Jason Tweed, the million dollar blogger

Mobile SEO for Small Business

2012-02-16T08:32:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, Google released some pretty powerful data about mobile search. They did a study comparing restaurant searches on Valentine's Day, and the week preceding it.

Specifically, they studied the platform used to search for popular restaurant chains, and found out that mobile searches accounted for 62% of search traffic on February 14. Total volume of searches revealed that are not only did mobile search dominate on February 14, mobile search also was the most frequently used search platform as early as February 10.

This graph, courtesy of Google, compares mobile search, desktop search, and tablet search volume.

One interesting thing I noticed is that traditional searches peak on Friday while mobile searches peak on Saturday during the weekend prior. This may indicate office workers are using their PCs to look for a happy hour venue while Saturday partiers are searching via mobile. Mobile search was higher both days, but jumped sharply on Saturday while desktop search declined slightly.

As you can see, at crunch time people go to their mobile phones. If you have a business were people tend to make last-minute decisions before buying, going mobile is a requirement. Even if you don't, is clear that mobile search is critical to almost any business because it has become the trendsetter for people who want quick information.

Sources and credits: googlemobileads.blogspot.com

Who is your customer?

2012-02-06T14:16:00.000-05:00

I love Seth Godin. He is concise and frank.

He asks "Who is your customer?" and demonstrates it's not always the people who end up using your product.

Your customer is the one group of people that you most need to keep happy. Picking the wrong customer can be devastating for your business.

He lists several examples, however the big "a-ha" moment for me was his example from Columbia Records.

Columbia caters to musicians and program directors at radio stations, and virtually ignored the people who buy music. In the old days they had to sign the biggest acts, then get the radio stations to play them. Customers would then herd themselves into record stores.

Suddenly, music listeners decided they wanted digital music instead of CDs. They also decided they would rather find new music than be told what to buy. Lastly, they love sharing music. Sharing wasn't about piracy, it was about shared experiences.

Columbia Records and the other members of the RIAA have not yet figured out that music listeners are not the enemy, they are the market setters.

Seth doesn't go into much detail about Columbia Records, except to say that they don't know their customers at all.

Here's the full post to see what he says about Zappos, Nike, Columbia Records, Apple and more.

Seth's Blog: Who is your customer?

Twitter Abbreviations You Should Know

2012-02-02T14:30:00.003-05:00

As you use Twitter more and more to promote your business, you will quickly realize the limitations of 140 characters.

Here's a short list of Twitter abbreviations and acronyms, inspired by a list from our friends at BitRebels, with a few I added.

<3 = This is the text version of a heart
AFK = Away from keyboard
b/c = Because
BBL = Be back later or BRB = be right back
BG = Background (when someone refers to their Twitter background page)
DM = Direct message
EM = Email
FB or #FB = Facebook
FTF = Face to face
FWIW = For what it’s worth
#FF = Follow Friday (on Fridays people recommend others they like to follow)
FML = F--- my life
Gr8 = Great
ILY or 143 = I love you
IMO = In my opinion or IMHO = In my honest opinion or, in my humble opinion
IRL = In real life
J/K = Just kidding
L8r = See you later, talk to you later
LI = LinkedIn
LMK = Let me know
LMAO = Laughing my ass off or LMBO = ...butt off
LOL = Laughing out loud or ROFL = Rolling on the floor laughing
NP = No problem
OMG = Oh my God or OMFG = Oh my f—- God
PLZ = Please
RT = Retweet or RTHX = Thanks for the retweet
SRLY = Seriously?!
TMB = Tweet me back
TMI = Too much information
TTYS = Talk to you soon or TTYL = Talk to you later
TY = Thank you
WTH = What the heck or WTF = What the f—
YW = You’re welcome

Three have official functionality within Twitter.

DM -- Starting a tweet with DM followed immediately by the person's @twitter ID sends a direct message to that individual privately. It won't show up on your feed or theirs, just send their messages tab.

RT -- Twitter now has a button for retreats, however the old-fashioned way was to put RT followed by @twitter ID. It's considered extremely poor etiquette to steal someone's tweet without giving them credit. Some people prefer this old method because it allows you to make edits or add a comment.

#FB -- Some Twitter third-party applications use this to automatically post your Tweet to Facebook.

Why does Twitter only allow 140 characters?

Originally Twitter was envisioned as an online tool equivalent to texting. The original cell phone texting sequence was limited to 160 characters. Twitter shortened to this to allow 20 characters for your twitter ID. Twitter ID's are the @ followed by up to 18 alphanumeric characters followed by a space.

Since then mobile phones have improved, allowing long texts. Mobile phones can read and send entire e-mails. However, Twitter has never budged, and probably never will.

It's a challenge being extremely concise sometimes, but that's part of the beauty of Twitter.

Which Social Network Should My Business Use?

2012-02-01T12:51:00.000-05:00

You should use all of them and none of them!

What, that wasn't the answer you were looking for? Let me try to explain.

Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and MySpace all have their merits and pitfalls.

Unfortunately, building a solid community on these social networks takes time and sometimes money, both of which can be in short supply when growing a small business. So let's make a plan.

Step One: Have a great website! If your website isn't as good as it could be, concentrate your time and money here first. Ultimately investing your time in any social network contains risk. You can't necessarily control the content or popularity of the network as a whole, but you can create a community on your website. An important part of your focus while social networking is to draw visitors away from the network to your website. If you're successful, you want to make sure they will return.

Step Two: Choose one network. It's better to build a community on one network successfully before trying to do too much. Each one is different, so choose carefully. Here is some advice.

Facebook -- Facebook is ubiquitous. Estimates have total users at over 1 billion. If this is accurate, Facebook is now the second largest country on the planet behind China. They have more members than the population of India and three times more members than the population of the United States. It's estimated that 50% of all adults in the US are currently in Facebook. If your audience is international, Facebook is the place to start. It's also a good place for a new business because you can integrate Facebook features into your website.

On Facebook you will create a "page" for your business. This page becomes the community. If well done, this page can keep your customers informed and allow them to interact.

Jason Tweed on Facebook

Twitter -- Twitter is the second largest membership website in the world. Additionally, twitter is designed as a prime referral source. A substantial number of tweets link to outside websites, where Facebook tends to favor keeping members within their website, Twitter users tend to use it in the background while browsing. Because of this, you can build a following on Twitter and easily migrate them to your own site.

Another advantage of Twitter is that it's easy to follow trends. If your business relies on hot topics or current events, Twitter is a great place to get discussions going and keep them rolling. Additionally it becomes easy because of their search features to find users that are thinking about your product right now.

The biggest disadvantage to Twitter is its virtually instantaneous life span. While the entire website is archived, twitter is about what's happening right now. As fast as the topic becomes hot, it can disappear. Twitter is great for events but not a great community for relationships that develop over time.

Jason Tweed on Twitter: @JasonTweed

LinkedIn -- With 100 million users and growing, the third-largest network is focused on career. Business-to-business companies should seriously consider LinkedIn for their first adventure into social networking. The website is designed around connecting professionals in similar industries. Furthermore, there is a great system for developing endorsements and recommendations. Lastly, discussion groups on LinkedIn seem to flourish better than on Facebook. If your product has a distinct users group, LinkedIn has tools that will enhance your web presence.

Jason Tweed on LinkedIn

MySpace -- MySpace is dying a slow death. So why do I mention them? Well, at their peak MySpace had 70 million users and was the largest website on the planet. The original social network spread like wildfire among young people, particularly high school students. Later many of them migrated to Facebook, but there is still a much smaller but strong community on MySpace. The diehards still use it and love it. Garage bands, tattoo studios, artists and independent musicians thrive because their audiences stayed with them. The eclectic mix of people on MySpace has survived because of the strong arts community. If your business caters to certain subcultures, you may find MySpace still has a lot to offer.

Jason no longer uses MySpace.

