Home-Based Entrepreneur

Blog Moved

2005-08-10T16:53:00.000-07:00

The nice folks at All Business.Com have invited me to join their blogspace and I accepted. I'm extremely flattered to be there and this will likely be my last post here. The new blog can be found here:

Home-Based Business Blog

Reciprocal Links, Good or Bad?

2005-07-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

I've blogged a lot lately about the importance of getting inbound links to boost your web-based business. One way to do this is through the use of reciprocal links. A reciprocal link arrangement, in its simplest form, is one where Site A puts up a link to Site B with the understanding that Site B will also, in return, put up a link to Site A.

There's a lot of discussion in SEO circles about whether reciprocal link arrangements are still a wise thing to do. Many SEO professionals contend that reciprocal link arrangements have run their course and that search engines (such as Google) can easily detect such an arrangement. There is also speculation that Google has begun discounting them in its algorithm. Speculation being the key word, I have not seen any hard evidence that this is true - although the results of the most recent Google update are still being analyzed.

Considering that Google's primary guiding principle is to provide relevant results to its users, it is hard to believe that they would discount reciprocal links across-the-board. After all, what is wrong with two content related sites linking to each other? For example, one site sells PDA's and the other sells PDA accessories. In an arrangement like this, each site is providing additional value to its site visitors. So why would Google dishonor that?

I believe that the whole issue of relevance is a can of worms for Google, as well as the other search engines. The wormy question is: when are two sites relevant? I don't think anyone would disagree that the two sites in the above example are relevant to each other because they sell related products. A search engine algorithm could even detect this type of relevance by analyzing the placement and usage of the term "PDA" in each site.

But what about related sites? Suppose you have Site A which sells silk flowers. It has a reciprocal link arrangement with Site B which sells decorative glassware, including vases. These are two different product lines, but I don't think anyone would disagree that they are complimentary -- and therefore relevant to each other. But how can a search engine algorithm determine this type of relevance when there are no keywords in common? Hmmm, here is the can of worms. Unless the search engine can maintain a huge index of those types of relationships, it's going to have trouble. And I don't believe that such an index can reasonably be created and maintained because these types of relationships are so subjective and therefore, probably infinite.

Having said that however, I know that there is a lot of effort being poured into solving this problem at Google. And now that they are a public company, they might be content to define relevance in a way that would not be all-inclusive and exclude the relationships that can't be analyzed by an algorithm.

But as it stands now, I don't believe that reciprocal link arrangements are necessarily harmful to search engine rankings. Naturally, you will want to avoid linking to link farms and FFA (free-for-all) link sites. But if you really want to play it safe, focus on sites that are related. If you want to go out on a limb a bit, focus on sites that are complimentary. Until parameters are made clear by solid testing, a link on your site that provides some value to your visitor can't hurt.

Technorati Tags: Business, SEO, SEM, Search, Links, Linking
IceRocket Tags: Business, SEO, SEM, Search, Links, Linking

Smile When You Say That

2005-07-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Glenn at the Customer Service / CRM blog, has this great post about what makes for a good experience from a customer's point of view. He says (in fact he dares us) to smile more for our customers.

Working with retail product sales on the web still means that we have to provide customers with a high level of customer service - that is if we want to rise above our competition. In this blog post, I talked about the importance of phone contact with the customer.

Selling products on the web and answering the phone properly also means that there will (occasionally) be the angry customer on the other end of the phone. Back to Glenn's point about smiling, I find it's incredibly useful to always smile before I pick up the phone. Even though I'm in my home office and no one can see me, it works wonders for my 'inside' attitude and the way I convey myself to the customer. If the conversation begins to deteriorate (which they seldom do if I keep the smile on), then I smile again (not laugh, but smile). This helps to keep me relaxed, positive, and able to either resolve the problem or at least calm the customer with the promise of some resolution.

While Glenn's point is about smiling so that others can see your smile, try smiling for yourself - even when you don't feel like it.

Technorati Tags: Business, CRM, Customer Service

Task Management for the Home-Based Business

2005-07-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Every business has lots of tasks and everyday jobs to attend to -- all the time. Home-based businesses should be no exception and they can't run adequately by the 'seat of the pants' method.

I blogged last week about the need for home-based business to have a clear, written business plan. Likewise, it's important to keep track of those everyday "to-do" items somewhere (not in your head). The business plan is really not the place for these things even though the tasks might have their roots in the business plan.

For example, suppose you and your spouse started as a partnership business structure, but you wrote in your business plan that you would take the next step and form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) structure, perhaps even setting a time frame for that. There are a myriad of tasks having to do with setting up an LLC - the filing with the state, the setup with the IRS, the notifications to the banks, suppliers, and creditors, and so on. Obviously, trying to just wing these tasks would be a bad idea.

So even if it's a paper notebook, a spreadsheet file, or actual task management software, it's important to write down all this stuff - and review it periodically (it doesn't do much good to write the stuff down if you don't look at the tasks once in awhile).

I've found what works best for me is to keep a running list of to-do items and spend some time with the list once per week - adding new items, crossing off old items, re-prioritizing, etc. And I periodically check the list during the week when there is time to work on something.

What about you? How do you keep track of your everyday tasks? Feel free to post in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Business, Home Business,Task Management, Time Management

Free Directory Listings

2005-07-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

I blogged previously about the importance of inbound links to your site's ranking in search engines. A lot of people starting up get tripped up by this. They can be intimidated by the thought of scouring the web in search of websites that will link to them. I know I was! But the good news is that there is a great place to start: the Web Directories; especially the free ones.

The reason web directories are such great resources for web-based businesses is that by their very nature, they are relevant to your website. Directories are always built on a category/sub-category structure. You can usually find a category where your site belongs and therefore will be in a relevant linking situation. Relevant links are becoming more and more important nowadays.

I've compiled this list of directories where submissions are free of charge. This information should be fairly accurate since I have just gone through it myself within the past 30 days.

Some tips:

1 - Read the submission guidelines for each directory carefully. They're all slightly different. Sometimes they'll have requirements such as "page must be a page rank 3 or higher". If you can't meet the requirement yet, move on to the next and mark it for later.
2 - Have you own links pages ready to be edited and uploaded. A lot of these directories will want a reciprocal link in return for their linking to you.
3 - Have several variations of your Anchor Text prepared. The keywords in your Anchor Text will be important to your search engine rankings - especially Google. And it is widely believed that Google considers the exact same anchor text used over and over again to be link spam. So vary it a bit to avoid being penalized by Google.
4 - Spread your work over several weeks, perhaps longer. Word also has it that Google can penalize for having too many inbound links acquired too fast. How fast is too fast, I have no idea, but spread it out a bit and you should be fine. Some of these take longer than others so the timing of your inbound links will be spread out somewhat anyway.

Here is the list - if anyone has any directories to add, please feel free to post them in the comments.

http://www.01webdirectory.com/

http://www.aesop.com/

http://www.agada.info/web-directory/

http://www.allmerchants.com/

http://www.allwebdirectories.com/

http://www.amray.com

http://www.best-searchengine.com/

http://www.best-websites.net/

http://www.Bocat.com

http://www.business-web-directory.com/

http://www.burf.com/

http://www.CorrectSearch.com/

http://dmoz.org

http://www.directorygold.com/index.shtml

http://directory.r-tt.com/

http://www.elib.org/

http://english.hispanoempresa.com/

http://www.ezilon.com/

http://www.familyfriendlysites.com/

http://www.frequentlyasked.info/

http://www.golber.com

http://www.goongee.com/

http://www.hotvsnot.com/

http://www.iconnic.com/

http://www.indexunlimited.com/

http://www.link-city.com/

http://www.linksmatch.com/

http://www.lookseek.com

http://www.mostpopularsites.net/

http://www.onemission.com

http://www.onseek.com/

http://www.peekaboo.net/

http://www.peakdirectory.com/

http://www.perfext.com/

http://www.phantis.com/

http://www.resourcelinks.net/

http://www.sbdpro.com

http://www.spheri.com/

http://www.search-o-rama.com/

http://www.searchcity.biz/

http://www.SearchDepo.com/

http://www.searchitfast.com/

http://www.searchramp.com

http://www.searchtheweb.com/

http://www.searchwarp.com/

http://www.search.711.net

http://www.seekon.com/

http://www.SeekItOut.com/

http://www.the-search-site.com/

http://www.sightquest.com/

http://www.sitesondisplay.com

http://www.sonicquest.com/

http://www.TSection.com/

http://www.theallineed.com

http://www.towersearch.com/

http://www.townnet.com/

http://www.turnpike.net/directory.html

http://www.webworldindex.com

http://www.wmdirectory.com

http://www.webs-best-directory.com/

http://www.websitelisting.org/

http://www.websquash.com/

http://www.wildyou.net/

http://www.wowdirectory.com/

http://www.unasked.com/

http://www.urgentclick.com

http://www.yeandi.com

http://www.yourdir.com/

Technorati Tags: SEO, Search, Links, Linking, Web Directories

On-Page Optimization Factors Overrated?

2005-07-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

I receive a lot of SEO type newsletters and some of the articles are great, others not so great. Today I got one entitled "The 4 secrets to Reaching the Top of Google Rankings". The 4 'secrets' were all on-page SEO factors: optimized title tag, URL, meta description tag, and page text. I don't believe on-page factors alone will get you to the top of Google's rankings because Google places too much emphasis on off-page factors (back-links).

Don't believe me? Try typing the words "click here" in Google's search box. The page at the top of Google's results is the Adobe Acrobat Reader download page. If you go to that page, you will not find the term click here anywhere on that page - it's not in the title tag, not in the page text, not in the URL, and not in the meta description tag. So why does this Adobe page (which by the way is a sub-page of the Adobe site) rank #1 for the search term click here on Google?

Answer: inbound links. More specifically, this page has more outside pages linking to it -- with the term click here in the link anchor text -- than any other page on the web. It makes sense when you consider how many sites offer a PDF document and then also provide a link to this Adobe page so that the user can download the Acrobat Reader to read the document.

Am I suggesting that on-page factors are unimportant? The four factors mentioned above do carry some weight and they shouldn't just be disregarded. However, if you go with just these four 'secrets' as your SEO strategy, you'll be waiting a long time for your page to rank well on Google -- if the search term in question has any kind of competition. Back-links are by far the most important factor to Google and to some extent with Yahoo and MSN as well.

The back-links will cause visitors to go to your site. Once they arrive at your site, you must present a page that will cause them to stay and read your sales message, opt-in, article, or whatever else you are offering up. So use back-links for the search engines and spend your energy optimizing your actual pages with your site visitors in mind.

Technorati Tags: SEO, Search, Google

Why Use eBay?

2005-06-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

A question I've been asked is why do I bother to use eBay when I have my own ecommerce web sites? Why bother with eBay when I have sources of web traffic already coming to my sites? A lot of my peers who run product-based websites consider eBay somewhat of a scourge due to the high cost of selling and the fact that good margins on eBay can be hard to come by. I don't sell on eBay on a regular basis, but there are three reasons I do like to use eBay.

1) Market Testing
If I'm considering selling a product online, there is really no better place to test a market than eBay. Naturally, I've done some preliminary research. It's considerable trouble to set up a web site and it can expensive if your product fails (I've made that mistake). But if you want to be sure you have a viable, sellable product prior to going to the trouble and expense of setting up a website, try selling it on eBay. For the price of a few listings, you will be able to tell very quickly what kind of market you have for your potential web store and it may help you weed out any problems you had not thought of.

2) Getting rid of Customer Returns
One way that I can provide value to my customers is by having a liberal return 100% refund policy. If you're working in product group that has good resale value and can accept returns, this can put you one large step ahead of your competition. Naturally I get returns of the type: "this really wasn't what I wanted". What better way of disposing of product returns like this than an eBay auction? I almost always get something close to my cost on the item. Yes, it's a slight monetary loss, but the goodwill I create by accepting the customer return makes up for it. Oh, and I get some traffic as a bonus - see next.

3) Driving Traffic
It's against eBay's Terms of Service (TOS) to have a link in your auction that goes to an outside webpage if that webpage directly promotes the product and tries to sell outside of eBay. But there is an Achilles Heel in their TOS. Their TOS says - "You may have one link to a page that further describes the item being sold in that listing.."

A way to stay within eBay's policy and STILL use your eBay listings to drive traffic to your website is this:

On your website, add a blank page. Make sure there is no pricing or purchase information there and no 'buy' or 'add to cart' button.
Add a detailed description of the product to this page. You should be able to use a description provided by the manufacturer or one that may already be attached to the product on its regular product page.
On eBay, setup an auction with some sparse information about the product (just enough to get their interest).
In your eBay auction, set up a link that says something like "for more information on this product, please click here"
Point the link to your information page on your site.

I do this with Customer Return auctions and I usually see extra traffic during the week that the auction runs. As long as you don't send them to a page that urges them to buy from your website, this should be OK to do. The eBay visitor will come to your site and while they're there, hmmm...they might just browse around!

So even if you have your own ecommerce website, remember eBay has something like 140 million users. That's a lot of built in traffic to tap!

Technorati Tags: Business, eBay

Paid Search vs. Organic Search

2005-06-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

There is somewhat of a rift among Search Marketing folks regarding Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click, etc). On one side, there are the Organic Search folks (organic search refers to the 'regular' non-paid search results). They contend that not enough people pay attention to paid search and that Pay-per-click in particular has become problematic due to increased competition and click fraud.

On the other side are the Paid Search folks who contend that Paid Search, including Pay-Per-Click, is still a viable means of generating profits for websites, if managed properly.

Studies have tried to discern how web users view and react to Paid Search in relation to Organic Search. This oft-cited study performed at Penn State, concludes that "...on more than 80 percent of the searches, study participants went first to the results identified as 'organic.' Sponsored links were viewed first for only six percent of the time." It's worth noting that this study involved a group of 56 participants ranging from 18 to 29 years old.

Another study tossed around Search Marketing circles was performed by Pew Internet. It concludes that "...among search engine users who are aware of the existence of paid listings, not all are able to tell whether the results they view are paid or not. Just 47% say that they are always able to tell, compared to 45% who say they are not." This conclusion is based on a survey involving a broader group of participants - 2,200 adults ages 18 and over.

An obvious question comes up when these two result sets are laid side by side: How can 80% of searchers ignore the Paid Search results if 45% (almost 1/2) of searchers cannot determine what a Paid Search result is?

