The BigPay Off Brand Value

The BigPay Off Brand Value

by: Beth Brodovsky

Many CEOs and marketing directors find their time wasted evaluating marketing opportunities instead of acting on them. When every possibility is followed, a meandering trail of hit and miss effectiveness is the result. Despite significant expenditure of time and money, marketing tactics may not produce the desired gains.

What is their problem? They are missing a crucial step in the marketing arsenal branding. The power of branding is that it is not just for your customers. When done correctly, it also creates a roadmap for you to follow internally, streamlining your planning and decisionmaking processes for years to come.

Outward Brand

This is what many people relate to when thinking of a กbrand:ก a logo, tagline, style of advertising, product packaging, etc. These are not the brand, but rather the brand elements. To be truly branded however, all of these elements are developed based on the core value of the company. The core value will stay the same, through product changes, service changes, and staff changes.

The value of this is in attraction. If you have spent the time identifying your ideal prospect [read: most profitable] and created an emotional reason to buy [read: comes back and brings their friends with them], then all your time and money is now focused on creating interesting tactics to engage a prospect you know will be profitable, rather than baiting the hook with whatever you have and hoping you’re fishing in the right pond.

The investment in developing a set message to a clear audience is rewarded by recognition, recall and referral of your brand. You can change ad campaigns, update packaging, and replace staff and if all reflect your underlying message, the brand impact will be carried over to your audience no matter how or who delivers it.

Inward Brand

Developing brand clearly improves external communication. Impressively, it can increase your internal efficiency as well.

What often bogs down the marketing process is planning, and deciding on a case by case basis what actions should be taken. We have seen marketing efforts derailed and budgets drained by everything from an aggressive ad sales person to a company executive driving past a billboard and insisting the marketing department book it.

It is so easy to latch onto what sounds like a great idea or a sure thing or to give up on a plan when no immediate results are seen. However brand marketing is not direct response, it is viral, increasing in scope and intensity the more it is replicated.

With a brand built on focus features, key benefits and a core value, it is easy to plan strategy and tactics to capitalize on your goals. And the next time someone asks you to place and ad, sponsor an event, or recommends a billboard rental, you will know if that is on your brand path or an expensive joy ride to who knows where, what we call an กoffroad vehicle.ก

The Reward

The effort of building and maintaining a brand must be constant. Your brand provides a roadmap but the destination is ultimately having customers so loyal they always choose your company and so zealous they bring their friends along. The value is in the opinion and the action customers are willing to take because of how they feel, and in the speed and accuracy of the decisions you can make to achieve your goals.

About The Author

Beth Brodovsky is the president and principal of Iris Creative Group, LLC. Brodovsky earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design from Pratt Institute, New York. Before launching her own firm in 1996, she spent eight years as a corporate Art Director and Graphic Designer, providing a sound foundation in management and organizational standards and structure. Iris Creative specializes in providing marketing and strategic communication services to clients in service industries and small businesses. For more information contact Beth at [email protected] or 6105672799.

This article was posted on September 08, 2003

by Beth Brodovsky

Cisco CCNA Certification: Don’t Overreact To Exam

Cisco CCNA Certification: Don’t Overreact To Exam Version Changes

by: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933

CCNA Certification: Don’t Overreact To Exam Version Changes

Whenever a Cisco exam version changes, thereกs always a lot of chatter about it on the web. The CCNA exams are no exception.

One comment I see often goes like this: ก I hear Cisco is going to change Intro / ICND / CCNA exam versions soon, so Iกm not going to start studying yet. Iกll wait until the new exam comes out.ก Do not let this happen to you. While some large publishers would have you think these exams change tremendously from one version to another (กupdated for the latest exams!ก), the simple fact is that the Intro, ICND, and CCNA Composite exams simply don’t change much from version to version.Sure, the questions change.

The only people who should be nervous about that are those who are trying to braindump their way to a technical certification.The topics covered on the CCNA exams don’t change much at all.

You know you’re going to have to demonstrate knowledge of LAN switching, ISDN, Frame Relay, routing protocol behavior, RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, and OSPF. Perhaps some of the more advanced topics will change, but these will be minor changes at best. Cisco announces these changes on their website well in advance (and youกll read about them here, too), so you won’t be left with no time to study.

