Great info…thanks, Chip!
07 2009 Wednesday 15 By Chip Cooper in Business

I talk to a lot of owners of small websites — entrepreneurs getting started with new businesses or re-doing existing sites on the Web — and most of them have a profound lack of understanding regarding the scope of legal regulation they face.

What’s worse, most don’t have any idea of their exposure to legal liability.

Why Aren’t Website Owners Aware of Website Legal Compliance Requirements?

I believe the lack of awareness and understanding is due to several factors:

• most small website owners don’t have an Internet attorney; most don’t even feel the need for one, and the ones who do, don’t know how to find one they can trust;
• most website developers don’t inform their clients of the need for website legal compliance;
• website regulation developed without fanfare; to date, there is no federal privacy statute of general application that would have been highly publicized at the time of passage;
• privacy and data security regulation has developed in piecemeal fashion in the form of state statutes (with California leading the way); federal jurisdiction was not created by any Internet-specific statute – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) assumed jurisdiction for enforcement of privacy and data security violations by claiming jurisdiction (successfully) resulting from its authority to regulate false and misleading claims under Section 5 of the FTC Act; and
• despite press releases by the FTC regarding claims filed against websites, the message is just not getting through to entrepreneurs; for example, in the last 3 years, the FTC has settled with fourteen businesses over inadequate data security for personal information with substantial fines levied in some cases, and the FTC’s aggressive enforcement has continued into 2009 with two new actions filed in the first two months of 2009.

So, given the factors listed above, it’s understandable why most entrepreneurial website owners aren’t aware of the need for website legal compliance. However, website owners won’t be able to plead ignorance. The cliche you’ve heard before is true – “ignorance is no excuse”.

16 High Risk Activities That Indicate The Need For Website Legal Compliance

There are certain website activities that are now very high risk – and indicate the need for legal compliance measures. They include:

1. collection of any single element of personal information; for example, if you collect merely an email address for a sign-up form for product information, a newsletter, or a downloadable report, you have entered an area that is highly regulated – and which presents a very significant exposure to legal liability;
2. collection of credit card information;
3. failure to operate a secure server that stores personal information;
4. failure to identify and assess internal and external risks to the security of personal information;
5. failure to monitor the effectiveness of security of personal information and update security measures as indicated by changes in website operations;
6. offering monthly subscription or membership payment models, or any payment scheme where payment is made over time after the delivery of the product or service;
7. sharing of personal information with others for purposes of direct marketing;
8. permitting third party service providers such as website maintenance and SEO service providers or hosting service providers to have access to the internals of your server;
9. transmission of personal information outside the website’s secure system or across public networks; Nevada and Massachusetts both have statutes regulating these activities;
10. operation of a blog or forum that permits users to upload text or files;
11. operating a website that targets children or at least by virtue of graphics, text, and products or services would be attractive to children under 13;
12. serving third party cookies (e.g. Google Analytics);
13. serving behavioral ads (e.g. Google’s AdSense);
14. appointment of online resellers or affiliates;
15. use of a competitor’s trademark in keyword-triggered ads; and
16. “borrowing” someone else’s privacy policy without detailed analysis of how it fits your own specific business and marketing practices.

Make Website Legal Compliance a Top Priority

If your website engages in any of the risk factors listed above, website legal compliance measures are required — and compliance should become a top priority ASAP.

The legal liability for failure to comply can be significant.

SEO for Newbies – FREE 90 Minute Webinar

Tuesday June 16 from 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Even if you attended Val’s other Do It Yourself Search Engine Marketing
webinars, you do NOT want to miss this one!

Here is what you get:

1. Step by step do it yourself instructions to get YOUR website noticed by the search engines

2. Your questions  be answered.

3. Great giveaways ONLY to seminar attendees.  You MUST be present to win!

Do It Yourself website search engine optimization step by step instructions to get you noticed on the search engines – especially Google. This tech talk is from Val, a real world web designer in language you will understand. No Geek Speak here!

Get your websites NOTICED by the search engines!

Here is what Pam Hiron, a previous seminar attendee, says about Val, “Val – Thank you so much for the seminar.  I am not at the level of the other attendees, but you were very helpful and answered all my questions.  I am a retired teacher, so I know a natural teacher when I see one and you are!  Thank you for the warmth and the information”

A successful, local Sarasota Realtor, Bonnie McDowell has this to say about Val, ” I cannot believe the depth of your skills and knowledge! My site is at the TOP of Google month after month and the “snowbirds” all find me that way. …Your enthusiasm is infectious.  How can I let others know how you can do the same for them?”

