Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2007-2008 Casey Moher
It's vital that you surmount a series of resistance points on your way to establishing a customer.
Your obstacles are:
1. No TRUST for you on the part of your visitor.
2. No NEED for what you have.
3. No perception that you can HELP them.
4. They are in no HURRY to act.
Let's take these one at a time:
On-line, you are a stranger to everyone. The most difficult part (establishing instantaneous rapport) is also the most important part of your business plan.
Doubt quickly evaporates from the mind of your visitor if your initial approach is to provide them with something of high perceived-value absolutely free. As your site visitor begins their visit, there are more questions than answers going through their mind.
If the first thing you do is to offer something free, it goes a long way towards reducing that sales resistance and that lack of trust they intrinsically feel. A good item to give away would be a report on a popular and good-selling internet-based product or service that you have something about.
Good-selling products and services are a great place to start with your plans to produce a report to use as your free gift. You'll find that this approach is the best way to overcome the obstacle of NO TRUST! Obstacle number TWO is the one of NO NEED.
A great approach to blasting past no-need is to select a product for your review that has some strong testimonials from customers who have purchsed it. The more your visitors appreciate the value of your free information, the more receptive they will be to your sales message.
It is when you begin to present your offer that obstacle number three (NO HELP) starts to nag at the back of your customer's mind.
The mind-set of NO HELP is a stubborn one and hangs in there even though you have built up a good amount of TRUST with your site visitor. Here, too, it is third-party testimonials that are your best tool for cracking through this obstacle. By now you should be getting a feel for how helpful and easy it is for you to establish yourself as an affiliate marketer for a useful product.
There are a huge number of things that are done for you when you are an affiliate. Order taking, shipping, complaints and returns. Moreover, a great and proven sales letter together with testimonials are in place for your use in obstacle-busting.
Also, getting your business started and getting past the obstacles we are talking about today are all much easier when you begin as an affiliate marketer for a useful product.
You are now in the position of three hurdles down and one to go. Getting someone 'off the dime' and settling on a decision is your fourth obstacle. This individual is plagued with inaction and the attitude that there is NO HURRY. To move your customer out of the comfort zone that your product will always be available to them, they need a reason to act right away! Scarcity or limited availability of the product is one good way to do this.
Additionally, you can use the concept that the product may indeed be available for the foreseeable future, but the price could well be quickly climbing very soon. Also, in all reality, the product itself will go away at some point and you won't be promoting it any longer.
Use both the notion of approaching scarcity together with the possibility of loss to effectively contain the obstacle of NO HURRY.
Building an ever-growing list of responsive customers is the key to financial stability and growth for you and your family. You can build a responsive list of loyal subscribers if you apply yourself and follow the concepts outlined in this article. Getting past the four obstacles we've been discussing can help you greatly in cultivating a list of responsive customers.
About the Author:
Casey Moher - Caseymoher@comcast.net (801) 941-3334
Mr. Moher is a Registered Pharmacist and Life-Long Marketing and Sales Professional. You Can Get His Free Five-Day Mini-Course on Building Targeted Website Traffic by visiting: http://www.newtrafficmaster.com
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
How To Use Systems Without Turning Into A Heartless Zombie
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2006-2008 Mark Silver
How To Use Systems Without Turning Into A Heartless Zombie You can tell as soon as you pick up the phone before the other person has even said anything. That little silence, the clattering in the background, tells you that it's a telemarketer on the other end of the line, and there is nothing they have to say that is worth your precious time.
The business that hired the telemarketing firm is trying to achieve their goals using systems. Many of the systems large companies use that we come into contact with like automated 'help' lines, telemarketing firms, spam-like mortgage offerings that feel completely devoid of heart and personality.
With those experiences, it's easy to have strong opinions about using systems, and to avoid them like the plague in your own business.
Don't let a world full of bad apples keep you from the sweetness, and support, that is possible with systems. Systems help you stand up.
The word 'system' comes from two Latin words: 'syn' and 'histanai' meaning to cause to stand. Merriam-Webster ( www.m-w.com ) defines system like this: "a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole."
Kind of like your bones, muscles and brain all working together to help you stand up. Or your heart, mind, and soul working together to show your family how much you love them.
If you have Thank You cards, address labels, and postage sitting in your desk, and every time you write a card you put it out for the post: that's a system. And whoever the lucky person is who receives the card is grateful, whether they know it's a system or not.
Like the body, systems have conscious and unconscious parts.
Chances are you don't think much about breathing. You breathe in, you breathe out. Your heart pumps, and the blood and oxygen go 'round and 'round, keeping you alive moment to moment.
Thankfully, you don't have to pay conscious attention to that system: "Okay, right and left atriums: pump! Right and left-ventricles: pump! Okay, diaphragm: tighten and flatten!" Try directing all of this, dozens of times a minute.
Wouldn't leave a lot of room to get much else done, would it?
Are you thinking about every breath your business takes?
I'm betting that there are plenty of places in your business that could use a system to help you stand up. How about getting bills paid? How about keeping your office stocked with business supplies?
A system can be as simple as having a stack of blank inventory lists of what your office needs to operate smoothly, a monthly alarm in your calendar that reminds you to take ten minutes and check your inventory, filling out your inventory list of what's needed, and scheduling a trip to Office Depot, or ordering what you need online.
Voila! A system has just handled your office needs, and now you won't ever be stuck at 10pm at night before a big deadline with empty printer ink cartridges.
That's fine for office inventory, but what about the telemarketing call we received in the beginning of this article?
A 'heart-less' system is a zombie.
Systems are, by nature, repetitive. By handling the repetitious aspects of your business, they can leave you time and energy for truly enriching, heart-centered interactions.
The telemarketing company unfortunately thought everything about the call is repetitive, and doesn't allow for real human interaction. As a result, there is no space left for us to engage with the telemarketer as a person- they become a zombie. And who wouldn't hang up on a zombie?
'Zombie' refers to a corpse that has been re-animated by evil powers. If you are going to systematize your marketing, which I highly recommend, you'll want to identify which actions are repetitive, and which are creative and unique. But, to avoid creating a zombie, you'll want to do more than just systematize the repetitive. You'll also want to bring your presence to the unique, and put your heart into both.
Everything in this world has a spiritual presence to it, which means that no system, engine, or machine need truly be 'cold and heartless,' as one client put it. Your veins and arteries aren't just tubes, but they are imbued with life. The same could be said of your autoresponder, accounting software, or email.
Take a moment now in your heart and ask to be shown the presence and life within some part of your business that you consider to be zombie-like: 'cold and heartless.' Once you recognize the life that is present within your business systems, they will function more effectively for you. And your customers may enjoy them more as well.
Sounds simple, but it may not be obvious.
Keys to Heart-Centered SystemsPick one thing you'd like to happen more often and more easily.
Taking a moment to breathe and check in with your heart, identify some place in your business that you know it would be really helpful if it happened more often or more easily. You may have several ;), but for now, just pick one. What are all the bite-sized pieces to it?
