Yesterday I found a great article entitled “10 Rare HTML tags You Really Should Know” that answered a few burning questions for me.  Those of you who know these answers can now consider yourselves lucky that I won’t be asking these questions again any time soon.  My two favorites are:

5. <ins> and <del>

John likes LOVES his new iPod.

4. <address>

Paying attention to the details of your site and making them part of your regular “website steps” can only help with all things search engine optimization and if they become a regular part of what you do, they will help your site stand out against the competition.

Imagine using this type of product to see areas of the country that talk about your product, your service, your competition etc.  Obviously it would only work with more popular items but what this Superbowl example teaches me is that the country is diverse, the search terms are influenced by media and events.  Search engine marketing is about understanding what people are searching for, how they are searching, why they are searching and matching your ads with their expectations.

Could Twitter help with understanding messaging by region? Of course.  Think Pop vs. Soda.  By understanding how people reference the same end product depending on region is helpful for any marketing but especially geo-targeted paid search and messaging.  Isn’t it great to know the NY Times is still adding value:)

NY Times Twitter Tweets Map

Here’s the video and I hope you try it:

Insert American Express’ Open Network and their web interviews with Sir Richard Branson.  I’ve watched most of them but a few favorites are his take on the current economy, his perspectives on what it takes to be successful in business and his overall attitude towards success vs. failure.  For the record, I thought a lot of Rebel Billionaire was over the top but anytime American Express wants to share business insights from greats like Richard Branson and others via their website, I’m all for it.

Why share this on a site about Web Marketing Stuff?  Because the same attitude towards success and willingness to face failure in eyes to get there will ultimately help website owner do the little things and spend the extra hours to make their website a better than the competition, more meaningful than the competition, more relevant than the competition and more successful than the competition.  That’s how you become the competition and stop watching the competition.

So why are there still so many sites that don’t accept PayPal? and even more that haven’t set up anything with Google checkout?  Businesses are about ease of use and integrating yet another payment method might not be worth the hassle.  Another possible reason is the current shopping cart isn’t yet able to integrate with Paypal or Google Checkout.  When trying to figure out what payments to accept and when to say no, think about your average customer and your desire for new business.

Paypal is the top choice for ebay buyers and most sellers.  Anyone that does business on ebay will most likely want to use PayPal if it is accepted as a payment method.  The fees are typically within a few percentage points of most merchant accounts and can easily integrate with most shopping carts.  Google Checkout gets you extra exposure on paid search ads by displaying the Google Checkout logo below your ad (there is some work to actually get this set up but it does stand out and anything you can do to stand out makes sense).

My rule of thumb is: “If a customer is willing to pay for a product or service, payment method should never be a barrier”.  If you don’t accept at least a few “alternative” payment methods with your online store consider taking the time to integrate a few more choices and let the customers pay however they want to pay.  During tough economic times, you also benefit from any incentive programs Google Checkout or PayPal use to motivate customers.  Well worth the 5 minutes of integration.

UPDATE:  Great article from How Do Online Marketers Pay? that compliments this thinking nicely.

DOMAIN NAME: What is a domain name?  It’s what everyone else knows as your online business.  Catchy, easy to remember and contains words that customers would actually use to find your products are the key points to any good domain name.  I always buy from Moniker or GoDaddy because of price, features and trust.  I also always do a google search for “Moniker Discount Code” or “GoDaddy Discount Code” before purchasing any new domain to save myself a few bucks.  You should do the same!

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH: Grab a piece of paper and then go to Google.com and search for the product you plan on selling.  Write down who shows up and what they are offering.  Does everyone offer free shipping?  If so, your idea of making money on the shipping fee just got trumped by the competition.  Are they offering the product for less than you are paying to get it at “wholesale”?  If you answered yes you’ll want to find a new product.  What terms are they using to sell the product?  A great tool to figure this out is SpyFu.  Enjoy!

WEBSITE: Now one of my favorite things about the internet is the fact that you can easily find almost everything for free (it feels like everything sometimes).  Building a website is no different.  One big thing to remember for getting started selling on the internet is you always get what you pay for.  Now how can I say you can get it for free but you get what you pay for?  Simple, there are always strings attached to free.  It’s usually worth it to cut those strings IF you like what was free.

Here’s my example.  Weebly.com is a great site builder program.  It is easy to use, fun looking and you can create a site without even thinking.  The free version shows you everything and let’s you create a site BUT the footer (bottom of every page in your site) tells everyone you made a site for free.  If you pay, one of the features is you can customize the footer.   See what I mean?

Building a website, especially your first site, can be fun and can be frustrating.  Doing it is the first step and improving it is the rest of your internet life.  Some key things to remember about a successful website are:

Keep It Simple! Don’t make it so cutting edge that no one knows how to use it.
Set a Goal for EVERY Page! You want to sell right?  Make sure every page has a clear purpose.
Take Good Pictures! It’s worth it to take a nice picture and answer all the question you had about the product.  It makes the sale that much better.

So there you have it.  The first steps to getting started selling on the Internet aren’t super crazy but you’d be surprised how much you learn and few people have actually taken even the first step.  Go ahead and take a step.  The most you are out is $9.95/yr for a domain.

My goal is to offer my take and opinion on the world of web marketing.  From affiliate marketing to ebay to social, seo and ppc my goal is to share.  I hope you enjoy it.