It’s not as difficult a formula as you learned in trigonometry class, but there are definitely a number of steps to go through to build a satisfied customer base. Beyond the basics – having a good product or service to begin with, being honest and dependable in all your dealings, having employees with character and people skills – it comes down to good training, the type that is ongoing and covers all the bases. A corporate training library could be just the missing ingredient that your business needs to give your employees the edge in an ever more competitive marketplace.
If you have the time and the talent, you can develop your own corporate training library. Although the terminology suggests a room with a card catalog and a librarian, the fact is that most of today’s corporate training libraries are “virtual” in nature and are accessed from a computer over the company network. And, on second thought, there is no reason that you couldn’t dedicate a room or office, if one is available, to being a library or “learning lounge.” Whether virtual, a real room or some combination of the two, the most important thing, of course, is what the library contains.
The real deal
A network-based, computer-accessible corporate training library can make use of many kinds of documents and files. You can have text documents of various kinds, detailing the company products and services, and those documents can easily have hyperlinks embedded to take you (via your web browser) to additional resources. Both online and network-resident resources can be videos, audio/video clips, slideshows, presentations and marketing materials. Printed items can be turned into the popular PDF (Portable Document Format) for reading on-screen or printing hard copy.
Generally speaking, the topics you want to cover are the same ones your competitors do – how to keep the customers satisfied so they return again, as well as recommend your company to others. A key aim of customer service training is to learn how to listen, to understand what it is the customers are telling you, in words, action or inaction, so that you can improve the experience for them now, and for others in the future.
Help on the way
It may be that it makes more economic sense for you to obtain your corporate training library from one of the many companies that specialize in employee training programs. There is a great deal of material that is common to all firms, and that can be successfully deployed for training your own employees. Some training firms have various ways of presenting the same material, allowing you to use videos, hyperlinked pages and PowerPoint presentations depending on your own needs.
More exciting still are the ways in which training materials can be customized for your particular company. The most effective training library, of course, is one that gets used, and you can increase the odds of that by making sure that the training is relevant to your situation, communicates effectively with your employees and encourages them to apply themselves in an ongoing manner. You can help the process by keeping it fresh and exciting, and educating your workforce as to the interconnectedness among quality product and service, informed and helpful employees and satisfied customers.
Training about the training
If you want your training library to be used, it needs to be accessible to various employees in various ways, and at all times, too. It is important to train your employees about using the training library – and, yes, that really does mean offering “training about training.” You want to show your employees that the training materials are accessible in a variety of ways, from web browsers to hard copy, from DVD-based presentations to mp3 audio files (and “podcasts”) that can be downloaded to an iPod.
Making the training available is the next most important thing to making it effective. Its effectiveness will be based on how well it helps your employees learn to understand and practice good customer service, specifically attuned to the nature of your particular business. Again, this can be accomplished on your own, or you can avail yourself of the assistance of professional training companies. The main thing is that you and your employees make customer service knowledge as important as product knowledge, and communicate this to your customers in word and deed.
Whichever route you take to establishing (and using) a corporate training library, remember that your own, specific experience and expertise are just as important as the general lessons that all businesses need to learn. There is that foundation of common knowledge, and then there are the unique experiences that you and your employees have accrued over time. Both the general and the specific are essential to the creation of a comprehensive corporate training library, and it is through ongoing refinement and improvement that it will remain relevant (and essential) to your ongoing success.
CBT Planet.com offers comprehensive computer and employee career training including self-paced computer based training (cbt), computer training videos, instructor-led courses and IT certifications boot camps. Visit them online today for all your cbt online.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
A Brief History Of The Xerox Corporation
The Xerox Corporation, headquartered in Norwalk, CT, has over 57,000 employees worldwide. The company has consistently ranked among the top firms in the computer category of FORTUNE magazine’s "World's Most Admired Companies" list, and is in the top one-third of the annual FORTUNE 500.
Xerox has a strategic focus on three primary corporate and consumer markets. First is the high-end production environment, including commercial printing. Next is networking solutions, in offices small and large. Finally, there is the large, growing category of its "value-added" services. There are two overarching, unifying themes that cross all Xerox product and service categories, relying on the company's demonstrated, core strengths and its position as "the document company." These themes are (1) color and (2) practical solutions that customize the various Xerox devices and methodologies to solve their customers' problems.
