Yep, I took the bait from Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” campaign and upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8). The compelling campaign touts significant updates from IE 7 including better phishing and malware protection, InPrivate browsing and InPrivate filtering.  

Features like Accelerators, Web Slices and Visual Search Suggestions make IE 8 even more enticing. 

Accelerators help in the retrieval and manipulation of data on websites. It usually involves selected content on a website first and the accelerator to process the content afterwards. This can range from translation services to drawing a map of the location of a restaurant you just discovered or checking the price of an item on a shopping site. 

A Web Slice enables users to subscribe to content directly within a web page - a separate feed file is not required. Users monitor content changes and view the updated portion of the web page directly from the Favorites bar (the improved Links toolbar) of Internet Explorer. 

IE 8 is partnering with top search providers like Live Search, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, Amazon, and more to deliver Visual Search Suggestions that provide you with immediate answers. For example, typing "Isaac Newt" with Wikipedia visual suggestions will instantly show you a preview of the results directly in the Search Box drop-down. 

Go ahead – take the plunge and get the install here. If it doesn’t work out, you can uninstall IE 8 and get your old IE 7 back!

Great visual metaphor by CNET on YouTube: Internet Explorer 8 Review

Best

Denice MacDonald

Whether you intend to use SharePoint as a dedicated internal content management system, have a need for forms processing or merely want a platform for social computing, this is not a product that can be simply turned over to the IT department to install and manage. 

Organizations that want to accomplish the most with SharePoint will need to align business and IT teams to constructively design a specific approach or strategy – reason simply, SharePoint seems easy to use, but somewhat difficult to master. 

The first and foremost step, develop a strategy around business needs.

What are your business needs and how can SharePoint help in addressing those needs? The following are examples of business requirements ahead of a SharePoint install:

1. Improve communications and documentation between diverse locations by providing a central repository for production procedures and information
2. Provide a method for documentation change management sharing information
3. Reduce the cost and time of resolving problems by providing a central portal for users (staff or employees) to search processes, procedures and get up to date documentation
4. Provide the ability to work on documentation at the earliest emergence, before interaction with other processes and large volumes of users
5. Project managers can share documents and collaborate with other users on projects; using an integrated set of tools
6. Provide collaboration tools such as wiki’s and blogs within the context of an intranet allowing feedback, surveying and access to versioned documents  

Once these objectives have been defined, it will be much easier to align goals to SharePoint technology.   

LEARN MORE:

From Microsoft

• Topics to consider before deploying SharePoint Products and Technologies

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Technical Library in Compiled Help format

• Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit v3.0 x86

• Analyzing Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Usage

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Trial Version

Top 10 Benefits of MS SharePoint Services for Document Management by Positive NPV

The SharePoint Report by CMSWatch

Best

Denice MacDonald

Common Tag is an open tagging format developed to make content more connected, accessible and engaging. Unlike text tags, Common Tags are references to unique, well-defined concepts, complete with metadata and their own URLs.  

Specifically, Common Tag format is based on RDFa, a standard mechanism for placing structured content within HTML documents. The format uses the URIs of concepts defined on the Web as a way of anchoring the meaning of Tag objects. Common concepts can be found, among others, in two big databases of structured content or controlled vocabularies, as librarians call it – Freebase and DBpedia.  

According to the Common Tag web site, "The Common Tag format was developed to address the current shortcomings of tagging and help everyone - including end users, publishers, and developers - get more out of Web content. With Common Tag, content is tagged with unique, well-defined concepts - everything about New York City is tagged with one concept for New York City and everything about jaguar the animal is tagged with one concept for jaguar the animal.” 

Faviki is involved in the development of the  new open tagging format – Common Tag, together with AdaptiveBlue, DERI (NUI Galway), Yahoo!, Zemanta, and Zigtag. This is the first time that this number of web companies have stepped together from day one to introduce a tagging standard.

Resources:

Common Tag - The New Semantic Layer by Website Magazine, June, 2009

Will You Implement Yahoo's Common Tag? by Search Engine Roundtable, June, 2009

Best

Denice MacDonald

Facebook is allowing members to reserve vanity URLs - that is, customized Web addresses that Facebook followers can easily identify and connect to your profile. The feature went live at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday June 13, 2009. The question is - did yours yet? 

