Online Marketing & Gamification by Design

Dec 21, 2011

How Important is Marketing Gamification to a Robust Online Marketing Plan?

The following is an interview with Gabe Zichermann, author of the new book Gamification by Design. Every marketer needs to stay on top of trends. Gamification is a trend in web and mobile design that is big and getting bigger. My sincere thanks to Gabe for the opportunity to conduct this interview.

Mark McLaren: When I first read the title of your book, Gamification by Design, my reaction was, “Won’t be reading that!” I associated it with online games, “gamers”, massively multiplayer online games. I don’t know. Video games are not my thing. So I thought I wouldn’t be able to relate. But I clearly didn’t know what the word “gamification” meant! Do you have a short and sweet statement for people who think you are talking about gaming or video games or something only kids know about? The importance of gamification for marketers and business decision-makers is hard to overstate.

Gabe Zichermann: The definition I use to help folks better understand the term is this – Gamification is the process of using game thinking and game mechanics to engage audiences and solve problems. We’re not talking about solving the next puzzle or level in a video game, but solving real world problems like how to keep employees engaged and motivated, how to keep customers coming back to your website, and more.
Continue reading

WordPress PollDaddy Poll – How Do You Use McBuzz.com?

Mar 4, 2009

You can create a professional-looking online survey or poll on your WordPress blog – or any website – in about 5 minutes using PollDaddy. You can customize the look and feel of the survey or poll using CSS, or pick from a set of snappy-looking prefab themes.

Polls are great for getting quick feedback from your visitors. And they are so easy to create with PollDaddy, you can start using them immediately.

Let me know if you need help installing the WordPress plugin. On WordPress.com-hosted sites, the plugin is already installed. PollDaddy will work on almost any blog, including Blogger.com, and on any website that allows you to edit the HTML. There are many great features, including the fact that you can export the data from your survey or poll as a spreadsheet or xml file.

Here’s an example:

[polldaddy|1425871]

AdWords & Pay-Per-Click Tip: Use a Custom Landing Page

Jan 5, 2009

When you pay for an AdWords ad, or an ad on the Yahoo or MSN search marketing networks, it’s a good idea to use a custom landing page. What’s the most important feature of a custom landing page? Arguably, it’s that the keyword that triggered the ad appear on the web page the ad takes you to.

This may seem obvious to some readers, but I’m always surprised to find major players in the online marketing space – real estate websites, in particular – that fail to apply basic search marketing techniques – like using custom landing pages with keywords placed in obvious locations.

Here’s an example. The following is a real AdWords ad:

Find a Loft in Seattle WA
Search for Condos & Lofts
Using Seattle’s Top Real Estate Search
www.TheMLSonline.com

This is a well-written ad: compelling, to the point. “Top Real Estate Search” sounds great. If I’m thinking of looking for a loft or condo in Seattle, this ad will catch my eye and might make me click.

But there’s a serious problem: no custom landing page.

Instead of taking me to a page that is set up so that I can easily find a loft or condo in Seattle, I’m taken to the generic home page of The MLS Online Seattle (http://sea.themlsonline.com/home ). The words “loft” or “condo” are nowhere to be found. The word “home” is all over the place. Are “home” and “loft” or “condo” synonymous? No way. Even if they were synonymous, “loft” and “condo” are keywords in the ad, so they should be displayed prominently on the landing page.

The AdWords ad above takes you to a generic MLS Online home page, not a custom landing page. The appropriate keywords do not appear, and it’s hard to find a loft or condo, which is why you clicked on the ad in the first place.

What’s even worse than the absence of the right keywords is that if I want to search for a loft or condo on this page, I have to scroll down to find and select the right menu options in order to do so. I don’t even see “loft” or “condo” in the menu options. Confusing! I don’t have time for this.

I guarantee that MLS Online is losing visitors immediately from this page because the page is not tailored to the people who are clicking on the ad.

But who has time to make custom landing pages? Well, I found a 4-bed, 5-bath, six-thousand-square-foot condo on this site that’s listed at $13,495,000.00. You would think MLS Online would be willing to spend 30-40 minutes customizing a landing page if it enabled them to sell that puppy!

