How to design and optimise your website across cultural divides.

This is a guest post by Christian Arno (see author info below)

Designing a website for a particular cultural group means taking into consideration a whole host of issues – not only do you have the specificities of language to consider, there’s also the issue of culturally sensitive content and tone and specific cultural preferences when it comes to design, colour schemes, navigation systems and branding (will your audience prefer a site that’s minimalist and straight-to-the-point, or one with lots of colour, animation, and multimedia?). Then there’s the question of how to effectively promote your site in your target market’s search engine of choice. This last issue is where dedicated research into your targeted cultural group’s preference in search engines and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) terms will come in handy.

For those not familiar with the use of SEO terms, here’s a quick rundown on how it works. When a web user wants to find something online, they type into a search engine a term or phrase that’s related to what they’re looking for, for instance, ‘home insurance’. The search engine then combs through the web looking for sites using this term in headings, sub headings and at the beginning of pages and paragraphs. By knowing exactly what terms your niche market is likely to use when looking for what your site is offering, and then using those terms prominently in your headings and opening sentences, you’re more likely to pop up on the top of the search engine’s page rankings.

Of course, there’s also the cheekier side to SEO terms, wherein you can use search terms that are popular in your target market – but entirely unrelated to your product – to sneak up the page rankings. For instance, a popular search term in the USA right now is Oscars – the Academy Awards ceremony is obviously weighing heavily on people’s minds. Handily, this can help you to sell, say, home insurance, by mentioning the term Oscars in your page’s title or opening sentence – for example, ‘Red carpet glamour isn’t just for celebrities on Oscars night – with our customer focused insurance policies you’ll feel like a superstar every day.’

Naturally, SEO terms are ever-changing and, crucially, are unique to each different country and niche market. This is where it comes in handy to have an SEO copywriter and a dedicated translator working into their native tongue – simply doing a direct dictionary translation of your top ranking search terms will not always work, as it doesn’t take into account the local colloquialisms. If you want to sell suit jackets to the French, would you use the search term ‘Veste de Costume’, the literal translation of ‘suit jacket’? You might, but it wouldn’t get you terribly far, as your French customers are far more likely to be searching for ‘Le Smoking’ when they’re in the market for a new blazer.

It’s also important to identify which is the most popular search engine for your target market. Say you want to focus on Russia, then your best bet would be to focus on climbing the page rankings at Yandex – it’s long been the number one search engine in Russia, and is in fact the fastest growing search engine in the world. That wouldn’t be your only issue in targeting a Russian audience, however – you’d need to take into account the complexities of the Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet. Russian is an inflected language, meaning there are no words for ‘the’ or ‘a’ and no verb for ‘to be’ – rather, the ending of the word changes depending on its context in the sentence. You can imagine the complexity of the variations in relevant search terms – this is where your dedicated Russian-language translator comes into play once again.

Google may be so omnipresent in the West that its name has become a byword for the very act of conducting an internet search (Google is now a verb!), but it’s not the only player in the game. In the United States, for instance, Yahoo may only hold 14% of the search market compared to Google’s 71%, but that’s still a significant amount of web users, and search engines Bing and Ask aren’t far behind.

Similarly, if you’re targeting the Chinese market then you’ll need to figure out how to climb the rankings at Baidu, the top Chinese language search engine, currently positioned as the eighth most popular search engine in the world by Alexa web rank. Bear in mind, when designing an SEO campaign for Baidu that the search engine censors content in line with Chinese government regulations – having a Chinese language translator would be invaluable in ensuring you avoid any pesky banned search terms.

Every product has its niche market, and if you can figure out who those customers are, where they are situated, how best to market to them and how they’re likely to go about searching for your product online, then your potential for market dominance will shoot through the roof.

About the author

Christian Arno is founder and Managing Director of Lingo24, a global translation services provider that specialises in website localisation.

