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The web designer shows you her final version of your long-in-the- making revamped site. You click around and can hardly believe how gorgeous and rich it is.

“Love it! Launch it!”

Oops, not so fast. Too many times I’ve seen that sentiment lead to frantic scrambling, even to disaster. Before making your revamped site live, use this checklist to make sure you’ve caught or prevented horrible new-site glitches

1. Timing. Never, never launch your new web site on a holiday, weekend or even on a Friday. Why? Because chances are high you’ll discover something weirdly wrong with your shopping cart, images, blog or regular web pages, and the tech support you need will be closed down or just skeletally staffed. Likewise, make sure your web designer or developer will be on hand for the next day or two to quickly fix any problems that become evident.

2. Test on as many computers as you can, and request feedback with the site parked in a test location. A colleague of mine (whose experience inspired this article) replaced her old site with the new one, then asked for feedback on a discussion board. Several people reported pages looking peculiar in their browsers or receiving an obnoxious warning message instead of simply seeing the home page.

Too late, she learned she should have asked for this feedback before the site went public. What looked great and worked fine in her office had not-so-positive results in various browser and monitor combinations no one had tested the site on.

3. Match the new file names with the former ones. When your web site has been up and running for quite a while, visitors have bookmarked various pages of it or created links to your pages on their sites. You’d be foolish to sacrifice the benefit of those bookmarks and links by having all new files names and sending those looking for the old page names to an error page. Instead, as much as you can, make the new file names match the old ones and redirect any old pages lacking a corresponding new page to the nearest equivalent.

Designers and developers, focused on creating a new site for you, don’t usually take care of this unless you ask them to. I often run across this foolish oversight when updating one of my reports that has a lot of links in it, discovering article links that go to a dead link rather than to the article that was given a new URL during a site makeover.

4. For SEO purposes, keep page titles the same. Experts in search engine optimization advise that if your site was getting good traffic from search engines prior to your makeover, keep your old page titles as much as possible. (The page title is the text that shows up in the upper left corner of the browser.) To search engines, a new page title can cause the built-up search engine ranking for the page to get lost.

5. Hunt down and eliminate boilerplate copy. If your designer or developer used a template (and if so, they’ll rarely tell you they did), the template may have pre-written text on extra pages that unexpectedly become visible to your visitors. The testing described in step #2 above usually flushes out these blunders so you can purge them from the site. Unless the new site is gargantuan, you can also hunt down the unwanted content by viewing all the pages one by one from your file manager program.

6. Run a sample order and subscription signup from the new site. If possible, test the ordering and list signup procedures from your test location before making the new site live. Sometimes the “thank you” messages don’t show up properly or orders just don’t go through correctly after a makeover. If you can’t check this from the test location, run these checks as soon as possible after making the new site live and be prepared to fix the glitches immediately. Having a non-functioning site up even for an hour can lose you sales!

7. Delete all the old pages from the server. Do this just before uploading the new site if you can, or after uploading the new site hunt for and delete any former pages that were not replaced by new ones. Otherwise, you’ll be startled later by a visitor finding pages you thought had been superseded.

8. Immediately after uploading the new site, recheck all the links and pages. Start from the home page and first systematically follow all the links in your navigation system, then follow all the links on pages that contain many links, like an index of articles or your newsletter archive. As you do this, keep your eyes peeled for any missing images. Fix any problems you notice.

9. And last, for the next four or five days, monitor all the errors that show up in your web logs. This alerts you to images that visitors aren’t seeing, pages that aren’t linked to correctly, pages that are taking too long to load for some of your visitors and other problems. Fix any remaining glitches and bask in the praise for your well-done, nicely functioning makeover!

By  Marcia Yudkin

It’s early in the year, and it’s time to fulfill your resolution to give your site a quick legal check-up.

Online businesses are now highly regulated, and there’s substantial liability if your site’s not legally compliant. In addition, your customers are becoming more Internet savvy, and a site that’s not legally compliant is not going to be trusted.

So, let’s get started.

Use This Checklist If You Already Have The Basic Site Documents In Place

1. Copyright Notice. Check Your Copyright Notice. Your copyright notice consists of the following elements: the word “copyright” or copyright symbol (c in a circle) followed by the year of first publication followed by the name of the copyright owner. It’s also a good idea to add “All rights reserved worldwide”. Example: Copyright 1996-09 Digital Contracts, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Note that if you update your site from time to time, you should add a date range reflecting the fact that the site has been updated each year within the date range. If you haven’t updated yet for 2009, do it now.

2. Blogs, etc. Have you recently added a blog or any other functionality that permits visitors to post text or digital files to your site? Or, do you plan to do so as part of your marketing plans for 2009? If so, you need to have a DMCA notice in your Terms of Use and you also need to file a DMCA Registration form with the U.S. Copyright Office. These steps will create a “safe harbor” from strict liability for copyright infringement if a site visitor posts infringing material to your site.

3. Personal Information. Do you collect personal information from site visitors? If so, review your Privacy Policy to make sure that you identify all of the categories of personal information you collect and the way in which you share this personal information. If you’ve changed these policies since you posted your Privacy Policy, amend it now… without delay.

