Although our specialty is marketing websites, we have written articles on numerous topics. Below is a sample of some of the articles KhalsaWeb has written in the last couple of years. Everything is listed in chronological order, the most recent are first. Please feel free to browse through and email us any questions.

2 New Trends in Marketing Websites

The development of Smartphones coupled with a tough economy, has given rise to new forms of marketing and advertising websites.

1.) Geolocation
PC World called it the buzz word of the year.
Wikipedia defines geolocation as the “identification of real-world geographic location of an object, such as a cell phone or an internet connected computer.” An auto lookup is done on your cellphone or notebook, and your device’s IP Address is identified. When you “check in” using a social media service, your location is broadcast.

read more...

From Caffeine to Instant, a Revolution in Search

Usually, search engines change their ranking formulas over a long period of time. The last major change in Google was called the "Florida Update", and was done in 2003. In November 2009, Google started to unveil their new algorithms for search engine rankings.The new criteria for page rankings includes;

Speed - How fast does your homepage load. Be careful how many apps and video you load to the front page of your blog or website.

Ten Affordable Ideas to Improve Your Website

There are actions you can take (or inexpensively hire) to increase your website traffic and develop additional revenue streams. Use these ideas to develop trusted links back to your website and boost it's rankings in the Search Engines. Adding Google Adsense and affiliate marketing will help you capitalize on the increased traffic. read more...

Marketing Websites - The Followup

We spend a lot of time and attention attracting visitors to our websites. A recent article by The Customer Respect Group reveals that many of us are losing the visitor once they get to our website. Forrester Research has stated that 70% of online customers will drop brand loyalty and go to a competitor, if they do not receive a timely response from a company.

Return to Basics

If you have your website done by a non-professional, you may end up paying the price later on. There are many fine details that determine whether your website is perceived as a site that attracts visitors or just sits out in the far reaches of cyberspace.

Right now 50% of website viewers still have screens under 15 inches. You want to have the size of your webpage fit their screen size. People are reluctant to scroll over. Although a webpage that is 1080 pixels looks fantastic on a 17 or 19-inch monitor, the average person still has to scroll across to read all of the information. read more...

Marketing Websites

Search engines have dramatically changed the way they rank websites, causing webmasters to re-think the way they approach marketing websites. In the late 90's, page rank was determined by webpage coding, and it was easy to fool the search engines. This is no longer the case.

It is important to target the right keywords in order to generate website traffic. 'Keywords' refers to a phrase or word that can be typed into a search engine to find your product. Most of the search engines look at page content and analyze it for keywords. Meta-tags have very little weight, but page title and description have an increased importance. Be sure to insert your keywords. read more...

Email Spam and Phishing

It seems like the volume of email spam has doubled in the last month. Increasingly, we receive daily emails for better mortgage rates, pharmaceutical discounts, and offers to enlarge body parts we don’t even have.

The next generation of sophisticated tools is available to email spammers. Hidden code can be embedded into email allowing the sender to track it. A “spam beacon” lets the sender know that this is a valid, live, email address. The sender can also tell if you’ve opened the email before you tossed it. “Nearly half of all spam is bugged with so-called "spam beacons" for tracking users who open junk mail, said e-mail filtering firm MX.”

Online Travel Statistics

The Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) released their annual Travelers’ Use of the Internet study in December 2003. The study shows an increase in the number of people using the internet to research and book travel.

TIA found that 30% of the adult U.S. population (63.8 million) consult the web for travel information. These travelers spend (on average) $300 more on travel, and nearly 40% had an annual household income above $75,000.

Copyright Law and the Internet

The internet has made us all publishers and many of the copyright laws apply. The internet is not considered public domain and any original work, including photos, art and text, are protected even if there is no copyright notice.

If you receive a complaint about your website, the prudent course of action is to immediately remove the material while you seek proof of ownership. If it comes to a court appearance, your immediate response will be viewed favorably.