Whatever you do, don’t fall into the กversion changeก. Don’t spend $100 $150 to hurry up and take an exam before you’re ready because of an upcoming version change.When you’re ready, you’re ready. Time spent learning is never wasted. Get started NOW.

About The Author

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantageกs website offers FREE ebooks and tutorials for the CCNA and CCNP exams, FREE subscriptions to กCisco Certification Centralก, and sells the best CCNA and CCNP prep courses and books on the market today. Visit his site at www.thebryantadvantage.com today!

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 04

by Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933

Content Management

Content Management

by: Barry Stein

More and more businesses are recognizing the importance of content management when it comes to their websites. Website content is more important than ever before, and as the Internet matures and changes, it is likely be become even more important. Many smart companies are beginning to make their website content the centerpiece of their Internet presence.

Content management means many things to different people, but it is generally understood to be the concept of separating the design and layout of a website from the actual content contained on that website. This allows a company’s web developer to do his job more efficiently and not get bogged down with endless requests for changes, additions and deletions to the content of the web page. More importantly, it allows employees who are not web developers to update the company’s web page.

When seeing the changes that have occurred to content management over the last couple of years, it is helpful to take a step back. The commercial internet is only about 10 years old. What began as a way for government researchers to communicate their findings with their peers has morphed into the giant commercial enterprise that is today’s Internet. With this explosive growth over the period of just a decade or so, it is no wonder that content management has changed and grown as well.

It may take another 20 years or more until the internet is fully mature, and many more changes are likely to be in store. Seeing those changes coming can put your business on the cutting edge and position you for success.

Putting content ahead of technology is the centerpiece of the content management concept. When designing and updating their websites, smart companies will put the reader first. Try to put yourself in the place of a visitor to your website.

When a visitor first sees your website, what is their first impression?

Do they see an easy to use interface?

Is everything laid out clearly?

Is it easy to find what you want?

Take an objective look at your company website and answer these questions honestly. If you find your website lacking, you can use content management techniques to make your website more intuitive and user friendly.

More and more companies are hiring professional writers and editors as part of their overall content management strategy. This is a strategy that I believe will pay big dividends as the internet further matures. The internet is already the number one source of information for many people, and as more and more people get comfortable with using the internet, those numbers are likely to grow. The companies that can provide the most useful web content, to the greatest number of people, are the ones that will thrive in the 21st century.

By now most major corporations and many smaller firms already have functioning websites on the Internet. This means that the demand for professionals to design and upload websites is likely to shrink in the future. On the other hand, the need for professionals who can update web content and make it useful to customers is likely to grow. The future of content management has never looked brighter.

About The Author

Barry Stein is the owner of aWebBiz.com where he offers cuttingedge tips on all aspects of business. To find more advice, tools and resources to help you succeed in your business, visit: http://www.aWebBiz.com.

Barryกs Internet Marketing Blog: http://aWebBiz.com/blog

This article was posted on February 21

by Barry Stein

Managing Your Identity

Managing Your Identity

by: Nigel Lew

Managing your identity can seem hopeless at times. Here is a primer to assist you in creating great graphics that work.

Flexible vs. Static

If the company is new is it best to make sure that your brand is ขflexibleข meaning it can be modified to accommodate changes within the infrastructure of the company. Typically changes such as adding of new departments, removal of departments, or general changes in focus.

If the company has been around for quite a while and has it’s focus nailed down then its time to create a graphical element that is more authoritative and defining or static would be the proper term in this case.

Capturing your clients ethos

Now keeping these few guidelines in mind, how do we go about ขcreatingข said graphic? There are a number of things to take into account on the creative side of things and its important to really listen to the client as you are now attempting to create what they ขseeข not what you see per say. Your clients may not always know that they need but you need to extract what they think it will look like ขto themข. This is one way we capture the ขethosข of the company within the graphical element.

Here is an example, we did some suggestions for a firm in London. The product was called system angel which is a program that remotely oversees networks for security purposes.

My information for the project was something blue, manly, and of course would suggest an angel overseeing a network.

logo is called system angel and is located here.

