Marketing Magic or Marketing Science?

Effective marketing does not need to be a big mystery nor should it be intimidating in any way. Marketing, in essence, is a numbers game just like sales themselves. It doesn’t have to break the bank if you do it right and each investment should build on the one before it. As your business grows, so will your budget. In fact, the greatest investment you may ever need to make just may be investing in the services of a small marketing agency.

The science behind marketing is understanding what marketing is and what your prospective clients/customers need in order to choose you over your competitor. If you do not fully understand these two things, you are either going to waste a lot of time and money or you are going to fail. Fortunately for you, there are many real experts who are highly skilled in Marketing Science that can direct you in order to help you avoid any costly mistakes.

Figuring it Out

Before you meet with marketing groups like Media Whiz, take an inventory of what you genuinely know about sales and what kind of budget (if any) you will be able to work with, keeping in mind marketing is the life-blood of any business and should not be neglected.

How you can apply your knowledge to your marketing efforts. What can you do on your own?

Who will…

• Nail down who your customer really is
• Understand your customer’s lifestyle and buying cycles
• Discover where your customers are in order to better reach them
• Negotiate rates and services on your behalf
• Handle all of the creative aspects of marketing

If you want to say hello to a steady flow of consumers wanting to buy your product(s) or use your service(s) you need to be able to reach them. Buyers are elusive and flighty because they are so busy and distracted. Your competitors experience the same difficulties you do, they just may deal with them more effectively. Often times it’s a matter of marketing choices.
Marketing is essential to your business. It should never be something you put aside to “think about later”. You need to find ways to constantly promote your company. You must always be trying to gain new business while holding on to existing business.

Growing Challenge

With the addition of social media, today’s marketing world is further reaching and more intimate than ever before. Technology will only continue to bring even more opportunities and challenges. Do you have time to manage it all the way it should be managed? If not who will?

Whether you hire a copywriter for occasional help, an agency for extended help, or try to go it alone, your company can do better and celebrate increased profits just through effective marketing.

The post New Businesses Can Benefit from a Marketing Agency appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

I got the idea while looking up domain name ideas for today’s post. Right there on the homepage was an advert for OutRight’s “FREE online bookkeeping”. So I decided to see if the domain name was available and it was.

Granted, the name is a little long for everyday use, but OutRight is already targeting the keywords in their ad and analytics could be easily tied to the domain for tracking purposes, so why not secure the domain and put it to use.

Who says you can only have one domain name. Each one serves a purpose, whether that purpose is full time brand building, or just parttime experimentation.

Why not see what happens,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post Daily Domain Hunt #39: FreeOnlineBookkeeping.com appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

Types of Performing

Performance is a top reason for buying new smartphones and computers. People want quick response when they’re active online. What they don’t want is slow websites loading content they don’t want, and tangles of random advertisements. They want efficient browser use from the websites they visit, presenting content they are looking for, and in which they are interested.

What the User Experiences
Unfortunately a typical user experience goes something like this: she searches for information on her cat, perhaps about a health problem the cat has. Selecting a promising link, she finds an article with relevant information embedded on a screen full of advertising. The ads are links and display ads for products such as student loans, bill consolidation, free credit reports and a bankruptcy lawyer. Several of the ads are flashing or moving to get her attention. A video ad starts playing. She skims the article and clicks away to find another site, irritated.

Alternate Ways
It doesn’t have to be this way. Here’s an alternative: when the user arrives, the same article appears surrounded by ads from cat food companies with coupon offers, a sale notice from a pet store chain, and an ad from an online mall showing a special on cat related products. She’s not only found an interesting article, but several opportunities she’s interested in. She probably wouldn’t mind a video ad with a cute cat, even. The same amount of advertising is present, but with a totally different effect on her, and likely better results for the advertisers as well.

What visitors can expect
Website visitors aren’t a captive audience, so it pays to improve the user experience and include the advertising in the mix. The secret to presenting relevant and useful ads is connecting the user’s preferences with the type of consumer a particular advertiser is looking for. When there’s a match, present an ad! Services such as Phorm Open Internet Exchange can facilitate this matching without any privacy worries. Besides personalized ads for users, advertisers can understand more about their target consumers. Better information means knowing your ads are on target and your money well spent.

The Benefits
Websites benefit as well, since ads on their pages are better targeted to the readers they’re drawing. They have happier visitors and more results from their work. There’s less guesswork, less technological wizardry on the part of the webmaster to make a living. It’s a more natural connection. Even ISPs benefit, since they can help bring all the pieces together.

