eBay the new revolution

I am probably a bit slow on the uptake of this but it is something that really hadn't interested me until not too long ago when I started to hear things about that some people are going to ask me some advice on how to use eBay to their advantage. I'm not just talking about the average Joe that wants to have an auction I'm talking about someone who wants to make money out of it, just like a normal online store.

So it wasn't until today that I set out to discover if eBay could really be more then just an auction site.

I had a few theory's that I had come up with about eBay a before I set out to find out what was on offer.

1. If you were to make any kind of money you would want to have a store which had a permanent address.
2. You would need some kind of product that consumers would want to buy online.

So what did I learn, well quite simply I was correct there is such thing as an eBay store. From my knowledge of online marketing this would have to be the best way to get ahead from everyone else on ebay.

This way you would have more chance of repeat customers and you could use your URL to advertise outside eBay itself. This is the ultimate option for anyone considering eBay as a means of making money online.

From what I can tell while looking around it is not just physical products sold on eBay. Closer to my home, web design, there are a few people offering their webdesign services over ebay.

I am not sure how successful that is but I have decided that I will give it ago. That is really the only way to find out how it is going to work isn't it. So tomorrow I will start and auction to see where it leads me.

So is eBay the new revolution in online selling? Well if you think about it the amount of people that seem to use it could only mean that it has to work.

Tags: eBay, Marketing, Online Marketing, Internet Marketing, internet-marketing

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Why Your Website Needs Inbound Links

Most web-savvy people quickly learn why they need "links" from other sites pointing at theirs. Your inbound links are one of the most important ways of getting yourself known in your field, generating traffïc to your website, and influencing the search engines to notice your site.

"Traffïc" is what linking is all about. Without traffïc your website is useless as a tool for selling your products or communicating your ideas. Getting links from other websites is not the only way to generate traffïc, but it is probably the most important one.

But how do links generate traffïc?

**Direct traffïc from links**

First, links generate direct traffïc. Links from sites that share your target audience will be an important source of traffïc to your site. A visitor to the other web site sees the link to yours, clicks on it, and becomes your visitor. Some estimates put the percentage of internet traffïc resulting from this kind of link as high as 21% of total traffïc.

Why do people clïck on these links? One reason is they may view a link to an outside source as an endorsement. They assume the webmaster is saying "Here is a source you will find interesting or helpful". They are looking for the kind of service you provide, so they clïck on the link to chëck you out.

But just as important is simple curiosity. Someone sees a text link with intriguing wording like "Powerful Cheap Advertising" or "Win a Free iPod" or "See Pamela Anderson Video" and, depending on their interests, a certain number of people are likely to clïck on it.

This suggests at least three things about your links. First, you should get as many links as possible on pages your target audience is likely to be visiting. The more people see your links, the more traffïc you are likely to get.

Second, your anchor text (the words that are linked) should be intriguing. It should be short and sweet, and suggest a benefit -- a reason for people to clïck on it.

Third, your links should be on pages that people actually look at. Having hundreds of links on pages that nobody ever looks at will not result in traffïc -- at least not direct traffïc. Putting your link on a link exchange page containing hundreds of services similar to yours is not likely to generate very many clicks. This is why exchanging links with link directories is such a questionable waste of time. Web visitors rarely look at these directories.

Finding good pages where you can place your link is not always easy. One method is to systematically do searches for your most important keywords -- the search phrases people are likely to use when looking for your kind of product or service. Many of the results will be competitors of yours. But one or two may be secondary sources such as directories or reference pages. Getting your link on some of these secondary sources is almost guaranteed to result in traffïc, so it is worth the effort -- and sometimes the cost -- of getting listed in the resources that score high for your keywords.

**Traffïc from Search Engines**

The second reason for getting inbound links is to impress the search engines. Most search engines use the quantity and quality of your inbound links to evaluate the importance and relevance of your site to specific keywords. For instance, if you sell a product like "Full Color Vinyl Banners", or you are a Real Estate agent servicing "Kitchener Real Estate", one of your objectives is to rank high for searches done on your primary search phrase (and other similar ones).

This will result in traffïc because when people search for your important keywords your site is more likely to show up in the search results. The more inbound links you have that relate your site to full color vinyl banners or web promotion services, or "fill in your keyword here", the higher your site is likely to rank for these terms, and the more search engine traffïc you are likely to receive as a result.

**Using Articles to get traffïc and impress the search engines**

Embedding your links in articles is one of the best methods of rapidly increasing your inbound links. Many times a well-written article will show up in hundreds of places on the web. And if it has your link embedded in it, that will obviously increase your inbound links. Webmasters pick up these articles because they want content to enhance the value of their sites.

Articles will also generate direct traffïc because people who read them are already interested in your subject matter, and are therefore more likely to clïck on your link.

This suggests that the most valuable place to publish your article is in a themed or categorized article resource. For instance, if your product is "health" related, having it published on health-oriented sites will be more valuable than having it published on generic sites.

You can even take this a step further. If your article is about something more specific like "mesothelioma advice", then getting it published on sites that focus on "mesothelioma" will get more "reads", and have a greater influence on the search engines.

Second, when embedding your link, try to use anchor text that contains one of your important keywords, not just your URL or web address. Remember that search engines are dumb. One of your objectives is to have them relate your website to specific search terms (keywords or key phrases). And the best way to do that is to use them as your anchor text.

About The Author
Rick Hendershot heads Linknet Promotions ==> http://www.linknet-promotions.com | Get links in articles and blog posts ==> http://www.linknet-news.com/linknet-news.php | Linkpopularity durch professionellen Linkaufbau ==> http://www.thinex.de
Tags: Links, SEO, Online Marketing, Search Marketing

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Search Engine Optimization And Why You Gotta Use It

E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.

So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.

With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let's just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site's existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.

You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site's content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.

You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.

Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.

If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.

Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.

About the Author: Mark Flavin Is An Expert In Search Engine Optimization & Traffic Generation Techniques. Discover His Secrets For Free At: http://conquering-the-search-engines.com/seoelite1.html

Tags: SEO, Online Marketing, Search Marketing, search-marketing

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The Dark Side Of Google A Reason For Concern?

The way that search marketers dream up conspiracy theories you'd think that we're all paranoid with nothing better to do.

