|
|
|
|
Free
Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Tools: Keyword
Suggest
|
================================================================= | WEB MARKETING EZINE The Human Face of Web Marketing ================================================================= April 25th., 2002 Issue #187 ISSN 1444-2027 Contents -------- 1. Sponsor's Message 2. First Word 3. Tips, Tools, News and Views - ClickBank To Offer Online Checks - Free Business Plan Guide - See You Later, Gator! Hello, RoboForm! - Thanks For The Links - Free Training Course of The Week: - E-Commerce Term Of The Week: 4. A Touch of Humor: Car Phone Safety: Scream Before Impact 5. Classified Ads 6. Free Training Courses 7. Feature Article: An Open Letter To PayPal 8. Our Companion Ezine 9. Administrivia Visit our companion website at http://www.WebMarketingEzine.com Want to read this online? For your convenience, the Current Issue of WME is posted each week at the WME website. Just visit http://www.WebMarketingEzine.com/currentissue.shtml ================================================================= 1. Sponsor's Message ================================================================= Host4Profit- A Website Host That Pays You Back! ----------------------------------------------- -get your own 300 MG website, with 10 Gigs of Transfer (value!) -get 4 Instant Sites that Make You Money (start earning quickly) -get $10 a month on referrals (3 referrals and your site's free!) Visit Us NOW: http://www.webmarketingezine.com/hfp.htm ================================================================= 2. First Word ================================================================= Hi All! Well, two out of three ain't bad. (Hey, what a great title for a song!) Last week, we discussed three things involving our readers. The first was to thank you for helping to push WME into the top 0.5% of trafficked websites. We were measured by Alexa.com as ranking 94,183. In the week since then, we have risen up the rankings to 87,930. Thanks again. The second was to invite WME readers to set up Reciprocal Links with WME. As you can see, our links are getting more valuable by the week! This week, we acknowledge the first five- our pioneers! We'd like to link with YOU, too. So two out of three. We also invited WME readers to visit Alexa http://info.alexa.com/data/details/write_review?url= webmarketingezine.com/links.shtml and write a review of our site. We'll still acknowledge the first 5 to write a review. In helping WME, you'll help yourself with another link to your site! Till next week, have a good one! John Thought For the Week: "Learn and grow all you can; serve and befriend all you can; enrich and inspire all you can." - William Arthur Ward ================================================================= 3. Tips, Tools, News and Views ================================================================= ClickBank To Offer Online Checks -------------------------------- ClickBank is an excellent service. For those who want to buy products online, the ClickBank service is easy to use. For merchants, CliickBank offers a number of benefits. The first is to provide merchants with a method of accepting credit cards. The second is to offer merchants the ability to sell their products through ClickBank's many affiliates. It's an Affiliate Program for those who don't want to go to the trouble and expense of running their own. During May 2002, ClickBank will add a very useful feature to their lineup- an Online Check service. This is the announcement from their lates bulletin. "Offering your customers multiple payment options is good business. Most online consumers pay by credit card; however, even in today’s credit-based economy many consumers prefer to pay by check. With ClickBank Online Checks, sellers have an opportunity to capture this market, and potentially increase sales by as much as twenty percent or more! Our check processing is reliable and secure, and you will have access to all of the same powerful reporting tools and customer service you have come to expect from ClickBank! For more information in regards to ClickBank's services, visit: http://www.webmarketingezine.com/cgi-bin/a/t.cgi?cb (Disclosure: I am a Clickbank Affiliate) Free Business Plan Guide ------------------------ I've got a new 'day job' as General Manager of a company that has developed and sells a wonderful waste water treatment system based on Nature's own methods. It's not a field that I have worked in before, but many of the business skills, tools and methods I have built up over the years are just as applicable as anywhere else. One of the fundamentals never changes- the need for a good business plan. As the old saying goes, "If you're failing to plan, then you're planning to fail." My desire to put together a good quality business plan led me to my old friend Google, and a search for good online resources. Two that I've mentioned before are http://www.bplans.com and http://www.planware.org Both provide free information, a limited free business plan 'wizard', and good products for sale. What I was looking for, was a good template, or failing that, a good outline or table of contents for a model business plan. I could then compare them with real plans I had written, and a couple of assignments I had done for university. Just checking to see if I could improve on what I had done previously. After a little bit of effort, I was pleased to find a very useful site, http://www.business-plan-guide.biz The site is connected with planware.org, and is a really useful resource. One useful tool is the 31-point