What is a Facebook username?

You can personalize your Facebook URL (web address) by selecting a unique username. It will appear in the location bar of your browser after "http://www.facebook.com/" when you view your profile.

What does this mean for your profile?

Facebook usernames are an attempt to make Facebook profiles and pages easily shareable. Basically, usernames affect your profile’s URL. Currently, a URL Facebook profile may be Facebook.com/people/Joe-Smith/496824. Not exactly the easiest URL to recognize or share. After reserving the new URL, the Facebook URL would be Facebook.com/JoeSmith. 

This is a much easier URL to remember and share with others. It encourages sharing, friending, and increased activity on Facebook. Most importantly, it follows in the footsteps of Twitter and MySpace, both of which offer the vanity URL. 

Where can you claim a username?

Starting at 12:01 a.m. (EDT) on Saturday, June 13, 2009, you will be able to select a username at http://www.facebook.com/username. You can select a username that Facebook suggests or create your own. Select "Check availability" to check for available usernames. If the desired username is available, click "Confirm" in order to confirm your choice. 

Can you edit your username, or transfer it to another account?

Once you have claimed a username by clicking the "Confirm" button after checking for a username's availability, it is not possible to edit it, or to transfer your username to a different account on Facebook. Additionally, when an account is removed from the site, its username will not be made available. Facebook does this for security reasons.  

Great Resources: 

A users' guide to personalizing your Facebook URL  

Your Facebook business name: Already reserved?

Best

Denice MacDonald

Ahh…Social Media Today has done it again!  They, along with help from .Biz, have conducted research and created a new whitepaper with formidable insights and advice on how the fast moving world of Social Media is about to change... again. 

Specifically, they have documented some important marketing trends and shifts in the future use of social media by businesses. 

Excerpt: Social media is currently most often used as a general communications tool in public relations and marketing, but there is a major shift underway. In this research, they found that companies are now viewing social media as a primary tool of customer engagement, enabling lead generation, immediate customer contact, and customer interaction. 

Get the downloadable white paper through .Biz web site HERE. The site also allows visitors to share the white paper via twitter - so please pass along.

This study is the first to measure a coming shift in how companies will use social media. The report describes the factors driving this change, and provides valuable information that your business can use to get in front of the trend. 

Social Media Today is available on the business social network LinkedIn and I highly recommend joining the group – these guys are amazing! 

Best

Denice MacDonald

A heat map is a picture of a web page that shows where users click when they visit a particular page.  From a techy perspective, a heat map is artificial intelligence that simulates human vision during the first 5 seconds of exposure to visuals.  

How does it work? 

The areas that are clicked most often appear in red (hot spot), while the areas clicked least often appear in blue or with no color at all.   

Why should you care? 

Heat maps are a tool used by web developers as part of usability testing. Understanding how visitors behave when they visit your web site is crucial to improving its effectiveness – not to mention conversion.  

Looking at the image to the right, it appears that MacDonald Consulting needs to improve image placement on the header and within center copy real estate to increase visitor interaction and conversion. Doing so will encourage visitors to click on header links (top blue area to the right within the graphic).

How to build a website heat map:

Two of the most popular heat map generator applications are FuseStats and CrazyEgg but they charge for their service.  

Feng-GUI, however, offers free access to their service but there are some restrictions.

Best

Denice MacDonald

If you are looking for the technology to put your video on the web, the variety of choices can be staggering. That’s because as web video has flourished, so have the number of companies providing the tools to deliver video across the Internet.

Large media companies and individual video bloggers can now choose from among multiple firms when looking for a web video product. Many of the technology providers are quite similar and anyone in the market for a web video platform should 'test the waters' and try out the ones that seem like the best fit.  

Web video technology services can be divided into the following categories:

CONTENT MANAGEMENT: The process of ingesting content, moving it around, converting to different files and organizing video properly before it goes online.

PROGRAMMING AND PUBLISHING: The presentation of the video on the web site, including the player and the playlists.

DISTRIBUTION: Delivering the video across the web, to either the main site or to distribution channels and portals.

MONETIZATION: Making money off the video, by integrating advertising or offering video on a download or pay-per-view basis.

