Is Seth Godin God? No, but Seth Godin might be the Marketing Confucius. He can post a very vague marketing idea or theory on his blog and we all run off to write 3 page blog responses then get a trackback to the post. Did no one read my “Business Copying From Childhood To Adulthood” post? I’ll be the first to admit Seth Godin is a great man, but no God. I do not know if its me or does everyone else not already know what is being published in today’s Barnes and Noble Marketing Books? Self help books have just become sales books now to enlighten us to “trust ourselves” and “reach within to find the inner seller.”

Are We Learning Anything?

Commercialized marketing books for business professionals eh? I really want to know from everyone who reads this post. What are you learning from these books that you didn’t already learn in college about marketing? I don’t want to target just Seth because he is a nice guy. But the man does understand how to market a book to a ‘kick-back’ mind set. Is this what we’ve been reduced to?ÂÂ

Do we really need bright colors, sparkles, and cartoons to entice us to buy a book on supposed professional marketing secrets? I’m sorry, but I haven’t gotten one good answer out of these commercialized reads.

Trust yourself, have confidence, and research. If you do all that, you will excel in whatever you do.

You Really Want To Learn?

If you really want to learn the hard core marketing world I recommend picking up Marketing Genius by Peter Fisk. This is one of the books at Barnes and Noble that I actually could stand, read time and time again picking up new things, and the book is 498 pages long! It’s incredibly long while maintaining sublte entertainment to keep the reader going along.

I compiled a short list of pretty obvious things that could be hurting your web site in major search engines if not properly optimized.

Web Site Development Methods That May Count Against You:

1) Domain Age: This is when your web site is less than 6 months old. No matter what you do chances are that you will be buried in the Google Sandbox. A site is sandboxed when it is brand new and does not rank well for highly competitive keyword phrases on the search engines. Some people might be confused that the term ’sandbox’ means that Google will not list your web site. This is unture. Google has a complex method of determing what to list and what not to.

2) Hidden Content: If you have text on your web site that is the same color as the background, Google will be able to detect this and quite possibly block it or lower its’ page rank.

3) Cross Linking: Using the same network to inter-link your web sites.

4) Link Spam - If you join a group such as 123counters or any other Link Exchange program your in trouble. The best way to optimize your web site for the search engines is to exchange links with other sites that are in relation to the content that your site provides… only!

5) Copyright Infringement: Yes, this one is true and can hurt your ranking. You can be held liable and punished by Google for copy + pasting someone else’s work. Moreover, the web site you take the information from might be punished too!

6) Re-Directs: If you have a javascript re-direct on old pages you should replace it with a text based link Read the rest of this entry »

Your online competitor just stole money out of your pokcet. Both they and you know it but what are you going to do about it today?

I call it search engine prosecution and if your trying to win the online game of marketing without it then good luck. Your competitors will stop all over you online. But I do have good news for you.

You Can Tattle On Your Competitors!

That’s right folks! They are cheating and in the long run they will fail. It’s like being in kindgergarden again. Google is the teacher and you need to tell them immediately! Google uses many tactics to prevent spamming and other “black hat” methods of optimizing a website to be at the top of search results. But in some cases they don’t catch it. So you have to get off your hind end and go get them. It will take a little research but you can do it.

You want an example of cheating? The current top result in Google for the keyphrase “ionic breeze” (Smoke Away’s web site) has inbound links from sites selling debt consolidation, supplements, Levitra, and “business opportunities.” If you were a competitor to Smoke Away, you could go ahead and tattle on your competitor by e-mailing Google or Read the rest of this entry »

Is Adsense and Adwords as good as dead? Even Yahoo! Beta is in jeporady.

Click Fraud: Click fraud is when an individual, automated script, or computer program is used to click on ads to help a friend generate revenue. That same individual might uses the computer program (called a robot) to click on competitors ads so that competitors charges from Google are quite high.

After all the lawsuits and click fraud prosecutions, Google is finally beginning to release information about click fraud to its Adwords / Adsense program this Tuesday. This was finally done after months or accusations that Google was not making a great enough effort to prevent the estimated 20% click fraud rate.

