Have You Joined Google Checkout UK?

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Google Checkout UK

After the official announcement on Google Checkout has reached my neck of the woods in the UK on 13th April.

At first I thought there may be some teething problems as they integrate the system. However the main issues raised were in relation to affiliate program tracking.

I have seen a dramatic increase in North American web sites offering Google Checkout as a payment choice for customers.

For instance Tinu Abayomi-Paul has replaced her PayPal buttons and replaced them with Google Checkout for her customers.

With the extremely attractive ZERO transaction rates until 2008 the rate of growth in new merchants has been be a big boost for Google.

However, online auction site Ebay prohibits sellers from using Google Checkout as a payment option and continue to boycott the service in favor of PayPal.

Consumers have expressed their concerns over how secure their credit card information will be with Google because their email address can be used over all of Google’s many groups and services..

There are ways to safeguard your customer/seller account from fraud.

For instance you are given the choice to link all of your Google groups together or open a SEPARATE email account for Google Checkout transactions.

Definitely go for this option to keep track of your orders and sales from Adwords account and other Google Groups.

I recently made a large payment through Google Checkout for the first time and so far the whole transaction ran smoothly. :-)

As with all of my online shopping accounts and third party merchant accounts I will be making regular changes to my password as an added security measure.

In fact I was so impressed with how easy it was use the system that I have taken steps to accept credit card payments Google Checkout UK. I just have to wait until my bank statement shows a small transaction from Google Checkout to complete the verification process.

Google Checkout Logo

I must admit that their little shopping cart icon stands out below Adwords when I am looking through search results. This could boost your click though rates and grab customers attention who an account or would prefer to pay via Google Checkout, as well as self promotion, and why not other credit card processors and card issuers use their logo to show buyers that they can purchase with a recognized brand.

Anyway, I am getting a little ahead of myself here. Until I have completed it will be interesting to track sales conversions and customer feedback.

Oh yes, I mustn’t forget Yahoo Checkout, a collaboration between Yahoo and PayPal. Looks like there is some confusion as to the distinction between the two services due to their identical names!

Ah well. Google can’t have it all!

In the end it is up to the merchant to decide what options to provide to buyers which should be evident from increase levels of sales. I wonder if you can offer both payment options if it is not against the terms of services.

On seconds thoughts maybe this idea would create too much conflict and unnecessary confusion for consumers. 

Have you been using Google Checkout?

Has it increased your sales?

Would you consider adding Google Checkout as stand alone payment module?

You would probably be better off presenting Google Checkout in addition to other credit card processor at first to test which payment module customers prefer to use before making a decision to use Google Checkout as a stand alone payment module.

Take a look at how other online stores are offering customers wider payment choices:

Buy.com

MTV Shop

Converting Visitors Into Customers - The SEO Way

Today’s article has a unique twist on the idea of using SEO techniques
to work towards increasing your web site conversion rates.

Read and enjoy!

Nancy

Converting Visitors Into Customers - The SEO Way
By Daniel Gibbins

What is SEO? What exactly is Search Engine Marketing? Why do so many
people say it’s so important? These are just three of the many
questions that we are frequently asked. As Search Engine Marketing
and SEO Consultants, and providers of advanced web design, you’d
think we’d have a clear answer to these questions. We find that
our answer changes depending on the person asking, but we have
found that one response encompasses everything.

Because Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing has so many different
features, and with more being offered within the label of SEO, it is
becoming increasingly difficult to describe its function within
website development and online marketing in simple terms any more.

It’s like asking the question: what is education? I could spend a
number of days writing about High School education alone, and the
individual subjects and curricula that are taught throughout the UK
to pupils aged 11-16 in state-maintained schools. But what about
private schools? Primary schools? Sixth From Colleges? Institutes
of Higher Education? Universities? Adult courses? The same can be
said for SEO and Online Marketing – there’s never a quick and easy
way to quantify Search Engine Optimisation, so the job of any good
SEO Consultant is to provide you with the things you need to know
about SEO that will make the most impact into your online presence.

