Dental Web Site Marketing with the Internet
I want you to imagine the following scenario and think about a potential dental marketing plan. You are a prospective dental patient. You have been told to visit Dentist Smith by a trusted friend. Sixty percent of patients these days do some form of online validation. Most prospective patients start off by putting the name of the dentist and the name of their city in a search engine. This presents an excellent dental marketing communications opportunity.
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Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing
Conversation Marketing: Pulling together search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, web site design and marketing communications into a singleinternet ...
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Marketing Your Work From Home Web Site with Proper Use of Forum Signatures
One of my readers prompted me to write about the use of forums in marketing your work from home web site or products/services that you offer. Believe it or not, forums can provide terrific targeted traffic as well as long-term natural search engine traffic. I’ve always been a fan of forums. They provide an enormous wealth [...]
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Strutting your Cyber Stuff: Learn how other magazines employ multimedia marketing to promote their Internet ventures - New Media
Strutting your Cyber Stuff: Learn how other magazines employ multimedia marketing to promote their Internet ventures - New Media
Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management

Most magazines are clamoring to get on the Internet stage, yet when it comes to actually marketing their Web sites, many seem to be waiting in the wings. While investor-backed Internet ventures have been spending millions to plaster their brand names all over television, billboards and other traditional media--in addition to wallpapering the online environment with their logos--most magazine publishers, laboring under traditional budget constraints, are shying away from costly promotions, focusing instead on sensible efforts that promise a sure return on investment.

"Most publications have really taken a wait-and-see attitude about marketing their stuff on the Web, and rightly so, because their profit centers continue to be traditional publishing," says Jim Shulman, president of Marketing Results, a Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania-based marketing consultancy. "The Web is an investment for them at this point, and one that may not necessarily have a quick payback. We haven't seen a lot of aggressive promotion of Web sites out of this yet because it may not make economic sense for magazines."

PARADIGM SHIFT CREATES CHALLENGES

George Vrabeck, chief executive officer of Gr8Ride.com, a Primedia Co. portal that has integrated that publishing company's automotive brands, admits, "Every media company has had challenges with this. That's because it is a pretty radical paradigm shift."

Yet as they finally begin to feel comfortable with their Web offerings and with the online marketplace itself, more publishers are aggressively promoting their Internet properties. At a minimum, this usually involves leveraging the reach of their own multimedia assets. Some magazine companies are also beginning to push their Net properties via outside marketing venues where they believe the productivity of the placement is a foregone conclusion.

Here's a look at how five varied magazine publishers are marketing their Internet ventures.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Mitchell Prayer has the support of a global brand name and formidable multimedia resources to help spread the word, but the president of NationalGeographic.com is also pushing the envelope by marketing his site elsewhere online and penetrating newmedia platforms, including enhanced TV and the wireless Web.

"Right now, we have more than enough traffic to our Web site," he says. "And there's less of a need to go outside, because we're operating at a highly integrated level with our other properties." At the same time, Prayer insists on making NationalGeographic.com a pioneer in plumbing new possibilities because they are "relevant platforms for creating brand awareness and spotlighting the useful services and utilities that we're providing for readers."

There's no doubt about the reach of the National Geographic brand, with its four magazines, all of which are online as well as in print; about 70 new book titles each year; an international TV channel that is now available in 111 countries; and the launch of its U.S. TV channel this month. "Unlike many dot-coms that are spending 100 percent to 150 percent of their funds on marketing, we're in good position, because the National Geographic brand is one of the most trusted brands in the country, if not the world," Prayer says. "So we don't need to commit to that same level of spending that others do."

Praver makes ample use not only of ads in National Geographic magazine, but also of references at the end of most articles that direct readers to additional information that is available at NationalGeographic.com. The online operation is constantly cross-promoting with the TV properties, including a 30-second spot that has been running on the brand's international channel and will be airing on the U.S. channel right from the start.

NationalGeographic.com also has begun cross-promotional campaigns on the Web with sites in which the National Geographic Society has taken equity positions, including iExplore.com and Tripfinder.com. It also has struck deals with Yahoo! and plans to announce marketing arrangements with other portals. Now Prayer is planning to make his site a common presence on next-generation content and marketing platforms, including rich media on the Net, enhanced-TV services like TiVo and mobile Internet devices such as PDAs and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) phones. On devices like Palm Pilots, for example, many top brand names are striking marketing deals that have their brand icon pop up on the first screen, for easy access by users.

Praver acknowledges that many a marketer already has been frustrated because the wireless Web and other new marketing opportunities haven't reached fruition as quickly as has been projected. We've taken a methodical and scalable approach," he says, "and we'll just let the marketplace tell us when the time is right."

GR8RIDE

Primedia has funneled the Internet content of all of its 29 automotive magazines--including Automobile, Car Audio and Electronics, Lowrider and Mustang Illustrated--into this online site for hard-core auto enthusiasts. And CEO George Vrabeck is pursuing his single-minded focus on attracting car nuts by slapping Gr8Ride not only throughout all those print magazines but also on TV, at car shows, elsewhere online, and, soon, on flyers in a direct-mail campaign.

"When you're marketing to a real niche audience like this, you don't want to try to be all things to all people," he says. "You want to be very specifically targeted on your niche. The best approach is to go where these people are."

Vrabeck is still relying primarily on reaching readers of the print magazines to drive traffic to the Web sites. But Gr8Ride also is relying on marketing at many of the major car-enthusiast shows held around the country. It will be appearing at as many as 15 events this year, each of which attracts 20,000 to 25,000 people, Vrabeck says. Event sponsorship typically is a relatively inexpensive $100,000 to $300,000 apiece, he says, and additional costs to support the event often amount to two times the sponsorship fee. That works out to a mere $3 cost to reach each user who is registered for an event. "People sign up right there, so you can very directly calculate your return on the event," Vrabeck says. "And for most of these events, it's a great deal."

Vrabeck remains relatively conservative about splashing Gr8Ride's brand all over the place, because he feels it simply isn't necessary to achieve the site's business goals. "We don't want traffic to the site for the sake of traffic," he says. "We just want the true enthusiasts who are interested in our content and products."

INC.

Inc. magazine and the brand's other products and services have been informing, organizing and even inspiring customers for more than 20 years, says Paige Arnof-Fenn, vice president for Inc.com, the brand's Web site. Inc.com, she says, has become a very organic extension of a brand that already has been "trusted in the small-business arena" for a long time.

"We've been able to leverage that relationship with what we've been doing with the online property, so that unlike a lot of pure-play Net businesses out there--which are trying to establish their brand names and make sure their URLs stand for something in consumers' minds--we already stand for something. We already have a plateau. That's a big advantage."

Not wanting to presume anything, however, Inc.com is pursuing a multimedia approach to marketing that "surrounds the consumer at various points in their day, when they're making decisions or starting to plan their day or try to figure out their agenda," Arnof-Fenn says. That includes, for example, having magazine editors and site producers write weekly or twice-monthly columns on various topics that Inc.com then e-mails to willing subscribers. At various times and in different markets, Inc.com also has tried advertising on billboards, in industry trade magazines, in "new economy" publications such as Red Herring and The Industry Standard, in airports, even in taxis and on buses.

The feedback suggests that outdoor and radio ads have been particularly effective, as well as direct-mail pieces, and Arnof-Fenn's staff carefully monitors activity at Inc.com to gauge the impact of the various initiatives. "But there's not any one thing that has moved the dial a great deal," she says. "It's just a matter of surrounding folks at every part of the day."

Online advertising has been fruitful for Inc.com too: e-mail campaigns and the site's partnership with WSJ.com, the online version of The Wall Street Journal. "We're constantly optimizing the online component," Arnof-Fenn says. "When we see that something is working, we'll focus our resources to come down behind those banners and sponsorships. If we're not seeing the traction we need, online is an easy way to constantly be optimizing what we're doing."

TIME

Taylor Gray has been jump-starting the marketing of Time.com since he became the site's president. (He remains marketing director of Time magazine.) "When I came on, it was sort of a casual thing, where we'd try to get some links to Time.com, but there wasn't a real focus on the property," he says.

All that is changing. Positioning Time.com as an unrivaled brand for providing analysis of current affairs, based on the expertise that the magazine staff long has demonstrated, Gray has been able to append Time.com content to more and more news "headline" sites--and to raise the profile of Time.com in the process. For example, he has intensified Time.com's longstanding partnership with America Online by becoming more aggressive about promoting his content to AOL'S news editors.

"We find out what they need to do to complement their news coverage and offer that," Gray says. "Do they need supporting analysis? If it's breaking news, do we happen to have an article about the background? We're pretty adept at filling the analysis gap on the Web, and now we're getting better at promoting that capability--not only with AOL, but also with Yahoo! and other sites."

Along with Time.com's presence on other Time Inc. sites, such as Fortune's and Entertainment Weekly's, the AOL partnership has given Gray the luxury for now of not having to promote Time.com in traditional media venues--which could change, he says. His next challenge is to energize marketing of Time Inc.'s other magazine-related sites, for Time Digital and for the now-defunct print publication Life.

INTERNET WORLD

Because its Internet World magazine is so steeped in the online marketplace anyway, it's only natural for Penton Media to think of the brand as a multimedia property, rather than as a print magazine with tack-ons like a Web site and industry conferences.

"We try to really leverage those three platforms together, and the marketing of them, to reach and touch and serve customers when, how and where they want to be served," says Tom Kuczynski, vice president of Internet World Media. "Each platform has unique characteristics that make it superior or inferior, depending on the customer's needs at the time."

For example, articles in Internet World magazine solicit readers' opinions for posting on the Web site. Several different e-newsletters marketed at the Web site go out to a total of 100,000 subscribers weekly. At Internet World trade shows, the brand's booth contains multiple PCs that passersby can use to access Internet World.com, update subscription information and check industry news. The brand's URL appears on millions of pieces of direct mail that go out each year to solicit magazine subscriptions and trade show attendance.

Kuczynski says Penton executives have been skeptical all along about the insistence of pundits over the past few years that creating separate online-content entities and licensing content to dot-coin startups were the only viable approaches for publishers wanting to take advantage of the Net. "We said on an almost daily basis that we didn't believe in that," he says. "We said the future was truly integrated media companies, and we've been following that mantra for two years. And guess what: It works."
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Quality Content + RSS Syndication Equals Increased Exposure
Writer and editor, Kim Roach writes, you can add RSS to your Web Site Marketing Mix in order to increase your Online Readership, increase the response to your MLM Messages, and markedly improve your Search Engine Placement.
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In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method—search engine opti
In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method—search engine optimization
Entrepreneur

You can't resist the temptation. Fixated on your computer screen, you anxiously type keywords relevant to your business into your favorite search engine. A list of search results appears. You cringe as you spot several competitors, then grumble because your company's Web site is nowhere to be seen. Where is it? That depends. Where is your search engine marketing strategy?

Gone are the days when adding keywords in meta tags to your site produced rankings. Search engine marketing has evolved into a complex and competitive program. It's also profitable--according to a March 2003 report by Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Safa Rashtchy, online search is the most cost-effective direct-marketing method. The average cost per lead from search is 29 cents, far less than e-mail (50 cents), the Yellow Pages ($1.18), banner ads ($2.00) and direct mail ($9.94).

Gather your Web design and marketing staff; both teams are required. Understanding search engine marketing basics will help your team execute a strategy in-house or outsource it to specialists. The sooner your site is visible for relevant keywords, the sooner future customers will find your company.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Many business owners are unaware that search engines feed their results to each other. For example, if you type a keyword into MSN Search on Microsoft's consumer information and entertainment site (www.msn.com), the Web site listings displayed could be from Inktomi, Microsoft or Overture. Overture provides search results not only to MSN Search, but also to AltaVista and Yahoo! Could a top site on Overture then appear as a top site on a distribution partner's site? Yes. Unfortunately, these distribution relationships change frequently, making it difficult to determine exactly where results come from.

The challenging part, however, is figuring out how to land a top position in the search engines. There are two complementary yet completely different types of methods: optimization and advertising.

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to enhancing your Web site design to make it more appealing to crawler-based search engines. An automated robot, also referred to as a spider, is sent out to crawl the Web looking for site pages to add to the search engine's database. A mathematical algorithm then determines the ranking of pages in the database for the keywords consumers use. These rankings are referred to as natural or organic listings.

Search engine advertising, on the other hand, enables you to buy listings for your keywords. Positions achieved this way are referred to as paid or sponsored listings. The most popular program in this category is pay-for-placement. These programs typically allow advertisers to open an account for $5 to $50, then bid on keywords for a minimum amount of 5 or 10 cents per click. Advertisers outbid each other for a higher position by increasing their bids by 1 cent per click. Only when a consumer clicks your listing is your account debited.

Are you disappointed to learn that search engines don't magically and objectively find the "best" sites on the Web? That's understandable. However, it was always possible to influence search results. Today, it simply costs more. Yet, for companies willing to invest the time and money, it's well worth it. The plan begins with the right set of keywords.

MAKING KEYWORDS COUNT

If you have the wrong set of terms, your site won't rank well in algorithm-based search engines. Plus, you'll waste money on pay-per-placement programs by attracting browsers, not buyers. To create an effective list of keywords, start with these suggestions:

* Company names: Start with the name of your company, products and services. Include misspellings and plural forms of words, if appropriate.