4. Data Security. Check your data security measures. If you collect personal information, you are required to implement “reasonable and appropriate” data security measures. These measures are essentially moving targets since data security technology evolves at a relatively rapid pace. What may have been “reasonable and appropriate” a couple of years ago may not pass muster today. Update your security procedures, if necessary.

5. Future Sale of Your Business? If your online business is starting to be successful and generate positive revenue, have you ever considered that you might want to sell it for a profit in the future? If so, be sure that your Privacy Policy specifies that personal information collected may be transferred and shared in the event of a sale. If you don’t do this prior to collecting personal information, you won’t be able to pass it on to your purchaser. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stipulated in recent settlements that personal information collected prior to posting this notice in your Privacy Policy will not be transferable in the event of a sale. And this personal information (your opt-in lists and customer lists) are the real value of your online business

6. Service Providers. Do you use service providers to provide hosting, site maintenance, SEO services, or other site functions where they have access to your server? If you don’t collect personal information, your answer to this question is immaterial, but if you do (and only an email address will suffice), you need to enter into privacy and security agreements with your service providers. The FTC stipulated in a couple of recent settlements that you would be liable if you don’t.

7. Registration Agreement. Does your site require site visitors to register for certain benefits such as a membership or subscription rights? If so, you need an electronic agreement (a so-called “click-wrapped” agreement where the user clicks on “I ACCEPT”). Your agreement should be presented conspicuously in the registration process and it should require an affirmative act (clicking on “I ACCEPT”) to complete the registration. You also need to be sure that all of your warranty disclaimers and limitations of liability pass muster.

8. Collect Birth Dates? Do you collect the date of birth as part of your registration process? If so, and if this date indicates that children under 13 are registering, you will be liable for substantial damages under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) if you do not comply with COPPA’s stringent requirements. You should either modify your information collection practices or comply with COPPA, or both.

9. Creditor Under FACTA? Do your registered users make periodic payments payable as monthly or quarterly installments, or do you extend credit so that payment is made after receipt of the product or service? If so, you fall within the statutory requirements of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA). FACTA requires that you adopt a “Red Flag” Identity Theft Policy before May 1, 2009, or face substantial liability.

10. Sales Intermediaries? Do you use affiliates or resellers? If so, a recent New York case illustrates that you may be liable for their actions if they violate certain laws acting on your behalf. For example, are your affiliates engaged in illegal spamming activities? If they are offering their own end user license agreements, do they properly disclose certain activities such as the use of pop up ads? You should check your affiliate and reseller agreements and modify them, if required

Use This Checklist If You Don’t Have Your Site Documents In Place

You may be just starting your online business, or you may have procrastinated a little with your website legal compliance. If you fall into this group, you should get started without delay.

I’ve developed a procedure that will help you determine the correct mix of legal compliance documents for your site. Part of it is set out below.

First, if your site does not collect personal information, you should consider these documents:

* a Legal page for your intellectual property notices; and

* Terms of Use.

* And if you allow site visitors to post text or digital files to your site (for example via a blog, forum, or chat room), you’ll need a DMCA Registration Form (see No. 2 above).

Second, if your site collects personal information, but does not require registration to open an account or to use or purchase a product or service, you should consider these additional documents:

* Privacy Policy.

* And if you have service providers that have possession of your server or have access rights to it, you’ll need a privacy-security agreement for these service providers (see No. 6 above).

Third, if your site requires registration to open an account or to use or purchase a product or service, you should consider in addition to the foregoing documents, a customer agreement such as:

* a software as a service (SaaS) agreement; and/or

* a Software License Agreement (for software downloads).

* And if you are regulated by FACTA (see No. 9 above), you’ll need a Red Flag Identity Theft Policy — before the May 1, 2009 deadline.

Conclusion

The checklists provided above are not exhaustive. However, they should point you in the right direction as you give your site a new year’s legal compliance check-up.

A simple check-up — and remedial action if necessary — is one of the best investments you can make in your online business.

By Chip Cooper

Do you have a plan? Most companies spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and money planning what to do and how to do it.

Let’s say you need a website, so you develop a plan, present it to a bunch of website designers, and get quotes or proposals. You’re not going to get caught with your pants down like the last time by some nerdy geek, you know the skinny kid with the scraggly beard, whose techno-babble gave you a headache, or the bizarre young lady dressed in gothic chic with the black lipstick and tattoo to match – yikes, no thanks, not this time, this time you got a plan.

Human Motivational Optimization

You read all the blogs on website design, you know all the ins-and-outs of search engine optimization, and Google Adwords. No one is going to pull a fast one on you. You know your business, your market, and your needs. Or do you?

How much do you really know about how real people interact with your website? How much do you really know about what we call Human Motivational Optimization? All the stats, logs, and number crunching analysis that forms the basis of many website development plans does not truly give you the visceral understanding of how to connect to an audience, and isn’t that what you want your website to do?

So maybe your plan is the wrong plan; it’s like planning a trip to Home Depot to buy a cabbage; it just doesn’t make sense. So how about a plan that does make sense, something simple, understandable, easy to implement, that is if you hire the right people to do it. But before we tell you the four steps to creating your very own Website Branding Plan, let’s talk about Don LaFontaine.

