Hightide Web Resources Articles, News, and Reviews

by Mac Craig

Internet video marketing : Watch your sales soar!

A lot of people prefer watching to reading, especially on the computer screen. Calling movies a ‘video’ is actually a misnomer - it is ‘audio + video’ or what is called an AV. Audio Visuals have been seen to have a far greater retention level among internet viewers than written information.

It is no wonder, therefore, that video advertising is fast becoming a major internet marketing tool for selling products and services.

Advantages of Internet Video Advertising

The main advantage of Internet marketing videos over the traditional text format approach is that videos can get to the point much faster. Even a static visual is worth a thousand words, it is taught in graphic design schools. Imagine what a moving visual, or the movie, can do in delivering your message to the viewer.

The viral edge is another advantage Internet videos have over other traditional marketing channels. There is no better marketing strategy than ‘word-of-mouth’. Websites continually share and serve popular content driven by user choice. The speed at which videos are picked up, shared, and distributed is unparalleled to any other.

Internet Video sharing sites like ‘youtube’ are a rage today, and this is a reflection of the choice of internet surfers. New sites like LeadsbyVideo are coming up with video sharing innovations which are great for online marketing.

A video ad can actually demonstrate a product’s usability, so don’t just say it, show it!. A nicely produced visual message with a human touch can do wonders in reaching out emotionally to the customer. Does the quality of the video matter? Yes, of course. Like in other marketing tools, there are experts available who can produce the right movie to suit your product, and budget.

A Few Tips

1. Use the videos on the first page. It’s like handing out your business card. The first page recommends you, and the first impression is a lasting one. Don’t tuck your marketing video away, on some inside page. Make it visible.

2. Always have a ‘call for action’ - something that the customer will feel like doing immediately, like clicking on a link, or filling up a form.

3. Search for the tools that can tell you how much of your video was played before the visitor closed it, how many prospects actually decided to pay your site a visit after watching your video, how many of these visits converted into sales, and so on.

4. Today you can track traffic on the website and analyze results. Make an extra effort to measure the impact that your videos have had on the prospects, and to measure their performance.

5. Use Search Engine Optimization techniques to generate leads. Remember, videos are a gourmet dish for search engines, so give it proper time and prepare it with extra care. Use the right ingredients, so to speak.

Go ahead, share your video!

About the Author:
Mac Craig is an internet professional who has been serving several firms as an online marketing consultant. He counsels on internet video marketing and video advertising.

You’ve heard how fun (and financially rewarding) a website and/or can be. Your only problem is that, like most people, you don’t know how to build one.

…or register a domain…

…or make the graphics…

…or submit it to search engines…

…or add pictures…

…or add Google ads…

…..etc. after discouraging etc…..

To cut to the chase, you need a little help!

Your options? If you want a blog and you want one as fast as possible - Blogger.com is a pretty good place to start. It’s absolutely free and you can actually be blogging in a matter of hours. Less if you don’t do any customizing to the template. With Bloggger you don’t even have to worry about registering a domain.

Even though I run a Web Publishing business and a great deal of my income is based on creating blogs and websites for people, I wholeheartedly give Blogger.com two thumbs up. It’s a great place to start.

However, if you are serious about making money online and doing so in a professional manner - you need a domain as well as a professionally-done website and/or blog.

My suggestions are as follows:

1. Hightide-Web Pubishing specializes in the kind of service you need. If you’re new to the arena of websites or blogging, you need someone who will take the time to help you each step of the way. When our clients hire us, we rally around them to create just the sort of online presence they need and want. E-mail me today ( joisigers @ aim . com ) and tell me exactly what it is you’re thinking about. We’ll get back to you asap with your best course of action, as well as what this course would cost!

2. Another excellent place to start would be www.GoDaddy.com. Known for being the number one Domain Name Registrar, Go Daddy has a reputation that simply can’t be topped. However, they do a lot more than that - Did you know that Go Daddy also offers professional website design and hosting. You could, literally go to www.GoDaddy.com and get everything you could possibly need to create your online presence!

Whichever route you go - your worries and headaches are only a click or two away!

by Rick Sloboda

Those who tap into their raw talents and passion get ahead further and faster in the ever-expanding Web world.

It seems obvious, but most web types get drawn toward immediate, short-term opportunities and wander far from their true calling.

Enter specialization

Renew your drive by specializing in an area where you naturally thrive.

When you focus on one particular area or niche, your knowledge and experience increase rapidly. Within a short timeframe, you get in tune with leading technologies and trends, become established in your industry and market, start to earn top dollar and ultimately gain full control of a satisfying career.

Conversely, if you attempt to be all things to all people, you’ll produce mediocre work and attract comparable clients.

