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Great News For Small Businesses

If you are willing to take the time to start building a website by yourself for your small business, Google has a feature called Google Apps for Your Domain Name. Google announced Friday the additional service of anyone being able to register a domain name directly through Google.

For 10 dollars annually, a person can register a domain name privately and start using Google Apps for Your Domain Name. The Google Apps for Your Domain Name includes the features such as a custom start page, web page design, or using the Gmail application with your own domain name.

You can pick any combination of Gmail, instant messaging, Google Calendar, web page design and hosting tools, and the start page. For example, maybe you just want email. Or if you're happy with your existing mail solution, you can select only calendar and instant messaging tools. Or maybe you want it all — it's up to you.

Prior to Google partnering with several domain name registrars and offering private registration for your own domain name, it was BYOD, Bring Your Own Domain name and setting up the proper DNS settings for email and hosting at the domain control panel of whatever hosting provider a person was using. Google still provides the DNS information necessary if someone already has a domain name registered with another provider and wants to use the free Google Apps for Your Domain Name, but now it is easier than ever before for someone to register a domain name through Google and be online immediately or just using the free custom email services, free calendars, instant messaging, with free multiuser accounts.

It is important to understand that the free yet extremely powerful service provided by Google is great for email, calendar, online voice or instant messages with others in the corporation and assigned users, and other internal web apps. However, the Google Page Creator is rather simple in its approach to website design. An example of Google Page Creator can be seen at Creating A Web On The Internet. That isn't to say that the website is not professional, it just means that the provided templates are somewhat of a standard simple format with the abilities to change some of the colors and backgrounds. This can be great for a small start-up business that does not have the funds to invest into website development and would like to get started online ASAP.

Google Page Creator We believe that creating and publishing simple web pages should be quick, easy and free. Google Page Creator lets you choose from a host of templates and customize them with your organization's content and images, all within a simple what-you-see-is-what-you-get online interface. When you're happy with how things look, publish your pages to the web with a single click.

Google is coming out next year with a premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain Name. I am not sure at this time what additional features will be included in that service nor has the price been announced. A representative from Google, in a recent webcast did mention that the pricing for the premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain Name would be competitive with other hosting services.

Here is one feature that I would like to see. Google recently updated their blogging service to the New Blogger service. The New Blogger service has some pretty cool features in and of itself for building professional blogs. It would really be cool if the Google Aps for Your Domain Name could include the features found in the New Blogger. It would also be nice if several blogs could be built or used off the main domain name as a file name or as a subdomain to the URL. Right now, as far as I can see, there is no way to have hosting by Google Apps for Your Domain Name and also have a blog under your domain name. Maybe this will be one of the features in the premium service for Google Apps for Your Domain Name.

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Labels: Domain Names, Web 2.0

  

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What Are RSS Web Feeds?

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. Many websites, blogs, and news feeds produce RSS feeds or webfeeds in an XML format. These are known as: "RSS feed", "webfeed", "RSS stream", or "RSS channel".

Atom feeds are also published by many of the websites and blogs. The Atom Publishing Protocol (APP for short) is another type of XML formatted HTML page.

The idea with both RSS and Atom feeds are, they can be subscribed to in a RSS/Atom online or local feed reader or aggregator. Many of the new web browsers such as Internet Explorer 7 are coming standard with the built in RSS readers. The beauty of this type of subscription is that when a website, blog, or news feed is updated, an automatic ping is sent out to let the world know that new information is available. Not only is the ping sent out, but the information can be sent directly to the RSS reader before it is ever viewed by the subscriber. This provides a means of collecting information about various news stories, products, or services provided by companies or a select group of industries.

New RSS subscribers are growing as users discover the potential for time savings and the convenience of subscribing anonymously. A subscriber can automatically be informed when new content is provided on a particular website, or when a new newsletter is published online. This is especially useful way of subscribing to online newsletters and ezines.

Just about anything can be converted to a XML RSS feed. News stories and Blogs are just a couple of examples of items that are producing feeds. Every page of a standard website could be converted or just a few select pages that might get updated quite frequently are good candidates for producing RSS feeds. Applications for this are quite diverse. Engineering data could be collected from various sources and merged into a single RSS feed. A private group Blog or Wiki (A website where anyone can edit the information) could be set up to produce an RSS feed. That way when one person makes a change in one area, everyone could be automatically sent the updated information to their RSS readers.

