Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

========== NEW ====================================

From: Dejan Bizinger

Subject: New Rule for Adsense Referrals

Do you have a referral button for Google Adsense on your web site?

Then read further.

If you thought that you will earn $100 every time you send Google

one more Adsense partner and when they earn $100 you are wrong! You

saw this in your referral code:

----------------------

"When a publisher that signed up for AdSense through your referral

earns their initial $100.00 and is eligible for payout, we'll credit

your account with $100.00." *

----------------------

However, did you see this:

----------------------

* "An AdSense referral is counted when a publisher, who has never

previously enrolled in AdSense, creates an account and earns at

least $100.00 within 90 days of sign-up. The referred publisher must

be eligible for payment to qualify as a successful referral."

----------------------

With this new Google policy not many people will get their well

deserved $100.

Let's face it. How many web sites earn $100 for 90 days via AdSense?

Even some of high-profiled bloggers claim that they earn $100 per

year!?

What do you think about this new rule?

You can read discussion about this at:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=53647

Best regards,

Dejan Bizinger

Blog: http://www.emarketingblog.com

------- new post - new topic ------

From: Peter D'Aprix

Subject: Off Shore Outsourcing

Dear Adam and other LED readers

I am working my way through "The World is Flat" by Friedman. It

would appear that those of us who do not adjust to and embrace

outsourcing a certain amount of work to highly skilled but cheaper

labor in countries like India and China will fade away like

dinosaurs. Unless we bill our work at 20¢ on the dollar, we will be

undercut on pricing. At the moment, he suggests, that is restricted

to the programming and engineering rather than the creative / design

/ branding aspect of most work but in time these countries will eat

away at even that.

Just how much this affects the single web designer wearing many hats

has yet to be addressed. I have many more pages to work through, but

in today's rapidly changing world where even your tax accountant may

well be outsourcing your tax returns to India to focus on your

investment portfolio instead, this is the looming reality.

So how do we stay in business? How do we compete with highly

competent programmers who can live in India on $100 a day? How do we

make use of this resource on a smaller scale than giants like AT&T

and the like? How do we even figure out who to outsource to? Hardly

a question of sending for the Calcutta yellow pages or answering

spam from such countries touting cheap programming.

Some Indian programmers and entrepreneurs have contributed to this

Digest in the past as have others from many countries all with

something interesting to contribute. We are now global without a

doubt. So where does this leave the little guy?

Has anyone of you outsourced any part or all of your projects to

Indian, Chinese or companies from other parts of the world who can

do the job for less? What have been your experiences? How have

communications worked or not worked?

We know the technology of communications allows the transportation

of digital files seamlessly even allows someone at a computer half

way around the world to log in and do their work on our own

computers, but the communications of ideas and concepts that have

cultural and ethnic differences even if a common language is spoken

are not always so successful. If good experiences, how did you find

the companies involved?

While language can be an issue, I have found the English spoken by

those educated in English as a second tongue frequently far more

perfect in the language than the slang that passes for English in my

home town here in California even if spoken with an accent. And as

for politeness, no comparison. But who to pick and for what part of

a project?

Big companies will always be able to connect with the top people in

other countries. But for us small sole proprietors or even small

shops, where do we go? All and any input would be welcome.

Peter D'Aprix - Visual Communications

http://peterdaprix.com

======== CONTINUING ===============================

From: Tom Anson

Subject: Secure servers

This isn't really on-topic, and this is probably not the right forum

for asking this, but this discussion of security issues reminds me

of a question that has been bothering me. To whit:

I was at a website last night, wanting to buy a book.  The site made

claims about encryption and security measure (technical stuff that

I'm only vaguely familiar with the language of -- I have no real

idea what it means), but when I went to the order page (even where

the credit card information was collected) the URL was http://~, not

https://~; nor was there any other indicator that the page was

secure.

I closed out of the page without placing my order.  Was that the

right thing to do? or can there be encryption and stuff on a page

without the https://~ in the URL?