According to MercuryNews, “Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for trust and safety, said the Mountain View company will tell advertisers how many clicks have been deemed invalid each day for advertising campaigns they run on Google. “This gives them the data that shows that Google is doing what we say we have been doing,” Ghosemajumder said in an interview.

Google claims to use sophisticated technology such as tracking someone’s IP address to prevent click fraud and protect both itself and advertisers who used Google Adwords to promote their online business.

Why Could It Be Over For Google and Yahoo?

According to a source, a judge in Arkansas is expected to rule tomorrow (Friday July 28, 2006) on a proposed $90 million dollar lawsuit between Google and it’s largest Adwords Publishers. This lawsuit comes after time and time again advertisers are claiming that Google is not making a real attempt at stopping click fraud. I don’t believe this will not cripple Google entirely if the advertisers win I believe. This could be an end to text based advertising with Adsense and Read the rest of this entry »

Today I wanted to address something that really should hit home with alot of business professionals. Finding and administering standards for a common form of letter writing.

As we become increasingly dependent on sending and receiving e-mail it seems that we are focusing more on our message rather than writing as professional business persons. The way we write e-mail to each other really shows that and I’m sure everyone can agree. I do not know what it is, a pure lack of unprofessionalism or maybe we are doing so much now that we don’t have enough time to take the few extra seconds to form a proper letter or

Read the rest of this entry »

If you have an online business and do not know what a robots.txt, or robots exclusion standard file is then I am here to help you understand why you need one.

Having a robots.txt file can be beneficial to your web site in a variety of ways

1. Saving Bandwidth:

Search engine spider robots and web robots will not visit certain areas of your web site that you can choose to restrict access to such as your cgi bin or certain images you store on your server for personal use.

2. Cleans Up Your Logs:

If you’ve submitted your web site to the search engines than the spider robots will be searching for your robots.txt file. If they do not find one the robot generates a ‘404 File Not Found’ error everytime. These robots might be searching for that file several times a day. Adding the file to your root directory will help eliminate these errors and boost your rankings.

3. Online Protection:

The search engine robots, unless instructed otherwise by your robots.txt file, will attempt to index as Read the rest of this entry »

A robots.txt protocol file, or robots exclusion standard is a conventional tool to prevent web spiders and web robots (which index your website on search engines) from being able to access certain parts of your web site.

If you are developing a robots.txt file for yourself, I would highly recommend using a robots.txt validator to ensure the search engines will properly recognize the commands for indexing your web site that you have set. That way, you can be completely confident there are no syntax errors. I hope this article has helped you. Please leave a comment if you’d like, I encourage feedback. For more information check out my post entitled “Creating A Robots.txt File“
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This text file should be placed in your root directory. Below are a few examples of how you can design your Read the rest of this entry »

George W. Bush recently addressed America saying that although our economy is strong and our wages have not followed suit over the past 2-3 years, the best solution is to start teaching more math and science to our youth.

The only thing I have to say to Mr. Dubya Bush is that perhaps we should inspire our youth to use the left side of their brain. Maybe spend more in art and music classes. Kids today spend soo much time on the internet that they are rapidly discovering cliff notes and how to paraphrase and copy someone else’s work at a younger age than ever before. Creativity in the classroom is dwindling every year.

We have to allow our children’s imaginations to rule. Our children do not need more math and science to help our wages go up. Just look at the iPod invention. It solved the problem of having blaring boom boxes, eliminating the need to carry a cd case around, and allow you to easily jog while listening to music. That invention Read the rest of this entry »

Mega entrepeneur Donald Trump has inspired millions with his books, seminars, primetime television show, towers, casinos, and so much more.

A man who has his name in lights all over the world surely must have a big head on his shoulders. Yet, we all admire a this man for achieving so much over and over again. Big business and rags to riches stories inspire us. Late night informericlas give us hope of a better tomorrow. They inspire us soo much in the business world that we work to emulate them no matter how big or small we are.

I am here, of course, to write for the common small business start ups that want an edge over the competition and stand out in their industry. I have helped turn ordinary businesses into extraordinary money making machines that have outperformed all of their previous expectations.

