All the Latest Tools to Improve Your Website

While you may sometimes feel that the world of Internet marketing is reaching a saturation point, there is a lot to be said for this explosive growth. It is not likely that the market will be saturated any time soon given the ratio of people who are just discovering the media on a daily basis, but the pressure to produce meaningful and productive websites and pages has led to the creation of a huge number of interesting and useful tools. Designed to streamline and make your job as a webmaster a whole lot easier, these tools can save you a lot of anguish!

Feedback is so important and while there is nothing like the process of trial and error to achieve the perfect solution, in an ideal world you would not want to be using potential clients in this way. A number of options have arisen to help you link with independent users. For example, usertesting.com maintains an army of independent reviewers who could be used for a relatively small fee to provide you with targeted feedback. Each reviewer has been pre screened and is rated by service buyers for you, so you can be pretty confident that you will be getting an objective analysis.

If you want to automate the process of website analysis, consider clicktale.com, where you can receive an image of your screen detailing users’ mouse movements, keystrokes and general interaction. This is enabled through the placement of special JavaScript on your page and will enable you to see how users interact and how the general flow of your site works. This can be particularly useful in helping you to optimize forms and other interactive requirements and the service is free for a limited number of page views, with an increasing payment structure for a more enhanced experience.

A number of tools are available that you can use to provide feedback on the composition and technical efficiency of your site. For example websitegrader.com will give your site the once over and may well come up with something glaring that you have missed.

Google is a provider of many free tools, which should be in every webmaster’s arsenal. Google Analytics will provide even the most demanding analyst with a comprehensive breakdown of user experience, Google’s Website Optimizer gives you options for A/B and multivariate testing, and Google Webmaster Tools exposes your best keywords, the efficiencies of your linking strategy and any crawl errors that they detect.

If you are willing to invest a little bit, there are some great comprehensive tools such as SiteRay by Silktide, which goes into great detail about your overall site structure, correct linking, appropriate keyword usage, originality, popularity, technical strength and general usability.

Go to The Scrutinizer for a comprehensive list of hundreds of available web tools to be used for URLs, keyword and IP issues.

One of the best tools that we have found is a Firefox plug-in called Firebug. You can highlight and make changes to HTML and CSS from within your browser, making changes on the fly and see the immediate result. This is great for debugging problems, but remember that you have to make alterations manually elsewhere to be permanent.

For bloggers, check out SEO Blogger, which is a Firefox plug-in to help you optimize your posts as you write them. Go up a notch by choosing Lotus Jump, which will give you a task list of what you need to achieve to improve your rankings according to a handy little manageable timetable.

What tools have you recently used to improve your website?

Adam Toren

Secrets of Successful Selling on Ebay

Ebay has expanded from a humble start up to a company that boasts revenues of over $7.7 billion and a staff of some 15,000 people. People have just fallen in love with the concept of buying and selling and good old-fashioned auction tactics, around the clock and around the world. Many people have made small fortunes using eBay, which is one of the most visited sites on the Internet and have learned that there are several tips to help you succeed.

If you’re going to try and engage in a process of successful selling through eBay, you have to understand how the system works. Fundamentally, it is like a giant search engine of sorts where people can enter terminology describing what they are looking to buy and find matching listings accordingly. As such, you must make sure that your listing is correctly optimized initially and is presented in such a manner as to make the purchase enticing.

If you’re looking for ideas to start off, check out pulse.ebay.com, which is something similar to Google’s Hot Trends and can show you what people are looking for and what is currently selling well within the large variety of category and niche areas available.

You should always know your product and your customer. Whatever you are selling, take time to look at past results and search for similar items. The information that you discover should enable you to see where you have a reasonable chance of selling at the price that you have in mind and whether there is a fairly good turnover, which will reflect the overall interest.

When setting up to describe your product, think carefully about your keywords. Do not include only the obvious words, but also secondary keywords or words that people might use when searching for similar products or when using synonyms to search for your exact product. This will help to ensure that many more “pairs of eyes” find your listings and even though they may not have been specifically looking for your product, they may have a general interest and be persuaded to buy.

Never be tempted to try and sell anything on eBay without attaching pictures. It is true that they tell a thousand words and people always want to see something before they buy it. Again, you can never underestimate the power of visuals and so you should pay attention to making high quality, well defined and professionally presented photographs.

To match your first class photograph, your description must be enticing. If you are not particularly good at putting together the written word, then you should consider outsourcing this part to professional copywriters. At the very least, if you get some of your postings professionally written then you will pick up good pointers to help you develop your skill over time. Conversely, look at successful eBay sellers and see how they put together their presentations. Remember, just as you would if you were writing an article for publication on the Internet, the description post should be search engine friendly, including the relevant keywords appropriately.

