NextLevel Internet Marketing

Weblog/blog

2010-02-27T11:48:00.000-08:00

Chrome marketshare for March 2009

From Matt Cutts:

Google Chrome continued its upward marketshare march in March. I was looking at my browser breakdown tonight. Here’s what I’ve got from the last 30 days in Google Analytics:"

Short Sentences Sell:�How to Make a Big Bang with Little Words | Search Engine Journal

2010-02-27T11:35:00.000-08:00

When was the last time you read your own copy and set about cutting out any words larger than three syllables? It sounds like a drastic measure, but these days, even corporations are starting to see the light: words like synergy, sustainable and assessment are being sliced out in favor of more direct, simplified language. What’s the deal here? Have we all gotten dumber?

Not at all. But we have gotten more used to the instantly-ready, on-demand world. That means we want to get to the good stuff in language we can understand immediately. Words like teamwork, wholesome, and report.

Prevent Junk from Seeping Into Your Copy

Junk words and phrases like “It seems like” and “Possibly” and “Actually” are all working together to clutter up your copy. They seep in so innocently and then, before you know it, you’ve started writing just like you talk. Sure, a conversational tone is great – but it also creates a lot of needless words that detract from the real meat of your writing.

Go ahead. Strop out words like “very”, “just” and “maybe”. It might seem awkward at first to edit out everyday words like that – but in no time, you’ll find that your words flow much more easily while making your message clearer.

Yes, More Are Seeing A New Google Look-And-Feel

2010-02-27T11:26:00.000-08:00

We’re getting more and more reports from readers who are seeing a “new” Google look-and-feel for its search results. This is a three column design that Google’s actually been testing for some time. That testing appears to be accelerating.

Google Tackles Its “UI Jazz” Problem, Tests Streamlining Search Options Feature is our story from last November that takes an in-depth look at the new user interface and the features it offers.

So who sees the changes? About 1% to 3% of Google users, who will be randomly selected. The test will probably run for about six weeks. If successful, expect to see the changes — altered to take in account test feedback — show up across Google soon after that.

That six week period has long come and passed — but the testing continues. Google tells me a variety of slight variations are live in the wild, still being shown to a randomly selected group of people. There is no expected launch date."

Google adds Facebook to real-time search | Marketing/Ecommerce Research

2010-02-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

"Google recently announced it is now incorporating Facebook Pages status updates in its real-time search feature.

The announcement wasn’t exactly detailed - it consisted of a brief message on Twitter (go figure), so not much is known about the ins and outs of the arrangement at this stage.

Google’s real-time search feature is something I have never really taken much notice of. It consists of a scrolling box updating in real time that appears in the first search engine results page (SERP), usually in relation to breaking news or very popular topics.

For example, if you were to run the following search query at the moment: Winter Olympics - you will likely see the real time results section embedded somewhere on the first page of results.

Real-time search draws from all sorts of sources - newspapers, blogs, Twitter and even MySpace. From what I can gather, the Facebook inclusion will be limited to Facebook Pages - profiles set up by businesses and organizations, or individuals such as politicians. These pages are a little different to general Facebook user profile pages."

Social Media is Here to Stay

2010-01-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

Twitter and Facebook can be great for boosting your online sales; but many merchants use it for sales messages only and often defeating themselves in the process.

Taking a look at a few Twitter profiles and Facebook fan pages belonging to online merchants it is noteworthy that the ones who seem to generate the most interest and followers don’t push a sales message with every tweet or update.

Everyone likes a bargain and a tweet/post to showcase special offers is a good idea, but if the tweets are simply “we’re the best”; it’s hard to maintain follower and fan interest, or attract new followers as it becomes immediately apparent you’re only interesting in making bucks.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that per se.

However, people’s time and attention is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity - and so many sources are competing for it. Merchants need to extend themselves a little and perhaps make their forays into social media offer a little more value to their readers.

This doesn’t mean to say you need to chat with everyone of your followers or fans, but provide them with more in terms of interesting content. Selling vegetable seeds? Tweet brief planting tips. Selling motor oil, post some nuggets on engine maintenance. You can also tweet about news from your industry.

It’s not all that mentally taxing to do and the extra time you’ll take will see you increase your follower or fan count and see better engagement with the followers you already have. They’ll start paying more attention when you do post your offers.

An introduction to Twitter as a marketing tool (click)

7 Tactics to Improve Your Email Performance

2010-01-23T12:43:00.000-08:00

They used 7 basic tactics to improve their results

Tactic #1. Mix it up

They might send HTML messages for weeks before delivering a text-heavy message that features long copy and fewer images. They aim to keep their audience interested in product offers by creating messages that catch their eye, he says.

"After a while, we decided to use different templates and not get stuck in a rut. An underlying base strategy is to keep things fresh."

Their approach goes against what some marketers accept as "conventional wisdom" -- that consistency in style is always an asset for an emailer. Audiences may react differently to the same message delivered in varied formats.

Tactic #2. Personalize subject lines

Part of the inspiration for an optimization push was declining open rates among their audience of 25-to-35-year-old male subscribers. They decided to test personalized subject lines by including the recipient’s first name in the copy -- a best practice according to many email professionals.

The A/B split test pitted a first-name approach against a generic subject line:
o Control subject line -- "Don’t be this guy, try Preferred Installer!"
o Test subject line -- "[First Name], is this you? Try Preferred Installer!"

Results:
o The personalized email achieved a 22% open rate
o The non-personalized email came in at 16.9%

The test convinced the team to use personalized subject lines as their standard approach. But their overall "mixing it up" tactic is applied to their subject lines, as well.

Sometimes they’ll send a non-personalized message. "We’ve discovered that overuse of the customer name in the subject line dilutes its effectiveness over time."

Tactic #3. Test days of the week

Next up was testing days of the week. Here’s how Barney describes their approach before the test:

"We are primarily dealing with weekend warriors, and the industry data told us to go for Mondays, so we did," he says. "But we thought we could do better."

The team tested sending messages on Thursdays. The result: Open rates went up.

However, they found that sales dropped significantly during weekends. In other words, sales fell for the Thursday email sends even though the opens were higher.

In the end, the test results provided key information about sales conversions -- not just about opens and clickthroughs. Mondays and Tuesdays once again became their send days.

Tactic #4. Segment according to behavior

Segmentation was not in the mix before the team's email program makeover. They implemented a now-irreplaceable tactic involving five key customer segments in their email list.

They used the following criteria to establish the segments:
o Products abandoned in the last few weeks while in shopping cart
o Click activity in terms of products interaction
o Purchase history

They identified five segments:
o Dirt bikers
o Sport bikers
o Cruisers
o ATV
o Scooter

They examined the impact segmentation has had and liked the results. "We experienced an average increase of over 25% per email directly related to these additional dynamic merchandising [segments]."

Tactic #5. Clean list regularly

They were not diligent about scrubbing their list in previous years. But they have since changed that practice. Now, if an email subscriber has not purchased for one year, they are removed from the list.

"We saved $30,000 the first year in incremental spend by removing those people," Barney says. "When they aren’t responding to the most-aggressive re-engagement offers, well, it’s better to get them off the list."

Tactic #6. Optimize landing pages

Not surprisingly, landing page optimization also has been a core element of the team’s email marketing progress. They started doing A/B landing page tests to see which creative elements provided the biggest improvement.

This process was a major contributor to the 72% revenue lift in 2009. "The most important question is whether or not the landing page fulfills the expectations of the value proposition of the link leading into it."

Tactic #7. Use Facebook icon

Six months ago, the team had approximately 3,000 fans on their Facebook page. Now, at press time, they have 11,159 -- a boost triggered by embedding a Facebook icon in their email messages.

People who click on the icon are taken to a specific Fan page, where they can follow the brand's news and activity. Not only has email helped grow their Facebook Fan group, but Barney suggests that the association also has helped email conversion rates, as well.

"We are still in our infant stage with [social media]," he says. "We are learning what the benefits are. It’s definitely adding to our overall success. It’s a great interface for us to communicate with our fan base."

Headlines in your Web Page

2010-01-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

Don't Suck in 2010

2010-01-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

It is a new year and let's make it a year of no websites sucking!

What does that mean? It seems obvious, yet we tend to spend our time trying to solve more complicated problems and forget that the number one goal of every website is not to suck. Especially at the real simple things.

The owners of a website were extolling the creativeness and virtues of their website of which they probably spent some good hard cash to develop. A visit to their site reveals that it is a 100% flash website, with very small font size, where it took too much looking to click on anything and then too much scrolling to read anything. Calls to action were either unclear or non existent. People ask to take a look at the site (because it is not working for them) and the only comment that I can make is that "it is pretty". That is sucking!

What do you do? Take a look at the top 5 or ten pages of your website and ask one question of each page: "What the heck are we trying to do with each page?" This may take some time and heartache but you must do it. Make sure there is a clear answer and there is a connection between why a customer would come to a page and why the page exists. A match!! Customer intent=Web page purpose.

Avoid flash sites. There are over 2 million flash designers out there just champing at the bit to create, and I mean create, great looking websites for people. It seems that the only reason for their existence is to be pretty, load slow with a dancing bear to entertain us upon entrance.

