Web Development Ecommerce Business Blogging Case Studies

Clients Reveal their Success Secrets

As you might imagine, most organizations are reluctant to share publicly the strategies and tactics that have given them an edge over their competitors online. So it is a testament to our clients’ generosity and commitment to partnership that they have graciously granted us permission to publish this inside view of their SEO, e-marketing and web development initiatives.

Below you will find a selection of case studies from some of these valued clients.

Blog Monetization: From Soup to Nuts

DMA 08 Conference & Expo — Las Vegas, NV

October 13th, 2008

Moderated by Stephan Spencer

Get the nuts-and-bolts of how to turn a blog into a “profit center” - generating wildly positive ROI by making sales, attracting leads, and generating ad and affiliate revenue. Our panel of expert money-making bloggers will share step-by-step advice, most profitable tricks of the trade, pitfalls, hazards, resources required.

Learn…

  • Learn how to diversify and supercharge your blog’s revenue streams
  • Leverage others’ blogs for your own gain
  • Maximize your blog’s search visibility and traffic

Moderator:
Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts

Panelists:
Jeremy Schoemaker, Founder, ShoeMoney Media
Duane Forrester, Senior Program Manager (SEO), Microsoft, and author of How to Make Money with Your Blog
Steve Spangler, CEO, Steve Spangler Science
Chloe Spencer, Blogger, Neopets Fanatic.com

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Web Site Design Spotlight: Live, On-the-spot Critique of Retailers’ Sites

Internet Retailer 2008 — Chicago, IL

June 11th, 2008

Panelist: Stephan Spencer

A team of long time e-commerce experts will provide live reviews and makeovers for sites from the audience members. Retailers in the audience will be asked to bring search marketing, user experience, e-commerce strategy and other design questions to this session where experts will view the sites in question and provide answers to fix what ails their web sites. Audience members who volunteer their sites for critique will receive a $25 Starbucks gift card.

Panelists:
Lauren Freedman, President, the e-tailing group
Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts
Amy Africa, President, Eight by Eight

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SEO Report Card: Pinkorpunk.com

April 2nd, 2008

by Jeff Muendel

Originally published in Practical eCommerce

In this edition of the SEO report card, Jeff Muendel reviews eCommerce site pinkorpunk.com. This niche eCommerce site sells accessories that (you guessed it) are either pink or punk. This website audit is especially helpful for other new eCommerce sites, since pinkorpunk.com launched quite recently. Here’s a little bit about what Jeff has to say about this unique boutique.

Pinkorpunk.com is a fairly new website, which may partially explain its PageRank of 0. But, the other factor in the ranking is the site’s small number of inbound links. Yahoo! sees 45 links from outside sites while Google doesn’t list any at all. Inbound links translate to PageRank, and higher PageRank translates to better search engine results. This site, with its vibrant content, should have no problem garnering links! A linking campaign is in order here. Research online directories and get listed in those that still have decent PageRank (many have been recently demoted by Google in that regard). A blog is also in order, especially with such hip content. Online press should be a target as well, as should social media avenues like MySpace, Flickr and Facebook.

For more about this niche eCommerce store, visit the Practical eCommerce website audit here.

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Being Off-Topic, Off-Message, or Off-Brand Can Be Good For Your SEO!

March 20th, 2008

by Stephan Spencer

Originally published in Search Engine Land

Ok, perhaps I’m being a bit provocative here, but sometimes it’s the off-topic, off-message, or off-brand content that earns you the most valuable links—links that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. Those links can really pay the bills, in terms of the extra search traffic and resulting sales. The brand police within your company may pitch a fit, but heck, it’ll be worth it! Here’s how it’s done:

Continue reading »

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Integrated Email Marketing and Online Communications

BrightStar Training — Wellington, NZ and Auckland, NZ

March 10th and 11th (Wellington) and March 17th and 18th (Auckland)

Workshop by Jacqui Jones

Is your email marketing right on target?
Do you want to improve open rates and conversion rates?
Do your customers view your email communications as spam?
Do you know how to use RSS and blogging to complement your email marketing and online communication efforts?

