The Profitable Web

Web marketing for dental clinics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 16:12:00 +0000

This blog started in September 2010. I found the time and energy to write 30 articles. However, for the last two and a half years, I have been concentrating my consulting business in the dental clinic industry (dentists, orthodontists and denturists). This has kept me very busy and I am unable to continue producing valuable content for this blog.

Should you speak French and have an interest in web strategy, you may find www.marcpoulin.ca interesting. It is now closed but it has 91 articles.

If you are interested in Web marketing for dental clinics, please visit my new website at www.MarketingCliniqueDentaire.com.

Facebook or Google plus for a local business?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 01:17:00 +0000

A local business serves customers in a limited territory. For example, think of florists, plumbers, optometrists, dentists, restaurants, notaries, etc. For these businesses, is it preferable to use Facebook or Google Plus?
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Best content of 2010 for website owners

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:36:00 +0000

The blog format favours recent content and older posts almost disappear. Tag clouds only compensate partially. I decided to revive my 2010 posts that are most useful to website owners. Here they are:

May your reading be profitable ;-D

What is Web Marketing ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:58:00 +0000

When people ask me what I do, I say web marketing. To most people, this does not mean much. So friends, family and customers, here is my attempt to explain what I do in life, assuming that spending so much time in front of a computer can be considered a life ;-D

I use the expression “Web Marketing” to describe the use of the web for the promotion of products and services. The mission of Web marketing is to increase revenue by acquiring additional customers and by increasing sales to existing ones. It is done by the careful selection of investments in the components of the web marketing mix.

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Should you Buy Facebook Shares?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:25:00 +0000

Websites are investments. With a good web strategy and proper execution, you will have a decent return on investment. The stock market is another way to invest your savings.

When Google (Goog) entered the stock market in 2004 at $85/share, I thought the earnings growth predicted was ridiculous and stayed on the sideline. I was wrong. Google had a solid business model and was creating value for its customers. Now the price for Google shares is around $600 and the price / earnings (P/E) ratio is around 19. I think the outlook is great and I recently bought a few shares.

Now that Facebook stock (FB) is available, what should I do? The stock was issued at $38 and is now trading at $31, after a few days, with a P/E around 70.

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Google AdWords Certified Partner

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:29:00 +0000

In 2011, I came to realize that ads on the Google search and display networks were quite cost effective in bringing qualified leads to a website. So I started to study Google AdWords and to read books about it.

I was encouraged by my friend Jonathan Villiard, an SEO and AdWords specialist, to obtain my certification. I followed his advice and early this year, I passed both the Google AdWords Fundamentals Exam and the Search Advertising Advanced Exam.

Passing the two Google exams made me an AdWords Qualified Individual but that was not enough for partner status. I had to manage over $10,000 of advertising in 60 days. I did and received this morning an email confirming my status as a Google AdWords Certified Partner.

Google Adwords Advertising – A Primer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:16:00 +0000

In the last quarter of 2011, Google generated more than 10 billion dollars of income. Think of it as $20,000.00 every minute. Most of it is for web advertising from companies small and large.

This post is a primer on the Google AdWords advertising platform. The goal is not to convince you to buy Google shares, something I am considering, but rather to explain how Google advertising works. This way, you will be in a better position to determine if it is an appropriate tactic to bring good leads to your website.

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Web skills required to develop a great website

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:35:00 +0000

In the golden days of programming, life was relatively easy. The development of applications was for mainframes or mini-computers and required a limited set of skills. Those days are over. Today's web environment, although very rich in terms of capabilities, is extremely complex and required a very long list of skills.

This means that you cannot expect to have a great website if it is built by a couple of guys who do everything.
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Website maturity model

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:11:00 +0000

Some websites are hopeless, some are OK and some are great. How’s yours?

If you google "Maturity Models", you will see that there are many such models. At the top of my result page is the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) by Carnegie Mellon University. Further down is Gartner's IT infrastructure and operations maturity model. Not to be outdone by such small organizations, I have come up with my own maturity model for websites.
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The CMS trap and how to avoid it

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:52:00 +0000

Practically every website built in the last few years includes a CMS (Content Management System). This functionality allows website owners to update themselves the content on their website. It is fantastic because it removes the dependency on the webmaster, the IT guy or the agency.

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Mobile and E-Commerce Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:19:00 +0000

The use of smart phones and other mobile devices is increasing rapidly. In view of this general trend, what mobile strategy should you focus on for your e-commerce site? Would it be worth it for you to develop an iPhone app? Would a mobile site be better? Should all your products and services be available on a mobile device or just a few? These are some of the questions we will try to answer here.

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Google+ and Organizations

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

At the end of June 2011, Google launched its own social network, oddly named Google+ but also referred to as G+ and Google Plus. Within a month, 20 million profiles had been created, many by social media experts (yes there are a lot of those).

