Subscribers: Pay A Fee or Get It Free

Why pay when visitors can get it free?

A lot of new website owners add subscriber revenues to their calculations when figuring their break-even date and potential for profit. Not a good idea. Subscriber sites are fast disappearing from the webscape and for good reason. Why pay when you can get it for free?

As a site owner with expertise for which others would pay to read, it’s hard not to think about subscription revenue but the plain fact is, online subscriptions have never really taken off the way we all thought they would. The New York Times went the subscription route with its Times Select but it wasn’t generating enough revenue to justify itself, so the critical features of the NYTs are now available free online.

Even Rupert Murdoch, the much-maligned media mogul, who just bought control of the Wall Street Journal is planning to give away fresh content on the WSJ website. Every day. And that’s one mogul who knows how to make money through advertising!

What happened?
Does anyone remember 2002? Seems so long ago. 2002 is antediluvian in web years. That was a long time ago. But back then, the web had grown substantially with the advent of the search engine in 1994 (along with numerous, subsequent refinements to search engine technology), and media outlets, big and small, saw dollar signs – a whole new revenue stream.

However, in 2002, in the wake of the dot.bomb debacle, online ad revenues took a major nose dive that digital marketers are still trying to overcome. The online subscription revenue model never really took off and, today, even the big players are leaving the field.

The reasons are pretty obvious. First, the web provides so much content from so many varied sources, you don’t have to pay a subscription for the latest in gold futures. Some site is giving it away. Second, add to this the development of RSS technology – the ability of individual web users to gather news and other content of interest with 100% customization, and it becomes pretty obvious why subscriber sites aren’t doing so well.

There are other reasons people give for staying clear of subscriber sites. They’ve been scammed before by another e-book download with nothing to say. They don’t want to give you their credit card number. You use a high-pressure sales approach making untested claims, predictions and guarantees. They figure you’ll sell their contact information and they’ll be bombarded with spam. An online subscription is a tough sell, so what’s the small, self-published guru to do about that $49-a-year online newsletter that subscribers delete without opening after a week or two?

What to do?
Change your revenue model. Change your website. Change your bottom line for the better.

It starts by changing your view of site content. Owners of subscriber-based websites depend on readers’ “need to know” – whether it’s a professional financial advisory, a “top secret” stock report, or the latest news on what’s happening in China’s shoe industry – somebody needs that information. And, if this information proves useful, subscribers will stick with you.

Useful information is information that works to the benefit of the reader. It could be a self-help website with a monthly affirmation newsletter, or a pet owner site that sends you weekly tips to keep your kitty happy and healthy. If the content is actually useful a subscriber site might survive – until some other visionary comes along and starts giving away the information you’re selling.

Change your view of content. Don’t think of content as something to be sold. Give it away. Use it to entice readers to visit your site often. Daily, perhaps. Now, no doubt, there are a lot of entrepreneurs shaking their heads as they read this. These are people who have spent years learning their industry, a new system to win at poker or how to use hedge funds to fast-track your retirement years. They have knowledge.

However, others have that knowledge, too. And if web users can find that information free, they sure enough aren’t going to pay you for the same thing. So, instead of thinking of content as something to sell, think of it as bait to attract regular readers and improve links popularity.

So how do I make money with this new revenue model of which you speak?
Indeed, web-based ad revenues did decrease for a short time in ’02. But since then, there’s been a marked increase in revenue growth, closing in on $2 billion in ’07 and projected to exceed $11 billion in just five years. The web has become one of the most potent marketing tools available to advertisers.

You can pick up some of that ad revenue using the content you once sold to draw in the traffic and keep your PR high, with ad revenues to match. You can also develop affiliate partnerships with companies that want to reach your target market.

Here’s how the numbers break out. In the summer of ’06, survey respondents were asked if they would rather receive free content with advertising or paid content with no advertising. More than 70% of those surveyed opted for free with advertising. And that’s why you see ads for Coke before a music video download on AOL. AOL is giving away the content and making its money on that 15 second Coke ad. Even so, 78% of Millenials (ages 13 – 24) found web ads more intrusive. Clearly, they want the content free – free of cost and free of advertising.

e-Marketer analyst, Lisa Phillips, recently stated, “Advertisers pay up to three times more to reach print readers than online users. They’re not convinced online readers browse a news web site the way they believe print readers still browse through an entire section of a newspaper.”

Excellent point and one that clearly demonstrates why print media is so heavy on advertising and light on content. All you have to do is check today’s newspaper if you want proof.

Time for a change
If you have a successful, subscriber site – congratulations. You must have something very interesting or useful to say to your subscribers. However, if you’ve seen your subscriber list dwindle and re-ups shrink, it’s time to change your business model and use that subscriber content as the lure.

Use the online ad revenues as your reward.

CSS: Keep Your Content and Design Distinct

Simplfy Site Changes With CSS

Web sites are constructed using a simple computer code called HTML which stands for hyper-text mark-up language. HTML forms the backbone of the world wide web, providing the underlying infrastructure of the millions of web sites that occupy the digital landscape. HTML is simple to learn and implement, which is one reason it’s the W3 standard. However, HTML has a couple of significant drawbacks.

First, it’s cumbersome. It requires a great deal of hand coding which is very expensive compared to automated coding.

Second, HTML lacks flexibility. Elements of design, images, charts and other common web site features have to be positioned using HTML code – on every page, even if the layout stays the same.

Finally, HTML isn’t very efficient. So, if you have a site on which content changes often, as in the “sale of the day,” you or some HTML coder has to go into the HTML code to make those changes in content every day.

To address these and other HTML limitations, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were devised to supplement the still-standard HTML code.