Google+ -- Google+ is the newest major player, and has been growing rapidly in the past few months. Unofficial reports have them above 100 million users which could rank them third behind Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ considers themselves Facebook's more intelligent big brother. With a heavy emphasis on the tech industry, they followed the Facebook's lead by inviting a handful of people and allowing them to invite personal friends and colleagues. Facebook started at Harvard University. They expanded to Yale and Princeton, then to the rest of the Ivy League. Eventually Facebook expanded to any accredited university and then as the students graduated it became part of our American culture.

Google+ used this method starting with their own employees and hand-picked members of the tech community. It became a geek centered community. While Google+ today has spread through many aspects of the culture, it's still a very geeky place to hang out. You'll find that the most active communities are in the tech and science industries. If your business is focused on selling to geeks, dorks are nerds, start here first.

Additionally, Google+ has one other advantage. It's a hybrid between Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has a large structure of individuals who have agreed to be "friends". Twitter on the other hand allows you to follow someone, even if they don't follow you back. Google allows for both. Furthermore they organize individuals into circles so you're able to communicate with friends, followers, and unlimited other subcategories effectively.

The marketing advantage lies with companies who have multiple audiences. If you have a strong business-to-business audience, but also a strong consumer audience, and a desire to communicate very different messages, Google + can be the way to do that effectively. It's also a great way of organizing a large number of contacts into subsets.

Everyone who has a Gmail address is now able to log in to Google+. If you don't, get one at Gmail.com.

Yep, Jason Tweed is on Google+ too.

Pinterest -- As of this writing a brand-new player has emerged. Pinterest is an image centric community. Rather than links, people share images. In today's ADD society, it caters to people who love to stand for information. A typical Pinterest homepage shows hundreds of photos, which you can select by topic. It has a social component and that you can follow people on other social networks like Facebook.

Bloggers or anyone that creates photo heavy content should seriously consider Pinterest. An image link here can go viral, exploding traffic to your website, even without a ton of followers. However, if your website is heavily focused on the written word, Pinterest is almost useless.

It's too early to determine whether Pinterest is a passing fad or the next great resource for connecting over the web, but they can't be ignored.

Jason Tweed is just getting started with Pinterest.

YouTube -- Lastly, YouTube can be a strong community. It's users tend to stay on YouTube, but video bloggers should use this as their primary resource. I view YouTube as less of a community and more as a tool to add video content to your website, however in the right situation with the right video, YouTube can become an important audience all on its own.

Dozens if not hundreds of people started on YouTube and leveraged that into careers, particularly in the performing arts. Justin Bieber started when his mother uploaded videos of him in his living room in Canada, as a young teenager. If your goal is to be "discovered" focus on this community. Otherwise, it's still important to recognize the power of video, so you want to use YouTube as a tool and to leverage your audience to your website.

Jason Tweed is withholding his link to YouTube, because he is fixing stuff now.

Step Three: Strengthen your brand and your community. Keep working on one community online and make sure that community reinforces your brand in a positive way. It's much easier to leverage a well-established brand, even one with a small audience, into other social networks.

Step Four: Expand carefully. The worst thing you can do is build a strong social network on one website, then ignore it when you transition to something new. After you've developed a following online social network, use that as leverage to add others.

My recommendation generally is to start with Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn. Expanding into Twitter, YouTube or Pinterest next, because these three sites support the other three very well. Once you have a strong foothold in two networks, consider expanding.

Use Dashes In URL Names for Better SEO

2012-01-27T15:22:00.001-05:00

Frequently I am asked "Is it better to use dashes or underscores in your URLs?"

Dashes!

This is critical in URLs. For example here is the URL of one of my more popular pages with a list of stock photo websites.

http://www.jasonsmillion.com/2011/04/21-stock-photo-websites.html

With this URL, Google would rank this page for the terms "21", "stock", "photo", "websites".
Furthermore, it would rank higher if someone searched for any combination of those words in any order.
Finally, Google would rank me very well for the exact words "21 stock photo websites".

Testing dashes in URLs

Here's the test:

This is page #1 from Google using the words "21 stock photo websites".

The first three are sponsored links in this highly competitive topic. The next two are blog articles that have the words "21" and stock photo websites, but neither of them are a list of sites.

The last three are lists of stock photography websites, and mine is ranked highest among the relevant results. The ads above probably cost several dollars each click, and mine appears organically.

Okay, you may be saying, "but I don't need hits for the #21." That's irrelevant. True, however I also did the search using "stock photo websites" exclusively. This time the results were more on point. The first three are major stock photography websites. Mine was fourth! Why am I happy about being fourth? Because the first three send you to websites that sell stock photography. Anyone using this search term, which is rather generic, but is looking for a list rather than a single site will choose mine!

However, if my URL was slightly different and it read ".../21_stock_photo_websites" , even with exactly the same content and incoming links I would likely be ranked 20th or 30th in this highly competitive category.

Out of 65,600,000 results, 20th is pretty darn good, but let's face it I would get perhaps 1% of the clicks I get now from being fourth. There can be a huge difference between dashes and underscores!

Still not convinced... well is take it straight from the horse's mouth... Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google and original developer of SafeSearch, Google's family-friendly filter.

"... So if you have a url like word1_word2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 (which almost never happens). If you have a url like word1-word2, that page can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2″.

That’s why I would always choose dashes instead of underscores. To answer a common question, Google doesn’t algorithmically penalize for dashes in the url. Of course I can only speak for Google, not other search engines. And bear in mind that if your domain looks like www.buy-cheap-viagra-online-while-consolidating-your-debt-so-you-can-play-texas-holdem-while-watching-porn.com, that may still attract attention for other reasons."

It's an important enough issue that you probably want to change your URLs retroactively for pages that don't get much traffic. On your high-traffic pages, this is a risky, because changing the URL means the page has to be reread and ranked again. Furthermore, any incoming links will be broken.

Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

Paying Taxes is Good for America

2011-10-25T16:38:00.000-04:00

Paying taxes is one of the great things about being an American.

Okay, I know you're looking at me funny right now, but hang in there for a couple minutes.

Back in 1770-something, a bunch of British citizens living in Boston threw a whole bunch of tea into Boston Harbor. That was a big deal for two reasons; first, Brits love their tea, second, it was a bunch of colonialists creating the world's largest cup of tea. This is particularly irritating to the British because tea was one of the primary reasons they started collecting colonies in the first place. At this point in time, the business of colonizing countries such as India, growing tea, and selling it to the British people was a huge chunk of their economy.

To toss it into perspective, in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. While not a colony, Kuwait was flush with American money from the oil business. The threat of a group of people interrupting Americans' passion for driving sport utility vehicles caused us to amass the largest invasion in world history, and launching a ground war that lasted four whole days!

In the 1770s, this was a big freaking deal.

So why did we do it?

Taxation

Taxation was at the heart of the Boston tea party. Tea had a luxury tax attached. Everyone who purchased tea, which was, well, everyone, paid a little bit of money to the British government.

We weren't upset about taxes. What the Americans, as they would later be known, were upset about was "taxation without representation".

You see the colonies didn't have any voice in Parliament, the lawmaking body of the British government. We weren't necessarily upset about paying taxes, we were upset because we had no choice. We had no input into the decision.

Taxes are a very powerful tool. Taxes influence businesses to do one thing, versus another. Taxes influence us to buy homes, have children, get married and go to college. Taxes influence entrepreneurs when starting their own business. Taxes influence corporations when spending money on growth, distributing profits to owners, and helping the environment.

Taxes are very critical part of our economy, and part of the reason why the economy has grown to be the largest in the world.

The money from taxes has funded education, provided for building of infrastructure, and secured our independence.

Okay, countries all over the world have taxes. Why are American taxes better than most of the others?

Representation

Representation is what makes the American tax system incredibly powerful.

Tax laws are designed in the legislative branch of the federal government. The Senate's 102 members are distributed evenly among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each state, no matter how large or how small, has an equal vote.

