Paypal vs Merchant Account: Which Should You Use On Your Website?

So you’ve heard the horror stories about Paypal suspending accounts for questionable reasons, but you’re not sure if you want to spend the money and go through the hassles of setting up a dedicated merchant account. Well, let Webtys.com help you decide:

“Which is better, PayPal or a merchant account? We get asked this question… a lot. Each has its benefits and its drawbacks. To make your choice as easy as possible we’ve created a side-by-side comparison below.

The first thing you need to know is that there are two components to processing credit cards with a web site. There’s a gateway which connects your web site with the credit card processor, and the credit card processor which actually processes the transaction. You always need both elements to accept credit cards on your web site.

Now that you know that, let’s compare both below and see what’s best for you and…

PAYPAL:
Low budget, easy to install.

What is PayPal?

PayPal is an all-inclusive external payment solution. This means that people leave your web site to pay their bill, and then come back to your web site when they’re done. PayPal handles all the security for you which is nice. All you have to do is tell PayPal how much to charge, and they do the rest.

How much does PayPal cost?

PayPal doesn’t have any upfront costs. There is no application fee, no setup fee and no monthly fees for the basic package. PayPal will deduct a percentage from each payment people make. This way if you don’t make…”

Continue “Paypal vs. Merchant Account” here.

Stipple Could Alter The Way We Browse And Buy Things Online

This could get very interesting for both advertisers and consumers alike. This just may open a whole world of opportunities especially if you’re in the fashion industry.

TechCrunch reports:

“So what is Stipple now? Well, there’s still the people-tagging element for sure. And that’s still really cool. If you tag a person in a photo on the web, you can enter their Twitter name or Facebook name and then anyone can see their most recent updates as overlays on that picture. But the much bigger idea is that Stipple is teaming up with photo services, fashion brands, publishers, and others to possibly alter the way people browse and buy things on the web.

Think of it this way: right now when someone is browsing the web and they see a shirt they like on a random photo, they probably resort to doing a Google search for something similar. Or maybe they open the website of their favorite store to see if they have anything to match that look. But what Stipple offers is a way for each photo to show you exactly what piece of clothing the person in the photo is wearing — to show you who makes it, how much it costs, etc. And it allows you to “Want” it (save it to look at later) or “Shop” for it via two overlay buttons right on the picture itself.

It’s an idea that clearly resonates with web browsers. How do I know? Because Stipple co-founder and CEO Rey Flemings had some data to share with us. Stipple has actually been serving these product dots (the overlay used to show an area of the picture contains more information) for a while now — enough for over 10 million data points. He says that people mouse over a photo with a dot 46 percent of the time. And those users touch the product dot 12.48 percent of the time — that’s actually more than people use the people dot (4.9 percent of the time).

Think about that for a second. That mousing over the dot is basically an ad impression — with a strong level of intent. And it’s happening 12.48 percent of the time on Stipple-tagged images. Further, 1.75 percent are clicking the Want button. While 1.9 percent are clicking the Shop button. Advertisers would kill for those types of rates…”

Continue @ Techcrunch

Lijit: Adsense Alternative For Mid-Sized Publishers

This looks promising. I too hate the fact you can never reach Google when something goes wrong. How refreshing it would be if we could actually reach a real live person!

WebProNews Reports:

“Not surprisingly, many businesses use Google’s AdSense platform to make money. It has given many publishers a tried-and-true monetization model to fall back on, so they can focus on the editorial side of the business.

Although Google has been very successful with its AdSense platform, it is known for targeting, primarily, large publishers. For this reason, Lijit Networks is aiming to provide an alternative to AdSense and reach out, specifically, to mid-sized publishers.

The company has provided publishers with audience engagement and analytics tools since 2006, but it added a monetization feature earlier this year. Since Q4 2010, transactions on the advertising platform have grown 74 percent. Lijit also recently closed a $10 million round of financing in order to expand its platform and compete directly with Google.

Todd Vernon, the CEO and founder of Lijit, told us that publishers, especially in the mid-sized marketplace, tell them that Google isn’t performing to its users’ expectations.

‘What we hear, time and time again, is, ‘when there’s something wrong, I can’t get a hold of Google… they only provide me error messages… I can’t actually talk to a human,’’ he said.

Because Lijit is reaching out to a niche market, it believes it can take on the advertising giant.

‘At the end of the day, they’re [Google] vulnerable in this area,’ pointed out Vernon. ‘Google’s not known for customer service,’ he added.

