So Traffic Geyser has come out with a “business in a box” product called Main Street Marketing Machine.
Materials in the package comprises a long list, with more benefits being added, but the gist is to enable internet marketers to make money by providing local businesses with the online marketing resources to beef up their businesses.
As much as possible for the internet marketer, that process is automated, starting with tools to find profitable niches and keywords. Customizable brochures, business cards, and prospectuses for local businesses can be generated (makes you look professional). Software makes website design and hosting simple, not to mention autoresponder packaged email additions for list building. A package for voice mail and mobile phone marketing is available. Traffic Geyser’s own software is used to upload content massively once a business has signed on.
There’s even an application for mobile phones one can use to scan business cards so the software can analyze the person’s business as it relates to Mainstreet Marketing Machine.
And more is being done to accommodate non-US business contexts.
I have joined as an affiliate of Mainstreet Marketing because it appears a win-win service all around and because I think it meets a large and pressing need in these tough economic times. Restaurants, chiropractors, veterinarians, hair salons, real estate agents, specialty retail shops–you name it.
Check out one of their videos for yourself.
Tags: local marketing, small business
I rarely watch TV. But a Frontline program “Digital Nation” (2 February 2010) caught my eye. One of the narrators was a techie prophet and evangelist of the early 1990′s whose enthusiasm by early 2010 had been tempered significantly. Not entirely, just significantly.
The government in Korea divvies out tax dollars for kids to attend internet rehabilitation camps. Many are addicted to online gaming to the extent that their family life and school performance suffer. To them, the “psychedelic” virtual world is a trip more colorful and worthwhile than the drab real world.
Crème de la Crème multiple multitasking students from MIT have a high regard for their own ability to, say, text message multiple friends while reading and writing to multiple email partners while playing a video game while listening to a lecture on physics while googling on their laptop to answer some question that popped into mind.
But testing–surprise!– shows they are can’t do all that very well. The distractions kill the focus and concentration necessary to do a decent job at any one thing. There is nothing new to that problem with multitasking, and nothing new to the euphoria and belief that one can multitask well. Its just that the problem is more intense now, more distracting, more fragmented with widely available–yeah, ubiquitous– internet devices and access than before. Take laptops and smartphones and the iPad.
So when even the best students try to write a lengthy essay on a single well-developed theme, they come up with pithy, insightful little paragraphs that have little to do with each other … unlike their parents, who did better with that sort of thing pre-PC. Or better at reading a lengthy book.
Of course the news isn’t all bad. One bottom-of-the-barrel school Frontline investigated introduced onscreen and online learning, and the behavior and test scores shot dramatically in the right direction, at least on some measures.
Virtual reality games with multiple players in the same game may help bridge the social gap that technology had formerly widened. To save travel money and hassles, businesses are holding multinational online meetings and online project collaboration where the participants may work together closely for years, but never meet each other face to face. Who needs to go out to lunch with a friend when you can see, talk, and write to each other so easily online from separate places on the planet?
Not to mention all the other things we accomplish and benefits we receive with the internet and our techie devices.
So where is this all going? Are we really serving the next generation by giving them iPhones and laptops? Well, it looks like there will be losses as well as gains. And it looks as if our technology is remaking how we think and how we relate to each other if not exactly what we think about what is real.
I still think, though, that we need to understand better how our technology is changing what our subconscious mind believes. A young child, Frontline illustrated, could not tell that his experience swimming with whales was virtual rather than real. Our subconscious minds (or pieces of it) are like that even in adulthood. People who eat virtual food while wearing those goggle things over their eyes feel full in the stomach even though they have not eaten any real food. We are using our technology to program ourselves.
And when we grow up, we are going to have to learn to make severe use the “off” button during our workday to focus on making our contribution to business.
Tags: technology trends
Market Samurai has found a gold mine in the teaching of Kenny Goodman about choosing domain names. I’ve taken a few pointers from Kenny’s richer material. And yes, I wish I’d come across this a long time ago.
