Create Buttons for Your Website without Images

I’ve been trying to learn CSS because I truly believe that every modern marketer should be proficient in HTML and CSS to do their job well. It’s a *pita* to have to ask a developer (in this case my husband) every time I want to make a change to my website. While I’ve gotten along pretty well with my HTML skills, I’ve yet to fully master CSS (I can hack it a little, but I don’t know the core as well as I should). 

I needed to make a button for my website and I didn’t want to call our graphics guy. My husband showed me how to do it in CSS and…voila - just 15 lines of code and it works without any images needed.

Here’s the code:

And here’s what it looks like:


It only works with a plain color as the background, so if you want a gradient you’ll have to use an image. It’s easy to customize, but I’ve also left some elements out so it will pick up the style of my website. For advanced customization you might want to define the font-family, hover effects, etc.

  • a.erinbutton - name the css class anything you like
  • background-color - set the hexadecimal code, in this case pink
  • border - remove the line altogether or set a solid border
  • border-radius - this is for creating the rounded corner effect
  • padding - give the button a little room to breather around the text
  • color - color of the font, in this case white
  • font-size - how big do you want the text
  • text-decoration - turns off the automatic underlining of the text since it’s a hyperlink
  • div style - used to change the alignment of the button (i.e. if you wanted it centered on the page use text-align:center
  • class - reference the css class outlined above, in this case I’m creating the CSS within the page instead of a separate style sheet in case you don’t have access to the CSS
  • href - where should the button send you when clicked
  • Google Erin Colbert - text for the button to display, “sign up” or “click this” work too

Data-Driven Marketing - Are You Doing It?

Everyone is trying to ride the inbound marketing wave, yet so many marketers still overlook the facts when making decisions. I can’t tell you how many marketers I find completely ignoring the data and continuing down the old path.

Learning analytics isn’t rocket science, most of us (I’d like to think) are smart people who want to make the right decisions for our companies. Here are some tell tale signs you’re not doing data-driven marketing.

  • You’re running a paid search campaign that is driving traffic to your site but producing no leads, or the lead CPA is so high that you couldn’t realistically sustain your business but you continue running the campaigns anyway.
  • You’re commenting on industry blogs and forums without tracking the traffic or leads that result.
  • Congrats! You launched a blog but you never check to see how many inbound links your blog has achieved or how many long-tail keywords you’re now ranking for.
  • You work to optimize your website for a set of just 10 keywords.
  • You have no clue why your competitors are out ranking you on all your favorite keywords.
  • You only build 1 landing page for each new marketing campaign. 

What will it take before marketers turn to data-driven marketing? Unfortunately, in these desperate times I think the answer is (1) humiliation because your competitors continue out perform you, (2) you cause your company to lose money or market share, or (3) you lose your job.

There are plenty of great free resources online so don’t fall victim to the trap of old school marketing. Everything is trackable, measurable, and actionable!

* Photo - Data Overload
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateusdelbianco

Thank You For Your Comments !?!

I was pretty behind on my RSS reading so when I woke up at 7:30am today (yes, on a Saturday), I opened my Google Reader and found over 700 new articles. Slowly I made it through them and actually found some really great articles I was inspired to comment on. I wrote out these very nice comments and then got this staggering message:

Thank you for your comment. It will appear after the moderator approves it.

Thank you for my comment!?! I just spent 10 minutes out of my busy day to write a thoughtful and intelligent comment on your blog and contribute to your community and you won’t even post my comment!

Well, I’m an internet marketer and I know how this goes. Companies are afraid that people will leave negative comments about them. Personally, I say get over yourself. If your company isn’t strong enough to take the criticism or maintain transparency then you shouldn’t be blogging. That’s what blogging is about - stimulating conversations with your community. It’s not much of a community if the conversation is only one-sided.

Questions Every Online Marketing Plan Must Answer

I am surprised at how many companies I work with don’t actually have an online marketing plan. If you’re new to internet marketing or even an old hat, there are a few questions that every marketing plan should answer.

  • Where does my web traffic come from?
  • How much of my web traffic is converting into leads?
  • How much of my web traffic is converting into customers?
  • What keywords are used to find my website?
  • How much of my web traffic from search engines is brand related? for employees at my company? for information queries?
  • What keywords & how many keywords do I rank for in Google?
  • What keywords do my competitors rank for?
  • How many links do I have and are they high authority links?
  • How do I stack up against my competitors online? (links, traffic, thought leadership)
  • What topics are being discussed in my industry and how well has my company established thought leadership for those topics?

Once you’ve answered these basic questions then you can start to strategize about how you’re going to drive more traffic and qualified leads to your website. Until you have these answers, you’re just running blind. The thing I love most about online marketing is that it’s measurable - you can always find a metric to help you gauge your performance.

Sure Fire Way to Lose Potential Customers

Using HubSpot’s software I help companies set up lead tracking on their websites so they can see their entire sales funnel — who is coming to their website, where are they coming from, and tracking the conversion rates to leads and customers. When reviewing their web forms to track leads, many ask if they can filter out all of their competitors and non-corporate email accounts like Gmail, Yahoo, Mac, and Hotmail from accessing the content.

My concern is that setting up all this special filtering and restricting so many users from receiving certain offers (a whitepaper download, access to attend a webinar, or launch a free trial of software) is preventing qualified leads from moving forward in the funnel. 

The best case scenario is that you’ve made it harder for your competitors to access your content. But, the reality is, if they really want it they’ll just go sign up for an email address you didn’t block or ask their friend to download it from their account.

Worst case scenario is that you’ve now lost a potential customer because they didn’t want to use their corporate email. 

My advice, spend more time creating remarkable content and a world wide rave rather than trying to keep everyone away from it.

Top 10 PPC Mistakes to Avoid

I was asked to write an article for Find & Convert’s newsletter and it just came out today. Not only do I work with clients who want help running their paid search campaigns, but my friends also ask me for advice too. Almost every time I open up their AdWords account I see the same thing…they haven’t covered the basics! Here is my top 10 list of mistakes people make when running their own paid search campaigns. You can read the full article online.

   1. No landing pages
   2. No conversion tracking
   3. All broad match keywords
   4. Too many keywords in each ad group
   5. Poor quality scores
   6. Only running one ad
   7. Running the same keywords in multiple ad groups
   8. No content network placements
   9. Worldwide geographic targeting
  10. Not pausing under-performing keywords

Can You Outsource Internet Marketing?


I work with a number of clients who say they just don’t have time to work on their website and marketing. They ask me if I can manage their site and search engine optimization (SEO) or if I know of someone who can do it for them. Usually, they throw out some sporadic terms (seo, sem, ppc, etc) that tells me they don’t really know exactly what they want to do, but they know they need to start getting more leads and sales through their website.

To me it seems pretty obvious that you’d want to get as much free traffic to your website as possible so focusing on organic search first is a priority. They usually agree but then I tell them the basics on how to get found - create great content and build more online connections. Yes, I mean adding new pages to your website, starting a blog, joining social media sites, commenting on other industry blogs. Who knows your business best? It’s surely not me!

So, my advice to all of you small business owners looking to outsource your internet marketing. Take some time and do your homework. Think creatively about your business and start to innovate. There are some great resources to help you out. Then, if you still need help with specific tasks (which we all do from time to time) hire an intern, coordinator, or consultant to pick up the slack.