Web marketing book recommendation

[MindyL]

I am currently reading through "Web Marketing For Dummies" and would recommend it to anyone interested in promoting their business through online outlets. The book is full of creative ideas and examples of how others have used the web to bring people in the door of their business.

[Audrey]

Mindy,

Can you share something you've learned?

[MindyL]

Mindy,

Can you share something you've learned?

I can share a few things that I've gotten out of the book.

One would be that people like to enter contests and they like to get free stuff. This is one way that you can bring people into your website. For us, we would have to think more out of the box with these ideas, but we've tossed around the idea of having a contest for college students in the design field to design a website for us and the winner would receive $100 bucks. This would be purely to bring traffic to the website. Another idea I've thought of would be for people to write in and "nominate" their pastor or church for a free website. We would then read through the entries and choose one to receive a free website. I'm not sure if we'll end up implementing these ideas or not, but the book was great to get some creative juices flowing in that area.

Something else I was reading yesterday is that you should talk in the third person when writing about yourself on your website. People don't like to hear you write about yourself, but prefer a more objective approach when describing you or your business. Another tip is that they like the website to be somewhat personalized to them in the way that you use the word "you", such as making a link "your cart" as opposed to "cart", or "Place Your Order Here" as opposed to "Place Order Here". Just this little subtlety can make them feel more connected with your site.

[tam2005]

Hey Mindy,

Awesome tips there! Sounds really interesting. A contest is always a good idea. :)

I took a peek at your website Mindy...I like your designs. :flower:

[Audrey]

Mindy,

Can you offer a free site to a winner? Just a random winner? Can you offer a free banner? Folks like me can't do banners. A friend did my banner on my scarpbooking site as a gift and I bought the one on my recipe site. Those are two ideas I've come up with for you with a contest.

Thanks for sharing these two thoughts. I've always enjoyed the dummies series.

[MindyL]

Thanks for the ideas. As of right now, we won't be doing any contests, but I'll let you know if we do in the future!