Is there a true reason for concern? I think not, but reading other peoples paranoia is always entertaining. We all know search engines are "out to get webmasters". They have nothing better to do than to think of new ways that will infringe on websites rankings or play hide and seek with site PageRank.

Google is at the forefront of the theorists' attention. And it's not very hard to see why.

It's Tough Being At The Top

Google's market share is certainly growing. It handled 60 percent of Internet search queries in November 2005, up from 47 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore Networks. Google's chief officers have expressed that they are committed to growing the company itself in a sustainable way.

Quoting CFO George Reyes: "Google would be spending more on research and development, and will invest heavily in its computing infrastructure."

Google's motto "do no evil" has been analyzed and debated so many times. Forum posts and articles are always met with "Google does this" or "Google does that", the fact of the matter is that none of us know "what Google's intentions are, except Google themselves of course...but it's still nice to enter the guessing game to see exactly "how close, or far off" you are from the materialization.

Enter the Conspiracies

Everyone has their opinion on the matter - which makes for entertaining reading at least.

Jagger Update

The conspiracy: Google is out to destroy all the organic listings so that everyone will move over to PPC.

The real deal: Google updates their algorithm from time to time to help make search results more relevant. Each update usually receives a name by the SEO community - somewhat like naming hurricanes. The most recent update was called "Jagger". Many scraper directory sites and sites that bought those links were removed from the update.

If you had made use of any shädy techniques it is most likely that your site was caught in Jagger. It was quite a harsh update if you had not employed solid SEO techniques. So needless to say there are a lot of angry webmasters out there. A good example is the German BMW site (bmw.de) which was recently removed for making use of sp@m techniques. Just goes to show SEO is SEO no matter what the language.

Google Adsense

The conspiracy: Google Adsense sites get priority in rankings so that Google can make more monëy. And also Google is trying to take dominance and force webmasters to use Adsense rather than outbound links (link building).

The real deal: If this were true, regardless of how hard Google was to "try", they couldn't force a greater number of people to Adwords through preventing the achievement of a favorable ranking.

Besides, when Adwords first was released, several SEO's tested this theory buy purchasing paid listings over varied lengths in time. The results? There was absolutely no correlation between purchasing an Adwords account and your organic search ranking.

IP Recording / Privacy Infringement

The conspiracy: Search engines log IP addresses. The data collected can be used against you.

The real deal: There have been many theories that Google logs searchers' IP addresses etc., to track their search behaviour, but the situation has gotten much biggër than that. With all the hype stemming from the Department of Justice requesting logs from the Big Shots of search to see what searches were conducted, the talk has shifted to legal implications should the court find in favour of government.

Every bit of network traffïc you use is marked with your IP address; it can be used to link all of those disparate transactions together.

Filtering Results

The conspiracy: If Google can filter the results for China, what stops them from filtering the rest of world?

The real deal: Well this is still very much a hot topic at the moment and I have not really made up my mind on this one quite yet. I can only refer to the Google "Human Rights Caucus Briefing" in their Blog.

Excerpt from blog: "In deciding how best to approach the Chinese - or any - market, we must balance our commitments to satisfy the interests of users, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions. Our strategy for doing business in China seeks to achieve that balance through improved disclosure, targeting of services, and local investment."

And "In order to operate Google.cn as a website in China, Google is required to remove some sensitive information from our search results. These restrictions are imposed by Chinese laws, regulatïons, and policies. However, when we remove content from Google.cn, we disclose that fact to our users."

This is nothing new; in fact Google has altered their search results to comply with local laws in France, Germany, and the United States previously. Also, is it not better to have censored information than none at all? At least this way Google has a starting point from which to fight the censorship.

Do No Evil

According to Larry Page: "Google's goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek information, whether they're at a desk in Boston, driving through Bonn, or strolling in Bangkok."

The Google philosophy:
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well
3. Fast is better than slow
4. Democracy on the web works
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer
6. You can make monëy without doing evil
7. There is always more information out there
8. The need for information crosses all borders
9. You can be serious without a suit
10. Great just isn't good enough

Excerpt from site: Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, we included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time we've expanded our view of the range of services we can offer -- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information - and products that then seemed unlikely are nöw key aspects of our portfolio. This doesn't mean we've changed our core mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).

Some psychologists say that the closer one becomes to a person (or something) the harder it is to see the good stuff. Has Google become so intertwined in our daily lives that we no longer recognize the good stuff that it has brought us?

Let me remind you of a few:

1. Relevant Search Results: A source to find information faster. Every update gets rid of the "clutter".

2. Gmail: As far as frëe web based email goes, this must be the most user-friendly with the largest amount of storage space to boot. You can also tie in any other email accounts you may hold and use Google's interface as the "one stop shop" so to speak.

3. Gtalk: Google's frëe IM and Voice Chat service. Nöw also tying in with your Gmail interface. This means that it's accessible from wherever you have internet - you don't need to have the program installed on the machine that you're working from.

4. Leader of other SE: There is no doubt that Google is at the forefront of "great new ideas" for search engines. Google leads and the rest follow. One example is Gmail - more storage space for frëe. Yahoo! was soon to follow with a similarly sized email account for Yahoo! Mail users at no cost. MSN, however, charges for an increased mailbox.

5. Google Earth: Geographic information at your fingertips. Get driving directions and location information for just about anywhere on the globe, and because they use satellite imagery intertwined with maps you get a pretty good idea of what any place looks like.

6. Google Video: A selection of homemade clips, TV shows, movies and viral clips *freely available on the net. (*some TV shows and movies need to be purchased of course)

7. Google Alerts: Need to know when someone has mentioned you, your company or any topic of interest to you on their website? With Google Alerts you are notified *as it happens. (*as Google spiders that site)

These are only but a few things that Google has brought into our lives so to speak.

So ask yourself again - is there really any concern for their progress, or are we benefiting from it at the end of the day?

Forget About It

It's a typical situation where a good company gets too big and people start getting a little uncomfortable about its dominance in society.

So I say forget about all the clutter and focus on the good stuff of which 2006 will bring many new innovations and a whole bunch of new conspiracy theories no doubt.