Get a clear understanding of what drove customers to a page. You cannot do this without objective data contained within tools like Google Analytics.

Make clear calls to action. Identify the one or two jobs that your web page is suppose to do and do it. White space is your friend. You do not need to fill up all the real estate. Lead people through you website until they do what it is you want them to do.

Make the navigation works. This seems simple but many times the links do not work, and the descriptions, although familiar to the web owner, make little sense to the web visitor (customer).

Ask you visitors how to improve your webpage.

If you think your webpage sucks then get to work or we will be here next year talking about the same topic. Insanity.

It's the Snippet Stupid

2010-01-13T08:43:00.000-08:00

When you search at Google or Yahoo or Bing, you’ll see a set of search results that include a page title, a summary or snippet of the page, and a URL indicating the address of the page.

Often, that combination of title, snippet, and URL will be the deciding factor as to whether or not someone clicks through search results to a page.

The snippet peforms a couple of functions – it gives you a summary of what the page is about, and it shows you the context within which your query terms might appear on a page.

Sometimes a search engine will show you the Meta Description that the publisher of the page has come up with for a page, especially if the Meta Description contains the words found in the query.

Sometimes a search engine will show you a description that isn’t even found on the page, if it decides that the page is relevant for a query but the description for the page at the Yahoo Directory or DMOZ makes a better snippet than the meta description or any of the content found on the page.

It’s also quite possible, and very common for a search engine to use content found on a page to show as a snippet for that page. Chances are that search engines show text from a page’s content as a snippet for most queries more often than they do the meta description for a page, or a description from an alternative source such as the Yahoo or DMOZ directories.

If a snippet shown to a searcher isn’t very informative, searchers may click on pages in search results that don’t contain the information they are looking for, or they may not click on pages that may be helpful. Poorly chosen snippets can lead to bad searching experiences.

Provided by fellow Twitterer SEO by the SEA

Social Media is like Dating. Get it?

2010-01-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

I read this article by Ruud Hein and have, at my own risk, repeated part of it in a couple of workshops because it made sense to me. Now I share it with you.

Conversations without a Plan

I don't like hearing social media gurus telling people to go start and engage in conversations. There's nothing wrong with talking. But talking without a purpose or a goal could be a waste of time. Do my conversations have a hidden agenda? No, it's not hidden. The goal is to help the client make more money. Sell more stuff!

I don't think we should go out and "engage" people without a plan and a goal…. unless you're doing customer service. Talking to existing customers to create a deeper relationship and increase repeat business is a good idea. But wouldn't adding to your plan some kind of incentive/offer for the repeat business increase your chances of getting the conversion?
I'm starting to feel like I'm being too much of a "guy" about Social Media. Is the ROI focus from Mars and Social Media from Venus?

Let's compare social media marketing to dating; before you get any action, you have to:

Get the girl on a date
Find something in common (or see a movie to create a commonality)
Talk about the commonality over dinner
Ask questions, listen, listen, listen
Make a move at just the right time

Maybe my emphasis on direct response is too one-night-standish? Or maybe some of you are too afraid to ask for a sale… or a date.

But regardless of what you do you have to ask the following questions:

Why should they pay attention?
Why should they friend you?
Why should they respond?
Why should they buy?

Think about it. Plan it. Then do it.

Ann Smarty reveals her Cheat List

2010-01-11T17:18:00.000-08:00

Like James Morris once said, “There is no secret sauce in SEO“. Really, if you can allow the time for some studying, you are most likely to be able to do it yourself.
What you really need is (1) to understand the good old KISS principle (just keep it as simple as possible), (2)take any rumors and myths (even if they come from trustful sources) with a grain of salt and (3) bookmark some easy-to-implement, step-by-step tutorials. Read More...

Titter Lists another Useful Tool

2010-01-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

The just-launched Twitter Lists feature is a new way to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In actuality, though, Twitter Lists are Twitter’s long awaited “groups” feature. They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. That’s because Lists aren’t just static listings of users, but rather curated Twitter streams of the latest tweets from a specified set of users.

In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (the members of your family, for example), Read More...

The Next Ten

2010-01-02T10:25:00.001-08:00

1. If you have somone linking to you, visit them, comment or subscribe to them.Do the same for Twitter and Facebook.

2. Go to local directories like Yelp! and make sure you're listed. Hey, it's a link, right? Plus it'll give you one more place to manage your reputation.

3. Be sure your company information is up to date in Google, Yahoo! and Live's local search tools.

4. If you're a local business, ask your customers to review you on one of the local sites: Either on the search engines or on the other sites. This is when it is great to have 120 friends on Facebook. This will boost your ranking in local search results. Beg, plead, bribe if you have to because they do have to do something. And don't worry if you get a few negative reviews, either. Part of life.

REMEMBER: Google Local!!

5. Start working on Yahoo! Answers and Google Knol. This is an opportunity to make yourself an expert, and get some links at the same time. Spend no more than an hour a week. Read Matt McGee's excellent article on the subject to learn more.

6. Invite people to subscribe to your house e-mail list. If you don't have one, start one. This continues to be one of the most neglected facets of internet marketing.

7. Make sure there's an easy way for folks to sign up for that list.

8. Remove any extra fields from your subscription form. All you need is their e-mail address. Simple, simple, simple

9. If you require registration during checkout, get rid of it.

10. If you're automatically opting folks in to your e-mail list, stop. You may be violating the Cann-Spam act and not getting "qualified" customers

2010 Predictions for Social Media

2009-12-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

Prognosticator Paul Dunay who successfully predicted 8 out of 10 trends for 2009 has come up with his list for 2010 in Social Media

Facebook Advertising will take off

This year Facebook saw their advertiser base triple! Facebook ads today remind me of Google AdWords in 2001 with low CPC’s on topics and segments many marketers will want to reach. Facebook Ads will become the close “cousin” of Google AdWords

Mobile Marketing

New applications enabled by social media such as Location Based Services (LBS) have arrived and give context to mobile marketing – you will see more of these applications enabled by your Social Graph become more important in the next year. For BtoB Marketers you might begin to experiment with Location Based Services especially at live events.

Social will leave Marketing

This year Marketing “got” social media but next year is the year it starts to transform the rest of your BtoB organization from Product Development and R&D, to Billing and Finance, to HR and Recruiting, to Customer Service and the Contact Center. Social is a process that has the power to transform an entire organization.

Corporate Websites will become less important

As every company gets more experienced with Social Media you will see more consumption of content off of the corporate website in places like Facebook, YouTube, and relevant Communities and Forums. The corporate website, or Home page, will be the place where you go to get just the more official product or service related content.

Lead Generation tools must combine with Social Media tools

Right now there are tools for everything that relate to the business website, including tools to track leads that are being nurtured. This will change. It is impossible to optimize based on each of these silos – Marketers need tools with social media built in so we can optimize effectively. Calling all entrepreneurs. There is a huge opportunity here that some company needs to fill fast.

Listening tools will also get much stronger

Another tool opportunity is for listening tools to do better sentiment analysis and routing of the real opportunities both positive and negative directly to the sources in the organization. The routing is key and having done this manually all year - it is just not a scalable model.

How to handle Advocates will become more important

Business needs a place to put their advocates to harness and energize them when their is something cool to talk about. This will increasingly become a challenge for most marketers. Having spoken recently to Pepsi, HBO, RIM, Warners Bros, and American Express about their challenges in this space – BtoB or BtoC this is an area where they want to focus on next year.

MicroVideo shops will start popping up

You are going to see many small video shops popping up. Young college students that are fluent in Video or creative types from ad agencies that might be out of a job can and will start up solo practioners video shops and bring the cost down for marketers.

Businesses will demand Intelligence not Social Media

You will see vendors announce tools that deliver intelligence from social media right where it is contextually needed - SalesForce.com provided a glimpse of thie with the introduction of their new product Chatter. This is an early indication of the need for more contextually related Social Media data that can provide the type of intelligence that the business demands.

Facebook will surpass Google for the #1 site online

Whether you know it our not Facebook has been inching closer to the #1 spot this year beating out Yahoo for the #2 spot in November (according to Alexa.com). The delta for #1 with Google is just 14 Million visits per month (18 Million if you ask Compete.com) which is nothing in the grand scheme of things!

Prediction: You will see Facebook surpass Google by Valentines day 2010. Mark it down people ;-)

10 More things to do.........

2009-12-17T08:53:00.000-08:00

The Next Ten.......... scroll down for the previous posts

1. Make sure your site uses correct semantic markup. This is about the code so computers can understand things like humans. Your developer had better understand what that means.

2.Get your site totally standards compliant according to the W3C code validator.

3. At the same time, make sure your site isn't hideously ugly and provides a good user experience.

4.With those two items handled, you can now go to all the major XHTML and CSS site directories out there, which list lots of standards-compliant sites, and submit your own web site. If you get in, you get great links from great sites. Do not submit your site to any CSS or XHTML directories until you see a happy green report on the W3C validator. Doing so wastes your time, and the directory owners'. They're liable to digitally tar and feather you.

5.Comment on other folks' blogs. That gets you attention from those bloggers. They may come look at your site, or just drop you a line, or they may do nothing for a while. But you're building relationships you can use later.

