Being content is something people commonly struggle with. They always want to follow the latest trends, be it in fashion, sports, gadgets, music and practically anything you can think of. Websites have become a necessity to almost everyone. Companies, businesses, individuals, even teenagers have created personal websites with their respective purposes. Some get one to make more way for more profits. Some get it for entertainment, and some just to have the revered online presence.

What one must consider, however, before creating a website, are the factors in which to consider, such as the cost in acquiring one, maintenance, use, web hosting and so forth.

Firstly, associating with the cost, we must always try to find an affordable host, preferably not spending too much on it. A cheap host does not exactly symbolize a credible reliability rating, but we must always look for value for any deal that costs money. Also, regarding the efficiency and server/web host reliability, there are cases where web hosts do not provide the service they assured their customers to be getting. Some had even shut down and were nowhere to be seen, along with the websites of those were hosted to them. Keep this note in mind. If you would like a long-lasting website (well, who doesn’t?), this would be the first thing to look out for.

Next, think about whether hiring a professional would be affordable, or of it is the best option? For simple websites, we could always pick up the coding, or even use programs, as it is relatively simple. However, when it comes to more complex coding, and when you want it to do a tad more than just providing information, hiring help in doing so would be the best way. Not only in terms of design, but security is also a key factor in assuring a quality website. If the website also acts as a portal for businesses, security would definitely be a main issue here.

Given these considerations in building a website, think carefully if you actually NEED one at this point in time? Will it be beneficial to you in the sense that it would boost your sales or promote positive implications? Then by all means, go ahead and do what’s best, bearing in mind planning is the key to success in everything we do. If you don’t plan to fail, then don’t fail to plan.

When Macromedia introduced Flash onto the World Wide Web, Flash-based sites have always garnered attention and it only gets more and more popular as more and more great features are added to it. It is rather easy to foresee that Flash site population will continue to rise around the Internet. Nevertheless, there had been discussion on Flash based sites being unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here’s a simple breakdown.

Pros:

Interactivity

Flash’s Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.

A standardized site

With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain CSS code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.

Better expression through animation

In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and attractive way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (hence having smaller file sizes) as opposed to real “movie files” that are raster based and hence much larger in size.

Cons:

The Flash player

People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You’ll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn’t have the player installed. In short, this could be a reason for non-flash users to leave your site and never come back.

Site optimization

If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn’t be able to index your content. Thus, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.

Loading time

Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. Worse, they could try to Google another site similar to what you have and go there instead. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.

It is then recommended that you use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, a mixture of Flash and HTML or pure text would be perfect if you intend to present simple textual and graphical information.

It may be hard to believe, but it’s a fact that there are still a number of users running on good old dialup, even though more and more subscribers are using and switching to broadband every year. It would therefore be wise to count these people in the equation when designing your website with the very major consideration for the loading time of your website. Dialup users or not, visitors appreciate it when a site loads quickly which gives them time to navigate the pages at the minimum loading time possible.

Generally, all the text on your website will be loaded in a very short time even on a dialup connection. The culprit of slow-loading sites is mainly images on your website, which are larger in size. It is very important to strike a delicate balance between using just enough images to attract your users and not to bog down the overall loading time of your site.

You should also go to a greater length and optimize every image on your site to make sure it loads in the least time possible. What I really mean is to use image editing software to remove unnecessary information on your images, and thereby effectively reducing the file size of your image without affecting its appearance.

If you own Photoshop, it will be obvious to you that when you save an image as a JPEG file, a dialog box appears and lets you choose the “quality” of the JPEG image — normally a setting of 8 to 10 is good enough as it will preserve the quality of your image while saving it at a small file size. If you do not have Photoshop, there are many free image compressors online that you can download and use to reduce your image’s file size.

PNG or Portable Network Graphic format, on the other hand, can get you the best quality at the least file size. Then there’s the option to save your images in GIF format — the image editing software clips away all the color information not used in your image, hence giving you the smallest file size possible. The downside in saving in GIF format is that it will, more often than not, compromise the appearance of your image, so be sure to make your choice wisely!

Considering e-commerce options is not a decision to be taken lightly. It is one of the most important choices business owners face.

One wrong decision could result in a loss of profits and a lengthy contract that must be honored, even after a second account provider has been chosen as a replacement and regardless of whether you have stopped using the service. Unfortunately, there are many business owners who find themselves paying for two services, because of this very reason.

There are several helpful tips to take into consideration when researching merchant account providers. These tips are dependent on the size and type of business that is interested in providing e-commerce availability to their customers.

Small business owners, who are working with limited funds, may want to initially consider the use of an online provider such as PayPal or 2checkout to process their credit card payments.

