MaineBusiness.com

Is Your Web Site or Blog Discriminating Against the Disabled?

Yesterday I received an email from a reader of this blog. On a post called Five Secrets to Promoting Your Business Blog I included a recommendation to post to influential blogs in your niche.

Why didn't he just leave a comment? Read on...

The reader responded that one barrier to leaving comments on blogs is the use of CAPTCHAs--those annoying, messy boxes of alpha-numerics that are supposed to separate the people from the machines. Unfortunately, they can be an impenetrable barrier to people with disabilities. More unfortunately, MaineBusiness.com, which hosts this blog, uses CAPTCHA to prevent comment spam on their site. (So does TypePad, which powers my other blog, flyte blog: web marketing strategies for small business.)

The reader mentioned that census figures show 20% of the population are somehow disabled; obviously, not all of the would be stopped by a CAPTCHA, but why would you use a tool that stops the voice of your reader and quiets the conversation on your site?

Obviously, there's a very good reason for using CAPTCHAs. They help stem the tide of comment spam generated by computers. Spammers use computers to send out an infinite, unending stream of spam to online forms for a variety of reasons. These spams reduce the signal to noise ratio, clog the tubes of the Internet, and reduce everyone's productivity.

New CAPTCHA tools often give people alternatives to those messy alphanumerics. Sometimes there's also an audio option (the computer will read you the answer and you type it in) or a simple math problem (what is 2 + 0) that these spam bots haven't yet caught up with.

Regardless, it's an ongoing battle between keeping communication flowing while keeping noise out. In a recent post, I talked about some of the benefits I've seen by using some non-CAPTCHA tools on online forms. However, ultimately spammers will figure those out as well.

We are in an arms race with the spammers, and of course there are innocent bystanders that are getting hurt, or at least disenfranchised.

There's no right answer on how to handle the balance of reducing incoming spam and keeping the lines of communication open with any human who wants to be part of the conversation. Each company, each Web site owner, and each blogger needs to make their own decision.

What have you found that works for you?

Email Marketing Advice: Increase Your Subscriber Base

This month's issue of our email newsletter flyte log is entitled, How I Increased My Email Signup Rate by 5,000%...and How You Can, Too.

Hmmm...you're thinking. I know Rich is terrible with math, so he probably moved a decimal point too far to the right. Or, maybe you're thinking, I know Rich is a marketer, but I think this time he stretched the truth past the breaking point.

Well, math isn't my strong suit, that's true. And, I am a marketer and, according to Seth Godin, All Marketers Are Liars.

Yet, as far as my rudimentary math skills can tell, it's true. We averaged 2 - 3 new subscribers a month before I tried the process I lay out in this month's issue, and now we average 125 new subscribers a month. (Actually, it's more. I was counting total subscriber base over a 12 month period, but that includes unsubscribes. Our new subscriber rate is even higher.)

But let's be honest, you don't care about my success rate, you want to know how to increase the number of subscribers to your email newsletter. If your email newsletter signup offers nothing more than "Join Our Mailing List," this month's flyte log is for you.

To avoid missing any future issues, be sure to sign up now!

Online Video and the Entrepreneur

I have a pile on my desk. You know the kind. The kind where you put important but not urgent material. Of course, over time those items become more and more urgent...and then irrelevant.

I could tell how long it had been since I sorted through my "important but not urgent" pile because I found an article from the Wall St. Journal I had printed up on 12/26/07. It was called "Lights! Camera! Sales! How to use video to expand your business in a YouTube world." (Since this link was up as of today, I'm hoping it'll be around for a while.)

It's a great article by Raymund Flandez who profiles a number of entrepreneurs and small businesses talking about how they've used video to enhance their marketing and sales. From individual artists to an all natural soda company located in my home town of Scarborough, Maine, to a blender manufacturer, companies are creating videos that are driving demand for their products.

We've seen some success with our own clients who are posting videos online. Eli Newberger has posted both his tuba performances and his speaking gigs at the White House on the YouTube channel we created for him. He has 20 subscribers and has gotten over 5,800 channel views as of this post. That's driving a lot of additional traffic to his Web site.

Sabre Yachts and Newcastle Square Realty have also recently launched YouTube channels as well.

Keyword rich content may help with search engine rankings, but video engages customers in a way that text by itself rarely can.

Rich Brooks
As Seen on YouTube

Tourism's New Math: What Maine's Tourist Economy Needs Now

There's a front page article in the PPH today about a new method of calculating tourism's impact on the Maine economy, and a lot of people aren't happy about it. It's hard to know what the impact will be, but as the article notes,

If tourism promotion doesn't appear to be generating as much
bang for the buck as previously thought, [Vaughn Stinson, chief executive officer of the
Maine Tourism Association] said,
lawmakers could be less supportive of continued funding. His
concern is heightened by the state's budget shortfall.

The bottom line is that companies involved in the tourist industry here in Maine may be getting less support from the MTA, because there's less money to be spent on tourism marketing. This impacts ski resorts, hotels, B&B's, snow mobile rentals, restaurants, and a thousand other businesses that are part of or support the tourist industry.

If I were in tourism I would be planning ahead. Hopefully the funding will still be there, but the possible slack must be picked up by individual businesses. No surprise, but I'd be blogging, developing one or more email newsletters, budgeting money for search engine optimization, and reviewing my Web site based on my analytics. I'd be creating a presence on Facebook and MySpace. In short, I'd be preparing for the worst.

Even if the funding comes in at last year's levels, businesses that are marketing themselves--especially in a recession--will be in a better position to take advantage of it.

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for Maine Businesses

What is Mobile Marketing?

This afternoon I attended a fascinating seminar put on by the Maine Marketing Association on mobile marketing. Specifically, Andrew Newman of TextMoreInfo.com talked about how businesses can reach out and connect with people through SMS (short message service) on their cell phones. Although I've heard horror stories about how Starbucks will text you as you stand in front of a competitor's coffee shop (too Orwellian for me to even fathom), that wasn't the discussion today.

We focused on the type of approach you might see on American Idol or ESPN, when you text "WINNER" to 12345, or something like that. I definitely don't see this as a model that will work for all businesses...really, does anyone want to text flyte to get a message back on our SEO specials of the day?

