This year, e-commerce sales are predicted to jump 15% from last year. This is big news! Not only does this make 2010 the biggest e-commerce year ever, it’s happening in the midst of a major long-term recession. If you are one of the many companies that sells products or services online, this holiday season could be huge for your company, and it couldn’t be coming at a better time. So, what can you do to maximize sales and make sure you’re getting the most out of your site traffic? Hold on to your hats, folks, and pay attention…

Clean House and Take Names
We’re getting close to the wire with Christmas only a few weeks away, and online sales (as opposed to in-store retail) is predicted to ramp up and up as the big day approaches. If you haven’t done it already, visit your own site with a critical holiday shopping eye. Don’t just visit the front page—pretend you’re a customer and make a purchase. Do your best to catch any typos, bugs, or strange formatting. Make the process as pretty and seamless as possible to maximize sales.

Holiday Themes
Tis the season to decorate your site with holiday images, from front to back. Make your site feel as festive as possible and visitors will respond. Studies show, the more festive the atmosphere, the more sales retailers make. This is just as true for online stores as it is for brick-and-mortar. Just do a google search for some festive images and be sure to make them non-denominational. The last thing you want to do is offend your shoppers.

Put Your Best Promo Forward
Lead the pack with an unprecedented sale or special to entice new customers. While you might balk at the idea, sales are more valuable than the amount of money they bring in. A first-time shopper is much more likely to become a repeat customer if you make them remember you with a huge discount. Also, word-of-mouth spreads fast at the holidays, with coupon sites running up-to-the minute promotional specials from all over the Internet. Take a few moments and submit your coupons everywhere you can, and talk them up on forums. One satisfied customer can quickly become many as the sale catches fire.

Boost Your Bandwidth
Get ready for the influx by beefing up your hosting for the holidays. Many retailers forget this vital step and it results in lost profits, sometimes in the thousands. If your customers can’t access your site, they can’t make a purchase. It seems obvious, but many people don’t think about it until they’ve already lost money. Contact your hosting provider now and upgrade your plan. You can downgrade again after the holidays. The money you spend now will come back to you many-fold, and you’ll save yourself the embarrassment of a down website at the busiest time of the year.

Market Market Market
Use your company newsletter to announce your last minute holiday sales to your customers. Provide a special newsletter-subscriber-only link for a VIP discount to make your readers feel appreciated and valued. Highlight a few big sellers—products or services that have been selling well so far. Provide added discounts for these products and be sure to emphasize that they’re only available for a limited time. Use social media to spread the word too.

Fraud Protection
Fraud is rampant this time of year. Make sure you have a powerful e-commerce platform or third-party security solution to protect yourself and your customers from holiday fraud. Taking this added precaution now will protect your business’ reputation, and it will protect you from the infamous charge backs that darken the new year for many online merchants.

And… Remember to Check Out TurnKeyCommerce!

Happy Selling!

E-commerce is a ubiquitous tool in the online marketplace, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find a platform that works well, let alone one that is easy to use and has good back-end support. If you think about it, your e-commerce platform is just as important as the rest of your website. It may even be more important!

Once a customer reaches your store, chances are good they’ve decided to make a purchase. Your website has done its job, and you are about to make a sale, but you’re not home free. If your store is confusing, unattractive or makes your customer feel unsafe, all your hard work may go right out the window. Consumers are used to a certain standard for online stores, and anything less won’t fly. Would you risk your credit card information in an online store you didn’t trust? I sure wouldn’t.

It’s clear that professional, clean, secure e-commerce solutions are critically important for online success—so which one do you choose? Surely there are many options out there, but you probably don’t want to just try one and hope for the best. Unless you have the luxury of lost clientele, you’ll likely want a solution you can stick with. You’ll likely want a solution you can set up easily, without a steep learning curve. I can’t help but suggest TurnKey Commerce.

TurnKey Commerce offers a free 14-day trial, so I signed up to try it so I could write an informed post for our customers. I’d never seen the interface before and was interested to see how long it would take to start actually doing business. I can honestly say the process was fast, easy and fun—that’s right: setting up an online store was fun. The thing I enjoyed the most was playing with the templates, and configuring my store items. Even though I work for a company that specializes in easy online solutions, this particular solution seemed too good to be true and it was a shock that I was actually able to create a functioning, professional-looking store so quickly.

