Too often business owners forget the importance of conversion in their quest for traffic. You may win the bidding wars over click rates or even the battle to get to the top of the search engine, but that is not all that matters. Your website could be getting thousands of hits every day, but none of this matters if you don’t have people converting from visitors to buyers.

Even if you aren’t selling something for money on a page, you are selling your business. And when they are sold on your business, they keep coming back for more. When you do offer something for sale, even if they are not interested at that time, they may tell someone who needs what you are offering, or come back later. This is the ultimate goal of conversion… getting your visitors sold on your business.

To improve conversion, you may push yourself to create new and different copy. But there are tried and true techniques that work. Even if you are converting, there is always room for improvement. Imagine doubling your current conversion rate by your clients buying more, and recommending you to more people!

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”

~ Leo Burnett ~
Advertising Executive who created the Jolly Green Giant, Tony the Tiger and many more

High Converting Copy Starts with the Right Approach

By Scott Martin

One of the keys to turning website and landing page visitors into clients and customers is what the visitor sees ‘above the fold’, or specifically what’s on the screen before someone (hopefully) scrolls down. When the copy addresses an interest or need, the visitor will keep reading. Strong copy starts not with a headline, but with the approach.

Let’s go through a few approaches, each of which can be extremely effective depending on what you’re selling.

The News Approach

You see this more in newspapers and magazines but the approach is to make an advertisement look like a regular article. The most famous example is the John Caples advertisement:

They Laughed When I Sat Down to at the Piano…But When I Started to Play!

If the advertisement looks like an article, which it should, the newspaper or magazine publisher will feel it’s essential to put the word “Advertisement” at the top of the ad. A good problem to have.

(A quick side note: we all know that copy set in reversed type is harder to read. The really intelligent direct marketers set the word “Advertisement” in reverse type on ads in newspapers and magazines. Brilliant.)

The approach is to make the advertisement seem like an article. The headline must simulate a newspaper or magazine headline, so it must offer news. Let’s say we’re selling a fishing rod. A tepid headline would read: The Snapper Rod Helps You Catch More Fish! Here’s a more newsworthy headline:

10 Year Old Girl Breaks State Fishing Record at Lake Snails. Her Secret? The New Snapper Fishing Rod.

Stories can be extremely powerful in copy, but be careful. A boring story is like a bad joke and will turn people away.

If you want to see great examples of newspaper headlines, forget the serious newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times. Instead, look at the tabloids, especially the English and Scottish tabloids like The Sun, The Daily Record, The News of the World, The New York Post, and The Daily Mirror. Headlines equal sales for these newspapers.

It’s harder to use this approach on the web because the visitor knows they’re going to a page that’s advertising something. So use the news approach for banners and buttons on news and information sites.

The Empathy Approach

“I know your job or life is terrible and difficult! I’m here to help.” When the product or service is targeted at a highly defined audience, this approach is worth trying. And you don’t need a headline so much as a series of sub-heads. For example:

Being a Marketing Executive is a Tough Job…Especially Today…

Just keeping up with Internet technology is a full-time job, AND THEN you have to run all the marketing.

We’re going to make your life a lot easier…

Very soon, your CEO will praise you for being totally up-to-date with everything in today’s eCommerce universe and staying on top of things will only take you 30 minutes a week—or less.

It’s a good way to state a problem then tease the reader about the solution. You will almost always get someone’s attention when you make them feel you understand their troubles and issues.

The Straight Ahead “Here’s the Benefit” Approach

It’s basic, perhaps, but there’s a reason so many successful direct marketers use this ‘default’ approach. If you’re not certain one of the other approaches will work, use the straightforward approach. In most cases, you’ll see a “How to” or “Are you…?” headline.

How to catch more fish with less effort.

Are you ready to avoid traffic jams?

Are you ready to pay 50% less for tires?

“How to” and “Are you” headlines can be used, but headlines that state the benefits even more directly are fine.

With The Ultimate Guide to Increasing Wedding and Banquet Business, Your Club Will be Swimming in Tens of Thousands of New Revenue in Just Three Months.

Specificity is mandatory: a set time frame…an increase in distance…a number of extra fish…be specific when detailing the benefit.

The “Successful” and “Unsuccessful”

There’s a famous direct response advertisement for The Wall Street Journal. In the ad, the writer details two students who went to the same university. The one who reads The Wall Street Journal is now a successful top-level executive while the other has not been very successful. Martin Conroy wrote the original letter.

Here’s the first paragraph:

“Dear Reader:

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men.”

And later in the copy…

“About those two college classmates, I mentioned at the beginning of this letter. They graduated from college together and together got started in the business world. So what made their lives in business different?

Knowledge. Useful knowledge. And its application.”

The comparison approach includes significant quantities of empathy…always a powerful ingredient. There’s a book using this approach: Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

The Offer/Bonus/Discount Approach

Perhaps the most direct approach of all…go straight to the offer.

Order before December 15 and you get FREE next day shipping PLUS a FREE pair of goatskin slippers.

Buy THREE tires, get one FREE.

Often, with this approach, there’s no need to get into pages and pages of copy, especially with a widget or commodity. With a country club membership asking for a $15,000 initiation fee, you need more copy.

This approach can be effective in email marketing.

The Guarantee Approach

Absolutely one of my favorites. Maybe it’s just me, but I often think the guarantee comes too late in most direct response copy: a solid guarantee can be the clincher, especially when a potential customer is on the fence. I’m not alone in this thought, which is why a number of copywriters use the guarantee approach: detail the guarantee immediately.

“I guarantee my seminar will increase PROFITS at your lumber yard by 25% in just six months or I will refund your investment, cover your travel expenses AND send you a check for $1,000 for wasting your time.”

It’s not enough to leave the reader with just the guarantee. The copy MUST pound away with the guarantee.

The Fear Approach

Fear, as we know, is a powerful motivator, especially when combined with major issues, like death or parenting. For example, you may have a product that will help parents keep teenagers from starting to smoke. The fear approach provides an opportunity to use the WARNING headline.

WARNING: If your teenager starts smoking now, there’s a 70 per cent chance they will be addicted by age 18 and will smoke at least two packs a day until they die from lung cancer…

What keeps your potential clients awake at night? If it’s a powerful motivator, the fear approach might work.

The most popular direct response copywriting strategy is AIDA, which stands for

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

The approaches listed above have one goal: to get your attention and lead the reader to the facts, figures, and benefits they will find interesting.

And test like crazy to see which approach starts to get the best results. One of my clients used to write copy for a company in Japan that sold products through newspaper ads. They kept trying different approaches before they found the one that generated the best leads. Once they had the approach they liked, they continuously tweaked the copy until just one minor change produced an advertisement that brought them a ton of sales.

By Scott Martin

Scott is a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reach him through his website, www.scottmartinwriting.com where he offers a free direct response copywriting checklist.

Video

Getting Conversion Wise One Simple Tip to Prevent Business Death:
By Ryan Garey

FLV / MOV / M4V

STOMPER Speed Boost

SEO Pro Returns to Dallas!

Finally: Discover How to Get and KEEP Your Website (or a Client’s Website) Ranked at the Top of the Search Engines by Attending the ONLY Workshop Backed by the 5-Year Reputation and Proven Track Record of the World’s Largest SEO and Online Business Training Company!

Click here for details!

