Holy Moly! Did you know you could pin pages without pictures? Did you know you could pin images on Facebook? Did you know that after you pin something you could change the location that users land when they click on the pin? While testing out images based on my “how to make images go viral on Pinterest post”, I learned a few new things.
How to pin pages without pictures
So the basic idea of Pinterest is to categorize things that you like and find out in the world wide web onto your Pinterest wall. When you find something cool, you “pin” it. That means Pinterest goes to that webpage and finds an image it will use to represent that page on your board. In the end you have a wall full of images that are are really just links to webpages. BUT. . .
Pinterest gives you a little control over these pins. When you hover over the image, a pop up “Edit Pin” button becomes visible. When you click this button, you can edit the description, change the board it is categorized on AND you can edit the link. That means you can change the link. Continue reading “How to pin pages without pictures”
There are so many things to do, isn’t there? Podcasts, Pinterest, Facebook, e-books, email, Flickr, Youtube, Hubpages, Google Places, backlinks, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Cinch, Slideshare, Instagram, Digg, BlogTalkRadio, Kunaki. . . the list goes on and on.
Does the existence of a social network, a social utility or a marketing tool mean you have to use them? Of course it doesn’t, but then why do so many companies maintain presences on all of them? The answer is purpose.
When you begin your marketing efforts, make sure you have a plan and can execute that plan. If you can successfully execute an entire marketing plan on one network, then you can probably expand that to two. A well executed plan means you’ve tested your messaging so that it attracts the right people to your funnel. Then you’ve tested the parts of the funnel so you’ve maximized the number of prospects that make it to your goal. Finally, you’ve tested the backend and have found surefire ways to monetize them over and over again. Continue reading “Why are you doing that again?”
A well executed banner retargeting marketing strategy is a tremendous way to capitalize on all your other marketing efforts. Banner retargeting is a way to make sure that visitors to your website continue to see ads for your products/services on the web AFTER they leave your site. Basically – automated outbound follow-up.
Executing it is easy. It is the practice of putting a cookie on the computer of someone who’s been to your website (specific pages that is). Then buying banner ad space that will serve your ads when someone with that cookie on their computer visits that page. That’s the entire program in a nutshell.
If you’ve ever wondered about doing an outbound telemarketing campaign to call past users of your product or perhaps a postcard campaign to your pile of business cards – you’ll like this.
Before I go further most people who don’t understand banner retargeting have the following two concerns. (And because they have these concerns they typically fail to hear the astounding benefits of a banner retargeting marketing strategy.) So let’s address those two questions: Continue reading “Banner Retargeting Marketing Strategy”
Today I experienced a Ruby Tuesday Marketing mistake. You might consider it an operations mistake or just a miscommunication, but you’d be wrong. While birthday promotions involve the restaurant staff and the operations department, they are a type of “rewards program” designed by the marketing folks.
Today’s my birthday so I took a couple of my friends to Ruby Tuesday so I could get one of those fabulous handcrafted burgers. (You get a handcrafted burger on your birthday for free!) I checked my e-mail for a coupon from their SoConnected email club, but didn’t get anything. So I took my driver’s license that showed my birth date. Continue reading “Ruby Tuesday Marketing Mistake: Birthday Program”
It seems the hyphenated domain dilemma is rearing its head again. However this time I’m hearing from SEO guys that hyphenated domain names actually hurt your search engine rankings. I’ve found no evidence that this is the case but I do have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Not only that, hyphens can increase the number of visitors you get once your site shows up in the rankings.
Let’s start with some hyphenated domain names that are #1 in Google for their search terms. For those people who think you can’t get to the top, this should dispel that myth:
Website
Keyword
http://front-porch-ideas-and-more.com
Front porch ideas
http://www.dog-obedience-training-review.com/
Dog Obedience Training
http://www.windows-vista-update.com
Windows vista update
http://practical-home-theater-guide.com
Home theater guide
http://digital-photography-school.com/
Digital Photography Tips
http://www.digital-photography-tips.net/
Digital Photography Tips
http://www.digital.mississippi-photo-gallery.com/
Digital Photography Tips
So if you’re at all concerned about hyphenated domain names, you can clearly search for any of these terms and find these domains at the top of the list. Most of them are in the #1 position. And the digital photography tips page is dominated by hyphenated domain names. Dominated.
