How to Create & Syndicate a RSS Feed for Your Web Site

Are you always looking for new and better ways to market your web site? Search engines are always on the look out for fresh content. When doing a search you don't want old content popping up, you want to have the most up to date information. Search engines will generally reward those sites which provide new content on a regular basis i.e. daily or even bi-weekly.

On of the best ways to provide fresh content is to create an RSS Feed.

What is an RSS Feed?
RSS stands for "really simple syndication". For example I write articles every 2 weeks and place them on my web site. I then link to that article from my home page and from my article headlines page. I make that article available to others as an item in my RSS file. People who use RSS readers or news aggregators can read, then link to your article from their web site.

(To explain further about RSS readers visit:
http://www.isitebuild.com/rss/what-are-rss-feeds.htm)

You have now syndicated your content for others to view. This is a great way to improve or maintain your search engine rankings by naturally getting incoming links. Every time you write a new article it will be instantly available to 1000s of web site owners.

How to create an RSS File
RSS files use the XML language. This is similar to html except you must be careful to use closing tags and be sure to validate it before you use it. An XML file contains the information (Title, Description and Link URL) that your audience will receive through a RSS reader.

Here is all you need to create an RSS file:
-Title
-Description
-Link

Open notepad on your computer, then copy and paste the information below replacing it with your own title, description and link information. The first part contains information about your web site. The second part contains information for one of your articles. You can also include optional information in your headlines such as language, copyright info, contact email addresses, or an image.

Try to limit the number of articles you wish to include in your RSS file to 5 or less. Enclose your RSS information with the xml and rss versions you are using followed by the channel and item tags. Finish off with the RSS closing tag.

Here's the example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <rss version="0.91"> <channel> <title>Web Site Design | Hostïng | Marketing</title> <link>http://www.isitebuild.com</link> <description>Affordable Web Design in Maryland</description> <language>en-us</language> <item> <title>How to Add a Search Engine to Your Site </title> <link>http://www.isitebuild.com/add-search-engine.htm</link> <description> When visitors arrive at your web site you want them to find the information quickly otherwise they will lose patience and move on. A great way achieve this is to add a search engine or search box to your web site. </description> </item> </channel> </rss>

You have now created your first RSS file that is almost ready for syndicating.

How to Syndicate Your RSS Feed
If you syndicate your RSS Feed or advertise it, you will get an immediate boost in traffïc to your web site by others reading and/or linking to your information. There are 2 ways to do this:

a) Place an XML button at the top of your home page. This is a little orange image that links to your RSS file. You can see one at the top of my home page at www.isitebuild.com. Get a copy of the image (right clïck, save picture as) and upload it to your website. Place the image, with your xml link, on your home page. For example, here's the line of code I placed on my home page:

<a href="http://www.isitebuild.com/rss/rss-feed.xml"> <img border="0" src="rss/rss_icon.jpg" alt="rss for maryland web design" width="36" height="14"></a>

Feel free use this code for your own site but remember to replace the information with your own link.

b) Submit your site's RSS feed URL to various aggregators or news readers. This will enable them to start checking your RSS feed for updates.

Below is a list of some of the most popular news aggregators:
Daypop
Syndic8
Userland
Feedster
Postami

Update your RSS feed regularly - add new articles to your RSS file on a regular basis. Make sure you link each article to your site to increase your web traffïc. Remember to delete your old articles because the dates next to your articleswill adjust depending on when news aggregators pick them up.

You only need to do this once and then syndicators tracking your feed automatically pick up your new feed items as you update them.

Conclusion:
Even though RSS feeds are a relatively new way of marketing, once you set them up it takes very little time to maintain and provides another great way to increase the number of visitors to your web site.

About The Author
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of iSiteBuild.com Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hostïng.

How To Choose Your Website Colors

By Jason OConnor

Color is often overlooked in the business of optimizing websites for better returns on investments. Website sales can be greatly affected by simply changing its colors. Ever come across a website that uses some funky combination of print and background colors? If you ever want to experience an eye-twisting headache, try reading yellow print on a blue background. The reason you see black type on a white background so much is that it is the best color combination for reading, both on and offline.

And since it is even harder to read text on a monitor than it is on paper, we must all be especially careful with the colors we choose for our websites, or suffer less-than-optimal site traffïc and repeat visitors.

Color choice should also be dictated by other, less obvious goals, when designing or re-vamping a website. It's important to realize that different colors invoke different emotions, are associated with specific concepts and say different things in each society. For instance, green often times is associated with freshness or money, which is fairly obvious if you think about it. But every color does this, and some of the emotions and concepts are more subtle. For example, white means pure, easy, or goodness and purple can be associated with royalty or sophistication. What's more, each color carries with it both positive and negative ideas. The emotions and concepts that you associate with specific colors may differ from other people's associations, but there are themes that run throughout each color. Here are some:




Red:
Positive: Sense of power, strength, action, passion, sexuality
Negative: Anger, forcefulness, impulsiveness, impatience, intimidation, conquest, violence and revenge

Yellow:
Positive: Caution, brightness, intelligence, joy, organization, Spring time
Negative: Criticism, laziness, or cynicism

Blue:
Positive: Tranquility, love, acceptance, patience, understanding, cooperation, comfort, loyalty and security
Negative: Fear, coldness, passivity and depression

Orange:
Positive: Steadfastness, courage, confidence, friendliness, and cheerfulness, warmth, excitement and energy
Negative: Ignorance, inferiority, sluggishness and superiority

Purple:
Positive: Royalty, sophistication, religion
Negative: Bruised or foreboding

Green:
Positive: Money, health, food, nature, hope, growth, freshness, soothing, sharing, and responsiveness
Negative: Envy, greed, constriction, guilt, jealousy and disorder

Black:
Positive: Dramatic, classy, committed, serious
Negative: Evil, death, ignorance, coldness

White:
Positive: Pure, fresh, easy, cleanliness or goodness
Negative: Blind, winter, cold, distant




A major goal of marketers is to invoke emotion in their audience. We know that if we can cause some kind of an emotional reaction in the people we are marketing to and communicating with, we have a better chance of compelling them to buy from us. The battle between logic and emotion that rages in each of is usually won by emotion most of the time. By choosing the colors of our websites and online media with deliberate care, we are purposefully trying to invoke a specific emotional response that will increase sales. So pick your colors carefully.

Not only do colors evoke emotions, but they can communicate messages or concepts too. For example, look at ClickItTicket.com to see how color is used to communicate the new affiliation between Oak Web Works, LLC and ClickitTicket.com. The blues of Oak Web Works's logo swirl into the reds of ClickitTicket.com's logo. This can be interpreted as a melding of the two organizations, which is what the words underneath say, "in affiliation with". Also, the red of OakWebWorks.com indicates action and passion, two essentials for people who want to attend theater, sporting events or concerts.

Another online ticket website, BestShowTicketsLasVegas.com, has a different color approach. Its main colors are blue and purple, giving the site a comforting, secure and sophisticated feel. The main header on each page has all the colors in the rainbow in it, a collage of images, with the word `Tickets' in large, white font. Much of the site is white too, which gives it a clean feel.

As a general rule of thumb, when Oak Web Works designs websites, one primary color and one secondary or complimentary color will be chosen. These colors are based on the specific audience and market of our client and the messages the client wants to communicate to the rest of the world. If more than two or three colors are used, things tend to look a little messy, and the power of any one color is diluted too much, so we most often stick with two colors.




When I am not sure exactly which colors or combinations to use, I often start trying different things, then take a step back and ask myself what my chosen colors are conveying to me. After designing many websites over the years I have realized that going with my gut has often worked when I'm in doubt. You would be surprised at how creative and accurate your intuition can be.

However, if the client already has an established brand, we will always make sure to match the colors of the website with the original colors of the company. It is not wise to have print collateral material one color and the website a totally unrelated color. All marketing channels need to remain consistent, with one face only.

Since website visitors all have different platforms, different monitors, and different settings for their screen resolutions, the colors you choose for your website may not always be rendered the exact same way on your site visitors' monitors. That's why there are "Web Safe" colors that have a much higher likelihood of looking the exact same regardless of the user's computer, monitor or settings. Many graphics programs, including Adobe Photoshop, have a feature that allows you to choose "Web Safe" colors only.

