Grab More Customers

Archive for the ‘Online marketing’ Category

What if I told you $20 a month would buy you unlimited hosting, a domain name, the dynamic website you always wanted with all the space you need, and as many email accounts as you want?

Oh, and you have full control over the site and can make changes instantly any time, even at 3 am standing on your head . . . and you don’t have to involve anyone else!

It’s as easy as falling off a log. Everything is laid out step-by-step on video. Yes, you can easily do this even if you’re not the “techie” type. In fact, this program was designed specifically so all us “non-techie” folks can run with it and create our own websites.

No more having to settle for whatever limited ability the webmaster has. No more having to choose from 20 ugly templates that all look the same and aren’t what you want. You have a choice of hundreds of templates . . .

And if you don’t like any of them, you can design your site from scratch. How’s that for total control?

Oops, I forgot one last thing–there is a way you can get all of this free.  

Yes, you read that right. Free.
If free isn’t good enough, you can make money from it too.

I start work on my site today. It’s about a passion of mine that I never thought I’d do a site for, and will keep you posted on my progress.

The possibilities are endless.

Customers and clients need you to be credible and trustworthy. One of the best marketing techniques for doing this is to position yourself as an expert in your field or niche.

Experts get recognized, have more work than they can handle, and are primary sources of information for potential customers and clients. But how can you establish yourself as an expert?

1. Write articles and post them on directories.

High-quality articles with plenty of actionable, accurate content show prospects you know what you’re talking about. Don’t forget the resource box for each article.

2. Comment on appropriate blogs.

Find blogs that complement your topic or niche and comment there, making sure you link to your website (usually you put in your site URL before your comment, then it’s linked to your name). People will flock to your site or blog, already pre-sold on you based on your comments. 

3. Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo, Digg . . . or your local newspaper or radio station.

Online and offline media can both help you establish yourself as an expert if you play your cards right. Always be professional, find ways to be helpful, and give away a few secrets. People will wonder what else you have to offer if you’re freely sharing such good stuff!

4. Leverage your resources and acquaintances.

Do you know other experts in your field? Why not get together and hold a seminar to help your target audience with their biggest problem? Or guest blog for each other. You scratch their backs, they’ll scratch yours.

5. Try Google Knol.

This is a really cool tool I just found out about this morning and had to share with you. You’ll probably agree after you see the video . . . Knol is a great way to become known as an expert.

Good luck and if you have any other ideas, please let us know!

Keyword-rich, informative articles submitted to article directories will increase your visibility on the search engines, making you easier to find. You can write your own articles or hire a writer to create them for you.

Warning #1: You get what you pay for. If you want cheap articles, you’re going to get badly-written articles. Would you write a 500-word article for someone else for $3? If not, don’t expect someone else to do it for you.

Make sure your article writer is a native English speaker and expect to pay at least $3-5 per 100 words. One top-notch article is worth at least 5 bottom-drawer articles. Pay for quality: in the long run it saves you time and money.

We can write high-quality keyword-rich articles for you. Contact us for more information.

Warning #2: Don’t stuff your articles with keywords. Not only will the article directories reject your work, visitors won’t read long enough to figure out what you’re trying to tell or sell them. And most importantly, they won’t visit your site.

2. Catchy Domain Name

Can you think of a better way to make visitors remember your website? Something short and sweet will keep them coming back.

Take your time when you’re deciding on a domain name, and do some keyword research. I chose my domain name after literally days of agonizing over what to call my site. Honestly, for SEO purposes I probably would have done better using something like “XYZ Web Copywriting”, but I liked the sound of  “Grab More Customers” — after all, that’s what everybody is trying to do!

3. Organize your site navigation, and make sure you have good tags and keywords

Making your site easy to navigate is one way to improve the flow of traffic to your website. Visitors like sites they can browse easily, and they will return to and recommend sites they like.

Your keywords should be naturally integrated through the site, especially in the title tags (the very top of the screen, in the title bar). You can customize title tags, or have your web developer do it.

