Archive for the ‘Website Importance’ Category

Penny-Wise, Site-Foolish

Don’t scrimp when you pick a Web host — unless you like greeting customers with “Site not found.”

Digital Inc.

Don’t scrimp when you pick a Web host unless you want your greeting to be “Site not found.”

For a four-week period during last summer’s travel season, customers of FriendsTravel.com were met not with a choice of cruises, tours, or hotels, but with an error message and a blank E-mail form addressed to the company’s founder. Friends Travel, a West Hollywood, Calif., site specializing in vacation arrangements for gay men and lesbians, was the victim of a Web-hosting disaster. Its Web host, a small provider in Toronto, was reselling services from a larger company. When the two providers engaged in a dispute, the larger company pulled the plug, stranding Friends Travel in the process.

Unreliable Web-hosting services, which are all too common, can cost your company in a number of ways. For Friends Travel founder Jess Kalinowsky, the cost was a month’s worth of new business. During the Web-site meltdown, “we had zero communication with potential new clients,” says Kalinowsky.

No one can afford to lose customers or revenues or credibility. Here’s how some CEOs have handled their inhospitable Web hosts, plus some advice on avoiding such traps altogether.
Things That Go Thump on the Net

Martin Berda owns Berda CompuGraphix, a $300,000 T-shirt printer in Aliquippa, Pa. Last summer a Web-hosting outage downed Berda’s site (www.berda.com) for nearly 24 hours, and he spent more than an hour trying to reach someone at the hosting company. “This type of ’service’ is ridiculous,” Berda says.

Ridiculous — and yet familiar. Berda has changed hosts six times in the past three years. The first time, his company’s site had simply outgrown the provider. But when Berda looked around, he found that the AT&Ts and Verizons of the world were charging $150 a month to host a small company’s Web site, while lesser-known Web hosts were asking just $30 a month. Berda opted for economy. What did he get? What he paid for, of course. “You’re helpless,” Berda says of his relationships with small Web hosts. “You’re at their mercy.”

After one provider slowed the T-shirt company’s Web site to a crawl, Berda’s Webmaster got an idea. The company would test each prospective new host by running a test site at a dummy URL before saying good-bye to the current host. The plan worked. Two or three companies knocked the dummy site off-line and in the process knocked themselves out of contention. But even after a trial run, “there’s no guarantee that the service will remain good,” says Berda. (One host that had passed the trial was crippled by the Code Red virus, so Berda had to switch again.) But the test “does prevent you from hooking up with an obvious loser from the beginning.”

That may not be enough, says Jay Slattery, an analyst at Technology Business Research, a marketing and consulting company in Hampton, N.H. Slattery argues that Berda will never get far using bargain hosting companies meant for brochureware sites. “Thirty dollars a month is just not going to provide you with the level of uptime needed for continuous E-commerce and business-to-business transactions,” he says.
Pipe Dreams

Unfortunately, major improvements in Web-hosting services aren’t coming soon. The industry has been in turmoil for about a year. During the dot-com mania, host companies built out their infrastructure and in the process accumulated crushing debt. And the market shakeout isn’t over. So is this the time to think about bringing your Web hosting in-house? Think twice, says Ed Silver.

Silver is cofounder of Lodging.com, a discount hotel-reservation service based in Boca Raton, Fla. Silver runs the company’s Web site on an in-house server, and as recently as two years ago, the company was using five T1 lines. But as its Web traffic grew, the company suddenly discovered it was using 60% of the site’s bandwidth. Soon the first complaints about slow response time began trickling in. Silver called his Internet service provider, WorldCom’s UUNet, and put in a request for a T3 line. The ISP gave him an estimate of a 90-day turnaround.

---

HOSTING HORRORS: Disastrous telecom service almost pushed Lodging.com’s cofounders, Ed Silver and William Marbach, over the edge.

---

What followed was about as much fun as a night at the Bates Motel. Silver discovered that even though UUNet could provide him with high-speed Internet service, the local phone company — in this case, BellSouth — would have to install the requisite fiber-optic lines on Lodging.com’s street. “This was back in the time when dot-coms were going through the roof,” Silver says. Silver called BellSouth almost daily for a service update, and as the months went by, Lodging.com’s customers were devouring more and more of the site’s existing bandwidth. As a stopgap, Silver had an antenna installed on the roof of his one-story building and paid another local provider some $3,000 a month for wireless Internet service. That provided a big chunk of bandwidth, but because the wireless service was new, “it frequently conked out. I was fighting with the wireless provider and fighting with BellSouth and UUNet to get the T3. It was everything I could do to stay alive.”

After eight months, BellSouth finally came through with the fiber lines, but that still wasn’t the end of it. Says Silver: “When they brought the fiber to the end of the street, they said, ‘We don’t see a pipe. Where’s the pipe?’ And I said, ‘What pipe?’” That’s when Silver learned that it’s the building owner’s responsibility to lay the pipes that carry lines in from the street. Lodging.com’s leased office space had no such pipes in place. Silver called the landlord, who declined to bankroll the work. So Silver found a contractor who would bore a hole from the street to his building (cost: $5,000). As his staffers stood outside watching, 10 men drilled a tunnel that broke through the floor of the company’s phone room. Electricians then wired the BellSouth fiber to the company’s office suite.

In October 2000, 10 months after his first call to UUNet, Silver flipped the fiber switch. Today he pays about $14,000 a month for his T3, a fee that’s typical. But the whole experience ate up time he could have otherwise spent growing his company. Perhaps nothing could have hastened the phone company’s agonizing pace. But Silver does have a few choice words regarding the landlord: “When we leave, we will put cement in this pipe so no one can use it. The pipe is ours.” Silver’s advice to CEOs bent on hosting their own sites: choose an office building that comes equipped with fiber capabilities, and order bandwidth well before you think you’ll need it.