Keep in mind however, that the sophistication of technology today allows for Web designers to be able to stray from the "Web Safe" colors more and more. So don't be overly concerned if you choose to use "un-safe' Web colors, chances are that most of your audience has the computers necessary to view your site the exact way you intended.

Whether you are designing sites for clients or designing your own business website, your color choice is vital. Be sure to try different colors, different shades, and different combinations before you decide. It's a lot of fun playing with colors but every choice you make comes with a set of pre-defined societal meanings and emotions, so choose with deliberate care.


About The Author
Jason OConnor owns and operates Oak Web Works, LLC - The synthesis of Web marketing, design, and technology. Jason is an expert at Web design, programming, e-strategy, and e-marketing.

Develop Quality Content to Rule the Web

By Sharon Housley

The age old question keeps coming up, how do you retain website visitors, how do you make visitors return to your website? The answer should come as no surprise, fresh content. Content is truly king, the fresher the content the better the site. What many webmasters fail to realize is that there is an endless supply of content on the web that is freely available to webmasters.

Not only can public domain material be freely used and syndicated on websites, but a number of content publishers provide content in exchange for a link back to their websites. A variety of contents related to the website theme that is integrated into the website will attract the interest of both search engines and web surfers. The key to taking advantage of free content is integrating or including content that is directly related to the theme of the website.




1. Articles
Article repositories exist that categorize content articles. Searching the repositories using keywords that are related to a website's theme will result in a wide variety of articles available for publication that are related to the site's existing web content. Articles in the repositories are available for syndication, which means webmasters can freely include the articles on their websites as long as they include the author resource box with valid links.

Use the following to locate topic specific articles:
Free Website Content
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm


2. RSS Feeds
The content of many RSS feeds can be syndicated. The added benefit of syndicating feeds is that they are frequently updated which will result in a steady stream of fresh changing content. In order to reap the benefits of syndicating RSS feeds, webmasters should use either an ASP or PHP script to display the feeds contents as HTML.

Webmasters can navigate categories of RSS feed directories to locate related topic feeds or search for feeds using keywords.

Search the following directories to locate related RSS feeds:
http://www.rss-network.com/
http://www.rss-locator.com/

Free script for displaying RSS feeds as HTML:http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm

3. Shareware Listings
Consider populating a website or section of a website with related niche software applications. Many software companies offer applications as free downloads. The downloads allow potential customers the opportunity to try an application prior to making a purchase decision. Categorizing and displaying software that relates to a website theme can generate a lot of interest. Most developers provide product descriptions and information in a PAD file which is simply XML. Developers can locate PAD files using the ASP site and the PAD kit can be used to display the contents of the PAD file.

http://www.asp-shareware.org/





4. Creative Commons
A Creative Commons license allows creators to place conditions on their copyrights. Many artists allow other publishers to use their creative and artwork, occasionally there are conditions that credit must be given, while others are available freely. Web publishers can find a lot of unique content, images and creative using the new Yahoo Creative Commons Search.

The Yahoo! Creative Commons Search service finds content across the Web that has a Creative Commons license.
http://search.yahoo.com/cc
http://www.creativecommons.com/


5. Forums
Consider creating a community forum where like-minded individuals or at the very least individuals with a common interest can discuss problems, concerns, related products or ideas. The forum posts will generate a fresh stream of new and self-perpetuating website content.

Free Forum *note be sure to stay current on updates
http://www.phpbb.com/


6. White Papers
Provide white papers, customer profiles or endorsements that detail how applications can be used in a specific industry. Creating a white paper section that explains how a specific product or service is used in a specific industry to solve a problem or increase productivity gives potential customers insight into how a specific service, product or technology will help in the course of a day.

http://www.notepage.net/whitepapers.htm





7. Directories
Creating a directory of related sites while time consuming can result in significant traffic. Directories typically are well respected resources and rank well in search engines.

Sample Niche Directories :
http://www.podcasting-tools.com/
http://www.finance-investing.com/


8. Newsletter Archive
If done properly online marketers see an almost instantaneous sales or traffic increase when they send newsletters but many do not benefit long term from the newsletter. Consider creating a newsletter archive, the content is already built, why not benefit from the potential traffic and unique phrases used, to attract new or potential customers?

Sample Archive
http://www.feedforall.com/newsletter.htm
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/articledirectory.html


9. Blog
Ride the technological wave. A daily journal with information related to product or service launches, specials, technical tips and new product announcements.

Sample Blog Archive
http://www.rss-specifications.htm/blog.htm

As search engines combat the problems with artificially generated nonsensical web content, webmasters must integrate quality, themed content that is going to legitimately interest prospective customers.


About The Author
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev an RSS component for developers.

Goodness, Virtue and Prevention: Hard to sell

In the late '80s, an infomercial was shot for a product that everybody *should* have: a video designed to help parents talk to their teenagers about drugs. It was such an appealing project that everyone wanted to help with it. It was hosted by Nancy Reagan; it was nothing less than a beautifully-produced, inspiring infomercial about making America a better place for kids.

They bought the airtime and ran the show. Guess how many orders they got?
Dan Kennedy, who helped write the script, reports:
Zero.

Nobody wanted to buy a video about talking to their kids about drugs. Nancy Reagan couldn't convince 'em, Hollywood couldn't convince them, and a team of professional copywriters couldn't convince 'em.

Why?

Because it was prevention, not cure. It was too easy to think, "I'm going to mention this to the next-door neighbors, because THEIR son is waaaay out of control. My kids would never take drugs."

It's hard to sell virtue and goodness in and of itself. That's why there are so many novels about murder, mayhem, lust, betrayal and hell, and so few about goodness, hope, utopia and heaven. I'm not degrading the goodness of prevention. But if you want to sell it, it's much easier to sell it as part of a cure than trying to convince someone who's never had the problem in the first place.

I like carpet-cleaning expert Joe Polish's view of this. He insists that however hard you trumpet the fact that you can kill carpet mites and take toxins and allergens out of your house, the real reason that Suzy Jones calls a carpet cleaner is that she's got company coming and she doesn't want her friends to see the spot where Uncle Ned puked.

So Suzy's going to have the carpet cleaned before the party, not after. After would actually be prevention. Before is cure.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Simple Changes That Explode Your Response Rate

By Alli Ross StickyArticle.com

A recent study by Nielsen/NetRatings reported that Amazon.com converts 12.8% of its visitors into sales. Now, why does Amazon have such high conversion rates while the majority of sites on the internet are only obtaining about a 1% conversion rate? It's simple. Amazon invests lots of time and effort into improving their conversion rate. They know that small changes to a web site can make huge impacts to your bottom line. Below are some simple changes that can make a dramatic difference in your own profits.




Headline
A change in your headline alone can produce a 1,900% increase in your income. This is one of the most crucial parts of your sales page and can pull in 80% of the orders if done correctly. Your headline should concentrate on the biggest benefit of your product. In addition, it should create enough curiosity to compel the reader into the sales copy.
One of the most powerful words in sales copy is the word "you". This is also true for headlines. Using the word "you" or "your" in your headline and sales copy transfers ownership and makes your writing much more personal.

Color of Your Background
The color of your background is a very simple change that can raise your sales by up to 30%. The most effective color is dark blue, but grey, black, and white also work pretty well. All aspects of your sales letter must be tested because different market segments respond differently.




Audio Marketing
Adding audio to your order page could catapult your sales by 437%. Audio makes your message much more personal and adds to your credibility. People also like to associate a face with a voice. Place a small picture above your recording and see how this affects your sales conversions.

Pop-Ups
Pop-ups are a powerful tool for collecting the email addresses of potential customers. It is also a good way to catch your visitors by the tail before they leave your site. You don't want any of your web site visitors to go to waste. So, before they leave, grab them with a pop-up. With a pop up you can introduce them to your other products, subscribe them to your newsletter, or find out why they didn't buy your product. It is crucial to know exactly what your visitors are looking for. When you know what your targeted visitors want, you can target your marketing and catapult your conversion rates.

