Website designers

In the 1980’s the American manufacturing industry was able to make sales with its “Made in the USA” slogan. As the concern over illegal immigration heats up, it is possible that “Documented Worker Verified” could become the a selling point in the service industry.

In a poll conducted for the Society of Human Resource Management, 85% of people said that verifying workers were allowed to work in the US was somewhat or very important.

Since we need to verify documentation of our employees in order to file taxes, most of already know that none of our employees are illegal immigrants. But do your customer know it?

There is nothing wrong with advertising that all of your employees are documented workers or that they all speak English. Make sure to frame these issues in a positive way. A contractor I know has seen his business grow since he started advertising the fact that all of his employees are able to communicate in English.

In these days of outsourcing and illegal workers, it is important for people to feel as if they are able to communicate with the businesses they interact with. Many people are willing to pay a little more for the security of knowing that their order will not be lost in translation.

Today Yahoo announced with was adding a feature called Buzz that would allow users to suggest and rate stories. It’s pretty much a Digg knock-off, except Yahoo has the ultimate power in deciding what makes it to the front page.

In other words, don’t expect news of googles latest triumph to make it onto the Buzz feature.

The popularity of Buzz, Digg, and similar sites show that people really are interested in the wisdom of crowds. On the internet, the recommendation of a group of strangers could outweigh the recommendation of one friend.

<h1>Using Digg to Advertise Your Business Can be Tricky</h1>

At the end, Digg, Buzz, and the rest are all left in the hands of the crowd. When you submit yourself to one of these sites you open yourself up to the possibility of negative comments and getting buried.

It’s important that you choose what you submit to these sites very carefully. Pick the very best example of what you do. Package it in a way that many people will understand. A funny you tube video advertising your product will get passed around more than a boring presentation. Useful and factual content will be more popular than something that reads like an advertisement.

There is an emerging market of people who use Digg and Buzz to help them cut through the clutter of the internet. If you want to reach these tech savvy customers you’ll need to know what type of features are most likely to draw votes. Look at what is already popular and use that as your guide.

Today we all want things yesterday!This is exactly why if your website is even a little too slow to load, your visitors will simply lose interest and go somewhere else. According to a 2006 study of online shoppers by Akamai and JupiterResearch, 33% said they would abandon a retail website that took longer than 4 seconds to load - half the time people were ready to wait at the beginning of the online shopping boom.

In a summary of their report, they say that:

• The consequences for an online retailer whose site underperforms include diminished goodwill, negative brand perception, and, most important, significant loss in overall sales.
• Online shopper loyalty is contingent upon quick page loading, especially for high-spending shoppers and those with greater tenure.
• JupiterResearch recommends that retailers make every effort to keep page rendering to no longer than four seconds.

So, you have just 4 seconds to make a good impression before your visitors go away… Now, how about the fact that your website may be loading slowly without you even knowing it? How can that be? Read on.

The thing is that, because you probably visit your own website regularly, a lot of it may be getting stored in your Temporary Internet Files folder on your computer, meaning that only the parts that have changed will need to be downloaded from the Internet. In other words, you could be viewing much of your website from a copy stored on your PC, giving you the illusion that it loads in a snap, while in reality it could be much, much slower.

So, what can you do to make your website load faster?

The best advice is to ask for help from a professional web designer who knows what they are doing and can optimize your website. The following are some of the things that your web designer will generally check and do to make sure that your website loads as fast as possible:

• Reduce the size and number of images
  The images on your website or blog need to be optimized for the Internet so they load as fast as possible. The good news is that it is possible to reduce the download size of an image drastically, without affecting the quality too much. Also, consider using less images to make your website load faster.
• Cut down on heavy Flash animations, widgets and scripts
  Flash files and other widgets tend to be bulky, and unnecessary scripts will also add to the time it takes for your website to download and be displayed. If you do use these technologies in your website, make sure that they are very well optimized, and measure the impact they have on your website loading times.
• Stick to simple website designs
  This one’s a no-brainer - the simpler your website’s design, the faster it will load. And at a time where minimalism is making a comeback, less could very well mean more if it means that your visitors don’t have to face the agony of a slow-loading website.
• Optimise your HTML code
  Depending how your website was designed, there could be unwanted tags and bits of coding that are doing nothing except adding to the amount of data that visitors have to download before viewing your pages. A professional optimization can do a great deal to make your website load faster in such a case.
• Change to a better hosting service
  It could very well be that your web hosting is not up to the task - maybe your hosting provider itself does not have enough bandwidth to cope with demand, or maybe your website is on a server with too many other users and this is slowing things down. If any of these are the case, you will be wanting to either switch to a dedicated server or change hosting providers altogether.

