13 Tips To Improve Your Site’s Accessibility From Mobile Devices

The advent of mobile phone internet access has signaled a change in the job description of the average web developer. Designing websites for a (relatively) simple desktop browser is now only one part of web development, and web developers must adapt to the surge in popularity of the smaller, mobile format.
So to help make sure this little transitional phase runs as smooth as possible, we’ve collated a list of top tips to ensure you’re fully prepared and equipped to take things mobile.

1. Recognize The Difference
Perhaps the most important thing to remember when designing for the mobile web is that it is a completely different format than that of the desktop browser. As a developer, it is important to get into the mindset of treating the mobile web world separately.
For example, lazy or slack coding that may go unnoticed on a large scale could be crucial when dealing with the much more concise mobile format.
2. Simplify Your Design
A key principle to bear in mind is that when it comes to the mobile web, simple is always better. Whether it be the visual design of the page, the actual coding or the content itself, trimming it down to its most simple is always most effective.
Simply taking a web page and downsizing it to fit on a mobile screen will look cluttered and unreadable. Follow the example of sites like Digg and keep your page lean and stripped to the bare bones.
3. Be Flexible
Just as the mobile format differs from the desktop, a level of flexibility is needed within the format itself. For example, when designing graphics, consider screen size, shape and resolution: designing one uniform graphic and expecting it to fit every phone type would be a grave error!
4. Test, Test, Test
With so many different formats to consider, regular and effective testing is an absolute must. It doesn’t matter how you do it, whether it be renting time, buying a range of phones to experiment with or simply asking your friends and colleagues to give up their phones for a few minutes, there is no substitute for real time testing.
5. Prioritize Your Pages
The amount of time people spend browsing on phones is minimal compared to on their home computers or laptops, so you need to make sure the page gets the most important information across first. Users often only tend to browse for minutes at a time, so if they can visit your page and get the information they need in seconds they will be sure to visit again in future.
6. Know Your Audience
If you’re going to prioritize your pages, you’ll need a good grasp of your target audience. For example, if your page is a general blog mainly used for casual browsing, you will want to keep most of the detailed information off the front page, looking more for a general overview.
It may seem overkill, but it’s these seemingly trivial issues which can a separate and average page from a very good one.
7. Keep Up To Date
Like most forms of modern technology, the mobile phone is constantly developing, and as a developer, it’s your job to keep up with the latest advancements. Take the iPhone as an example. It completely revolutionized mobile browsing, and its thousands of applications mean you can do pretty much anything from it.
The takeaway here is that as a developer, you simply can’t afford to be left behind by the fast paced progress of the mobile world.
8. Pick Your Domain
When it comes to choosing a domain name for your site, try and keep it as close to your normal domain name as possible. Perhaps the best way of doing so is to simply create a sub domain, which means the user doesn’t have to remember a second domain name and makes advertising a lot easier. Again, simplicity will see you reap the rewards in the long run.
9. Deal With Images
When designing for a desktop browser, a huge, eye-catching image is often a great solution to help improve the page’s visuals. However, images have to take a back seat to some extent when it comes to the mobile web. High resolution images, especially at the top of the page, can cause the page to take an unnecessarily long time to load, so try and keep images small. Image optimization is also a great way to make sure whatever images you use are of a high quality for the format.
10. Reduce Page Length
Many smaller devices actually restrict the amount of screen size that is available for any particular application, so often the ability the scroll both horizontally and vertically can be an issue.
There are a number of ways to get round this problem, perhaps most efficiently by presenting users with an intuitive means of internal navigation where they can quickly access other pages. This way, you can keep the amount of information on each page as minimal as possible.
11. Optimize Graphics
Graphic design for the mobile web requires some real restraint from the designer, especially one who’s used to developing large scale, intricately artistic creations. Their complex beauty often goes unnoticed on the small screen, hence designs often work best when kept particularly clear-cut. Stick to straight lines and contrasting colors to make your graphics stand out.
12. Play It Safe
As previously mentioned, lazy mark up will be much more damaging to a mobile web browser than a desktop. So when it comes to mark up, make sure all tags are supported to ensure your page comes out looking and functioning as well as possible.
For example, features such as tables and nested tables can take much longer to render on a mobile phone because they typically have much less powerful processors, and many casual browsers will just navigate away from your page instead of waiting!
13. Utilize White Space
An error that many inexperienced developers make is to think that because the format is smaller, it’s okay to cram the pages full of a content, so much so that the user can barely make sense of the screen. This is not good.
The right way to do it? Embrace white space. Yet again, the minimalist approach is key. Don’t be afraid of blank spaces: they simply keep the user’s attention focused on the content that really matters.
Source: Fuel Your Creativity.
Tags: Mobile, Internet, Mobile Internet, Optimize, Play It Safe, White Space, Page Length, Fuel Your Creativity

Evian - Roller Babies

Tags: Evian, Roller Babies, Viral, Marketing

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It seems that more readers are asking this question than I previously thought.