Font Colors
Colors play a big part in online marketing. You can crank up your conversion rate by using red font for your heading and subheadings. Yellow highlighting can also rev up your response rates. Make sure that your copy is fast and fun. Use yellow highlighting, underlining, and bolding for things that you want to emphasize. All readers on the internet are scanners. Your sales letter will not be read word for word. Because of this, you must make sure that your most important points stand out.

Number and Text of Your Order Buttons
Long sales letters have proven to be the best for online sales letters because they limit a visitor's navigation choices, they are focused on one product, and they provide potential customers with every bit of information they could want about a product. However, if you only have one order button at the very end of your sales page, you are probably losing out on a number of sales. The key is to place multiple button links that direct the user to the order page. Place a red border around your order buttons to increase your conversion rates, but remember to keep testing. You never know when you might hit upon something that doubles your profits.

Another important factor influencing click-through rate is what text you use for your order buttons. Some of the most effective text that have been used on the internet are below.

Click here to order
Click here to grab your copy of _____________

There are so many sites that still do not include a call to action. You must clearly explain to your visitors what you want them to do. Marketers have proven that you will increase your sales by at least 80% simply by asking for the order.



Newsletters / Autoresponders
Unfortunately, not everyone that comes to your site will be ready to buy. Actually, this is usually 90% or more of the visitors that arrive at your site. However, to be successful, you must be able to stay in contact with potential customers. In order to do this you must capture their email address by offering a newsletter or autoresponder. You can do this through a pop-up or subscription form. Some of the best places for a subscription form include the top-left hand of your sales page and the very bottom of your sales copy.

Limited Choices Limit your visitors to a single choice. Your sales page should have one main goal: to sell one, individual product. You may have a secondary purpose of subscribing visitors to your newsletter, but this is not the main point of the page. The more choices you give people to surf around your site, the more confused they become and many will often just click away to somewhere else. By focusing your potential customers, you can crank up your conversion rates.

Web Site Copy
* Strong testimonials can increase your sales by a phenomenal 250%. Gaining credibility is crucial on the internet where there are no sales reps on hand to talk to personally. When your visitors see that other people have risked doing business with you and have been pleased with the results, you gain trust that cannot be bought. However, when lost, it is nearly impossible to gain back.

For a testimonial to be effective, it must contain the following elements:
* A good testimonial is descriptive! Avoid using one and two word testimonials. People will be much more influenced by longer testimonials that contain solid numbers and facts about the benefits they experienced.
* List the customer's full name, business name, and URL.
* Do NOT edit your testimonials. This is an unethical practice. However, correcting the spelling would be acceptable.

So, how do you go about collecting these powerful testimonials? There are a couple of options. You may ask current customers for testimonials. Many times, you may have many very happy customers who just never really thought about sending in a testimonial. They are very likely to be responsive if you approach them and explain to them how both of you stand to benefit.

Another option is to give a couple of your products away for free in exchange for a testimonial. This has proven to be very effective in some cases. Nevertheless, be sure to incorporate testimonials into your overall marketing plan. Research has shown that they work best when placed right below the headline.


A strong guarantee helps alleviate any anxiety the customer may be feeling about ordering from you. Your guarantee shows that you have confidence in what you are selling.
Did you know that the longer your guarantee is for, the fewer returns you will receive? This is a simple solution that will increase your bottom line and reduce the headache of filing returns. So go ahead and give your customers a one year guarantee. If you want to gain their trust even further and lower your return rate, give them a lifetime guarantee. Remember, your first-time customer is often worth much more than just their initial purchase. Your current customers are the most valuable sources of repeat sales. Always keep this in mind when marketing to a lifetime customer.

No matter what you are selling online, you can increase your conversion rates by using pictures of your products. This is especially true for ebooks.

People are visual. A three-dimensional picture of your product can:
* Increase your pageviews by 300%
* Increase actions (clickthroughs, downloads, responses, signups, subscriptions, telephone calls, emails, and sales!) by 200%.
* Increase time spent at your site by 50%. Any time people stay longer at your site, your chances of making the sale are higher.

Another important feature of a good sales page are bonuses. A bonus that is related to your product increases the perceived value of your offering. People are always looking to get more bang for their buck. A bonus can be one of your best source for closing the sale.

By making the bonus a "limited time offer", you create a sense of urgency. Anticipation is one of the most powerful tools in online marketing. When used appropriately, it can drastically increase your response rate.

You are now coming near the end of your sales letter. Add some personalization with a handwritten P.S. Some online marketers even use a P.S.S. and a P.S.S.S. Test a combination to see what works best for you.

Now it's your turn to put these strategies to the test. If you decide not to, you will lose out on thousands of dollars. Think about it....

You make a few changes to your headline: 1,900% increase in income.
You use dark blue or black for your background: bump your sales by 30%.
You add audio to your order page: Your sales shoot up by 437%.
You ask for the order and place multiple links to your order page: boost your sales by 319%.
In that short list you've already multiplied your profits by over 2,500%

I challenge you to test and track to make it even better.

About The Author
Alli Ross is the marketing chick at StickyArticle.com, where you can submit your
articles for free exposure.

Chasing the Search Engines' Algorithms... Should You or Shouldn't You?

By Robin Nobles

It's a common occurrence. SEOs often spend countless hours trying to 'break" a search engine's algorithm.

"If I could just crack Google's algo, my pages would soar to the top of the rankings!"

Let's look at some flaws in this way of thinking.

1. Picture the Google engineers and tech folks turning the algo dial as soon as you "think" you have "cracked" the algo. Your rankings may fall, and you would have to figure out what's working with the engine right now. In other words, your rankings may never be long term.

2. Instead of spending all of this time trying to impress a search engine with a perfect page, why not impress your true target audience... your customers. Has Google, MSN, or Yahoo! Search ever bought anything from you? They're not your target audience. Your customers are your target audience. Write your pages and content for them.

3. When you expend so much of your energy chasing algorithms, you often focus on only a few elements that influence ranking those elements that are working right now and that you hope will give your pages the best chance for success. It is said that Google has over 100 ranking elements that influence ranking and relevancy. Some are more important than others. But focusing on just one or two "main" elements and discounting the rest can prove disastrous to a Web site.

A different approach . . .

Wouldn't you rather achieve top rankings and keep them there, and have those rankings equate to sales and money in your back pocket?

After all, isn't it ultimately the sales you're after, as opposed to just the rankings? If those rankings don't equate to traffic that equates to sales, you lose, any way you look at it.

Five Basic Steps for Achieving Top Rankings without Chasing Algorithms


1. Forget about the search engines. Yes, you heard me correctly. The search engines aren't and never will be your "ideal target audience." They don't buy your goods and services. They're not who you should be trying to please with your Web pages and site. Instead, write your Web page content for your target audience.

2. Don't ever forget the basics. No matter what's happening in the algorithms, continue using your main keyword phrase prominently in your title tag, META description and keyword tags, link text, body, heading tags, and so forth. That way, when the algo dial is turned, you won't have to make changes to all of your pages. You'll always be ready.

3. Focus your keyword-containing tags and body text on one keyword phrase only. Each page should be focused on one keyword phrase, and each page should have its own unique tags.

4. Write well-crafted content for your Web pages, and add new content on a regular basis. If content is king, context is queen. Focus on your keyword phrase, synonyms and related words, and surrounding text. Use a program like ThemeMaster if you need help determining those supporting words.

5. Remember that both on-page and off-page factors are important. Don't sacrifice one for the other. On-page factors are your tags, body text, prominence, relevance, etc. Off-page factors are link popularity (quality and number of your inbound links) and link reputation (what those inbound links "say" about your Web page when they link to you).

What about search engine research? Isn't it important?

It's crucial.

Let me give you an example. At the beginning of this year, pages began falling out of Google's index. The forums were alive with speculation and what to do about it.

Through research, we determined this was a compliancy issue. By having compliant code, the search engine spiders are more easily able to spider the content.

The solution? Make sure you use a DOCTYPE tag and an ISO Character Set Statement at the top of every Web page.

For example:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.1 Transitional//EN">

<META HTTP-EQUIV=content-type CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

If you didn't know about the compliancy issues, you could have made changes to your Web pages that didn't need to be made, wasted countless hours trying this or that, all to come up dry.


