The question I guess comes down to how long do you think web directories will be around for? If not now, soon enough Google will consider these directories completely irrelevant and look at them as strictly spam tactics for SEOs and for people to make money of people trying to game the algorithm by purchasing links.

90% or more of these directories are USELESS and drive barely any traffic actually looking to search the directory. Still, many websites sign up for these. Directories, if they want to make it into the future will have to change how they’ll form a web directory instead of a link by category.

Take a look at a directory such as ChooseDentalImplants.com. This ‘directory’ offers a great amount of content and useful Q&A for consumers to actually make use of a directory like that. Directories will have to change the way they structure their business models and actually provide content of use to build authority with the search engine and make the link ‘count.’ You can take a look at a content driven site like OsseoNews and build a directory from content driven website.

We’ve already ‘seen’ Dmoz loose some weight, so it is said. VERY few, if any, directories today are worth the investment if not for a very good price.

In 2009, I asked John Carcutt of MediaWhiz the follow:

Q: Does Dmoz still hold serious weight?

I don’t see any reason not to submit; it’s free and only takes a few minutes once you find the right category. Don’t worry about your listing, as many others often say, Dmoz is “submit it and forget it”.

In 2009, I also asked Aaron Wall from SEOBook the following:

Q:Given tighter budgets and giving more thought on paid directories like paying yahoo $299 for a link, what paid directories are worth putting your money into?

A:Three great ones are the Yahoo! Directory, Business.com, and BOTW. There are a few smaller ones that are decent as well, but the more often one lists them the more likely they are to get nuked by the Google spam team. Don’t forget to look for industry specific and local directories and organizations.

Directories will become more niche as well as more than just categories with links.

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While I think it’s crazy not to sell a company for $6 billion dollars, regardless of what you have on your hands, I may be wrong and in this case scenario, I’d love to be proved wrong. How many websites right now are popping up that are all Groupon-based model websites? Of course, you can make the argument for many businesses that made big mistakes of not selling at its peak (DIGG.COM) or were very smart to not sell at its peak and keep on with their plans (GOOGLE.)

These two stories are very motivating going into 2011 as it’s great to see two products online at its very early stages having such success. Of course, Angry Birds may not be around even in two months, but if you have a good idea for a simple application, you can literally bank in a very short amount of time. Think about developing an app that can be downloaded by millions of users at .99 cents a download? Yeah…sounds great. It can be the simplest of applications but your idea must be innovative and just plain cool.

What’s the next phenom after coupon websites (a big part of its success was a weak economy, a great example of someone banking on a weak economy by the way.) Will we see more flash sales websites pop-up? Both of these companies should serve as big motivators going into 2011.

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Over the past few weeks I’ve been analyzing myself and how much interaction I have with technology rather than other than just other stuff that isn’t tech or internet related. Sadly, but in my case I do love what I do, I find myself connected 24/7 always checking something. While this just may be a problem of delegating, at this point, I still like to do everything I possibly can myself.

The question for me is whether I am addicted to this technology (or the online world) or just really dependant on it. I think it’s a balance of both. Fortunately for us online business owners, this is the case for a lot of other people who aren’t involved in online businesses but addicted to surfing the web and now the social phenomenon.
If people are not at home surfing the web, the smart phone industry has made it that much more accessible. Mobile users are searching the web more and more from their phones as well as sharing content with friends and family.

As we move further into the future and 2011 is upon, where is technology taking us? How much of our time will be devoted to technology and how it dictates our lives?

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I blogged about a great speech he gave about the way to really succeed in life, and most of us know this, is you have to do what you love. In this speech at SXSW, Gary talks about the most important factor in order to succeed in today’s digital world, CUSTOMER SERVICE. My first ‘business idol,’ I guess you can say is Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. He is most known for preaching customer service and has an amazing story to back up why it truly matters. I suggest you read his book which he just released for the first time titled, “Delivering Happiness, A Path To Profits, Passion and Purpose.”

Watch Gary Vaynerchuk talk about customer service and the power of followers:

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YES…we got killed. The final score was 4-0 and it was one of the most disappointing games in soccer history to watch as an Argentine. 4-0? REALLY? What does it come down to with such good players playing for one team? Can the other team really be that good? The answer is yes and no. What it comes down to is the same reason many businesses lose. It’s simple. STRATEGY. We came out on the field with some of the worlds best players and we couldn’t do anything.

