WHOA HO HO! IS YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

http://www.mywebsource1.com/

No one needs to tell you that the United States economy tanked in September, 2008. As I write this, banks have been bailed out, the government is questioning the future of the “Big Three” car companies, and the internet is a-buzz with tales of woe on the holiday sales season.

But is it as serious as everyone is saying?

According to Forrester Research, we will spend an estimated $200 BILLION dollars online this Holiday Season – which is up from the $175 billion spent last year at this time. So how can you get a piece of this Internet Holiday Pie? Preparation.

If you haven’t started preparing for your online holiday sales, you are already behind the eight ball. Never fear though, because the present is better than any to start selling to your online shoppers. Just know, holiday shopping starts earlier than the “Black Friday” sales after the Thanksgiving rush and you should note this for next year.

Below are some helpful tips for getting the most out of your online store.

OCTOBER

Q: When should you start preparing online for the Holiday Rush?
A: Early Autumn (Anytime in October.)

If you have the type of online store that caters to consumers, start preparing with new “Gift” categories, create a wish list application and start offering gift cards so you can collect pre-sells.

Re-evaluate your inventory and lines of distribution so that customers won’t be let down with “out of stock” notices. Additionally, make sure you post a shipping deadline on your web site so that your customers know when they need to order a gift to have it delivered on time.

Start developing Holiday landing pages that will bring shoppers right to your gift selections. This should tie in with your pay-per-click campaigns.

Review with your staff the holiday protocol. Make sure your web design, purchasing, customer service, and shipping departments are all on the same page to make all sales go smoothly.

NOVEMBER

Prepare your email list for a blast email in the early part of November. This list should be uploaded to your newsletter service provider and ready to go when you are.

Your first newsletter should hit within the week prior to Thanksgiving. The reason I suggest this date is because the week of Thanksgiving, everyone is preparing for their holiday dinner or travel and your blast newsletter may get lost in the holiday rush.

If you are using Comparison Shopping Engines, make sure you prepare all of your Holiday Sales items to be competitive.

Launch your holiday pay-per-click campaign the week of Thanksgiving. This is also the time to launch your holiday category pages that you made in October.

Follow your pay-per-click campaign closely from now until the holiday season is over. People will increase their PPC cost and you don’t want to find yourself ten pages back for the entire season.

DECEMBER

Cyber Monday is December 1. All of your preparation comes down to this day, but don’t forget other sales days. If you celebrate Christmas, don’t forget your customers may also celebrate Hanukah, Kwanza, and other days of celebration.

Send out your second holiday email blast to encourage customers to shop from you. This should be done ten days to two weeks from the first. DO NOT spam your customers.

Keep an eye on your pay-per-click. You should be able to lower your cost-per-click the week of Christmas because your shipments will not reach your customers in time.

Send out another email blast on December 26. This is Boxer Day in many countries (including Canada) and a huge shopping day in the U.S.


While you are putting this all together, prepare for NEXT year by adding these dates into your calendar. This way, when October comes around, you will be ahead of the game and be prepared for the holidays.

As the old song goes, “The Season comes but once a year…” and it is imperative for your business to be prepared if you want to succeed. Follow these tips and prove the naysayers wrong by excelling in these tough economic times.

Three Types of Website Traffic: Bringing People to Your Website

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

Where does website traffic come from? You’ve had your website built and you are ready to attract customers, but how do you get them to come to you? If no one shows up to your web site, there is no way to sell your products or services. Just because you have a web site doesn’t mean people will come to it. There are three ways to get traffic to your web site, outlined below:

1. Pay For Your Traffic.
This is commonly referred to as “Pay-per-Click” (PPC) advertising. Basically, this means that you do not pay for the advertising unless your ad works! You only pay a fee, that you determine ahead of time, for the advertisement if someone clicks on your ad.


There are three major companies that do PPC advertising:
Google Adwords
Yahoo Network Sponsored Search (formally called Overture)
MSN AdCenter

There are dozens of other, smaller PPC advertising companies, as well, but these three will give you the most “bang for your buck”. It will depend on where your customers and clients shop that will help you decide where to place your purchases.