Research helps to make sure you remain on top of what's happening in the search engine industry. It's what sets you apart from other SEOs. You make your decisions based on research and facts, versus speculation and theory.

In Conclusion...

"Take it from someone who has been in this business for nine years and studies the algorithms closely - don't chase the algorithms. You say that you have a #2 ranking for a certain keyword phrase that alone is bringing your site 550 visitors per day? Great. In the time that you have spent gaining that ranking, I have written 285 pages of unique content, obtained 821 links, etc., and collectively I am getting over 1,300 visitors per day," says Jerry West of WebMarketingNow.

In other words, by focusing on more than just chasing algorithms, you have the potential of having a much more successful Web site.


About The Author
Robin Nobles conducts live SEO workshops in locations across North America. She also teaches online SEO training and offers the Workshop Resource Center, a networking community for SEOs. Localized SEO training is being offered through the Search Engine Academy.

Create a Web Epidemic in 3 Easy Steps

By Mark Joyner

Simple effective plans executed with enthusiasm lead to great success.
And here's a simple and effective plan that gives me and my clients fantastic results every time I use it.

Step 1. Create a Linear Path
Have you ever put two bones in front of a dog? What does it do?
Well, if you've done this before you'll know that the dog goes crazy. He sniffs back and forth between the two bones in utter confusion.
If you give a dog one bone what does he do?
He plays with it and then he buries it.
Humans are just like dogs.
If you give them too many bones to play with, they won't play with any of them.

If your website has too many options, your surfers may click on a few things, but each click will lack commitment. Why? Well, my theory is that your surfer is wondering in the back of his mind what those other clicks are all about. So, he's in a hurry to get back to your main page and find out.
So, he clicks on a few links and then he leaves.

Get rid of it all. Strip each of your pages down to one thing and one thing only.

Create a linear path to the result you want.
I know ? you're about to say, "But what if my visitor doesn't want that 'one thing?'"
Well, you have to ask yourself - would you rather have some people do one thing, or all of them do nothing?

Test this out for yourself. Time and time again I have seen singularly focused linear web pages "out-pull" hodge-podge-links-going-everywhere sites on the order of 100 to 1.
What is that "one thing" your visitors should do? Well, it could be ...
"Purchase my product," or ...
"Sign up for my newsletter," or ...
(If you want to turn your site into an epidemic) it could be...
"Sign up for a free or trial or bonus product"

Step 2. Use Turbo-Charged Tell-a-Friend
It's fairly common for people to have a "tell a friend" script on their sites, but most are going about it the wrong way.
Turbo-Charging your tell-a-friend action is simple. First, you create a linear path to it. You make it the raison d'etre for the page. Give them some great information and then ask them to tell friends.
Next, change the way you're asking people to tell friends. Don't just put it there on your site as a mild suggestion. Create a compelling reason for them to do so.

It could be a reward of some sort of freebie, or ...
It could be access to a private members-only area, or ...
It could be nothing at all.

Huh? Ponder this for a while ...
Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer once conducted an experiment where she asked her students to cut in line at a copy machine.
First she compared the following two approaches:
Case A: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?"
Case B: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush."

It should surprise no one that 60% of those asked in Case A said "yes" and 94% of those in Case B said yes.
In Case B, we have a more compelling reason. Case A is not very convincing at all.
Here's where it gets interesting ...

Case C: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies."
A shocking 93% of those asked in Case C said "yes."
" ... because I have to make some copies" is not a very compelling argument, but notice the response.

The conclusion here was that simply using the word "because" induced those asked to comply.
Try using this same approach on your Tell-a-Friend förm and see what happens.

A worthy test might be:
"Tell a friend about this website because it's Tuesday."
Or ...
"Tell a friend about this website because they will thank you for it."

Step 3. Embody Buzzworthiness
Is that a word? My spellchecker and dictionary both say "no." Please allow me to enter it into our lexicon.
I think it's a useful word to describe the most important factor of all in viral marketing.
Why do people buzz about a website?
In some cases people tell friends about websites because they will get paid to do so. Affiliate programs, MLMs, etc. all bribe people to tell others their message. The problem is that people can smell a bribed disingenuous referral a mile away. This is why you rarely see mega-buzz success based on bribery.
Sometimes companies will offer other incentives like freebies, etc. to incentivize referrals and again the result is much the same.
The greatest viral marketing successes employed no such heavy-handed tactics. They were just buzzworthy.

Take Napster for example. Napster is one of the most downloaded pieces of software in the world (millions upon millions of downloads) and they never bribed anyone to tell others. They were just ... Well, buzzworthy.

Here's another example. How long do you think it took the average citizen of Planet Earth to find out about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center?
I would venture to say that within the first 24 hours anyone living in an industrialized nation knew of this event.
Why did people tell others about that?

It, too, was buzzworthy.
The nature of buzzworthiness is an elusive thing, but you get the idea ... Below are some hints:

Be very cool.
Be very new.
Be very newsworthy.
Be very important.
Be very useful ...
Just be very.

The more very you are, the more buzz you will get, and that will serve as the trump card that will beat any other hand in the viral marketing deck.

About The Author
Mark Joyner is a Number One best-selling author, one of the first online marketing pioneers, and has sold millions of dollars in products and services over the Internet on a zero dollar ad budget.

Attracting Search Engine Attention

By Chesa Keane

Once a website has been created and published, many new website owners think that the web development project is finished. But in reality, the real work is just beginning. In order to create a money-making site, traffic must be generated and driven to the website. There are several effective methods that can be implemented in Tier II of the SEO strategy to create this web traffic. While all methods may not be required to realize successful traffic generation, some combination of most, if not all, will probably be needed to create traffic, maintain traffic and finally, grow traffic to your website with long-term, lasting results. Consider implementing these strategies:


- Dynamic content is necessary for search engine recognition, and by updating the website frequently, the search engines see your website as an active, not stagnant, website. How often should changes be made? At the very least, monthly. But the more frequent the changes, the better. There are some tried and true methods you may want to employ:

* Monthly newsletter (or weekly)

* Tip of the day that rotates to the page using a script from an existing database of information at your site.

* RSS feed to public news feeds that update hourly or daily at the least.
* Changes to contact information, staffing, clients, etc.

* Checking links frequently to make sure that they are active and valid, and changing the link text from time to time will register as a change to the page.

* Simple modification of content from time to time should be done in between these regular maintenance tasks which will update the website.


Good links management will result in a stronger weight given by the search engines for search positioning. The algorithms used for weighting one page over another require link popularity assessment for successful traffic to your website. Link popularity is also one of the main considerations for Google and Alexa Page Rank. How do you achieve link popularity? It can be tedious and requires careful attention to the selection of the links, but there are several means that can be employed:

* Reciprocal Links: Search for relevant and desired web pages with which to trade links.

* Purchase PageRank-based links: boost your relevance and weight in the eyes of search engines by purchasing links for a period of time, three to six months until you have achieved a better ranking.

* List with directories: paid or unpaid directory listings that are relevant to your website will give your website additional exposure.

* Anchor text: create the links with link text in mind, utilizing relevant keywords where possible.

* PageRank consideration: link only with websites that have decent PageRank (PR); i.e., PR of 3 could be a minimum but a PR of 4 would be a better minimum requirement from those pages who want to exchange links with you.



Blogs: Web logs linked to your site or posting to popular blogs with your links included to point traffic back to your site; a good strategy is to employ pinging with blog posting.

Forums: Forum participation that allows you to leave your link with the intent of attracting traffic back to your site can get traffic back to your website, however, take care that you actually offer something of value in your posting so you are not accused of spamming.

Search Engine Listings: Listing with free search engines and directories is an essential step, although you won't see any results for months.

Gather Opt-in Email Addresses: Utilize an email list subscription function on your website with the intent of sending e-newsletters and announcements on a regular basis. This subscription list can be used for several other campaigns, including the sale of advertising space in your newsletter.

