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Archive for June, 2010
Jun. 30th 2010
A lot of people say to us that they’d love to get involved in blog creation, either for themselves or their company, but ‘I’m not a writer’. The physical process of blogging might be closely tied to writing … but even those who aren’t writers can certainly be involved in their own blog creation. Here are the 3 main reasons why anyway can create a blog to market your business … even if you aren’t a writer.
In fact, the three main reasons that you CAN blog is intimately tied to the 3 main excuses we hear for why people can’t blog. These are:
* I don’t have the time to blog
* I can’t write well enough to blog
* I wouldn’t know what to write about.
All of these are very easily solved!
Don’t have time to blog?
The feeling that you ‘don’t have time to blog’ can arise from a number of different conditions:
* Being so overloaded at work that you don’t have time to grow your business: We all know that this is a recipe for disaster. When you don’t have time to ensure the future success of your business, a restructuring is in order
* Being unaware that you can have others do your blogging! There are literally hundreds of freelance websites (and a handful of worthwhile ones) where blog writers will actually compete to try to make your blog the best it can be. It isn’t advisable to use ghostwriters exclusively – you need a personal touch every so often – but this does cut the sheer number of hours right down.
Can’t write well enough to blog?
A lot of successful bloggers aren’t great writers. They make up for this in several ways, and still manage to pull some pretty impressive traffic numbers.
* Structuring their posts well: Subheadings, bullet points, lists – these are all tools that help effectively cover for less-than-perfect writing skills. In fact, even great writers that don’t use these tools rarely get read on the net.
* Including lots of value: New information, insider tips, photos, or humor – these all offer a lot of value to your readers, and will help cover for lack of writing experience
* Having your posts edited: A good editor is worth taking the time to find … they’ll take the meaning in what you are saying and completely repackage it into beautiful, flowing language.
Don’t know what to write about?
This problem will be very easily solved when you get into the swing of writing! Look at other successful blogs in your niche, and check out the topics they use as a basis for their blog creation. Alternatively, hire a writer to help you with this.
Jun. 29th 2010
Banner creation comes easily to some … while others can spend hours looking at a blank piece of paper or screen. Personally, I fall into both groups! However, when I’m stuck I always find it useful to go back over some of the best practices in banner creation, to remind me exactly what I’m trying to achieve, and the framework I’ll be doing it in. Here are 6 of the most important ‘best practices’ in banner advertising and creation that are relevant today.
1. Have a goal
The goals of most banner ads is either to raise brand awareness or to create a conversion for the website. The conversion might be signing up to a newsletter, subscribing to paid content, purchasing something … or just about anything else.
2. Use your goal to create a call to action
In most advertising media, you need to tell people exactly what you want them to do – or they look at your ad and just look away. Tell people that you want them to click, where you want them to click, and what you want them to do after they’ve clicked!
3. Remember who you are talking to
Your strategy for banner creation will be very different depending on whether you are talking to teenage boys, Moms with kids, tradesmen, executives, small business owners…
4. Know why THEY will care
You care about your banner ad because of its potential to make you lots of cash! Understandably, that’s not why your customers will care. Remember exactly what is in it for the people looking at your ad. Spend some time visualizing yourself in their place, and imagining how the advertised product or service will affect their wellbeing.
5. Love your colors
One of the primary features of your banner that will do all that attention-grabbing work is the color. Use a color-selection tool available through Google to create a stunning color scheme.
6. Think outside your corporate box
You will want to retain some of your branding in banner ads … but amongst that, don’t be afraid to be different in your banner creation! A great banner creation idea that doesn’t quite fit with your corporate image could just be the best risk your business ever took.
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Jun. 28th 2010
If you read anything much on the web, you have probably already been told … many times … that video article marketing is the ‘next big thing’ in customer engagement and website advertising. We won’t repeat all of that – we’re going to assume that you’re already converted to the cause! We will go through the basic steps in creating your own video article marketing pieces, though – from idea to reality.
Decide on your video type
There are three main types of videos produced for article marketing, in terms of their format:
* Screen capture
* Live action
* Animated
If you want to show people how to do something on a computer, screen capture will be your format of choice. You can use Camtasia, Live Demo, or IshowU on a Mac. Live action is the most common format (and there’s nothing wrong with that!), and animation is most often used for humor videos … but can get pretty expensive.