6.Do a press release a month. Chances are something cool happened. Did you hire someone new? Create a new product? Complete a new project? Win a prize? Brag! PRWeb, Business Wire, and NakedPR. Copywriting 101 from Copyblogger

7. Get someone who can write to create that press release. Bragging doesn't help if you sound like an idiot. Elance.com and Guru.com are a source for freelancers.

8. Learn to use Google Reader. Subscribe to the top internet marketing blogs. Read them a lot. For a hint you can look at the AdAge 150 list. Follow the bloggers on Twitter to save some time.

9. Go to Google blog search. Search for your own brand name. Then subscribe to that search result in Google Reader (you'll find a little RSS link on the search results page). That gives you a quick look at what folks are saying about your company. Also use Google Alerts

10.Do the same thing for your own name or any name or keyword that relates to your site or business

Google's Content Network-Expand your Reach

2009-12-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

As Google indicates only 5% of all the pages on the internet are search results pages and people spend only about 5% of their time on search results pages. That leaves 95% of remaining space where people spend their time. Wouldn't it be important to expose your product to them also? Check out the video below and see if this can work for you.

NEXT: Optimizing for Success

Local On-line VIDEO targeted Ads

2009-12-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

One of our members, Marshall Morris of Mautified.com, contributed this website which features on line video ads with a low cost entry.

"You can create your own online video ads and place them on local websites. It's free to create ads using our rich library of video, images and audio. Select your audience, region and how much you'd like to spend - get started for pennies a video view!" Read more...

Facebook Signal to Noise

2009-12-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

FACEBOOK...This is a video that shows you step by step how to create groups of people, where by a click of your mouse you can quickly see what is happening with your ‘peeps’ you want to keep an eye on. Also mentioned are some ideas about News Feed groups you may want to set up… that you may not have thought about.

60% Click thru Rate... MicroTargeted Advertising

2009-12-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

One of our SCORE counselors, John LaFare, sent this to me. Thought is worthy of putting in the blog.

UNBOXED
By STEVE LOHR of the New York Times

NEXT JUMP may well be the most intriguing Internet business that you’ve never heard of — though that’s likely to change as the company seeks a wider audience. The handful of industry analysts who were invited into the company’s New York offices recently have come away impressed. Next Jump, they say, represents the future of online commerce and could emerge as a counterweight to Amazon, the giant Web merchant. And this patiently gestated start-up, they add, shows one path to the still-elusive promise of Internet advertising: using data to greatly improve the efficiency of marketing.

“Next Jump is a bellwether for the next generation of e-commerce, driven by better data,” says Tim O’Reilly, a blogger and the chief executive of the technology publisher O’Reilly Media. Maybe, maybe not. But whether it succeeds or eventually stumbles, Next Jump certainly seems like a company to watch, and to consider. Next Jump’s origins go back to 1994, when Charlie Kim, the founder, was a student at Tufts University. There he started a business that inserted coupons from local merchants into guide books that universities issued to students.

A year later, Mr. Kim went to work for Morgan Stanley. But he kept the side business and soon expanded to working on corporate perk programs that offered employees discounts on merchandise. He left Morgan
Stanley in 1997 and took the business online. Today, 60 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use Next Jump’s technology for their employee discount programs. Next Jump also handles the rewards programs that offer deals to loyal customers of companies like Dell, Borders and Hilton Hotels, and similar programs for membership organizations like AARP and the American Federation of Teachers. More than 100 million Americans have access to Next Jump’s e-commerce marketplace, and 10 million a year are customers.

As it has quietly expanded, Next Jump has been gathering data, and not only from companies and customers.
It also gets credit-card transaction data from American Express and MasterCard. This vast trove —
accumulated over years — is the company’s most precious asset, analysts say.

Next Jump analyzes that data to draw inferences about what a person would be likely to buy, and at what
price. Its network also includes 28,000 retailers who can specify the characteristics of customers — age,
location, income, for example — that they are most interested in luring with certain products.
Unboxed - Next Jump Uses Data to Turn Online Browsing Into Buying

Next Jump’s software then tailors offerings to small segments of potential customers, down to individuals,
often reaching them with e-mail alerts. “It’s true microtargeting,” Mr. Kim said. Most striking is the efficiency of Next Jump’s sizable network. Its click-through rate — the percentage of Web surfers who see an ad or offer and click on it — is 60 percent, the company says. At most e-commerce sites, a 5 percent click-through rate is considered excellent, analysts say.

But the end game of Internet marketing is converting browsers to buyers. Next Jump says that for every 11
people who see one of its ads, one person makes a purchase. In Web commerce generally, 1,000 to 1 is
deemed a good performance. Until recently, the Next Jump e-commerce engine was entirely unbranded,
working unseen underneath corporate intranets or retailer’s rewards Web sites. “We were all white label,” Mr. Kim said. “Nobody knew who we were.” But that is starting to change. The Yahoo Deals shopping area now has a Personal Offers site, whose logo says “Powered by Next Jump” — co-branding similar to the Intel Inside campaign of the big chip maker. In September, Next Jump rolled out a Web site, Corporate Perks, that lets small businesses and consumers tap into its marketplace. Similarly, it has recently developed BlackBerry, Android and iPhone applications for another of its sites, Overwhelming Offers, that offers deep discounts on merchandise in sales that typically last an hour or two. Last month, the company struck a deal with MasterCard to offer Next Jump’s e-commerce marketplace to its cardholders.

By broadening its reach, Next Jump promises to become a more strategic partner for consumer-goods
retailers. Many of them, analysts say, are leery of Amazon’s growing clout as the dominant online marketplace.

Unlike Amazon, Next Jump is not a retail competitor, merely a technology engine for sales. “Next Jump can
potentially become a really viable alternative to Amazon for retailers,” said Leslie Hand, research director for
IDC Retail Insights.

NEXT JUMP’S status as a trusted middleman has enabled it to collect fees both from companies who use its
software and from retailers on goods sold. Mr. Kim declines to disclose financial details, other than to say
Next Jump is profitable, has no debt and is growing rapidly. Its backing so far has come from angel investors,
who have put in $45 million, including Kevin Parker, chief executive of Deutsche Bank’s asset management
division, and Ram Shriram, a former Amazon executive, who was one of Google’s first investors.
Next Jump is heading for a public offering someday, but Mr. Kim says that is not imminent. For now, it is
focused on growth. One goal is to assemble one of the largest Internet engineering teams on the East Coast, he said. Its payroll of 225 includes 150 engineers, and it plans to hire 100 more in the next year.
Gautam Arora joined the company in June, after receiving his master’s degree in computer science from
Georgia Tech. He chose Next Jump over Microsoft and a few Silicon Valley companies.

“I had my doubts at first,” Mr. Arora said. “From the outside, it looks like just a shopping portal for employee perks. But look more closely, and you see a company that has morphed into a personalized advertising platform, and a company that could influence how advertising and marketing are done on the Internet.”

Review of Webmaster Tools

2009-12-09T11:24:00.000-08:00

WEBMASTER TOOLS...On the heals of the NextLevel event, it is a good idea to review.

Google has an excellent presentation that capsulizes many of the things we talked about in the Next Level workshops. Check it out Google Webmasters Video Presentation

Additionally, Matt Cutts of Google provides us with a look into the Future of Search

Second and Ten

2009-12-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

THE SECOND 10 THINGS....Yes Virginia there are ten more...

1. Install an analytics tool. Make sure you can consistently track conversions sales, or leads, or whatever else it is that you want people to do at your site. See Google Analytics and Avinash Kaushik's Blog

2. Get a HackerSafe (McAfee Example) or ScanAlert logo on your site. There is valid argument about there relative value, but the search engines and customers both like them.That sticker can get you more search engine 'trustrank' and improve conversion rates.

3. Trust is a primary factor is getting people to "pull the trigger". Put your full address and phone number on each page of your site, for this reason. Might separate you from the competition.

4. Use Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Wordpot, Keyword Index or something similar to find suitable keywords that folks use to find your products or services. Also consider Keyword Spy or evaluate SpyFu as additional tools.

5. Check out the sites that appear in the top of the search results for those keyword phrases you choose

6. Determine who links to them. Do a "link:" search on Google, or use linkdiagnosis.com or Yahoo! Site Explorer (the best and requires an account-free) to build a list. Now go out and get those links! Check out this ARTICLE

7. If two years ago some SEO hack advised you to put 100 links at the bottom of your home page, delete them. They're not helping you, and they may be hurting you.

8. If two years ago that same SEO hack advised you to write title tags that read like this - "Wedding stuff and wedding things and weddings stuffs and weddings things with more wedding items and this is your place for weddings" - delete those too and write something that doesn't sound like Elmer Fudd suffering a mental breakdown. Keep it simple and keep it descriptive. It is not a book title or movie title. Check this ARTICLE out.

9. If you have the same keywords in your keywords tag on every page of your site, search your feelings... Do you really think the search engines are that stupid? Change 'em, or delete the tag altogether. The tag doesn't really help, and duplicating keywords across all pages can flag you as an SEO spammer. Different title tags, different descriptions, different text on all pages

10.Write a high-quality keyword oriented description tag for each page of your site. That may not affect ranking but it'll get more folks to click on your search listing or click through to your specific page. People searching for worshops in Orange County should go directly to the SCORE114 workshop page.