Remember, 4 seconds and they’re gone! This means that you absolutely cannot afford to have your website load even a tad too slowly - and as you will surely have experienced yourself, unoptimized websites can be slow even on a fast broadband Internet connection.

Considering that, as of August 2007, around 17% of US Internet users still don’t have broadband there’s all the more reason to make sure your website is as fast as possible, to get that extra advantage and avoid losing potential visitors and sales!

Start Using Your Trademark™

The first step in filing for a trade mark, indicated with the letters TM: ™ is to stake your claim in the ground and start using it. Coin your phrase, create your unique trade name and put the letters TM after it raised to the power, i.e., ™. For example, if I wanted to trademark the phrase, “Artists Café“, the first thing I would do is post Artists Café™ every where on my website, in my printed material, on my advertising, and on my business cards and brochures. The first step is to start publicly using it.

Conduct a Trademark™ Search

The next thing you need to do is research your trademark™. Go to the US Patent and Trademark Office website, www.uspto.gov, and find their TESS database. Search that database for phrases, which resemble your trademark™. If nothing comes up, that’s good. Next, surf the web for your trademark. Start with the obvious, add a .com, .biz, or any other extension to is and see if there is a website after that name or phrase. Then, just Google your trademark phrase. Take special note to see if any of those results has either the ™ symbol or the ® symbol.

File the Trademark

If you haven’t found anything or any one competing your trademark, then it’s worth it to make the investment in filing for the registered trademark®. There are a couple ways you can go. One is to file directly with the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). However, it’s an incredibly bureaucratic office and if you don’t know what the hell you are doing, you are going to waste a lot of time and money and go away very frustrated. I strongly recommend using somebody who knows what they are doing.

Trademark Attorney Recommendations

1. Visit LegalZoom.com, for about $375, they can collect and submit the information you need to the US PTO
2. Contact Bert Vermeulen of Corp21 in Boulder, Colorado - sometimes in New Mexico. He’s not an attorney but knows what he is doing.
3. Google, “Patent and Trademark Attorney” in your city or state

Patent and Trademark Books

• Patent It Yourself by David Pressman
• Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights for Dummies
• Trademark: Legal Care for your Business and Product Name

What’s the Difference Between a ® and a ™ ?

Well, a registered trademark, ®, has been registered and approved with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Whereas, a ™ is a placeholder, a stake in the ground, kind of like “Patent Pending” to indicate that you are planning to file or are in the process of filing for what you ultimately want, a registered trademark®.

Copyright Law

In general, you should visit the U.S. Copyright Office website in conjunction with the Library of Congress to learn more about US Copyright Law.

What is a copyright?

A Copyright© protects the original work of an author or artist from theft of their creative or intellectual property. It is protected by US Copyright Law enacted in 1976 making it illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights of that copyright owner. The copyright immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work at the moment of creation. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. However, in the case of work made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author.

How do I copyright a Photo?

No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created. However, publication of the copyright notice helps to enforce your copyright. The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain all the following three elements:

1. The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word “Copyright.”
2. The year of first publication of the work.
3. The name of the owner of copyright in the work

Example: © 2008 John Doe

How do I copyright a screenplay?