The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, and these members are distributed roughly proportional to the population of the United States. California, our most populous state, currently has 53 members. Not only does this insure representation by population, but each member of Congress represents a specific district. This means that every individual in America has one member of Congress specifically charged with looking out for them.

No matter where you live in the United States, you have exactly 3 representatives that help determine the tax laws. You have exactly the same number of representatives as every other citizen. Your voice, and your vote determine the manner in which that representative does his or her job. If you are unhappy with any of those three representatives, you have within your power, to campaign for a new representative, or even to run for office yourself.

Taxation Is Power

The only power any representative has is the ability to increase or decrease taxes. They have no other authority to change the behavior of their constituents.

Would you like a greener planet? Tax breaks can encourage businesses to change manufacturing to create less pollution.

Want better educated workers? Tax breaks can encourage families to save for college, even years before their child is old enough to attend.

Want a better economy? Tax savings encourage companies to hire. They encourage people to buy homes. They encourage people to buy greener appliances and give them "cash for clunkers" which all stimulate the economy.

Want more financial security? Taxes encourage us to save for retirement, but encourage us to spend the excess while we are still alive.

Taxation Is Freedom

Government can only influence its citizens in two ways, taxation or force. Want us to recycle? Create a taxation incentive or hold a gun to our heads. Either way, more people will recycle.

I recognize this sample seems extreme, but look at the countries that don't have representation built into their tax structure. North Korea, the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and others were or are able to control their people only through the use of force or threat.

Taxation without representation by definition is a dictatorship.

Is Taxation Broken?

Of course it is. Taxation in the United States is a constantly evolving concept. Today we have income taxes at the federal, state, and local level. We have property taxes, sales taxes, estate taxes and excise taxes. We have luxury and use taxes. We have occupancy taxes and even tourist taxes.

It's impossible that such a complex system isn't broken, at least in some areas.

The key is, taxes are put in place by our representatives in this democracy. In the United States, people have the power to change and to influence others by communicating with our representatives, and replacing them when necessary.

If you hate paying taxes, if you think your taxes are unfair, or if you think you're simply not getting your money's worth, then you have the responsibility to participate in the system. Communicate your happiness or unhappiness with your representatives. Encourage them to make changes, or encourage them to find a new job.

-- -- (As always, I encourage your comments. Because of spam, comments are moderated, but all legit comments will be accepted. You're allowed to disagree; you're allowed to tell me I'm an idiot, but please tell me why you think I'm an idiot.)

21 Stock Photo Websites

2011-04-19T10:43:00.001-04:00

Stock photography is needed whether you are a professional designer, blogger, eBook author or app developer.

This fairly comprehensive list has websites for every level, from free sources through high end editorial content.

A few notes to help beginning users of stock photography...

There are 3 ways to purchase stock photo, subscription, credits or direct purchase.

Subscription allows you to download any photo on the site during a period of time, usually limited by a daily cap.
Credits are purchased in blocks. The credits can be used to download images. For most sites, an individual image can be downloaded in multiple sizes; larger images requiring more credit.
Direct purchase images are downloaded in a batch and paid for with credit card or PayPal

Licensing rights are managed in several ways.

Rights managed - images are purchased for a specific purchase and can only be used for a specific period of time. These images are typically time sensitive and rare, such as current events and celebrities.
Royalty free - a one time payment covers unlimited use and for an unlimited time.
Attribution - many free images are distributed with an attribution only license, meaning you must provide photo credits and/or links to the photographer. For details about many types of free licenses, visit www.creativecommons.org.
Public domain - these images are free to use without restriction. Either the copyright has expired or the original copyright holder has given up all rights.

Paying attention to licenses is important. I know of two websites that were charged big dollars for copyright infringement by using stock photography without the license. Sometimes the copyright holder will simply ask you to remove the image. One of our clients was asked to remove the image and pay a $1,200 retroactive usage fee to Getty images. With reverse image searching technology, copyright holders have new tools to find and enforce illegal image use. It's no longer acceptable to go to Google Images and grab your favorites for your blog.

Prices and quality of images vary widely. We strongly recommend choosing sources for images based on project and budget. The following list, therefore, is in no particular order.

21 Stock Photography Sources

Dreamstime – www.dreamstime.com

Use credits or subscription
Some free images, registration required
Royalty free and licensed images available
Credit packages start at $9.95
Subscriptions with daily limits range from $44.99 to $3,739.99
Accepts credit cards and Paypal
Active community with message boards and blogs
Sell your images for 30-60%

Stock.xchng – www.sxc.hu

Free images, registration required
Limited number of photos, but all free
Owned by Getty images
Blog with photo tutorials

Veer – www.veer.com

A few free images and fonts updated each week
Free trial with 10 free credits
Credit packages start at $16.92
Stock photography, illustrations and fonts
Interesting merchandise selection for typography geeks
Caters to designers

MorgueFile – www.morguefile.com

Free images placed in public domain
Images are donated by creators
Good search feature includes keywords, categories, size and color among others
Small community with forums, etc
Supported by advertising and Amazon shop

FreeFoto – www.freefoto.com

Free images for web use, attribution required
Free images may be licensed starting at $30
Categoriezed, but poor search functionality
Images may be purchased as prints or cards
Images may be sent as free ecards

DepositPhotos – www.depositphotos.com

Stock photo by credits or subscription
Subscriptions with daily download limits range from $19 - $1,600
Seven day free trial with 5 image per day limit
Purchases with credits range from $0.50 - $9
Sell your images for 40-60%

Istockphoto – www.istockphoto.com

Sells photos, illustrations, video, audio and flash files
Credit packages start at $18.50
Subscription with daily limits start at $699
Minimum subscription is 3 months
Sell photos for 15% or exclusive rights for 45%
Largest traffic photo site
owned by Getty images

ShutterStock – www.shutterstock.com

Huge collection, nearly 15 million photos and illustrations
HD footage organized by category
Subscriptions start at $249
Blocks of five high-res images can be purchased for $49
HD footage blocks start at $149 per 5

Getty Images – www.gettyimages.com

offers royalty-free and rights managed images, footage, and music
extremely timely images of celebrities, news events, and sports events
has many exclusive contracts with events
rights-managed images are purchased based on intended use and duration
worldwide offices to answer rights management questions and help find images

BigStock – www.bigstockphoto.com

Photos and vector images sold by credits
Credit packages start at $15
Pays $0.50 per credit spent to contributors
By ShutterStock, less expensive collection

Corbis Images – www.corbisimages.com

Rights managed and royalty free images
Editorial section featuring celebrities, current events, fine art and archival images
Nice fine art collection featuring Andy Warhol, Ansel Adams, Smithsonian Institution, Philadelphia Museum of Art and more.
Exclusive celebrity portraits
Comps available

Thinkstock – www.thinkstockphotos.com

Getty images subscription site featuring mid range royalty free photos
Subscriptions are $299 per month or $199 per month paid annually
Comps available

Jupiter Images – www.jupiterimages.com

Jupiter was the parent company of Photos.com, but recently merged with Getty images
Combines 50 websites of rights managed and royalty free images
Images start at $49

Stock Vault – www.stockvault.net

Free image collection provided by contributors
Texture and background images for sale through texturevault.com
Partnered with Square Space, a high end blogging platform

Free Digital Photos – www.freedigitalphotos.net

Offers images for sale from contributors starting at $3
Web sized images are available free with attribution required
Payment by image rather than using credits

Free Vectors – www.freevectors.org

Small collection of about 1,200 vector images
All free for commercial use
Liberal license with no attribution required
You may also download 1,000 vectors for $14.90 via Paypal, convenient way to download all vectors at once and support the site

Every Stock Photo – www.everystockphoto.com

Search engine for free photos
Over 9 million photos searched on many different websites
Because photos come from different sources, licensing varies
Searches Library of Congress, NASA, Flickr, Wikimedia and other photo sites

Free Range – www.freerangestock.com

Free stock photography, much of it from in-house photographers
Ad supported
Images up to 2400x1600
Registration required

Photo Rack – www.photorack.net

Free photos
Photos are categorized, but not easily searchable
No attribution required
No login required
Ad supported

Photos.com – www.photos.com

Mid range photo subscription site
Owned by Getty images
Photos.com was one of the early subscription stock image sites. For some industries their collection is overused.

