We live in a result-driven world!  Achieving sales, margin goals and cash flow results are common and constant discussions at most companies. However, when it comes to website performance, unless you’re selling products online, most people avoid conversations about results. Why is that?

Without sales, margins, and cash flow, a lot of organizations simply don’t know what to measure. If you’re talking about the web, search engine results are a great place to start.

Let’s say you own a pizza parlor and you want people to find your location online. 

How can you possibly get on the first page of Google search results, maybe even become number one, for pizza knowing that there are millions of pizza places in the United States?

The answer lies in selecting keywords that are specific to your business, such as “Pizza Parlor in Wheaton, Illinois,” for example.  Selecting the right keywords, as you might have guessed, is not easy, but it’s critical to quality search results. That’s why you have so many search engine optimization (SEO) specialists advertising on the web. Search engine traffic, it has been proven, can bring you more sales and new customers if done correctly. (Did you know that your website can get penalized for taking certain actions and actually drop in ranking? http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php)

But with so many promising that they can make you number one in the rankings, on Google, how do you know who or what to believe?

When you search the internet for “search engine optimization” companies, you are bombarded with choices.  Many promise you immediate results in getting your rankings up, and they even promise you that they can guarantee you’ll be number one in the rankings.  Is that true? Can they really do that?

The answer is no. We have several clients that we’ve taken their keywords and over several weeks and months gotten many, sometimes most, of their keywords ranked #1 on Google. Does that mean we can do that every single time?  I would never make that claim. None of us know Google’s formula for ranking sites so making such a bold claim is, in our view, irresponsible marketing. There are many ways to accomplish high ranking results for your website.  The work that goes on behind the scene of your website is only the starting point.  There are online and offline optimization techniques, which we’ll leave for another blog.

Search engines have adapted to this new web-world of blogs, social media, videos, etc., and are constantly changing how they rank websites.  In previous years, your keywords and links was all that really mattered but times have changed!  Search engines take many more factors into account these days, such as your content, download speed, keyword relevancy and competition, the importance of inbound and outbound links, and of course your connections. 

It is not always about quantity, you also have to factor in quality.  As search engines are getting smarter, so should you.  A reputable marketing company can not only improve your website ranking but do it in a way that preserves your reputation. If someone is guaranteeing you #1 ranking on Google you need to ask yourself, “Does this sound too good to be true?” If it does, well, it may be time to consider another SEO firm.

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1. Every page needs a focal point

Every page on your website should have a focal point, a place where the visitor’s eyes are naturally drawn. It can be an image, a special offer, or a headline. In addition, that focal point should direct your visitors to act, a call-to-action.

Click here for free sample, for example.

Think of your pages as Billboards. Billboards are big, bright, and clearly direct you to take a specific action. You site pages should do the same.

Your focal points should include images and copy that is keyword rich and help the search engines find your site.

2. Headline can be very effective

Headlines organize your content by making a promise to the reader. It follows then, that your content must then deliver on that promise.

Using the “who-what-why” formula isn’t the only way to format your headlines, but it works. Think of your headlines as a promise, a commitment you make between you and your visitor.

There are many effective headline formulas out there, so you need never worry about repeating yourself.

Whether it’s on the page or in your meta data, headlines are an important SEO tactic.

3. Get 50% through the use of numbers

People are more apt to believe something when a number accompanies it. 51% of those surveyed believed something is more powerful than a majority of those surveyed believe…

Numbers grab our attention and are more credible than general terms. It seems people like specifics.

4. Use power words

Words like fast, easy, guaranteed and free are powerful copy.

    “Free is the most powerful word in the copywriter’s vocabulary. Everybody wants to get something for free.”

    -Robert W. Bly

In our email marketing we typically use headlines such as, “Free PDF…” or some other power word to increase click-throughs and, eventually, sales opportunities.

5. Think about your images

The cliché is “a picture is worth a thousand words” and it’s true. And if a picture is worth a thousand words then a video is worth ten thousand. Think long and hard about the visuals you use. Pictures and videos can supercharge story and include:

    * Photographs

    * Artwork

    * Charts and Graphs

    * Slidedecks

    * Video

    * Infographics

Make sure your images have an ALT description so the search engines know what it is you’re trying to communicate through your images.

6. Use Sub-Headlines

Would you read a newspaper if it had just one headline? Of course not!

We want information that is categorized and well organized.

If your text is longer than 250-400 words, you must use sub-headlines. No exceptions.

While the search engines give sub-headings slightly less impact than Headings, sub-headings remain an important SEO tactic.

7. Lists work

This entire post is a list.

Why do lists work so well? Lists are the building blocks of the thinking process, of ideas. To communicate your thoughts quickly and effectively, nothing structures the information like a well-thought out and logically organized list.

