December 2005 - Posts
Web 2.0 is commonly understood as the "second phase of development"
when it comes to 'Net architecture and applications. The phrase most
commonly refers to a social phenomenon where websites have transitioned
from seperate information depots to computing platforms which serve web
applications to end users. Characterized by open communication, Web 2.0
features a "more organized and categorized content, with a far more
developed deeplinking web architecture" via
Wikipedia.
If that made your head spin and made you wonder if you'll ever get it
there is no need to worry - you are probably already very 2.0.
Essentially, Web 2.0 is social and is most often experienced through
tagging.
Tagging is when users, not search engineers, categorize content. The
more users that "tag" content the more relevant it is perceived by the
Web community as a whole. Sites such as
del.icio.us and
Technorati are
built on the system of tagging and more are coming on the 2.0 scene
everyday.
It is an interesting concept and we'll explore more of Web 2.0 in our upcoming issue so stay tuned!
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
tagging | Web 2.0 | Website Services
Who are your fellow readers? It is a good question and a valuable one for advertisers to understand.
During a recent interview with WebmasterRadio.fm, I mentioned that our
preliminary research revealed that the majority of our readers spent
less than 25K each year on operating their business (including design,
hosting, promotions, development, etc.).
While it is difficult to tell precisely how much people spend (as few
people calculate their time as a cost) what we found through a recent
survey was surprising: 8% plan on spending less than 1K, 24% plan on
spending between 1-10K, 24% plan on spending between 10-50K, 13%
between 100-500K, 14% between 100-500K, 6% between 500K and one million
and near 10 percent said that they would spend over one million on
website operations in 2006. Topics of interest varied but were
primarily Ecommerce (the focus of our third issue), design, SEO,
Emarketing, advertising and CRM. The 544 survey respondents were from
executive management, general management and sales management.
A big thanks to everyone who responded!
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Website Services Magazine | Website Success | Website Services
I seem to be on an affiliate kick this week. I posted the top fifty
affiliate resources recently and yesterday news about Yesmail being
named the first TrustE Web privacy seal reseller caught my attention.
It motivated me to check and see if any other website seal companies
were offering reseller opportunities as it's a great chance for
agencies and online marketing firms to increase revenue while providing
clients a valuable tool and resource to improve conversions.
Conducting
a few searches revealed that of those companies researched (EpublicEye,
WebAssured, GeoTrust, Thawte, BBBonline, WebTrust and
ValidatedSite.com) only ValidatedSite.com provided a program for
resellers and affiliates.
ValidatedSite's model is unique as it is
based on a sliding scale as determined by the purchaser (larger
organizations pay more because more requests are made on the VS seal)
which means affiliates earn more if they sign on a larger, more high
profile company. For agencies (advertising, marketing, search,
conversion) interested in offering such an add-on service to their
clients they can learn more at
ValidatedSite's Privacy Seal Reseller Program.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
TrustE | online privacy | ValidatedSite | Website Services
Website Services Magazine today announces the release of its' "Who's
Who Directory," a free resource intended to make the process of
locating individuals within an companies as simple as possible.
Companies are able to share service information with sales prospects
and business partners, offer employee biographies as well as provide
detailed corporate information to everyone, including the media.
"The Who's Who Directory enables visitors to learn about companies
and lets companies confirm their industry status with those that need
information about online business," said Website Services Managing
Editor Pete Prestipino.
List Your Company FREE in Website Services Who's Who Directory!
If there is one thing that aspiring webmasters want it's to make money on the Web. While there is no simple way to make millions overnight (regardless of what any expert tells you) there are thousands of sites and businesses which provide viable opportunities and programs which will, in the least, send you in the right direction or give you some ideas on how others are generating revenue from their sites. Review the list of the top fifty websites involved in the affiliate or associate program industry as determined by Ranking.com (an online popularity metrics provider).
Top 50 Affiliate Sites
Website Services Managing Editor Pete Prestipino had an opportunity to speak with 7Search.com's Director of Internet Operations Gemma Piscotti to find out more about 7Search position within the PPC industry, the most frequent challenges to new advertisers, how 7Search differentiates itself from its competition as well as its growth plans.
----------------------
WSM: Tell me a little about 7Search.com's position within the PPC industry?