It was clear to all those that watched that the reason Argentina lost that game was because there was no tactical strategy to how to play the other side. You can have the best players running around the field, but when your competitor (Germany) has a solid strategy and tactic to beat you, it’s clear to see who will win.

This serves as a great lesson about planning and strategy that is much needed when executing a business plan, an idea, a marketing strategy, etc.

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* Stay Positive
* Listen To Your Customers
* Share Your Customers
* Change How You Do Business In Your Industry
* Tell People You Are Open For Business
* Create Something Wonderful

The one that sticks to me the most and think I can and YOU can implement in your business right away is "CREATE SOMETHING WONDERFUL." What can we do as business owners to market our product or service online that is different? Answer these questions and maybe you can come up with a great answer:

* Could you improve the warranty that goes along with your service, making the purchase truly risk-free?
* Could you provide add-on services to make the offer enticing?
* Can you find a way for your product to save people money?
* How does your product improve people's quality of life?

Read the whole story @ Entrepreneur.com -----> Position Yourself for Growth
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]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/12/15/6-tips-to-position-your-business-for-growth/feed/ 0 http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/08/31/search-marketers-must-be-searchers/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/08/31/search-marketers-must-be-searchers/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:07:16 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/?p=1280

This will be a short, sweet post. I’m sure of most of us involved in online marketing, we search different than how the average Joe searches. We look at specific things when performing a search, whose ranking for what, etc. I think in order to be successful at search marketing, you have to look at everything in search, even when not working on a project.

I’ll give you a quick example and then you can make out what you want of it. I was performing a search for something last Thursday, I really do not remember what it was. It was something that was very UN-related to a current PPC campaign I’m working on. Anyways, during this search, an ad I saw struck me. It’s an ad that is a bit more nontraditional that what I’ve seen, I just thought it was unique. I said, “OK, let me try this method, a similar ad for my current PPC campaign for one ad group.” Sure enough, I went right ahead and implemented that ad to my campaign.

Within the next 3-4 hours, I had a Click through rate of about 2%+ and a conversion rate of about 5%. The ad has dropped of in CTR and conversion rate a bit since then though. Nevertheless, worked very well and still maintains a conversion rate of about 1.82%.

Point is, ideas for a PPC campaign or even some SEO are always in front of you with the search engines, just have to look.

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/08/31/search-marketers-must-be-searchers/feed/ 1 http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/07/08/2295-can-go-a-long-way-use-books/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/07/08/2295-can-go-a-long-way-use-books/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:02:38 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/?p=1154 As online marketers I think all the information we mostly gather is all online, from informational websites or mainly blogs. There are blogs you can read on a daily basis with some great information that you can use such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, SEOBook, etc.

Many of the people that start in the online marketing biz, or marketing their business, really depend on the information online.

I walked into borders yesterday. I have been an online marketer for many years now and never really saw a use for books (sorry for sounding ignorant) in the sense that I think all the information we need is online, which for the most part, it really is. BUT, you’d be surprise the books that are out there that may not really have the million dollar secret but some really useful information.

I don’t want to say what book I got because this would seem like a promotional post but I got a resource book that I literally think one little piece of information in that book can possibly save my business hundreds to thousands of dollars a year because of an idea this book has sparked.

You can say the same thing for information online but my point is, don’t discard books.

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]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2009/07/08/2295-can-go-a-long-way-use-books/feed/ 1 http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/05/27/is-selling-ebooks-online-dead/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/05/27/is-selling-ebooks-online-dead/#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 05:08:02 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/05/27/is-selling-ebooks-online-dead/ How many people a year buy books? Millions? Billions? Think worldwide! Thats how you have to think in terms of selling a product online worldwide specially a product that can be digitally delivered.

About 4 months ago I launched my first eBook landing page for an eBook subject millions of people are looking for. Though they may not be looking especially for an eBook (they are looking for books on the subject, discs, etc…), I knew to target the whole market.

I’m not going to lie, the results weren’t great but for the amount of money and time invested, it did decent without my blowing out a campaign.

