Mike's Quarter - the internet blog » Internet Marketing Online

Read less, practice more

Mike — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:00:26 +0000

When I started my online experience I was such a noob. I had just a couple if ideas on what SEO and programing meant, but i was eager to learn. Thus, i used to read a lot. Some things were worthwhile, but most of them were just crap.

Now, after a couple of years, i believe i’ve learn my lesson: read less and practice more . I do agree you have to try to accumulate information at the beginning, but try to keep your suorces number low and try to pick only the credible ones. And then, go practice what you’ve read about. Cause that’s the only real way you can learn things.

And one more thing. You won’t find those information that will allow you to earn good money online from others, unless you’re a friend of them or something. Because they’re not going to show you their money making schemes, at least not for free. Thus, you have to practice and fail, and then start again and maybe fail again. Cause in the end you’re learn and you’ll prevail. Just my humble opinion.

LinkedIn Answers – is this the true power of this service?

Mike — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:25:11 +0000

I’ve been using LinledIn for quite a while now, almost from the beginning. I completed my profile, education, work experience, added a photo, added some contact, etc etc . I even joined some groups to find discussion i might be interested in and people with similar interests.

But, then i got bored of it. For the last months, i only joined from time to time to see if someone new wanted to add me as a contact. And that was it.

But someone reminded me something i already knew: the Answers part of LinkedIn is what gives this service its true power. Here’s where you can help people, you can get in contact with them and maybe establish some relationships that will help your business. And yes, i already knew that, but i think i was too lazy to see if this works.

If you manage to give good answers to other people’s questions, questions that have something to do with your expertise, and answers so good that will be chosen "Best Answer" by the asker, then you’re "on fire". The more "Best Answers" you’ll have in your domain, the more others will see you as a authority in this domain, will want to get in contact with you and even work with you. Like i said, i knew the theory for quite some time, but i sucked at practice

So, I’ve decided I’ll give it a try. For the next couple of weeks I’ll try to be as active as possible on LinkedIn Answers, try to give people my best advices and maybe help solve their problems. And then i’ll see what’s going to happen. In the worst case, I’ll end up with a couple of new content in my Expertise box on LinkedIn.

Do you have any previous experience with LinkedIn Answers? If yes, please share.

A smart solution for lowering bounce rates

Mike — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:48:51 +0000

It’s a well known fact that whenever you change a site from the ground, bounce rate will reach sky-high limits. Especially if you have lots of returning visitors who are used to find things in a certain position on the site. So, a solution is required in order to smooth the transition between the old site and the new one.

And there is one, but I didn’t find it used on too many sites: make a video that should be placed on key pages of your site and should explain how you changed stuff and why, and also how users can find the things they’re looking for.

This video should be embedded on your site in visible position and should be eye catching, so users will click it. For example, if you have an IT site, use a cute girl or something (geek girls are always catchy. look at Veronica Belmont or Marina Orlova ). If you’re a fashion site with lots of feminine visitors, use a well dressed boy or something. You’ll find a suitable solution.

This way your visitors will understand better how you changed things around. Cause, even if you think the changes made are logical, your visitors might not (that’s a lessons well learned in the last years, from practice…).

This approach can also be used when you launch a new site with lots of elements and features too, or when you have an application that does complex things (like a highly customizable comparing system).

Unfortunately, i could not find any English sites using this kind of videos, but I’ll give you this one as an example: CinemaRX.ro (it’s in Romanian). The video is not so well placed (on the left side, just bellow the cut) but it does its job. There’s also this french site using similar approach, but better implemented..

So, what do you think? Will this thing be useful for visitors or not? Please comment. And if you know any other sites using such videos, please share.

Twitter? What is that thing called Twitter?

Mike — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:18:35 +0000

I made my twitter account in 2007, but i only started tweeting actively for a month or so. Why? Cause at that time i didn’t consider Twitter worth my time. But i was wrong and that’s why i’m going to write a couple of posts about Twitter and what i found during this last month of using it.

First,what is Twitter? The answer is simple: a microblogging platform where you can write 140 characters long posts. Not longer. So, whenever you have something to say and it’s not worth blogging about, you can tweet it. Something that bothers you, something interesting you just found out about, something weird… whatever comes through your mind and is worth sharing can be tweeted.

But Twitter is more than this. It’s a social network too. You can follow other people and see their tweets and others can follow you too. You can reply to other tweets and thus engage in online conversations with people you know or you don’t. Thus, you get to know lots of people interested in the same things you are, people that might become friends, business partners, etc. But more about this in a future post.

My boss says this Twitter thing is like a web2.0 online chat. I can’t disagree completely, but there are differences. While chats are mostly for fun, Twitter can become a powerfull self promotion tool.

