Web & Marketing Info Galore
Monday, February 28
Is There A Future In E-Commerce?
Is There A Future In E-Commerce?
Well, let me just say this......
2004 On-line Advertising Up 32%
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers internet advertising totaled just under $9.6 billion, a 32 percent increase over 2003.
Online Sales Jump 22.1% On Same Quarter
U.S. retail sales over the Internet rose 4.7 percent in the final quarter of last year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.
Purchases over the Internet, by e-mail or through other electronic networks increased to a seasonally adjusted $18.42 billion in the October-December period to capture a record 2 percent of overall retail sales.
Interestingly fourth quarter e-commerce sales were 22.1 percent above the year-ago level. In comparison, overall retail sales gained just 8.2 percent.
Yes, methinks e-commerce is here to stay and stay.
Cheers
Brendon
Friday, February 25
Now This Is How A CEO Should Use A Blog
Now This Is How A CEO Should Use A BlogHowdy. Check out
Bob Parson's Blog. Bob is the CEO of
Godaddy.com - one of the world's biggest domain name registrars.
Check out the blog from
17 February 2005 especially - the one about
their Super Bowl ads.Bob's blog also touches on the issue of using controversial marketing for best results (I assume he stole the idea from the blog below with the a$$ photo!).
Fantastic use of a blog by a CEO.
Could your business develop a blog?
Cheers
Brendon
Thursday, February 24
Deliver On Your Promise Or Your Brand Suffers
Deliver On Your Promise Or Your Brand SuffersMy gym membership is up for renewal and I don't think I'll renew.
My family and I do a fair bit of exercise - most mornings we'll ride down to the beach at 6 am and go for a swim and then cycle home (up a big, big hill).
Every second night Laura (my 13 yo daughter) and I go for a 30 minute run.
Most weekends we'll go for long bike rides. And as I write this my wife is off having a personal training session.
Start A Home GymSo I thought I'd get a half decent exercise bench and some weights and start setting up my home gym.
Yesterday I checked out 3 places. One was a place called
Elite Fitness at a place called Tweed Heads - about 15 kms away. The other 2 were closer to home.
At Elite Fitness I found the bench I wanted. and said to the Sales Assistant "I'll buy that one. Can I take it now?"
Nope, I couldn't. I could get it delivered on Friday. I didn't want it Friday, I wanted it now.
I hadn't visited the competition yet, so I said to the Sales Assistant that I'd try somewhere else and get back to her.
"Visit Our Web site....."Before I left she gave me the brochure and said I could check out the bench on their
web site. So off I went and checked out the other 2 gym supply places. But I still liked the bench at Elite.
So yesterday afternoon I jumped online to buy it. It's the Powerhouse 764 Bench. I added it to my cart and went to checkout. But I got an error page. I tried a few more times and gave up.
I revisited this morning to buy and, when I tried to pay, got the error page (I tested buying lots of products and received error pages everytime).
Couple of things there:1. Their web site is damaging their business. It doesn't do what it promises to do (which is make it easy to buy).
2. Now they face the risk of losing an initial sale of about $650 (I'll buy some weights too), but all of the add-on purchases I would make over the next few years AND any referrals I might have given them.
Another thing is that the vast majority of people would simply walk away from the site, never to return (and they wouldn't let the site owner know. And yes, I did give the site owner a heads up.).
All because their shopping cart doesn't work.
Make it as easy to buy for your customers. They want to give you their money - so let them.
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: Note added 10.10 am 25 February 2005: I emailed Elite Fitness yesterday at 10 am - received an automatic response:
===============================
E-Mail Confirmation
Thank you Brendon, Your request for more information has been received.
This is a Automatic response.
The Web Site and E-mail address are manned through business hours/days only,Your request will be tended to within 24 hours.
info@elitefitness.com.auElite Fitness -
http://www.elitefitness.com.au/Freecall (Australia Only): 1800 622 644Fax: (07) 3803 4774
===============================
The 24 hours is up and I haven't heard backThat's me as a customer trying to spend $650 with them (not to mention the add on sales and referrals they would have gotten). And this business just doesn't seem to want it.
