Understanding of the Summary Report or Dashboard view.

Video is the hottest thing going on the web. If you’ve been thinking lately about starting a blog or setting up a Twitter account, you’re still slightly behind the curve.  Everyone’s talking about video now… and with good reason.  It’s entertaining, it’s easy to find and consume, and it engages viewers in a way that text simply cannot.

Video is on a meteoric rise, and shows no signs of slowing soon.  Along with that trend, there is a growing segment of the online audience that has begun favoring sites that use video over sites that just have text.

Additionally, video advertising is the fastest-growing form of online advertising.  On just YouTube alone, the number of advertisers rose tenfold in the past year.

That means all your competitors are out there using video to steal away your customers… and it’s probably working.

I’ve been working in search engine optimization for nearly seven years, and at this point… I would rather have a video I created showing up on the first page of Google results than my website… because videos in search results are almost certainly receiving more clicks than standard website listings.

We are proud to announce the addition of Jamie Koop Insurance to our family of websites. Jamie Koop Insurance is a long standing home, family, auto and business insurance business dating back over 35 years in the Crosby area.

This site is designed to draw targeted traffic looking for insurance solutions in an area comprised of the following north central Minnesota towns:

1. Crosby-Ironton
2. Emily-Outing
3. Deerwood
4. Bay Lake
5. Crosslake
6. Garrison
7. Brainerd-Baxter
8. Nisswa
9. Pequot Lakes

Thanks Jamie and all the staff for entrusting your new web presence to the professionals at BAMsites Web Marketing Services.

Here’s a quick How To on changing the date range for viewing website usage statistics.

There’s no doubt that WordPress rocks as a blogging and content-management system. Once installed, you can do amazing things with it right out of the virtual box. 7 Must Have Killer Plugins for WordPress.

In this series we will present you some Plugins every pro uses on his blog. You should use them too!

1. Ultimate Search Engine Optimization:  All-In-One-SEO – Pretty much the current standard for allowing page and post individual optimization – a must for a multiple landing page approach to organic rankings.
2. Google Site Map Maker – Be friendly to Google and you will win. Make it easy for Google to index the pages and post of your choice by implementing this plugin.
3. Database Back Up: Better do this often or better yet, use this one that automatically sends you a back up file!
4. Video Blogging: More and more folks are blogging their way to stardom – join the crew.
5. Advanced TinyMice Editor: The onboard editor with WP is pretty bleak. This is something they could improve upon greatly, but in the meantime, there’s several plugins to make your WYSIWYG experience just like a word processor.
6. Exclude Pages: I’m not sure why WP doesn’t give us an easy option for hiding pages, but they don’t as far as I can see. This helps my hide pages that need not be on visible navigation.
7. Share This: Instead of chasing every social network icon around and having a bunch of useless icons festooned on your webpage or blog, why not just make it easy for people to share your content that they think is cool. ShareThis does this as well or better than anyone else.

The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses.

When choosing a payment processor, it’s important you fully evaluate their rates. Different payment processors suit different merchants – the questions below will help you find one suited to your needs.

1. What are the discount rates? Discount rates are the percentage of transactions that the processor charges you in order to use their service. Rates will vary between processors and will also depend on your average or expected processing volume.
2. What are the transaction rates? The majority of processors will also charge a set fee for each transaction. Usually this between $0.30 and $0.50. There may also be fees for refunds and declined transactions.
3. Is there a fee for chargebacks? Most processors will charge a fee ranging from $30 – $50 for chargebacks.
4. Is there an application fee? Some payment processors will charge an application fee of up to $300 and this is non-refundable – even if your application is declined.
5. Are there any ongoing fees? Ongoing fees usually take the form of an ongoing fee, a statement fee or a gateway fee.
6. Is there a settlement fee? A settlement fee occurs when funds are sent to your bank account and can range from anywhere between $0.05 and $5!
7. Are there any processing volume limits or minimum processing fees? A minimum processing fee occurs when you do not process enough transactions via a particular method (such as mastercard or Visa). Processing volume limits are limits to the total amount of transactions your business can process – exceeding these limits can often result in suspension of your account and withholding of funds.

1. Traffic – get them to your site.

2. Conversion – get them to respond

Know Your Audience – speak in their jargon, write for 4^th graders

1. Keep navigation simple – allow users to easily navigate the site.
2. Response or load time – needs to be quick.
3. Visually highlight “Calls to Action”, ie, phone numbers, buy now, etc.
4. Keep you pages short – try to avoid scrolling, only 10% will scroll.
5. Avoid lots of text – break up long pages with more nav or link options.
6. Allow for scanning – use short sentences, headlines, bullet/numbered lists.
7. Check spelling and grammar – don’t look like a dummy.
8. Footer navigation – don’t leave them hanging- site map, contact, etc.
9. Contact info on all pages!

Avoid:

• flash designs
• pop-ups
• auto audio
• links to external pages
• counters
• too much movement
• intro splash pages
• tiny fonts
• too many social networking buttons

Designing a good sales web site can be the difference between losing a visitor and making a sale. You’ve got ten seconds to capture a viewer’s attention and convince them to stay – that’s how long it takes people to decide to keep reading, or move on.

