All you heatmap lovers out there, Uncle Jakob (Nielsen) has a great new post for you. Today’s Alertbox features a topic near and dear to the Grok’s heart: the overuse of fancy words in Web copy.

These “dollar words” are truly excellent… at going over your audiences’ heads while keeping them from accomplishing their goals by taking the actions you’ve set out for them. Anyone who’s taken our Persuasive Online Copywriting course would agree; Jakob is singing our tune in his discussion of…

...continue to read "“Eyetracking, Heatmaps & Gaze Plots!” Oh My…"

1) Become “intelligent”. Measure the current number of people you persuade to take the action you derive revenue from, not merely those you attract. Do you convert 10% or better?

2) Hold yourself accountable. Stop whining about the rising costs of media, the ineffectiveness of channels, and pining for more results; it won’t get you what you seek. If you convert 5%, what happens to the other 95%?

3) Do something about it. Get up off your @ss and stop interrupting your audience…

...continue to read "Boost Your Ads: A 3-Step Challenge (Not for the Meek)"

...continue to read "Better “Usability” Isn’t Always the Answer"

Reading Techmeme on Tuesday, I came across the Compete blog, and these fabulous images related to the upcoming presidential election:

If you’re interested in their analysis, read the full post; it’s excellent stuff. It’s also a great example of the speed with which we move these days. Michele’s earlier post about Twittering with John Edwards is another.

The Compete folks predicted, based on website traffic, that Mitt Romney would win the GOP nomination. I love their spirit, and the visuals are damn cool. But…

...continue to read "“If Clicks Were Votes” — President Giuliani?"

...continue to read "MLB Launches Multi-Channel Consumer-Generated Campaign"

Today’s Alertbox from Uncle Jakob arrived in my inbox, and as usual, I scanned the headline and summary in the preview pane before deciding whether today was a day I had the 20 – 30 minutes necessary to digest his topic du jour. Here’s his subject & summary:

Subject: Write Articles, Not Blog Postings

Summary: “To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.”

Guess what I decided? I did have about…

...continue to read "Jakob Nielsen on Blogging: Don’t Do It!"

Regular readers of GrokDotCom, or any of our best-selling books, heartily agree: people do things according to their own motivations. And in this unprecedented day of empowered consumers, “selling” to customers is 100% about facilitating their buying process. Any attempts to pitch (or push) products in ways that aren’t transparent, genuine, relevant or salient will be immediately blocked and discarded by our hyper-sensitive BS meters. Should you happen to try a high-pressure sales “trick” from yesteryear and succeed at fooling one…

...continue to read "2 Ways to Get Started With Personas (Part 2)"

I was having a conversation with the experience team at a major “entertainment” company after my presentation at the Internet Retailer conference a few weeks back. We were discussing ways they could get started on Personas, and how to overcome the challenges they’d faced thus far. Given that this dialog took place just off-stage, we had no expectation of privacy. Then again, I had no expectation that well over 100 retailers would be so interested in this conversation as well. It…

...continue to read "2 Ways to Get Started With Personas (Part 1)"

It’s pretty nice work, if you can get it:

Markus Frind, the founder of PlentyOfFish.com is my new hero (James Hong of Hot or Not is a close second). Marcus spends about two hours a day in his underwear managing a free dating website that gets twelve billion page views a year. He is the only employee, and he only has one server. And by the way, he makes $5-6 million/year with Google ads.

I’ve moderated many panels in my time, and if I…

...continue to read "Guy Kawasaki on Making $5M/yr in Your Underwear…"

...continue to read "McDonalds Instead of Starbucks: Brand Heresy?"