It Costs WHAT?!!!!! I’m tired of hearing that. Budgeting your internet marketing project may seem like a crap shoot. But I can simplify things for you: If you’re building a new site, expect to spend 2X that amount again in the year after the site launches. Unless you want it to sit there, all alone,… Read More

SEO

If you want to pick the right keywords, you need to start by knowing the questions your audience wants answered. Great tools are helpful, but if you don’t Your customers don’t walk around with keyphrases in their heads. They think “how do I plan my wedding?” and then translate that into “wedding planning” because search… Read More

Man, those guys at Google piss me off. Just when I think they might be getting a little stale, they go and announce a new web browser. And they get Scott McCloud, the brilliant author of Understanding Comics, to announce it in plain language and clear illustration in an online comic. And, just to really… Read More

Hi Senator. Not a fan, but I am an admirer. Please don’t hate me if I don’t vote for you this November. I do have some advice for you, though. Events are catching up to you online, fast. In the last hour I’ve watched stories about your running mate sink into the blogging world, and… Read More

Yo, Barack. Loved the speech. I’ve got a little advice: Since you’re worried (I’m sure you are) about conservative Democrats fleeing to McCain, why not Digg and otherwise promote any and all stories about his new running mate’s uber-conservative political views? If those stories move up on Digg, they’ll get more attention. Then they’ll move… Read More

The worst mistake in internet marketing? Making things too complicated. It pumps up costs, slows site launches and keeps you offline when you could be online, selling stuff. Who makes that mistake? You do. When you insist that that one feature is so important you can’t live without it, you’re killing yourself. If you can… Read More

I’ve been fighting this sinking feeling that we’re headed for another four years (or eight) of a Republican President. Not that I have anything against John McCain except that I’ll never vote for him. But I’m a pretty staunch Democrat, and it’d be nice to blame my own party for the world’s problems for a… Read More

Internet Marketing

People will copy your web site. Why? I don’t know. Laziness, stupidity, whatever. You can check occasionally by doing a quick search on Google: Copy a sentence from your web site. Something that won’t show up on many other sites. Go to Google.com Paste the sentence, with quotes around it, into the search box. Click… Read More

Folks keep asking me whether I’m an SEO professional. Not exactly – I’m an internet marketing pro. So why, they ask, do you spend so much time worrying about search rankings, pay per click and keywords? Let me put it into pictures. Imagine the internet is a goldfish bowl, and traffic is food: Search engines… Read More

Random

Sometimes, you just strike out. You spend a week researching that perfect link bait article, post it, get your friends to give you a Digg… And nothing happens. Nada. You can hear the crickets chirping as your boss or client winds up a kick that’ll land you out on the street. Don’t give up on… Read More

Internet Marketing

SEO. PPC. Social Media. Pagerank. Link authority. What the hell? If you’re not an internet marketer, here’s a list of terms so that you can translate what someone like me spouts at you in a caffeine-induced rush. This isn’t a comprehensive internet marketing glossary. Just the terms we’d probably use without thinking about it. Print… Read More

Yup, I’m back! Had a great vacation, and as always spent time wondering if my office would still be there when I returned. Of course it was. I have a great team. You can build a great internet marketing team, too. Not by saying “I need a developer” and “I need an SEO expert”. That’ll… Read More

Today’s my 40th. My staff made me a Kit-Kat Parthenon birthday cake, complete with worshippers: They swore it had nothing to do with my age. Also, I’m going to Nova Scotia for 10 days. For 5 of ’em I won’t even have cell access. So no blog posts for a bit. I shall return, more… Read More

Internet Marketing

Social media and SEO are now inextricably linked. You couldn’t separate ’em if you tried. I used to tell clients “Hey, we’ll do SEO, and if you pay us extra we’ll execute a nice social media marketing campaign, too”. Truth is, though, you can’t do a good job in SEO any more without social media… Read More

If you take the time to build a web site, you’d like most folks to stay on it for a while. Visitors who show up and leave 3 seconds later aren’t generally helpful. You want to lower your bounce rate. Here are a few tips for doing just that. What’s Bounce Rate, Anyway? Bounce rate… Read More