Compelling facts from the video. While it was no doubt Erik Qaulman had it created to promote his book Socialnomics, (no I’m not an affiliate) it opens your eyes up to the massive opportunities created by these new web 2.0 mediums.   Social media isn’t a fad.  It’s growing exponentially and you better get with the program or get left behind.

I remember way back in the CompuServe and AOL days when people thought that the Internet was a fad too.  They waited to get their website going. Same thing happened again with blogging.  Now it’s Social media that has so many business professionals confused on the best practices to use to grow their business.

Social Media offers unique opportunities to build relationships, listen to the marketplace, get higher rankings in the search engines, gain consumer insights, and yes, get more sales. 

Businesses today can leverage social media by creating a social media action plan.  First, understand that even if you aren’t very active on Social media websites, you already have a presence because your customers are blogging, tweeting, linking, commenting  and rating your company, products & services, and employees.   Don’t believe me… go check for yourself. Go Google (or Bing, Yahoo search) your name or products.  Go to Facebook and search keywords. Then LinkedIn…. and even YouTube.  You may be very surprised by the results. 

If you want to get monetize your social media marketing efforts then give us (Prime Concepts Group, Inc.) a call or check out our Social Media Services.  We start with an analysis of your digital footprint. Work closely with you on your goals and outcomes. Then we’ll make sure that all of your main profiles are branded, congruent, integrated, and aggregated.  Along the way, we’ll help you and your team understand how to make the most of your social media networking and social media marketing efforts.

For those of you that want the Do-it-Yourself (DIY) social media training, I recommend Mari Smith’s Quick Start Social Media Kit (Yes, We’re an affiliate, but we never endorse anything that we haven’t used ourselves with great results.)  If you’re not prepared to dig deep and take the time to learn and implement the strategies then hire professionals that can help. Otherwise, you’re just going to waste your time and money.

The social media revolution is already well underway… have any questions, opinions or comments?  Post them below and I’ll respond on future blog posts.

Businesses today need to think about how their customers will use their website and respond to their customer’s needs.

No one would argue that their prospects are checking them out online before doing business with them.  The problem (and opportunity)  is they are viewing your website through multiple devices and formats.

You would think that by now there would be more universal standards for website design, but actually it’s grown tougher each year.

For example, have you looked at your website using an iPhone, iPad or smartphone?  What about through different website browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Explorer?  And then there are different versions of the web browsers, plug-ins, add-ons, and widgets.  Let’s explore smartphone website designs and why it’s important for your business…

If you are a company or organization that wants to get targeted traffic, improved conversions and cater to your website visitor, then you need to make your brand as mobile as your customer. You should have your website designed with today’s multifaceted Internet user in mind.

If you have flash on your website or if you have a website totally built in flash, then the millions of iphone and ipad users can’t see your content.  That’s right, all of those pretty graphics or flash movies are going to show a big goose egg, nadda, nothing but blank space.  Hopefully, Apple and Adobe will come to terms with flash in the future.

There are a few tricks that Internet marketing firms like us have implemented to automatically detect the device and browser type and replace flash with graphics on the fly, but most website designers don’t understand how to do that yet.  Glad I have a team of smart, innovative web designers at Prime Concepts.

Beyond your regular website, you now should consider getting your website’s content produced into a mobile website format.  This means that the navigation, font size, content layout, and graphics are optimized for the the iphone and smart phone devices.

Take a look at these examples of how one of our websites looks on different devices.

Here’s an example of one of our other websites, ProfitRichResults.com and how it displays in a Firefox web browser:

Same website on the iPad: Looks virtually the same except we replaced the flash header area with a fixed graphic, swapped out the flash video of my speaker demo and replaced it with a version that plays on iPhones and iPads, then added special code to the website to automatically detect the device and show the best version for the visitor’s device.

Here is the same website again, but totally reconfigured as a mobile website “m.profitrichresults.com” for easy viewing and enhanced visitor experience on the iPhone and other smart phones.

This screen capture is just a quick example of one of our mobile enabled websites.

This is the same website content shown above in the web browser and iPad, but configured for the iPhone and other Internet enabled mobile and smartphones.

Every month our Google Analytics show that more and more users are reaching our websites using mobile devices.

Yes, I understand that your regular website may show up on a smart phone, but the text will be tiny, some elements just don’t work on mobile devices, the user has to constantly scroll up, down, left right, in and out…

Why make it so hard for your site visitors to benefit from your website and more importantly to do business with you?

It doesn’t matter if your customers use an iPhone G3 or 4, Motorola Droid, HTC EVO 4G, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung Captivate, Samsung Vibrant, Blackberry Tour or Bold 9700, Palm Pre Plus or other type of smartphone.  Some smartphones have touchscreens or keyboards, some have both, but all of them have small screens and you should enable your website content to fit your prospects and customer’s needs.   We’ve created smartphone websites for a wide variety of industries and applications, from retail, wholesale, distributor and online eCommerce stores.

Providing website design services and mobile website development is an ever-evolving process that we approach from a marketing perspective… not from technology.   We can help you grow your business and make your brand as mobile as your customers.

If you want to get your website enabled for the iPhone, iPad, mobile Internet device or smart phone give us a call.  We have reasonable rates and you’ll get outstanding results.

Tell us what you think. What’s your favorite smartphone or smartphone enabled website?  Post your reply and comments below.

Those that earn the majority of their income from selling products and services teaching others how to be internet marketers and those that show other companies how to utilize Internet marketing to grow their business.

One helps others become Internet Marketers and the other type offers services to grow through leveraging the power of Internet marketing.  They differ widely on their experience and expertise.

If you’re looking for an Internet Marketing Speaker to help you grow your business, increase conversions, get higher rankings in the search engines and make the most of your social media efforts then I can help you.  

As an Internet Marketing Speaker, I’m hired to present at many types of corporate, association and public seminar events.

Meeting planners want someone that can help their audiences understand and benefit from using Internet marketing strategies, monetizing social media marketing, and improving their website.   They want someone who will present in an interactive, entertaining way that delivers implementable action steps for their audience members.

With over 15 years of Internet marketing experience, developing hundreds of websites and selling millions through the power of the Internet, I have the real-world business experience and can present on the main stage general session keynote or an interactive break-out session.   Check out the social proof from our testimonials.

You can learn more about me, Ford Saeks, at my professional speaker website catered to meeting planners looking for a business, internet or social media presentation from a platform professional.

Ask me, Ford Saeks, a true Internet Marketing Speaker to present at your next event.

You want results. You want more targeted website traffic. You want better conversions from your landing pages to subscribers and sales.

You hire a website design firm or web designer and pay them hundreds or thousands of dollars and expect them to deliver results. Right? Of course you do and so have millions of others. The problem is that there are so many different kinds of web designers offering a wide variety of services and expertises.

Here are a five tips to help you find the perfect web designer.

1. Understand that you, the business leader, marketing director or entrepreneur have to control your marketing messages. Web designers may know how to write the code for the site, but they most likely don’t understand marketing.  Don’t believe me. Look at your web analytics and consider how well your current website is performing.  Many came from either a print design background or a self-taught coding background, but I’ve never met one yet that came from a business or marketing background. That’s another thing that makes Prime Concepts different, we are business growth and marketing professionals with a team of marketers, writers, SEO specialists, graphic designers and web developers.

2. Decide what your goals are for your website in advance. What action steps do you want visitors to take when they visit your website?  Subscribe, download, view video demo, listen to an audio, take a trial, buy something, fill out a request form.  What sections, focus and theme do you want?  Theme meaning areas of your website, not the design them, that comes later.  Ask your department managers or staff what questions they get asked repeatedly and that will give you an idea of content that you need and how you want to organize it on your website.

3. Interview perspective Web designers and check their portfolio and testimonials. Keep in mind that portfolios are mostly there to give you a sampling and provide social proof that they can do the work.  You’ll want to take a close look at their company website. Do you like it?  Does it communicate what they do effectively?   Is it easy to follow and find their contact information?  One of the things that we offer is a quick website critique where we help you identify areas that would help you improve your search-engine rankings, conversions and website performance.  This can be extremely helpful in evaluating a new web design firm.

4. Don’t get seduced by the technology. I’m talking about the dark side of the force. You know, all of the bells and whistles that some website designers try to use to impress. Keep in mind that the only reason for your website in the first place is the response that it creates.  Are your webpages communicating the value, branding, information and generating leads and sales?  Your website is a communications tool.  What good is it if you have a full flash website that looks cool on some screens, but doesn’t work on iPhones or iPads, takes a long time to load, has crazy or confusing navigation.   I love flash and other technologies too, but you have to decide carefully why you’re using them and do so appropriately so they improve and not hurt the visitors experience.