Take note the graphical element is flexible or could be modified to suit various changes within the company. This could be done with various line work or the addition of further elements, to reworking of the font, which is in this case intentionally soft.

Keep in mind there is usually much to consider when creating a brand for someone such as target market, location, length of time in business. This should however serve as a good starting point.

About The Author

Nigel Lew is the Owner and ECommerce Project Manager of Ultimatech Computer Consultancy located in Aspen Colorado. You may reprint this article by leaving his name in tact.

ultimatechcc.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 07

by Nigel Lew

Education and Outsourcing, 2 Ways to Improve your

Education and Outsourcing, 2 Ways to Improve your Business.

by: Joop Liefaard

Develop your skills and talents to perfection and outsource what you lack. If you have a talent for writing, become the perfect salesletterwriter and if you don’t know how to build a web site let an expert do that for you. By using education and outsourcing all tasks in your business are done well and you stay ahead of your competitors.

1. Your Objective and Strategy

If you organize your business you formulate an objective and develop a strategy to reach that objective. You also define the tools that you need to make the strategy work. Like sales letters, budgets, investment in hardware and software, education has to be an integral part of your tool box. When you have the whole picture ready you have a very good idea what skills and abilities you need to bring the journey to a good end. But there is another thing.

2. Changes

We live in a time of rapid changes. Everything around us changes in an incredible speed and it effects us all. There is also an effect on the way we are doing business. New views on economics, technical changes, new and very fast ways of communication through the virtual highway…it all asks for an attitude of anticipation and a refreshment of knowledge, skills and abilities. You must prepare yourself in time for the future. If you don’t, you lose because your competitors do and try to take your share of the market.

3. Talents

Everybody has talents. One has a talent for languages and is an excellent copy writer, another has a creative talent and is a very good web designer. Your talents make you good in one task and less suitable for others. You should constantly evaluate yourself; which task is done well and which task needs improvement. However the problem is that with the growing complexity of your business you can’t do everything equally well. And to be successful every aspect of your business has to be outstanding.

4. Two Lessons

There is something funny about people. What they don’t have they will never get. A lack of talent for mathematics can never be compensated by studying hard. It will always be a weak point. On the other hand, they can improve their real talents into perfection. This holds two lessons for you and these lessons are:

Never try to learn something for which you don’t have a talent. It takes a lot of time and money to only understand the basics. Time and money can be better used. E.g. for talking with an expert in the field you try and cannot master. This is called outsourcing. Outsourcing to others what they do more efficiently is a successful management strategy and not a sign of weakness.

Develop your talents into perfection. Never stop improving yourself in the things you are really good at. Become an expert in what suits you. Education is the only way to improve the knowledge of your own intellectual capital

The bottomline of this article is that you should be well aware of your talents as well as of your limitations when developing your business or anticipating changes. You should always be prepared to act efficiently. Educate yourself to the highest level possible, or outsource tasks.

Copyright 2003 Joop Liefaard. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. Itกs a shareware article.

About The Author

Joop Liefaard uses his experience as a human resources manager to help small business owners to better organize themselves and their enterprises. Visit his website at http://www.ezinewithaplus.com, for information about กbestratedก home business opportunities, effective tools and honest support. Here you grab a FREE subscription to his Ezinewithaplus Business Tips Newsletter.

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 01, 2003

by Joop Liefaard

How Secure Do You Feel At Your Job?

How Secure Do You Feel At Your Job?

by: Jim Heim

We are all familiar with the term ขcorporate restructureข in this day and age. Do you ever think one will ever personally affect you? After being employed by a major Midwestern retail chain for 28 years I didn’t think so. I started working for them in college; you know to get through school. I was studying management so it was only natural to get involved in their management program there. After graduating I was offered a position that required moving. No questions ask, my wife and I packed up everything we owned, left our families and pursued the American dream.

After 25 years in management, working in 3 cities at 5 different locations I had slipped into that false sense of security. Then those meetings started about how the company was going to transform. ขBigข competition was moving into the area the company operated in, there had to be changes to survive and ขmove forwardข. The restructure inevitably meant cuts in overhead which of course translate into staff reduction.