The value of email marketing in New Zealand has been growing steadily over the years. Not surprisingly email marketing and online communications are the most popular media of choice now, particularly email marketing.

Email is a powerful marketing tool and it integrates well with traditional media. It spurs immediate action, thus generating direct sales, registrations, growth of database and more. It is also more cost effective than paper-based direct mail and achieves greater ROI. However, it is wrought with challenges. And with the passing of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act, it’s important for organisations to ensure compliance whilst developing their marketing plans.

Integrated Email Marketing and Online Communications takes a practical approach to ensure continued acquisition, growth and retention of customers through targeted, robust, tried and tested strategies to help lift your email marketing strategies. To help you gain the upper hand over your competition, the course also covers some popular online communications tools that you could implement to supplement your email marketing strategy.

DAY ONE
Digital Communications — Email Marketing, Online and Offline Media
Customers today have more choice available than ever before of how they are communicated with. Customers ultimately want to control the frequency, the content and how they receive their communications. This session covers how email fits within the full marketing mix and how it integrates with other online and offline media.

  • What are digital communications?
  • How do digital communications fit within the full marketing mix?
  • Marketing through email, RSS, blogging, txt, websites
  • Platforms – desktop computers, mobile devices
  • Integration with other online media
  • Integration with offline direct marketing

Developing an Email Strategy
Many companies spend a lot of time, effort and budget acquiring email addresses, but neglect to develop an effective communication strategy once they have them. You’ll learn to develop strategic communication plans to maximise the potential for robust marketing strategies through this session.

  • Developing the digital communication strategic plan
  • Objectives, strategies and tactical elements
  • Understanding the email marketing and digital communications
    process
  • How to integrate email marketing into other online and offline media

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act: Your Legal Obligations
Understand and ensure that your organisation meets the requirements of the Electronic Messages Act 2007.

  • Definition of spam
  • Definition of permission levels
  • Permission vs. memorable permission
  • Industry guidelines and best practices
  • How will the Act affect your marketing plans?
  • What are the penalties and costs associated with breaches?
  • How tight is the current legislation – what are the ways around it?
  • How to ensure compliance
  • International spam laws – do they apply to companies in NZ?

Data Management: Building and Maintaining a List
Data is at the heart of any form of direct marketing including “email”. It pays to identify the data that you need to collect in order to personalise communications and provide effective reporting.

  • Structuring your database – what type of data do you need?
  • What are the reporting data requirements?
  • “Quantity” vs. “Quality” – retaining the active subscriber
  • Cleaning and maintaining data – changes, adds, deletes, fixing misspellings
  • What is “provable permission” – recording and time stamping of permission received
  • “Offline permission” – how to record permission granted through the call centre, trade shows, network meeting and face-to-face sales activity
  • Managing permission across an organisation

In-House or Outsource – Assessing Email Service Providers
Finding the right email service provider is a critical choice for any company. You will explore and learn ways to find the right vendor and technology to manage your campaigns now and into the future through this session.

  • How to assess your needs
  • Questions you should be asking
  • Assessing email service providers in NZ and overseas
  • Liaising with your email service provider

DAY TWO
Winning Creative Strategies & Execution for Email
Create email messages that stand out, get read and get the response you plan for.

  • “Memorable permission” – planning content your subscribers actually want to read
  • Exploring the 19 creative elements (the from line – email brand value, the subject line, the preview pane, position of logo, ratio of text to images, design layout, number and type of links, navigation bar, inclusion of photography, feature offers, location of call-to-action, the words you use and personalisation etc.)
  • Email mandatories
  • What are the technical specifications?
  • Designing effective landing pages and forms
  • Use of rich media – video and audio
  • Eyetracking and multivariate testing

Increasing Conversion Rates
This session covers how to use data to improve conversions such as open rates, click rates, inquiries and sales.

  • Reporting data
  • Behavioural targeting
  • Event triggered campaigns

Deliverability, Filters and Rendering
Learn techniques to avoid the dreaded “spam” folder and “report spam” button.

