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Internet marketing isn't mysterious. It's the writing, stupid. This is a collection of random thoughts about writing, prompted by someone telling me today that "all you know how to do is write". They were attempting to reduce my price for an SEO project.... Read More »
SEO widows, you know who you are: Your spouse/significant other comes home with a twinkle in their eye because they just "fixed a major spider trap" or "discovered a new component of the Google TrustRank algorithm". Then they leave for a week to... Read More »
Just wrapped up my Conversational Marketing Summit presentation titled 'why does most marketing suck?'. In it, I review: A brief history of marketing, as told by beer. Why and how you should select, rather than accumulate, customers. How you can better listen to... Read More »
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December 1, 2008 by ian
Internet marketing isn't mysterious. It's the writing, stupid. This is a collection of random thoughts about writing, prompted by someone telling me today that "all you know how to do is write". They were attempting to reduce my price for an SEO project. You inspired me! Cheers! Writing is what makes marketing tick. And the folks who think the internet somehow made writing less important in marketing need CAT scans. Great internet marketing starts with copy that's concise. It requires careful thought around linking and structure. And it needs a great headline. Content with a crappy headline is like telling…
Continue Reading 25 Random Points about Copywriting »
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November 28, 2008 by ian
So, Sears, you didn't expect a lot of people on your web site today, the biggest single shopping day of the year? A few minutes later, we saw this: Target is up. So is JCPenney, Costco, Walmart, etc.. Too bad for Sears...…
Continue Reading Sears Surprised by Black Friday Traffic. Cough. »
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November 26, 2008 by ian
SEO widows, you know who you are: Your spouse/significant other comes home with a twinkle in their eye because they just "fixed a major spider trap" or "discovered a new component of the Google TrustRank algorithm". Then they leave for a week to go to some conference, and you get to hear about their drunken exploits on 451 different social media outlets. Worst of all, you have no idea what to get them for the holidays. What the hell do you buy for someone when their greatest thrill is attracting links from .org domains? Well, I'm here to help. As…
Continue Reading The SEO Widow's Holiday Gift Guide: 15 Ideas »
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November 24, 2008 by ian
Just wrapped up my Conversational Marketing Summit presentation titled 'why does most marketing suck?'. In it, I review: A brief history of marketing, as told by beer. Why and how you should select, rather than accumulate, customers. How you can better listen to your audience. The meaning of life. At least as a marketer. I also answer several specific questions about social media, PPC and the like. Here's the recording: You can also see it at full size: Click here.…
Continue Reading Why Does (most) Marketing Suck? CM Summit Presentation »
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November 23, 2008 by ian
I'm presenting at a webinar tomorrow: The Conversational Marketing Summit. My presentation is entitled "Why Does Most Marketing Suck?" A good time will be had by all. I'm on at 4 PM PST tomorrow, 11/24 (Monday). You can sign up here…
Continue Reading Presentation Tomorrow: Conversational Marketing Summit »
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November 22, 2008 by ian
The Elite Retreat is almost totally booked. With speakers like Jeremy Schoemaker, Neil Patel and Gary Vaynerchuk, you'll want to be there. Just FYI: They embargo blogging about the details of the event (from what I understand) so if you're hoping I'm going to write lots of cool stuff to teach you everything, you're out of luck. Go sign up for the Elite Retreat…
Continue Reading Elite Retreat: Seats Almost Gone »
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November 20, 2008 by ian
Note: The following story is what we call character development. Feel free to skip to 'Lessons in Internet Marketing' if you don't like hearing about people who did even dumber things than you did as a kid. When I was 14 or so, I jumped off the roof of my house. Holding a sheet over my head. As a parachute. This proves conclusively that teenagers should be locked up in small cages until their raging hormones allow more oxygen to their brains. I'd assumed, of course, that the sheet would go FUMP and let me drop gently to the ground,…
Continue Reading A Sheet Isn't A Parachute: Lessons in Internet Marketing »
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November 18, 2008 by ian
If you're a copywriter and you write for the web, you've probably gone to the occasional seminar on SEO. Then you walk out with a pounding, piercing headache. You're a writer. You shouldn't have to learn about keyword mining, pagerank and the robots meta tag. You just want to write quality content that search engines will like. That's why I wrote The Unscary, Real World Guide to SEO Copywriting. In it, you'll find: Plain language. The six rules for successful SEO copywriting. Guidelines for good headlines, article titles and link text. How to create highly relevant 'clusters' of content on…
Continue Reading SEO Copywriting E-Book: The Unscary, Real-World Guide »
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November 13, 2008 by ian
At least, take everything they say with a grain of salt. Today, they came out with their 'SEO Starter Guide'. I downloaded it and took a quick look. And I've finally lost patience. So here I go on a Graywolf-style rant: Inconsistencies in the SEO Guide: Dynamic URLs On page 6 they say "Improve the structure of your URLs". The authors point at URLs that have lots of dross like 'mysite.com/folder1/1089257/x1/0000002a.htm' and say that's not user friendly. They're right. What they don't say is that this URL is clearly dynamically generated. No sane human being would create a page address…
Continue Reading Don't Trust Google for SEO Advice »
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November 12, 2008 by ian
Why do internet marketers need to understand segmentation? So they don't act like airlines, of course. That was my topic last night at the SEMPDX Hotseat. I just uploaded my slides, with backup text, to SlideShare. I provide a walkthrough of Google Analytics' new Advanced Segments feature, as well as my thoughts on checked baggage fees: Segmentation = Happiness: SEMPDX PresentationView SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: segmentationanalyticsweb...) Enjoy...…
Continue Reading Segmentation = Happiness: My SEMPDX Presentation »
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