january 2008

This post is from from my other blog here

We’ve all had it happen. We’re surfing the web and find a down site. Maybe the site is overloaded from too much traffic at that moment, but you really want to check out the site as soon as it becomes available again. You might think there’s only one thing to do, obsessively type the URL and keep checking over and over again until the site lets you in. But…drum roll please…there’s an easier way! You can set yourself up pretty easily with a notification system to eliminate the need to continuously check. Here’s a step-by-step how to: (click on thumbnails for larger images)

First, download Firefox, an absolutely awesome browser with many, many add-ons and extensions to improve the functionality and usefulness. It’s free.

Once you’ve got Firefox up and running, go to Add-ons, and then Extensions, from the Firefox download page.

Search the site for the Mr Uptime Firefox Extension.

Download it and restart Firefox. You will see Mr Uptime’s face in your browser bar.

Enter the URL of a site you want to monitor into a Google search bar. Click on the Mr. Uptime icon to open up a menu.

Under the “Watch For” menu check “Status change.” Click on the Add Watch button. Now, you can start doing something else and receive an alert when the site is available again!

Going into settings allows you to select either receiving your notification in a new tab or window, or in a dialog box. You can also change the location of the icon, and set other preferences. This tool can also be set to notify you of any text changes on a page by entering in words that the text either should or should not contain. I can think of a few ways this could be useful, such as if you want to know when a certain site is updated without having to check many times. You could enter a day of the week or month in the “should contain” field. Or perhaps you want to make sure a competitor isn’t using a certain copyrighted phrase. Let me know your ideas for uses!

Tags: Down, Site, Notification, Firefox, Extension, Add-on

This post is from from my other blog here

 

 

There are a few tools I use quite often, either in creating these blog posts, writing informative articles for posting on the MightyMerchant site, or in creating our monthly email newsletters.  These tools really help me create a professional, attractive finished product, and I know they will help you, too. Best of all, they don’t cost any money to use! (Exception being istockphoto, which is inexpensive enough that it’s practically free.)

I wanted to share with you three of the tools I use to create visually appealing documents, and also introduce one resource for inspiration that a client shared with me.

As a business owner, you have probably had many occasions to create PDF files. These file types are pretty standard in the business world for sending and receiving documents. A suite of three downloadable programs is available from pdf995.com for Windows users. Pdf 995  allows you to create and save files in PDF format and offers a ton of features.

As I’m writing blog posts or articles, I frequently find that I want to take a screenshot of something I’ve come across to illustrate whatever point I’m making…a screenshot of a Google search result, show a how- to of something I’m writing about, or just capture a web page image to send to someone as an example. I use Skitch constantly. It’s is incredibly easy to grab anything happening on screen to share with someone else–an image of an IM screen, an email, anything. And once you’ve grabbed the image, their built-in editing menu lets you add text, resize, and save your images in a history folder. When you’re ready to use the images, just drag and drop. One drawback is it is only for Mac users, however, anyone using Windows who needs a free screen grab program can check out Mirekw.

In case you have ever wondered where the images that illustrate most of my blog posts come from, look no further. istockphoto.com is an invaluable resource for low-cost high quality images. For as little as $1 apiece, you can download images to use for newsletters, blog posts, brochures, or your website that illustrate any theme you can imagine, from business success to happiness.

Finally, Karen from InnocraftDesigns.com, shared her favorite website, simpletruths.com. InnocraftDesigns specializes in home remodeling  which allows people to remain in their own homes as they age–walk-in showers, wheelchair access and other home accessibility projects. It’s a rewarding job and one that allows people to live more comfortable lives as they age, but it’s also a job that leaves Karen feeling like she needs her own inspirational lift every now and then. (We can all appreciate that, can’t we!) She appreciates the weekly uplifting videos she gets emailed to her in the newsletters, and if you ever wanted to know where to get some of those inspirational slogan posters, this is your place!

Got your own essential resource you use in managing your business? I’d love to hear about it.

Tags: Free, Business, Tools, Resources

This post is from from my other blog here

Here at MightyMerchant, we work directly with a great cross-section of business owners in many different industries, developing new ecommerce websites and retrofitting ecommerce sites developed by other web designers that lacked good navigability and usability features. Our clients call us and email us every day with questions about how to improve a feature on their site or integrate their site with a helpful third-party application. They share their customers’ comments with us, and tell us things they like and don’t like about how their sites are set up. We listen to each comment and request, and use that to improve our ecommerce platform wherever we can.

