PROTECT YOUR SITE FROM HACKERS, CRACKERS & SCRIPT KIDDIES

THIS GUY COULD CRACK YOUR SITE LIKE A COCONUT.

Barbarians at the Gate:

Is Your Web Host On Guard?

If you’ve been living on Earth for the past few years you know that, just as there are criminals in the real world, there are also criminals in the virtual world of the w3. They’re called hackers, crackers, script kiddies and much worse, but as a group, they’re known as black hats, a reference to the old movie cliché that bad guys in westerns always wore black hats.

These black hats are organized. There’s a community that shares information – anything from network access codes to downloadable software that allows even a novice (script kiddie) to hack into a network and do all kinds of damage.

Here’s the problem: your business system can have every security gizmo loaded and fully operational. But what about your hosting service? Hackers can screen thousands of networks quickly with automated software and if the black hats locate a weakness on the server side, they’re in. And your site is now at increased risk.

Your Site is Your Castle

Think of your site as a castle, in need of protection from marauding bands of barbarians. So, you build an impenetrable wall of security using both hardware and software to keep the barbarians at bay.

Then, surrounding your walled castle is a second wall built by the web host. So your castle should be pretty safe with two separate walls, right? If you install good security software, you’ve built wall number one. If your web host installs state-of-the-art security, you’re business is doubly safe, protected by two walls.

Entry Points

Let’s continue using the castle analogy. In order for commerce, i.e. business, to take place, people must be free to exit and enter the castle through one or more heavily guarded gates.

In the digital realm, gates are simply legitimate access points into a network or an individual computer. And there are lots of them. The most obvious is email. You get email everyday, some of which is from people or organizations you’ve never heard of. Simply by sending a legitimate looking email, the barbarians breached all of the security you and your web host have in place. Of course, that’s why you never open an email from someone you don’t know.

Black hats know these entry points and devise schemes and scams to weasel their ways through the gateways to the castle. And, if you should open a suspicious email, all the security software in the world may not stop whatever digital horror you’ve unleashed.

Exploitation Points

Exploitation points are usually weaknesses in a particular software that can be used and manipulated by hackers to serve their evil ends. The problem is that many software applications aren’t developed with security in mind. They’re designed to manage data, execute stock trades automatically or perform some other time-saving function. Hackers know this. The information is shared on hacker sites. (Yes, they exist.) So, using weaknesses in non-security software, hackers can circumvent even sophisticated security systems.

And the Danger Is?

Digital dangers come in a variety of forms and more are being developed as you’re reading this. It’s an on-going battle between white hats and black hats and the barbarians are always just outside the gate.

The danger is a malware injection. Malware is any software program that harms your host network or individual computer. Malware includes:

Worms which burrow their way through your site either gathering data or destroying it, depending on the intent of the bad guy.

Viruses which can spread like, well, like viruses. These nasty little programs can obliterate an entire operating system in about 10 seconds and shut down a network for days while the computer doctors try to find the cure.

Backdoors are hidden openings used by the hacker to enter and exit your site undetected. These hackers have the same user privileges you have, meaning they can access customer data (including credit card numbers), bank accounts and all of the other sensitive data you have stored on your hard drive.

Trojans operate like the Trojan horse of mythology. They pass through security unscathed, only to release malware at the whim of the hacker. Maybe today. Maybe a month from now. The thing is, you won’t even know the danger is present.

XSS (cross site scripting) attacks enable hackers to access your site and leave data that will get you slammed by search engines. It’s a sneaky way to get rid of the competition. Here’s an example.

Search engines hate anything that smacks of deceit – like invisible text. Place blue text against a blue background and it’s invisible to humans but easily read by SE spiders. So along comes a spider who discovers this invisible text placed their by an unscrupulous competitor and bang – your hard-earned PR is destroyed. Sites have actually been gray-barred (banned) from Google through no fault of the site owner.

The Solution? Quality Web Hosting

You get what you pay for. So, if you go with a free web hosting service your site is going to be overloaded with banners from the host and you home page is going to look like a used car lot! With free hosting, you have no control over what appears on your site and you have no control over the quality and scope of the security software employed by the bargain basement web host.

Hosting companies that recognize that protecting their clients is, in fact, protecting their own business, provide as much security as possible – both software and hardware with layers of redundancies. If any security measure fails, there are three more to take its place. Very frustrating to hackers.

Quality web hosting provides the highest levels of network security. All web hosts are not created equal. Some provide a bit of security and hope for the best. Others build “hardened” host servers with custom designed, pro-active security software configured precisely to the host’s hardware and software.

