DIY B2B Direct Marketing and SEO

I’m really busy. So when I got a domain renewal notification letter yesterday I almost renewed my blancminge.com domain without thinking twice. 

Luckily something didn’t feel right and I double checked first. 

According to the letter ’privatization’ means I can choose who to renew my domains with. I don’t have to stick with my original domain Registrar. Anyone and his dog can renew my domain at any price they choose. And consumer choice is always a good thing, right?

Not in this case. The Domain Renewal Group are offering me:

• 1 year renewal for £20
• 2 years for £35
• 3 years for £65

Buy my registrar, Go-daddy, provides renewal for £7.41 a year. No contest.  

Presumably the Domain Renewal group is operating within the law. But I get the feeling they know they’re being naughty. Skating close to the edge, not quite within the spirit of the law. Perhaps it’s an outright scam – I’m no legal expert.

My domain doesn’t renew until January 2011. They’ve approached me far too early, way before necessary, so my Registrar’s automatic email reminder campaign hasn’t kicked in yet. And because £20 for a year’s registration doesn’t seem desperately unreasonable, the pricing probably wouldn’t put your financial brakes on if you were in a rush.

Plus… they allegedly have a UK office but the offer is made in American English, which is downright rude as well as a clear sign that something’s not quite right.    

The moral of the story? Look before you leap. If I’d gone ahead I’d have spent almost £45 more than I needed to renewing my domain for three years with a company I know nothing about and – on reflection and research - wouldn’t dream of trusting. It isn’t a huge amount of money in the scheme of things. But it’s the principle that counts. 

Toxic direct marketing at it’s worst. From unpleasant individuals with no sense of Karma. To be avoided at all costs. 

Are your website’s page names full of underscores? If so it’s time to replace them. Google prefers dashes to underscores. They keep life simple for people too. After all, it’s much easier to read something like freelance-copywriting-services than freelance_copywriting_services. 

Once you’ve renamed your files, don’t forget to do a 301 redirect. Otherwise you’ll break all your inbound links, lose valuable link ‘juice’ and drop page rank.

There are loads of good 301 redirect tutorials online.

I heard a bloke in the supermarket queue humming the tune from WeBuyAnyCar.com‘s brilliant direct response TV advert yesterday. If I’d created it I’d be chuffed to bits. Why? because it’s obviously powerful enough to become an ‘earworm’.

What’s an earworm? It’s when you get a persistent, looping tune in your head that you can’t shift. You wake up singing it. It’s on your mind when you fall asleep. Blasted things. A recent Seasick Steve earworm almost drove me to tears.

Not only is WeBuyAnyCar‘s advert a creative masterpiece – boy, has that guy got some moves! It’s also a work of direct marketing genius. It drums the company name and site address into your head with the force and subtlety of a lump hammer. To the tune of relentless hard house. What a little beauty.

Will I forget the brand? No. Do I love the brand? Yes. What’s in my head right now? WeBuyAnyCar.com, WeBuyAnyCar.com, WeBuyAnyCar.com, WeBuyAnyCar.com… if I could drive I’d sell them my car on the spot, just to shut ‘em up!

The problem is, I can’t find a copy of the ad on site. Their latest advert’s up and running but not the one I’m talking about.

Hm. That’s a significant missed SEO opportunity because it means people like me can’t link to it. And links are desirable little beasts. Love it or hate it, the ad has generated loads of comment online. So it probably would’ve generated plentiful, potentially valuable backlinks too.

Never mind. Here’s the ad on the actor’s site instead. He’s called Mark Savin-Vernon. You’ll find it in the left hand red column. Well done Mark, have a link on me!

Some things need no explanation. Here’s a case in point.

Thanks to Fuzz One for  this excellent piece of infographics describing the SEO hierarchy of needs, discovered in their archives:

We switched to EON last year. I’ve been really impressed by their direct marketing in general – and their copywriting in particular. 

Their website is written beautifully in perfect plain english. Their tone of voice is full of personality. In fact everything they’ve sent so far, whether by email or snail mail, has been a triumph in rock solid customer communications.  What’s so good? Here’s the email they sent me a few weeks ago… short but very sweet. Well done EON! 

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