CSS is intended to increase flexibility of design, make sites more user-friendly by making them much faster and customizable and, finally, CSS eliminates repetitive and pricey hand-coding, making it much less expensive to get a professional-looking site up and running. Okay, not anybody can do it, but if you have some facility with site design and construction you can employ CSS to simplify the structure of the site.

Content and Design
Every page of a web site is comprised of two elements: content and design. Content is usually presented as text but content also includes pictures and other images that are a part of “telling your story.”

The other aspect of any web page is design – how the content is actually laid out on any given page. Design includes such basics as where to position product text near a product picture (under, over, to the side, surrounding) to the motif selected for everything from background color to buttons to navigation bar.

If you think of these as two distinct elements of a web page you’ll more clearly understand the value of CSS. Using CSS, design elements are kept in a separate file, apart from content. The benefits are immediate and significant.

Design It Once
Using stand-alone HTML requires that every page be constructed (coded) with both content and elements of design being hand placed by the code writer. No problem if your site is a few pages, but what if you’ve got hundreds or thousands of pages. Having to hand code each one of those pages would be costly in the extreme because it would take so long.

Using CSS, the designer codes all design elements one time. This is the background color, these are the colors of this header, this is the size of this button – all elements of design are placed in a single, CSS file.

Then, the coder can simply reference that CSS file to apply that design to whatever pages use it. Think of Amazon.com’s product pages – all basically the same layout. The content changes, of course, but the product pix are always in the same position, product description, reviews, etc. are always in the same place. Prior to the development of CSS, each of those pages required some hand coding in addition to a lot of cutting and pasting from blocks of HTML code.

Today, a designer can make any number of CSS and reference each site page to the appropriate style sheet. Design it once, then change the content as needed.

The Many, Mighty Benefits of CSS

First, let’s start with search engines. Spiders crawl pages of repetitious HTML code. It takes longer to spider a site and it’s more difficult for the spider to identify new content. With CSS, content and design are separate. So, a spider crawls the CSS file once then focuses on the site’s real purpose – the text that delivers the site’s message.

This elevates content to a new level since spiders are always looking for fresh content in assessing a site’s quality. Text is given more weight when design is relegated to a CSS file.

Second, download time is reduced anywhere from 20% to 80%. Why? Because instead of having to download dozens of pages of HTML design code, you now download a single CSS file with all design elements in one place. The text may be the same but downloads are much, much shorter, providing visitors with a better on-site experience.

CSS are more friendly to a variety of media – everything from cell phones and Blackberries to screen readers for the visually impaired who no longer have to sit through written descriptions of page graphics via an HTML tag.

CSS enables the visitor to design the site to his or her needs and/or preferences. Don’t like that type font? Click here for any easier one to read. In other words, by accessing different CSS, visitors can create screen settings that they like or need due to vision problems or just personal preferences.

Next, CSS cuts down on the costs of site design. Using CSS, programmers design it once and apply where desired. And remember, the designer can create as many CSS as required so there are no design limitations. In the same vein, updating a site is much less costly – very important to sites that sell a lot of different products with constantly changing inventory.

Finally, a site owner can easily create printer-friendly versions of all pages by creating a text only CSS. Very useful in sites that provide a great deal of hard content or print out invoices.

What Should I Do?
If you haven’t started the design of your site, go with CSS programming all the way. There are lots of on-line tutorials and many web hosts provide CSS software for easy style sheet creation.

If your site is already up and running, consider taking the time and/or incurring the expense of converting to CSS. Any one of the benefits listed above should be enough to motivate you but if not, how’s this: your competitors have already converted to CSS or soon will be. You’ll be the last black & white TV on the cyber block.

Faster downloads, user-customized pages, lower design and maintenance costs, easier reading by spiders, much less hand coding and flashier, more professional-looking sites. Those are the benefits of using cascading style sheets.

So, what are you waiting for? Go CSS and make your site more attractive, more visitor-friendly and much, much cooler much, much faster.

Need some help pumping up your site’s performance? Yeah, it’s a headache. Give me a call. I’m the cure. Webwordslinger.

Accessibility: It’s What A Web Site Is All About

KEEP IT SIMPLE TO GET THE MDA

Accessibility, when discussing web sites, includes a number of factors: easy navigation, understandable site text, no dead ends requiring a browser back click to escape (lots of users don’t even know browsers HAVE a back click).

Let’s start with the bottom line- yours: the easier it is for a site visitor to perform the most desired action (MDA), the more times that MDA will be performed.

Let’s Start With Navigation
Whether you go with a navigation bar at the top of the screen or a menu list in the first column far left, your navigation must be:

• simple
• unambiguous
• truthful
• always available
• always in the same location

Avoid numerous tabs, drop-down or flyout menus. Keep it simple. If visitors are faced with too many choices too soon on arriving at the site, chances are they’ll bounce.

Keep the navigation unambiguous. It’s routine to have a “Contact Us” page on a web site. If you label the contact link “Company Authority,” visitors are going to be totally confused. And again, bounce.

Truthful is just what it says. If the link says “Product Descriptions,” don’t make the visitor read through another landing page of sell copy. Deliver what the link says and go directly to the products.

Always available is an aspect of keeping visitors on site longer, and the longer they stick around, the more likely they are to perform the MDA. So, the navigation bar or menu should be available from every page so the visitor can surf at will, unencumbered by what YOU think the visitor wants to know.

Finally, keep the nav tabs in the same place. Don’t move them from bar to menu and back to bar. The last thing you want is a visitor trying to figure out how to return to the contact page to make contact.

Keep it simple. The fewer clicks required to get the visitor to perform the MDA, the better. So, go through the process and eliminate every unnecessary side road, dead end and yet another landing page.

Accessible Content
If your client site is for a professional medical dispenser, you can assume that the visitors have some knowledge of the subject, i.e. you don’t have to start from square one. But you still have to stay on target pointing out the benefits of buying the client’s medical products.

