Twitter: Technology At Light Speed

Twitter has been around about as long as the jar of pickles in my fridge yet, in its short existence, Twitter has evolved into an industry with widgets, gadgets and plugins so the whole world now knows what I had for breakfast.

However, Twitter – described as “IM on steroids” – is a perfect example of how new technology remains a growth industry, web-wise.

Twitter Evolves

When the service first hit the web, people posted inane stuff. “I’m at the airport.” “I just finished a three 3 bartinni lush.” “Barack rocks.” Who cares? But, in very short order Tweets figured out various ways to use Twitter to drive traffic to sites, blogs, webinars and every other destination a Tweet can reach.

There’s actually a lot of good stuff posted in those 140 character blocks and each day, Twitter users are finding new uses for this potent outlet. I use it to flog my blogs, announce posts to SEOmoz (are you listening, Rebecca?) and other posts to content syndication sites. ezine.com offers a service that automatically posts accepted submissions – a little side benefit for the author and, of course, for ezine’s Chris Knight, a voracious Tweet. Knight uses Twitter to drive new submissions and, as such, he’s one of the most popular Tweets.

And now, introducing Twitter Spam. Spitter? It needs a name. Any way, companies are now collecting Tweets like baseball cards. Some businesses have 10,000+ Tweets – direct links to an audience made up of potential buyers who signed up to “Follow” XYZ Plumbing” and its daily specials.

And all of this has happened in a matter of 24 months.

The Twitter Industry

If you Google Twitter gadgets you’ll get a couple hundred thousand hits. You’ll also develop a long list of Twitter-related sites that offer Twitter-related services – including Twitter metrics.

Twitseeker provides a lot of data on individual tweets – your 140-character posts including your name and a link to your site or blog, an –ever expanding category cloud and a simple click to link function that enables you to follow Tweets with similar interests.

Twitterholic parses stats as you grow in popularity among other Tweets. Today, CNN ranks #1 among Twitterers followed by Barack Obama. (Don’t bother sending a direct message to the President. He hasn’t answered one of the 3,287 I’ve sent him, though I did get a visit from some nice Secret Service folks.)

Tweetstat does a couple of things. First, it takes Twitter mobile for Twitter junkies who can’t go10 minutes without checking in. The site also provides simple metrics associated with your tweeting activity and those whom you’ve opted to follow. BTW, avoid the collectors – the Tweets who send out automated connects (yes, that’s now part of the Twitter culture) followed by an automated “thank you and let’s hook up” return Tweet (RT). I’ve had to block a number of Tweets I chose to follow because my Twitter page was crammed with Twitter Spam.

One of the most cleaver, Twitter-based sub-services is Twibes. It’s like “American Idol” for Twitter users. It’s also a big, gigantic chain letter. Here’s the deal.

A follower selects you and nine other Tweets as his or her favorites. You’re promptly notified “I chose you as my favorite” by email. The email also encourages you to “return the favor” by nominating your friend. However, to do so, you have to nominate 10 total Tweets who, in turn, receive the email and on and on and on. Great marketing and another way to call attention to yourself. Twibes even hawks a book for $5 called “Twitter Trick: How To Get More Followers.”

Finally, to keep all this connectivity organized, check out Tweetdeck. This software displays all posts from those you follow, direct messages and @ replies – public messages directed specifically to you.

It also shrinks URLs down to size, saving a few characters for text.

Twitter is bound to grow in impact in the hours ahead. There are Tweet blogs where you’ll discover “tweet secrets,” and more and better uses will be found for this tool.

If you don’t already, consider Twitter. Maybe you can figure out how to make more of what’s already sprouting up around this communications technology growing at light speed.

Six Places to Earn Money for Your Words

The need for content, both in print and on the web, is massive even in this tanking economy. If anything, the bad business climate has companies scrambling for new marketing outlets, most on line.

And that means work for you. Here are six places that are actually looking for writers and are willing to pay them – in real dollars!. So, if you can string words in to sentences, you can earn money for your efforts. Check out these outlets for content.

1. odesk. Odesk is an outsource hook-up site, connecting service buyers and providers. The site has a number of categories – site design, coding and writing.

Just looked and there are over 200 gigs listed on odesk this morning, divided into general categories to make your search for a gig that much easier. Tech writer? 74 job listings on odesk this morning.

What are you waiting for?

