Have you seen all the amazing new social media / social networking websites that are proliferating lately? I mean, we are already starting to see 'Son of YouTube' and the "outer limits' of MySpace.
Justin.tv is the 'You Tube' of LIVE video streaming. You can easily start your own account, sync up your web cam and bam - you have your own web channel quicker than you can say 'Ted Turner'. It's definitely worth checking out - especially if you have a camera and something to say- travelers - foodies - politicos - business owners - philosophers - I'm talking to YOU.
I happen to be very bullish on live web video ( gee I wonder why? ) and the channel concept that Demand Media is promoting via their Me.TV approach. In fact, unlike some of my friends in the domain industry, I think the .TV domains are greatly undervalued - though they have been getting more attention lately...though not enough to warrant a steep climb in their value.....
yet ( still a good time to invest in them ;-).
Finally - One of my hippest clients - Danny Keith of Skateboards.com - turned me on to Yuwie a website that could turn social networking on it's head. Think FaceBook meets MonaVie. The spin Yuwie brings is the ability for members to make a % of the advertising revenue on page views their content / posts generate. The video spokesperson on Yuwie asks...and I'm paraphrasing...why post on FaceBook or MySpace and make them rich on advertising when you can make yourself some extra money by creating content on Yuwie? Why indeed? There's a 'white hat' multi-level marketing facet to this as well apparently. I'll let you know if this new concept of literal networking is for real or not so.....'STAY TUNED' ( look for our latest Webcast One Video posted next week ).
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Friday, August 10, 2007
It's Web 2.0, Do You Know Who Your Visitors Are?
The New York Post recently published a story stating that online advertising would surpass traditional advertising in dollars spent by 2011, maybe sooner. And Search Marketing (SEO) is the fastest growing form of online advertising with new statistics showing most people start their web experience by searching for a product or service in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, or via directories, such as Yellowpages.com, CitySearch.com, or AreaConnect.com.
But assuming you are wise enough to already employ SEO in marketing your website, do you know what the visitors to your website are doing once they get there? You will be even better served by measuring to some degree all the traffic you are having sent to your site. What actions do visitors take once they come to your website? How many are coming and when? What is it costing to obtain a 'conversion' or 'contact'. You'll know the answers if you have statistical reporting software that provides you with metrics you can measure. Google analytics, Webalyzer, Omniture and Clicktracks are well known forms of of what is now commonly called 'web analytics' software.
Your web analytics or 'hit tracking' software as it was referred to 'back in the day' should provide you or your marketing director with actionable, real-time intelligence regarding your search marketing campaigns. Depending on your software, you should be able to quickly identify and understand how many visitors are going to each of your pages and how long they are staying, which terms visitors used to find your website and from which pages they exit.
The more advanced software allows you to do things like following your visitor's 'click path' through your website, analyze what the search engines see when they visit your website, display where your visitors are coming from via color-coding, show how much you spent to bring the visitor via PPC, show what’s driving critical success events, and display how different segments of visitors interact with your Web site.
Web analytics software provides the foundation for effective online business and marketing decisions through accurate measurement and analysis. If you don't have the time to manage your SEO / PPC campaign or measure the results of your campaigns, then consider letting a Professional Search Marketing Specialist ( SEO or SEM ) take care of this for you on a monthly basis.
But assuming you are wise enough to already employ SEO in marketing your website, do you know what the visitors to your website are doing once they get there? You will be even better served by measuring to some degree all the traffic you are having sent to your site. What actions do visitors take once they come to your website? How many are coming and when? What is it costing to obtain a 'conversion' or 'contact'. You'll know the answers if you have statistical reporting software that provides you with metrics you can measure. Google analytics, Webalyzer, Omniture and Clicktracks are well known forms of of what is now commonly called 'web analytics' software.
Your web analytics or 'hit tracking' software as it was referred to 'back in the day' should provide you or your marketing director with actionable, real-time intelligence regarding your search marketing campaigns. Depending on your software, you should be able to quickly identify and understand how many visitors are going to each of your pages and how long they are staying, which terms visitors used to find your website and from which pages they exit.
