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Very simple: Be a source of integrity. Don’t be phony, people will know and not come to visit your site again. Even worse, they will post a bad review somewhere on the web and others will not even come to see for themselves. If you don’t know about something, don’t pretend that you do. Respect your customers, or prospective customers, and offer them something of value. Give good information that will draw your customers’ attention and this will help to build trust. It also gives them a reason to stay or come back again for more. Follow-up with your customers, but don’t be a pest. Basically, don’t spam, don’t steal, and don’t lie.

Just as in an offline business, there are ethics and standards that should be followed. If you are starting an online business, you’ve probably spent some time online already and can see that there are hundreds of thousands of businesses trying to sell their products and information and services to you. Study how they do it. Spend some time visiting the websites of your competitors, much like you would when preparing a business plan for an offline business. Look for and evaluate the following characteristics to determine the integrity of the business as a whole:

What are they selling? When you first come to their index page, can you quickly and easily figure out what they are selling? Is it a real product, an information product, a membership or a service? Do they offer something of real value right off the bat for free such as informative content or a related ebook? If you cannot determine within the first 30 seconds what they are selling or why they are in business, chances are that they are just a hodgepodge of links put together to make the owner affiliate revenue. However, if you do see something of value, stay a bit longer and evaluate further.

Can you contact them directly? Look on the main page. Contact information could be in the top nav bar, on the side nav bar or at the bottom of the page. Also, look for a direct link such as Contact Us. Click this link and see where it takes you. Do they provide a physical address, a contact name or email, and a phone number? These three things are a must for a legitimate business. If an owner is not confident in his business enough to put an address and contact phone number on his site, he must be hiding something. The final test is to send an email to the company and see who responds and how long it takes to get a response. Most one-person web businesses should be able to answer your email within 1-2 business days.

Is the content valuable and correct? One of my biggest pet peeves is spelling and grammar. If the owner has done his research and knows what he is talking about, this should show in the quality of the information on his site. A professional image depends on attention to details. Presentation is everything. If you are going to put out information, it has to be presented in an organized fashion with no mistakes. When I see more than one misspelled word or grammar mistake on a website or page, I move on. If the owner has not proofread his own material or verified the information on his site is correct and presented professionally, I won’t be trusting that his products are much higher in quality.

Is there a free trial or guarantee on the products and services being offered? Those businesses that have developed a quality product or service and are confident in it will not hesitate to put a guarantee on it. They will stand behind it 100%. Even better are those companies that let you try the product or service for free. This way you can test it out to see if it is indeed what you need and meets the quality standards of a legitimate business.

How do they advertise? Look at the other links on the website. Visit some of them to see the quality of partners associated with the first business. Do the links take you somewhere valuable and helpful? Is the business partnered with other legitimate businesses? Also, how did you find out about the website in the first place and what in their ad drew you in? Did the ad lie to you? Make sure that when you advertise that you don’t misrepresent what you are offering. In addition, don’t be a spammer. Make sure to develop a double opt-in email list that you can use to send valuable follow up information to your customers. This will help to build loyalty as well as word of mouth referrals. Visit forums and pay-per-click sites to see the companies who are advertising the same products and services that you are to find out what promotion methods they are using. Use them as a starting point and try to set your standards of quality and honesty a step above when developing your ads.

The bottom line is, there is good karma and bad. Even though we all know those people in life whose bad karma hasn’t caught up with them yet, don’t join the crowd. Be a leader, be a source of integrity, and provide a quality product or service that you can stand behind. In the long run, this will help you build a profitable, long-standing business rather than a fly-by-night get rich quick scheme.

Ruth Harris is a real entrepreneur who has helped many others start and promote their online business. Visit http://www.iprofit.viral-business.com to get over 170 best-selling eBooks and software titles with Master Resell Rights and ready made profit-pulling minisites all for one low price.

Google Analytics, formerly called Urchin, is a free service offered by Google that allows website owners to track information on virtually every aspect of their website. To sign up, go to Google Analytics and get a free account. You will be provided a small JavaScript code that you place on the pages you would like to track. Once this code is live on your site, Google will begin gathering information on the visitors to your website.

Types of Information Tracked by Google Analytics

The Dashboard in Google Analytics provides a concise overview of your website statistics. Using a configurable date range, you can view graphs showing the number of site visitors, pages per visit, bounce rate, number of pages viewed, the average time they spent on your site and the percentage that are new visitors.

Also included on the Dashboard is a convenient map overlay showing the countries where your site visitors originate from. A pie chart shows the breakdown percentage of how many visitors came from search engines, how many were from referring sites and how many entered your site by directly typing your website address into their browser. The final Dashboard component is the content overview which shows the website pages with the highest number of pageviews.

The Money is in the Details

The Dashboard gives a brief overview of your website statistics, but where the real gold nuggets lie is in the information accessed from the left navigation. It is broken down by Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content and Goals.

Visitors Tab

The Visitors Overview tab includes information similar to the Dashboard, but with more detail. It gives the adjustable date range line chart of your website traffic, and also information on unique visitors, total pageviews, average pageviews, time spent on your website, bounce rate and new visits.

The Visitor Segmentation options delve into the details associated with each visitor, allowing you to see visitor languages, network locations and user defined options. Also available is browser information such as browser type, operating system used, screen color depth, screen resolution, and whether or not the visitors have Java or Flash support enabled on their browsers. This information is critical in determining how your site is designed and what technologies are used in the site.

The remainder of the Overview page is dedicated to a technical profile of the visitor’s browser type and connection speed. You can see if your visitors are still using slow dialup connections and adjust your site design accordingly.

