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Think of the Web like a City

Here's an interesting take on the Web that I found this in David Meerman Scott's book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR. It may help you target and tailor your Internet Marketing message a little differently.

Corporate sites are the storefronts on Main Street peddling wares. Craigslist is like the bulletin board at the entrance of the corner store; eBay, a garage sale; Amazon, a bookstore replete with patrons anxious to give you their two cents.

Mainstream media sites like the New York Times online are the newspapers of the city. Chat rooms and forums are the pubs and saloons of the online world.

You've even got the wrong-side-of-the-tracks spots: the Web's adult-entertainment and spam underbelly.

 

Are SA Motivational Speakers On The Way Out?

Maybe I'm being alarmist, but based on the way the world is searching, the term "motivational speaker" is being used less and less. I picked this trend up from an interesting tool: Google Insights for Search. With Google Insights you can see what the world is searching for. You can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.

Use the tool to type in your related keyword and see what it comes up with. I typed in motivational speaker to see what the results would be for South African search:

1. The best month ever was January 2006
2. It's gone down since then with February 2010 being the next best month (but nowhere near the heights of January 2006)
3. August of every year appears to be the best month for "motivational speaker" search. Could it be because of Woman's Day on 9 August? I know when I still owned a speakers agency, I got a lot of requests for woman speakers around July/August for Woman's Day.
4. Search in June/July was at an all-time-low. This can only be ascribed to the world cup.
5. Johannesburg and the Western Cape are the top searchers for "motivational speaker"
6. The world trend is similar to SA. The decline is just not as steep.

South African Search for Motivational Speaker

Content Strategy: The Key To Effective Web Content

This slideshare presentation by Rick Allen gives you a brilliant blueprint for your content marketing strategy.

Content Strategy: The Key to Effective Web Content

View more presentations from ePublish Media.

The Business Generator, Jacques de Villiers specialises in marketing, Internet marketing, public relations and sales strategy.

Internet marketing SEO Flow Chart

Here's a simple way to look at Internet marketing for your business.

Internet Marketing SEO Flowchart

Jacques de Villiers is a marketing strategist specialising in Internet marketing, public relations and sales.

www.jacquesdevilliers.com has four #1 Google keyword rankings

I recently redid my website and was afraid I'd lose my rankings. To my surprise, I've done way better than expected. On 12 December 2009 I have four #1 positions for my primary keywords on www.google.co.za. [sales training, marketing, internet marketing, public relations]. I've taken screen shots of the rankings and placed them on this blog for posterity because no one will believe me if I told them. I can barely believe it myself.

Of course, there's always a rider to these things. Even though I have a # 1 ranking, I only get 27% of the click-throughs as a result. In other words, if 100 people a day click on "sales training", I'll only get 27 people clicking onto www.jacquesdevilliers.com. So, the trick is to have many keywords related to your business in #1 postions so that you can get more click throughs.

But, in the meantime, I'll savour my brief online victory.

 

Is Your Browser Diminishing Your Brand?

I’ve just redone my marketing website and was pretty chuffed with the result. I got a call from Adolph Kaestner saying my website was a dog’s breakfast and doing my brand a disservice. “Have you been drinking? Because on my screen it looks beautiful,” I replied somewhat whiningly.

It turns out that my website looked great on Firefox, but didn’t stack up in Explorer. It looked horrible. I checked out a couple of fellow PSASA members websites and found that they also had the same issue. Good on Firefox, not so hot on Explorer. So, go now and check what your website looks like on different browsers if you want to keep your brand integrity.

I’d check out Firefox, Explorer (older and newer versions) and Safari. I’m sure there’s a bunch of others. In terms of font, the best one to use is a san serif one called Verdana. Never use Times on a website. Times is for paper and there’s a reason for that, but we don’t have time for a typography lesson now, do we?

Oh, and check out your website on different size screens. If your website is set up in a smaller area it may look tiny on a big 20” screen. Yup, nobody said this website and branding thing was easy.

Business Generator, Jacques de Villiers is a sales training expert.