In the end, i must say i’m sorry i didn’t give Twitter a chance back in 2007. But i plan on recovering the lost time from now on. If you want to follow me, here’s my link (carefull, I tweet in my native language, Romanian). Next post about Twitter’s features and 3rd party sollution you must use in order to enhance your twitting experience.

SEO vs PPC. The pros and cons

Mike — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:30:20 +0000

SEM, aka Search Engine Marketing, is the "knowledge" of bringing targeted visitors to a certain site. And, as perhaps many of you know, SEM is composed by two somehow distinct parts: SEO and PPC. In this little article that was inspired by this great article here (Careful, it’s in Romanian), I’m going to put in balance the pros and the cons of each of these methods.

Let’s start with SEO. First, the definition.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is " the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. (source)"

SEO – the pros

long term results (benefits remain after the campaign is over)
High ROI
In most of the cases, a proper SEO campaign comes with much lower costs than a PPC campaign
can be very lucrative if done correctly

SEO – the cons

is a long term process and you only get middle to long time results
it’s a complicated process involving hundreds of factors
in most cases, can’t guarantee exact results (like first position for a keyword)
requires programming skills in order to modify the code of your site
should only be done by pros, as there are things that might get you banned by Search Engines if done "by ear"
you can’t really target many keywords and people from different geographical regions (a .fr site will have few chances of ranking naturally in .uk, for example)

On the other hand, PPC is a different thing all-together.

PPC (Pay Per Click ) is " an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked.(source)"

PPC – the pros

can guarantee exact results (first position for a keyword, with a proper budget)
you only pay when a visitor comes to the site
you don’t have to modify the code of the site
you can target many keywords and people from different geographical regions
offers you immediate results and immediate visitors

PPC – the cons

setting and managing campaigns is kind of tricky. Should only be done by professional (if a campaign is not performing, it will be automatically deactivated)
it’s pricey (very if not properly administrated)
can be frauded (details here)
can be affected by visitors add blinding (people generally prefer natural search results over the paid ones, which they tend to ignore)

In the end, both SEO and PPC have the purpose to get targeted visitors to your site, visitors that might easily be converted in customers (where customer is a visitor that does the action you want him to do ). Which of the both parts of SEM you choose to use is up to you.

Personally, i recommend first building a proper web-site that would take into consideration all the SEO, usability and design rules . By doing this, you will have a chance to attract visitors natural for your targeted keywords and convert them. Then start building up the site in order to get better positions in natural searches. Only after doing this start focusing on the PPC part. Be careful who you hire to manage your campaigns, how you convert the visitors and watch closely your long time ROI. Or else… things might get a little bit nasty

Search ads – 50% of the online ads spending

Mike — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:32:49 +0000

This might have seemed an utopia a couple of years ago, but Search ads now have over 50% of the total online ads spending. This affirmation is available for the US (as the latest Morgan Stanley report says), and maybe for UK (not sure though) and a couple of other big online markets.

As you can see in the picture bellow, things were a little different 5 years ago. Search Advertising had just 15% market share, while Banner ads were the big thing, with 47%. In just 3 years, from 2002 to 2005, things changed drastically. Let’s see why.

First, a huge number on small businesses went online. They couldn’t afford buying the so expensive banner ads so they needed a method to attract visitors and customers, but cheaper. And one that would convert and would have a good ROI rate. And they found what they were looking for in "search ads". That had a couple of advantages: people clicking your ads would already be interested in your products (cause they were searching for them), you could run campaigns no matter how small your budget wass and you would pay only when a visitor clicks your ad and comes to your site.

Supporting this theory, you can see in the graph bellow that in the last years, most of the online queries that resulted in something being bought (from new customers) came from paid searches, with organic traffic trailing in the second position but loosing ground.

On the other hand, the big online fishes also realized that putting money in banner ads is not a always a good idea. Might be OK for awareness and branding campaigns, but not if you are looking for a ROI. That’s why they went towards "search ads" too. And there are others smaller reasons too.

In the end, you can see that in 2007, "Search ads" had 52% of the money spent online. They stole percents from Banner ads and e-mail campaigns. Because they were better.

In my country (Romania) though, things are still on the same level they were in the US in 2000-2002. Banners ads are still the big thing and all the Big online agencies use them. But hopefully, while clients get smarter and more web savvy, they will learn what to demand and we’ll get rid of the intrusive expanding banner ads for good Hopefully.

What’s hot on the Internet right now?

Mike — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:00:45 +0000

As i said yesterday in the Morgan Stanley post , there are a couples of things i found interesting in this report and i decided to share them and blog a little bit around the subjects. And today I’m going to present a graph that presents what’s hot on the Internet right now, what are the web applications and domains that saw the highest raises last year.