Of the firm's $17.6 billion in revenue for 2008, the U.S. market accounted for over half, or $9.1billion, while Europe totaled $6 billion. Together, Latin America, Canada and other nations around the world brought in the remainder, $2.5 billion. Not only does the company do business internationally, it wins awards around the world, as well. In fact, in 2008 alone Xerox earned more than 230 different awards for quality, innovation and service. Continuing its history of innovation, the company also introduced 29 new products in 2008, delivered to companies and individuals across a broad array of different sales channels.
Building on a strong foundation
Chester Carlson was a patent attorney and a dedicated, though part-time, inventor. He created the first "xerographic" image in his Queens, NY, workshop on October 22nd of 1938. Amazingly, for years he was unable to interest many people, and no manufacturers or buyers, in his invention. Business owners, product developers and entrepreneurs were convinced there was no market for "copiers" because carbon paper still worked just fine. An additional problem was that Carlson's prototype was bulky, awkward to use and downright messy. Some two dozen companies, IBM and General Electric included, reacted to Carlson's invention with what the inventor later called "an enthusiastic lack of interest."
The Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, OH, made a deal to refine Carlson's process, which he called "electrophotography," in 1944. Some three years later, the Haloid Company, a photographic paper manufacturer in Rochester, N.Y., secured a license from Battelle to build and market a "copying machine" using Carlson's technology. Carlson agreed with the executives of Haloid that "electrophotography" was too unwieldy a term, so the story goes that a professor of classical languages from The Ohio State University came up with "xerography" using the Greek for "dry" and "writing."
The name game
Haloid, which in short order bought all the rights to the technology, coined the term "Xerox" for the revolutionary copiers, and got a trademark for the word in 1948. Early and somewhat modest success of the Xerox copiers convinced Haloid management to change the firm's name to Haloid Xerox Inc. in 1958. As sales began to rise and the invention became more and more accepted, the company evolved into the "Xerox Corporation" in 1961. By this time, the marketplace had experienced a broad acceptance of the latest model, the Xerox 914, which was the first office copier that could use ordinary, inexpensive paper.
September 2009 will mark the 50th anniversary of the historic Xerox 914. Over 200,000 units were sold worldwide from 1959 to 1976, the year the firm stopped manufacturing the 914. In 1985, over a quarter century after the legendary model was introduced, Xerox announced it would not renew any more 914 service contracts in the U.S. However, a "time and materials" repair service was instituted, since there were still over 6,000 units in operation around the globe. The Smithsonian Institution displays a model of the Xerox 914 as a landmark in American ingenuity and inventiveness.
Good corporate citizen
Xerox is proud to have pioneered the design and manufacture of "waste-free" products, and considers good corporate citizenship as important as technological development. In fact, the company sees no contradiction in pursuit of both. The company has positioned itself a firm that intends to use materials and energy as efficiently as possible, in order to reduce waste and emissions in the manufacturing phase, as well as during the life cycles of its products. This is the way in which the firm intends to build its continuing history.
Every year, Xerox reports on its programs that save hundreds of million dollars via product remanufacturing, parts recycling and the diversion of over 100 million pounds of landfill waste. Finally, Xerox has developed, implemented and maintained serious remanufacturing and recycling programs to ensure that its printers, copiers and multifunction devices can be managed with due environmental care and concern when they reach the ends of their initial life cycles. With careful steps and proven methods, Xerox is moving into the future with the same steadfastness that has brought it to the pinnacle of success.
Vinpower Digital.com has almost any type of dvd duplicator on the market today, as well as CD and Blu-ray formats. We have the expertise to help you at every stage of planning to enhance your optical disc duplication. Visit us online today.
Xerox has a strategic focus on three primary corporate and consumer markets. First is the high-end production environment, including commercial printing. Next is networking solutions, in offices small and large. Finally, there is the large, growing category of its "value-added" services. There are two overarching, unifying themes that cross all Xerox product and service categories, relying on the company's demonstrated, core strengths and its position as "the document company." These themes are (1) color and (2) practical solutions that customize the various Xerox devices and methodologies to solve their customers' problems.
Of the firm's $17.6 billion in revenue for 2008, the U.S. market accounted for over half, or $9.1billion, while Europe totaled $6 billion. Together, Latin America, Canada and other nations around the world brought in the remainder, $2.5 billion. Not only does the company do business internationally, it wins awards around the world, as well. In fact, in 2008 alone Xerox earned more than 230 different awards for quality, innovation and service. Continuing its history of innovation, the company also introduced 29 new products in 2008, delivered to companies and individuals across a broad array of different sales channels.