The other left navigation tabs, titled Map Overlay, New vs. Returning, Languages, Visitor Trending, Visitor Loyalty, Browser Capabilities, Network Properties and User Defined delve into the information presented in the Visitors Overview more thoroughly, giving visual and graphical depictions of website traffic. The amount of information presented is somewhat overwhelming, but it allows you to fine tune your site to maximize the user experience.

Traffic Sources Tab

The Traffic Sources tab present information based on how your site visitors found your website. The submenu options include Overview, Direct Traffic, Referring Sites, Search Engines, All Traffic Sources, Keywords, AdWords, Campaigns and Ad Versions.

The Overview tab again displays a summary of the traffic source data, with the familiar line graph of traffic amount and a breakdown of the direct vs. referring vs. search engine traffic. The page concludes with a display of the top five traffic sources and the top five keywords bringing traffic into your site via search engines.

Each of the submenus breaks down the traffic source data ever further, and the AdWords tab allows you to track any AdWords campaigns your current have on your site, showing your goal conversion rates and AdWords click-throughs. The data calculates an impressive amount of AdWords data, including cost, click through rate, cost per click, revenue per click, return on investment and margin.

Content Tab

The Content tab on the left navigation menu again has an Overview page showing a detailed summary of the traffic patterns including the pages with the top content (based on number of pageviews), a navigation analysis showing how visitors found your content, landing page optimization data and a very nice site overlay which allows you to see your page and see which links are click the most frequently. This data is important for adjusting placement of paid ads and how visitors track through your site.

The other submenus for the Content tab include Top Content, Content by Title, Content Drilldown, Top Landing Pages, Top Exit Pages and Site Overlay. Each category further breaks down the data presented in the Overview page.

Goals Tab

The Goals tab is used to set specific usage measurements for your website and customize your data for specific marketing goals. Goals can be used to track funneled traffic through your site, by setting specific page URL’s and how you want to track the path the visitor takes to get to that page. By analyzing the results of your goals, you can fine tune your site design, navigation, PPC advertising, online e-commerce, and many other aspects of your site to maximize profitability.

Conclusion

Google Analytics is an easy to configure statistics tool that provides an enormous amount of visitor information. The fact that it is a free service makes it even more appealing. By including the small snippet of JavaScript code on your webpages, you can analyze almost any aspect of the user experience and make adjustments to your pages to maximize your return. Even small website owners can benefit from knowing who is visiting their site and how they got there. Easy setup, thorough statistics and zero cost make Google Analytics a must-have addition to any website owner or designer’s toolbox.

Author:  Ryan Grabenstein operates a Nebraska Web Design and advertising busineses specializing in small business promotion and internet marketing.

HTML forms are one way a user can send data to Web sites. They are essential in almost every interaction one can have with a site, such as:

• Queries on search engines
• Providing information (tags, comments, personal data, logins/registering, etc)
• Finding/purchasing certain objects from e-catalogs

In most cases, forms usability will improve the usability of the entire site. The primary goal of form usability is making sure that the intended users are able to interact properly with the Web site while having a positive and convenient experience.Tips for Achieving An Accessible HTML Form

1. Helping users understand the form will save them time and ensure that they provide correct input. On the other hand, instructions should be as concise as possible. Always take into account potential users and that your forms address to both new and experienced visitors.

2. All forms should always contain this essential information:

• Title - what the form is for
• Contact details to provide help with filling in the form
• Send or Submit button at the end, optionally Cancel button

3. Avoid using forms with a large number of fields to be completed.

4. Never ask for duplicate information (when the form has more than one page, this is a common mistake).

5. It helps to run a use-of-information audit a while after the release of the form to see if the information collected was actually ever used. If it wasn’t, it shouldn’t be collected any more.

6. Split your forms - long forms are confusing.

• If your form is too long, try dividing it into several pages, each fulfilling a different task (ex.: one for product details, one for personal data and one for payment and delivery details).
• Each page is individually validated, so it is easier to signal and fix mistakes.
• Ask questions in a logical order. This way, necessary data can be taken automatically from previous pages.
• If an e-form requires navigation through several pages, it should be easy to return to a previous step. This helps in case the user made a mistake or just changed his mind and shouldn’t have to start again, but just go back and modify the input.
• Conservation of filled data is very important. When going back to fix a problem, the user should find his form as filled in before. For example, there’s no reason why one should have to re-accept the terms of agreement because of a wrong area code.

7. Forms that look neat are easier to fill in. This requires:

• Examination of the layout of the form, including:
  • Text
  • Localization and accessibility
  • Have consistency in capitalization and punctuation marks. (Avoid ALL UPPER CASE sentences. Try to use sentence case or Title Case.)
• Boxes should be aligned, both horizontally and vertically, along with the labels.
• Try to structure your form within one single column, it is easier to read. In the case of two columns, users often just fail to notice the right-hand column. Two columns are recommended only in the case of a big amount of data being constantly referred to.
• Always use a polite tone and run a spell checker and a grammar checker on your forms.

8. Take into account the three possible validation levels:

• Strict - user will not be allowed to proceed until entering proper information
• Soft - user can proceed, but receives a warning that the data is either missing or incorrect
• None - any input is accepted without warning.

Make your choice in correlation with how important is receiving valid data for your database. Usually, Strict and None levels are mixed in the same e-form.9. Make sure that mandatory fields are clearly marked.

