Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:
- Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
- Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something immediately.
- Adding advertisements in emails sent by other companies to their customers.
- Emails that are being sent on the Internet (Email did and does exist outside the Internet, Network Email, FIDO etc.)
Researchers estimate that US firms alone spent $400 million on email marketing in 2006.[1]
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This kind of content has value for the reader, obviously. But it also benefits the author / publisher. Here are the top five benefits of creating high-value website content for your small business website:
1. It keeps people on your website longer.
2. It makes people more inclined to trust you.
3. It encourages readers to recommend the site to others.
4. It encourages other webmasters to link to your content.
5. It helps you improve your search engine ranking and
visibility.
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PPC Myths:
- PPC ads will help organic rankings
- PPC ads will hurt organic rankings
Tag Myths:
- you must have a keyword-rich domain
- you must have keyword-rich page URLs
- heading tags are necessary (H1, H2 etc.)
- you need to use keywords in meta keyword tags, in particular you need to use keywords that are included in your page content. It’s actually better to use the keyword tag to include misspellings and other keyword varieties that you don’t have in your pages.
- using keywords in comment tags will hurt your rankings.
Content Myths:
- page copy must be a certain # of words. but there is really no set limit to please search engines.
- that you need to bold/italicize your target keywords.
- that you must use a specific keyword density. Keyword density tools are ridiculous.
- that you must optimize a page for a single keyword or phrase per page. Instead, try to optimize each page for 3-5 phrases that are related, so that your copy reads better than repeating one phrase over and over.
- that you need to optimize for the long-tail searches. You don’t generally need to optimize for these - engines will find them on their own.
- duplicate content will get your site penalized. There is not a penalty as such, but engines will filter out duplicates in lieu of the original copy (or what they think is the original).
Design Myths:
- your HTML code must validate to W3C. Not even Google.com validates!
- your navigation must be text links not images. Surprisingly, graphical navigation is fine as long as you use ALT tags.
- you can’t use Flash. It’s fine to use Flash, as long as it is one element of your page, not a complete Flash site. Use a text-based site too if using a Flash site.
- certain design techniques are black hat. Javascript code is legitimate, not just used by black hats.
Link Building Myths:
- that Google’s link: command is accurate. It’s not a useful tool. Use Google Webmaster Tools or the Yahoo link command instead.
- that reciprocal links won’t count. From the right site, reciprocal links are fine, even very helpful.
- that pages are ranked in PageRank order in the search results. They’re not. Google Toolbar PageRank is not accurate anyway so ignore it.
- you must be in DMOZ or Yahoo Directory to get good Google rankings. The Yahoo Directory is not worth the money these days.
Submitting, Crawling and Indexing Myths:
- that you need to submit URLs to engines. Provided you have a link to your site, you will be found and indexed.
- that you need a Google Sitemap. Not needed for the average site. It won’t change your site rank.
- that you need to update your site frequently.
- frequent spidering helps rankings. Not true.
- that you need multiple sites. This won’t help in the engines and creates more maintenance work.
- that you need doorway pages. This is so 1995!
SEO Company Myths:
- that a #1 ranking will always lead to more traffic or sales. The good rankings need to be for keywords and phrases that people are actually searching for.
- that the company can place pages in certain positions. Not possible, unless they’re using Pay Per Click or sponsored spots.
- that your rankings will tank if you stop paying the company. Rubbish!
- that they have a “proprietary method” of SEO. They’re lying!
- that they have a “special relationship” with Google. Again, they’re lying. Google has no relationships with organic SEO companies.
- that they can increase your rankings without doing any on-page work. Run away!
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Google Analytics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Google Analytics (abbreviated GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that a webmaster can optimize AdWords advertisement and marketing campaigns through the use of GA’s analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on the website and their geographical position.
Users can define and track conversions, or goals. Goals might include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file. By using this tool, marketers can determine which ads are performing, and which are not, as well as find unexpected sources of quality visitors.
Google’s service was modeled upon Urchin Software Corporation’s analytics system, Urchin on Demand (Google acquired Urchin Software Corp. in April 2005). Google still sells the standalone installable Urchin software through a network of value-added resellers; Urchin customers complained that support for and development of the standalone product languished after the Google acquisition, although a new release entered beta testing in October 2007[1]. The system also brings ideas from Adaptive Path, whose product, Measure Map, was acquired and renamed to Google Analytics in 2006.
The Google-branded version was rolled-out in November 2005 to anyone who wished to sign up. However due to extremely high demand for the service, new sign-ups were suspended only a few days later. As capacity was added to the system, Google began using a lottery-type invitation-code model. Prior to August 2006 Google was sending out batches of invitation codes as server availability permitted; since mid-August 2006 the service has been generally available. A new version of the user interface was released to all users on May 17, 2007.[2]
All users can officially add up to 50 site profiles. Each profile generally corresponds to one website.
GA’s approach is to show basic dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into the report set. There are currently over 80 distinct reports, each customizable to some degree.
GA also provides integration with Google Adwords. Users can see ad group and keyword performance as part of their reports. It also provides some more advanced features, including visitor segmentation and custom fields.
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Web 2.0 Design Guide
Web 2.0 Design Guide
- Simplicity
- Central layout
- Fewer columns
- Separate top section
- Solid areas of screen real-estate
- Simple nav
- Bold logos
- Bigger text
- Bold text introductions
- Strong colours
- Rich surfaces
- Gradients
- Reflections
- Cute icons
- Star flashes
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