The Demographics of Technology Users

The face of technology users continues to change. According to the Pew Internet & American Life study, "a greater portion of enthusiastic tech users find it more difficult to do without their computer, cell phone and internet than their television and landline telephone". Thirty one percent of the population are considered heavy technology users.

Many of this "tech elite" access the internet wirelessly and pay for online content. For this group, email is as important as the telephone.

Identity Theft

Identity fraud tops the Federal Trade Commission’s list as the nation’s fastest growing crime, registering 43% of last years 380,000 complaints. Many of these cases were perpetrated through the Internet. Affected companies include Bank of America, AOL, MSN, eBay, PayPal, and even the IRS.

The Bank of America scam came through email, asking the receiver to go to the website to verify their personal or financial information. When the enclosed email link is clicked, the receiver is taken off to a look alike website where they are asked to enter their name and account number.

Faster Than Email
Instant Messaging

Email has gone from an unknown to an essential form of communication in less than two decades. It’s rapid adoption helped to revolutionize communication, and now technology is poised to take the next leap.

Christopher Saunders of InstantMessagingPlanet.Com, says that “instant messaging in the workplace is here, it’s now, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds and will touch virtually every business and numerous business processes in the coming years. The Radicati Group expects instant messaging to grow to 349 million users in the next five years.

Optimize Your PC Skills
Keyboard Command Combos

Besides using the mouse to click and save a file, you can also use keyboard commands, making your actions easier and much faster.

Any of us who use a computer regularly notice that there are certain menu commands that are the same. You can Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Save, Print and switch between programs, without taking your hands off the keyboard. These basic commands are standard in most Operating Systems and software except some games, where you wouldn’t expect to perform these actions.

Microsoft’s Passport

Making travel reservations and purchases online has become common practice. Many of us will order books at Amazon.Com or send flowers. Jupiter Research conducted a survey in March of 2003. In it, they found out that 55% of households were comfortable making credit card purchases online.

This sense of security was dealt a serious blow recently. Microsoft’s Passport was found to have serious security flaws. Microsoft is accused of not thoroughly testing their code before releasing the product.

Online Shopping Safety

When shopping online there are several things you can do to add to your shopping safety. Being aware of technology scams, checking website policies and understanding your credit card rights, will go a long way in providing personal protection.

Some websites will provide cost comparisons, assisting you in finding the lowest price for your request. Be aware, there have been reports of a few sites “fixing” their technology and returning incorrect results.

Once you have decided where you want to make your purchase, go through that website and look for policies defining warranties, refunds, returns, legal statements and privacy policies.

Stop Spam
Just Delete It!

Recent reports believe that nearly one quarter of all emails sent to businesses may be spam (unsolicited advertisements). Valuable company time is wasted deleting these annoying emails.

SurfControl, an email filtering company, conducted a survey by polling 1,400 office workers and IT professionals. They found that 9 in 10 would support legislation restricting pornographic spam and wanted criminal penalties imposed on misleading and false information. The workers want Congress to act against spam. There were anti-spam bills in the last session of Congress, but they failed to pass.

The Internet in 2003

The Internet is likely to experience more changes as we adjust to this medium and change our habits. Broadband access through DSL, Cable and Satellite, is expected to reach 23.3 million households, penetrating more than 15% of the market according to Ben Macklin of E-Marketer. He predicts that this number will rise to more than 27% in 2004.

More and more gadgets are being fitted with WiFi technology (wireless local area networks). From cellphones to Palm Pilots, more people are accessing the Web on the run.

Online User Demographics

Online user statistics have changed significantly in the past several years. The total number of internet users has grown from 76 million to 111 million Americans, and the number of users researching travel destinations has grown from 30% to 66%. According to the Pew Internet Research Project statistics, over 64 million Americans are online daily.

Windows XP is one of the most stable operating systems that Microsoft has released to date. It ends the distinction between the corporate and consumer packages. It has a strong compatibility with hardware and software. If you have software that is buggy, XP can usually prevent it from crashing other Windows applications, allowing “clean” recovery.