REPORTING: Providing analysis and reports on number of views, length of views and other similar data. 

Check out these vendors and resources: 

Dragonfly (world-class multi-media content delivery network)

Kickapps (great for online communities or any type of 'sharing' portal)

Maven (online video advertising)

Magnify (good for both b2c and b2b)

Best

Denice MacDonald

Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can't do with your work (any content or digital asset – including software).

With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify.

Creative Commons licenses contain four major permissions: 

1.  Attribution (by) requires users to attribute a work's original author. All Creative Commons licenses contain this option, but some now-deprecated licenses did not contain this component.

2.  Authors can either not restrict modification, or use Share-alike (sa), which is a copyleft requirement that requires that any derived works be licensed under the same license, or No derivatives (nd), which requires that the work not be modified.

3.  Non-commercial (nc) requires that the work not be used for commercial purposes.

4.  As of the current versions, all Creative Commons licenses allow the "core right" to redistribute a work for non-commercial purposes without modification. The Non-commercial and No derivatives options will make a work non-free.

Additional Resources:

Creative Commons 

Creative Common Icons

Creative Commons Images (Flikr)

Best

Denice MacDonald

According to Wikipedia, Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying mechanized looms—against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work.

Today, Luddites are often referred to as those individuals who have not embraced technology and prefer the old fashioned way over web-based access and solutions. If they do use the web (and this is definitely a growing market and should not be short-changed), they will require a certain online experience to convert.

If you are an online brand professional, web developer or even a business to consumer web site, how do you address Luddites and engage them to your online initiatives?

Keep it simple!

Web sites that are properly built with easy to use navigation, menus and call-to-actions are much more preferred over emphasizing 'internal search' as a way to engage visitors to your site. BUT, Luddites use search ten times more than most sophisticated web visitors and 'internal search' should continue to be part of the Luddite user experience strategy.

Manual over Automated

Most Luddites prefer human contact and are not impressed with fancy 'chat' or 'paypal' options. When catering to Luddites, ensure that there are plenty of options for manual interaction - including phone options for questions and/or ordering.

Respecting the Luddite

Show how you are personally using this new technology, how others are using it, and how they specifically could. FAQs or other similar resources will aid in providing Luddites the tools they need to engage.

Great Resources:

And the Luddites Shall Inherit the World (Wide Web) - By Steven Goodwin of Free Software Magazine

How to Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics & Luddites - By Interactive Insights Group

Best

Denice MacDonald

You finally launched a much-anticipated Web 2.0+ web site and you can’t wait to hunker down and review your analytics. How do you gauge if your analytics for your site are appropriate, measurable and definable? And most importantly, who in your organization would benefit? 

Moving from a silo to a working team 

In the past, most web sites were created and managed within a silo. Now, it is recommended that organizations have a dedicated department or team leader focused to web statistics, watching the performance of various campaigns and then analyzing certain key metrics leading to higher ROI. After keen observation and reporting, useful recommendations are made to the various departments regarding how to increase conversions. 

Connecting the dots 

In many cases, the statistical information from web pages are important to the sales and marketing department as they relate to collaborative online and offline initiatives. The information technology department may find the numbers helpful in determining browser and network bandwidth needs. Web designers would be interested in the numbers to determine if each web page is attracting the number of visitors it should.

If a web page, or the entire site is underperforming, the web traffic statistics will reflect this and specific parts of the web site may need to be re-designed to attract more traffic. Lastly, management will want to see that the ongoing investment in the web site is yielding a definable ROI. Connecting disciplines and/or departments will help the organization perform on all four cylinders - defining and redefining web strategy as necessary. 

Web analytics – the PLAN 

Start with figuring out what you want to do with web analytics. You need to have a plan to have an idea of what your return will be on your investment. Again, this will include collaboration with other departments and disciplines. Then, you will need to select an analytics tool that works in tandem with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the organization resulting in reporting that makes sense to the various stakeholders. 

The right tools

Not all analytic tools are alike. Take time to review and possibly demo various options. Here are a few popular and time-tested solutions worth reviewing.