Advertise on Ezines: Purchase sponsorship on other email lists where you can promote your product and/or services as well as links to your website in the process.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with Google and Yahoo Search Marketing where you purchase advertising space based on keywords that are popular for your website if you are not in a saturated market. If your business operates in a saturated internet market, seek niche keywords for your PPC advertising. Determine your budget first and from there, you will know how much you can afford for the positioning you desire. It's all mathematical:

Price-Per-Click = monthly budget/number of clicks (or) Number of clicks = monthly budget/price per-click.

Some suitable combination of price and number of clicks based on your own budget will result in a campaign you can monitor and adjust as necessary. The important result to watch for is the conversion rate. How many paid clicks convert into the desired result; i.e., new contract, sale of product, sign up for e-newsletter, etc.

Remember, creating a website is only the first step. Driving traffic to your site is the next important task. Layout a plan of action and follow-through. You are not going to realize success until you spend the time and energy - or pay someone else for their time and energy - to get the job done.

About The Author
Chesa Keane is the owner of TAO Consultants, Inc., a computer consulting firm focusing on internet consulting: web development, search engine optimization, internet marketing and accounting solutions.

Google AdWords vs. Other Advertising Media

"Sometimes Google AdWords is the least effective way to reach your target customer."

A chance conversation in New York City shows why other advertising media may be better for you - because each form of advertising slices the world in a different, unique way

Last May I was in New York City for Gary Bencivenga's now-legendary copywriting seminar, and taking the day off on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Just off Broadway and a few blocks from Central Park, I was drinking coffee in a donut shop when two guys struck up a conversation with me.

Turns out one of them was a senior sales executive for the Thomas Register. In case you're not familiar, the Thomas Register is a very old company that, pre-Internet, used to make a gigantic set of green books that you would see in a company library, purchasing or engineering office. These books, which probably weighed 100+ pounds, were the national 'Yellow pages' for every kind of manufacturing you can possibly think of.

And pre-Internet, if you wanted to buy machine tools, adhesives, pump controllers, conveyor belts or literally hundreds of thousands of other items, the Thomas Register was probably the easiest way to find all of those things.

But now you just do a Google search. Right?

And that's what this guy hears when he's selling space at ThomasNet.com (they don't even print those big books anymore) - his prospect says 'Hey, I don't need to advertise on your site, I'll just advertise on Google.'

Well nobody's in a better position than me to say that sometimes Google AdWords is NOT the best way for his prospect to reach a new customer! Sometimes it's a lousy way to reach your target customer. Let me give you some examples:

* Last year I had a client who manufactures AC Adapters - you know, those big black plugs that provide power for your CD player or charge your cel phone. We tried mightily to make Google AdWords work, and couldn't. Why? Because this company sells custom lots of 500 units or more to manufacturers, but all the traffic for "AC Adapters" and related keywords is everyday consumers looking to buy one unit at a time. Our Google campaign was a total failure, despite our best efforts to dis-qualify the customer. The ads would say "minimum lots of 500," but Joe Consumer would click on the ad anyway, then leave. A manufacturing directory is a much better way to reach other manufacturers than Google in that situation.

* Let's say you sell some kind of high-end equipment, software or consulting to high level executives - and lower-level people are a waste of time for you. (Very common scenario!) Is bidding on keywords a good way to target those executives? No, not really. Maybe only 1% of the people searching are executives, the rest just waste your clicks. Direct mail would be much, much better for that. A FEDEX envelope on the executive's desk is a rifle shot.

* Keyword based advertising only works when people know they have a problem and can describe it to themselves and believe that somebody on the Internet has a solution. But many people have severe problems they don't even realize they have. If that's the case, search engine marketing isn't a very good way to reach them. You need to interrupt them instead. So again, direct mail, ads in magazines they read, TV, radio - all of those media might be better. Search engine marketing only gets you people who are proactively looking to solve their problem right now.

* Sometimes search traffic gets you, ironically, the lowest quality, least-interested and least qualified prospects. People who regularly visit specific web sites are much more interested and much more qualified. Here's an example: Let's say you are doing fundraising for environmental activism. You could bid on the keyword "environment," but what you'd probably get is high school kids doing homework assignments and writing papers about the environment. Now it may be nice to reach those kids with your message, but you ain't gonna get any money out of them. And if you think about it, people who are already active and interested in that probably are not typing "environment" into a search engine. They already have sites they like to go to. You get much better traffic, and more donations, advertising on those sites. (That's why, in some categories, AdSense gets you better traffic than Google searches.)

Every kind of advertising media slices the world in a different way. Bidding on keywords slices the world according to who's got an itch to scratch, right now. Direct mail slices the world according to what magazines people subscribe to, what mail order products they've purchased, what charities they've donated money to. Compiled mailing lists slice the world according to where they live, what income level they're in, what positions they hold in their jobs, what kind of home they live in.

"Rock - Paper - Scissors"

Print advertising slices the world according to topics people are interested in - if you advertise in Bass Fisherman magazine, you get guys who are rabidly interested in bass fishing. If you advertise on the radio at 7:30 in the morning, you get people who are on their way to work. The pros and cons of every form of advertising are sort of like that game "Rock - Paper - Scisssors" where each has its unique advantages and disadvantages.

So I told the Thomas Register exec that he just needs to come out and say that yes, sometimes Google is hands down the easiest, cheapest way to get new customers. (His prospect will be rather surprised to hear him say that! Coming clean will boost his credibility.) But he can point out that also sometimes, as with those AC Adapters, Google may also be one of the worst ways to get a new customer.

For most people, the truth is somewhere in the middle. For most people, Google is a great way to get a certain amount of high quality leads, but there are only so many available. It's like an oil well that pumps out just so much every day, and no more. Plus you never want to have all your eggs in one basket, that makes you very vulnerable. So you need to explore other avenues.

In conversations I've had, people have been using any or all of the following ways to acquire new customers:

* Buying space ads in e-zines
* Endorsed email blasts from affiliates
* Pop-under and popup ads on other sites
* Postcard mailings
* Direct Mail
* Magalogs - catalogs that look like magazines
* Spots in other peoples' catalogs
* FEDEX envelopes to highly-targeted prospects from carefully selected mailing lists
* Banner ads
* Radio
* TV
* Telemarketing
* Issuing a Press Release
* Writing a Book
* Being an "Expert" on a Talk Show
* Exhibiting at Trade Shows
* Flyers distributed house-to-house or business-to-business
* Doing a custom teleseminar for another person's email list
* Ads in magazines
* Remnant space in local newspapers, purchased at a deep discount rates
* Speaking at seminars
* Card Decks - i.e. packet of postcards that comes in the mail
* Writing magazine articles and e-zine articles
* "Buyer advocate" sites like Thomas Register and Globalspec
* Flyer inserts in newspapers, magazines or mail-order shipments (that's called "Insert media")
* "Lumpy Mail" - sending people interesting objects, like one guy I know who mailed out a six foot canoe paddle

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So save this list for the next time you have one of those days when it seems impossible to find a new customer!

Remember that every other advertiser out there has access to some customers, and many of them know they can make a little more money (and not lose any business) by giving you controlled access to their customers. And many times even though those other media may have a higher customer acquisition cost, the customers may be higher quality.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #10 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #10 : "Build a superior product, offer a superior service, and provide elegant solution to difficult problems, and you will be successful."

NOT true.

There are all kinds of highly educated, talented people who are selling custom doors at Home Depot. It's not what they want to do, it's not what they should be doing - so why are so many talented people having such a hard time?

Here's why:

What you can do and how good you are does not matter. What matters is how well you COMMUNICATE what you do and how good you are. That is the difference.

Every year, tens of thousands of people invent, innovate and create brilliant products, terrific solutions to truly perplexing problems - only to find out that it's darn hard to raise money for their new ventures, and even harder to get customers to listen. Most of the time those new products and services die on the slag heap of great ideas that never saw the light of day.

You don't want that to happen to your great idea. So here's how to make sure it doesn't:

Make sure that marketing, sales, advertising and PR is the foremost priority in your new venture. Even if you don't like Microsoft , you MUST learn this lesson from them: They don't have the best software by any stretch of the imagination, but they do have the best sales strategy. And in business, it's the sales strategy that wins, not the superior technology.

