I rarely will write a blog on some other blogs of our sites, and publish it here.  The main reason is that this is our most valued blog, as it gets the most focused visitors, which mainly is SEO and Internet Marketing centric.  The standards I have set for this blog are pretty high, but I wrote a blog on my personal blog and it fits here very well.  I do however publish posts from here to my other blogs, as I rarely write on those other blogs.  I tell you all this, as you should always stick to the focus of your blogs topics and have different blogs.  I see rookies make the mistake of mixing their business blogs with personal ones.  The objective of any online business is to sell products or services, and if it’s too hard to sell the product online.  The website or online businesses objective is to generate leads, that is why this article fits so well, so read on and remember to blog your way to the top, but stay focused on your keywords:

The Art of Capturing Online Leads

March 5th, 2008 at 12:52 pm by Vipin K. Singh in B2B

We just had a great meeting to discuss online lead capturing with our tech, marketing, and small group at ITEX.   So this topic is fresh in my mind and makes for a perfect blog for our Online Marketplace, as the biggest Value we provide in the MyTypes and ITEX marketplace is for businesses to generate online leads . We are working on a lead capturing strategy to spotlight local businesses, such as Massage therapists, Lawyers, Dentists, and local restaurants. We are going to launch our online Businesses Spotlight pages today. One of the things that we were discussing was the benefits of memberships and getting people to actually sign-up, and capturing the online leads. This is a topic that is very near and dear to all online businesses. And, one that I have worked on and discussed professionally for years, especially back in 2003-2004 for my first real estate website, UrbanTango.com. The goal back than and still today has been pretty consistent, give visitors lots of free stuff online, but get people to sign up by giving them more benefits for signing up.

Capturing Leads is a tricky business, and some thing that all online businesses have to deal with. A friend of mine, did not give much away for free information, he was #1 on Google and wanted everyone to sign-up before they could access any of his information. He ended up capturing a great amount of leads, and did quite well, so there is something for not giving away anything until people give you some information. Regardless, both sides of the argument have a point here.

But at the end of the day, you have to have the Best Sentence or ways for you to capturing online leads, regardless if you offer information or not, and that is what we are focusing on here. The Art of capturing online leads for your online businesses. I am actually going to use at least one of these in one of our online businesses. So here are the best Sentences, some are futile attempts at being humorous, but for showing real value and capturing online leads:

1. Hey baby, you want some of this, give me your email? **it may work for some online businesses, such as Adult entertainment, but not many:-)

2. Wow handsome fellow, you want some of this cats meow, come on over sweetie pie? Well same genre but had to add the opposing view of the first sentence.

3. We offer our members the best secrets, the best products, and we will call you tomorrow to ask you to buy, and than the week after, and on and on, until you start hating us or buying from us. So sign-up and we will call you tomorrow? Do we wonder why most people fill out wrong information for online leads, yikes.

4. Today and only for the next 60 minutes, you have once in a life-time opportunity to get the best deal ever on our Widget, but sign-up now, because tomorrow the deal will be gone? Yeah right?

5. By signing up, you get access to our members only section, with the following benefits:; #1 You can browse all listings, #2 You can get detailed product information, #3 See who else is part of our community, #4 You can try before you buy, there is no obligation? This one is quite good, but needs to be shortened for our purposes.

I actually studied a course created by a very successful real estate agent on the art of capturing leads, he sells 450 homes a year, which is an amazing number, so his system actually is world renowned. His basic premise is to give people the sizzle and get them to sign up by offering report or more information. I actually learned the are of capturing online leads from his training seminars, this works for all businesses, not just online businesses. We have also studied a few other online lead generation companies, such as HouseValues.com and AllStarDirectories.com.

The net net is give them the benefit of signing up. Be upfront, be honest, make it short and sweet. Here is what we think is really good for our own site.

Allows Free/Temporary access, to view thousands of members like you, marketplace details, try before you buy and there is No-obligation.

Sign-up Now for a Free/Temporary access to full membership benefits.

Allows Immediate access to full members site, for a limited time:

B2B means Business to Business, but what’s the deal with SEO in it?

