Arriving at your site either from an organic listing or a pay-per click ad, will prospects immediately recognize your expertise? Will they immediately understand how to engage with the site as well as the call to action (what they should do once they get to the page)?

Assess your site and determine if it makes one of more these five lethal mistakes when it comes to design and content:

• Design and content assume prospects know what your site offers. It’s astounding how many “branded” sites forget to make the selling proposition and call to action clear.
• The site offers no methods for building credibility. Either more assumptions are made about what prospects are supposed to know about the company before they arrive at the site or the marketing folks plain forgot to include valuable information such as customer testimonials on the home page. Often these are relegated to some other page. Why hide them? Let the prospect get a glimpse of what other customers have to say about their experiences.
• The content is stale and has not been changed in months or even years. If you home page doesn’t offer fresh content at least monthly, then think about how to incorporate the latest news about the company, events or other continually changing types of content. Search engines like fresh content.
• Design gets in the way of selling or taking action. The home page may be cluttered, not intuitive or not take advantage of proven design placement. The golden triangle is the most valuable web page real estate encompassing the left upper corner, extending down the left side and up to the right corner, thus making a triangle. Your most important information and call to action (such as a newsletter sign up or free report download) should be located within the triangle.
• Anything clever, funny or cute that misses the mark and makes the selling or navigation harder than it needs to be will dissuade prospects for reading on or clicking deeper into your site

Breathe life into a site suffering from lethal mistakes with these five suggestions:

• If appropriate for your site, include a photo and short bio in the top left corner.
• Include some vehicle for capturing emails in the top right hand corner. This can be for a monthly e-newsletter, free report, or other incentive to help build an email list.
• All home pages should have a headline. It should make your selling proposition clear and be informative.
• Content should articulate one or two main points and benefits you want a prospect to know right away.
• It is essential to bring fresh content to the home page as frequently as possible. There is simply too much technology available to help you accomplish this goal.
• Include testimonials along the left (preferable) or right hand column to help build credibility.

The take-away from this article: design important elements into the golden triangle and change your home page as frequently as possible.

Have questions about search engine optimization or Internet marketing? Visit www.strategywriter.com and sign up for a free monthly newsletter with proven online marketing techniques.

Of all the business skills you can master, persuasive marketing is the one that will return more on your investment than almost any other expense.

Take a look at marketing from the customer’s perspective. Most people buy things, not because they need them, but because they want them. The secret to selling, however, is a sales pitch so strong the desire to buy feels more like a need than a want.

So, how do you create strong sales messages to drive your customers to your online shopping cart?

To attract even lukewarm prospects, you have to make a big promise and make it vivid. Help your prospects see the benefits of buying your product or service and help them visualize how it will make their lives better, easier, more fun or whatever you’re offering them. Turn the features into irresistible benefits.

Next, support your promise with proof. This is where many marketers start to lose their prospects because once drawn in, there isn’t enough to keep the prospect engaged in the sale. Why should someone buy from you? What facts, evidence or testimonials do you have to support a purchase decision?

Are you using basic persuasion principles on your website? Does your home page start to set up a sale right away by assuring prospects they’ve come to the right place? Does your home page help draw them further into the site? Does every product have its own sales page detailing the benefits, the promise and a risk-free guarantee? Does every message on your site move prospects closer to a sale?

When I arrive on a client’s site, I make an immediate assessment of what a prospect will experience. Will they understand what’s even being sold or what they’re supposed to do once they get there? One site I consulted on was for a new lodging company that had a unique selling proposition. The owners were sold a beautiful website by a highly credentialed ad agency. The site was the epitome of a classy branding campaign. As soon as I got on the site, however, I noticed a major flaw. No where on the home page did the content, navigation or graphics indicate it was a lodging company.

This was a new company with a different approach to nightly lodging. How much effort do you think prospects, even qualified ones, will put into figuring out why they should care? Zero. They will put no effort into figuring out the new concept when what they’re looking for is reasonably priced lodging for a week’s vacation. I’d rather build a simple site that leaves no doubt in the prospects’ minds than a gorgeous site that is confusing.

The most important skill you can focus on right now to improve your electronic marketing efforts is writing more powerful website content incorporating the basics of persuasion. Go through your site with the eyes of your prospects. Ask yourself, “Why would someone care about this statement or this message?’ “Have we really positioned ourselves in the most desirable way so the prospect simply feels the need to buy?” “Do we talk features instead of benefits?” “Are the benefits strong enough to entice someone to buy?”

