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Tracking your e-mail marketing campaigns
Thursday, October 11, 2007
If you have an e-mail newsletter, it's important that you know how many people on your list have actually received it, who's opened it and who has taken further action. Without that information, you might be wasting your efforts.
iContact seem to have a slightly new spin on the whole 'online communication' concept - it's similar to services such as aweber but is more than just an autoresponder. From $9.95 per month (prices increase according to your list size - their Enterprise level starts at $660 per month!), you can utilise their newsletter, autoresponder, blogging and survey tools.
Their interface is easy to use and you have a choice of over 300 email templates to choose from or you could use your own. E-mail opening and clickthrough rates, bounce and unsubscribe management, and sign-up form code (so you can easily add newsletter signup forms to your website using cut-and-paste) come as standard and there are some nice other features such as list segmentation tools.
An overview video is at http://icontact.com/www/video/introduction_video.html.
Search Engine Marketing Hints
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Search Engine Marketing Hints is a blog-style website aimed at killing off some of the myths and hype in promoting a website. Currently on the frontpage is information showing what constitutes a good link to your site, and why google may only show a few backlinks. The information seems to be straightforward white-hat advice.
Just for the uninitiated, white-hat strategies are those considered safe to follow and remain within search engine guidelines whereas black-hat are very risky and could get your site banned from Google, MSN and Yahoo! etc...If something is described as 'grey-hat' it should also be avoided unless you like taking risks!
There are different sections on the site with useful advice e.g. SEO tools and PPC tools which review different programs and suggest where to get more information from. There are affiliate links but this is only fair when someone spends the time to put a site like this together.
Pay Per Click Management Explained
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
ACS SEO have written a white paper on Pay Per Click Management which explains the basic principles of pay per click and its benefits.
PPC is a quickly-implemented way of introducing your product or service to a large volume of people by bidding on your selected keywords. You pay everytime someone clicks on your keyword to view the webpage that you've linked it to. Your ads will appear next to related search results and on sites that have elected to show adverts relevant to their content.
Google and Overture are the current big players in the market and their programs are based on the same principles but are implemented in different ways. Most advertisers tend to use just one and not the other due to unfamiliarity.
Whilst setting up a basic campaign is straightforward, many people actually lose money as they are unsure of the technicalities, don't split-test (fine-tune) their results or miscalculate the return on investment and think they are making rather than losing money. After all, would you spend $250 and be happy to make $200 in sales?
One option is to do a lot of reading on the subject and ensure that you are sure of what you are doing, or if you don't have the time, hire an expert to do the job for you and guarantee that you will gain more in sales that you spend on your PPC campaign.
Free 2GB online backup facility
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
IDrive-E is an online backup service offering free backup for up to 2GB of data. For a small fee ($4.95 per month or $49.95 a year) you can upgrade to unlimited backup space. 2GB is more than adequate for a big pile of documents, photos and even a couple of MP3 files if you so wish. No file type or size restrictions are in place and the service is free to businesses as well as personal users.
They make sure your files are secure*, and storing or restoring your files is very simple, with their filespace appearing as a mapped drive in Explorer so you can just drag and drop your files into it.
* The programme itself is encrypted with 128-bit SSL encryption and with password key 256-bit SSL encryption for the actual storage. This means that only you can access your files from the IDrive-E Online Backup because your data is encrypted with your own password key.
Other features include an incremental backup (only backs up files changed from the last backup), drag and drop or scheduled backups, multiple account management for small businesses.
SEO and PPC for the Web 2.0 Generation
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of ensuring that your website is fully geared up to be indexed as highly as possible in the search engines.
PPC management is complementary to SEO and ensures your site appears in the paid or sponsored listings as well as possible for your budget.
With the advent of web 2.0 or the social web, there are more opportunities than ever to get your site indexed and visited - just think of YouTube and MySpace for example. Businesses can capitalise on this by podcasting, blogging and videocasting but these can seem daunting to the average Internet user.
Management companies such as Brand Attention offer all of the above services, but how do you decide on which company should manage your online PR?
I suggest speaking to potential companies - ask them for examples of prior work undertaken and see whether they will work with you in-house or with another agency if necessary. Ensuring a bespoke service, tailored to your requirements and industry will provide you with a better return on your investment. If the company don't listen to you, telling you rather than asking you what you need, go elsewhere. Ask whether the service is a 'one-shot' or whether they re-evaluate your campaign regularly. And finally, if they try to guarantee you top place in Google, run a mile!
Labels: pp
Online coupon resources
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Okay, so this post is aimed mainly at the American market, but it's the best example of it's kind that I've found. CouponChief is a really simple concept - it lists online coupon codes for various products and these are searchable by people who want to get a bargain. Unlike a lot of coupon-style sites, you don't have to become a member or pay a membership fee.