Internet Marketing-things you gotta do!!

2009-12-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

First of a series of "things to do" for you for your internet marketing pursuits. Hope to have all of them completed by the end of the year so we can start 2010 out on the right foot.

If you have others, post 'em as comments on www.scorenextlevel.blogspot.com

1. Unless you have a real compelling reason to have a Flash introduction on your web site, delete it. As one writer said, "If you don't agree, try this: Shove your head into a bucket of water. Stay in there, not breathing, for 10 seconds longer than is comfortable. That's what you're doing to your customers. Delete it, please." Also see http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html

2.Check the load speed of every page on your site. If any load in more than 10 seconds, fix it (2-6 seconds is far better). If your developer says they can't, and it's not your own network causing the problem, might be time for a new one. Go HERE    Another article:
"Is load time killing conversions?"

3.Check your site for broken links. There are several free link checkers. Fix those links. Do not pass this step until you're done. If it takes your developer more than a week to do this step, again with the "new one" thing. http://validator.w3.org/checklink

4.Make sure you have a user-friendly 404 error page, not the generically nasty PAGE NOT FOUND message. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000819.html

5. Make sure you have a user-friendly 500 error page, too. A 500 error happens when some bit of database code you wrote late at night decides it's had enough with this world, and takes your web site with it. That usually leads to something terribly informative like "500 Error Connection Timed Out". Maybe you can do something better?

6. Remove all inline javascript to a separate .js include file. That will speed up page load times and may help you with search rankings, too. Once again check with your developer

7. Set up Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Live.com Webmaster Tools. You'll see your site from the search engine's viewpoint, what folks use to find you, and whether there are any problems that might be hurting you in the search engines.

8. Set up an XML sitemap, too. Check out. Sitemaps.org for an overview. See HERE and HERE

9. If you're running an e-commerce site, hire a really good writer to rewrite all your product descriptions. Those descriptions matter more than you think. See Copywriting 101 by Copyblogger. Consider Guru.com and Elance.com as sources for copywriters. There are numerous freelancers around too.

10. Get analytics set up on your site. You can't do internet marketing without it. Actually, you can, but you'll suck at it. I recommend Google Analytics. If your developer says they can't install anything, well, you know...

For your reading   Web Marketing for Dummies
                            Don't Make Me Think
                            Google Analytics in an Hour a Day

New at Google. Caffeine and Speed!

2009-12-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

Google on the Caffeine roll out. This is new architecture that may (emphasized)affect rankings in some cases.

Also starting in 2010, Google will emphasize page load speed as a factor in their ranking algorithm. You can find help at code.google.com/speed of a a Firefox extension call PageSpeed or www.webpagetest.org

See the video with Matt Cutts discussing new search architecture CAFFEINE

Bing and SEO

2009-12-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to NextLevel member Jill Masters for this contribution....You can find her @ surveymysite.com

SEO tips for Bing

Think you have a good SEO strategy for Google? You better adapt it for Bing

Following yesterday’s news that Microsoft’s Bing is gaining share on Google (its searches are up 7% for October), I thought I’d look into the company’s stance on search engine optimization (SEO) – you know, now that people are flocking to the site.

Microsoft’s stance on SEO doesn’t appear to be all that different from Google’s, however, users won’t get the same results on both Google and Bing, which is how to two can coexist in the first place.

The real difference is in how the results are presented, and not as much in how the two determine quality and relevancy. Remember that Microsoft’s Bing is the “decision engine”. Read More...

Link Spamming

2009-11-25T14:25:00.001-08:00

A Link Spam Story-Even the Good Get Stung!

The following is taken from Danny Sullivan's (SEO guru) personal blog DAGGLE

If you're link spamming, you suck. If you know someone who is link spamming, they suck - and you should tell them so. If you don't know why you suck, here's a story about the human impact of what you do.

About a year ago, my wife Lorna Harris launched a social news site for woman called Boudica. You won't find anything there now. The site's closed due to a link spamming attack and will probably never reopen.

Lorna wanted a place where women could share stories relating to women but without a predominance of "mommy" content she'd found in some other places. Not finding what she wanted, she dived into creating Boudica.

She assembled the site entirely on her own, finding a programmer, working to develop the features and watching over the small community that made use of it.

Most of her time was spent dealing with the inevitable spam attacks that a community site faces. While her site had some defenses, this latest attack was too much. Someone decided the world needed another 500+ links about discount prescription drugs.

Wiping the links out would be fast work for a programmer that knows Drupal, which her site was based on. But that's still time and money for a small site that hasn't generated income. Plus, the version of Drupal that she's running really needs to be upgraded to prevent future attacks. That's more time and money that's not likely worth spending.

If Boudica had been more successful, doing the work would make sense. But it has remained small, and the link spam attack will probably tip her over to a decision she's already been debating, of whether it makes sense to continue working at it. She doesn't want to feel a failure if she abandons it; my feeling is that she's learned much from doing it, so look at it as a building block for future success.

Still, being small doesn't excuse the attack. Nor do other excuses that typically get trotted out carry much weight with me, such as "You get what's coming if you don't have strong defenses" or "it's Google's fault - they created the link economy that drives this demand."

No, the core problem is that the web has people who think nothing of vandalizing other web sites. That's what link spamming is. You're not adding value to a site. You're simply spray painting garbage on someone else's property, for your own personal benefit. You have no manners. You have no morals. You ought to be ashamed.

Ironically, I was in a debate this week where I was sticking up for the SEO industry (see SEO FAQ That's Not From The Land Of Unicorns). To some, that means I'm sticking up for link spamming, since they see the SEO industry as synonymous with link spam.

SEO doesn't mean link spamming in my book. There are SEOs who also link spam, clearly. Aside from hurting individual site owners, you give the entire SEO industry a bad name. You should stop. Or call yourself something else - perhaps link spammer would be a good title?

I've written against link spam before. Back in 2005, I tried to get some consensus that automated link spam ought to be condemned by those in the industry overall. One example I pointed out during that campaign was Mike Grehan's classic story of fending off link spam of a memorial web site in 2004.

Seriously, who wants to stand up in defense of dropping links on a site dedicated to a dead man?

Who wants to stand up for causing someone (me) to take time away during Thanksgiving last year to deal with link spam (see Crappy MP3 Sites, Comment Spamming & Enough Already)?

Who wants to stand up for killing a site that a mother was making time for in between the already full-time job of watching her kids?

In the US, we got CAN-SPAM primarily to help get junk spam email in control. It's helped, though clearly spam email hasn't gone away. Still, I think the time is overdue to look at updating CAN-SPAM to include link spam. I intend to explore that further.

We shouldn't need laws as a deterrent, of course. Basic human decency ought to be enough. Those who are link spamming should be able to ask themselves one simple question about what they're doing and know they shouldn't go forward:
Is that the type of thing you'd be proud to tell your own mother about?

Postscript: By link spamming, by the way, I include comment spam as that's often done solely to gain a link.

Postscript 2: Peter, below in the comments, sees this as a crybaby post. It's not. Let me clarify a bit more, if my points above didn't make this clear.

I'm not naive. I understand that sites should have anti-spamming filters in place. Lorna's had some. It could have more. But I've also seen spam get through anti-spam filters on my own Sphinn social news site. That site employs multiple-CAPTCHA barriers, along with an array of other deterrents. It also has human moderators. Link spammers still attack it. Link spammers will attack ANYTHING out there, and nothing is foolproof. The first programmer that tells you they have a perfect anti-spam solution will soon after encounter another programmer who will blow that fallacy out of the water. For success with a social site, or any site that allows user-generated content (such as a blog allowing comments), you have to be prepared to fight spam. Lorna expected it and has been fighting it. She could, if she wants, get this latest huge barrage of spam cleared out on Boudica and improve spam filters going forward, if she choses. She's currently debating this. It just may be, as I explained above, that this was the thing that tips her toward closing the site, something she was already considering because of low usage.

But the main point is that decision shouldn't be something forced upon her through an act of vandalism. That on the web, I feel we kind of accept that this type of spam happens, and you have to live with it. It does, you do - but I'm hoping for more than the usual rant that is all those impacted by it feel they have. I'm hoping in a small way that some of those who engage in these actions take a moment to think further about what they are doing. Or that perhaps some who know others who link spam will send a message out to knock it off.

Biznik Don't Feel Alone Running Your Business

2009-11-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

If you are not on Biznik...

It sucks growing a business alone. No one cares. But we do. Biznik is an award-winningcommunity of entrepreneurs and small businesses dedicated to helping each other succeed.