Even if it's a list of 20 things, break it down into little bite-sized tasks. For each task, identify if it's a repetitive task without much creativity or personal touch needed (applying postage, for instance), a task that needs creativity once, but then can be repetitive (a welcome letter you mail out, that can be copied), or a task that needs creativity every time (responding to a personal request for help from someone).
If it needs creativity every time, you can't systematize it. But, the rest you can put into a system that delivers, does, or reminds you to do the task in question. A Heart of Business Example.
We decided, for several reasons that have to do with both supporting people and supporting the business, that we wanted people to actually read and use the free workbook we give away:
Getting to the Core of Your Business. We also knew that many people would download it, but forget about it.
There is no way that I could possibly follow up with each subscriber personally to remind them to check out the free download. However, what I did do was go in my heart, and ask for what was one bit in the free workbook that would be very helpful to someone who was relatively new.
When my heart was clear with that, I wrote a -very- short email, and put it in our email autoresponder system. After someone has been subscribed for two weeks, the email goes out automatically, reminding the new subscriber how to get the download, and to look at a specific page, for a specific bit of help.
We get thank you emails all the time from folks who have received that email, and enjoyed what they read there.
Although the email goes out automatically, without me thinking about it (heart- pump! diaphragm- breathe!), the responses that come back fall into the category of needing creativity every time.
So I respond to those emails personally, quite happily. If I had had to think about every step until that point: manually adding someone to the subscriber list, sending them the free workbook, sending them the reminder email- I would be exhausted, cranky, and unable to do much else in my business.
But, because the rest of it is in a system, and Heart of Business is off the respirator and breathing on its own, then I do have spaciousness and creativity available to respond with heart to those who do write to me.
Your next step: What is one heart-centered system you can add to your business this month?
The best to you and your business,
Mark Silver
About the Author:
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com
Copyright © 2006-2008 Mark Silver
How To Use Systems Without Turning Into A Heartless Zombie You can tell as soon as you pick up the phone before the other person has even said anything. That little silence, the clattering in the background, tells you that it's a telemarketer on the other end of the line, and there is nothing they have to say that is worth your precious time.
The business that hired the telemarketing firm is trying to achieve their goals using systems. Many of the systems large companies use that we come into contact with like automated 'help' lines, telemarketing firms, spam-like mortgage offerings that feel completely devoid of heart and personality.
With those experiences, it's easy to have strong opinions about using systems, and to avoid them like the plague in your own business.
Don't let a world full of bad apples keep you from the sweetness, and support, that is possible with systems. Systems help you stand up.
The word 'system' comes from two Latin words: 'syn' and 'histanai' meaning to cause to stand. Merriam-Webster ( www.m-w.com ) defines system like this: "a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole."
Kind of like your bones, muscles and brain all working together to help you stand up. Or your heart, mind, and soul working together to show your family how much you love them.
If you have Thank You cards, address labels, and postage sitting in your desk, and every time you write a card you put it out for the post: that's a system. And whoever the lucky person is who receives the card is grateful, whether they know it's a system or not.
Like the body, systems have conscious and unconscious parts.
Chances are you don't think much about breathing. You breathe in, you breathe out. Your heart pumps, and the blood and oxygen go 'round and 'round, keeping you alive moment to moment.
Thankfully, you don't have to pay conscious attention to that system: "Okay, right and left atriums: pump! Right and left-ventricles: pump! Okay, diaphragm: tighten and flatten!" Try directing all of this, dozens of times a minute.
Wouldn't leave a lot of room to get much else done, would it?
Are you thinking about every breath your business takes?
I'm betting that there are plenty of places in your business that could use a system to help you stand up. How about getting bills paid? How about keeping your office stocked with business supplies?
A system can be as simple as having a stack of blank inventory lists of what your office needs to operate smoothly, a monthly alarm in your calendar that reminds you to take ten minutes and check your inventory, filling out your inventory list of what's needed, and scheduling a trip to Office Depot, or ordering what you need online.
Voila! A system has just handled your office needs, and now you won't ever be stuck at 10pm at night before a big deadline with empty printer ink cartridges.
That's fine for office inventory, but what about the telemarketing call we received in the beginning of this article?
A 'heart-less' system is a zombie.
Systems are, by nature, repetitive. By handling the repetitious aspects of your business, they can leave you time and energy for truly enriching, heart-centered interactions.
The telemarketing company unfortunately thought everything about the call is repetitive, and doesn't allow for real human interaction. As a result, there is no space left for us to engage with the telemarketer as a person- they become a zombie. And who wouldn't hang up on a zombie?
'Zombie' refers to a corpse that has been re-animated by evil powers. If you are going to systematize your marketing, which I highly recommend, you'll want to identify which actions are repetitive, and which are creative and unique. But, to avoid creating a zombie, you'll want to do more than just systematize the repetitive. You'll also want to bring your presence to the unique, and put your heart into both.
Everything in this world has a spiritual presence to it, which means that no system, engine, or machine need truly be 'cold and heartless,' as one client put it. Your veins and arteries aren't just tubes, but they are imbued with life. The same could be said of your autoresponder, accounting software, or email.
Take a moment now in your heart and ask to be shown the presence and life within some part of your business that you consider to be zombie-like: 'cold and heartless.' Once you recognize the life that is present within your business systems, they will function more effectively for you. And your customers may enjoy them more as well.
Sounds simple, but it may not be obvious.
Keys to Heart-Centered Systems
Taking a moment to breathe and check in with your heart, identify some place in your business that you know it would be really helpful if it happened more often or more easily. You may have several ;), but for now, just pick one.
Even if it's a list of 20 things, break it down into little bite-sized tasks. For each task, identify if it's a repetitive task without much creativity or personal touch needed (applying postage, for instance), a task that needs creativity once, but then can be repetitive (a welcome letter you mail out, that can be copied), or a task that needs creativity every time (responding to a personal request for help from someone).
If it needs creativity every time, you can't systematize it. But, the rest you can put into a system that delivers, does, or reminds you to do the task in question.
We decided, for several reasons that have to do with both supporting people and supporting the business, that we wanted people to actually read and use the free workbook we give away:
Getting to the Core of Your Business. We also knew that many people would download it, but forget about it.
There is no way that I could possibly follow up with each subscriber personally to remind them to check out the free download. However, what I did do was go in my heart, and ask for what was one bit in the free workbook that would be very helpful to someone who was relatively new.
When my heart was clear with that, I wrote a -very- short email, and put it in our email autoresponder system. After someone has been subscribed for two weeks, the email goes out automatically, reminding the new subscriber how to get the download, and to look at a specific page, for a specific bit of help.
We get thank you emails all the time from folks who have received that email, and enjoyed what they read there.
Although the email goes out automatically, without me thinking about it (heart- pump! diaphragm- breathe!), the responses that come back fall into the category of needing creativity every time.
So I respond to those emails personally, quite happily. If I had had to think about every step until that point: manually adding someone to the subscriber list, sending them the free workbook, sending them the reminder email- I would be exhausted, cranky, and unable to do much else in my business.
