Internet marketing strategies and techniques change rapidly. It’s essential to keep up to date using quality information. We produce some ourselves and we are constantly digesting information from others.

AudetteMedia White Papers, Blog Posts, Articles & Tools

We publish periodic White Papers on various internet marketing topics, often derived from presentations given at major conferences by AudetteMedia founder and Chief Strategist Adam Audette and articles by AM SVP John Audette.

SEO Guide to Information Architecture - Adam Audette
Our most popular article. Insightful concepts of designing optimized site architectures for efficient spidering by search engines.

“This is without a doubt the best article I have ever read on SEO for IA. Brilliantly architected as an article, detailed explanations, with relevant links to much, much more.”

Link Building Fundamentals - Adam Audette

We have received more comments on this post than any other. From Adam’s presentation at Searchfest.

“This is a fantastic resource. I assume it did the front page on digg and is linked to by all “relevant” authority bloggers. It certainly deserves to. Its hard to find this level of quality in a web page.”

Adding Value Online: Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom - John Audette
How to build your product or services value by moving up the DIKW curve

“Thanks for this great article, it really gel’ed with me! I’ve started a company which is trying to distill Wisdom from the huge amounts of data in online communities. After reading your article, I should probably say that we create Knowledge out of the Data, which can be used by people to obtain Wisdom - née enlightenment!! We also believe that this knowledge will help ecommerce retailers, by converting their browsers into buyers. “

The AM Marketing Cube - John Audette
How to choose internet marketing tactics that match your campaign goals.

“John Audette doesn’t post too often but when he does it’s seriously good stuff. AudetteMedia has built an interactive “Marketing Cube” tool that helps you rate the effectiveness of your various online marketing strategies like blogging, social media, affiliate marketing and PPC using three campaign priorities: Time to Results, Persistency of Results, and Measurable ROI so you can make better decisions for budget allocation. Yes, it’s free.”

SEO Diagnostics Tool: Log Parsing Script - Adam Audette
A free log parsing script developed by Adam that we’re offering free to the SEO community. It’s a simplified version of the scripts we use internally for our clients. Please use it, abuse it, improve it and pass it around freely.

“Adam, you and Aaron are truly some advanced SEO techs. Keep up the great work!”

Internet Marketing During an Economic Contraction- John Audette
How to move up in a down economy.

Email Marketing Tip Sheet - Adam Audette
How To Use Email Effectively.

Defining Internet Marketing - Adam Audette
This article explores the reputation problem the search engine optimization industry faces because of shortcomings in the language used to describe it.

Six Principles of Ethical SEO - Adam Audette
Some of the principles of ethical SEO.

“I like how you used your holistic philosophy towards an SEO approach of getting the sick (websites) well and keeping the well (websites) from getting sick.”

The Sweet 16: Principles of Building a Successful Internet Business - John Audette
The Sweet 16 was introduced as a keynote address by John at an e-commerce conference in Hawaii. Although Internet business has changed somewhat since these were first published, much remains true today, eight years later.

“I am currently building my own website, to better be involved in web entertainment. I printed out these sweet 16 and will read them like a Bible. “

Books - Featured Reviews

We read *a lot* of books. It’s amazing where you can pick up insights that are applicable to internet marketing. Here are three recent reads:

Outliers: The Story of Success
- Malcolm Gladwell
Typical Gladwell book - pop psych that is easy to read and interesting but that doesn’t go very deep or very wide. It’s listed here because it led me to the following two books, which I suspect were some of the “inspiration” for Gladwell’s book. Like going from Coors Lite to a Deschutes Brewery HopTrip. Not that there’s anything wrong with Coors Light.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
- Dan Ariely

Since you’re on this website, you’re probably involved with selling a product or a service online. Did you know, to quote Ariely, that humans rarely choose things in absolute terms? Do you know the distinction between social norms and market norms and how social contracts and market contracts differ? It’s a critical distinction for those marketing on the internet where the lines can blur but where you cross them at your own peril. Ariely, a professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT, who is likable, accessible and interesting, bases his observations on empirical data from scientific tests that he or other scientists have conducted. His central thesis is that people often act in unexpected ways, ways which we would call irrational.

