| LED Digest 2072: Principles of Posting, also Web Awards |
|
|
|
================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. January 11, 2006 Issue #2072 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Commercial CMS? ==-- ~ David Jonah "I am an enthusiastic advocate of HannonHill's CMS product Cascade Server." --== Learning In This Enviroment ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson "You need to go through a distilling process." ~ Michael Linehan "I'd like to ask that respect be a guiding principle in posts..." --== Web Awards [was: The Good, Bad & Ugly] ==-- ~ Bill Rice "Many award programs in the advertising world are no more than beauty contests..." --== Rectifying Alexa Listings ==-- ~ Trudy Levy "...it appears that it is Amazon that bought it out." ~ Michael Martinez "Alexa's listings are fluff content..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Voice Over IP Technology ==-- ~ Viggie Bala --== Internet Radio -- ~ Don Baker ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: David Jonah Subject: CMS > I would like to seek out other's experiences > using commercial CMS products. - Laura C. Teeple Regarding CMS. I am an enthusiastic advocate of HannonHill's CMS product Cascade Server as I have used this with several clients to render web sites with changing content as SEO compliant sites using XML. The meta tag wizard and page construction when rendered make this a reliable and reasonably priced commercial software that works for us and our clients, time after time. A client having used it on a publication site for a magazine based web site, was able to create a fully functioning site in record time and ease for a corporate site. They have a number of design construction features that set them apart as a push CMS rather than a dynamic pull page, which creates awkward URLS for SEO purposes. They appear to have the SEO concepts figured out and their pricing is one time based on a number of seats required for editing purposes and you can edit as many web site urls as you can load your server down with to service. Very cool. www.hannonhill.com Cascade Server - also see that Duke University uses them for the same reasons you are looking for. David Jonah, Wordsmith & Web Jonah & Associates Business Keywords & Profile Articles http://www.localintheknow.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Dirk Johnson Subject: Learning > I am having a hard time learning in this environment. > Too many ideas and opinions expressed here are > leaving me feeling paralyzed. If we don't reach > consensus, it's all babble... - Salem Kashou, LED 2070 Salem, I can't resolve your frustration, but it is understandable. We are all riding on the learning curve somewhere. Your place on the curve is ahead of some and behind others. The advice is all over the board, everyone's an expert out here. One of the reasons for that is because what works for one site does not work for another. Each business presents it's own unique profile, in terms of how they market, how they distribute product, their available capital, their established customer base, their goals, etc. This will drive the choice of tools and tactics used on the site. A blog may work great for one site and be a waste of time for another. Same with email newsletters. Same with Pay Per Click ads. On and on. You need to go through a distilling process. Read everything, and consider it, compare it, and develop an approach that works for your own circumstances. Watch what others in your industry do on their sites (good and bad). Most of all, you need to look at it from a return on investment perspective. And yet you also need creativity. Lots of creativity, and willingness to experiment. I think that the best advisors are the ones with their feet firmly on the ground, with some real profit and loss experience under their belt. Is a cool Flash movie going to work the best, or investing that same money in a larger recipe base? I don't know the answer, but I can guess, based on my own experience. Flash movies and other whiz-bang has a place, but is it right for your site? Salem, you have exposed a good topic here, and you seem to want some input, so I'll go out on a limb, in an effort to advance the discussion. Consider the rest of this post to be just public brainstorming. Looking at your site (http://www.kangaroobrands.com/), you are trying many things, with your separate recipe site (www.pocketdiet.com), coupons. All good. Your least expensive method of reaching consumers is with your own product packaging. Are you leveraging this to the maximum? That is, creating pro-active promotions that drive product users to your website, getting them to register, and then engaging them in a positive way going forward? You have much of that infrastructure in place already. I would suspect that your number one goal is to have a consumer go to the grocery store with Kangaroo pita bread already written on their shopping list. Engagement of the consumer is the number one way to get that done. A website provides tools to manage this, from a data perspective. Then, to keep them interested, you have to provide useful info. Think of your own www.pocketdiet.com website in terms of the consumer, not in terms of your own business. What does a consumer want from Kangaroo? What works for them? People can see a genuine effort to help, and they respond to it. Your product has great ease of use for families on the go. Quick and easy and tasty recipes would be high on the list, I think. Weight loss success stories may also work. Your product also relies upon other ingredients, and thus, other food vendors. Cooperating with other vendors allows you to provide more interesting co-promotions and more interesting material to your customer base, in the form of easy recipes, etc. I realize that it takes a lot of groundwork to accomplish this. You also have church groups and other social organizations that need to feed a lot of people quickly and easily. That's a different aspect of engaging the consumer. Promotions and recipes can be built around this, too. Again, think from "outside looking in" (as opposed to "outside the box"!) , as best you can, then develop tools that address the consumer's needs and wants, in a genuine way. Finally, how are you doing with search terms related to "pita". The search volume numbers on www.wordtracker.com aren't huge, but they are probably not that competitive, either. It's worth a look to see if you can capture some of this highly-focused traffic. Salem, just my two cents worth....Thanks for providing the diversion from my day to day tasks...:) Best regards, Dirk Johnson, Partner - Operations DomainDrivers LLC www.domaindrivers.