The Top Three Reasons Your Retail Website is Losing Sales Every Day
by Melissa Brewer


As a marketer, nothing bothers me more than poor customer service (or CRM, as we call it.) Small retailers, especially those with ecommerce enabled, work very hard to garner sales with their marketing efforts. It's a damn shame when a conversion become a chargeback - you've lost a customer for life. However, in the online retail world, it happens all the time. And it's not necessarily because of fraud or customer error.

Today, I am in the process of canceling several orders with retailers - $390.00 worth, to be exact - not because I like to charge things back, but because I feel I have no choice in the matter. All of the retailers failed to deliver even decent customer service when contacted, and all of them faced problems with my orders, whether they knew it or not. I am an avid internet shopper and I came into some extra cash this month from a rental deposit. I intended to decorate my new place in one fell swoop. At this level of frustration, I am actually about to head to a regular retail store - which is something I usually reserve for grocery shopping and impulse buys. (When I shop online, I shop big.)

Why am I angry enough to call Visa and cause a chargeback? It's elementary - terrible, not just poor, communication. The saddest part of the situation is that these are small retail websites, with both an online and offline presence. I know canceling my order makes an impact on sales. I found all three through Google Product search and Yahoo Shopping, which led me to assume they had somebody who is marketing and tech-savvy on their team. When I decided to order, however, my opinion changed dramatically. It was as if these companies simply added their products to Google and Yahoo, set up a shopping cart, and then abandoned all they've ever learned about customer service. (As well as their common sense.) Here are the specific (and real) reasons why:

1. Incomplete contact information. Online retailers - please take note! When you only have one mode of communication, you're in trouble when something goes awry. I placed an order for a bistro table with a glass top and it shipped swiftly, however,the entire tabletop was shattered to bits. Although there is a return policy on the website, once I filled out the online form, I was given a host of 404s and php errors. And there was no direct email address, phone number, or alternative means of contact. Customers - and prospects - like to know there is a person or two out there that can answer questions and help make informed decisions. You get more sales that way - people like to communicate in different ways. And if the only form of communication is broken, you're pretty much screwed as far as customer relations. I won't be reordering from this company no matter what - and shame on me for ordering in the first place. I usually check out the credibility of a website before I place an order. (Ah, but I love shopping sprees!) Now I have to take my complaint to Google checkout. It should have been easier to get in touch with this retailer. (This cost this company 120.00 in sales...)


2. Incomplete product information. Sure, the photos and descriptions are great on your website. You took it straight from your catalog copy and it was all very professionally done by a freelance writer and photographer team. I really liked the chair set so much, I ordered it from a different retailer than the bistro table. I recieved an email two days later - "This item ships directly from the manufacturer in 2-5 weeks, we will notify you when it ships." That's a pretty large span of time and this was not mentioned in the item description. There were plenty of similar items on Google Product Search that I could have ordered without waiting so long. It's as if they purposefully kept the information concealed. Alas, this company DOES have a customer service phone number and email. Wyhen I asked for specifics (actually, a guestimate) I recieved a standard form email reply. "We are sorry for the inconvenience, we are unable to estimate shipping for your product at this time." (By the way, it's very annoying to say "for your product" rather than take the three seconds to type in "your chair set") If you don't have ANY idea when your vendors will ship a product, maybe you should switch vendors. Again, this was a small company,with real people somewhere, in a retail store across the country from me. I am sure they are more direct with their face-to-face customers. Your online customers deserve the same respect. (This cost this company 180.00 in sales, when I can get through to a live person - I haven't been able to, yet... Just a machine...) Which brings me to....

3. Terrible CRM and form replies. Customer relationship management is the key to repeat business. So when the sofa cover, towel set, curtains, and sheet set I ordered from yet another small retailer did not ship, I had to question why. Luckily, I recieved the following email, "Thank you for your recent order. We would like to take a moment to update your regarding the status of your order. Currently, we are experiencing stock issues with one or more items on your order. We are expecting to receive additional stock within a period of one to three weeks to complete your order. If you may need further assistance please contact customer service to discuss your order." Again, one to three weeks? I emailed them back asking which items were backordered, and if it was possible to just cancel one or two items so my order could ship. To which I recieved the following reply: "Thank you for your email. Please be advised that your order has not been shipped at this time. Once your order is shipped you will receive an email update that will include your ship date and Fed Ex tracking number. At this time we do not have a ship date for this order. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you." My questions were completely ignored. They placed the "At this time we do not have a ship date for this order" in bold - as if to emphasize that further inquiries were useless. (If they don't know, they don't know, right? ) The language in the original email used the words, "Discuss your order." However, it seems that was a gross overstatement. Any employee sitting in front of the computer's email inbox could have answered a simple question. This company made a choice to ignore my question in its entirety and simply emphasize what they can't do. (They lost 120.00 in sales. I have already called to cancel and recieved no apologies - or questioning as to why I canceled.)