On the other hand, if you’re writing text for a hearing aid retail outlet, accessible text is understandable by the reader. So first, toss the thesaurus. Find the simplest, shortest way to say what needs to be said about products and services.

Be helpful and supportive to the new visitor. Make things simple to find, simple to learn and simple to bookmark. Returning visitors are gold. Eventually they buy something so earning a bookmark is a very good thing.

Skip the hype. Educate the visitor using simple terms, no jargon and listing benefits rather than features. This is the stuff site visitors want to know.

Finally, lay out the text so it can be scanned rather than read. No big, long paragraphs. Visitors scan from upper left to lower right so put your most important info upper left on the screen.

The easier it is to buy something, opt-in for a newsletter, or to complete a form, the more often those MDAs are performed. So make it as simple as possible (why do you think Amazon offers a one-click checkout? How easy can it be?).

Accessibility benefits both site owner and site visitor – a win-win. Also a no brainer.

Need to make your site more accessible? Dropme a line and give me a call. Let’s have a look at what ya got. Webwordslinger

Content Syndication: Get Linked In

Get Linked In

Do a little Google research and you’ll quickly discover that there are a million e-books, seminars and webinars about building links to your site. If your site isn’t plugged into the grid – a stand-alone – you’re all but ignored by search engines because your site has no context. Search engine spiders can’t determine your site’s taxonomy – the categorization of the site into a class or group based on the site’s topicality.

Search engines look for links to and from your site. If you have a lot of reciprocal links (link exchanges), you score some points but you’re not knocking ‘em dead. Spiders know a link exchange when they encounter one so a reciprocal link has less value than a non-reciprocal link – an in-bound link without an outbound link connecting back.

The Value of the Non-Reciprocal Site Link
Spiders crawl a site and assess what they find based on top-secret formulae called algorithms. These algorithms are complex weightings of various site components. So, for example, content that changes often (green content) is a plus built into the search engine algorithm. Thus, a site that provides fresh, informational content scores higher than one that’s as stale as last week’s doughnuts. Spam – useless gibberish created just to attract search engines – loses you points in the SEO Sweepstakes, too.

Now, there are plenty of search engine optimization (SEO) pros willing to take your money to show you how to improve or optimize your site so that it moves up in the search engine rankings. Less face it, if your site is entombed on page 68 of Google’s SERPs you won’t generate much organic (search engine driven) traffic.

One thing that spiders look for in assessing the quality or usefulness of a site is the number of non-reciprocal links connected to that site. Why? Because it’s an indicator of quality and utility. That’s why other site owners are recommending that their site visitors click off and go to your site. Quite a feather in your cap, eh? Collect enough non-reciprocal links and search engines may come to “see” you as an authority site. This coveted designation moves you right to the top of search engine results pages.

Bottom line: spiders use links as a measurement in site assessment. The more quality non-reciprocal, inbound links there are, the higher the site ranks (page rank or PR).

Content Creates Links
Good, fresh content is a highly-prized commodity on the world wide web because search engine spiders like to see up-to-date, relevant information for their users. Spiders take snapshots of each website they visit. It’s called the cache view on SERPs. When a spider crawls a site, it compares the cache with the current content. If nothing has changed, your content will ultimately be considered stale and, as a result, you’ll fall in the SERPs.

Every site needs new content and one way they get it is through article syndication.

Web Article Syndication
If you’re an expert on the subject of your web site, you can develop non-reciprocal in-bound links through article syndication. It’s perhaps the least expensive, most effective means of improving your site’s search engine ranking.

There are sites like goarticles.com and ezine.com that syndicate content within a wide variety of categories. This content (articles) is posted by the author and is free for the taking by any web site for display.

The way you benefit? Part of the deal is that any site that uses your article must provide a link back to your site. At the end of an article on antique watches you’ll see an author’s box that says something like:

Author John Smith is an authority on antique watches and offers free
appraisals at johnsmithantiques.com

That’s a non-reciprocal link which is given more value than a simple link exchange.

The Benefits of Web Content Syndication
The most obvious benefit, from the SEO perspective, is that every site that picks up John Smith’s antique watch article must provide a non-reciprocal, in-bound link to Mr. Smith’s website. So, if Smith’s article is picked up and used by a couple of dozen web sites, he’ll end up with a number of inbound links from a single article.

Now, if Smith then writes an article on antique sideboards, posts it on goarticles.com or some other content syndicator and gets picked up by more sites, the number of non-reciprocal inbound links continues to grow.

Onceagain, these inbound links are considered more valuable by search engine spiders than plain link exchanges. The fact that a site has linked to you without a reciprocal link is an indicator that your site is worth visiting, at least according to the referring site owner. In addition, you’re becoming a recognized authority on the topic pf your site. A two-fer!

Some Precautions
Perhaps the most important precaution is to limit the number of sites that post one of your articles. One thing spiders don’t like is duplicate content so if your article currently appears on 20 different sites, you’ll get credit for the in-bound links but the value of those links will be diminished because of that duplicate content. It’s all over the web!

Make sure you track the sites that are picking up your articles. Just Google your name or the title of the article to see what pops up. Visit each site to make sure that the promised link back to your site is there. Also make sure that your content isn’t being used for illegal or unscrupulous purposes. You write a piece on options investing and all of a sudden it’s being used as a “testimonial” by some sleazy scam artists selling options contracts to little old ladies. You have the right to request the removal of your article and most sites will comply. If they don’t, notify the syndicator who may deny additional content to the offending site.

What If I Can’t Write?
This is one links-building strategy that works. There’s enough cyber world evidence to prove that. However, if you can’t string words together to create a useful, informational article, find someone who can.

