Are You A Bill Clinton Webmaster? – by: David Leonhardt

One of the most frequent questions I get asked about my ebook, Don’t Get Banned BY The Search Engines, is whether I amended it to include post-Florida Google. “Florida” is the code name that search engine optimizer wizards gave to a November, 2003, shakeup at Google that left many webmasters covering themselves up with makeshift fig leaves while dangling upside down above the proverbial crocodile moat.

I am tempted to explain that, “No, I did not amend it, because nothing has really changed.” But just try telling the world that Bill Clinton did not have “sex” with Monica Lewinski. Yeah, right.

So I take the lazy way out and I just say, “Yes.”

But the guilt has been creeping up on me, grasping at my skin, gnawing away at my bones, chewing on my heart, mauling my conscience, and spitting out my toenails one by one. So this is confession time. Don’t Get Banned By The Search Engine has not been amended to include post-Florida Google.

Is this because I am peddling stale goods? Am I leading people astray? Do I have a clue what’s going on? “No”, “I hope so”, and “Maybe”.

In fact, nothing really has changed at Google, and webmasters who have been following Google’s guidelines can just keep doing what they have always been doing, just as Presidents who follow public decency guidelines can keep doing what they are doing (until we vote them out of office for other reasons, of course).

“But I followed the guidelines, and I still took bullets in several vital organs,” I hear many webmasters say. In fact, very few webmasters have been following Google’s guidelines. Most have been following the Clinton what-can-I-get-away-with fig leaf guidelines.

Remember that Bill Clinton never had “sex” with Monica Lewinski. Technically. Honest, he did nothing wrong. He followed the rules by not having “sex” with Monica Lewinski. In fact, he was seen in public not having sex with Monica Lewinski on several occasions.

And webmasters follow the rules by not linking to “link farms” or “overoptimizing”. Sure, they will link to sites that have nothing to do with their site’s topic, but not to a “link farm”. And they will “exchange links”, but surely that does not violate Google’s” uniquely democratic nature of the web” principle. As long as you are not actually caught publicly stuffing the ballot box, how could Google possibly suggest that you are doing so?

So here are my post-Florida rules:

You only link to relevant sites, because that’s what you know Google and your visitors want. Keep doing that.

You don’t exchange links, because that would be stuffing Google’s ballot box and that is NOT something Google wants. Keep not doing that.

Your link does not appear on many useless “links” pages, where it has to share PageRank with dozens of other web sites. Keep not doing that.

You accept links only from relevant web pages, because you know that’s the only meaningful traffic … and that’s what Google wants. Keep doing that.

Your links look different on different web pages around the Internet, because that’s how a democratic process would create your links. Keep doing that.

You keep adding relevant content to your web site, because that’s what you know Google and your visitors want. Keep doing that.

See? No change. And if there is a change, it simply means that you were not following Google’s guidelines in the past. Oh sure, technically you might have been following Google’s guidelines, but technically Bill Clinton didn’t have sex with Monika Lewinski. Another round of fig leaves, anyone?

Google implemented “stemming” along with the Florida update, or more likely a few weeks earlier. Since your inbound links are varied and often unique, you probably already are taking advantage of stemming, so it won’t bother you. And since you write meaningful copy for your visitors, you probably already have all the stemming you need right in your copy. You are ready to really excel in Post-Florida Google.

Google is also implementing a “communities” factor. Since your inbound links all come from relevant web pages, you are already part of the community. You are already well placed to succeed in Post-Florida Google, right?

Google has implemented “penalties” for some typically overoptimized terms. Actually, I think penalties is probably the wrong word, but that is what most SEOs are using. Since you write quality content, meaningful headers, and don’t cut and paste the same phrase over and over in every possible place, you are ready to conquer Mount Google.

In other words, if you were following Google’s guidelines, not the Bill Clinton fig leaf guidelines, just keep doing what you are doing. For the rest of you, isn’t it time you dropped the fig leaf and wrapped yourself up in something a little more substantial that will weather the high winds of Google’s next big storm?

And, “No.” I did not amend Don’t Get Banned BY The Search Engines to include post-Florida Google because I never advised people to follow the Bill Clinton fig leaf guidelines in the original edition.

About The Author David Leonhardt writes the Happy Guy humor column: http://www.thehappyguy.com/positive-thinking-free-ezine.html and A Daily Dose of Happiness: http://www.thehappyguy.com/daily-happiness-free-ezine.html. He also wrote Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-self-help-book.html and The Get Happy Workbook: http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-workbook.html Info@thehappyguy.com

what Do Your Site Statistics Mean, Anyway? – by: Karyn Greenstreet

What Do Your Site Statistics Mean, Anyway?

The purpose of analyzing your web site statistics is to look for trends and to research the success level of your marketing campaigns. The numbers themselves can be misleading, as statistical packages count “hits” in different ways. If someone visits a page on your site doesn’t mean that they read it completely.

The idea with web site statistics, then, is to look for trends. Instead of looking at the numbers a concrete items, look at them over time to see if they’re increasing or decreasing. For example, if you do an internet marketing campaign, then look at your web site statistics to see if the campaign increased the number of hits to your site.

With that said, here are some numbers you should look at:

Visitor Information

There are three areas that are important to review each month and during each marketing campaign. The number of unique visitors will help you to determine whether your site is receiving more or less visitors each month.

The location tells you what country, and sometimes what State, the visitors are coming from. This is important if you’re concerned about your global reach to other countries, or if you’ve done a marketing campaign in other States. Note that this is the State of the ISP where they connected to the Internet. Because AOL is in Virginia, you will have an inordinate amount of Virginia visitors, even though these people are actually all over the USA.

An important distinction is the concept of “visitors” versus “hits”. Each person who visits your site is considered a “visitor”. Each time a visitor looks at a page, that page and its contents are accessed, including the graphics on the page. As example, say that your home page has two graphics on it, plus some text. That is considered THREE elements on the page. When a visitor visits that page once, your statistics will show ONE visitor and THREE hits.

Time of Day Activity

This area of your statistics helps you to determine which days of the week have the most activity, and which time of day is the most active. This can be helpful to know when to schedule chats and teleclasses. For instance, if Wednesdays at 3PM are popular times for your site, they may be popular times for teleclasses. It’s important to note here that one of the most popular times for people to search the web is weekdays after lunch. (People are at work and having a sugar low after digesting their lunch and are surfing the net instead of working.) If this is a popular time for people to be surfing the net, then this might also be a popular time for an internet chat on your web site.

Referrals

This section of your statistics will tell you who is sending people to your web site. It lists which search engines people use, as well as which keywords or key phrases people use to find your site. In addition, this section will also list what other sites are linking from their site to your site. (When someone links from their site to your site, it’s called an “inbound link” or “incoming link”.)

Pages

This section of your statistics will help you to determine which pages are visited most often, how long people stay on a page (presumably to read it), and which page people exit your site from. Again, trends matter here more than the concrete numbers. Are certain pages more popular than others? Are people only spending 5 seconds on a page that should take 3 minutes to read?

Error reports

This section tells you where people had problems accessing your site. If people try to access a certain page and can’t, it will be recorded here. If your site has been unavailable, you’ll see these numbers rise.

For a list of all internet error message numbers and they’re corresponding meaning, check out this website:

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/error.asp

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many number to look at in your statistics, and many ways to interpret them. If you pay more attention to trends and problems, and less attention to actual numbers, you’ll be ahead of the game!

About The Author © 2004 Karyn Greenstreet. Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to create and grow their businesses, stay focused and motivated, and perform at their peak. Visit her website at www.PassionForBusiness.com

Enhance Your Website With A Yahoo-Style Directory – by: Rick Rouse

Does your website have a links/resources page?

Do you exchange reciprocal with other websites to help boost your targeted traffic and search engine rankings?

Do you believe that a relevant, yet comprehensive resources page provides tangible benefits to your site’s visitors?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, then you should consider adding an inexpensive (or free!) Yahoo-style Directory to your website. A quality Directory script will add an air of professionalism to your website and provide valuable content for your users.