Every Company Needs A Movie Trailer

Chances are you don’t know who the late Don LaFontaine was, but you’ve heard his voice many, many times. Don was the most famous and influential voice behind thousands of movie and television trailers. He had a distinctive deep, gravely voice, and a writing style that reinvented the entire movie trailer format. But why should you care? Simple. Movie trailers are the ultimate elevator pitch, a short memorable performance that compels you to action, kind of like what a mission statement is suppose to do, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning, or rather, the end.

Branding Starts With Thinking Backwards

Most people like to start a project at the beginning and work their way through until they reach the end. Makes sense, or does it? If you don’t start with where you want to end-up, it’s unlikely you’ll ever get where you want to go. Remember our cabbage? Planning a shopping to trip to Home Depot because they got cool stuff, doesn’t help if what you want is a cabbage.

Branding is no different. If you don’t start with how you want your audience to think about you, they will probably never think about you at all. So now that we got that straight let’s start our plan where it makes sense, the end.

The 4 Step Web-Branding Plan

1 The Slogan

Your slogan, you know the thing that sits underneath your logo, that simple little phrase somebody in your office came up with that makes you sound important, stuff like “the cool air conditioning company.” Most small and medium size companies don’t think too hard about this little marketing gem, and as a result they either have something really cheesy, or some meaningless platitude that has no memorable meaning at all, like “the best people for the best job.”

Just because you’re small and don’t have millions of dollars to spend on television ads promoting your pithy little motto, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one. That catchphrase is who you are, and how you want people to remember you, short, memorable, and to the point. I remember my sons arguing over some complicated bit of business when one of them in frustration finally said, “Enough already. Give it to me in one word or less!” a demand to articulate what was important without all the peripheral issues; a lesson all businesses should pay attention to.

2 The Story Line (Logline)

To my mind, mission statements are a totally dysfunctional marketing element, misused and abused by a bean-counter attitude, born out of trying to squeeze every last drop of information into a statement that won’t offend anybody. A wise man once said, “If what you’re saying doesn’t offend somebody, maybe you’re not saying anything” and most mission statements that are full of meaningless platitudes and toned-down amendments, fall into the category of not saying anything, at least, anything worth hearing.

Okay so let’s forget about mission statements, after all this isn’t the military, and we’re not planning the next Desert Storm. Instead let’s think loglines, or what you can think of as your brand story line.

You know those short statements you find in TV Guide, or your weekend television insert, prompting you to watch the next episode of ‘House,’ or ‘Desperate Bimbos.’ They are a short form text version of a trailer, intended to get you to watch the movie or television show. For our purposes, we want people to go to our website, and stay-tuned long enough to get our core marketing message, and not walk out half way through the presentation. So, how do we do that?

The Six Elements of Effective Web Trailers

In order for us to come up with a compelling statement that prompts people to view our website presentation, we need to refer back to our old pal Don LaFontaine. What if Don LaFontaine wrote our website trailer. How would he do it?

Don had a very distinctive style that you’ve heard a thousand times for a thousand different movies, but they all followed a similar format. Each trailer needs to cover six distinct elements, who, what, where, how, why, and when. All the things businesses should be presenting in their elevator pitch, but with one extra ingredient, personality.

Here’s the format used in many movie trailers: “In a place (where), one man (who) brings stability to chaos (what), in an epic tale that will both amaze and inspire (why)! Coming soon (when) to a theatre near you.” Sound familiar?

Let’s take our air conditioning example, you remember, “the cool air conditioning company.” Let’s say our fictitious company is called Kool Air Conditioning, their website trailer might sound something like this:

“In a town where summer heat melts the cool of the coolest homeowners, one air conditioning company comes to the rescue. When the mercury rises to eye-popping, mind numbing numbers, the men from Kool spring into action, bringing relief to the sweltering masses. The Kool Guys will amaze you with their prompt service and installation know-how. The heat is on. It’s coming sooner than you think; it’s coming this summer to your town, your neighborhood; your house. Kool, the cool air conditioning company.”

Over-the-top? Maybe, but we’ve covered all the bases, we know who (Kool), what (air conditioning), when (this summer), where (your house), why (the heat) and how (prompt service and installation know-how). Now that’s a mission statement; one with a little style, panache, and personality; one that will get you remembered and prompt your audience to action.

3 The Personality

Movies like businesses all fall into certain genres or categories. There’s the action movie format that’s suitable for sports related businesses, the chick flick style that’s ideal for cosmetic or fashion industry businesses, and the family comedy format suitable for entertainment and recreation based companies, and of course the kids movie version perfect for any business selling things for children. The point is that every company and website has to have a personality.

Many hardnosed business executives scoff at the idea of spending money on such seemingly trivial marketing concepts as company personality, but ignoring your website persona, is a big mistake. You can either invest a little in developing, creating, managing, and promoting this personality or you can let the marketplace decide for itself, or worse, find you completely redundant and irrelevant.

4 The Delivery

You may be asking yourself, this sounds good on paper, but can it really be done, and can it be done for my business, on my website? The answer is damn straight it can. Like most things in life, and in business, it’s not grasping the concept tha’s so hard, it’s implementing it.

