What would your reaction be? Wide-eyed disbelief? Exclaimed profanities? Questioning the meaning of the word “owned” in this context? Let’s hope you never have to find out. Better yet, let’s make sure you never have to by practicing these five website security habits.

1. Use secure passwords. I won’t lead you through the cryptography behind it, but most secure passwords are unique, long (14+ characters), and nigh indecipherable. I’m talking about strings of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters that don’t even remotely resemble real words. Use unique passwords for every aspect of the site, including all of your domain registrar, control panel, email, FTP, database, and CMS accounts. Store them all in a utility like KeePass to make them easy to manage.
2. Keep your software up to date. Popular web platforms like Drupal and WordPress tend to develop vulnerabilities that are quickly patched with new releases. However, these patches can’t protect you unless you keep the software up to date. This applies to your site’s core software as well as any plugins or extensions you may be using. You should schedule time to review and, if necessary, update your site’s software on a weekly or monthly basis.
3. Use SSH instead of FTP. Standard FTP transmits information as plain, unencrypted text, allowing anyone on the same network to eavesdrop and learn your FTP login credentials no matter how secure they might be. For this reason, whenever possible, you should log into your site through SSH instead.
4. Perform regular backups. Assuming all of the above isn’t enough to keep a hacker out, backups ensure that your website is recoverable if your site is ever compromised. This includes the files on your web server as well as the information in your database. Automating this is fine if you can pull it off. Just be sure to perform these backups regularly, weekly if not more frequently. Backups should be archived as well, either monthly or quarterly, just in case the current backup itself is ever compromised.
5. Test your site regularly. Whether you use automated software or do it by hand, you should perform regular tests of your site’s important functionality. This ranges from simple uptime monitoring to form submissions and the like. Testing allows you to detect when problems occur, which could be evidence of a simple server failure, a glitch, or something more malicious like compromised code, all of which you’ll want to know about as soon as they occur.
    

It’s important to realize that no system is perfectly secure, so problems can still crop up even if you follow every one of these recommendations. Imagine, for instance, if your website is on a shared hosting environment and your web hosting provider is hacked. In that sort of a situation, there’s really nothing you can do to prevent it short of picking a different hosting provider.

The point is to plug all the holes you can. 99% of the time, when your site is hacked, it’s because you weren’t doing something on the list above. And even in the other 1% of the time, your site should still be recoverable from backups. In any event, you’re covered.

Worried about this sort of thing? Need an expert to help you out? Read about Bold’s WordPress Site Maintenance service.

Isn’t it amazing how quickly three years can go by? I guess it’s true what they say; time flies when you’re having fun. Thanks to everyone on the Bold team who make the company all that it is, and to all of our wonderful clients who keep us in business doing what we love to do.

Automated cross-posting is a great way to promote your blog posts. However, some platforms are easier to automate than others. For example, on a typical WordPress blog connected to a Twitter and Facebook account, I like to use the TweetSuite plugin and the Twitter Facebook App. It’s not the most scalable solution, but it’s easy to implement and works well for those specific needs.

Not all setups are so simple. Let’s say you want to cross post to a Facebook fan page rather than a profile. Sounds easy, right? After all, it’s fairly trivial to post to a profile.

Far from it. As it turns out, the path to Facebook fan page integration is a bit more complex. Here’s what we used for Bold.

1. Install the Shorten2ping plugin. Download, install, and activate the plugin as normal. In the settings, set “Send Notification to:” to Ping.fm. Keep the page open; you’ll need to add more information in a minute.
    
2. Setup your Ping.fm account. If you don’t already have an account, you’ll have to sign up for one. Once you’re signed in, copy your API key and paste it into “Ping.fm API Key” field in the Shorten2ping settings in WordPress.
    
3. Connect your Facebook fan page. This is where things get complicated. Thankfully, Ping.fm has a handy guide to the whole process. I won’t repeat it here since it’s likely to be updated in the future. A word of caution: Follow the entire process carefully. It’s easy to slip up and miss something important which can render the whole setup worthless.
    