Building on a strong foundation
Chester Carlson was a patent attorney and a dedicated, though part-time, inventor. He created the first "xerographic" image in his Queens, NY, workshop on October 22nd of 1938. Amazingly, for years he was unable to interest many people, and no manufacturers or buyers, in his invention. Business owners, product developers and entrepreneurs were convinced there was no market for "copiers" because carbon paper still worked just fine. An additional problem was that Carlson's prototype was bulky, awkward to use and downright messy. Some two dozen companies, IBM and General Electric included, reacted to Carlson's invention with what the inventor later called "an enthusiastic lack of interest."
The Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, OH, made a deal to refine Carlson's process, which he called "electrophotography," in 1944. Some three years later, the Haloid Company, a photographic paper manufacturer in Rochester, N.Y., secured a license from Battelle to build and market a "copying machine" using Carlson's technology. Carlson agreed with the executives of Haloid that "electrophotography" was too unwieldy a term, so the story goes that a professor of classical languages from The Ohio State University came up with "xerography" using the Greek for "dry" and "writing."
The name game
Haloid, which in short order bought all the rights to the technology, coined the term "Xerox" for the revolutionary copiers, and got a trademark for the word in 1948. Early and somewhat modest success of the Xerox copiers convinced Haloid management to change the firm's name to Haloid Xerox Inc. in 1958. As sales began to rise and the invention became more and more accepted, the company evolved into the "Xerox Corporation" in 1961. By this time, the marketplace had experienced a broad acceptance of the latest model, the Xerox 914, which was the first office copier that could use ordinary, inexpensive paper.
September 2009 will mark the 50th anniversary of the historic Xerox 914. Over 200,000 units were sold worldwide from 1959 to 1976, the year the firm stopped manufacturing the 914. In 1985, over a quarter century after the legendary model was introduced, Xerox announced it would not renew any more 914 service contracts in the U.S. However, a "time and materials" repair service was instituted, since there were still over 6,000 units in operation around the globe. The Smithsonian Institution displays a model of the Xerox 914 as a landmark in American ingenuity and inventiveness.
Good corporate citizen
Xerox is proud to have pioneered the design and manufacture of "waste-free" products, and considers good corporate citizenship as important as technological development. In fact, the company sees no contradiction in pursuit of both. The company has positioned itself a firm that intends to use materials and energy as efficiently as possible, in order to reduce waste and emissions in the manufacturing phase, as well as during the life cycles of its products. This is the way in which the firm intends to build its continuing history.
Every year, Xerox reports on its programs that save hundreds of million dollars via product remanufacturing, parts recycling and the diversion of over 100 million pounds of landfill waste. Finally, Xerox has developed, implemented and maintained serious remanufacturing and recycling programs to ensure that its printers, copiers and multifunction devices can be managed with due environmental care and concern when they reach the ends of their initial life cycles. With careful steps and proven methods, Xerox is moving into the future with the same steadfastness that has brought it to the pinnacle of success.
Vinpower Digital.com has almost any type of dvd duplicator on the market today, as well as CD and Blu-ray formats. We have the expertise to help you at every stage of planning to enhance your optical disc duplication. Visit us online today.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Why Investing In A Corporate Training Library Will Better Your Business
It’s not as difficult a formula as you learned in trigonometry class, but there are definitely a number of steps to go through to build a satisfied customer base. Beyond the basics – having a good product or service to begin with, being honest and dependable in all your dealings, having employees with character and people skills – it comes down to good training, the type that is ongoing and covers all the bases. A corporate training library could be just the missing ingredient that your business needs to give your employees the edge in an ever more competitive marketplace.
If you have the time and the talent, you can develop your own corporate training library. Although the terminology suggests a room with a card catalog and a librarian, the fact is that most of today’s corporate training libraries are “virtual” in nature and are accessed from a computer over the company network. And, on second thought, there is no reason that you couldn’t dedicate a room or office, if one is available, to being a library or “learning lounge.” Whether virtual, a real room or some combination of the two, the most important thing, of course, is what the library contains.
The real deal
A network-based, computer-accessible corporate training library can make use of many kinds of documents and files. You can have text documents of various kinds, detailing the company products and services, and those documents can easily have hyperlinks embedded to take you (via your web browser) to additional resources. Both online and network-resident resources can be videos, audio/video clips, slideshows, presentations and marketing materials. Printed items can be turned into the popular PDF (Portable Document Format) for reading on-screen or printing hard copy.
Generally speaking, the topics you want to cover are the same ones your competitors do – how to keep the customers satisfied so they return again, as well as recommend your company to others. A key aim of customer service training is to learn how to listen, to understand what it is the customers are telling you, in words, action or inaction, so that you can improve the experience for them now, and for others in the future.