Of course, many small-business owners lack both the expertise and the budget to host their own sites. For them, analyst Slattery recommends shelling out a couple hundred bucks a month for a decent service agreement with a stable company, perhaps a national telco like those that Martin Berda researched, or an IBM or EDS. When it comes to Web hosting, the devil you know may be the way to go.

Jill Hecht Maxwell is a reporter at Inc.

www.yellowdoormedia.com

For many people, a recession is a time to cut back expenses and scale back growth. So why is Gabriel Shaoolian, founder and Creative Director of Blue Fountain Media, pushing forward more than ever?

We put ourselves in our clients’ shoes at all times. As a company that started during tough economic times, and that grew based on a compelling vision, we can relate to clients. They want a website and a marketing campaign that truly represents them, but also one that brings them a return

Expanding during a recession is just an extension of that idea. Now, more than ever, people need compelling websites and effective marketing campaigns. Blue Fountain Media can provide both, at a cost that beast the competition.

This started as a dream

I knew what kind of company I wanted to run. Now, I’m running it. My goal now is to help other people create the companies they dream of, too. We are truly devoted to springing ideas to life.

(Vocus/PRWEB ) May 14, 2009 — For many people, a recession is a time to cut back expenses and scale back growth. So why is Gabriel Shaoolian, founder and Creative Director of Blue Fountain Media, pushing forward more than ever? It’s a question that often occurs to Blue Fountain Media’s customers, who include Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and venture-funded startups.

Gabriel (he avoids “Mr. Shaoolian”) started Blue Fountain Media in 2001, during a difficult downturn that hit the web design industry especially hard. His goal: found a company that could truly take care of clients’ needs, while remaining creative. The method: deliver highly transparent results, with constant updates and easy access to developers. And do it all with the end in mind: using marketing to drive quality traffic, and using great design to turn that traffic into new business.

“We put ourselves in our clients’ shoes at all times. As a company that started during tough economic times, and that grew based on a compelling vision, we can relate to clients. They want a website and a marketing campaign that truly represents them, but also one that brings them a return,” Gabriel explains. “Expanding during a recession is just an extension of that idea. Now, more than ever, people need compelling websites and effective marketing campaigns. Blue Fountain Media can provide both, at a cost that beast the competition.”

Blue Fountain Media has long had policies that increase client trust and flexibility, including:

No contract lock-ins: Blue Fountain Media’s customers can leave the company at any time, if they’re not satisfied with the work they get. Suggestions: Blue Fountain Media is constantly looking for ways to improve the sites they deliver, going above and beyond specifications documents and initial plans in order to take advantage of new developments. Complete transparency: Blue Fountain Media delivers daily updates, detailed weekly reports, and has extremely responsive account managers and creative leads who are always ready to consult with clients on the problems they face.

This combination of competitive advantages and strong company culture has helped Blue Fountain attract and retain high-caliber employees, and has allowed the company to keep growing as the economy gets weaker. It’s the combination of factors that is helping to make Blue Fountain Media one of the most respected web design and marketing firms in New York’s Silicon Alley, the heart of the worldwide online marketing business.

The company has experienced significant growth, particularly in the last year, and based on a variety of clients: from luxury jets to fashion, Blue Fountain Media’s customers get more visitors, and their visitors lead to more business, thanks to good design and savvy marketing. Unlike other web design and marketing companies, Blue Fountain Media budgets based on what customers can gain, not just what they can afford to spend.

“This started as a dream,” Gabriel adds. “I knew what kind of company I wanted to run. Now, I’m running it. My goal now is to help other people create the companies they dream of, too. We are truly devoted to springing ideas to life.”

Blue Fountain Media is a leading provider of web design and marketing services, offering highly customizable services to a variety of customers.

Contact:
Name: Byrne Hobart
Phone: (917) 806-0159

Entrepreneurs shouldn’t have to be convinced of the importance of a good business website. Without one, consumers can’t find you. That maxim holds especially true for business owners who rely on internet sales for their revenue. You know you need a website because without it you don’t exist. But relatively minor issues can drag down your site’s effectiveness–issues that could be costing you money.

We’re not talking about issues that require a total site rebuild. We’re not even talking about remedies that increase the “wow” quotient of a site; that era has passed. “The days of the gee whiz’ factor are gone,” says Ben Rushlo, director of Keynote Consulting for Phoenix-basedKeynote Systems, a service provider that improves online business performance. “The user experience has changed. There are increased expectations.” But those increased expectations are centered on the experience–not the technical wizardry–of your site.

That should be good news for entrepreneurs who have no desire to become tech geeks. Experts point to six everyday fixes entrepreneurs can make to improve a site’s efficiency and build a business’s bottom line.

1. Increase the speed. In an era when “Wow” has been replaced by “Wow, this is fast,” entrepreneurs need to focus on speed more than ever. Your site should allow users to get in, find what they need, ask for more information or buy an item, and get on with their busy days. If that’s not the case, you’ve got some work to do. Fortunately, increasing a site’s loading speed doesn’t have to be fraught with tehno-gibberish and time-consuming fixes–small things can make a big difference.

Adobe Flash is out–or at least in decreased demand–say some experts. It slows things down. “No one is even asking for Flash,” says Jamie Wilke, a designer and the owner ofMediatrunk.com, a web design firm in Colorado Springs, Colo. “People now view it as annoying. They’d rather read information.” Quite the departure from just a few years ago when “everybody had to have Flash,” Rushlo says.

