BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

These are the features ranked according to the number of top 500 retailers that are using them (as per Internet Retailer Magazine):

1. keyword search
2. daily/seasonal specials
3. enlarged product view
4. what’s new
5. affiliate program
6. advanced search
7. online gift certificates
8. rich media
9. outlet center
10. email a friend
11. coupons/rebates
12. top sellers
13. site personalization
14. alternative payments
15. store locator
16. wish list
17. customer reviews
18. catalog quick order
19. mapping
20. product customization

Interesting enough as well that most consumers (according to Forrester) are willing to decline paying for “flare”:

Fewer consumers are willing to pay for extras such as gift wrapping, or overnight delivery.
(26% of respondents said they would pay for expedited delivery prior to the holiday season, down from 45% who said they would do so in 2006.)

Generally, what this means is that consumers want to get their purchase faster, easier and with less extras then before. For most of the prospective clients that call us, top five requests for web site are:

1. Large pictures/ability for visitor to enlarge product image
2. Search engine optimization/marketing
3. Ability to quickly add and remove inventory items
4. Ability to post featured/for sale items
5. Ability to use various discount codes to track promotions

It is obvious that trends for small and large businesses are almost the same. The slight difference is attributed to overall approach to ways of doing business for small business owners and large retailers.

Many resources recommend having a blog and creating content in order to position yourself as an expert in the field. Blog attracts attention to the product you are selling giving it a contextual boost from the content you are writing. In most cases, people who know the most about the product or service are those who run the business. They are so busy creating the product or service, dealing with clients and suppliers or whatnot that they simply don’t have time to create quality content.

Sure, you can hire a blogger, ghost writer or just an English-major intern to write stuff for you. Problem is – he doesn’t know the product. He doesn’t have the feeling for the product, like the owner has. There is no passion, no interest (except for being paid) and no understanding of how to present your product to the readers. Those readers, who later may become customers. It’s all about presentation, after all. So blogging becomes new sales tool that the owner doesn’t have time (or some times skills) to use.

What we recently started doing is we offer our clients to keep their blogs for them. We know the product, since we worked on presenting it for so much time. We know the target audience, since we’ve been talking to them since the launch of client’s web site. And we have interest in promoting clients’ businesses, since it means more business for us.

Everybody wins. Except for the guy who’s hands are full already.

Unless you were born into money, one way or another you get into debt. For most of the people it’s manageable debt – revolving accounts (also known as credit cards), small and big loans (also known as car financing and mortgage). But the whole bunch of people are suffering from unmanageable debt (the one that leads to bankruptcy). For some people the thought of debt is so heavy they don’t even do anything about it. Others become refugee entrepreneurs, escaping from debt into running their own business.

Debt Negotiation, debt consolidation and debt help are considered lesser evil. They don’t usually pay your debt for you, but they refer you to services that may help. How it works for them is that they either buy your debt from your creditors for less then amount you owe thus making a profit. Alternatively, they negotiate easier repayment terms under the assumption that bank has high chance of not seeing their money anyway.

Any debt is like a swamp – you better off not get into it, but if you got yourself in there – get out as fast as you can.