But, because the rest of it is in a system, and Heart of Business is off the respirator and breathing on its own, then I do have spaciousness and creativity available to respond with heart to those who do write to me.
Your next step: What is one heart-centered system you can add to your business this month?
The best to you and your business,
Mark Silver
About the Author:
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com
Monday, June 16, 2008
Why you don't want Michelangelo working on your website
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2006-2008 Mark Silver
Everyone wants to live surrounded by beauty. Beauty soothes the soul, and lifts the spirit. It inspires us and keeps us healthy. We all want beauty.
Can you have beauty in your website? Sure you can, and it's important to have your website be pleasing to the folks you want to help. Unfortunately, this desire to have beauty and to please folks means that you can spend a great deal of time creating a 'unique and beautiful' web design that people actually avoid. How can you spend so much time on beauty, sacrifice so much money with a designer, and still end up with a mess?
Do you do Frescoes?
No one would complain about the beauty of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Michelangelo spent four years, from July, 1508 through October, 1512, painting over 5,000 square feet of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.
Unfortunately, Michelangelo was a sculptor, and loved working in marble. Prior to the Sistine Chapel, he had only painted briefly as a student of Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence. Which means that he got off to a slow start as he learned how to paint frescoes.
Luckily for him, Michelangelo was already an accomplished artist. He wasn't exactly doing the Sistine Chapel as a free promotional effort. Pope Julius II commissioned him for those four years, and didn't seem to mind that it took Michelangelo a while to get in a groove.
History reports that one of the Pope's motivations was to outdo Pope Alexander VI. So, the whole idea was to create an amazingly glorious ceiling that would stun everyone who saw it.
Are you trying to stun your visitors? Remember the purpose of your website: to create a relationship with the right people, connect with their hearts and needs, and to help them take the next step in relationship to what you offer. If you aren't being commissioned to paint the ceiling of your website by a fabulously wealthy Pope, and if you aren't trying to stun your visitors with beauty, I suggest you relax, just a little bit, any attachment you might have to beauty and uniqueness around your website.
Your visitor is waiting for dinner.
Imagine showing up at a friend's house to eat. You've worked all day, you're hungry and you've been looking forward to dinner. Yet, once you arrive, they keep you waiting for three hours while they pull out family home movies, or their wedding album.
It's not that you wouldn't eventually like to see those things. But first, can we have dinner, please?
The Two Functions of Your Design
Absolutely prepare and present the food with love and beauty. But just remember that your visitor is looking for food, not frescoes. It's been shown that when a visitor comes to a website, design plays two primary functions:
(1) to show that the website is solid and professional-looking enough that the business can be trusted, and
(2) to make sure that the visitor can find what she needs really easily without having to guess or hunt.
As long as you are meeting those two needs, your design is going to work.
So, where is it safe to bring forth beauty and inspiration on your site, and where will it keep you stuck to the ceiling for four years?
Keys to Website Design
Things to avoid.
Avoid putting a pattern behind your text, or using a text color that isn't very dark. In fact, I recommend that you stick with black text on a white background. Millions of novels of great variety, beauty and talent are written, all printed black text on a white background.
As a general rule, avoid animation and oversized photos and illustrations- anything that distracts from the food you want your visitor to eat.
Avoid unique design layouts. Many websites look the same structurally- and so do human beings. You don't have to look at the back of someone's knees to find their eyes. People know how to connect with each other more easily in part because of structural similarities.
Your visitor has been trained to expect certain conventions in web design, so they can find what they are looking for. Don't play a guessing game with them by creating some outlandishly creative and confusing design.
Things to do.
Keep your text front and center. Keep your navigation either across the top, or down one side, with clear labels. Don't use more than two columns- one for the navigation or side text, and one for the main content of the page.
Have a clear banner across the top with a simple message about your business.
Things of beauty and inspiration
Make your banner beautiful and inspiring, without being cluttered. Use colors you love.
Use creative bullets rather than just the usual round variety.
Use color highlights around navigation buttons, and in the frame around your page.
Above all, don't agonize over it.
If you don't have a website yet, or your website isn't effective and you are upgrading it, bring in what creativity you have, but don't agonize over the beauty aspects. Your visitors are waiting to be fed! Once you start having a lot of visitors coming to your website, and your business is humming, you can take the time and space to bring out the fine china for them.
My very best to you and your business,
Mark Silver
About the Author:
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com
Copyright © 2006-2008 Mark Silver
Everyone wants to live surrounded by beauty. Beauty soothes the soul, and lifts the spirit. It inspires us and keeps us healthy. We all want beauty.
Can you have beauty in your website? Sure you can, and it's important to have your website be pleasing to the folks you want to help. Unfortunately, this desire to have beauty and to please folks means that you can spend a great deal of time creating a 'unique and beautiful' web design that people actually avoid. How can you spend so much time on beauty, sacrifice so much money with a designer, and still end up with a mess?
Do you do Frescoes?
No one would complain about the beauty of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Michelangelo spent four years, from July, 1508 through October, 1512, painting over 5,000 square feet of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.
Unfortunately, Michelangelo was a sculptor, and loved working in marble. Prior to the Sistine Chapel, he had only painted briefly as a student of Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence. Which means that he got off to a slow start as he learned how to paint frescoes.
Luckily for him, Michelangelo was already an accomplished artist. He wasn't exactly doing the Sistine Chapel as a free promotional effort. Pope Julius II commissioned him for those four years, and didn't seem to mind that it took Michelangelo a while to get in a groove.
History reports that one of the Pope's motivations was to outdo Pope Alexander VI. So, the whole idea was to create an amazingly glorious ceiling that would stun everyone who saw it.
Are you trying to stun your visitors? Remember the purpose of your website: to create a relationship with the right people, connect with their hearts and needs, and to help them take the next step in relationship to what you offer. If you aren't being commissioned to paint the ceiling of your website by a fabulously wealthy Pope, and if you aren't trying to stun your visitors with beauty, I suggest you relax, just a little bit, any attachment you might have to beauty and uniqueness around your website.
Your visitor is waiting for dinner.
Imagine showing up at a friend's house to eat. You've worked all day, you're hungry and you've been looking forward to dinner. Yet, once you arrive, they keep you waiting for three hours while they pull out family home movies, or their wedding album.
It's not that you wouldn't eventually like to see those things. But first, can we have dinner, please?
The Two Functions of Your Design
Absolutely prepare and present the food with love and beauty. But just remember that your visitor is looking for food, not frescoes. It's been shown that when a visitor comes to a website, design plays two primary functions:
(1) to show that the website is solid and professional-looking enough that the business can be trusted, and
(2) to make sure that the visitor can find what she needs really easily without having to guess or hunt.
As long as you are meeting those two needs, your design is going to work.
So, where is it safe to bring forth beauty and inspiration on your site, and where will it keep you stuck to the ceiling for four years?
Keys to Website Design
Avoid putting a pattern behind your text, or using a text color that isn't very dark. In fact, I recommend that you stick with black text on a white background. Millions of novels of great variety, beauty and talent are written, all printed black text on a white background.