5. Select the right Content Management System (CMS) To clarify this tip, you want to select your web designer carefully because I’ve heard way too many horror stories from clients before they came to us about their CMS.  For example, in the past, they paid thousands of dollars so they could update and manage their website content themselves, but they either didn’t every learn the complicated CMS system, the person that was trained left the company, no one has had the time to do it, or they completely screwed up the pages.  Worse, if they wanted to move to a new host or web design firm, they may not be able to move their website because of proprietary CMS systems, licencing or configuration issues.  There are so many different cms solutions (see wikipedia)  so you want to consider all of your options and get qualified advice in advance.  We suggest that at the minimum level you have at least a wordpress enabled blog component on your website. You need fresh content for many reasons and can call it a blog, news updates, ask the expert, or anything else. The WordPress code is open source and once configured on your website it’s yours to modify, move and benefit from now and in the future.

Hope this helps you make your decision to find a web designer easier.  Have questions? Ask them below in the rely/comment area or just give us a ring. We’re here to help!

First, understand that it’s the search-engine’s goal to provide the best search results for the user.  While Google, Bing and Yahoo rank website pages a bit differently they all have the same outcome of a positive and relevant user experience.  That experience comes from listing unique pages on their search result pages (SERPS).  

For this blog posting, I’m just going to use Google as “the search engine”.  

Duplicate content generally refers to blocks of text or entire pages that are virtually the same.

If you have the same article content and it’s used on several different websites, Google will try and decide which website is the originator of the content, give them the credit and show that listing.   Yes, that means that even though it’s your content from your website if someone steals it, or even if you submitted it to them and they posted it with your permission, it’s possible that website and not yours would get the credit.  I’ve seen my blog postings, YouTube video descriptions, and articles used on several other websites without permission or even back-links to my website. 

For clarifications sake, we all want higher search engine rankings and more targeted traffic.  We understand that we have to have keyword-rich content with those keywords used appropriately (keyword density) and optimized according to the rules of the search engines. 

So maybe you started out by creating new web pages targeted around a keyword theme.  Then you wrote a few articles or blog postings about the same subject thinking… more keyword-rich content means more traffic.  Then you took those same articles and submitted them to other websites or even posted them on other social media websites. 

Now you have fallen into the trap of duplicate content and even if you did so innocently, you may find that your website pages or entire site isn’t indexed anymore. That means no search engine traffic. Do I have your attention yet? 

There are several things you can do to get higher rankings, avoid duplicate content and prevent Google penalties.

1.  Understand that you need original, relevant keyword-rich content on your website and that each page should have a unique page title, unique meta-description tag, unique h1 header text, and focused content around a theme.  

2. Article marketing. Having your articles posted on article directories and other websites or blogs with links back to your website is a great way to increase your traffic when done correctly.  Back-links help Google understand the relevancy of your website because if you have several other websites with similar themes or focus all linking to you, like from your articles, you get more rankings.  In short though, you need unique or mostly unique versions of the article posted on different websites with a reference link back to you, not the same article everywhere. Having the same article everywhere is just a waste of time.

3. Check your website and learn more about duplicate content using Google’s Webmaster Tools.  It amazes me that people may think that Google’s ranking structure is a secret. While the algorithm may be secret, Google wants you to build your site properly so it can give you the credit.  

4. You can search for duplicate copies of your content using the online website, http://www.copyscape.com/. They offer a free service and premium service to check if content is unique and original.  Works fast and you’d be amazed by the results. Recently, I re-wrote all of the landing pages copy for our Prime Concepts website and found over 80 other websites that had taken my copy word-for-word, and just switched out the company name.   Go to CopyScape and check your website.

5. If you find infringing websites you can file a notice of infringement with Google.  Learn more about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and how to file a DMCA notice here.

6. Get unique versions of your articles out on different websites. If you send the same article out to 500 different websites, Google is going to look those 500 websites and see the exact article on all of them and simply index only one or two of them and your efforts would have been wasted.  You need to submit a unique variation of each article to each article directory. There are literally hundreds of article directories.  This way Google and the other search engines will see all of the unique content and those pages will get indexed and credit the links back (back-links) to your website.

7. We believe strongly in article marketing campaigns, but the titles, main content, word count and resource box links have to be mostly different to avoid the duplicate content problems.  There are tools, called “article spinners” that can help you modify or re-work the content of your articles, but again, I urge you to use caution, as attempts to manipulate the search engines may cause the Google bitch slap and you’ll lose your rankings.

8. Be careful about services or websites that claim to create quick back-links or automated article submissions to other websites.  There are no short cuts to an effective back-linking campaign.  If you find a service or other tool that you love that’s produced great results, add a comment with details on this blog posting.

Take action now. Go write unique, keyword-rich content for your website and original content articles that you can place on article directories.  Turn them into Videos and podcasts too.  Remember that keyword-rich content drives traffic, so focus on delivering relevant information and watch your business grow!

If you really want to know how Google works then check out this informative mind map.

Click on the graphic below to load the larger version for easy viewing and printing.

You can click on the image above for a larger version.  This helps explain why Internet Marketing Services firms like Prime Concepts Group charges the fees to get your websites into top rankings.

I love to get your thoughts on this subject.

Please post your comments or questions on this blog post.

Yes, Prime Concepts Group is located in Wichita Kansas and we offer custom website design services. While over 90% of our clients are throughout the world, we operate an amazing custom web design and internet marketing services firm.

I’m Ford Saeks, an Interent Marketing Speaker, and way back in 1995 I was presenting seminars and workshops on how to grow your business through innovative sales and marketing campaigns. As soon as I was shown the Internet I immediately recognized it was going to be a revolutionary way to communicate, sell and market.

Over the next few years, I focused on presenting full-day and multi-day Internet Marketing training events to help businesses use the internet effectively.  The thing is, that after all of my Internet Marketing presentations people would say, “Ford, you understand what we need for effective website design so can you build our website?”

So, being the entrepreneur that I am, I went to other Wichita website design firms, interviewed them, and said that I could keep their sales funnel full of new clients if they could produce effective website designs and website solutions.  Sounded good to me, I’d make 10 to 15% off the top, they would provide the solution and everyone would be happy… Right?

Not so fast…  I worked with four other Wichita Website Design companies and in each case, they understood visual and graphic design, but they sucked at Internet marketing and knew virtually nothing about search-engine optimization (SEO), or how to create website landing pages that converted visitors into subscribers and buyers.

One company ripped me off so badly (over $100,000)  by selling me public domain website scripts and claiming them as their own. They were so stupid that they didn’t even remove the other Wichita web designs firm name from the copyright programming code. I’d reveal their name, but my attorney said to leave it out. They know who they are.  Okay, enough venting… back to the point.

I had prospects that wanted website design services so I started hiring web designers from Wichita, then trained them on the strategies and tactics of effective website design, SEO, landing page techniques and internet marketing.   I wish I could say that it was easy, but Wichita Kansas isn’t exactly the source for finding skilled website designers.  I did find a ton of talented graphic designers, but most didn’t understand how to translate their skills to HTML.   Now we have a full staff of a dozen talented website development people, all working in our corporate office in Wichita KS.

If you’re in Wichita, stop by and say hello and meet the web design team. You’ll quickly understand how we can help you with a new website design project or Internet marketing make-over. We’re located at 1807 S. Eisenhower St, Wichita, KS 67209 USA. We’re out near the Wichita Airport on the west side.

Since we started offering customized Website development we’ve created over 500 websites in a variety of shapes, sizes and applications. Everything from simple micro-websites, sales letter websites, wordpress blog type websites to fully functional secure membership websites, social media websites, large scale database and eCommerce websites.

You may notice several professional speakers, best-selling authors and experts websites in the Prime Concepts website design portfolio. That’s because I’m in the National Speakers Association, (now a National Board Member too) and speakers understood that I know how to market and sell information type products, like books, cds, dvds, seminars, workshops, training programs, and keynote presentations. They didn’t have to explain the business to me.  You can learn more about me at my Internet Marketing Speaker website.

It’s important to note that we focus on creating website development solutions that help you grow your business. We’ve designed and developed websites in a wide range of industries, from construction, manufacturing, distributing, real estate, health care, financial management, banking, insurance, and retail stores.

My clients don’t care that we’re located in litte ol’ Wichita Kansas and you shouldn’t either.  With the use of Skype, Gotomeeting, video conferencing and other technologies solutions you don’t need to select a local website design firm.  Of course, if you live in Wichita, Andover, Derby, Valley Center and surrounding Wichita area then by all means… check out what we have to offer.  We’re members of the Wichita Area Chamber of Commerce and have an A+ Rating at the Better Business Bureau.

You see, I’ve sold millions in products and services for my own business and helped thousands of others grow their business too.   That’s why my clients selected Prime Concepts.

We understand that your website isn’t just about pretty graphics, it’s about top search engine rankings and a website that provides sales, service, marketing, recruitment and is congruent with your unique brand… all wrapped up to provide an amazing user experience and competitive advantage.

