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Encouraging Teasing on the Web

September 29th, 2010

By Matt Cook
Point Click Media

Whoa, before the anti-bullying activist SWAT team rappels down from the rafters and jams a 12-gauge into my mouth, let me make one thing perfectly clear. Teasing is not cool, unless it’s on the web or in media in general.

OK! OK! Wait, don’t shoot!

Teasers have been around in printed media for a long time. No, I’m not referring to bullying at all, but rather the art of the editorial teaser. A teaser is a shortened piece of information that is specifically written to entice the reader to engage your article further. In fact, the headline of this article is indeed its own teaser.

You see this all the time in magazines and newspapers, where an article on the front page will be truncated at a specific point that leaves the reader wanting more. Bloggers and websites have widely adopted this method of attention-grabbing and, love ‘em or hate ‘em, teasers are pretty much around for good in blogs, news sites, RSS feeds and even advertising.

Look at the teaser headline of this ad. It wouldn’t matter if the rest of the ad was apostrophes and ampersands or Neo Nazi propaganda; if you’re lookin’ to party, chances are you’re going to click that ad.

Look at the teaser headline of this ad. It wouldn’t matter if the rest of the ad was apostrophes and ampersands or Neo-Nazi propaganda; if you're a university student looking for a place to party, you’re going to click that ad.

So how do you write an effective teaser?

Let’s be realistic. Not everyone is going to click on every link on your website, but you can certainly optimize those opportunities. Here are a couple of options:

1. Break up your article at a key point in the story with maximum tension to stimulate curiosity.

“I was eating some Corn Flakes at the diner when I saw a ninja ordering Cheerios at the counter. I couldn’t believe what he did next!”

2. Promise the reader some useful information.

“5 things you can do to relieve stress and enjoy your job.”

“According to recent studies, watching Frasier increases the risk of brain damage. Here’s why…”

A good teaser doesn’t just simply read “Click here to find out more”. We’ve seen that a thousand times and there’s nothing exciting about it. It’s up to you, the writer to charge up the readers’ emotions and get them clicking like John Rambo at a POW camp.

If the content of your website is lacking a pulse, contact Point.Click Media.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Are You On the List?

September 22nd, 2010

By Matt Cook
Point Click Media

You know, I could come up with a bunch of cheesy metaphors and crazy statistics about how many people around the world use Google, but let’s be honest; you already know it’s a lot. Google isn’t just a search engine anymore. They’re developing everything from email to business applications, to sharks with lasers on their freakin’ heads.

One... Hundred... BILLION... USERS!

One... Hundred... BILLION... USERS!

What a coinkydink… you as a small business owner are looking to expand your customer base while Google is just dying to know everything about you, and do you want to know the coolest part? Even if you’re not ready to make to make a complete jump to the web, there’s lots of little things you can do to make sure you’re still getting some extra exposure. One of those things is Google Places.

You’ve probably noticed Google Places before. When you perform a search for a local product or service, you may notice a map pop up with lettered markers related to the various business listings on the right.

Picutred: Google Places... Not Pictured... You.

Picutred: Google Places... Not Pictured... You.

Google Places appears above the organic search results and is completely free. It also allows you to update your business contact information at any time, so if you’ve recently changed your address or phone number, no sweat. Take that Yellow Pages! In addition, if you own multiple businesses, you can control and manage all of your listings from one single account.

Why are you still reading this? We’re talking about a free business listing that shows up ABOVE organic search results on the largest search engine on the planet. You should be over there right now setting up your account.

Still here, eh? Alright. Here comes the Billy Mays two-for-one offer… Google Places is also integrated with Google Maps. That means that when you create a business listing, it not only appears atop the organic Google search results, but anytime someone is searching the Google Maps interface, your listing also pops up with directions to your location.

There’s only one thing left to say about Google Places:

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

For additional information on establishing an early web presence through feature like Google Places, contact Point Click Media.

Posted in Web Tools

Advertising with Facebook

September 15th, 2010

farmville cow

photo credit: Rusty Boxcars - "Just 7 million more rubles before I can buy some gallows to hang myself."

By Matt Cook
Point Click Media

If you’re not familiar with Facebook by now, chances are you’re probably some form of Yeti creature living in the Himalayas and avoiding human contact at all costs. Allow me to attempt put the scale of Facebook into perspective. There are over 500 million people on Facebook. That’s the entire population of the United States, Canada, and Mexico combined, with some leftover space for good measure to throw in all of your fabulous destination countries like Jamaica, Barbados, the Dominican, etc. So sit back with your favourite mai tai and listen to this…

Both Google and Microsoft have tried to purchase Facebook, with Microsoft even offering around $15 billion – yes that’s a B – and get this; they got turned down. It would seem like the prospect of owning the identities of every last person on planet Earth is worth slightly more than owning a Grand Canyon full of nickels. Go figure.

So why is this information so important? Well, when you can harbour the profiles of all these people, you can also control what they see. When you consider how much time the average person spends on Facebook looking up friends, playing Farmville, chatting with family, playing Farmville, flipping through photo albums and playing Farmville, it’s not hard to see why advertisers are eagerly throwing fistfuls of cash at Facebook like a Hipster at the Apple Store.

Facebook advertising works much the same way as Google advertising where you can pay either by click or by number of impressions (or page views) to have your custom ads appear throughout the site targeted to whomever you so choose. The thing is, where with Google your ads are targeted to users in general who are searching for keywords, with Facebook you can target a specific age group or a specific interest group. For example, a wedding photographer could target their ads specifically to people who list ‘engaged’ as their relationship status. In addition, your business can set up a company profile page that allows you to reach out to a much larger audience at the tip of your fingers.

