Posts Tagged ‘web’

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New York Times struggles to stay afloat

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I read a Bloomberg article that said the New York Times is facing a large drop in revenue and is trying to cut back on its expenses to stay in business. The article is entitled, “New York Times Sees Further Ad Drop After Loss Widens.”

Tiger staying afloat in water

The New York Times is learning the hard way that ecommerce and online media are changing the way people gather information and the way marketers advertise their products to customers. They’re trying to stay afloat by cutting jobs, reducing their staff’s salaries and selling property and other assets to try to make up for lost advertising revenue.

All of this is prolonging the inevitable. Old media will have to adapt to changing conditions or go the way of the railroad.

For better or worse, Facebook, Twitter and other social-media sites are revolutionizing communication and information distribution. Marketers are shifting their advertising dollars online because it is much more cost-efficient to do so. Print faces serious challenges because of this.

One quote in the Bloomberg article stuck out to me above all the others. Thyra Zerhusen, managing director of Optimum Investment Advisors, said the New York Times has “to do a better job monetizing their online revenues.”

This seems to be a common theme for companies looking to make a profit online. Online marketers save money by hosting a website instead of renting space at a mall, but they need to understand doing business online is a big change from the old way of doing business and it requires different approaches to earning a profit.

I recommend going to Magellan Commerce’s redesigned website to find resources that can help you succeed online. These include search engine optimization, website design, and more.

You can also go to other eHarbor, Inc. affiliates: Submit Solution and Real Estate Promoter.

The photo of the tiger staying afloat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of fPat.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media, eHarbor | 5 Comments »

Facebook’s growing pains could transform social media

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Facebook is one of the highest-profile members of the social-media revolution that took hold of the Internet four years ago. One question on many people’s minds is: Is Facebook on the verge of becoming profitable and going public? That might be a giant step for the social-media industry.

Man with a book for a face

I read about Facebook’s amazing growth and current struggles in a Fortune magazine article, entitled “Is Facebook losing its glow?” The article points out a lot of interesting statistics about the company, such as:

- 850 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day.

- 8 million videos are uploaded to Facebook every day.

- 70 percent of Facebook’s users are outside the United States.

- Facebook’s revenue in 2008 totaled $280 million.

Those are impressive numbers. And to think that in 2004 hardly anyone had ever heard of Facebook. Or Twitter, MySpace or YouTube, for that matter. Clearly, these websites are doing something right to become so successful, and people around the world want to be a part of them.

But Facebook has yet to make a profit because it relies mainly on advertising for its revenue. And online advertising is cheap, as any newspaper or other traditional media provider will tell you. I’m not sure how social-media sites will earn a profit without eventually charging their customers a fee for some services.

Online consumer spending is expected to increase in the next several years, and a growing number of marketers are climbing onto the ecommerce bandwagon. Maybe social-media sites can take advantage of this trend, too.

But they might lose a large number of current and potential subscribers. Facebook bases its whole business model on generating new customers, so it might be difficult for it to transition to developing the quality of its customers instead of quantity.

Speaking of social media and marketing, on April 14, 2009, I attended Hubspot’s largest Webinar ever, which was called “How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers.” Brent Leary, co-founder and partner of CRM Essentials, led this awesome presentation. I hope to discuss the lessons I learned at this Webinar in a future blog entry.

I just can’t help pointing out that the Fortune article had several obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. I pointed out mistakes in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, so I think it’s fair to do the same in Fortune magazine.

- Most of that came directly from banner ads, and a substantial chunk was still coming from a deal with Microsoft in which the Internet behemoth sold traditional banner ads, which cost as little as $0.15 cents per one thousand ads shown to users.
This is a common mistake. $0.15 cents is equal to $.0015. When people say this they usually mean $0.15 or 15 cents, not both.

- In 2008, the company brought in an estimated $280 milion.
In Spanish, this would be the correct spelling of “million,” but not in English.

- More than 131,000 users became a fan of the national pizza franchise saw traffic to its site jump 253%.
This is a clear case of rewriting a sentence and forgetting to make it fit together properly.

