Where’s Communication When We Need It???
Posted on | September 30, 2008 | david jones
So here we are, sorting through thousands of marketing messages a day, rattling on about the future of advertising as we know it, exploring the role of experiential marketing, uncovering the biggest influencers of search engine rankings and debating the application of social media in traditional marketing. Yet, all around us, the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression threatens our economy.
Is our economy crumbling? Is capitalism in danger? Are the days of the free market system numbered? Should we even care about all of this, or will it all sort itself out?
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Accenture Readies Launch of Borderless Workplace Using Web 2.0
Posted on | September 19, 2008 | mike zeller
So we’ve all read about and had direct experiences with social media from an external internet standpoint, but what about inside our companies? Probably not too much going on there other than a simple intranet and emails. That is unless your company is an innovator like Accenture.
According to an article in 1to1 Magazine, Accenture is making bold moves to help their 180,000 employees get to know each other a whole lot better. Using web 2.0 technology, Accenture is moving toward what they call the Borderless Workplace Initiative.
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Spec Sheets for Agencies
Posted on | September 18, 2008 | guest
When it comes to development of any kind, a complete specifications worksheet or statement of work is one of the most important considerations. Surprisingly, creating that document or even a discussion of one is often glossed over when an application/feature has been developed before or does not appear to be ground breaking or difficult. This can lead to serious problems when a project gets farther down the line because of misunderstandings between the parties involved.
Any application that involves programming logic has the potential of growing larger than anticipated if not thought out completely before even one line of code is written. Even developing features as seemingly simple as contact forms can lead to problems if everyone (developer, administrator, account rep, client) does not have a written out and signed-off specification sheet. Issues of “scope creep” often happen if a project is based off ambiguous or nonexistent specifications.
There are a lot of reasons why spec sheets are brief or nonexistent. The additional time needed to create them and the confusing and technical verbiage that may be used in them could affect the negotiation process. Often, clients resist signing off on anything technical if they believe it will pigeonhole them into a corner. These are all valid concerns. However, a complete, understandable, and agreed upon specification sheet remains an instrumental part of any development project. Before proposing or starting a project of any significant size, serious thought should be given to the need and importance of well thought out spec sheets.
SEO Quick Tip: Cross Links
Posted on | September 17, 2008 | drew stauffer
We’ve all heard that quality inbound links are one of the biggest influencer’s when it comes to search engine rankings, but don’t forget about quality cross links too. Treat your cross links the same way you would treat your inbound links and your website will get better rankings.
The easiest way to make sure that your cross links are giving you the most search engine value is to keep an organized list of your keyword distribution in front of you when you are writing new pages.
When writing page A, link to page B with the keywords that are assigned to page B. By doing this you will always create a quality cross link. Use as many keywords as you can when cross linking throughout your website and please, never use click here. You’re not trying to rank for click here, so DON”T USE IT.
For other SEO Quick Tips, check out our Title Tag and Meta Descriptions tips.
Director of First Impressions (Salaried Employee or Temp)?
Posted on | August 13, 2008 | jeff baker
Everyone agrees that you do NOT get a second chance to make a first impression. Companies spend a lot of time and money thinking about tradeshows, brochures, business cards, logos and other forms of collateral. The part that amazes me is how little thought (or understanding) is given towards their web site.
A web site is more than a first impression. It is your Director of First Impressions. In most organizations, Director level positions are held by those who are experienced enough to make strategic decisions on behalf of the company. Directors also carry the accountability that goes along with this level of responsibility. Suggesting that a company place a $10/hr temporary employee in a Director role would be completely out of the question.
Is your web site a Director of First Impressions (i.e. experienced, responsible, leading users in the right direction) or is it a $10/hr temporary employee that’s more interested in doing its own thing and leading people off your site by design or lack of support? Do you pay your web site what it’s worth or is it an underpaid, underdeveloped representative of your company?
As fiscal budgets are being reviewed, perhaps it is time to evaluate what you are willing to pay (spend on) your website.
Blue Ocean Strategy – Original Thought or Just a Reflection of “Myopia”?
