Well, it is almost Super Bowl Sunday and many people are just as excited to watch the commercials aired, as they are the actual game.  Super Bowl ads are probably outside your marketing budget since, the estimated price for a 30 second spot, that reaches about 11 million viewers, is $3.5 million.

I know the Super Bowl will be on at my house, although being in Canada, we miss out on many of the high budget American ads. So what do we do? We search out the advertisements and end up watching them on the internet.

My favorite commercial from last year is Volkswagen’s The Force.

I suppose I can relate. I have a son and husband who are obsessed with Star Wars, and who both “force” open the automatic doors at department and grocery stores.  But I can’t be the only one relating, since the VW video of the commercial on YouTube has almost 50 million views.  That is over 4 times as many viewers as the Super Bowl.  And what is the cost to post a video on YouTube? That’s right, free. I guess you don’t have to pay Super Bowl dollars to get Super Bowl exposure.

Can this sort of viral video internet marketing work for a small business?  Of course!  Even if you don’t have the Volkswagen marketing budget, you can still create buzz on your budget.

Tips for having a video go viral on YouTube

Make funny videos – Use humor to promote your products or services.  People love sharing videos that make them laugh. Animals and babies are very popular.

Make lots of videos – The more videos you make the more chances you have for one of them to go viral.

Make it short – Limit your video to 15 -30 seconds. People aren’t going to stick around to watch a long video and they certainly won’t share it.

Make the title shocking – Make sure your title creates curiosity – make people want to watch.

Choose the best thumbnail – YouTube gives you a choice of a few thumbnails for your video. Be sure to pick the best one.

Promote the video – Use your social media reach to promote and share the video.

Don’t make the video too Ad-like – Your video shouldn’t be a “commercial” – think of it as a teaser to entice people to visit your site.

Don’t worry if your video isn’t professional quality – Most viral videos are shot by amateurs.

Is your company using YouTube to leverage your brand? What are your favorite Super Bowl commercials? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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An email mailing list is an excellent tool for cultivating relationships with potential and existing clients.   So you may be asking, how do I grow my mailing list?  I have put together 9 real world steps you can take to increase email list subscribers.

1. Offer a freebie.

Give your site visitors a reason to sign up for your mailing list. Simply offer a free resource (eBook, Whitepaper, video tutorial etc.) when they subscribe.   Make sure that your freebie is something useful and desirable.    You may need to try several offers to find one that works well for your audience.

If possible include a picture of the bonus they will receive.  A picture will make the offer appear to have a greater value as the visitor can visualize what they will receive.

2. Prominent position – above the fold.

Make sure your offer is in a prime position on your web site.  That means above the fold, so the sign up form is completely visible without scrolling.

3. Make sure your submit button is an effective call to action.

“Sign Me Up!”, “Give it to me!”, and “Instant Access!” are much more effective than “Submit.”  Try using a contrasting color for your button so it stands out against your site.   Green, orange, yellow are all popular colors for grabbing your visitor’s attention.   Notice that PayPal buttons are orange? That is not an accident or a this looks pretty design decision. The orange buttons are a carefully tested marketing strategy.   You may want to try different colors and test what works best for on your website. 
Read more about call to action buttons »

4. Make sure your optin text sells your freebie.

Promote your offer by showing how it helps solve a problem your site visitors might have.  Which offer is more enticing?

OR

The first headline is definately more effective. It identifies a real problem (more leads and sales) and shows that the report will help resolve this.

5. Include a newsletter page with sign up form.

Make sure you have a page on your site dedicated to your newsletter. This will give you an opportunity to optimize your page so it can be found by the search engines. You can promote it to reach your target audience. For example – Toronto Real Estate Newsletter, Web Design News, etc. You may even want to use this page to archive old versions of your newsletter. You can also use this as a squeeze page if you use online advertising to generate traffic for your site.

6. Use an exit pop or slide in pop over.

You may not like pop-overs but they do work.    Most pop-over scripts give you the ability to limit how many times the pop up shows so that it doesn’t become annoying or frustrating for your users.   Use your analytics to determine what page most visitors leave your site and include an exit pop over on that page.

7. Add a sign up form to your 404 error not found page.

Hopefully site visitors don’t end up on this page but if they do turn it into something positive.

8. Remove any unnecessary fields from your forms.

Sure it would be nice to get as much information as possible from your site visitors but too many fields in an optin form can discourage visitors from tilling the form out.  Keep it short and simple, first name, email, maybe last name.   This makes the sign up easier to complete and more appealing and will result in more subscribers.

9. Have a useful thank you page.

Most list management services are double optin so that means your site visitor needs to click a link in their email to verify their email address before they are added to your list.   Use your thank you page to remind visitors what their next steps are:  1 Add your email to their safe senders list.  2. Check their email and verify your address.  3. If they don’t see the email check spam.  Etc..