Are you using the social media sites correctly to send traffic to your website?

Are you linking to your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube or other social media accounts from your website?

With more than 400 million active users on Facebook, 30  million accounts on Twitter, 100 million U.S. viewers on YouTube, 50 million users on LinkedIn, and 200 million blogs, I’ll assume that you are actively participating on some level with at least a few social media sites.

Beyond using this medium to connect with new groups of people in unique ways, you should be making sure they want to learn more about you and what you have to offer so that they’ll either Google your name or just follow a link-back from the social media sites to your website.

What will visitors  see when they come to your website?

Will they be impressed and want to continue to connect with you or will they get lost in a cluttered mess of confusing layouts, poor navigation and content that reads as a cure for insomnia?

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid and think that you can abandon your regular site and just focus on using the the social media sites to connect with your target market.

Today’s Facebook is yesterday’s My Space. Google is king for now, but Bing.com is gaining ground. We’re still in the infancy stages of social media and web 2.o sites. Sure they’ve been around for a few years, but many businesses haven’t figured out how to monetize their Social Media Efforts and many people are clamoring to claim their space and figure it all out.

Think about it – why would you put your business and career 100% into the hands of a third-party site? You wouldn’t. So that means you have to get your site into top shape so that when you attract new visitors and they come to your site looking for social proof and credibility that you are the expert resource they are looking for.

What’s the one thing you could do this week? Go back and look at your website through the eyes of a prospect. Is it clear what you do? Is the focus around YOU or are you clear that the purpose of your website is to be beneficial to the user?

Remember, they don’t care about you until they know the benefits and the problems you can solve that they’ll pay to make go away.

Do you have great copy that’s compelling and solution-oriented with specific action steps on every page? Get your site in shape through the eyes of your prospect and make sure it’s designed from a marketing and sales perspective and not just pretty graphics.  And if you know that your site sucks and you’re ignoring it, what’s the point of driving traffic to it just so it can become a sales-prevention tool?

I used to suggest that you don’t confuse your site visitors and try to avoid having links that take them off your website since you want them to stay, subscribe and buy.  However, now customers are using the social media sites to help make decisions to do business with you, to get to know you better.

In any event, check your website analytics and make sure you have Web 2.o and social media strategy. If it’s not working…. make the changes!

If you ever attended one of my Internet Marketing Seminars then you know that “Keywords Drive Traffic” is my online marketing mantra.  This short blog post is focused around the importance of using your keywords (and keyword phrases) for social media marketing.

This starts with understanding that keywords drive traffic, but with social media marketing it’s not the typical usage of driving traffic to get people to buy a product or service.

In fact, if that’s all you’re trying to do with social media networking than you are approaching social media with the wrong perspective and will waste a ton of time.

Social Media Marketing is all about relationships, adding value, joining the conversation and getting and giving feedback.

With Social Media the words you use in your profiles, account names, tags, blog titles & descriptions, user groups, and other posts all help you expand your digital footprint.

The top 5 Social Media sites that I recommend you focus your efforts are Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn and Your Blog. There are thousands of others and depending on your niche or focus area, there may be a few others that you want to leverage, but how many more in-boxes and accounts do you really need to manage?

Okay,  first thing about keywords is that you should be focusing on keyword phrases of at least 2 to 5 words. Most people search for at least 3 or more words so they get better search results. So when you are on the user account settings screen in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and YouTube, make sure you take the time to completely fill out your profile and use keywords so that your account will get properly cataloged and make it easier for people to connect with you.

When you post a video to YouTube (subscribe to my YouTube Channel www.Youtube.com/primeconcepts for other internet marketing videos), make sure you work your keywords into the video title and video descriptions don’t try to manipulate the listing, just use compelling copy and work in your keywords. Tags are critically important too and tags are just keywords to help users find related content. In YouTube make sure you put quotes around your tags when you have multiple words. For example, if I use a tag with my name Ford Saeks, and don’t use quotes, the site engines see FORD as a single word, and I don’t sell cars or need unwanted traffic, so use quotes for multiple words to make the keyword phrase tag the search element.

On Twitter, make sure you go to the settings screen and fill out your Name, URL and Bio line. Especially if you have a more common name. That way, when others are searching to find YOU, they can identify which twitter account to follow.

When you make tweets, and use keywords, you’ll attract readers that are searching for or following the same topics.  Same goes for Facebook and Linkedin, you need to revisit your profiles and update them with keywords so other people can find and connect with you. And of course, when you blog, you should work in your keywords into your titles

Jot down your top 25 to 50 keyword phrases. Keep the list handy during your Social media networking. And most importantly, Always write for the site visitor FIRST, and then for the search engines. If you have great content, share it, and engage in conversations you’ll be well on your way to monetizing your Social Media Marketing Efforts.

What do you think? Post your comments below.

Secret # 7. Your web designer shouldn’t be in control of the marketing process

• Identify your specific outcome for each area and page of your website. What do you want the visitor to do?  Fill out a form, subscribe, call, click a specific link, download something, or make a purchase?
  

• Remember that you’re the marketer, regardless of your formal title.  You need to control the sales processes.  Don’t lose navigation ease for special effects. Please avoid a circus look with too many fonts, sizes and colors. Remember to construct the site with clear and redundant navigation. That means adding the main navigation choices to the top and relevant navigation at the bottom of the page.

• Add a site map for the search engines and visitors.  A site map is a directory listing of your pages listed on a pages for easy access.  Make sure your web designer checks the visual layout and menus on a PC / MAC with different browsers.

• Check your site on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Google’s new browser Chrome.  Also, some new java-type menu programs work great on one type of browser and are all messed up on a different type of browsers.
  

• Before you hire any web design firm, or other vendor for that matter do you do diligence and check out their references.  Review samples of their work too! If you don’t see clear marketing messages and actions steps find someone else.  You can check out my client testimonials here.
  

Secret # 8: Use your Stats!  Set up your analytic tracking methods and calculate your visitor value?

This is also know as Value-Per-Visitor (VPV) Take your sales Sales $ dollars for a given period, usually a month and then divide by the number of visitors to your site = VPV (Example: $1000 / 5000 = .20)

How much is each one of your site visitors worth? This will also help you determine how much you can spend in PPC too.  Not to oversimplify, but if your visitor value is only .30 cents, then you wouldn’t want to bid higher than that or you’d be losing money.

For most of you watching this short clip, the point is for you to identify and calculate your sites performance benchmarks.

Do you know how many people visit your site?

What is your average conversion rate? Are people joining or unsubscribing from your lists.  How long are they staying on your site? You can learn a great deal from your site because it tracks everything. Check your site statistics Ask your webmaster. This helps you identify areas for improvement on your site so you can turn more clicks into customers.

We use Google Analytics. Its free and quite powerful. It tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online too.

When you pay attention to your stats and track your results you can then Write better pay-per-click ads (AdWords campaigns), strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. And the best part is that its free!

Lets Review the concepts from this 4-part video series:
(Blog Readers… subscribe to my Youtube Channel at www.Youtube.com/primeconcepts to watch short videos on Internet Marketing.)

1. Get clear on your outcome and purpose for your site (Add value, make a profit)

2. Get more domain names.

3. Design with marketing in mind

4. Create your top 50 Keywords

5. Help the Search Engines find you. SEM / SEO

6. Build your Database

7. Keep the Graphic Designer in check

8. Use your Stats and calculate your value-per-visitor VPV

I hope you’re excited about all the ways you now have to increase your websites performance. Each ONE of the ideas I’ve shared with you today can make you a lot of money if you take the time to implement them.

Remember, whether you’re the an Entrepreneur, CEO, Marketing Director, or Staff Member everyone on the team plays an important role in being sure all of your marketing efforts Add Value and Make a Profit.  Connect with me, Ford Saeks on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Prime_Concepts

This blog is about both, because when you make your marketing materials more effective — you’ll increase your bottom line.

I’m a big believer in systems, formulas and concepts… anything that’s proven to produce positive results. Here is a basic formula that you probably have heard of… or at least are familiar with if you’ve ever read any good sales material.

It’s called the AIDA Formula.

AIDA is an acronym for the formula used in creating powerful and effective marketing communications, sales letters, and is widely used in advertising too.

A – Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer. Stand out!

I – Interest: raise customer interest by demonstrating features, advantages, and benefits.

D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.

A – Action: lead customers towards taking a specific and measurable action.

Gather up a few samples of your marketing materials or view your website and ask yourself these questions:

1. What’s the PURPOSE for the specific marketing Piece or web page? Again, the AIDA formula applies to your website, print materials and Radio or TV advertising too!
   1. Is it to provide information & support the sale? – Is it to help prospects gain knowledge? Or…
   2. Is it to get the prospect to take immediate action? – For selling & promotion?
2. Is there an attention getting headline? Sub-head?
3. Is there a clear Benefit Message?
4. Who is Your Target Audience?
5. Is it designed with Your Prospect in Mind?
6. How would you score this piece on effectiveness from 1 to 5 stars with 5 being very effective-and 1 being boring and a cure for insomnia?
7. Always ask yourself: “Does this convey the message I want my reader to get?”

