Article Categories

• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogs & Podcasts
• Branding
• Business
• Cloud Technology
• Ecommerce
• Email Marketing
• Facebook
• Google
• Keywords
• LinkedIn
• Linking Strategies
• List Building
• Local Search
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• Mobile Applications
• Page Rank
• Pay Per Click
• RSS
• Sales Copy
• SE Optimization
• SE Positioning
• SE Submission
• SE Tactics
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Security
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• SPAM
• SPN Featured Articles
• Technology
• Video Marketing
• Virtual Office/Telecommuting
• Web 2.0
• Web Design
• Web Development
• Webmasters
• Website Promotion
• Website Traffic
• WordPress
• Writing

SiteProNews Blogs

• Editor's Corner
• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• John Sylvester
• Kalena Jordan
• Mel Strocen
• Titus Hoskins

How to Get What You Want from Your Website Designer

By admin in Webmasters

If you’ve been involved in the design of your company’s web site, you probably already know how difficult it can be to convey the type of website design you want.

Website design is a matter of personal taste. What one person finds attractive and professional, you may not and vice versa. Oftentimes, what you want is a matter of “I’ll know it when I see it,” but unless your graphic designer is a mind reader, that’s not enough information to assure you’ll get what you visualized in your own head.

Below is a list of questions to help you solidify in your own mind and communicate to your website designer the look and feel you believe would best represent your company.

Website Design Questions

• Do you prefer website designs that contain many different colors

(<http://www.reductionengineering.com/> as an example) or designs that use

fewer colors (<http://www.reissbuilt.com/>, for instance)?

• Do you prefer bright colors (as on http://www.hmroyal.com/>) or muted

colors (as on <http://www.reissbuilt.com/>)?

• Do you prefer website designs that have white backgrounds behind

the text (like <http://www.isternplastics.com/>) or colored backgrounds

behind the text (such as <http://www.purgeusa.com>)?

• Do you prefer sites with black type for the main text (such as

<http://www.reliable-resins.com/>) or those with colored type for the main

text (like http://www.naturalgas-electric.com/)?

• Do you prefer website designs with a horizontal layout (such as

<http://www.rotomachines.com/>) or a vertical layout (like

http://www.elmonteplastics.com/)?

• Regarding navigation, which button locations do you prefer – horizontal across the top, down the left (as on <http://www.dbi-global.com/>) or the right side

(http://www.elkayplastics.com), in blocks (as on <http://www.be-ca.com/>),

or a combination of some horizontal and some vertical (as on

<http://www.jomarcorp.com/>)?

• Do you want a straightforward, rendering of the logo,

or would prefer something with more color gradation or artistic treatment

(<http://www.utility-savings.net/> as an example)?

• Does your company have a motto or tagline that should be incorporated into the design?

• If yes, do you prefer the site tagline in a straightforward, headline-style format or do you prefer a more stylized format (as on

<http://www.evidencebags.com/> or <http://www.tecpapersdigital.com/>)?

• Some sites have faded terms related to their businesses embedded in

images (<http://www.unitedpolychem.com/> and <http://www.pilotfishseo.com/>,

as two examples) -Do you like this technique?

• Do you prefer sites with actual product images (as on

<http://www.elmonteplastics.com/>), or those with stock photographs that

evoke specific responses, such as a sense of dependability or

professionalism (<http://www.hmroyal.com/>, for example)?

• Do you prefer website designs with straightforward, realistic photographs of

products or those that contain artistically altered images of products

(<http://www.airpowerusainc.com/>, <http://www.rotomachines.com/> and

<http://www.evidencebags.com> are examples)?

• Do you prefer to have your product images on the left side (as with

<http://www.firestonepolymers.com/>), along the top (as with

http://www.polysort.com/ntm/index2.html) or down the right side (as with

<http://www.airpowerusainc.com>)?

• Are there any logos for industry quality, certification programs or

association memberships that should be part of the site’s design? (See

<http://www.hmroyal.com> for example)

Of the sites you viewed above, please provide feedback on the following questions:

• Which sites from the list of examples do you like best? And why?

• Which do you dislike the most? Why?

• As you review the sites, which company logo placements do you feel are the most appropriate for your company?

• Which color schemes do you prefer, as you look at these sites? And why?

• Which color schemes do you absolutely hate? Why?

• Are there any other web sites that you have seen that you like or feel demonstrate the style of design you prefer?

Answering each of these questions will go a long way in helping your graphic designer to create a website design that satisfies your graphic sensibilities.

Angela Charles is president of Pilot Fish, a website design and SEO firm based in Akron, Ohio.

Top Five Ways Your Virtual Assistant Can Help You Make More Money, Today!

By Donna Gunter in Webmasters

The best decision you can make as an online business owner is to decide to get out of your own way and begin to delegate those tasks which really don’t require your time and attention. A simple way to do that is by hiring a virtual assistant.

A virtual assistant is a business owner who specializes in handling the administrative details of your business from the comfort of her home office. Now that virtual assistance has been around for awhile, you’ll find virtual assistants who specialize in different types of administrative services: real estate, Internet marketing, and event management, to name a few. You may actually discover that you could use several virtual assistants in your business, each with a different specialization.

I can hear you now. You’re thinking, “There’s no way anyone can do this as well as I can.”

Are you guilty of “I’ll-do-it-myself-itis? If so, you’ve got much in common with most other online business owners in the world. We never think that anyone else will give something the time, attention, and dedication that we will. And, you’re right, to some degree. No one cares as much about your business as you do. However, if you don’t choose to delegate those things that prevent you from engaging in business development, marketing, and sales activities, you won’t be in business very long.

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for awhile, the thought of bringing on a support team member can be daunting, and you wonder, “How can I bring in someone else when it’s just going to increase my expenses?”

You need to make the shift to seeing this cost as an investment in your business, rather than as an expense, and let go of the need to be in control.

To help you evaluate what you might delegate to an assistant, take out a piece of paper and on the left side write, “What I Love to Do” and on the right side write. “What I Don’t Like to Do”.

Then, think about all of the functions you manage and roles you perform in your business, like planning and setting strategy, marketing, providing the service or product in which you specialize, dealing with financial issues, speaking, writing, networking, customer service, order fulfillment, etc. Most of my clients have three or four items on the “What I Love to Do” side — speaking, coaching/consulting, training, and writing. The remainder of the other functions and roles fall on the other side. The items on the right hand side, the “What I Don’t Like to Do” list, will serve as a great indicator of the types of things you need to be delegating in your business.

Based on my past experience as a virtual assistant and online business manager for a number of clients, here are 5 tasks should delegate to your Virtual Assistant right away to help you begin to generate additional income in your business:

1. Ezine. An email newsletter will help you get prospective clients into your marketing funnel. Your VA can format the plain text and HTML versions of your email newsletter. All you need to do is write your primary and filler articles each week and forward those to your VA to format and send the finished product out to your newsletter list.

2. Media. Have your VA research an industry-specific media list . This value of this list is in developing relationships with these media contacts so that you’re the expert they immediately think of when they’re doing a story on your area of expertise.

3. Article Marketing. Write once and have that article work for you again and again. Have your VA submit articles you’ve written to online article databases to increase the number of links back to your website and to send more visitors to your website.

4. Strategic Alliances. Once of the quickest ways to grow your business is by creating strategic alliance or joint venture relationships. Have your VA research potential strategic alliance or joint venture partners who provide a service to a similar audience or whose client base could benefit from your product or service.

5. Product Development. Got recorded interviews sitting around gathering dust on your hard drive? How about information you’ve created for presentations that you’ve never done anything with? Have your VA coordinate the transcript and audio editing of any recorded files you might have and help you polish those into saleable products. Your VA can also help your format printed material into an ebook, ecourse, special report, etc. and before you know you, you’ll become an information marketer!

What operational aspects of your business could you delegate to someone else? If you had extra time, how could you increase the revenues of your business? Give these questions strong consideration–and use your Virtual Assistant to help you make more profit with less of your time today!

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

The Search Engine Trinity

By Erin Ferree in Webmasters

In Cajun cooking, almost every dish starts with what’s known as “The Trinity” onions, celery and bell peppers. These 3 ingredients are the foundation of almost every savory dish. Whether you’re eating gumbo, jambalaya, or even a Cajun soup, they all start with these components. These form a delicious base to each of these dishes.Like Cajun food, getting a small business listed on the search engines also is based on a trinity of components. These components give your search engine efforts a base to be built off of, and ensure that you’ll be successful. Those are: the ease of getting listed, the effectiveness of your listing, and then finally, the level of placement.

1. Ease: If you’re like most small businesses, you’ve got a lot going on. You’re running your business, doing your marketing, creating your products and/or delivering your services, and trying to squeeze in some life balance on the side.

Hours and hours of search engine optimization work are the last thing you need to add to your to-do list. You need a simple, easy system to get the most search engine attention for the least amount of work.

2. Effectiveness: Effectiveness is two-fold. First, you want your efforts to be effective with the search engines. You want them to look at your site’s code and to rank you well.

Second, you want your listing to be effective for your searchers. If a searcher is looking for products or services like yours, then you want them to see your listing’s description, read it, and to be compelled to click on it.

3. Position: Your website probably doesn’t have to be ranked #1 for your best keywords to get all the attention you need being in the top 10 is just fine for most small businesses. You also probably don’t need to be ranked well for a very general term, like “consulting”. You have to find the combination of search terms and position on the search results that works best for your business and gives you a balance of ease of maintenance (staying in the rankings) and bringing you good clients.

How do you take advantage of the trinity when you work on optimizing your site? Here are some suggestions on how to address each of these issues in your plan:

Ease:

1. Start with solid advice. There are a lot of search engine systems out there, and a lot of “how-to” advice. Make sure that the system you’re using has been tried and tested, so that you’re not just going to be spinning your wheels as you work on your optimization.

2. Break your efforts down into short activities. Optimizing your site for the search engines takes several steps and trying to sit down and just do them all, end-to-end, will take a while. To preserve your sanity, and to do things in a way that will make your efforts have the most impact, plan to do each step one at a time, and then upload your revised files and wait a bit before making additional changes. That way, you’ll avoid going crazy, and you’ll also be able to evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts along the way.

Effectiveness:

1. Really look at what you want your site to do for you. Is it really important that you get huge numbers of visitors to make lots of sales? It may be if you’ve got a product to sell. But, if you’re a one- or two-person service business, then it’s more likely that you only need a few well-qualified visits to make all the sales that you can handle.

2. Experiment with your description in your listing. Use different description tags on different pages of your website to see which compels more searchers to click. By looking at your site statistics, you should be able to see which page your visitors are coming in through.

Position:

1. See where you really need to be ranked. If your optimization efforts have gotten you to the second or third page, then you’ve already got a good start. You may just need to do a bit of work to raise your ranking to the first age.

2. Ask your best clients and visitors how they found you. What words were they searching on? Which search engine did they use? You want to get more of these “best” clients through your website, so asking clients who you already work well with about how they came to work with you will help you to make your listing more effective.

These few tips will help you optimize your website with a solid base of the optimization trinity�making sure the process will be easy, effective and will get you the position you need.

Erin Ferree is a brand identity designer who creates big visibility for small businesses. As the owner of elf design, Erin is passionate about helping her clients stand out in front of their competition and attract more clients. One of the best ways to do that is with Search Engine Optimization, which you can learn about in her eLearning product, Raise Your Ranking, which is available at http://www.howtoraiseyourranking.com .

Writing Good Descriptions For eBay Auctions

By Allen Owen in Webmasters

Now that you’ve attracted bidders with your auction title, you have to get them to bid on your item by telling them why they should bid. What you are essentially doing is writing sales copy. You want to get them excited about what you are offering.

You should start off with a headline and a sub-headline. This is something that most eBay sellers fail to do is use a headline to begin their description. A good headline should create a problem that the reader can identify with and stress the main benefit of your product in solving that problem. It should also generate excitement and a desire to learn more about your product.

After the headline, you introduce your product with an overview. The overview shows the value of what you are offering and shows them why it’s a great solution to the problem you introduced in your headline. Then you describe your item in detail. You want to include all pertinent details of your item, such as brand, make and model, condition, warranty, packaging details and any other relevant information. Tell any interesting features about the product that make it stand out, what you can do with the item, and so on. All this will help demonstrate the value of the item.

After you describe the features of the product, you should translate these features into benefits. A feature is an attribute of an item. A benefit solves a problem for its owner. In other words, benefits answer “What’s in it for me?” for the buyer. It answers why they should bid on or buy your product.

It’s very important to establish your credibility in the eyes of potential bidders. There are several ways this can be accomplished. If you are positioning yourself as an expert, back up everything you say with details of your experience, qualifications, or awards in your chosen category or industry. Do this by placing a link to your About Me page or My World Page where you can include details about your background. Be honest when describing your items and don’t leave out anything. Be up front about any defects will boost your credibility. Use testimonials from people who have bought from you before by using your eBay feedback. Last but not least, use proper spelling and grammar. If you present a sloppy image with bad grammar, you won’t encourage people to bid on your item.

Make use of as many images as you can get of your item. The more the better. Make sure you use good lighting and make certain the images are clear. This especially true for high value items. It is a good idea to acquire some good lighting equipment and a good quality digital camera. The picture don’t have to be professional quality, but they need to show as much of the product as possible. If you are having items drop shipped for you, ask the supplier to provide you with several pictures of the item to use in your description. Or you can order one item as a sample and use it in your pictures.

It’s also important to give clear terms and conditions. List your terms and conditions such as payment options, bidding and shipping restrictions, shipping and handling fees, taxes and duty, warranty and refund policy, feedback guidelines, contact information, and delivery details(clearly state when you will ship the item).

Add a strong guarantee. Offering a money back guarantee is a proven marketing technique that is an excellent way to increase bids and sales. It may be tempting to place a time limit on your guarantee, but these guarantees don’t carry much weight. It is far better to not include a time limit because it will send a strong message that encourages more bids and sales. If someone has had an item for more than 30 days they are not likely to suddenly turn around and send it back. If someone does send it back, it’s usually because they have a genuine problem with the item and it’s only right they get a refund. You may get a few returns, but they will be outweighed by the extra sales you will generate with your guarantee.

Create a sense of urgency to encourage immediate bids. Auctions are urgent by their very nature but it’s a good idea to create a sense of urgency in your auction. One way to do this is to repeat the benefits of your item. If your item is no longer being made or is hard to find, emphasize its rarity and the fact this might be the last chance to buy it.

Now that you’ve written your description and offered a guarantee, you now need to ask for the sale. You’ve convinced the buyer they want the item and you need to ask for the sale. It doesn’t need to be long, just compelling. You can restate the benefits of the item and ask for the bid.

This is by no means a complete course on writing sales copy, but it will give you a good place to begin writing auctions that will improve sales.

Allen Owen is an enthusiastic home business entrepreneur and engineer. Have a look at his eBay tips e-zine: http://www.thedigitalresevoir.com

Setting Up 30 Profitable Niche Websites In 30 Days

By Willie Crawford in Webmasters

While we all dream of building that website that will be a home run, and make us rich, here’s an easier way to establish a dependable income stream.

It’s a lot easier to set up a simple website that generates just $10 – $20 profit per day. Imagine if you had 100 of these. That would be $1000 – $2000 per day. That would be $365,000 – $730,000 per year. Now that $10 to $20 per site, per day, doesn’t sound so small does it.

This is sort-of like owning a vending machine route. The route owner realizes that no one of his machines is likely to make him wealthy. However, week after week, the cumulative sales from a route of… say 100 machines… provides a very nice living for him and his family. I do know people who own vending machine routes, and they do earn above average incomes.

Getting back to setting up these website “vending machines.” It doesn’t have to be very complicated. In fact most of us make things so complicated in our minds that we never even get started.

Let me give you a plan for setting up one site a day over the next month. We need to get you to commit to yourself that you won’t make excuses. We need to get you to commit to yourself that you won’t look for reasons why it “might not work.” Instead, you need to decided that it can work, and then just do it.

Here is your fast and easy plan for the next 30 days:

1) Identify 30 profitable niches, or topics, that you can build a simple website around. To make it really simple, these can be websites of only a few pages. I’d recommend a homepage which can be a direct sales page, or a blog. Off to the side you can post some articles related to your topic that you can write yourself, or find on a site like EzineArticles.com The articles, or blogs, are “search engine bait” and are what will bring in free traffic for you.

2) Locate 30 products that you can market from these websites. Ideally, these will be digital products that you earn a very high commission on. To make that even easier, let me GIVE you 30 products that you can (with just a little reworking) market as your own new and unique products.

Go here, and grab at least 30 private label rights products, with totally unrestricted private label rights: http://TheRealSecrets.com/Free-Private-Label-Rights.html

You’ll be able to sell these products as is, just by putting your name on them, but I recommend spending an hour or two: – Renaming each one – Creating, or having created a new graphic for each one – Doing minor edits to each one

3) Register 30 keyword-rich domain names at your favorite registrar. You can register all 30 at one time, or do one at a time.

4) Get a very inexpensive hosting account with lots of disk space and lots of bandwidth. HostGator at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/CheapestHosting/

will give you unlimited domains on one account for only $7.95 per month. If you put 30 domains on the account that first month, that’s only 26 cents per site in hosting fees. As you add more accounts later, the per-site fees drop to practically nothing

5) Set up your homepage on each domain and use that to promote your product. My personal technique is to make the homepage a WordPress blog where I periodically post articles, reviews or comments pertaining to the topic. You also want to post a review of your product. In the menu bar you want to post a prominent link for ordering your product.

If you do make your homepage a blog, you also want to set up another direct sales pages, on the same domain, whose only purpose is to sell the product.

Each time that you post to your WordPress blog it will “ping” the search engines, notifying them that you’ve updated your site, and the search engine spiders will come and re-index your entire site.

On a semi-regular schedule you want to post to your blog. Those posts can just be a new article, or really… anything pertaining to your topic.

6) To “plug in” additional traffic you want to write short (400 – 1000 word) articles on your topic, or product reviews, and submit those to article directories. In the resource boxes of those articles, link back to your homepage. People reading those articles will click through to your site, and the search engine will also follow those links back to your site.

This is a very simple formula that DOES work. I use it regularly. Please don’t over-complicate things.

You basically need a product that solves a pressing problem, and you need to make it easy for those who want it to find and purchase it. I’ve just told you how to do that, and I’ve told you how to do it for practically nothing.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is simply to decide to make today the day that you start taking responsibility for your own success. It’s to DECIDE that today is the day that you drop all excuses.

The easiest starting point really is to grab the free PLR products that are in step-2. That will point you in the direction of some proven profitable niches. Get those now: http://TheRealSecrets.com/Free-Private-Label-Rights.html

To me this plan is simple and do-able. However, I also realize that you may want to go at it more slowly. If that’s the case, it’s ok to put out just a few vending machines this week… but do get started. It’s far too easy to put it off, and then drift back into that world of excuses and talking negative to yourself.

You’re not going to allow that to happen – are you?

Get started now.

In case you’re wondering how the $10 – $20 per day comes into the equation, that’s an average figure per site, which actually means that most of your sites will not even need to average a sale every day. You’ll only need to average a sale ever 3 – 4 days with many of your sites. That’s even easier, isn’t it?

Author:  Willie Crawford is an internationally-acclaimed speaker, author, seminar and radio show host, and leading Internet marketing expert. When not out fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, Willie can be found sharing his 11 1/2 years of online marketing experience with members of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle. Join them at: http://TheInternetMarketingInnerCircle.com

Essential and Practical Tips to Buy Expired Domain Name

By John Khu in Webmasters

If you are looking to buy expired domain name, you may find it very relevant and productive to carry out a thorough research to know more details about the expired domain that you are intending to buy. When you buy expired domain name, you are involving a third party and an administrator (usually the registrar) in the process of transaction. Thus, you will need to be very careful in how you are carrying out the process of buying the expired domain. There are a number of factors that you must evaluate, consider and examine, before arriving at a decision to buy the expired domain name. Expert and professional people buy expired domain name after spending enough time to evaluate the possible advantages and benefits that come attached with the domain.

Before proceeding to buy expired domain name, you will need to consider the following factors and parameters:

• Is the domain name precious for you? Is it very important to buy expired domain name in spite of perceived demerits?
• What is you budgetary allocation for the purchase of a particular expired domain?
• How quickly or how soon you want to complete the transaction?

Example: Let us say that you are in the business of selling flowers to your consumers. Now that you have enough experience of running this business and with your own personal experience, the likelihood of finding a simple, but powerful domain name is quite difficult. Thus, you want to keep aside a portion of your budgetary allocation towards buying a good domain name.

Now, you will start searching for a good expired domain name and later you will create an extensive checklist of most probable names. Let us say that you will end up in creating a shortlist of names like:

• Flowersforsale.com
• Flower-sale.com
• Flowersforsale.net
• Beautifulflowers.com

Now that you have the names at your disposal, it is the time for choosing the best name for your business and buy expired domain name of your choice. To perform this delicate task, you will now need to examine and inspect the exact use for which you are seeking the name for. Now, you can check each of the above names by entering the URL’s on the address bar of the browser and examine if any of them has an association with similar sites.

Once you make a survey, you can observe the following issues with your probable expired domain names and later buy expired domain name.

• The search findings are related to your domain names and there is actually a thriving business with some of the web sites found on the search engine. In such a case, you may find it very difficult to find a suitable expired domain name.?
• The search findings relate to your probable domain names and there is a thriving business related to some of them, but these web domains do not use a primary URL. Under such a scenario, though it is quite difficult to buy an expire domain, you can still find one that is good for your business. ?
• The search findings relate to your prospective domain name, but the searched material contains old and out dated materials. Some of the searched domains may display broken links, wrong pictures and other sundry notices. Here, your chances of finding a good expired domain name will become brighter and easier.?
• The searched domain names relate to your list, but most of the searched domains link to one or more affiliate programs. Under such a scenario, you may find sourcing an expired domain name little easier.
• The searched list will always point to “Domain for Sale” page: Though this scenario offers plenty of opportunities, it could still be the biggest challenge in front of you. You can buy expired domain name that is most suitable for your business.

However, ensure that you will never buy expired domain name that imitates or mimics a popular web portal; when you buy these kinds of expired domains, you may land in deep legal and copyright trouble.

Author:  John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Your 7-Point Annual Website Tune-up

By Donna Gunter in Webmasters

Every time you take your car in for an oil change, most shops give you a 15- or 30-point checkup when they change your oil to alert you to any other potential problems you might experience in the future. In the same way that your mechanic conducts a regular inspection of your automobile, you need to conduct an annual checkup of your website.

Here are 7 critical areas that need to be checked yearly on your site:

1. Copyright notice. In years past it would take me until March or April to update my copyright notices primarily because I had to go in and update every single page of my site. More recently, however, I’ve used an includes file, which is one file that can be inserted in many pages to hold my copyright and contact info. Consequently, when I need to update the copyright info, I open this one file in my HTML editor, update that file, save and upload it. Once it’s revised, the new information miraculously appears on all the pages in which it’s included, updating them all at once.

2. Opt-in forms. The beginning of each year is a great time to ensure that all of the opt-in forms are working on your site. Do you need to add additional fields to the opt-in form to collect mailing addresses, for example, or to ask how visitors found your site? Is the information contained on your confirmation page (the page to which a visitor is sent upon her initial request to opt into your list) still current and relevant? How about the thank you page (the page to which your visitor is sent when she has confirmed her desire to join your list)?

3. Autoresponder followup. Next, review the content of the autoresponders that you’ve set to follow up the opt-in. Are they still current? Do they mention offers or upsells that are still available? Do you need to update any copyright or contact information contained within them? Are they making it through spam filters? Use this tool to ensure that every email gets into your contact’s inbox, SpamCheck from SiteSell, http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/

4. Signature files. Does your email signature file contain a call to action that’s still working for you, or does it need to be updated? Have you changed any portion of your contact information? After you review your signature files in your email client, do the same check of your email signature file in your shopping cart program or autoresponder program.

5. Client attraction device. Take a look at the free giveaway you provide to your visitors in return for them opting into your list. Whether it’s a document or an audio or video file, update the copyright and content information in it and review any biographical/profile information that you list about yourself or your business. Is the content you provide in this giveaway still valid and current? Do you want to keep the current call to action, or does it need to be updated to better fit with your current business model?

6. Missing images and dead link check. When your website fails to properly display images, your business appears unprofessional. Tour your website to ensure that all images are displaying as they should. If you link to or make reference to many resources on your site, run a dead link check annually to weed out or update those that no longer work. You may be able to do this with your HTML editor. If not, try the free weekly link checking service offered by iNetDog, http://www.inetdog.com/link_checking.php

7. Order forms. Be sure that your order form works all the way through. Most online business owners, when checking order forms, stop at the point where they need to enter credit card information. If your merchant account agreement prohibits you from using your credit card to order from your company, ask if they have a test card number you can use, or have a reciprocal agreement with a colleague to check each other’s forms. Check your followup autoresponders that are set to go out after someone makes a purchase, as well, to ensure that they are still up-to-date.

Websites that are obviously out-of-date or aren’t working properly are a huge deterrent to doing business with you. Check these 7 key areas yearly on your site to convey to your visitors that your site is regularly updated and maintained.

Author:  Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com .

7 Reasons Why it Doesn’t Pay to Do Your Own Website

By Paula Gregorowicz in Webmasters

The other day I was having a conversation with a potential client when she started apologizing for not being better with technology and not having had any success building her own site. I get this a lot. I am not sure why, but it seems web design and financial planning are the two main fields where people for some reason think they should be able to do it all on their own. I mean, I have yet to hear a colleague or client say “I have this painful tooth, but if only I were better at dental surgery I could get this fixed right up in my spare time.” Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? Yet that seems precisely the line of thinking many solo and small businesses take when it comes to their website and Internet Marketing.

Now, if you are dead set on taking the DIY route, I am not here to stop or criticize you. It is your business and the choice is ultimately all yours. However, I would like to put forth a compelling list of 7 reasons why it is not the best use of your time or money to do so.

1) Do you consider a website a once and done project? Are you prepared to make an ongoing investment in writing content, updating the site, and maximizing your technology investment so customers can find and buy from you? On the web content is king so unless you only want a virtual brochure, you need to be ready to invest ongoing time on your site on a regular basis (at least monthly). A team of professionals can help you navigate these waters and make it easy for you to do so.

2) The world of the web and its related technologies are constantly growing and expanding. Even if you work in the field full time for years it is impossible to know it all. Why would you want to take on the gigantic task of learning all this expertise in addition to your core field of expertise (what you do or sell in your business)? And, even if you could learn enough to get by, what about the little things you miss (and not even know) that could cost you big time in terms of mistakes or lost opportunities?

3) Do you know which technologies to choose to get the most bang for your buck and marketing efforts and why? Does the world of autoresponders, hosting companies, blogging platforms, merchant accounts, podcasting, shopping carts, and the like leave your head spinning? If so, how can you make informed decisions around which technologies can help support your overall business (and not be a case of technology for technology sake)?

4) Just because you can buy Photoshop or another graphics editing program doesn’t mean you are a designer. Talented artists can help you brand your business through visuals in a way that sets you apart from your competition. It takes years of experience and innate talent to be able to do this successfully. Even I know my limits which is why I work closely with artists on my team to ensure people who work with me get only the best.

5) Web standards and best practices are there for a reason. If you don’t know what they are, why valid websites matter, or how they integrate with one another, you may build your site and unknowingly exclude an entire segment of your potential client base from being able to view your site as you intended.

6) Your current and future customers are counting on you to be a master at what you are offering them. Unless that offering is web design and consulting, you are shortchanging your most precious commodity by dabbling in the website business. Your time IS money and wouldn’t you rather spend it generating more revenue for your business doing what you do best?

7) A good web professional will co-create with you what you really want and need. You will work as partners and you still get to be as involved or uninvolved as you wish. Most importantly she should be able to offer you ongoing services in a mix that is right for you so that you can get the most out of your investment (this isn’t a build it once and forget it project). If you’re not getting that level of personal service you’re being shortchanged.

As always, the choice is up to you. My experience has been that just as you are a lot happier when you have a doctor mend a broken bone vs. trying to DIY , your business can be that much more joyful when you give yourself permission to bring in the technology experts.

Author:  Using her signature down to earth and “plain English” approach to website design, Paula Gregorowicz and The Paula G. Company work with small and solo business owners to make the web work for them so their online presence is a true reflection of who they are and what their business is all about. Visit http://www.paulagwebdesign.com

7 Steps to Creating Info-Packed Teleseminars From Your Articles

By Donna Gunter in Webmasters

Teleseminars, or workshops conducted over a teleconference line, are one of the easiest ways to grow a business and leverage your expertise online. However, when I speak to clients about using this marketing strategy, many believe that they don’t have enough content to create a powerful 45-60 minute teleseminar. Do you share that same belief? If you’ve ever written an article, you’ve got enough information to create a teleseminar.

I love to repurpose content, i.e., create something once and use it again and again for multiple purposes. I’ve found the articles I write weekly to be the easiest to repurpose. The type of article that works best to launch a teleseminar is a tips article, or one that is written with numbered points as the body of the article, i.e., 6 Secrets to, How to Do … in 10 Easy Steps, etc.

Here’s how you can create a teleseminar from one of your articles:

1. Craft your description and learning bullet points. Write a one paragraph overview of your teleclass based on the content of your article and include 3-7 bullet points (very short descriptions of the bullet points in your article) outlining what the participants will learn as a result of participating in your teleseminar. This is the description you’ll use to help you promote your teleseminar.
2. Expand your article bullet points. Participants like concrete examples, so in your planning process come up with stories or examples you can share about each point, point out mistakes people make with this point, and discuss better strategies to use instead.
3. Craft your introduction. The easiest way to create an introduction to a teleclass is to tell your participants what caused you to create it, and then give a synopsis of what you’re going to cover during the teleseminar.
4. Determine your call to action. Typically teleseminars are part of a larger marketing strategy for an online business owner: to sell a product or program, to grow a list, or to create content for an information product. Determine what you want your call to action to be for your listeners, and make plans to insert it into to your teleclass script. Share this call to action with your participants at the beginning, middle, and end of the call.
5. Format your conclusion. Here’s where you again summarize what your said during the teleseminar, remind participants of your call to action, and ask for any questions before closing the call.
6. Develop your script. Now, you have all of the pieces developed, and it’s time to put them together in an outline or script for yourself. Note your introduction, expanded bullet points with examples, insert your call to action several times when appropriate, and end with your conclusion.
7. Draft a handout. Help your participants remember you and your presentation. A handout with your contact info is the best way for them to refer to the material presented. You can create a study guide which permits them to fill in the blanks during the course of the teleseminar, a handout that you send with notes from the teleseminar, or a PDF of a PowerPoint presentation that you provide before the seminar. Remember to include your contact information in your handout as well as your call to action from the teleseminar.

Now, you have a complete teleseminar that you can use again and again with different target markets to help you grow your list, sell your products and services, and establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field. Take a look at your article bank and determine what you can repurpose into powerful teleseminars for your business.

Author:  Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

15 Must Have Tools When Buying A Website

By Bill Mallett in Webmasters

If you are in the market to purchase a website it is extremely critical that you do your homework before purchasing otherwise you could be in for a rude awakening once the transfer of ownership is completed. It is my experience that sellers tend to overvalue the sites that they offer for sale, while buyers tend to leap before they look.

I have been doing a lot of research on the subject lately and I thought I would share some of the information that I have found with you. Read the article below and you will find a number of tools that should help you Inspect What You Expect when buying a website.

