Guidelines for online success

"The do's and don'ts of web entrepreneurship."

DO read this book! DON'T let it collect dust."

How you can tell if your website is really working

The number one thing to do, once you have your website in place, is try and set up an analytics tool . A free and easy to use analytics tool is Google Analytics. Once this is done, you can:

- keep track of your visitors (total visits, unique visitors) and trends (i.e. what pages received more visits)
- analyze the demographics (i.e. geographical location of your visitors)
- measure how your visitors turn into buyers set-up a conversion goal (i.e. link your services page with your contact page). Also, let's assume you had 200 visits this month, 7 sales, and you made an average of $200.00 per sale. This means you conversion rate was 3.5% (200 divided by 7) which brought revenues of $1,400.00 (200 multiplied by 7). You can now set-up a goal of having a conversion rate of, let's say, 10%. By accomplishing this, you can increase your sales (based on the numbers above) by $2,600.00.
- measure your marketing ROI (return on investment)- in order to do so you need to set-up a PPC (pay per click campaign). Let's assume your marketing budget for this PPS campaign is 100$. You create a list of keywords and decide upon one set of words to use with Google Ads. Google will charge you $0.5 per click. This means that the 100$ you have as your PPC budget will suffice for 200 clicks (visits sent to your website by Google). Assuming a conversion rate of 10% (meaning 20 buyers) and and average profit per sale of $200.00, those 200 clicks generated $4,000.00 in sales. Your campaign cost was $100.00. This means that your marketing ROI was $3,900.00.
- create marketing plans to increase your marketing ROI, conversion rate, number of visitors etc.

Apple's Safari 3.1 - reloaded

Apple recently released its improved Safari web browser. According to Apple's officials, it promises higher internet browsing speeds, in comparison with previous versions, due to its enhanced Java capabilities. Both IE and Firefox are presumably slower than the new Safari, up to 1.9 times slower to be more specific. Does browsing speed really matters? Well, to me it does and I am sure many of you think alike. It is the battle of the giants out there, and browsers market is no exception. Moreover, as a cherry on top of the pie, Safari is said to have a strong adherence to web standards meant to improve the Web 2.0 experience. Hurray I say, but the users should be the judge of that. If you're ready to give it a shot though, a fresh and FREE version of the new Safari 3.1 web browser can be found here.

Viral marketing. Definition

Viral marketing is based on human behavior. It is said that, a satisfied customer will pass along the news about the product or service that he/she liked to at least three people. In the same manner, absolutely voluntarily, at least ten people will be told about a product or service that was not according to the expected standards. The message in cause can be spread by word-of-mouth or by using the internet. Hence, viral marketing refers to any approach that encourages people to pass on a marketing message to others.



Written by R.B.

Internet marketing. Basics

For most sites, the major source of traffic still comes from directories and search engines. It is therefore recommended that, the focus should be on the web design and search engine optimization. The key to a successful SEO is finding relevant keywords. Once you have a list of keywords in place, try and determine their popularity and evaluate the amount of competition each keyword gets. Finally, decide which keywords can be supported with quality content on your website. On the other hand, web directories are organized web site listings which are not automated, but created instead by a human user. They key here is finding those directories related to your field of business or to the area that you service (i.e. having your link posted on a New York specialized web directory won't help if you offer your services only to prospective clients located in Toronto).



Written by R.B.

Marketing you by developing that resume

Needless to say that, marketing means advertising, promotion, selling. Whether one has, or not, a certain degree of marketing experience, when looking for a first job, a new job or a twist of career, selling skills should be at the top of the list. Start working on that resume right now!, write a persuasive cover letter and, most importantly, believe you can do it!

Good luck!




Written by R.B.