Link Building | Small Business Marketing & Business Acceleration

12 Timeless Link Building Tips for Business Blogs

Posted on 30. Apr, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Link Building for Business Blogs Doesn't Need to Be Risky

As a key component of a hub and spoke online marketing strategy, blogs can be very effective for social media network engagement, online PR, customer service, and as search engine optimization assets. While there are numerous cases studies of business blogs (I like to think Online Marketing Blog is one) providing tremendous value, blogs are simply software tools and what you get out of them is in proportion to how well you know how to use them. One of the common areas of lost opportunity with business blogs is link building.

Despite Panda, Penguin and maybe someday “Zebra?”, updates from Google to further filter out what constitutes useful content and links on the web, links will always be valuable for attracting traffic. Some online marketers chase exploits, tricks or shortcuts only to get spanked by a black and white named-animal update from Google. Why not spend that creativity on something of value and competitive advantage that withstands the advancing filters applied by search engines?

Here are a few timeless tips for building natural links that will attract and engage customers to your business blog:

1. Create content worth linking to. No matter how many tactics you find here and elsewhere, there simply is no substitute for creating content that others may find useful. With an Optimized approach to online marketing, understanding your market and customers is essential for developing an approach for content, SEO, Social and promotions that result in links. If you understand what content types, topics and formats resonate with influential link sources and the communities around them, your content promotion and social networking efforts can become more effective, more quickly and a “win” all around.

2. Competitive Link Research on competing web sites or blogs will help identify who is linking to competitor sites that are not linking to yours. This is back link analysis 101 and can still be useful for spotting opportunities of all kinds. For example, if another web site or blog is already linking to multiple competitors in a list of resources relevant to your product or service, there is a chance they’ll link to your blog about the same product/service category as well. Monitoring the competition using SEO link tracking and social media monitoring tools can reveal many, many different types of linking and content opportunities. They can also reveal what NOT to do.

3. Engage on other blogs and industry news websites that allow comments. Interactions should always be useful, timely and relevant. Simply promoting links to your event or blog post as the first time comment does not provide much value. It’s like interrupting a conversation and trying to sell something to a group of people that know each other and you’re the stranger. Develop connections, ask questions, answer them, share resources and recognize others that contribute. When guided by topical themes and objectives, those behaviors can be instrumental and developing connections with influential link sources and the media.

4. Make Sharing Easy where ever you’re publishing useful content, especially on blogs. While the social proof offered by Twitter, Facebook, Google+ counters is fairly superficial, they do work at attracting attention and validating to the reader that the blog post is worth checking out. Make the act of sharing easy by including sharing options but also by including titles that are social media optimized. Share titles will pre-populate a Twitter sharing window with text that is more interesting from a social share perspective.

Don’t leave it to the reader to write their own description of the blog post they’re sharing, although that ability should certainly exist. Of course, title tags should be keyword optimized for search engines. Sharing expands the visibility of your content on social networks and communities. Shared links can be a useful signal for search engines and the expanded visibility can catch the eye of another blogger or journalist that might link back to the source from their own website or blog.

5. Guest post on other blogs and include a link to your blog in the bio. In the course of getting to know blogs that already rank well on the keyword phrases you’re targeting, you may notice that they often accept guest blog posts from others. Contact the blog owner and suggest a compelling post that would be first and foremost, valuable to their readers. If it makes sense editorially to link from within the guest post to your own blog, be sure to use relevant keywords as the link text. Do not use the exact same link text every time. Make the anchor text relevant to the source and the destination.

6. Write testimonials or case studies for services and software that you use. They may publish with a link back to your blog. Testimonials must be well written, genuine and specific in order to be useful for the service/product owner. Get at the essence of what’s great about the product or service and even add something unique. If you’ve written a review of the product/service on your blog, that can also get you a link from their press page.

7. Event and Job listings should always have a link back to your blog. Blogs can be useful recruiting tools that help candidates understand the culture of your company. When purchasing job listings on other web sites, add a link to your blog. The listings may expire, but may also introduce your blog to candidates that write their own blog and decide to write about a listing with a permanent link to the hiring company blog. The same goes for event listings, which like job listings, are often syndicated to networks that turn up in RSS feeds, as Tweets and updates on other social networks.

8. Distribute optimized news via a wire service with a link to your blog included. Our client, PRWeb, is a pioneer in providing competitive SEO value with press release distribution. It is essential the the release is well-written and offers compelling news worth sharing and linking to. Many blogs and some news web sites will re-publish your press release exactly as it was distributed, including good links back to your blog. Journalists use News Search engines to look up past press releases and research on stories, which presents an opportunity to be found and included.

9. Contribute Op Eds or Articles to industry web sites, online newspapers, magazines and association websites. Your article can include a link to your blog in the credentials area. If you suggest content to another web site such as a letter to the editor, why not keyword optimize the title? You might also include a link back to your blog where you’ve written many more articles on the same topic. Those links build credibility of your article and also for you as an author and subject matter expert.

Along the lines of op eds and contributed articles, be sure your media relations efforts include a link request when an industry publication decides to include you or your company in a story. Many newspapers and magazine websites have a policy of not linking out, but if you are diligent in asking and give a good resource for the link destination, it could pay off very nicely. News websites can be very useful to search engines and link sources.

10. ABN – Always Be Networking and growing your social networks, email lists and channels of distribution. Share especially useful content from your blog where relevant. Be useful to others and they will useful to you by promoting your content and attracting links. Don’t be gratuitous when sharing links to your own content, but when you have something particularly special and valuable that’s highly relevant to a particular network, then by all means, share it with them. Some are bloggers as well and may link to it from their own blogs as well as pass the link along to others.

11. Sponsor content on web sites or newsletters archived to the web that allow you to include a link. It may be a nofollow link, but it may not. Many newsletters sent via email are archived to the web or have landing pages on the web. Ask those newsletters if you can buy an ad or even contribute a short article. The article credits should include a link to your blog where there are more resources on the same or similar topic.

