Change This - starting with a click
Quick site recommendation, and a favour to ask…
ChangeThis is a very cool site which was the brainchild of Seth Godin. It’s a site for perpetuating new ideas and new thinking. High quality ‘manifestos’ are published, and then the ChangeThis community spreads the idea.
I’m close to finishing my new book on how to become an ecommerce gazillionaire, and I’m going to pre-release the book for free on ChangeThis. To get ChangeThis to carry the book, I need lots of votes (this is the favour bit). So please please can you click this link, and forward it to your mates to click also.
Thanks to all who’ve voted already, we’re currently no.4, which isn’t too bad for 24 hours voting!
Is it ok to buy links?
First off, why buy links? Links are the primary indicator of a site’s popularity. One-way links from high-traffic context-related sites are particularly valuable. The more links you have, the nearer you get to the top of the engine.
Google encourages users to report paid links, as some kinds of paid links violate Google’s quality guidelines. However, Google doesn’t ban paid link activity entirely, and seems to accept that is “a normal part of the economy of the web”, when done properly. And ‘properly’ means making sure Google knows this is a commercial relationship:
- Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
- Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
If you’re retaining an agency to buy links for your site, you must make sure that these guidelines are adhered to, or your site will be regarded as part of a spam network. Once Google has identified a spam site, it’s relatively easy to identify all the back-linked sites, and to penalise them accordingly.
So, it’s ok to buy links, as long as you do it properly, but if you attempt to pass PageRank - i.e., not identifying that inbound links to your site are part of a commercial relationship, you may be Google-slapped.
How to pimp your blog
Very impressed with Yoast’s blog, and his definitive piece on Wordpress, The must read article about Wordpress SEO. There is a section in there on conversion optimization, and encouraging readers to subscribe. That’s why each Baldy post now carries an invitation to sign-up for email subscriptions. Guess what? Subscriptions up 50% in one day. Thanks Yoast.
How to eat an elephant, (how to make an online mega-brand)
Making a new online store really work often feels as unachievable as eating the ubiquitous elephant. The answer, of course, one mouthful at a time. Here’s a selection of tasks you could consider as a mouthful. You just need to do one of these a day:
- Negotiate or create a meaningful hyperlink from an external website to your site (ideally, on a content link from a site with appropriate context, e.g. Rosehip. Reciprocal links (where the other site links back to you) are not worthless, but have less value.
- Add new and compelling content to your site. If you keep improving the content on the site, the GoogleBot will revisit more frequently. And frequent content changes are a powerful signal to Google that your site *must* have relevant content.
- Make a tweak on an adword campaign (but do remember to split-test, and pull weak ads quickly).
- Read your Analytics Data, find the most exited page, and change it!
- Write a blog entry that someone will want to share
- Approach a possible affiliate partner
- Make a cheese and ham sandwich
- Drink a cup of coffee
- Will be at ten soon, all good blog lists come in tens
- Remember to forward this post to a friend.
Chitika Premium Units - AdSense watch out!
I’m really impressed with Chitika’s behavioural targeted Ads. The Ads show in the context of the blog, and only show when the blog/content is directly relevant. This makes AdSense look like a scatter-gun approach, and surprisingly ham-fisted.
Chitika’s model is based on much less traffic, but it is highly targeted. Moreover, the quality of the click is higher, because the traffic hasn’t been irritated by lots of other irrelevant advertising. This is a bright future for context advertising - where you only get the advertising you want.
Nice to see Google’s monopoly being challenged. If I was Google, I’d do even more with Google Checkout, and make sure that adverts are only served to those likely to buy, so that Ads are served not just on context but on your previous buying patterns. Then you’d only get really useful ads when you need them. You don’t need a holiday ad when you’ve just got back from holiday.
You can see the Chitika Premium Unit in action on this page, by clicking http://baldysblog.com/#chitikatest=mortgage
Questions you should ask if you want to make money online
1. Are you selling a physical or a digital product?
My forthcoming book will be focussed on selling easy-to-shift physical product that people are actually searching for. It’s possible to make good money out of shifting digital product (many of you will be reading this as a free blog though!), but in general the digital market faces certain problems for the budding e-entrepreneur. The main problem is that the content that people really want can already be obtained by suppliers with massive leverage (e.g. Apple - iTunes) or illegally (e.g. LimeWire). You can pitch original content, software widgets, ebooks etc., but you’ve got a lot of work to do in establishing a market that doesn’t already exist.
At least with physical product, you will be shifting stuff that people want, and they know they want it.
2. What barriers to entry are there?
Ideally, you need a market which is difficult to enter or understand. Establishing supplier relationships for exercise bikes, for example, is fairly protracted.
3. Can you get good supply? Agree terms with your suppliers.
Will you be drop-shipping? (The manufacturer holds inventory, and ships when you get an order). Will you be buying stock? If so, can you buy small quantities, and achieve Amazon like JIT shipping.
