How to Make Your Website Fail
By Matthew Henage | January 2, 2009
10. You Hired Your Nephew
So he is a electronic wiz. He plays video games, accumulates 2,000 texts on his phone a month, knows how to use the remote for your entertainment system plus took a website class in high school. You’ve heard that he has created a website or two and see an opportunity to save a few bucks. Sure, you can hire him for dirt cheap, but that’s about what you’ll end up with for your website. A few hundred dollars later, you find that the website he created has done more damage than good. You find yourself taking your URL off your business cards, stationary and email signatures. Worst of all you’re missing out on potential customers and profits.
9. You Outsourced Your Work to a Near-Third-World-Country
Isn’t it just so tempting to hire a programmer or designer outside of the country? I once failed to listen to the advice of other professionals on a personal project of mine and paid dearly for it. If you think communication is important in business, be ready to try doing business with a major disadvantage if you choose to do a website this way. If you are lucky to find someone that does speak enough English so you can understand each other, be ready to make a lot of phone calls at midnight to carry on this communication. And finally, you’ll learn like I have and many of my colleagues that you’ll be promised professionalism and competency and receive neither. The many stories I have heard, mine included, these business arrangements typically end in legal threats and unsatisfactory or unfinished work.
8. You Downloaded a Web Template and Tried to do it Yourself.
By every right you are the leading expert of your business. You figure, “why spend money when I am the best qualified to present the business to my clients?” So you find a neat looking template and try to build the site yourself. In all honesty, there is truth behind the premise, but your execution was your failure. A good designer will know how to leverage you as the expert of your business in creating an effective design. Websites just seem so simple, but there are entire degrees in college, volumes of books and other reading materials, plus years of application that are needed to make something so simple to be so effective. Look at the ingenuity of Apple Computers, there is a reason why so few people have been able to match their prowess of simple design.
7. Your Website is Outdated
If your website looks junky, how do you think your visitors think about your products, services or business. Invest in your business image, or you’ll see that you’ll fail fast.
6. You Created a Splash Page
It is starting to become rare to see these pages, for good reason. Visitors appall them, have better respect for you visitors and you’ll see more of them stick around.
5. You Can Count the Number of Pages on Your Site with One Finger.
Limiting the content on your site is a very ignorant maneuver. There are so many opportunities your website can take advantage of, but without content virtually none of it is possible. Content is king, build it and they will come.
4. Your Site is Boring
If your site can’t create interest in your product or services, your website will lose to the competition. Focus your attention on benefits, not features. Create page titles that make your audience want to learn more. Show how the application of your product or service will change your audiences’ lives in some positive way. Design some sort of mystery that needs investigating on your site. Build your customers interest or fail.
3. You thought a Web Designer Was Enough.
If you forgot to appropriate sufficient funds to get visitors to your website, your website does no good for you. Not only do you need a website to succeed, but you need visitors as well, and just by building a website will not bring anyone to it. Without traffic, you will fail.
2. Your Website is Too Generic
This is why web templates can be a very dumb move. If your web design and content are generic and bland, you aren’t portraying a well conceived and implemented brand image. Branding is about determining your companies persona. A well branded website builds trust with your visitors and shows competitive advantage. In short, differentiate yourself from your competitors or fail.
1. You Didn’t Monetize Your Site
Sometimes people get so caught up in making a website that they forget the whole reason why they made it in the first place. If you didn’t make your website obvious and easy for your visitors to make profitable actions, you’ve made it that much harder for your website to succeed. Before any design and development, you must first make a plan of how and what your website needs so your website is productive and successful. When your visitors come to your site, it should be designed in such a way that promotes your visitors to specific and measurable action. Every aspect of your site should be helping to accomplish your predetermined objectives, because without keeping this end goal in mind your visitors won’t fulfill those desired objectives.
Topics: Advertising | No Comments »
All Kinds of Content on the Internet: Are You Embracing Them All?
By Zachariah Scott | January 1, 2009
Not so long ago, using the internet was purely a text based experience. Audio and video was available, but less than a decade ago (year 2000-2002) it was nearly non existent. Type a search into Google, and you’ll see how sites such as iTunes and YouTube dominate the search results, showing how many types of communication medium now exists online. However, it’s not all about video, sounds and writing ” many other ways are available to use, helping you reach your target audience.
Here are some ideas for using content to reach your market:
Articles: Post articles to your website and distribute them to other publishers.
2.) Blogging: Add your own to your website, and post to others as a guest.
Checklists: Produce your own checklist or flowcharts to teach others your methods ” give them as a free download.
4.) Special Reports: Write a short, no-fluff report about your target niche.
Workbooks: Add a practical workbook to compliment your content, so your readers can take action on the information you provide.
6.) Podcasts: Publish to well known podcast directories to become well known as an expert in your niche.
7.) Webinars: Conduct monthly ‘call in’ interactive shows that offer top end knowledge and expert interviews.
Screen Capture Recording: Use software to capture your techniques in video, so watchers get an over the shoulder view.
Personal Video: Converse with the camera and your target audience. Talk about your successes and and offer how-to information.
Although the mediums of information easily consumed on the Internet have changed, the use of the Internet as an information source has remained throughout the years and will continue long into future. Grab your prospects attention by answering their questions, helping them solve their problems and even keep them entertained with your high quality content.
Topics: Article Marketing | No Comments »
Are Your Local Customers Finding You Online Too?
By David B. Ascot | December 17, 2008
Do customers really use the internet when they are looking for local providers of products and services? The answer is yes. Lots of my clients have started using local internet marketing and it’s doing great things for their businesses. However, there are many local businesses who still have not begun to use local internet marketing, I would advise them to do so and quickly. Local internet marketing is effective and offers a great ROI. Here’s just two reasons why:
1. Ability to target customers at the point of purchase: Like the Yellow Pages, people search on the Internet when they have a need for your products or services. This allows you to target the specific individuals who are most likely to become your customers. Most “offline” marketing methods such as newspaper ads or leaflet drops are not targeted. Not being able to target your potential audience adds greatly to your costs.
2. Poor competition: Numerous local businesses advertise offline in venues like the Yellow Pages, but have not built an online presence for themselves. The Yellow Pages is one way to get noticed, certainly, but there you are surrounded by your competitor’s advertisements. There is a lot less competition online, which means more sales and a better marketing ROI for you.
Local internet marketing is not really all that complicated. Just as with any sort of online business, your website should be focused on making sales and follow sound marketing principles. However, the most important thing is to generate the targeted traffic which will get your business increased sales. The best target market for a local business is of course, the people in your immediate vicinity.
Here are my top 5 strategies for generating targeted local traffic. Some of these strategies will be more effective than others. My advice is to test and see which ones work for you.
Strategy #1: Google Adwords
Google Adwords is the bread-and-butter traffic generation technique of local Internet search. It’s easy to set up, highly targeted and cheap. Here are a few guidelines for building effective local campaigns.
1. Compile lists of keywords including your targeted geographical area.
2. Devise ads that mention your locality.
3. Set up conversion tracking
4. Test different ads against each other
5. Test some generic search phrases too
Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization for Targeted Local Search Phrases
1. Target your search phrase carefully
The most important thing to realise when implementing SEO is to understand that you can’t appeal to the entire world at once. Focus on one keyword or key phrase; this will maximise your chances of getting a high page ranking for this keyword or phrase. Focus is everything here.
A good way to choose which phrase to go for is to look at the conversion stats from your Google Adwords. Find a phrase that gives you a reasonable volume of searches and conversions, then target that phrase for natural (unpaid) search engine results. Or you can use this default formula, which we have found to be successful in most situations:
[your location] + [your industry name]
2. Put your key search phrase in your homepage title tags.
Your title tags include the text which appears in the top blue bar of your web browser. Search engines also look at these tags when ranking websites. Your title tags should be short and focused.
3. Build some backlinks.
Links to your site from other websites is another factor in deciding page rankings; these links tell search engines that your site is popular.
Here are some simple guidelines for building backlinks to your website:
List your site in as many online directories as possible. Trade or exchange links with other websites Write articles about your area of expertise and link them back to your website Start a blog, and link it back to your website Buy links through link-buying services such as www.text-link-ads.com. Ask friends or associates who have websites to link to you.
IMPORTANT: If possible, you want the text of incoming links to contain the keywords for which you want to rank well.
4. Use your keywords in your website content
This is not always so simple, but you can increase your page ranking by incorporating your keywords into your website’s content. Don’t overdo it, use your keywords in as natural of a manner as possible. Try using them in the headings and first paragraph, then throughout the text as it makes sense.
Strategy #3: Other Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
If your campaigns are working well in Google Adwords, try other PPC [Pay Per Click] search engines such as Overture and Sensis [Australia]. In my tests to date, these services haven’t produced the ROI that Adwords does, but they can nevertheless add value.
Strategy #4: Yellow Pages Online
This may or may not be the case for you if you are outside of Australia, but in my experience, the Online Yellow Pages provides a significantly better ROI than the print version; as much as ten times better in some cases! However, this may not be the best choice for every business. If your client/value ratio is high ($500 or more), then you may want to try Yellow Pages online. While it won’t get as many leads as some of these other techniques, it generally gives a positive ROI.
Strategy #5: Integrate your offline marketing promotions
Obviously, you should always include the website address of your business in your print ads and marketing materials. This by itself will not generally net you a lot of leads, but making your website the focus of some of your offline marketing efforts can. Try offering a freebie like a whitepaper or report to visitors in your print ads or direct mail campaigns.
Topics: Lead Generation | No Comments »
Advertise Your Business Worldwide With Articles
By Rob Metras | December 12, 2008
You know that you have expertise in your field, and that expertise should be drawing in customers. But how can you convince people of your expertise? For some consumers, ads touting the virtues of your company will suffice. Other consumers need more convincing. Writing informational articles is a great way to reach these consumers.
A well-written and well-researched document that discusses your business and its products speaks to a different demographic of consumers than most ads do. Consumers who prefer to do their own research and become knowledgeable on a topic before making purchases will respond well to this form of advertising.
Keep the audience you are trying to reach in mind while youare writing. Instead of making the article seem like propaganda with obvious advertisement, include the raw facts about the topic. Sharper consumers will catch on to this and appreciate it. Articles of this caliber make the consumer feel like they are thoroughly informed meaning they are more likely to make a selection.
Once you have your text written, there are a host of sites that act as repositories for written documents. Although such sites will accept documents from anyone, they do often have rules that must be followed before listing a document.
First, make sure you read all the directions. Look in particular for restrictions on length and formatting. Find out if the site allows links or whether they need pain text only. With a few small changes, you should be able to use the same document on several different sites for maximum exposure.
A great substitute for writing your own article is possibly hiring an internet marketing company to perform this daunting task for you. Companies of this kind can easily produce well written documents that are within the regulations of any web site.
An internet marketing affiliate program is the perfect way to even further expand the reach of your article and in turn make more money. What this program does is allow you to place links to your article onto othersa websites for a set fee. This helps to direct even more traffic to your article.
Despites the fact that publishing articles as a marketing strategy is relatively new, several companies have already seen much success. Not only have they seen it locally, but theyave had success worldwide as well. Just follow the simple principles that we have given you and youall be on your way to increased cash flow in no time!
Topics: Article Marketing | No Comments »
Have Your Expertise Revealed With Article Marketing
By Rob Metras | December 11, 2008
Writing articles that give explicit information which highlights your expertise can make you highly visible to internet marketing search engines. You must learn to craft an informational article that makes people perceive you as the dominant expert in the field and makes them want to use your product or service or at least find out more about it so they will look for your other marketing articles. The following examples will explain the concept in more detail.
Your marketing articles should be informative, specific and give people a call to actioniiaafter all that is why you wrote them isnat it? You can offer them a free report of ask them to call for more information. This is an especially effective tactic to use with a toll free call capture system.
Keep in mind that advertising also takes place in the real world, not just online. Since your most in depth advertising will be online, simply refer everyone to the website or location of an online article rather than shoving it down there throats when they really donat have the time.
When you write an article let your expertise shine through. Give the reader important information that they want to hear about the product. Use the internet market to your advantage and give readers an expertas insight on a product. At the end of the article give them your information so they can contact you about further questions they may have.
Once youave made up an advertising campaign with the use of online articles, you will need to attract as much traffic as possible. An easy way to do this is to use keywords that related directly to your business. This way, when people use popular search engines, your products and articles will come up on their search results.
You might consider the use of an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) service. You could include links to other websites related to the subject of your article. At least one of the links could go directly to another website you own containing more information about a topic contained in the original marketing article.
It is very important that you carefully define the niche you want to dominate in such a way that it really separates you from others. Real estate is a good example of extensive niche marketing. There are even niches within a niche. There are recreation and second home properties which are often further broken down into beachfront homes, beachfront condos, golf properties, mountain properties, ski properties, lakeside properties, horse properties and even properties for automobile collectors. If you have the knowledge and market it properly using the power of internet marketing online advertising you can own your niche.
So, remember the basics of the internet article marketing process. Work in an area that you know well, allow your products to be found easily through a network of articles and links, stay within your niche, and consider using outside services such as SEOas to improve your visibility.
Topics: Article Marketing | No Comments »
Direct Marketing - Personalized Targeting
By Gary Pearson | December 10, 2008
It is really amazing how effective direct mail marketing still is in the age of technology. Even if your customers are halfway across the globe a direct mail campaign can show them that you still care enough to think of them when it comes to your product.
The great thing about direct marketing is that you can specifically focus on the potential customers that are most likely to be interested in your product. Instead of a hit and miss approach you can personalize your campaign to get better results.
You can optimize to get results and then you will know how much or little your approach has worked. Another thing is your direct marketing can be flexible and relay many topics of products or services. You can accumulate all your data from responses to use for future marketing endeavors.
The disadvantage to direct marketing campaigns is that if they are badly done they can actually make people avoid your product or service instead of buying it. Your marketing message must be clear, concise and widely acceptable or you might get a backlash. There is also a higher per person cost associated with direct marketing when compared to other advertising types.
If you don’t take the time to develop a good marketing campaign, then it will hurt you more than help. The biggest disadvantage is a poor image, especially when using direct mail marketing. This is why you need to plan your marketing techniques and refine them if need be. It will only benefit you in the long run if you do this now instead of spending money on something less than perfect.
Topics: Search Engine Marketing | No Comments »
Steer Clear Of Common Small Business Advertising Mistakes
By David B. Ascot | December 8, 2008
As a copywriter, clients often ask for my advice on how to improve the results they get from their advertising. I’ll talk today about the common mistakes small businesses make when it comes to advertising and help you get a better return on your advertising investment.
Layout
Many small business ads look like a shopping list, this is the biggest mistake to avoid.
They’ll put the company name at the top instead of an attention getting headline and follow with dry copy which simply does not hold the reader’s interest. No compelling reason is given to follow up; and the ad concludes with a phone number and address.
These ads are ineffective; they don’t get prospective customers to care about your company. Your reader wants to know one thing: what’s in it for him or her.
This is a much more effective ad layout:
You have to lead in with a compelling, attention getting headline. Keep it simple, just state the biggest benefit of using your service or product.
Coupon or contact number at bottom right (called the “anchor point” of the ad).
Company name and address should go in the bottom left corner. You want to use your adspace to make the case for your business. Once you convince the reader, they’ll find your address.
If you are using photos or illustrations, place headlines underneath them to keep your reader’s eyes moving down the page. Make your headlines and photos part of a narrative.
It’s a good idea to outline the benefits of your product or service with bullet points. Long copy is great, but it’s a lot harder to write.
How are your ads structured? Do they look like a list, or do they tell a story and give a call to action? If your ads read like a list, then you’ll see better results by changing things up.
Failing to Test and Track Ad Response
Why should you test and track different ads? Because one ad, sales letter or web page may sell 2, 3 even 21 TIMES more than an alternative for exactly the same product or service. You need to know what’s working and what isn’t so you can cut the losers and optimise the winners.
How to Track Advertising Response
It’s easy to track your advertising, you can just ask people who call how they heard about your business. If you are publishing many different ads, you can get more complex with your tracking using one or more of these techniques.
Coded coupons in your ads Different coloured reply-paid postcards Different department numbers Asking your callers to mention an offer or ask for someone by name etc.
Online advertising makes things even easier. There are plenty of ad tracking tools which you can use.
Not long ago, a client tracked their advertising for the first time and found that the expensive newspaper ads they were running were bringing them a negligible response. However, their very inexpensive flyers were getting a huge response. They dropped the newspaper ads and managed to get a much higher return for their marketing dollars.
What To Test
You should test these things in your ads:
Headlines, Offers, Body Copy, Guarantee and Price
Headlines are the most important part to test, work on these first. If you find an approach that gets results, keep at it until you find an even better tactic. This is the approach which can maximise your marketing ROI.
Simply making your ads sell harder can boost your business massively, start by testing and tracking your ads, and consider hiring a good copywriter, a small investment in professionally written copy will makes your advertising dollars work much harder.
Not Making The Most of a Powerful Guarantee
A lot of small businesses fail to offer a strong guarantee in their ads. You need to do this, since a guarantee can increase your response rates by 50% and up.
Gurantees work because they remove the risk of purchase from your customer, making it easier for them to buy. When you guarantee your product or service, you’re showing confidence that it will produce the result you claim, customers respond to that.
Here are a few tips for successfully incorporating your guarantee into your ads:
1. Your guarantee needs to make specific promises as to results.
Avoid boilerplate like “satisfaction guaranteed”. Use more distinctive copy like:
“If you don’t love our product, we’ll pay you to go to our competitors”
” 50% increase in traffic to your site in 60 days or your money back”
“Send $35 to [Your Business Name and Address] and if you’re not happy with us, we’ll refund you $40.”
2. Test Your Guarantee
In my work as a small business marketing consultant and copywriter, I often work with clients to develop a powerful guarantee. Sometimes the business owners are hesitant, what will happen if customers try to take advantage of a money-back offer? The simple answer to this is to test. Test small at first (one ad with the guarantee, versus one ad without). Keep track of the difference in sales results and any returns or refund requests. If it works, keep doing it!
I’ve always found that a strong guarantee generates more than enough additional sales to cover any returns or refund requests.
Also test different aspects of your guarantee (e.g. wording, time period, conditions etc.) The difference in sales generated by a 30 day and 60 day guarantee can be significant.
3. Make your guarantee highly visible
Your guarantee should be a headline; you don’t want your reader to miss it.
What powerful guarantee can you offer your prospects to make it easier for them to do business with you?
Topics: Lead Generation | No Comments »
Advertising Should Create Sales
By Dennis Gartland II | October 19, 2008
Opinions on Advertising are as conflicting as opinions on Religion. Forty per cent of all the people in the world are Buddhists, and are of the Opinion that Buddhism is the only true religion. Twelve per cent of the world?s people being Roman Catholics, are firm in the opinion that the remaining 88 percent are wrong, and sure of damnation accordingly.
Many Advertisers, seem satisfied to spend their money on mere Opinions about Advertising when they might have invested it on Evidence about Advertising. These are the Advertisers whose business must die before they can be convinced that general publicity (merely keeping the name before the people) is wrong and Salesmanship-on-paper right.
They blindly gamble in Advertising when they might have safely invested in it. If they were to buy any other kind of Service, except Advertising, they would demand tangible proof of its efficacy before they spent money on it. If they hired a Salesman, for instance, they would expect him to prove he was earning his salary by making a satisfactory Record on Sales. They would not accept, for long, statements from him that he was? Making a General impression on the Trade? for his salary. Nor would they be satisfied with the statement that he was branding profitably enough to compensate for lack of sales.
Because, true Advertising is only “Salesmanship-on-paper” after all. When it is anything less than Salesmanship it is not real Advertising, but only “General Publicity.” And, “General Publicity” admittedly claims only to “Keep the Name before the People,” to produce a “General impression on the Trade,” and to “Influence Sales” for the salesmen.
Faulty ads make the same lame excuses as would be made by a Salesman who failed to earn his salary by actually selling goods. But branding, or any other Advertising, should be judged by the same standards as the Salesperson is judged, by the products it is clearly proven to sell and the return on investment it generates
Topics: Advertising | No Comments »
5 Effective Tips for Search Engine Optimized/ SEO Copy Writing
By S.Reddy | October 16, 2008
To increase the traffic inflow to your website you need to have content that makes the visitor linger and persuades him to stay for a long time. When your visitors receive information that is easy and understandable a bond of faith and goodwill is developed and they will waste no time in recommending your website to the others.
Also the right content is sure to rate you higher in the ranking list thereby giving more prominence to your website, which will even force the other website owners to visit your site for discovering reasons for your immense popularity. You can use these 5 tips for effective content writing.
The topic should be chosen with care:
Make sure that the matter provided in your website is very attractive to entice readers and whet their appetites. Make sure you stress on the usefulness of the product if you have less products to advertise for, which most readers will be interested in rather than descriptions about it.
It should be divided into categories and sub categories and the products should be classified according to their demand.
Effective authors
An author having technical knowledge need not always be a good content writer. However he needs to have knowledge about SEO. A capable author is one who understands the needs of his customers and presents the matter in a creative but simple and comprehensive manner.
It should have a link with related resources :
The content should have ideas which support the product or service and these ideas should also point towards the link which should be from related resources so that the consumer can get total information. It should act as a guide to help the customer take a decision and compare it with same kind of products on other website. It should also draw the attention of the other website owners which will increase your popularity.
Use of relevant visuals:
Images speak volumes and what you cannot achieve with writing; you can accomplish the same feat with the help of attractive and relevant pictures. Those who abhor reading material is sure to notice the images used on your website. Even your written matter should be short and in paragraphs with necessary subheadings. The use of alt tags in your images ensures promising results with search engines.
Topics: Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
Articles Can Help Grow Your Reputation
By Rob Metras | October 14, 2008
Are you the sort of person who is in touch with a lot of people constantly? Are you always in the public eye? Maybe youare a politician , a novelist, a movie star, a musician or a popular local professional or service provider. Anything.
On some level, most of us are one of these people. That means it is a necessity that we can communicate our point of view well to a variety of audiences. You want to get your opinion and your voice out for public consumption. Of course, you also want to do it well. Being an effective communicator has a positive effect on your future and livelihood.
Writing effective articles can get your name out in circles that as of right now have no idea who you are. Okay, so writing an article sounds scary. Start by browsing basic reference materials. Concentrate on grammar and punctuation. Think of the things that you can write about that no one else can. The great news is that the article writing skills you are developing can be used later for speechwriting which will help you become an effective public speaker.
So you should now Grow Your Reputation with Articles. Some niche marketing of your creative self will triple your presence and demand to the general public. A well written article will translate to millions of potential viewers and contacts. So howas that public relations work going to help you ?
Every writer reveals something of themselves when they write. The vast majority of the people who will read what you write will not know you. So how will they judge you? They will judge you from your writing. So be very mindful of how the deeds, actions, tendencies, biases, and judgments you reveal in your articles will sounds to people who have no other knowledge of your character.
Any marketing tutorial will tell you to present your good aspects to the public to reassure their confidence and faith in your good judgments. This niche marketing will ensure your public favor rating will always be in your swing. Articles are a great source of self marketing.
Now that you can Grow Your Reputation with Articles you can take it a step further. Articles will easily put forward your point of focus in terms of public opinion. People have always enjoyed reading,it appears that trend will never look down.
Everyone wants to realize their full potential. Articles will help you Grow Your Reputation. The trick is to combine this with continued hard work in your chosen field and a well planned strategy for media exposure. The end result will be a new customer base and income stream.
Topics: Article Marketing | No Comments »