Now that’s a better user experience.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post Increase Positive User Experience appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

Dear OSM,

I have a question about tagging. I’m trying to be better about using tags for SEO purposes, but I find that my tag cloud looks long and busy. I understand tagging to be important because I can really target keywords specific to my content. The issue is that although all of my video interviews have similar keywords, they also have different keyword that I think are important for that post.

My question is: should I be trying to find common tags and have a certain tags that I’m trying to get my site to rank for our should I focus on interview specific keywords/tags so that post will start ranking for that key word?

I see that you guys don’t use a cloud tag. As a matter of fact, I can’t see where you’re using tags. Thoughts?

This is an excellent question. Tags often confuse people and I’ll admit that from time to time, I have to remind myself why I should or should not be using them.

Here is my email reply to this question. Again I am sharing it here with you because I think everyone can benefit from this discussion. If you have alternate opinions, be sure to share them with me on Facebook.

Here is my response:

Dear Site Owner,

Tags are an interesting beast. From an organizational perspective, tags are suppose to be used to help people find information on your website. In this context, it’s best to think of them as a “See also” sort of tool.

In this case, you should use tags to further define the content where the category can not. If you want to be a stickler, you might only use tags that commonly occur so that your posts are connected via these tags. If you are less worried abou that, then you can include people’s names, or other items in tags that may only show up once for a particular post.

In this case, multiple posts are not being tied together, but you are providing additional meta data about the post. This is the part where you pull up your nerd socks and decide what you want tags to do for you.

From an SEO perspective, tags offer another way for Google to try and understand what your content is about. It also connects your post together based on common keywords, which further gives Google context. With this in mind, it’s important to use words that have high search volume when possible, compared to just choosing a random word for your tag. Again, you have to decide what you want the tags to do for you.

If navigation and organization is your sole goal, then skip the SEO keyword research. However, if SEO is your goal, then be selective about the words you use for your tags.

I’ve seen tag urls get indexed into Google, but in general Google doesn’t like it when you give multiple urls to the same content, so I’ve avoided trying to game them with this technique.

As for tag clouds, I don’t see them as offering value to visitors and as a website user myself, I find them annoying. Like most web techie ideas, they were good in theory, but bad in practice.

Tags are best used at the end of posts or in category pages along side “See also: ” text to help the visitor navigate to more relevant information.

Charles McKeever
Open Your Business To New Opportunities
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post How Should I Use Tags On My Blog? appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

Everyone talks about shooting green screen video, but what about shooting video on a white background? Basically the same principles apply with white screen as they do with green or blue screen. You need a good lighting kit and solid background. It’s best to use a white background if you have one, because using chroma key to remove a green or blue background can be tricky, especially when your goal is a solid white background.

Take a look at the video above from the guys at ReelSEO. They do a great job of explaining everything and they offer up some professional tips to help you out.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post How To Shoot Web Video On A White Screen appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

Symbols convey depths of information that would take thousands of words to match, and professional-looking business logos make companies seem credible to online viewers. You could be working out of your basement with dripping pipes and assorted vermin as fellow staff members but still get high visibility and create trust with loyal customers.

Customers use visual cues to make buying decisions, so budding entrepreneurs might consider the benefits of investing in professional logo designs to brand their products and businesses. Elements of design include color, font, style, creativity, theme, and repetition. Once you have created a compelling logo, use it consistently for retail locations, stationery, advertising, promotions, and online marketing.

Logos tell stories without words that people remember and associate with your brand or company. The right design promotes recognition among consumers wherever they see it, so avoid changing your logo often because you lose the goodwill you gained from past promotions and sales. Major companies understand these benefits, and when they update logos, they usually keep similar styles, so customers continue to recognize them. Switching logos or using both old and new versions confuse customers and make your business look unprofessional.

Small businesses think logos only concern large corporations, but every company builds its brand reputation every time it sells products or interacts with customers. Small companies get the same benefits from logos that international conglomerates get — instant recognition from their targeted customers. Consider the double arches of McDonald’s restaurants, which weary travelers can see from the road when looking for reliable places to eat while traveling. The symbol creates instant recognition, free advertising, and steady streams of revenue.

Some small businesses like to emphasize they offer unique services, unlike cookie-cutter chain stores. Logos can still convey this type of information, or business owners could use rustic-looking symbols for their businesses to convey home cooking, handcrafted woodworking, or unique art. People spend more for products with colorful packaging. Generic products often have the same quality as name brands, but plain black and white packaging influences consumers negatively, and they choose the known brand. The irony is that the manufacturer often produces both products from the same ingredients.