8. People love quotes

In my book Communication Wins, I opened every chapter with a quotation. Selecting the right quote for each chapter took up a significant part of my editing time.

Use quotes to organize your ideas and demonstrate that our major points are significant enough to have earned a historical quotation. If Abraham Lincoln commented on your major point, then it’s probably important enough for people to want to learn more about it.

9. Fun with font

Some people change fonts within their copy for emphasis. We think that’s a bad idea. To attract attention to a particular point or section of your copy, try using bold and/or italics.

The search engine can detect bold and/or italicized font in your copy and assume these are the important terms (keywords).

10. Your voice sells

There are dozens of good SEO copywriting techniques. We encourage you to learn and use them.

However, at the end of the day, you need to find your own voice. Your particular point of view, style, and tone, form the foundation for your audience appeal.

I love the way Peggy Noonan writes. She was President Reagan’s speech writer and has a lyrical style and velvet touch while, at the same time, the ability to cut like a knife, without sounding angry, through the foolishness that is served up to us on a daily basis as serious political discourse. Would I like to write like Peggy, you bet!

But I can’t. There’s only one Peggy and I’m not her. So I have to do my best to write like me. I’ve learned that my best writing is typically short declarative sentences that are easy to read and understand.

Do you agree?

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Writing and submitting articles to article banks, e-zines and e-book publishers has proven to be one of the most effective of all traffic generating techniques. You may think that you have no writing ability, but you can definitely write articles about the topic of your website and about the products or services that you are selling. You just need to know the rules for making them effective.

The Headline.    The first and most important few words of your article are in the title or the headline. The title MUST contain the key words that relate to the topic of your website and to the products or services that you sell. This is the first thing that other website owners or E-zine publishers will look at when they decide whether to reproduce your article on their websites or in their publications because they want their copy optimized for search engines.
 

The other thing about the title or headline of your article is that it must be attention getting. For example, you can’t just title your article ‘Fish Bait’.  ‘Fish Bait the Fish Can’t Resist’ would entice the person who was looking for information about fish bait to keep reading.

The First Line.    Equally important to your article is the first line of the first paragraph. Internet surfers have a notoriously short attention span and rarely actually read anything word for word unless it is information that they believe will serve their needs, solve a problem or make life better in general for them. So the title and the first line are what you use to entice a reader to actually read the article.

The first line needs to contain the key words as well; and it also needs to be attention getting. So, if you like fishing, you would probably keep reading an article that starts with. ‘The fish were begging for more of this fish bait after my first cast!’

Length.  Another thing about writing articles that you plan to submit to article banks is that they need to be short. Very short! They should be a maximum of 400 words and closer to 300 would be better. It’s easy to get carried away and produce an article that is 1000 words or more when you are discussing a subject that you know a lot about and are interested in. If you start writing and forget to stop, break long wordy articles down and make three or four articles out of the one long one.

Formatting.  Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Remember that short attention span that we talked about? Don’t use big words and don’t use run-on sentences. Make your article easy to read. Go easy on the exclamation points, as well. One exclamation point indicates importance or excitement...  a half a dozen are just rude.

Warning! Do NOT word-wrap your link! Type it out in full, as in http://www.whatever.com. All email programs that E-zine editors use to send out their newsletters and E-zines do not support word-wrapped links so you can defeat your own purpose by word-wrapping the link to your website.

You may not actually generate any real traffic for your website at the very outset but this technique will serve you very well in the long run!

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Web entrepreneurs consider this the point where the rubber meets the road but, too often, it’s where the runner meets the pothole. Here are four of the most common mistakes and what you can do to correct them:

Every page of your site should have a clear focal point, a place where the eye is naturally drawn to, and a clear call-to-action.

That call-to-action can be to actually buy something from you but it can also be a request to have your visitors register (call, click here, etc.) to receive more information, such as a free whitepaper. Different pages may have different calls-to-action.

The good news about this problem is it’s the easiest to fix. You may be able to do this yourself but contact me (800-707-9150 or shartkopf@aligned-marketing.com) if you need help.

(Yes, that was a call-to-action in my blog)

One of the first laws of selling is a confused mind says “No.”

If your website has lots of motion graphics, four or more fonts, poorly contrasted or unappealing colors, clutter, too many choices, unclear copy or 100 other things that distract and confuse the mind, you’re not going to sell anything.

The KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach works best. Again, a clear focal point, call-to-action and lots of whitespace are all that’s needed.

Video and customer testimonials are great for SEO and to help build credibility, see next bullet, but they are more icing than cake.

Your copy, call-to-action and value proposition, your business message, needs to be clear, concise, compelling and written in simple language. It also needs to be believable.