The moral of this story is: If your company isn't customer-savvy enough to handle online orders, don't do it. Don't get listed in Yahoo Shopping or Google Product search if you have little to no interest in communicating with your customers. Your online reputation can follow you for years with the rating systems that Google, Yahoo, and Epinions have in place. These kinds of faux-pas are inexcusable with the progress that ecommerce has made. There are simple ways to alternate email replies and customize them using inexpensive software, and every business has a telephone number that they answer when speaking with vendors and face-to-face customers. I can't imagine that these small retail websites have a huge influx of orders this time of year - but if they do, they should try to build on that. There's nothing worse than turning away business without an explanation or attempt to rectify the situation. They could even let the customers know the specific issues and apologize for the delays.

After all, communication is the key to building a lasting relationship. Anybody with a job, spouse, child, or friend knows that. Why don't the people who handle your customer service know?



Melissa Brewer is Creative Director at Capital Creative (http://www.capitalcreativeinc.com), a virtual copywriting and marketing agency based in Washington DC. If you are a member of LinkedIn, Xing, or any other networking website, you can invite Capital Creative to join your network with the email address yourfreelanceneeds at gmail.com.

Video Streaming: Webinars And Online Marketing
by Scott Lindsay -

Video streaming is a popular means of providing both audio and video for clients or affiliates. It is possible to set a specific time when the video presentation is available and use it as a training tool.

Essentially you would create a live presentation for customers or affiliates that could be downloaded at a certain time so there would be a larger number of individuals logged into the video stream at the same time. You could set this up as a member only video webinar or make it available by invitation only with password-protected acceptance to the conference.

A chat room can be set up to take questions from those watching the webinar. This can provide a connection that may not be practical if you had to rely on more sophisticated video conferencing. If you do choose to use this approach you may want to save the presentation as a podcast that could be used at a later date for either new clients or new affiliates.

The development of quality webinars can provide a significant draw to your website. Most individuals are looking at furthering their education in fields that hold personal or professional interest. If you can provide a fee-based or members-only webinar you are likely to see increased traffic to your site and an increased potential for list building opportunities.

There are so many tools available to netrepreneurs, yet is seems the advances in technology may be frightening to those who may understand business, but are intimidated by the technical aspect of moving their experience to the worldwide web.

Freelance video, audio and content professionals can aid you in the development and execution of quality video streaming for your website.

The use of video streaming can provide a sense of professionalism that may be lacking in other online presentations.

The addition of audio provides a great personal connection to your customers, but the addition of video streaming ads an element to the process that shouldn’t be minimized. Most people want to know whom they are dealing with and if they can see and hear you they may feel better capable of assigning a level of trust with you and your online business.

With the growth of computer hard drive space and processing speeds video is becoming a highly desired standard for online presentations. The costs associated with video streaming may be less than you imagine. Maybe it’s time to investigate the possibilities.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

Article Directory: Article Dashboard

"This (albiet rather short) article on list building through eBay helps to illustrate one of the most-hidden benefits of using Ebay. You can always use eBay build on your own business even if it isn't your primary source of customers. Ebay is a business venue - something that online retailers often ignore or forget about. "

Article chosen and published by Michael Audi, Vice President
Capital Creative, Inc.
Marketing and Copywriting Services for New Media

Why It Is Important To Build A List Using Ebay
by Fabian Tan

Are you making lots of sales on eBay but not making any huge profits? Would you like to increase your income and make repeat sales with your customers? Then building an email mailing list is the way to go.

It is a widely agreed that a mailing list is the most important asset in an Internet business. Customers who have bought from you before are likely to buy from you again, as long as you present them with good and relevant offers. On average, every customer will worth $1 a month to your business once he is on your list. Somewhere along the line, a good proportion of customers in your mailing list will buy something from you again.

You can send out broadcasts of different affiliate products you are promoting and make a commission. It does not take more than a few minutes to craft a good email! You can also build a relationship with your customers by sending helpful and timely information.

You could, for example, send them to pages with Adsense advertisements and make a side income. Instead of making just one sale per customer and having to find a new customer, you can sell to your customer all kinds of different products and services (that are related to your niche) to them. It costs more to acquire a new customer than it is to sell to one who has already bought something from you. Use this marketing rule, and it’s possible to double your profits easily!

Fabian Tan is the author of the free 51-Page Report: "Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!" Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!

Article Directory: Article Dashboard

What Marketers Are Saying About "RSS To Blogs"
by Yoshi Kundagawa -

I have been reading a lot about the RSS To Blog program. This is a program that automatically updates your blog to make sure your website has a stream of new posts and information even if you don't lift a finger. The reason this is so important and useful is that search engines are very smart now days. The most popular search engines don't just look for meta tags anymore, they look for keywords within a body of real text, not just random words. You cannot simply list keywords and hope for high rankings on a search engine. Your site needs real content and real articles that use the desired keywords in a realistic way. One thing I have also found is that search engines do not give good search results to inactive blogs and websites because other blogs keep growing and out muscle the ones that remain the same. If you want your blog to keep getting good search rankings, it needs to be updated as to rank higher and higher on searches. Many people, like you and I, don't have enough free time to keep updating their blog, and that is why many companies have released programs to out-smart today's very smart search engines.