As a general rule, avoid animation and oversized photos and illustrations- anything that distracts from the food you want your visitor to eat.
Avoid unique design layouts. Many websites look the same structurally- and so do human beings. You don't have to look at the back of someone's knees to find their eyes. People know how to connect with each other more easily in part because of structural similarities.
Your visitor has been trained to expect certain conventions in web design, so they can find what they are looking for. Don't play a guessing game with them by creating some outlandishly creative and confusing design.
Keep your text front and center. Keep your navigation either across the top, or down one side, with clear labels. Don't use more than two columns- one for the navigation or side text, and one for the main content of the page.
Have a clear banner across the top with a simple message about your business.
Make your banner beautiful and inspiring, without being cluttered. Use colors you love.
Use creative bullets rather than just the usual round variety.
Use color highlights around navigation buttons, and in the frame around your page.
If you don't have a website yet, or your website isn't effective and you are upgrading it, bring in what creativity you have, but don't agonize over the beauty aspects. Your visitors are waiting to be fed! Once you start having a lot of visitors coming to your website, and your business is humming, you can take the time and space to bring out the fine china for them.
My very best to you and your business,
Mark Silver
About the Author:
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com
What To Do When Your Website Does Not Rank Well In Google
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt
Online marketers frequently struggle with the question of how to compete when Google fails to look positively upon a particular website. In this article, I will focus on how to build rankings and drive traffic to your website, using Google and the other search engines.
What Motivates Google's Algorithm
Over the years, many have tried to claim, even in court, that Google was unfairly keeping their website out of the top of Google's search results. But, the truth is that Google is not beholden to the needs and desires of the webmasters who want to be on page one of Google's natural search results.
Instead, Google is beholden to its stockholders and its need to earn profits. Google has determined that the best way to keep profits high is to keep Internet users flocking to its websites. Google accomplishes that by giving its users the kind of information they are looking to find, and Google weights its search algorithm towards what Google believes its search audience wants to see in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
It is important for online marketers to understand that it is not always in Google's best interest for our websites to rank well in Google.
How Important Is Google In Search?
Worldwide, Google is currently providing 78% of all searches (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=4).
But in 2007, Google only provided 52% of my website's total search traffic. Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN provided the next 42%. The remaining 6% of my website's search traffic came from another 55 smaller search engines.
On my website, only 48.8% of my 2007 traffic actually came from search engines. The remaining 51.2% of my website's quarter million visitors came directly from article placements on other websites, recommendations from other people, forum posts, and from people who have bookmarks for my website.
Tips For Ranking Well For Specific Keywords
It has been my experience that it is easier to rank in 1) MSN / Windows Live, 2) Yahoo, and then 3) Google, in that order. Quite frankly, I have always ignored the role of Ask in the search market. While MSN is the easiest search engine to rank in, it only delivered 4.6% of my total search traffic in 2007.
I read a question in a forum, where the poster was asking how he could get his website to rank well in Google for the search term, "software".
The truth is that it is nearly impossible in nearly every search engine to rank well in the natural results for such a singular keyword, such as "software". In a nutshell, if you want to rank well in Google, you need to build inbound links (IBLs) to your website with your targeted keywords in the links.
But, you don't want to put all of your links together with one keyword phrase. One of Google's red flags is when they notice a link to a particular website appearing more than 60% of the time with one specific keyword phrase.
Utilizing a variety of long-tail keywords will actually serve you better in the search-engine ranking puzzle, in more ways than one. After all, when I do a search for software, I don't type in the search word, "software". I type in search phrases like: "accounting software", "small business accounting software", "windows software accounting small business", "windows image editing software", "windows software image editor", "windows xp photo album manager", etc.
People searching the keyword "software" have yet to figure out that they are looking for specific kinds of software. Once they do an initial search, they are going to type in more specific search terms to find what they actually want. So, once you start targeting a variety of long-tail keyword phrases, then you will start seeing more success in your search marketing efforts.
How To Start Your Search Engine Optimization Journey
If you are wanting to get into the natural search results of Google and the other search engines, you must know before you dive into the project that getting good rankings in the search engines for your chosen keywords can take a really long time, before you begin seeing results.
While inbound links to your website, targeted to your chosen keywords, will help your website climb in the search results of your favorite search engines, it may be a frustrating journey.
Your competitors want to rank well for the same search terms you do. And since only ten of you can be on page one of the search results, you may have to work really hard to topple those guys already on page one of the results, and you will have to fight to keep your ranking once you get it.
There are some keyword phrases that are nearly impossible to rank for, even if you have really deep pockets. For example, most every keyword phrase for the financial industry will be extremely difficult to rank for in Google. Competition in this industry is fierce, so achieving top search rankings will be tough to say the least.
This is the reason why so many SEO experts encourage marketers to target "low-hanging fruit". It may be fairly easy to rank well for a four- or five-word search phrase, and extremely expensive to target a two- or three-word search phrase.
My personal approach has always been to rotate through a list of more than 100 target keyword phrases, over a longer period of time. In doing so, I capture a lot of low-hanging fruit quickly, and at the end of the loop, I am a bit closer to snagging the fruit in the upper branches of the tree. At the end of my list, I analyze my keywords again to see where I am strong and to see where I am still weak, and then I begin the process again. (According to SEOdigger.com, I have better than 950 keyword phrases in the top twenty results of Google.)
How To Get Links
The challenge most people face when they begin building links to a website is where to get those essential links.
Article marketing is my chosen method for getting inbound links.
Because of Google's news feed strategy, the initial placement of your article might appear immediately in the SERPs, but then it will disappear. During the news cycle phase of the Google algorithm, new materials are given an added boost in ranking. Once the news cycle is done, any new pages will sink back down to where they would be based on the general Google algorithm.
If you are honest with yourself, you know that every page on the Internet started life with a PageRank Zero, but given enough time, many pages will gain in PageRank, as they begin to be linked. For a more detailed look at the process of how reprint articles gain value for a website in Google's search index, see my article about "Fishing for Links in Google".
Utilizing article marketing as a link building method, I have put one website on the map in as little as eight weeks, with only three articles. This website has one #1, one #2, eight results on page one, and twelve results in the top twenty listings of Google. Most of those keywords also rank well in Yahoo and MSN.
On the other hand, on my main website, I started looking at the keyword phrase "article marketing" just eighteen months ago, when my website sat at #79. Today, my website sits at #12 in Google for that keyword phrase.
I believe that given enough time, investment and commitment, I can use article marketing to elevate any web page on the Internet to multiple page-one listings in Google. But, not everyone is willing to make the kind of investment and commitment one needs to get to the top of Google's search results...
What To Do When You Need Results Now
If you simply cannot wait as long as it takes to build top rankings naturally, then you need to look seriously at Pay-Per-Click advertising models, such those offered through Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing.
About the Author:
Bill Platt offers Article Distribution and Article Ghost Writing services through his website at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com He has written an ebook that has been designed to help people create more effective articles. One customer said of his ebook, "I've read almost every ebook out there on article writing and article marketing and this one tops it all." To learn more about Bill's ebook or to get your own copy, please click this link.
