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If you want to understand the importance of charging your marketing batteries TODAY, just listen to Seth Godin, who has been building a following for a decade with daily blog posts, books and presentations: "[Kickstarter is] the LAST step, not the first one. I started working on this Kickstarter 9 or 10 years ago. That's the way you maximize your results. Dig your well before you're thirsty."

Seth was able to raise well over $100,000 to fund his new book using Kickstarter. He didn't set out to do that nine or ten years ago. When you've got a list and have built a relationship with its members, you can invite them to participate in new things as they arise. Start now.

The blog volcano wants to ERUPT. But it won't unless you are doing some basic things in your posts and articles. Here are eight important and relatively easy to follow tips to give your posts and articles legs.

Why is conversion testing important? Well, get 12 experts in a room and you'll not find a great deal of agreement on what is right and wrong with a web page.

I will add that, had we all been given access to analytics, we would have come to some more common conclusions. Measure and test.

When considering how much to invest in social networks, the important question is not "Are my customers using social media?" They are.

A better question to ask is "Are my customers using social media to make decisions about my product?" Odds are, they aren't.

This paradox is most evident in the "fastest growing" segment of social media: those over 55 years of age. This segment is large, but it does not generally make buying decisions using social media. That's an important distinction.

For the Online Service, the home page is a Landing Page. It's job is to sell the trial. Here is a good example of an effective home page, complete with the opinions of fourteen smart conversion marketers.

Our pages must persuade. This is even true of B2B sales, where we feel we must speak like an adult to other business people. When we speak like an adult we lose our ability to persuade, much as a parent has little ability to persuade a teenager... of anything. Here are eight terms that thrive in business writing that keep us from persuading the visitors who WANT to be persuaded. They have a choice to make. Help them make it.

I only touch on the issue of Mobile Apps in my new book Your Customer Creation Equation. So I'm happy to share this very helpful infographic on Mobile websites vs. Mobile apps.

Is it just me, or is it clear that mobile websites are the way to go (except in extreme situations)?

 @crazyegg hits us over the head with a list of mistakes we make when testing our site. The most brutal is "#8: You're testing a crappy site."

Fear not, especially if you're shepherding a new testing initiative for your company. There's great advice and encouragement here.

To avoid these mistakes in your business, consider a Conversion Catalyst program from Conversion Sciences. Your first call is free.

The folks at CrazyEgg have a wonderful summary of the five website formulas found in my book. Read this and you can skip chapters 3 and 4.

The folks at CrazyEgg have a wonderful summary of the five website formulas found in my book. Brochure Site Consultative Site Publication Site Online Store Online Service Read this and you can skip chapters 3 and 4.

The "sales letter" is a style that is used in particular situations to convert. You may never need one. However, the four P's of copy are a golden nugget in this article. They should guide your copy in any landing page situation, sales video, etc. They are: PromisePictureProofPush

We are all going to be publishers soon

 @CrazyEgg If you asked 14 conversion experts what they consider important for increasing the performance of a website, you would learn a great deal in a short time. This article delivers, with some very smart people (including me) weighing... for you.

It might help to look at email as a social network. It is, only it is VERY large. My 91-year-old grandmother "friended" me years ago on email. We share video, pictures, posts … everything via email. So, if you have a social media strategy that ignores the biggest social network on the planet, is it a complete strategy? Not even close.