Help on the way
It may be that it makes more economic sense for you to obtain your corporate training library from one of the many companies that specialize in employee training programs. There is a great deal of material that is common to all firms, and that can be successfully deployed for training your own employees. Some training firms have various ways of presenting the same material, allowing you to use videos, hyperlinked pages and PowerPoint presentations depending on your own needs.
More exciting still are the ways in which training materials can be customized for your particular company. The most effective training library, of course, is one that gets used, and you can increase the odds of that by making sure that the training is relevant to your situation, communicates effectively with your employees and encourages them to apply themselves in an ongoing manner. You can help the process by keeping it fresh and exciting, and educating your workforce as to the interconnectedness among quality product and service, informed and helpful employees and satisfied customers.
Training about the training
If you want your training library to be used, it needs to be accessible to various employees in various ways, and at all times, too. It is important to train your employees about using the training library – and, yes, that really does mean offering “training about training.” You want to show your employees that the training materials are accessible in a variety of ways, from web browsers to hard copy, from DVD-based presentations to mp3 audio files (and “podcasts”) that can be downloaded to an iPod.
Making the training available is the next most important thing to making it effective. Its effectiveness will be based on how well it helps your employees learn to understand and practice good customer service, specifically attuned to the nature of your particular business. Again, this can be accomplished on your own, or you can avail yourself of the assistance of professional training companies. The main thing is that you and your employees make customer service knowledge as important as product knowledge, and communicate this to your customers in word and deed.
Whichever route you take to establishing (and using) a corporate training library, remember that your own, specific experience and expertise are just as important as the general lessons that all businesses need to learn. There is that foundation of common knowledge, and then there are the unique experiences that you and your employees have accrued over time. Both the general and the specific are essential to the creation of a comprehensive corporate training library, and it is through ongoing refinement and improvement that it will remain relevant (and essential) to your ongoing success.
CBT Planet.com offers comprehensive computer and employee career training including self-paced computer based training(cbt), computer training videos, instructor-led courses and IT certifications boot camps. Visit them online today for all your cbt online. SCADA Security
If you have the time and the talent, you can develop your own corporate training library. Although the terminology suggests a room with a card catalog and a librarian, the fact is that most of today’s corporate training libraries are “virtual” in nature and are accessed from a computer over the company network. And, on second thought, there is no reason that you couldn’t dedicate a room or office, if one is available, to being a library or “learning lounge.” Whether virtual, a real room or some combination of the two, the most important thing, of course, is what the library contains.
The real deal
A network-based, computer-accessible corporate training library can make use of many kinds of documents and files. You can have text documents of various kinds, detailing the company products and services, and those documents can easily have hyperlinks embedded to take you (via your web browser) to additional resources. Both online and network-resident resources can be videos, audio/video clips, slideshows, presentations and marketing materials. Printed items can be turned into the popular PDF (Portable Document Format) for reading on-screen or printing hard copy.
Generally speaking, the topics you want to cover are the same ones your competitors do – how to keep the customers satisfied so they return again, as well as recommend your company to others. A key aim of customer service training is to learn how to listen, to understand what it is the customers are telling you, in words, action or inaction, so that you can improve the experience for them now, and for others in the future.
Help on the way
It may be that it makes more economic sense for you to obtain your corporate training library from one of the many companies that specialize in employee training programs. There is a great deal of material that is common to all firms, and that can be successfully deployed for training your own employees. Some training firms have various ways of presenting the same material, allowing you to use videos, hyperlinked pages and PowerPoint presentations depending on your own needs.
More exciting still are the ways in which training materials can be customized for your particular company. The most effective training library, of course, is one that gets used, and you can increase the odds of that by making sure that the training is relevant to your situation, communicates effectively with your employees and encourages them to apply themselves in an ongoing manner. You can help the process by keeping it fresh and exciting, and educating your workforce as to the interconnectedness among quality product and service, informed and helpful employees and satisfied customers.
Training about the training
If you want your training library to be used, it needs to be accessible to various employees in various ways, and at all times, too. It is important to train your employees about using the training library – and, yes, that really does mean offering “training about training.” You want to show your employees that the training materials are accessible in a variety of ways, from web browsers to hard copy, from DVD-based presentations to mp3 audio files (and “podcasts”) that can be downloaded to an iPod.