Make Your Site User Friendly
You need to plan your web site carefully to make it really sell your product:

• Have an attention-grabbing headline that tells visitors what they’ll gain by staying. It should list some clear, compelling benefits – what they’ll learn and what kind of information you’ll provide.

• Keep your web site clean and simple. It should be easy on the eyes, with no more than a couple of key colors and a couple of easy-to-read fonts. Font should be very dark and contrast strongly with a lighter background. Avoid using patterns and limit your use of graphics.

• Use more sales copy and fewer images. Images should be used strategically to support the sales copy, not vice versa.

• Make your navigation easy. It should run across the top of your page or down the left side. The fewer clicks it takes to purchase your product, the better, because every time you ask visitors to click, you lose some.

• Make your sales process quick and painless. Don’t use hidden links. If you want shoppers to buy from you, you have to make it obvious how they do so.

Develop Your Customers’ Trust
Your web site has to convey credibility and professionalism – people won’t buy from you if they don’t trust you. There are two main ways you can build your customers’ confidence in you:

1. Share your qualifications: how you got here and why you’re able to help them. Don’t just bullet-point your credentials – talk to them. Relate your experiences and explain how this product has helped you – let them see there’s a real person behind the site.

2. Use testimonials from people who’ve actually used your products. Video, audio, and written testimonials, accompanied with customer pictures, are proven tools for creating credibility with consumers. Make sure your testimonials show actual, measurable results that people achieved by using your product.

Create Customer Loyalty

Sharing relevant, interesting information on your site can be a tremendous point of sale. Tell your customers what your product is, where it originated, and innovative ways they can use it. If you sell camping gear, write an article about great destinations for camping, or post tips for staying safe in the woods. Give shoppers a reason to come back to your site – there’s a good chance that, while they’re there, they’ll buy something. By educating your customers, you’re creating a sense of loyalty that will make them want to buy from you rather than your competitors.

Web developer related resources from BAMsites. We research a lot of development support tools. Here are some you might like:

Ecommerce

Affordable Merchant Account/Payment Gateway
PayLeap.com

1ShoppingCart/Marketers Choice Shopping Cart System
www.MarketersChoiceOnline.com

Paypal for Business
To sign up for a PayPal account or learn more, click here

Web Hosting

Blue Host Web Hosting Company
www.BlueHostNow.com

Amazon Web Services
www.AWS.Amazon.com

Filezilla for FTP
www.Filezilla-Project.org/download.php

Web Statistics

Web-stat. com
www.Web-Stat.com

Audio Products

Audacity (a free audio editing software)
www.Audacity.Sourceforge.net

Sony SoundForge

Graphic Products

You Tube
www.YouTube.com

Screen Capture Software – Camtasia
www.TechSmith.com

(Commercial Liscense for the Video Player that Comes with FLVEmbed)
www.LongtailVideo.com/players/order1

Windows Movie Maker FREE Software for PCS Guide
www.Microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/getstarted/default.mspx

Apple iMovie Editing Software
www.Apple.com/ilife/imovie

Image Editor:
www.SumoPaint.com

Here is a photoshop clone (free image editor)
www.ArtWeaver.de/index

Image Editor from Google.
www.Picasa.com

A Color Picker to help you pick colors for the web
This one is a download and it lets you pick colors off of webpages
www.Iconico.com/colorpic

This one is an online tool that lets you pick colors from a palette
www.ColorPicker.com

A place to get graphics done
www.DesignOutpost.com

Gravatar Image for Your Comment Posts
www.Gravatar.com

Screen Capture Software – Camtasia
www.TechSmith.com

Stock Photography
www.iStockPhoto.com

Killer Covers
www.KillerCovers.com

eCoverDesign
www.eCoverDesign.com

Teleseminars/Webinars

Instant Teleseminar (the easy way to record Teleseminars and have playback pages)
www.InstantTeleseminarQueen.com

NoCostConference
(bridgeline that lets you record teleseminars and gives you .wav files)
www.NoCostConference.com

FreeConferenceCall (records your teleseminars and gives you .mp3 files)
www.FreeConferenceCall.com

GoToWebinar
www.GoToWebinarQueen.com

A comprehensive directory of Teleseminars, Webinars and Podcasts
Conference Call University

Marketing Tools

The AWeber Email Marketing System
www.AutoresponderQueen.com

Marketing Makeover Generator
Build landing pages the easy way…
www.MarketingMakeoverGenerator.Com

Membership Sites

AMember Membership Program:
A Powerful and full-featured membership/subscription software
for your website.

Wishlist Membership System for Wordpress
www.WishlistQueen.com

Google

Google Analytics
www.Google.com/analytics

Google Adsense
www.Google.com/adsense

The official Adsense Channel on You Tube
Official Adsense Channel on You Tube Click Here

Beat the Google AdWords System
The Definitive Guide – 35 examples, 8 industries & fast-start toolkit
Click Here to get: “The Definitive Guide to Google Ad Words”

The Ask Database
Do you want a way to survey your prospects and customers?
Use the Ask Database!