Now, make a note of this Action Step: Review all of your materials and see if they follow the AIDA formula, and then identify your super stars! You might be surprised by what you find when you look at your materials through the AIDA formula. This exercise will help you identify which pieces are designed well, and which ones need to be re-designed.

Of course the best measurement for any marketing materials is the response it generates. But when you’re planning your designs you’ll have a head start when you follow the AIDA formula.

Now that you know what to look for, let’s see what you should do when planning new marketing materials? Our goal is to follow the AIDA method. Remember, regardless of your role in the process, if you’re the CEO, Marketing Director or staff member, it’s important for you to understand and use these strategies even if you’re only using desktop publishing or creating more elaborate materials.

Plan ahead by answering the 5 W’s… This is very important.

Get focused on:

Who are you designing to? Who is the target prospect?

What do you want them to know or do?

Why should they care? Why should they pay attention?

Where can they get more info?

When should they respond or take action?

It’s helpful if you actually create a Word Document or template with the 5W’s… Who, What, Why, Where, and When? This will help you and/or your designer understand the purpose of the piece.

Now that you’ve have an understanding of AIDA and the 5W’s, I’d like to explore the two main parts that make up every marketing piece or advertisement… The first part is crafting a compelling message-writing the copy (the words you’re going to use to communicate value). The second part is the layout & design.

Subscribe to this marketing blog’s RSS feed in the upper right hand corner to be notifed of future blog postings where we’ll explore more on how to design effective marketing materials. And of course, post your feedback below!

The Three things that can get in your way and block your creativity are:

• Your Perceptions
• Your Emotions
• Your Culture & Environment

Perceptions. – What things MEAN to you?

Like…. Stereotypes. Or having a Limited Vision Or being set in your ways with Habits that might keep you stuck in old patterns. What about your perception of Tradition VS. Change? Are traditions keeping you stuck?

Or your Emotions - How do you FEEL?

Does it bother you to look like a fool? Do you fear taking risks? Are you afraid make a mistake or fail? Real problem solving and idea creation is messy.

When you change your thoughts and change your actions and you’ll get better results.

Cultural & Environmental Blocks might be…. Other People’s Opinions… Lack of cooperation and trust among colleagues or co-workers. And then there’s Distractions – phone calls, and easy intrusions. All of these things can block your creativity…

Have you ever had a big idea that you didn’t take action on… Maybe it was your Perceptions or emotions that got in your way… Well, it almost happened to me…

In 1986, I invented a product line that was used to store bicycles inside your home or apartment… Maybe you’ve seen them in the Sky Mall Magazines on airplanes, in Sharper Image, sporting goods stores or other specialty catalogs…. The main line was hand-crafted from solid Oak and was a tension-mount system that went from Floor-to-Ceiling, to hold 2 bikes in a limited space, protecting your bikes and your home.

In the beginning, I tried several different ways to get the product to market. It was a tough first year and I thought about quitting many times. I can assure you that my own perceptions, emotions and my environment got in the way more than just a few times… but through creativity and innovation, and using the mindset tools we’re going to be exploring today, I was able to sell over 28 million dollars worth of product in just a few short years…

I’ve used these same tools, again and again to help clients differentiate themselves in a competitive market; to launch innovative publicity campaigns; to build websites and online marketing strategies that created virtual money-machines; to design new advertising concepts, and improve many other areas of their businesses, even beyond the marketing department. These are proven tools that YOU can start to apply immediately…

Think about your business… Products… or Services… Are you truly doing everything you can to find, attract and keep your customers?

Are you allowing self-imposed limitations to hold you back? It’s time to breakthrough those limitations, use your resources, and expand your creativity. You deserve it!

Wow, Might seem like a lot to think about, but actually, it’s all about your B.S…

Your Belief System can either get your way or launch you to success.

I’ve used the tools I’m about to share with you to help organizations in many different industries around the globe achieve amazing improvements in their marketing results and you can use them too.

You may be familiar with some of these techniques, but I’m sure you’ll have a new appreciation for them as they apply to your marketing strategies!

Have you ever heard of Idea-mapping or Mind-Mapping? It’s one of my favorite creativity tools! Idea Mapping is a simple technique you can use to capture and organize your thoughts and Ideas visually on one page.

Idea Maps are especially helpful for Brainstorming to help you think up new and creative ideas more quickly and easily. Here’s how you get started…

Take out a blank piece of paper with out lines. You want it without the lines because the lines can restrict the natural flow of your thoughts. Turn the paper landscape… with the long side of the paper at the top.

Next, in the center of the page, draw an image or print the words that represent your main theme, concept or topic that you want to brainstorm. For example, you might start with “ideas for New products” or “How to sell product X”…

State it in the form of a question… who, how, what, why?… you decide. Allow plenty of white space for the rest of the map. I like to have a few colored pens available too because color stimulates the brain and helps captures attention.

At first, your Idea maps might be pretty simple branches with lines and a few words and that’s okay… As you practice, you’ll become more creative and you’ll find this to be a fast way to capture and generate new ideas. This will also help you create new connections between ideas and concepts.

A picture really is worth a 1000 words! It stimulates the brain to think up new associations, it focuses the thoughts and it results in much better recall of the content at a later date. So draw pictures to represent your ideas. They can be simple stick figures, sketches, symbols…what ever makes sense to you. The brain works by association so by connecting the main branches to the central topic, the brain links those elements together.

The main branch words and images stimulate other thoughts and associations. They allow the random flow of your thoughts as you add other levels of thought. So make the central lines from the center thicker, curved and organic (like the branch of a tree attached to the trunk) to help organize your sub-themes.

Start to add a second level of thought. These words and/or images are linked to the main branch that triggered them. Add more branches and levels of thought as ideas come to you. Feel free to jump from branch to branch as the mood strikes you.

Remember, You can use:

• Pictures
• Line drawings
• Patterns
• Symbols
• Shapes, boxes, circles
• Colors, etc…

I encourage you to use this new tool. Use it in meetings, sales presentations, and of course when you are planning your marketing strategies. While I started out drawing most of my idea-maps, now I also us mind-mapping software called “MindManager from www.mindjet.com. There are several others too, but don’t think that you need to get software… Start right away using paper and pen to open your mind and expand your creativity. I’m sure that you’ll quickly see how using idea mapping can help you and your team!

I’ve explained how Idea mapping can work for brainstorming… and I’m sure that most of you are already familiar with the concept of brainstorming…but just to make sure, here is a quick review of the rules for GROUP BRAINSTORMING:

• Set a time frame… generally the shorter the better… like 15 to 30 minutes max!
• The Goal is to collect as many ideas as possible from all participants with no criticisms or judgments made while ideas are being generated.
• All ideas are welcome no matter how silly or far out they seem. Be creative. The more ideas the better because at this point you don’t know what might work.
• Absolutely no discussions during the brainstorming session. Talking about the ideas will take place after brainstorming session is complete.
• Do not criticize or judge the other people’s ideas. Seriously….Don’t even groan, frown, or laugh. If you do… you’ll hamper the creative process.
• Write all ideas on a flipchart or white board so the whole group can easily see them.

Here’s a great tip! If you’re in an organization that’s had trouble with brainstorming, either because of certain people, egos or office politics, or have trouble in getting a large list of ideas, then I suggest you send out a memo before the meeting with the main brainstorming topic or question?

Ask them to print their ideas on paper as a requirement to the meeting, or you can use post-it notes during the session, so people can participate anonymously.

Let’s talk about making your final selections.

• When all the ideas have been recorded–combine ideas as much as possible,
• Next, Vote to select the best 3 to 5 ideas.

Let’s review what we’ve covered so far…

That it’s your mindset that determines the actions you’ll take.

Without action… you can’t improve your results. Why improving your creativity helps your mindset as well as your business. We discussed removing the mental blocks that get in your way… like certain perceptions, emotions and your environment. And then how to use “idea-mapping” and brainstorming basics to stimulate your mind!

Subscribe to the RSS feed using the link in the upper right corner and follow me on twitter.com at www.Twitter.com/Prime_Concepts

Now the GLOBE wasn’t my first choice for my entrepreneurial story when I was working to increase exposure and sales using press releases. It started with me sending press releases about my products to local papers, then trade publications, and went on to include national & international magazines, including USA Today, Entrepreneur, Success, Popular Science and many others.

“Using the Power of Publicity to Increase Sales”

Those media efforts launched and helped the success of my business grow into a multi-million dollar company. Those releases gave my products millions of dollars worth in free advertising, outstanding third-party endorsements, squashed the competition, created a ton of sales leads…. and they positioned my products in the eyes of my prospects & customers.

