I recently began streaming to my TV directly from the Internet. Between Hulu and Netflix I found that there’s not much else that I need. I would like more live sports because sites like ESPN360 use a proprietary format that only seems to work on my computer, but it probably won’t be long for that.
I switched movie providers from Blockbuster to Netflix just because of the streaming movies. I usually enjoy reading their email to find out about new releases or older movies that I may not have heard about. Netflix seems to to a better job of matching my movie ratings to other movies that I may not have seen yet.
The reason that I’m writing this post is that I keep getting emails from Netflix that say “We hope you’re enjoying DVDs by mail. Did you know you can also have some movies & TV episodes streamed instantly to your TV? Watch as much as you want, as often as you want, anytime you want.” These emails arrive almost every other day and it’s a bit annoying because they know that I began streaming movies the day I joined. I know they know this because they always ask me to rate movies that I just streamed.
It would be far better if they sent me email messages asking about how they could improve the streaming service, suggest titles not yet in my queue or to rate movies that I’ve watched and had not yet rated.
It would probably be better if they just stopped sending me these kind of messages and not replace them with something more relevant.
A good lesson to keep in mind if your sending email “Blasts” (even that word is annoying) to your subscribers. If you annoy many of them with content that they’re not interested in they may just unsubscribe, even if some of your messages are relevant. It’s best to find out what they’re interested in and keep your lists sorted by that information.
FYI – In case your interested, this is the box that I bought to do this, also the PlayOn media server. A one time cost of about $190.00. The Netflix service will also work with many other devices including most of the game consoles. I’m saving about $11 a month on Blockbuster $19.99 (3 movies at a time) vs Netflix $8.99 (1 movie at a time plus streaming) and a ton of cash not having cable TV.
I saw a great post by Eric Brown on the Search Engine Guide site where he reports on an apartment rental company in Michigan who’s blog has nothing to do with apartment rentals and are still top of the search engines.
They offer virtual sightseeing tours, restaurant tips and reviews, and other good information about the community. Without ever directly plugging their main business from their blog their website business has more than doubled. A very good lesson for anyone interested in writing or improving a business blog.
If your blog screams that you can “Make You A Million Dollars”, but offers no other value for free, your visitors will not take you seriously. However, if you offer them something of value without any strings attached they will take the time to find out what else you can offer them, even if it’s not free. In fact, they will look expecting to have to pay for it. You’ve already proven that your experience can be valuable to them.
As a designer I think that the Urbane Life Blog is very hard to read, with blue text on a black background, but they have done everything else right. It’s just my opinion and who knows the blue on black may even help them.
I have always said that companies that use their sites to shout what they do won’t do very well. Most of your visitors come to your site to find out what’s in it for them. Now days it’s not even enough for you to tell them what you can do for them to make their life easier or to solve their problems, they want to hear from people that you have helped. It makes sense really. Anyone can brag about what they’ve done even if they haven’t really done it.
It’s important to have others tell your customers about you on a “testimonials page”, but today that’s not enough. Visitors want to see your customers comments unedited on your blog and even more importantly they want to see opinions of your business on other sites that you don’t control.
So, how do you make your company into a brand? More importantly how do you make it a brand that other people are speaking well of and pointing to your site. Here’s a good post on the SiteProNews site by Jerry Bader that gives some good ideas of ways to define and promote your brand.
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Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
SparkTop.org is run by the Professor Garfield Foundation (PGF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the FREE delivery of fun, engaging educational content. Jim Davis, creator of Garfield the Cat, had to overcome asthma and a stutter as a young child and feels that ALL of us have some challenge to overcome as we learn.
They say it’s is a place where kids who learn differently can create awesome stuff, but I think it can be for everyone.
When first starting or adding to a website one of the first things that you want to do is to decide on which keywords to target. These words should be action words to get your visitors to do whatever it is that you want them to do when they land on one of your pages.
Usually a new client will ask me which keywords should I pick and how do I use them? I usually first explain that keywords can be and usually are more than one word. How it can be very hard to get to the top of a search results page for a one or two word keyword that is very competitive (like “web design”). It can be much easier to get to the top spot for a more narrow keyword (“web design Pittsburgh”, “web designer western PA” or “WordPress expert Pittsburgh”), but because the action inferred from that keyword is more specific to what you do, the traffic from a search term like that may also convert to sales better if you pick the right one.
Another great advantage in more targeted keywords is if you are buying keyword ads you can save quite a bit of money not getting clicks that aren’t really interested in what you have to offer.
It’s always best to have one unique page per keyword and to use your keyword once in the main headline, maybe once more in the sub-headline and a couple of times in the body text. It’s a good idea to read the page out loud before it’s published to see if it sounds spammy. If you have overused your keyword it may be considered spam by the search engines or worse by your human visitors.
To help my clients pick good keywords I have been sending them to a older post where I suggested some free keyword research tools (two of the three still work). I’m writing this post today because I found a new free keyword tool from WordStream and I thinks it works really well so I’m now recommending it to everyone.
Shiver me timbers, matey! Tis ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day.
I love to be a writin’ about made up holidays and how ye can be promoting your business with ‘em. It’s just so much fun, arrrrrrrgh!! It really be catchin’ on.
Avast, swabees Blockbuster be promotin’ films by some of the blackest hearts to ever sail.
LucasArts will be giving away booty. Tales of Monkey Island, Episode One for free all day Saturday, September 19, from sun up to sun down
Google talk like a pirate day promotion for yourself, matey and you’ll be a seein’ many more.
My question is, What be ye doing, arrrrrrrgh?
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
Someone sent me a link to this game this morning. I tried it and I liked it. You may, too.
I have written before about looking at your statistics to see if you can change your content to improve sales.
It’s something that any site owner should think about before designing or redesigning your site. I saw a post today on Seth Godin’s blog that offers a great list of things to consider.
My friend Sue has (had) a Char-Broil gas grill for a little over a year when it malfunctioned and could have easily burned down her house. When she called the company instead of trying to defuse and solve a bad situation the company apparently tried to blame her for what clearly seems to me to be a defective product.
How do I know this? Well, Sue has a blog and wrote about it. I had never heard of this problem before so I did a quick generic search (Char-Broil Gas Grill) and found lots of examples of this happening. The first one I found was on the second page of Google, but I believe it’s probably moving up fast and soon may be found right up there with the companies own site on the first page. Imagine that! A potential customer searches for your name and right below your site they see complaints about shoddy products and poor customer service. In my mind that’s no way to build any business.
I have written before about the problem of ignoring or blaming others for your problems and the proper way to handle problems. This situation is yet another lesson in how not to behave. You may say it’s not really the companies problem, but I say that even if it only looks like they’re at fault, in today’s era of social networking and commentary, in the end the company will always lose this fight and maybe big time.
Things happen every day that are completely unexpected that cause a furor of web searches. Michael Jackson dies or Kanye West gets drunk and makes an ass out of himself at an awards show. Sometimes a thing like this happens and it somehow has something to do with your business or brand.
That’s when you have to be ready to take advantage of the free publicity with an advertisement or blog post. It’s called a meme (rhymes with “cream”) and is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly. If you can get you brand associated with a meme, especially early in the process it can bring you a tremendous amount of web traffic.
There’s a good post by Derek Gordon on the Search Insider that explains it even more.
