Internet Marketing

“What’s your take on…”

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I love chatting about search engine marketing and social media with people. It’s one of the more fun parts of my job. In almost every conversation I have with clients or potential clients, I get asked for my take on one thing or another. I realized that people that I talk to are asking these questions, then people I don’t talk to directly (but they look at my website) probably have the same questions. I put up a page with my up-to-the-minute Internet Marketing philosophies on the most sought after areas in Internet Marketing (at least they are the areas that I get asked about the most).

My opinions on these things change from time-to-time (for example, my opinion on Foursquare changes every few days), so I’m going to do my best to keep updating this.

Of course I have more to say about each area, but it’s designed to be used as my high-level thoughts on each topic. Let me know if you have other areas you’d like me to address.

The LeBron Effect: An Internet Marketer’s Guide To Tonight’s Announcement

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lebron james effectI’ve got some quick thoughts about tonight’s LeBron James announcement. From an Internet marketing consultant‘s perspective, here’s what I’ll be paying attention to during the telecast:

First, what’s going to happen to Twitter? Will it hold up? This will be the most watched press conference in the Twitter Era since Tiger’s fake presser a couple of months ago. LeBron has been a trending topic all day. It will be interesting to see if Twitter can avoid putting up the fail whale once his decision becomes official. Twitter has held up fairly well during the World Cup, so you’d think they should be fine. But once he makes it official, it will be like someone let the water run from the Hoover Dam – a giant burst all at once.

Read moreThe LeBron Effect: An Internet Marketer’s Guide To Tonight’s Announcement

Worst Internet Marketing Strategy: Claiming Victory

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internet marketing strategyOne of the common questions I get asked about Internet Marketing strategy is about how long of a commitment it takes for a website to perform well in search. What I’ve found is that the person is really asking if they can put in a few months of work towards improving their search positioning and then reap the benefits.

When I hear that question, I often think about a quote from Hall-of-Fame basketball star Larry Bird.

Don’t laugh. Hear me out.

Someone asked #33 why he works so hard (in case you didn’t know, the guy was renowned for his work ethic). His response went something like this,

“I work so hard because I know that there’s always someone better than me out there working even harder than I am.”

Before you get mad at me for attributing the quote to Larry Legend because you think someone else said it, forget it. This child of the 80’s remembers it coming from one of my boyhood heroes. It certainly didn’t come from Magic Johnson.

Read moreWorst Internet Marketing Strategy: Claiming Victory

Annoying Vuvuzela – Proving the Randomness of Viral

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vuvuzelaI’d be willing to bet that 99% of people who have watched more than 1 minute of World Cup coverage on TV has asked a question similar to this:

“What the heck is that noise?”

Inevitably people find the answer. Either they call their buddy to find out if their TV is also making a strange humming noise that sounds like 1 million bumble bees or they head to the search engines and Twitter and figure out it’s the sound of tens of thousands of crazed soccer fans all playing the vuvuzela all at once – non stop for a 90-minute soccer game.

The obligatory follow-up question everyone asks:

“What the heck is a vuvuzela?”

Here’s the wikipedia definition:
The vuvuzela (English pronunciation: /vuːvuːˈzeɪlə/) , sometimes called a “lepatata” (its Setswana name) or a stadium horn, is a blowing horn approximately 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length. It is commonly blown by fans at football matches in South Africa. The instrument requires some lip and lung strength to blow and emits a loud monotone.

So what does all of this have to do with Internet Marketing?

Read moreAnnoying Vuvuzela – Proving the Randomness of Viral