When you are a business owner, every dollar counts. You’ve likely decided that establishing a Web presence and conducting online marketing activities are vital to growing your company, but may feel overwhelmed by the numerous options and differing opinions you find. How can you make the best decisions for your company and your budget?

On our new storefront, you will find our Online Marketing Calculator, a tool that can help you determine where your online marketing dollars will be most effective. Its purpose is not to point you towards a single online marketing strategy; based on the answers you provide to a few specific questions about your business, your customers, and your budget, it will show you potential ways to distribute your online marketing dollars to your most profitable advantage.

After you’ve used the tool to establish an idea of the types of marketing strategies that will be most beneficial to your business, you may choose to complete our online form or contact a customer service representative to help you begin developing a plan to implement these tactics.

Getting Started

You’ll begin by answering a few simple questions that impact your online marketing needs:

• Where are your customers coming from—are they local or national, and will they visit a location, shop online or both?
• Do you already have a website to market or are you creating one?
• How quickly would you like to see results?
• What is your monthly marketing budget?

 As you answer each question and move the markers on the lead generation and budget lines, you will see that the pie chart to the right changes in response to your answers. The distribution will show how much of your budget should be allocated to: PPC for paid advertising placement on the search engines; SEO for improved rankings in organic search results; Email Marketing for improved communication with visitors to your site; Online Press Releases for generating buzz about your site and new products; and Local Search Visibility for listings in local directories. Everyone’s plan will be unique, but in general:

• If you need leads quickly, you’ll want to allocate more funds to PPC campaigns.
• If you are looking for long-term results, more money will go to SEO.
• If your website is new, you’ll want to purchase an Online Press Release to jump start your efforts.

A Network Solutions Representative can help you nail down specific activities within these marketing concepts. They can also help you determine which type of SEO services you might need, where to focus your PPC campaign and how a press release may help your site.

Regardless of the current status of your online marketing efforts or the size of your budget, we can help you get a solid plan in place to help customers find your website, buy your products, and utilize your services. Try our marketing calculator tool and contact Networks Solutions® today to get started.

Network Solutions is listening. Listening to our customers. Listening to YOU.

Change is here and today on Monday June 29, 2009 we would love for you to be a part of our sneak preview.

We are overhauling our brand and this not just a cosmetic change. We have heard loud and clear what you want and we are aligning our offerings to your needs regardless of what stage you are in the business life cycle.

Change We Have Been Waiting For

We’ve evolved the website structure and navigation to provide a more logical flow of information and a more customized experience so users can find what they are looking for.  We’ve also reorganized and simplified our offerings to meet the specific needs of the customer.

OK, So how can I participate in this sneak preview of the new website and offer my feedback?
http://preview.networksolutions.com/

You can head there RIGHT NOW to see the preview.

Share your thoughts and get a SPECIAL OFFER as a “Thank You” for your feedback

In exchange for taking the time out of your day to offer your thoughts on how we are doing and input on how we can make the experience better, we will send you a coupon for a $35 credit towards the purchase of Network Solutions products and services, while supplies last*.

So head on RIGHT NOW. We look forward to hearing from you.

Photo Credit: Customers Rock

Network Solutions is listening. Listening to our customers. Listening to YOU.

Change is coming and on Monday June 29, 2009 we would love for you to be a part of our sneak preview.

We are overhauling our brand and this not just a cosmetic change. We have heard loud and clear what you want and we are aligning our offerings to your needs regardless of what stage you are in the business life cycle.

Change We Have Been Waiting For

We’ve evolved the website structure and navigation to provide a more logical flow of information and a more customized experience so users can find what they are looking for.  We’ve also reorganized and simplified our offerings to meet the specific needs of the customer.

OK, So how can I participate in this sneak preview of the new website and offer my feedback?
http://preview.networksolutions.com/

You can head there on Monday 6/29 to see the preview.

Share your thoughts and get a SPECIAL OFFER as a “Thank You” for your feedback

In exchange for taking the time out of your day to offer your thoughts on how we are doing and input on how we can make the experience better, we will send you a coupon for a $35 credit towards the purchase of Network Solutions products and services, while supplies last*.

So head on over there next week. We look forward to hearing from you.

Photo Credit: Customers Rock

Because they’re enabled by what we used to call microblogging (really, social broadcasting and social status sharing), I’ve been thinking of these episodes as “microrage.”

