Can we help you build an Internet business?

This page describes his former activities as an Internet marketing consultant.

Based on his understanding of online behavior, Richard Seltzer can help you build an effective Internet business,

Most of his clients look to him for:

• Brainstorming about Internet-related opportunities that may have been missed.
• Finding effective and inexpensive ways to interact with and serve customers.
• Expressing business/technology ideas in terms of user benefits and long-term implications.
• Using content and knowledge of search engines to build traffic to Web sites.
• Helping to build successful chat events and forums.
• Beta-testing new Internet-based applications.

• Web content and traffic: Content drives traffic to a Web site, helping you to build your audience, but only if that content is presented in ways that search engines can understand (e.g., not in databases and not dynamic content). If your business model requires you to use techniques that block search engines, you should present the same content separately as plain HTML pages, all linked to from a single sitemap page, and submit that sitemap regularly to the top search engines. Online discussion (by chats and in forums) can help build content, which (if properly indexed by search engines) can help build your audience. The direct interaction among visitors and between them and experts provided by your site helps make your audience loyal, building a sense of community.
• Audience: On the Internet, your audience is likely to be different from your traditional set of customers/prospects. Do whatever you can to learn who is coming to your site and why and how you might be able to better serve them. In the past, many Web-based businesses built audiences for the purpose of selling them (by advertising). Today that model no longer works very well. A better approach is to serve, not sell your audience.

Evangelist for products/services: Richard also helps translate product/service ideas into user benefits, helping to define potential market segments and craft the messages to reach them. And he comes up with tactics for spreading the word over the Internet.

Current projects:

• Blogging about Books http://www.samizdat.com/blog
• Consulting for Thau, Inc., "Helping to build a sound Long Term Care Insurance industry" and Target Insurance Services
• Using content to build traffic for his own Web site, www.samizdat.com/, as a sandbox to test Internet marketing ideas (now over 120,000 pages views/month, over 50,000 visits/month.)
• Serving as expert for AllExperts (about.com) in E-Commerce/Web Business, Web Design, and Writing Books
• Publishing an online newsletter about Internet business trends, Internet-on-a-Disk (since 1994). www.samizdat.com/ioad.html

Recent Projects:

• My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities (B&R Samizdat Express, 2002). On CD ROM, includes Take Charge of Your Web Site, Shop Online the Lazy Way, The Social Web, The Way of the Web, and hundreds of related articles. Available from Amazon and from our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat.
• Web Business Boot Camp: Hands-on Internet lessons for manager, entrepreneurs, and professionals  (Wiley, 2002). You can get it at Amazon.
• Take Charge of Your Web Site: three simple lessons for business people (MightyWords, 2001)
•  Internet Business Insights (B&R Samizdat Express, 1999) audio and text of three speeches by Richard Seltzer -- The Future of Business on the Internet, The Power of Words: Content-Based Internet Marketing, and Why Didn't the Walls Come Tumbling Down? An Outsider's View of Distance Education", available online at www.samizdat.com/internet (requires RealPlayer)
• Shop Online the Lazy Way (Macmillan, 1999)
• The AltaVista Search Revolution (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1998)
• The Social Web (B&R Samizdat Express, 1997)
• The Way of the Web (B&R Samizdat Express, 1995)

• Datalign (establishing a common dictionary to facilitate online shopping)
• Coola (making it easy to move content from the Web to palm and cellphone)
• ExpertCentral (matching people who have questions with volunteers who have answers; now owned by About.com and absorbed into AllExperts)

• Managing online chats for a distance ed pilot run for MIT's Sloan School and Merrill Lynch
• Serving as "Master Learning Director" for pilot distance learning project being run by the Otter Group for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government ("Managing for Value: Organizational Strategy for Nonprofits") You can see the discussion area at www.webworkzone.com/ksgpilot/dispatch.cgi/
• Consulting for Compaq's ActiveAnswers www.compaq.com/activeanswers re: building online discussion communities
• Serving as distance education tutor for Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Supporting Professor Philip Duchastel in a course for doctoral students on "Learning Technologies for Distance Education"

• Writing an extensive tutorial for AltaVista www.altavista.com, available from in their Advanced Search area
• Writing Help files and a speech/tutorial for AltaVista
• Building new Web site for Explaining Annuities: Articles that Answer Many of Your Questions About Investing in Annuities
• Writing a column for eLearn Magazine (published by ACM) www.elearnmag.org
• Writing tutorials for Learnlots.com, now Attenza.com: How to Find People Online, Online Shopping, Best Web Stores , (details on how to get the most out of Amazon, eToys, Barnes and Noble, SmarterKids, FogDog, Reel.com, Outpost, Bluefly, etown, 1-800-Flowers, and CDNow), and Create Web Pages Without HTML
• Writing a weekly column ("Beyond the Basics") for the auction support site AuctionRover.com, now owned by GoTo Auctions
• Writing a regular column for the shopping comparison site CompareItAll.com

Other recent consulting clients include: Ajeeb.com (the number one Arab portal), Harcourt Online (the Internet arm of education publisher Harcourt), Modular, Hitachi, ACE Insurance, Geller & Company (CPA), Law Offices of Jonathan David.

• Creating web site for Carlos Melgoza, creator of custom-made hand-carved Mexican furniture
• Providing Internet business consulting and redesigning the Web site of Financial Engineering News (converting pdf files -- images of the print publication -- to HTML Web pages optimized for being found by search engines and also opening opportunities for Web-based business, including advertising)
• Helping Getronics (the Netherlands) to make its Web pages more easily found by search engines

• Surviving as a small business in the age of Google. Tips on how to generate search-engine traffic. Speech delivered at NEXPO, the newspaper technology show, in Washington, DC, in June 2004. Article based on it.
• Selling your own stuff at eBay, tips for serious sellers. Speech/tutorial delivered in Boston in June 2004. Article based on it

Who is Richard Seltzer?

Benefits

Testimonials

Recommended Internet consultants

Richard's resume.

Photo of Richard

My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities by Richard Seltzer, on CD, includes four books, 162 articles, and 49 newsletter issues that will inspire you and provide the practical information you need to build your own personal Web site or Internet-based business, helping you to become a player in this new business environment.

Web Business Boot Camp: Hands-on Internet lessons for manager, entrepreneurs, and professionals by Richard Seltzer (Wiley, 2002). No-nonsense guide targets activities that anyone can perform to achieve online business success. Reviews.

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