This is one of the reasons I always say to people that you can be successful in business.....because a lot of the time you're dealing with clowns like this business.
P.P.S: On Monday February 28 2.11 pm I sent another email saying I'd emailed last Wednesday and was still awaiting a response from Elite Fitness. No response today.
P.P.P.S: 1 March 2005 - 6 days after I sent my email telling them I wanted to buy but their online shop wasn't working.
Oh my Gawd! They've replied.
Here's the reply:
Dear Brendan (note: spelt it wrong)
Sorry about the delay, I do not have your e-mail, however they are split between 2 e-mail address and the owner of the other address is interstate.
Please resend your enquiry by replying to this e-mail.
Regards
xxxx xxxxxxxxxx
The e-commerce part of this business could/should be a major part of their overall business strategy. But they don't seem to have identified that as yet.
Cheers
Brendon
Measuring Risk & Reward
Measuring Risk & RewardAfter the photo on the blog yesterday regular reader Karine wrote in the comments "But, isn't there a risk here as far as your credibility is concerned? I know no risk, no gain, but still. This is a professional blog, isn't it? So, what does YOUR market think?"
============================
Hi Karine
Hope you are well. It's a very, very tricky issue when you do something even slightly off centre.
As a quick example, I wrote a small article in the SitePoint Tribune newsletter about a study that found overweight people are discriminated against at work.
They get less promotion, etc and a decent % of people in the study said they don't respect overweight people. It wasn't me saying it of course, I just mentioned the study and the findings.
I wrote it as a heads up to let people know that others don't always make decisions based on what they probably should.
(To read something similar, but a lot more articulately than I can put here, check out
this excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Blink".)
Anyway, I received more email for that article than any other article I'd ever written. The vast majority was critical - such as "How dare you say that you pig." (even though I said it was a study.)
What Happens NextSo yes, there is a risk. But the risk isn't as big as it might appear when you do something controversial (rather than truly offensive) because many people are drawn to controversy.
They want to see what happens next.With something like this on my blog I don't think it causes any loss of credibility. My whole strategy comes from thinking differently and trying to develop strategies that stand out within the market (I wanted this to be an example of what others could use more than a marketing strategy for this blog).
Controversy, being a little offensive (think of your local radio shock jocks) and just being different works as a marketing strategy.....But it can be a fine line to tread.
Cheers
Brendon
Wednesday, February 23
The Reason For That Photo Below
The Reason For That Photo BelowI put the photo below into the blog for a couple of good reasons:
# 1: Because I thought the page needed a graphic to break up the text.
# 2: Because I wanted to make a point.
And the point is this.To be effective at marketing your goods, services or product you have to be noticed. You have to
STAND OUT.Now, a picture of a naked a$$ on my blog stands out a bit. And has probably made you think, "Mmmmm, why is there a picture of a naked a$$ on Brendon's blog?"
Maybe you like it. Maybe you love it. Maybe you hate it.It doesn't matter. The question is "What does your market think?"
And here I'd like to add a comment; surveys are good. Observation is better. Judge not by what people say they'll do, but judge them by what they do.
What Howard Does WorksWhilst people might appear deeply offended and turned off by controversial marketing, it just might work. I remember watching a movie on Howard Stern a few years back.
The comment was made that of his listeners, the ones who liked him listened for 20 minutes on average - to hear what he had to say.
The people who hated Howard listened twice as long - because they wanted to hear what disgraceful thing he'd say next.
(I made those numbers up but that was the gist of it.)
Don't let your own attitudes get in the way of effective marketing.
Think like your market thinks.Cheers
Brendon
P.S: No, it's not my a$$!
Using The Credit Link More Effectively
Using The Credit Link More Effectively
Thanks for those people who have provided some feedback on our new
eczema and psoriasis web site. Jason asked the question
"How much business do you make by putting "Site by:Tailored - Online Marketing Specialists" on your sites?"At the bottom of our sites we used to have: "Site by
Tailored." Only recently have we changed that to specifically target "web site marketing" related terms.
Over the 6 or 7 years we've been in business we've only generated 1 possibly 2 jobs from the "Site by
Tailored" link. Pretty lame.
But that link from web sites we've developed can be useful.