Your spouse, neighbor, even your kid might have a hidden writer just waiting for the chance to blossom. Or, you can find SEO copywriters on sites like guru.com and elance.com. Some of these professional writers (be careful who you choose) know how to craft an article that’ll get picked up by lots of sites that are topically related to your site. Keep track of how many sites run the piece at one time so you don’t overexpose it. You can find that information on the syndicator’s site.

Finally, to amortize your costs in money and/or time, re-use articles. After you’ve removed a piece from the syndication list, wait 12 months and repost it. You’ll pick up a bunch of new sites willing to publish the piece and you’ll have a bunch of new, non-reciprocal, inbound links that’ll make your site shine in the eyes of search engine spiders.

Five Negative Search Engine Ranking Factors: BAM!

 

ARE YOUR CLIENT SITES GETTING THROUGH TO SEARCH ENGINES?

Webmaster and hosting blogs are jam-packed with hunches, guesses and opinions on Google’s ranking factors. The most powerful search engine in the world has been dissected, desiccated and analyzed by hundreds of experts and still controversy reigns.

 

Some of the more contentious issues include: server accessibility (get a good web host), quality of site content, domain extensions of sites linking in and outbound links to lower ranking sites. The experts can’t seem to agree on what counts in these areas.

SEOmoz is a great site for information from the ecommerce digi-sphere. Here, you’ll find some of the best information written by some of the most knowledgeable SEO professionals. Sure, there’s bound to be bias and debate, controversy and even the occasional name calling, but it’s all good.

In compiling its lists of positive, controversial and “known” negative ranking factors within the Google search algorithm, SEOmoz.org queried 31 well-known experts on their opinions and one thing is certain: no one individual has it all figured out. The ranking factors employed by the Googlistas change as Google’s math geeks and coders build ever-more sophisticated algos designed to provide more raw data and more pertinent data from spiders.

The Top Five Negative Ranking Factors
So what do the cyber-pros identify as the most negative ranking factors within Google’s current algorithm? They’re listed below but note, take these Google negatives with a grain of salt.

It could all change tonight while you sleep.

Negative Ranking Factor #1: Googlebots can’t access your server.
If the site is down for more than 48 hours, which is often the case with low-rent web hosts located half-way around the world, a site’s Google ranking drops like a stone.

If your host server is down a lot, search engines don’t want to recommend the site to visitors who will see a 404 error message that the site is unavailable and can’t be accessed.

The solution? Find a host that delivers not only a 99.9% uptime but also has local tech support, backup emergency generators and multiple layers of server side security. You’ll spend about $7.00 a month for quality shared hosting. Double that amount for quality dedicated service if cross-server attacks are a concern. Don’t let a few bucks a month keep your site from higher rankings. It’s just not cost effective.

Note: Server availability as a ranking factor is one of the most contended topics among SEO professionals who spend much of their time trying to out-think Googlebots, so even the experts can’t agree on this one.

Negative Ranking Factor #2: Duplicate or Similar Content.
Most experts do agree on this one.

Repetitious content is a stone-cold killer. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t pick up a useful piece of syndicated content of interest to your readers. The warning, here, has to do with site text. A programmer can always upload a syndicated article. However, body text should change from page to page, providing a more useful visitor experience.

Of course, duplicate content can be tagged with a designation, but too many of these “do not enter” signs is also a negative ranking factor. Bots want to be able to crawl pages and when you keep them off of critical content pages, it’ll have a negative impact on your SERPs ranking on Google.

Negative Ranking Factor #3: Links to low-quality sites.
SEO survey contributor, Lucas Ng, sums it up nicely: “Linking out to a low quality neighborhood flags you as a resident of the same neighborhood.”

It’s not just about links and plenty of them. It’s more about the quality of the links on a site. So, link up to sites in nice neighborhoods. On the web, Googlebots know you by the company you keep.

Negative Ranking Factor #4: Links Schemes and Links Selling.
Google’s algorithm employs probability modeling in determining bought-and-paid-for links, which doesn’t always equate to an accurate view of a site’s actual linking activity. Even so, Googlebots make assumptions programmed into the algorithm.

A site with a broad menu of links to diverse sites won’t fare well come spidering time. These links farms are easy for bots to spot. The key to avoiding being mis-indexed by Googlebots is to avoid too many links, try to link to higher-quality-more-visited sites and never buy or sell links. It could mean another web site fatality.

Negative Ranking Factor #5: Duplicate Title/Meta Tags.
Search engine algorithms employ numerous filters to identify everything from questionable links to duplicate content that appears on numerous site pages. The same thing is true of a site’s HTML code. Too many duplicate title tags and duplicate meta data can hurt you.

Survey participant, Aaron Wall, stated, “If a site does not have much content and has excessive duplication, it not only suppresses rankings, but it may also get many pages thrown in the supplemental results.”

Bots read code and if the same title tags show up on page after page, if title tags don’t match page text, or if meta data is cut and pasted into every site page, these crawlers take offense according to some experts.

However, there’s another whole school of thought, here. Many SEO pros and site designers believe just the opposite is true – that title tags on each page create numerous entry points to a site, and because each page is indexed separately, the site maintains a larger presence on SERPs.

The key appears to be in the duplication of inserting repetitive title and meta tags. If the content doesn’t change on a particular page, that page doesn’t call for yet another title tag. However, when topics and functions do change from page to page within a site, title tags do help spiders identify the page’s purpose and do provide greater site access to potential visitors.

What NOT To Do With This Information
The wheels are spinning, aren’t they?

You and a million other site owners are weighing negative ranking factors and the impact these factors have on their SERPs position on Google.

Forget it. Let it go. The time you spend trying to reverse engineer your site to appeal to the perceptions of a collection of 31 SEO professionals would be better spent on search engine marketing – promoting to humans.

