Stompernet Blog

Sales Letter Starter Fluid

StomperNet — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:28:54 +0000

Too many business owners focus solely on one or two parts of their business, letting the rest slide by. As a business owner, you simply don’t have time to do it all. However, you don’t need know everything, nor do everything. Many successful business owners are simply jack of all trades. They know just enough of each aspect of their business to improve upon it, but they certainly are not experts.

One important area that business owners often let “slide by” is copywriting. Believe it or not, copywriting strongly affects your sales and whether your business thrives or not. A basic knowledge is what can help your business stand out from the competition. You do not need to be a copywriter, but you should learn the basics of copywriting, so you can add the techniques to all parts of your business.

Copywriting is about building excitement so people buy. Using proven copywriting techniques elsewhere on your website and in your advertising builds excitement. Excitement is what encourages people to visit your sales pages. The more people who visit your sales pages the more growth you can expect, (as long as you also have strong copywriting and a good product to match).

In addition, the more excited people are about your products, the more likely they are to refer your business… which is yet another way to grow your business. Successful selling is all about getting people to see you and be excited about your business. That is why Vin is sharing his proven tips and techniques on writing sales letters with you today.

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

~ David Ogilvy ~
Known as “The Father of Advertising”

Sales Letter Starter Fluid…

By Vin Montello

Lazy S.O.B…. Pretty harsh, huh?

Not really… when you consider three things…

With the spring nearly behind us, and summer just around the corner, that means the another seasonal spending season is here. Now… I’d bet dollars to donuts you don’t have your sales copy written yet… do you?
I have lost count of how many times marketing upstarts have written to me saying they keep procrastinating when it comes to writing their sales letter, all because they don’t know how to get started.
The main job of a headline is to get attention. By calling you a “lazy S.O.B.” I got your attention, right? Mission One: Accomplished.

Okay… without first giving you some cute tip or nifty trick let me dish out some tough love.

No matter how hard you think about it… no matter how often you visit a forum or read a PDF… no matter how hard you close your eyes and concentrate on it… try to squeeze your eyes so tightly in an attempt to “will it” to happen…

Your sales letter will never write itself.

Oh sure… there’s some talk that NASA is working on that, but as of now the only two ways to get a sales letter is to either pay a professional to write one or…

Just Go Ahead And Write It Yourself…

But the age-old problem still remains…

How do you get started from scratch? I mean… with nothing, nada, zilch to begin with.

Well… when it comes to crashing through laziness… er, I mean– writer’s block, there are as many systems are there are 20-somethings writing screenplays on laptops at Starbucks.

Some believe the best idea is to just start writing… even if it’s unusable crap that will later be thrown out. These writers have forgotten that lazy S.O.B.s don’t want to write anything that won’t be used. That’s too much like work.

I mean, why waste the words, right? There are starving children in Haiti who have to walk five miles a day in the mud just to get one word, maybe two… and here we are throwing them away!

Others think the best way to start is to copy someone else’s work.

Sure… this falls right into the lazy person’s wheelhouse… I mean, wow… that makes the whole thing easier, right?

Yeah… it also makes the whole thing plagiarism… which is illegal. It won’t have you bunking with Lindsay Lohan… but it could ultimately cost you much more than it would have cost to just hire a pro in the first place.

You could always “copy and change…” or “swipe” as it’s called. But doing this right is difficult for most… a ton of hard work… and frankly, if you aren’t an expert at it, it’ll probably net you no sales, which would be a massive waste of time.

None of these things squeezes easily into the lazy S.O.B.’s lifestyle. This is why I came up with a real system that works every time.

Seriously…

It’s a way to quickly get started without all the wasted words and time. And that’s important because even for a professional writer…

The Scariest Sight Is The Blank Screen…

Starting a writing project is like trying to start an old car.

That carburetor hasn’t felt gasoline inside it for years. In fact, there’s nothing inside but dirt and cobwebs. You need to clean out the cobwebs… prime the pump…

Tap that gas pedal a few times… turn the key… pump some more.

And when that doesn’t work you spray a little starter fluid in there, and instantly spark that baby up… VRRROOOOOOM!

That’s what I’m going to give you right now…

My Patented Sales Letter Starter Fluid…

Look at your product front and back… upside down and right side up. Examine it from every angle. If this is an info-product, then read through your product from beginning to end, pulling out every important passage and saving them in a separate file. If this is a physical product, use it. Play with it. Discover it all over again.
From this examination, list the five main features of your product. These are features we’re talking about. Example: It is Wi-Fi enabled… It’ll help you potty train your kid… It’s got a color screen… List the five main ones. Yes… five is all you need.
Now take your five features and turn them into 20-30 (or more) benefits. Benefits are the answer to the question “And that means what to me?” For instance: It’s Wi-Fi enabled. And that means you’re free to connect to the web from any hotspot… you’re no longer tethered to your office… You can do more on the go than ever before. Those are three “benefits” of that one feature.
Now take all those benefits and, using combinations of the best ones, write up to 50 attention-getting headlines. You don’t have to use all of the benefits, and you can reuse the favorites or “main benefits” many times. Just make sure each headline features at least one major benefit.

