We all must be having our personal account on Facebook where we update our status, share information, videos, links, and pictures with friends but when it comes to promote a product or service on Facebook, how are you going to do that????

That’s where Facebook has given us a facility where we can create an identity for our brand on Facebook and promote it on Facebook through ads, word of mouth and the good part is that we can add as many fans on Facebook page as we want whereas in personal account we cannot add more than 5000 friends apart from it, Facebook pages are search engine friendly if the page becomes popular then it can be seen on search engine results as well.

After creating the page for your brand you can link it to your blog by taking the following steps –

Go to your Facebook fan page, click on edit button below your profile picture.

After clicking on edit page you will get the below page

Go to Notes – click on edit, there you will get an option Subscribe to these Notes, put your blog address or RSS and your done. Now whenever you post something on your blog it will get updated on your Facebook fan page and can reach to your millions of fans.

If you are interested in knowing more about social media promotion or you want to promote your brands through social media you can contact us on

http://www.seogoblin.com

http://www.miracleworx.com

A startup is on a tight budget with very limited resources. The future is uncertain and scary. So when the question comes to spending on a website most startup owners face a dilemma.

It goes something like this… “If I spend on a professional cool website it’ll eat significantly into my funds but on the other hand if I compromise on the quality of the website it will impact sales and hence the business.”

Here are a few strategies startups can use to save a buck but not compromise on the quality of the website

• Hunt Hard & Long for a bargain web designer: There are a gems out there in the web design universe who are superbly talented but don’t yet charge a lot. They might be starting off themselves or might not have high overheads so their prices would be reasonable. They might not be listed in the most obvious places or might not come in the top 20 of search results but they are out there and can be found. How do I know they exist? Cause we were once there ourselves. When we started we gave away fantastic designs at peanuts.
• Use ready to use templates: There are literally thousands of templates beautifully designed out there categorized and listed out there. You can simply purchase one and get a low cost local web designer to customize them. The templates come complete with a photoshop file (PSD) which can be used to create your site as you like it. The cost of these templates are a fraction of what a professional web design firm would charge.

• Curb Your Online Ambitions: Sometimes its better to startoff with a simple small website and grow over time as your business grows. Avoid all the bells and whistles, start with the basics like about the company, yourself and the team, services/ products and how to contact you. The idea is for the website to grow in parallel with your business. If you are doing this don’t forget to choose a design which is scalable i.e. one which will allow additional links and pages to be added to it over time.

• Forget a website, start a blog: A blog can be just as useful and powerful as a website if used well. And websites like blogger.com or wordpress.com are literally giving them away free. Blogs come with hundreds of plugins which allow you to change the design and features and also a lot of apps which you can plugin.

But once your business is on sure ground, go in for a professional website cause when you need to grow you need to sell and if you want to sell online you need your website.

Cheers,
Ron

We’ve got a lot of great online services, c’mon in and take a look at http://www.miracleworx.com

However in the past year an interesting trend is emerging. Websites catering to the local markets. Now you would say, thats not new, many local merchants – single store or restaurant owners, have websites.  I’m talking of entrepreneurs with no local establishment except for the fact they live or work in the neighbourhood offering localized and specialized services.

Some of local services being offered include

• Laundry pick and drop services through an online system
• Movies/Vidoes pick and drop services
• Fast Food ordering and delivery for multiple brands
• Grocery order and drop services.
• Local dog walking services
• and many more such

These websites typically offer the following features:

a. A user friendly website custom made for that neighbourhood

b. User accounts of people living in the area, usually signed up by making a physical sales call.

c. Tie-ups with different merchants in the area offering the same or different services

d. One standard rate/ price with the website owner’s margin included.

e. Door to door delivery promise or some other promise of convenience.

f. Listing of the best deals and offers from the member establishments in the area.

g. The whole setup is run by local guys/girls well known in the neighbourhood whom the residents would tend to trust.

Dotcoms have always been synonymous with Global Reach. But these new ventures are leveraging local needs, local knowledge and local services to create a new Localized Dotcom revolution. And the benefits are plenty, low startup cost, low delivery costs, low customer support requirements but best of all its close to Mom and Dad.

Cheers,
Ron

Interested in doing your site? Visit http://www.miracleworx.com

The world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. i.e. 22% of all time online or one in every four and half minutes. The numbers of people visiting the social media sites and blogs have increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.