I have another really cool thing to share from this article, but I’ll save that for another blog entry. Be sure to check the eHarbor Blog to stay posted on good news in the world of ecommerce, search engine optimization and other topics like these. You can also follow us on Twitter.

You can take advantage of SEO tactics and succeed in the world of ecommerce with the help of eHarbor and its affiliates, which include Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution.

The photo of the “facebook” is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of _Max-B.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 7 Comments »

Does Internet’s rise mean news media’s demise?

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The Internet has changed the way we do a lot of things. Ecommerce is changing the way we shop for goods and services. Online marketing is proving more popular to advertisers than other forms of media, especially in the current recession.

Old Dallas Times Herald sign

For better or worse, the Internet is changing the news media, as well.

It’s not easy being in the news business. They work hard to analyze stories and write up accurate and up-to-date information, only to have their work quickly summarized and modified for blogs, sometimes with little credit to the original author. There are even a few bloggers who point out all of the misspellings and bad grammar in otherwise good articles.

Often, bloggers practice fair use of copyrighted content by using only a small portion of an article and building their own ideas off of it. I did that with the story on consumers touching products.

Whenever I include an image, which is the property of someone else, I make sure to give credit where credit is due. You might notice my attribution at the bottom of almost every blog entry. I’ve done that from the very beginning.

We appear to be in an age when people like to think of information as free. That can be a good thing, but it can also lead to a lack of credible information in the long term, as news writers lose incentives to generate well-researched stories in the first place.

What inspired me to write about this topic is an article in Ars Technica, called “The newspaper industry’s attack on Google misses the point.” Fascinating read, by the way. I recommend it.

I thought this was an important topic to spend time discussing here in the eHarbor Blog. I hope to keep share more positive stories soon on eHarbor, Inc. and its affiliates: Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution.

The photo of the dilapidated Dallas Times Herald sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of adonis paul hunter / ahptical.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 6 Comments »

Flaw in ecommerce: Can’t touch this!

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Can’t touch this. No, not the M.C. Hammer song – actually, I’m referring to a flaw in the format of ecommerce. I recently read a Time Magazine article, entitled “Want to Save Some Money? Shop Without Touching.” In that article, they talk about a remarkable study from UCLA and the University of Wisconsin that shows that consumers who touch a product are much more likely to purchase the product and even want to pay more for it than if they don’t touch it.

Statue of panther with Don't Touch Me sign

“When you touch something, you instantly feel more of a connection to it,” said Suzanne Shu, who teaches at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and co-wrote the study. “That connection stirs up an emotional reaction – ‘yeah, I like the feel of it, this can be mine.’ And that emotion can cause you to buy something you never would have bought if you hadn’t touched it.” This quote is from the Time article.

How interesting. The Time article focuses on consumers, saying that they can potentially save money by keeping their hands to themselves at stores. While that is a good idea, and I intend to follow that advice, I think the results can send a completely different message to ecommerce marketers.

To me, this article brings up the problem that ecommerce is, by definition, online shopping. And the Internet is different than a mall. Therefore, online consumers, who are unable to touch products they see on websites, might be less able to connect with products and won’t necessarily be as interested in buying them. It’s much easier to shop around for the best deal online, also. It’s a competitive market online.

It is essential to get your name out there as much as possible while the recession continues and since you face this slight disadvantage. Even though potential customers can’t touch the products on your website, they can be impressed by your professional presentation, high placement on Google and other search engines, and the great content on your site that attracted them in the first place.

Ecommerce sales continue to grow, despite the recession, even while sales slow in traditional retail stores. Clearly, consumers are interested in shopping online, and the ability to touch products isn’t the most important part of the buying process.

If you would like to have a quality website, and utilize search engine optimization in your efforts to gain customers online, be sure to check out eHarbor, Inc.’s services.

You might also want to check out Magellan Commerce, which recently launched a redesign of its website. Other eHarbor affiliates include Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution.

The photo of the Don’t Touch Me sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of F.S.M.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 6 Comments »

The world still hasn’t ended

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

So far, it appears the Conficker C virus is not doing much damage, as many had predicted it would. The Washington Post published a satiric blog post on April 1, entitled “Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In,” describing all of the damage being done by the virus. Then, at the end, the author included a note saying, “Just kidding - April fools!”

