I have recently posted on my unbelief in search engine optimization; I also have posted a few times about social websites that along with communities should help you to succeed in the short and long run.

Social websites welcome all sorts of viral marketing products – they are fast to spread around. Social websites are as a rule places where people search for information and fun, not products.

So if you target social websites and online communities with information then it is a good idea to explore viral marketing and its techniques. I think the classical sample of viral marketing of the past decade is free e-mail from Hotmail that was very popular with the Internet audience of that time.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analagous to the spread of a computer virus. It can often be word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it can harness the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.

Its characteristics:

1. Free products or services
2. Easy transfer to others
3. Scales easily
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors

Sex, humor, celebrities are good candidates to become a successful viral marketing product. Standard forms for online viral marketing products: images, jokes, videos, websites, animations, audios.

According to Seth Godin, viral idea:

No one “sends” an idea unless:
a. they understand it
b. they want it to spread
c. they believe that spreading it will enhance their power (reputation, income, friendships) or their peace of mind
d. the effort necessary to send the idea is less than the benefits

No one “gets” an idea unless:
a. the first impression demands further investigation
b. they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea
c. they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time

I have posted my ideas on MillionDollarHomePage. It is also a product of viral marketing of the recent time (2005).

Summary: When you read these lines you think that it is an easy task to make a nice viral marketing catch. Once you turn to your website the ideas that come to your mind are commonplace and far from being original – an image or joke or something. How to keep within the viral marketing principles and stay original? The only answer you can get – experiment.

I also recommend you researching the List of Internet phenomena – explore success stories, it should help you with the ideas.

[tags]viral marketing, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, make money online, work from home, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]

For those online entrepreneurs who firmly believe that they can get their website to the top of search engines if they follow a few simple steps sitepoint.com has published the Ultimate SEO checklist.

You can add it to this list of well known industry products:

Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization
My Guide to SEO and Success
Plain-Spoken Guide to Search Engine Optimization
SEO Book

Summary: Are they completely useless? Well, I will not put it in this way. But most covered points will not make your website to the top of search engines – exactly what you expect to get from this type of manuals. And they will not get you tons of traffic. The game rule have changed completely, the market is so crowded that you will find yourself nowhere by mere following of the steps listed in the books.

What are your options? I would definitely limit myself with one manual of this genre – just to be in the know – they are all similar and write about the same things. You’d better spend more time on networking in your niche, developing ideas, content, services and tools for your website. These techniques are much more efficient than sending out hundreds of spam messages asking for link exchange or than calculating keyword density on each page of your website.

[tags]seo, seo guide, search engine optimization, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, make money online, work from home, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]

Web developers are no doubt special people (I guess they feel special as they are in high demand on the labor market. But according to computerwolrd.com research coders will be not so special by 2010. I think it is true in case with all types of developers). I have been actively communicating and cooperating with web developers for two past years.

What features are typical among them? As a rule, they are:

-    quiet
-    shy
-    unsociable
-    intelligent
-    diversified (by this I mean they can work at a few projects sitting in your office)
-    focused – or narrow minded? (I did not know developers with a wide scope of hobbies and interests, but they follow all trends in programming – just scan their resumes. Each time I wonder how they can learn and apply so many coding languages, technologies, platforms, etc).
-    and… irresponsible (there are exceptions to the rule, of course, but 90% of web developers I dealt with could not meet simple deadlines in time. And it does not matter if we talk about in-house or outsourced staff).

Field guide to developers covers many points, but from the point of view of a developer. I agree with most points. One I agree completely with:

Programmers do not care about money (within a reasonable understanding of this statement).

Summary: Probably I had poor experience of hiring developers, probably I failed to meet their expectations, probably it is my fault. But I respect coders as specialists in their area only. Special people that require special treating.

And now I have to contact one of the outsourced developers that disappeared two days ago. And I badly need that work completed by tomorrow.

Well, the post sounds like an attack on developers, but in fact I can’t do without these guys. They let me down occasionally and it made me to write the above.

[tags]software developers, web developers, coders, hiring, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, make money online, work from home, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]