Difficulty With A BlogOver the past few months we've changed the link to try and generate an effective linking strategy - we link via words such as "web marketing" and "online marketing" to our Home Page.
But the difficulty with having a blog is that the content changes so dramatically each day that targeting a specific keyword or phrase is a little harder than normal (because of the reduced capacity for on-page ranking factors such as key word count, headings, etc).
All a link to "Tailored" does for me is assist us ranking higher for the term "tailored". As a web firm that's not much use to us.
The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line
Okay, so the bottom line for us is this. The link at the bottom of the web pages we develop doesn't give us any/many prospects.
But if we utilise that link a little more effectively - let's say you are a "Denver web designer" then my suggestion would be to use those words to link to your Home Page. And have the term "Denver web designer" in your title, main heading, once in the first paragraph and scattered throughout your page copy - then that link can aid our search engine rankings significantly and assist in generating prospects via having a high ranking when people search for the term "Denver web designer".
More Later
And I'll write a blog this afternoon about this blog. That's what I call a self-generating blog blog!
Cheers
Brendon
Tuesday, February 22
Can You Wash Your Client's Car
Can You Wash Your Client's Car?My car was in getting some work done last week. Now, it's a good car. But a little dirty. I've never been a car sort of guy and I know next to nothing how they work.
My idea of washing my car is parking it outside and hoping it rains.
Anyway, you hear of these garages that not only fix your car but as an added bonus they'll detail it whilst it's in the shop. I was hoping that my garage was such a place.
Nice Clean CarI would have appreciated a nice clean car being delivered back to me! But, alas, it was not to be. Turns out my garage does what they're supposed to do and fixes cars. Oh, the outrage.
But I would have been really impressed if they had of cleaned it :o(
And that got me thinking. What can I do that's the equivalent of cleaning the client's car?
And thinking.............................and thinking.
Got it!How about we wash our client's cars? Next time a client calls into the office we'll have a detailer ready to go.
Maybe
give the client a massage - there are plenty of massage businesses in my town that go to offices and provide massages.
Perhaps
tickets to a show - at the local Casino here on the Gold Coast, dinner and a show costs $62. That's nothing when you consider the lifetime value of a client.
Imagine ThisImagine you're the client sitting there and you get this letter:
"Dear John
Hope all is well.
Just a quick note to say thanks for your recent business. We're delighted to have been of service and thrilled that the web site has been so successful.
As you know, we don't do things the same as every other business - a fact that has contribute to our success. Part of what we do appreciate the importance of your business to you and how important great clients like you are to our business.
As our way of saying "Thanks for being part of our success" I've organised dinner and a show on Saturday night.....blah, blah, blah."
That'll impress him. (What would be even more effective is if you invited him - and partner -along with you and your partner. That way you can continue to build the relationship.)
That's a great way to wash your client's car.
Cheers
Brendon
Link to ugg boots site we recently did.
New Site Launched - Marketing Snapshot
New Site Launched - Marketing SnapshotHowdy. We've owned and managed an eczema care web site for just on 3 years now. This is the site that once took $200,000+ in an hour or two after a TV current affairs show did a story on it.
The site was called
www.eczemasite.com. We've just relaunched the site as this
psoriasis and eczema site.
We've done this for 2 major reasons:# 1: It was time for a decent design
# 2: The products we sell
work just as well for psoriasis and they do for eczema - so keeping the site as Eczemasite limits our sales. With the simple name change I'd expect sales to increase by at least 80% (more people have psoriasis than have eczema).
Our initial marketing at relaunch:1. 301 redirects on the old sites (Eczemasite.com & Eczemasite.com.au) today.
2. Email newsletter (using
Constant Contact) to just under 15,000 subscribers today.
3. Commence Google AdWords campaign today.
4. Commence pretty intensive search engine optimisation campaign on the site.
That's enough for today because I want to see the impact of just those things. If we do too much in the initial marketing mix then we won't be sure what marketing is having what results.
Future marketing:Future marketing will include:
- ongoing search engine optimisation,
- article distribution,
- web site award wins,
- Directory listings,
- reciprocal linking strategy,
- Affiliate program,
- PR (both online and offline)
- and a few other bits and pieces.