4. Sign up with Bit.ly or Tr.im. Shorten2ping integrates wtih URL shorteners, but you’ll need to get an account with one first. It takes five minutes and is pretty indispensible in the 140-character world of tweets if you should choose to integrate Twitter as well.

That’s it. You’re done. Submit a test post and watch it propagate effortlessly into your Facebook fan page. If you don’t see it show up, it’s probably a problem with the Ping.fm Facebook app setup. Double check the guide.

It’s worth noting that integration with Ping.fm makes this setup able to scale to multiple platforms beyond Facebook. If you really wanted to be masochistic, you could set up your Ping.fm account to push your posts to all 40-odd Ping.fm-supported platforms. Excessive, perhaps, but who are we to judge your pathological narcissism social media strategy.

Join Adam Schultz, CEO of Bold Interactive as he teaches you how to get to know the tools and strategies you can use today to use the internet in salable and cost effective ways to get more customers, take care of ones you have and establish yourself as a market leader locally and nationally.

Read more details on the official event page, check the map below for directions, and check back here later for videos and materials from the presentation.

Bad news: Your web team says the site has to go down for maintenance. For several hours in the near future, your company’s presence on the web will be invisible to any potential customer.

Good news: You get to choose when the maintenance occurs, which gives you the opportunity to predict the period of time when it will have the least impact.

The only question is, when is that? Google Analytics won’t tell you… at least, not without a little cajoling.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Log into Google Analytics.
2. Go to Visitors > Visitor Trending > Visits.
3. Use the date drop-down to select a roughly representative time period. Several weeks or months of steady traffic should do the trick. I like to start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday to ensure a uniform count for each day of the week.
4. Next to “Graph By:”, select the Day icon.

5. Here’s where it gets tricky. Click Export and select CSV. Open the file in Excel.
6. Find a few open cells off the right. For each day of the week, enter a formula of the form ‘=SUMIF(A:A, “Monday*”, B:B)’. This should give you total number of visitors for each day of the week for the time period you entered.
7. Go back to Google Analytics. Next to “Graph By:”, select the Hour icon.
8. You should now see a sideways bar graph indicating the proportion of visitors who saw the site during each hour of the day. In most cases, this will be roughly bell-curvish, with a trough in the middle of the night and a crest in the middle of the day.



Now all you have to do is choose the day of the week and hour of the day with the least number of visitors. This isn’t perfect, of course; if, for some reason, the hourly averages differ significantly from day to day, the data can be misleading. Major outliers also present problems. For example, if your site hit the front page of Digg one morning last month, it could skew the averages. Thus, it’s best to omit atypical time periods in favor of steady data.

What do you think? Was this post helpful? Do you have follow-up questions? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

]]> http://www.boldinteractive.com/google-analytics-visitor-counts-by-hour-of-day-and-day-of-week/feed 2 http://www.boldinteractive.com/lunch-with-durham-chamber-president-casey-steinbacher http://www.boldinteractive.com/lunch-with-durham-chamber-president-casey-steinbacher#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:30:17 +0000 bold_adam http://www.boldinteractive.com/?p=238 Not too long ago I had lunch with an awesome Durham progress maker, Durham Chamber President, Casey Steinbacher.



She is fairly new to the city but is bringing with her a whole lot of passion, energy, enthusiasm and practical experience. She also has a plan, a pretty damn good one, to help Durham be more effective by creating stronger, higher quality connections within the community itself. It’s about using the amazing talent we already have, just more efficiently, through the facilitation of smart, needs based collaboration. Their new approach to helping Durham business actively and on a one to one basis is precisely what Durham needs.

We need connectors. Not the old school, show up to the thing and talk to everyone until you find something, kind of networking. We need someone to come find us, pull us away from our zone for 5 minutes, ask what we need, then connect us to each other where needs match on a node to node basis. It’s specific, thoughtful, direct, and very valuable.

You need security, these guys over here have it, I’ll introduce you. You need more space, talk to them, they are expecting your call. You need to grow your business online, talk to Bold.

That’s what they are up to over there and I love it. I was apparently their first in what I’m sure will be a long line of out reach efforts on a member by member basis. I am already seeing the benefits of their connections on a number of fronts.