And What Can You Do?

A couple of things. First, harden your business computer or computer network to build that inner wall protecting the castle. There are lots of security software applications from which to choose and most deliver good levels of security and free updates with your subscription.

Next, only use software recommended by or offered by the web host to actually build and manage your site. The techies at quality hosts know the exploitation points of various software as well as the hackers. So, they recommend or provide software (some provide it for free) that configures with the host’s in-place security measures.

Finally, if you aren’t sure that your site design, management, SEO and marketing software are properly configured, contact the web host’s client support staff. They’ll be able to either put your concerns to rest, or provide simple directions to properly configure your software to deliver the highest levels of security.

The difference in price between free hosting and quality hosting isn’t that significant. You can find secure, all-in-one hosting packages for less than $7.00 a month. That’s nothing when you’re starting an on-line business. But it’s everything when it comes to protecting your business.

So, ask your current web host what security measures it has in place. Ask them if you’ve plugged all of the exploitation points hackers might use to gain access to your site or to the host network. A good host will work with you to strengthen the security of the entire network.

It takes so much less time and energy to make your site secure than it does to start from scratch simply because your site was hacked by a 15-year-old halfway around the world. If you have any questions, talk to your host’s tech support. A good hosting company will always be glad to discuss site and network security. After all, it’s not just your business, it’s their business, too.

BUILD A WEBINAR AND GET STICKY

Webinars 101:

Low-Cost, Accessible and Sticky

Webinars are growing in popularity as more and more site owners recognize the advantages of these “web broadcasts” in reaching prospective buyers, keeping the site fresh and creating stickiness – those sweet repeat visitors who most often become customers.

If you haven’t considered a webinar, give it some thought. You can do it on the cheap, it lives forever in your archive and, if you know your subject, it can be an on-going, passive income money maker – if you know your subject.

What’s a webinar?

A seminar online. There are webinars on everything from how to cable stitch to how to market anything and everything you can imagine (and some you couldn’t possibly imagine, too).

The medium is compressed digital video (DV) and you can keep it simple or produce something worthy of a Hollywood epic. Top notch production values – things like a snappy intro, a music bed the comes in under the narration to provide a subliminal signal to the viewer that something’s about to happen, and charts and graphs that aren’t hand drawn on a note pad, but are actually sharp-looking, professionally done charts, maps and other visual elements – all contribute to the perceived value of your webinar to subscribers. In other words, try not to skimp too much on the presentation.

Webinars are different from web casts in a few ways. First, web casts are one way communications. The broadcaster speaks, the audience listens. No give and take. Webinars usually employ web-based communications to allow speaker and listeners to communicate during the presentation. This isn’t always the case but it is the norm.

Webinars are also scheduled events. Web casts are usually available any time a visitor clicks on the web cast link. Webinars are scheduled for a specific time. Invitees or paying subscribers are given the scheduled time of broadcast along with an access code.

Finally, webinars are primarily instructional or educational. That’s one reason they’ve become so popular with big corporations. Employees don’t have to travel to hear the expert. They can log on in the office, interact with the expert, ask questions and learn. No travel expenses incurred.

How do I crate a webinar?

You need a digital video camera with decent resolution. This will create your source material so the higher resolution of the source the better looking the final image that appears on screen for your viewers.

Now, if your webinar is long (anything over 20 minutes) or it includes detailed facts, figures and other dense information, graphs and charts are important. If you just lock down the camera and talk for an hour ( a talking head), at least some of your audience is going to dose off. Wouldn’t you?

Have an agenda, a list of topics to cover in the hour but don’t script the webinar. There’s nothing more boring than listening to someone read for an hour. Webinars are intended to foster discussion. Often, you can start by asking a provocative question and allow the participants to express themselves. This is an excellent icebreaker, especially for listeners unfamiliar with the format.

Have something to say! It can not be said enough. 90% of current webinars are weak on useful content, long on sales hype. In order to create a successful webinar, one you can monetize, you need new information, a new perspective, a new procedure – something of value to the listener. Encourage visitors to email questions for more detailed answers.

During the post-production phase, add intro and outro music, a title frame, add text to emphasize key points, use bulleted lists to make information clearer and remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. Let’s say your webinar is about buying properties in the wine country of France. You can talk about the beautiful surroundings and romantic, rustic chateau all you want. Show pictures and you can just run music under the virtual tour.