Photo source: ilco (via sxc.hu)

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Search, Design and Deploy

If you fancy the idea of making money from creating your own books, then Blurb might be of interest to you. It follows a DIY model of publishing books (similar to self-publishing). But, without all the hassle of coming up with a huge capital and plenty of unsold books in your garage.

In a nutshell, this is how Blurb works: You write your book. You take care of the typesetting and layout. You make sure the whole document is publication-ready. Then, upload your book on to the system. Once it’s ready to be published, you set a price if you wish to sell your book.

Then, you can order a book (or more) from your account, paying the base price. You can just mark-up the price if you wish to sell your book in person.

Or, if you don’t want the hassle of ordering too many books and selling them yourself, you just get people to buy your book directly from Blurb. Then, you get whatever profit/mark-up that you provide when you set your price. You keep the profit.

Some of the things that I like about Blurb:

• Clean interface; really pleasant site to look at;
• You can have your own little Blurb shop, if you wish. You can then share that link to people so that they can buy your books there;
• They have a free software application (called Blurb Booksmart, available both for Windows and Mac) that you can use to create your book – really handy if you want to make sure that your book is formatted for publication. It even has a built-in function that gives you warning signs if your image is not going to be publishable, etc.
• If you prefer to format your own book, that’s okay too;
• Basic books starting price is reasonable (approx. $5 for a 20-page Black and White Text book with coloured soft cover), prices go up from there, depending on the number of pages, etc;
• There are a number of options and pricing available – soft cover / hardcover, 4-colour/BW, etc.;
• Bulk discounts are available (if you buy 10 or more, you can buy your book at a lower price; the more books you buy, the higher your discount); and
• They seem to cater for a number of countries.

In any case, yes, it works pretty much like Lulu.com.

Since I haven’t tried using Blurb yet, I’m not sure about the printing quality of the books. I hope to be able to try it out one of these days and report my findings back here at some stage.

If you have given Blurb a try, do let us know what you think of it. Do you like it? What’s the quality of the printed books like? What about the service?

Right now, they’re currently running the 2009 Best Blurb Photo Books Contest. The grand prize winner gets to win $3,000. The runner-up wins $1,000. Then, there will be honourable mentions, who will then win $50 gift cards from Blurb.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Blurb: Make and Sell Your Books

I first came across the idea of crowdsourcing a few years ago through Sitepoint’s Contests section.

If you haven’t come across the concept of crowdsourcing, basically, the idea is that an individual or organisation (aka contest holder) who needs a design job done (a logo, web design, etc) can post a contest and designers can take part in it by submitting their own designs on spec. The contest holder will then choose from the submitted designs and award a prize (usually, in cash) to the winner.

This concept has been applauded by people who are looking for an alternative way to obtain design jobs and/or to get some options in completing desired design. From a designer point of view, those who aren’t getting enough jobs (or just starting to build their portfolios), may see this as a good way to make some extra cash and gain some extra exposure/experience. From a client point of view, it makes the process of finding reasonably-priced design work completed a lot easier and simpler. Plus, clients get the option of choosing from varied designer styles and experiences.

However, there are also several designers look down on this type of work. Many think that this de-values the work of designers in general. And, it provides a lot of scope for plagiarism/copyright infringement. There are many other complaints about crowdsourcing from a few professionals in this field.

In any case, if you’re a designer who wish to find ways to make some money doing crowdsourcing work, two of the most popular places that I’m aware of at the moment are:

• 99Designs – This is basically the old Sitepoint contests section. The guys from Sitepoint obviously saw a need to expand this area, so 99Designs was born. There are several design contests going on all the time in this site.

• Crowdspring – This is another popular design marketplace online. Over a hundred design specs going at any given time. Clients can also browse designer portfolios in a nice, simple manner.

I haven’t participated in crowdsourcing yet myself as an individual. However, I know a few people who got their logos, web designs, and graphic design needs through crowdsourcing and they seem happy with the process and outcome.