A quality Directory script:

• Gives your website a professional “look and feel”. You can eliminate those bloated, unattractive links pages that might brand your site as a “link farm”.

• Allows your visitors to search for sites of interest in your directory using keywords.

• Allows you to display banner ads on your Directory pages (including the search results pages). With the best scripts, the search results pages will even display different banners according to the search terms used. This allows you to sell advertising targeted to specific keywords!

• Encourages other webmasters to exchange links your website. You’ll soon have webmasters standing in line to exchange links with you.

• Automates the link exchange process to a large extent without all of the negatives that can get a website banned by the major search engines. A quality Directory script will handle everything related to adding a link to the database, yet still allow you to manually approve the link!

There are many good directory scripts available on the web. Just do a Google search for “CGI scripts”. Add a quality Directory script to your site today and you can take your web presence to an entirely new level!

About The Author Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Directory & Webmaster Resources. He is the author of several popular articles and ebooks on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and traffic building. Visit him at http://www.rlrouse.com.

Part I : Getting Free Hits Using These Simple Tips & Tricks – by: Prashant Parikh

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines still remain the #1 tool to generate free targeted traffic to any website, so make sure that your site is indexed in every major search engine. Do a through check of all the meta tags and make sure you are not missing any one. The most important meta tag is the “Title” tag which should be kept short and sweet. Then there comes the “Description” and the “Keywords” tags, please make sure that you are not dumping keywords on this tag which do not belong to your website. e.g. don’t include keywords for selling perfumes when you are selling books. Make sure that the description and the keywords are relevant to your website. Another major things that no one would tell you is that you MUST have the keywords and description embedded on your site to get a high rank in search engine. What I mean by this is, if you keywords include “Candy, Gum, Lollypop” etc.. and description is “We sell all types of chocolates and candy here” etc. them you MUST have the same words somewhere in your webpage. This is how the search engines check the relevancy of the meta tags. These are just 3 of the major meta tags which should be there on every page. With the ever growing search engine popularity and the way they categorize they searches there are some other meta tags which should be used to describe the site, like “Language”, “Robots” , “Revisit” etc. To get details on these tags click this link.

Please make a note that you need to get your website listed on, DMOZ which is a largest human edited directory and which has links with all the major search engines. Listing on DMOZ is free and it can bring highly targeted traffic to your website as well as improve your ranking on other search engines. visit http://www.dmoz.org

** NEVER use refresh or redirect scripts on your index pages as most of the search engines will exclude those pages.

Link Exchange

This is undoubtedly the second major free targeted traffic source. Now, not many webmasters know that having hundreds of link on their website linking to other UN-Related websites will do more harm than good to them. First rule of thumb, NEVER have lots of out-bound link on your index page and secondly exchange links with only those website which have similar content or sell complementary products. Search engines are very smart and can easily know from your meta tags if the site you are linking to has similar content or not. Don’t try to fool the search engine or you will end up a fool yourself. I know that exchanging links is not simple and take time, but is the best time investment you will ever do. Having quality site linking to you would mean a better rank to your website. Another important think to note is that it would be better if you exchange text links rather then graphics as this would be more search engine friendly. Also keep changing your text link description from time to time so that you can have fresh and different keywords fed to searches.

So, now the questing is how do you find similar website… very easy. Do a search on google or DMOZ directory and you will get a list of websites. The contact the webmaster individually of every website and ask them for a link exchange.

I also found this website very useful in finding similar content websites. http://www.linkexchange.com

Affiliate Program

Have you ever paid to have your banners displayed 10,000 times and end up paying 10 cents a lick and not getting any sale out of it? This is what happens to most of us when start advertising for our website and products. We think that even if out of those 1000 people who would visit, even if 5% buy something then we have made a profit! but how often does this happen? Close to never. Why pay per click when you can start your own affiliate program and pay commission per sale. Yes right! you don’t pay your affiliates till the time someone actually buys anything from your website. This way you get all the clicks you want and if no one buys anything, they you also don’t loose anything. You can promote your affiliate program to other webmasters through discussion boards or emails, think about it, you can have tons of webmasters linking to your products and you don’t spend a dime until you get paid! Sounds great!

Check of this website if you want to start your own Affiliate program or you can pay some money to have it setup for you. http://www.cj.com

About The Author Article by Prashant Parikh. Webmaster of http://www.ishopindia.com

Search Engine Optimization and Web Site Usability – by: Kristy Meghreblian

Build a Web site and the people will come.

Ha! If it were only that easy! The Web is the one sales environment where the customer has total empowerment. They have all the resources (i.e., your competitors) just a mouse-click away.

Not only are you in competition with the millions of other Web sites owners who sell the same product/service as you, but you are also competing for users’ time and attention. While search engine optimization and submission can bring you the traffic you need, only you can ensure that visitors will stay on your site by giving them a reason to want to stay. That is where Web site usability comes in.

What is Web site usability?

The International Standards Organization (ISO) defines Web site usability as the “effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which a specified set of users can achieve a specified set of tasks in a particular environment.” In simpler terms, usability is how efficiently and effectively users can accomplish what they are trying to do when they visit your Web site.

Now that you have an understanding of usability, we’ll explain the basics of what a Web site should include to make the most of the user experience:

Content is king

Let’s face it, people visit Web sites for content — they want information. Sure, it helps if your site is visibly appealing as well. But, without the right content, the results of the user experience can be fatal to your business. They simply won’t come back.

Here are a few tips to remember in regards to content:

1. Be concise. Research shows that reading from a computer screen is about 25% slower than reading from paper or other print medium. To that end, you will want to edit your writing to say the exact same thing in half the words it would take if you were writing on paper. Also, think back to the last time you came to one of those really long-winded Web sites where the content may have been great, but you still had to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the end. It can be a nuisance. So, keep your pages short.

2. Make your content scannable. When people use the Internet, they are looking at mass amounts of information. Help them get to the core of what they want by using bulleted items, short paragraphs, and subheadings to make it easier for them to find what they are looking for.

3. Write without error. There is no excuse — absolutely none — for poor grammar, typographical errors, and misspellings. If you own a computer, you have access to spell-checking and grammar-checking technologies. Use them. These small details will reflect upon your site. If you don’t convey professionalism on your own business, how will you be conveyed to potential clients? Can they trust you with theirs? Before uploading any new content, proofread it. Then, turn it over to someone else for their input.

4. Write as if you were a Public Relations pro. Granted, many of us aren’t PR exec’s, but you should know how to market your business. Use the lingo that is most appropriate for your business. While you want to provide information, your main goal is still one thing: to sell. So, write to sell.

5. Maximize your keywords. As part of the search engine optimization process, you went to great lengths to select keywords and phrases that are most appropriate for your business. Be sure to use them whenever possible (without being overtly redundant) in your content.

6. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Web sites should be updated on a regular basis — don’t let them go stale. Add new products/services, update users with new information and tools, do what you can to change your content and keep users coming back for more.

7. Know your audience. Since most audiences vary in terms of experience level with both your product/service and their experience level with the internet, you will want to simplify things more than ever. You don’t want to talk to yourself – make sure potential clients understand your product/service. The best way to do this is to create content that is informative, yet easy to understand for even the newest of the newbies.

Web site design

Secondary to content is the actual design of your Web site. While the user comes to your site specifically for information, they also will want to enter an area that is easy to use and visually appealing. Here are some usability tips regarding Web site design:

1. Avoid long load times. While the latest technology for Web sites is incredibly interesting and fun, lots of graphics, Flash images, and audio can create long load times that make the user wait. And, if customers have to wait too long, they may leave — and never come back. As a guide, users will generally wait for a site to load for ten seconds before vacating.

