Coupons - Increasing Popularity
November 13, 2007
Coupons - Increasing Popularity
by: James Brown
Online coupons codes are rapidly increasing in both popularity and their use. Why? The plain and simple fact is that the benefits that people derive from using online coupons are truly astronomical. With great savings in store for every consumer, the popularity of online coupons will continue to grow as people begin to realize the truly awesome benefits of using online coupons. Beyond the benefit one derives from not having to cut out coupon after coupon, online coupons mean more savings for you, the consumer!
Of course, the most obvious reason that online coupons are so popular is because of the immediate savings they provide. Consumers can save money on the retail cost of items, the shipping and handling of items and can even save money of various services, all with the use of online coupons. Savings can range, of course, and depend on the retailer offerings such savings, but the savings one derives from the use of online coupons accumulates quickly. Typically, you can find coupons that save you anywhere from 5 to 50 percent off of items you purchase—that’s pretty significant savings. Plus, with your savings you can choose to store it away and watch it accumulate or you can use your savings to treat yourself to other recreational activities and pursuits you may not have been previously able to afford.
Developing A List Of Keywords For Marketing
November 12, 2007
Keywords aren’t just some words that allow search engines, like Google, to find your web site. They are also key elements for creating attractive language to use in your marketing or advertising material. For instance places such as: brochures, business cards, flyers, and ads. Keywords can also fit well into speaking engagements scripts or audiotapes scripts as well as audience handouts.
It is important to create a keyword list for each product or service you have. The keyword list might even change slightly if there are various groups or audiences for that product or service.
For simplicity, I have omitted the word service and for the word product to reflect both.
Creating your keyword list can begin after you have clearly identified the buyer or audience for a particular product or service. You will need to know as much about the buyer’s demographic and charactertics as possible. I also recommend including their descriptive qualities and personalities. Here is a list to kick start your brainstorming process:
· Communicative · Competent · Dedicated · Enthusiastic · Expert · Hardworking · Improved · Positive · Negative · Professional · Relationship-driven · Self-confident · Successful · Tranquil · Spiritual · Understanding · Socially conscious · Early adaptor · Later buyer · Has to see it to believe it · Guarantee a must.
7 Web Site Design Mistakes That Will Lose You Clients
November 11, 2007
In today’s world, a web site is virtually mandatory for any successful business. But there are web sites that will win you customers, and there are web sites that will lose you customers. Good design has a lot to do with which category your web site will fall into. But what is it that makes good or bad web site design? In my personal opinion, a good web site is one that’s simple, informative and gives me a reason to come back frequently. That’s what you should get from a good web designer/writer team. Bad sites, on the other hand, are complicated to use, slow loading, confusing or just plain annoying. Here’s a list of my personal top 7 turn-offs as far as web site design is concerned:
1. Slow loading pages
Studies have shown that you have less than ten seconds to grab a visitor’s attention. If your web page hasn’t finished loading within that (very short) amount of time, you might as well forget about it. The main culprit I’ve found here are huge, slow-loading graphics, especially when they are embedded in tables. If large images are absolutely vital to presenting your business, compromise by adding thumbnails to the main page and allow the visitor to click on them to access the main image. Nobody minds a longer loading time, as long as it’s them who can make that choice.
Up The Sandbox!
November 11, 2007
Go to any internet marketing forum you want these days and one of the topics is sure to be whether or not there is a “sandbox” at Google where new sites are forced to come and play for 3-6 months before joining the ranks of ranked and searched results. On the surface it would appear that this is so. New sites are typically taking a long time to get indexed and even longer to show up in the search results. So hence, the sandbox theory. Let’s examine some possible reasons and more importantly, our reaction to it.
The most obvious possibility, (since no one outside of Google really knows) is that because of the proliferation of spam on the engines, Google is checking all the links to these new sites. Sometimes a new site will appear sporting thousands of backlinks, and this takes some time to check, even given a rolling schedule of indexing by that pesky spider! Google it seems is serious about link farms, and anything that smacks of that may take some time to get indexed. But then, so will most other sites. It is a very large index, (some say nearing capacity, though I doubt that will turn out to be true) and it is a gargantuan task to keep it current and free of extraneous (read poor) search results. There are other ideas out there, and conspiracy theories abound, one being that it is an evil plot to force newer sites in search of traffic to resort to paying for Google Adwords. Uh-huh. A particularly amusing thread is currently taking place at the High Rankings forum, a must-read for all conspiracy theorists!
Aesthetics and Web Marketing
November 10, 2007
For four years I worked in the editorial department of a major Internet directory. My job required me to search for and review thousands upon thousands of Web sites. Oh, the horror!
I could tell you about the company that misspelled its own name. I could rhyme off a list of sites that had no contact information. I could even show you the university site that had a navigation button reading “Course Summery.” But I won’t. Instead, I want to address the less obvious and the overlooked: Web site aesthetics.