• You may:
  • Use an asterisk and the word “required” in parentheses following the field (optionally, the reason why it is required).
  • Color the input area differently (don’t use red - it is usually reserved for error messages and might confuse the user).
  • Divide the form in two - mandatory and optional parts.
  • Use bold or italic text to signal required fields.
• Either way you choose, always provide a legend (easy to find and understand) with the symbol’s meaning.
• Don’t put in too many mandatory fields without explanation, this will lose customer’s trust (”Why do they need my home number too?”).

10. Return relevant error messages.

Replace cryptic messages with straightforward error messages that are easier to understand. Error messages should tell users what went wrong and offer a possible solution. This can be easily handled now with CSS.

11. Be especially careful with input fields and drop-down menus.

• All input fields should be clearly labeled. This won’t bother experienced users, but it will be helpful for rookies. Users expect input field labels to be just above the input box, to the left.
• Try to replace all drop-down list boxes with text fields. Drop-downs are harder to use when providing a larger number of options. Try to use them only for important data or to position them below more important input fields.
• Give the user room to type - at least 20 characters for first and last name fields, minimum 50 characters wide by 10 lines tall for text fields.
• Provide default answers where possible, letting your customer over-ride your choices of answer

12. Have your form tested out by real users before releasing it.

Ask some real target-users to fill in your form. Analyze feedback, adapt to their needs. On top of all the tips above stands the rule of common sense: do your users understand what you ask from them? You can judge the accessibility of your html form by how many filled in forms contain mistaken information. Also find out more about how can you gain website accessibility.

Should we consider usability of forms?

Nobody likes filling in forms, but they are always the only means to a purpose, what stands between you and getting what you need (may that be logging into your e-mail, ordering a software product or just searching for some information). Even though users know forms are necessary, they still just won’t enjoy filling them in.

A simple lesson of economics goes like this. We are given two manufacturers, who both make the same alarm clock, with the exact same functions. One of them adds the possibility to choose the alarm sound. His clocks will be more successful. With a small price, he obtains a greater profit.

The Internet provides endless possibilities. In most cases the user can abandon your form and try a different Web site. What can make the difference between your company and the competitors? Might be your to-the-point, easier to use html forms.

Author:  Adriana Iordan is Web Marketing Manager at Avangate B.V.
Avangate is a complete ecommerce provider for shareware sales incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional software marketing services and sales tools.

Anybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any clients on the losing end of that equation however we have called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming. After a weekend of analysis there are some curiosities in the results that simply require further tweaks in the ranking system.

This update seems to have revolved around three main areas: domain age, backlinks and PageRank.

Domain Age

It appears that Google is presently giving a lot of weight to the age of a domain and, in this SEO’s opinion, disproportionately so. While the age of a domain can definitely be used as a factor in determining how solid a company or site is, there are many newer sites that provide some great information and innovative ideas. Unfortunately a lot of these sites got spanked in the last update.

On this tangent I have to say that Google’s use of domain age as a whole is a good filter, allowing them to “sandbox” sites on day one to insure that they aren’t just being launched to rank quickly for terms. Recalling back to the “wild west days” of SEO when ranking a site was a matter of cramming keywords into content and using questionable methods to generate links quickly I can honestly say that adding in this delay was an excellent step that insured that the benefits of pumping out domains became extremely limited. So I approve of domain age being used to value a site - to a point.

After a period of time (let’s call it a year shall we) the age should and generally has only had a very small influence on a site’s ranking with the myriad of other factors overshadowing the site’s whois data. This appears to have changed in the recent update with age holding a disproportionate weight. In a number of instances this has resulted in older, less qualified domains to rank higher than newer sites of higher quality.

This change in the ranking algorithm will most certainly be adjusted as Google works to maximize the searchers experience. We’ll get into the “when” question below.

Backlinks

The way that backlinks are being calculated and valued has seen some adjustments in the latest update as well. The way this has been done takes me back a couple years to the more easily gamed Google of old. This statement alone reinforces the fact that adjustments are necessary.

The way backlinks are being valued appears to have lost some grasp on relevancy and placed more importance on sheer numbers. Sites with large, unfocused reciprocal link directories are outranking sites with fewer but more relevant link. Non-reciprocal links lost the “advantages” that they held over reciprocal links until recently.

Essentially the environment is currently such that Google has made itself more easily gamed than it was a week ago. In the current environment, building a reasonable sized site with a large recip link directory (even unfocused) should be enough to get you ranking. For obvious reasons this cannot (and should not) stand indefinitely.

PageRank

On the positive side of the equation, PageRank appears to have lost some of it’s importance including the importance of PageRank as it pertains to the value of a backlinks. In my opinion this is a very positive step on Google’s part and shows a solid understanding of the fact that PageRank means little in terms of a site’s importance. That said, while PageRank is a less than perfect calculation subject to much abuse and manipulation from those pesky people in the SEO community it did serve a purpose and while it needed to be replaced it doesn’t appear to have been replaced with anything of substantial value.

A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green bar to gague a site’s trust on (good call Google). With this in mind one of two things has happened; either Google has decided the TrustRank is irrelevant and so is PageRank and decided to scrap both (unlikely) or they have shifted the weight from PageRank to TrustRank to some degree and are just now sorting out the issues with their TrustRank calculations (more likely). Issues that may have existed with TrustRank may not have been clear due to it’s weight in the overall algorithm and with this shift reducing the importance of PageRank the issues that face the TrustRank calculations may well be becoming more evident

In truth, the question is neither here nor there (as important a question as it may be). We will cover why this is in the …

Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? First, it means that this Thursday or Friday we can expect yet another update to correct some of the issues we’ve seen rise out of the most current round. This shouldn’t surprise anyone too much, we’ve been seeing regular updates out of Google quite a bit over the past few months.

