marketing efforts.
Increase Site Trust, Site Credibility Pays With Guardian eCommerce!
How can your company be one of those success stories that market and grow their business during challenging economic times? The following strategies will help you allocate marketing investments to better performing programs that will carry your company through the economic downturn and beyond.
1. Get Targeted -- A fundamental but sometimes overlooked marketing tenet is to "fish where the fish are." In other words, invest in those specific, targeted media where you know your customers and prospects will be exposed to your message. Research shows that virtually all engineering, technical and industrial professionals now use the Internet throughout their work process.
The same holds true in most business-to-business markets. However, the Internet is vast, and the fish you are looking for may be using specific Web sites where the content is directly related to their information needs. Work with your media partners to identify and target those sites.
2. Measure Performance -- While it's always the right time to purge marketing programs that don't perform, it may be time to scale back any marketing plans whose results you can't measure or are unsure about. In other words, reallocate and "right-size" marketing budgets to measurable programs. Online programs -- which are built around delivering visibility, impressions, clicks, leads and customers -- are easy to measure.
3. Think Integration -- Integrated marketing means your marketing strategy takes advantage of multiple media, resources and customer touch points to create a whole that's greater and more effective than the sum of its parts. The more that marketing efforts are integrated and comprehensive, the greater impact you can achieve in gaining visibility in your market, qualified leads and sales.
4. Maintain Frequency and Consistency -- The benefits of regular visibility in the market tend to compound over time as more prospects recognize your company. This improves your opportunity to get on a prospect's short list of potential vendors and also shortens the sales cycle. A consistent online presence where your customers and prospects are looking for information -- including Web sites, directories, search engines and e-newsletters -- will help your company stay visible as well as provide measurable lead generation benefits via online contact.
5. Push and Pull Your Way to Success -- Most marketing can be classified as either push or pull: companies push their message out through tactics such as direct mail, advertisements and e-newsletters; and they also establish a presence in online directories, Web sites and search engines to pull customers in real-time when prospects are searching for information, products and services like those your company offers.
Rather than struggling over whether to allocate resources to push or pull marketing, seek out a media partner that has your target audience captive and can offer both push and pull programs under an integrated program.
6. Focus on Quality Over Quantity -- If marketing efforts focus solely on quantity over quality, fewer leads will convert, more sales resources will be wasted, and sales people will begin to distrust marketing's lead generation programs.
Commit to programs where quality is a key attribute: programs that can deliver interested prospects, provide prospect contact information, and offer reports of program performance .
7. Seek Assistance From Media Partners -- The economy is likely forcing you to make harder and smarter decisions about allocating budgets. While you may be facing challenges, you don't have to face them alone. Ask media partners to demonstrate how their marketing solutions help your company achieve the strategies mentioned above.
Ask them:
-Do they have your target audience's attention?
-Can they keep your company visible to prospects and customers at all times?
-Do they offer a variety of integrated marketing solutions aligned with your goals?
-Can they provide both visibility and lead generation?
-Do they deliver targeted, quality leads with full contact information?
-Do they provide reports you can use to measure the performance of your marketing
and justify your marketing investments?
During challenging times or when thing are going well, industrial marketers need to clarify goals and create a tailored, integrated marketing solution that complements your current media mix and extends your company's ability to compete and win business in the market.
Utilize a wide range of e-media advertising and marketing solutions. Consider keyword ads, e-mail marketing, searchable product catalogs, banner ad networks and industry-leading e-newsletter advertisements. Figure out the right combination, and you will deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience and integrate with your traditional marketing efforts.
Increase Site Trust, Site Credibility Pays With Guardian eCommerce!
E-Commerce Web Services: Better, Faster, Cheaper
Typically, new technologies tend to promise more than they deliver. That has not been the case with Web services, which are being integrated into just about every new e-commerce application. "Support for Web services has come from application vendors, application development tool suppliers and middleware vendors," said Jason Bloomberg, a managing partner with market research firm ZapThink.
