Thread: Web marketing and online products

Hi all,

as many of us know, strong web presence is one of pilars which support our business in present days. Do you use online business suport products like Clickbank, Paypal, AdWords or other systems I didn`t mention ? Did you find it useful, timesaving, customer friendly, ... ? Please share your viewpoint.

Is there any other web/online product you find interesting or you are even thinking to implement to support your bellydance business ?

What is your idea about using hit counters, chats, forums, online calendars, surveys and other online interactive products ? _Do you like using them or do you find it distractive for your visitors or even consider them possible entrance for spamming/hacking your site ?

I use a hit counter, because I like to know my stats. But I make it an invisible one. I use Statcounter, and also Googlestats, but I find the statcounter interface works better for me.

I don't use any kind of interactive gizmos, other than creating links to email me direct, which I accept as being a risk for spamming (and I have Mailwasher to take care of that).

I created a slightly more private area for my student information (choreography notes, class & workshop handouts, music & dvd & other shopping recommendations, etc). It needs a password. It's not the world's most sophisticated privacy mechanism, but it's good enough for me & my low-profile site.

This is kind of scattered, but these are the first few items that come to mind:

Google web analytics is a great service, and any other google service is great because let's face it - everyone uses it for searches. I also make sure to invest my time in social networks for networking and postings events, especially on facebook. Eventbrite is great for your events as you can link your eventbrite page to twitter, myspace, facebook etc and be able to send out invitation emails. If your website is run by wordpress there are thousands of plugins that will optimize your blog/website and analyze your traffic.

As far as extra 'gadgets' to add to your page - you want to do a little as possible to stray away your customer. Online cutesy surveys are fun, but if they are on your homepage you risk that viewer of leaving your site and never returning. Surveys for your services rendered however, should be used as often as possible to elicit testimonials from happy students and customers.

Blogs are a great way to let your students, fans, customers, etc to see the artistic side of you, or a way for you to announce events, or give insights that prove interesting to increase your website traffic. I've always been a big fan of blogs, and not enough dancers have one on their site!

Constant contact is also a great and cheap newsletter/e-mail blast tool, just don't overuse it or else your recipients will stop reading your material...make it interesting, content rich, and focused to what you want your customers to do...this also goes for your website design.

Hope this helps!
~Majda

I do recommend Google Analytics, as it's based on a fairly accurate way of counting and tracking users, and Google itself uses it!
I've heard a number of overall good anecdotal tales from dance vendors about Google AdWords use. There are other ad networks, and I've also heard horrible problems (Google turning off accounts, and keeping the money!) but frankly, none of the other networks have the reach of Google.

That said, I'd be curious to find out how the reach of ads here on Bhuz, or on Gilded Serpent, works out.

As far as hacking, as a guy who worked in Security Programming, frankly, the more gizmos you add to a web site, the more potential openings you leave for an attacker. And sometimes it's about adding widgets to services that can be opened to give someone access to your account on that specific service.
That said, the odds are low that someone would use such a vector directly. As a Web Designer, I think a greater truth is that more cluttered and complex web pages are harder to get people to look at, and stay on to find out more about you. That's a great reason to keep widgets off the page!

That said, I do play with a LOT of new apps, both online and off, that look useful for dancers, and that I keep in mind for my friends. For example, there's an upcoming online calendar app that's focused on making it easy for freelance-style professionals to schedule with clients; you simply hand potential clients a short URL, and they can put themselves on your calendar, and it auto-blocks out conflicts, etc. That sounds perfect for dancers who do a lot of one-off shows and/or work a goodly number of private and semi-private classes.

Another app that's getting a lot of use in our area is EventBrite, which does ticketing online and allows a variety of payment methods, like Paypal. I've not had a chance to ask any of my friends who use it how it works for them, but compared to the "bare" Paypal methods, it's certainly better from this End-users' POV! Among other bonuses, it allows you to add the event to Google Calendar, Outlook, and so on with just a couple of clicks.

One thing I'm surprised more people don't use to send out flyers is the online document apps, like Zoho or Google Docs. They're easy to use, easy to share out with, and allow people to see well-presented and laid-out information w/o having to start of a "heavy app" like Acrobat, or Microsoft Word. For my money, that beats flinging out about big Word doc or PDF into the 'Net -- or, worse, sending me yet another brightly-colored HTML-based email that drops right into my GMail spam trap!

So that's three. I'll shut up, now. :)

Hi, I agree with everyone here. I use both Google AdWords and Analytics (they work together!). I also have a free e-mail widget thingy on my homepage, but that is about it.

For good marketing advice, check this out: Belly Dance Business Academy — Teaching you the business side of belly dance It has some awesome tips and ideas.

PS An alternative to eventbrite is brownpapertickets.com. I was very happy with them when I used it.

Thank you for your input, all info is very usefull as other dancers can benefit too from these services.

Asim:
I got an impression that both Zoho and Google Apps work for smaller groups, not for large mailing lists consisting of several hundred e-mail addresses. Please shout if I am wrong.

Andalee:
is this the site where Meissoun from Switzerland is one of the authors ? I remember once being a topic here in Bhuz but lost the bookmark. Thanks for reminding !



P.S.
Where is Lauren_?

Originally Posted by Michaela

Asim:
I got an impression that both Zoho and Google Apps work for smaller groups, not for large mailing lists consisting of several hundred e-mail addresses. Please shout if I am wrong.

You can send directly within, yet I refer more to the ability to format a flyer in one of those, and send out the link to that flyer to your externally-manged mailing list. This gets you:

• A lightweight way to show heavilty-formatted docs,
• with more control over formatting than standard HTML,
• and better loading times, and ability to load on many computers, that an attachment,
• all in a user interface that's easier that most HTML editors.

Does that make more sense?

I no longer use a traditional cgi hit counter. Instead, I use the statistics generated by my web hosting company. As I convert each page of my site from the old yellow/orange look and feel to the new one, I also add the Google Analytics link (it's in the template, so it gets automatically added).

I advise against chats and forums unless you want to make the time and effort to nurture it into a viable competitor for bhuz and Oriental Dancer and tribe. A chat room or forum with little to no activity looks lonely and embarrassing.

It's fine to post a survey if there's something you really want to know, but don't post it just for the sake of having one.

On my "contact" page, I have my facebook, myspace, and twitter ID's. Someone who wants to have interactive contact with me can use those media.

If you're using Google Analytics and especially Adwords, then you gotta try Google Website Optimizer! This is getting really deep into web marketing, but it's basically an automatic split tester. You test one version of your site against another version (by changing graphics, adding video, different headlines, etc,) then you input both versions into the tester. Google automatically divides up your traffic and randomly sends one person to one site and another to the second site. Each unique visitor is tracked, so if they return, they always return to the same version while the test is running.

You let the test run until Google collects enough information to be statistically significant. They have a color system. Red means stop. Don't make the change. It's a loser. Yellow means wait, they're still collecting info. Green means go ahead an implement the change right away because it's converting better than the old version.

The trick is you HAVE to have a conversion. So a visitor has to actually DO something while they are on your site. It could be signing up for a newsletter, it could be emailing for information, it could be making a purchase. It seems like a picky little thing to do, and most businesses don't bother. But it's a free tool from Google and one tiny change on your site can mean a HUGE difference in your bottom line! Especially if you're paying for traffic from adwords, you owe it to yourself to test.

The Website Optimizer page is self-explanatory and it's easy to run a test. But if you have questions, I can try to help you out. Just PM me.

Mira