Clipart.com – www.clipart.com

Collection of clipart, illustrations, web size photos and fonts
Low end subscription service, only $159.95 per year
Owned by Getty images

Twenty-one websites will certainly cover most demands. However, there are many others. If you know of a stock image service worth mentioning, feel free to link it in the comments below.

Two Approaches for Writing Great Sales Copy

2011-04-15T15:49:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, I was a featured guest at Epic Launch. My topic was 7 Terrible Marketing Terms To Avoid

One of the commenters asked how I come up sales copy that is new and original and still catchy.

There are two approaches I use frequently for writing original sales copy. They don't work for all marketing situations, but often will get you started.

The Marketing Reporter

Write your copy like you're a journalist. Ask yourself, "who, what, where, when, why and how?"

Not all six questions apply to every scenario. I find the most useful when describing an information or service-based product. Journalists usually don't write about things, they write about ideas.

You can describe events, workshops, and seminars easily.

It also works to describe services, even when the recipient doesn't understand the service. For example, if you are a freelance IT network installer, most of your clients are baffled by jargon, but you can make them understand what you do, why they need it, how long it will take, and what is the value.

The Sensual Copywriter

Note, it says sensual, not sexual. That's an entirely different type of copywriting.

Use your senses to describe your product.

How does it taste?
How does it smell?
How does it feel?
What does it sound like?
What does it look like?

For physical products, the results may surprise you.

I used to sell mudflaps with NASCAR logos. In the description I talked about how your truck would look great as you roll into the parking lot at the track. I described the smell of rubber, which to a NASCAR fan, is a very distinctive smell. By the end of the race it permeates your clothes and hair.

While mudflaps don't have a particular smell, describing that scent creates a mental picture for my target customers.

Great sales writing doesn't necessarily describe your product or service. Frequently, it describes the buyer's experience while using that product or service.

Whether you go sensual or factual, these two techniques should get you started on unique and original sales copy.

photo credit: Three Monkeys - Vishal K. Bharadwaj, allvishal.com

Web design tools: Mockingbird Wireframes

2011-04-13T12:21:00.000-04:00

I haven't needed to spec out a website for the past couple of years, but I'd wish I'd had Mockingbird then.

Web designers and application designers should definitely check out Mockingbird for wireframe development. Essentially, it's an online tool for sharing basic layout.

I played with the free version a little bit. The free plan allows you to create one project with up to 10 pages. It's really a test drive more than a free plan.

Prices range from $9-$85 monthly, depending on the number of active projects you need. With all of their paid plans you can use unlimited collaborators and archive an unlimited number of projects.

Another reason I like Mockingbird is that they only charge you based on usage. If you have no active projects, you aren't billed, which is a refreshing change from most web services. It's great for the small designer who is working independently on a project or two. Bigger design firms will have no problem paying the monthly fees, because again it's based on the number of clients. If you can't squeeze $40 across 25 clients, you aren't doing something right.

When you're done with the project, you can archive it. Need to do updates? Simply move it out of the archive to the active projects again. Just don't forget to archive them when you're finished because you're billed based on active projects.

Like I said, I've just briefly played with Mockingbird, but it seems like a useful development tool. If you have more experience, positive or negative, with wireframe development, please let us know in the comments. Also, let me know if you run across another tool that's different or better.

Blogger Buzz: What’s New With Blogger

2011-03-28T08:11:00.001-04:00

I use Blogger for this blog and a bunch of others.

I like it because of the simple user interface, and the dashboard allowing me to manage multiple blogs from one login.

In the past, Blogger was more of a trend follower than a trendsetter, however in 2010 we've seen a bunch of improvements including a far greater selection of templates.

I just watched this video from 2011 SXSW conference, and it looks like they have a new user interface that should finally make it competitive with WordPress for professional blogging.

Blogger Buzz: What’s New With Blogger

Glossary of Fundamental Marketing Terms

2011-03-18T16:37:00.002-04:00

I'm always surprised when I talk to clients how many business owners don't know some of the fundamentals of sales and marketing.

Here is a quick list of sales and marketing terminology and basic premises. If you're a business owner or entrepreneur you probably know most of them, but they are also fundamental that issues are one new item, it'll be worth your time.

The List -- The List is a throwback term to the days when direct mail marketing was a cornerstone. Every good direct mail company had lists. These lists were highly prioritized. Companies purchased general mailing lists, but also accept customer lists and "hot lists" that contained names of frequent repeat customers. Today, the mailing lists are less important because more people are using e-mail. It's still a good idea to keep a hot list for direct-mail purposes, but for e-mail the list is simply an opt-in list of e-mail subscribers. It doesn't cost any more to send e-mail to dead addresses than live ones, so you're less concerned about percentages and more concerned about quantity.

List building -- This is going to be complicated. It's the process of building your list! Okay, it's not complicated but it is immensely important. Direct mail and e-mail lists degrade over time. Additionally, your listing goes stale once your customers have purchased a number of products. You want to constantly be adding people to your lists. Make sure you have a distinct process for list building, and you'll want to track the costs associated with building.

Direct sales, or Outside Sales -- Direct selling is when you're meeting someone person to person. Even with Internet businesses, many of them rely on a direct sales strategy. Direct selling has two methods. One method is used by insurance companies, real estate, party-based MLM and others where you're selling direct to consumer. It also can be used in business-to-business selling if you're dealing with a business group that's geography-based rather than niche-based. Key account selling is the other method, and our next glossary term.

Key Account Sales -- This is a method of direct selling for business-to-business that's highly targeted. Each salesperson has a list of key accounts they service. The goal with this type of selling is large dollar value sales, or ongoing repeat customer sales. Manufacturers' key accounts would be distributors or retailers. Raw material key accounts would be manufacturers. Other examples would be pharmaceutical sales, consulting firms, IT companies and office suppliers. Key account sales can be Outside or Inside Sales.

Inside Sales -- Similar to direct selling, but the primary techniques are telephone and e-mail rather than traveling by car or airplane. Inside sales is actually growing considerably because more and more companies are relying on web-based technologies to hold meetings. Many web-based companies have solid inside sales forces as well. Dell Computer would be a good example of a company that uses its website and inside sales staff to sell to the consumers. Other companies such as CDW have sales people who manage corporate accounts. Inside sales has three primary methods; outgoing sales or telemarketing, incoming sales such as customer service reps for utilities or online retail, and key account which is a blend of the two but more targeted.

Telemarketing -- Everyone knows the definition of telemarketing, it's the people you cuss out when they call you at dinnertime. With do-not-call lists, direct to consumer telemarketing has declined, however telemarketing is still a solid strategy for business-to-business marketing. The key is having an organized campaign. Create prospect lists, then funnel them through the sales process.

The Funnel -- The Funnel is the process of narrowing prospects, down to hot prospects, down to customers, and down to repeat customers. The process is critical. The concept of the funnel is to have a clearly defined process with measurable results. How many prospects or leads to you have to drop in your final to yield X number of new customers? How can you refine the process to improve those ratios?

ROI -- Return on Investment (ROI) is the expected number of sales you get for each dollar that you spend marketing. When companies want to increase sales, they use this number to determine how much additional money to spend marketing. Then, after a marketing campaign, they gauge its effectiveness based on the adjusted ROI number. Effectively tracking ROI can be complex, however inevitably it separates the rapid growth companies from the rest. Rapid growth companies are able to grow because they are investing huge quantities of money marketing based on predictable results.

