Hi – Spring has sprung here and the weather is finally getting warmer after a colder and snowier winter than usual and you’ve reached the Seasoned Marketer.  My name is Robert and I have been doing online marketing for about 9 years now or about 36 seasons which ever comes first.  And in that time I have learned quite a bit about marketing on the internet ranging anywhere from getting traffic to your site to increasing conversions for ecommerce sites and every where in between.  I’ve also made a number of sites that have generated a significant amount of money over the years.

So in this blog, we’ll be covering interesting things about internet marketing and it’s related components.

There is a lot to talk about and we’d recommend you subscribe to this feed by adding the feed to your RSS Reader.  If time allows, I might even add a newsletter, but I’ll be honest, I am extremely busy these days and adding a newsletter will be a luxury if I can get to it.

Feel free to leave meaningful comments or questions and I’ll see if I can give you a worthwhile answer.

Thanks and enjoy this site!

Robert Sigler

Have you ever published a post in WordPress and then viewed the post only to find there was a typo or some other problem?  I’ve done this all too many times.  Not a problem, right?  Just go in and edit the post and hit “Update”.  Problem solved, eh?  Well, not exactly. And for several reasons.

The most significant reason to make sure your blog post is accurate before hitting publish is that the search engines instantly pick up your content via your RSS Feed.  The search engines then quickly index your first publish.  Even if you go back and update your post (which obviously you should do), your feed still doesn’t update the search engine results.  The damage has already been done.  And things like Google will publish your typos and errors for the world to see.

That’s why it’s so important to thoroughly read your post from top to bottom BEFORE you hit the publish button in WordPress.  Maybe even re-read it twice.  Before publishing, I’d preview it to make sure it was formatted and typed the way you want it to be BEFORE hitting the publish button for the first time.

Also if you have a readership, then they’ll all get to see the mistake.  And trying to change that in WordPress is NOT easy.  I tried several things, republished the feed, deleted the post entirely and re-entered it (a really bad idea), I actually had to go into the MySQL Database and manually delete the post (but by then the damage was already done.).  Hopefully people will be understanding, but it’s just not all professional.

In the past, I’ve been guilty of creating a post and haphazardly hitting the Publish button and then just correcting it later.  But recently I wrote a post that contained a significant typo that changed the entire context of the blog post.  And even though I updated it, Google and my feed readers had already indexed the old post and it was just plain embarrassing.

I certainly don’t consider myself a great writer, but to put out content that isn’t even what I intended due to a typo is easily correctable before you ever publish.  And those errors really shouldn’t ever happen if one is careful enough.

In short, take the time to proof read your blog post BEFORE hitting the Publish button, even if you are in a hurry.  And don’t just rely on the spell-checker (which is what I tend to do).

Re-reading your post is easy to do and just makes sense, in particular because the software isn’t all that forgiving.

One of the newest trends online is for big brand companies to advertise on Facebook with giveaways where  if someone simply likes’ their company, they’ll be entered to win.  For example, Expedia is doing a giveaway promotion where 5 prize winners get a paid trip to South America.  To enter to win, all you have to do is ‘like’ Expedia on your Facebook page.

Giveaways and promotions are nothing new.  But the avenue for attracting new customers does seem like a new trend.  The big name companies recognize that to go where the people are, then social media outlets like Facebook are an important marketing channel.

It also points out what I’ve tested with my own sites, albeit on a much smaller scale than a JCPenny.  And that is that social media, like Facebook, doesn’t seem to convert as well into sales directly from Facebook.  That means that advertising on Facebook requires a different approach than ‘here’s my product, buy it’. These larger companies are using it to build brand.  And to setup a marketing channel for further contact essentially for free anytime they want to.

How so?  Because once a person ‘likes’ your company on Facebook, that does a couple of things.  It creates a minor viral wave in that friends community in which that company will get some more people ‘liking’ their company, just by association or word of mouth.  For example, one friend tells another friend they just have to ‘like’ Expedia to get a chance to win a trip to South America.   But secondly, it also allows the company, like Expedia, to send out ads anytime they want to by simply posting an article, an update, a video, a discussion group to their Expedia Facebook page.  And anyone who has ‘liked’ that company would get their ‘update’.

The potential problem I see with this approach is saturation.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve already turned off friends who post too much.  And people could simply turn off these businesses once the contest is over or if they get too many businesses thet they’ve liked.