Coupons are arranged by both category and store for an overview, and there is an RSS feed so you can subscribe to new offers. Top offers, offers expiring soon and suggested searches are all visible on the front page too. It's not a pretty site, but is very functional and there's been some thought in the navigation and usability.
There are all size companies listed and some useful for your online presence like Dotster for example. See their internet category for more information.
Free service puts music to your pics and vids
Monday, April 16, 2007
Fliptrack is a web 2.0 (you know, one of the new breed of sites you can interact with) site that "allows users to create musical slideshows with their photos and hit music. Photos are synchronized to the beats of a song like a music video or movie soundtrack. It is free and legal to share creations." You can use the service online, or you can download the Fliptrack tool (Windows only at the moment).
Good idea or what? No longer do you have to worry about being caught out for using unlicensed music. And Fliptrack has music you've actually heard of - Barenaked Ladies, Fedde LeGrand and many more. In return, your video will have a small 'Fliptrack' logo in the bottom left hand corner.
Once you've created your video or picture show, you can choose to keep it as a private video for friends and family, or you upload and share it on Fliptrack itself or on many other sites including MySpace, Friendster, Xanga, Blogger, Facebook, Piczo, Bebo and Dogster. For the sites I've just listed, full instructions are given on how to do this.
Gambling for PC users
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Following on from yesterday's post on Poker for Mac Users, today is the turn for PC (Windows) Users. Lucky Nugget Casino is a site aimed at players in the UK, Canada, US and Australia.
Online gambling is a growing phenomena and as long as you see it as entertainment, rather than a way to make money, it can be lot of fun.
Lucky Nugget have a £50 monthly match which means that for every pound you play a month, they will match it up to £50 in free credits. That's up to £600 per year! There is also a player rewards program with cashback and auction points.
No download is actually required - you can play the games online but there are restrictions on the browser you can use. Firefox is my browser of choice, but to play I have to use Internet Explorer. I haven't tested it on other browsers yet.
The site itself is simple to navigate and the list of games is huge with all the games you would expect, plus more that I've never heard of. Video Poker, Craps, Blackjack, Triple 7s Blackjack Baccarat, Roulette, Video Slots, Pai Gow Poker, Poker, Red Dog, Scratch Games, Sicbo and Keno, to name a few.
Labels: pp
Poker for Mac Users
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Although I do blog about web programming which is operating system independed, a proportion of my blog is aimed at Windows users. As an occasional poker player (just for pretend money!!) I know that many poker sites work by you downloading their software before you can play, but this usually excludes Mac users. Introducing Mac Poker Online - a huge resource site for poker players who own a mac not a PC. The site is well designed, and the only criticism I have is that if anything, there is too much information to take in!
I found the best starting page to be the Mac poker sites, as there is a very comprehensive list of suitable poker rooms - sites where downloads are necessary, sites where they're not and a big list of sites for emulators. The site owner has also ranked the sites according to fourteen different factors (see "How we review...") to enable you to quickly choose a suitable site.
Another feature I like is the list of online casino bonuses - there are plenty of incentives to join different casinos, but it's nice to see an at-a-glance list - both 'refer a friend' and joining bonuses are listed. Each casino in the list has a review as well - what more could you ask for?
Labels: pp
New links directory with a twist
Friday, March 30, 2007
The Million Dollar Pixel Homepage opened new doors for advertising on the Internet in new ways. Big Web Links Bid Directory is a website that has taken the paid aspect of pixel websites, the auction element of sites such as eBay and the search engine friendliness aspect of the best web directories.
As they rightly point out, with many web directories, you submit your site and end up on an obscure page that no-one ever sees (how many pages of search results do you look at...1...3?). With a search engine friendly directory, at least the link to your site will be acknowledged by the search engines and that it will be on a page of similar-themed links.
With Big Web Links Directory, you can bid on the amount you want to pay for your listing, with the highest bids are listed first. The top 10 listings are shown on the homepage and top 20 listings on the top links page as an additional benefit.
The site itself is well designed and easy to navigate - much nicer looking than many directories and with some of the now-ubiquitous Web 2.0 design ideas implemented.
Labels: pp, searchengines
Pay Per Post Pays More
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Well, I did try to craft a headline where all words started with 'P' but failed on the final word! Any suggestions?
I logged into Pay Per Post earlier and noticed that they've now got opportunities* worth up to $1000. That's crazy money to me, and shows that people really do pay bloggers to create a buzz. Obviously there are more restrictions on the higher paid opps - your blog has to have a higher pagerank (traffic) and has to blog about the same topics or themes, but why not use the link below to register and see what all the fuss is about? And if you do have a blog with a high pagerank and want to get paid to blog, there are several blog ad networks out there to choose from, but PPP does seem to give a higher proportion of their fee to bloggers - 65% compared with the average 50%. And they give opportunities to all blogs that fit the opportunity criteria - they don't freeze out younger blogs that haven't had time to build a huge reputation yet.