I don’t have empirical data, so I’m just going by my perception of the rapid fading of some of the more recent socially-transmitted outbursts, like Motrin Moms, AmazonFAIL, and the Domino’s Pizza hoax. Unless you’re a social media or social marketing person, or one of the hardcore offendees still clinging to a boycott, you’ve probably forgotten about them already. (Though, in the case of Domino’s, the ReadWriteWeb article back in April cited a market survey that showed Domino’s was still recovering from the perceptual hit they’d taken. I wonder what more recent data shows.)

Here are a few aspects of microrage:

The Hotter the Flame, the Shorter the Burn
Previous grassroots-driven PR crises (as opposed to authority / media-driven phenomena like the 1982 Tylenol cyanide tamperings) were characterized by longer, slower burns. (With more mellow flavor?) So even though issues took longer to build up momentum, it also meant they were in the public eye and mind for a longer period of time, with more time to propagate, and more time to make an impact (especially as each additional update bumped things up back to the top, to borrow an internet message boards convention). And to steal a metaphor from the epidemiologists (well, from the Pandemic 2 game, anyway), a disease that is too virulent or too deadly to its host can burn out quickly, before it can become widespread among the population.

A Global Village of Outrage
Another factor is geography. Or more precisely, the absence of geography — what might have been merely a local interest story previously (unless it got picked up by a wire service, weird news aggregator, or news gatekeeper) now has the potential to go viral and go global. Essentially, there’s a whole lot more to be outraged about.

However, microrage engages people on a different level — on the surface, the issue engages you, but it’s also  abstracted from you because it’s distant from you (you still care most about the stuff that impacts you directly, which tends to be local to you). Ultimately, unless it goes to one of your core issues, it doesn’t have the same kind of staying power.

(One particular example I was looking at was the “blink-and-you-missed-it” dustup over an unfortunate conflation of headline and content in a Yelp SF anti-rape ad from a few weeks back. It’s not a great example, since it’s more of a navel-gazing, San Francisco / new media gossip story than anything else.)

The Effect of Early Intervention
The last thing that I’ll observe about microrage is that it seems awfully amenable to a good response and good outcomes. I don’t want folks to come away with the impression is that microrage just goes away by itelf. It may be that the thing that keeps the microrage from growing into regular, popular rage, is early warning and prompt response. (Relatively speaking — for example, in AmazonFail, a credible response at the very outset might have prevented the episode from bubbling up into microrage at all.)

However, because microrage is so fickle, anyway, anything seen as a good-faith effort to make things right might be enough to let people check off the box and move on to the next thing.

Anyway, I’m still iterating on the concept of microrage and the role of intervention. If you’ve got a comment on what I’ve put down so far, I’d love to hear it.

“You can only choose one. Which one do you want,” she asked.

The boy chose the one that directly in front of him. The one he could easily reach out to and take without any fear. He was eager to tear open the pages of whatever adventure awaited beneath the cover.

“That one?  Are you sure?”

He nodded and they were off. I don’t know if he ever enjoyed the comic, but I saw, for that moment, he was completely confident and excited about his choice.

Right then and there, I had my topic.

The rush hour of small business marketing.
With so many people reaching out for your prospective clients’ attention, it’s getting harder and harder to see yourself as the clear choice.  It is easy to get overwhelmed with choosing where to advertise, how to cast the widest net, and what your message will be to get their attention.  It can be frustrating with every niche item salesman suggesting what bit of swag will be sure to lure in that potential client, the local print shop touting the latest sale on brochures and postcards, networking events crowded with the same people over and over again, and yet have you noticed what you want…seems to be right where you need it?

I’m not advocating you ditch any of the tools above, but simply recognize them for what they are. They are tools and avenues to get you to the next prospective client.  But if these avenues are backed up with rush hour like traffic fighting for attention, why would you take them? Because they are safe bets? Because everyone is doing it? Because you are a bit afraid to feel like you wasted your all ready limited resources on an unproven tactic?

But what if you take these choices and you end up with a closet full of key chains, boxes of never seen brochures, and networking events where you end up collecting the same business cards from the same people just on different days?  Isn’t THAT a waste of your valuable all ready limited resource?

Be where you’ll get the most eyes.
Instead of trying to create tactics and plans that brings them to you, try getting out and going to them.  Seriously, go where your future long term customers will be. It could feel awkward at first, but if you’re the first person to tap the well of uninterrupted visibility then you’ve got nothing to loose.

The best example I’ve seen of this was just yesterday at an office where I am doing some contracting.  In their kitchen, right on the refrigerator door, was an advertisement for a Babysitter.  The design was clean, clear, and simple.  There was a pocket, made of folded paper, stapled to it with business cards sticking out. The business cards were even clearer than the flyer. They simply read, in a welcoming font,

“Nicole.
Babysitter.”

