Devour The Web

Not long ago a blog was simply an online diary. Initially, people decided that blogging was describing, in excruciating detail, how their day went, what they had for dinner last night, and why they spent the whole weekend doing laundry.

Since then, blogging made the transition into the business arena. Now blogs are frequently being used as business journals, tools that can help keep your customers and web site visitors up to date with what is going on with your company. A business blog is an excellent tool to toot your own horn, let the world know about your new products, and tell your target customers why they should do business with you, rather than your competitor.

Don’t have a blog for your business yet? No problem! Here is how you can start blogging in just five easy steps:

* Set up a blog for your business. If you don’t want to have to set up things on your own, visit Blogger.com. Blogger will host your blog on its server, so that you don’t have to add anything to your own web site.

On the other hand, if you’d like to set something up on your own, get blogging software from WordPress.org

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So you’ve probably already read about the comScore data published yesterday suggesting Google’s paid clicks are no longer growing as fast as they once were.

The measurement firm believes paid clicks in October were up 37 percent over the year ago period, a distinguished growth rate, but that they fell precipitously from there. It estimates they grew 27 percent in November, 12 percent in December, and were flat in January. Further, its said the volume of clicks actually declined sequentially last month, from December to January. Sequential data is less valid than year-over-year, especially between Q4 and Q1, but this is still worth noting since we’re talking about the heretofore-invincible Big G.

Still, the finding shouldn’t come as a shock. Google said itself, during its Jan. 31 earnings call, that clicks are no longer growing as fast as they once did. The company’s explanations for the anemic growth center on an ongoing effort to improve click quality by reducing the number of ads on its sites and its network. Example: On AdSense for Content, Google has shrunk the clickable area around ads to reduce accidental clicks. It also seems to have further restricted search keyword bidding on generic and low-converting terms, for instance “baseball.” (Ably explained by Greg Yardley here.)

Hate pre-roll video ads?

Don’t count on them going away anytime soon.

Heavy Media’s John Lumpkin and Voxant CEO Marcien Jenckes both made that assessment today at an iBreakfast program, “Web Video, Where’s the Money?”

“The bulk of the [Web video ad] dollars is in pre-roll. It scales. It’s easy for advertisers to create and deploy. It will take awhile for the market to evolve,” said Jenckes, formerly AOL’s vice president of messaging, community, and voice.

Lumpkin concurred, suggesting that advertisers stick to :15 spots and avoid longer ones.

“Pre-rolls will never go away. If you’ve spent a lot time on TV [ads], and if you’re not doing the Internet, then you haven’t done your job,” said Lumpkin, Heavy’s SVP of sales strategy and partnerships.

What can Mother Theresa and Charles Schwab teach you about marketing online.

Certainly these two historical figures saw two vastly different worlds in their lifetimes. Mother Theresa spent hers with the poorest of the poor, while Charles Schwab spent his with the richest of the rich.

But look at these two famous quotes.

“There is more hunger in this world for love and appreciation than for bread” Mother Teresa

“I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.” Charles Schwab

Do you see the underlying thread?

Regardless of who you are selling to, from one end of the social spectrum to the other, and everywhere in between, human beings are looking for appreciation, and approval, above all else.

Show your customers how the use of your product yields a sense of importance, and recognition, or how it helps them avoid embarrassment and indifference, and you will make many more sales than if you simply describe the qualities of your product.

But it takes a certain kind of selling to pull this off.

One of GameSpot.com’s “Best Games of 2007 Dubious Honors” awards is the “Most Despicable Use of In-Game Advertising.” An honor executives from Microsoft’s Live and Massive teams once confided to me they work all year to avoid being nominated for. This years nominees include “Guitar Hero III” (Xbox 360, PS3, PS3, Wii), “Need for Speed ProStreet” (Xbox 360), “Skate” (Xbox 360), (All-Pro Football 2K” (Xbox 360, PS3). The reader’s choice, with 56 percent of votes, was “Guitar Hero III,” a game that sold every pixel to product integration and ad placements.

The top honor from the GameSpot editors goes to EA’s “Need for Speed ProStreet” for the ads appearing everywhere including the Xbox Live achievement points. The $25 instant skill boost doesn’t help the game’s status, and players found the constant downloading of dynamic ads a problem throughout the game’s connected lifespan. Let’s go to the video.

Back in the early 20th century, a guy named Richard Warren Sears was a master at writing copy that worked. He was in the mail order business, and he sold to the market he knew best—rural America—because he grew up on a farm himself.

He started out selling watches along the railroad lines, and soon discovered the power of writing profit-pulling copy for a multitude of products. Ol’ Rich had a way with words that made his wholesale wares irresistible at even marked-up retail prices.

After his partner Roebuck quit, Richard’s company became known simply as Sears, and expanded (just a bit) beyond mail order. Sears was one of the first major corporations, and it was built by a writer from the sticks.

If Richard Sears were a young man starting out today, he’d be working the Internet like a Black & Decker 180 pc. Accessory Tool Box with Extra Storage. And since he wouldn’t stand to be underpaid by companies unappreciative of writers (or even clients, for that matter), he’d start up his own gig, selling direct as always.

But this time, he’d sell unique gadgets, use a blog to do it, and Digg-bait till he hit auto-bury. And he’d do it like a champ.

Helpful Hints for Writing
Guest Post By Michel Fortin

An interesting question was recently asked of me in a discussion forum: “I agree with the idea of submitting articles [in order to get] a lot of targeted visitors to a site, however, I was wondering, ‘What keeps Michel Fortin writing?’ I mean, Michel, what is your 3-, 5- or 7-point formula to get an article on paper? What are [some of the specific] steps you follow?”

Here’s my answer.

1. I’m subscribed to a ton of ezines and blogs.

As an “expert” (if I dare call myself that) in my field, I must keep abreast of my industry — so should you. But the wonderful byproduct is that something I’ve read will stir a few ideas in my mind about something worth writing.

The gazillion of ezines and blogs to which I’m subscribed are filtered in my software (both email and RSS readers) into folders for later reading. What I do, however, is filter such articles for keywords that I decide, in advance, about which I feel there’s a need to write.

Email marketing once proved to be immensely effective, but the greedy and idiotic polluted the well by spamming the planet with everything from weight-loss products to sexual enhancement drugs and beyond. Because of the stench, filters and laws have been created to attempt to fix the problem, but still the Internet is polluted with more and more junk each day. So obviously, filters and legislation are not the solution, for consumers, publishers, or marketers.

Everyone has been left scratching their heads and asking… What do I do to avoid this crap and make the Internet mine again? How do I build my business and promote it without having to deal with email? After all, what’s the point in spending money on email advertising campaigns when there is no guarantee that the emails will even reach their destination?

Enter… RSS. RSS is the perfect communication tool. It’s applications far outreach those of email for marketing, publishing and personal communications. RSS is the answer to our communication woes.

How To Get Higher Rankings In The Search Engines And Flood Your Web Site With Traffic For FREE
 by: Laura Hite

How To Get Higher Rankings In The Search Engines And Flood Your Web Site With Traffic For FREE

Having a high ranking in Yahoo, Google and MSN is definitely going to get you more traffic to your web site.

One of the best free ways to get higher rankings in the search engines is to write articles and submit them to article directories.

Webmasters looking for content for their websites and e-zine publishers looking for content for their e-zines can now go to these article directories to find articles they can use for free.

When they use your article they must keep the resource box in the article. The resource box contains a little information about you, including a link to your web site. If 100 people pick-up your article and use it on their website or e-zine, you now have 100 links back to your web site.

Back links to your web site will naturally increase your ranking in the search engines. A high ranking in the search engine will increase traffic to your web site.

After officially launching its kids oriented ad network last week, GoFish wasted no time in signing avatar-based social network WeeWorld to its list of publishers.

There have already been 21 million “WeeMees” avatars created on WeeWorld, according to the company, which advertisers in the GoFish network will be able market to using graphical display ads, Flash animations, specialized games, backgrounds, environments and sponsorships. What had Tabreez Verjee, president of GoFish, particularly excited when I spoke to him, however, was the forthcoming WeeWorld virtual world environment. Using the GoFish ad network, he hopes to allow marketers access to the world for branded virtual clothing, sponsored playgrounds or other features.

“It’s exactly the kind of immersive opportunity that our advertisers are looking for,” he said of the as yet unnamed virtual world. “It’s not a banner at the top of the page, it’s deeply integrated into the experience.”