We looked at the three questions at the top of this page long and
hard. We considered 1001 responses that we thought answered the
questions. Some of them were extremely pretentious. Some of them
were far too simple – some far too complex. Then we started to think:

hold on, what is the end result of SEO? Why do we want to achieve
success online? It is without doubt that the end result of any SEO
or Online Marketing is to generate more ‘conversions’ – yet another
word that is used to describe the work that we do, but never fully
explained or understood (even by some SEO Consultants).

Hopefully, when you developed your website, you were asked by your
web designers to come up with a list of targets for your site: targets
that you hoped to meet eventually, in order to make your website do
exactly what you intended it to do when you started. Without those
targets, your website doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of
being designed around your needs – something which is absolutely
essential if the return on your investment is to be fully achieved.
Most of our commercial-based clients, those whose main target is to
generate more revenue, would consider their conversion to be the
transformation from a site visitor into a customer. This would be
quantified by the accumulation of revenue through the website.

However, a not-for-profit website that extols the wonders and virtues
of a visit to the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales, for example,
would ultimately consider a conversion to be someone who asks for more
information, even something as simple as completing an online
questionnaire can be regarded as a conversion: you are essentially
engaging your site’s visitors with your online content, whether that
is through sales or by completing an online information request form.
Why do we focus on conversions? If you do not know what you want your
conversions to be before starting a web design project, you may as
well save your money and take your family or friends to Euro Disney
for a weekend, because without knowing your target audience and what
you intend that audience to do with your site, your website will
spend the rst of your domain registration treading water in the
virtual sea of the information superhighway. Your conversions should
inform and shape the build and design of your website. Making it
‘conversion friendly’ is the key to any successful website.

Think of conversions as a transfer of status from visitor to ‘customer’
(it’s no accident that in rugby a ‘try’ must be converted to a real result).

A change occurs; a switch is thrown; a transfer is made at the point
of conversion on your website. Choosing and developing the right
conversion point can mean the difference between a new customer and
someone who clicks on the red X on the top right hand corner of their
browser and exits your site. Why, you may be wondering, when we post
the question ‘What is SEO?’ have we chosen to focus on ‘conversions’
in this article? Well, quite simply, it comes down to a matter of
results – what do you really want to achieve from your website?

Whatever you answer, if you aren’t currently achieving that, then
you need to start looking at developing an SEO Plan.

What is SEO? If you were a client we’d explain that it’s the process
we go through in order to increase the conversions on your site,
generating you more revenue for commercial sites or increasing the
visitor frequency to a particular page on your site for not-for-profit
websites. What exactly is Search Engine Marketing? Well, again, we
would tell you that it’s what we do to ensure your targets are met,
that people are able to find you and more importantly become a
converted visitor. Why do so many people say it’s so important?

Because it is! Gone are the days when you just need to have a website
address, a dot com or dot org to advertise your company or organisation.

The days of businesses reluctantly putting money into developing websites
are long behind us: we are entering a point of online development that
is seeing billions of dollars being spent on website development, SEO
and online marketing by businesses across the world. SEO and online
marketing are more important, and in some cases the most important
area of site development, than the way the information is presented
on the screen – because, quite frankly, if your site can’t be found,
what’s the point in having a site?

You may be asking yourself at this stage: “how do I get more conversions?”
We would say: “develop a good SEO and online marketing plan”.

Find and research the best keywords for your product or service; rewrite
your website to make it more engaging and include the search engine
friendly keywords. Plan your strategy of conversions – target perhaps
3-5 pages that will become ‘conversion pages’ (areas of your site that
you will want your visitors to interact with your content, whether that
means spending money or sending you an email). You can take a horse to
water, but you can’t make him drink! In the SEO world, this is not the
case. You can take your visitors to your conversion page and you can
also make him or her convert to a customer. How? Develop the best SEO
Plan you can possibly afford, whether you do it in-house or invite an
SEO firm to guide you. I cannot over estimate the importance of having
a strong and well-developed SEO Plan. Take the leap today and contact
an SEO company and ask how they can help you generate more conversions
and exceed your online potential.

