Marketing, Information Security, and other Online Business Essentials

David Merrick's blog

The State of eCommerce

Computer Industry Almanac assesses the 2004 Worldwide Internet Population at 934 million, and projects 1.35 billion by 2007. The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce reported that the estimate of U.S.
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How to Process Payments Online

The following is a list of the most popular online payment processors for accepting credit cards.
  1. Authorize.net's Reseller Directory
  2. iTransact is a US-based payment processor.
  3. PayPal is an International payment gateway owned by eBay Inc. It is one of the most popular payment gateways and is used as the primary payment method for companies such as eBay and Skype.
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Shipping APIs

This is a list of the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for calculating shipping costs internationally.
  • To ship to Canada, the Canadian postal service requires a merchant ID, which can be obtained for free at their site: http://www.canadapost.com/ business/intsol/sb/ventureone/default-e.asp?source=web">http://www.canadapost.com/business/intsol/sb/ventureone/default-e.asp?source=web
  • UPS and USPS also require registration for an API Key. Read more »

Market Qualification Guide

Required Traits
  • Related affiliate products
  • Advertising Opportunities
  • Desperate/Impulsive
  • Membership Mentality
  • Need for Ongoing Support
  • Year-Round Sales
Optional Traits:
  • Personal Interest or Expertise
  • High-Ticket Opportunities
  • Affinity or a Story to Tell
  • Pre-Existing Membership and/or Community Sites
  • Pre-existing Associations
Ideally, you want a market with at least 10 of the above attributes before you even consider entering and monetizing it with a membership sit
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Monetizing Membership Sites

Monetizing Membership Sites
There are three models of membership sites:
  1. Free Membership Sites (aka community sites)
  2. Single-Pay Membership Sites
  3. Subscription or Continuity-Based Membersh
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Finding Products to Sell Online

Wholesale Products
This is part of my series of notes from the "Profits from Physical Products" seminar by Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallen. Finding the Product Source The Product Food Chain
  1. Manufacturer
    1. Usually doesn't se
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Andy Jenkins: Competitive Research

In the "Profits from Physical Products" Seminar, Andy Jenkins discusses competitive research for search engine optimization. Using the MarketLeap Tool:
  1. Enter in at least 3 of your competitors' URLs.
  2. Look at the backlinks to their sites.
  3. If the number of backlinks is do-able for you to achieve and outrank them, then you're good to enter the market!
Watch out for cloaking. With search engine optimization, you can either spend lots of time or lots of money to be optimized.
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Andy Jenkins: eCommerce product research

33% of what I do is based on what my competition does. --Andy Jenkins
Traditional Product Research
  • Find out who is in the search space for your market
  • Find out how much brand awareness there is for your market
Competitive Research
  • is your competitor marketing savvy?
  • Are they running specials? Opt-ins? Buy one get one free?
  • Example: www.crutchfield.com
  • Get a sense of your competitors' price floors.
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What do people do on Search Engines?

  • The top search at MSN and YAHOO is "Google"
  • Half of all users enter only one search query.
  • 54% view just 1 result per visit to the search engine
  • Searchers typically visit only the top 3 search results.
  • About 55% of users check one result only.
  • Only 19% of users go to the second search results page.
  • Fewer than 10% bother to go to the third page.
  • Over 80% stop after looking at 3 results.
  • 80% of the time, the abstract (summary) dissuades searchers from visiting a site.
  • Upon clickin
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Twitter Background Image Dimensions

File Dimensions: 2048 px by 1707 px Branding Dimensions: 80 px by 587 px Coordinates: X=20, Y=14 Horizontal position: 20 px from the left (give yourself some padding) Vertical position: 14 px from the top (will line up your graphic with the top of the twitter logo. our eyes like symmetry) File size and type according to Twitter: "Images must be smaller than 800k.
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