Tag Archives: marketing

Web Design for ROI: Great Book!

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A few days ago I finished reading Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads, a great book by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus, from Closed Loop Marketing.

I had seen Lance talk at SES 2004 in Chicago and was super-impressed with his command of the topic, so I was super-happy to learn he had compiled his knowledge about the topic of ROI and Web Design into a book.

The guidelines offered by the book are intelligently broken down into: Landing Pages, Home Pages, Category Pages, Detail Pages, Forms and Checkout Process. The ordering is not casual as it is tied to the importance they have in the process of converting visitors.

Each chapter is analyzed from the standpoint of the goals for that particular section of the web site, the goals and questions a typical visitor has when visiting it, the metrics that should be tied to the section along with its unique issues and a few guidelines and examples to wrap it all up.

No matter your role: if you are involved in the decision making process surrounding a web site, you need to get a copy of this book.

One of the best books on marketing a small business owner can read

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To say Duct Tape Marketing is a great book is an understatement. As an entrepreneur who has founded two small companies, I found John Jantsch’s approach to help customers to know, like and trust you more to be intuitive, yet very powerful.

He got my undivided attention from the point he proposed having you first identify your ideal clients (as early as in page 5) and asking you to fire about 20 percent of your past customers, if they no longer fit into the picture of your current business. Now THAT makes sense and it is SO powerful: I could recall the occasions when I was spending time pursuing projects that were not a good fit for the goals of our company, but we still pursued them (“Hey! It’s business!”). Since I read that section, I’ve felt more comfortable not pursuing distracting projects.

He then proceeds to walk you through the discovery and delivery of your marketing message in a way that speaks to the heart of those ideal customers you identified early on. The rest of the book is packed with tactics to get that message in front of your target audience and help them contact you and refer you.

These easily are the best 300 pages I have read since I became a small business owner.

Yahoo! Answers: The Answer To The Prayers of Site Owners

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Where is your target audience hiding? How can you present yourself to them most efficiently?

Thanks to the multiple internet marketing tactics available, this is not such a difficult question to answer anymore. Enter Yahoo! Answers: since its launched in late 2005, it has grown into one of the most exciting properties of the Yahoo! spectrum: “over 90 million users worldwide with around 18 million users in the United States”, according to Search Engine Journal.

With those figures, it’s easy to imagine how you can target your message very specifically to the people you want to talk to. In my case, I took it upon myself to give it a shot, as a means to promote TuDiabetes.com, a community for people touched by diabetes that I had founded earlier in 2007. So, how to start?

The depth and breadth of the site is monumental, so there’s a very good chance that you will be able to find a niche category that very closely fits your target. That was my case: Home > Health > Diseases & Conditions > Diabetes sounded like a winner to me when I saw it.

Once I spotted the category, I just started looking for questions that I could answer. But I took it upon myself to go beyond a plain “Yes” or “No”, when answering questions: I made sure to always give a useful reply, much like I’ve done in the past with Amazon.com reviews, one that I personally would find useful myself, if I were in the shoes of the person asking the question. When you do a good job, you can get your answer selected as the best one, which earns you 10 points. If you do not earn that award, for answering alone, you earn 2 points. If you just vote for the best answer given to another question, you earn 1 point. And if you only show up, you earn 1 point for doing so, once a day.

So, how does it tie into your business? Answering a question earns you more than just a reputation based on points in the eyes of the community. To the individual getting the (useful) answer, it may make a profound difference. Now, if you can tie in your answer with a link back to your site, which contains even MORE information that will be of value to the person, even better: it’s a pretty safe bet that they will follow the link and land on your site.

Provided that you are for real, and not just trying to play “bait and switch” on people (unfortunately, there are more than just a few individuals with no ethics that will try to take advantage of innocent people clicking around on Yahoo! Answers too), you will have earned the person’s trust after that visit to your web site: and trust lies at the heart of your ability to earn and retain that person’s loyalty and/or business (if you are selling a product/service).

Before you head out and start answering people’s questions on Yahoo! Answers, make sure to read this very useful tutorial on how to do this in more detail.

How To Get Rid of Hoax or Competitor Google Ads

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Here’s a tip for those of you who want to filter out Google Ads from your site, either because they show competitors or because they direct traffic to hoax/scam web sites that you want to protect your visitors from:

1) Go to your Google Adsense account and login;
2) Click on Adsense Setup (second tab);
3) Click on Competitive Ad Filter (last option);
4) Add the domains of as many ads you want to block.

In a few hours, you will no longer see them pop up.

They CAN come back: with a different URL (much like e-mail SPAMmers do), but at least you will have gotten rid of the first ones.

What is Link Popularity?

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A while back, I was thinking of writing a short post summarizing what is Link Popularity. After all, along with the concept of Search Engine Optimization, the development of Link Popularity is the other element that is critical in obtaining top results when users conduct searches using Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.

Today I encountered an amazing compilation of knowledge around the topic of PageRank in Smashing Magazine. Though PageRank basically is employed by Google to determine the ranking of your page (deep, huh?) the concepts outlined in the (very long) post about this topic apply across the board and should serve as a comprehensive reference of things to do and avoid, to accomplish higher Link Popularity.

If you are wondering what the Link Popularity for your site is like, try the Link Popularity Check tool from MarketLeap.

Google: Cashburner with Feedburner

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This week, another high profile purchase by Google was announced: they’ve picked up Feedburner for $100M.

Obviously that’s going to be good for Google, but also good for advertisers and blogs/sites on Google’s content search network, because more eyeballs will be exposed to Google Ads, which should obviously increase the clickthrough rate (Google cash machine making “PING!” here)… and hopefully result in more conversions for sites using AdWords. YEEPPEE!!! :)

(by way of ALD)

What's Hot Today?

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I was reading about the Hot Trends product from Google. They display the hottest current searches in close to real time. This is combining the best of Google Zeitgest with Google Trends and taking them both for a spin.

I wish they offered this type of functionality for their AdWords Keyword Tool, but maybe that will come down the line. I guess the ability for us to effectively target tail terms in real time is not far away.

Should Search Engines Matter in your Campaign?

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You bet they should!

I was reading this post by Andrew Faulkner in Fadtastic and couldn’t help to stop and share my two cents. Essentially, he’s wondering about the cases where “over-optimizing” a site for it to be Search Engine-friendly, which renders it almost unusable.

I agree with his point, but this is the case indeed of over-SEO’d sites (sites where so much emphasis is placed on Search Engine Optimization practices, that the user experience goes down the drain). However, like I commented on his blog, a site created with the user in mind, coupled with a solid link popularity, will do fine (in my experience) with Search Engine rankings. Over-SEO’d sites are simply not natural and therefore do not result in a user-friendly (usable) experience. So I do think that usability and SEO are not mutually exclusive.

As a matter of fact, I recall a Google Senior Engineering Manager (her name escapes me), at a Search Engines Strategies conference a couple of years ago, say that, for a given keyword, Google’s algorithm will rank higher sites designed with people in mind (meaning, sites that are text-rich, relevant to keyword being searched, with just about enough content -not too much, not too little-, etc.)

Connecting with Latino Mobile Users

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My friend Rafa makes me proud. He recently participated in a panel of very high profile speakers in the Billboard Latin Music Conference in Miami. He is VP of Business operations at LatCel, the leading provider of wireless content services for U.S. Hispanic communities.

He broke the news about about the coming relaunch of their site Lo2Yo (LoTuyo) with a reggaeton and hip-hop-centered platform featuring animated characters set in a “Pimp-my-ride”-style garage. Currently Lo2Yo offers horoscope, dating, love tips and more content for Latino mobile users.

I am very proud of Rafa. He sure knows this market. He closed his statement by saying:

“There’s a misconception outside the Hispanic world that the U.S. Hispanic market has to be addressed in Spanish, and that it’s one single market.”

LatCel’s second-generation target audience “will use mainstream
services, but they’re proud of their roots.”