About The Author
Christine Stander is a professional search engine optimization and online marketing strategist with experience in many facets of search marketing, user behaviour analysis and brand management. For more information please refer to: http://www.altersage.com.

Tags: Google, SEO, Online Marketing

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Organic SEO The New Messiah For Webmasters

Organic SEO seems to be the catch phrase of the moment. However, unlike many other linking tactics and strategies, this one actually works.

What is Organic SEO or Organic Search Engine Optimization?

Explained simply, it's where all your linking structures originates from the content up - in other words, you let all your content created for your sites, blogs and articles do your link building for you.

Actually, the answer is as simple as this article. You're probably experiencing one of the best examples of Organic SEO right this moment by reading this article. Article marketing is pure Organic SEO. You let your article and your author's resource box build one-way links from related niche sites to your site.

But the keyword is content. You must create high quality original content for this system to really develop and flourish. The better the content, the faster your rankings and traffic will grow. By producing valuable content in articles, sites and blogs, you are building real traffic and real links that the search engines salivate over. And they will reward your site with higher rankings and even more traffic.

Try Article Writing...

Frankly, I was rather surprised at the effectiveness of article writing. It seems like such a benevolent little creature. You write about your own experiences on the subject of your site or blog, keeping your articles short, around 500 to 800 words - although some of my best performing articles have been longer, about 900 to 1200 words.

I have only written about 60 articles. But the benefits have been enormous; spreading my content all over the web and building one-way links to my sites and blogs. Some of these articles like the ones in Addme.com or Webpronews.com get archived and will provide good deep PR links for years to come.

There are a few techniques I use to extend the effectiveness of my articles. First, I always start with a keyword or keyword phrase that I want to target with a particular article. I do major, major, major research on my article's keywords - using sites like nichebot.com, overture.com, and a few others.

I check how much competition there is for the keywords. Combining a new keyword with ones you already have positioned high for in the search engines works well. For example, I have optimized my site for the keyword 'Free', it appears throughout my site. When I introduce a new keyword phrase I sometimes combine it with Free. Pick the right keyword combination and you will gain an edge over your competition more quickly.

Always put your keyword phrase into the title of your article. I also make it a habit of not picking the top keywords in a niche, I go for middle ranked keywords - I am better assured that I will rank on the first page SERPs for these lower keywords. Why waste valuable time shooting for the stars when you can easily land on the moon!

I submit my articles mainly to a short list of online article directories ( ezinearticles.com,buzzle.com,isnare.com,goarticles.com,ideamarketers.com, and articlealley.com ) these work the best for me. These sites rank well in the search engines and even though the surfer may go to another site to read your article first, it then delivers a much more warmed up and targeted visitor to your own site.

Other webmasters from your niche will pick up your high quality articles and place them on their sites. Organically growing more related one-way links to your site. Google looks very favorably on these one-way links and will reward your site for having them.

Article marketing is one Organic SEO tactic every website should be using. Instead of paying high prices for seo services, why not write or hire someone to create keyword rich articles for your site. The benefits will surprise you.

Try Blogging...

Blogs are another form of Organic SEO. It also builds links and traffic to your site the natural way - by providing valuable content.

For those marketers and webmasters who practice Organic SEO, the free blogging systems are a godsend. A skilled marketer can legitimately use these online blogging programs to boost their site's rankings, traffic and income. What more can any online marketer or webmaster ask for?

I use numerous blogs to compliment my sites. I base these blogs on the major keywords of my sites. For example, one section on my main Internet Marketing site examines laptop computers, I created a blog with Bloglines.com covering the same topic. Although all the content is different from what you will find on my main site.

I also use Blogger.com because it's owned by Google and is very simple to use. I find posting my weekly ezine on Blogger adds another way I can get my message out to my subscribers. Not to mention, all the linking and pinging a blog brings into play.

I also use the open source software and system, WordPress for another of my blogs on marketing. This is a php database supported program that was a lot less easier to set up on my site than I first expected. It's one of the best blogging systems I have worked with and is highly favored by the search engines. If you're not using it - try it.

In addition, I have just started using LiveJournal for another blog and that system is also very easy to use. I usually post to my blogs once or twice a week, just short helpful tips or links that a visitor or search engine would be interested in. Keep in mind, all these free blogging sites are PR9 or PR10, has to count for something.

Spam has become a problem with many of these blogging systems, I now usually block all comments or moderate them. All this spam just goes to show how effective getting links in related blogs can booster your rankings for competitive keywords.

I have found blogging to be a very effective tool for getting your keywords indexed and ranked very quickly. I also like to use blogs for those golden double-header listings in the SERPs, preferably at the number 1 and 2 spots! That's where you get two listings from your site for a certain keyword on the first page, this I find, brings in a lot more traffic than a single listing.

In art there is something called the Golden Section, a perfect proportion that works magic into any painting or picture. It is an organic and natural effect that appears everywhere in our world. For webmasters, having your site listed 1 and 2 for your keywords has to be another form of the Golden Section, made especially for us.

In that same light, Organic SEO is a natural and effective way for webmasters to grow their links and rankings. Articles and blogs are two special tools we can use to further that natural growth. Create your own Golden Section and give the search engines something to talk about by trying Organic SEO. Build your links and rankings the natural way.

Your site's salvation is only a keystroke away!

About the Author: The author runs a modest Internet Marketing web site where you will find helpful online guides on RSS/Blogging, Laptops, SEO, Spyware Removal, List Building, Internet Fax and quite a few Free Marketing Tools. Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Tags: SEO, Online Marketing, Search Marketing, search engine optimisation

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Gbuy - What Every Website Owner Must Know

Every month, it seems, a major company stares down the barrel of Google's brand recognition gun. The company of the month right now happens to be PayPal. The Wall Street Journal published an article on Ebay's Jeff Jordan's preparations for Gbuy, the so called PayPal killer (PayPal is owned by Ebay). Many news sources and blogs are anticipating Gbuy to quickly become a PayPal killer given Google's huge brand name recognition and reach with consumers.

But the whole PayPal killing talk is really much ado about nothing. I have no doubt whatsoever that Google will release Gbuy, but I do have significant doubts as to whether it will actually replace PayPal as many merchant's payment processor of choice. Given Google's recent releases, and given how PayPal has positioned itself in the marketplace, I would not be surprised of Gbuy proves itself to be a significant flop considering all the attention it has been given.

