Author: J. Warholic

Google Teams Up With GoDaddy Domain Names

J. Warholic

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.

Professional Web Services is an Internet marketing services company with the emphasis on establishing for B2c and B2b businesses, more online search engine exposure, online advertising strategies, search engine optimization, and web branding solutions for both B2B, Business to business and B2C, Business to consumer organizations. Contact us today for a free internet marketing evaluation and/or professional website design.

How We Snatched Our Domain Name

J. Warholic

Good domain name news.
Yay, we got our ProfessionalWebServices.net domain name!

I thought I would share this story with everyone about the case of registering an expired domain name.

Just to give a little background information, it is important to understand my thought process in picking the name of Professional Web Services, Inc. in the first place. When I first got involved with Internet marketing, I felt it was important to portray in our name the type of company that we consider ourselves to be. That is, we always take a professional approach to everything we do online and with our customers. Sure, we have some websites that are fun and have a Fridays entertainment value to them, but when it comes to the business of Internet marketing for our clients we honor their trust they place in our services by always giving 100%, to not only publishing the best website possible for them, but also in the ethics aspect of Internet marketing.

So, you can see how we got the first word, “Professional.” The second word made sense from the Internet standpoint. The World Wide Web is all encompassing and growing steadily. I was one of the early pioneers of forging online. So, it was logical that the second word would be the “Web.” Then, the third word just fell into place naturally with the “Services” provided by: Professional Web Services, Inc.

At first, with any name that you choose, it is important to also see what type of domain names are available. This is an area online that is continually evolving into what some might see as a War of Names.

Common names and common words are some of the more interesting stories involved with domain name ownership. The dot com names have been taken for the majority of words in the English language. This is also true for many of the combinations of logical two word English phrases. Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, and Web Marketing, are some of the more highly sought after combinations of online words. Other words like the words for the day of the week have also been registered by various individuals or company organizations. For example Fridays.com is owned by TGI Fridays restaurant chain, but Fridays.ws is owned by me. I actually use Fridays.ws website as our Thank God It’s Fridays fun day outlet. Now, TGI Fridays restaurant chain does not have the rights to every single instance the common word Fridays is used on the Internet or in a domain name. In fact, there is no confusion between our Fridays and their Fridays. Our site even has a disclaimer that we are not affiliated with T.G.I. Friday’s® Worldwide Restaurant chain. However, if we were to go into the restaurant business, and started using the name Fridays as our restaurant name and the domain name, that would be an entirely different story.

As far as the use of Professional Web Services is concerned, there were a couple of individuals that had the .net and the .com names. So, we decided that we would register all the other uses of Professional Web Services that made sense for us. However, early on, we thought that having to type out the long name Professional Web Services every single instance of usage would be exorbitantly long and tiresome. Also, imagine the long email addresses that you would have with both a name and the long domain name attached (InternetMarketingServices @ ProfessionalWebServices.Net). That is where it made logical sense to also grab pwebs.net, and use this one for the website to begin with.

This thought process actually worked out very well, but because of the physical size and amount of information at pwebs.net it also made sense to establish another website, with different information related to our business. We have a very generic placeholder website at pwebs.org which has a short synopsis overview. Not sure at this time, what we intend to do with this domain name for the long haul, but felt it was important for the future.

So, getting back to the story of ProfessionalWebServices.net. GoDaddy.com has a back-order service for monitoring domain names that are taken but if they ever come back into the pot and become available or change hands, this service lets you know by email and in the case of an expired domain name, tries to register the domain name for you automatically. Once this option was set in place, there was nothing more for us to do except wait.

It is important to note, that if the domain had many suitors it might have gone into an after market bidding area online. However, in the case of our name, since we are incorporated as Professional Web Services, Inc. and most of the other domain names are owned by us, we thought it would be unlikely that there would be any type of bidding on this name. Additionally, under domain name laws, U.S. federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, a person or company that tries to capture an already established domain name for some corporation or entity that is not rightfully theirs could be considered to be Cybersquatting. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.

If the domain name had the potential to be in an after market bidding war, then there are other services online to try and secure a domain name. There was an excellent story by: Mike Davidson: How to Snatch an Expiring Domain, in which he goes into great detail about his quest for a domain name.