Because of the fees associated with a more formal merchant account provider, many small business owners who process up to $1000 per month in credit card payments find that these third party payment processors work out quite well.

Business owners who process more than $1000 per month in credit card payments, may want to consider other vendors. When doing so, one of the most important things to look into is each vendor’s discount rate and per transaction fee schedule.

The discount rate refers to the actual percentage of the sale that the merchant account provider will keep. There is normally a separate rate for ‘swiped’ and ‘non-swiped’ transactions. These fees vary from vendor to vendor.

There is also a fee charged for every processed transaction. Again, these fees vary but can be anywhere from 10 cents to 99 cents per sale.

Business owners who process smaller credit card payments of under $25, might want to consider choosing a vendor offering a higher discount rate and lower per transaction fee, as this will probably be a money saver.

Other things to consider when looking for the right merchant account provider include: monthly statement fees, gateway fees, annual membership fees, equipment rental fees, batch fees, cancellation fees and contract length.

Merchant account services have come a long way over the past few years. Business owners will find that many of these vendors offer lower fees, short-term or even no contract options, and customizable account features.

In conclusion, the large number of e-commerce service providers is actually a good thing. Vendors must stay competitive, in an effort to attract new clientele. This competition often results in lower fees and better overall service.

All it takes is just time to thoroughly research several merchant account providers and scrutinize their service features based on the guidelines discussed in this article. It is typically easier to make a final decision on the right one to utilize. Comparing the pros and cons of each vendor is a good way to begin this research.

For any online business, the website is the hub or the virtual representation of the company whether it exists physically or not. When business is done on the World Wide Web, people do not see each other physically like how it is when dealing with a physical company. Naturally, people mostly judge you by your cover. This is where a good design steps in.

Imagine if you are running an offline company. Would you allow your salespersons to be dressed in shabby or casual clothes when they are dealing with your customers? By making your staff wear professional clothing, you are telling your customers that you do care about quality. This works simply because first impressions matter.

This is exactly the same case with your website. If your website is put together shabbily and looks like a 5 minute “quick fix”, you are literally shouting to your visitors that you are not professional and you do not care for quality.

On the contrary, if you have a totally professional looking website layout, you are allowing your visitors to see that you have given meticulous attention to every detail and professionalism is important to you. You show that you are organized, focused and you really mean business.

More importantly, anything related to your company should always be well-designed, not just your website. Business cards, letterheads, promotional brochures, flyers- every little bit matters. As you grow your business, these items that represent you. They simply become the face of your business. Once more, remember the analogy of the “salesperson dressed shabbily”. Keep it in mind and you will always get the point.

The whole point of building a website is thrown away when there no visitors coming in. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Altavista, Wikipedia and so on are oftentimes the source of these much-sought traffic. For this reason, designing a search engine-friendly site will make your website rank easily in search engines, resulting to driving more traffic in which translates to more visitors.

Major search engines use programs called crawlers or robots to index websites to list on their search result pages. They follow links to a page, read the content of the page and record it in their own database, pulling up the listing as people search for it.

If you want to make your site indexed easily, you should avoid using frames on your website. Frames will only confuse search engine robots and they might even abandon your site because of it. Moreover, frames make it difficult for users to bookmark a specific page on your site without using long, complicated scripts.

Do not present important information in Flash movies or in images. Search engine robots can only read text on your source code so if you present important words in Flash movies and images rather than textual form, your search engine ranking will be affected dramatically.

Use Meta tags accordingly on each and every page of your site so that search engine robots know at first glance what that particular page is about and whether or not to index it. By using Meta tags, you are making the search engine robot’s job easier so they will crawl and index your site more frequently.

Instead of using HTML tags like to style your page, it is wiser to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) because they are more effective. By using CSS, redundant HTML tags are eliminated which then make your pages much lighter and gives it faster time to load.

Today, I spent less than 2 minutes on the phone with the billing department at 1ShoppingCart. I canceled my account. I could tell that I wasn’t the first one today, but rather among a ton of people over the course of the last two weeks that canceled their account.

There has been a large uproar in the information marketing/ecommerce world over the past couple weeks after 1ShoppingCart sent out an e-mail announcing that it would begin charging for telephone and e-mail support beginning October 1st, 2009. What started out as an e-mail that seemed to be a company who really care about you and your business really turned into a large kick-in-the-balls for anyone that uses 1ShoppingCart to run their business.

Here is a portion of the e-mail:

Of course, I marked up the parts that I thought you would be particularly interested in. $34/month for telephone support? Email support within 1-3 days if you don’t buy the monthly support plan?

Get real.