You can electronically submit your screenplay to the Library of Congress at the U.S. Copyright Office website and save money. Normally, the basic registration fee is $45. However, if you submit it electronically, it is only $10. To manually register a work, send the following three elements in the same envelope or package to:

Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20559-6000

1. A properly completed application form
2. A nonrefundable filing fee for each application
3. A nonreturnable copy of the work being registered

So, you’re about to launch your business on the Internet but you’re worried about choosing the right business domain name? You do well to give it some serious thought because your domain name is probably the single most important aspect of your company’s online presence. You can easily change the look of your website or blog. You can easily change the copy. You can easily change the images. But once you choose your domain name and spend time and money promoting it in your advertising and online, changing it will be an expensive exercise. Changing your business’s domain name would mean changing your stationary, publicity, e-mail addresses, losing those ever so valuable links to your website and many more inconveniences. So choose wisely!

Branding domain name? Or keyword-rich domain?

Basically, there are two ways to go about choosing a domain name for your business. One is to come up with something new, such as inQbation.com, and develop it into your unique branding. Many of the household names on the Internet started this way - Google, Yahoo!, Digg, E-Bay… the list goes on. This could be a good strategy if you are ready to put the right marketing effort - and money - to build your brand both online and offline.

Another alternative is to use your primary search keywords in your domain name. So if your company is going to be selling sweets online, you could choose a domain name like sweetsncandy.com, or thesweetshop.com. Such domain names will give you a boost in the search rankings for the keywords they contain.

As you can see from these last two examples, you can also include some element of branding in a keyword rich domain to get the best of both worlds. Keep in mind that if you go the branding domain route, you can also include keywords in the addresses of your sub pages, so not all is lost there either.

Keep your domain name short and memorable

The longer your domain name, the more difficult it will be for people to remember - and to type out correctly. Even if you go for a keyword-rich domain name, you should aim to keep it short and sweet. Also keep in mind that the domain name you choose will affect what your e-mail addresses look like, and nobody likes typing out something like joe.bloggs@thelongestdomaindnameyoucouldeverimagineinyourentirelife.com every time they want to drop you a note!

Don’t use your own name

Pop stars, famous athletes and other celebrities please ignore this one, but otherwise you should avoid using your name as your domain name. Your business is about your customers and the services or products you are offering them, so don’t let your ego get in the way of delivering your message when you’re choosing a domain name. Go for something that describes your business instead.

Go for the main domain name suffixes

Try and stick to .com, .net, or your country’s domain suffix when choosing a domain name because these will give your business a more serious and professional image. Domain suffixes like .biz, .tv, and so on just don’t carry the same prestige. Avoid the country domain suffixes if you serve clients outside your country, as it might make people think you don’t.

Include your location if you only serve a particular region

If you offer pet care services in Seattle, a domain name like seattlepetcare.com is definitely a good idea, since you only serve people in that area and will benefit from the search engine boost for the ‘Seattle’ keyword. On the other hand, if you deliver nationwide or worldwide, do not include a location as this is likely to give the wrong impression to people from outside that region.

Look out for variations of your domain name

If you decide upon mydomain.com, you may want to consider also buying the variations of your domain name, like mydomain.net, my-domain.com and so on if they are available, and make them point to your website before one of your competitors points them at his. Also watch out for possible misspellings and think about getting those too. If the variations of your domain name are already taken up but you still want it, take a look at what sort of websites these variations host to be sure that in the event of a potential visitor making a mistake they do not end up somewhere unsavory.

Get a second opinion on the domain name you choose

This is probably the most important bit of advice when you’re choosing a domain name. And we’re not talking about simply asking a friend or the cat it thinks. Get some professional advice from someone with online marketing experience. Consult an expert who can point out any potential pitfalls in the domain name and you are thinking of and suggest alternatives before it’s too late to go back.

Also see: Choosing a Name For Your Business

For your convenience, I have prepared a How to prepare content for your website guide to help you prepare and organize content for your website. The better you prepare this content, the more efficient and effective your website designer will be in designing and implementing your websites.

Your comments and feedback are welcome.

Blake

There’s money in that old filing cabinet, as the lower cost of data storage has led to many businesses converting their paper files to a digital format.

So far, there has been a number of companies like Document Mall that have gotten into the document management business, but today’s announcement that Google will begin testing a Medical Record Storage Branch makes it clear that there is long term potential for this market.