Note first that your domain name is a keyword and ranks as a keyword, whether as a broad, phrase, or exact match. If the searcher types in a keyword with a match to your domain name, an exact match, Market Samurai has found, seems to be a high playing card in the algorithm that ranks sites. Phrase and Broad match are also important, though proportionately less so.
The trouble is, most of the short tail keyword domain names are probably already taken in your niche, especially if the keyword has commercial value–meaning that people searching for that keyword are more likely to buy something directly associated with that keyword.
What to do? Two possibilities: (1) buy an existing domain name or (2) add a relevant prefix or suffix to the preferred short tail domain name. For example, choose “mybabytoys” or “babytoysreviews” if you can’t get “baby toys” — i.e., a broad or phrase match if you can’t get an exact match for a “baby toys” search.
With either possibility, Kenny would suggest buying an aged domain name instead of starting from ground zero with a new name so as to take advantage of the previous traffic building and ranking efforts of a former owner.
And the process of buying aged domain names introduces problems like how to find the names when they become available and how to recognize a good buy from a bad one. One does not want a domain name with a history of spamming or illegal activity. Or mere neglect or irrelevant content.
I suppose the bad news is that fishing for the best catch may take time and effort. The question is whether that is easier than starting to develop your new domain name’s online reputation from scratch.
Doing it the manual way, Kenny recommends checking the following auction sites for available names: Namejet.com, Snapnames.com, Afternic.com, Pool.com, Sedo.com, RickLatone.com, Bido.com, and Flippa.com. Kenny suggest making a bid 10 minutes before the deadline is ideal. Or sometimes one can find and contact site owners directly using Whois.net to make bids.
Once you have found a desirable name initially, check:
DomainTools.com – for domain name age
Archive.org – using the wayback machine for the history of domain names
Alexa.com & Compete.com – for an ideal of traffic and popularity
DMOZ.org & search.yahoo.com/dir – to see if listed
site:www.domainname.com – to find pages indexed on Google
Also check pagerank in browser with a browser application
Check for fake pagerank by typing in on Google “info:www.domainname.com” – if a different domain name shows up, it is forwarding to a higher pagerank domain and is thus fake.
In rare cases, trademarked domain names may cause you grief. In the US, check www.tess2.uspto.gov.
Or for a useful tool in the process, See Domain Samurai and/or join DN Forum.
Tags: domain names, keywords
The early chapters of Genesis form a kind of introduction to themes found later in the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). So when the text says that God put Adam into the garden of Eden in order to “till and guard” Eden, one has to read God’s purpose for the head of the human race partly in light of how that purpose is expanded, particularly for the Israelites and Moses.
It turns out that the verb “till” can be used of serving God in a religious sense and “guard” is commonly used of what one does to God’s commands and imposed religious duties. Perhaps more importantly, the combination of the two verbs is used of religious duties at the Tabernacle, the place God dwells and is served by the priests (Numbers 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6 – Wenham).
The Tabernacle is like Eden. The entrance to the Tabernacle faced the rising sun. And on the east side of Eden, Adam and Eve are denied entrance into Eden after the fall. As the priests “tilled and guarded” (or rather served) before the very presence of God at the Tabernacle, so Adam “tilled and guarded” (in a religious sense) in Eden, where Adam and Eve walked and talked with God.
Only after the fall when Adam and Eve disobeyed God is the man cursed to work the soil with difficulty–thorns, thistles, sweat.
But the original context of work was religious service to God. And the priestly functions before God in some measure restored a relationship with God after the separation entailed by the fall. Sin separated mankind and God; priestly sacrifices were necessary to restore the breach.
Interestingly, the apostle John sees a vision of restored relationship in terms reminiscent of Eden. As a river flowed out from Eden to water the garden, so a river in John’s vision flows out “from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” As fruit bearing trees graced Eden, so in the vision, fruit trees are present, “and there will no longer be any curse.”
