Duncan McCall
An occasional blog from Duncan McCall about marketing, advertising, and other somewhat relevant news.
Posted on Friday, Aug 26, 2011 by Jahna | Comments: 0
In an effort to learn what happens on the other side of the PR wire, we asked some of our news professional friends what we could do to better serve them and serve our clients. How can we catch their attention, make their jobs easier and get our information out to the world?
Read MorePosted on Sunday, Jun 5, 2011 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
Stop me if this sounds familiar: excited about your new website (or new advisor, software, server, etc.), finally decide that this is going to be the year you get your act together on the Internet. It’s finally time, you tell yourself, to gain those online buyers, earn that search engine position, and watch your profits double or triple… until a few weeks or months have passed by, and you’re roughly back to where you started…
Read MorePosted on Wednesday, Feb 9, 2011 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
As another Valentine’s Day comes around, newspapers, magazines, and websites are going to be overflowing with articles and advice columns for lovers who are looking for a way to reignite the spark they once felt. But while we can’t help you turn up the passion with your special someone—we’ll leave that to the experts—we can give you some good advice on ways to keep your customer relationships from going stale.
Read MorePosted on Friday, Jan 28, 2011 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
For a lot of businesses, finding clients over the Internet begins and ends with search engines. By atomizing their sites for particular terms and phrases, they have been able to build up a steady march of new buyers coming to their virtual doorstep 24 hours a day.
But search is changing, and if you aren’t changing with it, those buyers might soon be shopping elsewhere.
Read MorePosted on Wednesday, Dec 1, 2010 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
Google’s latest feature on its search result page is a little magnifying glass sitting next to the search results. By hovering over this link, users get to see a thumbnail of a site on the list. Now a potential visitor can make a judgment about your site without even being able to read any text but the headline and maybe larger subheads. In the past, we talked about having three seconds to capture a visitor’s interest. That will soon seem like a luxury.
Read MorePosted on Monday, Nov 29, 2010 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
The amount of traffic coming from Google, Yahoo, and Bing isn’t shrinking, it’s growing, and you can’t afford to let your business fall behind. Here are five reasons search engine optimization should still be a one of your key marketing tools…
Read MorePosted on Friday, Jul 30, 2010 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
Like most pieces of the marketing world, the press release has certainly evolved with the Internet. These days you can create a multimedia masterpiece and distribute it around the globe in moments. And instead of hoping that it’s picked up by a business journal or trade magazine, you can see it spread and multiply on websites, blogs, Twitter, and beyond. To help you generate the buzz you need, here are seven things you need to include in your online press release…
Read MorePosted on Monday, May 10, 2010 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
If the recent economic numbers have got you daydreaming about all the new customers and orders you’ll soon be enjoying, you’re not alone. Business owners and marketing managers around the country have been waiting a long time to hear the recent news: that jobs, prices, and even profits, are finally coming back.
Read MorePosted on Friday, Apr 30, 2010 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
If we could find a way to measure such a thing, I’d venture an estimate that it takes somewhere around ten minutes for the average business owner or online marketer to find out that pay-per-click advertising can be a lot of fun… and about five minutes more to discover that it can be really expensive.
And therein lies the problem: one of the easiest and most straightforward ways to bring visitors and shoppers to your website also carries a potentially heavy price tag. With the current bids for some keywords on Google, Yahoo, and Bing running five and ten times what they did a few years ago, how can savvy marketers make any money?
The answer, as always, isn’t in spending more, but spending better. Here are four sure-fire ways to cut your PPC costs without messing up the bottom line:
Read MorePosted on Thursday, Jan 14, 2010 by Bryan McCall | Comments: 0
A successful web site is as much about the details as it is about the big idea. Many small factors contribute to a site’s effectiveness or lack thereof. To help you get started thinking about it, we’ve put together a checklist of factors to keep in mind. Details will vary from site to site, but this general list will apply to most small business web sites.
