I was at Starbucks working on an email newsletter with an Independence Day promotion for 2BigFeet.com, and was just about to send it to our entire subscriber list when I noticed J’s tweet. I started researching the outage and opened a Twitter Search for the hashtag #authorize and the phrases “authorize.net” and “auth.net” to keep up with the situation as it progressed.

Soon after I noticed the problem, I started getting calls from customers at 2BigFeet who were trying to place orders online but were getting errors. Not long after that, I got several calls from clients who also noticed their websites were not accepting payments.

As a temporary fix, I switched our e-commerce software to manual processing. All online orders were accepted, we would have to run the credit cards later using our order management software offline. I went ahead and sent the Independence Day email to our subscribers and orders started flowing in again.

I kept following the issue throughout the day and wrote a blog post about it this morning on The E-Commerce Blog. I think Authorize.net really messed up on this one. I, for one, am looking for a new or additional gateway provider.

Back in February I mentioned that I was writing a book about Online Marketing with Shayne Tilley. I’m excited to announce that the book, now titled Online Marketing Inside Out, has been released and is now available for purchase on SitePoint.

If you have a web site and you want to promote it but are unsure where to start, this book is for you. It covers all aspects of Online Marketing including press releases, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media, email marketing, and more.

Special Bonus from Darren Rowse of ProBlogger

As a special bonus, if you order from SitePoint direct you’ll also get ProBlogger Darren Rowse’s “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” workbook FREE (a $20 value). Darren’s workbook is packed with valuable content from his recent “31 Days” series on ProBlogger.net, plus over 6,000 words of new content in a professionally designed ebook. Hear what Darren had to say about Online Marketing Inside Out:

It is a great resource for those wanting to market products or services on the Web. This book shows you how to reach customers through podcasting, blogs, social networks, video, email, and contextual advertising and much more.

You’ll also get the satisfaction of knowing you helped me feed my family… SitePoint giving me a generous commission on books sold through the links on my site.

Here’s a peek at the Table of Contents:

1. The Changing Face of Marketing
2. 21st Century Public Relations and Media
3. Turn Page Views into Profit
4. Search Engine Optimization
5. Social Media
6. Email Marketing
7. Affiliate Marketing
8. Online Advertising
9. Tying It All Together

So what are you still doing here? Go over to SitePoint and buy Online Marketing Inside Out today!

Still with me? Okay, if you’re still not convinced, check out this awesome shot of the book after it arrived at SitePoint headquarters earlier today, fresh off the presses…

• State of the Industry
• Online Advertising
• Email Marketing
• 21st Century PR
• Social Media
• Monitoring Your Brand

I indented to talk for 1 hour, then open up for questions/discussion. I ran a little over, and the Flip camcorder we used to record the presentation only recorded the first hour, so it cuts off about 10 minutes before I stop talking.

Below is a video of the presentation and the downloadable slides:

Online Marketing Presentation (long) from Brandon Eley on Vimeo.

What is a Qualified Google Advertising Professional?

A Google AdWords professional is an individual that has met the following requirements:

• Managed an Adwords account for at least 90 days
• Met a minimum spending requirement by Google for at least 90 days
• Passed the Qualified Google Advertising Professional exam

The certification program is meant to show potential clients and employers that you have a solid understanding of Google AdWords and pay-per-click marketing.

Why Get Certified?

I wanted to get certified for two reasons:

1. Learn more about Google AdWords so I can better manage client’s and my own accounts
2. Use the certification as a marketing tool to show off our skill set and competency with online marketing

I’m not sure how many accounts we’ll land because we’re certified, but I think it will reinforce our expertise with our current clients and maybe even help to drive home the fact that online advertising continues to grow and become more prominent.

Other Certifications

Google has two other certifications I would like to get this year:

• Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant (WOAC)
• Google Analytics Authorized Consultant (GAAC)

Those will be a little more difficult to acheive. They don’t require a formal exam, but do require individual verification by Google (and require that you are a Qualified Google Advertising Professional). I’m looking forward to the challenge.

My friends over at Sabotage Media have released a web service for their popular TrackThePack website. Read all about it and download sample PHP code at The E-Commerce Blog.

Today after running my regular monthly report I followed it up by actually searching a few of the terms on Google and Yahoo! to see who was above us (we have first page rankings for almost every major term we track).

When I searched for “large mens shoes” on Yahoo! the #1 result is a search page on Target.com. It’s a dynamic search results page, which I have no problem with. The problem is that the actual search results have anything BUT large shoes.

The results? 3 watches, a belt, 2 pair of insoles and ONE pair of shoes, which is not available in large sizes (it’s only available in two sizes – small and large).

How did Target get a #1 rank for this term? There is no content on the search results that would lead me to believe they got it from keywords on the page. I can’t imagine there are actually backlinks to their search results with the anchor text “large mens shoes.”

