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Ok, there is no point in denying that like a lot of other people out there, I am a big fan of Seth Godin. And I just like to follow what he is writing or how he is packaging his products or how he is selling himself.

In my last post [writing a blog post] I was talking about Squidoo. Lets complete that discussion. What do you find the most interesting thing in Squidoo?

I asked this question to some fellow content writers and web designers. And as expected, there were two answers - “emphasis on user generated content” and the other is “simple design”. Do you want to add anything to it?

Ok, here are my observations on Squidoo:

1. The most stunning thing about Squidoo is its navigation - it does not have traditional navigational pattern like - home | submit article | Contact Us | About Us | etc. And this is the section, where Seth has left Hub Pages miles behind. In Squidoo, you have just a drop down image that is inviting you to ‘build your own’ lens.

What webmasters generally does when they start such a website? Just take a look at any other article directory and you will have the answer. We would have definitely kept a common navigation bar for the reason that, the users may not be as much web savvy as we are and may face problems to use the site.

What does this mean? We are actually giving them the freedom to move around as they wish. And Seth (may be with his team) is guiding the visitor through the process of creating a lens. And, undoubtedly, it takes lots of courage to take such a drastic step when you are dealing with general people and Seth has successfully done the job.

2. Another most important aspect of Squidoo is its use of language. All through the process, the website is more playful than serious and he is selling it every time.

3. And the idea itself is great - a one page blog on anything with as many link as you want.

There are lots of other issues that you may notice in Squidoo. And this is what I call Web 2.0.

By the way, did you click on Seth’s Head in his blog? What do you call it? Just a design or idea branding?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Subscriber lists can help in any online marketing campaigns because you can send promotional materials direct to your target audience’s mailbox. You don’t need to worry about the technical aspects of putting the subscription form in your website either because e-mail management service providers will provide the necessary HTML for this. So you just need to focus on its marketing aspect.

Aside from search engine optimization which will enable visitors to find your site, you also need to focus on promoting your subscription form on your website itself? But how will you do this? Well, simple marketing tactics such as putting the subscription form where readers can see it will surely help. Most of the successful placements I observed had the subscription form placed at the upper right corner of their home page.

On the other hand, giving free stuff for subscription always works. Because the internet is all about information, you can use information as your leverage. For example, in order to get access to a free e-book or whitepaper, the reader must first subscribe to your newsletter. This has been proven to be effective time and again and in fact, I have been “forced” to subscribe to several newsletters myself because of this.

You can also explore offline methods such as joining conventions and exhibits. This will definitely give you a competitive edge because people generally trust blogs and websites that they have personally encountered offline as well.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Email marketing involves sending out bulk emails to subscribers. While this sound like a great concept, there are actually problems you will encounter in e-mail delivery. In the past, ISPs are the key factor because it scans the email for content but nowadays, reputation has become the most essential factor. Take note though that “reputation” is a combination of many factors including recipient reputation and ISP reputation.

·         Recipient reputation – this is your track record with the subscribers. You need to send out relevant and timely content at the right frequency to the identifiable subscriber.

·         ISP reputation – this is your tract record in sending emails to live and accurate email addresses. The “from” address as well as the IP address needs to be consistent; the content you send out should be also opened by the intended recipients. 

Here are some tips for you to improve the inbox delivery rate:

1. Send content that will build your reputation – that means you need to send out only information that are relevant to their needs because otherwise they will view your emails as irrelevant; this can damage your reputation.

2. Don’t send unnecessary emails – when subscribers get too many emails in a short period of time from your company, they will no longer open most of them. ISPs such as Gmail, Yahoo, and MSN can detect open rates as well as click-through rates; your ISP reputation can be damaged if these emails are not opened.

3. Use feedback loops – this will let you instantly unsubscribe the recipients who tagged your mails as spam messages.

4. Remove recipients with “hard bounces” – it hurts your ISP reputation if you frequently send emails to “bad” email addresses.

5. Woo back the subscribers – use attention-grabbing subject lines and offer special promotions or discounts. Your open and click-through rates will improve; likewise, your emails will no longer be tagged as spam.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

There is no sure-fire formula to achieve online success. This is because one tactic that might work for one company may not necessarily work for yours. A lot of web owners find their luck through sheer trial and error because even though you might receive some great tips from internet marketing gurus, not everything will work. Success can come by testing different techniques and strategies until you find the formula that is perfect for your business. So here are some tactics that just might work out for you:

Offer several products on your home page – a lot of websites feature a single product on their websites; usually, this is their core product and their best-sellers. Focusing on one product may actually work but you might also want experiment by including several products on your main page with product descriptions and images. It is recommended for you to keep the products you display within a single product line to keep the visitor’s focus on your core business.