With a little investment and a willingness to take some chances, you can be the market leader. But if you thought you could simply take your newly created movie trailer style website elevator pitch and slap it onto your website in text form, you would be mistaken. How you deliver the message is as important, and in many cases more important, than what you say.

Whether you sell lipstick, licorice, or lingerie, you probably have lots of competition, so how you deliver your message is what’s going to make the difference.

You want your website presentation to motivate people to email or phone. You want to deliver a compelling performance that is more than a sales pitch, a presentation that uses voice, visuals, words, and music to create a website personality, a lasting impression; one that is going to allow you to stand out from the crowd and give you a competitive advantage.

By Jerry Bader

We all know that the most effective Pay Per Click advertising campaigns use landing pages that are matched perfectly to your target search keywords and designed to follow through with the idea or theme that your PPC ad has hinted at.

But how do you determine the effectiveness of those landing pages? How do you know what design or page features will trigger a better response in your audience and lead to more conversions? The answer is that you don’t, unless you test.

Benefits of Landing Page Testing

Whether they are a part of a PPC campaign or not, there are countless benefits to testing your web site pages, including:

* Improve the effectiveness of landing pages

* Increase conversions / sales

* Attract more leads / sign-ups

* Increase time spent on your site by visitors

* Reduce the Cost Per Acquisition of new customers

* Eliminate guesswork. Improve your site design via information from your site’s end users

* Avoid staff disputes ? let your customers decide what design elements should be changed

Google Website Optimizer

The Website Optimizer is a tool that allows marketers and webmasters to test variations of pages on site visitors automatically, to see which pages or variations of pages perform the best (i.e. lead to the most conversions).

In April 2007, Google took their Website Optimizer tool out of BETA and made it available to the general public. I had been wanting to use Google Website Optimizer to test our landing pages on Search Engine College for some time and I finally found the time to trial it in October this year. After what we learned from our experiments, I wish we’d implemented it months ago!

Website Optimizer helps you study the effects of different content on your users and identify what users respond to best so you can alter your web site accordingly. You can test any kind of site elements from individual copy blocks and images to complete page layouts. Perhaps the best thing about Website Optimizer is that you can test ANY page on your site, including landing pages you have designed for other PPC programs like Yahoo or pages designed for non-PPC purposes.

Google Website Optimizer allows you to perform 2 different types of tests:

1) A/B Split Testing
2) Multivariate Testing

You can view a 5 min overview of Website Optimizer here.

A/B Split Testing:

Through the use of code added to the “A” (original) page, Google is able to serve the A/B variations (there can be many more variations than just the “B” page) to site visitors and then provide results of which page was most “successful”, commonly through reporting which of the A/B pages lead traffic to a “results” page.

A/B Testing compares the performance of entirely different versions of a page. Google suggests using it if:

> your page traffic is fairly low (i.e. less than 1,000 page views per week)

> you want to move sections around or change the overall look of the page

Setting Up A/B Experiments in Website Optimizer

To set up an A/B testing experiment in Google Website Optimizer, you first need to prepare three things:

1) Your “original” web page
2) Your variation/s of this original
3) Your conversion page (e.g. the “thank you for subscribing/purchasing” page)

In the example you see in Figure 1, we set up an experiment on SearchEngineCollege.com consisting of our original page (/add-me.shtml) and a single variation (/add-me2.shtml), with our conversion page being /seo-starter-course-sample-download.shtml.

Next, you need to add some javascript to each of these pages to enable Google to track your experiment. Then it’s simply a matter of uploading all your test pages and having Google validate your URLs to confirm you’ve set up your experiment correctly.

Multivariate Testing:

Testing can be made not only with A/B pages, but with different possible versions of a single page.

This allows you to trial different types of layouts and page text to see which combinations lead to the highest conversions on your site.

Multivariate Testing compares the performance of content variations in multiple locations on a page. Google suggests using it if:

> your page traffic is high (i.e. more than 1,000 page views per week)

> you want to try multiple content changes in different parts of the page simultaneously

Setting Up Multivariate Experiments in Website Optimizer

To set up a Multivariate testing experiment in Google Website Optimizer, you need to do the following:

1) Choose the web page you wish to test.

2) Decide with your marketing/technical teams which page sections you wish to test e.g. headline, image, call-to-action, copy etc.

3) Add the JavaScript code to your page’s source code. This includes the Control Script, the Tracking Script and the Page Section Script.

4) Identify your conversion page and add the Conversion Script to that page’s source code.

5) Upload your revised test and conversion pages.

6) Validate your pages. If you’ve set up your experiment correctly, you will see a confirmation message.

7) Create the code variations for each page section you are testing (see Figure 3).

Review and launch your experiment.

by Kalena Jordan

An interesting debate is raging among copy writers, web designers and content developers about the differences, if any, between writing copy for the web versus writing content.

According to prolific copywriter Nick Usborne of Excess Voice, a recent survey conducted among the readers of his newsletter of the same name offers some interesting results. They seem to be split almost three ways: one-third consists of copywriters, another content writers and the final third both.

But it’s wrong.

This is an important debate, I believe, since all online copy is content but not all content is copy. And that’s a real problem.

