Tuesday, 6 September 2011

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Posted: 02 Sep 2011 09:35 AM PDT
taxmanProposed legislation in the U.S. Congress, if passed, will essentially make online merchants tax collectors, forcing them to collect sales taxes for all purchases. This is the latest attempt by cash-strapped states to collect sales tax revenues from online sales.
The Main Street Fairness Act (MSFA), introduced by Senator Dick Durban (D-IL), would change the current law which requires merchants to collect sales tax only when the merchant has a physical presence in the state. The effect of MSFA on online merchants, particularly small merchants, could be huge.
The Current Sales Tax War
The general rule regarding sales taxes is that merchants are required to collect sales taxes on the sale of tangible property to purchasers located within the merchant’s state. For sales to purchasers outside the merchant’s state, the merchant is required to collect sales taxes only for sales into a state where the merchant has a “nexus”, meaning a physical presence. The taxes on these sales are supposed to be paid by the purchasers in the form of use taxes, but most use tax obligations are not paid, and as a result states claim that they are losing between $21-34 billion.
Currently, Amazon.com and big box merchants such as Wal-Mart and Target are locked in a war involving whether Amazon’s affiliates should count as nexus for sales tax purposes, even though Amazon.com does not have a physical presence in the affiliates’ states.
Up to now, attempts by several states to force out-of-state merchants such as Amazon.com to collect sales taxes have been relatively unsuccessful. For example, Illinois and California passed so-called “Amazon laws” requiring out-of-state merchants to collect sales taxes if they employed marketing affiliates located in Illinois and California. Amazon.com retaliated by shutting down its affiliate program in Illinois and California, just as Amazon.com had done previously when Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island passed similar legislation.
After these shut downs by Amazon.com, it’s been reported that Wal-Mart and other big box merchants added fuel to the fire by offering to work with the terminated Amazon affiliates.
The Main Street Fairness Act
The introduction of MSFA is the most recent attempt to bring the U.S. Government into the war, but in a different way that does not involve nexus (a physical presence). Under MSFA, a participating state would be able to require the collection of sales tax by remote merchants that do not have a nexus in their state.
It’s important to note that MSFA makes no mention of nexus. Under MSFA nexus in no longer a consideration. Instead, to take advantage of MSFA, a state must have adopted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) and passed implementing legislation. In part, SSUTA requires states to follow uniform practices, including uniform product definitions, uniform sales tax filing requirements, uniform collection through the same office, an uniform registration of merchants through a centralized multistate filing system. At present, 24 states have implemented SSUTA.
What are the benefits of MSFA? The huge beneficiaries are participating states in terms of increased tax revenues collected by merchants. Estimates of “lost” tax revenues for all states combined generally fall in the range of $21-34 billion.
Are there any benefits for online merchants and consumers? Dick Durban’s website claims that MSFA:
* does not create a new tax, but provides a necessary tool to collect an existing tax in a simple and fair manner;
* releases consumers from tax remittance obligation;
* treats all merchants with equal sales tax collection responsibilities; and
* reduces collection costs and provides compensation for all sellers required to collect sales taxes.
Somewhat surprisingly, Amazon has reportedly come out in favor of MSFA. Apparently, Amazon’s opposition to the prior “Amazon laws” was based on Amazon’s belief that these laws would make it more difficult to report and collect sales taxes. Under MSFA, Amazon believes that the playing field has been leveled.
What about start-up and small online merchants? Will they conclude that tax collection is really not worth the administrative hassle? One key provision of MSFA is an exemption for small sellers. The catch is that Durban’s bill doesn’t define “small”, so we don’t know at this time the scope of the exclusion.
Conclusion
If MSFA passes, the big winners will be the state taxing authorities with increased tax revenues.
Large online merchants such as Amazon.com will not be losers because they have the administrative resources to collect and pay the taxes with the new uniform rules.
Will small online merchants be losers by having to deal with the hassle and expense of the additional administrative burdens? The answer depends on how the “small” exemption is defined. If you’re a small online merchant, you should pay close attention to MSFA. Better yet, contact your U.S. Senators and express your concerns.
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Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Internet Marketers – Proposed Legislation Wants to Appoint You as Tax Collector
Posted: 02 Sep 2011 09:12 AM PDT
marketingIt’s an unnerving fact, but of all potential internet marketing wannabees, only 5% go on to sell products and make a success of their ventures. There is a huge drop-out rate with the vast majority failing to make it even past the first hurdle.
Why do so many people give up before they’ve barely begun? These figures are in stark contrast to those published for more traditional business start-ups. According to statistics published by the Small Business Administration (SBA), seven out of ten new employer establishments survive at least two years and 51 percent survive at least five years. This is a far cry from the previous long-held belief that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first year and 95 percent fail within five years.