I completely understand when one of our competitors gets ahead of us in search ranking… at least the customer is finding what they are looking for. But when completely random results are shown above our site for no apparent reason, I have to wonder why.

I’m back from Austin and while I definitely have enough catchup work to keep me busy, I thought I’d post a quick review since it was my first time at the conference.

First, I finally got to meet a lot of people in person that I’ve known for years… Patrick O’Keefe, Chrispian Burks, Jeremy Wright, Aaron Brazell, Stephan Segraves and more. It was great hanging out with you guys.

This was my first trip to Austin and my first SXSW conference. I had a great time, and wish I could have stayed for the whole week, but we stayed only for the Interactive portion. I learned one thing almost immediately — SXSW has two worlds — the panels and conference during the day and the parties and networking events at night. I’ll give a brief review of each.

The SXSW Conference and Expo

All of the panels and discussions were between 30 minutes and 1 hour long. It seemed like in many of the discussions we were really just getting started and it was over. In a way, this is good because it gets you thinking about a subject and asking yourself questions, and leaves you to finish on your own. Hopefully you go back with some unanswered questions and continue the discussion online and with colleagues back home.

The layout of the convention center made it difficult to get from one room to another. Several times we just could not physically make it to another panel in time because it required walking clear across the convention center (which was big).

The trade show itself was a bit smaller than I expected. Since it is an Interactive, Film and Music conference I expected to see a fairly large trade show, maybe divided into sections for each. The exhibitors had fairly small booths and were giving out schwag like t-shirts, pins, stickers, etc. I saw companies like O’Reilly, Opera, Mapquest, Google, and Yahoo. A few people I expected to see but didn’t: Mozilla/Firefox, Microsoft, Apple.

Overall it was very organized and the panels discussed interesting topics related to our industry. I learned a good bit and enjoyed bumping into interesting people on the show floor.

The Parties and Networking Events

I was fortunate to know a good number of people going to Austin for SXSW, many whom I have never met in person. Several of us got together Friday night to meet and have dinner, and had some discussions on industry topics and generally just hang out.

Every night after that it seems there was a party or networking event planned that seemed interesting. There were a few blog-specific events that I enjoyed in particular, including the Chitika/ProBlogger Beer Bus and the b5media Blog Network Camp. I learned a lot about blogging and met some great people.

I realized quickly that the sessions and panels are great but they just spark your creativity and get your wheels turning. It’s the Austin night life that really makes SXSW what it is. I had a great time at SXSW and can’t wait for next year.

• Crocs up to size 17.
• Men’s house slippers up to size 18.
• Dress shoes up to size 18.
• Casual shoes to size 17 and 18.

We also met a few manufacturers who were interested in doing some custom production for us up to size 20. That’s where the real promise is — we’d love to relaunch our own shoe brand (P. Bunyan Footwear) but after the attempts to manufacturer in Mexico both using a broker and by ourselves, we put those plans on hold. We could never get the factories to take our small quantities (by their standards) seriously.

We’ve got a LOT of new shoes coming in the next few months, and I’m excited about all the new brands and styles.

I’m hoping we find a few manufacturers that can supply us with:

• Dress shoes up to size 20
• Athletic shoes up to size 20
• Men’s slippers — hopefully to at least size 18
• Rubber steel-toe work boots

We’ve got a list of potential manufacturers to meet with, so it should be a busy show.

Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users With Disabilities

I’m a sucker for freebies.

Checkout the demo on their website, or download the beta.

It’s not production ready (so they say) but the demo is very impressive and I’m hard at work installing and configuring on my own server. I’ll have a full report soon!

Lesson: Don’t miss a chance to connect to your customers! Use every communication to build that relationship.

Most open source e-commerce softwares are crippled with some major flaws. Many lack commercial support (which is absolutely essential for a live store), they have inconsistent, often buggy code due to the number and varied skillsets of the contributors, and they often go months, or even years without product updates.

Magento is being developed by successful e-commerce and web development company Varien, which appears to be have their stuff together (just look at their clients and portfolio).

Magento looks promising, and I hope to get my hands on it before or soon after launch to try it out and write a review. The screenshots and videos on their website are impressive, showing that open source software doesn’t have to have poorly designed UI and administrative area.

They appear to have put a lot of time and effort into making Magento easy to customize, which makes sense considering their background as developers. The feature list is impressive – the software looks like it could be a serious contender right out of the gate.

Check out the website for screenshots, videos and detailed list of features.

Well, if you know me at all you know I’ve been a partner in an e-commerce company, 2BigFeet.com, since late 1999. I just bought out my business partner and now my wife and I are the new sole owners of 2BigFeet. Tracy will be handling the day-to-day operations and customer service, and I will still handle the web development, marketing and overall strategic planning.

There’s a lot of work to be done, but I’m excited about bringing in new lines of shoes in extremely large sizes and taking 2BigFeet to the next level.