PayPal's Vulnerability

Jeff Jordan of Ebay has every right to be scared, however. Executives have a history of losing their dignity and control when they feel pressured by Google. Steve Ballmer is well known for his professional wrestling-like tirade in which he sent chairs flying and cursed the name of Google, and Yahoo is not much better having publicly given up its quest for search dominance, which in effect was Yahoo executives crying "Uncle!" with the hope that they could finally focus on something that they could actually excel in.

Professional wrestling rant's aside, Jeff Jordan does have reason to be worried. PayPal, unlike Yahoo and Microsoft, is much more vulnerable to a direct attack from Google. The history of PayPal is filled with trouble with CEO's, run-ins with the mafia, and pressure from an Attorney General. This article, however, is not the place for a lesson on the history of PayPal (a book was written for that), regardless of how fascinating it might be.

Article Tip
Did you know that PayPal is one of the few companies with a single letter domain name? Chëck it out: X.com.

The problem with PayPal is that it has not solidified itself in any other market besides the payment option of eBay merchants. The result is that many website owners view PayPal as a 'cheap' option. Furthermore, even though PayPal does allow non-members to purchase items through their system, it is not as easy as many merchant's would like. Many of the problems of PayPal were actually discussed on the forums a while ago.

These problems open up a vulnerability for PayPal. If Google releases a product that improves on the downfalls of PayPal in much the same way that they were able to revolutionize online maps, then PayPal should be worried. Google does have a knack for making web applications that make existing applications look outdated and simplistic.

Why Gbuy Will Not Kill PayPal

Experts have been predicting the wild success of Google in many different industries for some time. When Froogle was released it was thought by many to be a major threat to Amazon.com. Although Gmail has been a success, there have been no reports of Yahoo Mail suffering significant attrition (in fact the buzz over the new Yahoo Mail interface shows just how much interest there is in Yahoo Mail). And although Google News is a highly useful service, it is hardly considered the default news service for most web users.

The fact is, the past few Google releases have been relative failures. Google admitted that they screwed up with their video service (the Apple iPod Video is much more successful and sets the bar much higher than Google is currently meeting). Google Reader was met with a collective 'ho-hum' from the webmaster community (as was Google Pack), and even though Google Sitemaps may be useful, it is still under used. Google Analytics still is not able to accommodate mass signups, and the buzz over analytics has also declined significantly since its release.

Really, if we were to look at Google's recent releases, the only relatively successful releases have been Google's Search (obviously), Adwords and Adsense (also obvious), Google Maps, and Gmail. The fact is, with the exception of Adwords and Adsense, Google has not been very successful in launching commercial products.

Google's Lack of Simplicity for 'Everyday' Users

The problem with most of Google's recent releases has been its lack of simplicity. Google's initial success in search was powered by the extreme simplicity they brought to the process. All the user saw was a search box and search results. What could be more simple? On top of that, search results were stunningly accurate compared to the other results available.

Although Adwords is confusing to many website owners, Adsense also carries the trait of being extraordinarily simple. Add in the benefit of being able to make a significant income from Adsense and it is no wonder that Google has a firm hold on the contextual ad market. For potential advertisers there is no greater reach than Google Adwords.

Yet most of Google's recent releases have either lacked the simplicity that made them the choice for every day users or offer no significant advantages over existing products. If PayPal is genuinely going to be threated by Gbuy, then Google is going to have to perfect the simplicity that PayPal has capitalized on.

Gbuy - Finding a Niche Among Website Owners

A few years back when K-Mart filed for bänkruptcy, I remember listening to an analysis which looked at the reasons why K-Mart was having difficulty. The analyst explained how there were three major players in the mega-stores: Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target. Wal-Mart had successfully positioned itself as the price-leader out of the three mega-stores while Target, although still inexpensive, positioned itself as slightly more expensive, but higher quality. K-Mart, in this environment, lacked an identity to shoppers.

Gbuy could very well fall into the same problem. PayPal has done a great job in solidifying itself as the payment solution of choice for millïons of Ebay merchants. In addition, thousands of other website owners have chosen to at least add PayPal as a payment option on their website due to its extreme simplicity for those who have PayPal accounts.

In a best case scenario Gbuy could really only hope to fit in as an alternate payment system to those who have already established how users are supposed to pay for their goods. In all reality, though, the market is crowded, and Ebay users will likely continue to use the integrated, easy to use PayPal over any new-commer - especially of Google fails to make a relatively simple product.

About The Author
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site Reference. If you want to reference this article, please reference it at its original published location.

Tags: Advertising, Marketing, Online Marketing, Search Marketing, Able Net Design

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The 7 Most Common Marketing Mistakes

When marketing your product or service, you need to have a firm understanding of your audience, the message you want to deliver, the offer you're willing to make, and the optimal timing for your marketing campaign.

Too often novice marketers, even marketing veterans, make costly mistakes that result in poor performance of their marketing campaign. Common marketing mistakes can be avoided with adequate planning, attention to detail, and ongoing measurement and evaluation.

If you're considering a traditional marketing campaign, an Internet marketing campaign, or something that's never been tried before, be sure to avoid these common marketing mistakes.

1. Timing.
You may have a great list, a fantastic offer, and even a well designed marketing piece, but if your timing is off, so too will be your results. As an experienced marketer, I have seen some very expensive marketing campaigns that were very compelling but failed to produce results. This is because the campaign reached consumers at a time in which they had no interest in buying the product. For example, trying to sell snow shovels in July would not be considered good timing.

2. Failure to Test Your Headline.
As the first thing your prospect usually reads, the headline is essential for luring your prospective buyer into the message, your offer, and the action you want them to take. Regardless of the medium, you should continually test your headlines (or subject lines) by running split tests and evaluating response. This ensures that your marketing message attracts the largest number of prospective buyers.

3. Failure to Test Your Offer.
In direct marketing, the offer is directly correlated to 40% of your response. If you have the right offer, people respond. There are other factors to consider as well, but providing a compelling offer is required in most instances. Offers can range from discounts to "hurry while supplies last", but the commonality remains. Test your offers for optimizing response.

