Did you know? 61 percent of respondents say they are more likely to purchase because of Live Chat. A Bold Software study reports that the top factor for a successful live chat is the product/ service knowledge of the agent. Moreover, the time is now to implement Live Chat into your ecommerce website and get ahead of your competition.

Google tags costs $25 a month, kind of steep for a little yellow tag (see above.) The question is, will Tags allow you to make more than $25 a month. If so, then Tags is worth your investment. If not, it is probably not a good idea.

How do you know if you will bring in more than $25 a month from Tags? This depends on your business. For example, say you sell sandwiches. If you give a 10% off coupon through tags, and you spend $25 a month, you will need to sell at least $25 worth of discounted sandwiches to break even. If your sandwiches are around $5, then you will need to sell at least five sandwiches throughout the month, solely from Tags to break even.

Other businesses may fare better. For example, say you paint houses. If you give a %10 off coupon on Tags, and you normally charge around $1000 for an average house, then you will make a profit. The cost of Tags and the cost of the discount still means you are getting $875 for that sales, and then minus the labor, supplies, etc, you will still be making a profit.

Tags is a great opportunity for businesses to get more visibility in Google Maps, but this alone will not get you more sales. You should have an appealing product/service, and having a website that sells will also help greatly. I would recommend you try the Tags free 14 day trial, and see if you get a response. If so, keep using the service and refining your methods. If not, then you will really have to think if Tags fits into your business objectives, and if you are selling effectively.

More consumers are using mobile devices for the holidays to find deals. According to Deloitte LLC, nearly one in five consumers are expected to use their mobile phones to assist with holiday spending. 55% of consumers planned to find store locations, 45% research prices, 40% find product information, 32% get discounts and coupons while 31% read reviews. More importantly, one in four shoppers expected to make a purchase with a mobile phone. Furthermore, the time time is now to start utilizing mobile ads in your marketing program.

Submitting your web site is a last option because you were unable to get links to your web site or your web site was blocked by the spiders. If you have to submit your web site, only submit your home page. A site map allows spiders to find everything. Many times individuals submit their sites over and over without checking to see if the spiders blocked their site.

You may receive unsolicited e-mails offering to submit your web site to thousands of search engines. These emails reference some statistics of millions of visitors that this will generate by submitting to thousands of search engines. Always avoid automated submissions. These automated submissions are considered spam and your web site can be banned for excessive submissions.

Watch Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp founder explain News Corp Sites May Be Removed From Google click www.youtube.com/watch?v=sewucH3rOPM

This can be monumental if approved. This can lead to other media companies following News Corp’s path. Bing could leverage content access rights to challenge Google.

In the late 90s, hits had no meaning at all. Pages were a more complex combination of multiple text and image files, therefore the hit metric was unable to tell you how many actual pages were viewed.

While the volume of hits is an indicator of Web server traffic, it is not an accurate reflection of how many pages are being looked at. Each time you type in your web address, the browser hits the website’s server for the document. The server sends the web page to the browser. Once the browser begins to display the information, it continues to hit the server for any additional elements needed. For example, a logo will represent one hit as the server returns that image to your browser. Because of how hits are measured, this number is inflated and different from page views or visitor counts. More images in a website leads to a greater number of hits being recorded.

If you are still having difficulties following the steps above try to estimate them.

Ask the customers when they buy if they used your web site prior to buying.
If your company uses warranty cards, update your warranty cards that asks about the use of your web site.
Add a question to a survey. Your business may regularly send surveys to your customers. Add a question regarding whether customers used your web site prior to their last purchase.

You can use estimates to perform trend analysis checking ups and downs from month to month. Furthermore, you can also implement systems which accurately track sales.

Email marketing is trackable and cost effective. It is more result oriented for performance. Look at your web statistics when you do an email marketing campaign. This will show an increase in traffic on your web site. There is email marketing software that track whether your email is opened such as E-listmail Click here for e-listmail.

E-mail allows an opportunity to connect to your customers and prospects. There is a limitation if email does not engage in results or users unsubscribe.

Three methods to increase the chance of success in email marketing include:

1. Personalization
2. Branding
3. Call to Action
Click here to watch a video on email marketing

The time is now to utilize email marketing to increase branding and results.

A program advertisers should use is YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. It allows Internet users to able to create their own accounts and channels with profiles and plenty of favorite videos. Anyone who goes to the site can view the videos that are posted on this site. Youtube Channel offers fans a brand platform to comment and share their opinions of the products.

Here is a video smallbiztrends.com/2009/08/youtube-small-businesses.html that demonstrates how to use YouTube.

Youtube also allows businesses to show off their products. It offers high visibility for their brands to connect to consumers. The Nielsen Company reports that YouTube reached 87.7 million unique visitors a 22% year over year jump in June. In addition, it is a great way to increase brand awareness by natural search, which allows for videos to be picked on search results with site links, images, videos, and news links.

Polls (surveys) are a well known, effective way of measuring information/opinions. More formally known as opinion polls, polls ask various groups of people questions related to a certain topic. In the past, polls were only done through mail or telephone, however the power of the internet has brought new methods of polling as well as new types of polling altogether.

A poll using the internet is known as an online poll. Here are some of the many advantages to using a poll to capture opinion, especially an online one:

1. Information is Provided Directly by the User
   Because the user interacts directly with the poll, there is no need for a middleman. This reduces costs, and ensures that the data is as close to accurate as possible.
2. Cost
   The cost of an online polling system is extremely low in comparison to a phone based or mail based polling system. This is because there is not a high requirement for employees to complete tasks such as recording information, compiling information, etc, because it can all be complete by a computer.
3. Size
   The size of an online poll can be as large, or as small, as you want it. The survey will only run however long you want it to collect data.
4. Sampling
   Online surveys allow you to target the survey to whichever demographic you see fit. Here is an example, someone may fill out some preliminary information, such as their age or location, and then the software will determine if their answers match the demographic you are looking for.
5. Results
   Survey software is automatically able to compile & analyze the results, both while the survey is running and when it is finished. Because the analysis is done by a computer, there is no need for a statistician to analyze the results for you, so you save both time & money.
6. Incentive
   Many times you can offer an incentive to a user for completing a survey, such as being entered into a drawing to win a coupon, gift card, etc, which gives a better chance of people giving information.
7. Speed/Timing
   Because computer transactions are instant, you are able to see instantly the results of a survey, as well as the exact time the survey was filled out. Also, the creation and use of surveys is extremely short when they are online.

Now that you know some of the benefits to online surveys/polls, here are some of the companies that provide online surveys:

• Survey Monkey
• SurveyGizmo
• PollDaddy

Go to one of these sites, sign up, and then create your first survey and spread the link. Some sites will spread the link for you. If you aren’t sure of the best way to create and manage a survey, let a company like RP Design do it for you.