2. Make your pages easy to read. A common error in Web usability is the incessant need to create the prettiest Web site that ever existed. We’ve all seen them – every color from the Crayola box of 64 has made its mark on these pages. And, with a little bit of color usually comes a lot of cute little images that dance across your screen. In all seriousness, resist the urge to do this. Not only will it hoard a lot of memory, but it will drive your users crazy. Black text on a white background is the easiest to read. If you really want a colored background, stick with a lighter shade, but remember to use black text.

3. Create a well-organized site. Maintaining a consistent look and feel throughout your site is critical. The navigation you use on the home page should be carried out throughout your Web site. Clear navigation can either make or break your site. You are basically providing your users with a road map to your products and services. Don’t let them get lost along the way.

4. Consider your space. Content should amount to 50-80% of your page design, with navigation taking up approximately 20% of the space.

5. Stay consistent with design elements. Select one or two (maximum) fonts and stick with them throughout your site.

6. Have a secure and automated server. Amazingly only 20% of current Web sites are secure.

7. What can you do different? This is probably the most important thing to remember when designing your site. Think about your business and your competition. What are you doing differently that will make users visit your site? Once you find out what that is — whether you offer the lowest prices, have a special widget that no one else sells, or have reputable customer service — capitalize on that one thing by incorporating it in your design elements.

Conclusion

There are good sites on the Internet and there are an equal number of bad sites (if not more!) out there. The good sites provide for a smooth user experience – easy navigation and easy-to-find information. The bad sites are slow to load, difficult to navigate and leave the users frustrated before they can even get to the information they initially needed. If you’ve already invested the time and effort into developing a Web site, you should take a serious look at the usability of your site. Here’s an easy homework assignment: Some day, when you’ve got a few hours to spare, surf the Internet and make note of sites you think are good and which ones drove you absolutely crazy. Investigate the qualities of those sites and what made them good or bad. Pretty soon, you’ll start to see some patterns that you can learn from and implement into your own usability strategy. Remember, usability is all about creating a unique and enlightening user experience. Usability is the name of the game — isn’t it time you started playing?

About The Author As Submit Today’s copywriter and editor, Kristy Meghreblian has written online content for many successful companies, including Monster.com. She has successfully combined her excellence in journalism with the delicate art of keyword density as it relates to search engine optimization. As a result, she has helped many Submit Today clients achieve top ranking. Submit Today is a leading search engine optimization, submission and ranking company located in Naples, Florida. kristy@submittoday.com

Web Site Monitoring Is A Global Necessity – by: David Leonhardt

Bill Huang sits down at his computer. As he connects to the Internet, he glances out at the sun poking its nose above the Hong Kong skyline. It will be another busy day, and he has to order those slippers for his wife before rushing off to a meeting.

He types in his search terms and Google faithfully reports: “Results 1 – 100 of about 1,760,000. Search took 0.34 seconds.”

Bill clicks on a the Big Soft Slipper web site and waits for the page to load. “Site unavailable,” Bill reads. He hits the “back” button. Then he clicks on another of the 1,760,000 pages Google offered him.

High above Cleveland, USA, the executives at Big Soft Slipper are clinking their glasses and patting themselves on the back. “We sure did it,” the CEO crows. “Look at that beautiful home page. Look at the easy navigation. Look at how fast it loads.”

Somebody please tell them about Bill Huang.

“Very few people realize how the web site that loads so zippy in their office, flows like molasses on their customers’ computers – and may not even be accessible at all,” says Vadim Mazo, CEO of Dotcom-Monitor ( http://www.dotcom-monitor.com ), a web site monitoring company. “While they celebrate, they could be losing customers.”

Even in the United States, the most developed Internet market in the world, one out of five Internet users still operate on 56K connections. Smart companies have gotten wise, and test their web sites on slow connections – usually 56K. That leaves 13 million Americans with even slower connections – along with hordes of customers in India, China, Australia, Russia, South Africa and elsewhere around the world.

Who is monitoring your web site from Europe and Asia?

“We just opened up a new web site monitoring station in Hong Kong, because there is a growing demand for monitoring web site performance from Asia,” Mr. Mazo adds. “While nobody can monitor individual connections, we can monitor sever side connection speeds and web site accessibility – both of which are affected by transatlantic transfers.”

In fact, bottlenecks can develop in several spots along the transatlantic connections – bottlenecks that could slow down or even block a web site completely. If a webmaster is not monitoring the performance of his web site overseas as well as at home, he will not be aware of the bottleneck and unable to contact his provider about it.

The fact is that a web site will load slower on the opposite side of the world, regardless of the type of connection the surfer has. But that is compounded when the transatlantic connections, or other local connections, block up.

Is connection speed a problem worth monitoring?

In May 2001, Zona Research reported that slow loading web sites accounted for $25 billion in lost sales each year ( http://www.marketresearch.com/map/prod/483429.html ) As Internet usage continues to climb around the world, that figure might be closer to $40 billion by now.

Another study, by BizRate.com ( http://www.bizrate.com ) in 2000, revealed that most people abandon purchases on the Internet while already in the shopping cart section – 21 percent due to slow-loading pages. In other words, even when the home page and the sales pages operate at a satisfactory speed, customers get frustrated by slow loading or failed shopping carts.

“It’s one thing to know that your web site is accessible. It is another to know that all your forms and your shopping carts are performing to your customers’ satisfaction,” Mr. Mazo says. He adds that web site monitoring avoids the embarrassing moment when the customer lets a company know its site is not accessible. “The only thing worse is if nobody lets you know and you just keep losing sales.”

This suggests there is value in monitoring your web site from overseas — and in monitoring the forms and shopping carts and anything other server requests and user transactions

Stella Huang loves her new slippers. They are just perfect. She really does not care where they come from. The executives at Big Soft Slipper were not monitoring their web site performance, so they have no idea that they just lost a customer. And another customer. And another…

About The Author David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity specialist. Contact him at: mailto:info@thehappyguy.com or visit his website at: http://www.thehappyguy.com For website monitoring: http://www.dotcom-monitor.com . For details about web site monitoring services: http://www.dotcom-monitor.com/web-site-monitoring.asp Info@TheHappyGuy.com

Website Development: Become Your Own Expert – by: Theresa V. Wilson

Starting and maintaining a business is challenging enough without the additional financial burden of hiring a web site expert to put your vision on paper. If you are starting your business on a “shoe string budget,” hiring someone to take your written materials to type in a basic format, add a few pictures and edit what you tell them periodically may not be sound money management.

It is not necessary to be a computer “wiz” to develop your web site. You do have to know your product or service and be able to follow directions. Even if you have a web site consultant, “hands on” content and presentation development will be your responsibility—the buck still stops with you. Before you hire that web site expert, consider the following information. It may save you money and unnecessary waste of time.

One strategy is to utilize web site packages that provide software to enable you to select the number of pages needed, choose background color schemes, and will include “download” features that will identify various products and services you offer. These packages offer you control over content 24 hours, 7 days per week, as opposed to contracting someone at $450-$600 for initial development then $50-$75 per hour to generate the inevitable changes in content as you grow your business. In addition, most web site consultants include “fine print” detailed costs for adding pictures or changing landscape.

Although you do not have to speak an unfamiliar computer language to master the development of your business web site, you do have to know your product or service and a commitment to marketing and developing your business. Let’s take a look at the basics of web site development for a five (5) page site:

1. What do you want your visitor to see when they visit your site? Begin with “colors” for background and the printed words. Depending on the service or product, it will either be a soft gray background with black or maroon print or black or dark blue background with white print. Others may have pastel colors with soft print. Color selections are based on the product or message.

2. What information should the visitor see first? The Welcome page should be viewed as the same as the welcome mat at your door. Its content will convey the purpose of your business or service. Your welcome message can be developed using the executive summary section of your business plan. You are introducing the product or service and giving your visitor a brief overview of what they can find on the other pages of your site. You are letting potential customers know they are in the right place.

