Small Group Or Personal Coaching

One strategy is to offer a coaching upgrade to your members. Some of your members will likely be willing to pay extra for more personal attention, either to help them understand the content better or to run ideas by you.

You can make this a group coaching environment, such as a webinar, where you interact with other members as a group or you could make it a one-on-one setting where coaching clients get to interact with you directly. One-on-one coaching can be handled over Skype, on the telephone or through a private forum.

Backend Offers

Another effective strategy for boosting your income is to offer multiple levels of membership or other types of upsells. For instance, let’s say you have a membership teaching people how to build their own websites. As an upsell, you could offer a “done for you” service where you (or your team of outsourcers) does the work for your members.

Or you could have different levels of content every month. eg. If you run a service membership, you could offer several levels, each with a different amount of work included.

You can offer these upsells during the signup process, or you can offer them in the future as an option to upgrade. Better yet, offer them in both places – new members get a discounted price and if they don’t want it, they can get it later but will pay more.

Affiliate Promotions

Offering related products to your members through an affiliate link is another way to earn extra income from your membership. Provided you are promoting high-quality offers, your members will be glad to hear about things that can benefit them.

This works best if your recommendations are related to the topic of the membership, particularly if it can help with what they’re learning somehow. For instance, a software program that automates some repetitive task they have to perform would work well.

“Hi,
I recently downloaded your script (asked if I could implement it as an addition to my own header.php) and this question is SEO related but not expressly related to your script. You stated earlier that you are an SEO-centric site builder and I have just a quick question that no one on either Warriorforum or here (Associate-o-matic forum) has been able to answer with much clarity.

I’m putting together a sitemap for my AOM site and was worried about getting hit with a duplicate content g-smack that others have related horror stories about. My site is already ranking around page 6-8 out of 4.5 million results with mostly just on-page SEO techniques and I’d hate to have to dig myself out of a pit should Google decide that I’m putting duplicate content up.

My site is not strictly a store as it also provides what I hope people will consider valuable informational content. I’ve written about 5-6 informational articles and 3 product reviews and am working on adding a new 1-2 every day or so.

Anyway enough with the background, I’ll get to the question. As a rule when using AOM should I deny spidering to my store with a robots.txt file and leave the product pages out of my sitemap, or should I allow Google to spider those pages and include the product pages in my sitemap?

Thanks for your time!
-Jake”

Jake,
You’re absolutely justified in your concern about hosting duplicate content from Amazon.com on your website.  Amazon’s product descriptions and product reviews are syndicated all over the web and therefore it can be difficult to get your AOM store to rank in the search engines without providing some unique content of your own.

However, this being said, I do not believe that you should use your robots.txt file to prevent search engines from indexing product pages.  The reason is that the major search engines do indeed return pages with duplicated content in search results.  For example, when I review the top referring organic keywords in my traffic logs for my Associate-O-Matic sites, I regularly find that users have found my stores by typing in ASIN numbers, product titles, product descriptions, and snippets from customer generated reviews as they are found on Amazon.com.  So, yes, allow your product pages to be discovered by Google and Yahoo by adding them to your HTML and XML sitemaps.

The thing to understand about duplicate content is that search engines look at how much of the overall page content is similar to a page found elsewhere.  If the amount of identical content exceeds a certain threshold, the page is considered to be a duplicate of one that was previously published and thus it will likely be “demoted” in the search engine listing.  I warn webmasters against allowing more than 25% of their page copy to be identical to other pages either on your site or that resides on another site.  This is a simplistic explanation and by no means a hard and fast rule but I think it’s enough to point you in the right direction.

Now, the second thing you want to do is to try to make the product page content that you port in from Amazon as unique as possible.  You can do this by creating original Title and Meta Description tags, Header tags, category introduction copy, custom boxes, and footer copy.  The good news is that you’re definitely on the right track when you talk about adding original articles to your site related to your store’s niche.  By creating your own original content and combining it with syndicated Amazon content you should be able to attract a wide variety of natural search queries.