The recent economic meltdown makes this theory especially compelling today. Much of our current economic theory is based on the Chicago School of economic thought, which was led by Nobel winning Milton Friedman. Their free market school of thought is, unfortunately, based on complex models that include assumptions that human beings will always react in predictable and rational ways. Recent events have demonstrated that to be a faulty assumption - even Allen Greenspan has admitted that he never imagined that human beings could act in such self-serving ways. Behaviorial economists are building a more realistic model based on the fact that human beings often respond irrationally and unpredictably. In addition to advancing the discipline of economics, the information here is of great benefit to marketers interested in gaining more understanding of their customers.

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
- Leonard Mlodinow

Most of us have a tendency to think of events in our lives as a result of clear cause and effect, but oftentimes there’s a great deal of chance involved. Mlodinow, a professor at CalTech, theorizes that our lives are profoundly affected by randomness, change, and probability and he provides insights that are useful for marketers seeking to understand their audience. While he has more of an academic focus than Ariely, his basic thoughts are similar. He deals more through the vantage point of probability and statistics, which can be a little hard to follow at times. Probability, which tries to measure the odds of the outcome of an event, is often counter-intuitive but always interesting. Statistics, which measures an outcome of an event, is easier to follow. This is a great book for marketers - and it has a very cool cover, even better than “Made To Stick”!

Conferences

Adam Audette is a frequent speaker at internet marketing conferences. Here are a couple of recent gigs:

SMX Advanced is for the experienced search marketer who wants to enjoy sessions conducted at a high-level and continue to stay ahead in the fast changing world of search.Adam Audette’s presentation at SMX 2008.

Search Engine Marketing Professionals is an organization based in Portland, Oregon whose mission is to inform and educate area businesses on the benefits of SEM to bottom line revenue.

More Books

We add to this list on a continuing (albeit sporadic) basis.

• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Die
  - Chip Heath & Dan Heath
  Great cover and “stickiness” is a great sound bite. You already know everything else in this book.
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
  - Seth Godin
  Typical Seth Godin book — one good (and usually obvious) idea — in this case do something remarkable when you advertise (!) — turned into a full book. For those times when you’d rather have a Coors Light than an IPA.
• Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules
  - Mike Moran
  Yoda says, “Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”. Mike Moran of IBM says, “Start fast. Fix fast, and Fix again.”. Effective internet marketing requires that you check your ego at the door - the oldtime “Master Plan” approach needs to become a non-stop cycle of refinement. We’ve been using this approach to internet marketing for over 10 years — it works like crazy.
• Search Engine Visibility
  - Shari Thurow
  “The SEO industry can be a huge pitfall for the uninitiated. Fraud, gimmicks and misunderstanding run rampant. Which is why we are so fortunate to have Shari Thurow in the field. In her book she outlines what it takes to get top positions in the major search engines and - even more importantly - tells what not to do.” From endorsement by Adam Audette on back cover of first edition.
• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
  - Peter Morville & Louis Rosenfeld
• Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
  - Avinash Kaushik
• Landing Page Optimization
  - Tim Ash
• Freakonomics
  - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
  As a college statistics professor told me one time — there’s nothing intuitive about statistics. This is a brilliant exercise in why we can’t trust our common sense when analyzing complex issues. Levitt has an extraordinary mind that totally engages you — you feel a sense of loss when the book is over.
• Crossing the Chasm
  - Geoffrey Moore
  Every year companies gamble away millions of dollars and countless hours of technical talent on doomed efforts to market technology products that are greeted with enthusiasm, but ultimately fizzle in the marketplace. Based on the revolutionary model derived from Moore’s extensive experience in high-tech markets, Crossing the Chasm is the definitive book on a vital but capricious market.