It was early in January, after a successful Christmas selling season, that the tension really began to build. Changes in the wind were blowing strong now. All management personnel were to attend a mandatory meeting on Thursday. At this meeting a sketchy outline was given of the new direction the company was taking. We were thanked for our efforts in seeing the company through its best year ever. Then just as we were to be excused we were informed that over the next two days each of us would meet with the store manager to find out our part, if any in the changes.

The next day was the day I had my appointment. I entered the store manager’s office and sat down. Not 10 seconds after that I knew of my fate, ขas you know the company is restrictingข the manager said. He continued ขyour position has been eliminated, you will be ask to leave after this meetingข. I was astounded that after all the time and dedication I had poured into the company I was ขbeing eliminatedข!

I did receive a charitable severance package but then what. I was thankful that my kids were grown and on their own but how was I going to pay the bills? Could I afford to keep my home? What if the car quits? Energy costs are on the rise, can I heat my home? Can I even afford gas for the car? What would you do in this situation?

After the initial shock wore off I realized life would go on. My girlfriend, who also worked at the same store and suffered the same fate as I, started our own business. We do home repair with a focus on paint and wallpaper.

That works as well as the effort you put into it. Another problem is the Holidays. First, people don’t want their house torn up during the holidays. Second, they can’t afford to have changes because they are paying for the holidays.

Like many people I have a home computer which I enjoy. Hey! Why not make money at home with the computer? I searched around a bit, trying a few ขit’s quick and easy to make cashข programs. Watch out for the ขoffersข that suggest ขfor just $19.95 you can make cash todayข. Also be cautious of programs with a one or two page website. It didn’t take long to figure out it was them making the fast buck!

What I was looking for was a company with a solid background, one that had been around with a track record to prove it. One that offered more than an email address for support or questions, one with no money up front to join. With a bit of time and effort you can find a solid opportunity to invest your time and energy in.

How secure do you feel in your job?

About The Author

Jim Heim has over 25 years of retail management experience. He has his own Home Improvement business. He is an Executive Affiliate with SFI and is willing to help those who wish to help themselves secure their future. Learn more by visiting http://www.takethisjobandluvit.com.

This article was posted on February 09

by Jim Heim

The Changing Face of Search Engine Optimization

The Changing Face of Search Engine Optimization

by: Bobby Heard

With the ever evolving internet market for just about anything you can imagine and Google’s index growing to almost 9 billion pages, and counting, there is little dispute amongst search engine optimizers that our job is getting much harder. From linking to articles, and density to ontology, our industry changes as fast as any other. The search engines, especially Google, seem to be on a daily diet of change and their algorithm seems to be growing at the rate of their index.

The word ‘related’ plays a much bigger part in SEO today than it ever has in the past. Instead of targeting an exact keyword phrase, it now makes a lot more sense to keep your site within context and to have related words to your keywords, compared to having density of one keyword phrase. Linking has also turned into a frenzy for relevancy. Unrelated links seem to no longer carry much weight at all. The theme through all of Google’s recent changes seems to come down to one cliché: quality over quantity.

Just like with any other update at Google, optimizers must search and research their profession, however it seems to be happening more often than ever. You can’t walk through our office without hearing Google’s name a thousand times. We have unofficial RND (research and development) meetings almost every hour as there seems to constantly be new ideas and theories popping into all of our heads. In the past there were always changes to the way we’ve done our work, but the pace of this change is accelerating rapidly as well as the competition for online searchers.

MSN seems to be creating a buzz and they’ve just recently started a national television ad campaign. Their search results resemble Google’s of 6 months ago, a time that will go down in SEO history as ขthe good old daysข, and also a time that Google’s SERPs seemed a lot more relevant than they do today. New search engines seem to be popping up all over the place, and after all, wasn’t Google a virtual unknown 5 years ago?

One of the best points made to me over the past month came at the preview of the new become.com search engine in California, where founder Michael Yang decreed this to be only the very beginning in the history of online search. Whatever happens in Google’s future, and the future of online search, there is one thing for certain: only the most intelligent and innovative of SEO companies are going to stay above the bar and continue to find ways to get their clients, and themselves, to the top.

About The Author

Bobby Heard ([email protected]) is the VicePresident of Abalone Designs (http://www.abalone.ca), which offers great SEO results at affordable prices.

