WebSite Marketing Strategy

Call it customer loyalty, reader loyalty or just  regular visitors, over time they are going to come and go. Sometimes the numbers go down faster than you can replace them. Natural attrition is quite normal in any business, website or blog - there are steps you can undertake to breath new life into your online presence and help slow down, or even reverse, that natural attrition.

Undergo a face lift:
Not you, your blog or website. Blogs are more prone to staleness when a free or cheap theme has been used. If you really want to stand out from the crowd, get a unique theme. If you already have a unique theme, talk to the developer to see what changes could be made. Sometimes the design can remain but the colors can be altered to better match the current trends. If you have a dark theme, try to reverse the colors. You will be surprised at the results.

Shift your angle:
If you are blogging in a certain niche the last thing you want to do is change that niche. You can however take a step back and review your angle on that niche. Are you still approaching things from an outdated perspective? A change in focus, becoming a little more radical or perhaps becoming a little more robust in the way you present your information can work wonders on a tired blog.

Interact and engage your readers:
Become a little more interactive with your readers. Ask for comments and provide feedback when you get those comments. Become a little more pro-active in visiting other pages and commenting when appropriate. The more you can engage your readers the more valued they will feel.

Offer freebies:
Not as effective as it once was, offer free ebooks or downloads to your readers, perhaps as a reward for signing up to newsletters or RSS feeds. The link can be included exclusively in the feed or newsletter. Your daily visitor numbers may not increase but your subscription numbers may.

Become a socialite:
Become more active in the social networking and social bookmarking scene. Don’t engage with a view to pimping your links - engage for the sake of being social. You will be surprised at inquisitive people become when you don’t push your own pages.

Pimp your content:
Despite the last tip, this time push your content for publication elsewhere. Whether it’s article submission, ghost writing or blogging on forum sites, push your quality - good quality - work in as many places as possible. Show the world the quality of your writing.

Buy a dictionary:
With quality content come the extras like spelling, grammar and punctuation. Get your content, especially if submitting off site, proofread by someone who knows how to spell and use grammar and punctuation. You can have a great story to tell only to see your credibility lose out due to spelling.

There is a lot of work involved in revitalizing your blog or website. However if you want to keep your current readers and attract new readers, you have to put in the hard yards. Do the work and you will reap the rewards.

Blogging income is becoming harder with more and more blogs monetizing their sites. The downside is that most visitors to blogs develop a certain blindness to any ads displayed. Perhaps the use of videos can increase your blogging income.

Videos are no longer a novelty on the internet. However having mainstream media use YouTube can be a big advantage particularly when you can display those videos on your site together with Adsense ad units.

The Adsense blog details the newest partners for video ad units. These are:

• Broadbandtv: “Broadbandtv is partnering with YouTube to bring the very best video program lineup to a growing and engaged online audience. Broadbandtv shows include hits from Fashion, Celebrity News, Sports, Technology, Comedy and Travel to top notch Spanish-language TV series like Somos Tu y Yo.”
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: “CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want it.”
• The Orchard: “A global leader in digital music, video, new media and brand services, The Orchard offers family content like Gumby, Mr. Bill, My Favorite Martian, and other categories of content like music and comedy.”

 The Video Ad Solutions page list other generes covered by video ad units. These include comedy, sport and entertainment among others. The ad units are only available in English and Japanese at present and can only be displayed in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.

You need to obtain the video providers YouTube username before setting up your new ad unit. The ads are available in two formats, 728 x 90 and 160 x 600. Both ad units expand to video players when clicked. As an advertiser you are paid on any clicks made on the text ad units.

Blogging income with a little difference.

In case you are not familiar with the concept, StumbleUpon allows you to pay for visitors to your pages, five cents per visitor or click. The question is, do you consider this to be a simple form of paid advertising, or paid social bookmarking.

On a simple level, it is just paid advertising and not social bookmarking. If you set a limit of $20 per day, you will get 400 visitors. They may stay on your page or they may spend five seconds and dissapear.

Where the situations changes is when they thumbs up your page. That’s a stumble and can lead to more than just the 400 visitors. Once you start to get votes your page is treated the same as any other page - he more thumbs up - the more visitors you are likely to get. That, however is still not the real concept of social bookmarking.

