Website Design and Internet Strategy for Business Owners

Never thought social relationships are good for business? Use this Three Pronged Twitter Strategy for Your Business and see the results. We have started following it and things are going great. Just thought we’d share it with you.

Share with us some twitter strategies that you apply for your business. We’ll update the list.

Best Sangeeta

The current recession is still raging despite claims of recovery. President Obama recently spoke at the White House and quoted the Department of Labor which estimated that US citizens have lost 3.6 million jobs since recession began.

For most losing a job is a calamity and yet there are some who handle this setback more effectively. The great American spirit of survival seems to exist in them. They look for alternatives to make a livelihood and to live well. They may not have opted out of their jobs, but they certainly can deal with it.

How do they manage it? Are their prepared for it? What’s their gameplan?

Forty eight year old Bob Carlos was expecting a promotion as the Vice President of his company. He was unprepared for the recession and it hit him below the belt. Carlos reeled but rallied back to life. It was then that he decided to do what he enjoyed most in life: sail.  Soon he started using his knowledge to train others and eventually, lead small excursions. Bob Carlos now leads a full life enjoying his job. He is making money in a way he never dreamt of. He now has plans to expand online and increase the scope of his customers.

Bob relied on his talent and expertise to pull his new found business through. Through a well planned strategy he started organizing camps and workshops and hired more people.
 
Bob Carlos was not an entrepreneur by choice. He was a forced entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is the ONLY way you can beat the current situation. No one’s hiring, no one’s extending much credit, no one cares; and you need the money and occupation to keep you going.

More and more Americans are resorting to forced entrepreneurship. The number of non-employer firms has risen steadily in this decade, from 16.5 million in 2000 to an estimated 21.1 million in 2007. Now is the time to go back to your core competency, by improving hidden skills that have been neglected for years. You may steer away from the specific job or branch that you were previously interested in, but with this newly honed skill set, you can help yourself and others in a way you never thought possible.

Many people are making the recession a blessing in disguise to hone their talent and skills, to spend time with family and community, and to get connected with themselves all over again!

All you need is

1. An exemplary skill set
2. An eye for detail
3. An ability to plan
4. Lot’s of enthusiasm.

BUT before you throw your job out the window and set out to challenge your skills, be aware of the following:

According to the SBA – an estimated 637,100 new employer firms began operations in 2007 and 560,300 firms closed that year.

“Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, 44 percent survive at least four years, and 31 percent survive at least seven years, according to a recent study."
These results were constant for different industries. Firms that began in the second quarter of 1998 were tracked for the next 28 quarters to determine their survival rate. Of special interest, the research found that businesses that survive four years have a better chance of surviving long term. After the fourth year, the rate of firm closings declines considerably.

Earlier research has found that the major factors in a firm’s survivability include an ample supply of capital, being large enough to have employees  the owner’s education level, and the owner’s reason for starting the firm.

So where do you begin. Start with your heart and move on to brains.

I. Take a mental printout of these five attitude steps

• Start small if you want to but start today.
• Do not be afraid to fail.
• Everything in life is a learning experience to make a better you
• Enjoy what you do
• Find opportunities on the way.

II. Next start with your entrepreneurship plans. Ask yourself the following questions and write them down

• Your best skills
• Your strengths
• What you enjoy most
• Five years on what you would like to be
• The objective of your business

III. Next jot down opportunities associated with each skill

• Start with broad, then go specific
• Use the internet to search for opportunities. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll find
• Try to identify at least three opportunities

Now you should have a better understanding of what your goals of your business are.

IV. Time to put your ideas to work: brain work

• Begin to plan how you will start your business
• Take into account the cost, time, demographic structure and ROI period
• Think of the area of your business
• Try to find a niche

If you follow this step you’ll identify the most suitable business to start with.

V. Time for research

The strategy for research will depend on your skill set and the opportunity for Get an expert’s advice if you feel a little uncomfortable with where you’re headed. You can either hire an expert to do it or do it yourself. Be thorough and explore all possibilities and start building a complete strategy.

VI. Strategy Time

If you are starting for the first time ask an expert; there are lots of experts online who are willing to give a few minutes of free consultation. Make the most of it.

Opportunities

The opportunities for online entrepreneurship are galore; everyone seems to be moving online and finding their niche.

You can become an infopreneur by packaging your knowledge and selling it. The methodology may vary, but the objective will be to sell.

