There are many differing opinions on the best way to create a website. However, when it comes to creating a website that actually sells, your choices become much more limited. Why? If you want a website that sells, you must follow proven principles from sales and marketing.

But the first step is to become crystal clear on what you want.

What is your primary outcome? Are you building your list? Are you providing content to interact with your prospects/customers? Are you selling a product or generating a lead?

Only when you know exactly what you are trying to accomplish, will you be able to achieve that.

Model Your Website After This Proven Method

A great selling website starts with great copy. But that’s only the beginning. Great copy alone won’t do it.

Advertising takes many different forms: websites, sales letters, brochures, video scripts, and many more. What do all successful sales promotions have in common?

They are modeled after a proven advertising method. That translates to the particular media being used. What do websites that sell have in common? They model successful marketing strategies and copywriting in the offline world.

Why dírect marketing and not something else? Dírect marketing is measurable. And the Internet (as a type of media) is closest to this type of marketing than anything else. Finally, this type of marketing is based on response, not awareness or image creation. Its primary goal is to make a sale.

Why Your Offer Is Most Important

Besides the copy there are two other important considerations in writing a website that sells. First is your offér. While many place huge emphasis on the headline, it’s the creation of a compelling, irresistible proposition that is most important.

Why? Without an offer with all the right ingredients everything else can be right, but you won’t make many sales. Sure a captivating headline is critical to draw the reader in. However, you can take them all the way from the headline and opening, through the body copy, to the close. And if the proposition doesn’t make it, they still won’t respond.

The offer has to do with packaging what you provide directly with what your target market wants and desires.

Without The Right Strategy, Great Copy Is Useless

The final component of a great selling website is strategy. This is why it’s so important to know your outcome, before you begin. If your main goal is lead generation, to build a list you’ll want to create a lead capture page for your website.

If on the other hand your website page is selling a product, then you’ll want to create a landing page. A landing page is the marketing equivalent of a mail promo. The main feature is the sales letter, but there are many other structural and design elements that work together to make the sale. A landing page may include testimonials, an about the author box, and other information to help make a buying decision.

There are many other considerations when discussing strategy. But these are a few of the most important.

Notice I still have not discussed copy much. There are many that speak of the copy, like the Holy Grail. It’s not. It is exciting to see the possibilities of transforming really bad copy into great copy. However, it is ultimately not the most important thing. That’s why so often online marketers wonder why they got zero response. Stop blaming the copy, and look at the bigger picture. Even bad copy will usually get some response if everything else is right.

Having the right match between your target market, your offer, and strategy will get you pointed in the right direction.

What Makes Great Copy That Sells

As far as writing good copy? The biggest mistakes that I see being constantly made: Lack of clear communication. Copywriters who just don’t have a grasp of clarity in their writing. What you say is more important than how you say it, with one exception. When what you say is confusing or conveys the wrong message.

The second major blunder I see is going to extremes. Either by screaming out an over-hyped sales message like a late-night television infomercial. Or the boring opposite: fear of creating a really hard selling message and erring on the side of too careful. This is where most corporate copy falls short.

The power comes right in the middle. Hard selling copy, that’s interesting without being unbelievable. Proving every claim you make. Drawing the reader into an emotionally irresistible web of desire. Not stopping until you ask for the sale at the end.

Finally, the last major copywriting mistake I see is writers going off on a tangent. Failing to stay zeroed in on the sales message like a laser. Every time you go off track there’s a good chance you’ll lose the reader.

That’s why it’s so important to have rhythm to your copy: A natural cadence of short and long sentences. The best way to achieve this is by writing out great copy by hand. To ensure your copy has a good rhythm be sure to read it out loud. That will easily expose any rough spots.

When you have this rhythm, write in the language of your prospect, and write clearly with compelling copy…then you will motivate the reader to act.

Even the best-run business is guilty of starving the media of good usable content for use by the press. When you have a small team with enormous time constraints, the problem is even worse. Just how do you let the world know how good you are?

PR is an absolute boon for small businesses; it is much more effective than pure advertising and the big bonus is – it’s free! Free in terms of cost, but not in effort.

Developing a PR strategy takes time, effort, clarity of purpose, and an amount of doggedness on the part of the company, but for the majority of companies, time is a really precious commodity that is ‘best devoted to churning out the finished product, project or service.’

Most companies have newsworthy events, things that they could really bang the drum about – if only they had the time and the resources. Lately there has been a solution to this appearing on really well thought-out websites; the virtual Press Office.

What is a Virtual Press Office? The Virtual Press Office is a dedicated page or pages on your website, where you can place information about your organization or industry for use by journalists who may want to create stories, articles or features for their publications. These are also referred to as online media or press centers. In these dedicated areas you will find a host of useful background information about the company, including archived releases, fact sheets, case studies, contact details for the company spokesman, hi-resolution image downloads – in fact, anything that will make life easier for the journalist researching either your company or your industry in general.