Piscotti: 7Search has been around since 1999 and since then has developed into a very competitive PPC industry player. We're currently serving advertiser results to well over one billion searches per month and that number is growing each and every month. We're frequently considered a mid-market player behind Yahoo! and Google and often in line with other similar providers such as Enhance, Miva, SearchFeed, etc.
WSM: What are the most frequent challenges of new advertisers and affiliates getting started in the realm of PPC?
Piscotti: Well, besides choosing which PPC's to work with, there are actually not too many challenges facing advertisers or affiliates. All pay per click search engines over time have learned that ease of system use is of primary importance to keeping both audiences actively using your services. For advertisers though the main challenge is finding the bid point at which their advertising becomes effective for them. In the past, bid prices were so low that you could essentially jump into the listings with the highest bid and have a profitable campaign without too much planning. These days, in many respects thanks to improved measurement practices, advertisers are increasingly employing strategic bidding in their PPC advertising campaigns, which (while requiring more work and a different skill set) results in paying less per click and overall a better return on investment.
WSM: Who is your greatest competition and what differentiates you from them?
Piscotti: Obviously, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords. They are also, however, our greatest "silent partner" if you will thanks to the quantity of traffic they deliver to our partner sites. What makes 7Search different is its network of affiliates. They have an extensive network but so do we which albeit consists of smaller players but en masse they produce phenomenal results for our advertisers.
WSM: How does 7Search plan to grow in the future?
Piscotti: 7Search has plans to continue its steady growth over the next several years. We rely in great part on our ability to identify quality partners and develop mutually beneficial relationships with them. By expanding into additional vertical markets, our advertisers discover additional traffic sources which is how we have grown in the past and how we will grow in the future.
Pay Per Click advertisers will have to shorten their ads appearing with Yahoo Search Marketing to a paltry seventy characters before January 18th. According to an email communique sent to YSM clients "the streamlined design will make the search results displayed onn Yahoo even easier to read." The development brings some standardization to the pay per click advertising arena as it matches the shorter ads proffered by both Google Adwords and the MSN Ad Center. So in the halls of online advertising the question seems to be: can you tell your "story" in seventy characters or less?
Hot Banana software has taken Web Content Management to another level by powering fourteen different language Web sites, including Chinese, Arabic and Estonian. "This is great news for us,” says Krista Lariviere, President and CEO, Hot Banana Software Inc. “Our objective is to aggressively increase international revenues. These three agreements give Hot Banana the ability to scale worldwide using Channel Partners instead of having to create our own international direct sales network.
Read the entire release about Hot Banana WCM.
Brandy Shapiro-Babin of WebmasterRadio.FM fame interviewed Website Services Managing Editor Pete Prestipino on the Search Engine Strategies Exhibit floor a few weeks ago. Download the podcast to hear Brandy and Pete chat it up about what makes WSM the premier publication for website success.
Listen to the WebmasterRadio Interview of Website Services Managing Editor Pete Prestipino now.
If you are spending money or time on advertising and marketing your website to sell products or generate registrations then you have a landing page. And if you have a landing page then you have probably made some adjustments to it that make it more seamless and easier for users to complete the task you have set out for them. As each landing page has several components that you can modify you could really end up spending countless hours tweaking to generate the best results.
So what should you know about optimizing your landing pages in order to get the best results? Since most consumers do not want to “think” their way through your landing page, it is essential to remove the barriers that impact the completion of your request. The components most often modified include page headers, navigation bar, headlines, sales copy, call to action, graphics and even button format.
Now, not to burst your bubble or anything, but even if there were thousands of hours in a week there is simply no way any human could test all of a pages components and all of those components' variables effectively enough to make an informed decision on which landing page produced the best results. Now that you know that, you should know that there is some hope for the do it yourself crowd.
“Less is more,” said Tim Ash of SiteTuners.com, creators of a proprietary technology dubbed TuningEngine™. Most websites create elaborate landing pages which often confuse or discourage site visitors - the result of which is visitors not completing the form and navigating away. Using a "less is more" approach, remove unnecessary page elements and focus on developing a sleek page which moves site visitors through quickly. The fewer barriers there are the greater the chance you have of keeping a visitor on your site and completing registration forms or making a purchase.
