Internet Marketing and eCommerce Expert – Nigel Burke's Blog

This book is great for anybody who inspires to be a full-time blogger and make money while doing it.

This is not a book about generating buzz for your business by blogging. If you are wanting to learn how blogging can help your business, you will want to read another book.

I’ve read a number of books about blogging and this book is unique. It’s unique because I cannot think of any other books that explain the number of money making techniques used for blogging. It even talks about buying and selling blogs.

Blogging for money
Blogging is often thought as a hobby based activity. A bunch of enthusiasts who enjoy talking about a particular hobby and they do it for the fun of it.

This is not true for the professional blogger. They do it to earn money. By picking the right niche for your blog, your blog has more chances at succeeding.

Blogging Networks
These are used to get more exposure for your blog, share the skills of other bloggers in the network and earn more money.

Wrap Up
This is the professional bloggers manual. No other book holds such great information about blogging for money.

Google has had a number of attempts at entering into the social media landscape but have not had much success.

Google has just introduced a new social media platform called “Buzz”. The difference this is that it’s tied into the Gmail service. There are 150 million users of Gmail every month.

This means that their new social platform has 150 million + users from day one. Now there’s not many companies that can enjoy that kind of power when launching a new service.

Is the Internet ready for another social tool? Time will tell.

This is a quick post about moving offices. I am moving from North Wollongong to Fairy Meadow. It’s an exciting time because I feel like I need a refresh. I’ve thrown out a lot of old stuff and will be buying new stuff soon.

I hope the new office makes me feel better because you need to work in a good office. I feel like I’ve gone a bit stale in this office so I hope to get a kickstart in the new office.

Thank you for following my blog so far and my next post will be from my new office!

Phishing is a deceptive tactic to obtain login details to certain websites. Once they get the login details, they can login to the user’s account and steal money and get credit card details.

What to look for
Have you received an email that didn’t quite look right? If a bank sends you an email and asks for your login details, you know it’s a scam. The same for a social media website or online store website.

Bank phishing emails
You may receive emails from banks you are not with so it’s easy to tell that the email is a scam because you’re not with that bank. But what happens if you get an email from your bank. How do you know if it’s legitimate?

If you receive an email from your bank, be cautious, it’s highly likely to be a phishing email. Have a look at the link addresses in the emails. A real bank address would be – http://anz.com.au. A phishing website address may look like this – http://anz.com.au.vcsts.za/login

eBay phishing emails
I just received one that appears to be from eBay, that’s why I am writing this article right now. The subject is – eBay Member : You Received a Question From eBay Member fresh.tickets. It looks official. The body of the email looks exactly like an email you would get from eBay if someone really was asking a question about one of your auctions.

I don’t have any eBay auctions running right now so I knew straight away that it was a phishing email.

There are 9 links in the email. 8 of them go to real eBay pages. Even the link to the member’s profile is real.

The link to “repond” to the questions leads to the bad website. If I submitted my details on the bad website, this person might be able to access my PayPal account and other details on eBay.

The damage bill
It’s estimated that $3.2 billion dollars is lost every year in the US from phishing. Customers need to be smarter with their login details and do not provide it to anyone who simply asks to confirm their account.

If you do receive a phishing email, you can forward it to the real company so they know about it. I think this is more important for smaller stores so they can put out an announcement as soon as possible.

Are online stores affected?
Any online store can fall victim to a phishing attack. It usually happens to the larger companies such as Amazon but it can happen to any store. If your online store is attacked, you need to notify all your customers of the phishing attack. Describe what a phishing attack is and tell them to ignore any such emails that ask for their login details.

Wrap up
Customers and companies need to be aware of online crime and protect themselves from falling victim to such attacks. When your company may have been attacked, be pro-active about it and let your customers know as soon as possible.

If these cybercriminals keep getting away with it, they are going to keep doing it and the costs for doing online commerce will only increase.

There are hundreds of options available when it comes to developing a website but which one should you choose? This article is dedicated to describing the main types of websites that are available and how to pick the most suitable type.

A couple of things first before we look at what’s available, you need to answer the following questions

What is the purpose of the website?
Is the purpose of the website to sell products online, take bookings or simply provide information to your customers?

How often will you update it?
Some website are updated everyday while otherwise are only updated once a year. Will the updated be done by your web developer or do you want to do it yourself?

What is your budget?
Do you have any idea how much your website is going to cost? There are a lot of people that just want to take your money, but there are also people who will give you a fair price for a good website. Get multiple quotes and trust your instinct.

The types of websites available
Websites can be broken into the following three types -

Static website
This is a website with one page up to a dozen pages with a contact us form. This is ideal for small businesses that want a web presence without a large investment in developing the site and ongoing fees.

Site updates are done only a couple times a year. I do not recommend leaving a site without any changes for longer than 12 months. You want to demonstrate to customers that you have an up-to-date website with current information on your website.

You can make this website yourself using a website builder or have it professional designed by a web designer.

Flash websites would be included in this website type because changes usually need to be done in Adobe Flash.

It is commonly referred to as a brochure website because it’s purpose is similar to a printed brochure.

Content Management System (CMS)
CMS websites are template driven and suitable for websites that are update often. It could be updated a couple a times a day or a couple times a month. These websites consist of two areas – the public website that everyone sees and an administration area to manage the content.

CMS websites require more investment to setup but updates can be done more easily. With little training, the business owner, receptionist or other employee can update the site. The user simply adds, modifies or deletes the content through the web-based administration area. The web developer is only required to make major changes such as modifying the template.

Examples of open source content management systems include – Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal. Some companies create their own CMS software but requires a large budget and more time to develop.

Shopping Cart System
Online shopping carts are very popular today enabling small businesses to compete with the big guys. Customers are comfortable purchasing online and paying by credit card. Many online stores have started as owner operators and expanded into large businesses employing hundreds of people.

Shopping carts can range from one page order forms – a static web page suitable for 10 products or less; or full e-commerce systems (suitable for 10 to 50,000 products) with backend administration capabilities to add, modify or delete products.

Examples of open source shopping carts include – CartXpress, osCommerce, Magento, CRE Loaded and Zen Cart.

Website designs
There are two popular types of website designs available – custom design and templates. A custom design may be suitable to give your website the same look and feel as the rest of your business. Website templates allow you to see what you get before the project is started. Website templates are available for all types.

You can browse our templates here – Template Shop.

Wrap up
You may use one type of website or a combination of website types within the one website. Some website have a static section, an online store and a blog (CMS).It all depends on what your needs are.

Before you talk to any website developers or designers, know the purpose of your website and browse the web to get some ideas. This will be very helpful when you talk to your web developer.