Email was amazingly fast when it was new. Instant messaging was even faster. Instant became more powerful with Twitter — you can send messages to an unlimited number of people at once, and those people can receive your messages a variety of ways. A rotating quote on the Twitter.com home page describes Twitter as "the telegraph system of Web 2.0."

What is Twitter?

Twitter is described at the Twitter site as a microblog. It's that and a blog on steroids at the same time. Instead of writing a blog post (or in addition to writing one), you type and send a short message of up to 140 characters via the Twitter site, your mobile phone, an instant messaging program, or a third party application. The message goes out to cyberspace instantly and to people who are subscribed to your feed. Or in Twitter language, your followers (people who receive your Twitter updates) can read your tweets as soon as you send them — via mobile phone, IM, RSS feeds, and the Twitter website.

Unlike blog posts, you can specify who receives your twitters, and you can send private messages to individuals in your network. You can also track specified words and be updated via mobile phone or IM whenever a word you're tracking is used. (Web updates are reportedly coming soon.)

Who twitters?

People who want to tell their followers that they just had lunch or are on their way somewhere twitter. Friends and family members twitter to stay in touch. Some people use Twitter to share something interesting that they came across or to give their opinions about recent events. Adults twitter. Kids twitter. Unfortunately, spammers also twitter (but if you don't follow them, their spam won't reach you).

Twitter isn't only for casual conversation and tidbits. Barack Obama uses Twitter to announce events he's attending and updates to his website. CNN uses Twitter to announce breaking news. A conference organizer posts deadlines and updates via Twitter and used Twitter to announce that three followers would be randomly chosen to win conference passes.

The growth of Twitter

Twitter has been experiencing growing pains. Recently the Reply feature had to be turned off temporarily in an attempt to keep Twitter working during high load times. While this article was being researched, a "Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again" message appeared several times at the Twitter site. But those who thought that Twitter wouldn't last appear to be wrong. As with blogs, Twitter has continued to grow in popularity and usage. According to a May 2008 report, nearly 1.2 million people per month had signed up with Twitter in the past three months. Twenty-four percent of users are classified as heavy users, and traffic is much higher on weekdays than on weekends.

Twitter as a networking tool

Twitter allows users to follow other people for short periods of time or indefinitely. It can help users build relationships and develop new ones. You can learn more about people in your network by following them via Twitter, and you'll have more to talk about with them. When you're looking for someone for a particular task or job, you'll be better able to decide whether you want to work with them.

Some ways to network with Twitter:

Publish tips and interesting bits of information related to your area of expertise. You'll develop more followers and build a reputation as an authority in your niche.

At events, update followers with schedule changes, your whereabouts, brief reviews, and tips on what to avoid and what not to miss. Give out your Twitter username to people you meet at events, and if you follow each other, you'll have added to your network.

When you have a good number of followers, ask questions via Twitter about how to solve a specific problem or to find out who has information about a topic. Chances are that someone will know the answer, and the interaction will help build relationships.

Search Twitter conversations via Summize.com for topics that interest you, and start following people whose tweets are about your interests. Add a lot at first and then reduce the list to those whose tweets are most worth following to you. Some of them may start following you as well.

Twitter as a marketing tool

Twitter can be useful as a marketing tool to be used with other marketing methods. Because people have to choose to follow you and can stop following you at any time, it's a form of permission-based marketing.

Examples of uses for Twitter as a marketing tool:

* To summarize and link to new blog entries, newsletter issues, and other updates to your website
* To announce sales and other time-limited offers
* To introduce new products or services
* To publish news about your area of focus, especially breaking news
* To share bits of knowledge that are useful to your followers and that help establish you as an authority in your field
* To initiate conversations with your followers

Publish your Twitter username at your website and on your business cards, and keep your tweets with your Twitter business account professional.

Related blog articles

* How to Become a Known Niche Authority
* Newsletter or Blog? Have Both!
* How to Market Your Brand via Social Media Websites

Website Reputation Management: You ARE What People Believe

Reputation Management Explained by Web Hosting Provider

In the 3-D world, reputation management is fairly simple. The store is pristine. The warehouse runs like a Swiss watch. You’re company sponsors community activities and even a sports team. In the real world, it’s easy to establish a quality reputation as a good corporate citizen within your service region.

