Website Design

My name is Janeth Duque and I’ve been successfully building and marketing websites online for the last five years. I’ve dealt with a lot of people over those years and the one thing they all have in common is that they want to get their name in front of potential clients and customers.

There are a lot of ways of doing this and some are better than others but there is one that everyone needs to have in their tool belt and that’s silicon bracelets. The neat thing about silicon bracelets is that they are not only inexpensive but you’re able to put your company name, logo and a little information about your business right there on the bracelet.

There are so many advantages when using silicone bracelets that is almost impossible to name them all. While the prices are the best I’ve seen for any marketing budget the marketing benefits go a lot deeper then that.

For example, let’s say you’re at a trade show and want to hand out silicone bracelets to visitors at your booth. The bracelets are nice looking and trendy so people are going to keep them and it makes since that people will come from a wide range of places for the trade show, this allows you to get your message out beyond your local environment.

While the effects of a TV commercial will only last for seconds the effects of the silicone bracelets last for the life of the bracelet which could be many, many years from now.

I guess everyone has seen Wal-Mart’s new website for Christmas. If not let me explain a little. They have two elves Wally and Marty who show the kids some toys and the kids say yes or no to each toy being shown. If the kids say yes, the elves applaud but if the kid say no, the elves make comments about being out of a job.

Here are the problems that I see with the site.

1. There is no branding for Wal-Mart, other than the elves names.

2. They try and make the kids think it’s there job to support the elves.

3. They use this as a means to send spam mail to parents.

4. The kids do not get to pick the toys, Wal-Mart decides which toys will be shown and in which order.

On the social media side I see it as a plus because they are getting talked about in a lot of places, none of it has been good but the site is getting traffic from all the bad press. I even let my daughter play with the site a little and she enjoyed it. I also got to see some toys that I did not know about and would have never seen if it had not been for the bad press Wal-Mart is getting from this site.

I guess the question is rather or not it will increase sales and rather or not the spam emails will hurt Wal-Mart.

I just wrote and article about Social Bookmarking Sites and how to get traffic from them.

There are people getting 10,000 visitors a day from sites like these. The site were I wrote the article is brand new and I’m working on it now but the whole site is dedicated to SMO. If you get some time it might be worth a read. Wink

A member of WPW, JuniorOnline, posted a link earlier today to an article about SMO (Social Media Optimization). I wonder how many people are aware of the money that can be made with SMO as compared to SEO?

SMO is not about getting a number one ranking on the search engines but more about building a site worth talking about. The end goal is not only getting traffic from forums, blogs, Digg and other Social Media places but building a name for yourself as well.

Our site has some pretty good ranking in the search engines but we make more money from building websites for members of forums like WPW then we do anywhere else.

I’m going to try and explain whats worked for me.

1. I love helping people and have probably built over 100 websites for free, my intention was not to get anything in return but many of these people have posted links to my site as well as sent me family and friends as clients.

If I was making a how to list #1 would be always have your heart in the right place. Post on forums to help people and not to promote your own business.

2. I’ve learned more on forums then anywhere else. Everyone knows more about something then you do. Try and learn something from everyone you meet.

3. Always try and improve your website. You should not be making self promotional post on forums, you’ve got one shot to make the sell and that’s through your website. Always try and improve your design, text, logo and images as well as the way your site operates.

One of the hardest things for me to learn was how to take criticism on my own website. Now I’m glad to have the opportunity to fix something I may not have seen before.

If your going to make money on forums your website needs to be the best, there is a lot of competition on forums.

4. Debates are good but never let them get personal. I had a lot of problems learning how to debate a topic with-out letting it get personal.

5. Bad information, I think a lot of people post bad information just to get people posting on a topic they started. I would never do this, it not only makes you look bad but also causes people to become confused about the topic being talked about.

At the end of the day you end up with links pointing to your site from forums, blogs and other websites talking about something you’ve said or done.

This helps your website rank in the search engines not because of link exchanges or submitting your site to directories but because you were out helping someone.

When your website does rank it’s the best it can be, you’ve been improving it everyday to help sell your product or service, while your competition has been submitting there site to directories and doing link exchanges.

You’ve also been making money from day one instead of worrying about the search engines and were you rank.

People need to forget about the search engines and start learning how to make money online.

The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall

Blogs can be both a blessing and a burden and the rise and fall of Richard Edelman makes that very clear.

Richard Edelman from what I understand is a stand up guy whose blazing a trail for marketing with blogs and wrote the WOMMA rules of ethics.

He has said things like;
"We rise to a higher level: We believe that word of mouth marketers have a special relationship with consumers and must go above and beyond the normal expectations of marketing ethics and honesty.

"We believe in honesty and transparency at all times: Honesty of relationship, opinion, and identity, respecting the rules of the forum, rising above the minimum requirements in privacy and permission."

But that was not the case when he was hired by Wal-Mart and created the fake Walmarting Across America Blog.

Now he's been caught and a lot of bloggers are not wanting to forget and forgive.  
I'm thinking that a lot of the problems come from his being a member and writing the rules of ethics for WOMMA.