Well, back to our story. So I knew that the previous owner of ProfessionalWebServices.net did not renew the domain name and the time frame for reintegration into the domain name pool was coming due. So I set up the GoDaddy backorder service and just waited to the drop date. It was on this drop date that we were hoping to here from GoDaddy that we had gotten the domain name. However, with a sad face I must tell you we did not get the name.

We’re sorry, but the following domain name(s) that you back-ordered was not captured successfully:

PROFESSIONALWEBSERVICES.NET

Changes made to a domain take at least 24 hours to update in the WhoIs database. If you perform a WhoIs lookup on the domain to verify registration information or the status of the domain before 24 hours has passed, the information may appear to be incorrect.

OH well, it was not the end of the world. But, it was not the end of the story either.

Four days later I get another automatic email with this message.

Congratulations! The following domain name(s) that you backordered was successfully captured: 

PROFESSIONALWEBSERVICES.NET

I am not sure how this happened, but I am not one to question good fortune. This was Great!

Our plans for the ProfessionalWebServices.Net website are to really share a little about website customization and website design. PWEBS.NET will continue to focus on the main foundation of what our company’s focus is on, which is Internet marketing services, ethical search engine optimization, Online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions for B2C and B2B businesses.

If you have a B2B or B2C business that needs help in any of these areas, Professional Web Services is here to help you. Contact us today for an Internet marketing evaluation and/or quote for a customized website design with a built in content management and blogging software system.

Blogging with Professional Web Services Blogs for Your Business

J. Warholic

Improve your B2B and B2C marketing and market reach on the Internet with powerful customer centric blogging tools.

Blogging has now become more of a main stream media outlet for businesses on the Web. The blogging world is growing by leaps and bounds. The powerful, yet easy to use tools for online publishing are making it easy for just about anyone to publish online. If you know how to type a Microsoft Word document, then you can publish an article online.

With automatic RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and atom feeds being outputted from a blog, for people to plug these feeds into their online newsreaders and/or through email subscriptions, companies from the high-tech down to the manufacturing and industrial sectors are able to expand their market reach and involve their customers while doing so.

Blogs have become more popular for businesses to keep in touch with their readers, buyers, and consumers. Consumers have found them to be a key source for news and information. As companies are becoming more customer centric there has been an increase in more interactivity on the Web geared towards two way communications with customers and businesses alike.

Blogging provides powerful solutions for improved Internet marketing reach.

There are all types of examples of online B2B and B2C blogs where information is shared with readers, customers, and businesses. Take for example the founder and CEO of Godaddy.com, Bob Parsons. Bob has his own blog found at www.bobparsons.com in which he communicates with his customers and readers regularly. He uses the blog to share with his readers and viewership the various items going on with GoDaddy and the various aspects of the Internet world. Bob is not afraid to “Tell It Like It Is.” His style of communication is matter of fact, with adding a bit of humor into the mix. Take, for instance, the article: GoDaddy pulls its IPO filing! Where Bob communicates his reasoning for not taking GoDaddy public at that time.

Another example of blogging in the technology world is at News at CNET.com. Their blogs can be seen listed at news.com.com. They have created a blog for different areas of technology. Each is branded with the CNET brand.

Another aspect of some of the blogging software platforms available, is they are now more of a content management system. This makes the difference between a website and a blog relatively minor. The advantages of having a blog for your business for a sales, marketing, advertising, and branding tool are numerous indeed.

Take the next step now, with a powerful Web 2.0 blogging tool. Bring your business to life online. Learn more about how a blog for you company can make a huge online impact for your business, contact Professional Web Services today for professional blog/website designs, SEO, and Internet marketing expertise.

Web Marketing Solutions

J. Warholic

Get busy promoting your business with smart Web marketing strategies today.

If you are not employing any type of marketing solutions for the Internet, then it is more than likely that your business is loosing market share to the competition.

One of the most important business marketing strategies that should be implemented by most companies is to incorporate a “Web marketing strategy” into the overall corporate sales, marketing, and advertising scheme. Simply put, the Internet has the potential to send business to your company with targeted online advertising and an Internet marketing strategy that incorporates many interconnected strategic marketing items that will help your company improve market share online.