The support has been widespread because Web services enable companies to simplify application design, deliver enhancements more quickly, and reuse software more easily. Those features stem from the design of Web services. In essence, Web services provide businesses with a standard way to communicate. They replace complex, proprietary programming interfaces with Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents and standard application protocols. XML is used to tag data, and SOAP is used to transfer it, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) describes the services needed, and UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) tells applications what services are available.
Because compliant software works with open protocols, it can be discovered by other programs, and two or more applications can interact with one another and perform tasks, such as exchanging information. With this flexibility, companies can integrate their own applications more tightly within the enterprise. An e-commerce corporation might connect its order entry program with its accounting applications so that changes made in one area automatically update data housed in another department. This step can be taken even if the applications are coded in different programming languages.
In addition, businesses can exchange data with their partners, customers and suppliers more effectively. In a best case scenario, they can view and use partners' information as if it was their own. A Web service could carry out payment validation by taking information from one system -- perhaps a customer name and address -- and initiating a request for other information relevant to the process, such as a credit card account number, expiration date or the card verification number on the back of a credit card.
Taking advantage of such features does not require much of an investment for an e-commerce supplier. "Many of the new applications as well as application development tools arrive with inherent support for Web services," stated Randy Heffner, an analyst with Forrester Research. In some cases, e-commerce companies initiate Web services simply by deploying applications, such as Oracle's E-Business Suite.
In addition, Web services have become a feature that many e-commerce suppliers now offer to their customers. "The Web services suppliers win because other companies use their services, and that helps drive up their visibility and eventually their revenue," ZapThink's Bloomberg explained. The customers are content because they have more sophisticated functions than they could develop by themselves.
Because of the benefits, a number of e-commerce suppliers are moving into this space. "Amazon and Google are a few of the companies that have developed Web services that they let other companies take advantage of," Heffner said. Amazon has been in the Web services business since its launch of Amazon Web Services in 2002. The service provides software developers, Web site owners and merchants with access to back-end features found on Amazon's Web site, such as its payment system. As the services have evolved, the face of the companies using them has changed.
"When we started this business, we imagined that smaller companies, particularly startups, would be the first ones to take advantage of our services, given their low-cost nature and the fact that they get to leverage our massive scaling capabilities with no up-front investment," noted Kay Kinton, an Amazon spokesperson. "Now that our services have become more mature, we are seeing larger companies take advantage as well."
While Web services offer many advantages, they face a few deployment challenges. "Web services technology is readily available and works well. The obstacles stem from management issues," said ZapThink's Bloomberg. Many programmers do not want to fully understand how to build applications that take advantage of Web services features. Inertia is also a problem: Some programmers resist designing applications in a new way. Companies often need to invest in training courses in order to overcome those barriers.
Another challenge is most existing enterprise software infrastructures conform to other architectures, such as client/server, thin client, or mainframe computing. Consequently, it can take companies a substantial amount of time, money and manpower to revamp their systems and realize Web services' potential benefits.
To help address these issues, Web services are being rolled up into a more expansive application development initiative: service-oriented architecture (SOA). The goal with this movement is to design all applications so they operate in a plug-and-play manner. Here, support for Web services would be one of the features bundled in with SOA compliant systems.
Because of its potential, major vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have been promoting SOA. "SOA has the potential to help companies streamline the application development process further, but putting the pieces in place to take advantage of it has proven to be a difficult challenge," concluded Bloomberg. This problem is expected to be a short-term issue. As SOA acceptance rises, the Web services footprint will grow even bigger in e-commerce companies.
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The support has been widespread because Web services enable companies to simplify application design, deliver enhancements more quickly, and reuse software more easily. Those features stem from the design of Web services. In essence, Web services provide businesses with a standard way to communicate. They replace complex, proprietary programming interfaces with Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents and standard application protocols. XML is used to tag data, and SOAP is used to transfer it, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) describes the services needed, and UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) tells applications what services are available.
Because compliant software works with open protocols, it can be discovered by other programs, and two or more applications can interact with one another and perform tasks, such as exchanging information. With this flexibility, companies can integrate their own applications more tightly within the enterprise. An e-commerce corporation might connect its order entry program with its accounting applications so that changes made in one area automatically update data housed in another department. This step can be taken even if the applications are coded in different programming languages.