2. Elance. Perhaps the most widely-known outsource hook-up site, Elance has taken strides of late to improve its image in this web space. Many of the writing jobs are for words by the pound. I saw one job – 1000 articles – top bid $500! That’s 50 cents an article.

However, if you’re good you can cherry pick the buyers looking for quality over quantity. Bid low until you gain some feedback from happy buyers. Then up your price gradually.

3. Helium. You don’t think of Helium as a paying site. It’s a content syndication site, right? Well, that’s the biz’s bread and butter but the site also posts paying gigs. You’re competing against a lot of other writers but the site is flogging the fact that one woman made $5K in six months writing for Helium.

Sounds perfect for the work-at-home parent. No commitment.

4. Guru. Another outsourcing site that’s coming up fast. The quality of its postings has improved meaning better paying gigs for you. Again, these on-line sites have postings that change daily so keep going back to see what’s new.

They’re all ideal for part-timers and newbs looking to gain experience and creds.

5. Your local newspaper. The local Picayune is desperate for content. A friend of mine, a Registered Nurse, writes a weekly health column for the local rag. $50 bucks a week. Now, given the amount of time said friend works on her columns – interviews, research, first and second draft, she makes less than minimum wage.

But she’s got a clip book – one that adds to her credibility as a writer – a reliable writer who can hit a deadline every week for years – even if she only gets $50 a week. It’s the creds that count here.

And those clippings can be compiled into a book on health and wellness since the RN friend owns the copyright. Sweet.

So, open your accounts or contact the local editor and offer to do a column on your particular expertise – gardening to low-cost living and consumer tips. Build your clip book and charge $10 a column. Watch that editor jump!

You start working at “burger-flipping” wages but as you gain experience, confidence and credibility, you and your words become better and more valuable.

Start here.

Creating the Perfect Landing Page

A landing page is the first page a visitor sees upon clicking a link to your site, either from another site, through organic search results or a PPC link. The landing page MAY be the home page, but not necessarily. A visitor can land deep on your site based on the search words that were employed or which link was clicked.

 

So, in effect, almost any page can be a landing page, though some SEOs contend that a landing page is always a sell page. Not true. In fact, a landing page that makes a strong sales pitch isn’t a good landing page and you’ll see a high ratio of bounces as visitors determine, “This isn’t what I was looking for!”

 

The Characteristics of a Good Landing Page

There are quite a few, so let’s look at the characteristics of a quality landing page in detail. This is worth knowing. Most site owners slap together a home page with a dash of information, a bunch of sales copy and a “BUY” button that takes the visitor to the checkout. Bad. Very bad. You don’t sell the product or service before the visitor even knows what that product or service is.

 

Also, it’s important to bear in mind that a landing page should appeal to the visitors needs, NOT your wants. You want to sell something or obtain an opt in. The visitor doesn’t care what you want so keep landing pages targeted at visitors, not making the sale. That’s comes later.

 

Easy, Straightforward Navigation

If visitors land in site zones that don’t meet their needs, it’s a good idea to provide a navigation bar to take them to the zone or home page, archives or checkout so they can conduct their business and move on to the next item on the day’s agenda.

 

You don’t always know where a visitor will land so provide easy navigation on all pages. A site map is useful and a big “HOME” link will keep visitors on site longer.

 

Meet the Visitors’ Expectations

Regardless of how visitors reach your site, they have certain expectations when they access a landing page. They clicked on the link to your site for a reason – to meet a need or want.

 

If your landing pages consist of opt-ins, a log-in (Sign Up Now) or a bunch of links to affiliates, that visitor is so long gone you won’t have time to see the dust settle.

 

Define Your Business

On every landing page? Yep. Every page has the potential to be a home page – the first page the visitor sees – so every page should be constructed with information in mind.

 

Now, this doesn’t mean you post your three-page company mission statement on every page. That’s a waste of good pixels. Instead, use taglines, headers and product pictures to define quickly what your business is about. We’ve mentioned in previous posts that the average time visitors spend assessing the value of a site is a whopping six seconds. SIX SECONDS! If visitors don’t know what you’re about in six seconds, you lose them.

 

Perform All Aspects of Sales

From quality materials to free overnight shipping, a well-designed landing page must serve as a primary sell page within the site without sounding like a heap of hype. That means visitors learn about the benefits of your products or services (use bulleted text instead of long paragraphs), manage any visitor objections and describe the “iron-clad, 30-day, no-hassle, money-back guarantee” in six seconds or less.

 

Large headlines grab attention. Headlines should describe benefits to the user instead of product features. For example, selling a paper shredder, which is the grabber?