A few months ago, I came across a help-wanted ad on a competitor’s website. I have thoroughly enjoyed owning a small web development company, but it was time to move on to the next level. I really only saw two ways to do that. I could hire full-time employees and expand my company. We’d need a new location, marketing and a lot of business. Or, I could grow quickly by acquiring or being acquired.

I initiated a dialog with BKD, and with Brant Kelsey, the owner. From the start it was clear that we would make a good team and our companies had many complimenting strengths. Their focus and a great deal of their experience has been in branding, print design and traditional marketing. Our focus was web development, e-commerce and online marketing. Together we could offer a full-range of services to our clients.

After several successful meetings and negotiations, BKD acquired EleyTech in November of 2006. In addition to acquiring the business and clients, BKD hired me full-time.

As a full-service ad agency, design firm and web development company, we now have the capabilities in-house to tackle just about any project, large or small. We have a full-time staff of 6, which includes award-winning graphic designers, programmers, and a marketing and e-commerce
consultant.

I’m excited to be a part of such a talented and diverse team, and look forward to providing our clients with amazing service and proven results.

I plan on using my personal blog to write about my experiences at a growing advertising and design firm, about personal productivity, and about building businesses. I will share experiences from the field, and from my personal endeavors. I will continue to build my own websites, as I always have, and will continue to write. In fact, I hope that I will have more time to focus on my writing and personal ventures now that I do not have the responsibility of running a business atop developing successful websites for our clients.

So stay tuned… I’m embarking on a new and interesting journey. It has been a long time since I’ve been gainfully employed, and I’m looking forward to the potential for growth and positive change that this brings.

When someone orders from out of state we simply box up the order and post it to them. Their government doesn’t have to do anything to ensure the package arrives safely, that is done by the postal carrier (who we pay for that service). The package arrives and other than disposing of the box and packaging (which the customer pays trash collection fees for) there is nothing that the customer’s government is required to do.

In a traditional retail environment there are expenses the government incurrs when you do business. Traditional retail stores require police and fire protection, water and sewer services, etc. The shoppers generate waste and pollution driving to the store and cause traffic and parking issues. These are real costs to a government and that is why taxes exist. Taxes exist to compensate the government for the services it performs.

In the case of Internet sales tax, what services is the foreign state government performing? None.

Those issues aside, read this article on Why Congress Should Not Authorize a State Sales Tax Cartel. From September of 2001, it is still perfectly relevant. It is well written and gives even more reasons why a nation-wide sales tax should not be allowed. I won’t repeat the issues here… read the article.

Let’s think for a minute about what life would be like with nation-wide sales tax. It will either be structured one of two ways. Either the national government could handle everything and divy up the funds to individual states, who would then divy up funds for the individual counties. Or the states themselves would hanlde it (more likely). In both instances, can you imagine the administrative load placed on the state or federal government just to administer such a system. That’s less money going where it should. And think of the problem with states managing their own sales tax.

Just for selling something to a customer in another state you could be required to fill out paperwork, even surrender financial documents stating earnings. For most e-commerce businesses that would mean filling out paperwork and submitting private, confidential information to all 50 states. How do they have a right to that private, confidential information?

There are more issues to the Internet sales tax issue than it seems. Please before making any judgements do the research and learn more about what would be required of business owners and what the benefits (very few) would actually be of a nation-wide Internet sales tax.

The reason? I’m making them more accessible, more usable and more standards-compliant. In doing this, I hope to increase search engine rankings and make the sites easier to update. I also want to try to make all the sites accessible to mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs.

Looking back at some older websites, I’m amazed at how much I have learned in such a short period of time. Web development is a fast-changing field, with new technologies and standards emerging constantly. And on top of that, many conventions and commonalities in web design today are against those web standards. Books still teach the “old” way almost exclusively.

Learning to create usable, accessible websites seperating content from layout is more important now than ever. I will probably be redesigning all my sites (and many client websites) to be standards-compliant in the coming months.

Several of my clients have also reported higher Christmas sales this year than ever before. After shopping at our local mall and retail stores looking for Christmas gifts, I can understand why retail sales are down and e-commerce sales are higher than predicted. Who wants to stand in line for an hour and park a mile away from the store when you can get the same prices online without any of the hassle. And with many online retailers guarantying Christmas delivery on most items, there really isn’t a good reason to go to the malls, unless you want to sit in Santa’s lap.

The holiday shopping season is far from over at 2BigFeet.com… our sales typically stay steady through Christmas and into the new year. We have new styles of shoes coming in at the first of the year including men’s slippers up to size 22 or 24. We hoped these would be available for Christmas, but they will still be here during the winter season.

Overall, this Christmas season has been much better than expected for us and for everyone I know that runs an e-commerce website. In contrast, several people I know in retail have been dissapointed at the turnout. I think this could be a pivotal moment for consumers… and predict the gap between retail and online sales will continue to shrink in the years to come.