June, 2008

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Freelance Writers Like the Attention (and You Can Get Free Content)

Friday, June 20th, 2008

Here’s a cool way to get some possibly original content for a local community-based website.

Watch the local newspapers for articles written by freelance writers. These local newspapers often don’t have a website, but are usually pretty stable in their small market area.

Hence the writers are getting published in the paper, but possibly not online. So why not contact them and ask them if they’d like to be featured on your website as a writer for that local niche? They’d probably be happy to get more attention, and you’ll get free local content.

I used to write an IT column for the Missouri Jaycees newspaper. They were thrilled to have content for their newspaper, and I was excited to get the byline (and mention my website). Had they put that online, I’d have more links and more exposure. Win win.

Posted in Marketing | No Responses »

Deep Sea Fishing Compliments of Affiliate Marketing

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Many of my readers wonder if they’ll ever get to the point where they’re making a decent income from their online affiliate programs. Well, I’m here to tell you that yes there will be a day when you’ll be able to quit your ‘regular’ job and live off the income that your websites take.

I started doing Internet marketing in 2006. I had no idea what I was doing. I bought an ebook (no longer available) and was inspired to give it a whack. I made some MFA pages and after several months got to about $5/day.

That sucked. But it was enough to keep me motivated.

Two years later and I’m pulling in a nice set of checks each month. Usually I deposit them and put most of the money back into my business, and I spend some on the kids.

But this month I thought I’d treat myself. And I did.

That’s me this past weekend on a 57 foot charter boat off the coast of Alabama. I’m fighting an Amber Jack and eventually I win.

I took my 15 year old son, left Friday, rented a nice apartment on Dauphin Island, and drove back on Monday. The entire 4-day trip was paid for with just two checks from affiliate marketing. It was awesome.

So for you that are wondering if you’ll get there, you will. Stick with it, learn some search optimization for your website, build links and you’ll have checks bigger than mine. Then you can tell me about your adventure.

Posted in affiliate marketing, beginner sem, money | No Responses »

The Job Interview

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

For those of you that know a little about me, you’ll enjoy this…

The Job Interview

A guy goes to the Post Office to apply for a job.

The interviewer asks him, ‘Are you allergic to anything?’

He says ‘Yes – just caffeine’

Have you ever been in the service?

Yes,’ he says. ‘I was in Iraq for two years.’

The interviewer says, ‘That will give you 5 extra points toward employment,’ and then asks, ‘Are you disabled in any way?

The guy says, ‘Yes 100%…an IED exploded near me and blew my testicles off.’

The interviewer tells the guy, ‘O.K. In that case, I can hire you right now. Normal hours are from 8 AM to 4 PM.

You can start tomorrow at 10:00 – And plan on starting at 10 AM every day.’

The guy is puzzled and says, ‘If the hours are from 8 AM to 4 PM, why don’t you want me to be here before 10 AM?*

‘This is a government job,’ the interviewer says. ‘For the first two hours we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our balls. No point in you coming in for that.’

Posted in funny | No Responses »

Wehrenberg Theaters Gets It

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

This summer, on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Wehrenberg theater in Arnold Missouri, you can bring your kid and watch a kid-themed movie for free. First come, first served, no rainchecks.

What a brilliant idea. Their marketing team hit this nail on the head.

Moms (and Dads) can give their kids something to do during summer break
Moms (and Dads) will spend money on snacks
The theater makes money that otherwise would have never been made by opening the theater at ‘off times’ that they are normally not open
Families are exposed to the theater’s branding and a positive experience (free for the parents, fun for the kids)

This is the kind of thinking that most marketing people don’t get. Or worse yet, upper management freaks out at the word “free”. Thing is, they’ll be way ahead on this deal by offering these free movies. Good move, Wehrenberg!

Posted in customer service, local marketing, offline marketing | No Responses »

iPhone Compassion International

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

I’ve already informed my wife that I want the new 3G iPhone and that I’ll be canceling my current Treo with Sprint.

If you were one of the unfortunate souls (aka early adopters) and now you’re wishing you could do something with your 1gen iPhone when you get your new one, there’s hope.

Posted in funny | 1 Response »

Is Your 404 Page Found?

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Every designer screws up. Somewhere in that ever-growing website of yours is a link that goes to a page that doesn’t exist. Perhaps the designer fat-fingered it. Maybe he made a link with the intention of making the new page. Whatever it is, its fubar’d now.

So in the very likely event that a customer clicks on that link, and gets the generic 404 page from their browser, its your designer (or you, if you’re the designer) who gets the credit for losing that customer. Bad bad.

I’m sure you’re not interested in losing customers, not even one. So make sure you have a 404 page that’s not only there, but one that’s helpful too. Here are some tips to make the page better.

Match the layout with your current site
Make the page look like any other page on your website, but with a nice little message that tells the user that they’ve encountered a page that doesn’t exist. Match the headings, the text size, everything. Basically we’re going for a page that looks nothing like the big bad error that it is.
Notify the User of the Error
This would be a good time to explain that someone screwed up (you may want to put it a little kinder than that). Assure the visitor that this isn’t a common happening. You could even go a little further and tell the user that someone has already been notified about the bad link (which your designer/SEO will see in any server log/analytics report or on Google Webmaster Tools) (also see this script for emailing the webmaster important info)
Give the User Some Options
Don’t just tell the user the page is gone, give them some fodder to help them figure out what you screwed up.
- If you’re a good coder, you can perhaps take apart the bad URL and suck some keywords out of it, do a search for related pages and list those for the visitor
- Give them a nudge to use the search box (which you’ve included on the 404 page)
- Provide them with a nice sitemap that gives them plenty of options to find what they were looking for in the first place (see Apple’s 404 for a great example)
Put Your Contact Info on the Page
Good lord, do I have to tell you this? Assuming its not already in your header, give them a way to contact you. This may be a good thing, as you’ll find out immediately about the broken link, and you’ll also have a warm lead that you can coddle and caress to your hearts delight.