* Themes: Consider related words your customers might use to describe your business. People looking for an automobile insurance company might type in "car insurance" or "auto insurance." Perhaps drivers are likely to switch insurance providers when they buy a new car or used car, which would be good terms, too.

* Profile your competitors: Your competitors are excellent sources of ideas. Study the keywords in their Web sites and their metatags. From your browser toolbar, click on "View," and then select "Source." If they're using metatags, you'll see keywords listed at the top of the page.

Then, brainstorm ideas about how your customers are looking for your business. "Think like your customers," recommends Nacho Hernandez, 30-year-old co-founder of online Mexican grocery store MexGrocer.com, a La Jolla, California, firm that projects 2004 sales to hit more than $1 million. "A majority of our customers are English-speaking Americans, but most use Spanish keywords because they want the more authentic products. So they'll search for 'salsa verde' instead of 'green sauce,'" Hernandez says. "While we market hundreds of keywords equally split between Spanish and English, we were surprised to see [that] 440 percent more traffic and 200 percent more sales come from the Spanish words."

Of course, if nobody is looking for certain keywords, it's pointless to promote those. That's why a popularity check is important. Search engine marketers typically use Overture's free Search Term Suggestion Tool (www.overture.com) and the subscription-based program Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com). These tools reveal how many people search for your keywords. Moreover, these tools and Google AdWords' free Keyword Suggestions tool (https:// adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd= keywordsandbox) will provide suggestions of related phrases consumers use. Finalize your list to include relevant yet popular keywords.

GETTING OPTIMAL RESULTS

Modifying your site to please the search engine spiders can be tedious. Be prepared to wait weeks or months for your site's natural rankings to improve. Although top listings aren't guaranteed, time-consuming efforts can pay off.

"The credibility boost is huge," says Gary Salzman, 47-year-old co-founder of coffee resource retailer site WholeLatteLove.com. The Victor, New York-based business projects 2004 sales of more than $10 million. "Consumers see that natural listings are awarded to highly relevant sites. That's the match they want."

To make your site relevant for your keywords, it's important to realize that sites don't compete against other sites for rankings. It's Web page against Web page. Therefore, each site page needs to be assigned a set of keywords. Focus on the pages that have valuable content for your visitors and are good for new visitors to land on first. A few places your keywords need to be include:

* Meta tags: This tactic alone has absolutely no impact on your rankings, but your keywords still need to be in the meta title, description and keyword tags of each site page you'd like ranked. The page title and description are often used as the Web site listing in the search results.

* Alternative text (ALT tag): Mouse over an image, and you may see a text box appear if the Web designer has used alternative text. Try to use a different, but related, phrase for each ALT tag on a page.

* Page copy: The keywords you want your site to rank well for must be in your page copy. The thought is, if your site visitors can see them, then your page is relevant for those terms.

* Hyperlinks within your site: Don't link "click here" copy to other pages within your site. Hyperlink keyword phrases instead, because search engines follow these links and the keywords in them.

Link popularity is also a chief ingredient in an SEO campaign. Your site needs to link to other related sites and, more important, well-ranked and content-relevant sites should link to yours. Run a search for your keywords in Google or Teoma (www.teoma. com) and evaluate the natural listings. Contact sites that aren't direct competitors, and offer to trade links or buy one. Marketleap (www.marketleap. com) has a free Link Popularity Check tool which shows you how many pages link to yours and how many link to your competitors.

You're not done yet. Once your site is optimized, a majority of search engines need to be notified to crawl your site. Unfortunately, most search engines now require an inclusion fee. It may be a per-URL fee, a fixed per-click fee on any site rankings you achieve, or a combination of both. Inktomi, Overture and Teoma are examples. Google is still free and will index your site on its own; however, you can use the "Add URL" form if your site isn't in its database.

"Analyze, optimize, submit, monitor, then repeat the process," says Shari Thurow, webmaster and marketing director of SEO firm Grantastic Designs and author of Search Engine Visibility. "Getting top-10 positions and maintaining them is an ongoing process. A site should always get consistent, high-quality traffic from the search engines," Thurow adds. "It's also an ongoing challenge to determine what competitors are doing to achieve search engine visibility."

Thurow recommends evaluating site statistics reports monthly. Once your site is fully optimized and submitted to the search engines, maintenance can usually be done on a quarterly basis.

Is your anxiety level increasing yet? Don't worry. There's a quick way to get any position you want. Just buy it.

BUYING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

Pay-for-placement is the easy way to get a top position in search results. Open an account, then choose your keywords, set keyword bids, write a title and description for each keyword or group of keywords, then designate a landing page for each keyword or group of keywords. Your ad listings will be live as soon as editors approve them. Typically, these listings are placed under a "Sponsored Listing" type of header to set them apart from natural listings.

On FindWhat.com, Kanoodle.com and Overture, positions are awarded to the highest bidder. A one-penny bid over an advertiser moves your listing above his. On Google AdWords, positions are given based on the combination of bid amount and click-through rate. That means the highest bid doesn't automatically get the number-one spot. Consumers are part of the voting process. Ad listings that aren't clicked will drop.

Wondering how often to update your bids? Watch your competitors. If they perform daily or weekly updates, you'll probably need to do the same to keep the positions you want. Maintaining a top-three to top-five position is important, because those generally appear as sponsored listings across the distribution network. That means greater visibility and resulting traffic.

Bid management tools such as BidRank and PPC Pro automate this process for you. Companies such as Atlas OnePoint (formerly Go Toast, www.atlasonepoint.com) and Did-it.com even offer tools that manage your bids based on your cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale goals. Pay-per-click is still time-consuming to manage, but at least the results are instantaneous and often rewarding. For example, these campaigns added more than 60 percent to WholeLatteLove.com's total growth in 2003.

Tools alone won't improve your conversion rates. Compelling ad listings and landing pages that persuade people to complete an intended action make or break your results.

"Don't misrepresent your offer," warns Salzman. He noticed that out of 60 competing ad listings for "espresso machine reviews," only 38 percent showed what they said they would in their ad copy. "Consumers make snap judgments in seconds. Lose their trust, and they'll back out of your site to click on your competitors' listings. The back button is not your friend."

Don't panic over this crash course in search engine marketing. In addition to the resources listed here, you can turn to SearchEngineWatch.com, the educational hub for search engine marketers. You can also meet with search engine representatives and marketing experts at Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies conferences, or breathe easier by outsourcing your campaigns. Just make sure your Web site can be found by using relevant keywords. Your customers are waiting.

GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

Do you prefer to let a team of specialists worry about fluctuating algorithms and bids? You're not alone. However, finding a quality search engine marketing firm is challenging, especially for search engine optimization (SEO), because much of it happens behind the scenes, and you can't easily tell if a company is using ethical tactics. Here are a few tips:

* Find the experts. Read articles and books, and attend conferences to identify the companies with strong industry visibility. Even if they're not good matches for you, they could recommend other reputable firms.

* Interview firms. Don't be afraid to quiz companies about their marketing philosophies, process, tools, reporting and results. Ask them to define spam, then refer to your resources to see if experts agree or disagree.

* Avoid responding to e-mail spam. The "Get a number-one position for $99" spam is likely from companies that will spare the search engines, too.

* Speak to client references. Ask them to describe their experiences, results and recommendations for working with the company you're interviewing.

* Outsource. Some companies manage their own paid placement campaigns in-house while other companies manage SEO. Find out what your options are.

Programs and pricing vary tremendously in this industry. However, with a little research, you'll find the right marketing partner.

TABOO TACTICS

There are good and bad search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Good methods can improve your rankings. Bad tactics put your site in danger of losing rankings, getting kicked out of the search engines' databases, and possibly being banned forever. The following activities are considered spam, and, if caught, your site could pay the penalties:

1. Stuffing keywords in your meta tags: Repeating a keyword too many times in your meta tags is a red flag. Study other top-ranked sites to see what seems to be an acceptable range.

2. Hiding keywords: For example, avoid hiding text on your pages by making it the same color as your background.

3. Using tiny text: Think tiny text is too difficult to read? Maybe by your visitors, but not by spiders.

4. Using redirects: This code is placed on a Web page to send visitors to another page without the visitors clicking any links.

5. Linking with free-for-art sites: These sites link to each other for the sole purpose of improving their link popularity. Don't link to or from them.

These aren't the only dangerous SEO tactics. But they're some of the oldest and most obvious forms of spam, so avoid using them.
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In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method???search engine opti
In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method???search engine optimization
Entrepreneur

You can't resist the temptation. Fixated on your computer screen, you anxiously type keywords relevant to your business into your favorite search engine. A list of search results appears. You cringe as you spot several competitors, then grumble because your company's Web site is nowhere to be seen. Where is it? That depends. Where is your search engine marketing strategy?

Gone are the days when adding keywords in meta tags to your site produced rankings. Search engine marketing has evolved into a complex and competitive program. It's also profitable--according to a March 2003 report by Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Safa Rashtchy, online search is the most cost-effective direct-marketing method. The average cost per lead from search is 29 cents, far less than e-mail (50 cents), the Yellow Pages ($1.18), banner ads ($2.00) and direct mail ($9.94).

Gather your Web design and marketing staff; both teams are required. Understanding search engine marketing basics will help your team execute a strategy in-house or outsource it to specialists. The sooner your site is visible for relevant keywords, the sooner future customers will find your company.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Many business owners are unaware that search engines feed their results to each other. For example, if you type a keyword into MSN Search on Microsoft's consumer information and entertainment site (www.msn.com), the Web site listings displayed could be from Inktomi, Microsoft or Overture. Overture provides search results not only to MSN Search, but also to AltaVista and Yahoo! Could a top site on Overture then appear as a top site on a distribution partner's site? Yes. Unfortunately, these distribution relationships change frequently, making it difficult to determine exactly where results come from.

The challenging part, however, is figuring out how to land a top position in the search engines. There are two complementary yet completely different types of methods: optimization and advertising.

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to enhancing your Web site design to make it more appealing to crawler-based search engines. An automated robot, also referred to as a spider, is sent out to crawl the Web looking for site pages to add to the search engine's database. A mathematical algorithm then determines the ranking of pages in the database for the keywords consumers use. These rankings are referred to as natural or organic listings.

Search engine advertising, on the other hand, enables you to buy listings for your keywords. Positions achieved this way are referred to as paid or sponsored listings. The most popular program in this category is pay-for-placement. These programs typically allow advertisers to open an account for $5 to $50, then bid on keywords for a minimum amount of 5 or 10 cents per click. Advertisers outbid each other for a higher position by increasing their bids by 1 cent per click. Only when a consumer clicks your listing is your account debited.

Are you disappointed to learn that search engines don't magically and objectively find the "best" sites on the Web? That's understandable. However, it was always possible to influence search results. Today, it simply costs more. Yet, for companies willing to invest the time and money, it's well worth it. The plan begins with the right set of keywords.

MAKING KEYWORDS COUNT

If you have the wrong set of terms, your site won't rank well in algorithm-based search engines. Plus, you'll waste money on pay-per-placement programs by attracting browsers, not buyers. To create an effective list of keywords, start with these suggestions:

* Company names: Start with the name of your company, products and services. Include misspellings and plural forms of words, if appropriate.

* Themes: Consider related words your customers might use to describe your business. People looking for an automobile insurance company might type in "car insurance" or "auto insurance." Perhaps drivers are likely to switch insurance providers when they buy a new car or used car, which would be good terms, too.

* Profile your competitors: Your competitors are excellent sources of ideas. Study the keywords in their Web sites and their metatags. From your browser toolbar, click on "View," and then select "Source." If they're using metatags, you'll see keywords listed at the top of the page.

Then, brainstorm ideas about how your customers are looking for your business. "Think like your customers," recommends Nacho Hernandez, 30-year-old co-founder of online Mexican grocery store MexGrocer.com, a La Jolla, California, firm that projects 2004 sales to hit more than $1 million. "A majority of our customers are English-speaking Americans, but most use Spanish keywords because they want the more authentic products. So they'll search for 'salsa verde' instead of 'green sauce,'" Hernandez says. "While we market hundreds of keywords equally split between Spanish and English, we were surprised to see [that] 440 percent more traffic and 200 percent more sales come from the Spanish words."

Of course, if nobody is looking for certain keywords, it's pointless to promote those. That's why a popularity check is important. Search engine marketers typically use Overture's free Search Term Suggestion Tool (www.overture.com) and the subscription-based program Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com). These tools reveal how many people search for your keywords. Moreover, these tools and Google AdWords' free Keyword Suggestions tool (https:// adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd= keywordsandbox) will provide suggestions of related phrases consumers use. Finalize your list to include relevant yet popular keywords.

GETTING OPTIMAL RESULTS

Modifying your site to please the search engine spiders can be tedious. Be prepared to wait weeks or months for your site's natural rankings to improve. Although top listings aren't guaranteed, time-consuming efforts can pay off.

"The credibility boost is huge," says Gary Salzman, 47-year-old co-founder of coffee resource retailer site WholeLatteLove.com. The Victor, New York-based business projects 2004 sales of more than $10 million. "Consumers see that natural listings are awarded to highly relevant sites. That's the match they want."

To make your site relevant for your keywords, it's important to realize that sites don't compete against other sites for rankings. It's Web page against Web page. Therefore, each site page needs to be assigned a set of keywords. Focus on the pages that have valuable content for your visitors and are good for new visitors to land on first. A few places your keywords need to be include:

* Meta tags: This tactic alone has absolutely no impact on your rankings, but your keywords still need to be in the meta title, description and keyword tags of each site page you'd like ranked. The page title and description are often used as the Web site listing in the search results.