What you end up with is a document that becomes the basis of your entire sales letter.

Your features will be repeated throughout the letter…

You’ll use every last benefit as either a bullet or in the body of your letter…

And you end up with a minimum of 3-5 good headlines you can use to split test against one another… And the other ones will make great subheads or be incorporated into the body of your letter.

No fuss… no muss… no waste…

There you have it: a super-simple way to get off your lazy butt and get writing.

Now… before I say goodbye – a confession.

I’m just kidding around with the whole lazy thing. I’m sure you’re neither lazy, nor an S.O.B. I’m just a guy who likes to have fun with words… Until next time, Stompers…

By Vin Montello

Vin is a former Hollywood television writer that brings his 20 years experience as a storyteller, to every direct response sales letter he writes. These days Vin’s responsible for crafting some of the most successful online marketing campaigns, and has earned the nickname “The Millionaire Maker.” Vin invites you to his wildly successful marketing blog at www.marketingclambake.com You can also learn more about him at www.montellomarketing.com

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Sales Letter Starter fluid

Study your product from new eyes
List 5 main features of the product
From those 5 features create 20 to 30 benefits
Combine the best benefits and create 50 headlines
Use this as your basis

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Outsource Live

If you weren’t able to get a ticket to join Brad Fallon in Orlando this weekend at Outsource Live, it’s too late, it is sold out. But don’t worry, you can stream the live event and catch all the great speakers and action from stage as if you were there… but from the comfort of your own home!

Check it out here!

Brad Fallon and Michael Taggart Webinar

Did you know that almost 50% of all searches performed are local type searches….and 91% convert into an eventual sale? Internet marketing is changing…. Last week, Brad Fallon and Michael Taggart did a webinar to get you on the right path. If you missed the live webinar, I pulled a few strings to get you a replay!

Access the replay here!

Next Week’s Focus: Page Ranking

“StomperNet Open Forum” Fridays at 11EDT

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.

Google + Amazon + YouTube + Facebook = Cha-ching!

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

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This Week In StomperNet – May 14, 2012

StomperNet — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:33:20 +0000

This week we are covering “Successful Selling.” Let’s face it; your business will not last if you can’t be successful at selling. While there is a big difference between a business that survives and a business that fails, there is also a big difference between a business that just squeaks by and a business that thrives.

Of course you want to be in the latter, having a thriving business that continues to grow over time is usually the goal. If this is your goal, then you want to learn more about the difference between just selling and successful selling that grows your business. Positive thinking alone is not going to make your business grow.

Successful selling involves using a number of techniques and testing of those techniques to see what works. If you pay attention to what your clients and customer desire, you can sell them what they want. However, you must create a product that matches their needs.

Yet, just having the product isn’t enough, you must then persuade them to buy the very product they said they wanted.

You may not like testing but it is vital to learning what works and what works even better. Another big key to successful selling is effective copywriting. Copywriting is one of those chores that many people don’t like but adding the techniques to all your pages can really make a difference.

These variables are perhaps the biggest difference between a business that just survives and one that thrives.

This week you may notice we have a variety of information below, but all of it was selected to help you create a “successful selling” model.

Talk soon and enjoy the resources below!

Ryan Taylor
Director of Operations
StomperNet, LLC

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Personal Touch for Business Growth

StomperNet — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:36:50 +0000

Sometimes as entrepreneurs we get so wrapped up in work that we forget to eat or sleep. Yet, our bodies will remind us before we go too long. Often, we also get so busy with work that we don’t interact with people as often as we should. Our bodies warn us of this as well, but we don’t recognize it as easily as the growling stomach or nodding off at the computer.

This interaction is what makes the difference between a good business and a great business. Look at the airlines that have carefully avoided the bankruptcies (some better than others). But you’ll notice some pride themselves in the way they communicate with their customers. It’s not just that they inform their customers, but that they interact, they share… they are themselves.

Some airlines have pilots and flight attendants that share jokes or rap the safety measures. They allow for personal touches that allow people to feel more connected with the staff and therefore with the company.

Some entrepreneurs gladly show pictures of their children. Others show their children from the back or keep their children’s faces hidden but recite personal stories. Either way, that showing and relating of real life allows people to connect to you. And that connection helps grow their business.

Today Erik Stafford is going to explain this in further detail and how he interacts and communicates.

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“The NBA (National Basketball Association) is never just a business. It’s always business. It’s always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal.”

~ Mark Cuban ~
Entrepreneur, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks

Personal Touch for Business Growth

By Erik Stafford

Many of you readers are already active with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or any number of other awesome social media communities.

I love these websites because they help break down the barriers between business and customer. This leads to a more personal relationship…which leads to more sales!

Did you know, for example, that you can follow the CEO’s of Virgin (@richardbranson) Google (@ericschmidt) and Zappos (@zappos) on Twitter?

I thought I would share some tips for adding a little personalization to your marketing. Your audience will love you for it… And you will love what it does to your sales numbers!