Most sites need images of some sort, but make sure your image files are as small as they can be. Even large images can get by with small file sizes. Also, have a conversation with your webmaster and make sure anything non-essential is moved to the bottom of the page load, Rushlo says. This will help the important information pop up quickly.

2. Write better product descriptions. Spend some time reading your product descriptions to make sure they’re succinct and filler-free. The formula here can be difficult because, as Amy Schade says, you need to “convince [users] the product meets their needs,” but the verbiage “has to be short and descriptive.” There’s no salesperson available on a website, so shoppers “should be able to see a product and know what it does,” says Schade, a director at the Nielsen Norman Group in New York City and co-author of the second edition of the “E-Commerce User Experience” report. Writing new and better product descriptions, Schade says, “is time consuming but worth it.”

3. Delete tech used for the sake of tech. This harkens back to the need for speed. Implementing the latest technology may lend to the perception that an entrepreneur is hip to the latest software and other gadgets, but does it make the site stronger? If not, it may need to go.

“[Site owners] need to evaluate if things like music, video and 360-degree views are necessary,” Rushlo says. A real estate agent is going to want 360-degree views of houses’ interiors. A promotional products distributor may just be wasting his time trying to offer full-circle views of logoed pens, flash drives and water bottles.

Schade subscribes to Rushlo’s view. She says to beware the trendy and new. Anything business owners jump on because it is the latest and greatest has the potential to backfire, especially if entrepreneurs don’t have the resources to keep up with all of the moving parts of their sites. Things like Facebook pages and video are fun; and social networking is quickly becoming an integral part of many businesses’ marketing platforms, but business owners need to weigh a technology’s popularity against their ability to utilize it fully.

4. Improve shopping cart and payment options. It can be tempting to think that once customers have made up their minds to buy something, there’s nothing to stop them, but a counter-intuitive electronic shopping cart or a third-party payment window can torpedo the sale. “If you have a shopping cart, make it easy to use,” Wilke says. “Make sure it’s easy to add items and purchase them.” She adds that it has to look professional, and one sure-fire way to achieve that is to use third-party vendors who specialize in internet purchases. Even that, however, needs to be handled with care, Schade says, to instill the highest level of trust.

“If you’re using a third party for payments,” she says, “make it seamless. It has to look like you.” Don’t have the payment information form open in a different window that takes customers to another website. That plants a seed of doubt in their minds, which can sink the purchase.

5. Use unique page titles on every page. We’re talking about those words that appear in the bar across the very top of the browser window. Boring, maybe, but they’re important. Even if users don’t notice them, search engines do–and they’re sticklers. “If you have 10 pages on your site and they all say ABC Business,” Wilke says, “search engines are not going to see them as different.” That affects your search ranking. And make sure the title at the top matches the content on the page–it matters, even if it doesn’t seem like it should. You don’t need to hire a great writer to help with this project. The about page title should look something like this: ABC Business - About Us. The media page: ABC Business - Press Room.

6. Shorten forms. If you have a contact form on your site, only ask for the information you really need. “If you are going to call everyone who fills out a form,” Wilke says, “don’t ask for their physical address.” Likewise, if you’re planning to send e-mails. And be careful with required registration, Schade warns. “One-time purchasers don’t want to have to become members,” she says.

Online consumers don’t need to see the fanciest websites with all the latest bells and whistles. They’re looking for the exact product or service that meets their needs, and they want to find it quickly.

“There is renewed focus on customers,” Rushlo says. “They want an online experience with no barriers.”

By Paul Boutin

My entire workday takes place inside a browser window. Web-based email. Web-based chat. Web-based blog editor. Web-based billing system. Instead of watching my PC’s desktop sputter, I spend a lot of time impatiently waiting for my Firefox browser to load pages.

Or I did, until I took a chance on Google’s new browser, Chrome. My instant reaction: Holy heck! This thing is fast!

I’m ready to drive over to Google and strong-arm their marketing people to change the weak selling points listed on Chrome’s download page. “Search from the address bar. Thumbnails of your top sites.” Would that make you switch browsers? No, but “insanely fast browsing” would.

There are browser performance test results all over the Internet, but Chrome’s speed boost over Internet Explorer and Firefox is so obvious to a non-technical surfer that I’m not going to let a bunch of charts talk me out of it. When I was a Web site producer in the 90’s, we learned that the faster our sites loaded, the more business we got. It was that simple. Faster-loading pages brought our users back more often, and encouraged them to click an extra page while visiting the site.

Chrome has the effect of speeding up the entire Internet — not just Google’s sites, but every page I hit. Chrome lets me do a little extra Web research for a story, trade a couple of extra emails with sources, and spend less time writing and publishing my posts. Another benefit: With Chrome, Facebook and Twitter eat a little less of each day.

If you spend anywhere near as much time online as I do, download Chrome and give it a test drive. It’s free, and easily uninstalled if you don’t like it. I’m sure the engineers who make Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari are hard at work to speed up their own browsers, but that’ll take months. Chrome will have you speed-surfing in the next five minutes.

A new report from Gartner notes that ecommerce website may be better suited spending their budgets on items like search engine optimization rather than a custom website.

According to the report, these sites may be able to save up to 35 percent by purchasing off-the-shelf products rather than custom building a website or other development projects. That money could then be spent on drawing visitors to the site.

Gene Lavarez, vice president of research at Gartner, said that this type of customization is likely a “waste of effort” to most ecommerce companies.

