What Web Businesses Can Learn from Online Gambling

Abstract: learn how to gain visitors' trust by studying how online casino websites have overcome enormous obstacles to building trust among site visitors.

Online gambling is one of the fastest growing segments of ecommerce in the US, an especially impressive feat since it is illegal in the US. Due to their illegal status, gambling sites face high hurdles in the advertising and promotion arena as well, since most US-based online media companies, most notably Google and Yahoo, refuse to advertise them.

You might think that online gambling websites would face an insurmountable obstacle in gaining users' trust, as well. Trust has long been an issue in ecommerce, historically plagued by credit card billings and websites that disappear just before the orders were to be shipped–and a constant mainstream media drumbeat of the dangers of online transactions. Building trust has long been a chief concern of businesses selling over the web.

The trust issue is only compounded for the online gambling industry when it comes to serving US customers. Would you trust a website with your money if it were located overseas, and you had little legal recourse whatsoever to get your money back if you were dissatisfied–and if the "product" itself were essentially intangible, anyway? To top it off, what if the purchase itself was illegal?

This is precisely the challenge that online casinos meet every day, with the estimated 60 percent of their industry's customers who come from the USA. Casino websites owned and operated entirely outside the borders of the US are free to accept US customers. But gambling online with real money is illegal in the US under federal law, specifically the Federal Wire Wager Act, not to mention a host of state laws.

How Do Online Gambling Websites Gain Visitors' Trust?

• Trust symbols: gambling websites' businesses, being located outside the US, are not eligible for most US-based business certification programs such as the Better Business Bureau or Square Trade. So, they created their own trust seal: ECOGRA, E-Commerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance. Online gambling sites are also wont to make a prominent display of their secure connection certificates, from organizations such as Thawte.
• Assurances: users' concerns about reliability are not just answered implicitly with fancy seals or confident language. One of the most successful online gambling websites contains this prominent declaration on its homepage: "We are licensed and regulated by the Government of Gibraltar, and our games are tested by iTech Labs, an independent tester of gaming and wagering devices to ensure that the games are fair and operate correctly."
• Transparency: while it is often hard to tell just who is behind most ecommerce sites, successful online gambling sites are models of transparency: the location of the company owning the casino is always prominently displayed, and assurances of honesty are backed up with independent audits of the technology used.
• High-quality design: successful gambling websites always look great, no matter how small the business behind them. Plain old HTML may be enough to convince people to post their room rentals on Craigslist, but it doesn't seem enough to make web users fork over their credit card digits to an online casino.
• Low barrier to entry: gambling websites generally either have a free option or require only a small upfront payment.
• Highly optimized designs. It's usually only a single click, if even that, from the homepage to the virtual betting tables. When you can get straight to doing what you want to do, there is not a lot of time to start nursing doubts.

In short, if you take your online business's trustworthiness for granted, you may be missing out on potential customers who need additional assurances. Take a lesson from websites that can't trust their trustworthiness to be taken for granted: make sure visitors to your site feel comfortable opening up their wallets.

About the author: Joel Walsh writes on business and the internet for CasinoTimes.co.uk, a UK Casinos

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7 Top Tips for Writing Sales Letters that Work

Make a sales letter effective and you will be rewarded. If your sales letter is ineffective, you'll find you might be leaving smoney on the table. Here are 7 top tips to make the most of your salesmen-in-print.

1. Analyze other people's sales letters.

If you receive a sales letter and you are tempted to buy file it away. When you next have to write a sales letter get the file out and look for inspiration. For each retained sales letter examine the wording, the layout, the offer and how it is presented. You can even make notes on the sales letters that did not persuade you to buy. Look at what they do wrong and How could improve that sales letter. It will only help you become that much better.

2. Include testimonials in the letter.

Testimonials are your best source for success. Comments from official sources outside your company or from satisfied customers will greatly add to the proof your prospect needs to become interested in your product or service.

3. Include the Order Request Form in the Sales Letter.

One often-neglected part of the sales letter is the order or request form at the end of the letter. Make it clear, attractive and easy to complete. If possible restate the offer on the form so that the customer is in no doubt about what he is ordering.

4. Show your Contact Information Visibly.

Make it easy for the prospect to contact you. Always Include a contact address, email, and fax number as well as a contact phone number usually at the bottom of your sales pitch.

5. Don't forget to make a PS.

When they first see a sales page many people scan the headline, then go to the bottom of the page to read the PS. This is because the PS often summarizes the offer. Make sure your PS does this. If you feel you need more than one PS to fully give the benefits you are offering use three, not two. How do marketers know one or three P.S.'s work better than two? Testing.

6. Test Before You Try.

If possible test everything in your sales letter. A change to your offer, the price, the typeface or how a customer is encouraged to respond can each make a difference to your response rates. If you do not have the time or resources to test everything then at least test different headlines. A change in headline can double the response or better.

7. Analyze Your Results.

After the sales page has been before your prospects for a while take some time to analyze the results. How many sales did you make? When you sat down to write the letter you should have had a clear outcome in mind. Take a look at the response to the sales letter. Did you get the outcome you wanted? If you did not, why was that? If you find your sales letter cannot sell your product or service then either it is too complicated for your customers to understand or you have not expressed the benefits well enough.

All of these tips can only make you that much better as a person and a step towards reaching your goals, and definitely a millionaire mind idea.

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In Search Of Competition

Most everyone at one time or another has visited or heard of Craigslist web classifieds. It's that classified online advertising environment that is free and very popular in many major cities throughout the world.