* Alternative text (ALT tag): Mouse over an image, and you may see a text box appear if the Web designer has used alternative text. Try to use a different, but related, phrase for each ALT tag on a page.

* Page copy: The keywords you want your site to rank well for must be in your page copy. The thought is, if your site visitors can see them, then your page is relevant for those terms.

* Hyperlinks within your site: Don't link "click here" copy to other pages within your site. Hyperlink keyword phrases instead, because search engines follow these links and the keywords in them.

Link popularity is also a chief ingredient in an SEO campaign. Your site needs to link to other related sites and, more important, well-ranked and content-relevant sites should link to yours. Run a search for your keywords in Google or Teoma (www.teoma. com) and evaluate the natural listings. Contact sites that aren't direct competitors, and offer to trade links or buy one. Marketleap (www.marketleap. com) has a free Link Popularity Check tool which shows you how many pages link to yours and how many link to your competitors.

You're not done yet. Once your site is optimized, a majority of search engines need to be notified to crawl your site. Unfortunately, most search engines now require an inclusion fee. It may be a per-URL fee, a fixed per-click fee on any site rankings you achieve, or a combination of both. Inktomi, Overture and Teoma are examples. Google is still free and will index your site on its own; however, you can use the "Add URL" form if your site isn't in its database.

"Analyze, optimize, submit, monitor, then repeat the process," says Shari Thurow, webmaster and marketing director of SEO firm Grantastic Designs and author of Search Engine Visibility. "Getting top-10 positions and maintaining them is an ongoing process. A site should always get consistent, high-quality traffic from the search engines," Thurow adds. "It's also an ongoing challenge to determine what competitors are doing to achieve search engine visibility."

Thurow recommends evaluating site statistics reports monthly. Once your site is fully optimized and submitted to the search engines, maintenance can usually be done on a quarterly basis.

Is your anxiety level increasing yet? Don't worry. There's a quick way to get any position you want. Just buy it.

BUYING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

Pay-for-placement is the easy way to get a top position in search results. Open an account, then choose your keywords, set keyword bids, write a title and description for each keyword or group of keywords, then designate a landing page for each keyword or group of keywords. Your ad listings will be live as soon as editors approve them. Typically, these listings are placed under a "Sponsored Listing" type of header to set them apart from natural listings.

On FindWhat.com, Kanoodle.com and Overture, positions are awarded to the highest bidder. A one-penny bid over an advertiser moves your listing above his. On Google AdWords, positions are given based on the combination of bid amount and click-through rate. That means the highest bid doesn't automatically get the number-one spot. Consumers are part of the voting process. Ad listings that aren't clicked will drop.

Wondering how often to update your bids? Watch your competitors. If they perform daily or weekly updates, you'll probably need to do the same to keep the positions you want. Maintaining a top-three to top-five position is important, because those generally appear as sponsored listings across the distribution network. That means greater visibility and resulting traffic.

Bid management tools such as BidRank and PPC Pro automate this process for you. Companies such as Atlas OnePoint (formerly Go Toast, www.atlasonepoint.com) and Did-it.com even offer tools that manage your bids based on your cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale goals. Pay-per-click is still time-consuming to manage, but at least the results are instantaneous and often rewarding. For example, these campaigns added more than 60 percent to WholeLatteLove.com's total growth in 2003.

Tools alone won't improve your conversion rates. Compelling ad listings and landing pages that persuade people to complete an intended action make or break your results.

"Don't misrepresent your offer," warns Salzman. He noticed that out of 60 competing ad listings for "espresso machine reviews," only 38 percent showed what they said they would in their ad copy. "Consumers make snap judgments in seconds. Lose their trust, and they'll back out of your site to click on your competitors' listings. The back button is not your friend."

Don't panic over this crash course in search engine marketing. In addition to the resources listed here, you can turn to SearchEngineWatch.com, the educational hub for search engine marketers. You can also meet with search engine representatives and marketing experts at Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies conferences, or breathe easier by outsourcing your campaigns. Just make sure your Web site can be found by using relevant keywords. Your customers are waiting.

GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

Do you prefer to let a team of specialists worry about fluctuating algorithms and bids? You're not alone. However, finding a quality search engine marketing firm is challenging, especially for search engine optimization (SEO), because much of it happens behind the scenes, and you can't easily tell if a company is using ethical tactics. Here are a few tips:

* Find the experts. Read articles and books, and attend conferences to identify the companies with strong industry visibility. Even if they're not good matches for you, they could recommend other reputable firms.

* Interview firms. Don't be afraid to quiz companies about their marketing philosophies, process, tools, reporting and results. Ask them to define spam, then refer to your resources to see if experts agree or disagree.

* Avoid responding to e-mail spam. The "Get a number-one position for $99" spam is likely from companies that will spare the search engines, too.

* Speak to client references. Ask them to describe their experiences, results and recommendations for working with the company you're interviewing.

* Outsource. Some companies manage their own paid placement campaigns in-house while other companies manage SEO. Find out what your options are.

Programs and pricing vary tremendously in this industry. However, with a little research, you'll find the right marketing partner.

TABOO TACTICS

There are good and bad search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Good methods can improve your rankings. Bad tactics put your site in danger of losing rankings, getting kicked out of the search engines' databases, and possibly being banned forever. The following activities are considered spam, and, if caught, your site could pay the penalties:

1. Stuffing keywords in your meta tags: Repeating a keyword too many times in your meta tags is a red flag. Study other top-ranked sites to see what seems to be an acceptable range.

2. Hiding keywords: For example, avoid hiding text on your pages by making it the same color as your background.

3. Using tiny text: Think tiny text is too difficult to read? Maybe by your visitors, but not by spiders.

4. Using redirects: This code is placed on a Web page to send visitors to another page without the visitors clicking any links.

5. Linking with free-for-art sites: These sites link to each other for the sole purpose of improving their link popularity. Don't link to or from them.

These aren't the only dangerous SEO tactics. But they're some of the oldest and most obvious forms of spam, so avoid using them.
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Internet Marketing Strategies: Online Web Marketing, Website Promotion
Internet Marketing Strategy: effective website marketing strategy, web site promotion strategy, and more internet marketing strategies for promoting a ...
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Cyber-democracy or cyber-hegemony? Exploring the political and economic structures of the Internet as an alternative source of information
Cyber-democracy or cyber-hegemony? Exploring the political and economic structures of the Internet as an alternative source of information
Library Trends

ABSTRACT

Although government regulation of the Internet has been decried as undercutting free speech, the control of Internet content through capitalist gateways--namely, profit-driven software companies--has gone largely uncriticized. The author argues that this discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force neglecting to confront the invasion of online advertising or marketing strategies directed at children. This study suggests that "inappropriate content" (that is, nudity, pornography, obscenities) constitutes a cultural currency through which concerns and responses to the Internet have been articulated within the mainstream. By examining the rhetorical and financial investments of the telecommunications business sector, the author contends that the rhetorical elements creating "cyber-safety" concerns within the mainstream attempt to reach the consent of parents and educators by asking them to see some Internet content as value laden (sexuality, trigger words, or adult content), while disguising the interests and authority of profitable computer software and hardware industries (advertising and marketing). Although most online "safety measures" neglect to confront the emerging invasion of advertising/marketing directed at children and youth, the author argues that media literacy in cyberspace demands such scrutiny. Unlike measures to block or filter online information, students need an empowerment approach that will enable them to analyze, evaluate, and judge the information they receive.

**********

According to figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau (2001), more than half of school-age children (6 to 17 years) had access to computers both in school and at home in the year 2000 (57 percent). With some 17 million children using the Internet in some capacity, including email, the Web, chat rooms, and instant messaging (Silver and Garland, 2004, p. 158), the Census Bureau estimates that 21 percent use the Internet to perform school-related tasks, such as research for assignments or taking courses online.

While these statistics underscore the growth and popularity of the Internet, particularly in schools and educational institutions, concerns have grown about the "safety" of using computer-mediated communication technology. Since the Internet became a mass medium in 1995, parents and schools have approached online content with reservation. As such, politicians, educators, child advocacy groups, and, most importantly, the computer industry, have been vocal advocates for patrolling the Internet and censoring certain kinds of illicit or objectionable content. Beginning in the late 1990s, Federal Trade Commission member Christine Varney summarized the emerging concerns about online safety:

All of us agree that children's online safety concerns are real and
pressing and that we must support the involvement of parents
raising children in this new, digital age. We understand that we
must all work together--industry, law enforcement, educators,
advocates--if American families are to realize the potential of this
new medium for enriching the lives of our children and fostering
their future success. (Rubin and Lamb, 1997)
Starting in 1997, an Internet/Online Summit was held in Washington, D.C., to enhance the safety and benefits of cyberspace for children and families. Key political figures, such as former vice president Al Gore and former attorney general Janet Reno, joined parents, as well as politicians, law enforcement officials, and educational administrators, to launch a national public education campaign, "America Links Up: An Internet Teach-In," designed to help Americans understand how to guide kids online (Rubin & Lamb, 1997).

On October 21, 1998, former president Bill Clinton signed into law the "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" (COPPA). This measure was enacted by Congress on April 21, 2000, to "prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in connection with the collection, use, or disclosure of personally identifiable information from and about children on the Internet" under the age of thirteen (Grossman, 2000). Along this trajectory, Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Neighborhood Internet Protection Act (NCIPA) in December 2000, which required schools and libraries that receive federal money for Internet connections to adopt Internet safety policies in 2001. The proposed safety measures include usage agreements for proper student use of this medium, audit-tracking devices to supervise student Internet perusal, and software filtration devices designed to block inappropriate sites in schools (Trotter, 2001).

In 2002 the Bush administration proposed a "National Strategy to Secure Cyber Space," offering security recommendations for U.S. citizens, businesses, and organizations using computers (Carlson, 2002). Since then the Federal Trade Commission has offered testimony before special committees and the House of Representatives about online pornography through a series of "law enforcement actions against fraud artists whose deceptive or unfair practices involve exposing consumers, including children, to unwanted pornography on the Internet" (Federal Trade Commission, 2004, p. 1).

In addition to these federal initiatives, many states have measures designed to protect children from online predators. In Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott added more investigators to the Texas Internet Bureau to keep kids safe from those who use online means to prey on children. As Assistant Attorney General Sparks explained, "The Attorney General wants the public to know that he's tasking people with patrolling the Internet and trying to make it safe for kids; the down side is that more and more children on a daily basis are getting online and on the Internet and as every additional child gets on, that's one more potential target" (quoted in Ochoa, 2003).

Likewise, educators have expressed concerns about online information overload. According to one school administrator, accessing the Internet in schools is less predictable: "If you used to bring your class to the school library, you pretty much had a sense of what was available for the children to research; now you have no idea ... they are going to hit sites that are appropriate and sites that are inappropriate" (quoted in Shyles, 2003, p. 176).

Despite a commitment to online "security" in schools, libraries, and homes from so many constituents, few recommendations have materialized into solid strategies or funding initiatives. Almost all of the proposed solutions and policies ignore the more relevant question of how private computer companies, Internet service providers, corporations, and governments stand to gain financially and politically by deciding what kind of information will be "censored" and what kind will be promoted. In fact, it could be argued that the Internet content "crisis" dominating public policy and mainstream media coverage has produced a cultural climate ripe for the commercial exploitation of parents and educators. In this article I argue that such a discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force that overlooks the invasion of advertising or marketing strategies targeted at young people online. By examining the rhetorical and financial investments of the telecommunications business sector, I contend that the mainstream articulation of "Internet safety" invites parents and educators to regard some Internet content as value-laden (sexuality, obscene language), while disguising the interests and authority of profit-minded commercial enterprise (advertising and marketing).

What is more, the democratic potential of the Internet as a means to accessing alternative information and perspectives otherwise absent from the mainstream media continues to be threatened by the consolidation of increasingly powerful global media giants, such as Time Warner and Microsoft, which have much to gain from controlling the content Internet users access at home or at school. Consequently, an examination of the political and economic forces on the Internet is necessary for librarians and educators interested in understanding the benefits and limits of the Internet as a means of alternative communication.

EXPLORING THE MEANS TO FILTERING ONLINE CONTENT

Parental Guidance

As a result of this discourse, a number of solutions have been advanced to ward off illicit content appearing on the computer screens of young Internet users, beginning with parental guidance. CyberTipLine grew out of the 1997 Internet/Online Summit and is currently in operation today. Run by the U.S. government and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, parents can notify authorities of incidents of online child pornography and child predation. Another derivative of the summit's "America Links Up" project is the industry-sponsored "GetNetWise" Web site, which was launched in 1999. The "user empowerment" service, which involves a coalition of numerous Internet industry partners and advocacy organizations, (1) offers parental advice, including information about filters to block sexually explicit material, as well as a variety of tools to help parents and caregivers monitor a child's online activities and find browsers for kid-friendly sites. As one sponsor, AT&T, notes in its promotional material, "Our involvement with GetNetWise reflects our commitment to help users have the best possible online experience" (GetNetWise, 2004).

