A convenient service courtesy of XBlog: Domain Log Book is a place for you to track all of your domains. All you do is add them to your log book and it shows you their Google page rank and Alexa traffic rank all on one page, as well as a link to WhoIs information. Supposedly there are more stats coming in the next few weeks.

...continue to read "Have Lots of Domains You Monitor?"

I guess everyone must be worried about improving conversion rates nowadays. I couldn’t stop laughing when I received the following in my inbox [I've removed their url and phone # to protect the guilty]:

I am trying to contact Bryan Eisenberg.

Anyway I specialize in converting traffic into sales and getting traffic to your site. Since you already do some type of advertising in Google, I know I can help you out. I was wondering if you could get back with me…

...continue to read "Cow Patties and Conversion"

Don’t you hate it when businesses don’t take the word “unsubscribe” seriously? I’ve unsubscribed from Ziff Davis’s Web Buyer’s Guide numerous times over the past few years. Yet they still send me emails, promising the latest in brand awareness-related white papers, case studies, and so forth. Every day–every single day–they send me one these:

But what about Ziff’s “brand awareness”?

For me, it’s simple: Ziff Davis = spam. (That’s unfair, actually. I have a far better relationship with Spam. Hormel Foods never tried…

...continue to read "Does Ziff Davis’s Spam Damage its Brand?"

Over at MarketingSherpa, my good friend Anne Holland expresses the challenges she’s facing choosing colors for her redesign. I can empathize for sure. It’s one of the reasons I suggest to first design and show design in gray scale; color is an emotionally laden language most of us don’t speak well, yet we understand it at gut level. Anne says:

If you’ve ever had to choose site colors, you’ll understand completely. The three biggest problems:

(1) Everything’s really subjective. What a color…

...continue to read "Color Me Bad? or ‘How Not to Waste Your Time’"

Last week, I had bad luck getting my emails returned. The switch from PC to Mac hasn’t exactly been as seamless as advertised (to be fair, though, most issues still revolve around, of course, Microsoft). Entourage is branding all my outgoing emails as coming from “An Office for Mac Test Drive User” while I wait for the new licenses to arrive. Thanks, Bill.

As if this weren’t bad enough, now I’m having trouble getting internal messages answered! My account is linked…

...continue to read "Viagra, Salesforce, and the Power of Consumers"

I was reading an article about the lack of women speakers at web conferences. Does gender diversity really matter? Isn’t a good speaker a good speaker? Why should it matter whether a speaker is male or female?

In web design, does gender really matter? Isn’t a good designer a good designer?

I specialize in marketing to women online. One questions I often get is, “If I’m targeting women, should I get a woman to design my website?”

My answer is always, “Hire the…

...continue to read "Do We Need More Female Web Designers?"

May 7-9th in San Francisco, CA, I’ll be presenting alongside many of my good friends from the web analytics industry. If your business depends on metrics (and all of them should by now), then use coupon code “grok” to save 10% on your registration for the Emetrics Summit. Rumor has it, if you register early enough could be eligible to win a seat at the “Breakfast with Gurus”. I hope to see you there.

...continue to read "Will You Grok At the Emetrics Summit?"

CRACK!

The whip snaps starkly, missing your ear by centimeters, setting the hair on your neck to full attention.

“Create a positive customer experience!” commands your task master. “You must ensure our site visitors can meet their goals and have a positive interaction with our company!”

You mumble something to the effect of, “Yes, oh great one,” and hunker down to create a seamless experience to make customers happy. You’re putting the finishing touches on a carefully planned scenario when…

CRACK!

Neck hairs once again…

...continue to read "Who Comes First – Your Customers or Your Advertisers?"

Pay Per Click ads? Banner ads? Print Ads? Radio ads? TV ads? Etc. If you do, I am sure you could find some hearty ideas to improve your ad writing from my buddy Tim Miles (a very good ad writer). Grab a mug and head on over to The Ad-Writer’s 12-Pack at American Small Business.

...continue to read "Do You Write Ads?"

Let me give you two examples…

Example one

Example two

Ok, example two is clearly the superior page for several reasons. But here is my question:

What if example one did nothing else but add the high quality customer reviews (yes even the negative ones) found on example two?

Do you think they would sell more shoes?

Not sure? Our friends at Bazaarvoice have more insight.

And now the most important question: Do you think I would look cute in those shoes?

...continue to read "Do Customer Reviews and Ratings Impact Conversion Rate?"