I recommend the Facebook Advertising Guide to learn more about how it all works.

There’s a reason why there’s an arms race by all the major players to snap up Facebook as soon as they can, but Mark Zuckerberg has shown loud and clear that Facebook isn’t ready to sell out just yet. With a product that can target its users so efficiently, there’s a reason why more and more businesses are jumping on board with Facebook.

Beyond simple advertising, there are many more avenues you can pursue with Facebook. Contact Point Click Media to find out more.

Posted in Web Tools

Part 3: Playing The Rate Card

September 8th, 2010

y2.d122 | so. wiped.

photo credit: B Rosen "This is you after designing ads for 120 hours straight. Was it worth the 10 bucks a pop?"

By Matt Cook
Point Click Media

After you’ve acknowledged which parts of your website have the most potential for advertising revenue, and after you’ve decided exactly what types of advertising you’ll be offering, you’ll need to decide on a value for each of those spaces and assign pricing for it.

This is likely to be the most difficult part of getting into online advertising – generating the revenue model. For one, you’ll need to study your metrics, demographics and statistics to find out which pages are the most visited. For example, your homepage will likely be your most visited page, and why not? The home page is the entry point to your website. It’s likely how your visitors find you through search engines or through referrals and it’s also where they go to find out what’s happening throughout your site. Naturally, the more traffic to the page, the higher the value – and with that you can associate a higher price.

You’ll also have to keep in mind things like production costs. Will your advertisers be supplying their own content? Remember that not every business has a team of designers ready to provide you with an awesome barrage of advertising. You may need to develop some concepts for your clients and have some back-and-forth with them to ensure their satisfaction.

When factoring in production costs, it’s not uncommon to see many websites budget the first week or month (depending on how the ads are sold) of a sale toward the initial production. Once those initial costs are covered, be it for the design work or perhaps a commission to whomever sold the space – then you can begin to turn a profit. This all goes along with ensuring that your website has a proper business model in place before you start lighting up your site with ads like a Christmas tree and lose your shirt by not covering costs.

Web advertising can also be sold in a slew of different methods. One is by dedicated time slot where the ad is sold by a number of days, weeks, months, etc. This is the most common and traditional way of selling advertising. Other methods include selling per impression or per click. This works by charging the client for a predetermined number of page views or by charging based on the number of times someone has clicked on the clients’ ad(s). Just as you can begin to get creative with what types of advertising you will be offering, you can be just as creative with how you sell it.

A proper business model is the key to making sure that your website blossoms into a healthy revenue stream. To do it properly, it’s not as simple as filling your white space with ad spots and plastering “Buy Me Now!” tags all over the place like a used car lot. There’s loads of strategic and careful planning to be done to ensure long time stability and viability.

We’ve touched here on the basics of preparing your website for advertising. If you’d like help in studying your website with the goal of helping it pull its own weight in revenue, contact Point Click Media.

Posted in General News, Web Tools

Part 2: Standard Living

September 1st, 2010

DSCN5852.JPG

photo credit: Ian W Scott - "NUMBER THREE! Thou shalt not visit a Star Wars fan page without having to close 47 pop up windows for Viagra. I'm looking at YOU, Geocities!"

By Matt Cook
Point Click Media

Now that you’ve established which parts of your website are best suited for advertising, you’ll need to figure out exactly what type of advertising you want on your site.

But I thought advertising was just different sized boxes and graphics…

Web advertising can in fact be as simple as a logo placed on a page, but it can also be so much more. Web advertising can take on many different forms including everything from simple graphics to full video, animations or even contextual advertising.

No matter what method of advertising you choose, keep in mind that there are web standards to follow. For example, there are a set of standard ad sizes that are most commonly used across the web for banners, tiles, skyscrapers and more. These standards include dimensions, file size and length (if your ads are animated). For a complete list of standard web ad sizes, see the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Ad Unit Guidelines.

Do I have to follow these rules?

These guidelines aren’t written in stone. It’s not like Charleton Heston brought down slabs of stone tableture from Mount Sinai that said “Number Five! Thou shalt not exceed 40 kilobytes on all Skyscraper banners”. You can build all kinds of wacky sizes if you wish, but keep in mind that your advertisers will need to build custom sizes for your website, and it will cost them more, which can be a turn off for many advertisers. The standard works for pretty much everyone, so why deviate? In the end you’ll likely end up investing more in trying to customize your advertising than you would get out of it by sticking to the standard guidelines.

If you’ve decided to go the contextual advertising route and place third party ads on your website to generate revenue rather than enduring the labour of going out and finding and securing advertisers, it’s important to know that each third party program has their own set of rules for what can be displayed on your website. For example, when placing Google ads on your website, there are restrictions as to what you can do with them. You can’t place more than 3 on a page. You also can’t label them as anything but sponsored links or advertisers. Google ads work on a Cost-Per-Click basis so their guidelines are strict but very adaptable to any website.

I recommend reading the Google Adsense Program Policies before deciding to apply.

There’s a lot to consider when figuring out what to offer for advertising on your website. In fact, we’ve only really discussed a few traditional methods of generating advertising revenue. It’s often the campaigns that think outside the box that make the biggest impact, so keep your mind open to all sorts of advertising avenues.

In the final segment of this feature we’ll examine the factors you’ll need to consider when deciding on pricing for your spots. If you’d like to discuss what other forms of advertising that could work with your website, contact Point Click Media.

Posted in Web Tools