One question I have always gotten from students, clients, and colleagues is this:
Should I put my blog on the same domain as my primary site?
The answer is always the same: It depends. Personally, I’ve preferred to keep this blog as well as my primary blog for my e-commerce business on separate domains from the actual site where the transaction or goal happens. But that’s not always the best answer.
The answer for your site will depend on how you want to brand it and how you think you’ll build links for those sites.
But for those of you that have a blog on another domain (like I do), we got some good news from Google this week. (more…)
Here’s an interesting report that was recently released by a social data and analytics provider named General Sentiment. It is called their Q1 2012 Global Brands report. It uses data from social media and news media in an attempt to determine the sentiment toward major brands.
Check it out. What surprises you on this list?
Personally, I find it hard to believe Target and Starbucks are so low on the list. I assume that is because they are not talked about as much online as the tech businesses toward the top of the list.
I spent the last few weeks in Florida. Much of that time was with my wife’s sister and her family as my new niece was born. (Did I tell you she’s adorable? She is!)
At any rate, when we got there my sister-in-law had bought my wife and I a Kindle Fire as a gift for coming to help the family. (Very generous of her, don’t you think?) Being the kind husband I am (if I do say so mself), I let my wife put her Amazon account on it. But then I took it from her and played with it every day for a week or two.
(That’s what I do with new gadgets. When I got my first iPad, I took two days off to use it. I actually got a headache from using it for 6-8 hours straight for those first two days. I’m a geek, I know.)
So this is my first 7″ tablet. I’ve owned a smartphone since before they called them that. I’ve also owned an iPad since the first generation. But this thing is different. I knew it would be and mentioned it in my predictions for 2012.
When I woke up this morning, my rib was still hurting.
Why? Almost two weeks ago, I was playing sand volleyball and I must have hurt myself after making a huge dive after the ball. (I missed the ball, so maybe it was more of a fall than a dive.)
At any rate, it’s been hurting for almost two weeks. That’s the point. As my wife and coworkers will tell you, I have a very low tolerance for pain. So I did what many of you would do. I woke up and went straight to the Internet to find out how long this should last.
Here’s the point…
To learn more about how you should market your website, look for lessons in how YOU use the Internet YOURSELF. Let’s start with what I did this morning. Then we’ll analyze it a little.
After being awake for barely 5 minutes, I went to the laptop. I went straight to WebMD.com and searched on “broken rib”. They gave a nice explanation of how to diagnose a broken or bruised rib. They then explained that there is nothing you can do about it. You just have to wait six weeks for the pain to stop. (SIX WEEKS!!)
I wanted to know more but WebMD did not say how to tell the difference between a bruised or broken rib. They also offered no ideas for lessening the pain. So I typed “bruised rib” into a search engine. That led me to an interesting forum posting about a woman who was not sure if she had a bruised or broken rib and some doctor’s comments.
The end of that posting mentioned using some medicines instead of just ibuprofin. They gave the names of two – Lodine and Relafen. But there was no additional information about them. So back to the search engine.
I researched the two pain-killers briefly and thought about ordering online but the sites I saw did not make it easy, so I went to take my shower.
NOTE: I’m sure all of us do something like this from time to time. I don’t think what I did was very unique.
LESSONS:
Initially I went to WebMD, not a search engine. Is your site a brand? Will people go to you before the search engine?
Although I like WebMD, I left in a heartbeat. Does your site give all the information your visitors want? Do you keep them clicking on your site or leaving to go to a search engine?
The forum was helpful. Do you have anything interactive on your site? Do you have user generated content?
I want to buy pain relievers. If you mention products that will help your audience, do you offer to sell them or at least provide affiliate links that they can buy from?
The entire time spent on the internet was less than five minutes. Does your website give exactly what people want quickly?
Interesting stuff. I hope it gives you some food for thought.
This past Friday, I noticed that one of my clients was planning a series of print advertising and wanted to use a different domain name for each of the ads in order to track which ad gets the most attention.
No problem. This is a common way to monitor the results of a print campaign. However, if you are thinking of doing this, there are some things to keep in mind.
Today I took a few minutes to look through some of web log files and I noticed an unusual amount of people typing in “Hippo Calendar” and coming to my site.
Why are people typing in “Hippo Calendar” so much? A little research shows that Sarah Louise Galbraith has created an amazing looking 2007 Hippo Calendar. This is clearly a woman that knows hippos better than I do.
I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that were disappointed to see that my “Hippo Calendar” was simply a list of upcoming events for my company, Hippo Internet Marketing.
What does this mean for you?
Check your log files every now and then. Who knows what you might learn!
You really should go buy one of these calendars. I know I will!
This session was a “super-session” and was one of the ones I was looking forward to the most. Why? It is one of the only opportunities to learn the truth about where people are clicking and why. These guys know their stuff and have the data to prove it. The information can be applied to most any site.
A similar session a few months ago was incredibly interesting and some of the same people were on the panel. So I purposely seeked out a good cup of coffee before I got a good seat toward the front of this conference. I’m feeling good, so (more…)
The session on how to improve your conversion rate at PubCon was late in the day of day two. So I was a little bit burned out. In fact, Tim was really burned out. I think he’s ready to go home. Ty and I are still actively interested, but it does get a little tiring after a while. So here’s some simple comments from the presenters…
If you have an internal search on your site, be sure to (more…)
One question I have always gotten from students, clients, and colleagues is this:
