Are You Guilty As Charged?

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a store to browse, and one salesman after another approaches you to ask if they can help you? God, I hate that feeling. I feel bombarded. I just want to be left alone and go find what I am looking for, OK?!

In some stores they not only bombard you with too many salesmen, but they also make it difficult to find what you are looking for. Imagine that! How frustrating! I don’t know about you, but when this happens to me I turn around and walk out. That's a lost sale for the store.

Well, guess what? Most web sites are designed the exact same way. They bombard you with too many ads, links, and graphics. And then they make it difficult to find what you are looking for. Net result: you leave the site without finding what you want. That's a lost sale for the webmaster.

These are two of the biggest reasons why people abandon web sites within the first 15 seconds of their arrival:

• Too much garbage distracting you
• Lack of simple site navigation

How does your web site measure up? Are you guilty as charged? Check out The Big Picture for a solution.

Long Live BlogJet!

To make managing and publishing my blog easier, I have been using BlogJet. I’ve taken the time to write an extensive review and included som screen shots. Go check it out here.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Consulting

I’ve released another free ebook on my Consulting101 site. This site now contains the contents of my 25+ page ebook about starting a consulting career. Using my own life experience as an example, I explain how I got started in consulting, and what real-life decisions you need to make before embarking down a similar path. The site also includes links to resources I use in my daily life that should be helpful to anyone thinking of starting a consulting career. Enjoy!

Check Out Free Excerpt of Make Your Ebook Sell

I’ve decided to to gradually release free excerpts from my ebook, Make Your Ebook Sell. Check out the introduction to learn the premise behind my writing the ebook in the first place, and to see if it’s something you might be interested in reading further.

I’ll be adding more free excerpts in the weeks ahead. Check it out. It’s good reading, even if I do say so myself!

Free Sales Force Automation Site

I’ve recently decided to make some of my older ebooks available for free online. If you have an interest in sales force automation or are involved in supporting or implementing customer relationship management at your company or for your clients, I recommend you visit this site: SalesForceAutomation.net.

The first ebook to become available for free is called The Ten Commandments of Sales Force Automation. This brief white paper highlights what I consider to be the 10 most critical things you need to know to have a successful implementation. It’s based upon my 5 years as director of sales force automation at Worldcom.

I’d love to hear your comments!

Stuff I'm Reading This Week

I’ve broken out the ole wallet this week and purchased a number of software packages and ebooks. Here’s what I purchased, what I am reading, and why:

Michael Campbell’s Revenge of the Mininet

Michael Campbell is the undisputed SEO champion. What this guy knows about lifting your sites’ ranking in the search engines is nothing short of amazing. I’ve purchased all of his ebooks in the past and relished them. The best value for my marketing dollar. Every little tweak I have learned and applied has resulted in positive impacts to my web and sales activity. If you don’t know anything about Michael Campbell, click here to learn more. At the very least, you need to subscribe to this guy’s free newsletter. It’s published about twice a month, and it contains a wealth of free information, not just affiliate links stuff. Worth its weight on gold.

Paul Myers’ The List Machine

Paul is another old-timer, relatively speaking, with a rambling writing style. He is very opinionated but right on target. His advice has helped many people to improve their online marketing tactics and rack in the bucks through increased traffic and sales. This particular ebook focuses on how to build your list. I’ve just started reading it, and I am excited by what I am reading. Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks! Click here for info.

Love My Monitor!

Well, all good things come to an end, and the display on my old, huge 20 inch monitor was slowly turning green. I needed to replace it fast. I started looking in all the local consumer electronic stores and found this great LG monitor: L 1920P.

The only problem was it cost $460 before the $100 in-store and manufacturer rebates. Since I didn’t have that kind of cash handy, I went to my family’s junk closet (consisting of old toys, games, clothes, etc.) and quickly posted a bunch of stuff to eBay. Within a few days, it all sold for — guess what — $350, exactly what I needed to cover the cost of the monitor!

This monitor is often reviewed as having the brightest image possible for a 19 inch LCD flat screen. It is bright. I can actually work by its light in a dark room. I use two networked PCs with a switcher to share the mouse, keyboard and monitor, and despite the advice not to do this by one store clerk, it works FINE.

Want more info on this monitor? Click here for LG’s product page.

Web Pages Made Easier With XSite Pro

I love this new software I have been playing with called XSite Pro. I stumbled upon it by  accident, and now everyone is shouting out about the joys of owning this new software tool designed to make it easier to create and maintain web pages and web sites.

Here’s some of the things that make this software so cool to use:

– Easy as pie interface helps you get up to speed quickly

– Exhaustive tutorials and user manual leave nothing to the imagination

– Designed for the non-techie but has plenty of juice for the tech-junkies

– Single click addition of Google AdSense and Affiliate links to your page

– Ability to update look and feel of entire site with a few clicks

There’s so much more. I just read the tutorial last night. For years I have been using Micrsoft FrontPage, and while I can churn out pages quickly, I am always looking for ways to gain time and accelerate my bringing new sites to market. XSite Pro looks like a winner to me. Check out my review XSite Pro Review.

This Must Be The Place!

Introduction

Whether intentionally or by accident, you’ve reached the blog of Steven Schneiderman. Within these pages I will share my experience and wisdom about a variety of things including marketing, automation and development, and magic — three chief areas where I am somewhat of a subject-matter expert. It’s my hope that you’ll benefit from these random rants and riffs on ideas. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to see future rants highlight a particular subject.

My Background

To start off, I’d like to familiarize you with my background. I’ve been online since 1983 starting with CompuServe. I first started studying the Internet back in 1995 when it was still in its infancy, and the majority of surfers were either academic types or developers creating sites for the adult film industry. Remarkably, the folks developing those early adult sites laid the groundwork for the wave of cyber-marketing that eventually followed.

Over the years I have held a variety of marketing, sales and operations roles for some very large companies including Worldcom and TV Guide. In addition to my day job, I’ve been consulting for years, mostly to start-up technology companies, and developing web sites and Internet tools to make it easier for people like you and I to bring their ideas to market and market them online quickly and easily.

My Network of Sites

I presently manage my own network of over 100 web sites. They are primarily separated into two areas of interest: electronic publishing and online marketing.

I first created EbookoMatic in 1999 with the help of the development team at Astra Mascon, who are located on Pune, India. EbookoMatic.com is the only place in the world where an author can instantly publish, promote, distribute and sell unlimited ebooks across multiple web sites. EbookoMatic is an entirely automated business requiring little to no manual intervention. It works 24 hours/day quiety publishing new authors, selling their ebooks, and maintaining itself in a completely automated fashion. It is supported by a network of 20+ retail ebook sites, mostly divided by genre.

The other half of my sites share my cumulative experience across a variety of subject matter where I have some degree of expertise. Other sites also sell ebooks and products that I have created with the assistance of my talented developers in India and Pakistan. To learn more about these sites, click here.

I use BlogJet to manage by blog. You can find out more here.