Dror Gliksman is an Internet dinosaur. Having established one of the first website development firms in Israel in 1996, he went on to become a high-tech VP and later established Tranzila, a widely-used solution for online transactions. Today, Dror is the co-founder and lead consultant at WebWhile. WebWhile's unique approach synthesizes a solid understanding of internet technology, online marketing tactics with good old down-to-earth business skills that bring results.

What trends do you see emerging in internet marketing? Are there any Israel-specific trends you see?

In the past several years, after almost a decade of stagnation, The Internet Marketing world is going through some rapid and significant changes. In fact we don't call ourselves "Internet Marketers" anymore but "online marketers". In late 2010 there was a controversial article on Wired magazine that stated the web is dead. While I think that the death statement is too harsh and premature, I tend to agree that the real action is happening on the layers that are on top of the web, namely the application layer and the social layer.

I work with companies around the globe but in Israel I find an open minded climate in many companies, especially tech companies, that are willing to embrace the change, be daring and experiment. This often pays off and gives them an edge in their market. Sometimes I feel we should put a giant Beta sign above the country, and this is not a political statement!

On the other hand, I still run into some organizations that think that if they build a website, their online marketing job is complete and they fail to budget and commit for real ongoing online activity. As a result, their marketing is simply stuck.
 

What are the common mistakes small business owners are making with regard to ecommerce?

Ecommerce is one area of marketing that is closer to science than art. There is very little room for guessing. Almost every aspect of ecommerce can and should be measured and constantly optimized. Some of the sharpest ventures and minds I've met in the industry are working day and night on the optimization of their offerings, prices, promotions and increasing conversion rates. Too many small and medium sized ecommerce businesses who need this process the most, fail to act methodically and sometimes fail to do it at all. Another issue to keep in mind is the backoffice and the smooth integration to fulfilment and the real world which are no less important.
 

What are the most affordable ways for small business owners to market themselves on the web? Why?

I think that the key issue here is about being responsive and timely. The way we manage web development, content and applications is evolving quickly. The SPEC is dying. These days, by the time you manage to write it down, it may likely already be too late. We saw this just recently with a company we met that wasted several months of precious marketing time only to see their Facebook app included as a feature in Google Plus. Marketers need to act in real time and small businesses are in a better position to be on time. I call this approach Agile marketing. For example, less than 30 hours after Google + on websites came out, a guy from Indonesia developed an open source plugin for it. The plugin was downloaded over 10,000 times the next day and that developer was hired for tons of paid followup work as a result. 3 hours later, we added the plugin to nonews.co.il, one of our sites, after some security checks, and got users attention and early adapter engagement while the brand enjoyed some brownie points. So my tip is use your small size as an advantage to quickly adapt.
 

How should businesses go about creating the most appropriate or relevant affiliate program (that will bring them the most traffic?)

The future of affiliate marketing is in the fog. Affiliates are collectively punished for the spammy practices of many affiliate marketers. For years affiliate marketers filled up the web with junk. Lead by Google and it's famous Panda algorithm changes, the search engines have made their attempt to be more relevant in the results they deliver and are engaging in an all out war against the spam practices. The result is that affiliate websites are tumbling to the bottom of search results. There is also a lot of collateral damage that hurt the visibility of good sites and this is quite problematic. The affiliate industry is in the process of reinventing itself and exploring new models for online channel marketing. But all in all, I'd have to say that this is not a good time to enter the traditional affiliate marketing business.
 

Tell us more about why you emphasize creativity as so essential to online business strategy?

When search engines today execute search, they are asking what is a good and relevant website. In essence they try to reverse engineer human likes and passions. Until they'll be able to actually physically scan our brains, they settle for examining a wide set of measurable parameters. Looking at parameters such as time spent on site, depth of visit, bounce rate and returning visits, they determine which sites human visitors prefer. This goes hand in hand with social media stickiness and circulation and the need for brands to stand out. The ultimate answer for this challenge is creativity -- the kind that makes people want to be on your website, come back to it, share it, like it, Tweet it, Plus it, link to it, etc.. Creativity must to have a place at the core of your online marketing strategy.
 

What are the common SEO myths that small business owners could end up following?

The most common SEO myths relate to Google Page Rank and back links. Many Internet marketers are still practicing the same black hat tactics of buying junk back links by the pound in order to see their page rank go up. While Page Rank was central to actual search results in the late 90's, times have changed and these old practices are very likely to hurt your rankings and search engine visibility. There was a story about this with the US department store - JC Penney, just a few months ago covered by the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. JC Penney got kicked off the search engine results for these types of practices. People also tend to forget that there is a search ecosystem beyond Google. The Facebook search algorithm is an interesting challenge. App discovery and YouTube placements are also hot topics.
 

www.webwhile.com - Internet Marketing, Ecommerce, SEO Israel