One of those strategic marketing items to consider, is contract with a professional full time Internet marketing and online advertising firm that has years of experience with marketing and promoting of companies on the Web. Yes, you or an employee can try to spend years learning the ever changing SEO process, but how much sense does it make to spend the time, with the potential pitfalls along the way, and near certain possibilities of making major mistakes that could drastically affect your business online. The smart solution is to do what you do best, that is, running your business, making money for your business producing the products or developing the services you sell, and let Professional Web Services do what we do best; that is, getting businesses found online and increasing our clients’ bottom line sales results.

Internet marketing is not something that can be learned out of a text book. Certainly there are basic sales, marketing, and advertising principals that come into force when applying the strategies on the Web, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Web marketing starts from the ground up foundation and the Internet down. What I mean by that is the foundation structure of the website is most important but so are the links to your website, social media marketing, implementation of Web 2.0 applications, online videos, etc etc. Having only one or two of the key items developed is not nearly as good as having them fully integrated together for your Web brand. That is where Professional Web Services Internet marketing firm can help your business online.

Contact Professional Web Services today to understand what Internet marketing solutions can do for your bottom line sales results. Professional Web Services has full Internet marketing services, search engine optimization, Online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions to get your business seen by your future customers. Increase your Web exposure, gain new qualified sales leads, and significantly improve sales with the 24 by 7 business marketing solution.

The FedEx and Amazon.com Logos

J. Warholic

Interesting stories behind some of the well know logos.
by: Jim Warholic

FedExCorporate Symbols And Hidden Secrets

While waiting on a package of some replacement parts for my Weber Barbecue, shipped by FedEx from Weber.com, I decided to use the tracking option from the FedEx.com website.

The good news is it should be here today. It is on the local truck scheduled for delivery.

The search for FedEx on Google Search brought me to some enlightening reading about a couple of corporate logos and the hidden meanings, hidden items, and subliminal messages in these corporate brands.

Here are several posts from The Sneeze

Secret Symbols 

It occurred to me there is a secret arrow hiding in between the “E” and the “x” of the FedEx logo. Look at it! Now that I know it’s there, it’s all I can see. How could I not have noticed it before?
Posted in The Sneeze on September 23, 2004 07:16 PM

The Man Behind the FedEx Logo

Not long ago, I posted about the subliminal arrow in the FedEx logo. I received several emails regarding it, including one from design student Bobby Dragulescu. Thanks to Bobby and his typography professor Leah Hoffmitz, I was put in touch with the logo’s creator: Mr. Lindon Leader of Leader Creative.
Posted in The Sneeze on November 16, 2004 06:47 AM

More Breaking Logo w/ Arrow News

Last week I posted an interview with the man behind the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo, and the interest in it has been astounding.
Posted in The Sneeze on November 26, 2004 01:11 AM

With FedEx having the hidden arrow and amazon.com having an arrow from A to Z, I wonder what other brands have interesting stories to tell.

Well, just in time for Thanksgiving, my Weber Barbeque parts arrived before I even finished this story. FedEx to the rescue. Now I can “Relax, it’s FedEx“

Did you see the arrow between the E and the x, in the FedEx logo?

Click here for more Top Secrets For Internet Success.

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Online Branding Matters

Cast Your Vote On The Internet With Your Business

J. Warholic

Today Is Election Day For The United States, But Everyday Is Election Day For Internet Marketing And Your Business.

Are you making your Business-to-Business or Business-to-Consumer vote count on the Internet? Is your business up to the task of providing valuable information on the Internet? Will your company make a difference in its small or large market segments crowd? Or, will your company disenfranchise your target audience?

Your website is an extension of your business on the Internet. As such, are you really taking the opportunity of the publicity that could be generated through the process of providing information to future customers? The Internet is about votes and campaigning for votes. The more votes generated by users online the higher your online search standing will be. The Internet has voids or holes that need to be filled. For example, information about certain topics is very limited except in very narrow market segments. Many times the information is only in the heads of a few company owners rather than written down in a hard or soft copy format.