Oh, sure, you can migrate your site to a host with a much improved uptime and, in this case, you should regardless of what Googlebots like and dislike. You should migrate, not because bots will like you better, but because your customers will like you better when you’re there when they need you.

Same with cheesy links. Disconnect from garbage sites, links farms and any site that ranks lower than your site in page rank (PR). That’ll take five minutes of your time and it’s something you should do, again, forget the bots, do it for your site visitors seeking to further their web searches through links on your site. Help out site visitors because it’s just good business.

But, if you’ve got duplicate content on site, perhaps as RSS feeds, content syndication or hosted content, it seems counter-productive to remove this useful information from the site. Bots recognize these ephemeral links and their time-saving value to visitors by providing good content all in one place, even if it does appear on a few other sites.

There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. Lesson #1: Even really smart people who study the activities of Googlebots under controlled conditions can not agree, ultimately, what negative ranking factors are programmed into that passing Googlebot.

Lesson #2: (And the most important lesson du jour) Don’t try to outwit a Googlebot. Don’t rebuild your site to mitigate negative ranking factors. Take the obvious steps by going with a reliable host, cutting links to unattractive sites and so on, but don’t spend time reverse engineering your site based on the opinions of SEO pros.

Spend your time promoting your site to humans. Do it ethically. And over time, your site will receive an improved rank on Google’s SERPs – guaranteed.

Guaranteed? You betcha. “Length of time a site has been up” is one of the positive ranking factors. The longer you remain hooked into the web, the higher your Google ranking.

It’s just a matter of time.

 

Need some juice for your site? Squeeze me at my website and let’s get some traffic on your website. It’s always a Webwordslinger gig.

Remote Site Syndication (RSS): Use It Or Lose It

 

Use RSS to Get Out The Word

Really Simple Syndication (or Remote Site Syndication, your choice) has been around for quite a few years, though web site owners are just beginning to recognize the potential RSS has to increase site traffic and to spread their site news from one end of the web to the other.

 

RSS feeds are simply the means of getting out the content to sites with visitors interested in what you have to say. And vice-versa: it’s a great way to deliver daily, fresh content to your visitors, increasing your site’s “stickiness” or ability to keep visitors returning regularly. Right now, all the big news outlets deploy RSS feeds to any site that wants to pick them up. Disney, CNN, Forbes, the BBC and other information outlets are distributing their content across the web via RSS feeds. Why? It’s easy, it spreads the costs of content development, and it works. It’s an effective marketing tool that can draw traffic from sites a far distance from your own.

Why Add RSS to Your Site?
Okay, first, it keeps your customer base up to date on sales, special promos and other news from your site. That’s how your site becomes sticky. You broadcast to your customers and, because they’ve had a good experience with you previously, they check out the new merchandise. It’s a great way to keep in touch with previous buyers – the best buyers any retailer could ask for.

In addition, RSS feeds are based on a streamlined XML. This enables your RSS broadcast to be picked up by just about anything digital – cell phones, PDAs, voicemail, e-mail accounts and so on. (No, not the microwave.)

Outgoing RSS
By syndicating (broadcasting) content from your site, you disperse your web presence to sites many times removed from your own. In fact, it may be picked up by site owners you would never have considered and read by a readership you hadn’t even thought about. An on-line store selling horse tack and other equestrian gear found one of its RSS feeds on a site for Therapeutic Horseback Riding – a whole new market for the source of that RSS feed.

Your RSS feed broadcast can be picked up by any site with visitors who might be interested in the latest news in your area of expertise or commerce.

Let’s just say that broadcasting information from your site, and allowing it to be picked up by any site owner, can only help generate more revenue because some readers of your contain, regardless of where they found your latest article, will visit your site to learn more about you, your opinions, services and products.

Incoming RSS
It’s not a one way street. Using an RSS aggregator, which collects feeds from other sites, is a great service you can deliver to increase site stickiness. Let’s say you publish a financial advice newsletter each day. You can collect (aggregate) RSS feeds from other investment sites, large and small, and deliver all of the financial news in one place for your now-daily visitors. So, the web user who once had to visit 10 sites can now get all the news of the day in one place – yours. It’s a time saver for visitors and it keeps them coming back for more.

What Do You Need to Start RSS?
There are three elements in the process, all available as OSS – open source software, as in free. It doesn’t cost you anything except some time.

The RSS Aggregator
This software is used to collect appropriate RSS feeds from other sites and it’s as easy as a mouse click to add a feed. Start by visiting competitor sites and look for the RSS logo (a small red box) or look for the site’s RSS hook up page.

When you find information that you believe your readers would enjoy, just click the “add” button and that feed is now hooked directly into your site. Simply move from site to site locating information that you think your visitors would enjoy.

A note of caution: when gathering RSS feeds for your site visitors, you’re, in fact, the editor. You decide which feeds to add and which to skip. Don’t add every feed just because you can. Be selective. Look for quality writing, solid research and topics that will really be of interest to your visitors. If you throw anything and everything at visitors, they’ll have a tougher time sorting out what’s useful and what isn’t, so collect the best and leave the rest.

The RSS Syndicator
Your web broadcasting antenna. The syndicator (also OSS) makes your feeds easily available for other site owners to grab and display on their sites. Keep your broadcasts short and use a lot of headlines to grab attention. Remember, your feed may be going to someone’s cell phone at a place where reading a 1000-word treatise on the importance of adjusting foot-pounds in running shoes won’t be possible. Broadcasts should be headline rich and employ lots of short paragraphs.

Keep the most important information in headers and in the first few paragraphs. If you haven’t captured their attention by then, you never will.

The RSS Reader
Another piece of OSS. This is the software site visitors need to sort through and read RSS broadcasts. Google offers a pretty spiffy RSS reader. All you have to do is download it and you’re ready to start enjoying the convenience that RSS delivers to visitors looking for a lot of information (good info) from many sources and on the same topic.

