Use your 404 page to point lost visitors to an irresistible offer Links get misspelled, cut off or your content gets moved over time — the last thing you want is for your web page visitor to end up on another site! Keep them glued to your content by creating a 404 page that directs them to more content or an offer.
Marty Note
I shared the story with Brian of how my 404 page was shown so often in my last gig it ended up getting indexed by Google. Thankfully there was a promotion on the page so all was not lost. Follow these exellent suggestions to turn your 404 frown upside down.
A classmate (Choate '76) wrote the music for what looks like a funny play. He wrote a note asking for help so I took a quick look at the site created to support the play. I found common Internet marketing mistakes including:
* Closed Loop Website Not A Platform.
* No Contests or Gamificaiton.
* Work To Hard To Get To The Gold.
I sat down and shared ideas teams I've managed have used to make ideas blow up real good online. My classmate is running those ideas by his producers (Zero Mostel I imagine :).
Since there are some people pretty good with Internet marketing explosives on Scoop.it, please share any ideas, thoughts, comments I missed to help my classmate's play create some waves.
Troy Hunt on observations, musings and conjecture about the world of software and technology... ...
Don't be fooled by the subject of this post. Troy's topic is security but he is speaking marketing, or we can extract great marketing lessons such as:
* Watch social like a hawk using ORM (Online Reputation Management) Tools. * Data is either worth protecting or its not, no half measures. * Law of unintended consequences (https thing). * Make claims (It is safe...) VERY carefully.
* How you treat security says everything about who you are. * Sloppy is as sloppy does. * Old code means YOU are old and not secure. * Don't let your ego write checks your body can't cash.
The security lesson is a brand marketing lesson. You are only as strong as your weakest link, your weakest link anywhere along a long fence of ideas, code, design, copy and social networks. Sorry to say you can't slow down, take a breath or wish it wan't so as this is a race and to the swift go the best views and most fun after parties :).
I'm going to be following Troy like a hawk. He is brilliant, easy to understand even for a non-engineer right brainer like this Marketing Revolutionary and his lessons are extendable.
http://www.troyhunt.com
@TroyHunt (https://twitter.com/troyhunt )
Troy if you are reading this, hop onto Scoop.it too in your free time (lol). You would like it and your curation here would be invaluable.
Thanks,
Marty
Nice Tweet from Troy:
@ScentTrail @scoopit nice write up on the marketing angle of the Tesco scenario, very true.
Smart, Mench-y and a good writer Troy is on my Must Follow list :).
CIO (blog)Three E-commerce Pitfalls You Need to AvoidCIO (blog)The paradigm of purchasing is shifting. In 2010, e-commerce grew faster on a year-to-year percent change basis than total economic activity, according to the U.S.
Marty
Yes, you would want to be avoiding all of these especially for the next 8 months or so. Worst of it is #1.
Demian Farnworth discusses how to use Google+, particularly if you are someone that creates online content for marketing purposes.
Marty The impotance of G+ To Ecommere merhants this holiday sellig seans CAN'T be overstated. Google Plus AND PPI (Pay Per Inclusion) Should be on every merchants TO DO list NOW. I will have more on PPI soon.
7 impactful strategies for ecommerce PPC - bump your quality scores, improve your SERP presence, and minimize your ad spend.
Marty PPC Note
PPC is the black sheep of the family, but it shouldn't be. Yes there is a point of diminishing return in PPC but that vanishing point exists in all Internet marketing. If you are rich enough, smart enough and have enough time (and who has all three of those?), then you will find the end of the rainbow and the point of diminishing return in any Internet marketing channel.
PPC is the fastest, most robust feedback loop you can find and these tactics will help you spend less and make more. Don't forget PPC's other responsibility is to FEED YOUR HEAD. No I'm not quoting Jefferson Starship to be funny, well a little, I quote the ship because your organic and social calendar's should be AT LEAST influenced by PPC results if not extracted whole hog.
Email marketing is about to be hit with a Texas hail storm of junk.
Marty Email Marketing Note
I wrote this piece in Scoop.it at first, but it got too long for this format so moved the 3 tips sure to make you a great email marketer by Christmas to Atlantic BT's blog. To summarize my take on how to become a great email marketer by THIS Christmas:
* Hire Bronto (they don't pay me, but are the best tool). * Read Managing Content Marketing by Rose and Pulizzi. * Look at Emails that SUCK (feels like you aren't alone :).
