WorldLight Media : News and Resources

Posted by: Matt Reeder
Web-challenged small business owners, take note. Google unfurled the latest in its long line of freebie services last week, this time offering a so-called “dashboard” aimed squarely at local businesses suffering from a weak online presence and lack of web know-how.

The new service gives business owners a simple, if limited, way to track information about their customers. Drawing on its map and search data, Google produces metrics such as what zip code your customers are coming from and what words they’re searching for to find your business. Owners can use such information to help them make business decisions on, say, where to open up a second store or how to fine-tune the products or services they offer.

Google will likely use the information provided by small business owners to try to sell ads to them, but, still, the service is a novel idea that’s bound to appeal to many small companies, particularly those looking to expand locally.

Signing up for the service at Google’s “Local Business Center” also allows any business with a brick-and-mortar store or office to customize how their company is listed on Google’s search and map services. For example, a mom-and-pop eatery can beef up their listing to include a menu, hours of operation and pictures and video of what’s on offer. A business can also try to attract new customers by hawking printable promotional coupons on their listing.

Of course, for those small businesses looking to grow their online presence in a big way there’s no substitute for having a bona fide website. But for those just coming to grips with the marketing possibilities of the web, Google’s new service could just be the fast, cheap and easy introduction they need.

Google is not the only option. Small businesses willing to shell out a few dollars might try Wordtracker, a service that helps companies identify popular keywords and phrases that can help drive people to their website or listing through internet searches.

For those firms looking for a wider array of data, Webtrends could be the granddaddy of them all (note: Reuters is a client), especially if your company already has a website. The service allows you to track everything from what referrals you are getting from search engines to navigational trends between pages on your site and advertising results.

(Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Lee)

http://blogs.reuters.com/small-business/2009/06/10/google-service-helps-small-businesses/

slimp.net is an adware/spyware fraud scam

I was unable to find information about slimp.net anywhere on the web, so had to write my own post. On a number of occaisions, when I visited my web site, there was evidence that I had been hacked! Somehow, a malicious script was executed which placed an ad banner on my web site for some various pharma-fraud products. (Who else would use malware like slimp.net to sell their products?)

sleazy spam

slimp.net placed a sleazy ad banner on my site.

So, the weird part is, I can’t figure out how they’re doing it. As best as I can tell, it’s either a jQuery hack, or else someone within GOOGLE is doing the hacking! (Because I only see the code when I am using the Google Chrome Browser, and when I am linked from Google Search, logged into my Google Account.) When I view the page source, it looks fine. However, when I use the Google Chrome Inspector, as painful as it is, It shows the code in question:

Is anyone else getting spammed by these cyber-criminals at slimp.net? Please comment below?

It’s important to understand how a user will look at your design, even if they are not even consciously aware of it themselves. We consider this whenever we’re laying out a page for our clients. Eye track studies focus on how the eyes move around a page; what they look at first, second, third; and where their attention is most drawn toward.

Google posted an interesting article about this in their blog today:

Official Google Blog: Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye.

Now that I have had a couple of weeks to try out Chrome, Google’s new Web Browser, I can finally give it a review.

Based on the kind of work I do, the browser is my most useful tool. No other software comes close in terms of hours spent in heavy usage than my trusty web browser. But I also heavily rely on Google Apps, especially Gmail , Google Analytics, Google Calendar, and, well just about all of it. So, I expected that Chrome would be better suited to handle Gmail than Firefox, since both are Google Products. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Forget that fact that there are no handy plugins like BetterGmail2 that I can use with Chrome, let’s just focus on usability: Firefox is more usable, in just about every way. With FF, I can paste pretty much everything into a composed email and it will line up properly. With Chrome, it lacks the intuitive style of FF to know what I want to do… Simple pasting of content copied off the web becomes a chore, rather than a convenience.

Scrolling with my mouse-wheel is another weakness in Chrome, or strength in FF. FF intuitively knows what I want to have happen when I move that thing up and down. With Chrome, I have to add a couple of extra clicks to get the mouse wheel to function the way it should function.

In all fairness, Chrome is in it’ first beta release, and all of these perks have not made it’s way in yet, plausibly, and so I’ll give it another try in version 1.0. For now, thank God for Firefox!

Google is launching a new web browser, available now in Beta version, known as “Chrome“.   While in my line of work, my web browser is by far the most commonly used tool in my repertoire, I am curious to see how Chrome compares to Firefox. I already use just about all of Google’s products. A browser is a smart move for them, giving them total control of the software in which all of their apps are viewed, rather than relying on Firefox or IE to adhere to standards. This way, they can dictate the standards, and tailor their apps accordingly.

Read the Official Google Blog here

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

For many small companies who delve into the exciting new level of business that can only be obtained by getting a website, often times they don’t understand “why” they need a new website. The good news is, they do understand that they need a new website, so understanding “why” is of minor importance. Many business owners need a website to serve as a glorified, modernized version of what the yellow-pages once were, an easily accessible way to find your contact information. Increasingly so, yellow-pages are becoming obsolete due to the benefits of a website over a static yellow-page ad. (When was the last time you used your yellow-pages, versus simply searching for the information online instead?) Other businesses have more complex needs, such as the need to sell products on line, or the need to establish their brand in interactive ways, and so they need a website to perform these functions.

If you build it, will they come?

A common misconception among business owners is that simply building a website is enough. As I tell all of my clients, it is emphatically not enough. You must have a website, granted, but you must also drive traffic to that website. A website without a marketing strategy designed to bring visitors to your website is essentially worthless.

Getting Traffic

Now, there are many ways you can bring traffic to your website:

• Do it yourself - via word of mouth, you directly tell a prospective customer of yours to visit yoursite.com
• Print it on your marketing materials - Business cards, brochures, etc., can all be used in conjunction with your other marketing strategies to drive more traffic to your website.
• Online Marketing campaigns - Ads (text ads, banner ads, content ads) can be used to drive traffic to your site from other pages where visitors might be looking for products and services similar to what you offer.
• Google Adwords (Pay Per Click) – These ads target users where it counts, on the search engine pages. If a user searches for a keyword that matches your ad, then a link to your website will come up, often in the first page of results.

Now, these methods are for those who want a pro-active approach to actually drive traffic to their sites. But what about a more passive approach?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is a method of optimizing your web pages so that your site will come up higher in the list of “organic” results. Organic results are more attractive to searchers than paid search results. You need to make sure your website is optimized so that people can find your website amid the billions of others out there. Relying solely on SEO is not an effective web marketing strategy, in and of itself, but it is imperative that SEO techniques are incorporated into your web marketing activities.

How many visitors do I need to be successful?

This question is commonly asked by businesses. The truthful answer is, “it depends”. Some sites I have built need only 10 visits per day to be effective. These 10 visitors were driven to the site by the business owner via word of mouth. They would check out the site, get more information, and decided to engage with my client in business. This same client tried much more broad-reaching strategies, and found that the increase in clients only succeeded in wasting his time, because of his unique selling proposition.

Depending on factors such as local competition, Internet competition, and factors unique to your product, service and business model, your web strategy needs to be custom designed for your needs. It’s a fairly complicated process that should be entrusted into the hands of a competent professional.

WorldLight Media would love to help you create your web marketing strategy. Contact us today via our contact form, or at (360) 547 – 1177. Of course, as we’ve already established, the first step is to get a website, which, incidentally, we would love to help you out with that as well!