In a recent poll here on ProBlogger I asked readers whether they’d done any affiliate marketing on their blogs. The results revealed that:

• 29% of readers regularly do it
• 24% occasionally do it
• 27% have never done affiliate marketing on their blogs
• 6% used to do it but don’t any more
• 14% don’t know what affiliate marketing is

There’s some interesting results there but it was the last category (of bloggers not knowing what affiliate marketing is) that I wanted to write this post for with the hope of answering the question. It’s pretty basic and quite beginner focused but for the 14% of you who don’t know what affiliate marketing is - here’s a brief introduction.

What is Affiliate Marketing?
Perhaps the simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way of making money online whereby you as a publisher are rewarded for helping a business by promoting their product, service or site.
There are a number of forms of these types of promotions but in most cases they involve you as a publisher earning a commission when someone follows a link on your blog to another site where they then buy something.
Other variations on this are where you earn an amount for referring a visitor who takes some kind of action - for example when they sign up for something and give an email address, where they complete a survey, where they leave a name and address etc.
Commissions are often a percentage of a sale but can also be a fixed amount per conversion.
Conversions are generally tracked when the publisher (you) uses a link with a code only being used by you embedded into it that enables the advertiser to track where conversions come from (usually by cookies). Other times an advertiser might give a publisher a ‘coupon code’ for their readers to use that helps to track conversions.
For example: when I recently released my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook I also give people an opportunity to promote the workbook with an affiliate program whereby they could earn a 40% commission for each sale. When you sign up to become an affiliate you are given a special code unique to you that enables you to promote the workbook and make $7.98 per sale. The top affiliates earned over $2000 in the first few weeks after launch through these commissions.
Advertisers often prefer affiliate marketing as a way to promote their products because they know they’ll only need to pay for the advertising when there’s a conversion. I knew when I started this affiliate program that while I’d earn less for each sale that having a network of affiliates promoting it would almost certainly increase overall sales levels.
Publishers often prefer affiliate marketing because if they find a product that is relevant to their niche that earnings can go well in excess of any cost per click or cost per impression advertising campaign.

Why Affiliate Marketing Can Work Well on Blogs
Affiliate marketing isn’t the only way to make money from blogs and it won’t suit every blog/blogger (more on this below) but there are a few reasons why it can be profitable in our medium. Perhaps the biggest of these reasons is that affiliate marketing seems to work best when there’s a relationship with trust between the publisher and their readership.
I’ve found that as this trust deepens that readers are more likely to follow the recommendations that a blogger makes.
Of course this can also be a negative with affiliate marketing - promote the wrong product and trust can be broken (more on this below).

Affiliate Marketing - Easy Money?
While affiliate marketing can be incredibly lucrative it is important to know that affiliate marketing is not easy money. Most people who try it make very little as it relies upon numerous factors including:

• traffic (high traffic helps a lot)
• finding relevant products
• finding quality products
• building trust with your readers
• having a readership who is in a ‘buying mood’
• you being able to write good sales copy (and more)

There’s also some risk associated with affiliate marketing in that if you push too hard or promote products of a low quality you can actually burn readers and hurt your reputation and brand.
It’s also worth noting that affiliate marketing doesn’t work on all blogs. Some blogs are on topics where it is hard to find products to promote - other blogs attract audiences who are not in a buying frame of mind and for other blogs it just doesn’t fit with the blogger’s style or approach.

Source: ProBlogger.

The Difference Between Drip Marketing And Closed Loop Marketing

These terms, often used interchangeably, are different approaches to how you nurture your prospects. While they often imply use of email and online marketing, they have been used to improve the success of marketing efforts long before today’s marketing technologies were available. The increase in the terms usage is due to marketer’s ability to better implement these programs, due to email, website monitoring and web analytics, campaign tracking, and campaign optimizing allowing for A/B email and landing page testing.