If you do a search on Yahoo! for example, it's easy to see how someone can be confused. Yahoo! places the top 3 Pay-Per-Click bidders directly above the Organic results. Even though the words "Sponsor Results" are off to the right, it may not be readily apparent that these are Paid Search.

At any rate, I don't think there's enough in either study to draw final conclusions, but I think most people involved in Search Marketing would agree that there is some level of bias against paid search. How deep it might run or how far-reaching it may be are still question marks.

For web-based businesses just trying to get off the ground, paid search is still perhaps the only means to get traffic at least until you are more established. And there was the caveat that the Pay-Per-Click campaign must be 'managed properly'. To properly manage a Pay-Per-Click campaign you must be willing to (1) test your ads, (2) monitor the ads frequently, and (3) measure the results. For those who don't mind putting in that little bit of extra effort, Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing PayPerClick ads can still be viable sources of traffic for your new site.

Technorati Tags: Business, SEO, Search, Marketing, Google, PPC,Yahoo

Alternate Value of a Press Release

2005-06-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

Press releases have been around a long time - in fact, they pre-date the internet era by at least a century. But the web has breathed a whole new life into the old press release. Prior to the web, a business (or organization) who wanted to submit a press release had to write it themselves (or hire someone to write it), then submit the printed press release to an agent who would then send it out to various press sources. The business person would then have to hope enough people read the press release to make it worthwhile. And there weren't any 'side benefits' to them as there are now.

The web has changed all that. Now anyone can create a press release and get it sent out to thousands of news and information based web sites for a relatively low cost. I use PR Web for my press releases and I never worry about what people think of them. If no one reads it, who cares.

Why would I say that? Because the primary value of a press release (to me) isn't necessarily in the press release itself, but in the inbound links it provides. In this earlier post, I blogged about the importance of inbound links to search engine rankings. Press releases give you a natural way to potentially get a lot of inbound links in relatively short order.

When you write a press release, one of the things you do is place a link to your website in the company information portion of the press release, which then carries along with the press release. Your press release then goes out to various news sources and out through various RSS feeds; how many is dependant on how much you pay (I find the $80 press release at PRWeb gives me a big bang for the buck). Then..Voila! You'll get inbound links from thousands of sources in one fell swoop. These links typically stay around for a while so they'll get spidered by the Search Engines and they will work into your Page Rank. For example, a press release that I wrote in November 2004 still showed up in Google in March 2005.

By the way, I'm not suggesting that anyone should write some goofy, half-assed press release just to get links; you should try to make it as interesting as possible in what ever subject you're writing about. In fact, the better the press release, the better your chances are of getting placed in the archives of the various recipients (archives = permanent placement!). This will give you permanent inbound links - even better! But don't stress out too much over the quality - just about any press release will pay for itself in link value.

Technorati Tags: Business, SEO, Search, Marketing, Links

An Unfortunate Word

2005-06-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

There is one word I think should be eliminated from just about any customer correspondence: "Unfortunately".

Have you ever seen statements like these?

"Unfortunately, we were unable to fill your order"
"Unfortunately, we were unable to accept your application at this time"
"Unfortunately, that item is currently out of stock"
"Unfortunately, your order was delayed by the shipping company."
"Unfortunately, the following eBay item listing ended without a winning bidder."

I don't know about anyone else, but that word bugs me. Bad news usually stands on its own and it doesn't usually need any help. You could remove the word "Unfortunately" from each of the statements above and no meaning would be lost. In fact, each statement would be improved in my opinion.

I'm sure the word has its place in our language, but why use "unfortunately" in your customer correspondence? I make sure all my customer correspondence(shipping exceptions, backorder notices, credit card declines, etc) avoids that word. After all, we are "fortunate" to have customers.

Technorati Tags: Business, CRM

Google Page Rank and the ToolBar

2005-06-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

The good, bad, and ugly of the Google Page Rank is often a subject of discussion and debate among SEO pros. There seems to be mixed feelings about it. Outside those circles, however, Page Rank is rather poorly understood at best. I can't explain it all because I don't work for Google (and if I did, I still could not explain it due to their secrecy policies).

However, I do see a lot of confusion when it comes to distinguishing between actual Page Rank and the Page Rank that is shown on the Google toolbar.

That is point #1 about the Google Page Rank. The page rank you can see on the Google Toolbar is not the same as Google's actual page rank. The little horizontal green bar on the toolbar is the Page Rank indicator. On this example, it's a "5"

You can hover your mouse over the page rank (on the actual toolbar, not on the pic), and the popup text will tell you what the value is. There are many issues with this Page Rank tool, but two in particular that will get some further discussion here.

First it is only updated on a sporadic schedule; about once every 3 to 4 months. Google does not commit to any kind of schedule and this update is sometimes called the "Google Dance". The last time it was updated was around April 21, 2005. The Google internal Page Rank mechanism is presumably updated far more often than the tool bar page rank indicator. The prevailing theory is that the internal Page Rank mechanism is updated each time the Google bot visits a page and the corresponding Google index update occurs. So the further away you get from the last Google Dance, the less accurate the tool bar may be. For example, this blog shows a 0 of 10 page rank on the Tool Bar because I only established it in April. But I'll expect it to show some page rank after the next 'Google Dance'.

The second point to note is that the Tool Bar expresses the Page Rank as integer numbers (2 of 10, 4 of 10, etc). The actual Google Page Rank is logarithmic, not a simple zero to 10 scale. My math knowledge is far too rusty to explain Logarithms in detail, but in this context, it basically means that there is a large amount of numbers between 5 and 6, a larger amount of numbers between 6 and 7, an even larger amount of numbers between 7 and 8, and so on. If you're a math geek, here is a Logarithmic Function Link.

No one except Google personnel knows exactly what Logarithmic formula is used, but what this means for the Tool Bar Page Rank indicator is that one page rank 5 is not necessarily equally to another page rank 5. A page with a page rank at the high end of the range between 5 and 6 is a much more important page [to Google] than a page at the low end even though they appear equal on the toolbar. And the gap grows larger as the numbers get higher.

There is a lot of speculation in the SEO community that Google will be doing away with Page Rank in the near future and replacing it with something called Trust Rank - a concept explained in this paper.

What does all this mean to the Web-Based business or someone who manages a web site? At the present time, the Google internal page rank remains a major factor in determining how your page will appear in the SERPs which is why so many SEOs obsess over it. The higher your page rank, the easier time your page will have in the SERPs. The Google Toolbar Page Rank indicator can be used in a very general sense to determine the importance of a page. For example, this can be used when choosing link partnerships or for performing rudimentary competition research as discussed in this post.

In any case, it really is not worth obsessing over especially given the limitations of the Tool Bar Page Rank. Standard, ethical SEO practices will earn your website increased Page Rank and therefore recognition over time.

Technorati Tags: Business, SEO, Search, Marketing, Google

Time for a Corporate Name Change

2005-06-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

While at my day job last week, this SEO company called me. They wanted to set up a phone appointment so that they could spend some time pointing out the reasons why our website was not achieving first page search engine positioning. Where they got that idea I couldn't say, because it is well-ranked for some keywords. Anyway, I agreed and we set up the appointment for 10 AM Tuesday.