The more advanced software allows you to do things like following your visitor's 'click path' through your website, analyze what the search engines see when they visit your website, display where your visitors are coming from via color-coding, show how much you spent to bring the visitor via PPC, show what’s driving critical success events, and display how different segments of visitors interact with your Web site.
Web analytics software provides the foundation for effective online business and marketing decisions through accurate measurement and analysis. If you don't have the time to manage your SEO / PPC campaign or measure the results of your campaigns, then consider letting a Professional Search Marketing Specialist ( SEO or SEM ) take care of this for you on a monthly basis.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Auction of Top Domain Names Held in NYC
The world's largest domain live name auction took place today in New York City. Over 100 of the most desirable domain names changed hands with CreditCheck.com setting the pace, selling for a cool 3,000,000 dollars. A 'silent auction' is still underway and runs through June 27th at http://silentauction.moniker.com.
Dot Coms Continue to Dominate
Fact: of the 50 top selling names in today's auction, 47 were Dot Coms and the other three were .Nets. In fact the great majority of domains sold consisted of the grandaddy extensions of Dot Com, Dot Net and Dot Org. This shows that where big money is concerned, Dot Coms are still considered most valuable with Dot Nets a far off second banana.
Dot Nets do however seem to be holding their own and continue to rise in value with Houses.net ( 75,000 ), Camping.net ( 60,000 ) and Laptop.net ( 40,000 ) leading the charge.
Surprisingly, the chic factor of .Mobi seems to have worn off with only Mortgages.mobi ( 25,000 ) and Laptops.mobi ( 4,750 ) being sold. This is a 'bearish' symbol for .Mobi and could perhaps single the end of the .Mobi craze.
When it comes to the wonderful world of domain names, 'it's a Dot Com after all'.
Dot Coms Continue to Dominate
Fact: of the 50 top selling names in today's auction, 47 were Dot Coms and the other three were .Nets. In fact the great majority of domains sold consisted of the grandaddy extensions of Dot Com, Dot Net and Dot Org. This shows that where big money is concerned, Dot Coms are still considered most valuable with Dot Nets a far off second banana.
Dot Nets do however seem to be holding their own and continue to rise in value with Houses.net ( 75,000 ), Camping.net ( 60,000 ) and Laptop.net ( 40,000 ) leading the charge.
Surprisingly, the chic factor of .Mobi seems to have worn off with only Mortgages.mobi ( 25,000 ) and Laptops.mobi ( 4,750 ) being sold. This is a 'bearish' symbol for .Mobi and could perhaps single the end of the .Mobi craze.
When it comes to the wonderful world of domain names, 'it's a Dot Com after all'.
Monday, June 11, 2007
'The Google Ripple'
"Let it Ripple..."
If you are a business person, chances are you participate in forums or read a blog or two . As you probably know, this is the way to gain 'an edge' or at least become more 'up to date' on the latest news in your specific industry, politics, sports, or Paris Hilton's prison fashions ( I personally enjoy www.DNForum.com - a domain name forum ).
But...have you ever "thrown in your two cents" and replied with a comment to a posting to the blog post or forum post you just read? You may want to think about starting to. Why? I have found posting on forums or commenting on a blog's posting, very helpful in driving extra traffic to my websites and blogs. I call this the "Google Ripple".
The 'Google Ripple' ( I could call it the "Forum / Blog Comment Effect", but the 'Google Ripple' sounds more intriguing doesn't it? ) involves posting 'comments' on blogs and forums that you read. Most of my blog / forum comments are one or two sentence opinions on how I felt about what I just read. What happens after these comments get posted is what interests me and may interest you. References to my comments and posts show up in the Google search engine results pages ( or SERPs as they are called ). I just Googled my name ( come on admit it...you've done it too...your name that is, not mine! ) and was amazed to find some of my postings and comments listed within Google search results. What a great way to quickly drive extra traffic to your website or blog!
So, comments and posts are a great 'gorilla marketing tool' to have in your arsenal. Go ahead, Google yourself or your business. See if the "Google Effect" is 'rippling' for you too!
