I Warned You About This…
Filed under: Classical Marketing, Internet Marketing, Rants and Raves
Back in May of 2007 I wrote about people stealing your traffic by altering your content prior to rendering (or serving up) the page. Today I recieved an email about Google’s new measures to combat cloaking.
Google’s opinion on “undetectable” cloaking
In his recent blog post, Google’s Matt Cutts commented on a Danish company that offered ‘undetectable’ cloaking to its customers. Google tried to check if this claim was true and they quickly found a website that used the services of the company. It turned out that their cloaking wasn’t undetectable at all:
“If someone is trying to manipulate Google by deceptive cloaking, it means that a webserver is returning different content to Googlebot than to users. That’s a condition that can be checked for by algorithms or manually, and such cloaking is certainly not ‘undetectable.’”
Basically, if the page on the server is different from the page the user sees - Google considers this cloaking. And Google is about to start kicking *ss and taking names — if it already hasn’t begun.
Try it. Get caught monkeying with the content and Google will drop you from their index. And frankly I say good riddance, it serves you right for trying to trick the wee spiders 
But seriously, I’ve never liked these change scripts altering your work because as a content creator, my stuff gets published quite a bit (which is flattering) but when the publisher then steals MY traffic by programmatically embedding links into the page “on the fly” - well, I’m rooting for Google on this one!
So, if you think you can outsmart the G-Man… think again. Google is watching and looking for cloakers. If you are currently using some of the more popular text switcher programs (and you know who they are) you should stop immediately - or risk having your website delisted. On second thoughts, keep it up 
(6)
10 Deadly Sins of Advertising (Part 2)
Here’s the next 3 of the 10 deadly advertising sins that we’re covering today:
#4. Not having back end sales
#5. Failing to address customer needs
#6. Failing to educate
#4 - Not Having Back End Sales:
The back end is vital to any business. If you can encourage a new customer to buy a similar product within 45 days you will double the value of that client. If you don’t understand the ‘lifetime value’ of your client, drop me a line - it’s probably killing your profit margin not knowing this…
#5 - Failing to Address Customer Needs
Arrogance and ignorance will kill a business. Stop guessing what your customers want and darn well ask them! Take the time to find out and then sell it to them. If you genuinely don’t fill a need/want then your customers will eventually abandon you.
#6 - Failing to Educate
Your customers will not understand your bargain, specials or benefits unless you point it out to them. Tell them “why” something is a great deal, tell them why something is on sale. If you are overstocked tell them why and tell them that this is the reason for the great sale. And as funny as it sounds, if your spouse will kick your butt if you don’t take them away for a long weekend, you can use that too as the reason for the sale - trust me… I’ve seen it used, and it works
10 Deadly Sins of Advertising (Part 1)
So recently I promised to explain the 10 deadly sins of advertising, here is a quick reminder of the first 3 which I’ll cover today.
- Failing to test
- Running institutional adverts
- Not stressing uniqueness
#1 - Failing to test: This one is just plain laziness. You might have a winning advert on your hands but you can always find ways to improve and you should be doing this through tests. Test the headline, the copy, the offer, the graphics, the layout and design - test one piece a time and compare to your control (the successful advert). Your cost to publish your advert is likely fixed - your conversion is variable and open to improvement with new advert variations. When you look at ROI, testing becomes a no-brainer.
#2 - Running institutional ads: This one makes me soooo mad when I see it. “But James we need to brand ourselves like Nike and other recognizable companies.” Come on! If and when you have millions of dollars to invest in a long term branding strategy we can talk again, until then you need sales. You need customers and you need adverts that achieve this. Direct response advertising is often considered somewhat ‘cheesy’ by high-brow types, but the data speaks for itself - the approach works and has done so for over 80 years. Branding works too… but it often takes 80 years
#3 - Not stressing uniqueness: Can you place your competitors name in your adverts and no one would likely tell the difference? Not good… You need to find your uniqueness and ensure it is included in your marketing messages. Without something “special” you are like all the others - a commodity. When you become a commodity you are then chosen based often on price. If you live by price… you die by price. Find your uniqueness: do you offer 24 hour service, is your guarantee twice as long as everyone elses, do you offer your widget in 37 colours, give this some thought - it pays dividends every time.
More soon…
The 10 Deadly Sins of Advertising
Over the next few entries I’m going to explain in more detail each of the following 10 deadly sins of advertising. In the mean time, here’s the list - enjoy!
- Failing to test
- Running institutional adverts
- Not stressing uniqueness
- Not having back end sales
- Failing to address customer needs
- Failing to educate
- Making customers work too hard
- Failing to explain why
- Giving up too soon what works
- Forgetting who your customer is
Sick of the Google Page Rank Shuffle? Me Too…
Filed under: Classical Marketing, Internet Marketing, Rants and Raves
Google’s been up to its old tricks again. This month has seen a couple of Page Rank shake downs. Sites have been bleeding traffic because of this shuffle. Index rankings have fallen and generally the stability of any website’s position in the results page, was brought in to question.
