Web Site Waves: Get Your Web Site on Higher Ground

10+ years into owning my own businesses and I've only recently discovered the importance of sending a real postcard to prospects and clients. I guess I always thought it would just cost too much or would take too much time. But, once I found a system that was cheaper and takes a fraction of the time of traditional bulk mail systems, I was hooked.

So, in answer to the question "why," here are the reasons I've discovered so far.

1) Postcard mailing is a cheap way to bring targeted traffic to my web site. If I only get a single sale from sending 100 cards, I've made my money back.
2) Postcard mailing is fast. I can literally prepare a mailing and send it in minutes and don't have to worry about bulk mail permits anymore.
3) Postcard mailings gets through. Whereas email is "iffy" at best, I know my off-line postcards get to their destination.
4) Postcard mailings are kept. If people like what you send, they'll hold onto them for a while. Unlike email that gets put into an "I'll look at it later file," postcards sit on desks and the inbox until they're read. If they're really good, they'll even get passed around.
5) Postcards work. They're non threatening if worded right. They're personal if you personalize them and use your own handwriting.

The tricky part is knowing what to send and when to send it.

Check out the white paper I just released if you'd like to find out more at www.HereNextYear.com/sendcards.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
President/CEO
HereNextYear.com
Taking Web Sites to NEW Heights Since 1996

For more and more companies today, simply plopping a web site onto the Internet is not enough. You want results over a sustained period of time. There is a big difference between paying a high school kid $200 for a web site and contracting someone to provide ongoing Internet promotion services for months and years to come. And, that is my focus of this blog entry.

[For a more indepth look at what you can and should expect by outsourcing your entire Internet marketing component, subscribe to get access to my most recent edition of the Tuesday Triplet at www.TuesdayTriplet.com and go to the archives section.]

From what I've seen in doing business online over the past 10+ years, there are really three pay scales for people offering Internet marketing and promotion services.

1) Those just getting started ($10-$30/hr) - These are the people who need to make many mistakes along the way...and they know it. So, they're willing to offer cut-throat rates to get a few clients. Where you can really lose your shirt in this area is by hiring somoene to start a Google Adwords campaign for you that has no experience. Even if they offer to charge $5/hr...don't do it!

2) Those that have been at it a while ($80-$200/hr) - Only established companies with proven track records should be charging rates like these. But, don't hold too much weight with results they've achieved for others. Your project is unique and the most important thing is that your promotion service provider is enthusiastic about your topic.

3) Those that have been at it for a while but are desparate for work ($20-$40) - Definitely stay away from experienced service providers that are not in high demand. If they can't sell themselves to keep a steady workflow of clients, why would they be able to sell you on the web?

If you have a question about how much you should be paying for web site promotion services, or have a success story to share (or a nightmare), post it here and let's talk some more by clicking on the envelope image at the bottom of this post.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
President/CEO
HereNextYear.com
Taking Web Sites to NEW Heights Since 1996

Pay For Performance web sites seem to be a popular request these days...but you have to know the rules. With pay-per-call and pay-per-lead programs gaining steam, there seems to be a surge in requesting pay for performance web sites and PFP for overall online promotional campaigns.

In talking to some other designers and online promoters today, I posed the question why they have NOT taken on a pay-for-performance project as of yet. Here are some of the response I got in hopes that you might know what to expect if you approach your designer or online promoter for a pay-for-performance payment arrangement:

"It (pay-for-performance) has its place but only when you are being judged on factors that you can influence."

"How much money a site makes is the sum of many parts."

"Too many factors you can't control."

"If all the development cost is yours, you might as well build your own site about widgets and then affiliate with someone to sell the widgets."

So, it's obvious that most designers and online promoters are going to be skeptical at best if you approach them with a pay-for-performance opportunity. But, I think I've figured out the magic formula.

If you really want to know how to approach a company to work out a pay-for-performance arrangement, subscribe at www.TuesdayTriplet.com and go to the archives section where you will see today's distribution titled Want to Pay-for-Performance?

