Addressing the Canny Investor

The Internet is a pretty exciting place to learn a lot of different things. One could spend several months even several years just trying to figure out what part of the Internet as their favorite.

When I first started out on the Internet order to start out with the basics when the infrastructure, so web design was where I began my journey. When you learn how to build the websites you kind of get an insider look at how the web is stitched together.

In a lot of ways learning how the websites are built you have an easier time figuring out everything else.

Our member when I first got on the Internet and saw how websites seem to hold the power of Marvel, and intrigue, but most of all interactivity.

I knew when I started out that I was going to want to know how to build these websites that I was so intrigued by.

After only a few months to plan around the Internet I started looking for sites that would teach the web design. Within about a year I was building some of the most innovative websites and they’d ever seen.

It just goes to show that you never know what you’ll learn on the Internet they get in there and figure out what you like.

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It isn’t easy trying to commute on a daily basis to and from work and than have to fight traffic on the way home. There are actual real alternatives to make money from home that most people don’t ever think of. You can do a lot of things online that don’t require huge cash outlays and will give you big returns. Commuting can really put a damper on your family life and leaves you no time for things that mean the world to you. Consider some alternatives to the commute by working for yourself in your own home. You will be ecstatic by the results, if you just take the chance.

There’s a luxury associated with working from home that some folks actually get to experience in their lifetime. While you begin a new business from home, it can be both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. To make money from home can be a pleasure that will lead you, to massive prosperity in the future. Don’t discount your efforts when trying to set-up a home based business, as your motivation will be key in maintaining your good disposition throughout the entire process. Keep your chin up and feel the luxuries that you will be rewarded with each day, as you forgo the commute and walk to work.

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A. The Basics

Before launching into a new strategy it is important to examine why you have made, or are about to make, an investment in the internet. The first question to ask is “what is the objective your investment?” Do you wish to:

• Enhance your brand
• Have an electronic advertisement
• Generate competitive advantage
• Change the way you do business
• Attract new business
• Increase sales
• Reduce the cost of sale
• Increase profits
• Move to electronic trading
• Keep up with the competition, or
• Is it just an act of faith?

Your objective can be one, several, all of these, or it may be something that is not on this list. Our contention is that the objective of a commercial organization’s internet strategy is “to increase profits”, and the route to achieve this is by identifying, attracting, winning and retaining customers profitably.

Having agreed that this is a realistic objective to pursue, does your internet strategy support this? Some answers may be:

• It does and it is working
• It does and is partially working
• It has not been in operation long enough to have an informed judgement.
• It does not!

In reality it is either working or not! Your strategy must be to deliver customers to your business, getting them to your web site is only the first step. It is vital therefore to understand the nature of the internet user today. In the UK for example (according to the Office of National Statistics) 49% of householders, 12.1m in all have access to the internet; 85% use the internet for email, and 50% use the internet for commercial transactions.

Some recent research from Penn University in the USA shows that there are no longer surfers of the internet, there are searchers - people who are actively seeking something specific. Their survey of 450000 web queries shows that overwhelmingly people use search engines to drive answers to their needs. However,

• over 80% stop searching after looking at just three results
• 50% only enter one search
• over 50% only look at the first page of results
• only 19% looked at the second page of results
• fewer than 10% looked at the third page
• people make instantaneous judgements about whether to stay on a site, and if a site doesn’t give the right impression users will bypass it

Added to this the search engine suppliers now know how to make money and are actively marketing their services. The net results are more sponsored sites, hence Pay per Click, or Cost per Click is starting to win over free listings. Other ways of driving prospects to your site such as email and banner advertising are reducing in effectiveness.

There are many organizations that will claim to help you improve your return on investment by driving guaranteed traffic to your site. But is it the right traffic? Having 10000 visits does not guarantee business,

B. Improving the effectiveness of your internet strategy

Bearing in mind the comments above, our view is that the key to successful internet marketing focuses on the four key points below, executed in the most cost effective manner.