However, any business that does some other type of advertising, such as tv or radio ads, outdoor signage, etc., could provide additional information to prospective consumers by providing an SMS code. I could certainly imagine For Sale signs with "Text 31MainSt to 12345" to get more information on a house that someone passes. Or texting a restaurant to find out what the daily special was.

I've cleaned up my notes from the meeting below, but you'll find them "as is." If you have any questions, I'd hop over to TextMoreInfo.com and talk to those guys. Even though Andrew said he was as much student as teacher, he definitely seem to have a grasp on the potential and pitfalls of mobile marketing.

Mobile Marketing: Why is this important?

• Millions have chosen cell phones, specifically text messaging, as preferred communication

What is SMS (short message service)?

• Allows short messages (160 max characters) from one cell to another
• aka "text messaging"
• now cells can communicate w/internet
• sometimes can include files such as images, ringtones, mp3s
• short codes: 5-6 #s; long codes 10 #s

How does it work?

• User initiates relationship by sending text message to short or long code #
• Cell carrier delivers message to aggregator (aggregators are required to convert cell message (SMS) to ones and zeroes of computer language)
• Aggregator delivers message to server
• Server takes the appropriate action based on program
• Back to aggregator > Back to carrier > Back to user
• Server can also take other actions, such as sending an email, deliver a file, etc.

Premium vs. Non-premium services

• Premium charges users for service
• Non-premium has no charge from provider, only carrier charges apply

Ethical sms?

• Should it be opt-in or opt-out?
• What's industry standard right now? (Still being developed; carriers keep on top of providers)
• There is a type of double opt-in; message back can include a request to opt-in further

Possible uses of SMS:

• Raffle: Text to 12345 and get a chance at $20K
• Voting
• Text to retrieve file (i.e., ringtone)
• Info updates (text flight # to 12345 and get gate and flight status)
• Subscription style updates: text to subscribe
• Event updates: ebay bid
• Product or service info (good if people are on the road, i.e., real estate?)
• Promotional updates on demand: text soup01 to 12345 and you'll receive text message w/soup of the day
• Delayed autoresponder
• Promotional updates by subscription
• Recruiting

Pros & Cons

• Pros:
  • Cost: after implementation cost of operating a program are low relative to other mediums
  • Costs include code leasing, aggregator costs, cost/message ($.10 - $.20)
  • Quality of impressions
  • Speed w/which message can be updated
  • Less spam, not like email
• Cons:
  • Fear of being spammed
  • Development of program if not using 3rd part can be significant
  • Implementation time: development is followed by provisioning (permission to access their network; this tends to be a royal pain in the ass)

Where is this going?

• Consumer
  • More people will be comfortable w/the medium
  • Confidence will build among users that the are secure from unwanted content
• Technology
  • Cell phones continue to evolve, adding new technology
  • There will be standards (eventually) as we see in video, HD
• Standards will result in widespread use of multimedia
  • The market
  • Will explode
  • 5% - 12% of budgets dedicated to alt. media will shit to mobile in 2008
  • spending will increase

Notes on Cost and ROI:

• Random short code: $500/mo
• Chosen short code: $1,000/mo
• Can you resell codes? (He thinks not.)
• What is the ROI? (No numbers yet…he provides some feedback on how many people call.)
• What other costs are there?
• What happens when someone texts a "wrong message" to a code? (404 error message)

Rich Brooks
Mobile Marketing Neophyte

Is Search Advertising Right for You?

Here's my dirty little secret: as a company, we haven't done a whole lot with search engine advertising, aka pay-per-click advertising, aka PPC. We've never done it for our own services (in large part because our organic listings at Google, Yahoo and other search engines keep us busy enough,) and we've only done it a handful of times for clients.

However, after reading How to Gain Instant Exposure with Search Advertising, I can't wait for the next opportunity. We're hopefully launching a few e-products this year, and it sounds like PPC is one of the right tools to generate tons of leads.

If you're having trouble ranking well organically, whether because you're a new site, your site isn't very search engine friendly, you rely too much on Flash, or you don't have enough content, PPC may be a cost-effective way of driving qualified leads to your site. However, you still need to keep on top of your ad buys and make sure they stay cost effective.

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for Small Business

What is Your Web Site Doing for You?

• What drives more traffic to your Web site, search engine optimization or an ad in the local paper?
• How much business did your email newsletter generate for you last year?
• How much did each Web lead cost you last year? What was each one worth?

If you're like most business owners out there, you have no idea. And yet, chances are the answers are at your fingertips.

Almost all hosting companies offer some sort of traffic reports, no matter how rudimentary. If you're unsatisfied with your reports you can have your Web person install Google Analytics, a free traffic reports application that provides an unbelievable amount of detail in a user-friendly layout.

<shameless plug>

If you'd like to learn more about Google Analytics and how to read some of its most important reports, I'll be leading a workshop on Wednesday morning in Portland, Maine called Google Analytics for Online Success. We limit these workshops to just 10 people, so registration is required. The cost is $50 and we feed you, too!

</shameless plug>

Hope to see you there.

Rich Brooks
Analytics Retentive

Google Analytics: Web Marketing Seminar in Portland, Maine

In flyte's Holistic Web Marketing model the four components are:

• Attraction (driving traffic to your site)
• Retention (staying in communication w/customers even when they're not at your site)
• Conversion (getting visitors to take a desired step towards the sale) and
• Measurement (determining how effective different campaigns really are).

It's the last component, measurement, that we'll be talking about at our upcoming workshop, Google Analytics for Online Success.

Web marketing without measurement is like archery without a target. You don't know how well you're doing.

Traffic report programs such as Google Analytics help small business
owners and entrepreneurs understand which online marketing campaigns
are working and which ones should be dropped.

Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful analytics program that
can answer all of these questions and more. Best of all, the price of
the software can't be beat: $0.

Attendees will learn:

• How to setup and get the most out of Google Analytics.
• How to read and understand reports, and which reports are essential to your success.
• How to set up Goals so you can track which traffic streams are worth the most to your business.
• How to analyze these reports to make changes to your Web site and improve your conversion rates.

Date: Wednesday, 1/16/2008

Time: 8am - 9:30am

Place: flyte's offices (directions)

Cost: $50, includes coffee & danish type edibles

Registration is required, and the workshop is limited to just 10 people, so REGISTER NOW!