Not so on the web. On the web, your reputation is determined by some of the same factors as 3-D, but, because information about your store, company or NFP is out there for all to see - web hosting provider explains. Additional considerations should be made to build a quality reputation FAST. On line, you are what people believe.

Your Website

You don’t need to spend a bucket of bucks to have a professional design your site. You can do it yourself using template-based software and, if part of what you’re selling is style and design, chances are you’ll design the perfect look for the image you want to project.

Things to keep in mind:

Navigation – simple, self-explanatory and consistent.

Content Architecture – Use informational content to create both need and solution. Keep this informational content separate from your site sales copy.

Accessibility – The more clicks it takes for a visitor to find the product, service or information s/he’s looking for, the fewer prospects will actually get through to the “Contact Us” page. You know, the one you want people to complete. Keep it simple. The best way to do this is to develop drop-down or fly-out sub-menus.

Transparency – Nobody likes to be scammed. No one likes to discover that they’ve “signed up” for a year-long, $169 course when they downloaded a free booklet, i.e. opted in.  Prices, S&H, return policy – everything the prospect needs to know should be right out there in the front. No tricks, gimmicks or bait-and-switch games.

Website Interaction – Site visitors enjoy interacting with a site. For example, a mortgage calculator on a realtor website provides ample opportunity to play with the numbers. On certain SEO blogs, you’ll find valuable free tools to develop some good metrics on your site.

Currency – If it’s yesterday’s news it’s old news. Keep your site green with a blog that generates threads (user-generated greenery), use RSS feeds to deliver the latest news in your site’s area of topicality and add new content yourself. You’re the expert. Don’t just sell products or services, sell what you know.

Search Engine Reputation

If you don’t think a bad reputation with search engines can hurt you, check the crash-and-burn wrecks that line the breakdown lane of the Information Superhighway. You can so easily get slammed, sanctioned and even banned from Google, Yahoo, Inktomi and other key search engines – without even trying.

Some suggestions.

Keep it clean. Search engine bots are more sophisticated than ever. They can easily detect invisible text, re-directs, paid in-bound links and other ‘tricks of the black arts’ – SEO. Don’t spend time trying to subvert a search engine. Instead, use the search engine ranking factors to improve traffic and PR.

Visit Google's Webmaster Central often to check your site’s analytics. Who’s stopping by, where did they come from, where did they go – this is the kind of information that’ll equip you to do some site tweaks to improve your site in the eyes of the next Googlebot.

Avoid using hosting providers that host garbage sites – porn sites, drug sites and other web trash. Go with a reputable web host and, yes, this is a question you should ask before you sign a 12-month hosting contract with no 30-day money back guarantee. You’re stuck.

Make your site search engine friendly by providing a site map and lots of embedded text links spiders can follow to index your entire site with pinpoint accuracy. All of this will take place below the site’s skin in the HTML code itself.

Encourage links swaps with sites that are related to the topicality of your site only! If possible, link with higher ranking, relevant sites. These top-performing sites pull your site up by its boot straps.

Avoid once-common practices such as keyword stuffing of site text or <keyword> HTML tags. There are a number of practices that, while not illegal (black hat), do fall into the gray hat category.

Go with a reputable host with a 99.9% uptime. The number one negative ranking factor in Google’s search engine algorithm is inability to access site. That means either the server was down or the spider was unable to crawl pages that are tagged as indexable. It can take months to recover if a bot sidles by when your host server is blowing smoke out its CPU. How many months could your on-line business survive with that kind of punch to the mid-section?

Finally, you can fool a bot some of the time but you can’t fool all bots all of the time. If you employ gray hat tactics or black hat tactics, at some point you will be caught, you will be sanctioned (lose of hard-earned PR, e.g.) or banned from the search engine altogether. Oh yeah, real good for your digitally-based business. It’s death sentence, start over, do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 situation. Not worth it.

Client Reputation

There simply is no better salesperson for your business than a satisfied customer. Think about it. How much of your client or customer base found you through a referral from a trusted source? If you’re good at what you do or sell, more than 50% of your current business should either be repeat or referral clients.

It’s this simple. Happy clients will spread the good word. Unhappy clients will taint your site at every turn.

Some suggestions for keeping website visitors happy:

Provide accurate information in your HTML <description tag>. This is the information that appears on search engine result pages under the search engine link. Sell yourself a little.

Provide good, unbiased information about your products or expertise. This establishes trust, essential to client reputation management.