Intent of the Superlative Search

The superlative search engine query provides a lot of insights about the user’s intent.  For example,  the query “best seafood restaurant in Massachusetts” can imply the following:

• the searcher is likely planning to go to an eatery in the near future.
• the searcher is likely seeking the advice of other seafood eaters, food critics, or from the restaurants themselves in selecting a restaurant.
• the searcher could be seeking information on how to evaluate a seafood restaurant.
• the searcher is likely looking for only one restaurant, the best restaurant.
• the searcher is looking for information which may be subjective or qualitative.

My conclusion about the superlative search is that it is innately a social query.  In other words, people are using search engines to find opinions written by past purchasers, presumably to act on the information they find at a future point.  This is different than a basic informational search.  For example, had the user typed the phrase “seafood restaurants in Massachusetts” (without the superlative) we could conclude that a simple list of Massachusetts restaurants could suffice as response.  The second conclusion is that the the superlative query has both an explicit informational component and a prominent, but implicit action component.  The user is looking for information that will help him or her do something.

From a search engine optimization standpoint, it may not simply be enough to have a website that ranks algorithmically if the searcher includes a quality modifier.  You’ll get a click, sure, but will you get the user’s patronage without third party confirmation?  Unlikely.  The fact is that the searcher is not expressly looking for information about your product; the user is searching for the opinions of others regarding the merchandise or services you offer.  Furthermore, the self-declared best of something must be supported by another party for the assertion to be meaningful.  This is where hosted user evaluations (such as the ones on Amazon.com) and review websites such as Yelp intercede.

Hosted Product Reviews and Search Engine Optimization

The problem with using superlative adjectives on ecommerce website is that they cannot be integrated into product descriptions without compromising the objectivity of the narrative users must read in order to understand the product offering.  Product descriptions are intended to tell the shopper what the product is, how to use it, and present technical specifications.  Product descriptions are much more important online because the user does not always have direct access to the product or service to inspect first hand.  So, using words like “best” and “greatest” demote the objectiveness of the product description and can often sound like unsubstantiated salesman speak.  How confusing would it be for buyers if every product description found in an online store used the word “best”?

This is why many online retailers capture and display customer comments next to product descriptions.  A glowing review from a satisfied customer is worth much more to a user and to the bottom line of a website than an evangelical product description.  Additionally, review pages can give a website a boost in search engine standings.  Superlative phrases in comments left by past customers can help increase the website’s ranking for queries containing quality modifiers.  In this way, creating good products, providing timely delivery, and offering great customer service can aid in the SEO of a website.  Thus, online shopkeepers should leave the singing of praises to their customers, and instead focus on making sure the search engine spiders have a path to find user reviews on their website.

Review Websites and Search Engine Optimization

Yelp and Epinions are two popular review websites.  Review websites, in addition to providing unbiased (in theory, but not always in practice) reviews, are also crucial components of online reputation management.  Customer opinion websites can cosign any claims of positive superlatives made by sites promoting a product or service.  There exists an interesting relationship between search marketing and online customer review aggregators – although a listing in the search results for an opinion website may initially attract a user’s click for a superlative search, they are unlikely to be the user’s final destination because these types of websites do not resolve the implicit action component of the superlative query.  After reading the opinions others have posted on the website, the user is likely to go to another location to act on the information they have obtained even if it is at a much later time.  To resolve the action component the information seeker may then look for information about the company or product encountered on a review website using a search engine or by navigating to the website directly.  In some ways, a good user review can be as valuable as a direct link from a review forum both in terms of providing referral traffic or by leading a user to conduct a search for information about your business, resulting in an increase in your website’s natural traffic volume.

1. Given the existing state of mobile technology, is deploying rich media in a mobile environment possible? If not possible, what will it take to integrate rich media into mobile environments?
2. What are the benefits to advertisers and users for introducing rich media advertisements onto the mobile web?
3. What impact will rich media have on the overall user experience for mobile users?
4. What guidelines should e-commerce managers use to decide if rich media campaigns in mobile platforms are the right strategy for their website?