Rich Brooks
flyte school instructor

12 Web Marketing Ideas to Jump Start Your Business

You know those "new" episodes of your favorite TV show when a character gets hit by a car, and then all their friends gather by their bed side and retell their favorite stories through a series of clips?

Welcome to my clip show.

Here's a quick list of the 12 articles we published in flyte log, our monthly Web marketing ezine:

• Your 2008 Web Marketing Plan
• How to Use Social Media to Reach New Customers
• Business Blog Success: 10 Tips for a Profitable Blog
• Increase Your Search Engine Visibility: Three Things You Can Do Today
• Nine Indispensable Online Tools for Your Web-Based Business
• Four Tips to Maximize Your Email Marketing Results
• The Secret to a Web Site That Sells
• Six Blogging Myths That Are Holding You Back
• The Dangers of Relying on Google for Business
• Holistic Web Marketing: An Integrated Approach to Online Success
• Tracking Conversions: Does Your Web Site Turn Suspects into Prospects?
• Informational Products: Selling Your Knowledge Online

There's oodles of ideas in these articles that you can use to jump start your business and build it over the next year. If you'd rather not miss any new articles, please subscribe to flyte log in the box below.

Rich Brooks
Greatest Hits

Your 2008 Web Marketing Plan

There's light fluffy snowflakes falling outside my window this morning as I polish off another issue of flyte log, our Web marketing email newsletter...the last for 2007.

Rather than look back on 2007--as good as it was--it's time to look forward to 2008 and start making plans. Web marketing plans, that is.

Today's issue of flyte log is Your 2008 Web Marketing Plan, a month-by-month, itemized list of what you need to do to succeed in 2008.

Your Web marketing plan includes ideas on search engine optimization, blogging, social media, Webinars and more.

Why not take the first step in improving your chances for success in 2008 by signing up for flyte log now, so you never miss another issue?

How to Promote Your Event on the Web

How do you leverage a the Web and Internet marketing to promote your upcoming event? There are so many channels of distribution, the possibilities are almost endless. Here's a checklist of what I did to promote an upcoming workshop I'm teaching at flyte called "How to Plan, Build and Promote a Business Blog."

• Published the event on the Web Marketing Seminars page on my Web site. This is a no-brainer and the first, essential step.
• Added the event information (including a link to the online registration) on Facebook, both on my page and as part of the Portland, ME network so that other local people could find it.
• Sent out an email alert to the people who have signed up for my Web Marketing Alerts email newsletter. (You can sign up for this when you sign up for flyte log, our free, monthly email newsletter.)
• Added it as an event on MaineToday.com, the online presence for the Blethen newspapers.
• Added it as a class through Craig's list.
• Added it at MaineBiz's event calendar.
• Submitted to Maine Public Broadcasting Network's event calendar.
• Posted it to my Internet Marketing 101 blog at MaineToday.com (at least twice.)
• Posted it to my flyte blog: web marketing for small business blog (again, at least twice.)
• Posted to Eventful.com, which sends to several other sites including Podbot, Google Calendar, del.icio.us/events, Ping-o-Matic, Technorati, and Upcoming. Several of these sites extend that reach even further through their own network. (Found through Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound, through Denise Wakeman tip.
• I also learned about EventCrazy.com that way.

I also plan on submitting this event to the print versions of MaineBiz and the Portland Press Herald.

Will I do this for every event? Probably not, but I will try and track which channel is bringing me attendees, by asking everyone at the event.

Your Turn: What tools do you use to promote your events in this 2.0 world? Leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

Rich Brooks
Business Blog Expert

MESDA's 15th Annual Technology Conference!

It's that time of year again, time for MESDA's 15th annual conference.

MESDA, Maine's Software and Information Technology Industry Association, is holding their "biggest and best annual conference yet" on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 6 & 7, 2007.

Topics include Ruby on Rails, eLearning, outsourcing, prototyping and more. The Wednesday keynote is "Lower Cost Domestic Sourcing," apparently as a response to outsourcing.

People can register for just one or two workshops on Tuesday (starting at $55 for members, $75 for non-members), or for the full day on Wed ($125 for members, $150 for non-members.)

I think.

To be honest, I read the registration page several times and I'm still not sure. The best bet is to just call Joe Kumiszcza at MESDA at 207.857.3003, as listed on the registration page.

I'd strongly recommend NOT using the online registration and payment system, since the page that asks for your credit card number isn't secure! Hopefully, the new Web site, which will be unveiled on Wednesday, will take future transactions securely.

However, don't let this stop you from attending. Use the printed form for individual registration (PDF), or bring a friend and use this registration form (PDF).

Rich Brooks
Fellow Geek

Red Sox Links for You

On last night's segment of 207 I shared a number of online resources for our beloved Sox. Here they are, for those of you not taking notes:

• Red Sox Official Web Site: Good for news, stats, and everything that's been officially approved.
• ESPN Page 2: Not officially a Red Sox site, but the love of Boston teams must make other fans steam.
• Yooooouuuuukkkkk: Youk's Blog
• 38 Pitches: Schill's Blog
• Boston Dirt Dogs: Fan blog bought by the Boston Globe. Sox news served with attitude; check out this photo of Pedroia hitting his home run in game 7 of the ACLS.
• Red Sox Desktop Wallpaper
• StubHub World Series Tickets: If you can afford these, please consider taking your favorite Internet Marketing blogger.

Rich Brooks
Proud Member, Red Sox Nation

Attention Red Sox Fans

Yes, I'm talking to you. If you're not getting enough Red Sox news from your local paper, ESPN, sports radio, and the drunk at the bar next to you screaming Yooooouuuuukkkkk (wait, that was me,) then tune in tonight at 7pm to 207 on WCSH-6.

I'll be talking to Pat Callahan about where the information-starved members of Red Sox Nation can find information, news, player blogs, podcasts, desktop wallpaper, tickets to the World Series and more online.

Rich Brooks
Sox Fan

Web Marketing for Public Relations

I'll be part of an all-day conference for the Maine Public Relations Council this Wednesday, October 17. The annual conference's theme is "The Art and Science of Communication," and goes from 8:30 - 3:30 at the Sheraton Hotel in South Portland.

My topic will be Web Marketing for Public Relations. This is a new lens from which to view Web marketing, at least for me. However, in putting together the presentation I was just blown away by the tools that today's PR professional has at his or her disposal. I mean, I got really excited. I was pacing around the kitchen table as I was creating my slides. And the future looks even more exciting.