Hover Ads – pop-ups used to be the “in” thing several years ago. That is, until internet users began to thoroughly dislike them and a lot of pop-up blockers appeared on the market. However, no one can deny that pop-ups were actually effective promotional tool for some time. I won’t be recommending the use of pop-ups though; instead, you might want to try out hover ads. They look like pop-ups but actually isn’t; a lot of marketers already enjoyed increased subscription and sales because of its use.

Reposition the opt-in box – the position of your opt-in mailing list box is very important. You need to place this tool at a prominent space on your home page. It is recommended for you to put it somewhere on the top of your site if you haven’t done so already. It can lead to a substantial increase of subscribers which can translate into sales later on.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]

In the early days of internet marketing, everyone was talking about the importance of e-mail marketing and e-zines to build brand recognition and customer loyalty. But today, blogs seem to be the new buzzword. This phenomenon is not recent as we have been hearing about the benefits of blogs for a few years now. Yet, I will delve into this topic again because the benefits of blogs need to be reemphasized. In addition, it would be a good idea to compare the effectiveness of blogs with e-mail marketing and ezines.

So let’s start with its definition, blog is short for the word “web log”; that is, it is a website wherein entries are displayed in a reverse chronological order. Typically, content management systems can notify blog subscribers about new posts through RSS feeds. On the other hand, e-mail campaigns rely on third-party Email Marketing Service (EMS). Below are the comparison and contrasts between e-mail marketing and blogs:

Ease of Publication

Blogs are apparently easier and faster to publish compared to newsletters because the blog platform enables the user to write and immediately publish the content into the blog. Meanwhile, e-mail newsletters are not automatic because they need to be carefully written, laid out attractively using HTML, and copied to the web interface on the EMS website. It will then be scheduled for distribution.

Cost

Popular blog platforms including WordPress.com, WordPress.org, and Blogger.com are free. But it is almost impossible to find an EMS provider who will give free services so email marketers need to pay a certain fee based on the number of emails they sent out or the fee can also be based on the quantity of the mailing list.

Readership

Readership in blogs can be measured by the number of unique visitors on the blog and by the number of RSS feed subscribers. On the other hand, readership in e-mail campaigns is measured by the number of subscribers, open rate, and inbox delivery rate.

Subscriber List

Probably the greatest difference between a blog and an e-mail newsletter is its approach to reaching their visitors. E-mail newsletters have a list of e-mail addresses and these sometimes even include the name and location of the readers. Meanwhile, bloggers have no such list so they cannot effectively reach out to their visitors unless the visitors make the move to visit the blog themselves.

Which strategy will work best for you? No one can answer that better than you because both e-mail newsletters and blogs can be highly effective depending on how the internet marketer makes use of it.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

One of the best ways to build trust online is to use testimonials or endorsements from satisfied customers. But most marketers would think that since testimonials are so easy to fake, people would never believe them. The opposite can be true though if it is used carefully to the target audience.

The main function of a testimonial is basically to catch the attention of the reader while conveying benefits at the same time. Keep in mind though that the most important thing in using testimonials is establishing credibility. If the testimonial sound something like “this is the best product in the whole wide world”, chances are, the reader will just snort in derision. However, if you are wise enough to use testimonials that came from actual customers, your conversion rate can increase dramatically.

The placement of these testimonials is also essential so don’t cram all testimonials together in one page. Try to space them out to deal with different customer concern and objections. For example, if a testimonial reads, “this XY product was worth every cent”; put this particular testimonial in the page where the price is indicated since some customers might think that the price is too expensive for them. Make them see the value of the product and not just the price of it.

Most of all though, don’t ever use fake testimonials because it can destroy your customer’s trust in your product and in your company. Testimonials are actually rather easy to get if you offer great products or services. Some satisfied customers will send e-mails and feedback as their way of saying thanks for the benefit they experienced. On the other hand, you can also ask for evaluation every time a customer buys your product; you can include the positive points they indicate but remember to ask for their permission before you use it as a marketing material as well.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Online marketers always aim to grow the number of subscribers on their e-mail list. Most of the time, these subscribers will read the first few e-mails you send them. But after awhile, they will experience something akin to “list fatigue”, this is the term used in the direct mail industry that describes a list that becomes irresponsive. Take note though that these subscribers don’t really want to sever their relationship with you because they still believe that they might be able to get valuable information from your e-mails in the future.

Here are some tips you can try out to fight e-mail fatigue:

1. Provide fresh information – high quality content is most likely the component that made the people subscribe to your newsletter and this may be the factor that will keep them.