B2B is all about businesses, buying and selling goods and services, basically trade exchanges, communities, and promoting products and services business to business. SEO is about promoting online businesses, and often that requires trading links and being part of directories and link exchanges. While SEO does not have to trade links, and most smart or past SEO companies don’t do that. Do you see the similarities between SEO and b2b yet? Back in the late 90′s and early 2000′s there was a lot of hype around business vortals as people called them. They were business portals for vertical business segments, such as SteelNet or AlmuniumNet. But what problems were these websites or portals trying to adress? B2B Exchanges such as Alibaba, TradeKey, and others have come a long way. What do these sites really do except for pass on leads to sellers and buyers. B2C is the second cousin of B2B and we actually used the term B2b2C, business to business to consumers. So in the world of SEO, which really is the #1 keyword in my opinion for Business marketing, it ties the whole purpose of b2b. Which is to enable business to business commerce, which is greatly enabled by Google as a platform, not just a search engine.

Google has become probably the biggest and best intermediary of information, all information not just consumer. B2b aspects of Google and it’s search and information indexing have to do with small businesses utilizing the Adwords advertising program to advertise all over the internet, not just on Google’s search site, but on millions of blogs, business directories, shopping sites, you name it you can advertise on the internet unlike ever before. So the advertisers now have the largest variety of sites and pools to advertise on.

Now imagine thousands and millions of online businesses and models that have sprouted from this advertising (business promotion) engine. Starting to see the connection of SEO and b2b yet? Businesses buy and sell services to each other not just consumers right? Well millions of businesses are doing that through the google adwords, but wait that is only half of it. Imagine online businesses, blogs, or websites, that could not find enough advertisers to advertise on their websites, having a way to generate revenues. yes, that is what the Google b2b exchange does that for them, Google AdSense allows any blog or website or businesses to place ads and make money. It’s pay for performance, so the more customers business blogs or websites have the more money it makes. SEO is the art and science of getting ranked in search engines and getting organic traffic. Some businesses have learned that Organic SEO is 5 times as effective for ads to gain targeted traffic. While click through and conversion rates for ads tends to be a little better than organic SEO, a 3.5 for ads versus 3.07 for SEO traffic. But the five times as much traffic certainly makes up for the small difference in coversion ratios.

So b2b advertising exchange of Googles adwords to buy ads, and sell ads via adsense complete’s the full spectrum of the supply and demand channels of businesses. Because what do businesses do, they buy stuff, and they sell stuff, and any b2b platform has to accomplish that. Now our online marketplace is setup just for businesses, really it is already a b2b exchange of 24000 businesses in the US and Canada. Our marketplace has 31 categories ranging from Jewelry to Automobile to Industrial businesses. There are 300million dollars worth of transactions being completed through the ITEX trade exchange. Hopefully our b2b exchange with the SEO skills of our team will grow that to billions of dollars that is already being done off-line. What is our niche, and the main value of our online marketplace? read more next time..this is a blog not a commercial:-)

Believe it or not, the Title tag says a lot about the branding of your businesses, as it is the first word that shows up in the Google Search results. And your company name should be the first word in your title tags and SEO efforts. But they should not be the only words in your title tags. Smart SEO consultants will use : colons as they are called right after the brand name. After that the most important keywords, do limit them to 10-12 though, and use them again in a sentence in your Meta Description tags. These are the two most important aspects of building your brand and your online businesses. This blog made me think of a great blog our blogging coach wrote last summer enjoy:

Branding Your Blog: Five Questions To Ask Yourself

Branding a blog is not unlike branding a business – you want to design a brand that encapsulates your core characteristics, that makes you stand out from the crowd, and that sums up your philosophy. I’m not talking about pretty logos or a memorable slogan, however. In order to succeed in the age of Web 2.0, your brand/blog must be dynamic, beneficial and/or entertaining – or preferably all three. Today’s readers are savvy, demanding, and fickle, so there has to be substance behind the hype if you want your message to stick.

When you begin your blog, ask yourself these questions:

1. What do I want to say? Try to narrow your message down to a few sentences. Think of it as a blogging mission statement (you can put this on your about page).

2. What do I have to offer? What unique skills and knowledge do you have to share with your readers? How can someone benefit by reading your blog? This can can become the basis for your cornerstone content.

