Web Tools for Developers

Someone forwarded a great article about web-based tools for developers. The author chose some great products for project planning, development, issue tracking and usability testing. If you need website development tools, check out this web tools article.

A good online file storage site - www.dropsend.com

Was referred to a good site to store files online. The site is www.dropsend.com. For free, you can set up an account and store up to 250MB of files in online folders. You can also mail up to 5 e-mails a month with large file attachments. dropsend.com offers other plans for which you can pay for more storage and e-mails.

Check it out!

Increasing ECommerce Sales by 5% in Just 6 Weeks

Ambitious claim for an article, but it describes how Orvis' Director of ECommerce did a 6-week proof-of-concept to try to improve e-commerce sales by 5% in just 6 weeks. Although he did not reach his goal, he did increase sales per visit from 2% to 5%, depending on the category.

Read the article for the details, but it appears that tweaking the home page had the biggest effect. Specifically, the development team did the following:
Monitor new items and add or remove within a day - Categories with 10% conversion rates were kept, and categories with 3% or less conversion rates were rotated. He found that with 24-48 hours on his well-trafficked site, he had enough information to judge conversion rates.
Keep high converting categories represented at all times - Categories with lower traffic but higher conversion rates produced more sales, so he kept them on the home page at all times.
Look at navigation - The team observed that the left navigation bar (there are 4 ways to navigate) was used the most, so they focused on making that the best possible. Depending upon the page, the nav bar changes to give users the choices they want.

Read the article to learn more about Increasing ecommerce sales.

Interesting Article about Web Site Analytics

This article from Internet Retailer had some interesting tidbits about analytics site metrics to improve sales.

Web Site Analytics

How Registrars Make Easy Money on Parked Sites

Just read an interesting article written by Bob Parsons, the CEO of GoDaddy.com - . It talks about an add/drop scheme of how registrars make money using parked sites and a 5-day grace period for registering domain names. I'll include Bob's explanation of how it works, but here's the general idea:
A registrar will register as many domain names as it can on Day 1. It immediately creates basic web pages filled with targeted advertising for those domains. Registrars have 5 days in which they can cancel the domain registration and still get a full refund. So, the registrar collects whatever revenue it can from the advertising, and on Day 5, it cancels the registration and keep whatever advertising revenue was made. Pretty clever. Not sure if individuals have access to the same grace period. I imagine that registrars tack on a fee, so it would be harder for us to generate the same revenue for free.

Here's Bob's explanation of the process:

How the add/drop scheme works – first they make a large cash deposit.
The registrars who participate in the add/drop scheme first make a large cash deposit with the VeriSign registry.

Then they register as many names as the deposit allows.
Next, they go out into the market and register as many names as their funds permit.

Then for each name purchased a web page with search engine links is created.
For every name they register, they have a system that puts up a smart web page with traffic links tailored to that web name – so that if an Internet user lands on the page, they might be likely to click on one of the associated links. For example, let’s say they purchase a name called BaltimoreDocters.com (sic) they might list a number of associated search engine links for medical specialties in that city.

When a user lands on one of those pages and clicks on a search link money is made!
If an Internet user somehow lands on that page and clicks on one of the links, then money has been made! If the Registrar would go ahead and pay for the name, there wouldn’t be a problem.

But these add drop registrars never pay for their names!
Now let’s say that the 5 day grace period is ready to expire – what now? The add/drop registrar (or their client) simply drops the name. And then after dropping it – the registrar’s money on deposit at the Registry is instantly refunded. So, the name was used by the add/drop registrar – and some money may even have been made – without actually purchasing the domain name. The returned funds can then be used to register more names.

It doesn’t take much for a name to stay in an add/droppers portfolio.
How does the add/dropper decide which names to keep? As long as it throws off more revenue than the opportunity cost associated with the .COM one year registration deposit – this amount is very low and could be as little as 36 cents. For example, the deposit required to register a .COM name is $6.00. If a add/drop registrar has an annual interest cost of 6% the name only needs to earn them 36 cents for them to keep in their portfolio (36 cents = $6.00 x 6%).

You can read the entire article about registrars and parked sites here.

Online Bartering to Make Money on the Web

I just read an article about a guy who is trading his way to owning a home. He started with a red paper clip which he bartered on Craig's List for a pen, and he has been on a roll since. Now, he has traded up to a year's lease on a house in Arizona, and he's still working on to barter for a home. The article can be found here: online bartering

As a personal observation, I wonder if bartering sites such as Craig's List can yield better returns than a site such as eBay. Selling something on eBay is typically subject to the 7-day auction time restraint (you can pay for longer auctions.) If interested bidders don't find your item within the auction timeframe, you cannot reap the true cross-bidding benefit of the auction model. If only one person bids, it's not much of an auction, is it? With so many items for sale all the time, is it possible for the auction to lose its effect? Part of the reason why people pay more for items in an auction is because they have to buy it NOW or lose it. If they know there will be another auction for the exact same thing tomorrow, buyers do not have that same impetus to bid now.

With bartering, on the other hand, you can leave an item available until you find a price or trade that you think is fair. As long as you can hold the item indefinitely and the place where you are trading gets buyers interested in your goods, you can wait for your price.

Thoughts?

Conversations with an Ad Network Company

So today i spoke with a guy at www.bluelithium.com My goal was, for the travel website im considering buying, to better understand a) if advertisers would be interested in this type of a site, and b) what kind of incremental income I could make by doing so. He seemed very excited to get a travel website into their network, and listed off several major airlines and others that would be advertised on the site. Apparently he said I could expect to be paid about $1/CPM (so thats $1 for every 1,000 impressions). The site currently generates about 2M impressions per month. He also said they are trying out some good CPL (cost per lead) placements. In the case he cited, all the person has to do is click on the button, go to the linked site, and provide an email and that counts as a lead and you get $2 for each lead. He says the CPL is performing better, but who knows. He also said that a site like ESPN.com is able to charge $40-50 per 1,000 impressions, versus the $1 I'd be getting. This is because they are able to sell directly to advertisers. Makes you wonder how much you are leaving on the table!!! Sounds like bluelithium may be taking the lion's share! I'm beginning to wonder if it would make more sense to find a few good independent reps and give them 40-50% commission on first year's sales...

Finally, I think the sales guy at bluelithium may have pulled a sleazy move. I made the mistake of telling him the website that I am considering purchasing, and I spoke to the owner today and she said she got a call from an ad wholesaler. I am double checking with her to see if it was them, but if it was, major scum move. But lesson learned on my part!! Keep info safe.