I have to admit I was curious. I wanted to get the text message when Obama announced his VP choice. So, I went to the website for the first time. After realizing that I will probably get Obama-Spam for the next three months, I decided not to sign up. When I went to back out of the screen (using the back button in IE 7) I couldn’t get past the index page. HOW ANNOYING! I hate when websites do this, and have never understood the benefit.

Don’t ever force your visitors to stay on the webpage, even if you’re running for president. Actually, especially if you’re running for president. Perhaps this should be a campaign issue?

PS. this is NOT meant to be political at all. I just thought it was amusing.

Rarely do I comment on political issues in this blog, but this really has more to do with business. I watch a lot of cable news and what really strikes me is how dedicated to tragedy the media seems to be these days. They have been talking down the housing market like crazy, to the point where you have to give your house away in most markets. Oil prices are through the roof, and this too leads the news because it’s more bad news for you to eat up and accept. Well, I don’t accept it. Perhaps I know something all of the talking heads don’t know. Perhaps they are so out of touch they have forgotten the golden rule of capitalism… the marketplace sets the prices. Next time you think the world is ending, and gas is going to reach $10/gallon, please remember that.

I guarantee that gas prices will not drift much pass the $5 mark, if it gets that high at all.  Ok, I can’t guarantee it, because I don’t have that much to offer you if I am wrong, but at least consider the possibility. People tend to believe that the market is manipulated by a bunch of rich dudes in a mansion on the hill. To some degree that may be true, but the market always has the last word. Eventually people will say NO to buying gas at a certain price, and the prices will come down. If your facility made widgets that were in very high demand, you would probably start to push the price up with the demand. However, if you pushed it too high, and people started buying less of your widgets, you would adjust the price. You would have to, or you would be sitting on a lot of widgets. The same rule applies to every commodity in a free market.

Now I am not denying times are tough. My wife and I have had our condo on the market for nine months, and I have a 70 mile commute each day, so I am feeling the pain too. I just am a bit more optimistic than many people out there. Unfortunately, if you’re waiting for the government to help, it’s not going to happen. Anything they could do would be superficial anyway. The answer is in the marketplace, and when the time is right, it will say “uncle”.

One of the most frustrating parts of working in search engine optimization is the time it takes for your efforts to bare fruit. In fact, many of my ecommece buddies have given up on their home-grown efforts, and hired an SEO thinking that it would speed up the process. While there is real value in hiring a professional SEO, this is simply out of reach for many smaller merchants.

As you’ll read throughout this blog and many other blogs there is a countless number of ways to improve your search rankings, and improve your website too. Sometimes, the number of things you should be doing get in the way of growing your business! For example, when I first opened my furniture website I spent countless night-time hours researching different website tips, and studying my own SEO practices. What I lost sight of is that my website needed to grow and improve. I was so busy with learning and researching, I didn’t work on adding new products, writing more product descriptions, improving the images on the site, working on the navigation of the site… all the things a site visitor looks for!

What I slowly came to realize was that there were too many things that need my attention, and not enough hours… what a cliché, huh? Anyway, I decided to create two lists… One list was “Things To Improve Website” and “Search Marketing”. I created goals for myself, so that I could get a little of everything done each night, and slowly grow all aspects of my business.

For example, the “Things to Improve Website” list included all the things I mentioned above. I would pick one thing to work on during the week from that list. Then I would take one thing from the “Search Marketing” list and work on that too. By setting small benchmarks each week, I was able to organize and balance the work I was doing on my website.

Here’s what a typical week looked like….

MONDAY: Rewrite description for 5 products. Send out 10 emails requesting a link exchange.

TUESDAY: Rewrite description for 5 products. Improve meta tags on category pages.

WEDNESDAY: Improve images for 5 products. Send out 10 emails requesting a link exchange.

THURSDAY: Rewrite description for 5 products. Check Alt-Image tags, submit site to 3 new directories.

FRIDAY: No working tonight, my eyes are burning and my wife is pissed.

SATURDAY: Check rankings on main keywords, see if Redbox has any new movies out

SUNDAY: (See Friday)

I would highly recommend writing a small schedule for yourself for a week, and see if that helps you achieve more. This is especially beneficial for the small merchants that slave away at a 9-5 during the day.

Good luck! Please leave comments highlighting your weekly tasks so others can see.

I am a fairly new user of StumbleUpon but I must say, it’s really cool. If I am bored or want to find something different I click the Stumble button on my browser toolbar, and I’m off! A lot of what you come across is crap, but every once in a while you find something cool.

I have used StumbleUpon to promote my own blog and it seems to be driving good traffic every day. They also have a neat advertising program that allows you to get quick traffic to your site for about 5 cents per impression (not visit).

Anyway, I came across this neat site. It allows you to highlight text on any website and send it to someone. So, if I found something interesting buried deep in a forum, I could highlight the good part, and send a link directly to it. Try it out.

Okay, I haven’t posted in about a week. Followers of my blog know that’s unusual for me. So what the hell have I been doing? Well, I learned a lesson this week, so I figured I would share it with my readers (assuming I have any). Plus, I thought a few of you out there may be able to relate.

I was looking to have a site of mine re-designed. The project required some pretty sophisticated PHP programming. I know PHP, but not enough for a project of this scope. So, I decided to outsource this job. I posted an ad on craigslist.com to solicit bids for the project. Almost immediately I received bids from all over. Most designers wanted about $1,000 for the job, except one. This one person who ran a web design firm in India was willing to do it for $400. It seemed like a great deal to me. They had everything… a professional website, a good profile and portfolio, what else do you need? Oh yeah, testimonials! They didn’t have those.

