Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Lizbon is One of the Major Economic Center on the Continent

We can imagine how Lisbon takes a place in the economy with a short collection of Lisbon
Lisbon
is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 547,631. The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million, making it the 9th most populous urban area in the European Union. About 2,831,000 people live in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (which represents approximately 27% of the population of the country). Lisbon is the westernmost large city located in Europe, as well as its westernmost capital city and the only one along the Atlantic coast.
Lisbon is recognised as a global city because of its importance in finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, education, and tourism. It is one of the major economic centres on the continent, with a growing financial sector and the largest/second largest container port on Europe's Atlantic coast. Lisbon Portela Airport serves about 13 million passengers per year. Lisbon is the 25th most livable city in the World according to lifestyle magazine Monocle. The city is the seventh-most-visited city in Southern Europe, after Istanbul, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, and Milan, with 1,740,000 tourists in 2009. The Lisbon region is the wealthiest region in Portugal, GDP PPP per capita is 26,100 euros (4.7% higher than the average European Union's GDP PPP per capita). It is the tenth richest metropolitan area by GDP on the continent amounting to 98 billion euros and thus €34,850 per capita, 40% higher than the average European Union's GDP per capita. The city occupies 32nd place of highest gross earnings in the world. Most of the headquarters of multinationals in the country are located in the Lisbon area and it is the ninth city in the world in terms of quantity of international conferences. It is also the political centre of the country, as seat of Government and residence of the Head of State. The seat of the district of Lisbon and the centre of the Lisbon region.
Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world, predating other modern European capitals such as London, Paris and Rome by hundreds of years. Julius Caesar made it a municipium called Felicitas Julia, adding to the name Olissipo.
Lisbon hosts two agencies of the European Union: the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). Called the "Capital of the Lusophone world", the Community of Portuguese Language Countries has its headquarters in the city, in the Palace of the Counts of Penafiel.
Lisbon has two sites listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site: Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery. Furthermore, in 1994, Lisbon was the European Capital of Culture and in 1998 organised an Expo '98 (1998 Lisbon World Exposition).
 wikipedia

Monday, July 30, 2012

Glance At Michael G. Rubin's Success Story

Michael G. Rubin, renowned Internet entrepreneur, recently founded Kynetic, a private company singularly-focused on building consumer Internet businesses. Kynetic includes three brands at the forefront of innovation in the online commerce space: Fanatics, the world’s leading online retailer of licensed sports merchandise, Rue La La, a leading online private sale destination in the U.S., and ShopRunner, an innovative members-only service which aggregates shopping benefits from the top retailers and brands. Kynetic expects more than $1 billion in revenue in 2012, immediately making it one of the largest private tech companies in the world.

Prior to Kynetic, Rubin was Founder and CEO of GSI Commerce, which was acquired by eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011. Over the past 12 years, Rubin built GSI into a formidable global network of e-commerce, multi-channel and digital marketing businesses servicing 150 of the top 500 Internet retailers and, in totality, over 2,000 customers, including Toys”R”Us, Dell, Polo Ralph Lauren, Estée Lauder, Aéropostale, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bath & Body Works and PetSmart. Rubin pioneered an innovative pay-for-performance business model that fueled GSI’s organic sales growth, which he then complemented in recent years with 11 strategic acquisitions. GSI became one of the largest publicly-traded Internet companies, facilitating billions of dollars of merchandise sales for its customers, with 2010 revenues of $1.4 billion and 5,000+ employees. As part of the transaction, eBay divested certain assets to Kynetic, specifically all of GSI’s online licensed sports merchandise business (Fanatics) and 70% ownership in Rue La La and ShopRunner.

Rubin began his entrepreneurial career in 1985, when he opened a ski-tuning shop in his parents’ basement at the age of 12. He earned $25,000, which was sufficient to rent space in a strip mall for “Mike’s Ski Shop.” By the time he was 14, he had racked up sales of $125,000. Within a year of graduating high school, Rubin had opened several retail ski stores in Pennsylvania and New York. He went on to found KPR Sports, a leading distributor of off-price sporting goods and footwear. In 1997, he merged KPR Sports with publicly-traded Ryka, a branded athletic footwear company he controlled, to form Global Sports Inc. (GSI). The following year, Global Sports generated sales exceeding $100 million and, at age 25, Rubin became one of the youngest CEOs of a NASDAQ-listed company in the exchange’s history. The success of GSI Commerce and Rubin’s outstanding achievements landed him a spot on the inaugural season of CBS’ hit show “Undercover Boss,” as well as recognition in numerous media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, The New York Times, BusinessWeek and People. Forbes named him one of 2010’s “15 Most Powerful CEOs 40 and Under.” In 2011, Rubin was part of the ownership group that purchased the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers.