That's a quick snapshot of a site launch. I'll let you know how it goes. And if you take a look, please let me know what you think of the site.
Cheers
Brendon
Monday, February 21
What The Hell Is This Blog About??!
What The Hell Is This Blog About??!I was just over at the
The 2005 Business Blogging Awards site and had a few thoughts:
# 1: Why didn't anyone nominate my blog?! Get off your a$$ you people and tell others how damn fabulous and interesting this blog is! Just kidding - the nominations have already closed.
# 2: If I was nominated (which, as you know, I wasn't!), what category would my blog fit under?Maybe the About Small Business Blog?
Or perhaps the Marketing Blog?
Define The NicheI'm not sure. Which is a bad thing really because to grow the audience of this blog I need to define my niche and write more specifically for them. Because then the blog would be, like those things I mentioned below, more relevant and useful to readers.
Please Help Me Out
So please help me out.
I've set up a quick and easy survey here. Tell me about yourself, what you want to read and what you think so far.
Appreciate your help.
Cheers and thanks.
Brendon
Adding Value Everytime
Adding Value EverytimeHope you had a good weekend. We (the wife and 3 kids) went camping for the weekend up to a place called Dicky Beach on the Sunshine Coast here in Queensland. Swimming in the ocean, burning sausages on the camp stove, visiting family and friends - it was a good weekend.
I've been exchanging a couple of emails with a regular reader from New Zealand (Howdy Eaden) and he does something in his emails that's very interesting - and I'm not sure he's even aware that he does it.
You see, in every email he sends
he offers me something. And those things he offers me are:
* relevant to our discussion
* valuable
Broken Links & A Valuable ResourceFor example, his first email was to thank me for something and at the end of the email he let me know of 2 broken links on the site (that we fixed) and he let me know of this web site:
stock.xching, which has thousands of free and royalty free photos (this was just after a blog where I mentioned
istockphoto.com.
The latest email was to let me know he'd
purchased my kit and that he was keen to try some Direct Mail. He then let me know of
a link regarding advertising measurement that I might find useful.
Adding Value WorksAdding value to every interaction you have with your market can be the best thing you can do (much like I try and make every blog entry I write useful and relevant) . You'll soon become trusted. You'll be perceived as an ally, rather than as just another service provider. You'll become a good person to know.
And, like me with Eaden, you'll always hope to hear from them again.
Cheers
Brendon
Wednesday, February 16
Print Media Is The Most Credible
Print Media Is The Most CredibleThe most credible media is print. No question about it. That's not based on any scientific data, survey or detailed analysis. That's just me.
I was reading some email newsletters today and came across the phrase "USA Today published 2 articles today on..........."
Another newsletter told me that something else was gaining acceptance because a story about it had hit the newspaper.
But Why Is It So?But why? If I had to guess (and I do!) I'd say that newspapers and magazines are so credible because of 2 main reasons.
# 1 is history. The old cliche image of the tenacious newspaperman on the trial of a big story looms large for many people.
# 2 is tangibility (if that's even a word). Print media is tangible. It's solid and real. That might help aid the perception of providing solid and factual information.
That's Well & Good - But Why Do You Care?You might care if you market your business (and we all do). A well placed story can provide huge benefits. And so can, to a lesser degree, can print advertising.
One thing I try and keep in mind with our customer service is
"It didn't happen until the client knows about it."Meaning when something positive happens in our business or with the client's business because of what we do, it makes sense to let the client know. Because only then is it useful.
Applying that to print media -
it's not credible in the business world unless it makes the newspaper.Print media can be a fantastic way to market your business. Check it out today.
Cheers
Brendon
Monday, February 14
When Things Don't Work Out
When Things Don't Work OutI had an email on the weekend from someone who'd had a web site developed (not by us) and it wasn't performing. This person had spent quite a bit of money on her site and wanted to see some results.
A quick look at her site and the strategies her web development team had implemented gave me some good ideas why the site wasn't doing well.
Her web developers had also provided her with a fair bit of misinformation.
With web development and web marketing being such a cutting edge area, many businesspeople are unsure as to what they need re their web site. In which case you need to find a competent developer.