Cat and dog sitting together

This keeps happening: the Cold War, Comet Hale-Bopp, Y2K – all of these events were supposed to bring about the end of the world, or at least a fundamental change in it. But they failed to live up to expectations. The world hardly changed at all as a result of these events. Yes, I know the Soviet Union fell apart at the end of the Cold War, and that was a pretty big change. But look at Russia today and you’ll see they haven’t really changed that much. President Obama just met with the Russian president to talk about nuclear disarmament. Sound familiar?

Pranks like Conficker C, which don’t deliver on their promises, might actually do a great deal of damage by leading people to lower their guard or simply not care about actual crises that come later on. I never try to fake people out so I can laugh at them and say, “Made you look!” because that damages credibility and makes people constantly on edge and less eager to trust others. That’s not what I want.

This discussion reminds me: Last week, eHarbor, Inc. treated its employees to a showing of the movie “Knowing.” The movie had a lot of good moments, and I especially enjoyed it because the filmmakers actually had the courage to *SPOILER ALERT* blow up the world. No sugarcoating, no simple solution, no endless number of countdowns to avert destruction, like in “Armageddon” (a movie that utterly failed to live up to its title) – just the whole world on fire. Now that’s a way to deliver on catastrophic promises.

Mind you, I don’t want the world to be destroyed and, after seeing the movie “Knowing”, I felt a little depressed. But I do like seeing promises fulfilled when someone bothers to make them. Heck, even “Back to the Future Part II” promised the universe, or at least our galaxy, would be destroyed by a time paradox – but that didn’t really happen. All I’m saying is I hope someday people who promise something earth-shattering will actually follow through with it. Until then, I won’t hold my breath.

By the way, eHarbor and its affiliates (Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution) have good news on the horizon that I can’t wait to discuss. We’re growing a lot and we hope to share the positive ecommerce news soon as new products are released and updates are added to our websites.

The photo of the cat and dog sitting together is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of MïK.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Movies | 2 Comments »

Protect your computer from April fools’ day virus

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I’ve never been a big fan of April fools’ day. Trying to make people look like fools for trusting what other people say isn’t a good way to build trust or add anything positive to the world. I much prefer helping people smile, rather than laughing at their mistakes. With this in mind, I would like to warn my fellow ecommerce enthusiasts about a potentially damaging computer virus set to strike on April 1, 2009.

Watch Out buttonI promised I would talk about the Conficker C virus in my last blog entry. I’m sorry to talk about such a depressing topic, but I hope talking about it will be helpful to you. I am indebted to the Yahoo Tech News Blog for their informative blog entry on this topic.

I first heard about this virus in late 2008 at the Brigham Young University library, where they had messages on computer desktops warning of the danger of transmitting a virulent worm via USB drives. An earlier version of Conficker was already spreading by tricking computer users into installing it onto a computer when the AutoRun message comes up after plugging in their USB drive. It infected 9 million computers with this strategy, and it might infect even more with the new strain.

Many computers might be affected with the current strain of Conficker without users even knowing about it because it is not scheduled to become active until April 1.

No one knows what will happen when Conficker C does become active.

It might be used to steal personal information, take control of computers, erase hard drives or otherwise cripple computers. Now is a good time to back up your files and try to minimize your exposure to this virus. You might want to run a free Microsoft safety scan of your computer to help detect and hopefully get rid of the Conficker C virus before it’s too late.

I hope you’ll have a happy April fools’ day and not get fooled by this disruptive and dangerous virus. The photo of the Watch Out button is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Salim Virji.

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Posted in Ecommerce | 2 Comments »

Good news: Ecommerce to grow through 2013

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Going along with my last eHarbor blog entry on the increase in spending on search engine optimization, this blog entry is on the positive future of the ecommerce industry.

Dog squished into car seat

According to an article from eMarketer, entitled “eMarketer Revises E-Commerce Forecast,” total sales of products online in the United States, excluding travel, totaled $133.6 billion in 2008. That was a 4.6-percent increase from 2007, despite the economic downturn plaguing most industries.

In 2009, when most people are worried about serious contractions because of low demand from consumers, ecommerce sales are expected to hold steady, dipping just 0.4 percent to $133.1 billion.