Post your terms where they can be accessed easily. You don’t have to lay it all out on the home page or other interior pages but there should be a tab that takes visitors to your statement of terms (SOT). No fine print. Everything – from delivery schedules to restocking fees in big type. That’s transparency.

Use Client Management software. This software tracks order status. More sophisticated programs warn of downstream problems so the site owner reacts quickly before the problem actually materializes.

Stay involved. Monitor projects and keep them on schedule. Do not be late or miss project milestones. This is like instant death.

Lose money. That’s right. Even if you lose money on a client or customer, that one individual can bad mouth you globally today. Check out Angieslist.com if you don’t believe it. You may lose some cash up front but, again, a happy client is your best salesperson – and they’re FREE. Sweet.

Employ the highest levels of security software and let your site visitors know that you respect their privacy and the security of their personal information. Trust-building is the foundation of a long business relationship.

Finally, under-promise; over deliver. Works every time.

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How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart

Web Hosting Provider Explains Shopping Cart Tips

A good shopping cart is essential to the function of an e-commerce site - let your web hosting provider explain. Between free shopping carts, commercial shopping carts, and custom shopping cart solutions, how do you identify the best online shopping cart for your website?

Start with your web host

Chances are that your web host offers one or more shopping cart scripts. Those scripts will work on the server that your site is on, they'll probably be easy to install, and your web host will be able to provide help with them.

Evaluate your needs

Make a list of features that you require for your shopping cart, for example, advanced product search, search-engine-friendly URLs, ease of installation, or multiple tax support. Include website-specific requirements, such as supported programming languages. Separate what's essential for you from what's simply desirable, and eliminate any shopping carts from your list that don't have those must-have features.

Not sure of what you need? Look at your competitors' shopping carts. After all, they're what your potential customers see if they're shopping around. What features do your competitors' shopping carts have that aid in product presentation and streamline the ordering process? What shopping cart features do you not like?

For a small e-commerce site, you don't need every available shopping cart feature. A full-featured, commercial shopping cart is probably a waste of time and money for an e-commerce site that sells only a few products. It will take longer to install and customize, and unused features can get in the way. On the other hand, a free shopping cart may not be robust enough for an e-commerce site with hundreds of products and inventory in different locations. Money spent on installing and customizing a commercial shopping cart will reap more rewards for a large e-commerce site.

Evaluate your customers' needs

While you're checking out your competitors' shopping carts, think about the shopping cart features that your customers would and wouldn't like. Does the shopping cart software make it easy for customers to add or remove items at any time? Can customers view the shipping and handling costs for items in the cart? Does the shopping cart allow multiple shipping options and payment in multiple currencies? If customers have to work harder to place orders at your site and have fewer options when they do, you aren't going to look as good as the competition.

If you already have a shopping cart and are looking for a new one, consider the reasons for shopping cart abandonment. If any of those reasons are connected to the shopping cart, such as requiring customers to fill in too much information, be sure that the next shopping cart will allow you to fix those problems.

Evaluate shopping cart reviews

User reviews are useful as long as you know that they're genuine and the reviewers' criteria are similar to yours. Searches for shopping cart reviews or [shopping cart name] reviews produce links to online reviews. Note whether what the reviewers like or dislike is relevant to your needs and how many reviewers mention the same points.

Evaluate the shopping carts

When you've made a shortlist and are visiting shopping cart websites, head first to the list of system requirements. If those requirements don't fit with what your web host offers, it's time to move to the next shopping cart website.

Try out demos at the shopping cart websites both via the storefront (what site visitors see) and via the admin control panel. Set up one of your products to view how it could be ordered using the shopping cart. Play with the other configuration settings as well. (Demos are meant to be played with.)

So far, so good? Keep going. Look for a list of sites that use that shopping cart, and observe how well the shopping cart integrates with those sites.

Evaluate the shopping cart support

Availability and quality of support count, especially if you're looking at commercial shopping carts. Is the user guide easy to follow? Can you get tech support when you need it? If there's a forum where you can ask other users of that shopping cart for help, look at how the questions are answered. Even the best shopping cart isn't of much use unless you can get help with it when you need help.

Related blog articles

• On the Way to Checkout
• SSO: Store Site Optimization — Why Aren't They Buying?
• Meaningful Statistical Analysis and Improved ROI
• How To Keep Buyers From Going to the Store
• Customer Retention: How to Keep Customers

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HTML Description Tags: Do You Use Them to Best Advantage?