If you would like to discuss how we can help guide your SEO development
and provide advice and support for your online marketing needs, contact
us today – we are always happy to hear from people who are taking their
first steps into the SEO and online marketing world. We offer website
design and specialise in advanced SEO and online marketing solutions.

Visit our SEO pages today at: http://www.cortinawebsolutions.co.uk

Convert Your Voicemail To Text Message With SimulScribe

I found a link to a online service that will transcribe your voicemail into easy to read text messages using SimulScribe. The benefits of this service are endless for instance you need never miss important calls by viewing the text version on your mobile. Just take a look at some of the benefits of the SimulScribe service.

"Benefits

Read voicemail on your mobile phone, portable device and/or e-mail

Whether you are in a meeting, traveling, or on the golf course, you can instantly see who called, what they said, and you won’t have to listen to all of your messages to find out about an important missed call

Use the SimulScribe online user interface to search, sort, archive and delete voicemail like email

You won’t have to write down the information from a voicemail; important numbers, names and addresses are easy to find, easy to access and will never get lost

Respond in text or forward the message to another person

Delivering voicemails as text when you are roaming saves you money

If a message is inaudible, you can still listen to the message as an audio file that is sent direct to your e-mail or dial in to the voicemail system

Keep the same voicemail functionality that you are used to; all dial-in voicemail functionality stays the same."

You have the option to test run SimulScribe service during the 7 day free trial before committing to the paid service.

See full details at the SimulScribe web site.

Ebay’s Affiliate Program Facing Major Tracking Problems

I received an email from Auction Ads (set up by ShoeMoney and Media Whiz) regarding an important announcement that Ebay are experiencing tracking problems for their affiliate program.

What this means for many thousands or so affiliates is that their referrals and statistics will be in chaos.

The problem has been identified since the 7th April 2007 and there has been no further word of a resolution to date.

My email from Auction Ads shows that it is only a concern for Ebay.com affiliates but that includes Commission Junction affiliates as well. This dilemma leaves little consolation for us all.

If you aren’t familiar with Auction Ads you can view them to the right of my sidebar. They can be used in conjunction with contextual ads such as Google AdSense.

At present you can set up custom ad blocks and link to items using the URL Converter to create static HTML links. I first set them up just a few short weeks ago to test them out but without accurate reporting there is no way to monitor its performance. I certainly will not set up any more ad blocks until the problem of tracking has been sorted.

I sincerely hope that Ebay will be able to recover the data for the potential revenue that is due to us hard working affiliate marketer’s in due course.

Recommended Resources:

Accept Credit Cards Now

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your PC smoothly without registry errors. Download and test run today for free
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Joel Comm’s New Software My Contact Station Kills Spam Problems

I just purchased Joel Comm’s latest product, My Contact Station.

No more will you have to be concerned with Spam getting into your inbox. With My Contact Station you can easily set up contact web forms with an anti-Spam feature built in and a ‘CAPTCHA‘ (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to prevent automated software programs from filling out your forms. 

You can reassure your site visitors of Spam free contact form and rid yourself of unwanted offers and junk to your inbox.

At a very affordable price of a just $7.00 everyone will be snapping up this priceless gem.

Some Important Key Features:

My Contact Station uses PHP with only the need to unzip the file, edit a few files and then upload to your web space. Read the sales letter to double check the installation requirements. ;-)

Another bonus for budding affiliate marketers is that you earn a cool 100% commissions from each and every sale of My Contact Station credited direct to your PayPal account. So with just a single sale you’ll be getting the software for FREE and make pure profit on ALL further sales.

Great product and affiliate opportunity so grab your copy today plus receive your own step by step video tutorial to get you started.

Best of luck,

Nancy P Redford :-)

Brad Fallon Launches The Free IQ Web 2.0 Site, The Marketplace For Ideas!

