Sneak Peak At Our Houston Based Web Marketing Company

Life has a funny way of forcing your hand. I’ve been playing around at this online thing for several years now and have made some decent money at it, but never really committed to it. I’ve talked about doing it full time. I’ve dreamed about doing it full time. But I haven’t been DOING it full time. Then a month ago I was laid off from my job as a JAVA developer. I spent some time putting together a resume and talking to recruiters before realizing I didn’t really want another job working for someone else. I wanted to work for myself. Full time.

So, after a series of events unfolded (which could be the focus of a later post), my wife and I decided to take the plunge and start our own business. So, I am very pleased to introduce MantyWeb Designs (www.mantywebdesigns.com), a full service web promotion and web design company. We will be specializing in helping local businesses with underperforming websites turn their websites into a valuable part of their marketing plan. I’ll be focusing on helping people increase traffic and improving conversion rates. My wife will be concentrating on sales.

While we are based in Houston, we’re available to help people all over the U.S. So, if you’re in need of assistance, contact me. You can leave all well wishes in the comment section.

A Few Random and Useful Web Site Tips

Over my time online, I’ve created a few web sites and optimized them. Over, and over, and over again. In my occasional misadventures with them, I’ve picked up on a few things which can make your visitors happy, or drive them away in irritation.

Here are a few handy things to know in that regard, in no particular order.

• Your text can be too wide. Yes, too wide. Overweight, portly, stretching-too-far-across-the-screen wide. Comfortable reading width maxes out at around 750 pixels or so. Personally, I try to keep text widths within 700 pixels at most. This doesn’t mean your whole site has to be that wide, but no block of text on it should be any wider. If you’ve seen a sales letter site, you’ve seen this principle in action.
• If your text is too small to read, no one will try before they leave. I like 12-14 point for main content text, and 10 pt at the very, very minimum. If your sidebars require smaller text, get wider sidebars.
• Images are good, but all things in moderation. If you have so many of them on a site it takes forever to load, they’re not going to do you any good. If you do have a fair number of images, as with a magazine-styled site, try to keep them small so they load quickly.
• Multimedia works better than text alone. Try text and a picture or two, or text and a video, or text and some audio. Again, all things in moderation due to load times, but if you can, embellish your text.
• Automatic audio loads on site start-ups are really irritating. If you’ve ever landed on a site with automatic music, you’ve experienced this for yourself. Don’t use it. If you use audio, give the visitor control over it.
• If you want to put pictures in your background, you can make cool backgrounds with small repeating images. I’ve seen an entire site background done with a simple 5px by 5px image that seamlessly blended into every image around it.
• Never write over images. Gradients are the only exception to this rule. No matter how much transparency you apply to anything else, though, writing over images it is going to look bad.

Learn from my blunders. Use these tips to help make your site a much better place to visit.

Anatomy of a Mini-Site

Mini-sites are sites designed to do just one thing, such as sell a product, promote an affiliate program or collect a list. Plus, they do it automatically, and once they’re optimized until they convert, you can just drive traffic to them and let them go.

But what do you need for a mini-site? They’ll all have certain things in common that shouldn’t be neglected.

• Your copy, and that includes the initial header and headline that will grab the attention of your visitors so they continue reading.
• Some way to deliver your product or sign-up bonus that defeats fraud. That means only people who’ve bought it can get to the download page. Yes, there are those sleazy enough to post a link straight to your product page, so you want your product delivery to be as fraud-proof as you can make it.
• If you’re selling a product, some way to collect a list. That’s half the point in going through all the trouble to sell something online. You can collect a list before or after the sale. I don’t recommend collecting a list beforehand because it will irritate your affiliates, but collecting one after annoys PayPal unless you give your buyers a way to bypass your squeeze page. I still use list collection after the sale myself, and provide a bypass link to keep in compliance with PayPal’s TOS.
• Remove all distractions. Your mini-page is designed to do one thing, and one thing only. You don’t distract from that one thing with above the fold ads or pop-up windows, though I’ve recently started using an exit pop in an attempt to reclaim departing traffic.
• A way to get in touch with you that works. Email addresses should be specific to the site. For example, admin@yourwebsite.com looks far more legitimate than a Yahoo or Hotmail email address.
• Make sure it’s all working prior to launch. The last thing you want is for your product or bonus delivery to bungle, and that people who join your list get lost in a glitch. If you’re promoting an affiliate program, test the link to insure you’re getting credit for the hits before spending to drive traffic.