But how do you tell?But how do you know, if you're a non-technical person, who a competent developer is?
I'd suggest 2 main ways:1. Look at their previous work (in terms of results)
2. Speak with their previous clients
Only with that information can you have the basis of being confident in who you choose. And I always say get a web developer who guarantees his/her work/results 100% - that way if they don't do what they say they can or will you won't be out of pocket.
Cheers
Brendon
Saturday, February 12
Keep Testing - It's The Key To Web Site Success
Keep Testing - It's The Key To Web Site SuccessOn one of our web sites we have a 3.2% sales conversion - that is for every 100 visitors 3.2 buy (I'm not sure, but I think the .2 person must be really, really small??).
When we test new things we generally only make one change at a time. If we made more, and the changes impact, we'd never be sure what made the difference.
How we test that site is very basic AB testing. The site converts 3.2%. We try and beat that.
We Try One ThingWe try one thing - if after a set period of time (we measure by visitor numbers rather than time) the conversion rate drops to 2.9% we'll know to change back to what we had.
But if the site conversion increases to 3.5%, this is our new benchmark page and we'll keep it as is. Then we'll try and beat it.
The Aspect That Always Has The Biggest Impact On SalesThe aspect that always has the biggest impact on sales is the headline. The heading. The big, bold words at the top.
Just yesterday I changed the headline on one of the sites we manage. Already the conversion rate looks like it will jump a good 10% (from 4% to 4.4%).
That's a significant jump.
Keep testing, testing, testing your site so you can gather the information you need to make effective decisions.
Have a good weekend. Mel & I are off to the movies to see
"Sideways". I heard it's very good.
Cheers
Brendon
Friday, February 11
Taking Over A Web Site
Taking Over A Web Site
Howdy. I played golf yesterday with a guy who'll be taking over a business that generates some of its sales via the company web site.
After thinking about it a bit here was the general advice I gave to him regarding what to do with the web site when he starts in the business.
1. Configure quality statistics program onto the web site (if none exist).
2. Ascertain the number of sales coming through the site.
3. Obtain full details of all web marketing strategies implemented so far.
4. Obtain costs and passwords associated with web presence:
Domain name expiry date
* password
* cost
Hosting
* expiry date (if any)
* FTP username and password
* cost
Once you have all that information you can go to a trusted web expert and have them review everything. That way you'll be sure you're getting the best deals on the various aspects, as well as an idea on how well the site performs.
And, most importantly, you'll have a benchmark to measure all of your future web strategies against (whether that be a redesign, edits, marketing, whatever) - from there you can establish an accountable marketing strategy for your Internet presence which will enable you to track the benefits of the strategies you implement.
And yes, in case you're wondering I did lose
golf. By a shot. Damn!
Cheers
Brendon
Thursday, February 10
The Meaning Of Blogging....And Don't Forget To Say "I Love You"
The Meaning Of Blogging....And Don't Forget To Say "I Love You"
I've had my blog going since
March 2003 after thinking that blogs would be useful for providing tidbits of easy content for readers - and thus encourage repeat visitors - as well as aid search engine rankings.
The popularity of blogs has been nothing short of astounding and we've seen a recent wave of activity. One part that is causing some problems is issues of slander, copyright infringement and the like.
A guy called
Mark Jen recently got fired from
Google after posting some pretty indiscreet information on
his blog. He got a job at Google and then started his blog the 1st day of his employment and had a moan about how tough it all was.
Bloggers Are Publishers
It really demonstrated to me that people with blogs are now publishers. And that makes them accountable for what they write. If they're slanderous about someone there will be legal ramifications.
If they are indiscreet with the information they disclose about their employer they can expect to be fired.
If you're going to write you need to be aware of the legal position on all of these things, along with needing a 'nose' for what offends people (Yep, guilty am I on occasion.).
"I Love You"
And on a completely seperate note............
Don't forget to send out Valentine's Day cards tomorrow (Friday) letting your clients know you appreciate them. They'll love you for it.
Cheers
Brendon
Wednesday, February 9
The First Thing To Do When You Get Paid By A Client
The First Thing To Do When You Get Paid By A Client
And no, it's not banking the cheque! (Well, it actually might be if you need the cashflow!)
