HOW IMPORTANT IS SECURITY TO THE WEB START-UP?

"Oh, hello. You've been hacked."

Oh yeah, hackers, crackers and script kiddies - they're out there and they're watching your web site.

Hate to tell you this but the barbarians are at the gate. Hackers, crackers and script-kiddies armed with dictionary software are poised and ready to hack your site and make off with all of that highly-sensitive customer data – oh, you know, names, addresses, CREDIT CARD NUMBERS. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who emails his customer base to cancel their credit cards and contact Experian, TransUnion and Equifax to flag their credit activity for the next two years.

Whether your MySQL is crammed with sensitive data, or your CMS is packed with sensitive, proprietary business information, you need to protect what you got, Jack, or you ain’t got jack.

Redundant layers of security are the norm in the corporate realm, but we regularly read that this university, this credit card company or this retail store data has been hacked and is now floating out there in the Ethernet. So, what’s a small business to do? A sole proprietor or a two-man dog-and-pony? How can they assure security?

The Number One Source of Hacker Attacks Is Some One You Know
Yeah, it’s not some 15-year-old in Bora Bora trying to access your MySpace account. The most likely threat is an angry business partner or sub-contractor or, sad to say, a spouse, a kid or your friendly Uncle Bob who comes over every Saturday to balance accounts.

Cures: Limit access to your business computer. It should not be a part of the home computer network. It should be a separate and distinct work station, password protected, off limits to anyone.

Bulk up your passwords, especially when keeping those who know you out. Forget Fluffy 909. An irate spouse’ll figure cat + birthday = password. Use signs, symbols and numbers to create passwords that can’t be defeated by someone you know.

Then There are the War Drivers, War Chalkers, Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, Key Logger Software and Zombie Computer Armies.

War drivers cruise industrial parks looking for leakage from an office network. All they need is a laptop, an antenna and networking software and they become a part of the office gang.

And all of that other nasty hacker-crap is out there. What can you do?

Protect your work station data and back it up automatically with an outboard hard drive.

Use a reputable host who maintains multiple layers of security hardware and software. Ask about access to the server room, ask where the servers are located and ask about on-site security. You can get good shared hosting for about $7.00 a month so we’re not talking breaking the bank, here.

Scan everything.
As an online entrepreneur, your inbox is filled every morning with every thing from the 14th penis enlargement spam this week to actual emails from customers and clients. Separating legitimate email from hacker missives isn’t always easy. However, any good email system will scan incoming, but if you have doubts, perform a separate scan on a piece of email before opening.

Use SSL Encryption
First, no savvy computer buyer is going to place an order if the little ‘s’ in ‘https’ is missing from the address bar of a site, and those that do jeopardize their identify, credit and your business

Maintain Your System Security
You don’t have to pay a bunch for site security software – good stuff. There’s even some OSS out there that professionals use. However, none of this software is going to do any good if it’s data and hasn’t been patched in three years

New bugs, viruses, scams and schemes are unleashed upon our sorry selves and there is no web police. It’s the wild, wild web.

Here’s what you want:

• server side security and lots of it

• SSL certification if you’re transmitting personal information.

• An automatic back up system, i.e. an outboard hard drive

• Quality system security software that performs a daily scan in the background and produces a log for review. Keep log data to track attempts by hackers to breach security.

• A separate system, distinct from a home or office network. A stand-alone impervious to ware drivers, war chalkers and other ne’er-do-wells.

• A hands off policy if you work out of a home office.

• Security scan software – software that equips you to scan individual documents for malware.

• Passwords on steroids. Let ‘em break :q##s6gr))1!sz+++. Never gonna happen.

• Finally, stay vigilant. You never know where a security breach will take place and there’s no 100% guarantee that you can make your business impregnable.

But you can sure make it hard on hackers who are more likely to move on to an open door than try to figure out your redundant layers of server- and system-side security.

Not sure if your site is secure? Drop me a line before the barbarians break down the walls.

Later,

Webwordslinger.com

CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME CAN MAKE YOU OR BREAK YOU

NOW THAT'S A GOOD DOMAIN NAME!

Web Site Domains:

Master of Your Domain? You Should Be.

There’s no argument among SEO professionals that optimization using widespread SEO tactics isn’t going to be as effective as these tactics once were. There was a time when a well-stuffed HTML keyword tag did the trick but spiders soon “figured out” how to spot overstuffed keyword tags. Same with title tags, alt tags, description tags and other coding elements that have been abused by the black and gray hat communities.

Let’s face it, search engine algorithms have become much more sophisticated, determining not only site content but the quality of that content – a highly subject determination even for logical, discerning humans, much less search engine spiders.

However, this hasn’t prevented attempts to subvert the search engine process. As algorithms become more complex, the means to circumvent the rules follow close behind. Today, search engine algorithms can spot deceptive practices at a glance so even attempting to “fool” spiders is a dangerous, short-sighted, potentially site-lethal activity.

To improve the impression your newly-launched site makes on search engines, consider your domain name, your domain registrar, your web host and other factors that build or corrode the trust of web site crawlers.

Naming Your Domain

If you haven’t picked a domain name yet, good. We’re not too late. If you have picked a domain name but haven’t built the site, you can always register a new, more potent domain name. And if the site is launched, up-and-running, consider the creation of a sub-domain.

Pick words related to your products or services. Play around and get creative, but remember, spiders register your domain name regardless of what name appears on the site skin. So, your domain name should tell spiders this is a hardware site not a porn site.

Also, when selecting a domain name, consider your business plan carefully. If you’re going global, try to get the dot com extension for your proposed domain name. It’s the world-wide standard in identifying a commercial site.

If you’re a local business reaching a local market, add your location to the domain, making things clearer to humans and to spiders. For example: cheapeatsmiami.com pretty much says it all for a site reviewing Miami restaurants. Right on the money.

Other examples: cpaogden.com, austincustomcakes.com and so on. A domain like this will help you show up on local searches, a search engine feature that’s become increasingly popular and profitable for small businesses targeting a local or regional demographic. Add it to the domain name.

Also, register the domain for two years or more through a reputable registrar. Better web hosting companies offer domain registration as a free service. The two-year commitment is a trust-building element between you and visiting spiders who know everything there is to know about your site – including how long you plan to stick around and whether you’re a domain squatter with thousands of domains registered and up for sale or auction.

Choosing a Domain Host

Once your domain is registered, you need a web hosting company to provide a connection to the wild, wild web. Select a company that’s been around for 10 years or longer – a track record you can verify. A fly-by-night outfit can fly in the middle of the night, taking your site and your customer database with it.

