You’ll probably be relieved to know that this article is not all about the technical structure of your website. I could go on about that for days on end, but fortunately, structure for you is non-technical and pretty easy to understand. So here goes…

Getting Rid Of The Brochure Mentality
Most small business owners and entrepreneurs build a website without understanding the fundamental reasons for doing so. As such, they create what I call a ‘brochure’ website. You may have done this already.

Well don’t be upset, it’s a pretty natural thing to do. For some reason we decide to follow the lead of the majority, thinking if everybody is doing it, it must be the right thing to do… WRONG!

So, going against all conventional wisdom, why do we put up a website? What is the best way to use it?

Read the rest of this entry »

The main goal of your website is LEAD GENERATION
Unfortunately most people believe the main goal is online sales, but that would be considered the ultimate goal. In order to get sales you have to generate leads first. Once you follow up with those individuals, if you do everything right it can produce a sale.

One thing to understand is that if you think about your website as a lead generation portal, then that’s what you’re going to have in front of you. However, if you think of it like a company brochure, then the dullness and approach will be the same. As Earl Nightingale said ‘we become what we think about’ and so it is with our websites.

The Concept of Lead Generation
In order to create a lead one side (your website) has to make an offer, and the other (your potential prospect) has to be interested in it. If you have this scenario then you have yourself a “hot lead” as some people call them. These are definitely the ones you want to follow up with whenever they come across your path.

The Exact Nature of an Online Lead
Let’s be perfectly clear. You absolutely must get visitors to your website to give you their email address. This has to be obtained ethically with the visitor’s permission. Think about it. If you don’t at least get their email address how will you follow up? You can and sometimes must also get a street address, phone number etc. But for now, let’s assume you’re trying to get an email address.

Providing an Offer
In order to get someone to actually provide an email address, you usually need to offer them something. It has to be something they need that will entice them to join your subscriber’s list. It has to be of VALUE to the reader, which in turn their email address will be valuable to you.

So you see; there isn’t much point in just asking people to subscribe to your newsletter. I’m not saying they won’t. I have customers that do just that and get subscribers. But most people are already overloaded with information and their inboxes are bulging, so they probably won’t sign-up unless the information is valuable or specific.

Get the Offer In Front of the Visitor
There is little point in hoping that a visitor will stumble across your website, search for and find your newsletter sign-up link and then subscribe happily to your newsletter. It just isn’t going to happen! Here’s the kicker. The MAJORITY of websites DO EXACTLY THAT! Have you heard the term landing pages? Well, YOU GENERATE YOUR LEADS ON YOUR LANDING PAGES! That’s right. Give your visitor the option to subscribe to a list that is relevant to the content of your landing page, with an offer that is also relevant and valuable.

Lead Generation IS List Building
This article is about lead generation marketing. There are a lot of online marketers that call this effort List Building. It is that, but I prefer lead generation as it makes me think more specifically about whom I’m trying to interest with my offer and how I’m going to follow up with them. You may have heard the saying ‘The Money Is in the List’? Well, the list is the end result of your lead generation efforts. And yes, the money is in the list, but you have to know what to do with the list and how to do it.

After you’ve had your website up for a while or maybe if you want to do some competitor research there is a really useful function in the Google external keyword tool that you can use to look at the footprint of your website and see what Google thinks it’s about.

To find the Google external keyword tool just go to Google and search for ‘Google external keyword tool’ and it will be the first organic link at the top of the page. Click on that link and you get to the tool. The first thing to do is select the website content option, which is on the left side of the page.

Then enter the website domain name in the ‘enter a web page URL’ box. Check the box that says ‘include other pages’. Then click on get keyword ideas. The tool will run and it may take a few seconds before you see any results. When it’s finished scroll down a little bit and you’ll see a section that says ‘showing keywords grouped by these terms’.
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It seems a recent post at TechCrunch has created somewhat of a poo-storm in the search engine optimization space.

I have to agree that the thought of government trying to regulate search seems pretty darn ridiculous to me.

The anonymous author states ‘It’s now conventional wisdom that search engine optimization, representing the organic result sets on any search query, is more voodoo than science’. Read the rest of this entry »

Personalization of your sales message is very important and most people don't do it. You personalize a message as simply as adding the persons first name into the copy you are writing, so it speaks directly to them. It's really simple to do if you are using an autoresponder beacause you can add the name field tag of the autoresponder to the message. Very few people actually take the time to do this though. You really should, because personalizing your message is proven to increase response by 10% or more… Now the spamming bastards of the world are trying it too! I've recently had some unsolicited email form these scumbags with very tardy personalization attempts. But at least they're trying! Here's a couple examples for your viewing pleasure… This one is even made to look like an html newsletter, very sophisticated! Of course, having my actual email address name embedded looks really stupid, but it's an attempt at personailzation and if my email was just Steve@ then it would work! This is another, less sophisticated example;

I had to download a software update recently and got the following message from the software vendor, who are one of the largets providers of professional software tools in the world.

I don’t know about you, but this really pisses me off. I don’t really understand why companies have to use spam filters at all? Are they worried that their customers might be offended if they have to even look at spam or aknowledge its existence?

The problem is spam filters are generally a big pain in the butt! Very expensive to buy, install, configure and maintain and for what? So your Average Joe Whiner doesn’t have to see any spam? Well, thats probably ok but I know for a fact that the very same AJW is the first person to get on the phone when an eagerly awaited email has not been recieved. Er, sorry Joe, it looks like it was eaten by the spam filter. The the crap hits the fan all over again.

I’ve got the perfect spam filtering solution. It’s called Microsoft Oulook junk mail folder. Here’s how it works;

1. Email comes into my outlook mail client
2. Any email with an address that is not ‘whitelisted’ by me goes into junk mail
3. All other email goes into my inbox
4. A couple times a day I scan my junk mail subject lines, look at any that might be wanted
5. Any that are wanted i move to my inbox
6. If necessary I whitelist the senders email address or domain
7. The rest I delete
8. This takes me no more than 30 seconds a day

I’ve just posted this on the Google webmaster forum. I may have to dig out Google Ripper and start talking about this again. Its a bloody nuisance!

Dear Google,

I’ve just found a couple thousand inbound links that are a pharmacy spam exploit. This may be the remnants of an exploit I reported about a year ago here http://www.trstechnology.com/blog/index.php/k1b0rg-doorway-loader-v02/

These links have been indexed by googlebot and now point to my site, not good. How come googlebot sucks this stuff up and then points them at unsuspecting websites? Surely this is obvious spam? There are thousands of hidden links at the bottom of this blog page. I would have thought it was obvious. Yet here I am again with nasty crap pointing at my site and probably I’ll start to rank for ‘cheap viagra’ again. This pisses me off!

The links are in this blog at the bottom of the page, hidden. Go view the source.

http://www.dr-pier-albrecht.net/

Please remove all inbound spam links pointing to my website. Hint: anything relating to pharma / drugs is spam. Another clue: anything /blog/ph.php* is spam.

Thanks

steve

Twitter is exploding at the moment and everyone is climbing on the bandwagon, blogging about its benefits etc, and you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the new easy way to online success.

In the real world, clients want to talk about search engines, search engine optimization or search engine marketing (Google Adwords / Pay-Per-Click).

Why? The current economic downturn is having an impact on businesses and with the majority of people now using Google (mainly) to find information on an all subjects across the board, many organizations are re-evaluating their online marketing and website strategy. It’s an area that clients in every market are asking for advice on.

Many are now concerned by their visibility to prospective customers. Businesses that previously saw a website as an online brochure are waking up to the fact that online they’re completely invisible to those searching online for the products and services that they offer. Not a good place to be at the best of times, but a business killer in a recession. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading recently about some major newspapers requesting, and getting, tax breaks because they are failing in the current economy.

A tax cut has been approved in Washington state; I quote “Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising”

Read about tax breaks here

I really don’t get it. They are even blaming Google for their problems? I’ve been recently checking into advertizing rates for display and other types of ads in local papers and magazine here in Sarasota. They have got to be kidding! Sky high prices, with no way of really tracking results. And yet they are still failing?

I think most people see printed news as largely outdated and cumbersome.

This video post from Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand. I’m off to apply for a bail out too!

A poorly designed website can cost you sales and hurt your credibility.

That’s why I’ve written a special report;

————————————————————————————-
6 Hidden Traps that Kill Online Business
and Why Most Web Designers Don’t Want You to Know About Them
————————————————————————————-
The information in my report is honest and really good advice if you are looking to buy a website.

You probably put up your website without knowing exactly what to do. Or you hired a designer that was focused more on graphics than the sales copy. The sad fact is few website designers know how to build a site that sells.

Web designers seem to think that your sales message is less important than logos and pretty pictures. They love high-tech things like animations, little intro movies and fancy navigation menus. Well, fancy animations don’t generate income… except for the web designer. In fact, they frequently drive visitors away.

Clearly, people online are in a BIG hurry. More than likely, they didn’t get online to go shopping. They came to your website seeking information or a solution to a problem.

You have a tiny amount of time to convince visitors that your product or service is the solution they need. If your website doesn’t demonstrate that solution, FAST, they’re gone. That’s why fancy animations and graphics just get in the way.

If you would like to read my special report you can download it here and you can get $261 worth of FREE Bonuses too, no really! Go get yours now!;

6 Hidden Traps that Kill Online Business