Really though, whether you choose TurnKey Commerce or another e-commerce solution, make sure you have back-end support, and that the solution works securely before you open it to the public. Your business depends on it. Learn more: http://turnkeycommerce.com

Anyone with a blog faces this conundrum at one time or another. Some people start out with a free blogging service like typepad or blogger, and, as they grow their audience, decide they need their own property. Others start out managing their own blog and get mired in the wordpress updates or spam and bail for a free, fully managed option. Before leaping right in, there are several items to consider when deciding which arrangement is right for you.

What are your Goals?

Are you planning on world domination or is your blog primarily for your friends and family? If you’re aspirations are modest, there is no reason to invest your time and money into a privately hosted blog. On the other hand, if you have loftier goals and think  you might, one day, want to become a pundit or amass a million followers, hosting your own property could pay dividends.

Design

Are you a designer? Does it matter to you to have your blog look just so? With free blogs, you have severely limited options design-wise. You can pick colors and templates, but you can’t go much beyond that. If you want to design your blog from the ground up, a privately hosted blog is right for you.

Maintenance

How good are you at computers? Do you understand how to configure a database? Do you understand PHP, blog software installation stuff or server-side configurations? None of this is particularly difficult, and it is very possible to learn it all with a little elbow grease. But, if you haven’t got the time, or don’t want to be bothered, a free blog is the best choice.

Branding

Generally, a blog with its own memorable domain name is much more brandable than a free blog domain (that includes .typepad or .wordpress within the URL). A private domain projects a professional image and sticks in people’s minds. Name your blog something clever to really capitalize on the memory factor. If you have big dreams, think about the promotional materials and business cards you may use in the future. Your own domain will look smashing on both.

Making Money

If your blog is popular, you can sell ads and make money, regardless of what format your blog happens to be in. Arguably, advertisers may be more inclined to take you seriously with your own domain name, but numbers talk. If you have the traffic, they’ll be interested.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’ve decided on hosting your own blog with your own domain name, look no further than TurnKey Website.

If you own a hosting company, chances are good you have a large number of customers paying a very low price for shared hosting services. But, for all you know, those customers are doing good business—despite the low price tag on their hosting. So, how can you make the most of this potential source of income without investing a ton of money in infrastructure and software development? By reselling online business solutions from TurnKey Internet, of course!

What Services?
Every business needs an ecommerce solution, right? Every business needs robust office email with collaboration tools. Every business needs web conferencing, monitoring and secure backup services. If you don’t provide these things to your clients, they will get them elsewhere. If they’re getting their other services elsewhere, it may not be long before they switch their hosting over too, consolidating their business with one company that has it all. You need to make your company the company that has it all. The more services you have to offer, the more clients you will keep, and the more money you will make.

What they Don’t Know they Need
As advanced as business has become, still many small business owners are behind the times. Part of the reason for this is simple fear of the technology—but another reason for this is ignorance of the simple solutions that could be increasing their sales ten-fold (and yours too, as a reseller of the services they need). The first step in making a successful resell, is education. Let your clients know about the tools you have to offer, and then sell them those tools. It may just be as easy as it sounds.

Your Monthly Percentage
The beauty of reselling is the consistent income that perpetuates itself with no additional work from you. You don’t have to worry about tech support or phone troubleshooting. Once you’ve made the sale you don’t have to raise a finger while you watch your profits go up and up.

TurnKey has it All!
As we move into the fall months, we will be releasing our full suite of online/cloud business solutions. We have already released TurnKeyMail, TurnKey NAS Vault and TurnKey Newsletter. These are three robust, action-packed SaaS solutions that you can start reselling to your clients today. Follow the links to learn how you can increase your monthly income with the clients you already have. You have nothing to lose!

As the available domain names grow scarcer by the second, many of us are left wondering how to choose a domain that will make any sense, let alone one that will drive traffic and brand our companies. While there are still many great domains out there, especially if you’re a creative thinker, the short, sweet, easy to spell, easy to say domains are not quite so forthcoming. If you have a very specific branding idea or an absolute favorite name that just isn’t available (for any price), misspellings might be your best shot at finding a name you love. Often, you will only have to switch two letters, or add a “k” in the place of a “c” to find an available name. You may even end up with a name that is more memorable and unique than the original name you wanted, and that sets you apart better then the dictionary spelling of a common word ever could.