Such was the case with a web-savvy individual who recently completed a series of projects for my business. During the 1990s, he had his hands in programming, design, online marketing and copywriting. “I was attracting the worst customers,” he said. When he wasn’t haggling over price, he was dealing with unhappy clients demanding freebies. He finally decided to stick with what he knows best: programming. Now he works less, makes more and gets to pick his clients.

Not too long ago, another programmer who’s been developing websites for 10 years asked me: “Should I go to school so I can also provide clients designs?”

Rather than broaden his work scope, I suggested he narrow it. A great programmer can’t necessarily become a great designer and vice-verse. It comes down to recognizing what you’re good at and leveraging that talent. After all, it’s no coincidence the very best websites are collectively created by professional web copywriters, designers, programmers and other specialists.

On the design front, a Vancouver-based design team I’ve worked with began researching the food industry’s web needs, and decided to pursue that niche. It didn’t take long to land some notable restaurants and become the ‘go to’ web design firm in that industry. They discovered they have a knack for it, wholeheartedly threw themselves into it and clients now knock on their door.

Unleash your true passion and talent

How do you determine your niche? Consider what you love doing and what you do well. Hopefully the two overlap. Then determine your market; who could you best serve? Finally, fine-tune how you position yourself by listening closely to common customer complaints and problems. If there’s a pain your competition or the industry isn’t paying attention to, you’re sitting on a goldmine.

Some tips on determining your potential expertise and niche:

1) Write down what, how, when and where you are going to offer your service.

2) Describe your strengths (how and why you’re better than the competition).

3) Acknowledge your weaknesses (things you need to improve or delegate).

4) Develop a profile of your ideal client (age, sex, needs, spending habits, region and so on).

The sharper your focus in a particular segment of your industry, the quicker you can gain expertise or even authority status in your field. And that’s when the best clients come to you; the one’s who value your work and pay accordingly.

About the Author:
Rick Sloboda is Founder and Senior Web Copywriter of www.webcopyplus.com, which focuses exclusively on web writing services.

We’ve been in business online for over 8 years and have seen the best of the best and the worst of the worst. There are services and companies we’d recommend without reservation and there are those we’d do everything in our power to keep people away from!

The World’s Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com
got its reputation one way and one way only - by simply being the best at what they do. We have too many domains registered with them to even count and have never, ever had a problem.

But there’s more. They treat each and every customer as though they’re the only one they have. They offer special deals to their customers and give them occasional discount codes to use which save even more money. Needless to say, GoDaddy is one of the resources we’d recommend without a moment’s hesitation.

The next time you want to register a domain or the when you find yourself in need of a server/host - the smartest thing you could do would be to check GoDaddy first. And last.

by Jim Edwards

Copyright (c) 2007 Jim Edwards

It rates easier than ever to start a new business on the Internet.

Never before have the opportunities been more available, the tools cheaper, or the prospects of success more likely.

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran looking to expand an existing online business, a casual dabbler looking for a part-time income, or an offline professional wanting to expand your market online, the following five key steps will help you reach your goals.

Key # 1: Define Your “Target”

Clearly list and explain what you want to accomplish in your web site business.

We all think about what we want to get or accomplish in life and our job.

But did you ever list it specifically in terms of money, traffic to a web site, or more sales online?

This principle and simple activity applies to an ebook, a new website, an ezine or any other business goal.

Defining a clear target will give your conscious and sub conscious mind something definite to shoot for.

Examples include: the number of subscribers to your ezine; sales per day on your website; pages written in an ebook; new advertising sources found; number of affiliates recruited and more.

Key # 2: Define the Cost”

You must “define the cost” in terms of the tools, resources, and people you need to reach your online business target, no matter what type of business you operate.

How much will it cost in time per hour, day, week and month for all of the items?

Also, how much will it cost in terms of money to operate the business, buy traffic, pay for hosting, design and more.

Sit down and map out the costs before throwing open your doors (or wallet) so you don’t get hit with any nasty surprises.

Key # 3: “Make a List”

To create a real business that can be systematized, you must list off every single thing or element connected with your business, from the first idea to making daily deposits into the bank.

You may not know how they’ll get done right now, but you must recognize that eventually these items must get done.

You can easily come up with a fairly comprehensive list by brainstorming just to get them down on paper.

Then, when you think you thought of everything, let someone else take a look and poke holes in your list with all kinds of additions and questions.

Key # 4: “Prioritize”

Here you must list all the elements you planned in number 3 in the exact order of how you should complete them.

Car makers must build in a planned order or the finished product won’t work.

Once you sketch out your complete plan, let someone else take a look to see if you forgot a step.

In fact, they might point out that you forgot to tighten the lug nuts and the wheels fell off in the dealership!

Key # 5: “One Step At A Time”

Most people want it all and they want it now!

Unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work that way.