You have to simply decide a topic. It can be anything: knowledge from your previous work/business experience, a hobby, a passion or anything that interests you; even your grandma’s recipe!

Success stories need

1. Diligent Planning
2. Strategic Information
3. Goal Setting
4. Innovation
5. Contemporary Methods
6. Visibility
7. Good Customer Relationship
8. Identification of Opportunities
9. Sheer Hard Work

If you are one of those who think you don’t have a special set of skills to utilize, all you need to is a website. From that website you can find affiliate opportunities, make ad money, manage content or sell products by partnering with drop shippers.

If in doubt ask the expert.

OnlineBizHq.org is offering 15 minutes of free consultation on online business opportunities. They have also published a book “Plant Your Online Biz Money Tree”. This Money Tree Book is available in a pre- release e-book version for a limited time only. Click for sneak-peek buy for only $10!

With the unprecedented growth explosion of e-commerce, retailing and the expansion of the internet marketplace, an overwhelming number of opportunities for starting an online business have emerged. Yet, the question remains: should you take up a job or start an online business? A working job requires less responsibility than owning an online business, solely because the business’s future is not in your hands as an employee, but does not necessarily allow you to do what you want within the business. A steady income is always welcomed as an employee, for it allows you to map out your future with relative ease, yet a successful business may provide multiple streams of income.

Although starting an online business does not guarantee a steady income, it does allow you to do what you enjoy doing, or what you are interested in. Plus, running your own online business allows for more flexibility in terms of times and working hours as compared to the strict, rigid work hours employees must abide by. But because of the modern-era internet boom, starting an online business has never been more lucrative.

Ever since the advent of the internet, it has been evolving at an exponential pace and has attracted more and more people every year. As of March 31, 2009, approximately 6,710,029,070 users access the internet on a regular basis – over 99% of the world’s population. This drastic figure only emphasizes the innumerable opportunities that have emerged for starting an online business since the dawn of the internet, and marks a time of a more technological and computer savvy world that relies on the computer more than ever before. But before you click your mouse and begin building your online business, you should know that researching is vital and essential to having a successful business; you must become intimately familiar with whatever facet of business you envision. This requires dedication, commitment, and passion on your part. Books, e-books, magazine articles, and online articles are among the plethora of resources that can and will help jump start your business and allow it to compete in the real world. On the other hand, self-employment offers you more chances to explore and challenge your limits, without having to deal with the pressures of running your own business.

In a way, to become self-employed successfully you must adopt a system, a sort of scientific approach to your job: hypothesizing, researching, testing, re-testing, analyzing, drawing a conclusion, and finally and most importantly, communicating that conclusion with the rest of the world. To become self-employed successfully, you must learn the advantages of becoming self-employed, and weigh that with the other options you have and choose which is best for you. Only then will you be on your way to becoming a successful individual.

What most people fail to recognize is that you can be self-employed and own your own business, simultaneously. Owning your own business while at the same time working for someone is a beneficial way to gain valuable experience that will assist you in establishing your business. There are several tools that you can utilize to help automate your online business, thus taking a major workload off you so you can manage your own business as well as be self-employed satisfactorily. The first is the auto-responder. This nifty program will automatically reply to en e-mail that is sent to a certain e-mail address. It can be programmed in such a way that it sends one e-mail the first day, a different e-mail a second day, and so on. This resourceful program will allow you, the owner, to salvage valuable time spent on responding to the same e-mails that would normally fritter away hours of precious time.

Another handy way of taking a workload off of you is by hiring drop-shippers. In a nut shell, drop-shippers hold products that are being sold through your website in a warehouse and when purchased, ship it directly to the customer. This way, your company does not have to be the retailer and the manufacturer, thus reducing expenses and increases profits. Your only job is to pay the drop-shipper for the shipping costs and they will do the dirty work for you. In addition to auto-responders and drop-shippers, if properly executed, search engine optimization (SEO) will attract customers to your site, without you having to go to them. Ideally, you want your company’s web page to appear in the first page of a search engine’s page when a certain term(s) (the broader the better) is entered into the search engine. These simple tools will drastically improve the amount of clients you have, while still allowing you to focus on something more important than responding to e-mails, shipping to clients, and having to physically go to a potential client to get them to commit.

Planning is the most crucial aspect of online business. The plan should include short term and long term goals. You should always be clear about your business objectives and purposes. The goals should be effective in generating new customers and keeping the existing ones. While setting goals it is important to keep in mind to know the visitors or customers you are expecting at your site. You should be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of your changing traffic or visitors.

