Web Strategy

We are always talking about building a community. It's the first thing we recommend for many reasons... This is a good overview on how to find, build, and grow your online community

In social media, who you know - or who knows you - can certainly make all the difference. That's why figuring out who to connect with and taking the time to build relationships with these people is key to leveraging the power of social media.

Great overview on what a Content Strategy is and all it entails

What is Content Strategy? Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content. Necessarily, the content strategist must work to define not only which content will be published, but why we're publishing it in the first place. Otherwise, content strategy isn't strategy at all: it's just a glorified production line for content nobody really needs or wants. (See: your company's CMS.) Content strategy is also-surprise-a key deliverable for which the content strategist is responsible. Its development is necessarily preceded by a detailed audit and analysis of existing content-a critically important process that's often glossed over or even skipped by project teams.

1. Linking Out Encourages Participation 2. Linking Out Incentivizes Linking In 3. Search Engines Likely Reward It 4. It Makes Your Site More Valuable 5. Linking Out Sends Trackable Traffic

A couple insights to future Google additions to their ranking algorithm: brands as noise filters and relationship awareness. Exciting stuff....

If you ask Matt Cutts what big SEO changes are coming up he will tell you "make great content" and so on...never wanting to reveal the weaknesses of their search algorithms. Eric Schmidt, on the other hand, is frequently talking to media and investors with intent of pushing Google's agendas and all the exciting stuff that is coming out. In the last 6 months Mr. Schmidt has made a couple quotes that smart SEOs should incorporate into their optimization strategies - one on brands [15], and another on word relationships [16

This post is part of a series examining some oft-neglected online customer touch points and exploring ways to optimize them. Today, I'll look at a type of page very similar to thank you pages - the logout confirmation, or logout thank you page.

Great point - Every touch point matters.. Use your logout/login/thank you/subscribe pages for good. Use them as content outposts. Use them to upsell. Use them to pull people back into your site

Marketers must adopt an entirely new strategy -- more than that, an entirely new mindset. They must get away from trying to create new desires in people, trying to push and force themselves on people, trying to control people. Instead, find a more natural way. Find out what people want, and then give it to them. Offer them value, and they will appreciate that. Be a resource. Give things away. Don't force -- let them come to you, because of all the value you offer. Here's how:

Great social media strategies for resaurants

The financial crisis is likely to hit the fine dining industry very hard. Already there have been reports of exclusive London restaurants slashing their prices in order to maintain a steady flow of clientele and therefore subsequent cashflow. Competing on price, however, is never a wise, or usually profitable, strategy, so dining establishments need to look for alternate ways to bring in the customers. One easy way is to develop a social media strategy to connect with your customers and create a community of regular diners.

Bounce rate has these attributes: 1) It is really hard to misunderstand. It measures the number of people who landed on your site and refused to give you even one single click! 2) It is available in most web analytics tools, including our own Google Analytics. 3) It is quick and easy to use. Bounce rate will help you understand where and how to make changes on your website in under an hour.

Great tips from Google on reducing your website bounce rates

This is an amazing collection of Google Analytics resources

Get the most out of your Google Analytics with this collection of links to implement, configure and get insights from Google Analytics.

In it's simplest form Word of Mouth (WoM) Marketing is tapping into the conversations that occur between people to sell your product. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WoMMA) defines it as: Word of mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. Effective WoM strategies cultivate and amplify these conversations, understanding that they are the most powerful way to convince a consumer to buy your product.

More than 80% of marketing executives say email, search marketing, and display ads are their company's top performing advertising channels, and many plan to increase spending on them in 2009, according to a survey from Datran Media.

good "checklist" for website planning - a great start to a web strategy

In order to create the perfect Website, firstly you need to have a Website Planning document. Before you can start the process of Website Planning you need to know two key things: · What do you want your Website to say? · Who do you want your Website to say it to? Once you can answer these questions you are ready to proceed and begin "Website Planning".

We've been saying this for years... Even "local" businesses need a web strategy.. Does yours?

In these stats lies a big - but fleeting - opportunity: serving local businesses by helping them use online well. By this, I don't mean doing what local newspapers have been doing: trying to sell them display or directory ads, just as they did in papers but in a new medium. Instead, I mean redefining what it means to help them succeed online. This might mean helping them place ads smartly on Google with good SEO (see Fred Wilson's tweet out of our New Business Models for News Summit at CUNY). It might mean finding was to help local businesses interact more meaningfully with their own communities.

Great local SEO tip

This is a Showcase Lawn Map on the web site of WiseGrass, a small lawncare service provider in central Pennsylvania. It's an embedded Google Map with user-created content for each of the showcase lawns. Here's a list of reasons why this is great:

Great tips from the aWeber blog on what personalization means when it comes to email marketing..

Personalization isn't a bad thing in and of itself. But when it gets misused for the sake of an extra open or click, it becomes a bad thing. It also becomes less effective over time. And it allows us to think that we're creating "personal" emails just by merging a name into the message. A truly personal email addresses the subscriber's needs, desires, fears, preferences and other aspects of their personality.

Excellent post - thanks for sharing Shey

All kinds of tools to track twitter links... Great resources