RSS To Blog automatically posts to your blog to help you maintain fresh content and high search engine rankings. To do this the program has to be smart, because search engines have ways of looking for manufactured content. The cool thing about the program is that it posts to your blog from many sources including articles, news stories, RSS feeds, and you can decide which content is relevant and which content is not. Your blog will grow automatically, but the content on it will remain of a very high quality, so people will actually want to visit it often. This keeps the content varied and realistic. My favorite part about this program is that it helps keep search engines from figuring out that you are using a blogging program by making the post times random instead of the same exact time every day. This creates a flowing and natural appearance to your blog.

The reason I like RSS To Blog so much is because it makes me money without having to lift a finger. By maintaining good search engine results, my blog gets a lot of hits, and I can turn those hits into revenue by using programs such as Google Adsense. Adsense ads can be placed in your blog and you get money based on how many hits those ads get. There are a lot of websites and blogs out there competing for search engine results, hits, and ad revenue, and I don't think it is possible to have enough time to do all of the work and all of the writing myself. An automated blogging program not only makes me money through ad revenue, such as with Google Adsense, but also saves me time so I can put more hours into other jobs.

Yoshi Kundagawa is a freelance journalist. To learn more about Rss To Blogs visit http://rsstoblogs.lhmarketing.com

Article Directory: Article Dashboard

Webmercial Marketing Using Slideshow Widgets: Quick, Easy and the Cheap

by Melissa Brewer

n the strange world of social media, a lot of free widgets (i.e. tools) are available to its inhabitants, with very little technical knowledge needed. Some widgets are good solely for their intended purposes - such as sharing a picture, sentiment, or another form of entertainment. Other widgets have a large amount of value for small businesses, if they know how to use them properly. (I call them off-label here since they can be used for unintended, not-yet-prohibited purposes...) Photo slideshow widgets are in this category - they add high value to a shoestring marketing budget when they're exploited a little for business purposes. If a marketer knows how to use them, they can create free webmercials, business presentations, and mini-clips that add rich media to any user experience.

So, what is a slideshow widget?

First of all, a web widget is simply any kind of web application that you can add to your own webpage, community profile, or any other website that allows html codes. If you've ever been to a social website like Myspace, you've probably seen a lot of cool gadgets and tools on people's profiles. Surveys, pictures, and videos that users like are usually embedded in the page. These widgets are free and easily used as a viral tool for the companies that create them - users pass on the videos or photo collections they like to other people they're connected to via a simple link or a few lines of html that they cut paste.

A slideshow widget is a collection of photographs that move frame-by-frame to the next image. Users can add captions, music, and in some cases, video and user-created sound clips.

Why are slideshow widgets good for marketers? Viral webmercials!

First of all, any widget that gives viewers or users the capability to pass their creation on is a good thing for marketers, period. Users pass on what they like - and they're used to it. Myspace addicts pass on all kinds of internet goodies on a daily basis. (Most likely, they do this when they are supposed to be working. Myspacers are notorious for using their space during work hours and typically consider social media incredibly addictive...) Every video on YouTube or Google has the option of emailing it to a friend. Internet users are becoming accustomed to viewing media - not just text - online. And when they like it, they share it.

Why make a slideshow webmercial?

A slideshow widget can be used to create an online commercial for use on your business website, social networking profile, or anywhere else that html can be embedded. If you haven't noticed, a lot of the big media companies are adding "webmercials" to their websites. This kind of marketing typically costs a lot of money - the kind that consists of hiring an ad agency with the technical expertise and the marketing-savvy to get it produced, direcibuted, and perfected. The traditional webmercial is a streaming media marketing video, similar to short clips that can be viewed on YouTube or at the beginning of the footage shown on news websites (like CNN). Slideshow webmercials are not as high-tech, but can still be an effective and professional medium for marketing to customers using rich media formats. (If you're having trouble with the concept of webmercials or slideshows, scroll down to my author box where I link to a few of our webmercials created on-the-fly...)

If you're looking to add some multimedia to your website, and you don't have the technical skills or resources to hire a flash designer or design a minisite, a slideshow can be crafted easily to showcase your products or services.

Creating a slideshow webmercial for your business

There are a few different sites on the web that offer strong capabilities when it comes to slideshows. Do a search for "photo widgets" on Google. My favorites are RockYou (http://www.rockyou.com) and Slideroll (http://www.slideroll.com). RockYou is the easiest option if you are not the most tech-savvy but have some good graphics and a general idea of what you want to say or showcase. Slideroll has software that allows you to download some software and add your own media as well as a premium upgrade, if you want more of a slick, professional feel and you have access to licensed music or your own video feeds.

Tips for a successful slideshow webmercial:

1. Decide what you are promoting. If you simply want to show off a few products from your online catalog, choose the best images you have. If you're promoting an event, you'll want to choose the best photos from the bunch. If you want to tell a story, you can use clip art or stock photos for a slick, professional edge. It takes a marketing eye to know what works, so you may want to consult with business associated or friends if you don't have your own marketing department.

2. Remember it's all about branding. The text and music you add should reflect your business or the commercial's theme. For example, if you own an online boutique that sells hot club clothing, you'll want to play hip club music rather soft classical music. If you are a virtual assistant, you'll probably want to keep the music slow and professional. A webmercial communicates to two primary senses - sight and sound. Make sure you don't annoy your prospects with music that isn't synced to the visuals.