Keep these things in mind, and you can make a productive mini-site that will produce results for you.

Standing Out with Favicons

Have you ever seen a site with a favicon? It’s that tiny little image to the left of the URL that also appears in your favorites list if you bookmark it. It doesn’t seem like all that much, but it could be useful to you. How? It could help your site stand out in the crowd, and on the Internet, with its millions upon millions of sites, standing out is an absolute must.

Plus, it makes you look good, and you’ve probably noticed that effect for yourself. You might have landed on a site with a favicon, looked up in the URL, saw the neat little picture, and suddenly had a much higher opinion of it. I personally love them, and take sites that have them more seriously just because of one nifty little image.

That’s why I added some of my own to both of my current web sites. I’ll grant that they’re not much more than colorful monograms, but they still do the job nicely. They’re not hard to install either, and you could even make your own.

So, how do you install a favicon on your web site?

1.) First, you make it, and you can do that at

RealWorld Graphics – Online Icon Maker

This site will also let you upload an image and change it into a 16×16 pixel favicon. I preferred that method, because punching them out by hand didn’t work as well as a picture conversion. Just remember that when you make your soon-to-be converted image, you’ll be reducing it to a tiny icon, and you’re going to lose a lot of detail.

2.) Name your image ‘favicon.ico’. The maker at the web site I gave you will do that, and save it to your computer besides.

3.) Once you get your desired favicon, put it in the root directory of your web site, and these tags just below the HEAD command in your HTML.


<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico" />
<link rel="icon" href="http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico" />


Don’t copy and paste these, but type them into your site’s HTML file with your site’s name instead. They’re formatted to display properly in HTML, and not to be put in a text file.

Putting both LINK commands covers multiple browser types.

4.) Make sure your favicon looks the way you want, and that it appears. IE7 gave me some trouble with updating the images if I downloaded new ones, but Firefox was more cooperative.

I put mine up recently, and I suspect they’ll require some optimization just like everything else. Still, I like the way they turned out, and recommend you adding your own.

Mock Not the Humble Mini-Site

I look back at my original money-making concepts, and while they were valid, they leave me
with the same conclusion.

I goofed.

It’s not that I got the principles wrong, because you can make money from content sites and
blogs. No, it was more a question of a resource mismatch. My manpower consisted entirely of me and any task I happened to outsource as I needed. That isn’t so good when you’re trying to maintain a blog or content sites.

Those types of sites take a lot of work to keep fresh unless you’re a scraper, and you never want to become one of those because some people consider scraper sites to be unethical. You can’t just let them sit, because fresh content is the only way you get repeat traffic and in the case of blogs, syndication. This means you’re always adding or changing content, which adds work you could be spending making money with something else less effort-intensive.

Mini-sites are another matter entirely. For those of you unfamiliar with them, a mini-site
is a tiny site built specifically to do one thing well. This includes such things as:

• Get you to buy something. If you’ve ever landed on a sales letter page, you’ve seen this type of mini-site.


• Get you to opt-in to a list.


• Get you to click and buy through an affiliate link.

In fact, when it comes to making money online, mini-sites are ideal for the single individual entrepreneur. They don’t take much to maintain once they’re optimized and working, don’t require regular content updates, and aren’t megabytes worth of code in size. Once you add the fact they focus the attentions of their visitors on a single thing, you have a good concept for a low-cost, low-maintenance sales tool. In other words, less time in building and maintaining the site, and more time to promote and profit from it.

I grasped this myself, but my other mistake was to make my mini-pages part of my existing web site instead of giving them their own URL’s. This won’t work well because:

• The URL will be unattractive, or at the very least not memorable.


• It gives your visitors too much of an opportunity to be distracted.


• It makes it impossible to brand with a catchy URL of its own and perhaps go viral.

So learn from my goof, and mock not the humble mini-site. You can make money in other ways, but the mini-site is ideal for a single individual to make and then use in list gathering,
affiliate page promotions, or sales of ebooks. It’s the reason I won’t be using anything else in the future.

The Sticky Killers

Site stickiness is a big issue whether you realize it or not. All the traffic in the world won’t help you if no one stays on your site long enough to do what you want them to do. Want sales, opt-ins, or paid clicks? It won’t happen if you can’t get anyone to stay long enough to make them happen.