Look for features. Lots of free software – a free site building package, a free shopping cart and checkout, free metrics analysis tools – everything you need to build and grow a web site to profitability should be included as part of the monthly hosting fee. If you don’t get this long list of goodies, keep looking for a host.

Also, you’re known by the company you keep so avoid hosts that accept any site for a buck. Scam sites, overseas drug companies, adult sites and other “unsavory” neighbors define your server-side neighborhood. It’s a question you want to ask the host’s rep before signing up for a 24-month stint. Your web host should be viewed as a partner in your endeavor so choose wisely when selecting a company to host that great domain you were able to snag.

Register Early. Register Often.

Search engine spiders may be mindless bots but they’ve got great memories. A spider comes to know your site inside out and vice-versa. A spider can identify a site’s launch date, the date the site was last spidered, what the site looked like when last spidered (cached view), who your host is, what your business is and on and on.

Register your domain name ASAP, even if the entire site isn’t up yet. It can take weeks and months to get spidered so the sooner your submit your site for consideration the better. Just make sure to identify pages under construction and prevent spiders from crawling and indexing new pages until they’re ready and tested.

Submit your domain to Google, Yahoo and MSN – the big three. But also submit your domain to smaller, more specialized search engines like Overture, Alexa, Ask and so on.

Important note coming up: There are literally thousands of search engines and registering with each one would take forever. So, site owners purchase search engine submission software to simplify the task through automation – automatic domain submissions to search engines.

Google won’t accept machine-submitted domains, and Yahoo charges for a SERPs listing. So, each submission should be “done by hand” to enhance chances of getting spidered, indexed and recognized faster by the biggest search engines.

To further encourage spiders to visit quickly, submit your site map through Google’s Webmaster Central. This awakens the sleeping giant, provides a site address, a domain name and a complete set of site links in the form of the site map. This is important because spiders are programmed to track links wherever they lead. The site map provides a road map of links spiders crawl ensuring faster, more complete and more accurate indexing.

Building the Trust of Spiders

Bots are a suspicious lot. They trust no one. They’re programmed to look for signs of deceit and deception on the part of a small segment of site owners who don’t play by the rules. If you’re spending a bunch of time trying to outwit spiders, put that time to better use by building credibility and trust of spiders.

Link to higher ranking sites that help search engine users. Links should be relevant to the site and to the visitors’ expectations. Encourage links exchanges and build your site’s links popularity.

Links popularity, you say? Yep. Web site owners are more likely to link to sites that offer good, solid, authoritative, unbiased information than sites that are nothing but hype and the hard sell. By adding good content and useful features (mortgage calculators, stock market feeds, live video feeds, etc.) a site increases links popularity, i.e. more one-way, in-bound links – a real trust-builder when it comes to spiders.

Non-reciprocal in-bound links indicate a site that other site owners are recommending to their visitors, asking nothing in return as is the case with a reciprocal link exchange between two topic-related sites (still good, but not as good as the one-way in-bound).

Avoid any SEM or SEO tactics that might even hint at an attempt to deceive visitors or bots. Put black text against a black background and it’s invisible to site visitors but spiders can see it, read it and assess its validity. There are lots of scams and schemes that algos now capture routinely. Play by the SE rules and always err on the side of caution when in doubt.

There’s a lot more to selecting a domain name than showing the world how clever you are. A domain name should be used to provide information about the site’s content and purpose.

The domain name should be registered through a reputable web host. Find a solid host that registers domain names free, as part of monthly hosting fees. They’re out there.

Register the domain with the big three search engines as the site is being constructed. Make sure that pages under construction are designated “off limits” to spiders.

Invite spiders by submitting the domain name to search engines. Even better, submit a site map to make sure the site is crawled and indexed completely first time through.

Finally, build trustworthy relationships with spiders. Increase the number of links in general. Add useful, interesting content to increase the site’s links popularity and avoid even the whiff of scandal.

Master your domain. It may well be your future.

Thinking of taking the plunge into the world of ecommerce? Before you do, drop me line. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches, a lot of trouble and a lot of cash.

Later, dudes and dudettes,

Webwordslinger.com

CONNECTIVITY = WEB SUCCESS

BUILD YOUR OWN

WEBLET

Weblets:

Join Forces. Make Friends. Build Revenue.

You launch your site, Google your URL and discover that the only site ranking lower is the one selling the Hanta virus. (Really bad business decision on the part of the “Virus for Sale” site).

So what’s a site owner supposed to do to get a little respect? A little attention? And some foot traffic? Easy. Start a weblet.

What’s a Weblet?

There are plenty of site owners in the same boat. No page rank, indifferent recognition by search engines and a site rank over four million. In other words, invisible to potential buyers.

A weblet links together a group of small sites selling to the same demographic but not competing with other weblet members. It’s called parallel marketing and you want to go proactive on this ASAP.

Here’s an example of a weblet:

Site A (you) sell programming services. So, you exchange links with an SEO company, a computer hardware site, a data security site, an FTP site, a web design firm – all businesses targeting the same demographic but not providing competing goods and services.

The benefits of starting a weblet:

• a larger web presence quickly.

• more highly-qualified visitors (which translates into higher per sale ratios).

• consolidation of useful information for visitors.

• lots of reciprocal links.

• self-perpetuating expansion.

• increased traffic = increased sales = increased net profits.

Let’s look at each of these benefits more closely.

A Larger Web Presence Quickly

A weblet is not intended to impress search engine spiders. All of those reciprocal links cancel each other out. But the point of a weblet isn’t to move you up in page rank. A weblet is people-driven. Forget the bots. A weblet drives more traffic by creating a bigger web presence – fast.

Think about it. Your little site, tucked back in the weboonies, won’t see much organic search engine traffic – no matter how much you optimize for search engines. SEO is for search engines. A weblet is for buyers.

By joining or creating a weblet, you cast a wider net over the same demographic. Example:

Site A books cruises.

Site B provides insurance at discount rates for seniors (seniors cruise a lot, FYI)

Site C books adventure travel packages

Site D provides lodging

Site E plane reservations

Straight on down the line. All low-ranking sites. All with zero web presence. But, when linked, the whole, indeed, becomes greater than the sum of the parts. You’ve created (or joined) a useful tool to enhance web buyers’ searches. You’ve created market synergy. Cool.

More Highly-Qualified Visitors

Weblet-driven visitors found your site through a topic-related site. This indicates either more-than-casual interest or a knowledgeable buyer searching the weblet for a number of related goods and services.

The driven visitor, eager to learn more, will ultimately be eager to purchase more. And the knowledgeable buyer (your best customer) knows his or her needs and standards for quality, making the sale and long-term client care easier and less expensive than if that visitor found you via a PPC blue block on Google’s SERPs.