“For example, a developer who supports a commodity function, such as shopping cart management, would be better to develop rich internet shopping capabilities or improve site design for search engine optimization so that the site can rank higher in a Google-based search,” he said.

It is expected that retailers will increase their online marketing efforts like search engine optimization (SEO) throughout this year.

According to a report released last week from Shop.org and conducted by Forrester Research, 70 percent of retailers said they plan on maintaining or increasing online marketing budgets.

1. To Establish A Presence

Approximately 27 million people worldwide have access to the World Wide Web (WWW) and it is estimated that by the end of 1997 36 million will have Web access. No matter what your business is, you can’t ignore 27 million people. To be a part of that community and show that you are interested in serving them, you need to be on the WWW for them. You know your competitors will.

2. To Network

A lot of what passes for business is simply nothing more than making connections with other people. Every smart business person knows, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Passing out your business card is part of every good meeting and every business person can tell more than one story how a chance meeting turned into the big deal. Well, what if you could pass out your business card to thousands, maybe millions of potential clients and partners, saying this is what I do and if you are ever in need of my services, this is how you can reach me. You can, 24 hours a day, inexpensively and simply, on the WWW.

3. To Make Business Information Available

What is basic business information? Think of a Yellow Pages ad. What are your hours? What do you do? How can someone contact you? What methods of payment do you take? Where are you located at? Now think of a Yellow Pages ad where you have instant communication. What is today’s special? Today’s interest rate? Next week’s parking lot sale information? If you could keep your customer informed of every reason why they should do business with you, don’t you think you could do more business? You can on the WWW.

4. To Serve Your Customers

Making business information available is one of the most important ways to serve your customers. But if you look at serving the customer, you’ll find even more ways to use WWW technology. How about making forms available to pre-qualify for loans, or have your staff do a search for that classic jazz record your customer is looking for, without tying up your staff on the phone to take down the information? Allow your customer to punch in sizes and check it against a database that tells him what color of jacket is available in your store? All this can be done, and more, on the WWW.

5. To Heighten Public Interest

You won’t get Newsweek magazine to write up your local store opening, but you might get them to write up your Web Page address if it is something new and interesting. Even if Newsweek would write about your local store opening, you wouldn’t benefit from someone in a distant city reading about it, unless of course, they were coming to your town sometime soon. With Web page information, anybody anywhere who can access the Web and hears about you is a potential visitor to your Web site and a potential customer for your information there.

6. To Release Time Sensitive Materials

What if your materials need to be released no earlier than midnight? The quarterly earnings statement, the grand prize winner, the press kit for the much anticipated film, the merger news? Well, you sent out the materials to the press with the   ‘Do not release before such and such time” statement and hope for the best. Now the information can be made available at midnight or any time you specify, with all related materials such as photographs, bios, etc. released at exactly the same time. Imagine the anticipation of “All materials will be made available on our Web site at 12:01 AM”. The scoop goes to those that wait for the information to be posted, not the one who releases your information early.

7. To Sell Things

Many people think that this is the number 1 thing to do with the World Wide Web, but we made it number seven to make it clear that we think you should consider selling things on the Internet and the World Wide Web after you have done all the things above and maybe even after doing quite a few more things from this list. Why? Well, the answer is complex but the best way to put it is, do you consider the telephone the best place to sell things? Probably not. You probably consider the telephone a tool that allows you to communicate with your customer, which in turn helps you sell things. Well, that’s how we think you should consider the WWW. The technology is different, of course, but before people decide to become customers, they want to know about you, what you do and what you can do for them. Which you can do easily and inexpensively on the WWW. When you are ready to sell, make sure you have the information people need to help them decide available on your web site, without paying so much that you won’t make a profit until the next century. That’s smart business.

8. To make pictures, sound and film files available

What if your widget is great, but people would really love it if they could see it in action? The album is great but with no airplay, nobody knows that it sounds great? A picture is worth a thousand words, but you don’t have the space for a thousand words? The WWW allows you to add sound, pictures and short movie files to your company’s info if that will serve your potential customers. No brochure will do that.

9. To reach a highly desirable demographic market

The demographic of the WWW user is probably the highest mass-market demographic available. Usually college-educated or being college educated, making a high salary or soon to make a high salary, it’s no wonder that Wired magazine, the magazine of choice to the Internet community, has no problem getting Lexus and other high-end marketer’s advertising. Even with the addition of the commercial on-line community, the demographic will remain high for many years to come.

10. To Answer Frequently Asked questions

Whoever answers the phones in your organization can tell you, their time is usually spent answering the same questions over and over again. These are the questions customers and potential customers want to know the answer to before they deal with you. Post them on a WWW page and you will have removed another barrier to doing business with you and free up some time for that harried phone operator.

11. To Stay In Contact With Salespeople

Your employees on the road may need up-to-the-minute information that will help them make the sale or pull together the deal. If you know what that information is, you can keep it posted in complete privacy on the WWW. A quick local phone call can keep your staff supplied with the most detailed information, without long distance phone bills and tying up the staff at the home office.

12. To Open International Markets

You may not be able to make sense of the mail, phone and regulation systems in all your potential international markets, but with a Web page, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as with the company across the street. As a matter-of-fact, before you go onto the Web, you should decide how you want to handle the international business that will come your way, because your postings are certain to bring international opportunities your way, whether it is part of your plan or not. Another added benefit; if your company has offices overseas, they can access the home offices information for the price of a local phone call. Plus, you can find out how many international customers can access you that could never reach you before at a reasonable cost.

