November 30, 2006
Intellicontact is a great e-mail marketing tool and has many of the same features as ConstantContact (CC). It is offered at a lower pricing point and even easier to use.
The user interface is broken down into four high-level categories, including “My Contacts”, “Create”, “Send”, and “Track”. It is pretty easy to understand what each of those do. Simplicity is definitely a strength of Intellicontact.
Under “My Contacts”, you can import subscriber names in a variety of ways, segment users, add new lists, and even create RSS feeds. That is one feature that I’ve not seen offered by an e-mail marketing tool to this point.
Intellicontact beats ConstantContact on price ($14/month for 1k subscribers versus $15/month for up to 500 in ConstantContact) - and that’s because it’s a primary way to entice folks to try them out over a very established tool.
November 29, 2006
If you are just brighter than a rock, you have some sort of stat tracker or analytics package on your website or blog. If you are smart and dilligent about your web presence, you actually analyze the stats that are collected.
There’s a lot of data to pour through, especially if you use something like Google Analytics or WebSideStory’s HBX Analytics (which is another stats package we implement for clients at Viget). But one of the metrics folks pay special attention to is “conversions”.
Conversions are simply goals such as “I want visitors to go to page Y”. Google defines it as 
when a visitor completes an activity that has been identified as important. The Conversion Rate is the percentage of conversions that occur in relation to overall site visits – or at least that is how most people define it. But not Avinash Kaushik.
Avinash is an obvious thought-leader when it comes to web analytics. Recently, he had a couple of really great points about Conversion Rate and how to properly assess the real conversion opportunity pie (i.e., how not to overestimate the number of ‘convertable’ visitors).
One take home for me was to think about removing those visitors who bounce from the site (leave in 10s or less) from the total opportunity pie. It’s likely that those visitors came to the site by accident. Avinash provides some other similar thoughts in driving towards the ‘real conversion rate’ – go check out his site. You’ll be smarter for doing so.
November 20, 2006
According to a neat little tool Kineda put together, I’m a B-list blogger. I’m actually 
surprised I even rank that high considering the fact I don’t really try and compete with the big boys (e.g., I’m pretty much determined that for me, posting several times a day is unhealthy and unproductive). To be fair, I barely make the B-list cut by three links (oh no, imagine what my Mom would think if she knew I was teetering on being a ‘C-list’ blogger).
Besides showing of a cool badge though, I think the algorithm behind this ranking deserves some attention.
First off, Kineda decided to look at data over a set period of time, which makes sense to me. They choose to examine a 6 month period (180 days) from Technorati. Ranking is determined by the number of links over the specified time period. Here is the breakdown for the “High Authority Group”, which is what I fall into:
The High Authority Group (100-499 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The third group represents a decided shift in blog age while not blogging much more frequently than the last. In keeping with the theme of the maturation of the blogosphere, it seems evident that many of these bloggers were previously in category two and have grown in authority organically over time. In other words, sheer dedication pays off over time.
Thanks to Andy Beale for pointing this out.
November 17, 2006
Sometimes the web world makes me angry.
My peers need to stop creating crazy words like blogging, vlogging, podcasting, and wikis. And please, it’s time to end the coining of terms like mash-ups or folksonomy.
Technology is thankfully pushed forward by those on the edge. But advancements need to be communicated to those in the mainstream. It is only when those in the mainstream adopt technology that we often begin to truly grasp technology’s full potential.
If my Mom or uncle or whomever is utterly confused by a word because it is unintuitive or just plain geeky, they will simply walk away from it. I’ve written about the growing technology divide before – my Mom is still learning how do e-mail attachments.
The point here – I put up with ‘Web 2.0′ because it had already gained significant clout by the time I entered the game. But ‘Web 3.0′ is a phrase I’m just not going to use. And for that matter, the Semantic Web doesn’t work for me either. I don’t mind using them within geek circles but we need a better way to communicate these ideas to the non-tech savvy.
For more on the Web 3.0 debate, check out Scoble’s (sarcastic) summary.
November 16, 2006
If you are a smart business owner, then you probably do things methodically. You likely try and weigh costs and risks against benefits when it comes to any new organizational initiatives.
There is no ‘quick fix’ for determining if blogging is right for you but a good starting point is answering the following questions:
What benefit(s) – if any – will blogging yield to my web efforts? How can I measure (or quantify) those benefits?
Charlene Li provides a nice framework for thinking through blog strategy or more specifically on how to calculate the ROI of blogging:
“…simply divide the benefits by the costs + risks to arrive at the ROI. The key is what to use it for – it’s not enough, I believe, to use the ROI calculation only to justify a blog. It should also be used to manage and optimize the performance of the blog on an ongoing basis.”
This research adds valuable insight to help business and organizations approach blogging strategically. Calculating blog ROI can be a ‘gut check’ to evaluate if blogging is right for you.
November 15, 2006
Andy Wibbels is a fellow DTM contributor and a very savvy blog consultant. I consider his new book Blogwild! a must have resource for anyone that wants to start blogging. Yes, anyone.
While the subtitle is a “guide for small business blogging”, the principles apply across the board – I’ve read through it twice, so I know what I’m talking about. More importantly is that Andy now has one of the only books on blogging I’ve seen that actually provides a step-by-step ‘how to’ on creating and managing a blog.
I purchased a significant number of copies of his book and have been making them available to potential bloggers I encounter during speaking events and other outings. Last night I presented my “Crash Course on Blogging” session (for further details, see the write-up) and I made some copies available to attendees. I still have some left and am happy to offer them at $17 including shipping (in the continental U.S.).
If you want to take advantage of this offer, just drop me a line and I’ll be in touch.
update: If you blog about the book (e.g., why it would be helpful, why Small Businesses should think about blogging, etc.) and link back here, I’ll send you a copy for free (while supplies last).
November 9, 2006
After asking the question Do you have a Web Strategy?, I thought it was important to give a closer look at what the term really means.
My first post on the Viget Labs blog is entitled Defining Web Strategy. Here is the definition I came up with:
An organization’s web strategy is an actionable plan devised to achieve measurable results on the web. “Measurable results” require a web proprietor to have a specific goal (or set of goals) in mind for their web presence. The actionable plan provides recommendations based on these goals by analyzing web presence and web data in relation to effectiveness with all web stakeholders.
Or as I put more simply: “web strategy is your plan to achieve what you consider success on the web.”
One of the things I am hoping to do is create a list of the various best practices and tools that can be utilized to execute web strategy. That list would likely consist of web analytics, SEO, etc.
Any thoughts as to what should be included?
