Bill Myers Tip of the Week

Bill Myers Tip of the Week

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Start with a good model

Several years back, when web designers were actual web users and
not just art designers with little web experience, many would
keep this one question in mind when it came to site design:

"What would Google Do?"

The reason that question was (and still is) so important is
Google is by far the most visited site on the web, and visitors
are familiar and comfortable with its page layout.

So when designing a new site, if you design it to have the look,
feel, and font faces of Google, you automatically build in a
certain level of trust.

With that in mind, when you start thinking about designing your
own sites or shopping cart pages, you should ask yourself . . .

"What would Google Do?".

And a good way to answer that is to visit any of the Official
Google Blogs.

On those blogs, you'll see the design format that Google has
chosen - and you can use what you see there as a design guide for
your own sites.

To find the official Google Blogs, visit:
http://www.google.com/press/blogs/directory.html#tab1

By the way, if you've been looking for resell rights to CDs and
DVDs you can sell, be sure to check out
Bill Myers
Bill Myers
bmyers@bmyers.com
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Recent articles posted at Bill Myers Online:

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DVD Resell Rights - Finally available at a very special price!

If you've been looking for resell rights on a high quality
product you can sell to others and keep all the profits, here it
is. A great retail-ready product you can call your own, that you
can start selling today

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers
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Wireless microphone systems: Sennheiser G3 Evolution - audio test
and video review

In this short video I test the Sennheiser G3 evolution wireless
microphone system, and you'll hear how well it works at long
distances, under adverse (high wind) conditions. This just might
be the one you'll want

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers
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Easy and inexpensive way to connect two or more microphones to
one camcorder

If you are doing interviews and need to connect two or more
microphones to one camcorder, here is a quick and very
inexpensive way to do it. Can cost less than five dollars, and
can really save the day

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers
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Learn from their successes

Here's the kind of real world success stories that can help you
understand what it takes to quickly become a success with your
internet businesses. Just watch this short video and you'll see
why you don't always need money or experience when you start

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers
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Video: What you can learn from people who made millions while in
their teens

Looking for a way to earn a few extra dollars? Maybe the success
stories of these teen millionaires will give you some inspiration.
Learn why they succeeded, starting with no money, and no
experience

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers

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That's it for this week!

Bill Myers
Bill Myers
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How To Approach Social Media In 2010

While most companies have come to agree that social media use is important, the “how” remains unclear in many cases. Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist of Ustrategy, was good enough to give her thoughts on the subject during an interview at OMS 2010.


Lichtenberg tried to dispel what might be one common misconception by stating, “Social media itself is not a tool. It is a strategy.” She then added, “Every business should have a strategy around social media.”

Lichtenberg thinks it’s best to form this strategy in a vision-driven way. The question companies should ask themselves is, “Who do you want to be as a business when people see you online?” Coming up with an answer will help organizations pick their approach.

Deciding on an online identity will also help employees – who can be a business’s biggest advocates – know how to act online. And Lichtenberg thinks it isn’t wise for companies to forbid access to social networks, by the way.

Then here’s one last tip: before trying to use social media to help with lead generation and sales, conduct specific campaigns around factors like awareness, market share, and buzz. These things are better-suited to social media and serve as good starting points.

Bill Myers Tip of the Week

Bill Myers Tip of the Week
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One of the quickest ways to drive away potential customers is to
require them to do something that costs them time, money or
aggravation.

Here's an example.

A visitor to my web site asked me why he wasn't getting any
orders from his web sales pages.

I checked his product pages and immediately saw the problem.

The only way a customer could place an order was to find and
print out an order form from his web site, fill it out with the
correct product numbers and prices, and then FAX the form back to
the company to place an order.

That's right.

The burden was on the customer to find the order form, print it
out, fill it out with correct information, and fax it back.

Talk about creating a system sure to drive away potential
customers!





Not to mention the negative image created by not having an online
order system (which is a real problem).

The requirement that customers must FAX the order pretty much
eliminates everyone who doesn't own a fax machine - and that's
about 90% of the population these days.

The solution to the problem was easy.

Offer customers an online order process with the ease of a one-
click buying.

Moral: Most consumers no longer have 8 track tape decks, betamax
video recorders, or fax machines. So don't require them to use
equipment they don't have just to do business with you.





One final point - if you do need to send a fax and don't have a
fax machine, consider using http://faxzero.com/ .

I've used that service several times and it works quite well.
And it is free.

Bill Myers

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Recent articles posted at Bill Myers Online:

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Video review: The $60 HD widescreen video camera for your
webcasts, video tips, and other quick videos

This is the amazing $60 video cam that lets you shoot and capture
live HighDefinition widescreen video direct to your computer.
Ideal for webcasts, video blogs, quick video tips, video
conferencing, even broadcasting live video streams from your
office desk. I've included a short video I shot with this camera
in this article, so you can see what to expect

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers

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Free tool to convert your videos to flash for placing on your own
web pages.

Here is a free, and easy-to-use tool for quickly converting your
avi, wmv, mp4, mov video files to flash so you can place them on
your web site. This tool does it all, even giving you a choice
of different flash players, and automatically creates the html
code to put the flash video on your web page

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers
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Creating Hollywood quality custom intros for your videos,
webcasts, and camtasia tutorials

Here's an example of the kind of Hollywood quality intro's you
can quickly create for your videos, web-casts, TV shows, &
Camtasia tutorials - if you start with the right tools. This one
took me less than 10 minutes to put together

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers
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When you can't do it all yourself - use freelancers and a non
disclosure agreement

One of the important things to learn as a product developer, is
you won't always be able to do everything yourself. In those
cases, it can pay to use a freelancer or subcontractor. But to
protect your project and secrets, always require a non disclosure
agreement. Find one here

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers

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Screencast: Secrets to selling your unused, unwanted domain names
on eBay

This short video walks you through the process of selling unused
domain names at eBay. You'll see how to grab more attention for
domain name auctions, how to create free eBay auction listings,
and how to test the market for interest in your domain names

Read the full article at:
Bill Myers

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That's it for this week!

Bill Myers
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Leveraging Natural Search

Since there are now so many different ways for people get to websites, natural search has become increasingly difficult over the past few years. Seth Besmertnik, the CEO of Conductor, talked about this idea with WebProNews and explained what search marketers need to do to leverage the changes.

In past years, SEO focused on content and keywords. However, when Google came along, the game changed. Google introduced links in relation to content and more.

Today, organic search is even more complex with personalization, real-time search, social media, and other new features popping up rapidly. As a result of the complexity, Besmertnik emphasized the need to have a scalable infrastructure that tracks everything.

He said this is critically important for businesses that want to compete in natural search. In addition, businesses that want to find synergies between their marketing efforts need to make sure they make the most of one area before they add more and complicate matters.

Besmertnik used the analogy that “you have to have bricks before you can build a wall.” Ultimately, companies will not be able to successfully blend efforts until each is established.