Jan Zimmerman - Web Marketing For Dummies

Web Marketing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

by Jan Zimmerman

Web Marketing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

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Copyright 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

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ISBN: 978-1-118-06516-7 (pbk); 978-1-118-05096-5 (ebk); 978-1-118-19939-8 (ebk); 978-1-118-19940-4 (ebk)

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About the Author

Jan Zimmerman has found marketing to be the most creative challenge of owning a business for the nearly 30 years she has spent as an entrepreneur. Since 1994, she has owned Sandia Consulting Group and Watermelon Mountain Web Marketing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ( Sandia is Spanish for watermelon. ) Her previous companies provided a range of services including video production, grant writing, and linguistic engineering R&D.

Jans web marketing clients at Watermelon Mountain are a living laboratory for experimenting with the best techniques for web success in site design, content development, social media, word-of-web marketing, search engine optimization, and offline integration.

Ranging from hospitality and tourism to retail stores, B2B suppliers, trade associations, and service companies, her clients have unique marketing needs but share similar business concerns and online challenges. Jans consulting practice keeps her aware of the real-world issues facing small-business owners and provides the basis for her pragmatic marketing advice.

Throughout her business career, Jan has been a prolific writer. In addition to writing two earlier editions of Web Marketing For Dummies, she co-authored Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies (John Wiley & Sons), wrote four editions of another book about marketing on the Internet, wrote Doing Business with Government Using EDI (John Wiley & Sons), and co-authored Mainstreaming Sustainable Architecture. Her concern about the impact of technological development on womens needs led to her book Once Upon the Future and the anthology The Technological Woman.

The writer of numerous articles and a frequent speaker on web marketing topics, Jan has long been fascinated by the intersection of business, technology, and human beings. In her spare time, she crews for the hot air balloon named Levity to get her feet off the ground and her head in the clouds. Jan can be reached at books@watermelonweb.com or www.watermelonweb.com .

Dedication

For Barbara and Donald and Susan and Marylyn, whose voices no longer sound in my ears but will always resound in my heart

Authors Acknowledgments

The idea of a writer, locked in a cell alone with her computer and literary agony, is a myth at least for nonfiction. This book could not have been written without the assistance of dedicated researchers who dug out the meaning of seemingly contradictory statistics, identified inspiring examples of businesses to cite as case studies, and found hundreds of online screen shots to illustrate exactly the points I want to make. I am truly grateful to the efforts of Diane Duncan Martin, Kira Luna, and Esmeralda Sanchez. Working on my truly crazy schedule, they checked thousands of links, reviewed sites for screen shots, unearthed intriguing facts, examined trends, and cleared copyrights. Their level of organization, attention to detail, and willingness to track down answers to my sometimes odd or vague questions made this book possible. Shawna Araiza, senior marketing associate at Watermelon Mountain Web Marketing, supplemented their efforts, drawing on her extensive knowledge of the Internet to suggest sites or ways to locate information and helping with Photoshop. I am particularly indebted to her for taking on client responsibilities and giving me the time to write not to mention her patience and computer assistance. As always, my family, friends, and cats earn extra hugs for their constant support and encouragement. Im lucky to have friends who accept that I cannot always be there for them. The garden and the cats, alas, are not so forgiving.

Special thanks to all my clients, who have taught me so much and have given me the opportunity to put into practice what I preach.