Since then, I’ve harnessed the power of publicity to promote all kinds of products and services in more industries than I can count. Now I use publicity efforts to promote my Direct & Internet Marketing services, along with efforts to promote my client’s products that lead to millions in sales each year. It’s much easier than most people may think. There are hundreds of magazines starving for content, but it has to be of value or forget it, not to mention the millions of internet sites craving for new content.

When was the last time YOU sent out a press release? What’s YOUR opinion of media releases? Do you have a Media Section of your website? Learning how to craft and use press releases is extremely valuable for your promotional efforts…. and we’re going to look at how YOU can do it better too! The impact, reach and power of publicity have never been greater. You’re ability to get your stories published and read is much easier than ever before. Using publicity strategies with the power of the internet can give you a competitive edge, and increase your sales. Publicity is a valuable component of any company that wants a competitive edge.

For the purposes of today’s show, when I refer to either a press or media release, I’m referring to the same thing. Sure, if you want to get nit-picky a *Press* release is sent to print publications and a media release is sent to TV, Radio, and internet sites, but for today… the outcome is the same… to send a news worthy article or story that is something of value to a group of listeners, viewers or readers… and that includes your prospects searching the internet.

Just a few years ago, if you wanted to benefit from sending out press releases you had to identify media outlets, attempt to entice overworked and underpaid reporters, publishers or editors to pick up your story. It could be a long and arduous process. Even if you hired a PR Firm, you still were stuck with them targeting journalists and media outlets to select your stories. Today, you can benefit from online media sources that post and distribute your releases to millions instantly… We’re going to explore the strategies that you can use to become a publicity powerhouse!

You still want to include a strategy to get printed in traditional publications and viewed through media sources, but now you can use the power of the internet to do it faster and more effectively. Keep in mind, a poorly written, self-promotional press release will be just as useless in any medium… so you need to understand how the process works best to benefit from it.

It’s important to note that not all of the rules have changed for getting free publicity. The benefits remain virtually the same. You’re leveraging the resources of other media sources to reach your target market for much less money than advertising. The main difference from then to now is that before you had little to no control over what stories and how much of the story actually got published, but now thanks to online PR Services, your press release automatically becomes web content, which means it has a much better chance at automatically becoming news, and more importantly helping your prospects find you.

Follow me on www.Twitter.com/Prime_Concepts Subscribe to the RSS feed and post your comments or questions below.

On our Internet Marketing blog posting we were talking about getting into the mind of your prospects… and the Four-stages of the buying process.

Here’s the first stage:*  Your prospects need to recognize they have a “Problem“ - to become aware of need or desire! Sometimes, as marketers, we need to help them see the problem… we need to give them the headache…and then sell them the pain-reliever.

* Next is the “Information research & comparison shopping phase” -  You can help guide your prospects through this phase by using free articles, specials landing pages, and content devoted to help them along.

* And the third stage is the actual Purchase -

-Are they Satisfied or dissatisfied with the purchase?  Prospects ask themselves “have I made the right decision?”   You can reduce their concerns by offering: guarantees, warranties, and testimonials, along with after sales communications.

So Let’s say I am in the market for new energy efficient car… how about a hybrid car… But I don’t want a little whimpy car… I want an SUV…and a Luxury SUV….

Think about the types of keywords that I might type in the search-engine?

“Hybrid car” …, “Luxury Hybrid SUV”…  “How Hybrids Work?”… “Hybrid SUV Performance Ratings” and so on…  If you’re selling these models you’ll want to have content and keywords on your site that matches my search engine inquiries.

Keep in mind that your customers could visit you at several different stages of the buying process or just jump to the sale.  Use caution on your assumptions.  Let the market tell you what’s working… If what you’re doing now isn’t working-that’s a clear sign you need to CHANGE.

As an action step, think about the problems that your products and services solve.  Are you making the fatal mistake that your prospects will just figure out the benefits you offer.  Are you making too many assumptions about your prospects decision making process?  Remember, stage one is your prospects need to know they have a problem that you can solve… and that problem may be positioned as a desire too, but it should be clear to your prospects that they’ve reached the best source for their wants and desires when they reach your website.

I’d like you to map out on paper the content you feel that YOUR prospects would need in the “research & comparison” phase.  If you have several products, then you’ll need to repeat it for each one.  What questions do they have about your products or services and make sure you provide the answers or a way to get those answers on your site.   You may want them to fill out an online assessment form, download a special report….  Or create a comparison of features or products chart… or maybe have them fill-out a request form.

Next, go through your Purchase process, step by step and see if you can improve or simplify it.  This episode is about driving traffic…and if you’re site’s easy to purchase from, it will enhance the customers buying experience and make it more likely that they’ll spend money with you and tell their friends and associates.

To help you increase your rankings in the search engines and for future Pay-per-Click advertising planning, make a list of the keywords you think your prospects would type into their favorite search engine at each phase of the buying process..  from research through to the purchase.  Use a spreadsheet to help you organize and sort them for future use.

Before you invest in Pay-per-click and other efforts to drive traffic to your site, you must make sure your site is designed properly.  You certainly don’t want to waste your efforts driving traffic to a website that sucks!   Please don’t confuse Sucks… with ugly.   Sometimes websites that you think would never sell anything, like one long scrolling page selling only one product…with three different color fonts and a big “buy now” at the bottom outsell the fancy sites with all of the bells and whistles.  Your website is only effective if it quickly moves the visitor from the inquiry stage to becoming a qualified lead or by making a purchase.

My measurement of a website is by the profit it generates and that’s how you should evaluate your site too.

Look at your site through the eyes of a marketer and the mind of the prospect.

Now let’s explore how to use that information to get more traffic.

The question I get asked the most when talking about increasing site traffic is
“How do we get higher rankings in the search engines?” – for free, not using Pay-per-Click to help position rankings.

Higher rankings means more traffic because your prospects can find you easier.   While we could go on for days about how to get higher “organic or natural” ranking placements, let’s look at the key factors that you can benefit from right away…

First, you need to understand that the search-engines responsibility is to provide the searcher the best “user-experience” by providing them with the most relevant search results. related to the users SEARCH TERMS. Your job is to help the search engines catalog your site content so your site listing is displayed high in the rankings for those keyword searches.   Each major search engine uses complicated algorithms and techniques to create their listings and its changing all of the time, but let’s look at the main things that you can do to that seem to be constant in the ranking process.

Having a large amount of relevant CONTENT about your products, services and solutions.  The more content, and fresh content you have related to the main search terms and stages of the buying processes you’ve identified, the more likely the search engines are to raise your rankings.

For example, if you’ve identified the top ten keywords that you think your prospects would use to find you–you then will want to create at least one web page dedicated to that keyword term.  On one of my sites I sell a program for information marketers, (experts who speak, train and consult)… the program is called The Internet Profit Kit, and I have special landing pages with article content related to the keywords that I know my prospects will be searching for… and then at the bottom of the page is the promotion for the product.  It’s a win-win for everyone.

With many search engines, the information displayed on search results page comes from two places: the HTML <title tag> and the <meta-description tag> if you have one, or it selects text from the landing page for the description.  What Is a Title Tag? This is the list of words that show at the top bar of your web browser.   The title tag has been–and probably will always be–one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings.   In fact, fixing just the title tags of your pages can often generate quick and appreciable differences to your search rankings.  And because the words in the title tag are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page… changing them usually results in more clickthroughs to your site.

Title tags are definitely one of the most important factors as far as the algorithmic weight given to them by search engines; they are equally as important as your visible text on the page and the hyperlinks pointing to your pages – perhaps even more so.

Each page should have a unique page title and description meta-tag.   A common question is “Do Company Names Belong in the Title Tag?”…  I’d say YES! Of course, but this doesn’t mean that you should put “just” your company name in the title tag.   You also want to add a good descriptive keyword phrase too… something that will help compel the prospect to click on your listing.   You’d be surprised how many sites just use “HOME PAGE” as the title, or worse they don’t use anything and it shows untitled page… or they use the exact same words on each page of their site.  When you do that, you make it hard for the search engines to know what each page is about that lowers your rankings for sure!

Your Title Tags Should Contain Specific Keyword Phrases that match the content on the particular page.

For example, if your company is **ACME Incorporated** a Specialty Glassware company in California, you shouldn’t place ONLY the words **ACME Incorporated.** in your title tag, but instead use something like… ** ACME Incorporated Specialty Glassware – Bar Glassware, California **  Be sure to do your keyword research to find the best phrases!  You would need to be even more specific if you prefer to work with people only in the Los Angeles area.  In that case, use keywords such as **Los Angeles Specialty Glassware** in your title tag or maybe **Specialty Glassware – Bar Glassware – Los Angeles**

How your listing appears on the SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE (SERP) is a critical aspect of you improving traffic.  After all, if you have high search engine rankings but your targeted buyers aren’t clicking through, it won’t do you much good.  Write compelling titles tags and description tags so that your prospects select you over the competition.   Just Search your top keywords and see what the competition is using for page titles and descriptions.   If you’re not the person who actually works on the site, you still need to communicate exactly what you want and make sure that your web designer understands these critical elements.