13. To Create a 24 Hour Service

If you’ve ever remembered too late or too early to call the opposite coast, you know the hassle. We’re not all on the same schedule. Business is worldwide but your office hours aren’t. Trying to reach Asia or Europe is even more frustrating. But Web pages serve the client, customer and partner 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No overtime either. It can customize information to match needs and collect important information that will put you ahead of the competition, even before they get into the office.

14. To Make Changing Information Available Quickly

Sometimes, information changes before it gets off the press. Now you have a pile of expensive, worthless paper. Electronic publishing changes with your needs. No paper, no ink, no printer’s bill. You can even attach your web page to a database which customizes the page’s output to a specific need or customer, and you can change as many times in a day as you need. No printed piece can match that flexibility.

15. To Allow Feedback From Customers

You pass out the brochure, the catalog, the booklet. But it doesn’t work. No sales, no calls, no leads. What went wrong? Wrong color, wrong price, wrong market? Keep testing, the marketing books say, and you’ll eventually find out went wrong. That’s great for the big boys with deep pockets, but who is paying the bills? You are and you don’t have the time nor the money to wait for the answer. With a Web page, you can ask for feedback and get it instantaneously with no extra cost. An instant e-mail response can be built into Web pages and can get the answer while its fresh in your customers mind, without the cost and lack of response of business reply mail.

16. To Test Market New Services and Products

Tied into the reason above, we all know the cost of rolling out a new product. Advertising, advertising, advertising, PR and advertising. Expensive, expensive, expensive. Once you have been on the Web and know what to expect from those who are seeing your page, they are the least expensive market for you to reach. They will also let you know what they think of your product faster, easier and much less expensively than any other market you may reach. For the cost of a page or two of Web programming, you can have a crystal ball into where to position your product or service in the marketplace. Amazing.

17. To Reach The Media

Every kind of business needs the exposure that the media can bring, as we touched on in reason #5 “To Heighten Public Interest”, but what if your business is reaching the media, as a newswire, a publicist or a public policy group. The media is the most wired profession today, since their main product is information and they can get it more quickly, cheaply and easily on-line. On-line press kits are becoming more and more common, since they work with the digital environment of more and more pressrooms. Digital images can be put in place without the stripping and shooting of the old pressrooms and digital text can be edited and output on tight deadlines. All the these can be made available on a Web page.

18. To Reach The Education and Youth Market

If your market is education, consider that most universities already offer Internet access to their students and most K-12’s will be on the Internet within the next few years. Books, athletic shoes, study courses, youth fashion and anything else that would want to reach these overlapping markets needs to be on the Web. Even with the coming of the commercial on-line services and their somewhat older populations there will be nothing but growth in the percentage of the under 25 market that will be on-line.

19. To Reach The Specialized Market

Selling a very specialized product? You may think that the Internet is not a good place to be. Well, think again. The Internet isn’t just computer science students anymore. With the 27 million and growing users of the WWW, even the most narrowly defined interest group will be represented in large numbers. Since the Web has several very good search programs, your interest group will be able to find you, or your competitors.

20. To Serve Your Local Market

We’ve talked about the power to serve the world with a Web page. How about your neighborhood? If you are located in San Francisco Bay Area, the Raleigh NC area, Boston or New York, there is probably enough local customers with Web access to make it worth your while to consider Web marketing. A local Palo Alto, CA restaurant even takes lunch orders through the Internet! But no matter where you are, if the big client has Web access, you should be there too. You can make the Web a part of your sales team no matter where your market is.

By: Terri Wells

If you write, you can make money online � or so you�ve probably heard. Unfortunately, it�s not as easy as it looks; you may make money, but getting rich, or even a living wage, is a little trickier. This article collects some ideas for your consideration.First, you�ll want to make sure that your own writing is up to snuff. Sure, you can name any number of places online with deficient writing, and so can I for that matter. But bad spelling and grammar gets in the way of your message, and web users with short attention spans will not want to cut through the chaos. This should be basic, but some of the sites I visited while researching this article reminded me that it isn�t.

Beyond the actual writing, there are certain matters of formatting you might want to consider. Jennifer Osborne, writing for Search Engine People, completed a very good article called �10 Golden Rules of Blogging.� Much of it involves keeping in mind the special points that make writing for the web different from any other kind of writing. For example, there are things you can do to encourage more people to read what you�ve written, such as including buttons for submitting the article to social networking sites. And remember that short attention span I mentioned? You�ll want to cater to it with:

• Killer headlines every time that grab the reader.
• Blog entries that are short and succinct, perhaps 400-700 words long, and mostly substance.
• Posts that are easy to scan, with bulleted lists, bold text, and enough white space to allow the content to �breathe.�
• Pictures and images that help convey your point. Clip art does not look professional for a business blog, but an on-topic image, regardless of the topic, is not hard to find.

Osborne lists a number of important rules, and I recommend you follow the link. But even she admits, �They�re just table stakes to make it even possible to sell.� I�ll come back to that point later in this article. In the next section I�ll discuss a couple of firms that actually pay bloggers to write.

One of the best-known ways to make money from your blog, if you’re specifically producing content and not trying to use it to sell anything, is AdSense. This Google program lets web sites earn revenue by allowing the search engine to place relevant text ads on their pages. Your content must be acceptable; Google provides a long list of rules which a web site must follow to be approved for AdSense. You’ll still have to promote your site on your own to get enough views and click-throughs on AdSense ads for this to make money for you.

There are also affiliate programs. Practically everybody knows about Amazon.com’s program; it was launched back in 1996, making it perhaps the oldest such program on the web. Three of our sister sites regularly run items with affiliate links to Amazon. If you’re an avid reviewer, this might be a way for you to make a little income on the side. Once again, though, you’ll have to promote your own web site.