Friday, June 1, 2012

10 Things Great Bosses Do

Even after 100,000 years of natural selection, the human race has evolved to the point where our organizations are nearly as effective as a colony of ants with defective antennas. That's right, we still have a long way to go. Sobering thought, I know.
And yet, for all the Yahoos, HPs, RIMs, Sprints, Sonys, Kodaks, Nokias, Bank of Americas, and all the executives that turned these once-great brands into laughing stocks, there's still the occasional Apple or IBM to give us hope.
It may be an imperfect world, but there are still managers who more or less know what they're doing -- after they've had their morning coffee. Here's my take on what high-performance managers do -- or are at least supposed to do -- to motivate their teams and deliver results:
- Help the company achieve its strategic and operating goals by making smart business decisions and managing their team effectively.
- Entrust their employees with as much responsibility as their capabilities will allow and hold them accountable for the same.
- Behave like a mature adult -- genuine and empathetic -- even when their employees or their management are acting out like spoiled children.
- Provide their employees with the tools, training, and support they need to effectively achieve challenging but reasonably attainable goals.
- Promote a can-do, customer service attitude with customers and stakeholders by walking the talk and leading by example.
- Promote their team's accomplishments and take the heat for their failures.
- Provide genuine feedback, both good and bad, to their employees, peers, and management. Request the same from them.
- Work their tail off and be hands-on when necessary. If they don't, they can't expect anybody else to do it either.
- Don't compromise their ethical principles in the name of "the ends justify the means" or for any other reason.
- Strike a balance between shielding their folks from the ripples of dysfunctional management and openly communicating events that may affect them.
Overall, the best managers create a work environment where people feel challenged, do their best, and are held accountable for meeting their commitments. But most importantly, they're key components in an organization that exists to serve its customers and shareholders. We're all happiest working for a successful company.

Google+ Adds New Local Listings Tab for Businesses

Google's fast-growing, if only still nascent, social network Google+ has rolled out a new tab dedicated to providing information on local businesses. Located on the right-hand side of the Google+ page, Google+ Local allows users to search for businesses that are nearby, read reviews and find them using Google Maps.
For instance, if you search for "cheeseburgers" on Google+ Local, it will generate a list of restaurants near your location that serve cheeseburgers. If you click on one of the listings, you'll be taken to a local Google+ page that includes photos, reviews from people in your Google+ Circles and other information such as address and opening hours from the company's Google Places for Business listing.
Google Adds New Local Listings Page for Businesses
For business owners, this means that a company's information on its Google Places for Business listing will now be available to users across Google search, maps, mobile and now Google+. It can be even more important now for business owners to verify their basic listing data, make updates, add photos and respond to customer reviews.

Related: What You Need to Know About the New Google+ Design 
Additionally, Google has integrated a business's Zagat score into its Google+ Local listings. Google purchased the popular business survey rating service last fall for more than $150 million.
"For example, a restaurant that has great food but not great decor might be 4 stars, but with Zagat you'd see a [score of] 26 in Food and an 8 in Decor, and know that it might not be the best place for date night," Google product management director Avni Shah wrote in a blog post announcing the Google+ Local launch.
The search giant also hinted that it will be further integrating Google+ business pages and Google+ Local listings.
"We know many of you have already created a Google+ Page for your business, and have been hosting hangouts and sharing photos, videos and posts," Jen Fitzpatrick, Google's vice president of engineering, wrote in a separate blog post. "We're excited that we'll soon extend these social experiences to more Google+ Local pages in the weeks and months ahead."

Related: Chris Brogan on How Businesses Benefit from Google+ (Video)

5 Ways to Master Social Media Multitasking

Managing social media accounts across Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other sites can be overwelming for some business owners. Posting to each can simply require too much attention for time-crunched entrepreneurs.
But you don't need to be all things to all people on the social Web. And you don't need to hire a social media manager to handle it all. There are a number of cost-effective ways for you to have an active pressence on more than one social media site without devoting all your time to it.
Here are five tips and tools for how you can get your message across on multiple social platforms without wasting a ton of time -- or breaking the bank.
1. Have a strategy.
Try spending your limited time and resources investing in only the social media sites you know that your customers use. It can be better to build one or two strong profiles than to dilute your influence with a scattershot effort across four or five.
Once you determine which sites to be on, creating a social media content strategy can help you stay organized. Maybe you tweet only five times a day, post to Facebook once a day and update your business blog once a week. Laying out a strategy and sticking it to it can help take some of the haphazardness out of managing multiple social accounts.

Related: How to Create a Social Media Content Strategy (Video)
And the good news is there are plenty of free and inexpensive Web apps that can help. Bliss Control is a free tool that offers shortcuts for you to manage account settings such as privacy, profile pictures and passwords from one place. Social media dashboards such as HootSuite and Buffer are free options for managing and scheduling posts across multiple accounts.
2. Don't blindly recycle content.
Managing different accounts from the same location can create the temptation for you to use the same updates over different platforms. The problem in doing so is that customers often follow you on multiple sites and don't want to find the same content from site-to-site.
In general, form follows function. Twitter can be effective for sharing links, thoughts and quick updates about your company. Facebook can be better for creating and sharing photo albums, longer summaries of your links and customer comments. Don’t automatically Facebook everything you tweet or syndicate your blog on LinkedIn.