With more and more people searching and using the Internet to find products and services, a strong visual literacy has developed. Little animated GIFs that depict a construction worker with the words “Under Construction” blinking underneath have gone by the wayside. Well, in most cases. These are signifiers of “old school” design, when the Web was young. Today, a certain design standard is expected.
The Website that Had 5 Hits A Day
November 9, 2007
The Website that Had 5 Hits A Day
by: Darren Chow
I guess this is my chance to start something similar to a blog to keep some kind of a personal record of my professional journey. During my school days in the National University of Singapore, I never thought I would be making a living creating websites for others.
I started picking up HTML about 5 years ago. Surprisingly, despite coming from a non-programming background, I picked up the language almost effortlessly. I started putting up small websites on those free hosting sites. There were a lot of those companies back then.
Before long, I was working on several projects for a few companies. It didn’t take long for me to stumble upon Macromedia Flash. Once again, I was curious about how it worked and kept working on it. Those first few Flash files were real cheesy but in after just one year of hands-on experience with HTML and Flash, I managed to win a local web design competition. I got first out of slightly over thirty entries and won lots of software and several pieces of hardware.
Marketing Case Study: Launching WebSiteMarketingPlan.com (2001 - 2002)
November 8, 2007
The Challenge
WebSiteMarketingPlan.com was to be a companion site to the Web promotion and marketing plan guide “How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing.” Although the approach was relatively new — marketing plan development integrating traditional and online marketing strategies — the general “Internet Marketing” category was crowded and very competitive. Additionally, I had much offline marketing experience, but zero online credibility.
My initial challenges when launching the Website were:
1.) to gain online credibility and
2.) to be heard in a crowded and often hype-filled category.
By February, 2002 the site was nearly ready. I had fought through a FrontPage learning curve and had a site brimming with content but a bit hard on the eyes (let’s just say I could never make a living as a graphic artist). I signed on for a basic hosting plan with Lexiconn and uploaded my Website. Within days, Alexa found the site. Rank? 17 million and some change.
With the site up but largely unknown, an early focus was to get my target audience — those looking for strategic marketing and planning ideas — interested enough to visit WebSiteMarketingPlan.com. Making it even more difficult (wouldn’t want to make anything easy on myself), I had decided on a severely limited budget — no consultants and no expensive marketing programs. Just a computer and a truckload of reference books.
Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engine Rankings
November 7, 2007
If you have any interest in getting high search engine rankings for your website (and who doesn’t) you’ve probably been sold the idea that writing and publishing your own articles will do it for you.
Here’s why that’s not entirely true.
Imagine the following scenario…
You write an article around a keyword or keyphrase you want to rank well for.
You submit that article to all the article submission sites and directories and ezines you can find.
Your article gets published in hundreds of places.
You now have hundreds of links pointing back to your main site…
But your own site never shows up in the top ten results for that particular keyword or keyphrase.
Instead you find that there are lots of other sites carrying your article that rank better than yours.
You’ve completely missed out on an excellent opportunity to get high rankings for your keyword or keyphrase.
Even worse… you just handed your precious keyword-rich content on a platter to possible competitors who happened to publish your article on their website, and may have lost some of your most targeted visitors and sales to them.
Keep Your Passwords Safe on Public Wireless Networks
November 6, 2007
Keep Your Passwords Safe on Public Wireless Networks
by: Garnet Bailey
Most people take for granted the security of their computers connection to the outside world. And in many homes and offices this is a reasonably good assumption. But, things do change when someone, armed with a laptop computer and a wireless “WIFI” connection ability visits a local public “hotspot”, perhaps at the local coffee shop.
These type of locations are rapidly growing and provide temporary internet connections to visitors through wireless devices called routers. They offer a convenient way to use your own computer with the internet at little cost to the service owner. These wireless connections, since they are “public”, are not configured with the security and encryption protection that a normal private network should have.
In these locations, it is possible for anyone with minimal hardware and software to eavesdrop on any of the wireless broadcasts that are taking place. And since there is little or no network security, usernames and passwords can be easily stolen.
20 Ways To Increase Your Traffic And Sales Using Free Follow-Up Autoresponder Courses
November 6, 2007
An autoresponder course is a group of articles or information set up to be sent out separately over a set period of time by e-mail. People just e-mail your autoresponder to receive the free course and it is sent out automatically over time. You can find free follow-up autoresponders to use by typing it into any search engine. Below are ten ways to use them to increase your traffic and sales.
1. Offer your course as a free bonus for purchasing one of your main products or services. People will buy your products quicker when you offer a bonus.
2. When you write and give away a free course you will become known as an expert. This’ll gain people’s trust and they will buy your main product quicker.
3. Allow others to add your free course to their own product packages. Their customers will see your ad when they purchase.
4. People love to get freebies. A free autoresponder course is perfect. They will visit your web site to get the free valuable information.
5. Allow people to receive your course for free, if they give you the e-mail addresses of 3 to 5 friends or associates that would be interested.