3. What is my niche? No one can be all things to all people, so focus on what you can do well. Define your niche so that your blog and brand can be tailored to it (this is also important for SEO purposes, as it helps you to focus on the best possible keywords).

4. Is this sustainable in the long run? Do I have enough to say on this topic to maintain a blog? If you are blogging about your business, (hopefully), you’ll be very passionate about it and have more than enough to say. Remember that creating a successful blog, like a successful brand, requires time and commitment.

5. What sets you apart from the competition? What makes you and your business stand out? Can you describe in a few words? Why should someone read your blog?

As an example, here are the answers for this blog:

1. What do I want to say? In a nutshell, I help bloggers make their blog better; in particular, I teach to people use blogging to promote their businesses.

2. What do I have to offer? A finely honed writing ability combined with an knowledge of new media and web 2.0 topics, and an awareness of trends in the blogging community. Plus, I’m patient, friendly, and a good teacher.

3. What is my niche? Yes, I’m one of the many who blogs about blogging, but I’m focused on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs create compelling content and maximize the potential of their blogs.

4. Is this sustainable in the long run? Definitely. I clearly have lots to say, and the blogging community is incredibly dynamic and innovative, so there are always new topics to cover and lots of blog fodder. I’ve developed blogs before, so I understand the time commitment. Finally, blogging is something I’m passionate about on a personal level, because starting a blog literally changed my life (ultra quick summary – I was planning on going into a completely different field after I got my B.A., but I started a fashion blog as a hobby, fell in love with the world of blogging and online media, and the rest is history).

5. What sets you apart from the competition? I consider myself a writer as well as a blogger (just because the web is more informal medium than print doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t put my best face, or posts, forward), and I teach people to use their blogs as a means of active communication, connection, and involvement with their readers/markets instead of just a promotional tool. I’m in this to help other people succeed.

This post is being submitted to ChrisG on New Media’s Branding Round-up, so click the link for more posts on branding and how it relates to new media.

And a Happy 4th of July to my American readers!

Posted by: Blogging Coach

Before we start telling you about these top 5 technologies, I want to make it clear these are my opinion, and not based on research institute of small business administration or the US Chamber of commerce. Last week I read the state of the small business report from the US Chamber published recently, and it was too long and not helpful. I think small businesses like all businesses have similar challenges of efficiency, lack of financial resources, lack of people resources and lack of time. If technology could help them, they would love to use it, but if it’s not easy to use, they will not! We think every one should use technology to help them, not just online businesses.

They are not usually very tech savvy, and don’t have huge corporate arms training them on the latest version of Powerpoint, word or the sales force automation tools. If you don’t know this, large corporations spend billions of dollars a year training their employees on technology tools. In my professional opinion small businesses have a major disadvantage here. I use to work for Gartner Group’s learning division where I have 2 years of experience in the online business and corporate technology training area with large and small organizations. Bottom line is that today, small businesses can compete with large companies because of simple technology initiatives and tools available. You no longer need to work for a large company to have similar online tools, or be an online business. Look at Google, they just announced a suite of applications for small businesses, read the Boston Herald articled linked at the end of this blog. But here are the top 5 technology tools all small businesses should utilize to grow, why not use the advantages that online businesses use?

1. Mobile email device, such as a blackberry is a must. You shouldn’t have to go back to your computer and go check email, you should be busy spending time with your customers, employees, and suppliers. Do not check email back at the computer, and waste your time. Instead Save time, by using a blackberry or something similar, check email and send email from any where any time. I am a blackberry user of over 7 years now, there is nothing better, yes I have tried Plam and Treo products. It’s important to remember, You don’t have to check your email all the time, or respond to all of your emails all at once. Have some self control folks! You should be out and about doing your business, and check it when you have a moment. Do not set it to buzz every time you get an email. Control your time, save time, and be connected, not be a mess. There is no better tool for small businesses or actually any online business or not, than a mobile email via blackberry.
2. Having a business blog is a must! And you should be using a free business blogging system such as Blogger.com, WordPress.com or MyTypes.com, as those blogs get indexed by Google every day. What does that mean, and Why you say? This whole website and company is based on blogging, and we wanted to develop a business blogging platform that had built in SEO for you. Blogs are the #1 way to promote your businesses on line, because search engines such as Google consider them news, you need to blog about your specific products and services and generally what is going on about your businesses regularly.