Making the training available is the next most important thing to making it effective. Its effectiveness will be based on how well it helps your employees learn to understand and practice good customer service, specifically attuned to the nature of your particular business. Again, this can be accomplished on your own, or you can avail yourself of the assistance of professional training companies. The main thing is that you and your employees make customer service knowledge as important as product knowledge, and communicate this to your customers in word and deed.
Whichever route you take to establishing (and using) a corporate training library, remember that your own, specific experience and expertise are just as important as the general lessons that all businesses need to learn. There is that foundation of common knowledge, and then there are the unique experiences that you and your employees have accrued over time. Both the general and the specific are essential to the creation of a comprehensive corporate training library, and it is through ongoing refinement and improvement that it will remain relevant (and essential) to your ongoing success.
CBT Planet.com offers comprehensive computer and employee career training including self-paced computer based training(cbt), computer training videos, instructor-led courses and IT certifications boot camps. Visit them online today for all your cbt online. SCADA Security
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Understanding the Three Major Search Engines
Although a number of good search engine firms don’t like the way consumers have “voted” with their browsers, the fact is that there is a group of second-tier search engines hovering around the 5% market share level. These are Ask.com, About.com and a few specialized search sites. There really is no question about who the big boys on the block are, and it hasn’t changed much since the last millennium, either. It’s Google at number one, with over 60% share, then Yahoo with 20% and MSN right under 10%.
Voted four times as the “Most Outstanding Search Engine” by readers of the online outfit, Search Engine Watch, Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in the hunt for whatever you are looking for.
Google wins big
Google provides the option to find more than just web pages, too. With just a click in the right place and your term(s) in the search field on Google’s home page, you can easily
• seek out images from across the web;
• join discussions that are taking place on Usenet newsgroups;
• locate news and information or perform product searches; and
• do the ultimate in comparison shopping.
Under the More pop-up menu are additional links providing access to “human-compiled” information, videos, books, scholarly aids, catalog searching and other fascinating and helpful services.
Google is famous for its many different features, like "cached links" allowing you to view "dead" pages, as well as previous versions of ones that have been altered. Dictionary definitions, phone numbers, stock quotes, street maps and many other kinds of information are easily accessed in Google. Refer to Google's help page for a complete explanation of these various features. Finally, the Google Toolbar and the various Google “web apps” have also become quite popular.
Yahoo in a slide
Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory" or "hierarchical search site," a place where real, human editors organize sites into categories. It was launched in 1994, but in October 2002 Yahoo made a “paradigm shift” to software-located listings for its main results rather than human editors. For several years, these automated results came from Google, until February 2004 when Yahoo began using its own searching and categorizing technologies. The "sense of community" that was a Yahoo priority from the start still distinguishes the site in many ways, and the site construction and organization attempt to make collaboration among people and companies easy, around the office or around the world.
Beyond the good-to-excellent search results, there are some Yahoo niceties that make searching enjoyable and simple. You can use the tabs above the search box on the Yahoo home page to look for images, Yellow Page listings or shopping comparisons. As opposed to the one-page Google home, Yahoo provides a separate "Search home page," where more numerous and more specialized search options are available to the motivated seeker.
What is MSN Search these days?
That question needs to be asked because MSN Search has changed its stripes a few times. It is now a crawler-based engine that only uses proprietary Microsoft technology in its search efforts. There are three important factors (probably many more, but these are the main ones) that MSN uses to put together its search index and individual results:
The automatic stuff: MSN Search's "spider" is named MSNBot, and it crawls the Web one individual link at a time to find pages that it will then add to the MSN index;
The human factor: After the automated actions have been taken, editors can still poke their noses into the process to "tweak" and refine the categories and links; and
The index generator: This clever technology sorts pages into subjects, directories, rankings and so forth. The best metaphor may be a post office, with every letter going into a certain slot according to zip code, street and number, mail type, etc.
Although it is in third place with under 10% of the current market share, MSN Search does have its devotees, as well as an army of detractors. For some people, Microsoft makes "good enough" software that is buggy and slow, and there have been complaints about MSN Search being sluggish and unresponsive. As usual, it comes down to personal tastes and needs.
Best of the best?
It seems that Google has been able to stay ahead of the race with nearly 63 percent share of the United States market in 2008, an 8 percent increase over the previous year according to ComScore. Yahoo, on the other hand, has been one of the biggest losers, with its share now just 20 percent, half of its peak during the last decade. MSN trails behind both with only 8.5% of market share, giving it even less reach and influence than Yahoo.
Although these search engines are all eminently usable, and satisfactorily direct you to the domains you’re looking for, it seems that Google outshines its competitors with a certain brilliance. With the introduction of its web apps – a browser, a Microsoft Office-compatible suite, an art program (Sketch) and other unique offerings – Google is in a commanding position, and appears perfectly prepared to keep its luster over the coming years.