Related: Finding the Best Time to Post to Social Networks
3. Don't be shy about cross-promoting posts across sites.
While social-media multitasking usually means creating content that’s unique to each platform, that should not stop you from cross-promoting content without annoying your followers. The trick is to direct users to unique or helpful content. For example, ask your Twitter followers to check out new pictures on your Facebook wall.
One free option for building automation into your social networks is a tool called ifttt, which stands for “If This, Then That.” Users can build automated tasks for more than 40 social networks and Web apps using simple conditional statements.
Sendible which starts at about $10 per month also pushes content to various platforms. It also includes metrics to track who is talking about your business and on which sites.
4. Use analytics tools to know what's working and what isn't.
Don't waste time socializing content that isn't resonating with your followers. Analytics apps can be key to figuring out which of your posts are successful and why.
Consider starting with SocialBro which is available as a free desktop app or a browser extension. It includes information on which cities your followers live in and when they’re likely to be online. Free apps such as Tweriod and TweetWhen can also help you determine optimal posting times for different networks.
Related: 10 Little Known Social Media Tools You Should Be Using -- Now

Link-shortening tools such as
bitly can offer statistics on who is clicking through on the links you post. Another option is to monitor your website analytics through tools such as Google Analytics or Yahoo! Web Analytics to see how many referrals you are getting from social media sites. Web hosting services often offer this capability as well.
5. Treat followers like customers.
Try using Twitter, Facebook and, for instance, Instagram's mobile posting features, to put faces to your employees and give a behind-the-scenes look at your company. Your followers are real people and they most likely will apprecaite seeing the people behind your business and your social media pressence.
There are free Facebook apps for interacting with customers via polls and surveys. Poll for Facebook comes with the ability to add custom code, multiple-choice or written questions and extra privacy settings. Promotion Builder, by Redwood City, Calif.-based Wildfire, starts at $5 per promotion plus 99 cents per day and lets users run contests and promotions such as coupons, group deals and sweepstakes across multiple sites.

Friday, May 25, 2012

The 5 Stages of Leadership Development

By Steve Tobak
 
Everyone goes through the same stages of human development on the road to adulthood and maturity. Unfortunately, some of us get stuck in one stage or another, stunting our growth and rendering us dysfunctional.
We look just like ordinary adults, but we actually behave a lot more like children, acting out, throwing tantrums, and generally making life miserable for everyone around us.
It's pretty much the same thing with executives and business leaders. The only difference is that, instead of just messing up their own lives like ordinary people, dysfunctional leaders influence the lives, livelihoods, and investment portfolios of hoards of employees, customers, and investors.
If we took a virtual snapshot of all the boardrooms we've been in over the years, we'd estimate that maybe a quarter of the executives and directors we've worked with have gotten themselves prematurely stuck in one of the following stages of leadership development:
Stage 1: Sponge. You listen and learn from everyone and every situation as you try to figure out how things work in the real business world. Just like a baby learning to walk, you look really cute stumbling around like the clueless neophyte you are. The good news is you have no real responsibility, so you're not in a position to cause any real damage. You just fall, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again until you get it right.
Stage 2: Proof-of-concept. Believing you're actually capable of accomplishing something besides making a complete fool of yourself by promising the world and delivering next to nothing, you set out to prove yourself worthy of the management title that, in all likelihood, you've already been granted.
Stage 3: Delivery. Congratulations, you've somehow managed to deliver the goods and succeed in doing something that can credibly be viewed as a business success. In other words, you made money for somebody and got rewarded with a nice fat bonus. You think you've finally arrived. Won't your spouse be thrilled?
Stage 4: Reset. A little full of yourself, you try a repeat performance using the same tricks that worked the first time and realize--too late--that you're going to need a bigger playbook to consistently make it in the big leagues. Failure doesn't sit well with you. In fact, it's downright depressing. So you set out to make sure that never happens again.
Stage 5: Maturity. After a few iterations of the third and fourth stages, you finally begin to get how the real world works. You realize you're just like everybody else, meaning you succeed at some things, fail at others, and learn from everything. It slowly dawns on you that being a mature leader isn't that much different from the first stage, except experience has given you confidence and, with any luck, a sense of humor and humility. Win or lose, you look good doing it -- and deserve that bonus, right?
So, think it over. Are you stuck in one of the stages or know somebody who is? Fill us in.
 

KPI Must be Key To Organizational Success

How an organization defines and measures progress toward its goals

Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals.

Once an organization has analyzed its mission, identified all its stakeholders, and defined its goals, it needs a way to measure progress toward those goals. Key Performance Indicators are those measurements.

 What Are Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They will differ depending on the organization.

  • A business may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators the percentage of its income that comes from return customers.
  • A school may focus its Key Performance Indicators on graduation rates of its students.
  • A Customer Service Department may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators, in line with overall company KPIs, percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute.
  • A Key Performance Indicator for a social service organization might be number of clients assisted during the year.

Whatever Key Performance Indicators are selected, they must reflect the organization's goals, they must be key to its success,and they must be quantifiable (measurable). Key Performance Indicators usually are long-term considerations. The definition of what they are and how they are measured do not change often. The goals for a particular Key Performance Indicator may change as the organization's goals change, or as it gets closer to achieving a goal.