I’ve talked to our staff and compiled their best advice for our clients, based on the needs they meet for other clients every day.

Here are some tips from our staff to help you get the most from the MightyMerchant eCommerce platform, and maximize your business in general for a prosperous 2008.

Staci Schipporeit, co-owner and developer of the MightyMerchant eComerce software:

“I’d like to advise ecommerce customers to use QuickBooks Pro for bookkeeping and save time by downloading orders from their website to QuickBooks. We use QuickBooks for all of our business bookkeeping and I think it’s a rather amazing product.”

Michael Stearns, CTO and co-owner of MightyMerchant:

“Update your website home page on a regular basis. Whether you want to post news, present featured products, share your homespun philosophy, or emphasize seasonal themes, you will reinforce the relevance of your website and catch the attention of customers if you regularly update your information. You can reinforce the timeliness of your content by posting dates when you make updates.”

Kathleen, our web developer:

“My advice relates to product images. Oftentimes, customers upload a product image with whatever default filename their digital camera happens to give the image. They are missing an opportunity to take advantage of potential SEO (search engine optimization) benefits by renaming their file something relevant to the product itself. Google’s recent algorithm change gives more consideration to images and other media.”

Jeanie, our Operations Manager:

“Keep adding features to your site. As your site grows, customers start asking for new or different things, like, “It would be great to have an account and not have to type in my address each time I come back,” or you want to try new marketing strategies, like online coupons. Explore ways to keep your site fresh and improving what it offers the customer.”

Kathy, our Lead Designer:

“When categorizing items in the Site Manager, keep in mind that just as no two customers are going to walk through a department store in exactly the same way, no two online customers are going to navigate your website in exactly the same way, so including your products in multiple categories increases the likelihood that a customer will see a particular product. For example, you may want to show a book in an author category and a genre category. MightyMerchant provides two ways for you to show products ...

www.stickersexchange.com Would you advise this site to get a new domain name? lol!

This post is from from my other blog here

When I  requested that our clients share their favorite business resources with me, I really didn’t have a sense of what I would discover. The first response I received was from a client who shared his tools for combating order fraud, which I reported on in the Best Business Resources #1 post.

Stephanie at BlackberryQuilts.com shared that her favorite business resource is Constant Contact. I’ve written about Constant Contact a few times (MightyMerchant’s Constant Contact partnership, seasonal email templates), but this was an opportunity to get a personal perspective on the power of email marketing.

BlackberryQuilts.com sells kits for beginner and experienced quilters. Kits come with step by step instructions and pre-cut and  pre-measured fabric, so you’re ready to sew when the kit arrives. Stephanie’s been using Constant Contact for almost three years to keep in touch with her customers. She says that her favorite thing about Constant Contact is that it’s “so easy to use, and I can design a custom product without being a computer geek.” That is one of the nice features of the service, that their templates are easily customizable for the color and layout you want, and they can be modified to match your website, including your own logo so your customers instantly recognize that the email came from you.

Stephanie keeps BlackberryQuilts.com’s monthly newsletters interesting by including announcements of new products, a coupon, or other special offers that tempt her customers to keep opening her emails. “I try to include a quilting tip or an idea for a handmade gift in each newsletter-a bonus for my customers,” she says.

Stephanie doesn’t spend too much time looking at the analytics that are included with Constant Contact, but she says, “If you want to analyze your data, the results are very easy to follow.”

Using Constant Contact to send out a survey is still on Stephanie’s to do list, but she does take advantage of the service’s promotional and seasonal templates. There’s no doubt that email marketing is a proven successful method of growing a loyal customer base. For just a fraction of a cent per email you can reach customers who voluntarily give you thei email address and are already interested in what you are offering. Just give them something of value, and they’ll keep tuning in, month after month, and return to your website when they’re ready to buy.

Thanks Stephanie! What’s your best business resource? Let me know,  and I’ll write it up in a future post.