3. You need a website ( or blog site ) with a custom Domain, that has your professional representation with a custom design for you. First thing we recommend is that if you have the money, you hire a custom html web designer and have it done. Next best thing is for you to find a industry based solution, one with templates already built in for you. For example in the real estate or mortgage industry there are specific solutions, and there is so much specific content and application tools, that one really has to consider those solutions first. Next for a blogsite, in addition to your website or within your URL. For example: blog.MyWebsite.com, Great place to start is WordPress.com or WordPress.org. Ask your tech person for help, if they don’t know about these tools, have them take a look for find another tech person.

To find a tech person, If your needs are custom and complex you may want to look at Joomla.org or Drupal.org to find a great solution.  We actually used Joomla to build our marketplace, we actually walk our talk:-).  These systems have thousands of programmers that know them very well, and they are totally free to use, you don’t have to pay in licensing fees at all, or give them your code. Chances are you are not very technical, so go to one of those communities websites and hire a programmer for about $2k or less you should get a full Joomla or drupal based site custom designed for you. All of the tools such as blogs, templates, shopping cart, and online business needs should be there for you. Best of all they are free, this new wave of Open Source technologies really is changing the world.

4. Learn about SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization), Online business marketing. It’s not just about mail marketing with news letters, SEO, blogs and Google Adwords based Search Engine Marketing are key to help you target key customers. Again there are many great resources on the web, including our SEO blogs and main blogging and SEO blogs coaching areas from the front page of our website at MyTypes.com.

5. Join an online businesses community such as a Barter system at ITEX.com. Why should small businesses join any online business communities, especially active one’s like Barter networks? No man is an island, neither is a women, or are any businesses. We all need each other to succeed, businesses need customers, suppliers, employees, not just owners:-). There are number of challenges and situations that you may want to get advice on. The chances are there are owners of businesses out there that have dealt with those issues, and often times they want to help you. You may have some advice that may help them, this is what online businesses communities do in an efficient time saving way. Barter services company like ITEX also have an online marketplace, such as eBay. eBay has been immensely popular due to it’s online business community of checks and balances of buyers and sellers. It almost forces you to have references, and that gives businesses credibility, and makes them more successful.

Bonus technology advice, you probably use Quick books to manage your books via your accountant already. If not, you should have a book keeper accountant do that, but you should use the online version of QuickBooks, not just the desktop. This way, your accountant can work remotely, yes you can just mail them your receipts, save time, save hassle!

Technology usage to grow your small businesses is not just about being efficient, it’s about saving you time so that you can spend it with your clients, employees, friends and family. Remember relationships are usually the most important things in life, especially the friends and family kind. If you treat your customers and employees like family, which most successful businesses do, you will succeed. And, our technology advice above is catered to help you do just that. Yes you can!

Here is Google’s free applications article promised earlier:

Google releases new online software for businesses in latest swipe at Microsoft – BostonHerald.com

Hi Everyone,  Here is the article from Forbes on B2b industry as a whole, b2b Marketplace are covered from different industries, and b2b marketing size numbers are provided.  I am copying and pasting the article on this SEO blog, below the link to the Forbes online page.   As these big companies often move content and store it, the link may not stay live.  Do visit the folks at Forbes, as they did the article, I am just promoting it as we are trying to understand the market size of the b2b industry as a whole.  We are doing this to gain a niche for our online marketplace.

Forbes.com Best of the Web

B2B

From the depths of 2000 and 2001, business-to-business e-commerce is once again getting bubbly with enthusiasm. According IDC, worldwide B2B e-commerce is expected to grow 55% this year to $3.4 trillion. However, instead of the big incumbent software and services firms reaping all of the spoils, there is a new crop of open-source up-starts gaining acceptance in corporate IT department. Suddenly big players like Oracle, Microsoft and SAP are scrambling to protect their flanks as the open-source invasion hits their core markets. Meanwhile, another up-start of sorts in the online advertising business, Google, continues to amaze skeptics. This 5,000-employee juggernaut now sports a market capitalization of more than $104 billion, bigger than another notable marketing company, Coca-Cola, with 50,000 employees.