Online business is both, very easy and very difficult to manage at the same time. Though this is a contradictory statement, it is a reality. You can easily set up an online business to sell a product but bringing customers to your site is a big task and difficult one too!! So instead of gaining money, you are actually losing money because of the monthly rent that you’re paying to have your website hosted in cyberspace. The best way of getting the attention of people is through advertising. There are various methods to market your product online or generate traffic. Some of them are CPA(Cost Per Action) campaigns, PPC(pay per click) campaigns, Private Ads, CPM Ads, Article Marketing, Viral Marketing, Marketing on forums, Word of mouth Advertising, Social Media Marketing or Media Marketing and Referral traffic and SEO. Put together all this refers to website marketing.

Now let us discuss some of them. One of the most easy and effective way to get noticed is Pay per Click campaign or PPC. This is based on keywords or phrases related to the online business and whenever a person types this and searches the net he gets a listing by the search engines which lead to your site. These search engine listings generally appear in a box above the natural listings. Whenever a person clicks on this listing the company or organization pays a certain amount to the search engines. In fact you have to purchase these ‘keywords’ making monthly payments to the search engines. The less known phrases cost less and the more popular keywords are expensive. The trick is to purchase less expensive keywords and use them judiciously and at the same time, smartly.

But the flip side of PPC is that it sends both non-business and business traffic to your website and you end up paying for non-business traffic too. It is also expensive as your competitor may outbid you. So monitoring the PPC listing daily is an important daily schedule. Professionals are hired to take care of PPC campaigns who keep in mind the goals, asset and objectives of the online business in mind while designing such campaigns.

In contrast another website marketing strategy  tries to divert traffic to your website through natural high rankings in search engines. This method is called or Search Engine Optimization and the traffic sent through this method is called organic traffic. It is not free but relatively cheaper than PPC. SEO does not aim at clicking the site link. It is a simpler technique which aims at getting a higher rank in the listing of search engines(Yahoo,MSN,etc.) whenever a person types in a keyword to search his desired result. The experts make sure that your site is compliant with Search Engine Algorithms and no spamming or “black hat techniques” are used to rank your site.

Certain tools are used for SEO such as article posting, forum posting, press releases and blog postings. These send referral traffic to your website. Additionally, search engines help you divert the online traffic to your site. It also helps to establish goodwill for your site and build visibility with other webmasters which helps the sustainability in the long run. You can take it from there and build website strategies such as pay-per-impression or pay-per-action or blogging to monetize the traffic diverted by search engines.

B2B referral traffic consists of the incoming links from businesses which are related to your kind of business. You place their link on your website and they place yours on their site. These businesses are then visited by online surfers or visitors. That brings traffic to your site and vice a versa. So in a way incoming and reciprocal links are form of advertisement of your business on the basis of mutual understanding of businesses.
According to a recent online study, over 50% of Internet users have visited websites through referral traffic. These can be bogs, directories, forums and search engines.

Blogs and forums are compared to communities. You must then invest the time and effort into getting your target audience opt-in to receiving future specials and updates – Newsletters, enzines, new product reviews or free offer etc.-Something for them to come visit your website over and over again. According to one survey 43.2% of online traffic is Direct traffic, 36.1% is through Search engines and 20.7% is through referring sites. Referral traffic is more interactive way to generate traffic to your bog or website.

It pays to apply different strategies and not just simply cost cutting when business hits ‘bad weather’. While SEO may be economical in the long run, PPC generates instant traffic. For a new website referral traffic is hard to come by. Online or offline what is most important in a business is to build a relationship with the people and make them trust you. Once they start trusting you, they will become your loyal customers and talk about you and your service getting you more traffic.

A turnaround in internet strategy is the use of press releases to reach out to millions of users who have internet access and subscribe to RSS feeds.

Gone are the days when press releases depended upon a handful of journalists. You can now communicate with your customers directly through Google, Yahoo and other such verticals. Your customers and potential customers should reda about yourproduct on the internet and reach your website directly.

You can write a press release about anything in your company. Do not wait for something big to happen.

Make sure that your press release contains terms and phrases that customers use to find you. This way you may be picked up by search engines.

