Do People Like Websites That Instantly Play Audio … or Not?

Interesting results from a recent survey by Tessa Stowe of Australia’s Sales Conversation. She wrote:

I recently did a survey on whether people like audio playing automatically on web pages or not.

Of the 81 people who responded:

80.2% (65) said they did not like automatic audio 13.6% (11) said they did like automatic audio 6.2% (5) had no opinion.

In fact quite a few people commented that if they come across a web page playing audio automatically, they immediately leave.

How do you feel about audio assaults on websites? (“Hi! I’m Jim

So and So .. Thanks for coming by the Wonderful World of Marketing …”)

Hate ‘em? Love ‘em? Drop by and cast your vote.

A Tip on Free Blog Directories

Matt, from The Best Blogs, had a helpful comment regarding our recent nudge towards mega-lists of blog directories. (Thanks, Matt!)

He wrote: “Beware of FREE directories! They can result in a TON OF SPAM and other issues. So here is a better one. http://www.thebestblogs.org It is all SEO optimized, but there are no hidden costs.

Cool!

Word Press Add-Ins II: Andy Weighs In

My blog guru, the great Andy Wibbels, author of Blog Wild, had some tweaks and suggestions to a recent post I did on preferred plug ins on Word Press.

Here’s what he likes for analytics.

Here’s a ping generator for future posts.

Spam-prevention software he uses.

Software that removes curly quotes which can break feeds etc

All those fancy RSS images/links that get people to subscribe.

Widgets, of course

Goodies for podcasters

Previewing comments live

Thank you to the Chief of All Things Bloggy.

Andrea Lee’s Other Blog

My good buddy and partner, Andrea Lee, with whom I have the pleasure of sharing the Multiple Streams Commitment Club, has a cool new blog she just started called Made in Taiwan. It’s all about her experiences as a Taiwanese-Canadian and it makes for a fun, cozy, quite interesting read. Check it out.

By the way, you may have noticed that Andrea’s latest book has made my list on the left for all things Marketing that I find helpful. Honestly, this is a gem of a how to manual … kind of a bible for those who want to coach and actually make a living at it. I highly recommend it! She’s also got a nice free course on that page – ‘The Five Keys to Putting Money in Coach’s Pockets’ … check it out.

Cheap Assistance .. and Using Craigslist to Market

I don’t usually plug untested VA sources, but I’m moved to pass this tip along -- http://www.backpage.com is a free Classified source in many local cities. (Not my nearest city, Burlington, VT … but hey, a lot of cities are listed there.)

The tip I got from Sandra Schrift is that you can find supplemental VA/web assistance there for as low as $12 per hour. Could be you’ve tapped into a source of college kids earning while they learn, or moonlighting professionals.

Anyone have any experience with this service or other preferred free classified listings?

WHICH REMINDS ME … I will be hosting the excellent Nancy Mills, who is a Craig’s List expert, this week in a call on how to make a much bigger free classified site, Craigslist.org, your source for web traffic and sales. (They get many millions of visitors per month.)

There is a science to this and Nancy’s cracked the code. We’ve already got almost 600 folks signed up for this call … and we can always fit in more. (And yes, we’ll be recording. All you have to do is sign up to get that link afterwards.)

Date: Thursday, Feb 15

Time: 8-9PM Eastern

Sign up at www.getknownnow.com/nancymills.html

End of a Great Free Spam Filter Checker

Sigh. For years now we’ve relied on the erstwhile www.ezinecheck.com to scan our text before we send it in bulk emails, ezines, etc.. And … well … this wonderful free source just isn’t there anymore.

Anyone know what happened to them?

Meanwhile, the gap is being filled by the industrious folks at SiteSell. You can find a reasonably good free form that scans html – not quite as user friendly on the email aspect, but still good. Go to http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/

Anyone else have a preferred free spam filter?

Want to Learn to Lead Creativity Workshops?

OK … it’s time for The Uber Joy Festival! When I put my very popular Joy Facilitator’s Training on sale.

This is for anyone who dreams of creating, booking, filling and leading your own creativity workshops. Or who works with creativity issues .. and needs tools that can nudge clients to breakthroughs.