AdGooroo is a leader in online competition analysis. With a cutting edge keyword tracking and providing free keyword research, AdGooroo is a must-have for any search marketer or agency.
Voted four times as the “Most Outstanding Search Engine” by readers of the online outfit, Search Engine Watch, Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in the hunt for whatever you are looking for.
Google wins big
Google provides the option to find more than just web pages, too. With just a click in the right place and your term(s) in the search field on Google’s home page, you can easily
• seek out images from across the web;
• join discussions that are taking place on Usenet newsgroups;
• locate news and information or perform product searches; and
• do the ultimate in comparison shopping.
Under the More pop-up menu are additional links providing access to “human-compiled” information, videos, books, scholarly aids, catalog searching and other fascinating and helpful services.
Google is famous for its many different features, like "cached links" allowing you to view "dead" pages, as well as previous versions of ones that have been altered. Dictionary definitions, phone numbers, stock quotes, street maps and many other kinds of information are easily accessed in Google. Refer to Google's help page for a complete explanation of these various features. Finally, the Google Toolbar and the various Google “web apps” have also become quite popular.
Yahoo in a slide
Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory" or "hierarchical search site," a place where real, human editors organize sites into categories. It was launched in 1994, but in October 2002 Yahoo made a “paradigm shift” to software-located listings for its main results rather than human editors. For several years, these automated results came from Google, until February 2004 when Yahoo began using its own searching and categorizing technologies. The "sense of community" that was a Yahoo priority from the start still distinguishes the site in many ways, and the site construction and organization attempt to make collaboration among people and companies easy, around the office or around the world.
Beyond the good-to-excellent search results, there are some Yahoo niceties that make searching enjoyable and simple. You can use the tabs above the search box on the Yahoo home page to look for images, Yellow Page listings or shopping comparisons. As opposed to the one-page Google home, Yahoo provides a separate "Search home page," where more numerous and more specialized search options are available to the motivated seeker.
What is MSN Search these days?
That question needs to be asked because MSN Search has changed its stripes a few times. It is now a crawler-based engine that only uses proprietary Microsoft technology in its search efforts. There are three important factors (probably many more, but these are the main ones) that MSN uses to put together its search index and individual results:
The automatic stuff: MSN Search's "spider" is named MSNBot, and it crawls the Web one individual link at a time to find pages that it will then add to the MSN index;
The human factor: After the automated actions have been taken, editors can still poke their noses into the process to "tweak" and refine the categories and links; and
The index generator: This clever technology sorts pages into subjects, directories, rankings and so forth. The best metaphor may be a post office, with every letter going into a certain slot according to zip code, street and number, mail type, etc.
Although it is in third place with under 10% of the current market share, MSN Search does have its devotees, as well as an army of detractors. For some people, Microsoft makes "good enough" software that is buggy and slow, and there have been complaints about MSN Search being sluggish and unresponsive. As usual, it comes down to personal tastes and needs.
Best of the best?
It seems that Google has been able to stay ahead of the race with nearly 63 percent share of the United States market in 2008, an 8 percent increase over the previous year according to ComScore. Yahoo, on the other hand, has been one of the biggest losers, with its share now just 20 percent, half of its peak during the last decade. MSN trails behind both with only 8.5% of market share, giving it even less reach and influence than Yahoo.
Although these search engines are all eminently usable, and satisfactorily direct you to the domains you’re looking for, it seems that Google outshines its competitors with a certain brilliance. With the introduction of its web apps – a browser, a Microsoft Office-compatible suite, an art program (Sketch) and other unique offerings – Google is in a commanding position, and appears perfectly prepared to keep its luster over the coming years.
AdGooroo is a leader in online competition analysis. With a cutting edge keyword tracking and providing free keyword research, AdGooroo is a must-have for any search marketer or agency.
The Importance Of Establishing Client Trust As An Online Business Owner
Some online business owners spend so much time trying to earn the trust of the major search engines they forget about their actual and potential customers. Don’t be one of these search-engine-obsessed business owners. Every visitor to your site is choosing to spend time at your site, among myriad other choices, so if you want to convert that visit to a sale you have some convincing to do. You have to prove, quickly, that you can meet their particular needs. More importantly, perhaps, you have to convey, in words and actions, that you are reliable enough to hold up your end of the bargain.
