Digital Media Design & Marketing Blog

Electronics at Tiget Direct

January 30th, 2007 admin

I personally live in Cary, NC, for that reason I have the chance to go directly to Tiger Direct’s store in Raleigh. Nevertheless I also have used their website and I strongly recommend it before actually buying almost anything electronic. Specially LCD monitors. So anyhow, here are my recommendation links from Tiger Direct:

The secret of high return keywords with Google Analytics

January 30th, 2007 admin

Google Analytics can be used to further investigate the behavior of your users online. In this session we will find a simple yet useful way to reveal what keywords are bringing the most value to your site. This is critical since by discarding the non-profit generating keywords you will optimize your resources thus creating more return.

Let’s start by saying that you want to always document all the changes that you make in your internet marketing strategies including seo, sem and ppc. The key to effective analytics is to pinpoint what changes are the most relevant and keep changing in that direction.

Back to business:

google-analytics1

  1. Open your Google Analytics account and go directly to your profile view. For the purpose of this session we assume that you already have the GA code installed in your site and that you know how to move around the different dashboards.
  2. Switch your dashboard to Marketer View.
  3. Click on > Overall Keyword Conversion
  4. Click to open the comparison calendar view. google-analytics2
  5. In the upper calendar select the current month, in the lower calendar automatically you will see the previous month.
  6. Organize your keywords by number of visits and locate the keywords with the highest $/Visit
  7. Those keywords will represent the most profitable keywords for your site.

google-analytics3

Remember that these keywords are taken FROM YOUR SITE. This technique is useful in determining what keywords don’t deserve your time and which ones could be used with a higher budget.

  • TIP: If you are using content targeting. Don’t just focus in the amount of traffic that it brings. Also pay attention to the conversions that occur thanks to the traffic generated by your content targeting. If you notice that your conversion points grow following a pattern be careful, you might be receiving click fraud visitation.

Alex Centeno MBA.

Alex is a professional digital media marketing specialist, president and CEO of the International eMarketing Corp.S.A. With more than 5 years in Search Engine Marketing experience he has provided online marketing services for dozens of international clients in the US, Europe and Central America.

iPhone Marketing.

January 26th, 2007 admin

By taking a look at Google’s Zeitgeist Archive, I realized that one of the most popular searches during the month of January 2007 was iPhone. Try .Mac today

iPhone is a slick small telephone/ipod/communications interface that finally puts in our hands the adult life version of a PSP. It makes absolute sense that as grown ups we still want to have toys to play. I personally like the way it looks and it seems like the interface (touch screen) would make it very easy to navigate.

But what is the main lesson behind the internet marketing of this product? Simple, the iPhone will not be available until June 2007! So that means that the announcement, the website, the features, the public relations and even some advertising is being performed more than 6 months in advance.

Most internet marketing should be a reaction of the companies pulling direction, not vice versa. The truth is, in most cases people first develop their websites and then they start search engine optimization, or search marketing or pay per click. I believe that with a congruent internet marketing strategy, a website should only be a part of the other online promotion strategies.

My recommendation is that next time you have a desire to build a web site, STOP; first research your market. come up with a good marketing strategy and then if you need a web site, build one.

* Extra Tip. Apple is also offering personalization of all their products. Why? Because once you build a new product and an important sales-pull is created, then the natural inclination is to personalize. Take for example the high school kids: You see them all wearing the same kind of cloths, maybe the same brand, but each one looks a little different(not too much). Why? Because they all want what everybody wants, but they also want to be unique. Bold move from Apple, since most of the time personalization is offered by other companies. Take a look at the personalization of the iPod nano: Get an iPod nano Personalized with Free Engraving at the Apple Store

.Mac (Apple Computer, Inc.)

Digital Media Services for Christian verticals?

January 21st, 2007 admin

Merkados has launched their latest service online. This time is directed towards the ecclesiastic vertical. http://www.supersermon.com .

For quite some time now I have thought of new media services for Christian churches. So many times I have had the chance to go to a Non-denominational Christian service and feel that Christians are getting better in providing an inviting experience for the non-believers.

Even though I don’t want to sound controversial, I also understand that marketing is involved in the successful administration of a church. Now, so many people say: “NO, the gospel is in no way related to business”, but the truth is that administration is administration. If a church, as any other organization, hasn’t enough revenue to pay for its bills and sustain growth then it will deteriorate its own chances of survival in the long term.

According to the Bible we are called to be good administrators of our talents and to make the most out of them. Does that mean that Christian services should be inviting and friendly to the visitor? Should smaller groups be the way to provide nourishment to the already spiritually mature? You better believe it.

Independently of your religion and personal belief, I am sure that you enjoy a well organized, well orchestrated message. No matter if it is in a church or a motivational seminar, bad preparation and lack of public speaking experience can interfere in the message.

Some of the most amazing motivational speakers of this nation have been pastors; take for example Martin Luther King.

I hope that with this new set of services we can help Christian churches in Raleigh do their job: to share the gospel.

What makes greatness? Take an Ipod for example.