Prior to the scheduled call, I did a little research on this company - the results of which were unsavory:

In 2004 they were tossed out of the Better Business Bureau.

In 2004 the Attorney General of the State of Washington slapped this company with fines after receiving over 100 complaints of services not delivered.

There is a splattering of un-rebutted complaints over at RipOff Reports - one as recent as earlier this month.

I probably would have been better off to just cancel this tele-appointment, but I didn't. The sales rep called at the appointed time and did his spiel. I was amazed at the garbage-type information that came from this person. I won't go into all the details except to say that he went on endlessly about the importance of Meta-tags to our search engine rankings (is it 1997 again?) and questionable tactics such as creating 30 mirror sites for our one ecommerce site. Little was mentioned about current standard SEO tactics such as title tag tweaking, on-page content optimization, or linking strategies.

I never even got around to confronting him about the customer service issues mentioned above; I dismissed him and said my good-byes long before that. But this really raises two issues for any web-based entrepreneur.

1st is the importance of understanding SEO at least at a macro level. I'm not a professional SEO by the way, but I have spent a lot of time studying what it takes to attain good search engine rankings in an ethical way. At some point, I'll not have time to do my own SEO and at some point I'll leave my day job (where I do SEO work for my employer). At least when it comes time to outsource the service, I'll be well-equipped to weed out the blockheads from the real SEOs.

2nd is the importance of never forgetting that your customer is your business. For businesses on the web, customers are more abstract than Brick & Mortar type businesses. This is no reason to treat them any differently. This company seems to have forgotten that. It's almost as though their damage-control department is permanently out to lunch.

I know from experience that it is REALLY easy to stay in the good graces of the Better Business Bureau and it's a simple matter to keep complaints from going to the state attorney general. Problems will occur and some customers may be unhappy. But basic customer relationship ethics dictate that you deal with unhappy customers in the most constructive way possible and internally escalate any serious problems to a level where a solution can be reached.

If I were running the company above, the first thing I would do is restructure the corporation -- starting with a name change. Once there is a stack of problems on record as this company has, trust (and therefore business) will be very hard for them to come by.

Technorati Tags: Business, SEO, Search, Marketing, Ethics

Importance of Keywords in Domain Names

2005-06-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last week I blogged about the importance of Keywords in your DBA. This time I blog about the importance of keywords in your domain name. The reason this is important, is that it gives you instant advantages over other similar sites that don't have keywords in their domain names. It's widely believed that all 3 major Search Engines look at the words within the domain name and assign some sort of relevance factor to them.

What keywords do you use? You'll have lots of keyword search terms in your group so which is the best to use? Obviously, you can't stuff all your keywords into a domain name (domain names are limited to 63 characters counting the "www" and the "com"). You'll have to choose, but in general you'll want to go with the top of your keyword hierarchy.

For example, suppose you sell "unique wedding favors", "bridal shower favors", and "candle wedding favors". These all belong to the category of wedding favors, so "wedding favors" would serve you well in your domain name.

If you can't get the domain "www.weddingfavors.com" (which you probably will not be able to), try tagging along a small word with it, at the end or the beginning. For example, "www.allweddingfavors.com". The "all" will be a minor word in your domain and you will have the term "wedding favors" dominating a good portion of your domain name giving you a what is called a Keyword Rich Domain Name. You'll then have an advantage over other sites that sell wedding favors that don't have that term in their domains. Take these sites for example:

www.myWeddingFavors.com

www.RosemaryCompany.com

These sites both sell wedding favors, but when all other things are equal, for wedding favor Keywords, the first one will end up ahead of the second one in the SERPs because it has "wedding favors" in its domain name.

So one reason for doing this is to please the search engines. But a second, more compelling reason for doing this is to please web searchers. It's widely believed that people will click on domain names containing the keywords they are looking for rather than domain names that don't (even if they have other keyword-rich promotional text). In the above example, people searching for "wedding favors" are more likely to click on the link for myweddingfavors than rosemarycompany.

So figure out what your best keyword search term is and try to get a domain name with some form of it inside. If you can't get the pure form, try adding a 3-letter word (such as "our" or "all") or even a 2-letter word if it fits (such as "my"). You'll get the long lasting bonus of a relevant domain name - an all important advantage if you're selling on the web.

Technorati Tags: Business, SEO, Search, Marketing

We are Entrepreneur - A Weekend Post

2005-06-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile, I take a step back and take stock of where I'm at with my home-based business. Is it still worth it? Is it still satisfying? Is it still scary? Is it still challenging? Yes all around!

One of my all-time favorite people, Chris Malta, wrote a nice article on why he can never work a "day job". As for holding down a day job while trying to break out on your own, he has this to say:

You need that steady income, until your own business at least matches it, and you’re sure you can sustain it. So, you do need to keep the day job, or look for one if you don’t have one right now. The beginning of any entrepreneurial venture has to be based on a solid foundation. For home-based business, that foundation is a regular job while you build your business.

When I look at the accouting records and realize, that, yes, I am getting closer to my goal of self-sustainability in my home-based businesses, I know it's what I really want and will continue to strive for.

Every once in awhile, the urge to quit my day job comes up. Well almost every week in fact. It has grown more boring, unsatisfying, and tiring, while my home-based businesses have grown more and more interesting, satisfying, and compelling. But it still allows me to continue growing my income streams outside the day job. Until the day arrives that I can fire my boss, I'll continue to stretch, learn, and grow in my business. After all, I prefer being at the steering wheel over taking a spot in the back seat.

Competition and the Hungry Market

2005-06-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Every entrepreneur likes to look for what's called the hungry market. It's the type of market which has a product (or group of products) which has a reasonably high demand - the higher demand, the better. For web-based markets, one of the more common tools used by market specialists is the Yahoo Search Marketing keyword tool (formerly Overture Search Term Suggestion tool). This will show how many searches were performed in past month for any given search term.

Some important points about this tool. First off, it only displays Yahoo search results and results from the Yahoo Partner network. According to Comscore and thanks to Lee Odden's blog, Yahoo has about 30% of the Search market share. Theoretically, that means you can take the number of searches you get from the Yahoo Search Marketing keyword tool and multiply it by 3 to get a closer approximation of total searches on the web for that search term. This isn't exact science by any means, because different search engines have different dynamics. For example, it is generally believed that people who use Google are more information-oriented, while people that use Yahoo are more shopping-oriented. These are, of course generalizations and I'm not sure anyone has ever measured them, but it may mean that a keyword search phrase that shows 80,000 searches in the Yahoo Search Marketing keyword tool may not actually have 80,000 x 3 searches across the web. Yahoo is currently the only one of the major search engines that provides us with this information so this can only be used as a general guideline to a search term's popularity.

A second point about this tool is that it says nothing about competition. 80,000 searches for some keyword search phrase might sound like a lot, but if there are 100,000 websites optimized for that search phrase, it might be a tough market to operate in. How do you tell? There are tools available, such as Wordtracker and the Market Research Wizard, that can assist you in analyzing a market. But these tools will cost money to use. Wordtracker is a subscription-based arrangement, where the Market Research Wizard is software that you purchase. Neither is very expensive and they both have free trials, so try them out.