12. Hire bloggers to write content for you. They’ll often cross-post it to their own blog with a link back to yours. Of course, you should be considerate and simply mention that this is ok, don’t ask them or require them to do it. If you have regular contributors to your blog, those bloggers may be prone to promoting and linking to their work on your blog as a way to build attention to themselves.

Bonus tip: When others link to you, THANK THEM! Building good will is one of the most underrated marketing skills online. Be genuine, thoughtful and courteous. Also be SMART and driven to get links where it makes sense.

What linking tactics for blogs have you found to be most effective? What challenges are you facing in attracting other sites to link to your blog?

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Linkbuilding Like a Nerd #SESNY

Posted on 27. Mar, 2012 by BLarson in Blog, Search Engine Strategies, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Linkbuilding has to be one of my favorite aspects of SEO. All too often people use the analogy of linkbuilding being a popularity contest. As someone who views linkbuilding in a somewhat different light – and as someone who was considered by only his parents as ‘cool’ – I think it’s time to put that analogy to bed. Yes, being the sexy-fun brand will undoubtedly drive links for your site. But in my opinion, it’s the quality of the information on the page that will not only help you succeed in proactively acquiring links, but will also inspire others to link to your page. Or to return to the analogy, the cool kid might start out with the lead, but it’s the smart kid (see nerd) who ends up winning in the long run.

It is that passion for linkbuilding that drove me to put Linkbuilding Essentials as one of my can’t miss SES New York sessions…and it didn’t disappoint. Debra Mastaler, President of Alliance-Link, presented solo and here are just some of the highlights.

Create Quality Content

At the end of the day links represent another sites ‘vote’ for your page. To earn that vote you need to offer content that can’t be found on just any site. Provide resources, include imagery and ensure your headline grabs the reader’s attention. If you want to inspire sharing, give them something worthy of sharing.

4 Linkbuilding Considerations

1. Quantity - The number of links pointing to an individual page.

Take-away: Because the quality of links strongly influences the links value, link quantity can be dangerous to view in a silo. Use this number along with link quantity to evaluate your linkbuilding success and identify new opportunities.

2. Quality - Different search engines have different names for the metric used to evaluate link quality. For Google that is known as PageRank. PageRank – wisely titled – ranks a page based on the PageRank number for all pages linking to it.

Take-away: Online marketers learned many Google updates ago that Google places a strong emphasis on the quality of a link. That is, a link from Forbes is more powerful than a link from bookmarking site, although both may deserve a place in your linkbuilding strategy.

3. Relevance - The context or relationship between the page linking out and the page receiving the link is an important aspect of linkbuilding. The pages should likely have some similarities in order for the link to be of value to either web property.

Take-away: If you’re a business that sells high-end IT software and yet most of the links that point to your site are from a site that sells boiled peanuts, there’s something wrong. As you consider what sites to target in your linkbuilding efforts, ask yourself: is it reasonable for your audience to want to visit that page? If the answer is yes, it is likely a good link to acquire from both a SEO and UX standpoint.

4. Anchor Text - Links that leverage text to link to another page. When done right, the text of the link should provide insight as to what information will be found on the linked page.

Take-away: From a SEO perspective, anchor text links can be more powerful than a spelled out URL link. Why? For the same reason it is more powerful from a UX perspective. The text of the link provides the search bot with information about the page being linked.

No-No’s for Linkbuilding

Now with an understanding of some of the key aspects to consider when developing and maintaining a linkbuilding program, let’s switch gears and discuss a few practices that every marketer should avoid.

Building Links in Bulk – Seems counter-intuitive, right? If link quantity is factored by search engines, why not acquire as many as possible at once? The reason is simple: with exception to major announcements, product roll-outs or big advertising, it’s unnatural for most pages to suddenly have a burst in the number of inlinks. In addition, the types of tactics that lead to a sudden surge in links are likely against Google’s Terms of Service.
Not Linking Out – There is an old belief that linking from your page to a 3rd party property is a bad thing and hurts your PageRank score. In reality, linking to other sites offers far more pros than cons. The only caveat is that you need take a strategic approach to how you link out. For starters, don’t use an important keyword in your anchor text and don’t link to sites that you don’t want associated with your brand
Talking Like a Robot – Using the exact phrase in each anchor text link you acquire is not ideal. Although it’s difficult to quantify how this approach can impact the SEO value of your links, think of it this way: no two people talk the exact same way, so it’s unreasonable that the only language relevant to your page is X. Consider mixing in long tail derivatives to strike a healthy balance.

One thing that I especially enjoyed in Mastaler’s presentation was the way she broke down the large world of linkbuilding into neat little segments that allow you to form an action plan. Get nerdy and start your linkbuilding initiative with a commitment to provide better content than your competition. Next, evaluate your current inlink situation against the 4 key considerations. Identify your opportunities and be sure not to violate the linkbuilding no-no’s.

While we’re talking linkbuilding, what’s the best linking tool? Make your case with a comment below.

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Should You Obfuscate Your Backlinks?

Posted on 07. Nov, 2011 by Jeffrey_Smith in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Aside from enjoying using the word “obfuscate” in a sentence, the meaning is clear for SEO when considering link building. Obfuscating links for the purpose of optimization simply means adding variety and switching things up (with your links) to avoid a pattern.

Should You Obfuscate Your Links?

In this context, the pattern is anchor text obviousness (linking to a page with the same anchor text with minimal variation). Failure to add variety to inbound or internal anchor text (links) can lead to over optimization as a result of link velocity and how people link from the web.

For example, if a large percentage of your backlinks are all from similar IP sources, have appeared in clusters in a timeline that seems (to good to be true), then chances are they could leave a trail that suggests that some type of intentional promotion / link building being done.

While it is no surprise (as a capitalistic system denotes) competition can bring out the best and the worst of us. While the moral climate of promotion is questionable, it all boils down to intent. The quandary about link building (between Google and SEO) is based on the intent of the link.

Their argument is, are you linking to other websites because you want to share a resource or because someone is paying you to do so? While their position on links is clear, expecting the web to conform is highly unlikely (considering what is at stake) high rankings and traffic for positions above the fold for businesses who bag the best links with ideal anchor text.