The first thing we do is this: grab a 'Thank You' card. Then we write a handwritten, sincere note to the client thanking them for their business and letting them know how much we appreciate it.
The client is the person putting food on the table and keeping the wolf from the door. The least you can do is be polite and say "Thanks a bunch."
My mum taught me that. And it works.
Cheers
Brendon
Tuesday, February 8
You'll Like This One
You'll Like This One
Howdy.
In the blog on Feb 4, 2005
(Unscrupulous Companies Don't Deserve Your Hard-Earned) I talked of a dodgy company selling web owners poor quality links based upon incorrect information.
A couple of days later I started going through the list of web owners who had purchased advertising with the dodgy company. I thought we'd try some marketing to these web site owners who had been mislead (I figured they needed a little assistance).
A Link To A Previous Prospect
In reviewing the advertisers I came across a link to a web site that we had made a pitch for its redevelopment just 3-4 months earlier. The web owner - it's a resort web site - had been referred to us by a happy client.
So I went and saw this guy and, over 2 meetings, developed a good idea of what he wanted and needed. I went back and provided the pitch along with some recommendations on how we might best proceed.
"No, we don't want to have it redeveloped now."
The guy told me he'd think about it. I followed him up a few days later:
"No, we don't want to have it redeveloped now."
Fair enough.
Ripped Us Off Word For Word
That was until today. When I'd looked at this prospect's web site and he'd had a site developed that ripped off word for word and function by function (down to the fonts, word placement, placement of functions - everything) a booking system we'd developed over the past 2 years.
Good on him. Sneaky little fella.
"......whether you just copied the entire concept......"
So I emailed the guy and his web developer and asked "Could you please advise whether you or your developer have used our code in the development of the web site rates and availability interface and backend, or whether you have just copied the entire concept and had your web developer copy that?"
10 Minutes Later The Web Site Had Changed
The web developer emailed me back to tell me it was just a huge coincidence. Mmmmmmm, no it wasn't a coincidence. And I told her as much in my reply.
As A Web Developer What Can You Do?
As a web developer I've provided pitches before where the client has said "No" and then, 2 days later, used every single one of my ideas and site plans when the site was developed by a kid in his back bedroom charging $10 an hour (even down to using the exact same buttons and copying pages of content off my own web site).
As a web developer I've had people copy off various tools (such as the booking system) we've developed. And as frustrating as it is, there's really not a lot that can be done.
You'll End Up The Loser No Matter What
Sure, you can take legal action. But the money, the energy and the focus it takes from your business means you'll end up the loser no matter what the outcome of the case.
(And like the dodgy web master did, it just takes a few minutes to change duplicate content to look different to the original.)
By all means protect your intellectual property and guard against copyright theft. But don't do it to the detriment of focusing on the rest of your business.
Cheers
Brendon
Monday, February 7
I Love You - We All Want To Hear It
I Love You - We All Want To Hear It
Howdy. Hope you had a good weekend.
Current clients are the biggest asset of a business. No question about it. They're easier to sell to, they refer their friends and it's much cheaper to retain a current client than it is to attract a new client.
But something like 70% of people say they stop being a client of a business because they feel the business doesn't care about them.
What can you do to show you care - Do this
But how can you show them you care? Here's a fantastic way.
Step 1: Buy 100 Valentine's Day cards.
Step 2: Write a message like this:
Dear Mary
Sometimes we just need to tell those we love that we love them!
Mary, we love having you as a customer and really appreciate your support as we've grown the business over the past few years.
Happy Valentine's Day.
John & the My Business Team
Step 3: Post the cards out on Friday February 11 so your client receives it on Valentine's Day on the 14th.
People love being appreciated and the Valentine's Day card is a nice touch.
We've done this a few years now and always get a fantastic response.
Cheers
Brendon
Saturday, February 5
Search Engine Optimisation Article Added
Search Engine Optimisation Article Added
Howdy. Hope your weekend is going well.
I've just added
Article 2 in the
web site marketing series. It deals with aspects of search engine optimisation - mainly page title and meta tags.
Hope it is of some interest.
Cheers.