Marketing Your Webinar

You’ll need to start promoting your webinar well in advance of the intended broadcast date. Blogs are good, free sources of announcements. So are websites dedicated to the topic of your webinar – especially if the website owners receive a portion of the proceeds for their efforts.

Syndicated content sites are also a good way to go with an announcement of broadcst times. And be sure to point out that, even if a subscriber is unavailable for broadcast, the full webinar is contained in the site’s archives for viewing at the individual’s convenience. The only thing missing is the give and take you get as an attendee of the live webinar.

Monetizing Your Webinars

Obviously you’re not going to all of this trouble for the fun of it. You need to recoup production expenses and pay the rent. So, how do you generate revenue from your webinar?

Lots of ways. The fact is content development is pricey. A good copywriter can earn $8,000 for writing a four-page sales letter. (Of course, the writer is a proven professional and the letter draws $100,000 in net earnings.) Good deal. The key to content development costs is to find as many uses for the same content as possible.

1. Prepare and promote a series of learning modules – a seven week, online webinar on managing prospective clients, closing sales and other genuinely useful information on the topic of your expertise.

This way, you’ll end up with seven, one-hour learning modules and that’s a lot of content.

Visitors pay a lower subscription rate. One seminar = $100. All seven seminars = $500. You only need 5 or six subscribers to cover production expenses. Everything after that is passive income. Advertise the modules and their broadcast dates and sign up a few viewers. The more, obviously, the better.

2. Keep the webinars on your site for a while with subscriber, PIN access. This way, you’ll still generate income from work that was completed six months earlier. Over the months, you’ll see fewer and fewer subscribers because everybody willing to pay to see and hear what you have to say has seen and heard what you have to say. 12 months is the max you should leave any webinar online. And if the webinar is highly topical, i.e. the outlook for natural gas in the next 12 months, the webinar has an even shorter shelf life.

This is also a great way to create site stickiness. Subscribers will come back weekly for the next webinar.

3. Package the webinar as a series of downloads. Customers receive one weekly automatically. This allows the subscriber to watch, stop, watch some more and control the flow of information from his or her system. Plus, they now own the webinar. It’s on their hard drives.

4. Convert your webinar series into a series of DVDs. Seven webinars, seven DVDs. These are especially useful in school environments where teachers can start the webinar and project it to a large classroom. It’s also a good tool (depending on topic of course) for corporations, associations and even individuals who want to show what you have to say to more than one person at a time, e.g. service clubs, scout groups or similar organizations that have a regular schedule of meetings.

5. Create ancillary materials. Workbooks, copy masters, charts and graphs, directions, activities that demonstrate your points – these are all low cost items that can be printed cheaply. However, they increase the value equation in the buyer’s mind. These materials should be sold as part of the entire package.

6. Go global. Hire a translation company to convert your webinars into Spanish, French, German, Japanese – languages of affluent countries in which employees, professionals, moms and dads and others can access your webinar package, now repurposed as a DVD kit with ancillary materials.

Webinars are a great revenue source once you’ve invested in their production. Use them live, use them for online subscription revenue and as a hard copy DVD for use in front of large groups.

The popularity of webinars – good ones, spread by word of mouth. One HR professional sees it and recommends it to another in a different division. Do it right and webinars will generate nice profits. Waste people’s time or bore them to tears and you’ll lose your investment in the production.

Go the profitable route. It’s a lot more fun.

Looking for a Free webinar platform. Try WebEX for your first trial run. They offer a free 30 day trial so you can test this webinar thing at no cost. Just your time.

Go live.

Later,

Webwordslinger.com

THINKING OF SHUTTING DOWN YOUR WEBSITE OR BLOG? DON'T!

About to Give Up On Your

Web Site OR Blog?

Don't Stop Now!

Let’s say that you built a great looking website, you hung out at webmaster sites and blogs like this one, and you did everything you read. You followed the “Five Tips to Web Success” and even paid $395 for a book on how to optimize your site. And, after a year, your digital doorway is covered in cobwebs.

Is it time to quit, cut your losses, throw in the towel? Well, if you’re selling the Ebola virus, probably. It wasn’t a good business model in the first place.

But, if you think your business model is sound, it hasn’t been replicated 1,200,000 times and you’ve already invested the time (and money?) to give this online dream a chance, don’t quit.

First, you’ve already put in the time – the most expensive component. Second, if you’re like most new businesses, you’re using a shared hosting service – less than $7.00 a month – so that’s not going to break the bank. No, instead of pulling the plug, rethink your business and marketing strategies and start employing some guerrilla marketing tactics.