For its clients, SiteTuners identifies variables that might improve performance and dynamically creates pages with all possible combinations of those variables. Pulling traffic for testing from PPC campaigns, banners, email, etc, SiteTuners uses its TuningEngine to find the optimum page and then verifies the performance improvement by placing it in a head to head competition against the original site. While it's not for everybody (you really need to have a significant amount of traffic) it is a pay for performance model which is an increasingly attractive model for many.
Tim suggested that those interested in usability and landing page optimization might enjoy
"Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug
.
Happy Optimizing!
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Multivariate Testing | SiteTuners | Website Services
Michael Stark of PostYourProperty.com,
whom I was lucky enough to meet at Ad:Tech in New York, sent me an email this
morning about how his sites were performing and mentioned that his RSS feed was
up and running. Always interested to see the practical implementations of RSS, I
went to his site to download his real estate feed of FSBO properties - something
which over 1,000 people downloaded in his first month online.
After placing the feed into my RSS reader and taking a look at a few of the
properties posted, it got me thinking that RSS is only limited by the creativity
of the feed itself. You could literally create an RSS feed of anything - not
just articles and not just news. Shopping sites can take advantage of RSS to
notify patrons of items on sale, even your favorite local restaurant or corner
bar could use RSS to create a feed of its daily menu or drink specials.
Again, the possibilities are endless. The problem however for those who consider
themselves less than 'Net savvy is that the majority of businesses of all sizes
still use email as a primary means of communication. Email however, has its
obvious limitations - it is not always received by the recipients because of
spam filters, or simply dated email addresses. So is Email going the way of the
buggy whip?
"Whether RSS may one day overtake email as the preferred mode of online
marketing is still being debated" said Mr. Stark. "My opinion is that once
Version 7 of Explorer debuts and takes hold, RSS will become very main-stream.
RSS presents an amazing opt-in channel to not only build branding and traffic,
but to constantly deliver updated information about one's interests and
business."
So is email dead? Not even close, but the prognosis appears to be negative.
Pete Prestipino
- WSM Managing Editor
RSS |
IE 7 |
Website Services
Submit your press releases for public review at Website Services Magazine
Skype Selects Brightpoint to Launch US Consumer and Reseller Web Stores; Skype
Certified Products Now Available For Purchase at
www.skype.com -
Skype Lauches Web Stores
Internet Security Systems Unveils Proventia Server Intrusion Prevention
System for Windows; Company Expands Security Portfolio with Next-Generation
Server Protection -
Proventia Server Intrusion System
AT&T Launches Internet Security News Network; First-of-Its-Kind Internet
Security Webcast Delivers Critical Information to Enterprises -
Internet Security News Network
m-Qube Powers Freestyle's Interactive Mobile Marketing Capability; Leading
Mobile Channel Enabler and Interactive Agency Partner to Bring Innovative
Solutions to Today's Leading Brands -
m-Qube Powers FreeStyle's Interactive Mobile Marketing Capability
Enjoy Media Acquires Corporate Marketing Firm -
Enjoy Media
Webinar Survey Shows Increase in Reporting and Business Intelligence Accuracy is
Primary Expected Benefit of Master Data Management Initiatives for Data
Governance -
Webinar Survey Results of Master Data Management Initiatives for Data Governance
If you are an online statistics junkie like I am, you may be interested
to know that VisiStat has developed a real-time desktop analytics
application. StatCasting™, an enhanced implementation of their
VisiStat 3.0 Web analytics solution, enables users to view web analytic
reports live from the convenience of a desktop. "The StatCasting
technology allows any company to receive the instant, mission critical
data necessary to maximize marketing efforts, realize measured
performance and increase return on investment," according to the
company's PR rep.
LINK: VisiStat.com
Amazon-owned Alexa is offering its index of more than 5
billion documents to anyone interested in using it. The amazing part is that
developers can also use Alexa's servers
and processing power to search and process its data - for example a
regional or topic specific search portal. The Web is abuzz with talk of how
this will turn the search world on its head because there are no licensing fees
and the only fees are based on usage - essentially one dollar per CPU hour
consumed, one dollar per gig of storage used, one dollar per fifty gigs of data
processed and one dollar per gig of data uploaded (if your service resides on their
platform). Learn more about the Alexa Web Search Platform.
For those involved in the affiliate marketing industry, LinkConnector has
developed an interesting way to match merchants and the affiliates of the
available network.