Good luck and wish I was creating a B2C merchandising plan for Christmas right about now. Miss being a merchant very much :). M (like being able to SLEEP though LOL).
Learn to calculate the values of your conversions which are not orders but something like leads, downloads, newsletters signups, phone calls etc.
Marty
Cool way to evaluate all lead generation fairly by channel. Non-ecommerce conversions such as joining your list, Retweeting your links and other social shares are important part of any Internet marketing P&L. This article makes progress, but we aren't all the way there yet.
Marty shares holiday ecommerce checklist tips learned over more than 10 Holiday selling seasons when stores he and his team managed profitably generated more than $30M in online revenue. ...
Blog post at Content Curation Desktop News : Pinterest has grown beyond belief since it opened it's doors in beta during 2010, it is now one of the worlds favorite image curation sites.[..]...
Walk into a Best Buy today and you'll probably see at least one person looking up a product on their phone to find the best price. They came...
Marty Note
Finally some intelligence in ways to "combat" showrooming.
With the rise of ecommerce, anyone has been able to profit by selling their goods and services online.
Marty Note
Interesting article that surprised me. Didn't think of Klout as a marketplace but of course it is. Well done and I will need to investigate further. What is clear is that there is a New Ecommerce forming as I write this that is mobile, social, tool rich and happening now. BTW, when I was an Ecommerce director EVERY click costs 40% of the traffic, so fewer clicks equals more money.
This film is AKA Director David Prosser’s response to a visit he made to Seoul earlier in the year - at the invitation of SICAF - and is drawn from his sketchbook observations of city life. ...
Marty Note
3 Key words for ecommerce: Mobile Video, Animated Video and Video. I know this headline sounds like that famous Saturday Night Live Skit MORE COWBELL (http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/search?searchFor=more+cowbell  ), but I couldn't resist. Love this animated video as it points out how great stories can be told with animation, color and very little else.
Marty Note
At my core I am a merchant. I love ecommerce and have made millions for my employers running an ecommerce site for more than seven years. As much as I read surveys like this one from Oracle I never do what they say (lol).
Doing what everyone else is doing in ecommerce is a sure way to lose time, money and momentum. The big three are here (better user experience UI, mobile and better CMS). Here is how I would respond were I still a Director of Ecommerce heading into the holidays:
* Redesign my site with Magneto as that helps with better CMS and mobile in one action. * 3 concepts provide keys to better UI: Social/Content Social/Marketing and Social/Search.
Social shows up in the survey as #4, but I hang with ecommerce friends and they don't know or trust social yet. They love mobile because it is easy to understand and they fear being left out of the mobile tsunami.
Mobile is immediately reinforcing. They like to do stuff in a Stimulus/Response pattern and my ecommerce friends love seeing immediate results. Trust me, they LOVE push the lever see the ball results.
Social is harder on their nerves. Social is here to create STIMULUS and then curate response. My ecommerce friends HATE something as abstract as, "We do stuff over here to impact stuff over here and maybe here and possibly way over there." I rarely discuss SOCIAL by itself. I discuss social as an adjunct to SEO.
The SEO ship sailed about two years ago so there is comfort and ease with SEO that doesn't exist for social media marketing (yet). Read Made To Stick by the Heath brothers to know why I prefer to pitch from something the people I'm pitching to feel comfort with (SEO) and work my way out to the edge of discomfort (social).
Since I've figured out how SOCIAL could give some hard working Ecommerce Director both UI and Mobile it would top my list. If I was about to compete in my 8th holiday season I would have loved the idea of being in the clear minority on such a stance (lol). Stay tuned if you want to know more about how SOCIAL could give you UI and Mobile :).M
PS. If I really want to freak out my friends with sales numbers to meet I mention either of the P words (Penguin, Panda) or send them a link to my SEO Is Dead piece (http://www.scoop.it/t/ecommerce-revolution/p/2249335079/6-reasons-search-engine-optimization-seo-is-dead ).
Asos is an online fashion retailer. They sell a huge range of men’s and women’s clothing across 850 labels, including one of their own. They are also the benchmark for how online business should be done. Asos has identified and addressed the key factors that make the online shopping experience almost on par with in-store service.
They’re the same simple things that so many online operations manage to consistently get wrong too. So if your business is available over the internet, or looking to go there, take in these industry leading lessons from Asos.