Whether you do all the work yourself, outsource the job, or a combination of the two, everything must get done in the correct order in the correct way.

My motto reads, “Multi Tasking = Inefficiency.

Don’t try to do two different jobs at the same time, you’ll most likely screw up both and waste time and money doing them a second time.

Doing web site copy and email don’t mix, auto responder messages and voice mail don’t mix.

So pass each milestone on your roadmap and get things done properly and in sequence.

Launching an efficient and effective online business is not difficult.

It just requires careful planning, step-by-step execution, and attention to detail in order to greatly increase your chances of success.

About the Author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the creator of http://www.TheNetReporter.com - a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred website that will teach you step-by-step and click-by-click how to really cash-in online…Discover what really works RIGHT NOW… plus the new twists on tried and true Internet Marketing techniques that create a profitable “real” business you can be proud of… => http://www.TheNetReporter.com

by Noah Ulrich

Creating a website can and should be a fun and profitable endeavor. If done correctly, the entire process of establishing your web presence can be done in as little as 48 hours. In this article, I will establish some basic guidelines any newbie webmaster will want to know in order to make this process as smooth as possible.

The first and most important step is the Planning Stage. This stage is so critical; I could easily devote an entire separate article on this step alone. For this however, I will summarize the important steps and try not to go into too much detail. You will need to decide what you intend to sell or promote. Once this done, you will need to determine your target market. Then you will want to decide on your domain name and targeting keywords. Be sure your domain name is as relevant to what you are selling as possible and try to make it contain that keyword. Now you want to determine the overall layout of your site. Be sure to choose your words and graphics carefully, and try to optimize your site as best you can.

This brings us to our next step, properly designing your website. It is always a good idea to design with both search engines and customers in mind. Proper search engine optimization can provide your site with many free visitors and potential profits. For those looking to do it themselves, proper education should be their number one priority. The best part about this education is most of it can be received free of charge. You have hundreds of resources in article websites such as Goarticles.com and Ezinearticles.com. Plus with hundreds of good webmaster forums also available, the extent of your education is only limited by the amount of time and effort you are willing to commit.

With this knowledge of how to design a site, you will now want to create it. Using HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, you will find that the actual task of creating your site is quite easy. You can also find other free HTML Editors online by doing a search at www.download.com. Other ways of creating your website can be done using templates, or pre-built sites where all you change is the payment link, or web site generators, where you would enter some basic criteria of what you are looking for in your site, and it will create the code for you. You would then use this code for your site.

Of course, you could always hire a programmer. I do not really recommend this because it is good to know how to do things yourself. Plus, programmers can get quite expensive. In the end, the money used to hire a programmer is usually better spent adding to your own product line, or advertising your site.

Now that we have our website design complete, we need to put it on the web to reach our target audience. You will now need to purchase your domain name. Your domain name needs to be planned out in advance and should contain a keyword you are targeting. It is also a good idea to purchase your domain name from a well known and reputable company. Sites such as Yahoo!, GoDaddy, and Network Solutions offer domain names and the support and reliability you are looking for in your web business. Once you have your domain name set up, you will need to set your Name Servers that you will receive from your hosting company.

Which brings us to our next step, “Hosting”. Web hosting is a necessary component of your business; however it does not need to necessarily be a large portion of your budget. I have found excellent deals on hosting packaging just by knowing how to do my homework. First you will need to evaluate your hosting requirements and your budget. Determine the disk space and bandwidth necessary to properly operate your business. Disk space is the amount of room, or how big, your site is. The bandwidth needed is the size of your site multiplied by the number of visitors you anticipate on receiving. If your site is rather small, 10 pages or less and does not have too many graphics or flashy animations, your required disk space may only be a few megabytes. However if you selling many items, or if you are selling downloadable items or software, your disk space may need to be a few gigs or higher.

Compare plans and do your homework. Consider using sites such as Findmyhost.com or Ratemyhost.com to help you with your comparison shopping. There are a few things I would suggest you look for while searching for your host. The servers’ uptime or how long it has been up and running is important. When your server is up, you are able to conduct business. If you server is down however, your sites’ “doors” are closed and you could be losing potential customers and sales. It is also a good idea to look at the customer reviews of the host you are considering. If you spot a trend of poor reviews, you may want to reconsider your choice. Does your host offer you real time site statistics and the ability to analyze this info? I have found many more hosts offering CPanel, Fantastico, and AwStats because of the many features of these valuable software programs. Bandwidth and Disk Space limits should also come into consideration along with an email client. Most good hosts offer step by step instructions on integrating your Microsoft Outlook to receive your sites emails.

