Google Best Practices

Google recently published some best practices to help have your website perform better in organic search listings.  The document goes into a lot of details regarding links, metatags, URL structures, etc, but the most important thing to keep in mind when developing a website is to make it user friendly.  Think about your potential users and how they might search for things in google.  Use those search keywords in your headers, make the website easy to navigate, and keep the content up-to-date and accurate.

Opt-in Tips and Tricks

Here are some optin tips that I’ve found to increase the open and clickthrough rates.

Keep it short – People read emails very quickly, an optin is not meant to tell the whole story, it’s just supposed to direct people to do something.

Links – make as many things linked as possible.  No brainer right? The more links the more chances of someone clicking.  I especially recommend linking all images, this will give you those extra few accidental clicks over to your site.

Subject Line – make it catchy.  If you think about it, what emails do you typically open.  I know I open the ones that

Layout – Be sure to have the important content at the top of the email.  You want to make sure users can get the information without having to scroll.

Call to Action – most importantly; you need a large call to action.  Because optins are online, a call to action like “Click Here”, or even “Fill Out this Form” are quick and easy for audiences.  I don’t recommend making people email in, or pick up the phone to call.  These kinds of things are also much harder to track than clicks or forms filled out.

Some Cool Viral Videos

Check out some of the latest viral videos from CompareNetworks Production Group, part of Biocompare, Medcompare, Dentalcompare and OphthalmologyWeb. These guys specialize in making some cool videos about technical products. Anything from a PCR machines for life scientists, to workstations for dental offices the videos are fun to watch and get your product message across.

Some Examples of the Latest Virals:

Transformers - Roche LightCycler 480 Real-Time PCR System

Frankenstein - DentalEZ Freedom Workstation

Promote Your Own Advertising

One thing that I continually try to tell clients of ours is, if you want your products, videos, articles viewed more, why not promote it through your own website as well. Here are reasons for linking to certain types of advertising....

Editorial & Product Reviews: Biocompare, Medcompare, OphthalmologyWeb, and Dentalcompare have all become trusted sources for product information for their industries. By linking to an article from our site, you lend credibility to the benefits and features of your products you are promoting.

Product Listings: If your own website doesn't have all your product specifications in one easy layout, link to your product listing. The CompareNetworks product listings give full specifications, description, and have your contact information at the bottom. Not to mention, you can generate even more leads.

Videos: If you just paid a lot of money to have a testimonial video done at a tradeshow, why not link to it from your website. Everyone loves to watch videos on products, it lets the user experience your product almost- first hand. Linking to your video gives people more information and you get more views....better ROI!

Media Kits - Who Reads 'Em?

Just wondering if i'm totally wasting my time on creating a media kit. Aside from an editorial calendar and some print specs that are sometimes useful for print advertising, does anyone out there still read a media kit?

The current arguments I get from sales for having a Media Kit is "everyone has one, we need one." As a marketer, who is spending thousands of dollars on printing and calculates ROI that reasoning doesn't fly anymore. I want to know how many people open it...or how many dollars we would lose if we did not have one?

Take Control of Your ROI

I recently read "Web Marketing's Darwinian Secrets" article by Jeff Stibel from Harvard Business Publishing, and while at first I was annoyed, since it completely discredited my marketing degree, there is some truth to what he is saying.


Online advertising has completely changed the way a marketer makes decisions. Rather than spending money to work with creative agency to develop the one campaign that will be the theme of your print advertising, with online you can create thousands of campaigns. Swapping out ad text, and imagery is easy as a flip of a switch. Not to mention, you can collect data in real time, and make adjustments when you see something isn't working.

With this kind of feedback mechanism, marketers now have control over their ROI. It's no wonder more and more advertisers are moving away from print to online advertising.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

...then what is video worth? In the marketing world, $775 million a year and growing. Now, I'm not talking about commercial videos on TV which you purposely use the TiVO to avoid, I'm talking about internet video. Internet Videos have become THE new way of interacting and educating potential clients, and spreading a marketing message especially when you are trying to reach a targeted audience.

Here are a few reasons why so many marketers are putting more and more funds towards internet video.

1. Effective - video ads say more than a static or flash ad in a small amount of space, not to mention they catch your eye and make you jump if your speakers are turned up too loud. In a nutshell, they draw more attention and therefore make the end-user click.

2. On-Demand - internet videos are always there at the perfect time. Users can watch when they want to watch, and at the pace they want. Some videos even allow for jumping around to different subject material.

3. Viral - people are much more likely to pass around a cool video than a boring article. A couple perfect examples of this are the Mac vs PC videos and now the new Office 07 videos.

If you are interested in jumping on the bandwagon, the CompareNetworks production group currently offers several forms of online videos: Demo Videos, Audio/Video Slideshows, and Viral Videos. Just shoot me an email if you would like more information.

Interesting article on videos from BtoB, "Picture this: Online video generating excitement".