Owner: My Travels on the Net URL:http://emarketingstrategist.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:06:53 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A website is not enough to attract clients via the internet. You have to create quality content, figure out where your target markets hang out on the internet and go there. "My Travels on the Net" explains in plain English how to use eNewslett Site statistics:Click here
Alternatives to Paypal 2008-03-02 21:04:12 I am not a fan of Paypal but for many of my clients Paypal is a necessary evil. Paypal is pretty good if you’re an individual or small business selling stuff on eBay but if you’re selling an eBook, Payapl is an in-elegant solution.The problem is that once someone has purchased your eBook (or other informational product), it’s really tough to tell them how to download their purchase. You can’t customize the landing page to tell them “Click here to download your purchase.” All you can do is hope that they figure out that they need to click on the tiny “Return to Merchant” URL in the lower left hand corner of the page. The best work-around I’ve found is to put in big, red, bold text on the order page “Click on the ‘Return to Merchant’ link to download your purchase.” Read more:Alternatives
3Types of Searches and How They Affect Professional Service Firms 2008-03-02 21:00:35 I’m at the Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara this week. Most of the seminars and panels are biased toward product driven companies so I will be posting short blog entries on material that with be of use to professional service companies.This morning at a panel discuss “The Blended Search Revoultion”*, Raju Mathotra of Microsoft, discussed the three main ways people search.Find – The searcher is looking for a specific answer to a specific question. i.e. driving directions or movie times.Discover – The searcher has a clear need but is uncertain about next steps.Explore – The searcher is interested in a topic and is noodling around on the internet. (I know I often do my research this way.) In both discovery and exploration, the searcher tends to have multiple, search sessions.W Read more:Affect
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How Service Businesses Can Use Social Media 2008-02-27 19:16:13 I just came out of the session on SEO and Social
Media Marketing. Although I wanted to slam my head against table because the chummy, clubby-ness of the panelists, I did manage to get one nagging question answered.On the surface, social media seems like a natural fit for service professionals. If you write good content, people vote for it which gets exposure for your website. The problem with social media is that the “linksters” voting on social media sites are typically young men (and to a lesser degree women) who are highly technically savvy. My client’s target markets are usually C level executives who don’t have the time or inclination to dink around on the internet. The question become “How can my grown up clients use social media to reach their target markets?”The ans Read more:Service
Backing up Your Computer Data Doesn't Have to Hurt 2008-02-15 19:20:06 I once had a boss who had so many piles of paper in his office that once a year, one of the three secretaries in the office would spend a couple of days in his office with him sorting through it all. The running gag was that we had to tie a rope around the unlucky secretary's waste so we could pull her out when she got buried under an avalanche of paper.Fortunately, I’m much more organized than that so when I cleaned out my office last weekend, it only took about half a day. Once I had all my papers filed and put away, I had two file drawers. That’s it. Two.That’s not necessarily a good thing. Why? Because it made me realize how much information I have stored on my computer. For years I didn’t worry too much about that because all the websites I’ve done and the related files are Read more:Backing
, Computer
You Can Do Something about SPAM 2008-01-23 18:03:48 I got the most obnoxious SPAM email this weekend. It wasn’t the product they were pushing that was so offensive. It was the statement at the end of the email that started with a claim that if I were getting this email, I signed up to receive it (which I most certainly did not because I couldn’t care less about another “make money at home opportunity”) and ended with “Any person who make a false report of alleged spam IS GUILTY OF BOTH FRAUD AND A CIVIL CRIME.” (The emphasis is theirs.)That made me mad. Don’t send me SPAM and then make vague threats about being guilty of fraud and civil crime if I complain. So I decided to do something about it.The email was supposedly from mybizathome@gmail.com. Hmmm. Sending an email from an address that is obviously not your regular email a
My Biggest Influencers 2008-01-11 17:14:45 Tom Pick of Web Market Central tagged me to create a list of my biggest influencers. It was fun to write and made me cry. (Okay. That's not exactly hard to do. I'm kinda leaky.) This list is in order of how long I’ve known the person, not in order of importance.Grandma RubyI had a pretty chaotic childhood but my sister and I could always rely on Grandma Ruby to be there. She and grandpa would show up at our house every other Friday at 5:00 and take us for the weekend. Those visits were the one stable thing we could count on growing up. Grandma Ruby was born on a farm in Kansas and was a young adult during the depression. She’s always lived simply and enjoyed what she had. She’s also embraced aging. Because of her example, I couldn’t imagine doing all those silly things women do to
