Cyber Monday A Must for Online Marketing

Holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 29 days of the November - December 2010 holiday season was reported today. For the holiday season-to-date, $13.55 billion has been spent online, marking a 13-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $1.028 billion in online spending, up 16 percent versus year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.

"Cyber Monday was a historic day for e-commerce as we saw daily spending surpass $1 billion for the first time," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "The online holiday shopping season has clearly gotten off to a very strong start, which is welcome news. At the same time, it's important to note that some of the early strength in consumer spending is almost certainly the result of retailers' heavier-than-normal promotional and discounting activity at this early point in the season. So, while we anticipate that there will be more billion-dollar spending days ahead as we get deeper into the season, only time will tell if overall consumer online spending remains at the elevated levels we've seen thus far."

Cyber Monday Sales Growth Driven by Increase in Spending per Buyer

Cyber Monday's 16-percent growth in sales versus year ago was driven primarily by an increase in average spending per buyer (up 12 percent) while the number of buyers on Cyber Monday grew by a lower 4 percent to 9 million. The average spending per transaction grew 10 percent to $60.05, while the total number of transactions increased 6 percent to 17.1 million.

Web Definitions - December

BROWSER
Short for Web browser, a software application used to locate and display Web pages. The two most popular browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Both of these are graphical browsers, which means that they can display graphics as well as text. In addition, most modern browsers can present multimedia information, including sound and video, though they require plug-ins for some formats.

ISP
Short for Internet Service Provider, a company that provides access to the Internet. For a monthly fee, the service provider gives you a software package, username, password and access phone number. Equipped with a modem, you can then log on to the Internet and browse the World Wide Web and USENET, and send and receive e-mail.

WYSIWYG
Pronounced WIZ-zee-wig. Short for what you see is what you get. A WYSIWYG application is one that enables you to see on the display screen exactly what will appear when the document is printed. This differs, for example, from word processors that are incapable of displaying different fonts and graphics on the display screen even though the formatting codes have been inserted into the file.

Web Definitions - November

Banner Ads
Those graphic advertisements that you see at the top of so many Web pages.

Cache
Your browser stores everything it reads on the user's hard disk. Every HTML page, every graphic. The next time it comes to pull down the same page, it uses the cached version, which is much faster - no need to download again via the Internet.

Frames
An HTML technique allowing Web site designers to display two or more pages in the same browser window. Most search engines do not index framed Web pages properly - they only index the text present in the NOFRAMES tag. Unless a Web page which uses frames contains relevant content in the NOFRAMES tag, it is unlikely to get a high search engine ranking.

Domain Name Game

Domain name registration is a very important part of running a website for your company. In order to use a particular domain name (for example www.mycompany.com) you must register that domain name with an accredited registrar. This then gives you the right to use that particular domain name for your website for a fixed period of time, somewhere between 1 and 10 years. At the end of that period you can either let the registration expire (which means some other company can now register that domain) or renew for another X number of years. As the "owner" of the domain, you can renew the domain with the same registrar you originally registered through, or you can transfer that registration to a new registrar. The choice is entirely yours.

The Domain Name Game starts a few months before your current registration is set to expire. Because domain name registrations are public records, it is easy to find out what the expiration date is on any domain name. Many companies then use this information and send out very official "Domain Name Expiration Notices". The notices inform you that "you must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the web". What they don't point out very clearly is the fact that you do not have to renew it through their company. The notices are cleverly designed to make you believe that you must renew your domain through them. These companies also charge high dollar amounts for the annual registration.

The good news for JADE International customers is that as long as you host your website with us, your annual registration fee is INCLUDED! We take care of renewing your registration every year and you never have to pay any additional fees. If you receive one of these official looking notices, you can completely disregard them if you are a JADE hosting customer.

Web Definitions - October

Bulletin board
A bulletin board is a location on a Web site where people come to share information. Typically, you see a list of postings for a certain topic. You can read each posting, choose to respond to one or more of them, and then enter and post your response. Or you can start your own thread, a continuing sub-topic within the topic under discussion. If this type of concept fits with your product and target market, it can be a great way for visitors to trade information.