If your content isn’t powerfully persuasive, then keep at it until you really understand your prospects and can deliver messages so appealing your prospects feel they must buy what you’re offering.

Learn more about Internet marketing and search engine optimization by signing up for Strategy Writer News, a free monthly newsletter loaded with proven tips and techniques to improve your electronic marketing efforts.

Minimize your distractions, figure out the optimum selling strategy and keep at it until you create a modest success for your online business. Then, you will have something to really work with and build up to the next level. Multi-tasking is bad news for most entrepreneurs—no one can do several things well simultaneously.

Pick an idea, product or service, figure out an angle and go full out making it the best you can. Focus on these three elements and your success will be a sure thing

• Your email list: start now and build up a list until you get to 5,000 buyers. At 5,000 names the revenue momentum really starts to build. Know the difference between your buyers and non-buyers. A list of 10,000 non-buyers isn’t worth much, while a much smaller list of buyers can reap rewards for time to come.

• Your offer: understand the elements of your offer such as a solid money-back guarantee, free shipping, discounts, etc. Test each element and work toward creating the best moneymaking offer possible

• Your content: the most effective website owners understand direct response marketing principles and apply them everywhere there is content from a website to all aspects of electronic marketing. Become a student of direct response marketing and your content will attract and entice more non-buyers on your email to become buyers.

Take the energy you’ve dispersed across many half-done projects and devote it to list building, an optimal offer and effective content for one project you see through to completion. Want to make money on the Internet? Pick something and finish it!

Don’t procrastinate, visit my website now and sign up for my free monthly newsletter on proven Internet marketing strategies.

As electronic marketing increases in sophistication, more can be done to attract prospects with less money in more creative ways. Here are just five inbound marketing techniques geared toward increasing your web traffic and revenue:

• Search engine optimization (SEO): the foundational piece of inbound marketing is search engine optimization—the process of organically growing a site’s popularity with search engines through link building, strong keyword content, search site submissions and other tactics. A good SEO strategy will boost your organic search engine result rankings for keywords, which is a key to being found by the right prospects.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC): a complement to SEO is search marketing, which includes PPC ads. Unlike organic rankings and, as the name suggests, this is where you put out cash to attract web visitors. These ads are listed above and to the right of the organic search results and are often labeled as “sponsored” link or “sponsored” results. With PPC, you bid on keywords and create ads. PPC is a pay as you go plan where you can establish a maximum number of clicks each day to help you stay on budget. You are charged only for the number of times someone clicks on your ad.
• Blogging: a good blog is topical and posted to often and, like it or not, is here to stay. The complexity of your blog depends on how many people will contribute and the rules you put in place for content management. For some companies, a blog can represent a logistical and legal quagmire. For an individual, it is time consuming, but more manageable to handle. In any event, an interesting blog where people logon frequently can direct many new visitors to your website.
• Social media: social media optimization (SMO) is a marketing tactic to generate web traffic by participating on sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Digg and many others. Like blogging, it can be time consuming, but done well, it is worth the effort. Effective use of social networking can help create buzz for your company or a product and have the messages go viral. It has the potential to substantially increase web traffic and increase the number of inbound links to your site.
• Targeted Landing Pages: the big payoff when you start generating more web traffic is the landing page—a targeted and well constructed page either on your website or acting as a standalone mini website. When someone finds your organic listing, clicks through on a PPC ad, visits your site after reading your blog or finds you via social networking, a landing page is where they should be sent. Your home page is probably well done, but you have few chances to capture the attention of your prospects. Don’t waste it by sending them to the home page. Instead, construct specific pages that are keyword oriented, interesting and persuasive. The goal of a landing page is move the prospect to action.

Do you see what’s happening here? Inbound marketing is very much a building process just like outbound marketing, where all parts align to create a unified marketing strategy. Inbound marketing relies on the building block principle as well where SEO is complemented by PPC, blogs and social media with visitors being directed to action on targeted landing pages. If your marketing strategy hasn’t yet included all electronic marketing has to offer, then start with these five techniques to build even greater web traffic and revenue.