And below that were her phone number and email.

This wasn’t done in an off the shelf font, but it was neatly presented and easy to read. No fluff designs or overly wordy content. The business card laden flyer was close to eye level with anyone going to get their lunch.

Nicole tapped a market of an office made up of probably 60% of her chosen clients. She went right to where she would get the most eyes on her services.

Needless to say, I’ve seen Nicole’s simple business card holder refilled at least twice since the advertisement went up.

Be brave with your limited resources.
Don’t be afraid to take chances once in a while. Get out there and go after your prospective clients with the same excitement you started your business.  After all, they are your clients after all, right?  Instead of the next tried and true moderately successful “everyone’s seen it, done it, and got the t-shirt from it” tactic, get a little creative with your limited resources.

If you’re an auto detailing company, offer to wash cars in the parking lot of your local office building for free in exchange for letting people know about your services.  If you’re a business coach, give away coupons for a free session at a networking event for small business owners.  If you’re an author with a new book to peddle, go to where your reader will be and give out free sample chapters of your book with info on where to get the rest of the great, amazing best seller to be. What ever it is that you do, be bold, be creative and be fearless in whatever your marketing endeavor will be.  Failures will happen, but successes will as well.  Be more focused on the later and conscious of what caused the former.

If you’re wondering, yes, I’ve seen the aforementioned suggestions done, but those business owners wanted the clients and weren’t afraid to take a calculated risk to reap a little long term reward.

But the real question is…are you?

As all ways…stay wicked.

Please follow @netsolcares on Twitter for updates. We are working on a network status blog for notifying our customers and community and any suggestions or feedback on this is most welcome.

What does Network Solution’s do in such cases. Here is our response which I posted on Facebook on  that group:

Hi All,

I came across this group and if your intent was to draw Network Solutions’ attention you have achieved it. Please email abuse@networksolutions.com if you have any complaint about a website hosted by Network Solutions and my colleagues who work on abuse issues will investigate. We generally do not police content of customers who purchase domain names from us. We do look into complaints that are raised. Please check out our blog http://blog.networksolutions.com where this and other similar issues are discussed  whenever they arise. We would be glad to help.

Thanks. Shashi Bellamkonda

Who knows one of these days I will stop being on the internet and watch TV.

We support Ruby on Rails on all our UNIX hosting packages. At the moment we offer Ruby on Rails version 2.1.1, but we will be deploying Ruby on Rails version 2.2 on approximately February 19^th. We understand that deploying Ruby on Rails applications is not always easy and have tried to simplify the process as much as possible for our customers. Our Account Manager includes a Ruby on Rails application manager that allows you to do two things quite easily:

• Create a new Ruby on Rails skeleton application.
• Import your own Ruby on Rails application into our system.

You can perform these functions quite easily through our one click interfaces, without having to worry about messing around with the command line. As you develop your application locally, you have the option of uploading a new version of your application via the “import” feature of our Ruby on Rails application manager, or if you feel more comfortable, directly upload your Ruby on Rails files by FTP. The FTP upload feature is possible because our platform is based on Phusion Passenger Ruby on Rails.

I’m including two screenshots to show you what our Ruby on Rails application manager looks like. The first is a screenshot for the “Add” screen. Simply choose an application name and click “ok” and the skeleton will get created. The second illustrate the management options available on each Ruby on Rails application.

As you can see, you can:

• Restart the application (after you’ve made changes, to deploy it)
• Reset the application (if you would like to turn it into a Ruby on Rails skeleton again and restart).
• Export it – if you want to download the current application version to work on it locally, or for backup purposes.
• Import it – to upload an application you have worked on locally, or a downloaded Rails application.

We also have an easy to use Database Manager included in your hosting package that will allow you to easily create and manage a MySQL database that you can easily link to your application.

Once you have created an application you can create  a tarball and “import” it through our Ruby on Rails application manager, _or_ you can upload a single file to your application’s directory on your website via FTP – note, if you upload a single file via FTP, you have to go into the manager to restart the application so that it redeploys.

Also, another nice thing about our Ruby offering is that the Ruby on Rails servers are part of a load balanced cluster – for better uptime.

Convinced that you need to get hosting from Network Solutions ? Go here and enter OFFER00522 and get 25% off hosting today. If you would like more information please comment here and we will get the information even if we have to take Miguel to lunch and torture him with spicy food.

ScreenShot 1

Screenshot 2

· We use reputable anti-spam and anti-virus solutions providers like Symantec and use their solutions to stop spam and viruses from entering the mailboxes of our customers.