Secret Sauce Checklist

Great Approaches for High Conversion Copy:

• The News:   The headline reads like an article
• Empathy:  Provide help
• Straight Ahead:  Start with the benefit
• Comparison:  A Successful versus Unsuccessful
• Offer/ Bonus / Discounts
• Guarantee:  The clincher at the end
• Fear:  Tell them their fears

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Where Is Your Focus?

Stompernet Blog

Wednesday’s StomperTip included the article I wrote about monetizing your site, and today we have an article by Scott Martin. His view is a little bit different than mine, but the advantage of having different authors is that we have different points of view.

Scott came from the retail field, so he knows what it is like working with customers in a brick-and-mortar business as well as online.

These subtle differences can be used to improve each type of business, and just a few modifications can help your business grow into one that can create income from customers that you might have otherwise lost.

Isn’t it better to get money from customers later than have them walk away from your business without spending a dime?

Read on and you will see how you can get better conversions from your visitors both online and offline. 

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers.”
~ Sir John Egan ~
British industrialist

Nurturing Clients and Customers to Increase Profits

I used to work in a local store selling outdoor equipment and clothing. It was 21 years ago, well before email, the Internet, and digital marketing. There were three types of customers.

1. Customers coming to buy a specific item.
2. People ‘just looking.’
3. Shoplifters.

Thankfully, shoplifters were rare even though I once saw a large woman take three pairs of pants and stuff them under her expansive skirt. The store had a specific policy for dealing with shoplifters, and the managers trained us how to handle the cash register when making sale, but there was no policy for the ‘just looking’ visitors.

“Hello,” I would say. “Can I help you find something?”

“No thank you,” was the reply. “I’m just looking.”

End of conversation.

If the owner had really understood marketing, he would have trained us to get the potential customer’s name and address to add them to the database. If I had been the marketing manager, I would have purchased some outdoor books for 50 cents from a publisher looking to shift remaindered titles; I would have given a book away in return for data. I could have built a great list of about 3,000 people in three months. Convert just three per cent into lifelong customers who spend $200 a year and that’s picking money up off the floor.

You’re not going to get shoplifters visiting your site, but you’re going to get plenty of visitors who are ‘just looking.’ How can you convert the ‘just looking’ visitor to a customer who pulls a credit card out of their pocket?  I’ll show you how.

1. You MUST make an effort to collect an opt-in email and name from visitors.
2. Give the visitor five ways to opt-in: an autoresponder series; an eBook; instant access to a video; something else free (like a round of golf); a contest.
3. Salient information in an easy and proven way to harvest data.
4. Make it clear you will not share the data, since opting out is always an option.
5. Nurture the leads over time, and convert them to paying customers.

You would be surprised at how much data visitors will supply if you ask.

Andrew Wood, president and founder of Legendary Marketing, helps golf courses generate more business. Weddings are a massive opportunity for golf clubs and resorts. To harvest wedding leads, Andrew offers his clients a free 20-page wedding planner; to get the planner, the bride-to-be has to complete a form with 20 questions. This tactic generates a lot of highly qualified leads.

Will Swayne runs a successful lead generation company in Brisbane, Australia. His home page offers an autoresponder series, Seven Steps to Doubling Your Website Leads. Timely information can work extremely well, too. A friend is a social media specialist, and his website offers a free download about the latest Facebook trends and techniques; needless to say, he’s built a significant list.

Test, Then Test Some More

Using even the most basic tracking tools, you can see what type of opt-in rates you’re getting. If you’re NOT getting people to opt-in, change the offers. If you’ve got several ways to harvest data, see which method works the best and make sure it’s front and center.

Even Aweber, a popular autoresponder service, offers basic but effective A v. B testing. If you’re in the restaurant information business, test the following downloads.

• Generate instant 15 per cent revenue gain by getting your wait staff to upsell. Get FREE proven techniques here.
• How to create improved Sunday to Wednesday business using Facebook. Provide FREE proven techniques here.

Sometimes I’ll sign up for an autoresponder series and the series is disappointing. Before you offer a ‘Seven Part Series’ or something similar, make sure the content is riveting. For example, Will Swayne’s series is excellent and includes copy, videos, and podcasts.

You’ve Got the Data…Now What?

As you build your database, you need to keep people on the list and get them to buy. Again, content is king. I signed up for information from Bob Bly, the famous and accomplished copywriter. Every week, I get an email offering great stories about accomplished copywriters and/or free copywriting advice. Bly is trying to sell me something, usually an eBook. Will Swayne also nurtures his leads confidently, as does Andrew Wood. Bly, Wood, and Swayne follow the same strategy:

• Provide a useful nugget of information.
• Tie this information to the product or service you’re trying to sell.

Expand your media beyond the written word to include video and podcasts; both are relatively simple to produce. If you can hire professionals to create the content, you’ll get even better results.

So imagine if the ‘just looking’ visitors to the outdoor store received six postcards in six weeks after the initial visit. I’m confident the results would have been significantly better than simply letting the potential customer walk out the door.

by Scott Martin

Scott is a direct response copywriter with repeat clients around the world. Reach him at scott@scottmartinwriting.com or through his website www.scottmartinwriting.com.

STOMPER Speed Boost

To celebrate our 5th Anniversary,
we’re doing something extra special for you…

Secret Sauce Checklist

How to Nurture Clients and Customers:

• Collect names and emails
• Give them several reasons to give their name and email
• Test to see what works best
• Nurture them so they will turn into buyers

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Traffic

Stompernet Blog

By Wilson Mattos

Hello Stompers!  It’s that time of year again…  Before the holidays end and the New Year begins, let’s work on generating a higher quality score for your landing page.  When creating a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign to test a new product or niche, you don’t want to spend a lot of time creating different landing pages for each Ad Group and/or keyword you want to target.  However, you need to make sure that your page is relevant to the user that clicks on your ad, and that your landing page is relevant for the keywords you are bidding on so that your “Quality Score” is high, and your prices are low!

I am going to give you the exact instructions for improving your landing page quality score by automatically generating relevant page title, H1 headings, and text specific for each of your PPC Ad Groups without having to create additional landing pages.  This will help you test a new campaign very quickly.  The trick uses PHP code, but you don’t have to worry because I am going to make it as simple as copy and paste.  No previous PHP knowledge required!

Here we go:

Set Up Your Landing Page

Create your landing page using whatever method you are familiar with and name it “index.php”.

Paste the following code at the very top of the “index.php” file:

<?php
if ($_GET['page'] != “”) {
$keyword=ucwords(str_replace(‘-’,’ ‘,$_GET['page']));
} else {
$keyword=”Default Phrase”;
}
?>

(Caption): Update the 5th line to have your default text show up in case the parameter is not passed to index.php.  If you don’t know what this means, read the entire article and it will become clear.

Keyword Title

Anywhere on the page where you would like to use the custom text, place the following code, instead of the content you put there when you created the page:

<?php echo $keyword; ?>

Let’s say that your page title looked something like this:

<title>This is My Title</title>

You would change it to look like this instead:

<title><?php echo $keyword; ?></title>

Default Phrase

Upload the “index.php” file to your server and you are ready to use it.  However, I will show you another improvement in a second, so make sure to keep on reading.

Access the page with a browser, and you should see that the “default phrase” you entered in line 5 of the above step shows up.

