5 Critical Questions To Ask BEFORE You Hire a Web Designer

Whether you're building a website or a blogsite, the investment in a designer can be fairly significant. It's at this point that many service business owners decide to cut costs and have their 16-year old nephew design their site. This works out well until something breaks (with technology, it's never a question of IF it will break, only WHEN) and your nephew is out of touch because he just started his first year of college and can't be bothered. What are you going to do?

To run an online business, your website is your key to success. People arrive on your doorstep (site) like they might in a retail establishment, and decide within 5 seconds if they're going to stay and look around or if they're going to leave. It pays to invest some money in your site, as your site is the first stop on the like, know and trust journey that prospects experience with you. You need to be perceived as legitimate, as a "real" business, and as the solution to the problems that ail your prospective clients. If you're not able to design your own site, an experienced website designer can help finesse this relationship with your visitors.

How can you determine if your designer will create a site that you like and is useful? I've heard many horror stories over the years about the experiences that services business owners have had regarding the creation and maintenance of their websites. Here are 5 critical questions that you should have answered before hiring a web designer:

Read entire list here: 5 Critical Questions To Ask BEFORE You Hire a Web Designer

Improving Your Web Marketing Results

By Chris Crum

Make them work for you...

Blogs and blog comments are great for a small business owner because they allow you to socialize with others within your niche, which can indirectly promote your business.

This is true for both your own blog and comments on others, but one thing you have to be careful of is a commenter who is out to make you look bad.

Sometimes, it is your own fault, and sometimes, they are just being out of line, but either one can be damaging to your online reputation.

It is often tempting to defend yourself in either scenario, which can end up turning into a "flame war" which is always annoying to other readers. This will also reflect poorly on your reputation.

If you feel passionately about your stance and can keep responses in a professional light, you can also keep your reputation in this light, but when your resort to insults, that is when it gets ugly.

So how do you control your reputation in such a situation?

First off, if you know you are wrong, admit it from the start. People will appreciate your honesty and accept that you are human and make mistakes just like everybody else.

If you feel that you are not wrong, but others insist that you are, the best thing you can do is provide as many facts and details that support your view and leave it at that. Again, if you keep it professional, you will probably not hurt your online reputation too much. You may lose a battle of "flames", but you can rest easy knowing that you are the better man/woman and know that others that see your comments will understand what you're about.

In the end, you're really representing yourself how you want to, and no matter what anybody else says to you or about you, you have the power to defend yourself and represent your business professionally.

On the other side of the fence, Small Business CEO points to a humorous article by Yvonne Russell on how to get other bloggers to hate you. Avoid these!

Read the entire artilce here: Improving Your Web Marketing Results

How To Increase Traffic to Your Blog

By Terry Detty

One important topic for blog owners is how to increase traffic, which is easier than it seems, once you know how. In this article, we cover 7 specific methods of increasing traffic to your blog.

Tip #1: Sign up for pinging services
It seems pretty obvious, but many bloggers, even those who are more experienced, don’t sign up for pinging services. If you’re new to blogging, pinging means that when your blog is updated, a “ping” is sent out by the service to let pinging sites know that your blog has been updated. People who are visiting sites with pinging services will then see your blog flash across the side of the screen as “newly updated.” Pinging services include Yahoo’s blogs, weblogs.com, Google Blog search and ZingFast.

Tip #2: Sign up for Technorati
If you go to technorati.com, you’ll see an option on the left side of the screen to “Claim Your Blog.” Doing so allows you to get updated link counts, add your photo or branding to Technorati and see your Technorati link. Having your blog claimed on Technorati helps to increase traffic because the millions of people who go to that site will have a chance to see your blog listed there.

Tip #3: Sign up for FeedBurner, an RSS service
FeedBurner basically helps you to promote your blog’s content, and to build and measure your audience.

Tip #4: Bookmark your blogs at places like del.icio.us
You can set up an account and profile at del.icio.us. From there, you can add links to your blog, as well as excerpts. When a user visits your profile on del.icio.us, they will see a link to your blog and excerpts. There are other social bookmarking sites that you can use in much the same way. All of these social bookmarking sites can help you increase traffic.