Considering that links were around before search engines and links are the only thing allowing you to move from page to page and website to website about the web only validates their importance. Your interpretation of link building should be (links come in various types but if used in the right context, each type has a place) if you are using a tiered approach (to deep to discuss in this brief post).

Implementing Shingle Diversity

While there are no absolutes, merely consider these suggestions ideal guidelines for building a more robust and / or natural link profile.

Use the domain name or website address in 10% of inbound links (ideally to the homepage)
Use the primary shingle “exact match” keyword to a preferred silo landing page (a page built specifically for that keyword” approximately 35% of the time while keeping link velocity in mind (not building or losing links too fast) while linking to it from the homepage or other strong navigational or silo landing pages from “contextual links”.
Use an alternative variations 15% of the time (to mix up the natural inbound link diversity) such as juxtaposed shingles, or synonyms mixed with the primary keyword.
Use long tail variations 20% of the time (whereby the keyword is surrounded by the primary keyword and / or additional modifiers either before or after the shingles.
Use the plural variation 20% of the time (building both singular and plural variations ensures you rank for both).

Also remember, the same applies for internal links, except for the diversity should be less, but still incorporate a variety of shingles, depending on the method you are utilizing. For example, in order to boost one keyword, then:

Build the same anchor text shingle (group of words) to the primary landing page from within the site.

To make the page rank for additional keyword variations / keyword queries (that either appear on the page or are linked form pages designed to rank for those shingles) which are in essence “passing along” their link-flow and authority to the target page. For that method of on page / off page SEO ratios use:

Use a mixed ratio of primary internal links to the target / preferred landing page
Use a mixed ratio of off page inbound links to make the page rank for the spread of aggregate links in the anchor text.

The extent of the result depends on (a) competitors (b) domain and page strength (c) trust passed from the citation of the collective links and (d) the percentage of on page and off page inbound links to a page.

The takeaway here is diversity is the spice of life, and also applies when building internal or inbound back links. So, mix it up (your anchor text) to get past stale rankings and strengthen the link profile of your websites. Ultimately the ratios are up to you, but at least you have a method to fall back for a skeleton when it comes to shingle usage and links (either internal or inbound).

-Jeffrey

A Social Media Marketing Case Study: Uncertainty by Jonathan Fields

Posted on 29. Sep, 2011 by Jonathan Fields in Blog, content marketing, List Building, Online Product Launches, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic, video

I started blogging in 2007 because I’d just signed my first book deal with Random House and I realized that social media was about to become a huge tool in any author’s marketing arsenal.

What I didn’t realize was how huge.

It’s become the core of my marketing outreach not just for books, but for everything I do.

But with the launch of my new book, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance, I decided to take things to an entirely different level, test a bunch of new strategies, and bring video strongly into the picture.

I knew some things would hit big and others would bomb. The results, though, surprised even me.

Here’s how it’s unfolded …

A brief outline of the entire approach

My Major Goals for the Launch:

Generate thousands of pre-orders
Build substantial buzz that ramped to fever-pitch on launch

My Major Goals for the Book – Long Term:

Get ideas and strategies into the hands of creators to help them do great work, without suffering
Arm entrepreneurs and corporate teams with tools that fuel higher-levels of creativity and innovation

My Approach:

Create a highly-differentiated design & user experience
Create a time-release anticipation & buzz-building launch sequence
Leverage video to turn a text product into a multi-sensory experience
Give a ton of high-value content, experiences, and tools along the way
Create irresistible pre-order “experience” offers
Blend response-principles with social outreach
Integrate social media, video and applications

The big picture strategy

I’m a bit of a freak about visual feel.

I was heavily involved in the cover design process of the book and I wanted to ensure that everything we created online for the launch also created a visual experience that said, “wow, this is different.”

But, I also knew I wanted to be able to start to let people know something was coming, while we worked on the bigger launch pages. So, I started by adding a very simple “book page” on my blog that had the book cover, a few paragraphs, and links to booksellers to pre-order.

Behind the scenes, though, we were in heavy design and marketing mode.

The big challenge was to create something that was visually stunning, but also was really smart and effective from a response-driven marketing point of view. I’d seen a lot of book mini-sites and, while some were very polished, they were also really ineffective at driving visitors to a particular call-to-action.

And I began to realize that to really pull of what I wanted to do, we’d need to create not only a series of very cool pieces of mixed-media “engagement” content to release, but a website that progressed through a number of different phases that would allow the structure and design to support the key calls to action and media at each point of the pre-launch campaign.

So, here’s what we did …

The tactics and the sequence of events

Phase 1: The Opening Shot and Conditioning the Market

This happened almost two months before the book came out.

Traditional book marketing wisdom says this is way too early. But the main point here was to get onto peoples’ radars and start to build an emotion around the “brand” of the book.

We were also looking to start building a segmented list of people who’d be interested in pre-ordering the book, which would allow us to reach back out to them a number of times over the course of the launch.

I also didn’t want to put up a full mini-site with navigation at this point. It was too early to be giving so much information and asking for any substantial action. This was all about building energy, emotion, anticipation, and a list.

I wanted to set the tone for what was to come and use storytelling and video to make that happen. So we hired Michelle Vargas and her video production team to create a very simple, yet really powerful book trailer where I actually never even mentioned the book or asked anyone to buy it. In fact, the only call-to-action in the video came in the form of a bigger question about life at the end. You’ll have to watch the trailer to see the question.

Here is the video:

Click here to watch it on YouTube

We then embedded the book trailer on a very simple landing page and made the video ginormous on the page. Next, we added a few calls-to-action aimed not at selling, but at evangelizing and commenting.

Sign up for info about pre-order bundles
Share the page on social media
Leave a comment

At first, we were going to use the typical WordPress comment section, but changed it to Facebook comments to capitalize on the viral potential within the Facebook platform.

I had Charlie Pabst, from Charfish Designs do the building all the way through every phase of this launch and he also did the design for the first few phases, until we launched the full mini-site.