In addition, businesses can exchange data with their partners, customers and suppliers more effectively. In a best case scenario, they can view and use partners' information as if it was their own. A Web service could carry out payment validation by taking information from one system -- perhaps a customer name and address -- and initiating a request for other information relevant to the process, such as a credit card account number, expiration date or the card verification number on the back of a credit card.
Taking advantage of such features does not require much of an investment for an e-commerce supplier. "Many of the new applications as well as application development tools arrive with inherent support for Web services," stated Randy Heffner, an analyst with Forrester Research. In some cases, e-commerce companies initiate Web services simply by deploying applications, such as Oracle's E-Business Suite.
In addition, Web services have become a feature that many e-commerce suppliers now offer to their customers. "The Web services suppliers win because other companies use their services, and that helps drive up their visibility and eventually their revenue," ZapThink's Bloomberg explained. The customers are content because they have more sophisticated functions than they could develop by themselves.
Because of the benefits, a number of e-commerce suppliers are moving into this space. "Amazon and Google are a few of the companies that have developed Web services that they let other companies take advantage of," Heffner said. Amazon has been in the Web services business since its launch of Amazon Web Services in 2002. The service provides software developers, Web site owners and merchants with access to back-end features found on Amazon's Web site, such as its payment system. As the services have evolved, the face of the companies using them has changed.
"When we started this business, we imagined that smaller companies, particularly startups, would be the first ones to take advantage of our services, given their low-cost nature and the fact that they get to leverage our massive scaling capabilities with no up-front investment," noted Kay Kinton, an Amazon spokesperson. "Now that our services have become more mature, we are seeing larger companies take advantage as well."
While Web services offer many advantages, they face a few deployment challenges. "Web services technology is readily available and works well. The obstacles stem from management issues," said ZapThink's Bloomberg. Many programmers do not want to fully understand how to build applications that take advantage of Web services features. Inertia is also a problem: Some programmers resist designing applications in a new way. Companies often need to invest in training courses in order to overcome those barriers.
Another challenge is most existing enterprise software infrastructures conform to other architectures, such as client/server, thin client, or mainframe computing. Consequently, it can take companies a substantial amount of time, money and manpower to revamp their systems and realize Web services' potential benefits.
To help address these issues, Web services are being rolled up into a more expansive application development initiative: service-oriented architecture (SOA). The goal with this movement is to design all applications so they operate in a plug-and-play manner. Here, support for Web services would be one of the features bundled in with SOA compliant systems.
Because of its potential, major vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have been promoting SOA. "SOA has the potential to help companies streamline the application development process further, but putting the pieces in place to take advantage of it has proven to be a difficult challenge," concluded Bloomberg. This problem is expected to be a short-term issue. As SOA acceptance rises, the Web services footprint will grow even bigger in e-commerce companies.
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Sunday, May 04, 2008
The Fed And The Credit Card Crack Down
The Federal Reserve and other regulators are moving Friday to crack down on "unfair and deceptive" practices in the credit card industry that have added billions in debt to people already struggling to cope with the economic downturn. In the most far-reaching crackdown on the credit industry in decades, the Fed and two government agencies are proposing rules that would stop credit card companies from unfairly raising interest rates and make sure they give people enough time to pay their bills.
The banking industry is expected to fight the new rules.
Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America, said that while he hadn't yet seen the details, the rules "appear to address some of the most significant abuses in the credit card marketplace right now." Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has introduced legislation to protect consumers from credit card abuse, said in a statement that she was pleased the Fed had adopted some aspects of her legislation.
However, she also expressed concern that "by the time the Fed gets around to finalizing these credit card reform proposals, they will be watered down and come too little too late for consumers who need relief now."
The Fed has been criticized for moving too slowly to respond to abuses leading to the subprime mortgage crisis. The agencies said the new regulations could be finalized by the end of the year.
Plunkett said his group estimates that credit card debt is now about US$850 billion, with households that don't pay their credit card bills in full every month owing an average $17,000.
