Web 2.0 power house Google has announced another product that is sure to give the existing market a run for its money, Google TV.
Google TV promises to deliver the power of Chrome to your television set via a little wifi box (that I’m guessing will be similar to the Roku) in Fall 2010. It will feature a full-fledged Android market starting in 2011.
Google TV will allow users to watch Youtube and Netflix instant streaming from their television sets. Oncemore, Google TV pledges “unlimited access to the entire internet” which promises to bridge some of the limitations of the Roku player.
But wait a sec, is anything going to be different or better about Google TV? Google TV Ads (TV advertising from the Adwords platform) has yet to ink a deal with Hulu or any of the major TV networks, so chances are you won’t (at least right away) be able to stream any of that stuff from your GTV player. Hulu currently blocks its shows from being accessible via the internet browser on gaming stations, and all signs point to a similar situation with the GTV player.
How To Set Up Passive Income Websites, Webinar With Adam Short- Entrepreneurs Journey(ed note: this may not be for everyone, but I think the concept is innovative so I’m sharing it)
“Viral” is a huge buzz word these days, and corporations have caught on to what used to be reserved for embarrassing childhood memories or random fun with your tiny dog. It seems like a magic marketing formula; make a low-cost, easily produced video and bam! Get one million views and score thousands in sales (with a HUGE ROI) overnight.
There are, however, some big flaws in this thinking. There’s often no way of knowing whether or not a piece of content will catch on, and even if it does, it’s difficult to link to your brand or convert the buzz into customers or followers.
Jordan Cooper explains on Copyblogger why viral content becomes so popular: “Content goes viral simply because it’s as fun (or even more fun) to share than it was to originally consume.”
I did an interview via email with Beth Colla of the LA based mobile Lake Street Creamery about her accidental viral sensation that she posted on Youtube June 11th. Beth and Tim’s cat had kittens, they put a tiny hat on the kitten, and they were filming when this tragic kitty slap occurred:
Today I came across this really great video on Daily Blog Tips, turning traditional motivational thinking on its head. The video is adapted from speaker Dan Pink, who says that scientific studies prove that money is not the biggest motivator for success. In fact, large monetary rewards can actually hinder performance when it comes to complex cognitive tasks (ie, things that require brain power and not physical power).
Yesterday, I was sitting in a coffee shop, with a Google task bar full of work to complete and I was unable to do any of it. I just stared at my computer screen completely overwhelmed by my situation, and wondered how it was that I came to be in that particular predicament at that moment.
As an entrepreneur, and I get overwhelmed almost once a week. However recently, this overwhelm was become paralyzing, rather than being motivated by my fear, I was left incapacitated. Enter my full-fledged existential crisis.
All kinds of self-doubt passed though my mind, I kept thinking if m goals and dreams were really worth so much worry, if I really knew what I was doing, if I should just throw in the towel and succumb to my terrible, cubicle fate.
I decided that my real problem is not that I don’t work hard or don’t try, its that I’ve got so many projects going on at one time that its impossible for me to devote enough time to the thing that I am really passionate about: helping other entrepreneurs through the arduous and sometimes terrifying challenges of stating a new business.
I’ve decided to re-focus on this blog, to really devote myself to it wholeheartedly give myself 6 months to get 1000 subscribers or I’m moving on to other things that the universe has planned for me.
I write this today because I know that every entrepreneur has gone though a similar crisis at least once before deciding to give up or continue on with their dream. I’ve gotten out from under my crisis and I wanted to share the steps with you of how I did it:
I’ve got a half off coupon for hosting from justhost.com, I use them to host this blog and I thought I’d see if any of my readers wanted it. Its valid for 10 more hours and it means your hosting that would normally be about $6 a month is only $3. Email me at info(at)marketorious.com if you want it : )
One thing’s for sure, it’s tough out there. Despite the fact that the recession has officially ended, the second quarter can be difficult for a lot of retailers: Holiday season sales are over and its not quite summer, there are very few gift buying holidays coming up. Depending on your industry, you may have to give shoppers an extra push to turn them into buyers. These are some of the best tips and tricks I have to optimize your website to increase conversions and turn casual browsers into real shoppers.
Remove the barriers to buying: Think of all the reasons consumers would have doubts about purchasing from you: getting the best price, worrying that the product might not be right for them are things buyers think about before they click the buy now button. Address these issues; Money back guarantees or best price guarantees ease the fears of potential buyers.
Create a limited time offer: Verbiage like “Limited Time Offer”, “Blowout”, and “Outlet Sale” create urgency. Using “Today” rather than “List Price” or “Sale Price” implies that the price could change at any time, so your buyers should lock in deals now. Also, a little javascript coding can go a long way. Placing some code that says “This price is guaranteed until 11:55 pm on [Today’s Date]” where today’s date changes automatically creates the illusion that the regular price could expire or change soon.
Recently, I went to an Innovations in Search Marketing networking event put on by SEMPO San Francisco where some major players from Google, Yahoo and Marin Software presented how marketers and businesses can use new search marketing features to reach their audience better. There were lots of reps from huge corporations in the audience: brand name companies with big marketing budgets. One thing I realized is that there was nothing in the presentations that small businesses couldn’t learn to use just as well as the big corporations. All the new tools that search engines are rolling out to make search more relevant for the user are things that you use to market better and lower your bottom line. Note that some of them are still in beta testing, so it may be a couple of months until they are available to everyone.
