Ideas for Business

Archive for June, 2006

Published by parMaster on 23 Jun 2006

Quote of the day

“Amazing - success has nothing to do with Ajax, or cool stuff. It has everything to do with simplicity and giving users what they want.”

Om Malik on the market share of photo-sharing sites.

Online marketing

Published by parMaster on 16 Jun 2006

So, you finally decided to take the blog leap. You've heard all about the marketing and search benefits so you stepped up to the plate and signed up for a TypePad, MovableType or WordPress blog software package and now you're a blogger.

Okay, now what? Add the ten essential blogging tools listed below and you will also be well on your way to creating and promoting a blog that is a powerful marketing tool. I'll explain the use of the tool and offer some suggestions, including the tools I use on my own blogs including the DuctTapeMarketing blog.

Feed Reader

The best way to learn about blogs and blogging is to read, or at least scan, lots of blogs. One of the wonders of blogs is that you can have every new post from every blog you want to read delivered to your desktop or to online location via RSS, so you can easily read and scan the posts of many blogs in a very short time. Newsgator is a good online choice for feed reading and also has a version that integrates with Outlook. I use a frëe online service known as Bloglines.

Subscriber Center

You need to make it easy for your blog visitors to subscribe to your blog's RSS feed � so they can read your blog in their favorite feed reader. The best way to do this is to go to FeedBurner and burn your own RSS feed there and use the tools they provide to set up automatic subscriber links so people who want to use Bloglines, Google Reader, MyYahoo or Pluck, for instance, can clíck on one button to subscribe. Tech types can figure this out without the buttons but why not make it easy for anyone to figure out.

Side note: Subscribe to each of these yourself and you will force some blog spiders to visit your site.

Email Subscription Option

A lot of people will nevër get the whole feed thing, but everyone gets email. Create an option for people to subscribe by giving you their email address � they will simply receive your blog posts like an email message. FeedBurner offers this service for frëe. FeedBlitz is another option or, if you already have an autoresponder email list service they may offer this service. AWeber offers this and helps me integrate these blog email subscribers into my other mailing lists.
Blog and RSS directories

There are hundreds of blog and RSS directories and getting listed in many can be a good thing. I use a piece of software called RSS Submit , but you can also visit Robin Goode's frequently updated list and submit your blog and feed by hand.

Hint: Subscribe to the RSS feed he offers and you will be notified when new directories are added.

Ping Service

Pinging is a term used for letting the various blog and RSS directories know when you have posted new content. Again, FeedBurner offers this as an automatic option called PingShot and you should activate it. PingGoat and Ping O Matic are other options but they require that you visit and update your record each time you post new content. Bookmark Manager

As you surf around the web or hop from blog to blog you may find sites that you want to point out to your readers. Online bookmark managers allow you to bookmark and categorize web and blog pages as you collect them and are a great tool for managing all of the stuff you find on the web. I use del.icio.us but BlinkList does a fine job as well.

Blog Stats

I like to track a few key stats in real time because it shows what other blogs might be linking to you or posting about your blog. A lot of people just like to track this kind of thing for fun and frequently visit sites like Technorati. I like to track it for networking opportunities. I use a tool called MyBlogLog because it allows me to see where traffïc is coming from but also tracks what links on my blog visitors are clicking on. It's amazing how this data can help you write more effectively. (MyBlogLog also ranks your links so visitors can see which links on your site are the most popular.)

Desktop Posting

With most blog software you must go online and post using a set of tools provided by the blog software. Many bloggers like to use a desktop application to create and submit their posts as it gives them some extra tools and allows them to more easily integrate content and files on their computer.

I use w.blogger but also like Performancing, Qumana and ecto (apple folks) (w.blogger also doubles as a really simple HTML editor.)

Tell A Friend Script

My blog software (pMachine) has a feature that allows a reader to clíck a link and send the post to a friend. This tactic brings me lots of readers. You might try looking here for some simple scripts that do that same: http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/tellafriend.shtml
http://www.stadtaus.com/en/php_scripts/tell_a_friend_script/

Republish Your Feed Headlines

The ability to republish your blog posts on other web pages, sites you own or sites of strategic partners is a great way to expose folks to your blog content. One more time we turn to FeedBurner for a painless way to republish your blog post to any web page you choose with something they call BuzzBoost.

About The Author
John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide published by Thomas Nelson - due out in the fall of 2006. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting http://www.ducttapemarketing.com.

SEO

Published by parMaster on 08 Jun 2006

Internet Marketing

This change is permanent: Marketing your website without taking advantage of RSS feeds will be the biggest mistake you can make in 2006 and beyond.

Microsoft is unleashing a new OS (Vista) that will plug into the web via RSS in a very profound way. If you haven't been keeping up on Vista (formerly Longhorn) developments because you thought it was of no consequence to you as a marketer, think twice.

Vista will revolutionize the way everyone syndicates their content and markets their websites forever.

RSS is fast becoming the backbone of the web. Sites are organically syndicating content around the web through RSS search engines like this one: http://rssfeeds.contentdesk.com.

Feeds in RSS directories then get picked up by publishers looking for good headline content for their sites.

The major search engines also pick up those feed listings and often discover new sites and spider them faster than any other förm of content syndication including articles and press releases!

How To Create A Feed For Your Site

First off, if you are not blogging, you need to. Every type of site imaginable can produce a relevant blog with topics related to your main content.

It doesn't matter if you simply sell furniture on your site - you need a blog!

Imagination is all that is required to create a blog featuring the almighty promotion power of an RSS feed. In the furniture example you can blog about interior design and any number of topics.