Call to Action -- Every sales pitch requires a call to action, whether it's an eBay auction, or a multimillion dollar presentation. Every marketing technique for campaign needs to have a very specific action they want the audience to take. Sometimes it's "buy now" but other times it could be "subscribe to our newsletter" or "sign-up for a free trial". When tracking you want to clearly define each marketing campaigns call, then base ROI numbers on the number who answer the call.

PPC -- Pay-per-Click is a type of online advertising where you pay the publisher based on the number of clicks you get to your website. AdWords and Facebook both utilize this type of advertising.

PPI or PPM -- Pay-per-Impression marketing is where you pay each time your ad is shown, regardless of whether the customer clicks your ad. (PPM stands for Pay-per-Mil, or 1000 impressions.) This is most often used with banner advertising.

CPC or CPM -- These two terms are Cost-per-Click or Cost-per-Mil. This is a rate the advertiser charges. So PPC is the method, while CPC is the expense associated with the method.

Pay per Lead -- A more advanced pay-per-click style of marketing is where the potential customer visits your website from an advertiser's website and take some action, such as filling out a form or signing up for a newsletter.

Affiliate Sales -- Affiliate sales is wary publisher or list owner promotes your website or product without cost, however they earn a commission or the finder fee for each sale.

Spam -- Everyone thinks they know what spam is, but it's a term that is often misused. Some people call any form of advertising spam. In fact, the term refers to unsolicited advertisement. The term spam only applies to e-mail. Whether you want to see advertisements or not, visiting a website and seeing ads isn't spam. Some message boards, such as the community boards on craigslist, do not tolerate promotional messages. Frequently these are incorrectly referred to as spam.

CAN-Spam Act -- This is a California law that has become the accepted practice for e-mail promotion. Residents of California were happy with the federal law passed, so they passed a stricter code. The basics of the law requires that you have consent, implicit or explicit, before e-mailing someone with a promotion. The law also requires that the individual be able to opt out a future mailings. Finally, the law requires that each promotional e-mail include the physical address of the company during the promotion. This is a very general overview. If you plan to do e-mail marketing you will need to know more about this law. There have been few prosecutions so far, but the penalties are extreme.

I hope this gives you a little more information.

Please add additional marketing related words in the comments section below, as I know this is far from a comprehensive list.

Photo courtesy of Elektra Grey Photography

How to Juggle Priorities

2011-02-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

Juggling Three Priorities: Start with two priorities in one hand. If you're right-handed use that one, if you are a lefty, begin left-handed. Keep the remaining priority in the other hand.

Start by throwing the priority in the front of your right hand in an arc to your left hand. We were called this priority #1.
When priority #1 reaches the highest point, toss priority #2 (in your left hand) in an arc to your right hand. Catch priority #1 in your left hand.
When priority #2 reaches its maximum height, toss priority #3 (in your right hand) and arc to your left hand and catch priority #2.
Repeat this process. Try not to drop any of your priorities.

Please see the graph below.

You may have noticed a striking similarity between juggling priorities and juggling balls. Truth be told, they are more similar than one would expect.

Don't start with too many priorities. When learning to juggle objects, they teach us to start with just two, progress to three, and only attempt more when you've mastered three. Even the best jugglers in the world can only manage between seven and nine objects, and every one of them started with just a handful.

Concentrate intently on a single priority. As with juggling objects, the key is staying focused on just one of them. The other two are well in hand.

Transition from one priority to another smoothly. As with juggling objects, the key to success is the toss. A smooth transition between tossing one and catching another is critical.
Practice. Unfortunately, reading this article won't teach you how to juggle priorities or bean bags. Only practice teaches us this. Practice tossing catching, and if you drop one, pick it up and try again.

Focus on the pattern. With juggling it's not about being able to toss and catch expertly. The key with juggling is consistency. Work the pattern, or in the case of priorities, work the process until it becomes mechanical.

As your company grows, and you add more priorities to the mix, it becomes more difficult exponentially. Make sure you've mastered your current level of growth before moving forward.

What do NASCAR and Ben Franklin have in common?

2011-02-23T11:19:00.000-05:00

The young entrepreneur came to Benjamin Franklin and asked him for some startup capital. Ben, by this time, was a wealthy and successful business person. He agreed to "lend" the money, $1000, a very substantial sum in the 1700s. His condition was that the young entrepreneur pass it on. He knew that someday if this entrepreneur was successful, someone would come to him.

You don't have to be a fan of NASCAR to know the Daytona 500 is one of the premier auto races in the world. For the past 53 years winners' names have become synonymous with speed; Mario Andretti, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon among others.

Sunday a new name was added to the list. This one, however was different. You've probably never heard of Trevor Bayne. Saturday he celebrated his 20th birthday, and Sunday he became the youngest driver in history to win the Daytona 500.

In just the second race of his career, he made history, and became an instant millionaire in the process.

How did he do it? He simply took great advice from the best. His car owners are venerable names in auto racing, the Wood Brothers. The Wood Brothers have won the Daytona 500 with four different drivers. The last time they won Daytona was 1976, 15 years before young Trevor Bayne was born. Jeff Gordon admired the kid and took him under his wing. For the first lap of the race, the two cars worked together, until an accident eliminated Jeff from contention. During the second half of the race, rather than tag along with another veteran, Trevor Bayne seeked out his peers. He worked with another young driver named David Ragan, eventually pushing David to the front. With six laps to go, a penalty forced David Ragan to the back. Trevor was in the lead.

The television announcer noted that Trevor front bumper was undamaged in a race that saw 16 separate accidents, one of which involved 17 cars.

With two laps to go, under a caution flag, Trevor's spotter gave him words of advice. In auto racing a spotter sits on top of the bleachers with binoculars and a radio. They give driver's perspective from an eye in the sky. They keep them focused on the big picture and let them know about oncoming threats beyond the driver's vision. Trevor's spotter gave him words of encouragement and information about the drivers behind him.

I don't recall the spotter's words, but I do remember Trevor's response vividly. A simple "Yes, Sir" spoken unquestioningly and with clear respect.

So what does this have to do with you?

If your business has yet to achieve the top levels of success, you can learn from Trevor Bayne.

Dream big
Study the veterans
Follow the best
Keep your nose clean
Demonstrate respect
Be humble
Go for it when the time is right

If you an experienced successful veteran, yesterday's race has lessons for you as well.

The Wood Brothers looked for young talent to reignite their own success.
Jeff Gordon mentored a competitor, knowing both would benefit from the experience.
David Ragan worked with a peer and drove to the front.
Finally, an unknown spotter quietly guided Trevor toward the big picture and kept him out of danger, ultimately sharing in the success.

Going forward in your career remembered to learn from the best. I've had many mentors over the years, and I continue to learn daily. I know that my business is only as good as I am, so I'm not growing personally, I'm not growing the business either.

Trust in the advice of people who have been there.

And, finally, help groom the next generation of young entrepreneurs. I remember hearing a story, I'm unsure if it's true but I choose to believe it.

Benjamin Franklin knew that what was making a young America great was the desire to pass it on the wealth; knowledge, experience, trust, money and much more. It's still true today. We have the most money in the world. We have the most freedom in the world. We have the best opportunities in the world. All of this was created because originally we had the most generosity in the world. I'm convinced that the more you give, the more you receive.

Cooperative Direct Mail Marketing for Small Business

2011-01-26T14:34:00.001-05:00

Direct mail is dead... or so people thought. A decade ago companies invested millions in direct mail marketing. As those same companies shifted toward the Web, It looked like direct mail was dead. After all, who would spend $2-$3 per contact when you could e-mail the same person for two or three cents.

However, times have changed. Today when you go to the mailbox instead of a handful of bills and a giant stack of advertisements, you'll find catalogs, birthday cards, and more pieces of mail you enjoy. Even your telephone bill, mortgage and credit card statement are all deliverable online. The mailbox is a much happier place today.