Most web designers, webmasters and content writers develop text for websites in a way to educate visitors. They also write it with the notion that “content is king,” “content increases search engine rankings,” “content makes a website sticky” and so on. That’s all fine and good.

But I believe content fails when it strives only at informing the reader, and thus lacks important elements that take her “by the hand” and compels her to do something – anything, including the simple act of reading.

In other words, while some websites may compel our attention, others fail to propel our actions, too. And their owners often end up screaming, “Why is my website not producing any sales,” “why am I getting a lot of traffic but such a poor response” or “why are people leaving so quickly?” Well, if content is king, copy is the castle.

The Internet is not a traditional medium ? at least not in the broadcast sense. It is intimate, dynamic and interactive. People are more involved when reading the content of a website than reading a conventional print publication, watching a show on TV or listening to a program on the radio.

And with the Internet, people have a powerful weapon that they don’t have with other types of media, and they usually never think twice about using it when the need confronts them: their mouse.

So, the idea is this: forget about writing content, at least in the traditional sense. Think copy. Think words and expressions that compel the reader to do something, even if it’s just to continue reading.

According to online dictionary Answers.com, “copy” is defined as “the words to be printed or spoken in an advertisement.” (And “advertisement” is defined as “a notice or announcement designed to attract public patronage.” It’s calling for some kind of action. It’s selling something, in other words.)

But the word “content,” on the other hand, is defined as “the subject matter of a written work, such as a book or magazine.” And keep in mind that there’s no mention of the Internet, here.

Nevertheless, this is why I submit that, with its multitude of links, scripts and hypertexts, the Internet transforms the passive reader into an active, responsive participant. (Or make that “response-able.”) And she must therefore be treated as such – as a participant, not a reader.

Look at it this way: a book is limited by its front and back covers. When the book is done, it’s done. The web, however, is not.

If your content does not strive at getting the reader to do something, whether it’s to buy, subscribe, join, download, call, email, fill out a form, click or whatever, then you need to seriously rethink your content and the words you use.

Here’s my explanation of the difference between content and copy. Content informs. Copy invites. Even if content invites a reader to keep reading, it’s still selling an idea. It’s still calling for action. And it’s still copy.

If your web page is only meant to inform people like some kind of book, then it’s content. (And like closing a book once it’s read, the only action left is to exit the website or close the browser.) But if it contains links or more content, then it’s copy. And you need to write content with that mindset.

Ultimately, incorporate within your content a direct response formula that compels your readers to do something. Don’t leave them hanging. Take them by the hand. Integrate a call for some kind of action, in other words. Ask your reader to “buy now,” “join today,” “get this,” “download that, or …

… Better yet, simply “click here.”

By Michel Fortin

Alexa, which is owned by Amazon.com, gives away a free toolbar that you can download and install in your browser. Alexa is then able to keep track of the sites you visit and compute the traffic ranking of those websites, with a rank of “1″ being the assigned to the most visited site.

If you want a more technical definition, Alexa explains it like this:

“The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users).”

http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more

In April 2008 Alexa revised its methodology so as to “aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users”.

http://awis.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

How accurately this method reflects the actual surfing patterns of all Internet users is open to question. However, if you bear in mind that by the end of 2005 the toolbar had been downloaded well over 10 million times you will realize why many people still think that Alexa offers one of the best approximations that we have of website ranking, especially for the top 100,000 or so websites.

That is why Alexa remains an important measure of a website’s status and is used as a quick way to assess the popularity of a website by advertisers looking for the maximum exposure for the their money. Websites with a higher Alexa ranking also tend to be trusted more than those with a low ranking, so it is in the interest of website owners to get their sites ranked as highly as possible with Alexa.

Here are some quick and easy tips to help you do that without spending a single dollar!

1. Install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as your homepage.

2. Copy and paste an Alexa rank widget onto your website. You can get the widget code at http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup. As well as informing your visitors about your Alexa rank, it will also keep Alexa updated about the number of unique visitors surfing your site.

3. Create a customized version of the Alexa tool bar, Then place a link on your site to the download page and invite your visitors to download it. You will also earn Amazon commissions every time a user shops on Amazon via the toolbar link.

4. If you have a Wordpress blog there is a plug-in for Alexa Ranking (wp-Alexa-redirect-0.3plug-in) that you can use. Editor’s Note: This plugin may no longer work.

5. Submit your site to web directories. Although a lot of directories charge a registration fee, you can still find many that are willing to list your site free of charge or in exchange for a reciprocal link. A lot of the webmasters who browse web directories have the Alexa bar installed, so if they click your link it will help your Alexa traffic rank.

6. Become an active participant on Internet marketing and SEO forums. Again, a lot of those forum participants are already webmasters and a high percentage will use the Alexa toolbar when they surf. Place a link to your site in your signature and your rank will improve when any of those people click through

7. A lot of Asian and Australian websites feature in the Alexa top 100,000 and you can bet that a lot of website owners will have the Alexa toolbar installed, so it makes sense to join social networking sites that are popular in those regions, such as:

    * http://www.orkut.com – Orkut is owned by Google and is the second most visited site in India.