While your website might already carry the information in its various pages, why not make life easier for the journalists or researchers by holding specific, relevant information on dedicated media pages?

How useful this actually might be was brought home to us when one of our clients, Drilcorp, a Specialist Drilling Contractor in the UK, suddenly found news articles appearing in one of their industry international journals.

It was obvious from the content that these articles had been lifted directly from their news pages and as their web development and marketing team we realized the potential of having a dedicated area where the media could access and download relevant releases and high quality imagery relating to the news story of the day.

Plus, having a company spokesman’s details on the site also has the potential for additional expansion on the stories. In addition, lifting pictures from a website and then using them in print media produces really poor quality final images, so the benefit of having high-resolution images to accompany the articles is a much higher quality printed article; better for both the journalist and the source company.

To ensure that the news stories hit the right desks, we are also setting up an RSS feed for journos to subscribe to so that when we upload the news, it is pinged right to their RSS feeds.

If you are unfamiliar with RSS feeds, here is a brief overview of how they work: RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication.’ It is a system that automatically ‘pulls’ web pages from a website and displays them on the RSS subscriber’s PC (or Mac!) desktop. It is like subscribing to receive information directly from a website – except, unlike a website which you have to visit, the information from the web page is delivered direct to you. And unlike emails, the recipient decides if they want to receive this information.

How to Develop an Effective Virtual Press Office

The key here is the acronym KISS. (Keep It Simple Stupid) – Put your most relevant and important content in this area, but don’t overload it with everything you have.

– Update it frequently and encourage further contact from the press.

– Always have a spokesman ready with a prepared statement that reflects company policy.

– Make sure that the spokesman is well briefed on what not to say as well as what to comment on.

– Put case studies and photography in here – you would be surprised at how much the press really love unique content, and on this note ensure that the photography is at or at least near to professional standard.

– If you find that you are answering the same question time and time again, compile these questions and answers into a FAQ section or even create a mini ‘White Papers’ for use as reference documents by the press.

This will establish your reputation as the authority for the industry and your articles and opinions will be highly sought after.

– Request notification of any articles that may be published by the participating media; it is cheaper than using a ‘clipping service’ – a paid for service that searches for and collects media mentions about your organization and sends them to you.

As your website is often the first point of contact for your organization, it is worth investing the time to keep it as fresh as possible and as useful as possible. It will repay you many times over and really create a great relationship with the media.

Author: James McRoy

Looking at the latest search marketing conference agendas, articles, and online news in the SEM space, it certainly appears that social media marketing and networking are the wave of the future.

To a certain extent, they are.

Social media, and social networking in particular, create a back-and-forth conversation with your target audience, so you can virally market your website through the “buzz” that can be created. When something interesting, cool, or unique is being talked about in “all the right places,” it can certainly provide a boost in website traffic.

We search marketers tend to hang out in numerous online and offline communities where it’s easy to promote our own products and services, yet I can’t help wondering if our view of Web marketing is skewed because of this.

Are potential B2B clients and even B2C customers spending time at Digg? Do they attend SEM conferences in order to hire a company, or are they just trying to learn to do it themselves? And what about other industries? Is there a Sphinn equivalent for developers of product lifecycle management software? Are there groups of people online comparing the various brands of auto parts? Are there really people seeking out articles on these topics?

Perhaps.

And if so, we’d be remiss not to promote our clients’ websites in those spaces. But is this search marketing? Or is it simply marketing? Arguably, it becomes search marketing when it increases link popularity, but surely that should be the secondary goal of this type of marketing campaign. True link popularity comes from having something worth linking to, not something you’ve asked your insulated circle of cronies to link to.
Certainly, the boost in direct traffic that a site can gain when it is being discussed in all the right places online is not to be taken lightly – and that alone is reason enough to try to be found in all the right places. Yet how much of that traffic actually converts into anything good, and how much does it help your organic search rankings?

More important – how does it incréase your bottom line?

For instance, I’ve written a few articles that receíved upward of 1,000 visitors a day from StumbleUpon alone. The spike in traffic was nice, and the slight addition in newsletter subscribers was certainly welcome, but for the most part, those StumbleUpon visitors spent just a few minutes on our site, and only a small percentage signed up for our free newsletter. None of them were interested in using our services. They read the article and then stumbled their way to the next site of potential interest.

Isn’t participation in social media really just preaching to the choir?

You reach your peers, not the people who will purchase your product or service. Sure, it’s a nice ego stroke to have others in your industry tell you how cool you are, and there’s something to be said for building credibility within your community. I’m certainly not knocking that, and have built my own credibility via various online communities in which I’ve participated over the past decade.

But how does it sell your products and services?