If your system can handle the upgrade, you will find that it is well worth it. Windows XP requires a minimum of 1.5 GB of hard drive space, a 300 MHZ processor and at least 128mb of RAM.

New Internet Radio Rulings

Internet radio may be drastically affected by the recent government webcasting determination (www.copyright.gov/carp/
webcasting _rates_final.html). On June 22nd the New York Times reported; "The U.S. Copyright Office decided Thursday to charge webcasters 70 cents per song heard by 1,000 listeners, or half of what a government panel had proposed in February…If the decision is not changed, the first monthly royalty payments will be due in November. The fees are retroactive to 1998 and full payment of royalties from past years will be due in October."

Why is Verisign Sending Me a Bill?

When we first started as internet consultants back in '94, all domain names were registered through Network Solutions. A couple of years ago, ICANN, the governing body for domain registrations, opened up the system and allowed other companies to register domains.

Many of us registered domain names through either Network Solutions or Registrars. Recently, Verisign purchased both companies. All registration changeovers were completed by March 15, 02. You may have received communication from them either through the mail or through email.

The emails and letters should have given you your new login and password for your domain name in your new Verisign account. This is critical information and should be carefully filed.

Internet Update

A lot has changed on the Internet in the last year. The Search Engines have changed their business model in order to stay alive. More people are using high speed access (DSL, Cable or Satellite) to surf the Web, and the average computers are much faster and come with larger monitors. All of this affects how your website is seen and if it turns up in the Search Engines.

The Search Engines are still "spidering" the Internet, reading page codes and ranking websites. Regularly submitting your site to them and making sure that your keywords are in the page title and are worked into the page coding is still vitally important.

Banner Advertising

Why do people click on some banners and not on others? There are several things you can do to make your banner more attractive.

Banner advertising is measured by “click-through rate”. Click-through rate is the percentage of page views, to the number of times a visitor clicks on the banner. If your banner is viewed 20 times and is clicked on once, it enjoys a 5% click-through rate.

Child Online Safety

The Internet can be a wonderful resource of information, assisting children with their homework and developing their educational skills. Regrettably, a recent University of Boston study showed many children have received unwanted online advances. Giving our children a safe environment to grow up in, starts at the home. Now we have the Internet, extending our homes into the unmoderated vastness of the World Wide Web.

Digital Camera Use

Digital cameras are very convenient, allowing you to view what you shoot immediately. In some occupations, such as Real Estate, they are indispensable.

With digital cameras you are able to instantly view your images. When you transfer them over to your computer you can lighten or darken them and crop them to get the image you really want. Look for a camera that transfers images through a USB port or through a card reader, both are very quick.

Effective Online Advertising

There are several forms of advertising online; banner ads (the most pervasive), keyword purchases at portals, search engines and directories, email campaigns and trading links.

Banner advertising used to be the most effective way to get your website noticed but with click through rates dropping to .04%, it is time to explore additional avenues. The company Net Ratings, attributes the change to “the evolution of web surfing into web searching.” The best way users can find you is if they are looking for you.

Email Hoaxes

Sometimes email hoaxes are sent out just to see how far the email will go. Other purposes include; harassing another person, using a pyramid scheme to try and get money, or to damage another person’s or organization’s reputation

The first virus hoax started in 1988, claiming that the person sending the email had downloaded it from a bulletin board.

You can commonly recognize hoaxes, often they use technical sounding language or hope to insinuate credibility by association. Beware of emails encouraging you to forward the message to everyone you know. Most of the hoaxes prey on our need to help others, some have been started by spammers hoping to gather email addresses.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to acquire customers. When it is done properly, it creates an effective way to attract visitors to your website.

Initially you will need to take time to target your audience. Unsolicited emails, known as spam, are not appreciated by most people. The best solution is to either gather email addresses from your website or to purchase “opt-in” mailing lists. Opt-in lists (known as permission marketing) are addresses of people who have given their permission to receive emails on topics they are interested in. Postmaster Direct has more than 3,000 targeted email lists with over 30 million email addresses. Their lists cost from $100 to $350 CPM (cost per thousand). Because email addresses change frequently, most lists that you purchase will have a 5% failure rate.

