July 2004

7/28/2004

A number of topics were addressed:

Evaluating your site performance using WebPositionGold reports.

A review of some current marketing reports illustrated how changes in site ranking can be identified and evaluated using this software. The software also makes it easy to evaluate what text appears in search results for pages located for the search terms. (This software was used to illustrate using research information to improve a web site. The software is not being sold or endorsed!)

Using copywriting to improve your rankings.

A question was asked about how to improve the effectiveness of PPC ("Pay Per Click") listings through better drafting of the ads. Dick recommended tow newsletters as sources of information articles that addressed copywriting and how it can influence buyer behavior. These are: Marketing Sherpa, and High Rankings Advisor.

The effect of price on web sales.

A question was raised about whether a site can compete effectively without being the lowest price provider. A recent article in The Economist (“A survey of e-commerce”, The Economist, May 15th, 2004) stated that, "Convenience seems to have overtaken price as the main reason for shopping online.", and that the merchant's "value proposition" could be a major determinant in the decision to purchase.

An e-mail list manager from Omnistar.

On many occasions within the classes over an extended period of time, different attendees have asked for information about a "good mailing list manager" that they could use. I recently had an opportunity to look at the specs for one that seemed of interest to our class members. While everything I saw about the product appeared reasonable and attractive, this is not a product endorsement. I have not reviewed the product thoroughly, and have not tested it! The web site linked above includes a demonstration of the product and a brief flash presentation about it (as well as a full features list, pricing, etc.)

An open source database from osCommerce that will be used in the upcoming database web site development class.
Links to your site from Alexa pages.

This topic was discussed in a prior session.

Using Frontpage to publish your site, and, creating a forum on your site.
How "Google bombing" of miserable failure illustrates the value of keyword links.
The latest "Hot phenom" on the Internet: www.jibjab.com.

7/14/2004

Dick illustrated the use of several web tools relevant to creating and measuring the configuration of a new web site. One of the tools was a link to a page allowing the user to investigate keywords found in the Google adword database.

He then proceeded part way through a presentation given some time ago about how to create a search engine friendly web site.

7/7/2004

Jay illustrated how webmasters can create links to their sites from Alexa by making recommendations to Alexa of sites that should be considered "related" to sites in the Alexa index. He also described how the Amazon affiliate program can be used to create additional marketing opportunities for webmasters and developers.

The link to the place to make the recommendations requires a little setup effort. To suggest a related site to my site, the link is http://www.alexa.com/data/details/editor?type=rl&url=http://www.small-business-consultants.net. To suggest a link to another site, you simply substitute that site URL for my URL in the URL string above. To make this easier, set up a txt file in Notepad with the string "http://www.alexa.com/data/details/editor?type=rl&url=" in it. Then go to the site for which you want to suggest related links and copy that URL. Go back to the txt file, paste the URL onto the end of the text string, then copy the whole thing and paste it into the address bar of your browser. I admit this seems a little burdensome, but if you want to find a number of sites that are relevant to your site and suggest your site to them as a related link, this effort will make the project much simpler.

If you have your targeted sites lined up when you go to the Alexa page, you can do them "in series" by pasting the next site you want to suggest for into the page that comes up confirming your suggestion (this will make more sense after you do it once!)

The second concept that Jay introduced dealt with reviews of sites through Amazon. This is essentially a "reciprocal review" strategy, wherein you review a site in exchange for a review of your site. You can try it out by going to the Amazon sign in link and writing a review of my site at "www.small-business-consultants.net" (be sure you say something nice! You will be asked to create an Amazon account if you don't have one, or to log in if you do.) When you have completed the review, send me an email and I will go to your site and write a review for you.

Comprehensive and easy to read and understand statistics on your site are essential to being able to make improvements over time. Generally, statistics packages are provided by your web hosting company. If they are not, or if the package provided is not sufficient for your needs, you can choose to have statistics provided for your site by an outside service. An excellent choice is Hitslink.com. Visit the link below for more information and to subscribe.

Traffic Stats From HitsLink.com
Get advanced site traffic analysis, including hundreds of statistics on visitors and their behavior. more...

Jay presented three tools he has recently discovered to assist in improving site performance: Term Blaster, ThinknFind, and Google Poodle. More information about these tools can be found on my Useful Reference Sites page.

{Jay's notes}

Internet Marketing Class Notes