Casey even gave us some great press when she used our lunch conversation to illustrate her new approach. Our lunch meeting wasn’t that long but it was apparently enough because she absolutely hit the nail on the head. Here is the article:



Making Connections…

I had a lunch meeting with Adam Schultz, CEO and “chief thinker” of Bold Interactive and Durham Chamber member last month. Adam is part of Durham’s young creative class. He has built his online marketing company into one of Durham’s most noted. Adam is 30 years old, employs a bunch of young creative types like him and has an intricate network of partner entrepreneur companies that he aligns himself with as projects and clients require.

His sweet spot is helping you construct your online presence around your core values, with tactics that include measurable goals and an ongoing evaluation and monitoring process that nimbly allows you to adjust to stay on target. The company’s mantra – we’re not happy unless we’ve 10-xed your online results.

At Adam’s request, we met and it was one of the first meetings of the Direct Connection program I wrote about in last month’s President’s Message. He wanted to learn more about the Chamber…how he could help us…and how we could help him. I went fully expecting to listen to his business pitch and then give him some advice on what businesses he might connect with.

Much to my surprise, he shared with me his business history, his multiple business goals, and his insight on why our new operating model was the right model and what we should be doing to implement an online presence to support it. He picked my brain as part of an exercise to understand both the Chamber world better, and the Durham world better. Learning, he told me, was paramount to determining goals and tactics. And no tactic was worth implementing if you couldn’t measure it against a goal that defined its success. He needed to learn more.

In the end, I had to interrupt him to ask how I could help him. We were running out of time before my next meeting so I quickly asked a few more questions to better understand his multiple goals and told him we’d get back together. He shared this with me: “My business is dependent not just on my knowledge and expertise, but on my passion for helping people. It took me awhile to figure that out, and I’m now building my business plan around the premise that I can make a healthy living helping people and organizations whose mission it is to help other people and organizations.”

I have since referenced our conversations on many occasions as I now view online marketing from a whole new perspective and new insight to how we all are dependent upon each other to have a healthy business environment. I have twice referred him to members after we engaged in our lively discussion of the power of 10-Xing.

Durham has received two top 10 ratings regarding its location as a hub for the creative class worker. I am just now beginning to understand what that really means. The intellectual capital that exists right here in Durham continues to amaze me – young and old alike.

I am convinced that the creative class culture fits Durham like a warm sock; because what truly defines them is not just that they are smart and creative in their thought process, but that they are passionate in their need to have their work mean something. I have come to learn that creativity is a key character trait of Durham. I am hopeful that we find a way to help Durham welcome and nurture this next generation of smart, caring residents.

]]> http://www.boldinteractive.com/lunch-with-durham-chamber-president-casey-steinbacher/feed 2 http://www.boldinteractive.com/captial-one-connections-free-small-business-webinar http://www.boldinteractive.com/captial-one-connections-free-small-business-webinar#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 18:00:03 +0000 bold_adam http://www.boldinteractive.com/?p=223 Recorded on May 20th. The Capital One Connections Webinar Provides Small Businesses with Essential Tips and Best Practices for Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Downturn

Watch it now:

*Free Registration Required

Moderated by:
Mary Kane, Director of Special Projects for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

Featuring:
Todd Kennedy, Managing Vice President of Capital One Small Business
Adam Schultz, CEO of Bold Interactive and web marketing consultant for the BBB
Richard Oyen, Director of HR and Talent Development for SumTotal Systems

Capital One Small Business this week hosted Connections, a one-hour video webinar providing small business owners with real, actionable tips to help them survive and thrive in today’s economy. On the heels of National Small Business Week in Washington, D.C., the Connections webinar featured expertise from Capital One Small Business, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other partnering organizations. This in-depth discussion and Q&A session was video streamed live and viewed by many small businesses from around the country, representing a variety of industries.

From: http://newsticker.welt.de/?module=smarthouse&id=892535

“We recognize that while small businesses are grappling with financial and credit concerns, they’re also dealing with numerous other challenges ranging from maintaining employee morale to effectively marketing their business in a crowded market,” said Todd Kennedy, Managing Vice President of Capital One Small Business. “The webinar panelists effectively addressed a wide spectrum of small business related concerns, offering real value and support for small business owners that need it the most.”

