Yogi Land

With today’s website tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your website. You can learn where they’re from, what kind of browser they’re using, how long they stayed on your site, and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won’t tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers.

Your ability to convert website visitors into clients depends on your ability to find the soft underbelly of their subconscious desire. After all, if someone is happy with what they’ve already got, they don’t need you, but if they were truly one hundred percent happy, they wouldn’t bother coming to your website. Therefore every visitor that comes to your site is a potential client whether they know it or not.

The Setup’s The Thing

Your website presentation has to find that annoying little subconscious scab just under the surface and pick at it until it becomes a full blown irritation that fosters discontent and a desire for change. That discontent is your opening to make your value statement.

We refer to this process as The Setup. Like any good presentation you cannot, or rather should not, just blurt out how great you are, but rather you have to set the scene. Like any good story, the punch line, moral, or payoff only works if it is properly setup. Far too many website presentations suffer from premature pitch climax.

The ability to transform viewers into customers requires patience. Entrepreneurial companies tend to view the setup as a waste of time, and they fear losing viewers before they ever get to the so-called “good-stuff.” But without a proper setup, an audience is just not primed to accept what you have to say.

You can’t sell anybody anything unless they understand they’ve not been getting everything they need and deserve. That understanding creates dissatisfaction with your competition and opens the audience’s minds to what you have to offer. In short, the setup needs to touch a psychological nerve.

The Customer Is Always Right – Not Quite

We’ve all heard the expression, “the customer is always right.” The fact is the customer is not always right, and in many cases they don’t really know what they want or what they should have; and sometimes even when they do, they resist it because of a variety of misinformation, misunderstanding, self-doubt, and preconceived notions of conventional wisdom. It’s your website presentation’s job to set visitors on the right path.

Being The Expert Inspires Confidence

You’re supposed to be the expert in what you do, and if you are, you need to have the ability to dig deeper into what people really want, need, and desire. I am always reminded of friends of mine who hired an interior decorator to furnish their new home. The decorator asked them what kind of furniture they liked. They answered that they were looking for Colonial, to which the decorator answered, “No you aren’t. What you want is Country French.” And after he showed my friends what he was talking about they quickly agreed. The decorator knew his business and understood the clients. Yes the clients liked the idea of the homey Colonial look they’d seen, but not being furniture experts they didn’t understand what the options were, and what kind of furniture best suited their lifestyle and budget, while still providing the homey rustic but comfortable aesthetic they wanted. Customer satisfaction is about providing what the client really wants and not necessarily what they say they want.

Learn How To Communicate So Audiences Get It

Let’s face it; we all like to read about how the digital revolution has opened up the business world to more audience influence, but the fact is people are influenced and manipulated and desires created through marketing and advertising as much as ever. How many website owners actually benefit in any meaningful way from social networking and search optimization, or do they do it because it’s expected and promoted by proponents as the tactic du jour.

If you think a particular song you like is played on a thousand radio stations because it’s good, or even because it has a following then you are living in a fantasy world. If you thing the vast majority of viral videos produced by corporations go viral all by themselves then think again.

Audiences are being manipulated and transformed into customers all the time, not because companies responded to what the public says, but rather to how the public reacts to various communication and marketing stimuli. What’s truly amazing is how bad companies are at doing it. With all of the television industries’ research into viewers, they still fail to deliver consistent quality programming that people want to watch. Every Fall new shows are yanked faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, but the same crappy commercials live-on for what seems an eternity. Television viewers are a captive audience and if they want to watch their favorite show they have to tolerate the commercials (PVRs aside), but the Web is different. If your website presentation stinks, nobody is going to stick around to absorb the smell.

Web Television Convergence Has Arrived

If you think of your website presentation as nothing more than a digital brochure, you’re already behind the curve. Welcome to the Web on TV.

All you need is a laptop computer or one of the new gaming consoles attached to your big screen TV to access the Web on television. And as network programmers scramble to get their acts together more and more people are opting to spend their television time on the Web. Kind of makes you rethink what kind of website presentation you should be offering. It’s time to start thinking of your website as your own business channel and the content on it as programming. It’s the future and it’s here, now.

Who Visits Your Website?

Before website visitors can be transformed into clients, we have to understand who they are in terms of their mental outlook or frame of mind when they first arrive at your home page.

1. Accidental Tourists

Accidental Tourists are website visitors who find their way to your website by serendipity. Your company’s link may have come up in a search for something mentioned on your website, but not something that’s a core element of your business. But just because these people didn’t really intend to visit a site like yours doesn’t mean they’re a waste of time. Perhaps they never thought of using your product or service, or perhaps they never realized how much they really wanted what you have to offer. If your website presentation is exciting, meaningful, and entertaining you at least have the opportunity to plant the seed of desire for your product or service.

2. Brain Pickers

Brain Pickers show up at your site with little intention to buy anything, in fact they’re there to pick your brain and find out how to do what you do for themselves. But if you’re truly an expert at what you do, you at least have the opportunity to show these people that what you offer is special, and doing it right requires a company with your skills and resources.

3. Penny Pinchers

These guys are looking for a bargain. You are on a list and they are checking out who is offering the cheapest solution to their problem. But not all Penny Pinchers are penny-wise and pound-foolish, some, just need to understand why you’re the best at what you do, and why what you are charging is the real bargain.