I would suspect that at some point, people will become saturated on Facebook with companies and ads and friends who just post like crazy.  And that point, with a bunch of companies all competing for consumer’s attention through updates and ads, that will dramatically change the landscape of Facebook.

I think one way to prevent this overwhelm or overload would be for companies to post updates at entirely random and not too frequent intervals that offer something tangible for the Facebook user.  And to scale that so the average Facebook user could actually benefit from an update from a company.  For example, posting a status update that says “Free donuts for the next hour at our coffee shop with the purchase of a coffee or tea”.  Or “Get 2 extra toppings for free when you buy a medium or large Pizza by 2 PM” or perhaps “The Travel Company FB Lotto” where weekly or monthly we give away a free weekend getaway to a random location in the US”.  Or something along those lines.

Social media marketing is different than search engine marketing.  The customers are in an entirely different mindset.  That’s why these big companies are spending their money in ads building brand and not direct selling their products for the time being.

It does make me wonder what the next big thing will be?  Just a few years we hadn’t heard of Google, then we hadn’t even heard of Facebook, or Twitter, it does make one wonder where the next goldmine will pop up.

By the way over 330,000 people ‘like’ Expedia on Facebook.  And you better believe those ads Expedia is running are highly targeted.

I read this article on Yahoo today, it was one of the headlines / featured stories for the day and it was about a book written about Gandhi with implications that he might be bi-sexual.  Oooh – scandalous right?  According to the article, the book got good reviews, but some European press went a step further and speculated as to what the author was suggesting.

The marketing thing is that it makes for good headlines and gets attention.  And that’s the whole point of launch marketing.  I can only imagine how many people will now buy that book because of the hype.  And whoever the book’s publisher is or their PR firm, they did their job, if it was planned.  And even if it was all an accident (highly doubtful), then as long as the author is sincere, it doesn’t even seem to matter.  Of course, the author is saying that’s not even in the book and is moving away from that angle, which only seems to spin off a side story.

That right there is the entire process of press releases and launch marketing in a nutshell.  Modeling that process and being able to replicate that process would be worth pondering.

Beyond that however, the amazing thing is the habits and patterns that people fall into for even figuring out what news is.  What is your home page set to?  What’s the agenda for that company?  What news do you follow?  What articles do you read?  Do you do that daily?  Habitually?  Why?

Search engines, new sites, news papers, they all have a bias.  And their job is to shape and distort things to their liking.  They are deliberately showing you what they want to.  Either what they think you want to see or what they think will get the most responses / clicks.  That’s their job.

I’d imagine our job as a consumer and creator of that information is to be eternally vigilant in terms of your self and perception of the world.  In one regard, the Internet has been a wonderful creation.  And in yet another regard, it seems to have further fractured people and community away from consensual reality.

As a society in an informational age, we’ve become quite addicted to that information.  I refer it to as living in ‘informational trances’.  That’s why pattern interrupts are so effective as a headline attention getting mechanism.  And it doesn’t even matter if Gandhi preferred men too.  Just the mere suggestion is enough to get attention these days.

More and more states are looking for ways to collect money from e-commerce sites and the internet. The most recent approach is to start taxing companies who have even an indirect physical presence in that state, which affects companies like Amazon.com. Amazon has distribution centers in different states and consequently those states are wanting Amazon.com to collect sales tax for that state directly because of those distribution centers.

But there is an even newer strategy by many states that is now being implemented. Several states, like Illinois, are suggesting that a company that even has affiliates in their state also counts as a physical presence in that state and the sales contributed by those affiliates are hereby responsible for having to pay sales tax to that state.

That means that a company like Amazon.com which might not even have a physical distribution center in that state, but say just a blogger in that state who refers customers to Amazon would then be considered a physical presence. To me that’s a bit of a stretch. Mostly because people visiting that bloggers site could be coming from all over the world and not just that state. Plus, that bloggers hosting company might not even be in that state.

For companies like Wal-mart.com which do have a legitimate physical presence, then the sales tax really isn’t a problem, because they already have a physical store selling the same goods there and are already collecting and paying sales tax. But purely online stores, like Amazon.com are being sought after to pay individual sales tax just because of their affiliates.

For those who don’t know, an affiliate is kinda like a partner. In Amazon.com’s case, they pay 5 – 10% of any visitor being sent from an affiliates website which results in a sale for Amazon. For example, you can join the Amazon.com affiliate program for free, copy and paste some code they give you for a specific product onto your website and if someone were to click on that link (which takes them to Amazon.com) and they actually bought something, then you’d get a small percentage of that sale paid to you by Amazon. And if you had lots of traffic and lots of different affiliate product links, then that could add up to a significant amount and does for many bloggers and websites.