Here are three ways you can build a closer, more personal bond with your prospects and customers:

1. VIDEO

Too many people “hide” behind the Internet. By adding some engaging video to your websites, sales pages, thank you pages, etc. etc., you can instantly boost your credibility by giving people an inside look at your life – or your business.

And your audience will eat it up.

If you are selling digital products, test a sales video against your traditional long copy sales letter. If you are doing ecommerce, try adding a “personal message from the president of the company” video to the homepage.

Or perhaps add a “thank you” video to the order verification page.

People love video for the same reason they watch reality television: Everyone is a voyeur at heart, and we all want a little peek into someone else’s life once in a while. I use a lot of video in my Auto-Responder followup sequences to share a bit of information about myself and let people know I am a real, everyday person.

This “personal touch,” combined with user commenting (more on that a little later), has amped my conversions through the roof.

Remember to keep it fun! Watch a video of me with my kids, playing Guitar Hero at www.thefasterwebmaster.com/rockstar.

Make sure to keep your audience in mind.

For example: If you are selling the fact that working from home is liberating, and plan on talking about how much freedom you have in your life… for goodness sakes, don’t shoot a dark video in your bedroom “office” with the blinds closed!

Go outside and show some actual freedom! Record your video in the park!

2. COMMENTS

One of the smartest things you can do is make your prospects and customers part of your conversation. It’s super-simple to make happen, thanks to the Internet.

You can easily add commenting to your website pages and watch the feedback roll in!

Let’s face it, people love to feel like they are being included…

And by allowing them the ability to share their thoughts – you are essentially allowing your audience to take part-ownership in your brand, and have some “skin in the game” in regards to your business.

Your customers will feel like a part of your business, and will appreciate the opportunity!

More importantly, they will see that you really care to hear from them, take their feedback to heart, and use it to offer them the best experience possible.

3. SURVEY YOUR PEOPLE!

This is REALLY important, and yet most new coaching students I take into my coaching program have never surveyed their prospects or customers. Believe me: If you just ask them, they will be happy to provide input and tell you what you want to know!

Use a service like Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) to create some basic surveys. Survey Monkey offers a free, “beginner” account that you can upgrade to a full account when you need to.

Questions for prospects could include:

How much time do you spend on your computer per week? How often do you make purchases online? Are you male or female? Do you have children? What is your average salary? (This will provide you with critical demographic information.)
How did you find our website? (This will provide you with excellent information on which traffic strategies are working best for you.)
Which service/product of ours interests you the most? Which section of our website do you like the most? (This will provide you with good insights into how to structure your website for maximum conversions.)

Questions for customers could include:

How can we improve our website? How can we improve our ordering process? (This will provide you with great feedback you can use to improve your conversions.)
How can we improve our customer service? (This one speaks for itself!)
Would you be interested in SERVICE X or PRODUCT X if we decided to make it available? (This will let you know what your existing customers are likely to buy next! All you have to do is figure out a way to offer it to them!)

Make it easy for prospects and customers to send feedback. Include email links, mailing addresses, and 800 numbers in all your emails, and purchase receipts.

If you can (and when it’s appropriate), offer rewards for the constructive feedback you receive. For example, if you implement a customer’s suggestion feature, you could reward those customers with a 5% discount on their next purchase.

Your customers can and WILL tell you what you need to know.

If your ecommerce service provides information about incomplete purchases, look at those statistics and watch for trends as well.

Listen!

These three steps aren’t worth a hill of beans unless you actually listen to what your audience is saying – and take action on it.

So be smart, track your responses, and take action on the winning suggestions.

You will create a better experience for your visitors and add to your bottom line at the same time!

By Erik Stafford

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Secret Sauce Checklist

How to add personal touch for business growth

Video
Make sure to keep your audience in mind.
Comments
Survey your people
Your customers can and WILL tell you what you need to know.
Listen!

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Successful Selling

“StomperNet Open Forum” Fridays at 11EDT

Google + Amazon + YouTube + Facebook = Cha-ching!

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

Post Your Comments Here

Stompernet Blog

This Week In StomperNet – May 7, 2012

StomperNet — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:04:11 +0000

This week our topic is “Personal Touch for Smart Business Growth.” You probably think with all the social media that “personal touch” is all over the place. Well, it is… at least much more than in the past few years… which is why adding your personal touch to your business is so important.

Social media has brought to forefront how people are living lives behind computers, separated by cubicle walls and busy schedules. When people reach out, they want to establish a connection to people and the businesses they choose.

It is natural after all. Just a few generations ago the only way people did business was with someone they knew. Cities were smaller, highways didn’t exist, people still rode horses and did business only within a few miles of home, which meant buying from neighbors and from those they knew. Face to face communication has existed for thousands of years; it’s only within the past decades that the personal touch has been reduced.

Thus, the best way to build that face to face and personal interaction is to create it. Creating your own personal spin and flair on your business will make your business stand out amongst similar businesses. It adds an element that may drive some people away but for others it will create a connection to you and your business. These are the people that become “loyal customers.”