If you're having any of these problems, and want to do something about it, Biznik is for you:

You love running your business, but hate feeling isolated.
You need more clients and customers.
You need to raise your visibility and credibility.
You do most things well in your business, but not everything.
You don't have enough opportunities to meet colleagues and potential partners.
Your business isn't growing fast enough.
You have a hard time keeping up with trends that affect your business.
You aren't sure how to use social media to promote your business.
You're thinking about starting a business, but aren't sure where to start.

http://biznik.com/

Red Bull Fan Page-One of the best

2009-11-19T13:59:00.000-08:00

The Red Bull fan page is easily one of the best on Facebook simply because it has been able to break out of the typical fan page mold by providing fun content that encourages fans to interact with and ultimately connect with the brand. Their uniqueness is captured in their innovative incorporation of Twitterinto their Facebook fan page. Integrating a Twitter stream is not special on its own, but Red Bull doesn’t just pull in tweets from their official corporate account, as you might expect most brands do. Instead, Red Bull has aggregated tweets from sponsored athletes like skateboarder Ryan Sheckler and snowboarder Shaun White and included them directly in their Facebook presence. Associating themselves with popular athletes, and letting fans connect to those athletes on a separate social network (i.e., not boxing them in) gives Red Bull some instant cool points.

Their page’s “Boxes” section is also pretty darn incredible. Red Bull has built all kinds of content and applications that help them break out of the vanilla Facebook mold that forces all brands to look and feel more or less the same. My favorite app is one that lets fans rate phone calls of people who “drunk dialed” the Red Bull 1-800 number. It’s not only hilarious, but it also smartly encourages additional fan engagement.

Red Bull, which is a drink popular with teen and college ages kids, definitely knows its audience, and they’ve played to that face by categorizing their page under business type “pharmaceuticals.” Clearly, this is a company that understands their audience and knows that the best way to connect with them on Facebook is with humor, fun, apps that get people engaged, and by being creative.
--June 16th, 2009 | by Callan Green

Best video to create a facebook page

2009-11-19T13:50:00.000-08:00

Free Social Media Benchmark Guide

2009-11-11T08:52:00.000-08:00

There is a free social media whitepaper summarizing insights from nearly 3000 businesses. This is one of the largest studies conducted to date.

Some Takeaways:

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are leaders. MySpace is dragging pretty far behind.
Companies are using benchmarks to measure the success of their efforts. Website traffic, product feedback, lead generation, and revenue are the top 4.
YouTube is #1 in showing business impact from a company profile. Facebook and LinkedIn aren’t far behind.
For listening/research purposes, Google search and alerts dominate with Twitter and Yahoo search coming not too far behind. Microsoft’sBing has a surprisingly good showing at 21% vs. Yahoo search at 35%
There is a measurable ROI to social media activities. Active social media marketers don’t see it as an amorphous money pit. They are showing tangible returns.

Getting Found an Encore

2009-11-10T17:48:00.001-08:00

It used to be that you could efficiently grow your businesses by interrupting potential customers with outbound marketing methods like cold calls, email spam, and advertising. Today people and businesses are tired of being the targets of so much outbound marketing and they're getting better and better in blocking it out.

At the same time, people and businesses have fundamentally changed the way they shop and learn, turning more and more to Google, social media sites and blogs to find what they want. Inbound marketing helps companies take advantage of these shifts by helping them get found by customers in the natural way in which they shop and learn.

Be remarkable. Ten years ago you needed to spend gobs of money on PR and advertising to spread the word about your idea. Today the friction that marketing must overcome is very low for remarkable ideas such that they can spread on their own. Unremarkable ideas languish unfound regardless of how much PR and advertising you do. So make sure you have a unique, remarkable offering as it will spread like wildfire on the Internet if it's truly different.

1. Create content. Once you have your remarkable product or service, start creating lots of content about it—including blog articles, videos, podcasts, and tweets. Remarkable content about your remarkable product gets hyperlinked from other websites. Those links send you traffic, and they also tell Google that you should be higher in the rankings.

2. Optimize content. Before publishing your content, you need to “optimize” it for Google and for the people on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc who will spread it. For Google, you should include some of your “keywords” in the title of your content piece so it will be easier for Google to find it. For readers, you should make your titles as irresistible as possible. A good model for this is this blog that uses titles like “The Art of Schmoozing,” “MBA In A Page,” and “The Top 10 Lies of Venture Capitalists.

3. Promote content. Once you have a remarkable piece of content that is optimized, start spreading it. Post it on your blog, email it to your newsletter subscribers, tweet it, update your Facebook fan page and LinkedIn profile with it. If the content is remarkable, others will spread it for you. As that content spreads, you will have more people follow you or subscribe to you, so that the next piece of content you publish will have a wider audience in the future.

4. Measure results. You need to measure your results for each channel. For example, you should compare your results for Google organic branded search, Google organic non-branded search, Google paid, blog, email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn group, and tradeshow campaigns to each other. For each campaign, you need to track visitors, leads, opportunities, and customers over time. Then double down on the campaigns that are working and kill the ones that aren’t. See Inbound Marketing: Get Found In Google, Blogs, and Social Media.

The Benefits of Free

2009-11-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

Free samples have been part of marketing and selling since long before the Internet. Give great value and follow a few proven models, and you’ll discover not only does “free” not hurt you, it can actually be a great boost for your online business.Content marketing is all about giving away some of your best stuff for free.

Not just your “pretty good” content, but content that will improve and add value to the lives of your readers. As they learn more, their game will improve and they’ll keep coming around for more. And they’ll want to reciprocate by either buying your paid products or spreading your message.

Most people won’t buy from you unless you’ve proven to them that you know what you’re talking about. Great content is one of the best ways you can do that. When you give content away for free, you earn trust and anchor your business in the mind of that reader. If they use your stuff, and it works, they’ll keep coming back for more.

They’ll pay for souvenirs

Seth Godin first professed this idea when he gave a speech about book marketing, but the concept applies to nearly every online business.

He said that people buy souvenirs, not products. In the music industry, Nine Inch Nails does this by selling collector’s editions of their albums. In the blogging industry, we can do it by selling a physical version of a product, limiting quantities of digital products, or by publishing a book.

If your blog creates a great experience, think about what kind of souvenirs you could offer that would let them hold onto that experience.

They’ll pay for access

Particularly if you’ve used your blog to build your reputation and authority, you can also sell different levels of access to you.

The people who truly love what you do want other ways to access your knowledge. Your raving fans will start by picking up every digital product you offer. From there, many will want more exclusive access, such as a consulting service, a mentoring or coaching program, or a monthly membership with exclusive access to you.

If you empower people to do what they most want to do, they’ll want to buy something in order to feel closer to you. (And, of course, it goes without saying that you’ll deliver value that’s in line with the prices you’re charging.)

The Web 5 years from now.

2009-10-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt looks into the future.

five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.
Today's teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years - they jump from app to app to app seamlessly.
Five years is a factor of ten in Moore's Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.
Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance - and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.
"We're starting to make signifigant money off of Youtube", content will move towards more video
- "Real time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results."
- There are many companies beyond Twitter and Facebook doing real time.
- "We can index real-time info now - but how do we rank it?"
- It's because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that "is the great challenge of the age." Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.

5 Stages of Social Media Grief

2009-10-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

The 5 Stages of Social Media Grief

Denial - first stage of social media grief in which the marketer refuses to acknowledge the existence of social media. This was the case early on in the industry's development. Luckily, I don't think there are many companies left that think like this.
Common phrases: "It's just a kid's thing," or "It's just a fad."
Common behaviors: avoiding the Internet, putting hands over ears and singing "I can't heeeeeaaaarr yoooouuuuu. La la laaaaa."

Anger - In the second stage, jealousy and rage are misplaced and rage ensues.
Common phrases: "This is stupid," "I've got better things to do with my time."
Common behaviors: full-fledged slave to work email; increase in print or television media buy to show effectiveness and superiority.

Bargaining -Anger gives way to hope that incremental adoption of social media will be enough to make a difference.
Common phrases: "If we have a Facebook page, we should be covered," "Let's just create a blog," or "Let the agency figure it out."
Common behaviors: the use of social media only in time-limited campaigns; half-hearted efforts on a limited number of social sites.

Depression -The fourth stage manifests itself in an understanding that the inevitable cannot be delayed and the marketer becomes doleful.
Common phrases: "Twitter/Google/Facebook is taking over the world," or "We're overwhelmed with choices."
Common behaviors: moping; pacing; complaining to friends on Facebook.

Acceptance -With the final stage, the marketer finally realizes that social media is here to stay and begins to determine ways to integrate activities and craft strategies that are truly integrated.
Common phrases: "Let's craft a comprehensive social media strategy," or "Let's spend some time listening to what consumers are saying about us."
Common behaviors: integration of marketing and communications functions, determination of measurement goals, online and offline alignment from the beginning

Compliments to: http://www.scottmonty.com/

Social Media Time Management

2009-10-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

The question comes up all the time...how much time should I spend on Social Media? Altitude Branding attempts to answer the question with some good graphics.

...Organizations that are embarking on social media are going to be at different levels of maturity. That’s okay. What’s most important is that you recognize where on the spectrum you sit, so you can plan your efforts accordingly, and focus on how to get to the next level. Here are a few models you can consider:
More.......

I don't have time to Tweet!!!!!!!