I’ll readily admit that stickiness has a lot to do with psychology, which is more ‘trial and error’ than ‘systematic’ to fix. The mistake is in believing that all stickiness is defined this way. Just because its not all cut and paste doesn’t mean you can’t fix the things that are obvious problems.

One big thing you can do to make your web site stickier is to eliminate the ‘Sticky Killers’. You can sum up ‘Sticky Killers’ with two major categories:

1. Negative first impressions that immediately drive visitors away.


2. Bad site experiences that drive them away after they’ve been on your site for a while.

The first problem, negative first impressions, include things such as:

• Difficult to comprehend, irritating, or ‘crowded’ site layouts and colors that cause negative gut reactions at a glance.


• Pop-ups barrages or other types of over-the-top spamming tactics like ad stacks or nonexistent content.


• A sloppy, home-made, or thrown-together look that makes your site appear unprofessional or gives the perception that it’s a waste of a visitor’s time. This doesn’t mean you have to own a fancy Flash site, but it does mean you’ll need a little thought or a good template when you make one.

Bad site experiences are the things on your site that drive visitors away after they have stayed long enough to do something. Bad experience departures are caused by things like:

• Bad navigation that makes it impossible for visitors to get around or find what they want.


• Poor content that doesn’t meet an expectation. Even sales letters are ‘content’ and the copy can be either good or bad. Or if you say you have informational/funny/interesting content and only provide junk, your visitors will leave and not in the way you want (such as through a paid click link).

Remember the two big ‘sticky killers’ when you’re making (or commissioning) your sites. Negative first impressions result in traffic leaving a few seconds after it arrives. Bad site experiences will give you decent ‘stay’ statistics, but nothing you want to occur will ever happen. Neither one is good for you or your bottom line.

Had enough of visitors just surfing away? Learn how to glue them to your pages with Flypaper Content.

Internet Marketing Tips From Around The Web 7/20/2007

I have been under the weather all week, so I have done very little blog reading and blog writing for that matter. Here are a few things that caught my eye this week:

The Open Source Web Design Toolbox: 100 Tools, Resources, and Template Sources
Excellent list of open source web design resources.

Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Website Traffic Metrics with Google Analytics
The title pretty much says it all.

Does it Take a PhD to Read Your Content?
Good reminder for those of us who tend to use big words in our writing.

You wanted my secrets now you have them!
A very interesting look at how Amanda is raking in money with paid ads.

Sometimes It’s Better to Hit Delete
Personally, I am not into writing “controversial” posts, but I know many people are. Do you ever wish you had deleted a post, before publishing it?

Free Internet Marketing Tips Video
Lastly, this video from Eben Pagan (formerly known as David DeAngelo) has some solid Internet marketing tips in it.

Internet Marketing Tips From Around The Web 4/27/2007

This week, I took a bit of a break from business activities. However, I still read some of my favorite blogs and did some searching for new gems. In no particular order, here are some of my favorite reads from the web this week:

New Calacanis link-baiting rules
Jason Calacanis’ post on how to link bait him is an EXCELLENT read for those wanting to learn how to link bait top bloggers. Jason left me a comment last year when I listed him as one of the people I would like to meet in this post. I think that I followed most of his rules, which would explain the comment. I would still like to meet him, along with the other people on that list. I should probably write a new list, since the list of bloggers I would like to meet has grown quite a bit since last year.

Tim Ferris Interview – Part 1
Tim Ferris Interview – Part 2
This two part interview by Darren Rowse provides some excellent business advice. Tim’s book sounds like a really good read.

Wordpress Theme Generator
This was a pretty cool find by Mark. The only thing I didn’t like about the wordpress theme generator is that it can’t generate three column themes. Otherwise, it’s pretty cool.

The Ultimate Guide to Productivity
I really liked Wendy’s simple tips in this post.

Using Stumbleupon and Squidoo Advertising to Promote Blogs
Chris Garret reveals his results with Squidoo and Stumbleupon advertising. Based on his results, I might test out Stumbleupon’s paid ads.

The Husband and Wife Blog Traffic Battle
Now this was real interesting. A husband and wife are doing a year long contest to see who’s blog can get the most traffic. Found this via the Sitening Blog. Something worth keeping an eye on.