Tip #5: Post comments at other blogs
Here, you should visit similar blogs to your own, post legitimate comments and then sign your name(along with a link to your blog). This way, people know you aren’t there just to promote your site—you’re there to post a good piece of feedback and also say where you’re from.

Tip #6: Ask owners of other blogs to post a link to yours
Find other blogs that are similar to yours. If they seem to be decently popular (if they have a good amount of comments for each post), contact the owner of the blog and ask if they will add a link to your blog. Offering to link back to their blog is a way to sweeten the offer. Reciprocal linking helps to increase traffic.

Tip #7: Use keywords in your blog
Like regular Web pages, having a good keyword density on a blog is a terrific way of getting search engine spiders to notice your page. (FYI: Search engine spiders are programs from search engines that browse sites and report back their findings to the search engine database, which then lists that site. The more keywords on your site, the more likely it is for a search engine spider to pay a visit)

If your average blog posting is around 200 words, use 2-6 keywords per blog post. This creates a keyword density of between 1 and 3 percent, a respectable number. Remember that you don’t want to use too many keywords, as that will make your blog look bad. Also be sure that the keywords used are relevant to your blog. Before even making a blog posting, decide what the post will be about and then select a keyword or two to use in your post. This will help to increase your traffic.

Terry Detty, 42, enjoys all aspects of Internet marketing and occasionally getting out for a breath of fresh air. He has several sites, covering Internet marketing, time and attendance and credit repair.

How To Increase Traffic to Your Blog - WebReference.com

Destinations and the Benefits of Blogging

Tourism Internet Marketing

July 18, 2007 · By Jens

Blogs, UGC, organic search… it’s getting harder for the destination professional to keep up-to-date with the latest terminology, and harder still to ensure that their online marketing activities fully embrace these new approaches. But experts are warning that destinations which fail to adapt could face disaster.

User-generated content, or UGC, is widely considered to be more persuasive than advertising, yet many destinations have been slow to recognise the benefits, preferring instead to maintain a tight control over their marketing message. But with the growing number of C2C sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Tagzania, Gusto, Wikia, and RealTravel, it is fast becoming impossible to ignore UGC.

Analysts cite blogs, social networking sites and natural search engine optimisation as massive opportunities for the travel industry, with some going as far to suggest that they should form part of every organisation’s online marketing strategy.

A spokesman for the Internet Advertising Bureau, the UK trade association for the internet marketing industry, commented: ‘With such a choice of media at their finger-tips, marketers and brand managers have never had it better, but neither has it been more of a challenge to keep up with consumers.

‘As consumers are increasingly empowered to take control of brands online through a variety of social media such as user-generated content and blogs, brand managers must ‘unthink’ much of the traditional approach to brand management and learn how to use these forms of social media to liberate their brand communications.’

Traffic to blogs (web logs) has grown by more than 50% over the last year to nearly 60 million visitors, representing 34% of all internet users, according to the comScore Media Metrix. In addition, the research reveals that blogs are more likely to attract younger visitors from higher incomes homes, who will visit nearly twice as many web pages as the internet average and are much more likely to shop online.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, co-organiser of the Wired Travel Asia annual conference, commented recently on the growing power of social networking sites and the suggestion that travel writers and agents face an imminent demise: ‘Their argument is that, because of the power of social networking sites where everyone is now a journalist, writer, commentator, opinion-maker i.e. blogger, who needs travel writers to tell us where to go and what to see and travel agents to recommend places to stay?’

One recent blog success story is comes from Canada’s Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership. Within just a few weeks of its launch, the blog was receiving several hundreds of visitors per week. Members of the Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership throughout New Brunswick and Nova Scotia contribute regularly to the blog.

Partnership manager and committed blogger, Terri McCulloch, commented: ‘Our blog provides us with an emerging opportunity to share real time news, recipes, photos, videos, poetry and stories about the place that we enjoy inviting visitors to explore with us.’

But it’s not just the tourists that can benefit from blogging. A new tourism marketing blog, designed to support the industy by providing marketing tips, book reviews, market research and information on industry trends, has been developed by AudioConexus, an audio tour and marketing services company.

Tourism Internet Marketing

Show off your favorite blogs with a Blog List

Blogger: Dashboard

June 5, 2008 — permalink

Today we’re releasing a new page element for Layouts blogs: Blog List. The Blog List improves on our Link List page element by using blogs’ RSS and Atom feeds to show update times, post titles, and snippets.

