Here are the most popular posts by page views as voted by you and our listings in Google since we launched the site in March 2010. Thanks to all our readers, writers, commenters and retweeters for creating, adding to and sharing our advice and alerts. All the best for you in navigating the Internet marketing maze in 2011!

1. Internet marketing strategy and planning template

Comfortably most popular was a detailed word document for developing or refining an Internet Marketing strategy. We also provided this RACE framework to help structure your plans with this content. We're hard at work developing more guides to release in 2011 to help with your Internet marketing planning. Download Digital marketing strategy and planning Word template

2. Online brand reputation or social media listening software - a comparison review of 36 tools in 7 categories

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Despite the proclamations that email marketing was dead in 2010,  the data and practice by marketers suggests that email marketing is alive and well and will continue to be a mainstay of customer communications in 2011. Given the continued importance of email marketing, as we go into 2011, I thought it would be useful to highlight some of the opportunities to make better use of email marketing based on my following of the trends and the email marketers, email consultants and agencies I spoke to in 2010.

5 success factors for your email marketing in 2011

1. Decide how email best creates value for you in 2011. One of the best posts giving advice here is by Loren McDonald - read his 8 implications for email marketing in 2011. For me his suggestions show how you must understand the value email marketing can create for your organisation. This starts…

Is Twitter the canary in the coal mine of customer relations?

Despite the buzz surrounding it, Twitter is not the fastest growing customer service option out there. It"€™s understandable if people have that impression but the numbers don"€™t appear to back it up. According to a recent post by Diane Clarkson of Forrester data show the number of online consumers to use Twitter for customer support to be under 1%. (Source: North American Technographics Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2009 and US Online Omnibus Q4 2010.) (more…)…

3 conversion rate calculators to help you work out the opportunities from your Internet marketing

I've always believed that one of the best ways to convince your colleagues or boss to invest in digital media is to help them see the "size of the prize" and where your missing out - what is the gap between potential and current "how much money are your leaving on the table?". Over the years I've created a lot of spreadsheet-based models to help with this, but this week I'm prompted to post on some alternatives since David Sealey who has recently written for us about conversion rate improvement let me know about a tool that his company is offering, so I'll start with that and then share a couple more with you.

1 Simple conversion rate calculator in Powerpoint

This calculator from David Sealey at Quba takes a conversion model right down to basics, so it's great…

Using Blog content to generate links and shares

My last two blog posts on this topic, an Introduction to link building & link building using forum marketing hopefully opened up new ideas for you and your business. This week I want to focus on using blog content to create opportunities for links. Using blog content to link build is one of the more unpredictable of link building techniques. There are two methods to using blog content to generate inbound links.

Benefits to link building using blog content

Establish thought leadership Create content & pages as well as opportunities to link build Every post has the opportunity to create links or social media shares and bookmarks which are also now part of the Google algorithm

Two methods to link building through blog content

The first method resides with your own onsite blog. The key…

Search Queries & Links to your website get updated!

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: With Christmas fast approaching and rumours of Google updates during Christmas, a distant memory its nice to receive some news that the free webmaster tool kit from Google is still receiving updates & new features. Last Friday (10th December 2010) Google announced two upgrades to its webmaster toolkit. The post we link to below on Google Webmaster Tools alerts you to an update to the Search Queries report which now has the ability to show which pages are displayed for certain search queries. The second update relates to the links to your site area of Google Webmaster Tools. This new facility displays the appropriate information when an inbound link is redirected to another page. Find out more about the updates here > Marketing implications: The two updates gift marketers with some great new…

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A manifesto for integrating email marketing with other channels based on marketplace trends

So, yes, it's the traditional time of year for posts offering perspective and prophecies on what you need to do to get through the next year successfully. Instead of listing predictions, I'm going to pull out some broader trends and suggest five ways that email marketers might account for them. And I hope you'll chip in with your own perspectives and suggestions in the comments. Digital marketing is characterized by the constancy of change. What's trendy today is typically trash tomorrow. But here are four developments I see continuing to influence (email) marketing in the coming months and years. Choice and control Competition Trust Expectations

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Our in-depth interview with Mike O'Brien on creating engaging digital creative

It's simple, quality creative engages. But creating quality creative is far from simple. Given its importance to successful campaigns I've been wanting to interview fellow trainer and consultant Mike O'Brien for several years to learn from his experience and share it. Mike is a lecturer and course tutor at the IDM and partner in marketing and creative strategy consultants Jam Partnership. You can connect with him via his blog. I asked Mike to include lots of campaign creative examples to inspire you which I've integrated. Don't miss the Mini Aveaword campaign for which I have dug out the original creative! Please share the digital creative that inspires you most. It's certainly an exciting aspect of digital as this quote by Mike shows: I think we have reached the point where creative platforms are no longer hindering the free-flow of ideas.…

The pinnacle event for traditional, broadcast advertising is going social, according to two of the major advertisers Mercedes Benz and Audi (of America). It's worth taking note as the Superbowl is famed for some pretty big campaigns the eventually go global - we'd have to assume there'll be some great, creative thinking. It's already appearing a competitive launch pad for new thinking, Mercedes Benz' VP of marketing, Stephen Cannon, is quoted in USA Today saying "We're using the 2011 Super Bowl as our head-long plunge into committing to social media "€¦it's our strategic leap of faith". That last comment is insightful? Mercedes are also claiming that in the next few years they plan to create cars targeting a much younger demographic, though intends to be much more social-media savvy long before that, Cannon says. Hmm - surely you create…