Key Performance Indicators Reflect The Organizational Goals

An organization that has as one of its goals "to be the most profitable company in our industry" will have Key Performance Indicators that measure profit and related fiscal measures. "Pre-tax Profit" and "Shareholder Equity" will be among them. However, "Percent of Profit Contributed to Community Causes" probably will not be one of its Key Performance Indicators. On the other hand, a school is not concerned with making a profit, so its Key Performance Indicators will be different. KPIs like "Graduation Rate" and "Success In Finding Employment After Graduation", though different, accurately reflect the schools mission and goals.

Key Performance Indicators Must Be Quantifiable

If a Key Performance Indicator is going to be of any value, there must be a way to accurately define and measure it. "Generate More Repeat Customers" is useless as a KPI without some way to distinguish between new and repeat customers. "Be The Most Popular Company" won't work as a KPI because there is no way to measure the company's popularity or compare it to others.
It is also important to define the Key Performance Indicators and stay with the same definition from year to year. For a KPI of "Increase Sales", you need to address considerations like whether to measure by units sold or by dollar value of sales. Will returns be deducted from sales in the month of the sale or the month of the return? Will sales be recorded for the KPI at list price or at the actual sales price?
You also need to set targets for each Key Performance Indicator. A company goal to be the employer of choice might include a KPI of "Turnover Rate". After the Key Performance Indicator has been defined as "the number of voluntary resignations and terminations for performance, divided by the total number of employees at the beginning of the period" and a way to measure it has been set up by collecting the information in an HRIS, the target has to be established. "Reduce turnover by five percent per year" is a clear target that everyone will understand and be able to take specific action to accomplish.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Facebook goes head-to-head with Groupon

Social network mirrors Groupon, sending local deals offers to users

 Watch out, Groupon. There's a new deal-maker in town.


Facebook is getting into the local deals business. And that, say industry analysts, should be enough to make Groupon look nervously over its shoulder.

The social network first announced Facebook Deals last November. It was a feature that enabled local businesses to offer users deals when they go to their Facebook page.

Today, Facebook upped the ante.

"We're working to make it easier to find fun things to do with your friends and connect with local businesses," Facebook wrote today on its Wall. "We're testing a new Deals feature that brings you offers from nearby businesses, which you can share with your friends."

The new feature is currently only available for users in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco.

Facebook will be helping businesses send deal offers directly to users, which is what Groupon has made its name doing.

"For Facebook, this is smart," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "Facebook would like to be users' entry point to the entire Web -- communications, content, game-playing, etc. As long as additions don't obscure the primary experience, and I don't see any reason this would, every addition removes one reason to leave Facebook World."

But this has got to be concerning news for Groupon, the company that quickly rose to online fame as a localized deal-of-the-day Web site.

In about the last six months, there has been a lot of excited talk about Groupon, which helps businesses reach directly out to individual customers. Groupon is designed to e-mail users with information about what to do in their cities, along with bargains and sales offers.

The fledgling company has become a standout example of how the social Web is re-engineer old marketing and advertising models.

And that has turned some heads, even among major online companies like Facebook and Google.

Word hit last December that after Google and Groupon had reached advanced acquisition negotiations and Google is said to have offered $6 billion for the two-year-old company, Groupon rejected the offer.

At the time, industry analysts figured that Google either would make another run at buying Groupon or it would develop its own Groupon-like service.

Now it seems that Facebook has beat Google to the punch, another salvo in Facebook's increasing rivalry with Google.

"This is another step in Facebook's evolution from purely people-centered social networking toward both people-centered and content-centered," said Gottheil. "Many things Facebook has done contribute to this trend, but every addition strengthens its position."

Google v.s. Facebook in deal-of-the-day local system. Let's see who will get big slice of the cake.

Google VP says e-commerce in 'radical transition'

At Web 2.0 Expo, Google exec says personal, mobile and local converging

The future of e-commerce is going to feel a lot like walking into a store 50 years ago, according to a Google executive.

Osama Bedier, vice president of payments at Google, told an audience at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco on Wednesday night that e-commerce is about to go through a radical transition. And the more online retail changes, the more it will feel like shopping at your local corner store.

"We're about to see some major change in this space," said Bedier, who was a vice president at PayPal until Google hired him in January. "This is not about any one app. It's not about any one site. It's not about any one company. It's about us working together to overcome challenges."

According to Bedier, the change in e-commerce will come because of the convergence of three forces -- mobility and locally- and personally-oriented services.

Mobility is one of the biggest trends in the tech industry, and in mainstream media. In the fourth quarter of 2010, sales of mobile devices outpaced sales of PCs.

And companies are increasingly focusing on what customers want locally. Examples locally-oriented services include, Groupon, which offers people discounts at businesses in their area, and Color, a new social app for smartphones that shares a user's photos with other Color users who happen to be in the vicinity, whether the user knows the other people or not.

Bedier said the third trend is personalization of the shopping experience.

