Here’s a short list of some of the online marketing books I’ve read over the past few years (in no particular order).

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
You need to read this book. Even if your not in marketing, this is one of the better books I have ever read that explains the why and not just the what of human behaviour, specifically, in terms persuading someone to do something.

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing
The Eisenberg brothers do a great job explaining why you need to look at your customers in multiple dimensions. Implementing their suggestions isn’t something is easy, but for anyone who’s reached the “lowest common denominator wall”, this is your best way to improve your site.

Read the rest of this entry »

The past couple of weeks I’ve been using Google’s website optimizer as part of their beta test.

Overall, I’m very impressed. From a business perspective this make so much sense. Anything that can improve a site’s conversion rate is a true win-win for Google and the advertiser. We get more sales, our cost per sale goes down and then we can afford to bid more on words that already work and convert marginal keywords from the loosing money to the making money pile.

Google is already providing excellent tools to help advertisers improve the performance of their AdWords campaigns. As always, they are ahead of the everyone else, by understanding that in order for them to succeed, they needs their customers (AdWords advertisers) to succeed.

I’m impressed with their implementation of the tool itself. I’ve used other split testing tools before, like vertster.com, but I really, really like Google’s solution. I encountered one of their initial bugs which was very annoying at first, but it’s been fixed. They’ve also recently improved the integration with Google Analytics.

I do have a couple of “gripes”.

First and foremost, they should have named it something other than “Google Website Optimizer”. The name is too generic. When I did a search for Google Website Optimizer (no quotes) most of the results I got deal with optimizing your website for Google. A search with quotes got me better results, but ultimately, I think they should have gone with a name that’s unique enough so searches will return relevant results. For example, AdWords, AdSense and Gmail are all unique names.

I can’t think of anything really good for a new name, but here are some ideas:

• Googimizer
• OptiGoogle (scratch that, sounds to much like OptiMost, a different split testing service)
• Gwoptimizer
• GWO (scratch that to, sounds to much like GWB (George W Bush).
• Gsplit

I have some inside secrets that I’d like to share but I need to confirm with our Google rep. before I can talk about it

If you have any questions about Google Website Optimizer, please feel free to ask.

Are you promoting someone else’s site without even knowing it?
My tale of being victim to a below-the-belt SEO tactic.

Recently, we added user forums to our company web site, in order to give our customers and potential customers a place to voice their questions and opinions. We settled on using Invision Power Board (IPB) which runs using PHP and MySQL.

A couple of weeks ago I installed a modification to our forums which makes the URL of the pages appear to be static html pages and it also inserts the topic title into the URL. The modification package (also called a “mod”) is called FURL, which is short for “Friendly URL”.
Friendly meaning the URLs are more search engine friendly.

After installing the FURL modification, instead of using this URL:
http://forum.resperate.com/index.php?showtopic=19
it uses this URL:
http://forum.resperate.com/My-doctor-said-pills-for-the-rest-of-your-life-t19.html

Both of the above URLs take you to the same page, but the second one both looks nicer, and is supposed to improve search engine placement.

Last night, I wanted to check if Google was picking up the URLs with the static or dynamic URLs, so I searched for a pretty unique phrase from one of the pages: “It sounds like RESPeRATE is working well for you” and surely enough, the page had been picked up, but the URL it was showing was the dynamic one, not the static one.

I was curious to see how Google was seeing the page so I clicked on the cached button:

That’s when my jaw dropped

There was some additional stuff I had never seen before at the top of the page which looked like this:

Instead of the normal forum section header which looks like this:

The modification I installed didn’t just modify the URLs. It also added, unknowingly to me, some extra text at the top of the page as well as some links to other pages - but the added text was only being shown to the Google spider, and was not visible to a normal human viewing the site. This alone can get you banned from Google.

The fact that FURL adds this content is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation or installation instructions.

It really saddens me that the author of FURL added a very underhanded tactic improve their search engine rankings.
If they would have added a small footer to the bottom the page that was shown to everyone, I would have been perfectly OK with that and would have left it.

It seems that quite a few sites have FURL installed and are affected by this SEO hack. If you do a search for “SEO Powered by FURL” in Google, it says over 2 million results.

* sigh *

update:
I looked at the source code of the mod itself which does have this “”disclaimer”:

//FURL END

// Tracking Code / Copyright String - DO NOT REMOVE
// -----------------------------------------------=
// !!Please leave this code in, if you dont then please remove the mod from your site!!
// !!You are only free to use this mod while the following line is in!!
// I went to alot of time making this mod and would like a little
// in return so i can continue to spend time upgrading it,
// instead of charging for this mod ive put some link code in
// this just links back to my site using my keywords to improve
// my rating on Search Engines, the links only appears to search
// bots though so its not on every page.
//
// Its also because i like seeing my mods in use on other peoples sites!


also - I got a writeup from john andrews at http://www.threadwatch.org/node/5589

So we’ve been running the user forums at http://forum.resperate.com for a few weeks and we’re getting some good user entries. We’re using invision power board 2.1 on a windows 2003 box running IIS6 and php 4.3.