The proposed new rules that would prohibit:
Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay;
Unfairly allocating payments among balances with different interest rates;
Unfairly raising annual percentage rates on outstanding balances; Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account;
Unfairly computing balances; Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making credit available; Making deceptive offers of credit.
In news releases, the agencies said the proposed rules also would require federal credit unions to give consumers a chance to opt out of an overdraft protection program. And they would prohibit those institutions from charging a fee for an overdraft caused by a hold placed on consumer's funds when a person uses a debit card.
The Fed, which is expected to vote Friday afternoon on its approval of the proposed rules, is acting in conjunction with the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of Thrift Supervision. Ken Clayton, senior vice president of card policy for the American Bankers Association, said the industry will fight the new proposals, describing them as "aggressive regulatory intervention in the marketplace that will result in higher prices and less consumer credit."
He said the change "basically says that we can't price for risk" and that if higher risk borrowers don't bear the costs, those costs will be passed along to other consumers.
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The banking industry is expected to fight the new rules.
Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America, said that while he hadn't yet seen the details, the rules "appear to address some of the most significant abuses in the credit card marketplace right now." Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has introduced legislation to protect consumers from credit card abuse, said in a statement that she was pleased the Fed had adopted some aspects of her legislation.
However, she also expressed concern that "by the time the Fed gets around to finalizing these credit card reform proposals, they will be watered down and come too little too late for consumers who need relief now."
The Fed has been criticized for moving too slowly to respond to abuses leading to the subprime mortgage crisis. The agencies said the new regulations could be finalized by the end of the year.
Plunkett said his group estimates that credit card debt is now about US$850 billion, with households that don't pay their credit card bills in full every month owing an average $17,000.
The proposed new rules that would prohibit:
Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay;
Unfairly allocating payments among balances with different interest rates;
Unfairly raising annual percentage rates on outstanding balances; Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account;
Unfairly computing balances; Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making credit available; Making deceptive offers of credit.
In news releases, the agencies said the proposed rules also would require federal credit unions to give consumers a chance to opt out of an overdraft protection program. And they would prohibit those institutions from charging a fee for an overdraft caused by a hold placed on consumer's funds when a person uses a debit card.
The Fed, which is expected to vote Friday afternoon on its approval of the proposed rules, is acting in conjunction with the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of Thrift Supervision. Ken Clayton, senior vice president of card policy for the American Bankers Association, said the industry will fight the new proposals, describing them as "aggressive regulatory intervention in the marketplace that will result in higher prices and less consumer credit."
He said the change "basically says that we can't price for risk" and that if higher risk borrowers don't bear the costs, those costs will be passed along to other consumers.
Site Credibility Pays, Get Site Trusted Today...
Tech Trash Is Treasure
The hottest gadgets of today will look old and tired a year from now. Sellers of mobile handsets, smartphones, MP3 players, gaming consoles, camcorders, digital cameras and laptops constantly push the latest and greatest technology, leaving yesterday's choice items in the dust. Then there's the fact that this stuff is pretty easily broken.
How to dispose of broken or outdated electronic devices has become a growing question. A one year-old startup, BuyMyTronics.com, thinks it has an equitable and environmentally friendly solution: It will buy anyone's used, new and broken devices. It will fix what's fixable and sell it at profit. The rest gets recycled.
"Everybody has something they [just don't know what to do with]. It's happened to me before. I broke a digital camera, and when I looked for a place to have it fixed, it was going to be more to fix it than it was to buy a brand new one," said Brett Mosley, president and CEO of BuyMyTronics.com.
Although many people have found themselves in a similar position, holding a worthless device because it is broken or out-of-date, Mosley decided he would do something about it. "I'd always had that idea that it would be cool if you could buy things from people at a reasonable price and then have all of your labor and repairs done in-house. You could sell them. It was always something I had been frustrated with and said, 'someone should do something about this.' The opportunity presented itself and I seized the day," he said.
For what Mosley calls a "reasonable price," BuyMyTronics will purchase certain types of electronics from numerous vendors, including Apple, iPods, Blackberry smartphones and Sony PlayStation gaming consoles, among many more. iPhone bricked? BuyMyTronics wants it. Recently upgraded to an iPod touch and you need to move an older model? The firm will buy that too.
"A pretty popular model [cell phone], the Motorola V3, we pay up to (US)$35 for a used one. For a broken iPhone, we pay up to $200 for one of those. A used BlackBerry Pearl, we pay up to $200. A used iPod video -- not this current generation but the one before it -- we pay up to $160. A used mini iPod, up to $37, and a broken nano is up to $51. We pay up to $292 for a Nintendo Wii," Mosley explained.
The response to the site has been excellent, he said. "We've been up and running for about a year now, and month over month we've been growing at 30 percent," he pointed out. Business has been good enough for Mosley to expand the list of electronics he will purchase to include Apple laptops. PC laptops will be added in the future.
"On laptops, we'll be paying up to $2,000. We'll pay pretty well for broken and used," he said.
Whatever the condition of the device, Mosley said, his company will pay consumers for it. If it's not fixable and resellable, once the device has been stripped of serviceable parts, the remainder -- which often includes components composed of toxic elements -- will be responsibly recycled, not sent to a local landfill.
"I'm paying people to recycle, essentially. I'm actually paying really good money, and the concept sells really well with people," he noted.
The green effect does not stop there. The business is 100 percent wind powered, according to Mosley, and by salvaging reusable parts from old and broken devices, BuyMyTronics reduces the number of new components that will need to be manufactured. Refurbishing salvageable devices and selling them to larger retailers and through an eBay site also achieves this goal.
The tech waste problem is massive, Sarah Westervel, e-Waste project coordinator at the Basel Action Network (BAN), said. "One of the things that's really mind-blowing ... to go into a U.S. recycler's warehouse that maybe is 80,000 to 100,000 square feet and see nothing but electronic waste," she said.
The BAN works for the responsible disposal and recycling of toxic waste, of which electronic devices are a significant and constantly growing percentage. The danger to the environment is that many of these products contain lead, cadmium, chromium and other toxic substances.
"Not only are they carcinogens, but there are tetratogens, which cause problems to fetuses. They can affect the endocrine system, the whole hormone system, and they can affect the reproductive system. Some of the heavy metals are actually elements, and they are immortal. They don't ever disappear. They may change form but they don't go away and they cannot be cleaned up," Westervel explained.
For instance, mercury, when put into an incinerator, is released into the air but falls back to earth to contaminate the soil and water, and that's why some fish now have high levels of mercury. Other chemical compounds are bio-accumulative and build up in the biosphere. They are persistent and do not break down, meaning they accumulate in the food chain.
"These have long been known to be problematic. Others they are starting to show are extremely toxic in even tiny quantities. Toxicologists used to believe that small amounts of some toxins weren't a problem. But, now they are finding that these toxins are even more toxic in tiny, minute amounts than they are at larger amounts. They are taken up by the human organism better in small quantities than large quantities."
While environmental laws in the U.S. may prohibit disposal of these dangerous substances in landfills in the U.S., more and more often the most toxic elements are shipped to developing countries dumped there and left to pollute that environment.
BAN has initiated a certification program for responsible recyclers. BuyMyTronics is currently waiting to receive the organization's e-Steward certification.
"We need to keep this toxic waste stream out of landfills and incinerators and out of the developing countries. It is a really problematic waste stream and is the fastest growing waste stream in this country. We don't have a comprehensive national system and we need to address the whole model of constantly upgrading electronic equipment and just tossing it out," Westervel concluded.
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How to dispose of broken or outdated electronic devices has become a growing question. A one year-old startup, BuyMyTronics.com, thinks it has an equitable and environmentally friendly solution: It will buy anyone's used, new and broken devices. It will fix what's fixable and sell it at profit. The rest gets recycled.
"Everybody has something they [just don't know what to do with]. It's happened to me before. I broke a digital camera, and when I looked for a place to have it fixed, it was going to be more to fix it than it was to buy a brand new one," said Brett Mosley, president and CEO of BuyMyTronics.com.
