When I discuss online marketing, you’ll often hear me mention your “marketing arsenal.” There is no one thing to do, one thing to buy, one thing to set up that can be considered your sole marketing effort that allows you to sit back and watch the dollars roll in as many would like to believe. Online marketing requires ongoing effort, testing, activities, participation — for perpetuity. This is the nature of the online beast.
Your marketing arsenal includes a plethora of activities, from SEO, SEM, to PPC, Blogging, Networking, eZines, Article Writing, Social Networking, ad buys and the list goes on. This is interactive technology after all and the more you interact; the better you will do.
What many overlook is how advertising off-line can be an extremely effective way to drive traffic to your site. Of course your domain, ad text and ad placement and design can all affect how many will remember your ad and go to your site. When done properly, you will see a spike in your site’s traffic and you’d better be ready to convert those visitors!
I read an interesting study on the value of off-line advertising driving visitors to Web sites and thought I would share that with you today.
Print Newspaper Ads Drive Online Research, In-Store Purchases
So with all you do online; at the end of the day don’t forget about all the off-line venues that can help to expose new customers to your site!
At your service,
Judith
Sphere: Related Content
This week a very nice gentleman e-mailed me to make me aware of a site that was linking to one of the graphics from one of my sites and thereby displaying my graphic on their site. Typically when this happens, the sites that do this kind of thing are not very well designed sites. They are home-brewed DIYers you clearly do not understand all the issues and variables — legal or otherwise — involved in having an online presences.
This site in particular was way bad and had so much scripty gobbly-gook that it almost crashed my browser! It was clear the site owner didn’t have a clue about most things important to online success. I thanked the kind soul who informed me and then took action.
What I do when this happens, is I first changed the graphic to reflect “This Site Steals Graphics Illegally.” This causes the graphic they are linking to on my server to display this message on their site. When you do this, be sure to rename the original graphic to something new and be sure to change anywhere in your code that you point to it so that you don’t have a broken icon (or that message) on your own site.
I then e-mail the Web site with a sternly professional demand to remove the link to my graphic immediately or they will be reported to their host. This e-mail does include some scolding about integrity and ethics although I know it is because they simply didn’t know any better. Call it baptism by fire!
I also mention the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and send them a link to my article on Online Copyright Myths so they then have the opportunity to become informed.
The bottom line is you should not link to, steal or display other’s works or graphics so they display on your site without their permission. Nor should you assume by using a photo server such as Google or AOL’s picture search services that graphics are then yours to use as you please.
If you didn’t create it or write it — you need to ask to use it.
At your service,
Judith
Sphere: Related Content
Pizza.com just sold for 2.6 million. Wow….
The Ten Most Expensive Domain Names Ever Sold
1. Sex.com, $12.5 million
2. Porn.com, $9.5 million
3. Diamond.com, $7.5 million
4. Business.com, $7.5 million
5. Casino.com, $5.5 million
6. Asseenontv.com, $5 million
7. Korea.com, $5 million
8. Wine.com, $3.3 million
9. Creditcheck.com, $3 million
10. Vodka.com, $3 million
The domains above have the basic high dollar formula, one-word, descriptive and not typo prone. But as with anything; it comes down to what someone is willing to pay that determines value!
As good domains become harder to come by, be prepared to pay more than the annual renewal fee the current owner incurs to get a quality domain that can assist with your branding efforts.
At your service,
Judith
Sphere: Related Content