The question of course is how do they do it. Traditional advertising strategies that have worked in the past will not always work tomorrow. Many of these smaller businesses look to the corporate world to find a marketing mentor but quickly realize they spend (waste) a tremendous amount of time, energy, and Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Anderson developed The Long Tail Theory in Wired magazine back in 2004 to describe how economic business models of Amazon.com, Netflix, and others have created their riches. His book only recently came out.

A former Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: “We sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday.”

Similarily, the open source resource encyclopedia Wikipedia (which I personally hate) has grown in popularity by the amount of content offered. The majority of the content is provided by human editors. I believe the human editor evolution online is quickly catching on not only with Wikipedia but also the user driven site My Space which was recently purchased by Murdoch of News Corp.

Wikipedia, My Space, and Amazon all have soo many low popularity products and content that, collectively, they create a high quantity of demand. Below you’ll see Chris Anderson’s Long Read the rest of this entry »

In the growing world of marketing everyone wants to be involved. Whatever the latest marketing and business trend that is out there at your local Barnes and Noble will likely to have the public behind it. No matter how repetitive these new books are, people still are getting behind them.

Most marketing books just plain suck. Some of their authors are just in it for money. Then again, there are those such as Seth Godin of “The Purple Cow” who are just plain human and will actually exchange emails with you answering any of your questions.

That’s why I thought the new Slate article from Tim Wu was excellent. He reviews the new Chris Anderson book , The Long Tail. The idea of the Long Tail is quickly going to be grabbed by the masses though. Public be warned that this idea will fade out as soon as you grab ahold of it. The Long Tail does something only the great marketing books that will sell like a powerhouse can do. They uncover a not so obvious phenomenon that’s right under our nose and helps us understand it.

Anderson developed The Long Tail Theory in Wired magazine back in 2004 to describe how economic business models Read the rest of this entry »

1. Use Both Sides Of The Card:

When I recently printed my new business cards with the relatively cheap printing service Vista Business Card, it only cost an extra $15 per thousand cards to get the back side printed. Imagine the possibilities – you have just doubled your potential with prospects. You can now convey additional benefits of your business and more.

Using both business card back side ideas:

- A list of your services
- Client testimonials (insert clients picture with approval)
- A special or discount when the card is used.

2. Getting To Know You:

Your prospects, more than likely, do not know you yet. Many business cards are boring with only a name, Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to professional business communication, you will be able to better understand your own communication style and improve your business relations. Moreover, you will identify various communication types in other people and be able to better communicate with them by adapting and / or modifying your own communication style. It is crucial your staff be informed of effective communication types to help company productivity and avoid meaningless meetings. In short, your words can explain, promise, and authorize but become a mess in the minds of others if you do not communicate effectively.

What Type Of Communicator Type Are You?

There is no doubt that people have different communication styles in today’s busy world of business. Some people like to start off approaches with ’small talk’, establishing rapport, and just getting to know you.

Still others, those who are high level multi taskers, enjoy getting right down to business. They will provide a logical and sequential flow plan with supporting arguments and evidence.

Then, there are the people who use communication to get straight to the point. You know the type. The ones in business who’ve already made up their mind and yours too. They just want you to be a ‘yes man/woman’. Back talking these communication talkers can land you in a heap of trouble.

Below are the Four Primary Communication Types. Identify which one you are and then discover how to modify your communication habits.

The Feeler

Also Known As The Office Pioneer:

The Feeler communication type is what you’ll find in the younger generation crowd. The new employees just getting their feet wet and trying to strike gold in the minds of the big bosses with innovative ideas. The only problem is, these office pioneers might strike out too many times with their proposals and end up on a silver platter.The emotional Feeler type of communication can be for some the easiest to adapt to.

Simply using the words “hope, feel, appreciate, understand, disgust” in your everyday sentences can help convey a positive business communication style with others. Also, when you pick up on subtle wording patterns in another persons sentences that show they are Feeler talkers you can adapt your communication style to theirs while still retaining your own independence. Identifying this communication type is especially important to those associated with sales and marketing. The Feeler will be most persuaded not by logic, but by the emotional impact that they receive with interpersonal communication.

The Feeler is sold with emotion, and will justify their purchase decision with logic. They focus on how you respond and how others react. The Feeler pays big attention to non verbal communication.