After a few weeks they completed the project. It looked ok, but technically, it didn’t work very well. I had so many technical issues that this past week I scrapped the site and put up my old one! So, I lost $400 to find out that there is value in using a trusted source. I’ve learned this lesson before, but I guess money was the motivating factor in going against my better judgment.

This lesson can be applied to all aspects of life, but it is especially important in ecommerce. Most small merchants cannot afford to have their site down, or suffer from major technical issues. So I say, if you’re going to do it, do it right. Oh, and make sure the bastards have testimonials or references.

As a marketer I naturally dismiss the concept of something “selling itself”. I have seen ads that claim this car, or this furniture sells itself, which is ironic since I saw that on an advertisement. I personally don’t believe anything sells itself. Even if you sell the best widgets that do amazing things and costs practically nothing, you’re going to have to tell people why they need it. I remind all of my ecommerce clients that NOTHING sells itself.

I remember when I hired a professional designer to re-design my outdoor furniture website. I was so excited because this was the first time that I was the client, and I was getting a professional website! I couldn’t wait to see how the new site performed. I was confident that with a fresh new look and sleek design, I was going to be rich!

Well, needless to say the site did not do as well as expected. I had developed a nice relationship with the designer so I called her about once a week and asked her what she thought I should do. Every week she told me the same darn thing, and it took a while for it to sink in. So, even though I learned this lesson years ago, I thought perhaps a few small merchants out there my benefit from the experience.

So what did she say?

Sell you products! Write in-depth, compelling copy about your products. List features, but more importantly, list benefits. Appeal to your visitor’s emotional need for the product. I had made the false assumption that my products sold themselves because I had a shiny new website with nice pictures.

Remember, nothing sells itself.

One of the most common phrases in the Book of Great Clichés is perhaps, “think outside the box”. Now when I hear someone say that it makes me want to loose it. I am sure all of the great business books of yesteryear promote the phrase like it is the end all and be all of business marketing. However, if you think about it, thinking outside the box leaves something important out. Well, at least when it is applied to marketing.

As a marketer if I am always thinking outside the box, by definition, I am never thinking inside the box, and doing things that are tried and true. How is that a good thing? It’s not, especially for marketers with modest budgets.

What sparked this idea in my head was a client call I had yesterday. We were talking about ways to increase traffic to her website, and as if it were required to say, she uttered those all-to-common words, “let’s think outside the box.” There was silence on the other end because I am sure she expected something purely genius to come out of my mouth, but I had nothing. There are so many sure-fire ways to drive traffic to your website that I don’t want to waste energy or money on out of the box experiments. Bare in mind, I am NOT saying you shouldn’t test different strategies, and get creative. But, I am saying that, if you have a limited budget and need results. This is the boat most small merchants are in.

So, just to back-peddle a bit, I will say I am all for thinking outside the box when it comes to marketing. I love a good creative approach just like the next guy. However, when I am advising someone with a limited budget I will always air on the side of conservatism. When someone only has a few hundred bucks a month to spend driving traffic to their site, I am not going to recommend something new and crazy. A good, well managed PPC campaign is all they need for now. So please, if you are one of those adventurous marketers that are always thinking outside the box, be careful, and remember, the weather is much more predictable here inside the box.

It seems silly to me to write a post about a section of my website, but what the heck. I wanted to let folks know there is an absolutely no string attached, free website evaluation I am offering. Of course, I offer a paid one as well, but you’ll still get a nice report for free.

So why the heck am I doing this? Part of the reason is to promote this blog. I am trying to bring new readers to the blog every day, and since the blog is pretty young, that isn’t easy to do. Also, I truly love this stuff! I have evaluated sites for prospective clients plenty of times, and to be honest, I enjoy going through a site with white gloves. Trust me, I will find some dust.

You can read more about the Free Site Evaluation, and how to get one. The long and the short of it is, it’s free, there’s NO obligation (gosh that’s such a cliche), and it will hopefully provide some insight as to where you can imporve your business. Just so you know, almost all of my clients are ecommerce merchants, so if you have some other personal site, or blog, I doubt my evaluation will help much.

If you have been a regular reader of my blog you know that I don’t really promote any one product or service. I wanted to tell you about this magazine and website because I know these guys well. I wrote a customer service column for them for about a year when they first launched, and they have really grown into a great publication for ecommerce merchants.

Check out their website. They offer all of their content online free, so there is tons of articles and forums to read on a variety of business subjects.

Visit Practical Ecommerce here…

Back during the dot com explosion at the turn of the century, I heard a story about some guy who received such poor service from Dunkin Donuts that he started a website called dunkin donuts sucks, or something like that. Shortly after, it was rumored that the happy donut people bought the domain for millions of dollars so they could shut the site down. Now I’m not sure if this was motivated by greed or by a deep routed hatred for the brand, but it stuck with me.

This winter my wife and  I went on a Carnival Cruise from Fort Lauderdale all the way to Panama and back. It was our seventh cruise, and we expected it to be just like all of the previous cruises… absolutely wonderful.

Well that was not the case. Through some venting issue on the back of the boat we had garbage compactor smell pumped into our room through the A/C about three or four times a day. The smell was so foul we had to open the door and kill the A/C making it unbearable in the room. Despite repeated complaints, and seemingly weak attempts to solve the problem, Carnival was unable to do anything. Final on the last day we were granted a meeting with the captain of the hotel division. He was of course apologetic but powerless to offer compensation.

To make a long story short, we ended up with an insulting compensation offer, and were left pretty unsatisfied. In the spirit of revenge, I hatched a plan to buy a domain like, CarnivalSucks.com or something of the sorts, and start my own site to post our experience on. Unfortunately, other web projects tool priority and I was unable to find the time.

Anyway, this is my solute to those who use the internet to keep big corporations with terrible customer service in check.  Greed may be their ultimate motivation, like our D&D friend, but I’m okay with that.