Analyze the Site’s Problems

There are like a billion site metrics programs you can buy or get free (OSS) but trying to make sense of this jumble of numbers is like trying to read a foreign language. One way to simplify metrics analysis and actually make them useful is to buy software that provides GUIs – (that’s gooies) – graphical user interfaces.

Some produce heat maps that show site page hot spots, some offer percentage overlays showing how many visitors went here or there, and some provide numerical listings that don’t require a Harvard MBA to analyze and put to good use. Forget the number crunchers. Go gooey. Check out Crazy Egg for an example.

Two important points about metrics analysis. Metrics show you what’s already happened. It’s old news as soon as you get it. It doesn’t tell you what’s happening now or what will happen. It’s an important point to remember when planning your comeback assault.

The second point is this: metrics are very easy to misinterpret. You make a change, see an improvement (or decline) and assume the change was the cause. Post hoc ergo propter hoc: After this, therefore because of this. Simply because you see a specific result doesn’t mean it was caused by any changes you made. Heck, Goggle might have hiccupped.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. – Henry David Thoreau

The man had the right idea. Go through each page of your site and find ways to simplify – simplify the text, graphics, animations, navigation, objective – anything and everything. Most site owners optimize for search engines. Optimize for humans, who by the way, look for very different things than search engines look for.

Cut All Unnecessary Costs

If you’re paying a drop shipper to ship three units a week, do it yourself until you can justify the cost of the shipper. You don’t need a bookkeeper (though you should have an accountant for tax purposes), you don’t need fancy office furniture and you can store inventory in the spare room (unless it’s that Ebola; store that in the garage).

If your site is up and running (as in fully functional and secure) your only cost should be hosting costs and that’s loose change. Cut it to the bone, even if you really do want that new Blackberry. (“But honey, I need it for business!”)

BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE

The online gurus want you to believe that there’s some magical, mystical formula that you can follow to build your site to success. If there were one formula, we’d all be driving Ferraris.

Ecommerce is no different than any other commerce going back to when cave clans swapped shiny rocks. The same principles apply.

For example, the ‘experts” like to toss around the term “viral marketing” like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, viral marketing has been around since the hula hoop craze. It’s just a digi-geek term for word of mouth (WOM) marketing. A single video on You Tube got over 1 million hits in less than 24 hours. Why? Word of mouth. Media exposure. It was everywhere and everyone wanted to see it for themselves.

Conversion ratios? Nothing more than how many visitors turn into buyers (and hopefully you can figure out why).

Your marketing, on site and through remote or PPC marketing, should appeal to basic human emotions – love, fear, belonging and so on. Humans haven’t changed. Just the way they access marketing.

Conventional Wisdom is… Conventional

Hey, do those flashing links telling you (and a million other visitors) that “You’re the 10,000^th Visitor and You Win a FREE iPod” make you want to click on the link? Maybe once to see what the catch is, and there’s always a catch. But once you’ve seen it, it’s not an effective marketing tool.

Come-ons, bogus promises, the hard sell – this stuff works on the lowest common denominator and that’s it. The only people who are going to click on your “Win an iPod” link are six-year-olds who like the blinking lights.

If you want to get noticed, think outside of the box – the computer box. Some very smart guy registered the domain name www.perezhilton, built a celeb-gossip website and is now a regular on the talk show circuit. From unknown to self-appointed celeb commentator in 12 months. That’s thinking outside the box, though there are probably better ways to spend your time than chasing Brangelina around the globe.

If you’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. Time for a new idea. A national treasure hunt with a big prize, a buried treasure chest or a dream date with Perez. Who knows what the next big thing will be, but it could be yours.

So, the heavy lifting has been done. Play with your toy. It’s not costing much, so try something out of the ordinary – even controversial. Controversy sells. Just ask Perez Hilton.

WORK FROM HOME: BUILDING A WEB-BASED BUSINESS

A Web-Based Home Business?

Have You Thought About…

Working from home is great – especially when you have kids. A home-based business provides flex time, the commute is a breeze and you can, in fact, earn money from home. Now, this has nothing to do with those scams you see that’ll pay you “to work at home” stuffing envelops or evaluating websites. Stay clear.

No, this is about starting your own online business. Lots of people do it. It doesn’t take a million bucks to get started. You don’t need to be a computer geek and you can build a business around the things that most interest you – things you enjoy, things at which you excel.

However, what things should you consider before getting knee-deep in a project about which you know so little? Let’s take a look.