Tips for Press Release

• Always write your press release in third person.
• Include a quote or two for authenticity.
• Keep the headlines of your press release interesting.
• Add a date to a press release only if necessary.
• Add a follow-up URL in a press release; if necessary create specific landing pages. Try to track the visits from a press release to your website. It provides a useful insight into your customer behavior and is useful for further press release strategies.
• Keep the press release length at about 350 to 500 words
• Release the press release on your website and for submission simultaneously
• Check for spelling mistakes
• A press release that offers a new solution to an existing problem is likely to be picked up by readers.
• Add social bookmarking tags to your press release, this makes it easier for a person interested in your product refer the product to his or her group. In short, it helps in viral marketing.

Press Release or Media Section on Website

It is helpful to have your own press release or media section on your website. It has been proved that journalists or even customers often visit the media or press release section on your site to try and get latest information about your company and its product. Additionally, press releases will live on your site forever, but will get deleted from other sites, most probably after three months. You media section can also include informative videos and audios that a customer may enjoy seeing.

A word of caution however. DO NOT ignore the traditional media. They have their own role to play especially in attracting local business. Use the internet aprt from the traditional press.

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List of Press Release sites

PRWeb

PR Leap

Web Wire

PR Web Direct

PR News Wire

Fast Pitch Networking

1888 Press Release

Business Wire

PR Log

Free-Press-Release

PR

Market Wire

Majon

24-7 Press Release

Press-Release-Writing

eReleases

Send 2 Press

Pressbox

EMail Wire

Internet News Bureau

Prime News Wire

USA News

EWorld Wire

Press Flash

Soft Press Release

Press Release Network

Mass Media Distribution

News Wire Today

Press-Releases

News Press

Corporate News

Exclamation PR

Company Press

Press Release 365

Trans World News

Free-Press-Release-Center

Rush PR News

DP Directory

PR Free

Exact Release

PR Urgent

PR 9

Mopress

Online PR News

Podcasting is a brand new unsaturated marketing channel based on audio communication at the will of the listener.

What is podcasting?
Podcasting is basically audio over the Internet where people subscribe to listen to content that they deem useful. The best part is that you don’t have to be on a computer to listen to a podcast. It has gone mobile. Listen to it on your iPod. You can listen to what you want, when you want, where you want. And very important: Podcast listenership is doubling and tripling over the months.

Why is it effective?

1. It’s an additional communication tool for your business.
2. It increases your visibility in target markets.
3. Audio communication medium is more powerful than text. This translates into   potential results for your business.
4. Increased internet visibility from the search engines from RSS, blog & podcasting directories.
5. You add an improved level of perceived trust & expertise from your target market. Increased perception of your product, service, brand or value in customers minds
6. Increased mind share from your target audience. People listen to podcasts while doing other tasks online. They can also take you messaging with them on their portable media player such as an iPod.

Requirements for a podcast

• A Microphone
• An audio recording software. These softwares can be can be downloaded free. Download the software and install it on your desktop for easy access  e.g http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

• Podcast Manager & Hosting e.g. http://www.podstrike.com
• A computer
• A webcam/camcorder (if deciding on a video podcast)

How does it work?  The steps

1. Determine the nature of your podcast. What will the content for podcast be? If you cannot speak extempore write down the script. All successful podcasts have a script behind them.
2. Record the audio for your podcast You can download the software at the link for windows. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Garageband has software that comes with a Mac version.
3. Tag it, give it ID information (Artist, Album) and give it an album cover.
4. Save the audio file (in MP3 or iPod format) on your computer. Keep the filenames simple.
5. Create your RSS podcast feed. The feed must meet all industry standards for a valid 2.0 feed with enclosures. Try using a complete solution and free service such as Podblaze or Podomatic (see the external links below). If you are zapped about it all create a blog on http://www.blogger.com. The blog should have the same title as that of your podcast. Don’t make any posts just yet.
6. Now you need to put your RSS podcast feed on the Internet. The best way to do it is to go to http://www.feedburner.com  and type in the URL of your blog and click "I am a podcaster!". In the next screen, configure the elements for your podcast. These are the elements that directly relate to the podcast. .
7. Go to OurMedia.org and sign-up there (this may take a while). Then go to your files, and upload your MP3 file.
8. Make a post on your blog/website – the title of the post will be the title of that episode of the podcast, and the content will end up as the "Shownotes" or "Description". At the end of the post, put a link directly to your media file.
9. Wait a little. In a few minutes, feedburner should add this to your feed, and now you have an episode! You can submit it to iTunes or a number of other podcast directories to get it known. You may want to wait, however, until you have some experience, so that your podcast will be compared as a fifth episode to another’s first.
10. Ping the appropriate podcast directories when a new show is updated.
11. Put the appropriate subscription buttons on your website so people can subscribe to the RSS podcast feed.