A more well-known parental guidance initiative, passed in April 2000, was the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In accordance with COPPA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation offers "A Parent's Guide to Internet Safety," which advises parents to "utilize parental controls provided by your service provider and/or blocking software" and "Monitor your child's access to all types of live electronic communications (chat rooms, instant messages, Internet Relay Chat, etc.), and monitor your child's email" (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2004).

Other parental guidance measures have been created to address online advertising and marketing as well as issues of privacy. Parent advocacy groups, such as Commercial Alert, Consumer Action, the Center for Media Education, and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, have taken up the cause of parents concerned about online marketing measures targeted at children. For example, Commercial Alert has made requests to the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to require disclosure of embedded advertising in a variety of media and has created a "Parent's Bill of Rights" seeking to empower parents in the face of an aggressive commercial culture (Commercial Alert, 2003).

Proof-of-Age/Shielding Systems

In addition to parental guidance, many online providers and Webmasters have adopted proof-of-age/shielding systems that use credit card access as another means of content filtering. While COPPA sought to protect children thirteen and under, those located in the fourteen to eighteen year range were not covered by legislation. Providing proof of age before being allowed to access the content of a desired online site emerged as a means to address this gap. This system works in the same way that fraud-screening technology works: merchants collect user information at their Web sites for instant age or identity verification. Once online users submit their name, zip code, date of birth, and age, they are checked through an international electronic database of government-issued identifications. This allows site providers or merchants to determine the consumer's identity within seconds. Sometimes additional measures, such as online name signature, are required so that user signatures are bound to a public record.

Proprietary Environments

Another reaction to the discourse of online safety has been the advocacy of proprietary environments, where content is screened by editors into specific categories. For example, the leading Internet service provider, America Online (AOL), provides a blocking service that allows users (ostensibly parents) to limit a child's selected screen name to either a "Kids Only" area, which is recommended for children under twelve, or to a preteen/teen environment, with restricted use of chat rooms or newsgroups. According to the site, "Kids Only" is a collection of educational resources and entertainment areas as well as a preselected collection of child-oriented Internet sites, with AOL staff monitoring of message boards and chat rooms. AOL also promotes the company's "Parental Phone Line" for instructions and advice on choosing and maintaining the settings of this product (the premise here is that the settings are likely to be tampered with by savvy teens and preteens).

In addition to "Kids Only," AOL has aggressively marketed its AOL@School service, which had been adopted by more than 14,000 schools by 2004 (Williams, 2003). AOL@School offers six online learning portals for grades K-5, middle school, and high school so that students can access Web sites that have been preselected by educators as content and age appropriate. The software needed to access the portals comes with AOL's "parental controls" designed to "help ensure a safe, secure, age-appropriate experience" that can include school-controlled email, chat, and instant messaging (AOL, 2004). The popularity of "child safe" proprietary environments has not waned as Web browsers and popular search engines have created their own directories in an attempt to create safe havens for (and develop customer loyalty from) younger online users. Yahooligans' "Web Guide for Kids" is a collection of predominantly commercial links to online games, music, TV, science, news, jokes, "cool pages," arts and entertainment, and sports. Like most commercial proprietary environments, Yahooligans is riddled with advertisements and synergistic ties to commercial media products.

Internet Ratings Systems

For those seeking additional regulatory measures, Internet rating systems offer another approach. Unlike the rating system for television content that is uniformly and centrally organized by the television industry, Internet ratings are not assigned consistently by a centralized group of online content providers. The goal is the same, however: industry self-regulation over government regulation. According to ratings system advocates, many of whom work in the software and computer industry, Internet ratings are designed to make it "safe" for schools and parents to let their children access nonpornographic material without government directives. According to Paul Resnick, chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium group at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, which includes AT&T Laboratories and Microsoft, the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) was originally created to allow parents, teachers, and librarians to review questionable materials that they would not want their children to come across on the Internet (Resnick, 1997).

Resnick explains, "prior to PICS there was no standard format for labels, so companies that wished to provide access control had to both develop the software and provide the labels. PICS provides a common format for labels, so that any PICS-compliant selection software can process any PICS-compliant label" (Resnick, 1997, p. 107). Yet unlike uniform rating labels,

a single site or document may have many labels, provided by
different organizations. Consumers choose their selection software
and their label sources (called rating services) independently.
This separation allows both markets to flourish: companies that
prefer to remain value-neutral can offer selection software
without providing any labels; values-oriented organizations,
without writing software, can create rating services that provide
labels. (Resnick, 1997, p. 107)

One of the leading Internet rating systems that uses PICS is SafeSurf, a group that offers ratings along with other tools to help parents and "net citizens" filter online information. One means to achieving its goal is to encourage online content providers to fill out a questionnaire using content descriptors to rate their Web sites. Unlike government- or industry-wide regulatory labeling efforts that may "brand" content, SafeSurf is interested in maintaining First Amendment rights by offering content providers greater latitude to self-rate their Web material. For example, rather than branding content that includes nudity as pornographic, users can distinguish their inclusion of nudity as scientific, sociocultural, artistic, titillating, graphic, or illegal. Once content providers rate their Web sites or directories, they can download the SafeSurf rated logo of their choice. A SafeSurf staff member verifies the rating and sets up the chosen ratings label. Parents and educators can then use PICS compliant software/browsers to read the settings and to use the ratings to filter content that is not desired. As the SafeSurf group explains, "PICS allows content providers to rate their pages and parents to set passwords and levels for their children. Then, PICS compliant software/browsers will read the settings and use the ratings to filter content that is not desired" (SafeSurf, 2004a).

The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) is another international, independent, nonprofit organization that seeks to "empower the public, especially parents, to make informed decisions about electronic media by means of the open and objective labeling of content" (ICRA, 2004). ICRA's dual aims are to "protect children from potentially harmful material and to protect free speech on the internet." Like SafeSurf, Web authors complete an online questionnaire describing the content of their site, upon which ICRA generates a content label using PICS computer coding, which the author adds to his/her site. Parents and Internet users can then set their Internet browser to accept or decline access to Web sites based on the labels and user preferences. PICS is now a standard feature included in Internet software and browsers such as Microsoft Explorer.

Third-Party Rating Systems

While ratings systems are designed to allow content providers to voluntarily label the content they create and distribute, third-party rating systems "enable multiple, independent labeling services to associate additional labels with content created and distributed by others. Services may devise their own labeling systems, and the same content may receive different labels from different services" (ICRA, 2004). In other words, online watchdog groups interested in protecting children from online predators or illicit material can offer their own set of restrictive control tools for material that they deem to be objectionable. One such group is WiredSafety, formerly known as CyberAngels, led by Parry Aftab, an experienced international attorney and author of The Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Children In Cyberspace and A Parent's Guide to the Internet. Lauded as "one of Internet safety's most influential players," (Hill, 2000), Aftab has emerged as a nonprofit leader who has created coalitions with many governmental and nongovernmental agencies, including the FBI's Innocent Images anti-child pornography and exploitation task force. She was appointed the founding American director of UNESCO's global Child Safeline project and currently heads WiredSafety, "the largest online safety, education and help group in the world" (WiredSafety, 2004). With more than 9,000 volunteers worldwide, the group is a coalition of various Internet safety groups, such as WiredKids.org, WiredTeens, Teenangels, and CyberMoms and CyberDads, and their affiliate, WiredCops.org, all of whom patrol the Internet for child pornography, child molesters, and cyberstalkers. Additionally, WiredSafety offers a variety of educational and help services for online users. Some of its volunteers access and review family friendly Web sites, filter software products and Internet services, and post their findings on the Web. The group even has a "Cyber911 help line" that offers net users access to help when they need it online. SurfWatch is another online ratings system designed for parental supervision. It too prevents access to Web, gopher, and FTP sites that SurfWatch's team of "net-surfers" have found objectionable. They maintain an updated list of "not-for-children" Web sites that can be subscribed to electronically.

Commercial Filtering Software and Databases

A more intensive effort to censor "inappropriate" online content has come from commercial filtering software companies (often working in conjunction with powerful Internet content providers and third-party ratings systems). Also known as "censorware," these filtering products, which include Net Nanny, CyberPatrol, Cyber Sitter and N2H2, range in cost from $25.99 to $80 and are heavily marketed to parents, educational administrators, and libraries. Designed to be installed on home or school computers or to work with network routers or firewall, cache, or proxy devices, these products claim to offer safety measures for youth using computers for online research and recreation. Essentially, most of these programs work by using a combination of filtering and blocking strategies, such as the blocking of Web sites denoted through keywords and databases and the blocking of individual Web sites by specific URLs.

One of the first filtering programs--and most commercially lucrative--is Net Nanny. According to its promotional Web site, Net Nanny[R] 5 is "the world's leading parental control software, [and] provides customers with the broadest set of Internet safety tools available today. Our award-winning software gives customers control over what comes into and goes out of their home through their Internet connection, while respecting their personal values and beliefs" (Net Nanny, 2004). Launched in 1998, Net Nanny is a tool allowing parents, teachers, administrators, and librarians to screen incoming and outgoing Internet information, particularly pornographic material. By identifying and blocking various sites and subjects considered inappropriate, the program blocks the Web addresses of known pornographic and illicit sites. Parents can add to the collection of forbidden "code words" used to detect and flag sites. The program works with all major online providers and in email. It can also prevent children from accessing specific files on a PC's hard drive, floppy drive, or CD-ROM. Like audit-tracking software programs, Net Nanny keeps a record of a child or student's Internet perusal, meaning that parents and teachers can check up on the sites that a child has perused.

With all of these features, it is no surprise that Net Nanny's popularity and financial success has led it to offer additional blocking software such as Net Nanny's Pop-Up Scrubber, which blocks pop-up ads, Net Nanny's AdFree, which blocks a range of Internet ads, spyware, and profiling cookies, and Net Nanny's Chat Monitor, which monitors and filters Instant Messaging and other online chat.

Another commercial service, CyberPatrol, works in the same way as Net Nanny by filtering harmful Web sites, newsgroups, and Web-based email. Also commercially successful, CyberPatrol licenses its "CyberLIST" database of site ratings to several additional vendors. Among its ratings categories are violence/profanity, partial nudity, full nudity, sexual acts, gross depictions, intolerance, satanic or cult, drugs and drug culture, militant/extremist, sex education, questionable/illegal and gambling, and alcohol and tobacco. Likewise, Cybersitter blocks sites and subjects deemed unacceptable by Internet users. It offers site lists for automatic blocking and allows parents to have added input in restricting programs, files, and games. According to PC Magazine, Cybersitter offers the strongest filtering and monitoring features, blocking content related to violence, hate, sex, and drugs (Munro, 2004). It also allows parents to choose from thirty-two content categories, such as free email sites, file sharing, wrestling, cults, and gambling, for those interested in added blocking categories. As with other similar products, it lets parents filter and monitor their children's activities without their knowledge and can record both sides of Instant Messaging sessions.

Joining in the mix of filtering software providers is N2H2 (acquired by Secure Computing in 2003), a company endorsed by eTesting Labs and the Kaiser Foundation as "the most effective and accurate" filtering program and extensive database of objectionable Internet sites (N2H2, 2004). It offers two product lines: Sentian, which is geared toward helping businesses manage their employee Internet access, and Bess, a popular program and database adopted by many schools and endorsed by the American Library Association to help schools and libraries meet CIPA rules for young Internet users.

With so many companies vying to be the best provider of filtering software, it is not surprising that Microsoft would venture into this area by offering its own industry standard Internet filter aimed at regulating youth-directed online content. AS part of its monopoly on the Internet browser software Internet Explorer (which accompanies its Windows platform), Microsoft has also implemented a filtering system that can be configured to block or log all data transfers, including World Wide Web pages, newsgroups, types of messages within any newsgroup, Internet Relay Chat, or Internet hosts known to have objectionable material for children.

QUESTIONING THE VIABILITY OF ONLINE "SAFETY" INITIATIVES

Although some of these Internet resources and restrictions make sense for certain schools depending upon the age group and grade level of Internet users, there are some problematic areas within each method that should be cause for concern. The main underlying difficulty raised by these "quasi-solutions" is that they narrowly define what is "inappropriate," relegating most objections to issues of nudity, sexuality, trigger words, or adult content. This focus neglects to confront the invasion of advertising or marketing strategies directed at children. In many respects, Internet commercialism seems to be a more serious concern, but one would never guess this considering the ad-strewn and content-compromised "solutions" to appropriate Internet content.

First, although child-directed advertising might not be as blatantly offensive, it certainly fosters "values" that, at present, are not considered objectionable to most governmental, parental, and commercial watchdog groups. Although the first tenet of media literacy explains that all media are constructions, the problem with advertising and marketing strategies is that they are so much a part of our social landscape and our everyday life that they appear to be natural. Subsequently, the conceptualization of what is inappropriate for children or students only helps to sustain the interests of a commercial system through the omission of advertising; advertising is omitted and thereby deemed appropriate. Just as parents, educators, and anticommercial groups, such as Commercial Alert, have protested the commercial imperatives of satellite-delivered school programs such as Channel One, a company that offers schools free satellite equipment in exchange for a captive audience of students forced to watch its daily, advertisement-driven programming, and the computer equivalent ZapMe!, which tried to turn "the schools and the compulsory schooling laws into a means of gaining access to a captive audience of children in order to extract market research from them and to advertise to them" (Commercial Alert, 2000), we need to be equally circumspect about the amount of advertising and marketing proliferating on "Kids Only" sites and via kid-safe filtering software (Schiffman, 2000).

