65 Bite-Sized Web Marketing Tips
October 23, 2008 
Author 
In 
I write lots of detailed, in-depth posts for you at The Future Buzz about social media, digital marketing, PR and creating buzz on the web. In the spirit of changing things up, today I thought I’d simplify and offer you some quick tips broken into bits.
65 Bite-Sized Web Marketing Tips
1) Keep sites as simple and clean as possible.
2) Be interesting with everything you put out there.
3) Keep your site up to date and fresh, give users a legitimate reason to come back.
4) Have clear RSS and email subscriptions options on every page of your blog or website.
5) Take your time, create a plan, follow it step by step (traffic isn’t going to fall out of the sky).
6) Have realistic expectations, work relentlessly to achieve them.
7) Educate your team, work together.
8) Don’t worry about getting everything exactly right the first time, you can fix it as you go forward. The best, most popular blogs/websites are always works in progress.
9) If you think you’ll have to rely heavily on marketing and PR for traffic, you might want to rethink your .com/blog idea.
10) Be honest, transparent and authentic.
11) Patience is vital, you have to stick with it to outlast your competition.
12) Don’t get obsessed with stats, but do track your analytics to gauge success of campaigns.
13) Get people on your team that are more than good, find people that are absolutely obsessed with the web.
14) Make friends with power users on Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. Make friends with people who are messageboard addicts. Make friends with bloggers and social media influencers.
15) Get a solid understanding of SEO (read sites like SEOMoz, it’s free and you’ll learn a ton).
16) Learn about good design and usability.
17) Stay on top of what TechCrunch, Mashable and other top blogs write.
18) Read the front pages of Digg and Reddit everyday. Learn what makes a story a social media hit.
19) Read Chris Brogan‘s Blog. And Seth Godin‘s. And all of these, too.
20) Learn what Rickroll, LOLcat, and all the other quirky terms that make up internet speak.
21) Know when to change strategies (and realize it is ok to be wrong).
22) Find a way to build and lead a tribe.
23) Create google alerts for key terms in your industry to stay on top of trends.
24) Learn what motivates bloggers.
25) Don’t try to be all things to all people.
26) Listen to what people are saying about you/your brand carefully. Get into the conversation with them, where appropriate.
27) Get active on Twitter.
28) Be useful and provide value to people.
29) Find a way to connect your fans with each other.
30) Learn what motivates people to subscribe to a blog.
31) Trouble getting your messages to spread? Try narrowing the focus.
32) Experiment and start your own side projects.
33) Start your own blog.
34) Learn who Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington, Kevin Rose and all the web celebrities are.
35) Subscribe to as many marketing, tech, social media and related blogs as you can handle using RSS.
36) Actually read those blogs carefully every day.
37) Read all the free e-books about social media.
38) Read Clary Shirky’s book – Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations.
39) Don’t send bloggers press releases.
40) Work with fantastic web designers.
41) Only hire an SEO firm that actually ranks well themselves or a web marketers who blog (you have to work with the space intimately yourself to be adept at using it for others).
42) Bridge your organization’s digital divide.
43) Learn how to cultivate culture.
44) Develop a search engine optimization strategy for your site.
45) Write killer flagship content on your blog.
46) Avoid obvious web mistakes.
47) Get an understanding of why people blog.
48) Read Daniel Scocco’s entire web traffic series.
49) Check out all the awesome images on Logic+Emotion (start with this one).
50) Check out the blogs in TopRank’s biglist, in the marketing section of AllTop, and in AdAge’s Power150 list.
51) Make it easy to share what you’re doing.
52) Hold tight, it will only get easier.
53) Learn the secret of the web (hint, it’s a virtue).
54) Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see immediate results, it takes time for tangible outcomes to take effect. They will in time.
55) Put as much work out as you can under a creative commons license.
56) Help people who are just starting out. I am sure there were people who helped you find the path when you were new, returning the favor is not only good karma, it is incredibly rewarding to see them succeed.
57) Read all the Google’s official blogs, and learn about Google’s webmaster tools.
58) Learn at least the basics of HTML.
59) Learn how to work with MySQL.
60) Learn about the different forms of social media news momentum.
61) Work hard to make your content stand out from the crowd.
62) Learn how to use PRWeb and other wire services properly.
63) Google answers to questions before phoning your web marketing allies.
64) Check out FriendFeed.
65) Use your skills to help a non-profit, don’t charge them.