Why would I want a misspelled domain anyway?
In addition to the cute, web 2.0ness of a misspelled domain, you may also end up growing your traffic wholly by accident, or, if you are particularly shrewd, wholly on purpose (I won’t tell). The name of the game is targeted traffic—if you choose a name like “hoogle.com” (which isn’t available, but permit me the example) you will end up with boatloads of traffic from the fat-fingered and, in America, that’s a lot of people. You will also end up with a bunch of people who are looking for a search engine. If you happen to be Bing, this is excellent news.

Which Misspellings Work Best?
As I mentioned, you’re aim is to target your traffic, so start out by finding your most popular competitor. You can choose to go the blatant route and pick a misspelling that is obviously keyboard-based (again, like hoogle, or like godadsy) or you can think like an English teacher and switch i’s and e’s, a common mistake for many spellers. Regardless of your tactic, be sure to pick a company that is offering the same products or services that you are offering. Get as close as you can, because the end goal is to make a sale. If your products are too different, that visitor will just correct their misspelling and vamoose.

Analyzing Traffic
The Internet is an incredible tool, as exemplified by the convenient misspelling traffic analysis provided by many different websites, for free. Investigate the traffic reports for misspellings that are not yet owned via Google keyword search. You may also want to consider domains that relate to distinct events, rather than existing companies. For example, if you are a vendor selling soccer equipment, consider a misspelled world cup player or team for your domain. There were millions of misspelled searches during the world cup. If even a small percentage of those people had come across your online store, you would have made some great sales—especially if you’d been clever enough to offer team jerseys at deep discounts to hardcore fans. And maybe even some vuvuzelas?

“Borrowing” Traffic
So, it might not be the most morally righteous thing in the world, but traffic on the Internet is not an entirely fair enterprise to begin with. Google ranks websites based, in part, on existing popularity. This means, we all start out at a disadvantage. Google also encourages website owners to populate their content with keywords and search terms—so, in a very real sense, we have no choice but to cater to the search engines from square one. A misspelling is not copyright infringement. It is not illegal. However, you can further protect yourself (and brand your very own company as a stand-alone) by choosing a misspelling that is it’s own catchy word or phrase. The less your domain relates to a recognizable brand while still sending you misspelling traffic, the better. So, while Godadsy might be a little obvious, Fodadsy is very much it’s own thing. While two letters isn’t quite as good as one, you’ll still get the fat-finger traffic while maintaining your very own name that is recognizably yours. You can always buy Godadsy too and point it to Fodadsy for a little thing I like to call the best of both worlds.

A Word of Caution
If you are a business owner who already has a domain, you may want to consider buying up all the possible misspellings of your name to protect yourself from just this type of traffic squatting. It’s nefarious and slightly dirty, but it works. Use it if you need it and watch out for it if you don’t.

Everyone has heard the expression: ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well, from the feedback I am getting it seems that many companies and organizations haven’t taken that very seriously when it comes to email system compliance. While people in the financial, insurance and medical industries are scrambling to comply with the new regulations, others may still not be aware of the laws they are violating every day. Have you heard of the following …

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (commonly called GLB or GLBA)
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
Hedge Fund Transparency Act (HFTA)
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (commonly called SOX)
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4)

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) apply to any organization that has the potential to be involved in litigation in the U.S. Federal Court system. The amendments, which went into effect on December 1, 2006, mandate that companies must be prepared for legal discovery. Every organization must know where their data is and how to retrieve it. This regulation covers any organization in any industry. You are required to have the ability to produce all electronic documents, including email, for a minimum of seven years.

Considering that the average employee sends and receives multiple emails daily, the storage capacity alone needed to achieve seven years of backups is more than most office servers can handle. The most reasonable and cost-effective way to maintain this level of compliance is by utilizing a virtual email or cloud-based email server. This will provide you with the number of email accounts you need, at a price you can afford, and also include the necessary systems for archiving and retrieval. Their storage capacities have the ability to expand as needed with no additional cost to the clients.
If you are considering an upgrade to your email system, you may also want to think about technologies like Active Sync for communication with smart-phones.

Check out our offerings for fully-compliant and affordable email systems to protect your businesses! Our offerings include Active Sync with SOX and HIPAA compliance, Microsoft-exchange level features and much more.

We could not be more excited to announce the arrival of our new email marketing software, TurnKey Newsletter! TurnKey Newsletter is going to change the way our clients do business. There are about a million incredible features (which I will get into below) but most important of all is the ability this software provides to learn about your customers—from how they read your emails to their shoe size—seriously. The better you know your customers, the better you can target your products and services to their needs, and the more successful your business will become.