Medical records are an obvious first step in the file storage industry. The ability to access health information from any computer would be a huge benefit in treatment. Imagine, a doctor being able to pull up a full medical history from an emergency room. They’d know blood type, allergies, and treatment history in an instant. However, many all businesses could benefit from digital data management. Not only would it eliminate the days of misfiled paperwork, but it would be a great protection in case of disaster. Your paper files can’t stand up to fire or lood, but digital ones can.

Digital Document Storage is the way we will be sharing information in the future. There is money to be made in helping transfer paper files to digital data.

In a recent post, we discussed how to build an opt-in e-mail list of customers or website visitors who are interested in hearing more from your company. As your e-mail list grows, it will become a goldmine of permission marketing potential, but as with a real goldmine, you need to know how to take advantage of the precious bits without having the whole thing cave in on you.

The key idea here is ‘permission marketing’. Your audience is more receptive to the e-mails you send because they have given their consent. Now, what you have to do is to make the most of your opportunity to communicate with your prospects by making sure your e-mails contain information of real value to them. That way they will look forward to hearing from you and will keep the communication channel open for more. Here are some tips and tricks to help you achieve that and at the same time generate a profit from your campaign.

Get your e-mails read

This is the most obvious one, but can also prove to be the most difficult at a time when people receive more spam than genuine e-mail. First of all, make sure that it is absolutely clear who is sending the e-mail by making sure your name is in the ‘From’ field. Secondly, use your subject line to offer readers a benefit that will entice them to open your e-mail. Be careful not to go over the top with the subject wording, however, so that your e-mail does not look like spam. If you take a look at the spam in your inbox, you’ll soon see what sort of sensational tricks you should be avoiding.

Address your reader personally

Everyone enjoys being called by their name. Personalise your e-mails with the recipient’s first name to break the ice and let readers realise that you know who they are. In a more formal situation that calls for the use of surnames, make sure to ask for people’s titles (Mr., Mrs., Dr. etc.) when they sign up to your list.

Give your recipients true value and greet them with your best offer

No one wants to be subjected to a sales pitch week after week and month after month. Include interesting articles, helpful tips and useful information as a core part of your e-mails, or at least link to fresh, new content of this type in your website or blog. Also, put your best stuff first and leave the more boring bits for the end. Remember, you don’t have to aim for sales directly from your e-mails - getting people to visit your website again and again is often a more effective way to build their trust and make that sale.

Use your branding in your e-mail

Make your e-mails easy to recognise by using your corporate design and logo in the body. It is a good idea to use a basic template for all your e-mails because this will give them a common look and feel, and at the same time make them quicker to write up and design.

Track and test your links

Your e-mail will of course have links to your website or other pages you want your readers to visit. Track the performance of these links and experiment with different fonts, images, wording and even placement to see what works best. If you have a large enough mailing list, you can even design different versions of the same mailing and test them against each other to see what works best.

Ask for feedback

Your mailings are an excellent opportunity get valuable feedback. Invite your subscribers to write back with their comments, or simply use small surveys or voting buttons to quickly get a general feel for their thoughts. You can also publish the voting results in the next issue for added interest.

Consider using audio to effect

A short audio clip can give your e-mail that extra bit of power and personal touch if used well. Your audio will have to be of high quality and sound professional, however. Also, do not force the audio on your recipients, but rather include a play button for them to click if they want to listen, and of course give them an option to turn it off again.

Make unsubscribing easy

Permission marketing, remember? If a subscriber does not want to receive your mailings any more, it will do you more harm than good to keep on sending them, so make sure to include a clear unsubscribe link at the bottom of your e-mails or in a prominent place on your website. This will also reassure those subscribers who do want to remain that you care about their wishes because you are giving them a choice to leave.

Let your ISP know before you send bulk e-mails

If you begin to send a lot of e-mail to hundreds or thousands of recipients, your Internet service provider might flag you as a spammer and consequently block your account. Warn them before hand and you should have no troubles in that department.

Do not abuse your e-mail list

Put yourself in your recipients’ shoes and think of what it is like for them to receive your e-mails. If all you are doing is pushing your products - or if you are flooding people’s inboxes with e-mail - you’ll easily put off your subscribers.

Treat your opt-in e-mail list with care and do not abuse it. That is the golden rule of enjoying a long, happy and profitable relationship with all those who chose to hear from you.