Join Val for a Webinar on June 16 along with nternet Gurus Jason Fladlien and Robert Plank Space is limited.Reserve your Webinar seat now here:https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/493108178 Title: SEO for Newbies – FREE 90 Minute Webinar Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Time: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Is your company searching for someone to help them build a great web site? As is the case with many organizations today, most likely they have limited funds. So if you spend a lot of money on a web design you will regret it later. To make a website for your company, you require affordable web design services.

Numerous web design firms claim to do their work inexpensively. Are they, in fact, interchangeable? Just like other businesses, not all design companies have the capability to deliver a strong product. Here is what you need to keep in mind when looking for a good website.

Graphics for pages on the web should look professional. They should make it fun to browse a website. Make sure that your graphics are not cluttered or cause confusion on your site. Graphics should not be distracting, but should complement the other content on your website.

The transition from each page to the next should be an easy flow. Just like a book, you will turn the page. This will keep customers on your website, encouraging them to browse through other pages. Keeping visitors browsing the content of the website leads to higher incidences of those visitors becoming customers.

Content-rich articles are what you should be looking for. Your website should contain material that is well composed and interesting to readers. Keywords are one of the most important aspects of the content; you want your website to be visible to search engine traffic.

Now that you have some new ideas in mind, start your search for the design firm that can provide your company with affordable web design. Request work samples so you can be sure you’re getting a good value.

There are a handful of techniques to drive traffic to your site. You can pay for it by buying web ads; you can use social networking to generate your visitors; you can build up a mailing list, or partner with other peoples’ email lists; or you can obtain traffic from organic search engine listings by employing SEO (search engine optimization). The latter is the subject of this article, which will look into two elements to consider when using search engine optimization to send people to to your website and content.

The Search Engines Adore Theme Relevancy

Whatever content you write for a webpage, perform some initial keyword examination to discover a collection of related keywords that have bearing within that market. For instance, if you were creating some content relevant to Matt Morris’ Success University, you should include other words within your writing with other relevant and associated words such as ‘goal setting’, ’self help’, and ‘career success’.

It is supposed that the search engines can monitor the amount of time a visitor remains on a webpage, and the greater the period they stay, the more likely it is seen (to the search engines) that a web page is likely to be valuable and relevant to what the user was seeking, and therefore the more likely they will boost the ranking of your web page. So make your writing helpful and relevant for this purpose. It will also increase the chance that visitors will bookmark your site as one of their favorites, which might lead not only to repeat visits, but to greater search engine credibility.

The Importance of Meta-Tags

An additional key to optimization is to ensure that you make the optimum use possible of each of the meta-tags on your web pages. The main ones of importance are the Title Tag and the Description Tag. The title tag is what appears as the blue underlined text that shows in Google’s search results, and the Description tag is what appears underneath the title.

The title tag should never be greater than sixty characters long, including spaces, and the Description tag should never go longer than one hundred and forty characters. Take the Peel Away Ads website as an example. If you Google the term “peel away ads” you will see its title tag display as: “Peel Away Ads with Awesome Bonuses – $17″, and the description tag is: “Peel Away Ads is the perfect solution to grab the attention of your website’s visitors. This Peel Ads package includes 7 software programs for a total …” You can observe that the description tag has been truncated after the first 150 characters. The same will occur with a title tag when it is longer than sixty five characters. What you say in these two tags are not only important for ranking for the key terms that you are seeking, but also what you put within them will have an enormous bearing on whether visitors click on to your site or not.

You can learn a lot more relating to SEO and  other aspects of Internet marketing through the marketing seminar series.  Just Click Here.

The first seminar was such a success (check here) that I am going to repeat it one more time. This Do It Yourself Website Marketing will be on a Tuesday still 7pm – 9pm and the price is still just $25 with an ironclad money back guarantee. Attendees receive handouts to follow along during the seminar and, can ask questions particular to their own business websites.  Plus a few surprises later on!

Bring your laptop. We will have wireless access available for you to do some HANDS ON work for your website. Don’t have a laptop? Come anyway you can take notes  on the handouts you will receive or share with some one else.