An excerpt from the press release:
LinkConnector,
an Affiliate Marketing network, today announced its launch of Affiliate Ranking,
a new system that enables merchants to calibrate the criteria LinkConnector uses
to rank affiliates in the network. Affiliate Ranking works by identifying and
displaying a ranking value for each affiliate in the network, based on
evaluation criteria customizable by each merchant. A merchant is able to assign
individualized weights to a range of affiliate criteria, including affiliate
network activity, affiliate earnings, traffic volume, and longevity in the
LinkConnector network. Affiliate Ranking then scores affiliates on a scale of
one to five stars, enabling LinkConnector merchants to save time and increase
efficiency in selecting the best affiliates to promote their online campaigns.
The system provides an incentive for affiliates to achieve excellence by
rewarding outstanding activity in the network.
Affiliate Programs |
Merchant Solutions |
LinkConnector |
Website Services
There has been some moderate buzz surrounding SourceTool.com this week - a
vertical business directory which links buyers and suppliers. SourceTool indexes
and organizes 500,000 business suppliers around the world according to UNSPC®, a
product classification system developed by the United Nations Development
Program. “What we like about UNSPSC® is that it is an actively managed
classification system in the public domain that is used by the major supply
chain software systems,” explained Dan Savage, CEO of TradeComet.com. While
listings are free SourceTool asks that you include "sourcetool.txt" on your root
directory as well as UNSPC numbers in your meta-tags.
A fair trade-off?
You tell us... comment below.
"
Arbitrage is the
practice of taking advantage of a state of imbalance between two or more
markets: a combination of matching deals are struck that exploit the imbalance,
the profit being the difference between the market prices" according to
Wikipedia. The term is mainly applied to trading in financial instruments but
'Net traffic arbitrageur's are increasingly popping up everywhere these days and
"bouncing" traffic from less-expensive first and second-tier networks to
capitalize on existing bid gaps or the organic (non-paid) traffic they are
receiving from the search networks.
Yahoo! added one thousand beta-testers to its Publisher program this week and
early reports are indicating that there is big money to be made bouncing traffic
to advertisers. Sites within the Yahoo! publisher community are typically larger
and more established and should not necessarily need to send traffic away from
their sites but the prevailing thought seems to be that if they are leaving
without taking the specific action called for by the site anyway (say a
newsletter registration for instance) you might as well monetize on the
end-user's departure.
Speaking with a few of the newer beta-testers of the Yahoo! Publisher program,
the revenue is rolling. Whether it's because the commission percentage is higher
than that of Google or because Yahoo!'s Content Match program is more
established than Google's new separate bidding for content and search which
results in higher bids is anyone's guess. So what does this mean to you? Well,
unless you are in the Yahoo! publisher network not much. Yahoo! will most likely
limit the number of authorized publisher for quite some time to keep the sites
and the revenue share at a premium.
Yahoo Publisher |
Arbitrage |
Yahoo |
Affiliate |
Website Services |
You know what? You don't have to live in New York or California to run a
successful Web company (although by the looks of the SES exhibit booths this
week I could be wrong). That means website success in no way depends on your
geographic location but it does depend on having a good, nay great, website
design. Website Services was lucky enough to meet a gentleman this week who
knows his 'Net stuff and let us know about his
top 10 list of bad Web
design problems.
Bad Design |
Website Design |
Bad Website Design |
Website Services |
TrueLocal.com's Jake Baille (also a panelist at the "Fun With Dynamic Website" session at Search Engine Strategies this week) was kind enough to walk us through their new local advertising system (read TrueLocal's recent press release). TrueLocal is currently indexing over 13 million local businesses and 50 million local web pages.
True Local | TrueLocal | Local Online Advertising | Website Services
It's not just vast content sites that are looking more closely at in-site search these days - it is online retailers as well. Website Services Managing Editor Pete Prestipino had an opportunity to sit down with Shaun Ryan, CEO of SLI-Systems and Search Engine Strategies exhibitor to find out what makes its in-site search distinct from other providers. The answer? It's more than just site search, it's site search that learns from users "clicking" behavior and improves the results over time.
