A few days ago, I was reading a pretty interesting article about the circulation, and ad revenue for the New York Times.  Granted, the article was a few years old, but what it showed was that those who read The New York Times print issue only comprises 10% of their total audience.  Not a huge surprise considering the drastic shift of media from print to online, but things get more interesting …

While 90% of their audience is reading the New York Times online, NYtimes.com advertisers only contributes to 10% of their total revenue.

Wait…what?

Nearly perfectly inverse economics.  So the medium in which only 10% of their audience is using to access their content generates 90% of their revenue?  So Print isn’t dying?!?!?!?  Well… not so fast.

While the preferred method of accessing the content is clearly online, the advertising dollars are slow to follow.  This means that there’s a gaping hole of opportunity to hop on all of the advertising revenue that will trickle from print to online.  If the shift in ad dollars is anything as drastic as it was for the shift in media itself, it will be more like a flood, not so much a trickle.

One more thing to note:  According to Forbes Magazine — 65 Billion Dollars will be shifting from print to online this year.  65 Billion dollars…

A lot of people know that they want to start an online company.  One of the easiest ways is to become a reseller.  The reason is that another company has done all of the hard work in the development, testing, branding, and creating the product.  The main challenge in this scenario  is to find a product that will make you money.

Your first step, obviously, is to find a source.  You can search the Internet for products, attend trade shows or find niche magazines.  If a company doesn’t have a reseller program, you can contact them to make your pitch.  Often, you may find that they would be more than happy to have another salesperson working on their behalf.

Once you have located a product to resell, you should understand how wide your audience is. Is this a product that can bring in a large volume of business?  Researching the competition, also,  is important during this stage.  Find out if there is something that you can do better than the rest – whether it’s with the price, the features, better service or some other area.

In finding a product, don’t get too caught up in the fact that you may not be a subject matter expert in the field.  Most companies will help get you trained and can give you the right tools so that you’re a success.  Additionally, you don’t need to have a great amount of passion for the product itself.  Instead, you should have a passion for the business and sales that it can possibly bring.

The ultimate attributes that you should seek when becoming a reseller are if the product is in demand; how high are the start-up costs and if the company can support you in becoming successful.

When creating your website, you should take into account what is going on today.  You may not have noticed that there are very distinct things that web designers do in order to make the web pages look modern, appealing and easy to use.  What is the key for today?  Simplicity.

Fortunately, web design evolves as everything else does and today web sites are better than ever.  More designers have more experience and finally understand how to create something better than they did even a few years ago.

Even if you don’t have the experience, you should make sure that you pay attention to the features that all great designs have.  They are:
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• A Clean Layout
• A Site That Goes Below the Fold (people know how to scroll)
• A Reduction of Three Dimensional Effects
• The Use of a Plain Background or Soft Colors Such as Grey
• No Strong Colors
• Clean Spaces and No Crowding the Site With Design
• Big Easy to Read Text
• An Orientation Towards the Center
• The Content is Designed vs. a Designed Page
• Few Icons – It is Clutter and Confuses People

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These are easy things to keep in mind even if you’re not an expert.  One of the best books that I’ve read and continue to use as a guide include:  Don’t Make Me Think:  A Common Sense Approach to Web Usablity by Steve Krug.   His book points out that too many small businesses, unnecessarily, create cluttered sites and, thereby, force people to think.

When you have an online business, it is critical for you to remember that people came to your site because they have a problem to solve.  If they don’t think that they have landed a possible solution within a few seconds, they will hit the back button quickly.   Make sure that your site doesn’t cause needless headaches by following the guidelines listed above and you stand a shot at increasing sales!

We are excited to be exhibiting at ad tech in San Francisco on April 21 – 23. The event will be about digital marketing and will bring in a host of experts covering SEO, SEM, local search, mobile search, and how social media and search are being utilized in concert to create entirely new marketing platforms.

The event is bringing exciting speakers who will educate advertisers, publishers and technology leaders the power of digital video, applications and widgets, local marketing and other methods to attract an audience.

We will be on the second floor, so come see us if you plan on going.

Since money is tight, is it really a good time to start an online business? You bet, according to Entrepreneur magazine.

“To begin with, internet startups have low overhead and startup costs–as low as $3,000, thanks in part to inexpensive, yet robust e-commerce software and services on the market. What’s more, the business can be set up in a home office attended to at nights and on weekends, allowing new entrepreneurs to keep their day jobs. In addition, many budding entrepreneurs can set up their online businesses in less than one week,” outlines Entrepreneur.com.

What separates successful start-ups from those that fail during economic downturns? Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs co-director and Professor of Management Raffi Amit says entrepreneurs who get started now “will be in a better position because they will be lean and super efficient with less competition.” He notes that a positive side effect of the economy is the ability to negotiate with vendors for better deals, which helps reduce expenses.

We, at eDirectory, are one step ahead.  We are proud to announce our new Starter Kits.  With these, you get the eDirectory software, hosting, our portal package, business listings and on-site training from one of our professional trainers for a very low price.  These kits have the essentials for getting a business off the ground including the personalized advice that you will get from our customized training session.

These offering have been designed to keep your efforts simple.  You purchase the license, we populate your directory with listings and then you get trained on how to sell your directory so that you can get business advertising dollars.

While it will be challenging to compete with the major retailors, with our innovative software and the business know-how that we provide, you will have the essential ingredients during this recession while so many other people wait to ride out the current economic times.