1. Mobile Ads- The growth of mobile search has been exponential in the last couple of years and shows no signs of slowing down. Considering that Google controls 97% of the mobile search market, it’s no wondering that they’re seeking to offer ad space wherever possible. Mobile Ads are incredibly easy to enable. Set them up by logging into your Adwords account, going to the Campaign Settings tab, and clicking on Devices.
2. Mobile Coupon Plusbox- This Google feature is in limited beta testing right now, so I don’t have any screen shots of it, but it’s meant to be a feature on mobile search where a coupon is embedded into mobile advertisements, and consumers can redeem the coupons directly by showing them in store. This is part of Google’s effort to track online to in-store conversions. This feature will soon be available for all verified local merchants. Merchants can enable the feature by logging into their Local Business Center, adding a coupon, and then syncing up their local addresses with their Adwords account under the Campaign Settings Tab.
I’ve got some good news and some bad news: You can ethically spy on your web competitors. You can find out their number of visitors, the demographics of those visitors, exactly which sites are linking in their site, when they started their site, if they have a good SEO campaign, which keywords they rank well for and even more. You can steal their tricks, learn from their methods, and ultimately overtake them in the quest for search engine domination. The bad news is, they can see all this information on your site as well. Part of having good SEO is knowing how to extract information from competing sites, analyzing it, and using it to climb the rankings. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to have access to this valuable data, its free and available to anyone who wants it. There are a myriad of clever tools to help you extrapolate and analyze your competitors sites quickly and easily.
Google Keywords: One of Google’s flagship tools, the keyword generator is officially meant to show you keyword CPC and competition for Adwords, but it can also be used to tell you which keywords your competitors are using to rank well and can give you some great keyword ideas as well. Just enter your competitor’s website into the website feature, and presto, keywords!
Yahoo Site Explorer: One of the most common mistakes for people new to SEO is that they use the “link: examplesite.com” feature in Google to check the number of backlinks to their competitors sites. The problem with this is that Google only indexes a fraction of the actual number of backlinks to a site in their search engine. To get a much better idea of the actual number of backlinks to your competitor’s site, it’s better to use Yahoo Site Explorer to show you all of your competitor’s inbound links, which you can then go after yourself.
Google PageRank: Google ranks site quality based on a simple 1 through 10 metric called PageRank, with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst. Google and Facebook are two of the only sites with a 10 PR, and a PR of 4 or above is considered a good quality link partner. PR number is based on several factors including number of inbound links, the site age, and the internal link structure. While PR is a very quick way to determine the quality of a site (say to identify potential link partners) it also isn’t the only factor you should focus on. Google only updates this metric every 6 months or so, and some sites that rank well in search results can have only an average page rank and visa versa.
So, you’re considering starting a new website, great job. Building a website yourself (or hiring someone to do it for you) is a great way to expand an existing business or start a new one. I’ve been an online entrepreneur for quite some time and I’ve learned some hard lessons with my experiences. The one thing I know for sure (as Oprah would say) is a website without marketing might as well not exist. The days of if you build it they will come are long gone. These days, you need a solid marketing plan and budget before launching a new site or it could end up costing you a lot of money while your site languishes at the bottom of search results with very little traffic.
It’s very easy to pour tons of money into Adwords straight off the bat without thinking too much about it. What does it matter if your average CPC is .25 cents as compared to 5 cents? It’s just a 20 cents. The difference is that click is 5x more expensive then you would have spent otherwise. Compounded over an entire marketing campaign, that .20 cent difference can add up to hundreds or thousands more dollars than you ever intended to spend. Be disciplined, stay within your budget and learn to use PPC advertising methods well. Also consider the myriads of ways you can promote your site for free–social networking, writing articles, affiliate programs etc. are great strategies (all of which I will be writing about in the near future).
Forming a marketing plan doesn’t have to be something dry and complicated; it’s merely a document that gives you an outline for how you are going to move forward.
Some simple questions you can ask yourself to help form a marketing plan:
Web 2.0 power house Google has announced another product that is sure to give the existing market a run for its money, Google TV.
One thing’s for sure, it’s tough out there. Despite the fact that the recession has officially ended, the second quarter can be difficult for a lot of retailers: Holiday season sales are over and its not quite summer, there are very few gift buying holidays coming up. Depending on your industry, you may have to give shoppers an extra push to turn them into buyers. These are some of the best tips and tricks I have to optimize your website to increase conversions and turn casual browsers into real shoppers.
I’ve got some good news and some bad news: You can ethically spy on your web competitors. You can find out their number of visitors, the demographics of those visitors, exactly which sites are linking in their site, when they started their site, if they have a good SEO campaign, which keywords they rank well for and even more. You can steal their tricks, learn from their methods, and ultimately overtake them in the quest for search engine domination. The bad news is, they can see all this information on your site as well. Part of having good SEO is knowing how to extract information from competing sites, analyzing it, and using it to climb the rankings. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to have access to this valuable data, its free and available to anyone who wants it. There are a myriad of clever tools to help you extrapolate and analyze your competitors sites quickly and easily.
So, you’re considering starting a new website, great job. Building a website yourself (or hiring someone to do it for you) is a great way to expand an existing business or start a new one. I’ve been an online entrepreneur for quite some time and I’ve learned some hard lessons with my experiences. The one thing I know for sure (as Oprah would say) is a website without marketing might as well not exist. The days of if you build it they will come are long gone. These days, you need a solid marketing plan and budget before launching a new site or it could end up costing you a lot of money while your site languishes at the bottom of search results with very little traffic.