This article was posted on February 23

by Bobby Heard

Getting Started with HTML

Getting Started with HTML

by: Dean Walden

Copyright 2004 Dean Walden

The basic language of the internet is html. If you can do crossword puzzles, if you can write a report for your teacher or boss, you can be creating web pages in a matter of minutes.

Even if you’re not a writer or not a ‘techieก. Itกs sort of like your first date. Terrifying to think about, but not nearly as bad as you thought when itกs over.

The truth is that you can create your first webpage with just eight words enclosed in symbols.Thatกs right! The following words, with each enclosed in symbols, make a complete usable web page.

html

head

title

/title

/head

body

don’t enclose this one, itกs your content hi (:

/body

/html

If you copy whatกs between the dashed lines above, open notepad,paste it into a page, enclose each word in symbols and save it as anyname.htm, you can open your web browser and load it just like any other web page or double click on it and it should load automatically.

Now, that wasn’t as bad as you thought, was it? All you need now is to learn some more of those words enclosed in symbols and youกll be a pro.

Those words such as html, head, /head and /html (when enclosed in brackets like these ) are called tags, for instance and . The ones such as html and head are called start tags and the ones with this symbol / such as /html and /head are called end tags.

What you see in the web browser is what you put between the body and /body tags. You could type an entire report or letter without knowing any more than you do now.

If you learn just two more tags you can create links and use images in your web pages. Also, and nearly as important, you could be making changes in web pages that you may own already.

LINKS

The html below will put a link to Google on your web page when a symbol is placed after the second quote and the /a symbol .

a href=กhttp://www.google.comก google /a

To put the link on the web page you created above just copy the line between the dashed lines above and paste it between the body and /body tags and save it. Then load it or double click it as before.

The tag used for links is the a tag and itกs counterpart the /a tag. As you can see there is a little more to this tag. In the tag you add the webpage that the link will load into your browser.

IMAGES

If you want an image on your web page use the html tag below and place a at the end.

img src=กa:mypicture.jpgก

This is set up to put an image called mypicture.jpg (located on the floppy disc in drive a:) on a web page.

Again if you just copy this (replacing กmypicture.jpgก with the name of your image) and paste it between the body tags the picture will appear in the browser window. (by the way if you make changes to the web page then save the changes, you need to click the refresh button on the browser to see the changes in the browser window.)

Of course, there is also a lot more to html (It doesn’t get too complex until you start making tables). In fact complete books (many of them) have been written on the subject, but if you look at the html for most web pages you will find less than ten different tags, including the ones above.

Well, thatกs enough to get you started. If youกd like to learn more just send an email to [email protected]. I hope this has been helpful and encouraging.

the author is webmaster of freewebbook.com.

About The Author

Iกm an internet veteran since 1994 with skills in programming, css, html, java and publish love poems to 1500 subscribers. The password to my site at this time is password.

This article was posted on April 20, 2004

by Dean Walden

Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

by: Ted Kushner

Are you having a hard time breaking out of your comfort zone?

Everyone has a comfort zone they are the routines in your life that youกve become accustomed to. Routines and habits you are comfortable with and have a hard time changing.

Personal comfort zones may include certain routines you have like:

Getting up every morning you may go to the bathroom first, then make a cup of coffee next, and then finally you may get yourself dressed, etc.. .

Business and financial comfort zones may include:

Your trusty day job the one youกve been going to work for at the same place at the same time doing the same thing for the past 10 or 20 years.

Or maybe itกs using the same marketing method(s) over and over again without testing new ones.

Personal preference comfort zones may include:

Your diehard vehicle, the trusty friend that has given you reliable transportation for many of years.

Whatever it is, or whatever you call it it has become your comfort zone. I call it the shackle though, as it keeps many of us from making constructive changes that could benefit us.

No one likes changes because of the uncertainty of them, but certain changes can actually make dramatic improvements in your life if you take control of them.

Simple things like:

Maybe youกve decided that you would feel better exercising in the morning before having breakfast, or that you decided on eating certain foods that were good for you versus processed foods changes that improved your health.

Or, youกve changed the way you drive to work and it cuts down on the amount of time it takes to get to and from your job leaving more time to be with your familychanges that improved your relationships.