…

Advertising
According to David Card, an ad analyst at Jupiter, online ads will bring in $11.9 billion in 2005, up from $9.3 billion last year. That’s still a …

Aerospace & Defense
Despite the ongoing war, defense aerospace equipment orders are not substantially up. And a shrinking volume of new equipment orders on the …

Agriculture
Some 80% of the 250,000 top-producing U.S. farmers use the Internet. Sites surviving the recent shakeout in e-agriculture help farmers connect faster …

Automotive
The automotive B2B landscape suffered a defeat in 2004 when the Big Three automakers threw in the towel on Covisint, its highly touted cooperative …

Business Process Outsourcing
Companies turn to Business Process Outsourcing firms to handle non-essential day-to- day business tasks such as human resources, document management …

Chemicals
With a commodity business like chemicals, prices can be the key factor in whether or not these cyclical companies makes money. So it was with relief …

Collaboration
Collaboration is one of the Web’s killer apps. A few years ago enterprise software companies dominated this space with Web conferencing and other …

Computers
Most businesses already use the Web to buy and sell computers and find IT services like Web-hosting. In this business the competition is fierce and …

Construction
Many online B2B companies learned the hard way that contractors don’t want to purchase their materials online or do business without a handshake. …

Content Management
Structuring, sorting, and routing an increasing flow of digital information are at the heart of what content management companies do for their …

Customer Relationship Management
The incredible shrinking world of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) continues. After many years as a best-of-breed darling, a rapidly fading …

Electronics
Speed is what’s important in the electronics industry. That’s why online auctions didn’t work out: companies simply couldn’t wait to see if they won …

Energy
Giant, thriving, deregulated energy-trading exchanges were once thought to be the future. Enron’s spectacular collapse and its fall out, have nearly …

Excess Inventory
When supply exceeds demand companies need to unload their surplus inventory. The Web, it turns out, has become one of the greatest liquidators of …

Financial Content Providers
Timely access to accurate information is critical for anyone involved in the markets. As a result, financial content providers have florished on the …

Financial Services
There is a bitter rivalry forming among a few of the top players on our financial business to business list. CheckFree posted some disappointing …

Food & Beverage
It’s been a rough year for public exchanges in the food and beverage industries. Sites like FoodUSA and Foodscape have folded. Others, like …

Healthcare
Web applications and healthcare have always held great promise. Thanks in part to physician’s resistance to change, that promise has been largely …

Hospitality & Travel
The North American hotel business spends $80 billion annually, and nearly 65% of all hotel rooms are operated by the top six companies. All eyes are …

Human Resources
Firms that perform human resources functions for other companies tend to specialize in either a particular functionality or in the type of customer …

Industrial Equipment
Not long ago industrial equipment looked like an ideal candidate for online exchanges. Lately, the focus has shifted to private exchanges and …

Knowledge Services
Does your company have an “information” strategy? Do your key employees have efficient access to the latest content? Look to the companies below for …

Logistics
Small logistics companies are thriving. RedPrarie and HighJump (now owned by 3M) are the best-of-class, but others, like G-Log, are also notable. …

Metals
The metals business may not yet be ready to accept the B2B revolution. MetalSite, Aluminum.com and MetalSpectrum have shut down. E-Steel has become a …

Paper & Forest Products
The paper industry is reeling as overcapacity, consolidation and globalization have led to mill closings and employee layoffs. Any help these …

Procurement
The procurement business has gone through some consolidation over the past year and as a result, the boundaries separating procurement companies and …

Real Estate
Commercial realty’s embrace of the Web has been slow. Only half of real estate firms have a common property information database and only 16% of are …

Retailing
For retailers, the Web has made the world a much smaller place and now retail firms of any size can more easily tap far away factories and …

Security
Web security is one of the hottest growth areas of online B2B. Even Google, Microsoft and AOL have recently acquired their way into the business. The …

Small Business
The Internet can be a powerful tool for small businesses. Many these days exist almost completely online, purchasing, marketing and selling their …

Supply Chain Management
Big is good in supply chain. That was Oracle’s thinking when it snapped up best-of-breed competitors G-Log and Retek this year, placing it in a dead …