And, if you have a question about PFP or have a success story to share (or a nightmare), post it here and let's talk some more by clicking on the envelope image at the bottom of this post.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com
Taking Web Sites to NEW Heights Since 1996

This list of web site pet peeves started out as a heated recent discussion on a forum about what web sites drives us crazy. Go through your web site and see if you're annoying anyone out there with these. If any one person visits your site and is "peeved" enough from one or more of these hated items, you can bet there are another thousand people visiting your site and saying the same thing.

And, if you have a peeve to contribute, please list it here by clicking on the envelope image at the bottom of this post.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com

- - - - -
Web Site Pet Peeves (in no particular order of hatred)

- Pop-ups of any kind on landing page or home page of a web site
- Overloading with Google Adsense ads
- Too much animation. Get to the point. If I wanted animation, I'd watch a cartoon
- Ads that block you from seeing the content
- Floating advertisements
- Disabling my right-click on the mouse
- Hearing audio automatically after landing on a page
- Too many ads displayed
- Horrible grammar and spelling
- Cheap stock photography
- Text on bad background colors
- Sites that tell me to go away because my browser isn't current enough
- Sites that are designed only for Firefox and suggest people switch...or they just don't work unless you're using Firefox.
- Amateur design layouts
- Super tiny fonts
- "Stars" or some other cutesy object that follow your mouse when you move around the screen
- Being on a secured order page that is not really secure
- Credit card fields on an order form that don't allow me to add spaces between numbers so that I can more easily double-check that I've entered the numbers correctly
- "Would you like to make this your home page" requests
- "Under construction" pages, especially when you click on a nav button to get there
- Long page content that only has navigation links at the top of the page so you have to scroll all the way up to the top to do anything next
- Web sites that prevent me from using my "BACK" button

Not one of these is my own pet peeve. These are all from a forum discussion and many were listed over and over again. What are your web site pet peeves? List them here!

If you still have an email address posted on your web site for people to contact you, you are very much behind the curve. As your site picks up in traffic and visibility, you're spam filters are going to get huge quantities of spam if they haven't already.

So, it is natural for your web site designer to suggest the idea of adding a contact form to your site instead of just an email address.

But over the past even three months, we've seen a HUGE increase in spam through web site forms. And, we'd like to suggest three things for you to do to prevent or reduce spam through your web site forms:

1) Save your spam - You'll need to keep the spam messages you're getting for a week or so to get a good representative sample of the kinds of spam you get through your web site.

2) Add "image verification" to your web site form - To see an example of this, visit http://www.ForRentByOwner.com. Go to their contact page or any of the contact pages for the listed properties and you'll see a little number that appears. If you refresh your browser, you'll see that a new number is displayed every time. It is required that you fill in the right number for the email to be submitted. This eliminates or reduces the automated spiders from submitting spam through your form. Just this script alone was added to two clients sites that went to zero spam per day the very day we loaded the script!

3) Add a folder to your web site (that no one else sees) and copy and paste phrases found in the spam you've been getting lately. Have your designer or developer add a script to your form that "requires" that no message can contain any of these phrases. We're putting this together now for the HereNextYear site and should have it in place by the end of this week if you'd like to try it. This will prevent or at least reduce people who manually scour the web entering custom spam messages (yes, people actually do this!) from getting their message through.

If you don't have a designer capable of creating #2 and #3 for you, let me know. We're planning on offering both scripts for a very easy price shortly.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com

P.S. Have you tried any other approaches to removing spam from coming through your web site? Post it here!

A friend sent an email to me about a tele-class being conducted by yet another Internet marketing guru. He thought I'd appreciate knowing that the call was coming up soon and that I might want to sign up and attend.

Another friend sent an audio file to me of some woman who made a phone call to a local prison and was trying to find out what the process was to get into the prison to offer "relief" to some inmates.

It was so hillarious! By the end of the call, the receptionist was even turned on. Not only did I listen to the entire 10-minute phone call, but I forwarded it to about 30 people.