Of course, one of the real strengths of pay-per-click and related forms of search marketing is that you can measure your results. Is it worth the time it takes to create a custom landing page? Go ahead and create one and send half of those who click on your ad to that page while sending the other half to the generic home page. Now you can use basic analytics software like Google Analytics to find out if people who go to the custom landing page are more likely to “convert” – fill out a contact form to request more information, download a brochure, pick up the phone and call (using a custom 800 number), etc. – or not. Simple as that.

Any good search marketing consultant will tell you that there are about five basic things you need to do to get the most out of your AdWords or Pay-Per-Click advertising dollars. Custom landing pages are near the top of the list.

Twitter Seminar in Seattle

Aug 27, 2008

I will be offering a seminar on Twitter in Seattle on September 9, 2008. The seminar is sponsored by Web 2.0 Media Group and taught in partnership with Wayne Bishop, creator of Joint Contact project managment and collaboration software.

Twitter is one of today’s hottest Web 2.0 social media technologies.

Our two-hour seminar will show you:

• How to get started with Twitter
• How it works, who is using it and the different ways it’s being used
• Twitter’s advantages over other types of communication
• Current trends and what it means for business
• Using Twitter to make an impact

For more information, see our Introducing Twitter seminar page on Biznik.com.

As a founding member of Web 2.0 Media Group, I’m committed to spreading the word about the Web 2.0 social media / social networking movement through education and collaboration with like-minded folk in the Seattle area and around the globe. Learn more about Web 2.0 Media Group here.

McBuzz and Mark McLaren on Twitter

Apr 17, 2008

If you haven’t done so yet, check out Twitter.

Twitter is a “micro-blogging” tool that allows users to send out short messages that can be read on the Twitter website, or on a desktop program (or “client”) like twhirl, or via text messaging. It also integrates with things like Status Updates on Facebook (in case you were wondering).

It’s similar to instant messaging in that you can keep in touch with your friends, but it has a significant advantage over instant messaging because you can follow messages from people you don’t know or haven’t (yet) met – provided they let you do so, which most Twitterers do.

So, for instance, I can follow the “tweets” or short messages of renowned marketing authorities like Guy Kawasaki, or of entrepreneur search marketers like Andy Beal and Danny Sullivan.

Some Twitterers are better sources of useful information than others. Sometimes people just make idle chit chat. Sometimes they share a link to a blog post or story they think is important. But, in general, it’s great to get these folks’ take on what’s going on in the world.

Online marketer Jennifer Laycock calls Twitter “acceptable evesdropping”. And – let’s be honest – who doesn’t like evesdropping?

You can “follow” (connect with) Mark McLaren and McBuzz. Just create a profile on the Twitter website and login to the site, then go to the mcbuzz profile (click here), click on Follow (to connect with McBuzz), and send me a “tweet” (a message) that starts with @mcbuzz, which directs the message to me.

You’ll get the hang of it quickly.

But wait! Twitter does more: just like blogging or LinkedIn or Facebook, it establishes your brand. It can help to establish or strengthen your reputation as an authority in your field. It gives you greater visibility online. (Do a Google search for “mcbuzz” and you find the McBuzz Twitter profile on page one.) And it can create or foster connections between you and other professionals you might not have met.

In short, Twitter has got some serious mojo. It has characteristics that the early World Wide Web and blogging had way, way back… Not long ago, there was a time when it wasn’t clear that those two things had much to do with marketing and communications. And Twitter is more immediate, more concise. In a day and age when twenty-somethings use text messages and Facebook instead of email, and fewer and fewer people take time to read a newspaper, immediate and concise is where you want to be.

Of course, Twitter itself may not necessarily be the tool people are using in a year or two, but the tool (or some part of the tool) we are using then will be a lot like Twitter. Better to get aquainted with the technology now than two years from now.

If you like Twitter, try the desktop client I mentioned, called twhirl. It’s got more features than the Twitter website – just like your desktop email client (Outlook, Thunderbird) has more features than web mail – and it’s easy install and use.

Here’s one success story’s take on why Twitter: Penelope Trunk on Twitter

As webpronews.com puts it, “Anyone with a desire to connect with others in a quick way, while reinforcing one’s name and personal brand, will find [Twitter] useful.”