Description Tags Explained by Web Hosting Provider

Let’s start at the beginning. A conversion is a sale. You, the web site owner, convert a visitor to a buyer. Point one.

Point two: Conversion rate or conversion ratio (same difference) are measures of the percentage of total visitors who actually make a purchase, opt in, request sales information of perform some other desired action from the total pool of visitors who reach your site.

The whole objective of a website is to convert and site owners spend hours and days tweaking their sites to optimize for conversion - web hosting provider explains. But are they using all of the conversion opportunities available to them. Many aren’t.

Your First Chance to Convert is the Search Engine Results Page

A lot of marketers believe that the first chance to convert is the access page the visitor reaches via SERPs or links. Not true. If there’s a link on the SERPs to your site,  and the search engine user didn’t click on it, you didn’t convert. Heck, the visitor never even saw your site.

There are a couple of suggestions for improving SERPs conversion, i.e. getting more people to click on your organic links. One is your site’s HTML <description> tag. This tag is part of a site’s Meta data and usually appears between the <Head> tag and the </Head> tag, though the actual placement is less important than what the tag contains.

The HTML syntax for creating a Meta description tag is:

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT= “A great site to learn all about the fine art of beading. Beads from around the world.”>

Why the sales pitch? Because the content in your description tag is what appears below the SERPs link on Google, Yahoo or other search engines. Now, you’ll see some web owners stuff these description tags with keywords. Which link would you click on?

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT= “A great site to learn all about the fine art of beading. Beads from around the world.”>

Or

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT= “beads, bead, beading, beading supplies, beading materials, beading hobby, beading store.”>

Stuffing description tags doesn’t make a sale. In fact, most smart web shoppers avoid these links because of the gibberish contained below the SERPs link.

The Real Functions of Description Tags…

…and how to use them to best advantage.

There’s disagreement within the SEO ranks on everything. Part of it is due to a lack of reliable science. Sure you can test, but the rules of the game change every time Google tweaks its SERPs.

One point SEOs disagree on is whether search engines give any credence to the content of description tags. In an excellent, un-cited post on HighRankings.com, the writer states:

“I used to believe that the purpose of the Meta description tag was twofold: to help the page rank highly for the words that were contained within it, as well as to provide a nice description in the search engine results pages (SERPs). However, today it appears that, similar to the Meta keywords tag, the information you place in this tag is *not* given any weight in the ranking algorithms of Google, and only a tiny amount of weight in Yahoo's.”

Conversely,  Danny Sullivan posts on Search Engine Watch:

“The meta description tag allows you to influence the description of your page in the crawlers that support the tag…”

Two SEO professionals with polar views. And, if you want to take the time, you can find divergent opinions on virtually every SEO topic, despite the desire of many SEOs to create a science out of something as amorphous as search engine optimization.

However, the point isn’t which SEO is right and which is wrong. The point is that there is little hard science to back up any aspect of SEO. The best way to determine the effectiveness of description tags is to conduct simple, single-variable testing that will deliver empirical results – irrefutable metrics. Something you can rely on.

Simple A/B Testing

While the focus of this post is description tags, the application of A/B testing is useful in determining which tactics and strategies work and which don’t. There are means for multi-variant testing in which several variables are changed, but if you’re just starting out and metrics analysis isn’t all the fun you thought it would be, stick with single-variant, A/B tests on any changes to your web site. You’ll get understandable, utile results and you’ll get them quickly.

Start by using a couple of top tier keywords in your description tag. These will be highlighted on the SERPs pages as a direct hit. However, avoid description tag stuffing. Bots don’t much care for any kind of keyword stuffing because it dilutes the relevance and usefulness of the SERPs. Still, you see lots of site owners who use their description tag to stuff with keywords. (See beading examples above.)

There’s Bot Territory and Human Territory

Bots crawl the HTML or XML code used to create a web site. It’s all letter strings to these data collector agents. This is where search optimization (designed for search engine bots as the name suggests) takes place. Below anything that will be seen by a human.

Humans only see the description tag on SERPs – but they do see it. Yes, the SERPs were machine generated, but a human is looking over those links now. An attractive, two-line description and welcome will draw many more site visitors than a tag filled with keywords.

Want proof? Don’t take my word for it. A/B test it.

