Online Sales Success

The Line for a New Apple Store from John Gruber on Vimeo.

I was there at the end of the line. It was fun to geek out for an evening. I definitely see a new iMac, iPhone 4 and maybe a iPad in my immediate future.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Apple Ace John Gruber Hints New Apple TV Is Coming Today (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)

link

Thesis has officially adopted a split GPL license, putting an end to the explosive debate between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and Thesis developer Chris Pearson which launched a community-wide discussion on the GPL and WordPress themes.

To clarify the split GPL license, Chris Pearson adds, “the PHP is GPLv2 and the CSS, JS, and images are proprietary.” Specifically, this means that Thesis no longer violates the GPL of WordPress and the several plugins that Thesis was based on. Matt Mullenweg was thrilled to hear the news, replying with, “Now, back to work. This has taken a lot of my time over the past few days and was going to consume more if it went forward.”

I use Thesis myself for some client sites and this is good news. With this clarity all delelopers can more forward without concern.

Infographic by the Pay Per Click Blog

Interesting, no doubt.

Tags: Google, Search Engine

WordPress 3.0 looks good. I’d wait a month until 3.1 is out. There is always unexpected bugs in a major release. I am trying is out on a new test site.  Especially interested in MU features.

WP 3.0 will merge MU and regular WP in one code base. This is a win all around as some neat feature useful to single sites will be available like ratings and membership pages.

WP usage is double from last year: 21 million downloads, 35 billion pageviews, 8.5% of websites run WP. WOW.

Most site used as CMS and blog.  This has been my design philosophy for some years now.  The blog is just one aspect of a site; I focus a lot on the static pages and SEO optimize them especially hard. The blog content is more ephemeral and Google treats it as such.

What you decide to do with your Twitter account will also vary widely by your company’s industry, size, and location. But here are some general pointers for things you SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do with your company’s Twitter account:

- DO have a personality, talk like a person, share stories. No one wants to follow a boring robot, unless your account is a boring robot with a specific function.

- DO NOT get carried away or tweet too far off topic. We’d love to occasionally learn about your employees or general industry or local topics. We generally don’t want to hear your views on politics or sports.

- DO share links, photos, and videos. If you’re a retail store, pictures of your newest items could be a great sales pitch. If you’re a tech company, sure, show us some of your press. If you’re a cafe, maybe a video of your superstar barista.

- DO NOT spend too much time retweeting customers saying nice things about you. Once in a while, maybe. But too often, companies blast 4 or 5 tweets of praise in a row. Many people simply unfollow those accounts.

Read the rest at OPEN FORUM

Check out this site build with BuddyPress. I was reading this recently and had no idea it was using WordPress. It doesn’t look like a blog. That is the idea.

http://tdi.vw.com/leaderboard/

Didn’t know that WordPress.com hosted blog sites for CNN and People Magazine.

Tim Ferris gives an excellent talk at WordCamp SF.

Takeaways for me:

1. I like the concept of using crazyeggs.com to track user action vs referral sources.

2. Change label ‘categories’ to ‘topics’ increase views alot.

3. He only posts once 0r twice a week.

4. He would rather keep on site then send viwers off to Twitter

5. He test everything.

6. He likes using StumbleUpon and says the traffic is high quality(I had no idea).

7. He uses Twitter for polling and Evernote to gather notes for research.

8. Edit your posts by hand and do SEO last.

9. If you are not having fun posting your audience won’t either.

I am trying out a new plugin on this post. Apture

It is easy to use and you have total control of which content type and data you link to. Nice.

Tags: Tim Ferris

Determining which tactics are going to be most effective for your particular situation is critical for search marketers. PPC, SEO, Social, Viral? Sure they all have their advantages, but depending on the marketplace you’re in, some strategies may be much more viable – in both cost and effectiveness – than others.

I like the insight that even easy SEO work ,like on page optimization, can be effective in less competitive markets but those same markets will be competitive and pricey when approached from the PPC side.

Guess it all is a matter of keyword research.

From SEOmoz Rand Fishkin:

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Market Forces & SEO from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Tags: seomoz