Moreover, sustaining an Internet-based market economy whereby consumer software programs and proprietary environments become the antidote to inappropriate material is directly at odds with democratic means of dealing with these issues through public discourse, political action, and critical media literacy skills. Most of the products previously analyzed are produced and distributed by profit-making and publicly traded enterprises, such as the media conglomerates Time Warner, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. Obviously, it is good business to create and sell blocking software products or to offer third-party rating systems that decide--for parents, educators, and librarians--what is in their (both children/students and the company's) best interest. In a self-fulfilling business transaction, reports of inappropriate content as well as media and political hype about the Internet as an "unsafe environment" lend credence to, or create a functionalist need for, such products. As stated earlier, advertising is overlooked as "inappropriate content" because it is part of everyday consumer culture, unlike pornographic and hate sites, which exist beyond the boundaries of what is deemed "good" for children and teenagers. As Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1971) has noted, hegemony works within the terrain of everyday life and requires the consent of audiences--or in this case, parents, educators, and librarians. Hence, the commonly employed rhetorical elements that create paranoia about Internet content within the mainstream attempt to reach the consent of parents and educators by inviting them to see some Internet content as value-laden or problematic while camouflaging the interests and authority of a profitable computer software and hardware industry.

Although serious discussion about government regulation goes beyond the purviews of this study, several concerns must be raised regarding commercial software programs. First, the decision to block some sites over others is a very subjective decision. The problem with this kind of regulation is that some groups and individuals might attempt to censor material (under the guise of concerns for "safety") that threaten their own political and/or religious agenda. Dependence upon commercial Internet service providers and related filtering products limits the democratic principle of the free flow of information and puts commercial enterprise at the helm of online navigation, a troubling fact given that corporate culture can often be extremely conservative and self-serving when it comes to making censorship decisions. In one instance, America Online was charged with using filters to block out several Web sites associated with "liberal" political organizations. One of the top stories featured in Censored 2001 was AOL's liberal blacklist, whereby sites for the Democratic National Committee, Ralph Nader's Green Party, Ross Perot's Reform Party, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and Safer Guns Now were labeled as "not appropriate for children" (Phillips & Project Censored, 2001, p. 111). Ironically, the youth filters did not prevent access to nudity or to conservative groups, including the National Rifle Association. Designed for America Online by the Learning Company, an educational software company owned by Mattel, such filtering programs confirm suspicions about the process of labeling and omitting Web sites according to political and economic interests.

This kind of censorship raises flags about the capabilities of large media conglomerates to limit access to material deemed politically at odds with commercial interests. Inasmuch as Disney was in a position to rebuke the distribution of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's political documentary produced through Disney's Miramax film division, large multimedia conglomerates are poised to censor content that is politically or economically damaging to their enterprise.

Second, some of the trigger words used to block Internet sites might be legitimate subjects for research. For example, the often-cited example of an Internet user not being able to access research on breast cancer or sex education (if these words were denoted as trigger words) is indeed troubling. As PC Magazine reviewers of Cybersitter 9.0 explain, "Cybersitter errs on the conservative side; by default it may block sites you would deem okay" (Munro, 2004). A telling example of this problem is offered in an article featured in Electronic School Online. Author Lars Kongshem writes,

CYBERsitter yanks offending words from web pages without providing
a clue to the reader that the text has been altered. The mangled
text that results from this intervention might change the meaning
and intent of a sentence dramatically. For example, because
"homosexual" is in the list of CYBERsitter's forbidden words, the
sentence, "The Catholic church is opposed to all homosexual
marriages" appears to the user as, "The Catholic church is opposed
to all marriages." (Kongshem, 1998)

Likewise, Karen Schneider, a librarian for the Environmental Protection Agency, has led a filtering software assessment project involving more than thirty librarians around the world. She has found that filters "are not reliable and they're hard to maintain" (cited in Gebeloff, 1999). In one example, recipes using "chicken breast" were blocked due to sensitive word triggers. Rob Gebeloff, author of Screening Zone: The Trouble with Net Filters and Ratings, continues to problematize the use of all types of "censorware" programs by pointing out numerous gray areas in judging content. He asks:

Do you want your kids going to Web sites that discuss birth
control? What about AIDS education? Or what about the
exploration of Mars? [A recent New York Times article pointed out
that one filtering program blocked out every Web site with the
word "sex" in it, including a site that had the word
"marsexploration" in it's title]. So clearly, if you're going to go
with filtering, be prepared to make tough calls. (Gebeloff, 1999)
Peacefire--a group critical of filtering software--explains, "We have always felt that filtering software is not only ineffective, but also a violation of the trust between students and staff... Unfortunately, most of the censorware companies block anything controversial, not just pornography. I find it very discouraging that this includes information like suicide prevention, safe sex, and gay youth resources" (g. Jenkins, quoted in Kongshem, 1998).

Third, students and computer hackers have already found flaws with such programs and have managed to acquire information from sites that have been blocked. When product evaluators at Consumer Reports tested over nine different Web content filters, including AOL's parental controls, they discovered that, although AOL offered the best protection, as much as 20 percent of easily located Web sites containing sexually explicit content, violently graphic images, or promotion of drugs, tobacco, crime, or bigotry slipped through the filters. In fact, "Net Nanny displayed parts of more than a dozen sites, often with forbidden words expunged but graphic images intact" (ConsumerReports.Org, 2001).

Fourth, there is an inherent conflict of interest when the main advocates challenging the government's attempts to protect children from online predation and pornography are the very same groups that seek to profit directly from a "free marketplace" of online smut. In its June 2004 press release, SafeSurf applauded the Supreme Court for its ruling in the Internet pornography case Ashcroft v. ACLU "because the High Court concluded that Internet filtering solutions, such as those originally proposed by SafeSurf over nine years ago, are a better way to proceed than the government restrictions imposed under the Child Online Protection Act" (Jules, 2004). As the chairman of SafeSurf, Ray Soular, exclaimed, "This decision has revealed that the High Court has seen the wisdom in protecting the Internet from governmental censorship and in enabling parental discretion through an intelligent filtering and labeling system. Maybe now, Congress will focus more attention on what has become known as the 'Safe Surfing' method of protecting children online" (Jules, 2004, emphasis added). Yet the court's wisdom is more the result of intense lobbying than constitutional insight. SafeSurf has been lobbying Congress about the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act since its implementation, arguing its case before the Congressional Commission on Child Online Protection (COPA) in July 2000,just a few months after COPA's passage.

Gebeloff addresses this conflict of interest in his critique of net filters and ratings for Money Talks:

I once had a chance to interview Gordon Ross, the fellow who
designed Net Nanny.... I asked Ross how he, with his background
in computer systems, comes up with the list of bad words and
unacceptable Web sites that his program blocks. Basically, he told
me, it started from a list he put together and then evolved over
time to reflect feedback from users. "And we have a disclaimer
saying we're not liable for the list." (Gebeloff, 1999)
This leads Gebeloff to deduce the ironic disposition of this practice: "We don't want the government to be our censor, so why should we turn the job over to a computer programmer from British Columbia? The answer, of course, is that we shouldn't, but that's what happens when a parent buys filtering software, installs it, and then walks away from their child's machine" (Gebeloff, 1999).

With laws mandating the use of various forms of censorware to meet government regulations like CIPA, and liability issues at school, the library, or work, it is no surprise that the marketplace of ideas has increasingly channeled its financial resources into for-profit filtering products. Companies easily win over school and library administrators by guaranteeing adherence to government legislation as well as liability protection and parental approval. For $14.95, SafeSurf markets Safe Eyes as an effective tool that "uses the N2H2 website database which has been proven time after time to be the most accurate database available ... In recent tests, both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Kaiser Family Foundation found N2H2 to be the best" (SafeSurf, 2004b). Official endorsements from prominent governmental, industrial, and educational groups are an added selling point, such as N2H2's official stamp of approval from the American Library Association for meeting CIPA rules.

As for the pervasiveness of filtering products, a poll conducted as early as 1998 at the Technology + Learning conference revealed that 51 percent of surveyed teachers, technology directors, school board members, and other educators had adopted some form of censorware for all or some students in their district (cited in Kongshem, 1998). Another poll conducted in 2000 by MSNBC.com found that "many users rely on an Internet service provider, or ISP, to do the filtering for them. The big names in this market are America Online, The Microsoft Network, Mayberry USA, Rating-G Online and Getnetwise.com. Filters that are popular with Christians and conservatives include Family.Net, Integrity Online and Hedgebuilders.com" (Nodell, 2000). With no centralized board or groups to review the practices of these filtering companies or ISPs for their effectiveness or appropriateness, it is easy to see how those seeking to meet the needs of their schools, libraries, work, or homes turn to various programs without clear indication of their validity and reliability, especially institutions pressured to have some "safety plan" to meet CIPA legislation or issues of liability.

Accordingly, it is no surprise that filtering producers and marketers stand to gain financially by lobbying for nongovernmental solutions to censorship, as well as a deregulatory media environment allowing telecommunications firms to continue to merge and expand their online assets and streamline Web content. MSNBC's interest in polling Internet user preferences for filtering is not purely for newsworthiness given its partnership with Microsoft. The same is true for AOL Time Warner. What is more, in addition to cornering the market for libraries, schools, and homes, many of these companies have ventured into the work environment. As MSNBC.com reporter Bobbi Nodell explains, "many filter companies are moving into the corporate market, which is booming because employers are concerned about workers 'wasting time' on the job and want to keep them from shopping, checking investments and playing games ... the corporate market is expected to grow from $60 million in 1999 to $500 million in 2004" (Nodell, 2000).

Confirmation of this trend can be found with Net Nanny. Looksmart, a leading business firm in online search technology, recently acquired Net Nanny for approximately $5 million in cash and stock in April 2004. Indeed, in their ability to promote and streamline commercial content (while limiting "inappropriate" sites), monitor Internet user habits, profile users for direct marketing purposes, and market products to users, filtering software products can be considered stepchildren of the highly lucrative commercial search engines, which became the most lucrative Web properties in 2003 due to their increasing ability to promote commercial Internet content. As LookSmart CEO Damian Smith stated in 2004:

This acquisition is both strategic and prudent for LookSmart ...
Strategic, because integrating our search technology into Net
Nanny provides a stronger product for their users, while also
providing LookSmart with a desktop platform froth which to launch
high margin search and paid listings applications. Prudent, because
Net Nanny is expected to produce positive margin contributions for
LookSmart in 2004. (LookSmart, 2004)
In other words, this partnership, along with MSN funding, will allow LookSmart to apply its tracking and marketing capabilities to Net Nanny's software and related proprietary environments. As the company explains to its shareholders, such a partnership "will enhance the leading online filtering software and provide high-quality proprietary search traffic for LookSmart."

While filtering technology continues to thrive in the Internet's "free market" system, and as Web content continues to grow exponentially, the profits for filtering technology continue to expand commercially. Net Nanny's acquisition by LookSmart makes clear that one of the leading "protectors" of illicit online content is poised to become a predator of tracking and marketing to today's Internet users as it shifts its mission to "high margin search and paid listings applications" (LookSmart, 2004). With substantial profit predictions for filtering companies expanding their business within the corporate market, the goals to protect Internet users, including children, are becoming further marginalized at a time when schools, libraries, and businesses are becoming increasingly dependent upon filtering technology.

To make matters worse, "the Internet's status as an open forum for ideas" has come under attack since 2002 with a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling that shields cable companies from having to open their networks to smaller competitors and civil liberties and consumer advocacy groups (Wolverton, 2002). As Karen Charman (2002) explains, "without public policies mandating open access," cable will monopolize broadband width, denying access to other Internet Service Providers in order to capitalize off of hyper-commercialized services that make it easier to buy products. Troy Wolverton (2002) of ZDNet news explains that "lack of competition among cable Internet providers could be a form of censorship ... even if they don't completely block Web sites, cable companies could slow access to them to the point that they become all but impossible to reach ... while they could speed access to their own sites and those of preferred partners." Subsequently, if "the Internet content accessed by K-12 youth is patrolled by capitalist institutions, rather than by the government, educational institutions, public libraries or communitarian groups, it will inevitably become more difficult 'to turn the one-way system of commercial media into a two-way process of discussion, reflection, and action'" (Thoman, 1998, p. 3). As Resnick explains, no matter how well conceived or executed, any labeling or blocking system will tend to stifle noncommercial communication since the time and energy needed to label will inevitably lead to many unlabeled sites: "Because of safety concerns, some people will block access to materials that are unlabeled or whose labels are untrusted. For such people, the Internet will function more like broadcasting, providing access only to sites with sufficient mass-market appeal to merit the cost of labeling" (Resnick, 1997, p. 106). This form of censorship is a serious problem as the possibilities for a decentralized and openly available information network will once again be delimited by a top-down capitalist hierarchy where nondominant, noncommercial, or alternative sources of information will remain peripheral.

Finally, information filtering does not prepare students to learn how to analyze and evaluate information once they are no longer using the Internet within an educational setting. This point has gained momentum as media literacy educators, librarians, and scholars have been grappling with the need for solid media literacy curricula that include a critical and analytical approach to learning with and about online communications technology (Fabos, 2004; Frechette, 2002; Paxson, 2004; Tyner, 1998).