The loyal customer is the one who will keep coming back when you offer new products. They are the ones who recommend your business to friends and family. Your business grows just by sharing and connecting with your customers.

Talk soon and enjoy the resources below!

Ryan Taylor
Director of Operations
StomperNet, LLC

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Money in Membership

StomperNet — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:07:50 +0000

The membership model has become a popular and profitable business model. The combination of minimal start-up effort and maximum cost-effectiveness makes it a winning success. You can even build the site while profiting from it by adding content while you create it.

Think of membership sites like a class. When you join Taekwondo you don’t get all the lessons at once. You get a lesson each week. The lessons build on each other. As long as you keep the lessons ahead of the class, then you have enough content. You can keep creating content after that or stop after a certain time or after reaching a certain goal.

New students will always start at the beginning, but you only have to build your site and information once. You could spend 6 months creating your membership site and earn from it for years. And you can always hire experts or outsource some of the work to help free up additional time.

The question you may have now is what type of site will work? Fortunately Anne Holland explains today how to find the type information people will want on a membership website and where to find that information.

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, that you miss the right opportunity.”

~ Michael Dell ~
Entrepreneur, Founder of Dell Inc

Money in Membership

By Anne Holland

I just spent the last six months researching the real numbers behind membership sites. 389 real-life site owners and marketers revealed their private stats to me and my research team. Plus, we carefully studied an additional 550 membership sites to determine trends in pricing, site design, even how successful their search marketing was (not very – I’ll come to how that may help you in a minute).

The truth, we discovered, is that 17% of membership and subscription sites today make more than $1 million in profits (that’s profits – not revenues) per year. Even more membership sites are in what I’d call the “prosperous middle class”. They reap solid six-figure profits year in, year out. Many of these are what you might call mom-and-pop operations with just a handful of employees – some are even sole proprietors.

DO YOU PUBLISH AN EXISTING EBOOK?

Ebooks are a great market research tool – and initial building block – to start a membership site business. If you already publish a successful eBook, or you have an idea for one, a membership site could help you turn one-time buyers into ongoing customers who buy from you again and again.

Plus, as you get to know your customers better through membership forums and surveys, you’ll come up with more and more ideas for other eBooks or membership content for this market. Your customers will tell you what they want.

I have actual experience in this – back when I started MarketingSherpa, first I sold archived stories on my site for $5-9 a pop. Then I looked over the stats on which stories sold the most, and invented my first bestselling book. We made more than a million dollars with that book, which sold in PDF and print, on our site alone. Finally, I surveyed all the book buyers and asked them what they’d like from a membership offering, built it, and started selling millions in memberships as well.

So, a single eBook can lead naturally and organically to an ongoing membership business. Your first three steps to considering a launch would be:

#1 Survey Your List

You’ve got a huge leg up on any other launch because you already own a list of people who pay for content in this topic. That list will convert better than any other.

Split the list into two parts – people who bought within the last 90 days and older accounts. (Older accounts respond very differently to questions because they may have changed interests or passion-level since you sold to them.) Send them both a survey.

You can offer a free eBook or article to get more survey responses if you’d like to. Your goal is to get enough answers to be statistically conclusive – at least 100 answers at minimum. Don’t ask “how much would you pay?” (Nobody can or will give a true answer to that), but rather ask “what do you really, really care about?” You are trying to find burning passions, urgent unanswered questions, and sincere pain-points.

This line of questioning will tell you which content to develop first and how to copywrite your new site’s marketing so it really appeals to people. You can also judge a general do-people-really-care level of current interest about your topic. Topics have lifecycles, you know.

#2. Review potential new traffic sources.

After you convert your past-buyer list, you’ll need a steady stream of new traffic to continue getting subscribers. This is not just important for added sales, but to replenish the coffers when older accounts invariably drop off. (No matter how popular your service is, every month some people will leave because they’ve changed their life in some essential way – perhaps they have a new hobby, a new job, etc.)

Your past experience selling eBooks will be a big help because you can look at traffic and sales trends over time. Are trends steady? Are they going up?

Membership sites do best with repeat, passionate visitors, so although Google and other search engines are important traffic sources, you’ll do best of all with traffic sources of people who are already heavily involved in your topic. Those may be other membership sites (your competitor can be your best marketing partner), related eBook publishers, registered users of relevant sites, association members, social networking groups, etc.

I would not advise launching a membership site in a topical niche that doesn’t have any of those established traffic sources, unless the topic is so very, very cutting edge that nobody else exists yet – aside from a few bloggers.

#3. Brainstorm your content transition.

If it’s been a while since you wrote your eBook, you’ve probably forgotten some of what’s in it. Take an afternoon to review your content and then to brainstorm – based on survey respondents of course – ideas for content that flows directly from it. Adding community or message forums to an eBook and calling it a membership site is not enough. Some potential areas for content:

Instructional videos
Downloadable checklists, worksheets, files, and forms
Online calculators and “see how you stack up” quizzes
Relevant software and apps
Unusually truthful and useful buyer’s reviews
A coaching component
Members-only virtual events such as webinars with guest stars
Special PDF reports on micro-niche topics
Discount coupons for brand name products (consider AARP’s discounts)

ARE YOU A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT? (OR DO YOU KNOW ONE?)