So what Amazon.com is now doing, among other affiliate companies, is simply not allowing any affiliates at all in those particular states. And I can really only see it hurting the smaller independent affiliates in those states and not so much Amazon.com which is well known at this point. What will have to happen though, is that those affiliates not allowed access to affiliate programs like Amazon.com because of the new legislation will probably switch over to companies like Wal-mart who already have a physical presence.

Ultimately, I would imagine that this just makes it harder for independent affiliates to generate income from affiliate programs as it removes a quality choice like Amazon.com from their money making options. It’s possible that a company like Amazon.com could start paying sales tax in that state, but I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon, simply because they probably just don’t need to at this point.

According the Pew Research Center, 65% of US Internet users have bought ‘digital’ products or services online. That’s a significant number, because it not only shows that people are buying online, but they are buying pure information without having a physical tangible thing to show for it. People online are buying either subscription based services or download-able files.

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At the end of each year or at the beginning of the new year, it’s a good idea to sit down and take a couple hours or even a couple days and map out what you want to accomplish for the new year. 

What’s worked well and what didn’t work from last year?  In this case, we are going to focus on your website and internet marketing endeavors.  So here’s a few things to keep in mind that might help your business do even better online for 2011:

1. Review your end of year Analytics data.  Assuming you are using something like Google Analytics to collect data about things like keywords, traffic, content, bounce rates, etc. (and if you are aren’t then that’s your first priority for the new year). Change the time frame on your Analytics data to look at the entire last year.  And look for peaks and dips.  Checkout your bounce rate.  Which pages were the most visited?  Which sites sent you the most traffic?  When was your best month?

   Reviewing your data can give you ideas on how to improve areas / pages on your site that need work so you’ll be better prepared for 2011.

2. Re-assess the goals for your website and business.  Depending on your overall success of your site last year, you might have to make some changes or improve some things. Setting goals, like I want to add 25 more pages by the spring can help you stay on track.  And then take a moment and really be honest and assess which areas need work in your business.  And then make those a priority. 

   Come up with an action plan and specific steps you can take to make your business online better.   

3. Get better organized for 2011 – One of the biggest changes I did in 2010 was I got better organized.  I started using Microsoft’s OneNote and it’s been unbelievably helpful. Another tool is an online calendar program (like Google Calendar) that you can use to help you create time frames for projects and reminders about certain products. 

   How well is your email inbox setup?  Do you need more specific folders?  Or maybe even less folders? Take a moment to look at your email processes.  Do you spend too much time being interrupted by email when your working?  If so, change it.  

4. Improve your connections with your customers – How’s your newsletter doing?  Do you even have a newsletter?  Are you gathering potential customers email addresses?  Is there a way you can do that better?How’s your facebook and twitter pages?  Do you even have a business page for facebook?  Did having a twitter account even help your business or was it another distraction?

   How often are keeping in touch with your former customers?  Often times they are your best customers for new products and / or word of mouth marketing.

   If you’re not doing email marketing or any form of social marketing or you’re not giving it enough attention, then make a plan to do more of that.  The web seems to be heading more and more into the social world. 

5. Take a look at your internet marketing methods for the last year.  Were you using PPC? Do you have a mobile marketing campaign?  Are you tracking your positioning for keywords in the search engines?  Are there other areas that you can expand to, like video marketing?  If you have a brick and mortar, are you on Google Maps?

The key to long term success is learning from the past by creating honest assessments of where you are right now and by measuring your progress.  Then using those to help create a strategic plan for accomplishing the major goals for your business moving forward.   

There is so much information out there, that’s it’s easy to get side tracked.  But taking the time to create a overall plan of what you want to do over the next year and then taking action to achieve those goals can truly help.  And the more specific you can get with your action steps, the better.

Good luck in the new year!

Ever since WordPress has included that ‘automatic upgrade’ option (which I really like, btw), some web hosts like Godaddy sometimes don’t handle those updates too well.  How do I know?  Cause I have several sites with godaddy and have gotten the “this site is undergoing maintenance error all too frequently with my sites.  It kinda makes me feel a bit nervous pressing that automatic upgrade.