The panelists provided small business owners with essential tips and best practices designed to help them maintain and grow their business in a down market, including:

Making Yourself an Attractive Loan Candidate
• Ensure your personal and business credit history reports are in strong shape by paying bills on time every time, proactively managing your use of credit, and checking your credit report on an annual basis.
• Develop a solid business plan that clearly outlines how you’ll repay the loan and the collateral you’ll use to personally guarantee repayment of the loan.

Promoting Positive Employee Engagement
• Align goals by making sure employees know the goals and objectives of the organization and ensuring everyone is working on the right things.
• Make employees more valuable to the organization by enabling them to expand their skill set, which adds to their personal talent inventory and can prove beneficial in their career plan.

Ensuring Online Marketing Success
• Build a great website to support customers that anticipates what visitors want, leverages your user’s language, makes information easy to find and develops good calls to action.
• Measure everything on the website by using traffic analysis tools like Google Analytics and take advantage of click data for better lead generation and conversation.

“On a daily basis, I witness first-hand the immense challenges that U.S. small businesses are facing,” said Mary Kane. “The Connections webinar has helped arm small business owners throughout the country with valuable knowledge needed to weather the storm and persevere.”

To view an archived version of the Capital One Connections webinar in its entirety, including the Q&A period, and the full list of small business tips:


Watch it now:

*Free Registration Required

]]> http://www.boldinteractive.com/captial-one-connections-free-small-business-webinar/feed 0 http://www.boldinteractive.com/bold-interactive-ceo-adam-schultz-to-speak-at-the-capital-one-connections-webinar-on-may-20 http://www.boldinteractive.com/bold-interactive-ceo-adam-schultz-to-speak-at-the-capital-one-connections-webinar-on-may-20#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 03:51:39 +0000 bold_adam http://www.boldinteractive.com/?p=193 Adam Schultz will speak about Social Media and Effective Online Marketing for Small Business at a webinar hosted by Capital One.

When: Wednesday, May 20 at 11 am ET
Where: Streamed live from Washington, D.C.
Sign up: Click Here To Register – It’s Free

The discussion will be moderated by Mary Kane of the National Chamber of Commerce

Other panelists include:
• Todd Kennedy, Managing Vice President, Capital One Small Business
• Richard Oyen, director of HR and Talent Development at SumTotal Systems




From http://www.bbb.org/us/article123/

The Capital One Connections webinar will be held on Wednesday, May 20 at 11 am ET and will be streamed live from Washington, D.C. on the heels of National Small Business Week. The webinar will feature expertise from Capital One Small Business, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and other small business thought leaders, and will include an in-depth Q&A session to allow attendees to submit questions online.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our nation’s economy, and right now, these businesses are suffering,” said Todd Kennedy, Managing Vice President, Capital One Small Business. “In these difficult times, there are a lot of questions and few places to turn for answers. We believe small business owners could utilize some guidance, support and recommendations on small changes that will affect big improvements in their business.”

During the Connections webinar, Todd Kennedy, along with Adam Schultz, web marketing expert at Bold Interactive and consultant for BBB; and Richard Oyen, director of HR and Talent Development at SumTotal Systems will address several topics of importance to small business owners including:

• Key Steps for Getting Your Credit House in Order
• Tips for Motivating and Retaining Employees in a Down Economy
• Leveraging Web Marketing and Social Media to Strengthen Your Brand
• How to Measure Website Effectiveness

Learn More Here:
Sign Up Here: It’s Free

]]> http://www.boldinteractive.com/bold-interactive-ceo-adam-schultz-to-speak-at-the-capital-one-connections-webinar-on-may-20/feed 0 http://www.boldinteractive.com/how-to-10x-your-online-marketing-effectiveness http://www.boldinteractive.com/how-to-10x-your-online-marketing-effectiveness#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:44:20 +0000 bold_adam http://www.boldinteractive.com/?p=133 With so many options, reasons and possible outcomes available to you when trying to market your business online, real marketing effectiveness sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. Here is a quick guide on how to keep your head on straight ad avoid pitfalls and distractions. In times like these, avoiding even one pitfall can be the difference between profit and loss.