As an example of what he feels is the kind of experience that people should have when they shop online, he offered this anecdote: "I walked into a store, and the owner greeted me by name. It made me feel good. He tells me my dad's favorite bread is on sale. I asked for Spanish olives and he doesn't have them, but he says the store down the street has them or he'll get a shipment Friday and he'll deliver them to me."

When shopping online, Bedier explained, "if I've decided to share my identity and location, the [e-retailer will] greet me by name and tell me that my favorites are on sale. Or it will point out ingredients for that recipe I liked on Epicurean. If they're out of an item, they'll tell me where I can get it or when they can deliver it to me."

 Listen...

What is Needed to Start an E-commerce Site?

You know that you want to start an online store, but how do you get started? Listed here are the essentials to get you well on your way to eCommerce shopping cart success.

Product

First of all, you obviously need a product or service to sell. This can be hard goods (physical) or soft goods (downloadable).

Hosting Service

After that, you need a place to host your website, called a hosting server. There are many hosting companies you can use, but you need to make sure your shopping cart software is compatible with the hosting server.

Website

Then you need a website. This can be an existing website to which you can add eCommerce capabilities or you can build the site from scratch. Some shopping carts come with website wizards that let you create a website with no html skills. Others offer to build the site with their design professionals.

Shopping Cart

The shopping cart is one of the most important parts to having a smooth e-commerce transition. Elements that are critical to a shopping cart should be, website wizards, Merchant tools, Shopping features, payment options, shipping and taxes configurations, statistics, and security. A truly great shopping cart is considered an E-commerce solution.

Credit Card Processing

Next you need some way of accepting online payments. This normally means credit cards. There are also other types of payments that the shopping cart should handle, checks, E-checks, cod, phone orders and person-to-person.

Merchant Account

Merchant accounts aren't the same as ordinary bank accounts even though ordinary banks provide them. These accounts allow a business to accept credit cards as payment for goods and services. In a way, merchant accounts act as a contract between the business owner and the bank. Rules defining how products will be bought, sold and paid for are set; any violation of these rules is considered fraud.

Payment Gateway

A customer enters credit card information to purchase your product or service. This data is passed to the merchant web server and a payment gateway through a secure socket layer (SSL)*. Once the payment gateway receives the transaction data, their software verifies all of the credit card information and then accepts or declines the credit card. The payment gateway sends an email receipt to the merchant web server and to the customer. Along with the email receipt, the payment gateway sends the order to the merchant bank. The money is subtracted from the purchaser's credit card account and placed in a 30-day holding merchant account owned by your business.

Marketing

Last, but most important, you need to have a strategy for marketing your site and attracting customers. The old saying, "build it and they will come", does not apply to websites. You need to have a good marketing strategy. This should include search engine optimization, pay-per-clicks, pop-unders, banner ads and affiliates just to name a few.

and at the end you will need an Ecommerce Manager who is an expert.

50 Ways to Get Your Site Noticed

This article aims to show you how to attract users and make them hungry for more. Who is this post for? Anyone with a website. Not all of the items listed below will apply directly to you and your business; however, they are, at the very least, an excellent source for inspiration

1. Write Fresh and Catchy Content


If you have good content, people will always come back for more. One of the most important things about content is to keep it fresh and up-to-date. But, just like Smashing Magazine, make sure to archive your content for people to refer back to.

Fresh and catchy content



2. Listen to Your Community


If you are already lucky enough to have a community—even just some regular users—listen to them. You can do this by emailing your users directly, setting up comment forms, live chat, or even user feedback systems such as UserVoice, which allow users to vote on site issues and functionality. By listening to your community, you can determine exactly what they want.





3. Monitor How Your Site is Used


Knowing how users use your site is vital. This allows you to target their needs better. The best way is to keep a close eye on your analytics data; check what country/area your users are coming from, what search terms are working well for you and what sites are giving you the best referrals.

Find out how users navigate your site via heat maps. These help you alter your site so that it is easier for your visitors to use and find what they want. This keeps your users happy and more likely to return.

Monitor how your site is used



4. Take Part in the Online Community


When you read your favorite blog or read an article of interest, leave a comment with your name, email address and website link. Ensure you are an active member of a relevant forum discussion or networking group. Of course, make sure you are an active member of your own site’s online community sector.

Smashing Magazines commenting system making it easy to take part.



5. Submit to Directories and Galleries


This should be an ongoing process since there are many local, national and worldwide directories. Your first stop should be DMOZ.org. Following this, submit to the local directories and those specializing in your site’s business sector.

If you are designing web sites and are proud of your work, submit your site to web design galleries. These directories—such as CSS Beauty and CSS Elite—feature beautiful and creative designs and ask users to comment on and rate each design. Once people see your work, they may become your visitors.




6. Use Email Signatures


Whenever you send out an email, make sure you have your URL in the email signature. It’s a simple idea, but it’s effective.



7. Have Business Cards at Hand . . . Always


Ensure you always have business cards to hand out. If you meet someone needing your services, it always pays to have a striking and memorable business card to exchange. It is worth spending time on your business card to make it creative and memorable, otherwise you may just be left at the bottom of the pile with the rest.