The Free DictionaryBrad Fallon’s vision for FreeIQ is to present a showcase of the world’s best collection of valuable audio, videos, user genrated content and more.

The site aims to host better quality content, meaning you will not be subjected to some of the odd and unusual useless home videos that can be found on many of the popular video sharing sites.

I’ve signed up as of today prior to writing this post and will be preparing my personal web page. Once you create your own free page you will be listed in the search engines and have yet another free resource to publicize yourself and expertise. 

You don’t even need your own web site or product as you can use your FreeIQ web page as your platform for creating sharing your content or for writing reviews for your affiliate products.

It’s your call!

Just take a look at some of the features FreeIQ offers:

"With Free IQ, you can:

Sign up as an affiliate and earn commissions on any sales of the premium materials from the world’s experts, authors, consultant’s, speakers and trainers. There is a free two tier affiliate program with an extremely generous 365 day cookie.

Alternatively you can sign up for free to upload your videos and create your content after signing up.

The FreeIQ web site could be a formidable competitor to the major video sharing sites. At first glance is appears to be an eclectic mix of Squidoo, MySpace and YouTube, minus the weird videos!

I recommend you grab you FreeIQ page BEFORE your affiliates. So head on down today and claim you FreeIQ web page today!

Related Articles:

Monetize Your Affiliate Programs Using Video Reviews Created By Qoof

Top 30 Free Video Sharing Sites

Never Pay For Another List Of The Best Web 2.0 Directory Sites

The Great Web 2.0 Experiment With MyBlogLog

I hope your Easter break is as peaceful and as fun loving as mine is at the moment.

Yesterday I spent time with my boys and relatives at Nando’s Restaurant. We got there close to opening time so we literally had the place all to ourselves for the first hour.

Just as well because I hate waiting in queues and we had the pleasure of receiving our meal in record time.

Anyway today I am going to take the plunge and experiment with MyBlogLog.

I have included the code in my sidebar below the ‘Blog Directories’ for now.

So if you’re a regular reader or new to my Practical Marketing Tips blog you are more than welcome to join my community.

I have yet to complete my profile details in full and my About Me Page. That will be done by the end of today.

I have added the WordPress Sociable plugin to my blog some months back and have seen that my readers are digging me and adding me to their BlogRoll’s so I know that these Web 2.0 features are handy and well used.

Would love to see you in my community so go ahead and join today!

If you like to tell me how you have befitted from adding MyBlogLog to your own blogs that would be helpful.
Just add a comment or email me using the link at the top right of this blog.

Take care all,

Nancy P Redford

P.S.Nancy P Redford's Avatar
I’m pretty new to this so don’t scorn me for any mistakes along the way.The direct link to my profile can be found here:
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/npredford

Are You Promoting Seasonal Affiliate Programs During Easter?

Hi and welcome everyone,

I thought it would be nice gesture to wish you guys a"Happy Easter".

Whether you celebrate the holiday season or just like to tuck into some chocolate gifts and relax with your loved one’s like I do!

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll all be set for the seasonal promotions and hope you’ll be doing well from the wave of gift seekers over Easter.

If you’re smart you’ll have your promotions working on autopilot while you take a good hard earned rest.

Here’s a fun video to watch, enjoy!

If you’ve expereince problems viewing the above video use this link to watch.

Once again Happy Easter and enjoy the holiday weekend.

Nancy P Redford

Recommended Resources:

Work at Home and Sign up with Free Affiliate Program Networks

Free Windows Registry Fixer STOPS your computer from freezing and helps you run
your PC smoothly without registry errors. Download and test run today for free
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Your 26 Affiliate Marketing And Webmaster Forums To Help You Make Money Online

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I love forums but seldom make replies. At forums you can find that people gather literally out of nowhere work together to answer a question or provide valuable tips and ideas that you and I can implement in our online business.

The most infamous being The Warrior Forum for internet marketers. Also 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums and Affiliate Programs Forum.

