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Monday, December 1, 2008
AFFILIATE BLOG :: 5 SEO And Site Analytics Tools To Destroy Your Competition | SmallFishBigMoney Online
5 SEO And Site Analytics Tools To Destroy Your Competition | SmallFishBigMoney Online
SEO AFFILIATE BLOG :: Collin LaHay's About Page
Collin LaHay's About Page
"My name is Collin Lahay, and this is my site. I am 19 years old, and unlike most people my age, I earn a lot of money from the web. I am living proof that anyone of any age can make money online, and I hope to help you to do the same. This website is a collection of posts by myself and many others on the topic of how anyone from a 12 year old to a 60 year old can easily make money online. Everything on this site is completely free information. The main topic of this site is catered to people who make a little bit of money online already, and who are looking to start making thousands of dollars more by marketing your sites. However, I am hoping this site will be beneficial to you, whether you are new to internet marketing trying to make your first dollar online, or are a seasoned professional looking to continue dominating your niche. I plan to show you every trick that the other big guys would keep to themselves."
"My name is Collin Lahay, and this is my site. I am 19 years old, and unlike most people my age, I earn a lot of money from the web. I am living proof that anyone of any age can make money online, and I hope to help you to do the same. This website is a collection of posts by myself and many others on the topic of how anyone from a 12 year old to a 60 year old can easily make money online. Everything on this site is completely free information. The main topic of this site is catered to people who make a little bit of money online already, and who are looking to start making thousands of dollars more by marketing your sites. However, I am hoping this site will be beneficial to you, whether you are new to internet marketing trying to make your first dollar online, or are a seasoned professional looking to continue dominating your niche. I plan to show you every trick that the other big guys would keep to themselves."
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
E-Mail Marketers Get in the Spirit
NOVEMBER 26, 2008
Working to break through malaise and get consumers to shop
Marketers have stepped up their holiday e-mail blitzes with steep discounts and subject-line countdowns such as “5 Days Left to Save Up to 75%,” deadlines like “Buy 1 $50 Item By Dec. 5 And Get Another Free” and “Free Shipping When You Order By Dec. 21.”
Marketers can use e-mail to create a sense of urgency in the last six weeks of the year, according to Huw Griffiths, director of marketing for e-mail marketing software company Campaigner. Mr. Griffiths said e-mail marketers should pay special attention to messaging and be crystal clear about shipping dates, return policies and fees.
Mr. Griffiths also said marketers should think about how consumers view e-mail messages, in HTML or text, and should always test before sending.
“Testing e-mail is one of the most critical things that retailers can do,” he said. “It could be just two words that are different in the subject line. Set up a small subscriber base and test different things like subject lines and calls to action, then compare the two.”
That might seem like obvious advice, but it often goes unheeded. More than one-half of US online retailers surveyed in September 2008 by Knowledge Marketing for Internet Retailer said they did not test their e-mail subject lines.
Kohl’s announced it will start dangling 25 “deals” before Christmas online and in stores. Consumers will opt in for e-mail alerts for the deal of the day and can have them delivered by desktop widget. Similarly, Wal-Mart is sending text message alerts with holiday promotions to an opt-in list. And Sugar, an online publisher of lifestyle content for women, introduced a personalized e-mail service about sales on apparel and home goods.
The year-end e-mail push is something of a last hurrah, as e-mail marketing spending growth is set to drop to 3.5% in 2009, down from 11.3% in 2008.
The slip in e-mail ad spending represents growth at a time when most traditional media ad spending is shrinking, but is still a shift from the double-digit boom of the past few years.
The Future of Online Video Looks Bright - eMarketer
The Future of Online Video Looks Bright - eMarketer: "The Future of Online Video Looks Bright
The Future of Online Video Looks Bright
NOVEMBER 26, 2008Smaller screens, bigger opportunities
To appreciate how far online video has come, consider a few contrasts between the 2008 and 2004 elections.