4. Tire Kickers

The Tire Kickers love to look but rarely buy. They want what you’ve got but they just can’t make the commitment to buy it. They visit your website a hundred times, each time pressing their noses against the virtual storefront window trying to make a decision that rarely comes.

It’s up to your website presentation to push them over the edge. If they want what you’ve got, you can sell it to them. All you need to do is find that soft under belly of desire that gets them eager to spend their money.

5. Missourians

These guys want what you offer but need the reassurance of some practical input to get them to buy. The desire is there, but it’s frustrated by their mental need to justify the purchase with practical excuses. “But Honey, I know little Johnny is only three, but think of the eye-hand co-ordination he’ll learn playing these video games.” People ultimately buy what they want, and rationalize the purchase with logic and reasoning, but without desire, no amount of statistical evidence will work.

6. The Enemy

If you’re any good, you’ll have plenty of competitors hanging around your website looking for ideas they can use. It’s all part of the game. Better to be out there showing people what you’ve got than hiding, afraid someone might take advantage. Besides if you’re really good, you’ll always be at least one step ahead of the competition anyway. That makes you the leader and them the follower. And everybody wants to do business with the leader.

7. The Needy

The Needy crave what you’ve got but need a lot of reassurance, handholding, and customer support. These guys have the potential to be good customers but your presentation has to make it clear that you’ll be there to answer questions and concerns and not just leave them in the lurch like so many other Web-based businesses do after they’ve got the sale.

In The End

If you’re fed-up with social networking self-gratification, frustrated by ever changing site optimization requirements, and ineffective advertising then it’s time to re-evaluate what your website presentation says and how it says it.

In the final analysis it’s all about communicating your emotional value proposition using your most important venue, your website; delivered in the most engaging, informative, and memorable manner that compels your audience to pay attention to your marketing message, and act upon it.

Tags: advertising, business, internet marketing

Every day, my inbox is filled with emails promoting yet another new marketing strategy or promising results that will cure all of my marketing ills. Most of the strategies are flash-in-the-pan — here today and gone tomorrow because the next new strategy has been discovered. A few newer strategies have proven to have staying power over time, like social networking, which took a long time to grow on me. I’ve learned the hard way not to be an early adopter of new marketing strategies — I tend to sit back and watch the fallout to see if something is worth my time and energy.

As I reflect back on my early years in business, I often felt like a dog chasing my tail. I used to run and run quickly in one direction chasing one marketing idea, and then reverse course, chasing my tail in another direction when hearing about the next “greatest thing.” What resulted from my helter-skelter marketing? Not much. I was going in too many directions at once and trying to keep too many balls in the air to create a truly successful marketing plan that really helped promote my business.

Here’s the marketing secret I wished I’d learned early on: Adopt the marketing strategy that best fits with your gifts, talents, and interests, or in other words: Do what you’re good at. Yep, it’s that simple. I knew that this was good advice for pursuing a career or starting a business, but I never realized how well it applied to marketing my company.

Roughly 4 years into my business it suddenly dawned on me that I had always been a good writer. Supervisors, teachers, friends, and colleagues had often complimented me on my writing, but I dismissed the praise because I found writing to be a taxing chore that gave me a massive headache. It wasn’t until I learned how to write for myself in my own voice, rather than structuring my writing to meet the criteria of others, that I truly began to enjoy putting pen to paper (or, words on a screen, if you will).

This love for writing made me a natural for my now-favorite marketing strategy, article marketing. Why do I love it? Because it’s easy for me — sometimes scarily easy. However, I discovered that having a skill for a strategy isn’t enough to be successful. Even at this point my marketing continued to be hit-or-miss. There was still something missing from the mix.

After hearing a great talk by a coaching colleague about how he structured his time, I finally realized what was the key compoent missing from my marketing strategy — and the missing component was the same for the bulk of the other entrepreneurs sitting in the room with me. The #1 marketing mistake made by the majority of online business owners is: Lack of consistency. Once you determine where your talent lies and how you can integrate that into a workable marketing plan, then you need to commit to implementing that plan consistently over time.

Could it possibly be that simple? In a nutshell, yes. I committed to publishing my ezine every Thursday morning. I committed to writing one new article each week for the ezine. I committed to syndicating one new article each week through my article submission service. I committed to repurposing my ezine content to my blog. I committed to making 1-2 new posts on my blog each week. This is only the tip of the iceburg describing what I do for marketing, but consistency was the catalyst that propelled me to a successful online marketing strategy that I’ve been implementing now for 5 years.

My results? I no longer chase after clients — they find me online. 100% of my business comes from my web site, internet marketing, or word-of-mouth referrals — I do no in-person networking at all any longer. My web site screens out those clients who aren’t a good fit and invites those who are. I enjoy running a thriving business from my home office with only a 5-second commute. I create a work schedule that works best for me and my husband, which gives me the flexibility to leave my office early if I want and catch a matinee with him without having to submit a vacation request form to my supervisor. I am happy and healthy and no longer have recurring bouts of colitis and depression from working in a miserable situation. I make more money now than I ever made by working for someone else.

Take inventory of your skills and abilities, and see how you can easily integrate those into a marketing strategy that will be easy for you to implement. Once you decide on your strategy, commit to implementing it consistently over time, and enjoy your results!