Telecommunications
A year ago bandwidth was hot and telecom stocks were soaring. Today there is a fiber-optics glut and an industrywide depression. In an effort to …

Trading Platforms
The Web is a haven for upstart and established financial trading operations. But hard times have hit. A shakeout has eliminated BondBook and Atriax, …

Web Services
Interoperability is the name of the game with Web services. Companies don’t want to worry about getting Microsoft Windows applications to talk to …

Wireless
Businesses are anxious to deploy wireless technologies that will make them more efficient and reduce costs. Problem is, it’s taken awhile for those …

**As always this SEO blogs work is sponsored by the kind businesses such as the leading bartering company ITEX.com, Designer Jewelry by LoveRelic.com, and as always free blogs and blogging platform of MyTypes.com.

As some of you know we are building a b2b marketplace, with B2C capabilities(Business 2 Consumer) online marketplace, we are doing this as we don’t see an adequate or cost effect Marketplace on the market. Please don’t tell me about Craigslist, it’s too frivolous and most professional businesses need better tools. Also, do you know why we have more pictures of women than men on our site? It’s because women do more shopping than men, and that is why they are also used more in online marketplace advertisements. The main reason we are doing this is to promote our small business community. Just to be self-serving as all businesses should be, we want to promote our trading business community and Barter system at ITEX.com. Why? We think there are significant advantages to joining a barter network, the main one being attracting new customers, and getting rid of perishable inventory such as time related products & services such as Hotel or rental vacancies, Lawyers having fixed employee cost, but not enough billable clients, etc. etc.

The biggest problem to promote our barter system @ ITEX is the lack of awareness of how Barter works. We all can immediately see the value, but how does it work today? A professional barter system is not just a swap meet, it’s a trading business community of professionals. But, most small business owners just don’t know the value of Barter, because they have not been made aware of how it can help them grow their businesses. Bartering has been around for a long time, but don’t make my word for it, even the ancient times of India:-), Ok, I just wanted to add a word about India, as I had this picture.

There are actually fortune 500 companies, not just small businesses that barter for goods and services, and in the IT and NYC finance world, I have heard the term called soft dollars. The key is to not hide the transaction report the sales as sales and costs as costs, and pay the IRS it’s dues, keep The Uncle happy:-).

Enough about barter for the moment, let’s talk about our b2b and B2C marketplace, and the lack of features available in most online marketplaces today. Here are some of the features that are missing:

1. Missing a professional low-cost or free online marketplace, that attracts huge consumer based. You have eBay which charges huge fees, but it’s really an auction site and it works well for sellers but not buyers. Amazon is all about them, they charge even more, and Yahoo Stores has too many technical issues every Christmas season.

2. Most online marketplaces that are free, are not professional and don’t offer the tools and social business community tools that sellers and buyers really need.

3. Customization to represent the brand of the seller is missing, especially within the eBay stores or Amazon, they will charge you to set up a website or web store, but in their online marketplace, they are again all about them. Yahoo stores is much better in this category.

4. The ability to provide SEO and optimized content to promote the sellers stores is done in a limited fashion, almost by accident. The Yellow pages companies have started to go down this road, but they don’t have any significant value in the local SEO tools, all they have is the advertising dollars.

5. Online marketplaces are going towards allowing their client businesses advice, tips, and news letters, and some blogging tools. But a true collaborative social networking community is at the moment separate than the shopping. As we know shopping is a social activity, especially for women, any men want to debate this one?

As you can see their is a lack of a professional businesses online marketplace. Our goal is to come from the business community tools perspective and provide the businesses not only the ability to have classifieds and online marketplace, but a large consumer base based on our SEO capabilities of each product and profile listing of each member. So to say this in a light manner, we will build the SEO in the store, so that the members will get more traffic than their own websites, why should Amazon, Craigslist, and eBay be the only ones. Our online marketplace and small business community will get results to help each and every entrepreneur.

No matter what you sell, Testimonials have been the best selling tool. Either for any traditional business referral system or even an eCommerce system. People like to read other people’s reviews and ratings, hello did eBay and Amazon prove that?  At the heart of most business networking clubs and at the heart of any small business community, are a referral based network.  Most small businesses, actually big ones to, operate on personal references.