In the 2008 campaign season, primary debates were co-sponsored by YouTube, and questions from the public were submitted through the pioneering video-sharing site.
In 2004, YouTube did not exist.
According to Visible Measures, in 2008, footage of Sen. Obama’s election night victory speech received 500 unique online placements within 36 hours. That encompassed unique video clips, as opposed to multiple embeds of the same clip. Further, videos of the speech were viewed more than 6.8 million times in the first 36 hours (not including live streams or feeds from broadcast sites other than NBC.com).
In 2004, the online video infrastructure could not have supported anywhere near that level of viral syndication.
A huge video market is developing online.
eMarketer projects that the US online video audience will grow to 190 million people by 2012—that will be 88% of the Internet user population.
“After some false starts with ill-fated transactional experiments, online video content owners and distributors are pursuing a strategy that closely follows the standard TV business model,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Video Content: Harnessing a Mass Audience. “The bulk of online video programming is now supported by advertising, with ad formats ranging from in-stream ads—prerolls, midrolls and postrolls—to in-text and in-banner ads.”
Although many consumers are loath to sit through ads when watching online video, they seem even less willing to pay directly for content.
According to a study by The Diffusion Group (TDG), as ad-supported video grows the balance of the inventory will tilt toward longer-form content.
TDG analysts projected that in 2013, long-form video will represent 69.4% of ad revenues, up from 41.6% in 2008. Alternately, in the same timeframe, the share of short-form video will decline from 54.8% to 28.7%.
Of course, viewing online content on a television is still unwieldy, costly or both.
“Cable and satellite providers, ISPs, TV manufacturers and developers of set-top hardware have yet to come up with compelling solutions,” says Mr. Verna. “However, once this domino falls—and it is almost inevitable that it will—online video will take a major leap into an interconnected future.”
iMedia Connection: Email marketing's 8 deadly don'ts
iMedia Connection: Email marketing's 8 deadly don'ts
Introduction
I have a confession to make: I love Christmas. I love everything about it, from the music, to the lights, to the general good cheer emanating from everyone you meet. And, of course, the gift giving. On the other hand, I follow very strict rules with regard to the Christmas season, with the most important one being don't start too early. I won't listen to a carol, put up a light or do any serious shopping until after Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, anything goes.
The holiday season is also a very busy time for email marketers, but the last approach you want to take with your holiday email campaigns is "anything goes." So, as the 2008 holiday seasons begins to move into high gear, I've assembled a list of things you need to remember with regard to your email marketing program. You need to approach the kick-off of your holiday email efforts with the same discipline with which I approach my personal kick-off to the season -- even if you've already begun your holiday mailing. And although I'm offering up this list of email don'ts as a holiday reminder, these are ideas you can use the entire year -- it's the gift that keeps on giving.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Economy Deals Online Ad Spending a Hit
NOVEMBER 25, 2008
Digital still stronger than traditional
There seems to be more bad news about the economy every day, and falling ad spending numbers are part of the mix. Although online advertising is still on a positive growth curve, that growth is slowing and will dip into the single digits for the first time in 2009.
eMarketer’s revised projection, benchmarked against the latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) data, puts online ad spending at $25.7 billion in 2009. That is only 8.9% over the $23.6 billion that will be spent in 2008.
In August, before the full impact of the economic slowdown was revealed, eMarketer predicted online ad spending would grow 14.5% in 2009.
Not only is the new projection lower, but recovery is expected to take longer. In 2010, online ad spending growth will return (barely) into the double digits at 10.9%, and in 2013 it will only hit 13.5%.
Even paid search, which has grown at an outsize pace for years, will see a mere 21.4% rise in spending this year.
Again, the slowing is relative, since paid search spending growth will still outstrip the overall online market through 2009. There’s a reason paid search will stay robust through the economic downturn, according to David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.
“Especially in economic turmoil, search is more trackable than any other ad format,” said Mr. Hallerman. “At this stage, it is a tried-and-true format that is supporting online growth.”