Choose your keywords and title wisely. Research what your target market is looking for and determine which keywords they are using to search. One good site for this is spacky.com. You’ll see the number of searches for each keyword and get suggestions for more keywords.

The meta description tag tells the search engines what your site is about. This should be a short description, about 20 words. Again, use keywords as appropriate and don’t stuff.

Low cost SEO can easily land you on the first page of Google or any other search engine. I encourage you to start with these three steps and research SEO online or talk to your website designer or developer. New methods are being tested and used all the time . . . find what works for you, then work it!

Facebook is a social networking site that most people use to stay in touch with friends and family. Many have rekindled friendships and gotten in touch with old classmates. Some have even met their significant others on FB.

It is also a fast and easy way to create new personal and business relationships. With Facebook, you can create your own network of friends, become an online fan of people and businesses, and join groups that share your beliefs and ideas. 

While Facebook is a wonderful social networking website and fun to use, Internet marketers can’t resist using it for marketing.

Why?

One word: numbers.

Facebook has millions of subscribers from around the world and is one of the fastest-growing social media sites. Millions of people use it every day, and millions more log in for the first time every month.

Those numbers are staggering. You may be thinking you couldn’t possibly manage that volume of potential customers. However, Facebook helps you segment that traffic and easily find where your target audience hangs out–so you can hang out there too. 

People tend to put themselves in groups based on a common characteristic, like age or interest. This can be a gold mine for you and very easy to tap into. All you need to do is join groups that match the demographics of your target audience. If you can’t find an existing group, create your own and get people to join.

You can get the word out about your products and services with Facebook tools like news feeds, blogs, and notes that are simple to create and maintain. You can show people what you have in a non-”salesy” way…just like talking to friends about a great new product or service.

Speaking of word-of-mouth advertising, anyone who likes your profile page can recommend it to their friends. Your Facebook profile can be used to promote your products or services with videos, photos, or reviews.

With Facebook, you get the tools you need to to generate highly-targeted traffic to your website. What more could any marketer ask for?

When a prospect sees or hears your ad, he wants to know one thing and one thing only:

“What’s in it for ME?”

If you don’t answer that question–pronto–guess what happens? That ad is tossed, deleted, or ignored.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see companies make. They’re so busy tooting their horns about how long they’ve been in business, why their products are better than the competition’s, how much they’ve spent on this and that. (Yes, those are all important, but they come later.)

You need to grab your prospect’s attention first. She needs a good reason to keep reading or listening. And the fact that you are located across the street from the library is not a good reason. What can you do for her? Why would she want to do business with you? What pain can you ease or what problem do you solve?

You need to know what you can do for your prospect before you write the first word of your ad copy. You need to understand what would motivate your prospect to buy.

If you don’t know, ASK.

Ask your best customers why they buy from you. Ask past customers why they don’t buy from you now and what you need to do to get them back. A little research now saves a lot of headaches later.

Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. What pain or problem does he or she have that you can help with? That is what your advertising needs to be about, not how much you’ve invested in your company, blah blah, blah.

Make it about them and you’ll never go wrong.

ASK!

blogarama.com

I’m as guilty as anyone else of wasting time online…I love Facebook and surfing in general. Too often, I find myself intending to spend 10 minutes on a site…then I look at the clock and half an hour (or more) has gone by.

I’ve decided to get a handle on this once and for all. It’s hurting my pocketbook and keeping me from achieving what I want to do. But–I’m not going to give up my surfing completely. I’m just going to do it smarter, and I’ve come up with three things that might help you too.

1. Make a to-do list every day, not just when you think you need one. I had done this occasionally in the past, but was never consistent about it. I’ve been doing it for the past few days and I’ve been amazed at how well it’s working. It keeps me focused and moving forward. So simple, yet so effective.

It’s up to you whether you do the hard stuff first or get the easy tasks out of the way. Try it both ways and see. I find that I do better if I work on the complicated or difficult tasks in the morning when I’m more likely to stay on task. The afternoon is for easier items on the list, and I’ve been known to stay up late to read or study.

2. Plan breaks–yes, I said plan them. Make surfing breaks a regular part of your routine and schedule them. Decide on a reasonable time frame for you. For some that will be 5 minutes once an hour to check email, for others it might be half an hour once a day to write a personal blog post.

Be careful that you don’t overschedule breaks. Five or ten minutes an hour is fine, but twenty might be pushing it.

There are a few ways to schedule breaks. You can do it like “regular jobs” do, at a couple of set times every day. That works well for people who like a rigid schedule. For those who like structure with a bit of flexibility, perhaps 5 minutes every hour will be ideal. People whose work is more task- than time-oriented might like to complete a task uninterrupted, then take a break. Find the schedule you like and stick to it.

3. Use a timer. Whether you “go on break” twice a day or once an hour, you need to track and be accountable to yourself for the time you spend online. Find a timer. You can use a manual timer, like one you’d find in a kitchen, or set an alarm clock for the time you need to go back to work.

The trick here is to find a timer that you have to shut off, preferably one with a loud or irritating sound. Set it close enough to your desk so you can hear it, but far enough away that you have to get up to turn it off. The annoying noise from the timer breaks the concentration you have on your surfing, and getting up reinforces that break from the computer. Then you sit down and resume working.

I hope these ideas work for you. What tips do you use to stop wasting time surfing?

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Writing a good email is art mixed with science, with a smidgen of common sense thrown in. Your emails should be conversational, but not salesy. People are tired of being “sold to”.

They want information and help with their problems. If they get that from you, they’ll buy your products. If they get one whiff that you’re only there to sell them, they’ll unsubscribe.

The way you craft your email is crucial. Doing the following three things can cut down on your unsubscribes and help you stay in your readers’ inboxes.

1. Make the subject line as attention-grabbing as you can–but it better relate to the product. This is not to say you can’t connect flying green monkeys to computer software. However, if you put it in your subject line, you better be able to link the two and make the reader laugh, think, or buy…otherwise they are going to be annoyed.

2. Don’t use the reader’s name more than twice. When you talk to someone, you don’t say, “Mark, you know how it is, Mark, when you turn on your computer, Mark, and see the blue screen of death, Mark…”.

That might be a tad exaggerated, but you’ve seen emails that overuse the name. I suggest once in the salutation and once in the body or closing, at the most.

Some email experts suggest using the name in the subject line, some do not. When reading emails, I delete those with my name in the subject if I don’t know the sender well…I assume it’s a sales pitch. If it’s an email from a list I’ve been on for a while, it doesn’t bother me…because we have a relationship.

If your subject line is crafted well, you may not need to use names. Try split-testing and see what happens!

3. You are cultivating trust. Make sure you know it and show it. You are positioning yourself as an expert in the eyes of the reader. Sound professional, but let your personality shine through. People want to get to know you and they want to trust you.

Don’t lie to your readers–it will trip you up every time, and then the trust is gone. Yes, you can be informal, but keep in mind your relationship with the readers.

Your list is the goose that will lay your golden eggs. Don’t jeopardize what it can do in the long run for some short-term success.

Happy Marketing!

My good friend Michelle Salater has just launched her new company, Sūmèr, LLC. This woman is an incredibly gifted writer and marketer…and I’ll let her tell you about her company herself.

This is from Sūmèr’s website at www.writtenbysumer.com:

“Sūmèr, LLC, specializes in web copy writing, SEO copywriting, and the promotion and marketing of websites after they launch.

Professionally written, optimized copy produces results. When your message is clear, you attract targeted customers, have higher conversions, and rank high in the search engines.

Sūmèr stands for more than effective marketing web copy. Our promotion and marketing services maximize your online exposure, increase sales, and generate a higher return on investment.”

Check Sūmèr out and tell them Grab More Customers sent you.