In case you haven’t heard, Google has finally taken steps to ban advertisers who promote links to “scam sites.” These types of sites and offers include crazy get-rich-quick schemes, teeth whiteners and weight loss products.

Previously, Google would simply take down an advertisement if it pointed to a sketchy site or violated any terms and conditions, in essence banning the advertisement, not the advertiser.

Obviously, this is pretty huge news, as Google is critically important to any internet marketer, and is more than likely the marketer’s largest source of traffic.

Aside from being news worthy, Google’s actions illustrate an even larger point for those of us who are internet marketers: you have to focus on running a legitimate business.

Unfortunately, too many internet marketers have become modern day snake oil salesmen. They pitch products they know nothing about, or worse, that they know won’t live up to their outrageous claims, and try to scam as many people as possible in order to money.  Once one well runs dry, they simply pick up and move on to the next bogus product or niche.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say affiliate marketing is wrong or immoral.  In fact, I do a fair amount of it myself, and I think I’m a pretty ethical person.

The difference between a legitimate affiliate marketer and your run of the mill scam artist is a legitimate marketer qualifies the products they promote, provides honest and unbiased reviews, and the money is secondary; a scam artist makes outrageous claims about products they’ve likely never touched or used simply to make a quick sale.

So, if you’re running an online business promoting your own or someone else’s products, make sure you’re doing it the right way, or you too may face a Google ban, or possibly something even worse.

Have you ever gotten the feeling that technology is making things more complicated and more time consuming despite claims to the contrary?  Don’t get me wrong, I love technology – I can’t imagine my life without the internet, email, cell phones, etc. – but at the same time, I feel like it has made some aspects of my life worse.

For example, I believe that technology has absolutely killed customer service.  One would think that advances in technology should have made customer service better, but at this point, I beg to differ.

Here’s why:

• Most customer service seems to be handled electronically and is hardly ever done face to face.  Call me crazy, but if I ever have an issue with something or I need to speak with someone regarding concerns I may have, I want to handle it face to face.  Worse case scenario, I’d like to resolve everything via a phone conversation.  However, I don’t want to sit at my computer and trade emails with someone.  The other day I wanted to speak with someone about returning some broken computer speakers that were still under warranty, however when I went to the manufacturer’s website I was directed to send an email to a customer service rep who would in turn respond to me within 24 hours.
• Most customer service systems are automated.  If you’re fortunate enough to find a customer service phone number, chances are after you’ve dialed the number you’re going to have to sit through 3 minutes of automated options.  I find few things in life more annoying than having to sit and listen to, “Press one for English.  Numero dos para espanol…” (Sorry, I can’t figure out how to get the tilda above the n).
• Customer service has become impersonal.  ATMs, self-scanning checkout at the grocery store, paying at the pump, etc., have essentially replaced people with machines.  I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot more comfortable dealing with a person than I do dealing with some computer.
• You’re just a number.  All of the above items make me believe that when I’m dealing with a company, I’m just a number to them.  They want to shuffle me along in an orderly fashion, have to deal with me as little as possible and then send me on my way.

Now I know some of you will say that it’s actually good customer service to have all of these things available to us.  On some level, I have to agree, because we do in fact use all of these automated systems and we’d probably all be upset if they were magically taken away from us.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I still believe customers should be dealt with on a face to face basis as much as possible, and should be treated with some level of reverence.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you should go out of business to keep your customers happy, but I think if you go the extra mile to deal with them on a personal level it certainly won’t hurt your overall business.  Chances are it’ll probably help.

For example, let’s look at Jay Ellison, executive vice president of U.S. Cellular, and his “no email Fridays” decree.  Nearly two and a half years ago, Ellison began enforcing this email ban as a way of fostering better employee and customer relationships – and, amazingly, it’s worked.  Coworkers who couldn’t pick one another out of a lineup got to know each other, and employees began to develop better relationships with their customers.

Long story short, while technology has improved many aspects of our lives, it’s absolutely killing customer service.  If you run a business or have constant contact with your customers, every once in a while pick up the phone or set up a face to face meeting as opposed to shooting off another email.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Whether you run an entire office or are just the king of your cubicle, there are some pretty easy things that you can do to help make your work space a more environmentally place.

Since it looks like being green is here to stay, it’s probably about time that you jumped on the bandwagon and took advantage of some simple ways to help reduce your office’s carbon footprint:

• Turn off your computer when you leave for the day.  Unless you’re planning on coming back in the middle of the night and you absolutely have to have your computer already up and running, go ahead and power down for the night.
• Turn off the lights in common areas once everyone leaves.  There’s no point in leaving the light on in the copy room if it’s going to sit unused for 13 or 14 hours each night. Same goes for every other common area in your office.
• Get some small indoor plants.  If you’re lucky enough to have an office with a window, most any plant should do ok.  However, if you don’t have a window, make sure you do a little bit of research and check out which plants can survive in your office without lots of direct sunlight.
• Use Energy Star certified equipment. From your monitor, to your copier to the vending machines in the lunchroom, make sure that all of the equipment you use in the office is Energy Star certified. Energy efficient 1st replacement windows are another alternative to save you money. Look for the AAMA Certification.
• Start a recycling program.  Get some plastic, glass and aluminum bins for the lunch room, and put recycling boxes in printing rooms.  It’s pretty easy to do and it might even show that you have some initiative.  That being said, you’re going to want to make sure that you don’t recycle company sensitive information; you’ll definitely want to shred that instead.
• Don’t print if you don’t have to.  The biggest use of trees is for paper, so theoretically, if we reduce the amount of paper we use, we’ll reduce the amount of trees that get cut down.  And if you have to use a ton of paper, go the green route and buy recycled office paper.
• Bring in a coffee mug.  Instead of getting a new styrofoam or disposable cup each day, bring in a regular coffee mug from home and just rinse it out at the end of each day.  This is a great and simple way to reduce needless trash.

While this certainly isn’t the be all, end all of ways you can make your office more environmentally friendly, this list is a pretty good place to start.  And the best part is, doing many of these things won’t really put you out or force you to change too many habits.

I know it sounds pretty cliche, but if each of us would do just a couple of small things to reduce our impact, we could probably do a lot to help stave off the global environmental crisis.