Author: Dan Morris

The hyphenated domain name dilemma

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:

Screen Shot 2015-03-05 at 9.55.27 AM

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.

(Also check out what Google prefers: hyphens or underscores)

Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

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.

Keys to the Carp Hunters Viral Video

If you haven’t seen this carp hunters video that went viral out of Peoria, IL – then you’re missing out. While it doesn’t have the giggling associated with the talking babies video – it’s got a whole lot more that makes it an instant video hit!

Watch the video, then let’s talk about what makes it great – or not so great:


So what are negative elements of this video to start with? I’d say the intro is the one thing that will have slowed its viral growth. When you can get directly to the meat of the action within seconds of pressing play, you’ve got a much better chance at someone passing it on.

While the lead-up pics of the costumes drag for a couple more seconds, they do lend to the wonder and mystique as to whether these boys are going to impale themselves or not. Without that wonder, I think most wouldn’t get to the final frame of the video.

Imagine all the angles this video features that has people recommending it to others: kids, music, speed boats, boating, danger, “holy mackeral moments”, swords, fighting, the medieval angle, water-skiing, carp fishing, jumping fish, home made costumes, spikes. . . .etc. . . This has everything you’d ever want in a viral video . . .except babies and dogs.

What do you think? As of the publishing of this post, the video has 101,231 hits (May 4, 2011). What does it have now? Take a look and leave the viewcount in the comments below.

I’ve sent out e-mails with different links to the video and will share with you what happens as some people forward it and others do not.

vr.audiencegrowth vr.videoediting1 vr.optimization1 vr.channelsetup
vr.videocreation vr.outsideofyoutube vr.monetization vr.measurement

Surveys aid the buying process

I recently read an article over at Alejandro Reyes’s website (which you can see here) where he published the results of a survey his readers took. I thought what he learned from his readers would be quite germane to your business.

He asked his audience three questions:

  • What kind of content do you want to see in 2011 on AlejandroReyes.com?
  • What format do you like best?
  • How can I help you best in 2011 to become more successful?

If you can’t identify with those questions because it sounds like a website owner asked them, have you ever had a customer request something? If you’re a hair dresser, has anyone ever asked you what kinds of foods promote shiny hair? If you’re a hardware store owner, has anyone ever asked you if you do workshops? Why not ask them by e-mail what kinds of things you can do to make their experience better – and how they’d like you to do it. I’m sure you can think of three questions.

What Alejandro learned will certainly make his business better over the course of 2011. His readers said they’d be interested in hearing how other successful entrepreneurs became successful. That was great for Alejandro because he loves doing success interviews. I bet your customers, if you’re a hardware store owner, would love to see what other successful “birding” folks are doing to attract bluebirds or cardinals to their feeders.  Ask your customers what you can provide.

Alejandro also learned that his customer prefer blog posts and video over podcasts. Wouldn’t that be nice to know? Would it be great to know that your real estate clients would much rather attend open houses on Thursday evening from 5 – 7 than Sunday from 2 – 4? How would that change your business?

Your customers have already researched what they need to know about your products. They’ve decided your place of business serves their needs, and many of them are repeat buyers (meaning they’ve overcome any buyer’s remorse). Your job now is to become a more staple expert in their mind and expand the services you can provide to them.

The only ways you can make more money is to get customers to buy more or get more customers. In the case of the survey, you have a prime opportunity to provide more value in exchange for money.

Surveying your customers is extremely easy on-line. There are many, many free polling and survey services you can use. To get people to take a survey, put the link in the footer of your e-mail signature. Send a postcard with a link to the survey.  Add the survey to your website home page. E-mail your customers and ask them to take it. Or even ask them in-store.

Surveys will not only make your relationship with your customers tighter and give you opportunities to meet their needs, but will also start a conversation with your customers that you can continue by e-mail all year long. So don’t forget to ask for their name and e-mail – then you can really serve their needs.

What are your thoughts on surveys? Why haven’t you done them yet? Some people are afraid it will annoy their customers. Do you feel that way and why? I’m interested in your thoughts so leave a comment below.

Classic Marketing Mistakes

One of the classic marketing mistakes you’ll see over and over is the inability of marketers to see the world from their customers’ point of view.

I was driving home from Myrtle Beach today when I noticed a few dozen telephone poles were adorned with the same sign. One after another the poles had the same sign stapled to them. The sign was yellow, had big black letters and was posted about 6 feet off the ground. It was the perfect color to see during the day, the perfect size letters and on the major thoroughfare of the town.

The problem was they couldn’t be seen. The advertiser got just about everything right EXCEPT. . .

They failed to understand anything more about their target market other than where would be the best place in town to find them. .

BUT. . .

. . . what they ignored was the best way to interact with their audience. Other than knowing who the audience is, it’s best to take the time to see how they think. For instance, would it make sense to set-up an interactive elliptical machine demonstration in the drive-through lane at the bank? No, it wouldn’t.

The norm and expected behaviour at a drive-through is that you pull up, stay in line, stay in your car, do your business and leave. How effective would an advertiser be if he found that 98% of his target market used a bank drive-through.  Despite his target market being there, how successful would he be in trying to get drive-through customers to get out of their cars and onto an elliptical machine?

Well, that’s precisely what the telephone pole advertiser did.  The mistake they made was facing their signs directly at the street and not toward the oncoming drivers. By facing them directly at the street, I had to slow down to 5 mph and look through the passenger side window in order to read them.  Slowing down in traffic to read a telephone  pole sign?

That’s just not what people do. And that kind of thinking is what makes this one of many classic marketing mistakes.

So don’t stop at knowing your market is females, 45 and older, making $119,000 per year, with 2 kids and a Master’s Degree. . .  That just tells you who you have to study. In fact target market demographics is the starting point. . . figuring out how to market to that group will determine your success.

Ever run across an ad that was well done except for one glaring mistake? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment and share!