Google Analytics

IndexTools

Omniture's Site Catalyst

Unica's Net Insight

Web Trends

Coremetrics

For web statistics 'best practices' and more, visit: The Web Analytics Association 

Best

Denice MacDonald

You probably know that building links into your site is one of the most important things you can do in your efforts to improve your site's ranking.

A lot of people struggle with this process, especially at the beginning. Many questions also arise as to where the link should be placed on the site you are trying to get linked from, along with what kind of sites should you get links from, and what those links should look like.  Linking is no longer a passing fancy, it is a strategy that is relevant and necessary. Consder the following link building strategies:

Social Media: By submitting your site and content to social media aggregators such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other niche social news sharing and bookmarking sites, you introduce their audience to your site and build high authority links to your organization.

Advertising: Text Links which are sold or purchased with the intention of advertising a relevant site or service to the audience of the site which is serving the link ads. These links are valued and treated as authority inbound links by the major search engines.

Editorial: Editorial links are links which are earned via relationships with journalists, bloggers or site publishers. By informing writers about your site and services, you persuade them to write about you.

Directory: Web directories classify sites into organized subjects and listings while also sending search traffic to those sites. Directories are a way to increase search rankings and site traffic.

Blogger Reviews: Similar to editorial links, blogger reviews are when you pay bloggers to take the time and write an honest review about your product, business or site - and link to you. Not only will your link be seen by search engines, but also by the readers and subscribers of these high level bloggers.

Privately Solicited Links: Contact site owners and negotiate private linking deals with your business goals in mind.

Blog Comment Participation: By intelligently adding to blog comment conversations, you build your online reputation along with inbound links to your site.

Resources:

• 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Web Site by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall
• Link Building - Web Site Resource

Software/Tools:

• Axandra
• Zeus
• Link Assistant

Best,

Denice MacDonald

From employees to customers, from suppliers to your local community, from the building you reside in to the products that you make, social responsibility transcends all parts of your business. Ultimately, social responsibility increases brand equity, customer loyalty, employee engagement and the bottom line. 

What are the key components of a sound social responsibility program? 

Suppliers: You need to scrutinize suppliers you deal with. Do they create products that pollute? Do they maintain manufacturing facilities that harm the environment? Working with suppliers and distributors who take steps to minimize their environmental impact will be a wining proposition for your organization. 

Employees: Employees are your most coveted asset. For the responsible business, this means doing more than simply complying with legal requirements - it means treating all employees fairly.

Local Community Involvement: Your organization needs to be actively involved in your community. Whether it is financially giving back or simply being a community advocate, working with your local community brings a wide range of business benefits. 

Environment: You need to think about how what your organization does that affects the environment and what you can do to reduce pollution and waste. There are all sorts of ways you could think about reducing the environmental impact of your business, it is just a matter of coming up with a defined plan and moving it forward. 

Who's doing it well? 

Gap:  

Excerpt -- At Gap Inc., we believe we should go beyond the basics of ethical business practices and embrace our responsibility to people and to the planet. We believe this brings sustained, collective value to our shareholders, our employees, our customers and society. 

Starbucks:   

Excerpt -- Since 1971, when we opened our very first store in Seattle, to today with nearly 17,000 stores around the world, we’ve always been committed to doing business responsibly and conducting ourselves in ways that earn the trust and respect of our customers, partners (employees) and neighbors. 

Walt Disney:   

Excerpt -- At The Walt Disney Company, we believe that being a good corporate citizen is not just the right thing to do; it also benefits our guests, our employees and our businesses. It makes the Company a desirable place to work, reinforces the attractiveness of our brands and products and strengthens our bonds with consumers and neighbors in communities the world over.

Great Resource:

CSR News - Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire

Best,

Denice MacDonald

As Twitter continues to dominate the Internet, we can naturally conclude that users are adding more and more followers each day. How will you stand out as a differentiated brand amidst all the noise and thousands of other tweets?

1. Elevate Your Brand Name

Smart brands use Twitter in meaningful ways, and most of them use their brand name as a way to make sure customers can find and recognize them. See how these top brands are elevating their presence through creative use of their unique 'twitter' value proposition.

Resource: 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them 

2. Custom Twitter Backgrounds

Most Twitter follows scan their tweets quickly to find what is of interest to them. In order to standout, you can begin to use images or custom backgrounds to get noticed.