Why are you holding back? I believe most times a business holds back from publishing an article is not because they are concerned about sharing proprietary information, but because it simply takes a certain amount of effort to get their butts in gear and write an article in the first place. Most items that are of a proprietary nature can be encapsulated in generalities instead of the sharing of specific information. This is an opportunity to set the standards in your particular industry. Set your company’s brand apart from the rest of the B2B or B2C crowd, as being the expert in what ever specific field you are in.

Writing an article does not necessarily mean going into a long discourse, but the sharing of information in a well thought out format that will engage the reader and not make your readers bored. In an article by Chuck McKay, The Fifteen Minute Effective Business Letter, Chuck gives practical advice for writing a good business letter. Well, that advice could also be taken to heart for writing an effective article online. Think of writing online as the extension of your business. Communicate with your customers and future customers with a respect for their time they deserve, by highlighting the important information fist. Give a summary of your important points first. Throw out the formal writing styles and put it into the way you personally communicate with customers. Most potential customers around the Net are not interested in wasting their time reading something that sounds like it came from their College English Professor.

A picture of the product, service, or even your company logo can very easily be included in an online article using any of the free professional blogging softwares that are available. The blogging software can be integrated into the business website itself, so the article could reside directly at the company’s website host and be edited at anytime in the future.

Writing the article, and publishing it online provides valuable benefits toward your company’s Internet marketing strategy. Research is never ending for engineers and consumers. Getting the article in the right hands can provide valuable natural links from other website owners. Through the process of writing the article online, then actively promoting that same article through Internet marketing strategies can bring in substantial new customers than ever before. Part of the Internet marketing strategy could include search engine marketing through a Pay-Per-Click advertising program with the various search engines. Think of the article that was just written as a specific landing page for a target audience. Using the Pay-Per-Click advertising program, an ad can be displayed in the search engine results pages with a very specific target audience in-mind. Then, anytime an engineer or consumer searches for the terms that are selected as search keywords, your company ad could show up in the paid results.

Once an article has been published online, it has the potential to become voted on by others on the World Wide Web. This voting takes place through natural links that would be generated on other websites to your published article. This voting by others in the form of links, helps establish the article as providing valuable information and therefor, the search engines will rank the article accordingly based on this factor and others.

So, start writing your articles today. Professional Web Services can help get you started. Contact us for Internet marketing services today.

How Can RSS Feeds Help Your Business?

J. Warholic

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.

Website Designs

J. Warholic

Open Source Web Site Template DesignsTemplate

When it comes to creating the perfect template for a website, quite a bit of work is involved. Getting a head start on the design process can be aided by many of the Open Source templates available online.

With millions of websites already in existence, it is not like something has not already been done before in the way of a template layout. There are layouts with one column, or multi-columns. Menus can be on the right, left, top, and/or bottom. But, no matter what template is decided upon, there will be extensive modifications that will likely be required for branding it to your business name, colors, and tastes.

My personal feeling with colors is darker fonts on lighter background colors for the main body text seems to be the easiest on the eyes. Have you ever tried to read a long page of text in a website with a black or dark colored background with white or light text? After staring at the page for a minute or two, the eyes tend to have a burnt in image of the black background. This is very hard on the eyes. None of the big search engines have white text on dark backgrounds? None of the major websites from an e commerce perspective have white on dark. Why do many of the graphic designers think that white text on a dark background is a good option? Accentuation of the page can be done with graphic images that provide a balance to the overall look but do not interfere with the text message to be read.

Certain businesses tend to have some great natural images that can easily portray what their business is about. As the old saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words can be true on the web, but it is wise to have body text to go along with it for the search engines to pick up. Other businesses in the service sector require much more in the way of a creative image selection process in order to really tell their business story online.

Creative writing for the website and creative ad copy writing can be equally as challenging. For one thing, the keywords for your business must be used throughout the website< in order to have it have the possibility of it showing up in the keyword search results of the search engines. Ignoring this one area alone can spell trouble for your Internet marketing efforts. From an Internet marketing standpoint, to place a website in front of your target audience requires using the keywords that your customers use. In fact, writing for the target audience is more important on the Internet than any single type of promotional material generated. Brochures that are handed out or mailed can make an immediate impact without using many of the keywords within the printed items. That is because a sales person hands out or emails the information directly to a person that is probably already interested in what the business does. However, on the Internet, the website becomes the salesman for potential customers that may not know your business name but are looking for the equipment, products, or services provided, and therefore the Internet marketing messages must be more informative than any printed brochure.

