A case study of why many companies continue to buy links

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: Well, the answer to the question, as with many tricky #digitalmarketing questions, is "it depends". I prompted to write this post, to alert you to a really interesting new piece in the New York Times shows both sides of the story - the publicity has caused a penalty. It's a massive company - JC Penney - an $18 billion company,  that's featured. This is a big a case of Google SPAM as when BMW were delisted from Google several years ago. Through using paid links as their strategy JC Penney have been very successful. As the NYT puts it: The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of…

Great examples of websites with effective online value propositions (OVPs)

"Why should I do business with you online?" is the question on the subconscious minds of all site visitors and especially first time visitors. I believe the design has to emphasise your key offers and why we should do business with you online rather than via another channel or a competitor. I call this an Online Value Proposition. I'm always on the lookout for sites that do this well, so thought it would be handy to present some examples here from different sectors. I like the example on the left from O2 which they use in the area of the site where visitors are viewing phones. It has links to the main parts of the proposition to help support the decision and highlight it with a good hook, image and…

Here are the most popular posts by page views as voted by you and our listings in Google since we launched the site in March 2010. Thanks to all our readers, writers, commenters and retweeters for creating, adding to and sharing our advice and alerts. All the best for you in navigating the Internet marketing maze in 2011!

1. Internet marketing strategy and planning template

Comfortably most popular was a detailed word document for developing or refining an Internet Marketing strategy. We also provided this RACE framework to help structure your plans with this content. We're hard at work developing more guides to release in 2011 to help with your Internet marketing planning. Download Digital marketing strategy and planning Word template

2. Online brand reputation or social media listening software - a comparison review of 36 tools in 7 categories

Originally…

3 conversion rate calculators to help you work out the opportunities from your Internet marketing

I've always believed that one of the best ways to convince your colleagues or boss to invest in digital media is to help them see the "size of the prize" and where your missing out - what is the gap between potential and current "how much money are your leaving on the table?". Over the years I've created a lot of spreadsheet-based models to help with this, but this week I'm prompted to post on some alternatives since David Sealey who has recently written for us about conversion rate improvement let me know about a tool that his company is offering, so I'll start with that and then share a couple more with you.

1 Simple conversion rate calculator in Powerpoint

This calculator from David Sealey at Quba takes a conversion model right down to basics, so it's great…

Whilst researching another blog post I was reminded about this post from January this year, from Joe Pulizzi. "€œWhenever I lose my way (to a more traditional mindset), I read through my content-marketing heavy list.  It's guaranteed to help"€, says Joe. So, rather than just list them, and the several that I don"€™t fully understand, I have picked and commented on the content marketing truths that resonated with me "€“ be sure you review the full 30 Content Marketing Truths from the Junta 42 web site. Joe really writes great stuff. A customer relationship doesn't end with the payment. In truth, the relationship has just started, the marketing sages have told us for years the value and growth is born out of retaining a customer, not constantly seeking a new one. Interruption isn't valued, but engagement is. It"€™s not the 1950"€™s, shouting louder in more places does not get you heard, so…

My predictions on 11 marketing trends for 2011

I'm was early in reviewing marketing trends for 2011 since I presented my predictions on the latest developments at the IDM/DMA North Annual Conference in October 2010. You can view my presentation at the end of this post.

2011 update - predictions in key areas of Internet marketing

Since this post has been popular and we've been learning from what others have been saying as we enter 2011, we've also created a series of posts giving our recommendations on strategies you could consider for your 2011 marketing. To make them more useful we give links through to other recommendations and where you can get started. We have top tactics for 2011 for: Social media recommendations Natural search marketing tactics Paid search marketing recommendations Email marketing predictions Web analytics predictions I also updated the presentation embedded at the end of the post for a talk I gave…

Back to basics: Conversion optimisation. Where should we start?

So many pages to improve, so little time! With more site owners turning to tools like Google Analytics and the Google Website Optimiser to review and improve pages, the obvious question is...where do I start?

Thinking beyond your home page

Last week we asked which types of web pages you thought were the best to look at first to optimise performance. This update shows how you voted  and at the end, outlines a 6 step website optimisation process to assess which page types are most in need of improvement.

Alternative customer journeys

This diagram of different user journeys is aimed at helping site owners think through the options of where to best spend your time initially. Working on which pages will help you improve leads and sales the most for the least effort? Where are you most likely to find the quick wins? The poll results below…

Technologies get attention, yet they"€™re fleeting suggests Steve Rubel in this presentation for Edelmen PR. I couldn"€™t agree more - remember MySpace, bought by Murdoch 5 years ago for £330m. And, only yesterday Google Wave went belly-up. Rubel notes that trends develop more slowly and are timeless, and for this reason it"€™s the trends that we need to take note of. So many "€˜new trends"€™ have been there all along, after all what"€™s really so new about social media - aside from the changing technology? Our desire to connect and share isn't new, and forums were one of the first web services online. Was that early social media or "€˜word of mouth"€™, both? So what trends are new according to Rubel... Six Digital Trends To Watch by Steve Rubel and David Armano…

This is my slide deck for the 4th Annual Digital Marketing Conference which I've been pleased to talk at several times. There are 20 tips mainly around examples of increasing conversion through site design tweaks and the analytics to review these. I've also also a few search and email tips. Digital marketing tips and tricks : Dave Chaffey Smart Insights …

Defining the best KPIs for Ecommerce

Ecommera have recently published a useful piece of research reviewing the key issues in 2010 for Internet retail strategy which is part of their new Trading Intelligence Quarterly report. Here's my summary of the stand-out charts.

They have also  added a new post on 4 key ecommerce KPIs based around profitability (no longer available)

Their survey of 100 UK Ecommerce directors was completed during April 2010.

2011 E-retail strategic challenges

Looking at the chart below, it's reassuring to see that social media isn't one of the major concerns and more fundamental issues like growing the online business through customer acquisition and retention strategies are more important. Acquisition is seen as more of a challenge or priority than retention which is often a misplaced priority in my experience It's a surprise that analytics and conversion optimisation is seen as a relatively minor concern, with driving traffic and…