Would Somebody Please Sue Me? February 2, 2007
Posted by Evil Green in : Uncategorized , add a commentYeah, I’ll admit the statement “be careful what you wish for” probably applies here. But in some cases being sued for something stupid can be an online marketers’ dream come true.
Let’s take a look at the perfect example: The Lactivist.
Here’s a 30 second recap.
The Lactivist is a web site run by Jennifer Laycock dedicated to the promotion of breast feeding through the use of humor.
She sells a few t-shirts through a Café Press website and donates the profits to the Mothers Milk of Ohio.
The National Pork Board feels that the slogan “the other white milk” which is prominently displayed on one of the t-shirts Jennifer sells will tarnish their reputation as being “the other white meat” – a campaign they have spent billions on world wide.
So the NPB has sent The Lactivist a Cease and Desist Order along with a bunch of other legal jargon and threats.
Kind of silly I know but… what effect will this have on Jennifer site – the Lactivest? You got it, bloggers around the world will go on and on talking about the case - linking to her, and rallying behind her. She’ll be Dugg and she may even make national media coverage.
At the end of the day the law suit is going to throw a ton of traffic at her site generating her some nice revenue. Her biggest concern should be keeping that server up when the onslaught of traffic come barreling down her throat.
Congrats Jennifer – enjoy the traffic, increased advertising revenue, and increased sales. Now someone please sue me!
Sudden Burst of Sales February 1, 2007
Posted by Stray Dog in : Uncategorized, Adwords , 3commentsI’m encountering a bit of a phenomenon on my OTC site. I have vast periods of inactivity where sales are not made. By vast I mean periods of several hours where nothing happens - certainly not days or anything like it. Then all of a sudden within a 30 to 40 minute period there are half a dozen orders. Then back to the slump. My Ad Words campaigns are not set to any specific day parts so it is nothing that I’m doing (at least not that I am aware of). Perhaps other competition is loosened up at those times and my campaigns have better yet fleeting success?? I would think this hypothesis was possible if the bursts occurred consistently enough, but that is not the case.
This is something I need to look at further. If it is something I can control then I could process many more orders…
Please feel free to comment on any thoughts you may have on this.
Knowledge is Power January 29, 2007
Posted by Evil Green in : Uncategorized , add a comment
So we purchased Aaron Walls SEO Book the other day in our quest to keep learning everything there is about Search Engine Marketing. I’ve only made it through about 10 pages thus far but so far it looks like it is well written. I am sure it will turn out to be a great book but if nothing else it will definitely prove to be valuable in the sense that I can reference his tips and check them off as I implement them - all ideas are presented to you in the book rather than searching through forums. Think of it as an organized task list 
Watch for a review in the near future.
Convert or Increase Traffic? There is no question. Convert!! January 22, 2007
Posted by Stray Dog in : Uncategorized , add a commentSo I’ve spent the past couple of days generating a strategy report for a client thats hell bent on improving their search engine ranking. This desire stems not from any research they have done but rather some misbegotten knowledge that that alone is what web marketing is all about. So fair enough…
But consider this. Say for example you have a brick and mortar business and at any given time you have 100 customers in your store. You know from previous experience that 10 of those are going to actually buy something. Now — if you wanted to double your sales what would your strategy be?? Would you try to double the number of people in your store? Or would you try to do a better job at converting the people who are already in store?
Simply doubling the traffic to your site may not be as simple as improving search performance. If a large amount of your sites traffic has no referral (from a search engine or other site) then improving search engine ranking alone will not double your sales. In fact you may need to increase referrals from search engines 3 or 4 times more in order to double the sales. What if your ranking is already good for the market you are in?
So what do you do? You must do a better job of converting your current customers. Your landing pages must cater to the customers interests and the site must facilitate that user being able to easily achieve your conversion goal for the visit whatever it may be.
I have thoroughly documented this for the short-sighted client. We will see what comes of it…
A list of super simple tips for your vb forum January 18, 2007
Posted by Evil Green in : Uncategorized , add a commentHere are a few things I have done to my vbulletin forum that seem to be making small differences:
- Require registration to view attachments (in admin panel)
- Turn email notification on by default. (When someone replies to a post you are involved you will receive an email)
- Change email notification to include a link to the thread but not the content of the reply (make them go to the forums to see what was said, you’ll have a better chance of getting another post out of that member)
- Turn on image verification at registration (a lot of automated spammers were finding the forum)
- Change the default message for unregistered members to say something relevant to your site and encourage registration.