For more information on Internet marketing, online advertising, search engine optimization, and web branding visit Professional Web Services today.

Web Development Time

J. Warholic

Do you have the time?
by: Jim Warholic

Yesterday, my favorite watch, the Casio DW-290-T, that I have had for ten or more years decided that it had had enough. It started out with, getting dimmer when the electro luminescent backlight was pressed. So I figured it was time to get a new battery. Driving over to the local Target store at 8:30 pm on a Saturday evening, it would simply be a matter of installing a new battery. As “Murphy’s Law” would have it, when dealing with time, this was not going to be the case.

My first clue that this was going to be an extended visit should have been when I approached the watch counter and asked for a battery for my Casio watch. The clerk behind the counter asked me, “do I know the battery model number?” “Well sure, just let me borrow your small phillips screwdriver and I can give you the battery model number,” I said. The sales clerk said, “we no longer have any tools to work on the watches.” “OK…, let me see if my trusty Leatherman multi-purpose tool had anything that would work,” I said.

Fortunately, the screws on the back of the watch were both slotted and phillips style. I had a small screwdriver on the Leatherman that worked just fine. After I got the back cover of the watch off, the clerk was able to see the battery number. She provided a new battery at the cost of four dollars and some change. I thought this would be great. I’ll be back in time… Foolish me.

While I was assembling the watch back together, the clerk asked if she could recycle the old battery for me. I said, “sure.” Big mistake. The new battery would not work in the watch. Or, should I say the watch would not work with the new battery. Making sure the battery was in properly, pushing buttons, taking it in and out again several times, had absolutely no success in getting that stupid watch to function again. Now my favorite trusted timepiece became a stupid timepiece.

The sales clerk during this time was helping out other customers and would occasionally come back to my counter area. She felt bad this had happened. I assured her it was not her fault. I stated to her, “Let me try my old battery, at least that one was functioning before I took it out.” “Well, um, let me see if I can find it,” she said. At that, she went over to the container of old batteries, which contained about a hundred or more of various types and sizes of batteries. She said, “I think it is this one. The one on top. But, I can’t get it out.” So, I start digging, and digging. Getting frustrated, I dump out the whole jar on to the counter. Seperating the same style battery as mine into a pile. Only a dozen or so of that style batteries were present.

I start trying battery after battery with no luck. No display at all. Murphy’s Law finally took its toll on my time. Time to move on. Get a new watch. OH, how I hate shopping for watches. This one had too many buttons and was hard to figure out. Another had a display that could barely be seen, unless you had the eyes of a 18 year old. I just couldn’t seem to find the right timepiece.

“How late are you open,” I asked the clerk. “10:00 pm,” she responded. “OK, I might be back,” I said.

Trudging over to the local Longs, where I had remembered that they also carried watches, I decided to give them a try. I finally found a watch that I could see, the buttons were just the right touch, and it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out how to operate it.

I am sure that many of you can relate to the time story. What is interesting is how this time story relates to matters on the Web. The Internet is a media outlet for B2B, B2C, and C2C. It is a marketing, advertising, and sales channel that really is difficult to encapsulate. Many B2B and B2C businesses want a website presence without doing much work. They want instantaneous gratification with an immediate website presence, that their website is showing up in the top search results for their marketing keywords, and the website becomes a powerful sales tool for their sales people to use. Time and time again, Presidents, CEOs, owners, and management of both large and small business fail to realize the amount of time it takes to develop a web presence.

Developing a good web presence encompasses so many aspects of a business’s soul. Time is the one item that will definitely be at the forefront of setting up and maintaining a website, marketing and advertising online, and web branding the company across a wide area of online channels. If the company is involved in a vary narrow vertical market or technical engineering area of expertise, then writing from company staff will be a prerequisite for developing a website. Good Internet marketing companies can provide immense help in the area of editing content for selected keywords, fine tuning from a search engine optimization and web branding perspective, online advertising strategies, search engine marketing, customizing and/or designing search engine friendly website templates, and web branding strategic marketing ideas. But, it still comes back to the business of sharing knowledgeable information in a customer centric way through good writing and online communication skills.