Since Craigslist doesn't really compete with anyone hand in hand, many of the search engines are trying to buy in on a piece of the pie. But I'm not convinced they are onto something. However, there are a lot of smaller companies trying to capitalize on the idea by charging to advertise on their site. Why would I want to pay for something, rather than using Craigslist that is 9 million plus a month strong! I know I want free and skip the free the second I read it costs me more money. Many other surfers are programmed to do the same thing.

My verdict: The million dollar idea was already out there. Stick with what you know instead of trying to branch off. Many a wise person would use Craigslist.org over the competition, unless you want to give up a bit more of your other indulgences.

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Goodies or Marketing Ploy

It doesn't take a genius to know that the Free Google pack wasn't just a few freebies for your own benefit. Sure you can install everything Google wants you to, so that they can track your every movement. Be sure to take advantage of all of their other free goodies along with all of those ads they managed to throw in there for your benefit too. I'm no marketing genius but I do know what they are trying to do. It's a marketing ploy and the majority of Google fanatics bought into it already. I'm just glad their good fortune only works on a PC. They figure those Mac users are a bit too smart for their own good I guess.

But if you decide to get yourself the Google Pack, make sure you pay attention to the marketing ploys being thrown in front of your face. Google isnt a multi-million dollar company for no reason at all. They've learned how to turn million dollar ideas into marketing genius.

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Technology Keeps Getting Easier

I'm sure all of us have been stuck in the airport waiting for our plane flights. When we find out the fee to log onto the Internet is just too pricey we just forgo the experience altogether. If this sounds you, then you aren't alone. But there is a great solution to this problem, Ooh TV.

Ooh TV is actually free. The only stipulation is that you have to sift through a few ads along the way. I'd say that's a pretty good trade off to cure those hours of boredom while waiting for your plane to jet off. Murray who's father has build multi-million dollar technologies just might be on the right track to getting customers. I'm sure this is one million dollar idea we all will have to keep an eye on in the future.

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Blogosphere Techies Hit Geneva By Storm

As a sold out crowd hit the LIFT convention which took place in Geneva, there were a few people who were hit by storm wishing they could get in for a peak at the new technology conference with Blogging. I'm not sure why Switzerland always is pick for some of the best conferences in the world, but it just so happens the blogging world had a treat too.

Some attendees of the Lift 06 conference include Stephanie Booth (a fellow blogger from Switzerland who started blogging way back in 2001 or so), Robert Scoble (a Microsoft WA techie), Anina ( a super model turned tech blogger), and Ben, (a comp sci techie in Switzerland).

I guess one hit was the women's panel which was composed of some not so techie "stereotypes". If your interested in meme's and spimes, along with being able to travel with your laptop, then maybe the LIFT conference is something to check out. Mind you that a ticket to the convention isn't exactly possible.

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What's Up in the Blogosphere

Blogs have come a long way in the few short years of it's existence. Somehow these "popularity" votes remind me of search engines that just don't have it all right, just yet. Although some blogs actually do have great content, I believe some of them just don't know what they are talking about. These blogs are just out there to gain popularity and hopefully make a bit of quick cash along the way. I see wanting to gain attention just fine, as long as it doesn't look like a search I did on google this weekend...

I did a google search for "unfinished furniture" in Vancouver. I'm not really sure what you need to do to actually get up a site that isn't a complete ad, but that was the case over the weekend. Falling way short of my "ok" rating, I went directly to the yellow pages to get a better search.

I'm not sure what it will take to get on par for searches but there surely is a link between bad content and bad blogs. People are still abusing the system to be popular instead of winning fans from what they are really talking about. Hopefully this problem will be ironed out in time, but for now I'm not a fan of either...

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Blackberry Loosing Battle

Blackberry looks like it might have seen better days. As for the people who use their Blackberries daily, this might be in fact the worst news yet because the Supreme court has rejected Blackberry's appeal for patent infringements.

Blackberry is the Canadian maker of the popular wireless e-mail device has been locked in litigation against NTP Inc. The McLean-based patent-holding company holds the licenses for the technology which is just plain bad news for Blackberry. Previously in December, I had announced it was looking bad for Blackberry users.

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Bloggers of Today Change The Internet

Reflecting on the past, can get you somewhere in the future. That future makes me reflect on the internet. It's amazing how different the internet was ten years ago. Blogs didn't exist and certainly were not a topic at school. Most of my friends didn't have a clue about the internet or were just getting introduced to it. Blogging has changed lifestyles. Teens might even have better ideas than most adults on starting a business. Alex Tew's million dollar pixel site was certainly one of those relevations. I must admit, since we have started our own pixel we have picked up traffic ten fold. It's one idea many have run with. What else is out there to try?

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Swiss Dispute Over Domains

The Swiss government claims it has the right to take over a few controversial domain names which have to do with Switzerland. The Swiss entrepreneur who has had the domains since 1995 says the government has no right in taking over what he owns. The government currently has the domain of http://www.ch.ch and thinks it has full reign on other languages to say Switzerland.

Personally I think the Swiss entrepreneur is in the right because there are many other websites which fit this bill too. In fact, I think it's a waste to simply just redirect the website, like http://www.switzerland.ch which goes to the dot.com of the address.

By using proper marketing to let others know of the domain, would simply curb this problem. If you knew you would redirect yourself to the proper website. I'm for the Swiss entrepreneur in this case hands down. It's his right to free speech, to have his own domain and he beat the government to the punch by over 5 years. The government is in the loss and well if they would have hired someone earlier, maybe they wouldn't be pouting about this entire ordeal in the first place. The Swiss entrepreneur has a million dollar domain and he's making it work for him.

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