I frequent other forums not related to affiliate marketing and internet marketing to satisfy my personal interests and hobbies.

Do you use forums?

If not why?

You do not have to use them but as the majority of them are free then what can you loose!

Of course there will be some information that may be inaccurate or misleading. You’ll also come across topics that may cause conflicts amongst other members. My best top tip is to avoid getting involved in hot debates or controversy that may have a long lasting effect on your name and integrity.

By all means read thorough the threads and posts now and again but if you want to stay clean online with a good reputation and avoid "forum fighting" them read through, take a break and come back when your heart rate has come down to normal BEFORE deciding on whether you want to contribute to the thread.

See the full list of 26 featured forums.

Enjoy,

Nancy P Redford

Recommended Resources:

How To Start A Forum

Forum SuperTips

How To Double Your Traffic In 30 Days

How To Double Your Traffic in 30 Days
By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Do you have a blog?

Do you know how to effectively market yourself and web site using RSS?

Read how the PC Doctor uses blogging and RSS feeds to attract targeted
traffic to his sites and follow these simple principles for your own
traffic generating success.

– == – == – == – == – == – == – == – == – == –

I started PC Doctor as a resource for readers, but quickly became
disillusioned by the time it took to make changes to the site. I
wanted something fast and easy to use - so I turned to blogging!

Not only did this give me a great way to upload and organize content,
but it was an easy way to leverage the traffic power of RSS.

For the first few months my traffic was really low - down in the few
hundreds of visitors a day. It was pretty depressing I can tell you
and there were times when I thought about quitting. I knew that the
site was in the Google ’sandbox’, and so I either had to keep on
plugging at it until it was out or I had to give up.

Fortunately, I decided to keep on posting, but in the interim I also
decided I was also going to do my utmost to drive traffic to my site
manually until Google kicked in. I took a look around at what some of
the successful blogs were doing and came up with three tactics that
helped to double my website traffic in a month.

1. First, I made the most of Technorati tags. I tagged every keyword
in each of my posts. Initially I did this manually but then I discovered
a WordPress plugin called SimpleTags, it made the job a whole lot easier.

You can find it at http://www.broobles.com/scripts/simpletags

I found by tagging my post effectively they were getting a lot more
attention then their untagged counterparts, and as an added advantage
I was getting focused, quality traffic to the site!

2. I leveraged my existing website. I’ve been running my business website
for a few years and that was getting modest levels of traffic that was
relevant to my blog - so why not try to drive some of that to my new blog!

I placed a few FeedBurner headline animator blocks on some of my most
popular pages and after a day or so I noticed a significant increase in
traffic for 5 minutes worth of work on my part.

3. Finally, I made effective use of trackback links to popular sites. If
I commented on a post on another site, I would make sure that I set up the
appropriate trackback for it. The results from this are varied depending
on the site and post that you are linking to, but since I liked to comment
and interact with the wider blogosphere anyway, it was free traffic!

Using these three simple techniques, I took The PC Doctor blog from a few
hundred hits a day into the thousands in less than 30 days. This kept my
interest in the site until it came out of the Google sandbox and I started
to receive some serious traffic. However, I’m convinced that these actions
I took at the early stages have helped me create a loyal and targeted
readership that continues to benefit my blog today.

– == – == – == – == – == – == – == – == – == –

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is a technical author writing in the field of programming,
web development and PC repair and troubleshooting. For more free computer tips,
tricks and news check out his site at http://www.pcdoctor-guide.com

– == – == – == – == – == – == – == – == – == –

Recommended Resources:

Do you want to discover how to get more traffic to your site without wasting time
and money on programs that may or may not work for you. Don’t miss out on the
opportunity to steal the traffic formulas of some of the top online marketers.

Amongst many other successful online marketers. Get the industry’s leading traffic
tool for Internet marketing success today: http://miriadz.com/Trafficology

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Download Registry First Aid or read more about the FULL benefits you will gain here.