Checklist. This lists important points you need to check before, during and after completion of your plan. What I found truly excellent, was the Guide for which the site was named. I'll leave you to read through the Guide for yourself, but if you're new to business plans, start at http://www.business-plan-guide.biz/gcontents.htm where you'll find the 'Contents of Plan'. This includes the 'skeleton' of a business plan as good as any I've seen. You'll get a 'table of contents' for an excellent plan on one page, with links to more detail on each area. Putting together a business plan is definitely an educational exercise. You'll learn a lot about your business, your competitors, yourself. I recommend it. Sponsor---------------------------------------------------------- Attract More Users and Keep Them There. Every site needs fresh content, it's the reason your users will keep coming back, but it requires a lot of time and money to keep it up to date. Offer your visitors News before it's News. http://www.solonews.com/syndicate.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- See You Later, Gator!, Hello, RoboForm! --------------------------------------- Gator had a good idea. Give people a way of storing all their passwords in one place, and filling in forms. The benefit was easy web surfing; the cost was nothing; the price was tracking of your shopping habits. That made some people uneasy. In the early days of Gator, WME occasionally advertised the service. As we became more concerned about possible problems, we dropped ads for them. Gator then truly crossed the line. They started a system that placed advertising on people's websites, covering THEIR advertising, obviously without their permission! To me personally, that's not only an infringement of copyright, it amounts to a form of theft. Gator was taking advertising revenue away from the people who worked hard to build a site, often charging their vistors nothing. Not nice. Now, you can have the benefits of Gator, without the downside, with AI RoboForm. They even provide a 'Gator Converter'! AI RoboForm is a convenient web form filler and password manager, with some interesting Artificial Intelligence (AI) inside. It works as an add-on to Microsoft Internet Explorer ver 4 or later, all browsers based on IE, and Netscape 6. That covers MOST web surfers, but not all. AI RoboForm is a useful tool, and an easy (and free!) download. To learn more, or download a copy, visit http://roboform.com Thanks For The Links -------------------- Last week, I promised that we'd acknowledge the first five websites to use our Reciprocal Links page to link with WME. I'm happy to be able to thank the following sites. Boogie Jack's Web Depot at http://www.boogiejack.com/ Canadians' Internet International at http://www.canadiansinternet.com/ Einfonews at http://www.einfonews.com/ VirtualHelpCenter at http://www.virtualhelpcenter.com/ and Web Marketing Unlimited at http://www.webmarketingunlimited.com/newsletter.html If you'd like to set up reciprocal links with WME, just visit http://www.webmarketingezine.com/links.shtml You'll even find a link to set up your OWN automated Reciprocal Links system, courtesy of Boogie Jack's and Willmaster. Sponsor---------------------------------------------------------- Want to increase your Web Site Traffic? WebPosition Gold makes it easy to monitor your search positions & to improve your rankings! Don't be buried in last place, move up to first place! For a free download, just visit http://www.webmarketingezine.com/wpg.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- Free Training Course of The Week: MCSE Networking Essentials ------------------------------------------------------------ Sure, this one's not for everyone! However, if you're interested in IT, and want to learn more about Networking, you'll really enjoy this free ITtutor MCSE Networking Essentials course. To learn more about this, and many other free training courses, visit out Free Training Courses page at http://www.webmarketingezine.com/freetrainingcourses.shtml E-Commerce Term Of The Week: Scumware ------------------------------------- Products that alter web pages without the knowledge or consent of the web site's owner. -Source: http://www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/ ================================================================= 4. A Touch of Humor ================================================================= Car Phone Safety: Scream "Aahh!" Before Impact ---------------------------------------------- Cell Phone Industry Group Launches Public Service Campaign NEW YORK, N.Y. (SatireWire.com) — Under pressure to do something about car accidents involving cell phones, the industry-backed Cell Phone Safety Council today launched a public service campaign urging users to "scream like hell" before impact, thereby alerting callers on the other end that there is some kind of trouble. "It's ironic, but people who can talk forever on a cell phone suddenly come up mute when they're about to get into a collision" said CPSC spokesman Donald Lufrette. "They just get hit, and the caller on the other end doesn't know what happened." Therefore, the safety council suggests users scream "Aahhh!" or "Oh God!" or, if there are no children present, "Shit!" just before impact. A proper scream, Lufrette insisted, can save your life, as the person on the other end of the call can then phone authorities. As an added advantage, a good caterwaul also cuts down on the wasted airtime that inevitably follows a crash as the phone, still connected, sits amid shards of