Taking Advantage Of RSS For Your Business Website

The Internet is about the sharing of information, business and consumer marketing, advertising, and sales. Many times websites are looking to syndicate their articles on other websites. Using RSS for syndication purposes is easier than you think. First off, I am not a lawyer. The use of copyright published material is constantly being tested on the Internet. Most information is copyrighted online and the taking of complete published works would be viewed as a copyright infringement. However, taking a snippet of information and giving credit to the source has been done since the beginning of published research papers. The search engines themselves fall under a category referred to the "fair use doctrine."

The "fair use doctrine" and copyrights have gone through a number of challenges with one of the more recent challenges coming from AFP, a French News service provider. AFP took Google to court and did not like the fact that Google was displaying headlines, snippets of information, and links to AFP French News service. Belgium News also sued Google on the same context. A Belgian court ruling dictated the removal of the content from the Google News website and also required a posted copy of the ruling be displayed on the Google Belgium home page for some period of time. An interesting note, is that any news service provider can simply opt out of the Google News pages to begin with. So, in the opinion of this author, the Belgium lawsuit was somewhat of stunt by the Belgium press. Belgium may have won a battle, but they might have lost the war.

Let's get back to the business of business. There are several ways a business can take advantage of using RSS feeds to market and advertise online. Any company can create a Blog, which outputs RSS feeds and have those feeds automatically published at other websites. For example, syndicated columnists often write their articles on their blogs and the information is automatically picked up by newspapers and online news services around the globe. These are then republished with the authors permission in other publications. If your business is a specialized business, consider writing content for technical publications in the company blog. Then have other web sites reproduce your works with a stipulation that the link back to your website must be maintained. Additionally, a very good way of promoting your company is to have these snippets of your technical publications on other areas of your company website. This is like adding fresh content to your pages on a regular basis, and the search engines love that.

There are a number of free and commercial programs available for including RSS feeds into websites. Several software programs that are worth looking into for a website are rss2html, CaRP, and FeedBurner. To obtain the maximum value of having the articles and links included into the website from a search standpoint, it is best to use a program that outputs a feed to PHP format or a Server Side Include feed output. Both of these require specific web page file types to include the feed into the web page. Javascript is another available option for just about any type of page, but will not provide the same search benefit as the others. This is because search engine spiders do not place the Javascipt sections into the search catalog database and will not pick up the keywords in those sections.

If all of this sounds Greek to you or would like to have a business blog set up, or output your website in an RSS feed then send us an email today. Professional Web Services provides Internet marketing services, online advertising strategies, ethical search engine optimization, professional blogging services, and web branding solutions. Contact Professional Web Services and ask for your free Internet marketing website evaluation.

Labels: Web 2.0

  

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The Internet is About Interactivity

Interactivity can take many online forms in marketing a business through a website, click through emails, call to action items, enticements, free offers, games, challenges, and other various forms of algorithm learning and software items built into the web site.

Now with the new 2.0 Web that is upon us, advertising can have more interactivity built into the ads themselves. Defining Web 2.0 is rather difficult because the Web is in a constant state of change. New technologies and software are continually being developed and deployed throughout the Internet. Software applications such as Google Calendar and the Online Writely company that came up with a powerful online word processing application that can save documents in Microsoft Word format are starting to change the Internet landscape.

Advertising is also becoming much more interactive especially as online streaming audio and video are becoming more and more popular for both the advertiser and the viewer. Google has recently started experimenting with video advertising through their AdWords campaigns. The advertisers have created the ads in such a way, that the ads do not irritate a person viewing them. Actually to fully view the Ad, a play button is placed at the bottom of the ad itself. By including this type of interactivity built into the advertisement a viewer can make a choice to view it fully or not. Other forms of the interactive advertisements are simply when a button is clicked more information can be displayed.

Now, a further refinement of the selling or buying process can take place with an advertisement that draws the reader/viewer into the next step along the path of completing a sale. Remember, the better you can communicate your message, and understand your target customers' needs, the more likely you are to fill those needs and complete a sale. With an interactive advertisement, a company can now share more information than would be typically shared with a single static ad. This really makes it a very powerful tool for communicating to prospects.

I suspect as readers and viewers become much more accustomed to these new Web 2.0 Ads they will gravitate toward more interaction with the online ads, and thus the advertiser will have higher, and more qualified click through rates. This will likely be good for both the Internet Surfer as well as the Internet Advertiser. The Surfer will certainly be more trusting of a company if they can find out more information along the pathway from prospect to customer.

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Labels: Ads, Advertising, Internet, Online Advertising, Web 2.0

  

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Web 2.0 Marketing 2.0 Advertising 2.0?

Getting a handle on these terms is like pulling teeth. Web 2.0 seems to be some futuristic idea which seems to be evolving from the Web 1.0 structure. On the other hand, Web 2.0 seems to be occurring now on the Internet as it now is.