If you’re sending out feeds, offer an RSS reader free to your visitors to ensure they get the message.

Use it or lose it.

 

Looking to boost site performance? It ain’t rocket surgery. Drop by Webwordslinger’s place and give me a call. Let’s get some traffic moving on your site.

Pros and Cons of Website Features: It Ain’t All Good, Ya Know

'Slinger Gives You The Skinny on Site Features

There are pros and cons to every feature you add to your site, so before you put up that blog and sign up for Adsense, consider these positive and negatives to the most popular site features.

You just registered your domain name. You’re one step closer to that dream of your own website and finally, financial freedom. But now what? Well, if you’ve signed on with a good web host (one who values your site’s success because it ultimately means the web hosting company’s success) you’ve got a box full of goodies to play with in designing your website.

You don’t need a pricey site designer. But you do have to decide on what your website will display and which features will be left out. There are lots of options which means lots of decisions – and there are pros and cons to each one.

A Secure Checkout
Pros: If you sell a product or service, and you accept payment over the web, you don’t have a choice. You must have a secure checkout with SSL encryption to ensure that sensitive personal information isn’t snared by a bad guy. The alternative is to use PayPal or some other payment service but the more payment options you offer, the more your offerings will move out of the warehouse.

Cons: Cost, for one. If your web host doesn’t provide free checkout software, like osCommerce, it could cost you a bundle. On the other hand, people want to pay with credit cards as long as they believe the transaction is secure.

Also, opening a merchant account – one that allows you to accept credit card orders – is going to cost you – sign-up fees, per charge fees and a percentage of every sale, so if you’re operating on tightrope margins, these additional percentages may mean the difference between a viable business and one that shuts down after three weeks.

Web hosts should offer free checkout software. And, a premium service will let your site piggyback on the host’s SSL certificate, saving time and money.

A Blog
Pros: Blogs are great for keeping a site fresh with new content. A closed blog (one in which posts are limited to your control) is easiest to maintain. They’re also useful for a couple of other reasons. First, it’s easy to post new content when you have a blog module as part of your site’s infrastructure so you can update daily with a couple of clicks.

Blogs also create site communities. Once a reader begins a thread, others follow the lead and in no time, you’ll discover the same people conducting conversations and debate on your blog. These are visitors who return to your site often. A very good thing.

Finally, blog software should come free as part of your tool kit. If it doesn’t, look for another web host that does offer freebies by the pound at a reasonable price. They’re out there.

Cons: Conversely, if you allow visiting readers to leave comments to your posts, maintenance may become a problem. There’s always some foul-mouthed, trouble-maker who stirs up more interest in his online antics than the topic at hand. As the boss of the blog, you can block these distractions, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to monitor threads. You want an active blog but you also have to maintain it with regular posts and constant oversight of readers’ comments. This means part of your day will be used up in editorial duties, a real con.

Google AdWords
Pros: There are thousands of site owners who create websites for no other reason than to generate PPC (pay-per-click) revenues. They put up a little content, stuff each page with AdWords skyscrapers and wait for the money to roll in. And it does. Some of these site owners see $200 – $300 a month in click-through revenue per site, and if they maintain 10 such sites, it starts to add up to some real “walkin’ ‘round” money.

AdWords is a simple, easy-to-manage way to monetize a new site quickly. You only pay when search engine users click on your link so you’re not wasting money.

Cons: I don’t care how well designed a website is, AdWords – those cheesy little blue links on the top, bottom or side of a web page, diminish the perception of quality in the mind of the visitor. And as we’ve said many times in this blog, on the W3 perception is reality.

If your law firm maintains a website (and it should) you want to project a professional, positive image, not the Lionel Hutz “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm” image.

Another con: click fraud. A competitor can just click on your AdWords link and have all of her friends do the same for five minutes a day. Your AdWords budget gets eaten up by black hat tactics and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. If you can prove click fraud, Google will give you credit, but it’s up to you to prove the fraud. Google get’s paid whether the click is licit or a scam.

Affiliate Links
Pros: A great way to make cash fast. Affiliates are companies into which you enter agreements. You agree to display the mother company’s logo and link on your site and, in return, you receive payment based on the number of visitors to your site who click on the link and perform some action. For example, put up an eBay link and collect $35 a head plus a nickel for each bid one of your referrals places.

Get a couple of hundred eBay buyers placing bids everyday and that money can add nicely to your site’s revenue stream. Also a great way to monetize a site quickly.

Cons: Same dealeo as Google AdWords. If you access a site jam packed with affiliate links, it doesn’t add much to the process of building visitor trust. The site looks cluttered and cheap.

More negative news: each one of those affiliate links takes up space that could be used to sell your products or services.

And finally, each one of those affiliate links is a ticket off your site. With a click, they’re off looking at something on an affiliate site. You may pick up a few bucks a month in affiliate revenue, but you aren’t making the real money you make selling your own goods or services.

One suggestion: As we said, affiliates do generate cash and fast, so if you’re runnin’ on empty, add affiliate links to a single page with a navigation link labeled “Our Partners,” “Our Favorites,” or “Our Picks.”

Pictures and Other Images
Pros: Pictures sell more than words. Online buyers want to see what they’re paying for and, yes, one good product picture is worth a thousand words. So you will sell more with high-quality pictures.

Carts and graphs are useful for providing a lot of information in a small space.

Cons: Unless you own a decent digital camera and unless you know how to dress a set (the place where the product will be shot) and you know that the product should be lit from at least three directions, don’t use product pictures that you take yourself.

Log on to eBay and look at the range of quality of product pictures. Some are ripped from the web so they look okay. But some are nothing more than a front-on flash that blows out the object to a hot white blur floating against a blacked out background. Awful stuff, and not a good selling point.