Here’s a screenshot of the first landing page (it’s not public anymore).

As soon as we published it, I shared it on my blog, twitter, Facebook and Google+ and did a small amount of DMing to simply tell a few friends “this exists.”

I didn’t overtly ask anyone to spread it around, but rather leaned on the gut feeling that we’d created something that would really resonate. Sure, I hoped people would consider it worthy of sharing. Whether they were compelled to share it or not would come down to how good the video was and how clean the page was.

A few minutes later, I had my answer.

It took off. The site started getting shared very quickly, Facebook comments poured in creating powerful social proof, the social buttons underneath the video were racking up serious counts, and the pre-order notice list started to build.

My email was flooded with stories from people all day, sharing their own stories. I literally sat in front of my screen for an entire day on the verge of tears. It was amazing to be sitting in the eye of a tornado of such deep emotion and connection like that.

We then pulled back and let that energy feed on itself for about a week, then it was time for phase 2.

Phase 2: Rolling out The First “Experience”

In this phase, I wanted to inspire people to not only pre-order, but pre-order more than 1 book for a number of reasons.

One, because I wanted to move books. But, also, for a more old-fashioned, human reason. I love when someone hand-selects a book and gives it to me. There’s something really powerful about that. It’s much more meaningful. So, I wanted to encourage people to buy multiple copies and give the book to friends. To create that connection.

But as a marketer, I also knew that the more options I introduced at once, the more likely potential buyers would be to suffer the paradox of choice and buy nothing.

So I started with a single offer, the one I thought would be the most desirable (and likely to be purchased). This was a 3-book bundle “experience.” I knew I’d create other offers, but I held them back to avoid muddying the decision-making process and hurting conversion.

We kept the same design, but stripped the Facebook comments and list-building form and added in long-format copy for the 3-book offer. We also kept the video in mega-size on top because, by then, we knew it was really moving a lot of people and driving a lot of sharing of the site.

It was also important to me to create an offer that was truly extraordinary, not just another dopey “pre-order and you’ll get a bazillion PDFs worth $2 gazillion dollars that everyone knows are available without cost all over the web.”

Not my style. I wanted to create a genuine experience that both expanded on the book and also allowed me to create a real value proposition that was somewhere between 50 and 100 times the cost of the book.

So, I did some things that have never been done before and decided not to just keep it digital, but create something powerful and tangible.

I spent months working with badass Austin, Tx illustrator, Marty Whitmore and Megan Morris from IdeaSchema to create two insanely cool concept illustrations around two key ideas from the book. These were then turned into 16″ x 20″ limited-edition, signed, numbered giclee fine-art prints — real works of art with real value.

Here are mini-images of the two illustrations:

Then I added in a 6-week live teleseminar-based training with me and convinced many of the high-level people I interviewed for the book to allow me to edit the interviews into a super-cool Creative Masters Interview series.

The value of this bundle went into the thousands of dollars, and it was a real value. People realized that. Once we had this all ready to post, we went live, I again posted it around social and the pre-orders began to flow.

Time for the big shift.

Phase 3: Mini-site, Multiple Offers and Buzz-Central

We gave that first offer some time in the market. Then, behind the scenes, I’d been working with the amazing Reese Spykerman to design the fuller mini-site. But even then, I didn’t want the entire site to go up all at once.

Too much to think about.

And as long I was creating multi-book experiences with additional elements that allowed me to create irresistible offers, I didn’t need a whole lot of extra information about the book itself up. People were buying the larger experience and the larger value proposition. At this point, the book pretty much rode along as the sprinkles, not the cupcake.

I knew that would need to change over time, but not yet.

We launched the new design, but only in the form of a landing page with multiple pre-order offers and, again, people started buying. Though, as I suspected, the 3-book experience was very much the sweet spot.

I then introduced a number of videos, all designed to keep drawing people back to the site to experience the video content. And I spread them around, too, both on the book site and on my main blog. I hosted all the video on Youtube in order to create the greatest opportunity for sharing, too.

One video was a really goofy, tongue-in-cheek offer to shave a company’s logo in my hair and dye it to match if they brought 10,000 books (Marc Benioff from Salesforce.com, call me, dude!). That got a lot of giggles and the production value and animation was actually super professional.

Click here to watch it on YouTube

The next was a slideshow video based on a poem I wrote called Have a Little Faith. It had a powerful indirect message for the exact demographic that would benefit from the book. I went subtle again with the call-to-action here. You can see it at the very end.

There’s nothing about buying the book in the video. It’s more about creating an emotion that anchors to the book in a very under the radar way, while also creating a standalone experience that had value, regardless of whether the viewer ever bought the book.

Click here to watch it on YouTube

Some went on my main blog at JonathanFields.com. But if it wasn’t on the book site, there was always a clear call-to-action in the post text and leading the Youtube description field to learn more about the book by clicking over to TheUncertaintyBook.com.

At the same time, with each passing week, the buzz around the book, the offers, the videos and the ideas from the book were gaining steam.

Uncertainty and its “multi-sensory brand extensions” were pretty much everywhere. Pre-orders were rolling in.

About two weeks before launch date, I staged in the full mini-site with a ton killer reviews, sample pages, the whole yadda yadda. You can see the current full site design here.

Oh, and, I should probably also tell you, I was running a bunch of this while spending 3-weeks driving up the California coast with my family. That was an interesting adventure!

Phase 4: Launch Window

This is where we are right now.

During this entire process, I’ve also been doing a massive amount of outreach to my community, my relationships and friends to inspire them to help in the final launch phase. A lot of people offered to help get the word out, both because they believed in the book, and in me.

That, by the way, is an incredibly humbling thing.

I wanted to make that process as easy as possible, so I offered to write a lot of guest posts (like this one) and do a ton of interviews.

This was a huge amount of work, but many of these folks were friends who were doing something really nice for me, so to the extent that my personal bandwidth could handle it, I was happy to do it.

Starting about 10 days before the launch date, I began to post more actively about the book and ask my tribes to do the same. Every day, the buzz continued to build.