The great thing about membership sites is that any subject matter expert can start one.

We researched 550 membership and subscription sites (in the course of our research for the Benchmark Report) and discovered the range of topics was astonishing. There are profitable membership sites on personal investing, on embroidery, on weight lifting… there’s even a membership site called BouncyCastleOwner.com! If you are an expert in a topic you may be the perfect person to start a membership site about it.

Another option is to license the online rights to produce a membership site for a subject matter expert that you know. This can range from turning someone else’s eBook into a membership site to actually “ghostwriting” a membership site for them. You function as the Web operations and marketing expert, while they act as the “voice” of the site.

By Anne Holland

Anne Holland is the publisher of SubscriptionSiteInsider.com. You can get a copy of her research team’s Subscription & Membership Site Benchmark Report featuring 185 charts and tables of real-life data available.

STOMPER Speed Boost

StomperNet SEO Services

You’ve been asking for it. Here it is.

Click here to learn about our new Local SEO Services!

Secret Sauce Checklist

Content Creation Tips for Membership Site Success

Use an Existing eBook
Survey Your List
Review potential new traffic sources
Brainstorm how to offer content for your members
Look for an expert

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Personal Touches

“StomperNet Open Forum” Fridays at 11EDT

Google + Amazon + YouTube + Facebook = Cha-ching!

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

Post Your Comments Here

Stompernet Blog

This Week In StomperNet – April 30, 2012

StomperNet — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:08:34 +0000

The topic this week is “Membership Sites.” Besides gaining the knowledge from joining a membership site, people in general just like to belong to a club. It’s part of belonging and part of sharing something in common.

Also, people enjoy being around like minded people. This is why car clubs, hobby train clubs, Lion’s Club and many other organizations are so popular. People often shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to be part of these organizations.

As an online entrepreneur, you can capitalize on this for your business success. And you don’t really have to worry about physical overhead by creating a website. You can sell information and you can allow like-minded people to communicate together. You allow people to join their passion and it will help you establish regular income.

The biggest advantage of membership websites is that you earn income like clockwork, month after month, year after year. It is recurring.

Once you have a good base of clients, you don’t have to always focus on getting new customers because like you do with one-time sales. Yes, you will lose some members as their needs change, but it is much easier adding a few new members than always working on the next sale.

As great as it sounds, you probably still have questions. This week will provide many forms of information about Membership websites and how you can succeed.

Talk soon and enjoy the resources below!

Ryan Taylor
Director of Operations
StomperNet, LLC

Everyone wants more time in their day.

StomperNet’s new “Done for You” SEO Services gives you more time to focus on things other than SEO.

Imagine a WHOLE team of SEO Experts at your disposal!

Click here and get StomperNet SEO Services

You know your website wants our SEO!

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WP Membership Plugin

New Media

Google Updates: Renee Corbett

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SEO Tips For Web Pages

StomperNet — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:22:10 +0000

On Monday, Ryan discussed how SEO is the foundation on which to build all your other marketing. It is also similar to the recycle logo with the three arrows chasing each other. Thus using Social Media, helps your SEO and SEO helps your social, same with mobile, local, content creation and all the rest.

They flow into each other for further growth which builds your success. But they can only flow when you have that strong foundation of SEO. This is why maximizing your SEO is so vital to the success of your business visibility and influence.

There are those who promote quick boosts in the SERPs, the Search Engine Results Pages. While they give a quick ranking, it could destroy your reputation, future rankings and cost your site in the long run. Using legitimate SEO techniques is; therefore, the key to maximizing your SEO for business success.

Building your business is not a single step process… nor is SEO. Our company has worked with leading SEO experts for years and is why we offer our services if SEO is not your thing. Yet, whether you choose to do your own SEO or hire it out, understanding SEO is important, which is why we also continually bring you content about SEO.

Today Michelle offers additional information to help with your business success and SEO.

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“Make no mistake, at the end of the day SEO is an art, one informed by science, experience, and a healthy dose of trial and error.

~ John Battelle ~
Entrepreneur, Author and Journalist

SEO Tips For Web Pages

By Michelle Chance-Sangthong

The art of Search Engine Optimization hasn’t evolved as much as everyone wants to believe. Yes, algorithms are updated and many sites feel a pinch when they do, but the core SEO strategies still hold true.

Don’t misunderstand: there are many different tactics and methods for getting links, using web 2.0 properties, article marketing and the like, but ultimately, when you’re looking at on site search engine optimization, you have to begin with the basics!

Content

Consider the rule of at least 200 words, but probably not more than 500 or so words. People just won’t keep reading past a minute or two. If you find that the topic is worthy of 1,500 or more words, split it up into separate topics or a series of articles. Also, this content on your own site should be unique. Do not use duplicate content that you’ve placed on another site!