(Source: wikiHow)
Podcast Strategy

• Witty, racy script
• Good Audio quality
• Proper format, check for iTunes validity
• Use social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us

• A podcast works well if it has a companion blog. If you are just podcasting
• The bandwidth consumption can be astronomical. Make sure your podcast is hosted with a reliable server that can handle huge bandwidth spikes. Most cheap hosting services will not work for this.

Tools for Podcasting

• http://www.podstrike.com – PodStrike! Podcast Manager and Podcast Hosting (FREE Account Available).
• http://www.podblaze.com – You can do the entire process for podcast creation & RSS feed creation (even for iTunes) at a web based service. Also has high traffic Podcast Directory
• http://blog.podblaze.com – Step by step instructions for recording and everything else required at these 6 podcast specific blogs.
• http://www.podblaze.com/podcasting-business-whitepaper.php – 20 Page Podcasting White Paper Explains All About Podcasting.
• http://www.podcastspot.com – complete podcast hosting service with unmetered bandwidth, unlimited storage, automatic media conversion, and much more!

Recording Software:

• http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ – Audacity recording software for podcasting. Free and open source.
• http://www.Garageband.com  for Macs

Podcast Directory

• http://www.podcastalley.com – Podcast directory.
• http://www.freshpodcasts.com – Podcast ping service.
• AP on Yahoo "Podcasting Easy for Everyone" Story by the Associated Press.
• http://www.feedvalidator.org – Verify that your RSS podcast feed is valid.
• http://www.teenpodcasters.com – A great example of a network, start or join a network such as this.
• http://del.icio.us – A social bookmarking tool with the ability to host podcast feeds.
• http://www.technorati.com – A tagging service that provides additional vibility
• http://blog.leveragedpromotion.com/public/blog/98977 – RSS, Syndication & Podcasting News & Tips Blog.
• http://www.podcastingnews.com  Keep up to date on the latest news from the podcasting world.

• http://www.podcastalley.com Podcast Directory
• http://www.pingomatic.com This pinging service allows you to ping multiple directories all at 1 time. This is not specific to podcasting and is more focused on blogging. It is a great service that is easy to use.

• Podomatic
• http://www.okaytoplay.com – Charts comparing podcast hosting, audio hardware, podcast advertising companies, etc.

Videos are an effective way to get a message across to our clients and yet they are still under used. With the explosion of web 2.0, videos can be supported by most sites and they can be hosted cheaply too.
A vlog is short for videoblog. It is a blog which uses video as the primary content as technically it is linked to within a videoblog post. A vlog is accompanied by supporting text, image, and additional meta data to provide a context for the video. Vlog like Blogs are updated regularly, generally includes personal reflections, comments and often take advantage of RSS for syndication to other web sites and aggregator software (rss readers).

Why Use Videos?

If audio has more impact over text, visual takes it all. Visuals have a cutting edge as far as conversions are concerned. It leads to more personalization hence greater customer involvement.
Some examples of business videos are:

• Showing a demo of a product
• A presentation of services
• A CEO giving a speech
• An explanation of a procedure
• Showing different uses of a product
• Fun videos
• Create interaction
• peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and acquisition

Earlier videos were used sparingly because of bandwidth considerations and the increases of loading time. Moreover content was needed for optimization. However with the introduction of Video Sitemap Protocol optimization of videos has been made possible.  Moreover now there are dedicated media servers to take care of vlogging and podcasting

Requirements:

• A Microphone compatible with your PC
• A Webcam that allows you to record video and save it on your computer hard drive.

OR

• A camcorder
• Video editing software

How does it work?