First off, what is marketing effectiveness?

I define it as the ability for your marketing to consistently, scalably and cost effectively drive your organizational success. Given the 3 major business models online, E Commerce, Lead Generation and Custom Publishing, and to keep things simple, we will just refer to more, better, cost effective Leads, Sales and Subscribers.

That’s more volume, better quality and cost effective meaning you are making more in net profit than you are spending to generate the business.

Essentially, once you know who your market is and what value your product or service has to them as well as your current and planned position in the market, there are only 3 things that matter to successful online marketing:

1. How well does your site turn a visitor into a sale, lead or subscriber.
2. How likely is your advertising to bring you visitors who are likely to become a lead, customer or subscriber.
3. Once an effective channel / landing page combination have been proven cost effective, how quickly can you max out that campaign and scale operations to meet the new demand.




If you are able to triple your effectiveness on any one of those areas you will have effectively tripled your total marketing effectiveness. If you can triple 2 of those areas, you have almost 10xed your results. If you can pull off significant improvements on all 3, you could start to see close to a 3000% increase in your marketing effectiveness. That is to say, It may be possible to increase your online leads / subscribers / sales by 30 times!

Keep your blinders on to these things and don’t let anyone or anything distract you.

PS. Everyone knows that SEO is the bees knees because the traffic is targeted and free, but its not reliable. You can’t actually spend a given amount of money and see a specific, scalable and consistent result. For the purposes of this article, assume that you should be doing all of the SEO best practices at each step. In some cases I will specify what some of them are. If you do everything right, you will be effectively managing campaigns that directly and cost effectively support your business and the SEO will just be gravy because you did everything else so intelligently.

#1. Start with your Site

Your site is the absolute most critical element to all of your online marketing. The ability of your site to connect the needs of your users to your value is paramount. 80% of this is going to come down to your entry point pages, headlines and calls to action. Depending on where the user is coming from, your site must do 3 things within the first 10 seconds or the user will find someone else to fulfill their need.

1. Show them that they came to the right place and that you have a solution for their need
2. Tell them what they need to do next to begin the process of getting it and make it super easy and super clear
3. Explain why you are the one to do this for them, why they can trust you and why they should take action now.



Be sure to keyword optimize each page, and have a very crawlable site. Try to limit your targeting to 3 phrases per page and never use the same term on more than 1 page. If you want to target more keywords, create more useful content.

TIP: Good SEO landing pages and good PPC landing pages tend to be one in the same when done well. The trick is to build your whole site so that your sub level and tertiary pages satisfy both needs. Geo targeting and vertical specificity is a good thing.

#2. Set Up Site Analytics

Everything that users do on your website can be completely transparent with the appropriate application of a good web analytics package. Once their actions are visible you can experiment with them. Once you can experiment, you can alter your site and targeting in order to change your results! Once you can alter your results, you can take over the world.

Ok, you may not be able to take offer the world but you will be on your way to increased marketing effectiveness.

Be sure to set up goal tracking on every site event that supports your sales cycle so you can track all the ways in which your site is supporting your organization. Google Analytics is an incredible tool that is 90% accurate on volume, 100% accurate on trends and 100% FREE. It’s a great option so long as you are ok with Big Brother getting all up in your stuff. For most of what we are talking about, trend improvement is all we need. GA doesn’t have to track the numbers we care about most for the organization, cost and revenue.

#3. Launch a PPC Account

If you ran a shoe store and sold golf shoes, and someone walked into your store with a sign around their neck reading “Mens Nike Golf Shoes”, would you have any trouble closing that deal? Now what if you could spend money and reliably, scalably and consistently only target people with similarly specific signs around their necks? Would that be pretty awesome? Yea, I think so too.

That’s what PPC can do for you. While its not free, once your site can convert, all of a sudden the cost per click is less important than the cost per sale or cost per lead. If you can turn that golf shoes visitor into a sale 1/5 times by sending them to the Men’s Nike Golf Shoes section of your site, the click costs you $6, and you make $60 profit on each sale, you just spent $30 to make $60. Now let’s assume there are 200 people a week searching for similar terms and you can bring them all into your site as the same cost and with the same result.