This week, I then launched a story-sharing contest which has seen the creation of dozens of insanely inspiring personal stories, both in the comments on my blog and on websites all over social media.

On Tuesday, I released a special online application called the Creative Mindset Audit tool, which is a mindset assessment app I had built for the launch. I mentioned this tool across social media and hundreds of people started completing the assessment and sharing both the tool and their scores.

And, today, to celebrate the actual launch day for book, I’m holding a live-streaming book launch party at TheUncertaintyBook.com.

I’ll be live-streaming there from 1-4pm EDT (New York) time, having a ton of fun, answering questions, having special guests stop by and giving away a bunch of super cool prizes that include a Kindle FIRE, Kindle, iTunes and BN Gift Cards and more. But you’ve gotta be there to win. Feel free to swing by and say hello, btw!

Wrapping it all up

While this may seem like a lot, what I’ve shared here is actually only a fraction of what went on behind the scenes. And, since this is already a monster post, I’ve left a bunch of things out.

I have an amazing team and, in the end, what we’re really all trying to do is not just move a ton of books (we pre-sold thousands, btw), but change a lot of lives.

The book’s website is still getting shared across social media like crazy with nearly 3,000 Facebook shares, 1,110 tweets, and, to my surprise, it’s been emailed more than 600 times. That’s all due, in large part, to the power of the book trailer video and the strong emphasis on sharing on every page. But, it’s also about the message.

I worked so hard to bring this book to market, because I know in my heart it’s going to help people. Especially artists and entrepreneurs who struggle with the need to make choices and take action in the face of uncertainty. The big message is that you have to go to that place, but properly armed, you don’t have to experience it as anxiety, pain or suffering.

And, that’s a message I hope people can get behind and experience.

Truth is, this is all fun, cool stuff, but the single most important thing you can do as a marketer, an entrepreneur or a creator is … build something remarkable.

Do that, everything else falls into place.

About the Author: Jonathan Fields is the author of Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance, he blogs at JonathanFields.com and runs the acclaimed Tribal Author Camp online book marketing training.

Comments

[...] A Social Media Marketing Case Study: Uncertainty by … by Making sales with Social Media: a case study « Marketing Local Business Online
Congratulations on the whole shebang, Jonathan. You clearly did … by Colleen Wainwright
Thanks, Joel. And much gratitude for joining in. by Jonathan “Not the Cookie Lady’s Son” Fields
[...] Fields on Copyblogger A Social Media Marketing Case … by Blogs for Self-Publishers for September 25 – October 1, 2011 — The Book Designer
I think this is one of the best-run book launches I’ve seen … by Joel Friedlander
Plus 5 more…

How to Get Your Blog the Traffic it Deserves (Check out the Sweet Trailer)

Posted on 06. Sep, 2011 by Jonathan Morrow in Blog, content marketing, List Building, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic

image of route 66

Well, it was bound to happen one day.

After three wonderful years of writing almost exclusively for Copyblogger, I’m finally branching off and launching my own blog.

But not for the reasons you might think.

It’s not because Brian Clark has finally put his foot down and refused to meet my extravagant demands.

It’s not because Sonia Simone is a pink-haired tyrant who rules Copyblogger with an iron fist.

No, the truth is, I see a problem:

Let’s say you’re not Copyblogger or Problogger or the Huffington Post.

You don’t already have a huge audience … but you do care about the readers you have, and you do care about creating really good content.

You write a great post — the kind of exceptional content that builds a relationship with your customers. You publish it to your blog. You wait for the visitors to come stampeding in, and …

Nothing happens.

No comments. No tweets. No pats on the back, telling you you’re doing a good job.

In the great cacophony we call the blogosphere, you go unnoticed, unappreciated, and unloved. Not because your ideas are unworthy, but because it’s just too damn crowded.

Your little voice gets swallowed up, almost like you never said anything at all.

And it’s starting to piss me off

The web is overflowing with spammers and trolls pumping the blogosphere full of junk and getting rewarded for it. While here you are, an intelligent, articulate person, publishing ideas that could actually help people, and nobody knows who the hell you are.

It’s wrong.

And after years of watching from the sidelines, I’ve finally decided to do something about it:

I want to teach you everything I know about building a popular blog.

Yep. Everything.

I started BoostBlogTraffic.com to teach you how to get more readers, build your email list, become an authority in your niche — everything you need to get the attention you deserve.

By the time we’re done, you won’t be a spectator in the battle for attention, squeaking out your posts and praying for a couple of retweets.

You’ll be a warrior, armored with marketing know-how, brandishing your perfectly-crafted content, sending spammers scampering by the thousands as you claim your rightful spot at the top of the web.

Sound like fun?

Well then, click here to check out the sweet new trailer announcing the blog.

We’ll be getting started soon.

Oh, and just to clarify, I have no intentions of leaving Copyblogger. (Even though Sonia really is a tyrant.) If anything, you’ll be seeing more of me, because writing here is one of the smartest things I can do to promote my new blog.

Still, I have every intention of making Boost Blog Traffic one of the most popular blogs in the world, and this is your chance to be there from the very beginning.

So, head on over, and I’ll talk to you soon.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger and the Founder of Boost Blog Traffic, an upcoming blog about (go figure!) blogging.

Comments

Still the blog is not launched? by Amuthan
I’m ridiculously excited about this blog!!! Go Jon! by Ferris Stith
You are not the only one who is pissed off. I wanted to enter … by Dale Buckeridge
Waiting for the launch. have a nice day. by Tina
Fantastic trailer. Looking forward to the launch! by Nick Cobb
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23 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t Making Any Money (And What To Do About It!)

Posted on 29. Aug, 2011 by Danny Iny in Blog, Blog Psychology, content marketing, conversion, Copywriting, Headlines, Keyword Research, Landing Pages, List Building, Online Product Launches, persuasion, selling, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic

image of broke man

Sure, you want comments.

And subscribers, and shares, and likes.

But you don’t really care about any of these things. You want what they will eventually lead to …

Money.