Develop Your IM Network
If you are interested in gaining some new Instant Messaging friends, then check out Daniel’s invitation. Personally, I don’t use Instant messaging systems. I will probably join one in the near future, because so many of my online friends use instant messaging.

Internet Markeing Tips From Around The Web 3/15/2007

Here are some of the best Internet Marketing articles that I read this week:

Good is not almost as good as great
Seth’s blog is always loaded with great marketing advice. This post really hit home for me. It’s something I have been thinking about a lot lately.

What Everyone Ought to Know About Hiring a Web Designer
Good read for those of you who want to hire a web designer.

Bloggers Face-Off: Rand Fishkin vs. Lee Odden
The latest round of blogger face-offs on Daniel’s daily blog tips blog.

Copyright Law: 12 Do’s and Dont’s
As a website owner it’s important to keep copyright laws in mind. Daniel does a good job of highlighting some important aspects of online copyright laws.

Do Pre-made Stores or Pre-made Online Merchant Websites Have Any Value?
Aaron gives an excellent answer to an excellent question. It’s important to remember that it takes hard work to excel in business.

Motivation – Or Lack of it – Is there a cure for Laziness?
Rob poses a very interesting question. Some of which I plan on addressing next week in a post I am putting the finishing touches on.

The Successful Blogger Volume Two
Another excellent post on blogging by Garry Conn. It includes a good interview with Scott Rafer of MyBlogLog.

How To Get On Technorati’s Top 100 Popular Blogs List In Less Than 7 months

I just came across a blog that has managed to be listed in Technorati’s top 100 most popular blogs in less than 7 months!

The blog I found is Brian Gardner’s blog. Brian even wrote this post about reaching the top 500 and how he was on his way to the top 100. Well now, Brian’s blog is all the way up to 71 and climbing.

How did he make it in to the top 100 so fast?

Brian designs really nice free wordpress templates. In fact, he has 14 free wordpress themes so far! At the bottom of each theme is a link to his blog. When people use one of his themes, they are linking to his blog from their blog. Technorati’s rankings are based on the number of links other blogs have to your blog. So, in Brian’s case he is getting tons of links from other people’s blogs, which is quickly raising his Technorati ranking.

What a brilliant way to get on Technorati’s top 100 list!

Anyway, if you want to do what he has done, just follow in Brian’s footsteps:

1. Create lots of free wordpress themes or hire someone to create them for you.
2. In the footer of each theme, have a link to your blog.
3. Submit your themes to all the free wordpress theme sites and theme viewers out there.
4. Watch your blog climb the Technorati ranks.

That’s all there is to it…

Don’t Be Boring!

I am done creating anything that is boring on the Internet (well mostly done). I can’t think of one blog or website that I visit on a regular basis that I consider to be the least bit boring.

Whenever I get bored with a website or blog, I stop visiting it.

One of my BIGGEST goals in 2007 and beyond is to be remarkable, and to NOT BE BORING!

You should make it one of your goals too! Stop being boring! Nobody cares about boring websites except their owners. Just stop it!

Be remarkable, Be exciting, Be interesting, Be unique, Be everything you want to be, but…

DON’T BE BORING!

Start Of My Outsourcing Plan - A New Writer On Positive Sports News

We have a new writer working for us on our Positive Sports News blog. Neither Jill or I have had the time to write on it anymore, and it just made sense to hire at least one person (maybe more) to keep up the blog. John DeBroeck (the new writer) is a former homeschooler turned college student here in Texas. He is very interested in sports journalism and he is a perfect fit for our positive sports blog.

I am looking at outsourcing some more of our content creation. We already have some people lined up for the work.

Why am I starting to outsource more of our content creation?

Well, here is the thing. At this point in time I have to outsource some business tasks in order to continue to grow our business. I analyzed our primary business needs and I discovered that the best use of our income would be to hire people to create content. I believe it will give us the best bang for our buck at this point in time.

The next thing I plan on outsourcing is probably going to be web design. We have a few blogs that I would like to redesign (this one included), and I just don’t have the time to do it. Outsourcing this work makes a lot of sense.

If you do any outsourcing, I highly recommend you have a business plan and business goals in place BEFORE outsourcing. I also highly recommend you read Rich Schefen’s Internet Manifesto series and follow the steps he outlines in his free ebooks.

Next Page »