January 18th, 2007 admin

Ipod is a revolutionary technology that changed the way people lived. But how did Steve Jobs and his crew come up with this solution? The answer is simple:

1. Observe people. The first step is critical and most of us miss the billions of opportunities that come our way every day. People often show their desires out widely. You can see everyday people walking, talking, doing, being, crying, laughing and more. When you see how they behave and understand why they do what they do, then you can make a difference in their lives.

2. Take the current answers and turbo-charge them. Every problem has its blessing. Cds hold too little amount of songs. Cd players are too big (not portable). Mp3 CD players were the previous solution. But how about battery time? And how about having to carry all those Cds? How about transferring the music to the CDs? There is always room for improvement, always.

3. Take calculated risks. Put your money where you put your thoughts. Hire great people to do great work. One of the biggest mistakes of small business owners is that we are so afraid of loosing the little that we have that we don’t use it to leverage ourselves. Commitment is powerful on its own. When you see 50% chances of a positive outcome then go for it, your determination alone will make things work in the long run.

4. Only do the best. Don’t test the markets or your clients with crappy work or products. If you see opportunity, build a complete system around it and make it the best it can possibly be.

As an internet marketing consultant I have had the opportunity to work with businesses both revolutionary and boring. Some web sites take somebody else’s ideas and try to profit from what they call intensive marketing. In reality internet marketing starts in the desires, preferences and wants of people. Ipods are so successful not because of their promotional efforts but because their marketing started in observation.

If you are an internet entrepreneur, take a second away from affiliate programs, surveys, writing in blogs, multi-level networking and everything else; now take a deep breath, go outside and look at the people.

You will be amazed.

Alex Centeno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs

.Mac (Apple Computer, Inc.)

7 Free Essential SEO Tips for Web Designers

January 6th, 2007 admin

To design and to build great websites is getting easier and easier every day. However, the best web designers that I know come from a graphics design background. Having that in mind, I have prepared this seven essential search engine optimization tips to help those web designers maximize their value to their clients. Here they are:

  1. Make a fast keyword research before starting. I am sure that most professional designers have a planning stage where they gather all the copy, pictures and information from their clients. This step has to include a gathering of at least the top 10 keywords that people would use to search for that particular website. There are free tools out there such as Overture and Google Suggest that can help. This is important because this can help you prioritize the content in coherent sections.
  2. Include your keywords in your filenames. Instead of using the company’s or client’s name in the naming convention, use your keywords. Most designers would love to have extra time to go picture by picture after the design is over to rename them with appropriate keywords, but the truth is that this is time consuming and most designers don’t do it. By including your keywords in your file naming conventions you provide SEO value while you are not using extra time.
  3. Use custom Meta-tags. Templates are a great way to get your websites up and running in no time, nevertheless in SEO world, repetitive tags don’t work. Try to use relevant and unique meta-tags for each of your pages. Use the four important meta-tags in each page: Title tag, Description Tag, Keywords Tag and Robots Tag. In this keywords keep readability and marketing in mind and remember to use your keywords wisely.
  4. Top-bottom rule. Keep in mind that the spiders crawl websites from top to bottom. I have seen numerous websites where the web designer has placed 1000 lines or more of JavaScript, Css or JS code right in the home page before any of the “real content”. This means that the spider will spend a lot of effort discarding this information and getting to the real juice of the page. The work around is incredibly easy: html includes. Make a “call” to those scripts in the page and create separate files for each script.
  5. Consistent code writing. Even though most SEOs agree that this is not mandatory to validate your code for XHTML, HTML or XML standards, I suggest taking the extra time to revise your code to make sure is consistent. For example, if you decide to use XHTML strict then make sure that you are closing every single tag. This recommendation will save you time and effort in the future./li>
  6. Use text wisely. The one most important element in search engine optimization is text. If you have original and compelling copy for your client’s website you have already won 80% of the SEO battle. Don’t repeat your content in different pages to make it look full. Use at least 250 words per page and place your content up in the page as possible. I would suggest using as much CSS as you can, but I understand that transitioning from table design to CSS takes time. Use headings to increase readability and bullets for key aspects; keep in mind that most people read around 300 words per minute, even less when they read in the internet (they are reading in a screen), so be brief and clear.
  7. Design a congruent structure. What I mean by this is: Start by understanding your client’s business and its client’s needs, then and only then, define what is important for the home page, what is important for second level and what is left. Once you know what is most relevant then keep that content no further than a click away from the home page. If the website you are designing is smaller than 1000 pages then it is ok to keep your files directly in the main level directory. If your website has more, then create subdivisions according to clients’ expected behavior in the site. For example if it is an ecommerce site you might want to create a directory for support and another one for sales. The main recommendation is don’t create directories that would end up looking like this: home/public_html/services/fast-services/printing/color/photographs/index.html, instead do something like: home/public_html/services/color-photograph-printing.htm

Consider these recommendations in your projects and I assure you that your clients will love the extra value that basic Search Engine Optimization can bring to their business. Also remember that there is way more to SEO than just this, but your search engine marketer will appreciate the effort you have made in making things a lot easier for him.