Scientific Advertising
After recently discussing with a client how to increase click throughs to a certain part of their website I decided to send them a book - Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins... I don't know if they'll read it, but really any person in any company that has to look after a website or manage an online brand should make it compulsory...
I don't want to go on and start preaching about social media and advertising and online marketing and blah blah blah. As frankly that's all I hear at the moment. It's like this stuff is new and no-one has ever done it before, I don't want to get into that, suffice to say that freedom of knowledge has made everyone an "expert". Which is great!
Here's a link to Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins, he invented the coupon, he pioneered the use of metrics within advertising. The measurement of results, the modification of message and comparative analysis. This 42 page book will give you more ideas and more knowledge than most "social media experts" - oh and it was written in 1896... :)
OK. So some of it maybe a little out of date, but it is over 100 years old. Read and enjoy.
Addtional information
How to monitor anything…
Using a few simple online resources we're going to track anything on the web over time.
Our new Simpleweb HQ
We're just about settled in to our lovely new office last month on Oakfield Road just off Whiteladies in the heart of Clifton Bristol. The light is good, we have more space and we nolonger have a shop-front so people don't come in looking for paint or iPod repairs!
Social press releases
We've just put live what appears to be a simple blog (with no comments omg) for the South West RDA. This sounds strange I know. Essentially it's an archive and resource for new and old press releases coming out of the south west of the UK.
SWM Basecamp plugin preview
We use Basecamp on every project that we do, small or large. We do find though that despite its simplicity and intentional lack of features it can still overwhelm our less technical clients. With the beta launch of SWM imminent we though that a decent Basecamp plugin would be useful...
SWM, Swimming and Twestival…
The new SWM landing page for the beta of our uber web management system goes live today and to celebrate we've teamed up with SubAquaHolics to donate four Scuba diving lessons to the Bristol Twestival event.
A couple of sites we’ve just put live
There's nothing quite as satisfying as putting a new website (or two) live. Well, there probably is, but this isn't the place to go in to that.
17 simple things for preparing a remote demo to a potential investor
If you're lucky enough to have got your exec summary read by a potential investor and they're ready to take a closer look at your application, generally the next step is some kind of remote demo. We've learnt the hard way over the last few months that you can never be too prepared for this first contact and I thought that I'd pass along a checklist that we've built up.
Security for a new PC, XP and Vista that is…
One of the most common set of questions I get as someone who appears to be a techy to my network of friends (and their friends) are related to security.
.NET (C#) function for advanced paging output
As a web developer you're never too far away from needing to output paging links at the bottom of a web page. You know, Next, Previous, 1, 2, 3 etc...