So if you're waking up every morning thinking about the minute details of your cool product or service, please stop and re-calibrate.

Understand this:

1) Having a superior product is not necessarily an advantage, and can even be a DISadvantage - because it can distract you from the real objective, which is to GET and KEEP customers.

2) The product you develop is rarely the product your customers want to buy. That's OK as long as you're listening and flexible. But if you've already spent all your money perfecting the product, then you won't have any left to respond to customer feedback.

3) The product or service itself is, at most, maybe 25% of the equation. Advertising, PR strategies, and real-world market testing (as opposed to "market research", which is usually just "opinion research") --- all of these things are MORE important than the product.

4) Innovate, Don't Invent -- It's much easier to go into an existing market and solve an existing problem with a slightly improved, more interesting product (innovation) than to create a product from scratch that solves a problem people don't realize they have. That's goes along with my principle of "enter the conversation inside the customer's head."

Back to selling custom doors at Home Depot -- nobody needs to suffer this fate. But don't underestimate the challenge: If you have superior talent, then the best investment you can make is in communicating that talent to the world -- clearly, effectively, and without fail.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #9 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #9: 'All customers are to be treated as demi-gods'

Some of us kill ourselves trying to do this AFTER the sale, which is fine. Except... some customers simply *are not worth the effort.*

What are the 'bottom 10%' of your customers like?

--They beat you up on prices
--They pay late
--They expect special treatment
--They're rude
--They don't respect your boundaries.

Well today I'm giving you permission to FIRE them. Get them off your back, once and for all.

Most customers will be shocked when you fire them. But you'll be amazed at the liberating feeling and the renewed self-respect you have when you establish rules and stick to them. And when your other customers find out that you have enough self respect to give problem customers the boot, they'll respect you more, too.

Consider this:

Former CEO of GE Jack Welch had a policy of getting rid of the bottom 10% of employees every year. Controversial? Absolutely. Did some really good employees fall victim to 'corporate politics'? No doubt that happened, too.

But was it effective? Yes, it was.

It sounds harsh, and certainly it's an unpleasant policy for everyone involved, at least at the moment. But think about it -- don't you figure the poorest performing 10% of people in a company probably belong somewhere else anyway?

And... don't you figure your competitors need your worst customers more than you do? That IS an excellent strategy, by the way. Distract your competitors from good customers by sending 'em bad ones.

So go ahead -- Make my day. Get rid of the bottom 5-10% of your customers every year.

Make a list of people who drain your resources and damage your morale, and get rid of them.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

A Google AdWords Lesson from the Wall Street Journal

What does the Wall Street Journal have to do with Google AdWords?

Plenty.

The Wall Street Journal advertises for new subscriptions with Google AdWords.

But that's not what I'm going to talk about today.

No, what I'm going to talk about is the WSJ's famous direct mail letter, the one that's been selling millions of subscriptions. They mail 30 million copies of that letter per year.

This two page letter says:

Dear Reader,

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college.

They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable, and - as young college graduates are - both were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their twenty-fifth reunion...

Of course it goes on to explain that one was super-successful because he read the Wall Street Journal.

That letter has been selling WSJ subscriptions for 29 years - unchanged. That's right, they have not changed that letter in 29 years!

Not that people haven't tried. Top writers have been trying to beat it ever since it was first written.

And nobody's succeeded - until just recently.

That's right, a copywriter named Mal Decker just beat it, apparently increasing the response by Twenty Percent!.

Mr. Decker should be mighty proud of himself.

The reason this is so significant is that because of the improved performance of this letter, the WSJ now gets 20% more sales without spending a penny more on postage or printing. I can only guess, but when you subtract out expenses, this might actually double the profit they make selling their paper.

The lesson is clear: In advertising, copy - your choice of words - is king.

So what does this have to do with Google AdWords?

Plenty. AdWords is set up to work the same way as direct mail. If you can beat your existing ad, the same way Mal Decker beat the WSJ letter, the exact same thing happens. You pay the same amount of money but you simply get more visitors.

The same thing, in turn, happens once visitors get to your website: The better your copy on the website, and the more traffic it converts to dollars, the more money you get, and you don't have to spend a penny more on traffic!

You can change the CTR of your ads by 50% just by changing ONE WORD. And this is NOT unusual, not a fluke. It's actually QUITE NORMAL. That's right - ONE word can make that much difference. My AdWords Toolkit even shows you an example of how simply reversing the order of two lines increased the response by 2000%!

When you're writing those little ads, little hinges swing big doors!

Lie #8 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #8: 'You can't charge premium prices for a commodity product.'

If you're fooled into thinking this is true, you'll live by cheapest price and die by cheapest price all day long. People who believe this have thin profit margins and low morale. But they don't have to.

Case in point: Starbucks, AOL, and Microsoft are ALL in commodity markets but have managed to re-define the rules such that they are relatively immune from price competition. And I can assure you that there are THOUSANDS of small businesses as well, who use the same shrewd tactics to sidestep the whole issue of 'commoditization.'

Being a 'commodity' is the pits. The worst situation you can be in is to sell something that's readily available from dozens of other people. But you can change that. I have a very specific terminology and strategy for re-inventing your
business and making it clearly stand out from your rivals, even if you ARE in a commodity market.

It's the same thinking process that AOL, Microsoft, McDonalds and Starbucks all use - seemingly invincible companies that dominate fiercely competitive commodity markets.

Let's take AOL as a brief example. You can become an Internet Service Provider with a few thousand dollars of cash and some phone lines. Some ISP's have even given away their services for free. But AOL maintains a fat-margin price of $23/month.

How can they do it? Because AOL is fundamentally different than all other ISP's. They have FORCED themselves to come up with unique ways of making themselves non-interchangeable with others. They have AOL instant messenger, all kinds of online communities, and proprietary software. And once you're on AOL, it's hard to get off.

You can lift ideas right out of AOL and Microsoft and cleverly apply them to your business, so that apples-to-apples comparisons to your competitors are difficult or impossible. If you are in a commodity business - then you MUST do this. *It's not an option.* When you do, it makes everything you do vastly easier and more effective.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #7 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #7: 'If you want to educate customers about new ideas, you have to buy 'em all doughnuts, lunch or dinner, and do a big dog & pony show.'


Is your product or service something that's really cool, really useful, and really helpful to people -- but the problem is, nobody realizes how much they need it?

There was a new technology that I sold at two different jobs. Basically it was another one of those 'great ideas' that could solve lots of problems for people, but nobody knew they needed it.
So it was very hard to sell!

I would go into companies, buy lunch for all their people, and give enthusiastic, informative presentations about this really cool new technology that could make their lives infinitely easier.

Ever done that before?

They'd file in, consume my pizza, listen apathetically to the presentation, and file out. They'd go back to their cubicles, I'd go back to my office, and they wouldn't spend a single dime on anything. The whole situation really sucked.

Then I heard about a guy named Jeff Paul in the financial planning field who'd figured out how to solve the entire problem by charging people for seminars.

Here's what Jeff did: He used low cost advertising and direct mail to get people to fork over real money to come to his tax seminar. Then he charged them another fee if they wanted to meet with him for a private 'consultation.' On top of that, he got paid the usual commissions on the financial products they bought. Not only did he make money every step of the way, he
closed twice as many sales as he did before, and his customers followed his financial plans more carefully. He built an enormously successful practice, because he was positioned from square one as the expert that he truly was, instead of a peddler.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? 'What if that could work for me???'

So... I put together a 3-day, $1500 training course for this technology. I wrote a 4 page sales letter that 'sold the sizzle' and *really* explained why it was worth the time and money to show up and really, really learn this stuff.

Two months later, Fortune 500 companies were sending their employees to this class, learning how to use our equipment, and paying for information that I formerly couldn't give away with free pizza. A major trade organization even licensed our new
course and started selling it to their entire membership. We were getting paid to teach prospective customers how to use our products! Our competitors were HACKED OFF. You can probably do something similar in your business. It's a lot easier than you might think. And your competitors will be really mad at you, too.

Since the Internet can deliver information to people for very low cost, and sometimes for almost nothing, it can be the key to doing "missionary work" for cutting edge products very inexpensively.

