So, unsurprisingly, Jason Calacanis has once again inflamed some bloggers by stating that there’s no such thing as “A-list” bloggers: Give me a break… there is no A-List in blogging. Just people who’ve been blogging longer than others and who are smarter or better writers–or all of those things.
I think there are a lot of folks who think because they re-blog a couple of stories a day for a couple of weeks, and

Forget what your mother told you: start giving away the milk for free, and some people will still buy the cow. (If this were about video, I’d say, “Give the milk away, and make tons more money than you could from selling the milk by slapping some ads on the cow.” Anyway…) Everyone’s sweetheart, Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, is the featured case study for MarketingSherpa (free access until Wednesday, so hurry if you want to read it!). The study details how Linden Lab’s use of a hybrid “freemium” content model actually improved their paid subscription rate. Did you sign up for Second Life before September 2005? Way back then, a basic lifetime membership was $9.95. Premium memberships, which enable you to own land in the virtual world, started at $10/month. Linden experimented with their sign up procedure to see what would happen if they eliminated the $9.95 basic membership fee.

Surprise, surprise: mobile marketing is labeled “a non-starter” by Brady Gilchrist on iMedia Connection last week. I can’t disagree. For all the hype surrounding mobile marketing, there are few truly viable mobile marketing models. Brady cites the “SMS to win” and e-coupons models, but states “There is really nothing out there that has wowed consumers, just yet.”

But, he points out, there’s hope. Rather than being all doom-and-gloom about how mobile marketing has still failed to effectively materialize (like I am), Brady develops six different mobile advertising models, most of them based on future technology capabilities. His list:

MarketingSherpa’s boasting a case study on how to get famous with viral marketing in one year (available free for a limited time). The subject of the case study isn’t the type of company I think of when I think “viral marketing success”—Arbor Networks is an enterprise security software company

V7N’s Contextual Links offering received a lot of online coverage and comments, first here on Marketing Pilgrim, then at Search Engine Journal and Matt Cutts’s blog.
The debate may rage on over the “ethical” nature of paid links. A more important subtext to that debate is the overall effectiveness of link buying as a strategy to improve search engine rankings

In response to Matt McGee’s list of the four most underutilized pages on your site, Brian Geddes at eWhisper.net blogged today on what he thinks is the most underutilized page on your website: the “Thank you” page. Brian says of “Thank you” pages:
[D]o you give someone the ability to continue to interact with your site? Or are you saying ‘Thank you very much, now go away’? Don’t just lose that customer interaction, continue to engage them towards other aspects of your website or business.

Brian’s on to something here: once you’ve acquired a lead for your business, are you taking full advantage of their interest? Do you offer them more opportunities to find what they need from you or other things that might interest them?
MarketingSherpa’s blog this week suggests that you should definitely include offers on your “Thank you” page

[Editor’s note: With this article, we’re welcoming guest contributor, Gareth Davies of GSINC, to the Marketing Pilgrim team.]
How come some ECommerce websites flourish but many just drift along or even fail altogether?
Having worked with many websites that have grown to turnovers of £1m GBP (and more) we have been able to observe common traits that apply to almost all of them

As you know, I’ve been consulting with Gareth Davies of the UK search marketing firm GSINC Ltd. Gareth’s background not only includes search marketing and web development, but he’s also a whiz when it comes to video production.
Seeing an opportunity to bring web marketing lessons to the masses, Gareth has thrown out the notion that all advice must be delivered by means of a 800-1000 article and decided to expand on his recent video tutorials.
We asked Gareth to provide us with a sneak peak of his new ECommerce Rocks series, which you’ll find below

Although the new Marketing Pilgrim Job Board is only a few hours old - awww, look at him, he has his father’s eyes - I’m already digging into the referral stats.
One thing I’ve noticed - and had noticed before with this site - is that not all Google referrals equate to search engine traffic.
I use both web logs and Google analytics to keep track of my traffic, but GA is the one I use for drilling-down into data

Karri Flatla has given me a good topic for a future article in the business coaching series. She argues that B2B firms should publish their prices on their web site…
What is worse is that business owners will rationalize their choice to not list prices until they are blue in the face, claiming they want their visitors to shop value, not price

[The following is part of the continuing series of advice for marketing agencies. Andy Beal offers various business coaching services]
I know what you’re thinking. You’ve read the title of this article and you think Andy Beal must have lost his mind. How in the world can you increase the size of your marketing firm by actually saying “no” to a client? Isn’t that counter-productive, you’re asking? Surely you need to find ways to say “yes” to your clients, so you can get their business and grow your agency

The growth and adoption of web analytics applications over the last few years has made detailed conversion tracking a mission critical part of operating a successful e-commerce website. E-commerce merchants routinely track all aspects of each and every individual conversion. Tracking return on ad spend by channel is now just as crucial as understanding profit margins

Lifehack’s Chris Brogan shares six very useful tips for first-time bloggers - and a refresher for the rest of us - looking to improve their blog.
I won’t repeat all six here, but the first tip is usually the one I see most new bloggers guilty of failing to implement…
Display Contact Info Prominently- Put the author’s name right up there easy to read, and add a photo, an email written out to avoid spiders ( chris at lifehack dot org instead of actually clickable), and even a phone number, if you want people to reach you

I often get emailed by new bloggers, asking me to add their blog to my blogroll or link to a specific article. I typically avoid linking, just because I am asked, instead I tell the blogger that I’ll keep an eye on their blog and link to anything I find interesting.
Ok, with that preamble out of the way, here’s where I am going

I need your help. Actually, other Marketing Pilgrim readers need your help.
I’ve noticed more visitors leaving questions on posts that have long since retired to the archives. Not wanting to let them live out the rest of their lives in obscurity, I thought I’d test shining a spotlight on them.
So, I’m going to keep my eye on any interesting questions posted in our comments and highlight them in new posts.
Kicking-off this experiment comes a question from Demetrius…
Anyone have any tips on how to best use del.icio.us to help promote one’s websites? I have recently signed up, added a few friends, and am trying to add interesting, useful sites before I add my own (which I’ll do when I’m finished with my first set of tutorials)

Pay-per-click advertising can be very effective channel for increasing your brand’s reach but PPC branding campaigns are often cost prohibitive. Bidding to top positions for your industry’s core terms is an excellent way to expose your brand to new audiences but the “short term ROI be-damned” strategy is usually risky business