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
A great Mashable post lists, as the post title has it, “5 Insightful Talks on Social Media”–all from TED.
As elsewhere, the talks include intriguing and promising illustrations of the ways social media have been used for good, whether by facilitating communication between family members or by enabling solutions to problems like earthquakes or excessive whaling.
Also introduced were ways social media use has been controlled (or attempted to be controlled). Schools and employers fine people for texting and iPhone use in an effort to keep people focused on task. Municipalities or states prohibit the use of portable devices used for social media (among other things) in an effort to decrease car accidents.
Some governments like China have restricted or attempted to restrict social media use in an effort to control news potentially embarrassing to the respective government or to cut off objectionable content like porn and drug traffic, or perhaps to stifle foreign competition or time-wasting entertainment.
Consensus opinion in the liberal west (as elsewhere) has probably been favorable on the whole toward the new internet-based social media boom, on balance probably for various good reasons. Vices have been brought to the light of day. Solutions (whether charitable or business-related) have been brought to the place where the need was. Education has taken place. Popular opinion galvanizes action.
What I would like to suggest is that there may be a downside to the social media boom which I have not seen discussed. I take my cue, oddly enough, from James Madison’s reaction to democracy and from the fact that social media in some ways mimics pure democracy.
Madison, with many of the influential founders of American republic, viewed democracy with deep suspicion. As the tyranny of the few could be fomented on the governed, so the democratic majority could become a vehicle for oppressing the minority. Sometimes, the majority is wrong.
Translating to social media, what might happen during bitter conflict at war where news of somebody’s purported treason got out to various social media outlets? Remember that “the first casualty of war is truth.” And declared war need not be the only dangerous situation. During time of social unrest, what might a social media majority foment upon those of a disfavored minority opinion?
Possibly on a more benign level, slander and libel may spread like a virus while the boring facts don’t even catch our attention. Social media can kill business rightly or wrongly as well as make it grow.
In popular social media, where is accountability when this becomes a problem? Everybody becomes a publisher and a broadcaster. Majority opinion rules. No wonder some individual sites (like forums) prohibit and monitor negative comment. No wonder some helpful backtracking has taken place on a popular level.
But there is a larger context driving my thoughts here. I have discussed this context in terms of an economic theory, social mood, and bear market depression before.
Here I will only reiterate that mass social mood drives bull and bear markets. In the forthcoming greater bear market (such is my view), prevailing negative emotions will negatively affect social media use, putting greater pressure than hitherto on questions of social media control and civil liberty.
Tags: civil liberty, Social Media, social mood
Ever have web pages and videos you want to save or share with a specific friend or group of friends, relatives, or coworkers?
So do other people. The question then arises how to organize these favorites or most useful sites. Social bookmarking sites exist to organize what people find interesting. The one doing the sharing tags the preferred site on a given social bookmarking site with a word or words which describe the topic or content.
The tags, and sometimes descriptions, serve as handles to organize the sites for future reference. So if a group of people like your content or if you use social bookmarking sites to refer to your content, traffic to your sites can increase. If the tags accurately represent your content, the traffic can be targeted to your content.
Unfortunately, there are no standards for making tags, which introduces certain kinds of problems, and bookmarking sites have been subject to spamming and collusion abuse. And friends in various instances can limit the exposure of a given site reference to a small or private group. But on the whole, search engines still see value in bookmarking as a means to provide searchers with the content they seek. And you can get back links to your site this way.
Here is a brief list of some of the social bookmarking sites with heavier traffic. The list is ordered more or less from the most to the least traffic as of the time of this writing–save for the last entry, which serves to download to a number of social bookmarking sites at once.
Digg – for social news, videos, and images
Technorati – for blog searches
Del.icio.us
Stumbleupon – The “stumble upon” button randomly selects content in a given topic.
Mixx
Slashdot
Propeller.com – news
Folkd
Citeulike – scholarly and academic articles
Diigo – personal data saved or work collaboratively
Sphinn – for internet marketing
Faves
Blinklist
Simpy
Connotea – “Free online reference management for all researchers, clinicians and scientists”
Blogmarks
Onlywire – downloads to multiple bookmarking sites at once. Free (with ads) or paid (no ads) versions available.
Useful as social bookmarking may be for getting back links to one’s site, one wonders if Facebook won’t dominate in many ways. In any case as usual, the best long term strategy is to provide and share content people are looking for.
Tags: bookmarking
There’s no doubt that online videos are here to stay … and grow. The granddaddy of all video sites of course is YouTube, also currently the second largest search engine. Or more philosophically, we humans like the visual and sound stuff that written words on the screen doesn’t have.
Website promotion for now and in the foreseeable future must include online videos. Here’s a short list of sites that may help in your online video production.
1. YouTube. OK, you knew that, but Julie Perry (retiring) and Paul Colligan have a bunch of advice on how the maximize your YouTube footprint.
2. One of Perry and Colligan’s recommended sites for free YouTube background layouts is YTLayouts.
On YouTube itself, color scheme and custom design are found in “My Account,” then in “Edit Channel” and then the “Channel Design” area.
3. Jivox – upload own or modify existing canned video ads (customized for your keywords, on-site URL, etc.).
4. Createspace – from Amazon. Sign up is free. Send in 20 minute+ DVDs, and they will create the accompanying online hosting and packaging, but for the free version, they will take royalties of 50% or so, and you won’t get money until after 60 days from a given sale. Video streaming, downloads, or DVD forms of your product are available.
5. Youreeeka – If you want to set up pay per view. You can specify the viewing time period. There is a $99 annual fee. You keep 60% of sales, but receive pay only after 60 days from sales.
6. Livestream Procaster – free software that enables you to move between screen capture and person shots, but online ads will pop up at bottom of your screen (like on YouTube). To get no ads, the premium version is expensive.
7. Screer – web based screen recording software like Jing and screentoaster. Twitter friendly videos. Nothing to download. Works on MS PCs and Macs.
8. Tubemogul – Submit your videos for free to a variety of online video host sites like YouTube, Metcafe, Yahoo and so on. You can follow the stats on viewings.
9. Much of the above, I get from Dave Kaminski of Webvideo University. Dave recommends certain video editing software, camera and audio equipment, and a lot besides.
10. Slide Rocket – software tool for video and audio presentations. Free trial offer.
11. Camtasia – screen editing software. Or see the free version Camstudio without all the bells and whistles.
12. Niche Profit Classroom – Within this training program for internet and affiliate marketers are a series of recorded webinars, five of which are particularly geared toward online video production. One of these five, for example, is on creating sales videos. Another covers the nuts and bolts technical stuff the speaker uses in his own production.
Any additions you might suggest?
Tags: online video production
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