Of course I want the URLs to be search engine friendly, but I was not able to find anyone claiming to have a solution for IIS. they all want mod_rewrite under apache.

So after a bit of googling, this looks like what I want:
http://www.alt-man.co.uk/FURL/Documentation.htm

but of course it also wants mod_rewrite. no biggie - I say to myself. I’ll just google mod_rewrite and IIS.
after of searching, this seems to be what I want - isapirewrite:
http://www.isapirewrite.com/

At this point I actually started reading about their linkfreeze product, which seemed like a plug and play solution for what I wanted (albeit not as good as FURL) so I downloaded it and tried it out. To make a long story short, linkfreeze doesn’t work with Invision Power Board 2.1 out of the box. - Update: I just got a reply from them saying that linkfreeze doesn’t work with http compression turned on (makes sense).

So, back to my original plan, I decide to go with isapirewrite. This is a commercial product, but for some strange reason, I figured that it’s of better quality than the free mod_rewrite for IIS solutions out there.

I install it, but it’s not doing anything. Zilch.

A bit more reading the docs (if all else fails, read the docs) it seems that there are some special notes on using isapirewrite under IIS 6. as per the instructions I add iis_wpg group access to the files and viola - it’s working!
of course the syntax for isapirewrite is not exactly the same as mod_rewrite so I had to make a few changes to the .htaccess file the comes with FURL.

Here is the correct syntax to get FURL to work with IIS and isapirewrite:


#
# mod_rewrite in use
#
#RewriteEngine On
# Uncomment following line if your webserver's URL
# is not directly related to physival file paths.
# This is usually not needed.
# RewriteBase /YourForumDirectory
#
# Rules
#
# Gallery
RewriteRule /gallery.html(.*) /index.php?act=module&module=gallery$1
# DO THE TOPIC URLS
RewriteRule /(.*)-t([0-9][0-9]*)-s([0-9][0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?showtopic=$2&st=$3
RewriteRule /(.*)-t([0-9][0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?showtopic=$2$3
# DO THE FORUM URLS
RewriteRule /(.*)-new-topic-f([0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?act=Post&CODE=00&f=$2$3
RewriteRule /(.*)-new-poll-f([0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?act=Post&CODE=10&f=$2$3
RewriteRule /(.*)-f([0-9][0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?showforum=$2$3
# DO EMAIL AND PM URLS
RewriteRule /(.*)-a-private-message-m([0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=4&MID=$2$3
RewriteRule /(.*)-an-email-m([0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?act=Mail&CODE=00&MID=$2$3
# DO THE PROFILE URLS
RewriteRule /(.*)-m([0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?showuser=$2$3
# Login/Logout
RewriteRule /logout.html(.*) /index.php?act=Login&CODE=03$1
RewriteRule /login.html(.*) /index.php?act=Login&CODE=00$1
RewriteRule /register.html(.*) /index.php?act=Reg&CODE=00$1
# STATS AND LEGENDS
RewriteRule /the-moderating-team.html(.*) /index.php?act=Stats&CODE=leaders$1
RewriteRule /todays-top-10-posters.html(.*) /index.php?act=Stats$1
# MEMBERS LIST
RewriteRule /member-list.html(.*) /index.php?act=Members$1
# ONLINE LIST
RewriteRule /online-list.html(.*) /index.php?act=Online$1
# HELP
RewriteRule /(.*)-h([0-9]*).html(.*) /index.php?act=help&CODE=01&HID=$2$3
RewriteRule /(.*)help.html(.*) /index.php?act=Help$2
# USER CP
RewriteRule /my-controls.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=00$1
# MESSENGER
RewriteRule /compose-new-message.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=04$1
RewriteRule /inbox.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=01&VID=in$1
RewriteRule /sent-items.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=01&VID=sent$1
RewriteRule /saved-pms.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=20$1
RewriteRule /empty-pm-folders.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=delete$1
RewriteRule /edit-storage-folders.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=07$1
RewriteRule /pm-buddies.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=02$1
RewriteRule /archive-messages.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=14$1
RewriteRule /message-tracker.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=30$1
RewriteRule /new-messages.html(.*) /index.php?act=Msg&CODE=01$1
# SUBSCRIPTIONS
RewriteRule /view-topic-subscriptions.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=26$1
RewriteRule /view-forum-subscriptions.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=50$1
# PERSONAL PROFILE
RewriteRule /edit-profile-info.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=01$1
RewriteRule /edit-signature.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=22$1
RewriteRule /edit-avatar-settings.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=24$1
RewriteRule /change-personal-photo.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=photo$1
# OPTIONS
RewriteRule /manage-your-attachments.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=attach$1
RewriteRule /manage-ignored-users.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=ignore$1
RewriteRule /email-settings.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=02$1
RewriteRule /board-settings.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=04$1
RewriteRule /change-email-address.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=08$1
RewriteRule /change-password.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=28$1
# MODERATOR TOOLS
RewriteRule /ip-tool.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=iptool$1
RewriteRule /member-tool.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=memtool$1
RewriteRule /manage-anoucements.html(.*) /index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=announce_start$1
# GET NEW POSTS
RewriteRule /get-new-posts.html(.*) /index.php?act=Search&CODE=getnew$1
# DO THE FORUM INDEX
RewriteRule /forums.html(.*) /index.php?act=idx$3