Because your direct mail piece may be one of two instead of one of 20, direct mail is more effective than ever.

Furthermore, the cost of printing, particularly digital printing has come way down. The actual components of your direct mail piece are cheaper now than ever. Finally, fulfillment is cheaper too. Rather than return postage or having operators standing by, your direct mail piece can now drive people to your website. These potential buyers may never have seen you site otherwise.

Even with all those savings, small businesses struggle to justify the expense of a direct-mail campaign. Direct mail isn't for everyone, but here are the factors you should examine.

Frequency -- One of the cardinal rules of direct mail is frequency. We know that a typical consumer doesn't respond until they've seen a mailing piece from a particular company at least three times. It's far better to mail three postcards to 1000 potential customers than one postcard to 3000 potential customers. I recommend my clients try at least three direct mail attempts separated by three or four weeks each before making any judgments about return on investment. Furthermore, for those that see results, I recommend the 12 piece campaign over roughly 6 months.

Professionalism -- Let your market dictate the quality of your mailing piece. Someone promoting handyman services in a small residential area may be able to get away with an inkjet printed flyer. A restaurant should pepper the area with postcards or coupons. A financial services planner needs to look high-class to attract high-class clients. The senior portrait photographer better have lots of high quality photos.

Uniqueness -- Find balance between being unique and being cost effective. Something as simple as a die cut postcard can improve your uniqueness without adding lots of expense.

Recycle -- Today whenever you print marketing materials consider multiple outlets. Can this brochure be mailed, display the other local businesses, included with your product, and used in place of a business card? Create mailing pieces that can be used in more than one place and you can improve the overall benefit compared to the cost of printing.

Smaller Is Better -- When experimenting with direct mail, it's tempting to purchase 5000 brochures instead of 1000 because of the cost per piece. When examining costs look at production, distribution, and breakeven points. Don't print 5000 postcards if you can't afford 5000 stamps too. How many units must you sell a particular product to cover the cost of promotion? Remember, the most expensive printed piece is the one you bought but no one ever saw. Make sure you don't have stacks of old brochures collecting dust or heading to the recycling bin. Once you have a tried and true marketing campaign, then you can multiply the effect by repeating the campaign to a new audience.

The List -- Do you still keep a mailing list of your customers? Is it up-to-date? The only thing worse than than a mailing piece you can't afford to send, is sending it, and having it returned. Your best potential or current customers able to buy more product. Keep your list and keep it clean as possible. Every time you get a postcard or envelope returned, make sure you clean your list. If you don't own a list, there are many for sale, but as you start making sales don't depend on list brokers. Every time you make a sale make sure that your customers continue to get your direct mail pieces.

Cooperative direct mail marketing can be an extremely powerful tool when done correctly.

Often the most expensive cost is postage. Split the cost among half a dozen non-competitive businesses who need to reach the same audience. There are lots of things that new mommies need to buy. Purchase a list and postage, and share it with other companies who need to reach new mothers. Senior citizens, small businesses, and high income individuals are just a few more examples of consumers who buy a variety of goods and services.

By connecting with other businesses who serve your niche, you can increase the impact of your direct mail campaigns while reducing the cost per piece. This is particularly true if each of these companies brings lists of their customers to the table. This kind of information sharing legally can't happen by e-mail, but there's no reason not to exchange postal addresses.

If you like more information about our cooperative mailing opportunities, call Jason Tweed at 215-253-3737 or contact me through my website, www.tweednet.com.

Create E-Mail Subject Lines That Sell: 12 Do's and Don'ts

2011-01-24T13:06:00.000-05:00

The truth is, the best e-mail subject line in the world never sold anything. Marketing by e-mail is never successful because of the subject line. However, a poorly done subject line is a barrier to successful e-mail campaign. The only object of your e-mail subject line is to encourage potential customers to open the e-mail.

I'm talking not only about mass e-mails, but also personal e-mails to potential or existing clients. We are lumping them together, because generally the same rules apply, however it may be impossible to use some of these techniques in mass e-mail campaigns, and it also may be inappropriate to do some of them for individual e-mails.

Here are a few do's and don'ts when it comes to creating e-mail subject lines that improve your marketing.

Do Address a Problem: Often we tend to use our product as the subject line. However, for many products, people aren't as interested in the product name as in the solution. If you're selling consumer photo software, which is better, "Buy Photo-Xtreme 3.0 today" or "Simple software to edit, crop, resize, and upload your photos". The second subject line may get fewer opens than other options, but the people who open it will be much more likely to buy than the average consumer.

Do Number Your Newsletters: If you write a regular newsletter, particularly one that's archived, number them in the subject line. Frequent readers will often be your best customers. By numbering it tells frequent readers if they've missed an issue. While you want to use numbers, don't use them exclusively. "Tea Drinkers News, issue #17" won't be as effective as "TDN #17: Green tea is high in antioxidants". Numbering makes them sortable, but you still need a subject line to encourage non-regular readers to check it out.

Do Use Numbers: Read magazine covers and you're frequently see "8 Tips for...", "The Top 10 Best...", or "122 Reasons Why...". The same headlines that get people to open a magazine will get them to open your e-mail. Make sure, however, that you deliver.

Do Personalize: When you're sending personal e-mails for relationship building, use the subject line. "Susan, thank you for your help Tuesday." or "Thanks for your call, Marianne." or "Congratulations again, Bob, on your promotion." Often the body of your e-mail may have standardized text, but personalizing the subject line makes it appear as though the entire e-mail was personal.

Don't Abbrevi8 Ur Subs: Using abbreviations or "text-speak" looks unprofessional. No one will think poorly of you for using complete words and well structured sentences. Some will, however, be turned off by abbreviations. Eliminate them when possible from your subject line, and reduce use in the body of your e-mails.

Do Use Keywords Early: Unlike text messages or Twitter posts, there is no static amount of characters that are acceptable. Depending on their web browser or e-mail program, different individuals see different amounts of the subject line. If you have words that must be conveyed, place them early in the subject. Eliminate junk words (the, that, an, however, etc.) that don't add much meeting whenever possible, especially at the beginning of your subject line. A good rule of thumb is to assume that your reader will see the first five words.

Don't Use Common Spamming Words: Some words will trigger automatic spam filters. Words like "free", "sale", and phrases like "Order Today" may be flagged. Not only do you want to eliminate them from your subject lines altogether, you also want to limit their use in the body of the e-mail. Spam filters read both.

Do Include the Recipient Name: My name is Jason. As I'm scanning my e-mail, my eye stops on my name almost invariably. This is quite common. We see our own name very frequently, and it catches our eye.

Don't Use Only the Recipients Name: Some spammers use only the recipients name. The theory here is that I will see it and be interested enough to open it. Unfortunately, it works. However, we don't want to get opens exclusively. We want sales. Tricking your recipient will often backfire.

Don't Be Tricky: Successful sales require credibility. Even if you have a good product, your credibility may suffer if you try to trick your recipients. Other tricky techniques include using a shocking or completely different subject line. "Naked Photos of Angelina Jolie" might generate opens, but unless that's what you're selling, it probably won't increase sales.

Do Be Intriguing: Intriguing is different than tricky. The subject line: "What does a new mattress have in common with two-year-old quadruplets?" On the inside: "You look forward to both at nap time!" This works if you are selling mattresses. The key is to be intriguing, but stay on topic.

Do Use Humor: if someone's laughing before they ever open your e-mail, there probably far more likely to buy. Again, stay on topic, but silly or funny remarks may capture the interest of your readers.

Creating a solid subject line is critical to any email marketing campaign, large or small.

Marketing for Small Business Via Twitter

2010-08-27T14:07:00.000-04:00

Okay, everybody in the world is on Twitter, or they think they should be. Truth be told, Twitter can be a powerful marketing engine or colossal waste of time. As with all social network marketing, doing it right means learning solid technique and return on investment (ROI) is measured in time spent rather than marketing dollars.

