At this point, Bing is not available, but will be progressively rolled out worldwide between now and June 3.

Press Releases from Microsoft state that Microsoft have designed Bing using a completely fresh look at how people search on the internet.

Over the last few years, the number of Web sites has increased exponentially.

The availability of such a vast amount of information has drawn more people online to make decisions, whether day-to-day tasks or major business and household purchases. But it’s also led to search engines that can provide too much information, and page after page of irrelevant or extraneous search results. In other words, even though the type, scope and amount of content on the Web has changed radically in the last decade, the tools we use to find information and make decisions have stayed basically the same.

Microsoft studies the search experience and found that

• Search results for 50 percent of the queries fail to meet the consumer’s needs
• 35 percent of people express dissatisfaction with search
• 72 percent of people surveyed said current search results are too disorganized
• Users are focused more on tasks and decisions: 66 percent of people reported using search engines to make decisions
• Seventy-five percent of people say they use a search engine to inform a decision for product purchase
• 62 percent to find a local business or destination
• 45 percent to select a flight or hotel
• 43 percent for healthcare research

Based on these studies, Microsoft wanted to peel away the layers standing between a user and information and help people make informed decisions.

That is why Microsoft are calling Bing the Decision Engine.

Links:

• Bing (Being rolled out between now and June 3)
• Bing the Decision Engine
• Behind the Bing Development (Guides, Videos and more)
• Bing on Twitter

I will post a review when I get to use Bing a little more.

Calvin Close
Wise Internet Solutions

If you want to know how Google sees your home, search for your full street address in Google. Click the Google Maps link at the top of the search results and it will show you a local street map. You can then click a link to see a real street view of your home.

If you would like directions to drive somewhere, search for the address, then click the “directions to here” link. Type in your starting location and you will be given turn-by-turn directions. If you click the little camera icon on the directions, you can look at a street view of each turn along the way.

If you want to buy something on the internet, once you search for an item like “Panasonic Digital Camera”, there will be a link at the top “Shopping”. Click this link and Google will show you a list of cameras for sale across the internet.  There are also links for you to see images, videos and news about the item you are searching for.

If you want to know quickly what the weather will be like for the next few days, type in “Swainsboro weather” and Google will tell you the current weather and forecast for the next four days.

Do you want to know the status of any major airline flight, type in the flight number like NW2545 and Google will show you the actual departure time, whether it is late and its estimated arrival time.

Do you want to track a package being shipped by UPS, FedEx or USPS? If you have the tracking number, type it into Google and Google will give you a links to track the status of your shipment.

Google can also act like a smart calculator. You can get a quick answer for “36% of 250″, plus most other normal calculator functions. However, the Google calculator goes beyond that. If you want to know how much $250 Australian dollars is in US dollars, type in “250AUD in USD” and Google will tell you. The Google calculator can also convert miles to kilometers, Fahrenheit to Celsius, plus most other conversions.

Google can also quickly tell you the time in most cities in the world by typing “time in New York” or any other city. Google will show you the actual current time.

Google can also be your handy dictionary. Type in “define:apple” and you will get a whole range of definitions for apple.

The other search engines like Yahoo and Microsoft Live have similar features. In fact, Microsoft Live is coming out with some nice new features. Go to www.live.com and do some exploring.

In this article, we are going to discuss how to get people to visit your website.  Firstly, we will discuss where to promote your website, then we will address what to promote.

Local stores get people in their stores by advertising in the newspaper, on the radio and with brochures mailed to your home.   I also recommend advertising your website using the same advertising mediums – particularly if your business is a local-based business.

The internet also could be a major source of new customers for your company.  One of the main ways to get customers from the internet is through people finding you on Google and Yahoo (known as search engines). Depending on what you sell, there could be hundreds or even thousands of people searching for your products or services every month using Google and Yahoo.

If you have a website, you need to make sure it is listed on the first few pages of these search engines because most people don’t look past the first three pages.

Test your website by searching for your product or service (not your company name). Is your website listed on the first few pages? If not, you need to get someone to modify your website so that it does.

You can also pay to advertise your website on Google and Yahoo.  This way, your website will be shown in the “Sponsored Links” if people search for your product or service.

There are many other places on the internet that you can promote your website. These include advertising on websites of newspapers and other websites where your customers would visit.

So now that we have discussed where to promote your website, let us turn our attention to the subject of what to promote.

Think about your customers. What do they want, or what do you have to offer that they would love to have – especially things that you can give for free? You will certainly get a better result if you promote things that offer exceptional value rather than just promoting your company, products and services. For example, if your business was a veterinary clinic, you could promote a free guide on taking care of your pet. You could also promote free coupons if they go to your website.

Apart from the direct response you get from this promotion, you will get an additional benefit. People will find out about it and start telling others to go to your website to also get a copy.  This is known as viral marketing, and it can be extremely powerful in getting people to your website.

