Last update: 6/9/01; 19:43:04.
Thoughts and ideas as they occur to me.
Thursday, November 30, 2000
Free marketing course, software and advice. The ROIbot Library offers a free five-day marketing course via email, marketing and website management software free for downloading, ebooks free for downloading, and a collection of marketing articles. I just read several of the articles and downloaded several more for reading later today.
I also downloaded a copy of the free version of the Guerrilla Marketing ebook written by Jay Conrad Levinson, someone whose advice I've admired and followed for over a decade. You can also purchase the complete Guerrilla Marketing for the New Millenium ebook for less than $30. It is not available in bookstores.
** JD ** 9:15:55 AMSwiss Army App for Webmasters. I've been hearing about Swiss Army App for Webmasters for months, but it wasn't until this morning that I took the time to look at the software and compare its list of features to other similar software.
One of the problems faced by all web sites, due to the fact that the web is a dynamic, ever-changing entity, is dealing with link rot. This is caused by websites changing or moving so that the links on your site no longer point to a valid address and your visitors see more and more 404 Page Not Found errors as time goes by.
One of the things Swiss Army App for Webmasters does is to check your site for broken links. If that were all it did, it would be worth most of its asking price. But, after spending some time looking over all the features it offers, I feel confident in saying that this software does much more for an active webmaster than other comparable programs.
Many of the features are available from other sources, and many of the features are available free, but you'll have to take the time to track them down and set everything up. With Swiss Army App, everything comes ready to go. This software is only available for Windows users (or Mac users running Windows emulation software), and comes with a 30-day money back guarantee.
You can download it and give it a try, if you'd like.
The one thing it offers that I, personally, think is a waste of time and effort is submitting to Free For All links pages. This may, at one time, have been a valuable way of linking back to your site, but I think it is no longer helpful, and I've seen reports that some of the search engines are deprecating links from FFA sites, which could hurt you in the long run. I don't know this for a fact, but I've read it from several sources. So, you may want to think about it before submitting your site to thousands of FFA sites.
Other than that, I think this is a valuable product that could save you many hours of work as your website gets larger.
I have not used this software. This news item is a result of reading the list of features and having heard good reports from people who do use the software. The 30-day money back period gives you the opportunity to try it for yourself with little risk.
** JD ** 8:32:31 AM1,001 Killer Internet Marketing Tactics. Let me tell you right up front. I will never knowingly recommend any product that fits into any of the following categories. (1) I will not recommend anything that promotes direct email marketing -- otherwise known as spam. All of us hate spam. (2) I will not recommend anything that recommends cheating anyone. (3) I will not recommend anything that stinks of "get rich quick" since I believe that it takes work and intelligently-directed efforts to succeed at anything. (4) I will not recommend anything that relies on using "tricks" to get ahead. This is probably a subset of #3 and I don't think it is a reliable or effective way to succeed at anything.
All of that said, I want to recommend Mark Joyner's Internet marketing course. His course doesn't recommend any of the things I listed above, and that's more than I can say about lots of the marketing advice I find on the Internet. 1,001 Killer Internet Marketing Tactics is an interactive course that runs on Windows computers (sorry, there is no Macintosh version available).
Remember, just reading a course or a book will not make you an overnight success. At best, it will give you guidance on what you should be doing to pull visitors to your site, keep them there and keep them interested long enough to become interested in your offers, convince them to click on your offer, and then purchase from you. Remember, it's not the hits that count, it's the sales you make. At worst, a good book or course should stop you from making some of the more common mistakes when it comes to marketing and selling.
I believe that you'll find Mark's marketing course helpful. It won't solve your problems and market your goods for you, but it will help you move in the right direction. Some people have reported great results as a result of following Mark's advice.
** JD ** 7:53:27 AMTrack the effectiveness of your advertising. If you're selling anything on the Internet, you need to know the effectiveness of your advertising. In direct mail advertising, it's easy to track your ads by using codes (usually thinly disguised as a Department on your address) and then comparing the number of responses to the cost of the ad and to the revenue you earn from that ad. On the Internet, this is more difficult to do, since someone can enter a URL and not necessarily click on the links in your site.
Now, there is a remote-hosted tracking tool you can use for all your advertising campaigns that will give you detailed tracking results so you can choose between ads that pull and make money for you and the turkeys that just cost you. They also offer a variety of other tools that you might find useful in managing your website and your business.
** JD ** 7:25:19 AM
© Copyright 2001 John L. Dilbeck, jd@johndilbeck.com.