Domain name
A network name associated with an organization (e.g., google.com or yahoo.com). Domain names are organized in a hierarchy, with each level separated by a "dot." Common organizational types are commercial (.com), government (.gov), and network (.net). In the U.S., most Internet addresses follow a standard format: name of server.name of organization.type of organization.

Flash
A Web-based animation application that transforms Web pages into a swirl of action, colors, and excitement. Without broadband access, this involves a long loading time (and the potential loss of visitors who are unwilling to wait). As well, a Flash application means no content for Search Engines spiders to crawl and rank (which means that you can't take advantage of free Search Engine traffic).

Hyperlinks
The underlined words or phrases you click on in Web documents to jump to another screen or page. Hyperlinks contain HTML-coded references that point to other Web pages, which your browser then jumps to.

A Few Search Engine Strategies

Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title.

Write a descriptive title for each page -- rich in keywords you want people to find you with -- using 5 to 8 words. Remove as many "filler" words from the title (such as "the," "and," etc.) as possible, while still making it readable. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the tags, in this format: . (It also shows on the bar at the top of your web browser.)

Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3).
Search engines consider keywords that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header tags. Don't expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the headlines -- it won't. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note: Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That's a big mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.)

Position Your Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text.
Search engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document -- where most people write an introduction to the content of the page. You don't want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don't overdo it.

Use Keywords in Hyperlinks.
Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and keyphrases. To emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page name with the keyword or keyphrase, such as blue-widget.htm -- another clue for the search engine.

Web Definitions - September

Opt-in E-mail Marketing
Many Web marketers create a newsletter that offers content of value to the reader. The Web site asks visitors to subscribe to this newsletter. When they fill in and submit their e-mail address, they are said to be opting-in. The process of sending an e-zine or newsletter to people who have specifically requested to receive it is called opt-in e-mail marketing. It's a powerful, long-term relationship.

Stop Word
A word that often appears in Web pages, yet has no significance by itself. Most search engines ignore stop words while searching. Example of stop words are: and, the, of etc.

View Source
Both Netscape and Explorer allow you to see the HTML coding behind the actual Web page that you see with your Web browser software. The command is under the View menu. It's a terrific way to quickly learn how Web sites accomplish neat effects, what kind of keywords are used by your competition, etc., etc.

Google Acquires Social Gaming Company SocialDeck

Lending more credence to the rumor that Google is zeroing in on social networking, the search engine giant this week purchased social gaming company SocialDeck – its fifth acquisition this month.

"We started this company with the goal of connecting friends through social games on all kinds of exciting new mobile devices," SocialDeck wrote in a note on its Website. "We've been amazed and humbled by all of the stories and experiences our customers (you!) have shared with us."

The company did not elaborate on how SocialDeck will be incorporated into Google.

SocialDeck was founded in 2008 with a focus on the concept of "anywhere, anytime, anyone" gaming, according to the company's Web site.

SocialDeck has produced several games, including Color Connect, Pet Hero Puzzle, Shake & Spell, and Shake & Spell 3D. All titles are available through iTunes, with Shake & Spell also available for BlackBerry and on Facebook. All the apps are free, though there is a 99-cent version of Shake & Spell 3D available in the App Store as well.

The company also has a social-gaming platform known as Spark, which connects players across social games on iPhone, BlackBerry, and Facebook.

The SocialDeck purchase is the latest in a string of acquisitions for Google. Earlier this week, it purchased Ångströ, a small startup whose work ties together news and social contacts. Earlier this month, the company also acquired online retailer Like.com, virtual currency platform Jambool, and social game and app developer Slide.

In July, rumors emerged that Google would release its own social-networking site, dubbed Google Me, but the company has thus far not made any announcements.

Web Definitions - August

Bandwidth
The range of frequencies a transmission line or channel can carry: the higher the frequency the higher the bandwidth and the greater the information carrying capacity of a channel. Bandwidth is most accurately expressed in cycles per second, or hertz (Hz), which measures the amount of information that can flow through a channel. But, it's also common to use bits or bytes per second instead.