2009-10-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

Well there is always somebody thinking of something. Check out the following:

Ad.ly automatically sends 1 tweet in your feed every other day for 7 days, for each advertising campaign that you approve. With Ad.ly, you approve every tweet/ad that is sent in your feed. You set the price per tweet that advertisers pay (don't worry, our system will suggest a price for your account). All advertiser campaigns run for 7 days. The Ad.ly tweet will look something like this:

http://ad.ly/

Get Local Google shows you how.

2009-10-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

This summer, Google changed its algorithm so that the search results automatically include local results if relevant:
"We like to make search as easy as we can, so we've just finished the worldwide rollout of local search results on a map, which will now appear even when you don't type in a location. When you search on Google, we will guess where you are and show results near you."
These local results are often displayed above the first regular result on the result pages:

http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?gl=US&hl=en-US

Free Shipping! Get yours today!!

2009-10-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

There is, of course, really no such thing as free shipping. The United States Postal Service (USPS), FedEx, and the United Parcel Service (UPS) all insist on getting paid for trucking or flying your wares across the country. So what "free shipping" really means is that merchants are hiding shipping costs, marking up a product's price rather than being up front about the real cost of transporting goods. Yet, according to a recent Practical eCommerce survey, 52.2 percent of our readers offer free shipping on at least some orders. And there is anecdotal evidence that consumers prefer it too. Watch the short 5 minute video...

Small Biz Rapidly Adopts Social Media; Small Biz Avoids Social Media

2009-10-15T10:22:00.001-07:00

Confused? So is everyone, except those that have found a way to capitalize on this new phenomena. Consider this:

A new online survey of more than 2,000 US small business by Internet2Go, an Opus Research advisory service, and Merchant Circle, suggests that a growing segment of small business owners are using social media to promote their businesses. The survey, conducted September 8-18, 2009, found that roughly 45 percent of respondents have a presence or profiles on Facebook and Twitter to promote their businesses. Read More...

Or consider this:

Few small- to mid-sized companies are joining the social media conversation, according to a new survey by Citibank and GfK Roper survey. Of the 500 businesses surveyed, 76 percent have not found social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be helpful in generating business leads. Read More...

With something this new and showing significant growth it is difficult to know where it will land. The least disable strategy right now may be to "do nothing". Doing something will acclimate you to this new media, get you "on the train" and from there you may be able to develop some sort of longer term strategy. Late comers and "me too" marketing strategies yield the least returns.

Does Yahoo use MetaTags in their search or not?

2009-10-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

With the recent announcement by Google that meta tags are no longer a part of their search algorithm the question went to Yahoo. During the "Ask the Search Engine" session at a recent show in New York Yahoo reps indicated that their support of the tags ended several months ago. However, in this same session people were asked if they believed it and most said they did not. This was surprising.

Danny Sullivan, of SearchEngineLand, put this to a test by creating a non-word work like "ssddcceeoeotd" in the meta tag of one of his pages and found that when searched a few days later it did bring up the page where the meta tag was located. Conclusion was they they did indeed support the tags. Subsequently Yahoo sent a message to Mr. Sullivan and indicated that they do use the tags in their search algorithm but it receives the lowest ranking signal in their system. Yahoo says, "Words that appear in any other part of documents, including the body, title, description, anchor text etc., will take priority in ranking the document", the caveat is, "when no other ranking signal is present, unique words that only appear in the meta keyword tag section of documents can still be used to recall these documents.

How does BING figure into all of this? Similarly over at Bing, despite them NOT supporting the tag and never having done so since they launched their own search technology, they do blog much advice about using the tag.

The conclusion? Be wary of what is said about SEO. Be wary of what you might say about SEO. This is as much art as it is science. People speak definitively about it when it is not that definitive. People who discuss what Yahoo does or does not do (even those on the inside) are usually not privy to the search algorithms themselves or would they understand them if they were. Most knowledge has been gained through research and trial and error. Like most organizations, sometimes the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing. Be concerned about content, writing good copy and being relevant to your audience and make a good title tag in the HTML. Then you may choose to consider meta tags with tempered expectations.

Email marketing is not dead

2009-10-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

Although we all reference the amazing growth and use statistics of social media this does not mean that it has replaced other methods of marketing. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal declared emailing dead. This is hardly the case. The progress of marketing always slices and dices the ways we market into smaller and smaller chunks resulting in one size not fitting all. Although you cannot ignore the growth of social media email marketing still can play a dominant roll in your marketing campaigns. Consider the following

The Harris study surveyed 2,064 adults age 18 and older and found that just 17% of online adults aged 18-34, 8% of adults 35-44 and 7% of users 45-54 were OK with sharing social networking information with brands. Combined with a few other numbers, that makes a good case for email as a marketing tool:

68%of online adults are more likely to trust a brand they hear from often and that offers them personalized deals or information online
78% of online adults said they dislike having to leave their destination when they click on a banner ad
47% of online adults said they have intentionally clicked on ads on a website

And while real time messaging is on everyone's mind lately, it has plenty of drawbacks. For starters, iif you aren't in front of a screen around the time a Twitter message goes out, you're likely to miss it. Or get annoyed if you didn't miss it and then have to deal with repetitive messaging when brands want to reach eyeballs. Email is much more tailored to opt-in messaging. And it can point people toward what's going on in social. Especially those users who still don't quite get social media. The social media world continues to grow but it is just another slice and dice within marketing.

Google and Page Rank

2009-10-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

Similar to what Google did with the meta tags, rumored for a long time that these were not that important to Google and then they publicly announced that they no longer look at them, page rank has been removed from Google webmaster tools. Google for a long time has indicated that people should not obsess over this factor and now think it inconsistent if included in the webmaster tools. This is not to say that page rank is still not a factor is linking when you want "authority sites" to link to you. This can be determined by page rank. Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand provides a good discussion about page rank (a couple of years old but still good info).

Twitter to the rescue again

2009-10-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

The social network isn’t charging anybody for anything yet, and isn’t making any money — apart from the $100 million in venture financing it recently raised. But the San Francisco, Calif., start up is headed in that direction, with plans to offer paid commercial accounts later this year.

Over the past few months the little company with the big social network has been making itself over to be more business friendly.

The changes come at a time when many small businesses are figuring out what Twitter can do for them. One example is iContact, a Durham, N.C., e-mail marketing software maker with 180 employees and 50,000 customers that started using Twitter for customer service about a year ago. “When our site is down, we tweet out updates every 20 minutes to keep the community informed,” says Chuck Hester, iContact’s communications director. “We answer questions for customers, and then take them off line to complete the customer-service process.” Currently five iContact marketing and communications department staff members and the company’s CEO have Twitter accounts, “to help with consistency of our message,” Hester says.

To reach more businesses such as iContact, Twitter’s unveiled a formal outreach program that starts at the company’s virtual front door. The site’s home page has been redesigned to display a search window and a list of trending topics — all the better to show potential users how the network can be used to do real-time searches on what people are talking about.

Sell like you buy

2009-10-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Sell like you buy

Here are the two most common pleas I hear from marketers,

"Our product is as remarkable as we can make it, and we're trying really hard and it's very important to us that people buy it, but despite our hard work, it's not selling!" (Hint: calling it a purple cow doesn't make it one).

and

"Our business is built around the status quo, and it's not fair that the market wants something else now."

In both cases, the marketing pitch is focused around the seller, not the buyer. You wouldn't (and don't) buy from someone who says you ought to choose them even though there's a cooler, more remarkable, cheaper, better product. You don't seek out or talk about status quo brands merely because the marketer is trying really hard.

If it's not good enough for you as a consumer, why should it be good enough for you as a marketer?

Origin-seth godin

Google Wave is Coming to Town

2009-10-01T13:51:00.000-07:00

You may have heard about the new communications tool that Google is not rolling out called Google Wave. The first 100,000 people will be "invited" by Google to install and use it. This is Google style. Eventually it will get to all of us. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. You can bring a group of friends or business partners together to discuss how your day has been or share files.

Google has a video out on it but it is over an hour long (not posted here due to length). Ben Parr at Mashable provides the best synopsis of this new offering from Google. GO HERE for that article

Shopping cart abandonement-Tips to avoid it

2009-09-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

Ten Tips to Make Sure Shoppers Buy:

Security- Your customer has to feel that they are on a secure site giving personal information to a legitimate and safe cause. see Verisign as an example
Shorten the process- Make as few steps as possible. Any more and they may grow restless or could change their minds. This is about them not about information you may want.
Simple Process- Let the customer know where they are in the process. Give them status toolbar so they know where they are in the purchasing process, and how many more steps until the sale is complete. Step 3 of 6 or step 3 of 10. If you have 10 steps you better think again.
Feedback- Wait until checkout is complete to ask for any user feedback. You want the purchase to go fast and w/o interruption.
Registration- Don’t make customers register online until after the purchase. This avoids confusion and streamlines the buying process.
Links- Do not put distractions in front of your customer, links are a good way to get the customer interested in a different idea or product.
Patterns- Use established patterns of collecting information to avoid confusion.
PayPal and or Google Checkout- Give the option for the visitor to use their PayPal account to pay. This is good for the customer that doesn’t want to use a credit card.
Shipping Info- This is Very important. All customers want to know when they will receive their product, where it is and who is carrying it for them.Shoppers that make impulse buys generally want their product as quickly as possible, so offer express shipping to them. Also give them tracking information to allow them to figure a ballpark arrival of their item(s). Add how much shipping and handling charges will be for the comparison shopper.
Contact Info- Make sure your customers have a quick and easy way to contact you. This adds to the level of trust that if and when something goes wrong that your company will be able to be reached. This is a good place to put your telephone number. Some people just want to call at this point.