Although many people have found themselves in a similar position, holding a worthless device because it is broken or out-of-date, Mosley decided he would do something about it. "I'd always had that idea that it would be cool if you could buy things from people at a reasonable price and then have all of your labor and repairs done in-house. You could sell them. It was always something I had been frustrated with and said, 'someone should do something about this.' The opportunity presented itself and I seized the day," he said.
For what Mosley calls a "reasonable price," BuyMyTronics will purchase certain types of electronics from numerous vendors, including Apple, iPods, Blackberry smartphones and Sony PlayStation gaming consoles, among many more. iPhone bricked? BuyMyTronics wants it. Recently upgraded to an iPod touch and you need to move an older model? The firm will buy that too.
"A pretty popular model [cell phone], the Motorola V3, we pay up to (US)$35 for a used one. For a broken iPhone, we pay up to $200 for one of those. A used BlackBerry Pearl, we pay up to $200. A used iPod video -- not this current generation but the one before it -- we pay up to $160. A used mini iPod, up to $37, and a broken nano is up to $51. We pay up to $292 for a Nintendo Wii," Mosley explained.
The response to the site has been excellent, he said. "We've been up and running for about a year now, and month over month we've been growing at 30 percent," he pointed out. Business has been good enough for Mosley to expand the list of electronics he will purchase to include Apple laptops. PC laptops will be added in the future.
"On laptops, we'll be paying up to $2,000. We'll pay pretty well for broken and used," he said.
Whatever the condition of the device, Mosley said, his company will pay consumers for it. If it's not fixable and resellable, once the device has been stripped of serviceable parts, the remainder -- which often includes components composed of toxic elements -- will be responsibly recycled, not sent to a local landfill.
"I'm paying people to recycle, essentially. I'm actually paying really good money, and the concept sells really well with people," he noted.
The green effect does not stop there. The business is 100 percent wind powered, according to Mosley, and by salvaging reusable parts from old and broken devices, BuyMyTronics reduces the number of new components that will need to be manufactured. Refurbishing salvageable devices and selling them to larger retailers and through an eBay site also achieves this goal.
The tech waste problem is massive, Sarah Westervel, e-Waste project coordinator at the Basel Action Network (BAN), said. "One of the things that's really mind-blowing ... to go into a U.S. recycler's warehouse that maybe is 80,000 to 100,000 square feet and see nothing but electronic waste," she said.
The BAN works for the responsible disposal and recycling of toxic waste, of which electronic devices are a significant and constantly growing percentage. The danger to the environment is that many of these products contain lead, cadmium, chromium and other toxic substances.
"Not only are they carcinogens, but there are tetratogens, which cause problems to fetuses. They can affect the endocrine system, the whole hormone system, and they can affect the reproductive system. Some of the heavy metals are actually elements, and they are immortal. They don't ever disappear. They may change form but they don't go away and they cannot be cleaned up," Westervel explained.
For instance, mercury, when put into an incinerator, is released into the air but falls back to earth to contaminate the soil and water, and that's why some fish now have high levels of mercury. Other chemical compounds are bio-accumulative and build up in the biosphere. They are persistent and do not break down, meaning they accumulate in the food chain.
"These have long been known to be problematic. Others they are starting to show are extremely toxic in even tiny quantities. Toxicologists used to believe that small amounts of some toxins weren't a problem. But, now they are finding that these toxins are even more toxic in tiny, minute amounts than they are at larger amounts. They are taken up by the human organism better in small quantities than large quantities."
While environmental laws in the U.S. may prohibit disposal of these dangerous substances in landfills in the U.S., more and more often the most toxic elements are shipped to developing countries dumped there and left to pollute that environment.
BAN has initiated a certification program for responsible recyclers. BuyMyTronics is currently waiting to receive the organization's e-Steward certification.
"We need to keep this toxic waste stream out of landfills and incinerators and out of the developing countries. It is a really problematic waste stream and is the fastest growing waste stream in this country. We don't have a comprehensive national system and we need to address the whole model of constantly upgrading electronic equipment and just tossing it out," Westervel concluded.
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