Tags: business, Donna Gunter, internet marketing

When I talk with website owners who are starting to market their websites with article submissions and ask them what they hope to achieve, most of the time they will reference one or more of these benefits:

• A higher search engine ranking for your keywords
• More traffic to your website via the articles themselves (in addition to traffic garnered from the higher search engine rank for your keywords)
• Establishing yourself as an expert in your niche
• And going along with the status of expert, when someone does a Google search for your name, they are greeted with a list containing your website and your articles.

Each of these benefits is worthwhile and can help improve your business and your website, but out of all of them, which one can have the most dramatic impact on your website over the long term?

In my opinion, the greatest reward of Article Marketing comes in terms of SEO–having a higher search engine ranking for your keyword terms.

When trying to drive traffic to your website, you need to do something to attract the attention of your target market. This is what article marketing does–it places your website in a prominent position in an arena where your target market is hanging out.

Where does everyone’s target market gather?

At Google and the other search engines.

Whenever you need information on a topic, you will go to Google or Yahoo or one of the other search engines and type your question or need into the search box.

Your target customers are also Googling solutions to their needs.

As a website owner, your goal is to be one of the top results when your customers type their search terms into Google. By being listed at or towards the top of the results pages, you increase your chances of the potential customer clicking through to your website.

That is what called “targeted traffic”.

Targeted traffic means that the people who are visiting your website are most likely to be in need of what you’re offering at your website. This is what you’re going for.

What are the steps to rank higher in Google and the other search engines?

1- Figure out what your keywords are.

Your keywords are not only words that classify the content of your website, but they are the very words that your target market most often types into Google when they are searching for a site like yours.

When you know what those special words are, then you can work to position your website to satisfy those search terms. It isn’t hard to figure out what your keywords are, but it does require a bit of basic research. There are many great keyword suggestion tools on the web, both paid and free. To start with you can look at the Google Keywords Tool, WordTracker Keyword Suggestion Tool, Keyword Discovery, and Overture.

2- Write articles on the topic of your website.

Oftentimes as you’re writing you will naturally use your keywords in your article, title and resource box, but it may be helpful to read back over your article after you’ve finished writing it, and see if there are any places where it would be appropriate to subtly use your keyword terms. The idea is optimize the article for your keyword terms, while doing so in a natural sounding way. Always keep your reader in mind, and write articles that will be helpful and easy to understand.

Be careful not to go overboard with your keywords–keep your keyword density at 3% or lower.

3- Submit articles consistently for the lifetime of your website.

This means submitting a few articles each month, month in and month out. This is perhaps the area where people most go astray–consistency is paramount.

It’s a lot like embarking on an exercise program–you may work out hard and eat healthy for a few days or weeks or even a few months, but if you stop your new healthy habits that are propelling you towards your goal, you will not see the results you were looking for. Before long you will start regressing until you’re to the point that you were before you started working out.

Article Marketing requires steadiness of purpose, doing the same action over and over again to reap cumulative results that can be quite astounding. The hardest part about writing and submitting articles is just sticking with it–if you can develop consist article submission habits, you can see dramatic results over time.

Tags: business, google, marketing, SEO, traffic, website

One of the biggest measurements of a website’s success is the stickiness of its visitor base. Generally web masters would rather have 1,000 visitors who return regularly (they are “stuck to the site”) as opposed to 3,000 visitors who only visit once or twice. These days the web is massive, carving out a niche for your site and gaining a following within that niche is the key to success.

There are many reasons why you should try to make your website as sticky as possible. Visitors who return regularly are more likely to purchase some of your products or content. If you have a membership site, then retaining your member base is critical for growing your income and long term success. Also, a faithful following will encourage viral promotion of your site.

Search engine optimization can be a costly and time consuming task and your site’s listing can be hammered down by the powers that be (Google) in the blink of an eye. If you gain a faithful user base though, they will tell their friends and family about your site and encourage them to use it as well. Viral marketing is the cheapest and most effective type of marketing there is and making your site and content desirable is the only way to achieve this phenomenon. There are “five C’s” of stickiness to remember, and they are:

Content

Regardless of the site’s design, without good content, the visitor will not come back or stay at the site for more than a few minutes. “Content is King” is a cliché, but true. High quality content is far and away the most important factor in attracting people back to a Web site consistently, and keeping them there for more than a few minutes when they do visit. It is said, in fact, that content is what drives 75 percent of consumers to return to their favorite sites.

In addition to your site being content rich, try to also keep it fresh. At least part of your site will be regularly updated, preferably at least once a month. This is why web sites which resemble online brochures fail. Delivering the same content in a blog, posted in installments, can be much more effective. This will encourage users to come back regularly, as they check in to see what new content you’ve added lately. This is stickiness in a nutshell.

Community

When a site attracts enough visitors with similar interests it has the potential to develop into a “community.” That can be very powerful for the site owner. Providing message forums, chat rooms, podcasts, user profiles, blogs, etc. are all tools to allow your visitors to interact with both you and each other. This also makes your site VERY sticky if you are able to develop a thriving community.

