| LED Digest 1833: Outsourcing |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ July 6, 2004 Issue #1833 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Site Redesign Blues ==-- ~ Helen Estlin "...content is King when it comes to SEO." ~ Ajeet Khurana "...poor quality results as much due to the party outsourcing it, as the outsourcing vendor..." ~ Martha Retallick "Permit me to recommend my Search Engine Guy..." --== Using Affiliate Services ==-- ~ Charles Bennett "There may be confusion regarding what each is considering an 'affiliate'." --== The End of Email as You Know It? ==-- ~ Peter Warnock "...I've found myself deleting RSS subscriptions..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Email & Browser Alternatives to MS ==-- ~ Shabeer Ali ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Helen Estlin Subject: Redesign blues > I recently hired a company to re-design my site... the > new designers plugged in a bunch of words at the bottom > of the page and made them the same color as the > background... Now I am in a bind... - Chuck Hiatt, LED 1831 Greetings Chuck... without doing an in-depth study of your site right away I can tell you: you have no content on your index (home) page... content is King when it comes to SEO. Your Title tag is too long - at the most you can have about eight key phrases in that tag and having the name of your company is a waste of space in the Title tag. You must get rid of the hidden text at the bottom of your page... this is an absolute no no. The search engines do not like Front Page designed sites either... there is a lot more I could say but my advice to you would be to contact a reputable Search Engine Optimization specialist and have your website redone. Regards, Helen Estlin YellowDawg Web Design www.yellowdawg.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ajeet Khurana Subject: Redesign blues > ... the first thing I would ask: why did you change your > site in the first place? Did you by chance "outsource" > this work to some offshore cheapies? - Stephen Mareches, LED 1832 The two most common complaints against outsourcing are "job loss" and "poor quality." You are alluding to the second one. I must point out that I have a lot of evidence that this "poor quality" results as much due to the party outsourcing it, as the outsourcing vendor. If you like, please read an article I wrote about this ( http://snipurl.com/7jo6 [businessmajors.about.com] ). This article has been widely mentioned, including in the Wall Street Journal on May 11th 2004. Thanks Ajeet Khurana http://search-engines.allinfoabout.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: Redesign blues To Chuck Hiatt, my deepest sympathies! That "put the keywords at the bottom of the page, using the same color as the background color" trick would have gotten your site kicked out of the search engines back in 1996! But here we are in 2004, and that trick is being played on your site. Ouch. Not having seen your previous site, I have nothing to compare it to. But your current site does look attractive, and, better yet, it doesn't take forever and a day to download via a dialup connection. Now, back to solving the problem: I would recommend keeping the look of the site you have now, and losing those words at the bottom of the page. I would also recommend that you have your site optimized for the search engines by a more reputable outfit than the one you just dealt with. Permit me to recommend my Search Engine Guy, William Johnson. He's a straight-shooter, always has been, and I think you'll enjoy dealing with him. URL: http://www.netprofitnow.com Hope this helps! Martha Retallick "Postcard Marketing 101" Teleseminar, Register at: http://www.passionatepostcarder.com/teleseminars.html ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Charles Bennett Subject: Affiliates There may be confusion regarding what each is considering an 'affiliate'. Some may be thinking a webpage that merely redirects a link to a seller and earns an affiliate commission. Others may be thinking an affiliate relationship where one actually sells an item on behalf of someone and ships it or has it drop shipped. Both models are correct. Sales tax liability is another issue. My business model and physical presence is in Pennsylvania. However, I do have 'affiliates' in many other states. They either stock my product, order as needed or have me drop-ship. Some use my registered brand name. Now, would the streamlined sales tax commission consider them a 'business presence' in another state and rule that I must collect sales tax in all those states where I have an affiliate / presence for my regular customers? I sure hope not as I will cancel all my affiliates. If so, eBay has a presence in all 50 states too. As does Yahoo and Amazon. Some business models follow this practice and collect in all taxed states. Some of the companies that do collect, did so for immunity on sales tax that the commission felt 'should have been collected' for several prior years. Delivery agencies have turned over shipping records of companies 'without' having been served a subpoena or court order. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts went back five years and sent bills to people that DID NOT pay sales tax on online purchases with regards to cigarette sales so far. In some localities, people making a living from selling on eBay need a business license. They pay a 1/10th of 1% fee on gross sales (including shipping) for the yearly license. For some it reads 'seller of goods on eBay'. The town I moved out of in Virginia had two people full time looking for people that sold goods or conducted business online. (Discussed fully three years ago on I-Sales) Would that be considered a 'business presence' for eBay or another major company with affiliates? Having lost a court case regarding something advertised on my site, it was ruled the prevailing laws were where the page was downloaded. NOT where the business presence was or the site was hosted. Where the consumer is. (discussed in I-Marketing three yeas ago) So, what happens if you are in a non-tax state, ship to a taxed state and do not collect sales tax? Are you going to be liable? Are they going to wait for you to cross the border like they do when you go out of state to make liquor sales! :-) I am not against sales tax. A national one would be easier. I am against collecting and distributing to 500+ various nationwide agencies based on state, county and city rates. The commission says it will be a minor investment for small businesses. The software, time and mailing expenses. I say let the sales tax go to the state where the business presence is. FedEx, UPS, DHL and Postal are at my location every day at least once. My street is taking wear and tear to provide a service. Why should the sales tax go to the delivery point? eBay is the one to watch, as if they are ruled against, it will trickle to all us little guys. As for them being an auction house and being exempt, what about their online stores? That is a definite business presence and not an auction. What about when we use PayPal? Aren't they processing the sale? I know I'm not! I also am an 'affiliate' in the sense that I advertise a product and provide a link. My checks come in made out to the website name. They are getting difficult to deposit. The bank is telling me I have to open a business account made in the name of the site and not my general LLC account. The sales tax issue is only the tip of the iceberg. Next it will be all the affiliates who didn't report the income. I do not have an answer and am just throwing more food for thought out there. There will be a change. If we are ready, the monetary loss will be minimal. If we are not ready, the loss can be severe. I know I was not ready this past holiday season for the Google / Yahoo shakeup / break up. Charles Bennett PA ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Peter Warnock Subject: End of Email > Why, in this discussion of the undeniably real problem of > email distribution, is there so little mention of RSS? ... I am > busy moving everything I receive... onto RSS feeds... - Dave Starr, LED 1832 RSS is only effective for subscriptions that recur on a regular basis; LED would be well suited for RSS. However, I've found myself deleting RSS subscriptions where the last post was over a month old, otherwise, the list of headlines grows too long and it effectively is no different than junk mail. Peter Warnock webstruction.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Shabeer Ali Subject: Email programs Spam, Email clients, Sorting Mails, Limited space .... oh, what a mess! Well, I have some spare time in hand, so hopefully, this should help: Which is the best email client out there? Why, the one I use, of course! ... is the general answer. :) Me? I say Opera M2. Why? To put it in a simple, cryptic explanation: 'its simple & different'. Opera handles all your mails in such a fashion that creating folders and sorting your mail manually becomes *unnecessary*. An example to illustrate this better : Suppose you do business with a company called 'XYZ Sales'. You receive a mail from your friend 'James' that contains some top secret information about 'XYZ Sales'. You might want to use the info that James provided while replying to a mail from XYZ Sales. How do you sort such a mail? If you are using outlook, you can put that mail either in James folder or in XYZ Sales folder. But with Opera M2, you can make the mail appear in both James 'folder' or XYZ Sales 'folder' automatically! Technically, Opera M2, has no such things as 'Folders'. You have views and filters. Unlike other mail clients, Opera stores all your messages in a single database. All your messages are stored in one place, but you can sort and read them from different 'views'. Opera also automatically sorts mail you receive from someone you know. Just click on the 'Contact' persons name or email ID stored in the Address book and Opera will show you all mail you received from that person, and all the mail that you sent to that person. Another cool feature is the 'threaded view'. It will show you related messages in a thread view. A simple example : You send me a mail. I reply. You reply back to me. I reply again to it (and so on .). Well, with the threaded view, I can see the mail we sent back and forth like a conversation (your mail, my mail, your reply, my reply). Feeds - Yes, you can even subscribe and read all you newsfeeds and RSS feeds using Opera M2. Spam protection - Each time you mark a mail 'spam', opera analyzes it to learn which mails you consider as spam. Over time, it learns from you and takes over that job. Now all this might be ringing a bell in your mind, right? It all sounds very familiar. You have heard this somewhere - no folders, conversation view of email .... Google Mail! Yes, Opera M2 has had all these features long before Gmail (perhaps) copied them. So here's a cool tip for all of you. Do you want a GMail type account with all its features and MORE for free!? Including the 1 GB of space and NO ADS ... 3 Steps : --> Get yourself an email account from http://www.spymac.com (They offer 1 GB of space with POP 3 for free! If you are vary of free accounts, get Yahoo or Hotmail's paid 2 GB email accounts). --> Download Opera 7.50 - (3.5 MB - http://www.opera.com/download ) --> Configure Opera M2 to your Pop 3 email account. Happy mailing! Regards, Shabeer Ali (Media Designer and an Opera fan) P.S : I've never used Gmail myself, only read reviews about its features. Warning: Using Opera M2 could get you hooked on to the Opera browser - the world's fastest browser. I have no connection with Spymac and Opera developers / marketing team. Any error regretted. ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. 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