Consolidation of Information

A weblet is a collection of sites that share one thing in common – the same demographic. Whether the web user who enters your weblet is “just looking” or ready to buy, you and your weblet buddies have made it easier for the buyer to meet his/her needs, and for you and other weblet members to make the sale or close the deal.

In other words, weblets work because they make surfing easier for digital buyers with lots of digital dollars to spend.

Lots of Reciprocal Links

Not as good as one-way links into to your site as far as search engine algorithms are calculated, but again, weblets are about buyers not bots. So, you won’t move up much for PR, even with all of this inter-connectivity, though you well score points for having lots of useful links for visitors. You score some points with bots but, again, that’s not the point.

Your little, unconnected site isn’t going to be found by luck. But when you’re linked into 20 or 30 related sites, you have a lot of access points into your online store. That’s a good thing for your bottom line. Bots don’t buy.

Self-Perpetuating Expansion

Once a weblet has been started, it will expand organically as more topic-specific sites want in. This is good and bad. You want lots of related sites all linked together but if a lone taxidermy site suddenly links in you’ve got a problem because the link isn’t useful to your lace collectors’ weblet.

Maintain the role of administrator of the weblet so that you can keep all links on topic. Encourage weblet members to recruit other related sites to join. The more the merrier. And the bigger and more expansive the presence of each, individual site.

Suggestion: Create a simple logo for your weblet that members display on their sites. “Member Coin Collectors Weblet” It’s a badge of membership and a confidence builder, indicating that peer sites give tacit approval of a weblet site, its products and practices.

Increased Revenues

Increased profits.

As a weblet member, you’ll see more weblet-driven traffic – knowledgeable buyers looking for information and the best deal on the web. You’re plugged in to other sites much faster, providing a service to site visitors by providing links to further searches. You build good will and confidence quickly.

And that, in turn, quickly becomes the profitability you’ve been looking for.

Start by making a list of parallel services and products. Google each. Look for lower ranking sites – pages 10 of the SERPs and beyond. Contact these site owners via the contact us page or look up the site’s owner in Whois and get to work spreading the word through your own weblet.

Free and effective. You gotta love that.

Connectivty = web success. Drop me a line and let's get your site hooked into the grid, eh?

Webwordslinger.com

GO HYPER-VIRAL ON LAUNCH DAY

Ummm, no, this is NOT viral marketing, but it could be just plain viral. Wash your hands.

Ready to Launch?

Go Hyper-Viral and Get Noticed NOW!

Viral marketing has been around for thousands of years. It’s nothing more than word of mouth marketing (WOM), but with the advent of the world wide web (W3), viral has taken on a nuanced cachet of subversion – exploiting the system. How cool is that?

Through the centuries, WOM was just that. One person told another who told another about this book or that technology and word spread. It was self-perpetuating. As the band of “in-the-know” individuals expanded, naturally WOM expanded with it.

Today, within the ferocious sphere of e-commerce, viral marketing has changed tactics but the premise is still based on word of mouth. Today viral marketing includes:

• blog posts on topics of a site owner’s expertise with a back link to the poster’s site

• uploading product “how-tos,” movie trailers and endorsements to YouTube and other sites that rely on user-generated content

• syndicating articles to other web sites, providing a back link

• creating connectivity within a smaller, niche market (building a weblet; see below)

• posting to Wiki sites to establish authority within a market or commercial sphere

There are other viral tactics. Create a billboard on MySpace and Facebook pointing to your site; sign up as an expert on Yahoo Answers; list services on sites like Craigslist; make your site book-markable by providing visitors the option to ping you at sites like digg and other social book marking sites. Digital technology has changed the tactics of viral, word of mouth advertising, spreading the news globally in just seconds. We’ve come a long way fast.

Hyper-Viral Marketing

Hyper-viral marketing employs new technologies to expand WOM exponentially. It’s taken a few years for the technology to catch up with demand but today, web site owners have a number of tools and tactics at their disposal to simplify and automate the process of building word of mouth webuzz.

When blogs got hot at the turn of the millennium, posting to one blog at a time wasn’t efficient, though site owners who recognized the viral aspects of this marketing tactic did, indeed, take the time to do just that. Cut and paste. Cut and paste. Over and over.

Now, software tools, like Feedburner are available to automate the process of blog posting. Using this tool and others like it makes it simpler to post content on remote sites, to measure readership and placement of syndicated content and blog posts, to maintain metrics on subscriptions to newsletters, podcasts and other interest-generating content.

Google recently purchased Feedburner. As of the day of this writing, this software was feeding 870,764 publishers (site owners like you) with 1,549,103 distinct feeds.

Feedburner is an excellent example of a tool that has been developed to turn viral marketing into hyper-viral marketing – automatically.

Facebook Goes Hyper Viral

Ever since Facebook launched and social sites went viral, online businesses have employed the resources of these sites to create some free biz buzz. It’s easy to create a digital billboard for your business on Facebook, which makes it an ideal viral marketing tool.

The social website has recently gone hyper-viral with the addition of its “People You May Know” feature. This addition increases the utility of Facebook as a viral outlet by enabling users to search for quality contacts by geography, specialty, schools attended and so on. The idea is to create smaller communities within the larger Facebook universe.

For site owners, the addition of this feature to an already valuable viral marketing tool increases the utility of the site. However, your Facebook space may have to be revisited. New content to attract Facebook’s site search bots can easily be added to link up with old business acquaintances, classmates, neighbors and so on. The result? A higher quality of contact within the Facebook/social site model.

Blog Directories

Blogs are a great way to go hyper viral fast, especially if you post provocative, controversial and bleeding edge content. Getting your blog picked up, however, is another matter. You can submit to blogs but there’s no guarantee that the blogmaster is going to give you some space without something in return – a blog bribe in the W3 trade.

Blog directories build credibility and make it much easier to find your posts. To list your blog, visit toprankblog.com for an extensive list of blog directories. Using automated technology and current blog posting software, you can access dozens of weblog directories and list your blog with a few clicks.

As blogs take on a more significant role in reporting news, identifying trends and shaping opinions and buying decisions, their importance as a hyper viral marketing tool increases. That means good content. Buzz-worthy content. Sites like Spike.com provide a lot of provocative content. (Word of caution: Spike contains content that may not be suitable for all users so be forewarned. Some of the stuff on the site is crude, salacious and downright weird, but that’s the whole point of provocative content.)

Schemes, Scams, Disputes and Deceptions

Whenever a new technology is developed, there are schemers, scammers and other neer-do-wells out to subvert the process and take advantage of the unwitting so tread slowly in this new age of hyper-viral marketing. The snake oil salesman is knocking on the door. Make sure you know what you’re paying for, what you’re getting into and what kind of measurable results you can anticipate. Oh, and does it come with any kind of guarantee?