I am not theorizing over a duplicate content penalty. The search engines will simply rank the best page of duplicate content, and simply exclude the others to provide the BEST results to users. So if your information is unique, you increase your chances of ranking!

Content should always be:

Laser Focused
Between 200 – 500 words
Distinguished as indexable
Unique (and never duplicated) content

Popularity:

The idea of popularity has been debated on again and again, but consider this idea, especially with personalized search: Google (and others) know which links are clicked, and can determine when a link is clicked and how quickly the back button is pushed.

Longer stays could indicate that the page served IS providing a keyword content match to the searched phrase, where as a quick back button clicks could indicate that the page is not providing the best “match” for the keywords. Over time, it would feasible for the search engines to “improve” the listings based on the sites that folks tend to stay on and “reduce” the listings that get quick back clicks.

Debated – But Makes Sense
Quick Click Backs May Hurt
Click Throughs Help
Personalized Search Changed Things

Reputation:

Consider the reputation of your site, as well. The server it lives on, the markets it serves, etc. A random article about gun holsters on a website about prom makeup doesn’t really make much sense. If you are guest posting or accepting guest posts, they should blend in with your site. If you’re not sure of your site’s “category”, take a look at DMOZ.org for some indicators!

Market Matching
Vertical Reputation
Think DMOZ Categories

Now for some final tips… Get your site listed in the BIG directories like DMOZ, Yahoo and others. It’s simply that important!

Important Tips About Links:

Want more links? Write great content, amazing information and compelling content. Users will naturally want to link to your information!

Use SEO-friendly press releases. Tip: Make sure you have your most important keyword phrase linked in the first paragraph. Sites like http://onlineprnews.com have made it incredibly affordable.

Writing Articles. It’s a great way to build your own reputation and get your information shared across the web when other websites syndicate those articles. As a reminder: don’t recycle the same article on your own sites that you submit to the article directories.

Blog Comments. Many are NO FOLLOW. That really is not as important, so use blog comments to engage and create an opportunity to attract actual human visitors to your website.

Links. It bears repeating: enough quality links with relevant keyword-rich anchor text can solve just about any ranking problem.

Relevance. Be relevant, not random!

Anchor Text. Don’t use phrases like CLICK HERE to see the latest gear. You don’t want your page to rank for CLICK HERE … you want it to rank for your keywords – use them.

Try for BIG Directories like DMOZ, Yahoo, etc.
Link Bait – Natural Links
Press Releases
Articles
Blog Comments
Links can overcome many obstacles
Relevance
Anchor Text Matters

More on getting back links. Make your linking campaigns natural, and use an appropriate mix of back link anchor text. Make sure the name you use at the top of your site includes the keywords for which you want links – as many folks will link based on those words. Do not get links for yourself with your domain name only – if you can help it- because sometimes anchor text isn’t possible on some websites. Don’t get too many links, too fast. If you have more links than you’ve had visitors to your site, it really doesn’t make mathematical sense, does it?

Finally, if you have to choose between 100 poor links from 100 random places or 10 great ones, I would pick the 10 great links first. Consider:

Natural, mix of words
Site Name
Not www.thisismysite.com
Not TOO MANY, TOO FAST
DEBATABLE
10 from 10 great sources over 100 junk links

Search engine optimization is not about impressing the search engines; it is about getting your website in front of users, making your listing click worthy, and then using the right information on your site to help them make an informed decision to do business with you. Follow these proven tips, and you can’t go wrong! Good luck!

By Michelle Chance-Sangthong

Michelle 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

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SEO Tips for Your Web Page Success

Content

Laser Focused
Between 200 – 500 words
Distinguished as indexable
Unique (and never duplicated) content

Popularity

Debated – But Makes Sense
Quick Click Backs May Hurt
Click Throughs Help
Personalized Search Changed Things

Reputation

Market Matching

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Membership Sites

“StomperNet Open Forum” Fridays at 11EDT

Google + Amazon + YouTube + Facebook = Cha-ching!

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

Post Your Comments Here

Stompernet Blog

This Week In StomperNet – April 23, 2012

StomperNet — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:00:07 +0000

This week the topic is “Maximizing Your SEO.” Increasing visibility for your business is extremely important. This requires multiple aspects, such as the social media that we discussed last week, or marketing, but in many ways they all come back to SEO.

Just like branding should be the foundation of your business, Search Engine Optimization is the foundation on which all other marketing is built.

SEO can be used on each of your social media profiles. Creating a keyword and SEO friendly description means that each time someone tags your page it pulls terms that are related to your business. The link is tagged with keywords, which in turn, promotes your visibility even more.

Creating content just for search engines creates a high bounce rate, which isn’t Search Engine Friendly. However, creating content that gets people sharing it, benefits you in both Social Media and SEO. Each quality page is one more page search engines find and can reference your site.

Building links just to build links can really hurt your business. Once again, you need to use smart SEO tactics that help build links that Search Engines and customers prefer.

The same rules apply to local SEO. Your local listing without SEO will not bring in the right people if anyone at all. To make your local marketing successful, you not only need the appropriate keywords and content but a Search Engine friendly site to match.