Customer Backgrounds: TwitterImage 

3. Build Your Twitter Brand with Memes

Hash tags are ways to denote an important tag word used in a Twitter update. The purpose in doing so is to build a community around a given tag word, which encourages more activity around a topic of interest. Search engines and dedicated Twitter memes can pick up on these hash-tagged keywords and provide a streamlined, niche set of Twitter updates relevant to that topic of interest. It can also help you build your brand.

Global Tags for Twitter (Updated Daily): Twemes 

Great Resource:

50 Useful Twitter Tools for Writers and Researchers 

Related Posts:

Twitter Can Be a Real Tweet

Can't Get Enough of Twitter: It's Become Universal!

Best

Denice MacDonald

Because of its portability, mobile phones are now the personal connection to a rapidly transitioning digital world. 

In the last year, mobile technology has become ‘front and center’ relative to advertising, brand messaging and raw effectiveness in campaigns and initiatives. To get our arms around this growing technology, let’s review some of the features and great resources: 

Messaging (SMS, MMS) – often referred to as ‘short messaging’ is just what it is - short text messages to a recipients mobile phone.  Similar to text e-mails, SMS allows businesses to alert, inform or engage mobile users.  Text messaging is permission-granted and therefore is communication that mobile users want/expect. For more insight into SMS gateway/provider services, consult MobileCrunch.  

WAP (Web Sites, Search and Banner Ads) – also known as wireless application protocol is technology designed to format and filter content for use in mobile devices. Basically, WAP technology brings the Internet to mobile users.  Users can search, browse and access mobile web sites and view creative advertising. For great examples, view the 2008 top mobile phone web sites by HitWise. 

Downloadable Applications (Games, Video, Music) – mobile technology allows you to download all types of applications including games, video, music and podcasts.  Mobile technology now combines voice, data and entertainment into one device. Check out this great web site for game downloads or Google/YouTube to access millions of videos.

More Resources:

Mobile Technology Weblog – convergence of gadgets, trends, communities and mobile services.

Mobile Magazine – covering news and reviews on the latest mobile technology.

TechWeb – mobile and wireless resources, white papers and articles.

MobileCrunch – a companion site to TechCrunch dedicated to Mobile Technology.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Google has recently introduced "What's Popular," a gadget for user iGoogle startup pages. The gadget displays popular items of interest in the form of links with titles and short descriptions from Google's index on users' iGoogle pages. Similar to Digg, users can interact with the application by voting or participate in polling – but there are significant differences between this application and Digg.

First and foremost, there is no login, username or special account needed to vote, other than already being signed into your iGoogle account. Similar to Digg, you can submit URLs for inclusion in the gadget without any other significant information - meaning you can submit anonymously. This eliminates the worry of being penalized for submitting your own content. If you decide to submit using your Google ID and want to be recognized, you can edit the title and description of the submission.  

Unlike Digg, there presently is no area for commentary or the capacity to make friends. On the surface, it could be argued that this gadget has the potential to be a much more democratic process than a site like Digg, where results are regularly manipulated by networks of "friends"¹.

Not to worry, Google already has a huge user base that can be pointed in the direction of web pages they might enjoy and this should not deter from the application’s overall success.

None-the-less, these types of applications by iGoogle continue to grow and add depth to user interaction to content on the web.

Get it now and try for yourself:

If you are an iGoogle user, you can get the “What’s Popular” gadget here.
If you are not an iGoogle user, a stand-alone URL is available here and a mini gadget URL is available here. 

Sources:

¹Web Magazine May, 2009

Google Rolls Out Digg Reminiscent iGoogle Gadget: What's Popular -  By George Norman - Software News Editor

Best

Denice MacDonald

Online social networking services are becoming more popular each day. From dating, to party invites to social interactions, web sites like MySpace, Facebook and others are growing evidence that online networking is the social norm for consumers -- and now businesses.

Business social networks such as LinkedIn and Plaxo are networks that facilitate business-oriented connections and are playing a critical role in aiding businesses to connect, engage and build relationships.

How?  Each time you add a connection (qualified, by the way), you have increased visibility and access to resources, researchers, entrepreneurs and other 'like' networkers.  Moreover, some of these business networks are transitioning in functionality to enhance the social experience (blog, join groups, respond to question sets, and recruiting/job opportunities). 