If you're a public relations professional, or you're just looking for ways to gain more visibility for your company you can't afford to miss the MPRC's annual conference. Admission is $100 for members, $140 for non-members. Details and registration information can be found on their events page.

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for PR

Building a Sustainable Business in Maine

There was a great article on MEBSR (Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility) in the Maine Sunday Telegram. The article was called Doing Well While Doing Good and talked about the slight shift in focus of MEBSR and interviewed a few of its members.

Personally, I think MEBSR has a perception problem. The "social responsibility" in the name leads some business owners to think that MEBSR wants businesses to become some sort of charitable organization, or doing things that cost them money.

That's NOT the purpose or mission of MEBSR. I'm a member of MEBSR (and now vice-president) because I believe it's essential for businesses--big and small--to be sustainable. To be able to survive in a global economy. To reduce costs and improve profits by reducing waste. To have long-term vision.

MEBSR's not about scoring karma points. It's about networking with like-minded (and unlike-minded) people who have reduced turnover, lowered costs, and built a more sustainable business that they can grow, sell or handover to their children. It's a facilitator of great ideas that can help Maine businesses grow and prosper.

Pick up any business magazine--BusinessWeek, Business 2.0, Inc., Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Forbes--and you'll find article after article, sometimes even cover stories, on how companies are going green and making money at it. How consumers are demanding more accountability. And how talented employees are leaving for companies who "get it."

MEBSR's goal this year is to facilitate these conversations, these learning opportunities, through events both in the real world and online. Not to preach that social responsibility is important, but to help Maine businesses network and teach each other best practices to run a sustainable business over the long haul.

MEBSR members are going to learn how to run a business with less waste, less employee turnover and more and prolonged profitability.

Now tell me: are you in?

By the way, if you have any questions on MEBSR, or want to join up or renew, feel free to contact me direct: 207.523.5141.

Rich Brooks
MEBSR Vice-President

How to Show Your Google Ads Only in Portland, or Bangor, or Lewiston...

There a good post on How to Geotarget Your Google Ads to a Specific City over at SE Round Table.

Why would you want to geotarget your Google Ads? The real question is why wouldn't you? Since every time someone clicks on one of your Google Adwords Ads you pay Google money, you want to make sure that it's a qualified lead. If you're a Bangor dentist, a click from a Portland Web site visitor--no matter how poor her teeth--probably won't land you a new client.

While in the past you could only limit which state the searcher was for, now you can control by city, region and more. If you're going to spend you ad dollars on Google Adwords, spend them wisely.

Nine Indispensable Online Tools for Your Web-Based Business

Is it plagiarism when you steal from yourself? No, it's re-purposing.

I was on vacation last week, relaxing with the family on Little Sebago in Maine, when I realized I still had to write this month's flyte log, flyte's monthly Web marketing email newsletter. So, I started with my list of Entrepreneurial Web Tools, expanded on each one, added a few new items, and presto! I had a new issue of flyte log.

This month's flyte log also sports our new look, meaning we can finally get back to designing Web sites, business blogs and email newsletters for clients again!

If you don't subscribe to flyte log, you can read Nine Indispensable Online Tools for Your Web-Based Business at our Web site or listen to the audio at flytecast, our Web marketing podcast. You can also subscribe to flyte log and then download for free:

• 10 Questions to Ask Before Setting Up a Web Site,
• The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make, and
• The 11 Commandments of Writing Web Copy for the Non-Copywriter

And, if you want an email newsletter as smart looking as this one, or if you're looking to increase the subscriber base to your email newsletter, just drop us a line.

Rich Brooks
Email Marketing for Small Business

Adding an RSS Feed to Your Blog or Web Site

We'll be launching a Web site and blog for a new client in the next couple of weeks. One of the things the client wanted was to keep their home page fresh by feeding snippets from their blog on a regular basis.

In doing some research into this, it seems there's a number of ways to accomplish this feat, including javascript, PHP, ASP and other solutions. In fact, I found a whole slew of ideas from the ever helpful Robin Good and his post RSS To HTML - How To Convert RSS Feeds Into Published Web Pages - A Mini-Guide.

As Good points out, javascript is perhaps the easiest method to implement an RSS feed on one's Web site, but comes with one caveat: since the javascript code you add doesn't actually include the text from the feed, the search bots don't pick up that content, just the visitor to your page. However, if you're the author of the blog and Web site, I don't see this as a major problem, since your blog is there to warm leads and feed them to your site for conversion.

Good offers a number of free and paid services in his post, and is worth checking out if you're still mulling your options.

We chose Feedburner's BuzzBoost, which is free for all Feedburner accounts, which is also free. Every day I'm more impressed with Feedburner's offerings, and my only concern is that I'm becoming too dependent on them, from their great feed options, their email signups, their feed options, their stats program and more. They were recently purchased by Google, however, so I guess they're not going anywhere.

Using BuzzBoost was easy. A couple of clicks on some configuration items and the javascript was generated. I just need to add the following to any Web page:

<script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlyteWhatWorksOnline?format=sigpro" type="text/javascript" ></script><noscript><p>Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlyteWhatWorksOnline"></a><br/>Powered by FeedBurner</p> </noscript>

And away we go:

If you're looking for a way to drive more traffic to your blog from your Web site or to keep your home page fresh with info, BuzzBoost or one of the other RSS to HTML options is just what you're looking for.

Rich Brooks
Feed Me, Seymour, Feed Me!

5 Ways to Track Your Online Spending for Maximum Results

Wouldn't it be great to know exactly which Web marketing campaigns were generating sales for you, instead of just site traffic?

If you could easily determine whether it was your blog, or organic search results at AOL, or a paid ad you took out on an email newsletter, that was getting the cash register to ring, would you be interested in finding that out?

Of course you would; if not, you'd be reading Catching Flies, Catching Fish. (And more power to you, BTW!)