Your Interests

If you have no experience or interest in ranking micro-cap oil stocks, it makes no sense to build a business ranking small cap stock markets around the world. Within the realm of e-commerce, the learning curve is long enough without having to learn about the topic of your site. Besides, micro-caps are boring (unless you’re a professional investor).

Instead, think about the things you enjoy. It’s human nature to enjoy those things we do well so, chances are, if you’re a first-class craftsperson (you knit, throw pots, create macramé wall hangings, refurbish antiques, etc.) the topic of your site and basis of your business is easily defined. Go with what you know. Think about what interests you. That’s your business.

Learn All You Can About SEO and SEM

Search engine optimization (SEO) is optimizing your web site for search engine spiders that crawl the web regularly (every 48 hours according to web lore). Search engine marketing (SEM) is the art and science of advertising (marketing and promoting) your web site so that web users know it’s there, visit and order something from you.

Good sources of information? Well, blogs like this one contain the most up-to-date information on everything from how to design an attractive site to how to use ASP scripting to best advantage. (Just kidding. You don’t need to know a thing about ASP scripting unless you want to go deep. If so, it’s not tough to learn and again, today most of this stuff comes in template form.)

Buy a book or two at the book store. There are plenty of online SEM experts who will be happy to sell you a $695 package on everything you need to know about web success. A couple of books from the local bookstore or library will get you started, and you can save that $695 for other, more useful purposes.

Other good sources of information? Webmaster (site owner) web sites and forums. Just Google “webmaster sites.” There’s a slew of them. Pick one, dive in and start reading. Don’t be concerned that you’re only understanding one-third of what you read. In a few days or weeks you’ll learn all about conversion ratios, back links, embedded text and search engine algorithms.

And despite the fact that it sounds like rocket science, far from it. The whole e-marketplace is comparable, in many ways, to the world of brick and mortar commerce. You need an attractive place to sell stuff, you need to advertise, process orders and returns and, of course, keep the customer satisfied. The W3 has lots of similarities to the 3-D world in which we live.

Capitalizing Your Online Business

Once you’ve learned enough about SEM basics, start comparing web hosts – the companies that provide the on-ramp to the world wide web. Go with a web hosting company that gives you a lot of freebies and toll-free tech support. Guaranteed you’ll get glitched up somewhere down the line (don’t worry, it happens to everybody and it happens in any business, online or off) and you want someone to talk you through it. Now. Some of the low-ball web hosts will nickel-and-dime your new business to death. Get the all-inclusive package and make sure it’s really all-inclusive before signing up.

Also, a good web host will provide all the web-building-database-management-secure-check-out-add-a-blog software-and-services you need free. If you have to buy this stuff at retail, you’re out of business before you even post a pixel. Remember, we’re trying to keep this cheap so you don’t have to mortgage the house. Just skip a few meals out at those fancy restaurants. You want EVERYTING. Cheap.

A web-based business is the last bastion of true entrepreneurial spirit. Try buying a McDonalds franchise. You’re talking millions in up-front capital. Your start up costs for an online business will be much lower – but there will be costs. Plan on it and budget for it. The number one reason so many online businesses fail is undercapitalization – not enough money to run the business for some time before it starts showing a profit.

And it does take time. The widely-publicized, web grand slams, like You Tube and MySpace are the exception, not the rule. Most web-based businesses won’t see a profit for months. Maybe even longer.

The smallest cost, believe it or not, is web hosting. It’s a killer, competitive industry so you can buy enough server space to create a web presence. But that’s the easy part. Then, you have to market the business. 6,000 new sites come online every day. The commercial web is growing like some mutant fungi. Marketing your web site will cost more than the web site itself, something to remember when putting together your budget. Set aside a big chunk of change for marketing.

If you can’t write a lick, you’ll have to hire a copywriter to prepare your site text. There are lots of good sources for low-cost writing services. Checkout guru.com and elance.com and post your project. Lots for cheap on these “work for hire” web sites. If you can write a lick, no problem. Do it yourself, make sure you catch all typos and go to town.

Building Your Site

You don’t have to know a thing about web site building. Today, it’s all done with templates. Choose the style you want as a back drop, “Add copy here,” get some product pictures (pictures sell products better than plain old words), add a checkout module (it really is easy if you go with a web host that provides all of this site building paraphernalia) and launch. You’re an e-trepreneur!

Marketing

When immersing yourself in the SEM world, be sure to learn about low- and no-cost marketing opportunities, sometimes called viral marketing. You can list your site in topic specific directories, syndicate content in exchange for back links, you can blog other sites – lots of ways to get your “Open for Business” sign out there for zip.