  • Data collection and tracking
  • Filters and list management
  • Deliverability reporting codes – messages sent back from ISPs
  • About false positives
  • Whitelisting – how to get your message delivered every single time
  • Image suppression – what’s getting delivered?
  • Authentication and reputation
  • Rendering your message in email readers

RSS – Spam Free Communications
Is RSS the holy grail of online communications? Lean how to send communications that are completely spam free.

  • What is RSS and why use it?
  • What are some of the popular RSS readers available?
  • iRSS – individualized RSS, sending personalised communications just like email
  • Content distribution and syndication

Blogging – Participating in the Ongoing Conversation

  • The New Zealand and international blogospheres
  • Starting a blog - how to choose a theme
  • Posting content – what, how, when
  • Dealing with comments
  • Making friends – increase your presence in the blogosphere
  • Integrating your blog with email and RSS
  • Use of video (vlogging) and audio (podcasting)
  • Reporting on performance

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Ecommerce Blogging: Who, What And When

March 5th, 2008

by Jeff Muendel

Originally published in Practical eCommerce

If you’ve even remotely considered adding a blog for your eCommerce site, then this article is for you. In this article originally featured on Practical eCommerce, Jeff Muendel helps eCommerce business owners design a strategy behind blogging.

A focused, well-written blog can get readers hooked on the blog and promote repeat visits to the website or garner subscriptions via RSS feeds and email newsletters. These recurring communications will help to tie potential customers to your site, encourage natural link building and increase repeat visits. Journalists are also more likely to follow a blog or subscribe via RSS than to visit the corporate site repeatedly. So, several avenues of search optimization and online marketing can be addressed with a single blog entity.

From the SEO benefits of business blogging to how it can help your customers, Jeff covers the basics of “who, what and when” of blogging. Read the full article at Practical eCommerce here.

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Online Retail & Blended Results

SMX West — Santa Clara, CA

February 26th, 2008

Panelist: Chris Smith

The session focuses on how online retail listings from shopping search are being mixed into the regular results of the major search engines and how to better ensure your products are positioned in front of searchers.

Moderator: Vanessa Fox, Features Editor, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance
Chris Smith, Lead Search Strategist, NetConcepts
Phil Stelter

Q&A Speakers:
Paul Dillon, Director, Live Search Shopping, Microsoft
Ken Kronquist, Director of Product Management, Yahoo! Shopping

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How to Get on Google Maps Without an Address

February 11th, 2008

by Chris Smith

Originally published in Search Engine Land

One of the top issues in delivering up local search results in a map-based format is what to do with businesses which have no street address. During the SMX Local & Mobile conference back in October, Dick Larkin asked Google Earth VP Michael Jones a question about this very thing: "What should we recommend to local businesses which do not have a local street address—how do they get into Google Maps search results?" Michael’s answer was surprising. I’ll give you his answer in a moment.

Continue reading »

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SEO Report Card: agoodyarn.net

February 6th, 2008

by Jeff Muendel

Originally published in Practical eCommerce

In this SEO report card on Practical eCommerce, Jeff Muendel, Search Analyst for Netconcepts, writes a full review of an all-about-yarn ecommerce store recommending that they redesign the site to be more search-friendly.

Jeff’s expertise begins with a critique of their home page:

I always harp on having a sitemap linked to the home page, and while some sites need it less than others, Agoodyarn.net could benefit from one almost immediately. A sitemap, which is a page that has links to all the major categories an subcategories of a web page, helps search engines through all the sections of a site. It can also be a shopping asset for customers. Almost all of the textual content on the home page is set as link text. Not only does this water down the keyword promotion that the links might garner, but it’s also just plain spammy. While it may not be the webmaster’s intent, this is a form of link stuffing, and it is frowned upon by search engines. The site’s title and logo text, “Fine yarn, classic patterns and odd notions,” are not textual but graphical, and therefore invisible to the search engines.

Be sure to read the full article for how simple fixes and a savvy re-design of their eCommerce site can boost this yarn retail store’s website and their overall SEO.

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