Tags: Constant, Contact, Best, Business, Resources, Email, Marketing, Tools

Hello everyone, I just created a new group I wanted to announce. I'm in Eugene, Oregon and would love to find other search marketing and web design professionals in my area for community and discussion, and to find other similar minded local people on Gooruze. If you are in Oregon please consider joining the group or just email me to introduce yourself. Take care! Vanessa

This post is from from my other blog here

We’ve all got those siren items that call to us in irresistible voices, no matter how many similar items we may already have. Though a foodie’s kitchen cupboards may be bursting, they will always afford a new gadget or flavored vinegar. Though a clotheshorses’ closet shelves may be buckling under, they will always afford another pair of shoes. Certain items cause some of us to stop in our tracks when we catch a glimpse of one in a shop window, or on an ecommerce site, as the case may be.

One of my siren items is vintage handbags. Occasionally I browse online vintage shops…just looking. My heart thrilled when I came across the following description of a handbag from VintageBag.com:

“Pleasingly Plump 1950s Vintage Margolin Bag. I LOVE this bag. It’s precisely the color of Godiva’s milk chocolate (and that always makes me happy, of course.) Then, there’s the fact that Margolin bags were always beautifully constructed of the finest possible materials. Also, Margolin bags were always rather conservative, never-take-a-risk shapes. And, this bag is both beautifully constructed and a conservative shape. The yummy color and the fact that it could be mistaken for a chocolate drop, help to make it remarkable. AND, the shape and size are very roomy! 11″ wide at the widest point, by 7″ high by 3 1/2″ deep. Handles have a 6″ drop. The lining is tan leather, as is the matching, attached leather coin purse. Brass tip on the pull tab, piping at the seams. Two inside pockets, one with a metal zipper. Embroidered fabric label says, “Fashions by Margolin,” and has the logo image of the shoemaker at work. Very nearly mint. Perhaps never carried.

“A work of love sometimes becomes a work of art, and that’s exactly what we have here. My theory is that no one would work so hard and so long on a bag, merely to sell it. So, it must have been intended as a gift to a loved one. And, the result is breathtaking! This is a large handbag, at 11 3/4″ wide by 8″ high (to the actual top of the storage capacity of the bag,) by 3 1/4″ deep, with the “false front” of the bag and the handle adding 7″ high. The same detailed tooling is on the back of the bag, as well as the bottom and the sides. The bag is impeccably finished, with the handles well padded, the lacing closely spaced and firm, the button closure perfect. The stain has a now-taupe, now khaki-green cast. It is lined in black pigskin, and has three generously sized pockets, one with a metal zipper. AND, it is in nearly mint condition. NO problems. (I’m thinking of keeping this one–as you can tell from the price–so don’t expect it to be marked down.)”

Wow! First of all, this writer knows her target audience, right down to the stash of Hershey’s chocolate kisses she has hidden in her office desk for ...

This post is from from my other blog here

I recently put out a call asking for people to share their best business resources. Could be anything…a newsletter, website or blog you turn to for marketing inspiration or a time-saving tool you use everyday. I plan to turn those responses into a series of posts on this blog-with a link to the respondents’ websites and a little about the business if you like-about what real businesses feel are their best resources. If you would like to share your most helpful resources with me and our readers, please email me or leave a comment here and I will respond. This is the first post on this topic.

One of the first responses I received was about a topic on the minds of every small business that sells online-order fraud. Unfortunately, this is a widespread problem and one that is likely to burn every ecommerce webmaster sooner or later. I broached the subject of identifying and preventing order fraud in a previous post, but here is the experience of one of our clients who wished to remain anonymous, and the tools they use to combat the problem of fraudulent orders.

“Identity theft is a real concern for us. Early in 07 we learned the hard way how to avoid being victims after we shipped three orders worth about $800. Two out of the three were delivered, we had UPS do an intercept of the third package worth about $300. As you know there is a flag system for detecting if a transaction may be suspicious. One of the most helpful resources is the white pages for reverse phone number look up. Out of the services we have tried their listings seem to be the most complete, even if it is a cell number, the city and state is listed.

“Another resource is used for IP look up that shows the customer’s general location. [Vanessa’s note-this is a free service.] Our credit card processing company, Authorize.net, lists our customer’s IP number on each transaction, from there we can plug that into the IP look up and see the location of our customer. Location is everything! Once I detected a fraudulent transaction…the customer’s “bill to” address was Michigan, the “ship to” was Miami. By looking up the IP location I found that the person placing the order was in fact in Columbia.”

It’s likely you aren’t checking every single order that comes through your shop, but when you do get that feeling that something’s not right or perhaps you conduct a random check, these tools can help you avoid being a victim. What do you do to help decrease the incidence of online order fraud?