Now that we have our store up and running, how are we going to accept payments? Enter the payment processor. A payment processor allows you to accept most major credit cards, checks, and sometimes cash for a small fee. Not only do they allow a smooth and secure transaction, they also help protect you and your rights should a dispute arise. Popular payment processors include Paypal, Clickbank, and 2CheckOut.

You now have a complete site, and have tested every link to be sure they all work properly. Now we need to get this site from your computer to your web hosts computer. Piece of cake with an FTP program. FTP, or file transfer protocol allows you to transfer your files from your computer to another computer. You can find free FTP software by doing a search on www.download.com. I have had good results with FTP Commander and CoreFTP, as they have easy to use interfaces. Once you have your FTP software, you will need to open the folder that contains your site and send it to the correct folder on your sites servers. This information is obtained from the confirmation email you have received from your hosting company.

Finally, we come to my personal favorite stage, promotion. Good promotion is very important because if no one knows you exist, your product will not sell no matter how good it is. Quite possibly the best type of promotion is search engine optimization. This traffic is so coveted because not only is it highly targeted, it is also FREE! Sites with high search engine rankings on even moderately searched keywords can get hundreds or thousands of visitors each month. This can lead to dozens of free sales. However, keep in mind, search engines algorithms can change at any time. This could devastate your rankings and your traffic if you depend entirely on search engines to bring you visitors. Of course if you cannot earn your way to the top of search engine rankings, you could always buy your way to the top. Using PPC or Pay-per-Click, marketing you pay only for each visitor that comes to your site through that search query. This is a great way to gain customers, but can become very costly; with some keywords receiving bids in excess of 5 dollars per click. Some popular PPC networks are Google Adwords, GoClick, and Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture.

There are also some free ways to earn traffic to your site. Exchange Networks usually work on a “you view my site or ad for X seconds, and I will view your site or ad” or similar method. This can bring you lots of free traffic fairly quickly. You will generally see these services listed under Traffic Exchanges, Banner Exchanges, or Link Exchanges.

Message Boards, Forums, and Safelists are also excellent ways of promoting your site with minimal investment. Sites such as Yahoo! Groups and Herculist allow you to email messages to other members with similar interests. PTC, or Paid to Click marketing is similar to the search engines PPC but instead of search queries, you are targeting a user database. This can bring you a ton of visitors to your site in a short amount of time, but sometimes this traffic is low converting due to the visitors are paid to visit your site. They are just after the incentive and really do not care so much about the actual product being promoted.

The last topic of promotion is article marketing. This is perhaps some to the best marketing you can do. When you write an article, you place your signature or brief bio about yourself at the bottom. You then submit it to article directories. These article directories give you a free link to your site, helping your search engine rankings. These directories also allow other webmasters to use your article on their site, thus providing you another link and further increasing your search engine rankings. Another great feature of article marketing is based on the quality of your article, you could become an authority on your subject; thus building trust in what you have to say, which usually leads to more sales.

As you can see, creating a website is much easier than you probably first imagined. With just a little time and effort, and even less cash, you can create your own web store open 24 hours a day. Using these tips will provide you a solid foundation to build upon when fashioning your new site. Please note that this article is not meant to be all inclusive, but more like a beginning of your webmaster career. And always keep in mind as with any endeavor, your sites’ success is largely dependent on your commitment to get it done.

Noah Ulrich is webmaster of http://www.informativeresources.com, http://www.sterlingwebtraffic.com, and http://www.realsitetraffic.com. His sites offer a variety of webmaster tools and resources, master resale rights, guaranteed USA and International signups, real web traffic, and a new premier traffic exchange.

About the Author:
Noah Ulrich is webmaster of http://www.informativeresources.com, http://www.sterlingwebtraffic.com, and http://www.realsitetraffic.com. His sites offer a variety of webmaster tools and resources, master resale rights, guaranteed USA and International signups, real website visitors, and a new premier traffic exchange.

Who says you can’t get anything for free anymore?

I was researching html validation, search engine spiders, and search engine performance today and came across a few websites that made my job SO MUCH easier. I’ve linked them below, so give them a look when you get a chance. On second thought - make a chance, the information’s THAT important.

Free Internet Marketing and SEO Tools - I was particularly impressed with #17, the Spider Viewer. It allows you to see your page as a Search Engine Spider would. I ran some of my websites through and was amazed at the lack of some keywords as well as the abundance of some nonesense! I have a little work to do.

Dr. Watson’s HTML Validator - Again, you enter your url, then you’re presented with a list of “errors” found in your html. Rest assured, there’ll be errors. I read an article on About.com and the author said that their own website had lots of errors. It does, however, point out some basic html validating errors that could be causing problems in other browsers and/or in search engine performance.

Below the list of errors found, you’ll be able to see your html code with numbers before each line - it makes it a cinch to find exactly where the problems lie. Did I find any errors on my websites? Again… I have work to do!