TurnKey Newlsetter and Your Bottom Line: A One-to-One Ratio

Sometimes you can hear something a million times and you still need to hear it again. For example, you know you’re supposed to drink eight glasses of water every day. You hear it on T.V. You read it in the paper. But do you do it? I sure don’t. It’s the same thing for email marketing. Everyone talks about how important it is—how dramatically it can improve profit, how much it affects customer retention and customer trust—yet so many companies still haven’t started doing it. Part of the reason is that it’s intimidating. What solution do you choose? Will you be able to figure out how to use it? I think many businesses are reluctant to try something new that they don’t fully grasp, especially when they are worried about alienating customers or being called spammers. That is why TurnKey Newsletter is so incredibly exciting. It could not be easier to use!

TurnKey Newsletter: Overflowing with Top-of-the-Line Features

TurnKey Newsletter includes beautiful, professional design templates, an easy what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor, CAN-spam compliant automation (so you don’t get flagged, and your emails get through), email feedback and surveys (so you know what your customers are thinking), and personalization options (so every email is addressed personally—as if you sent each one individually). You can read more about all of the features here: http://turnkeynewsletter.com.

TurnKey Newsletter’s Emails: Always Look the Way You Designed Them

One of the things we are most proud of with TurnKey Newsletter is its compatibility with every major email client out there. Many email marketing products look great at first glance—you can edit templates, add images, and personalize just fine—but when your customers actually open your email, it looks nothing like the email you designed. Text is too big, images get resized, code is visible—it’s a complete mess. Your customers aren’t going to think, “hmm, wow, their email marketing software sucks,” they’re going to think, “hmm, wow, this company is incredibly unprofessional and I don’t think I should be trusting them with my business.” It’s sad, and it’s true. Don’t stake your reputation on a shoddy email marketing tool.

Trust TurnKey Newsletter. Really. It rules.

Reselling web hosting is a potentially lucrative business with many advantages. Well, most importantly, you don’t have to worry about hardware. Partnering with a reputable web hosting business that owns their own datacenter (i.e. TurnKey Internet) will allow you to provide reliable services to your clients while you receive stellar support and 100% uptime. But providing the server space is only one small part of a successful reseller business. You have to market your business too, and that’s no small task. As a very wise CEO once told me, “Products don’t make a business. Sales and marketing make a business.” So how do you effectively market your reseller business without spending all your capital on advertising? Good question, self! Allow me to elucidate…

Press Releases

Press releases are a powerful tool for marketing your company. While press releases work best for real newsworthy items, even routine product announcements and promotions can benefit from a formal press release distributed through the right channels. The best part is that press releases don’t have to cost you anything more than the time it takes to write them.

• Advantages

  Bloggers, journalists and online news outlets are always on the lookout for new content. Getting your press release listed is great for exposure, and it builds your website’s backlinks, which is great for SEO. If your release contains newsworthy information that extends beyond the web hosting arena, you could get picked up by print publications. This is an excellent way to build your company’s credibility and to reach an audience that may not be keeping tabs on industry-only news.

• Distribution

  There are several traditional (and free) methods for distributing press releases, and a few more creative non-traditional ones. First, submit your release to all of the online news outlets you can find. This can be time consuming, as many of them require you to register before you can submit news, but the effort is worthwhile. It may be onerous the first time around, but if you save your registration information, subsequent releases will be easier and faster. Second, notify your clients of your releases via your email newsletter. If you don’t have a newsletter yet, you should get on that, and fast, because they are invaluable marketing tools (more on this below). Third, submit your release to all of your local newspapers and radio stations. It might sound old school, but getting listed in print or mentioned on the radio will be a real feather in your company’s cap.

• Keywords

  Load your press release with SEO-friendly keywords and phrases. The more specific your keywords and phrases are, the better, for example: there are millions of companies using the keywords “web hosting” but not nearly as many using the keywords “New York web hosting professionals.” If you target your demographic with your keywords, you’ll maximize traffic from that demographic. And try to remember the rule: one to two keywords per 100 words.

• Paid Releases

  There are several companies that offer to distribute your press releases for a fee. Typically, the fee is $50-$250 and includes submission to all the major search engines and news outlets online. We have found paid releases to be beneficial for truly newsworthy releases, especially those that involve a new product or service that we know people will be excited about. The bottom line here is sales. If we have a release we think will bring in sales, we’re willing to spend some money to make sure our customers see it.