Tags: online, order, fraud, fraudulent, orders, identifying, preventing, order, fraud

Hello everyone. I'm planning a series of posts on the MightyMerchant eCommerce Blog about the best business decisions people made in 2007. I'd like to hear from you on the best decisions you made to improve your website, small business or blog in 2007, what the problem was before the change and what improvement you saw after the change. We can get as specific as you like. I would like to write a bit about you and your business, and naturally link to your site. Please email me or leave a comment here if you are interested in talking about this more. I hope to hear from many of you! Thank you!

This post is from from my other blog here

Squidoo.com is the creation of Seth Godin, known for his popular marketing blog and books, and for coining such phrases as “Meatball Sundae.” According to Godin, meatballs are the things businesses need, the foundations which their businesses are based on. The sundae toppings are the marketing opportunities-the social networks, the blogs, viral marketing and all the other things people engage in to shuttle online attention to their websites. A meatball sundae results when people try to mix the two things: Their attempts often fail.

One thing Godin believes every business should do is create a Squidoo lens, which is simply an easy-to-build single web page about any topic of your choosing. Squidoo lenses are free to build, customizable, and contain links to your official business webpage, your blog, your Flickr account, your hobby pages, eBay auctions and anything else you want people to find. Check out MightyMerchant’s lens for an example. I’ve included an RSS feed with blurbs from recent blog posts, articles I’ve posted to the MightyMerchant site, and a MightyMerchant Site ‘O the Day with a link to one of our customers. [While you’re there, please take a moment to rate the lens and leave a comment in the guestbook :)] You can think of a lens as a mini-page that highlights the best your site has to offer or the most interesting information you have to share, and directs people on where to find more.

Squidoo lenses are crawed and indexed by search engines and appear in search engine results pages. There is no limit to the number of lenses you can build, so the idea is that when Squiders create many different web pages that relate to their field of expertise, there are that many more chances for people to find you.

Lenses rank highly in search engines based on the same principles of other web pages, so having a high number of incoming links helps your lens ranks higher. Updating your lens frequently helps too, because, as I’ve said, oh…a thousand and three times now…search engines love changing content. I have seen Squidoo lenses ranking highly on Google in certain competitive searches. Check this out:

This lens is number 1 on the first page! Because the lenses are free, Squidoo does run AdSense ads on the lenses, and Squidoo keeps a portion of the profits. You can choose whether you want to accept the AdSense earnings on your lens or donate them to a charity of your choice.

The only negative I can think of to Squidoo is that it does take some time to set up and maintain, however, it’s minimal and Squidoo is designed to be easy to use. Our MightyMerchant lens took about one and a half hours to set up, and now it only requires ten minutes of time here and there as I update it.

Bottom line: Yes! Create a Squidoo lens. Why not? They’re free, fun to make, and can ...

This post is from from my other blog here

Reading David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, was like having a long lunch date with a helpful PR expert who answered all my questions. Scott, a Boston-based marketer who blogs at www.WebInkNow.com, developed New Rules from the ideas in his free e-book, The New Rules of PR. He patiently explains how the online marketplace has changed and why the old strategies don’t work anymore. Companies no longer need to hire expensive PR firms to reach their target market. The new rules of marketing and PR allow you to take your message directly to the buyer, by leveraging new tools such as blogs, vlogs (like a blog but with video entries) and podcasts. He gives inspiring examples of how real businesses have used new media, and his examples work for any type of organization that seeks to increase their online profile, from churches to rock bands to non-profits to commercial enterprises both large and small. Early chapters focus on case-studies and overviews of each technology that he covers. In later chapters, Scott delves into the how-to of integrating the technologies into your own online environment.

In addition to explaining the benefits and differences of these new marketing tools, Scott explains the etiquette behind them, such as how to handle comments you leave on other people’s blogs or respond to comments left on yours. After reading this book, the convergence of online technologies will seem less confusing, and will hopefully leave you with the feeling that these are things you can actually do and not just think about doing.

Though I am already immersed in the world of online marketing, I learned a thing or two. For instance, I will never again ignore an opportunity to send a press release, and I added a link to this blog in my email signature. Why had I never thought of that before? I’m sure you will come away from this book with a fresh perspective on your business, too. If you read it, or if you’ve already read it, please leave me a comment and let me know what ideas you’re ready to try!

Tags: Marketing,, PR,, book,, review,, online,, Scott