3. Get to the point - quickly. You'll want to grab your viewer's attention with a strong opening image. Keep your message simple and stress your benefits. A webmercial allows you to the opportunity to "show" and "tell". But nobody wants a webmercial that shows your entire business plan.

4. Don't forget a call to action. At the end of your webmercial, close the sale. Ask for action. Post your website address or email address. Tell them about your Yahoo group. You don't have a lot of room, so send them to either your primary home on the web or whatever part of your web promotion you are trying to expand.

Getting eyeballs to your slideshow webmercials

You can embed your webmercial in any format that accepts basic html and/or JavaScript. You can post your webmercial on your own social networking profiles or your close (and I mean close) friends and business associates. Other users that create slideshows also have access to yours if you make sure that your "profile" options are not set to private.

A few tricks to getting people to view your webmercial:

1. Use a webmercial as an intro to your site (i.e. landing page...)
2. Cut and paste the code into Myspace, Bizpreneur, and any other social networking website profiles you may own.
2. Bookmark your slideshow using social book marking websites (such as Digg or Del.icio.us)
3. Link to your webmercial in your next newsletter. (Or, make a weekly webmercial for your newsletter!) 4. Link to your webmercial in your blog. (Or embed it.)
5. Send out a press release announcing your new webmercial (or its purpose - such as the event you are promoting or your new product line)
6. Link to your webmercial in your tag lines, articles, directory listings and anywhere else you can post a standard html link.
7. Share it with me! (Shameless plug, but I would love to see what you've created. Send me a message or join my network at LinkedIn (capitalcreativeinc) or Myspace (capitalcreative). (I am at other networks with the email address "yourfreelanceneeds at gmail.com")

Other uses for slideshows

If you're trying to sell a concept or an idea, or simply want to add some multimedia for your website, there are other uses for slideshows as well. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Short business presentations you can email to prospects, bosses, or clients.
2. Ecards featuring your products, websites, or URL. (If you are posting these on somebody's social profile, besides your own, you probably want to nix the music.)
3. Quick tutorials and how-to's.
4. Any other occasion that you want to communicate visually and quickly.

Webmercials are nothing new, but they're moving toward simplicity and accessibility for all small businesses that want to market "web 2.0 style". They're also a lot of fun to create and share. Take your time choosing the right visuals and copy for your webmercial, and you'll be able to share your message with a larger audience. And, with any luck, that audience will pass it on for new prospects to share.

About the Author

Melissa Brewer is Creative Director and Senior Copywriter at Capital Creative, a marketing and copywriting agency that specializes in new and social media. (What's that mean? View our Social Media Marketing intro here.

Gear Up Your Site For Social Media Marketing

by Deepak Dutta

The year 2006 saw the emergence of social media. If you are engaged in operating a website, you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traffic.

You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new form of interactions in more and more sites and they may have an expectation of the same from your site also.

If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus this year should be on the social aspects of your site.

Social media use technologies like RSS, blogging, podcasting, tagging, etc. and offer social networking (MySpace, Facebook), social video and picture sharing (YouTube, Flickr), and community-based content ranking (Digg, MiniClip) features.

The central theme of these sites is user generated contents used for sharing among the end-users. The social aspects of these sites are to allow users to setup social communities, invite friends and share common interests.

You don't have to change your site completely within a month or so to take advantages of these new technologies. Introduce small changes incrementally through out the year and you will be on your way to meet these new challenges.

The first step is to declare who you are to the online community. People should be able to relate to you. Unless they know more about you, you will be just an unknown identity and most people don't like to deal with unknowns. Create an About Us page and list your achievements and skills.

Create a MySpace page and link your bio in the About Us page to the MySpace page. Also provide a link back from the MySpace page to your website. Spend an hour every week to develop your online social network in MySpace. Invite a few of these new friends to write blog articles at your site about your products or services.

Install a free blog software and start publishing at least one article in your blog. Provide an easy bookmarking feature to social bookmarking sites like delicious. This is done by providing an action button for each article in your site. The action button takes users to the submission page of the bookmarking site.

Also, provide an action button for direct posting of blog articles to digg. Digg is a popular news ranking site. A well dugg article will bring thousands of visitors to your site.

Provide a forum at your site for users to discuss your products and services. Don't delete negative comments because they provide insights into the improvements needed to serve your visitors better. However, censor hate speeches and meaningless bantering. Register your forum at BoardTracker. BoardTracker is a forum search engine.

If you are offering products, allow users to review and rate your products. This will help you in inventory management because you may want to discontinue low rated products.

Provide RSS feeds for your new products, blogs, forum postings, etc. An RSS feed provides teasers of your contents. Users will use RSS readers to scan your teasers and visit your site for more information if the teasers draw their attentions.

Publish all your feeds at feedburner. Feedburner provides media distribution and audience engagement services for RSS feeds. They also provide an advertising network for your feeds. If you have quality contents, you will be able to monetize your contents using their services.

Create short how-to or new product videos and post these videos in social video sharing sites like YouTube, Google video. Provide a few start and end frames in these videos to introduce your site with your site url. Post these videos using catchy titles, teasing descriptions, and appropriate tags to make them discoverable.