But if you want to get a quick glance at the competitive level of your prospective market, just use the Google Toolbar. If you don't have it installed, you can download it here. Type in the Search Term you're interested in and check out toolbar page rank of the web pages that show up on the first page of Google's SERPs. The toolbar Page Rank is highly inaccurate by the way, because Google only updates it once every few months. Still, it can give a quick indicator of how competitive a keyword search term is.

Take an example search phrase: "Reyn Spooner Shirts". The pages on the first page of Google SERPs when I did this search all had Page Rank of 5 or less. There are other things to look at of course, but if you wanted to sell Reyn Spooner Shirts, you could probably go ahead and do more refined research based on this information. If you enter a search term and the first page of Google SERPs is full of Page Rank 7's or higher, you're in a much more difficult market and you may want to stop right there or else look for a more refined segment of that market.

Remember, there probably is no market that has NO competition. If there is no competition, it probably won't remain that way long or else it is not really a hungry market. But hungry markets with a lesser degrees of competition can be a an open door for web-based success.

Technorati Tags: Business, Google, Marketing, Search, Yahoo

The 3 Essential Factors for a Successful Internet Business

2005-06-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

So you want to start an internet business? With all the hype and downright nonsense on the web these days it is easy to get totally confused. The end result is wasted days, weeks, months, and even years stuck in an analysis paralysis: you are so busy reading the thousands of free ebooks, each of which is telling you that you can be rich overnight, that you end up making nothing at all - or worse still, making a loss.

So, to distill it right down, what DO you need for a successful internet business? I believe that it can be boiled down to three fundamental factors:

FACTOR ONE: the most important of them all, yet the most neglected. Yet it is this one factor, over all the rest, that will determine whether you are successful or not.

What is it? Napoleon Hill calls it a "Definite Chief Aim". Unless you have a very clear goal of where you are headed and, with it, enough belief in yourself that you can make it, you will fail. It's as simple as that.

Everything you do, every success, and every failure, starts in the attitude of your mind. So, if you really want success, you had better start by getting your mind in shape. Fortunately, that is easy to achieve - if you would just dedicate yourself to the task of self-improvement. Is it any surprise, then, that the more successful people are, the more they spend on self-improvement books, tapes, seminars, and coaching? Professionals get personal coaching, amateurs try to teach themselves.

If you want to be rich, then do as the rich do: invest in your eduction and personal development. Here is a good place to start: http://midas-secrets.com

FACTOR TWO: A clear and coherent business plan. "Yes, yes", everyone nods, yet how many people actually get around to drawing up a detailed, written plan? Why do you need one? Because a business plan is the road map that shows you the route to take so as to arrive as quickly and efficiently as possible at your "definite chief aim".

Don't know how to go about drawing one up? For detailed help, why not go down to your local library and read some books on it? Or go to your bank's business advisor. In many countries the government has set up agencies with the specific remit of helping aspiring entrepreneurs to get started. Go speak to them.

But, just to give you a flavor, here are some crucial questions you need to be able to answer if your business is to succeed:

A) Who and where is your hungry crowd? It is no use trying to sell burgers to people who are just leaving a restaurant. They are not hungry. If you want to sell something, your very first task, even before you decide what to sell, is to ask "what do people want"? If people are desperately hungry, they want to be filled, if they are dying of thirst, they want to be quenched, if caught in the rain, they want to be dry, and if feeling lonely, they want to be loved. Get the general idea?

B) When you know what they want so much they would sell their own mother to get, your next question is "what product or service can you provide them that would meet their need or want?"

Be careful to distinguish between SOLUTIONS and PRODUCTS. People caught in the rain don't want an umbrella, they want to be dry. People who are insecure don't want a fancy, expensive car, they want to be noticed, admired and envied. The mother with a newborn does not want diapers - she wants her baby to be dry and comfortable.

The products are only the means to an end. Don't sell products, sell solutions. What solutions can you provide for your crowd with their desperate "wants"?

C) If you have identified your hungry crowd, and come up with some valuable solutions for them, how will you tell them what you can do for them? How will they find out that you have an answer for their problem? In other words, what will be your marketing strategy?

D) Finally, (and this really is at the END of the list, not the beginning) how will you deliver those solutions? Will you sell them a product, or a service? How will it be delivered? How will you collect the money? What infrastructure will you need to put in place before you can even start?

It is no use having hundreds of burgers sitting in your freezer at home when hordes of hungry fans come flooding through the football stadium gates at the end of the match. You need to be there, in place, ready and waiting, with your Burger Van fully equipped with grill, paper plates, and cans of Coke - and, of course, a permit!

FACTOR THREE: The right tools for the job. Don't try to cook gourmet meals for a five-star hotel on a single-ring camping stove, it is not up to the job.

Everyone on the internet seems to want to run their business for free. The want free traffic, free email, free websites, free autoresponders, and free subscribers. Well, yes, you can make a bit of money online using free stuff. And maybe that is what you should do, while you are first finding your feet.

But if you are serious about your business, then at some point you going to have to get serious about your tools. Professionals invest in quality tools because they make the job easier, quicker, and better. Amateurs try to make do with whatever they can find in the back of the shed. As a customer, which would you rather go to if you wanted your roof fixed, or your ears pierced?

The details vary, but take a look at every successful business and you will find all three factors solidly in place. Making money is not hard. Millions of ordinary people do it quite successfully. You just have to go about it the right way. Concentrate on these three factors, and you will be off to a flying start.

Today's entry was written by Nyall Bakk(1).

(1)Nyall Bakk is a marketing expert and the chief editor for Advertising WorldWide, the best source for quality Pay Per Click advertising that converts better than the big search engines. If you are looking for a better ROI on your advertising, visit his website http://www.advertisingww.com

The Importance of Keywords in your DBA Company Name

2005-05-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Too often, when people think of starting a business they try to come up with a clever or catchy name. Takes this site for example:

Into The Wind

They sell kites. You wouldn't know it by the name - well I suppose you might be able to guess. Granted this is a classy name, but few people realize that DBA (Doing Business As) names without keywords actually make it more difficult to sell products on the internet.

Why is this and why is the internet any different? The answer: Search Engines. People use certain search terms to find things and it is the job of the search engines to match up what the user types with a list of relevant websites (in descending order of importance) for them to visit.

The most important elements that determine how your site will rank in the search engines, especially to Google, is the number, quality, and reputation of your inbound links. Quality is determined by the page rank of the sites linking to you and reputation is largely determined by the Anchor Text in the link from each site linking to you.

The reason having keywords in your company name is important is that you often don't have any choice or control over what gets put in the Anchor Text from other sites. For example, in the case of the two most important web directories - DMOZ and Yahoo - you are not allowed to put anything OTHER than your company name. Often, you can place keywords in the Anchor text when requesting links, but not always.

Now having said that, it this "set in stone" critical? No, but it will make life easier for you. If Into the Wind was selling mostly Stunt Kites for example, they might have had an easier time of it if their DBA was A-Z Stunt Kites. Not as clever sounding but it would have brought them to the top of the rankings fairly quickly (assuming they were doing their SEO homework). It is worth mentioning that Into the Wind DOES show up in the #3 spot on Google for the term "Stunt Kites", but I would be willing to bet that it was a long haul to the top of the SERPs for that site.

When possible, choose a company DBA name with keywords you will want to target. This of course, implies that you must conduct extensive keyword research early on. Stay tuned!

