Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Doctor Ebiz® (pronounced "Doctor EE-biz") identifies Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, one of the pioneers of Internet marketing and e-business. He is widely recognized as one of the top international authorities in web marketing and ecommerce. From 1995 to 2012 he served as editor of Web Marketing Today, which Practical Ecommerce acquired.
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Social Media
The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing
May 5, 2018 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.
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Design & Development
How to Generate Phone Calls from PPC Ads
May 10, 2012 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
In this interview, Internet marketing expert Joseph Kerschbaum explains how phone ads work, that display phone numbers -- and allow customers to click to call — in a PPC ad.
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Conversion
Dr. Ralph Wilson Announces Sale of Web Marketing Today
April 23, 2012 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, creator and long-time editor of industry-leading e-zine Web Marketing Today, today announced the sale of this historical website and newsletter, effective May 1, 2012, to e-commerce publishers Kerry and Joy Murdock of Practical eCommerce.
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Marketing & Advertising
8 Steps to Developing Ad Revenue from Your Website
November 1, 2011 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
There are three primary ways to monetize (that is, generate revenue from) a website. Ecommerce . Receive profits from direct sales of products or services.Affiliate marketing. Receive referral fees from merchants when a product or service you linked to results in a sale as a result of your link.
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Design & Development
12 Website Design Decisions Your Business or Organization Will Need to Make
February 19, 2011 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
You may be on your first website. But more likely you're faced with redesigning a website that isn't functioning as well as it should. I see 12 vital decisions involved with developing a website, and I want to explain them with you in mind:
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Conversion
Spam, Spam Bots, and Double Opt-in E-mail Lists
April 21, 2010 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
It's hard to grow an e-mail list these days. People, wary of getting tons of unwanted e-mail, just don't subscribe as freely as they did in days of yore. And then there are evil spam-bots.
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Conversion
Using Banner Ads to Promote Your Website
March 31, 2009 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
We are in a period when banner advertising seems to be on the wane. You know, those rectangular boxes on commercial sites.
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Conversion
How to Select a Great Domain Name for Your Company
February 17, 2009 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
A good domain name is relatively short. A short name -- if you can get it -- is important for several reasons. It is easy to fit into logos, makes a better brand, is more easily recognizable, and is harder to misspell.
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Conversion
An Analytics Consulting Model for Small Businesses
May 28, 2007 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Nearly all small businesses have a measurement system in place for their website (though too many aren't aware of the analytics data available from their web hosting service for no additional cost).
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Conversion
Why the Fishing Lure Won’t Reel in Much Online Profit
January 16, 2007 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
"I invented and patented a fishing lure (the "Bottom Banger") about five years ago. I have tried to sell it online, but every time I try I fail. I have a video showing the lure in action and I do sell them in the local bait shops for $1.99. Can you steer me in a direction that will make this take off?" -- Greg Amsler
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Design & Development
Should you consider a .ws domain?
October 4, 2006 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
"Exploding" is marketer's hype, perhaps to press full advantage out of GDI's multi-tier affiliate marketing structure (5 levels), "with the potential to earn commissions on unlimited levels as a GDI Master Affiliate."
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Platforms & Apps
How Does Shopping Cart Software Work?
January 15, 2004 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Just what is a shopping cart? It's a term that has come to mean either an online ordering system (separate from your regular website). Usually these supply HTML code for "order buttons" that you can paste into pages on your regular website.
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Email Marketing
Words and Phrases that Trigger Some Spam Filters
December 3, 2002 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
I built this list of some 250 words and phrases from two spam filter lists. It is not complete. I have left out porn trigger words. Most spam filters work on a point system, so that the occurrence of just one "spam phrase" probably won't trigger rejection -- except some which the filter considers notorious.
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Code
HTML E-Mail: Text Font Readability Study
March 1, 2001 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
In February 2001 my Doctor Ebiz readers patiently answered survey after survey to help me determine what they considered the most readable fonts and sizes for HTML e-mail. While this may come as no surprise to you, it is causing me to change my standards.
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Local Business
Crucial Differences between Retailing and E-Tailing
December 15, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
The retail business model that is practiced in thousands of shops and strip malls in cities all over the world is widely understood. However, many fail to understand that the Internet e-tail business model is substantially different. Some of these differences are obvious, while others only become clear later.
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Conversion
How to Purchase Banner Ad Space
July 1, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Just how do you go about purchasing banner advertising space? Here are your alternatives.
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Marketing & Advertising
The Eight Essential Types of Internet Promotion
June 12, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Sometimes your head can be so abuzz with all these Internet marketing details that you feel overwhelmed. You don't know where to start. You can't see the forest for the trees. While there is a lot of depth to be understood, I think that Internet promotion can be distilled down to eight essential types.
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Conversion
Distribution Decisions: Drop-Shipping vs. Inventory vs. Fulfillment House
June 3, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
"Internet product sales are easy," said Bob Simple, when he first set up Bob Simple's Online Shoes. Now he's not so sure. He had found three quality shoe manufacturers who agreed to ship shoes to his customers as soon as he faxed them the order."
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Conversion
How Retail Differs from Wholesale and B2C Differs from B2B
June 3, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
When it comes to e-commerce, sometimes our normal terms become inadequate. Here are some definitions: retail, wholesale, business-to-business, and business-to-consumer.
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Conversion
P4: Pricing Strategy as Part of Your Internet Marketing Plan
May 9, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
When you go down to your local grocery store, you'll probably find Jif® peanut butter, and maybe Planter's®, and then perhaps a store brand, and possibly a generic brand (though generics are pretty well gone).
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Conversion
The 4 Ps of Marketing as Part of Your Internet Marketing Plan
May 2, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
If you've studied marketing in the 40+ years since E. Jerome McCarthy originally wrote his classic Basic Marketing, then you're familiar with the "4 Ps of Marketing."
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Design & Development
Setting Newsletter Ad Rates
March 15, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
"How much should I charge for ads in my e-mail newsletter, especially a narrowly-targeted newsletter where it's pretty obvious who the interested advertisers would be." -- Charlie Darling
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Conversion
Doing a SWOT Analysis for Your Internet Marketing Plan
March 14, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Restaurants ought to make bigger napkins since some of the most productive business ideas seem to come to mind over a meal. The SWOT analysis technique lends itself to napkin planning and snapshot insights.
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Email Marketing
A Simple Way to Format HTML E-Mail Newsletters
January 1, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
I hesitate to provide a guide to formatting HTML e-mail for one reason: there's little else about this on the Web, and the article is likely to produce a torrent of phone calls and e-mail inquiring about further details.
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Conversion
Dot.Com Countdown: 7 Steps to E-Business Launch
December 13, 1999 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Planning to start a new online business? I'm in the process myself, and thought it might be instructive to talk you through the seven steps necessary to launch an e-business. Since we're talking about a launch, we'll begin our countdown with step seven and end with the blast off.
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Conversion
Review: Why We Buy – The Science of Shopping
November 15, 1999 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
The man is studying a narrow segment of modern anthropology, the science of shopping. The fieldwork methods are adapted from those of environmental psychology, Underhill's field when he began studying shopper behaviors 20 years ago for major retail chains.
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Influencers & Affiliates
How Does an Affiliate Program Work?
October 1, 1999 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Web Marketing Today. Practical Ecommerce acquired Web Marketing Today in 2012. In 2016, we merged the two sites, leaving Practical Ecommerce as ...
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Analytics & Data
Collecting and Using Data from Your Website Visitors
July 1, 1998 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
To succeed, a small business website must be a carefully targeted, wisely designed, pay-its-own-way tool which adds to the bottom line. To achieve this you need to ask: What is the purpose of our Web site?
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Conversion
What Is the Purpose of Your Web Site?
February 8, 1996 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
To succeed, a small business website must be a carefully targeted, wisely designed, pay-its-own-way tool which adds to the bottom line. To achieve this you need to ask: What is the purpose of our Web site?
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Conversion
How to Attract Visitors to Your Website
May 14, 1995 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Too many marketers work on the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model. They won't. Once you build a Web site you must give them a reason to come. A Web site is a passive form of marketing: providing a signboard which points visitors to your products and services.
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