* An opportunity is your chance to blog on a particular topic / website etc... Each opportunity has its own criteria and will pay a defined amount of money for your post if approved.
Click on one of the Pay Per Post links to register and see for yourself (not the blog disclosure button - that won't help you!)
Get paid to build your own blog traffic?
Friday, February 16, 2007
PayPerPost have recently introduced a new scheme called 'Review My Post' where you actually get paid for people blogging about you. It's an interesting twist in the paid blogging arena - when someone signs up to PayPerPost through a 'get paid to review my post' button on your blog, they get an offer to blog about your post for $7.50 and you get paid $7.50 for each new signup. Whilst $7.50 in itself isn't much, a couple of new signups soon add up. If you integrate the button code into your blog template, it even gets added automatically to each and every post, so you don't even have to remember to edit the code.
As far as I know, the eligibility requirements still need to be met, so to review someone's post, you need a site that's at least 90 days old and has 20 or more posts (gaps of more than 30 days between posts are not allowed). Reviews tend to be between 100-300 words and you may be asked to include a picture. You choose which opportunities to take, so your blog can stay tightly niched and you don't have to compromise your blog integrity by posting about something you don't believe in.
It's a very clever solution - PPP get new 'posties' and you monetise your blog AND get new links and generate traffic to your site. It useful too for people who aren't interested in sponsored posts ? just adding the button means anyone with a blog can earn from the scheme.
Why not review this post - just click on the 'Get Paid to Review My Post' button below my name!!!
How not to buy antivirus software
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
If your PC hasn't got anti-virus and firewall software, you may notice some flashing icons in your system tray (next to the clock). These will look official and tell you that you have viruses on your computer and to get rid of them to follow their instructions. These will lead to a website where you can pay for antivirus software. DON'T DO IT!!!
These messages are on your system in the first place due to your lack of anti-virus software and come from unscrupulous programmers trying to either take your credit card details or from unethical anti-virus software sellers. There are plenty of places to buy reputable anti-virus software which doesn't put your credit card at risk.
www.antivirusdownload.com shows reviews of some of the different Symantec anti-virus programs and lists the latest virus threats.
For how to protect yourself with a firewall and anti-spyware software see our previous post "get safe online"
An alternative webmaster glossary
Friday, January 12, 2007
If you want to know the meaning of geek-speak, an amusing site to stop by is "The alternative webmaster glossary."
With definitions such as:
404: Not found. Lost. Disappeared down the pan. Clueless. Like making a Usenet posting of rabbit recipes on rec.pets.rabbits. Like as in "George Bush is a 404 dude". It's also the reply your website gives a browser or SE bot when the page they are trying to reach is not available.
the site certainly puts a twist on the dry definitions you find elsewhere. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but it certainly brought a smile to my face!
New ways to stop email spam
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
E-mail spam is becoming more sophisticated - many spammers now use images rather than text itself to try and circumvent the spam filters that sit between your inbox and the internet.
According to BorderWare MXtreme image spam currently accounts for at least 35% of all spam. They describe image spam as "a technique where the spam message consists of an image and a small amount of text that looks like it is 100% text-based, when in fact it is an image that looks exactly like a regular email message."
They have developed "Intercept Image Analysis" which looks at over 30 different variables per image, to adapt, learn and defeat new image spam campaigns.
3 steps to search engine traffic
Saturday, December 30, 2006
If your website needs more visitors, a useful article named "3 steps to search engine traffic" really does help you understand how to increase search engine traffic. The three steps go through the process of choosing your keywords, creating a page for each keyword and then obtaining backlinks to that page. The only thing I think the article missed mentioning explicitly is keyword density - just remember when writing a page or article to write it for you web visitors, not the search engines. Keeping your keyword to less than 8% of the page should ensure that your site is readable.
Can keyloggers be beneficial?
Friday, December 29, 2006
A keylogger is a software program or hardware device that records every keystroke on the computer on which it is installed. These keystrokes are stored for someone to review later. Most people have heard of them after one has been installed as spyware and passwords or other sensitive data have been stolen.
However, keyloggers are not always detrimental- they can be used in a variety of ways, from simply recording productivity on data entry tasks to the more complex issue employee monitoring (e.g. to ensure compliancy with legal issues or to check logs to make sure employees are not breaking their company's rules on internet use).
On a more trivial level, if you are terrible at remembering passwords, or for the life of you were sure that you bookmarked that really interesting website but now can't find it, a quick check of your keylogger logs would confirm what you were looking for.
And to take this analogy further, a keylogger could help protect you and your children. If your teen swears they've not used your credit card online, you can confirm whether they're telling the truth or not. And for your younger children, you can silently monitor what they do online without them feeling that you're 'cramping their style'.