In my next article, I am going to cover selling on EBay. Do you have excess stock that has not been selling? If so, EBay may be a way for you to sell it quickly.

Now we are going to discuss one of the most important aspects of selling on the internet successfully – what to put on your website.

Did you know that over 98% of websites make almost ZERO sales? There are two main reasons for this. The first reason is that the website gets very few visitors. We will cover this in our next article. The second reason for not generating sales from your website is that the website contains the wrong things, so even those people that do visit your website do not buy from you.

One of the main reasons people don’t buy from you is that they don’t believe that your product / service will fulfill their needs or desires. Sometimes, this is a reality. However, in many cases, it is a perception only – because the right message is not being told.

Most often, companies fill their websites with information about their company, their products and their services. Unfortunately, this is of no interest to most people. Instead, they should be telling how their products / services will meet the needs or desires of the web visitors.

Let’s look at an example.

What would you rather read about? A brochure titled, “Get a new high-quality metal roof from ABC Corporation” or one that is titled, “Get a new roof that will last for 50 years – maintenance free”?

You see, in the first case above, the title is assuming that people know the benefits of a metal roof. In the second case, the main benefit is stated clearly – enticing you to read more about it.

Another common mistake is to assume that by putting a “Contact Us” button on your website, people will race to contact you. It doesn’t work like that. You will get far more people contact you if you make it easier for them to contact you (by having your contact information very prominent) and by giving them an incentive to contact you (by offering free samples, coupons, etc).

There are other reasons that cause poor sales from websites, but it is beyond the scope of this article.

In our next article, we will cover how to get people to visit your website. Just like a retail store – if you have no shoppers, you get no sales!

If you have any questions about this article or any previous article, contact Calvin directly. If it would be of interest to other people, we can discuss your question in a future article.

Calvin Close
Wise Internet Solutions

This week, we are going to discuss how to get a website.  This is really for interests’ sake because your website design company usually does this for you.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you go to a website using Internet Explorer or Firefox (or any other web browser)? Where does the information come from, and how does it get to you?

Essentially, the internet is literally millions of computers around the world that are connected to each other like a huge spider web. This is why the internet is sometimes referred to as “the web”.

So, when you type a website address (like www.wiseinternetsolutions.com) into your web browser, your computer looks up that website address in a directory called a DNS server. This DNS server is like a phone book that tells your computer where that website is located in the world. Your computer then requests the information from that website and displays it in your web browser.

There are three main things that need to happen to get your website on the internet.

Firstly, you need to register your own domain name or website address for your company. A domain name is like a piece of internet property. You cannot put your website on a website address unless you own it, just like you cannot build a house on someone else’s land. So, you need to find a domain name that has not been taken, and then register it.

Secondly, you need to find a place to “host” your website. A web hosting company is a company that has computers connected to the internet all the time. By paying a monthly rental, you are allowed to save your website on their computers so that anyone can access your website any time of the day or night. These computers have backup power supplies so that your website is always available, even during power outages.

Thirdly, you need to design the website and save it to your web host.  Really, a website is just a set of pages with content that are linked together so that people can navigate from one page to another. The content can be text, pictures, music and / or video among other things.

What you put on the website will make the difference between whether or not your website will generate sales for your company. We will cover that in our next article.

What about you? Have you wanted to use the internet to boost your sales, and yet not taken the necessary steps to achieve it?

Over the next few articles, we are going to go through the steps needed to get an internet presence that generates more profits for your company. I will cover how to get your website, what to put on the website, how to get people to visit the site, and how to get people to buy from you.

In this article, I am going to start by addressing the most common reasons that cause people to not get a website.

The first reason is that many people do not realize what a website can really achieve for their company or even what can be sold using the internet. A website can be used to provide information about your company, products and services. It can also allow people to buy from your company 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – regardless of whether they live locally or across the other side of the USA. There are countless other opportunities made available with a website.

Many people also think that they cannot get a website because they are not very computer literate and don’t know much about websites. Yet, this need not be a hindrance. We recently developed a website for someone that knew very little about computers and hardly knew how to send an email.  Within 2 months, his website was generating a constant stream of new sales.

Some people are intimidated by technology and its terminology.  They are afraid that the person that designs websites is going to talk about things that they have no idea about – and make them look silly. However, you really do not need to discuss the technical aspects of the website with your website designer just like you don’t discuss how to print a newspaper if you want to place an advertisement in the newspaper.  You need to only discuss what you really want to achieve with the website.

Lastly, many people don’t realize that the increase in sales can well exceed the cost of the website. An internet marketing consultant will be able to discuss the sales potential for your particular company.

In the next article, I will tell you how to get a website for your company.

Calvin Close

Wise Internet Solutions

ps If you are looking for someone to design a professional website for your company, give me a call on (888) 601-WISE or send me an email using our Contact Form.