As an Ontario or British Columbia business owner you may already be considering the effects of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on your company come this summer.  In the broadest of terms, many businesses with supplies, services, and transactions made in Ontario or British Columbia that are currently registered for the 5% GST will be required to collect 13% HST in Ontario ( 8% PST + 5% GST) and 12% HST in B.C. ( 7% PST + 5% GST ), effective July 1, 2010. Though still a few months away, businesses should already be devising their plan of action for the transition.

In order to assist you with your integration process we’ve assembled a basic checklist that should shed some light on aspects to consider:

• Determine if the nature of your business will require you to adjust to the 12% or 13% HST. The government’s website provides a high-level overview of taxable and exempt goods and services.

• Evaluate the impact of the harmonized sales tax on your company’s budgets. Review your projected expenditures, perhaps it’s more beneficial to delay some projects till after June 2010 when you’ll be in a much more advantageous position to recover the provincial component of the tax paid.

• Review on-going and future contracts, agreements, and any promotional material to ensure that your operating-costs are defined to include the combined tax.  New contracts that will extend beyond July 1, 2010 will need to have these modifications in place. Keep this in mind in the early transition period.

• Identify the changes required to convert your accounting and point-of-sale systems to charge or pay HST, i.e. invoices, sales receipts, purchase orders, etc.

• If you have an ecommerce website, update your payment process to charge HST, where applicable.

• Reconfigure billing systems to collect GST and PST, as well as HST early enough in the transition period.

• Give your customers a heads up. A lot of businesses are concerned with the effect HST may have on sales due to the increase in pricing. One of the ways to address your customers’ concerns is by highlighting some of the pertinent benefits of the tax reform.

Probably the most intricate aspect of the transition period will have to do with maintaining accurate bookkeeping for agreements signed before June 30, 2010 but with goods or services delivered after that date. Any service or portion of service performed on or after July 1, 2010 is subject to HST, unless the portion is less than 90% of the service.

Using our company as an example, here’s how the Ontario HST charges would apply. A client signs a contract with us in May 2010 to design and develop a website for them.  The entire project takes 50 hours to complete, 30 hours before June 30/10 and 20 hours after. This means that the 20 hours of design and develop time spent on and after July 1/10 are subject to the 13% HST, regardless of when the contract was signed.  To throw a bit more math into the mix, if less than 5 hours are spent on the project after June 30/10, this time is HST exempt as it is less than 90% of the service.

Like any hefty initiative, it’s best to approach HST integration in small, reflective steps. That’s why we suggest that you start preparing your business early on. There are plenty of resources available including seminars throughout Ontario and B.C. By getting your business HST-ready ahead of time you’re not only more likely to foresee any extraneous circumstance but you’re also more likely to still enjoy some of your summer.

For retailers who manage their own website, this is a can’t miss event. However, for those who did miss it, here is a quick recap of the main topics.

Large US retailers like Best Buy, Lord & Taylor, and the Hard Rock Cafe, to name a few, showcased their websites and discussed elements that are working and some that aren’t.

Many discussions geared to remind Internet retailers about proper usages of navigation and its usability, including shopping cart clarity. This had to do with  really going back to the fundamentals.  These days, customers are more Internet savvy and expect a certain level of familiarity as well as functionality.

Where cost is no longer a major barrier, product reviews and videos are paramount.  The benefits of implementing these types of added features are huge and improve conversion rates drastically.

Even small adjustments to components of a product page and shopping cart with  continually testing have shown results of strong returns to sales growth.

Kurt Peters, Editor in Chief of Internet Retailer, said that mobile will be the future of ecommerce.  Most mobile websites are still in early testing mode, but it’s already evident  that providing customers with information at the time they want it, no matter where they are, is of high importance and advantage.

Many presenters at the Conference talked about new features they focused on during their recent site re-designs. The process ranged on average from 10 to 12 months from beginning to end. Interesting to note is that majority of the retailers teamed with an external web design company or technology provider to help with new implementations.