World’s Most Popular Brands Online are: (April 2010)

• Brazil tops the charts with the highest percentage (86%) of Internet consumers visiting a social network.
• Australian web users average the most time on social networking sites, averaging 7 hours 19 minutes in April, followed by the U.S. and Italy with around six and a half hours each.
• Google, Yahoo and Bing are the top companies / divisons in the world for May 2010; followed by Facebook and AOL

Google and other search engines take the cake when it comes to popularity. A ll the more reasons for you to get your brand / product online.

Every week i am approached by youngsters (and sometimes not so young-sters) asking to evaluate their dotcom idea for development and promotion costs. Being in the business I dutifully provide the cost estimates and whatever advice I can throw in. Without exception all of them have one thing in common – they all think their idea is Unique, Innovative and Sure to Work – “all it needs is a good website and little bit of marketing sprinkle and of we go.”

As someone who has seen tons of dotcoms come and go I thought I would quickly outline some of the most common pitfalls I’ve seen. Mind you I do not intend to discourage anyone, I just want them to be aware

Pitfall #1 – Believing that a ‘twist’ in a old concept equals new concept.

It goes like this – “There are many so-and-so in the market but my idea is to do it differently. They are doing it this way but we shall do it another way.”  The pitfall in this approach is that your ‘twist’ or ‘differentiating factor’ might not be enough of a long term competitive advatage especially against embedded competitors with tried and tested processes.

Pitfall #2 – Starting a dotcom with none or negligible real world infrastructure.

A good idea is just that – a good idea, an ethereal thing. It needs to be translated into reality, both virtual and actual. Most people who come to me with dotcom ideas grossly understimate the on-the-ground requirements that thier little (or not so little) venture will require. A good website is a must but so is a back office, staff, accounts, customer support, legal and all the other requirements for a good business. A dotcom business gives the illusion of being self contained in the website but the reality is that it takes more, a lot more.

Pitfall #3 – Dotcoms eat money for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Do you have enough to feed it.

A very common and deadly misconception is that a dotcom can be started on a shoestring and is much less expensive than a real world business. Thats complete nonsense. When asked how they intend to fund the venture, most people are quite fuzzy with the source of funding. Its either their own money or friends and family, or even a rich uncle. But when the dotcom eats through the money they are quickly in trouble and run from pillar to post trying to raise money. Sadly due to their haphazard financial planning at the beggining its very difficult to get funded at a later stage.

Pitfall #4 – A dotcom business is still a business. Normal business rules apply.

It amazes me how many people who would never be able to run a real world business think they can run an online one. Its as if in thier minds the rules for running a dotcom are somehow different or suspended. In an online business cashflow, sales, receivables, human resources, capital and business processes are just as important as in a normal business. Maybe even more so.

Pitfall #5 – Trying to create something from nothing.

What has an office executive got in common with a florist? Nothing. Yet it does not stop the executive from starting an online florist shop or a sales person from trying to sell chocolates online. Lines which could never be crossed in the real world are easily stepped over in the online one. But industry experience does count and sooner or later the executive or office employee will not be able to handle the rigors of specific business they chose. Each professsion has certain tricks, idiosyncrasies and challenges. In my experience the dotcoms that succeed the best are usually extensions of a brick and mortar business with some years running it in the real world.

Overall, before starting a dotcom or online business you need to get a ‘Serious Reality Check.’  Throw out airy-fairy assumptions. Crunch the numbers. Account for real world costs and issues.

In future posts we shall look at the different aspects to starting and running an online business.

Cheers,
Ron

To view our work portfolio do visit http://www.miracleworx.com

Our new SEO arm is at http://www.seogoblins.com

Do your homework, browse the web and shortlist benchmark sites.

You can save a lot of time breifing your designer if you can simply point out a few websites to benchmark (note the operative word here is ‘benchmark’ not copy!!!). This will give the designer an idea of your tastes. Point out features you liked such as menu styles, font types etc which you liked. Point out things which you did not like and want to avoid.

Share the vision…use feeling words

Use feeling words to describe what you want the visitor to experience when he comes to your site. I want the visitor to be excited and energized. I want the visitor to be suitably impressed with the content and style. I want the visitor to feel sleepy when he comes to our site (a site for insomniacs perhaps!!). I want the visitor to laugh and get in a good mood when he visits my site. You get the drift.

Now share the nitty gritty… be specific.

I want to use blues and greens. I hate yellows and blacks. I want my logo to be prominent. Avoid verdana. Give your preferences but make sure you don’t tie the designers hands completely. Don’t tell them not to use any color of the rainbow for example or use only black. Outline your preferences but leave plenty of room for options.

