What I Learned From Television

Despite the increasing number of website ads, consumers aren’t necessarily getting their feathers ruffled more, they’re getting smarter.

Danzico, Liz. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>E Commerce

When Customers Want You to Close the Sale

The voice of commerce grates terribly online when it is misplaced. When I'm reading someone's weblog, I do not want to be offered the opportunity to buy a t-shirt or baseball cap.

Usborne, Nick. ClickZ (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Marketing

Will Plain-Text Ads Continue to Rule?

Text-only advertisements work far better than banners, but is this only due to their novelty? Search engine text ads will retain their superiority over time, but text ads on other sites will work only if they focus on directly meeting users' needs.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Web Design>Marketing>Usability

Your Website: An Extended Infomercial?

Your website serves as an opportunity to give your new contacts a deeper understanding of what your business can do for them.

Bennaco (2004). Design>Web Design>Marketing

Building Viral Marketing Tools  

One of the best ways to spread the word about your website is to let your audience do it for you.

Walter, Aarron. Building Findable Websites (2008). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Social Networking

"Self-Googling" Isn't Just Vanity; It's a Shrewd Form of Personal "Brand Management," Says UB Internet-Culture Expert

"Self-Googling" -- searching for your own name on the popular Google search engine -- may seem like an innocuous act of vanity, but a University at Buffalo communications professor recommends it as a shrewd form of "personal brand management" in the digital age.

DellaContrada, John. SUNY Buffalo (2004). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Blogging

Usability and Branding: How to Make or Break Usability Conventions to Create Brand Identity

It has long been acknowledged in the study of usability, that the usability of a product affects the associated brand identity. While study of usability is universal to any product design, it has sprung up with the advent of the world wide web. It is becoming more important of individuals and institutions to establish a strong on-line identity for themselves or their products.

Content Matters (2006). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Usability

Create a Strong Intranet Brand

The intranet needs to have a strong brand, a sense of identity that, at a basic level, distinguishes it from the public website and other information sources within the organisation. Beyond this, the intranet brand should be designed to build staff trust, and to convey a clear sense of what the intranet can offer and when it should be used. This briefing explores the role of the intranet's brand identity, as well as outlining how to put it into practice.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Marketing

Does Twitter Fit into Your Branding Strategy?

Twitter, often referred to as the water cooler of the Internet, teaches us the art of brevity by limiting communication to 140 characters or less. But unless you can compress instructional content in ingenious ways, you’ll find Twitter limiting as a method for delivering documentation. Instead, Twitter is better used for the following: eavesdropping on customer conversations; putting a personal face on your company; and increasing the reach of your announcements.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Blogging

Optimize Your AdWords Campaigns

Both AdWords and YSM are much more complicated beasts than the old banner networks ever were, and coming to grips with them can be a bit of a headache.

Oxer, Jonathan. Internet Vision Technologies (2008). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Search Engine Optimization

Is Your Homepage Immature?

Every large corporation has a marketing strategy that outlines what it wants to say to customers, but many of them still aren’t using their homepages effectively to highlight that message.

Young, Indi. Adaptive Path (2005). Articles>Web Design>Business Communication>Marketing

A Seven-Step Web Strategy to Save Your Business

Here's a 7 step strategic plan that should fit most small businesses. Naturally a good deal of hustle will be needed to implement this kind of plan while doing everything else you need to do to keep your business afloat. There are businesses that can help you implement this plan as well- wink, wink. But if you can dedicate the time and resources I have no doubt that you will see serious ROI. I have seen it in my business and with many of our clients.

Banner, Jeb. SmallBox (2009). Articles>Web Design>Management>Marketing

MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition)

Most users believe that MySpace started as some kind of fluke—a happy accident that began in Anderson's bedroom or garage—and many still don't wonder, know, or care about the site's real business history and model. Heralded as a haven of DIY self-expression, MySpace was actually created by executives whose backgrounds are anchored in spam and mass marketing. The real genius of MySpace lies in its re-imagining and repackaging of spam. While most internet users expend time and energy attempting to keep it out, MySpace is spam that they actually invite in.

