Tech Talk for Entrepreneurs
All that twitters is not marketing gold; SEO is new Internet marketing hero
By Ken Mays
News Flash: all that twitters is not marketing gold. In fact, a new study by the Harvard Business School shows that 10 percent of Twitter users generate over 90 percent of Twitter content. What about the other 90 percent of Twitter accounts? The Harvard study indicates that most folks who sign up with Twitter only “tweet” once and then fly away, never to be heard from again. To survive, Twitter needs to find a way to turn this “loved by few, abandoned by many” business model upside down. The good news for Twitter: their brand name keeps growing. Celebrities and the news media just love saying their name out loud. Now they just need to add something substantive and sustainable to their service. And they’d better be quick about it. After all, Harvard has already called them out. They better hurry up before Clara Peller rises from her grave and shouts “Where’s the beef?” When that happens, Twitter’s done.
SEO: our new Internet marketing hero
Driving qualified visitors to your website to generate sales leads from serious businesses instead of “tire-kickers” looking for the lowest price can be a complex undertaking. A recent study by Forbes says that all businesses, regardless of size, need to start with search marketing. Before you groan about those extra pay per click dollars you’re going to need to pump into your marketing budget, the news gets interesting. SEO, the science of optimizing your website for organic search results, has climbed to the top of the search marketing list. Pay per click search ads (like Google AdWords) and email marketing using a list manager have been the powerful one-two punch of Internet marketing for a long time. Now, instead of the dynamic duo, we now have the triumvirate of pay per click search, email marketing and SEO. Additionally, a lot of marketing experts are now saying that SEO should be your first choice. I’m not ready to climb on that band wagon yet. Too many marketing eggs in one basket is always dangerous. A balanced approach is usually the best.
Other Pay Per Click News
While pay per click (PPC) search campaigns on major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN remain the darling of the Internet marketing industry, “click-through” has fallen on hard times in other areas of Internet adverting. According the the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau), “the click is an overused metric.” In fact, a recent article in OMMA (The Magazine of Online Media, Marketing & Advertising), said that impressions are far better at building online brand image. It seems like only yesterday when the online marketing gurus touted clicks as the prime indicator of a successful online display ad campaign. Now, clicks are “just a hint that someone may be interested,” according to OMMA. I guess it’s time for the industry to find some better metrics for measuring online success.
Who’s Your Daddy? Maybe it shouldn’t be GoDaddy.
In the world of website domain registration, when people ask the question “Who’s Your Daddy?” some are beginning to think twice before they say GoDaddy. More and more domain registrars, including the ever popular GoDaddy, seem intent on setting new standards for confusing their customers and fooling them into spending money on domain services they really don’t need. Everyone knows that domain registration is the dark side of the web development industry, filled with schemers, scammers and companies out to make a quick buck at someone else’s expense. Early in its career, GoDaddy was busy paving the way for lower domain registration costs and a user friendly registration dashboard. Lately, however, GoDaddy has been taking more of a “smoke and mirrors” approach to domain registration, often confusing customers into signing up for services they don’t understand and don’t need. A good case in point is the “first year free” private registration service offered by Go Daddy through their wholly-owned subsidiary Domains By Proxy. When renewal time comes around, GoDaddy starts charging the customer an extra $25 per domain per year for this first year free “Protection.” Since it can’t be removed from the shopping cart at renewal time, customers can’t renew their domain registration unless they sign up (and pay) for the next year of this private registration “protection.” In addition, the GoDaddy dashboard won’t remove the “auto renewal” option. A phone call to GoDaddy will get this changed. After all, there are laws that govern how credit card information is stored and used. However, a phone call will definitely not get the private registration removed. Instead, customers are faxed a form that requires them to “authenticate” their identification before GoDaddy will remove the private registration. (Three forms of identification and the thumbprint of your first born child. Not quite that ridiculous but close to it and a waste of time and darned inconvenient by anyone’s standards). By then, the customer has burned way too much time and effort on a simple domain renewal. GoDaddy reps advise customers to just pay the extra $25 and the remove the protection later to receive a refund (We say good luck with that). The takeaway here: Too many domain registration services (now including GoDaddy, the onetime customer-friendly darling of the industry) are confusing customers into purchasing services they don’t need and then locking them into an endless cycle of auto renewal. Our advice to the business customer: use your web development or information technology company to handle domain maintenance and registration. After all, you’re paying them to look out for your best interests. Our advice to GoDaddy: stop angling for the fast buck and return to your earlier model of good pricing and great service.
Ken Mays is President & Creative Director of Mays & Associates, Inc., a web development and graphic design firm located in Columbia, Maryland. Mays specializes in the development of Web 2.0 portal websites. An award-winning writer and designer, Ken can be reached at 410-964-9701 or by email, ken@ad-mays.com. The Mays & Associates website address is www.ad-mays.com.
This article appears in the August 2009 issue of the Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly