Just happened to be on Alexa today and saw that they had some new features . . . made a short video for you using Jeff Walker’s “ProductLaunchFormula.com” site as an example of the new information available.
Check out the video here:
http://alexavid.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
I think these new features can be useful when doing research on your own sites or your competitors . . .
Have fun with it!
Paul
I was reminded of this tool when one of my clients asked me to install it on one of their new domains . . .
Basically it allows you to quickly create “redirect” folders on your site. For instance, say this was your affiliate link:
http://www.maverickbusinessinsider.com/go?p=10929&w=mbiweb
You don’t want to include a link like that in your email! If you have a website, you can create a simple redirect and then use a link like this instead:
http://www.biztoolsbrief.com/mbi/
That’s a lot nicer looking, don’t you agree?
(BTW, that’s a live link and goes to Yanik Silver’s latest venture, “Maverick Business Insider” — it looks like a heck of a deal and you ought to check it out.)
This redirect utility will allow you to create a redirect using HTML/Javascript or PHP. It will also allow you to “frame” the destination page rather than redirecting the visitor to it.
(To “frame” the page means the page shows up on the browser but it looks like it’s a part of your site, because your web site URL is still visible in the browser location window . . .)
Click here to download the script…
Using this script is pretty straightforward, as long as your web site is on a Unix or Linux server. Just unzip the file, upload the CreateRedirects.cgi script to your web folder, and change the permissions on the script to 755 . . . then point your browser to it whenever you need to create a redirect.
Let me know what you think!
Best,
Paul
P.S. My apologies if you use a windows web server. This script could probably work for you with slight modification — you could probably find someone on eLance to modify it pretty cheap . . .
If you’ve been in the “Internet Marketing” circles for any length of time, you’ve no doubt been exposed to sales pages which include some verbage similar to this:
This discount price only good until Midnight, October 8, 2007!
Or maybe they say something like this:
Because you’re ordering today, October 8, 2007, you also get these bonuses!
If you leave the page and come back the next day, you will see the deadline has magically moved. It’s a simple Javascript trick that’s been used for years to create a “sense of urgency” in the reader. The problem is, it’s an old trick, and most IM-savvy people know the “deadline” is a moving target.
I don’t know about you, but when I see something like that, my first reaction is “Yeah, right!” — and the credibility of the author is immediately put in the “questionable” category in my mind.
However, as I’ve worked behind the scenes for other marketers, I’ve seen the power of a REAL deadline — it’s quite fascinating to watch a slew of orders squeak in just prior to an advertised deadline!
Deadlines have power. In fact, many old-school direct marketers don’t consider an advertisement to be complete unless it includes a deadline, and they include an expiration date on all their “offline” advertising.
The problem with a fixed expiration date on your website, though, is that it’s so easy for your visitor to say, “Oh, I’ve got until Friday — I’ll think about it and come back . . .” — and once they’re gone, there’s a good chance they won’t be back.
So we try to get them to opt in to a list, so we can keep nudging them and reminding them about the deadline that’s looming . . . but we usually only get a minority of our visitors on the list.
So what to do?
How about a much shorter (but still REAL) deadline to force them to make a decision NOW rather than “thinking about it for awhile”? And we will reinforce that deadline with a running countdown.
I’ve actually seen these before, but in some cases all you have to do to restart the countdown is refresh the page. That’s no good. Sometimes the countdown timer will run to 0:00 and the offer remains the same — not good either. The page/offer MUST change when the timer runs out, or we lose all credibility with the reader.
You can see a simple example of this here (opens in new window):
If you load that page and wait two minutes, the page will redirect to another site. In your case, you’d set the redirect URL to another page on your site with a modified offer (higher price, fewer bonuses, etc.)
If someone reloads the page, the countdown timer doesn’t start over — it maintains its “state” and continues to count down. The countdown “cookie” is maintained for a year, so if the visitor comes back anytime after the 2-minute deadline, they will be immediately redirected to the 2nd offer.