What is the best way to get a testimonial to show case credibility for your products or services?  If you have a product, easiest thing to do is to sell on eBay, second try Amazon if you have to, they have reviews for books, but other stuff too.   Do Not try to get your clients to write a review or testimonial for you, it usually is to cumbersome for them, unless they are willing to, if they are have them do it.  The easiest thing to do is to actually write it for them, make it factual, make it honest, keep it to 2-3 sentences, and send it to them in an email to have them approve it.  If they do, as they easily will, than use it on your website.  Voila you have testimonials, with this comes credibility.  Have you noticed comments on business blogs?  Those are testimonials as well, the more people that comment on your blog, the better your blogs look, and more credibility you earn.

Here are some actual testimonials for our Infrared Heaters online business.  We started to SEO our Infrared Heaters almost 2 months ago, for a while I was writing a better than eden pure heaters blog, way to much blogging for me. Well, GreenIsBetter.org is now a PR4 site, and the site is doing well.  Attached are real testimonials are of our Comfortzone Infrared Heaters, sold on our eBay account. We have sold many more of these on our website. In my previous life, my real estate websites Urbantango.com and XoomPad.com both had high visits on our testimonials page.

***This is a blog I wrote about our energy saving heaters in our other blog.

Hi Everyone, You have seen me blog a few weeks about our Comfort zone Infrared Heaters which we claim are better than Eden pure Heaters. These Infrared Heaters are saving our customers money on their electric bills, on their heating bills, and especially if they are using oil and gas. But don’t take my word for it, here are some of our customers from our eBay sales. We mostly sell these better than eden pure heaters at our website Greenisbetter.org.

These are recent testimonials:

Testimonials

I’m really loving my new comfort zone heater!
I love that it’s ultra-quiet and I especially love the quality of the heat that it puts out.
It doesn’t make the air dry and staticy like other space heaters that I’ve had.
My dogs love to lay in front of it and I have never seen them do that with any other heater.

The best part is that it’s really lowered my heating bill. I can see that by the end
of this winter, it will have paid for itself and some. It looks great too! I actually get quite a few compliments on it. I’ll be purchasing a couple more for my family for Christmas!

David Klein

I had another brand of Quartz Infrared Heater in my home last year. While I did save on my electrical bills, the heater was just too noisey for me and i only ran it in the living room. My new ComfortZone Heater is sitting in my bedroom. It turns on and off all night and i never hear a thing. The new electronic thermostat and the delay start feature I think were great improvements over my previous heater. Besides your extended warranty, the thing I like the most is the look.

Lesslie Scott

Here are some Recent Testimonials: We also sell a few of these items on eBay so that we would get Testimonials. Read why our products are better than Eden pure Heaters, don’t just listen to us, we hear that from customers who have both!

Nice heater ,fast shipping ,Good Company

Buyer:0020110 ( 57)

Jan-09-08 10:23

It was a gift and they loved it, saying they aren’t cold anymore.

Buyer:galindor4 ( 17)

Jan-09-08 07:30

FAST SHIPPING, GREAT PRODUCT, BETTER THAN EDENPURE, GREAT COMMUNICATION. A+++

Buyer:summertime2781 ( 23)

Jan-09-08 05:30

Great EBay …. Fast Delivery A+

Buyer:chuckstain2000 ( 117)

Jan-08-08 18:52

Nicely packaged and shipped quickly

Buyer:tiltrack ( 5 )

Jan-05-08 13:27

Unit looks just like what i was looking for

Buyer:motesah1946 ( 8 )

Jan-04-08 14:28

Great heater…..the kids love it. Fast shipper too!

Buyer:tomhammer ( 262)

Jan-04-08 04:40

Excellent product. Fast shipping. Easy transaction. Would do business again.

Buyer:cronus68 ( 106)

Jan-03-08 13:58

Delivery was fast, It does the job. And it is so cute

Buyer:cathy6434 ( 19)

Jan-03-08 08:36

Amazing…i can already tell a difference….