As recently as a decade ago, the Internet was viewed largely as a proving ground for new technologies and experimental business models. Most websites were created using simple HTML and contained simple image ads (if at all), Internet Explorer was gaining market share from Netscape in what is referred to as the Browser Wars, and the term mobile computing described the ability for a laptop to connect to the web via an AOL dial-up connection.

Ten years later, the promises of the Internet’s vast fertility to enable business transactions, facilitate interactions, entertain, and distribute information has only been partially understood, yet for the moment seems to be boundless. With the viability of conducting business on the web insured, the websites of companies are now recognized as commercial properties, and the Internet as a whole has become a medium for marketing and advertising functions. According to this article, total online ad spending has grown from $8.1 billion in 2000 to $18.5 billion per year in 2008, with projections expected to increase $44.5 billion over the next 5 years. The regular use of the Internet by Americans has also increased over the years and for many people is an integral part of work and personal life.

Websites and online advertisements are no longer characterized by technological homogeneity either. Websites are frequently built using a combination of high-level programming languages that enable a site to interact with the user. Likewise, online advertising platforms have leveraged new web technologies, such as Flash, to create highly engaging advertising pieces. The phrase “rich media advertising” broadly describes digital advertising media that is characterized by motion and interactivity.

As the Internet distinguished itself as both a destination for users and as a commercially viable medium, along came the development of powerful Web-enabled handheld devices, networking protocols, and wireless technologies that connect users to the web when away from the personal computer. The definition of mobile computing has evolved accordingly to encompass the features of the present handheld computing environment (Turban, Efraim, et al.Electronic Commerce 2006: A Managerial Perspective). The revised definition of mobile computing is nearly exclusive of laptop computers and refers to the use of handheld devices, such as smart phones and PDA’s that permit access to information, application and tools. Internet connectivity has become a critical feature of mobile devices and microbrowsers, or mobile browsers, scale websites down to size for viewing on a smaller screen so that the user can do a range of activities from finding the closest restaurant to conducting m-commerce transactions. Presently, 20% or 34.6 million Americans regularly access the mobile web according to an Informationweek report. However, the US is not the worldwide leader of mobile Internet users; this distinction belongs to Italy.

One of the best descriptions of rich media comes from ClickZ columnist and CEO of WebAdvantage Holland Thomases who describes it’s usefulness as:

“Rich media is the use of interactivity or multimedia to give an enhanced experience to a web user. When it’s used in advertising, it’s done so to attract attention, stand out among the clutter of ads and copy, or shake someone out of their "banner blindness," a term that’s been used to describe the general ignoring of all banner ads. Although we’re in a time when a lot of online marketing buzz focuses on simple text ads or search engine listings, rich media is still a sound piece of the Internet advertising puzzle. (http://www.webadvantage.net/tip_archive.cfm?tip_id=427&a=1)”

To complement Thomases thoughts, it should be noted that interactive media has strong brand enhancing and traffic-driving abilities for online properties. Another factor encouraging the spread of interactive media onto mobile platforms is that streaming videos are quickly becoming part of the handheld interactive experience.

Naturally, some rich media advertising units are more readily integrated into a mobile website than others. For example, Flash-based banner style graphics, interstitial ads (the display of a page of ads before the requested content), video ads and map-based ads will probably be the first generation to transition to the small screen. Ads that request high amounts of interactivity from the user, such as Flash games or gadget ads, may see their mobile debut postponed until hardware, software and compression technology catches up.

Advertisements in Mobile Environments Today

One of the most popular components of non-Flash rich media in mobile has proven to be Google’s Mobile Maps application. Users with capable smartphones and Internet access through either wireless or 3G can access Google Local (also known as Google Maps) on the go. Incorporated into Google Local is a local search application, allowing users to perform searches for businesses and services within specific areas. As a result, Google Local is rapidly becoming a powerful rich media advertisement channel on mobile devices. With both paid and free listings incorporated into the map application, businesses with physical locations – e.g. restaurants, service locations, shops, etc. – can directly target users in close physical proximity to their stores. Not only can business advertise their locations and services, they customers are provided with maps and directions to their locations.