Even better, total ecommerce spending will grow about 10 percent or more from 2010 to 2013, possibly reaching $203.5 billion in 2013. That is definitely worth celebrating.

As more companies jump into the world of SEO and strive to position themselves online, the ecommerce industry is going to keep expanding. Plus, with consumers looking for deals and convenience in a tight marketplace, many are turning to online sources for goods they used to purchase at malls or regular retail stores.

This is a great time to jump online. I recommend checking out eHarbor, Inc.’s affiliates for help in designing and optimizing your website. These affiliates include: Submit Solution, Magellan Commerce and Real Estate Promoter.

The photo of the dog in the car seat is from Flickr and it is the copyright of exfordy.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, eHarbor | 9 Comments »

Bucking recession, ecommerce keeps growing

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Great news! The ecommerce industry isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. It’s actually growing in strength, despite the recession. What a pleasant surprise!

Surprised kittens

According to an article in Practical Ecommerce, entitled “Chart of the Week: Search Engine Marketing to Increase,” marketers in the United States are expected to spend $14.1 billion on search engine marketing in 2009. That’s a 16-percent increase from 2008’s $12.2 billion. If it continues to grow at this rate, the amount spent on search engine marketing in the United States could reach $23 billion in 2013.

Search engine marketing is made up of paid-search advertising, contextual advertising, paid inclusion, and search engine optimization. We just finished a series on SEO strategies. I recommend reading those blog entries, if you’d like more information.

You might remember my blog entry on the success of eHarbor, Inc. not long ago. I’m pleased to note this is not just an isolated incident, but an industry-wide one. As the economy sours, businesses are turning more to the Internet for new customers, and getting high placement on search engines, like Google, MSN and Yahoo, is a great way to get their attention.

Be sure to check out eHarbor, Inc.’s affiliates for help in designing and optimizing your websites. These affiliates include: Submit Solution, Magellan Commerce and Real Estate Promoter.

The photo of the surprised kittens is from Flickr and it is the copyright of telachhe.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, eHarbor | 12 Comments »

Step 6 to topping Google: Strong anchor text

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 6 of our multi-part series on effective search engine optimization tactics. You may notice that in many of my blog entries, I include links to past blog entries and other informative sites. I try to include appropriate text for each link in order to give you (and search engines) an idea of what information the link will contain. This Ship anchor in Greenock, Scotlandtext, known as anchor text, is another way to optimize your website for search engines.

Anchor text should be specific and closely related to the topic you are addressing. If you put in random links that are neither relevant to your content, nor descriptive of the information on the linked site, you are wasting your time. Links should be helpful to your website’s visitors, offering them additional information in a highly visible manner.

For instance, if I want to create a link to the Submit Solution website, I simply link the text “Submit Solution” to http://www.submitsolution.com. So when you see text that is blue, purple or red, you know that it links you to Submit Solution’s website or at least something related to Submit Solution (which, by the way, is a division of eHarbor, Inc.). As a bonus, search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN also use the anchor text to understand the relevance of that page to this one, potentially boosting your ranking.

Here are some good ideas to consider when choosing anchor text for your links:

- Keep your text short and descriptive. Brevity seems to be a common theme in this SEO series – like in my blog entry on optimizing images.

- Avoid generic terms like “Click here” or “article.” Those really don’t describe what the link is, and there are many other creative ways to anchor your links. Come to think of it, I mentioned avoiding generic terms in my blog entry on Web page titles, as well. It feels like we’re coming full-circle in this series.

- Don’t use the actual URL as the anchor text, unless you have a good reason. I used the URL of Submit Solution above simply as an illustration. You can also include a URL to promote your website, if it is new or poorly connected at the moment. You know, I think we discussed good URL practices earlier, as well.

- Make sure your links are easy to spot. If you use a style that makes links look just like regular text, people won’t be able to find them, and they won’t be much use.

By the way, including internal links to different parts of your website can help visitors navigate your website more freely and intuitively. Give it a shot, but don’t go overboard. Make sure the links are meaningful and add to the message of the page you are currently working on. Improving website navigation – that’s another topic we’ve covered before on the eHarbor Blog! Simply amazing.