Do you gain customers and sales from your social media marketing and/or your participation in social networks? Does it increase your rankings for the keyword phrases your actual target audience is typing into the search engines? If your business model depends on traffic for traffic’s sake, or on how many ad impressions your site generates, then there’s an obvious value. But if you sell a product or a service – then not so much.

My fear with all the hype about social media marketing is that people new to search marketing will believe it’s what SEO demands and what SEO is all about.

It isn’t. Not by a long shot.

Social media marketing is a great addition to any traditional SEO work that you do, but it’s not a substitute. It’s more akin to hiring a PR firm once you’ve launched your already-SEO’d website. On-page SEO is definitely not as sexy as social media marketing, but it is still the most important investment in your website that you can make. Period.

So, go to all your social media conferences, and Digg your way to increased traffic. But first learn exactly who your target audience is, what they’re searching for in the search engines, and how your website can solve their problems. Then make sure your website does exactly that. All the social media buzz and traffic won’t amount to anything if your target audience isn’t already part of the online conversation.

Be sure to have your house in order before you give social media marketing a try.

And don’t be surprised if it doesn’t actually provide you with the ROI you hoped it would. In most cases it will depend on who your target audience is, where they hang out, the types of services or products you provide, and whether your website truly provides people with what they’re looking for.

Getting back to SEO basics – that is, creating a crawler-friendly website that is built around the keyword phrases people use at the search engines to find what you offer – is the first and most important thing you can do for your website and your business. Yeah, it’s not as fun and exciting as social media marketing, but skip this step at yóur own peril!

Creating excellent content is a key element of optimizing your online presence, but once you have created fantastic information you need to disseminate it. You may be one fantastic source of information, but if nobody hears you, does it matter? Make sure that you aren’t leaving out the step that will get you heard. We have compiled a list of the 5 best practices for content distribution:

1. Blogger Connections: You aren’t the only blogger out there. This may seem like a bad thing sometimes when there are so many other blogs to read. How will your blog get read if there are so many others that have equally great content? The trick is to get your content on blogs that are already being read. There are many wonderful blogs that get a lot of their content from guest bloggers. You can submit articles that you have already published on your own blog or create something new that you think the particular blogger would like for their blog. They may even have a request for a specific kind of content they would like from those interested in guest blogging.

Along with contributing to blogs that you are following already, make sure that you are also using services that will connect you with other bloggers. These are great for not only getting your content posted elsewhere but also for getting guest bloggers on your blog. These blogger connection services already have a great network of bloggers who would love to share content. It would be a waste of a resource if you didn’t use something like this.

Getting others’ guest content on your blog is another great way to link up with more bloggers. These guest bloggers may not have a particular need for your content yet, but they will most likely read your blog if they are contributing to it. This is great because not only have you acquired another reader, but they will be more inclined to request permission to use one of your blog posts on their own blog in the future or to spread the word about your wonderful blog to all their friends and associates who it would appeal to as well.

Remember when submitting a guest blog post to include the byline that you would like the blogger to use for your guest post. You want to make sure that they give proper credit for your blog, and it makes their job easier if they don’t have to ask you for it. Conversely, remember to request a byline or resource box from each of your guest contributors so that you may give them proper credit as well.

2. Publishing on Reputable Websites: There are numerous well established article databases and other content-based websites where you can submit your content. These websites are selective about the content that they publish which increases their reputability. This is positive for you because when your content is accepted by these websites and published, you know that your content is top quality. Those who find your content on those websites will also know how valuable your content is by virtue of the fact that it has been published by an already well-respected source and they will be more likely to want more content from you.

Be sure to read the submission guidelines of these websites. If you continue to submit content that is substandard, your future submissions will likely be ignored. If there are minor things to tweak in your content that will make it worthy of publishing on these websites make sure that you aren’t missing out on this. Overlooking necessary but simple corrections is an easily avoidable mistake.

Make sure you are running with the top dogs. If you think your content is worth submitting to a well-respected site, don’t hesitate to do so. Overcome your fear of rejection and go for it. You may be surprised at how valuable those leading authorities find your content. Don’t deprive readers of your information.

3. Keep Track of Published Content: When syndicating your blog posts and submitting them for inclusion on several different websites, you will want to make sure that you are keeping track of each place they have been submitted to and published. Part of building your credibility is that the content that you write is applicable to more than just your immediate readers. Make sure that you are keeping track of where your content has been published in order to write more content that appeals to those particular audiences.

Remember that part of interaction with readers and customers includes responding to comments and questions. How can you respond to these if you don’t even remember where your content has been published? Keeping track of comments and questions is easy when you are managing content posted on your own blog because you will receive a notice every time there is a comment left. Some blogs offer an option to notify you when anyone posts a comment after you have already posted, but you won’t know about initial comments unless you are keeping track of the post.