Yes, traffic is good, and so is reader engagement. But if you’re reading this, chances are you’re running a blog with the intention of marketing a business and making some money.

Now, that could be a bit distressing, because most bloggers are broke.

Some bloggers don’t have traffic or reader engagement, and some bloggers have lots of both. But most bloggers aren’t making any money.

Here’s why …

The chain of conversion is everything

We tend to think of conversion as a single event, but it’s really more like a chain of events.

If you market a business online, several conversions need to take place:

A stranger has to convert into a lead by being exposed to your message for the first time (in the online world, we call this traffic)
A lead has to convert into a prospect by liking what you have to say (this is often done by opting in to your email subscriber list)
A prospect has to convert into a customer by buying something from you
A customer has to convert into a repeat customer by turning a single purchase into an ongoing buying relationship

This entire process is called the chain of conversion.

Does that sound like a tall order?

It should, because it is — for your blog to make money, you need not one, but many people to smoothly move through this entire process.

And if your blog is like most, then that probably isn’t happening.

Let’s explore all the reasons why that might be, and what you can do to fix it.

Problem #1: You’re a billboard in the desert

The most common problem that bloggers face is that strangers aren’t converting into leads.

In other words, there’s no traffic.

And if there’s no traffic, then it doesn’t matter how well-optimized the rest of your funnel is, because nobody is feeding through it.

So the first order of business is to get traffic flowing to your site. Here are some of the reasons why that might not be happening, and how you can fix it:

Build it and they will come. Yes, content is king, but without an army of marketers, the king can get pretty lonely! The truth is that while epic content is critical, it won’t go viral all by itself without an existing audience to start the ball rolling by seeing and sharing. If you don’t have traffic, you have to go and get the word out about your content.
You just tweet to your followers. If you’re Guy Kawasaki, then your marketing can consist of tweeting to your followers, and calling it a day. But for the rest of us (who don’t have 400,000 followers), you’ve got to get out there and promote. Build relationships with other bloggers, write guest posts, put viral campaigns together, and apply any other strategy for blog growth that you can think of — just get out there and do something!
Marketing in the wrong place. We love to fall for the promises of magic strategies that will get us tons of traffic — the kind that showcase the success that somebody else had. The problem is that you aren’t going after their audience, and your audience may not hang out where theirs does. If you’re marketing in the wrong place, then your audience will never find you! Of course, to market in the right place, you have to know who your audience is …
No clearly defined audience. Obviously, you can’t market to your audience if you don’t know who your audience is. It isn’t enough for you to have a general idea that you’re marketing to “bloggers” or “writers” or “stay at home moms” — you’ve got to get way more specific, to the point that you’ve created a profile of the ONE person that you’re targeting.
Asking for the wrong action. If they haven’t heard of you, then don’t start by asking them to buy — it isn’t likely to happen. Remember that your goal with each piece of messaging is to get the audience to take the single next action. When you’re talking to strangers, the goal is for them to become leads (visit your site) and then prospects (opt in to your list). So don’t even mention whatever it is that you’ve got for sale.
You don’t hook their interest. Yes, I’m talking about headlines. For your blog posts, for your ads, and for the teaser links to your content. They all need to hook your audience’s interest. And you happen to be reading the world’s best blog about copywriting. So go read all about headlines!

Problem #2: Selling ice to Inuits

The second problem is that you get traffic, but they all bounce — no subscribers, no customers, and you’re on a constant treadmill to generate more traffic.

In other words, leads aren’t converting into prospects.

Here’s why that might be happening, and what you can do about it:

It’s all about you. Yes, that’s right — all of your posts are about your news, your products, your company. And you wonder why nobody signs up for more? Forget about your subject area, and think about your customers. What are their problems? What matters to them? That’s what you need to be writing about.
Your content is “me too” content. If you’re just writing generic, bland content of the “6 tips everyone already knows about productivity” variety, or (gasp!) going so far as to actually spin articles, then the truth is that there’s no reason for people to come back to your site, because you haven’t impressed them yet. So pull out the stops and write some truly compelling content!
You don’t draw them in. You get them to start reading your stuff, but their attention wanders, and pretty soon they’re gone forever. You need to draw them in and keep them going, section to section, until they reach the action that you want them to: subscribing!
You don’t make it explicit. Yes, that’s right. If you want your visitors to opt in to your mailing list, then you have to say so, in so many words: “Sign up for my list to get all sorts of goodies. Do it now. Click here.” Put those words, or words like them, near your opt-in box, and make sure to include a call to action in your posts, too.
You don’t optimize. No matter how good you are, and how well you’ve done everything else, there’s always room for improvement — and improvement is had by split-testing, split-testing, and then split-testing some more.

Problem #3: “Just the free sample, thanks”

Sometimes you’ve got traffic, and you’ve got subscribers — but you still aren’t making any money.

In chain of conversion terminology, prospects aren’t converting into customers.

This might not sound so bad (“at least they have the traffic and subscribers”), but without the money, you’re just sinking more and more work into what might be a dead-end project.

The good news is that when you’ve got an audience, you can usually find a way to make some money — let’s explore why they might not be buying, and what we can do to fix it:

