Edit Your Website Photos Online

Need help editing your images for your website? Photos coming up to big? Not a Photoshop Pro? There is a solution, www.Picnik.com offers a free online photo editing application that provides many useful tools for editing photos for your websites without registration! You can also upgrade to Premium for more available features. This is the easiest solution we have found for editing your pictures. It works on Mac and PC, let’s you re-size the images, upload from social networking sites, change colors, adjsut brightness, saturation, rotate, flip, format your files and many more!!! If you are looking for an easy photo editor Picnik is definitely the best bet!!!

Some of the options offered:
• Fix your photos in just one click
• Use advanced controls to fine-tune your results
• Crop, re-size, and rotate in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Astoundingly fast, right in your browser
• Awesome fonts and top-quality type tool
• Basketfuls of shapes from hand-picked designers
• Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
• No download required, nothing to install

PPC ADVERTISING

PPC Advertising: Use Dynamically Generated Ad Text, Relevant Landing Pages

February 19, 2009 · by Greg Laptevsky

 

When it comes to pay-per-click advertising campaigns, the most important tools are targeted keywords and relevant landing pages. For targeted keywords, it is possible to develop dynamically inserted keywords simply by monitoring search activity on your site and in your ad campaigns.

Identify Targeted Keywords

Below are some practical tips to help you discover the key phrases consumers are typing into search boxes, and how that knowledge can be used to your advantage.

Here are some suggestions to help develop dynamic keywords:

• Create separate campaigns for product groups; ad groups within each campaign would represent actual products or product types/models
• Take advantage of the “search” function on your ecommerce site. Talk to your developers to see how you can dynamically pass pay-per-click keywords through the search function of your site, so that users will always see dynamically generated results as generated by your site’s internal search function

Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Dynamic keyword insertion allows you to insert the user’s actual, or close to actual, search query into the text of your pay-per-click ad. This is because search engines match users’ queries to the closest keyword on your list. You end up with an ad that very closely resembles the actual keyword phrase the user typed in, which attracts more user attention on the search results page. This will likely increase sales from your pay-per-click ad, as follows:

1. More attention = higher click through rate
2. Higher click through rate = higher Quality Score
3. Higher Quality Score = cheaper clicks
4. Cheaper clicks = more clicks for a given budget, which leads to more sales.

Be careful, though. You do want to improve your click through rate, but you also want quality clicks. Keep an eye on ads with dynamic keyword insertion to make sure they are converting users at the same or better rate.

The key is to supply the customer with immediate gratification. All the talk about relevant search engine results and “quality” ratings comes down to just that. Test the strategies outlined above and you’re like to see promising improvements in the performance of your PPC ads.

Proper Landing Pages

Always make sure you’re sending people to the most relevant page of your site. Remember, your home page is not usually the most relevant page. If someone is searching for “widget 123” and you happen to sell it, be sure to send that person to the “widget 123” page.

 

ECOMMERCE MERCHANTS

http://community.ecmta.org/blogs/

Here is a ecommerce blog by ecommerce merchants trade assoc. I sent everyone a copy today.

sign up for ecommerce newsletter http://www.ecmta.org/content/index.cfm?page=benefits

Custom 404 page

I don’t know about you but I did not have this for my site.  A custom or redirected error page.  This is important for us to do.  Just one of those little thinks that you don’t think about.  Since we are not a big ecommerce business we miss some of these little details.  I see that Pat has his redirected back to his home page and I see that Scott just gives an error page.   I read an article this weekend that said most customers will just leave your site if they get page not found, if you have a custom error page that helps them find what they are looking for or takes them back to another page on you site, you stand a chance to get the sale.

How does Your website measure up?

I’ve come across several free services that offer some great info about evaluating your own websites.

Starting with my most recent finds:

Website.Grader.com does a very good SEO evaluation of your sites and offers suggestions for improvements and links to directories. You need to set up an account before using it and opt-out of most of the emails. I will give this site 4.5/5 stars.

ZoomInfo.comis a new directory that is free. Gets more links pointing to your site…good for SEO. I give it a 5/5 stars for ease of use.

Alexa.com has some info that you may find valuable. 3/5 stars.

Market Leap’s Link Popularity Checkeris pretty cool. Compare competition and gain valuable insight. 4/5 stars.

Quantcast.com has very detailed information about your website and it’s visitors. Covers Traffic, Geographics, Demographics, Business and Lifestyles of your visitors. I highly recommend using this service. 5/5 stars.

SelfGrowth.com   The best way to describe SelfGrowth.com is as a Matching or Connecting Service for People who Want to Improve their Health, their Finances, their Relationships and their Happiness.
 
We help Connect people who want to improve their lives with information, experts, products and services that can teach or show them how to do it. We do it with a large expert directory, through articles, products, a web directory, a discussion board, live chat, blogs, and much much more.

Great place to get motivated and focused. 5/5 stars.

Please comment or add more suggestions.