You can design your own logo from online tools and computers, but you might not want to take the risk of making a serious mistake. Creating great logos takes marketing and demographic expertise, so consider an affordably priced service to create a professional logo you can use online and off-line to promote your business. When starting new websites, you should first design logos to promote your brands from the first day. Online marketing has become very competitive, and viewers make thousands of decisions based quickly. Make sure that you announce your presence boldly with a compelling logo to get viewer attention and strengthen your reputation.

Many online services offer professional assistance for designing logos at reasonable prices. Once you create your logo, you will want to order advertising and marketing materials and products that feature your stunning materials. Inkhead.com, which sells custom advertising specialties, prints your logo on custom giveaways, useful consumer products, and name brand merchandise from dozens of manufacturers. You can increase your online and off-line sales volume by ordering custom-imprinted merchandise that carries your advertising message and brands your company in unforgettable style.

Design Your Own Success,
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post The Importance of Your Logo appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

There are several ways to get visitor traffic. You can build it, borrow it, or buy it. I’ve been buying Facebook traffic to feed one of my affiliate sites. Before I tell you about that though, let’s look at the three traffic sources I just mentioned.

Building traffic is a long term approach that involves constantly publishing new content, building links back to your site, and offering value to your audience. Every website owner has to put in the time and effort required to gain the benefits of attracting traffic this way.

Borrowing traffic happens when you collaborate with another site that already has traffic. You might write a guest article on another website, appear on a podcast, or get mentioned in someone’s email newsletter. Social media can also fall within this definition since any traffic you gain from someone else’s mention on a social network would be borrowed traffic as well.

Buying traffic happens whenever you use pay per click or pay per impression ads, text link ads, and direct ads get website visitors.

Generally, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is considered the quickest, and sometimes the most costly, way to get website traffic. I use the term “costly” because it costs you money for each visitor you receive. This is different than being expensive. Something is only expensive if it doesn’t pay for itself. If your return on investment is more than you pay, then it doesn’t matter what it costs.

That’s exactly the approach I’m taking with Facebook Advertising. I’ve been running ads on Facebook as an inexpensive way to feed traffic to my affiliate sites. So far the results have been very encouraging.

Try it for yourself,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post Buying Facebook Ads For Affiliate Sites appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

There are many ways to build your online presence today. For your main website, you can use a services such as FreeWebsite.com or go with another web host of your choice.

However, simply creating a website is not enough if you want to market yourself online. No matter what you are promoting or how you plan on bringing in revenue by using the internet, the more exposure you have, the better.

There are ways that you can complement your website, allowing your personal brand to become known online, as well as bringing in traffic to your site.

Add A Blog

Adding a blog to your site is highly recommended. There are many free blogging platforms available, so setting one up is very straightforward.

Your blog makes it easier to share interesting ideas, news about your industry, or information about new products that you are releasing. It also allows you to engage with your readers a lot more. Those who visit your blog could leave comments on your posts and you can respond to them if necessary. This interactivity is what makes a blog a more “social” web presence than a simple website.

Use Social Media

Another thing to do is to create social media accounts on the popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You can create a personal profile that you will use to engage with friends and family. However, it is also important to create a page that will be used for your business and link the two.

Using social media can be very beneficial for your site. Websites that are referenced in social networks are seen as having more “authority” by search engines such as Google. This increases the chance that your site will rank well for its primary keywords.

Using social media also allows you to share your website with your friends and family members by putting a link to it in your profile. You will thus be able to get some visitors from it. But the great thing about social media is that it’s all about sharing.

If your friends like your site, they can then share it on their profile, which results in friends of friends seeing your site. This can cause a viral effect where an ever increasing number of people share your website.

Cross Promote
You should integrate your blog and website with your social media accounts too. Put buttons that link to your social networking profiles and also put a share button that allows site visitors to share the page they’re on with friends.

Socially Integrated,
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post Integrating Blogs and Social Media With Your Website appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

I’m a big fan of Atahualpa as a free WordPress theme. There are a lot of free and premium themes out there, and some even offer a frameworks that you can tap into as a developer, but as someone who builds a wide variety of custom WordPress websites, Atahualpa still does 99% of what I need it to do. That’s why I recommend it to everyone I talk too.

One of the questions we get regularly is, “How do I remove the “Powered by WordPress and Atahualpa” text at the bottom of my website pages?”

Step 1: Make a Donation

Removing the footer text is pretty easy. But before you remove the code, I recommend you make a donation to the Atahualpa theme developer to encourage them to keep making updates to the Atahualpa theme.

Step 2: Edit Your Theme Files

To remove the footer credit text you will have to manually edit the functions.php file in the Atahualpa theme folder.