Long-established firms have been able to build and maintain that kind of customer confidence with their brand strength. If yours is a smaller firm without that kind of recognition, or you have only regional or local reach, you will have to work a lot harder to earn that confidence and establish that trust. This is even more important if you compete with those big, long-established brands.
Common worries remain
Despite the increase security on the Internet as compared to its early days, people still fret about fraudulent firms, stolen credit card stories and other web-related scares. You have to establish yourself to potential buyers, again quite swiftly, that you are indeed legitimate and will be around tomorrow to take care of a problem with today’s purchase. Customers want to be certain that you will stand behind your guarantees, live up to your return policy and, in general, value their patronage and protect their transactions (and personal data). Whatever you can do to lessen their worry is a plus.
Local or regional businesses can build trust by paying attention to appearances as well as reality. For example, your website is your “online store” and thus the defacto “public face” of your company. Fair or not, people will draw conclusions about your company based on the appearance of your website, so you need to be modern, efficient and generally “look the part” of a well-run company. The old saying, “Dress for success,” applies to your online business, too. Your site must be professional, not look like a first tutorial project on website building. Stay up to date with the latest look, without doing weekly revisions for no reason, of course. Every year or so, however, you should refresh your site’s look, features and even color scheme. Make sure your copyright notice, wherever you put it, has the current year in it, too!
Introduce yourself
Everything about your site should reassure customers that you are for real, legit and experienced. These indirect messages are important, but so are direct ones, so don’t skimp on the information on your “About the company” and/or “Contact” pages. Introduce yourself and your staff with short, informative biographies, mentioning education, degrees, special certifications and other pertinent experience. Having pictures will also personalize the experience for visitors, reminding them that there are real flesh-and-blood people behind this “virtual” storefront.
Don’t forget to do a short biography on the business itself, too – how you started the company, how long you’ve been around, interesting anecdotes and other things to humanize the site. If you belong to trade organizations, are in the Chamber of Commerce, support local charities and have a clean bill of health from the Better Business Bureau, say so, by all means. Do it without boasting, of course, but don’t assume people will investigate your background or company. Tell them about yourself and the firm, proactively.
Clips and links
Get permission from the local paper to reprint the article they did on you last year. Post video clips (after getting signed releases) of customers talking about a great buying experience. Link to reviews of both your company and the products you carry. If you have been mentioned in any other medium, from newspapers to local cable, make sure to talk about it and provide copies or links. Anything good that others say about you is great when it comes to establishing trust with new customers and reinforcing it with existing ones.
If your business is also an offline one, you should upload photographs of your store (front and interior), any delivery trucks or service vehicles, special equipment or product displays and anything else of interest. Doing this will indicate that you take pride in your business and your work, and that you run a company that they could visit in “real life.” It can also help show your expertise, as pictures are clear evidence that you have the right products and the right tools to do your job well.
Guarantees, privacy
Buyers always feel more confident making a purchase when the product or service has a solid, understandable guarantee. Of course, this is just good business whether or not you are online, but in the cyberspace market it can help you gain new customers who may have been hesitant before seeing the guarantee information.
You will certainly want to collect and maintain customer information, so you should post a privacy policy prominently. You will never know how many visitors actually read it, but it's critically important that they see one, so have a link to it on every single page of the site. Advise your customers that you will never share, rent or sell the information they supply, and even that you yourself won't use it for any other purpose than what they agree to (customer service, e-mailing special offers, etc.). Always give people a way to opt out of having their information collected, as well as declining your e-mail sales flyers.
Testimonials and perspectives
When you get an e-mail or phone call from a happy customer, ask them if you can post the message or the audio clip. Showing a picture of the people and using their names (even just first names and initials) will make the testimonials believable. Consider posting video testimonials, which are easy enough to make with the proliferation of low-cost webcams these days. If you have a brick-and-mortar store as well as an online one, you can make these videos with walk-in customers.
You need to view your website the same way that potential customers do. Look at it and try to imagine what someone who knows nothing about you will learn from your copy, graphics, pictures, video clips and other components. There are a lot of variables to cover when you are trying to build trust in business, and the lessons learned before the advent of the Internet are still important and applicable. Never stop thinking about how you can make your site better, as well as more representative of the professionalism and expertise that you, your staff and your business really do possess. It’s a challenge, certainly, but the payoff can make the difference between success and failure.
Amy Armitage is the head of Business Development for Lunarpages. Lunarpages provides quality web hosting from their US-based hosting facility. They offer a wide-range of services from dedicated server hosting and managed solutions to shared and reseller hosting plans.
