Hurry!  These deals won’t be here for long!

http://www.readywire.com/blackfriday/

If my grandma was with us today, I know that she’d love the “Live Chat” features that you’ll find on many websites these days.  If she would have simply clicked a button similar to the one  pictured here, she would have been directed to a customer service representative.

At ReadyWire Multimedia Solutions, we started experiementing with Live Chat a few months back.  To date, we’ve held roughly 1,500 live chat sessions, which is a phenominal number for our small business.  Our goal in 2009:  Double that number!

How can we do it?  InternetRetailer.com featured in an article about a year ago that contained simple strategies on how to best utilize your Live Chat feature.

When should I invite someone to chat?

Whether you’re using a commercial product like LivePerson or Kayako, or an open source application like Help Center Live, most live chat applications enable you to invite a website visitor to chat.  Once the “Request Chat” button is clicked, the a box will appear on top of the visitors, alerting them that an agent is available to assist.

But when is the right time to invite a customer to chat?  As a visitor, the chat invitation screen can be quite obnoxious and intrusive, especially when they’re reading and reviewing your website materials.

For more details & tips-and-tricks, check out this informative article, courtesy of InternetRetailer.com.

By using Intel’s latest processor and motherboard technology server power consumption can be reduced by as much as 75%! This translates into DIRECT savings for you.  Simply speaking, you get a more powerful server (when compared to a standard Pentium 4 or Celeron) that uses substantially less power for half the price!

Intel ATOM 330 Dual-Core Processor
RAM: 2GB
Hard Drive: 320GB
IP Addresses: 5
Premium Bandwidth: 3,000GB
Uplink: 100mbps
Control Panel: cPanel/WHM

Setup Fee: Free!
$57.50 for the first month!
Each Month Thereafter: $115.00
(# In Stock @ This Price: 

Click here to order today! Be sure to use coupon code “ELF” to save 50% off your first invoice!

(Terms and Conditions: Offer expires 12/24/08 @ 11:59PM Central time.  Coupon code required to receive discounted rate for the first month.  Offer subject to change without notice)

Sign-up links will become available at 12:00AM CST on Friday, November 28th.

Black Friday Reseller Hosting
$20.95/mo
Disk Space:  100 Gigs
Bandwidth:  800 Gigs
Master Reseller, WHMCS or ClientExec, minFraud Protection, Domain Reseller Account (eNom, Directi, or NetEarthOne), Private Name Servers, & even end-user support.
Click here to sign up today!

Black Friday Virtual Private Server Hosting
$34.95/mo
Guranteed RAM:  512 MB
Disk Space:  60 Gigs
Bandwidth:  800 Gigs
IP Addresses:  2
Control Panel:  cPanel/WHM
Click here to sign up today!

Terms and conditions:  Offer available to new ReadyWire customers only.  All sales are final and no refunds will be offered.  Offer expires 11:59PM on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008.

A quick glance at some of the leading stock photography sites will show you that photos for use in your web design are down right expensive.  I understand that photography is an art and as a result there should be some sort of premium placed on it.  Naturally, if anyone could pick up a camera and snap a picture, prices would be much different.

In the past, I’ve had to budget hundreds of dollars into my design proposals for stock images and bill my clients accordingly.  A new company based in Nashville TN, known as Dreamstime, is out to change all of that.  Rather than $50 per image, which many sites charge, Dreamstime sells digital photos starting at 39 cents per image.  They even offer a monthly subscription plan that could provide you with images at an even lower price.

In some ways, it’s a Web 2.0 project.  Anyone can contribute images to the collection and receive compensation.  I’ve even considered snapping pictures myself.    There is the potential for you to make around ten bucks each time someone purchases your image.  But I digress.

To learn more about Dreamstime, click here.

Can I be frank with you?  The links above will point you to Dreamstime via our affiliate link.  I sat here contemplating whether to link to them directly or to link using our affiliate link.  I’ve chosen to include our affiliate code because I don’t think it would be wise not too.

So I’m trying to be up front here.    ReadyWire will receive a small percentage of your purchase cost.  Please know that I’m not writing about Dreamstime soley because we’re apart of their affiliate program, rather I’m writing about them because of their incredible service.

All of the images on the ReadyWire site were purchased through Dreamstime.  I’m literally blown away by their services.  I’ve spent less than $15 on digital photography and walked away with dozens of beautiful shots.  It’s highly worth checking out.  If you’d rather visit without clicking using our affiliate link, click here.

Thank you for letting be speak openly

The topics of my study?  Registering a LLC, small biz accounting, optimizing a Joomla! website, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, & the rise of MTV.

