Yesterday I wrote about the power of content management system and how important it is to your business. It is not some fancy tool I am trying to sell to you.

It is a tool that can be used to enhance and increase your business activity. It is also the way Internet is changing and becoming something new. Most CMS packages are Web.2.0 friendly.

What is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is all about how you communicate to the audience about your business and how you engage them through your website, your presence in social media sites, how you brand yourself online etc. It is group, community interaction.

CMS gives you the edge to do all the above efficiently. The old static brochure website will probably be around another 5 years max. I already see fewer of them around. The early adapters will always have the edge and march forward with more visitors and conversions.

I have personally experienced this with my own website Pixels. Since the day I shifted to a CMS and did the social media rounds and got talked about or noticed, I saw a spike in traffic and a gradual climb in the search engine placement. That means more traffic and more customers for me.

Blogs are very powerful. It is a channel where you can talk about your business, your niche. It is like a whiteboard where you can write how good your products are. If you blog regularly and talk to your target market about the problems they face and how your product solves it easily, you have their ears. Blogs are also like mini press releases sent out regularly. The information is picked up by other websites, blogs and discussed and talked about.

What better publicity can you  get for free?

Web 2.0 is not only about white space big fonts and bright colors. It is all about interacting with your online target market and how you are able to catch their attention and retain it.
Especially at a time like now when recession is going on all over the world you have to find new ways of acquiring customers.
It could be the time to revamp your website work out a strategy for online marketing, and go the Web 2.0 way. Big corporations like Dell, Comcast are doing it. As a small business it is very beneficial to have a strong online presence. What better way to advertise with minimum cost?
Web 2.0 way is easy to go with a content management system in place. Contact me to find out more about CMS

If you are a small business and you don’t have a website, you are leaving money on the table. I deal with small businesses everyday.

The ones that do very well are the ones that update their websites often and keep the content fresh.
These days customers expect you to have a very informative website. To be out there in front of your target market you need to interact and find ways of getting their attention.

What better way than to post articles that are useful to your prospects?
For example if you deal in home furnishings, you can have articles on:

• “How to smarten up your bedroom for under $300”
• “Change the look of your lounge for under$100”
• “Gift ideas for holidays for under $100”
• Or tips on how to match colors for walls, curtains/blinds furniture etc.
• Tips on cleaning rugs to make them look like new.

Put out a newsletter once a quarter for your existing customers about specials upcoming sales and ideas for gifts or room makeovers.

• You can even ask your customers to send you before & after photos.
• You can run a competition and offer gift vouchers etc.
• You can have opinion polls about specific products.
• A green section where customers can enter ideas.

You can think up many more ways to interact and have this ongoing dialogue. This helps you in two ways:

1. You will know what your customers want/like.
2. You will build a long term relationship with your customers and they will trust you more.

To do all the above things you need to keep updating your website regularly and not depend on your web designer. The way to do this is to have a content management system for your website. This will save you money and time in the long term.

You definitely need this if you are selling online. You can update your catalog every day if you have to.

Contact me for content management system for your website.

This was the headline in a news portal today

“Small businesses accentuate the negative ”

Wellington small business confidence has turned on its head since February, with pessimism doubling and optimism nearly halving.

The global credit crunch and the markets & banks facing tough times is trickling all the way down even to this little corner of the worls. Globalisation has made sure of that. Consumer spending will drop over the next months. Experts are saying that recession is going to be long and painful. It is much harder if you are a small business. What can you do?  Many things actually.

1. Keep in touch with your customers. They might want to upgrade their product
2. Keep your marketing funnel going all the time. Lead generation has to be continous
3. Redo your printed advertising. Get a new look for all of them.
4. Revamp your website and give it a facelift.
5. Keep writing related articles for your website and update content regularly.
6. Get your website listed in local web directories. It does work.
7. Make sure your website is optimized for SEO. (Search Engine Optimization)

image by midori syu

One of my customers recently did just some of the things above. She redid her advertising material like brochures, business cards etc. She emaile me a week ago to get her website redone and the look and feel to be like her printed material. This time round I am giving her a content management system. That way she can update the website herself and she will blog about her business to get more traffic. Summer time is her peak time. She will be ready for it with a new look.

What are you doing to make sure you get more customers now?

Reading the news has become a chore for me these days. Who wants to read the doom & gloom? It is everywhere – markets down, dollar falling, foreclosures. Yes it is hard. But for those of us who keep looking for opportunities, It is always there. We just have to use a bit of imagination and get creative. Here are some tips to survive the downturn.