Now sure, if someone wants to reset their cookies, the timer will start back at the beginning. But let’s face it, anyone who’s really determined to cheat the system can open up a different browser or go to a friend’s computer and visit your site from there — so it’s not worth our time to try and create a cheat-proof system.
(If you really want to make it cheat-proof, you’ll have to go back to using a specific date as your deadline and change the offer when that deadline is reached.)
To use this script on your own page, just open up the source code on the example page (do it before the 2 minutes timer expires!) and follow these three steps:
1. Copy the Javascript from the HEAD section of the page into the head section of your page.
2. Just before the closing body (“</body>”) tag, add this Javascript:
<script type=”text/javascript”>
<!–
WindowLoad();
//–>
</script>(Make sure the “WindowLoad();” command is on a line by itself . . .)
3. Where you want the countdown timer to appear, insert this line:
<span id=”CountDownPanel” style=”color:red; font-size:20.0pt; font-weight:bold”></span>
(You can of course change the style attributes . . .)
Obviously the 2 minute timer used in this example is too short — you’ll want to change the “seconds” variable to some higher value (right now it’s set to 120 seconds — 1800 seconds would be 30 minutes . . .)
And you’ll also need to change the “redirect_url” to your “2nd offer” URL
If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty (or hiring someone else to), you can do all kinds of fun things when the timer runs out. For instance, instead of having the whole page redirect to a different page, you could dynamically change the content on your page (see my previous article, “Dynamically Personalized HTML“). The change(s) could include the prices, bonus section, order links, etc.
Or you could get really fancy and have a pop-over window that says something like “Sorry, you missed the deadline; the price is now $X.XX and bonus #1 is no longer available. The price will go up to $Y.YY in 20 minutes. ” and start the timer again . . . that would REALLY add credibility to your deadline, in my opinion.
Questions? Comments? Let me know what you think!
Paul
It seems I picked an extremely busy day for my first blog post . . .
I’ve seen countless emails promoting “The Rich Jerk” and his “X-Ray” product a few for ViralShock, several for “My Viral Spiral” . . . and it seems Marlon Sanders is pitching a new “coaching” program for his “Affiliate Dashboard“.
Oh, and for you jaded internet marketers out there, none of these are affiliate links (just so you know)!
There have been a few emails about other products as well . . .
It’s obvious the Internet Marketing crowd listened when somebody (was it Jeff Walker? OR someone before him) said Tuesday was the best day of the week to launch.
But it’s been awhile now and I wonder if that’s still true? There are so many hyped-up promotional emails coming in on Tuesday’s now — the signal-to-noise ratio is definitely trending downward.
I’m not a marketing “guru”, I’m just thinking out loud. But it seems to me like a good time to test that “Tuesday mailing” rule of thumb . . .
Speaking of testing . . . I did an interesting split test of an email headline when I first told my list about my “Internet Marketer’s Little Black Book“. I wasn’t measuring the “open” rate, but did measure the ‘clickthrough’ rate, with these results:
Here’s Your Little Black Book . . . 33.8% clickthrough
[Biztools Brief] Here’s Your Little Black Book . . . 28.8% clickthrough
[BizTools Brief] 1001 Insider Resources For The Serious Internet Marketer . . . 26.2% clickthrough
1001 Insider Resources For The Serious Internet Marketer . . . 22.9% clickthrough
I think the first headline did the best because of the curiosity factory. Any copywriting experts care to comment?
Now this blog is supposed to be about online tools, so let me point you to one just about everyone can use:
Eric Graham (The “Conversion Doctor“) recently showed how he was able to increase his response rate by almost 50% just by changing the look of his submit button!
I put together a simple “button creator” on my “utilities” page which you are free to use . . . I took what Eric did and added some enhancements like the ability to specify text color and bold text.
It also allows you to have multi-line-text buttons . . . I’ve tested with MSIE 7 and Firefox 2 and everything seems to work . . . enjoy! 
http://www.paulgalloway.com/utilities/high-response-buttons/
Best,
Paul