How can you put your social network to use?:

Finding great partners - almost like window shopping, social networks allow you opportunities to seek out qualified partners. Depending on the 'degrees' from your existing connections, others can make introductions and facilitate recommendations. 

Reconnecting - social networks allow you to seek out valuable relationships - now and from the past. So-and-so from XYZ Company has now moved to an organization that your company is courting - reconnecting may help 'seal the deal'.

Joining groups - provides access to research, bloggers or other relevant connections to aid you in keeping current. Groups may be local or even global - offering networking beyond the scope of the initial social network. 

Recruiting - LinkedIn, for example, allows you to search histories and CVs in your network — it's great for finding people who work in a particular company, or who have worked with someone you know. It's also an interesting way to find references for people or companies you're getting to know.

Personally, I've received interview requests, forwarded several job offers, and met people who I later ended up meeting face-to-face resulting in a business relationship.  The ability to tune in to "just enough but not too much" has been a key success in business social networking.

For more info, review a prior post from MacDonald Consulting: Business Bonding on Social Networks

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Online marketing continues to evolve while traditional media is waning. The result is that many organizations are beginning to utilize social media as an effective way to engage and collaborate with consumers through social communities.  

Unlike traditional marketing, social media allows a two-way communication with consumers. People are talking about brands all the time. Companies need to evaluate if they are ready to start listening and engaging in conversations with their customers and prospects with an effective strategy that will build personalized, lasting and meaningful connections. 

This connection will prompt viral exchanges, call to action scenarios and brand lift for a number of organizations that are stuck in traditional strategies that are not longer effective. 

There are a number of excellent resources that will aid organizations that are ready to embrace social marketing. Here are a few great resources to get started:  

Mashable: The Social Media Guide (Learn the various components of social media - realizing that social interaction is 1 to many, not just 1 to 1)

110 Ways Retailers are Using Social Media Marketing (Leverage this detailed listing of organizations that are doing it right the first time)

Internet Retailer: Growing Importance of Social Media (Don't underestimate the growth potential - Internet Retailer has it all fared out for management disbelievers)

Best

Denice MacDonald

Writing copy for the Web that grabs attention and gets the results you want takes special skill and attention.

Oftentimes, companies will forgo writing web copy and repurpose brochure copy. Writing copy for the web is remarkably different than writing copy for print. Here are a few tips to make sure your web content is spectacular and resonates with site visitors.

Before any web copy is written, the following information should be available to the web copywriter(s).

1. SEO/SEM Report or Findings – the web copywriter will use the report as a guide to segue words or phrases that will help ‘optimize’ the content web page.
2. Persona or Voice of Customer - understanding the attributes of customers that you want to engage at your content web page will help dictate the impact statements or ‘headings and sub heads’ for the section (different and distinct from navigation or menu).
3. Functional Web Page Elements – understanding what other functionality will appear on the page will help the web copywriter(s) craft content that will work collaboratively with feature boxes, call to action scenarios or other promotional items.  Having a layout or ‘wireframe’ of what will appear on the page will work well here.

Now that the web copywriter has a clear vision of the type of customer, how the customer gets to the page and what the customer will likely experience, they are ready to begin writing.

1. Headings and Sub Heads - On the web, you can ‘make or break’ interaction to your web pages with headings. A good one makes it easier for readers to understand the significance of the content and will likely get them to read more. Headings and sub heads should be short, clear and concise ranging from 7 – 10 words.
2. Amount of Content – Begin by envisioning a ‘picture paragraph’ – that is, content that is solid and clear enough to get the point across and fall ‘above the fold’ (fits within the visitor window). Remember that shorter is better – paragraph length should be no more than 50-60 words.
3. Editing – It is always advisable from both a quality assurance perspective and from a visitor’s view to have someone review and edit web copy.  Reason simply, diverse users to the web content may not interpret or understand what has been written and may need some ‘dumbing down’ for the content to resonate. 

Whether you're trying to sell products or services at a business or commercial site or if you just want to let people know the latest at your personal site, content is just as important as any of the other elements that constitute the overall brand strategy for your web site – chose wisely.

Resources:

Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy by Nick Usborne

Content is King! Evaluating Content Management Systems

Best,

Denice MacDonald

With the economy still influx and unpredictable, online marketers are taking advantage of other ways to make money: affiliate networks. 

If you’re new to this kind of thinking, affiliate marketing is basically an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing requires little, if any, start up costs, low risk and the opportunity for significant payback.

Most online marketers are familiar with top affiliate network giant Google AdSense -- a  free program that enables web site publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads and earn revenue from clicks. 

Here are a few top notch affiliate networks to begin the journey - each has a different model - one may be right for your organization. 

HydraNetwork.com

Hydra is the largest online advertising network where advertisers pay only for new customers, leads, or any other specific campaign result. The company generates millions of new customers for advertisers every month and helps publishers monetize ad inventory through its performance-based ad publishing platform. 

PepperJamNetwork.com

Pepperjam’s affiliate program management service includes affiliate & super affiliate recruitment, newsletter creation and dissemination, banner and landing page design, daily communication with affiliates, reporting, & any and all strategic direction needed for the program to meet benchmarks and success. 

ClickBank.com

Founded in 1998, ClickBank is the online retail outlet for over 10,000 digital product vendors and their 100,000 active affiliates. ClickBank makes a sale somewhere in the world every three seconds. Serving over 200 countries, ClickBank is consistently ranked as one of the most highly trafficked sites on the web. 

OfferWeb.com

Similar to the Google AdSense model, OfferWeb is a software program that allows you (The webmaster of your own site) to add banners and buttons to your website. Traffic comes to your site to look at your products and services and sees your "OfferWeb" banner and every time they click on your selected banner, you make money.  

Find the "Right-fit" Affiliate:

AffiliateScout.com

AffiliateScout.com is a comprehensive directory of affiliate programs that are organized in a way that allows you to find the most relevant advertisers for your web site. If you are looking for advertisers in your niche, Affiliate Scout can help you partner with those advertisers.

Best

Denice MacDonald

You cannot simply build a web site and wait for visitors to come. You need to market your site online – meaning you need to take action to make your site highly visible to search engines so it gets found by potential customers.

Here are some quick ideas on maximizing your web site through simple optimization.

Keyword research – where to begin? – There are a number of inexpensive keyword research tools that will help you find the keywords and keyword strings for a specific product or service.  My favorite tool has always been Google Keyword Tool - but, Wordtracker is also very popular and very effective. 

Aligning with competitors – Determine how many other sites will be vying for similar keywords or keyword strings. To validate findings, simply type the words into Google and review the number of results. That’s your competition. The higher the position within the result page, the more difficult it will be to rank on that keyword. If you are still having difficulty determining keywords, you can open your competitor’s web site and view their keywords by selecting “View” and then “Source” from the menu. The third line in the source code typically says “Keyword Content” and then lists the keywords used for that page.

Start small – If you are new to the game, it is always advisable to start with 1-2 keywords per page on your site. Reason simply, you want to find the right balance in search volume, review how you’re faring against the competition and grow your program based on sound statistics. Likewise, insure that the content that is written for the site contains an appropriate usage of the keywords.

Site structure – In order for any search engine optimization program to work and track, you’ll need to insure that the site structure is conducive for optimization. To rank higher in search results for your target audience, you must identify the most effective keywords and then place them in the right areas of your site’s content and HTML code including page titles, headers, meta-tags, links and page content.

Site updates – ‘Content is king’ philosophy still rings true for optimization success. Keep your site updated regularly. What is the rule of thumb?  Minimally, weekly!

Linking – I still believe that linking can effectively, and quickly, increase page rankings. If you have a lot of other web sites linking to your site, the search engine spiders will visit your site more frequently and find new content quickly. You can find out who links to you already by typing “Link: yourdomainname.com” in any major search engine.

Measure – It’s all about effectiveness and ongoing metrics. Let your initial search engine optimization initiative run for about 2-3 months. Track how your rankings change week-over-week or month-over-month, and then decide whether more words need to be added or eliminated. Use tools like Google Analytics for web site metrics and SeoDigger for wordtracking performance.

Best,

Denice MacDonald