Once you decide on a PPC company to use, you create an account, decide upon keywords, and create your advertisements. You decide how much you wish to spend per day, where you want the ads to appear - geographically, and what time of day the ads can appear.

PPC advertising will most definitely get you results. It works. However, be forewarned, because without constant monitoring of PPC, you could end up spending money you do not wish to. For this reason, you may want to get a professional to watch your ad campaigns. This group of professionals – known as search engine marketers - can set up your accounts, pick the best keywords, and monitor the results. For this usage, a typical fee of 10%-15% of your advertising budget is the normal charge. Thus, for every $100 you spend on PPC ads, plan on spending an additional $10-$15 to your Search Engine Marketer.


2. Trade For Traffic
Depending upon your niche, this way of bringing people to your web site can be very effective. There are two ideal ways to go about doing this: Link Exchanges and Joint Ventures with Naturally, Existing Economic Relationships (N.E.E.R.s). This type of garnering web traffic is also a part of something called Organic Search Engine Marketing (SEO).

In a Link Exchange, you write an email to a website asking for them to put a link back to your own website. Typically, you will want to have the other website’s link already on your website and show that owner that, in good faith, you have already placed their link. Another way of doing this is to have website owners place your link on their website because you do business with them, write on their web boards, or comment on their blogs.

Note: Trade for Traffic is not easy. It takes work. Also, this type of web marketing is not targeted. The information is usually in a place that can have some benefit to people needing your wares and services, but there is no guarantee. The benefit of it is that it has a longer lasting effects on how people will find you and come to your web site.

The second option, Joint Ventures, is essentially where you would contact another marketer or company who had products that complements yours. You would try to convince these people to write about your products or company. They could place this in articles, newsletters, on their blogs, or in a video. This also takes work, but the aspect of getting other people to advertise for you has a stronger impact on the consumer than by interrupting their day with your ads.

The key things to remember about trading for traffic is that it is give and take. What people do for you today, you will have to return at a later date. It is a community effect and you have to hold up your end of the bargin.


3. Create Your Own Traffic.
Creating your own traffic is, by far, the best and easiest way to bring in people to your web site. The first way is to encourage customers to become repeat customers. Once a month, you MUST bring yourself to top of your customers mind and remind them that you exist. You can do this though an email, a newsletter, a fax, or whatever means you have at your disposal. Reminding customers to come back will ensure new sales. Change your web site often and give them an added reason to return.

Another important item: Have your web site address on everything you have in print at your business. Business cards, invoices, ads, envelopes, etc… are all ways for people to get in touch with you on your web site.

Bringing in new customers to your website can be more difficult. There are dozens of ways to do this, however. Create a video on your camcorder. Make sure you put your web site address on the video and have a page that hosts all of your (upcoming) videos. Most video sites will allow you to do this, today. Video is becoming one of the top-most searched areas on the internet. In a word, it is HUGE.
Grab people’s attention by writing articles and blogging. If you are perceived as an expert in your field, people will start turning to you for advice and resources.

Advertise on free web sites on the internet, like Craig’s List (www.craigslist.com). This is easy to do and will get your name noticed.

Create something free to give away, like an eBook, or a funny picture on your web site. Giving away something for free grabs people’s attentions.

So you can see, there are literally hundreds of ways to bring more traffic to your web site. You can go by three routes. Spend money and buy the ads to bring people to your web site. Spend time and get other people to bring people to your web site. Or spend resources and entice the people to come to your web site on your own.

Doing one of these three methods, if done with diligence, will bring people to your web site and increase your sales.

Tips For Bringing People To Your Web Site

There is a great mystery out there in the world known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This is the Holy Grail for web site owners. It is the phantom that they try to capture in their attempt to bring more people to their web sites.

SEO isn’t hard. It is time consuming and, if you don’t know what your are doing, can be a real headache without a lot of return on your investment. No one ever built a successful web site and did nothing with it. The good news is there are ways that you can help your web site yourself! Below, you will find some very good answers to having people find you online:

Building Your Web Site. When you begin to design your web site, the first thing you should consider is how SEO will factor into your marketing plan. What keywords and phrases will you use? How will content urge people to come to your web site and link to you?