Oh, yeah… How many words should you use in the title tag?  Google will display up to 66 characters of a title tag, cropping it to complete words.   Yahoo! has an absolute cutoff in presenting titles of exactly 120 characters, which is substantially longer and gives you much more room to present longer titles.  The best strategy for creating a long title is to make sure that the title works for both Google and Yahoo.

The Description tag is very important too.  When your page listing comes up in the search results, the contents of your META description tag are displayed right below the title of your page.  If no description tag is found, the search engine attempts to create a description for you and often fails to describe your page properly.  Make your description meta tags short but informative.   If you can trim them to less than 14 words that give enough information to compel the user visit your site.

Don’t make yourself crazy trying to create the perfect title and description tag, as there’s just no such thing.  The best thing to do would be to test different ones and see which rank higher and which convert better.

That’s all I have time for today… subscribe to the Blog RSS feed and enter your comments below.

It was 8:00 o’clock on a Thursday morning. I arrived at my office to find my email in-box filled with orders worth over $70,000 dollars…  It was a great way to start my day!

Earlier that week, I’d launched my Marketing Mentorship program by sending out a 3-part email series to my customer list.   The first email mentioned that something big was coming soon-that was the teaser…  The second email sent one day after that…  was the reminder message…, and the third email, was the actual sales letter with links to the special landing page.

Now, I’d experienced this type of success and even better ones many times before… for generating sales leads;  growing ezine subscriber lists;  and selling a wide variety of products and services, with prices ranging from 9.00 to $90,000 dollars. “Make money while you sleep”….they said… “Grow your business exponentially by leveraging the power the Internet… they said… And I listened!”

Now-there were many voices-some good-and some full of hot air… but through testing and tracking… and testing again, I was able to formulate and perfect many methods to get more visitors to our sites.

I’ve been marketing on the internet now for over a decade… My company, Prime Concepts Group owns and operates over 100 websites for our products & services, and many more for our clients around the globe… and if there’s one thing I’ve learned… be careful of anyone who claims to know everything about the internet, or internet marketing, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, or any subject for that matter…  The culture and behavior of internet users, along with the search engines are constantly in flux and you’ll want to adapt or you’ll get left behind.

Even experienced Internet Marketers-like me-are quick to tell you to test everything in the sales process; track the responses you get: and measure the conversions and everything you do to make sure it’s effective!  Even in this fast changing environment, there are proven Internet marketing strategies that have worked repeatedly to produce profitable results… and that’s what today’s show is all about!

Oh… and just in case your curious… this isn’t a blog posting about technology… it’s about communication and adding value…

The ideas and concepts I’ll be sharing can be used by the novice, the techie, and the corporate executive.   They apply to entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporations and for not-for-profit organizations… A couple things for sure, you don’t have to be a techno-geek to understand everything… but you will want to take good notes!

The next suggestion is to split your notes into two categories… one half for “Aah-Haa moments” and the other half for “Action Steps“.  That way, when you review them you’ll have a clear plan of action!  Are you ready?  Let’s go!

Think about your last big purchase…  Did you use the internet-either for research or to buy something?  What was the last thing you purchased from a website?   What are your favorite sites–and why?  Make a list of the top five that you visit and after watching the video above, go visit them through the mind of an “Internet Marketer”   I’ll let you know what to look for…

The next important concept is to “get inside the mind of your prospects.” Get to know their behavior and habits.  How do they buy?    What factors influence their buying decision?  Over the years, I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, small businesses and major corporations to improve their sales and profits.  Through that experience, it was common for some of them to under utilize the main stages of the buying process.   Keep in mind that the actual purchase is just ONE stage.

Sure… this concept of *stages* applies to all types of selling, but especially for the web–where you’ll most likely need CONTENT to address each stage in the buying process.  This not only helps your site visitor have an improved experience, but it also helps the search engines catalog you as a good reference.

Subscribe to the Blog RSS Feed and check out www.InternetProfitKit.com for more resources on using Internet Marketing to Grow Your Business.

Post your questions about growing your business or improving your marketing performance below. Thanks!

Everyone I talk to as an Internet Marketing Consultant wants to know how to get more site visitors from search engines.  It starts with a basic understanding of how the search engines work-or rather what their responsibility is to their user-the searcher.

The search engine’s job is to provide the best and most relevant results to the person using their search engine to find solutions to their searches. To do that they need to catalog a site’s content and while there are every-changing algorithms for top rankings a critical element for search engine optimization (SEO) is the content, which of course is made of WORDS.

Those words when filled with your “keywords” make up your content.  Knowing which words to use and where to put them on your site is a huge element of SEO to get more traffic.   Keywords and keyword phrases are the same thing.

Here are a few tips for keyword success:

1. Make a list of the main types of prospects you want to attract.

Create a marketing profile for the typical prospect and customer for your business in a word doc. Get as specific as you can so you can put yourself in the “mindset” of the type of people you want to attract.  Ask yourself and evaluate what keywords you think they would type into a search engine to find you, your products or services.

2. Do your research.

Look at your website statistics because that will show you what words people are using now to find you. It doesn’t mean they are the best words, but your stats will show you what keyword phrases they are using now.  We use “Google Analytics” for sites. It’s a free service, easy to implement and offers a ton of benefits.

You want targeted traffic that will convert into customer leads and sales.  Many years ago I optimized my Internet Marketing Speaker website for my name “Ford Saeks” but because my first name Ford is also a major automotive company I was receiving tons of spill over traffic for people looking for Ford cars and Ford car parts, and not my professional services to help people improve their marketing results and profits.  The keywords we use now are related and relevant to what our prospects and customers are searching for to find our solutions.  The research results, our site statistics and usage of the popular keywords research tools all help us optimize our sites for top rankings.

Two of my favortite Keyword tools are:

Google Keyword Tool Sandbox:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

and the WordTracker Free Keyword Tool

There are several other sources for keyword research and they all offer specific advantages and benefits. WordTracker’s Free Keyword Tool and  Google’s Sandbox Tool will keep you busy for a while and help you create a nice list of keywords.

3. Use your Keywords on your website content, blog headlines and postings, articles, media releases, and social media website profiles.

Remember, keywords… sorry scratch that… The right keywords, meaning most relevant keywords that your prospects would type into a search engine are what you want in your content.  This includes the content on your website and any content that you place on other people’s website.

For exampke, if you have your company profile or products listed on directory sites or association listings you want to include relevant keywords.  If you have a blog then your blog headlines and blog postings or comments you place on other people’s blogs should include relevant keywords.  If you are using Social Media Marketing Websites — like FaceBook, Linkedin, YouTube, MySpace, and many others to grow your business — then you need to include your relevant keywords in your profiles and postings.

Make certain that your webmaster understands the proper SEO elements necessary for top rankings so you can take advantage of your keywords.  Or hire an SEO Specialist like me, Ford Saeks, to help you and your organization dramatically improve your search engine rankings and make more money. There are 7 critical places you must place your keywords to get top rankings.  One of the best places on your site is the PAGE TITLE and it must be unique on every page.

I explore over 10 other keyword research and SEO strategies going into much more detail on finding the best keywords, including the seven critical places you must use your keywords to increase your targeted site traffic on Keyword Secrets: 60-Minutes to Simple Keyword Success Audio.

Also, WordTracker offers a 7-day free trial and 7 free keyword videos and a Keyword Basic’s Guide that you and your webmaster will find extremely helpful.  I guarantee it!  

Start Now. Add a comment below on this blog posting with your top keywords and put a link to your website.  This will give you an in-bound link that also helps your site rankings.

Just visit www.Go2Web20.net and you’ll find thousands of sites on every topic imaginable. Eventually, there will be a few winners and a ton of losers. It’s easy to get carried away and jump at every new site, but before you waste a ton of your time — think about the purpose and outcome of your efforts.

For me, as an Internet Marketing Speaker with new topics on Social Media Marketing presentations, It makes sense for me to research and become an active member on several sites.  My role is to evaluate the effectiveness along with the pros & cons, and determine the best way to use them to help my clients grow their business. This goes way beyond the purpose of branding, claiming your space and protecting your image to attracting new customers and creating new relationships with prospects in your target markets.

I’m curious what you think… so take a second and fill out the quick form below and tell me which Social Media Web Site, if any, is your favorite and why? 

Yesterday’s Web looked far different from today’s Web, and tomorrow’s Web will look more different still. Amidst all of this change, however, one aspect of Web use remains the same: The sites that offer the best, easiest, most intuitive experience are the ones people visit again and again.

To ensure that your sites provide the best user experience, you and your web developer need the essential guide from Steve Krug “Don’t Make Me Think; A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability” (2nd Edition)  that distills his years of on-the-job experience into a practical primer on the do’s and don’ts of good Web design. His book is a quick read and while there are a couple of points I don’t agree with for SEO reasons, I agree with his basic concepts outlined below.

The number-one usability rule, most often expressed by users…  

1. Don’t Make Me Think. Basically your website visitor doesn’t want to venture into a site that requires them to figure it out. It should be self-explanatory. Web pages should be obvious and self-explanatory. Buttons should have short text and look ‘clickable.’ The default search for your site should be simple.

2. Design for scanning not reading. By observing users Krug found that people glance, scan some text, and click on the first reasonable option. People scan Web pages, they don’t read them. We don’t make optimal choices, we click on impulse.
 

** In our copywriting courses (Ford Saeks), I express that there are two main types of people reading your copy (text in print or online) and those are “scanners” and “readers.”  You should write your copy for both types of readers. Give enough headlines, subheads, and bullets along with limited use of bold and color to help the scanner get the gist of the main benefits or message, and then enough information for the reader to get the necessary details. Formatting is just as important as the copy. **

Okay, back to Steve Krug’s Book points…

Here are some things you can do to make sure your users understand as much of your site as possible:

a. Create a clear visual hierarchy to show relative importance of content (H1/H2 etc.)
b. Break pages up into clearly defined areas or sections
d. Make it obvious what’s clickable
e. Minimize noise and distractions

3. Users like mindless choices.  We don’t figure out how things work, we muddle through.

4. Omit needless words. Get rid of half of the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left. This is especially important on home pages and gateway pages.  

** Now this is the point I would take with a bit of caution. I agree about omitting needless words, but keep in mind that you should be designing your site and writing copy for the VISITOR and the SEARCH ENGINES. Effective use of keywords in headlines, page titles and bullets helps catalog your pages in the search engines. Just make sure you do your best to communicate value and benefits, substantiate your claims with features and credibility, and ensure you have a specific and measurable action step on every page. **

5. Navigation: Use street signs and bread crumbs.  These visual cues help the reader know which page or section they are on and how to get back. They are a navigation element on the page that reflects the structure of the site’s folders and a path back to home along the folder structure. Basically, bread crumbs are where you are at in relation to home, not the pages you’ve visited.

For example, you visit a page and along the top of the main content area are links…

Success Store >> Products >> Books >> Marketing Magic by Ford Saeks

(Yes, I know that underlined text should be linked. This was just an example of bread crumb navigation)

Factoid: The back button accounts for 30 to 40 percent of all Web clicks. Persistent navigation should appear on every page of the site and should include the following five elements:

a. Site ID – headline, logo, name
b. A way home
c. Search features
d. Sections by relevant content, topic, category, or type of visitor
e. Footer Links

Your navigation should answer these questions:

a. What site is this?
b. What page am I on?
c. What are the major sections of this site?
d. What are my options at this level?
e. Where am I in the scheme of things?
f. How can I search?

6. Your home page should convey the big picture

What is the site about? Use a good short tag line and welcome blurb. Rotate site promotions. Remove everything nonessential.

7. Most Web design usability arguments are waste of time

These “religious debates” consist of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can’t be proven. All Web users are unique. There are no average users. There are no simple “right” answers for most Web design questions. What works is good, integrated design that fills a need, that’s carefully thought out, well executed, and tested.

The antidote for religious debate is to ask specific questions and test with real users. The last three chapters of the book show how to perform testing on the cheap with three or four users. It’s required reading for my design staff and I’m sure it would be helpful for you! 

Have a question… enter it below and I’ll answer it.

Q:  Why do I want my blog to be part of my site when I can set one up for little to nothing at sites like BlogSpot.com or WordPress.com?

A: Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary website can limit the value of your blog to your business.   We started out with a blog at typepad.com a few years ago, then realized that it was much more valuable to install a WordPress blog (www.wordpress.org) .ORG software on our server and had our techs configure the templates, plug-ins and interface. 

The main reasons for having your blog as part of your actual domain is that a blog on your domain can attract links to other areas of your site, increase visibility, improve publicity efforts, build trust, and raise your search rankings. 

Our old blog platform using Typepad:   primeconcepts.typepad.com

Blog as part of our corporate domain:  www.PrimeConcepts.com/blog 

What is your favorite Blog application? Comment below:

For you Social Media Marketing buffs… another day… another social media site… and they all need your profile information to help you benefit from the site and help you drive traffic to your other sites.

The SMM site of the day is http://www.naymz.com/ and it offers you the opportunity to tell the world why you are talented, valuable, and unique.  What I like about Naymz is that it allows information to be verified, and as such, should become a trusted resource.

Anybody can post information about themselves on the Internet.  This site allows the people who are closest to you to vouch for your reputation.  Through the power of the Naymz Reputation Network, you can now allow others to verify the information you claim about yourself.

You can view my profile at http://ford.saeks.name/  I signed up for the premium service option because of the reports and other features.   When someone visits my profile at http://ford.saeks.name/  I get detailed information about who is visiting my personal profile.  It’s pretty cool and a bit scary at the same time.

More about http://www.naymz.com/

Naymz helps others find all of your online content in one convenient place.  It allows you to publish a directory of links and feeds to your company website, blogs, social networks, online photo albums, bookmarks and any other items that define you.  You can build your professional profile by adding an up-to-date bio, favorite photo, current employer and contact information. 

The first place employers and colleagues are going to look for information about you is within Google and the other search engines.  Naymz will optimize and submit your profile to the major search engines so others will be able to find the most up-to-date and accurate information about you.  Naymz also provides RSS feeds and badges to help others keep up with you.

Personal information by and about professionals is getting added to the Internet every day at an ever-increasing rate.  Through their Reputation Monitor, Naymz can help you keep an eye out for personal online information that is published that contains information about you.

Time will tell how many of these sites last. This one has merit to me because it helps protect my online identity.  As an Internet marketing specialist who presents around the globe, it’s common for others to use my name to drive traffic to their site, even though I don’t know them or appreciate them doing so.  Sure, I could spend all day sending cease and desist letters (and do in some cases), but I’ve got better things to do… like grow my business.

Action Items of the Day:

1. Visit my profile at http://ford.saeks.name/

2. Set up your own http://www.naymz.com/ account and then if you know me, give me an endorsement and I’ll endorse you.

What are your favorite Social Media Sites? What do you think about creating online profiles?  Share your comments below.

As a marketer… the buzz, hype and hysteria about Web 2.0 is similar to the Dot Com explosion of the late 1990s.   Everyone was scrambling to claim their space.  Experts were everywhere and multiplied exponentially as everyone rushed to create their sites. They started off simple, then got crazy with colors and animated .gifs, and we’ve all watched as the web evolved into one of the best business-building and social mediums in the world.  

Why do I think you should pay attention to Web 2.0?  Because if you’re a savvy business owner, marketing professional, entrepreneur, or corporate executive you’ll miss the next big wave on the Internet that can help you build your business.

It seems like every day there are more and more Social Media Marketing sites popping up.  Don’t take my word for it… visit http://www.go2web20.net/ and check it out.   It’s a search engine for Web 2.0-type sites.   It’s mind-boggling!

If you’re not familiar with Web 2.0, you can watch a five-minute explanation video at the end of this posting.  It explains Web 2.0 in technical terms… some things make you smarter… but won’t really help you grow your business.

As someone who wants to make more money using the Internet, just skip the video. What’s really important is the transition from the original Web 1.0 model of using your website to communicate value…  to the addition of Social Media sites where users congregate to discuss interests, share photos, share videos, post opinions, interact and of course… socialize.  

Those captive audiences are a marketer’s dream, but there are new rules for Social Media Marketing and they are changing, adapting, and specific to each type of site.  I’ll cover more about those rules and the etiquette of the main Social Media sites in a minute. 

 You’re familiar with the business model of Web 1.0 (web designers build your site):

1. Build a Site

2. Drive Traffic

3. Build a List

4. Make Money

Web 2.0 business model: (I still suggest you have your own company website AND you need to create a presence on the Social Media sites that make sense for your business, industry, topic area, and customer profile. If your customers and prospects are there… and they no doubt are… if you don’t claim your space your competition will, and you’ll miss out on the next wave on the net.)

In a nutshell, Web 2.0 sites are free and low-cost sites that allow users with little to no technical expertise to create content, profiles, pages and share all types of photos, videos and other media.  That’s why they are spreading and growing so fast, because anyone with a web browser and a little time can build web pages, create links, and create and expand their “Internet footprint.”  

Can Web 2.0 be used to build your business? It sure can… any medium that promotes communication and has a grouping of people will be a resource for finding, attracting, and improving relationships with your customers and prospects.  Not to mention how interesting and helpful some of the sites can be for pre-screening hiring applicants.  