For many years now, I have been training coaches and trainers to lead the workshop version of my book, How Much Joy Can You Stand? (This is my little creativity classic, published by Ballantine, that sold more than 100,000 copies.) You can read it online for free.

So I squeezed all my training into an easy home study course with an amazingly cheap and flexible license that lets you morph and mold the material to suit your own purposes. And now … it’s on sal.e. How great is that!?

My Uber Joy Fesitval is rolling from Feb 12 to 25 .. and that means for these two weeks ONLY, you can save big on this program.

Check it out – I’ve also got excellent freebie Case Studies report that shows you just how other coaches have been successfully using this work. More than 350 Joy coaches lead this work in 18 countries around the world – so don’t be left out.     It’s never going to be a better time to jump in than right now.

Word Press Plugs Ins Review, Part I

OK, blog wonks and others. It’s time to dig into the vast possibilities of the Word Press platform for blogs. This (potentially) free interface comes with many reasons to love it – enough that we’re actually turning this blog from Typepad over to Wordpress this week. So my blogmaster, Peggy, asked me to identify which plug ins I wanted added.

A Word Press plug in, in case you don’t know, is a cool additional ‘thing’ your blog does – and here are some of the ones I like …. This info courtesy of my recent freebie call with Andy Wibbels, who told us all about the many benefits of Word Press. (Click there for an MP3 of this excellent call!)

Here’s what I believe the optimized WP blog is wearing: Akismet (checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.) WordPress Database Backup , (backs up on demand), Ajax Spell Checker , Batch Categories (Moving multiple posts easily from one category to another), Download Counter , Alexa Rank (allows you to add the Alexa Rank of your site to your blog), Backlinks , (shows graphically how many incoming links you have to your blog), Google PageRank , Popularity Contest (uses page views and feedback (comments, trackbacks, etc.) to determine how popular each of your posts are (in relation to each other). Add Meta Tags (automatically adds keywords in all kinds of good places to help SE robots find blog more easily), Category Tagging (Provides a tag cloud and related posts.) Jerome’s Keywords (lists keywords associated with your posts), SurveyGizmo (run surveys, polls, contact forms, lead gen, newsletter signups, data collection, etc), Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress , What Would Seth Godin Do (Display a separate message to new visitors, welcoming them to your site and inviting them to become subscribers), Add to Del.icio.us (clicking link adds it your post to del.icio.us.), Social Bookmarks (adds a list of XHTML compliant graphic links to your posts that allow visitors to easily submit them to a number of social bookmarking sites.)

Whew! Got more to add to the list?

How to Get Into Major Women’s Magazines

It’s seen as a mystery to many, but I say there’s a real science to it. You’re goal as a platform builder is to be universally known in the staff meeting rooms of all the magazines in your genre. (Well, OK, that’s only one of many goals … but it’s a good one.) So if you sell to small business owners you want them to know you over at Entreprenuer, for example. And you want your name to come up when they’re looking for a writer or an expert for a particular article.

But what steps do you take to make that happen exactly? It’s all about relationship, ultimately. Any placement I’ve ever gotten in the top women’s magazines (which have included New Woman, Woman’s Day, More and SELF) have been through careful, patient, consistent relationship building. That … and making myself indispensable.

I’m actually talking about this in much more depth and detail in our next Big Topic call in our Multiple Streams Commitment Club. (If you’re not aware of it, this is the very excellent business building club I’m hosting now with Andrea Lee…. And it’s working beautifully. People are accomplishing very cool stuff.) The topic of the February call is “How to Get a Magazine Editor to Commit to Coffee and a Contract With You.” I love doing this stuff!

P.S. Andrea and I also have a Mentor’s Brainstorm call each moth in which we coach each other on our businesses, brainstorm marketing ideas, and generally shoot the marketing breeze together … it’s all part of the MSCC!

How to Sell Anything to Anybody … the Video

OK … just to show you I walk my talk, Travis Greenlee and I have created a funny viral video to promote our Fill Your Groups Now Home Study Course. I’ll be tracking it’s success, traffic etc in my blog over the next few months … and in the meanwhile, you might want to tune in, enjoy, and see Ken try to sell Barbie a Winnebago with high pressure sales tactics. Watch it here