4. Having a Good List.
Having the best offer and award-winning design is not enough. For many types of marketing campaigns, success is directly tied to having a targeted list. With today's sophisticated list generation tools, you can acquire lists that are highly segmented based on demographics, psychographics, buying behavior, and many other characteristics. The key here is not to be penny wise and pound foolish. If you're wondering where to invest your marketing dollars, spend them on developing a good house list (names you acquire on your own) or by renting/purchasing a well segmented marketing list.

5. Relying on a Single Communication.
On average, consumers are hit with over 2,000 marketing messages everyday. In fact, recent studies have indicated that consumers need to see your marketing message an average of 12 times before they take notice. If there is any truth to the claim in part or in whole, it means that you must communicate to prospects on a regular basis. Placing a single ad in the newspaper or sending a single email cannot deliver effective results. Determine the media that prospects use to gather information and develop an ongoing campaign that works within your budget.

6. Not Measuring Campaign Effectiveness.
Over time, your business is going to do a lot of marketing. Even if you are a small business wondering how you're going to communicate to a prospective audience, you're going to eventually have some type of communication. Regardless of the marketing campaign size or expense, you need to track your results. This can be done with a simple spreadsheet or a multi-million dollar CRM system. The bottom line is you need to record what works and what doesn't so that you can improve your results in the future.

7. Failure to Continue the Dialogue.
After consulting for a number of large companies, I'm still amazed at how many fail to communicate to customers on an ongoing basis. Often times, consumers or businesses only hear from the seller when its time to buy again. If you have an established customer base, chances are you've worked hard to acquire them. You should be spending some of your marketing budget to retain them. Be sure to open a dialogue with customers, solicit their feedback, and communicate with them regularly. This will help to build your business over the long-term.

If you're new to marketing, have experience as a marketing professional, or simply want to improve your current marketing results, be sure to learn from the mistakes of others. To be successful, continually work towards improving your marketing effectiveness. Avoid the 7 most common marketing mistakes, and you're on your way to delivering tangible results.

About the Author: Michael Fleischner is the founder and President of MarketingScoop.com. He has appeared on major media including the TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and more. With more than 12 years of marketing experience, Michael has developed major brands as well as a variety of businesses in need of leading marketing programs. Visit http://www.MarketingScoop.com for further details.

Tags: Marketing, Advertising, Business

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Advertising in RSS Feeds

As publishers have moved towards monetizing RSS feeds, there have been vibrant discussions as to whether advertisements in feeds are viable or whether they will drive subscribers away. At the end of the day while it appears that many are discussing the philosophical approaches to ads in RSS feeds few are taking the time to examine the options available for inserting advertisements in feeds. Ultimately the advertisements served are going to determine the success of RSS as an advertising medium. The ads served must be related to the content contained in the feed. If the RSS feed contains quality content, the ads are relevant, and the volume of ads is in balance with the volume of content served, advertising in RSS feeds will succeed. Take a closer look at some of the ad serving options currently available for RSS feeds.

Review of Current Options

Google AdSense for Feeds

Google's AdSense for Feeds offers contextually targeted advertisements, with a wide selection of advertisers. Google chooses not to divulge the percentage of revenue that is shared with the publisher, so it is difficult if not impossible to predict monthly revenue. The current Google AdSense system for feeds is tied to blogs and does not appear to be overly flexible.

Pheedo

Pheedo displays categorized advertisements rather than contextual advertisements. The upside to this is that Pheedo's advertisements can be used in conjunction with Google AdSense or AdSense for feeds without violating Google's contract. Pheedo works with the publisher to serve advertisements from similar or related categories associated with the feeds contents.

Pheedo's system allows for advanced ad filtering, giving publishers control over keyword ad filtering, specific ad filtering or url filtering. Pheedo's system also allows publishers to sell ads to existing advertisers with whom they already have a relationship. The revenue split is 50% and feeds can be a sponsored flat rate advertisement or a pay-per-click advertisement, where the publisher is only paid if the advertisement is clicked.

Kanoodle for Feeds

Kanoodle's systems for providing advertisements for feeds is similar to Google's but they do not have the breadth of advertisers that Google boasts. Advertisements are served based on topics, not keywords. Kanoodle shares 50% of the revenue generated from the advertisements with the publisher serving the ad.

Evaluating Options

When evaluating feed ad serving solutions consider the following:

1. Ad Relevance
In order to generate revenue from RSS advertisements or for an advertising campaign to succeed using RSS as a channel it is absolutely critical that the advertisements served in the feed contain related content, the more related the content the higher the likelihood that the advertisements will be of interest to the reader and clicked. Also, the closer the content relates to the feeds theme the higher the likelihood the reader will have genuine interest in the product or service being advertised.

2. Ad Ratio
Publishers need to retain control over the frequency of advertisements. Advertisers may be happy because they are reaching a targeted audience and publishers because their advertisements are being clicked and generating revenue, but readers will become frustrated with feeds that are too heavily laden with advertisements.

3. Clearly Denoted as Ads
The debate over editorial control and advertisements rages on. It is generally considered proper net etiquette for publishers to clearly mark advertisements to distinguish them from editorial web content. When selecting a RSS advertising partner consider the context in which the advertisements are displayed. Does it blend with the feed or site, while still being clearly marked sponsored material? Or does the content blend so well that it appears as a product or service endorsement from the publisher? Credibility and reputation online matter, and the segregation of advertisements and ensuring they are properly denoted as such will go a long way to enhance credibility with readers.

Clearly as RSS increases in popularity, publishers will be looking for ways to monetize their content. RSS in advertising is a logical step, and striking a balance between quality, consistent content and occasional related advertisements will lead to the success of advertising in RSS feeds. If the balance is not found, publishers may be forced to move to a subscription RSS feed model.

The Wall Street Journal was one of the first content publishers that announced a subscription model. Rather than embedding advertisements in the RSS content feeds, the Wall Street Journal provides teaser copy and if the subscriber wishes to view the expanded content they are charged a subscription fee.

Time will determine the long term viability of advertisements in RSS feeds. If RSS advertisements perform like the contextual text based ads currently served on websites, RSS advertisements will likely become common place. While the content publishers who specialize in unique, consistent content might find the subscription model more effective.

