April 28th, 2010

Copy is King

Monetising your websites content through syndication

I have carved out a niche for myself in not only providing versatile and growth orientated marketing strategies but also providing clients, post strategy with tools and connections via my network to leverage true value from the content they create via syndication.

The key to content is to make it relevant to a particular subject area (ideally a niche area), make the tone quasi-authoritative while also offering up rhetorical questions that are read by the reader as your effort to be open for comment thus, approachable and most of all unique.

Some of the most commercialised content on the web is not, as many would assume images and rich media (videos, podcasts etc) but rather a hybrid of BLOG style articles with some UGC (user generated content) elements.

After spending the last 12mths listening to a variety of media publishers and also content starved businesses, there is the need and I believe an opportunity for many online businesses to open up additional revenue streams via the introduction and by embracing the syndication of their content onto others.
If you would like to learn more or explore your own ability to syndicate your content onto others, please contact Shifted Pixels today as I would be only too happy to provide some counsel in this area.

Alisdair Blackman is Managing Director of Shifted Pixels and has been a pioneer in the field of online marketing. With over 13 years experience in working with clients to devise strategies that bring about the best return on investment, he is a trusted authority and specialist in areas of commercialisation and monetisation and an avid content syndication expert.

Alisdair Blackman is Managing Director of Shifted Pixels and has been a pioneer in the field of online marketing. With over 13 years experience in working with clients to devise strategies that bring about the best return on investment, he is a trusted authority and specialist in areas of commercialisation and monetisation and an avid content syndication expert.

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Call Shifted Today on 02 8005 1568 At Shifted Pixels we go the extra mile to ensure that whatever work we do be it strategy, planning, design, development, online marketing, media buying yields a tangible net benefit. Give us a call, we would love to help your business grow online! See what shifted pixels has to offer

April 21st, 2010

Show Me The Money

Everyone wants to make money. Everyone wants a return on their investment. Many have flocked to the online medium under the false pretence that they can make a quick buck from their website. Apart from a very select few, most have never recouped their investment for a whole number of reasons. This post does not set out to point fingers nor antagonise industry folk but rather seeks to emphasise the key facts about online business to prospective investors, web entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

  1. Online business is just as difficult as running any “bricks and mortar” business and is equally as demanding
  2. Having invested in the formation of the website, this is not where it ends – there needs to be a well planned strategy and approach to marketing, optimisation of marketing activities to best ensure effectiveness and continued market research to keep an eye on key competitor(s) activities
  3. The key to successfully monetising a website is to continually appraise all your marketing activities and optimise your marketing budget so as to minimise budget wastage
  4. Have a plan and strategy and stick to it. Craft either yourself or ideally with someone like me a scalable and future proofed strategy that is robust to see the business through at very least the next 12-24 months. This strategy should typically include;
  5. Key online marketing objectives;
    • Key stakeholders, target audiences for the new website and value propositions;
    • Recommended online marketing model & mix;
    • Opportunities for innovation & game change innovation strategies (this will involve an experienced online marketing strategist such as Alisdair Blackman from Shifted Pixels);
    • SWOT analysis;
    • An analysis of competitors in your space and opportunities for differentiation – looking at best practice, industry benchmarking, conduct a detailed gap analysis and finally identify best of breed online strategies and models used both domestically and internationally;
    • Assessment of commercial model;
    • Full appraisal and brain dump for the immediate and medium term opportunities for commercialisation & monetisation (this will involve an experienced online marketing strategist such as Alisdair Blackman from Shifted Pixels);
    • Provide a comprehensive list of all technological requirements and functionality for the new website so as to support monetisation and pressure test functional requirements against potential ROI – this is practically a functional specification which is often used by clients to obtain costings from developers;
    • Outline strategies around how to Attract, Acquire, Convert, Retain & Grow the traffic to the site and our # of subscribers;
    • A comprehensive marketing plan of all the tactics (email acquisition campaigns through permission based marketing, search engine optimisation, search marketing, affiliate marketing, display advertising, viral / word of mouth and interactivity (ie. Podcasts, webinars, web casting, BLOGs, forums, Facebook/MySpace/Linkedin/Twitter social networking, linking strategies, mobile & SMS, videos etc.) that will be used to market your business and enhance the exposure and brand recognition of your website thereby increasing traffic and share of voice; and,
    • Revenue Projections with full Budgets and Timelines etc
  6. In order to make money, you need to spend money – BUT CAREFULLY! Results will reveal themselves in real-time and it is both a skill and art to respond in a timely fashion to best optimise your results, while at the same time minimising budget wastage.
  7. Many clients opt to outsource their online marketing work to marketing agencies. While I have always supported this approach to online marketing, do be careful as to who you approach and entrust with the marketing of your business. There are many self professed experts and many are just full of hot air!
  8. Online businesses are a risky business and as such the rate of return can be vastly different dependent on industry sector, size of market, market maturation etc. A solid business plan and online marketing blueprint is critical for both management and owners to have some degree of comfort over the viability and sustainability of a business.
  9. Shop around and try and align yourselves with practitioners with as many years of experience as possible to best ensure they provide you clear, trustworthy and sound recommendations around the growth of your business.Web businesses can be both rewarding and profitable provided a medium term approach is taken. Seldom has it been the case that websites will yield immediate or short term profitability. With sound guidance and professional support from the likes of Shifted Pixels with your online marketing, results will be forthcoming.

