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“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” - Walter Disney
This is never more true than at this time of year, when you should have all your online stuff already in place and your seasonal marketing plans ready for the upcoming busy season. You do realize that Halloween is a mere 6 weeks away, then Christmas will be upon us before you know it? Gasp!
There’s a fair bit of stuff to catch up on from links I’ve been harvesting - well, saving - during the summer downtime, but without further waffling on and, in the spirit of the above quote, here are some of the most recent:
Jason Potash and Marc Quarles launched a Woot like site offering one product a day, called DealDotCom, offering only internet marketing related products. Don’t groan. That means they include scripts and stuff that might help you run your online business, whatever market you’re in, so you might just pick up a useful bargain. Those of you looking to make money with this might also like to know that they offer a two-tier affiliate program.
How right digits affect perception of discounts
In internet marketing circles, you really would believe that 7 was a magic number, with so many products being sold for something and 97 cents, or $27, $47 and $97 dollars and so on. I’ve no idea who came up with that, why or on what study or evidence they based it, but BoingBoing write: Science Daily reports that “the amount of the discount may be less important than the numerical value of the farthest right digit… The researchers show that ‘right-digit effect’ influences consumer perception of sale prices. When the right digits are small, people perceive the discount to be larger than when the right digits are large. In other words, an item on sale for $211 from the original price of $222 is thought to be a better deal than an item on sale for $188 from an original price of $199, even though both discounts are $11.”
How right digits affect perception of discounts
If you build it - and it’s cool - they will come
Yeah, but what’s cool? Like beauty, it’s in the eye of the beholder, I think, because I often look at things that “everyone” seems to be raving about and wonder what the fuss, or even the point / purpose is. Nevertheless …
“The business model to support it will come later. That’s the new economics of the free lunch: Giving away a product or service builds the kind of customer attention and loyalty that rack up earnings.”, say Wired.
This has turned out to be true in many examples recently, where the creators of services that people have taken to, have built up traffic and a user base then be bought by large corporations for obscene sums of money.
What I don’t have is an online crystal ball widget that will tell me what the next cool idea is and, to be perfectly frank, if I did I wouldn’t tell you! 
But as well as being able to rate the sites listed and add your own, this might turn into a handy place to look for free services and tools you can use.
Better Buttons Boost Sales
Simple, straightforward, common sense and thus, often overlooked, “Buttons are so simple, yet so important. Don’t make the customer think. Give loud and clear direction what you want him or her to do with distinctive color, shape and wording and you’ll see your sales increase.”
Using Tabs Correctly
It’s Amazon’s fault, apparently, but we’ve been using tabs across pages for the wrong purpose. I see what Jakob Nielsen is saying, but I’ve read elsewhere (don’t ask me where) that top navigation gets more use than any other location and, whether that is arranged as tabs or in any other manner aesthetically, I think most people know that if you click these navigational links you’ll get whatever is listed on them (always supposing they are labeled sensibly). What do you think, is this “wrong” use of tabs confusing?
Tabs, Used Right Via: AdesBlog
MIT Has a Designed a Clutter Detector
Hummm … I could do with one around the house and, particularly on this desk to begin with, but lets leave that to another time. The clutter detector is designed “to identify when bad design hampers a person’s ability to understand information, causes confusion, or interrupts concentration.” And I’m certain that most of us could do with using it on our websites.
Cluttered? Busted! MIT Has a Designed a Clutter Detector
Cafewish Ads, or “WishAds”
When CafePress moved their affiliate program over to Commission Junction, one of the things that was lost - the only thing that made their affiliate program worthwhile, in my ‘umble estimation - were the TopicAds (somewhat Adsense like ads, with product pictures). These (depending on location / niche) I had found to perform quite nicely, if seasonally, thank you.
Now there is an alternate for those who are interested in these keyword based ad units. You do need to be an affiliate of CafePress, via CJ and, it’s important to bear in mind that Cafewish Ads will get 10% of the earnings.
Making the Most of Your Resources
Chris Garrett observes (correctly, in my mind), “You might not be able to see the resources you have, perhaps you are too close and do not like bigging yourself up. Ask your friends, ask your enemies. Sometimes it takes an independent eye to see where you really do have value to offer.”
Making the Most of Your Resources
Why You Shouldn’t Rush into BlogRush?
It’s a seriously ugly, non-customizable widget to begin with, but ProBlogger is reporting a pitiful Click Through Rate of 0.05% and Andy Beal, who has been covering the saga, reports a click thru rate of 0.0017%.
Of course it’s new, but the traffic people are reporting is pretty poor also, which frankly I find a little worrying, when you consider that BlogRush’s creator, John Reece, is also known as “Mr. Traffic”. You’d think …
Look after you …
If you have a MySpace account (as I do and, which I’ve talked about before), you’d be well advised to only visit and log in via your own bookmarks as I’ve recently been hearing more reports of phishing emails that are attempting to get MySpace account information. Sigh …
Speaking of the necessary evil of security, the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog has put together a Quick security checklist for webmasters, which is probably something you should bookmark.
More quick links we thought were worthy of note:
• Personalization Trick: Insert Past and Future Dates
• 3 SEO Steps that Work For Every Web Site
• 15 SEO Tips From Google | One Tip A Day
• Improve Your Blog By Reading a Magazine
• How To Avoid Spambots By Using Pinging Services
• Blog Carnivals and Group Writing Projects: 5 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic
Oh, there’s more to come … In the meantime, grab yourself some pre-season free advertising here.
Written by Pamela Heywood - Visit Website | Leave a tip | Buy me something