Assuming your web server is www.mydomain.com and that you uploaded your index.php file to the root directory, access the page like this:

http://www.mydomain.com/?page=new-custom-title

You will now see that the title, and anything else (such as H1 heading) that you updated with the PHP code in Step 3 automatically updates on the page and shows up instead of the default text.

Note: Just separate the words in your phrase with “-” as I did in my example.

Now, when you create an ad group, you can use a URL that includes “?page=…” to be super relevant to your keyword, which will help increase your Quality Score as well as benefit the user who clicked on the ad.

Pretty URLs

I don’t like the “ugly” URLs I showed you above, so I created yet another small hack that allows me to have “better looking” URLs.  Just paste this in your “.htaccess” file.  If you don’t have one, just create one and put the following code in place, then upload to your server.

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html index.php?page=$1 [NC,L]

Now, you can have the same effect as the example above by accessing the file as an “.html” file.  For example:

http://www.mydomain.com/new-custom-title.html

This code will automatically use the requested “.html” file name to generate the tags for you, as long as a real “.html” file with that name does not exist.  Again, just use “-” to separate the words.

You can do a lot more with this trick by using multiple variables to change text in multiple areas of the page with different text in each area.  The example above will get you started and I will leave the rest to your imagination!  Happy Stomping!

by Wilson Mattos

Wilson Mattos has over 18 years of experience in the Information Technology industry and he has worked with numerous Fortune 1000 companies to help accelerate the adoption of technology solutions to provide competitive advantage.  Wilson holds a Masters Degree from Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.  You can contact Wilson via Twitter (http://twitter.com/WilsonMattos) or via his blog (http://WilsonMattos.com).

Landing Page and Site Review

FLV

Stompernet Blog

We have some gardeners on the StomperNet team. Some have roses, some have flowers, and some have vegetable gardens or combinations thereof. But these are a lot of work, unless you put some great systems into place that can make it easier.

Your business is similar in many aspects to a garden. Both should have certain systems and mechanisms in place to automate labor and reduce it as well.

Weed block cloth reduces weeding, just like using someone to check your email reduces your email. Sprinkler systems help reduce the amount of watering the gardener does, just as your autoresponder sprinkles information to your subscribers. Many gardens require supports to help the plants grow better and stronger, just like businesses. These are all systems the gardener or your business can use to make things work smoother and easier.

You have already received some great advice this week about systems and automation. Today we have some tips that you want to make certain are part of your business. Although basic, these are the supports that will help your business, so you aren’t constantly weeding and watering your business to get it to grow.

Now you can work on the main goal, which is the cultivation of your business and the regular harvests of profits.

Talk soon!

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“Organize around business functions, not people. Build systems within each business function. Let systems run the business and people run the systems. People come and go but the systems remain constant”

~ Michael Gerber ~
E-Myth Revisited

Tips for Virtual Teams and Systems for Your Business

Three years after starting my first successful online ecommerce store, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated and underpaid!  Thanks to the original Stomping the Search Engines course, my website was ranking in the top 10 for most all of the major keywords we went after and sales were through the roof!

Unfortunately, this meant that I spent most waking hours answering the phones, emailing orders to vendors, and updating the website with new products and sales!  This left little to no time for marketing and almost no time for sleep during our peak season.  The site soon became a source of conflict, and I began to wonder if this was the entrepreneurial dream that I had signed up for!

But I have learned some tips about virtual teams and systems for your business that helped my business and they can help yours.

Out-task.

One of the very first and important business tips I learned was that I needed to out-task. As long as I was answering the phones and processing orders, my business could not grow. Basically the premise is that if you can pay someone minimum wage to do a task and you choose to do that task, then you are earning minimum wage. A good idea is to make a daily To Do list, and examine what you are spending your time on. If there are tasks on the list that are not generating income or making your business run more effectively, then those tasks need to be out-tasked to someone else.

Systemize everything.

If your business is dependent on you, then you will never be able to take a vacation or enjoy the reasons you became a business owner in the first place. Create How To guides and manuals for each area of your business. This is a gradual process and not something that you do once only to forget about it. Set up your business processes and when there is a breakdown and an employee or contractor has to come seeking your approval or advice, update your business processes.

Set specific goals and tasks for everyone on your team.

Have a weekly meeting and discuss the pending tasks and any issues that have arisen with those tasks. Always praise in public and criticize in private. Take this time to give positive feedback and to deal with any problems. Many times employees don’t bring problems to management because they think it is their responsibility to try to figure it out themselves. Such initiative is often good, but other times, there are problems that we as management have already dealt with and we can provide a simple solution in about 20 seconds!

Teach your team to out-task and supervise others.

To be successful you will need a core team that supports you and can work effectively to get projects done with little to no input or guidance from you. If your team is not functioning, it’s your responsibility as the business owner to set up systems and procedures so that they can be successful. Everything does rise and fall on leadership. If you have great team member but he or she is not able to give up some of their responsibilities and supervise others, then you cannot grow. One person can never do it all. Teach them to assign tasks to junior team members and how to effectively supervise their junior team members so that their time is freed up doing more productive things.

Have two people for each job.

Although this may seem impossible in the beginning when finances are tight, as soon as possible, always have two people for every job. When out-tasking projects overseas, unexpected problems happen. Hurricanes (especially in the Philippines), power outages, kids get sick, and so on. By having two people trained for every task, you ensure that you won’t have to renege on the responsibilities you have already trained others to take over.

These are just a few tips that I have used in my business.  As a mom of 7 children, a wife and a missionary, my life is busy.  Your life is busy so you can’t afford to not add what you can to make your business run easier and automatically.

by Nicole Munoz

Nicole is an SEO expert, mom of 7 kids, and missionary wife that runs her business from Puebla, Mexico. Get your virtual team up and running in record time with her newest venture SEOTrainingMaterials.com. If you are interested in full service SEO work with an emphasis on link building, check out her website www.StartRankingNow.com.

STOMPER Speed Boost

To celebrate our 5th Anniversary,

we’re doing something extra special for you…

SPECIAL PRICE ENDS AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!

Secret Sauce Checklist

Tips for Virtual Teams and Systems for Your Business

• Out Task.
• Systemize everything.
• Set specific goals and tasks for everyone on your team.
• Teach your team to out-task and supervise others.
• Unexpected things happen, so make certain you have 2 people for each job

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Landing Pages

Stompernet Blog

Typically you do not ask favors of random strangers. You do not expect strangers to hand you cash just for the sake of it. If you need something, you generally ask your friends and family. You have a relationship with them, and because of that they are more likely to help you.

Yet, in business we expect that consumers will just open their wallets and tell their friends to do the same… just because we are a business. Consider starting a relationship with your customers and clients. Just like with any relationship, it has cycles. Learning how to make these cycles work for you will help your relationship grow, which in turn helps your business.

The best part of this cycle is that once it’s started, all you need to do is maintain it. The customers and clients in this relationship help keep the business moving forward and growing. A long-term arrangement like this is designed to provide both of you with mutual benefits.  In Ryan Garey’s article today, you will learn essential techniques on how to build relationships and why you want to start to grow that relationship marketing now.

Talk soon!

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“If you can get an edge based on how customers feel about your company, it’s a much stickier–sustainable–relationship over the long haul.”
~ Bob Thompson ~
CEO, CustomerThink Corporation

Consumer Lifecycle

By Ryan Garey

In a rapidly changing environment spotting and capitalizing on trends can become more and more difficult. Especially if you are a bootstrapping entrepreneur, the idea of “trends” or “forecasting” becomes laughable. Yet, regardless of the shifting “trends” something that will never go out of style (if you’re building a real business) is relationship marketing, and in a way that still makes you money!