Drip Marketing:
Marketers use drip marketing to deliver thought leadership and product information to prospects and other contacts that have opted in to receive marketing communications. These marketing messages, often called ‘touches’, are sent on a scheduled basis (daily, weekly, monthly) often using an email marketing system ensuring that the marketer’s company is top of mind when the buyer is ready to purchase. Postcards, brochures, and other offline content can be used as part of a drip campaign, but can be more expensive and more difficult to track.
Marketers who want to get the most out of their drip campaigns will create and deliver them through an automated system which will also allow the marketer to include links to landing pages in their messaging that has been created by the marketer with more relevant content and additional offers increasing the interactions with the contact.
Drip marketing has been shown to increase the effectiveness of email marketing and will help a company reduce spam complaints and increase deliverability as the messages themselves will be expected by the recipient. The results of these campaigns will increase more if marketers personalize the content in the ‘drips’ and/or if the recipient can select the frequency of the interactions.
Metrics used in drip marketing will include email open rates, email click-through (when combined with offers), and opt-out rates. These will be compared the same metrics by others in your industry and to those not in your list that are not included in the drip campaign to compare success. Most importantly, the purchase frequency, amount and time to purchase will be compared between those in the drip campaign and those who are not so the marketer can see the overall results of the drip campaign. ROI will need to be determined for any email or marketing automation tools used for drip campaigns.

Closed Loop Marketing:
Closed loop marketing is more sophisticated than drip marketing. This is because while in drip marketing you are keeping in touch with your contacts on a regular basis, in closed loop marketing you are communicating with your contacts based on their previous actions and based on their place in the buying cycle. Marketer’s literally closes the loop, working in conjunction with sales, providing the right information at the right time, based on prospect’s responses and behaviors until or after final purchase.
In closed loop marketing, marketers are responsible for more than branding and product updates, and need to watch customer reaction to marketing, to ensure their sales funnel does not have any leaks. While this can be done through direct mail, in-person, or through telemarketing, often the most cost effective and least intrusive way for marketers to participate in closed loop marketing is through triggered email campaigns that provide links to thought leadership relevant to the specific prospect. Integrated campaigns can include all these types of marketing, with the key to success being the tracking of each so that there is an understanding of the prospects interest at all times.
A closed loop marketing system helps provides feedback through reporting on each of the steps in the closed loop campaign allowing the marketer to adjust to prospects needs. More sophisticated systems, like marketing automation systems, will allow marketers to also automate triggered responses, customizing the content to each individual without manual segmentation ensuring the most successful closed-loop programs.
While the metrics for drip campaigns will also apply, closed loop marketing campaign analysis will revolve around campaign influence, including the number of touches and types of interactions that are needed to accelerate and increase purchases. Marketers here will look at metrics like campaign deal size by tactic, closed loop effect by segment, and analysis of funnel progression.

Both drip and closed loop marketing are ideal for B2B marketers who need to keep in contact with prospects over long periods of time because of the infrequency of purchase and long buying decisions. Deciding which method to use, or what combination of the two, should ultimately be based on the return you are seeing from implementation of each based on the time and investments necessary for the campaigns themselves. DemandGen has created an excellent free paper about calculating the return on lead nurturing which may be useful if you are trying to decide where to get started in your nurturing campaigns and what impacts these campaigns will make in your marketing programs.

Source: Marketo.
Tags: Drip Marketing, Closed Loop Marketing, ROI, Marketing, Marketo

Google Analytics & Website Optimizer In 60 Seconds

Source: Google Analytics Blog.
Tags: Google, Analytics, Google Analytics, Website, Optimizer, Website Optimizer, Google Website Optimizer, Conversion, Sell

Getting Paid In A Bad Economy

When customers are suffering job loss, housing loss and the rising price of everything,small-business owners need to ensure they still get paid. In a down economy, should entrepreneurs be tougher when accounts become late or past due?

If you’re thinking about being lenient with customers that are past due, be sure to consider that if someone owes you money, they probably owe others money too--whoever takes action first, will get paid first.

Here are a few tips that will help you get paid while the economy is suffering:

1. Get paid at the time of service or if you offer terms,invoice customers on a regular basis and as soon as the work is complete, and make sure your invoices have the due date clearly visible.
2. Change your payment terms, if your terms are net 60 or net 45 change them to net 30 or net 15. You can also offer an early payment discount to anyone who pays early, such as 1 or 2 percent off the bill if they pay within 10 days.
3. Be proactive by calling clients with big accounts or accounts with large balances 10 days before the invoice is due to make sure they have the invoice, they have the correct address to send the check, there are no problems and that the bill is scheduled to be paid.
4. When setting up payment plans, remember that you want as much as you can get as frequently as you can get it.
5. If abusiness owes you money, visit them. If it is a restaurant, go there for lunch; if it is a printing company, get something printed or copied. Every time you walk in they will see you and it reminds them that they owe you money.

Collecting money is like cleaning the bathroom, no one likes to do it but it must get done. If you don’t want to do it, hire someone to do it for you. Getting paid keeps cash flowing, so it is imperative to make sure you are getting paid, and getting paid according to the terms you set for your business.