In Defense of eNewsletters 2008-01-07 17:21:26 eNewsletters get a bum rap these days. As blogs have become more popular, I see more and more on the internet about how much better blogs are than eNewsletters. I hear things like “Anyone can add a blog post and you don’t have to know HTML to do it.” and “You can add a blog post whenever inspiration strikes.” But just because adding to a blog is easier than sending a eNewsletter doesn’t make them better. Here’s why I think the predicted demise of the eNewsletter is greatly exaggerated. It all Boils Down to Your Target Market(s)The debate between eNewsletters and blogs boils down to knowing your target market and what they are comfortable with. For example, my clients and prospects are corporate executives and small business owners. They tend to be service providers such a Read more:Defense
Business Blogs Worth Reading & Commenting On 2007-12-27 00:49:03 I’m a big fan of reading and commenting on other blogs as a way to network online with an eye toward building readership for your own blog. While blogs on technology and politics abound, it’s tough to find good business blogs; especially ones with a large enough readership to expect that your target audiences might actually be reading them.It’s been my experience that the best place to find business blogs is not the blog directories but the websites of major newspapers and magazines. It makes sense. We’ve all heard the stories about how circulation numbers are down. I can’t think of a better way to stay relevant. Not only are newspapers and magazines finding and reporting the news, they are using blogs to enable readers to create more content by participating in the process.So, w Read more:Business
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Tips for Writing an Informational eBook 2007-12-15 21:30:11 I’m helping a long time client create an ebook about writing a business and marketing plan for the new year. She has a treasure trove of stuff she’s written on the topics of business planning, marketing planning and face-to-face networking over the last ten years. So you’d think it would be easy to just throw it all together into an ebook, right? Nope. Just because you have a bunch of great content, doesn’t mean it’s ready to become an ebook. Here’s why:Throwing things together when cooking can be brilliance. In ebooks, it’s garbage.Every good article, white paper or report was written with a specific goal, call to action, publication and target market. Although there might have been common themes, each article had its own unique recipe of factors. So just because each origin Read more:eBook
I Am NOT an Audible Fan 2007-12-11 16:37:41 I recently got a Zune (Microsoft's version of the iPod.) and I really like it. Being a long time NPR listener, I've heard about Audible for downloading audio files and decided to try it out. They have a one month free trial. (Or so they make it sound. Read the fine print.)First Red FlagAudible required a credit card for this "free" offer. They're hardly the first company to do this but it still says to me, "We're going to try to get every penny we can out of you. Please forget when you signed up for this service."Second Red FlagIn order to get the book I wanted, I had to download special software to download the book. That's baloney. You shouldn't need special software to download an MP3 file. (I've already got all the usual programs used for downloading audio files.)Third Red FlagI wasn't
Keywords in Page Names. How Much Do They Really Help? 2007-12-11 16:32:32 In a recent issue of High Rankings Advisor, Jill Whelan answered a question from a reader who was worried about potential ramifications from changing the page names of his company website. He was changing them so they would include keywords in the name in the expectation that keywords in the URL’s would improve the website’s rankings.(For those of you new to search engine optimization, DO NOT change the page names of your website without consulting a professional. It is not a decision to take lightly. It would be the same as if you changed your phone number on a whim and didn’t tell anyone. That would make it tough for clients and prospects to find you wouldn’t it?)In Jill’s reply she cautioned the reader against it for several reasons most of which boiled down to her belief Read more:Keywords
, Names
I Love It When People Say Nice Things About Me! 2007-12-01 19:52:24 If you've read my artilce about Google Alerts, you know that I've got alerts set up for my name and business name. A few days ago I got an alert directing me to Tom Pick's Web Market Central blog. His post was about the Top 100 Social Media & Social Networking Blogs for 2007 according to VirtualHosting.com's blog. Although mine didn't make the list, Tom was kind enough to suggest that maybe it should have.Thanks Tom. Right back at'cha!
