How to Turn a Thank You into Higher Sales, and More: Roger’s Picks

Here’s some of the interesting stuff we’ve gathered during the last 7 days… add your own find in a comment!

Have you ever arrived at a website and struggled to figure out what was going on, or what you were supposed to do? It can be hard to predict how visitors will react to your website, since you know what to do and it seems obvious. Pamela Wilson (@pamelaiwilson) of Copyblogger (@copyblogger) shows how to structure your pages to guide your visitors in How to Use Visual Hierarchy To Create Clear and Easy-to-Read Web Pages.

Google has dominated search advertising, and Facebook owns the social space. In Facebook and Google Own the Future of Advertising—in 2 Charts, writer Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) shows how these two behemoths may dominate advertising for years to come.

It must be “tech giants will rule the world” week… What Happens When Amazon and Google Start a Price War Over the Future of the Internet? Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) looks at another way to pair the heavy hitters of the web. Interesting that Google is the common link between this pair and the one mentioned above…

Experts have been warning us about Facebook for years. Can they be trusted? Is what you build there on solid ground, or will Facebook jerk the rug out from under you when they change what their users see? The Eat 24 (@eat24) blog published a hilarious but truthful rant, A Breakup Letter to Facebook. It’s hard to disagree with their frustration with Facebook. It gets to the bigger picture of relying on entities that don’t share a common business purpose with you – Google has made many fortunes for others, but has also made devastating changes to their algorithm and results display.

Julie Neidlinger (@JulieNeidlinger) asks, What Would A Content Marketing Degree Look Like? The headline sounds like a thought exercise in curriculum design, but the reality is a lot better. This post is a compendium of resources for both new and experienced content marketers, with lots of reading recommendations in each of the field’s underlying disciplines.

The four tools of effective customer communication are text, graphics, moving images and sounds. Designing Your Website Flow To Meet Your Conversion Needs by Marie Polli of Markitekt explains how to incorporate these elements with a focus on maximizing conversion.

My fellow Wiley author Brian Solis (@briansolis) talks about innovation in a two-part series at LinkedIn. His post How to Build a Culture of Innovation Pt. 2: The 12 Pillars of Innovation, may violate the Rule of Three four times over, but hits on the internal forces that can foster or prevent creative disruption. (This article is also a nice illustration of the power of LinkedIn as a platform for publishing content – check the views and shares!)

The “thank you” page is often an afterthought in the conversion process. All too often, it’s merely an acknowledgement that an order was successfully placed or that the visitor’s information was logged. Karon Thackston (@karonthackston) thinks it can do a whole lot more. In 7 Thank You Pages That Take Post-Conversion to the Next Level, she provides real-world examples of thank you pages that lead to additional sales, boost traffic, and have other direct benefits. (H/t to Jeffrey Eisenberg – @JeffreyGroks. Jeffrey’s tweets are worth following, he has an eye for great content.)

Weird and/or Wonderful

Have you ever been caught without a corkscrew when you really needed to open a bottle of wine?  Can you open a bottle of wine with a shoe? Yes, but it ain’t pretty by Michaeleen Doucleff  (@FoodieScience) looks at an unusual way to perform one of life’s most important tasks. Caution: your favorite sommelier won’t approve of this. Your dinner guests probably won’t be thrilled either, unless you’ve already emptied a few bottles and are looking for a conversation starter.

Remember, unlike one not-to-be-named marketing blog, comments are open here! Feel free to suggest your own “find of the week,” or comment on one of the items above!