TESTING CONTENT CONTROLS FOR CYBER-CAPITALISM

The hegemonic impulse of online safety profiteers becomes clear when we take a look at some ratings organizations, online proprietary environments, ISPs, and databases recommended by parents, the government, educational institutions, and the industry. First is SafeSurf, a rating organization that claims to be "dedicated to making the Internet safe for your children without censorship." Through an information database of objectionable sites, a proprietary environment for children, and safety tools for parents, SafeSurf believes they "will enable software and hardware to be developed that will enable more effective use of the Internet for everyone" (SafeSurf, 2004a, emphasis added).

My skepticism about claims that "everyone" benefits through SafeSurf's methods developed when visiting the SafeSurf home page, where I reviewed their policies, claims, and method to create an environment that is child tested and parent approved. What first drew my attention to their Web site were the various advertisements centered on the page. One ad displayed a large colorful rectangle for Card Service Online, "the leader in online real time credit card processing," featuring Mastercard, Visa, Discover, and American Express. Directly under it was an ad for Child Magazine, on sale at the reduced price of $7.95; its pitch: "One year for the price of a bottle." Beneath this was a bold advertisement link to "Update Microsoft's Internet Explorer to support SafeSurf Ratings." Combined, these ads validated my forewarning about the interconnections between powerful computer firms, such as Microsoft, and blocking software products.

My findings led me to presume that more advertising would emerge on the SafeSurf Wave link, which offers Kid's Wave, a list of "top sites" purportedly "devoted to educating and entertaining children." On the Kid's Wave front page, I was informed "There are great places to take your children online." Below was a grid of partial listings of SafeSurf-approved sites by category. The first category was the "favorite site of the month," which was Squigly 's Playhouse. By clicking on the cartoon graphic, my hypothesis was reaffirmed: the unfolding visual displayed a large color advertisement for Disneyland with moving graphics and a photo of the Magic Kingdom. The flashing text read "[frame 1: photo and text depicted Disneyland Resort] To really enjoy yourself here; [frame 2: photo of Mickey Mouse described as 'the Disneyland Trip Wizard'] Pick up your custom schedule here."

In case the ad was overlooked, each separate clickable Kid's Wave link for an activity or game was infused with the Disney Resort campaign. For instance, the "Squigly's Games" page had another large, flashing, color ad for Disney at the top that read, "[frame 1: photo of Mickey Mouse] Are you the Ultimate Disney fan?; [frame 2: photo of Goofey] Click here--enter to win"; on the bottom, a three-frame flashing ad targeted at parents read, "[frame 1 ] You know what you put on your card; [frame 2] but do you know what he put on your card? [picture of a crowd with a man circled in red] ; [frame 3] Find out with your free credit report online." Other pages, like "Squigly's Writing Corner" or "Brainteasers," featured separate Disney ads as well as credit card ads (presumably targeted at parents, but also at a new generation of consumers).

Disney, it seems, is a frequent advertiser on filtering software products. In addition to selling nonsoftware products, such as $40 embroidered golf shirts, Net Nanny's Internet Web site had an advertisement for Disneyland featured on its front page. Most troubling, however, is that advertising clients are also the sponsors of Net Nanny content. Among its "safe-sites" for kids were "fun" links to Disney, Crayola, and Kids Channel. Under the category "Education" was a Colgate "Kidsworld" link with prominent product advertisements for Colgate toothpaste. Describing its mission in philanthropic terms, Colgate Palmolive Co. purportedly maintains the Internet site "as a service to the Internet community." A closer look at the page proves otherwise. First, I had to type in my first name and specified password of the day, "toothpaste," in order to enter the "No Cavities Clubhouse." There, I was greeted by "Dr. Rabbit" who appeared in his clubhouse holding a toothbrush and Colgate toothpaste. Although this Web site offered "interesting oral care facts, games, and stories aimed at raising children's awareness of oral health," I could not get away from Dr. Rabbit and his Colgate endorsement no matter what activity I clicked on. Moreover, in spite of its "intention" to adhere to the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) Guidelines for advertising on the Internet and online services, my name and email were still requested so that the "Tooth Fairy" could send me an email message--no doubt carrying her Colgate toothpaste and brush in cyber-flight.

Although not nearly as plastered in advertising as SurfWatch or Net Nanny, CyberPatrol's Web site unquestionably catered to/partnered with commercial Web sites, including Disney's Internet empire of kid-targeted Web addresses. A recommended "safe" site was "Toy Story Games," a game developed by Disney based on its Toy Story movie. Not surprisingly, Disney's home page was saturated with child and adult-directed advertising. Although the advertising contained here was "2nd level," meaning that I had to click on the recommended sites before being inundated with ads, the sites contained on the page remained uncontested as child appropriate.

As evidenced within these kid-designated Web sites, the far-reaching clutches of advertisers are rendered invisible in the discourse or underlying rationale of Internet protectionism. While children are deemed to be impressionable when it comes to sex, pornography, adult content, and nefarious language, concerns about manipulative advertising campaigns go largely undetected within "kid-safe" Internet domains.

CONCLUSION

Media literacy scholar Len Masterman's explanation of critical autonomy, to "develop in pupils enough self-confidence and critical maturity to be able to apply critical judgments to media texts which they will encounter in their future" (1985, p. 24; emphasis added), does not fit within the logic of commercial filters and the self-regulated corporations attempting to control and streamline Internet content. As Elizabeth Thoman (1998) clarifies, "the media have become so ingrained in our cultural milieu that we should no longer view the task of media education as providing 'protection' against unwanted messages." Hence, a learning model of awareness, analysis, reflection, action, and experience leads to better comprehension, critical thinking, and informed judgments.

Contrary to filtering mechanisms designed to censor or reduce student exposure to "inappropriate" Web sites and online information, a much better approach toward new information technologies is to go beyond teaching students about how to use computers, email, Web browsers, etc. First and foremost, the goals of media literacy must go hand in hand with computer training and online access through the instruction of critical skills by which students learn to discriminate all types of information. While there are hazards to over-regulation and under-regulation of the Internet, educators and librarians have an important role to play in developing online media literacy initiatives so that students can become discerners of the types of information they need. The goals for taking media literacy to the Internet must go beyond the critical evaluation and use of information to include an analysis and understanding of the impact of political and economic forces that drive and control much of the Internet. Within a "media literacy in cyberspace" model, the issues of ownership, profit, control, and related effects are essential to helping students formulate constructive action ideas that will lead to their own Internet choices and surfing habits (Frechette, 2002). As PICS chairman Paul Resnick (1997) admits, "no labeling system is a full substitute for a thorough and thoughtful evaluation." In the end, if the power of Internet content labeling, ratings, and restrictions are left to a third party or profit-making companies, then educators, librarians, and parents need to lobby that they serve the public interest rather than private commercial interests.
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Just Going Online? How to Budget for Web Success

by Stoney deGeyter

It wasn't all that long ago that people in my industry had to convince business owners of the value of going online. For the most part those days are past. I think the value of the web has proven itself more than we can possible realize. Today I can pay bills, stream movies, schedule and even watch my DVR from anywhere in the world, so long as I have internet access. Getting your business online isn't just about making money--it's about accessibility.

Even if your business as little commercial viability online, having an accessible website allows people to learn more about you, your products or services, what types of things you do, what you believe in and care about, and how to contact you if needed. It's about allowing people to come to you instead of pushing yourself on to them that is typical of most forms of advertising.

If you run a business of any size and you still have not made the jump to the Web, why not? If you know your business can make money online, (i.e. you sell an in-demand product or service) then investing money to build your web presence is almost a no-brainer. The question then becomes, how to do it right so you can be profitable.

If you run one of those niche businesses where online success isn't a certainty, there is still value in being online. There is also value in investing in a bit of marketing in order to make sure your site can be found by those looking to find you, even if they just seek information.

Regardless if your business that can make a profit online or if the site's just another way to provide information to the public, there are a few things that you'll want to consider when budgeting for your website's success.

Web Hosting

Web hosting can be considered a utility expense as it's just another bill you pay each month to keep things moving forward. Just as lights are essential to a brick and mortar store, without good web hosting your site goes dark.

However, investing in web hosting services isn't as easy as paying an electric bill and plugging the light in. As long as the electric bill get's paid the lights stay on. With web hosting you have many levels of quality, starting with server space, speed, bandwidth, and any extras you might need to ensure you provide your visitors with a good experience. Web hosting can cost as little as $5/month, but those don't have the reliability that most businesses need.

Before you select your web host company or package, you need to get a good idea on what your needs will be. Will the server be able to handle the regular every day traffic? What about sudden spurts of traffic from popular articles or advertising campaigns? Will bandwidth restrictions slow down your site's performance or ensure that every visitor can access all of your content without download delays?

There are dozens of factors involved in site hosting and you're better off comparing on quality than on price. To keep your site live and accessible, quality trumps price every time.

Web Design

Building a pretty website is relatively easy to do for any artistic person. But pretty doesn't necessarily translate into web success. Many designs that look pretty are also poor performers in terms of visitor usability and search engine friendliness. These are important things to consider when in the design and development stage of your site.

Things such as color integration, navigation layout, site architecture are all just as important--if not more important--than the actual design of the site. Hiring a web designer that only makes pretty sites but ignores some of the other important aspects of web usability is like hiring a painter to build a good car. Sure they can paint one, but there is nothing under the canvas.

Like a pretty car needs a good engine under the hood, a pretty website needs good code, usability and architecture in order for it to be able to perform for you online. Before you hire any designer make sure they have the skills to do more than make your site look good. Make sure they know how to make it perform good as well.

Functionality

Each business has different needs. And what the business owner needs her website to do will vary greatly. More often than not you'll have to go beyond the basic design and usability elements to build a site that has the functionality that you want.

What do people want to do once they get to your site? Are they looking to place an order? Read content? Ask a question? Research and compare products or services? Each of these actions require that a system be built in order to accommodate it. Those systems cost money, and depending on how detailed that system needs to be, the more money it might cost you.

Proper web budgeting needs to consider all of the additional "whistles and bells" that you want to add to your site. Figure out what you need versus what you want but isn't absolutely necessary. Once you know how much things cost then you can focus your budget on what is most essential first.

Search Engine Optimization and Marketing

I'm often concerned at how many people seemed surprised that SEO and web marketing costs more than building the site itself. The site, aside from needed functionality improvements, is generally a one-time expense. Marketing is an ongoing expense.

Making a website perform in the search engines is just one aspect of marketing, but an important one for online success. Most business can't get buy just by renting space and opening the doors. They have to do some form of advertising and marketing. The same is true online. And if the marketing is what's creating sales, its a much needed investment, so long as the ROI is there.

Any marketing you do online needs to provide you with a positive return on investment. This is can be quickly accomplished with PPC. SEO can often take months for the ROI to be realized. But that's just the nature of this type of work. Once the SEO campaign begins to take root the ROI is generally greater than what you'll see for PPC campaigns.

When budgeting for online marketing it's not always a choice between SEO or PPC. It's often just a matter of strategy. It often makes sense to get the PPC campaigns going while the SEO is being implemented and still building into a positive return. Both campaigns can compliment each other satisfactorily.

Building a successful site online doesn't have to be expensive, but it will cost money if you want to do it right. But it's not about how much money you spend but how well you plan and how wisely you spend.

There is no way to provide estimates on how much all this should cost because it's different for every business, depending on the specific needs. But a little bit of research will help you find the best value for your dollar (again, cheapest isn't always the best value) that will provide you the results you need without breaking your budget.

Check out our small business news site.

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Be a public relations specialist: Home based internet marketing business

Be a public relations specialist: Home based internet marketing business
Copyright © Hannes Johnson
http://www.AffiliateBoobyTraps.com

There are millions of people out there who have started there own home business through use of their computers. While their ideas are fresh and unique, and their business plan has great promise, owners may have trouble getting the word out about their services. Consider starting a home based Internet marketing business to act as their “word of mouth”.

If your client’s business is a common one in which many entrepreneurs are exploring, your task is to make this business stand out from all the rest. For instance, if a consumer is looking for a web designer, they may punch in “web designer” on a search engine. Millions of individuals and companies will pop up. They will inevitably browse the first sight them come to on the list. You, as a home based Internet marketing business, can’t let this happen.

Develop a Web site solely dedicated to the services your client provides. If you are not familiar with site set-up, you may be forced to include fees in your contract that allow for you to hire a site creator. Include in this site pictures of the client, samples of his or her work, complimentary comments from former and present client’s clients, client’s educational and work background, service prices and special offers such as free consultations.

Include tons of articles that feature certain keywords in which a Google hunter would type in. For a web designing service, they could punch in web designer, web sites, graphic professional, inexpensive web site creators. Hiring a web content provider who will send you copy written by highly-regarded writers containing these keywords would be a good alternative if writing time or skill is lacking within your home based internet marketing business. Hiring this kind of help will increase traffic to the Web site in which you have organized to promote your client’s products or services.

While it would be easy as a home based Internet marketing business to simply sit back and let potential customers find your client’s services on their own through the Web site, if you want to be the best, it requires a little more effort.

Another duty of a home based Internet marketing business is to actually reach out to potential buyers of customer’s products or services. This takes much effort and time, but the payoffs could be bountiful. If you send out 100 information e-mails to business owners who could benefit from your client’s services, chances are at least 10 replies will be received. The odds aren’t very good, but bringing in 10 new customers a day is a pretty successful endeavor. In these e-mails, include an offer for a free newsletter subscription which will update the recipient on present and new services added, coupons for discount rates, links to the client’s Web site and an e-mail address to contact for more information.