So despite your current level in your business, let us capitalize on the atmosphere of reflection, and take a step back to see the life-blood of your business: your consumers. More specifically we will focus on the relationship between you.

The aim: higher conversion rates and cultivating better clients.

Clients that actually help you build your business with repeat sales, referrals, and glowing social media reviews rather than burying you with support issues, refunds, and scathing complaints in the social sphere for all to see!  It can be much easier than you think when you have a good framework.  So today I am going to reveal to you the “Three Critical Phases of The Consumer Lifecycle”.

If you have any one reason to give your Consumers Lifecycle serious attention, it is this:

“If you don’t have a process for what you are doing, you don’t know what you are doing.” W. Edwards Deming

A path that ensures you make the most of every opportunity, while giving you accurate information with which you can refine a water-tight funnel; building your business with efficiency and scalability!

The stages themselves are:

Each one of these stages has a number of stages within them that I have identified in the complete cycle, but it is important for YOU to build out according to your unique business model.

Generation to Conversion

Do you sometimes feel as though you have the best product in the world? If only more people could find out about it, then you’d be set! I think everyone goes through this “phase”, until they start generating serious traffic that is!

It doesn’t matter if you’re in a strip mall, a business complex, or online; you will always need traffic in one form or another. The more the better, however, it is not just the amount that matters, but also the quality of the visitors (how closely what they want is aligned with what you have). Bottom line: traffic is great, but leads are better!

When put into a choreographed process, leads can “move along” a pipeline toward becoming actual customers!

During this phase it’s important to educate your leads and, while educating them you can watch their behavior and find out towards which they gravitate. By focusing on relationships, their behavior, in addition to surveys and market testing, you will find that getting sales conversions become natural and easy! You will get more than just buyers; you will get the Right buyers! Buyers who actually use your product or service enough to get value!

Adoption to Causation

Basically, it doesn’t matter how great your product is, unless people actually DO something with it, they will most likely not be coming back to you for more products, let alone give you a referral, a testimonial, or positive review online.  And why should they?

It is through better adoption of your product that your consumers naturally become a causative force for you in the marketplace. This leads to more natural repeat sales, upsells, referrals and testimonials.

As more and more business are struggling with diminishing email open rates, lower quality leads, and diminishing sales, you will find more and more businesses realize the value of each and every lead and customer. So DO NOT make the mistake of thinking that just because the deal is ‘closed’ that the relationship has ended!

Affiliation to Ascension

Entire empires have been made from affiliates and affiliate marketing, but despite the vast opportunity many business owners still struggle with how to 1) Get affiliates on board and 2) get them to actually DO something! But while there is nothing wrong from going straight to affiliate networks, it would be reckless to ignore the greatest affiliate goldmine you may have: your happy customers!

As you can see, the third stage relies heavily on the efficiency of the second stage, much like the second relies on the first. Thus, if you get the right traffic (which generally comes from good affiliates, which you can grow inside your own organization) you will easily get higher-quality leads.

Higher quality leads makes getting sales much easier. With the right clients on board, they will naturally use more of what you sold making it easier on your support team. When people see actual realized value, it makes it MUCH easier to get authentic testimonials. Likewise, it is now much easier to get a referral from someone who gave you a testimonial. At this point it is surprisingly easy to turn your referral sources into full-blown affiliates!

Finally, with the right kind of motivated affiliates on board, they will see their traffic turned into a goldmine. It soon becomes easy for them to become super-affiliates who flood your sites with the perfect visitors for your products! It is actually quite easy and takes relatively very little effort to take someone to this level of ascension when you plan and act deliberately with a holistic process in mind! It may seem complicated, but it also seems complicated to have to date a person before asking them to marry you. Thus you build a relationship, which is exactly what you need!

STOMPER Speed Boost

Introducing “The Net Effect” Interactive Digital Magazine!

This is the magazine you need, with training and content that improves your business and makes you money now.
With multiple ideas to help your business each month imagine what 12 issues can do for your bottom line!

Get “The Net Effect” Now

Secret Sauce Checklist

Tips for a Strong Consumer Lifestyle

• Have a process for what you are doing
• Remember Relationships
• Generate traffic and convert them into buyers
• Get buyers to adopt your products (this is part of your relationship)

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Web Design

Stompernet Blog

Building your business is what this is all about. It does not matter what your local business sells, your website needs to bring in visitors and convert them to buyers.

You want people to visit your website then walk in the front door of your local business (or your client’s business). It is the conversion of these online visitors into real world visitors and buyers that should be your goal. Today’s post brings in even more information to help your website.

There are some surprising ways to build your business that may seem counter intuitive but actually help. Other methods you may not have considered or realized were tools that can help.

Today’s Stomper Intelligence Report “How To Use Your Website To Pull In More Local Business” provides you with valuable information that can help YOUR website. Because when your website grows it will pull more online visitors. More online visitors mean more visitors to your store. Of course the more visitors in your store, the more buyers!

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“If you don’t believe in your product, or if you’re not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down.”
~ Jay Levinson ~

How To Use Your Website To Pull In More Local Business

By Michelle Chance-Sangthong

If you operate a traditional “brick and mortar” business, perhaps you haven’t thought much about how you can use web marketing to drive more foot traffic into your store. That might be especially true if your product or service cannot be purchased online.

But I’ve got exciting news for you! Regardless of the nature of your product or service, you can use your website – in conjunction with the right web marketing strategies – to increase your revenues and boost your year-round store traffic. Here’s how:

1. Use your website to educate potential customers.

When potential customers are getting ready to make their buying decision, they are full of questions, such as:

* “Am I getting the right product for my needs?”
* “What features does this product have?”
* “What other product/service options are available to me?”

At this point in the buying process, you have an excellent opportunity to establish yourself as a trusted authority. When you provide helpful information, you begin to establish yourself as the vendor of choice. An attractive and informative website that encourages long visits strengthens your favorable position!

2. Design your website to show your competitive edge.

When potential customers search the web looking for the type of product or service you offer, the results they receive from the search engines will include your competitors. They must now peruse the alternatives presented until they find something that interests them.

Make your website the one that grabs their attention! Create a great first impression so that visitors can easily see why you outshine your competition.

How do you do that? First, identify the characteristics of your product or service that differentiate it from the competition. What are the primary qualities that give you a competitive edge?

Next, present your competitive advantages on your website, giving details, examples, customer references, and other information to back up your claims. Most websites don’t do a very good job of this, so when you present your case clearly and forcefully, you will stand out from the pack.

3.  Form strategic alliances

Form strategic alliances with other companies and use their websites to draw prospects to your own.

Consider what other products or services your customers tend to buy in conjunction with yours. Then identify local businesses that provide those products or services and inquire whether they are open to linking their sites to yours. Such links can be a steady source of highly qualified leads. As an incentive, you could offer to exchange reciprocal links with these other companies, or you might agree with to pay them a percentage of the business that results from their website referrals.

4. Use web marketing techniques to draw more leads to your website.

When you advertise in the Yellow Pages, there’s only one main way to stand out from the competition: buy a bigger ad. Web marketing is more complex. You must use a variety of strategies and techniques in order to rise above a sea of competitors.