Ryan distiguished online retailers such as etronics who are using the technology to its fullest. What makes SLI-Systems Learning Search different is that it is not based on any sort of ranking or relevancy algorithm, but rather the results that consumers have found useful (in aggregate). This reduces the times it takes for a customer to find the information or products they need. For those companies involved directly with promoting their sites and engaged in pay per click management, the company has also developed an enterprise product named Ad Champion™ which is an automated tool for creating and manageing the whole paid search process. Here is how it works, Ad Champion™ automatically implements rich, ever changing paid search campaigns by using the common (and not so common) search terms entered by customers on your own site search. This in turn drives campaigns on Web search ad networks such as Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. Powerful stuff - actually, powerful stuff that works.
Readers can learn more about Learning Search and SLI's Ad Champion product at www.SLI-Systems.com
SLI Systems |
Learning Search |
Ad Champion |
SLI |
Website Services |
Having quality inbound links and developing
appropriate internal link structures is essential to website success.
Read our latest post live from the Search Engine Strategies Conference
in Chicago regarding Advanced Link Building.
Every organization should be concerned with their online reputation. A great session hosted by Danny Sullivan, attendees were privy to a fascinating talk regarding reputation monitoring and the management of those reputations online. Review notes from the Reputation Monitoring and Management session now. Important links to remember are included! Speakers like Andy Beal of Fortune Interactive, Nan Dawkins of RedBoots Consulting and Rob Key of Converseon.
Millions of people are shopping online and it looks as though it's still on
an upward trend. But if you live in West Virginia, be prepared to pay a little
more for that online purchase. West Virginia's state tax department is tracking
online purchases this year.
In an effort to boost its collections on such sales, the West Virginia state Tax
Department will include a form in tax booklets next year to help taxpayers
figure out how much they owe in sales tax from their online purchases. According
to an article found at the
DailyMail.com "Only
200 retailers nationwide have volunteered to collect states' sales tax from
online or mail-order transactions. Customers that buy from a company that
doesn't collect the tax are responsible for paying what they owe when tax time
comes around in April."
Right now there's no uniform tax for online purchases. State officials estimate
that they loose nearly 25 million dollars in lost revenue each year on purchases
made online. Is a nationwide online tax coming soon? It's hard to tell but there
is one thing that is certain - states are taking a much closer look.
Take the Online Sales Tax Survey: Should individual states adopt an online sales tax?
There are hundreds of reasons why you should let website visitors print
content directly from your site. Say for instance that you are hosting
a seminar - you could include driving directions or offers from local
hotels. If you are a publisher like WSM you could provide your
editorial calendar or article submission procedures. Retail sites could
include order forms, privacy policies, product guarantees. Consulting
sites could provide e-books, white papers and newsletters. But why
should you provide the ability for users to print your content
directly? Well, for one reason we don't all have time to sit and read
pages and pages of content and will often print materials and them read
later. You'll find those sites that provide content AND offer a means
to print content typically receive results long after their visitor
leaves since it provides greater (longer term) reach for marketing
efforts.
The following is the most common way to let users print content from Web pages. Achieved by the following JavaScript code:
<A HREF="BLOCKED SCRIPTwindow.print()">Click to Print This Page</A>
Should you include the print function on every page?
Well, of course not. But you may want to include it on specific pages
such as those outlined above. The following is some "best practice"
guidance on developing your own "print content project" at your own
site.
Make a Page for Printing:
Since the majority of sites use a combination of site-based images and
advertising, many site developers and webmasters create "text-only"
pages limited to only what is relevant to the user (the content) and
leave out arbitrary on-site links and third-party advertising as they
will often cause additional pages to be printed as opposed to only what
is necessary.
Customize the Printing Page:
Remember that most visitors using this function will print the content
for later review. It is important that you include a link where that
content can be found again and perhaps some information on your
company. This is a crucial step for those offering online product
guarantees, coupons, terms and conditions, etc. - essentially anything
that is either important for the user to know or important for you as a
site owner to convey.
Direct Users to the Print-Only Version With Anchor Text:
There is always a hidden "double-benefit" to doing things the right
way. Not only will your users appreciate the fact that you are sharing
content and providing it to them in a format they can carry with them
there are some very obvious benefits when it comes to optimizing your
website. When you direct users to a printed page, do so not with images
but with keyword based anchor text which will be weighted by the search
engines more beneficially. Anchor text is the text that you use for
linking to a page - so instead of using the phrase "Click to Print This
Article" use anchor text such as "Printing Pages with JavaScript".
All in all, it may take a little work to transform existing content to
utilize this approach, but the benefits are obvious are long term.
Javascript |
java |
Website Services Magazine