The real issue is if you are lucky enough to get a review with the thumbing. Now you have a social bookmark in place and it has started through a paid campaign.  Social bookmarking is all about getting as many of those ‘real’ votes, that is reviews, as possible.

So are paid ’stumbles’ just plain promotion or a part of social bookmarking? Does it matter? You could be using any form of paid per click advertising, a social bookmark is a social bookmark. Not a cheap method to get that bookmark and there are no guarantees of getting ‘reviewed’, however if you are simply after traffic, the bookmark may be a nice bonus.

Since being acquired by Google, Feedburner seems to be a backward slide into Googleism.  Many may not be familiar with Google’s lack of information, read any of their blogs and you only get a slight insight into what they are up to - Feedburner is saying even less.

There is no information coming out of Feedburner now. There have been no ‘Publisher Tips‘ since August 2007 and nothing on the official Feedburner ‘Blog‘ since May this year. Sounds like every other one of Google’s blogs - an occasional post that really only repeats what everyone has already worked out.

Up until the last post in August last year the Publisher Tips pages where publishing content fairly regularly, about every two to three weeks. It is close to 12 months with nothing more said. Perhaps they have run out of tips? It is all very quiet and given the following statement from their announcement of the acquisition last year, it seem the take over has not really been for the best:

We are confident that we’re going to continue to have fun and innovate for customers as rapidly as possible. We are confident and hopeful that you’ll look at your feed dashboard soon and say to yourself “Well, *that* was a good idea!”

They certainly haven’t continued with anything. It does seem strange that the regular posting of information from Feedburner dried up shortly after the acquisition. Either that, or there is no longer anyone home at Feedburner?

One of the biggest issues with the use of the internet is the security of information that is often collected as visitors pass through. What is missing from many websites including blogs is something as simple as a privacy policy.

A privacy policy should be a part of every blogs design and should be one of the first items created when starting a site. The format can be very simple or quite involved.  You can see our privacy policy, which is quite involved, too get an idea of what could be included.

If you run Adsense ad units on your site, part of Google’s terms of service include having a Privacy Policy. Failing to include one could see your site excluded from publishing their ad units. To quote from Google’s Adsense Blog:

We’ve also added some specific requirements that make it necessary for publishers to post and abide by a transparent privacy policy that users see. According to this policy, publishers must notify their users of the use of cookies and/or web beacons to collect data in the ad serving process. This change relates to advertisers’ use of innovative products and features like Gadget Ads and other offerings in the future.

Whether you knowing collect data, for example with newsletters, or allow third parties such as Google to collect data, having a written Privacy Policy brings a level of professionalism to any website, blogs included.

If you have several sites, or several blogs, you can allow them all to link to the one Privacy Page. This page does not require indexing so the simple use of a ‘nofollow’ tag in the link will prevent the spiders from indexing the page.

There is a need for openness on the web and the more transparent and open you are, the better your reputation. One simple page can mean a lot to your visitors.

Newsletters have again become a popular tool for product and blog marketing. Many websites and blogs now offer newsletters and they are being subscribed to in increasing numbers.

Some sites offer incentives to get signups however it appears incentives are not as influential as they once were. What is important now is content. Provide good quality, well written and relevant content on your blog and you will find visitors signing up.

Why are newsletters becoming popular. First, they are delivered. Secondly, they can be set aside and read when time is available, even if they are offline. The key to keeping your readers is to have a newsletter that looks professional, is easy to read and of course, that word again, contains quality content.

Once you have your newsletter and a subscriber base, you have a blog marketing tool that is easily spread to other readers. One aspect that I find missing to many newsletter is the simple call to forward the newsletter on to friends. With it should be a clear navigation point to subscribe to the newsletter.

I have over the years received many emails with newsletters that have been forwarded by friends. I have also been guilty of forwarding newsletters if I thought the content relevant to the recipient. This makes the newsletter itself a self promoting blog marketing tool.

If you don’t have a newsletter and you are running a professional, or semi-professional blog then perhaps now is the time to seriously consider one. They make perfect blog marketing tools and so long as you don’t overdo it, great affiliate marketing tools as well.