1. If you have a website and you sell products online you have a pricing advantage from a brick & mortar business.
2. Use that advantage and pass on some savings to your customers. Give a discount and display it prominently on your site.
3. If you are a small business pay attention to your website. Make changes or a completely revamp your website to increase your customer numbers. Create a blog on your site and write about your products regularly.
4. Ramp up your online marketing efforts.
5. Try to get noticed with some creativity.
6. Experiment with new ways of marketing. Find out which one is most effective.

Contact me for a CMS based website. You can make your own updates and keep the content fresh, you can also interact with your customers proactively and grow your business. For a short period I am giving a discount (practising what I am preaching here).

A brochure business site with CMS is $50 off.

It will cost you only $749 for a short period. Contact me with this code Brochure50. If you take my hosting package you will get two months free hosting as well.

Continuing from my post yesterday, the hacking problem has been resolved by Hostagator. This is one of the reasons I love Hostgator. They are so quick to resolve problems.

There were two spamming scripts installed on the website server. Even after deleting all the files these spamming scripts could not be deleted. It was finally deleted by Hostgator after a few emails back and forth.

I have been recommending Roboform in couple of posts. There a free version and a Pro version. The Pro version has more functions and I purchased it couple of months. I did try the free version before I purchased.

image by Declan TM

I have changed the passwords of all my sites after this experience.  Just to be on the safe side. I will be paying special attention to online security from now on.  If this had not been detected and fixed the domain could have been de listed. Then it is a bit of a time & process to get it listed again. I would not want this to happen to a large site that produces income for me.

I wrote a post about password security yesterday. The importance of having a strong password. Today I get an email from Hostgator my hosting company which says one of my sites is sending out more than 500 emails an hour and they have suspended that account! And I thought I had a strong password. The domain does not have much in it. I have used it in the past to experiment some content management systems.

This was a bit of a shock. What did I do?

• I deleted all the files on the server
• I uninstalled the CMS
• Deleted all email addresses
• Pointed the domain to my domain registrar, Godaddy

That was easy as it was not a domain with a large website. I also contacted Hostgator to identify the security breach and keep me in the loop. The email samples they sent me was definetley spam.

If after all these precautions my domain was hacked into, imagine what can happen if you have a weak password. Please take this seriously and change your passwords to really strong one. Get a software like

Roboform to generate your passwords and change them often to save yourself a lot of trouble.

Do you do affiliate marketing? Do you drive pay-per-click traffic to your websites or landing pages? Then you have to read the following story. I belong to a private forum where most of the members are affiliate marketers. They drive PPC traffic specifically Google Adwords traffic. Of late a few of them had their Adwords account hacked into. One person had his account hacked into and the credit card charges was something like 17k! Credit cards were maxed out and his account was paused by Google.

image by prasan.naik

He contacted Google and it took Google a few weeks to resolve the issue.  If your livelihood depended on affiliate marketing and PPC traffic from Google imagine how difficult those few weeks will be for you. One way of avoiding these type of incidents is having a very strong password. When I say strong I really mean very very strong. I change my password for these type of accounts very frequently as well. And these passwords are unique and not used for anything else. I have a software program that generates random passwords for me in a second. I can set the length of the password to as long as I want as well. Makes it harder to hack into. The program I trust and use is Roboform. Even if you are not affiliate marketer but use Google Adwords to drive traffic to your site please remember to have a strong/unique password and change it often. To save time and hassle use a program to automate the process. It will only take you a few minutes to do the process.

The benefits of Roboform are quite a few:

• Manage your passwords and Log In automatically.
• Fill long registration and checkout forms with one click.
• Encrypt your passwords to achieve complete security.
• Generate random passwords to maximize password strength.
• Fight Phishing by entering passwords only on matching web sites.
• Defeat Keyloggers by not using the keyboard to type passwords.
• Back up your passwords and copy them between computers.
• Synchronize passwords between computers using GoodSync.

RoboForm Password Manager is:

• Portable: RoboForm2Go runs from USB key, no install needed.
• Phone-friendly: sync your passwords to Windows Mobile and Palm.
• Universal: works with Internet Explorer, AOL/MSN, Firefox.
• IE 7 and Vista are fully supported.

So if you have accounts where security is high priority (which should be for all your online activities) please have a strong password and change it often to avoid keyloggers. Use a program like Roboform to protect yourself against any hacking or phishing scams.

image by Mimi K

Have you planned for your holiday sales activity? It is not tool late still. If you are a small retail business, you probably make most of your profit in the last quarter. Have you got your advertising in place? Have you allocated your expense for local paper ads, brochure mail box drops, radio spots etc? Have you displayed your online advertising prominently in your website? And maybe some ads in Google AdWords to boost your sales?

I was talking to a friend of mine today who is a financial planner. She said she is very busy with clients. The market turmoil has affected a whole bunch of people. They don’t know what to do with their money and she has seen a sudden spike in her business.  Her business is cyclical like most self employed people’s business. One month she has 4-5 clients and she makes good money. Next month no clients. It goes up and down. I suggested to her to get herself a website that she can update herself and keep it fresh with content.