But what does this mean regarding the aging of domains? While I truly feel that an aging delay or “sandbox” is a solid filter on Google’s part - it needs to have a maximum duration. A site from 2000 is not, by default, more relevant than a site from 2004. After a year-or-so the trust of a domain should hold steady or at most, hold a very slight weight. This is an area we are very likely to see changes in the next update.

As far as backlinks go, we’ll see changes in the way they are calculated unless Google is looking to revert back to the issues they had in 2003. Lower PageRank, high relevancy links will once again surpass high quantity, less relevant links. Google is getting extremely good and determining relevancy and so I assume the current algorithm issues has more to do with the weight assigned to different factors than an inability to properly calculate a links relevancy.

And in regards to PageRank, Google will likely shift back slightly to what worked and give more importance to PageRank, at least while they figure out what went awry here.

In short, I would expect that with an update late this week or over the weekend we’re going to see a shift back to last week’s results (or something very close to it) after which they’ll work on the issues they’ve experienced and launch a new (hopefully improved) algorithm shift the following weekend. And so, if you’ve enjoyed a sudden jump from page 6 to top 3, don’t pop the cork on the champaign too quickly and if you’ve noticed some drops, don’t panic. More adjustments to this algorithm are necessary and, if you’ve used solid SEO practices and been consistent and varied in your link building tactics - keep at it and your rankings will return.

Author:  Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc. Beanstalk offers search engine optimization services to business small and large as well as providing consulting, training, copywriting and link popularity programs.

How will the evolution and acceptance of mobile communication impact the bottom line of your marketing program? The answer depends largely on your ability to effectively integrate mobile into the marketing mix by leveraging the correct mobile channel and offering a compelling mobile marketing message.

You must begin by establishing whether or not mobile is appropriate for your marketing campaign. Mobile marketing is a great way to connect with your customers, and allow them to interact with your brand in a very personal way, but it is not right for all marketing campaigns. You should evaluate how your target market is using mobile technology and how mobile marketing will uniquely allow you to reach your marketing goals.

Mobile marketing is still in its infancy, so it is best used to promote special offers and create ‘buzz’ but it can also be effectively used for brand awareness and reinforcement. With more tech savvy customers, mobile marketing can be used to introduce new brands and expand your customer base, but that is usually a riskier venture. Despite popular belief, mobile marketing is not just relevant to the younger demographics. In-fact, the most active population group using mobile phones is 25-45 years old, so don’t limit your mobile marketing initiatives to the younger demographics. It is important to make sure you have a good idea of how your clients are using mobile technology, and if you don’t know, it will be valuable to do some market research or perform a survey of your clients’ mobile habits.

Once these questions have been addressed, and you have established that it makes sense to include mobile in your marketing mix, you can get started planning the mobile campaign. You must begin by establishing which mobile channel best suits your marketing goals and your target market. Once all these things have been accomplished you should determine what your mobile marketing message will be and how you will integrate your mobile marketing campaign into the rest of your marketing efforts.

Mobile Channels & Messages

Mobile Web: One of the simplest ways to begin mobile marketing is to ensure that your website is usable on mobile devices. There is no need to go out and purchase a new domain or create a mobile-specific website. In most cases, you can make minor changes to your existing site to ensure that it will work on a mobile device. In general, websites translate best on mobile if they are primarily built in html or xhtml. Anything that takes a long time to load on your traditional computer will take even longer to load on a mobile device, so avoid excessive use of flash, action script and large images. Other than that, the best advice is to test your site on a variety of different mobile devices to see how it looks, then make updates accordingly.

Tip: Integrate your mobile marketing with your mass media and outdoors marketing by placing banners and ads that reference your mobile friendly site in places where people might have idle time with their phone, like at bus stops, in subway stations and on billboards.

Mobile E-mail: Many people are accessing their e-mail on mobile devices, so it is also important that you optimize your e-mail campaigns so that the e-mails can be read on mobile devices. Be sure to test your e-mail messages on a couple different mobile devices before you send it out. Make sure that you are using compelling subject lines (that won’t be sent to peoples SPAM folders), with the important information in the first 30 characters. Some Mobile devices don’t display a ‘From’ line so if there is room, include your brand name in your ‘Subject’ line. Always send a text alternative to html e-mails, and include a link to an online version of the e-mail that people can click if they are having trouble viewing the e-mail.

Tip: Integrate your e-mail campaign with your website by mentioning any promotion you are sending in e-mails on your home page, and include a link to the online version e-mail.

Text Messaging (SMS): Text messaging is a great way to reach customers with promotions, whether you have their phone number or not. Rather than coming through as a call, a text message will show up on the mobile phone as a small note on the phone, similar to a short e-mail. Text messages can only include 160 characters of text, but many phones will activate text to make it clickable, if the phone recognizes the text as a phone number, web link or short code.

If you don’t have access to your customers’ phone numbers you can use your other marketing channels to encourage customers to interact with your brand by sending text messages to a 6 digit number called a short code. This type of mobile marketing is frequently location based and can have a very short life cycle. A good example would be a coffee shop with a sign in the window that says “Text the word ‘coffee’ to 123456 to receive $1 off your purchase today.” When users send the text message a computer replies with a code or password they can give the cashier to receive the discount. This is a great way to build up a list of mobile phone numbers that you can use later with other more targeted text messaging campaigns.