For example, you can use SEO strategies, including effective keywords, to increase the probability that your website will come up at or near the top when people search the Internet for your product or service.

Pay per click advertising is another popular way to increase the traffic to your site. Buy an online ad on a high-profile website, and pay a fee for it each time qualified leads click through to your site.

And don’t forget your Google Local listings! Keeping those up-to-date is a great way to get your name in front of customers who could literally be right next-door.

Because web marketing is complex, it is advisable to engage the services of a professional who specializes in it. The results they produce can cover their costs many times over.

5. Design your website so that it invites visitors to buy.

Think of your website as a funnel. Design it to guide every visitor toward a purchasing decision both online and in your physical stor.

At the outer edge of the funnel, make it easy for new visitors to find the information they need. Clearly present your competitive advantages.

As they enter farther into the funnel, lead them to the next stage of the purchasing process by inviting them to e-mail you for more information. Or, even better, encourage them to make a personal visit to your physical location by offering them discount coupons, free samples, or other hooks.

6. Set up a uQast™ Digital Media Store

Set up a uQast™ Digital Media Store as a forum to sell even more local business! Visit uQast for more!

If you’ve been thinking about your website only in connection with online sales, now’s the time to change your attitude. Utilize the strategies outlined above to create an online presence that initially provides useful information to visitors, and ultimately increases the traffic to your physical store!

~~~

Michelle Chance-Sangthong has proven her ability to transform lackluster websites into dynamic profit generators. Through her company, Red Hawk Strategies, Michelle is now offering consultations, workshops, and seminars that will help you increase your company’s marketing efficiency by making your website a beacon for your target audience. Contact her at michellechancesangthong@gmail.com.

STOMPER Speed Boost

 

SEO Pro Comes to San Francisco!

Finally: Discover How to Get and KEEP Your Website (or a Client’s Website) Ranked at the Top of the Search Engines by Attending the ONLY Workshop Backed by the 5-Year Reputation and Proven Track Record of the World’s Largest SEO and Online Business Training Company!

Register NOW!

 

---

Secret Sauce Checklist

Local Business Websites Need:

• Educate potential customers
• Show your competitive edge
• Invites visitors to buy

Remember to

• Form strategic alliances to create reciprocal links
• Use marketing techniques to draw in more visitors

 

---

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Social Media

Upcoming StomperNet Public Webinars

THURSDAY September 22, 2011 ~ 12:30 pm Eastern“How to Crush Your Competition Online Using Market Me Suite In Only 30 Minutes A Day!” with Tammy Fennel

Earlier this week MarketMeSuite gave away 5000 licenses and the first question we received was “Great. Now how do I use it”. Tammy Fennell, the CEO or MarketMe Suite has agreed to do a webinar to help you use this new tool to the utmost extreme. She will get you set up managing your social media so you can learn to crush your competition with as little as 30 minutes a day.

You still have until Tuesday to download your free MarketMe Suite license. There are still a couple 100 left. But they are going FAST Register Now

 

THURSDAY September 22, 2011 ~ 8:00 pm Eastern

“Creating $250k Unsecured, Zero-Interest, Tax Free Cash!” with Georgia Gotthardt & Ari Page

Would you like to have unsecured business credit, available as cash to help fund your business quick,fast and easy? Join Georgia and Ari as they show you how getting funding can be fun, fast and easy and how It’s YOUR Tax dollar money givento the banks – so that they must lend it to you! Register Now

 

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

Post Your Comments Here

Stompernet Blog

All too often we get caught up in “old sayings” that no longer apply. Like “everything that has been said has already been written”. That may have been true in the 15th century, but since that quote came into use the entire Universe has completely changed. Ideas have been dis-proven and even the mindsets of entire nations have been forever altered.

So now is the perfect time to write. We’re at the dawning of yet another evolution of the Information Age, where eBooks and Special Reports can carry more weight than ever. If done right.

Continue to learn how to do it right in Part 2 of “Grow Your Business With eBooks”!   (Missed Part 1? You can find it here.)

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
~Toni Morrison ~

Grow Your Business with eBooks – Part 2

By Suzanne Roese

Wednesday we discussed why you would want to create an eBook for your business…the easy way. Now that you have learned why and how to create your eBook, it’s time to take a look at what to do with your eBook once it’s finished!

BASICS

Editing Basics

It may sound basic, but you’d be surprised how many people forgo basic editing. No…spell and grammar check in Word don’t count. It’s a good starting point, but it’s NOT enough!! I always suggest sending your eBook out to another set of eyes before having it PDF ready for the general public. You are so close to the end, it can be hard to see simple mistakes that another set of eyes will quickly pick up. So get over yourself and let someone else read it.

ISBN

A lot of clients will ask me if it’s really important to get an IBSN for an eBook. My answer – YES!! For those of you who don’t know what an ISBN is, it’s that really long number that is above the bar code on a traditional book – on the back cover. It’s called an International Standard Book Number. It’s what identifies your book as uniquely yours.

It’s fairly easy to obtain. There is a cost to obtain one, about $250 and you have to get 10. If you want one, you can get an ISBN from a reseller for about $50.  Think about it this way though…it’s an extra incentive for you to write a few more eBooks and make some more money!!

Cover Art

Now that you’re convinced that you need an ISBN, you need to be convinced that you need cover art! It may seem unnecessary for an eBook, but it is indeed VERY necessary.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the fact of matter is your potential readers WILL often decide whether or not to read your book based on your cover. If potential readers are searching in an online bookstore, your cover art and title will influence their first impression. You need to spend the time, effort and a little money to have a professional design that conveys the message of your eBook.

The title should be able to be clearly visible in the thumbnail picture. You don’t have to go fancy with the art work – clean and simple is fine. The most important factor is to have a readable title that can be seen in the thumbnail for a reader to easily understand. Don’t go for a fancy clever title that leaves the reader wondering what your eBook is about…they will simply move on.

Pricing

Here’s what everyone really wants to know – “What can I sell my eBook for??” Of course the answer is the dreaded: It depends. Most eBooks typically sell for between $3.99 and $24.99. The information you have and your customer base together will determine the market price your eBook will bear.

Look for what other eBooks in the genre and in that size range tend to go for and price your eBook for the going rate. If you price your eBook too low for the genre, you will have a lower perceived value. An informational eBook that covers scarce or difficult subject matter will sell for a higher amount. I talked a little bit about this in Part 1. My point is – do your research. Make sure you are not writing an eBook that has 2000 other titles out there. Find a GAP in the market place and fill it.

MARKETING YOUR EBOOK

Now that you’ve written, edited, and priced your eBook, it’s ready to go… Time to market it! So many internet marketers make the mistake of thinking that the sum and total of marketing their eBook is to showcase it on the front page of their website. WRONG!! Of course we could write a whole article JUST on how to write a squeeze page for an eBook, but were going to run through a few tips on marketing your eBook quickly here:

Join An Online Affiliate Company

Sell your eBook on Clickbank, Ebay and Amazon. The more channels you have, the more money you can bring in. You went through the trouble to get your ISBN and have a great cover design, so you’d better put it to good use! E-readers are growing in popularity by leaps and bounds. It is VITAL that you get your eBook listed with the online bookstores. Do not lose this marketing opportunity.

Your Own Website

Just because we are talking about all the other opportunities doesn’t mean you should overlook your own website. Remember to create the buzz before you even release it. You should be building the anticipation for weeks by putting teasers on your website. If you have a newsletter that goes out to your customer base, be sure to let them know how excited you are about the upcoming release. Be sure to offer them a discount for being loyal customers if they pre-order.