*** About The Author ***

Hannes Johnson is author of the book "Residual Website Traffic - Get Quality, Targeted Visitors To Your Website Again And Again Without Your Constant Effort!". You can find more about it here: http://www.residual-traffic.com/

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

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Oshyn, Inc. Implements New Web Content Management System for Genest Concrete
Newly Designed Web Site Combines Content Management and Online Marketing
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Oshyn, Inc. Implements New Web Content Management System for Genest Concrete
Newly Designed Web Site Combines Content Management and Online Marketing
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Best Fashion Web Site Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)
Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical Data Derived from a Decade of Hosting Internet Award Competition, WebAwards, and Provides Best Practices for Fashion Web DesignSource: Read more Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:01:00 GMT Tags: Assessment Report, Association Internet, Award Competition, Best Practices, Decade, Fashion Design, Fashion Trends, Fashion Web, Gmt, Hosting [...] Related posts:

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3. Best B2B Website Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical...
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Best Investment Web Site Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)
Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report includes historical data derived from a decade of hosting Internet award competition, WebAwards, and provides best practices for investment Web design.Source: Read more Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:01:00 GMT Tags: Assessment Report, Association Internet, Award Competition, Best Practices, Decade, Gmt, Hosting Internet, Internet Award, Internet Standards, Investment [...] Related posts:

1. Best Fashion Web Site Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical...
2. Best Professional Services Web Site Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical...
3. Best B2B Website Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical...
4. Best B2B Website Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical...
5. Best B2B Website Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Updated Web Marketing Association’ Internet Standards Assessment Report Includes Historical...

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The girlfriend's guide to E-marketing a blockbuster: how to savvy black internet professionals—Jen Hunt and Sanyu Dillon
The girlfriend's guide to E-marketing a blockbuster: how to savvy black internet professionals—Jen Hunt and Sanyu Dillon—brainstormed an innovative online promotion for Stephen King's latest thriller over lunch - book bytes
Black Issues Book Review

Take two talented African American Internet professionals, add marketing savvy, a world-renown author and two media giants and season it with friendship. What do you have? Ground-breaking online book marketing success.

Sanyu Dillon, 31, an online marketing manager with Viacom's Simon & Schuster Trade Publishers, and Jennifer Hunt, 29, an online producer, at the time, with AOL-Time Warner's Time.com, are the creators of an innovative promotion for Simon & Schuster's best-selling author Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher on Time.com's Web site. Getting two major media competitors to work together and defy traditional online book marketing practices may have sounded impossible. But not to Sanyu and Jennifer, two friends who spontaneously devised a plan over a casual lunch.

BIBR met with Sanyu and Jennifer for an exclusive table talk at the sleek lounge in New York City's Millennium Hotel. Dressed in eye-catching aqua, Sanyu, a native of Ohio, exuded confidence and charisma, characteristics of a top on-line marketing manager. But her career in online marketing was almost accidental. "I just fell into it," she explains. "I was working at Simon and Schuster for about two years, and then I quit to freelance. I worked for a year as a freelance editor and launched an Internet start-up with a friend of mine. Then my old boss at Simon and Schuster called me and offered me a position in the online division."

Jennifer, a native of New Mexico, who's affable, intuitive and stylish, also entered the online world because of an unexpected opportunity. "I worked at Random House at Crown as an editor. And before that, I worked at Money magazine and kept contacts there. Time Inc. corporate human resources manager Breena Clarke (who, incidentally, became the celebrated author of the novel River, Cross My Heart, Little Brown and Company, 1999) was running a program to help recruit minority editor, and she gave me a call about the position at Time.com."

According to Sanyu, incidents such as Breena Clarke hooking up Jen are commonplace among African Americans in publishing. "Publishing is such an incestuous industry and there are so few African Americans that everyone kind of looks out for each other. I heard Jen's name long before I met her" she recalls. "Anytime anyone would say they had a job opening and were looking for someone, I'd say, `Call Jen Hunt, she knows a lot'" But the two had a professional connection that eventually brought them together. Jen had written book reviews for BIBR and when she was invited to lunch by the reviews editor, Sanyu, who was freelancing with BIBR, tagged along.

Now Jen and Sanyu are both black women working in Internet divisions for corporate conglomerates, which is an ever-changing field with many challenges. "I think the Internet industry as a whole has changed" states Sanyu. "Since a lot of sites have gone out of business, it's more about making money than it is about content. It's more about partnership. And since publishers don't make a lot of money, it's difficult. We can only promote on a title-by-title basis."

In addition, there's a greater sense of isolation working in the Internet division of publishing. "Since there also aren't a lot of African Americans in the Internet industry," says Sanyu, "many, many times, I'm just the only one. I think that's my biggest challenge."

Jen also finds that aspect of the business wearisome. "You end up working with smart and interesting people, but it's just as difficult as it is in other corporate industries to be the only black--whether the pressure is internal or external. But I would say that the more specialized sites such as blackplanet.com are really trying to reach out to editors and people of color in the industry to make connections."

It's no surprise that the two women first came to know about each other socially, since they had mutual friends that invited them to the same parties. "We had been trying to catch up with each other" Jen explains. "Then one day we ran into one another in a tunnel beneath our work spaces. Before we headed toward our trains, we made a lunch date."

They chose lunch at Victor's, a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan that happens to be Jen's favorite spot. And between bites of plantains, black beans and rice, chatter between girlfriends blossomed into a conversation about a monumental deal. Who knew that an ordinary lunch between two sistahs would result in an online cross-promotion between two of the top media companies in the world?

When Sanyu met with Jen for lunch that day in October 2000, she already knew that she had to create an on-line marketing plan for Stephen King's upcoming book Dreamcatcher. The book was scheduled for release in March 2001, but Sanyu had to finalize online plans four months prior to its publication. This promotion was on her mind as she met with Jen. "I knew I had until December to come up with an online plan," she says. "I'd thought of speaking to Jen about it originally, but I didn't think she'd be interested. Time.com is so heavily news-oriented."

But while they discussed the various projects on their plates, Sanyu mentioned the King book. "Halfway through lunch, I told her that we wanted to do a big Stephen King promotion on the net, and that we'd be willing to give away an excerpt. And she was interested."

Although Sanyu was surprised, it made sense to Jen. This wasn't like any promotion she'd ever created before, but she knew it was right. "It may not have been the most logical thing for Time.com, but we wanted to do something really different," she says. "My boss was very much into pushing the envelope."

Over the next weeks, the two spoke with their supervisors, defined goals, wrote proposals and attended meetings to create the partnership that would culminate in a Stephen King/Dreamcatcher mini-Web site on Time.com, generating millions of hits. Then, laughs Jen, we "did the corporate thing. We brought in the bosses."

While department directors and vice presidents from both corporations conferred with each other and their legal departments, and publicists crafted press releases, Jen and Sanyu worked on the production of the Stephen King site. They decided that although one chapter would be posted on Time.com, it would be split into three pieces--one excerpt per week in the three consecutive weeks prior to Dreamcatcher's release. There would be flash animation, music, a biography of King and a linked teaser on AOL (America Online).

Amazingly, at a time when dot-coms were looking for ways to generate profit by advertising, this promotion was cash-free. Money did not exchange hands. This was "a content-for-promotion promotion" according to San)u. "From our standpoint, we knew that people would be excited about Stephen King, and we liked the traffic, the promotion, and the marketing muscle that Time.com would provide."

For Jen, the excerpt was the clincher. "It was a big deal for anyone to get that excerpt before publication."

Sanyu would provide the content, and Jen would supervise the design. Their friendship made the project move smoothly. Their trust in each other not only aided in their partnership, it helped to relax their bosses. "I think our higher-ups felt comfortable with us because we were friends, and there wasn't any company-to-company competition."

On Monday, March 5, 2001, Time.com's Stephen King Web site launched with a free peek at the future bestseller. On the 12th, another excerpt was posted. The final piece was posted on the 19th. Twenty-four hours later, the book that had tempted readers for three weeks was released to the public. The Dreamcatcher Web site launched to widespread attention and accolades. Press releases were faxed; AOL had a link to it from its welcome page. King, who had long been aware of the possibilities of online marketing, posted a banner on his personal Web site, www.stephenking.com, which directed his readers to Time.com. King also recorded an e-commercial for the Website, welcoming surfers to the site.

The number of hits to the Dreamcatcher Web site numbered in the millions. But, as San)u says, "Its hard to measure the success of advertising. It doesn't mean a direct translation into sales, but it does mean good public relations. We got a lot of press for it, a lot of traffic on Time.com and Simonsays.com."

And the accolades were indeed forthcoming. The online media site Inside.com ran a story about the joint-promotion, in which the women's names were mentioned. USA Today ran a story. News of the cross-company promotion ran across the wire services.

"This promotion definitely gave us a higher profile," Jen says. "Our names were mentioned in articles! Plus, it was really gratifying to do something so different, and it was nice to be able to do something beyond the norm. It was rewarding to prove that blacks in publishing could work on all types of books and not just black books."


Sanyu agrees. "It was great to do something like this for a commercial author, to see a big project through from inception to completion." According to Sanyu, it was definitely worth it for Simon & Schuster. The publisher's Web site, Simonsays.com, received increased traffic during those three weeks and its Stephen King e-newsletter received more subscribers. Readers could reserve their copies of Dreamcatcher with online booksellers, including Barnes&Noble.com (with whom Time.com had a relationship), and book sales were high.

Although Hunt has since left Time.com to work at Lee & Low, publisher of award-winning multicultural children's books, San)u says she would definitely be interested in creating a similar promotion again, she cautions, "It has to be the right opportunity, the right author and the right site." And the right personal connection helps, too.

--Sheryl J. Estrada and Michele D. Thomas are co-editors for BIBR's Book Bytes department.

Sheryl J. Estrada was an editor of SportsTalk, the Women's Sports Foundation's publication for teens. She has written for Black Expressions Book Club's Web site and worked in trade publishing as both a publicity assistant and advertising coordinator. She is currently associate editor at Black Issues Book Review for Book Bytes.

Michele D. Thomas is associate editor at Black Issues Book Review for Book Bytes and an Internet marketing manager for a book dub corporation in New York City. Estrada and Thomas captured the story of how two friends created an e-marketing blockbuster on page 52.
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The girlfriend's guide to E-marketing a blockbuster: how to savvy black internet professionals???Jen Hunt and Sanyu Dillon
The girlfriend's guide to E-marketing a blockbuster: how to savvy black internet professionals???Jen Hunt and Sanyu Dillon???brainstormed an innovative online promotion for Stephen King's latest thriller over lunch - book bytes
Black Issues Book Review

Take two talented African American Internet professionals, add marketing savvy, a world-renown author and two media giants and season it with friendship. What do you have? Ground-breaking online book marketing success.

Sanyu Dillon, 31, an online marketing manager with Viacom's Simon & Schuster Trade Publishers, and Jennifer Hunt, 29, an online producer, at the time, with AOL-Time Warner's Time.com, are the creators of an innovative promotion for Simon & Schuster's best-selling author Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher on Time.com's Web site. Getting two major media competitors to work together and defy traditional online book marketing practices may have sounded impossible. But not to Sanyu and Jennifer, two friends who spontaneously devised a plan over a casual lunch.

BIBR met with Sanyu and Jennifer for an exclusive table talk at the sleek lounge in New York City's Millennium Hotel. Dressed in eye-catching aqua, Sanyu, a native of Ohio, exuded confidence and charisma, characteristics of a top on-line marketing manager. But her career in online marketing was almost accidental. "I just fell into it," she explains. "I was working at Simon and Schuster for about two years, and then I quit to freelance. I worked for a year as a freelance editor and launched an Internet start-up with a friend of mine. Then my old boss at Simon and Schuster called me and offered me a position in the online division."

Jennifer, a native of New Mexico, who's affable, intuitive and stylish, also entered the online world because of an unexpected opportunity. "I worked at Random House at Crown as an editor. And before that, I worked at Money magazine and kept contacts there. Time Inc. corporate human resources manager Breena Clarke (who, incidentally, became the celebrated author of the novel River, Cross My Heart, Little Brown and Company, 1999) was running a program to help recruit minority editor, and she gave me a call about the position at Time.com."

According to Sanyu, incidents such as Breena Clarke hooking up Jen are commonplace among African Americans in publishing. "Publishing is such an incestuous industry and there are so few African Americans that everyone kind of looks out for each other. I heard Jen's name long before I met her" she recalls. "Anytime anyone would say they had a job opening and were looking for someone, I'd say, `Call Jen Hunt, she knows a lot'" But the two had a professional connection that eventually brought them together. Jen had written book reviews for BIBR and when she was invited to lunch by the reviews editor, Sanyu, who was freelancing with BIBR, tagged along.

Now Jen and Sanyu are both black women working in Internet divisions for corporate conglomerates, which is an ever-changing field with many challenges. "I think the Internet industry as a whole has changed" states Sanyu. "Since a lot of sites have gone out of business, it's more about making money than it is about content. It's more about partnership. And since publishers don't make a lot of money, it's difficult. We can only promote on a title-by-title basis."

In addition, there's a greater sense of isolation working in the Internet division of publishing. "Since there also aren't a lot of African Americans in the Internet industry," says Sanyu, "many, many times, I'm just the only one. I think that's my biggest challenge."

