12 Lessons in 12 Months – Technology Lessons

Continuing the theme of lessons’ learned, this is part 3.  I ended up coming with way more than 12 and couldn’t cut it down completely, so there will be a bonus post (imagine that, an internet marketer with a bonus?).  Have you ever noticed some people get really excited about technology?  I could be lumped in that category, as I’m interested in whatever one can use to save time and get more done.  However, technology can introduce it’s share of barriers for any online marketer.  Anyone who has been around technology for very long will agree, no software or tech gadget is without its flaws. This post discusses the top 4 technology lessons learned running this site in the past 12 months, one of which is my most important productivity tool, you must leverage in your own marketing.  As always, the conversation becomes more valuable as valued readers and subscribers like you chime in with lessons of your own.

That said, everyone can use some encouragement and ‘group’ information on this subject.  At the moment, I think the best value for the dollar is what Aaron Wall and his crew offer with SEOBook.  He seeds the internet with a ton of free tools and information, which makes you wonder what his paid stuff is like.

Nine: Measure, Measure, Measure

It is important to understand how visitors are interacting with your site, ans how new functions and features impact user experience.  Example: I tested this slick footer ad list building tool to see how it would impact conversions.  I put it on, but found it didn’t increase conversions (I actually wondered if removing the Google Friend Connect bar at the bottom adversely impacted search results, but was troubleshooting other site issues at the time, making any such ideas inconclusive at best).  As you can see I removed it. It may increase conversions for other sites/markets, but for this site conversions were down roughly 40%.  I do still use it on at least one other sites with success.

It’s also important to measure how your site is fairing with the search engines.  I have been testing out this tool which graphs keyword placement per search engine on a daily basis, so far I’m impressed…certainly waaay easier than doing it manually.

Ten: Monitoring Traffic Has Other Benefits (tech issues)

Over a period of 30 days, this site lost 40% in unique visitor traffic.  It was puzzling what happened.  After extensive research, and working with my awesome blog expert, it was an errant language translation plugin that wasn’t operating in compliance with Google terms when caching translated pages.  After removing the plugin, it took a month to fully recover and index updates to propogate.  Had traffic and website monitoring not been in place, I’m not sure how long this would have gone on.

Eleven: Twitter and Others Will Fail – Build Your List

As someone with an IT background contingency planning is a matter of course, so planning for failure with free services like Twitter and Facebook has been in my veins from the beginning. However, multiple failures (like this one) over the past 12 months has further solidified my position on this.  If a marketer doesn’t invest in some list management tool (like this one or even this one), that can get emails delivered, and is accountable, so you can communicate with your market at will, it will eventually burn you in the end.  More than that, you are probably not legitimate – at least you aren’t giving the impression you are.  Not convinced yet? Consider these 10 Advantages of Having Your Own List (bottom half).

I make it a point to go out of my way for subscribers who have joined the site, offering tips, heads up about things coming down the pike, product reviews, and pointers (that I don’t share on Twitter or anywhere else).  They have honored me with a small space in their inbox, and I do my best to take care of them.  If you want more information on this here is a strategy to make email marketing the hub of your social marketing efforts.

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