• Get a microphone: To record a video, you need to have a microphone that is compatible with your computer.
• Get a webcam.: You need to get a webcam that allows you to record video and save it on your computer’s hard drive.
• Take time to Prepare your vlog content: Take some time to think about what you’re going to say or do during your vlog.
• Record your vlog: Turn on your microphone, start your webcam and begin recording. Save the file when you’re done.
• Upload your vlog file to YouTube or Google Video:
• Get the embedding code of your uploaded vlog file. Alternately if your server supports these type of media, upload it to your website.
• Copy the embedding code: Once you upload your vlog file to YouTube or Google Video, copy the embedding code and keep it handy.
•  Create a new blog post: Give it a relevant title and add content to introduce your vlog.
• Paste the embedding code for your vlog file into your new blog post. Using the embedding code you copied earlier for your uploaded vlog file, paste that information into the code of your new blog post.
• Publish your new blog post. Select the publish button in your blogging application to send your new blog post with your vlog in it live online.

Deciding on a video host: Check the following
Check out the other videos on the site. Are they high quality and in good taste, or a little raunchy and inappropriate? Choose a site you feel comfortable about.
Check the File Size Limits: Web video hosting sites have varying limits in the size of the video files they allow you to upload. Generally you’ll have to compress your video before uploading so it meets the file size requirements of the video hosting site. If you have to compress it too much, your video may not look very good by the time it’s playing on the web.
Storage Space Offered:  Is there a limit to how many videos you can upload to your account, or how much storage space you can use?
Uploading Formats: What video formats does the site accept? Most web video hosting sites accept multiple video formats, such as Quicktime, Windows Media, MPEG etc. You can even find sites that allow you to upload directly from your camcorder or cell phone. If this is important to you, make sure that the web video hosting service you choose to use offers these features.
Viewing Formats: What format do the videos on the site play in? Flash is the standard for most web video hosting sites, because it is installed on most computers and plays quickly and easily. However, some sites offer other video formats, in case you want to share your video on a site that doesn’t use Flash, such as iTunes.
Compression Quality: Web video hosting sites will recompress your video before publishing it. Some sites do this better than others.
Video Downloads: Because of copyright issues, many web video hosting sites do not allow users to download copies of the videos on the site. There are some sites though, such as Google Video, that allow users to save copies of videos to their desktop or portable video player.
Editing Capabilities: Many web video hosting sites now offer editing features. JumpCut offers extensive online nonlinear editing, and other sites give you the ability to remix your video or add titles, narration or photos.
Audience: Different sites have different audiences. If your video focuses on a niche topic, choose a web video hosting service that serves that niche, else YouTube.
Video Sharing:  Most web video hosting services allow you to embed your videos in blogs, on personal web pages, and on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
Video Player: Some sites will include advertisements next to the video player, or will place a watermark of their logo over part of your video. This may be fine, but it doesn’t look so professional if you’re sending the video to clients and it has a big “YouTube” logo on it.

Tips

• Decide on the purpose of your video. If it’s to attract traffic to your website, host is there. Else you can go in for third part hosting. like http://www.youtube.com.
• Use keyword rich title for your videos.
• Add a video sitemap on your website. Sign into Google webmasters to create a Video Sitemap
• Get your video transcribed. Either use an automatic transcriber or use an affordable cheap transcription service vendor.
• Keep your video duration around 5 minutes, not more for bandwidth considerations and to keep it effective.
• Add a call to action.

• Test your vlog after publishing to ensure it’s working smoothly.
• Some popular Download-First video formats are AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, and MPEG4. Here are some popular Streaming Video formats: WMV (Windows Media Video), QT (QuickTime), and RealVideo (RM).

Video Editing Software

• iMovie: iMovie comes free with new Macs. iMovie offers many options for editing video and audio, and adding photos, music and narration to your movies.
• Movie Maker: Movie Maker is Window’s free video editing software, which comes installed on new PCs. Use the program to create and share high-quality
• Avid Free DV: Free DV is Avid’s free video editing software, and it works with both Macs and PCs. It’s a stripped down version of Avid’s professional software, and gives users limited video and audio editing capabilities.
• Jump Cut: An online entry, Jump Cut’s free video editing software allows you to cut video, and add audio, photos, effects and titles right on the web.
• Virtual Dub: Virtual Dub offers simple editing capabilities. You can’t get too creative with the software, but you can use it to make simple, clean edits in your video footage. Virtual Dub works with Windows only.

