The Out-Smarts Blog and Podcast

There’s an interesting article in this week’s Business in Vancouver about Second Life and its real life tax implications: “Taxing Events in your business Second Life”. Beware any foolhardy Second Life entrepreneur who thinks that making money in the virtual world is free: the tax man may be watching. The bottom line is that earnings your avatar makes are tax deductible just like earnings in the real world and should be recorded as such. (FYI the the Linden $ is currently trading at $.003 Canadian and holding its own better than the US dollar is these days!).

The article suggests having 2 avatars - one for personal pleasure (whatever that maybe) and another if you intend to do business in SL.  By doing so you can easily track spending and income for tax purposes.

Apparently there’s a whole person dedicated to helping companies maximise the value of their SL ventures over at PriceWaterhouseCooper’s downtown office. I have asked this question before and I ask again, what self respecting business man has the time to sit on SecondLife and wait (and wait and wait…) while SL loads and reloads? Well I think I see the answer: one with plenty of patience who sees a growing potential market place as referenced by the $1,063,606 US spent in Second Life over last 24 hours alone. Little wonder revenue Canada has their eye on SL.

I was going to keep this one for our Reasons to be Cheerful post for October but its too good to wait. I am always looking for examples on the web of innovative companies that are using Web 2.0 and its collaborative capabilities in really innovative ways. I came across an example of a web site that really does this well called Threadless. This T shirt design company that truly engages clients online by:

• encouraging visitors to design their own T shirt or order from the catalogue of unique and popular shirts;
• promoting participation by using blog technology so that visitors can share tips on design, opinions on T shirts and other hot topics;
• hosting an ongoing competition that draws visitors back by having them vote on the best designs submitted this month - winners get a cash reward;
• building a loyal following that shares photos of T-shirts and wearers building loyalty;
• having users sign up as members of the “Street Team” and begin promoting the Threadless web site to earn T Shirt credits and virally spread the word.

Threadless uses Web 2.0 to market its offering very effectively - go take a look and be inspired!

GoogleAdWords is a great way to easily target your niche audience and promote your product to that audience. With hundreds of millions of Google searches performed every day it makes sense to tap into that huge potential market and thats just what GoogleAdwords lets you do.

When you next google something look at the right hand side and the top few searches of the page: these are ads (usually highlighted) placed and paid for by companies using the GoogleAdWords service.

The major benefits companies find in using this service (increased traffic notwithstanding) include:

• ability to get started on a minimum budget: as little as $5 per month;
• manage your budget effectively with monthly spend limits;
• test the waters, try different keywords and ad wording and make adjustments easily;
• you only pay for actual clicks (people who click through to visit your site);
• advertising with Google, unlike advertising in traditional media, is highly targeted by location and language;
• its relatively simple to get started
• and the service offers advanced reporting options if you are so inclined.

All in all, GoogleAdWords brings great bang for your advertising buck.

1. Understand your prospective customer: who they are, why they buy, when and so on - do they buy on-line or use the Internet to research product information?

2. Your company - what resources are in place or will be made available, also consider existing web presence, company culture, mission, goals and policies etc?

3. Competition - check out what your competition is doing on line, track blog and RSS feeds that mention them as well as comments on their products or service from users.

4. The market - is the overall market experiencing and up turn / down turn or is it in a state of flux? These will all impact the approach you take.

5. Integration to overall marketing and advertising strategy is imperative. Each must complement and support the other by conveying the same brand image and messages.

6. If you don’t have web savvy resources in house then don’t worry - get guidance from people who do this.

7. Positioning - find out where you stand in the web rankings in comparison to others in your field.

8. Traffic - who visits your site right now, how often and how long do they stay.

9. Pricing - if your offering is considered “prestige” then your web strategy will be different than if your its aimed at the masses.

10. Consider all tools at your disposal to promote your web presence and don’t forget to consider newer technologies such as wikis, social computing for effective Internet marketing.

Using keywords is a must if you want the right audience to find you on the web. Here are 10 tips to that will make you determine the right keywords:

1. When coming up with keywords, think inside the head of your intended customer. What is she thinking when she starts her search? Put yourself in her shoes and think about the words she would Google.

2. Use concise terms - the simpler the better and use word combinations rather than one word terms to hone in on the right audience.

3. Use a tool like the Overture Keyword Selector to determine how frequently a term is searched for and identify similar terms.

4. Always check your spelling - if it’s wrong then no one will find you!

5. Think of as many combinations of words for applicable terms as possible for every service offering or product you sell - get creative, ask clients and partners for their input.

6. Consider adding geographical keywords that describe your target audience: if you’re going after prospects in Toronto for example, add Toronto to the keywords describing your offerings.

7. Use your keywords frequently, in blog titles, at the start of all web pages and use applicable terms for different pages or services your provide.

8. Make sure applicable keywords are listed in the META tags for each web page - ask your web designer how.

9. Test and try different words and combinations. Don’t be afraid to monitor and change words frequently depending on results.

10. Refine your clicks by using negative keywords (keywords with a minus sign up front) so that search engines will omit your link when the term is searched in combination with your keywords.