Apparently Google is taking square aim at the text link brokers and other cross promotional companies ‘out there.’ I think it’s a bit hypocritical of this company to punish other companies for essentially copying what Google taught them. But hey, no one said it was fair - Google is massive, they determine the online market realities for many of us, and we just have to roll with it.
Your 9 Step Online Career Marketing Process
Filed under: Business Development, Classical Marketing, Internet Marketing
Tired of chasing jobs, recruiters, opportunities? Would you like to command your career infospace? Here’s a very simple - yet powerful way to do it using the Internet, strategic content, and a few clever twists I’ll explain if you’re interested. For now, just follow this simple 9 step process and watch what happens:
- Register your name with GoDaddy.com - get www.yourname.com
- Using all the free tools offered by GoDaddy, publish your resume as a quick one page website. (Hint: Your resume should be the page called index.html)
- Using the free blogging tools from GoDaddy, install a blog on www.yourname.com/blog and start blogging. Write about your career subject.
- Submit your website and blog address to the 3 major search engines
- Begin writing short (400 to 600 word) articles about your specialties - publish them on your blog.
- Expand your content syndication, register with www.ezinearticles.com and upload those same articles into this hub. Include your bio and web address with each article.
- “Cross-blog” - find other blogs and content sites within your field of interest, comment and respond. Include your web address in your post signature.
- Register with LinkedIn. Configure LinkedIn to access your site, resume, blog and other content you’ve created. Share information wherever possible.
- Rinse and repeat…
If you have questions, feel free to drop me an email…
The 7 Subjects That Sell Well Online
Filed under: Business Development, Classical Marketing, Internet Marketing
*SIDEBAR* Are you an expert in any of the following subjects? Have you ever considered ‘publishing’ your knowledge? Information is the new universal currency and profiting from your knowledge is easier than you may think. If you’ve ever dreamed of selling your knowledge online 24×7 as an ebook, an audio course, a training video or even a specialty members-only website, then I can help you make it a reality. Contact me and find out how…
*** The 7 Subjects That Sell Well Online ***
In no particular order, here they are:
0% Financing Available
Pretty compelling isn’t it. Do you use this ‘offer’ in your advertising. You might want to seriously consider it, I’m thinking about it, after all, let’s think this through. If you are in the habit of delivering the services or products first and THEN invoicing, you are in fact offering credit. And I bet you don’t charge for the privelege - so you are providing 0% or free financing.
Let’s assume you take an order on day 1. You deliver the goods or service 20 days later and then drop an invoice in the mail a week later. We could easily assume the invoice arrives or is ‘processed’ on or about day 30. Many companies pay on cycles and the last time I checked the average time for typical payments was around 42 days.
That’s 0% Financing For 2.5 Months (just over 10 weeks) from start to payment!
So, if you are already giving away “free financing” or credit courtesy of “the bank of you,” why not capitolize on this wonderful “benefit” and feature it in your sales pitch. It’s very likley to improve your sales
What is Link Equity?
Link Equity (LE) is a mathematical method of evaluating your online presence. It uses a combination of simple factors to help you appreciate the value of creating strategic content - and of course, those embedded links in your articles and content…
EXAMPLE
Each month you create 12 articles. By the end of Q1 you have 36 articles. This continues each month for a full year. At Q4 you will have 144 articles.
Assuming that you embed a maximum 3 links into your article BIO BOX footer, that equates to 144 x 3 Links = 432.
Article pickup and readership varies by subject and theme, however a good average is 25 times in a year.
Let’s be conservative with the embedded links and do the math!
- 144 Articles X 2 Links Per Article X 25 Publishings = 7,200 Links a Year!
REMEMBER…
Your link equity (count) is a determining factor in whether your website shows up in the search engine results…
Smorty Is Paying Its Dues… To YOU!
Filed under: Classical Marketing, Internet Marketing, Strategic Content
So I’ve mentioned this service before when it was brand new. Since then this paid blogging service has grown in leaps and bounds. As a registered writer (blogger) you get paid to blog - it’s pretty simple really. You register for the service (and you will need a blog) and then you read the offers.
When a suitable offer arrives that is applicable to your blog or target, simply select the offer and write your post. In most cases you are only required to write a few hundred words or less, and a simple link to the site in question is all that is required.
Smorty really is a very simple, elegant and quick way to make a few bucks. And don’t go thinking this is just pocket change because it’s not. Earlier this week I received (in one day) over $600 worth of blogging offers. Now that’s some cool coinage…
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Favourite Stumbles- YouTube - How To Make Money on Elance Video (Spying on the buyers!)
- YouTube - ElanceExposeds Channel
- A Fathers Instructions for Life
- getmooh.com - Escape a Date, Escape from a Meeting, Escape People
- âDonât Worry, Be Happy!â
- http://behappymug.com/Be_Happy_Mug.html
- Songaia Sound Productions~Ani Williams