You’re selling what they need instead of what they want. As an expert in your field, you know exactly what the customer’s problem is. I don’t mean the symptoms, or the issue that they want to fix right now — I mean the real problem that lies deep down at the root of it all. The trouble is that they don’t know that, and so they aren’t looking for that solution. Start by selling what they want, and then you can deliver what they need along with it.
It’s in the wrong format. Maybe they love what you’re offering, but they just don’t like the format. I mean, really, how many more e-books can someone buy? Try a different format — like audio, video, a virtual conference, live workshops, infographics — or something else entirely.
The price isn’t right. Maybe your product is great, but the price doesn’t fit. You could be asking for way too much money, or you could be asking for way too little. Remember that not only does the price have to fit with the buyer’s budget, but it also has to communicate the right thing about how valuable your offering really is. So test different prices, and find the price that works best.
You don’t ask for the sale. Yes, this comes back to being explicit. Don’t just have an “Add to Cart” link on your site — you’ve also got to tell people that you want them to buy your stuff. Tell them why they should do it, and what they’re going to get. And tell them when they should do it (right now!), which leads us to the matter of urgency …
There’s no urgency. Why buy today when I can buy tomorrow, right? You need to give your audience a reason to take action now. Make sure the constraint is real — maybe you’re raising the price after a certain date. Maybe the first 50 people to sign up get a special bonus. Or maybe you’re closing your program on September 1 (hypothetically speaking, of course …).
No social proof. Nobody wants to be the first one to arrive at a party — you want to know that other people are there, and having a good time. So who’s already bought your product or service? What was their experience like? Were they happy? Were they a lot like the person who is thinking about buying today?
No guarantee. There’s something comforting about a money-back guarantee. It provides a safety net, and shows how much confidence the seller has in whatever is being offered. Most companies offer guarantees, to the point that it looks sketchy if you don’t. So you have to offer a guarantee. But don’t just offer a simple “if you’re not satisfied we’ll give you your money back” guarantee — go over the top. Give them 110% of their money back. Donate $100 to charity. Set it up so that it’s not just about satisfaction, but about results (we guarantee that you’ll add $1,000 to your bottom line in six months, or your money back).
You don’t optimize (again). Yes, it applies here, too. If you want to make more sales, then there are a lot of things for you to split-test: your headlines, the placement, text and colors of your opt-in boxes, the style of your introduction, your product imagery, your trust seals and their placement on the site … and the list goes on.

Problem #4: Once is (apparently) enough

Okay, if you’ve made it to this point in the chain, then you’re probably doing all right — you’ve got traffic, you’ve got subscribers, and you’re even making sales.

But customers aren’t converting into repeat customers.

Which means that you’re always scrambling to find new customers, and to keep that wheel in motion. Wouldn’t you rather have the wheel sustain itself?

Here’s why your customers may not be buying from you again, and what you can do to change that:

You don’t deliver. This is a HUGE problem; if you promise something, your customers sign up, and then you don’t deliver, then you are doing irreparable damage to your reputation and business. In the words of my marketing professor, “marketing is a promise that the organization has to keep” — and you should never, ever break a promise. This probably doesn’t apply to you, but if it does, stop reading this article, and fix it immediately!
There’s nothing else to sell. This is a more common problem: you’ve worked so hard to build and sell your product, that by the time they’ve bought it, there’s nothing left to sell. This is worth taking the time to fix; think about what else they might benefit from — an easy add-on is some consulting to help them get the most out of what they’ve already bought. Remember that a customer who’s already spent money with you is 8 times more likely to buy from you again, and you’ve already spent the time and money to convert them the first time!
You don’t communicate. This is sad to see, but easy to fix; you’ve got happy customers and more great stuff to sell to them, but you don’t communicate with them after that first purchase. This is terrible — you should be communicating with your customers on a regular basis, both to collect feedback about their experience, and to keep the lines of communication open so that you can sell to them again. An easy way to do this is to build follow-up directly into your product, for example with automated follow-up emails and surveys.
You don’t ask for the sale (again). Yes, you’ve got to ask for the repeat sale, too — periodically reach out to your existing customers to see if there’s more that you can do for them, and have a specific offer ready if they do have a need.

Fixing your blog, one link at a time

Every blog has holes in its chain of conversion — and most have lots of them!

So where should you start making repairs?

The answer depends on whether you’ve already got a functioning funnel:

If you’ve already got traffic, opt-ins, and customers: Start at the end, and work your way backwards. First get more customers to buy again, then get more subscribers to buy from you, then get more website visitors to subscribe, and only then get more people to visit your website.

If you don’t have any of that stuff: Then start at the beginning — start by getting traffic to your site, and once you have traffic, work on getting them to opt-in, and then buy from you, and then buy from you again.

Now, a question: how long are you willing to wait before your blog starts delivering dollars to your bank account?

Having realistic expectations is important. If you try to run a marathon as though it were a sprint, you’ll end up exhausted on the side of the road. And if you try to run a sprint as though it were a marathon, you’ll finish dead last.

So what kind of race do you want your blog to be running?

If you’re willing for it to take 2-3 years to get your blog to where you want it to be, then a good strategy is to read business books for bloggers, along with the best blogs in the industry.

But if you want to see results sooner, then get some help. For example, you could click the link in my bio and read about our marketing training program, that just happens to be closing to the public on September 1.

About the Author: Danny Iny is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, and proud co-founder of Firepole Marketing, the program that teaches non-marketers to fix their chain of conversion like expert marketers. Get his free video course on how to get more money out of your business, website or blog, or follow him on Twitter @DannyIny.

Comments

[...] 23 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t Making Any Money (And What to … by Webvantix Blog Reading Suggestions | The Webvantix Suggestionator | Professional Website Design
[...] All right, tired of writing your blog? Can’t figure out … by What a Hoot! Great Resources from the Web | ACT Communications | Frances Caballo
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Sooo much to do Why don’t you swing by my blog and fix it for … by Simon
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A 7-Step Guide to Mind Control: How to Quit Begging and Make People Want to Help You

Posted on 25. Aug, 2011 by Jonathan Morrow in Blog, Blog Psychology, Collaboration, content marketing, conversion, Copywriting, Email Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Headlines, Keyword Research, Landing Pages, List Building, Online Product Launches, personal branding, persuasion, productivity, selling, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic

image of black and white spiral

Well, why not?

They are the problem, right?

Here you are with a blog or a product or a charity you believe will change the world, and yet no matter how excited you are about the possibilities, no matter how much faith you have in yourself, you can’t help being worried:

If you ask a popular blogger for a link, will you get a reply?
If you ask a partner to email a product offer to their list, will they agree?
If you ask a friend for a donation, will they write you a check?

You don’t know. You can’t know. And it bothers you.

Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just close your eyes, pop over into their mind, and seize control?

Yeah. Too bad it’s not possible …

Or is it?

A Brief Introduction to Mind Control

As it happens, mind control is possible. Sort of.