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So you have set up a Facebook page, Twitter account or have a profile on linkedin… now what? If you are wondering what you should or shouldn’t be posting on your social media accounts, here are some quick tips.

Share Information

Social media isn’t just about entertainment.  People are looking for information and sharing how-to’s, did you knows, or other tips or tricks is a great way to share information without resorting to those boring ineffective links to your products and services.

For example as a web designer – rather than posting something like

“Do you need a website redesign?”  (With a link to my website services)

maybe I could post

“Is the font on your website too small? Did you know that 85% of website visitors use a screen resolution higher than 1024 x 768.” (With a link to my web site services)

The second post is much more interesting and can stimulate a conversation.

Be Engaging

Respond to replies or comments in a timely manner.  Retweet or share other fun and informative information.  Social media is just that – social, so make conversation. Some times this means sharing advice, answering or asking questions and connecting with your followers.

Invite your followers to share their stories.  One of my favorite authors, Vince Flynn, asks his facebook followers to share pictures of them reading his books.  This is a great way for you to get your followers engaged in your brand!

Speck, a phone case manufacturer, has been posting pictures on Facebook that show how their staff coordinate their (Speck, of course) phone cases to their outfits.  This is a really fun way to show the variety of styles of phone cases they have. They have also invited fans to share their photos of matching speck cases.

Quality over Quantity   

It is important to update social media regularly but don’t overdo it.   Followers get turned off by information overload or too much repetition.

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The default size of the text editing box for WordPress posts and pages can be rather small making it difficult to see and edit your text.  There are two ways to increase this box; one can be done on the fly and the other changes the default size.

Change the Text box on the fly.

While you are editing your page or post you can simply drag the box and make it bigger.   Place your cursor on the bottom right corner and click and drag the box to the desired size. This change is temporary and the box will return to the smaller size next time.

Change the Text Box Permanently.  

To change the default size of the text box, while in your dashboard go to Settings > Writing.

At the top of the page you will see an option for Size of the post box < enter how many lines you would like the box to be and then press save changes at the bottom of the screen.

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I recently came across a very neat WordPress print plugin, Print Friendly and PDF Button.   It is easy to use and install and lets your visitor choose between printing the document or creating a PDF file.  The site visitor can also choose to delete blocks of text or hide images, ensuring they are getting the information they want.   The site user interface is top notch and very professional looking.

I found the installation very easy as it is a plugin in the WordPress directory so you can search and install right from your dashboard.   The configuration of the settings was straight forward and easy to. I really liked the flexibility of configuration:

• You can choose from several button or text link types or you can add your own graphic.
•  You can also choose to have the button show up on various locations on the page and you can determine which page types show the button (Pages, posts, archives etc) or you can manually insert the code in your template files .

The only drawback was that the plugin displays advertisements during the printing process but you can subscribe to an Ad-free Pro version.   My client found the ad version sufficient as the ads didn’t interfere with her content in any way.

I was very pleased with this plugin and recommend it for anyone wanting to allow site visitors to print their blog posts.

Note: I am in no way associated with this plugin or  it’s creators and I did not recieve any type of payment for my review.

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You were updating WordPress or your plugins and now your website is stuck in maintenance mode – and you are getting a message that says, “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”

What do you do?

You need to access the root directory of your website using FTP and then just delete the .maintenance file that was created during the upgrade.  This will deactivate maintenance mode  – you may need to perform your upgrades again.

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The default permalink setting for WordPress creates ugly URLs for your pages and posts.  Not only are these default URLs ugly but they are not very search engine friendly. They do nothing to help improve your search engine ranking.

URLs from the default setting look something like this:  

http://www.your-domain-name.com/?p=123

What we want is something like this:

http://www.your-domain-name.com/small-business/5-marketing-tips/

Notice how the URL is keyword rich for a site promoting marketing tips for small businesses? URLs like this are more user-friendly and will help your website perform better in searches.

The structure of this permalink is domain-name/blog-category/post-name.   This way if you ensure your categories and blog titles are search engine friendly, you will end up with very effective URLs for your wordpress website.

How to set your permalinks.

It is really easy to set custom permalinks.

Log in to your WordPress Dashboard.

Go to Settings > Permalinks

Click the radial button for Custom Structure and enter /%category%/%postname%/

Then Press Save Changes.  You are done!

Editing Your Post Slug

If you are using the permalink structure I outlined above it is important to edit down the url or post-slug of long posts names.

When you are editing the post or page, you will see the post slug directly under the Page or Post Title. Just click on the edit button and make your changes.

The post-slug will be created automatically, however you may want to edit it down, especially if you have a particularly long title. For example a post called “5 ideas for a more effective business card every small business owner must know” would have a post-slug created that looks like:

5-ideas-for-a-more-effective-business-card-every-small-business-owner-must-know.

This is obviously much too long!