Charging for support is the old school model. In continuity type of programs these days, customer support is part of the cost of doing business since the more people like, love, and know how to use your software then the longer they will stay as monthly paying customer of yours. Even in businesses that aren’t continuity models, business owners are fighting like hell to find & keep happy clients during this down economy. The last thing many of them would think about doing is nickel & dime their clients in fear of losing them. 1ShoppingCart must’ve decided to wear a bulletproof vest to this dance.

Can you imagine having an issue with your shopping cart during a launch or event registration, then you have to submit a ticket, and wait for 1-3 days to get an answer? Honestly, doesn’t that sound a bit silly.

You would think the management of 1ShoppingCart.com would take a peek at how well the “extra fees” thing is working out for the ailing airline industry and that should quickly answer their question. Providing customer support & service is mandatory and should be part of the cost of doing business with you. If you can’t make it that, then it’s time to raise your rates and INCLUDE it as part of the service people are buying. Adding it on to your customer’s bill looks terribly tacky. It’s like a waitress who adds on an extra $5 just to take your order or bring you a bottle of ketchup. Doesn’t fly.

Here is one of the airlines who is laughing at all the other airlines and marketing their competitor’s weaknesses as their strengths in a humorous way.

Enjoy!

Think back to the last time you made a major purchase. Maybe it was a car, an appliance, a house, etc. I have a simple question for you. Did the salesperson send you a thank you note? Probably not! In fact, I am going to be bold and say that probably less than 10% of salespeople send thank you notes. This is another reason why most salespeople fail.

Just a few weeks ago I got back from the Southern Disc Jockey Convention in Dallas, TX. For me, this was one of the biggest life changing events I have ever been to. The first thing I did once I got back to the office was begin to write thank you notes. I wrote thank you notes to as many people as I could think of.

Why?

Because these people invested their time, money, and talent with this convention. Some of them were speakers, exhibitors, or just plain attending. Each one of them was part of the experience that was created for me in Dallas and they each deserve some thanks for that.

Think about your own business. When was the last time that you sent out a thank you note? Was it because someone booked you? Was it because they met with you about an event? Was it because you just met them for the first time and they have no need for your services?

All of those are great reasons to send a thank you note. Too many people think that there needs to be money exchanged in order for a thank you note to be sent. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I met a guy at the convention in Dallas that told me he does this. He says that he has a database of names and addresses, and then once or twice a year he types up a letter on his computer and mail merges the database and the letter together so that he can send out the 500 or so letters to his vendors, thanking them for their business.

NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!

There are many things that are wrong with this. First of all, ALL thank you notes need to be handwritten. The minute that you have a computer produce them, and then the person will think that it is just a standard form that you send out after each event or meeting. When you handwrite them, it shows the person that you truly mean it. If you are a multi-op owner, make each on of your dj’s write them out for the events and meetings they attended. Also, never just send them out once a year. You should be sending them out constantly and making a habit of it.

Now set down this paper and go write 5-10 thank you notes. I think you will be happy with the results.

A key part of increased traffic in successful websites is attributed to returning visitors. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because these frequent site visits mean only one thing- they are putting their trust in your website. There is no credibility issue there; hence, visitors keep coming back to your site, and this can easily be achieved by the following methods:

1) Incorporate a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a discussion board or forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers — all of which are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day, as though meeting up with friends to share some ideas.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Make use of polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested in participating and to finding out about the results.

4) Hold contests

Just imagine how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide an interesting contest. Winning some sort of small comntests gives people a feeling of accomplishment, which is nice, and this will make them want to visit your site more to participate.

5) Keep your content fresh

No one gets excited reading about old news. Updating your site frequently with fresh content will ensure that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most celebrated and most successful method of attracting returning visitors; however this is also the most commonly neglected because it usually takes the backseat in a busy webmaster’s schedule. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same after some considerable time, so keep your site updated with fresh bites! You are sure to see your visitors coming back to check you out.

We don’t have a vaccine for it, but this is a virus that we wouldn’t want to cure.

Here are some ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:

1. Purchase the branding rights of a Viral e-book. Simply allow your free e-book to be given to the site visitors as gift, which will then be passed on to their visitors, and so on and so forth. This will just continue and in effect will be spreading your branding all over the Internet.

2. If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people have, some don’t, but be sure to include your banner ad at the top of the board.

3. Do you have a knack for web design? Create some templates, graphics, etc. and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright notice intact.

4. Write an e-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free e-book if, in exchange, they give away the e-book to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers.

5. Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their e-zine, newsletter, magazine or e-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.

6. There are numerous products on the web that will be available to sell you a license allowing you to distribute the product as gift to people. Go for those products that provide “branding rights”. This way, you can incorporate your own name, website, and contact information.