3 Ways to Simplify Online Marketing

This post was originally written by Jonathan Gardner for Mashable

Technology makes the magical possible, but it’s also making marketing complicated. With ad exchanges, hyper-local targeting, and endless mobile options, it’s easy to get tangled up in an alphabet soup of advertising technology. Just one look at Terence Kawaja’s ad-tech landscape induces tears of empathy for over-marketed-to marketers. Basically, the time for simplification is here.

Simplicity is what consumers want, what marketers need, and what standard-bearers such as Apple andGoogle have shown as the way forward.

What did Steve Jobs do when he returned to Apple in 1997? He simplified the product line and, by extension, Apple’s whole business. That worked out pretty well.

The same goes for Google. Every once in a while the tech giant cuts products to move forward with new offerings. Sure, some of their initiatives — say, wind energy or self-driving cars — may seem to come out of left field. But Google’s basic promise to consumers is to develop products and services that help them organize and navigate the world in a better, geekier way. (I’m talking about you, Google glasses.)

We need to learn from these examples. When advertisers obsess over brand impact, and agencies insist on slicing and dicing every impression, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re focusing on the wrong things. For all the efficiency we’ve gained with the burgeoning of ad tech, we’ve lost a lot in the way of simplicity. Keeping marketing simple — delivering compelling ads and content that consumers actually want to engage with — could take the industry a long way toward improving performance for both brands and consumers.

Here are three rules that brands can follow to simplify their marketing for everyone involved.

1. Put Consumers in the Driver’s Seat

Let’s move away from strategies and metrics that aren’t really relevant for branding. Brands always look for some kind of number and stat to justify their online spend — CTR, view-through, attribution, “likes.” Does that make sense at all? Did brands worry about measuring the impact of a full-page spread in Vogue back in the day? The issue is over thinking the numbers and not thinking enough about advertising in the interest of consumers.

Give people choice, control, and relevance in their experience. Don’t put a roadblock between anyone and the story, images, or video they want to see. Create intriguing, value-add experiences that are relevant to the page, that make users want to click, view, and engage. Make it user-initiated and easy to start and stop engagement. Instead of real-time bidding (RTB), how about trying real-time relevance?

2. Get in the Content

We’ve seen a recent surge in attention for the “native ad,” sponsored content, and branded-content meme. But it’s really nothing new. Ever watch soap operas on TV? Those started out as radio broadcasts that were literally created by consumer packaged goods companies. Since the dawn of digital time, we’ve known that the traditional ad concept had to change and that brands needed to move into the content-creation business and get their content seen.

But what if your stellar campaign assets are part of the one-third of display advertising that, according tocomScore, goes unseen due to banner blindness? Even if you have awesome, entertaining, useful branded content like Red Bull or Unilever, you still need to surface it. How will your brand’s content be discovered by consumers who have literally zillions of content channels to choose from?

Focus your attention where consumer attention is focused: in the edit well online, on mobile, and on the tablet. Surface your content through advertising technology that gets you in the words and images where a relevant, immersive brand advertisement or content experience will really make an impression with consumers.

3. Simplify Your Strategy

Instead of doing one thing on mobile, another on tablets, and something else on desktop, consider puttingmobile at the center of the design process, then refining and customizing everything from there.

Brands can now respond directly to how consumers interact with all kinds of devices. In an era where we swipe, expand, and share an ad or useful brand content, it isn’t enough to rely on the same old creative approach. Brands need to leverage their great assets with amazing creative executions in high-impact, exciting ways that are native to devices, contexts, and formats.

So let’s leave the purchase funnels behind, and stick with these three simple rules. Chances are people will thank you with ever-coveted, ever-elusive, real engagement

When is the Best Time to Create Great Content?

There is a lot of information on creating content. You know the really good stuff that gets shared almost instantaneously, loaded with tons of good value and information that people relate to and put into good use.


When is the best time to get this content together? Do you force getting the information or do you wait till those creative inspirational moment hit?


I really don’t know. I guess the best answer would be what ever is working for you. For some it may be the first thing in the morning while drinking a cup of coffee when those great ideas pop in their heads. For others it could be after reading a good book or getting inspired by an awesome blog post.


The deal is that anytime is a good time to get some fantastic content out there. It all depends on what works. There are days you could have a complete blank, an empty canvas and no paint to paint pictures with. It happens.


Here are some ideas that can help when you are face with that type of day. How do I come up with content you may ask yourself? Are you almost stressing yourself out to get going but you still pulling a blank?


I am here to tell you don’t beat yourself up first of all because that will only hinder your progress. What I like to do when thinking of getting content together is to reflect on what I’ve learn. If it is something of value and I could put it in writing and convey a great message on how to implement it then I would work on that. You could also talk about what inspires you. I love to read inspirational content. It gets me focused.


Another thing you could do is read. It’s like killing to birds with one stone with just reading. One you are educating yourself and secondly you are gathering information for your content that you’re thinking of putting out. Think about it we are in a business that we need to read, educate, and share content to improve ourselves, build our business and help others build theirs business as well.


It’s the whole concept of networking. Regardless of the mlm your in you are going to have to filter content to your down line, prospects, and peers. Now during the process of gathering content and putting out content your own great ideas are developed, implemented and perhaps you could have a phenomenal organization created like mlsp.


Here you have a group of guys that got together and put all their knowledge, content and skills together and developed one of the most outstanding marketing platforms ever thought of.


So when is the best time to create content? I would definitely have to say right now! You just can’t sit around and wait for it and hope osmosis kicks in. You have to go out there and get it. The funny thing is that you already have it; you just have to figure out how to share it.


I just want to ask, when do you find yourself creating awesome content?
Is it in the morning after a cup of coffee or after a nice jog or some exercise?
In the evening after everything is quiet and settled down?

Improving Traffic After Googles Panda Update

The recent Google Panda update has raised the bar not only for SEO experts but also for web designers. It’s getting tougher and tougher to rank well and that means that you really have to pay attention to all designing and Google ranking factors. When we do this, search engines rewards us because we are rewarding our audience and providing them with the information and experience they are looking for. The following points will help you to make your website panda proof:- 

1.Content is key:The Panda algorithm update emphasizes providing assurance only on websites that contain unique and useful content. This will help users better find content relevant to their search. If you provide web page content that is unique, relevant, high quality and preferably 1000+ words, your site will likely be rewarded with improved rankings and therefore, increased traffic. 

2.Above the fold design: Narrowing your header images, removing header banner images and pushing more content onto the top of your site will help with Panda. 

3.Web Page indexing: A website with more than 100 web pages and maximum pages indexed by Google would be considered as a Panda friendly website. 

4.Page rank: Page rank is still one of the most important factors. PageRank is an independent measure of Google’s perception of the quality/authority/credibility of an individual web page. It does not depend on any particular search phrase. Google conveniently reports this as a number from 0-10 (10 being the best). 

5.Check your Domain registration: Domain registration for five years helps to enhance authority points. This is a small tip, but every little bit helps. 

6.Webmaster tools: It enables webmasters to get a better idea of what Google “thinks” about their web sites, how the Google “spider” sees them, and what improvements could be made. 

7.Social media proof: Google Panda takes social media trends seriously and content that is loved by social media sites like Twitter and Facebook gets better position in search engines. 

8.Optimize for Fast Load Times: Avoid flash, single background images in the website. Google tends to favor sites that are snappy, quick, and fast.