For a more effective and search engine friendly version this post-slug could be edited down to:

effective-business-cards-for-small-business

Note: your post-slug is an identifier for your post so it must be unique.  If you try to use the same post-slug twice a number will be appended to it. (example: effective-business-cards-for-small-business2)

Technical Notes About Permalinks

The only times I have ever come across issues with using custom permalinks it has turned out to be one of two things:

1. The .htaccess file wasn’t writable.
2. WordPress was installed on a Windows Server. (Which I never recommend anyways).

According to WordPress you should be able to use pretty permalinks under the following circumstances:

• Apache web server with the mod_rewrite module
• Microsoft IIS 7+ web server with the URL Rewrite 1.1+ module and PHP 5 running as FastCGI
• Microsoft IIS 6+ using ASAPI_Rewrite
• Lighttpd using a 404 handler or mod_rewrite

For more on Permalinks visit: http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

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You may have noticed some Quick Response (QR) Codes and other two dimensional (matrix) bar codes cropping up in magazines, on signage, product packaging and many more places.  QR codes are a great tool to help engage your customers and provide immediate access to information and content that can help build your relationship and promote your products and services.
 

This QR code contains my contact information

What is a QR Code?

If you are not sure what a QR code is, they are similar to UPC barcodes, which are used to track inventory and establish pricing at the checkout.  QR codes are 2 dimensional so they are able to hold a whole lot more information than a standard upc bar code does.

What do QR Codes do?

With the use of a camera enabled Smart Phone (iPhone, Android etc) a potential customer can scan the QR code and:

• be directed to your website or a special web page you create for specifically for the QR Code
• the QR code could launch phone applications such as email, Instant Messaging or SMS
• the QR code could share your contact information

What are some real world uses for QR Codes and where would I use them?

• Real Estate / Home Builders – Use QR codes on external Signage so homebuyers are able to scan the code and have immediate access to the property and home details.  Home builders could use QR codes inside model homes to provide more information on construction features or materials and fixture used.
• Add a QR code to your business card to share your contact information and direct users to your website.
• Magazines – The last Sport Illustrated Swim suit edition included QR codes which offered exclusive content, and more  information on the products featured in the magazine.
• Promotional Coupons – Use QR codes to offer coupons or discounts
• The possibilities are endless! I have even heard of companies creating temporary tattoos of their QR codes.

QR Code Generators

Do you want to create a QR code for your small business? Here are some great QR generators:

• http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
• http://goo.gl/ – offers QR code as a bonus
• http://web.scanlife.com/en/
• http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/

Want a QR Reader for Your phone?

Search your app store for a QR reader.  I tried a couple different ones before I settled on the  QR reader for  iPhone from Tap Media.

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Facebook just released new share/connect functionality in the form of Send Button.  The send button enables your site visitors to send your content directly to their friends as a private message.   Unlike the share and like buttons, which post to a users wall, the send message may be more effective as it targets individuals or Groups. Presumably the recipients would have more interest in the content, otherwise why would someone send directly to them?

With the facebook send button, you are able to quickly and easy share private content without having to look up email addresses. The button auto suggests your facebook friends and groups.

How to Add a Facebook Send Button

You can implement the send button by itself or you can combine it with the Like button so they show side by side.

The Facebook Developers site has a nifty tool, which allows you create a send Button for your website – Click here.

Want a combined Like/Send Button? Click here

How to add the Facebook Send Button toWordpress

There are already plugins cropping up which will help you add Facebook Send to your site: Facebook Send Button Plugin

Or, if you are more a do-it-yourselfer, here is a little snippet of code that you can add directly to your WordPress Theme.  This uses the get_permalink code so add this code to your loop so that each post can be shared with the send button.

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=APP_ID&amp;xfbml=1"></script>
<fb:send href="<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>" font="arial"></fb:send>

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Usability specialist, Jack Krug sums up web usability in the title of his book, “Don’t Make Me Think”.   That is the bottom line; do not make it hard for your site visitors to find what they are looking for. The easiest way to that is to ensure your web site conforms to some simple web standards.

Site visitors love consistency and will look to interact on your site in the same way that they interact with other websites.  No matter how ingenious or creative you think your web site is, if it does not follow simple web design conventions you are bound to frustrate site visitors.  Frustrated or confused visitors will bounce off to a new site.

Logos

Your logo should be on the left side of the header and usually for on the left (provided your target market reads left to right).  Site visitors will use your logo to identify your company.

Make your Logo a link to your homepage. For what is worth, bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to Logos.  Your logo should be clear and readable but it should not take up much valuable space on the webpage.   For guidance, look at the size of the logo on major websites like amazon, facebook, and paypal.

Links

Change the color of your text links so they standout from other text.

Typically, you should underline links although more and more sites are only using the underline on mouse over.  (As an aside, you should not underline anything that is not a link – it only confuses visitors into thinking your links are not working!)

Make sure visited links are different color.  This is helps your site visitor identify which pages they have already visited.

Navigation

Keep your navigation consistent throughout the entire site and on every page.

Breadcrumb navigation should be at the top of the site.

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