Note: Google told me due to customer feedback, they will rank ebook sites with low quality scores unless you have an established site. (When pursuing Adwords)

I sold about 10 ebooks in a weeks time which isn’t great at all. The price point of the eBook was $17, so that was $170 in a week spending about $40-50 in PPC. Note that the beauty about selling an ebook is that the profit is pure profit because the ebook doesn’t cost ANYTHING once it is done. The price point of $17 is a lot of money for an ebook but you have to show there is value in what you are selling if not people will think it’s too cheap. You have to find the right price to make it affordable and give it real value.

I decided to lower the cost of my ebook to $10 and will see what happens. Also, I will add more ad groups and try different online avenues to see how it performs. If this works, there are hundreds of subjects that you can sell ebooks for. The trick is finding the right formula for that ONE ebook, after that you’re golden.

It’s a great way to generate extra weekly/monthly income online.

So, to answer the question in the title of this post, NO. Though people may not find an ebook a real replacement for a real book, it can still hold value to many. You just have to make sure you make your ebook seem credible with good design and content.

I’ll write a post with my update launch of the ebook site (I have two and not sure what I’ll try first) and we’ll see how it performs. May do well or may be a total failure, either way, it’s worth a shot.

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/05/27/is-selling-ebooks-online-dead/feed/ 0 http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/02/01/mattcutscom-dannysulivancom-capitalizing-on-a-popular-name/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/02/01/mattcutscom-dannysulivancom-capitalizing-on-a-popular-name/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:31:22 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/02/01/mattcutscom-dannysulivancom-capitalizing-on-a-popular-name/ I don’t know how, I really don’t, I stumbled upon MattCuts.com. Now, I guess Matt only wanted to spend that $8.99 for the double tt and not the single t, but that’s what happens, a spammer came along and took advantage of the name.

It’s registered to ServerCube.com, unless that belongs Matt, then someone else is using it to monetize on the possibility of traffic.

It could also be that somehow, somewhere, there may be another Matt Cuts or its just the name of something but who knows, just found it interesting.

Then, I also thought, who else is a name in the industry someone would use to capitalize on some traffic. Sure enough, typed in DannySulivan.com and came across a site filled with AdSense.

It’s privately registered so I can’t tell who owns it…does Danny Sullivan own it?

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/02/01/mattcutscom-dannysulivancom-capitalizing-on-a-popular-name/feed/ 2 http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/01/07/make-money-from-american-gladiators/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/01/07/make-money-from-american-gladiators/#comments Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:42:26 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/01/07/make-money-from-american-gladiators/ My first videocast using Revver. If you follow my blog, one of the things I love to do is see things offline that can be turned into good opportunities online. It was the world premier of American Gladiators last night and its your chance to actually make money with this.

Watch Below:

There is only one ad in Google right now for American Gladiators which is great unless Google has it as a trademarked term. Yahoo also only displays one ad and MSN displays 0 ads, for now.

If you look at Google Trends, look at the chart below at the increase of search volume:

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2008/01/07/make-money-from-american-gladiators/feed/ 2 http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/the-palatnik-factor-goes-green/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/the-palatnik-factor-goes-green/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:12:27 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/the-palatnik-factor-goes-green/ In support of Green Week, Nov. 4-11th, The Palatnik Factor has gone GREEN (check out the new logo.) Many companies online are promoting this week which is a great way of PR. How am I going green? I blog without any lights! Hey, it’s a start.

What are some of the companies doing or advertising?

GreenIsUniversal -Learn More on How NBC is Building a More Sustainable World. Nov 4-11

SaveYourWorld – Each Green Wristband Saves One Acre of Rainforest for One Year

321 Transform- Helping companies go green by reducing waste & process cycle time

What are you doing for Green Week?

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/the-palatnik-factor-goes-green/feed/ 1 http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/9-2-minutes-of-work-in-exchange-for-thousands-of-dollars/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/9-2-minutes-of-work-in-exchange-for-thousands-of-dollars/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:29:22 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/9-2-minutes-of-work-in-exchange-for-thousands-of-dollars/ I’ve been a fan of exploring the misspelled online marketing scene, I know Kris Jones of Pepperjam has touched on this quite a bit as well with regards to PPC but there is NOTHING better than getting a small misspelled domain on a site that is HUGE.

