Quick Tip – Using Video on your Blog
October 7, 2009
Any marketer you ask will tell you that you should be using some sort of multimedia on your blog – and the mulitmedia of choice is, of course, video.
Why? Well, it looks cool. It’s easy to add, and it comes with a built in distribution network that is off the charts. Since this is a “Quick Tip” I’m not going to go into how to make good videos, or what you should use to produce them – that’s another post entirely. I have two big points for you:
1)If you want to add video to your blog, you should be using Thesis. The multimedia box makes for the easiest integration you can have in a Wordpress theme.
2)If you don’t want to tick your users off – don’t JUST offer video. This is another reason Thesis is great – there’s no way to just offer a video without looking silly. People DO like video, but a lot of people don’t as well. And, even folks that do like video don’t always feel like watching it. So, make sure you add some coherent, relevent, and scannable copy on the page as well.
On a side note – occasionally, for entertainment purposes, we’ll sit around and check out the new landing pages of all the overweight “Get Internet Monies” gurus out there, shooting videos from their mom’s basements. Especially the ones that point to a conversion element on the page – hilarious. In fact – if someone is pointing to a conversion element on their page from a video…they’re going to rip you off. That’s a free “quick tip” :)
Interesting Marketing Articles
October 7, 2009
Despite my already mentioned disdain for a lot of agency blogs – there are a lot of brilliant folks out there that are sharing lots of great information. I tend to scan this information, bookmark it, and occasionally come back to it during brief spurts of downtime. I draw on it and provide info to Academy members, but rarely just link out from my blog.
It is also a lot easier just to link you out to folks that are much better than me at sharing this info :)
Here are some good articles to check out:
Turning non-customers into customers (SEO specific, but still good theory for anyone)
SEO for Public Relations – Good info on how SEO and PR interconnect
PPC Copywriting for Quality Clickthroughs – Vital for PPC Conversion Rates
I could seriously go on all day – but you’ll have to join the Academy to get more.
Improve Your Business Website
April 14, 2009
In – JUST ONE EASY STEP!
Sorry, I work up early this morning and ended up cooking breakfast while an infomercial was on.
Anyway – here’s a quick idea to drastically improve your business’s website: Improve the image quality!
So many great businesses have websites that look awful – a big reason for this is fuzzy, poorly sized, poorly managed images and product photos.
Here are some things to look for in choosing an image:
1) High Quality/Resolution
2) Color matching with the rest of your site
3) Does it “Pop”
4) Is it “selling”
What this means: Use only High-res images that have been sized appropriately in an image editing program. Make sure it matches somewhat with your website’s colors – and is sharp enough to draw attention on the page and guide custmers to do what you wan them to.
Old Marketing Pro Tip – visitors love pictures of people – and they will look at the spot on the page the people in the photo are looking at! This means, if you want someone to read a certain section of your website, a picture whose eyes are looking in that direction will help.
For product photos, there are a few things you can do to make sure your site:
- Crop in to show the most interesting detail of the product.
- Remove backgrounds, replace with a white or gray background
- Use a drop shadow to make the image pop
- Auto-Adjust Color levels and use a sharpening filter in your favorite editing software
- if you don’t have editing software, get some!
10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking Today
April 7, 2009
Since we’re just getting this site off the ground, and sent out our first newsletter only yesterday (to over 600 people!) – I wanted to post some of the info I shared. This one is really – simple, 10 things you can do today to improve your search engine rankings:
1) Do your Keyword Research. Try to target search phrases, i.e. “Affordable Widgets in
Kansas City” vs. “Widgets.”
We have some free keyword research tools linked here.
2) Write Unique Title tags for each page.
3) Be sure to have unique, interesting, and well-written content that covers your keywords.
4) Make sure you regularly update your content, as well as adding new content
(”Freshness” is key).
5) Be sure the every page on your site has an internal link. Create a sitemap to help this out.
6) Be sure your site’s main navigation structure is accesible to search engines.
7) Use your keyword phrases in your internal links.
8) Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes,
domain name, and file structure.
9) Focus on accumulating quality inbound links.
10) Remember that SEO is an ongoing process!