Posted on | July 22, 2008 | joshua lyall
A little while back, I finally got down to Blue Ocean Strategy in my ever-renewing stack of new books. Any book based not in opinion but in research gets my attention. In this case W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne spent a decade formulating their ideas based on analysis of 150 strategic moves across a variety of industries and eras (comparable to a lite version of a Jim Collins project).
Kim and Mauborgne came to the conclusion that most current industries are already overcrowded with quality competitors who are fighting over a limited number of potential customers (i.e., Red Oceans). They contend that in order for companies to experience significant growth in the future they need to look for uncontested market space (i.e., a Blue Ocean) outside of what they may consider their current market.
The authors provide an excellent systematic approach for a Blue Ocean search, but the big idea behind the book doesn’t feel that new. Almost 50 years ago, father of modern marketing Theodore Levitt spelled out these same essential elements in his most famous article, “Marketing Myopia”.
SEO Quick Tip: Meta Description
Posted on | July 22, 2008 | drew stauffer
Following up on my last SEO tip, SEO Quick Tip: Title Tags, today’s SEO quick tip deals with the meta description tag. The meta description tag is in the head section of every webpage and is a short description of the content on the page.
Second to the title tag, the meta description tag is the biggest influence in whether or not a user will click on your listing. If your description is well written and accurately describes the content, then you can easily increase your CTR (click through rate).
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Welcome to “The New Clutter”: Everyone Who’s Trying to “Cut Through The Clutter”
Posted on | July 9, 2008 | steve whigham
Seems like everyone’s feverishly yapping these days about the need to ”cut through the clutter” while spazzing out on their fourth Red Bull of the morning. But just what happens when everyone starts cutting through the clutter at the same time–and in the same way? Take a look around. Welcome to 2008, The Birth of “The New Clutter.”
To say you’re wanting to “cut through the clutter” and then actually doing it are two separate issues. Unfortunately, they are rarely connected. That’s good news for the serious idea person (which I’m assuming you are–or at least want to be.) Cutting through the clutter is still a simple proposition, but a simplicity most are not willing to embrace. Why? Because it’s hard. Simple, but hard. But it’s doable with a certain discipline to your idea making. And that’s what I’d like to discuss with you… about going to the 15th.
One Easy Way to Generate Traffic
Posted on | July 8, 2008 | drew stauffer
Traffic for any website is usually a main goal, but a lot of people don’t know how to generate traffic. I hear it all the time in the office, “We need to get the word out.” Then weeks or months later, nothing has happened.
We’ve all heard that creating unique and compelling content is the best way to get links and attract people to your website, but what happens when you’ve created your fantastic content and your traffic still isn’t increasing?
Users aren’t going to flock to your website as soon as you publish what you consider to be the most important piece of content on the web; you have to let people know.
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Where is Your Sitemap?
Posted on | July 3, 2008 | drew stauffer
Sitemap pages are a great way to let the search engines know what content is on your website. But what kind of sitemap are you using?
You could use a regular page from your website, an HTML, PHP, ASP, or whatever type of page will work. These pages are great for users because they list all of the pages in your website. Ideally, you would also include a description for each page so a user would know what they’re going to get when they click the link, instead of just a word that lists the page names.
These pages will help the search engines but not nearly as much as an XML Sitemap. An XML Sitemap is a page that you can literally upload to the search engines to let them know specifically what pages you have on your website instead of waiting for them to find all of your pages.
Through Google Webmaster Tools you can submit your XML Sitemap, and once your site is verified, you can get a lot of extra information about your website, including:
- Any errors your site has
- Last time your site was searched by Google
- A content analysis that will give you information about your titles and descriptions
- Your top search queries
- Crawl Stats
- Both external and internal link data
- Plus a lot more
You can easily generate an XML Sitemap through many sources, I prefer XML-Sitmaps.com. Simply enter your URL and the site does the rest. It will spit out your perfect XML Sitemap that you’ll then submit to Google.
Follow all the steps in Webmaster Tools and you’ll be well on your way to making sure your entire website is as Google friendly as possible.
What We're All About
Welcome to The Cure for Common Marketing, a Jackson Marketing Group blog dedicated to sharing insightful thinking, new ideas, technologies, what-if concepts, success stories, and book/article reviews about light speed changes in the B2B marketing universe. We encourage you to share your thoughts and opinions.