What about you? Have you tried crowdsourcing before – either as a contest holder or as a designer? If yes, how did it all go? Will you recommend it? If not, why not?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Crowdsourcing Design Jobs Online

Are you a whiz with words and design? Can you write clever T-shirt slogans? What about designing cool shirts?

If you think you’ve got a way with sayings and images, then head over to the popular community-powered T-shirt company, Threadless Tees.

T-shirt designers can make money when their designs get chosen to be printed by Threadless. Designers receive an initial $2,000 payment for accepted designs + $500 worth of Threadless gift certificate (or $200 cash). And, every time the design gets reprinted, the designer will receive another $500. For slogan writers, it’s a good $500 in cash if your slogan gets chosen to be printed on a T-shirt.

So, if you’ve got any T-shirt ideas, check out Threadless Tees’ submission page.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Threadless Tees: Make Money with T-Shirt Slogans and Designs

People who try to make money online as survey panelists often have mixed experiences. Some folks have had good luck and made some decent extra cash by responding to surveys. And, there are those who have been part of online survey scams.

I’ve made my feelings known about surveys as a way of making money. So, it’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan. But, I know a few people report that it’s something that works for them. So, I continue to share information that I receive about this type of online work.

Anyway, one site that I’ve recently heard about is Survey Police. Apparently, it’s a place where people can check the rankings and ratings of various online survey companies. Here, members can share whether they’ve been paid accordingly by the respective companies. Or, if people think they are being scammed.

Reviewers/members of Survey Police will probably be a mixed bunch of folks. In any case, it seems to be a reasonable way to research about survey companies that you might be interested in.

Image source: Survey Police

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Survey Police: A Guide to Making Money with Online Surveys

Are you thinking of a way that you can make money online with the U.S. Election? Well, social networking/mini-blogging site Plurk is offering $5,000 worth of prizes in cash (and via gift certificates).
All you need to do is be a member of Plurk, then ask your friends to vote in your mini election page. Plurkers with the most votes in their mini election pages will win prizes.
According to the Plurk site, the prizes offered in the contest are as follows:

• Grand Prize – $2,000USD for the user holding the largest (based on total number of votes cast) Plurk the Vote mini-election.
• Second Prize – $1,000USD for the user holding the second largest (based on total number of votes cast) Plurk the Vote mini-election.
• Third Prize – $500USD for the user holding the third largest (based on total number of votes cast) Plurk the Vote mini-election
• Runner-up Prizes – $250USD will be randomly awarded to THREE of the remaining top TWENTY FIVE Plurk the Vote mini-election holders. The random draw of all eligible entries for the runner-up prizes will take place within 48 hours of the contest deadline and potential winners will be notified by email within 72 hours of the contest deadline.
• Daily Voter Prizes – 30 $25USD Amazon.com Gift Certificate will be awarded at the end of the contest. One entry will be randomly selected from the pool of all voters in any given day over the 30 day duration of the election.

By the way, only U.S. residents are eligible to win cash prizes. However, anyone from around the world may sign up and use Plurk, as well as send in their votes.

To see a sample mini-election, this is my mini election page on Plurk (no, I can’t win the prize as I’m non-U.S. based). If you’re not a Plurk member yet, go and sign up. It’s free and easy.

Image source: original logo, Plurk; edited by Shai Coggins

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Hold a Plurk Election, Win Some Money! {$5,000 Worth of Prizes}

I just read about the DevCon session via the eBay Parter Network, where they shared a presentation on “How to Monetize Your Application” by Jonathan Gabbai and Cian Weeresinghe. Basically, it talks about making money from the merchandising API and research API by eBay. And, they summarised the key points from the full presentation as such:

• To make money, eBay users have to need your application. Ensure that your application either solves a user problem (e.g. searching for items in your area) or does something that eBay itself doesn’t offer (e.g. surface misspelled listings that are likely to have fewer bids)

• You need to choose the right monetization method for your application. If your product is downloadable, you could charge a subscription and if your application is web based you can monetize through onsite advertising or through the eBay Partner Network when you drive a transaction on eBay.