The text makes clear that the Lamb here is Jesus, whose death on the cross resembled the animal sacrifices in Moses’s day in the Tabernacle. Jesus was “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” in John the Baptist’s terms. Easter, in other words, is a celebration of the restoration of Adam and Eve’s descendants (or some of them) to the service of God.
Work is cursed, but redeemed … eventually. God was the original source of all that is good and the creator of final good. The purpose of our careers, our callings, our labors ultimately is in respect to our relationship with God and to the cursing and blessing of God.
“Whatever you do, in word or deed, do it everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17).
Happy Easter!
Tags: Easter, purpose of work
The reasons for tracking sales and marketing processes are many, if it can be done economically … and one knows what to track. Tracking split tested pages enables one to improve results.
Of course there is the usual “sales funnel” online and off in which the bulk of contacts with prospective customers and clients are fleeting and trivial. Some people from the initial great bulk are motivated enough to examine some aspect of your business more carefully, a smaller number of which … buy from or sign up with your business.
Each stage in the narrowing funnel can be tracked to see where the process needs changing or tweaking, where the bottlenecks lie, what needs greater resources and what can be cut. And the numbers need to be monitored because the market is always in flux, not only seasonally.
Fortunately, a lot of tracking can now be done relatively inexpensively. Knowing what to track has often been fairly simple until social media and more interactive marketing methods added controversy about what sort of social interactions and social media sites constitute priorities to business bottom lines.
If basic principles of human relationships have not changed–like being respectful–nonetheless, applications to specific businesses and contexts may require testing which can be aided by tracking.
A short list of relevant resources follows. Some are free or have free versions, others are for a fee.
Google Analytics – Google still holds the lions share of searches … except that now Facebook queries rival Google in shear volume. Google’s free Analytics software is still very valuable, with free tutorials for set up and use, and increasing numbers of options and features. Google Analytics can even be added to Facebook fan pages.
Yahoo Site Explorer
Hypertracker – fee basis
Mixpanel – fee basis, more expensive than Hypertracker, but has stripped-down free version
Kontagent – Provides analytics for Facebook games and applications. Facebook is the largest social media phenomenon (China excepted) at present. Stripped down free version available
Radian6 – comprehensive tracking of social media conversations
Social Mention – “Like Google Alerts but for social media” Do real time searches for social media topics in blogs, videos, etc. Some analysis per search (free)
Trackur – monitor what’s being said about your brand in social media (fee structure)
Crazyegg – heatmaps and monitoring what people are doing on your pages, where they click (fee structure)
Clicktale – who comes to the page and how long they stay on each page (three month stripped down free version available)
Any other suggestions?
Tags: site optimization, split testing, tracking
Ever wanted to reach your customers where they are at? We know they are on Facebook and Twitter, but comScore found that access to Facebook via mobile browsers grew 112% in 2009 and Twitter access by 347%! And globally there are more mobile phones than TV’s, cars, and credit cars.
Note also a wrinkle. Gartner noted that globally in 2009 versus 2008, mobile phone sales flattened worldwide while smartphone sales, still a fraction of mobile phones, rose dramatically–24%–to reach a total of 14% of mobile handset sales for the year.
In other words, the wave has begun. Competition among smartphone manufacturers is stiff, putting deflationary pressures on prices. More affordable smartphones will drive sales up. Dan Hollings of Stompermobile (that’s Dan in above the picture) finds that click through rates are ridiculously high (and advertising costs relatively cheap), as if smartphones today were like the internet of the 1990′s. The wild west is open for business … again.
However, there are protocols for smartphone ads. Double opt-ins are required for list building, at least in the US. Social media generally works best when you add value to the social conversation and don’t lead with a “for me” sales pitch … like spam. Expect short attention spans to be even shorter for users of smartphones. After a relationship has been built and buying takes place, the buying process should be quick and easy.