Easy Returns The company allows customers to return products if they are faulty, but also if they simply change their mind. And this doesn’t mean exchanging for another product either, but a full refund within 24 hours. It means a lot to have that option, even if few exercise it. The exemplary returns policy doesn’t end there either. Even though Asos is based in the UK, customers only have to post the products locally to return them. While a big distribution network makes this easier for Asos, it’s something every business should consider.
Free Delivery Every Asos purchase includes free standard delivery with an express option for an additional $10 fee. Sure, the cost of delivery is probably built into the price of products, but customers are none the wiser and appreciate not having an extra fee tacked on at checkout. If deliveries are more than one day late, any delivery fee is refunded and a 10% discount is given on the customer’s next purchase. They don’t sting people with those pesky credit card fees either. The price you see for a product is exactly what you pay, just how it should be.
Courteous Communication The company’s customer care team is available on email 24-7. While this isn’t practical for most small businesses, it’s not the remarkable part of their service. The standout bit is that they confirm receipt of your contact and promise to get back to you within six hours. There are not many businesses promising that turnaround, even though it’s what online shoppers want, and are coming to expect.
These might all sound a bit ‘oh-der’, but they’re the fundamental services features of online shopping that keep customers coming back. So if you’re online, or planning to go there, here’s your benchmark – Asos.
Marty - Did not know about this great ecommerce example of how a company weaves an entire story with their business. Understanding we are only as strong as our exposed weakest links is a critical idea. Here is a company that successfully turns negatives to positives by being transparent, honest and understanding how to create values and a culture that both work for them and play online retailing like a musical instrument. Great Scoop.
:).M
Exclusive Scoop.it SEO Conent
It has been a good long run. I've fought, cajoled and convinced. My life in SEO was challenging and rewarding. All things end and so does SEO. Search Engine Optimization has been stabbed twirled and stabbed again. I come not to praise SEO but to bury it because:
Google Wants SEO Gone Panda and Penguin's Google latest algorithm changes are a response to the explosion of signals, of BIG DATA. Google had to calculate faster or fall immeasurably behind. Even if Google didn't want the elimination of the SEO industry they built their desire is moot. The SEO industry is dead because of the math. When your well researched and optimized pages make up 25% of your website's signals they matter. When your SEO efforts make up .0001% of the signals about your site whether you have the right title or not is moot, over, done. Well maybe not your title as those are still VERY important, but you get the point.
Google is smart enough to take credit for the inevitable. Telling you to stop something when they can't really read it anymore seems intelligent and bossy (not unlike Google). I've made millions online for grateful empoyers doing what Google tells me to do.
SEO's Marketing Advantage Is Gone I realized something today. I wrote a quick post on if social media marketing can make your company smarter on Atlantic BT's blog: http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/can-social-media-make-your-company-smarter/ . Writing I realized how many of my once great advantages are gone. Advantage is eliminated when everyone knows and does something. Once you know how to research keywords, write title tags and optimize on page copy as well or better than me advantage is lost. As acceptance climbs advantage is lost.
The Float of Social/Search
Google did the smart thing. Instead of being drowned by social signals they coopt them, they grudgingly accept Facebook and Twitter until G+ plus is up to the task of eliminating them. In a modeled system, and everything search engine is modeled now since the data set is too large to do anything else, we must take the wizard's word for the fairness of how he flips our coins in infinite space. Once G+ has a large of enough social set the need for actual data from other social nets goes away. The entire entire ecosystem can be modeled by the Ph.Ds and the Plex.
Google's modeling won't be 2 + 2 = 4 accurate but who lives there anymore? Once Google floated their index breaking the link to any absolute #1 position what you see is different than what I see even if we type the same keyword at the same time. This massive move changes everything. Once the index floats GOOGLE owns it not Google plus a tribe of users. Only Google has the key to the house now. We are and will always be necessary evil guests.
Where we once had say and could chart our progress from lowly sprite to advanced SEOs only Google sees behind the curtain of our progress now. Once the index floats what is real? A: Whatever is happening now expressed in analytics. The only way to land a website's SEO plane post the float is with instruments in a modeled 2nd Life of a world, Pandora for SEOs.
Social Signals Overwhelm The Web
Eric Schmidt said we create as much content now in 2 days as from the beginning of man until 2003. Amazing factoid he shared in 2010! Today seems miles and years away from 2010. Data is flying everywhere as a strange nexus ties disparate elements together at the speed of light. The sheer size of the wall of data, and these days will seem like the good old days in 5 years, is staggering.