Also, learn all you can about pay per click, or PPC, advertising. The most well-known is Google AdWords – those stacks of site links that appear on lots of web sites and on Google’s search engine results pages. You can log on to Google, click on Business Solutions under the search box and learn all about PPC advertising.

There are pros and cons to this kind of promotion. One negative? You pay for each visitor to your site. That’s why it’s important to have the capital to properly market your venture. It’ll be the biggest expense you have in the first 12 months of operation.

Think Big. Plan Small.

If you envision your site as the next Amazon, don’t. The sobering fact is that 94% of all web businesses don’t make it past the first year. The 6% that do grow to profitability relied partly on smarts and partly on luck. You can do this, but think big, plan small.

Don’t mortgage the homestead, learn all you can about SEM, keep your expenses to the bare minimum and take advantage of free marketing. This blog contains numerous articles on how to market a site on the cheap. Check them out. Then, check out other resources on webmaster sites for even more information.

Finally, select a web host that wants you to succeed. These companies provide lots of disk space on a server, a tool kit filled with templates and one-click modules to add features (like a checkout or blog) to your site. Never get in deeper than you want to be.

It’s a lot to fathom and this article has either scared you away from online marketing or it’s piqued your curiosity about the possibility of building a real, genuine, profitable home business that will supplement and even supplant your current income.

And let you raise the kids, too. You’ve found a good place to start learning. So, what are you waiting for?

Later,

Webwordslinger

Social Media and Building a Web Biz

Socializing Your Site to Success:

Using Folksonomy to Build Traffic

In the Age of Web 2.0, social sites have made great strides, establishing themselves as valuable resources for web site owners and potential customers seeking to match up supply and demand. What are these social sites and how can they help you increase site traffic on the cheap? It’s all about linking up.

Social Sites

These are sites that post personal or social information for sharing. Some of the most popular of these sites include Facebook, LinkedIn, youtube.com, del.icio.us and flickr.com. youtube encourages visitors to upload home-grown videos or clips ripped from main stream media. Visit youtube.com and you’ll see everything from stupidity in the extreme to thought-provoking video vignettes produced by film buffs and kids, some cool, some sophomoric.

Another popular site, del.icio.us (pronounced delicious) is a repository for personal bookmarks or tags. When web users find an interesting site or interesting information, they tag it, categorize it and post a link on del.icio.us. What’s particularly interesting about this social site is that categories for links are being developed by users.

These user-created categories are called folksonomy as opposed to the traditional taxonomy of classification used in science, industry and knowledge management. For example, the well-known Dewy Decimal System, used in libraries to assign books to specific categories, is an example of a taxonomy. At del.icio.us users catalog their own findings, leading to some very interesting classifications.

Social sites encourage group (social) participation dmoz.org, Plurk and Wikipedia, for example, and rely on the concept of extreme trust – that idiots won’t subvert the system with frivolous or misleading posts, but even though these sites are routinely monitored, the idiots do occasionally prevail.

What started as an experiment has now become a movement with social sites for all ages, male and female, families, businesses and even entire industries popping up like mushrooms. It’s a new form of social interaction that can help web site owners get a lot of attention for very little $$$.

Inbound Links

Inbound links to your site, that is links pointing visitors to your site, are very useful in getting your little ebiz noticed by search engine spiders. Spiders look for inbound links and count them up based on the reasonable assumption that the more sites and individuals recommending your site via inbound links, the better your site must be. Those sites with long lists of quality inbound links are designated as authority sites – sites that competitors send their visitors to. So, the more inbound links you have from more sites and more individuals, the more impressed SE spiders are.

Getting inbound links used to be a time-consuming, frustrating experience for online business owners. There were email exchanges, telephone calls and something called “links begging” which is as humiliating as the name indicates. Then, software was developed that enabled site owners to contact like-minded individuals and businesses with a spam-plea for a link exchange. These emails usually ended up in the recycling bin unread.

Today, through the use of social sites, acquiring inbound links is more efficient and a whole lot less humiliating.

Social Sites & Inbound Links

Social sites enable you to create a free presence on the web. Actually many free presences on the web. For example, youtube will display a video you made – a video that shows one of your products in practical use, perhaps? Sneaky but legit.

myspace.com is an extremely popular social site where anyone can create an online profile of themselves, their hobbies and interests and the URLs of their web sites. So, anyone looking at your profile has the option of visiting your site. And, if they like what they see, they may book mark it and even recommend it to other myspacers.