I have been reading for awhile now about this future of the Net. The following is from the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia.

The term "Web 2.0" refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications. As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:

• the transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
• a social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation"
• a more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture.
• a shift in economic value of the web, up past a trillion dollars surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s.

However, a consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.

Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, Ajax, and others.

In fact it seems to be some sort of matrix idea in the minds of the proponents in which the Internet becomes much more interactive in it's nature than the current online structure.

Others have written complete articles of what they envision Web 2.0 to represent.

What Is Web 2.0
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software by Tim O'Reilly
09/30/2005

...

The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.

...

My gut reaction to all of this is that having a name stamped on a period of time like this will be like trying to place a classification on an entity where someone will ask, was that Web 1.0 or 2.0 architecture? And what about the evolution to the next level that is still to come? Will we have Web 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, etc etc?

Ok, If that is Web 2.0, What is Marketing and Advertising 2.0?

It seems to me that both of these terms reflect the interactivity and feedback mechanisms built into various types of analytics and forms of social networking through email, forums, comments, reviews, subject blogging, webcasts, podcasts, RSS feeds, news reports, affiliate referrals, and the entirety of the Internet as we know it.

See the following posts to have a better understanding of both of these terms.

• More on Marketing 2.0
• Advertising has a 2.0 version too!

As the Internet Matrix continues toward the next level we will see business take more notice of what it can do for them. Businesses that have not grasped hold of how a brand can be developed online or how their business brand image can be tarnished through the social networking (marketing and advertising 2.0) by the interactive online world will be shocked. The companies that strive toward excellence in customer service and operate with ethical responsibilities will continue to see gains in their brand acceptance and improve their market reach. In many ways, these companies that grab hold of the New Internet Matrix, will become like fine wines, that get better and better with age.

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Labels: Advertising, Internet, Internet_Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, Web, Web 2.0

  

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Getting found Online on the major search engines is only half the battle. Utilizing sound marketing and advertising concepts once a lead source visits your business or consumer website is the other.

Websites that only have pictures are not likely to get discovered in the search engine results for the keywords of a particular business. Most of the search engine information is in the words of a website not the graphic images. On the other hand, sites that only have text copy writing will get dry and boring over time. Incorporating these two marketing and advertising concepts when it comes to the Internet is a continual challenge.

Mitigating Factors

As broadband connectivity continues to expand on a world wide basis the Hi-Tech options for promoting various business industries on the Internet are becoming much larger and can be done relatively inexpensively.

Technology continues to merge in what can be accomplished in online advertising. Once considered the high-end for only the major technology players the likes of IBM, Motorola, or Microsoft on the Internet, incorporating videos into a website is becoming more of a cost-effective sales and marketing tool for even the smaller B2B and B2C businesses on the Web.

Making a Sale

A prospective customer finds your website by doing the keyword searches for your business. What happens next? Sometimes the best way to demonstrate what it is that your company does is to provide a video demonstration. Prospects may not be familiar with the operation of a product, software, or machinery equipment operation. Short video clips can make a huge sales impact when done in the right context. If, you do not have the bandwidth at your hosting service, Google provides free hosting for your videos. For an example of free Google Video hosting, check out Professional Web Services short clip of the Grand Opening of the TechBA center in San Jose, CA. Follow the links at the bottom of that page to find out how simple it is to upload videos to Google.

The applications for utilizing videos in websites are quite extensive. Realtors for example could do virtual tours utilizing a digital camera themselves. Then have the Webmaster upload it to the server and provide a link from the Realtor's website to the video feed. Software companies are using video feeds to train new customers and demonstrate their software programs. OEM machine equipment manufactures are using streaming video feeds to demonstrate how their machines operate. Additional feeds in other languages can also be very helpful when marketing globally to the rest of the world. Individuals can even use this on demand video technology to sell items online. Consider the small business owner, who operates a business out of their house. By using an intro page to a video as a landing page for PPC, Pay-Per-Click Advertising a small business owner can sell their products as an additional online outlet to the eBay way. A seller can even place a link on an eBay listing to demonstrate the device or product.

Once a video is stored online, the link to it can always be used in the future for any type of on demand marketing or advertising. Take email as an example. Email marketing to prospects can include a link directly to the video production. Simply describe what you are featuring and provide, either the actual link, or anchor text (text actually displayed to the reader) link in the body of the email. Sales and Marketing events captured for you by: Professional Web Services.

The saying, A picture tells a thousand words; is certainly true, but the Web videos moving picture shows can make a lasting visual impression that can improve your company sales.

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Labels: Web 2.0, Websites

  

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