However, recovering from that error is actually a simple thing to fix.  You have to use a program like Filezilla (free FTP program), login into your account via FTP and remove the maintenance file.  That will get your site back up and running.  But it won’t upgrade your site to the latest version, it’s more of a revert back to something that at least works.  However, wordpress has a frequent number of ‘security’ issues and updates.

So my solution?  I use bluehost for many of my sites and have never had a problem when pressing the automtic update button in my blogs on bluehost.  So you could switch web hosting providers.  I use a variety of them for various sites.

I have noticed that if you manually installed your blog via FTP, then the updates usually worked.  But if you used the auto installer that Godaddy has, then it seems hit or miss with each WordPress security upgrade.

But if you want to stick with Godaddy, then the best way to update your blog is to login to your Godaddy web hosting account (not your blog).  But your main Godaddy account.  And then click on webhosting and launch the control panel.  From there goto the applications.  And there should be an update option.  Just follow the directions and update your WordPress blog from within the Godaddy applications section.

And lastly, I would make sure that your username wasn’t admin.  That seems to be a target for ‘hackers’.  Try using a real first name instead.  Hope this helps and good luck.

Small businesses should be taking advantage of the online local marketing opportunities out there.  There are all sorts of choices, some free and some paid.

For example, Groupon.com is a deal site for local retail or service businesses.  Basically a small business puts up a special offer or deal on the site (like 50% off your first purchase) and then there is a time limit on how long the special is offered for.  The advantage of doing something like this for small businesses is abundantly clear.  You can generate more customers and generate buzz.  If I were a small retail biz, I would definitely be doing groupon.com and offer a loss-leader to help generate more clients, build brand, build word of mouth, etc.

The other example is Google Local.  This is a free service that Google offers that allows your business to be added to local listings.  Free exposure to highly targeted customers?  Uh yeah, that’s a no brainer.  Part of that system also includes customers that have reviewed your business and given it a star rating, like 5 stars or 3 stars.  And then actually written a review.  I can tell that the businesses that get the most reviews and the highest stars will get clicked on the most.

Now you don’t have to stop at local results.  If you have a retail store and an ecommerce store (which you should have – if you run a brick and mortar – you should be offering your product online and for online purchase), then you could check out something like SlickDeals.com.  This place allows you to place ads for special deals.

And the thing about all of these sites are that they get a massive amount of traffic.  And it’s extremely targeted traffic.  And 2 of them are free.

Of course, speaking of not free, then you should also have some sort of budget for advertising online via pay per click.  You can go with Google Adwords or Microsoft Ad center to help target your customers online in your local market.

Over the years, I’ve found it to be helpful to get more organized.  I used to just do everything by memory (and still do alot).  But at the same time, there is such a deluge of information on a daily basis that it’s worth setting up some sort of system to help stay on track.

Recently, I upgraded to Office 2010.  And part of that package was something called OneNote.  Up until a few months ago, I had never used it.  Didn’t really see the point.

But now, I use it every day.  In fact, I keep most of my notes, my favorites, sites that I have found of interest, topic ideas, work stuff, home stuff, lists of to do stuff all on onenote.

For example, you can setup folders and pages within one note for different topics.  So in my website research topic, if I stumble across a site that think is good, then instead of adding a favorite in the browser, I’ll just drag and drop that link into OneNote in a folder called interesting links.

Just so I can save it and maybe I’ll get back to it when I am writing an article or need some help with something.

The other thing that has helped me out recently is that I am using OneNote and taking more extensive notes and really defining ideas better.  Like if I bookmark a site in OneNote, then I’ll also comment on why I am bookmarking it.  For example, …’this site has a great jquery tutorial that does x,y,z’.  And I get really specific on the summary to help me out later on when I go back over the ntoes.

I can’t tell you how many times I have bookmarked something over the years or jotted down some random thoughts and later on couldn’t make sense of why I wrote that down or why that was important.

The other thing I really like about OneNote is that I use 2 computers, a desktop and laptop.  And OneNote allows you to share the notebook between computers and even between different people.  And that’s come in handy on more than one occassion.

So I know a lot of people use Google and Google calendar and Gmail to stay organized.  And the book “Getting Things Done” is pretty popular.  But for note taking and tagging sites and info, and ideas for projects, I like OneNote personally. 

The only thing I can think of that would make onenote better?  Perhaps an integrated calendar.  Or maybe an integrated rss feed reader while we’re at it.

All in all, I’d give it a solid A.