4. What’s your price advantage? Put together a spreadsheet of prices
Get comparison prices using searches on Google Adwords, eBay, Amazon Marketplace and a price comparison engine, e.g. Froogle, Kelkoo or PriceGrabber. Calculate your likely margin.
5. How much will it cost to get a customer? Estimate the cost of conversion.
This is an approximate estimation, but you can do the following. Create a test page using a free blog tool (e.g. Type Pad, Word Press, or Blogger.com). Create an Adwords campaign, and look for the amount you’re paying for each keyword for each click-through (CPC). Ideally, you should expect around 6-10% click-through rate (CTR) if you’re Ad is well written, and compelling against the other Adwords being served. Of the 10% that clickthrough, you should be aiming for a 10% conversion rate.
Now, these are rough numbers, but I’ve seen them work across a range of industies. So 100 people see your Ad (100 impressions, cost of an impression = zero). 10 people click through (the exact amount you pay for each click-through is determined by a real-time auction with your competitors, but let’s assume £0.20 per clickthrough). 1 person buys, so the cost of the customer acquisition is £2 (10 x £0.20).
If your margin on a tub of vitamins is £6, you’ve just made £4 profit, and you’ve got a business.
Meatball Sundae becomes a crime in the UK
The Times Online reports a huge shake-up in the UK’s consumer protection laws. The new laws cover a wide range of on- and off-line activity, and surprisingly specifically mentions fake blogs, such as those perpetrated by Walmart, L’Oreal and Coca-Cola.
Under the new legislation, companies that create fictional blogs could be fined as much as £5000. Added to which adding spammy comments on other blogs praising your company could also attract a fine of £5000.
It remains to be seen how this legislation will be enforced, but I’d much rather see market forces punishing the perpetrators of Meatball Sundaes
Google Checkout - time for revolution!
There is a real trojan horse in the otherwise wonderful Google Checkout. It’s so bad, and dumb, that I’d like this page to serve as a protest vote to Google. Google has to change this.
Google checkout is a really easy to use payment system, and its integration with Adwords gives you a better CPC and customer conversion rate. The downside is Google knows too much about your business, and will charge you more for your Ads, because it knows *exactly* how much the lead is worth to you.
But that’s not the really bad thing about Google checkout. The unpardonable sin is that *your customer* can withhold his or her email address.
Now let’s get this straight. You’ve got a prospect to your site. They’ve reviewed your site and your product, and they’ve made a buying decision. At checkout they decide to use Google for handling the payment. You’ve got a customer, right? NO! Google has won a customer, and Larry and Serge intend to keep it that way. Your customer opts out of sharing their email address. So you’ve won a sale, but you haven’t won a relationship.
Google’s determination to deny you direct contact with your own customer is so un-Googleish, I can hardly believe its true.
If you think this should change DIGG it now. Comment here, and make your voice heard!
Florence Balderson becomes Club Penguin addict
Virtual playgrounds are booming according to a recent BBC article. Here’s what Florence thinks about Club Penguin:
It’s fun. I like lots of the games. I need to practice on saving money, instead of spending it on new clothes and wigs that are super-cool.
[Dad: How did you get into Club Penguin?]
When Leonha came round she showed me website and I played the games, and I really liked them, but I couldn’t upgrade my igloo, or buy clothes and wigs, or puffballs and furniture, so I really had to persuade you to give me a year’s membership.
What’s really impressive about Club Penguin is the quality of the graphic environment, and I hope the child protection (the Disney brand lends considerable credibility here). You can’t fault the new marketing approach of Disney - they’ve provided a free playground (currently being enjoyed by 15 million kids), and they’ve got kids talking to kids about how cool it is. But the real masterstroke is monetizing premium membership with must-have digital articles that have a ZERO marginal cost of production.
However, when you review the stats below on membership, you can’t help but a little alarmed at the rampant commercialisation of our kids - particularly when it’s my wallet that’s burning!
VIRTUAL WORLD NUMBERS
Habbo - 90m accounts
NeoPets - 45m accounts
IMVU - 20m accounts
Club Penguin - 15m accounts
Star Doll - 15m accounts
Gaia - 12m accounts
Barbie Girls - 12m accounts
Source: K Zero
Florence is reading this blog as I write, so she can close it (by the way, she also wanted her own Google reference, so Florence this blog’s for you!)
Disney should make it completely free, and they could make some money from advertising
Way to go Flo!
What Google knows about web spam
Matt Cutts is a software engineer at Google who blogs. He specialises in preventing spam in the Google index. His recent presentation at Web 2.0 is a must see.
Key points
- Good content always wins
- Backlink quality is important
- Search engine optimization is not considered as spam - good companies using SEO are determined and valid in Google’s eyes.
- Spammers leave footprints by accident - <!– insert your hidden text here –> so Google knows its a spammed template website.