One last but very important aspect of keeping track of published content is that, like all marketing strategies, these efforts need to be measured and analyzed in order to create more appropriate future content. If the published content is receiving a lot of positive feedback, be sure to create more like it in the future. If the feedback is negative, adjust your content until it becomes something that readers find useful. Success relies on customer and reader satisfaction. Be sure that you are monitoring this.

4. Publish Press Releases: When an article, blog post, or video is being syndicated, it is completely appropriate to submit a press release. This doesn’t need to be an incredibly formal, pricey press release. There are many free press release publication services that will allow you to post as many press releases as you wish. Having your content syndicated is big news, make sure that you are reporting it!

Every time we have an article or blog post syndicated, we publish a press release about it. Our excitement about sharing our content with the world is equally felt by our readers who find out via press release. Creating a mutual interest, such as excellent content, with our readers is key in building relationships with them.

Press releases also get picked up by bigger news sources. The syndication of press releases lets even more people know about your incredible content and the cycle of content distribution continues. Make sure that you don’t skip this step because you may find new readers to provide with valuable content. Let the world know that others think your content is as great as you do. Write a press release!

5. Tweet and Digg About Published Content: Tweets and diggs are like mini, severely informal press releases. If you don’t have the time to sit down and write a press release the moment you find that one of your posts or articles has been published, make sure that you are at least tweeting about it. All of your twitter followers will immediately be aware of your content being published and if they haven’t already had a chance to read it they will be more inclined to do so.

The same concept goes for Digg. You can digg about your content to let even more of the world know what excellent content you have created and where they can find it. Let your friends and business acquaintances know that they can digg this content, too. You can let them know through your other social media platforms such as MyMark, Facebook and Twitter.

Creating great content is extremely important. The next step is to distribute that content throughout the internet so that it can be found. Make sure that you are publishing your content to other bloggers and websites and telling everyone you know that your content has been published there as well. This will increase the effective reach of your information. Start your distribution and information dissemination now!

We have discussed the security risks of local business listing hijackings in the past. One of the comments made about these security discussions is why do the geo-listing websites like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and up to 60 others insure the security to avoid hijackings?

Of course the question to be asked is why should they provide the security service for a free marketing tool that will benefit the business?

Geo-Listing Security

Many of these websites do have some level of security built into the process of claiming an existing listing or adding a new listing.

So far, these security processes have included sending a post card to the existing address with a pin code; a computer calling to the business phone number with the pin; or in some cases a manual review by staff working for these geo-listing websites.

On May 27th, Google announced that community edits of local business listings was no longer be allowed to go without staff review. An excerpt of their announcement states:

“We recently made a change to Google Maps to require all community edits to be reviewed before they are shown. In the past, some “pending” edits were shown immediately on Maps and only moderated (and sometimes denied) later on.

We’re taking this step to ensure that changes to Google Maps pass the high quality bar our users expect, while preventing SPAM and other problems from showing up before being reviewed first.”

In summary Google is stating all community edits made to unclaimed local business listings will have to be approved by a Google representative before they are sent live.

Supposedly, this means no more worrying about a competitor hijacking your listing and stealing your customers.

It definitely means it will take longer for information to reach the local consumers through web searches and mobile searches.

While on the surface this may sound like at least Google is addressing the security issues of local business listings, the announcement did not discuss the security of data coming from third party sources through API’s.

Certainly third tier business directories have no security and their data is sold upstream or makes its way to other database across the Internet with wrong information available for the consumers.

Why the high expectations for Free Geo-Marketing services?

I am certainly concerned about the security issues around local business listings, but I cannot expect these geo-listing websites to provide security for my company. The reason I do not expect them to provide this security is because they are providing the marketing service for free.

Why should any business assume that a free service should have high level of security? We could certainly say “you get what you pay for”!

The issue for businesses lies in the book titled “Crossing the Chasm”. This book discusses innovators vs. early adopters vs. late adopters. The questions to businesses that have seen the Internet add, mature, and change technologies are:

* How long are you going to continue to wait to adopt Geo-Marketing technologies to help you generate revenue?
* Do you feel like you’re always behind the eight ball with the Internet?

A business cannot possibly understand how to use the various Geo-Marketing technologies well. For this reason you need to consider securing professional help and engage in these marketing technologies sooner rather than later. Plan these technologies progressively over a 3-year period.

Additional incentives for early adoption of Geo-Marketing technologies

There are three critical points that businesses need to consider now and not wait until the 11th hour.

1. The first and foremost we already discussed, which is hijackings.
2. Now let’s add that for your business there may be multiple duplicate listings that need to be cleaned up, merged and/or deleted to not confuse the consumers when there are multiple listings for your business.
3. Lastly, consumer reviews especially negative ones can potentially have an adverse affect on your website’s search engine ranking positions as search engine adopt consumer reviews as an additional data point to decide who is in the top ten for a search.

Author: Melih Oztalay

Your website’s content will get noticed, get read, and get customers if you use your headline and first paragraph to let readers know what is in it for them. Here, I’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.

This article is an edited version of a chapter of Wordtracker’s The Website Content Recipe Book – 21 irresistible content ideas to wow visitors and boost your search engine optimization.

Visitors may first enter your site through almost any page. And for various reasons no matter what you do, many will not read more than one page. Therefore, to maximize response you must treat every page as a marketing page. So add adverts to where they will be seen – a subject I plan to write about next week (look for ‘How to make your articles sell’).

But only a small percentage of readers will respond when first seeing even quality adverts. You’ll have to work a bit harder for the rest of your readers. You’ll have to use your pages’ content to make them consider a marketing proposal (perhaps another day). You must prove that you (and your brand) are expert at delivering what’s wanted, and can be trusted. To do that, your page must first be read.

Who is Your Site for… and What Do They Want?

When you’re busy creating content, it’s easy to forget that your website exists to sell your products and services to particular groups of people. And even if you wouldn’t forget such a thing – can the same be said for everybody who writes for you?

As well researched and expert as you are in your field, it can be hard to put yourself in the position of your targeted visitors who, when they come, will spare just a few seconds to find a reason to read the content.

When constructing an argument or presenting a product, it seems logical to first present the building blocks of your case before giving the end result. The end results should be something that will make your readers’ lives better. But…

People Purchase Benefits Not Features

If you want readers to read on, you must spell out the benefits before describing and explaining the features.

Features are the characteristics of what you’re selling. Benefits are the things that those features will do for you.

or example, people don’t purchase light bulbs for features like being long lasting, bright, and cheap. People purchase light bulbs for benefits like saving money or the planet and helping them do things in what would otherwise be darkness.

Your Headline is the Most Important Part of Your Content

If your headline does not promise something of interest, then your article won’t get read and you’ll struggle to sell. This is because most visitors arrive at a page, read a headline and then make a decision to stay or go.

Also, if a page is linked from elsewhere on your site or others then your headline is likely to be used for the link. When reading headlines, potential readers are looking for what a page might do for them. They are looking for benefits and if your headline does not deliver, they are gone.

Here are a few guidelines for headline writing:

• Promise benefits – tell readers what the content will do for them.

• Don’t be clever or obscure and don’t make the reader think too much.

• Don’t be ironic because most readers won’t know you are being ironic.

• Don’t force readers to read the story in order to understand the headline.

• Try asking a question about a problem and entice with the solution.

For a masterclass in headline writing, try Wordtracker’s recent eight-part headline writing course by Sean D’Souza, a master of the craft.

Your First Paragraph is the Second Most Important Part of Your Content

Make your first paragraph (aka the lead or the standfirst) as succinct, clear, and uncluttered as it can possibly be.

If a visitor has been interested enough in your headline to read on, the next thing they will read is your opening paragraph where you have to give the same benefits with a little more detail.

You can’t explain everything with your first paragraph. So find the most important idea you want to put across, explain what it is and perhaps begin to elaborate on it.

For example, this article’s lead is:

“Your content will get noticed, get read and get customers if you use your headlines and first paragraphs to let readers know what is in it for them. Here we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.”

It starts with a benefit:

“…get noticed, get read and get customers…”

…and then comes a summary of how to achieve that:

“…if you use your headline and first paragraph to tell readers what is in it for them”

Then the second sentence repeats the benefit with some detail about how this will be achieved:

“…we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.”

Hopefully we’ve achieved what this first paragraph set out to do and in the future no visitors to your site will leave without you having done everything you can to get them to read on and reach your marketing.

Define yourself. When beginning, this is the first step in branding yourself. You need to realize that you are very good, even an expert, at what you do. You surround yourself, either in your job or in your circle of friends, with others who are experts in what you know. Then, you begin to believe that everybody knows what you know and you see yourself as average and begin making mental statements such as “What do I have to offér that is different or unique? Everybody knows what I know.”

WRONG.

You have friends, neighbors, and associates that come to you asking for your help and advice. Or perhaps asking, “can you teach me how to do that?” What kinds of questions do they ask you? Ask yourself this powerful question:

“What sort of things are people asking me when they ask ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’”

Fire Your Financial Advisor suggests the following to stimulate ideas on who you are and how you can stand out:

“Do you have a certain skill where someone said ‘Can you teach me that?’ Or, have you overcome a certain experience, such as death of a loved one, divorce, financial ruin, raising children, passed a training, etc? Sometimes, we discredit our own uniqueness because ‘it’s just our life.’ However, there are others that have questions or problems that want answers that YOU can offer.” They go on to suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

“What was I being asked to teach or do when someone asked ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’ What skill/hobby did a person ask me to teach them? What difficult experiences did I overcome? What do I constantly get compliments on that I downplay? What ‘quirky’ things do I do?”