Provide embedded links to your posted videos in your site. This will save your bandwidth and storage space because the videos reside in the video sharing sites.

Besides videos, use social photo sharing sites like Flickr to share pictures related to contents in your site. Use the same title, description and tag techniques discussed earlier for social video sites.

Provide a Send to Friend feature for all products and services you offer. This feature is a link that sends the article, product description, etc. to a recipient via e-mail.

For starter, Yahoo provides a service called Action Buttons (search for Yahoo Action Buttons) that add links to your website for users to share, save, and blog about your website. The Yahoo action buttons use delicious for social bookmarking, and Yahoo blog site for blogging. It also has a print feature.

The social media is not a fad. It is here to stay and bring in profound changes to web surfers' experiences. It is the right time for implementing features that will make your site social media friendly. Also, using marketing techniques that utilize popular social media sites, you will be able to bring traffic to your site.

About The Author

Dr. Deepak Dutta is the creator of http://www.semanticbay.com - an interactive social network website based on user shared text and picture contents on any topics. His other website http://www.classifiedsforfree.com - is one of the oldest online classifieds site where users can post ads in more than 600 US cities and 60 countries.

About this Article: This article is published publicly on Google Docs

How to Use MySpace For Business
By Jeffrey Solochek

If you visit MySpace and do some browsing then the question will almost answer itself. Basically, you need to create a profile and then invite others to be your friends. This can be a because after you have invited 40 you will be required to enter in a CAPTCHA to keep on going. There are several marketing guides out there that tell you of ways to accelerate this.

The reason you want to enlarge your network of friends is because then you will be able to post bulletins that all the people in your network will see. Besides bulletins you can send private messages or just put comments up on your main page. A good profile page is also very important because this is like the About me page on Ebay. You can tell a little bit about yourself and embed links to other sites or even post links to places where you are an affiliate of. MySpace with 300 million users can be a great place to focus your marketing to certain niche groups.

You can have videos on your MySpace page and also post these videos to places like YouTube, Google Video and Yahoo video. My son has a large network on one of his accounts and he is an affiliate for one program where he gets paid every time a person goes to the site from one of his pages. In a test he made $30 in only ten minutes time. Just think what you could make in an entire day with marketing like this.

There is a site called FriendStorm that helps you to increase your number of friends a lot faster than just using the MySpace tools plus there are several bots out there that are designed to speed up everything for you. A lot of these Bots now are getting much faster than they used to run with programs like BadderAdder. I tried one a few days ago which was like a turbo charged version of BadderAdder called Buddypromoter. Besides just a friend adder it had a lot of other useful features.

I know of a few marketers who use the site MySpace very well. They have large networks of friends and they say they are making good income from MySpace. Another unusual tool on MySpace is called a Whore Train. Back when I grew up a Whore was not a person you would bring home to meet your parents but on MySpace it is a good tool. It allows you to create a network of friends by having other users invite others to add you to their network.

I see a lot of banners for other companies all over the site MySpace. I use Hostgator for all my personal web hosting needs and I now see their banners all over the place now. MySpace also has forums and groups where you are able to more freely interact with other MySpacer's. Now you would think that on a site like this somebody could create a post on your account that you do not like you can just delete it. If a post is blatant SPAM they even allow you to alert the moderators to this..

My article is only meant to give you a brief on marketing on the site MySpace. I said earlier that there are many publications out there that will completely expand on what I have said here. One site that I know of is MySpaceJobKiller which has a site with the same name. This book will reveal a lot of shortcuts getting you to the point of making more money a lot faster than just doing everything by experimentation.

Basically what it all comes down to is MySpace has so many different groups so if your niche was lets say Rose Gardening you could find several groups pertaining to either roses or even just gardening. You could even market adult products on this site as I have seen several groups that are questionable. Groups like Bad Girls or Naughty Girls. And the same with the other Gender. I have had several escorts approaching me on MySpace including Strippers and a few other services which I will need to learn about first.

If all you want a MySpace profile for is marketing then I have found that the profiles of good looking young ladies with pictures have a lot of friends. If you can find a bot that will create profiles like this for you then you've got it made. I've heard that some bots even have whats called a profile grabber that will find some pretty good background images for your MySpace profile. MySpace is not just a site to network and make friends.

Jeffrey has over 2 decades experience in the business world. When he writes he blends his unique wit and humour into every article which if you rread his blog you can see all of his many works. http://www.nosugarcoating.info/facts

7 Ways to Social Bookmarking
By Raymond Nesa

Social bookmarking is a way for people to find collections of useful resources. These bookmark lists are either available to the general public or a specified group of people. Mostly they are used by people who have interests in common. Here are 7 ways to productive social bookmarking.

1. Tags. Most social bookmarking is done by tags, and allows search results and rankings according to the number of people who have bookmarked those particular resources. Make sure you enter appropriate tag information.

2. Keywords. This is another way to categorize a bookmark, and for productive social bookmarking you should make sure yours includes keywords that people would search for on the internet in the order in which they would be written.

3. Topics. This is similar to using keywords, except that they are more like titles, and titles are the most important part of an article written for web content--they should contain the keywords, and so should your topic, for productive social bookmarking.

4. Category. Some bookmarks are sorted by category, such as games, food products, music, etc. Make use of this by including it in your topic and keyword phrase.

5. Use feeds. Make sure your bookmarking service offers the choice of web feed subscriptions. This allows up to date information to be send to users constantly.

6. Remember that, unlike search engines, the bookmarking services don’t have standards when it comes to keywords. However, stick to the ones that are understandable--don’t try to be cute.

7. You are also competing with spammers. There is no regulation on spamming bookmarking services, so remember to stay relevant.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? Secrets of Article Marketing

Raymond Nesa is an experienced web marketer specializing in article marketing, traffic generation, and list building.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Raymond_Nesa
http://EzineArticles.com/?7-Ways-to-Social-Bookmarking&id=561123

Social Bookmarking – What is It?
By John V. W. Howe

Do you have an account on (http://) del.icio.us?

What! You say to yourself, that is a crazy name and it does not even look like a valid name for a website. Well, it is a real site with an Alexa rank of 123 which is in the stratosphere for web site rankings.

Let's use old, dependable Wikipedia for a definition of del.icio.us:

"The website del.icio.us (pronounced as "delicious") is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site came online in late 2003 and was founded by Joshua Schachter, co-maintainer of Memepool. It is now part of Yahoo!"

A social bookmarking site is one where you can establish an account and store your favorites. You can make these bookmarks private for your own use, or make them available to anyone on the Web.

You have your favorites listed in folders on your browser, but that information is available only to you on your home computer. If you open a bookmark site (and there are many others in addition to del.icio.us), you can share these bookmarks with any reader on the Web.

Why do this? One reason is that you can access your bookmarks from any computer with an Internet connection so you can get to your bookmarks when you are traveling.

However, the major reason is to help build traffic to your websites. Use of bookmarking sites is a way to create links back to your websites and help generate traffic. There are numerous bookmark sites and you can set up bookmark files on as many as you want, all of which create the links back to your websites.

The best way to learn about social bookmarking is to open an account on del.icio.us and learn about the site. You definitely need to know about it and how to use it to your advantage.

John V. W. Howe is an entrepreneur, author, inventor, patent holder, husband, father, and grandfather. He has been involved in entrepreneurial activities for over 40 years. He founded http://www.boomer-ezine.com and http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com to help Boomers (baby boomers) become entrepreneurs when they retire.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_V._W._Howe
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Social Bookmarking and Seo

By Tejrin Raghav

Social bookmarking is a new trend in search engine optimization, which has gained recognition as part of a new type of website optimization, termed “social media optimization (SMO).” Social Book marking, also referred to sometimes as “social bookmarketing”, is the term used for bookmarking sites on the web and sharing them with friends. It is similar to bookmarking a site on your pc, in the “favorites” of your web browser.

There is an increasing number of websites available on the web that provides this as a free service for bookmarking your sites or blogs on the web. These sites are known as social bookmarking sites. Once you have created a free account, you may begin adding bookmarks to your account. The advantage is that once you have bookmarked any site then you can access them from anywhere on the web, and also share them with friends.

So how is social bookmarking useful for SEO you ask?

Social bookmarking sites are “tag based”- which means you can “tag” them with keywords so your visitors that bookmark your site can find them easily later. Search engines index these tags, as well as the link, so you are essentially getting free one-way links from high-traffic sites, with all of your keywords attached to them! It is a great way to get your website visitors working for you. However, choosing proper tag names is critical and plays a very important roles if you want to truly get social book marking to work for you in your search engine optimization process. The interesting thing is that there are no limitations for the number of tags you can attach to your link. The extent to which you declare tags will allow for your site’s information to be stored. Additionally, when someone bookmarks your site, the bookmarking site checks the tags to see if the link already exists. So by periodically changing your bookmark tags, you can get multiple links with different tags on the same site. In other words, your site will be stored in different pages and you will get links from the different pages of the same sites.

Because these sites are regularly crawled by search engines, your site will most likely also be crawled more often by having bookmarked links on these websites.

Author is a website marketing executive for Phoenix & Las Vegas, based web design & marketing firm – Vision Media Corporation. Vision Media is Specialize in rich web application development, search engine optimization, custom website design, multimedia production, and other rich web applications.

Five Rules For Social Video Optimization

by Deepak Dutta

The popularity of social video sites like YouTube, Yahoo Video, iFilm, blinkx is undeniable. YouTube alone receives more than 65,000 video uploads and plays 100 million clips every day. By 2010, video enthusiasts will consume 44 billion user generated video clips. This represents 55% of all the video content viewed by US consumers. In the future, user generated videos may even end up on your television screen through the cables and satellites. YouTube has already announced incorporating the revenue sharing possibility with the creators of these video streams. Other sites may follow soon. You will be able to monetize your video contents and allow others to discover your skills and talents for better jobs or other lucrative offerings. To maximize the impact of your creativity, you need to know the kind of contents you have to produce and effectively present those contents in the video sharing sites.

The social video optimization is not about optimizing your videos for high search engine ranking (SEO). It is about making your videos for others to enjoy and learn from (providing benefits to people) and publishing those videos in social video and social media websites for viewers to easily discover, bookmark, and share for a viral effect.