You can register online here or call Val @ 928-3280.  Once your reservation is paid for, you will receive directions.  To your success!

Are you a small business owner looking to setup a website? Maybe you own a cake shop, an art gallery, or work as a freelance writer from home? Whatever type of business you have, if you have been wondering in what way you can use the Internet to boost your business presence and gain more clients, then scan through this article before you go out and spend money on a web design company to put together a site for you.

Although it may not be your core business, it’s worthwhile to educate yourself a little bit first before spending any $$. This article will give you a grip on the basics of web marketing before you hire someone to create a website for you so that you aren’t uninformed. It will also coach you about some things you can do yourself, which you may choose to do on your own to save you the cost of outsourcing.

Some Facts About Blogs

If you have the inclination to provide regular updates and news relating to your business, you might consider establishing a blog in lieu of a website. A blog works like a diary. Each entry is time and date stamped. Here is a blog about finance as an example. Note the time and date stamped posts and the optional peel back ad in the top right hand corner of the page. You don’t need to have any knowledge of html or programming to use a blog. Once your blog is installed, you just login to a control panel, type what you want to say into an entry field, and click “Publish”.

Blogs can be quite simple to setup. You might even try your hand at creating one yourself. You can get very affordable cPanel webhosting nowadays beginning at $4.95 p/mth. cPanel webhosting includes a feature called Fantastico, which allows you to install a blog with just a handful of mouse clicks. A decent hosting provider should be able to help you install your blog as well, even if you have very limited knowledge. After all, they want your business.

Click here for a great US based hosting company

Web 2.0 Websites

An alternative method to spread the word about your business without creating a website, is to create a free webpage on one of the numerous Web 2.0 content sites such as Hubpages.com and Squidoo.com. Here is an example Squidoo lens review of Success University. These are even easier to setup compared to a blog as they don’t require any technical know-how at all, leaving you to focus on your content and writing whatever it is you wish to write to your chosen audience. Pages on Web 2.0 content sites also frequently appear very high in the search engine results, further boosting the means by which greater numbers of people can discover your business.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook, MySpace and Linked In are probably the three most trafficked social networking sites. As with the Web 2.0 websites, social networking sites are also based on pre-defined styles and templates, removing the need to have any html knowledge and enabling you to save the funds you might have otherwise spent on a web design company and invest that elsewhere.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Once you have setup either a blog, Web2.0 or Social Networking page, you will want to ensure that your page has good exposure in the search engine results, and therefore sending greater traffic and increasing the number of people who become aware of your business. This is where Search Engine Optimization, comes into play. Don’t be scared! You can get a handle on SEO by taking a loan of a book from your local library or spending a bit of time researching it on the web. There are a whole host of free websites containing SEO information. Check out this site here.

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It takes more than a handful of HTML tags added to a page to complete a website design. That is where the principals and elements of design, from print design to brochure design, come in; once you learn how to use the elements in order to design an eye-catching site, you will have the skills necessary to become a great designer.

To put it simply, the building blocks of designs are the elements that are used to make up every page or interface you design. Once you understand the five basic elements you will be able to put together more creative and stimulating web pages for your online home business. The graphic designs you attempt need to be eye-catching and of course, your web graphic design should have the earmarks of a professional. Also, making your website user friendly and adding some “eye candy” is extremely important, as you are competing with thousands of other websites to get visitors.

One of the major elements of design is lines or line work. They are used to increase readability, as well as borders and contours around different elements and decoration, all working together to create a unique website design. Shapes are also a much-used versatile element of design. Most often you see them as rectangular or square on a web page, but they can incorporate images and most anything else you can think of to generate interest.

The other major elements of a design are texture, color and direction; all used in graphic design as well. Texture on web pages is visual, but you can use artificial or natural textures to create an effect in your design. Color is the design element that a web designer is most aware of, but color is not a requirement of any design. Most often, it is best to create the designs without color and add it later. Direction gives your designs a sense of motion across the page. The better sites will lead you through the design so that you see what the designer wants you to see. Of course, it is always a good idea to sketch the design on paper first and then transfer it to the web publishing software.

If you plan to be a good designer, then when you see that blank web page do not just throw random images or graphics on it and hope for the best. A good website design is well thought out, long before any actual additions to the pages are made. This enables you to see how well everything you have in mind will blend together, in order to create a great, user friendly, interactive website.