Steve Jobs and the power of focus + MORE

Steve Jobs led the greatest turnaround in corporate history, taking a near-bankrupt Apple and turning it into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world … but he didn’t look that great on paper. He wasn’t an engineer. He couldn’t write a line of code. He didn’t have an MBA. He had no college degree at all…

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One of the most effective ways to increase conversion is by decreasing the amount of perceived resistance and aggravation your prospects experience in your lead capture process – or in short, dialing down the levels of friction.
In today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’re going to get our hands a little dirty by diving into some evidence-based marketing to learn how the MECLABS research team made two simple changes to a lead capture process that increased lead rates 166%…

As much as the CrazyEgg technology has revolutionized our approach to understanding just what makes our visitors ‘tick’ online, there’s still one thing that remains a tough nut to crack.
What is it?
Making modifications to our company’s mobile website.
Whether using a responsive theme or building an entirely new sub-domain for mobile viewers, most bloggers still can’t figure out how to make an oustanding mobile website…

Vine has arrived for Android. how do we know? Everyone is saying so and the Vine site looks like this.

Trouble is that when you click on the Play Store button you get this (as of 10 am on June 3, 2013).

I am sure this is a temporary thing but it shouldn’t happen at all should it?

Links back to your site from other sites give Google a potentially important signal – “Hey, I’m a human being and I think this is good stuff.” – that’s something Google can’t do with a spider and even better if the site in question is already known to Google as a trusted source.
photo credit: dolescum via photopin cc
Links have always been important, but in the past it was just about getting lots of them…

  

This week at Smashing Magazine, we’ve decided to reflect on and analyze performance, navigation, code base, style guides, content, customer support, our tools and our internal processes — basically everything. That’s why Smashing Magazine will be unusually quiet for the rest of this week…

In 2006 AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo all complied with Bush Administration Justice Department (DOJ) subpoenas to turn over search records — without a fight. The subpoenas were issued pursuant to the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, which the Supreme Court had previously ruled to be…

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article…

How many new projects are you working on right now?
I ask you this, because one of the fastest ways to massively improve your effectiveness, is to give your full focus to as few projects as possible.
Why?
When you are a small business owner or consultant, you have a limited number of resources. By spreading yourself too thinly, across too many ideas or opportunities, you dilute how effective you can be at any one of those projects…

Good friend, Jason Falls, had a fantastic Facebook update lambasting any social media person who signed up on Facebook for a verified account. His update isn’t safe for work, but it created quite a stir with the social media powers-that-be. His term for folks who signed up started with a “d” and ended in “bag”, hehe…

Former Benchmark guest blogger, Thumbtack, was recently featured with co-founder and then guest blog contributor Sander Daniels, who offered a delightful tale of their lunch time story.Related Articles
Linden Lab Uses Love to Break Down Traditional Office OrganizationSmall Business Tips: Apps to Amplify Online ProductivityThe Weekly Wrap: Deluxe Mother’s Day Edition

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The point of this article isn’t to continue to point out the obvious, but to show the more costly mistakes in terms of lost revenue and lost leads. Read the most dangerous mistakes you can make when it comes to your landing pages and learn how you can correct them.
Mistake 1 – The “Disconnected” Headline
When visitors see and click an ad, they immediately have a few “expectations” of what they want see on the page that follows the click of the ad…

If you’re looking to boost your paid search performance without working late in the office all summer or increasing your budget, try utilizing Ad Extensions. Not only do they require minimal set-up time, they are displayed at no additional cost.It can be tough to decide which extensions to focus on, so I’ve created a cheat sheet to help you decide which ones will work best for you:Sitelink ExtensionsWhat are they? As you can see above, Sitelink Extensions allow you to promote additional landing pages below your standard ad text…