1. Provide benefits. Offer something that will benefit others. It may be funny video clips, a series of �how-to� videos, an unusual moment, etc. Don't upload any violent clips. Though these clips are popular in video sharing sites, most of the time they don't provide any real value to the society. Unless the violence has journalistic value, don�t embrace it for amusement. Funny clips are popular. Kids and pets provide plenty of opportunities to capture hilarious moments. If you have plumbing skills, offer a series of short "how to" videos on fixing things around the house. A computer geek can channel her skills in developing short videos on how to setup a home network. Plenty of opportunities are available. Find your niches and work in those areas. If you are comedian, create short stand-up comedy routine videos. The bottom line is to create themes and produce a series of videos based on each theme.

2. Provide enhanced viewing experience. People do not want to watch a full-length movie in a video-sharing site. A clip should not be more than 10 minutes long. Buy a cell phone with a good quality camera for capturing those unexpected moments. Otherwise, use a digital video camera for making your clips. Use a free online video editing sites like http://cuts.com for cutting video scenes, inserting title and sound effects, etc.

3. Create your brand. Companies spend millions to establish and promote brands. Why should not you? Brand recognition is very powerful and it may set you apart from others. Insert a few frames at the start and end of every video you create to introduce yourself, your skills and talents. People like to associate with real persons rather than some unknown entities. Tell them what this video is all about. Make it short. Setup a blog and provide your blog URL in the introductory and conclusionary frames. Make the blog URL short for people to remember it easily.

4. Make it discoverable. This is like marketing your video on the video sharing sites. If you don't do it properly, your contribution will be lost in the sea of video clips. Provide a short and catchy title with keywords related to your video. Relevant keywords will help locate your clips when people do a search. A catchy title in the search results will draw viewers' attention. Learn from the titles others are using by doing a search using your keywords in YouTube and other similar sites. The same goes for the description. Use relevant keywords but make it interesting to arouse curiosity. Write in the natural language and avoid adjectives. Let the users decide the quality of your presentation.

Tags are everywhere now a day. It is a keyword, not a keyword phrase. You should provide tags for your uploaded contents. If your titles and descriptions are relevant to your videos, you already have a few tags. Besides the tags you have already collected from your title and description use one or more tags to closely identify your content to the categories available in the site. For example, on YouTube you have categories like "autos and vehicles", "comedy", "howto" etc. If your video is about how to fix a flat tire, use additional tags like "tire", "car", etc. Add a few additional tags to describe the least important thing in your video. In the "fix a flat tire" video example, you can add tags like "stems", "valve", etc. Use as many tags as you can accommodate in the tag text box.

5. Relax and enjoy. You may be wondering why this is a rule. This is a rule because you do not want to feel the burnout. Enjoy what you are doing. Have a passion for your creative works. Don't think about how much money you are going to make by producing these videos. This is not going to make you rich overnight or within a very short time span. What is important is that you are pursuing something that you like. If the society is benefiting from your creative works, you will get adequate monetary rewards.

About The Author

Dr. Deepak Dutta is the creator of http://www.semanticbay.com - an interactive social network website based on user shared text and picture contents on any topics. His other website http://www.classifiedsforfree.com - is one of the oldest online classifieds site.

Your Yahoo Marketing Plan - the complete business guide to getting the most out of Yahoo

Yahoo is the largest website in the world, and there is a reason for it. It's pretty much the first live web community combined with search engine technology. Millions of people use it for many purposes on a daily basis. When marketing to search engines, especially a monster like Yahoo, it's pretty much impossible to know where to start your promotions. You can always add your website to Yahoo results for a flat fee or bid on keywords using Overture. The truth is, there are many amazing free services that Yahoo offers which can add credibility, and linkability, to your business.

First things first: Make sure you have a Yahoo profile filled out with keywords and a professional description. Your Yahoo profile can talk about your business and link to your websites. Make sure you fill it out completely and use it to link to where you have a presence online - your website, blog, or social networking profiles. Explain what your business does, upload a few pictures, and keep it professional. Simple enough, right? You can get your profile at yahoo here.

Here's a rundown of all the ways you can use to gain more visibility from this marketing giant.

Free Yahoo Marketing Tools:

These are all of the free tools Yahoo offers to help you grow your business.

1. Explore, submit and manage your website listings, free with Yahoo Site Explorer. Yes, that's right - it's free . Yahoo requires some authentication with this, but you can add your website and upload a small text file to your server to verify ownership. You can also track multiple websites (without confirmation) so you can keep an eye on the competition - including how many pages are indexed and who's linking to them. Yahoo also lets you submit your RSS, blog, and other feeds in this section - all free. Check the Yahoo Site Explorer Blog to find out how you can submit your entire site map to Yahoo, free.
2. Add your multimedia to Yahoo. It's free and easy - any RSS technology your business uses will be included in the Yahoo search engines.
   