If you’re not averse to promoting advertisers within your blog, you might want to look at Pay Per Post. The Pay Per Post business model matches advertisers with bloggers, letting advertisers sponsor specific blog entries if the entry’s content meets with their approval. The blogger then gets paid.

It’s a little more complicated than that; every Pay Per Post blogger is expected to follow a code of ethics under which they are required, among other things, to reveal when their post has been sponsored by an advertiser. The amount of money a “Postie” makes varies depending on the opportunities they choose to accept, whether their posts are accepted, and many other factors. Top posties can make $2,000 or more in a month, but the average seems to be closer to $200 or less for casual bloggers.

Associated Content offers an interesting business model. It encourages bloggers to write on any topic and submit the post to its “yield management system.” It then pays the writer an up-front fee that usually runs between $4.00 and $20.00. Contributors get another $1.50 for every thousand page views their post receives. AC puts the post on its own web site, and also distributes it directly to specific web sites in its network. AC will also put out “calls for content;” a recent check of the site revealed 83 of them for subjects ranging from celebrity gossip to health issues (such as appropriate exercises for multiple sclerosis).

There is some controversy surrounding Pay Per Post and Associated Content. Some complain that these kinds of companies reduce the quality of content online. Others say that paying bloggers for content, especially the way Pay Per Post does, may cause them to be dishonest in the opinions they express, thus causing problems with the online signal-to-noise ratio. At least one blogger has accused Associated Content of unethical business practices.

Be that as it may, a number of professionals have observed that a good writer can make more money writing their own blog for their own purposes than they can if they write for Pay Per Post or Associated Content. In the next section, I’ll talk about some of the things to keep in mind if you’re using your blog to sell.

Let us assume that, rather than getting paid for your content or advertising around your content, you’re selling a product or service. Your blog then becomes a sales tool. Blogs can be great for building traffic; people are always searching for information on the Internet. If you provide them with the information they’re looking for, they’ll not only stop by and read it; they’ll subscribe to your blog and tell their friends about it. That doesn’t automatically mean they’ll purchase from you, however.

You need to change readers and browsers into customers. How do you accomplish this? Osborne recently wrote about five steps a blogger can take, after mastering the ten golden rules of blogging, to get readers to convert. Some of these also make sense if you’re focused on content and your goal is to boost traffic.

For example, the first step is to build your authority. Are you an expert? Make sure that your readers know it – not from you saying so, but from your sharing your knowledge. Is there one aspect of your field that you know better than anyone else? Write about it. Read about it, too, and link to other blogs in your industry that contain information useful to your readers.

Speaking of links, you can use them proactively to get your readers to convert. Osborne calls this following the “loop strategy” in your posts. Link your reader to the logical “next step.” If you’ve shown them interesting content, link to the next thing they’re likely to find of interest.

Here’s something you might not expect: one of the things your reader might find of interest is who YOU are. That’s why your third step is to make sure you have an “About Us” page in your blog. I’ve written about the “About Us” page before, so I’m not going to rehash all my arguments here. I’ll agree, however, with the one Osborne makes.

To put it simply, if I read a blog on a topic that interests me, and I’ve never heard of the writer, I’ll want to know something about them. If you don’t have an “About Us” page, you will leave me wondering – and you’ll pass up an opportunity to build my trust in you. People don’t buy from those they don’t trust; they can’t trust you if they don’t know who you are; and, while there are lots of ways they can find out who you are, isn’t it easiest for you to just tell them?

Now, earlier I said that it’s a good idea to have a “loop strategy” that takes your reader to the next page in which they’re likely to be interested. That could very well be a landing page for your product or service. There’s nothing wrong with linking to a product if it’s related to your blog entry or article and you’ve given the reader useful, related content. For example, who writes articles about the weight loss benefits of green tea? Those who want to sell you green tea, that’s who. “Does that bother me? Not if the article was useful,” Osborne notes. (And if you’re really observant, you’ll notice I used the loop strategy myself in the first paragraph of this section).

Here’s another good reason to link your blog entry to a landing page: it means that you can have your “call to action” for the purchase somewhere other than in your blog post. A blog, ideally, lets you provide information; it’s not a direct salesman. Leave that to your landing page. There are a number of ways you can ask for the close on that page; I’ve written about landing pages as well. But your blog is not a landing page.

Your blog can bring you money in a variety of ways. I’ve listed only a few here, and given you some tips for using it in conjunction with selling a product or service. I hope I’ve given you enough ideas to work with. Good luck!

By: Joe Eitel

With the advent and rise in popularity of the Internet, it is no surprise that more and more people have become interested in the topic of making money online. There is something special about the Internet that makes people truly believe that anyone can do anything. As it turns out, this is more or less the case: the Internet is the great equalizer of our time.

Part of what makes the Internet so great is the ease with which anyone can create their own business. If they already have a business, then they can multiply the size of it by magnitudes by expanding to the online market. By going online, you are able to reach a virtually limitless supply of customers who are all looking to buy your product.

Unfortunately, the ease with which an individual can set up a business online has led to a much higher rate of failure. Because people who are not as serious or entrepreneurial are now having a go at business, many of these people will not succeed without a very strong work ethic.

There are also many hidden pitfalls of online business for which countless people have fallen. Without a proper education in the dangers of online business, it is easy to fail even though the person performed all of the traditional business practices successfully. In short, running a business online is a very different undertaking from running a business in a brick-and-mortar store.

Despite everything else, running a business on the Internet opens up the possibility for untold success and wealth. There can be no doubt that online businesses are capable of making far more money at an even lower cost than a traditional store. That is why the vast majority of all successful businesses have at least a respectable online presence.