Maybe youกve decided to take that plunge and start your own online business changes that improve your wealth.

So what is your comfort zone?

For me it was the decision to stop being afraid of success or failure on the Internet. My personal comfort zone was dreaming about success but not doing anything about it.

It was easier for me to dream about success then to do something about it. There was no work involved in dreaming but there is work involved if you want to succeed at something.

Recently though I finally decided it was time to break out of my comfort zone and do something about it. It was time for some change… and yes, I was afraid.

So for the first time, I wrote a simple press release to promote an affiliate product I was selling. I wanted to see if writing press releases was an effective way of marketing.

To my surprise… it was a success. The program that I was promoting received a top ten position in Google on a very competitive keyword I was targeting in which I made quite a few sales on.

But it meant more then just the success of this one press release, what it really did for me was boost my confidence to the point that I knew now that I could write about subjects of interest to me while providing valuable information to my audience.

I had finally broken out of my comfort zone. Since then I have started writing additional press releases and articles relating to the products that I am promoting and about other items of interests.

Writing about these subjects, while providing my readers with valuable content has enabled me to start making a decent parttime income in my sparetime.

I consider it a very enjoyable hobby that has many benefits.

My point is though is if I can do it so can you. You just need to break out of your comfort zone and make some changes to your lifestyle.

Whether it may be personal, financial or business take the plunge and break out of your comfort zone!

Copyright 2005 Ted Kushner

About The Author

Ted Kushner of AffiliateRevenueSources.com writes about the latest trends in affiliate marketing and web site promotion. To see how you can use Google yourself and gain a top ten position in just a few days visit: http://www.affiliaterevenuesources.com/getingooglenow.htm

This article was posted on March 04

by Ted Kushner

Why SplitRun Testing Does Not Work…

Why SplitRun Testing Does Not Work…

by: Konstantin Goudkov

There is a wealth of information out there about the benefits of splitrun testing or how to conduct such tests, and a huge selection of software solutions that help to implement it.

Iกm am not going to attempt to describe the concepts of testing, nor will I pitch any software solution.

I want to talk about why so many people fail in their attempt to improve the conversion rate of their sites while using splitrun testing techniques.

I often hear things like:

‘the only thing that seems to affect my conversion rate is the headline.ก

or

กMy visitors don’t seem to react better to any changes I make besides lowering the price.ก

I would say that 90% of people never bother to start testing content or offerings. And out of 10% that test their content, 90% fail to produce any positive changes for one simple reason. Iกll tell you the reason in a little bit.

To understand the obviousness of the mistake that most people make, read the following paragraph and tell me if it makes any sense.

Every day, you randomly change some attribute on your site. On Monday, you move your newsletter signup box from the bottom left to the top right corner. On Tuesday, you flip a coin and if it comes up heads then you leave your changes, and if tails then you move the signup box back to itกs original place. On Wednesday, you remove all testimonials from your site, and on Thursday, you flip a coin again to determine if you should put the testimonials back where they were before. And so on. You do not measure the performance of your site, but simply change stuff around without thinking about it too much. You use your lucky coin to determine if the changes you made should be kept or not.

Do you really believe such course of action will achieve any positive results?

I didn’t think so.

And yet, most of the people who perform splitrun tests do just that.

Here is a specific example.

Letกs imagine that you ran a small campaign for two versions of a sales letter (control and test).

Once you finished the campaign, you got the following results:

control group: 12 orders for 619 visitors 1.94% conversion rate test group: 15 orders for 567 visitors 2.65% conversion rate

Based on such test, you will probably conclude that your test group performed better and will make that content your new control. After all, 2.65% seems much better than 1.94%, and the total of 27 orders seems enough for a solid conclusion. Itกs pretty close to the popular belief that 30 orders (or 1000 visitors) is enough to get solid data.

Well, the moment you turn your test group content into the primary version of your site is the moment you flip your lucky coin to make a decision.

You see, based on those numbers, the probability that your test does not represent the reality is 44.16%. In other words, you might have as well sent visitors to two identical versions or a page and got the similar results almost half of the time.

44.16% is pretty close to 50%. And the way I see it, 50% is just as good as flipping a coin without doing any measurements.