For legal reasons I won’t say who or how that research helped, but I’m sure you can figure out that looking at someone’s Myspace, Facebook, or Linkedin profile before hiring them might give you some insight…  anyway, back to making money…

If you can fog a mirror, you can create your profile on Facebook and Myspace and upload videos to Youtube… although don’t just do it because you can.  Take the time to visit Facebook and Myspace and search for some “how-to” videos on Youtube and think about what would be of value to upload.

Make sure you follow the rules and etiquette of each site because they have strict policies and if you don’t follow their guidelines, all of your time and energy will be wasted.  They all understand that marketers are going to find ways to benefit, and most have proper procedures for placing ads, links, and promos.

The key to the Web 2.0 sites is to PARTICIPATE and get involved in the areas that interest YOU or YOUR PROSPECTS. That will help you build new relationships that will lead to new business.

Your homework for today is to create your profiles on the top Social Media sites of the day, like http://www.myspace.com/, http://www.facebook.com/, and upload videos to http://www.youtube.com/.    

Oh, yeah… here is the formal explanation of Web 2.0. Guess where I found it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re a professional speaker, workshop or seminar leader producing live events or webinars using PowerPoint slides leader, check out http://www.slideshare.net  A fantastic source for sharing all types of presentations.  As a professional speaker, it’s a great way for me to upload great content and when formatted properly… with links back to my sites… it becomes a great marketing resource too. 

What do you think about Web 2.0 for Business?  Comment below and let me know.

Do you have a profile page on Facebook.com? Or one on MySpace.com or Linkedin.com? What about the other social marketing sites and getting listed at social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and a host of others.  Are you posting Videos on YouTube.com?

Wait, you say. Aren’t those just for kids or college students to share gossip?

Not any more.

Not for a while now. These and other social networking sites like are being used every day by savvy business people looking for new ways to connect with potential clients and generate business. Granted… I should have been using them for at least a couple of years and now we’re jumping in full force to stake our claim and it’s already paying off in more traffic and higher search engine ranknigs.

You can use them to increase traffic to your site, gain a competitive edge and improve communication with your target market.

You’ll also want to secure your online identity and protect your brand.  My definition about social media is a community web site that allow users to:

• Create profiles and custom accounts
• Grow a network of friends
• Submit content or collaborate… Photos, video, etc.
• Vote on content
• Tag content
• Comment on the content

I’ll be sharing with you exactly what I’m doing and how well it’s working.

Here’s my simple 5 Step Plan for using Social Media Marketing to build my business.

1. Be an Active Participant on each site.
2. Have a Consistent Presence on the top 25 Social Media Sites
3. Add Value to the Targeted Prospects in each Category and Topic area.
4. Encourage feedback from the readers to create discussions and conversations.
5. Post my opinions and comments on other blogs, profiles and postings

MySpace:  http://www.myspace.com/primeconcepts

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/primeconcepts

Newsvine:  http://primeconcepts.newsvine.com/

Linkedin: “Ford Saeks” http://www.linkedin.com/in/primeconcepts

FaceBook: “Ford Saeks”

And we’ve claimed our blog on Technorati.com

What do you think about Social Media Sites?  Post your opinions and comments.

I get asked this all the time.  Let’s see if we can clear this up… 

Short Answer:

A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ at the top of the main page to the older entries toward the bottom. Watch this short video that answers the questions in simple and easy — non-techie — terms.

More Details:

The word BLOG is short for web log. A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging.” Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts” or entries. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger.”

A blog may consist of text, images, video and links to other web pages. Blogs generally use a conversational style of writing with the best blogs focusing on a particular “area of interest.” They are typically updated at regular intervals using software that allows people with little or no technical experience to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured at the top of the page. Confused? Don’t be. It’s really quite simple.

Great Video Explanation

Click here to view the embedded video.

It happened again, I received a frantic call from an associate saying, “Help, I was charged $7,650.00 on my credit card for Google AdWords® charges and didn’t make any sales!”  I said, “John, I warned you to take the time to learn how to use PPC or hire someone with experience.”

You see, John and his staff were not experienced with PPC and didn’t want to hire someone like me, who is trained in Google AdWords and a Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador… they wanted to save my fees and just set up their PPC themselves.

Now, in hindsight, my fees for PPC services would have been well worth their money, but many people just think it’s easy to use Pay-Per-Click advertising. 

Well, it’s easy to set up an account and get started, but it’s also easy to spend a ton of money without knowing what you’re doing.  For this blog posting, I’m mainly referring to PPC with Google Adwords® and Yahoo Search Marketing.

Here are a 5 (over-simplified) tips if you’re considering using Pay-per-Click. 

1. First you need to calculate your Value-Per-Visitor (VPV).  An easy way to find your VPV is to take the total value of the sales you receive during a certain time period (gross), and divide that figure by the number of visitors on your website during the same time period.  For example, if you get 10,000 people a month to your site and sell $ 2,500, then you’d have a VPV of .25.   This is a benchmark that you can use to improve the performance of your site and it helps you decide how much you can afford to SPEND to bring in new customers. If you know that each visitor is worth .25, then you could spend up tp .24 and still make it profitable. Of course, you’ll aim for much better than that, but you need to start with VPV.

2. Do your Keyword Research.  Create an Excel spreadsheet of the keywords and key phrases that you think that people would search for that you want to use to attract new prospects to your site.  

3. Set up your “landing pages” that tightly match your Ad-group, Keywords and Ads.   Your goal is to create a compelling ad using very few words that when shown entices the right prospects to CLICK on your ad. Then you need to take them to a web page (landing page) that closely matches what your ad offers.  If your ad is about “How to Make Money on the Internet” and then takes them to a landing page selling something else, you’ll lose your prospect in a nano-second.  If it says, “how to” then give them the how to stuff.  How you design your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ads, and landing pages are critical to the success of your PPC advertising.  This requires the ability to write effective headlines, benefit copy and proper action steps.

4. I suggest using Google AdWords PPC first, getting everything setup with profitable campaigns, then duplicate them using other PPC sources, like Yahoo Search Marketing.  Again, learn from John’s mistake… Get qualified help to set up your account. Do this by yourself only if you’re committed to learning how the system works and then how to best apply PPC to your particular products and services.  This step cannot be taken lightly.  Google and other PPC sources have their “default” settings to drive the most traffic to you, which costs you the most money. The problem is, it might not be the most targeted or qualified traffic.  

The reason John spent $7,650 in a month was because he didn’t understand the difference between the “Search Network” and the “Content Network” options and by default, both were automatically checked. He also didn’t understand or implement the use of negative keywords.  He also had the option checked to “optimize” his traffic and stay in the top positions on search results making his bid the TOP fee… not a good strategy for him.

He’s a professional speaker that uses humor and focuses on motivational keynotes.  He was bidding on the keyword “speaker” that he thought would be good…. the trouble was he was getting traffic for stereo speakers, speaker repair, and a whole host of other impressions and clicks that were totally useless and very expensive.  

5. Make it profitable or focus on other forms of driving traffic to your site.  “You don’t go broke making a profit” — Ford Saeks.    Hey, I’m just saying that unless you’re willing to invest many hours learning how to use PPC, you’re better off getting professional help and focusing on the other things that you do best to add value and make a profit.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on PPC training, participated in several “How to” events, read books, blogs, listened to countless teleseminars, tutorials and invested in PPC coaching from Perry Marshall and Brian Todd. Perry and Brian are considered some of the best sources for PPC training.  Why?  Because I wanted to use PPC to grow my business and help my clients make more money! 

Hopefully, if your considering PPC, you’ll avoid the horror stories that I hear so often from people who through good money away on bad marketing efforts.

PPC is very effective and a fantastic way to drive targeted traffic to your sites—just make sure you know what you’re doing or hire a PPC expert! 

If you ever made up a story for your children, you’re a copywriter. If you’ve ever gathered with friends as a teenager and told ghost stories, you can write copy. Great copywriters simply paint visual pictures of events. Events that happened in the past, events that may happen in the future, or events that won’t ever happen, unless you buy their product. You either paint the picture of the joy the prospect will get using your product, or you paint the picture of the hardship he will continue to endure without it. Why?

Because people love stories. No one is interested in dry facts and statistics about your product. But they will be captivated by a story that tells them how it will impact their life. And the more emotion that you bring into that story, the more compelling it will be to your prospect.

The reality is that if you can talk, you can write great copy.

Start right away… go get some of your marketing materials or look over your website and see if you are writing emotion-based, conversational-style copy using stories that people can relate to in their life.

A great source for learning more about copywriting is Randy Gage’s “How to Become A Copywriting Stud” home study course. Get the details at www.cashcopywriting.com It’s mandatory for all of my sales and marketing staff and I know it will help you too… that is if you want to increase your sales and profits!

“How to Become a Copywriting Stud!”

Write Killer Copy for Sensational Sales of Any Product or Service, Even If You Flunked English…