If you already have access to a list of mobile phone numbers, you can send them a text message directly. If you are using a list of mobile phone numbers that you have received from a previous text messaging campaign, like the coffee shop example, you can send a follow up text message. For instance, a week after participants got the $1 off of their coffee purchase, you can send them a text message directly, that says “We have missed you. Come back this week and get a free coffee and $2 off the purchase of any 12 oz bag of ground coffee.” Participants may be charged for the text message by their mobile carrier, so be sure to make the offer attractive enough to get their attention.

Tip: If you are working with a pre-existing list of mobile phone numbers it is best to let people opt in to your marketing messages by sending the recipients a text message that says something like this: “Our customer database lists this as your mobile phone number. Reply with ‘OK’ to receive coupons & other marketing messages at this number.”

You can also encourage people to respond to the text message with their e-mail address to have coupons e-mailed to their mobile phone or personal computer. You must refer them to a website for full terms and conditions, but that can be part of an acknowledgment message, sent after the e-mail address is collected. You should also allow people to opt out of your text messages by including something that says “Text message ‘STOP’ to 123456 to stop receiving our messages.”

Picture Messaging (MMS): Picture messaging is more versatile than text messaging and can be used in much the same way. It is less widely used, and can cause users to incur higher charges from the carrier, so it is important to ensure that your marketing message is well thought out and valuable to the recipients. Picture messages can include pictures, graphics, animations, text and sound. Picture messages are traditionally sent from a mobile phone number to an e-mail account. Picture messages can be received on traditional computer e-mail accounts, but are best viewed on a mobile device, because of the size of the images that are sent. Like in text messages, most phones will recognize and activate text to make it clickable if it is a phone number, web link or short code.

Tip: Use your website to encourage users to sign up and receive new product notifications or birthday e-mails on their cell phone. Be sure to include links to the website in the picture message that encourage the recipients to view the site from their mobile phone.

Location Based Marketing: Many smart phones are equipped with technology that allows messages to be sent to the phone via Infrared technology beams (IR) or Bluetooth. These two communication technologies have limited range, which allows you to set your marketing message to constantly send from a physical store location, but it will only be received when the customer is within range. This is another great way to take in-store promotions one-step further and remind customers of advertised deals or create special incentives for mobile users.

Marketers are also using GPS enabled cell phones to send users targeted e-mails or text messages based on your location. These types of communications can be considered very intrusive and personal, so it is important to tread lightly and best to reserve this type of marketing for customers who interact very frequently with your brand.

Mobile Pay-Per-Click: As on the traditional internet, search engines offer paid listings that display along side the regular search results. These advertisements only cost money when users click through to get to your site, hence the name ‘Pay-per-Click.’ You bid on keyword terms that are related to your product offering, and when users search for those terms, your ad is displayed. You are given a certain number of characters to describe your products and you can link the advertisement to any page on your site. Mobile Pay-per-Click is new, so there is less competition on keyword phrases and prices are still very reasonable. In most cases the search engines and third party providers are still testing different means of displaying these ads, so now is a good time to begin learning the ropes and building up history with the Pay-per-Click providers.

Tip: Be sure to update your Pay-per-Click advertisements when ever you run a special promotion or marketing campaign. Sometimes you will need to change the text of the advertisement to reflect the new marketing message or promotion. Other times you will need to bid on different keywords that are associated with the promotion.

Mobile Banner Ads: Mobile banners are small graphical advertisements that that link to your site, and are shown on other sites as a means of generating revenue. They are purchased from a third party provider on a ‘cost per million’ basis. The number of times your ad is shown is called its ‘impressions,’ and you pay weather your ad is clicked on or not. The third party provider will allow you to select different filters that affect how, when and to whom your ad is displayed. The number of filters you set will also effect your cost per million (CPM).

Some mobile sites have begun to sell banner ads much in the same way banner ads are bought and sold on the traditional internet. Frequently, traditional banner ads will not display correctly on mobile phones, so some companies have systems in place that identify whether you are on a traditional computer or a mobile device. This way they can serve ads that are specifically formatted for your screen. In other cases, mobile banners are put on websites that are specifically designed for mobile access. In either case, mobile banners are a good way to generate brand recognition, and let people know that your site is accessible on mobile.

Tip: Since you are paying by the impression it is important that banners do a good job of re-enforcing your brand without users having to click through to your site. Banners should always have the most updated marketing message that is being used in your other marketing channels.

Evaluating Mobile Success:

The final aspect of any marketing campaign is the evaluation and tracking of success - and mobile marketing is no exception. It is important to let your efforts run for enough time to get a true read of the success of the campaign because mobile marketing is new to consumers, and ‘buzz’ is frequently a large part of any mobile marketing campaign. It is also best to do a couple different one-time promotions before you do a full assessment of the success of the campaign, because that gives consumers time to catch on and create buzz.

When you are evaluating your mobile campaign it is also important to remember that your mobile marketing efforts can affect the success of other aspects of your marketing campaign. Pay attention to how mobile could be creating indirect benefits to your sales volume both online and in stores. There are a variety of methods of tracking and measuring the success of your mobile marketing campaign, and there are even web analytics tools that can track the online portions of your mobile campaign. It is best to use a combination of what is available to ensure you are getting the most accurate results possible.

When done correctly, mobile marketing can do a lot to affect the bottom line of your marketing campaigns, but it is crucial that you use an integrated marketing strategy, effectively leverage the correct mobile channel, and use an appropriate marketing message.

Author:  Cindy Krum is Senior SEO Analyst with BlueMoon Works and a regular speaker on social and mobile marketing at search and online advertsing conventions.

