1. Always offer a choice.

When possible, give visitors a chance to click a link and make a conscious decision to view video. Video that’s streamed automatically when visitors land on page can be jarring and result in site avoidance – not best outcome. This is especially true when video includes loud audio streams. Anyone who works in a small office with thin cubicle partitions knows how disruptive such streams can be.

2. Keep it low.

For most part, your audience will be viewing your media streams from their office desktops, so audio needs to be clear yet unobtrusive (see #1). This means avoiding large spontaneous crashes, beeps, sirens, etc., and making sure volume controls are obvious and easy to use.

3. Make it short.

Ego Searches What is an ego search? Find out where your name or company is mentioned, view forum posts or online articles that mention your name or company.

Trademarks The best offense is a good defense. By monitoring newsgroups or search engines for trademarked terms, you often head off a future conflict. As a trademark owner, it is your responsibility to actively protect your mark. Otherwise, you could lose your trademark rights. Monitoring tools send immediate notification should any suspected trademark infringements occur.

Search Position Statistics show that more than 85% of Internet users find web sites with help of search engines. Therefore, a website's search engine position is crucial to its success. Prudent webmasters regularly check their search engine position. Monitoring fluctuations and re-indexing of major search engines affects keyword terms and phrases. Monitoring of positions will alert webmasters to any shifts before sales decline.

Competitor Watch Monitoring newsgroups for mentions of competitors may allow you opportunities to chime in and offer an alternative solution in a helpful, friendly way. Knowing exactly what your online competitors are doing provides a competitive edge that can be used to your advantage.

Website Downtime Accessibility is most critical measure of your website's performance. If customers can't access your site, they can't shop; and if they can't shop, they can't buy. More important, your business could gain a bad reputation among your customers, which translates into negative word of mouth and even worse, if you're highly visible, negative press. So regardless of what else you monitor, you want to monitor websites for downtime.

Take a look at various tools available and how they can be used to keep you current on relevant issues.