So why the big difference? One of the key factors is the ease with which internet businesses can be started. What are your initial outgoings? – a simple website, a product, a domain name, a hosting company, an autoresponder? All of these can be collated for less than $500. If you’re not even willing to do this simple stage yourself, then there are many, many ‘gurus’ who will offer to set up sites on your behalf.
Compare this with a traditional business owner. They will have to find premises, source all of the stock, possibly find employees, arrange for accountants and lawyers to look after the financial and legal side of things… and the list goes on. I’ve just done some “back of an envelope” calculations for starting up a new traditional business, and the figures are a little eye-watering! One time start-up expenses would be in the region of $40,500, with monthly ongoing costs in the region of $12,000. Assuming that it may take 6 months to get established and consistently find customers, then the total start-up costs for the first six months amounts to $112,500!
Let’s just put the two figures side-by-side. $500 for an internet business start-up and $112,500 for a traditional business start-up. Guess who’s going to be more committed to their business!
The key word here is ‘investment’. The more you’re willing to invest in your business, the more willing you will be to stick with it and really give it your best shot. Who in their right mind would be willing to throw away $112,500? In contrast, giving up a $500 internet business is no great loss.
It frustrates me when I receive emails from wannabee internet marketers who quibble about paying $197 for a product that could really launch them into a profitable online business. Get real! – if you’re really committed to your internet dream then do your homework, shop around a bit and then make a commitment.
I speak here from experience. One of my passions is trading on the foreign exchange markets and stock exchanges. When I first started I looked for the cheapest system available, and ended up purchasing a number of these, all $50 or less. Without exception the systems were complete and utter rubbish!
After months of frustration it began to dawn on me (I’m a slow learner!) that if I continued to pay peanuts then I would continue to get monkeys. I therefore spent some time looking for the best system and eventually invested over $3000 in a suitable product. I can honestly say that I have not been disappointed – the level of support and training has been fantastic, and I have an effective system that will continue to generate an income for me.
Recently I made a similar decision with my internet marketing. For years I dabbled, and purchased many ‘products’ that were more or less scams. I then found a system being offered by some guys I know well and trust, invested a significant amount of money, and my marketing has gone from strength to strength.
It hasn’t been easy, but because of my investment I am willing to make the necessary commitment of time and effort.
So what about you? Are you still trying to get your business started ‘on the cheap’? Or are you willing to do your homework and make an investment in your future? Do you want to be one of the 5% who succeed, or are you going to continue failing and remain in the 95%? I think that the answer is obvious, but at the end of the day it’s got to be your decision. I wonder what you’ll decide to do?
Graham Bray is an enthusiastic internet marketer, and for nearly five years he has been developing websites as part of his Multiple Income Pathways. To learn more about internet marketing and how you can download newsletters, training videos and a *free audio recording and transcript* visit his blog at http://www.easierinternetmarketing.com
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Why Are 95% Of Internet Marketers Unsuccessful?
Posted: 02 Sep 2011 08:28 AM PDT
googleplacesThough the World-wide-web is often praised as the foundation for globalization, and links us across countries and continents, new developments have shown the relevance of emphasizing the local places listings and other local aspects of internet marketing.
How to SEO is Over. Local Places Listings are in. Facebook Check-in, the rise of Foursquare and Yelp, and the popularity of Google Places listings and Google Maps establish this point.
There are several main aspects to your local business listings: local directories and your business address; the content of your local listing and customer reviews.
Let us look at each of these in greater detail.
Local Directories and Address
Your address is vital as it indicates where you are positioned and which other places of business are in your area. Needless to say your location is crucial for prospects to find you and for the listing to be shown to potential buyers in your region. Your listing in local directories, such as the online telephone book or White Pages, Yelp for the US, the United kingdom and Germany, or TrueLocal for Australia, will automatically be recognized by search engine spiders and typically syndicated to other listings. By way of example Google Places draws on data from most of these directories and shows them in the final search results. Most of the time, local directory listings are created by other people, but they do need to be owner-verified. Thus, if you see your organization listed somewhere and you didn’t set-up the listing, don’t be anxious, simply go through the steps to claim the listing, or get in touch with the directory directly.
Content of Your Local Listing
The content of your local listing is critical because it demonstrates what types of products you provide. First, be selective when you choose your classification and the key terms for your business – these are the elements your ideal customers are searching for. In the listing itself you want to give your potential customers the right amount of info – neither too much nor too little. You may consider adding photographs and video clips if you have them available – the more your potential shoppers can discover about you, the better.
