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Web Marketing Tips

Web Marketing Tip #1

Check out the Netscape In-Box Direct list and the C/NET list of publications and newsletters that you can get sent right into your e-mail box. Many of these are HTML-enhanced mini-websites that put useful information right in your face where it belongs. You can get automatic mailings on web products and marketing, plus news of general interest and, in some cases, specific to your industry. (Tip within a tip: keep careful records of your subscription information and any provided passwords. At some point you may want to dump one or two, and you will need an easy way out.)

My favorites:

Anchor Desk (this link takes you right to sign-up page)
Hotwired (sign-up box in upper left corner)

Other publications (from the Netscape list) that you might look at include:

The Business Times Online Business Week Online Entrepreneurial Edge Direct Gartner Group Advisor Good Morning Silicon Valley from Mercury Center IndustryWeek Magazine Tech Link Third Age Daily News This Week in Web Review Verisign Security Newsletter Virtual Vineyards Netscape IBD The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition Technology Alert

Information Society News from the European Union Infoseek Industry Watch Interactive Age Digital News Now IS.net Cybernews ITworld.com JavaWorld The Kaplan Edge: Get Sharp Netscape World New York Times Direct NEXTmedia web One Rugby Place Online NewsHour Select Salon Daily

Web Marketing Tip #2

Check out your competition, and your non-competition, See what other people are doing in your industry. And see what other people are doing online.

Web Marketing Tip #3

Use vendors. Don't be afraid to use free and low-cost services on your site such as:

• Listbot , where you can set up a free or inexpensive newsletter
• Cafe Press who will put your logo on t-shirts and stuff, sell it form a link on your site, and give you the profits
• BeSeen where you can get free toys for your site: chat room, bulletin board, guest book, search box, banner exchanges, site submission, mini-Polls (quizlets), etc.
• Blogger.com, where you can create automatic journals that go on your site without using any HTML. In other words, if you work full-time, you can still pop the occasional comment over to your site.

Web Marketing Tip #4

Think user needs. Think providing a service. Ask yourself why anyone would ever come back to your site. What can you do or give that they actually need and will come back for over and over. Value add.

Web Marketing Tip #5

Get it out of your head. Some merchants say that they just want visitors on their site to call them. That can happen, but most people are not on the web because they like the phone. Many people would much rather find it themselves on your site than go through ten to twenty minutes of sifting through your phone system and your help desk people to get an answer.

Get the knowledge out of your head and on to the page so that you don't HAVE to talk to the customer to make the sale. Web users like to do things on the web, so give them all that you can to satisfy them online. It's time to lay it all out for them. The web is about telling your whole story. If they already want to buy, they'll just order. The web is to show them that you have in-depth knowledge. And make ordering easy if/when they are ready.

Pixels are cheap. Paper costs money. Putting up more web pages shouldn't cost you what it costs you to print a brochure or a specifications list. If it does you are doing it for too much money. Plus you can change it today if you don't like it today.

Get it out of your head and down on the (web) page.

Web Marketing Tip #6

Stay tuned. I'll keep adding here.

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