Would you do anything else until you had done what you needed to to insure you captured every single one of them? You bet your ass you wouldn’t. That’s what its all about.

#5. Build Out Landing Pages

If you can make that one set of keywords convert on a single destination and tweak the experience into a profit building one quickly and efficiently, why would you do anything else?

Next step build out more landing pages to more specifically target your varied keyword targets. The keyword tells you something about the intent of the user, the page should turn that intent into an action that supports your organization. If the keyword doesn’t specifically speak to the need you fulfill, tweak your ad copy to better qualify the traffic you might get from that keyword.

Ideally, these landing pages will be relevant and useful to your regular site visitors too, if you can build them out in a way that actually makes your site a better overall resource and help further your cause, these pages will make for great SEO.

IE. An IT company may offer special pricing, packages and software to Lawyers or Doctors. Pages on your site that talk about your specialized services to those verticals are good for PPC, SEO and users!

Eventually, the # of people you can target on this kind of campaign is limited. As some point you will run out of people who are actively looking for your products and you will either need to grow your product line or expand your efforts into other channels.

#4. Grow Your Budget And Start AB Testing Headlines And Calls To Action

Landing page optimization from a conversion perspective is mainly won or lost with your headlines and calls to action.

I mentioned it before but it’s important so here it is again.

This is the job of every page on your site:

Show them that they came to the right place and that you have a solution for their need
Tell them what they need to do next to begin the process of getting it and make it super easy and super clear
Explain why you are the one to do this for them, why they can trust you and why they should take action now.

IMPORTANT: This is not just the job of your homepage.

Good SEO and good PPC treat any page as a possible landing page. Traffic can come from anywhere and go anywhere on your site. You must make sure that ever page of your site does those 3 things quickly and efficiently. #1 and #2 are basically handled by the imagery you use, the headline and the call to action of the page. Everything else on your site is part of #3.

Tip: Putting your phone number and a good call to action at the top of the sidebar on every page of your site is a great start.

It’s important to try different things until you find what works. Change a headline for a couple of weeks, alter the color of your phone number, move things around, be creative. Every improvement you make to your conversion rate for a set of keywords or marketing channel is likely going to stick but if you hurt your conversion rate, you can always revert to the last version you had before.

Keep doing what works, and spend more money on it until you can’t, then stop doing what fails. It realy is that simple.

#6. Re-assess Your Site And Re-architect / Redesign If Necessary

Once you know what works and what doesn’t and have identified what I call pockets of success, it’s time to take a step back and absorb what we’ve learned. It is very likely that the site you started with seems somehow segmented, inadequate and less focused than you now realize it should be. Listen to that voice in your head.

If in addition to all of the on line stuff, you have also been paying attention to the total value of each lead, client subscriber and have been tracking them by source, you now have the information you need to identify in general, who your best customers are.

Think about total client value:
Who tends to buy the most stuff or make for long term partners?
What campaigns tend to generate sales of products or services with the lowest margins or require the least amount of support?
What campaigns bring in the largest dollar amounts?

Once you know who your best customers are, where you found them, how you converted them and what they bought, you have everything you need to revisit your core value, take a new look at your web presence and refocus your site to better reflect this new approach. You also know what your best campaigns are and can hyper focus on making those pages that best convert your top clients more prominent in your site and more targeted for your SEO efforts.

#7. Start Online PR / Link Building

Now that you have a much better idea of who you are, who your target is, what they most want in the world, that you help them get it faster and more reliably than your competitors, you are ready to step outside the Pull. (Pull marketing is finding people who already want what you have and bringing them in rather than convincing people who dont know you that they need you. That’s Push)

I don’t mean stop doing the other stuff, keep doing it, keep refining it and keep refocusing it. I just mean that now, you have created an environment that better take advantage of all of your targeted traffic no matter where it comes from (including organic search traffic).