Rather than visiting your site once a month people may begin to visit it multiple times a week. Having a thriving community can be viewed as developing a site which is constantly developing its own content. Rather than requiring you to spend hours developing content, you can instead monitor the postings on your site to ensure they retain the kind of atmosphere you want for your site. As time goes by you may also be able to appoint some of your more responsible members to monitoring positions to do this job for you as well.

Communication

Communication is equally important as content and community. Communication includes building and maintaining your list, reaching out to people on your list, and interacting with visitors to your site. Try to respond to any question, comments, or feedback you receive promptly. This builds relationships with your visitors and will keep them coming back.

One of the best ways to reach out to customers is to offer quality, free information. This is basically a sample of what your site has to offer, and should always help address the questions your visitors came to your site for answers for. The very nature of the web stresses that you consider offering more free content to your customers than most other mediums do. You have too much competition to be stingy. One of the most effective means of providing content to customers and developing a list of potential customers at the same time is to offer a free guide to visitors who provide you with a name and email address.

For example, if you run a site teaching real estate tips and tricks, after your visitors have seen your “foot in the door” content located on your “splash page,” offer them the first lesson of your course on real estate for free in exchange for their name and email address. You benefit from this by having names to attach to the IP addresses of your visitors. This provides you with more information about who is being drawn into your site. It is also important you use a quality auto-responder for this step, as communication is a critical part of your site and must be handled professionally.

One last note on communication: Be sure to provide your name and contact information clearly throughout your site. It will frustrate and turn away visitors if they have a question or comment and cannot figure out how to reach you. By providing a name and place to reach you it also helps contribute to the last two “C’s…”

Commerce and Consumer Confidence

These are perhaps the two most important things that get overlooked in websites. First, effectively promote your site by using professional marketing and search engine optimization for the niche your site seeks to fill. Provide reliable, safe, and secure means for your customers to purchase your for-pay content. If your ordering method does not look safe, all your efforts working to sell your content to your visitors will be lost if they get to the order page and you look like an unprofessional, fly-by-night operator. Always use a secure ordering form. Offering a money back guarantee can be extremely helpful to reassure customers.

Lastly, respect your customer’s privacy. Make it clear you will not sell their names, personal information, or email addresses. People hate spam and will be hesitant to identify themselves to you out of fear of having their information sold if you do not provide some kind of assurance against this. A clear and easy to locate privacy policy is necessary.

Tags: business, keyword, marketing, SEO

Recently I was asked in an interview to imagine that I was starting all over again, and as a newbie, how I would fill my business in 60 days. Things have changed tremendously since I began my online business in 1999, mostly for the better. Most of the steps, however remain the same. Best of all, the strategies I recommend to fill your business are the same ones that can be applied to any business, and then applied again and again to other online ventures. Here are 8 secrets to filling the prospect funnel in your business in 60 days:

1. Success mind set. Don’t gloss over this strategy — it may be the most important of all. If you truly want to succeed in your business and are passionate about what you do, nothing will hold you back. This often means that you have to step out in faith that you’ll succeed, and most importantly, believe in yourself as a success. Sure, you may stumble, or even fall, but you must be willing to pick yourself back up and persevere — even without a safety net hanging under you.

2. Target market. The biggest mistake that business owners make is wanting to sell to everyone. If you’ve tried this, you have no doubt discovered that casting your net around everyone is a very difficult task. Narrowing that group to a more manageable number will actually serve you much better, believe it or not. If you can identify a smaller group of hungry prospects who are willing to pay for the solutions to the problems that keep them awake at night (or those who are willing to pay for more information about a hobby or interest that occupies much of their free time) AND who are reachable in groups (associations, membership sites, magazines, newsletters, discussion forums or lists, social networking groups, etc.), then you have made a key discovery that will catapult your business forward.

3. Client Attraction Device. You’ve heard it said time and time again that “the money is in the list.” This still holds true today, as well. Without a list of interested prospects to whom you can market, you don’t have a business. The quickest way to begin to develop a list is to give something away. Yes, you heard me correctly. If you have content you have already created, dig through that to see if you have something appropriate for your chosen target market.

If not, identify a problem of your target market, and create some content that answers one of those problems. Perhaps it’s a checklist, a Top 10 list, an ebook or special report, an audio interview, a pod cast, a video — do whatever is easiest for you. Just ensure that it is in a plug and play format, i.e. don’t make your prospect download some weird software that’s not commonplace to read and view this material.

Make sure that your Client Attraction Device has some valuable content in it. Nothing is more frustrating to me than to read a free giveway that only serves to remind me that I have a problem and offers no solution unless I pay for it. Don’t be afraid to demonstrate your expertise by giving “how to” information away. Trust me, if you are truly good at what you do, there’s no way that you can share everything you know on a topic in one short information product. Your Client Attraction Device starts your prospects on the like, know, and trust road that is imperative for them to travel before they will decide to buy something from you.

4. Email marketing system. You must have some way to collect your prospect’s information and a system by which you can stay in contact with them. The best way to do this is by purchasing email marketíng services. Do not use a free service for this, nor try to send emails out of your Outlook program. If you want to be a serous online business owner, invest in the most important asset in your business — your email marketíng system.

5. Blogsite.  A blogsite, which is a web site/blog hybrid, is the quickest way to build an online presence. The two most popular blogging platforms, the fee-based Typepad and open source software Wordpress, can be used to create a blogsite very quickly. If you want either of them customized with a particular look or feel, that may take a bit longer and require a greater investment. However, either will work well to get you started, and both will permit you to enter your email marketíng system’s signup code onto a page so that you can immediately begin to collect contact information from prospects who have requested your Client Attraction Device.

6. Stay in touch. Whether you do this by submitting regular blog posts or publishing an email newsletter (or both), you need to reach out and touch your prospects at least weekly (or several times a week if you are blogging). Give them some insights about what’s happening with you personally as well as sharing some aspect of your expertise with them by creating a content-rich article or answering their questions. And, don’t forget to sell — provide some product or service in each email newsletter, or submit regular blog posts that remind your readers about what you are selling.

7. Social networking. Never before have we had the opportuníty to connect with others online easily and inexpensively as we do now with social networking. Create profiles on the social networks) used by your target market, do research to add friends/followers in your target market, and use the status updates to be useful to your followers, i.e. by sharing resources, asking questions, and updating them about how you help clients/customers.

8. Drive traffic to your site. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, but my favorite starts with writing an article. Once it’s written, I publish it in my ezine, my blog, and to my web site and syndicate it on article directories all over the Web. Then I have the option of making a pod cast with the content; creating a screencast video or “talking head” video from it; writing and submitting a press release; creating a teleclass; create a Q&A radio show interview opportuníty; breaking up the points as separate Twitter posts, or Tweets, and tweeting them to my followers; or sharing it on my Squidoo lens or other information-sharing portals. The point here is to work once and profit, profit, profit. Repurpose one article as many ways as you can to drive traffic back to your blogsite and thus get more and more prospects to sign up on your list and ultimately convert them to customers.

The advent of the Internet makes it easier than ever to create and promote an online business with very little startup capital. And, if done correctly, the strategies will results in you filling your business in 60 days with eager and willing prospects ready to buy what you are offering.

Tags: business, Donna Gunter, marketing, Social Networking, success, traffic

I keep telling my friends and families,  “Some things are good to have, but not to own.”  I think that this statement can be very helpful when it comes to make most decisions. I will spend more time to find more supporting articles and do more research on this topic.

At this point, I have found an interesting article from Smart Money September 2008 issue called 10 Things Millionaires Won’t Tell You. Point number 8 says,

Why spend $3,000 on a Versace bag that’ll be out of style as soon as next season when you can rent it for $175 a month? For that matter, why blow $250,000 on a Ferrari when for $25,000 it can be yours for a few weekends a year? Clubs that offer “fractional ownership” of jets have been popular for some time, and now the concept has extended to other high-end luxuries like exotic cars and fine art. How hot is the trend? More than 50 percent of millionaires say they plan to rent luxury goods within the next 12 months, according to a survey by Prince & Associates. Handbags topped the list, followed by cars, jewelry, watches and art. Online companies like Bag Borrow or Steal, for example, cater to customers who always want new designer accessories and jewelry, for prices starting at $15 a week.

For Suzanne Garner, a millionaire software engineer in Santa Clara, Calif., owning a $100,000 car didn’t make financial sense (she drives a Mazda Miata). Instead, Garner pays up to $30,000 in annual membership fees to Club Sportiva, a fractional-ownership car club in San Francisco that lets her take out Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other exotic vehicles on weekends. “I’m all about the car,” she says. And so are other people, it seems. While stopped at a light in a Ferrari recently, Garner received a marriage proposal from a guy in a pickup truck. (She declined the offer.).

When you hear of this statement, what comes to your mind? If you are interested to contribute to this topic, please feel free to comment.

Tags: business, journey, learn, Smart Money

Professional website developers know the importance of web design and the role it plays in making a website successful.

Designing a successful website is no easy task, especially for someone who is new to the world of web development. With the help of web development applications many people can and do create decent websites. But decent in most cases is not good enough to make a site successful from a traffic or financial standpoint.

There are five crucial components of web design that you must focus on in order to make a site valuable to its visitors and successful for you.

• SEO - Getting free traffic to your site.
• Usability - Ease of navigating around the site and finding desired information quickly.
• Aesthetics - Visual appeal.
• Content - Valid, up-to-date, relevant information.
• Graphics - Eye candy that relays relevant visual information to the visitor.

SEO

Before you ever lay down a byte of HTML code for a site, you have to know and understand at least the basics of SEO and how it fits into the design. SEO is the art of designing a site in a fashion that gives the site an advantage for obtaining free and abundant traffic.

The number one aspect of SEO is selecting keywords relevant to your site. The keywords you select should be based on high usage, low competition and relevancy to your topic. Once you select keywords you can then begin the development of your site. Keep in mind keywords are a critical aspect of the design. The keywords you choose will be applied within the design in strategic fashion to benefit the flow of traffic to your site. To understand more on how to implement SEO you should read and learn more about this important subject. If you don’t, your website success will be difficult to achieve.

Usability

Your website must be easy to navigate and designed in a way that makes it easy to find information. Visitors will not stay long if it takes more than one or two clicks to get the information they want or if it takes brain power to figure out how to get the information they want. One of the goals of your site design is to keep usability easy, and simple. To do this, apply the following three fundamentals of usability.

• Provide a site search tool.
  A visitor in a hurry can quickly find the info they desire then move on to the action they desire.
• Provide simple, intuitive and consistent site navigation.
  This provides visitors the tool they need to leisurely explore their way through your site.
• Provide logical and simple to follow content.

The message of a site should start off in a simple and basic fashion with well defined links pointing the way to more detailed information or explanation as needed.

In the cases above, the goal is to make it easy for your visitor to find the information they want without frustration or difficulty. Doing this well will have a positive effect on increasing the return of your visitors.

Aesthetics

A website has to look clean, uncomplicated and strike a balance in layout that is pleasant to the visitor. Pleasing aesthetics come about when the colors of a site complement each other, the graphics blend and lend continuation of the theme and the layout brings unity and openness to the page.

Often overlooked by novice designers is the color palette of the site. While you can select color in a willy-nilly fashion and still provide a visually appealing site, a better idea for color selection should be based on an understanding of the color wheel and proven color strategies.

Many web designers often view a web page as an opportunity to blast a visitor with lots of information in hopes this will convince the visitor to take action. Usually this results in a quick exit due to the overwhelming visual effect and complicated look. A better approach is to provide less content and open space (referred to as white space) to allow visitors eyes to scan and explore with ease.

Content

An important feature of any website is the quality of the text content. Visitors come to a site expecting to find answers to their questions, solutions to their problems or for entertainment value. The content offered at your site must be well-written and without grammatical or spelling errors. It also has to be relevant to the theme of your site, with valid, up-to- date information for your visitors. Content is King!

Graphics

You can have a functional and usable website without graphic elements. However, if there are similar sites to yours that employ graphics, guess which site will get the most traffic. The necessary companions to any well-designed site are the images and illustrations that grace its pages. The images can’t be any willy-nilly graphic that you might think is cool. Graphic imagery has to support your branding, and communicate the message you are trying to convey. Before you incorporate graphic elements into your site, take some time to look around the web. Notice what looks good and how elements are laid out. These same layouts techniques can be used as models for your site.

The Internet is a highly competitive business arena. To be successful with a commercial website, you have to keep these five crucial web design elements in mind. Contrary to what many will tell you, it is rarely possible to have commercial success without the benefit of a professional website. This is not to say that you must hire a professional, however you must implement professional design elements to improve your chances for success.

Tags: business, keyword, marketing, SEO, Web Design, Woody Longacre

Let’s face it, anyone can build a website. There are countless companies out there offering a vast array of web building solutions, some good, some great, and some quite frankly are a complete waste of time! But throwing together a website is really only part of the story, only part of the process. There are literally, hundreds of thousands of web pages, that won’t ever be viewed and therefore stand no chance of commercial success. Some of those sites are relatively good; unfortunately their owners have misunderstood the process and have the cart before the horse…

In the online world no one just happens by your website, credít card in hand! If you’ve yet to build your website, or about to create a new site, stop! consider first exactly what you wish to achieve with that site, before you start. “Creating a website should follow a process proven to deliver a commercial end result… or run the risk of ending up, just another pretty picture in cyberspace!”

Fortunately there is a process, and I highly recommend you take a look at it… perhaps you already know it…

Content > Traffic > Pre-sell > Monetize

A time tested, 4 step process, proven to produce websites that deliver… commercially! Ok so, let’s now look briefly at each step and why they work in this particular order.

1. Numoro Uno, as always. Content. Very, very important. Building information-rich sites is crucial. You must have high quality, unique, relevant content on your site, A; because you want to attract visitors in the first place and B; to generate long term, search engine based free traffic.

Online, people are looking for solutions, for information that leads to solutions. They use the search engines to hunt for the most relevant facts to reach this end goal solution. Your job is therefore easy… give it to them… but don’t just plonk down any old garbage and hope for the best… take your time, put in the effort, provide good quality information that will over-deliver and keep your visitor interested, satisfy her need and you will be rewarded. Over time, gradually add new fresh, useful content and you will be creating web pages valued by humans and search engines alike. On the internet, high value content is king!

2. Traffic… Ahh! The Holy Grail… Much has been written on the subject, and many are making a good living providing (?) this elusive element.

Truth is, (excluding social media) there are but two ways to get it – you either pay for it, or you optimize for it. If you take the time to understand the basics, you can easily do both.

Paid search, (PPC) such as Google Adwords has its place, and can provide an immediate stream of targeted visitors to your website; however it is a study of its own and can, if not understood, be very costly very quickly! If you want to go that route learn with small amounts (of money) and don’t be tempted to throw good after bad… owch! been there!

Safer and arguably better, is optimization (SEO) for the organic results, as reached via a Google or other search engine search. This is simply intelligent website construction, a process anyone can do. The important point is, the optimization should be built in during the creative process, at the time you’re constructing the site; you are literally building your website to principles that make it search engine friendly, thus leading to high natural positions in organic search results, leading to of course, significant free traffic flow to your site…

3. Don’t sell… Pre-sell. You have created a website with value rich content, and fully optimized its pages for indexing by Google (and other search engines)… Folks are arriving at your site as directed by their search results. You are keen to have them buy your goods or services, ready with your pitch… but wait! There’s another vital step in the process of converting your visitors into customers, and you’ve done half the work already…

Pre-selling is a warming up process, whereby you develop trust and confidence in your offering… it’s already well known that people are more willing to buy from those they like, trust or respect. By over-delivering relevant high value information, without appearing to be forcing a sale you will almost by default, create an atmosphere that inevitably leads to sales. Simple!

As far as your visitor is concerned, her needs are being met, his wishes are being fulfilled, you are providing the very information that is the solution to that which they are searching for in the first place. Pre-selling creates an open-to-buy mindset that smoothly introduces your visitors to your monetization offer.

4. Monetize. Ok thanks for sticking with me, here’s the home run… This is where you make your offering enticing by introducing and highlighting the many benefits of your product or service, and detailing exactly how it offers the solution to their predicament. You have paved the way with informative, relevant content and can now look to close with persuasive sales copy.

Your call to action should be strong and concise. Tell your prospect exactly what they need to do to order. If you have a good product, and you should, let them know exactly how they will benefit by ordering from you… Today!

So there it is… in brief… A formula simple, yet highly effective. Generate targeted free traffic via your highly optimized website, provide information packed content that offers solutions, warm up or pre-sell your visitors by over-delivering on the quality of that content, then and only then, monetize by introducing persuasive, benefit focused sales copy to convert pre-sold visitors into enthusiastic customers. For full details on how to implement each of these steps (with no technical knowledge whatsoever!) grab yourself a free 48 page e-copy of The Simple Art of e-Persuasion at the info link below… or visit my site.

Tags: Brye Bishop, business, free, SEO

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, marketing strategy consultant, and instrumental in some of the most lucrative online businesses and wildly successful marketing campaigns to ever hit the web.

Tags: business, consultant, copywriter, marketing, Michel Fortin

A while ago, I wrote a blog post on the power of names. I won’t repeat it here, except for the fact that, while branding may not be a priority for you, choosing a name for your business or product (even your domain name) is often the single, most important business decision you will ever make.

In this blog post I submit five characteristics of great brand names, which I call the five “S’s.” They are characteristics I encourage you to follow when coming up with a solid, long-lasting, and highly profitable name.

For starters, let me point out that the best names are names that are short, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember. They have considerable mnemonic value, which often translates into financial value.

A mnemonic is a device – such as a word, symbol, or sound – intended to assist in recall. If a name carries some mnemonic value, it will improve traffic, sales, and value to your business on its own. The more mnemonic a name is, the more valuable it is.

There are various reasons for this.

First, due to the growing overload of information on the web, people no longer have the time to search the Internet let alone pages upon pages of search engine results in order to find exactly what they want.

Sure, search engines will always have a place.

But more and more people would love to skip irrelevant search engine results. Many will in fact attempt to reach websites directly by guessing and typing plausible domains into their browsers.

(How often have you done this? I do all the time.)

Either that or, when do they use the search engines, they will search for specific names, especially those they remember or deduce, first – and do so before they try to search for something too generic or general, which might force them to wade through pages of search engine results to no avail.

Think about it. How easier would it be if they knew of a name beforehand and typed it into a search engine? How much more relevant would search engine results be?

You guessed it, a lot more.

Take, for instance, search engine trends, even trends that appear on the front page of social networking sites. When a current news item, hot topic, major event, or popular controversy crops up, the Internet becomes inundated with people looking those terms up. Search trends often include brand names, too.

Your objective, therefore, is to choose not only a good brand name but also one that burns itself into the mind of the marketplace. The brains of the people in your market. That’s the power of being “hooked on mnemonics.”

Nevertheless, while the availability of good brand names is shrinking, here are five basic guidelines to follow. Try to follow these as much as you can. I call them the “5 S’s of Naming” (and yes, using the letter “S” is a mnemonic), which are:

1. Suggestiveness
2. Spelling
3. Size
4. Singsong
5. Scalability

1. Suggestiveness

First, choose a suggestive name, one that communicates the main benefit if not at least the nature of the product, business, or website. Benefit-based names have a multitude of advantages beyond ease-of-recall, including credibility.

Studies show suggestive names that instantly communicate what the product or business is all about, what’s their purpose or benefit, in one fell swoop, can rapidly improve desirability, believability, sales, and of course, brand equity.

Look at some of the strongest brand names out there. You will notice that most of them tend to have a name in which the main purpose or benefit is suggested.

For example, “Jiffy Lube” means a fast oil change. “Band-Aid” means a bandage that comes to your aid. “Duracell” means a battery cell that’s durable and longlasting.

Benefit-based suggestiveness applies particularly well to domain names. Why? Because if a brand name is already taken, you can resort to its core benefit or purpose instead.

For example, if you sought a financial planner and were given a bunch of URLs, would you choosenafep.com (which is an actual name, by the way)? Or InvestRight.com?

2. Spelling

Second, make it easy to pronounce and hard to misspell. If you must spell it, then scrap it. The moment you’re forced to spell your business, product, or domain name when asking people to look you up, you’ve lost them already.

Think of the people trying to find your business, your product, or your website – whether they use a search engine or not. Make it easy for them to do so and avoid anything that impedes the proper spelling of the brand name.

For instance, avoid numbers, hard-to-pronounce words, or acronyms. Unless you are IBM, AOL, CNN, BMW, or some other, already well-known brand, avoid acronyms or initials at all costs – they are probably the worst of the bunch.

In short, make the name intuitive. I’m not just talking about unique names, either. Avoid generic words that are easily or commonly misspelled, which may impede traffic.

For example, if you have a wedding planner site, would you call your business “Marriages Made Easy”? Or “Weddings Well Done”? The two are good, but “marriage” can often be misspelled with one “R” instead of two.

(If you already have one and it’s too late, hopefully it’s not too late to register the misspelled domain to capture additional traffic – lest they go to a competitor, much less a site that might be less favorable, like some ädult site.)

On the other hand, if an acronym makes a name easy to pronounce, easy to remember, and shorter, then go for it. In fact, this is the third guideline.

3. Size

The shorter it is, the better it will be. For example, which one would you remember the most and have the least amount of trouble (or potential for error) in typing into your browser: YetAnotherHierarchicallyOrganizedOracle.com? Or Yahoo.com?

Long names can be counterproductive as it diminishes its mnemonic value. “Federal Express” is now FedEx. “FedEx” means a courier that express-ships your packages, federally. But since they now ship internationally, FedEx makes better sense.

Or take a look at “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” which is now KFC. I don’t know why exactly they changed the name, but I surmise that it’s because of the word “fried,” which tends to communicate unhealthiness in a now health-conscious society.

But be careful, if you’re brand-new and decide to use an acronym, make sure to avoid confusion. It’s best to choose an acronym that’s memorable or easily pronounceable.

Take the aforementioned Yahoo!, for instance. Or SHIELD, which means “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”

(Sorry. Couldn’t resist. My love for comic-book heroes slipped through.)

Or better yet, start with a regular name first, build your brand, and then shorten it, if appropriate - although that may be an expensive proposition. Remember, IBM wasn’t always IBM, but “International Business Machines.” AOL, America Online. Etc.

4. Singsong

The fourth guideline is to use repetition. Repetitious sounds are pleasing to the ear and add a singsong quality. As the adage goes, “Repetition is the parent of learning.”

By making the pronunciation simpler, repetition, such as with rhymes and alliteration, helps to turn names into mental “hooks.” And by making the name esthetically pleasing, studies show you also increase credibility, too.

If you can make your name rhyme, you’re going to create a name that will almost instantly create an indelible mark on people’s minds. When the need for your solution arises, people will naturally think of your name first.

Which is the whole point of a good, memorable brand name.

Don’t forget alliteration, also known as “head rhymes,” too. It’s all about repetition. For example, NoBrainerBlinds.com, Coca-Cola, SiteSell.com, Krispy Kreme, Google, and so on have that pleasing, singsong quality.

Also, strong-sounding or “choppy” consonants (like the sound of “P,” “D,” “T,” and “K”), used particularly at the beginning, help recall by adding emphasis.

They are called plosives. And according to naming expert Steve Rivkin, “It makes linguistic sense to start a brand name with a strong-sounding consonant or a plosive.”

5. Scalability

One thing to be careful of is to choose a name that’s not too specific, limited, or constrained. Otherwise, it can literally paint your product or business into a corner.

Remember the names I mentioned earlier that were later changed to their abbreviated versions in order to shorten them? Rebranding is often a very costly exercise, and you want to avoid that as much as possible.

But this also applies to names that, while they may be relevant today, could become irrelevant, incompatible, or impractical in the future.

In other words, don’t choose a name that’s time-sensitive, situational, inflexible, or linked to something else - such as a current event, another brand, or some fad or trend.

If things change (and they will), will the name still apply? Will it still be relevant? Can it lose its commercial value? Will you be forced to change if you decided to expand?

A scalable name is a name that’s evergreen, extensible, easily modifiable (without any costly overhaul to the brand or depreciation in brand equity), and compatible with future changes, additions, partners, or markets.

That’s why it’s important that, while the name may be suggestive, don’t make it too generic. Some unique names may not be as suggestive, but they can certainly become some of the most memorable - and profitable - brands.

A few good online examples are Google, Twitter, Hulu, etc.

Or in some cases, and for the lack of a better word, some names can be “uniquified,” either by:

• A combination of suggestive words, such as WordPress, FaceBook, ClickBank, PhotoShop, MicroSoft, etc;
• A generic, suggestive name made unique, like Kleenex (cleanliness), Windex (washes windows), Sensodyne (toothpaste for sensitive teeth), Natrel (naturally filtered milk), iPhone (self-explanatory), etc;
• Or a completely different name that may not be related but is indirectly associated with its core benefit, idea, or purpose, such as Ivory (white soap that’s luxurious), Godiva (specialty chocolates that’s “sinful” to eat), Raid (insecticide that’s as efficient as a military raid), etc.

Bottom line, make sure you stay away from names that are unattractive, confusing, easy to misspell, obscure, too long, inflexible, and can be easily forgotten or ignored.

Bad names not only can impede your business’ growth, but it can also kill your credibility, cost you in lost sales, and become counterproductive.

In essence, make it easy for people to find you and do business with you.

Like a brand that burns an owner’s indicia on its livestock, choose an easily recognizable brand that burns itself into the brains of your market. For the more you do, and the more memorable you are, then the more profitable you will become.

Tags: business, marketing, Michel Fortin