How should your organization respond to this new social network?
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Foursquare and Gowalla will disappear by the end of 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:22:00 +0000

In my French blog, I predicted the coming death of Foursquare and Gowalla by the end of 2014. Some of my friends who are experts in social networks disagreed. Of course, those guys have hundreds if not thousands of “friends” in multiple networks. To me, they are not what I call “ordinary” web users. They are geeks with the latest gadgets always on the lookout for new stuff.
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Is your website fast enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 May 2011 17:16:00 +0000

It is very hard to determine the response time of a website. If you measure it, the result will depend on the computer from which the measure is performed, on the page being accessed, on the hosting environment of the website and on a number of additional factors.

Why should you care? First of all, response time is important because web users are notoriously impatient. When a website is slow, they just go to the competition that is a click away. If you are paying ads and banners to bring traffic to your website, you are throwing money out the windows with your slow website. Secondly, since April 2010, the website response time is a factor in Google’s search result rankings.

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In-Store Pickup Option on E-Commerce Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:05:00 +0000

The Achilles’ heel of E-Commerce has always been the delivery part. Customers don’t want to pay for delivery and they want to start enjoying their new purchase right away. That’s why they go to online shopping sites that provide the option of in-store pickup. Large American chains including ToysRus, Sears, Walmart, Borders, Lowes and others believe that this feature gives them a competitive edge.
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Website Financial Value Map

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:56:00 +0000

Recently, I gave a conference on website strategy. In the process of defining the strategy, one must find how the website can contribute to the entire organizational strategy. For this, I have tools and one of them is the “Website Financial Value Map”. I use it in brainstorming sessions to identify areas where the website can create value by either growing the revenue or reducing the costs for the entire organization.

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Please Do Not Build My Website Like I Ask You

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:56:00 +0000

Are You Disappointed With Your Website?

Your website is not meeting your objectives. Your surveys say that customers do not like it. Your employees feel the same. Yet, it was redesigned at great expense just last year. Your web committee produced a three page report listing all your requirements. You sent a request for proposal (RFP) to four agencies and awarded the contract to a very respectable one. You did all that and nevertheless, your website is not a success. Why? Could it be that your agency developed your website exactly like you asked?
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Promoting your Facebook Fan Page From your Website

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:09:00 +0000

You finally created your Facebook fan page. Now is the time to get some fans. Your website is the perfect place to promote your Facebook presence. Strangely, it is rarely done well. If you are serious about acquiring fans, this blog post will help you bring website visitors to your Facebook page.
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Website Promotion 101

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:21:00 +0000

Some organizations have websites that are almost invisible. If you search for their names in Google, you will find them but you will not see their website address printed anywhere. Sometimes, the reason is valid: their website is so bad that they hope no one will see it. If that is not the case, why not let the world know that you have a website. There are numerous options to publicize a website and many hardly cost anything. This is what this post is about.
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Web Governance, Crucial to the Success of a Website

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 16:23:00 +0000

I read in the papers about the “Quebec Electronic Health Record” (EHR) project and I just cannot believe the cost and the time it takes to implement. In 2007, the Quebec provincial government spoke of an initial investment of 547 million dollars to computerize, by 2010, the entire Quebec health care network. I do not know how much has been invested so far but we're not even close to implementing this system.

The problem is surely not the technology which is well understood. The database required for the main functions is not particularly complex. The features are simple (input or data import and display). So why is it not already in place? I spoke with a former colleague who worked on the project and he told me that the problem is mostly in leadership. The project governance is simply unable to impose the changes required to implement the system.

This example made me think about the importance of governance in web investments.

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Recipe for Killing your e-Business

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:14:00 +0000

Desjardins, the largest financial institution in the province of Quebec, has a division selling Internet payment solutions. They just started a blog and asked me to contribute. The list of my posts will be at my profile page.

My first post there is the real story of an online entrepreneur who took a number of bad decisions that reduced drastically his chances to succeed. Read on for "The Recipe for Killing Your e-Business" and make sure you do not repeat the same mistakes.

Merry Holidays and have a profitable 2011.

Animation on the Homepage

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:56:00 +0000

In the bad old days of website design, you had to go through a splash page to reach the homepage. It was a wonderful opportunity for artistic directors to shine. However, users hated it. Eventually, website decision makers saw the light and splash pages have completely disappeared except in history books and ad agency websites.

The new plague is large image rotation on homepages. These take up more than half a laptop screen and rotate every few seconds. They are the new way for artistic directors to win awards. Unfortunately, they often reduce usability and contribute very little toward website objectives.

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Website Homepage Design

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:04:00 +0000

Everyone agrees on the importance of the website homepage. But did you know that designing the homepage is a lot like coaching the Montreal Canadian hockey team. Both have all their tiniest decisions scrutinized by the fans, the media and the owners. All these “stakeholders” want more of this, less of that, while having never managed a hockey team or designed a single web page.
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Website Value Map

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:08:00 +0000

This post was a first draft and has been replaced by: "Website Financial Value Map".

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3 Actions to Take When Launching your Redesigned Website

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:23:00 +0000

When a website is redesigned, the page addresses (URLs) usually change. This causes a lot of “Page not found” errors, also known as 404 errors. It also causes a lot of frustration amongst those attempting to reach your website.

To recover these visitors and keep a smile on their faces, 3 simple actions should be taken. Most web agencies know them. The best agencies implement them. Do you know in which group your agency belongs?
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