Google provides yet another set of valuable educational resources at its Conversion University. On this site (marketed mostly to Google Analytics users), you will find loads of articles about creating a website that converts visitors into customers and helps retain your existing customers.

My favorite article found here was “Monetizing Non-Ecommerce Sites.” No, its not yet another article about how you can Get Rich with Adsense–it is an editorial on how you can measure the value of a non-Ecommerce site, such as a website that promotes a service-oriented business. Not only will the ideas presented help the average business-owner understand the important connection between their website and sales, but it also emphasizes the importance of tracking for determining your ROI (Return on Investment).

If you need a website that includes more conversion techniques, YNot Web can help. We also provide our own article section on Conversions, for those who want to investigate and test out ideas on their own.

Windows “Live” is live - in beta - at http://www.live.com (okay, how much did THAT domain cost?)

Its going to take me a while to check out all the features- my first peeks were at Live Local: http://local.live.com (maps, directions, “Where am I”, local Traffic! etc.) and Live Messenger (an expansion on MSN and Windows Messenger). One of my friends already sent me Live Messenger games from a Pirates of the Caribbean theme. Pretty nifty.

I’m just wondering how I’m going to keep up! I’m still testing the Microsoft AdCenter (like Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing) which went live in May.
I’ll keep you posted as I can, but check it out if you get a chance.

If you haven’t checked out Google Answers, you should try it out. Google Answers has more than 500 carefully screened Researchers to answer your question for as little as $2.50 and usually within 24 hours. So if you need some research done on a specific question, its a great resource. It is also a great resource for seeing answers that OTHER people paid for, as all questions and answers are publicly displayed. One last idea for using Google Answers– using it to see what information people are looking for in respect to your industry or niche. Knowing what people are looking for is an important step to determining what services and products are in demand.
Check it out: http://answers.google.com

Update 12/3/2006:  Google Answers is being retired by Google.  They are keeping their database of questions available, but no new questions are being accepted.

Keep an eye out for mail from Yahoo giving away $50 in Yahoo Search Marketing credits for new accounts.

Yahoo Search Marketing is Yahoo’s pay per click and sponsored search advertising venue for web site owners. As Yahoo is currently the number 1 search engine used on the internet, your advertisement can potentially reach millions and be seen on sites like Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, and CNN.

So if you are thinking about trying out this advertisement method, starting with an extra $50 ad budget is a great place to start. If you do not receive a mailer from Yahoo (or you simply see this entry well past its post date), you can still Sign up and get a $25 credit.

If you have a web presence and any sort of advertising budget, I highly suggest you at least test the waters with Pay Per Click.  If you need help setting up a campaign to increase your chances of success, give me a call - I can help.

Google’s latest update is causing a stir in the webmaster circles. Many web developers have reported that all of their web pages except for their index page have been moved to something called the supplemental index.

“What is the Supplemental Index?”

Google’s Supplemental Index is an alternate index that is normally only used when Google index cannot find relevant results in their standard index. Being in the Supplemental Index generally means that your web pages won’t be found for most searches.

You can check to see if a web page is in the Supplemental Index by performing a Google search for site:mydomain.com (replace mydomain.com with your own domain name). If you see “supplemental result” next to the results then those pages are supplemental.

“How Can Google Do this to me?”

It appears that this is just a bug in the transition to the new Google data centers. Since one of the main reasons for the Big Daddy update is that Google wanted to solve problems with redirects and canonical URLs, they may be isolating web pages in order to test new algorithms on these types of URLs.

“Will This Affect Me?”

If you have spam free web pages with good content and a good number of incoming links, the Big Daddy update should have a positive effect on your Google rankings. However, if you use spam techniques to try to improve your rankings, you may find your web sites suffering at the hands of Big Daddy.