You have 15 seconds to capture your audience. Not unlike other personal presentations, don’t waste time on unnecessary words. Get to the point. Entice them to want to know more. Information on this page, therefore, must be prepared by someone who knows the company and its products or services. Even with a web site consultant, no one can better describe your company than you. The basic facts will come from you. NO passing the buck here.

3. Who are you? The “About Us” page is your “brag bag” opportunity. This is where you talk about business accomplishments and expertise, awards and recognition. You can also provide a brief overview of yourself (especially if you are promoting consulting services) or background and expertise of any partners or key staff.

4. What are you selling? The product or Service page. Here is your sales pitch opportunity page. Describe how your product or service will be useful to your target market. Why is it unique? Who will it help? Why should they purchase it? This page, more than any other, will be fine tuned on a regular basis in the beginning. Wording, pictures, headings, etc. may need to be adjusted and revised as you develop and grow your business. For this reason alone, control over your web site should be a paramount consideration. Pictures are worth thousands of dollars.

Investing in an inexpensive digital camera is worth the effort and cost. Your ability to take pictures of your product and download to your site provides immeasurable savings of time, money, and aggravation in the long haul. Even when you turn the web site maintenance over to marketing staff, as your business grows, there is something to be said for a business owner who can not only manage but has basic mastery of its operations.

5. How can they buy the product or use the service? The Contact and Order Page provides easy access to you or a company representative—essential to business growth. In this fast paced society, people still want to know they can communicate and receive immediate responses to inquiries they may have and gain clarity about the services or products they are purchasing. This page can include an auto responder (auto responder means providing a section for automated responses to questions. Individuals complete the form on this page, including name and e-mail information. In the comment section, they provide and specific concerns or questions. The message is automatically sent to your e-mail. You can automatically respond).

The Auto Responder is a great way to build your customer base and attract new customers while exchanging information and ideas. Including Auto Responders also suggests you care about customer opinions and concerns.

As an order page, you can investigate several e-commerce companies that provide merchant accounts so that people can buy immediately. Pay Pal is one free merchant on line account services. Your customers identify the product to purchase, can pay through a secured system and you follow up by shipping the orders. There is a charge for the sales transaction. The important consideration is knowledge that you do not have to expend hundreds of dollars in the start up phase to enter the competitive market professionally, ready to serve your market.

Be Mindful of Traps

After reading this article, you may feel challenged by the process of web site development. My caution is that you take each step a bite at a time. If you decided to contract with an independent web site consultant, make sure you have direct contact with this individual via phone or visit. Prepare a list of questions including clarity about the level of control you will have over your site.

What is the rate for additional and ongoing costs? Have the consultant detail, in writing, exactly what is included in the basic development package, how they charge for maintenance of the web site, and when does it begin (for some charges do not occur until the site is up and running; for others charges begin as soon as they have completed the design).

Be sure the final contract for service is in writing, providing a clause for both to terminate the agreement, with proper notice, without penalties for you. Ask questions! Ask questions! Ask Questions! The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. The key is that you establish a comfort level before moving forward.

All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to electronically reprint the following article as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright information, and resource box. If printing offline, please send a copy of publication to PMB 47182, Windsor Mill, MD 21244.

About The Author Theresa V. Wilson, M.Ed. is a freelance writer and owner of a home based business dedicated to providing products and resources for grieving families and caregivers facing health recovery and crisis related issues. In addition to her grief support site: and nutrition site www.renewingyourhealth VMA@meetingtheneeds.org

7 Steps to Web Sites that Sell – by: Charlie Cook

Your web site is like a fight of stairs into your business. Once you’ve got prospects to your home page – your online front door – you want to move them to action. If you miss a step or two, prospects will fall and won’t make it in the door to your business. If you put the last step first and your first step last, prospects won’t find the steps you want them to take.

There is a hierarchy of information and elements you need to present to prospects to make it easy for them to become customers and clients. This is not what most small business owners provide on their web sites. Most sites lead with a boring description of services and credentials. This tends to push prospects away.

Before you build your web site or start to fix a site that isn’t attracting as many clients as you’d like, take a minute to clarify the objectives of your site. Marketing objectives for web sites for most independent professionals and small business owners should be:

a. Lead Generation – Build your list of qualified prospects who are interested in your products and services but not quite ready to make a purchase. First time visitors to the site need to be able to quickly identity if they are in the right place and determine whether you can help them. Make it easy for prospects to qualify themselves.

b. Establish Credibility- If people found your site by searching the web, you have a lot of work to do to prove that you can help them and deliver on what the site promises.

c. Sell Your Products and Services – Of course you will want to include information about your products and services, but if you rush this step, you’ll lose prospects before you’ve created the context that will move them to a purchase.

PUTTING YOUR STEPS IN SEQUENCE Now that you know what you want your web site to do, define the key elements that should be on your home page. Put these in the correct sequence and more prospects will do what you want. You’ll generate more leads and more sales. Here’s how.

1. FEATURE YOUR MARKETING MESSAGE – At the top of your home page include a one sentence marketing message that describes what you actually do and the problems you solve. For example, “Helping service professionals and small business owners attract more clients” or “Helping you create the ultimate personalized trip to Britain”.

2. COLLECT LEADS – Place the sign-up for your free newsletter, ebook, or catalogue at the top of your web page. The right hand top corner is the optimal position. Above the sign-up form don’t just say “Enter your email here for complimentary information”. Make an offer, one that will motivate your prospects to give you their contact information. For example, “Sign Up for Britain’s best travel secrets.” As an incentive on my site I offer a free marketing guide to motivate people to subscribe to my newsletter, with the result that 12-15% of site visitors sign up for my ezine.

3. USE QUALIFYING QUESTIONS – Don’t start with a description of your services or products. Below your marketing message, lead with qualifying questions, that will help prospects understand the problems you solve, engage your visitors’ attention and create a perception of need.

For example, if you sell ergonomic chairs, you could ask, “Does your back ache at the end of a day at your desk?” Or if you sell customized travel services to Britain you could ask, “Are you interested in a customized, hassle f*ree va*cation in the British Isles?”

4. BUILD CREDIBILITY – One-way to do this is to include testimonials from satisfied clients. People will read your marketing copy with a grain – or a whole shaker – of salt. When people read what others say about the amazing results you achieve, they are much more likely to believe your claims. Limit your testimonials to ones that are easy to believe, even if you did help someone make ten million dollars.

The second part of establishing your credibility is to demonstrate the value of your expertise by providing prospects with helpful ideas. If you’re in the computer repair and maintenance business you might include tips on identifying software conflicts and keeping computers from crashing.

People like to do business with people they know and trust so use your site to bring your company and personality to life. Include links to your articles, case studies and /or product demonstrations. Add a photo of yourself or your employees to personalize your site and move prospects to thinking of you as a person.

5. SHOW PROSPECTS THE RESULTS YOU ARE SELLING – Include thumbnails of products and services people can click on in a side navigation bar on most of your site’s pages. Whatever you sell make sure to feature both visual and verbal testimonials along with information and images of your products and services.

On your individual service or product pages provide examples of clients and customers using your services or products. For ebooks, include tables of contents and sample chapters. If you sell log homes, include pictures of happy customers in their homes. If you sell information, feature client testimonials.

6. TELL PROSPECTS WHAT TO DO – If you want people to sign up for your newsletter, tell them to. To get people to read the articles on your site, tell them to. To increase the number of people who view the pages describing your products and services, include thumbnail images of your products and tell them to click on the image for further information. If there is a particular sequence of steps you want prospects to take, tell them what they are.

7. MAKE IT EASY FOR PROSPECTS – Place your contact information, including email address and phone number in an obvious location on every page, particularly the home page. Include a link to a contact form or place it at the bottom of your home page, or both.

In your form, ask a few key questions to help prospects clarify what it is they want to achieve and get their phone number so you can follow up. Their responses will help you prioritize who to contact and help you focus on your most profitable prospects.

