May 23, 2007

Latest Google Offering: Google Trends

Creating great content begins with knowing what customers want and Google has just added another service to help YOU write the web content ACTUAL PEOPLE are want to see.

On Monday, Google released it’s newest offering, Google Trends which will help you see the hottest keyword searches on Google.

If you’ve got a blog, this is a MUST SEE site. 

For example, by Wednesday (5.23.07) one of the hot keywords being search for was Google Trends!  If you have a blog or web site that speaks to web developers or bloggers, it makes sense that you should be making a post about Google Trends.

I shouldn’t have to say it, but I will.  If you have a blog or website that deals with web development, blogging on the number one keyword at Google Trends, "singer irene" may get you visitors, but visitors who aren’t interested in what you have to say just burn bandwidth.   Better to blog or create a page around a subject that YOUR potential customers/clients will be using when they are searching for answers.

Note: If your customers/clients are AVID Second Life fans, then maybe you should be blogging about singer irene. Read more about it here.

 

Filed Under: Google News and Views
May 21, 2007

Sharing the link love…

Hyperlinks are what make the web world go ’round. Google measures not only your inbound but also your outbound hyperlinks and "grades" your site on how many your site is included in on the web.

Over the past year, I’ve created lots of outbound links on my books’ blog Beyond Niche Marketing and unfortunately, many of the outbound links I made were not reciprocated.  Keep in mind that these are links to OTHER blogs… so it’s not like these inbound links are a mystery to the blog owner. 

There are a lot of reasons why people don’t share the link love.  Some just don’t know how, while others are operating from a "scarcity" mentality.  If you haven’t been sharing the link love, I’m going to tell you why you should begin doing so.

Link love is ESSENTIAL to garnering traffic for your blog.  It’s not just Google that likes to see links to your blog.  Technorati uses these incoming links to measure your blog’s "authority".  The idea is that the more incoming links you have, the more "respect" your blog deserves.

One way to generate link love is to comment on other people’s blogs.  You leave a comment and when other bloggers arrive, looking for their own link love, they find your blog and leave a comment to get some link love of their own.  Of course, it’s up to YOU whether you approve those comments or not. 

Some blogs are set up so that there is a "no follow" attribute on comments.  That means, if you’re looking for link love, you’re going to have to comment on blogs who have installed a special plug in to disable this alarming feature. 

There’s a movement worth noting in the blogging community known as The U comment I follow movement.

For an example of how linking helps traffic, let me walk you through how I found this movement:

I signed up for Google Alerts on the term Niche Marketing.  Now, when Google sees a page dealing with "Niche Marketing" it sends me an alert and gives me the URLs.  Not only do I find blog fodder using this service, I also find out when someone is talking about my book, Beyond the Niche.

Google alerted me to a post at Digg….5 Steps to Niche Marketing Success

Which led me to this post: Internet Marketing 2.0 My D List

Each of the blog’s referenced above are going to see an inbound link in their dashboard (if they’re using Word Press).  Hopefully, they’ll show some link love back… but if I just take a moment to comment on the blog, I’ll be able to create my own link love as well!

As a result, my blog’s "authority" ranking will rise, as will theirs.  Which means that when other Technorati users see that I’ve shown link love… they’ll be more likely to respond…. and so the story goes…..

If you use a Word Press blog, then you’re in an ideal situation to know when you’ve been shown link love, so you can respond in kind.  Remember, when it comes to link love… the more you give, the more you get.  So spread it around.

Want to generate link love from here to your blog?  I’ve installed the Do Follow plug in…. so feel free to grab the love!

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Basics
May 18, 2007

Video: Images + Sound = Impact!

Marketing is all about communication. It’s all about communicating your company’s products and services to your potential customers. There are many way to communicate with your potential customers about your company’s products and/or services:

  • brochures
  • newspaper ads
  • radio advertisements
  • television ads
  • billboards
  • direct mail
  • web site
  • email

As you look at the list, you’ll see that are many methods you can use to communicate with your potential customers.  Even if you’re not a marketing professional, you know it takes more than one "shot in the dark" to connect with your potential customers. The more often you can "connect" with potential customers, the better your chance at enticing them to come visit you either in person or on the web.

Video has always been a powerful communication medium. Video allows you to use visual AND audio to deliver your message. According to the Harvard Business review, studies show that people remember only 20% of what they hear, and only 30% of what they see. However retention rates skyrocket to an incredible 70% when subjects were tested on retention of what they hear and see. With this in mind, it’s no wonder why video is such a powerful communications tool.

Way back in 2003, when I began writing my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results, I spent a lot of time talking about Minor Sales and Major Sales. You can read more about Major Sales vs Minor Sales here, but in a nutshell, the key element for almost any business, especially one dealing in Major Sales is building trust.

Being trusted by your customers or clients is essential for business success. It takes a certain level of trust just to get customers or clients to pick up the phone and contact you initially.

There are a lot of elements that go into building trust with your potential customers.

  • Building trust is the reason why you invested in signage for your brick and mortar store. The store that doesn’t have permanent signage in place is fighting an uphill battle in trying to win customer confidence.
     
  • Building trust is why you want to have a professional looking web site, because many customers will visit your web site before they make the drive to your store.
     
  • Building trust is the reason adding video to your first point of contact with potential customers is so essential to your marketing success.

It used to be that merely HAVING a professional appearing web presence was enough to gain customer trust. Now you need more. The bar has been raised yet again. Companies on the cutting edge realize that including video clips via the web is a powerful way to gain confidence before your potential customer picks up the phone.

Filed Under: Marketing Magic
May 17, 2007

Blog Review: The Harper Team

This blog review is for the Harper Team, a realty group located in Danville, California.

I found this blog through a comment posted on a popular marketing blog. I knew I was in for a treat before I clicked the link.  The comment posted was:

 

When I get those "official looking" pieces I toss them and add the sender to a list of people I don’t want to do business with. I prefer ads that are short, sweet and to the point. I want to scan it and make a decision in about 2 seconds. If you’re trying to fool me or waste my time, why would i want to do business with you?

Great comment showing real insight.

So when I arrived at the site, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.  What an INCREDIBLE job this blog does of SELLING the services of this TEAM OF SALES PROFESSIONALS!

The design is clean, crisp and appealing.   OUTSTANDING!

While the visual elements are outstanding, the content is where this blog really shines. I was greeted with the post :  Hey Homesellers – Truth or Consequences? in which several previous posts were referenced.  OUTSTANDING!

The writing is clear, concise and most importantly, informative! The integration with the rest of the web site is seamless and the resources are truly incredible.

Think you want to sell your home yourself?  Well, the Harper Group will provide a step by step guide to help you in your quest.  This kind of helpful advice has GOT to go a LONG way in establishing trust with these real estate professionals.

In an industry where all you have to sell is your expertise, the Harper Group does an OUTSTANDING job of illustrating their expertise with this fabulous blog.

This blog is a rare combination of high quality content presented in a FABULOUS package. 

Filed Under: Blog Reviews
May 14, 2007

Relevance + Creativity = Marketing Magic

It’s official.  I am on marketing BURN OUT this morning.

Monday morning seems to be a favorite time to deliver email newsletters and I subscribe to several, most of them with a marketing focus.

There is one that is GREAT!  It’s written by Roy Williams.  In his Monday Morning Memo, Roy writes:

    Relevance is what determines whether an ad works or not. Every media fails when it delivers a message no one cares about.

PRICELESS!!!!

Roy’s newsletter is entirely focused on providing GREAT information to people like me, who make their living helping other people create marketing and advertising campaigns.

Advertising NEVER works when it’s given the task of delivering a message that isn’t relevant!

Web sites don’t work when they feasture content that is boring and irrelevant.

Newsletters get sent directly to junk mail when they aren’t relevant.

Here’s the tricky part: Relevance is determined by the listener or the visitor.

If you don’t know WHO your audience is (or if you think your audience is "everyone") then you can’t carefully craft a message that is RELEVANT to your target audience.

The message that the busy young working mother of two finds relevant may be entirely different than even the message that her mother or husband will find relevant. To break through the cacpohony of marketing message prevalent today, you have to craft a relevant message…. one that breaks through and connects with your customer.

How relevant are your marketing messages?  It’s easy to blame the messenger (a.k.a. "the media" ) instead of the message. If your ads aren’t working, trust me, it’s the message.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Magic
May 7, 2007

No one else CAN do it for you

I got this in my email this morning with the subject line: This Money Making Web Site is our GIFT to you.

Sign up FREE today and receive:

    • Your very own 3 Step Super Secret traffic generating website setup for FREE !
    • 1 year pre-written ezine-in-a-box !
    • Methods used by online pro’s that never require you to risk money !
    • Multiple streams of automated residual income !
    • Step-by-step marketing instructions to make quick cash !
    • Weekly draws for FREE advertising packages !
    • FREE lifetime support and training !
    • And much more…

What’s not to love?  No risk, guaranteed profit all by revealing closely guarded secrets…. with no effort, risk or investment on my part.

I’ve been running my business for almost a decade now and the first thing that JUMPS out at me is all the FREEBIES offered.  OMG!  How can they make any money by giving so much away for FREE!!

Normally, I wouldn’t even OPEN such an email, but Thunderbird presented it to me front and center this morning. I guess the reason I even looked twice at it was that I had a call earlier this week with someone who had literally bankrupted herself by chasing these "opportunities" instead of focusing on BUILDING HER BUSINESS!!!

My youngest son went through a stage where he invested an INCREDIBLE amount of time and energy into NOT doing school work, a heck of a lot MORE energy avoiding school work than it would have taken to just do his assignements.  But he was SURE that the massive amounts of energy he was investing in AVOIDING school work would eventually pay off.  They didn’t.  (I’m as tenacious as he is….a point he failed to recognize in the beginning.)

Recognize that NO ONE is going to do the hard stuff for you.  You wouldn’t hand over your check book and your budget to a car sales man and ask him to help you afford the car he thinks is best for you, would you? 

THE REAL SECRET IS: Ideas are a dime a dozen.  Those willng to work as hard and as long as it takes to succeed are as rare as 5 carat diamonds.

If you believe nothing else, believe that no one cares about YOUR business as much as you do!  If you think someone else  is going to do EVERYTHING for you (and for free on top of it all)…. well, there’s a reality check in your future.  I hope yours doesn’t end up in front of a bankruptcy judge before you learn this lesson.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Business Basics
May 1, 2007

Converting my web site to a blog….

After singing the praises of blogs to clients (and potential clients) for the past 6 months, I decided it was time to put my money where my mouth was.

It took me about 6 hours to make the transition from web site to blog. 

Even though I am FLUENT in HTML, I am certain that the switch from HTML to blog will mean I will be taking better care of my "main" web site.

My blogging clients may notice a new incoming link via their Dashboard.

One benefit I’ve already noticed is I can easily see who’s linking in.  VERY NICE!!!!  I want to be a good netizen, so I’ll be sure to link back to all those wonderful people who are linking to my articles on the site. 

Of course, I left the old "HTML" articles on the site and I changed the home link to reflect the new blog structure.

 

Filed Under: Blog