3. Become a Widget Builder. Distribute an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) news widget if you have a blog or website that publishes articles or news. You'll be featured in the Widget Gallery and anyone who is interested in your topic can download your feed widget any time they want. That means you'll be on their desktop whenever you post. (If you don't know how to make one, here's an excellent article for technical guidance on RSS widget creation. Yahoo also has some information in their help section about Widget creation as well as forums for developers to help each other out.
4. Join Yahoo Answers and answer questions in the industry you're involved in. There are questions in pretty much any category - law, fashion, art, entertainment, movies... You get the idea. Every time you answer a question, your profile gets linked to. You can also establish yourself as an expert if you have some time on your hands to answer a ton of questions. Otherwise, it may be best to set your sights on answering one question a day. Don't want to use a photo in Yahoo Answers? You can create your own free avatar on Yahoo easily and add it to your profiles and your Yahoo Answers account.
5. Create a Yahoo Group or at least join a few on the topic of your business. There are thousands of fan and expertise groups that interact regularly by sending out a newsletter or answering questions from group members. Make sure you fill out all of the information on your group and add your links to the group directory, if allowed.(You'll also want to remember to use your signature and tag lines when you post.)
   
6. Create a basic free web page in Geocities. Link to all of your important places on the web. You'll be included in Geocities search results. Add your Geocities page link to your Yahoo profile while you're at it.
   
7. Use Yahoo Web Calendar to publicly post your calendar and events online. You can also set it up to repeat events on a specific day of the month. It's great for sales or meetings that take place once or twice a month.
   
8. Yahoo Classifieds are free for selling a specific item or service. They are a little spammy, though - make sure you don't contribute to the spam by being specific and honest in your ad.
   
9. Yahoo Message Boards are available on any topic. Post all you want on your topic (but don't violate the terms of service) - they are pretty much unmoderated.
10. My Web 2.0 is Yahoo's new social bookmarking service - use it. Add your business links, articles, and affiliate websites with appropriate keyword tags to increase link popularity. (And keep your bookmarks in place.)
    
11. Add photos at Yahoo Photos. This allows your business to share your photos with the world. It's perfect for event promotion and particularly good images of your products. (Or, your business in action...Such as giving a massage or building a house.)
    
12. Add a Podcast to Yahoo. Yahoo allows your business to create and distribute a podcast, and has a search feature based on keyword. Podcasting is pretty popular. Not sure what your podcast should be about? If you are a business catering to consumers, make it fun. (For example, if you sell high-end clothing, you can do a daily podcast on celebrities and the clothes they wear...) If you cater to businesses, do a podcast that sells your expertise (and interview others to get their expertise, too..) If you already have a podcast, submission is free and will be picked up when you send them the link on the podcast page. They also give away a nifty button for you to use to promote your feed.
    
13. Make some money by becoming a Yahoo Publisher. Similar to Google, Yahoo displays content-relevant ads on your website, and you get a check every month. They have strict guidelines so you should have unique, relevant content on your website.
    
14. Add your events to Yahoo's Upcoming, a location-specific site that people actually subscribe to when they want to keep up with local events. It's free and you can even track how many people plan on attending, so make sure to announce it to your newsletter subscribers and website visitors so they can RSVP. If you plan on going to a specific networking event that isn't listed, you can let the world know that you'll be there or join/create a group that meets in real life at events. (Such as the "Web Conference Junkies") Yahoo recently acquired Upcoming, so you will need to register with Upcoming as well.
    

Cheap Marketing Tools at Yahoo

1. Get listed in Yahoo Local. They've syndicated the results so you can be found in more places. Prices start at 25.00/month - and right now, at least, the first month is free. Each listing includes a free five-page web site, which you can customize with your own text, logo, and links using a simple online wizard. Set up your web site after you enter your listing details.
2. Submit your products to Yahoo. You pay based on performance and set a budget like you would with Google Adwords. Whenever somebody ends up in Yahoo shopping, they'll be able to find specific products.
3. Basic search submit to Yahoo is affordable and prices start at $49/year and gets new websites listed faster. You can submit up to 5 URL's. Use it to list your business, blog, and other sites where you do business. You'll still need SEO optimization and incoming links to garner attention and decent placement.
4. Yahoo Campaigner is available to businesses that need an email list. Pricing starts at $10 a month, with the first month free. You can also use their list-building services by buying from InfoUsa.
   

Other Business Tools at Yahoo

1. Yahoo Messenger is pretty much universal, and now it is web-based. Sign up for the new Yahoo web messenger and give it to your prospects and customers so they can get in touch with you more quickly
2. Add Y!Q to your website. It embeds related search results intuitively based on keywords and context. It's still in beta mode, but the search results are pretty straight-forward. It's more search-friendly than the Google boxes.
3. Create a Yahoo Briefcase and allow users to store files and documents online. If you sign up for premium service, it's about $3 a month and you can share your files publicly. Businesses can use it to store contracts and marketing material.
4. Protect your computer, personal life, and passwords with Yahoo Security. They offer a free online virus scan by partnering with Symantec.

And finally, keep up with what Yahoo is doing by visiting and bookmarking Yahoo Next, the blog that announces features that are new, upcoming, or soon to be nixed. And bookmark this page in case we update it. :-)

This is the first in a series of marketing articles by Melissa Brewer, Creative Director at Capital Creative Marketing and Copywriting. Capital Creative specializes in Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing and caters to business clients (economically!) on a global scale. Please feel free to add us to your network at Linked In or any other networking or business website using yourfreelanceneeds @ gmail.com.