As you can see, social networks are the THING of the last couple of years. They didn’t even exist 3-4 year ago and now sites like Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, etc have hundreds of millions of visitors each month. So no wonder Social Networks reached a growth of around 60% last year. Photos sites, Multimedia portals, Online gaming communities and Instant Messaging software come after that, with growths between 20 to 40%.

But, all these have quite low penetration rates. What does this mean? That they are only used by a specific category of users: the young ones.

More "serious" types of sites, like portals, retail or e-mail servers have higher penetration rates, but that’s perhaps because they have been around for a decade now… So one can only wonder what’s going to be the penetration rate of Social networks in 4-5 year…

"Search" engines are by far the most used web applications, as they have one of the highest penetration rates. Portals like Yahoo, MSN, Live are up there too.

But there’s one thing i find hard to believe: the penetration of auto and travel sites. I can’t believe that only 25% of the Internet users in US (cause yes, the graph above is made after the US Internet market) are interested in auto sites… A little bit odd, don’t you think?

Economy and Internet trends for 2008-2013

Mike — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:13:51 +0000

I came across the latest study from Morgan Stanley regarding the economy and Internet trends for the near future. It contains lots of interesting analysis, graphs and predictions for the next period of time and comparisons with the near past. It has 131 slides, but if you have an hour or two and if you’re interested in this domain, you should definitely take a look at it. The slide-show can be seen bellow (after the break).

Morgan Stanley Meeker Technology Trends Dec 2008
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: strategic stanley)

There are a couple of aspects presented in this slide show i will try to comment in future posts, so stay tuned for those.

Online store CMS – help needed

Mike — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:43:07 +0000

Like the title says, i’m looking for a good online store CMS that has the following features:

multiple stores : under one site, i need to have multiple stores. For each of them i have to be able to set an admin account that can only see and modify the products in his store. Above them, there will be a Superadmin account that can modify anything else in the site. Example: On a site I’m selling laptops. I have Apple and Dell as vendors, so they come and introduce their products in their accounts, but all their products will appear combined in the laptops category and also separated in the store’s page.
affiliates: users can become affiliates. They can select a couple of criteria and a code is generated to use on their sites. If products are sold via those codes, they get a piece of the price. The classic Affiliate module.
users should be able to create an account where they can be able to see order history and some kind of order tracking (with the current situation of their order: waiting to be processed, processed, sent, etc)
some of the basic stuff:
- fast content entering form, with just a couple of important fields (title, description, pictures, price) + more advanced options for the vendors with more time at their disposal
- multiple payment and delivery options
- quick chekout form
- newsletter module
- easy to modify code
- etc

Can anyone recommend me such a CMS? Free or paid, that doesn’t really matter, as long as it has the features listed above.

Oh, and one other thing. Can you point me to a good fast working web developper with decent fares? Or at least to some sites where i can find such a guy, except Rentacoder ? I’m looking for someone capable of making a site somewhat similar to this one , with a couple of changes. If you can, please provide the contact details via a comment.

Thanks in advance for your answers, i really hope you can help me with both my problems.

War against content slammers

Mike — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:12:12 +0000

Spamming and content stealing without any consideration for the author is what bothers me these days. And let’s say you can deal with spammers by banning them, using different Plugins, etc.

But what can you do when facing content stealers, and worse, content slammers. But first, what’s the difference between them? Content stealers simply scrap your RSS feed and display all your content on their sites, in most cases without giving any kind of link-backs. That is translated in duplicate content and worse positions for your articles in Search Engines.

Content slammers are a smarter version of stealers. They also scrap RSS feeds but pass the content trough a script which uses different algorithms to rewrite it. The results won’t be quite intelligibly from the semantic point of view, but if the algorithm used is smart enough, they will have a better keyword density and will appear to be unique.

So, how can we deal with these punks? You need to be able to find them first. Cause since they don’t provide any link-backs to you, lots of blogs might steal your content without you even knowing it. Here’s what you should do to detect the stealers:

use this site: Copyscape
use digital printing for your feed. Read more about it in this post from Blog Herald.
use track-back monitoring

And after you managed to find the guys stealing your content, you should try any of the following approaches:

first, contact the owner of the site and ask him nicely not to steal your content anymore. In 99% of the cases the site won’t have a contact option though.
then, use a whois service to find out the contact details and still try to convince them to stop.
if the above ones fail, it’s time to take some drastic measures
- report the site to Google. Here’s how.
- find out what the host of the stealer is and file a DMCA notice with them.
- file complaints to all the Advertisers he is using and try to get him banned.
- then wait.
- also read this article for more advices.

In most cases your site won’t be affected by content stealers and slammers on the long time, but SE positions might be affected for the copied articles. And if your site depends on Search Engines for traffic (which is not good…), you might suffer traffic decrease.

Mike's Quarter - the internet blog » Internet Marketing Online

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