Alisdair Blackman is Managing Director of Shifted Pixels and has been a pioneer in the field of online marketing. With over 13 years experience in working with clients to devise strategies that bring about the best return on investment, he is a trusted authority and specialist in areas of commercialisation and monetisation.

Alisdair Blackman is Managing Director of Shifted Pixels and has been a pioneer in the field of online marketing. With over 13 years experience in working with clients to devise strategies that bring about the best return on investment, he is a trusted authority and specialist in areas of commercialisation and monetisation and an avid content syndication expert.

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Call Shifted Today on 02 8005 1568 At Shifted Pixels we go the extra mile to ensure that whatever work we do be it strategy, planning, design, development, online marketing, media buying yields a tangible net benefit. Give us a call, we would love to help your business grow online! See what shifted pixels has to offer

April 19th, 2010

Why Your Search Rankings Don’t Matter

A controversial title I know, but keep reading…
I am often baffled by the number of clients who are increasingly requesting using SEO for the sole purpose of boosting search engine rankings to beat their competitors. Many clients only want their rankings improved and don’t appreciate the value in optimising his their website. These Clients often are only interested in outranking their competitors.
I find this surprising, although after speaking with a few other industry practitioners, I hear this is not uncommon.
Sure, outranking your competitors will likely bring more traffic to your business’ website, but this won’t necessarily result in more leads and conversions for your business.
A recent study had the following to say about lead generations which is also relevant when considering the quality of leads generated from SEO:
The importance of improving lead generation marketing effectiveness is even more critical in tough market conditions where companies must generate more results with less budget in order to help contribute to incremental sales growth.
Source: B-to-B Lead Generation: 2009 Marketing ROI & Performance Evaluation Study, Marketing Profs Research Insights, 2009
Improving your Search Rankings is only one piece of the puzzle.
Driving large amounts of traffic to a website that is not optimised will likely lead to high bounce rates when users get to your website.
Why? Keep reading.
A successful Search Engine Optimisation campaign can be executed by using the 4 fundamental principles I have outlined below:
1. Keyword Research – It’s all good and well to know which keyphrases you want your website to rank for, but it is far more important to know how users behave online when searching for products and services your business offers. Research into this will provide insights into how many searches your keyphrases receive so you can make informed decisions into the keyphrases to target for your business. You may also find that the keyphrases you want to rank for actually receive very little traffic and that users search for your services in a completely different manner to which you predicted. This information is critical to the success or failure of a Search campaign. Just because your competitors rank for certain keyphrases, doesn’t necessarily mean your business should too.
2. Website Optimisation – The knowledge you have gained from keyword research can now be applied to your website. This means making sure important keyphrases occur in your website’s copy and code. This however is only one part of optimising your website. Your website’s design is also critical. A poorly designed website will result in high bounce rates. Your website not only needs to be aesthetically pleasing but also offer valuable information to the user and contain very clear “Calls-To-Action” so as to guide the user to convert on your website (more of this in my next point). A large button saying “Sign up here” or “Contact Us” can be the difference between a customer picking up the phone, or leaving your website altogether.
3. Goal Tracking – Understanding the way a user behaves on your website is important. By setting up analytics and goal tracking on your website you are able to identify important trends in user behaviour on your website. This data then influences future decisions to be made about your website’s design and IA in order to continually optimise your website and improve the user experience.
4. Link Building – This is the only aspect the above client was interested in, but with points 1 through 3, this is effectively a waste of time and money. Building links to your website will inevitably boost your search rankings. But without Keyword Research, Website Optimisation and Goal Tracking this won’t matter. You will inevitably generate irrelevant traffic, have high bounce rates on your website, have no way to measure the way users interact with your site and have no measure of return on your investment.
There you have it.
At Shifted Pixels we provide a holistic approach to SEO combining the 4 principles above and our success rate is high. If you are using an agency that doesn’t follow these 4 principles in executing your SEO campaign, you should question why they are not.