Article directories are packed with articles about how to succeed as an affiliate marketer. The number of affiliate marketing courses out there is growing all the time. And it sometimes seems like I can’t get away from sites offering to tell me how to make a fortune in fifteen minutes.

So why isn’t everyone a successful affiliate marketer? After all, there’s all this advice out there. Even if most of it is rubbish, with enough searching and by taking advice from reviews sites it is possible to find the good. But beginner affiliate marketers still make the same mistakes, time after time.

So, instead of an article telling you how to become a successful affiliate marketer, here’s one telling you how to fail. If you don’t make any of these mistakes, you’ll be doing better than 95% of beginning affiliate marketers.

1. Sit back and hope you’ll be lucky.

You might be. You might also win the lottery. But I wouldn’t put much faith in either happening. I am sure that there are people out there who have done nothing but thrown up a website and earned money from it. But there are far more people who have done nothing but thrown up a website and ended up only wasting their own money.

2. Promote products you don’t believe in.

Insincerity shines through. People can tell if you’re lying. The words sound rehearsed and often like a repeat of the sales pitch. You will probably also end up sick of it, and if you have any conscience at all, you should feel guilty about the fact that you are sending people to a poor quality product.

Another thing to avoid is promoting products you haven’t actually bought. Always read a product carefully before you start trying to sell it. Buy it through your clickbank account if you want some money off! But not knowing anything about a product will make you sound phoney, will mean you are unable to answer questions about it, and will mean you are reliant on the author’s own sales pitch for information.

3. Expect people to visit the collection of links you claim is a website.

People don’t visit websites with no content. Would you? They’re even less likely to come for a repeat visit, and you’ll have about as much chance of reputable sites linking to you as of winning the lottery. You won’t get listed in any directories either, and your search engine ranking will suffer. Good content leads to more visitors and more sales. Pre-selling something well can up the conversion rate dramatically.

4. Treat your visitors and subscribers as cash machines.

They’re not. By clicking on your affiliate links, they’re making you money. And why should they do that if you give them nothing in return? People don’t visit your website or subscribe to your mailing list because they feel like you deserve a bit of extra cash. They do so because they want something, usually information. You have to give that to them.

5. Give up.

Most affiliate marketers give up. They make mistakes, they lose money, they get discouraged, and they stop trying. The success stories are the ones who kept going, who kept believing that it was possible to make a living affiliate marketing. You need to believe the same, and be prepared to work hard for it.

If you avoid these mistakes, your chances of becoming a successful affiliate marketer increase dramatically. Committing any of them is likely to cost you time and money; but even if you have, they are easily fixed. Content can be added to a website, products can be researched more thoroughly, your sales pitch can be adjusted and you can always put in more work than you have been.

Does it sound boring? Yes. Is it difficult and often frustrating? Yes. But seeing your traffic increase, and then watching the sales start to come in is extremely exciting. That feeling alone makes it all worth it. And the money doesn’t hurt either! The hardest part of affiliate marketing is always getting started. When you are up and running, word will spread about your site and traffic will grow by itself.

Just don’t commit any of the above mistakes, and you will already be ahead of the pack.

Author:  Anita Buchan is a successful affiliate marketer who now wants to help others make the same money she does. For honest reviews of legitimate affiliate marketing opportunities, visit http://www.dont-get-scammed.biz

Search engine spiders are by far one of the most useful things to come around in the last 20 years of the internet. They are useful not only to the web sites (Google and many others) that use them, but also to people who are searching for a particular site and those who run web sites. Spiders allow your site to be seen by the millions of people who use search engines every day. In this newsletter, we will discuss what search engine spiders do, how they work, and how to set up a robots.txt file and upload that to your site to keep spiders from visiting your site.

What are spiders and what purpose do they serve? Spiders are essentially programs that “crawl” sites and report back to their superior (Google or whatever search engine they were created for) what their findings are. Their purpose is to make it easy for sites to get listed in search engines.

You might be wondering, what does it mean to “crawl” a site? Well it means to visit and site and copy the information.

How do spiders work? Spiders work by finding links to web sites, visiting those web sites, going through the content of a web site and then reporting the content of the site back to the database of the site which they are working for. Google spiders, thus, crawl sites and report the information back to Google’s database. From there, the information is added to Google’s search engine, and the site then shows up in Google search results. Much the same process happens with any other search engine spider.

How can I keep spiders from visiting my site? You might be thinking, “Why would I want to keep such a useful thing from visiting my site?” Well, the short answer is, sometimes site owners don’t want the spider to crawl on a particular part of their site. Some site owners don’t want spiders to crawl their site at all. The reasons for not wanting a spider to crawl a site or a particular part of a site vary, although most of the time it is because the site is either completely spam or features a page or two of spam. If you’re one of those site owners, then you’ll want to create and upload something called a robots.txt file. We will briefly go over how to do this.

A robots.txt file. The whole purpose of a robots.txt file is to tell a search engine spider not to crawl the site or part of the site on which the robots.txt file resides.

Creating the file. Creating a robots.txt file that blocks out spiders is easy. First, open up notepad. Then, copy and paste the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /

Once you’ve done that, save the file as “robots” and as a .txt file.

Uploading the file. Next, you will upload the file to the part of your site which you do not want the spider to visit. So, if you don’t want them to visit yoursite.com/news/, you’ll upload robots.txt to the news folder. If you don’t want the search engine spider to visit your site as well, upload robots.txt to your index folder. That’s all there is to it.

