AdWords, SEO, press releases, social networking, time-limited discounts – all have the potential to pull in large volumes of targeted traffic to your website. Once they get there, here are five of my personal favourite ways to distract them. 1 – Interesting external links. Prominent testimonials are all fine and well, but if they’re linked and look a little too … Read More
Yes but can I trust you?
You probably know the feeling. You like the product and would like to buy it, but don’t know whether you should trust the company behind the website. If I order a product online and it never arrives, I can email the company and try to call them. But what if they simply don’t reply? There’s always some degree of risk. … Read More
The great SEO myth – the stupidity of numbers
Why are there people who still follow the idea of keyword density? Why are there people who still believe the world to be flat?
Fewer people are looking for your software. More people are itching.
Google trends never lies. Less people are looking for your software than ever before. And the trend suggests a continuing decline. The reason is simple. They don’t need it. When people have a problem, they go looking for a solution. If people don’t realise they have a problem, they look for pictures of cute animals. And if technology means that … Read More
How much can you crap on your users before they notice the smell?
Many people are concerned by how much information Google have on them. Yet many of these same people share an incredible amount of information with their Facebook friends, and often with friends of their friends. I use Facebook, and think it’s great. But I’m careful to the point of paranoia with what I share. Like AdWords, many of Facebook’s defaults … Read More
How do you compete with free? Quickly!
Napster and Spotify have an uphill battle because of their competition. They compete with your radio, your MP3 collection, your CDs, your dusty record collection, internet radio, illegal downloads, the music collection of your friends, apathy and more. So how do they persuade people to part with their cash? They do it quickly. Their website main pages are classic examples … Read More
Drop the hype and deliver quality
We live in an age of hype. Every product or service we come across is the latest, greatest, fastest and cleanest, and independent tests consistently prove it. Yet people appear to be growing weary of hype. 2011 might be a good time to start focusing on actual quality rather than hot air and hype. Take the concept of internet marketing gurus. Most … Read More
When will the Facebook bubble burst?
I’m perpetually baffled by Facebook. I use it and I like it, but I don’t see how they’re ever going to make enough money from their advertising to break-even, let alone make a profit. To me it’s simple. I go to Google because I want to find something. The search results and ads that I see in Google are (mostly) relevant … Read More
Pissing off customers is bad for business (Symantec)
Broadly speaking, there are two types of people in the world. Reasonable and angry. Reasonable people show sound judgement, make rational decisions and usually make logical decisions even when unhappy. They make good friends. Angry people, on the other hand, lash out at the world, are prone to rash decisions and can make really bad enemies. Here’s the key point. … Read More
Software Mad Men
A search for speed up my PC on Google (predictably) produces a lot of ads featuring surprisingly happy women. In fact five out of the first ten ads I clicked: Clearly this segment of the industry believe that deliriously happy (usually blonde) women sell software, but why? Could it be that they’re trying to sell to women? Unlikely. An old Squidoo … Read More