Talk with Professional Web Services today for information about Internet marketing services, ethical search engine optimization, search engine marketing, online advertising strategies, and web branding solutions. Contact us for B2B and B2C marketing Internet marketing services, strategies, and solutions.

Legal, Ethical, And Internet Marketing

J. Warholic

Quite a few people have said, “plagiarism is the highest form of flattery.” However, when someone takes a large chuck of original words written on a website and then publishes those same words as though it were their own on another website, without permission or attribution, this crime of plagiarism is viewed in the legal community as theft of Intellectual Property. For example, an owner of a website from India decided to copy our Internet marketing services home page text. So, we decided to do a couple of things about it. First, we issued a Cease And Desist order to the perpetrator and the hosting company.

Cease And Desist Order

Remove the following material immediately from the following web page:

[SEE IMAGE]

and any other copied material from [India] website or associated websites..

You are in direct violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

You have copied the text from the first two paragraphs of our Professional Web Services, Inc., website home page at: www.pwebs.net

It is important to grow your business and expand your brand recognition using all the strategic tools available. Obtaining quality sales leads, new customers, expanding market reach, communicating with existing customers, and increasing your company’s sales is the goal. With the exponential increase in the numbers of businesses, buyers, purchasing managers, engineers, and consumers flocking to the Internet on a daily basis to search for products, services, new technologies, and shop online; it is imperative that the sales and marketing message being portrayed in the website “Be All That It Can Be” and being found online for your business’s keywords in the Search Engines. The website is one of the most influential marketing and advertising communications items you can invest in to provide More Sales For You.

Good Internet marketing services requires a marketing firm to have a solid understanding of your business. Translating that understanding into a successful website marketing message that can be picked up by potential customers searching for your keywords in the search engines is key to how successful the company’s online exposure is. A company can spend thousands of dollars on having a beautiful Flash website design that never gets found on the Internet. But a website design that is quite functional and at the same time is also pleasing to the eye; along with the proper keyword optimization, can have a profound effect on bringing in those new customers via the Search Engines. See Internet Marketing and what it means for B2B or B2C, Technology, Industrial, Consumer, Retail, Wholesale, Service, or Commercial Business.

See attached screen capture image:

Notice is hereby given to cease and desist.
September 18, 2006

Next process involved Google with a report of Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, infringement. We documented all of the information required and then faxed it to Google. Here is a quote from part of the letter.

Google, Inc.
Attn: Google Legal Support, DMCA Complaints
1600 Amphitheater Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
FAX (650) 963-3255

Attn: Google Legal Support, DMCA Complaints

Dear Google Legal Support,

Subject: Infringement Notification per Digital Millennium Copyright Act

It has come to my attention that there is a copyright infringement of the copyrighted work that is displayed on our web page at www.pwebs.net home page. See below.

We heard back in a relatively short amount of time from the hosting company.

Hello,

We have contacted them and gave them 24 hours to comply or face the web page being disabled or the site suspended. If this material remains after 24 hours have passed, then please let us know. Thank you.
–
Regards,
T. G.
Systems Administrator

Then after a few hours we heard from the website person, with a very short email stating:

Thank You for bringing this to our notice, Content have been removed.
please feel free to contact us.

In the interest of not providing a search engine link in this posting to the perpetrator; names and website links have been omitted. If you wish to see the image of the site that was guilty of plagiarism, then click on the link above. Then do a search for the name. The name they are using is in itself a well known financial services and insurance company. This site is playing with fire.

If you have a business with an online presence then it certainly is important to check the Internet on a regular basis for copyright infringements. An excellent resource can be found at www.copyscape.com. Free use of their online program can tell if there are any websites that have copied your intellectual property content. Just enter the URL into the search bar.

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape

Go here for more information on copyright violation issues.

Contact Professional Web Services, Inc. for ethical marketing and advertising, ethical search engine optimization, and ethical Internet marketing services.