How did I get this number 44.16%?

I did not use any rules of thumb, nor did I employ my gut feeling. I used statistics to calculate the exact answer to my question: How certain can I be that my test data is reliable?

I will show you a quick and easy way to get such answer in a moment, but before that, read a few words of caution that might save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

It seems that if you make enough changes with at least a little improvement added by each change, you are bound to make your content convert better. That would be true if all (or most) of your changes resulted in a positive improvement, but in reality they don’t. At least not when you flip a coin to decide the fate of a modification that you are testing.

Once you start calculating statistics and see the real numbers, you will be tempted to stop your test halfway and accept unreliable results as กgood enough.ก You might start fantasizing about how much more money you will make with the improved conversion rate just to get disappointed by the lack of real improvement because you decided to cut the test short.

If you do this, you will end up making changes without any substantial proof that those changes increase the conversion rate. So you will no longer be testing, but simply guessing.

The significance of your changes depends on a combination of several factors such as the difference in conversion rate, total number of visitors, and the number of sales in each group.

So how did I come up with that number?

Iกm not going to give you a set of lengthy and boring statistical formulas. Instead, Iกll give you a free access to a calculator that was created for this specific purpose.

It does not cost you any money, and I don’t require your email address to use it.

Here is it:

http://calc.inthenameofprofit.com/86429/ab_test.jsp

I hope is saves you at least as much time and money as it saves me, day after day.

Good luck with your testing!

You are free to distribute this article, and if you do, please make sure to keep the content intact (apart from the text formatting) and the resource box with credits listed at the end.

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You can substitute the ad that is being displayed on that page by creating your own ad here: http://calc.inthenameofprofit.com/register.jsp

Once your create your ad, please make sure to use the correct link in the format: http://calc.inthenameofprofit.com/XXXX/ab_test.jsp

Where XXXX is your ad number.

About The Author

If you would like to receive more of my tips, ideas, articles, and reports about testing, tracking, conversions, marketing, and sales send an email to: [email protected]

Konstantin Goudkov, [email protected]

This article was posted on May 04, 2004

by Konstantin Goudkov

Dollars In The Details!

Dollars In The Details!

by: Daniel Levis

When it comes to your marketing message, the little things count. Trouble is, you’ll never come to respect how much, until you make a commitment to science.

Let me ask you something. Do you practice Kaizen?

Kai what?

Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning gradual and orderly, continuous improvement. Sound like you?

Or do you just wake up one morning & decide that you need to re do your site?

Do you keep a diary?

Not the Anne Frank kind, a chronological record of the results revealed by your ongoing marketing experience. Documentation of exactly what happened last time you changed the copy on your web site, ad campaign, or sales letter.

If you’re like most, you don’t bother to go to this trouble, & you don’t practice Kaizen.

Now I don’t expect you to take my word for it that seemingly trivial changes to your marketing message could have a DRAMATIC impact on your results. I know better than that, see.

But here’s a simple threestep method that you can try out for the next six weeks to prove it, for yourself.

There’s nothing more fascinating than watching human nature in action, & you’ll be amazed at the improvements you can make in your profitability in just a short period of time!

A Simple Three Step ขHow Toข

Follow this roadmap to easily & clearly document your experience with minimum hassle.

Go ahead & try it. It’s not rocket science.

Step 1 – Take a web page that you’re running right now, & decide what you would like to see it do better than it does. Would you like to improve the conversion rate? Are average dollars per visitor your thing? Maybe you need to drive cost out of generating optins, or referrals?

Make a copy of it

Now think about the flow of the page & what might be discouraging people from taking the desired action. Sometimes it’s the words you’ve used. Sometimes it’s the order of the words, or the phrasing of the words. It could be the headline, or the opening paragraph, take your best guess.

As a rule of thumb, changes to the headline & the opening paragraphs, or around the ขcalls to actionข will have more impact than changes elsewhere on the page. But sometimes even subtle changes like indenting the paragraphs, moving images from right to left or left to right can have surprising effects.

Make just one change on your copied page, and republish.

Now, create a folder on your hard drive with today’s date included in the file name, and save both of your pages as HTML files in it.