About The Author
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev an RSS component for developers.

Tags: RSS, Feeds, Advertising, Marketing, Able Net Design

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Google Big Daddy SearchQuake About to Rumble Your Ranking?

Running ranking reports for clients is a standard part of an SEO's job. This week I created a position report for a client - one for which we'd made significant gains in ranking for their targeted search phrase - and proudly sent off the report to them before a scheduled conference call to discuss our progress and status.

The client sent an email upon receiving the report saying "There is something wrong with your report - we rank higher than this report claims." I went back to Google and typed in the search phrases to find rankings exactly where the report showed them the previous day.

I explained to that client that Google has (at last count) nine data centers which serve up search results and that they were getting results from a data center in the Eastern US which showed differing results from results shown to us here in California.

The difference was substantial enough to move the client from page two to page one in the search results and therefore made a dramatic difference in their satisfaction with our work. Differences are rarely that substantial in previously observed ranking reports, so it prompted me to dig a bit deeper into the issue and I sent the note below to the client.

"Take a look at this link where Google datacenter IP addrresses are listed in detail."

http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?t=548

"Here is an overview of a coming update to all Google datacenters expected in February or March of 2006."

http://directmag.com/searchline/1-25-06-Google-BigDaddy/

"So you ARE ranking better from your area of the country and that particular data center which returns results to you. Things usually update to match in all data centers, but sometimes you may do better in one data center than in others. If you search from each individual IP address in that list discussed in the forum linked above, you'll see different rankings and may find datacenters where you rank at the bottom of page two of results."

You might also search from that new "Big Daddy" data center referenced in that article above, which discusses upcoming Google ranking algorithm changes due soon.

http://66.249.93.104

Where I'm seeing you ranked at #17 (bottom of page two.)

It's a measure of where you might expect to be when Google moves to that new algorithm for all data centers in February or March. (Of course we continue to work to achieve better results before then.)

This upcoming change in algorithm and the interestingly named server "Big Daddy" were publicly posted on Matt Cutts blog for beta testing by SEO's (and other Google Watchers) who read him regularly. (For those who don't know, Cutts is a software engineer at Google & shares SEO tips on his blog)

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Of course this news was a bit much for the client to digest in one chunk and he had little time to read the articles I referenced in my note above, but it was enough to assure him that I knew what I was talking about and explain the differences in my report and his own keyword searches at his end of the country. It's a bit odd to try to explain to a client "there are different Googles." Few know or understand this.

Another issue cropped up later in the day when I was doing further research for a different client and found, while we were speaking on the phone, that his results differed from my own on specific query operator searches. We were using the "site:businessdomain.com" query operator and the "allinurl:pick-your-own-URL" query operator to limit search results and got vastly different numbers of results and rankings for the same searches.

The first stunning thing in this example was that we are less than 25 miles apart in Southern California. The second shocker was that I tried simply hitting the "Search" button a second time after getting the first results page and things changed again! All of this happening in a single day makes me believe that some percolating of results is going on as Google eases into an algorithm change.

Perhaps this is not all that unusual, but in seven years of this work, I've not seen the volatility noted in January of 2006. Are we about to have a major SearchQuake? Is Google about to split the earth and spew volcanic new results? Stand by for the BigDaddy SearchQuake sometime this month or next.

About The Author
Mike Banks Valentine blogs on Search Engine developments from http://RealitySEO.com and can be contacted for SEO work at: http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm. He operates a free web content distribution site at: http://Publish101.com
Tags: Google, google, Search Engine, search-engine

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The Secret to Generating Traffic in Online Forums

The internet has made the world a smaller place. It allows people from different countries to communicate with one another to share ideas and opinions. One of the best places to generate more traffic for someone who has an existing website is through Online forums. By just following some simple tips, more people will visit one site in no time.

1. For this to work, the person should be online most of the time. Since frequent users do the same and always have questions to ask, a great idea will be to give an answer that can help that individual.

The person has to remember that there are also other people who will answer the posted question but if one offers the best answer that is a plus to that individual. It will establish credibility on the part of the person and that user will likely visit the website to see what else can be offered. This will also allow that person to refer the site to other people creating more traffic.

2. Some people believe it pays to be nice and this is true. Forums are also a place where debates occur. By giving an answer in a nice way though one disagrees with the other person, it establishes a sense of respect.

If people see how friendly and courteous one is, this will also entice the users to see what one has to offer in the website.

3. Being an active contributor to the Online forum is a great way of getting noticed. There are a lot of things people want and need to know and by looking for it and informing the person how to also get it, this will make the person a handyman in the web. It will be better if one can write something short about it so the user will have a brief idea if this is relevant in the personís search.

4. Everyone has a certain calling card in getting something done. By putting it in whenever posting an answer in the forum, this will make people know who the good Samaritan is and will want to know more about the website and the services one can offer.

Most people post the name of the person which could be real or fictitious, the email address and the website address so one can easily be reached.

5. Whenever one posts something that is needed by a user, it is advisable to think of a way to make the person go back and visit ones website. If one needs advice on how to pick the right diving equipment, the person can give a short answer then for that person to get more information, that individual has to visit ones website.

The technique to creating more traffic by finding a way to make people visit ones site is called in-context linking. This is also how search engines rank how well ones site compares over others. As more people click on it and are guided to the site, the more important it is. The best way to do this is being active in the web and posting a lot of relevant material for other users.

By following these simple 5 steps, a person will always have a good number of people visiting ones site. Generating more traffic and earning money can be made if the person is willing to give it a great amount of effort. If that person is too lazy to keep the site updated and giving it regular maintenance, then someone can be hired for that job. The individual should just be sure to pay the person well for doing all the hard work.

Making ones website user friendly is essential in making people refer it to others. This can be done by letting friends and family try it first then ask feedback about the site. The most important thing to remember before launching it to the various websites is making sure that ones website is fully operational and will not have problems for users when logging on to it. It is very embarrassing for people to experience problems the first time which will surely discourage one from referring it to others and visiting it again.

About the Author: Daegan Smith the owner of Net MLM Articles and the leader of the fastest growing team of successful home business enterpernuers on the net. Find out how we're creating financial freedom all across the globe and how to get in on the action free => http://www.comlev.com.

Tags: Traffic, Marketing, Internet Marketing, internet-marketing

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Top Dirty Linking Tricks

Part of achieving top search engine positions is through links from other Web pages. These links can come from people who like your site (natural links), reciprocal linking, directory submissions and a few other ways.

The goal of trading links is to get quality links for quality links. True quality links will carry benefits far beyond that of attaining a coveted position in the search engine results. The links will bring traffïc from the Web page linking to your Web page. Therefore, you want to ensure you trade or barter links from quality partners.

Sometimes it's hard to determine who is a quality linking partner, even for the expert. So, how can you tell if your link is on a Web page where its value will not be very good?

The short list below highlights ways of diminishing or nullifying the value of a link to your site from another Web page.

Meta Tag Masking - this old trick simply used CGI codes to hide the Meta tags from browsers while allowing search engines to actually see the Meta tags.

Robots Meta Instructions - using noindex and nofollow attributes let's the novice link partner see the visible page with their link while telling the search engines to ignore the page and the links found on the page. Nofollow can be used while allowing the page to be indexed which gives the impression that the search engines will eventually count the link.

Rel=nofollow Attributes - this is not a real attribute based upon HTML standards, but rather it is an attribute approved by the search engines to help identify which links should not be followed. This attribute is often used with blogs to prevent comment and link sp@m. The link will appear on the Web page and in the search engine's cache, but nevër be counted.

Dynamic Listing - dynamic listing is a result of having links appear randomly across a series of pages. Each time the link is found on a new page, the search engines count consider the freshness of the link. It is extremely possible that the link won't be on the same page upon the next search engine visitation. So, the link from a partner displaying rotating, dynamic link listings rarely helps.

Floating List - this can be easily missed when checking link partners. Essentially, your link could be number one today, but as new link partners are added your link is moved down the list. This is harmful because the values of the links near the bottom of the list are considered to be of lesser value than the links at the top. With the floating list, it is possible to have your link moved to a new page whose PR value is significantly less or non-existent and the new page may not be visited and indexed for months.

Old Cache - the caching date provided by Google indicates the last time the page was cached. Pages with lower PR values tend to be visited and cached less often than pages that have medium to high PR values. If the cache is more than six months old, it can be surmised that Google has little or no desire to revisit the page.

Denver Pages - while Denver, CO is a nice place to visit, Denver Pages are not a place you want to find your link in a trade. Denver Pages typically have a large amount of links grouped into categories on the same page. Some people call this the mile high list. These types of pages do not have any true value in the search engines and are not topically matched to your site.

Muddy Water Pages - these are dangerous and easy to spot. Your link will be piled in with non-topically matched links with no sense of order. It's like someone took all the links and threw them in the air to see where they land. These are worse than the Denver Pages.

Cloaking - cloaking is the process of providing a page to people while providing a different page to search engines. You could be seeing your link on the Web page, but the search engines could possibly nevër see the link because they are provided with a different copy. Checking Google's cache is the only way to catch this ploy.

Dancing Robots - this can be easily performed with server-side scripting like PHP and is rarely easy to catch. In this situation people that attempt to view the robots.txt file receive a copy of the robots.txt file that does not include exclusion instructions for the search engines. However, when the search engines request the robots.txt file they receive the exclusion instructions. With this situation the links pages will nevër be linked and you'll nevër know why without expert assistance.

Meta Tags and Robots.txt Confusion - which instructions have the most weïght? Don't know the answer? Shame. Search engines do. If they conflict, the page Meta tags are typically considered the rule to follow.

Link the Head - while these links do not count in the search engines and do not show up on the Web page, they do get counted by scripts or programs designed to verify the links exist. These programs only look for the URL within the source codes for the Web page.

Empty Anchors - this is a nästy trick, but can be an honest mistake. The links exist and are counted by the search engines, but unfortunately are neither visible nor clickable on the Web page. So, there are no traffïc values from the link.

The goal of trading links is to trade them for equal value. Understanding the ways people will attempt to prevent passing a quality value from their Web page to your Web page can help you avoid these useless links. If your link partner pulls under-handed tricks the links they trade you are useless.

While you may nevër be an expert in knowing all the latest tricks, traps and tests, you can nöw become an expert in knowing the thirteen mentioned above. Ensuring your link partners are not following or using these tactics can help improve the quality of links you gain from other Web pages. By having quality links pointing to your Web page you will gain additional traffïc through organic search engine results and visitors driven directly from your linking partners.

About The Author
Lee Roberts, The Web Doctor®, is President/Founder of Rose Rock Design, Inc. a website design company and Founder of the Apple Pie Shopping Cart, an ecommerce shopping cart.

Tags: Linking, Links, Able Net Design

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Web 2.0: The Next Big Thing or the Evolution of a Technology?

Is it a movement? A revolution? Perhaps a new paradigm? Or, is it a bunch of hype designed to sell a bunch of new software? Just what is Web 2.0?

Well, the term has been around since 2003. It was coined by I-Net pioneer Dale Dougherty and introduced at a conference by Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Inc., who has subsequently made attempts at defining just what Web 2.0 means. In his seminal document entitled What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, O'Reilly describes Web 2.0 as follows:

"Like many important concepts, Web 2.0 doesn't have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core."

- Tim O'Reilly

Okay, that's a starting point of sorts - gravitational core, set of principles and practices, veritable solar system. The fact is, O'Reilly, the champion of Web 2.0, has written eloquently on the subject, but after reading his detailed explanation, you still walk away scratching your head. Additional research clearly demonstrates that there's a lack of consensus.

Tim Bray, writing at http://radar.oreilly.com, strongly contests the use of the term Web 2.0, calling it nothing more than a meme. Okay, so what's a meme? Well, we have to go back to 1976 to find the origin of the term created by Richard Dawkins in his text, The Selfish Gene. In it, Dawkins describes memes broadly:

"Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation."

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Web 2.0 is a catch phrase and one that's getting a lot of attention within the e-commerce community. In fact, since making its way into the collective I-conscious, there have been more than 9 million Google searches for Web 2.0 information. Somebody's interested.

Yes, there's something there, and when you cut through the hype, delete the meme and study the underlying concepts, Web 2.0 does offer some thinking points for every site designer, host and owner. Let's look at some of the parameters of this new way of thinking about the www.

Extreme Trust
A great catch phrase in its own right. Extreme trust is a new vision for using the collective knowledge of Internet users, demonstrated by the ascendancy of Wikipedia. In the world of Web 1.0 (the model for the past decade), the Internet was a source of information. However, the information was static. You could access World Book or The Encyclopedia Britannica on-line, but all you could do is read it, print it out and use it for your child's homework.

Sites, such as Wikipedia and the Open Directory Project are changing this dynamic based on the concept of extreme trust.

Wikipedia is a growing collection of information (over 100,000 unique entries) submitted and edited by volunteers. It changes daily, hourly, providing the latest information from a variety of writers of varying degrees of expertise. Information can be edited by anyone who knows more about the topic than the original poster. In fact, if you access certain topics on Wikipedia, you'll see warnings that certain encyclopedia entries have not been reviewed, and therefore, the content can't be deemed as accurate - yet. However, as more experts, operating under the doctrine of extreme trust, review each Wikipedia entry, the reliability and veracity of the content increases.

Thus, in the Web 1.0 world, people could access information, but not participate in its evolution. In the new age of Web 2.0, the collective intelligence of the world community becomes accessible and utile.

Personal Participation
Another, much-touted aspect of Web 2.0 is personal participation. Personal web sites have been around for years. You could post family pix and tell the world what you did over summer vacation. But, these personal web sites nevër really caught on because of the expense and time required to launch and maintain them.

Enter the web log, aka blog. These personal journals encourage greater, individual participation by enabling anyone with an opinion, idea or random thought to post these personal musings for all the world to see. Bloggers have changed the way information is disseminated. Many have garnered credibility as legitïmate news sources. In fact, bloggers have received press credentials for newsworthy events. They're used by the mainstream media as reference and several of these bloggers have broken major news stories before their largër print and on-line competitors, e.g., Robert Novak's outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.

The concept of personal participation has also spilled over into the realm of e-commerce, with many on-line businesses offering a blog and/or forum where customers, clients and other interested parties can post their thoughts. Amazon.com is a leader in this area, encouraging its customers to submit reviews of purchased products. In fact, some Amazon reviewers have made names for themselves - and customers seek out their recommendations! As the old, anti-war chant once demanded, Power to the People has been finally realized.

In fact, if you tour the Amazon site, you'll discover opportunities for customer participation on virtually every page. Amazon's subsidiary, Booksurge.com has also simplified the entire publishing process. Authors no longer have to approach traditional publishers, hat in hand, begging to be published. Booksurge and Amazon have made it possible for anyone to write, publish and sell texts through Amazon, B&N, Borders and other on-line outlets. Yes, this is part of the Web 2.0 model.

Static versus Dynamic
Netscape was the browser of choice in the Web 1.0 era. It was published, then updated regularly in various versions identified as Netscape 1.0, 2.0, etc. This was a static business model in which users had to wait for improvements to be made, then download the updates.

Fast forward to the dynamic age of Web 2.0 where Google reigns supreme. Google is a true child of the Internet. It was made to fit with I-net dynamics. Improvements are made and implemented daily - seamlessly. No downloads, no patches required. The result? Google has enabled all of us to access the most obscure factoid in a nanosecond. Its index contains billions of pages of spidered text and as more new sites sprout like mushrooms, more pages are spidered and the index grows.

Google has demonstrated how to do it right. It's highly interactive, it's nevër static and it has created many new avenues for the e-commerce community and for users in search of the name of the pharaoh who was in power when the rotary mill was introduced in Egypt. This has increased productivity exponentially.

The Evolution of Technology
Technology evolves. It builds on what came before. It learns from past mistakes and takes advantage of unrealized opportunities. This is as true of America's Industrial Revolution as it is for the Internet. There were lots of false starts, missteps and abject failures during the rise of technology in the early and mid-1800s. The same is true of the current technological revolution underway on your computer screen daily.

Remember the original Priceline model? You could spend two hours saving 9¢ on a can of peas. Nice try, but no cigar, despite William Shatner's campy commercials. Or, how about buying pet foods on-line? That went down in flames, too. In fact, all you have to do is look at the I-net bubble that burst in 2000 to see the shake-out of what was working and what wasn't. A lot of investors lost a ton of cäsh, but the Net didn't shrivel up and die. In fact, it's more powerful than ever.

Technology doesn't move forward in straight line. It nevër has. There are offshoots, improvements and lots of really, really bad ideas along the way. (Anybody remember the Ford Edsel?) Internet technology is no different, except that the shakeouts occur much faster, the improvements take off much quicker and the really, really bad ideas are really, really expensive. Just ask Shatner. Such is the nature of technological evolution.

So, Is Web 2.0 A Revolution?
Tim O'Reilly and the other promoters of Web 2.0 have done us a service by focusing attention on new uses for the Net. RSS is a radical step forward. Podcasting, though in its infancy, is coming on strong having caught the attention of advertisers as a new means to reach the cutting edge public. In fact, just as anyone can set up and maintain a blog, today the technology exists to set up your own broadcast network complete with specialized shows for niche markets like pregnant parents or home schoolers.

However, Web 2.0 also has aspects of a meme. Many on-line businesses have picked up the term and now proudly display a Web 2.0 logo on their home pages, though the site has virtually no new features.

No, Web 2.0 isn't a new paradigm or a revolution. It's the natural evolution of a technology that's growing at truly heart-stopping speed. What was yesterday won't be tomorrow.

In the weeks and months ahead, we'll take a much closer look at this evolutionary track to sort hype from help, and to assist you in finding new, better ways to increase site traffïc, improve your conversion rate and expand your repeat-customer base.

For now, Google Web 2.0 and start doing your homework. Changes are coming. Will you be ready? If not, you won't be hëre tomorrow.

About The Author
Frederick Townes is the CEO of W3-EDGE Web Design. W3-EDGE specializes in business web design for all sized clients. They also provide quality professional web hostïng through W3-HOSTING.net. Contact Frederick at ftownes@w3-edge.com.

Tags: web 2.0, web2.0, Web, Internet

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