broken glass on the hood of the car. A wise caller, realizing your predicament, will know to hang up right away. "Your hospital bills are going to be bad enough," Lufrette remarked. "The last thing you want is a big fat cell phone bill on top of it.". Sally Anne Rimes, a cell phone user in Garden City, N.J., said she welcomes the public service campaign. "It's very annoying when suddenly the other person isn't talking and you don't know what happened," said Rimes. "You're just sitting there going, 'Hello? Hello?'" Rimes said three of her friends have been in accidents while speaking on cell phones, but only one of them had the sense to scream first. "It was so thoughtful of him to yell. I was like, 'Oh my God! Look, call me back when you're free,' and I hung up. I saved his widow a ton of money." - Source: http://www.satirewire.com/news/0007/satire-cellsafety.shtml ================================================================= 5. Classified Ads ================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ezine Advertising WORKS! Showcase your ad. in "The Human Face of Web Marketing", at just $20 for four insertions. Just go to http://www.webmarketingezine.com/advertise.shtml ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- How Much Is One Good Sales Letter Worth To Your Business? http://www.webmarketingezine.com/isl.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- Make Your Site Sell- The Most Important Free Download You'll Make http://www.webmarketingezine.com/myss.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- FREE five lesson class shows you how to improve the your results http://www.webmarketingezine.com/lct.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- WOMEN! THIS LIST IS FOR YOU! THE BALANCED WOMAN! Send a blank email to mailto:[email protected] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Read about your business's future at: http://www.webmarketingezine.com/ezm.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- Improve Your Search Positions-Get your FREE WebPosition Software http://www.webmarketingezine.com/wpg.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- Earn Advertising Income From Your Website Or Mailing List! http://www.webmarketingezine.com/onres.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- Article Announce - The Free Writer & Publisher Connection Subscribe: mailto:[email protected] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Your own infoproduct? Take the FREE InfoProduct Masters course! Just send a blank e-mail to mailto:[email protected] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Serious about writing that book? Look at this site! http://www.writeabooknow.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Become a high-earning Affiliate-take The Affiliate Masters course Send a blank e-mail to mailto:[email protected] ----------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= 6. Free Training Courses ================================================================= Increase your knowledge; hone your skills; improve your results! Take advantage of some of the finest FREE training courses on the Web by visiting our Free Training Course listing at; http://www.webmarketingezine.com/freetrainingcourses.shtml ================================================================= 7. Feature Article ================================================================= An Open Letter To PayPal ------------------------ by John Payne Background: On March 1st., I took out a monthly subscription with an individual selling reprint rights for eBooks. There was no committement beyond that one month. My PayPal account was charged with $97. On March 15th, I emailed the individual, advising him that I wished to cancel the subscription. I would normally expect that a honorable individual would act on the written request. Wrong. On April 1st., my PayPal account was charged with $97. I contacted the individual, suggested it was a mistake, and politely asked for a refund. I would normally expect that an honorable individual would act on that request. Wrong. The correspondence that followed was so unbelievable that no soap opera would dream it up. I'm considering publishing an eBook that simply contains the emails that passed between us over this issue, and many others. It would be a great 'wake-up call' for the Web Marketing industry, and anyone who deals with it. Anyhow, the end result was that the individual hung onto my money. So! The next move was to contact PayPal regarding the fraudulent behavior of their Merchant. I would normally expect that an honorable company would act on that request. Wrong. A complaint was lodged with PayPal, with great difficulty. The response was a form email, which advised me that they wouldn't act. I wrote back, asking to speak to a Supervisor. Here is their response to my email, and my response to PayPal. "Dear John, Thank you for contacting PayPal. Although we are unable to give you specific information about the seller's account, we wanted you to know that the seller's claim that you adversely affected his account is incorrect. Our records that your claim was concerning the cancellation of a subscription. According to our Buyer Complaint Policy, this situation is not covered under that policy. Therefore, the seller received a courtesy email concerning your claim and your claim was closed. No further investigation into this dispute will be conducted. We value your business and regret that you have has this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, we recommend that you read our Buyer Complaint