I’ve touched on this in my post, “YouTube vs. uTube -$1,000 Per Day Similarity” That was actually unintentional but if you are lucky enough to get a great misspelled domain, you are going to make serious cash.

My latest finding, OOGLE.com. WOW, right? Yup, someone actually owns that and if you want to find out who so I don’t make it public here, just go to WhoIs.net and you’ll see for yourself, it’s not Google. So, what did they do to monetize this domain? Couldn’t be easier…a blank page that looks exactly like Google, throw up a search box (adsense), and a vertical adsense link bar, and its off to the bank (chi-ching.)

Domain name = $9.00
Time of Site Design: 2 Minutes or Less.

Oogle: 19,726 search per month (approx.)
Oogle.com: 33,296 search per month (approx.)

That’s just in searches, but how many people enter Google without a G in the URL box, believe me, A LOT.

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/11/07/9-2-minutes-of-work-in-exchange-for-thousands-of-dollars/feed/ 0 http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/09/04/%e2%80%9clink-baiting%e2%80%9d-offline/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/09/04/%e2%80%9clink-baiting%e2%80%9d-offline/#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:22:35 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/09/04/%e2%80%9clink-baiting%e2%80%9d-offline/ You haven’t become a serious online marketer until all you can see, hear, and breath is marketing ideas online as well as offline. I’m not sure if this is the right title for this post, but as a web marketer, I’ve given an idea to apply a strategy I use online, offline.

Before the long Labor Day weekend, my brother and I got the idea to go surf up north somewhere and needed to find out the surf report for a certain city in the north of Florida. I called the surf report here down south but they had no information on the north of Florida.

A friend of mine opened up a skate/surf shop in Palm Beach, Florida and always looking for new ways to not only drive traffic, but keep the customers coming and checking out the new merchandise in the store. It got me thinking…how can you bait the people back besides the traditional forms of marketing? What service can you provide them to keep them coming back or checking out/keeping up-to-date with new merchandise, etc.?

A SURF REPORT. It’s simple as 1,2,3. The surf report can also be found online (I just found a good website while doing this research) but most everyone calls their local shop for the surf-cast. Have a line just for the surf report, leave it every morning, and have start promoting that number around town for the locals. Now, even other local surf shops since they don’t provide that service, will tell customers about the new surf report in town.

Ever since Friday he has been telling everyone at the store that a new surf report will be available soon and the feedback has been amazing for him so far.

If you have an offline business, try to come up with a service that’s free of charge for ANYONE (not just customers) that can find it useful and use it…and the word will spread.

]]> http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/09/04/%e2%80%9clink-baiting%e2%80%9d-offline/feed/ 1 http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/08/10/google-launches-googletv-does-it-already-exist/ http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/08/10/google-launches-googletv-does-it-already-exist/#comments Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:09:01 +0000 Pablo Palatnik http://palatnikfactor.com/2007/08/10/google-launches-googletv/
Ok, this is my vision (it’s Friday and I think this is a great idea)…is this really going to happen? I think so. Sure, YouTube is the most viewed website to watch videos, but let’s face it, nothing online has replaced television. There is speculation this is already out, if it is, I havent heard of it (my idea deff isn’t) but that GoogleTV does in fact Exist. At the bottom, please see video I found on YouTube doing some research on it.

The Idea?

Google to make a channel available through paid cable or digital cable. Google will make shows like NBC, CBC, FOX, etc.

The Process?

When person subscribes to channel, an email address will be required to activate the channel so product placements and other promotional and scheduled shows can be emailed directly to you.

The Money & Advertisements?

Google can capitalize more on this than any other way I think. Make shows interactive being able to click through the remote control on objects and Google sending you links to your email to the products you are interested in shows. (product placement).

Through the Adwords platform, advertisers will also be able to upload their commercials and bid for commercial spots.

Also, advertisers can bid for top product placement item such as video camera, clothing, basically anything that can sell online.

Why Google?

I believe the largest powerhouse on the web will find the technology and the money to fund a project of this magnitude. We can’t avoid it, the internet and TV will merge more and more as time goes by. We’ve seen a little bit of that with the democratic CNN-YouTube debates.

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