Since writing on “about us” pages a few months back, I’ve received several inquiries like this one:

Thank you for a very valuable information on the “About Us” page, good examples.

How about new companies or companies that are being created? Customers are skeptical to engage with new companies. What would be your advice in terms of what is the best content to put in it, what to highlight, if you do not have history and you are staring from the “garage” location?

What…

...continue to read "How Start-Ups Can Build Effective “About Us” Pages"

Omniture, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR), a leading provider of online business optimization software, announced today a definitive agreement to acquire Visual Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: VSCN) in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $394 million.

This is a great move for the web analytics industries and their customers. Consolidation helps to create standards. My personal congratulations to Jim MacIntyre and all our friends at Visual Sciences, and to Josh James and crew at Omniture. Best of luck to all involved.

...continue to read "Omniture Acquires Visual Sciences"

Here’s a great “Why didn’t I think of that?” tip from TechSoapbox. Want to find some great keyword fodder for your site, or borrow a bit of mojo from the competition? Search del.icio.us/url to see how people who’ve tagged the sites you’re interested in have phrased their description of the website.

And don’t forget to check out the tag cloud on the top-right [example], which will give you some sense of visitors — at least the ones interested enough to bookmark it…

...continue to read "How to Find Del.icio.us Keywords"

No disrespect to Mr. Trump — and I’m talking about his public persona, not the man himself — but most people wouldn’t naturally connect “The Donald” with “Guru.”

Why is that?

After all, Trump has proven expertise in his field. He’s a bestselling author, several times over. He has an intensely personal “take” on not only his profession, but just about anything you might care to bring to his attention. He’s been a mentor to more than one “apprentice” (sorry, couldn’t resist).…

...continue to read "Is Trump a Guru? — Inspiring Online Credibility (Part 3)"

For the second installment in this series, we’ll cover bounce rate (aka “reject rate”). Simply put, bounce rate measures the amount of visitors that are landing on your site and immediately bouncing off of it.

To qualify as a bounce, analytics tools will typically take all visitors who only see one page and leave. Time may also be used to qualify a bounce (e.g., any visit under 10 seconds as a bounce).*

To calculate bounce rate, take the number of bounces and…

...continue to read "Unlocking Key Performance Indicators: Bounce Rate"

Spirit Airlines used to have great customer service. It was refreshing, actually. In the late 90’s, you could fly round-trip from, say, Detroit to New York for about $120 in a hand-me-down jet staffed with friendly people. It was a great, low-cost airline that was always able to surpass its customers (even lower) expectations.

But all that’s changed. Today, they have a brand-spanking-new fleet of mid-sized jets staffed with would-be friendly people who, bound and gagged with corporate red tape, can’t…

...continue to read "Spirit Air: You Don’t Have to Turn on the Red Light"

[This series will take an in-depth look at important web metrics, one-by-one. Enjoy!]

Key Performance Indicators or KPI’s (define) are the critical Web metrics you should be monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of your site. Key performance indicators may differ depending on the business topology (ecommerce/retail, lead generation, content or self-service/support), but understanding them broadly is critical to any organization’s online success.

In this first installment of Unlocking KPI’s, we’ll discuss the “take rate”; the amount of people taking you up…

...continue to read "Unlocking Key Performance Indicators: “Take Rate”"

“Guru”

Ponder that word for a minute. Better yet, think of a field-specific guru whose views you value and ask yourself this: What distinguishes your Guru from just another professional in that field?

What causes one to inspire so much more credibility than another?

The ancient Greeks had a word for that trait: thumos. Want cult-of-personality-like persuasive ethos and credibility? Create thumos through your web copy. (In my last article, The Aristotle Code, I warned you that I was on a high-brow kick,…

...continue to read "The Would-be Guru: Inspiring Online Credibility (Part 2)"

Heidi Dangelmaier has a problem.

Heidi runs 3iying, a marketing company that specializes in reaching girls age 15-25. I met with Heidi in her NYC offices last summer to talk about an exciting new idea she was working on. When Heidi speaks with agencies and companies targeting this group, she tells them about the less than stellar job current advertisers are doing trying to speak to girls. The problem is, these companies and agencies haven’t believed her.

So Heidi took it straight…

...continue to read "Girls Give Advertisers “The Flip”"

Is viral marketing the same as word of mouth? Seth Godin asked the question after receiving an email from a college student whose professor wouldn’t allow the phrase “viral marketing” in a paper, insisting the term was meaningless proxy for word-of-mouth.

First of all, yes, viral marketing does exist. But it’s a combination of tactics that, hopefully, eventually, enable positive word of mouth to spread. (In a moment, I’ll share a remarkable story of one family-owned e-commerce shop that saved a network TV…

...continue to read "Going Nuts Over Viral Marketing & Word-of-Mouth"