 

The Acme 5000 comes with a 1.5 horsepower motor. (feature) Or;

 

The Acme 5000 is so powerful, it’ll shred a Cadillac. (benefit)

 

Convert

All landing pages must also be designed to convert visitors to buyers. That means easy access to product descriptions, shopping cart and check-out. Or, in the case of services, the landing page needs complete contact information IN BIG TYPE, not in six-point type at the bottom of the page. Visitors have questions before they convert. Provide every means available to answer those questions and establish personal contact.

 

Provide a toll-free number on every landing page and staff client care 24/7. You never know when a call will come in, and often, a client care call turns into a sale – once all questions are answered, all objections addressed.

 

Build Trust

Man, that landing page has to do a lot!

 

In this case, however, trust is more a perception than a reality. Trust builders include:

 

• impartial product reviews from journals and periodicals;  

 

• customer testimonials (real ones, please);

 

• customer-generated  reviews (it works for Amazon, it’ll work for you);

 

• logos from web security companies like VeriSign and Hacker Free;

 

• assuring text that you don’t sell buyer lists and all information is confidential;

 

• a guarantee.

 

Impress with Quality Design

Does the look of your site reflect industry standards? If you’re the marketing director for a large accounting consultancy, a site that employs “spray paint” text won’t fit the image you’re trying to project to a gaggle of CPAs. Instead, quiet, confident professionalism is what you want to project in the look of your site. Save the spray paint for the “chopper shop” sites.

 

The look of your site should reflect company values – cool and hot or sedate and conservative – the look of every site page makes a subliminal statement about your business image.

 

Keep Body Text Industry Appropriate.

If you’re main demographic is teens, the body text can be “like OMG totally casual 4U.” However, if your target demographic wear three-piece suits, they won’t appreciate being called “dawg,” or “dude.” Your site’s body text, from home page to check-out should be comfortable reading for that target buyer.

 

Be Straight With Visitors

No bait and switch, no added fees (restocking fees??), no hidden extras that’ll cost the visitor more. The fastest way to lose a hot prospect is to deceive so if the landing page says FREE SHIPPING, that shouldn’t just apply to “orders over $100,” on interior pages, it should apply to all orders.

 

Forget Branding. Who Cares?

Branding is important to you. It isn’t to potential buyers who come in through a side door landing page. Visitors come to your site for solutions and benefits, not to see your really clean logo and clever catch phrase.

 

Save branding for the “About Us” page. Visitors who click on this link are expecting a little self-congratulatory back slapping here. On landing pages, the product or service takes precedence over branding your business, at least in the customers’ eyes.

 

The key to a successful landing page is simple: provide what the visitor wants, not what you want, which is a sale. Visitors need time and they must feel secure and comfortable before the sale is made.

 

Put your needs aside. Save it for the “Order Now” page. That’s where you can sell. Otherwise, meet visitors’ expectations wherever they land.

 

Then, once they land, they may want to check out some of the scenery as they work their way to the checkout.

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Looking for a Flex Checkout? Check Out osCommerce

If you’re just in the planning stages of building your web site, you may be overwhelmed by all of the different aspects of site design, construction, administration and marketing. Unless you’ve been occupying web space for a while, all of these different software packages are enough to discourage anyone from launching a web site. Fortunately, the processes involved in creating and running a commercial site (a site that sells a product or service) have been vastly simplified with an OSS (open source software, which means it’s free) called osCommerce.

 

Create Your Look With osCommerce

Because osCommerce is OSS, it’s being updated and refined constantly by knowledgeable coders and site designers, who add more and more features to simplify your on-line life. osCommerce has it all.

 

With this one piece of software, you can design the look and feel of your site’s presentation layer using dozens of attractive templates, color selections and your choice of type fonts to give your site the look you have a mind, from quiet and dignified to totally rad and back again. Just click on the template you like, add your text and you’ve developed the site skin in just a couple of hours. Oh, and changing the look of your site is also easy with osCommerce.

 

If you do run in to trouble (it happens sometimes) simply call the Speed Fox toll-free number to connect with our help desk where you’ll find nice people who can actually help.