8. Use Company Stationery


Put your website address on everything: pens, letterheads, flyers, and anything that represents your company. Make sure it is clear and pushes people to visit your web site. For example, you could say, “For more information on our new product, check ourwebsite.com”



9. Win an Award


Winning an award is not easy, but it can lead to a flood of new visitors for your site. Even if you are a runner up, people will be curious and want to find out who you are. The winner of the .net magazine Interactive Site of the Year in 2009, www.ecodazoo.com, received huge amounts of visits from the www.thenetawards.com site. Choose your competition wisely and remember, winning is not everything, but getting your URL in front of as many readers as possible is.

Ecodazoo pushes the boundaries of 3D design on the web



10. Run Competitions


On the flip side of winning an award, running a competition can be just as beneficial to your analytics stats. This could be as simple as coming up with a new name for your latest product, or as complex as designing a new logo. Either way, this will attract more users to your site and show that you are giving back to your users as well as taking.

The Webby Awards
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet.



11. Optimize for Search Engines (SEO)


Effective SEO, common sense and web standards go together. The idea is to create semantic, valid code that uses the right tool for the job. This means using the right HTML tags and having a unique title and appropriate meta data for each page. Ensure search engine spiders can correctly index your site. And don’t forget that good content is a must. Remember, the most important way to climb the search engine ranks is through quality links. For more information on this, visit the Google Webmasters/Site owners guidelines.




12. Pay for Advertising


Pay per click advertising can drive a great deal of traffic to your site, if you correctly target your keywords. Placing your banner or link on relevant sites will vastly improve the chance of you getting noticed.

The most effective advertising gets your message to a relevant audience.



13. Write Articles

Writing articles for other sites as well as your own is a fantastic way to get noticed. If you work with web technologies, consider writing a tutorial for Nettuts+. If you sell power tools, consider writing an article about the best router for making coffee tables. Target the niche that you’re after. Just make sure you add your URL next to your name. If it’s well-written, people will want to know more about you.



14. Create a Blog


As you know, blogs are big and they are continuing to thrive as people want quick, useful information about a product, service or general news. WordPress has been at the forefront of blogging and gives us the tools to make rich, search engine-friendly blogs with beautiful designs. Of course, it is up to you to fill your blog with fresh and catchy content.




15. Join Online Community Websites


In the past year, we have seen the social web boom and many sites have reaped huge benefits. Creating your own Facebook page, uploading your work to Deviant Art or creating your own Squidoo page all help build your online presence.





16. Get on Twitter


We all know the power of Twitter by now, and much has been said on the subject of using Twitter as a marketing tool. But the fact remains: it is a very effective way of getting noticed. Get the most out of Twitter by choosing one of the many tools available. Keep inside your niche area, follow people that matter to your website, and make it personal. Do not just spout marketing spiel or you will quickly lose followers. If you are part of a niche area consider setting up your own Twibe (a group of Twitter users) or use Twitter’s list feature.





17. Record Podcasts and Videocasts


If you have something to say and you think others will be interested, then consider making a podcast or videocast. Boagworld.com has been a leader in this area for the web design field and Paul Boag has said that the majority of his new clients have come through the podcast. Here are eight tips to remember when thinking about podcasting:

  • Invest in a good microphone.
  • Reduce background noise.
  • Prepare, but do not read a script.
  • Follow a consistent format.
  • Invite guest speakers.
  • Have regularly-scheduled podcasts.
  • Enjoy the process and relax!



18. Offer Newsletters and RSS feeds


Users sign up for your newsletter and you have your captive audience. If used properly, newsletters can be very effective tools for driving people to your site. Check out Smashing Magazine’s best practices article before embarking on your campaign. When you are ready, use a service like MailChimp to monitor your success.

Similar to newsletters, having an RSS feed of your content is another way to keep users noticing your web site. They are easy to set up and a good way to keep your users up-to-date on your website. Make sure you keep your feeds relevant, interesting, informative and easy to find.




19. Send Seasonal Cards and E-Cards


Send out cards to your clients either by snail-mail or email. This is not only a nice gesture but also keeps your website address firmly imprinted in their mind. Using services like Cards Direct is a quick and easy way to spread the holiday cheer with your website address attached to it.



20. Run an Event


Running an event is a fantastic way to both market your business and connect with your customers, clients and experts in your sector. For example, the Future of Web Design events are run all around the world featuring many professionals from the web design community. Your event does not have to be about web design; it can be focused on your site and your business’ sector, in order to to raise awareness of you and your site.

Alternatively, you can be one of the speakers. This form of marketing has worked very well for people like Brett Welch, Danny Somekh and Folkert Gorter who spoke at the FOWD London 2009.

Carsonified events



21. Sell Branded T-shirts


Do your own marketing: have t-shirts, bags, folders and other items sporting your website address clearly.

Joomla T-Shirts
Joomla raises peoples awareness with its online shop.



22. Create a Mobile App


Can your service be provided via a mobile app? Would customers want to purchase your product on the go? If so, consider creating your own mobile application. If you want to tap into the vast iPhone / iPad market, you can consider selling your app on the iPhone app store. You can create the app yourself or use a company like Siruna to create the mobile application for you.