When a business goes online, there are some special considerations that must be heeded. These change depending on whether the business already exists in a brick-and-mortar store or if it is just starting online with no physical presence. A great deal of consideration has to be given to the hidden pitfalls of online business to ensure that they are avoided.

For many entrepreneurs who have started their own local business, have done fairly well, and then are looking for a little more, the Internet is a logical progression. Unfortunately for these individuals, business success online is not the same thing as business success from a store.

Although the skills necessary for success online are very similar to those required for success from a store, there are very key differences. However, anyone looking to make the leap should continue to rely on the skills that have always served them well: work ethic, social networking, and appealing sales pitches.

The first step required for expanding a business online is to get a website. Assuming that the small business owner does not have the skills necessary to make their own website, they must find someone with those skills. Cost and time necessary for developing a website vary greatly based on the needs of the website, but a normal business can expect to spend anywhere from $500-$5000 for a quality website. Any price under that carries a high risk of under delivering, and any website for more than that (assuming typical demands) is simply too much.

Once a website is set up, the requirements for business growth are much the same as they are for a traditional business. The product must be marketed successfully and the potential customers must be able to see it. However, the ways in which these things are done online are very different. Customers can be brought to your website through traditional methods, but you can access a much larger pool of potential candidates through Internet-specific means.

There is an entire body of knowledge regarding Internet marketing, and if you are unfamiliar with it, then it would be best to hire someone specifically trained in Internet marketing. They may make use of such methods as search engine optimization (SEO), affiliate networks, directories, and social networks.

Once a customer comes to your website – assuming that the website does its job by convincing them to buy the product – the rest is up to you. Just as with a typical in-person customer, you should be sure that your customer feels well taken care of. Keep up constant communication and be sure that the product gets to them in a timely manner, and still intact.

Nowadays, it is far more common for a business to start online than it is for a business to start in a physical store. The reasons for this are varied, but it comes down to the fact that it is easier to start a business online. There are very low start-up costs, essentially just what it takes to get the website running.

Online businesses also appeal to many entrepreneurs who are less willing to put themselves out in the open. Due to the nature of the Internet, these business owners are not required to meet with their customers face to face and never have more direct interaction than a couple of impersonal e-mails.

When starting an eBusiness, it is very important for a business owner to make up for the fact that they do not own a store. A store is a good marketing tool in and of itself; potential customers will pass by the store and may just walk in. This is not the case online: customers cannot just “pass by” your website. You must be sure to make an effort to get out the word about yourself.

Just as mentioned above, Internet marketing is necessary for gaining publicity online. Other than the Internet-specific means of gaining interest for your business, you can rely on many of the marketing tactics that traditional businesses use. You can get people to your website by placing fliers in your local area, attending conventions, and airing commercials on television or radio.

The real key to an eBusiness is that the business owner has to be sure to stay motivated to ensure his or her success. It is very easy to lose track of what you are doing with an eBusiness and simply let it fall apart. Normally, small businesses that start online simply operate out of the owner’s home. It is easy for someone working from home to drift into slacking off and not get enough work done.

As with any business, an eBusiness owner must be truly devoted to their business. They have to have a strong work ethic, the desire to put in a lot of hours, and the necessary skills for a business and for whatever their individual field is.

As you have likely come to realize by this point, there are quite a few issues that the well-informed business owner must be aware of before taking their business online. The biggest of these, as mentioned, is the tendency for the business owner to get drawn off track. It is much harder to stay motivated when running an eBusiness than it is when sitting in a store all day.

Although it adds to cost, one way to stay motivated and not distracted is to rent a small office to work out of instead of your home. At home, you can get drawn away from work by the TV, kitchen, or telephone. At the office, there is nothing to distract your attention from work and success.

Another common mistake made by businesses online is not relying on traditional forms of marketing at all. Although you may have gone with an online business to avoid face contact with potential customers, it really is one of the best ways to get the word out about yourself. There are incredibly valuable contacts to be made at conferences held locally for your specific field.

There is a much better conversion rate among customers that you spend a good amount of time with than with visitors that are just passing by your website. If you take the time to develop a relationship, you are greatly increasing the probability of a more profitable sale. The general formula for any small business is that the more time you put in, the more profit you will get out.

One oft-made mistake is too much reluctance to spend money when pursuing an online business. Beyond the website, it will almost certainly be necessary to spend more money. Assuming you are a typical person, you will need someone to help you with marketing, packaging and shipping, and just about every other aspect of your business. No business can expect success without a significant upfront investment.

In short, if you take your business seriously, then you have a much higher chance of success whether you operate physically or online. If you are well prepared for taking your business online and are willing to put in the time and effort that is necessary, then take the leap and get ready for large amounts of potential customers and sales.

By: Joe Eitel

Non-profit organizations have gained a surprisingly beneficial venue for creation through the rise of the Internet. Many people associate Internet organizations with small businesses, entrepreneurial websites, and individuals trying to make their voices heard. It is relatively rare for non-profit organizations to come to mind when we are thinking about the organizations that have benefited most from the wild success of the Internet.

It is easy enough to see why small businesses have gained a very strong foothold in the online market. There is a much lower associated start-up cost, there is a much wider selection of customers, and work just seems to get done easier online. Given some thought, it is not surprising that these are the same exact reasons that non-profit (namely charity) organizations have done well online.

If you think about it, a non-profit organization does not operate all that differently from a typical for-profit business. Non-profit organizations need revenue, have expenditures, and are made up of people. The key difference has typically been that traditional businesses operate in physical products, while non-profit organizations rely largely on donations.