What the Semantic Web -- or Web 3.0 -- Can Do for Marketers Whatever You Call It, Get Ready for Greater Relevance
What the Semantic Web -- or Web 3.0 -- Can Do for Marketers
Whatever You Call It, Get Ready for Greater Relevance
Posted by Marta Strickland on 11.24.08 @ 03:16 PM
Marta Strickland
Marta Strickland
It's been nearly 10 years since Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the worldwide web, expressed his vision of a "semantic web," in which all web data -- and the meaning of that data -- could be read by machines. Since then, much of the slow-moving progress toward this smarter and more powerful web has been courtesy of academics and data librarians.
Recently, however, the semantic web has been enjoying a commercial revival of sorts and is often referred to by the new buzzword "Web 3.0." Given how insane the pace of life is these days, I thought I'd offer a few thoughts on what I've been learning about it.
Since I can already feel the rising tide of negative comments as that version number graces the screen, bear with me for a second. Semantic web is just one of a few things often referred to as Web 3.0 -- others include topics like data portability or mobile web. But I think entrepreneur Nova Spivack offered the most useful definition by simply calling it the third decade of the web (2010 to 2020) and referring to the technology trends that will hit maturity during that time. Most importantly, the next generation of the web will bring us out of information overload and be more relevant and meaningful.
But Web 3.0 is not just about improving the consumer experience. And it isn't some industry ploy to sell you more services. The next-generation web -- the semantic web -- aims to solve some of today's biggest problems in marketing.
So what is it? Well, semantics refers to the meaning behind data. Right now, computers are good at sending data back and forth but not great at discerning the meaning of that data. Semantic web aims to change that. Perhaps it's best explained in describing what marketers can hope to gain from it.
Improving Ads
Has your contextual advertising turned into a contextual nightmare? Current contextual advertising depends heavily on keywords. Sure, it seems safe to buy a word like "feet" -- until your ad comes up right next to a story about severed feet. What if there were a technology that could analyze what is really being said on the page?
By using natural language processing and artificial intelligence, semantic advertising solutions, like Peer39, can look at the structure of a sentence and interpret word meaning and sentiment. Semantic text analysis relies on synonyms and relationships between concepts, rather than rudimentary keyword scanning. Identifying sentiment is becoming invaluable for advertising on user-generated sites such as blogs, where you wouldn't want to place ads on a negative post.
Online advertising has another obstacle to overcome: information overload. We live in a world where information evolves at an alarming rate and, let's face it, consumers trust each other far more than they trust advertising messaging. So how do we dynamically pull smarter and more relevant content into ads?
That's where the efforts like Dapper MashupAds come into play. In addition to pulling from a brand site database, the dynamically generated ads can scan social content sites like Yelp and Flickr for the newest (positive) reviews and photos of your restaurant. It's the power of your brand message only promoted by your consumers.
Improving Measurement
One of the toughest marketing challenges of recent times has been in measuring the success of social media. How do you measure the success of a human conversation? We can measure reach (visits, views, clicks, downloads). We can also measure exposure or buzz (what people are saying about our brand). But it's inside those walled gardens that everything interesting is happening: How strong is the community? Are members active? Are we changing their minds? Changing their actions?
It's the tough nut of the new marketing conversation, but Web 3.0 might be the key to cracking it.
Semantic technology is able to pull together connections between words and phrases. How often is concept "X" said in the same breath as concept "Y"? Measurement tools will be moving away from the tag cloud, and we'll be able to immerse ourselves in the trends of the real conversation, not just the keyword of the day.
Next, there is the dilemma of message velocity; i.e., how far is my message traveling and how fast? Sure, that's an easy thing to do when you are measuring a viral video or widget but what about a conversation? Semantic technology builds on meaning, not keywords. And so it doesn't matter if your followers say, "The new Batman movie is going to be awesome" or "You have to see the 'Dark Knight' trailer"; semantic buzz tools will tie the conversation together.