Show prospects who are ready to engage your services or buy your products how to do so. Coaches will want to include a coaching inquiry form. People who sell greeting cards, should include a quick link to so people can place their orders.

Use the blueprint above to construct a web site that sells. Build steps that will lead prospects into your web site and motivate them to give you their name, email address and phone number or to contact you about your services or to buy your products. Build steps that will move them from prospects to clients and customers.

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2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author The author, Marketing Coach, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners attract more clients and increase their earnings with the 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Guide and the ‘More Business’ newsletter, full of practical tips you can use at http://www.charliecook.net ccook@charliecook.net

Web Hosting: Shared or Dedicated – Which Should You Choose? – by: Russ Mate

Before you begin your search for a web host you should first determine whether you need shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting.

A shared web hosting account is an account on a web server that hosts other shared accounts. The number of accounts on one shared server can vary widely; some servers host a few hundred, while others have thousands of sites hosted on one server. Hosting your website on a shared server is a workable solution for many small businesses, as shared hosting accounts are priced much lower than dedicated servers. Shared web hosting accounts have limited access to the core administrative functions of the server. Most web hosting companies offer comprehensive technical support for users of shared hosting plans. Complete technical support is usually included in the price of your account plan.

A dedicated server is usually dedicated to one, or just a few websites, usually for the sole use by one company. The cost of a dedicated server is higher than that of a shared hosting account. With a dedicated server, you have access to the core administrative functions of the server. With most dedicated server plans offered by hosting companies, you’re pretty much on your own where technical support is concerned. If you don’t have an IT staff or a server administrator to provide support, you may want to find a person to help you manage your dedicated server. Many hosting companies that offer dedicated server plans also offer “per issue” support, meaning that you’ll pay a certain amount, usually an hourly fee, for technical support issues. Some dedicated server plans have optional “support tickets” that you can purchase in advance.

Another option is what’s called a “managed dedicated” hosting plan. With a managed dedicated plan, you get a dedicated server and the hosting company also provides comprehensive support like you usually find in a shared hosting plan. This is a good alternative for companies that don’t have an IT staff or a server administrator and don’t want to get involved at all in the technical aspects of running a server. The price for a managed dedicated server is usually higher than for an unmanaged dedicated server plan as you’re getting technical support included.

Whatever type of web hosting plan you choose, make sure that the plan you’ve chosen fits your needs.

About The Author Russ Mate is President of MateMedia, Inc. http://www.matemediainc.com sales@matemediainc.com Your Partner on the Web Toll Free 1-877-309-7521 MateMedia offers the following services: Web Hosting Web Design & Development Search Engine Optimization Domain Name Registration

Marketing Your Web Site – by: Lynn Holter

Congratulations! Your Web Site is finished! Now what? Your first instinct is to submit to every search engine possible and leave it up to them to bring traffic to your site. Despite what you may have been told, it doesn’t happen quite that way. Yes, you will need to submit to the search engines, and they will eventually bring traffic your site. It will take anywhere from 3 – 6 months for a search engine to even get you listed. After that another year or so to make it to the top of the listings, that is, if you are extremely diligent in promoting to them monthly and following all the different rules for each search engine.

There are several ways to market your web site yourself. Your marketing efforts will yield more results than any other form of marketing.

Include your URL on the following…

• Business Cards – I cannot stress enough the importance of putting your URL on your business cards!
• Letterhead – also on envelopes.
• Anything your company uses such as statements, invoices, order forms, etc.
• Anything that your company publishes or advertises.
• Anything your company prints and sends out to people such as fax cover sheets.
• Include a plug with your Phone Message Service like: “visit our web site at yourwebsite.com.”
• Window stickers and Bumper stickers.

Basically put your web site address on anything you would put your company name on.

Check your Chamber of Commerce. Find out if they have a web site you can add your URL to. Find out if your town has a Visitors Information center. Find out if you can list your business with them. Also find out if you can leave brochures or business cards at the center for people to browse when they visit.

Include your web site URL in your email signature. This way your site URL is being sent to everyone who receives an email from you or anyone in your company.

Keep the lines of communication open with your web designer. Remember it will take a joint effort to make your web site successful. Be willing to provide information your designer will need in the creation of your site.

About The Author Lynn Holter is owner of www.elldesigns.com. I have have years of experience with web site creation, re-design, search engine optimization, and web site marketing. I provides my clients and web site visitors with personal and excellent customer service. For more information please contact me at lynn@elldesigns.com.

Do You Really Need A Website? – by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

Having a website is the one form of marketing your business that just keeps on giving! But how do you know if you need a website?

Well, with the amount of information that is available with just a few keystrokes or clicks of the mouse, why wouldn’t you want your business’ information to be included?

More and more people and businesses use the Internet to find information. Whether it is locally or internationally, the Internet is the one place where they are likely to find what they are looking for. Unless, of course, they are looking for you or your product and you don’t have a site.

Having a website allows your business to advertise 24 hours a day, seven days a week and it is available whenever someone is in need of information on your product or services. The elements you include on your website are a determining factor for how successful a marketing device it will be for you.

For personal websites, you can include everything that your heart desires. You can have a site that shows off your favorite cat or a site that includes everything you ever wanted to know about Limburger cheese. The subject choices are unlimited.

However, a business site should be more refined. Get to the point and provide a wealth of information about your product or service. But, ensure that you leave a little to the imagination. Inspire them to WANT to contact you for a little for more information and then make the sale!

And, on that note, make sure your contact information is readily available on your site. There is nothing worse than peaking your site visitor’s interest and then making them search for a means to contact you. Believe me, many people will simply give up if they can’t find what they are looking for and go onto another site in hopes of an easier route.

Navigation is another key element. Getting around your site should be straightforward and painless for your visitors. Provide links from each page to all your key pages. Some sites can become quite large, so links from every page to every page would make the site quite crowded and monotonous. But, make sure you don’t leave your visitor at a dead end.

Limit the use of unnecessary graphics and pictures. Of course, if you are selling a product that needs to be seen, such as clothing, these pictures should be included but try to keep them as small as possible. This will keep the loading time down on your site. However, if you sell automotive aftermarket products, or any other large line of products, don’t put a picture of every brake line and fuse on your site. Including too many graphics will slow down your site and waiting for pictures to load is not something that most busy people have time for. Again, they will go somewhere else for help.

As for advertising other pages on your site, there are many avenues than can be used, including banner exchanges. These are a great form of getting additional free advertising, but don’t load down your site with an infinite amount of banners or links. If possible, dedicate a page to display your banners, webrings and favorite links. This will help reduce the clutter on your information pages.

These hints are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more ways to make your site appealing, more than can be listed in a single article. Research and using an experienced web designer can make your presence on the Internet appealing and informative.

Remember, above all else, make your site with your visitor in mind, whether they are Internet newbies or seasoned surfers. Your site needs to attract new visitors and it needs to keep them coming back.

About The Author Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards jbyer@docutype.net

Choosing the Right Website Designer – by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

You’ve made up your mind. You want to have a website to represent your business. The next decision to be made . . . who should you hire to develop your site?

There are many people capable of building their own personal sites. They can put cute little comments and pictures of their pets or kids up for you to enjoy. But, when it comes to having a website that will be a form of marketing for your business, you want someone with experience. Someone who has an understanding of the Internet and what is the best way to boost the exposure of a website.

They must have a clear knowledge of a variety of contributing factors to your sites’ success. Such factors include how best to market your site, the options and limitations of graphics, how to create a site that is effective within search engines, knowledge of the drawbacks of different browsers, and the understanding of the coding required for your site.

It is crucial that your designer understands you, your company and what you want to accomplish with your website. To determine this, you need to answer a few questions first.

What do you want on your website? What is the desired outcome of your site? Is your designer open to your ideas and provides input and suggestions for improvement? Have you checked out your competition or other websites to get ideas of what is the ‘norm’ for a successful site? The more information you have prior to starting a website, the more accurately you can communicate with your designer and get the desired outcome that produces the best results.