The truth of the web is what is happening now, but your NOW and mine aren't the same anymore. You see it right? The sword in the stone Google created for itself? When they float GOOGLE CUT DOWN the data they had to process. Google uses advanced statistical and predictive models to know a virtuall world. Google processes a piece and forms conclusions about the whole, Google float data on an endless Sargasso Sea never reaching shore in a constant state of roil. Since Google and only Google "owns" the float no one has any data to their contrary. Whatever is happening now is real and what is supposed to be happening (to quote Eckhard Tolle). Point is we will never know one way or the other now. Only one wizard allowed to live in this house now and there is a large G on his pointed cap.
Semantic Web Understands Meaning, Culture and Time
Did you see the crossword puzzle contest a few months ago where people crushed an advanced computer? If you watched Watson crush contestants on jeopardy you remember laughing as Watson adjusted its idiom meter. Sounded funny to have such an advanced machine not understand humor or sarcasm. The laughs died fast as Watson played the piano keys of knowledge only a super computer knows how to play. Once the "rules" of semantic context are mastered, and they will be in short order, we are close to Asimov's Foundation Series and his famous 3 Laws of Robotics.
Screaming, Loud Noise Means Only The Real and Shared Get Through
Ever been in a crowded room, a room so impossibly crowded you are sure if one more person comes in you will pass out. Suddenly 10 more people come into the crowded space and one of them is your mother. Not only can you immediately SEE your mother but also you relax even though she may as well be on the moon for your ability to get to her through the throng.
This is the analogy for the room we Internet marketers shout into these days. Problem is no one has the lung capacity needed to be heard over the din. Instead, if we want to get a message over to your mother you need to send it person to person. You must create a tribe of helper agents IN REAL TIME. We give our genetic dance to the worker bee standing next to us and they pass it over to mom. Once noise reaches this level more noise only makes the person speaking look foolish and out of touch.
I come not to praise SEO but to bury it. I admit the fun of the wild crazy ride we've been on. Vaya con Dios SEO :).M
Commerce Sciences, the stealthy Israeli and Palo Alto-based e-commerce startup, is launching into open beta today, and is finally revealing what it has built. Its a Meebo Bar for e-commerce!
Marty Note
As a 12 year ecommerce vetern of course I understand this release from Commerce Sciences. Nope, not even close. What I do know is these guys are smarter than me AND the future of ecommerce is all about conversion, conversion and conversion. This tool seems to be about improving conversions so I am interested.
:). M
Internet Retailer - Marketing/Search Engine Marketing - Google paid clicks increase 42% (RT @kevinbwallace: Mr #E-commerce: Hopefully you invested in a great paid strategy http://t.co/BlMFZoHU If not,...
Marty Note
Google is kicking some serious butt and taking names. Resurgent Google has been a consistent them ever since, ironically, the Facebook IPO. Since I've been creating Internet marketing (12 years) the summer usually SUCKS for clicks. Not so much THIS summer and for Google. Amazing performance. Can you say PANDA or dance like a PENGUIN?
Rock on Google!
:). M
We've answered all of the basic questions in mobile such as: Will we have 4G networks and when? Will consumers adopt devices and what kinds? Will the app store be successful? Will BYOD happen? Thus, I’m currently researching the future of mobile which I believe is about transforming how business is done. I believe the future is in combining mobile, big data and analytics (with help from the cloud) to deliver Right Time Experiences.
We are at the fight Amazon or become Borg stage.
Marty Note
How does your ecommerce site stand up against 600M pags in Google, the lowest prices online set by algorithm and the biggest brand vampires since Dracula? There are six great tips for how to steal customers back from Amazon in this article. Here are six more:
* Tell better stories.
* Use social better.
* Make your site a platform too (websites are dead). * Create unique product bundles Amazon doesn't have.
* Give stuff away (Shipping and little, personal things).
* Overdo the personal touches.
Now pick your favorites and start fighting. Make no mistake about Amazon's Rule The World and steamroll YOU in the process intentions. Keep your cross and wooden stake handy and fight like your site's life depended on it.
:). M
***** Marty Note
I have this theory. Anyone who knows me expects theories (lol). My theory is post Panda and Penguin PPC is different. There is a new PPC. The theory formed out there in the back country of my brain, admittedly a scary place so don't make jokes :). My New PPC Theory is picking up steam as I write this listening to Jimmy Cliff sing Many Rivers To Cross. Like most big revelations this one came while working on something else. I saw a tiny spec of light, a quick burst in the deep woods of a vast spreadsheet.