Lastly addressed were our still early days of social media integrations of Internet retailers with sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Some retailers are providing very timely product announcements and discounts through these social sites while others are building communities around their sites’ topics and themes.

As an owner of a website solutions company, the conference really echoed what I come across every day.  Getting the core fundamentals and best practices properly implemented is key. With a sound foundation in place, the next step is to add one feature at a time while testing and monitoring its effects to website analytics and sales to guide the way.

9th sphere’s ecommerce clients will be receiving a briefing of key statistics and features their categories’ counterparts are undertaking.

Feb 2009:

• Yahoo Enables Video and Other Rich Media in Search Ads

March 2009:

• Canada’s first street view provided by joint effort between British Columbia-based Canpages.ca and San Francisco-based MapJack
• New version of Internet Explorer version 8 released

April 2009:

• Oracle buys Sun

June 2009:

• Microsoft launches Bing, a rebranding of Microsoft’s search engine, Live

June 2009:

• Rogers launched Google’s new mobile operating system – Android – in two HTC phones

July 2009:

• Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Takes on Facebook regarding its non-compliance with Canada’s privacy act – PIPEDA

July 2009:

• 9th sphere launches REF:CODE Analytics, a new way to track phone calls that are referred to from a website

August 2009:

• Yahoo announces new versions of Yahoo! Mail, Messenger and Search

September 2009:

• Google launches Google Wave, their vision of next level of email communication
• Century 21 sues Rogers’s Zoocasa for “scraping” property data from the Century 21 website
• Skype available to Canadian iPhone users

October 2009:

• Yahoo shuts down GeoCities servers, the well known free website hosting service
• Windows 7 released
• Google’s Street View launched in Canada (Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto and Vancouver) – second available street view
• One Degree stops production of its Canadian focused Internet marketing blog

November 2009:

• Amazon’s Kindle, a platform for reading electronic books, comes to Canada
• The Canada Revenue Agency expands investigation of eBay power sellers and GST collection

December 2009:

• Canadians reported as top users of social networking sites in the world, according to a new survey
• Microsoft loses appeal on an August district court decision that awarded i4i Inc. (Toronto based software company) $200 million and an injunction on selling Word in its current form

Looking back, 2009 saw the expansion of numerous US based products and services into the Canadian market. On our front, we’ve seen fewer Canadian innovations and more legal battles spotlighting the social and ethical parameters of the web.  The Internet continues to make more headways into our daily lives, both personally and professionally.  Remember, the web is still very young, but growing at an accelerated rate.  2010 has the momentum to bring the web to its next level, as we foresee companies continuing to push the envelope. Or should I say the processor.

As an Internet Marketer for a web design and development firm, one of our main objectives is to use different analytics to monitor the amount of users visiting the websites from all three search engines.

Before MSN put Bing on the Internet, Bing used to be called Live. Prior to that, it was known as MSN Search. Even though it ranked third among all the search engines, not a lot of people were using it for their research. Needless to say, advertisers weren’t getting the traffic they needed for their businesses.

Before Google claimed the number one spot, Yahoo was king.  At one point Yahoo had a deal to use Google’s search technology to generate Yahoo’s organized search results.

Why the history lesson on something so widely known? Well, all I have to say is look out Yahoo! Ever since MSN revamped their search engine and renamed it  Bing, which many say was just a re-branding of Live, the traffic has increased. From the day MSN made Bing live, till the day you read this blog, Bing has been catching up to Yahoo. That’s right, rub your eyes and believe it. Below are actual graphs taken from Google Analytics that compare the difference between MSN Search, Bing, and Yahoo. For privacy purposes to our clients, I will not name the companies that these graphs belong to.