There are blogging services and press release syndicators that “guarantee” that you’ll get posted on 10,000 blogs within 24 hours. You gotta question the editorial judgment involved in posting to appropriate blogs. Your erudite musings on the Chaos Theory may end up on an anarchist site in Columbia. Be careful. These services are automated and the results aren’t always what’s anticipated.

Oh, and are you going to take the time to determine how many blogs really got your post. Any busy blogger has enough filters on the incoming chute to keep mass mailings headed straight for the DELETE FOREVER file. The finality of the deletion is indisputable. It’s gone without so much as a look. But the PR distributor delivered on its promise by delivering your release to 10,000 sites. What’s more difficult to measure is how many opened the PR and how many ran it on their sites or blogs.

Take care when writing a check for services that are amorphous and difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. If you don’t know how success is measured using a distribution service, man, you got the wrong service.

Also, be wary of “hyper-viral” software coming to market. Some early 1.0 editions are buggy, some over-promise and under deliver and some make promises that may not synch up with your site or server side software. For example, there are several software developers selling RSS to blog software. One of the things that has held back the explosive use of RSS on the web is the hassles of aggregating, monitoring and getting the collected feeds before the site visitor in a meaningful, useful way.

These software packages and associated support services make hyperbolic claims of instant wealth and fame by filling blogs with your RSS feeds. Google “RSS to blog” and enjoy the battle of what works, what’s a scam and what’s worth further exploration.

You Gotta Go Hyper But Not Be Hyper

There are hyper viral tools like Feedburner (and lots of other blogger distribution software; Feedburner isn’t the only one) podcast and webcast syndication software (growing quickly), automated PR software, newsletter software and a bunch of other spam to hit the fan as hyper viral goes hyper viral – starting now.

Take your time. Choose which outlets will deliver bang for buck, which can be measured with specificity and analyzed in a useable format, which players want your money and which want to help by providing a truly potent service or software that makes spreading the word about your site easier, more automated, more targeted and even more personalized.

Hey, before you launch that site - your web dream - drop me a line or give me a call. You can get free pixels outta the chute. It's a snap.

Webwordslinger.com

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

Does E-mail Marketing Ever Work?

Only If You Do It Right

E-mail marketing went out with anti-spam laws, right? No, though many small site owners believe it did. One AOL customer got booted (temporarily) for e-mailing everyone in her address book that she’d changed her screen name. AOL believed that amounted to spamming and AOL’s terms of service (TOS) forbids spamming. Account closed.

The fact is, e-mail marketing is probably the most cost effective way of marketing your business to new customers and keeping your regulars happy.

When can I e-mail someone?

You can’t buy lists of e-mail addresses and spam blast people who have never heard of you. The starting fine is $500 if you get caught and certainly Yahoo, AOL and MSN – the big web portals – will catch you spamming 10,000 of their subscribers. You’re gone. So is the money spent on your e-mail lists.

However, there are several circumstances in which you can contact potential or existing clients or customers – lots of them at the same time.

1. You can e-mail people who have bought from you in the past. You can contact existing customers with the latest news, sales, products and other useful information. No worries.

2. You can contact people who request news from your site by giving you their e-mail address. This is usually done through the ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ pages.

3. You can also send to opt-ins – people who have downloaded a “free” e-book or some other bonus. In order to receive the free materials, opt-ins must provide their e-mail addresses. They opt-in (choose) to receive e-mail from you.

So, if you’ve been on-line for a few years, or you’ve just completed an opt-in campaign, you have a database full of very valuable information – people you can legally contact via e-mail.

Building Your Customer Base

Building a customer base usually involves contacting those who have sent you e-mails requesting information. These aren’t customers – yet! They’re opt-ins or those who have contacted you for information. And because they contacted you, you now have the opportunity to turn these visitors into customers using e-mail to sell your services, opinions or products. So, what should you include in these messages to convince people your site is the one they want to visit?

First, establish yourself as an authority or expert. If you have an MBA from Harvard Business School, be sure to mention it if your site provides tax advice. It probably shouldn’t be mentioned if you’re selling aroma therapy candles, however, because – well, frankly, your aroma candle customers simply won’t care.

Avoid referring to other “experts” as in, “Many professionals believe blah, blah, blah.” By pointing to other experts you take the spotlight away from you and your expertise. So instead, say “I believe blah, blah, blah” because you’re the authority.

Use client testimonials in your e-mail. Nothing sells success like success.

Offer something free – a free download, assessment, review and analysis – anything free attracts attention.

And be sure to provide these potential customers with information about you and your business. What is your mission? What’s your unique positioning statement (UPS)? Why are you the best in your field of expertise. This is not a time or place for false modesty so don’t be afraid to do a little selling here.

The point of e-mail marketing to non-customers is to pique curiosity, establish your credibility, identify a problem or problems and provide easy-to-understand solutions. The fact is, you’re selling these non-customers on you!

If you can convince opt-ins that you’re the solution to the problem, you’ve made a sale. And, if you actually deliver a workable solution, word of mouth advertising kicks in – so whatever you do, deliver something worthwhile.

E-mailing Regular Customers

These are people who already know how wonderful you are so you don’t need to sell them on visiting your site. Your regulars have your site bookmarked! In this case, it’s not about selling (know when to stop selling) it’s about communication – the basis of all good, long-term relationships, and that’s what you’re going for here. It’s also about the fact that repeat buyers purchase 67% more than first time buyers – something worth your consideration, wouldn’t you say?

Your objective, then, is to provide the latest on special “customer-only” sales and promotions, to provide useful non-sales content and to establish a sense of community around your web site. Share stories from repeat buyers and definitely ask buyers to provide their stories and pictures for inclusion in next month’s newsletter. If it works for Patagonia, it’ll work for you.

Avoid too many calls to action, but not all. If each month’s e-mail is all hype with no solid, useful information your going to end up in the trash without opening. You want your customers to look forward to that next e-mail and to read it top to bottom. It’s one of the least costly means of building and maintaining a strong base of regular buyers. However, an occasional call to action is expected by the recipient so use your e-mail to direct readers to take specific action – “quickly – while supplies last!” That sense of urgency motivates visitors to become buyers (site conversion).

Measuring E-mail Marketing Success

It’s not always easy to develop useful numbers from a marketing campaign. However, you receive instant customer feedback from your e-mail campaign just by counting up the number of e-mails you sent and subtract unsubscribes and bounce backs. You can quickly determine the number of e-mails that were opened and most importantly, the click through rate.

The Click-Through Rate

Absolutely. Every e-mail you send out, whether to potential or regular customers, should contain a link back to your site – either to the homepage or to the page that shows the particular product or service mentioned in the e-mail. Why make it hard for e-mail recipients to access what you mention in the e-mail? One click should do it.