The dominant ad format on the mobile web today are text messaging advertising, and paid text links and image ads placed on websites intentionally designed to be viewed by smart phones.  This observation parallels the adoption of the types of media used in the early days of Internet advertising.

Requirements for Deployment

I am of the opinion that there are three conditions that must exist before for rich media advertisements can be deployed on a large scale into the mobile web community. These conditions address hardware requirements, software requirements, and bandwidth requirements.

Hardware requirements

The first requirement is that it must be technological feasible from a hardware perspective. Rich media is intrinsically interactive, and interactivity can decrease device performance because of the need for greater processing time. Today, Flash powers much of the rich media on the Internet, including interactive games and streaming videos. Many contemporary desktop systems in use can execute Flash without sacrificing performance. However, there was a time when many hardware systems could not execute Flash in combination with other processes without slowing the entire machine down. An extreme example of deployment of Flash technology that preceded the widespread adoption of the hardware required to support it is the case of Boo.com in 1999. Boo.com was a virtual clothing store that featured a 3-dimensional shopping assistant avatar. The site relied heavily on the use of Flash and JavaScript to produce the interactive components of the shopping assistant. In 1999, many computers simply lacked the processing power to execute these client-side languages, and in a pre-broadband, 56k dial-up modem era the size of the site required the shopper to wait several minutes for a page to download. In mid-2000, Boo.com closed down and is remember as a casualty of the dot-com bust.

Mobile computing devices are designed to model the capabilities of personal computers to allow the user to perform some tasks while away from the home or office, but not all duties. Consumer-orientated mobile device design is a compromise between portability and functionality. Mobile computing hardware usually has only a fraction of the processing power of comparable parts for a personal computer. For example, the Apple iPhone, is performance-wise one of the higher-end web-enabled devices available on the US market. The iPhone has a clocked processor speed of 620 mhz and between 4 – 8 gigabytes of memory depending on the model. These specifications are equivalent to the processing power of an average desktop PC on the market between the years 1999 – 2002. Indeed, a personal computer from 1999 may have some difficulty keeping pace with many of the software applications of today. The point is that frequently special web technologies or modified versions of existing web technologies must be developed to accommodate current handheld computing capabilities; seldom can core features of the desktop Internet experience be seamlessly transitioned on to mobile platforms.

Software Requirements

On the software front, developers are trying to refit the existing applications and programming languages of rich media advertisement on the Internet to create a mobile web experience. Adobe, the maker of the Flash browser plug-in and several Flash development applications, has created a scaled down version designed specifically for mobile environments called Flash Lite. Although it has been modified for use by handhelds and microbrowsers, Flash Lite supports user interactivity, streaming video, and can play much of the Flash media found online. Although, Flash Lite has not been adopted by the majority of mobile users, several handheld manufacturers such as Nokia have began releasing units pre-installed with Flash Lite.

In February 2007, another barrier was removed bringing the deployment of Flash media advertising one step closer to fruition. On2 Technologies, a video compression technology partner with Adobe, announced that the new Flash development kit will be able to transcode streaming videos to mobile phones using an engine called Felix Engine 3GPP.  On2 Technologies compression algorithms essentially opens the door for marketers to create a Flash-based online video advertising experience for consumers. The impact of this new development was described in On2 Technologies’s press release:

  "For the first time, web content can easily be made available for mobile services," said Bill Joll, president and CEO of On2 Technologies.  "On2 VP6 based Flash video has taken the Internet world by storm with the creation of tremendous amounts of new content, but that content was not available on mobile devices until now. The new Flix Engine 3GPP changes that."

As a side note, JavaScript is another programming language that is being integrated into the newest generation of mobile browsers. While JavaScript can animate objects in a browser and supports user interactivity, rich media ads developed by combining HTML/DHTML elements, graphics and JavaScript are approaching extinction and there is no reason to expect rich media of these types to cross over into the mobile community.