One last piece of advice: Customers will use shopping carts to save items that they do not intend to buy at that time so give them a wish list to avoid confusion.

September NextLevel Workshop Complete

2009-09-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

The workshop was Saturday and a very good group of people attended, all with varying backgrounds.

We covered a variety of topics, created a website using keyword analysis and discussed pay per click ads, email marketing and other forms of "off page" marketing.

It is clear that social media is on the minds of most people today and we did just touch on the topic. There is reasoning. It is still believed that the core of internet marketing remains the web property while a variety of other marketing efforts, including social media are used to create interest, keep relationships going, and ultimately drive people to your internet property where they can do what you what them to do (which is usually sell stuff). It is an off page effort and right now there are a variety of people trying a variety of things, some with success others not so much.

So let me know by commenting on this post what you would like to see, what your questions are, what type of presentation you would think relevant.

Garmin, Google, Keyword Tool, Shopping Cart

2009-09-22T09:21:00.001-07:00

If you are doing an event, find something that may be of interest to others post it on the SCORE FAN PAGE

Become a Facebook Fan of OcScore and follow us on Twitter and receive information like this as it happens.

NEXT LEVEL all day workshop is this Saturday, 9/26 8:30 am to 4pm. Sign up HERE or send this to a friend. Seating is limited.

TO GARMIN FROM GOOGLE EARTH? Check out TakeItWithMe free software tool (Demo Video available)

NEW KEYWORD TOOL becomes available. Check it out and let us know how it works. KeywordIndex

GOOGLE MAKES IT OFFICIAL. They do not use keyword meta tags in web search. Check it out here.

SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT. A study by McAfee has found that shopping cart abandonment rates, which are often reported as being high across most categories, may be a little misleading. Some studies peg a figure of around 57% of all shopping cart sessions being abandoned.

McAfee studied the behavior of 163 million shoppers and found that 65% of all shoppers wait a day or more to complete a purchase, and the average delay is just under 34 hours.

McAfee says that online sales conversions were 11% higher among digital window shoppers who were shown something related to security, a form of reassurance such as a third party security certificate. The longer it took a shopper to complete a sale, the more responsive they were to security cues.

McAfee also quoted another study that where 63% of consumers said they won’t purchase from a Web site that doesn’t display a trustmark or security policy.

There’s all sorts of reasons that people abandon a cart, the lack of a security seal is just one of them. While cart conversion rates will never be 100%, there’s a lot you can do to minimize cart abandonment. Some of these strategies are very simple and won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

See the McAfee Informario HERE

Caffeine and Page Rank

2009-08-29T19:50:00.003-07:00

Next Level Coming to Town Again

The 3rd NEXT LEVEL INTERNET MARKETING workshop has been scheduled for Saturday, 9/26/09 starting @ 8:30 a.m and ending at 4pm. The content is essentially the same as the prior two workshops (April and July). Let your clients and friends know as seating is limited. Register HERE

More on Google caffeine

Mentioned the new GOOGLE caffeine search application in prior newsletter. Much is being tested right now with varying conclusion. Here is a Comparison Tool for you to gather your own results. Some SEO companies testing this have noted that there are far more results for social networking sites such as FACEBOOK and social bookmarking sites like TECHNORATI. SEO and FACEBOOK may be the next frontier

Yes, we still would like to see your "face" on the SCORE114 Facebook Fan Page. Become a fan! It is FREE.

What is page rank?

If you have attended any of my workshops on internet marketing you have heard me say that "getting found" involves many smaller actions that all add up. Relevant and reputable links are one of those attributes and PAGE RANK is part of the story. Here is the technical answer:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Haven't figured it out yet? Hint: the PR stand for PageRank. Now it is probably clear and you will surge to the top of the SERPs. Simply put it is the number and importance of links coming into you. It is important to understand what number and importance or relevant and reputable mean. A person who has 10 relevant and reputable links coming into the web site will fair better that a person who got 20 of his buddies to all link to him regardless if they are relevant or not. The relevant and reputable links are VOTES for the importance of your site. One should also note that if you are overly aggressive in your linking which results in questionable sites linking to your site, you may suffer similar consequences if the questionable site is sanctioned by Google or other search engines.

There are tools to check page rank such as the one that SEO Chat provides and another that provides the embedded code for your website. It is HERE. If you install the Google Toobar it will also provide the information.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK ANSWER

Lawrence Edward "Larry" Page is an American computer scientist best known as co-founder of Google, Inc., the world’s largest internet company, based on its search engine and online advertising technology. He is ranked 26th on the 2009 Forbes list of the world’s billionaires and is the 6th richest person in America. In 2007 he and co-founder Sergey Brin were both ranked #1 of the “50 Most Important People on the Web” by PC World Magazine.

2009-08-14T11:33:00.001-07:00

Fun with Remedial Internet Marketing

By Joe Lowell

Old School New School

Until recently, I had been old school when it came to marketing my business. I own a print and copy center in Santa Ana, and I have tried newspaper advertising (limited success), newsletter marketing (some success), chamber membership (limited success), car wash advertising (0 success), postcard advertising (0 success), and word-of-mouth (good success). I even ran ads on ATM machine screens (limited success) near my business.

Google told me I had Customers!

I became a new school marketeer after the Google gurus emailed in August to tell me that 345 people had visited my Web site in July. Old-school marketing has no real way to measure such information. That email surprised me. I didn’t know that so many potential customers had found me. I also learned that I’m not getting much business from those searches. Most follow-up calls I get from Google come largely from individuals, not companies, who want printing for nothing. I provide my customers with reasonable pricing, good service and a quality product, which has kept my doors open for three years.

Conversion is the Key

The stats tell me that my future business growth clearly lies largely dependent on search engine optimization, directories, email campaigns, and possibly social networking. (Of course, to really create new revenue, a simple acquisition always works best.) I need to figure out what I can better do to translate those Web site visits into sales from companies, rather than individuals.

Email Marketing to the Rescue

I also plan to market to new and existing clients via an email program using Constant Contact, which for me, probably will be the best way for me to find new quality, high-repeat customers that I’m seeking. Email campaigns have a reported success rates of 20 percent (vs. less than 1 percent for postcard campaigns), I believe I have a better chance of finding the clients I want using a sustained email campaign with information that benefits not my company, but my existing and potential new clients.

Joe Lowell owns Griffin Print and Copy in Santa Ana. www.griffinprintandcopy.com

Twitter has two sides

2009-08-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

Twitter has released its TWITTER 101 for Businesses. An excellent resource on how to use Twitter. You can read in on line and download the slides. Check it out.

Still need your help in signing up on the SCORE FACEBOOK page as a FAN. This is FREE and informative.

I have moved the TWITTER activity onto http://twitter.com/ocscore This twitter account will have Orange County SCORE114 information.

Correction from last time. If you want to follow my personal exploits at SCORE114 on Facebook search for Robert J. Bradley in the Facebook search box.

Last time several cases were presented where people were making money, increasing business or improving customer service using social media like TWITTER. (see NestLevelBlog for stories) The power of social media works both ways. Recenly several companies have run into negative feedback about their products or services and they attempted to handle the situations in Corporate speak, which did not serve them well.

Amazon came out with a new Kindle. They had a problem with cases cracking which they initially went into corporate denial. People joined the fray on Twitter and other media and eventually the CEO of Amazon had to get involved and do the right thing, which was replace in inferior cases when people had a problem.

Best Buy. A tweeter was relaying his experience at a Best Buy store where he alleged that Best Buy was up to their old tricks of bait and switch. Others joined in and relayed their stories of not getting what they perceived to be what was advertised. A senior level Best Buy Customer Service representative was monitoring tweets and found the conversation. Instead of explaining the situation and contributing he became obnoxious with the people and it went downhill from there. Not good.

Right now there is quite a battle going on within Twitter due to Apple/ATT pulling the plug on a IPhone/Google application (Google Voice) without any reason given. There is quite a bit going on with this and Saturday the FCC anounced that they were going to get involved. Apple/ATT have refused to provide any comment or information to the tweaters, many of whom were loyal Apple application developers and product users. The FCC wants all cell phones produced to be available at all cell phone providers instead of being exclusive to a certain provider. They will use this situation to promote this agenda and it is something neither Apple or ATT wants right now.

Internetworking?

2009-07-25T11:28:00.001-07:00

Three new links added to the right. Check them out...MailChimp, Twitter4Business and HighRankings.com

Thinking about an Internetworking event/workshop for members of the NEXTLEVEL. Need your input. Networking with people who are experiencing many of the same things can be important to developing an on line presence. Please comment. Your opinion counts

Businesses Using Twitter

2009-07-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

We continue our work and research on social media and its potential for small business. I do believe that social media is about where website marketing was about 8-10 years ago. Creative marketers will continue to explore the media and some will come up with new ways to increase their business via the social media options. No one knows right now where it will lead. But the train might leave the station sooner than we think.