Always try and give as much information as you can within the description without going overboard. List the origins, the dimensions, your value proposition and even a couple of ideas describing how your product could be used, as a gift, as something which you just cannot do without, etc.

For those who are serious about selling on eBay, an eBay store is a must. These are very cost effective and will enable you to contain all your products in one place. You will have the additional bonus of increasing your credibility, appearing more professional.

As people are looking for a comfort factor when they buy online, they tend to look for social proof. This is especially true when it comes to auctions on eBay. You have to earn your reputation, but you should be particularly careful when you start out that you do not attract any negative feedback in any way. Each well handled sale and happy buyer will add exponentially to your reputation and credibility. Avoid even one negative response like the plague and go out of your way to pacify, no matter what the reason.

While not all buyers and sellers on eBay are looking to create a serious source of income by any means, you can set yourself ahead of many by simply acting in a totally professional manner at all times. Respond to questions promptly, within the same day and make sure that you dispatch your products on time. Be as transparent as possible about shipping, as this can be one of the biggest deal breakers on eBay. Some power sellers advocate trying to include the cost of shipping within your chosen item cost, thereby suggesting that shipping has been included “or is free.” Otherwise, use the most cost effective method that you can, while ensuring prompt and efficient service. When all is said and done, remember to include a thank you note, personalized and genuine, with your shipment. This will go a long way to help you receive those glowing testimonials and build your credibility.

Are you an eBay power seller?

Adam Toren

Concrete Ways to Improve Your Product Page

For anyone involved in e-commerce, the product page is the most important of all. You will have spent considerable time and effort and engaged in a good process of education to attract your customer to this point. This represents the narrowest part of your sales funnel and all of your efforts have been directed at steering would-be clients through your webpages to this, the point of reckoning!

Within the product page you will be displaying your goods or services, listing the various options available, providing all the relevant associated information and displaying the ultimate call to action – the purchase or add to cart link. It follows that there is so much at stake here that you should pay particular attention to the layout of your product page and to markedly improve the chances of someone converting from prospect to client.

It is important to remember that your product page must be optimized and must not present any barriers, perceived or otherwise to the ultimate goal of the purchase. Always try and look at your page from the point of view of the client and remember that he or she will not have the in depth knowledge of your system or site to help them as they navigate. This is important, as you should not assume anything during this process.

The art of compiling the perfect product page involves a delicate balance between providing too much material (and making your page just too busy) versus providing not enough. For example, you might think that you have provided a lot of information on preceding pages to describe the product or service for sale, but again you should not assume that all of this information will have been retained and you do not want people to be clicking back and forth too much as this will cut down on your conversion rate. Include an appropriate, succinct summary of the item as well as a thumbnail photograph. The thumbnail should, in turn, be linked to a larger photograph.

When it comes to the visuals, the inclusion of photographs can be very important, especially when in relation to detailed elements. In some instances, you may need to add code that allows the visitor to click and expand the thumbnail into a rotating animation showing each side of the product. The more detailed and more expensive the item, the higher and more detailed resolution that you should strive for. However, make sure that you do not place high resolution photographs in their entirety as this will invariably slow load time for the page. When optimizing the page, make sure that the file names and “alt” tags include the product keyword.

Alongside the product name and image, include easy to understand options selection. For example, various sizes and various quantities in drop down boxes. The description should be very specific again and reflect the benefits of buying the item. Here, you are basically reassuring them at the very end of your sales funnel process and will have already outlined the features and benefits of your wares earlier on.

One of the mistakes that many people make is not clearly outlining the shipping costs, if any associated. Don’t make the prospect go all the way through the checkout pages to calculate shipping costs and be as open as you can about these costs as early on in the process as you can. This will help you to reduce your shopping cart “click away” ratio.

Remember that shoppers are always looking for reassurance, even up to the point of actual purchase. This is why many of the more successful online companies include links on the product page. For example, you could see what other shoppers purchased, the products which are related or complementary. This, together with one or two positive testimonials, is an important part of social proof, which should help your conversions.

Make sure that you spend time to create the best product page as this is the real point of focus. The call to action should be clear and unequivocal and there should be enough relevant information and social proof to convince the visitor that it is time to click the “buy” button.

How have you created a great product page?

Matthew Toren

Get Your Marketing Strategy Right and the Rest Will Follow

Have you ever wondered why you are not being successful in your current business or have struggled to really find a path forward? More than ever it seems these days that a growing number of would-be entrepreneurs are seeking to branch out by themselves on their road to fame and fortune. A small number actually reach the end of the journey whereas very many do not even get to crank the car up or move out of the driveway, as they fail to “zero in” on the correct marketing strategy to follow.