    * http://hi5.com – Hi5 has an Alexa ranking of 17 at the time of writing this article.

8. Become an Alexa expert and post articles that discuss Alexa ranking and SEO tips. This will attract people to your site who may be interested in downloading your toolbar, or people who have already done so. Either way, it will be good for your Alexa ranking. You could even build a whole category of articles on your website devoted to this theme.

9. Set up a freebie page on your website and post a list of useful tools to attract other website owners to your site. Include another link to your Alexa toolbar download page.

10. Get into the habit of using Stumbleupon and other bookmarking sites to spread the word whenever you post a new article on your website or blog. Set up a group of fellow website owners so that you can have run reciprocal stumbling campaigns for better results.

If you apply these ten quick and easy methods you will definitely see an improvement in your Alexa rank and you should also start to attract more traffic to your site!

By Darrell Howell

You have the often unenviable task of finding someone to build your website. Chances are you know little to nothing about web design and, let’s face it, you don’t even know what you don’t know. Let’s change that, shall we?

Let me start by making a few assumptions about you and your business:

    * You either own or are part of a small business.

    * You’re not trying to do this on the cheap.

    * You’re looking for an experienced professional or organization. Your nephew or your neighbour’s daughter isn’t going to cut it.

    * You care enough about your business that you’re willing to invest some time and money to get the job done right the first time (see the above two points).

Regardless of whom you choose to build your website you need to have, at the very least, a defined set of goals or objectives for your website. In other words, you need to figure out what you want your website to do.

Forget about PHP, ASP, CMS or any other acronyms you’ve heard; the right web designer will figure all that out for you. It’s your job to create the wish list from the perspective of your business. Do you want the website to help sell your products or services? Recruit new employees? Stay in touch with clients? You define the problem and we’ll let the web designer propose the best solution.

(If your project is quite large you may want to write a more formal Request for Proposal document (RFP). But for the purposes of this article you’re part of a small business, so let’s not get mired down in RFP-land, OK?)

Armed with your high level requirements, here’s how to identify the right web designer for you:

1) Decide on Geography.
A local designer/company will have more invested in ensuring that you’re a happy customer. If things go poorly you can actually walk down the street and yell at them. That said, a web designer who has a good reputation or comes to you through a referral shouldn’t be overlooked if they’re not located where you are. Technology can greatly enhance communication and keep things running smoothly. Make a decision based on your own comfort level.

2) Locate Candidates.
This is easy thanks to the nature of web design and Google. Do a search for ‘web design city’ where ‘city’ is your city. Pay attention to two different areas of the search results:

    a) the first three to five listings in the natural or ‘organic’ results, and

    b) the top three to five paid advertisers. Create a list of between five and ten possible candidates.

3) Go Surfing.
Visit each candidate’s website and look for the following:

    * Quality content. Are they interested in solving problems? Does the writing make sense to you as a consumer rather than a geek? If yes, good. Do they offer up their services in ‘packages’ based on number of web pages and whether you want fries or a side salad? If yes, bad. The right web designer will be someone who understands your unique issues rather than trying to jam your business into a bronze, silver or gold package.

    * Presentation. This is not only the design of their website, but the organization. Does it make sense to you? Do you like it? Would your customers like it? The design and layout of a web designer’s website is typically indicative of their ’style’.

    * Happy clients. Look for testimonials, a portfolio and case studies. Do they show an aptitude at being flexible enough to work with different industries? Ideally their testimonials include full names, which means they’re not trying to hide anything. Web designers without some sort of portfolio or client list are either bad or lazy; either way, they’re not for you.

    * Contact info. Are you forced to fill out an online form to get in contact? Is there a phone number listed? A physical address (other than a PO Box)? You’ll need to speak to someone before moving forward, so be sure you can actually call and get a hold of a human being. Companies without phone numbers or addresses are typically located in a basement.

4) Revise Your List.
Based on your surfing adventure, choose your top three candidates.

    * Call. Ideally, don’t email or fill out an online form; pick up the phone. You want to ensure that you’re dealing with a professional, so call them up and see how they respond. A good web designer will get you talking about your business. They will listen to your problem, try to assess whether or not you’re a good client for them, and take things to the next step, which is:

    * Meet. Assuming your candidates are all local, meet with them. Sometimes this is referred to as a Needs Analysis meeting. The goal is to give the web designer enough information to prepare a proposal for you. You’ll also want to ensure that you’re comfortable dealing with them, and a face-to-face meeting is the best way.

    * Proposals. Get three of them. Any fewer and you’re not exploring your options, any more and you’re wasting your time. Three is the magic number. Ensure that the web designer gives you the proposal within a week of your meeting.

    * Assess. Here’s how to assess the proposal:

    * Problem solving. They need to have proposed a solution to your problem that makes sense to you and is relatively free of geek-speak.

    * Comprehensiveness. Did they cover off all of your issues?

    * Follow up. What happens when the project is over? Will they help you market it? Train you? What about on-going maintenance? Do they guarantee their work? For how long?

    * Ideas. A good web design company might have some really good ideas that you never considered. These can demonstrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking.

    * Timeline. Ensure that they tell you how long the project will take, and that you can live with that timeframe.