Screen capture recording tips
To get the best out of your screen-capture style video article marketing:
* Speak slowly – about 25% slower than usual
* Edit everything at the end, don’t go back and forth deleting to try and get it right the first time
* Imagine a friend sitting next to you while you’re talking
* Keep your mouth about 3 inches from the mic to avoid windblast distortion
Live action video recording tips
Live action is much more common, and also a little harder. Here’s how to do it well:
* Use Windows Moviemaker or iMovie on a Mac to edit your videos
* Aim to do voiceovers after the main video has been recorded – it will be easier to hear you when speaking into a mic in a quiet room, rather than out in the noisy world.
* Cerate a storyboard for your video
* Use a tripod to avoid camera shake
* Keep your camera angle simple
* If you don’t pay attention to anything else, pay attention to your lighting!
File types
For screen capture videos, the most common formats are SWF and FLV – SWF is smaller, but lower quality. It is also more common. For live action movies, .wmv, mpg and .mov (Quicktime format) are the most common.
Video article marketing does have plenty of potential, but is certainly a learned skill! Get expert help to save time in the learning process.
Jun. 25th 2010
On one level, marketing and search engine strategies are two very separate fields. One is concerned with creating an image for your company and building consumer awareness of your brand, the other is concerned with getting your site to the top of the search engine results lists. But on another level, they are completely intertwined and inseparable … considering that they are both worthless if neither of them builds profits for you! If SEO thinks only about getting to the top of the Google rankings and ignores the type of image it is creating, it can actually harm your business. Today we check out the techniques that can help you combine marketing and search engine strategy.
Make sure you don’t sacrifice user-friendliness for keywords
A site that has heavy keyword density but makes no sense (and provides no value) to a human reader because of that density will ultimately not perform. NEVER sacrifice readability for keyword insertion!
Determine if there is a market need
On the Internet, supply of just about everything is virtually unlimited, and the people looking for services are very selective! If your business is based on providing free credit reports, anything ‘adult’ related or Forex trading tips, it may be best to seriously reconsider whether there is enough demand to keep your business going, with such heavy competition.
Ignore the bad neighborhoods
Links are one of the major bases of SEO success … but links from bad neighborhoods will only damage your reputation with consumers (that’s assuming that Google doesn’t penalize you for them!).
Make sure your domain name reflects both your branding and your business
In fact, it is best to have branding that reflects your business, in SEO terms. For example, having a lawn mowing business named ‘The Big Green’ is certainly cute. However, when it comes to SEO, a domain named www.BGlawnmowing.com will always rank higher than www.thebiggreen.com.
Look into social media
Much of the tension between marketing and search engine strategies comes from the need to use keywords in prominent places in the only thing that users interact with – the content. You can get around this dilemma (and still get great Google results) by undertaking a social media strategy. People don’t care about keywords in social media … they care about what their friends are doing. In this arena ‘The Big Green’ could do quite well, where boring old ‘BGLawnmowing’ would fail miserably. Don’t fall for the idea that social media and search engine strategies are separate – one can definitely affect the other.
Jun. 24th 2010
We take our color vision for granted, but it is actually one of the most important aspects of our senses. In evolutionary terms, color vision is the difference between being able to snatch the ripest fruit off the tree first (and survive another day!); in internet advertising terms, careful choice of color is the difference between snatching a website visitor’s attention, and having their eye slide right past you. Today we check out the basics of color theory for Internet advertising, and how to apply it to your own creations.
Know your color schemes
You can choose a color scheme for your Internet advertising that fits into one of several categories:
* Monochromatic color schemes: These use variations in lightness and shade of a single hue. They’re easy on the eye … but sometimes that means very little attention is paid to them!
* Analogous color schemes: Uses colors that are next to each other on the wheel – still pretty ‘backgroundish’, but a little more nuanced.
* Complementary color schemes: These have been popular in Internet advertising recently. They use colors from opposite sides of the wheel – you have probably noticed that every man and his dog is now using orange and blue together. It’s a great strategy … but pick an individual combo!
* Triadic color scheme: Three colors equally spaced out on the color wheel are chosen. This can look fabulous … or really cheesy! Artists love it.
Which colors get noticed?
We can only speak in the most general terms here, because individual preferences of the viewer, and the other elements of your ad play a very strong role in determining conspicuousness. However, in general terms (and with the white and grey-dominant background color scheme of today’s internet):
* Red
* Orange
* Purple
* Bright green
All attract plenty of ‘eye candy’!
How will people perceive my color scheme?
