Screencasts by subscription?
Some of the gurus out there are offering paid subscriptions to screencasts, podcasts and other educational materials. For example, Eric Ward recently launched a subscription-based service, The Ward Report — promising how-to podcasts, video training modules and other resources on link building, all at an annual subscription rate of $149. Debbie Mayo-Smith, in a similar […]
Itโs the comments, stupid!
Ok, I admit it. I haven’t been walking my own talk. I say how important it is to comment on others’ blogs, that a blogger should spend as much time commenting on others’ blogs as posting on their own blog. You might have read my (hopefully compelling) case for this here or here. Yet, ashamedly, […]
Do these qualify as gray hat SEO?
“Gray hat SEO” is that fuzzy area of search engine optimization between ethical SEO (i.e. “white hat”) and the really naughty stuff that you’ll get banned for if you get caught (i.e. “black hat”). Some say that white hat SEO is idealistic, whereas gray hat SEO is pragmatic, employed by SEOs with keen business acumen. […]
Ecommerce Best Practices, Tip #13: Incorporating customer feedback
I’ve already shared some of the benefits of incorporating discussion forums into your ecommerce site. Now let’s delve deeper into the concept of user-generated product review content. Intuitively it makes sense that your customers would convert better if they could read credible product ratings and reviews from your other customers before buying. Indeed, studies back […]
What you NEED to know about the DMCA
The DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act, provides you as a website owner with a useful hammer you can use to beat on copyright infringers. As a content producer, you have the right to enforce your copyright. When your content gets “re-purposed” on other’s websites without your permission, you can file a DMCA Infringement Notification […]
Another SEO Critique โ AirTroductions.com
The fifth of in my series of SEO Report Cards for Practical eCommerce magazine led to the “deconstruction” of AirTroductions.com, which is an ecommerce-enabled matchmaking service for road warriors (currently over 17,000 registered). I found it to be a solid website, which, with some tuning, would make for a better ride in the search engines. […]
Getting the balance right between SEO and usability
Finding the right balance between SEO and a usability can sometimes be a challenge. The two strategies can conflict and companies may mistakenly favor one over the other. For example, one company may choose to stuff the same keywords into every alt tag in their navigation graphics. That, of course, detracts from the user experience, […]
Hitwise biased, but in which direction?
Hitwise is a competitive intelligence service that gives you insight into where your competitors get their traffic from and which keywords drive the bulk of their traffic from search engines, among other things. It comes at a price of course — to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. I noticed that in a […]
MySpace marketing tips and success stories
As I mentioned in my previous post about marketing on MySpace, one of the critical factors of success is having “Friends”. Here are a couple of success stories I thought I’d point out. First, consider the various flavors of Apple’s iPod Nano that are on MySpace, such as the Pink Nano, which is enjoying a […]