IP Address
When you get on the Web, your computer is assigned an IP address. This is a number that looks like 192.168.123.100. These numbers belong to a host name, for example AOL or your local ISP or company where you work (if they have their own server). If you access the Internet via a dial-up service, your service provider assigns you a different temporary IP address every time you log on. If you access the Web via cable modem or DSL, your IP address remains static - it is always the same one.

Keyword Prominence
Denotes how close to the start of an area of a Web page that a keyword appears. In general, having the keyword closer to the start of an area will lead to an improvement in the search engine ranking of a page. However, in some cases, having the keyword in the middle or the end of an area may lead to an improvement in the search engine ranking of the page.

Mobile Marketing

How do you know if mobile marketing is for you? Are you confused by terms such as SMS and an App? What's the difference anyway? What will it cost me to get involved? These are all fantastic questions and the questions many small businesses are asking themselves when it comes to mobile marketing. Just like any marketing endeavor it's important to be educated, so that you can make the right decision for you and your business.

What is mobile marketing?
As it pertains to this article, mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device.

We hear a lot about SMS and Apps. What do you suggest for the small to medium sized business?

It's important to keep your goal in mind which is to provide your consumers information that is easy to find. An application will require a Smartphone. Using SMS will connect directly to most mobile phones and can be used as a great connection tool. It boils down to selecting an application or optimizing for your consumers. Not all consumers have smart phones, but the majority can receive SMS. You want to select the option that is available, discoverable and presentable to your specific target market.

SMS doesn't limit the type of phone consumers have, this is important to remember.

Over the next few years you will see trend that mobile marketing effectiveness will have a lot to do with mobile browser capability and less about apps. Mobile web browser capability is important and it's where we will see the growth. Invest in something that is more open - don't limit who can see or receive your information.

When most business think about mobile marketing they think it's expensive. How much should a company expect to pay for mobile marketing?

There are mobile marketing tools that can fit every budget. You can do mobile marketing on a shoestring budget. Companies should look for off the shelf standard tools. They can be cost effective.

A client can expect to pay as little as $200 to several thousand for a consultant to show them how to get involved with using mobile marketing tools. Recurring costs vary. You can pay anywhere from .05 to .20 per SMS message sent. The amount you pay really depends on the volume of messages that you plan to send.

There are requirements that a company will need in order to participate in mobile marketing. They will need a shortcode and a keyword. Now, companies can buy their own shortcode, but that will cost them between $1000 to $1500 per month. Due to the cost I suggest that they look for a shared shortcode, small businesses will find this is the most cost effective and it won't diminish the results.

What some common mistakes you see when it comes to mobile marketing?

The biggest mistake that I see is when a company thinks that mobile marketing is going to be the one thing that will cure all of their problems. Mobile marketing has to be incorporate and integrated in your marketing mix in order for it to be successful.

It's about engagement and reach and without that integration you lose the power the mobile marketing holds.
Mobile marketing is the ultimate permission based form of marketing - so make sure that your offers are unique. Don't use mobile marketing to repeat offers that you are broadcasting elsewhere - make the offer unique and something that they won't find elsewhere. Offerings must be unique to be valuable.

Web Definitions - July

Directory
A Web site containing links to other sites which are organized into various categories. Examples of directories are Yahoo!, Open Directory, LookSmart, etc. The most well-known directory is Yahoo!. Many people feel that Yahoo! is more important to traffic-building than any single engine. The advantage of the directories is that the Web sites listed are usually of a higher, more uniform quality. They are selected by humans, so it's not as easy to get in as it is for Search Engines.

Encryption
Transforming data so that it is unreadable to everyone except the intended recipient. The recipient of the encrypted data must have the proper decryption key to decipher the message.

Keyword Frequency
Denotes how often a keyword appears in a Web page or in an area of a page. In general, higher the number of times a keyword appears in a page, higher its search engine ranking. However, repeating a keyword too often in a page can lead to that page being penalized for spamming.

