Six Ways to Save Your Site and the Internet

by Jason Oconnor

You are not only a Web Consultant, Internet Entrepreneur, or Web Business Owner; you're also an Internet user. Since you are reading this article, you have already achieved a certain level of Web sophistication.

It is vitally important that when you make decisions regarding a website, an Internet program, an e-marketing campaign or a Web service, you take advantage of the fact that you are a Web user also.

What this means is that practicing the Golden Rule will guide you more than any article, book, tape, class or seminar out there. Let's slightly alter this Rule to fit the 21st Century Web world:

"Always create an experience on the Web for others exactly how you would like the experience to be for yourself in a similar situation."

Here are the top four biggest concerns, negative aspects, and downfalls of the Internet today:

1. Spam 2. Viruses 3. Privacy 4. Identity theft

Here are the top 6 ways you can alleviate these concerns for your customers or website visitors:

1) Don't practice Spamming

Sounds simple, but spamming is painfully ubiquitous today. However, there are people out there who conduct email marketing with integrity. They have excellent success while avoiding everything that even hints of spam. They get much better returns than spammers. Why ever consider spamming again?

2)Offer an opt-out option – and make it prominent

Again, this is simple, and we've heard it a million times, but it can't be repeated enough. Generally speaking, make the opt-out checkbox next to the email form field.

3) Have a Privacy statement/page – and make it obvious and easily accessible

In England, this is a law, and it's policed. I wish it was this way everywhere. Place you're Privacy link somewhere that a person filling out info on your site can easily see it. Make the statement comprehensive. And stick to what you state in the statement, to the letter, or you are inviting legal action.

4) Take a highlight out of the Privacy statement and place it right on the web form

For example, directly above your web form, have a statement similar to this: "[Your Company Name] does not share, sell or give away email addresses or personal information to any other organization or company. You can be assured that your email address will never leave [Your Company Name] and you will never receive spam as a result of giving us your email address." Make this in regular sized font, maybe even bold. The point is to make the user feel comfortable.

5) Only ask for the information you need

Why are some forms so torturously long and involved? Do you really need my nickname, homepage url, age, weight, blood type and sexual orientation? If your business does not utilize street addresses, in other words, if you do everything via the Internet, than don't ask for people's street address in a web form. The less you ask, the less intrusive you are, and the more likely your site visitors are comfortable. Maybe you take credit cards online, then of course you'll need to ask for street addresses, but if you are conducting a marketing campaign where you plan to simply email respondents back in the future, just ask for their email address, name and country/state. More people will fill the form out and you will alleviate some of the concerns people have with the Internet today.

6) Offer tips for maintaining privacy, avoiding identity theft and stopping viruses

Here are a few tips: 1) Get the latest anti-virus software and make a link to one of them on your site. 2) Get a credit card with a low limit that you use exclusively for the web, and only use that one. 3) Check your credit report twice a year to check for identity theft and offer a link to an online credit report service. 4) Don't open emails from sources you are not familiar with. 5) Turn off the preview pain in your email application. 6) Pay attention to Microsoft's updates, download them, and update your operating system regularly with these updates. You can provide a link to Microsoft's updates page as well.

And here is the crux of this discussion: to truly succeed in any Internet business or endeavor, like in any other undertaking, applying age old, tried and true behaviors, traits, and values, is the only answer. The primary one to apply is the above modified Golden Rule for the 21st Century Web.

By constantly striving to alleviate the major concerns of Internet users, we can create a better virtual world that is lasting and that ultimately improves the quality of our lives. It will greatly decrease the chance that the Internet will altogether fail and allow it to continue to grow to its full potential instead.

Jason OConnor is President of Oak Web Works The synthesis of Web marketing, design, and technology Jason is a Web expert, e-strategist, and e-marketer who is trying to affect the future of the Internet in a highly positive way http://www.oakwebworks.com mailto: jason@o... for a FREE site consultation

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