There's lots of techniques that tell you how to get huge lists of followers on Twitter. There is even software that auto follows Twitter users, and those who don't reciprocate are automatically deleted after a day or two to prevent Twitter from shutting you down. (Twitter has an algorithm that assumes you only follow a certain percentage higher than those who follow you.)

My experience with the software robots is that you end up with a massive list of other people who have software robots. If you want to impress people with huge numbers of followers, go for it. If you actually want to make money... you may want to try focusing on quality rather than quantity.

One of my companies created a viral message that turned 31 followers into 2100 orders in 90 minutes!

The Kungaloosh Gourmet Tea Company is a big part of my million dollar project. Over the past year we created some infrastructure to buy and sell tea over the Internet. We've done a couple of events to promote the company and gather some first customers. Our total customer base was 1400 people. We had an opt in mailing list of 1100.

Our Twitter following, however, was embarrassing. Approximately 2 dozen people had signed themselves up from our website. Our Facebook page had done a little better with about 280 "likes".

We decided to do a free giveaway. Unfortunately, I wasn't eager to give away tea to my current customer list. I wanted new customers. I went through our Facebook fans and made a list of those that have rather large following. I sent them a personal message through Facebook telling them about the promotion and asking them to help. Then I told them "this thing is going to launch like a rocket, so make sure you get your freebie order placed before you repost it." In a sense, I created an air of accountability. In these personal messages I had given them access to a secret free samples page not available on our website. They got a free sample, and felt compelled to share it.

Over the next 24 hours we got about 200 orders, about half of which were from existing customers and the other half were new people.

That's when we hit critical mass. Our offer got picked up by a couple blogs that try to find freebies on the Internet. Most of these blogs use Twitter to promote their posts. Furthermore, they all read each other's blogs and steal free offers.

Within minutes we doubled to 400 orders, within 90 minutes we had 1800 and had to cancel the free promotion because of the cost of shipping. Rather than stop the promotion completely, we simply slowed down the momentum. We still offered the product for free, but now we were charging $1.99 shipping. We still got over 300 orders at this price within the next few hours.

At the end of the day we were able to add 1794 NEW microphone names to our e-mail roster. We started packing shipments simultaneously while marketing to this new group. Our mailing list grew from 1100 to just shy of 3000 in 24 hours. Furthermore, these are customers. Even though we gave them something for free, they had tried our product. It's always easier to sell to a customers then to a prospect.

The irony is that our twitter list is still only 41 followers. The difference, however is that most of his followers are eager and willing to pass our message along.

eBay Sued for $3.8 Billion - TheStreet

2010-07-22T13:30:00.000-04:00

EBay bought PayPal. This article is confusing and poorly done. Sounds like a PR stunt to me.

eBay Sued for $3.8 Billion - TheStreet

Search Engine Market Share for top five search engines in the US

2010-07-14T11:15:00.000-04:00

There were more than 16 billion searches in the month of June 2010 in the US alone. In the era of social media, search engines are still alive and well. Five companies share these searches, and the revenue associated with them. Google is still far and away the leader, and Microsoft and Yahoo continue to chip away slowly.

What do the numbers mean?

The first thing is the vast number of searches, up about 3% from May. 16.4 billion searches in a single month is a massive number which simply means that any marketing plan for any company should include Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing as a critical component.

Google is #1

When optimizing your website for organic searches, Google is still far and away the most important. Getting an article on the front page of Google is absolutely essential for organic traffic. They still dominate the market contrary to press out of Redmond Washington.

Don't ignore Ask and AOL

At 2.2% AOL's market share may seem miniscule, however 2.2% means that 360 million searches are still done on AOL sites. There is still massive potential for organic and paid search listings on Ask and AOL. For the small marketeer you may be able to buy pay per click advertising at lower bid prices on these tier three search engines. For the large brand marketer, it's still essential to create a presence on all five search engines. Make sure one of your competitors isn't stealing your brand on tier 2 and 3 searches.

Do we ignore everyone else?

I get promotions daily from organizations claiming they can give me prominent placement on lesser search engines. The fact is that outside of these five less than 0.005% of searches conducted in the US use all other search engines combined. If your primary market is US customers you are safe to ignore everyone except the big five. Even for brand marketers these alternative search engines are useless in terms of time and money expenditures.

Beginner’s Guide to Link Metrics and Page Rank

2010-04-13T08:31:00.000-04:00

Today I ran across a good guide to page rank. It answers some of the most common questions I get from my clients. It also demonstrates the importance of quality over quantity when it comes to search engine optimization.

Beginner’s Guide to Link Metrics

Google Reports Third Quarter Earnings

2009-10-16T08:44:00.000-04:00

Yesturday Google announced their Q3 2009 earnings. Revenues were up 7% over Q3 last year, and total revenues were nearly 6 billion dollars.

So why am I mentioning this on a blog about earning money on the web? Well, this means that internet advertising revenue overall is likely on the increase. This is great news for publishers. Adsense revenues are on the rise.

Additionally, this means that as more people spend money advertising on Google, more companies will also be spending money elsewhere. As pay-per-click bids increase, some companies will find it too expensive to use for branding. Pay-per-click is ideal when trying to track conversions and ROI, but when trying to boost brand recognition, it can be expensive.

Hopefully your Adsense check will be a little larger each month, but take this opportunity to encourage more direct advertising on your websites. My company has seen significant growth in direct advertising and sponsorship so far this year.

Company Internet Policies: When Social Networking Goes Wrong

2009-08-20T11:09:00.000-04:00

Many business people know that social networking and social media can be a powerful addition to your marketing toolbox.

But what happens when social media goes wrong?

Your marketing team is trying to figure out how to best capitalize on the benefits of social interaction on the web, but your human resources team could be sweating.

Every member of your staff has access to social websites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter among the hundreds of others. This can benefit your company by extending your reach into these communities. However, your company can also be potentially damaged by negative spin or distribution of confidential information.

In healthcare and financial sectors we are also seeing issues surrounding privacy violations.

So how do you benefit from employee participation in social networks, without putting your company, and potentially your customers at risk?

One of the keys is to create and disseminate a very precise written policy regarding conduct on social networking sites. These policies should include both work and personal activities of your employees.

Your company Internet policies will vary, but here are some topics to consider as you're creating these policies.

Do you allow your employees to identify themselves as employees in their personal communications?
What is your policy surrounding derogatory comments regarding your organization or their position within the organization?
What information do your employees possess that should be considered confidential, proprietary, or private?
How should clients or customers be identified in these communications?
What are the consequences of policy violation? Repeat offenses?
Where can employees go if they have a question about a policy?
To what extent does your company have the right to censor employees?
What is your policy on using social media sites for job hunting or career change?
What personal conduct policies do you have in place, and how do they extend to the Internet?
How can your employees promote your brand without damaging it?
How does use of social media affect employee productivity?
Does employee social media participation for your company at legal risk?
How will you police violations of your social media policies?
How will you disseminate the policies to your employees?
What reaction will your customers have if they learn of your social media policies?
Do these communication policies extend beyond the Internet to telephone and other communication methods?

Turning your employees into a marketing engine by permitting online social interaction can be valuable, particularly if they are doing it on their own time. Make sure however that your employees know clearly the do's and don'ts.

Super Cheap, Super Green Marketing Technique

2009-07-29T15:53:00.000-04:00

We live in the information age. Information is currency. Information is value. Information demonstrates importance. Create informational one-sheets in PDF format. Have them easily accessible from your website. Send them as e-mail attachments. Print them and hand them out to people you meet. Next time small business is investing $3000, $5,000, or $10,000 in brochure printing, ask yourself how many pages of high-quality information that marketing money could produce, and how you could distribute that information.

What is a One-Sheet?

