The Blog - Where Business Collides with Human Nature

How to Embed RSS Feed into Website for DIY Entrepreneurs

For the DIY entrepreneur who wants to embed RSS feeds into their website, instructions and resources are listed below.  

What is RSS?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Note: Not all of these are simple/easy. I share them with you in case you have someone on your team who has the expertise to get it done.

Topics: Software Internet Marketing Inbound Marketing Webdesign

Creative Commons - Pseudonymity & Anonymity for Internet Marketing

Websites, social media and the Internet feed psuedonymity and anonymity while claiming "copyright" to their content.  It is simple enough to give yourself a fake name.  Even under a fake name you can own the copyright to content.  Your Twitter name can be a meme, mantra or brand.  Your eBay name can reflect the product you sell.  No one needs to know your real identity.  Even a website which has photos, videos and content can be fake, fake, fake.  The more technical term is that the website owner could have "psuedonymity and/or anonymity".

To understand the language we will review a few definitions.  Once these definitions are better understood, you can determine if your marketing strategy will be about standing behind a curtain and acting like the wizard in the Wizard of OZ or standing tall with pride and transparency to build a reputation which gains trust and forms relationships.

Topics: Internet Marketing Legal Copyright Get Published

Hire Virtual Characters to Sell, Impress and Engage Online

Virtual assistants, avatars, and virtual characters can be hired with a click and may help the entrepreneur to achieve business success.   Using virtual characters is still a new way of thinking that requires a large paradigm shift.  For a quick review of virtual characters, we will reference an expert on the topic.

Topics: Business Technology Guerrilla Marketing Ideas Internet Marketing

Checklist to Hire Inbound Marketing Services

Are you interested in getting more leverage online?  This checklist will help you to prepare for inbound marketing services. If your business is in start-up mode, this checklist can also be a guide to improve your chance of success.

Topics: Internet Marketing Inbound Marketing

Which gets more conversions? Black background vs white background

"Looks good" & "Feels good" typically wins over facts & figures.

Topics: Internet Marketing Email Marketing Conversion

Where website traffic comes from [infographic]

Where does website trafffic come from?  This infographic breaks it down for you:

Topics: Internet Marketing Website Traffic

How To Implement Awesome Infographics Into A Small Business Marketing Plan

Pretty much everybody has seen infographics on social media sites or on a company’s website before. However, in the past, it was pretty much only large companies with considerable resources and time to collect data that were using and implement infographics effectively.

Today, even small businesses can create infographics, and they can be a huge boon to you overall social media presence. Infographics can help you create a viral marketing campaign and really get your content out there to users who will share it – something that’s very important for reaching new customers and your general target audience.

Topics: Graphics. Design Internet Marketing Inbound Marketing

Link Building Anatomy to Attract More [infographic]

Effective link building is no longer based on technical tasks which can be easily assigned.  In fact, to refer to it as "link building" is not the best way to express marketing plan activities. The infographic below has rephrased it to be "link baiting".

Link building has a history of physically adding links to external websites such as article sites, blogs, forums, etc.  The options to "drop a link" are going away as software evolves and webmasters limit the options for commenting.  Many times 3rd party tools such as Facebook or Disqus have become a method to limit web spam which comes by way fo automated link tools.

Topics: Link Building Internet Marketing

Break the Barrier: A Guide to Successful International SEO

International marketing is gaining online momentum and sweeping the industry as businesses realize the number of opportunities to sell overseas. With a staggering 86 percent of Internet users coming from outside of the United States, it is imperative that businesses move forward with their SEO efforts and market internationally. To best reach your multinational audience, use these tips we’ve compiled and watch your business rankings escalate to the top in Google.de:

Topics: SEO International Sales Internet Marketing

Information is Now Worthless: Think Transformation

"Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says."  “The real issue is user-generated content,” Schmidt said. He noted that pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.

Topics: Analytics Internet Marketing Inbound Marketing Content Marketing

What is Retargeting and How Does it Work?

Retargeting is a form of marketing online in which you target users who have previously visited your website with banner ads on display networks across the web. 

Topics: Retargeting Campaign Internet Marketing Inbound Marketing

Marketing Research: Average Website Conversion Rates by Industry

What are the average conversion rates for your industry?  This marketing research chart from MarketingSherpa will give you reason to cheer or leave you depressed.

If you are in a retail business, you are more interested in the purchase than getting them to subscribe. Non profits have the most difficult time because they don't typically offer value, they are hoping for a donation.

Why professional and financial services are the top on the chart may be directly related to the dedication of professional online agencies. 

Topics: Analytics Internet Marketing Conversion