Sell Products or Services?

2005-05-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

A while back, Entrepreneur Magazine online published this list of "the Top 10 Home Based Businesses":

1 Child-care service
2 Cleaning service
3 Elder and geriatric care
4 Fitness training
5 Personal chef
6 Pet services
7 Professional organizing
8 Tutoring
9 EBay trading and sales
10 Private investigation

Source

The list was published by Paul and Sarah Edwards who are known as gurus in the arena of Home Businesses. They have made their living by studying and documenting home-based business over the years. I list them here in order they were presented although in the article there were not numbered so I am assuming a top down arrangement here.

It's interesting to note that all but #9 (EBay trading and sales) are service-based businesses. Is there anything wrong with a service based business? Yes and no. From my perspective, service based businesses have inherent limitations which product-based businesses do not. The biggest limitation is Time. An example might illustrate the problem as I see it for service-based businesses.

Suppose Joe sells 2-ways radios from his website. He runs his business from home and uses drop ship wholesalers to ship his products. A normal day on his website might see him sell 20 to 30 radios. One day he gets huge order for 50,000 marine radios from the State of Maine. He quickly contacts his suppliers, makes the arrangements, and then celebrates his fortune!

Now suppose we have Mary who runs an in-home child care service. She too has a website which she uses to market her business. One day 50,000 Moms show up with 50,000 pre-school children at Mary's home. What does Mary do? Probably take as many as she can handle (let's say 20) and send the remaining 49,980 Moms w/ Kids home.

There's a limitation there. Selling products, hard goods, as a stockless retailer, really has no limitations except perhaps the inventories of the suppliers and the credit line of the home-based entrepreneur. But both of those things can changed. More inventory can be brought in and credit lines can be increased. Service based businesses, however, are limited by time - the great equalizer. Everyone has about the same amount. Everyone has the same 24 hour day. Take #10 for example - Private investigation. How many investigations can be conducted in one day? I suppose that will depend on the skills and efficiency of the investigator, but even at best, there is a definitive limit.

Now service based business like Mary's can grow into larger business by planning for growth, hiring other people, renting additional space, etc. So I'm not saying that service-based home-based businesses can't succeed, but I don't think they can reach the levels of profitability as quickly as a product-based home-based business can.

The 80-20 Rule in Product Research

2005-04-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

There is this rule known as the "80-20 Rule". It can be applied in lots of ways, but in the area of retail e-Commerce, it means "80 percent of your revenues will come from 20 percent of your goods". This rule is amazingly true to form. When applied to actual businesses, you will almost always find that the top twenty percent of the goods will actually produce a lion's share of the revenue. Probably not exactly 80 percent, but hopefully you get the point.

If your business plan includes selling physical products on the internet, and you're not using a drop ship source for your products, then you will have to purchase and stock the products to sell. Even if you do use a drop shipping model to start out with, there's a good chance you may want to "graduate" to a stocking e-tailer in order to get better pricing and therefore better margins.

But if you're a home-based business, you probably don't have the room to stock all varieties there are of a product line. Aside from the physical space issue, you probably won't have the cash or credit line needed to purchase full inventories of a product line when you are starting out in a venture.

So what does a home-based business do?

Answer: Focus on the 20 percent that will sell the best. By purchasing only items in this group, you are minimizing any risk of having dead stock in the corner of your spare room or your guest bathroom. You will be reducing this risk because you are only stocking things that you are relatively certain you can sell. How can you determine the Top 20 Percent of a product line?

First, you should start by identifying the entire line of products (not the just the Top 20 percent) you are interested in. Become reasonably familiar with them as well as their substitutes. This may involve nothing more than gathering and studying supplier catalogs and marking off the products you are interested in selling. Or you may want to actually compile a list (Spreadsheet software is great for this) which shows the item number (if it's a common one), a description, Manufacturer, Your Cost, and Manufacturer's Suggested Retail. Either way, become familiar with your product line, at least in a macro view.

Side note: This assumes that you have done the preliminary work of making sure the product line has a market to begin with.

Then you can face the task of finding the "Top 20 Percent" of this product line. There are a few ways to go about this.

The eBay method
If the item is sold on eBay (and nearly everything is sold there), establish a vigilant watch on the products sold there and keep records on what you observe. Assuming you are going to be selling items new, you probably will not want to bother looking at used items on eBay.

For the auctions, pay attention to the final price paid. This usually means you will want to add each listing to your watch list and then review them later after the auctions have ended. Sometimes auctions are established for the sole purpose of getting rid of the item, so it is deliberately priced low to start. For your "Top 20 Percent" research, the goal is to pay attention only to final price paid.

For items that are offered in the "Buy It Now" listing format, pay attention to the purchases. More often than not, these listings involve multiple items. Review the "purchases" and record the price paid and number of purchases shown. These are actually of more value to your "Top 20 Percent" research than the auction format. The fact that someone buys the item with a "Buy It Now" listing format is a better indicator of the market for that item than items offered using an auction format.

If someone has set up an eBay store for this product line, save a bookmark to the store (eBay stores are permanent URL's). Review the store daily for both of the above activities. Record the selling prices.

In your records, be sure to note whether the item was an auction or a "Buy it Now" listing. You will want to give more weight to the "Buy it Now" listings. Also keep an eye on the shipping costs. As mentioned in my last post, a hat trick used by some eBay sellers is to set the selling price extremely low and pad the shipping and handling. If you see this happening in your product line, factor that in.

Assuming the product line has a wide base on eBay, you should have some very usable data after a few weeks and will be able to determine your top items of interest.

With a little time and perseverance, you can come up with a reasonable facsimile of your "Top 20 percent" items and can make low risk purchasing decisions accordingly.

The Realities of Selling on eBay - an eBay Case Study

2005-04-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

eBay used to be the panacea for anyone wanting to get starting selling something on the internet. You could set up an account (without a business license I might add), attach a bank account, and go to town. With some 50 million registered users, you get something that you don't get by starting your own website -- instant traffic.

It's still very easy to sell on eBay. However, it's one thing to sell and it's quite another thing to make any profit. With increased seller fees and more and more sellers on eBay, a real buyer's market has been created in many commodity items.

eBay always has been and continues to be the best place to sell those "hard to find" items and if you can build your business around something like that, you can still do well there.

But certain commodity product lines, particularly new electronics, eBay sellers are getting a little creative in their endeavors. Let's take a case study.

Garmin GPS 60CS

This seller is selling this item for $394.77 + $30.52 S/H. They are selling it from their eBay store which means that eBay Store fees will apply.

The final value fees for this item -- if it sells (including the shipping of $30.52) -- will be $22.01. Dealer's cost for this item is $374.99.

Let's do the math. $425.29 - 22.01 = 403.28. Consider that if the buyer pays with PayPal (as most eBay buyers do) there will be another $11.70 taken out, making for net profit of about $16.59.

What about listing fees? That is one major advantage of an eBay store -- the listing fees are minimal (.02 per item). So it's obvious the real money making factor of this equation is the shipping and handling charge of $30.52.

$30.52 from Ohio to Washington State via UPS Ground? Hmm. The actual cost of shipping this item with UPS Ground service (including insurance) given it's weight and assuming it gets packaged in an appropriate sized box will be somewhere around $11.00 .