Done correctly, SEO will benefit all areas of your marketing for greater success.

Talk soon and enjoy the resources below!

Ryan Taylor
Director of Operations
StomperNet, LLC

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5 Easy Steps to Social Media Marketing Success

StomperNet — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:26:37 +0000

While you may think that social media is a fairly recent form of marketing, truth is social marketing has been around a long time. For a simple case study, think about Animal Crackers.

You have known about them since you were little. If you didn’t have them, you saw other children with them. Children would excitedly tell each other about the animal shaped crackers. Even if you didn’t see the crackers or know what they were, seeing someone with the fun circus type box would be enough to cause excitement.

Their biggest advertisement has always been word of mouth and popular appeal. This is the same format that enabled Star Wars to hyperdrive into movie history. This was social marketing before the Internet derived and was mainly based on word of mouth and general conversation.

Conversations about movies, good food and similar things are all about selling… but without sales pitches, advertising, or other conventional methods. It is about selling friends and family on the same things you like. This is what so many businesses are missing. They are missing the understanding that when you try to blatantly sell on social media, you are actually driving away your potential clients.

Adam Stonehocker is going to explain this concept in further detail with his article today.

Read the StomperTip and learn more!

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

“Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.”

~ Seth Godin ~
Entrepreneur, author and public speaker

5 Easy Steps to Social Media Marketing Success

By Adam Stonehocker

We all know that platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter can be extreme time-wasters if used incorrectly, and many business owners have avoided social networking sites like the plague.

But what if a business owner could harness the power of these networks to help grow their business?

The fact is every business owner should be using social media to market their business in some way or another. We’ve seen the world’s top brands start to take advantage of social media in big ways, but they no doubt have hired an expert that understands the concepts and theory behind using these new and innovative marketing tools. What about the average business owner?

By the end of this article, you’ll be able to use social media effectively in your marketing efforts in only 20 minutes a day. If you’re not convinced that you or your company should leverage social media to grow your business, let me give you some facts. Besides being the latest blockbuster, Facebook has over 500 million users and controls over 1/3 of all Internet traffic.

What does that mean to you?

Your customers are on Facebook, using it every day. It’s a platform that allows you to connect with your current customers and reach out to new ones, build a raving fan base, do market research and grow your business. It’s extremely powerful, if used correctly, and here’s the best part… It’s FREE!

What about Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn?

Every social media network has a different purpose, attracts a different demographic and can be ridiculously profitable. It’s 2011- if you’re not marketing with social media, your competition is, and you are leaving money on the table. So how do you get started?

There is one crucial thing that any business owner should know before they even set up their first account with any social media platform: The difference between the hunter and the farmer.

Traditional marketing like Google or a phone book (who even uses those anymore?) are the methods of a hunter. When I type a search into Google to find a local plumber, I am proactively seeking out a service. I see the ads in Google or the organic search results, I click, I call, and I get a price and perhaps hire the company. In other words, the company, like the hunter, lured me in, snared me, and caught me as a customer.

Social media marketing is better explained using the farming metaphor. Facebook ads, Tweets, and LinkedIn updates, like farming, require planting seeds, cultivates and growing crops with good content and interaction, then reaping the harvest.

Keeping this one principle in mind will guarantee your success with social media marketing. It’s important to remember that people aren’t using social media platforms to sell their products or services. They are coming to interact with friends, share some photos, play some games and simply socialize.

Trying to directly sell on social media platforms will be disastrous.

Another important factor when you decide to start marketing your business with social media is to pick the very best platforms. There are so many social media sites out there now that you could very well spend all day simply updating your status on all of them.

My advice is to stick to the 4 big players.

That is #1 Facebook, #2 Twitter, #3 YouTube and #4 LinkedIn. Myspace, Flickr and Digg are worthy causes, but you’ll get the most bang for your buck from the fab four.

Facebook is by far the most powerful social media platform. So if you only have time to manage one social media account, Facebook should be the account. Plus you can hook all of your other social media accounts into one Facebook business page. Update your Facebook status and send a tweet at the same time by linking your accounts at facebook.com/twitter. Embed videos from YouTube using the “Posted Items Pro” application, and put your LinkedIn profile in a tab using the LinkedIn application. Bottom line: your Facebook business page should be your central hub for all your social media marketing efforts. So let’s get you started with 5 easy steps to social media success:

Step 1 Creating a business page

Make sure you sign your business up as a business page, not an actual person. This goes for all platforms, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and especially Facebook. In fact, Facebook has been known to shut down personal profiles that were simply business pages without warning or notice. Facebook has made it clear that they want you performing business from a business page and have actually built a lot of cool functionalities into business pages that personal pages just don’t get.

Step 2 Profiling your business

Fill out all the information you can on your profile and business page. This includes hours of operation, procedures and policies, uploading photos and so on. Make sure you tell your customers and potential customer what you do and why you do it better!