It’s clear from these domain names that the site owners are likely adept at using SEO techniques to help their domain names climb the ladder. Perhaps they are so adept they can overcome the fact that they have hyphenated domain names. And perhaps a search for sites with lesser skilled developers would prove the point better. But since these are more skilled developers AND they still chose the hyphenated domain name -wouldn’t that further indicate hyphens aren’t bad.
In fact, check out SiteBuildIt’s Results Page to see a list of sites in the top 1% of Alexa’s rankings built mainly by people who’d never built a site before. Notice that most of them are hyphenated. Hyphens are one of the notions Site Build It teaches in their course (the best website building course on the net, in my opinion).
As I further explain in this YouTube Video (Does a Hyphenated Domain Name Make Sense?), hyphens can often increase the number of visitors, reduce confusion and quickly show visitors what your site is about. Suppose you were searching for “money making ideas from home” and you saw these two websites pop up in Google’s results:
http://waystomakemoneyathome.com or http://ways-to-make-money-at-home.com
Which one draws your attention the fastest?
Some domain names should be hyphenated whether it hurts your rankings or not. Check out this domain for a popular restaurant in Philadelphia:
It’s clear from a marketing perspective that han-dynasty-philadelphia.com would have made better sense.
If you still believe hyphenated domain names will hurt your search engine results , I invite you to help sway my thoughts. What makes you believe this to be true? When asked if hyphens or underscores would be better, Matt Cutts of Google himself said hyphens would be better than underscores. While not totally related, he did not say that you should avoid using both. Please leave your thoughts, I look forward to a different opinion.
I’m not sure what the most common affiliate marketing mistakes are, but I saw an article by Jeff Herring today that clearly illuminated a big one. Jeff Herring (as he explains in this blog post) had the unfortunate experience of having YouTube disable his videos. Jeff wasn’t at fault and is contesting the shut down, but it clearly illustrates a common mistake affiliate marketers make.
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and all things Google are not owned by you. You may have an account, and like Jeff Herring, you may be doing exactly what they want you to be doing. But the reality is you’re renting space.
Failing to understand that is the common mistake affiliate marketers make. They spend time hocking their products through these mediums WITHOUT capturing the contact information of those who are interested in what you’re talking about. Failing to use YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as traffic drivers to your website and opt-in form will trip up your long term plan.
Imagine if Jeff had spent his time telling you about great products he endorses and then sent you through his affiliate links directly to those products? You would never be able to reach these people again. There would have been no information capture.
You may be saying “adding a step between the video and the sale will reduce the number of sales”, am I right? Because that wouldn’t be right at all.
Teasing a product in a video and then sending them to your website where they can get more information about the product and be further sold shouldn’t decrease the number of sales whatsoever. But more importantly, that extra step of information capture allows you to follow-up on your original information, provide more details, social proof and benefits.
Not only that, information capture gives you the opportunity to give your audience more useful information – when you want to provide it.
Jeff is a master at information capture, thus I was able to hear about his unfortunate circumstance through an e-mail he sent out. (That’s great transparency, community building and relationship making as well)
When you’re building your affiliate marketing strategy, don’t forget that you don’t own much of what you do on the internet. There was a day when MySpace and AOL were king – but how much are 5,000 friends on MySpace and your AOL Keyword worth today? YouTube videos can create a great constant flow of income – until people start using a new site or YouTube randomly shuts down your account.
And think of all the time you spend on these sites? Without driving your friends, fans and leads to some sort of lead capture funnel – all those hours of hardwork will someday be worth nothing. (In fact, I wrote a book called TwittrGlitch to help you secure your Twitter account from hackers, shut downs and other problems to avoid this exact situation).
One of the most common affiliate marketing mistakes that you can make is assuming that your web properties are your own. Don’t make that mistake and always be planning for the next Facebook Killer to come along and destroy what you’ve built.
Sign In
The password must have a minimum of 8 characters of numbers and letters, contain at least 1 capital letter