A small business owner must do a significant amount of soul-searching and must really target. It is rare for an entrepreneur to have a very specific goal and to be perfectly aware of the strategies necessary to help him or her succeed. Rather, it is often a process of discovery and one that must be undertaken up-front and before results of any kind may follow.

Don’t be tempted to go from one idea to the next, achieving little, but always be prepared to innovate. There are so many conflicting ideals that may attract you for one reason or another and you must be limited with your attention. It is easy to get caught up in hype, if you do not fully understand your direction and this will paralyze your ability to focus.

• To start off with, you must ask yourself who you are and what kind of business you’re in. What are your strengths? Narrow down to one ideal only and don’t try and adopt a scattershot approach, as one of the first things you will learn is that there are only a certain number of hours in a day and these will be whittled away very quickly, especially if your vision is dilated.

• You must match your potential product or service with a market. Make sure that there is a market in existence first. Don’t be tempted to become so engrossed in your new vision that you believe that “if you build it, they will come.” This won’t happen!

• Remember that a successful business is likely to be a problem solver. Analyze your clients’ wants and needs, their problems and not yours. A good way to look at this is to focus on features and benefits. It should be fairly easy for you to identify the features of your business, but you really need to focus on the benefits to your clients.

• When looking to differentiate your business, establish what is the true value proposition for your customer. You must have a unique selling proposition of some kind and this is the reason why your existing clients come back to you. Establish what this is and elaborate on it.

• When presenting your message to market, focus, focus! You have very little time to get your message across before the harried consumer rushes on to something else. Never over-hype your product or service but be very specific and ensure that you get the message across that your business can help solve their pressing problems.

• Communication is key. In an ideal world, you should be able to strike up a relationship with everyone who visits your website by establishing e-mail communication with them. This can be a huge source of clients, maybe not right now but after a period of communication. Many people forget that the answer may well be in “the follow-up.”

• Take time to develop your relationship with existing and new clients. Don’t just set it and forget it, but make sure that they are happy, as they are all potential sources of referral clients. Social proof is highly important and wherever possible you should utilize your existing clients to drive new business.

Share some of your marketing strategies with us?

Matthew Toren

The New Era of Copyrighting

Copyrighting your original works is a good thing. It ensures that no one steals your intellectual property and profits from it. But the copyrighting process can be long, tedious and costly, with the original intent of protection often getting bogged down in the legal process. Now there is another choice that offers a streamlined process, yet ensures that the needs of all parties involved are being met.

Creative Commons allows people to promote and market their intellectual property in a less restricted manner while still enjoying copyright protections that are necessary for their particular work. Anything traditionally covered under copyright law, including books, songs, films, videos, photographs, audio and visual recordings, websites, blogs and software documentation, is protected under a Creative Commons license. While this approach gives you more freedom with creative opportunities, you might still want to copyright your work for complete legal protection.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation that provides free licenses and legal tools so a creator of intellectual property can easily indicate how the work can be used. Creative Commons offers three different license formats: Commons Deed, which is a summary of how the intellectual property can be used; Legal Code, which displays the legal wording of the actual license in its entirety; and Metadata, which contains the important elements of the license in machine-readable coding so it can be found by search engines.

With a Creative Commons license, you have the option of offering your work with “Some Rights Reserved” or “No Rights Reserved.” For example, you can allow your work to be shared, distributed, copied, or remixed by others as long as credit is given to you; give permission for remixes or adaptations of it with certain distribution restrictions; grant or restrict commercial use in which someone profits from your work; or allow full use in the public domain as is.

For online works, an html code is designated for your work and a license button and statement appears on your piece. Anyone who comes in contact with your work will be obligated to follow the terms you set under the license agreement. For published works not on the Internet, you can include a statement on the work or include a graphic of the license button, licensed statement and URL link.

An important feature of a Creative Commons license is its non-exclusivity. You can protect your work from unauthorized use in the public sector while maintaining the right to enter a separate non-exclusive license agreement to sell your work to an individual or company, or receive royalties from it. You can also decide to stop distributing your work at any time under a Creative Commons license.

With the evolution of technology encouraging the sharing of words, music and pictures to create new and better creations, a Creative Commons license is a welcome format for offering blanket protection for proprietary rights. It opens up a world of opportunities for co-sharing while honoring the rights of the creator.

Have you been using Creative Commons to adapt your work? We would love to hear what you have been doing with these rights - leave us a comment!

Adam Toren

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