The Bottom Line on E-mail Marketing

E-mail is easy to use, low-cost and it can be personalized using information stored in your database. It’s also an excellent opportunity to build customer good will by providing useful, educational content along with the latest items on sale. And customers will thank you for it – some in the form of return e-mails (always include a return e-mail address and an unsubscribe option), others in the form of increased sales. And, if your e-mails provide good information for your target audience, you begin to build a community of site visitors – visitors who return time after time to make their purchases. That’s called site stickiness.

Expectations? If you get a conversion rate of 5% you’re doing well. So, if you send out 1000 e-mails to existing customers, expect 50 of them to actually visit your site and make a purchase. Now, that doesn’t sound like a very big return but think about this – you know the junk mail you receive in your mailbox each day? Well, in these cases marketers look for a conversion rate of between .5 and 1.0% because they’re doing an industry-wide mailing.

You’re mailing to people who have contacted you so you can anticipate a return rate of 5% or better because your mailing is much more targeted to people interested in what you sell. So, do the math. Add up the costs (your time) and look for a conversion rate of 5% or better. If you don’t get that kind of return, it’s back to the drawing board to determine why your first e-mail didn’t pull. But that’s the great thing about e-mail marketing – you can do it until you get it right.

And it doesn’t cost a bundle.

E-mail auto-responders can be annoying, or they can be helpful, providing useful information and lite on the hype. Used properly, auto-responders DO work. Used poorly and they don't even get read.

Call me when you're ready to start your next e-mail campaign, okay?

Webwordslinger.com

COUNT DOWN TO SUCCESS: PRE-LAUNCH TIPS

Isn't THIS why you started your e-biz?

Preparing to Launch a Website:

Locked and Loaded

If you wait until after you launch your site to start working on search engine marketing, you’re going to be spending a lot of days watching the paint dry. It takes time for even the best designed, most highly optimized site to start pulling traffic and getting a little notice.

So, before the development of your site and during its construction and tweaking phases, there are a number of SEM steps you should take so you’re locked and loaded – ready to launch a marketing blast the day you go live.

You want that commercial web site to start kicking out cash ASAP. Up to that point it’s been all outgo and no income so, while you’re waiting for your site to be completed, take the following steps so you’re ready to market your site the day it launches.

First, What Not to Do

Don’t start any marketing or SEO tactics until the site is completed, gone through beta testing, and is as viable and functional as you can make it at this point. If you market a half-completed site with lots of UNDER CONSTRUCTION pages, visitors are going to be annoyed and search engine bots will slam you for uploading inactive site pages. Don’t let any page of your site be Googled until it’s ready.

You can identify which pages you don’t want spidered in your site’s HTML code. Any way, if it appears on the navigation bar, there had better be something to read or see or do. Or, you run the risk of annoying potential, long-time customers and search engine bots that are always looking for ways to increase the relevance of search engine results pages. A blank page hinders a user’s search and you lose Google points.

Before (or While) Your Site Is Constructed

An archives section is a good place to start. Write up some general, informational articles on the topic of your site. These shouldn’t be sell pieces. Instead, they should provide the visitor with useful, unbiased information.

Build a Public Knowledge Base

Generate 10 pieces between 600 and 1200 words each. Provide each piece with a header that includes one (and only one) of your keywords. Upload these articles to the site’s archives. Keep adding new content every few days if possible.

You can also use articles from sites like helium.com and goarticles.com for free content of interest to a typical visitor. However, these syndicated articles won’t help your positioning with search engines. Bots know this content appears on 25 other sites so it isn’t green. But it is a service to your readers. So, build a big knowledge base of good information before and during site constructed.

While Your Site Is Being Constructed

Time to get really busy.

Seed Your Blog

Add a number of posts to your blank blog. There’s nothing sadder than an empty blog. It’s up to you to pepper those pages with provocative, pithy content designed to elicit responses from visitors.

Open and Fund an AdWords Account

Open an AdWords account. Google AdWords can be low cost but watch out for click fraud and track the placement of your blocks of blue. The minimum funding of your Google AdWords account is $5.00, which won’t get you very far if you’re paying 50 cents a click. Or how about a buck a click for certain keywords? Not at all unusual.

Develop a List of Second- and Third-Tier Keywords

Which gets us to another pre-launch step. You’ve, no doubt, developed a list of keywords that you want to appear in the site’s meta data and sprinkled throughout the site text every 200 words or so. Those keywords are fine for most SEO objectives. However, with AdWords, you bid for certain keywords and deeper pockets competitors will always outbid you.

So, develop a list of second and third tier keywords – keywords you can get for less. If it costs $1.00 for the keyword phrase “hand-knit sweaters,” it might only cost you a nickel for “sweaters hand knit.” You won’t drive as much traffic using a second or third tier keyword because fewer users will enter those keywords or keyword phrase. But, the PPC will be much less, thus stretching a microscopic SEM budget.

Build Links or a Weblet

Contact other site owners and do a little “links begging.” The only sites that’ll want to link to you will be low ranking sites and, with search engines, you’re known by the company you keep so don’t expect a PR7 site owner to be eager to hook into your PR0, in-the-process-of-being-built site. But it’s still good to make contacts for follow up as your PR rises through your SEM efforts.

A weblet is a collection of linked sites that offers products and services to the same demographic. So, if you sell sunglasses online, it’d be a good idea to link to a cruise site, a travel agency site, an eyewear site, a wellness site and so on. By gathering “partners in parallel,” you create a larger web presence without competing among each weblet member. Weblets build synergies of marketing, not competitive marketing.

Contact site owners via the “Contact Us” page of their websites. If there is no direct contact information on the site (which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a commercial website, but who knows, the site could be a DBA for another corporation) use Whois – the public directory of site owners. You may not find all of the product sites at first but as your weblet grows, more site owners will hop on board. It’s a great way to build links quickly and much of the spadework can be done before site launch.

Get a Couple of Newsletters Done

Newsletters are great for pulling opt-ins and for keeping your company’s name in front of potential buyers – people who traded their web addresses to you for good information. Have at least five issues stored on your hard drive. Select topics for beginners and vets within your product sector to broaden the newsletter’s appeal.

Create a Couple of Podcasts

Get a decent microphone, write up a few five-to 10 minute reports, record them and upload them to your site. Beta test as usual.

Create Payment Gateways

Open a merchant account, not always an easy thing to do – especially if you have a few credit hiccups on your credit report, or your selling certain services or products. For example, if you’re a stock picker who provides actual recommendations, you may have difficulty obtaining a merchant account.

