With over 50,000 blogs created each day bloggers have become an influential voice online. Reading the FTC’s New Endorsement & Testimonial Guidelines this voice has caught the attention by quite a few people. Our company has been working on an internet business idea over the last few months called Tomoson.com that we are now revealing that will help these Bloggers, Advertisers, and Endorsers.
Problem: No organized & cost effective to generate, promote, and manage product reviews, contests, endorsements, and advertising testimonials.
Solution: Create an application that will help Bloggers, Advertisers, Endorsers, Business Owners, Product Marketers, and eCommerce Website Owners manage online product reviews & contests.
That is what Tomoson will accomplish. We have manually tested the product review & contest process through out 2009 and are in the final stages of the web application architecture. Subscribe to our blog to stay informed on development & marketing updates. Our goal at WebBizIdeas.com has always been to help people start internet businesses. The best way we have found to do that is by example. So when we mean post updates we mean we will literally tell you our entire marketing plan, show you our site architecture, design, and practically every part of the business idea before it launches!
We are looking for feedback & suggestions so don’t be shy to comment.
The problem was their website, diabetespeoples.com, did not have a substantial market share online. With many losing their health care benefits the rise of finding cheap diabetic supplies has grew substantially online.
Diabetes People’s Healthstore wanted to switch their marketing efforts online focusing heavily on search engine optimization, comparison shopping, re-design their website, and leave responsibility of increasing retail sales to a business development company; so they could focus on running the business.
The website re-design brought DiabetesPeoples.com onto the same playing field as their competitors. The professional design is eye pleasing, easy to navigate, and most importantly search engine friendly. Although our development team focused on many factors here are a few explanations of changes we made:
Product Images: Customers can not touch a product when they shop online. Good product images helps build trust for online retailers. We had our graphic designer add a liquid chrome shadow effect to all product categories to increase the brand value of the products.
SEO Architecture: The client had 106 products on their old site. Our internet marketing team performed massive keyword research for each product to ensure no SEO/link value opportunities would be missed in our future marketing efforts. Our team re-wrote each Product Title, Page Title, and Meta Keywords to match the search engine behavior of Diabetic Buyers. Breaking up the products by both categories & brands will eventually allow us to rank the client on the first page for keywords such as Accu-Chek, Ascensia, Easy Touch, Freestyle, BD, Medisense Optium, One Touch, Precision Xtra, SurceComfort, and others.
SEO Content Writing: Our content writing team collaborated with our internet marketers to ensure product descriptions were also receiving the maximum amount of value for keywords we will be targeting in the future. Great care was taken to write product descriptions with the proper keyword density, the right medical terminology, and most importantly to SELL.
Comparison Shopping: Our eCommerce Development process includes an application called ‘Data Feed Manager.’ What a data feed manager does for an online store is gives the ADMIM the ability to export all product information. This data feed can then be easily uploaded to comparison shopping sites like Shopping.com, BizRate.com, Shopzilla.com, NexTag.com, PriceGrabber.com, Amazon.com, Yahoo Shoppping, Google Shopping, and more.
Link Development: Our internet marketing team has started the long process of building high valued one-way links. We will update you on this process in the future.
It is no secret that the future of online business involves Google & Mobile. Google’s rep just talked at the annual ANA conference and had a very interesting outlook on the growth of mobile technology. After watching this it is obvious they are focusing heavily on this.
Also, at the 40 minute mark Eric Schmidt (keep in mind his an advisory for the President of The United States as well as works for Google) had an extraordinary comment that relates to content. In short:
The technology to stream just about anything cheaply is very near. In his mind (keep in mind Google + President Adviser) the devise (radio, TV, cell phone) will not matter in the future, it will be the content that is important; because it will be able to be streamed through any medium or devise in the near future.
Meaning, you can run a TV station, News Room, etc… from your basement and get it in every household in the world because of the internet. Reaffirms that (1) content is so important (2) Internet TV technology is the wave of the future.
Integrating with USPS API is easy if you know what you’re doing, unfortunately usps.com doesn’t help much when it comes to this. Here is what you need to do to make the software work with USPS (this was written for version 3.6.3).
Step 1. Go to here: http://www.usps.com/webtools/ and click the sing up by the Access USPS Website Tools in the right side.
Step 2. Fill out the information and wait for an email to come to you. They say it will take 24 hours but it normally takes about 20 minutes. (make sure to check your junk email)
Step 3. In the email you will see a username and password. Pay attention to that and the phone number at the bottom. The rest of the email is useless to you because it’s about testing information that is irrelevant to pinnacle cart.
Step 4. Go into your admin area, rollover cart settings, shipping management, click real time shipping configurations, then scroll down to the USPS section. Where it says: USPS Web Tools User ID. Copy and paste the username from the USPS API email.