I followed that light and did about half a day of research to see:
* Google Allows us to BUY MORE PPC when we blog.
* The more social the blog the MORE PPC Google allows us to buy.
* Pausing unproductive campaigns moved our conversion rate on better campaigns + 7000% (granted on a small base).
* Want to regress out the pause data from the blog data, but I've seen PPC's social side before as a Director of Ecommerce (and social wasn't SOCIAL then 3 years ago).
I'm writing these findings up and will release on a blog post on Atlantic BT's Blog on Monday (http://www.Atlanticbt.com/blog ). Even if I had the post written, I wouldn't release today because the data shows our PPC week is Monday and Tuesday (very important), Wednesday - Friday about 25% less important and Saturday and Sunday hardly worth mentioning. Like most Internet marketing things I discovered results are extendable to every connected thing and what ISN'T Connected now?
If you are an ecommerce play and are NOT buying PPC you are crazy. If you are buying PPC stay tuned as I share helpful resources in order to define the NEW PPC.
Marty
...
If you’re using SEO as a marketing strategy, you’ve probably heard about Google’s recent algorithm changes. The only important note I would say is 1. Create targeted content for all of your audiences. Everything else should follow organically and really it's a no brainer....
***** Solid basic article that my Best SEO Is No SEO Movement would agree with, but there are ways to send signals to search engines by being smart, buy thinking like they do and helping a search engine spider see your content the way you do.
I wrote a post on siloing and bleedig on ScentTrail Marketing (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/06/seo-advanced-lessons-in-bleeding.html ) and these tactics make increasing sense to me because of the impact of social signals. When social signals are coming from all directions it creates ranking chaos. The hub and spoke nature of most websites with home pages in the middle and supporting pages around the ring could be broken down by social signals.
If your ABOUT page were to suddenly break trend and become the most popular page on your site with tons more social signals than any other page the search engine spider will need a counter balance to set the deck back into YOUR priority.
Organizing your content with an eye toward how to think like a search engine spider can create signals that help Google understand YOUR content hierarchy. Do you want to fight social signals? I've made a lot of money online surfing and expanding waves not fighting them, but social signals are highly FICKLE. They blow in and out so fast it can swamp a company's canoe.
If my ABOUT page started outranking my homepage, let's say it popped a PR7 while my homepage was a 6, I would hopefully already have some of the SEO curation rules in place I mention in Advanced SEO Lessons. Those rules limit the official support the page gets behind the curtain. In front of the curtain, the site the customer sees, you KNOW I'm putting a tease all over the site especially on my home page saying, "SEE THE EXPLOSION OF OUR ABOUT PAGE" (lol). Those moves in front of the curtain SURF the wave while moves behind the curtain curate the wave.
Confused yet? Good, NOW you are thinking like an Internet marketer :).
Marty
With e-commerce, Wal-Mart helps draw summer toward a closeInternetRetailer.comWal-Mart Stores Inc. today is playing hero to parents and villain to children naïve enough to think summer never ends.
***** In Target yesterday admiring their Stuff You Ned For College section, a sure sign the holiday selling season is all but here, and now Walmart has figured out how to use the web to gather a natural tribe together (teachers) to collapse the dog days of summer into money. ah I love the smell of ecommerce in the morning, smells like VICTORY :). Marty
Amazon is poised to integrate itself in Americans' lives in ways that no other company is capable of (RT @TIME: Is Internet retailer Amazon taking over the world?
***** Amazon's announcement they are creating more distribution centers in order to provide "same day" service on some items should send shivers down the spin of ever e-retailer and Walmart, Target et al. The mistake is thinking Amazon is a retailer. Amazon is a hedge fund effectively masked as an e-retailer. Once Amazon can tweak their models to know what 10% of their massive SKU (Stock Keeping Units) deserve same day shipping watch out Walmart. Same day shipping means the last barrier to the Internet taking over the world, time, is breached. Infinite inventory, no real difference in acquisition time and brand vampire pricing will make Amazon the new Walmart. I continue to believe Jeff Bezos not Steve Jobs is the greatest revolutionary of our times. Bezos introduced the idea of Infinite inventory and the arbitrage of everything.
Marty
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Martin (Marty) Smith
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