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The breadth and depth of the advice in Geno Prussakov’s book, Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day, is exceptional.

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Comments Off on Risks of Hiring Interns and Students

Over the past 15 years, I’ve often heard clients suggest that they intend to hire “interns” or “students” as temporary workers, and I’ve always offered warnings. The problem isn’t really hiring the interns or students, but instead assuming that they understand and respect “the rules.”

Students and other temporary workers “assign far more value to [their own] potential short-term earnings than to the merchant’s long-term reputation” (quoting myself).

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Comments Off on Beware: Focus Group & Survey Scams

I’ve never participated in a focus group, but recently I’ve seen a surge in ads (on Craigslist and other employment sites) promising $50, $100, or more to participate in a focus group. Unfortunately, most of these ads are scams.

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Comments Off on Warning: Automatic AdWords Switch to “Optimize for Conversions”

Beware: Google will automatically change AdWords accounts to “Optimize for Conversions” instead of “Optimize for Clicks,” which could create huge problems for clients who have not properly implemented conversion tracking within AdWords.

Google announced the plan on its “Inside Adwords” blog in December, and has recently begun displaying an alert within the AdWords account interface, noting that the change will happen this month (February). To avoid the automatic switch, complete this form before February 14.

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Comments Off on Attracting Facebook Fans with Giveaways

Here’s my early experience using “giveaways” (sweepstakes, free prize, drawing) to draw followers to the Facebook page for LessonIndex.com (which is a directory of lesson plan resources for K-12 teachers).

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Comments Off on Screen Resolutions & Web Design

I was surprised to notice today that the vast majority of visitors to LessonIndex.com (93.7%) have displays that are at least 1024 pixels wide. But that doesn’t mean that web pages should be designed with that width in mind!

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“Bounce rate” and “pages per visit” are two of the most prominent statistics displayed by the Google Analytics “Dashboard.”

Don’t let that confuse you: they’re not  often not relevant. Here’s why.

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Comments Off on Weird Characters after cut-and-paste

A teacher asked about “Weird letter characters appearing when viewing [her] product description online.”

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For the past month, I’ve been trying to find evidence of any benefits earned by states which have enacted an Advertising-Nexus Tax Law (“Amazon Tax”). Even after appealing for help from many sources, I’ve failed to identify any benefit. Except for New York, no states have collected any additional sales taxes due to these laws, which have reduced the states’ income-tax revenue and jobs.

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Facebook and other online communities are unintentionally suppressing opposing views and isolating us into “enclave discussions” instead of public exchanges. Here’s how.

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