I have never been a big fan of the four P’s:

• Product
• Price
• Promotion
• Place

It never seemed accurate to today’s marketing standards – let alone you: the consumer. So, if you haven’t heard of the Four C’s allow me to introduce them with a breakdown of each.

• Cost vs. Price: Businesses need to adapt to the consumer. It has been the other way around for so long that consumers have found out that they are the key to businesses growth. This is good AND bad because basic supply / demand economics are not thrown out the window rather changed to adapt on a daily basis on individual basis.
• Consumer vs. Product: Stop talking about the product – consumers do not care about this. Yes, it was great in the beginning of marketing but now the focus needs to shift. If your businesses doesn’t put the spotlight on them then you won’t close a sale.
• Convenience vs. Place: Stop trying to tell the consumer where they ‘must’ go to get ‘your’ product – it’ll never happen. We are a society of here and now – that applies to YOUR products as well.
• Communication vs. Promotion: This one is HUGE! Stop trying to ‘throw’ your message out there – start communicating with the consumer – open the line of communications and see sales soar. This goes beyond customer service – this is branding at a whole new level.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the four P’s vs. four C’s – what do you think?

If there ever was a time to try and comprehend social media it is now. The concept of social media isn’t difficult – the steps are practically one: engagement. As a college student I find it absolutely amazing of how many students don’t understand the power of this tool. While the majority of them have facebook profiles they don’t market themselves.

This is CRAZY!

Thriving companies are excelling from selecting the exceptional candidates who are already made a spot in their market. If you are interested in becoming a elementary school teacher and have been tweeting about the changes in the various school districts in the recent tax levy while doing a blog showing how students / teachers / parents can work together. In comparison to someone who just graduated from college.

Who do you think the school would choose? Well, if they were smart they would choose the individual who truly wants to be a teacher and shows it by doing research and displaying their knowledge on it. While this is just one small example the possibilities are endless.

The days of ‘just graduating’ college and putting it on your resume are long gone. Why not show on your resume how many followers you have – how many fans you have on your facebook fan page (yes, you need to have one) – to how many connections you have on your LinkedIn account.

Be active or be left behind but hey, if you want to move back in with mom and dad after college so be it.

Stop blaming the economy and start taking charge.

So, I’m checking my reader and come across Shoemoney’s and the contest he is running hitting up the Affiliate Summit come this January.

Why not toss up a blog post about why I should win and toss my hat into the ring?

What would happen if I get picked and I get to roll with these guys?

I know I would defiantly talk some hip hop with Jeremy – maybe tell the Dj to throw some Notorious on the 1’s and 2’s.

Nicky…well, I’d really like to talk shop with him. Just getting in the door wouldn’t mind hear some stories on this cat.

Neil…I’m not sure since this guy is cheap (j/k). I’d most likely see where he see’s the internet in the next 5 years .

George over at GetAd’s and Erin with AzoogleAds AM…again, not sure – just being honest. I’d like to see how exactly they work  and would be definitely interested to hear how social media is changing the marketing game online.

Barman…like to see if he really is a self-labeled pimp.

Let’s see if I do get picked give me the 2 G’s and I’m throwing it down on 1 hand of Black Jack. When I double down and take the table’s money I’m getting everyone a drink (s).

Yes, I’ve never been to one of these summit’s before but always wanted to. I say pick me and let the good times roll.

Yesterday I spoke on what exactly a sitemap is when it comes to your website and today I will go into detail on why exactly sitemap’s are truly needed. There are some things that websites do not necessarily need. A sitemap isn’t one. So the question is why exactly is a sitemap needed? A site map is not JUST for users but rather for search engine crawlers.

A crawler aka ‘bots’ if you didn’t know is something the search engines (Google / Yahoo / MSN / Ask / etc) send out on the web and…well, crawl your website. They look for relevant information – keywords / phrases and hundreds of other things. This is why SEO people are in demand (again, feel free to hit me up if you have any questions on it). These bots instead of going through every single page – which can be pretty long depending on the size – while having a sitemap will help speed along the process.

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So, why the big deal? Well, as seen to the left you are able to see if your website is ranking high on certain keywords/phrases as well if there are errors that might be found on the site. Google Webmaster allows An error could be something along the lines of a page that was published a year ago and you have deleted it since – it happens.

Why the black out outs?

The last thing I want to show off is one of my projects that is not 100% complete…plus, you never know the competition could be watching.

Nonetheless by being able to view this data it can gain new insights into not just those viewing your website but your customers.

Top Search Queries

How are people finding your site – did they search “niche product” or “product niche”? As simple as it would seem it opens up the doors between you and those finding your website.

Crawl Errors

Is there a problem with how bots are seeing your site? If so, this could be why your site isn’t getting indexed by them.

Links to your site

Whose linking to your site – which content is highly linkable. Helpful for updating your website.

Keywords

You have a niche on say knitting but your site’s keywords aren’t centered around yarn, stitching, and overall knitting. It’s time to change things…NOW!

Well, I’m glad you asked. As I mentioned yesterday I would be diving into sitemaps a little more in-depth this week I thought the best thing to do is explain first what exactly a sitemap really is.

I have always made the analogy that a sitemap of a website is similar to that of a mall map. Stores can come and go and the map is constantly updated like that of a website. It will reference the main points of a website. An example would be under Customer Service you might find Contact Us – Billing Issues – FAQ’s – Online Support – Chat Support – etc…

Below is snapshot of the sitemap for a sports introduction site that’s currently in development:

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Since I use Wordpress pretty exclusively I have found a plugin that generates the content into an XML file (.com/sitemap.xml) – this is good news for when you submit your website to search engines. More on that later.

You don’t have to use a “plugin” and can actually create one yourself but then again why recreate the wheel, right?

So, why do you need a sitemap for your website? Well, as I stated earlier it could help a reader figure out where exactly something is. Remember it IS like a map – of your content. This is big for site that end up growing over the years.

The second reason you need to make a sitemap is for search engines and I will dive more into this tomorrow but by having them for web crawlers they are able to crawl your content quicker and index your site.