1. Identification

• How many potential customers are actively looking to buy yours, or your competitors’, products/services?
- by identifying key search words for a product or service it is possible to determine the actual number of searches over a given period

• Can you increase this number?
- only half the population has a PC, but a large percentage of the population has a mobile phone
- refining search terms may give higher search numbers

• How can you find out who they are?
- do your existing customers know you have a website?
- in a B2B environment you can acquire business lists, though the accuracy of these is not always good.
- in B2C lists are also available. However, if an organization can create a viral (referral) environment better quality lists can be created
- the same applies to mobile phone users

Sources Direct Marketing Association/Iboost

• What is the most effective way of contacting them; Is it email, mobile phone (voice or text), search engine optimisation pay per click, banner?

- in most cases a combination of the above is required to drive an acceptable response rate per pound invested

2. Attraction

Having identified the target market and chosen your selected contact methods how can they be attracted to your web site?

• Pay per click will get them there if you have made a bid for your key words that put you near the top of the sponsored list. The question is how do you keep them there?
• Banners will only be effective if they offer something different, exciting and of real value to the searcher. The same applies to other internet advertising methods.
• Email can be really effective providing the mailing list has become an opt in list and if there is value for the recipient.
• As far as mobile phone is concerned, avoidance of high tariff response numbers is essential.
• Is there value for your existing customers to use your web site?

3. Winning

Having successfully attracted potential customers to your website, how do you get them to buy? Given the Penn University research it was never truer that you only get one chance to make a good impression. One assumes that the products or services on offer are competitive in terms of price, brand and quality, therefore your site must:

• Give the right impression
- test market your site
- your customers views are more important than your web designers or advertising agency
- will it get the searchers attention?

• Be up to date
- ensure news pages are current
- check offers have not expired
- current offers must be appealing

• Reflect the search terms
- if some one searches on “used red ferrari”, get them directly to that page
- be easy to navigate
- make sure it is easy to move about
- make menus simple and clear

• Make the buying experience pleasant and rewarding. Even if the prospect is not buying, the minimum required from their visit is some personal information.

4. Retention

Customers are lost more often than not by poor service rather than quality. However, getting feedback is always difficult.

• Make the feedback process rewarding and fun
- it is difficult to get feedback, so why not present the process in a way that encourages the recipient to respond

• Find ways to make your satisfied customers your ambassadors
- the feedback process should be capable of rewarding the recipient for referring your products and services to other prospects

• Remarket regularly; it goes without saying that this a necessity, but remarket using the method that is most likely to drive results

• People don’t want points, they would rather have cash!
- loyalty schemes are good and they do encourage more spend
- however, if you offer cash back or a discount on a future purchase, and tie it into the feedback process it is more focused, probably less expensive and more effective.

Summary

• Have a clear, realistic, achievable, and measurable financial objective.
• The strategy should be to identify, attract, win and retain customers profitably
• An internet strategy is a business strategy and is not just a website
• Review it like any other strategy.

Paul Chiswick is a director of sales improvement specialists B46.
Tel: +44 121 748 4138
paul@b46.org
http://www.b46.org

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One of the suggestions that appears often in marketing information is that a businesses should offer a guarantee. On the surface, this sounds sort of scary. If I offer a 100% money back guarantee or even a partial discount, how will I ever make ends meet? Won’t people take advantage of it and me? In this article I discuss some of the ins and outs of guarantees and why I offer a guarantee, making it a win-win situation for both me and my clients.

What are the benefits of offering a guarantee?