App Store



23. Help with Charity Work


You can donate directly to a charity or run a charity event. There are many charities out there, so choose wisely and carefully.

Oxfam



24. Sponsor a College and University Project


Many courses require a student to get a set amount of work experience or do a final year project. Contact your local college and/or university and offer them a project that you would like their students to help on. My final year project was to create a new search engine-optimized template for a local business directory. The directory benefited from the new template tremendously and we learned a great deal as a team.

Submitting proposals for college and university projects not only supports your website, but it also helps students gain real-life experience in their chosen field. Here are a few examples:


College and University Project Sponsorship



25. Place Your Content Elsewhere


Your website is not the only place to put your content. If you sell a product, you can also list it on eBay. If you are a band, why not put your songs on Last.fm? If your site publishes tutorials, you can also submit a tutorial to other sites, like Nettuts+. Once people notice your content they will be more inclined to visit your site, hungry for more.

Last.fm



26. Give Away Free Stuff


In the case of Vista Print, they offer free business cards; the cards have your logo and details on one side and theirs on the other. Here is a list of ideas you can give away:


Vista print



27. Sponsor Something


Sponsorship can be a remarkable way of getting your website in front of hundreds or thousands of eyes. When choosing a sponsorship project, keep to ones that will reflect well on your company as well as being relevant. For more information check out the following sites in the UK and North America. You can also place advertisements stating that you or your company is looking for sponsorship proposals from individuals or companies. When you receive the proposals, have a set criteria of what you’re looking for in mind.

Datapower Tools five aside football team
The DataPowertools.co.uk 5-a-side football team.



28. Get in the News


The news takes many forms in today’s media; one of the most beneficial ways to increase awareness of your site is to get it featured on a popular news website. One of the top five news portals is Google News. You should concentrate on having original content, multiple authors, proper attribution, and good response time. For more information, check out the Website Magazine article “Get Your Website Included in Google News“.




29. Release Press Releases


Do you have web site that people are interested in on a national or local level? Why not submit a press release informing the public about your new site? Simply place an ad in the local paper or a sector-specific magazine.



30. Sell Merchandise


Do you have a product that you think will sell? Why not try your hand at merchandising? If you are new to all this, you can use services like 50below.com to help setup your online store. If you do have a number of products, list them on various other platforms like eBay, Froogle, and Amazon with links back to your site within the product descriptions.





31. Solve a Problem


Find a problem that affects your website’s sector, create a fix, and publish it. A good solution to a difficult problem is a surefire way to get people flocking to your website. One example is the PNG fix for Internet Explorer; this simple site received thousands of hits as it helped solve a problem with image transparencies in IE6.




32. Add Widgets to your Website


Give your site a boost by adding news feeds, blogs, tweets, widgets, Delicious links, Diggs and StumbleUpon links to your site. For the most comprehensive list of widgets, try the netvibes ecosystem. When adding widgets to your website, keep in mind that they should enhance the user experience and not clutter your website. Less is more!




33. Publish and Share YouTube videos


We all know that YouTube is massive. One of the biggest ways that websites get noticed is by uploading or creating creative, fun, shocking, interesting, or downright weird videos. Setting up your own channel will allow users to subscribe to it, thus giving you more eyes on your content and website URL. Making a short introduction, or a series of clips like Expert Village is a cost-effective way of driving traffic to your site, as well as climbing the search engine results ladder.

Expert Village



34. Offer Free Services


Having a specific free service that is useful and intuitive could attract a plethora of users. Here are some examples of sites with free tools and services:





35. Solicit Consultation Services


If you are a specialist in your field, consider offering consultation services. A consultation service can be done via the internet, over the phone, or in person. You can provide this service to individuals, groups, or businesses; and with the power of Skype and a web cam, it can be just as though you are standing next to them. You could even offer alternative consultation services, like usability testing.

What tools are the professional online consultants using? Many online consultants use Skype because it is cheap, effective and well-supported. When using any peer-to-peer communications service, make sure you set-up a separate account for your consultation service so you keep your private messaging private. Skype offers a Skype Prime account where you can register as a trainer and people can contact you for one-on-one or group learning.

Skype



36. Make Affiliate Schemes


As a business, you offer rewards to affiliate marketers for every visit or consumer brought to the site using affiliate marketing techniques. This method allows you to attract more customers to your site by letting someone else do the hard work. You can offer different types of schemes such as co-branding, white labeling, loyalty schemes and many more.

There are hundreds of thousands of schemes available, so make yours attractive to marketers by offering high rewards for sales.

Affiliate programs
The Affiliate Programs forum contains information about hundreds of schemes and—most importantly—user feedback from people using them.



37. Give out Vouchers and Special Offers


If you have a marketing budget, spend some time attracting users with goodies. Maybe you could offer 10% off their next subscription, or a free trial to your service for 30 days. Vouchers can also attract users as you can post your voucher on one of the many voucher sites.

Special Offers
Make your special offer loud and proud so people notice.