By installing and utilizing a free copy of Google Analytics, you can. GA (Google Analytics) allows you to track your incoming links in a number of different ways, allowing you to quickly determine which campaigns are contributing to your bottom line. GA tracks campaigns using a combination of five marketing "dimensions":

1. Source: where the traffic comes from; i.e., Google, Yahoo, an email newsletter, another Web site.
2. Medium: qualifying the source; i.e., organic search results v. paid search placement.
3. Term: the word a person types into the search engine.
4. Content: the version of the ad. Best used in content a/b testing; i.e., which version of the ad a person clicked on.
5. Campaign: to qualify which campaign the link came from; i.e., "Hot Summer Specials"  v. "Back To School Specials."

In a completely unrelated aside, I'll be leading a Working Lunch Seminar entitled "Google Analytics for Online Success" this Wednesday from noon - 1:30 at flyte's offices in Portland, Maine.

Lunch in included, seating is limited, so register online now. (Or just learn more.)

Free Web Conferencing & More for Mac, Windows & Linux

I'm in love. The last time I felt this passionate about a few thousand lines of code it was for our favorite online project management software: Basecamp.

The new object of my affection? Yugma. (With a name like Yugma it's gotta be good, right?)

One of the frustrations in working on a Mac is the lack of a WebEx or GoToMyPC/Meeting type application. Sure, you can view one of these presentations on a Mac, but you can't present on a Mac. Luckily, I recently found Yugma.

With Yugma I can do Web conferencing, real-time collaboration, and online presentations. I can share my desktop with a client to do training, and then swap presenters so that I can watch them on their desktop to see what problems they're running into.

There's a built-in whiteboard (or transparent-board) so that I can mock up something on top of my desktop and share it. There's also free (although not toll-free unless you're in Duluth) teleconferencing on top of that. It works not just with Mac, but with Windows and even Linux.  Oh, and did I mention it's FREE?!?

Sure, there's a paid version, and I may upgrade to it shortly, but the free version rocks! It may not have all the bells and whistles of a WebEx, but what it does it does phenomenally.

We originally starting looking for a Yugma so that we could do "real-time" updates for clients who wanted to look over our shoulder while we worked. (This does bring up the, "it's $50/hr if we do it, $75/hr if you watch, and $100/hr if you help conundrum, but for some clients it will speed up the process of their updates.)

Although we haven't used it for that yet, I've already put on several blog consulting sessions with some of our clients. The other day, one client who's down in Kennebunk, Maine, saved 90 minutes of driving time, plus gas and the cost of parking in the Old Port. His investment: 2 minutes in downloading the software.

It also opens us up for putting on some of our Web marketing seminars virtually; no longer will you have to come up to Vacationland, enjoy a delicious lunch and stroll about the Old Port to learn about business blogging, email marketing, or search engine optimization. I'll be able to put on my presentation, share my desktop, and then have time for Q&A. It will be a BYOL affair. (Bring Your Own Lunch.) Stay tuned for more on that; I plan on having a beta launch of this soon to work out the bugs.

For the small business owner or entrepreneur, you have to give Yugma a look in this "The World is Flat" world we live in. Whether you use their teleconferencing service, call a client direct, or set up a Skype conference to lay on top of a Yugma session, the opportunities to grow you business are mind-boggling.

I've also added it to my Entrepreneurial Web Tools (check out the left hand column of our blog for the full list.)

Rich Brooks
Yugma Fanatic

Web Site Video: Which Format is Right for You?

As high-speed bandwidth becomes more popular and the cost of storage goes down, it's not surprising that more and more Web site owners are looking to add audio and video to their Web sites.

The question we often get is what format should a site owner use? QuickTime? Windows Media? Real Player? Right now I'd argue that Flash is the way to go for most people. It's got 97% market penetration, the quality is good enough (I've seen better QuickTime movies and Windows Media videos) and it's easy to set up.

Even if you don't own Flash, or don't feel comfortable working with it, there are some nice 3rd party applications that will create the movies for you. I've been playing around with Video2SWF which works for the Mac and the PC.

For the purpose of this experiment I recorded myself using my MacBook Pro's built-in video camera and Conference Recorder 2 by eCamm. I then dragged-and-dropped the file Conference Recorder created into a Video2SWF window, made a couple of changes to the default settings, and hit "export." It created the Flash movie and the html page (which gave me the code I needed to put it in the blog post.)

In any case, I'd love to hear some feedback on the quality of the video, or if you have some other options for both Flash conversion or alternatives to Flash you feel work better.

Free Web 2.0 Handouts to Download

Yesterday I spoke at the Maine Marketing Association's Web 2.0 Conference; my topic was Web Sites for Action! Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink spoke about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Aileen Cahill talked on Online and On Target which talked about the benefits of a Web 2.0 Web site and how to get your customers participating.

It was a great turnout--I'm guessing over 80 people--and there were a lot of good questions for all three presenters. Whether you were able to attend or not, the Maine Marketing Association has posted all three presentations up at their Web site for anyone to download.

PowerPoint handouts (or in my case, Apple's Keynote) are pretty hard to understand if you weren't there for the presentation, so if you review the handouts and still have questions on Maine Web Design or Internet Marketing, please feel free to ask.

What is Web 2.0 Anyway?

If you've been looking for information on Web 2.0 and how you can use it to turbo-charge your Internet marketing, I've got some good news.

The Maine Marketing Association will be putting on Web 2.0 - Internet Strategies for Power Marketing on Monday, May 21st, 2007.

There will be three workshops in this all-morning event:

• Online and On Target - Strategies for One to One Marketing at the Speed of Light by Aileen Cahill, author of Internet Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked Economy
• Web Design for Action! by Rich Brooks (that's me!)
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink

The festivities begin at 8:30am and will be held at the Ambromson Center in the new Hannaford Hall building.

Registration is $35 for members and students, $45 for everyone else. Pre-registration is appreciated.

Rich Brooks
That's Me!

What's a Wiki?

Have you heard co-workers or your teenager talking about wikis? Have you wondered if it's a secret language, an undiscovered night spot, or what the "kids are calling it these days?"

Well, wonder no more. Tonight at 7pm I'll be talking wikis and Wikipedia with Rob Caldwell on WCSH-6's evening news program 207.

MySpace Tips for Marketers

Whether you're targeting teenagers, their parents or a "five-foot-tall divorced mom [who listens to Metallica] five miles from your home, MySpace might be a channel worth investigating.

Luke J. Bodley has written MySpace Marketing Tips, Tricks and Hints in this week's issue of MarketingProfs. He's been marketing on MySpace for a couple of years and has some great advice for anyone looking to connect on this social networking Web site.

