INTERNET MARKETING

It seems like such an arbitrary, ridiculous number.  300 milliseconds; it adds up to about 0.005 seconds, or roughly the amount of time it takes to blink the human eye.  Can’t accomplish much in that scant amount of time, right?  Unfortunately, as researched by Adobe’s Brad Reacher, digital marketers have only 300 milliseconds to make an impression on a visitor before that potential customer loses interest and navigates away. Read more

Building a conversion focused landing page is easier said than done; however, the experts at Unbounce produced this great list of successful Landing Page elements.  Below, we’ve pulled our favorite tips and tricks to provide some useful steps to help you build the most effective page for your product or service.

Step 1. Define & create a relevant reward

No one is going to just give you their personal information without something in return; two great things you can create and use as “digital candy” to gain contact information are: reports and white papers with relevant industry stats, or webinars offering life sessions, Q&A’s, or guest speakers. Read more

With Google rumored to be de-indexing blogs from search engine result pages and the search algorithms in the near future, many people are left wondering as to how to best avoid being penalized. Well it seem that all eyes have now turned to rising superstar blogging platform Tumblr. Read more

After researching guest blog posting for a few weeks, I have come across some pretty intelligent commentary about it. One expert is of the view that guest posting should not be solely looked at as an opportunity to build up your links. If you write a guest post with the sole purpose of increasing your links, then you might end up compromising the content quality in a bid to maximize links. You should try to promote the brand in an over-arching manner and let a few links flow naturally so that you increase your reputation for quality rather than useless quantity. Read more

Ever since its IPO this past May, LinkedIn has intrigued me. I remember watching CNBC with my roommates on that day, watching LinkedIn’s stock price rocket, more than doubling its IPO. The IPO was set at $45 and LNKD reached as high as $122 that day, according to historical data from Google Finance. My roommates and I, all finance/economics majors, joked that there was no way this would last and that shorting LinkedIn would make investors a fortune. While we were correct in saying that the stock could not maintain such a high price, it is still trading at well above its IPO today (LNKD closed at $78 as of 9/30). LinkedIn obviously has established itself as a successful network and more importantly, revenue driver.

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Right now the trend of personalized technology is exploding. From the US release of the personalized music discovery program Spotify to the introduction of the smart book recommendation site BookLamp  it seems as though consumers want their information as personalized as possible. I have wrote several blog posts about how companies are integrating personalization technology into their websites and software (most notably CNN) due to consumer demand. Yet, it seems as though people are not willing to provide marketers with even the most basic information.

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Today US congress is scheduled to meet regarding online privacy rules and regulations. The goal of this meeting is to determine whether or not the United States should implement online privacy laws similar to those enforced by the European Union. Congress intends to examine the impact of the EU regulations on commerce and industry and then decide whether or not to pass similar legislation in the States.

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There was an interesting article in the NY Times today about how slow the internet connection is in Idaho. Apparently, one man lost online capabilities because “bears jostled the signaling towers”. Working in a field like internet marketing I often take the internet for granted. I tend to assume that everyone (at least in the U.S.) is able to peruse Facebook and watch YouTube videos of cats. This article made me realize that in some states using the internet is a struggle if not almost an impossibility.

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It is seldom that I see a car commercial that grabs and holds my attention. This is particularly strange because I love cars. But even for someone like me who enjoys seeing automobiles sweeping through glorious landscapes most car commercials barely make an impact on me. So, I was thrilled by Dodge’s new campaign. For those of you who have not seen it here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmGVUrX_MY4. For this campaign Dodge is doing is leaving one of their new Journey’s somewhere and giving people clues as to how to find it. There will be a car left somewhere in the West coast, Mid-west and East coast (the West coast car has already been found) with a commercial and clues for each. Read more

Google announced today that it just purchased Zagat. Zagat is the world famous restaurant guide that gives eateries scores on a 30 point scale. Restaurant windows wear Zagat approved stickers on their windows like medals of honor and now, thanks to this recent acquisition, it will be even easier to find these renowned establishments.

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