Customer Reviews
A truly impressive feature of local business listings is the ability to post a review. These days it is supported by most local directories and can either be great for the owner of a listing, or horrible. Nonetheless, potential prospects are much more likely to make contact with you if they find out that others have been pleased with your service. And on top of that, many times your listing will appear more frequently than others if you have more reviews. That suggests implementing a strategy to ask past and current customers to post a review is very important.
In the event that you’re receiving undesirable feedback, make certain you react to the critic as soon as possible – they may simply have a little difficulty that you can sort out swiftly and easily. And even if it’s a more substantial issue, you will know what your customers think of you and what you can do to improve your company.
For more information on online marketing, including our monthly internet marketing newsletter visit http://www.eminentonlinemarketing.com.au
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Low-Down on Local Places Listings
Posted: 02 Sep 2011 08:08 AM PDT
gate“He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.” – Rabindranath Tagore
Content gating, do you know something about it?
Technically, it’s that thing you do as an online marketer to force potential clients or prospects to reveal their contact details first in order to get free downloadable content. You literally put up some sort of gate to block any interested person to automatically get free content without getting something in return for it. There is a Latin maxim that can perfectly describe this: quid pro quo, which literally means “this for that” or “something for something.”
Content gating is one of the most popular ploys that online marketers or entrepreneurs use to build an email list. It’s a white hat marketing practice but the thing is; it may not really be helping you in your business at all!
Ericka Chikowski wrote an article for the Entrepreneur magazine called, “Why You Shouldn’t Wall Off Your Web Content”. David Meerman Scott, a marketing strategist, mentioned that marketers who are practicing this kind of content gating are harming their business instead of improving it!
Here is a quote taken from the article:
The author of Real-Time Marketing and PR, Scott believes content gating doesn’t make for a good getting-to-know-you phase between marketers and potential customers. “I liken it to a singles bar where some guy comes up to you and says, ‘What’s your phone number?’ without even introducing himself. It sets up an adversarial relationship,” Scott says. Instead, consider collecting information after prospects get a taste of your expertise — and realize how much they can learn from you.
Scott has found that ungated content gets between 20 and 50 times more downloads. He says a gated piece of content that would be downloaded 2,000 times could skyrocket up to 100,000 downloads if you open the lock. So in what way do we ask for their information? Put up a secondary offer at the end of that freebie. But before prospects can view that webinar or download the next PDF, they’ll need to pony up their e-mail address. Assuming that only 5% of the 100,000 takes up your offer, you will still get around 5,000 leads.
And, adds Scott, “you will definitely know that they have read the white paper you sent them. I had a few conversations with sales people and they said that they prefer someone who has already read the white paper and wants to know more about it than someone who just gave out his/her e-mail address, got the white paper, and has never read it.”
So, should you or should you not do content gating? I’d really love to hear the comments of those who are practicing this and those who do not.
Online Marketer Elmar Sandyck Is Giving Free Online Tips On How To Use Content Gating. Learn All About It By Visiting http://www.InternetMastermindStrategy.com
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Content Gating: Quid Pro Quo
Posted: 01 Sep 2011 10:00 PM PDT
spn_exclusiveSometimes SEOs and site owners encounter the problem of their sites suddenly going down in the search engine results pages for no particular reason, it seems. When this happens, it is often hard to figure out why your rankings nosedived.
So, let’s consider possible reasons for and solutions to the problem. I arranged them by relevance, starting with the most common ones.
1. Your Site Got Penalized for Using Black-Hat SEO Techniques
Google has Webmaster Guidelines by which all SEOs and webmasters must abide. If Google finds out (or your site gets reported) that you are not playing by the rules, your rankings may drop substantially, or your site may get removed from Google’s index altogether.
As stated in Google Webmaster Guidelines, one must not “participate in link schemes” (buying/selling links is basically meant here), create “doorway pages”, or use “hidden text” on a site. These are considered illegitimate (Black-Hat) SEO practices and may incur Google’s wrath.
The Way Out
Well, if your site does get penalized, find out what might have caused this. Re-read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and remove whatever is in violation from your site – then file a reconsideration request.
2. The Search Engine Algorithm Has Changed
On the one hand, search engines are trying to keep their search results as relevant and SPAM-free as possible. On the other hand, there are people who are trying to game the system or just take advantage of the existing loopholes. And, with the ever increasing number of websites on the Internet today, search engines are forced to tweak their search algos every once in a while to keep spammers at bay.
For example, Google’s latest big algorithm update known as Panda (or Farmer) was intended to do away with sites that offer poor-quality content and, as a result, provide poor user experience. However, it also affected groups of sites that have significant duplicate content by nature, such as e-commerce sites, online directories, etc.
The Way Out
First of all, if you are doing SEO and you really mean it, you should be informed about what’s new in the Search Engine Land at all times. The online resources to keep an eye on are Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land [http://searchengineland.com/] (yes, I did it on purpose :) ) , the official Google Blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/), and the inside-Google Matt Cutts’ blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/).