The Logic Thinker

Also Known As Your Boss:

A Logical Thinker communication style is pretty obvious. These are the types of men and women strutting around the office. They are also the most admired type of thinker. Often, they are the managers and key decision makers in your office.

They believe the most effective communication style will be presented in a logical manner with supporting documents. The Logical Thinker will seek approval for a set of ideas from his or her peers.

Feelings and personal opinions matter little to the brute Logical Thinker. They are looking for the truth in their frame of mind. They want to know the cold hard facts and never rely on gut feelings. Sorry poker players, but the Logical Thinker is your boss and he wants real answers and not hunches. Modifying your communication style to theirs might feel like kissing some corporate butt, however, in the long run you will be less likely to become a scapegoated.

Be a team player. Modify your communication style to that of your boss at all costs. It will make him happy and put some extra cash in your wallet. Sometimes you need to leave your pride at the office door.

Mr. Multitask

Also Known As The Office Juggler:

The office juggler will more than likely drop a few balls or flying torches on your feet every once and awhile. They are the type of communicator who takes pride in being able to do as many things as once.The office juggler will more than likely drop a few balls or flying torches on your feet every once and awhile. They are the type of communicator who takes pride in being able to do as many things as once.The multi-tasker is the first one in a meeting to sprout a proposal to an emergency.

These solutions are often not as carefully planned out or effective as a “Thinker” or “Planner” communication style solution. Although the role of the multi-tasker might impress some with his ‘amazing’ ability to do so many things at once, he is often regarded as “half canned” or “flawed” in the minds of top level bosses. Many times the multitasker will be so impulsive with his/her decision making that their proposed solutions to problems are sometimes only a temporary cure.

The Planner

Also Known As The Guy With A Schedule In His Shirt Pocket:

Alright, I had to do it. We know this guy. He always has a nifty pocket sized calendar, fancy new cell phone with a planner, or Pocket PC within ten feet of him/her at all times. Money makes the world go round and the planner knows this better than anyone else. They might seem like the type of guy with a corporate ladder up their butt, however, they are trading a large portion of their lives in order to better themselves. I might be bias in saying that but I spend a good portion of my day organizing effectively ahead of time so I do not have to rush and possibly fail if I am not prepared for a meeting.A planner will develop an indetifiable and reachable plan. The planner will help a business by increasing productivity and enabling proper resource allocation. Planners need charts, models, patterns, plans, and dates to be communicated with effectively.

What’s Next?

Tomorrow I will be covering the proper way of creating a Business Letter Layout for effective communication. I am still working on getting around to an article to show how to create a more effective business card to increase sales.

If you find my articles informative, God Bless. If you find them to ‘Beaucratic’, I am working on my own communication style so stay tuned.

Simply put, target the most amount of your energy and resources into the most promising opportunities available to find the customers you should target and why.

The pie chart to the right identifies the Pareto Principle which simply tells us that we should put forth most of our marketing and sales efforts to the customers that make up 80% of all purchases. Those 80% are the small 20% of customers who make routine purchases. Give them specials, discounts, coupons, sweepstakes, and keep them coming back!

Coming from my point of view, those most promising opportunities are the customers you already have. Learning to explain and understand their behavior will help us get in a better position to sell them. You need to understand what benefits customers are looking to get out of your products and/or services to understand why they buy.

When you understand why they buy, you’ll be able to sell them better.

Benefit Segmentation: Simply put, benefit segmentation allows a salesperson or marketer to discover the Read the rest of this entry »

The way to successful business marketing starts with discovering who your customers and your consumers are.ÂÂ

I hope this is a simple refresher to help you catch up to speed.ÂÂ

I have always thought that this portion of the marketing plan is crucial to success. You must first define who your customers and consumers are so you can develop an effective marketing plan that is properly segmented:

Customer - Someone who buys a product.

Consumer - The person who consumes or uses the product.ÂÂ

This is quite simple to understand really. Take for example, a father going into a sporting goods store to purchase ice skates for his daughter. The father, the consumer, is acting on behalf of his daughter, the consumer, when purchasing the product.  ÂÂ

In order to market your products more successfully you need to clearly distinguish between who your customers and consumers are. Then, you can create more successful marketing plans based on market segmentation.

Matthew Peschong
Minnesota Website DesignÂÂ
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