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Your Online Reputation

Your Business Reputation Explained by Web Hosting Provider

If you run a store in your hometown, locals know about you or your business. They may know the quality of your products, your level of customer service, and your return policy. They've learned about you from experience and from word of mouth.

You've worked hard to build your reputation. People choose you — or don't choose you — based on what they know. Online, some of the ways that you build your reputation and that people find out about it are different, but the effects are the same. If you run an e-commerce site, you gain, keep, and lose customers in part because of your reputation - web hosting provider explains.

Online and offline reputations

A good business reputation is important online and offline. A few key differences between online and offline reputations:

• Not everyone who shops at bricks-and-mortar stores has Internet access or researches online before shopping offline.
• Reputations are easier to share and read about online. Consumers often have the opportunity to rate their providers, and reviews are posted at review sites, in forums, and in blogs. Enter a company name into a search engine, and chances are that comments that help build or destroy reputations will appear in the search results.
• Offline, consumers may give negative feedback about a company less weight when a positive experience or story overrides it for them. Online, records of customer experiences can stay there forever. What's more, if the review, post, or page isn't dated, readers won't know if the experience was three months ago or three years ago.
• Consumers tend to be more careful online than when shopping in person. If they order something at a local department store and it isn't delivered, they know how to find recourse. Buying online, on the other hand, is generally perceived to be riskier. Trust and reputation thus gain more importance.

Reputation factors

There is no one set of criteria for what people look for in an online reputation. In feedback for eBay sellers, for example, typical comments are "shipped quickly," "easy transaction," and "product as described." Consumers making large purchases or planning to do ongoing business with a company may look for other company qualities, such as social and environmental responsibility. While quality products and service are on most people's lists, in some situations, pricing may be more important. But everyone wants to know that the company will meet their needs.

How to build a good online reputation

Start fresh

If someone else owned the company or domain before you, make it public knowledge that the company is under new ownership. Introduce yourself at your site, send out press releases, and let current customers know of the ownership change.

These steps are particularly important if the company or domain had a bad reputation in the past. People who read complaints about the company online need to be able to separate those complaints from you.

Create a good first impression

Each initial contact you make, via direct contact or via your website, creates a first impression.

• Keep your website current and professional-looking. Be sure that it loads fast, doesn't have any errors, and is easy to navigate. Keep in mind that every page is a potential landing page.
• Include your full name, mailing address, and phone number in your contact information along with your email address or a contact form. Provide some background information about yourself and possibly your employees.
• Publish customer testimonials with URLs or other contact information to give them credibility.
• Always be polite, and train your staff on being polite in every situation.

Provide excellent customer service

Treat all of your customers as though they'll be posting a review of your services afterwards. Be personable, be helpful, provide prompt and friendly service, go the extra step whenever you can, work as a team, and strive for excellence overall.

Share your knowledge

You can build your online reputation by sharing what you know. Write informative articles in your niche area and get them published at relevant sites with your name and a link back to your site. Take part in forums, wikis, and blogs, where you can have a profile page and perhaps a signature with a link to your site. Use your full name and your company name in your profile and signature.

Aim for quality over quantity, and don't post just to get your name online. Fluff posts will harm your reputation instead. When your contributions are relevant, thought-out, detailed, and helpful, you'll become known for your knowledge and areas of service.

Help people remember you

Opt-in newsletters are good. So are blogs, autoresponders, and press releases. Work to keep your name in the minds of your customers if they choose to use the communication methods that you offer.

Do damage control

Problems happen. Having a solid online reputation can help cushion their effects, as will how you respond to those problems. If you or someone in your company made a mistake, take responsibility, and rectify the situation to the extent that you can. A refund, a partial refund, or credit toward another purchase will help alleviate any bad feelings caused by the problem.

Everyone makes mistakes. How you respond afterwards makes or breaks your reputation.

Track and manage your reputation

Reputation management has sprung up as an online industry. You can hire a reputation management firm, or you can use Google alerts to be emailed whenever your company name is published online. When you know about complaints or praises, you can respond to them.

Related blog articles

• Maintain and Manage Your Online Reputation
• Bad Web Press: Can It Be Fixed?
• How to Become a Known Niche Authority
• Using Client Testimonials
• Customer Service Online
• How Do Your Landing Pages Work?
• What Are Landing Pages and Why Are They Important?
• Branding Your Website

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