No Credit Card? No Problem Internet Retailers Allow Consumers To Shop Online With Cash

In today’s economically depressed climate, many retailers are feeling the affects of limited consumer spending  first hand.  Online retailers, in particular, have been offering sales, special deals, and promotions in an effort to attract buyers, and are expected to increase their efforts as the 2009 holiday season approaches.

But what about those consumers who don’t have or use credit cards and/or debit cards? Believe it or not, there are quite a lot of them, about 72 million in fact, according to eBillme.com. Ebillme is trying to capitalize on this demographic by offering them the option to pay for their online purchases in cash.

How does this work?

Through the site’s “walk-in” payment option can purchase items online from 840 different ecommerce sites, and then pay for their purchases in cash at one of Ebillme’s payment locations. Once payment is confirmed, the merchant is notified, and the product is sent.

If this service catches on, more online retailers may have to rethink the types of payment options that they offer their customers, and expand these options accordingly.

While paying in cash for online purchases may allow customers to take advantage of special online deals,  critics also point out that it may also be time-consuming and confusing for some “cash only” customers who are, according to eBillme CEO Marwan Forzley,  primarily seniors or recent immigrants  without access to banking.

Killer Advice for a Beginner Blogger

As I look back, many tactics were missed, but I learned what to embrace and discard. There is a lot of hype, and I learned quickly not to get sucked in.

Here are some tips you can begin with – based on some personal advice.

1. Turn your weak points into the strong ones. Do you have more than one language skill? What could it mean for you? Writing a blog post in a different language takes much more time than it would have taken a native speaker because you may not be as well versed, and it will take longer to phrase it right. Therefore, a tip: Write shorter posts and try to provide actionable advice, useful screenshots, tables and lists. This can be a key selling point. (more…)

Post by: SEO Consulting Blog – Seo Smarty (Thanks Ann!)

Track and Improve Blog Post Quality with Delicious WordPress Plugin

How can you really tell if the quality of your blog posts are improving over time?  Unfortunately, while Delicious is a great social bookmarking tool, its interface does not make it easy to extract the information necessary to help track the quality of posts over time…

If you’re blogging to:

1. generate affiliate and content network revenues, the answer is obvious.
2. to drive the bottom line ultimately by positioning yourself as an authority in your industry, you’ll need to routinely publish Resource type posts.

Perhaps the single best metric for tracking Resource post quality is the number of Delicious saves. Something saved a few hundred times is obviously more of a resource than something with no saves. Its not perfect since not everyone uses Delicious, but it is a great relative measure, and the single best metric to track progress over time.

So, What is DeliciousCount and why do you really care?
DeliciousCount is a great tool to help…

… Read For More…

Blog Tips: 8 Tactics to Make Readers Engage!

Source: Andertoons

Blogs are all about information. We write to entertain, to educate, to share news and get the conversation started. This could purely be for distribution of useful, unique information, or something more direct, a sales related and affiliate marketing centric blog.

The truth is – not many blogs make it to the top 100 – as seen in Seth Godin’s Top 1,000 things you should know

There is so much information floating around. What are the tactics to make folks read your blog?

Here are some great tips to get you started — starting with your planning:

Source: Purdue

1.) Plan Ahead

So,  if you don’t know where you’re going with your writing, then your readers don’t stand a chance. Before you sit down and … read more …

Sergey starts a blog!

I’ve checked with folks at Google and they confirmed that http://too.blogspot.com/ is Sergey Brin’s blog. The name “too” reflects Sergey’s additional life outside work. One of his first posts is about the fact that he might be more likely to develop Parkinson’s Disease when he’s older. That’s based on data from 23andMe, the personal genetics company co-founded by Sergey’s wife Anne Wojcicki. It’s a serious reminder that healthiness is one of the top issues for anyone.

I’m sure that lots of people will flood Sergey with advice like “Add Google Analytics to that blog!” or suggest how to tweak his blog template or offer him free SEO tips. Personally, I’m just glad that Sergey is blogging. I think it’s a great idea and I hope that he keeps doing it. Sergey, welcome to the blogosphere.

Update: I didn’t even think to check before posting, but Sergey already has Google Analytics installed on his blog. He’s ahead of the game.

Shiny Chrome bits, plus a fresh tip

A few neat Chrome things that I’ve seen recently:

CrossOver ported the open-source Chromium browser over to Mac and Linux using Wine. Bear in mind that this is more of a proof-of-concept and not the official version, but you can still download the binaries and play with it.