Content. This is the single most important factor to any self-serving web site. Your content must have good keywords and phrases – the same ones you want people to find you on when searching the internet. Search engine spiders love that text!

Renew Your Content – and often! The search engines love it when you start making changes to your pages. If you cannot do this, then you can always blog. Blogging creates an RSS feed that allows spiders to find your web site. Make sure you follow proper anchor text linking in your blogs and tag keywords to help find your web site.

Longtail Keywords. Short, common keywords won’t get you anywhere. There are other web sites out there using the same keywords for a lot longer than you. If you have a web site that does video production, you might find it hard to get onto the first few pages of Google with words like “video”. Instead try Cincinnati Video Production. This will help you get your business found more easily. Remember: Be precise in what you want your keywords to be. They will help bring people to your web site.

Links. Right behind content, you have to build up a group of links back to your web site – using those keywords and phrases that you are using in your text. Another important thing about links: If it is on a page that has nothing to do with your web site – it won’t really work that well for you. Make your links relevant! For example: If I wanted a link to my web site from this article, I’d put it as Web Site Design and Marketing.

Anchor Text. When you create links within your web site between pages, make sure the links are using specific keywords in which you want to be found. For example: I might put the following as a link - Web Site Hosting.

Title Tags. First, make sure you have a title tag on each page. Then, make sure it doesn’t say HOME PAGE. Your title tags should contain relevant keywords that will bring people to your pages.

Avoid Flash. I know. It looks nice. It is cool. Search engine spiders find this inedible. They hate it! Why? Because Flash is pictures and they like text. If you must use Flash, use it sparingly. Also note, not everyone has the latest update of Flash, so all that fancy design work may look like nothing on some people’s browsers. If you just have to have Flash, make sure you add some text below the movie frame. This is known as “below the fold.”

Javascript. OK, while you’re avoiding Flash, avoid drop down menus, too. The search engine spiders just don’t see it. Use it at your own peril.

Alt Tags. Every picture you use should have text associated with it to let the search engines know what it is about. These should be keyword rich words, as well. The text is referred to as an Alt Tag.

Social Networking. Use it. What is it? It is mySpace, Facebook, sta.rtup.biz, Linked In, and many others. Make sure you put your link back to your web site and make sure you comment on as many other member’s pages as possible. Social Networking will help your web site tremendously.

So, is that all there is to it? Nope. This will give you an excellent starting place, though. In addition to these things, look into a strong Pay-Per-Click marketing campaign. Some people will tell you that Organic Search Engine Marketing is the only way to go, but a homogenous blend of SEO (what we’ve been talking about) and PPC (pay-per-click) will give you the most bang for your buck. Additionally, PPC offers the most obvious way of tracking where your money is going, so your accountant will love it too!

Good luck on this endeavor. It takes time, but it will definitely help you build your web site’s success.

Web Sites are Green

by Jimm Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

Living in the United States today, people are acutely aware of the need to “Go Green” in their everyday lives. We are all trying to shrink our carbon footprint. We’ve heard the news. We need to conserve if we want the planet to be inhabitable for our children. This method of thinking would have been unheard of 40 years ago. Today, it is “trendy”.

One way of going about this is to have a web site and be online. “He’s a web site designer”, you are probably saying to yourself, “of course he feels that way.” But it is true. By going online, you are shrinking your carbon footprint everyday. Technology is helping to forge a better tomorrow. Let me explain:

Paperless Society
F.W. Lancaster, the Informational Scientist who coined the term “paperless society” in 1981. With a paperless society, we would stop using print media and find everything online.

Is it a reality?

Not now, but as more and more web sites become interactive and better allow you to access information online, this thought process helps us to conserve our planet.

Online Literature
In the old days (circa 1989 or even yesterday), you hired a graphic designer to create a brochure and you sent it to a printer who would charge you around $400 per thousand to print and fold your brochure so you could hand it to your customer. The ink they used was then discarded and entered our waterways, harming plants and aquatic life. A simple solution to this is to cut back on printed literature and put it on your web site. Not only does this save you money, but it also helps the environment.