301 Redirects

There are multiple reasons to redirect URLs. For one, your web pages may have moved but their old URLs may still live in users' bookmarks or in search engine indexes. Without implementing some sort or redirection, that traffic would be lost to a 404 Error Page.

On occasions, you may also want to register several extensions for your domain name : 'mydomain.com', 'mydomain.net' and 'mydomain.org', and have 'mydomain.net' and 'mydomain.org' automatically redirect visitors to your site, hosted under 'mydomain.com'.

There are several ways to redirect domains, however, most of them will get you in trouble with the search engines. The search engine friendly way to redirect URLs is to use what is know as a 301 redirect (you can see how Google and Yahoo! specifically endorse this kind of redirection). Here is my take about the different redirection methods and their implications on search engine optimization:

Meta-Refresh Javascript Redirect

You can redirect visitors by placing a snippet of javascript code within the HTML code of the page you want to redirect. With this method, you can specify the number of seconds before the visitor is automatically redirected to the new page. Search engines don't like this method, because of the potential for abuse: you could write an optimized page for a non-competitive search term, and then automatically redirect your unsuspecting visitor to whatever URL you want. For example, it could be relatively easy to write a page about english literature, have it indexed and highly ranked by the search engines, and then redirect your visitor to a casino or Viagra site. If search engines allowed this, users would quickly stop trusting them. That is why search engines penalize this practice, and why you should avoid it.

Parked Domains

You could register an additional domain name , park it, and make it point to the DNS servers of your main site's hosting account, so that when somebody types the additional domain, they will be transported to your main site. However, this approach may lead to search engines listing the same content twice, one for your main domain, and one for your additional domain. In the past, unscrupulous webmasters would use multiple domains to spam search engines and directories, making them list the same pages hundreds of times under different domains. Even if your intentions are good, we don't recommend this approach to redirecting your additional domains, since search engines may penalize your site for duplicate content.

302 and 301 Redirects

When a request for a page or URL is made by a browser, agent or spider, the web server where the page is hosted checks a file called '.htaccess'. This file contains instructions on how to handle specific requests and also plays a key role in security. The '.htaccess' file can be modified so that it instructs browsers, agents or spiders that the page has either temporarily moved (302 redirect) or permanently moved (301 redirect). It is usually possible to implement this redirect without messing with the '.htaccess' file directly, using your web host's control panel instead.

From a search engine perspective, 301 redirects are the only acceptable way to redirect URLs. In the case of moved pages, search engines will index only the new URL, but will transfer link popularity from the old URL to the new one so that search engine rankings are not affected. The same behavior occurs when additional domains are set to point to the main domain through a 301 redirect.

The URL Forwarding Feature

Most domain registrars offer a feature called URL Forwarding. With this feature, you can register a new domain, such as 'mydomain.net', and have it point to mydomain.com (or to any other URL). The problem, however, is that registrars usually do this by implementing a 302 redirect (page moved temporarily). While Google handles 302 redirects very well, passing link popularity from the additional domain to the main one, other search engines don't do this well, diluting link popularity by splitting it between the two domains, and negatively affecting rankings. Therefore, it is better not to use this method, and implement a 301 redirect instead.

Redirecting Old URLs

To '301 redirect' an old URL to a new one, just go to your web host's control panel, and choose the "Redirects" option. You can then set up the redirect by filling the blanks. You want to chose redirect option "Permanent" to implement a 301 redirect.

Redirecting additional domains

To 301 redirect an additional domain (like in the case of the .net or the .org version of your domain name), you have to set it up as an add-on domain with your web host (some hosts offer this option for free, and some others charge a small monthly fee per domain). If the additional domain was not registered with your web host, you will first have to go to your domain registrar and change the DNS (domain name servers) to the DNS of your web host (you may have to wait a couple of days before this change becomes functional). Once you've done this, go to your web host's control panel, choose the "Add On Domains" option, and set up your add on domain as follows:

New Domain Name: additionaldomain.com (Do not put any http:// or www)
Username/directory/subdomain: additionaldomain (Enter 'additionaldomain' by itself. Do not put any '.com' or 'www')
Password: 123ABC (Enter whatever password you want).

