Get Business Online

This is just a quick post to share something too many people don’t know: how to protect your email address so that bots can’t harvest it and you won’t start receiving tons of spam.

You see, when you put your email address on your website, it’s very simple to read it, add it to a list and then bombard it with unsolicited email. It’s annoying, but it’s easy to fix in two steps.

Step 1: Convert your address into an image

To do this, visit http://services.nexodyne.com/email/ if you use a web-based service (like Gmail) or http://services.nexodyne.com/email/index_custom.php if you email  account is in your own domain.

Pick colors for text, background and border, choose a font and click Generate. Then, save the generated image to your computer. When you do, use a file name that nobody would link with email addresses, such as nospam.png.

Finally, upload the image to your website. I will use images/nospam.png as an example.

Alternatively, run any image editor, type your email address in as text, (crop, resize and make any other modifications until you’re happy with what you get) and save the image.

Step 2: Clock your email address image

In your contact page code, include the following snippet of JavaScript code, which opens up a new message window on the site visitor’s, to be sent to your email address.

Replace “[your real email address]” with your real email address.

<script type="text/javascript">
function emailUs(){
var daReferrer = document.referrer;
var email = "[your real email address]";
var subject = "Website inquiry";
var mailto_link = 'mailto:'+email+'?subject='+subject;
win = window.open(mailto_link,'emailWindow');
if (win && win.open &&!win.closed) win.close();
}
</script>

To use your image, all you have to do now is include the code below:

<a onclick="emailUs();" href="#">
 <img src="images/nospam.png" border="0"
  alt="I hate spam" align="absmiddle" />
</a>

This will look like a valid email address to a human being, but complete gibberish to an automatic robot.

Final note: bots are getting smarter all the time, so you may choose to do some more editing to your image or use another image generating site to make the image harder to decipher.

That’s it! You’re protected, but your clients can contact you by email.

Gal

By now, you know that the Internet is great for information products, as well as for offline products with a global appeal. So far, so good. But not every business sells standard products. Some businesses make their products to suit their clients’ needs. What about them?

Well, businesses that offer custom-made products can derive great benefits from using the Internet. You see, the Internet makes communication a whole lot easier than any other alternative, and a whole lot cheaper.

Say your company offers a product with many options: color, finish, size, embossed logo, etc. You could employ an army of specialized sales people, who could walk each new customer through the decision-making process in person or over the phone, or you could build a web site, which includes pictures, descriptive text, videos and even interactively-generated visual product images, which allow your prospects to try a few options, work out what’s best for them and then order or request a quotation without employing a single person on an ongoing basis.

Couple this with the ability to keep in touch with your clients via rich emails and informing them whenever you start offering more colors, bigger sizes and so on, and you will see that the Internet can give your business a huge boost in productivity and profitability.

It is true that sometimes, human interaction is required, because the client may need some expert advice in order to get it just right, but your website will screen those who would not buy, and would just waste your time and money, because they will quickly (and at no cost to you) find out what you cannot do for them. Those who choose to contact you can now receive your full attention, because by the time you contact them, you will already have a very good idea of what they need.

To summarize, if your business can benefit from getting complex custom-order inquiries, screening those who are unlikely to buy and saving a lot of time in your selling process, which you can translate to a much smaller sales team, look seriously into your online options and contact an Internet marketer as soon as you can.

So the Internet is great for information products. Got that. But what if my product cannot be digitized and sold electronically?

First, it may be that you are selling something very unique or that you are offering it in a special way, perhaps at a special price. If your item can be sent by post or international courier service (like FedEx or UPS), you should be able to expand your business significantly by selling to other parts of the world.

Second, getting business on the Internet is so much cheaper than offline, because it doesn’t require any showroom space or sales people. This means that your profit margin is larger, and you can afford to “throw in” the cost of shipping or any “deal sweetener” you can think of that will help you get sales.

Third, your online store is open 24 hours a day, every day, in every timezone, which means you can get 2-3 times the amount of business you would get from an offline store, while catering for every possible type of Internet buyer anywhere in the world.

To summarize, if your business can benefit from selling online by increasing profit margins, reaching large new markets and virtually operating around the clock. Look seriously into your online options and contact an Internet marketer as soon as you can.

Let’s face it – the Internet is not as useful for every business.  It’s also not as appealing to every business owner. So who should consider engaging an Internet marketer for their business. More importantly, should you?

The Internet is probably by far the fastest, cheapest and richest way to deliver information. With the ability to rotate images, display animated images and show video, the Internet can deliver any type of content quicker and cheaper than any other medium. If you need to communicate information to your clients or potential buyers, the Internet can offer you some great tools.

If you have an information product, you have probably gone through the phase of creating a digital version of it, which might have been printed later. On the Internet, your digital product can be sold as a separate, possibly lower cost item, at lightening speed, to an unlimited number of customers in a completely separate market to offline buyers. Furthermore, the Internet offers armies of promotion experts, called “Affiliates”, who will gladly help you sell your information product, in return for a share of your income.

Note that the type of information best suited for the Internet is one that has global appeal. The language you use may be the only limitation, but as the Internet crosses all borders, your information can be carried to wherever there’s a need for it via this great medium.

To summarize, if your business can benefit from the delivery of paid or unpaid information to a wide, targeted market, the Internet is the place for you. Look seriously into your online options and contact an Internet marketer as soon as you can.