Online marketers are spending billions of dollars in the U.S. alone trying to use pay-per-click advertising to promote their products. The return on investment would assume at first that this is money well spent. But is it really? While only 15% of the people who use Google, click on paid ads, this results in a [...]
Author Archives: Kalen Smith
Pay-per-click is inferior to SEO but can still have a purpose
— By Kalen Smith
The only social networking strategy that works
— By Kalen Smith
There is a lot of debate in the entrepreneurial community on the effectiveness of social networking. The reason why they are in disagreement over the return they can receive from social networking is because only the ones who do it right understand how well it can work. The truth is that if you do social [...]
Don’t let your email marketing campaign get mistaken for spam
— By Kalen Smith
Having an aggressive email marketing campaign is one of the most powerful ways to grow your business over the Internet. However, it is easy to accidentally become too aggressive and be flagged for spam. There are a few principles you should keep in mind when you are setting your campaign up so that you can [...]
Failure is the first prerequisite of successful entrepreneurs
— By Kalen Smith
Every entrepreneur is preoccupied with success. But to succeed, we must first understand failure. This is not to suggest that failure is something to strive for. On the contrary, we want to understand why failures happen so that we can better avoid them. Japan: To Fix your Economy, Honor Your Failed Entrepreneurs says that the [...]
Why SEO is not everything
— By Kalen Smith
Many entrepreneurs have gotten so caught up in the mystique Google has created with their search algorithms that they have based their entire business around it. They believe that the success of their online business begins and ends with their search rankings. Their obsession is shown more in their link-building practices than anything else. Many [...]
Using Trendistic for Marketing Research
— By Kalen Smith
Trendistic is a great tool that is used to follow activity on Twitter. As you are probably aware, there are about 30 million Twitter users in the world, so Twitter trends are a great tool for market researchers. The problem with using Twitter for research is that it is often difficult to gauge what people [...]
Use a Recession to Create an Edge
— By Kalen Smith
Many would-be entrepreneurs would not consider starting a business in the middle of a recession. Understandably, it is a very scary time to begin a venture. Startup capital is low and customers may not be able to afford the products or services you have to offer. On the surface, being an entrepreneur during a recession [...]
Are “experts” successful at predicting trends in the technology industry?
— By Kalen Smith
If you are a smart businessperson, you know to do your research. You probably use Reddit, Google Alerts, Trade magazines and reputable blogs to follow trends in the industry and technology environments to know how to make your business more successful. Experts have made numerous predictions that seem critical to understanding the changing environment of [...]
Don’t Let Facebook ruin your Brand Image
— By Kalen Smith
Many entrepreneurs are eager to grab some publicity off of the social networking model and Facebook is obviously the most obvious place to begin. However, just because Facebook is the most successful social networking site does not mean that it is the easiest to work into your business model. Facebook is NOT for Business says [...]