Then, set up the redirection by filling the appropriate box with the URL of the landing page (where you want your traffic to go).

Once your additional domain is redirecting to your landing page, take this one last step to see if everything is working fine: go to a server header checking tool, type your add-on domain in the query box and hit enter. If you get a message similar to this: "Status Code HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently", then your 301 redirect is working.

You can also use 301 redirection for common mispelled versions of your domain name, or for other good domain names that you don't want your competitors to get.

Web Definitions - June

Modules
In software, a module is a part of a program. Programs are composed of one or more independently developed modules that are not combined until the program is linked. A single module can contain one or several routines.

Chat
A popular form of interactive, online communication that allows Internet users to have real-time conversations with others via computer. When participating in a chat discussion, Internet users enter virtual chat areas, usually organized by topic of interest, where they can exchange instant communications with like-minded individuals.

Image map
An image containing one or more invisible regions which are linked to other pages. If the image map is defined as a separate file, the search engines may not be able to index the pages to which that image map links. The way out is to have text hyperlinks to those pages in addition to the links from the image map. However, image maps defined within the same Web page will generally not prevent search engines from indexing the other pages.

Helpful SEO Tips

Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are a few quick tips for search engine optimization. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem.

If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

LinkedIn Upgrades Again

LinkedIn is on a social roll. They have announced a new feature that allows users to "follow" a company. Pretty standard stuff, but it does hold some interesting potential for businesses as a way to not only network with users, but other businesses and industries. It could prove to be a very nice way to build buzz around company happenings, industry news and more. Now that users can follow companies, expect to see an uptick in press releases, beta invites, special announcements, job postings, discounts to professional services ... you get the idea.

One of the advantages of LinkedIn is its focus on business. Meaning, you don't have to worry about "intruding" on users as you might with Facebook or Twitter. People are there for buisness and news, so it becomes entirely appropriate to act that way instead of worrying about the best way to "join the conversation."

Web Definitions May

Banner Ads
Those graphic advertisements that you see at the top of so many Web pages.

Dynamic Content
Information in Web pages which changes automatically, based on database or user information. Search engines will index dynamic content in the same way as static content unless the URL includes a ? mark.

Hits / Pages / Visits / Visitors
When someone comes to your Web site, that's a visitor. No matter how long he stays on your site, he's still the same visitor. And that visit counts as one visit. If he goes away and comes back tomorrow, that's a new visit. But it does not count as a new visitor - he would best be counted as a repeat visitor. During one of his visits he starts at your home page, then goes to another. That's two page views (i.e., he has seen 2 different HTML documents). And that's not the same as hits. Each page view might trigger many hits - if that HTML page has 5 graphics on it, then the HTML document itself and each graphic are registered as a line in the log file. Each line in a log file counts as a hit. So that's a total of six hits.

So a visitor can account for many visits. A visit can have several page views. And each page view triggers several hits (unless it's only an HTML document and words, in which case a page view would create only one hit).

E-Commerce Statistics

If you launch a new e-commerce website today you might be met with some skepticism by friends, colleagues and investors. Don't worry, e-commerce isn't a trend but now a way of life! In the U.S. web shopping will account for 8 percent of total sales by 2014. More importantly, 53 percent of total retail sales in the U.S. will be influenced by e-commerce, as consumers increasingly use the internet to research products before purchasing.

Location and Social Media

Two annoucements from Facebook, one officially released and the other to be made at the f8 developer conference soon, indicate perhaps the strongest push yet by the social network for smaller-business advertising dollars. First came news of an alliance with business optimization software provider Omniture, aimed at helping companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel through "relevant converstations" with its more than 400 million active users. Then came the widely reported but uncomfirmed news that Facebook will reveal the arrival of location as a status update available to users. This move will open the doors even wider for local advertisers, and be a direct challenge to Google for small-business ad revenue. It will also very likely rankle millions of users concerned about their privacy, which Facebook has so famously done before.