A good eBook deserves its own sales page. If you’ve developed a quality eBook, show it some love! Sure, you can showcase it on your website, but give it a sales page of its own with a sales funnel that gives it a chance to prove itself on its own merit! Be sure to include all the benefits to the reader, as well as a strong call to action.

Ebooks are a fantastic way to grow your business. You just want to be sure you do it right. Take the time to research your niche and find out where the gaps are. Fill those gaps and write a quality eBook. Quite often you have material from previous articles you’ve already used in your business! If not, consider hiring a ghostwriter. Take the time and effort to edit, purchase your unique ISBNs, design a proper cover and price it appropriately. Then market like crazy to help increase your credibility and bring in some extra revenue!

STOMPER Speed Boost

SEO Pro Comes to San Francisco!

Finally: Discover How to Get and KEEP Your Website (or a Client’s Website) Ranked at the Top of the Search Engines by Attending the ONLY Workshop Backed by the 5-Year Reputation and Proven Track Record of the World’s Largest SEO and Online Business Training Company!

Register NOW!

SEO Secret Sauce

BASICS:

• Editing Basics
• ISBN
• Cover Art
• Pricing

MARKETING YOUR EBOOK:

• Join an Online Affiliate Company
• Your Own Website

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Local Marketing

Stompernet Blog

Video can be used in a variety of ways to enhance your online business. It doesn’t take a lot of fancy equipment to make a video that can add credibility and trust to your product or service. It also doesn’t take a lot of money. You just have to produce something will solid content and good audio.

You can use video in an ad, you can use it in your website and in today’s Stomper’s Intelligence we’re going to show you how you can use it in your squeeze page.

Read our Stomper Intelligence Report on The Video Squeeze. And remember, take action this week and implement video in to YOUR internet business.

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“It used to be that if you wanted sophisticated marketing tools, you had to be rich. That’snot the case on the Internet. Anyone can compete, just at different levels.”
- Chris Baggott, Compendium Blogware

The Video Squeeze

by Paul Colligan

What if you could add a single process into your Internet Marketing efforts that resulted in better conversion? A process that also automatically sifted and sorted your user base, was easier to produce than the alternative, and had a list of side bonuses with no additional efforts?

In truth this article is about 2 things: the “squeeze page” (which I’ll call a “squeeze” from this point on) and the addition of a video element to the squeeze page process. The strategy behind the squeeze is solid and the addition of video allows your audience to quickly know, like and trust you – all of which are essential elements to closing any and every sale.

Closing that sale, through squeeze methodology, only happens when you have their name and email address – and that’s accomplished through a successful squeeze page.

Let’s face it, video on the Internet is very ‘sexy’ right now – leveraging it in the squeeze page process will produce some very interesting results.

About:

The concept behind a squeeze is simple: send your audience to a page that only has 1 option – the entry of an email address.  The end game is always the same - get the user to give you the info you need to market to them on a regular basis – not just the one time option provided by the existing page.

Because there are no options on a squeeze page other than information collection, the % collected are considerably higher than in any other medium. I’ve seen squeeze pages that convert as high as 80%.

The goal of a squeeze page is to sort the audience between people who will trust you with information and those who won’t. You end the short process with a list of people hungry for your marketing messages.

Truth be told, most pages try to pull that off via nothing but text.

We’re a visual world. People respond to visuals and place a considerably higher value on them over other forms of media. Video is the top player in visual communications for the simple reason that is in fact multiple frames of visual content per second. Consider how many people watch news on television versus read the paper and how many suddenly jumped on the iPod bandwagon once they introduced video and … do the math.

For those who eat, sleep, drink the world of Internet communications, we often forget that the “average” user doesn’t. With video on a squeeze page you can explain the process, even point to the form elements. By showing your face, you make it personal, and conversions go up considerably.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t know how to fill out a simple form. But you know what? Your warm face online, walking them through the process, changes everything.

So, how is this done? It’s actually much easier than you’d expect.

You 1) produce the video and 2) publish it online. Once that’s done you 3) embed the video using a video player on your squeeze page and 4) collect information accordingly.

FYI, a video squeeze almost always has the video set to play the second the page loads.

Word of caution: your video has to demonstrate the trust you are asking your visitors to demonstrate. Post video worth leaving your name and email address for.

Numbers:

The numbers in a squeeze process are considerable. Instead of having a single chance to convert a buyer to a single product, adding them to a mailing list gives you as many chances as you can email. Even if you can only get one out of every four people who visit your squeeze to give you their name and email, the lifetime access to that customer is exponentially more viable (and potentially profitable) than the single-minded approach of one-off pages that so many employ.

Another great thing about squeezes is that they quickly let your marketing decisions become as simple as running numbers. If you know your page converts 40% (low) and it costs a dime to bring someone to that page, you now know that adding someone to your list costs forty cents. You can then determine if you can make more than 40 cents per name on the list.

The numbers change dramatically when you can convert more people on your squeeze page. Video will help. That is what the rest of this piece is about (oh yeah, with a bonus trick too).

Quick Recommendations:

I’d like to offer some additional simple suggestions for creation of video content:

First of all - the video player is crucial – not only must it auto-play without any interaction from the user, it also must not advertise anything else other than the video you are playing. Using the (traditional) video player from a popular video hosting service (no matter how cool) will result in lost conversions. In short, if your users can go anywhere or do anything on the player, you need to find one that works. More on that in a second.

Secondly – audio is more important than you think. A great looking video with bad sound makes you look bad. Looking bad has a way of decreasing conversions. ‘Nuff said.

Finally - the video doesn’t have to be a special effects spectacular. In fact, this could distract your audience.

Some of the best (most effective) video squeezes are a simple, well-lit face with good audio explaining why they should sign up accordingly.

Remember, the squeeze (video or other) has one simple purpose: get the user to enter their email address (and often name). That is the single purpose of the page. Explain how great the product is later - after you have their address. Nothing makes more sales than an email – and we don’t expect that to change – for a long time.

Technology:

To pull off a squeeze you need a 1) page to place the squeeze on, a 2) video player (without distractions) and 3) an automated email collection and management system.

Page: To be as effective as possible, your squeeze needs to be on a single page without any other links on it.

Video Player: As mentioned above, the player must not have any other options on it than playing the video – and playing it automatically. Third-party players usually won’t do this for you. Find one that does.

Automated Email Collection: I believe there are really only two options in the email game anymore. Aweber or InfusionSoft.

The YouTube Squeeze Twist:

This one is good. Are you ready?

Place your squeeze page video on YouTube.com.

Paul, doesn’t their player do all the things you said not to do above?

Yes, their player does.

But, wait, Paul, if I did that, I could a) get free hosting of my video and b) get credit in YouTube views every time someone viewed my video at a squeeze?

Yes, you could …

Paul, really, how does that work?

Watch THIS! You’ll see a YouTube video that explains all.

Heck — with the YouTube QuickCapture Feature (Google it), you can even record right to YouTube without having to edit a thing on your desktop. Remember what we said about high quality videos though.

Oh, and about the people who find your video on YouTube.com proper, include a little something for them so they can find their way to your squeeze page as well. YouTube annotations, a verbal welcome to the domain name hosting your squeeze, and a link in your YouTube description can help pull that off.