This is one of the sneakiest uses I’ve seen in a while for deceptive wording:

Seen Advertised via Google on:

You can see it at: http://www.resanex.com/.

In other words, you might see their advertisements on the above sites, which are served via google.

* sigh *

I just noticed a new feature on amazon. Links to external reviews. The new section is called “News and Reviews About This Product “.

For example, I was looking at the page for the canon sd500
Sure enough, there were three links to reviews from some of the top digital camera sites. Albeit, the links did open up new windows, but why chance sending away visitors?

My first theory was that these sites are probably amazon affiliates, so in essence any purchases would be sending buyers back to amazon. This was not the case. The sites obviously use non amazon online stores, some of which are cheaper than amazon.

I’m guessing this is more of a test at the moment than something which is a sure win for the site.

What do you think?

If you want to know how to use the Internet to market your web site, here is a short tutorial I’ve written based on my own experience doing Internet marketing. This tutorial is meant only to be a starting point to help people who don’t know where to get started. Also, this tutorial will not be covering any offline marketing or the basics of marketing in general. Even if you’re the top result on Google for the term “yellow tomatoes”, that won’t help you much if you’re selling green apples.

I work for a company called InterCure that manufactures a medical device called Resperate. Resperate is a medical device that lowers your blood pressure. For this tutorial, I’ll be using our web site http://www.resperate.com as an example.

I’d like to divide our marketing efforts in to two distinct goals

• Getting more people to come to our site
• Getting the people who come to our site to buy the product

Of course that’s a bit of an over simplification, but the general idea is accurate.

Getting more people to come to our site
This is also sometimes called getting more traffic to your site. There are two main ways to get more traffic to your site.

• Improved search engine listings and links to your site
• Paid advertising

The topic of getting improved search engine listing is world unto itself. There are plenty of books/services/sites on the subject. The two terms you should be familiar with are SEO - Search Engine Optimization and SEM - Search Engine Marketing. Both term are similar. SEM is a bit newer.

more to come later …

In response to my last post, I finally got an answer.
Their online document was wrong. It was wrong in 5 different places.
Basically, they said they’re sorry and that’s it.

* sigh *

I recently added email open rate tracking in Urchin for our email campaigns.
The problem is that I’m not seeing any of my email campaigns in Urchin. I sent an email and got this reply:

“I have escalated your question to our technical team. They’re currently investigating the situation, and we’ll contact you as soon as we’ve found a resolution. We thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”

That was over a week ago and still no update.

I’ll keep you posted.

Update
We’ve stopped using urchin (we were on a month to month contract). Their interface is SO nice and out of the box it’s a pretty decent solution. Unfortunately their service is horrendous.

We decided to go with NetTracker.
Their service is outstanding (I can talk to a technical person within a a few minutes via phone), and I feel like they really try to help me - not just get me off their back (like with Urchin). I just with their interface was better. The learning curve is much higher than Urchin, but once you know what you’re doing - you can can really answer just about any question about your traffic.

- Ophir

As per my previous post, we’re looking at our options for web analytics.
I know that Google recently bought Urchin.com , and I heard that Urchin just slashed their prices for their services so I figured I’d give em a try. We’re paying $300 a month ($200 for first 100,000 page views and $100 for each additional million)
The good:

• The reports look very nice.
• The reports provide me with most of the information I need.
• The site’s responce time is fine.

The bad:

• Service sucks. There is no telephone support and the emails are usually answered within 24 hours. Ocasionally the responses don’t really help much either.
• Not all of the web analytics I need is provided. For example, I’d like to be able to view my bounce rates per campaign.

The other option we’re checking is Net Tracker SMB.
List price is $7,500 but we’re upgrading so we’re getting a better deal.
The good:

• Service is excellent. I’m just evaluating and already I’m getting my questions answered on the phone within minutes.
• I can basically query any question I can come up with

The bad:

• Since we’re looking at an in-house solution, we’re gonna need to buy a high end maching to handle our queries.
• The reports don’t look as nice