Stuff I Found when I Should Have Been Working 2007-12-01 17:23:51 The Newbiew Guide to Social Networking - This is a good primer on social networking. It does a good job describing how to find niche social networks and things to consider when setting up your account.The Blogger’s Guide to SEO - I don't agree with everything they say in this guide (sucha s telling you not to use a service like Blogger) but it does give you good info for how to think of your blog from an SEO perspective.SEO Digger - With this SEO tool you can find out for which keywords your site ranks high enough to be in Google Top 20. You can analyze your own sites as well as sites of your competition. The only problem is that you can't tell it which key words to search for.Tips for Using Digg - I'm doing reserach for an article on social media and came across this video on SEOmoz. I
Are You an Internet Wall Flower? 2007-11-27 20:43:49 No matter how much we wish it were true, you can’t just hang out a shingle and wait for clients to show up. Yes, it’s anxiety provoking but in order to find clients you have to network face-to-face. Even if there isn’t an entrance fee, networking isn’t free. At the very least it costs you time; the time in attending the event and the time in preparation. So when attending a face-to-face networking event you wouldn’t put on your best suit, get a haircut, make sure you’ve got your business cards, practice your elevator speech – and then go stand in the corner. So why do you do it on the internet?You don’t think you do that, eh? I bet you put dozens of hours and hundreds if not thousands of dollars into your website. Then when that didn’t get your phone ringing, you s Read more:Internet
Don't Want Those Holiday Catalogs? 2007-11-08 21:48:06 I live in a house built in 1935. It was built for mail sent in 1935. My mailbox is a hole in the wall next to my front door that takes a sharp downward turn. It’s great for expending expensive heat and terrible for accepting mail. My magazines get mangled and my important mail winds up hanging in the breeze waiting for anyone who wants it.Now that the Holiday
Season is approaching, I know the mail hole is going to get really bad. I do most of my shopping online. Unfortunately retailers assume that because I buy things online I buy from catalogs. I don’t. But these “savvy” retailers send me catalogs which clog up my 1935 mail box.So, Guy Kawasaki, I’m sorry you had two hours to kill in the Monterrey Airport, but you’ve probably saved my sanity this holiday season with your menti Read more:Catalogs
Is There a Social Media Expert in the House? 2007-11-02 17:36:20 I'm working on an article about blog promotion and needed a definition of "social media" so of course I looked it up on Wikipedia where I found the following message:So, if you're an expert on social media, you might want to sign up to be a Wikipedia editor. (Personally, I wouldn't want to paint such a big target on my back but maybe you're braver than me!) Read more:Social
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Is Self Publishing Right for You? 2007-11-02 14:05:40 It seems like every service professional has either written a book or is planning to write a book. They’ve heard time and again that writing a book will build credibility and attract new clients. And increasingly, they are turning to self-publishing or print-on-demand as a way to publish their book.It seems to me that professionals turn to alternative types of publishing because it’s less intimating than the traditional publishing process. When you self publish you don’t have to write a book proposal, you don’t have to pitch your book and you don’t have to deal with rejection. However, there are real drawbacks to self publishing you need to consider before you inadvertently waste all the hard work that goes into writing a book.Mike Schultz of “The Service Insider Blog” has an Read more:Right
, Publishing
It Was too Good to Be True. Blog Comment Links Don’t Count After All. 2007-10-31 12:23:35 When RainToday published my article "How to Blog Without Having a Blog” earlier this month, they requested a few edits and called it “Using Blogs to Attract Attention”. Prior to publication, the editor asked me to address the question of whether or not links in blog comments help your website’s rankings. I posted the question to a trusted SEO forum and while I didn’t get a definitive answer, no one said “No. They don’t count.” So in the article I made the claim “You can improve your website’s rankings with links from blogs.” My reasoning was that when you either put a link in your comment or put your domain name in your signature, the links will be counted by the search engines. It seems reasonable, right? A link to your website counts as a link to the search Read more:Comment
, Blog Comment
Wonder What Other Bloggers Are Reading? 2007-10-20 20:36:55 I'm testing out www.BlogRolling.com to see if it really is an easy way to add blogs and websites to my blogroll and I came across the BlogRolling.com Hot 500. This is a list of the 500 most linked to by other BlogRoll.com members.Check it out if you’re interested in seeing what others are reading. Keep in mind this is not a list of the 500 blogs on the internet; just the blogs most often linked to by other BlogRolling.com members. Read more:Reading
Turning a Blog into a Book 2007-10-18 13:35:08 Earlier this week I had the great pleasure of attending a lecture on personal branding by Thom Walters of Coraggio Group. Mr. Walters, formerly of Wieden & Kennedy, has worked with several Fortune 500 companies on building and promoting their brand.I came to the lecture skeptical about the whole concept of branding. The landscape is littered with failed attempts to influence brand and it seemed to me that controlling or driving brand is akin to pushing the river. You can try but you’re just going to get all wet. Mr. Walters’ lecture was the first time I had a sense that maybe it is possible to build and influence brand in a way that actually works. More about that later.At the beginning of his speech, Mr. Walters mentioned that he was working on book. By the end of the speech I was
What to Ask about that SEO Company's Guarantee 2007-09-26 21:02:06 There are hundreds of companies doing search engine optimization; many of which are on the up-and-up. However, because the industry is so competitive, many make guarantees about results that sound good but are often of little or no value. They use linguistic smoke and mirrors to make it sound like you’re getting a good deal but in reality they are doing very little for the money they are charging you. So how do you tell a valuable guarantee from a useless one with out having to become an expert in search engine optimization?Today’s issue of the RainMaker Report has a good article “Leprechaun Repellent And Other Meaningless SEO
Guarantees,” by Scott Buresh of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, that tells you what to look for when evaluating the guarantees made by search engine com
Podcasting: You Might as Well Start Learning About It Now 2007-09-18 16:43:14 In my travels on the Net today, I came across a very good article about podcasting called "The Art & Science of Podcasting
". Podcasting might seem too cutting edge right now but I'm willing to bet many of you will be seriously considering giving it a try in the next few years. Read more:Start
, Learning
Where’s the Google Shopping Cart? 2007-08-30 18:45:50 I’ve been looking for an inexpensive online shopping cart for clients who want to sell ebooks and accept payment for workshops and seminars via their websites. Sure, you can install a shopping cart on a website but that costs hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars and just isn’t a practical solution for most small businesses. Additionally, you have to have a merchant account which is complicated and time consuming to set up. So what options do you have if you’re just testing the waters of selling informational products online?Paypal looked promising at first because you don’t need to have a merchant account to use it. However, it’s got a major drawback. You can’t customize the message the purchaser receives once they’ve completed their order which means you can’t automat Read more:Google
, Shopping
PassiveAggressiveNotes.com 2007-08-28 16:52:46 Need a reminder why the direct approach is less likely to make you look like a jerk? Check out www.PassiveAggressiveNotes.com for inspiration.