- Personally PM new members that are posting
I will continue to add to this list as I improve my forum.
The Elite Retreat is Back January 16, 2007
Posted by Evil Green in : Uncategorized , add a commentLooks like the Elite Retreat was a big enough success to justify adding more experts and dates.
I just have to figure out how to get there now. It’d be a pricey week when you figure $5000.00 for the conference, $600.00 for a flight, $600 for hotels, $1000 for food and booze. That is not to say it wouldn’t be worth every dime, but to say I just don’t have the coin right now - as you may remember the tax man beat me up.
I’d like to get there as soon as possible as I have some projects on the go that are huge and I know their help might mean the difference on the road to riches.
I am concerned about the quality of the Elite Retreat suffering as it becomes more and more mainstream and would really like to get to it soon.
Pointless post — I guess I am just saying I want to be there and will be trying to figure out how to get there, I will keep you posted!
Google AdWords Support January 12, 2007
Posted by Stray Dog in : Uncategorized, Google, Adwords , add a commentYesterday afternoon I received an automated email message from Google explaining that one of my ads was being blocked for containing a word that was in ALL CAPS. This (as I was aware but screwed up) was contrary to Google’s editorial guidelines for AdWords. So I promptly fixed it and emailed the site owner (the email from Google went to the site owner and myself) and cc’d Google AdWords Support.Much to my surprise I received a personal (at least it certainly seemed to be coming from flesh and blood) email from a Google AdWords support person thanking me for taking prompt action to adhere to the guidelines. I felt it was a positive gesture on Google’s behalf. I received the email approximately two hours after I had rectified the proplem and sent the cc.
Here is what I received:
Hello Xxxx, Thank you for your email and for promptly making the suggested changes to your campaign. We appreciate your effort in complying with our guidelines.If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
Sincerely,
Xxxx X.
The Google AdWords Team
Lately there seems to be somewhat of a paradigm shift in feeling that Google is becoming an evil empire. This brief encounter with Google AdWords Support has given me a positive feeling. The account that I was managing does spend in excess of $2000 a month on Google AdWords - so I would hope that would trigger some form of personal response though…
Dealers and Webmasters December 14, 2006
Posted by Evil Green in : Uncategorized, Ranting and Raving , add a commentYesterday, I talked about how I was going to work on incoming links to one of my sites. That is still on the drawing board although I haven’t done much with it yet. I took a look at text-link-ads.com and will probably take advantage of their free $100 (must spend $25.00).
One thing that I have spent a little time doing is trying to make the Website look more established. It is of average or good design and is clean and professional, but doesn’t look like its a player when compared to the larger sites out there. I am thinking by adding more content, the right type of advertising (possibly for my own services, possibly for dealers), and just going for a more corporate look I may be able to appeal to more visitors.
Lastly, I spent some time creating a page targeting dealers and webmasters (the site is auto related), hoping to sign some deals with them. I will make it worth their while so hopefully in the coming months I will hear from someone who wants to do some cross-promotion.
Tis the Season December 13, 2006
Posted by Evil Green in : Uncategorized, Ranting and Raving , add a commentA few days ago I said I expected a major slowing in December on my eBay affiliate program. I haven’t experienced it yet, in the first 11 days of December I have earned around $88.00. I sitll expect the slowdown but closer to the week before Christmas. Shoppers are more and more apt to leave things to the last minute and trust UPS, USPS, and FedEx.
Landing Pages - Trial 1 - Go Directly to a Product December 12, 2006
Posted by Stray Dog in : Uncategorized , add a commentToday on my OTC (over the counter) site I changed some of the adwords campaigns to go to a direct product page as opposed to an overall product category page. In this way they are one step closer to that precious ‘Add to Cart’ button — not as dear as the ‘Place Order’ but one click closer. The duplicate ad going to the category page has a CR (conversion rate) of 13.1%. I’ll be watching to see if my new ad going directly to a product page has an improved CR.