Bandwidth Requirements

The third consideration is bandwidth capabilities. To properly conduct "m-marketing", it is necessary to have sufficient bandwidth to transmit the ingredients of interactive marketing – text, picture, voice video, or multimedia – to the user’s device. The 3G communication technology, the abundance of wifi access points, and other wireless data connection networks support the ability to send data back and forth from client to server (Turban, Efraim, et al.Electronic Commerce 2006: A Managerial Perspective).

Conclusion

But the real question is – how will customers react to interactive ads? Action Engine CEO, Scott Silk believes the mobile market must overcome several hurdles before accepting rich media ad formats:

“1. Perceived cost – What is this advertisement costing me?
First, subscribers do not want to feel like they are paying for mobile advertising.

2. Personal relevance – What does this advertisement mean to me?
Second, subscribers do not want non-relevant advertisement — and in most cases, neither do the advertisers.

3. Ease of use – Is this mobile advertisement degrading my user experience?
Third, more subscribers avoid data services because they are too difficult to access and operate than because of cost. (http://www.actionengine.com/images/events/mobileadvertising/advertising.html)"

There are indeed other issues that will arise from the foreseeable deployment of rich media advertisements aimed at handheld users that e-marketers must address. One example is how to fully capitalize on a mobile user that has clicked a multimedia advertisement and has general interest in the product or service offered. In this example, depending on the purpose of the website, an “interest form completion” or website registration may be the optimal conversion mode of the marketers, but not for the user who is restricted to an abbreviated keyboard and smaller screen.

For the last two years I’ve attended eBay Live and 2008 shall be no different.   This year the eBay conference will be held in Chicago from June 19-21.   I’m all registered for the event, my transportation is set, and my lodging is taken care of – so Chicago here I come.

Hopefully, this year I’ll continue my tradition of taking a photo with eBay CEO Meg Whitman.  Check out pics from previous years.

The eBay marketplace and other e-commerce sites have changed many of the traditional paradigms of management.  For example, managers of brick and mortar retail stores must now consider the pricing of eBay merchants who are headquartered hundreds of miles away.  Also,  thanks to eBay, there has been a retooling of the knowledge base of traditional supply and demand constructs for information goods.  Additionally, managers of many storefront companies have created intrepreneurial arms to sell merchandise on eBay with not just the goal of increasing sales, but to market their physical storefronts. In doing so, a number of these same innovative companies have begun to recognize the challenges of managing in an e-commerce arena dominated by eBay and have established the position of “Manager of eBay Sales” to oversee company functions on the site.

eBay has also served to spread the entrepreneurial wildfire which is a current marker of today’s economy. Originating from the French term entreprendre, meaning “to undertake”, the successful endeavors of entrepreneurs represents symbols of tenacity and innovation. The decade span of 1990-2000 has witnessed the powerful emergence of entrepreneurial activity within the United States. Small businesses (defined by the Small Business Administration as those companies having fewer than 500 employees) employ 53% of the private workforce and account for 51% of the private sector’s gross domestic product (GDP), proving the vitality of entrepreneurship to the US economy. This phenomenon is helped by the arrival of low-cost computer technology, high-speed Internet access, and the advent of e-commerce.

What eBay has done so effectively to aid entrepreneurs in starting a business is to design an easy-to-use system that allows users to optimize both their time and return on investment. Many factors support this assertion:

• Overhead and infrastructure costs are drastically reduced on eBay because only a few dollars can effectively buy a cyber “storefront”.
• An eBayer’s merchandise can simply be items around the home.
• The technology of the platform makes it easy to create an auction and upload it to the eBay system.
• PayPal, a subsidiary company of eBay, provides low cost payment processing once an item the sold.

Unlike opening a traditional shop, the cost of doing business on eBay’s auction system is so minimal that a number of single welfare mothers have become successful entrepreneurs on the site. It seems that eBay and entrepreneurialism exist in a reciprocal relationship because it was entrepreneurs that first helped to seed eBay in its early days, and it is arguably the entrepreneurial home-based business that benefits most from the auction site.