If you can get product pictures from your wholesaler’s marketing department you’re all set. If not, have those pictures taken by a professional using a hi-resolution camera, lit properly and attractively staged. It’ll cost you some cash but it’s a lot better than using home-grown product pictures that don’t do justice to the product.

Charts and graphs should also be professionally done, unless you know how to create images in Photoshop or some other image manipulation software.

The Choices You Make Now…
…will often determine the short- and long-term success of your site. And remember, your site will evolve. You may start out using AdWords until your site is pulling in enough traffic to make up the lost AdWords revenue. Then, you drop AdWords and…

… your site takes on a much cleaner, more professional look.  

Need more straight talk about building a successful website? Okay, visit me and give me a call. Webwordslinger does it right and at the right price.

RSS: Keep Your Readers Fed

Keep your readers up to date with RSS

Feeds come in several formats – RSS (remote site syndication), XML, Atom and other links to news relevant to your viewership – the people who visit your site in search of the latest news.

 

 

Remote Site Syndication (RSS) Links

And there are plenty of great reasons to post and broadcast feeds:

 

• The software to collect feeds (aggregator), reader and broadcaster are free and free is always good.

• You’re the editor. You choose which feeds to gather, which feeds to display on your web site and which features you’ll broadcast, spreading the attraction of your site far across the web.

• Feeds can be delivered by way of a web portal site, via an RSS reader (free, and built into newer browsers so users don’t have to download a separate feed reader) and email. This means that your latest news feed can be accessed by anyone with a pulse.

• If your feeds are brilliantly constructed and professionally designed, you can create a subscriber list. Some feeds charge a small subscription fee. Others only want the visitor to opt in. Cool. You get the email address and the opt-in gets your daily thoughts on…on whatever.

• You can package your feeds to display on any digital communications device including cell phones, PDAs, laptops, desk tops – you can broadcast your words and podcast your podcasts any time, anywhere. That puts you in control.

Whether you’re a site owner or web surfer, RSS feeds enable you to gather information of interest one time for display on your site, or for your own education. These icons indicate a site, a section
of a site, a blog, podcast or other digitally-formatted data that can be
broadcast by you (just add the icon to the piece so other RSS
gatherers know its useable).

Who Benefits from Feeds?
Everyone, once you have the software set up and configured. Here’s how the site players all gain from your feeds.

You gain by eliminating the need for a publisher – an entity willing to put your words out there. The traditional publishing model, popular since Johan Guttenburg created moveable type, is dead. You don’t have to submit your article to 20 periodicals and suffer through those rejection notices.

You don’t have to truck your treatise on hyperspace travel from one publisher to another and you certainly don’t need an agent. (Talk about a dying profession!). You decide what gets published and what doesn’t. Writers will quickly start coming to you to see if you’ll carry their latest blog post and syndicate through your feed.

You gain again. Once you start broadcasting your own content, you start to build a following. Readers like what you write. Podders like what you say. Broadcasting your own RSS feeds makes you an instant authority – especially if what your writing is accurate and on topic.

Your visitors gain. They gain time, they become more productive and best of all, they come back everyday to see what’s new in your site’s newsroom. This kind of site stickiness is invaluable. Instead of searching 10 or 12 sites for the latest in stock analysis, a trader can simply log on to your financial news section and discover dozens of feeds from around the world.

Yes, this cuts down on web ambling, but when you need it fast, RSS delivers it like yesterday. Your visitors can amble about when there’s time. Speed and conveneince – that’s what RSS feeders want.

Advertisers gain. Advertising your message via feed simplifies distribution of the message and eleiminates many of the challenegs of traditional online marketing channels. Advertisers that use feeds don’t have to sneak past spam filters (everyone’s got one), they don’t have to worry about delayed distribution, especially critical when the item or sevice is time-sensitive.

Search engine page rank is no longer a concern. Used to be the higher the PR, the more the site owner could charge for advertising space on his or her website. With advertising delivered via feed, you get the same exposure to the same demographic – free.

So Who Uses RSS Feeds?
The better question is who doesn’t? Virtually every 24-hour news channel – CNN, MSNBC and Fox all broadcast by way of a feed. This allows viewers to get the latest news while riding home on the bus.

Other feed broadcasters include USATODAY.com, CNET.com, Yahoo and Google. Visit Google News for everything from the latest American Idol losers to the weather out where the folks live. And what’s great is you pick the news you want to read or hear in whatever order you choose.

How Do I Broadcast My Feeds?
First, it helps to have something to say or see. Otherwise, no one is going to pick you up except your mom – and chances are she won’t understand what you’ve done!

It doesn’t matter the format – HTML web site, audio and/or video content (pod and webcasts), a blog and even pictures of the newest member of the family. Whatever the format, you can create a feed and send it to the world or just the family.

There are lots of free blogging software available. Basic feedware is free. If you want to soup up the looks of your feeds, you can purchase feed software at reasonable prices – especially when compared to your ROI on the software.

Some of the more popular publishing tools include Blogger, TypePad and WordPress. These software packs publish your feed automatically. Simply type in your words of wisdom, click the “SEND” button and you’ve just gone global.

Another way to get your ideas out there for the world to share is through non-blogging social sites like Flickr and FaceBook. These social sharing sites are adding RSS technology to enable their members to broadcast anything – from their latest tune, rant, screed, picture or lesson. There are also tools to convert older, traditional content to make it feed-worthy. That’s good if you have a substantial site archive loaded with good information that just happens to be in a .wps format.

Does This Mean the End of Search Engines?
The fact is, feeds won’t eliminate the need for search engines but it will change the purpose of Google, Yahoo and Inktomi. Right now, in the early stages of RSS aggregation and broadcast, most web users still rely on search engines to find what they’re looking for. But that’s going to change thanks to RSS feeds.