Buyer:bonz121 ( 20)

Dec-31-07 19:59

Great communication, good seller & product, would deal with again

Buyer:mustang2162 ( 15)

Dec-29-07 04:10

Contact and shipment same day

Buyer:rzfanjimmy ( 18)

Dec-27-07 08:33

Item arrived on time & in perfect condition, good prices

Buyer:mushay ( 55)

Dec-27-07 07:17

great seller, excellent communication, thanks

Buyer:peter47hd ( 17)

Dec-25-07 18:52

great to deal with A+

Buyer:dirtrace95 ( 429)

Dec-20-07 13:03

Great person to work with! Thanks! A+++++++++++++++++++++

Buyer:coo24 ( 335)

Dec-19-07 19:13

Great person to deal with! Great customer service! Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Buyer:coo24 ( 335)

Dec-19-07 19:11

Everything was as seller advertised…truly expedient service!!!!!!!! 5 stars

Buyer:nelson388 ( 10)

Dec-19-07 14:39

Received promptly and in good order. Thank you.

Buyer:371g49 ( 163)

Dec-18-07 09:51

good communicator, prompt

Buyer:troclo9999 ( 2 )

Dec-17-07 15:19

Good Ebayer! Good Communication. Fast Shipment. Thank you!

Buyer:rettro96 ( 37)

Dec-16-07 18:25

Outstanding ebayer! Super fast delivery! Excellent customer service!!

Buyer:flyskiskiing ( 50)

Dec-15-07 06:26

As described fast shipping A++

Buyer:brokedh ( 130)

Dec-12-07 19:08

FAST SHIPPING GREAT EBAYER THANKS A++++++

Buyer:noonan99 ( 228)

Dec-10-07 09:42

Heater works well! Heating an entire basement apartment in New England!

Buyer:laketodd ( 232)

Dec-08-07 03:23

good seller, works great thank you

Buyer:funkymoonbaby ( 179)

Dec-07-07 04:36

Fast & Smooth Transaction,Great Product,Great Ebay Seller (A+)

Buyer:race-rock-2000 ( 750)

Dec-06-07 08:43

Great communication. Fast shipment. Nice product. Thank you!!!!!

Buyer:moonpiesb ( 72)

Dec-02-07 13:33

Don’t forget to go to our Greenisbetter.org Infrared Heaters store, remember others think they are better than eden pure heaters, hope you got enough evidence.

Posted by Admin in Infrared Heaters

Capitalism makes the world go around, we all get that don’t we?   Yes, as we all need goods and services, a marketplace usually provides that doesn’t it. How and why you ask, and why are we talking about it here? Well it’s simple really, we are about to build the best business online market place, and as part of the ITEX barter network and bartering system, we already have 24,000 small business members. So what really is a traditional marketplace and are people searching for on an online Marketplace? Yes, and they are doing it with keywords, for not just places like Pike’s market, or San Francisco China market. They are searching for items for sale, by searching for keywords “For Sale”. We talk a lot about SEO here, so I have to add a thing or two to it.

A full fledged SEO keyword analysis helped us get to the fact that there is much more to the word Marketplaces than meets the eye. For online market places, people now days think of Craigslist, but New York times has a market place of classified ads, and so does every single news paper in the country.   So that means that every single local city has a market place through their neighborhood news papers. Now days, most of them are going on the web to create an online market place. All of which makes it easier for people to buy and sell goods and services, and our niche will be the online market place for small businesses.

Why are we setting up, yet another online marketplace you ask? Companies like Craigslist and all the other free directories are not professional enough, and quality of it’s vendors is dramatically prone to fraud and scams. On the other hand companies like eBay and Amazon charge too much for their online marketplace, and don’t provide personal service. Many small businesses can go broke trying to sell on  these marketplaces. Than there are the yellow pages directories and business pages directories, they are wonderful because they are usually local. But, they have been terrible at providing adequate technology and tools. So what would you get if you combined MySpace with Blogging from Blogger with eBay with your local yellow pages? Hopefully you understand that the Online Marketplace of ITEX bartering small business blogs powered by MyTypes.com is a powerful combination. There we have 30 categories of products and services from Accommodations and travel to Telecommunications and Transport. We hope to provide small businesses all the technology tools that they ever need on this online marketplace, and hopefully we will keep the service free if not very low cost.