In Summary:

The squeeze builds your mailing list faster than anything else out there. If you aren’t using squeezes – start TODAY.

Anything you can do on your squeeze to get more people to know like and trust you, the better off you are. Video is one easy way to do that and should be implemented immediately in any squeeze plans you have planned – or have in production. Have the video play automatically when the user visits the page and walk them through the process of signing up for your information. This will increase your conversions (and later, profits) considerably.

The YouTube Squeeze Twist will host your video for free and get your video views counted on YouTube. It’s the best of both worlds and leaves you, dear reader, without an excuse!

Use Traffic Geyser to create videos easily that go to multiple websites.

STOMPER Speed Boost

SEO Secret Checklist

Tips for a Video:

1. Use a good video player
2. Make sure your audio is outstanding
3. Don’t worry about special effects
4. Use a premier automated email collection system
5. Don’t forget the YouTube Squeeze

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: eBook Writing

FACULTY OFFICE HOURS NEXT WEEK:

Wednesday Sept 7, 2011 at 7:00pm Eastern

How You Can Boost Your Business with eBooks – the 7 Secret Tricks You NEED to Know! with Staffer MJ Schrader and Coach Renee Corbett

Join MJ and Renee on this Question and Answer session as they discuss how ebooks can help your business. Listen in as they discuss some quick ways to get your ebook written and the variety of ways you can use them to grow your business. Tune in and find out how giving away THE RIGHT KIND of ebook could be the fastest and easiest way to boost your business!   StomperNet Members:  Register Here!

PUBLIC WEBINARS NEXT WEEK:

THURSDAY September 8, 2011 ~ 3:00 pm Eastern

“So You Want To Write An eBook?” with Suzanne Roese-McGee

How To Go From an Idea to a Finished Product Even If You Are Not a Writer Register Now

We know everyone has questions about their business or different stumbling blocks. Well we invite you to bring them to the table during our Open Forum. With the combined training and experience of our Coaches you will get the direction you need to get you back on your road to success!

The next StomperNet Open Forum Call with our Professional Coaches happens next Friday at 11am EDT and we hope to see you there! These calls are intended to be live Q&A sessions and playback will not be available.

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

Post Your Comments Here

Stompernet Blog

By Nicole Munoz, SEO Consultant at StartRankingNow.com

Content and links, content and links, content and links! If you had to quickly describe what we do on a regular basis as SEO consultants, that’s essentially what it comes down to! The secret most SEO experts DON’T want you to know though is that if your links are not indexed in the mighty search engines, then they don’t count!

First what does “getting your links indexed,” mean? It basically means that the search engines have visited the page your links are on and deemed that page of high enough quality to keep that page in the search engine’s main directory (or index) of pages.

Let’s look at an example: For the key phrase “kids toys” there are about 31 million pages on the Internet that contain these exact keywords.

But if we try to view all of the results we find this message:

There are 31 million pages with that specific keyword phrase, but Google only shows us the top 753. This means that these top 753 pages are the ones in Google’s main index. That means two things to us: First, that these 753 pages are the only pages we need to truly consider our competition, and second, we want OUR page to show up in this list!

The answer: build links to our links!

Now, there’s the temptation when building links to only build links to the main page or site where in which we want the search engines to rank us. Here’s the problem: unless we also build links to our links, then only about 10% of the links we are building will get indexed on their own. Going the extra step and making sure that all of our links are getting indexed will save time and money and push us one step ahead of our competitors!

How to build links to your links

Step One: Record all the links generated in your link building.

The easy road is to publish and forget. But success is in the details. Require your link builders to record each and every link to your site that they are building, as well as the RSS feed of the web 2.0 property or author profile on the article directories for example.

Step Two: Run all the urls through the index checker of Scrapebox.

The report generated will give you a list of the links that are indexed and the ones that are not. Generate your list of urls that are not indexed and separate it out from those that are. Build links to all of your urls, but by separating out the list, you can rerun the report on the same urls in 30 days to make sure that your efforts in getting the urls indexed were successful.

Step Three: Build links to your links!

There are many ways to connect links to each other. Some of the methods we currently use are:

1. Putting urls in 100 word blog posts on web 2.0 sites.
2. Running all urls through SEO Fast Indexer
3. Putting all urls in DripFeedBlasts and then running those urls generated in SEO Fast Indexer.
4. Putting all RSS feeds into a WordPress site with some plug-ins that will automatically post snippets of the articles that are published, and automatically link to them.
5. Post urls in 100-word blog posts on our private blog network.
6. Bookmarking every single URL with ping.fm (and all sub accounts).
7. Pinging all of the RSS feeds with services such as iPinger.com and more.
8. Submitting the RSS feed to RSS directories.
9. Use social media to link to our articles.
10. Leave blog comments or post on forums with the non-indexed links in the person profile.

Step Four: Rerun the report in Scrapebox to test that your efforts are working!

Some other tips are to take stock of what you already have! Run a complete backlink report in MajesticSEO or SEOSpyglass, get the report of all of the links that link to you, especially the ones that are low quality, and immediately start building links to them using software and some of these automated methods. The easiest way to get a quick boost in the search engines is to make your backlinks more valuable.

Building links to your links also helps to hide your linking strategy. If all of your links go directly to your main site, then it is painfully obvious to your competitors exactly what you are doing to build links and replicate. Links to links keeps you one step ahead.

Step Five: Build up your portfolio of web properties so you can get links indexed at will!

We usually work with three types of web properties: Pumpers, juicers, and our own blog network.

PR Pumpers are niche sites related to each category on the site for which we want to get ranked. These are usually keyword-rich, meaning that the keyword is in the name of the domain and are very focused around a set of keywords.

Juicers are sites that automatically post snippets of text using WordPress plug-ins to automatically build links to our links. Once we set these up, we import the RSS feeds and then forget about them. On a monthly basis we use software to build links to the juicer site so that the juicer site continues to hold value. Software you could use for this could be SENuke, Scrapebox as a blog commenting tool, or Synnd.

Blog Network sites are sites on general topics or any topic at all. They are usually expired domains that we purchase, so we don’t have to start at zero as far as link building. We try to put up similar content as to what was already there before we purchased the site. We then can use these sites to link out at will to the main sites or anything we need to get indexed quickly.

Now, go start your link building!

By Nicole Munoz

Nicole Munoz is an SEO Consultant and owner of StartRankingNow.com where she’s responsible for developing the search engine optimization and marketing strategies for her client’s websites. Come hear Nicole speak at SEO Pros and talk to her directly about how she can help you with your online marketing strategy!

Outsourcing Article Writing by Don Crowther

by Don Crowther

FLV / ZIP

Everyone needs to start somewhere!

With our community, our training, our support,

and our NEW StomperNet levels,

you will find exactly what will help you take the next successful step in your business!

Become a StomperNet Member TODAY!

Stompernet Blog

As an internet marketer, your goal in establishing your brand is to set yourself apart from the competition. If you are selling a product or service that others offer, YOU need to be the one that people trust and come to.

One of the best ways to establish and solidify your brand is to position yourself as an authority in your chosen niche or marketplace. If you THE authority, why would someone buy from anyone else online?

Sounds great…but what if you are selling a product or service that you don’t have years of experience behind? Can you still be an authority that people can trust? The answer is YES! You just need to position yourself in the right way.