Blogs

What I’m doing here… right now… and here… is writing a company blog. This blog increases traffic to TurnKey Internet because it is regularly updated, searchable, indexed content that keeps us at the top of search results. The more I talk about TurnKey Internet’s top-notch web hosting products and services, the more easily we will be found by customers searching for top-notch web hosting products and services. It’s simple. It works. Try it!

Specials

Specials, sales and coupons attract attention. Everyone wants a deal. Everyone wants to pay less for something that used to cost more. You can advertise your specials via all the social networks (in which you should already have an account for your company). You can also include specials and promotions on your blog, with keyword-filled content that highlights the amazing features included in your special. If your special is really…well… special, you can write up a press release.

Email Newsletters

You have undoubtedly heard about the marketing power of email newsletters. If you haven’t started one yet, check out TurnKeyNewsletter.com, our one-stop email newsletter shop. Newsletters are ideal tools for sending out company updates, promotions, specials, etc. They are also critical tools for building customer trust and loyalty. An active company that has a lot going on is a successful company—at least in the eyes of your customers. Finding the right email newsletter software can be a real challenge. Many of the better known products out there have major bugs that will hurt your company’s image (the opposite of what you’re going for, obviously). That is why we have just released our very own, superior, incredible, action-packed email newsletter software. Check it out here: http://turnkeynewsletter.com. Also, stay tuned for a whole entire blog post dedicated to this new must-have marketing tool.

One of the biggest challenges for any web hosting company is reducing the rate of churn. Churn, or turn-over, is the rate at which customers cancel services. In the web hosting industry, churn can be alarmingly high, especially when economic times are difficult and customers are paying month-to-month. But, while all the big web hosting companies spend thousands of dollars getting customers in the door, really tackling the problem of churn is something many fail to do well. Fortunately, there are a few tried and true techniques for retaining customers and reducing churn that every web host could benefit from implementing.

Immediate Follow-Up

Every cancelation request is an opportunity. If you have an automated billing system for your company, you can start by scheduling an email cancellation message to send out to every customer that cancels her services. Compose a friendly message that politely asks why the customer cancelled. Ask if she was unhappy with your products or services. If you receive a response, consider it an open door. Send another email, offering to significantly reduce her monthly bill. Making less money is better than making no money. If you don’t receive a response, schedule another email for a week or two after the initial cancellation. In your second email, offer specials or deep product discounts designed to entice her back to your business. Make it an offer she can’t refuse. Don’t give up. A previous customer is an extremely valuable lead. Chances are good, if you’re consistent, polite and solicitous, that customer will think of you the next time she needs web hosting. Customer loyalty is a powerful thing. Make the most of it.

Appeal to the Businessman

One tactic I have found extremely effective is to appeal to the logical businessman in our customers. Web hosting is unique in that it is the portal through which our clients reach their clients. Without a website, most businesses will fail nowadays. Sometimes a phone call with a simple sales pitch works wonders. Not only is it harder to say no over the phone, a convincing voice explaining how important it is to maintain your business presence online goes a long way. Pair that with an unbeatable offer for discount services, and reel that client right back in.

Take it from the Salesman

A good salesman can convince anybody of anything. But when you have a great product with great service at a great price, you don’t have to be the best salesman in the world, you just have to tell it like it is. Get your message out there and be consistent. Like I’m always saying, success and hard work are the same thing.

Help Your Customers Succeed

According to a whole lot of industry experts, the main reason businesses fail online is bad marketing. You can’t sell something nobody knows about. It may seem obvious, but most hosting companies don’t go the extra mile to help their customers market their services and they lose customers because of it. Give your customers tips about how to get noticed. Put together an e-book full of marketing research and ideas. If your customers are successful, you will be successful. This is also a no-brainer when it comes to building brand loyalty. If you help someone make money, they are not likely to forget it.

It’s a HOT SUMMER PROMOTION!!

During July and August, TurnKey Internet is offering up to $100 in visa gift cards to all new ultimate web hosting, virtual private server, dedicated server, colocation and ultimate reseller customers! With this free-gift summer special, TurnKey will welcome new sign-ups and make it easy for existing customers to try out new web hosting products and packages.

Now is the time to get that new business website up and running for the September rush! If you have never experienced TurnKey Internet’s web hosting before, take advantage of this offer to try it out risk free. If you are an existing customer, you can use this opportunity to expand your service offerings, grow your business or launch a new online store.

For complete details, visit us at: http://turnkeyinternet.net/cashback