Using the robots.txt file to make sure search engine spiders DO visit your site

Believe it or not, the robots.txt file can be used to both disallow and allow search engine spiders to crawl your site. Here’s how to create and upload such a file.

Creating the file Open up notepad and copy and paste in the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: You’ll notice that the only difference between this and the earlier example is that Disallow: is not followed with /. If it were, that would tell spiders to go away. Once again, save the file as robots.txt.

Uploading the file All you’ll do is upload the robots.txt file to the part of your site that you want the robot to pay a visit to. So if you want the robot to see the whole site, just put the robots.txt file right alongside the index file. And you’re done. Creating and uploading a robots.txt file to help make sure spiders don’t miss your site is fast and easy. So what are you waiting for? Create and upload that file now!

Author:  Terry Detty, 42 years old, finds internet marketing his passion. In addition to marketing he enjoys reading, and occasionally goes out for a short walk. His firm, Easy SEO helps with, SEO Software, internet marketing software, and email marketing.

Annual mobile phone sales are predicted to hit 1 billion by 2009 and there are already 4 times as many internet-enabled phones in the world than there are PC’s.

According to Dotmobi (www.dotmobi.net), one third of the global population are connected via mobile phones today and approximately half are expected to be using a mobile Internet phone by 2008. An IPSOS survey suggests that 29% of mobile phone users in the UK searched for news and information on their handset during 2005.

The statistics are impressive and will get any marketers pulse racing. But it does seem as if we’ve been hearing about the potential of mobile search market for some time, and yet very few travel companies appear to be active in the mobile search space and mobile e-commerce revenues are still modest.

Up until now most advertisers have been ignoring mobile as a marketing channel, according to a new report by Forrester Research called “Interactive Marketing Channels to Watch in 2007.” It suggests that only 13 percent of marketers use mobile text message ads and only 11 percent bother advertising on wireless application protocol (WAP) sites. It seems clear that advertisers are waiting for evidence that the market is there before deciding to jump in themselves.

Barrier and limitations to growth

Despite the huge number of people that have access to the mobile internet there are a number of barriers to mobile web adoption. For example;

1. Cost and clarity - carrier data plans can be expensive and confusing compared to normal internet access plans.

2. Screen Size - the limited screen size of many hand sets negatively impacts the user’s browsing experience.

3. Ease of use - due to the limited screen size there is an increased number of clicks needed to get to content.

4. Lack of content - there is a ‘walled garden’ approach to the content offered by many mobile network operators which means that not all mobile users get full access to content.

Competition - the WiFi explosion

Another factor that may have impacted on the growth of mobile internet usage is the increasing availability of high-speed WiFi internet access in many public areas. Airports, hotels, bars, libraries and commercial shopping centres are increasingly offering WiFi, and it’s often free. This has encouraged users to use laptops and PDA’s to access the internet while on the move rather than through mobile phones.

Mobile is the perfect advertising platform

Despite these barriers to growth travel companies cannot afford to ignore the e-commerce and marketing potential of this platform. All of the barriers to growth outlined above will be overcome over time as technology improves and network and content providers adapt their services to facilitate the growth. The issue is not really whether the mobile search market will make an impact, but how it will make an impact.

In many ways mobile is the perfect advertising platform. It’s always with the consumer, it’s always on, it provides personal profiling data, it provides location data, it’s interactive and it has multiple billing options already built in.

At present the major bulk of mobile searches are related to ring tones, news, entertainment, maps and directions, directory listings, local restaurants and other local services. As many as 60,000 UK users a day are checking train times on their mobile phones.

Local search is clearly the natural mobile advertising opportunity. Going forward, more complex searches and bigger transactions will become viable as technology advances and users become more comfortable with using their handsets for searching.

In a recent Travelmole interview, Nancy Lyndhurst, the product manager for O2, said some of the larger travel brands like Cathay Pacific, Accor Hotels and KLM are already successfully marketing with mobile technology. She also cites the example of Lastminute who received a £3,000 holiday booking online from a customer using their mobile telephone.

Mobile marketing spend to reach $11 billion by 2011

A recent report by the telecom division of Informa Group stated that advertisers are expected to spend a massive $11 billion on mobile marketing by 2011. Optimistic predictions like this have compelled the major search engines to start making significant investment in the future of mobile search themselves.

Google have predicted that their own mobile division, based in London, will “become the biggest driver of new business” for the company.

Google has developed its own mobile search engine and has signed a number of deals to provide mobile search services to major operator portals. Motorola have even agreed to add a dedicated “Google” button to some of its hand sets. LG, one of the top 5 mobile firms in the world, have announced that they will start to ship handsets pre-loaded with Google services from this month.

Yahoo has unveiled a new application called Yahoo Go Mobile which makes its various services available on certain phones. Not to be outdone, Microsoft launched Live Search for Mobile in February at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona.

There are also a number of start ups like Jumptap and Medio who will be bringing services to the new mobile search space.

It’s clear that the major search properties, in partnership with the phone manufacturers and network services, are intent on driving the mobile search sector forward. With this kind of momentum there’s no doubt that mobile search marketing will eventually become a major part of online marketing, it’s just a question of when. Could 2007 be the year of mobile search?

Author:  Mark Scriven is the M.D of Turismotec Ltd, a UK based search marketing agency that specialises in the travel sector. Turismotec publish a bi-monthly search marketing newsletter called etravel.success.

Lawyers have never been known as a technical bunch, but more and more often you see a lawyer with a palm pilot making appointments and a blackberry for those urgent messages. Electronic gadgets are now common in the courthouses across the US. Lawyers have increased productivity by utilizing technology so it should come as no surprise that lawyers are using RSS feeds as a means to grow and manage their practices.