This is the sixth part of this series. We started with a blog post on making content king, and we’ve covered a number of topics along the way. We’re coming close to the end of this series on strong SEO practices. We’ve got plenty of other great ecommerce topics to talk about, as well. Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide for more information on this topic. The photo of the naval monument in Greenock, Scotland is from Flickr and it is the copyright of Bob the courier.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines | 3 Comments »

Step 5 to topping Google: Website navigation

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 5 of our multi-part series on effective search engine optimization practices. Thanks for sticking with me through this fun little series. This is my 12th blog entry on the eHarbor Blog. I’ve had a lot of fun talking about eHarbor’s history, eHarbor’s future, and even several reasons to smile.

Disorganized garage in Tokyo, JapanWe started this series by talking about improving website content, and continued with a post on designing Web page titles and optimizing images. Now we’ll consider how best to organize websites to improve navigation for both search engines and customers.

You can choose a number of ways to organize your website content. Just make sure you’re consistent. Here are some good ideas to optimize your website navigation:

- Create a quick, intuitive navigation system. Allow visitors to click just once or twice from the homepage to find the specific information or services they’re seeking.

- Be careful not to link every page to every other page. This can cause confusion. Provide relevant links to other pages, but don’t go overboard.

- Stick with text-based links to navigate your site. Using Flash or drop-down menus can make it difficult for search engines to crawl through your site.

- Include a list of your main categories on the sidebar of each page. This can help visitors quickly browse through topics without having to return to the homepage often.

- Use well-designed URLs, as we discussed in the last blog entry in this SEO series. If people cut off part of your URL, try to make it so it will still lead them to part of your website. For instance, if you take this blog entry’s URL www.eharborinc.com/blog/2009/02/03/what-eharbor-is-and-
why-it-matters-to-you and cut off the last part so you are left with www.eharborinc.com/blog/2009/02, the link still works.

It’s also a good idea to include a sitemap on your website to boost usability to site visitors and visibility to search engines. There are two kinds of sitemaps that have two different functions: HTML sitemaps and XML Sitemaps. XML Sitemaps usually have a capital S to differentiate them from HTML sitemaps, so I’ll follow that rule.

An example of a sitemap can be found on the Real Estate Promoter website: www.realestatepromoter.com/index.php?base=site. This sitemap lists all of the main pages and their subcategories in a clear, concise manner. It is best to organize your website by subject matter, putting specific materials under appropriate categories. If you were selling real estate on your website, you could use something like this for your setup:

Homepage -> Properties for sale -> Waterfront homes, condos, rental units and other specific property types

HTML sitemaps are mainly designed for website visitors, not necessarily for Google, MSN, Yahoo or other search engines. Search engines can use them to understand the context of pages on your website, but they should be focused on helping your visitors find what they’re looking for if they get lost.

XML Sitemaps are much better at providing information about your site to search engines. You should consider using a Sitemap if:

- You recently created your site. Google often finds sites through links from one Web page to another, so new sites with no inbound links are almost invisible to it. A Sitemap allows search engines to find your website, even if it is relatively new.

- Your site has dynamic content like AJAX or Flash.

- Your site has a large number of archived pages that are not linked together.

A Sitemap gives search engines a great deal of information, including:

- How often your Web pages are updated with new content. Blogs and other content-dense sections of your website can gain more attention this way.

- Which pages are more important than others, in terms of hierarchy. Your homepage would have the highest ranking, while categories would be slightly below it, and materials under those categories would be a little lower. This helps search engines understand the context of Web pages, but it doesn’t affect a page’s search-engine ranking if it is ranked below other pages on the site.

If you would like a step-by-step walkthrough to help you set up a Sitemap for your website, check out Google’s Sitemap Generator script.

This is the fifth part of this series. We’re coming close to the end of this series on strong SEO practices. Check out the Submit Solution website for more ideas on building SEO on your website. We’ve got plenty of other great ecommerce topics to talk about, as well. Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide for more information on this topic. The photo of the messy garage in Tokyo is from Flickr and it is the copyright of coccu.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, eHarbor | 7 Comments »

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