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Effective Strategic Digital Marketing

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Is your WEBSITE is a waste of time?

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Great post about When Is Blogging A Waste Of Time? 10 Nasty Examples. The first two are more than enough to weed out about 60% of the blogs I see.

1. When you publish a blog post that provides little or no value to your target audience.

2. When your blog has no clear target audience.

Which got me to thining that these two rules also apply to "When is your WEBSITE a waste of time?"  Because, in essences, blogs are just easy to manage web sites.

I confess.  I am guilty of putting together more than a few web sites for clients that had no clear target audience.  I tried to exorcise those demons by writing a book on the subject.  Because if you want to break through the cacophony that is modern media, you’re going to HAVE to define WHO your target audience is and provide material that the audience finds valuable.

Of course, content is only the first step in the successful web presence.  It’s truly the diamond in the box.  Sure, the presentation of an engagement ring is much more spectacular if the ring is presented in a beautifully wrapped gift box… but if the box contains a ring from a gum ball machine…. well, the pretty wrapper is soon forgotten.

I’ve always told my clients, great web sites are like a three legged stool…. there’s the content leg… the design leg and the coding leg.  Each is essential to keeping the three legged stool standing. 

There are other essential elements to web site succes, but the all have their roots in tightly targeted content that is of signficant value to your target audience.  Your NICHE MARKET, so to speak.  Once you’ve got your niche carved out, then it’s easy to fill in the gaps.

Latest Google Offering: Google Trends

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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.

 

Sharing the link love…

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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!

 

 

Video: Images + Sound = Impact!

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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.

Blog Review: The Harper Team

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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.