Have questions about search engine optimization and Internet marketing? Visit my website at www.strategywriter.com and sign up for a free newsletter of proven electronic marketing tips and techniques.

Incoming Search Terms:

• web traffic inbound mix organic

Browsers often put in generic keywords. They’re looking for information or have just started their searches and don’t know what they’re looking for so they use broad terms to explore. The search volume for generic keywords is high, but the conversion rate on your sight will be low. Most importantly, it will be nearly impossible to earn an organic ranking on page one or two with generic words.

Browsers looking for a hybrid car might use the following keywords:

• Hybrids
• Hybrid cars

Those using the web to compare products have a better idea of what they want. They are narrowing down their choices and possibly moving closer to the buying stage. The search volume is less for comparing keywords and the chances of getting top rankings starts to increase.

Comparing keywords for hybrid cars might include:

• U.S. hybrid cars
• MPG for hybrid cars
• Cost to drive hybrid car

Finally, when someone gets into the buying stage, the keywords get specific. The prospects know what they want and are now looking for the best deal. The search volume drops significantly and you have the best chance to make a sale if you meet their buying criteria. Use two to four words phrases rather than single keywords to make your website relevant to more buyers.

Buying keywords for hybrid cars might include:

• Ford Fusion hybrid
• GMC Sierra hybrid

Take some time and go through this exercise with your keywords and adjust your content to attract more of the prospects you really want.

Stay on top of search engine optimization and Internet marketing to drive traffic to your site. Sign on for Strategy Writer News, a monthly newsletter with proven tips for effective SEO (www.strategywriter.com).

Avoid the 5 common ways to bungle web traffic

The primary reason for having a website is so prospective customers with money will find you online. Seems obvious. Yet common obstacles built into so many websites actually prevent prospects from ever arriving to see the perfect solutions you have for their problems. Avoid these five website mistakes and significantly impact your organic search engine rankings. These mistakes are common, but are easy to fix.

Home page is a graphic

Many people scratch their heads wondering why they have little web traffic. One of the best ways to bungle your website is creating the home page, or even worse, all pages in graphic form. Search engines follow text, not graphics. Although indexing graphic pages is beginning to take place, it is in its infancy.

A lawyer friend, using his own name as the URL, asked me why his website did not come up on search engine results. In fact, if you searched for his name, Lance Armstrong came up higher in the rankings; same last name, but not exactly the results lawyer had in mind. In two seconds upon arriving at his website I had the answer. Now, I dearly love web designers because it’s a skill I don’t have, but never let a designer direct your web effort or you’ll be asking me the same question and you won’t like the answer. The entire home page was created as a graphic and, therefore, not optimized for search engine rankings. An unnecessary obstacle on the site, but once discovered could be a fairly easy thing to fix.

If your website is constructed in graphic form, particularly key information, have someone change it immediately.

No keywords in headlines

Make sure you include keywords in your web page headlines to help readers realize they’ve arrived at the right place and to enhance your organic search rankings.

It’s amazing how many web pages have no headlines, much less fully optimizing headlines with keywords. Prospects find your site by typing words and phrases into search engines. If they arrive at your site and are confused about what you offer, they will leave the site. The better the continuity between the search words used to find you and the page they land on, the more significant the impact it has on whether prospects stay on your site and take action.

While the best SEO copywriting is about writing for your readers, not for the search engines, headlines are a great way to improve your organic search rankings. In your source code, a headline will look like this: <h1>keyword optimized headline</h1>

No internal or external links

Internal links are easy to create and give search engine crawlers clues about each web page and your site. Take every reasonable opportunity to make links from one page to another. Instead of saying Click here, use meaningful text to guide readers and the crawlers from page to page.

External links—those on another good quality site linking back to your site—is the equivalent of striking gold for organic search rankings. Having many inbound links, built up over time, is the best way to boost rankings and is one of the most over looked areas—big mistake and a big bungle.

Static content

Content that doesn’t change much from week to week does not encourage repeat visits from prospects and does not entice web crawlers to visit very often. Your organic rankings will suffer unless you find ways to continually create new content on your site.

New content can include articles, press releases, videos, new pages, content updates, event information and RSS feeds.