Be known as the expert in one thing – stand for something! Find your niche, something you are passionate about.

Create a signature look. Something people will recognize immediately. I’ve often told people if you were to find a piece of product literature on the ground and the brand or logo had been torn off, would you know who created the piece? If it came from Apple Computer you would. They have their signature look to everything they create. You can too.

This could be your unique name or a unique nick name. A buddy of mine has a very common name and has become an expert in social media. He created a signature and calls himself “SocialSam.” Laurie Pehar Borsh from Laurie Pehar Borsh Personal PR Productions has a simple logo she always associates with her name.

Maybe your signature look is a tagline. My son has a tagline or mantra of “No food, only music the doctor says!” Yes, he is a musician. For others, their signature look is their attire or hair. For others it is a greeting. An Irishman I know always answers the phone or greets people in the morning with “Top of the mornin!” This is his signature.

Maybe it is as simple as a unique business card. A good buddy of mine just handed me his new business card that looked and felt like a circuit board! What is unique about what I do, what I love, what I know?

Step back from yourself and ask yourself, how do others see me?

Become well known for one thing – you’ve got to stand for something or you stand for nothing. Find your niche. This is NOT the time to play it safe. Doing just enough to blend in to the crowd will get you just that, you’ll blend in and when someone needs your advice or expertise they will not be able to find you. Creating a personal elevator pitch with your “who” and “do what” statement followed by your “why” statement will keep you on track and focused on your goals. Without clearly understanding your personal brand, it will be difficult to stand out and be found when someone is looking for you. Your “who” and “do what” statement is a very simple thought about yourself. Keep it simple and easy to understand. It answers the question “who are you and what do you do?” concisely and in a fashion that is memorable.

For example, which says more and has more impact:

“My name is Jack and I am a business consultant.”

Or

“I’m Jack. I help business owners and sales professionals grow their clientèle.”

Simple, yet powerful. You answer the question of whom you help and what you help them get or do. Depending on what type of professional you are, your “who” and “do what” statement should include the following elements:

– As a business owner this statement should express who your target market is and what problems you solve for that market.

– As an employee this statement should express what problems and obstacles you tackle for your managers and bosses.

– As a salesperson this statement should express who your target customers are and what problems you solve for them. It should also express what goals you are helping your boss achieve through your sales expertise.

Here is another example. “Telecom Senior Executive who took a startup to $120MM annual sales with $28MM EBITDA in less than three years.” This directly speaks to a potential client or employer and says who you are and what you can do for them backed up by a history of success.

Now tell me, why do you do it anyway? Why do you get up every day to help them get what they want? My favorite interview question is “What gets you out of bed every morning?” An alarm clock is the wrong answer! I’m not looking for a specific answer but rather to discover the passion driving someone’s life. Your “why” not only drives the choices you make, but it also affects how others connect emotionally to what you do for them. The why is reflected in everything you do. It completes your personal brand.

Michael Port, Entrepreneur Magazine has this why statement: “Because I want to help people think bigger about who they are and what they offer the world.” He goes on to say, “I can go one step further and turn my why statement into a tag line to spread my personal brand and grow my sales potential, ‘The guy to call when you are tired of thinking small.’ This expresses the most fundamental, deepest part of my character.” Michael Port, Entrepreneur Magazine – January 2010.

Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start, inspired by John Doerr, says,

“The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning – to create a product or service that makes the world a better place.

Does the product or service you are pursuing change lives for the better? Change the world we live in for the better? Provide something incredible previously out of reach of the average person?”

If what you are doing provides one of these benefits or similar benefits and fits your personal “why” you are on the road to success. Your brand is beginning to take shape. Your personal brand is built on a solid foundation. With your “who”, “do what”, and “why” statements in hand and in your heart go forth and “make meaning.”

article by Brad Hess

Content has always been “where it’s at”, and that holds true as much as ever these days. Gather CEO Tom Gerace, who is also founder of the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC), a non-profit organization working on the creation of standards for social media engagement campaigns, offered some tips on marketing through content to share with WebProNews readers. These tips are:

1. Start with Search. There are 15.9 billion searches run every month and a small percentage are customers looking for you and your competitors. Figure out your market opportunity by understanding how many searches, keywords and keyword phrases are related to what you do.

2. Think holistically about your budget. What do you spend today per customer? What is your average SEM spend? Content-based programs can help lower cost/customer acquisition because fewer people are doing it and competition, so far, is less intense. Plan to shift some budget dollars from SEM and other acquisition marketing efforts to content marketing – it delivers results with an improved cost structure.

3. Target your content creation. Content needs to be targeted to areas that align directly with your brand; where sufficient demand for your content will make content marketing worthwhile.

4. Make lots and lots and lots of content at a low cost. Search engines weigh recency heavily when organizing content. There is always fresh content at the top of search results pages, so 1,000 posts on a topic will capture more customers than a competitor with 5 – 10 posts.

