Build Customer Confidence with Testimonials

If a business has happy customers and a lot of return clients, it should have testimonials. You wouldn't hire a contractor to remodel your house without checking references. Therefore be proud of the work you do and get some testimonials. Customer testimonials will help increase sales as well as boost the confidence of potential customers.

In order to have testimonials work for you and increase clientele, you must be careful how you phrase them. Testimonials are a marketing effort, which means that they need to be geared toward making your company look spectacular. Testimonials will not only improve your business, but will also improve your company's image as one that values customer satisfaction. So make the effort to get some strong testimonials. Carefully place these testimonials to get maximum customers confidence. Here are some tips regarding placement of testimonials.

Eye-Catching Locations to Place Testimonials:

1. Once you have the testimonials, you need to figure out where to put them on your site. Placement is key, particularly when using flash. You want your testimonials to give maximum impact. The most common place on a website is for them to have their own navigation button titled either "Testimonials" or "Rave Reviews". This way more testimonials can be viewed on their own page.
2. Another option is to use flash testimonials on a sidebar on the homepage along with the customer's name, job title and company or logo. If you are using the testimonials in the masthead, they should rotate every 7-10 seconds then stop after all testimonials are shown. You don't want a testimonial to be so distracting that it takes the emphasis off of the content and what you are selling or offering. By having the flash cycle stop, you are allowing viewers to see the testimonials and then freely look at the content without the excess flash.
3. An alternative way to present testimonials is to sprinkle them throughout the site, highlighting them within the content using graphics, such as a color block background, upper and lower bar, etc. These visual stops are equally effective in reinforcing your credibility and can act as an additional selling point for specific products or services.
4. If you have the option for audio or video testimonials, this can be very effective in boosting your company's credibility. Audio is easy to record using Audio Acrobat. Video, on the other hand, requires more thought to positioning and angles. If you are at a trade show or with a client, you may want to pre-plan these testimonials for more impact.

Remember that in order for a testimonial to be effective, it needs to be specific, believable and placed in a credible location. With these tips in mind, your testimonials will build customer confidence and web success.

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Tips How to Invite Visitors to Your Blog

Give good time for your valuable blog readers by writing quality interesting original content, if you have more to write, its not necessary to write only technical content, you can very well write you experience in the related field and share your good and bad experience on the fields you like and involved.
(1) For the start, choose catchy titles and interesting titles, which is valuable and should be unique.
(2) Don’t urge by adding blogs by count, write few good blogs and gradually increase the count, you obviously will increase your blog posts when you see comments from your loveable visitors in future.
(3) Select or think topic on problems vs. solutions, and write your experiences and thoughts and ask for comments and add their valuable ideas towards your blog, this will create pillars for your blog.
(4) Don’t use too much of images like banners in blog, since blog is only meant for content and make your visitors to read your valuable write-ups, of course you can add your photo.
(5) Take your blog readers to a casual mood when reading your contents and make them interested to visit you again and again, help them by adding a feed reader or bookmark so that they can easily add, don’t make your visitor strain.
(6) Focus on navigation links so that your visitors can easily access your blog and can move from one post to another post.

Is it possible to follow above points? I try to keep these points in my mind but some times i miss :), bust follows these things and be a successful blogger, Good Luck.

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Sale of Yahoo to Microsoft Imminent

After months of stop-start negotiations, Microsoft are now closer than ever to their goal of acquiring Yahoo.
The latest breakthrough came following Yahoo’s settlement this week with ex AOL chief and billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
Mr Icahn, who controls approximately 5 percent of the company with his ownership of 70 million Yahoo shares, has been a big supporter of the merger with Microsoft, going so far as sending Yahoo stockholders an open letter urging them a deal with Microsoft would be in the company’s best interests:
“Yahoo’s search business is in a precarious position and it needs to join forces with Microsoft to compete with industry leader Google Inc.”
Icahn’s letter stated.
“Google is going to put in billions and billions of dollars, and where’s Yahoo going to get that money?”
Mr Icahn’s letter also pushed for Yahoo’s Board of Directors to step down, including Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang. A joint restructuring proposal from Icahn and Microsoft was sent to Yahoo board members on July 11, with the company given only 24 hours to accept or reject it.
At first Yahoo board members resisted the proposal, but Monday saw a settlement between Yahoo and Mr Icahn that ended the proxy contest. The settlement included an agreement for one board member to step down, Mr Icahn to be appointed to the board and for eight other board members to stand for re-election.With Yahoo pushing out their 2nd Quarter financial results late yesterday and a more pliable Yahoo board set to be elected at the company’s annual meeting on August 2, it appears that the announcement of a deal with Microsoft is imminent

5 Reasons to Own More Than One Domain

There is a marketing strategy that Smart businesses don't just own their company name as a ".com." They purchase several variations or related names to drive additional traffic to their primary Web site. In fact, buying additional domains for your company can pay off in big dividends—here's why.

1. It cuts marketing costs. A memorable, highly targeted and keyword-rich domain name from the secondary market gets more free, organic search engine traffic. As a result, you spend less money to build traffic than by purchasing often-costly keyword search buys or print advertising.

2. It builds your brand. Owning domains related to the products and services you offer send a strong and consistent message to your customers that you are the leader in your space. A photographer, for example, could own domains related to cameras, weddings and portraits.

3. It cuts your competition. Owning several domains prevents lost traffic and allows you to cut short the reach of your competition.

4. It gives you global reach. Although the "dot com" is the most common—and valuable—extension, opportunities still exist to purchase variations, such as country-specific domains like .co.uk, .it, .de, .hk and so on. These have extensive recognition in their region and dramatically increase your global reach.