Most Popular Search Engine: Google's Share of Search Market Still Three Times Yahoo!'s

Feb 25, 2008

The most popular search engine is still Google by a large margin. The latest numbers from Nielsen Online say that Google’s share of the search market is nearly three times Yahoo! or 56.9% to Yahoo!’s 19%.

Here’s an update: According to one report, Google grabbed 69.17 percent of all U.S. searches for the four weeks ending June 28, 2008. Nielsen Online still shows Google at 59% (PDF document).

That’s why, when web marketing professionals talk about optimizing a website for search engines, they mean optimizing for Google. In general, ranking well in Google search results will bring more visitors to your website than ranking well in Yahoo! search results will. And a paid advertisement on a Google search page will typically be seen by more people than a paid advertisement on a Yahoo! search page.

However, more people clicking on your ads and more visitors to your website does not always mean better results. One way to measure results is by the number of “conversions” on your website, that is, the number of visitors doing what you want them to do, like picking up the phone and calling your business. It’s always good to remember that people searching on Yahoo! or MSN.com might be of different demographics than those searching on Google. For every 100 visitors that come to your site from a Google search, you might get one phone call. (Just a hypothetical example.) But for every 100 visitors that come from a Yahoo! search, you might get 5 phone calls. With that information, you may want to advertise more on Yahoo!

Then again, even conversions, like the number of phone calls you get for 100 visitors to your site, are not the final measure of results. What if almost every phone call you got from a Google search resulted in a sale, whereas only a small fraction of the calls you got from a Yahoo! search resulted in a sale? In that case, even though more calls are coming from ads on Yahoo!, it would still be smarter to do most or all of your advertising Google. (Again, these are just hypothetical examples.)

Ultimately, more traffic is good, but more qualified traffic is really what you want, whether it’s from Google or Yahoo! or whatever. And you need to use website traffic tracking software like Google Analytics (which is free and easy to install) to collect this information. Combined with other techniques, such as putting a special 800 number on your website so that you know which inquiries and sales are coming from your site as opposed to through other marketing channels, you can get a good idea of which online marketing channels are working well and which are not.

WordPress Tutorials – McBuzz Video Tutorials Now Available for WordPress

Oct 26, 2007

Mark McLaren of McBuzz Communications has finished a series of tutorials for WordPress users. These WordPress tutorials are available on a McBuzz website called “Business Blogging 101″. They are also available on the McBuzz YouTube Channel, YouTube.com/mcbuzzvideo

Here’s one sample, called How to Edit a WordPress Page. You can watch it here on the McBuzz website by clicking on the arrow below, or click on this How to Edit a WordPress Page link to watch it on the McBuzz YouTube Channel, where you can see all of the McBuzz WordPress tutorials available.

How To Edit A WordPress Page
Time: 6 minutes

Web Marketing Tip #4: Use Keywords in Web Page Titles

Sep 26, 2007

Page titles are a critical and often overlooked part of web marketing and search engine optimization. If you have ever tried to find a business on the Web by typing the name of the business into Google or another search engine only to be confronted by dozens of pages that refer to that business — with none of them actually providing a link to the business’s website — then you are familiar with missing or weak page titles.

Many web pages have default values like “Untitled Document” or “New Page 1″ as their title. The title displays along the top of your web browser. Few people even notice it. But search engines definitely notice page titles. The title is one of the first places a search engine like Google looks to determine what a web page is about.

The page title is one of the first things search engines look at to determine what a web page is about. Many web designers forget or don’t know about the importance of page titles, hence the prevelance of (totally useless) default page titles like “Untitled Document” and “New Page 1″.

If a business’s website does not show up on the first page of results when you type the business name (and the city the business is in if it’s a common name) into a search engine, the business name is probably not in the title of the website’s home page.

If you don’t know how to change your website’s page titles, see Web Marketing Tip #5 (coming soon) or comment on this post and I will get to it right away!

If you are using a website building tool on a service like Register.com or Yahoo! Geocities that makes it difficult to change page titles, then it’s time to get a new hosting setup! Your new customers will thank you.

Web Marketing Tip #4 is “Use Keywords in Web Page Titles” because the name of your business is obviously not the only thing people search for when looking for businesses like yours. If yours is a local brick and mortar business, put your address in the page title of your home page, or at least the city, state and Zip code. If you are the business owner and you want people to find your business’s website when they search for your name — put that in the title as well.