Tom Anson

Anson Aromatic Essentials

www.therapeutic-grade.com

From: Robert Bass

Subject: Cart abandonment

> When I shop, I like to know what the price is

> BEFORE I go through the shopping cart nightmare.

        - Nancy Cardinali, LED 2089

That would be feasible on sites where the purchaser buys one or two

items for delivery in the USA, but I can tell you it is not feasible

on sites whose average purchase is 15 or more items and shipment is

often to foreign countries.

In the business I am in, both myself and my competitors routinely

take orders for many different items, the shipping cost is

calculated on weight, destination, and product value.  At least 25%

of my sales are out of the country, although the weight stays the

same the insurance and freight vary widely depending upon final

destination.

And how do we know the destination until the checkout page is

reached? We don't, and only at that time can our system calculate

postage etc.

Robert Bass, Webmaster

www.jewelex.com

------- new post - same topic -------

From: Donald Baker

Subject: Cart abandonment

Here's another new, research-based white paper discussing

retail-site conversions, called "Merchant Conversion Secrets," from

MarketLive. It's pretty detailed for a free report, with a number of

charts and some good real-life examples. They ask for the usual

contact info before directing you to the download page.

http://www.marketlive.com/report9.asp

Don Baker

NSI Partners

------- new post - same topic -------

From: Nick Usborne

Subject: Cart abandonment

> IMHO, the best way to increase conversions

> is to provide all the information up front so

> that by the time the user gets to the checkout,

> the decisions to buy or not to buy have already

> been made.

        - Mark Roberts, LED 2089

I think Mark is right. Certainly, one of the principal reasons for

shopping cart abandonment is the surprise you get when faced with

the total cost - purchase price, plus taxes where applicable, plus

handling fees, plus shipping costs.

This why "free shipping" is such a powerful incentive. It removes

the "bad surprise" element form the shopping cart, and also makes

people feel they are getting a good deal.

>From Amazon.com downwards, many online retailers now offer free

shipping if you reach a certain purchase price threshold. One thing

to remember, if you do offer free shipping on purchases over $35,

for example, TELL people early on. I was at one store recently and

the first I knew about the free shipping offer was when I saw the

zero shipping cost within the cart itself. That's a wasted

opportunity.

Beyond that, out test data continues to show that you will always

increase shopping cart conversion by reducing the length of the

process. Minimize the number of pages involved. Minimize the number

of questions you ask. Minimize the amount of information you ask

for. A shorter process will always help.

Best wishes,

Nick Usborne

http://www.marketingexperiments.com

==== BILLBOARD ===================================

From: James Miller

Subject: Phishing & spam

I’m working on a story with respect to phishing e-mails.

I get about 400 a day trying to get my bank account details.

Interestingly they are only for two UK banks; Halifax and Barclays.

When e-mails from one stop the other starts, which is another point

of interest.

I used to get loads for American banks, but I haven’t had any for

about a year now.

How many of these e-mails do people get? And who are they from?

By the way, I would never bank with anybody who was the target of a

lot of phishing e-mails.

James Miller

Daisy Analysis:

www.daisy.co.uk

------- new post - same topic ------

From: Kenny Lau

Subject: Fighting spam & phishing

When I receive Nigerian scam email, I make up a fake identity for

myself and "play" the game with the scammer, asking them a question

or making them do something per email I send to them (at drawn out

intervals of an email every few days), such as asking them to send

or email some form of identiy document, etc etc.  At the end of the

game, I send them a copy of a closely similar Nigerian email asking

them whether the sender is one of his / her relatives!

If there are more people "scamming" them in return, these low-life

scammers' time may be wasted to the point that they will drop out

from this much-hated type of business because they will have to

spend much more time sifting out who is and who is not duped by them.

Kenny Lau

www.ecopurewater.com

-------------------------------------------------------

The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks:

pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains

© Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the

breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which