| LED Digest 2440: Integrated Marketing |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== Guest Moderator: Published by: John Audette LED Digest john, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. June 28, 2007 Issue no. 2440 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Effective Press Releases ==-- ~ Eva Rosenberg "When you make press releases interesting and relevant, you will get great coverage." --== Integrated Marketing ==-- ~ Shel Horowitz "OK, John, I'll take the 'whatever happened to' bait. <Moderator Comment> ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Migrating to a Dynamic Website ==-- ~ Nick Interdonato "[Databases] are NOT always good for businesses..." ~ Ari Ozick "...the best solution would be to find a way to keepall your old URLs if possible." --== Domain Naming ==-- ~ Steven Birk "Park your domain name you own without the hyphen to your main site." ~ Will Bontrager "If duplicate content is an issue, the domain name...can consist entirely of a 301." ========== NEW ==================================== From: Eva Rosenberg Subject: Effective Press Releases Hi John and LEDers Speaking of the effectiveness of press releases earlier, I mentioned the guy who'd sent me a press release about his companies services to California businesses that caught my eye. Well, here's the result of a good press release. I thought the business was such a great idea, that this public relations guy's client is now featured in a Dow Jones article that I built around their services and their clients: http://snipr.com/1nlzd [marketwatch.com] So, do consider trying press releases to promote your site or product. When you make them interesting and relevant, you will get great coverage. Once upon a time, your Humble Guide, Eva Rosenberg, EA www.taxmama.com www.taxquips.com Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Integrated Marketing > Has Internet marketing been reduced to optimizing > for Google searches? ... Whatever happened to > other interactive techniques..? - John Audette, LED Digest 2436 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1841/190/ OK, John, I'll take the "whatever happened to" bait. --> Press Releases I still use them and write them for clients. And I still advocate telling "the story behind the story" rather than the boring 5-Ws approach recommended in so many old PR books. As an example: when hired to rite a press release about an author's latest book on electronic privacy, I *did not* use a hedline like "Electronic Privacy Expert Releases New Book." it may have the who and the what, but it doesn't tell the story. My headline was "It's 10 O'Clock--Do You Know Where Your Credit History Is?" However, that's not the only way press releases have changed. Disintermediation is a big thing with press releases. You no longer write for the media, but for both reporters and the general public -- you want Google to find your press release and others to find you via Google. --> Viral Campaigns I am trying a serious, issue-oriented viral campaign, spreading very slowly but steadily: business-ethics-pledge.org -- my first real attempt at the medium. Trying to change the culture so that Enron-style business becomes as unthinkable a few years from now as slavery is today. Not as glamorous or funny or mass-culture as the biggest viral campaigns, but still a worthy experiment IMHO. And not designed primarily for personal gain, although I certainly hope that continues to be a side-effect. It has led to some very interesting clients, speaking gigs, etc., but that's not why I'm doing it. Signing the pledge costs nothing, and actually entitles the signer to pay less if she/he chooses to buy a copy of the ethics book. And yes, I still send around great jokes and video links. Some of which have a marketing component. --> Banner Advertising Paid advertising in general tends to be pretty far down the ladder in my marketing efforts. Were I to try some, I'd be more likely to go with Google text ads and drive PPC traffic. But so far my only experiment was $20 put into yahoo Search back when it was GoTo i.e., before it was Overture). I wasn't impressed with the results and haven't tried PPC since -- but the Net is very different now, and with the right campaign, I'd try it again. With the very specific niches I go after, I don't see banners paying for themselves. --> Community Development, e.g., e-mail discussion lists Still my main marketing technique after all this time. I get more clients from discussion lists than from all my other marketing combined, especially if you count referrals from industry experts who meet me online and then list me in their books, etc. In fact, I've just started a new discussion list for marketers who do social change work and want to change the world. I expect this to be a wonderful incubator for progressive ideas once it gets rolling. (Anyone interested -- contact me offlist) However, I've found my own e-newsletters suffer from delivery problems, etc., and have switched over to sending an announcement that the newsletter is posted on a blog I just set up for that purpose. --> Information Marketing I agree that content is king. Last I checked I had more than 1500 articles on my various websites, and add several each month. Plus two blogs. I get praises, prospects, and clients. --> Selling as a Component of Marketing Let me rephrase that as relationship-based marketing. I am very successful in building long-term relationships that work to mutual benefit. I get a lot of business from referrals, and therefore have to do very little hard selling. --> Social Media I'm new at the game. I have a LinkedIn network, a page on MySpace, etc., but haven't done much to harness this stuff yet. I've recently joined two communities on Ning, one for copywriters and one for publishers, where I think I may participate more actively. And I have some plans for my LinkedIn contacts, especially -- when I get around to it. Hmmm. You didn't mention affiliate marketing. That's an area I feel I could do a whole lot better. I'd love some advice on how to recruit affiliates who sign up and actually sell. Shel Horowitz http://www.frugalmarketing.com Comment? <Moderator Comment> As was pointed out in a previous post, I somehow failed to list affiliate marketing in my comments a while back. Maybe my old friend Allan Gardyne can bring me up to speed (it's winter Down Under, after all). Your Striving Moderator, John Audette ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Nick Interdonato Subject: Changing carts > It's time for an upgrade to our shopping cart > system... our product pages will now be database > generated rather than static HTML ones. - Jackie Monticup, LED Digest 2439 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1845/190/ Jackie, Let me relate just a few of the things from my experience with site changes, database sites and what I believe is the same cart that you are using that might be worthy of your consideration. 1. When one of my sites was changed from HTML to ASP, it had a major negative impact on the site's search positioning that took a long, long time to reverse. It was probably done incorrectly or simply with no consideration for the search engines (at the time - 4 years ago SEO was not the art form it has become today) because the web developer seemed more interested in doing what he was comfortable with (.ASP) than what was best suited for the web site. ASP was not the only way to accomplish the changes desired for the site because there was no database involved at the time. But, each page was renamed with an ASP extension and no redirects were set up which made the site both vanish and throw errors when links to the HTML pages were no longer valid. 