If the rules change, and there is no way you can continue using the same SEO techniques you’ve been using before the algorithm update – you have to change your ways then. However, if you think your site was not supposed to get affected by the algo change but it did – you can write about it on Google Webmaster Forum – that often solves the problem.
3. Your Website’s Content Got “Scraped”
If your rankings suddenly deteriorate, that could be because someone has stolen (or “scraped”) the content from your site and posted it somewhere else on the Web. In this case, search engines sometimes lower both sites’ rankings – then look deeper into the matter. Eventually, they are likely to start ranking your site as high as they used to before the incident, once they realize who copied whose content. However, this may take some time.
The Way Out
Dealing with content thieves normally involves locating the site that posted your content, contacting their webmaster, emailing their host, filing a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request or taking the matter to court – whatever helps. It’s recommended to start with contacting the scrapers. If this does not help – take the other measures mentioned here.
4. Your Site Got Penalized for Copyright Infringement
For various reasons, this may happen as well. It can be that your in-house SEO or a third-party firm you hired to promote your site used somebody else’s content to boost your site’s rankings in which case the owner of the content may have filed a DMCA request (the request is normally filed in written form) or reported your site to Google for copyright infringement.
The Way Out
Remove the duplicate content, hire a new SEO or an SEO services provider and submit your site for re-inclusion (just follow the same procedure that’s described in way out 1 of this post) (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843)
5. Competitors Beat You in the SERPs
Sometimes your rankings may go down just because a competing site (or sites) manages to boost their rankings to a substantial degree.
The Way Out
If this is the case, analyze competitors’ sites and see in what way they are better than yours. Pay attention to their backlinks, keyword density, social media popularity and act accordingly, depending on what your site is missing.
6. Your Site’s Structure Got Crippled
Spotless site architecture is crucial to high rankings. If there are broken links, HTML code errors or other structural discrepancies on your site, search engine bots might not be able to crawl it within a reasonable span of time, and thus, your site’s rankings may deteriorate.
The Way Out
Run an audit and fix all the flaws that may hold back your site’s rankings. Sometimes a site may not be visible in search results for the simple reason that the host is down and the server is not responding. A thorough site audit will show that.
7. Important Backlinks Got Removed from Your Site
Sometimes it’s due to “juicy” backlinks with top Google positions pointing to your site being removed, resulting in a rankings drop for your site.
The Way Out
Check the backlinks pointing to your site. Experienced SEOs run such checkups from time to time to see whether any of the links got assigned the “nofollow” attribute, were hidden from search engines because of the robot txt file or were simply removed. If this happens, you should get these links back or get similar backlinks from other websites.
8. This is Google’s QDF Algo at Work
QDF stands for “query deserves freshness” and is the algo Google uses to balance its appreciation of older content. Google applies it to trendy queries that all of a sudden become popular on the Web.
The Way Out
The way out is simple – just don’t do anything. The query will eventually stop being trendy and Google will resume giving more power to older sites with time-tested content. You can always check what topics are popular/trendy at the moment at surchur.com, www.buzzfeed.com or similar sites. Let’s say, your site is optimized for the word “silver spoons”. All of a sudden, a hot topic about a cafe called “Silver Spoon” appears on the Web, and millions of people start looking up “silver spoon” on Google. Google will most likely decide that “query deserves freshness” and will serve users new pieces of content at the top of its search results.
9. Google Started Picking “the wrong” Canonical URL for Your Site
Sometimes, your www homepage may be ranking at position 3 on Google, while the non-www version of your homepage does not have enough link juice and may be ranking at spot 50 at most. If, because of poor canonicalization, Google decides to pick your non-www page to include into its search results, your site will end up at a substantially lower position.
The Way Out
The way out is to get your canonicalization right. Use internal linking, 301 redirects, canonical tags (not always justified) to explicitly point out your canonical URLs to Google, so that it makes no mistake.
So, these are the most widespread reasons for sudden rankings drops. Of course we could not cover all possible causes and situations – sometimes it’s several reasons combined. Besides, sometimes unexpected things happen, like Google ‘removing some 11 million co.cc domains from its index all on one day.
But, if you get armed with the advice provided in this post, it’ll take you far less time to figure out the reason for the sudden rankings drop, and you’ll be able to fix it much quicker.
Alesya is a blogger and a marketing manager at Link-Assistant.Com, a Europe-based SEO software provider and the maker of the celebrated SEO PowerSuite toolset. Link-Assistant.Com’s SEO tools have set industry’s benchmark for automated link building and Web promotion.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Rankings Dropped? 9 Possible Reasons and 9 Ways Out – A SPN Exclusive Article
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