Is there anything wrong with this padded shipping? Not technically, because it is "Shipping and Handling" not just "Shipping". The seller is allowed to pad for his/her handling charges. In this case, if the seller charged the actual shipping, he/she would loose money.

A problem with this method is that the buyers are often repelled by what appears to be the high shipping cost. Sometimes they'll go ahead and pay, but in the minds of a lot of people, they're getting "ripped off" for shipping. Many buyers (who are not themselves sellers) don't think handling is appropriate for the deal. But some buyers simply shop by product price alone and once they're hooked into the purchasing process, will go ahead and pay the shipping & handling. That is what this strategy relies on.

A reverse of this strategy might be to include the shipping as part of the total price and advertise "free shipping" on your product. To do this, this seller in this case would have to raise the price to about $424 to make the same $16. Then you would have the problem of those buyers who shop mainly on product price. It will likely cause them never to even look at your product.

Does this strategy work? Yes. Is there money to made this way? Yes. However, you'd better have an adequate answer ready when your buyers complain about the high price of shipping/handling.

This methodology tends to alienate the buyers. They may say "OK, I'll buy this time", but they probably won't come back. If you're selling items where you don't expect a lot of repeat business, this may work. And some businesses are actually built on one-time purchases.

Whether or not this can work over the long term is questionable. Most businesses, whether on eBay or not, should build their business based on customer satisfaction, creating goodwill with their customers, and causing their customers to want to return to the business to buy again. This means charging a fair price for the item and a fair price for shipping/handling. A customer with a bad taste in his/her mouth about a transaction is not likely to return.

Enduring the Google Aging Delay

2005-04-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

In the last blog post, I talked about the Google Aging Delay and how it will cause an entrepreneur who is starting up a new site to experience a 6 to 8 month delay in getting equal treatment from Google. In other words, don't expect your site to show up anywhere near the front page of Google's organic SERPs, until your "probation" period is over.

The post focused on the Link Broker arrangement. I reiterate here that renting links is not the best use of what are usually limited funds in a new enterprise. In fact, I would have argued against it even before the Google Aging Delay came into play. Even if you rent a link from a relevant site, it's the old "rent versus own" thing. You stop paying for it, the link goes away. You continue to pay for the link month after month and the long term investment becomes questionable.

The Google Aging Delay, while no friend to the entrepreneur starting up, is not the end of the world. If you're starting up a business or a new entity of a business, you should be prepared to wait on some things. If you're running any business, you should be prepared for a long term commitment and the 6 to 8 month Aging Delay should not sink your ship. There are other ways you can draw in revenue while you wait for your site to come up in Google's organic search rankings.

Google Adwords
Notice I said "organic search rankings". Using Google's Adwords PayPerClick system, you can still show up on the first page of Google's sponsored SERPs within minutes of placing your ad. As long as the Adwords campaigns are managed well, this is a far better use of your business funds that renting links and can direct visitors to your site right away.

Yahoo Search Solutions (formerly Overture)
Ditto for Yahoo PayPerClick.

Yahoo and MSN
No one would deny that Google is the most important search engine powering the internet today. However, don't forget that there are two other significant search engines: Yahoo and MSN. While these engines don't have quite the reach that Google does (and oh how they are trying to get more of that reach), they aren't exactly insignificant factors in the search market. And there is no known Aging Delay for either Yahoo or MSN at the current time. In fact, at the present time, it is ridiculously easy to come up at the front of MSN's organic SERPs. This may change, but for now it appears that MSN is paying a lot more attention to "on-page" factors in their ranking algorithm. This translates into an easier ride to the top for the new website owner. Yahoo takes a bit more time, but front page positioning can be had within a few months.

eBay
Let's not forget good old eBay. Selling a physical product? Sell it on eBay if it works for you. Be careful with this one; eBay's fees have gotten a bit out of hand and you'll need to keep a close eye on your ROI there. The state of selling on eBay today might need a separate post - will get to that.

Get inbound links
While you're waiting, there's plenty to do. Not the least of which is getting inbound links. Get listed in all the directories you can, get reciprocals, and use Press Releases. All these things get you the best kind of links - permanent inbound links (in the case of the Press Release - short term but beneficial).

More on these as I have time, but just because Google makes you wait to get up in their SERPs doesn't mean you have to sit on your hands!

The Google Aging Delay - End of the Link Broker?

2005-04-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

If you're selling something on the web, then at some point you'll want to have your website show up on the front page of Google for at least one search phrase. It's a well known fact that inbound links are the overwhelming factor in Google's ranking algorithm. The quantity and quality of inbound links will add to your sites Google Page Rank and will in turn allow your site to be well ranked. The more inbound links you can get from high ranking websites, the higher your own sites page rank will become and the better ranked it will be in the SERPs.

After this became known, a cottage industry sprang up around it - Link Brokering. A number of business exist for the sole purpose of arranging for leased links from high page rank sites to new sites that want to get a jump start on their own page rank. A site owner can set up an arrangement from places like Text Link Brokers, pay a monthly fee, and have a keyword-rich link from a Page Rank 8 site - within a matter of days. The site owner renting the link pays the link broker, the broker takes their cut, and pays the site owner hosting the link.

It's a win-win-win situation, right? The site hosting the link is happy because they get a high quality revenue stream from the link rental. The link broker is happy because they get a slice of that revenue stream. The new site owner is happy because he/she will receive a benefit in the form of increased Google rankings -- eventually. Everyone's happy - or are they?

Enter the Google Aging Delay. Notice I said that the new site owner will benefit "eventually". Because of the Google Aging Delay, this arrangement is a lot less beneficial for the new site owner renting links than it once was. What is the Aging Delay? Basically speaking, it's a contrived delay in giving new websites equal opportunity in the Google ranking system. Delayed gratification -- Google style.

Keep in mind that most everything that's known about Google's algorithm is assumed to be true in theory. Google doesn't let on exactly how their factors weigh into their algorithms. But professional SEOs can make some educated guesses by observing results over large sample groups. For example, Lawrence Deon in this article says that the aging delay is anywhere from 6 to 8 months based on observations of his clients. In other words, if you start a new site, you can expect to wait 6 to 8 months to get equal treatment in the SERPs of Google.

At first glance, this might seem a harsh punishment for Google to impart on new web businesses. However, keep in mind that the base mission of Google is to provide relevant results for web searchers. The Aging Delay is necessary to eliminate artificial page rank inflation and instant free rides to the top of their SERPs. Fly-By-Night websites (business or otherwise) will in effect be filtered out of Google's SERPs.

So who is effected most in this Link Brokerage "manage et trois" by the Google Aging Delay? You might think the new site owner trying rent the link. After all, with the Aging Delay in place, it can be up to year of rent payments with no real return on investment. Solution for them: don't rent links! In perhaps another post (maybe a topic for next week) I'll talk about what new site owners can do to ride out this Aging Delay. What about the site hosting the links? Presumably they have other streams of income to rely on and exist for reasons other than to rent links, so this Aging Delay should not effect them other than to remove this revenue stream.