• Marketing your application. Find the best free levers – PR, blogging, natural search and cross-promotion. If you do have to pay for traffic, monitor the effectiveness of your campaign.

• Once people are using your application, monitor its performance. See how many people are signing up, cancelling, buying on partner sites or look at the advertising revenue you are earning. Measure how well your application is monetizing on a daily basis and understand any issues in the flow from visit to payable event.

I found this interesting because this is an aspect of making money online that I haven’t really given much thought to, since I’m not a web developer. But, reading these tips on how to monetise eBay applications made me think that they can also apply to other sites/services that offer their API to developers (see Open API). A good reminder that web development is another area that people can look in to when trying to make money online.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How to Monetise Ebay Applications

Bloggeries share this job opportunity for a Blog Directory Editor. It pays $100/month.

Requirements include:

a) you have a blog.

b) you love blogging

c) you’re willing to find the best of the best and add them to his directory.

d) you’re cool so he enjoys working with you.

e) that’s it

Contact Bloggeries via Plurk or his site.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Be a Blog Directory Editor

Someone recently asked me if I knew any Australian online bookshops that offers a paying affiliate programme. Since some other people might be asking the same question, I thought I’d share what I know here at JMMO.

At the moment, the only Australia-based online book seller that I know of that has an affiliate programme is Fishpond. The basics:

• They offer 10% of the final transaction price to their affiliates.
• They have various books, CDs and DVDs in their inventory.
• They offer vouchers (usually AU $10 in value) to their customers. And, if you’re an affiliate, you can often use these vouchers as offers to your user base too.
• They offer free shipping to any address in Australia, for orders over AU$50. This is a great bonus. Although some books listed on Fishpond seem more expensive than Amazon, it works out cheaper most times due to the free shipping (combined with the vouchers, they’re great).
• They use Paypal (you can buy books using Paypal, however I’m not 100% sure if they pay affiliates through Paypal as well or via other ways).

I’ve used their services as a book buyer. My only complaint is that shipping does take a while. Usually, at least 3-4 weeks per order. Unless you’re ordering books that have 24 hour shipping (this translates to about 1 week to get the order delivered.) But, overall, it’s a good alternative for Australia-based book buyers.

On the affiliate front: They offer various tools, such as banners, product linking, and affiliate report, among others. I have yet to be paid for any transactions that have occurred using my affiliate account, so, I’ll let you know what happens here, once I know more.

Other than saving some money buying books and making money as an affiliate, there are two other ways Australian-based bibliophiles can make money online from Fishpond.

- Sell your old books via Fishpond. Not only can you tap in to their user base and make some cash from old, unwanted books, they even offer AU$0.20 credit per book you list.

- Review books that you’ve read. Again, they offer AU$0.20 credit per book that you review on their site.

From what I know, you can use these credits to purchase your next book. I have yet to see these two other money-making options in action. So, if I do, I’ll let you know.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Fishpond: Australian Online Bookstore Affiliate Programme

If you own a WordPress blog and you want a more professional-looking theme, then you might want to check PremiumThemes*. They have over 25 themes available – a handful are for free, while others are for sale (licensing fees for personal or developer use).

I haven’t bought a theme from them yet, but I’m seriously eyeing a couple that I’m considering for my personal blog. And, right now, the owner of PremiumThemes is currently running a contest, where one lucky winner can get a free copy of any premium theme. The contest runs until 30th of June.

Also, if you’re keen to sell some of these WordPress themes on your blog or site, you might also consider signing up with their affiliate programme. The owner is offering 20% commission per sale. Payout is once a month, with minimum of 2 sales.

See more, if you’re interested.*

Note: Affiliate links included

Image source: PremiumThemes.net

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

PremiumThemes: WordPress Themes