Further, screen size dictates short messages, like Twitter. Links should be shortened such as one sees from bit.ly or tinyurl.com. And websites built for desk top or lap top screens are not ideal for smartphone size, so web developers are going to have new tasks in modification … although it would be nice now to have your Facebook fans see your status updates while they are out and about! 
Another trend, using online technology for local business, can also use smartphones. One application, Foursquare, particularly caters to geotagging and local (but not only local) marketing with mobile phones.
In summary, smartphone sales and the use of smartphones on Facebook and Twitter suggest a new trend integrating smartphones and social media in marketing is in its early stages.
P.S. A no-doubt growing list of sites similar to Foursquare includes: gowalla, dopplr, plancast, brightkite, and tripit.
Tags: Facebook, marketing trend, smartphones
Remember the bit about remembering squat about what you see or hear and much of what you say? Would you rather have customers see or hear your message –only– or have them also engaged in the process by adding their two cents, expressing their fears … and desires?
For the time being at least, Facebook is the 800 pound gorilla of online social media outside of China.
Over 400 million users and growing,
most distributed in the US and Europe,
the average user spending a hefty 55 minutes per day on the site,
half of all users logging in per day,
the average user having 130 friends and memberships in 12 groups. Facebook now arguably drives more traffic than Google.
Of course, the majority of social interaction time no doubt is spent between a few close family members and friends (and increasingly so on iPhones), but if you want access to where people are, Facebook is the place.
Of course, you have to play the game according to the rules. No commercial pitches are allowed to interfere with social interaction. If they did, Facebook’s popularity would suffer.
But there are ways. On Facebook fan pages, commercial content is allowed. And fans see fan page status updates. If fans interact positively with fan pages, they are more likely to be or become loyal customers.
The content must ideally be fresh, frequent, and interesting to fans. Contests, videos, quick polls, open-ended questions, comment sections, and games or puzzles may add spice to engage and increase the viewer’s attention. Ever been to a family-style sit-down restaurant with paper place mats? See a crossword puzzle on the back for kids?
You can also cross-pollinate on (or link to and from) other social media sites like Twitter or blogs, forums, or whatever is most appropriate to your business. And although one can put autoresponder widgets on fan pages, there would have to be good reasons to divert the viewer’s attention away from where-they’re-at on Facebook to busy email in-boxes.
Specials and sales can be for Facebook fans only, so there is usually no need to redirect to emails for those reasons. Become an affiliate of different products and services that may be of use to your niche or target market so that products and services complement each other and your product(s), if any, in particular.
Google Analytics and Paypal is now available on Facebook with obvious benefit to businesses with fan pages; Facebook is planning to have its own conversion tracking software and see Webtrends Facebook Analytics.
Tags: Facebook fan pages, marketing
Here’s a little something I wish I had figured out a long time ago. Structure your onsite and offsite content to make sense to the user.
OK, so maybe I finally have a profound grasp of the obvious. Now how do you accomplish the … obvious?
Think of it this way. First, keyword research. Think of keywords as the titles to your posts, offsite articles and videos, whatever. They can also be your headers and alt tags. Or rather, your keywords get worked into titles and headers that make sense to the reader.
Remember the first rule of rhetoric as taught by the ancient Roman orators: say one thing. Let each video, article, audio recording (like a Roman speech), even every comment say whatever can be put under a single umbrella topic.
Put another way, all the content of your article relates to one keyword or keyword phrase found in your title. The keyword is the umbrella and the all the content fits under it.
And every keyword fits under the umbrella of your site topic. Ideally your homepage site URL is at least representative of the umbrella, so every keyword is relevant to what your URL means in plain English (or whatever language your site is in).
Now it gets a little more complicated. But don’t make it too complicated. Its just that there’s a difference between onsite and offsite content. Onsite content is your stuff. Offsite content is like votes about your stuff. Or independent witnesses. Even if you write it.