    * Budget. You don’t have unlimited funds, so be sure you can live with the costs.

Your ultimate goal is to get quotes from a few web designers that you feel good about. You want to compare apples to apples, and only by going through the above process can you weed out the oranges.

Web design as an industry is still very much in its infancy, so unfortunately this is not like shopping for a car or a pair of jeans. You’ll need to do a bit more homework to ensure that you find and choose the right web designer for your business. Good luck!

By Robin Eldred

As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it.

In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google’s Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google’s ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.

For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site?

Ten years ago it wouldn’t have mattered what Google thought of your site for it wasn’t even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want.

Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic – you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site.

Google doesn’t as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it’s getting close to 70% of U.S. traffic and in some countries it’s up over 90%. But it’s not only the search numbers which makes Google king – it is the prestige and power of the Google brand name. Google has truly permeated into popular culture and the public psyche like no other brand name in history.

Google brings respect and trust into the equation. Web users respect and trust Google to give them a quality answer to their question. That’s why it was rather ironic, that for years webmasters have been asking Google about their ranking system, their algorithm, their practices… for years Google remained for the most part silent. This was mainly to keep at bay, those who would like to “game” the system in order to get high rankings within Google.

Until now that is, maybe it’s just me but doesn’t it appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just couldn’t find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent when it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.

In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others… have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the “burning questions” webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for “Google Webmaster Help | Google Groups” if you want to find these sessions.

Since I run several modest sites on webmaster tools and Internet marketing I am approached by more than a few people who want me to help them build their online site or business. One of the major issues that always comes up somewhere in the process (usually phrased in different ways) is this question:

What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?

Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.

What is Google’s Golden Rule?

Many experts believe it is related to relevancy – the key to getting high rankings is how relevant your content is to the question being asked? Maybe so, but in order to explain it to a would-be webmaster, I had to find the words that would most appropriately sum up Google’s prime directive?

After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue… this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:

“Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site.”

This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the “visitor’s experience” and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product, it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they’re happy, Google is happy. And if everyone’s happy then the kingdom grows.

Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can’t be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.

However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you’re trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.

By Titus Hoskins

Dealing with website development issues can be an overwhelming task. There are many things your marketing team must consider, in fact, there are so many things to bear in mind that many of the most important ones never get dealt with, or are buried under competing interests.

To avoid project paralysis you should focus on certain key areas of concern from which all other issues flow. Whether upgrading your existing website or developing a new webmedia initiative from scratch, consider these four vital questions that need to be answered:

    1. What content should be included?

    2. How should content be delivered?

    3. How is your website going to be marketed?

    4. What will visitors remember?

What Content Should Be Included?

Content is a function of purpose. Unfortunately many websites don’t have a clearly thought-out realistic purpose; and orders alone, is not an adequate website objective. Obviously every company needs sales, that’s a given, but sales are a result of all the marketing elements you put in place, and the degree to which your presentation distinguishes you from your competition.

There is a prevailing view that traffic translates into sales; this viewpoint may be valid for websites whose economic model is commodity or advertising-based, but businesses that don’t compete on price alone, or are more than an excuse to deliver advertising, must be structured around a purpose that is more meaningful, and far more compelling than ‘give me an order or don’t bother me.’

An over-emphasis on search engine friendly site design ignores the fact that when someone does a search for what you do, they’ll not only find you, they’ll also find many of your competitors as well. And even if you appear first in the search, nothing will stop potential clients from clicking on any of the other organic or advertised listings, or even the numerous Adword links on the side of the page.

The biggest website design problem companies have is not the amount of traffic generated from search engines, but rather how visitors react to your content. Are visitors engaged, enlightened, and entertained so that they stay on your site long enough to get your marketing message, and is that message compelling enough for them to remember it?

There are many misconceptions about advertising content, one of the biggest is that people hate it, but the truth is, what people hate is bad ad content; qualified clients actually look forward to good advertising because it presents a relevant problem, and provides a believable solution, in a distinctive memorable presentation.

If your content doesn’t engage your audience with a persuasive, memorable presentation then you’ll never achieve whatever website marketing goals you’ve set.

How Should Content Be Delivered?

We know the vast majority of people don’t like to read text on a computer screen, so they scan for relevant information concentrating on bulleted points, captions, and headlines, but does that truncated information really get your message across? Website text is really designed for search engine spiders, which is fine, but how about paying a little attention to people and how they absorb and remember information?

We also know people are impatient and are ready to abandon your website with the click of mouse, often in mid sentence before they ever get to the point you are trying to make. Your clients are sophisticated media consumers raised on video games and television, and are used to making quick decisions on limited information; this kind of leap-of-logic protocol demands a clever focused presentation.

Your audience will be gone in seconds no matter how convincing you think your content is, if it is not presented in a media-savvy manner that holds viewer attention, otherwise your website is nothing more than a glorified Yellow Page ad.

Audio and video has the potential to deliver information in a form and format that attracts and holds viewer interest while it makes a memorable impression. But even audio and video will fail if it is badly conceived, poorly written, and amateurishly performed.

How Is Your Website Going To Be Marketed?

