MarketingFactor.com

You DO judge a book by its cover!

Miguel Alvaerz

Your mom advised you against it. And yet, you still do it. We all do. Everyday. And what’s worse, we’ve all carried that flaw into our digital lives. Every time you visit a website and every time you check out an ebook that catches your interest. You judge it by its looks first… before even [...]

Black hat social marketing?

Miguel Alvaerz

This is precisely the kind of stuff that I wish did not exist (or at least that it’d be kept under wraps). Social marketing strategies so powerful that they put the average online marketer to shame. I’m talking about the shady tactics that a select few from the underground elite are using right now to [...]

SEO, Liberty & Justice For All

Miguel Alvaerz

As you may or may not already know, I’m a big fan of StomperNet (and quite often, they keep giving me reasons to be). The latest one being the review copy they sent me of their two new products: “Stomping the search engines 2.0” and “The net effect”… Both of which I’m going to review [...]

Join The Blog Boost Giveaway!

Miguel Alvaerz

The buzz has already started and people are dubbing this exciting giveaway “a blogger’s dream come true” and “an instant star-maker”. And with good reason… On September 20th, one incredibly lucky individual (plus 3 additonal winners) will receive thousands of dollars worth of the most coveted prizes a blogger could possibly desire. After talking with [...]

Stomping The Search Engines 2.0!

Miguel Alvaerz

I am absolutely thrilled. I just got an e-mail from Andy Jenkins over at StomperNet letting me know that I’m one of the select few who were chosen to review the spanking new “Stomping The Search Engines 2.0″ Version 1 of the course is what gave Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon their rockstar-status back in [...]

No more “read more”

Miguel Alvaerz

The “read more” tag is one of the most heavily used features in WordPress. However, very few bloggers actually take the time to customize it to their benefit. For the few blogging newbies reading this: the “read more” tag is a small snippet of code that you can use to show only excerpts of your [...]

The Kingspoint Project Review

Miguel Alvaerz

Who said you can’t buy SEO traffic? No, I’m not talking about PPC, I’m talking about real (natural search) visitors landing on your site directly from the search engine results pages… the kind that google and yahoo don’t sell. I recently got a promo e-mail from one of the web marketers I respect the most. [...]

Rest in peace, Randy Pausch

Miguel Alvaerz

I was saddened today by the news that professor Randy Pausch had finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer this Friday, July 25th 2008. Professor Pausch (Computer science, Carnegie Mellon University) became an internet sensation when after learning about his illness and being told he had between 3 and 6 months to live, he delivered [...]

The social “LOL” experiment!

Miguel Alvaerz

While surfing the web today, I came across what has to be the funniest social marketing campaign ever created. It is called “The Skype laughter chain” and it is pure genius. The entire social media campaign is based on the concept that laughter is contagious (even more so than a yawn)… And they prove it [...]

Eye candy (volume 2)

Miguel Alvaerz

In this second volume of the Eye Candy series, you will find five more eye-grabbing examples from my journey around the “beautiful web”. Take time to study the petite nuances that make these amazing designs stand out from the pack and figure out a way to implement them to your next design. Collective Idea: Sessions [...]

Trendy blogging for big traffic

Miguel Alvaerz

One of the quickest and easiest ways to get traffic to your blog is to actually write about stuff that people want to read. Yet, very few bloggers actually do it. If you blog about “what’s hot” in the on-going global conversation, there’s a bigger chance for your blog to be talked about as well. [...]

A sneaky trick to “go viral”

Miguel Alvaerz

Back in 1999, before all the rage about “online video” existed, the most popular thing people would share were pictures. Some of these photos and illustrations were the very first real-world examples of “going viral”. Then, in late 2000, a computer programmer and part-time DJ from Kansas called Jeffrey Ray Roberts took all the photos, [...]

Viral Marketing Basics

Miguel Alvaerz

“Going viral” is a buzz term used to describe the electronic version of word-of-mouth advertising. Therefore, “Viral marketing” is the act of promoting a product or service by different means that facilitate its viral growth online. A viral marketing campaign, however, is not easy to accomplish. It needs to be carefully planned and then executed [...]

Marketing with “Yahoo Answers”

Miguel Alvaerz

Did you know that Yahoo Answers is the #2 reference site on the internet? It’s right behind Wikipedia, and yet, it is often overlooked by most as part of an overall internet marketing plan. However, because of its high traffic, it deserves serious consideration. If you aren’t familiar with it, Yahoo Answers is a place [...]

The coolest keyboard ever!

Miguel Alvaerz

It’s called the “Optimus Maximus” keyboard. And even the cocky name falls short in describing the true coolness of this new keyboard by Russian design studio Art Lebedev. The optimus maximus is a true technological marvel. It features a tiny OLED screen on each key (yes, that’s a total of 113 tiny screens) that can [...]

Social proof: The key to success

Miguel Alvaerz

The only way to succeed with Web 2.0 marketing is by focusing all your efforts to just one clear and precise goal. And this is where most social marketers “get it wrong”. The goal of social marketing is not to generate sales directly from Squidoo, Facebook or YouTube; the goal is to generate something far [...]

Uber-profitable memberships

Miguel Alvaerz

“Attrition” is the most feared word among membership site owners. After all, the only way to keep a membership site alive is by billing customers month after month. If your members leave after just one or two months, you have no business. Period. Most membership site owners fight attrition on a regular basis. But there [...]

SEO: Top rankings guaranteed!

Miguel Alvaerz

Imagine yourself with a crystal ball that could magically predict your search engine positions, and told you the exact steps you need to take to reach the coveted #1 spot in Google, Yahoo, MSN and others. How much would you pay to have such powers? How much would you charge others to gaze into your [...]

Battle of the bloggers

Miguel Alvaerz

I’m talking about the Conn/Cow Controversy. Is it a publicity stunt? Is it a real competition? We’ll all find out sooner rather than later, but the fact remains that the resulting case study could turn out to be a very valuable lesson for new bloggers trying to learn how to make money online. It all [...]

Twitter Marketing 101

Miguel Alvaerz

In this first episode of Marketing Factor TV, I’ll show you the basics of how to use Twitter.com to market your website or blog. This video is an experiment: If the feedback is positive, I’ll try to publish videos like this one on a regular basis (on a whole bunch of interesting topics), so please [...]