Douglas, Nick. ValleyWag (2006). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Case Studies

Social Media "Strategies" Getting in the Way of Enterprises' Social Media Usage

Social media is so powerful and diverse that just about the only thing that can get in the way of an organization making the most of it is the idea that social media cannot be exploited without a "strategy." That makes about as much sense as stopping you as you slide your key into the ignition and insisting you first develop a strategy that encompasses your automobile needs for tonight, tomorrow, and every day in the future.

Ray, Augie. Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Marketing

Is More Less? Or is Less More? The Quality vs Quantity Debate

Is it better to have 500,000 followers on Twitter? Or is it better to have 100 followers who are engaged and targeted? Is it better to have a website with 5000 pages of content, or a website with 50 pages of well thought out, valuable material? I am not trying to dictate an answer by using value terms in my questions, despite the fact that I am very much of the opinion that less is more and quality trumps quantity, but recent events are arising which may be proving me wrong.

Williams, Nancy. Social Media Today (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Marketing

A Visual Tour Through the Basics of Social Media Marketing

I've been asked several times to give presentations on the basics of social media marketing, and have now refined my 15 minute introductory tour to the point where I think it's fairly good (and I'm really damn picky about my presentations). The following presentation (in visual and text form) should be helpful for anyone trying to convince their bosses, team or cohorts that investing in SMM is a worthwhile pursuit.

SEOmoz (2007). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Marketing

How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide

The number of excellent resources that have come out since the beginning of the year on attracting links and building traffic has really mushroomed. Plus there are some timeless classics that are still very relevant today. I think it makes sense to compile the very best in one handy location and share it, so here’s my entire collection. If I missed your link and traffic resource let me know and I’ll take a look.

Clark, Brian. Copyblogger (2006). Resources>Bibliographies>Web Design>Marketing

The Long Tail

For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution. The main problem, if that's the word, is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too.

Anderson, Chris. Wired (2004). Articles>Web Design>Marketing

How to Write Web Copy That Sells

How you write your copy really makes a huge difference to your online sales. And even if you don't sell products directly, good sales copy will help you persuade the user to make a donation, subscribe to your newsletter or complete an application form. Here's how you do it.

Content Strategy (2009). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Marketing

Content Based Sales

Content-based sales means using high-quality content to generate traffic, which you then use to earn money (but not necessarily on the web-site).

Content Strategy (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Marketing

Understanding the Persuasive Flow

Wiggly, distracting, or poorly placed ads irritate users. Worse, they teach site visitors to ignore whole sections of layout. Yet some online ads work. They capture visitors visually, and present an engaging hook. They get visitors to click. Even, at times, from the home page. So what's the difference?

Michaels, Mary M. UI Design Newsletter (2007). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>User Experience

Use of Cognitive Tricks in Web Advertising

Web advertisers resort to many unethical approaches (in my personal opinion) under the pretext of creativity. Let us learn about it.

Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2006). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Cognitive Psychology

Online Advertising: Factors That Influence Customer Experience

In this article, I’ll discuss the cognitive elements at the intersection of advertising and human behavior. By taking an approach to advertising that looks at the impact psychological factors have on customer behavior, I’ve learned that customers respond directly to online advertisements, as we can see from their emotions, behavior, and interactions on the Web.

Kirmani, Shazeeye and Shamugam Rajasekaran. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>User Experience

How To Bid Profitably On Nonconverting Keywords

Google has a bidding methodology called Budget Optimizer that attempts to maximize the traffic you receive for the keywords in a campaign. This is useful for early buying cycle keywords. However, every keyword should be reaching some goal regardless of where it falls into the buying cycle. It was difficult to track the effectiveness of these campaigns until recently when Google made some changes to Google Analytics. Now you can more effectively bid on early buying cycle keywords, or keywords that you want exposure for, but do not have direct returns by combining the new Google Analytics goals with a budget optimizer campaign.

Geddes, Brad. Search Engine Land (2009). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>E Commerce