Company A:

Company B:

Company C:

Company D:

Looking at the charts above; the orange line is the MSN organic search, green line is Bing, yellow is Yahoo, and blue is all non-paid search engine traffic excluding Google. At the beginning of the year, MSN is located close to the bottom of the chart until it hit May. This was when MSN changed to Bing. Once Bing became live, you can see how the line on the graphs passes MSN and in some graphs pass even Yahoo, or at least gets really close to it.

So what about Bing? Well, it looks like MSN finally figured out how to get users to research stuff on their search engine. This means that Internet advertisers, business owners, and affiliate marketers should consider dedicating more time for optimizing their websites for Bing.

As of December 7^th, Yahoo and Microsoft finalized a deal to use Bing to power Yahoo’s organic search results for the next 10 years. Yahoo in turn will be providing premium search-advertising services for both companies in July.  Microsoft has also been signing exclusivity deals with major website properties like Twitter to allow only Microsoft to crawl and display Twitter’s content within Microsoft’s search results.

Who knows, if Microsoft keeps up their efforts and if history tells us something, some day soon you may get the same amount of traffic from Bing as from Google or even more.

Hundreds of emails a day find their way to the inboxes of business executives and decision makers. Unfortunately this could mean that your notice or marketing offer may be of minimal interest. Without a sound game plan, the fate of your marketing endeavor may be short lived. Your email may get deleted because the sender is not recognized or the subject line isn’t enticing enough. Bypassing that, your email may just get re-filed for future review but then may run the risk of invalidating a time sensitive offer.

To ensure that your marketing communications receives its due attention, we suggest  first sending out the email campaign to just a portion of your contact list. With a variety of samples deployed, you can test the effectiveness of different offers and subject lines, and determine the best email open rates.  The minimum size sampled should be 30 contacts. Also, according to a eMarketer study, Wednesday’s have statistically shown a better open rate among businesses.  It’s best to allot at least 5 days for the testing of your various sample subject lines. Once you’ve determined your most impactful heading, deploy your email to the rest of your contact list.  Be sure to keep monitoring the open and click-through rates.  After 5 days, go through the list and separate the bounced and un-opened emails.  This will now be your physical mailing list.  Yes, I do mean mail as in the old, traditional form of messaging. You can also include in the mailing list those who opened the email but didn’t click onto any of the links. Alternatively, you can send either a follow-up or another offer to them via email or snail mail. Note that returned mail should be removed from your mailing list so that future efforts are note wasted.

Though this approach introduces a few more steps to your email marketing, the tactic takes advantage of both email and snail mail. Most importantly, the deployment testing process and using email in this way ensures a more efficient way to get maximum impact for your marketing communication efforts.

Updating your online logo for this purpose is a clear and immediate indication that your website is current. Minor modifications of a festive nature can add a touch of cheer to your brand, revealing a more human side to your business.  Logo updates are easy to implement and can always be recycled seasonally.

It’s important to note that we don’t recommend making drastic changes to your logo design. Revising your brand completely and without reason is risky. You don’t want to confuse a previous visitor, or obliterate the message your logo’s initial design means to convey.  We suggest just a subtle update. One that complements the existing logo while acknowledging a given holiday or special date.

Changing colours or incorporating a symbolic motif should do the trick.  Clean and simple is the key.  Adding snowflakes for the winter holidays for instance, is a nice detail. It helps you and your consumer to get into the spirit of the holiday while maintaining the integrity of your brand.

Don’t be afraid to show your visitors the lighter side to your business.  Adding an appropriate and clever design element to your logo will not go unnoticed. Your visitors will not only appreciate your good nature but will recognize that you care to keep them current by making periodic updates to your website.

Altering your corporate logo design for the holidays is a nice touch and an easy way to get some positive attention for your website.

It’s a shame that there was not enough demand for a Canadian focused Internet marketing blog to generate enough income to make their contributions worth the effort.  One Degree offered unique perspectives, news, event listings, and job postings.  We often referenced the site for ideas and contributed comments to the community.