5. It builds a valuable portfolio of assets. Like fine wines, domain names appreciate in value over time, thanks to the navigation traffic they acquire from prominent search engine positioning. By acquiring and using multiple premium domain names, you create a number of well-known and recognized secondary brand triggers associated with your business.

Regards,

Tips to Get Visitors to Stay at Your Site

If you have a standard and mass-market style website, there are chances most visitors will glance at it and quickly move on. Generally the users my be interested in the following points;

1. They’re looking for information about something.
2. They’re mostly put off by hard-sell advertising.
3. They’re easily discouraged if it’s difficult to find what they’re looking for.
4. If they don’t find the site visually appealing they will move on quickly.
5. They are more likely to look more closely if the site has a personal feel to it.

Given the above, the odds are stacked against us in hoping to attract and retain the interest of the first time visitor. Let us examine some tips to overcome these obstacles, so as to move the odds somewhat in our favor.

The first impression is undoubtedly the visual one. A site that is poorly constructed, muddled or unattractive to look at doesn’t even get out of the starting blocks! The logic is very simple: if the site owner doesn’t have the interest and initiative to make his site look good to the visitor, it’s likely that he pays as little attention to its content.

Make your site look really appealing, by the careful use of colors, and make the layout such that it is easy to find the information the visitor is seeking. You will need something eye-catching, positioned at the top of your home-page to capture the visitor’s attention.
Remember to focus on the benefits to the visitor - what’s in it for him or her?

Remember your visitor is not looking to buy anything, he/she wants information. Make that information easily available, in an appealing way. It’s a good idea to offer a useful gift such as a free training programs or newsletter.

Position yourself as an expert in your field.In other words, “This is the information you need and these are the benefits to you.”. Your visitor can then make her own selection from the top home businesses available to him/her. Avoide unnecessary and irrelevant details.

A professional-looking website would be more likely to offer something worthwhile, than something carelessly designed that looks as though it’s been thrown together.

Keep it simple to navigate around the site, particularly so that the information your visitor is looking for can be easily accessed. If you provide a number of options from which to select, keep the instructions clear and simple.

Personalize your site so that it doesn’t look just like another of the mass produced sites. If you are able to tell a little about yourself and how your life has changed for the better, you have an increased chance of persuading your visitor to take a closer look at your offer.


Regards,

Advertising through Web

Why SMEs should have a Website

Internet has made this world a global village. Companies of one continent are joining hands with suppliers in other continents. Aim is to become competitive by either reducing their costs or providing their customers a differentiating product. This new trend of supply chain management has appeared as a major opportunity for Pakistani SMEs to be a player in the international arena. Pakistani SMEs can become active global businessmen by bringing their businesses on web. This article elaborates the advantages, basics, development criteria, and promotion of a web site.

Advantages of a web Page

With the invention of World Wide Web (www) the world has become a small place. Global distances, national boundaries, and different time zones have become of relative importance, as they are accessible at the click of a button.

Entrepreneurs all over the world are taking advantage of this opportunity and making good money by doing business online. The online business not only reduces the cost of doing business but also helps strengthen your relationship with both customers and suppliers. Furthermore, it positively distinguishes the organization from that of competitors.

Today, customers have started to demand goods and services to be provided to their door step quickly and efficiently. Entrepreneurs with zeal to grow would be able to cater this ever-growing segment.

How to Get # 1 Google Ranking

It doesn’t matter how great your product is, what a bargain your price is, or how beautiful your website is - Without traffic none of that matter. So at its most basic, the biggest determinant of your web businesses success is “getting eyeballs looking at your WebPages.”

When looking at where the traffic comes from, it begins with others linking (or pointing the way) to your site, Since Google is currently the search engine getting the most use online, and therefore the one that generates the most traffic, that also means that you need to focus on getting a front page, or ideally a number 1 listing, at Google.

However, your search engine optimization efforts should involve structuring your site, and your other search engine magnets, so that it brings in BUYERS from Google.
At its most basic, and simplest, getting a number 1 ranking at Google that leads to an endless stream of sales boils down to three parts. They are:

1) Targeting The Correct Keywords
2) Optimizing A Page For Those Keywords
3) Getting Links from Sites That Google Loves

Let’s look at each of these.

First, you absolutely have to target the correct keyword. Your webpages and everything that you do need to incorporate the keywords that your buying customers are actually typing into the search engines.
That kind of targeting means that the people who find you are searching for something very specific, and when they find you by typing in that very specific search term, they click through and buy.

Next, you need to optimize your webpages for those keyword phrases. That generally means that you need the target keyword phrases sprinkled throughout your webpages. It also means that you want to use your target keyword phrases in your title and description “metatags.” You also want to include your keyword phrases in anchor text on your webpages (the blue underlined text in hyperlinks).

You basically want to include your keyword phrases in all of the parts of your webpages that tells the search engines what your webpage is about. This includes places such as italicized or bolded text, your menu items, and even alt image tags.

Finally, you need to get sites that Google thinks are important to link to you. Ideally, these sites include your keyword phrases in the anchor text when they link to you.
Having an authority site link to you is like having a respected authority in your community give you an endorsement. They are telling the search engines, and the rest of the world, that they recommend you. By using your keywords in the anchor text, authority sites are also telling Google (and other less important search engines) that that is what they consider your site to be about.

So there you have my very simple three-part search engine optimization formula for getting a free number one ranking in Google in as little as a few hours. That fourth part, focusing on the buyers actively looking to spend money is a bonus

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