So, which of these examples is "True" viral marketing?

You might think this is a trick question and that BOTH might be the answer. But, I don't believe it.

More and more business owners these days are hearing about this elusive "viral marketing" craze as they watch CNN. Usually they see videos of strange people creating video-casts during a crazy moment and hear that the videos have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times within a few days and think, GREAT! All I need to do is create something viral for my business and I'm rich!!

As I see it, there is "pass-along-marketing" and true "viral-marketing" and there is a big difference. If you "pass-along" something to a friend, it is not the same as saying, "holy cow!! I've got to send this to everyone I know because this is so great!"

True viral is like a plague...it effects people in multitudes within hours or days.

I have yet to try to make something truly viral but if I did, it would be humorous, entertaining, surprisingly realistic, and just something to break up the day. And, just hopefully, I'd get something on the backend of the traffic.

Have you tried to create something viral? How did it go? What's your favorite viral example? Do you think going viral is the way to go? Click on the comments link below to reply.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com

Got an interesting question through my web site from a visitor, and my response to him seems like a good topic for those who have never had a web site before or for those just not getting the results they expected.

Here's the note:

"Marty, I am planning an internet business for the first time. I want to develop a website and because I have never done this before, I have no idea where to start with my website. Do you have any ideas for me where to start? Thanks."

My response:

"As for starting a web site, you've chosen a competitive field online. But, even in the most competitive arenas, it is possible to be "heard above the noise" so to speak. You must clearly find an angle of your business that is different than the others and position yourself as an expert in that field. Not just different for the sake of being different, but unique and in an area that people WANT to be helped. It doesn't help anyone if you are the expert at surviving in a raft at sea without food and surrounded by sharks if no one is interested in that topic, for example.

In order to make this happen, you must "do" first (which you probably already have). Then you have earned the right to "write" about what you have accomplished and develop a process for others to us. At that time you will have enough ammunition in your arsenal to create that industry presence needed for a successful launch.

Only then will it be worth your time and money to create a web site and use other means to 'speak' about your specialty skill."

So, what do you think about this response? Correct? Incorrect? Your comments and replies are welcome.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com

Want to kow how Google Analytics Marketing can increase response through your web site? The answer is simple. Knowing exactly what people do once they are at your web site. This makes all the difference in the world!

For example, one of our clients wanted to take their web site to new levels. The web site focuses on houses for rent through their actual owners instead of a property management company.

The owner originally requested that we just have a link proudly displayed that guides owners to make a posting of their property for rent. I was able to convince him that based on my experience with my musician classifieds web site, that practically everyone would want to "view" properties for rent even if they were interested in posting one for themselves.

This belief held true when we launched Google Analytics on the web site. Within the first two weeks, we could tell that more than 80% of all visitors to the site clicked on the "View Postings" link. This knowledge encouraged us to showcase the "view postings" link more boldly because we knew that's what everyone wanted to see.

How has Google Analytics helped you with your web site planning? Add a comment here!

Your comments and replies are welcome.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com

Pay-per-Click Doesn't Mean Pay for EVERYONE!

Today's topic for Web Site Waves is about service providers that offer pay-per-click campaign management. Who are these people that are charging 15% or 20% over and above the cost of a click only to drive any and all traffic to your web site with Google Adwords and others?

I could see paying a commission for traffic from targeted, focused buyers, but just convincing business owners to spend thousands of dollars a month or a week to get any and all traffic is just a waste!

If you're a business owner looking for a company to get traffic to your site through pay-per-click, I suggest these steps:

1) Do hire an online promotion company that will create an Adword account in YOUR name with YOUR username and password so that you will always have access to it.

2) Don't pay commission for pay-per-click service providers unless you are assured that the provider's best interest is getting your results with targeted traffic and not just fattening their bank account by using the most popular terms and costing you the highest possible cost per click.

3) Do choose a provider that is interested in your project or they will likely get bored of your project and start spending more monitoring and testing time with other clients.

Your comments and replies are welcome.

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
HereNextYear.com