The Less You Know, the Happier You Are
One of the things that holds back many semi-successful people who do not fully appreciate their own value is trying to answer everything possibly before the sale, which focuses too much time and effort on non-customers, while killing the imagination of legitimate prospects.
This reminds me of [...]

The Less You Know, the Happier You Are

One of the things that holds back many semi-successful people who do not fully appreciate their own value is trying to answer everything possibly before the sale, which focuses too much time and effort on non-customers, while killing the imagination of legitimate prospects.

This reminds me of the conclusion I came to when I wrote Creating personas that say yes. You could be turning away easy sales by focusing on the tough ones. But if you start with the easy sales, the word of mouth might spread, which will reassure the tough buyers.

This is easier to do in person, but a way to go about it online might be to write glowing copy about all the problems your product will solve, then provide a link to “more information” for those who want every question answered.

Matt Cutts on how you don’t need a dedicated IP
Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you’ll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure [...]

Matt Cutts on how you don’t need a dedicated IP

Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you’ll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception–thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth!

Is this saying an inbound from a “bad neighborhood” won’t hurt you because the person can’t help if it there’s porn on the server next to their site? It seems to be saying links aren’t judged on the basis of their IPs - which would mean you can get links from IPs that have issues, get links in from your own sites, whatever. All that matters is the relevance of the link and all that.

Now if only they would realize the same is true with paid ad links…

How To Make More Money At The Point Of Conversion
Most conversion processes can benefit from a OTO, but they must be monitored carefully so as not to erode the overall conversion of the original action taken. Some people will leave the conversion before completion if they feel they are being sold to too aggressively, so [...]

How To Make More Money At The Point Of Conversion

Most conversion processes can benefit from a OTO, but they must be monitored carefully so as not to erode the overall conversion of the original action taken. Some people will leave the conversion before completion if they feel they are being sold to too aggressively, so as with all things in Internet marketing, OTOs must be tested.

This is definitely a tricky technique. One suggestion I would make - based not on marketing expertise but on the fact that I’m one of those people who cancels a sale if you shove an OTO at me with scary scary “never have this chance again” language - is to frame the offer as something you really feel is helpful combined with the product, so you’re offering it to me at a special price when bought in combination with the product, and if I don’t buy it now, I’ll have to pay full price for it another time. And yes, I think the item should be available elsewhere at a higher price so I can see I’m getting a bargain, not just getting led down the sucker path.

Why I Use Articles To Build Links and Traffic
When starting a new site in a niche, articles are one of the first parts of my marketing plan. The reason behind this is that you can get a few easy links and some easy traffic. Once those articles are spread to the thousands of crappy article [...]

Why I Use Articles To Build Links and Traffic

When starting a new site in a niche, articles are one of the first parts of my marketing plan. The reason behind this is that you can get a few easy links and some easy traffic. Once those articles are spread to the thousands of crappy article sites, the value of the link degrades, but you’ll still see some traffic every month in my experience.

I’ve been trying to decide lately if the “crappy” value of the links makes this a viable tactic on a site you’re really trying to build for the longterm. I’m not convinced it is, but for sites you’re just trying out, I think it can definitely help.

5 reasons my wife would make a great black-hat SEO
To be honest, I’ve made a bit of scratch pushing the limits of what’s within the search engines’ guidelines (I don’t do link spam though, so don’t bitch to me about your blog comments, OK?), I even have some sites which still bring me income every [...]

5 reasons my wife would make a great black-hat SEO

To be honest, I’ve made a bit of scratch pushing the limits of what’s within the search engines’ guidelines (I don’t do link spam though, so don’t bitch to me about your blog comments, OK?), I even have some sites which still bring me income every month, whilst I’m waiting for the search engines to catch up with them, but I seem to lack the application, and the balls-to-the-wall sheer bloody mindedness to have a serious crack at it. What I have discovered over the last year or so of dabbling is that Mrs. PimpMyPageRank would make an awesome SEO mobster. Here’s why…..

I’m like Stuart. The five reasons he lists why his wife could do this are the exact traits I lack that keep me from wanting to dabble in blackhat stuff.

Let Mechanical Turk Do Your Dirty Work
For instance, someone with a deals forum was paying people .15 per forum post if they made unique post with a deal or coupon.
This is an interesting concept. Sure, a lot of people will use it to game Digg and so on, but you could also use it [...]

Let Mechanical Turk Do Your Dirty Work

For instance, someone with a deals forum was paying people .15 per forum post if they made unique post with a deal or coupon.

This is an interesting concept. Sure, a lot of people will use it to game Digg and so on, but you could also use it for having someone submit articles for you or post your Wordpress posts, etc. Definitely something to keep in mind.