What random topics.  As a result, I think this is going to be one heck of a random blog.  I’ll do my best at keeping my thoughts easy to follow.

Setting up a LLC
First, let me preface this by saying that I’m not a lawyer & I don’t play one on TV. 

I don’t exactly know if it’s wise to blab this out onto the Internet, but ReadyWire is a small company.  We’re a family-owned business.  If you’re an American company like us, it is in your best interest to consider forming your business into a LLC (Limited Liability Company).  As one could guess, LLC is a legal form of a business, offering limited liability to its owners.  It characteristics of both a corporation and a partnership, but it’s much more flexible to form than a corporation.  Within a LLC, owners have a limited liability for the actions and debts of the company, and it is suitable for smaller companies with a single owner.   There also can be substantial tax benefits for forming a LLC.

Best of all is the cost of getting started.  From the limited research I’ve done, it looks quite possible to register for around $500.  In many instances, it will cost you well under that.

To learn more about LLC’s, click here.  LegalZoom is one of the many companies that will do all the work for you at a nominal fee.  Click here for details.

Google Adwords
Over the past few months, I’ve toyed around with Google Adwords.  ReadyWire’s ads with Google certainly provided us with an increase in website visits.  I spent around $50 a month over three months and saw our website usage nearly triple.  However, I’m afraid those hits didn’t translate into signups.  Seeing that I clearly didn’t know what I was doing, I stopped our campaigns.  I have not ruled Adwords out entirely, but have chosen hold back on utilizing their advertising services until a such a time where I could sit down and learn how to use it successfully.

At Borders this weekend, I had an opportunity to sift through Howie Jacobson’s new book Adwords for Dummies.  I’m no “dummy,” but Howie’s book was designed for a guy just like me.  If you’re considering AdWords, I highly recommend picking up this book.  He’ll provide you with tips & tricks to help make your campaign a success.  Some things I jotted down on my square napkin included:

• Utilizing a fake domain name- If you are in the flower business, consider registering a fake www domain name such as www-flowers.com.  Can you imagine seeing an ad that includes your search query, a giant Google Checkout logo, and a highly-specific display url?  Who wouldn’t want to click on it?
• Do not utilize “optimize ads,” instead use “rotate ads.”
• Google Adwords provides you with the ability to display your ads on Google as well as the Content Network.  Now, there is nothing wrong with displaying your ads on the Content Network.  However, it is recommend for reporting purposes to separate campaigns.  Create a campaign strictly for display on Google.  Then, create a campaign for use on the Content Network.  Doing so will provide you with the ability to quickly determine which network is providing you with a greater return (ROI).

I would LOVE to hear your comments & thoughts on Google Adwords.  What tips have you picked up along the way?  Let’s learn from each other.

Whether you run a commercial website or a personal blog, the tips and tricks are universal.  The most important thing to remember is that all websites start at zero hits.  It’s going to take time.  Continue investing in your website regardless of its traffic or lack thereof.

We’ve scoured the web for tips and the following is what we found:

• Trade links- Get people with websites similar to yours to link to you. If own a restaurant near an amusement park, as the owners to link to them, and offer a web link in return.  Ask the local tour guides, the real estate agents, the night clubs, and everyone else to link your website. Links can to clicks onto your website and can help to improve your search engine position.
• Leverage Your Traffic – If you’re running multiple websites, why not use one to encourage visits to check out the other?
• Purchase Banner Ads – Google, Yahoo, & many other search engines enable you to purchase small ads on their pages.  These banners can be extremely affordable, as you set your own price!  Click here for details on Google’s Adwords program.
• Email Marketing – Always make sure you have permission to email your contacts, but this method of marketing can be highly effective.  Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and encourage them to send it along to people they know. Send a newsletter regularly with teasers or lead-ins to your in-depth new articles or with special offers and the latest products.
• Offline Marketing- I can’t tell you how many folks forget about this one.  Include your website on everything you print, whether it’s coffee mugs, your letterhead and envelopes, business cards and fliers.  Your website address should be just as if not more important than your telephone number
• Get published – Write articles for publication on other websites. In many cases, the other website will link to your site.
• Publish yourself – Write articles for your own site regularly. This will help you to win on the search engines and gives your visitors a reason to come back over and over.

What’s great about this list is just about every idea on it won’t cost you a dime … just time!  Check out these great resources on Internet traffic & marketing.

How to build a high traffic website or blog
Get More Web Visitors — Naturally
Getting Web Visitors to Do a Double Take
How to get traffic to your blog
Getting more hits to your blog