Talk to your visitors in terms of benefits to them, which are usually very different than the way your internal team talks about your product. Internal audiences tend to get wrapped up in features and function. Customers care about benefits. How will your product make them money, healthier, more attractive, save them time, etc.

Similarly, people are skeptical. They know advertising lies, marketing manipulates and even Tiger can’t be trusted anymore. No one can afford to waste money and no one wants to feel foolish.

Talk to your audience in simple believable words.

This one hurts a bit so brace yourself; they just don’t want what you’re selling.

A lot of webpreneurs are so passionate about their product or service they just can’t understand why people aren’t beating a path to their door. Well, I’m sorry, but if you’ve done everything else right, or mostly right, then the market has spoken and you lose.

As one prominent Democrat recently said when they were struggling to sell the Healthcare Bill to the American people, “The problem is the dog doesn’t like the dogfood.” You can fix the message, the packaging, but if the dog won’t eat the dogfood you’re not going to be selling any.

The fix here isn’t redesigning your website or more creative copy, the fix is transitioning your product from something you think people need into something people actually want.

Steve

800-707-9150

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He was referring to me being a consultant and, indeed, there’s evidence to support his statement. The industrial market is heating up. The Industrial Supply Association’s (ISA) most recent Economic Indicator Report was up for the second month in a row. Their Manufacturer Index was 66.42% in February while the January index was 60.63%. The Distributor Index saw similar gains (61.1% and 65.72%, respectively). Anything above 50% indicates those surveyed expect economic expansion.

The subjective evidence is equally strong. I talk with frustrated marketing people every week. Their complaint is with management and goes like this: “They laid off half my staff so we’ve been struggling to keep up for over a year. Every month we fall further behind and are getting our butts chewed out. Now, because business is getting better, they want us to do a bunch of new stuff. We can’t complete our work now! I have no idea how we’re going to get any new projects completed.” Maybe you can help them?

If you’re an unemployed or underemployed marketing professional consider becoming a consultant. As my CEO friend said, the timing may be perfect.

The client benefits because they can rent the expertise they need (from you). You simply augment their staff as a variable cost solution. A competent resource they can eliminate quickly without a long HR process.

Do a great job and maybe you get hired full-time, if that’s what you want. Here are a few things you need to be prepared for before accepting your first consulting job.

• Be prepared to add value immediately. One good way is to do more than you’re asked. In other words, take tasks off your new employer’s task list. Most marketing managers have presentations to create, reports to format, blogs to write and other nuisance tasks that they’d love to delegate but are beyond the skill level of most support personnel. Don’t wait for them to ask you to help. Be proactive and add value.
• Understand that there will be politics and much of it will be invisible to you. You represent a variable cost option and, as such, threaten everyone in your area of expertise that is an employee, a fixed cost. The best way to combat this is to recognize the politics exist and find a few key alliances within the client’s organization that will help you navigate through the terrain.
• You must be taken seriously so don’t walk in meekly. State your positions and your recommendations clearly and directly. Not everyone will agree but if you focus on pleasing everyone, finding the maximum in common ground and playing politician, you’ll lose. Understand your pre-designed role is to get in, complete your assignment, and get out. You are not part of the long-term extended corporate family (not yet, anyway).
• There’s nothing unethical about selling more services while you’re completing your project. Be polite and professional but keep your eyes and ears open for pain points, new projects and things the company would like to have if they had the resources. There’s truth in the old saying: “The best source of new business is old customers.” In my experience the big firms spend up to 30% of their time onsite looking for a new project while they’re completing the current project. I find that objectionable (selling while I’m on the client’s clock) so I never charge by the hour and I only spend about 10% of my time prospecting for new projects. You’ll need to find your own balance.

If you have skills and are either unemployed or underemployed I encourage you to think about consulting. The market is getting stronger, it’s a great way to leverage your strengths, and may get you the inside track on a full-time job if that’s your ultimate goal.

Feel free to call me if you want to discuss further.

Steve

800-707-9150

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Nichebot - http://www.nichebot.com

Shopping.com Searches – http://www2.shopping.com/top_searches

AOL Hot Searches - http://hot.aol.com/hot/hot

Google Groups - http://groups.google.com

Craig's List - http://www.craigslist.com

Delicious Popular - http://del.icio.us/popular

Digg - http://www.digg.com

Google Catalogs - http://catalogs.google.com

Google Suggest – http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Technorati - http://www.technorati.com

If you want to focus exclusively on what’s selling visit the Clickbank Marketplace (http://marketplace.clickbank.net).

The web is constantly changing so it requires effort to stay current, to remain relevant.

As a marketing consultant it’s my business to stay abreast of web-trends. Feel free to call me if you’re having trouble finding the information you need.

Steve Hartkopf

800-707-9150

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What do you think? Are testimonials part of your sales arsenal?

Steve

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