Looks like that whole niche has websites that never get updated! Some of the material I saw was dated more than a year old! Why do people get websites done and never update them at all. If used properly websites can be a good lead generating funnel. That way you will have clients round the year and not be cyclical like most self employed people. Staying in touch with your clients through email, blog, newsletter is the smart way to go.

What I am getting at is if you are planning to get a boost to your holidays sales maybe this is a good time to get a fresh look for your website and update it with some fresh content, images and some good advertising.

Think of even getting some quick traffic to your site with Google AdWords.

Contact me if you want a good content management system set up with a fresh looking website. You can easily update the site yourself. Get good rankings in search engines and keep in touch with your clients as well.

image by willgame

For middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet could be a boost to the brain, a new study suggests.

Two groups were used in this study. One read passages from books. The second read passages and performed searches on the Internet.

While all the participants showed the same activity as during the book-reading, the Web-savvy group also registered activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain, whereas those new to the net did not. (These areas of the brain control decision-making and complex reasoning.) The researchers found that only those who had experience using the net had this activity.

What’s going on?
Compared with reading, the wealth of choices on the Internet requires that people make decisions about what to click on, which engages important cognitive circuits in the brain.
“A simple, everyday task like searching the Web appears to enhance brain circuitry in older adults, demonstrating that our brains are sensitive and can continue to learn as we grow older,” the researchers said.

I always suspected the Internet will change the way we think, live etc. But look at this bonus it keeps your brain healthy and maybe one day can help the prevention or at least slow down the progress of diseases like dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

OK people surf the Internet more and stay healthy!

As for affiliate marketers I see this as an opportunity. How about choosing niches that target senior citizens. I read somewhere that they are the fastest growing Internet users.

One of the fastest ways to get traffic to your site and see some sales is through pay-per-click or PPC.  All 3 top search engines have pay-per-click programmes.  Google is the best and you see instant results.  It is very easy to open an account with Google. I cover the basics in the article Google AdWords.

What is pay-per-click?

PPC ads are the ones you see on the right side of the page when you type a keyword in Google or Yahoo  and the search results come up. Every time someone clicks on those ads you pay a certain amount of money to Google or Yahoo. This may vary from 10 cents per click to $20 a click depending on the niche you are in.

Step 1

Go to www.google.com

click on Advertising Programs – Google AdWords and set up an account. It is very straightforward

Step 2

If you are a small business owner you will know your business inside out.  You will have an idea how people will search for you online.  Do some keyword research based on the niche you are in. Google has an excellent keyword tool and it is free. 

Google external keyword tool.

Come up with a few lists of keywords. Look for related keywords and synonyms. Use plurals. Use present continuous tense like buying, looking, losing. Keep the keywords organized in spreadsheets.

Step 3

Type in some of the keywords into Google or Yahoo and observer the ads that come up on the right. They are your competition. Try to copy the top 3-4. Watch those ads for 4-5 days. If they are still there they are making money.

A few tips

• Try to have the keyword in the headline. Google/Yahoo will make it bold
• State a benefit of the product.
• Clear call to action.

Example ad

Suffering from Back Pain?
XYZ Mattress Will Help You Lessen Pain.
%50 Off This Week. Buy Now!

See how I have capitalised each word? It helps to improve readability. Try Questions in the headline or sympols, dashes. Have comma for a pause. Anything that will help you attract attention to your ad.

Step 3

Create groups of keywords that are tightly knit together.

Buy mattress
Buying mattress
Queen mattress
Firm mattress etc.

Each group will be counted as one adgroup. Write two ads per adgroup.

Step 4

Make a list of negative keywords. This is very important to keep your costs down. If you are bidding on broad match. Google will display your ad for even a single keyword in your phrase. example If you  are bidding on “Handmade beeswax candles”, on broad match. Google will display your ad for the word candle which is too broad for your niche. Negatives will stop Google from displaying your ad for unwanted terms.

Step 5

Download Google Adwords Editor. It is a local hard drive based editor. It is free. You will enter the groups of keywords & ads and set a daily budget, then bulk upload to your Google account.

Step 6

Enter your campaigns into Google Adwords Editor. Set a low daily budget till your are confident. Something like $20 a day will be a good starter.

Step 7

After a week log into your cpanel in your hosting account and look at the keywords that have been used.  You will be able to get a longet negative keyword list from these keywords. Tweak your campaign as you go along.

I have only given you the basic information. You can start with this info and get traffic to your website in a short period. With so many variable in play, it is a fine game. Keep watching for the next instalment in PPC later.