2. I almost, but I am happy to say never pulled the trigger to replace the Americart system with a database driven cart for that site, also recommended by this developer to provide for "growth". Americart is not without faults, and is certainly a lot of work if you have a lot of SKU's, but one thing is does do is provide maximum flexibility for designing pages, naming pages (which as I understand can improve rankings) and creating rich html pages like you have now. 3. I have other web sites built with databases, including one commerce site. They deliver easier management of inventory, merchandising, and an automated back end but the database sites are more complex, problematic, difficult to maintain, more expensive to host and more difficult to move to a new host. Plus, there is far less flexibility in designed the page content. 4. Switching hosts sounds really easy, and is for a site like you have now - with no database and an outsourced SSL and shopping cart system. But switching hosts for a database site is not trivial and at least in my case, required a programmer's assistance. You might want to plan your exit strategy before you move ahead, just so you understand what will be involved if you need to do that some day. You might be unpleasantly surprised by what you discover - that you are married with no easy divorce options, or at least, none that are not messy and expensive. I could go on and on but you get the drift. Databases and self hosted domains are ALWAYS good for hosts and web developers. I am convinced they are NOT always good for businesses and certainly they are not necessary for every web site. Before you make this move, and enter into what is certain to be a far more complex and financially demanding relationship with your web developer than what you have experienced to date, you might want to look into a product that works with your current shopping cart that can automate your back end. I know there is one. At least at that point you can evaluate the business value of what is a major undertaking on a cost/benefit analysis against another option that accomplishes what you stated was your primary goal - a better back end management tool. This is something only you can do as the business owner and operator, with all of the facts on the table. Site changes that are driven by technical considerations and financial motivations that inevitably deliver major benefits to hosts and developers through increased revenue and more control over you as the client may be worth a second thought. Nick Interdonato Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Ariel Ozick Subject: Changing carts Jackie asks: > Are we going to take a hit in the search > engines for these changes? I don't know off hand what advantages Monster Cart provides and what you can do, so the specific technical details may vary depending on their systems. I would say that yes, switching to dynamically generated data from a static site will cause problems. It can be avoided by taking the following steps. 1. Make sure your new, database generate URLs are search engine friendly. Instead of having urls like foo.com/cart.php?product=deckofcards&etc, it should be foo.com/bicycle-deckofcards-red.html. 2. This is probably more important: 301 redirect all the old pages to the new shopping cart pages, so that the search engines will rank the new pages in place of the old ones. If your old page was magictricks.com/magicbooks/bookstore.htm and your new page will be magictricks.com/category/books or something similar, make sure it gets 301 redirected. These things can easily be done in .htaccess on Apache based hosting. Windows IIS is a little bit more complex. I think the best solution would be to find a way to keep all your old URLs if possible. Again, I don't know that Netsol will be able to help you there. Good Luck! Ari Ozick Wired Rhino, Inc. http://www.wiredrhino.com Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Blogging can improve your site's ranking with both search engines and end users. Now, would you like us to tell you something you maybe don't already know? OK. A blog shouldn't be written like other web content. Here's why. http://www.getwebcontent.com/blog/?p=16 http://GetWebContent.com/LED: Blogging are us. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Birk, Steve Subject: Domain naming Hi Tom, I read your recent post and can't help but wonder the following: > I not only have the problem of people misspelling > therapeutic (they tend to settle for theraputic)... - Tom Anson, LED Digest 2439 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1845/190/ The domain names theraputic-grade.com and theraputicgrade.com are both available. Why wouldn't you register both of those names and park these on your main therapeutic-grade.com site? That should probably cost you less than $20/year and then people that miss-spell your domain name will still land on your site. > I always have to explain that there's > a hyphen in there... It appears that you also own therapeuticgrade.com, so why would you even tell your customers about the hyphen? (Although, there appears to be a name server issue when trying to go to http://therapeuticgrade.com, so that would have to be fixed first). Park your domain name you own without the hyphen to your main therapeutic-grade.com site and you would not have to even tell your customers about the hyphen. Best Regards, Steven Birk Medical News Center http://MedicalNewsCenter.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Will Bontrager Subject: Domain Naming A suggestion for those who want the best of both hyphenated and typed- together domain names, get both. If duplicate content is an issue, the domain name easiest on the vocal chords can consist entirely of a 301 "Moved Permanently" redirect to the content domain. Don't link to the easy domain from anywhere. Use it only for spoken referrals. If the typed-together domain name is not available, any other domain name easy to speak may be acquired for the same redirect idea. Another method would be to redirect certain directory names of a domain you already control that is vocal easy. From my experience, people seem able to understand "go to willmaster.com slash hosting and it will redirect you to the right place." Although that is an affiliate link, the same idea could be applied to any destination. In short, when the ability to verbally convey a URL is important, one solution is to redirect an easy-to-speak URL. Will Bontrager http://flow-to.com/ :) Comment? ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. Free no-obligation proposal: http://GetWebContent.com/LED SEOToolSet.com Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification Join the certified SEO directory: www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/120/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/77/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/86/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination." - Ludwig Wittgenstein |