He tells some funny horror stories, as well as some inspiring success stories as well. He also points out that if you're a B2B there's no bigger waste of your time or money than MySpace.

However, if you're planning an event, or have an interesting consumer-oriented product or service, this article is a must read.

Space Available for Wed. Web Stats Seminar

I made a mistake and find I have an extra space for Wednesday's Understanding Web Site Traffic Reports. (Ignore the sold out sign.)

If you are available at lunch and want to know how to read your traffic reports and understand what they're telling you, fill out our contact form or call me during work hours at 871.7921.

If the space is still available it's yours! First come, first served.

Time: Noon - 1ish
Place: flyte's offices
Cost: $50

I Need to Get a (Second) Life

Is any one out there a Second Lifer? I jumped on the other night to explore and felt a little overwhelmed. I need to get up-to-speed quicky, and was wondering if someone could give me a little tour of their favorite haunts, and show me the ins-and-outs of Second Life.

If you want to play Beatrice to my Dante, please let me know.

Web Marketing Survey @ SurveyMonkey

I'd like your help with a Web Marketing Survey I put together on Survey Monkey.

I've been playing around a bit with Survey Monkey, an online tool that allows anyone to create an online survey without knowing any HTML. There's a free trial that I've been playing around with that has limited features and only allows you to collect 100 survey results per month. There's a fully functioning version at $19.99/month which seems reasonable given all the options Survey Monkey offers.

Creating a survey is extremely easy. You can put all of your questions on one page or create multi-page surveys. You can name both your survey and each page, as well as including descriptive text.

You can choose from different types of questions. Do you want people to choose just one option or multiple ones? Open ended questions? No problem. You can also upload images or charts to your surveys.

Paid subscribers get some cool extra features like:

• Conditional logic - hiding or showing certain questions based on previous answers.
• Randomize answer choices - prevents "order bias" for more accurate results.
• Create custom themes - I don't know if this completely answers my branding concerns, but it's a step in the right direction.
• Require answers - don't let lazy survey takers off the hook!

Survey Monkey also has some nice tools for analyzing your data, but I haven't had a chance to explore it yet. Which is why I'm requesting your help. I'll follow up this post with another one on what the results look like.

If you need an easy-to-use survey building tool, Survey Monkey is certainly worth looking at. As a Web designer I wish there was more flexibility in making the
surveys look like my pages, but that may not be a concern to many users.

To see what the surveys can look like and to take a quick four-question survey, please visit our Web marketing survey.

What Are Your Traffic Reports Telling You?

Due to overwhelming demand (no, seriously!) we're repeating our Understanding Web Site Traffic Reports class on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007. As I said in my last email,

"A person who reads tea leaves can predict the future, but a person who can read their traffic reports can make the future."

Title: Understanding Web Site Traffic Reports
Date: 1/31/07
Time: Noon - 1pm
Place: flyte's offices @ 136 Commercial St., Ste.201, Portland, ME
Cost: $50, lunch included

Again, the last class sold out the first day I formally announced it and I've already set aside 4 of the 10 seats for the people who were on the waiting list.

For more information and to register online, please visit our Web Marketing Seminars page.

BTW, if you'd like to be informed of other upcoming classes, sign up for our free email newsletter and be sure to check off the box that says: "Alerts for Web Marketing Related Webinars, Classes, Events, Etc." on the confirmation page.

Hope to see you there.

Informational Products: How to Sell Your Expertise Online

Are you looking for new ways to reach more customers, establish your expertise and create passive streams of income (you know...make money while you sleep?)

If so, you'll be interested in the most recent issue of flyte log, our free email Web marketing newsletter. The topic is Informational Products: Selling Your Knowledge Online.

We talk about some of the common barriers small business owners and entrepreneurs have to reaching new customers and selling to them. We look at how informational products like ebooks or audio recordings can overcome distance, your limited time and even customer price concerns.

As an added bonus, we've created an audio version of the newsletter. You can listen to my mellifluous voice give a loose reading of the newsletter or subscribe to the flyte podcast to never miss an issue episode.

Just think...Rich Brooks on your iPod! Sweet!

Understanding Your Web Site Traffic Reports

Would you like to get more information out of your traffic reports? Would you like to better understand how people are finding your site, where they're coming from, and what search terms they're using at the search engines?

Are you curious to know how much time they're spending at your site, or how many pages they visit before leaving?

Would you like to know which pages interest them, or which pages drive them to your competition? How about where in the world they live? Or how cost effective your pay-per-click ad campaign is?

Would you like to take this information and use it to drive more qualified traffic to your site, generate more leads and make more money online?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, have I got the workshop for you. (If you answered no to all of these questions you're in the wrong place.)

Flyte's starting a new program called the Working Lunch Seminar Series. The first seminar will be Understanding Web Site Traffic Reports: How to Improve Your Web Site and Get More Business Online.

We'll be looking at how to get important information from of your traffic reports and how to put it to use to improve your site.

We'll use Google Analytics
as our traffic reporting software. Attendees may choose to setup a free
Google Analytics account for their own site before the course begins, but it's not required. What you learn in class will work for most other traffic reporting software packages as well.
(If you'd like flyte to set this up for you you can request that now or after you've signed up for the class.)            

Lunch is included for all attendees.          

Seating is limited to just 10 attendees! (News Flash! Only 9 8 seats left!)

Date: Wed., 1/17/07
Time: 12 noon - 1pm
Place: flyte's learning lab, 136 Commercial St., Ste 201, Portland, ME
Cost: $50

Learn more or register now for the first Working Lunch Seminar: Understanding Your Web Site Traffic Reports.

(We also have another Working Lunch Seminar schedule for February 21st: How to Plan, Build and Promote Your Business Blog.)

Are You LinkedIn?

It's been described as the MySpace for adults, but it's nowhere near that visually repulsive or invasive...yet.

LinkedIn is a networking site for, well, anyone. You can search for college roommates, previous co-workers, or other connections. You can use it to find a new job or fill a key position. Chances are a lot of people you already know are LinkedIn. As I was playing around on it tonight--did I mention it can be a complete time suck?--I found a few vendors, a few clients, and a few associates listed.

The first step to getting LinkedIn is to set up a free profile. Once that's done you might start searching for people you went to college with, or people who worked at a previous employer, or a local search of Portland, ME.

