Using Testimonials Effectively

People seem to have a need to know what others think before they place an order for a product or service. They tend to ask everyone they know, both offline and in forums. They will often even research the net for reviews and testimonials. Unfortunately, testimonial letters have gotten a bad rap because of all [...]

links for 2007-01-20
iMedia Connection: Coming Soon: The Death of the Web Page "With the rise of Web 2.0, Rich Internet Applications, Ajax and more, your static web page will soon be an antique: see what this means for your marketing plans." (tags:...

Lurkers and Posters
Jakob Nielsen has a very interesting comment on his Alertbox page: Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities. Excerpt: There are about 1.1 billion Internet users, yet only 55 million users (5%) have weblogs according to Technorati. Worse, there are only 1.6 million postings per day; because some people post multiple times per day, only 0.1% of users post daily. Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident...

Throwing In The Towel
I believe that the number one way to find financial success is to first find what you love doing, and then find a way to get paid for doing it. I see people that spend weeks asking everyone they talk to for online business opportunities that they can make money at. It never crosses their [...]

The Risk of AdSense Revenue
Generic advertisements such as Google AdSense absolutely do not belong on a professional business website. No matter how you look at it, it will not help improve your business and may very well have a devastating impact. Is it really worth the risk? Those people who have no clue what Google AdSense is, will likely become [...]

Beyond Wikipedia: Citizendium
Via The Tyee, an article webwriters should read: Beyond Wikipedia. Excerpt: Larry Sanger doesn't trust the wisdom of the crowd, so he's no big fan of Wikipedia. But he's not like the others who get their kicks pooh-poohing the all-powerful (but flawed) wiki: Sanger had a huge hand in creating it. These days, however, he's doing his best to make it something future generations remember only as the troubled little...

Are You the Biggest Difference?
Are you the biggest difference for your business? Many years ago, a motivational speaker told me that the surest way to financial success was to find something that I absolutely love doing and then find a way to get paid for doing it. This is probably the best advice that I have ever received, and advice [...]

Want People to Read Your Blog? Go With a Full Text Feed
Someone should commission a study on bloggers who choose to syndicate the full text of their posts in RSS feeds vs. those who abstain. Something tells me they're read more. Consider the contrasts between these two bloggers. Exhibit A: Leon...

Tag Spam Rising
The fine folks at the eBiquity group at the University of Maryland Baltimore County have started to notice that tag spam is on the rise. The problem is particularly pronounced on del.icio.us. I used to live in my del.icio.us inbox....

Five Things About Cricket
Okay, bear with me for an odd ball post here … John Scott tagged me, so I am supposed to come up with five things that y’all don’t know about me and post it here on my blog. I will find a way to pay you back for this someday John! Considering the fact that [...]

The Next Google Update
I would venture to guess that one of the most common questions on any webmaster forum involves someone asking, “When is the next Google update?” Although they are probably asking about visible PageRank updates in the Google toolbar, the answer involves a bit more than that. Visible PageRank is what you see in your Google toolbar. [...]

Expression Web Designer Beta
I had been anxious to check out Microsoft’s new Expression Web Designer, not because I had any issues with FrontPage 2003, but because I like playing with new programs. I was thrilled when I received the download notice for the initial private beta, which they have since offered to the general public. I am probably not [...]

100 million sites
CNN.com reports that the Web now has 100 million sites. The report is based on a story in Netcraft, a site I will include in the Webwriting Resources list. I suspect we will hit 250 million sites before we realize what a profound revolution Sir Tim Berners-Lee launched upon an unsuspecting world back in 1989....

Nielsen on the "Usability Divide"
Here's an excerpt from Digital Divide: The Three Stages (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): Far worse than the economic divide is the fact that technology remains so complicated that many people couldn't use a computer even if they got one for free. Many others can use computers, but don't achieve the modern world's full benefits because most of the available services are too difficult for them to understand. Almost 40% of the...

Links to the New Edition
Writing for the Web 3.0 is now officially available. I've placed links to Self-Counsel Press in the right-hand column. If you're in the US, you can buy the book through the lower link; if you're in Canada or elsewhere in the world, the upper link is the one you want. If you're in the UK, you can also order the book through the Roundhouse Group. In the next few days...

Know Your Target Audience
Equally important with knowing your target audience is finding ways to let your target audience know you as a person. Many times when we run an online business, we forget the power of talking with our target audience. Handing people a business card in casual conversation is a common courtesy, but it is unlikely [...]

links for 2007-01-22
ecoIron - All these whirring boxes.: Black Google Would Save 3,000 Megawatts a Year A little math to see how much energy could be saved by moving a high volume site to black. (tags: Google environment energy) Wikipedia:Public domain image...

links for 2007-01-21
outside.in "The best way to discover the conversations that are going on in your neighborhood." (tags: Blogs local geotagging CitizenJournalism)...

Small Town Redneck Country Girl
There was a small town country girl who had a passion for making gifts and giving them to anyone who wanted them. She didn’t do it for the attention. She handed out the gifts in a private area, outside of the public eye. She did not give the gifts to hear words of thanks or [...]

Blogging a Nameless War
The Tyee has published my article Blogging a Nameless War, about the Lebanese and Israeli online response to the war in Lebanon....

Becoming a Book Blog
After weeks of work, the third edition of Writing for the Web is nearly completed. It's a far more extensive revision than I'd expected, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Not only is much of the print content changed, expanded, and updated, but the book will contain a CD with scores of links a kind of electronic index, with added links on relevant topics. In addition, this site will become...

Wikipedia's Watchdog
The Tyee, an online magazine here in Vancouver, has an excellent article: Wikipedia's Watchdog. Excerpt: Andrew is a tall, skinny, 18-year-old college freshman who lives with his mom and dad on Burrard Inlet's North Shore. Early in the afternoon on July 31, he settled into the swivel chair in his parents' study, turned on his computer, and began combing through the bowels of Wikipedia, the world's most popular online encyclopedia....

A New Model For Getting Rich Online
The Washington Post has an interesting story today: A New Model For Getting Rich Online describes people whose sites run ads and get enough traffic to earn serious income....