As for how Lijit plans to take on this endeavor, Vernon said, ‘We just want to have more relationships with more publishers in niche content areas that we know how to monetize that others probably won’t do as good a job with.’

Do you think Lijit can successfully take on Google?”

Why You Should Be Using Google Analytics Right Now!

Have you ever called a business to inquire about their services and heard the person on the other end ask you, “Where did you hear about our business?” Sure you have, this is a pretty common thing and while it may seem like a small, almost meaningless question to the customer, the business takes this question VERY seriously. This is how they determine how effective their specific marketing and advertising campaigns are.

If a business is using, let’s say the yellow pages, fliers, and postcards to advertise their business, it is VERY helpful for them to know how many customers they are getting from each source. Once they tally how much they are spending on each particular campaign versus how many customers they acquire, they can decide which methods to continue with or which to possibly discontinue. This is EXACTLY the data that you need to be collecting for your website. Without it, you are just marketing in the dark.

The good news is, this data is EXACTLY what you can get by using Google Analytics, and actually much more than that. Google Analytics is a free program that Google allows ANYONE to use who has a website. You simply place a piece of java code on each page of your website and the program does the rest. This data is simply invaluable.

How so?

Well, when promoting your website, it is likely that you are hitting several avenues at once in order to get visitors. You may be using Google Adwords, Facebook, Press Releases, etc. Now I ask you, how do you know which of your marketing efforts is bearing the most fruit if you have no way to track where your traffic is coming from or which traffic source is producing more leads or sales?

Before programs like Google Analytics, collecting this data was not so easy or cheap. Most website owners spent all their time promoting their site never really knowing which methods were producing and which were not.

Now, it is incredibly easy to see exactly where your traffic is coming from and which campaigns are effective. Once you find out what areas are not as effective, you have the choice of either stopping those methods altogether and focusing more time and energy on the ones that are, or try to tweak the less productive ones to increase the traffic rate.

Google Analytics is helpful not only in showing you traffic data, but in showing conversion data as well. So at a glance you’ll know the percentage of visitors that have taken action by signing up to your email list or by purchasing one of your products. You’ll also know which traffic source brings in visitors that take action the most.

As you can see, Google Analytics can be a website owner’s #1 tool when it comes to producing a powerful and profitable website. So stop “driving” your business “blindfolded” and install Google Analytics already!

Direct Response Advertising Principles Can See You Through Hard Times

In order to sell on-line it’s important to study the old school Direct Marketing cats like David Ogilvy. Why? Because even though we find ourselves in a very high tech world in 2011, human nature has changed very little since the dawn of civilization. The psychology behind making the sell now hasn’t changed and it’s not going to as long as we remain human.

I understand there are certain aspects of doing business online that change, since the Internet is dynamic, and is changing all the time. However, if you are well versed in Direct Marketing principles you’re likely to weather the storm and adapt to any changes Google or the Internet can throw your way.

So what is Direct Marketing (aka Direct Response Advertising)?

Put simply, it is advertising that makes a specific “call to action”. Whether that is on your website or anywhere else. It’s advertising that is asking the reader to do something right now! Whether that something is to buy their product, or sign-up for a free offer. This allows for results to be tracked and measured more accurately. Which is crucial because if you’re not tracking, then you don’t know which of your marketing efforts are working and which aren’t. Basically you’re behind the wheel with a blind fold on.

Check out this awesome article showing how one should consider the “old school” Direct Response Advertising principles when laying out their website design. GokDotCom writes:

“Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.

What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy).  Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term.

Based on those things, the conclusion he came to was that messaging and relevance had to have highest priority. Everything else – creativity, design, layout – should be subordinated to the end goal of conveying a salient message in as persuasive a manner as possible. In print, this took the form of what has come to be known as “The Ogilvy Layout.”

Understanding Ogilvy’s Layout and Why it Still Works

There are three main parts to the Ogilvy Layout, with a corresponding and crucial quality for each element:

1. The picture, which should have “story appeal”
2. The headline, which should tie into the “story appeal” of the picture
3. And the body copy, which most be placed in the right relationship to both the picture and the headline as to anticipate the reader’s visual preferences and enhance readability.

I’ve dealt with Story Appeal in previous posts, but let’s talk about headlines before diving into why Ogilvy’s favorite arrangement continues to stand the test of time.

What I’ve Noticed About Ogilvy’s Headlines

In his book, Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy writes about the importance of captions no less than 4 times, urging the reader to include captions underneath all of their photographs each and ever time.  According to the research Ogilvy cites, 4 times as many readers read captions as body copy and 10 times as many people read headlines as body copy.