Read our Stomper Intelligence Report on “You’re Not an Authority…YET – How to Sound Like an Expert Without Being One”. You’ll get some great tips on adding authority to your brand. Just remember to make a plan to implement what you learn!

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience.”
- Denis Waitley

You’re Not an Authority…YET –

How to Sound Like an Expert Without Being One!

By Colin Theriot

As marketers, we undoubtedly must create a wide variety of content in our chosen niche; in order make inroads into any online marketplace.

Some niche marketers are lucky. They already happen to be passionate and knowledgeable about a profitable subject; so creating engaging content comes easy.

However, most of us are not so lucky, and to have a profitable business, we need to get involved in markets that they initially know very little about.

Obviously, there’s no time to become an expert on every subject we approach. But you can’t expect to get away with the grade school tricks you may have tried when you didn’t actually read the book for your report.  Those tricks just won’t fly when it comes to your business. You need to learn the skills to write with authority on your subject so that people get a sense of trustworthiness from you, and are therefore willing to rely on your recommendations.

Fortunately, you can develop the skill of SEEMING like an authority without needing the deliberate practice or experience required to become a bona fide expert. And don’t worry, there’s nothing deceitful here. We’re simply presenting the information you already have in a way that will build rapport with your audience, and cultivate a leader/follower relationship.

1. Know Your Audience

This is overlooked by many writers who try to write to all readers. This tends to lead to dry, disengaging content.

So you should SPECIFICALLY choose your audience. Don’t write for everyone. Think about what you’re promoting, and think about the ideal consumer of that product or service. Don’t generalize. Be specific. It even helps to find a testimonial for a product and then pretend you’re writing your content as a letter to them. Thinking this way will go a long way towards making your content engaging. When you have a specific person in mind, you tend to write in a more naturalistic manner. Since you’re targeting your ideal customer, your content will resonate more deeply with them, and this can lead to instant rapport and influence.

2. Identify Your Place In the Spectrum

Now we also need to identify the depth and breadth of information that already exists on your given topic. How much is there to know? How broad is the niche? How many sub niches are there? You really want to get an understanding of the “size” of your niche’s “world” – and you do this not by researching the subject, but by researching the PEOPLE who are interested in it.

You do this by finding the forums, blogs, and communities where your target audience congregates and discusses the topic. See how much they already know, and what it is they want to know more about. See where your audience falls in the “spectrum” of the available information on your subject.

Try to determine where in that spectrum your ideal consumer will fall, and then determine where YOUR experience level is, relative to them. The goal here is to be slightly above where your target consumer is. We’re not shooting to be the expert, but rather someone with a level of knowledge only slightly higher and only slightly more experienced than the reader.

We don’t need to go for overkill, because in most niches,the BEGINNER level is where most of your potential customers are. Besides that, someone who is closer totheir peer level will be perceived as more relatable, and that’s a little bit of bonus rapport you can get that you wouldn’t if you came across as a high-falutin’ expert.

Another reason we do this spectrum exercise and study the actual people in the niche is because it will help you avoid promoting “beginner” material to someone who is already at the “proficient” level, and vice versa, will keep you from going way over the heads of “beginner” level folks with “expert” level stuff they just aren’t ready for.

3. Pick a Topic and Decide Your Stance

Now, by this time we know whom we are targeting, and we know how much they know, and we know how much (and what) it is they WANT to know more about. Now it’s time to give it to them.

First, you’re going to want to decide on your topic. This should be easy, as you probably got plenty of ideas from your earlier work. That’s why I want you to start by researching your audience first. 99% of the time they will TELL you what to write about so you don’t even need to think about it.

You want to make a note any time you see a question like “What is better…X, Y or Z?” This is a BUYER question. And best of all, it’s easy to research, because they’ve already given you X, Y, and Z to look up. Hopefully, you can get paid somehow for selling X, Y, and/or Z. If so, it’s perfect. If not, it’s still an opportunity to gain authority. Comparison and Contrast is a form of communication that implies authority for the author, because it’s inferred that you need to have some superior knowledge to write it.

Next, pick a definitive statement to make. Take a stand on the subject, draw a line in the sand. In the example above, decide which option you’re going to back, whether it’s X, Y, or Z. It’s very easy to decide – go with the majority opinion (you should know this from your earlier research). But be decisive. People who are asking questions are looking for someone to make the decision for them. Being decisive implies authority. (But don’t overdo it – see Section 5 below).

4. Triangulate and Source

First, find at LEAST three supporting sources that back up your stance. Again, this is easy, because you’re going with the majority opinion. When I say “Source” I mean that you want to credit the source of the supporting material. If it’s authoritative (like a brand name or a resource well known by the niche), quote it directly. If it’s just based on the opinions of strangers, simply cite it generally. Example: “Several other enthusiasts also agree.” or “The readers on Site X tend to share this opinion.”

What this does is demonstrate the breadth of knowledge you have on the subject. You know where the resources are, and you know what people think. Note, it doesn’t say anything about the DEPTH of your knowledge. Depth comes with actual experience and expertise. But when we’re talking about our general audience of internet searchers, you don’t need to be an actual expert on the subject – just being an expert in where to FIND OUT more about the subject will work by proxy.

Be sure that when you express your stance firmly, you also give information as to WHY you arrived at this decision. This usually makes it really easy to mention your sources as well as convey the kind of factual material you would see in a non-marketing article.

You should begin to see now that the sense of authority in the article comes primarily from the “frame” around the facts. The facts are just the same, but when you firmly establish who YOU are relative to who the READER is, you create the leader/follower relationship that is key to making referrals and sales.

5. Respect the Minority Opinion

Now, earlier, I said to go with the majority opinion when you take your stance. The majority is rarely wrong, and even if they are, they’re still the majority, so you won’t find many people disagreeing with your stance.

But that doesn’t mean you should ignore the minority opinion. You shouldn’t support it, but you should state it, and present the common argument against it.

This is another tactic to demonstrate your breadth of knowledge. An uninformed writer would find it easy to simply go with the majority opinion, and therefore isn’t as trustworthy. That effect is amplified when you’re marketing because people will find your presentation one-sided and it will seem like cheerleading or railroading.

By including the minority opinion, you make people think you really do know your stuff and actually broaden your audience to INCLUDE people who share that minority opinion. They may not agree with you, but by acknowledging their opinion, you legitimize them, which again, builds rapport with your readers.

Another good trick is to be less forceful in your presentation of the minority than you are with your stance. Whereas your chosen majority stance should be rigid (i.e. X is clearly superior to Y and Z), you should be only mildly dismissive, and maybe even include faint praise for the minority (i.e. Y and Z are not really *bad* but they lack the features of X – hopefully the producers of Y and Z will serve their customers and add more features like X has). This demonstrates a sympathy and oneness with the consumer audience that will again, serve to garner rapport and influence.

In closing, remember: when it comes to writing as a marketer, keep it personal and direct. It’s less about WHAT you say and much more about HOW you say it.

Use the tips above and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can become a “player” in any niche you choose.

STOMPER Speed Boost

SEO Secret Sauce

Tips for a Sounding Like an Expert

• Know Your Audience
• Identify Your Place In the Spectrum
• Pick a Topic and Decide Your Stance
• Triangulate and Source
• Respect the Minority Opinion

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Link Building

Stompernet Blog