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Avoid a Summer Sales Slump
by: Marty Dickinson
By Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com

Did you ever see the movie "Terminator 3" by Arnold Schwarzenegger? Remember when the machines took over the controls and began to terminate society as we know it?

This is exactly how it feels every Summer for many business owners.

As if your computer somehow sneaks in during the middle of the night and takes over by putting a "Closed for the Summer"
sign on your business.

You wake up on July 1 wondering where all the customers are.

My business is no different.

I've just learned to expect it every year and I do something about it before I can be sabotaged.

So, when the beginning of June comes around, I start ramping up for the Summer months to keep business steady and even on the increase.

And, here's what I do:

1) Find something in your industry that's timely and write an article about it. I'm doing just that with this article as an example. The fact that sales slump for more small business owners in the Summer than any other 2-month time of the year is timely since July is right around the corner.

The article doesn't need to be extensive, maybe 600-800 words, and write as if you're just talking to a friend sitting next to you.

2) Create a signature line at the end of your article that invites readers to visit your web site. Use mine below as an example to write your own.

3) Send your article to your clients or customers by e-mail or even regular USPS. They will appreciate hearing from you
and they will be thankful for the timely courtesy.

Plus, any time you can get your name in front of an existing customer, you stand a chance of getting additional business
just by simply reminding them you're still around.

4) Get your article posted on other peoples' web sites and in their on-line newsletters. This might sound like "old hat" if you've been doing business on-line for a while, but the fact is that people still turn to the Internet to find information.

5) Submit your article to other peoples' BLOGs. BLOGs are easy to find because web site owners are always adding them to the front page of their sites so that you can't miss them.

The challenge of owning a BLOG is contributing to it every day. It's easy to do for the first couple of weeks but then that dedication slips.

So, approach a BLOGger with your article and suggest they include it to their BLOG if they ever get in a bind and can't make a posting of their own one day. Chances are, you'll see your article posted within the week!

6) Submit your article to RSS feeds. RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication," which essentially means you add your article to the list once and it will appear on potentially hundreds of other peoples' web sites. Search Google or "rss articles submission" to get you started.

7) Have something ready on your web site to inspire any new visitors to get more involved with your business. I'm not saying put the hard sell on them. Just offer some way for them to discover more about how you can help them.

Provide more articles for them to read. Maybe add a sound file or two. Have a newsletter subscription area. Offer a free tele-seminar or webinar. Be creative but captivating. Have a definite answer to the question, "How can my new web site visitors benefit from being on my web site for another
couple of minutes?"

Follow these seven steps and there's a good chance you will not only increase your web site visitors with targeted traffic, but that visitation could happen more quickly than you might
expect.

So, don't allow your potential sales for this year's Summer months to be "terminated" before they even have a chance to happen.

Take action this week and July and August could turn out to be two of your best sales months yet.

About the author:
Marty Dickinson started the company HereNextYear in 1996 and has helped hundreds of small business owners to use the Internet to increase sales through web site design and on-line promotion. He is also a national speaker and author of the book, "Winning the Internet Dogfight." Visit www.herenextyear.comfor more timely tips by Marty.


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 Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
 by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.


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