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt
Online marketers frequently struggle with the question of how to compete when Google fails to look positively upon a particular website. In this article, I will focus on how to build rankings and drive traffic to your website, using Google and the other search engines.
What Motivates Google's Algorithm
Over the years, many have tried to claim, even in court, that Google was unfairly keeping their website out of the top of Google's search results. But, the truth is that Google is not beholden to the needs and desires of the webmasters who want to be on page one of Google's natural search results.
Instead, Google is beholden to its stockholders and its need to earn profits. Google has determined that the best way to keep profits high is to keep Internet users flocking to its websites. Google accomplishes that by giving its users the kind of information they are looking to find, and Google weights its search algorithm towards what Google believes its search audience wants to see in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
It is important for online marketers to understand that it is not always in Google's best interest for our websites to rank well in Google.
How Important Is Google In Search?
Worldwide, Google is currently providing 78% of all searches (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=4).
But in 2007, Google only provided 52% of my website's total search traffic. Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN provided the next 42%. The remaining 6% of my website's search traffic came from another 55 smaller search engines.
On my website, only 48.8% of my 2007 traffic actually came from search engines. The remaining 51.2% of my website's quarter million visitors came directly from article placements on other websites, recommendations from other people, forum posts, and from people who have bookmarks for my website.
Tips For Ranking Well For Specific Keywords
It has been my experience that it is easier to rank in 1) MSN / Windows Live, 2) Yahoo, and then 3) Google, in that order. Quite frankly, I have always ignored the role of Ask in the search market. While MSN is the easiest search engine to rank in, it only delivered 4.6% of my total search traffic in 2007.
I read a question in a forum, where the poster was asking how he could get his website to rank well in Google for the search term, "software".
The truth is that it is nearly impossible in nearly every search engine to rank well in the natural results for such a singular keyword, such as "software". In a nutshell, if you want to rank well in Google, you need to build inbound links (IBLs) to your website with your targeted keywords in the links.
But, you don't want to put all of your links together with one keyword phrase. One of Google's red flags is when they notice a link to a particular website appearing more than 60% of the time with one specific keyword phrase.
Utilizing a variety of long-tail keywords will actually serve you better in the search-engine ranking puzzle, in more ways than one. After all, when I do a search for software, I don't type in the search word, "software". I type in search phrases like: "accounting software", "small business accounting software", "windows software accounting small business", "windows image editing software", "windows software image editor", "windows xp photo album manager", etc.
People searching the keyword "software" have yet to figure out that they are looking for specific kinds of software. Once they do an initial search, they are going to type in more specific search terms to find what they actually want. So, once you start targeting a variety of long-tail keyword phrases, then you will start seeing more success in your search marketing efforts.
How To Start Your Search Engine Optimization Journey
If you are wanting to get into the natural search results of Google and the other search engines, you must know before you dive into the project that getting good rankings in the search engines for your chosen keywords can take a really long time, before you begin seeing results.
While inbound links to your website, targeted to your chosen keywords, will help your website climb in the search results of your favorite search engines, it may be a frustrating journey.
Your competitors want to rank well for the same search terms you do. And since only ten of you can be on page one of the search results, you may have to work really hard to topple those guys already on page one of the results, and you will have to fight to keep your ranking once you get it.
There are some keyword phrases that are nearly impossible to rank for, even if you have really deep pockets. For example, most every keyword phrase for the financial industry will be extremely difficult to rank for in Google. Competition in this industry is fierce, so achieving top search rankings will be tough to say the least.
This is the reason why so many SEO experts encourage marketers to target "low-hanging fruit". It may be fairly easy to rank well for a four- or five-word search phrase, and extremely expensive to target a two- or three-word search phrase.
My personal approach has always been to rotate through a list of more than 100 target keyword phrases, over a longer period of time. In doing so, I capture a lot of low-hanging fruit quickly, and at the end of the loop, I am a bit closer to snagging the fruit in the upper branches of the tree. At the end of my list, I analyze my keywords again to see where I am strong and to see where I am still weak, and then I begin the process again. (According to SEOdigger.com, I have better than 950 keyword phrases in the top twenty results of Google.)
How To Get Links
The challenge most people face when they begin building links to a website is where to get those essential links.
Article marketing is my chosen method for getting inbound links.
Because of Google's news feed strategy, the initial placement of your article might appear immediately in the SERPs, but then it will disappear. During the news cycle phase of the Google algorithm, new materials are given an added boost in ranking. Once the news cycle is done, any new pages will sink back down to where they would be based on the general Google algorithm.
If you are honest with yourself, you know that every page on the Internet started life with a PageRank Zero, but given enough time, many pages will gain in PageRank, as they begin to be linked. For a more detailed look at the process of how reprint articles gain value for a website in Google's search index, see my article about "Fishing for Links in Google".
Utilizing article marketing as a link building method, I have put one website on the map in as little as eight weeks, with only three articles. This website has one #1, one #2, eight results on page one, and twelve results in the top twenty listings of Google. Most of those keywords also rank well in Yahoo and MSN.
On the other hand, on my main website, I started looking at the keyword phrase "article marketing" just eighteen months ago, when my website sat at #79. Today, my website sits at #12 in Google for that keyword phrase.
I believe that given enough time, investment and commitment, I can use article marketing to elevate any web page on the Internet to multiple page-one listings in Google. But, not everyone is willing to make the kind of investment and commitment one needs to get to the top of Google's search results...
What To Do When You Need Results Now
If you simply cannot wait as long as it takes to build top rankings naturally, then you need to look seriously at Pay-Per-Click advertising models, such those offered through Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing.
About the Author:
Bill Platt offers Article Distribution and Article Ghost Writing services through his website at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com He has written an ebook that has been designed to help people create more effective articles. One customer said of his ebook, "I've read almost every ebook out there on article writing and article marketing and this one tops it all." To learn more about Bill's ebook or to get your own copy, please click this link.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
8 Steps That Take You from Self-Saboteur to Sales Star
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Pat Pearson, MSSW
Does financial success seem to elude you, no matter how hard you strive? Do you get close to your goals time and time again, only to find yourself repeatedly "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?" According to direct sales expert Pat Pearson, you may have an unconscious agenda that is leading you to self-sabotage your sales.
"I have seen it over and over in working with hundreds of entrepreneurs and salespeople," says Pearson. "Undermining their ambition is at least one hidden belief that holds them back from succeeding."
For instance, Sally consistently finished in the Top 10 of her cosmetics sales company each year. By October she was usually the #1 or 2 sales producer. Yet in the last quarter, her sales would inevitably slide until she finished the year in 5th or 6th place—still excellent, yet clearly below her potential for the top spot.
Similarly, Janice sold clothing through a direct sales organization. Although she was very smart and personable with a great deal of style, she could never seem to make more than $30,000 a year, regardless of how much effort she put out.
If these examples sound frustratingly familiar to you, the reason may be rooted in your unconscious "Deserve Level."