Use a Blog List to put a blogroll in your sidebar, or make a few to categorize the blogs you read. The Blog List works well for any page that has an RSS or Atom feed, so you can get creative: link to news sites, podcasts, Twitter streams, search results, or anything else with a feed.

Here’s a quick summary of the features that a Blog List gives you:

• Link to blogs, web pages, and feeds from your blog’s sidebar, with an optional favicon
  
• For pages with RSS and Atom feeds, Blog List can show last updated time, post title, and a snippet of the latest post
  
• Sort links alphabetically or by last update time
• Show all links, or hide some behind a “show all” link
  
• Import subscriptions from Google Reader
  
• Blog List links are visible to search engine crawlers, so your blog’s PageRank and reputation flow to those you link to
  

Blogger: Dashboard

Tips for Earning Money Through Blogging.

From Deborah Ng,

Your Guide to Web Logs.

If your blog's receiving good traffic, you might consider whether or not you'd like to be rewarded for your efforts. Many bloggers have discovered they can earn good money through their blogs. If this interests you, there are several programs available.

1. Content is King

First and foremost, you can encourage millions of people to visit your blog, but the numbers won't mean squat if you don't keep them coming back for more. You'll need to provide useful content. It's not enough to provide the same news as every other blogger in your niche topic. You'll have to come up with something new and unique and provide thought provoking analysis. Your blog has to say something and say it well.

2. Participate in Like-Minded Forums

Even if you're not a joiner, it pays to visit forums so the rest of the people in your niche group know about your blog. If your blog is about knitting, visit some knitting and craft forums. If your blog is about earthworms, visit earthworm, soil and gardening forums. You don't have to post a lot of "hey come visit my blog" type comments, but if you add a link to your blog in your signature, it will appear in every post. This is sure to bring in traffic.

Read the whole article at: http://weblogs.about.com/

Website Annoyance #6. Outdated Content

One huge advantage of the web is the ability of bloggers and other Drudge wannabes to bypass traditional media and post news online instantly.

If you have not updated your website in 14 months, what does that tell me about your company. Certainly, you are less than a cutting edge company.

There just is NO excuse nowadays. Even if you are on dial-up, you can email news to publish a blog. In simple text!

How to Create Your First Blog

I've been blogging now for about 2 years, and I'm amazed at the amount of traffic that I get from my blog and the number of people who tell me that they first heard about me from my blog instead of my website. The word blog is derived from the term "web log", or an online diary or journal. If the HBO series "Sex and the City" were being filmed today, Carrie Bradshaw would be a blogger as well as a columnist, I think. Why? As she experiences her revelations about life, love, and relationships, she could post them to her blog for the world to see and comment upon.

Blogging has opened website creation to almost everyone, as it takes very little know-how to get a blog up and running. In fact, many service business owners are using a blog platform as their primary website, with some of them creating static pages as you would find on a traditional website, while others are using the platform as a blog and are posting updates regularly.

Why Blog?

There are several advantages to using blogs instead of ezines or traditional websites:

1. Search engines love blogs.

The strategy that seems to be attractive to search engines today is regularly updated content. I can log-in to my blog at the beginning of a day and submit a post. Within 24 hours I'll get a notification from my Google alerts account that Google has indexed that post.

2. Content can be distributed quickly.

If you instruct your visitors to subscribe to your blog via updating services like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they'll be notified within hours of any new posts on your blog.

3. Little web programming knowledge is required.

Once your blog is set up, it's simply a matter of logging into your account, typing the info for you post, adding graphics or photos as needed, and publishing your post to your blog.

4. Reader feedback.

Your readers can give you comments and feedback about your posts almost immediately after you log an entry. Blogs are a great way to engage your audience.

Are ezines and traditional websites dead? No, because people consume information differently. Some are auditory learners and prefer to hear the info (great audience for podcasting, an audio form of blogging), some prefer to receive updates as they are published (blog readers), while others like a stable, stationary medium to which they can refer when they're ready (readers who archive ezines or bookmark web pages).

How do you begin to blog?