 

The Back Office

osCommerce is much more than an easy-to-use site builder. This powerful tool also enables you to maintain accurate inventory records and shipping records. The package also provides a shopping cart and a consumer-friendly checkout designed to instill confidence and allay fears in buyers. (Read on)

 

You don’t need programming skills. You don’t even need to know what HTML is. osCommerce provides top-down features to simplify your daily on-line store chores and to facilitate marketing and promotion campaigns to get your new site noticed quickly by search engines and buyers looking for what you sell. osCommerce automatically creates search engine friendly URLs to make sure spiders “get you” when they roam your site.

 

 

 

osCommerce Benefits For You

In addition to simplifying the design, launch and operation of your web site, osCommerce delivers numerous benefits to new cyber store owners and old veterans at e-commerce.

 

You can manage products or services with equal ease.

 

You can add or change content, including product images, with a few clicks of the mouse.

 

Security is always an issue with black hats (hackers, crackers, etc.) roaming the on-line landscape. Your site is protected automatically with a fully-encrypted, password accessed administrator’s office only you and trusted associates can access. It keeps the kids out of the office.

 

Contact your buyers by e-mail automatically, generating a shipping invoice that’s delivered to the buyer’s e-mail box as soon as the order is finalized – usually in a matter of minutes.

 

Manage customer care to ensure that your site’s customer base continues to expand. All orders are automatically added to an infinitely flexible database, enabling you to access customer and order information in seconds.

 

Print shipping labels directly from the computer screen. Enter the data once and it’s used over and over, saving hours of administrative time.

 

You can even go multi-lingual to increase the number of shoppers on your site – shoppers from around the globe 24/7. Now that’s sweet.

 

Want more from this OSS? Regular customers can maintain multiple shipping addresses (great for holiday shopping), complete search functions take visitors to the exact products they’re looking for, develop site analytics to determine your best sellers (then put these items on the “Bestseller’s Page” to drive more traffic to your biggest sellers).

 

The osCommerce Shopping Experience

The easier it is to make a sale, the more sales you’re going to make and osCommerce makes shopping fun. The osCommerce shopping cart is under the complete control of the visitor who can add and delete products, change quantities and obtain total cost of the items in the cart before arriving at the osCommerce Checkout. Convenient, easy and totally accurate.

 

The osCommerce Checkout

The checkout is where many sales are lost as buyers abandon their shopping carts because the checkout procedures are complicated, unclear or simply don’t create that level of trust required to enter a credit card number. The osCommerce Checkout is simplicity itself for both buyers and site owners.

 

The Checkout is also a wonder at keeping records, order information and even an automated, personalized thank you e-mail sent with the order shipment.

 

Order Fulfillment

Another time-consuming, data processing, keyboard chore cut down to size with osCommerce. You can track order status from the moment the order is placed to delivery to the final destination. Shipping and handling are figured automatically based on your criteria. Induce visitors to buy more by offering free shipping on orders over X dollars. The software even takes care of calculating taxes based on shipping address.

From the look of your site, to getting chummy with search engine spiders, and from automated administration to easy order fulfillment, osCommerce will deliver the site traffic you envision – and you don’t have to hire an expensive site designer or purchase expensive site management software. 

 

Remote Site Syndication: Get the Word Out (and In)

Really Simple Syndication (or Remote Site Syndication, your choice) has been around for quite a few years, though web site owners are just beginning to recognize the potential RSS has to increase site traffic and to spread their site news from one end of the web to the other.

 

RSS feeds  are simply the means of getting out the content to sites with visitors interested in what you have to say. And vice-versa: it’s a great way to deliver daily, fresh content to your visitors, increasing your site’s “stickiness” or ability to keep visitors returning regularly. Right now, all the big news outlets deploy RSS feeds to any site that wants to pick them up. Disney, CNN, Forbes, the BBC and other information outlets are distributing their content across the web via RSS feeds. Why? It’s easy, it spreads the costs of content development, and it works. It’s an effective marketing tool that can draw traffic from sites a far distance from your own.

 

Why Add RSS to Your Site?

Okay, first, it keeps your customer base up to date on sales, special promos and other news from your site. That’s how your site becomes sticky. You broadcast to your customers and, because they’ve had a good experience with you previously, they check out the new merchandise. It’s a great way to keep in touch with previous buyers – the best buyers any retailer could ask for.

 

In addition, RSS feeds are based on a streamlined XML. This enables your RSS broadcast to be picked up by just about anything digital – cell phones, PDAs, voicemail, e-mail accounts and so on. (No, not the microwave.)