Step 5. Call the number at the bottom of the email (ICCC Staff) to activate the production url. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t test the url because pinnacle cart has already done that for you. In about 5 minutes you will get another email with your production API url. The call may take some time so feel free to email, but I would rather hang on the phone and make sure it got done. (MAKE SURE TO CHECK YOUR JUNK EMAIL)
Step 6. Copy the production url from the new email you got from USPS. It should look something like this: http://production.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPI.dll . Make sure you paste this url to BOTH SECTIONS: Server URL for USPS Rating Too and Server URL for USPS Tracking Tool. IMPORTANT, if you don’t call to activate your username this will NOT WORK. You need to take step 5 to make sure this is activated. Don’t use the secure url because this will not work also.
Step 7. Once you have activated the API url you can click on the real time methods tab at the top of the page (you are still in the shipping methods page). On this page you will need to select all the USPS methods from the Carrier Method Name box (it will say international methods at the top of the box in bold and italic). Good USPS shipping methods to select are: USPS express, USPS standard postal, USPS priority are all normal shipping methods you can offer. The others are for more unique situations but if you want to offer them I would suggest contacting your local post office to understand what they are. You can also scroll down further to offer international shipping in the same section.
Step 8. As you select carrier method names it will default the rest of the settings on the page. I would suggest keeping those settings because 99% of them are correct. Make sure to add all the shipping methods individually.
Step 9. The last step is making sure you add weight to each of your products. If you don’t have a weight on each product this shipping method will not work. To add weight rollover categories/products, then manage products. From here you can click on the edit icon to change the weight on each product.
I hope this helped you set up your USPS shipping method in pinnacle cart. If you need any more help please contact www.webBizIdeas.com for custom website design and business development.
The next step if someone wanted to start AutomotiveClubs.com is to define your user audience. The business would obviously have two users:
Automotive Clubs
Car Owners Who Want To Join An Automotive Club
Automotive Clubs: In my research I estimate over 10,000 automotive clubs in the United States; 3x that in the world. I have been in contact with over 1,000 of these automotive clubs in the USA already. The reason we initially were in contact with these companies because our company sells automotive keychains.
The owners of the clubs are quite friendly, but strapped for cash. Most of the clubs our non-profit or profitably enough to stay in business. They stay in business because club members volunteer their time & sponsors help them financially. Their club websites are old & outdated. Interaction between club members and related clubs is non-existence; that is where the opportunity is.
Car Owners: I don’t need to quote stats on the number of car owners there are in the United States; everyone knows there are many. Granted, most are not too proud of their vehicle to join an automotive club, but high end automobile owners would be our target market as well.
So Step #1 to building a business Is Market Research
I have compiled a database of the known automotive clubs that have websites online today. You can download it here:
Step #2 to building a business Is To Analyze that research
Of the many Automotive Clubs we spoke to National Council of Corvette Clubs (NCCC) provided the best market analysis. They were very excited about the idea that each of their clubs could have a free website where they publish news, events, pictures, videos, and of course give the ability to sign up new members; but they would not pay for it.
So, after all the research & analysis the data showed that Automotive Clubs would benefit greatly from AutomotiveClubs.com; but we needed to figure out a business model that would allow Automotive Clubs to sign up for free. What is more is the SIC code for Automotive Clubs (8699-12) does not provide any help in finding the clubs; the listings are all AAA insurance providers.
The database above is the largest list online for United States Automotive Clubs. Starting the website you would use this database to pre-populate the Automotive Club Database online.
This is Jeff Foster, I am the Internet Marketing Director for WebBizIdeas.com. I wanted to give you a brief overview of an idea I had suggested to you earlier.
Online Advertising Spending (Automotive Market): Despite a struggling economy (especially within the automotive industry) 0nline automotive advertising increased by 17.70% from 2006 to 2007. In fact according to a report on the automotive advertising, produced by Borrell Associates, showed one of the greatest disruption in consumer buying habits was the internet; meaning consumers change their decision on what car they buy (right before they buy) by using the internet…That is one large reason why automotive companies are pouring money into online advertising.
Automotive Clubs (Market): I estimate 25,000 Automotive Clubs world-wide. I was able to produce a database of 2,500 U.S. Automotive Clubs by just searching in Google! If the average membership of these clubs were 50 people, it would bring the market to 1,250,000 automotive owners who are club members. Many of these clubs charge a yearly membership fee, leaving 1,250,000 potential customers paying a residual monthly or yearly fee.
Automotive Clubs (Website Design): I can say from experience automotive clubs have extremely poor websites. Many automotive clubs are non-profit organizations with websites created by a member with limited programming & design knowledge. End result, many automotive clubs need a website or a better website.
Initial Research: I talked to the marketing director at http://www.corvettesnccc.org/. Their organization encompasses over 100,000+ corvette owners world-wide! They disclosed that web development within their clubs is a large concern, but the club lacks the capital and time to build a custom site. They are looking for a free or inexpensive way to do this.
Automotive Club Community: (this is the idea)
I want to build a community for Automotive Clubs owners to help them manage their members. The website would be free at first to register for members & club owners. Club Owners would receive a ‘business’ profile and car owners would receive a ‘user’ profile.