Sentiment analysis is an increasingly popular tool in the marketer toolbox. And its next generation will look at the entirety of a comment or an article, from whom it came and to whom it was directed. It will use natural language processing and analysis of meaningful relationships to distinguish the "good" comments from "bad."
And what about building a community of loyal enthusiasts? What about creating a relationship with your customers? Companies like Chat Mine measure the connections between members of the community and between people and concepts. By looking at both friending and popular dialogue, it can tell you if your brand brought a community together in passionate conversation.
When O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0, the marketing world divided into skeptics and enthusiasts. And a wave of start-ups began rolling out under the 2.0 moniker. It's only wise to fear the same for semantic web or Web 3.0. As nightmares of books and white papers race through your mind, it's important to separate the reality from the hype.
The successful technologist won't approach the marketer with buzzwords. He won't throw out phrases like "dynamic ontologies" or "semantic triples." Because good semantic technology is like movie editing -- you aren't supposed to notice it's there but it fundamentally changes the experience. So when someone approaches you about a "smarter" semantic solution, make sure they can answer this:
How will this make my ads more relevant and my metrics more meaningful?
~~~
Marta Strickland is manager of social-media strategy at Organic, Detroit, where she defines best practices on emerging technology trends and discovers new ways to use social media to connect with consumers for brands including Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Bank of America and Geek Squad. She voices her mind and evangelizes the power of social media as editor in chief of the Organic blog ThreeMinds. Prior to Organic, she was interactive strategist for Q LTD, a strategic design consultancy in Ann Arbor, Mich.
2 Comments
So, Organic is using the semantic web to help sell more cars for Chrysler? Might want to consider another approach. - Bucky Lasek | New York, NY
The whole concept of contextually appropriate advertising is a welcome relief. I'm currently serving a software development company that specializes in Agile software development. Think of all the trouble we can get in to with contextually inappropriate search results about how agile people can be!
Jay Aho is Chief Executive of Gen18, a Sales, Marketing and PR Consultancy in Detroit Michigan. Jay can be reached at www.gen18.com or followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jayaho. - Jay Aho | Detroit, MI
Whatever You Call It, Get Ready for Greater Relevance
Posted by Marta Strickland on 11.24.08 @ 03:16 PM
Marta Strickland
Marta Strickland
It's been nearly 10 years since Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the worldwide web, expressed his vision of a "semantic web," in which all web data -- and the meaning of that data -- could be read by machines. Since then, much of the slow-moving progress toward this smarter and more powerful web has been courtesy of academics and data librarians.
Recently, however, the semantic web has been enjoying a commercial revival of sorts and is often referred to by the new buzzword "Web 3.0." Given how insane the pace of life is these days, I thought I'd offer a few thoughts on what I've been learning about it.
Since I can already feel the rising tide of negative comments as that version number graces the screen, bear with me for a second. Semantic web is just one of a few things often referred to as Web 3.0 -- others include topics like data portability or mobile web. But I think entrepreneur Nova Spivack offered the most useful definition by simply calling it the third decade of the web (2010 to 2020) and referring to the technology trends that will hit maturity during that time. Most importantly, the next generation of the web will bring us out of information overload and be more relevant and meaningful.
But Web 3.0 is not just about improving the consumer experience. And it isn't some industry ploy to sell you more services. The next-generation web -- the semantic web -- aims to solve some of today's biggest problems in marketing.
So what is it? Well, semantics refers to the meaning behind data. Right now, computers are good at sending data back and forth but not great at discerning the meaning of that data. Semantic web aims to change that. Perhaps it's best explained in describing what marketers can hope to gain from it.
Improving Ads
Has your contextual advertising turned into a contextual nightmare? Current contextual advertising depends heavily on keywords. Sure, it seems safe to buy a word like "feet" -- until your ad comes up right next to a story about severed feet. What if there were a technology that could analyze what is really being said on the page?
