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Wpromote.com Through The Years
Mike Mothner | December 15th, 2011
As 2011 draws to a close, we thought it would be fun to take a little trip down memory lane. In this case, we are going to have a little fun looking at the evolution of Wpromote as seen through our Wpromote website over (believe it or not) the past decade, using an addicting (and mind boggling) tool called the Wayback Machine. The site literally takes snapshots of websites and stores them indefinitely. If you are looking to waste a little time checking out how your favorite websites looked way back when, look no further. Our fun begins a decade ago in 2001, when I built the very first Wpromote website, which was born as a service that automated submitting websites to the morphing list of search engines (189 of them in the very beginning, as you can see). Of note, the original Wpromote logo which I created myself (and was admittedly a blatant rip-off of the W Hotels logo) with the “bold” marketing text (“relentless” might be a stretch for a search engine submission service) was pretty corporate sounding to hide the truth that it was all a 20 year old in a dorm room. Just in case you were curious, yes, Wpromote was a subsidiary company of Webbingedge, which did web design for local realtors. In 2002, I dropped the aggressive but vague “tour” entrance and just dropped users directly onto our “Customer Guarantee”. Pretty simple and effective, and check out those archaic lists of websites you get Continue reading…
Why Facebook will be the next $100 Billion company. And how it gets there.
Mike Mothner | January 21st, 2011
Why Facebook will be the next $100 Billion company. And how it gets there. People balked when Facebook turned down a $1 billion offer from Yahoo. They said the $15 billion valuation when Microsoft invested was insanity. And with Goldman Sachs’ recent investment at a valuation of a whopping $50 billion, the naysayers are crying foul once again. Well folks, mark my words: Facebook will be worth $100 billion in under 5 years, and I think it could be half that time. Here’s how I think it is going to happen. Before I get to that however, let’s recap the naysayer’s argument. At a valuation of $50 billion, that is a whopping 25 times their estimated revenue of $2 billion last year. By comparison, stalwart Microsoft is valued at about 4x revenue, Apple about 5x revenue, and Google about 8x their revenue. So 25x is obscene. The other arguments that Facebook’s value is grossly inflated include: They may have 650 million users globally but many are international and hard to monetize They may deliver an enormous number of page views (about a quarter of all page views in the US belong to Facebook, which is an astonishing statistic) but they aren’t worth much to advertisers They haven’t really figured out their revenue model yet It’s just a big photo site and place to post worthless information; there’s no true utility Social network users are not loyal; Facebook could become the next MySpace All of those are completely valid arguments. What Continue reading…
4 Worthwhile Ways to Successfully Leverage Social Media
Mike Mothner | July 16th, 2010
According to a recent study on social media and dating behavior, more than one in six marriages over the past three years were the result of relationships begun online. In 2010, the rising popularity of social networks like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter simply cannot be ignored. When people are turning to the Internet to find their soul mates, you can rest assured they are looking online for everything else – from their next pair of Oakley’s to their new optometrist – and if you are a business seeking customers, you are well-advised to look online, too. All in all, social media is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. But don’t just take my word for it. Nielsen recently published a study stating that 79% of Fortune 100 companies are leveraging social media to engage their audience, and they are doing it in innovative ways to build buzz, establish relationships, foster communication, improve products, and cultivate long-term brand awareness and consumer trust. The beauty of social media Whether you’re a seasoned producer of award-winning viral campaigns or just figuring out how to create a Facebook profile, it doesn’t matter. The beauty of social media is that you don’t need experience; you only need to learn the rules. Social media is not so much a new idea as it is a new way to communicate ideas, and the nature of a good idea hasn’t changed. The same marketing principles from 50 years ago apply today; they are simply communicated in a Continue reading…
5 Secrets to Selecting Highly Effective SEO and PPC Keywords
Mike Mothner | June 2nd, 2010
If there is a single concept that is the driver of much of the internet’s growth over the past decade – not to mention nearly all of Google’s $25 Billion of annual revenue – it is the concept of keywords. Keywords are what we type in when we are searching for products, services and answers on the search engines, an act that Americans performed 15.5 Billion times in April 2010 (according to ComScore). For businesses, the implications are huge; keyword selection is fundamental to success in paid search (PPC), organic website rankings (SEO), as well as the holy grail of marketing: how to most effectively market your products and services to your target audience. Do our customers love our product because it is fast acting or because it is long lasting? Do they care more about the great price or the abundant features? The answers very well may lie in the keyword research and strategies below, the same strategies that we use to help our clients, from the local dry cleaner to Fortune 100 companies, with all of their online marketing efforts. 1. Pick good “keyphrases” rather than “keywords” When it comes to search engine marketing, there may be no larger misnomer, no more archaic term than the ubiquitous “keyword”. I propose an official migration to the more accurate term “keyphrase”, but for now I will be forced to accept reality. My frustration with this term is that it quite simply implies a single word, which is rarely the strategy Continue reading…
Tags: Google, PPC, SEO, Wprogram, wprogram feature article
Posted in PPC, SEO, Wprogram | 2 Comments
GrowCo & SES NY Recap
Mike Mothner | March 30th, 2010
Greetings! Well, the last two weeks have been a whirlwind of hotel rooms, conference centers and networking events. In the end, however, it was well worth it, as we met a ton of prospective and current clients and partners, gave several amazing talks and spent some great time with the thought leaders of our exciting industry! We kicked things off two weeks ago in Orlando as a sponsor of Inc. Magazine’s GrowCo conference, enjoying it’s second terrific year. Though it was designed as an educational conference for companies more in the bootstrap phase that with the right guidance make it to the flagship Inc 500/5000 conference, we were thrilled by the caliber of companies and people at the conference (not to mention the growing turnout of just under 500). We capped off the conference with a boisterous day at Disneyworld and Epcot center, a destination that sadly eluded me for the first 29 years of my life. However, the Wpromote team present at GrowCo more than made up for this childhood deficiency with a full day of rides, amusement park food and St. Patrick’s day debauchery (which amazingly fell on the same day as our visit). After a screaming-baby-filled flight from Orlando, we happily touched down at JFK and headed into New York City where we were met by the best weather of the year and the kick-off of one of my favorite conferences, Search Engine Strategies NYC. Over the next three days the Wpromote team met with hundreds of Continue reading…
Wpromote Makes A Splash at Online Marketing Summit San Diego
Mike Mothner | February 25th, 2010
I write this as I look across the usually sun-drenched (but presently surprisingly chilly) panorama of Mission Bay, San Diego, as the 2010 Online Marketing Summit draws quietly to a close. It officially kicks off what will be a terrifically busy 2010 as our marketing efforts continue to expand. We will be criss-crossing the country, and sponsoring, exhibiting and speaking at Search Engine Strategies, SMX, Ad:tech, the DMA conference, Internet Retailer, Inc Magazine’s GrowCo and Inc 500 events, and more. So if you are a client, future client, partner, or vendor, chances are we will be visiting a city near you, and we would love nothing more than to meet in person! Online Marketing Summit, or OMS as it is commonly referred, is a new addition to our conference calendar and a fun one to add, with their largest event each year taking place just “down the road” in San Diego. We thought it was a solid event, both in that it is very education-based (with sponsors but not your typical expo hall environment), and seems to pull a different mix of companies than the traditional online marketing shows, which is exciting and refreshing! On Tuesday, I spoke on a terrific panel (I must say one of the best that I saw at the conference) entitled “SEO 2.0 Leadership Forum”, which was an advanced SEO panel expertly moderated by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz fame. In addition to myself, there was an all-star cast that included Marshall Simmonds is the Chief Continue reading…