2. Avoid over-promotion – it is noticeable that quite a lot of marketers provide relevant information on the first few newsletters. Later on though, these newsletters become some kind of promotional material. It is important to find the right balance between content and promotion.

3. Watch your frequency – don’t send too many newsletters too soon. This will just overwhelm the readers and they might even associate your e-mails with spam.

4. Provide attention-grabbing titles – the title is often the deciding factor between reading and deleting. Try to provide a title that makes them itch to open your e-mail.

E-mail fatigue is certainly a challenge an online marketer needs to overcome if he is to be successful in his ventures. However, it is also important to keep in mind that no one can entirely prevent this fatigue so don’t get discouraged when you start to notice that your list is becoming gradually irresponsive because it will happen. You just need to reenergize their interest on what you have to offer.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Popularity: 13% [?]

Some marketers underestimate the power of viral marketing; this may be the biggest mistake they will ever make when it comes to online promotion. A word of warning though, viral marketing is not the technique for impatient marketers who want results now. This is because the “virus” will take time to spread until its sheer number makes it impossible for anyone not to notice it.

There are several elements in viral marketing that you should take time to explore, among these are:

1. Free Products/Services – the word “free” catches everyone’s attention. “Free” is the most powerful tool in a marketer’s arsenal. Even big websites such as MSN and Yahoo gives away free services such as E-mails and private messengers.

2. Easy transfer or sharing to other people – “viruses” will only spread when they are easy to transmit. The media that carries your message should be easily transferable and replicated (eg. graphics, software download, etc); this is the reason why the internet is such as good place for viral marketers. Online communication is also instant and inexpensive.

3. Takes advantage of human motivation – clever viral marketers take advantage of human motivational factors. For example, Napster became incredibly popular because people wanted to be “in”.

4. Makes use of existing networks – all people have networks both online and offline. A person’s online network can be seen in his e-mail list, number of MySpace friends, and his regular blog visitors. Viral marketers can use these networks to get message across.

5. Use other people’s resources – using the resources of other people can widen and improve the impact of your message. For example, affiliate programs such as Amazon.com would not be as successful as it is if not for the number of associates it has.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

Hubpages is definitely the next Squidoo-like site that is set to take the online marketing world by storm. In spite of the fact that only around 15,000 hub pages exists today and that most hubbers are not even that experienced in taking advantage of long-tail keywords, their pages still keeps in popping up into the first several pages of Google search results.

But it is not only their “search engine friendliness” that makes Hub Pages so attractive to marketers because they also allow the use of affiliate links. In addition, they even have a more generous payment system compared to Squidoo; their affiliate programs let you get lifetime commission from the income of your recruited hubbers.

You will also get paid every time you drive traffic to another person’s hubpage and the same is true when they drive people to your page. With this kind of revenue-share strategy where each marketer works to promote the other, you can definitely expect that Hubpages will enjoy a long lasting reputation as a premier affiliate marketing resource.

And unlike Squidoo wherein most of the “niches” are already dominated by a select few, hot niches are still wide open in Hubpages. Marketers just need to find out the right combination for their long tail keywords and tags.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Popularity: 15% [?]

Ever since Seth Godin launched Squidoo, a unique social network site that welcomes both blatant promotions and informative content, rumors have been circulating in the web community as to how online marketers can best use this tool.

Benefits

Probably the best thing about Squidoo is that fact that it’s free for anyone to use. Yes, you can actually take advantage of this great online resource without shelling out a single dime for promotion and optimization. The benefits you can derive from Squidoo is simply incredible because of the huge amount of traffic your site can generate as well as the amount of moneymaking opportunities that becomes available to you once you create a lens. Squidoo is also incredibly user-friendly; you don’t need to be a programmer to use this tool.

How It Works

Squidoo lets you showcase your expertise in the field you choose. In fact, you can choose to create a single account and then just tap into multiple demographics…or you can create multiple accounts (you have to use multiple e-mails). In separating your campaigns using the second method, you can brand yourself as an expert in multiple fields.

Downside

Yet, for all its advantages, Squidoo is not without a downside. Take note that it is not the fault of the Squidoo marketing system itself. Rather, the large number of marketers and spammers who abuse this tool are forcing both Squidoo and Google to take action. Because of its size and web influence, your Squidoo lens can skyrocket to the top of the Google index in just a short week; in some cases, it can even be as short as a few days.

Google is taking a hard line in this because they see this as a loophole. Well, of course, Squidoo can’t accept that their lenses will suddenly drop like flies from the Google index so they are taking a stance against spammers as well as black hat marketers.

So if you plan to use Squidoo in the near future, you must be prepared to put more efforts into this. Be prepared to adapt to the changing internet landscape as well.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Popularity: 13% [?]