Open and verify a PayPal account in the company name. This will take a couple of days so do it before you start seeing PayPal orders.

Connect Up to Your Order Fulfillment House

If you plan to outsource shipping to an order fulfillment house, your content management system (CMS) has to synch up with the fulfillment house CMS so an order is sent to both parties and you can track shipping activities with a click. This is a step that’s often overlooked and the result is a bunch of emails flying back and forth until you can synchronize both content management systems. A waste of time and effort after launch.

After Launch

You may fire when ready. But maybe not fire all at once.

You’ve created a bunch of content. Maybe upload five original articles to the archives and then upload a new one every few days. Makes your site look active, fresh and green.

Same with blog posts. Salt the blog with five or six provocative posts but keep a few pieces in abeyance and add over a period of a couple of weeks. All that new content, delivered regularly, impresses site visitors and bots.

Link into your weblet and hook up with other site owners who have taken you up on a links exchange offer.

Blast your AdWords. Push these even if you have to count the pennies in the penny jar. Despite concerns about click fraud, you still only pay per click so arrange for as many impressions as the budget will allow. Go with second-tier keywords. Use the Google Keyword generator to determine the most popular keywords used for the topic of your site. Select keywords and phrases from the 10^th position and lower. You’ll pay less per click and you eliminate some heavyweight competition that doesn’t use second tier keywords.

Put all of your articles out for syndication the day you launch. Track the results as best you can. Cut and paste the first line of each article into the Google search box for the most detailed view of how this content has spread through viral means.

Finally, get up early each morning, pour that coffee and settle down to work in front of the computer. You can front load your launch for maximum SEM impact, but then there’s that follow through…

Welcome to the world of e-commerce.

So, you took the plunge but you don't want to take a bath. Got it. Drop me a line. let's talk about how to employ on-line guerrilla marketing (all legal), how to monetize your site 10 different ways and how to prepare for growth so you're ready when orders start coming in.

Later,

Webwordslinger.com

WELCOME TO MY LITTLE CORNER OF THE WEB.

Yep, that's me. Handsome little devil, eh?

Welcome to my little chunk of digital turf.

Is it time for you to stake a claim to some pixels?

Then you need a blog. Hey, something like this one.

Webwordslinger.com

Is It Time To Jump onto The Blog Bandwagon?

10 Reasons to Build a Blog

Getting noticed on the W3 is difficult what with keyword selection, site architecture, search engine bots (dumb) and all the other aspects of getting a little recognition and respect from Google and the web-o-sphere in general.

One thing anyone can do is add an off-site blog to their marketing strategy. In fact, the blog band is growing by leaps and bounds. Here’s why.

1. Blogs are free.

When you’re marketing your site using the loose change you discover in the couch, finding free outlets to express yourself and demonstrate your expertise is critical to long-term site success.

There are a lot of free blog platforms. Blogger, from Google, is popular. So is Word Press. And Typepad only costs $5.00 a month for a robust blog-building package. Give up one latte vente a month and you’ve covered the cost of a Typepad blog. Cheap is always good. Not as good as FREE, but still good.

2. Blogs are easy to build.

Blogs are template-based. Once you’ve created your account, you’re ready to choose the template that suits your taste and your industry.

Adding widgets – blog features like a site search box – is also easy. Just click on Add Widget, choose the appropriate box (HTML, text, picture, etc.) and cut and paste the HTML code snippet or upload a product picture and bingo – it’s there on your blog’s first page.

3. Blogs are easy to update.

Write your post in a word processor. DON’T use the blog platform’s WYSIWYG text editor. These text editors aren’t super powerful like a full-blown wp.

Once the blog post has been written, rewritten, spell-checked and proofed, simply copy and paste your expertise into the blog’s text editor. Here you can format the text, add keyword tags (you make them up), add pictures and links.

One key point: keep your blog current. Post new content at least twice weekly. Three or four short posts a week is even better. Keep posts between 500 and 1200 words. If you can’t say it in that amount of text, break the content into PART I, PART II and so on.

4. Blogs provide the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise.

If you’re an optician, write about vision problems and provide solutions to those problems. If you’re a plumber, talk about the importance of fixing that dripping faucet.

It’s your blog so sell your services, products or message within the context of an expert. After all, you have a blog on the subject. You have creds.

5. Blogs create search results.

Each time you post, you’ll discover another link on SERPs. The more often you post the more SE results. This creates a bigger target to hit as site visitors search for your services, products and the latest advice.

Make sure that each blog post includes a link back to your web site. If you keep more than one blog (I have three), link all of these customer contact points to create an even bigger target for web surfers.

6. Blogs create linkage.

Link to other blogs that relate to the topicality of your blog(s). If you’re an attorney, for example, you can link to home-buying blogs, mortgage blogs, tax-information blogs and a host of other blogs.

Notify the blog owner that you’ve added a link to your blog and ask for a link back to your blog. (A link swap) In no time, you’ll be part of a web ring of lots of blogs. Yep, you’re getting bigger – at least as far as search engines are concerned.

7. Generate passive revenue.

There’s only so much “you” to go around; only so many hours in a day that you can work (we all need sleep sometime), only so many places you can be at one time (one).

Monetize your blog by opening a Google AdWords account. Create a “channel” for your blog, post AdWords on each blog page and collect passive income. You may be getting a little shut-eye but your blogs are still working for you.

You won’t get rich (that’s a fact) but you can easily pick up some “walking-around money” each month, and again, it’s passive income, meaning you don’t have to put in more hours to generate that revenue.

8. Editorial freedom.

No cranky editors or clients, no limits or restrictions on content (be sure to read the blog platform’s TOS), you’re in total control of the look and feel of your blog. You’re also in control of the blog’s content.

It’s all yours. So, post your poetry, post your art, post your diary – you have editorial freedom to post whatever you want – even if it’s some crackpot theory on alien space craft resting on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. If you believe it, write it and post it.

9. Learn more about your market.

What do your clients want? What’s on their minds? What are their opinions on the topics posted on your blog? When readers start adding their comments to your posts, you learn more about what prospects want and need. You also identify emotional hot buttons useful in creating calls to action on your site or blog.

Free market research. I always like free stuff.

10. Blogs are fun.

Even if you aren’t real good at stringing words together, who cares? It’s your blog.

Post family pix to share with distant relatives and friends. Create an event blog for the upcoming college reunion and get your RSVPs all in one place. Hook up with old chums and make a name for yourself. Even if it’s just a little name for yourself.

And, because you’re blogging about topics that interest you, you’ll learn more about relevant subjects as you research new posts. That’s always fun.

So, what are you waiting for? Free marketing, credibility-building, market research, a larger web presence, more on-line friends around the globe, no editorial limitations (within reason, of course), and fun.