 

Outgoing RSS

By syndicating (broadcasting) content from your site, you disperse your web presence to sites many times removed from your own. In fact, it may be picked up by site owners you would never have considered and read by a readership you hadn’t even thought about. An on-line store selling horse tack and other equestrian gear found one of its RSS feeds on a site for Therapeutic Horseback Riding – a whole new market for the source of that RSS feed.

 

Your RSS feed broadcast can be picked up by any site with visitors who might be interested in the latest news in your area of expertise or commerce.

 

Let’s just say that broadcasting information from your site, and allowing it to be picked up by any site owner, can only help generate more revenue because some readers of your contain, regardless of where they found your latest article, will visit your site to learn more about you, your opinions, services and products.

 

Incoming RSS

It’s not a one way street. Using an RSS aggregator, which collects feeds from other sites, is a great service you can deliver to increase site stickiness. Let’s say you publish a financial advice newsletter each day. You can collect (aggregate) RSS feeds from other investment sites, large and small, and deliver all of the financial news in one place for your now-daily visitors. So, the web user who once had to visit 10 sites can now get all the news of the day in one place – yours. It’s a time saver for visitors and it keeps them coming back for more.

 

What Do You Need to Start RSS?

There are three elements in the process, all available as OSS – open source software, as in free. It doesn’t cost you anything except some time.

 

The RSS Aggregator

This software is used to collect appropriate RSS feeds from other sites and it’s as easy as a mouse click to add a feed. Start by visiting competitor sites and look for the RSS logo (a small red box) or look for the site’s RSS hook up page.

 

When you find information that you believe your readers would enjoy, just click the “add” button and that feed is now hooked directly into your site. Simply move from site to site locating information that you think your visitors would enjoy.

 

A note of caution: when gathering RSS feeds for your site visitors, you’re, in fact, the editor. You decide which feeds to add and which to skip. Don’t add every feed just because you can. Be selective. Look for quality writing, solid research and topics that will really be of interest to your visitors. If you throw anything and everything at visitors, they’ll have a tougher time sorting out what’s useful and what isn’t, so collect the best and leave the rest.

 

The RSS Syndicator

Your web broadcasting antenna. The syndicator (also OSS) makes your feeds easily available for other site owners to grab and display on their sites. Keep your broadcasts short and use a lot of headlines to grab attention. Remember, your feed may be going to someone’s cell phone at a place where reading a 1000-word treatise on the importance of adjusting foot-pounds in running shoes won’t be possible. Broadcasts should be headline rich and employ lots of short paragraphs.

 

Keep the most important information in headers and in the first few paragraphs. If you haven’t captured their attention by then, you never will.

 

The RSS Reader

Another piece of OSS. This is the software site visitors need to sort through and read RSS broadcasts. Google offers a pretty spiffy RSS reader. All you have to do is download it and you’re ready to start enjoying the convenience that RSS delivers to visitors looking for a lot of information (good info) from many sources and on the same topic.

 

If you’re sending out feeds, offer an RSS reader free to your visitors to ensure they get the message.

 

Do I Really Need RSS?

You bet. In fact, RSS is only going to become more versatile and robust, increasing your ability to stay in touch with your market. We’ll start to see RSS categories like today’s headlines, what’s new in the arts or Dining in Denver. Further, broadcasting RSS feeds enables you to amortize the costs of content development over any number of sites that pick up your feed. It makes the most practical use of the most valuable web commodity – content. Your content.

 

It enables you to deliver content of interest to your visitors, keeping them coming back, and keeping your site on their bookmarked favorites list. It also provides more diverse content from the blogosphere. Yes, RSS aggregators read blogs so you can pick up small bits of useful information from experts.

 

Feeds from news sites, entertainment sites financial sites, blogs and more are being created each day and if you choose to ignore what webreference.com called “…the most visible XML story to date” you’re (1) missing out on a low-cost opportunity to market your site (2) failing to provide fresh, useful information for your visitors to increase the stickiness of your site and (3) falling further and further behind the competition – and that’s not a good thing in the fast-paced, on-line marketplace.

 

So use all of the tools at your disposal. You can keep it simple or you can soup it up and even automate RSS feeds to keep your site dynamic and an active player in the W3 marketplace.

 

Finally, when shopping for a web host, make sure the host you select provides the tools you’ll need to syndicate your RSS feeds. You’ll need an aggregator and a broadcaster. And if you want to update feeds throughout the day, or if you want to personalize feeds, make sure the host offers PHP and MySQL – database software that enables your feeds to include the latest data and the latest information across the web – addressed to a named recipient.