Here are 10 simple steps you can follow:

1. Blogging platform.

The easiest way to get started is to use the free service found at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. The ability to customize your blog is limited with the free services, so I urge my clients to subscribe to Typepad.com, which will host your blog for you on their servers, or purchase a hosting account where Wordpress can be installed. The downloadable version of Wordpress is located at Wordpress.org and is free of charge if you need to install Wordpress yourself on your hosting account. I use Blogger.com for my blog, so many of my examples will relate exclusively to blogs hosted on that platform.

2. Name.

What do you want to call your blog? Blog names tend to be attention-getting and off-beat. However, for service businesses, I encourage my clients to use keywords important to their business when naming their blog. You will also want to acquire the .com version of your blog's name or your blog's name with the word "blog" attach as your blog URL. After you have set up your blog, your blog provider can give you more info about how to map your domain to your blog. (Note: You don't want to simply forward your blog to your domain name, as that impacts the URLs of your individual blog pages).

3. Look and Layout.

• How many columns do you want to display?
  
• Do you want links to static pages?
  
• What colors do you want to use?
  
• How about a signup box for a free giveaway?
  
• Should you use one of the templates provided or have something custom designed?
  
• Do you want your blog archives displayed?
  
• Do you want to be the only author or do you want to permit others to make posts, as well?

There are many questions you'll be asked in the startup phase about the look of your blog. A Blogger.com blog permits you to change your mind about your layout at a later date. The best way to determine the look of your blog is to look at the layout of other blogs and determine what appeals to you.

4. Widgets.

There are a number of widgets, or add-on programs, that you can incorporate into your blog. Check your blog software's site for more info about what features you'd like add to your blog. At a minimum you'll want to give visitors a couple of ways in which they can receive blog updates through various updaters, or feeder services, as mentioned earlier.

5. Comments.

The newest spam making its rounds online is comment spam. Don't these guys have anything better to do? Set your comments to moderated, which means that you have to approve any comments to your blog before the post goes live. You'll save yourself a great many headaches and time by choosing to moderate the comments.

Once you've gotten this far, you should have a basic blog established and are ready to begin to blog.

6. Blog content.

The time has arrived -- your blog is ready to accept posts. What do you write about? You can post content rich articles of interest to your target market, comment on a current event, answer questions from your visitors, present a before and after case study outlining how your business helped someone, etc. Keep your eyes and ears open for information relevant to your audience. I use my blog to bring forth info that doesn't fit well into my newsletter format or something that arises between newsletter issues. I post my ezine content to my blog, as well.

7. Posting frequency.

Blogs are just like gardens -- they need watering regularly and require some care and attention. For maximum effectiveness, you need to post several times a week to your blog. I try and post 6 times per week in my blog -- 3 posts are items I run across or comment upon as noteworthy in the moment, and the latter 3 are the contents of my ezine posted over 2 days. And, respond to reader's comments when they arrive -- blogs provide a great forum for ongoing discussions.

8. Blog traffic.

In the same way that you publicize your website URL on everything that you do, you can similarly publicize your blog. Submitting your blogs to blog directories is another way to get traffic. A very comprehensive list of blog directories, RSS Top 55 has been compiled by Robin Good, http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/. Searching out blogs that appeal to your target market and making comments to those posts will also drive traffic to your blog. Another trick is to post your blog on social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us.

The easy way to do this is with a Bookmark button, see mine below this post offered by AddThis.com. Another simple way is using a consolidator like OnlyWire.com to post to all at once.

9. Measure the results.

Some blog programs have built-in statistics so you can view details of your blog traffic. Some of the feed/updater programs have built-in statistics as well, or you can install a metrics program as an add-on to your blog. Review your statistics regularly to determine how much traffic your blog generates. Otherwise stick to the world leader and standard, Google Analytics.

10. Rinse and repeat.

Don't let the novelty of blogging wear off. Blogging is effective only if you continue your blogging efforts regularly over a long period of time. I know of several individuals who have gotten book deals from their blog and radio and TV interviews as well. Just think -- your blog might be your ticket to fame!

Every service business can benefit from blog technology. Few other marketing strategies provide the quick immediacy that blogging provides.

Blog Tip #9: Bold your keywords

This one is a very short easy one that seems to hold some weight. While you have sprinkled your keyword judiciously through out your blog, both heading and body, make sure the keyword is also in bold.