Taking any or all of these steps will only help you to collect money in the short term but without making changes, such as having a credit policy, or checking credit before extending credit, you will be right back where you started next month.

Michelle Dunnis an award winning author and columnist and has been called the nation’s authority on collecting money. She is the founder and CEO of Michelle Dunn’s Credit & Collections Association, one of the top 5 women in collections, and one of the top 50 most influential collection professionals in the industry.

Source: Entrepreneur.

Technorati Tags: Getting Paid,Bad Economy,Invoice,Business,Entrepreneur

Put Your Business Name To The Test

Your company name should have a common thread that leads to the core of the business. When this isn't taken into consideration often mistakes are made. The same marketing energy that you use to develop your business name needs to flow throughout all integral parts of your business.

Your business name means everything when it comes to marketing your business, it could make or break your business, so do not take this part of planning lightly. A business name automatically contains a marketing element; your job is to choose a name that will help your marketing efforts. It's not as difficult as it sounds, but you do want to spend some time doing it. I've listed some questions below that will get your creative juices flowing and jumpstart your thinking, so that you can begin developing ideas for your business name.

• Write down a description of your target audience.
• What problems does your business help them solve?
• Make a list of words and phrases that appeal to them.
• List three to five benefits that you offer to your customers.
• List out the names of 4 of your competitors.
• Make a list of characteristics that differentiate you from the competition.

Now take these answers and formulate a list of 5 to 7 names. Once you've chosen a name it's time to put it to the test. Visualize your target audience and ask yourself the following questions:

• Can the proposed name be pronounced easily?
• Does it read quickly and clearly?
• Can you say it and others understand it, without having to spell it?
• Is it spelled as it sounds?
• Is it short? Experts recommend that a business name have eleven or less letters and four syllables maximum.
• Does it contain negative internal words?
• Is it unique and sensory? These two traits make words memorable.
• Does it spark interest? Is there a story behind it?
• Does it represent who you are? Is it authentic?
• Does it express or imply a desirable message?
• Can your employees say it proudly?

How did your proposed business name do? Is it a keeper or is it time to go back to the drawing board? Be honest with yourself, in the long run you will be glad you did.

Having a great name is a powerful force when it comes to your marketing campaigns. Your name differentiates you from competitors, makes an emotional connection with your audience, and helps to build a strong brand that your customers recognize and trust.

Source: About Marketing.

In Sales, What Differentiates The Top 5% Players?

As you can imagine, I am often asked by sales leaders, anxious to recruit the best salespeople they can afford, just what is it that makes a consistently top performer, what are their characteristics, where are their strengths, and what differentiates them?

Over the past fifteen years I have trained and developed thousands of sales professionals, from foundation right up to “master craftsman” level and this has given me the opportunity to formulate an accurate profile of a Top 5% Achiever.

So What Is It That Top 5% Players Do?

They:

• Position themselves with the real decision-makers and avoid those without ‘approval power’. They are able to first identify and then access the formal decision making unit.
• Not only get the order but a satisfied customer, repeat sales, enthusiastic reference sites and constantly increase sales penetration within their accounts.
• Know how to minimize the uncertainties of a cold call on a new account, by careful planning and rigorous opportunity assessment.
• Recognize when to treat an old account as a new prospect and keep the relationship fresh, alive and maintain profitability
• Never entertain business they do not want because they recognize that it takes just as long to work an unprofitable opportunity through the sales funnel, only to lose it at the death, as it does a profitable one. They trust their own judgement but also rely heavily on objective assessment.
• Readily identify and know how to deal with the four different buying influences present in every sale i.e. Economic Buyer, Technical Buyer, User Buyer, and Ally.
• Understand how to prevent sales from being sabotaged by an internal enemy. They insulate themselves by developing strong allies within.
• Are able to recognize fail-safe signals that indicate when a sale is in jeopardy. This comes from experience but also information supplied by their allies.
• Are rigorous in tracking account progress and are able to accurately forecast future sales because they use proven methodology, which allows them to weight every opportunity in the pipeline.
• Avoid ‘dry-months’ by allocating time wisely to their critical selling tasks i.e. Prospecting for new business, covering the bases with existing opportunities and finally closing the best few.

In summary, the very best sales performers do not achieve that status overnight. They work tirelessly to develop and hone their skills-sets, insist on regular top-up coaching, and seek out those who are outperforming them, so that they may learn and improve still further. They have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of their industry and sector.

Finally, they concentrate on eliminating any weaknesses and are anxious to be assessed and receive feedback on a regular basis.

Source: All Business.