Poor content

Get to the point in a concise way, get rid of “who cares” content and be the solution to the prospects problem. Almost every site has content a company feels compelled to include, but frankly, who really cares other than you? Read your content from a prospect’s perspective. What do they need to know to take the action you want them to take? Poorly written or organized content makes the reader work too hard and few people will stick around to figure it out. Good content addresses problems or questions prospect may have and helps them take action.

Like designers, there are lots of good copywriters, many right in your area, but if the writer doesn’t thoroughly understand how to write for the Internet, then you’ll end up hiring a second person to optimize the content. By finding one copywriter who understands search engine optimization and how to integrate it from the beginning of the project, you’ll save hundreds or thousands of dollars.

For a successful website project, hire a web designer who understands content is king when it comes to being found on the Internet and hire a copywriter who incorporates optimizing techniques while the content is being written.

Now that you know five common web ways to bungle your website, review your site and take care of as many as you can this week. Then, watch your organic rankings rise.

Have questions about Internet marketing and search engine optimization? Please visit my website at www.strategywriter.com.

In traditional direct response marketing, the highest pulling mail package was subsequently used as the control and new concepts tested against it. The tradition still lives, but Internet marketing levels the playing field. Even small businesses can take advantage of variable testing.

Here are just few ideas to get your creative juices flowing about to test. To zero in on which versions of different variables are most effective, try to limit the test to one element. Otherwise, you won’t know exactly which variable had the best impact.

Keep your tests simple so interpretation of the results is obvious. The more complex the testing, the harder it is to figure out what you’ve actually learned.

Email subject lines

After you brainstorm on possible subject lines that will entice readers to open your email, pick your best two. Send one subject line to half your list, the other subject line to the other half. Or, split your list based on characteristics of those on your list. For instance, names you purchased versus names you acquired organically.

Subject line variables to test include the benefit, the offer, subject line length, sense of urgency, and whether there is a curiosity factor so readers are intrigued to read more.

Email and newsletter formats

Within your format, you can test HTML against text content, colors, design, ratio of photos to text, tone of the copy, where key copy points appear…the list is as long as you are creative about what variables you can test.

Number of links

Recently, I tested two event announcements for a client who knew virtually nothing about who was on her list (or how they got there). In the long version with several links, the click-through rate was slightly higher, though less people clicked on the actual registration link. In the shorter version, offering only a registration link, the open rate was slightly lower; however, the readers were less distracted and took only the action we offered.

The learning was this: I realized that though the list had been used numerous times, the audience was clicking on the more informational links in the long version. To me, this meant previous emails were not as informative or useful as the client would have hoped. Since this version also offered the price, we determined the course was priced too high for those on the list. This point was confirmed in the short version, which just offered the registration link, but did not state the price. Once readers clicked through and saw the price, they bounced off the site. We gathered a lot of information just by virtue of the links included in each version.

Long copy vs. short copy

Depending on your product or service, determine what works better for your audience—long or short copy. Take it one step further and test when long and short copy works best. For instance, some products may require long copy at the beginning of the sales cycle and benefit from shorter copy further into the cycle. Single product emails do better with short copy and a photo or two.

You can also vary copy length if you use a combination of email and landing page. The email provides enough for the reader to want more, which is on the landing page.

Pricing

Try testing free offers, different price points, percentage versus actual dollar savings (10% vs. $200), different payment options and guarantees.

Timing

Send your emails on different days of the week and times of day. Again, split your list and see how timing changes the response rate.

Frequency

Assuming you have high quality content or great offers to share with readers, test how many emails you can send each month or week to increase response rate and sales. Just because your newsletter is monthly, doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to your email list with special offers throughout the month.

Once you develop reliable control variables, use what works best for a majority of your list and continue to test new variables (one at a time) for 10 to 20 percent of your list.

Monitor opens, click-through and forwards, opt-outs, and the number of times a particular reader came back to click on links.

What tests have you conducted and what did you find out? Send me an email at deb@strategywriter.com and let me know what worked for you.

Tap into Super Affiliates Through CPA Networks

I see a ton of affiliate training out there, but very rarely do I see courses and training for product owners.

UNTIL NOW!  Last week, I sent an email out letting people know of the most exciting training course out there for product owners.   You can check out the free videos on CPA training here.