Social Networking Resources 2008-03-27 20:50:20 I was asked to write an article on tips for creating a social networking profile and came across the following resources about social networking I thought were particularly helpful.Social
Networking Resources
:A short video with an overview of social networking. (CommonCraft who produced this video also has other helpful overview videos on blogging, wikis and RSS.):-social-networking(Or see it on YouTube) in depth history of online social networking that includes links to the major players: Networking Blog where you can learn about latest developments and new tools. engines specifically for finding social networks:://www.findasocialnetwork.com/search.phpList of Social Networking Sites organized by category (i.e. books, business, family)-networking-god/A good list of Social Networking Aggre
Writing Captivating Case Studies 2008-04-03 14:28:18 Case studies are one of the bet selling tools a service business can use on their webiste. Unfortunately, they are often overlooked or just plain boring. Even when they follow the problem/solution/result format, they wind up leaving reader thinking "So what?"I recently cam across an article, "The Secret To Writing Persuasive Case Studies
" by Mark Levy that does an excellent job describing how to make your case studies stand out. He makes the case that the missing element is the "insight." Mark makes the case that "By highlighting an insight in a case study, you're underscoring how you think, create, strategize, and fix problems." which I think is an exxcellent point.I strongly recommend readin this article and then reviewing your own case studies. Also, check out Mark's article "Two St Read more:Case Studies
Tips for Creating a Social Networking Profile 2008-04-07 20:40:10 Your social networking profile is important. People visiting your profile are making conclusions about you and your business from very little information. Small things, like your picture (also known as your Avatar) and your email address can say a lot about you. Your bio and your company description will say even more about you. Don’t just throw your social networking profile together. Put the time and effort into creating a profile that’s informative and compelling. Doing so will make a huge difference in how you are perceived by your social network.Every directory and social networking site wants slightly different stuff so it’s hard to say “This is exactly what you need.” But if you have the basics, you can edit or add as needed. The following is a list of information you will Read more:Creating
, Social
oh great... The Spammers Found Twitter 2008-04-09 00:06:39 I get a handful of people signing up to follow me on Twitter
each week. It’s kind of flattering (Some one cares what I think!) but it also occurred to me that following people is a pretty good Guerilla marketing tactic. Why? Because when you sign up to follow someone, they get an email that you’re following them. If you’re using Twitter, you’re probably using social networking and are curious to about who’s paying attention to you so you’re going to click on the link to check them out. And bang! You just played right into the hands of a spammer.For a brief moment I thought I’d discovered “Twitter Spam” so I decided to Google Twitter spam and realized someone (or many people) had already discovered it, named it and created a website around it. I’m not kidding. Check o
SEO Basics: Every Page Is Your Home Page 2008-04-10 19:56:33 Business owners tend to assume that when a potential client does a search on Google or Yahoo and clicks on their website, they wind up on the home page. Sorry. That’s rarely the case.While your house might have one front door, each page of your website is a front door to your business. Why? The search engines don’t really care what page you want people to land on. What they care about is what page on your site is most pertinent to the searcher. NEWS FLASH! Many times the most pertinent search result page is not your home page.*So if each page of your website is a front door, what information do they need to have?• Each webpage needs to be able to get to the main areas of your site. Make sure you have basic navigation on each page.• Each webpage needs to indicate to the visitor wh Read more:SEO
, Basics
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