All Entries in the "Internet Marketing" Category

Is Your Captcha Costing You Business?

I understand the need for putting a captcha below a form or at the login page and even for downloads pages. Keeping spammers out is a chore that makes captchas necessary.

But are you doing any tracking that shows you how many of your users are having trouble with your Captcha?

Is it too difficult?

Are your potential visitors just deciding not to sign up because your captcha declines them the first time?

Have you decided not to use a Captcha at all because you think visitors won’t like them?

The best example of Captchas gone bad is Yahoo. I’m not sure I have ever gotten Yahoo’s Captcha right the first time. It’s like one of those posters where you stare at it just right and it becomes a picture of something else.

Then, even after you are logged in, you have to do their Captcha for every change you make to your profile. Yes, annoy me as much as possible and I’ll continue to use your program. Good marketing philosophy. Way to go Yahoo.

How have you utilized Captchas at your website?

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Google and SEO Hater Video

I was sent a link to this video by a friend. This guy, Ryan Deiss, hates Google and says all of the SEO experts he has dealt with have ripped him off. He says he has the best source of traffic there is and that Google is afraid of them.

He’s talking about Facebook ads. Watch the video then come back and make a comment to tell us what you think about what he says in the video. You can find the video here.

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Partnerships Vs. Sole Proprietorships

Can you make more money with a business partner or as a sole proprietor? I’ve done it both ways and I can honestly say that I did better when I had a partner. There are pros and cons to doing it either way, of course.

I work better alone. With my type of personality you would think that I’d prefer to be in business alone, and most of the time I do. But I’ve learned that a partner who has strengths that you don’t have can offset your weaknesses. No business is perfect, but a business that utilizes people’s strengths and positions them in strategic positions to help the company grow can succeed in many ways that a sole proprietor cannot.

Do you agree? Do you prefer to work alone or do think a partner can help you grow more?

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What Will Be The Dominant Online Marketing Tool In 2010?

If you look back over the years, you’ll see that there have been different methods of marketing online that have dominated from year to year. In 1995, if you had a website then you made sure you were listed in Yahoo!s directory. In 1997, you tweaked your meta tags and tried to get listed in Alta Vista. In 1999 you were trying to get backlinks to impress Google. In 2003 you tried to make sure that your website content had all the right keywords in the right amounts.

Then there was e-mail marketing, social bookmarking, MySpace, blogging, Facebook and Twitter, viral marketing, video marketing, mobile marketing, and the list goes on.

What do you think will dominate in 2010? What Internet marketing methods will capture everyone’s attention and take off like a bat out of hell?