Hard to tell! But again, in general terms (and based on Western cultural norms):
* Red: Associated with fire, danger, love and passion
* Orange: Enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, stimulation
* Yellow: Sunshine, outdoors, cheerfulness
* Green: Nature, growth, fertility, safety, money
* Blue: Trust, wisdom, intelligence, calm, corporations’
* Purple: Power, creativity, independence, mystery
The other important point to remember in your internet advertising is that if you choose to change the color scheme from that of your website, you will need to keep some other design elements the same so that people don’t think they’ve been scammed into visiting a site different to the one advertised, and bounce straight away!
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Jun. 23rd 2010
Popunder advertisements have seen some absolutely amazing successes in Internet advertising. For people that design their campaign carefully, choose a stellar incentive and put plenty of creativity into their ad design, pop unders can be Internet marketing gold. Today we explore some popunder tips for ad design that help bring your advertisements into more modern times, and effectively target contemporary, trend-savvy internet users.
1. Curves and organic shapes
Blocky is out, voluptuous curving is in! Use organic shapes and curved areas within your pop under ads to help put an instant contemporary stamp on your ad.
2. Careful coloring
People are no longer content to simply echo their corporate colors in their pop under ads … and I, for one, have been rejoicing with every broadened color horizon! Colors can be the most powerful part of an ad – they can evoke tropical holidays, delicious fruity smoothies, warm earthy forest walks or silent underwater escapes. When the only colors in your ad are the red and blue that are in your logo, it’s a sad waste of a popunder!
3. Awesome photos
People might not have the time to read a paragraph of copy in a pounder ad, but they can get the gist of a photograph in less than half a second. That half a second may convince them to look a little deeper, and perhaps even click through to your website.
4. Incentives, specials, promotions, freebies
Ads are no longer for information – that’s what Google is for. Ads are now for giving you a reason to buy for a particular brand over another brand, and for most people, the most powerful reason is monetary. So increasingly pop under ads are being used to build awareness of awesome specials and even deliver exclusive freebies.
5. Interactivity
Whether it’s a cool Flash game or a survey, interactivity is a great way to get people engaged with your popunder ad.
Keep the most modern popunder tips in mind as you’re designing, and you’ll keep your business image fresh and current, and most importantly, boost response rates!
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Jun. 22nd 2010
So, you’ve been in the Web marketing game for a while and you know most of the ways to get your web site linking profile up? You’ve got a strategy for creating new articles for article marketing, press releases for syndication, slowly adding to all the relevant directories in your field, and you’ve even established a couple of partnerships with other blogs for doing guest postings? Today we’re going beyond the ordinary, looking at some unusual but very effective ways to boost your web site linking profile.
1. Comment on other blogs
With a couple of caveats: Only comment if you have something relevant, funny, or interesting to say; and always be respectful even if you disagree.
2. Link out to other blogs
Blogs are likely to notice who is linking to them, investigate their identity … and often return the favor!
3. Publish your content on a weekday
More people are online on weekdays, and more people are likely to see your content when it is fresh, and right up the top of the ‘Newest Updated’ results in Google, Technorati, and other content aggregators.
4. Do your own web site linking!
Internal site linking is critical to your Google rankings, but even more, it gives the people that are already engaged with your content an opportunity and a reason to go deeper into your site and find more relevant information.
5. Trade blogroll links
Create a blogroll of sites that you read and recommend to your own blog’s readers. Ask the sites on this roll if they would be interested in linking back to you.
6. Edit and proof every little thing you write
A piece with typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors doesn’t make you site look like a link-worthy domain. Polish it all up!
7. Hold a competition
Competitions are exciting, especially when they are skills-based rather than chance-based. Many people will link to competitions to let other people know about them, especially if they have a decent prize!
8. Create a walk-through
Information is easy to find on the net … but comprehensive, valuable information on a particular difficult topic isn’t always so easy. People really value walk-throughs, and they are good fro attracting more web site linking across the net.
Jun. 21st 2010
The subscription form is an often-neglected part of email marketing, yet is actually one of the most important factors in building a good first impression and a successful email relationship with your subscribers. In other words, it’s a cornerstone of Internet marketing. It is easy to lose a sense of human-to-human contact on the web – the companies that manage to maintain it are the ones that inevitably succeed where others do not. Today we check out some email marketing tips for the most important part of the entire process … that first meeting, the subscription form!
Start slow
Human relationships always progress slowly. You would never reveal your deepest secrets to the girl that sits next to you at work, or let your boss use your PIN to grab you some cash form the ATM when he goes out of the office. Similarly, know when to stop asking questions on your email marketing subscription form.
But not too slow!
This, though, is the great marketer’s dilemma:
The more you know about someone, the easier it is to deliver value to them
So if you know nothing about your subscribers apart from their email address, you’ll have no choice but to send out generic emails, which naturally deliver little value to the majority of subscribers … and may even cause some to unsubscribe before you get to the juicy stuff that they prefer. Then you won’t get the chance to put more advanced email marketing tips into effect.
So, what sort of information is it appropriate to ask on a subscription form?
* Name: This will often give you some information about their cultural background and sex. Make these tentative entries in your database for this subscriber.
* Zip code: Much faster than City and State – just as much information for you
* What do you prefer to receive emails about? List options such as general company news, specials and promotions, competitions, expert columns, etc. List different subject areas if appropriate to your site.
For an initial meeting, this is probably enough!
Aside from remembering your basic manners (pleases and thank yous!), and keeping your branding consistent across the subscription form, this will be one of the most useful email marketing tips for your entire campaign.
Jun. 18th 2010
In many areas of your life, it isn’t possible to make up for a lack of quality, by simply overdoing the quantity of something. Your SEO results are the same – when you’re trying to build link popularity by submitting to web directories, you need good quality sites, in sufficient quantity to make a difference to your rankings. However, it isn’t always possible to tell just by look and domain name which directories are the ‘quality’ ones! Today we check out 5 more criteria that you should run through before submitting to web directories.
Is the directory unique?
Is it structured like, designed like, and filled with the same quotient of websites as every other directory in its niche? A directory that is hand built, created for a specific purpose and human-edited is more likely to be a value submission to web directory than a straight DMOZ clone.
Offers something useful
You will certainly find a use out of any directory … boosting your link profile! You need to ‘swap hats’ for this exercise, though. If you were looking for information (on any subject), would you find this directory useful? Does it include good quality sites, is the information easy to find, and does it provide plenty of supporting content beyond a simple link?
Refuses certain classes of sites
If your business isn’t in the ‘adult’ industry, chances are that you would prefer not to be listed alongside those sites in a directory. Even if you don’t really mind, Google is likely to.
Professionally created
A couple of good signs that the directory you’re considering is a professional:
* There are no deliberate spelling mistakes in the domain name (kwik instead of quick, etc)
* Designed well
* Has a Contact form, Privacy Policy, etc
Does the directory itself rank well?
You should at least check when submitting to web directories that it ranks for its own name. Failure to rank for its own domain name is a sure sign that the site has a Google penalty of its own, and that will certainly not help your rankings!
Jun. 17th 2010
Press release distribution is quite an underused internet marketing tactic, and for the companies that ‘do it right’, there’s a lot of opportunity for bettering search engine visibility and boosting branding, as well as getting some coveted ‘real media’ exposure on television and in magazines or newspapers. Here are 10 quick tips to help ensure that your press release distribution is ‘done right’!
1. Have a goal for the release. For example, if you are writing a press release about the launch of a new company service or product, your goal might be to get people pt undertake a free trial or grab a sample.
2. Know your audience … and then write for them. When you’re publishing press releases on the web, your audience won’t always be journalists, so your tone can be a little bit broader than with a traditional media release.
3. Be newsworthy. Even a 10-year old can distinguish between new-news and old-news within a couple of seconds … just by reading the headline. And simply throwing the word ‘new’ in there has nothing to do with it!
4. Know what you want people to remember. Put that piece of information both up the front of your press release, and at the end.
5. Always include your website link. Even press releases that are never read by anybody can get re-published around the web by news aggregators. Include your website link in the ‘About the Company’ section or in the text if appropriate, and you get an instant link popularity boost.
6. Always edit and proof your press release. Personally, I find it much easier to write press releases piecemeal – I put all the information in, and then rearrange it. However, this approach can lead to some terrible mistakes – missed sentences, half-finished quotes, etc. Let your God be the Spellcheck and GrammarCheck buttons!
7. Keep it short. Press releases should be around a page long, including all that formatting.
8. Stick to the facts. Press releases should be about news, which is based on facts … not on opinion. Marketing language doesn’t have a place in press releases.
9. Keep your quotes objective. The quotes are often seen as an opportunity to present opinions in press releases, and they are useful for this purpose. You should ensure they are natural and not exaggerated though, or people will mistrust the entire release.
10. See if you can piggyback on recent events. If your company is somehow involved with the current event du jour, you could get great exposure from press release distribution on a non-standard subject.
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