5. Don’t go it alone. Managing dozens of writers, achieving top search engine placement, and establishing content creation costs to make content marketing make sense requires specialized knowledge and training. Find a partner and make them put their money where their mouth is on the numbers they promise.

Those are Gerace’s tips, but I’ll add that quality makes a difference. Not only does Google continually try to put more emphasis on quality with algorithm updates, but it also goes a long way when you’re talking about reputation, and obviously you don’t want to do something that will hurt your brand.

As far as search, Google’s Matt Cutts has said of the recent Mayday update, for example, that content farms are among the kinds of sites that are hit the hardest by the alrogithm change. That’s another reason why churning out sub-par content is not going to be in your best interest. If you can walk the line of delivering content that people are searching for, and giving them content that stands out, there are lots of benefits to be had.

Ever had a case of the *tipsy tweets*?

You know what I’m talking about. The type of tweets you’d not post to Twitter sober but that seem highly amusing after a couple of alcoholic beverages. The ones you rush to delete on Monday morning in a coffee-induced panic when you remember what or who you tweeted. Yeah those.

Well, the next time your fingertip hovers over the send button after you’ve had a few, you might want to think twice about letting it make contact with the keyboard.

It turns out that the Library of Congress has decided to digitally archive EVERY public tweet that has been posted to Twitter since the site launched in 2006. With 50 million tweets processed by Twitter every day, that adds up to billions of messages.

The Announcement

The news came in mid April, first via the Library of Congress’s own Twitter account and then via public announcement during Twitter’s first Chirp conference for developers. This was followed up by blog posts from both the Library and Twitter.

Why Archive Tweets?

So why the interest in digitally archiving tweets and is it really necessary? Staff at the Library of Congress think so:

“Twitter is part of the historical record of communication, news reporting, and social trends – all of which complement the Library’s existing cultural heritage collections. It is a direct record of important events such as the 2008 U.S. presidential election or the *Green Revolution* in Iran. It also serves as a news feed with minute-by-minute headlines from major news sources such as Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. At the same time, it is a platform for citizen journalism with many significant events being first reported by eyewitnesses,” says Matt Raymond, the Library of Congress’s Director of Communications.

“Individually tweets might seem insignificant, but viewed in the aggregate, they can be a resource for future generations to understand life in the 21st century.”

Don’t Panic

Now before you panic about your entire Twitter history being laid bare to a grubby public, you should know that there are some protections in place.

Twitter has insisted there be at least a six-month window between the original date of a tweet and its date of availability for internal library use, non-commercial research, public display and preservation by the Library of Congress. Private account information and deleted tweets will not be part of the archive. Neither will linked information such as pictures and URLs.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington also doesn’t see a problem with it:

“I think folks understand that whatever they post on Twitter is meant to be searchable”, says their senior counsel John Verdi.

“I don’t see a big issue here.”

That might change, he says, if the US government tried to identify individuals through their tweets or by cross checking user tweets with their information from other federal databases.

Personally, I can see this happening unless further protections are put in place. It’s probably happening every day.

Gift Wrapped

It’s important to note that the Library did not purchase the archive. It was gifted from Twitter and the original legal document outlining the donation is publicly available via PDF.

“Recently, the Library of Congress signaled to us that the public tweets we have all been creating over the years are important and worthy of preservation. Since Twitter began, billions of tweets have been created”, says Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in their official blog post about the donation.

“Today, fifty-five million tweets a day are sent to Twitter and that number is climbing sharply. A tiny percentage of accounts are protected but most of these tweets are created with the intent that they will be publicly available. Over the years, tweets have become part of significant global events around the world – from historic elections to devastating disasters.”

“It is our pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public Tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research.”

About the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States and it is the largest library in the world, regularly researched by government staff, law enforcement agencies, law firms, authors, scholars, scientists, students and academics. The Library receives more than 1.75 million readers and visitors annually and employs a staff of more than 3,600. According to Twitter, it’s a logical home for their archive.

What Does it All Mean?

So with billions of tweets added to the federal archive, how can we expect the data to be used? With Twitter’s entire history archived, it shouldn’t be long before we see tweets being used as evidence in criminal trials and various lawsuits.

Tweets have already been cited in defamation cases such as the one between 25 year-old Chicago resident Amanda Bonnen and her landlord, Horizon Group Management LLC. Following a disagreement with Horizon Group about mold allegedly found in her apartment, Bonnen posted on her public Twitter account:

“Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay”, to which Horizon Group responded with a defamation case to the tune of USD 50,000.

Although a Google-cache of her now deactivated account shows she had just 17 followers, Horizon claimed Bonnen’s tweet severely damaged their good name because it was published “worldwide”. Ironically, the publicity the case receíved probably did more damage to Horizon’s public image than Bonnen’s limited tweet. The case was thrown out due to lack of specific context in the tweet, but it does set an interesting precedent for other potential cases.