Now, think about the cost savings when you apply this same thought process to your hundred page catalog! You are saving money on printing costs and mailing costs. Your catalog is now in the hands of anyone who would like to view it and what is best, you are cutting back on waste for those who don’t want your services. Add a simple form to access your catalog and now you know exactly who was interested enough to look at your wares!

Conserving Gasoline
By putting your goods online, people can find what they are looking for without having to get into their vehicles and drive to different stores. You can join comparison shopping engines, use pay-per-click ads and organic optimization methods to get people to your site and show them what you have to sell. Less people driving on the roads means less energy wasted which helps in lowering gasoline prices.

Other ways of getting people through your front door is to blog, use social networking tools and sending out online newsletters. Most of these are free to use and won’t waste our natural resources.

Casting Out The Clutter
Everyday we are interrupted in our lives with advertisements. We see them on billboards, on television, in the newspaper and we hear them on the radio. We are so bombarded by these interruptions that we tune them out – unless they are really good or that we’ve heard or seen them so many times we can’t help but notice. In today’s world of marketing do these methods even work like they used to in years past?

Direct marketing works ONE PERCENT of the time – if you are lucky. This means that if you send out 1000 direct marketing pieces to customers, you might get 10 responses. If the item you sell is worth $100, you probably broke even. Most likely, 990 people just added to the excess of trash that we throw away each day. How many of those do you think recycled the paper?

Here are some facts:

• 50% of all junk mail (i.e. your advertisements) is thrown away without being opened.
• Junk mail wastes an average of 8 months of every American life.
• 100 MILLION trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail.
• 28 BILLION gallons of water are used to produce the paper each year that makes junk mail.
• The yearly creation of junk mail equates out to the emissions of 3.7 million cars.
• An estimated $320 million in local tax dollars are used to dispose of junk mail each year.
• About $550 million dollars is used to transport junk mail to your mail box.

Why would you want to contribute to this?

Instead, try online advertising with either a pay-per-click campaign. This is really an ingenious method of advertising. You set up an ad. You decide which keywords will work best for you. You set a geographical location to place your ads and PEOPLE find you by typing in something related to your keywords. The PEOPLE come to YOU. These are people with an interest in something you are selling. You aren’t interrupting them. You aren’t filling up their mailboxes and lives with a deluge of unsolicited garbage to be tossed aside into our landfills. You are letting them come to you.

I do not pretend to believe that all paper advertising and marketing will stop. I don’t even believe that it will decrease to the point where junk mail is an occasional present in our mailboxes. But, if everyone started to move just 5% of their business away from the old, familiar ways of marketing – ways that don’t work anymore – then maybe we can help to reform our planet into a better place to live.

Go online. Sell online. Become a part of the solution for a better world.

WHAT WILL $5000 IN ADVERTISING GET YOU?

WHAT WILL $5000 IN ADVERTISING GET YOU?
Playing it by the numbers…

NINE THOUSAND BLACK AND WHITE MAILERS. These have a 1% - 5% chance of NEVER being opened.

or...

TWO HUNDRED CLASSIFIED ADS - one every three days for one year. These have about a 3% chance of EVER being read.

or...

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY SECOND RADIO SPOTS in Cleveland. Are you targeting the right audience and are they listening? 95% will never remember…

or...

FIFTY 10-SECOND TV ADS mixed throughout the day on a local cable station. Did your audience get up and go make a sandwich? Again, 95% will never remember…

or...

SEVEN NEWSPAPER ADS – 3 columns x 3” (a little more than half the size of a note card).

or...

TWO TRADE MAGAZINE ADS in which you advertise TO your competition.

or...

A YELLOW PAGES AD about the size of a drink coaster for one year.

or...

ONE WEB SITE.
A web site professionally designed and online 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, no holiday pricing changes.

Located on a place that people actually go to get news and information – their computers.

A web site that will allow you make changes to your text and pictures when YOU want the changes made…

AND the best part of all…it won’t cost you $5000 to have a web site. You’ll have plenty of money left over to use on other marketing endeavors: Pay-Per-Click, Search Engine Optimization, your web site added to your business cards, letterhead, and invoices.

You’ll have money left over to advertise in other traditional marketing methods or even have a video made of your products and services. Why wouldn’t you want a web site that attracts customers to you? For more information: www.mywebsource1.com