The one affected most by the Aging Delay is the Link Broker. The more that becomes known about this Aging Delay, the less new site owners are going to want to pay the high prices for rented links and the tougher sell job the Link Brokers will have. A quick look at some of the page rank 8 links for rent at TextLinkBrokers.Com and you can see that this is the high rent district! They will you set you back hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars a month. This will become an increasingly difficult pill for the new site owner to swallow given the Google Aging Delay's effect on ROI. This is likely to at least change the business models of the Link Broker. In fact, TextLinkBrokers.Com is now offering permanent links. A new feature, but hardly a coincidental one.

Bottom line: if you're a new site owner starting up and you're planning on renting links from high Page Rank site, you may want to reconsider this strategy in light of the Google Aging Delay.

Beware the Fake Wholesaler

2005-04-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

If you're planning to sell physical products (as opposed to e-products) on the internet, you'll need to find a wholesale source of your product line. Suppose you're trying to sell Digital Cameras. This is deliberately a bad example by the way, but one that I can safely use for demonstration purposes. Why is it a bad example? Two words: Saturated Market. But let's pretend it's not saturated and we wish to find a wholesaler for this product line.

Let's first talk about where not to look.

You could type "Wholesale Digital Cameras" in Google. If you do, you'll get a lot of irrelevant results. And that is not because of Google's results. It's because a lot of retailers use the word "Wholesale" in the their marketing language and therefore a lot of retailers come up in the first pages of the Google SERPs for search terms with the word "wholesale" in them. This is not necessarily illegal because they use terms like "wholesale pricing" to describe their discount pricing. But that does not mean they are a wholesale supplier.

You could try shopping around on eBay or Overstock.Com. But both of those places are really just another retail model. You won't find any true wholesale suppliers there although you may find an occasional bargain price on something.

OK, so where do you look?

Well the first choice believe it or not can work with some patience. You'll need a little perseverance and you'll probably need to check the back pages of the SERPs. Real wholesalers seldom do any Search Engine Optimization work so they usually don't come up under the SERPs for anything but their company names.

You will probably also need to refine your search term, for example

"consumer electronics" +distributor +cameras

.. will yield better results. But beware of the fake wholesalers even using that search term. You will still have to sort out the fake wholesalers from the real ones.

So how do you tell a fake wholesaler from a real one?

By far the easiest way is to simply check their prices. This requires getting set up with your first wholesaler so that you will have a point of comparison. But there is nothing like checking the actual cost of a common item (in our case a Canon PowerShot A95 would be an example). All wholesalers should be reasonably close on price for this product assuming you were to buy from them.

Another way you can tell a fake wholesaler from a real one is by looking at their order procedure. See if the site will let you step through the order process. If you can buy something from their site without having to produce a business license number or resale certificate number, you're probably dealing with a fake wholesaler. Many true wholesalers don't even show you their products without a login. And to get a login you must furnish them a copy of your business license, a resale certificate, and usually some sort of application to open an account.

Anyway, so where do you get Digital Cameras wholesale?

Here are three sources:

D & H

Ingram Micro

WynIT

They can be found on the back pages using "electronics distributor" as a search term.

Now, let's take a real live example. Suppose we're looking to find a supplier for silk artificial plants.

Here is a fake one: Oops!

Here is a real one: Bingo!

How can we tell? This product should cost between $6 and $7, NOT $12.70. This is identifiable by the product number LPX651 which is a common product to both companies. Hmmm.

Also beware of people selling wholesale supplier directories. Most of them are junk I'm sorry to say. One notable exception to this is WorldWideBrands which I mentioned last week.

Moral of the story, you'll need to plan to spend some time looking for real wholesale suppliers. Get set up and compare some prices. Sometimes even the fake ones look like real ones.

Generally speaking, the more rigorous the setup process is, the more likely the supplier is really a wholesaler. They should at least ask for a copy of your business license. And don't waste your money on any wholesale directory unless it has the name WorldWideBrands.

PayPerClick Industry Gets Sued

2005-04-07T13:33:00.001-07:00

Pay-Per-Click advertising is a great way for the home based businessperson with a new website to drive traffic to his/her site while they wait for other SEO techniques to take effect. Other SEO techniques, such as linking strategies, can take months or longer (depending on the targeted search term and amount of time the person puts into it). Pay Per Click ads on the other hand, can bring customers to your site the very same day you launch the site.

You probably already know what Pay-Per-Click is, but in case you don't, here is the Google Adwords guy, Perry Marshall who can give you a nice (free) email-based primer. Google Adwords along with Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions (formerly Overture) account for the vast majority of the Pay-Per-Click market. If you use or wish to use Pay-Per-Click, you will definitely want to use one or both of these services.

This week Google and Yahoo find themselves as lead defendants in a potentially damaging lawsuit. To understand the importance of this lawsuit, it is necessary to understand the issue of Pay-Per-Click fraud. Pay-Per-Click fraud generally occurs when a competitor, angry ex-employee, or other person bearing ill will launches a special script. This script is configured to imitate a web searcher and it enters search terms, then clicks on the PayPerClick ad, causing the advertiser to get charged for each click. Some scripts even have the ability to change IP addresses to avoid being detected. As you can imagine, a computerized script can generate a lot of clicks in a relatively short time , thus draining an unsuspecting advertiser's budget. There are rumors of people in other countries (such as India) being paid to manually do this, but personally I don't see that as realistic when there are such scripts available. Anyone who is a victim of this and who has not been watching their Click counters can be in for a rude surprise.

What does this criminal activity have to do with Google and Yahoo? According to this lawsuit, they (along with a list of other lower tier Pay-Per-Click companies) are guilty of collusion because they have done little or nothing to stop it. Indeed, when you think about it, who has the most to gain from this fraud? The Pay-Per-Click companies themselves -- the more clicks they can charge for, the more revenue they generate. While I don't think that Google and Yahoo purposefully participate in this fraud, I do think that these companies really have little incentive to prevent it and thus don't give it as much concern as they should. This lawsuit is a bit farfetched, but it just might succeed in waking them to the problem. At the very least, it will be a Public Relations headache for those trying to promote this still burgeoning advertising model.

What should the just-starting-out home biz entrepreneur do? Avoid Pay-Per-Click advertising? No! Manage your ads? Yes! Manage your Pay-Per-Click ads voraciously. Don't let a day go by without reviewing the clicks. If you see any unusual activity, suspend your advertisements and contact the provider.

In reality, if you are just starting out and have not yet made a dent in your competitor's business, you aren't likely to be a victim of this. But it doesn't hurt to be aware of it and I would certainly not depend on Google and Yahoo to prevent it.

Welcome to Home-Based Entrepreneur

2005-04-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

This is the obligatory start-of-blog post and I'll use this to introduce myself. My name is Frank Ross and I am a home-based entrepreneur. I'm 51 years of age and like many people, have worked for other people most of my life. For about 2 years now, it's been a goal of mine to wean myself away from the "steady paycheck" mentality I've been brought up to adhere to and move towards a self-employment model.

To that end, I started a web-based electronics business last year (May 3) which ended up turning a tidy profit. That was not enough to allow me to quit my day job, but it was a taste of success. It was enough to whet my appetite for MORE!. So I opened a second web-based business earlier this year which is just now getting off the ground. My goal is to open a 3rd by this year end. Yes, I still have a day job but as I am living proof, these things take time and don't happen overnight.

I plan to use this blog for musings about my entrepreneur-ship. I'll don't mind sharing about successes as well as mistakes -- who knows what you'll read here.