Explains Pearson, "Most people have an amount that they have unconsciously set as what they deserve to make. Whenever their earnings approach this limit, it triggers a host of self-sabotaging mechanisms that counteract their goals—they start to lose sales for no apparent reason, or their motivation drops, or they simply hit a sales ceiling that they can never seem to exceed."
Once you identify your Deserve Level and its underlying causes, you can stop the sabotage and turn around your success.
Sally internalized a childhood message that being number one professionally meant that people wouldn't like you. So she unconsciously sabotaged herself in order to be liked. Since reprogramming this negative belief, Sally has remained the number one or two salesperson in her company ever since.
In Janice's case, she uncovered a fear that her father—a farmer who had never made more than $30,000 a year—would no longer love her if she earned more than that. When she asked him, he replied, "Of course not, I'll love you no matter how much money you make." One year later, Janice grossed $100,000.
Pearson provides in-depth coaching to individuals and organizations who want to increase their Deserve Level through her website (www.PatPearson.com). Here are the basic 8 Steps to Sales Success that she teaches her clients:
1) Find out your Deserve Level. First, write down the lowest monthly figure you can make and still stay in business. Then, write down the highest monthly figure you've ever made. This range is your Deserve Level.
2) Determine your business or personal goals for this year. These can include your desired income, how many people you want in your downline or your wish to have a loving relationship.
3) Ask yourself, "What am I doing to sabotage my goals?" For example, do you avoid public speaking or choke up when it's time to close the sale?
4) Explore what fear(s) might be causing the sabotage behavior. Look at common fears such as fear of rejection, fear of asking, fear of closing, fear of failure or fear of success, or something unique to you.
5) Change your self-talk. More than 75% of our internal communication reinforces negative views about ourselves and the world. By writing out new beliefs, wants and goals as if you already have them (e.g., "I choose to do the work necessary to make $100,000 this year"), 20 times a day for at least 21 days, you can permanently "reprogram" your new Deserve Level.
6) Practice self-release. Accept, express and release negative emotions like anger, jealousy and discouragement. Ignoring these feelings won't make them go away; they simply go "underground" and work against you behind the scenes.
7) Focus on self-nurturing. Be kind and understanding to yourself, especially when you are not perfect. Perfectionism amounts to ignoring the 95% of you that's good and criticizing the 5% that can be improved.
8) Get support. Choose mentors who believe in you and encourage you to go after your dreams the same way they did. Allow yourself to receive praise for your accomplishments on a regular basis, and ask for positive feedback when you are feeling uncertain.
Using these 8 Steps to Sales Success, it is possible to stop sabotaging yourself and reach your goals—whether you want increased sales, better health or closer friendships.
About the Author:
Pat Pearson, MSSW is an internationally known author and motivational speaker with a passion for inspiring individuals to claim their own personal excellence. A clinical therapist for over 30 years, Pat has given more than 6,000 talks and seminars worldwide and has spoken to over 250,000 direct selling professionals and has worked with more than 300 companies in the U.S. More information on Pat Pearson's approach can be found at: http://www.PatPearson.com
Copyright © 2008 Pat Pearson, MSSW
Does financial success seem to elude you, no matter how hard you strive? Do you get close to your goals time and time again, only to find yourself repeatedly "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?" According to direct sales expert Pat Pearson, you may have an unconscious agenda that is leading you to self-sabotage your sales.
"I have seen it over and over in working with hundreds of entrepreneurs and salespeople," says Pearson. "Undermining their ambition is at least one hidden belief that holds them back from succeeding."
For instance, Sally consistently finished in the Top 10 of her cosmetics sales company each year. By October she was usually the #1 or 2 sales producer. Yet in the last quarter, her sales would inevitably slide until she finished the year in 5th or 6th place—still excellent, yet clearly below her potential for the top spot.
Similarly, Janice sold clothing through a direct sales organization. Although she was very smart and personable with a great deal of style, she could never seem to make more than $30,000 a year, regardless of how much effort she put out.
If these examples sound frustratingly familiar to you, the reason may be rooted in your unconscious "Deserve Level."
Explains Pearson, "Most people have an amount that they have unconsciously set as what they deserve to make. Whenever their earnings approach this limit, it triggers a host of self-sabotaging mechanisms that counteract their goals—they start to lose sales for no apparent reason, or their motivation drops, or they simply hit a sales ceiling that they can never seem to exceed."
Once you identify your Deserve Level and its underlying causes, you can stop the sabotage and turn around your success.
Sally internalized a childhood message that being number one professionally meant that people wouldn't like you. So she unconsciously sabotaged herself in order to be liked. Since reprogramming this negative belief, Sally has remained the number one or two salesperson in her company ever since.
In Janice's case, she uncovered a fear that her father—a farmer who had never made more than $30,000 a year—would no longer love her if she earned more than that. When she asked him, he replied, "Of course not, I'll love you no matter how much money you make." One year later, Janice grossed $100,000.
Pearson provides in-depth coaching to individuals and organizations who want to increase their Deserve Level through her website (www.PatPearson.com). Here are the basic 8 Steps to Sales Success that she teaches her clients:
1) Find out your Deserve Level. First, write down the lowest monthly figure you can make and still stay in business. Then, write down the highest monthly figure you've ever made. This range is your Deserve Level.
2) Determine your business or personal goals for this year. These can include your desired income, how many people you want in your downline or your wish to have a loving relationship.
3) Ask yourself, "What am I doing to sabotage my goals?" For example, do you avoid public speaking or choke up when it's time to close the sale?
4) Explore what fear(s) might be causing the sabotage behavior. Look at common fears such as fear of rejection, fear of asking, fear of closing, fear of failure or fear of success, or something unique to you.
5) Change your self-talk. More than 75% of our internal communication reinforces negative views about ourselves and the world. By writing out new beliefs, wants and goals as if you already have them (e.g., "I choose to do the work necessary to make $100,000 this year"), 20 times a day for at least 21 days, you can permanently "reprogram" your new Deserve Level.
6) Practice self-release. Accept, express and release negative emotions like anger, jealousy and discouragement. Ignoring these feelings won't make them go away; they simply go "underground" and work against you behind the scenes.
7) Focus on self-nurturing. Be kind and understanding to yourself, especially when you are not perfect. Perfectionism amounts to ignoring the 95% of you that's good and criticizing the 5% that can be improved.
8) Get support. Choose mentors who believe in you and encourage you to go after your dreams the same way they did. Allow yourself to receive praise for your accomplishments on a regular basis, and ask for positive feedback when you are feeling uncertain.
Using these 8 Steps to Sales Success, it is possible to stop sabotaging yourself and reach your goals—whether you want increased sales, better health or closer friendships.
About the Author:
Pat Pearson, MSSW is an internationally known author and motivational speaker with a passion for inspiring individuals to claim their own personal excellence. A clinical therapist for over 30 years, Pat has given more than 6,000 talks and seminars worldwide and has spoken to over 250,000 direct selling professionals and has worked with more than 300 companies in the U.S. More information on Pat Pearson's approach can be found at: http://www.PatPearson.com
How To Get Massive Free Website Traffic
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Willie Crawford
There is only one real secret to getting a lot of visitors to your website. That is merely figuring out where lots of your ideal visitors are, and standing in front of them.