If you are a business person, chances are you participate in forums or read a blog or two . As you probably know, this is the way to gain 'an edge' or at least become more 'up to date' on the latest news in your specific industry, politics, sports, or Paris Hilton's prison fashions ( I personally enjoy www.DNForum.com - a domain name forum ).
But...have you ever "thrown in your two cents" and replied with a comment to a posting to the blog post or forum post you just read? You may want to think about starting to. Why? I have found posting on forums or commenting on a blog's posting, very helpful in driving extra traffic to my websites and blogs. I call this the "Google Ripple".
The 'Google Ripple' ( I could call it the "Forum / Blog Comment Effect", but the 'Google Ripple' sounds more intriguing doesn't it? ) involves posting 'comments' on blogs and forums that you read. Most of my blog / forum comments are one or two sentence opinions on how I felt about what I just read. What happens after these comments get posted is what interests me and may interest you. References to my comments and posts show up in the Google search engine results pages ( or SERPs as they are called ). I just Googled my name ( come on admit it...you've done it too...your name that is, not mine! ) and was amazed to find some of my postings and comments listed within Google search results. What a great way to quickly drive extra traffic to your website or blog!
So, comments and posts are a great 'gorilla marketing tool' to have in your arsenal. Go ahead, Google yourself or your business. See if the "Google Effect" is 'rippling' for you too!
Friday, April 13, 2007
Web Video Adds Impact
"Why read the web when you can watch it?".
We've all grown up in an environment where most of our everyday information comes from watching video and television. Relatively light work. Until recently, the web required one's 'active' participation....we had to work a little by reading the content. This is because the web has traditionally taken design cues from 'newspaper / magazine' formatting. That changed about 3 years ago with the advent of flash video and shortly after that, the emergence of You Tube.
Now, the savvy website owner is beginning to take advantage of the fact they can easily add video to their websites. What are the costs? You can video tape yourself speaking from your desk ( a 'talking head' ) with a video camera or newer digital camera for very little ( We charge 99.00 per hour to turn your video into the web ready flash video format).
I wanted to show my clients how easy it is to take advantate of the power of web video, so we shot a Webcast 1 'CEO greeting' video in our conference room with a 400.00 camera in under 15 minutes.We then converted the .avi file to a flash video file so it would play instantly on our homepage. I know the video flickers a bit and the sound is tinny, but we were trying to prove a point. If production values are more important, you can produce a short company overview video for roughly 1,500.00.
Adding an instant video ads immediate impact to your website. Visitors stay on your website longer. They can 'humm' your video jingle. They can actually see your employees in action. Your video can even help drive more traffic to your website once you have an SEO get your videos indexed in You Tube and Google Video ( do a search for 'Florida ants' in Google Video and you'll see our client www.bugs.com . We all grew up watching TV, now future generations will grow up 'watching the web'.
We've all grown up in an environment where most of our everyday information comes from watching video and television. Relatively light work. Until recently, the web required one's 'active' participation....we had to work a little by reading the content. This is because the web has traditionally taken design cues from 'newspaper / magazine' formatting. That changed about 3 years ago with the advent of flash video and shortly after that, the emergence of You Tube.
Now, the savvy website owner is beginning to take advantage of the fact they can easily add video to their websites. What are the costs? You can video tape yourself speaking from your desk ( a 'talking head' ) with a video camera or newer digital camera for very little ( We charge 99.00 per hour to turn your video into the web ready flash video format).
I wanted to show my clients how easy it is to take advantate of the power of web video, so we shot a Webcast 1 'CEO greeting' video in our conference room with a 400.00 camera in under 15 minutes.We then converted the .avi file to a flash video file so it would play instantly on our homepage. I know the video flickers a bit and the sound is tinny, but we were trying to prove a point. If production values are more important, you can produce a short company overview video for roughly 1,500.00.
Adding an instant video ads immediate impact to your website. Visitors stay on your website longer. They can 'humm' your video jingle. They can actually see your employees in action. Your video can even help drive more traffic to your website once you have an SEO get your videos indexed in You Tube and Google Video ( do a search for 'Florida ants' in Google Video and you'll see our client www.bugs.com . We all grew up watching TV, now future generations will grow up 'watching the web'.
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