My favorite tool for doing this is a White Paper. A White Paper is your statement about how a problem should be solved. A well-written, well-promoted white paper is worth its weight in gold, because it educates customers about your way of doing things cheaply, and it's a terrific tool for generating sales leads.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #6 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #6: 'People need to see your advertisement 6-12 times before they'll remember it.'

If your ad does not work one time, it ain't going to work twelve times. This lie is used to sell all sorts of advertising space and campaigns that are a waste of money. And because the people who tell you this ALSO tell you you can't measure advertising, you have no way of knowing whether they're right or wrong.

You pull the big black checkbook out of your desk, spend a bunch of money, and you have no idea what you got back. What
a horrible feeling that is!
First, figure out how much response you need to make it pay off. Play with the elements of your ad, running it in an inexpensive place, until it gets the response you need - THEN run it six to twelve times. When you measure the effectiveness of advertising - and systematically improve it - you'll discover that some ads produce 20 times as much results as others. When you discover formulas that truly work, you won't just run them 12 times - you might run them for years. And you'll make profits all along the way.

And when you actually test marketing messages for performance and experiment with them, you'll find that tiny changes in wording have ENORMOUS effects on response.

It's absolutely SCARY to think about what can happen if you're not testing things. And it's absolutely incredible what happens when you are.


The good news is, 95% of companies don't test their advertising. Your competitors almost certainly don't. If you do, you have a clear advantage over them.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #5 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #5: 'You have to pay your dues now, but in only 2-3 years you'll have enough customers and referrals that you won't have to cold prospect hardly at all.'

There are two things wrong with this statement: The first part, and the second part. First let's talk about 'paying your dues.'

There's a traditional salesperson's version of this -- and then there's the guerrilla marketer's version. The marketer's version of 'paying your dues' is vastly more productive, as I shall explain.

The sales version of paying your dues is 1-3 years of brutal grunt work, until your client base is big enough to let up on the cold calls. Good marketing can eliminate the years of cold calls in the first place. But here's how the marketer's version works:

You polish and refine your sales message, on paper, or the web, or in some kind of media, until it's razor sharp - and then you test it inexpensively until it's effective and profitable. (Web traffic is often the fastest place to perfect this, by the way.) THEN you roll it out to the big world and put big money in - and big money comes out immediately.

It's a HUGE leap frog effect, and you don't think of it as 'paying your dues' --- you think of it as TESTING. 'Testing' is WAY better than 'Rejection.' It's a fascinating learning process instead of a gauntlet. It's also a way of growing a company fast without a ton of investment capital.

Once you've tested a marketing campaign to the point where sales or sales leads come in at an attractive Return On Investment, THEN you can invest heavily and watch the profits come rolling in.

OK, now for the other part of the lie - the part about not having to prospect any more. You ALWAYS have to prospect, IF you do not have a marketing system in place. Always. No matter how long you've been around.

Note: If you provide such an outstanding service and customers are so delighted that they eagerly refer others to you, then you won't have to prospect anymore. But referrals themselves are still a marketing system! And there are many things
you can do to stimulate still more referrals.

In any case, if you you switch from brute force prospecting to shrewd Guerrilla Marketing, you'll never again be a victim of Lie #5.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #4 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #4: 'Prove to your customer that you're willing to work harder, drive more miles, and bend over further than everyone else to earn his business.'

This one's pretty subtle. At first glance it seems like foolishness to say that anything less than fantastic customer service is going to cut it in today's marketplace. But here's the thing: Most sales people try to communicate this way too soon, in the process of being way too eager to win the customer's business.

So what happens is, you're chasing the guy, saying 'Call me any time, day or night, page me, here's my home phone number. Heck, I'll even jump out of bed and come and see you if I'm right in the middle of making love to my wife, because man, lemme tell ya, I'm eager to win your business!!'

Of course customers know that after the salesman has made every conceivable promise to win
their business, they still end up dealing with a bunch of apathetic yo-yos in customer service or
tech support, and the project will STILL probably be late anyway - regardless of how eager the
sales person is. That's why your enthusiasm doesn't help you.

Here's a great way to fix the problem:

1) Don't act so darn hungry to get the guy's business. Your customer service and tech support people ARE busy, and they don't have time to hold the hands of problem customers. Don't be afraid to tell your prospects that they have to *qualify* to do business with you. It's counter intuitive, but when the customer finds out that you're not drooling all over yourself to get his purchase order, he's going to respect you more.

2) *Guarantee* results to the customer - with teeth. Guarantee on-time delivery, specific levels of performance, with negative consequences for YOUR company if it doesn't deliver the
goods. You do not have to promise people the moon! You just have to keep the promises you DO make.

Now this requires support from the president of the company on down. And most companies
don't like to guarantee anything. (When push comes to shove, you still have to deliver results anyway, right? Giving a guarantee often just means clearly stating what's already true.)

And if you aren't willing to guarantee anything, why the heck not? Why should your customers take all the risk after they've heard a bunch of empty promises?

Even a modest guarantee can enormously empower your sales message. Define what you can and can't deliver, go to the mat to keep your promises, and draw the line right there. Customers will be far more responsive and you won't appear desperate.

People are cynical, and they'll only believe what you can prove. Here's an article on how to erase that cynicism and earn more trust than your competitors:

When you seamlessly integrate bold sales messages and meaningful guarantees with the other ingredients of my system, the results are exciting.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #3 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #3: 'You've just got to run some ads and get your name out there.'

This one costs companies BILLIONS of dollars.

It was also one of the key causes of the DOT COM disaster that tanked the stock market in 2000. Advertising is a crucial ingredient, yet it actually works against many companies. But when it works in your favor, amazing things can happen.

All advertising MUST do one of two things:

1) Generate Sales or 2) Generate Sales Leads.

And do so in a measurable, quantifiable way.

If you do either of those things, you'll have no problem 'getting your name out there' and you'll also make money in the process. But if you simply attempt to get your name out there, it's very likely that you won't generate sales OR sales leads.

Worse yet, if you hire an ad agency, your ads will usually be written by some English major who's never had a sales job in his life (a colossal mistake, since advertising and selling two sides of the same coin) and the agency account rep will try to win you over with a song and dance about winning awards.

Here's an ugly truth: Ads that win awards rarely generate sales. And ads that sell rarely win awards.
Remember the Talking Sock in the PETS.COM superbowl commercial? It was cute and memorable, but it didn't save those guys from the Dot Com Boneyard. Dead Dot Coms Don't Lie.

People don't expect nearly enough from their advertising, and they don't hold it accountable for results. So they waste millions of dollars... then they start pounding their sales people for orders on the 26th of every month. Most companies also try to make their advertising do too much. Let me explain.

When you're generating sales leads, you must remember that all you're really trying to do is get people to raise their hands and identify themselves as someone who has a problem - and tell you who they are. Anything beyond that dilutes the effectiveness of your ad. So don't make the mistake of telling them too much. The purpose of pure lead generation advertising is NOT for you to tell them all about yourself - not in the first step anyway.

The purpose is for them to tell you who they are.

When you do this correctly, it's simple, elegant, and outrageously effective. And most importantly, nobody feels like you're chasing them. Oh, and one more thing: Everything you say in advertising must be very, very specific, including what you do and who you do it for.

If you're busy being all things to all people--if you've got a huge list of things that you can do,
you're probably not going to sell anything to anybody. You must define a niche for yourself that's reasonably unique. In fact even if you don't have a niche, you need to invent one where it did not exist before.

Here's an article about what's so desperately wrong with most business-to-business advertising, and what to do about it:
http://perrymarshall.com/marketing/b2b_marketing.pdf
Original Source: Perry Marshall

Lie #2 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #2: 'You've just got to get in front of more people.'

Lie number two used to be the first thing I'd say to myself when I woke up each morning. Waking up every morning with a lie circulating in your brain is a very, very bad thing. This one gave me ulcers. It caused me to spend untold thousands of hours in my car, driving to see anyone who would allow me to walk through their door. It caused me to spend untold thousands of hours on the phone, trying to set up appointments. It also caused me to owe staggering amounts of money to Aunt Visa and Uncle Master Card.