Creating a website can be an overwhelming experience. You need to ensure that your designer is easy to talk to and keeps you updated on your sites’ progress. If you have questions . . . ask! After all this is your site and you have a right to know how it is coming along and in terms that you can understand.

You also need to check out websites that your designer has made in the past. Check to see that the graphics load quickly, that it is easy to navigate between the pages, and that overall you like their style.

Finally, the cost! This is a very important factor for small business owners when deciding on a website designer. Larger companies will charge more and can probably make your site very elaborate. If you need a site filled with all the bells and whistles, you will be paying for it. If you simply need a site that is a background of your company and the products or services that you provide, the cost will be considerably lower and you can use a smaller company or independent designer.

Your website is going to be a 24-hour advertisement for your company. Skimping on any of the above listed factors will have an effect on the final result of your website and the outcome that you want from it. Do your research and you can join other successful businesses who are using the Internet to boost their exposure and their revenue.

About The Author Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards jbyer@docutype.net

Keep Your Website Up-To-Date – by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

In almost every business publication there are articles telling us how, as a small business, we need to have a website. This is very true! The Internet is where most people go to find a product or service that they are interested in or may have heard about. And, if your business is capable of serving customers throughout the globe, what better way to keep your information available to that huge target audience than an Internet presence?

So, we either do the website ourselves or hire a web designer (who knows the latest trends and techniques) to put together a website that will help bring in new clients. We spend a great deal of time compiling the content and working out the details to make sure that our site has all the information that our visitors will want.

Finally it goes live and…. except for putting our website address in our signature lines of our emails, on our promotional material, and mentioning it when we get a chance… we just leave it sitting there.

I am the first to admit that I don’t update my website as much as I should. I do change the homepage whenever something is worth mentioning and I add archives of my articles and newsletters. But, the remaining 100 pages (or so) are rarely changed. This is not good!

Our website is a piece of advertising that is always available to be seen so it needs to be kept up to date. They say that people need to see our company name seven times before they take action. But that doesn’t mean they can’t see our company name seven times in seven different ways.

When visitors come by our website, they see what we have to offer. They may even have to return many times in order to see everything that our site has to offer. But, they may not continue to return if they find that there is nothing new for them to look at.

As small business owners, we are often looking for new ways to impress our clients. As website owners, we should be thinking the same way. We need to offer new and interesting content on our websites.

Here are just a few things you can do to keep your website looking new:

1. If you write articles, be sure to archive them on your website. And, the same holds true if you publish a newsletter. People will continue to sign up for your newsletter (after they have read your archives) so that they are sure to receive the next issue automatically and won’t have to worry about remembering to head to the website to find it.

2. Add a news headline service to your homepage. This will allow news stories to be included on your website with very little effort on your part.

3. If you have something new or exciting happening in your company, add that to your homepage. If you are nominated for an award or have just registered with your Chamber of Commerce, be sure to mention it on your website. It doesn’t have to be a whole page of information, just a little highlighted box that stands out.

4. If you designed your own website and you have learned something new, show it off on your site (or use your site as your testing ground). Or, if you have a designer doing your website and you happen to hear that she/he is taking a course to upgrade their skills, why not ask them if they would like to test out their new skills on your site? Some designers will do the improvement at no cost to you, as they need somewhere to do a test run.

5. If you are featured in a publication or on any other form of media, or if your articles are published, be sure to have a page on your website to list these accomplishments. Then, each time you are in a new publication, you can add those to your website.

6. And testimonials… these are extremely important to your company’s reputation. Be sure to have either a page dedicated to those kind words or scatter them throughout your website in a way that they will stand out when your visitors are going through your pages. Then, as you get new testimonials, you can replace others or add to them.

There are many other ways to keep your site up-to-date… alternate your graphics; update your links; offer a special for any holidays that are approaching; and so much more.

Use your imagination and remember that the more information you offer on your website, the more likely others will want to have a link on their site that leads to yours. And this can help in your placement in search engines.

Finding the time to make updates, if you are the designer of your site, can be a challenge. Try to do a little at a time or hire a web designer to keep your site up to date.

About The Author Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards jbyer@docutype.net

The Importance of Links – by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

Link: {(noun) – lin[ng]k} 1 : a connecting structure: 2 : something analogous to a link of chain: as a : a connecting element or factor b : a unit in a communication system c : an identifier attached to an element (as an index term) in a system in order to indicate or permit connection with other similarly identified elements (as defined by Merriam-Webster Online – http://www.m-w.com/)

LINK… it is a small, sometimes insignificant word that just doesn’t seem to get the credit it deserves. After all, links are in and can affect almost every aspect of our lives but we hardly think about the impact that links have.

In the world of business, links can play a significant role in finding & sharing information as well as gaining valuable leads to help build our client and contact lists.

If you have a website; have been involved in the decision making for the design of a website; or design websites as part of your service offering, you have heard of the benefits of exchanging links with other businesses that compliment yours and can help to bring more visitors to your website.

A properly orchestrated, legitimate and well organized link exchange program can be the key to not only getting your name in infinite places on the Internet, it can also make or break your goal of high placement in the top level search engines.

The opposite holds true if you fail to exchange links at all or if you decide to put into place a ‘padded’ link exchange program. Don’t just link your website to or from just any old website on the Internet. The exchange needs to be significant and hold meaning for your site and your business. The links need to be legitimate exchanges of related or beneficial information. Having a link program that is simply a means of padding your list is viewed as non-beneficial by many search engines and thus your placement ranking will fall.

Your Favorites or Bookmarks list in your browser is another example of links that small business professionals can’t do without. We spend an enormous amount of time on the Internet viewing websites that can be beneficial when running our businesses and our lives. We tend to keep those site addresses saved in our browsers for later reference.

When you add links to your Favorites list you are adding to your resources. Can you imagine how many hours in a day you would waste searching for information on the Internet if you didn’t already have the links in a readily available location? Having all those resources available in one place is great, isn’t it? And, if you keep them organized and up to date, your list of links becomes one of your best steps to keeping your day and your business structured.

I recently decided that I needed to get my Favorites in order. Sure, I had lots of them but I couldn’t remember where to find them when I needed them. I was probably in a rush when I saved the link and either saved the link in the wrong folder or there wasn’t an appropriate folder to add it to so I just put it in the best available folder that I had. It was very disorganized and drove me crazy every time I tried to find a link I just knew I had.

About the same time I came to the realization that Docu-Type is celebrating it’s fifth anniversary this year and I wanted to do something special… a milestone, of sorts. I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been involved in the success of my business and I wanted it to be something that was important to me and hopefully important to others.

So, I decided that I would take on the task of organizing all the links that I have collected during the five years that I have been doing business on the Internet. I checked every single link I had to make sure it was titled in the most recognizable format and I also followed each link to be sure it was still active. If the link no longer worked or pointed to the wrong page, I tried to find the right page. I wasn’t always successful

I then converted my Favorites list into an Ebook and that is how, Surfin’ The Net – Docu-Type’s Virtual Collection of Links was born. Of course there was some fine-tuning to be done which consisted of making the Ebook appealing to the eye, easy to navigate, and everything else that needs to be done to give it that “book feel”.

But, that still wasn’t enough. It needed more! So, I decided to include some of my articles that have been published in numerous online and print publications. And, as an added bonus, I included some inspirational quotes to add some motivation.

Links are an important part of our lives and I know I would be lost without my Favorites list. Now I can actually find the links that can help me as they are all in categories and easy to find in the Table of Contents. And I want to share this great list with everyone else.

To find out more about Surfin’ The Net – Docu-Type’s Virtual Collection of Links, please visit http://www.docutype.net/SurfinTheNet/linksebook.htm . This book, and everything it contains and represents, is a must for EVERY small business professional.

About The Author Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards jbyer@docutype.net

Website Theft – Part 2 of 3 ~ How do I know if my website material has been stolen and what do I do if it has? – by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

(Please note that some of the information included in this article has been quoted from various locations while other information is simply my personal opinion and you will probably feel my passion in my words.)