Technorati Tags: Top 5,5%,Differentiate,Sales,Sales Person,Sales Leaders,Salespeople,All Business

Considering Cutting Your Prices: Think Carefully Before You Do.

With both consumers and companies cutting back on spending, some of your company’s competitors may be cutting their prices to get the business. So what should you do? Many small business owners are wondering, “Is it time to cut my prices too?”

The answer is simply “No”. Do not cut your prices to match a competitors without reducing the level of service or amount of product the customer receives. Reducing your price without making service/product adjustments can send the wrong messages to your customer base.

Lowering your price makes you look in desperate need of business. People want to do business with successful companies, not one that may be on the verge of closing its doors. So the result you hoped for of obtaining more business by cutting your price could easily back-fire and cause customers to go elsewhere. Additionally, if you suddenly lower your prices customers may get the impression that you’ve been gouging them all along. No one appreciates being taken advantage of – particularly a loyal, long-term client.

Keep in mind, the current economic situation isn’t going to last forever. In fact, some economists are saying there are signs that things are starting to pick up again. However, the steps you take today will leave a lasting impression with your customers long after the recession is yesterday’s news.

Emphasize the value proposition you bring to the market and use that to justify your price. Most people don’t mind paying for quality. However, if the economy is significantly reducing the demand for your existing products, such as it is for many discretionary items, then scale back and repackage what you are currently selling and offer it for a lower price. Another option is to create a loyalty or referral program which offers a one-time discount to your customers. It’s a way to lower your price without making it a permanent change.

Remember, it’s much more difficult to go up in price than it is to lower it. Regardless of economic conditions, you should never under-value your product or service. If you aren’t willing to charge what you are worth, then you shouldn’t expect your customers to place much value on your business.

Finally, when the economy turns around, and you are ready to increase your prices to take advantage of the rebound, customers won’t happily accept a price hike. So you’ll be stuck with the lower pricing for a while when you could have been back in the growth mode and on your way to success.

Source: All Business.

Technorati Tags: Price,Cutting Prices,No,Value Propostion,All Business

Open So You Can Close

Why is it that so many salespeople choose to focus on learning new closing skills? I think they’re wasting their time. If you find yourself focusing on how you're going to "close" your customer, you may be making selling harder than it needs to be. When I work with salespeople, what I’ve found is that salespeople who focus on closing instead of opening are looking at the wrong end of the sales process. Here’s what I suggest they do instead.

Get them talking. For every sales professional I work with, we plan our sales call strategy. That strategy includes how you are going to start the sales call and the questions you will be asking. Sure you may make a little small talk before the sales call begins. That’s OK. Then you had better plan your transition into the sales conversation. Why? Schmoozing isn’t selling! The way you get down to business is to plan your opening question. This "Pinball" question is a question that gets your customer to talk about his business. Pinball is an old game where the objective was to keep the ball in play by keeping it moving back and forth. Your question is designed to keep the conversation going back and forth between you and the customer. The Pinball question is an open ended question (cannot be answered by yes or no or a few words) and starts a dialogue with your customer doing most of the talking. By listening to your customer, that’s the only way you’re going to learn about his business and where your products and services fit in to solve problems or address needs.

Continue by asking about issues that your customer might experience that your products can solve. You are wasting your time asking about problems that you cannot solve. Why? Because you can’t sell anything. You want your customers to buy. Knowledge is power. It's your job to find out why they need to buy from you. The way to find out is to ask for this information. That's why questioning and listening skills are so important in selling.

You can never predict with complete accuracy how a sales call will unfold. You still have to prepare a plan for how you want the sales call to flow. You should have a questioning strategy. The questions that you prepare are a general map for gathering the information you need to sell.

Give them only what they need or want. Why is questioning so important? Imagine starting your sales call by talking all about your fabulous product or service. What if there's no match between your products and what your customer wants? You're then forced to convince your customer there really is a need. That's not selling. It's being coercive and manipulative. What if you begin by talking about a feature that is of little use to your customer? Your customer will definitely lose interest and stop listening.

By starting with questions, you begin a dialogue with your customer that allows you to develop a customized presentation that addresses your customer's needs. When you focus on customers and their needs, you will gather the information that you need to sell. You can then determine how to best serve your customer and present your products and services. After you have identified 3 customer needs, you can demonstrate why you are the best choice for your customer. Why risk being perceived as a pushy salesperson? Let your customer perceive you as being a helpful salesperson.

And when you are preparing the questions to ask, remember the last one. It's "When would you like to buy?" That's the only close I know.

Source: All Business.

Technorati Tags: Sales,Selling,Open,Question,Questions,Listen,Close,Alle Business