I love You Tube. You can learn how to do almost everything there. This set of 60-second videos about using Google Analytics is a great way to see how using Analytics can help you monetize your website better.

KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Silly. I am referring to your blog content. People who read blogs are scanners, not in-depth readers. (That is they scan with 2 “n’s” not scam with 2 “m’s”.) They glance over what you’ve written to see if it interests them.

If your topic is interesting, they will read a bit more-in depth; however, keep these tips in mind when writing for the web:

1. Short paragraphs work are better than long.
2. Bullets and numbered lists (like this one) keep information organized and easily readable.
3. Numbers in titles are effective too.
4. Forget your high school English Rules. It is okay to fracture occasional sentences and put prepositions at the end of a sentence, if it makes your writing easier to read.
5. Write in a conversational tone. Write with simple and clear words. It is good to use “you” and “we” in your copy as well.
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I realize the above title is un-inspiring because it is considered common sense in the marketing world. What I really want to talk about is psychographic portraits of your target market.

First you are probably asking what the heck is “psychographic?” I certainly was when I learned this word yesterday. The dictionary defines psychographic as, “a graphic representation or chart of the personality traits of an individual or group.” So what exactly is that?

It is when you take a group of people with similar interests and you extrapolate what else most of them are interested in. I did this with a program called Interest Matrix.
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Being successful in business requires taking some risks. Not jumping off a cliff risks, but calculated risks. If you just sit home and do nothing, you won’t be successful. Even bloggers aren’t successful if they don’t type anything. But taking risks also means that sometimes you might fail, and this is scary to most people (including me). In fact it is so scary that sometimes we don’t even try to succeed!

I remember one day in high school when I was taking a difficult test. I was worried about getting a good grade and had spent time studying for the test. As I walked into class I heard a student say he hadn’t even studied and so, of course, he was going to fail. I remember being amazed at that attitude. I didn’t get it. As I got older, it actually began to make sense, in a convoluted way. If you don’t try, of course you are going to fail. Many people do this with their jobs, or their companies, as well.

So how can you get over this fear of failure? Fail!
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When I went to college, writing was a big deal. Most of my classes required that papers be turned in with a certain format and in third person. Writing for the web is a lot different than that. Writing for the web is writing to SELL.

And Freelance X-Factor is written by Brian Clark, of Copyblogger. He boils writing for the web down to these 3 requirements:
• A way to differentiate yourself from the pack
• A way to raise your perceived value to clients
• A way to deliver higher actual value to clients

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Many people see the value in setting up a blog with their own domain name. A lot of them just search for the cheapest hosting service.

I personally have used four hosting services. One of them I had problems with. The other two were fine, but I like Blue Host for the following reasons (most important item first):

1. Customer Service. Blue Host has terrific customer support. It is US-based and all of their servers are US based as well. They have happily answered my questions, even if they have been about WordPress. They also are available 24/7. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day I was helping my son study for a test in US history. He had made some flash cards and one said, “consignment system” on the front and on the back it said, “one company sells another company’s products and keeps a bit of the profits.”

This reminded me of the current Affiliate Marketing programs on the internet. Many companies that produce great products or content have affiliate marketing programs.  This works well for both parties.

The World Wide Web is so vast it seems limitless and infinite. It is easy to get lost “out there.” With Affiliate Marketing you can produce something worthwhile and have others help you sell it. Read the rest of this entry »

digital flower

I recently interviewed the owner of a local company that has been around for 30 years. When I asked the owner what had changed in that time, he responded that people were pretty much the same, but that advertising had changed tremendously.

He told me that he used to place an ad in the local paper and his store would be flooded the next day. Now he can’t much tell the difference between when he places an ad and when he doesn’t. Also he told me there are many more places to advertise than 30 years ago.

This got me thinking about how important it is to be on the internet. Even if you have a brick and mortar company, it is important to be listed on the internet so people can find you. Read the rest of this entry »

Wikipedia describes Digital Marketing as “the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.”

That’s a pretty big explanation; but again, digital marketing is a pretty big topic. I asked several friends what digital marketing meant to them and the answers included thing such as ads on the internet, blogs, and email marketing.

So exactly what are the components of digital marketing?

Is it a banner ad? Or a viral video? Perhaps it’s a marketing campaign that uses optimized keywords to drive traffic to a website. Whatever it is, it certainly changes quickly.

Digital advertising can refer to telemarketers calling cell phones, or television ads, or spam. For the purposes of this site, we will discuss advertising on the internet. The first types of digital marketing this site will explore include: Affiliate Marketing (also called CPA marketing), Relationship Marketing, and Social Media Marketing.

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