Long-established firms have been able to build and maintain that kind of customer confidence with their brand strength. If yours is a smaller firm without that kind of recognition, or you have only regional or local reach, you will have to work a lot harder to earn that confidence and establish that trust. This is even more important if you compete with those big, long-established brands.
Common worries remain
Despite the increase security on the Internet as compared to its early days, people still fret about fraudulent firms, stolen credit card stories and other web-related scares. You have to establish yourself to potential buyers, again quite swiftly, that you are indeed legitimate and will be around tomorrow to take care of a problem with today’s purchase. Customers want to be certain that you will stand behind your guarantees, live up to your return policy and, in general, value their patronage and protect their transactions (and personal data). Whatever you can do to lessen their worry is a plus.
Local or regional businesses can build trust by paying attention to appearances as well as reality. For example, your website is your “online store” and thus the defacto “public face” of your company. Fair or not, people will draw conclusions about your company based on the appearance of your website, so you need to be modern, efficient and generally “look the part” of a well-run company. The old saying, “Dress for success,” applies to your online business, too. Your site must be professional, not look like a first tutorial project on website building. Stay up to date with the latest look, without doing weekly revisions for no reason, of course. Every year or so, however, you should refresh your site’s look, features and even color scheme. Make sure your copyright notice, wherever you put it, has the current year in it, too!
Introduce yourself
Everything about your site should reassure customers that you are for real, legit and experienced. These indirect messages are important, but so are direct ones, so don’t skimp on the information on your “About the company” and/or “Contact” pages. Introduce yourself and your staff with short, informative biographies, mentioning education, degrees, special certifications and other pertinent experience. Having pictures will also personalize the experience for visitors, reminding them that there are real flesh-and-blood people behind this “virtual” storefront.
Don’t forget to do a short biography on the business itself, too – how you started the company, how long you’ve been around, interesting anecdotes and other things to humanize the site. If you belong to trade organizations, are in the Chamber of Commerce, support local charities and have a clean bill of health from the Better Business Bureau, say so, by all means. Do it without boasting, of course, but don’t assume people will investigate your background or company. Tell them about yourself and the firm, proactively.
Clips and links
Get permission from the local paper to reprint the article they did on you last year. Post video clips (after getting signed releases) of customers talking about a great buying experience. Link to reviews of both your company and the products you carry. If you have been mentioned in any other medium, from newspapers to local cable, make sure to talk about it and provide copies or links. Anything good that others say about you is great when it comes to establishing trust with new customers and reinforcing it with existing ones.
If your business is also an offline one, you should upload photographs of your store (front and interior), any delivery trucks or service vehicles, special equipment or product displays and anything else of interest. Doing this will indicate that you take pride in your business and your work, and that you run a company that they could visit in “real life.” It can also help show your expertise, as pictures are clear evidence that you have the right products and the right tools to do your job well.
Guarantees, privacy
Buyers always feel more confident making a purchase when the product or service has a solid, understandable guarantee. Of course, this is just good business whether or not you are online, but in the cyberspace market it can help you gain new customers who may have been hesitant before seeing the guarantee information.
You will certainly want to collect and maintain customer information, so you should post a privacy policy prominently. You will never know how many visitors actually read it, but it's critically important that they see one, so have a link to it on every single page of the site. Advise your customers that you will never share, rent or sell the information they supply, and even that you yourself won't use it for any other purpose than what they agree to (customer service, e-mailing special offers, etc.). Always give people a way to opt out of having their information collected, as well as declining your e-mail sales flyers.
Testimonials and perspectives
When you get an e-mail or phone call from a happy customer, ask them if you can post the message or the audio clip. Showing a picture of the people and using their names (even just first names and initials) will make the testimonials believable. Consider posting video testimonials, which are easy enough to make with the proliferation of low-cost webcams these days. If you have a brick-and-mortar store as well as an online one, you can make these videos with walk-in customers.
You need to view your website the same way that potential customers do. Look at it and try to imagine what someone who knows nothing about you will learn from your copy, graphics, pictures, video clips and other components. There are a lot of variables to cover when you are trying to build trust in business, and the lessons learned before the advent of the Internet are still important and applicable. Never stop thinking about how you can make your site better, as well as more representative of the professionalism and expertise that you, your staff and your business really do possess. It’s a challenge, certainly, but the payoff can make the difference between success and failure.
Amy Armitage is the head of Business Development for Lunarpages. Lunarpages provides quality web hosting from their US-based hosting facility. They offer a wide-range of services from dedicated server hosting and managed solutions to shared and reseller hosting plans.
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