Here's the truth: If you are nothing more than a 'salesman,' then nobody wants to see you. Ever. Because nobody is ever jazzed about having an adversarial discussion with you about whether they're going to buy something or not. 100 years ago, face-to-face selling was often the only way to find out about a new product or service. Not now. We've got a PC right in our dining room and a DSL line - and ANY TIME my wife or I want to know about something, we jump right on the Internet and go find out. Just yesterday Laura and I were discussing housing prices and five minutes later we were surfing a real estate site and learning everything we wanted to know. Isn't that a lot easier and safer than inviting a real estate agent over for tea & crumpets? You bet. But please understand, the issue is NOT that real estate agents are obsolete.

The issue is:
1) Is the Internet working FOR the agent, or AGAINST her?
2) Does she add legitimate value to what the customer can already get from the Internet?
Is she positioning herself such that customers who are ready to do something see her as a valuable resource and call her when it's time to act?
Or is she just a friendly face who really just wants their listing?
She must clearly position herself as someone who drastically speeds the buying or selling process and makes it MUCH EASIER for the buyer / seller to get what they want.

OK... So how do you DEMONSTRATE that you, as a sales person, make your customers' life easier - that time spent with you is time well spent?
Here's how: In your marketing, you focus on their problems, not your solution. You focus on the itch, not the scratch. This might sound simplistic, but even so, hardly anybody really does this. If you doubt me, just pick up ANY magazine and flip through it. Ask yourself this question as you look at every ad: 'Is this ad about my problem, or is it about somebody's product?' 90% of the time it's about their 'cool' product. And nobody really cares.

The only thing people care about is their problem. So here's a major shift: Instead of being a sales person who's trying to get in front of people, become a problem solving Information Source. (Usually it's *written* information first, not a phone call.) You'll get five times as many sales leads that way. No joke.

After you've provided information that helps them solve their problem, the next logical step is for them to meet with you. They call you first - you don't call them. And you walk through their door as a problem solver, not a peddler. I call this 'Information Marketing.' It's THE fundamental concept in my marketing system. People aren't interested in your solution. They're interested in their problem.

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Coming Soon.. Yahoo! Publisher Network

Yahoo! would soon launch its own Adsense program to counter Google's dominance in this part of the net. The paid-search advertising market is worth billions and is expected to be worth tens of billions in a few years time. Yahoo! is betting that market will support a growing network of small to medium sized online publishers who will in turn bring more revenues to Yahoo!.
Google, which generates over 90% of its enormous revenues from the AdWords program, might face serious competition from Yahoo!, which currently receives about 60% of revenues from paid-advertising.

Click here to read more about Yahoo! Publisher Network

Lie #1 in Sales & Marketing

Lie #1: 'Make more phone calls today than you did yesterday.'

If making phone calls really, actually works for you, then I suppose you should make more of them.
But most of the time, as I explain in 'Guerilla Marketing for Hi-Tech Sales People,' the phone calls aren't really working that well in the first place. And doing more of what already isn't working is just dumb. Plus, unsolicited phone calls just annoy people.
Today when you hear a motivational speaker getting sales people all revved up to go make phone calls and endure rejection, picture this in your mind: 1000 soldiers with sticks and rocks in hand charge valiantly onto a battlefield, where they are cut down with machine guns, tanks and artillery fire - dying in droves.
Actually a tiny handful of extraordinary, talented warriors will survive by strength, testosterone and wit. But the odds are heavily tilted against them. Only the very, very best even survive, much less prosper.
If your only weapon in sales is your telephone and your ability to withstand rejection, you're fighting tanks with sticks. And as the 21st century unfolds, the problem's going to get worse, not better.
Think about this: about 30 years ago, factory workers began to be displaced by machines and cheap foreign labor. The worker cost $12 per hour but the robot only cost $2.50 per hour. Anyone willing to work for $2.50 per hour? Lots of sales people are doing just that.
Today, sales people are being displaced by websites and media. Imagine for a moment that you were a door to door book salesman today (they were quite common 100 years ago) -- how would you ever compete with Amazon, or a bookstore like Borders or Barnes & Noble? Impossible. You'd starve to death. And you couldn't possibly provide your customers a similar level of service or selection.
A person selling books door to door is only slightly different from somebody who sells insurance or telecommunications or any number of other products and services today.
But here's the TRUTH: IF you carve out a niche for yourself and IF you use automated tools like your website and direct mail, you CAN increase the efficiency of your business and you CAN compete. And you won't antagonize your customers in the process and you won't need those big doses of motivation.
Listen up: You MUST carve out a niche, and you MUST use your communication tools shrewdly.
Most companies don't. Most websites are designed with no particular purpose in mind. Most companies don't have any idea how to create a direct mail piece that makes the phone ring. (That's why they think direct mail doesn't work.)

BOTTOM LINE:
1) You MUST have marketing tools that do the grunt work for you.
2) You must tweak those tools until they're effective.
Often you'll try something and it doesn't work the first time.
But... the good news is, once it works, it will usually work for YEARS.
That's why time spent on marketing is absolutely the best time investment you can make - IF you're educated about what really works and what doesn't.
Here's a link to an article about selling new technology to hard-to-reach customers

Original Source: Perry Marshall

Why the Most Important Success Ingredient Has Nothing to Do With Google!

100 years ago, in 1903, the Wright Brothers achieved their monumental goal of flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Most people don't know that there were quite a few other people trying to build an airplane at the same time. One was Alexander Graham Bell; another was the President of the Smithsonian Institution.

All of these guys were much better funded than a pair of bicycle shop mechanics from Ohio with a wind tunnel in their garage.

But there's a key difference that led to the Wright Brothers' success.

The other guys focused on making a more powerful engine.

Orville and Wilbur Wright focused on the plane.

Specifically, the Wright Brothers built their airplane as a glider without an engine - then mounted the engine later, almost as an afterthought.

They flew it in the breeze first, then added power later. That was the key to their success. They discovered that when you're building an airplane, the wings are more important than the engine.

What does this have to do with Internet Marketing?

The point is that all of this is not really about Google AdWords, or any particular way to get traffic. What matters more than all of that is the ability of your website to get people to take action - to opt in, to buy, or whatever you want them to do.

Google AdWords just happens to be the fastest, easiest, and sometimes the least expensive way to get the traffic there. But once again, it's not about Google - it's about your website.

What Google will help you do, more effectively than anything else, is send highly targeted, predictable traffic to your website, day in and day out, so you can experiment, test, and perfect your sales process.

Perry Marshall's "Expanding Universe Theory" for Doing a Marketing Rollout

Now listen up, because what I'm about to explain is profoundly important. It seems simple, but it's revolutionary. Please pay attention here.

For most businesses, the FIRST thing you should do is properly set up a Google AdWords campaign and play with your website until the traffic converts to sales profitably.

Frankly it doesn't matter how long it takes to make that work. Every step of the process teaches you very important things, even if it's through trial and error.

Why use Google for that? Here's why: It's just about the only way to get a steady, predictable stream of traffic day in and day out. Most other sources of traffic, like free search engine listings and PR, are things you have no real control of.

THEN... once it's working on AdWords, you take the same messages and sales process and roll out your product in this order:

1. Google AdWords
2. Search Engine Optimization
3. Other PPC's like Overture and Findwhat etc etc.
4. Email promotions
5. Affiliates
6. Press Releases
7. Direct Mail
8. Print Advertising

You see, items #2 through 8 are more expensive and/or less controllable than Google. Get it right with Google first, where you have total control THEN do email. THEN get help from affiliates. Don't let any of these other things or people be your guinea pig - if it works on Google AdWords first, then you can invest in these other things and be fairly certain it will work.

I can't overemphasize how powerful this is. Usually search engine traffic represents only a tiny percentage of the people who are potential customers for you. When you roll out to items 2 through 8, you can often make five to fifty times as much money as you were making with AdWords. And no longer is it necessary to risk more than a few hundred dollars on a marketing campaign!!!

A little traffic. A lot of traffic. Turn it on or turn it off at will.

You can use it the same way the Wright Brothers used the wind tunnel in their bicycle shop - to perfect the airplane before going out to "the big time."

Original Source: Perry Marshall