For those who are keeping up with these videos, the feedback has been overwhelming.  I’ve received 10 emails per day with the latest one from Scott Spencer:

Just Finished Intro, Part 1 and I just finished Part II  it says part 3 wont be available till noon Pacific today…

This is incredible stuff though…

CPA networks allow you to place your product in a network where Super Affiliates take your product and market it for you.  You can pay them “per action.”  For example, Russell knows that everyone who requests a free DVD makes the company an average of $128.  That means that Russell can pay up to $128 per “free DVD request!”

If you track your numbers, then you know how much you can pay people per action.  I’ve seen people pay per lead (because of the backend and continuity sales!).  I’ve seen people pay per sale, per opt-in, per tweet, per post, per .. you name it – it’s out there.

If you want free CPA training – then please click on my keyword: CPA Training Videos.

Also – please note:  The Refer a Friend script is not working correctly.  This is NOT my program so please don’t contact me for support.  LOL!  I can’t fix it.  Have a great rest of the week.. Have fun.. enjoy yourself.. enjoy the people you’re around today!

Onwards and Upwards…

P.S.  Need to track your advertising so you know where and what is working and what’s not.  StatsJunky is YOUR answer! SuperAffiliate readers pay one low price and become members for life!  Click Here to Take Advantage of StatsJunky and SuperAffiliate.com’s Discount.

How to Tap into Thousands of SuperAffiliates Through CPA Networks!

A lot of people ask me “Kit, what’s the future of marketing?”

Well, here it is….

Click Here to See the Future of Marketing

Get this…

“This is CERTAINLY one of the best free content I have seen in all my 12-year IM life. You just spill the beans on the secrets on perpetual money-making. Generating traffic from scratch was always a headache, but flipping things on its head with your suggestion, I began to see a different side to CPA activities. Thanks.”

This guy is the real deal, check him out before he pulls the free stuff down, it’s a very short launch window on this one.

Click Here to See the Future of Marketing

Onwards and Upwards!

Erland from Burnet, Texas writes in:

Please advise if the course is going to help me in the upcoming months by providing specific ideas relating to product selling.

Actually, every business should be in the information business. Let me explain:

If I was selling home decor gifts, I’d make more money if I positioned myself as an expert.

For example, I’d create a 7-Day email course on “Home Decor Secrets”
or “Secrets of the Home Decorating Experts” or maybe “7 Secret Decorator Tricks”. That will get people to opt into my list, which lets me mail to them again and again. But above that, it shows them that I’m an expert in this field – AND it lets me sell them specific products through the recommendations in my email course. Of course, it doesn’t have to be an email course. It can be a video (or video series), PDF, or other information.

Information products – like CD’s, DVD’s, reports, ebooks, or physical books also put you head and shoulders above the rest. A small 10 to 20 page booklet on “How to Transform Your Home in 5 Minutes or Less” (or
“17 Home Decor Tricks TV’s Famous Designers DO NOT Want You to Know”) will position you again, as an expert.

Information doesn’t become your “business”. Your business is always the home decor items. However, your information become your “marketing”. Instead of “selling”, you become a “marketer” who positions himself as an expert, someone more knowledgable than all of the competition. This way, your competition continues to compete on price – while you position yourself above them as someone with more expertise. And those people can charge more money – and they ultimately make more money.

Dentists. Lawyers. Landscapers. And a whole line of people who you wouldn’t normally say were in the “information marketing” business have created their own “info-products” for this very reason. Booklets on “The Hidden Dangers of Tooth-Whitening” or “The 7 Secrets Divorce Lawyers Refuse to Tell You!” or “The Perfect Landscape Plants to Increase Your Home’s Value” are all info-products that position the business owner as an expert — and we want to give our money to people who know what they’re doing.

So you may not see yourself AS an info-marketer, but if you want to attract prospects in – instead of selling to them – one of the best things you can do is to create little educational info-products (even if you give them away free) — and start promoting them like crazy.
What will happen is your ebooks, booklets, PDF reports, audios, email courses, etc. will soon be spread all over the Internet (and offline, as well) — and you’ll be able to automatically attract people who are more likely to buy from you. No selling involved.

If you take this approach, your business will grow by leaps and bounds… AND you’ll be able to use every powerful free marketing technique you find at www.FreeAdvertisingAcademy.com

I hope this helps, Erland.

Best,
Jeff Gardner
Founder
www.FreeAdvertisingAcademy.com

Incoming Search Terms:

• free advertising academy