How People Search

Over the last few years searching trends have changed. In the past the majority of searchers used one word queries. Eventually they started realizing they they get better, more accurate, results when you give the search engine a bit more information about what you are looking for.

The more accurate the search phrase you use in your search is, the more accurate the results will be that are returned. Studies have shown that four and five-word phrases often have a higher ROI than one and two word phrases because the searcher is more likely to get results that meet their needs.

The downside of longer phrases is this increases the keyword combination potentials so the number of searches for any one phrase reduces dramatically. This makes optimization more difficult. Instead of optimizing for one general phrase you have to optimize for five very specific phrases. This is the long-tail of keywords, also known as the low hanging fruit. These longer phrases have far less competition and are much easier to get ranked, but also produce lower traffic volumes.

Long-tail phrases should not constitute the primary focus of your optimization efforts. Nor should you focus primarily on short-tail phrases either. A good keyword optimization strategy goes after both simultaneously.

Slow Servers will cause problems with Google

If Google can only crawl two pages at any given time due to a slow server, Google can set some sort of upper bound on how many pages they will fetch from that host server. This can be a problem for websites that are hosted on shared or slow servers.

Google Indexed Pages

The more relevant links you have, the more pages of your site will be indexed

The number of pages that Google indexes from your website is roughly proportional to the PageRank of your website. That means that more pages of your website will be indexed if your website has many inbound links.

Google does not have an indexation cap, i.e. they will index all pages of your website if you have enough inbound links. Remember that the PageRank that Google uses in its ranking algorithm is not the PageRank that is displayed in Google's toolbar.

Facebook Topped Google For Visits Last Week

For the week ending in March 13, more people visited Facebook than Google - marking one of the only times, and by far the longest, the social networking site has garnered more hits than the reigning search engine.

Does "Cold E-mailing" Have its Place?

Cold calling as a marketing tool is not one of my favorite techniques. Not to be wishy-washy, let me put this way, I am dead set against it when it comes to personal services marketing, especially for lawyers. It also raises serious ethical issues with most bar associations that have the prohibition patterned after the ABA Model Rule 7.3 (Direct Contact With Prospective Clients). Direct mail is only slightly more effective in my mind, although it certainly has its proponents.

Then comes emails. As long time readers know, I hate emails because I get too many of them – unsolicitated ones and spam being the most egregious among them. But, I also love emails when then serve the purpose of quick, efficient and effective communications in getting things done. But, I discourage clients from using emails as a marketing tool, especially when directed toward people they do not know.

Then along comes Carolyn Elefant. The well-known (okay, actually a bona fide guru) author of MyShingle blog and Nolo’s Legal Marketing Blawg has a post on the latter site talking about “The Three Es of Cold E-mails” that is worth reading. She is not totally against their use, if they aren’t “canned”, but customized and tie into a legitimate connection with the recipient.

Her 3 “E’s” include:

Ethics. To avoid “running afoul” of the rules, she suggests limiting such emails to other lawyers and service providers;

Effectiveness. Provide information about you, the reason for email, a connection to recipient, and your website/blog URL;

Etiguette. Try to avoid the extra annoyance caused by typos, and the appearance that you “haven't taken twenty seconds to learn about the recipient.”

So, should cold e-mails be part of your business development arsenal? Carolyn apparently thinks they could have their place.

E-mail Marekting With Segments

Today’s marketing strategies are in an era where synergy of different platforms become more critical than ever due to the various channels and platforms available to the general public. CMOs and marketing management have used e-mail strategies in the past to convert consumers into customers with aggressive targeting. Nowadays, a corporation has the opportunity to integrate social media with their e-mail platforms and segment their consumer base with quantitative data leading to improved sales and ultimately, profit. The template represents the building block for a successful e-mail campaign. The color scheme must align with the featured product and offer sensual stimulation in the appropriate moods.

In today’s depressed market, the importance of value can no longer be underestimated. Consumers, with fewer overall financial resources, have plenty of information at their disposal to determine whether a product will deliver their stated value. A solid marketing campaign in today’s market, for example, will use an e-mail offer to reach preferred customers over a specific period of time, such as Macy’s using coupons good for a two-day span for women with children. This will strengthen the sales potential, cement a brand position, and provide visibility for the product. Once the metrics have been satisfied, then a social media campaign offers the virtual space to discuss the product on a balanced scale. This is the stage where brand equity and loyalty becomes critical. Marketers also can use social networks for thrifty opportunities to advertise with new customers and engage their interest level.

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Copy What Works

The next time you read a piece of marketing, which inspires you to take some kind of positive action; to call a business, email a business, visit their store, etc. - keep a copy of it. Ask your friends to do the same with any marketing material they read, which motivated them to take positive action too.

Collect these powerful marketing pieces and study them - you can learn a lot from them. Look to see what it was that inspired you or your friends to take action. This is a very fast way for you to identify the key elements required to make your marketing messages more compelling.

Don't forget to study everything! Pay attention to the headline. Is it eye catching? What kind of words and phrases did they use to motivate you? Was it time senstive material? Did it arrive just in time? Were there testimonials? These are all questions you should be asking yourself.

Making It Easy to Find Things on Your Website

Put some thought into organization.

Think about what content you have and how it should be organized. This is at least as important as what your pages look like, so actually spend some time on it. You do your readers a disservice if they can't easily find what they're looking for if everything is thrown up on your site in a haphazard fashion.

Minimize clicking!

Put as few clicks between your visitor and your information as possible. This is so important I'll repeat it: Put as few clicks between your visitor and your information as possible. The more you force your visitors to click around your site the more likely they'll abandon it. Even if they don't leave they might get annoyed, or not view as much of your content -- either of which is bad for you.

Is your home page a splash page (a page with no meaningful information on it, that simply "welcomes" visitors to the site, along with an "Enter Site" link)? If so, get rid of it. After someone takes the effort to visit your site, give them your site right away! Don't make them knock on two different doors.

A related idea is to put meaningful amounts of information on each page. If a page doesn't have at least 400 words, you probably should combine that page with another short page.
Along with minimizing clicking, minimize scrolling, too.

Limit page length to 2 screenfuls, or 6-7 screenfuls for articles.

While you should put a lot of info on each page to minimize clicking, don't go too far in the other direction by putting too much info on a page. You should normally limit a page to no more than two screenfuls of info. Articles are exceptions, because articles are longer by nature. But even so, very long articles (more than about 6-7 screenfuls) should usually be chunked into separate pages.

Include a way to get back to the home page, on every page.

When users get lost they like to start over from square one. Make it easy for them to do so. If you're including a clickable logo on the top of every page, make sure to also include text that says something like "Home", because some users don't realize that logos take you back to the home page.

Also remember that users might not be able to hit the "Back" button to go back to your home page, because they might have entered the middle of your site after clicking a link to it from a search engine or from some other site.

Include a menu on every page.

While you should provide a way for users to get back to your home page quickly, you shouldn't force them to go home before they can go somewhere else. Include a menu on the left or the top of each page.

Don't put navigation links only at the bottom of pages, because then users will have to scroll down to the bottom to get to them (unless your pages are very short). Users clearly dislike links at the bottom of long pages. On long pages, you'll want navigation elements on BOTH the bottom and the top or left, so that users who have read a lengthy page don't have to scroll back up to get to the menus.

Importance of a Sitemap

A sitemap is often considered redundant in the process of building a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs.

1) Navigation purposes

A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browse your Website and get lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with ease.

2) Conveying your site’s theme

When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your Website within a very short amount of time.. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your Website by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.

3) Site optimization purposes

When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your Website.. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page-they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your Website gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your Website.

4) Organization and relevance

A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird’s eye view of your Website structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized Site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for your Website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your Website easily accesible and neatly organized for everyone.

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Are Synonyms Important to Google?

Google aims to display the best results for your search. For that reason, it is important that Google's algorithm understands the words that are used in the search query. An important part of understanding the words is to understand synonyms.

Synonyms are words that can mean the same thing, for example "pictures" and "photos". People searching for "sunset pictures" are probably also interested in web pages that contain the words "sunset photos".