Lawyers are using RSS feeds a number of different ways to increase efficiency and productivity. Common RSS feed usage in the legal field include:

1. Ego Feeds
First and foremost, lawyers want to know what is being said about their firm. It is easy enough to monitor search engines and news searches using RSS. Lawyers create what is commonly referred to as “ego searches”. These are essentially keyword searches (the keyword is the firm or lawyer’s name). Each time the keyword appears in the news article or search engine a new item will appear in the feed. Lawyers can click through and view the source of the mention.

2. Current Events
Similar to ego feeds, lawyers use RSS to track current events that are related to cases in which they are involved. This might involve monitoring specific news agencies or topics.

Ego Search Tools - http://www.rss-tools.com/ego-search-feeds.htm

3. Firm Public Relations
Won a big case, what better way to convey it than sending a press release? Naturally, this release should also appear in an RSS feed.to help increase the distribution and reach of the press release. RSS can also be used by large firms to announce press conferences at the culmination of a case.

Law.com - http://www.law.com/service/rss.shtml

4. Court Cases
RSS can be used to monitor pending court cases, and rulings that might effect a specific segment of law.

RSSGov - http://www.rssgov.com/archives/000036.html

5. Pending Legislation
Lawyers can use RSS to monitor legislation that relates to specific cases or topics. Lobbyists can monitor votes of politicians and follow their positions on important issues.

GovTrack - http://www.govtrack.us/

6. Client News
Ego feeds can also be used to monitor the word on the street about a client. Whether the client is facing a criminal trial or a civil case, the press can undoubtedly influence a trial. Monitoring the press for mentions help lawyers prepare the best possible defense or prosecution.

Ego Search - http://www.feedforall.com/ego-searches.htm

7. Legal Calenders
Industry events can be followed using RSS feeds. Legal conferences and events can be traced on public RSS calenders.

Law School Calender - http://www.law.uoregon.edu/cal/events/index.php?com=rss

8. Share Research Tools
Lawyers can use social bookmarking tools and RSS feeds to share web research resources with colleagues. This can reduce the amount of time spent researching issues.

del.icio.us - http://del.icio.us

9. Legal Employment
Job feeds are increasing in popularity in all industries. Lawyers in search of employment openings can subscribe to RSS feeds and learn about new employment opportunities as they become available.

4 Legal Jobs - http://www.4legaljobs.com/show_content.php?id=1144741774

10. Court Rulings
Many courts are now publishing court rulings in RSS feeds, making them available to the general public.

Court Rulings - http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/subscribe.html

11. Court of Appeals
Appeals courts are also adopting RSS feeds to allow interested parties to monitor decisions coming out of the court of appeals.

US Courts - http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?submit=rss_ops

12. Legal Organizations
The American Bar Association has an RSS feed and podcast that discusses litigation. Lawyers can use RSS feeds to stay connected to industry information.

American Bar Association - http://www.abanet.org/litigation/litigationfeed.xml

13. Continuation Education
Many legal courses have podcasts available, and lawyers interested in expanding their education on a specific segment of the law can listen to audio podcasts or subscribe to video podcast lectures.

Education Feeds - http://www.educational-feeds.com

14. Legal Blogs
Many lawyers have expanded their practices by setting up a blog offering legal advice. Often the contents of the blog are syndicated using RSS feeds.

Law Professors - http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/antitrustprof_blog/

15. Cease and Desist
There is even an RSS feed that contains Cease and Desist Letters. As cease and desist letters are added, clinical law students can annotate them with questions and answers.

Chilling Effects - http://www.chillingeffects.org/index.xml

Lawyers have begun using RSS to stay ahead and adapt to the needs of their clients. Members of the legal profession are using RSS in very specific ways. RSS is more than simply a communication medium to lawyers, it is helping them filter information that is relevant to their practice and case load. Through RSS they are able to gain access to relevant information in a timely fashion.

Author:  Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

In the b.i. days (before the internet), the success of a mom and pop store depended, among other things, on the big boys of industry. Once they came to town and set up shop, there was no more mom and pop. They were driven out of business by the sheer volume of the mega companies’ advertising and capital. Not a pretty site.

The internet has gone a long way to reviving the mom and pop industry. It affords many small businesses the opportunity to compete by using simple cost effective techniques repeated on a continuous basis. One of the techniques is viral marketing commonly referred to as word of mouth.

In the old days viral marketing for small business owners had limited appeal. Yes they could be successful in that particular city, town or even region but it’s still nothing compared to the global word of mouth that business owners can tap into right now thanks to the internet. Once you launch your viral marketing campaign, it requires very little follow up on your part and even this has been taken a step further with the emergence of Web 2.0.

Here are some new ways to get the best out of your viral marketing:

1. The Small Report.
There have been some excellent ebooks on the internet chock full of good information but let’s face it: many people are not going to read them due to the length. Enter the small report. Putting together a five to ten page report can be done in no time. The same goes for reading it. We suffer from information overload in this day and age so giving people useful information in smaller quantities makes sense.

Find a hot topic and write several articles on it. Place the articles in a pdf file with your name and contact information branded on the report. Tell readers they are free to distribute your report as long as they do not alter it in any way. Then advertise your report in forums on your website and anywhere else you can think of. People want information fast and utilizing small reports is a good way to give them exactly that. It’s also a good start to making money from your viral campaign.

2. Video
In 2005, Kevin McCarthy one of the pioneers of online marketing predicted that within a year there would be an explosion of