Automotive Clubs would be able to create their own club website, post events, list sponsors, list members, recruit members, upload club pictures & videos, and most importantly manage their members.
Club owners would choose if their club would be public or private. They would be able to decide if how much to charge members for yearly membership fees. Each club would be able to mass e-mail all members informing them of events. They would have an easy & free way to manage their own club website.
Users would be able to search for clubs by city, state, and country. Users would be able to request to join clubs. Users would also be able to create their own profile and communicate with other car owners.
The website would make money (1) charging a fee to process yearly membership fees (2) charging a listing for classic cars for sale in a ‘classifieds’ section (3) Cross promotion within the Automotive Industry (4) Selling Customer Databases or Providing an Advertising Mailing Service to Targeted Car Owners (5) Advertising.
These are just five ways the community could make money. A good internet business owner knows that although he “owns” the website, the community also “owns” the website. A good internet business owner will analyze & listen to his members to find additional revenue models. As this business grows additional revenue models can be developed. We already have a great domain name, I am an expert in search engine optimization, and our company specializes in building social networking software.
If you have the capital to build & market & maintain this business we have the resources to make this internet business successful.
Finances Needed: $50,000-$120,000
Programming: Website Architecture & Blueprints are needed to determine (under 1,250 hours)
Graphic Design: Less than 100 hours
Initial Advertising Material: $5,000 – $25,000
Marketers: $500 – $5500 a month from WebBizIdeas.com
Domain: Already have talked & met with the owner of AutomotiveClubs.com
We provide a service called website architecture (a.k.a. website planning) where we plan out your entire website before we start coding. This is absolutely critical when making a custom website or software, and is why we put everyone of our websites through it. I could write a long article about why it’s important but I will refer you to this image. It depicts the importance of planning and our process perfectly.
WHY WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE IS IMPORTANT IMAGE click here
Multiple high quality images are the secret to any great jewelry website. When I was ring shopping with my fiancée we must have looked at twenty different websites. The jewelry websites that kept our interest and got our business had high quality images. They didn’t have any crazy coding or fancy ecommerce application. They were really simple with multiple images at different angles.
Keeping it simple focused our attention on the jewelry and if we wanted to purchase or not. We could easily see pieces we liked and examine them in more detail. The most important part about high quality images was it showed the differences between the jewelers. We could see the craftsmanship between the different jewelry. Without the high quality images all the jewelry would have looked the same to me.
Some of the websites had rotating features that panned around the entire piece of jewelry. That’s a great feature but doesn’t need to be there if you’re on a budget.
Here are some examples of sites with high quality images and some with low quality images. Which would you purchase from???
Finding a good business to start online can be tough. This post will be the first of many which will explore the industry, competition, search engine behavior, and the overall consumer market of sun protection.
Why Examine This Industry:
Multiple Organizations, including the World Health Organization, encourages people to take precautions because of the
increase of sun exposure to humans: http://www.who.int/uv/sun_protection/en/
Everyone knows that they should use sunglasses, hats, sunscreen, and other basic preventative products.
People are aware of the threat of the sun; global warming / ozone layer / cancer
Personal Health Care is on the mind of everyone; baby boomers & health care reform
I like it
I hope you like the last one, I am already convinced there are “holes” within the “Sun Protection Industry.” I know there are already companies online that provide sun care products. I know many are well established and have great products. But I do not know of a market leader; I know no “McDonalds” of “Sun Protection Products.”
So I intend to find to research the industry, competition, search engine behavior, and the overall consumer market of sun protection to uncover what it takes to be that market leader. I am sure my research will find stiff competition but like most market research & analysis I do for WebBizIdeas, I am sure I will uncover opportunities!
Stay tuned, I will be posting my research on our blog over the next couple months.
Google is rolling out new applications since they now have a new platform; Google Caffeine. There new launch is a product called Google Social Search. This new search is important in two main ways for business owners which you need to be aware of:
Business owners need to heavily promote & manage social sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook,Linkedin, and others. It also means photo sharing sites such as Picasa Web Albums & Flicker are important. It also means means blogs & local search sites such as yelp and citysearch are important….SO PROMOTE SOCIAL SITES IN WEB DESIGN. sites like CJ.com are pretty obvious that they want people to follow them from their home page.
Importance #2
Business owners need Quality Content. Why? When you are signed into your Google account (many business owners are always signed in) Google is showing results from Social Circles in the result! How crazy is that.
That means if we get all of our clients to follow us on Twitter, or all interested business owners to connect with us on Linkedin, or people follow us on YouTube.com. THIS MEANS WHEN WE PUBLISH NEW CONTENT THEY SEE THAT CONTENT IN THE SEARCH RESULTS.
Wow? What a great way to target your target market. Google is practically telling everyone with this new addition that CONTENT is the new LINK VALUE online!
Download Automotive Clubs Database