Del.icio.us is a repository of recommended (bookmarked by just plain folks) sites. There are lots of bloggers listed, providing a useful means of contacting bloggers who might be interested in running a story on you and your site.

The ultimate objective is to have your site tagged by as many users as possible. This social tagging indicates a level of site quality simply because so many individuals have tagged it for the benefit of other users. Think of it as digital promos from satisfied customers.

Better Keep ‘em Satisfied

To have satisfied visitors willing to tag your site, you need content – interesting, useful, engaging, non-hype content. Blogs are useful in this regard. In fact, when you start a site blog, you’re on track for lots of inbound links. Blogs, according to the pros in the know, are the quickest way to develop inbound links. Blogs are simply another aspect of the socialization of the w3.

No useful content, just a bunch of sales garbage, is not going to get your site tagged. However, useful product reviews, short how-to articles and other “good-to-know” information will get your site tagged – a lot.

So, grow your business by creating an online presence on every social site you can. Create profiles, upload videos and add book marks to your site on del.icio.us and ask friends to do the same. It’s free advertising and a terrific way to get to know your visitors and what they’re looking for.

Oh, and it’s a lot of fun, too.

Call me,

Webwordslinger.com

SELLING AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

The New Art of Persuasion:

What Worked Before Won’t Work Now

The rules of grammar, punctuation and even spelling that have served us for generations have disappeared on the w3 and, as copywriters, we’ve had to learn a new methodology to persuade readers to fulfill the most desired action or MDA. The New Art of Persuasion has rewritten the rules. Is your site ready?

Does your site text instill trust?

If your site is one long, sales letter loaded with hype and impossible claims (EARN 200% IN JUST 2 WEEKS!!!!), you aren’t going to convert many readers. Today’s I-net buyer of services or products is savvy and certainly isn’t going to fall for the same tactics employed by Dr. Frisbee’s Elixir and Curative. It was hype then, it’s hype today.

Trust blooms in the absence of hype – text that appeals to the reader’s intelligence and discerning good judgment. Give the reader the facts in a straightforward manner and chuck the hype. Building trust is step one in getting the reader to stay put to read more about your products.

Is your site credible?

Somewhat related to trust, credibility is believability. If visitors don’t believe what you’re telling them, they won’t be convinced – and you’ll lose points in the trust column, as well.

On-site credibility builders include things like customer testimonials, customer success stories, your success story, product benefits in a bulleted list and recommendations from and memberships in professional associations. Get this information right there on the home page, above the fold, so it’s the first thing visitors see. Now you’re building visitor confidence.

Is your site text eyeball friendly?

Site visitors tend to scan rather than read. So use a lot of headers and sub-heads to lead the reader’s eye to the specific information s/he is looking for. Web users are an impatient lot and reading through dense paragraphs of detailed text has all the appeal of a root canal. It’s just not going to happen.

Use small blocks of type. Use single sentences or even just phrases to emphasize key points. Use lists and checkpoints. Use a lot of negative space to make important text jump off the screen. And finally, throw the grammar book into the waste basket.

Write like you talk.

This is the absolute best copywriting advice you will ever receive.

When people talk they do not talk in this stiff, written style. They start, they stop, they think, they use contractions. Nobody says “I will go to the refrigerator” they say “I’ll go to the refrigerator (or fridge, even).”

Site text should be written so it’s “heard” by the reader as s/he reads. Don’t write words people read, write words that people hear. It creates a personal connection between reader and web site. “Hey, these guys are like me.”

This approach to copywriting is important to the development of long-term, customer relations. Push the hype and you won’t make a friend. Write like you talk, make the connection and build an expanding base of repeat customers. Sweet.

Define the visitors’ needs. Then fill those needs.

What do visitors need or want? Quality? Low prices? Accessible customer care? Variety? By defining your customers’ needs you’re better prepared to meet those needs through your products or services. More importantly, you define for the visitor what he or she needs. Then, you provide the solutions for meeting those needs.

“If you’re tired of harassing phone calls from collection agencies (the need defined is eliminating collection calls) let us show you how to manage your debt in just 12 months.” (There’s the solution that visitors are looking for.)

Appeal to human motivators.

Humans are motivated to action by many things – the need to love and be loved, the need to belong, status, prestige, fear, anger, greed – there are hundreds of emotions and social needs that make us buy a certain brand of car or go on a weight-loss diet.