Policy located on our website at: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/terms-outside# consumer_protection Sincerely, Sharon Complaint Resolution Department" My Response: "Sharon, Thank you for the human reply. Could you please convey this message to Senior Management from someone who has been in Sales and Marketing for 40 years? Your Consumer Protection Policy and Buyer Complaint Policy is so severely limited, that you should either update the Policies, or appropriately rename them. Under the Policies; - If I knowingly pay a PayPal merchant for a $1000 computer, and they fail to deliver it, I can claim, and PayPal will act. - If I knowingly pay the same merchant $1000 for software, and they fail to deliver it electronically, I can't claim, and PayPal won't act. - If the merchant charges me for anything, without authority, I can't claim, and PayPal won't act. To date, I've been proud to be a (small) PayPal Merchant. I've believed that you were the best option for merchants, and I've been happy to recommend your company. It is now obvious that PayPal's use of the words 'Consumer Protection' is pretty hollow, and that your system is unduly permissive of dishonest and fraudulent behavior by your merchants that conveniently falls outside your narrow definition of "protection". I'm saddened that your company allows this to happen, and that it's cost me $97. I'll never see my $97 again, thanks to PayPal. I can only hope that your company really intends to protect consumers, and that it amends it's policies to reflect reality in the future. It's nice to know "We value your business and regret that you have has this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, we recommend that you read our Buyer Complaint Policy located on our website at: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/terms-outside# consumer_protection " Unfortunately, with your Policy the way it is, the only way I can "avoid similar experiences in the future" is to refuse to deal with PayPal merchants! Under your Policies, any PayPal Merchant who has my account details, can charge me for anything he likes, and as long as he delivers it, I can't claim redress through PayPal. That's a joke! The irony is, I'M a PayPal Merchant, selling my advertising through you. That means my clients have no protection from PayPal against any fraudulent behavior on my part. That means they have less confidence in dealing with me. That affects sales. That will even affect you commissions! Consumers should be entitled to expect more protection from PayPal. I wish they had it. For all that it matters, this letter will be published in next week's issue of my magazine. My $97 is gone, but the principle remains. We need more principle in Web Marketing. I sincerely hope that PayPal tries to find it. John" The message is very clear. Be very careful when you deal with a PayPal Merchant. In all but one situation, their Consumer Protection Policy gives you no protection. ================================================================= 8. Our Companion Ezine: A Better Life:ItsYourFuture! ================================================================= ======================= ITS YOUR FUTURE! ======================== Enjoy Humor, Inspiration, Romance, Fitness, Nutrition & Personal Finance- all aimed at helping YOU to take control of YOUR future! Subscribe FREE by sending a blank email to: mailto:[email protected] =========== BE HAPPY BE HEALTHY LIVE LONG & PROSPER =========== ================================================================= 9. Administrivia ================================================================= Website: -------- http://www.WebMarketingEzine.com Contact Information: -------------------- to subscribe: mailto:[email protected] to unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected] Note: This is an Ezine. So sorry, NO postings are accepted contact John Payne: [email protected] NO SPAM PLEASE Advertising Information: ------------------------ Please go to: http://www.webmarketingezine.com/advertise.shtml Disclaimer: ----------- This publication was designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter. Subscribers are sent this free weekly e-zine with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other professional assistance is required, we advise seeking the services of a competent professional. John Payne does not accept any responsibility for any liabilities resulting from any claims in articles or advertisements published in WME, or the actions of the parties involved. This publication is for informational purposes only. Copyright: ---------- © Copyright 2000-2002 John Payne All rights reserved. Web Marketing Ezine may only be redistributed in its unedited form. You are welcome to forward it to as many people as you like, with our thanks. Written permission must be obtained to reprint or quote original material published in Web Marketing Ezine. ----------------------------------------------------------------- This e-zine is a member of Ezine PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION Join Free At: http://www.EzinePublisher.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= Web Marketing Ezine is published by John Payne =================================================================
|
|
|
Web Marketing Home Current Issue Back Issues Our Mission Free Training Advertise in Web Marketing Web Marketing Articles Privacy Our Friends Web Marketing Canberra Add URL Typo Index Contact Us Canberra Business Discount Cigars Online Environmentally Friendly Products©WebMarketingEzine.com
2000-2015 |