 

You’ll also appreciate a robust CMS – content management system – to help keep track of where your content is and where incoming content is being generated. It’s simple, effective and, without it, you’re missing the best, low-cost marketing the start-up web owner has available.

 

Use it or lose it.

Data Mining: Solid Gold Information

Data mining is the practice of collecting and storing information in humongous data bases. The information is gathered from opt ins, on-line surveys, forms and other “voluntary” means of collecting information, usually from customers and buyers and about customers and buyers.

 

Who uses data mining? Retail outlets, insurance companies, banks, airlines and other industries that not only collect data, but derive benefit from analyzing that data in a scientific, systematic manner to improve service and profit margins. And if it works for the big guys, it’ll work for you (only on a slightly smaller scale).

 

What are we looking for?

Using data mining technology, industries are looking for trends before they become trends. Relationships between customer A and widget B. Patterns of activity, unusual events – the list is endless and growing all the time.

 

The fact is, billions and billions of pages are stored on computers and billions of those billions of pages are available through any search engine. And while this information can help your on-line activities in a general way, data mining your own historical repository of data will reveal useful information about activities closer to home – yours!

 

If you’ve been in business on-line for any length of time, even a couple of years, you’re sitting on solid gold marketing data. Your database of customers and what they bought, where they live and how they pay. And you can use an analysis of this information to improve the performance of your web site.

 

How can it help me?

Probably the most useful way data mining will help small- to mid-sized site owners is by defining the target demographic – the characteristics of most buyers. Men or women? Age? Zip code? Income bracket? Using data harvesting and analytic software, you’ll quickly be able to develop a picture of that perfect buyer – the one who buys the most, most often.

 

This information equips you to develop marketing campaigns targeted specifically at your key demographic. If you’re selling knitting supplies, using a Harley-Davidson as the centerpiece of your e-mail campaign probably won’t pull as much as a nice picture of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Data harvesting enables site owners (and huge media and retail conglomerates) to target their marketing with pinpoint precision. (You don’t think those Gap ads were created by accident, do you?)

 

Interactive Marketing

Of most importance to on-line business owners, interactive marketing appeals to visitors to your web site. What can visitors do? Where can they go? What can they learn? And see?

 

By analyzing harvested data, you can track the movements of site visitors to determine which features draw attention and which are just taking up space. “Google Analytics” will even perform the analysis for you, indicating in GUI form which site pages attract attention and which are quickly passed over.

 

For on-line retailers, this kind of analysis defines your most valuable digital real estate and, obviously, this is where you’d place your most popular or profitable products, announcements of upcoming sales and other “targeted” information.

 

Is it working?

It would be nice to know if your Adsense program was pulling better than your banners placed on a dozen different sites. Data harvesting will give you the answer quickly once you establish a baseline.

 

The baseline is what’s happening now – the status quo. With an established baseline, you have a yardstick by which to measure whether your PPC program should get more dollars while your click-through rate on banners isn’t worth the money you’re spending.

 

Is it bogus?

Large, on-line (and real world) retailers use data harvesting to better detect fraudulent activity. For example, MasterCard will quickly contact cardholders in whose accounts unusual activity has occurred. For example, using data harvesting, the credit card company knows you’ve never made a purchase of anything in Taiwan. Then, in a matter of two hours, 23 transactions from Taiwan all show up on your card. Now that’s called an anomaly – something out of the ordinary.

 

The MasterCard program continues with follow through. The cardholder of the account in question is likely to get a call from a MasterCard representative to see if, indeed, you did purchase 23 racing bikes in Taiwan within the past 24 hours. If not, they can often void the transaction before it actually takes place.

 

Will it make my customers happier?

Much. You’ll be ahead of the curve on spotting trends so you’ll have the latest when visitors come to shop. You’ll be able to better predict seasonal buying patterns for your particular goods or services. You’ll be able to improve warehousing, order handling, inventory management and more – even if the inventory is stored in a spare bedroom.

 

Where do I get this wonderful tool?

You’ve got the data – or at least you should have it, if you’ve been in business for a while. That customer data just needs to be analyzed to better equip you to refine your site, better target your ideal buyer, identify trends ahead of the competition, better identify fraud and deliver the precise product at the precise time to the exact right buyer. Metrics and analytical software, like Google Analytics, will help crunch the raw data into meaningful results.

 

If you haven’t started using the information you have on your hard drive, you’re wasting some of the best information you’ll ever have concerning the success of your business.

 

Use it or lose it.