Put simply it's a single sheet of information printed one side on 8.5 x 11 paper. The goal is a One-Sheet is to promote one product or one idea. It can be a list, "Top 10 Ways to...". It can be persuasive, "25 Reasons You Should...". It can even be directly promoting a product, "Frequently Asked Questions about XYZ-Company.com."

The benefits of a One-Sheet:

Super cheap! Run them off on your inkjet printer. Get color photocopies printed on heavier or colored paper. Even four color printing on high gloss paper is inexpensive in this format.

Super focused! Because it's so inexpensive to do small runs, you can create custom one sheets for tiny audiences. You can even produce a custom One-Sheet for an individual customer.

Super green! A One-Sheet doesn't have to be a sheet at all. Create it as a PDF file and distribute it via e-mail, on your website, or tweet it over Twitter.

Super freebie! One-Sheets can be terrific giveaways and list building items. If your information is unique and has value to your audience, they will desire it enough to trade it for their contact information.

The pitfall of a One-Sheet:

Even very well done One-Sheets can look cheap. It isn't ideal for all products and services. It's a terrific supplement to your other marketing materials when it comes to high-end products. It's a great way to highlight extremely specialized products with small audiences. It's a great way to provide value to your customers at a low cost. With this said, don't make the mistake of swapping out your high-quality marketing pieces with a One-Sheet. Your customers recognize the time and energy and money you invest in marketing. They recognize that that investment is an investment in them.

Recently I did a little bit of window shopping at a Porsche dealership. I called just to learn about pricing and using my telephone to kick the tires. Even though I wasn't a hot prospect, the salesperson sent me three high-quality color books describing minutia every detail of three models of Porsche. I didn't buy, but had I had the money and needed a sports car I would have certainly looked into the automobiles further.

The point is that had the dealer sent me three sheets of paper, even on high-quality glossy stock, they would not have represented well the automobile I was considering. One sheets would not have sold me a Porsche.

Had I purchased a Porsche and needed a roof rack for my surfboard (okay, this story is getting ridiculous) a One-Sheet definitely could have described the roof rack in plenty of detail to encourage me to buy.

One sheets can be a valuable asset to your marketing mix if used appropriately.

Search Engine Optimization for Microsoft Bing

2009-07-11T11:30:00.001-04:00

It's still fairly early, but were starting to learn a little bit about SEO for Bing.

I've been playing with Microsoft's search engine, and so far I like what I see. Search results have been pretty high-quality, although honestly I haven't really put it to the test. Most of my websites are ranked roughly the same as they were using Google organically.

I've also been reading about the experiences of other top-level SEOs that I respect.

Generally, here's what we have discovered.

Content Continues to Be King -- You must have great content. This is critical with any search engine. High quality content and lots of it, and having that content well-organized, is critical to your success.

Keyword Placement -- Keep your keywords in all the right places. Page titles, headline tags and linked text are most important. It seems to me that bold print and italicized text don't earn you the respect they do in Google.

Inbound Links -- One significant difference seems to be inbound linking. It seems to be critically important that authoritative sites link to you. Google seems to favor quantity, while Bing looks for a nice mix of quality and quantity. Google has been trending this way gradually, and Bing seems to have taken it further.

Validation -- The value of validation of your code is undetermined however Microsoft explicitly recommends it. Ironically, Microsoft was dragged kicking and screaming into the W3C. For years the biggest frustration with Web developers was the IE 6 didn't use standard protocols. IE 7 finally embraced website standards, and now it seems Bing may actually prefer sites that are validated. Try to get rid of broken links and redirects whenever possible.

Standard HTML -- Microsoft recommends static HTML pages rather than dynamic URLs. This could be a big hurt to companies that use a CMS to manage their websites and generate PHP or ASP pages. This doesn't surprise me considering Microsoft's failure to embrace PHP in general.

I'm still a huge fan of Google as a company, and I still am wary of anything Microsoft. However, I do think that competition is good in the realm of search engines. It's going to force Google to continue to develop their product. I would like to see two or three major companies and a handful of smaller companies with real competition for search engine users. It's going to give website developers more opportunities, and marketers more choices in advertising.

Furthermore having strong search engine results means that it will stave off Web 2.0 as the dominant factor in quality traffic. It's important to have a nice mix of social networks, advertising, social media and search engines each contributing traffic to your website.

Seven Reasons I'm Not Following Your Twitter Feed

2009-07-10T16:44:00.000-04:00

I have a few hundred followers on Twitter now. Every day I get eight or 10 people who decide to follow me. I take a look at each and every account of someone who follows me and here's how I decide whom to follow.

Basically, I'll Twitter follow anyone except people who...

Don't upload a picture -- it doesn't even have to be a photo of you. I just want to see something there to trigger my brain when your post wanders by. Get rid of the default avatar on the first day you sign up for Twitter.

Don't update their feed -- To the voyeurs among you who follow bunches but don't post, I'm not going to follow you in hopes that you will pick up the pace later.

Have a link in every Tweet -- Some of you love to repost stuff you find on the Internet. That's great, I love finding a new link, but if that's all you have I probably won't follow you. If every link is selling something, I definitely won't follow you. Give me some variety please.

Have no profile -- Take 10 seconds to update your profile and tell me a little bit about yourself.

Have an Uber profile -- So, you're the world's greatest social network marketing guru ever, huh? Then why do you only have 132 followers and no blog. Don't try to impress me, just tell me what you do or how you do it.

Are boring -- You followed all the rules. You have a picture, and honest profile and you don't spam tweet for a living. So far, so good. Unfortunately, your profile shows heavy interest in Renaissance era French literature and macramé. Your tweets are mostly about your large collection of ceramic frogs. While these things are fascinating to you, I find you very boring and won't follow you. No offense, best wishes.

Twitter is a great tool for quick communication with lots of people. People can get to know your personality, and you can sometimes persuade them to make a purchase. I'm convinced that Twitter has a significant place in every online marketers repertoire.

Cheap Blog Hosting for multiple blogs

2009-06-11T08:06:00.002-04:00

I'm expanding my repertoire of blogs. I'll post the links here as soon as they're ready, but I wanted to share two ideas for extremely cheap blog hosting when you use multiple blogs.

Here's what you need... a GoDaddy account and a Google account

The first form of cheap blog hosting is through Blogger, owned by Google. It's actually free, and you can use your own domain if you wish. Your only expense will be about $10 a year for your domain name. I used to find it far preferable to use a hosted domain, even with blogger. I would purchase through GoDaddy the statistics package, cheap monthly hosting, and get a discount on the first year for the domain. But now with Google analytics you no longer need the statistics package, and the newest version of blogger works better when hosted remotely.

The second form of cheap blog hosting comes from GoDaddy. Don't buy their economy hosting unless you only have one blog. Economy hosting only works with one domain. It's less than $5 a month, or with discounts about $58 a year including your domain. This may not seem like much but what if your hosting 100 blogs? Not only are you going to be paying $5,800 per year, but you're also going to have to take the time to analyze each blog and make sure it is earning at least $58.

Instead, look at one of the deluxe plans on GoDaddy. The benefit here is that you are purchasing space rather than hosting for one website. These deluxe plans are far more inexpensive ways to host your blogs.

I actually recommend purchasing two plans if you carry many blogs. Some of your blogs won't be worth your time to constantly update, but will get some traffic from search engines. Put all of the blogs that are getting updated into one account, that way you always have a good idea of how much bandwidth and space you're using. Put your regular blogs into the other account.

Their midrange blog hosting accounts are less than $80 annually, but you'll save money even if you only have two blogs.

Another advantage to GoDaddy hosting is that you can install WordPress automatically. Some people, with good reason, prefer WordPress. While not as inexpensive as blogger, it is cheap WordPress hosting.

You can still use Google analytics to check statistics, so you don't need to purchase the statistics package through GoDaddy.

Ultimately, your goal is to make your blogging highly profitable, then getting your Web hosting for free or on the cheap is not necessary, but if you're hosting many blogs the savings are large enough to really matter.