Twitter Business

Dell computer can track $3.0 million in sales directly related to their Twitter presence. See story

Houston Coffee shop attracts 100 people a special Twitter party. See how a coffee shop owner increased business via Twitter. See Story

See how P.F. Chang uses Twitter for its restaurant business. See Story

Twitter has released its TWITTER 101 for Businesses. An excellent resource on how to use Twitter. You can read in on line and download the slides. Check it out.

Check out BRADLEYMAN on Twitter. http://twitter.com/

SCORE on Facebook

2009-07-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

Become a FAN of SCORE114 on FACEBOOK! First target stop is 100 fans. (we now have 31). Go to SCORE FAN PAGE and "become a fan today" and connect to SCORE114. You do not need a FB logon to view.

Follow me on FACEBOOK.More personal than SCORE FAN PAGE. Updates to personal counseling schedule, workshops to be presented, hit and tips for small business, articles and links. Facebook/BobBradley (you will need a FB logon)

What IS Social Media?

2009-06-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

As a marketer how can you not examine something that 130 million people are doing? (and that is just FACEBOOK an MySpace)

What do you think when you hear Social Media?

In the Beginning ...

there was Friendster (2002) and MySpace (2003). The concept is centuries old starting when their were markets where people traded goods and shared conversations-these were conversation places! However, this type of human connection faded over time.

So what is SOCIAL MEDIA?

Social media are these age old conversation places supported by modern day online tools. They are self organized networked markets that have the ability to self-organize faster than businesses can serve them. Thanks to modern techology, these markets are becoming better informed, smarter and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations. People using them are real people and their interactions are real.

Get on the ClueTrain

Interruptive marketing has seen its best days. People are not just demographics anymore. People are creating and the audience is selecting. To connect with them you need to understand that relationships are becoming more powerful than marketing. Everyone has their own circle of trust. People whose opinion they listen to and respect and marketing cannot break that bond. Instead of providing slick images of what companies would like people to think they are, people want companies to open so people can really see them.

Why Don't They?

Because they want to hang on to the one thing they think they cannot live without---CONTROL. Once businesses understand that conversations will happen without them initiating them, they will be better off. Social media and public relations are cousins but they are not the same thing. The rules of social media are:
1. Participation
2. Conversation
3. Connections
4. Community
and FIVE: Listen to your market place

2009-06-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics is a free tool provided by Google to anyone. You can get it at http://www.google.com/analytics/

Good Navigation and Better Visibility on Google

2009-06-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

New members added:

Penny Palmer of bestcomputermasters.com

Yan Zhang of domaincabinets.com

Maria Beane of newfeetstore.com

Web design is more than a pretty site. It has to function to keep people involved for more than a few seconds. You worked hard to get them there but the real work has just begun. Converting them to do what you want them to do. A big part of that is feeling comfortable. A few "laws" can help.

THE 5 LAWS OF GOOD WEB DESIGN (8-min)

It is a short video and text presentation WITH EXAMPLES!

Matt Cutts of Google reveals some simple secrets of getting found in the search results

Sales Increase by 70%!!!

2009-06-01T12:00:00.001-07:00

(This newletter is being provided only to NEXT LEVEL internet marketing members.)

There are many people in the E-Commerce world trying things to increase their business. Here is one of their stories:

A direct to consumer wine retailing site had a good thing going. One of their strongest revenue drivers was its Wine of the Week program where subscribers would receive an offer for bottle of wine with a discounted shipping rate of 99 cents per bottle.

The program was successful but had the limitation of only being offered one time per week. The marketing team decided to turn the Wine of the Week program into the Wine of the Day program. The number of emails would be increased by 400% which was considered risky.

The new daily promotion would feature a wine of the day Monday through Friday at noon. Previously, emails were delivered each Tuesday.

The emails were simple and short. They featured a banner highlighting the offer, one paragraph describing the wine and price and a big red BUY NOW button. They created a 2-3 minute tasting video featuring expert discussion about the wine which were linked to the featured wine's product page.

Logistical problems included producing 5 emails per week instead of just one with a couple of follow ups, and carrying 5 times the amount of inventory to accomodate the specials. The CFO was presented with the potential return on investment and the inventory plan was approved. However, the existing staff would have to find a way to provide the emails and videos.

Before they commited the funds and the time to the daily program a simple three question online survey was created that asked customers if they would be interested if the wine of the week program was moved to the wine of the day. It was open for one month. A significant majority responded favorably.

The scheduled emails went from offering the discount each Tuesday, a featured wine on Friday and a reminder email on Sunday, to the wine of the day each day, Monday-Friday and a "Last Chance" email on Sunday to get Fridays special. Each offer was good for only 24 hours.

The result was a significant increase in overall email revenue (close to 70%) with email revenue now accounting for over 50% of total company sales sales.

The moral of the story is that technology needs to be combined with good marketing tactics. One without the other will not result in stories like the foregoing.

Page Optimization and Using Good Tags

2009-05-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Below is a short video by Aaron Wall who goes over a
website similar to the way we did in the NextLevel Workshop.
He explains further the need for on page optimization

This one discusses more about using meta description
tags to maximize your results.

2009-05-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

The late marketer Gary Halbert asks the following question of his students:

"If we both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to see who could sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side to help you win?"

Answers included: getting superior meat to make the hamburgers, a superior location, or even having the lowest price.

What he wanted on his side was always, "A Starving Crowd!"

Marketing is seeking out groups of people who are "hungry" for your product or service and are probably going to spend money to get it and you want to get some of that money.

Your target is the people who want your product or service but you do not want so many of them that they attract too much competition and price you out of the market.

According to one Search Engine Advertising Tracker about 42 percent of Google keywords contain no ads while 15 percent have 10 or more ads and 13 percent have only one ad. The 15 percent ad group are most likely those with the most competition. That leaves, however, around 30 percent of the keywords that produces 2-9 ads. That crowd may not be the starving crowd but it may be the hungry crowd which might fit in with your return on investment goals.

So do the pay per click ads provide a basis for a market, or better yet, does it provide a basis for a niche market.

Let's say your interest is in animal training. Using the keyword "dog training", a popular keyword suggestion tool tells us that there are close to 3700 searches performed each day on this term. Inserting the term into Google Search and we find that there are 20 people paying for ads (PPC) in the sponsored links section of the SERP. This usually means there is plenty of competition for that term. There are fewer ads for terms like "bird dog training" and "dog training magazines" (only one ad) which might indicate a market niche or a less competitive term to use in your website to attract searchers. People are still willing to spend money on ads but not as many or are they spending as much.

Would cat training be a niche? A search of this term reveals only 8 paid ads and some of them are not "on point". A check of keywords indicates that just less than 150 searches per day are performed on the term "cat training" and the estimated clicks per day on a PPC ad is estimated to be 20-25 at around $1 per click.

So where is the starving crowd, or at least the hungry crowd if you are an animal trainer?

Rented or Purchased Email Lists

2009-05-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

1. The list itself does not transfer hands. You never see the list. You never get a CD ROM, print out or other electronic file of the list. Instead the owner should send out your message to their list on your behalf. (Sometimes the owner will do it in-house, or use a 3rd party list service to send it out.)

2. The names on the list have "opted-in" (i.e. voluntarily requested that their names be added to this list with the specific purpose of receiving messages, relayed by the list owner, from third parties often referred to as "partners").

3. You do not get "unlimited use" of the list. Rentals are for one time only, or you pay an extra amount to be negotiated for additional messages.

4. The list owner includes unsubscribe instructions in every send which are clear, easy to follow, and work without much lag time.

5. The list owner includes an explanation of how they got the name and who they are in each message sent (i.e. their name, the site you opted in at, and the fact you opted in).

6. It is "double opt-in," so people on this list responded to a confirming email to indicate they do wish to be on the list.

7. The list owner's name is in the From line; so recipients do not think you're emailing them (and possibly spamming them) out of the blue.

8. The list owner's name used is the brand name that recipients would recognize as the site or other place they opted in to get on that list. If the list owner has several brand names or sites, their general corporate name probably is not good enough because recipients may not recognize it as a name they gave to permission to email them.

9. The list owner asks to see your offer or creative ahead of time, or makes sure in other ways that your offer is appropriate for their list. A responsible list owner does not want mailers sending untargeted mailings to their list. It looks like spam and reduces their list's value.

10. The list owner is charging a reasonably high amount of money for the list. If it is an astoundingly low price, it is probably a spam file.

NOTE: Email services like Constant Contact ask you to validate that the names you are uploading to your distribution list ARE NOT from a third party and are permission based

Next Level Internet Marketing

2009-03-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

A blog for those that have "graduated" from the all day NextLevel Internet Marketing Workshop at National University.

EMAIL
You have been forwarded the email addresses of the others in an attached file to the "group" email.
Perhaps this would be a good time to visit your favorite email host, get the free trial and try to put an email blast together just to this group to test it out. I have listed the links I could think of on the right. They all have lots of tools and templates.

SPECIAL OF THE DAY: Check out a good Matt Cutts video on getting more visibility for your website.

Bob Bradley
SCORE114