If you are looking for keylogger software, try looking at Spector Pro - it has been awarded the PC Magazine Editor's Choice award on several occasions.
Labels: pp
Font-tastic free fonts and dingbats!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
There's hundreds of times that you could use different typefaces in your documents and projects - my sister for example at Christmas, made placecards for the whole family each member with a different font to reflect their hobby or job - and they looked fantastic.
Urban Fonts is a great looking site which offers free fonts and dingbats to download. They have a distinct 'web 2.0' look and feel - curvy corners, slight 3D effect on the logo and bright colours. The site is well laid out and easy to navigate with features such as the top searches shown as a word cloud, featured free font of the day, useful font articles, categorised fonts and a blog.
One feature that I did like? No pop-ups! There are ads on the site but they don't obscure or obstruct your view, and with providing over 8000 free fonts, I think they're probably entitled to try and earn some money!
When you've chosen a font category or are viewing your search results, you can select whether to view both free and commercial fonts or just free ones or just commercial ones. From these results you can download the font directly for both windows and macintosh, or if you click for further details, you can then see the full range of letters available or even better, type in your own text and font colour to see what it will look like in a range of sizes which is a really nifty feature.
A 'dingbat' in case you've not come across the term, is used to describe a font with symbols and shapes rather than alphabetical or numeric characters - common examples are wingdings and webdings in Windows.
Search Engine / Online Marketing
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
I recently posted about SEO / SEM (search engine optimisation / marketing) and what to look for when choosing a someone to do it for you. But what else can you do to ensure you get your money's worth?
- Make sure that a link building service offers one-way links not reciprocal ones, and that the links are either contextual (links embedded in text) or if they are in a list, in a tightly themed list with no more than about 15 external links on that page. A variety of sources for your links are important, and so is the speed at which you accumulate links - don't grab 100 links on one day and then for months.
- Don't allow anyone to guarantee you top rankings - this cannot be guaranteed by anyone unless they use underhand black-hat techniques that will get you thrown out of the search engine listings.
- Ignore services that offer to submit your site to 100,000 search engines - think quality not quantity. There are only a handful of good quality search engines and many of these 100,000 sites are really link farms which will damage your site's online reputation.
DiscountClick appear to offer quality services without making false promises if you want to pay someone to improve your site's visibility in the search engines.
Pay Per Post - money making on your blog!
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Pay Per Post is a new blog marketing technique that works for both bloggers and advertisers. If you have a website, the best way to get known is to get links back to your site - the more organic (natural) a link the better. For advertisers, rather than pay to have your text links on sites where your site is listed in a links section, Pay Per Post allows your site to be mentioned as part of a blog post (see the 'blog marketing' link above).
And for bloggers, Pay Per Post is an easy platform to make some money - signup for the program by entering a few details about yourself and your blog, and once approved, look through the opportunities to see what you want to blog about. Specifications are straightforward with a minimum word count, whether the tone of the post should be positive, negative or neutral, how much you'll be paid, the links and/or images you need to include etc...the Pay Per Post website programmers have done well in producing a site that takes you through step by step so even Internet beginners will manage. Payment is by PayPal once your post has been approved and left for a 30 day minimum.
There are some rules - paid for posts cannot be successive and your blog must be at least 90 days old with 20 pre-existing posts. This helps keep the quality of blogs for potential advertisers. Conversely, you don't have to take any opportunity that you feel is unsuitable for your blog, which keeps the quality of your blog at the standard you set.
Need AdWords or SEM help?
Thursday, December 21, 2006
So you've got your website launched and are now waiting for that flood of visitors to come and buy...what next? Well, a bit of SEO (search engine optimisation) will help your site be found in the search engines which will lead to more visitors which in turn will lead to more sales / leads or whatever your primary objective is.
SEO or SEM (Search Engine Marketing) can be daunting so if you're not sure what you're doing, hiring the services of a professional company can help. If you want AdWords help to gain in the paid-search listings ensure that the company you choose is AdWords qualified whilst if you want help in the organic listings, check that your chosen professional can show you their portfolio so you can check out their claims. In the past, there have been instances where unscrupulous companies employed 'black hat' techniques that get you banned from the search engines faster than you can blink!
Companies such as Apogee Search can help you turn your web fortunes around, and as they have recently joined the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation, you can be sure they are ethical in their approach.
Labels: pp
Social Networking Conference
Whilst you hear frequently of Internet Marketing events and Search Engine and coding seminars, it's not often you hear of other Internet events. The Social Networking Conference however is attempting to change this.
Billed as "the business conference for community and social networking websites", this 2-day conference is expecting over 300 participants and takes place in Miami next month. Topics will include how to: improve online business efficiency, identify new technologies and increase both web traffic and conversion rates.
For further details see http://www.socialnetworkingconference.com/conference-miami-2007.php
Labels: pp
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