Whatever the legal and privacy implications, knowing your tweets are being preserved for historical significance and stored in the same building as priceless documents like the Declaration of Independence, should be somewhat humbling.

Who knows, future generations may one day point to your “OMG you guys! @justinbieber just walked into @starbucks!” tweet with the same awe reserved for George Washington’s copy of the US Constitution.

One of the greatest benefits of being a web business owner is that you don’t need to have deep pockets to drive your businesses to success. I can show you how to build a complete web business from the ground up with a shoe string budget.

Step 1: Build a revenue generating website.

The first step to take is to build a website that will be able to generate sales for you. Do your market research in advance and find out the products that are selling well. Know everything to there is to know about the niche that you are targeting. What products are selling? What are the price points? Who are the target customers?

If you have the answers to the questions above, half the battle is won. In your mind’s eye, you can already see success. Now, you need to put in time and effort to do the work and move yourself towards success.

I highly recommend that you register a keyword based domain name for SEO purposes. The bulk of your traffic will come from your articles. But organic search traffic is free, and it converts really well. So why not receive traffic from both sources?

A domain costs about $10 bucks to register. You may need to pay $120 for a year of web hosting. So far, total cost works out to be $130.

Step 2: Targeted traffic generation with article marketing.

Once your website is up and running, it’s time to promote the site and drive targeted traffic to your website. There are many ways you can drive traffic – banner advertising, PPC, SEO, article marketing, etc.

When you consider these methods, you quickly realize that many of these methods are for experienced marketers only. In other words, they are paid advertising, and you get into those methods only if you are already making online, or if you have extra cash to spare. But what about the small business owner? What about the individual with a shoe string budget? How can they drive traffic?

One of the most cost effective ways to generate traffic is by article marketing. Article marketing has been around for ages. Traditionally, marketers publish content to newsletters and Ezines to market their websites.

Today, the focus is less on Ezines, and more on search engines. When you publish content publicly on the Internet, the articles get picked up quickly by the search engines. You then receive page views, which eventually lead to clicks and sales.

Always remember that your goal is to generate targeted traffic. You don’t want to attract curious clicks or freebie seekers. These are not buyers and there is no point directing such traffic to your websites. So how to drive targeted traffic with articles?

Tip 1: Write a keyword rich article title.

Use specific keywords to weed out non-targeted visitors. For example, a title that says “Article Writing Guide – 3 Tips On Generating Targeted Traffic” is much better than a vague title like “Article Writing Tips”.

Tip 2: Write a good teaser that draws in the reader in.

The summary of the title appears on the article directories, as well as in the search engines. Usually, the summary is made up of just 2 to 3 short sentences. It’s not necessary to write a summary that is longer than 50 words because most of the texts will not be displayed. The summary appears right after the title, so we can try to use it as a teaser to draw the reader in. Don’t reveal all the information in the summary, or there is no reason for the reader to click and visit the web page for the solution.

Tip 3: Write a brief but interesting article.

The article shouldn’t be too lengthy. This is because you want the reader to finish reading the entire article. Why is that important? Well, your links are located at the bottom of each article. If the reader doesn’t see your links, there is zero chance of getting clicks. The ideal length is between 300 to 500 words. Anything longer than 500 words should be separated and published as multiple articles.

Tip 4: Write a great author box.

Provide a strong incentive and invite the reader to click on your links. Note that you are competing for the reader’s attention with other links on the same web page (e.g. ads, banners, other articles, etc). So your author box has to stand out. Don’t try to abuse this tiny space by trying to squeeze in your resume. The author box is not for this purpose. It’s supposed to help you get clicks. So focus on drawing attention to your links.

Total cost at this stage is still $130. I highly recommend that you invest a small sum of money on a good article writing course to boost your productivity. The more articles you can produce, the more traffic and sales you will receive.

More marketing tips.

1) Drive traffic to a squeeze page to build a list. A list is important if you are looking for long term success. Without a list, you have only 1 chance to make a sale. If the visitor doesn’t buy, you have lost the visitor (perhaps forever). With a list, you can follow up and try to sell the prospect over and over again.

2) Always link to a website that you have full control over. Sure, you can always register for a free blog and save R80 on domain registration on hosting. But what if your site gets deleted (it has happened before). Also, affiliate offers sometimes get taken off market. So if you don’t have control over your links, the links in your articles will be pointing to dead offers.

3) Focus on back end products. Traffic generation is important. But don’t neglect back end sales.

4) Stop trying to chase the latest money making methods. Focus on the fundamentals of building a strong web business.

5) Productivity is important but it’s not everything. Learning what works is just as important. Then just do more of what is currently working to boost your web businesses to the next level.