It’s Important to Have Good Facebook Manners
Current.com’s Video - “The Twouble with Twitters”
Can’t decide if you want to jump into the “twittersphere?”
Check out this hilarious video at Current.com. >>
Interesting content - Week of 3/16/09
This week I’ve come across some really good blog posts that I thought I would share:
1) Ian Lurie’s (Conversation Marketing) tips for being a smarter consumer when hiring a company to do search engine optimization (or any Internet marketing service)
- If something seems too good to be true - do you really think someone can get you a top ranking on Google for a real, traffic-generating phrase for $200? In 2 weeks? - then it is.
- If your gut tells you someone’s a huckster, leave. Don’t worry about the truth of it. In the end, you’d be uncomfortable working with them anyway. Just move on.
- If someone seems really smart, trustworthy and capable, check their references.
- Don’t trust references as an indication of business success. Trust them as evidence of someone’s character. If the references make you squirm, what does that say about the referencee?
Read the full post at ConversationMarketing.com >>
2) Website Magazine’s post on writing and testing better call-to-action links
Here are a few different items to test with your calls to action:
- Test the wording of both the button image and the text link, and ask what or where the implied benefit works best – in the image or the text?
- If not using an image, or not using text, test the addition of one of these elements and measure the response.
- Analyze how placement of the call to action and the actual prominence of the call to action affects conversion rate. While above the fold is better for the life insurance industry, perhaps it’s not for home and garden websites. The only way to know for sure is to test out various combinations.
Read the full post at WebsiteMagazine.com >>
3) Scott Clark’s summary of a video (along with the embedded video) created by Google to explain Google Adwords.
View the video at SiteCreations.com >>
Internet Marketing 101 Class at U of L in March 2009
In March 2009, I will once again be teaching an Internet Marketing 101 class at University of Louisville.
The class will cover a variety of topics:
- Web site strategy/planning, usability & development
- Analytics - Tracking Web site visitors and conversions
- Email Marketing - Strategy, list building tactics and implementation
- Search Engine Marketing - pay per click advertising and search engine optimization
- Social Media Marketing - blogging, podcasting, social networking sites and more
The purpose of the class is to give you enough information to get started on your own or to make smarter decisions when hiring someone to do the work for you.
Find out more about the class >>
Techipedia’s compilation of the best Internet Marketing blog posts from 2008
Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the information available out there. There are so many good sources of information.
I struggle to stay current on all the blogs I’m following. I’m using an RSS reader but sometimes I forget to read it or I don’t feel like scouring through everything.
I’ve found one of the best ways to find good information is from others twittering about a good article they’ve found. Earlier this week, I saw a link posted by Jason Falls (Social Media Explorer) about Tamar Weinberg’s crazy intensive list of some of the best Internet Marketing posts from 2008.
The list is broken into 28 different sections ranging from SEO and PPC to Web site development and personal branding. It covers everything you would need to know about Internet Marketing.
Click on the link below to view the post.
http://www.techipedia.com/2009/internet-marketing-posts-2008/
I bookmarked the page for future reference because there is a lot of stuff I’d like to read. You should too!
I REALLY appreciate Tamar’s effort…
What’s Viral Marketing?
Seth Godin wrote a really good article about viral marketing yesterday on his blog.
He basically talks about two different kinds of viral marketing:
1) “The original classic sort in which the marketing is the product and which a self-amplifying cycle occurs.” An example he used was Hotmail. I’m sure you’ve seen the little blurb of copy at the bottom of Hotmail emails encouraging the email recipient to sign up for a Hotmail account. Over time, more and more people signed up for Hotmail accounts.
2) “…a marketing campaign that spreads but isn’t the product itself.” Nowadays ad agencies are generating videos and putting them out on the Web. Their goal is to put together something that’s funny/memorable that will be passed around to millions of users worldwide on sites like YouTube.
Recently, viral videos seem to be what everyone wants to do. I hear it all the time. I guess there’s a “coolness factor” to it.
Check out the full post. Definitely a good read.
Internet Marketing 101 - Part 1 - The Basics
To start things off, I’d like to share some commonly used terms in Internet marketing. You may have heard them before but had no idea what they meant.
- Affiliate marketing - Selling your product through other Web sites or email lists by paying the site or list owner for each sale. The flip side of this is selling other products through your Web site and getting a commission/fee for each sale.
- Blog - Short for ‘web log’. A Web site where contributor(s) post short entries and visitors can post comments. The home page on this site features my blog.
- Content Management System (CMS) - Application that allows users to manage Web site content without HTML knowledge/expertise. These are becoming very popular these days as people become more Web-savvy and have smaller budgets.
- Conversion rate - The number of sales, leads or other desired actions that occur on your web site. The actual conversion rate is calculated by dividing your conversions by your visits.