Brendon
Friday, February 4
A $ Value On High Search Engine Rankings
A $ Value On High Search Engine Rankings
Howdy.
If your web site could benefit from more visitors,
read this article from Wired and see what sort of impact high search engine rankings can have.
Simply unbelievable.
And yes, we do search engine optimisation.
Cheers
Brendon.
Unscrupulous Companies Don't Deserve Your Hard-Earned
Hello. Hope your day is going well.
Had a resort manager client call me today after he was approached by a web site selling links from their web site. The fee for a link to my clients web site was a hefty $350.
The salesperson selling the link told him the site was in the Top 100 in the world and generated huge amounts of visitors.
If that was the case then it would be of interest to my client. He asked me to have a look at the web site and company selling the link to make sure he was getting a good deal.
3 Point Review
1. I
checked out the site - it was an very unprofessional looking site with poor navigation, disjointed flow and very little information. I'd be surprised if it's in the top million, let alone the top 100!
2. Using the
Alexa Toolbar I saw that the site wasn't really in the Top 100 sites, but was actually
listed at about 3.5 million (that's outside the top 100 sites by 3,499,900 sites!!).
3. To be doubly sure I did a search on the
Top 500 sites -
no sign of the subject site.
What I did find interesting was quite a number of resort managers here on the Gold Coast had already signed up for a link - obviously believing the salesperson's pitch.
The lesson here
Don't believe what salespeople tell you regarding web sites. Get someone you trust to check it out. Unscrupulous companies do not deserve your hard-earned money.
Cheers
Brendon
Thursday, February 3
Cool Tool For Search Engine Keyword Tracking
Cool Tool For Search Engine Keyword Tracking
Howdy.
Here's a cool tool for tracking search engine (Google) result placement data for any keyword/URL combo you choose.
It's from the good folks at
Digital Point.
As an aside,
ugg boots are currently big in retail in the USA and Australia. We've been managing an
uggs site for a while - I'll get around to doing an interesting case study on what's happened.
Cheers
Brendon
Wednesday, February 2
"Brendon, I've got something for your newsletter......"
"Brendon, I've got something for your newsletter......"
Hello. Hope you are well.
We send out an offline newsletter to clients. It's 4 A4 pages full of information and marketing stories and helpful hints.
One of our clients rang up yesterday and said, "Brendon, I've got a story for your newsletter!"
This guy runs a business here on the Gold Coast and tried discounting his product by $10 without much success. He then put the price back up to normal.
What he did next worked fantastically well.
"Everyone who buys one gets a free bottle of champagne."
The bottle of champagne cost $10.
He made $20,000 in sales that he can directly attribute to the free offer.
As he said to me:
"People love free stuff. It's unbelievable!"
Yes, people do love receiving something for nothing. What can you offer as an incentive to buy?
Cheers
Brendon
Tuesday, February 1
Why You Shouldn't Charge Your Client
Why You Shouldn't Charge Your Client
Howdy. Part of our business is managing and marketing some of our clients' web sites on an ongoing basis. We charge a monthly fee and provide a service whereby the site is edited, updated, optimised for search engines and generally kept humming along.
We didn't charge the clients for a month
Search engine work is tough. It's an ever-changing part of web work and when the major search engines change the way they rank web sites, a web site can suddenly drop from a high ranking to a low ranking.
A while back we didn't charge the clients for a month because they suddenly weren't getting any decent result for their money.
I spoke with the clients and said "Because you're not getting any benefit there'll be no charge."
Now, it's tricky with search engine optimisation because not everything we do will work. And because search engines change their assessments so quickly we can lose a high ranking despite putting in long, hard hours on a site.
No Guarantee
And I go to great pains to explain that to clients - there are no guarantees.
So I guess I could have presented a good argument for why we should still be paid despite the poorer results. But that doesn't seem right to me.
The benefit to my business (and our reputation) as a result of not charging for that month has been greatly in excess of the income we didn't generate.
You see, it's helped further establish the trust between the business and our clients. And that's priceless.
What do you think? Should we guarantee the performance of the work we do even though the success of what we do can be so quickly changed by a search engine changing the way they rank their sites?
Cheers
Brendon
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