How to Prepare Website Content for Google

Many of my clients ask me for a little guidance on writing content, preparing website content, and optimizing their site for Google and other search engines. So, I put together a little bit of guidance for them and you…

5 Rules for Preparing Website Content

1. Determine what laymen terms your ideal clients might use to find you if they were searching for you, your products, or your services online. These laymen terms, we are going to call, “key words” or “keyword phrases“.
   • For example, in our case, we are an online marketing agency. However, my clients would never think of using those key words to find us in a Google search.
   • Putting myself in the mindset of my client, if I were looking to build a new website then I would be looking for a “website builder” or “website programmer” or “web site developer” or “web site designer”.
   • It doesn’t really matter what I prefer to call myself. What matters is what words or phrases my clients would use to find somebody like me.
   • So, when you develop your list of key words and keyword phrases, it helps to pick up the phone, call one of your favorite clients and ask them, “if you were looking for my products or services, what words would you Google to find me?” Then, start writing furiously as they think out loud.
2. Prepare a table of contents (TOC), like what you would expect to see in the beginning of a textbook, which structures the information and message that you want to deliver, in a way that is logical and easy to understand. In the case of this particular website, www.artistscafe.com, the table of contents is:
   1. Home
   2. About
   3. Websites
   4. Marketing
   5. Blog
   6. Contact
3. Use your keyword phrases define in Step 1 within your table of contents.
   • The table of contents will ultimately be the names of the links or the pages that your website visitors will click on to get information.
   • If you want your site to be intuitive and if you want to get caught up in Google searches, it is critically important that the links to your pages reveal the information that lies on the other side of the links.
   • So, when you create that table of contents (TOC), make sure they both use your keyword phrases and reveal what information people would expect to find if they were to click on that link. If you look at the bottom footer section of www.artistscafe.com, you will see a more expanded and elaborate version of my high level table of contents, which reveals a bit more about what you expect to see if you were to click on the link:
     • Home
     • Website Designer
     • Web Design Options
     • Online Marketing Agency
     • Online Marketing Blog
     • Contact Web Designer
   • I recently met with a guy who rents out photography equipment for professional, commercial photographers. He has a couple trucks, which are fully loaded with commercial camera and lighting gear.
     • Currently, his high level site structure is as follows:
       • truck 1
       • truck 2
       • assistants
       • booking
       • billing
     • The links do not accurately reveal to me what I would expect to find if I were to click on that link. Worse, his company name is a meaningless acronym and at first glance of his site, I can’t figure out what he does. In my opinion, I should be able to figure out within 3 seconds or less what this site is about, am I at the right place, does this site have what I’m looking for, and where should I go or what should I do next. He should have a name with meaning and a tag line that says in 5 words of less what he does and who he serves. From a high level perspective, I would prefer his table of contents be more along the lines of:
       • Solutions
       • Resources
       • Booking
       • Contact
     • Or, if I really wanted this to be intuitive AND get caught up in Google, then I would rename the high level Table of Contents:
       • Commercial Photography Equipment Solutions
       • Commercial Photography Resources
       • Reserve Commercial Photography Equipment
       • Contact Commercial Photographer’s Supplier
     • Of course, the only problem with this is that it doesn’t look nearly as elegant as:
       • Solutions
       • Resources
       • Booking
       • Contact
     • So, at some point, you need to decide what is more important; design or content, design or functionality, design or traffic.
4. Name each page of your website in a way that uses the most important and general keyword phrase for that entire page. The name that you choose for each page of the website is one of the most important pieces of information that Google looks at. At a glance, Google wants to see what this page is about, whether it’s worth indexing or not, and whether Google’s website visitors might be interested in the content on this particular page. At the code level, your page name should be placed within the <title> tag and the <h1> header tag.
5. After you fill in the details and the information for every section within your table of contents, be sure to use the proper tags, which search engines like Google and Yahoo pay attention to, i.e.,

• Page title should be within both a TITLE tag as well as the H1 HEADER tag
• Prepare your pages like an executive level PowerPoint brief using bulleted lists
• If something is important, emphasize it using either the bold (STRONG) or EM tag
• User hyper links to point visitors to important or relevant pages*