In the first instalment in our series on Website Theft, we looked at the definition of Copyright and what Copyright Law covers. In this instalment, we will look at how to find out if someone else is using your material and how it can be damaging.

How do you know if your material is being used?

The first way is by word of mouth from others. Hopefully they will inform you if they have seen or suspect your content is being used by someone else. You can then investigate further to be sure before you go any further.

However, if you want to check yourself, try plugging in some of your unique content into the search field of Google. Be sure to use quotation marks around the text and don’t make the search too long. Use one sentence or part of a sentence because those who do use other’s content sometimes change a little of the wording to suit their needs. Of course, there are those that have copied information word for word.

If you have unique graphics on your website and want to find out if anyone else is using them, enter the file name of your graphic into http://images.google.com.

What are the downfalls of having your content on too many sites?

Not only does it tick you off when someone else uses your material, it can also be damaging to both parties’ standings in search engines. Search engines take a dim view of content that is used in numerous websites. They can consider is spamming so they tend to drop the placement of such websites or completely eliminate them from the search engine.

Your reputation can also be damaged if the duplicate material is spotted on more than one website. Although you know that the material is yours, others that see it do not.

What should you do when you find out your material has been the victim of copyright theft?

This is usually a personal choice but no matter what you do, remember to project your professionalism and not let the culprit get the better of you.

The first thing you need to do is to investigate as deep as possible and keep records of what you find. Keep a record of which pages you found your content on and take a screenshot or print the page, if possible. Also, you may want to consider printing the HTML code as well. Call upon the trust of others and ask them to take a look at the offending pages and how it is a duplicate of yours and see if they agree with your perception of the situation.

Also, check throughout the website to be sure that there isn’t a reference somewhere about where the owner used the material from.

Then you need to find the owner of the site. Most websites will have a contact page or will have contact info at the bottom of each page. Record this information for future reference as this will be the person you will contact about and to rectify the situation.

You can also find out who owns the website by searching a WhoIs directory. All WhoIs search functions pull their information from a main database of all domain registrations. If you simply type ‘whois’ into Google’s search engine, you will find a list of various WhoIs directories that you can try. Each will pull up the administrative and technical contact for the domain in question. The administrative contact is usually the owner of the website. Again, record this information, including the date the domain was registered.

Be sure you can prove that your content is original and that you have owned it for a longer period of time than the timeframe that the offending website has been using it. You need to have undisputed evidence that the material is yours. If you visit http://www.archive.org, you can input your website address and see the evolution of your site over many years and thus prove you have been the owner of material in question and the time period since you produced it.

Once you have the contact information, it is then recommended that you send a professional ‘cease & desist’ email to the owner. Be stern yet nice and point out where the infringed material can be found on their website and how it is duplicate of yours. As mentioned above, show that you can prove ownership. Ask the culprit to remove your material and point out how duplicates on various websites can hurt your overall standing in search engines, not to mention everyone’s reputation.

From my own personal experience, the above will generally work and the offending site owner will apologize for the unintentional (usually) plagiarism of your information. Most really didn’t mean to blatantly steal your material.

In our next and final instalment in our series on Website Theft, we will look at more ways to handle the problem of someone stealing your material and some ideas for preventing it from occurring again.

About The Author Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards jbyer@docutype.net

Website Theft – Part 1 of 3 ~ What exactly is Copyright? – by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA

(Please note that some of the information included in this article has been quoted from various locations while other information is simply my personal opinion and you will probably feel my passion in my words.)

The hot topic on many business related email discussion lists for the past little while has been website theft, both content & graphics. Either there seems to be a rash of this dishonest and unethical behaviour or website owners are just finding out that their treasured works have caught the eye of others who feel it is okay to use it as their own.

They say that imitation is supposed to be the greatest form of flattery but, take it from someone who has found their website content appear on someone else’s site, it darn well ticks you off to see your hard work being used by some one else as their own. You work hard to come up with what you include on your website and are probably more than willing to allow some of it to be paraphrased by others but when the culprit doesn’t even ask permission, you get that “heads will roll” feeling inside.

What can be considered copyright material?

The World Intellectual Property Organization (www.wipo.org), which is “an international organization dedicated to promoting the use and protection of works of the human spirit”, includes the definition of copyright on their website which reads, “Copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators for their literary and artistic works.”

With regard to copyright in relation to the Internet, WIPO has established two treaties, which outline, among other things, that each country “provide a framework of basic rights, allowing creators to control and/or be compensated for the various ways in which their creations are used and enjoyed by others.” More information on WIPO and its mandate can be found at http://www.wipo.org/copyright/en/index.html

For a complete definition of copyright and to read the Copyright Act in Canada, visit the Department of Justice Canada at http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/.

For a complete definition of copyright law in the US, visit the Library of Congress website at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/

Oh, and the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary lists the definition of copyright as:

Noun : the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter and form (as of a literary, musical, or artistic work)

What is theft?

Speaking of the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com), they define THEFT as:

Noun: 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

Theft of website content and/or graphics can be considered copyright infringement.

The MW dictionary also defines infringement as:

Noun: 1 : the act of infringing : VIOLATION; 2 : an encroachment or trespass on a right or privilege.

In the next instalment of our series on Website Theft, we will look at ways to find out if your website material is being stolen; what the downfalls are of your material being used in other places; and give you some ideas for what to do when you do find out that someone is using your material without your permission.

About The Author Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net), a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company, specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based Business of the Year 2000 Awards jbyer@docutype.net

What is PageRank? – by: Matt Colyer

What is Pagerank? – Pagerank is based on how many links to one website. PageRank is a value that represents how important a page is on the web. Robots or Spiders figures that when one page links to another page, it is casting a vote for the other page. Also the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote is. It matters because it is one of the most important factors that determines a page’s ranking in the search results but It isn’t the only factor that Search engines uses to rank pages. Not all links are counted by Search engines. .Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Search engines.

Internal linking – Internal linking also plays a factor in the Page Rank of the pages within a site. The linking structure within the site should follow the themed approach to internal linking, which stresses importance on minimizing linking between 2nd and 3rd level directories and pages. Example – The homepage has a PageRank of 5. You link your homepage that has a PageRank of 5, to other web pages on your site, which will in turn have a PR of 3 or 4. Now, you link all of the secondary pages that have a PR of 4 to the tertiary pages that will in turn have a PR of 3.

External Linking – External linking is the biggest factor in determining a web sites PageRank. Increasing your PageRank is very difficult, but important. The actual amount of effect that Search engines PageRank has on the ranking of a website or web pages is debated, but what we do know is that a web page’s PR does play a big role in Google’s indexing and Google’s ranking. The higher a web page’s PageRank, the more frequently it will be crawled and refreshed. While in most cases, a higher PR will accompany a higher-ranking site; it is not always the case. PageRank is a pretty complex mathematical calculation, but can be broken down into a simple version. PageRank is Google’s scoring of Page 1. This scoring is based on the links that point to Page 1, and certain variables within the pages that the links come from. 1 link from Page 2 is held as a vote for Page 1, and if Page 2 has a high PageRank, this will is taken into account and will have a positive effect when calculating the Page Rank of Page 1. If Page 2, 3, and 4, all link to Page 1, but Page 2, 3, and 4 all have a PageRank of 3, then this will be taken into account when calculating the web page’s PageRank. In the second situation, the pages with low PageRank’s that link to Page 1 will not affect Page 1’s PageRank in a negative effect, but also will not affect it in a positive way.

About The Author I have been working on the Internet since 1996, and I am currently the owner and CEO of Marhen.com.

Choosing a Web Host Based On Price? Don’t! – by: David Leonhardt

It’s tempting. There are so many companies offering cut-rate hosting – loaded with astounding post-futuristic techno-gizmo features ! – that it just makes sense to save a few dollars, right?

