[Source: Smallbiztechnology.com]

Knowing who is visiting your web site is key to knowing how to better serve your customers.For example, maybe you are based in Austin and Dallas and over some weeks you see a lot of traffic coming from San Jose, California. Maybe this clues you in to a customer base in a new region of the country.

This is just one of many reasons why it’s critical to know the details about traffic to your web site.It’s possible now to track a lot more than just how many people are coming to your site. Google has a free web analytics tool which works really well. A new service from Woopra, free and in beta right now, also allows you to track visitors in real time (we recently covered it here).Here’s a quick reminder of five reasons to use a web analytics tool to understand your traffic (courtesy of Woopra):

1. You can evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives.
2. You need to know where your traffic is coming from, how often and why.
3. You need to know what users like/don’t like about your Web site and where they are dropping off.
4. You need to know how much time people are spending in your site on average.
5. It’s how you’ll really get to know your customers.

Laura Leites, Assistant Editor, Smallbiztechnology.com

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[Source: Smallbiztechnology.com

The debate rages over the Internet’s power to launch new businesses. Is the Long Tail a big opportunity, or a short-lived, false sense of importance?

Technically minded Internet visionaries believe that their products will change the world. Unlike the bricks-and-mortar world, which is slow to change and carries big overhead, the Internet offers high speeds and low costs. This gives entrepreneurs hope. Specialize, they believe, and big-time money will follow.

This view has been buttressed by The Long Tail, a recent tome by Chris Anderson. The book suggests that the Internet provides many opportunities for new companies to find a viable niche in which to play. When brought together, low-demand products can make up significant market share, creating new distribution and sales opportunities via the Internet to the disparate community that wants these items. This theory justifies both the continuing influx of startup cash from venture capitalists seeking big returns and the never-ending enthusiasm of entrepreneurs

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[Source: Smallbiztechnology.com

If you have not looked closely at your bill for Internet access – you should. The price you are paying might be way too high. Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and other providers are in a fight for YOUR dollar. They want to sell you basic Internet services, but also bundle telephone, TV (especially for the home) and services such as email hosting, security and backup.

For example, AT&T recently announced the availability of the AT&T U-verseSM platform for high-speed Internet access to small businesses in more than 40 U.S. markets. AT&T High Speed Internet U-verse Enabled Business Edition offers download speeds up to 10 Mbps and up to $100 per month. Signing on to AT&T’s service also includes access to its national WiFi service, which includes 7,000 Starbucks stores.

This price point is pretty competitive.

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[Source: BusinessWeek Online -- Small Business

How retail stores are scrambling to catch up with shoppers empowered by the Web

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[Source: The Retail Bulletin

A seven year long research project revealed today by online market researcher eDigitalResearch has shown a steady rise in multi-channel retailers’ ability to challenge the dominance of pure play retailers.

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[Source: The Retail Bulletin

Research from Fasthosts Internet this year revealed that 90 per cent of adults became angry and stressed at a slow or poor response via email from a company’s customer service.

by Ian Davis

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[Source: BusinessWeek Online -- Small Biz

To gain an edge over your competitors online, follow these tips to push your business’s site to the top of the major search engines’ results pages

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[Source: Smallbiztechnology.com

I was reading with much interest Walt Mossberg’s review of the new Yahoo Mail. He likes it better than Gmail and Hotmail.

With the nice drag and drop features, tabs and IM integration it’s really a high end email tool for advanced communication.

I think that the only thing Yahoo needs to do – is enable business domain names with the Yahoo email interface.

I’ve been against small businesses have a “free” email as it looks unprofessional having maryjanecookies@aol.com. However, I think AOL and Yahoo should consider letter people integrate their domains with these email front ends – as Google enables with Google apps and email hosting. (more…)

[Source: BusinessWeek Online -- Technology

Regardless of how hard IT experts work to intercept the trillions of junk e-mails, the spammers will always win. Pro or con?

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[Source: Wired Top Stories

The PCs of thrifty shoppers who use a discount service get littered with deceptively named tracking files that most people would be afraid to delete, according to a crusading anti-spyware professor.

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