Places to Host Your Vlog

• Free Vlog
• Internet Archive

Some Video Sharing Sites

• YouTube: YouTube is the biggest and best known, and it offers many features if you want to share your video and get it seen by a large audience.
• Revver : Revver is a revenue sharing, as well as video sharing, web site. Ads embedded at the end of videos can earn producers real money.
• Google Video : Google purchased YouTube, but it still maintains its own video sharing and search tools.
• Blip.tv : Use Blip.tv to start your own online television program.
• Jump Cut : Yahoo!’s entry into the world of social video sharing, Jump Cut offers a sleek online video editing tool, as well as all the bells and whistles for uploading and sharing your videos.
• Yahoo! Video: Yahoo! Video has all the features available on other large video-sharing sites. It also gives you the ability to upload a transcript for your video, which makes it easier to find in web searches.
• My Space: If you have a My Space page, you have a forum for easily sharing your videos online.
• Video Egg: Upload your video, share it and, possibly, make money off of it.

A Site Map is an XML file which contains a listing of all URLs and pages on your website. This file is used to inform and direct search engine crawlers so that web pages can be discovered and indexed quickly. It also helps the visitors to your website. It contains the layout of the whole site which helps them to go wherever they want to and get whatever they require. If one may draw an analogy here, a site map helps a visitor of a website to navigate in the same way as the layout map at the beginning of a large national park helps its visitor to navigate in the parka site map is a plain list of all your URLs and nothing else. Just a simple ordered list that tells them by category just what your site contains. It does not involve anything complicated such as java or fold up menus.
One of the major benefits of having a site map is Visual Representation. It is like a navigation tool for people who visit your site. If they get lost, the site map gives them a quick visual reference to how the website is laid out. Some people doubt the usability of the site maps. But data show that at least 7% of the people visiting a particular site take the help of site maps. That means if 1500 people visit your site then at least 100 of them cannot find their way around your site if it does not have a site map. The probability of them returning to your site is negative.

All sites do not need site maps. It is particularly the large and bulky ones who need them. Site maps are particularly helpful when you get into the main and sub navigation menus. Small sites do not need a site map if all the pages are linked in the main navigation. But even for the small sites also it is a good idea.
For creating site maps for Spiders and Visitors different methods are used. In order to be accessed by the spiders, .xml document should be added to your site’s root directory containing links to all site pages. With the .xml site map file in place you must then make it accessible to search engines and reference the site map in your robots.txt file by adding a line for sitemap. Example: sitemap:http//www.xyz.com/sitemap.xml. The .xml file is updated and uploaded frequently, or at least as often as pages are added or removed from your site. Large sites should implement an automated site map update monthly or even weekly or daily.

Designing of a site map consists of putting navigation links and headings. The site map is created just as any other website page. The link to the site map should be included in the primary navigation or the site’s global footer. Visitors should be able to find this link without too much searching. Site map should also be linked from various pages within the site such as Help pages and your custom 404-redirect page. This helps point visitors to the site map as a quick and easy means to find what they need. An Overview paragraph added at the top of the site map page help those visitors who land on this page directly from a search engine or elsewhere. The layout of the site map should present a clear hierarchal structure of your website. Headings and sub-headings should be used properly. Site map primarily use textual links and page should not be cluttered with image or other distractions. Sometimes, if space is available then an additional short description for each link is provided which allows the visitor to better understand where each link will take them. Lastly, the site map should be updated and uploaded frequently. When the pages are added or removed from the site it is essential to update the site map.

Now let us discuss how site maps help in SEO and web marketing. Site maps help web pages to be indexed. The format required by the engines (most common is .xml) is the same format as used in blogs and RSS feeds with several major changes. The search engine spiders are able to access and determine those web pages better which have site maps. Nowadays the XML site map protocol is subscribed by all the four major search engines, namely, Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask. This format has codes which search engines can read and access your web site. Site Map provides the spiders all the URLs and pages to be indexed at one place, which makes it easy for the search engines. At one go the spider has it all. The spiders are not the sharpest tools and need things to be taken down to simple level. Site maps are easier for them to understand and catalog. Engine spiders are not like average browsers and cannot read any other format than xml, which gives them the basics like what URLs and how often it changes. Like any other viewer, the spiders do not want to visit a page again which they already have and the pages which will not change. The scanning of pages requires a lot of time and large amount of data transfer, so it is better to have site maps provided for them than letting them index hundreds of pages which might be identical to what has been scanned before. It is also very important to constantly keep updating the site map of any changes whatsoever on your web page. Once the spiders know where your site map is they will hit there first before scanning any other part of your site. Thus the site map is the best tool for getting the pages of your site indexed properly.