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Tone of posts I had considered writing the following without naming names, but decided against it. I want the person concerned to know what I think. At the same time, this is just one small example of something that irks me from time to time in how some people write to the list. It is, of course, not a big problem, but I wish it weren't there at all. Salem Kashou's post got two responses at the same time [issue 2071]. Both are making, essentially, very similar points. But the tone is TOTALLY different. Beth Earle's post gives her contrary viewpoint in a thoroughly positive and encouraging manner. > Don't think of it as paralyzing ... think of it as freeing. > You've got the skills and the intellect -- and the opportunity > to select what should work best. It really is a pretty > cool concept. Sheryl Coppenger's post, on the other hand, is (in my opinion) rude. > if a beginner can't get anything out of the discussion > here maybe he should find a newbie forum someplace > and come back when he's "grown up" a little more professionally. "You've got the intellect" versus "newbie - come back when you've grown up". My presumption is that you didn't mean to be rude, Sheryl. But this is exactly the often-discussed danger of email. There's no voice tone and body language to possible soften those words. Yes, sometimes we might need to say something straightforward such as "I think that's wrong" or "That is a myth". But ANYTHING we want to say can be phrased in a more or in a less respectful way. I'd like to ask that respect be a guiding principle in posts, no matter how strongly we may disagree with someone - that we write as if it were a good friend standing in front of us --- or a 250lb biker, if that image makes more impact :). Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: William Rice Subject: Web Awards [was: The Good, Bad, and Ugly...] > It is a fact that award winning sites are not always > the best designed sites for surfing purposes, so the > questions here are: "In your view, is this award > winning site well designed for the surfer and > does it deserve the award?" - Tom Aman, LED 2071 As someone who is actively involved with the Web Marketing Association's WebAward Competition, (www.webaward.org) I could not agree more with this comment. When it comes to "award winning websites" it really depends on who's award was won. In the early days of the Internet, website awards were a dime a dozen. Remember when being a "Netscape cool site of the day" or "Top 5% of the Internet" was something to strive for - even if they never told anyone what it took to win the recognition. Many award program in the advertising world are no more than beauty contests in which all that matters is big budget for a lot of Flash animation and dynamic navigation menus. An award program without clearly communicated judging criteria, IMHO, belong right up there with the "Bottom 95% of the Net" award. I am glad to say that the Web Marketing Association has worked hard to insure our judging criteria is more than simply a beauty contest. To win a webaward you are judged on interactivity, ease of use, use of technology, innovation, content and copy writing in addition to design. With that said, a survey of last year's WebAward judges found that lack of a credible design was the single most important factor when scoring a site negatively. Everyone likes to win awards and they can be a great boost for a marketing effort. But it is important to know how an award was won to determine its relative importance. Bill Rice, President Web Marketing Association www.webmarketingassociation.org ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Trudy Levy Subject: Alexa > Anyone been able to rectify a wrong Alexa listing? > ... I've emailed Alexa and the person that is listed > as the "owner" who doesn't even have his site > up last time I looked. - Dave Mead, LED 2071 1996-2004, Alexa Internet, Inc. An Amazon.com Company >From the Alexa site. I thought it was Yahoo, but it appears that it is Amazon that bought it out. The former owner developer, Brewster Kahle is involved with his site the Internet Archive.org and the Open Content Aliiance. He is a very cool dude, but no longer manages Alexa. Trudy Levy, Consultant Digital Imaging Projects http://www.dig-mar.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Alexa If it really bothers you, submit your site for a crawl and wait a few months. The crawl will happen quickly. The update will not. Alexa's listings are fluff content and the only people who actually look at them or care about them are Webmasters who mistakenly believe that they are useful or relevant to search engine optimization. If you don't believe me, just look at your statistics and see how many referrals you get from Alexa.com. If you get as many as from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, or Ask then go ahead and fret. If you don't get as many referrals from Alexa as from those services, then why are you agonizing over nothing? Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Viggie Bala Subject: VoIP > Vonage has been great. Mostly... But you can call > and actually speak to a real person within seconds. - Steven Rothberg, LED 2070 > ... other services such as inter-office intercom > may be the next coming thing if you can get it. > It is not available everywhere. I have broadband > service but it is not available where I live. - David Spahr, LED 2071 The inter-office intercom is a service that will be run by YOU. All you need is a PC Server and IP phones. Softphones (mostly free downloads) will also do. Eventhough it may not help home users much, there is an Open Source project called Asterisk@Home (http://snipurl.com/lfx6) that simplifies Asterisk installation with a single CD. With this CD, installing an Asterisk server is a breeze. It does most (if not all) of the installation tasks by itself. The ISO image can be downloaded from the site and burn into a CD. And regarding Vonage, you can subscribe through internet and use their phone service from anywhere in the world. Of course, in such case, it is not convenient to do away with the analog phone. The following location introduces the VoIP services in US with their prices and features. http://www.jiwire.com/voip-guide-voip-plans.htm Regards, Viggie Bala www.webvoize.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Donald Baker Subject: Internet radio Michael Martinez gave some podcasting links [issue 2071] in reply to Jennifer Thomas' question about Internet radio. While that may answer her question, it raises another in my mind. What about someone wanting to become an online DJ, and legally broadcast music over the Web? I think Live365 and some other Net radio services will take care of tracking music plays and ensuring the appropriate payments go to ASCAP, etc. I haven't checked into this, though. Has anyone had experience with this type of Net radio? Are there any good options for someone who'd like to share their music passion with Net listeners, yet not have to deal personally with the residual payments? What about making some money from listeners' buying MP3s or CDs via affiliate marketing, right off the Net-radio station? Don Baker NSI Partners ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best." - Henry Van Dyke |