By using natural language processing and artificial intelligence, semantic advertising solutions, like Peer39, can look at the structure of a sentence and interpret word meaning and sentiment. Semantic text analysis relies on synonyms and relationships between concepts, rather than rudimentary keyword scanning. Identifying sentiment is becoming invaluable for advertising on user-generated sites such as blogs, where you wouldn't want to place ads on a negative post.
Online advertising has another obstacle to overcome: information overload. We live in a world where information evolves at an alarming rate and, let's face it, consumers trust each other far more than they trust advertising messaging. So how do we dynamically pull smarter and more relevant content into ads?
That's where the efforts like Dapper MashupAds come into play. In addition to pulling from a brand site database, the dynamically generated ads can scan social content sites like Yelp and Flickr for the newest (positive) reviews and photos of your restaurant. It's the power of your brand message only promoted by your consumers.
Improving Measurement
One of the toughest marketing challenges of recent times has been in measuring the success of social media. How do you measure the success of a human conversation? We can measure reach (visits, views, clicks, downloads). We can also measure exposure or buzz (what people are saying about our brand). But it's inside those walled gardens that everything interesting is happening: How strong is the community? Are members active? Are we changing their minds? Changing their actions?
It's the tough nut of the new marketing conversation, but Web 3.0 might be the key to cracking it.
Semantic technology is able to pull together connections between words and phrases. How often is concept "X" said in the same breath as concept "Y"? Measurement tools will be moving away from the tag cloud, and we'll be able to immerse ourselves in the trends of the real conversation, not just the keyword of the day.
Next, there is the dilemma of message velocity; i.e., how far is my message traveling and how fast? Sure, that's an easy thing to do when you are measuring a viral video or widget but what about a conversation? Semantic technology builds on meaning, not keywords. And so it doesn't matter if your followers say, "The new Batman movie is going to be awesome" or "You have to see the 'Dark Knight' trailer"; semantic buzz tools will tie the conversation together.
Sentiment analysis is an increasingly popular tool in the marketer toolbox. And its next generation will look at the entirety of a comment or an article, from whom it came and to whom it was directed. It will use natural language processing and analysis of meaningful relationships to distinguish the "good" comments from "bad."
And what about building a community of loyal enthusiasts? What about creating a relationship with your customers? Companies like Chat Mine measure the connections between members of the community and between people and concepts. By looking at both friending and popular dialogue, it can tell you if your brand brought a community together in passionate conversation.
When O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0, the marketing world divided into skeptics and enthusiasts. And a wave of start-ups began rolling out under the 2.0 moniker. It's only wise to fear the same for semantic web or Web 3.0. As nightmares of books and white papers race through your mind, it's important to separate the reality from the hype.
The successful technologist won't approach the marketer with buzzwords. He won't throw out phrases like "dynamic ontologies" or "semantic triples." Because good semantic technology is like movie editing -- you aren't supposed to notice it's there but it fundamentally changes the experience. So when someone approaches you about a "smarter" semantic solution, make sure they can answer this:
How will this make my ads more relevant and my metrics more meaningful?
~~~
Marta Strickland is manager of social-media strategy at Organic, Detroit, where she defines best practices on emerging technology trends and discovers new ways to use social media to connect with consumers for brands including Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Bank of America and Geek Squad. She voices her mind and evangelizes the power of social media as editor in chief of the Organic blog ThreeMinds. Prior to Organic, she was interactive strategist for Q LTD, a strategic design consultancy in Ann Arbor, Mich.
2 Comments
So, Organic is using the semantic web to help sell more cars for Chrysler? Might want to consider another approach. - Bucky Lasek | New York, NY
The whole concept of contextually appropriate advertising is a welcome relief. I'm currently serving a software development company that specializes in Agile software development. Think of all the trouble we can get in to with contextually inappropriate search results about how agile people can be!
Jay Aho is Chief Executive of Gen18, a Sales, Marketing and PR Consultancy in Detroit Michigan. Jay can be reached at www.gen18.com or followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jayaho. - Jay Aho | Detroit, MI
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