Ideally, each page, post, audio, and video ON your site will act like an umbrella term for as many OFF-site pieces of content as possible. To illustrate in keyword terms, the titles of, say, five offsite articles or guest blog posts are subtopics of a single onsite page topic. Actually, the titles need not be subtopics, but should at least be directly relevant to the onsite keyword.
For your marketing purposes, the idea is for your offsite content to advertise your onsite content. Offsite stuff should point viewers to click to your site so that they have a chance to sign up or buy from you.
… Which introduces a complicating wrinkle: Anchor text. Anchor text is the “click here” words that link your offsite content with your relevant onsite content. Anchor texts are keywords, or that’s the way the search engines look at it. Anchor texts are like titles in that they convey a unifying, umbrella topic, notably the one topic of the onsite content to which the link points.
Anchor text in your offsite content should relate that offsite content with your onsite content. As a matter of fact, anchor text can ALSO relate one piece of onsite content (or one onsite page) with another piece of onsite content.
For example, see another post on this blog regarding how to write headlines–isn’t that relevant?–or another post on tips for choosing keywords.
I suppose the old principle of saying one thing was intended to maximize the potential to capture and hold the audience’s attention. Its easier to organize if you have a single guiding light or pole star.
Of course in the internet age, people type in searches looking for one thing. If they find your offsite or onsite content in their search, you have a better chance of capturing and holding your viewer’s attention if your content stays on topic.
P.S. Much of the above I owe to Niche Profit Classroom, with which I am affiliated.
Tags: anchor text, structuring content
Have you ever wondered why extroverts wear bright clothing and introverts wear subdued colors? Why people have a favorite color? Why online sales page headlines are always red?
OK, so there are some questions we may not be able to answer. But do you think color has an affect on how you feel?
Waves of visible light hit the retina in your eye. A chemical chain reaction sends a signal down the nerve to the brain. This signal has an effect on the brain that is more than just triggering an interpretation of the scene the eye sees. Hormones and moods are affected depending on visible color.
You may be thinking that individuals and cultures may differ in their reactions. I know a Chinese woman who lived through the Pol Pot genocide in Kampuchea in the late 1970s. She hates wearing black. Why? Because that was the preferred clothing color of her persecutors. In her case, the trauma triggered an intense emotional reaction and color associations in the brain. No black, thank you.
The odd thing is that studies show certain colors are associated with particular mood reactions in a wide spectrum of people.
If you are into online web design and copywriting, that’s good news. We all buy things from emotional motivations. From color therapy or chromotherapy, for example, we learn that:
1) Blue tends to stimulate relaxation, peace, a lower heart beat, and trust. It is also said to inspire creativity. Violet and green are similar.
2) Red has the opposite reaction. Red stimulates energy, action, a higher heart beat. Yellow is similar to red, but to a lesser extent. Pink, by contrast, has a tranquilizing effect.
3) Black and violet tend to suppress appetite; orange to stimulate it. Black also typically stimulates self-confidence.
Perry Belcher, for example, has found that a light blue background (outside the black-on-white text area) best increases conversions in website sales copy (clicks, sign ups, and sales). Similarly, a light gray background converts better than a white one, if you don’t want to use the superior light blue. (Bright or dark blue is too harsh.)
Like it or not, red headlines have been tested and convert best. Amazon’s orange “Add to Cart” button with a blue border has proven to convert to more clicks on that button than competing color schemes.
But I can’t help wondering if color schemes are tested uniquely in mono-cultural or “mono-demographic” markets whether some differences will not show up. Color symbolism in context, for example, may alter results. As always, split testing in time shows any statistically measurable difference.
But why not begin with what has proven to work best and see if you can improve on it?
If I may end with a word of caution: Play fair. Color schemes are better seen as helping to remove unnecessary hindrances to doing business than they are as tools to manipulate suckers. In the long haul, your business will do better using color with the former goal in mind than the latter. In the long haul, honesty is the best policy.
And of course, color does not force anyone to do anything; it is only a possible subtle influence. If you have anything to do with online copywriting and website design, try it.
Tags: color, copywriting, website design