If you like the look and feel of Chrome but can’t leave your Firefox 3 extensions behind, someone made a Chrome lookalike extension so that Firefox looks like Chrome.

Or if you want to go the other direction, you can make Chrome look like Firefox3:

Lots of different places, including ChromeSpot, talk about how to do other themes, from “Galaxy” to the Boston Red Sox.

Currently Chrome doesn’t have support for extensions such as Greasemonkey that lets users do client-side modifications of web pages. But Kazuho Oku has written a neat way to get Greasemonkey-like functionality out of Chrome. Oku calls it Greasemetal. How does it work, when Chrome doesn’t support extensions yet? I’ll let the author tell you:

1. setup a local web server that sends userscripts to Google Chrome
2. launch Google Chrome specifying the browser to connect its AutomationProxy (an interprocess communication channel of the web browser implemented for automated UI tests) to Greasemetal
3. periodically execute JavaScript in each browser tab that inserts

(hat tip to Mashable on Greasemetal)

As you might imagine, all of this stuff might break in various weird and wild ways, but that’s part of the fun of tinkering. If you want to play it safer, you can read great Chrome tips from Lifehacker, Google OS, or Google Blogoscoped.

And since you’ve read all the way to the bottom, let me mention a tip that I haven’t seen widely mentioned. In Chrome, Control-V will paste from your clipboard and preserve formatting. If you use Control-Shift-V, only the text will be pasted.

Let me show you what I mean. There’s a site called Sphinn that lets you comment on search news, but the comment box allows rich formatting. In this image, I’ve highlighted a comment about Chrome and pasted the whole thing into the comment box with Control-V:

Now if I only wanted to paste the raw text that I highlighted, here’s what happens when I use Control-Shift-V:

This can be handy for some programs such as Google Docs that let you paste rich objects like images and formatting–but sometimes you want to paste only the text.

The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist for Shopping Checkout Processes

by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This list covers items regarding the actual checkout process of the shopping experience, after products are added and the visitor moves to complete the purchase of the items in the cart.

Why this is important: If visitors only add products to the cart but abandon the cart or get confused in the checkout process conversions will be low as will profit. The more proper cues you can provide that give the shopper confidence and assurances about their purchase, the less likely they will be to dump the cart or lose interest before closing he deal.

What to look for:

• No hidden fees: Don’t use the checkout process to add additional hidden fees. All fees should be spelled out in the basket page.
• No pre-registration: Don’t require shoppers to register before purchasing. Let them fill out the form and then add a password at the end of the process.
• Keep checkout process short: The fewer steps the shopper has to take to purchase the less likely they will be to abandon the shopping process.
• Show benefits of registration: At end of process, show benefits to being a registered customer:

  • Faster checkout in future: They won’t have to fill out all the information each time they order.
  • Access to order history: Shoppers have access to complete order history at any time.
  • Check order status: Status of order is available anytime shoppers login.
  • Saved for later information: They can buy some products now and save others for purchase another time.
  • Access to special promotions: Shoppers will be provided special offers and discounts that they can benefit from.
  • Personalization: They will have a more personalized shopping experience based on their order history.
  • Joining a community: If fitting, point out the community that user will join once registering.

• Show checkout progress meter: When checking out requires multiple steps, make sure the number of steps is mapped out throughout the process, identifying each current step along the way.
• Effective after-order follow-up: The order is not the end, be sure to provide sufficient after-order follow-up to keep involved with the purchaser.
• Receipt / Confirmation: Provide a order confirmation receipt allowing the shopper to review the order, pricing and products purchased.

  • Printable: Receipt should be web-based and printable for easy record keeping.
  • Emailed: Email a copy of the receipt to the shopper.
  • Thank you message: Provide a strong message of thanks for the shopper. Providing additional information about customer satisfaction is a good idea.
  • Order number: Receipt should have the order number for easy follow up reference.
  • Order date: Provide the date the order was placed with the confirmation.
  • Items purchased: List all items purchased including descriptions and links.
  • Expected delivery date: If order cannot ship right away, provide a date in which shipment can be expected to go out.
  • Payment method: Note method of payment, including credit card type and last numbers of credit card if applicable.
  • Cancellation policy: Provide information or links to order cancellation policies.
  • How to cancel: Provide additional information on the steps necessary to cancel the order if necessary (different from policies).
  • Return policy: Provide information or links to order return policies. This should also include a return address.
  • Address return costs: Be sure to address all concerns regarding the costs of returns as applicable.
  • After-sale guarantees: Provide information on your customer satisfaction guarantees as well as any warranties provided.

Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below.

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Bet You Didn’t Know Micro Blogging Could Be This Simple

by Karri Flatla

When I finally did get on the micro blogging bandwagon (and no, I don’t count Facebook, not even the “new” one), I put my profile on pretty much all of the Twitter-ish sites I could find. Hey, why not? It’s sort of like one of those drinking games where you do a bunch of different shooters in about half and hour, realize most of them just make you want to throw up and go back to your favourite beer the following Saturday.

My favourite beer is Twitter. My favourite shooter is Ping.fm. Both have a special place in my repertoire, and I’ve not puked even once. A veteran knows how to pace herself. Here’s what works for me in the micro blogosphere, hangover free:

1) Twitter is my water cooler. (And yes, I was calling it that BEFORE Joel Comm or anyone else called it that. So there.) As such, it has a special place on my desktop via the twhirl app. Tried others. Came back to twhirl. So, I take a sip of water often throughout the day, and if I see a good conversation going on “over there,” I park myself at the water cooler for a few, give and get some advice, be entertained, gossip a little about my own life and then it’s back to work. Refreshing without feeling like I’m drowning.

2) Ping.fm is my broadcast. It’s no micro blogging tool, and it wasn’t meant to be one. It’s  for blasting a short message that you want everyone you know and might want to know a little better to read. I use Ping.fm for general, marketing related communications as well as other juicy bits that may be of interest to my kin. And when I Ping I Ping it good. I Ping LinkedIn, Facebook (uh, the new one), Twitter, Plurk, Pownce, Plaxo and so on.

There are so many ways to slice up the micro blogging pie. At the end of the day though, Twitter is where I hang out. It’s my community. Maybe Bebo is yours. (What’s a Bebo?) Ping.fm is what its name implies: a way to reach a lot of people without getting too personal. Sort of like radio. 

The best way to illustrate my micro blogging strategy(?) would be with examples.

Twitter Post Examples:

• Want to try the new Ping.fm for micro blogging en mass? It’s in beta. DM me for the code.
• My laptop would make a better doorstop. Where are the best laptop deals in Canada online?
• The next kid that pulls the cord on my modem is getting put up for adoption. Takers?
• Woohoo! Just signed a new client who loved the website audit we did. Nice lead gen tool.

Ping.fm Post Examples:

• New Search Engine Guide post – Bet You Didn’t Know Micro Blogging Could Be This Simple – http://searchengineguide.com/karri-flatla/etc
• Star Wars-meets-Izzy-Izzard skit in Lego. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw [No really, you do have to see it].
• Latest newsletter went out today. New whatever offered for download to all subscribers.
• If you like purple widgets, Digg this – http://www.somewebsite.com/somepressrelease.html

See? Nuthin’ hard about this micro blogging thing. We’re all connected now, and that doesn’t have to be overhwhelming. Just pick your pleasure on the micro stuff and stick with it (i.e. Twitter for me). And Ping the macro once a day or once a week. No hangovers. No headaches. No hassles.

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A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way – so the website succeeds.

Yahoo-Rhapsody Team Up Brings Music to Search

Yahoo has teamed up with Rhapsody to enable users to listen to the full copies of songs right on the Yahoo! Search results page. This is in addition to the other Rhapsody collaboration which provides music artist shortcut on the page. Whereas before, Yahoo search users can only find quick details about artists, this time whenever a user search for an artists or a particular song, a Rhapsody music player will pop out of the screen to enable them to listen to the full version of the songs. (more…)

Oops! Google Did It Again, Gets Big Chunk of Search Market Share for August

As expected, the latest data from comScore shows that Google once again got the biggest chunk of the search market share for August and even managed to register a 1.1% increase from last month’s 61.9% to 63%. And we don’t have to guess who suffered from Google’s gain, Yahoo with a .9% decrease from last month’s 20.5% to 19.6% and Microsoft with .6% decrease from 8.9% to this month’s 8.3%.

Both Ask Network and AOL got a slight increase with .3% (4.5%-4.8%) and .1% (4.2%-4.3%)  respectively . (more…)