Think again. First, consider how much you would be saving. If you run a business site, saving $5, $10 or even $15 a month is not a big saving. No going concern will become a stopping concern on account of even $15 a month. But the wrong web host can stop a business cold.

Here are three reasons to look beyond price when choosing your web host.

1. Usability. Confession time: I chose my first website host based on price. The control panel was not easy to use, and I often found myself traveling in circles trying to enter it. I switched to my second web host based not just on price, but on usability, and I instantly became a pro. Well, not quite. But I was able to manage my email accounts and learn about CGI, and check my traffic stats and edit my html files right on the server. Not bad for a newbie who couldn’t even find his files on his previous host’s server.

2. Service. I thought my second host had great service. They even answered my emails. Until the dreaded day that some guy with a chip on his shoulder filed a phony spam complaint. I was out in the cold. In fact, they would not answer my emails or even speak to me at all. Meanwhile, my ISP responded to the same phony complaint immediately, sharing with me a copy and giving me a chance to deal with it. That ISP is now my third web host. I pay a little more, but the personal service is worth it. I have no hesitation recommending http://www.phastnet.com to anybody who wants the assurance that they won’t be hung out to dry at the first whiff of somebody in a bad mood.

3. Reliability. When that phony spam complaint struck, my website was down for four days. Ouch! But there are many other things that can bring down a site. What is your web host’s uptime? And how reliable is its reporting? Other things can happen, like a form not functioning – meaning lost sales. Worse still, what if Google comes crawling just when your site is down? Search engines don’t like sending people to unreliable sites. Companies like http://www.dotcom-monitor.com monitor websites for a variety of measures, and the cost is nothing compared to the cost of lost sales.

Sure, save a few bucks on hosting, and pay a whole lot more in lost sales and increased stress. Your web host is your Internet landlord. Take as much time choosing your web host as you would the place you live in. Price alone just is not enough.

About The Author David Leonhardt is an online and offline publicity specialist. To get your website optimized for the search engines, email him at info@thehappyguy.com. For a copy of Don’t Get Banned By The Search Engines: http://thehappyguy.com/SEO.html. For a copy of Get In The News: http://thehappyguy.com/publicity-self-promotion-report.html.

Hey, Client, This Is Me! Sell With Your Writing Voice. – by: Cathy Goodwin

In a crowded market, clients will be seeking personality as they read what you’ve written — they’ll click right past pages that feel “been there, read that.” They’re looking for a voice that says, “Hey, client, this is me!”

They want to know not just what you deliver — but how. Will you be funny or serious? A perky cheerleader or a sardonic commentator? Will your view of life be based on “believe and it happens” or “what you see is what you get?”

Here are some tips to add your own voice to your writing.

1. Write from the heart.

Too excited, passionate or angry to sit still? Best time to connect with your voice. Grab a pencil and scribble ideas as you jump around the room.

2. Say something new.

After forty articles on time management, your readers know about cutting projects into manageable chunks and setting priorities. Ho hum. Try “better than zero” or “turn your life into a time warp.”

3. Tape yourself talking to a good friend about a product.

Do your words sound different when you speak than when you write? Transcribe the tape into an article for easy reading.

4. Picture your ideal client (you do have one, don’t you?). Imagine that she is gushing about your service to a friend — highly recommending you. What words does she use to describe your services? What emotions come through?

5. Cut. Then cut again. When you have to trim your piece to meet a word count requirement, notice that you’re left with the most essential words — all yours.

6. Write fast. Get the words down before your inner critic has a chance to participate. Edit later.

7. Reveal yourself: family, mistakes, secret dreams. When you feel just a bit embarrassed, or feel your private persona has become more public, you’ve probably just touched your audience’s heart.

8. Be concrete — not abstract.

As writing guru Natalie Goldberg would say, “It’s a geranium, not a flower.”

9. If you’ve had voice training, be especially alert to creating the bland and the blah.

Julia Roberts could hold an audience while she reads the telephone directory. Your copy has to stand alone, without dramatic oratory. Exercise 3 may not work for you.

10. Don’t be afraid to break the rules: use slang and contractions. And it’s okay to begin a sentence with “and” or “but.”

Just tread carefully on the rules of grammar and spelling. “Your about to head off for you’re great adventure” can be a credibility-buster.

About The Author Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, editor, and consultant. She helps clients who want to use writing to sell and sell what they write. Visit http://www.makewritingpay.com. cathy@makewritingpay.com

Opinion – Search Engine Success – by: Tom Henricks

This article is actually the summary to a book soon to be released by the author, titled “Guaranteed Website Success”. Opinions are quite often controversial. Such is the nature of this one.

There a many opinions and conclusions being expressed by so called “experts” at this time. We can’t turn a blind eye to all this information but nothing will replace our own logic and powers of observation. I would like to take a minute to summarize and express my own observations. Some will obviously disagree with these statements and views. Such is the nature of free speech and our ability to draw our own conclusions. I suggest that those that disagree are the ones that are reluctant to use their own logic and change with the needs of the present time.

Google is presently in a state of change. Their objective is honest – to produce valid results for your searches. However in the quest to do that they may stumble a bit in the process. That is a big challenge. They are presently considered the number one search engine and want to stay there. Their processes would seem a bit unstable at the moment but they must and they will stabilize to maintain their own position. There will be changes and modifications aimed at improving the whole exercise. Be observant and move with the needs of the present.

If you visit the forums you are going to see a lot of chatter and a lot of views about what is going on. Thoroughly discussed issues revolve around keyword placement and a term some of the so called experts are abusing “search engine optimization”. Some of these so called experts are in my opinion misusing that term “search engine optimization” They are claiming that they would never participate in that dastardly practice. Well, just look at the term. What does it mean. To me it simply means putting together your website so that people will find it when they search using their favourite search engine. If these guys aren’t doing that, they aren’t going anywhere. Of course they are participating in the practice. They just prefer to call it something else. I can’t figure out why though. The term doesn’t indicate anything under handed when used in itself. We all practice search engine optimization, it’s the difference in success and failure.

Much is being said about “keyword over use, stuffing” blah blah blah etc. Many are claiming keywords shouldn’t even be used here and they shouldn’t be used there. Wake up you “experts” that are making these crazy claims that google doesn’t want you doing this. Yes, you can produce a few results that will support that stand. I can produce my own results very quickly. Pick a dozen search terms out of the air. Do a search on each in google. Go view the source code. I will guarantee you are going to see plenty of first page results that exhibit the so called practice of “keyword stuffing” So what are you guys going to do? Are you going to shun the practice because “some expert” has told you google doesn’t like, it even though google is obviously rewarding the practice. Better not paint yourself into a corner. Use your logic. Observe and move with the market. Nothing is more valuable than your own powers of observation and ability to change to reflect those observations.

Regarding the theory being expressed that google doesn’t want you using keywords . Think about it. The whole basis of the search process revolves around keywords. We don’t search for a whole page of matching data. We search on a word or phrase. Who is going to determine which words are relevant to our website. Of course the search engines must leave that to us. Logic is part of that process and they still can’t get that logic from a machine. It is just too time consuming and resource heavy to try any valid effort at that. The search engines need us to provide that data at this time. If you have figured out the point where the search engines are deciding that “over use” can be stamped on this one, you have done well. I can show you heavy, heavy keyword placement that is being rewarded as we speak. That is now amidst the results of the google changes.

USE YOUR OWN LOGIC. Do what is working . If it is working, nobody can say that google is discouraging the practice.

Personally, I am saying the only rule today is that “there are no rules”

Observe, apply logic, and react positively. Don’t quit on it, because the job will never be complete. It will be a process of constant adjustment to the needs of the present time.

Tom Henricks

I’m not considered an “expert”.

About The Author Tom Henricks is webmaster at Low Cost Websites, targetted toward helping people improve their website performance. Also a practicing walleye fishing guide near Windsor Ontario Canada. thenrifi@gosfieldtel.com