Instant Messaging

Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo are the leaders in Instant Messaging (IM). Instant messaging has become one of the most popular internet applications. Researchers believe that more than 900 million messages are sent a day. Forrester Research says that nearly half of the Fortune 1000 will adopt IM as part of the office.

Instant Messaging is commonly used to schedule meetings, for customer contact and networking salespeople. Unfortunately, IM has also attracted viruses.

The most recent virus is known as the Choke worm, which attacked MSN Messenger users. People received messages such as, “i have a file for u, its real funny”. Attached was a file called Hello.exe, which contained the virus.

Intelligence Software

Marketing websites typically consists of submissions to search engines, keyword buys and placing banner advertisements. Knowing how your website visitors find your website will help you to identify which promotions are working for you. Intelligence software are tracking programs that allow you to identify not only where your website traffic comes from, but other important bits of information like, how long do people remain on your site and what search terms they have used to find you. To pick tracking software that is right for your website, there are a couple questions that need to be answered.

What types of customers are profitable? You will find that targeting your customers will give you a higher ROI (return on investment). Many times keyword buys and selected banner ads will accomplish this. The right tracking software will allow you to see which ads are working.

Online Fraud

Most financial data transferred online is encrypted. 3^rd largest category in internet fraud. Although you are not liable for unauthorized liable purchases, you may want to minimize the threat. Visa card holders can can create personal passwords that are supplied when making purchases- scheduled to go live before the holiday season gets under way. Pnly works if your bank is part of the verified program. www.visa.com/verfied

Privacy payments service by American express- generates random transaction numbers used instead of the charge card. www.americanexpress.com/privatepayments. Transaction numbers expire after a single use. You will have to generate a new number for every purchase.

Online News Resources

Looking for more diverse news coverage? If you press the news search button on most search engines, you will pick up news from wire services like Reuters and the Associated Press. There are also news search engines such as Moreover, Yahoo and Excites’ News Tracker, that will target headlines from subject-oriented sites.

Moveover provides news feeds covering nearly 300 different categories. If you visit their homepage, you will find drop down boxes on the left side of the page allowing you to view current headlines. You can also choose to have topics of interest emailed to your computer.

Promotion Links

Can afford to hire someone to submit your website to the major search engines and internet directories? Go here to view our "do it yourself" page. Most search engines will accept your submissions up to once a day!

Portable Devices

Wireless connectivity is becoming an essential part of the business culture. Portable devices such as PDA’s (Personal Desktop Assistant), are poised to play an integral part in ‘mobile business’. They are easy to use and are usable by both PC and Mac users.

Search Engine Math

Trying to search the web and coming up with poor results? This article gives information on advanced searching techiniques to assist you in refining your search.

Small Business Resources

From accounting to finding venture capital, the internet is a great resource for small businesses. Below is a list of useful websites.

The Small Business Administration is online at www.sbaonline.sba.gov. Their website includes a guide for local SBA resources, disaster assistance and an online library.

Tax Information

From IRS forms to directories of tax officials, the Internet provides a wealth of information to help you through this season. Keep in mind, the Internet will not replace sound advice from your accountant.

The IRS’s website is located at irs.ustreas.gov. You can locate any of the tax forms you need at irs.ustreas.gov/forms_pubs/forms.html, or access search at irs.ustreas.gov/help/search_help.html.

Website Basics

If you have your website done by a non-professional, you may end up paying the price later on. There are many fine details that determine whether your website is perceived as a site that attracts visitors or just sits out in the far reaches of cyberspace.

Right now the average screen size is between 14 and 15 inches. You want to have the size of your webpage fit their screen size. People are reluctant to scroll over. Although a webpage that is 1080 pixels looks fantastic on a 17 or 19-inch monitor, the average person will have to constantly scroll to read all of the information.

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voice: 909.585.3234
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