You'll see a long list of people. If you've already made a connection on LinkedIn you'll see a number next to their name, telling you how many degrees of separation there are between you and him/her. You can ask for an introduction from your connector, but you have a limited number so use them wisely.

If you do see a friend or colleague you have the option of sending them an invite. They can then accept, decline or decide later.

Once they've accepted you can examine who's in their network, and maybe you'll find more people you know, or people you'd like to know. Someone in my network is highly connected, and it's interesting to see that I'm one degree away from Matt Cutts (famous Google Engineer). OK, maybe that's not exciting to you, but to me....

Anyway, it can be quite addicting. You can find if other friends and colleagues are already LinkedIn by uploading your email database to the system. I've shied away from that so far, but I might try with a limited number.

Tonight after finding some local friends and colleagues and inviting them to link to me directly I see that I'm only one degree away from over 900 people. It makes me want to go out and get linked some more!

Another addictive piece of the puzzle is the completion of your profile. Right now it's only 27% full, but when all my invitations are sent out it will be 51% full! However, I don't think it will ever hit 100% because part of the profile is previous jobs. I think you're supposed to put in two.

My job before this was as a Medicare part B salesman. The company went out of business (after I left) and I don't remember too many people outside of my boss (who was great, but apparently doesn't have a LinkedIn profile.) Before that I was dancing on tables at Stash & Stella's...hmmm...I think I may have shared too much.

Neither of these would be things I'd add to my profile. In short, my long-term employment at flyte (coming up on 10 years!) is holding me back. Life goes on....

In any case, if you're looking to make more connections and find people to help you business or career grow, be they employees, employers, vendors or associates, you should get yourself a LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn also allows you to create a customized profile page where you can find out more about me, Rich Brooks.

Security, Social Networking, and Business Technology at MESDA's 14th Annual Conference

It's hard to believe that MESDA is about to have their 14th annual technology conference, but next Wednesday, December 6th, it's happening again.

If you have questions on security, privacy, usability, or technology, you should strongly consider making the conference. This year's theme is Maine 2.0 - We Can Get There From Here.

There will be discussions on social networking, innovation and how your business can use technology to succeed.

Registration starts at 7:45am, so get to bed early next Tuesday.

Date: December 6, 2006
Place: Sheraton South Portland Hotel
Time: 7:45am - 4:45pm
Cost: $99/member, $129/non-members

For more information and registration visit MESDA's site.

Hope to see you there!

Online Shopping Tips for the Holiday Season

If buying gifts this time of year gives you the hives then I might have the answer for you.

Wednesday night I'll be appearing on channel 6's evening news program, 207, to talk about tips for finding the perfect gift.

Whether you can't decide what to buy that special person in your life or you fell in love with the earrings that Lindsay Lohan wore stumbling back from the clubs, we've got what you need to get you through this gift-giving season.

Not sure when my segment will air, but sometime between 7pm and 7:30pm seems most likely.

Choosing a Web Host

Google "Web Host" and you'll pull up about 57 million results. If you're looking for an appropriate Web host, that's a lot of sifting ahead of you.

One of the decisions every Web site owner needs to make is where to host their Web site. In the same way you (probably) have to rent out office or retail space, your Web site needs space on a server so that your prospects and customers can access it.

In my experience, there are no great hosting companies. The few that I have known have decided to grow and put customer acquisition above customer support. In fact, ironically, my own hosting company, who I often recommend, is currently down right now. I have no access to my email or my Web site.

I'm feeling very professional right now, thank you very much.

When you are deciding where to host there are several items you may want to consider:

What are my hosting needs?

• Will your site offer e-commerce? If so, you may want to choose a host that focuses on e-commerce hosting, and perhaps even provides a free/included license to a shopping cart software like Miva Merchant. You may also require secure server space and the ability to install a security certificate.
• Will I include a lot of multi-media? With broadband becoming more common, more site owners are looking to add audio and video to enhance the visitor's experience at their site (often to the detriment of their visitor's experience, but that's another story.) If you plan on audio or video, or hosting podcast content at your site, make sure you have plenty of hosting space at your server.
• What programming does the host support? If your programmer/Web developer is programming the site using PHP or ASP or needs to access a MySQL database, can your host support that? Plenty of times we've needed to find new hosting for our clients because their current host didn't have the infrastructure to host specific types of programming. This is often a time to ask your programmer or Web development team to make a recommendation.
• Is there hosting that specializes in a specific need I may have? If you plan on building a Web site using a Content Management System (CMS) like Joomla or Mambo, or if you want to use your hosting to support a WordPress blog, there are many hosting companies that focus on these products. They often have "one-click" installation saving you hours of installation time and handfuls of hair. Check the discussion forums for these products to see if they recommend some specific hosts.

One thing that I always require out of a hosting company is 24/7 toll-free tech support. Sure, I like to figure things out and get my hands dirty...however, if a client needs their site live to take advantage of the Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa rush, I want to know there's a knowledgeable person that can be reached by phone who can get a site up and running.

One thing that's not on my list is price. Not that price isn't important, but value trumps price every time. One bad customer service experience or one overlong call in voice mail hell can blow any savings you may have thought you were going to get from a cut-rate hosting company. Choosing a hosting company based solely on price is the most costly mistake you can make.

There are several Web host ranking Web sites out there, but buyer beware: it's easy to put up a bogus Web host ranking site and make your own company come up first. Double-check any results you find with other ranking sites and also do some Googling on these companies as well as checking out different discussion forums to see what people are saying about the hosting companies.

Been Plagiarized? Find Out with Copyscape

With your Web site copy available to anyone with an Internet connection, it's very easy for another company to "pay homage" to your content by swiping it. However, with a Web site called Copyscape, it's just as easy for you to find out where your copy may have ended up. Copyscape is free, although there is a premium service available.

A few years ago, while doing a casual search, I discovered that our own government had taken an article I had written and posted it to their site without giving me proper credit. (Actually, without giving me any credit.) The only changes they had made was taking out the funny parts.

More recently I discovered Copyscape. At Copyscape's home page you can enter in a URL (say, your home page) and Copyscape will search the Web to bring back other sites that may be uncomfortably close to your own writing.