This is fairly obvious from the way I have bolded the keyword in this post huh?

Six Total Myths about Blogging for Business

There's certainly a lot of blogging myths out there; myths that keep you from generating more online leads and building lasting relationships with clients.

The problem with these myths is that if they're not challenged they turn into conventional wisdom. If you've been looking to drive more traffic to your Web site and improve communications with customers, you owe it to yourself to give a business blog a try.

Below are some of the hurdles--exaggerated or imagined--I've heard hotel and dive centre owners use to avoid starting a blog, and real-world experience to debunk these myths.

1) My customers don't read blogs. I hear this all too often by tourism business owners who don't completely understand what a blog is. Now, perhaps your customers don't subscribe to any blogs, or they don't return daily to a favorite blog. However, if they use Google or Yahoo for search, chances are they stumbled upon a search result from a blog. Since blogs often rank high at the search engines, if your customers use the Internet, you can capture their attention with a blog.

2) Blogging is for teenagers to share the minutiae of their lives and what they think of the remaining American Idol contestants. While teens certainly took to blogging quicker than businesses, these days companies of all sizes and shapes have realized the benefits of a business blog. You wouldn't dismiss the telephone as a communication device just because your teenager spends hours each night on it, would you?

3) Blogging is just a fad/This too will pass. Didn't you say the same thing about the Internet back in 1997? Of course no one can predict the future and much of the hype about blogs is just that. However, it's important to realize that blogs are a powerful, easy-to-use communication tool, and communicating with customers and prospects will never go out of style.

Besides, blogs are an effective marketing tool today, so don't worry if in five years you've moved on to your next communication medium. If you've cultivated an active audience, they'll follow you to other distribution channels.

4) Blogging takes up too much time. I run a growing business, am National Coordinator of FIHTA DiveComm (Fiji Islands Hotel & Tourism Association Dive Committee), participate in a business-owners group, do a lot of writing and speaking, and carry my share in raising our two baby snakes. Trust me, I know all about being busy.

However, in the past two years of blogging, I've discovered that it's probably the most effective use of my marketing time. Blogging helps establish your expertise, generates loads of search engine leads, and delivers your message through three distribution channels each time you write.

As small tourism business owners we have limited time in the day to market our services; blogging provides great return on that investment.

5) Blogging is fraught with dangers, like people leaving negative comments. These days, consumers can vent their frustration with your product or service anywhere on the Web, whether it's a post at their own blog, a review at TripAdvisor.com, or a scathing YouTube video. If I had my choice, I'd rather have that conversation happen where I have home court advantage. How you handle negative feedback can establish your authenticity, and help you win over new converts.

And, if you happen to find yourself with a PR nightmare, you don't have to worry about letting the media tell your side of the story. By using your own blog you have unfettered access to anyone with a connection to the Internet.

People are looking for transparency and authenticity from companies these days, and your blog is the perfect tool to match these needs.

6) My customers don't read blogs. Hold your horses here... I have a strong feeling of deja vu. Didn't I respond to this earlier? Oh, you mean that you don't get ANY leads from the Internet? That they only use travel agents or go on advice from a friend? Well, then your audience and customer base is shrinking. The average tourist/diver/adventure traveler is much more likely to use the Web to search for a product or service, or at least visit your Web site to learn more about your company than they are ANY other medium!

If you haven't gone after this audience before, you're missing an opportunity of getting in front of a younger audience...your customers and clients of tomorrow.

And trust me, they read blogs.

The truth about blogging is that it's proven an effective marketing tool for a wide range of businesses. You can start a blog on your own through a service like Blogger.com or by installing a blogging platform like WordPress on your own server. Alternatively, you can hire a company to design, develop and promote your blog and get you up to speed quickly. (this is what we have done for many small and medium tourism products in the Fiji Islands).

Whatever path is right for you, don't let these myths keep you from giving business blogging a chance.

Blog Tip #8: Stick with your blog

Once you start posting on your blog, stick with the same domain or you could end up losing a lot of your traffic and regular readers.

Also stick with the topic you selected for your blog. If it’s about diving don’t suddenly switch to another topic such as fishing because you will loose traffic.