Notice that the big sites (that were formerly simple shopping cart sites with little content) are now putting up articles and blogging about the topics surrounding their products.

They are not stupid. They know that creating content and feeding it around the web is a major traffïc source and they've been switching to richer content models for well over a year en masse.

Most any major shopping site you land on nowadays has rich content somewhere on the site. And they have a feed their visitors can subscribe to and that they can market with.

For the smaller mom and pop shop, a Wordpress blog is all you need to plug into the RSS world and fill your site with rich content (not just product descriptions and salës letters) that the engines are looking for, as well as the major part of your market who want more information before making purchases.

A review site is a very popular model. Lots of surfers want to read about 3rd party experiences with products before deciding on purchases.

Again, this model is not new and it is not an afterthought marketing ploy. It is major business to the sites who have mastered the art of filling direct salës sites and shopping cart-run sites with deep content.

With Microsoft Vista, all PC users are going to be able to detect feeds on every site they visit and subscribe to those feeds.

Very soon the days of "Give me your email address and other private information" will be a thing of the past.

Smart marketers are going to adopt the RSS information delivery model because surfers will quickly begin to ignore email subscription forms while looking for the simple and completely anonymous RSS subscription model.

So if you haven't started planning a marketing campaign utilizing RSS delivery of newsletters and updates over email, you had better get started understanding RSS and its eventual replacement of the traditional email list.

Critical mass tolerance of sp@m and giving out email addresses has been reached in all markets. Only in very tight niches in special circumstances where there is instant trust and credibility conveyed by a site will you find decent optín rates.

Everywhere else the optín rate for any kind of email notification list is at rock bottom. Add to that a dismal delivery ratio of emails due to overzealous, catch-all sp@m filters from the ISP to the user level, and the writing is on the wall: email is on its way out as a viable tool for a successful marketing campaign.

The change is happening now and it will be permanent. RSS will eclipse email lists and it will be the new defacto method of content syndication around the web by the end of 2006.

Tracking what your RSS subscribers clíck on and do through your RSS feeds is the problem many geeks are working on now. We will soon have more accurate and more in-depth tracking available through RSS subscription and syndication than we currently have with email marketing.

Once marketers feel comfortable that they haven't lost any tracking ability that we currently enjoy with email, the game will quickly accelerate into a whole new type of competition for eyeballs. Watch also for a whole slew of new marketing courses and materials that teach how to dominate a niche with RSS marketing rather than email marketing.

"Growing Your List" and "Syndicating Your Content" is going to be done by RSS more and more by regular website owners as this year progresses. That includes your competition! Vista will be a massive feed detector/reader available to all PC users very soon.

This means that you can have a feed on your site for visitors to subscribe to, or you can see for yoursëlf how many of your visitors choose to ignore your email subscription förm and your content because you are not Web 2.0 enough for them.

So, are you set to take advantage of RSS as the impending dominant tool in your marketing campaign?

About The Author
Jack Humphrey is a professional website promotion consultant and writes for The Friday Traffïc Report on marketing with RSS and other internet marketing topics, available at http://fridaytrafficreport.jackhumphrey.com.

SEO

Published by parMaster on 08 Jun 2006

Google spread sheet no excel killer

News stories and blog posts have begun to fill with the carillon of funeral bells for Microsoft as Google readies its minimalist spreadsheet program for public debut.

Here is a selection of eye-catching headlines seen online about the pending debut of Google Spreadsheet from the search engine company:

Google adds web-based spreadsheet to Microsoft woes

Google Spreadsheets takes aim at Excel

Google unveiling Excel competitor

Coming soon: Google Spreadsheet. @SUM(trouble) for Microsoft's bottom line?

Microsoft has been having plenty of trouble on its own, between delays in releasing the Vista operating system and being forced to change some unpopular policies with its human resources processes. Now we have the image of a Google monster stalking the P&L statements of Microsoft while wearing a bladed glove and a red-and-black sweater.

"Mr. Ballmer, your 9 am with Mr. Englund from Google is here."

While the threat that is Google Spreadsheets does have some stylish good looks, as far as we can tell from the limited screenshots that appear in its sneak peek, there's one thing that the product definitely isn't, and that's Excel.

What Google Spreadsheets presents is a way to craft a multi-columned list of information, and a way to easily share that list with others. The service has not been activated yet to allow for a closer look at its formulas, though a link to them appears at the top of a spreadsheet.

A tabbed interface will let the user switch between formatting the spreadsheet, sorting the information, and accessing those formulas. Google also included the ability to invite other people to view a created spreadsheet or to edit it in real time with an accompanying chat window running.

The service supports Microsoft IE 6 as well as Firefox 1.07 and up on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. Browser-based access over the web enables the ability to edit a spreadsheet created on Google's service from multiple computers.

That remote accessibility probably precludes the service from being used on an enterprise level. The ever-present threat of Sarbanes-Oxley regulations would be cause for lots of uncomfortable audit questions should someone decide that storing information at Google doesn't satisfy SOX requirements.

Google Spreadsheets looks interesting, and we're looking forward to playing with it when Google starts inviting people into the controlled beta. But without advanced features like macros or pivot tables, Google's newest Lab experiment just isn't close to Microsoft Excel.

About the Author:
David is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

SEO

Published by parMaster on 02 Jun 2006

Great Marketing

More wise words from Seth:

Great marketing pleases everyone on the team, sooner or later. But at the beginning, great marketing pleases almost no one. At the beginning, great marketing is counter-intuitive, non-obvious, challenging and apparently risky. Of course your friends, shareholders, stakeholders and bosses won’t like it. But they’re not doing the marketing, you are.