· Network Solutions keeps adding additional tiers of protection (Here in the interest of transparency I was going to list the equipment we use etc, but that could have given clues to spammers).

· We also use RBL lists from providers like SpamHaus to proactively stop spam. In a month we process and remove over 2M spam messages both inbound and outbound in our 2nd tier. The first tier which uses RBL lists to stop spam messages would have removed millions more. In addition our network and systems logic makes it very difficult for any outbound spam from our networks.

· When we receive any information of any illegal or disreputable activity that takes place via a domain name we have quick processes that ensure follow-up action. My colleagues who work in abuse investigation process between 150-200 requests a week.

Don’t forget that Network Solutions is a member of Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and actively participates in its efforts to develop industry best practices. We also leverage our APWG membership to maintain communication channels with leading anti-spam and anti-malware experts. Likewise, we joined the Registry Internet Safety Group to share information about domains being used to do bad things, and are actively involved in the RISG’s efforts to develop data sharing frameworks and industry best practices. We also monitor specialized mailing lists like RegOps and NXDomains and respond to allegations by these industry experts of misdeeds by domain under our management.

Also, we were ranked the 2nd most responsive registrar in MarkMonitor’s Autumn 2007 Brandjacking Index report
Brian Krebs highlighted this finding in his December 11, 2007 blog post I haven’t seen any follow-up analyses in MarkMonitor’s subsequent Brandjacking Index reports.

Bottom line Network Solutions and especially its dedicated employees that monitor Abuse issues proactively fight spam on a daily basis and also actively cooperate with law enforcement in shutting down illegal sites.

Follow-up:

· From the details that Knujon provided us yesterday we notified registrants of the domain names and most have taken action immediately. One in particular was an innocent victim and was not aware that their domain was being used to spread malware. This is an example where reaching out and following up with the domain owners is better than taking an arbitrary decision to shut down the domain.

· We have asked for specific details on a few domains that Gath Breun has sent us.

This list should not be construed as any judgment of our efforts to fight spam and anti-virus. Of all the spam domains that Kunjon tracked merely 11,000 domains that sent spam could have been Network Solutions domains. The report does not state how quickly any or all of these were acted upon by us if we received proof and abuse notification.

Are there any lessons learned for us from the Knujon Report:

- In this age all companies have to learn and adapt to fast changing technology landscapes and also the methodology nefarious elements employ. Sharing information is the best way to make progress.

- We hope to continue to get feedback and notifications from Knujon and other organizations about spam and abuse and investigate them.

- A report like this that takes only the data reported to Knujon alone may not be sufficient to list organizations that are not taking action against spammers. My suggestion is that this data should be universally collected and analyzed with other organizations to be a accurate reflection. Knujon published a few months ago a report on websites selling illegal steroids http://www.knujon.com/schedule3/dir.html which makes an interesting read.

If you want to learn more about Spam Symantec has a extensive report on Spam

We’ve contacted Garth Bruen of Knujon, and are reviewing the data that they used to determine this list of registrars. Network Solutions already has implemented most of the best practices prescribed by the APWG’s Anti-Phishing Best Practices Recommendations for Registrars.

It’s important to note that where the DNS resides with us, we have controls to prevent abuse or spamming. However, in instances when a domain is registered with us and hosted elsewhere, we have worked with the ISP/hosting provider who have investigated and shut down the offender.

We want to emphasize that being on the list does not mean that we in anyway condone spamming, in fact we take spamming very seriously.

We continually review and improve our systems; however, no matter how good our systems are, we are still reliant on the speed at which stolen information is reported. Unfortunately, there will continue to be a window of time at which spammers will operate. Our goal is to significantly shorten that period of time.

Our mechanisms to report spam.

* If the hosting is on Network Solutions we have alerts and monitors to detect any unusual activity quickly and act on it.
* Customers report spam using the ‘Report spam” button in our email.
* We use top of the line spam solutions including Symantec Brightmail to stop Spam both inbound and outbound.
* We subscribe to RBL lists to help us proactively look at their recommendations

We are staffed well to receive and act on reports of abuse very quickly and this is important for us I know personally that my colleagues in Operations actively evangelize anti-spam steps and your offer of help to reduce spam is very much appreciated. We continually evaluate and improve our fraud detection, provisioning systems and networks. We continually review and improve our systems; however, no matter how good our systems are, we are still reliant on the speed at which stolen information is reported. Unfortunately, there will continue to be a window of time at which spammers will operate. Our goal is to significantly shorten that period of time.