I've used it before to uncover several sites that were plagiarizing our copy, and most of the sites have since taken down the offending text. Today, as I was writing this post there were only two sites that came up, and one of them was a blog comment on a French blog that I think was complimenting us. (Thanks to Babel Fish.)

The other makes me think we've been outsourced. Here's our current home page content:

And here's the copy:

You can click on either for a bigger version. As you can see, it's not an exact copy, but it's pretty damn close.

Is there someone out there taking advantage of your hard work? Find out today with Copyscape.

Can You Trust TRUSTe?

The Wired Blog reported today that sites that are certified through TRUSTe are twice as likely as similar, uncertified sites to deliver spyware, adware and spam.

The research was done by Ben Edelman, a researcher of economics at Harvard.

Sites that receive the Better Business Bureau Online Privacy Seal, on the other hand, have substantially higher trustworthiness than the comparison sites. You can read the whole report here as a pdf.

This isn't the first time TRUSTe has been taken to task about putting profits ahead of accountability.

If you already have invested in TRUSTe's stamp of approval I wouldn't remove it, but if you haven't you may want to hold off. If TRUSTe's reputation continues to get tarnished you may find yourself with an albatross around your Web site.

Personally, I've never made a buying decision based on the "stickers" a Web site has on their site. Like nameless testimonials, they carry little weight and are easy to manufacture.

Traffic Reports Lead to Better Web Sites

Do you have access to your Web site traffic reports? Do you read them?

Recently we've picked up a couple of clients who currently have Web sites but either don't have traffic reports or don't know how to access them. One of the first things I recommend is that we set up traffic reports for them immediately. This helps benchmark the success (or lack thereof) of the new site.

By continually reviewing the traffic reports we can make changes, add new content or articles, create more links to important but under visited sections of the site and more.

Traffic reports are required reading for anyone who cares about the success of their Web site.

Good traffic reports tell you:

• how many people visited your site
• where they came from (another Web site, a search engine, a bookmark, etc.)
• what search engine they used
• what search terms they used
• how long they spent at your site
• how many pages they viewed at your site
• the first and last pages they visited at your site
• and more.

While most decent Web site hosting companies include traffic reports, lately I've been enjoying the stats generated by Google Analytics (formerly Urchin.) The reports are free, and it's a hosted solution (meaning you don't have to do anything on your own server.) Also, if you do use Google Adwords for your pay-per-click advertising, you can more deeply track all of your ads' ROI.

You'll need a Google account (free) to get going, and ability to add some code into your Web pages, or hire a professional to do it for you. The whole process should take 2 - 3 hours depending on the size of your site and your comfort level.

The reports you receive are incredibly revealing. The home page will greet you with a 20,000' foot view of how your site is doing.

There are dozens of different reports you can run, as well as target specific dates or ranges of dates to see how a newspaper or TV ad may have impacted your traffic.

One report I always review is the referrers report; this tells me where my traffic is coming from.

One report that I just discovered is very interesting. It shows a working version of any page in your Web site, along with graphs next to each link to show what percentage of traffic clicked on each link.

The tan bars appear under each link and the blue bar shows visually the percentage. By clicking on each bar you can get more details. From this page you can see that during the past week 12.42% of my home page visitors clicked on the link to download 10 Questions to Ask Before Setting Up a Web Site.

If I was trying to drive more traffic to a specific part of the site, this would help me determine if I needed to promote it more heavily on a given page.

The only shortcoming of this is that Google Analytics can't tell which link the visitor clicked on, just how many people clicked a link that went to a given page. In other words, was it the image that caught their attention or the text link?

Still, if you're looking for help on how to drive more qualified traffic to your site and how to get your site visitors to take the appropriate steps to close the sale, reviewing your traffic reports is an essential first step.

PayPal: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Many small businesses and entrepreneurs want to take credit cards online, but are put off by the time and capital investment required by a Merchant account, a gateway processor, secure server space, and a security certificate...all tools you need to succeed with e-commerce.

For many of these people I suggest "dipping their toe in the e-commerce ocean" by starting with PayPal. However, there are both good and bad aspects to this popular online payment system.

The Good

It's damn easy to get started with PayPal. If you have a bank account you can set up your business account at PayPal in a matter of minutes. You can quickly generate buttons that allow your visitors to "buy now" or "add to cart."

You don't need a Merchant Account. You don't need a gateway processor. You don't need secure server space. You don't need a security certificate. PayPal handles all of these issues for you.

You don't have any start up fees. You don't have any monthly fees. How does PayPal make any money you ask? They take 2.9% (less in some cases) of each sale plus $0.30 per transaction. That's not much more than your bank is taking now, plus you have no monthly fees.

But don't your customers have to be PayPal members to pay? Not any more. When PayPal first started visitors needed to become members, but PayPal now allows anyone with a Visa, Mastercard, Amex or Discover card to pay through their system without becoming a member.

PayPal is probably the simplest way to get going with e-commerce on your Web site.

The Bad

PayPal is cheesy. OK, that's just an opinion, but it's an opinion held by many people. I could give you statistics, but I'd just be making them up. The bottom line is that I talk about e-commerce to a lot of people because of my job and several have shied away from PayPal because they believe it will give their site an air of amateurism.

PayPal's shopping cart solution is a joke. Why PayPal doesn't improve their shopping cart experience is beyond me, but if you need a shopping cart I'd recommend looking elsewhere. By shopping cart I'm talking about the ability for site visitors to drop something into their cart and keep shopping before making a purchase. The PayPal shopping cart opens a new window and hides your site; not exactly the seamless experience you're going for. PayPal works best for "Buy Now" opportunities.

The Ugly

Working with PayPal isn't like working with your credit card company; you don't have the same rights or protections. PayPal may decide that you have a fraudulent account or payment and suspend your account without warning, in effect shutting down your online store until they decide to reopen it. Although these instances are statistically rare, you should be aware of them.

If you like reading horror stories, PayPalSucks.com is a place to start.

In Conclusion

So, if two of the categories above are "The Bad" and "The Ugly," why do I still recommend PayPal to site owners? Because for many people the flexibility and simplicity PayPal offers is too good not to consider. Although it may not be right for everyone, it's an inexpensive, effective tool for many.

Although some people have had terrible experiences with PayPal, that's going to happen with any big company, whether you're Verizon, Time Warner, or Disney.

If you have some questions on e-commerce, please let me know.