Step 2 – Advertise your pages with a redirect link that splits the traffic evenly between the two pages. This is known as ขsplit testingข. There are a number of products out there that you can use to do this.

Step 3 – The page that records the most conversions, is your ขcontrolข. You will want to reserve this judgment until you have seen it make at least 30 conversions for statistical validity.

Once you have your control, go back to your folder, & rename it by adding the current date to create a date range. So for example, your file name will change from ขsplit test 1 May 25 04ข, to ขsplit test 1 May 25 04 – Jun 25 04ข.

Now, carefully summarize the metrics that you have recorded in a note pad, & save it in the folder with the HTML files. Be careful to provide enough text explanation as necessary to ensure that you will be clear on the meaning of the results when you revisit them at a later date.

Also, be sure to document the traffic source. Different sources of traffic can have a remarkable impact on results, but that’s a whole other topic of discussion.

You are now ready to repeat the process.

Copy your ขcontrolข & make another change, thereby creating a new ขchallengerข, and so on.

To your success, & until next time, Good Selling!

Japanese Proverb

กIf a man has not been seen for three days, his friends should take a good look at him to see what changes have befallen himก

About The Author

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto Canada. Recently, Daniel & worldrenowned publicist & copywriter Joe Vitale teamed up to co author ขMillion Dollar Online Advertising Strategies – From The Greatest Letter Writer Of The 20th Century!ข, a tribute to the late, great Robert Collier.

Let the legendary Robert Collier show you how to write words that sell…Visit the below site & get 3 FREE Chapters!

http://www.AdvertisingOnlineStrategies.com/adstrategies.html

This article was posted on November 29, 2004

by Daniel Levis

ReUse The Links You Have When Revising Your Site!

ReUse The Links You Have When Revising Your Site!

by: Martin Lemieux

Many times Iกve seen a web site undergo a revision and everything is brand new, even brand new links!

Youกve worked so hard to get those great page ranks for all your pages and then you get rid of them? NO NO NO.

Itกs the same reason why people buy กexpired domainsก. Simply because before search engines, directories & web sites have a chance to notice there is no web site anymore, someone simply changes the site to fit their needs and utlizes the traffic coming in!

Letกs say that youกve made up your mind and you want to change the entire layout of your site. Before you do so, go through all your links and record the page rank that your pages have right now.

Ex.

Page 1 (PR 3/10)

Link: www.yoursite.com/page1

Page 2 (4/10)

www.yoursite.com/page2

Page 3 (2/10)

www.yoursite.com/directory/page3

Now I would look at those pages and utilize the pages that have a rank of (4/10) for my most important information when I consider the new layout. Doing so will automatically get my page listed under the new information within Google.

Typically, I don’t usually reuse pages that have a rank of 2/10, 1/10, 0/10. Anything higher will be strongly considered.

This will help search engines to recognize, a) Yes the site has changed, b) we are familiar with the pages they are reusing.

People BOOKMARK pages all the time!

What if you deleted all your old pages and created some new ones what will happen to your visitors that have a bookmark for those old pages??? They are now left feeling like your site is down, deleted or doesn’t exist anymore.

If you’re going to discard some old links, try adding a กPage no longer existก message to let your users know that you know about the problem and you are sorry for the inconvenience.

So when redesigning your entire site, don’t be afraid to reuse those high ranking links you already have for your site.

Searching For All Your Pages Online:

If you’re like me, and you have well over 500 pages listed in google, youกll want to go through google to see if youกve missed any pages while performing changes on your site.

type in กwww.yousite.comก in Google so that you get your main link. Don’t forget the brackets.

You should see underneath your listing a link that states:

ก[ More results from www.smartads.info ]ก

This will show you all the pages listed within Google. Take a moment to go through all the links found within Google and make sure that youกve caught all your old, outdated pages and correct the problem accordingly.

Good luck with all your changes!

About The Author

Martin Lemieux

Smartads President

http://www.smartads.info

Affordable Web Design & Online Advertising

http://www.flyinggelatingames.com

ASES Affordable Search Engine Services

You may reprint this article for your site and newsletter.

YOU MUST KEEP EVERYTHING IN PLACE WITHIN THE ARTICLE!

This article was posted on December 06, 2003

by Martin Lemieux