If you have photos of your store or staff, put them up on the page. Social media gives businesses a chance to have personal interaction with customers in a way that has never been possible before. Take advantage of it!

Step 3 Start getting fans

Invite your friends and family, and current and past customers to “like” your business page or follow you on Twitter. If you have a current e-mail list, let them know that you’d love to have them join you online.

Start inviting people to join you with links from your e-mail signature or on printed advertising, or even on any video you are currently doing. The point is to build your fan base as quickly as possible. Make sure that you incentivize users to follow you with special discounts or access to great information.

Give users a reason to follow you.

What about a free appetizer coupon with a purchase of an entree? There are a million different things you can do to help grow your fan base. Still stumped? What’s your competition doing?

Step 4 Posting content

Now that you have fans, you need to keep them coming back! If a fan comes to your Facebook business page and sees that it hasn’t been updated for a month, they most likely won’t come back. At least not regularly, like you want them to. Your fans need to be fed. Same thing with Twitter, LinkedIn or any social media site. Your page needs to be updated regularly with posts, photos, videos and articles. I know this may sound like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. All of this can be accomplished in no more than 20 minutes a day.

Tip: You don’t always need to provide content that you’ve written. Simply post an article to news on the housing industry (if you’re a realtor), or ask a question about your fan’s favorite ice cream flavor (if you own an ice cream parlor). The point here is to get the interaction going on your site. Once fans start interacting on your site, that’s when they start coming back again and again to see what’s new.

As long as you stay in front of them, it’s you they’re thinking of the next time they’re in the market for a new home or have a craving for mint chocolate chip. The same principles apply for any social media site. A tool I love to use that helps me get more done every day is called HootSuite. You can find it at hootsuite.com. Hootsuite is free and allows you to update your status for multiple social media sites.

You can even schedule when you want the update to post to the site. Hop on to Hootsuite for 10 minutes in the morning and post all of your updates for the entire day or week!

Step 5 Profit from your efforts!

This is the most exciting step and one that is crucial not to leave out. Once you have a fan base, whether its 10 people or 10,000 people, promote your products or services. This is where you make your fans feel special. Offer fans special discounts and promotions that only Facebook fans or Twitter followers are privileged to.

What about a special after-hours sale on all the hottest new fashions for fall?

There is a very fine line when you start to promote your business using social media. Make sure that you don’t do it too often or you’ll turn users off. I like to keep to the 80/20 rule. 80% good content and interaction, 20% selling and promotion.

If you try to keep the same balance, you’ll find that you’ll build a great customer base that is excited to interact with you and feels like they benefit from that interaction in a number of different ways. Remember the farmer and the hunter. Social media is all about planting, cultivating, growing your network and then reaping the benefits.

By Adam Stonehocker

Adam of ClaimTheWeb.com is a native of Boise Idaho and a graduate in Business Marketing from the Weber State Goddard School of Business in Ogden, Utah, Adam has been helping businesses grow through online marketing efforts for over 5 years.

He is the co-founder of Social-Networking-Profts.com, a marketing firm in Ogden, Utah specializing in custom landing pages for Social Media sites.

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Tips for Social Media Marketing Success

Don’t try to sell on Social Media
Don’t be overwhelmed, limit yourself to the big 4
Create a business Page
Complete all aspects of your business profile
Get Fans by Inviting people to join
Post Content regularly
Offer discounts via Social Media to start earning profits

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Maximizing SEO

“StomperNet Open Forum” Fridays at 11EDT

Google + Amazon + YouTube + Facebook = Cha-ching!

Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.

Post Your Comments Here

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This Week In StomperNet – April 16, 2012

StomperNet — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:43:01 +0000

The focus this week is “Making Social Media Work for your Business Success.” If you are already using social media, that is good. It is part of what you need to get your business in front of your market, but making social media work for your business success is even better.

Making social media work for your business requires information from some of our previous articles. It requires knowing your brand so you, your social media staff, and others can effectively communicate your message in 140 characters or less. It requires knowing and understanding your audience so you can relate to them and listen to what they need.

But DON’T forget your website. You want people to visit your website; this requires a website with an excellent call to action and SEO. Yes, Search Engine Optimization is required even with Social Media. SEO means your site is set up to reduce bounce rate, engage the user, and provide valuable information based on searches.

If someone searches for “Frog Collars” and your site shows on the search engine, the linking page better be about “Frog Collars”. This makes it congruent with the search results which will increase your sales. Also, having the page set up to be easily shared by visitors on their favorite social media outlets will also help increase sales.

Making Social Media Work for Your Business Success is a matter of planning and implementing better business policies. You can use this cost effective media to create new networks that grow your business in multiple ways.

Talk soon and enjoy the resources below!

Ryan Taylor
Director of Operations
StomperNet, LLC

Everyone wants more time in their day.

StomperNet’s new “Done for You” SEO Services gives you more time to focus on things other than SEO.

Imagine a WHOLE team of SEO Experts at your disposal!

Click here and get StomperNet SEO Services

You know your website wants our SEO!

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List of Social Media Tools

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Link Building Post Panda: Renee Corbett

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