• A guarantee reduces the risk a client/customer feels they are taking by either hiring us for a service or buying our product(s). Ask yourself of you are ever swayed by a guarantee. I know I am, even though in all my years of buying I think I have only returned one item.
• A guarantee shows that we have confidence in our product and/or service. A well known speaker, Fred Gleeck, who sells thousands of tapes and other says that if we are afraid to offer a guarantee, it means that we don’t think our products are good enough. He offers a lifetime, money back guarantee on any tape or tape series. Very few ever come back.
• A guarantee will make us work even harder to please. Subconsciously if we know that there is a guarantee, we will be adverse to cutting any corners or overlooking the small, usually insignificant details.
• Every entrepreneur who has started offering a guarantee has told me that their sales of products and/or services have at least doubled. Yes, a few people have taken advantage of the guarantee, but the extra sales have more than compensated.

I am worried that people will take advantage of the guarantee.

• Yes, unfortunately, there are those who will take advantage of the offer. I know people who buy tapes, make copies and return them. There are others who will wear a gown to a party and then return it the next day. My feeling, however, is that the majority of people are honest and will appreciate our willingness to offer a guarantee.
• For years I worked in a restaurant where we offered a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We had our own standards, and even if a guest didn’t realize it, if their meal didn’t arrive at their table by our time specifications, a manager would visit their table and tell them that we were buying everything. We never had to advertise. Our message of excellent service was broadcast for us.
• For my Special Reports and my Presentations’ e-book, I offer a 100% money back guarantee if buyers are not pleased with the quantity and quality of the information contained. And, for my Development and Design business of Custom Websites, I offer the guarantee that I will continue working and tweaking until my client is completely satisfied.

What can you guarantee, or do you guarantee? I feel that the stronger the guarantee, the more confidence and credibility we exude. If we are afraid to offer a guarantee, is it because we are not sure of the value of our work? And, if we are not sure of the value, how can we convince others to buy from us and/or hire us? If we do offer a money-back guarantee, and a large number of people use it, it probably means that we need to re-evaluate and upgrade our work, our prices and ourselves. Weighty questions, I know, but to jump to the next plateau, we need to ask them.

Chris King is a free agent, professional speaker, storyteller, writer, website creator / designer, and fitness instructor. Chris has what she calls a “Portfolio Career” –many careers at the same time. If you wonder if you could handle and love having a “Portfolio Career” you will find a free assessment to take at http://www.creativekeys.net/portfoliocareertest.htm Sign up for her eclectic E-newsletter, Portfolio Potpourri, at http://www.freelanceliving.com You will find Chris’ business website at http://www.creativekeys.biz

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Article directories are popping up all over the internet. You may wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Allow me to ensure you this is a great thing for internet marketers. Below is just a few of the many benefits of submitting articles.

1. The ability to brand your web site business and yourself by submitting articles to article directories. You could include a link back to your web site in your resource box Along with your name and credentials.

2. You will get your article published all over the web when you submit it to a article directory. They’ll allow their visitors to republish your article on their websites and e-zines. Imagine if you submit your article to multiple article directories. Remember all your articles have a back link to your website.

3. You will be considered an expert on the subject matter of your articles. This will give you and your business added credibility which will help you take on your competitors.

4. Your article may also be placed on the article directory’s home page. Some article directories post new articles on their home page. This will give you some extra exposure.

5. You may get extra publicity if the article directory publisher archives articles on their site. People may want to read older articles in their search for information or content.

6. You will get free advertising. This will allow you to spend your profits on other forms of advertising. You could purchase google advertisements or other pay per click ads. You could buy ads in e-zines.

7. You’ll gain trust. If prospects read your article and like it, they will be far more likely to buy your product or service. Thereby increasing your earning potential.

8. You could allow website marketers to publish your articles in their free e-books. Since people give them away, your articles could multiply all over the internet.

9. You may get additional income from people wanting to hire you to write their articles, books, or even ask you to speak at seminars. This is a great way to grow your income exponentially.

By now you are no doubt convinced of the power of submitting articles to the countless article directories out there. So what are you waiting for get started now.

D Howard is the owner operator of article directory and forex article sites.