It had to happen somewhere along the line following Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick. From the end of August Google Referrals will be no more. The referral network will be replaced by the affiliate network.

Earlier in the year Google reduced the number of referral sellers by restricting them to certain regions, concentrating mainly on the North American continent. It seems the affiliate program will also concentrate on this region. At present there is no indication from Google whether publishers will be restricted to this region or if the right to become an affiliate will rely on your traffic statistics.

The story has been released through the official Adsense blog:

…..we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition…..

The article goes on to add:

The DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions…..

If you have Google Referral ads running then I suggest you check the procedure for removing these ads and, more importantly, for following any current referrals that may be due in the near future.

One way to gain links back to your blog is by visiting other blogs and leaving comments. This however takes time, a commodity that some people have little off to spare. It should be realized that comments do more than just create links. Commenting also exposes you and your blog to other individuals. This can lead to an increase in visitors.

• Create a list of related blogs that you enjoy reading or that add to your own knowledge in a particular field. Don’t go to blogs that are totally unrelated.

• Either subscribe to their posts via RSS or set up a daily visit list.

• Only leave comments when the post is directly related to your own sites interest. Posts that relate to one of your posts are even better.

• Leave comments that are sensible and add to the posts content. Ad some facts or similar insight. If the blog permits then leave a url to a relevant post. If they don’t permit URL’s within the comments, use the posts URL in the comments sign on URL form field.

• After leaving a comment, check back regularly, or subscribe to the comments for that post. If someone responds to your comment and their is an opportunity to respond back again, do it.

Commenting can be a conversion. I have seen comment chains running 100 deep, sometimes with two or three different discussions happening at once. Be a part of the conversation and make a name for yourself.

A blog is a great communication medium, so long as people visit and read your blog. Some people measure their popularity by the number of comments they receive, or by the number of subscribers they have. These figures can often be misleading. Any good blog metrics package will give you a much more refined look at your blog.

Comments and subscribers are not reliable indicators of popularity. When it comes to comments,  you may have some fairly good content, however some content is just for reading, not all content draws comments. Bloggers are also notorious for not stopping and leaving comments.

Subscriptions are just as unreliable. These days up to 50% of your subscibers may just be scrapers looking to make use of your content. Of the other 50%, how many actually read your feed?

A good blog metrics package will tell a real story about your visitors. You can see how long they are staying, which pages (posts) are more popular and whcih pages they are landing and leaving by.

By reading this information, you can determine which pages or stories are more popular and so concentrate on producing more along those lines. You are also able to see what search terms they are using to find you. A little more refinement and you can use those terms to increase your reader numbers.

Blog metrics packages provide a lot of valuable information if you know how to read them. That information is useless if you don’t know what to do with the information. Find what others think you do well and concentrate on that.

Many bloggers look to sell advertising on their to generate blogging income. The big problem is they have no idea what their blog is actually worth.

There are many sites that claim to put a value on your blog but the reality is that single formula is going to come up with an answer. As a blogger you want to receive as much blogging income as possible. An advertiser is going to want to pay the lowest rate possible while expecting a maximum return and there is no half way point.

As an advertiser, I want a return on my investment. Generally speaking, it can be difficult to determine how much traffic I receive from an ad placed on your blog. From there I also need to be able to determine what the conversion rate is. I can choose a static banner type ad, a per impression ad or and per click ad. As blogger, the ideal blogging income is a static banner pay per month type ad.

With pay per month ads you know in advance what your blogging income is going to be. With any of the ‘pay per …’ type ads, your income is going to fluctuate wildly. Eventually, if  your traffic is high enough, you may find that per impression or per click type ads generate significant returns.

What is your blog worth when it comes to blogging income? The value you place on it. If an advertiser is willing to pay $5 per month for an ad and you accept, then that is the value you place on your blog. If you hold for more, you may find that ad space remains empty.

Supply and demand rule even in an online world. As the number of blogs grow, the amount of ad space grows so the price per ad falls. Until you reach the point of generating thousands of visitors per day, the advertiser is going to be the one who dictates price. You either accept it or refuse it. Blogging income is getting harder to acquire so it often better to accept what is on offer if is suits the general direction of your blog.  It’s now a case of ‘beggars bloggers can’t be choosy’.