Play Socrates…ask the designer questions

There have been many projects where the client has simply micromanaged the whole job without bothering to ask our opinion even once. Our opinion and experience did not matter. Don’t make that mistake. Take advantage of your designers experience. Ask questions about design, style, message, technology and any other topic which widens both your understanding of the subject.

Let the designer interview you and give honest answers

Most web design firms generally have a standard set of questions they ask you. Answer them honestly. If you have not formed an opinion about something then say so. Be detailed in replies which you know what you want. Clear doubts about specific questions. Make sure you do justice to the questions or questionaire.

Last but not least Trust Your Designer

You’ve liked their work. You’ve chosen them on merit. Now let them do the job. Don’t micro manage. Respect their opinions. Design is highly subjective, so acknowledge that your view point might not be the only one or the right one.

Last but not least don’t take any crap as well. Demand the best and get the best.

I do not know how successful this young man was in selling these books but it sure seems like a waste of time to me. Nowadays information changes so fast. Facts that were true yesterday now change almost overnight.

Knowledge has become an dynamic almost living evolving creature. Its like a giant ameoba with no fixed boundaries, shifting shape and size, assimilating more and more and ejecting some. Its self regulated, mass contributed, the wisdom of crowds.

Why is there so much hype around Web Analytics?

Web Analytics is a powerful tool for measuring the success of your website, your products and services. It helps you in analyzing the website and its real time data initiates continuous improvisation of marketing and optimization efforts. Analytics measures all the possible metrics of a website which help in gaining insight into the visitor behavior on a website.

What Do Web Analytics Tools Measure?

A Web Analytics Tool can measure hundreds of different metrics which can leave a webmaster confused and helpless. Some metrics have more impact on your site than others. The kinds of metrics that matter depend on the type of a website.

For e.g. If your website sells a product, then one set of metric matters will for you, while if your website is content based, a completely different set of metrics matter.

Every Web Analytics measures the following most basic metrics:

• Visitors: Analytics measures the number of people, who visit a website, total unique visitors.

• Map Overlay: A webmaster can measure the number of visitors from each country.

• Traffic Sources: Analytics gives a list of website or keywords from which visitors are coming to the site. Also, one can measure the number of visitors coming directly by entering the url into the browser.

• Content Optimization: Analytics tells you the top content of your website, list of top exit pages, bounce rates and more.

• Marketing Campaign Results: Webmaster can calculate their ROI – Return on Investment. Learn how your marketing campaigns perform in terms of visits, cost, revenue and ROI.

Top 3 Web Analytics Providers:

• Coremetrics Inc.
• Omniture Inc
• Web Trends Inc

Top 3 Free Web Analytics Providers:

• Google Analytics
• Stat Counter
• Clicky

I also had a dream of owning a library of my own which would stock the kinds of books I liked and used the internet to subscribe to them. But like all great ideas if you do not take action, someone else will. Librarywala.com did and I could’nt be happier.

The idea is very simple. To take our standard library online where people can browse, search and select the books on the site.

Which brings me to the point of this post…. A Dotcom Must Execute Well.

• Librarywala’s books are dropped and collected on schedule.
• Librarywala’s website always works, zero glitches.
• Librarywala’s collection is good and always increaseing.

In a nutshell Librarywala delivers what it promises.  The rules of business don’t change just because you are a dotcom. You still have to deliver and execute. Fancy websites, cool graphics and wow concept don’t mean anything unless you deliver on your value proposition. In Librarywala’s case it was a library at your doorstep.

Kudos to them. I’m a fan. do visit www.librarywala.com

Of all the factors Price/Cost is the most important to consider.

Higher Upfront fees and lower per transaction percentage or vice versa?

 Most providers have an upfront component on signup which might include a deposit amount (like ICICI bank) and a percentage per each transaction cost. Eg. Rs.25,000/- Upfront cost and 5% of each transaction. 
Some gateways like Paypal don’t charge any upfront cost and their percentage is also low but they do charge an amount for withdrawal of money.

Should you go for a higher upfront payment and lower percentage or a lower upfront payment and higher percentage?
If your transaction volume is going to be very high then a lower percentage might save you a lot of money in the long term although upfront payment would be higher.

The following table gives you an idea of the various payment structures of various gateways Indian and Overseas.

Of course there are other gateways  but the above are the ones which we have had experience with.