When you think of it in those terms, it's really simple.
There are also only three real ways to get in front of the traffic flow. You can buy traffic, borrow traffic, or create traffic.
You buy traffic using pay-per-click search engines. It's very dependable, and can give you a steady flow of consistent traffic.
The big drawback with using pay-per-clicks to generate traffic is that it can be very risky. Those who use pay-per-clicks to generate 100% of their traffic, and are considered the best of the best, will tell you that as many as 7 out of 10 campaigns that they set up will lose money. The professionals very quickly shut off the losers, and their winners more than make up for the losses, but it's really not a game for someone not properly trained.
You can also buy traffic using an affiliate program. Since you only pay for the traffic when a sale is made, it's a very low-risk method. Since your affiliates are sending you their best customers, you can also think of it as borrowing traffic.
I love the affiliate program model, and have numerous products sold via affiliate programs. I also sell a lot of others' affiliate products. It's win-win.
You can also create traffic by putting things on the Internet that people are attracted to. You can create content by writing articles or blogging for example. I love content creation and have written over 1100 different articles. My articles teach people how to solve pressing problems, and at the same time point them to me (my sites) as a great resource.
When you create content your big challenge is to get it noticed and indexed by the search engines, so that people can follow links from there to your site. It's actually fairly easy - but time and labor intensive.
If your content is "viral" it will be something that others will happily share. Examples include in-depth articles, essays that touch people on a deep emotional level, or humorous videos that you post on YouTube.
Of the three methods of getting traffic (buying, borrowing, and creating it) my favorite has to be borrowing it... with creating it second. I generally only buy traffic when I need a really quick surge to test my website's conversion process.
The key to generating an absolute flood of free traffic is getting noticed, getting backlinks, etc., from high traffic websites such as Google, Craig's List, Yahoo, YouTube, and the various bookmarking and social networking sites.
This can be as simple is searching through Yahoo Answers for questions on your area of expertise, and then posting a great answer - along with an appropriate link to your website or product.
It can be as simple as searching through YouTube for videos on your area of expertise, and then leaving a comment along with a link sharing that they can find more information on the topic at your site.
It can be as simple as using the search engines to locate dozens or even hundreds of blogs and forums in your niche, and then interacting with these communities.
There's only one problem with most of the methods that I just mentioned. They can be time consuming and labor intensive. Just locating active communities in your niche can literally take hours.
I do have a secret. I use automated software to monitor and notify me of active blogs, forums, and communities in my niche. I use automated software to notify me when they are discussing my area of expertise or there is a new video posted pertaining to my area of expertise.
When I discover a new resource, I then analyze it, and if appropriate, I interact with that high traffic site, and leave a link back to my site, which is a perfectly acceptable practice.
So there you have my secret for generating literally hundreds of thousands of free hits to even my newest sites. Of course, your site has to be about something that people are interested it. I do strongly advocate using software to automate many of the mundane processes such as just finding these sites.
Many webmasters really struggle with website traffic generation, and there is absolutely no need to. You merely find the huge pools of traffic interested in your topic, and then you stand underneath the waterfall, and enjoy the cool, refreshing flow of new visitors.
About the Author:
Willie Crawford has been marketing goods and services online since 1996. With very busy websites in dozens of niches, he teaches that the secret is automating the flow of traffic, since without traffic you don't really have a web business. His favorite traffic generation software is at Stealth Traffic Tools: http://IncredibleWebsiteTraffic.com
Copyright © 2008 Willie Crawford
There is only one real secret to getting a lot of visitors to your website. That is merely figuring out where lots of your ideal visitors are, and standing in front of them.
When you think of it in those terms, it's really simple.
There are also only three real ways to get in front of the traffic flow. You can buy traffic, borrow traffic, or create traffic.
You buy traffic using pay-per-click search engines. It's very dependable, and can give you a steady flow of consistent traffic.
The big drawback with using pay-per-clicks to generate traffic is that it can be very risky. Those who use pay-per-clicks to generate 100% of their traffic, and are considered the best of the best, will tell you that as many as 7 out of 10 campaigns that they set up will lose money. The professionals very quickly shut off the losers, and their winners more than make up for the losses, but it's really not a game for someone not properly trained.
You can also buy traffic using an affiliate program. Since you only pay for the traffic when a sale is made, it's a very low-risk method. Since your affiliates are sending you their best customers, you can also think of it as borrowing traffic.
I love the affiliate program model, and have numerous products sold via affiliate programs. I also sell a lot of others' affiliate products. It's win-win.
You can also create traffic by putting things on the Internet that people are attracted to. You can create content by writing articles or blogging for example. I love content creation and have written over 1100 different articles. My articles teach people how to solve pressing problems, and at the same time point them to me (my sites) as a great resource.
When you create content your big challenge is to get it noticed and indexed by the search engines, so that people can follow links from there to your site. It's actually fairly easy - but time and labor intensive.
If your content is "viral" it will be something that others will happily share. Examples include in-depth articles, essays that touch people on a deep emotional level, or humorous videos that you post on YouTube.
Of the three methods of getting traffic (buying, borrowing, and creating it) my favorite has to be borrowing it... with creating it second. I generally only buy traffic when I need a really quick surge to test my website's conversion process.
The key to generating an absolute flood of free traffic is getting noticed, getting backlinks, etc., from high traffic websites such as Google, Craig's List, Yahoo, YouTube, and the various bookmarking and social networking sites.
This can be as simple is searching through Yahoo Answers for questions on your area of expertise, and then posting a great answer - along with an appropriate link to your website or product.
It can be as simple as searching through YouTube for videos on your area of expertise, and then leaving a comment along with a link sharing that they can find more information on the topic at your site.
It can be as simple as using the search engines to locate dozens or even hundreds of blogs and forums in your niche, and then interacting with these communities.
There's only one problem with most of the methods that I just mentioned. They can be time consuming and labor intensive. Just locating active communities in your niche can literally take hours.
I do have a secret. I use automated software to monitor and notify me of active blogs, forums, and communities in my niche. I use automated software to notify me when they are discussing my area of expertise or there is a new video posted pertaining to my area of expertise.
When I discover a new resource, I then analyze it, and if appropriate, I interact with that high traffic site, and leave a link back to my site, which is a perfectly acceptable practice.
So there you have my secret for generating literally hundreds of thousands of free hits to even my newest sites. Of course, your site has to be about something that people are interested it. I do strongly advocate using software to automate many of the mundane processes such as just finding these sites.
Many webmasters really struggle with website traffic generation, and there is absolutely no need to. You merely find the huge pools of traffic interested in your topic, and then you stand underneath the waterfall, and enjoy the cool, refreshing flow of new visitors.
About the Author:
Willie Crawford has been marketing goods and services online since 1996. With very busy websites in dozens of niches, he teaches that the secret is automating the flow of traffic, since without traffic you don't really have a web business. His favorite traffic generation software is at Stealth Traffic Tools: http://IncredibleWebsiteTraffic.com
Loosing Customers and Losing Sales - It Sounds Funny Doesn't It?