However, it could be said that non-profit organizations are actually a service industry. They are providing individuals with the service of getting their money to where it will do the most good. If that is the case, then non-profit organizations are almost the exact same thing as a service-based business.

If we look at the types of businesses that have benefited most from the Internet, we will find that they are service-based businesses. The nature of the Internet lends itself to service-based businesses even more so than it does to traditional retail businesses. Retail businesses still operate in the physical world, whereas a service-based business can operate entirely online, thereby drastically cutting costs.

As a service-based industry, it is not surprising, then, that non-profit organizations have done so well online. The medium is particularly suited to the individual needs of non-profit organizations. Every aspect of a non-profit business is made easier and more effective by online operations.

Non-profit organizations are significantly harder to establish than traditional businesses. To start a normal business, all that one has to do is start acting like a business. Sole proprietorships are indistinguishable from the individuals that run them. Although there is paperwork that can be filled out for various reasons, in effect, every single person has the potential to be a business.

This is not the case for a true non-profit organization. Although anyone can start a business and declare that it is non-profit, it is not truly recognized by the government. To become recognized and gain the associated benefits, a company needs to file for 501(c)3 status. This is the status that allows the company to give donors the privilege of being able to write off their donations as tax deductible. Without this status, it is much more difficult for organizations to obtain donations.

Obtaining 501(c)3 status can be a very difficult and drawn-out process. Many companies do not obtain the status simply because they cannot go through all of the paperwork and hoops, not because they are not a true non-profit organization in spirit. People operating non-profit businesses have enough things to do on their plate without having to worry about technicalities and legal paperwork.

The Internet has helped a great deal in getting more 501(c)3 applications approved. There are specialists on the Internet that are very willing to help non-profit organizations become official for modest fees. Although these individuals and companies were around before the advent of the Internet, they were considerably harder to find and charged a much higher rate. Essentially, a non-profit organization was required to hire a lawyer at a lawyer�s rate if they wanted the job done properly.

It is even possible to find individuals with non-profit experience online who will be willing to help with a 501(c)3 for no charge. These people are just willing to volunteer their time to help a good cause.

It is also a fairly simple matter for a non-profit organization to establish themselves online with a website. It provides a convenient and cheap base of operations, much more so than any physical office that they could establish. There is no shortage of people on the Internet with decent website design skills willing to donate their time to a cause that they believe in. Non-profit organization owners just have to find these people and then set themselves up online. They can manage to become established with very little or no money out of pocket.

Another great aspect of the Internet for non-profit organizations is the ease with which they can attract and retain volunteers. Normally, a non-profit organization would have to campaign in a local area to find people that are interested in the cause. Outside of large urban areas, it can be very difficult to find enough people within the appropriate distance. This has led to the failure of many non-profit organizations.

Thanks to the Internet, non-profit organizations have access to a virtually unlimited number of people who may be interested in the cause. They can be from anywhere in the world, since they will be organized online and not in a local office. As long as they hold values that are beneficial to the organization and are willing to donate their time or resources, then they are a valuable addition to any non-profit organization.

In addition to helping non-profit organizations find volunteers, the Internet has done an even better job of helping to coordinate volunteers. Instead of relying on periodic meetings or expensive mailed newsletters, a non-profit organization can set up a website with a discussion board, news postings, and free e-mail newsletters. None of this costs any more than the website itself, assuming that the organization has someone willing to volunteer their time and expertise to put it all together.

Volunteers find it easier to work with non-profit organizations and communicate effectively using the Internet. Any time that they have an idea or a few spare moments to chat about their efforts, they can hop online to the message board. They do not have to be in any particular place for a particularly long time. The convenience and ease of use multiplies the productivity of every single volunteer by magnitudes.

The Internet also gives a voice to every single volunteer, no matter how small their role. Because they do not have to worry about being dismissed by more important people in a meeting or work environment, they can post their ideas without fear of being dismissed or receiving recriminations. In this way, more ideas are put forth and much more is achieved by all of the volunteers.

Similar to its effect on volunteers, the Internet also has a drastic impact on the ability of non-profit organizations to attract and retain donors. Just as with volunteers, non-profit organizations have traditionally been restricted to donors in their local area. Although larger organizations had access to more geographic locations, there were still great limitations.

Due to the Internet, non-profit organizations have access to potential donors all over the world. As long as a potential donor has an online presence and is interested in the cause, then they have the ability to access the non-profit organization.

Potential donors are much more likely to come forward with money if they know more about the organization. Thanks to the Internet, non-profit organizations can have all of their information in an easily accessible place: their website. Potential donors can peruse information at their leisure, without the limitations of presentations or small fliers.

The Internet also makes it much easier for donors to give their money. Websites can allow donors to give their money online with just a few clicks. They can fill out credit card information and the whole transaction may take less than a minute. This cuts out the difficulty of figuring out how to get cash or a check to the organization safely and quickly. If the donor is able to give money easier, then they are much more likely to give money in the first place.

Non-profit organizations can stay in touch with their donors much easier with an online database of donors� contact information. They do not have to worry about messy file cabinets of paperwork that may not even be accurate any more. Donors just fill out their information online and it is there for as long as the organization needs it.

Using the database, the non-profit organization can send out e-mail newsletters that do not cost anything and can get to thousands of people in a matter of minutes. It is much easier and more cost effective than traditional newsletters, and provides a convenient venue for donors to respond and feel like they could have an impact on the organization.

Overall, the Internet has made almost every single aspect of non-profit organizations easier. Because of this, non-profit organizations have flourished online, and all kinds of causes have gained champions are working toward success.

DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.