Hi,

I rarely write about political topics unless I have the feeling that I need and I can contribute a small piece to cause change for the better.

Just yesterday people in the USA and all over the world have proven once again that the Internet is a viable medium to protect democracy and freedom.

The sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act — SOPA — have pulled their bill back.

Sure that's just one (another small) victory in the everlasting battle between status quo and embracing change, but the signal to the law makers are nonambiguous:

Don't tamper with the Internet!

“…regulations must be effective and safeguard benefits of the open net.”

Therefore, I hope that this is my last blog about net neutrality, an open, and free Internet, which I had to write this year.

Here we go.

... and it doesn't even have to be your fault.

My personal opinion on the SOPA and Protect IP debatte in the USA.

• It's not good.
• ...

We just arrived here. Now, it's time to make sure this will be the best year ever for you and for your business.

Let's start with making sure your marketing and advertising efforts lead to more sales.

While you can pray—it might help in some instances—you should get a highly effective landing page in place.

Here is an outline that will help you get started quickly.

Ten Key Landing Page Features That Draw In Users

Have a great day.

Yours

John W. Furst
Email and Internet Marketing Strategies
at E-Biz Booster Blog

Brand Catalyst and Verbal Designer Bernadette Jiwa just has published her IDEA MANIFESTO.

A compelling piece of Art that is supposed to spread. Let's pick it up and share it. That is what I am doing right now.

Pick up your free copy and help spread the word.

Yours
John W. Furst
E-Biz Booster Blog

Hello "Small" Business Website Owner:

You don't want to deal with the technology behind your website too much, don't you. And you don't even have to. A big part of the tasks you need to perform in order to maintain your site can be done from within the browser quite elegantly. There is almost a setup wizard for everything.

Many of you will use Google Analytics to track the performance of your site. It's rather easy to use, although there is some learning curve involved. As reward for studying the tool you'll learn what turns your web visitors on and what turns them off. Those stats are extremely important to grow your site into a profitable direction.

But Google Analytics and many other tracking solutions don't tell you the whole story.

Those type of tools rely on JavaScript code, hidden images and browser cookies. For example, look up the help pages for Google Analytics to find out under which circumstances a visit to your webpage will not be counted. You'll also learn that you need to tag certain types of files (like downloadable PDF-files) manually or with have it done with a plugin function of your CMS or weblog software. Examples for such software are: Joomla, Drupal and WordPress to name the most popular ones.

Generally speaking those tools report valuable information about the visitors that come to your site with good intention.

But that's not what I want to talk about here.

What about the bad guys?

You won't find hints in Google Analytics that your web server is under any sort of attack or that some of your links are broken or that somebody is stealing your bandwidth.

But it is not only about bad guys.

Only Log-files contain information on visits from search engine spiders (they don't bother with JavaScript). It can be useful information for search engine optimization.

The web server logs contain records about every activity, including PDF downloads, image downloads, all sorts of errors that you can't catch otherwise, etc.

Usually your web hosting company offers the use of such software as an additional subscription. Some packages even include a very aggregated from of those types of analysis. Not very detailed with limited functionality but good enough to catch bigger types of issues. Alternatively you can get and install free open-source software or commercial solutions. But first, check with your web hosting company.

Just want to say that: "Look at your log files at least every once in a while."

To Your Success

Yours
John W. Furst
Website Development 
At Fcon21

Good morning fellows,

Successful serial entrepreneur Derek Sivers shares his insights.

Check this out:

The Co-op Business Model

Yours
John W. Furst
Email And Internet
Marketing Strategies

___________
Image credit: ©2011 by Derek Sivers.

What a nice surprise!

Usually at 11 a.m. my spam folder has filled up with notes and offers about those blue, supposedly magic pills for men.

Today was different and I am very thankful for that.

Those anonymous repeat offenders against the CAN-SPAM Act (anti spam legislation in the USA) reminded me that Christmas is  coming up very soon.

So I thought, "Oh, time to get some gifts. I don't want to be in a  rush on the 23rd as I have been so many times in the past."

Isn't it it nice that they are solving this problem for me in the same email:

Now back to serious!

There are several lessons for legitimate email marketers in this email.
I jot them down as I spot them without maintaining a particular useful order.

(1) It's all about the offer.

Knowing what your audience wants and making corresponding offers is the most critical part of the entire campaign.

(2) You don't want your emails end to up in the spam folder.

Make sure you are using the spam filter prevention tools and tactics of your email service provider.

(3) Mail often!

You will be surprised to hear that most companies don't mail often enough in order to build and nurture a good relationship with their subscribers. Needless to say that "too often" is not a very good idea either.

(4) You could become a spammer yourself unintentionally. Watch out!

You set the expectations of your subscribers? Don't put that on the line for a quick buck or some sort of political message that you want to get out to many people (Unless your email list or ezine is about politics.) is not about. Always

(5) If you want to sell something you must ask for the sale. Again, and again, and again, ...

Many experts are somehow between the lines opposed to selling But did you ever notice, when they are launching the new book, the new [fill in the blanks] product, ... They or not doing anything else but talking about their new thing for weeks and the order button is nearby all the time. They even get you to "spam" your friends and social networks to spread the message.

Make sure your subscribers know at any time that you have something for them to buy (and you want them to buy.) There is no point of building an email list of people who don't want to buy anything and who are too easily offended. If I had to guess I'd say more than 90% of email list subscribers on this planet won't buy ever from the particular company.

(6) If your campaign doesn't get some people to unsubscribe, then you are leaving money on the table.

That tips doesn't necessarily come from those spam emails. I picked that up from Ben Settle.

Hope that helps.

Yours
John W. Furst
Email and Internet Marketing Strategies at E-Biz Booster Blog

Looking at all those emails about product launches in the Internet Marketing Space.

Everybody throws in thousands of dollars worth of bonuses and the kitchen sink, too.

Looks suspicious to me.

What do you think.

Doesn't that all smell like at a stinky fish market?

Yours
John W. Furst
for Email And Internet Marketing Strategies
at E-Biz Booster Blog

___________
Photo Credit: Flickr / eliazar

Interesting short video and it repeats what I am telling my clients
all the time, "You need to ...!"

Anyway, here's the question that is answered in the video.

Should you raise or drop your prices, right now?

The video starts playing without opting-in.

Yours
John

What do you think?

What's the big lesson?

Never give up?

Yours

John W. Furst
E-Biz Booster Blog