Join the millions of bloggers out there posting in the blog band. Yep, jump on the blog band wagon.

You’ll love it, and it’s all yours.

Don't have time to build a blog? I do.

Drop me line and let's get you more pixels and more web friends. This ain't rocket science.

Webwordslinger.com

CREATE THE NEED, MAKE THE SALE

Need help?

You need the web.

The Needs-Driven Customer:

Creating Buyer Need

The visitor to your site, who got there because he or she needs the products or services you sell, is your best customer, and as such, your site should create and emphasize the need that drives the sale.

I’ve got a little problem…

People turn to the web for all kinds of information. It’s fast, accessible and anonymous. So, a web user with an odd-looking rash is stopping by that medical information site, not out of curiosity, but in search of answers. Problems like this are much easier to deal with online than in the doctor’s office, though the web advice should always be taken with a grain of salt since you don’t know where it came from or who wrote it.

In these cases, search engine users usually enter keywords that contain the condition about which they want to learn more, i.e., odd-looking rashes – a subject no one wants to discuss with anyone!

While these are, indeed, needs-driven buyers, they may not know it yet. Yours may be the first site they visit to learn more about treatments or solutions for this or that. They may be browsers. One way to keep them from bouncing to another site is to present the problem and the solution(s) right at the top of the home page. The intent here is to identify with the visitor with a “no big deal” approach. “Got an unusual itch? Try this cream.”

I’m in big trouble…

This is the true, needs-driven buyer who will pay whatever it takes to get the information he or she needs now – today. Here’s a fairly common example you see all over the W3:

Are you about to lose your house to foreclosure?

Is the foreclosure notice nailed to the door?

The auction on Thursday?

Let us show you how to avoid foreclosure even if the foreclosure sale is just a couple of days away.

Now that’s a needs-driven buyer. And if you have an e-book download that tells people how to deal with this dire situation, you’ve got a buyer – even at $79.95. Why? Because that’s a buyer who needs good information fast – regardless of cost and $79.95 is a lot less than a trip to the lawyer. There’s “avoiding foreclosure and bankruptcy information” for sale from one end of the web to the other for one good reason. People need that information – now!

Unfortunately, many sites selling products and services employ scare tactics to generate sales.

If You Don’t Call Today

You Will Lose Your Home

Well, maybe, maybe not. And there’s certainly no guarantee that the information contained in this “avoiding foreclosure” e-book download is accurate, or even applies to the laws in your state, which differ from state to state BTW!

Sites that market to the needs-driven buyer should consider a more sympathetic, less threatening approach to sales. These people are already under an immense amount of stress and your web site headlines shouldn’t add to the load. Instead, be sympathetic and understanding, establish trust in the buyer through reassuring site text and close the sale. Oh, and it would really be great if you delivered a real, useful product or information instead of preying on the desperate. That’s just plain creepy.

Creating Need

The fact is, many visitors to a web site aren’t sure if they need the product or not. Listen, anyone can click off the Tiffany’s site and forego a sterling silver martini stirrer. It’s not a need in the lives of most people so it’s easy to make this buying decision. No. But what about other, more sensitive items?

What about drug testing materials for children or valued employees? In this case, the visitor may recognize the need for drug testing kits but still be on the fence about making an actual purchase because of the potential ramifications.

Pointing out the benefits of low-cost, accurate drug testing kits to the long-term health of the visitor’s child creates and strengthens the need in the mind of the visitor.

In the area of fashion and/or accessories, you can highlight your “must haves” based on your perceptions of future trends and, in some cases, create demand (need) by lowering prices, obtaining celebrity endorsements or just by giving your hand-painted bangles to Paris Hilton and hope for a windfall.

It wasn’t too long ago that no one worried about fungus living under toenails. Drug companies created the need for a medication to treat this condition by showing just how gross toenail fungus is – especially when it talks. Ugh! Today, people buy anti-fungal toenail medication by prescription, and if you read the list of side effects, you wonder why anyone would take this stuff. For toenail fungi? Who even knew it was such a problem?

Need is created by identifying a new “problem” and developing the means to manage that problem. This creates demand. The “solutions” to these problems include those developed by multi-national companies, but they also include your cure for boring meat loaf. The point is, many visitors to your site won’t realize that they need what you’re selling – to look better, feel better, make more money, be happier, smarter, healthier and worry-free.

Create need in the mind of visitors using site copy that doesn’t focus on the features of your product or service. Who cares? Focus on the benefits to the end users - the people who now recognize the need you’ve created.

If you can sell products and information to needs-driven customers, your conversion rate will soar as fewer browsers stop by. Instead, you get a qualified buyer eager to purchase the solutions you have for sale and the benefits you have to offer.

Create the need and make the sale. It’s as simple as that.

Now, what about your e-biz? How you doing? Need some suggestions for boosting conversion ratios? NP. Drop me a line or give me a call and let's uncover some missed opportunities that'll generate business, and that means revenue.

Webwordslinger.com

Testing out ping.fm, a simplified way to consolodate posting. Post once, and you're everywhere. News at 11:00 http://ping.fm/i2d3U

WEBINARS SIMPLIFIED: AHHH, SHOW BIZ.

EXPERTS WILL PAY $100 FOR GOOD INFORMATION FROM AN AUTHORITY.

SIGN UP 100 ATTENDEES AND THAT'S 10K.

RECORD THE WEBINAR AND USE IT AS A WEBCAST ON YOUR SITE TO CREATE CREDS.

Webinars:

“Thank You For Attending”

Webinars have grown increasingly popular in the era of Web 2.0. They’re interactive, easy to set up and deliver a lot of advantages to the webinar host. And a lot of revenue if you’re good at it.

Webinars versus Webcasts

Webcasts are one-way communication. You, the site owner, post a digital video (DV) on your web site or upload it to YouTube and other social sites. You talk. The viewer listens. And unless you have a compelling way about you, watching a webcast is like watching grass grow.

Today, people don’t want online passivity. They don’t want to sit there. They want to interact. Interact with each other via facebook.com, myspace.com and other sites that rely on the user-generated content of those laying claim to a few pixels, and interact with experts who actually have something worthwhile to say.

Webinars are totally interactive. They’re scheduled to start at a specific time, they’re hosted by an expert and “attendees” from around the world interact with the webinar host and with each other.

Webinars are interesting because of this interactivity. As a participant, you’re free to ask the expert questions, ask for clarifications or expansion on a specific topic. You can learn a lot from these on-line classes.

Selling CEUs

They’re called continuing education units or CEUs, and lots of professions require their members to obtain a certain number of CEUs each year – every profession from private investigators in Texas to hearing aid dispensers in Maine. Hundreds of thousands of pros need CEUs. They can get them by attending classes at the local community college or professional association, by writing papers and they can earn CEUs by attending online webinars.