If you have a number of subjects you want to blog about, start a number of blogs. For example if you have a resort with fishing and diving, start a blog for each. Chances are their are 2 staff members who run each of these activities.

For example see Matava in Fiji's blogs on fishing and diving (note anchor text here):

• Gamefishing Fiji, http://gamefishingfiji.blogspot.com/
  

• Diving in Fiji, http://gamefishingfiji.blogspot.com/
  

Blog Tip #7: Update your blog frequently

Update your blog frequently using all the rules mentioned in the other tips.

Keeping it fresh, relevant and up to date is critical and will surely get top rankings in a short time.

Blog Tip #4: Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages of your blog.

Keyword in links have more importance than simple text. This is major to the search engines, ANCHOR TEXT IS VITAL!

For example if you want to rank using the keyword diving then make sure all the links to the site use the word diving like this: diving

Don't just put in the code http://www.diving.blogspot.com, use the link button in the posting WYSIWYG editor and highlight the keyword, like this: diving

Blog Tip #3: Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords (which most of everyone does), use them infrequently in the body of your post.

The theory is that the more times a keyword appears within a blog's web page, the more relevant the page is likely to be for someone searching those keywords.

But do not overdo this by repeating the same keywords over and over again. Google bots can find out if a keyword is too frequent on a page and might just remove your site from their index.

As outlined below, checking a keyword density using software is a smart idea. See the post on WebCEO in April 2007.

Blog Tip #6: Get backlinks from other blogs

You need as many links as possible to link back to your posts or blog because it will help you build pagerank and get your blog to rank higher in search engines. The more links you have the higher your blog is ranked in Technorati helping your blog to be found easily.

So how do we get backlinks? Basically a lot of hard graft and slogging and cutting and pasting.

• The 1st thing to do to get high-quality links is to submit your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories. As a start submit your blog to all the directories listed on this page:
• http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
• http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories/

• Link exchanging with other similarly-themed blogs will help you to form richly interlinked networks or communities. This again takes a lot of time online cruising around to find them. Start by searching for your keywords and the word blog...
  

• If you find an interesting article on another blog, link to it generously. This means 3 to 5 times from a post on the article. Use anchor text for the other blog, it's normally obvious what their keywords are! The track back will become a link back to your blog.

• Make sure that your signature for comments includes you blog link (if possible embedded in anchor text). Then start posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs will help you get back links. Regularly post legitimate comments in similarly-themed blogs with high traffic to get many back links.

Blog Tip #5: Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Make sure your navigation bar is present on all pages of your blog. Your previous posts or at least the popular ones should be linked to all pages so they get spidered easily.

Most of the standard blog set-ups (WordPress, TypePad, Blogger) will give you an option to have Archives and Blog Archives module to do this automatically for you.

Remember, we are going to submit only the primary domain and RSS feeds to the directories and search engines and they will only find all of your pages and posts if they are linked on the main page.

Blog Tip #1: Use your main keyword in your blog domain

The first thing to do is to ensure that your blogs URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for. Using the targeted keyword in sub-domains also helps.

For example, if you want to start a blog site about diving then the primary keyword you want your URL to contain is diving. So choose a URL like www.divingblog.com.

You can also use the keyword in subdomains like www.fiji-resort.com/diving

SEO tips for tourism blogs

I am constantly asked about some simple tips and techniques to start to make a difference in the all important search engines.

So I have pulled together some simple rules for search engine optimization and if you start following them then your blog will rank much higher in Search Engines.

ClusterMaps

Here is cool wee tool that shows the international nature of our websites.

Locate all site visitors on a map on your blog. See at a glance where your site's visitors are located: instantaneously, even when the numbers are enormous! Visitors don't need to click on anything: just viewing your page is sufficient.

One thumbnail map on your site shows it all: They provide the HTML that gives you a thumbnail map, like the one on the right at the bottom right of my page, and the map embedded here.

When it loads, it increments a counter and shows the locations of all the visitors to your page, cumulatively (even for huge numbers). Clicking on it zooms in to a big world map, and lets you zoom in to the continents.

Cool widget for travel sites when the globe is what people are looking for!

See ClusterMaps website to sign up, the best part of course is it's free!

Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog

For those of us who actually do read online amazing amounts of info can be found on Dion's blog.

Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog