Friday, December 07, 2007

5 Tips on a How to Write a Better Subject Line

Here are a few tips from Vertical Response - put your email subject lines to the test!

Read more on the Vertical Response Blog...

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Filler content vs. killer web content

I couldn't have said this better! Think thoroughly about your content before publishing it to your web site. As Gerry McGovern says "Content is not neutral. It is either delivering value or destroying it."
The true cost of content: New Thinking: Gerry McGovern

Find out more about Gerry.
Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Planning Time for Business Development

I had recently moved to this type of schedule when I read Donna Gunter's article. She says it better than I, so read on and see if this makes sense for your business!

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

One of the primary issues about which my clients complain is that they never stop running their businesses. They say their day is an endless cycle of completing tasks for clients, having conversations with prospective clients, and networking to find clients. They know that they need to find some time to plan what they're doing and where they're going in their businesses, and the only time they manage to carve out for themselves to do this is late at night with a glass of wine in hand, on Saturday morning in the midst of a child's soccer game, or on a Sunday afternoon at the dining room table when the kids are working on school projects. How productive can anyone be in that kind of environment?

Normally, when you think of time management, you're told to put your tasks in 3 categories (A, B, and C) based on priority, with the As being the highest priority, and then do all the tasks the A list. Poof -- time management -- done! If it were only that easy!

The time management system that I'm currently using is a bigger-picture system, focusing on the overall plan of how you structure your time rather than on the actual tasks, although that does come into play. In this system, you have 3 kinds of days: Rest Days, Profit-Generating Days, and Business Development Days. You can set as many (or as few of these) as you like each week, as long as the total number adds up to 7 for a full week.

I've purchased a large laminated wall planner for the current year and a set of colored sticker dots to graphically represent on this calendar my Rest, Profit-Generating, and Business Development Days. I've found that having this hanging on the wall in front of me helps tremendously in my planning, and when presented with an opportunity, helps me determine how viable it is in relation to the time I have available.

On your Rest Days, you are free to do anything at all except work-related tasks. You can meditate, veg on the couch, spend time with friends and family, go for hike, or take a vacation. The goal on your Rest Days is to revitalize and rejuvenate your spirit and not think about business, work, or money. This is the first set of days I'd like you to plan for yourself. Yep, you heard me right. Repeat after me, "Pay yourself first." What works with money also works with time! Currently, for me, that translates into 2 Free Days per week. I then have a number of longer vacation periods kicking in and 3 and 4-day weekends. Remember, all work and no play makes Jill a cranky girl....

Next fill in your Business Development Days, which is the time when you're working ON your business, not IN your business. The Business Development Days are the most important days for a business owner because they're serve as your business management days, or time when you focus on finances, marketing, sales, resources, and personnel.

Let me repeat -- this is the most important day of your week. You can't grow and market your business while you're doing the actual work of the business, so devote at least one day per week to developing and overseeing your business. Even if you're a solo entrepreneur, Business Development Days are vital to your success. Your business will not be able to grow and prosper without regularly scheduled business development time. My business development day is sacred, and I guard it like the Hope Diamond. Only in extreme emergencies do I let other things interrupt my Business Development Day.

The most compelling reason that Business Development Days are vital to your existence is because without that time, you don't have any of the third kind of day, the Profit-Generating Days.

Whatever is left of the week are Profit-Generating Days, or the time when you're actually working in your business, doing the work of the business. These are the days that you're working with clients, answering their problems and concerns, or conducting other activities in which you're directly generating revenue. In some businesses this time might be called "billable hours."

So, my current schedule is as follows:

Saturday and Sunday: Rest Days
Monday and Tuesday: Profit-Generating Days
Wednesday: Business Development Day
Thursday and Friday: Profit-Generating Days

I started this type of long-range planning several years ago, and have found it to be incredibly empowering. I guess I'd fallen into the M-F, 9-5 rut again without realizing it, and spent all that time working with clients rather than spending any time on the business development side and taking a long, hard look at what I really wanted out of my business. What was helpful to me was realizing that I'm not going to always be 100% faithful to this system, as opportunities arise that I can't control. However, I know if I commit to being 80-90% faithful to the system, I'll do just fine.

Start planning time for your business development today. Buy your calendar, set aside some time to map out your year, and begin to experience the power of actually being in the driver's seat of your business.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Make Your Messages Memorable!

Here's a good read about communication - ANY communication whether it be email, business, or relational. I always thought of myself as a good communicator, but I've come to realize that I'm not as good as I thought! I'm going to try the 4C's method and strive to improve the way I communicate. I challenge you to do the same and hopefully we'll all improve :)

How to Make Your Messages Memorable

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Do you use Google Analytics?

Here are some tips from Web Marketing Today that will allow you to dig deeper into the functions of this great, free tool. I love analytics, but didn't know how to use these options to their fullest. Have fun testing and analyzing!

5 Ways Google Analytics Can Help Increase Traffic to Your Website

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Monday, August 27, 2007

Let your voice shine through - give your blog a personality

I think I could do this blogging thing much better!. If you're getting started with blogging, here's 5 quick tips from Laura Lake at About.com:Marketing. Keep these in mind when creating your posts.

Five Tips to Creating an Effective Blog

Monday, July 09, 2007

12 Internet Customer Retention Tactics

Larry Chase's weekly newsletter has some great ideas for marketing your business online by offering 12 ways to retain a customer. Read more here...(click the article title on the right-side menu.)

Internet Marketing Directory and Email Newsletter from Larry Chase

Thursday, May 24, 2007

When Is Duplicate Content Okay? When Is It Penalized?

Do you ever wonder what the search engines will consider duplicate content? I've been thinking on it lately because of the pay-per-click work I'm doing for a couple of clients. Their original site pages aren't converting to sales and I want to change some of the page elements and optimize for the top 3.

The site owners are reluctant to change the visual aspect of the page yet that's exactly what needs to happen in order to produce results. My thought is - why can't we create a test page that has basically the same content, but from which we can see what is going to get visitors to purchase or sign-up? While we're doing this, we leave the original page live on their site.

Here's an article that might help clear up some of the fuzzy lines surrounding what is and what isn't duplicate content.

When Is Duplicate Content Okay? When Is It Penalized?

Monday, April 30, 2007

How to Use Google Alerts to Boost Your Business

I've used Google Alerts for several months now. This is an excellent way to keep track of industry trends, hot markets, or keywords for your target market. I'm going to review them and see how much deeper I can dig.

Following is an article by Donna Gunter (http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com) about how to use Google Alerts in your business and step-by-step instructions for setting up your own.
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Google Alerts are a handy little email notification service provided by Google to let you know when new information in which you might be interested has been posted somewhere online and spidered by the Google searchbot. It's a no-cost way for you to determine what's been written online about both you and your competition, as well as to track any number of other terms that will aid you in your market research efforts. You can also use this system as a way to research market trends or statistics and determine "what's hot" in your target market to give you topic ideas for future articles, blog posts, and product and service offerings.

Here's how to set up and use your Google Alerts account:

1. Brainstorm a list of terms and keywords you want to track. You list should include the following:
 your name
 your company's name
 names of your products or programs
 the name and/or company name of your competitors
 keyword terms pertinent in your industry or to your business
 names of "moves and shakers" in your industry
 names of potential joint venture/strategic alliance partners
Don't worry about brainstorming absolutely everything in this step. Google Alerts makes it simple to add additional alerts as you need them.

2. Create a Google account. You can do so at http://www.google.com/alerts by following the sign in links, which will eventually bring you to a page where you create a new Google account. If you already use Gmail or some other Google service, you should be able to sign in to Google Alerts using that account info.

3. Create your alerts. Sign in to your Google account and begin to create your alerts. Here's how to create the most effective alerts:
 Use quotation marks to surround your term, like "marketing coach". By doing so, Google will alert you to only those pages making reference to this particular term.
 Choose the once-a-day alert which you can then review at the start of each day. Once a week is too seldom, and getting them as they happen will overwhelm you with email.
 Choose the most thorough search option, the Comprehensive option, in which Google searches the news, websites, blogs, and groups.
4. Add additional alerts later. I like to see where the info that I write ends up. Because I write a new article each week and submit it to article banks, I enter the article title as a Google alert to be notified when it's placed on someone's site or blog. I also add other keywords that I think searchers might use to find my site to see if my site is listed when it comes to those terms as well as to see what other sites come up by using those terms.
5. Scan the results. The amount of email that you receive will dramatically increase when you sign up for Google Alerts, so create a filter or rule in your email program to move all the alerts to a special folder for later viewing rather than clogging up your email inbox. Briefly scan the results and more thoroughly read the listings that appear to be most relevant. Because Google Alerts now searches blogs, many of the blog postings noted in your alert will look nonsensical because many bloggers have created blogs of keyword-crammed entries that are completely meaningless for you. Unfortunately, if do much marketing online, it's only a matter of time until your name, company name, or name of an article that you've written appears on someone's keyword-crammed blog.

Google Alerts are the most cost-effective market research you can use to help you grow your business. If you don't have a Google Alerts account, what's stopping you?

Donna Gunter is an Online Business Coach and Online Business Manager who coaches, trains and consults with self-employed business owners to maximize their online presence and get more clients online. Her coaching programs are delivered by means of teleconference calls, email and telephone.
http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com

Read this article on Donna's site: http://www.onlinebizcoachingcompany.com/newsletters/Apr25,2007.htm

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Step by Step Process to create a Viral Marketing Strategy

1. Determine what you're giving away. Will you make a movie, write an ebook, create an ecourse, or have a special piece of software written for you? The key to success in picking your product is to make sure that it solves a big problem experienced by your target market. You may also locate your giveaway by using something that someone else has created that permits you to brand it with your company information. (Get an example below in my resource box).

2. Brand the product. Make sure that your logo, your website URL, and/or your tagline is on the viral marketing piece. You want anyone who downloads this viral marketing product to be able to link back to your website, just as you would want someone to be able to contact your brick-and-mortal store when you provide a promotional giveaway like a pen, coffee cup, mousepad, etc.

3. Set up delivery process. Will visitors be able to download the software directly from your site, or will they have to provide their contact information? The best option is to give it away with no strings attached. However, on the page in which you offer the download, you can offer visitors yet another gift, one that requires their contact info to receive.

4. Give away the rights. If you'd like to really jump start the viral marketing process, give people the rights to give away your viral marketing piece to their own customers.

5. Rebrand the item. If you permit people to rebrand the giveaway with some of their contact info or affiliate links, as well, they will really be motivated to pass along your viral marketing piece.

6. Announce the availability of the item. Write an article or a press release about your viral marketing item. Announce its availability to your contact database or ezine list. Ask your readers or visitors to your blog to announce it to their lists or just simply give it away.

Capturing the power of viral marketing is a simple and cost-effective strategy to drive traffic to your website. If implemented properly, who knows how much fame and fortune this technique could bring you?

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. Get your free affiliate link cloaking program at http://www.Affiliate-Link-Cloak.com. It's a perfect example of viral marketing in action! Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com .

Affiliate Link Cloaking -- Don't Lose Prospects with Failed Affiliate Links!

Affiliate Link Cloaking -- Don't Lose Prospects with Failed Affiliate Links!

If you're in the business of affiliate marketing - here's a free tool from Donna Gunter.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Do you write your own web copy?

Check out some tips from Karon Thackston about writing your web copy with your keywords and keyword phrases inserted naturally.

SiteProNews: Stop the Slaughter of Innocent Copy!

Friday, March 02, 2007

What's your "Talking Domain Name?"

This article is from one of my favorite entrepreneurs online, Donna Gunter. I have been doing some research on domain names for a couple of clients, so this article was timely.

What's Your "Talking Domain Name"?
Many times when a business owner picks a domain for her website, the domain name that is chosen and used is the name of the business that's already been established, or perhaps the owner's name is used. However, a person's name or the name of a business isn't always memorable nor is it always easy to spell. That's why I encourage my clients to get a "talking domain name" that they use in publicity efforts, like for radio, TV, or newspaper interviews. So, instead of using the URL of their primary business website, they would instead give a shorter, more easily-remembered domain instead that would point to the owner's primary website.

How important is this "taking domain name"? I think it's vital. Which is easier for you to remember, JonesChiropracticCenter.com, or PainBeGone.com? The latter is easier to remember, is easy to spell, and clearly outlines a result that many patients receive at Jones Chiropractic Center. And, now that you can pick up a domain name for as little as $2/year with some registrars, it's a no-brainer to pick several domain names for your business that you choose to use in different situations for different purposes.

How do you pick a good "talking domain name'? Here are 5 strategies you can use to find the perfect "talking domain name" for your business: (note--the URLs used in the examples below are only examples -- I haven't checked on their availability nor determined if the domain is actually in use.)

1. Problem that your clients have. Do many of your clients share a common problem or difficulty? If you're an auto body shop, your "talking domain name" might be DentMaster.com, for example. Make a list of problems with which clients commonly approach you and see if a great name emerges from that list.

2. Solution that you offer your clients. What problem or pain do you take away from your clients and help them solve? If you're a web designer, EasyWebSite.com might work for you, or if you're a personal chef, QuickMeals.com would do the trick. Start listing the types of solutions that you offer for your clients and see if something catches your imagination.

3, Benefit of working with you. How do clients benefit by working with you -- do you help them get results, find more time, make more money? If you're a Virtual Assistant, you might use FindMoreTime.com. If you install home alarms, SafeHome.com is a great benefit of working with you. Brainstorm your list of benefits that you offer clients and choose an especially compelling one for your "talking domain name".

4. Description of what you do. If your business name or your primary website name isn't clear about the service you provide, then use your "talking domain name" to do that for you. For example, I recently spoke with an author whose website reflected the long name of her book -- a name that was almost impossible to remember. She was getting ready for some major publicity and I encouraged her to find a shorter, more unique domain name to use during that PR stint. I encouraged her to think about a shorter name that accurately described what she does, and we decided that a domain name that she had already purchased was absolutely perfect for her. So, a domain name like YourDogTrainer.com or AnimalDoctor.com or GraphicDesignExpert.com might do well as your "talking domain name" as well.

5. Outcome or result of working with you. What is the final result that you offer your clients? If you're a dog trainer, a name like GoodDog.com would be appropriate. If you're a real estate agent, you might use YourNewHome.com. A money coach might use MoreMoney.com. Write down 2-3 final outcomes that your clients gain by working with you and determine if any of them would make an appealing domain name.

Just because you might have a long business name or use your given name as your business name doesn't mean that you have to use either of those names when you tell others what you do. Pick a domain name that is shorter yet memorable that you can use with great success in your publicity efforts.

(c) 2007 Donna Gunter

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it:

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com. Read about running an online biz at our blog, http://www.getmoreclientsonlineblog.com.

Online business coaching and internet marketing resources

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Successful Postcard Marketing

Here are 5 Postcard Marketing Tips from Bob Leduc. He's spent 20 years helping businesses find new customers and increase sales.

Postcards are a great, inexpensive complement to your marketing mix.

Postcard Marketing Success Tips

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Action-Oriented Copywriting

You can increase conversions on a web page by writing copy that is focused on one goal or action.

Before you write, ask yourself "What do I want my visitors to do?" Do you want them to click through to another page on your site, purchase right away, sign-up for something by giving you their contact information--there are many possible actions. Give thought as to what you want them to do the most once they arrive on this page.

Then write your copy with that one goal in mind and include clear verbal steps along the way to help your visitors prepare to take action when the time comes. If you are offering a free sample, sprinkle 'free trial', free sample', etc. throughout the text. Motivate them by telling them why they need it, why it's important to them, - solve their problem! When they are reading you are preparing them to take action and get the 'free whatever' and they are thinking--Where do I get it? What do I do next?

Now tell them how to take action. Buy here, get your 'free whatever' here, give us your name and email and we'll send you.....get the idea? Your copy should guide, nudge, and lead your visitors in the right direction. Then call for action.

Once you give your copy focus, define a goal for the copy, and an action for visitors--you'll have copy and a web page that converts :)