A problem is that words that can have different meanings. For example, the word "case" can mean "occurrence", "instance" or "example". It can also mean "box" or "container".
The word "guitar box" might be a synonym for "guitar case" but "O.J. Simpson box" is not a synonym for "O.J. Simpson case". Google's measurements show that synonyms affect 70 percent of user searches across the more than 100 languages Google supports.

What has changed?

According to the posting in Google's official blog, Google has improved the way that they detect synonyms. For example, the algorithm can now find 20 possible meanings of the search term "GM".

GM can mean General Motors, George Mason in [gm university], gamemaster in [gm screen star wars], Gangadhar Meher in [gm college], general manager in [nba gm] and even gunners mate in [navy gm], etc.

Google also made a change to how the synonyms are displayed. The searched words and the synonyms are now displayed in bold in the search results. Web pages that contain only synonyms of the searched word can also be displayed in the search results.

Do you have to change your web pages?

If you optimized your website as explained in previous issues of our newsletter and as explained in the IBP manual then you don't have to change anything. Here's a reminder:

1. Think out of the box.

Don't just use the technical terms that you use in your company. Think about the words that other people would use to describe your product. For example, don't just use "rhinoplasty" but also "nose job" and "nose surgery".

IBP's keyword research tool will help you to find the best keywords for your website.

2. Optimize different pages of your website for different keywords.

The more pages you optimize, the better. It is much better if one web page is highly relevant to one keyphrase than somewhat relevant to many keyphrases.

Don't stuff a single page with keywords. The keywords should fit naturally in your web page content. Use IBP's Top 10 Optimizer to find out where on your web pages you should use your keywords.

Different people use different words to find the same things. Use different ways to talk about your website topic and optimize as many pages as possible of your website.

Article taken from here

Visit our website: www.jadeinternational.com

Starting off 2010 Right with Your Website

It's 2010 now and you'll want to make sure that you start the year off right. Here are a few things you might want to check and.or consider starting on your website to make sure you will get the best results in 2010.

Check broken links
Check for broken links which could be stopping link flow and weakening your website. Broken links irritate search engine spiders, and when they cannot connect the dots, your sites rankings will suffer.

Use alt attributes in your images
Use alt attributes in all of your images to preserve content integrity while providing internal links for ranking purposes. Using the alt attribute in images allows you to reinforce relevance with the on page text based content to improve a page relevance score.

Create Content Volume
Ensure that you have enough content to attack a competitive keyword. Trying to rank for a keyword with 5 million competing pages with a handful of content is pointless. You will ne relevant text on your pages which means articles, posts or pages all internally linked and consolidated to create the proper page signals for that keyword. For every keyword there is a relevance threshold and tipping point, you will need to offset competitors by having more on page affluence as well as off page peer review. However, in either case, content is a requirement.

Get a sitemap
Use sitemaps to not only tie the site together, but also as a way to nourish pages like an irrigation system through linking to them.

Check Indexation and Crawl Frequency
See how many pages are crawled in your website to determine crawl frequency. If you have a homepage that is crawled regularly and your internal pages are ignored, then this is often a result of lack of internal or external links.

Visit our website: www.jadeinternational.com

Web Definitions - January 2010

Cookies
A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized Web pages for them. When you enter a Web site using cookies, you may be asked to fill out a form providing such information as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to your Web browser which stores it for later use. The next time you go to the same Web site, your browser will send the cookie to the Web server. The server can use this information to present you with custom Web pages. So, for example, instead of seeing just a generic welcome page you might see a welcome page with your name on it.

Multimedia
The use of computers to present text, graphics, video, animation, and sound in an integrated way. Long touted as the future revolution in computing, multimedia applications were, until the mid-90s, uncommon due to the expensive hardware required. With increases in performance and decreases in price, however, multimedia is now commonplace. Nearly all PCs are capable of displaying video, though the resolution available depends on the power of the computer's video adapter and CPU.

Search Engine Copywriting
Writing your Web page content so that it is easy to read for your end user and search engine friendly.

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