Here’s why. RSS is totally interdependent of search engine rankings. Many RSS users are setting aside their browsers to use feed readers to deliver all the news of interest to that site visitor. So, instead of the web surfer searching high and low for the latest in hobby news, in 30 minutes that same, one-time Google-user can collect RSS feeds on topics of interest and skip using a browser altogether.

This may explain why Google is doing double-time to, not only be the web’s address book, but a major content provider, as well. It could also explain the $1.8 billion price tag for YouTube. Google is a cash machine but now it needs content to keep up with RSS technology.

So, if you don’t bring the news to your site visitors, they may or may not be back. And, if you don’t broadcast your own feeds, you’re missing the best marketing opportunity since AdWords.

Go RSS. Become your own publisher, make your site convenient for repeat visitors and stop worrying about your site’s PR. With RSS, page rank has no value any longer. Simply broadcast your advert and your done.

So, no matter how you use this interactive technology – as a reader or broadcaster, RSS is changing the face of the web. And, if your site isn’t in the RSS race, that site will out of business before you reach the finish line.

Managing Customer Objections

 

Keepin' The Customer Satisfied: Success At Work

If you’ve built a career in sales you know all about customer objections. Objections are the reasons prospective customers give for NOT buying a product or service. It’s too expensive. It’s too complicated. I don’t really need it. These are common customer objections whether we’re talking about buying a new car or whatever it is you sell on your web site.

 

 Even if you sell the best products or provide A-1 services, and even if you have the lowest prices on the entire web, you’ll encounter objections. Problem is, you won’t encounter them face to face in the world of e-commerce, which means you won’t have the opportunity to address objections face to face. Therefore, controlling objections must take place in the content of your website.

Additionally, in the real world, managing objections is reactive. The customer objects. The salesperson reacts with a counter to the objection. In the impersonal marketplace of the W3, managing customer objections must be proactive. Assume you will encounter objections and address them before the visitor clicks off to another site.

What Objections Will You Get?

Depending on what you’re selling, objections will differ. For example, most customers won’t be concerned with a long-term warranty on a $15 calculator. If it dies, buy a new one. On the other hand, if you’re selling $2,000 laptops, your customers are going to be looking at your warranties, guaranties, return policies – anything and everything that protects them from being ripped off.

And as a good citizen of the web community, you should have no problem posting warranties and return policies where they can be easily found and easily read! (Wouldn’t you like to get your hands on the guy who invented fine print?)

So what objections are you likely to encounter?

It costs too much money.

I saw it for a lower price.

I don’t have the money right now.

My old one is good enough.

It looks confusing.

I don’t understand how it works.

I don’t understand the guaranty.

I don’t (really) need it.

My (insert relation’s name here) would kill me.

Maybe another time.

There are plenty more. I’ve already got one; I want something with more features or fewer features (usually not the same consumer, btw); I don’t like the color, shape, size, design, feng shui or some other aspect of the product. The list is as varied as the customers who visit your web site.

And you better know what objections visitors will raise and proactively address them in your site’s content.

How To Address A Customer Objection?

Once you’ve determined which objections you’ll most likely encounter from site visitors you develop a strategy to address the objection before it even becomes an objection.

 Example #1: It’s too complicated.

 Okay, take a look at this 3-minute Flash demo that’ll show you how to assemble the (whatever it is you sell). You’re not addressing the objection with a long body of text explaining how to assemble your gizmo. You’re providing a clip that actually shows each step of assembly with text burns identifying key steps and just where Tab A is.

 Example #2: It’s too expensive.

How will the product improve productivity or quality of life? Let’s say you’re selling hot tubs. You point out the benefits to the consumer. Forget product features. The “too-expensive” buyer must see personal benefit(s) in order for you to manage the objection.

 “You come home from a stressful day, hop into the heated, soothing water, turn on the relaxing massage jets and feel the cares of the day melt away.” The buyer who believes “it’s” too expensive doesn’t care about the 15hp motor, the 18 water jets and the automated chlor-tab release. S/he needs to see personal benefit. Once that’s established, move on to features in you sales copy.

 Example #3: I saw it for less at www.thecheapestsiteintheworld.com.

If you can’t beat the competition on price – and many times you won’t be able to compete with big box store prices – time to highlight the quality of your service, your easy return policy and the fact that there’s no re-stocking fee. (Wouldn’t you like to get your hands on the guy who invented the restocking fee?)

 Some sites offer a “Beat any legitimate price” guarantee. You can, too. Even if your price is a bit higher, most visitors won’t take the time to find the lowest of the low and if they do, you’ve lost a few bucks but have a happy customer – one who’ll be back to buy the accessories.

 Example #4: I don’t want to buy a (fill in the blank) on the web.

Would you buy a $4,000 diamond engagement ring online? From a site you never heard of? Not many people would. Too many risks. For all the buyer knows, you’re selling “diamacroids” as real diamonds. And if you’re half way around the world, the buyer has no recourse.

 Establish trust be establishing verifiable credentials. Member of the online BBB, certified by the Diamond Sellers Association of the World, graduate of the School of Gemology, 140 years in business, etc. You’d buy a diamond online from Tiffany’s because the trust factor is built in. Not so for www.billscutratediamondbazaar.com – no matter how low Bill’s prices.

 You get the idea. To successfully convert a visitor into a buyer requires that all objections be addressed in site content using a variety of media to get the job done. A Flash demo,  an audio clip and picture of you, a picture of your factory, a virtual 360° tour, a step-by-step, idiot-proof assembly guide, 24-hour tech support – whatever works best to counter the objection.

 All kinds of people will stop by your web site and each will come with his or her own expectations and objections. Meet those expectations and counter those objections right from the start. It’ll do wonders for your conversion ratio.

 It’ll also keep your repeat buyer list growing. Why? No objections.