You can either do this via FTP, or you can edit the file in the WordPress Admin by going to Appearance > Editor > functions.php

With the functions.php file open, you’ll need to search for “Powered by” to find the text to be removed.

Here’s a snippet that shows what the code looks like once it’s been edited.

...

...

In this example, I’ve commented out the text, rather than removing it so that other developers can right click, view source, and see what theme is powering the website.

If you are accessing the file via FTP, you can find the functions.php file under wp-content / themes / atahualpa / functions.php

Hope that helps,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The post How To Remove The Default Atahualpa Footer appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to pay a lawyer by the hour to get a website legal privacy policy. So, how can I create a Privacy Policy that looks like its written by a lawyer?

By following the steps below, I’ll walk you through a non-legalese way to create your own Privacy Policy. Like I said, since I’m not a lawyer, so nothing I say can be taken as legal advice (nor can I charge you for it). If you want a professionally created legal document, you are going to have to either hire a lawyer directly, or use a pre-formatted legal document that covers the basics.

Here are some suggested tips for writing up your own website privacy policy.

Step 1(Un, Een, Uno):

Tell the website user exactly WHAT information you plan to collect. This means everything, not just a general summary. If you collect their first name for a email signup form, be very specific about what fields you are wanting information about (first name, last name, Phone, email address, shoe size, etc.). If you are collecting credit card information for customers to buy a product or service, you NEED to mention whether or not you are storing their data for later use.

If you’re using visitor tracking technology on your website it gets even deeper because, some websites need to store a digital cookie on the person’s PC in order to see who they are and what their previous information was. If you use these types of tools, you need to mention this to your website visitors. This digital file (cookie) is stored in their browser and it records information about what you are doing on the website. Otherwise, it looks like you are invading their privacy and might be putting a virus on their machine. Be up front, so they know exactly what has happened and what DID NOT happen.

Step 2 (Zwei, Dy, De):

You should always be transparent and tell your website visitors HOW their information will be used. If you are going to put them on your email list, then tell them that they will be on your email newsletter list (duh).

If you intend to sell their information to the highest bidder, then at least notify them that by giving you information, they are authorizing you to pass that information on if you want to (you obviously do).

Telling someone you are about to pimp their data isn’t likely to garner any friends, but at least if you notify them that it might happen, then they were warned. Let them make their own decisions.

Step 3 (Tre, Kolm, Tri):

Dont’ forget about your underage visitors. You should ALWAYS include a paragraph about minors. This means any person under the age of 18 (not pick-axe wielding dwarves). That’s a big legal hurdle, because minors get a lot of automatic protections regardless of what they are doing on your website. There needs to be something along the lines of “…only with the permission of a parent or legal guardian.”

Especially if your website sells products or online services, then you NEED to have a caveat in there that the website does not sell to minors. Selling to adults responsible for the minor is far different than someone thinking that you are actually selling a product to a minor.

Step 4 (Vier, Quattro, Cetri):

Make sure you write up something about not being responsible for Third Party Content (remember, I’m not a lawyer). If you have an ad on your site, or a network that rotates ads on your site, then you want to make sure that you are not held responsible for the user clicking on an ad and visiting someone else’s website. If the user gets a virus or 80 popups for porn sites, you don’t want to be legally responsible for that. You don’t know what the other website owner did to his site or if the other website has been hacked, so don’t leave it to chance.

Step 5 (Cinci, Pat, Tano):

Include a real mailing address in the privacy policy. Yes, in order to be honest, you have to give out an address. The address should be an active address. You can use a post office box if you want to for security purposes, but it should at least be an address where people can contact you if they need to.

Having an address on the website promotes the fact that you are a legitimate business (whether you are or not).

Step 6 (Sesi, Anim, Seks):

Nothing stays the same forever, include a section in your privacy policy about how you have the right to change your policies, your mind, or your hair color, without user notification. “Subject to change without notice” is something we’ve all seen before.

If it is mandatory to notify every single person on the interwebs each time you change a policy, then that really sucks. Of course, you can always do what Apple does anytime someone tries to buy an app and hit them with the policy again :)

Note:

be sure to include a section that covers specific situations or legal circumstances that apply to your particular geography. If you have users in California, I pity you, because California laws pretty much permit anyone to dance on your mother’s grave.

These are just a few suggestions for creating a website privacy policy.

Good luck,

Toff Ward
OpenSourceMarketer.com

P.S. If you want a real professional Legal Policy, then you’ll have to pay a real professional.

The post How To Create A Website Privacy Policy appeared first on The Open Source Marketer.