Jen also finds that aspect of the business wearisome. "You end up working with smart and interesting people, but it's just as difficult as it is in other corporate industries to be the only black--whether the pressure is internal or external. But I would say that the more specialized sites such as blackplanet.com are really trying to reach out to editors and people of color in the industry to make connections."

It's no surprise that the two women first came to know about each other socially, since they had mutual friends that invited them to the same parties. "We had been trying to catch up with each other" Jen explains. "Then one day we ran into one another in a tunnel beneath our work spaces. Before we headed toward our trains, we made a lunch date."

They chose lunch at Victor's, a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan that happens to be Jen's favorite spot. And between bites of plantains, black beans and rice, chatter between girlfriends blossomed into a conversation about a monumental deal. Who knew that an ordinary lunch between two sistahs would result in an online cross-promotion between two of the top media companies in the world?

When Sanyu met with Jen for lunch that day in October 2000, she already knew that she had to create an on-line marketing plan for Stephen King's upcoming book Dreamcatcher. The book was scheduled for release in March 2001, but Sanyu had to finalize online plans four months prior to its publication. This promotion was on her mind as she met with Jen. "I knew I had until December to come up with an online plan," she says. "I'd thought of speaking to Jen about it originally, but I didn't think she'd be interested. Time.com is so heavily news-oriented."

But while they discussed the various projects on their plates, Sanyu mentioned the King book. "Halfway through lunch, I told her that we wanted to do a big Stephen King promotion on the net, and that we'd be willing to give away an excerpt. And she was interested."

Although Sanyu was surprised, it made sense to Jen. This wasn't like any promotion she'd ever created before, but she knew it was right. "It may not have been the most logical thing for Time.com, but we wanted to do something really different," she says. "My boss was very much into pushing the envelope."

Over the next weeks, the two spoke with their supervisors, defined goals, wrote proposals and attended meetings to create the partnership that would culminate in a Stephen King/Dreamcatcher mini-Web site on Time.com, generating millions of hits. Then, laughs Jen, we "did the corporate thing. We brought in the bosses."

While department directors and vice presidents from both corporations conferred with each other and their legal departments, and publicists crafted press releases, Jen and Sanyu worked on the production of the Stephen King site. They decided that although one chapter would be posted on Time.com, it would be split into three pieces--one excerpt per week in the three consecutive weeks prior to Dreamcatcher's release. There would be flash animation, music, a biography of King and a linked teaser on AOL (America Online).

Amazingly, at a time when dot-coms were looking for ways to generate profit by advertising, this promotion was cash-free. Money did not exchange hands. This was "a content-for-promotion promotion" according to San)u. "From our standpoint, we knew that people would be excited about Stephen King, and we liked the traffic, the promotion, and the marketing muscle that Time.com would provide."

For Jen, the excerpt was the clincher. "It was a big deal for anyone to get that excerpt before publication."

Sanyu would provide the content, and Jen would supervise the design. Their friendship made the project move smoothly. Their trust in each other not only aided in their partnership, it helped to relax their bosses. "I think our higher-ups felt comfortable with us because we were friends, and there wasn't any company-to-company competition."

On Monday, March 5, 2001, Time.com's Stephen King Web site launched with a free peek at the future bestseller. On the 12th, another excerpt was posted. The final piece was posted on the 19th. Twenty-four hours later, the book that had tempted readers for three weeks was released to the public. The Dreamcatcher Web site launched to widespread attention and accolades. Press releases were faxed; AOL had a link to it from its welcome page. King, who had long been aware of the possibilities of online marketing, posted a banner on his personal Web site, www.stephenking.com, which directed his readers to Time.com. King also recorded an e-commercial for the Website, welcoming surfers to the site.

The number of hits to the Dreamcatcher Web site numbered in the millions. But, as San)u says, "Its hard to measure the success of advertising. It doesn't mean a direct translation into sales, but it does mean good public relations. We got a lot of press for it, a lot of traffic on Time.com and Simonsays.com."

And the accolades were indeed forthcoming. The online media site Inside.com ran a story about the joint-promotion, in which the women's names were mentioned. USA Today ran a story. News of the cross-company promotion ran across the wire services.

"This promotion definitely gave us a higher profile," Jen says. "Our names were mentioned in articles! Plus, it was really gratifying to do something so different, and it was nice to be able to do something beyond the norm. It was rewarding to prove that blacks in publishing could work on all types of books and not just black books."


Sanyu agrees. "It was great to do something like this for a commercial author, to see a big project through from inception to completion." According to Sanyu, it was definitely worth it for Simon & Schuster. The publisher's Web site, Simonsays.com, received increased traffic during those three weeks and its Stephen King e-newsletter received more subscribers. Readers could reserve their copies of Dreamcatcher with online booksellers, including Barnes&Noble.com (with whom Time.com had a relationship), and book sales were high.

Although Hunt has since left Time.com to work at Lee & Low, publisher of award-winning multicultural children's books, San)u says she would definitely be interested in creating a similar promotion again, she cautions, "It has to be the right opportunity, the right author and the right site." And the right personal connection helps, too.

--Sheryl J. Estrada and Michele D. Thomas are co-editors for BIBR's Book Bytes department.

Sheryl J. Estrada was an editor of SportsTalk, the Women's Sports Foundation's publication for teens. She has written for Black Expressions Book Club's Web site and worked in trade publishing as both a publicity assistant and advertising coordinator. She is currently associate editor at Black Issues Book Review for Book Bytes.

Michele D. Thomas is associate editor at Black Issues Book Review for Book Bytes and an Internet marketing manager for a book dub corporation in New York City. Estrada and Thomas captured the story of how two friends created an e-marketing blockbuster on page 52.
Full Article

Le référencement éthique a bondi en 2006

Lors d'un entretien avec Emmeline RATIER de JDN Solutions, j'ai eu l'occasion de faire le point sur l'évolution du référencement en 2006.

JDN Solutions. Les PME sont-elles consommatrices de référencement ?

Gerald Claessens. Les clients de l’agence PublicityWeb sont majoritairement des grands comptes et des pure players, qui investissent massivement sur le Web. Il est possible de distinguer deux types de PME classiques : celles effectuant un investissement minimum pour figurer en ligne, en général avec un simple site vitrine, ou bien celles recherchant une présence optimale.

Plus globalement, les PME commencent à avoir une démarche orientée de plus en plus e-business et s’intéressent donc de plus près au référencement qui est devenu une composante incontournable de tout projet web.

Quelle est généralement la place du référencement au sein de la stratégie de l’entreprise ?

Il y a quelques années, une simple présence sur le web suffisait. Aujourd’hui, sans investissement marketing pour être visible, le site devient vite inutile. Le budget global du site évolue dans ce sens et la partie marketing prend plus d’importance. Avec 90 % du budget destiné au développement et 10 % au marketing il y a quelques années, il a glissé aujourd’hui à 30 % pour le développement et 70 % pour le marketing.

Même constat pour l’investissement publicitaire, auparavant mené sur les médias presse et radio et qui change pour le Web.

De la même façon, le webmaster ou le directeur IT était dans un premier temps notre principal interlocuteur, le référencement s’inscrivant dans une logique de développement. Aujourd’hui, nous avons surtout affaire au directeur marketing, intervenant majoritairement sur les liens sponsorisés.

Le Search Engine Marketing (SEM) connaît un essor important et 2006 aura été une année phare pour l’Europe. Malheureusement, la problématique de référencement à toujours tendance à arriver en fin de parcours, au moment où le site vient d’être créé. Pour un référencement optimal, la prestation référencement devrait être intégrée au moment même de la création.

Le métier de référenceur a-t-il évolué ?

Nous suivons la mouvance du marché. Pour le référencement classique, nous nous inscrivons aujourd’hui dans une démarche de conseil : nous accompagnons les annonceurs, nous leurs expliquons les actions à faire et celles à éviter.

Les sites Web ont évolué. Ils ne sont plus statiques et intègrent généralement des CMS. Il n’est quasiment plus possible de prendre en main directement un site comme dans nos prestations antérieures.

Notre offre comprend le conseil et l’accompagnement - du webmaster ou de l’agence Web - dans la mise en place de l’optimisation du site.

Le besoin de qualité des moteurs a-t-il directement influencé les agences ?

Le référencement éthique a bondit en 2006. Avec l’affaire de blacklistage du site allemand BMW, les acteurs européens ont compris qu’ils n’étaient pas à l’abri d’éventuelles sanctions, et de nombreuses agences en ont fait les frais. La plupart des référenceurs se sont donc empressés de communiquer sur le respect des règles des moteurs, des internautes et des annonceurs.
L’avertissement a été brutal mais clair, et la pression mise par le moteur Google sur les référenceurs a été grandement ressentie sur le marché. En tenant comptes des risques pris, les professionnels n’ont pas vraiment d’autre choix que de se tourner vers un référencement propre.

Quels sont les nouveaux défis en termes de référencement ?

Le défi est quotidien. Il est de comprendre le fonctionnement et l’évolution des outils de recherche afin de rendre les sites Web compatibles. Un travail qui ne fait qu’évoluer en complexité, le développement des sites Web étant toujours plus complexe.
Par ailleurs, l’avènement des liens sponsorisés a révolutionné le référencement. Ces derniers ont pris l’avantage sur le référencement classique en termes d’investissement. Mieux contrôlés, plus souples, ils sont idéals dans un cadre promotionnel ou événementiel. Le référencement naturel n’est quant à lui pas garanti, même s’il s’inscrit dans une démarche pérenne incontournable.

Les nouveaux moteurs sont-ils prometteurs ?

Même si des efforts importants sont menés par les nouveaux acteurs, je doute qu’un moteur puisse actuellement détrôner Google. Toutefois, le projet Wikiasari - futur moteur créé par Jimmy Wales, fondateur de Wikipedia - semble une démarche intéressante avec l’intégration du social networking dans la recherche.
Alors que les moteurs de recherche classique misent un maximum sur l’automatisation la plus développée pour proposer l’index le plus important, les projets alternatifs comme Wikiasari sont intéressants.

Au niveau de la technologie de recherche classique, Live Search, malgré des investissements colossaux, peine à rattraper le retard. En 2006, l’écart entre Google et ses concurrents continue à se creuser.

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5 Main Steps in Web Design And Development

Every work of a genius normally ends up being very simplistic. The main reason for your web site is to boost the business coverage of your products or services to the wider public. It will and should increase your customer audience. The simpler you create your website, the easier you and your clients find it is to use. Increasing your virtual customer base, do not forget about business in reality. Remember that the online shop and real business must work together. It means that website is one more office or shop for your business in cyber space. One is an extension and continuation of the other. It is important to create such a website which reflects the main stream and character of your business as well as bringing in new clientele.  On planning a website, divide this process into several steps. A good arranged plan is a half way for success.  You may have a look at our proposed steps.

Step one. First of all, you have to Identify The Mission of Your Project in the online marketing arena. Then you must determine short-term and long- term aims and objectives of your site. Think about target audience of your website. Then it is time to consider the functionality. Site content must be relevant to the topic as well as updated and fresh. 

The Second step regards Development and Design. You have to consult with a web design company about style, size of your site as well as discuss stages of web design and development performance. You can propose your vision, and they will express their opinion. Thus you will find a common consensus.  After the general decision is undertaken, the time is then set for the designers and programmers. Cooperating with each other they build, construct and test your site. 

The Third step is your Review and Advice. Development of your site is offline, so you can have access to the all stages of the process. This is greatly needed as you can give your views and feedback. Your review helps to go in the right direction. Also it is considered necessary that checking of your site in various browsers should be made. Before your site goes online you must be sure that all is working well. Once the tests are over your website is ready to be launched and presented to the public. We have spoken about the technological side of website building.

The Fourth thing is SEO. Once the website is complete you need to promote it. Search engine optimization or website promotion is a powerful marketing tool. You must arrange a good marketing tactic. Promotion strategy is the key factor in online business. How does it work? As long as key-words and phrases are indentified, the site then must be processed for submitting to the search engines. The goal is to get high page ranking in the search engine results. As long as your site is an integral component of advertising campaign, you will need a professional consultant. Birmingham Web Design company can help you to promote your site.
 
 The Last step is Safety and Updates. To give the finishing touches to your site, take care of security and updating. Regarding firstly, that all information you provide to the website design company must be protected. Added to this, as your business grows you will have to update your site with the current news and forthcoming events. Visitors will expect it and clients will think that the site is working and always is updated, and thus trust such a company.
Finally, this is just an initial basis for you to think. If you switch on your imagination in cooperation with a team of professionals, then this enterprise can turn into a pretty and money-making website. We wish you good luck!

About the Author

Kaweb, is a Birmingham web design company, produces web sites. We work with our clients from initial ideas to the websites' design and promotion. Our range of services is wide: planning, programming, designing, optimization etc.  With board of professionals that have over 20 years of experience in marketing and a young team of programmers and designers, Kaweb are well placed to offer proven marketing services on the basis of the latest programming technologies.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

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Internet Marketing Strategy: 12 Ways To Increase The Value Of Your Web Site Content.

You need to have a way with words in order to increase the traffic to your web site. However, sometimes, the most intelligent people in the world can have difficulty effectively communicating their ideas in writing to others.

This need not be so, if you follow these steps...

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