Starting to see the potential here? If you’re an expert in a field that requires members to continue their educations, you have a captive audience. And attending an online seminar is a lot easier than attending classes every Monday night for 16 weeks.

Certain standards have to be met to qualify for CEU recognition. The teacher has to be a professional, the course subject has to be (in some way) relevant to the professionals’ work and the seminars must actually teach, i.e. have an established syllabus or course of study. The standards are high, as they should be, so to qualify for a CEU accredited webinar, you better know what you’re talking about or zippo CEU-seekers are going to sign up.

How To Stage a Webinar Technically

There are two ways to do this thing.

First, if you’re planning on doing a webinar a week and adding to the list of classes and topics available, you’re best off buying webinar software. Here’s a link to some Q & A on what to look for in this system-based software.

However, before you fly off to the Software Shack to pick up a webinar program, try one of the hundreds of online services that specialize in the staging of webinars. These companies provide the software and some hand holding. They aren’t too pricey, either, given the competitive nature of the market. Heck, even Big Blue (IBM) offers on-line conferencing services and that’s all a webinar is – an online conference with nice pictures.

Marketing Your Webinars

If you’re CEU accredited, use Google AdWords to promote your upcoming event. Allow a six-week time window from the date you start promotion until the actual date of the webinar itself. Then, do a little viral marketing.

Respond to blog posts relevant to your upcoming event and mention date, time, URL and cost, if any. Let’s talk about that for a minute.

When you first start staging webinars, no one knows you from Adam. You’re an unknown quantity, yet to prove you’re worth $29.95 to sign up to hear your words of wisdom. So, to start building an audience and establishing credentials as a quality educational or instructional site, offer your first few webinars free. Hey, you can become a star pretty quick if you aren’t a cold fish. And people will pay for righteous information presented in a professional manner.

The exception, here, is CEU-accredited webinars. These demand a certain production standard, knowledge standard and broadcast standard. These webinars may require a cash outlay to the conferencing company, a graphic designer and techie if you think a USB port is where U.S Boats dock. So, you can charge by the CEU. Some webinars are worth 1 CEU. Another can be worth 3 CEUs depending on the credibility of the webinar producer, length and scope of the content.

If the budget can stand it, pay for links from related sites. If there’s an industry association, send its PR department a press release announcing time and place for the webinar, and be sure to include your professional biography and credentials for hosting this gab fest.

Also, if you’re doing webinars regularly, get listed in webinar directories (Google it. There are lots of them.) If you know your stuff and you’re not a stiff – you can have fun interacting with others – then you’ll quickly see the popularity of and attendance at your webinars increase.

Putting Together a Webinar

The software comes from the conference provider. On screen, you’ll have the webinar administrator’s console showing activity of participants, handling emails from participants and tracking levels of participation.

Now, the easiest way to put together one of these online lessons is to buy a decent web cam, write out your key points and interact with participants via the email option. Or, to make connections even easier and quicker, provide a telephone contact that attendees can use to ask questions, make a point or contest a point.

As the webinar administrator, you move things along. Whatever you do, don’t write a paper and read it for an hour. I’m bored just typing about it. You need some sizzle, some visuals, some eye candy to create a professional and engaging webinar.

The easiest tool to develop webinar visuals is Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have it on your system, you can download it from the Microsoft site. This is a totally screen-driven program that’s almost idiot-proof. (Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.) You type text where prompted to do so.

Add a dash of color or a photograph to give a boring bullet list a little pizzazz. Especially if we’re going to be parked on it for a while. Or, instead, reveal text in the bullet list on cue simply by going to the next Power Point slide in the deck. Without too much of a learning curve, you can put together a Power Point presentation.

Using your webinar administrator’s console, you can cut back and forth between the graphics in your Power Point deck and your talking head via a hi-res webcam. By switching between the two you accomplish a couple of important tasks: (1) you put a face to the voice and the knowledge and the humor and professionalism (at least wear a nice sweater); and (2) it maintains visual interest. An hour-long Power Point presentation is almost as bad as an hour-long talking head. Switch to create interest, especially when answering questions from the crowd.

During the Webinar

You should have a list of talking points and sub-points, not a speech. You should have an agenda. “Today I’m going to talk to you about liability insurance and the private investigator. Let’s begin with blah, blah, blah…”

Encourage discussion and stop often to ask for questions. In some cases, it may take a few minutes for a question to reach the moderator’s console if the email is routed via Zambia so go with the flow. “Oops, okay, we have an email from a dental associate in California regarding that last point.” Stay flexible and nimble. As the moderator you’ll be juggling a lot of balls.

You’ll be teaching, reading emailed questions, moderating group discussions, tracking viewer activities and trying to work in a little humor all at the same time.

You should know, throughout the webinar, where you are on your agenda list and expand or contract your discussion as necessary.

Encourage debate by posing provocative questions. Part of the appeal of these events is the ability to interact with one’s peers so provide that opportunity. Then, sit back and moderate, keeping the discourse on topic.

Testing

CEU webinars require that attendees take and pass a test so if your’s is a CEU-accredited webinar, you need to develop an online post-test administered after the webinar. To earn the CEU credits, each attendee must achieve a certain grade. Hey, for all you know they were watching TV as you were explaining the latest in forensic science so those meeting professional requirements should be tested, and they should pass.

If your webinar isn’t CEU-based, testing is up to you. Frankly, the people who have signed up already know their stuff so testing seems a bit inappropriate. However, to maintain interest, ask the “Question of the Second” or “Insurance Trivia” throughout the lesson. Using Power Point makes creating “test pages” easy and the conferencing software captures attendees scores and even delivers them individually to avoid embarrassment.

Amortize Production Costs

It could cost a few bucks to put together a professional webinar that has high production values, accurate, current information and a dash of entertainment value on the web (sorely missing, btw). And if you only host the webinar once (a spot webinar), those costs are all associated with the one-shot spot. Instead, schedule webinars daily or weekly. Each time you’re able to conduct a revenue-producing webinar, the initial production costs are further amortized. So, that one time production expense pays for itself over and over.

It’s not hard to do, and if you don’t have the time, talent or inclination there are plenty of freelancers who do this stuff every day so outsource all the heavy lifting and save yourself for Saturday mornings when you become the congenial host of “Process Server Weekly, the ONLY weekly webinar for professional process servers.”

Ahh, show biz.

Thinking about producing a webinar? One client generated $15K in an hour and advertised on one web site. People will pay for good info from an authority - you. Drop me a line. Love to hear from you. Let's talk about posting a webinar and webcast - the feature that keeps on giving.

Webwordslinger.com