Learn to be Suggestive :)
Ever wonder why the girls that twirl their finger through their hair or lift up their skirt a bit always get the guy?
It’s because they know what they want, and they go get it. They advertise!
Your business is no different. It doesn’t mean that you need to use 72 pt font screaming BUY ME! In fact, it should be really, really subtle (like the girl in the skirt, twirling her hair).
Is it effective? (more…)
Target Your Online Customer to Target Your Dollar
Marketing 101 – You can have the best product or service, but if you can’t get the right message to the right people your most likely outcome is failure.
There are many great products that are no longer available or sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Why? The simple answer is the company that sold those products did not make the right marketing push to the right people, at the right time. Sometimes it is simply a matter of giving up too soon and even though all the rest was right, the repetition wasn’t there.
Internet marketing is no different. First it takes time to find out where the target customer hangs out.
Internet Marketing is About Being Correct
As the New Year approaches it is time to evaluate the 5 things you set and forget related to your Internet marketing:
- Monthly Newsletters – Each January it is time to set up twelve more newsletters into the hopper of your auto-responder. If you are still looking for the perfect auto-responder we use aWeber. Why struggle through the year trying to remember to get your newsletter out, set it all up once and you can always tweak to add fresh content before the newsletter actually goes out.
- Credit card processing – make sure you are getting the best rates possible. Just like you might shop for your auto insurance on a regular basis you should take a look at your credit card processing as rates do change. We use Sterling Payment Systems.
Is it a Trick or a Tweet?
As I sat and watched my Tweeples (that’s Twitter speak for “friend”), tweet (that’s Twitter speak for “chat”), one tweet caught my attention.
@Lotame tweeted “Does anyone have the secret to deciphering between auto-responders on twitter and real people?”
As we look to automate our tasks to save time we might well automate our way out of potential customers.
As any SEO expert would tell you, at least the good ones anyway, you have to be out there talking about what product or service you have to offer. In the Internet world this means participating in forums, commenting on blogs, finding the right social networking sites, and in general shouting at the top of each digital peak why you are so special.
It is so important to remember that there are people on the other end of the computer screens and they are listening to those shouts. Would you rather they hear you, or a response that is not personal and does not apply to them?
Here are some tips to make sure that you do the due diligence for SEO and yet continue to keep it real.
Duct Tape Your Marketing Together
You have heard the buzz about fresh content on your web site and it sounds like great idea.
Until you sit in front of the computer with a blank page facing you, what should you write about?
Imagine that you are sitting at your desk, your boss walks in and looks you square in the eyes, and says, “I think we need to blog, I’ve heard that it can really help our web site be rank higher in Google. I will let you figure out what ‘we’ need to do.”
And here we are back to the blank screen.
It doesn’t matter if you have a boss that had that conversation with you or you are the boss and decided it was a good idea; the decision and the action are two completely different things.
The first question that needs to be answered is, “Are you in the right business?“
Technically Speaking about SEO
Funny thing happened the other day…
No, really, a funny thing did happen. I realized that not everyone understands what SEO is and why you need a professional SEO company.
Right now you might think that SEO stands for:
S“silly”
E “excuse” to
O “over charge”
Or maybe SEO means something like this:
S “someday”
E “everyone will land”
O “on my website”
Really SEO are three very important letters to your marketing efforts online that stand for “Search Engine Optimization.”
If you already have a website than you probably recognize that building the website and getting people to the website are two VERY different things.
What does the memory of an ant have to do with Internet Marketing?
Creatures of habit…
How many web sites do you visit on a regular basis? Maybe your list looks something like mine: CNN, Facebook, Ecademy, LinkedIn, Mesa State, and Google. There are more…but these are the web sites that I visit each and every day.
What happens when my web traffic patterns are disrupted? If any of you have seen the Disney film “Bugs Life” you know what can happen when something unexpected gets dropped in your path. If you haven’t seen “Bugs Life” ask a four year old….where else would you get your marketing advice?
Ok…for those who have not seen “Bugs Life” it is in the beginning of the movie and the ants are collecting food. The ants are following a line to where the food is to be deposited. A leaf falls into the path and the ant behind the leaf begins to panic, shouting “I lost the line! Where’s the line!” At this point a senior ant walks down the hill takes the lost ant around the leaf and the once lost ant is so overjoyed when he finds the line again.
People are no different, when it comes to web searching habits.
3 Choices in SEO
In my video blog that I wrote on What is SEO, I mentioned that there are 3 important choices that can be made regarding internet marketing.
The three choices are:
- Hire professional SEO services
- Learn search engine optimizations and internet marketing yourself
- Put your head in the sand and let your business flail until it goes under
In the world on the Internet (marketing aside) – there are all sorts of things that people go to the Internet to do – shop, read the news, find jokes, do research – all the things that people do in the offline world, they now are spending a considerable amount of time doing online. So what ever community you may have in the offline world – your business, your industry, your city, your charity, your school club – you can have these same communities in the online world.
In the offline world – where you have a brick and mortar store of some sort – you either hire someone to do your marketing, you learn to do it on your own, or eventually you go out of business.
The online world is exactly the same
Holiday Keywords – Are you ready?
Ready for the holidays? I know I am. I’m espcially looking forward to my “special” eggnog. 
Did you know that there are certain keywords that show cyclical trends? Do you know how to check? Google Trends. Now you do. Go check out Google Trends. and play around.
Play around? Yep! Type in something like ‘christmas open restaurant’ and look at the trend – every December there is a huge rush of traffic for that keyword. I mean, who doesn’t want to go out to eat after Christmas dinner got charred on the BBQ?
Here’s some others that might be of interest to you: (more…)
Outsourcing SEO – Outside Your Company Walls That Is!
In today’s global economy, the term outsource oftentimes conjures thoughts of hiring someone from another country, where the the project can be done for 1/4th the cost that it would to have it done domestically. But that is not the outsourcing that I’m referring to – at least not specifically. I’m talking about outsourcing your SEO efforts outside of your company, to an SEO consultant that specializes search engines and online traffic generation.
Two of the most important questions that arise from your intended use of SEO are, “how much are you willing to spend?”, and “are you going to outsource the SEO?”. Why are these important? For starters – they force you to commit to a plan. Without a plan there can be no action, without action you can’t win.
So do you outsource? A lot of it will depend on your budget and your goals. If you have an extremely limited budget, you might be able to hire a part time traffic assistant from another country that can do some off-page link building for you – but there is risk involved with this scenario. Often times the paid traffic generation companies use automated software, or do things that Google and other search engines aren’t really fond of. This could have a negative impact on your search engine rankings. If you can’t outsource, then you might also consider doing the SEO by yourself. The downfall is that this takes away from your business that you run, and takes time to learn and implement. SEO is an ongoing effort, and not a one-time shot, so if you start it, you better be able to finish it, or the time you spent starting the SEO effort will be wasted.
Advertainment!
Lights, Camera…
Was there ever a time you wanted to be a movie star..you know, “get you money for nothing and your chicks for free.” Uh-oh I just dated myself.
Ok, here it is.
Video!
Sure, you watch it, and you wonder why everyone else is out there watching, but I am reminded of a small company, that had a VERY small advertising budget. This company chose to throw all of that budget into a unique little video show that has raked in well over one million viewers per show (6 million in some cases).
Destroy Your Keyword Trophy Mindset
Ever get in the middle of conversation about whose is bigger, better, or strongest?
Now I don’t want to get caught up in the semantics of what they’re talking about… that would likely lead us off topic – but ever think about what it’s really accomplishing?
Well search engine keywords aren’t too much different… think about it… “My keyword ranks number 1 on Google, and number 3 on MSN and Yahoo… Beat that!”
This is what I call a “Keyword Trophy”. Where you get some mythical prize if you rank number one for some set of keywords. But is a keyword trophy really worth anything? Sometimes, but usually not.
Let me explain. If you had no competition, (more…)
Dominate Your Industry – Keep Competitors at Bay
What happens when you search for your products or services online…do you find your company listed anywhere? How many competitors are listed before yours? Do you want to beat them out… but can’t afford an SEO consultant? Then read on!
By reading this today you have already taken the first step to Total Domination by realizing that something different will need to happen in order to make it to the top.
Our program will give you one-on-one mentoring, video tutorials, articles of hot topics, and a monthly teleconference that is guided by your questions. The mentoring is presented in forum fashion, where you can ask your Total Domination Mentors questions that are specific to your industry.
No canned answers here. No checklists with vague descriptions.
There are only answers as specific as your questions.
Getting to page one takes a lot more than just well-wishing. (more…)
What is SEO?
There is a lot of confusion of what SEO is and what SEO is not. So I put together a quick video that highlights some of the current definitions of SEO, how I think that SEO and Internet marketing are merging together ( some might say this is SEM – Search Engine Marketing). Check out the video – it’s about 7 minutes long, but worth every second. Let me know what you think!
Get Linked… LinkedIn that is!
Watch this helpful video on all the reasons that a business owner should use LinkedIn, and how to incorporate a LinkedIn strategy into your normal marketing approach.
And after you’ve watched the video, go get your very own LinkedIn account.