38. Become a Reseller


A reselling service is where you sell an existing product or service such as hosting and domain names. Reselling is a way to gain passive income by offering a quality product or service you would not be able to develop alone. This ability to give a better service will attract customers. If you ensure good customer service you might benefit from word of mouth recommendations.




39. Have a Great Idea


The internet has been a veritable breeding ground for creative people and ideas. This creativity has given birth to some amazing ideas that make people flock to the site. If you think you have a great idea, harness it. Turn your idea into a reality, like Google’s originators Larry and Sergey, who created a fast and simple search environment called Backrub in 1995. Don’t forget the student who sold pixels to put himself through University in 2004!

1,000,000 pixels
"The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies."



40. Create a Plug-in, Template or Widget


A widget or plug-in is a design to enhance a platform. It is designed to entertain or make life easier for users. Keep this in mind when developing. For example, you can make a WordPress plugin or Joomla template. Make sure people know who made it and where they can find your website.

Theme forest
Theme Forest helps designers sell their work.



41. Write Tutorials


If you are an expert in your field and you know what your talking about, choose a subject and write a tutorial on it. You can then make the tutorials available on your own site (to capture your audience), or submit your tutorial to sites such as Nettuts+.

Nettus



42. Write a Book


Writing a book is time-consuming and it is a labour of love, but it can reap so many benefits as a product in its own right. It will raise awareness for its topic and author. Books like Elliot Jay Stock’s Sexy Web design, Steve Krug’s Don`t Make me Think or even an audio book like Chris Anderson‘s “The Long Tail” have brought brand awareness and visitors to each of the authors’ respective websites.

Books



43. Start a Magazine or Online Publication


Blogging is a simplified version of creating an online magazine. Your online magazine should be much more by concentrating on different types of content, building a community of readers, and exploiting various revenue streams.

When creating an online magazine make sure you know your CMS inside out. It will be the foundations of your business and web site and should allow you to make publishing the content painless. Think about how you will make the money to help you grow your site. Newsletters, RSS, and forums will help you keep your readers up-to-date and talking.

If you need help with content you can look at purchasing content or invite other authors to help you get started.

.net



44. Launch a Subscription Service


Subscription services can help you gain a constant stream of visitors to your site as they download the latest news, music or tutorials.

If you are planning on charging for subscription, use an integrated payment system like Spreedly to take the pain of setting up payment gateways and storing credit card details away.

Spreedly



45. Attend Networking Events


Networking events can be a fun and effective way to promote your website. Armed with your business cards and an approachable smile, you are sure to meet someone who is interested in your services or who knows someone else who will be.

The key is in choosing the right event for you and being prepared. Networking events are normally based around certain types of businesses or they target professionals in specific areas. Choose what is best for you. Check online event sites like Facebook,Meet-up or the local paper. If you can`t find one in your area, run your own!

Networking event



46. Push Out Product Updates


Offering regular updates to your product can attract a consistent stream of users wanting to benefit from the new update. You should notify your users when a new update is available; this can be done via the software itself or via your website. Consider making your updates a regular attraction and remember to make them easy to download and install.

Firefox update
FireFox makes it simple to update by making it part of the software. The user does not have to go away, download and install the update, but simply click “OK.”



47. Label Your Work


Be proud of your work and put your logo and web site address on it. For web designers, write in your contract that the finished site must feature a back-link to your site. This may not always be possible, but anyone enjoying the site you built will be intrigued to see the company who built it. For photographers, put a water mark on all your site samples; if you are a producer, have your website address on your packaging. No matter what sector you are in, there is always room for a label on your work.

Label your work
Links to a sites design company can normally be found on the footer.



48. Use White Label Sites


A lot of sites, especially in the hotel and leisure industry, use what is called a “White Label” site. This enables a successful brand to offer a service without having to build the functionality and databases itself. You can go about this two ways:

  1. Use a white label service such as white label dating, social networking, holiday and leisure to create a site. For more information on white labeling check out this article.
  2. Allow users to use your functionality and database to create their own white label site. Lastminute.com , has created a very successful net of sites that utilize their data and functionality.

Sites using Lastminute’s database / functionality can be seen on.



49. Hide a Konami Code Easter Egg


A new sensation on the web is the addition of hidden code; when users press a sequence of keys, they get a hidden surprise (this is called easter egg code). Sitepoint and many other sites have done articles on this “blast from the past” way of entertaining your users. For more information go to http://konamicodesites.com/; you will need the code to access it: up, up, down , down, left, right, left, right, b, a. Enjoy!

 
You’ll need quick reactions to score on this Konami game!



50. Use Social Bookmarking


The last tip is also one of the best and easiest. Stemming from the simple idea of having a "Tell a friend" form on your website, allow users to bookmark your site on the many social bookmark sites. That way, you are letting other popular sites do the hard work for you. Social bookmarking meta-services like AddToAny are a simple way for users to publish your site to their accounts on Facebook, Delicious, StumbleUpon and many more with one click. Copy and paste their code on to your pages and you’re away.


Don't waste your time. Start putting these nito your schedule and make them happen in a timely manner.