- Domain name (Web site address) - The address of your web site such as ‘www.yourcompanyname.com‘
- Dynamic Web site - Web site generated using a web application and a database.
- Flash - An animation and interactive platform that lets you create very complex movement on a page.
- Hit - Any one file downloaded from your site one time. A single page of a web site, viewed once, may generate 30 or more hits. Commonly misused as a Web analytics metric.
- Page view - Any one page of your site completely loading any one time.
- Registrar - The service you use to reserve a domain name (i.e. GoDaddy.com).
- RSS - Stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” A type of text file that delivers a list of headlines and content directly to feed readers and other software.
- Unique visitor - Any one visitor coming to your site any number of times in the time period. If a visitor comes to your web site 30 times in a month, he/she still only counts as one unique visitor.
- Visit - Any user visiting your site any one time. This is not a unique number.
- Web Analytics - Taking traffic data and other information about your web site, analyzing it, and then providing insight.
The 5 Stages of Internet Marketing
I break Internet marketing into five important stages:
- Planning (& Strategy) - Develop overall strategy and plan for Web site and other tactics.
- Production (Design & Programming) - The look and feel of the Web site is created and then programmed.
- Promotion - Internet marketing tactics are implemented to drive traffic to Web site.
- Measurement (Web Analytics) - Web site visitor activity is tracked including metrics such as number of visitors, conversions, popular pages, etc.
- Improvement - Web site improvements are made based on analytics and customer feedback
Next up - Part 2 - Planning and Strategy
I will cover some of the things to consider when developing your online strategy. Proper planning could save you a lot of money and headache.
Introducing Internet Marketing 101 series
I’m currently working on an Internet Marketing 101 series that will cover everything you need to know about establishing your own presence on the Internet.
The 7-part series is going to cover the following:
- Internet Marketing overview - I’ll cover some common terminology (to help you understand some of the language) and other basic information. The goal is to help make sure that you’re not overwhelmed with the process.
- Web site planning - Much like building a house, you’ll need a good plan. The complexity of your plan will depend on the complexity of your site. This is the place to determine your goals/objectives and set a road map for the project to follow. You’ve heard the saying “Fail to plan then plan to fail” (or something like that).
- Registering a Web site domain (www.yourcompany.com) - This is a very important part of having a successful Web site. A good, memorable Web site address will make it easier for people to find your site. This will cover the process of registering a domain and pointing it to your Web site.
- Hosting - Your Web site has to live somewhere. Chances are that you’re not going to host in yourself unless you have a Web server and an IT staff to support it. I’ll tell you about some of the things to look for when chosing your host.
- Web site development - Who’s going to build the site? Are you a do-it-yourselfer or are you going to pay someone? Who’s going to manage the content? We’ll discuss some of the options you have when building a site.
- Web Analytics - This is one of the most important parts of Internet Marketing. Tracking. How will you know how many people are coming to your site, where they’re coming from and what they’re doing during their visit without using analytics. There are some really good free options out there.
- Promotion - Built it and they will come, right? Not necessarily. It takes a lot of work to drive traffic to a Web site. In this section, we’ll discuss some basic tactics for driving traffic. (A more in-depth series on promotion will follow after the Internet Marketing 101 series).
First up, Internet Marketing overview…
I’ve been a slacker…
I’ve been working on updating this Web site and just realized that I haven’t posted anything on this blog since July. I haven’t even been able to post something once a month. That’s all about to change!
My plan for this blog is to offer basic Internet marketing information (Internet Marketing Made Simple) that will help you make decisions on promoting yourself, your brand or product. This will include cool tools, resources, best practices and much more.
My first series of posts is going to cover creating a basic Internet presence for yourself and what you will need to make it happen.
Hopefully the first post will appear in the next couple of days.
To receive updates on new articles, subscribe to my RSS feed today.
Why do I want to unsubscribe? Because…that’s why.
I just unsubscribed from an email that I magically started receiving from my health care provider. I’m assuming they added me to their list after I signed up for online access. I certainly didn’t ask to receive emails about someone winning an iPod Touch… (unless it was me doing the winning).
Anyway, I clicked “unsubscribe” expecting to your get a typical “you’ve been unsubscribed” screen. Instead I got a screen asking me why I unsubscribed.
For some reason, I was caught off guard with “…we would like to know your reasons for unsubscribing.” Is it just me, or is this a little strong? I immediately flashed back to being a kid and having my parents asking me why I did or didn’t do something.
As a marketer, I can appreciate wanting to know why an email recipient unsubscriber from my mailing list. This would be very useful information.
As a consumer, if I unsubscribe from an email, I want to be removed immediately. I don’t want to do anything more than click a link and be told that I’ve been unsubscribed. Nothing sets me off more than being forced to log in to a site to change my preferences (especially if I don’t know my username/password) or even being asked why I’m unsubscribing.
Please just let me unsubscribe peacefully…