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt
(Revised, 2008) The number of people who write free-reprint articles, to promote their online business, is increasing with each passing month. I should know --- I have built my own business around free-reprint articles.
As the manager of several article distribution groups and an article distribution service, I see hundreds of articles per month go through my biggest article groups. Hundreds of publishers, webmasters and writers subscribe to article distribution lists such as this one:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles
Of course, the goal of the group is for writers to get their articles to publishers and webmasters who might want to reprint the work. When publishers and webmasters decide to publish a specific article, the writer hopes that the article will generate volumes of traffic and sales for their own website.
Why Does This Matter?
As I review each article for distribution to the groups, I see one misspelling time after time that really leaps from the page.
Hey, it is not my reputation on the line, so why should it matter?
A writer's reputation can be made or broken by his or her use of the written word. So many people look up to writers as people who have a gift to share ideas with the masses.
The reason we are able to share ideas with others is not because we are special. The truth is that we are able to share ideas because we are not afraid to try to do so, and we are not afraid to work at it.
Being afraid to try and messing up the process are two different things.
Misspellings, Bad Grammar And Bad Formatting Counts
It pains me when I see articles coming through to the groups where there are problems with spelling, grammar or formatting. For some reason, we publishers tend to expect the writer to put forth the time and effort in advance to make sure that the article is ready for copy-and-paste publication.
In the old days, I used to edit articles for publication in my own ezines. Soon, my workload became too much and I had to begin to cut down on my time expenditures. At first, I simply stopped formatting articles for publication. Eventually, I even stopped proofreading articles for publication. When I reached this point, I had made a decision that if an article was not copy-and-paste ready, then I would not publish it in my own ezines.
It should come as no surprise to writers that spelling, grammar and formatting could be as important to the publication decision process, as the message communicated in the article.
But, in watching the articles come through to the groups, I have to wonder what is in the mind of some writers.
Why It Is Important
Writers take the time and effort to write the articles to promote their own businesses. But, if there are misspellings, bad grammar or no formatting, the chances of the article getting published is greatly diminished.
I am not willing to venture how many more people might publish an article if everything was in good shape, but I can guarantee you that some people may opt against publishing an article due to these kinds of problems. Writers, who do not invest sufficient effort in the creation of their articles, make the process of elimination much easier for the publishers who seek to reprint the content.
My Pet Peeve --- Losing Or Loosing?
Losing - To be unsuccessful in retaining possession of; mislay. To be unable to keep control or allegiance of: "is losing supporters by changing his mind."
Loosing - To cast loose; detach: "hikers loosing their packs at camp."
Far too often, I see writers talk about "losing" customers. Yet, when they spell the word, they spell it "loosing".
If you would note, the act of "losing" customers has to do with not being able to hold on to them. "Losing", reflects doing it without intent.
On the other hand, the act of "loosing" customers means to set them free --- voluntarily.
I am not sure that anyone actually "looses" their customers, unless they are closing their businesses. Most businesses simply "lose" their customers, quite by accident and definitely against their will.
In Conclusion
I hope my title now makes sense to you --- "Loosing" Customers and "Losing" Sales.
Take the time to get your spelling, grammar and formatting right. If you write articles and choose not to take the time to get your article right, then I could probably assume that you are --- with intent --- "loosing" customers.
Hey, it is your choice.
About the Author:
Bill Platt operates The Phantom Writers, where he offers article ghost writing services and article distribution services at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com His recent ebook, "Article Marketing for Traffic, Sales and Profit" has received excellent reviews across the board. If you write your own articles, you should seriously consider getting your own copy of his Article Marketing ebook.
Copyright © 2008 Bill Platt
(Revised, 2008) The number of people who write free-reprint articles, to promote their online business, is increasing with each passing month. I should know --- I have built my own business around free-reprint articles.
As the manager of several article distribution groups and an article distribution service, I see hundreds of articles per month go through my biggest article groups. Hundreds of publishers, webmasters and writers subscribe to article distribution lists such as this one:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles
Of course, the goal of the group is for writers to get their articles to publishers and webmasters who might want to reprint the work. When publishers and webmasters decide to publish a specific article, the writer hopes that the article will generate volumes of traffic and sales for their own website.
Why Does This Matter?
As I review each article for distribution to the groups, I see one misspelling time after time that really leaps from the page.
Hey, it is not my reputation on the line, so why should it matter?
A writer's reputation can be made or broken by his or her use of the written word. So many people look up to writers as people who have a gift to share ideas with the masses.
The reason we are able to share ideas with others is not because we are special. The truth is that we are able to share ideas because we are not afraid to try to do so, and we are not afraid to work at it.
Being afraid to try and messing up the process are two different things.
Misspellings, Bad Grammar And Bad Formatting Counts
It pains me when I see articles coming through to the groups where there are problems with spelling, grammar or formatting. For some reason, we publishers tend to expect the writer to put forth the time and effort in advance to make sure that the article is ready for copy-and-paste publication.
In the old days, I used to edit articles for publication in my own ezines. Soon, my workload became too much and I had to begin to cut down on my time expenditures. At first, I simply stopped formatting articles for publication. Eventually, I even stopped proofreading articles for publication. When I reached this point, I had made a decision that if an article was not copy-and-paste ready, then I would not publish it in my own ezines.
It should come as no surprise to writers that spelling, grammar and formatting could be as important to the publication decision process, as the message communicated in the article.
But, in watching the articles come through to the groups, I have to wonder what is in the mind of some writers.
Why It Is Important
Writers take the time and effort to write the articles to promote their own businesses. But, if there are misspellings, bad grammar or no formatting, the chances of the article getting published is greatly diminished.
I am not willing to venture how many more people might publish an article if everything was in good shape, but I can guarantee you that some people may opt against publishing an article due to these kinds of problems. Writers, who do not invest sufficient effort in the creation of their articles, make the process of elimination much easier for the publishers who seek to reprint the content.
My Pet Peeve --- Losing Or Loosing?
Far too often, I see writers talk about "losing" customers. Yet, when they spell the word, they spell it "loosing".
If you would note, the act of "losing" customers has to do with not being able to hold on to them. "Losing", reflects doing it without intent.
On the other hand, the act of "loosing" customers means to set them free --- voluntarily.
I am not sure that anyone actually "looses" their customers, unless they are closing their businesses. Most businesses simply "lose" their customers, quite by accident and definitely against their will.
In Conclusion
I hope my title now makes sense to you --- "Loosing" Customers and "Losing" Sales.
Take the time to get your spelling, grammar and formatting right. If you write articles and choose not to take the time to get your article right, then I could probably assume that you are --- with intent --- "loosing" customers.
Hey, it is your choice.
About the Author:
Bill Platt operates The Phantom Writers, where he offers article ghost writing services and article distribution services at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com His recent ebook, "Article Marketing for Traffic, Sales and Profit" has received excellent reviews across the board. If you write your own articles, you should seriously consider getting your own copy of his Article Marketing ebook.
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