Paranoia will Destroy Ya

* Don’t be so selfish or defensive or afraid to create links, which point outside of your website. Don’t worry about the stickiness factor. I say this for the following reasons:

• The Internet exists and has value because of hyper links (inbound and outbound)
• You provide a valuable service and information by referring people to outside resources
• You obtain better credibility and authority by referring people to other sites
• You can always direct the link to open up in a new tab, window, or browser so that when they are done with that site and close that window, yours remains open, then end up back at your site in the end
• The most successful networking relationships, and I’m talking about schmoozing, working the room, and personal networking, is when you offer information, guidance, value, and assistance to people without expectations in return. Linking out follows this altruistic strategy
• What goes around comes around. This is karma. If you want people to point to you, to link to you, to create inbound links into your site then guess what … you have to do the same to others and for others.
• The Golden rule. Do unto others what you would expect them to do unto you. But when you do, be positive, be optimistic, be generous, think of the best situation, assume the best of people.

Google Earth - Google buys ImageAmerica

July 22, 2007 - Google buys ImageAmerica

Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1billion

April 14, 2007 - Google acquires online advertising company, DoubleClick, for $3.1 billion.

HP buys LogoWorks

April 24, 2007 - Palo Alto, CA. Hewlett Packard (HP) purchases Arteis, operator of LogoWorks.

Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion

October 9, 2006 - Mountain View, California, Google acquires San Bruno-based YouTube for $1.65 billion in an all stock transaction.

Google buys SketchUp

March 14, 2006 - Google acquires @Last, makers of SketchUp, a 3D authoring tool for designers.

eBay acquires Skype for $2.6 billion

September 12, 2005 - eBay purchases Skype for $2.6 billion

News buys MySpace for $580 millioni

July 18, 2005 - Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp, purchases MySpace for $580m.

eBay buys Shopping.com for $600 million

June 2, 2005 - eBay acquires Shopping.com Inc for $620m

Google buy Urchin

March 29, 2005, Google buys analytics software Urchin and releases as Google Analytics.

eBay buys PayPal for $1.5 billion

July 8, 2002 - eBay completes purchase of PayPal for $1.5b

Amazon Mergers, Buys, Purchases, Acquisitions

Amazon.com acquires Brilliance Audio

May 23, 2007 – Amazon announces acquisition of audio-book publisher Brilliance Audio.

Amazon.com acquires DP Review

May 14, 2007 – Amazon acquires Digital Photography Review (www.dpreview.com), a web site for digital camera information and reviews.

Amazon.com purchases ShopBop.com

February 28, 2006 – Amazon purchases Shopbop.com, a site specializing in designer clothing and accessories.

Amazon.com buys CustomFlix.com

July 11, 2005 – Amazon buys Santa Cruz, CustomFlix Labs, company that creates DVDs on demand.

Amazon.com buys IMDb.com

April 1998 – Amazon purchases the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), www.imdb.com.

Amazon.com buys Alexa.com

June 1999 – Amazon buys Alexa.com

Amazon.com buys Exchange.com, Bibiliofind.com, and MusicFile.com

April 27, 1999 – Menage a trios, Amazon buys Exchange.com, Bibliofind (www.bibliofind.com), and Musicfile (www.musicfile.com) for $645 million.

Yahoo Mergers, Acquisitions, Buys, Purchases

Yahoo buys Zimbra

September 17, 2007 – Yahoo acquires Zimbra, creator of an innovative Ajax-based mail client that integrates email, contacts, shared calendar, search and VoIP into an incredibly cool browser-based interface. $350 million.

Yahoo purchases BuzzTracker

September 14, 2007 – Yahoo has acquired BuzzTracker, a news aggregator combining editorial judgment and algorithms taking into account how many times the story was blogged, and how recently.

Yahoo gobbles up MyBlogLog

January 8, 2007 – Yahoo! purchases MyBlogLog for $10 million.

Mergers and Acquisitions: Yahoo buys Flickr

March 20, 2005 – Yahoo! Buys Flickr

Delicious is appetizing to Yahoo

December 9, 2007 – Yahoo! purchases Del.icio.us