For example, note that “Mark McLaren” is in the title of my McBuzz Communications website home page and my McBuzz Communications blogspot blog. If you Google “mark mclaren”, you will find both sites on page one. (Search results vary from week to week. Right now I’m on page one.)

Don’t use the same title for every page in your site. Tailor page titles to the content of each page. One of the great features of WordPress is that it creates page titles for you automatically. Put keywords in the titles of your posts and they appear in your page titles as well.

If you have a local business in a particular neighborhood, use that neighborhood name in your page titles. In many cases, this will do wonders for your position in search results.

Of course, you want to use keywords in lots of other places besides page titles, but — first things first — page titles are a great place to start.

Using MySpace For Business Websites

May 29, 2007

MySpace is seen as a viable alternative to buying web hosting and a domain name for some businesses, according to an article in Honolulu’s Pacific Business News.

Local Web designers face competition from MySpace.com
Pacific Business News (Honolulu) – May 25, 2007

On the face of it, this is a good counter-argument to my post about Free Web Hosting and Blog Services vs. Buying Web Hosting and a Domain Name. It seems that some small business owners are using MySpace as a way to create a website for their business — for free — and they are getting good results in the form of new customers and purchases. One business featured in the article is a clothing boutique.

It makes sense that people who might be looking on MySpace for things to buy would be interested in fashion and shopping for new clothes. And there are lots of other businesses that would appeal to the same MySpace demographic: coffee shops, skateboarding shops, surf shops, music stores…

Part of the appeal of MySpace is that people don’t necessarily go there looking for things to buy. They go there to talk to friends, share stuff they find interesting or funny, etc. But the fact that someone may find a store on MySpace that sells cool clothes, and then go to the brick-and-mortar store and have a great shopping experience, well, that’s huge, of course, because they are likely to talk about it on — duh — MySpace.

Obviously, if you are selling something like legal services or rare books, then MySpace may not be for you. However, if you have a business that appeals to 16-24 year olds, then setting up a free MySpace page might just be a no-brainer.

The Business News article sets up a false dichotomy — a choice you don’t really have to make — between creating a small business website on MySpace and buying a full-blown, professionally designed website for, as they say, anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000.

My point is, you may want to spend $5K to $20K, on a business website. You may need some serious eCommerce capabilities, or cutting-edge graphic design, or pages and pages of product samples or whatever. Most very small businesses should not pay anything like $5,000 for a site these days. There are just too many good low-cost options available — using WordPress, for example. But, regardless, there’s no reason you can’t have a site on MySpace in addition to a dedicated business website with your own hosting and domain name, and then link the two together.

The same is true for a listing sites like MerchantCircle.com. Check out the McBuzz Communications listing on MerchantCircle. These are free, easy to set up websites, and they are just one more way to increase the visibility of your business on the Web.

Web Marketing Tip #3: Submit an XML Sitemap to Google

May 28, 2007

Web Markting Tip #2 told you how to use the free XML Sitemap Generator service to create an XML Sitemap of your website. Once you have your sitemap file, you need to create a Google Webmaster Account, then add your website to that account, and submit the XML Sitemap file. Google makes this process pretty easy.

1. Go here to create a Google account.
2. Login to your account.
3. Click on the Webmaster Tools link under Services.
4. You will see the Webmaster Tools Dashboard. It looks like this (below – click for full size image), without all the sites listed, of course. You will add your first one.

5. Put the address of your site in the Add Site box and click OK.
6. Now click Add a Sitemap for that site.
7. You will see the following (click for full size image).

8. Choose Add General Web Sitemap.
9. Now you need to upload your XML Sitemap file to the “root directory” of your website. (“Root directory” just means the location of your homepage file.) Most website hosting services allow you to do this using the “Control Panel” for your account. If you need any help with this, just add a comment at the end of this post. Be sure to tell me who your hosting service is (for example: GoDaddy or Network Solutions or whatever the case may be).
10. Once the file is uploaded to your website’s root directory, enter that location into the “My Sitemap URL is” box. As noted, this will be http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml where “example.com” is the name of your domain.
11. Click the Add Web Sitemap button.
12. Done!

Let me know if you have any questions.