Well after reading Seth Godin’s blog 8 free things you can do to get more traffic I decided to sign up for Technorati Profile“>technorati. Technorati asked me to post this bit of info to register my blog. Technorati Profile
One of the things that Phil Windley taught us when he was substituting for Paul Allen is to be controversial. After his class I posted my notes for those in team FamilyLearn to learn from. At the end of my notes I wrote a quick review of what I thought on the lecture and then I thought nothing more of it. I guess I had mentioned that I thought that Phil is a great teacher but that he “rambled” a little when he was asked how a blog can promote a product. Unknown to me Phil found my entry and quickly responded. Soon after Phil had commented on my blog and linked to me, my hits skyrocked on analytics (well for a blog that has been up only a week). I suppose you could say that my comment was contraversial and that is why it worked so well.
Team FamilyLearn – Last week, 14 Sept 2006, we had a substitute teacher, Phil Whindley. He spoke on Blogs. He was perfect for the job. If you google “how to start a blog†he is the first person to come up on the list. Just so you know you can watch lectures that Paul has given at BYU. You can view the following lecture’s slide show on Windley.com.
My edited notes:
Phil first heard about blogs in the 90’s. The guy who invented spreadsheets told him about weblogs. This idea appealed to him. So he started a blog and would write random events, pretty much just writing an online journal. He found it boring, without appeal, and he gave up. It was later that he was listening to another blogger and it clicked. He needed to become an expert on something. He blogged on his expertise—technology—and he never looked back.
A weblog is a reverse chronology ordered…?
Best Blogs are always stories. They carry on a conversation.
Don’t be a Splogger (spam blogger)
Technorati is a place to get info about blogs
RSS Feeds. What is an RSS Feeder? When you get on the web each day you probably spend some time on several different websites checking out what is new; e.g. you might check the news, or a blog you like, or movie reviews. Sometimes these sights have nothing new on them but you had to check anyway just to see. RSS feeds basically make a “feeder†that brings in new info off of each site whenever it is posted. Rather than going from site to site, you can now just go to one site and check your Feeds. It is a great time saver.
The “virtuous cycleâ€
He explained what he called “the virtuous cycle†of blogging—or “the conversation†There are four steps to this cycle.
This inspires you to write another blog or possibly visit another website and the cycle starts over.
Links Rule
A blog just starts with you telling family members and friends to come and look at what you wrote, but if you actually write something of substance then you will get a following. These people will link their weblogs to yours. They will refer your expertise to others just because they know that your blog will help them in their lives. When loads of people link to you then you build “Google Juice†because Google can see that people are looking to you for what you know. When a blogger with a lot of “Google Juice†links to you or your website, suddenly you will get an influx of traffic. This is why blogging commands the vast majority of traffic on the web. It is the linking networks. Look at MySpace, a smut filled website but powerful because of the size of its network.
As you build your blog you will build a personal handpicked group of experts on the subject(s) that you write on. Soon you will be an expert as well.
Why Blog?
There are two questions to ask when wondering who to blog with.
Steps to creating a successful blog:
Ways to get a little more traffic:
My comments are found in the () and here at the bottom:
Phil Windley is an expert blogger and very insightful, I loved the lecture he gave, it is the most valuable lecture I have had in this class yet. But throughout the lecture he was asked multiple times, “How does a blog bring business to me?†Phil would ramble for a moment and then change the subject. I have taken the liberty to interpret a lot of the lecture into my own language so you cannot qoute Phil Whindley from my notes, but for the most part it is pretty much just what he said. Phil is a blogger and a Professor (a fantastic teacher), not a marketer.
Team FamilyLearn - I have decided to post my notes from my internet marketing class each week here at my blog. Here is todays.
Paul was unable to come to school again today and he had us visit his blog and watch a seminar that he gave at BYU a while back.
CONDENSED PARAGRAPH OF WHAT I FOUND HELPFUL
Looks don’t matter on a website unless they lead to higher conversions. Web analytics are key to success in internet marketing because they let you track what works and what doesn’t and they give you the ability to track almost every little change you make to your website–even the color of your buttons. Install analytics on your website BEFORE you begin driving traffic. (sources that I know for analytics: Google analytics FREE and Omniture.) When you overhaul your website avoid “linkrot”; i.e. losing your old optimized links when you release your new website. 18% of the web suffers from “linkrot”. Divide and conquer to build your conversion rates and web traffic. Put each person a a special assignment. Read “Love is the Killer App“ - I read this book a year ago and it is fantastic!
My unedited notes from the lecture
Site design is not Paul’s forte. He said that ugly sites are making a lot of money. Paul’s focus is not in looks. You must always start with functionality. People who have done this is Craig’s list, google. In some cases design doesn’t matter that much.
On every computer Paul has he puts Google tool bar and the Alexa (essential part of you marketing tools) tool bar. Alex is primarily techies.
Paul’s Blog is the most popular part of his website. Traffic doesn’t come from looks.
10X marketing- He thought about everything he had learned in the past six years. He was reading 6-8 periodicals and go to conferences each month. He took these lessons and made a list of all the Internet marketing tactics, a list of 196. 10x was a project that tested these tactics and refined them.
A Lot of people have opinions of how a site should look. They completely overhaul their site without putting any research into what matters on the back end. Jacob Nelson, on the advisory board of google, he has been resented. Google applied his tactics. Useit.com. “Link rot” what happens when you take down a page on your website that has been spider ed by google. 18% of pages on the web each year are taken out by “link rot”.
Tactics from his 196 tactics. Paul Hates consulting work.
Conversion Rate:
Increasing Conversion Rates:
Case Study
80% of visitors didn’t go pass the first page. This was called their bounce off rate. They used some conversion rate things and then they
Adwords take about 15 minutes to set up. google takes the (highest bid x click through rate)= top position and puts that ad at the top.