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Like many other useful toolbars out there so is the Google Toolbar. I consider this toolbar a must have for any serious search engine optimizer and anyone who searches the internet on a regular basis. Here’s why… The Google Toolbar has grown significantly in features since inception. It now features several new useful features but the main focus of this article is on those that aid in search engine optimization. So without further ado here’s the Google Toolbar unfolded.

PageRank

Upon installation of the full Google toolbar you will notice a small bar near the center of it that may or may not be partially filled with a green color as displayed in the diagram below.

http://www.lilengine.com/images/googletoolbar/toolbar1.gif

This is the Google PageRank indicator. PageRank is one of Google’s ways of rating your website and plays a role in the position of your site in their search results. This value is calculated based on several variables including the PageRank value and the number of sites that link to that page. Sites with a higher page rank tend to have better rankings than other sites if all other things are kept equal. I have personally noticed a significant increase in the search engine placement of our Search Engine Optimization (http://www.lilengine.com) site whenever our Google page rank is increased.

The Google toolbar enable you to, at a glance, view the PageRank of your website as well as your competitors’ sites. This helps when looking for sites to engage in with link building as more links coming from sites with a higher PageRank than yours help to increase your site’s PageRank. It is also said that when looking for site to link to yours that you should aim for sites with a PR 4 or higher. LilEngine personally accepts links from any useful and related resources, links from sites with a PageRank of 4 and above are an added bonus. Contact us for an exchange at info@lilengine.com.

A side note

There are times when the Google Toolbar will display your website as having a PageRank of 0 or even no rank at all. If your site previously had a PR greater than 0 and you notice this, watch it for a while or close your browser and reopen it to check as there are times that this feature seems to be a bit buggy possibly due to updates etc at Google.

Cached Version

When Google spiders your site it records the latest version of your site that it has spidered and this can be viewed using the Google Toolbar by going to the Page Info button and selecting cached version. Your browser must be on the page you would like to see the cached version of at the time you choose to do this.

http://www.lilengine.com/images/googletoolbar/toolbar2.gif

How can this help you with your SEO campaign?

If you have optimized your website in hopes of increasing your search engine results in Google, this will indicate whether or not Google has updated their database with the new version of your page. If the Googlebot visits your site regularly the cached version of your site will be updated more frequently than otherwise.

Backward Links

The Google Toolbar also has a pretty useful feature that displays all the web pages that link to your web page, which Google counts towards your PageRank. This information isn’t regularly updated and can’t be expected to take between 1 - 3 months before changes can be seen. Backlinks deal with quality and not quantity. A site with 1000 mediocre backlinks may not have as high a Page Rank as a site with 800 high PR backlinks.

Highlighting

You have the option of adding a highlight feature to your Google Toolbar that highlights all instances of your search term on the web page reached from your search. This can help you see how many times your competitors use specific keywords on their pages and you may modify your SEO campaign accordingly. You may also use this to check your own pages and see if you are or are not using enough of your target keywords on your page for optimum search engine placement. Besides those features listed above there are also some other cool tools on the Google Toolbar such as:

Popup Blocker: This only works in IE 5.5 or later but is a great addition as we all know that there are many sites on the web that bombard you with popups. Some of these even go as far as almost preventing you from going anywhere else as more and more windows keep popping up. Annoyance factor 10/10.

Google Web Search: You can easily search the web using the Google Search Engine via the Google Toolbar by typing in your search terms in the search box area and then clicking enter or clicking the ‘Search Web’ button on the toolbar.

Translate: Easily translate sites into English that you may be interested in for one reason or another.

Unfortunately there is no version of the Google Toolbar for browsers other than Internet Explorer 5.0 and greater but hopefully they will be adding this in the near future.

There are many more features available with the Google Toolbar. Learn more and download it here, http://toolbar.google.com/.

About The Author

Alec Duncan is the founder of LilEngine.com a Search Engine Optimization resource site. Visit http://www.LilEngine.com for search engine optimization tools and strategies. Get our free search engine articles feed and also get a free Google ranking tool on your site.

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