July 2007

In This issue:

:: Thanks to everyone who filled out our survey last month!
:: 10 Strategies to Optimize Your Online Credibility

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Thanks to everyone who filled out our survey last month!

Your voice has been heard, and as promised we will be revising our content to give you more of the information you really want.

More of a Good Thing
The overwhelming response was more marketing/sales tips that can be incorporated into your websites to increase conversions and qualify leads. To that end, we will devote much of our newsletter to emarketing and give you insights you can use right away.

Stay Safe
The second most popular request was in regard to how to keep safe on the internet and avoid scams and other threats while doing business online. We will make sure you know the best ways to keep your information safe and your bank account protected.

Quick Read
Lastly, we are going to have a format change. We know that you are all very busy professionals and your inboxes are constantly being bombarded by more email than you can possibly keep up with in a day. Our newsletters will now cover one in-depth topic at a time. The format will be more like cliff-notes with a tight summary of information. If you want to know more you can always click through to the full length article.

Our hope is that by making these changes you’ll have the most important information to improve your online effectiveness delivered in a way that does not hinder your productivity.

Once again, thanks for all your input and for helping to make
future-ink the best web development experience our clients have ever had.

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10 Strategies to Optimize Your Online Credibility

Boosting credibility on your website is a sure way to increase your conversion rates, get more leads and sell more products. These strategies come from Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, Stanford University. Our full article goes into more depth and we add some additional information to help you put these tips into practice on your own site.

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.
2. Show that there's a real organization behind your site.
3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.
4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
5. Make it easy to contact you.
6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
7. Make your site easy to use -- and useful.
8. Update your site's content often (at least show it's been reviewed recently).
9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

Read Complete Article

47% of adults have high-speed internet connections at home as of early March 2007, up five percentage points from a year earlier.

Internet penetration has now reached 73% for all American adults. Internet users note big improvements in their ability to shop and the way they pursue hobbies and personal interests online.

14% of the 128 million American adults now online report that they downloaded music at one time, but no longer do so. About a third of these former music downloaders - 6 million adults - say that the RIAA’s tactics are the reason they stopped downloading music.

-Pew Internet & American Life Project

Online Personal Organizers

Have you ever wished you could see your calendar, contacts, do do lists and notes online from any computer? What about logging into your email, reading local headlines and tracking your stocks?

Well, your wish has been granted!

With the emergence of new online technologies, several personal start pages have emerged. You can customize these pages with a plentitude of widgets and gadgets so you have the information you really want at your fingertips.

Here are a few well-established services to get you started:
Pageflakes.com
Netvibes.com
Webwag.com

Our pick is Pageflakes which seems to have the best functionality, design, and content.