We often too question the return versus the time in takes to write, edit, and support a blog like ours.  Although our blog is supported by 9th sphere, like many other corporate blogs, One Degree was more of a neutral voice from many different marketing experts.  The fortunate thing is that we have other supporting revenue streams that other bloggers may not have.

Supporting a blog on just the advertising, event and job posting revenue itself is not an easy thing to do and requires a large traffic stream to generate enough revenue to make it worth it.

One Degree contributed many great articles on Internet Marketing from a Canadian perspective.  A destination that was respected by myself and among my peers.  One that will be truly missed.

Facebook and PayPal have teamed up to offer “Square Up with PayPal“.  This new application is essentially a connection between your Facebook events and the payment options of your PayPal account.

The setup process though not very smooth it was fairly straight forward. Once the application is added to your Facebook account, you can select an event, select people you want to pay for the event, and then connect to your PayPal account.  Shortly after, an email will be sent to each of the people you have added, with a link to PayPal to pay for the event.

The system and features are fairly basic yet many reviewers are still  running into bugs. For the personal user however, the low cost with the simplicity of collecting payments are great.

Facebook has over 8 million Canadian members. This is their largest user group. Though the new application is meant to be used between friends, I can see it easily being adopted by schools, fundraisers, event planners, and small business.

Publicizing an Event over the Facebook network may give businesses some added advertising to a mostly young, Internet savvy user base.  Using Facebook in collaboration with PayPal would certainly reduce the cost, but I would not suggest it to a client on a corporate business level.  The application really takes away from the branding and professionalism of a company.  Any SEO efforts may also be impacted.  Many corporations still have reservations about the collection and use of Paypal from a security perspective.

We are now opening up our blog to other web owners and website experts to contribute their stories and experiences about Internet, SEO, SEM, Web Design, Web Development, and any website business in general. We will review and only accept high quality, unique articles.

The main benefits to guest writers will be the opportunities to share what you have learned, get feedback from other experts, and  promote your own website to all of our visitors.

If you are interested in contributing send an email to blog@9thsphere.com with your bio and article.

Before adding features, components, or different applications to your website, regardless if they are free or not, first you need to take a step back and decide on the primary goals of your website.

You need to establish the primary purpose of the website so that resources are spent wisely. Added features should be based on items that will provide a return on investment, not on  popularity or because it’s the latest thing.  Of course if the latest thing is cool enough that it may give you added attention it’s worth considering.

Next, ask yourself, will your website act as only a marketing vehicle or is it meant to improve business efficiencies with elements like process application forms, orders, etc.?  Having defined the purpose of the site you can now create a list of required features.  For instance, if the purpose of the website is to sell your products online, you obviously will need to put your products online using shopping cart & e-commerce application.  Depending on how technical your products may be, you may also want to put online support documentation or instructions in a Knowledge Base or Forum with questions and answers.

Some website features like the online Knowledge Base or videos are simply nice to have and may concurrently improve business efficiencies. However, they should all still support your primary goal.

If you are a for-profit enterprise, Internet marketing is a must.  SEO and PPC Advertising are just some of the Internet marketing solutions that generate sales or leads.  Engaging in social networking through sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any others, will again depend on your website’s purpose or goals. Some sites lend themselves better to social media marketing than others.  For instance, a website that sells online tickets to major sporting events or concerts may see significant opportunity in using social networking sites to market their tickets.

Most important to note is that adding a feature to your website but not using it, will do you more harm.  For instance, don’t add a blog if you don’t plan on writing regular posts or a Forum if you’re not going to moderate the questions and comments.

It may not be easy to determine straightaway which features will provide a return or be of value to visitors.  In many instances the only way to really know is to either conduct a survey among current and/or potential users or to implement the feature and evaluate the web analytics to determine usage patterns.

Listing your website’s purpose and goals in priority will help you to decide on where to spend your resources. Having the appropriate features on your website that will enrich your visitors’ experience can ultimately provide the highest return and lead to website success.