Everyone is concerned with traffic and how to drive it to their websites. Search engine optimization is only one marketing technique, and it’s one that ignores the impact of content on your audience in favor of attracting the attention of search engine robots. By all means, build search engine friendly elements into your site but don’t ignore people-friendly elements as well.

Having text-based articles on your site is an excellent way to provide search friendly information, but presenting that same information as a professionally produced audio option, or a lively video presentation is certainly more memorable.

An entertaining webmedia presentation makes a lasting impression that viewers are more likely to recommend to colleagues, thereby increasing your traffic and reputation. Word-of-mouth is the best way to generate qualified traffic, and the best way to generate interest in your site is to make your site’s presentation a rewarding experience.

What Will Visitors Remember?

In a brick-and-mortar environment, visitors are more likely to make a decision to purchase on the spot, simply to avoid driving halfway across town to save a few dollars, but on the Web jumping from New York to California is as easy as the click of a mouse. People are just more likely to shop-around because it’s so easy.

Of course what people think they want is the lowest price, but providing the lowest price only attracts the least profitable buyers and ignores the biggest obstacle website businesses need to overcome, and that’s credibility. Who are you, and can you be trusted? And after visiting ten different websites all selling the same thing, can they even remember who you are?

Your presentation has to be memorable and establish credibility so that when all the searching and browsing is finished, your site is the one they remember and go back to; your site must be the one visitors can trust to deliver what’s promised.

How to Hire A Web Video Firm

The ability to produce an effective video or audio presentation requires more than the possession of some cool hardware and software. Owning an expensive camera doesn’t make you a producer, and even the technical ability to edit doesn’t qualify you as a commercial marketing expert. When the time comes to hire someone to add video and/or audio to your website what should you be looking for? Below are eight things you should consider when hiring someone to create webmedia.

1. Can the webmedia provider deliver a turnkey solution from concept to implementation, or do you have to act as your own producer hiring different people with different skills complicating the project and creating both technical and conceptual implementation problems?

2. Can the webmedia provider produce everything from scripts to custom music in-house, or do they have to farm-out some of the work increasing costs?

3. Does the webmedia provider understand how to use verbal and visual performance to create a convincing, memorable presentation, or do they substitute expensive production techniques for cost-effective psychological persuasion?

4. Does the webmedia provider just shoot video, or do they have the ability to analyze your offering and purpose, and focus it into a consistent, meaningful, branded presentation?

5. Does the webmedia provider have the ability to think strategically as well as tactically? Can they implement and repurpose your investment into your existing website, create a targeted mini campaign site, and provide alternative versions ready for ad implementation?

6. Does the webmedia provider have the ability to create lasting campaigns that can be rolled out and built upon, or are they just interested in making a quick buck from a one-off effort? Are they willing and able to be your ongoing webmedia marketing advisor?

7. Does the webmedia provider have the ability to turn advertising into content, and content into an experience, or can they only produce nondescript infomercials?

8. Does the webmedia provider understand business, marketing, branding, and what can and can’t be achieved so that you have appropriate achievable expectations?

Commercial presentation production requires a multitude of skills and talents. Big companies solve the problem by hiring advertising agencies that drive the cost of production beyond what most businesses can afford. By understanding what’s needed to create an effective webmedia presentation, you can look for a firm that possesses all the necessary talents in-house; an approach that keeps costs down, while producing an exciting Web video campaign that achieves corporate marketing objectives.

By Jerry Bader

In preparation for an initial meeting with a new client, we were asked to preview their website to see if we could come-up with some ideas for re-branding the company, and invigorating product sales.

The client was suitably impressed with our thoughts but there was one problem, the product line that we stressed was not the focus of the company. The client explained that despite the fact most of their current website was devoted to a particular product line, it was not the product that differentiated them from the competition, nor was it the product that made them the most money. Once this was explained our entire focus shifted, and we were able to develop a website concept, and webmedia presentation that focused attention where it belonged.

The experience drove home the fact that many websites confuse potential customers by inadvertently leading audiences down the wrong path, hindering profitable sales rather than promoting them.

In simple terms, magicians use a series of psychological mind-bending techniques, to convince audiences to believe in something that is simply not possible; so imagine how powerful and persuasive a sales presentation could be by using these same techniques to deliver a presentation where the product or service actually performs as advertised.

We are not talking about cheating people, or misrepresenting products, but rather teaching people the benefits of an offering by focusing attention, sharpening awareness, and altering perception, the three main ingredients in any convincing magic act, and any effective sales presentation.

With an audience predisposed to hair-trigger decision-making, the ability to attract, hold, and direct attention is vital to effective Web presentation, a skill-set refined by magicians over years of practice.

One of the three techniques mentioned in the article “Psychology of Magic: 3 Critical Techniques” is ‘psychological misdirection, a technique illustrated in an illusion called the ‘vanishing ball trick,’ performed by Dr. Gustav Kuhn of York University.

The psychological principles employed by magicians are very similar to the ones used in effective sales presentations. The Internet is capable of delivering the kind of compelling video and audio webmedia that changes audience behavior and purchasing patterns. Business must get rid of the digital flip charts and start communicating effective, meaningful presentations that deliver magical results.

By Jerry Bader