FIND UNIQUE SEARCH TERMS
150000 sirnames in the united states.
Ansestry asked to bid on these names
They only had 35000 sirnames that had been searched on
soon they had about .02 cents per click. 100s of new subscrib 286000 in revenue and it was only custion about 1/5th that much. Do what others are not. Think outside the box. THink of words that no one exsle is bidding on that have something to do with your business.
Search Engine Optimization
Paid adds are not near as effective as the optimized websites. These are the sites that google says are the most relavent. 20% click on #1 spot. Site ranked at the top always get loads of money.
You do these right and you will have 100’s to 1000’s of FREE visitors.
Book Recommendations
Read “Love is the Killer App”
Comments from me:
I found it harder to follow him when he is on a video like this. It really feels like he jumps around. This isn’t a big deal when he is in class but when you are trying to take notes and he suddenly say’s while talking about Web Anilytics, “You should read Love is the Killer app, it is a great book” (by the way this book has nothing to do with web anilytics) and then he just returns to what he was talking about. I think it takes away from the power of the presention. But, regardless, Paul is a great teacher and he teaches my favorite class this semester.
I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, but I am finally getting around to writing a review.
After reading another of Jeff Fox’s books, How to become a Rainmaker, I was very excited to read How to become a marketing superstar by Jeffrey J. Fox. As you will see if you click on those links to Amazon’s reviews, these are two well liked books. When you read the reviews on Amazon you will see a common thread throughout each review. They use words like “concise”, “streamline”, “quick reference”, and “readableâ€. It is easy to read because it teaches principles. I love principles. If you like principles, you should like this book.
A couple of my favorite lines are:
“super marketer’s anthem: It don’t mean a thing. If it don’t go ka-ching!”
“Not accepting the American Express card is dumb. Bragging about it is even dumber.”
Two days ago Seth Godin made a blog post titled, “Look me in the eye “. He talked about going to the farmers market and buying spinach from a lady who had grown them herself. His words about this experience were, “The fact that the woman who grew it is the same person as the woman who sold it to me made the transaction fundamentally different than buying the same spinach in a bag at the A&P.” Later he pointed about a company called Conference Calls Unlimited who make sure that they are in contact by phone after each conference call to see how it went.My very first internet shopping experience was about seven years ago. I was a 16 year old buying my first paintball gun. After doing some research online I had an idea of what I wanted and I even borrowed my brother’s credit card to make the transaction. But I didn’t feel comfortable online yet–also I wanted to talk to someone just to say, “yes the Maverik pump gun you are looking is a great choice… if I were you I would get it too”. So, instead of just placing an order online I sorted through all the websites and found two stores that would take a phone call instead of just an email. During my call with the first store, I made my order. It actually cost $10 more than the other stores, but I wasn’t going to do business with a company that would only communicate with me by cold emails.
Earlier this year, I was at lunch with a good friend. I was telling her about FamilyLearn. The issue of ordering stuff online came up. She said, “I would never put my credit card online.” This shocked me. She is a regularinternet user. I knew that she had just recently switched to gmail from hotmail and that she also spends a significant amount of time on MySpace. I asked her what she does when she wants to get something that is online. She said that she looks for a phone number to call and if there isn’t one there she goes somewhere else.
My point in writing down all these experiences is to try and articulate a need that I believe is being largely neglected in the internet world and that I know we have previously neglected at FamilyLearn. I need a phone number sitting right there on my web page saying, “CALL US… We will step you through it”, so that I when I get lost, I am seconds away from help–someone who is looking at the same screen I am looking at. I need someone to just say, “Yes, this is a great decision. I have used this product/service as well and I love it.”
I am not sure why most websites want to hide their phone numbers or not even give them out at all. Maybe the thought is that we want our customers to at least try and figure it out on their own first before they call us. It kind of forces them to learn before they call. Perhaps we are thinking that anyone who can’t figure it out on their own is not a potential customer anyways. After all, we might notbe able to keep up with the phone calls. I say that unless your product or service is absolutly free (eg. google, yahoo, zoho ) leave the calling decision up to your customer. Provide them with a phone number, an email address, a mailing address, and a fax.Solicit your desire to help if they need it, then let them choose the way they want to contact you. If you are feeling like you are getting too many calls then use those calls to figure out what it is that they can’t understand without your help. Customers will stop calling you if your website is intuitive enough, but until it is you need those calls to figure out what you can improve on.
Before starting this blog I decided that I wanted to host it on my own independent server space. I was recommended to BlueHost, a local company here in Orem, UT. My limited knowledge on the internet was a concern to me. After a lot of thought and a little research, I decided to host my blog with bluehost. Because I am not an internet geek, I am not going to try and explain anything technical, but I am in business marketing for school and work and I love to share things that impress me and that have made me a customer. Let me share a thought that I have built on my experience with them.
First off, when you arrive at the BlueHost homepage in the bottom right-hand corner of the page you see a visible box that says, “Questions? BlueHost specializes in customer satisfaction - Call us with your questions Toll Free 24/7″ Then they give you their phone number. This same box appears as your main call to action throughout the website. If this help had not been available to me when I needed it, I can assure you that I would not have made it through the absolutely foreign process required to set up a hosting service, it is a heck of a learning curve for someone who is barely getting comfortable with computers. Most of us who are not total techno geeks (oh, by the way when I say “geek” that is a compliment. On the door of our tech team room at FamilyLearn at work we have a sign that says “Geek Squad”. Geeks rule the world). Anyway Kudo’s to BlueHost for their impeccable service.
If you actually made it to the end of this rambling, I would love to hear what you think.