Related posts from The Future Buzz
5 Things I’ve Learned as an Internet Marketer (that translate everywhere in life)
Creating Buzz Online: A Short Guide
Great Customer Service: The Ultimate PR/Marketing Tool
Related posts from around the web
30 Traffic Generation Tips (DailyBlogTips)
10 Obvious Strategies To Ruthlessly Acquire Users (Andrew Chen)
Seven Ways To Be More Persuasive (SEO Book)
Time Tracker replied | Oct 23, 2008 (1 comment)
Great list here! If I may add….don’t overdo it with RSS feeds. Sure it’s important to be on top of things in your industry, but by overloading those RSS feeds, you’re simply not going to be able to read them all. Perhaps pick the top 5 or 10 RSS feeds in a particular industry and stay with those. You’ll garner a lot more information by reading a few from the cream of the crop, rather than trying to read every bit that hits the streets.
Tumblemoose replied | Oct 23, 2008 (1 comment)
After eating all 65 bites, boy am I full!
I’ve seen several of these before as they really are common sense. There are some real gems here though. It’s worth spending some time and hitting the links. It would be a great weekend project and the benefits would be astounding, I’m sure.
Thanks!
George
Christopher Ross replied | Oct 23, 2008 (6 comments)
awesome advice!
Keep in mind as well that without proper data, you can’t know what’s going on so it’s critical that you review and understand your web site statistics every day.
Tim Jahn replied | Oct 23, 2008 (59 comments)
@Time Tracker
That’s a great point! Information overload can be a hamper but sticking with some solid resources can be a huge help.
Salwa replied | Oct 23, 2008 (3 comments)
Hey great list here. Thanks!
Norman replied | Oct 24, 2008 (1 comment)
65 new things I need to do!
Ryan Stephens replied | Oct 25, 2008 (2 comments)
Adam – While I’m deeply embedded into social media, and therefore the vast majority of your suggestions, I think you have put together a great list for people that are relatively new to the space and looking to learn quickly.
To play devil’s advocate to Time Tracker I’d say go ahead and follow as many blogs as you think you’re capable of. It’s easy to sort out the stuff that doesn’t particularly pertain to you. Guys like Chris Brogan and Dan Schawbel subscribe to over 100 blogs in their RSS readers, but skip over stuff that isn’t pertinent to their lives.
Certainly, you should be well-read and follow the BEST blogs in your industry. There’s a handful of guys I NEVER miss, many of the ones Adam has mentioned in his post, but by following more people (or at least having a folder in your bookmarks for other solid blogs) allows you to connect to many more bloggers.
Maybe you read 1 in 5 or 1 in 10, but you can bet that blogger is still thankful for that read, and chances are you might step outside your current circle and truly connect with someone that could prove to be a valuable friend, resource, etc.
word press replied | Nov 6, 2008 (1 comment)
Not a bad list at all I must say …
Moshe replied | Dec 26, 2008 (1 comment)
This list is nice, but its not for those short on time. I realize people think there are no shortcuts, but in this industry there really are. What you have listed here is the high road, the right way to do things. But sometimes people need to take the low road, to get results right away.
People should have no illusions about the amount of time and effort that is required.
Adam Singer replied | Dec 26, 2008 (597 comments)
@Moshe – Thanks for the feedback. Personally though I can’t in all good conscience advise people to take the low road. It is unsustainable long term.
jay replied | Jan 20, 2009 (1 comment)
sweet tips Adam!
Anton replied | Feb 2, 2009 (5 comments)
Brilliant common sense! I love it.
Rochester replied | Feb 12, 2009 (1 comment)
Google Alerts was the best function on this list – thank you it has saved me tons of time! -
pamela replied | Feb 19, 2009 (1 comment)
Great tips for someone just getting started. Now it’s time for me to get cracking away.
dmar9 replied | Mar 8, 2009 (3 comments)
So what happens when all bloggers put this much time and effort in to each blog!?
Adam Singer replied | Mar 8, 2009 (597 comments)
@dmar9 – hopefully they are successful! :)
Shari Weiss replied | Aug 11, 2009 (23 comments)
Adam, you have become my favorite blogger, and I share your thoughts with my PR students at San Francisco State [that is, until the end of this week when budget cuts cut me :-)].
Be that as it may, after finding [and tweeting] your 65 bite-size web tips, why not do a post and REVISE the list for TODAY, esp things like the NEW ebooks, etc.
THX for the continuous inspiration!