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Call Shifted Today on 02 8005 1568 At Shifted Pixels we go the extra mile to ensure that whatever work we do be it strategy, planning, design, development, online marketing, media buying yields a tangible net benefit. Give us a call, we would love to help your business grow online! See what shifted pixels has to offer

April 7th, 2010

Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Planning is an often overlooked phase in most if not all web projects yet is one of the most important. I find myself continually bowled over by the sheer number of nightmare stories that both traditional agencies and clients have with the creation of their websites. I strongly advocate the need for planning to stem these horror stories.

Planning is sadly one of the first areas that is cut when budgets and schedules are tight. Today, online is permeating every facet of business and re-defining the way individuals communicate with each other. I am miffed by the number of clients who have had bad experiences in the past with the formation, maintenance and marketing of their websites. The web was always meant to simplify and streamline, not represent yet another headache!!!

I maintain that if proper planning is more broadly adopted and embraced by both agencies and clients, the ‘failure rate’1 and perceived ‘pain’ in web projects would be greatly alleviated.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with “best practice” in the area of web projects, below is a diagram that denotes the method used by Shifted Pixels in the successfully deployment of web projects.

WEB PROJECT PHASES AND WORK STAGES

The Planning phase should constitute around HALF the time taken in the deployment of website projects yet all too often gets relegated to the ‘bottom of the list’. Failure to abide by this standard rule will result in an increased incidence of project overruns.

Ask yourself this:

Have you ever had a ‘scope’ argument with your agency? Or, have you got clients that are always trying to push the scope to accommodate their ever changing requirements?

Similarly, are you one that believes you can seriously deploy a sound solution without a technical specification? It is not good enough to point your agency to emulate what one of your competitors is doing. Yes, we can emulate the way they have built their system BUT the logic and way you wish your site to work may differ. For this reason and a million others, it is critical that all your functionality and technical requirements be properly fleshed out prior to the commencement of Phase 2 – Production as otherwise your timeframe will be shot and your budgets blown out.

Lack of appropriate and proper planning will have an adverse impact on the site’s overall performance one way or another.

I would encourage you, if you be a client, to take the time to properly work with your agency to determine your needs and requirements from which a scope of work can be defined and your online interests safeguarded.

1 Failure rate refers to those websites that fail to live up to their intended purpose or fail to yield results for which the decision to create the website was intended.

Alisdair Blackman is Managing Director of Shifted Pixels and has been a pioneer in the field of online marketing. With over 13 years experience in working with clients to devise strategies that bring about the best return on investment, he is a trusted authority and specialist in areas of commercialisation and monetisation and an avid content syndication expert.

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Call Shifted Today on 02 8005 1568 At Shifted Pixels we go the extra mile to ensure that whatever work we do be it strategy, planning, design, development, online marketing, media buying yields a tangible net benefit. Give us a call, we would love to help your business grow online! See what shifted pixels has to offer

April 7th, 2010

Alisdair Blackman joins Shifted Pixels

April 8th, 2010 (Sydney, Australia) – Shifted Pixels Sydney has appointed former Blackglass MD Alisdair Blackman as our new Managing Director. Blackman’s appointment on April 1 sees him take the leadership role to grow the strategic credentials of the digital agency.

Blackman is no stranger to the running of online marketing agencies having founded Blackglass and IXION Interactive – both of which were acquired by BlueFreeway/IPMG in 2006. Since leaving Blackglass, Blackman has been working as a freelance digital strategist working directly with clients in an advisory capacity.

Matt Vaughan, Shifted Pixels’ founder and General Manager: “We are very excited to welcome Alisdair to our ranks. His expertise in commercialisation strategy and online marketing enables us to offer our clients a more highly specialised holistic service offering.”

Shifted Pixels is a boutique digital agency founded July 2007 and work with a wide range of clients ranging from traditional ad agencies to large corporates and brands.

Shifted Pixels offers a unique approach to the fulfilment of digital and online marketing projects, specialising in areas of planning, creative and strategy.

Shifted Pixels offices are in Sydney Australia

Alisdair Blackman is Managing Director of Shifted Pixels and has been a pioneer in the field of online marketing. With over 13 years experience in working with clients to devise strategies that bring about the best return on investment, he is a trusted authority and specialist in areas of commercialisation and monetisation and an avid content syndication expert.

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Call Shifted Today on 02 8005 1568 At Shifted Pixels we go the extra mile to ensure that whatever work we do be it strategy, planning, design, development, online marketing, media buying yields a tangible net benefit. Give us a call, we would love to help your business grow online! See what shifted pixels has to offer
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