The site maps are very easy to generate and you do not need to be programmer to create one. There are three types of site maps, Outline, Table and List. Outline has pages listed along with deeper pages that are linked off that page. Table has a series of site’s primary page and then the pages lined to those pages. Only pages with sub links have tables generated for them. The last one List type site map has a simple list of pages on the site arranged in depth order. The most popular is outline type.

Web Marketing or Internet Marketing is not only the marketing of products and services over the internet but also refers to the placement of media along different stages of customer engagement cycle through SEM, SEO and e-mail marketing. So, it can be inferred that site maps help in web marketing.

If you are expert in an area and if you have a niche market, forum marketing is suitable for you. This form of marketing is one of the oldest and most subtle forms of indirect marketing. The main purpose of this form of marketing is to establish your expertise, build brand awareness and create visibility.
Forum builds an online community too. However forums are different from social media marketing because SMM is mostly about networking while forums are for problem solving. Here, people ask questions and get answers. It is also a place where animated discussions take place.

There are 2 ways in which you can opt for Forum Marketing:

1. Get a forum on your website: Websites need fresh content and a forum is a great way to attract traffic to your website. Quite a lot of forum software are available for free over the internet.They are popular in 2 versions of software PHP and ASP. In most cases they require a database, available with the web host. They are compatible with MYSQL, Oracle and so on. Most forum software installation process is self explanatory. You can do it yourself if you are adventurous enough! Otherwise contact your web designer. They will do it for a small fee.

   Managing a forum involves a lot of hard work because no user wants to post in an empty forum. So you will have to create discussion threads and topics and categories. Worse forums these days are targets of severe spamming, so increase your security and block automated signing.

2. Join a forum: If you are not interested in getting direct traffic volume to your website, or if you are short of time you can post regularly on reputed forums. There gradually post, post and post and you become a sort of expert and users and readers visit the links to your website.

   Before joining a forum research well. Do a check
   What is the page rank of the forum?
   What is it’s policy of sending a link to your website
   What is the level of expertise of the forum?

Do not join every forum related to your business. We suggest that you join the best 2 or three. Post almost everyday in each forum. Most forums have a rule of 15 to 20 posts before linking to a website. Post frequently and you have a great related traffic to your website.

How Does It Work?

Usually each subject has it’s own forum for example real estate, web design, travel or wine making. A forum like say real estate maybe divided into further categories like say-
Real Estate Forum may be divided into real estate marketing, real estate for sale, real estate lead and so on. ‘Real estate for sale’ may be further subdivided state wise or country wise and so on.
Any new post becomes a thread when it receives replies.

Helpful Hints and Guidelines:

1. Your address should be genuine
2. Mention your website URL.
3. You need to establish your credibility and expertise on a forum, act like an expert.
4. Use your site’s keywords in the forum post title
5. Ideally the post body should contain the keywords in the first 50 words
6. The forum title should mostly be in such a way that it asks opinions from others. For Example

Online Customers: Incorrect
Are Customers Really Online? : Correct

7. The tone should be formal yet conversational
8. At no time should slang words be used, remember you are professional!
9. If your post receives criticism, accept it gracefully and tell your critic why you think you are right. For Example

Cindy, criticism accepted. But, honestly all of Mexico isn’t all that unhygienic as NOT to go for surgery. While there have been a few cases of infection, there have been cases of surgery going the right way too. It’s just a matter of knowing the right doctor and his team. Moreover who says that there are never ever infections in surgeries in the US?

10. Never berate your critic. If your critic is really rude, take the humorous way out
11. NEVER post the wrong answers on a forum.
12. If you are late to respond to a personal or urgent query, apologize.
13. If you are answering back to a particular person, use that person’s forum name.
14. Observe the etiquettes of old members of the forum, follow them.

How Do Forums Help In Marketing?

• They bring traffic volume to a website
• People have to register in a forum, so you get to build a list
• You gain credibility
• You develop a relationship with the forum users
• You upgrade your knowledge base.
• You get a link back to your website

There is a lot of discussion these days of blogs over forums. But forums have 2 distinct advantages.
Firstly they are well categorized. For example a travel forum will be categorized, continent wise, country wise and city wise. Therefore searching for information or posting queries on that forum is easy.
Secondly, forums make sure you are addressing the right people, not general public at large. People who visit the forum are interested in the topic and seek information on it. This addresses the issue of following blind leads.

Forum Marketing will give to traffic but not plenty of traffic as far as numbers is concerned. But yes, experience says that forum traffic to a website results in better conversions.