The first place I like to start is with PR. Online PR and offline PR when done well aren’t all that different. You have people interested in an industry, a problem or a passion and your goal is to be relevant and useful enough to get them to want to tell other people about you or allow you to become part of the conversation. This is as true as a guest spot on the nightly news as it is for a guest post on a top industry Blog.

Without getting into too much detail, you need to find the places where people are talking about what you care about, listen, engage and become an active member of the community in a way that brings value to all who are involved. This includes but is not limited to, social media, social networking, blogging, forum participation, traditional pr, event sponsorship, trade organization sponsorship, etc.

You may get to the point where it makes sense to actually create a destination who’s job it is to create such a community. Be sure not to make it about you. It needs to be about them.

Regardless, you need to be sure that you are writing about the topics users care about and linking back to your site where applicaple in a way that brings value. IE. You comment on a blog and link back to an article you wrote months earlier that furthers the conversation in a useful way.

Do not just find a blog and comment, “We do that! Click here!”. You can, but that’s not nearly as useful and might get you flamed or worse, completely ignored.

Tip: Don’t buy links or pay blog networks to write for you. For the same money you can hire a part time writer to write and distribute articles for you that are much more on message and useful to you and your audience.

#8. Start Online Banner Campaigns

Once you know the space, who the players are, who their audience are, why they care about you and how traffic from that site converts, consider banner advertising on some of those sites.

Its a great branding mechanism and if you target well and your banner creative is well informed, they can be quite an effective channel.

This is also a good time to consider affiliate marketing and channel marketing for products.

#9. Keep It Accountable

TRACK EVERYTHING! Know what is happening on your site for every dollar you spend.

I mentioned this before but it’s important so I will say it again.

Keep doing what works, and spend more money on it until you can’t, then stop doing what fails. It realy is that simple.

#10. Keep Finding New Areas Of Opportunity While Maximizing What’s Already Working

Basically, any time you aren’t sure what to do next, refer to #1 and start all over again.

Eventually you will get good enough to know which area required the majority of your time until it doesn’t anymore.

In Closing

I hope this helps you keep your head on straight when trying to navigate the world of online marketing and I will leave you with 3 final nuggets.

1. With everything you do, ask how that thing can be leveraged to gain additional benefit beyond its ability to generate a successful site action. (IE. Keyword rich links from a Press Release)
2. If you aren’t sure its direct value to helping the site generate a specific site action, don’t do it. (SEO benifit alone does not count)
3. If you have gone through this list and still aren’t sure what to do or want to find the path to success and 10x your business sooner than later, call me: Adam Schultz, 919 451 8983 .





]]> http://www.boldinteractive.com/how-to-10x-your-online-marketing-effectiveness/feed 2 http://www.boldinteractive.com/experts-agree-print-advertising-isnt-enough-for-local-marketing http://www.boldinteractive.com/experts-agree-print-advertising-isnt-enough-for-local-marketing#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:54:46 +0000 Stephen Ward http://old.boldinteractive.com/2008/08/01/experts-agree-print-advertising-isnt-enough-for-local-marketing/ A few decades ago, an ad in the traditional yellow pages was enough to get all the local customers your business needed. Just one ad and you were in front of every eye in town at just the right time to get their business. Things were simpler back then.

Then the internet came along.

Ask yourself this? In the past few months, where have you looked for local business information? If you’re like most consumers, “online” is becoming a larger and larger part of that answer. Here’s what the top researchers are saying:

• According to a 2007 comScore study, one third (33%) of consumers prefer the printed yellow pages for looking up local business information, compared to six out of 10 (60%) who prefer online sources like search engines, internet yellow pages, and local search sites.
• According to the 2007 Knowledge Networks/SRI Industry Usage Study, people referenced internet yellow pages sites 3.8 billion times in 2007, up 15% from 3.3 billion in 2006.
• Bill Gates has predicted that printed Yellow Page usage will die off by 2012.
• According to comScore, over 65-million people visited the top four local business search listing sites in December of 2007, nearly 65% more than the year prior.
• Local businesses are recognizing the online trend. According to Borrell Associates, local online spend will reach $13.1 billion this year, up 50% from 2007.

The message is clear: Your customers are getting more and more comfortable with online business listings, and so should your marketing.

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