Before you write a single word of site text, understand the motivations of the readers. What brought them to your site? What do they expect to find? And, how can your text appeal to the human motivations that compel visitors to make a purchase or opt in for your monthly newsletter?

Carefully prepare the call to action.

“Act now.” “Don’t delay.” “Pick up the phone and call now before you forget.” The call to action is a specific set of directions you expect the reader to follow. The call to action performs two important functions.

First, it motivates the reader. That’s why the call to action must be carefully crafted to fit the persuasive text that comes before it. After you’ve built trust, established site credibility and connected with visitors, use the call to action to urge readers to perform the MDA. Same tone. Same friendly approach.

Second, an effective call to action provides very specific directions so the reader knows what s/he should do next. “Dial 1-555-1234 right now for the most reliable trading platform ever developed.” Specific and to the point.

A note of caution, here. Text links, in the ubiquitous dark blue type, have become de facto calls to action. Readers recognize that blue type as a link, something they should click on. It’s presence in the middle of a page indicates an expected action. And it may not be an action you want the reader to take. Bouncing from page to page, or worse, sending a visitor off to another site, won’t do anything for your conversion rate.

Once you’ve got the readers’ attention, don’t send them off in another direction.

Add some incentive.

A call to action may motivate some readers, but an incentive of some kind will motive even more to perform the MDA. “Act now and receive a 50% discount on all of your purchases for the rest of the month!” Perfect. That kind of incentive motivates readers to action right now and it keeps them coming back for the rest of the month.

An incentive can be anything of value to the reader – a discount, free shipping, a free e-book, coupon savings or a lifetime guarantee. Just make sure to place the incentive after the call to action. That way, if the call to action doesn’t persuade, the incentive just might be the clincher.

Write for the w3.

Most site visitors have short attention spans. They get bored quickly and if you don’t grab their attention in the first 25 words, they are outta there. A gripping headline helps, but that’s just the start. Once the reader is hooked by the headline, the underlying text has to deliver the follow-through to make the sale.

It’s got to be readable, scanable and not insulting to the reader’s intelligence. However, it’s also important to remember that the average American reads at an eighth grade level so avoid a preponderance of arcane linguistics simply to impress readers with your extensive vocabulary.

Keep it simple. Keep it honest. Keep it accessible. Keep it compelling.

That’s what web users expect and that’s just what your site text should deliver.

Call me when you have a sec,

Webwordslinger.com

6 Tips to Manage Your Client Base

Six Critical Customer Care Tips:

“It’s easier to keep a client than find a new one.”

Yeah, it’s an old cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. The key to long-term site success is an expanding customer/client base – repeat buyers of your goods or services.

Keeping the customer satisfied, especially for web-based businesses, isn’t a walk in the park but there are things you, as webmaster, can do to manage client care, keeping the customer satisfied and coming back for more.

1. Maintain an accurate order tracking system. If you use a delivery service like FedEx or UPS, you’ll get tracking software with your account. But, if you’re trucking 37 ceramic figurines to the post office every day, you’ll need an order tracking system – preferably one that can identify “downstream” problems like: “Hey, you’re going to run out of hula girl bobble heads next Thursday. Time to reorder.”

2. Stay involved. You may be using a drop shipper to manage inventory storage, shipping and handling, and it’s not always easy during the rush of the day to check tracking data – even if you’re shipping out of a spare room. Track all problem orders yourself.

3. Provide updates to the buyer. An auto-responder as soon as the problem is identified with an opt out box to cancel the sale. You may lose that one, but your straightforwardness and ease of use will make a positive impression.

Federal law requires that orders must be filled within 30 days, after which the buyer is no longer obligated to pay. Don’t ship without renewed buyer approval.

4. Provide US-based customer support 24/7. In this global marketplace, someone is always buying, and someone always has a question. Also, empower telephone reps to accept returns with the customer’s receipts. This saves on call-backs and significantly lowers buyers’ stress levels.

5. Use dynamic pages designed specifically for each visitor. Best example? Amazon. My home page is different from your home page based on our past buying histories. All of this data is stored in Amazon’s database and when I log on, I’m bombarded with recommendations based on items purchased five years ago.

But Amazon stills calls me by my first name. That’s nice.

6. Last key point. Overdeliver. If prudent, drop a personalized email or even make a telephone call. People are really pleasant when the company CEO calls and promises satisfaction.

The whole point of quality customer care is to create word of mouth (WOM) viral marketing. Treat your customers or clients right, and viral WOM will do the rest in growing that client base bigger and bigger.

Call me.

editor@webwordslinger.com