Market Research

Market research is a fundamental area of research that you should be doing on your competitors. Do not take the seller at his/her word when the tell you the facts about their website. They will paint the best possible picture that exists without mentioning the warts. The collection below will allow you to inspect what you are buying without having to depend on the seller. It’s almost like being able to complete your own “home inspection” before buying.

I have gathered these tools from around the web from multiple sources and compiled them here and on my blog.

Spyfu is a web scraping tool that will show you what a site spends on Pay Per Click adverts. A site can generate 1000 dollars a month in revenue but if it spends 900 dollars in PPC to do it then the REAL revenue figure is 100 dollars per month.

URLtrends – gather SEO data, Pagerank, links, rank trends and more.

Backlink Checker - See who is linking to a specific website. Incoming links increase pagerank..at least allegedly.

Yahoo Site Explorer - Check to see what Yahoo shows for inbound links and indexed pages.

Market Leap - Test the rankings of web pages. Great for testing competitor’s sites.

WebTools - Check to make sure you aren’t buying a banned domain. Critical if you ever expect to be indexed in Google or drive search engine traffic to your site.

Trademark Issues

If you’re buying a fan site, celebrity site or any site with a potential trademark or copyright issue then you could be in for a rude surprise if you are served with a cease and desist from a law firm representing the trademark owner. The best time to find out what trademark issues you might face is BEFORE you pay for your site.

Trademark Electronic Search System - Use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) to perform basic and advanced searches for trademarks.

Patent Electronic Business Center - Search the patent office’s records for full-text and full-page image returns on your competitors’ issued and published patent applications.

Research done here now will make sure you have no nasty surprises down the road. If the purchase amount is sizeable enough then you should surely consult a lawyer if you have reservations.

Hosting

Would you like to know how to see which host a specific website is using? This doesn’t really matter much although it does give you a way to provide a “security” check on the seller. Some unscrupulous sellers will actually try to sell sites that don’t belong to them. An easy check up to make sure they are who they say they are would be to ask them who hosts it. If they aren’t the seller, chances are they won’t answer correctly.

Don’t rely on this as your only means of security but it’s another check.

Who is Hosting This – This will show you is hosting the site currently.

Website Pulse - Website pulse will show you the speed of a web host. It shows response time, sizes and more.

Traffic

Would you like to know how much traffic a specific website is getting? Sellers will tend to flaunt their traffic count in the For Sale listings and it can sound impressive but you need to look more closely. Inspect the incoming URLs and see where the traffic is coming from. If it is paid traffic coming from “buy traffic for cheap.com” then tread carefully.

Look for trends or spikes and don’t be fooled by a 3 or 6 month average. One front page Digg article can give a website a good monthly average for the year, even though these visitors are likely never coming back. Inspect the traffic month by month and even day by day.

Google Analytics - Google Analytics is one of the best tools around and a little known fact is that if the seller is using Analytics on the site you are considering, they can allow you access to their Analytics page. No secrets there.

Compete – Compete give a great overview of a site’s traffic. It shows visitor info, growth, traffic counts, and you can put multiple sites in a portfolio as well.

Alexa - Alexa is the most commonly touted service there is, however it is definitely not the best choice in my opinion. There is concern out there that Alexa is heavily biased towards certain kinds of sites. Tread softly if this is the only valuation of traffic that you are offered.

SEO Analyzer – This tool will analyzes the weaknesses on a website allowing you to fix them and enjoy a resulting traffic increase…..at least that’s the plan. You could use this to gauge how quickly and significantly you might improve traffic post purchase.

Statsaholic - This will show stats about a sites rankings, page views etc. I have very little experience with this but it is a popular tool.

Website Valuation Tools

You’ve probably seen those little widgets on blogs and websites that give a value of that site, did you notice how grossly inflated the price was? I am not aware of any service out there where you can plug a URL into it and it give you any idea at all what the site is worth.

The only way to accurately assess a sites value is using good old common sense and many of the tools that I have listed above.

I hesitate to even say this but a very rough calculation that is often used as a starting point is 12 times current revenue. This is NOT an accurate method but is widely accepted to be used as a basis for a starting point. There are so many other factors involved on website valuation that it will take another complete article to even begin to discuss tthe topic.

Conclusion

In the end the real value of the site is no different than anything else…. it is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it. It’s no different than your house, your car, your timeshare etc…if a buyer isn’t willing to pay the amount that you ask then the site isn’t worth that much. Period.

If you have a website you are interested in selling or you have a comment on the website flipping craze then I would like to hear from you.

Author:  You can reach me on my Make Money Online blog at TheBlogEntrepreneur.com where you can read this same article with all of the links in place….saves you time.