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Free - Online persuasion - 7 ways to persuade people to buy

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? None, the light bulb has to want to change. So the joke goes. However, it's possible that the light bulb could be persuaded to change. Persuading people to buy online (from TVs to groceries, holidays to services) can be achieved with techniques that marketers and psychologists have known for years.

Persuasion isn't rocket science; it involves understanding aspects of human nature that are often automatic and work at a subconscious level. Here are 7 ethical ways to persuade people.

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Free - 5 Ways to Improve online Cross- & Up-Selling

We've all been cross- or up-sold to before. We reach for the magazines or sweets at the supermarket checkout counter. We purchase games the sales person suggests for our new game console. We gleefully pour over the options list for our new car.

Cross-selling is selling an additional product to existing customers, usually related to what they've already bought. Up-selling is selling a better (but usually more expensive) product to customers, after they've decided on a cheaper product.

Cross- and up-selling isn't difficult as you're selling to people who want to buy - probably the easiest job in the world next to selling petrol! The key however is to do it well. Here are a few tips on how to cross- and up-sell online more effectively.

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Free - Usability & security: Unlikely bedfellows?

With an ever increasing online population - 41 million users in the UK alone (source: Internet World Stats) - computer security and user authentication have never been more vital. Unusable security is expensive as well as ineffective. According to Password research, two-thirds of users had to reset their passwords/PINs three or more times in the last 2 years. With each password reset estimated at £35 in help desk costs (source: Mandylion research labs) it's easy to see how expensive an affair this can be.

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Free! - Optimizing your Web Site for Search Engines

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How can your website rank better than your competitors so it will be noticed by its target audience? This is where SEO comes in.  Search engine optimization is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine.

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Free - 7 Usability Guidelines For Websites On Mobile Devices

More and more mobile phones users are browsing and searching the Internet on their handsets. The UK, for example, has neared saturation for mobile phones and many handset browsers can now handle sites designed for viewing on computers. Indeed 20% of UK mobile phone users now use the Internet on their mobile devices (source: 3G.co.uk).

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Free, Effective Controls for Attaining Continuous Application Security Throughout the Web Application Development Life-cycle

Given the choice, every organization would want secure Web sites andapplications from the Web application development phase all the way through thesoftware development life-cycle. But why is that such a challenge to attain?The answer is in the processes (or lack thereof) that they have in place. Read More

Free, Implementing Effective Vulnerability Remediation Strategies Within the Web Application Development Life-cycle

Once you’ve completed a security assessment as a part of your web application development, it’s time to go down the path of remediating all of the security problems you uncovered. At this point, your developers, quality assurance testers, auditors, and your security managers should all be collaborating closely to incorporate security into the current processes of your software development lifecycle in order to eliminate application vulnerabilities. And with your Web application security assessment report in hand, you probably now have a long list of security issues that need to be addressed: low, medium, and high application vulnerabilities; configuration gaffes; and cases in which business-logic errors create security risk. For a detailed overview on how to conduct a Web application security assessment, take a look at the first article in this series, Web Application Vulnerability Assessment: Your First Step to a Highly Secure Web Site.

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Free, Web Application Vulnerability Assessment Essentials: Your First Step to a Highly Secure Web Site

If an organization isn't taking a systematic and proactive approach to web security, and to running a web application vulnerability assessment in particular, then that organization isn't defended against the most rapidly increasing class of attacks. Web-based attacks can lead to lost revenue, the theft of customers' personally identifiable financial information, and falling out of regulatory compliance with a multitude of government and industry mandates: the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) for merchants, HIPAA for health care organizations or Sarbanes-Oxley for publicly traded companies.  In fact, the research firm Gartner estimates that 75 percent of attacks on web security today are aimed straight at the application layer.

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Creating an Ad Campaign

Throughout the past two articles, Linda has explained Google Analytics and showed you the stats to measure before you even begin an ad campaign. In this article, Linda discusses how you can promote your Website and measure the results of your ad campaign with Google Analytics. Whether you focus on print, television, or online advertising, Google can help you analyse which ads work to bring traffic to your site.

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Google Traffic Stats: Your Market

In the previous article Linda introduced you to Google Analytics. If you opened an account, then you know by now how deeply the analytics dissect your traffic. But, where do you go from here? In this article, Linda shows you how to analyse your traffic and visitors so you can begin to create an ad campaign, one that will bring more traffic to your site and – better yet – one that will help to retain that traffic as loyal customers.

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Make the Most Out of Google Analytics

Linda will walk you through the new Google Analytics (GA) interface over the next few weeks to show you how to utilize all the nooks and crannies within this site. If you’re a GA devotee or an SEO expert, you might find this information a bit below your needs. But, if analytics is new to you, or if you’d prefer to learn how to decipher these detailed stats rather than pay someone to do it for you, then you might be interested in what these articles will offer.

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From the Ground Up: How to Build Online Revenue part 3

In the previous article, I reported that U.S. citizens spent $1.8 billion for online content in 2004. and that an average of only 31.4% of Internet users surf the computer on a daily basis. If the two statistics are combined, it appears that only a few folks in America hold the cash and that a Web site owner only has a few minutes each day to capture their attention and/or money. This week I’ll compare these statistics to illustrate how a company can use bias to make claims that alter marketing strategies. In addition, I’ll continue with an examination of Paul Stamet’s Web site to determine how a small company can use this material to absorb a niche market.

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