No, you can’t turn your customers, partners, and in-laws into mindless zombies, but you can influence them.

In fact, there’s a science to it.

Back in the 1980s, a researcher by the name of Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. He outlined different principles scientifically proven to influence people, as well as suggestions for how to do it.

Since then, it’s become maybe the most important book in the field of marketing. If you haven’t read it, you should, as well as the sequel.

Here’s the bad news:

Mind control isn’t about magic powers, arcane arts, or even shaving your head and gallivanting around in a wheelchair (although, I’ve been tempted). The truth is it’s about something that makes a lot of people squeamish: marketing.

The Truth about Marketing

The core of marketing isn’t customer profiling or market segmentation or any of the other complicated nonsense taught in most business schools.

It’s infinitely simpler than that, and it can be encapsulated in one word:

Yes.

You ask a blogger for a link, and they say, “Yes.” You ask a partner to promote your product, and they say, “Yes.” You ask a customer for a testimonial, and they say, “Yes.”

If you get enough yeses, your blog/business/charity succeeds. If you don’t, it fails. It’s so simple, and yet so few of us really understand how to do it.

The good news?

You can learn.

What follows is a marketer’s guide to mind control. Use these seven strategies wisely.

1. Do all the thinking for them

The worst mistake you can make when asking anyone for anything is telling them to “Think it over.”

Here’s why: people already have too much to think about.

Between their jobs, their family, and their own hobbies and friends, their mind is already stuffed, like a suitcase bulging at the sides. Add one more sock, and the whole thing will explode.

To avoid it, they “forget” about things that aren’t very important to them, or if they do think about you, they don’t think very hard. It’s not because they are lazy or stupid. They’re just busy, and you’re probably not very high up the priority list.

And so the best strategy is to not ask them to think.

Do it for them.

Instead of expecting them to see how your blog post will benefit their audience, explain it, and offer examples of similar posts that have done well in the past
Instead of asking them to host a webinar for you, setup the webinar, landing pages, and emails yourself, and send them as part of your pitch
Instead of begging a customer to write a testimonial from scratch, send them a dozen different examples to use as a guide

Be specific. Explain your reasoning. Offer proof. Tell them what to do next and why.

If you do it right, it won’t feel like asking at all. It’ll be more like advising.

And they’ll say yes. Not because of magical powers of persuasion, but because you’ve thought through everything, and it’s a no-brainer.

2. Start an avalanche

Creating a successful marketing campaign is a lot like starting an avalanche.

First, you climb up the mountain, and then you find the biggest boulder at the top, and then you sweat and grunt and strain to push the boulder over, and then you sit down and watch happily as the boulder goes crashing into other boulders, eventually bringing the whole side of the mountain down.

The lesson?

The first big yes is a pain in the butt to get, but if you get it from the right person, then getting all of the subsequent yeses is easy.

For example:

Getting a popular blogger to tweet your post is hard, but once they do, dozens or maybe even hundreds of people will retweet them
Convincing a leader in your niche to promote your product is tough, but once they do, everyone else will want to promote it too
Persuading a celebrity customer to give you a testimonial can be tough, but once you do, sales skyrocket, and getting further testimonials is easy

Of course, a lot of marketers recommend taking the opposite approach.

They tell you to start from the bottom and work your way up because it’s easier.

But really, it’s just an illusion. Yes, pushing over a small rock is easier than pushing over a boulder, but the boulder is a lot more likely to cause an avalanche. So while it’s more work in the beginning to get top people to help you, it’s actually less work in the long run, and the results are far, far greater.

3. Ask for an inch, take a mile

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile,” right?

It’s supposed to be derogatory. It’s supposed to be a warning against appeasement. It’s supposed to protect you against getting taken advantage of.

But it’s also great marketing.

Whenever you’re asking for anything, never start by asking for everything upfront. Instead, start small. Make it easy to get started. Reduce the risk if it flops. Let them see the results for themselves.

And when it goes well, ask for more. And more. And more.

You might think that’s unethical, but if everything is going well, why not push for more? It’s not manipulation. It’s common sense.

For instance:

If you want to write a guest post for a popular blog, start by pitching the idea in one or two paragraphs, and then send them an outline, and then write the full draft of the post

If you want do a JV promotion with a leader in your field, start by asking them to email your launch content to only 10% of their list, and than 50% of their list, and then 100%, and then a direct mail campaign

If you want your customers to give you case studies, start by asking for a 1-3 sentence blurb, and then ask for a half-page testimonial, and then talk about doing a two-hour webinar going in depth about their success

It’s not psychological trickery or anything like that. It’s smart business. No one likes to risk everything upfront, and by offering progressive levels of commitment, your chances of getting them to say yes go through the roof.

4. Always have a real deadline

The keyword is “real.”

All of us have had salesmen tell us, “Well, you’d better get back to me fast, because I have three more prospects coming this afternoon, and I don’t know how long it’ll last.” It’s BS, of course.

There are no clients, and there is no urgency. The salesman is just so desperate he’s willing to lie, not only costing him your trust, but probably the sale too.

And it’s not just salesmen.

How many times have other people handed you completely artificial deadlines, thinking it will motivate you to act? Our teachers do it, our bosses do it, our family does it, and without thinking about it, you’ve probably done it too.

Stop.

Not only is it ineffective, but it’s totally unnecessary. Real urgency is easy to create. With a little thought, you can build it into your marketing. For example:

Instead of leaving a free report on your blog forever, tell everyone it will only be available for seven days, and then you’re going to start charging $7 for it. Not only will you get a lot more downloads, but other bloggers will be a lot more likely to promote it during the window
Instead of letting JV partners dictate when they will promote your product, schedule a launch, announce it to your list, and then forward partners the announcement, inviting them to participate
Instead of asking customers for testimonials whenever they get around to it, show them the timeline for an upcoming launch, including a specific date to send out testimonials. You need it by then, or you won’t be able to include it

Will some of them bow out, saying they are too busy right now, and they’ll catch you next time?

Sure, but it’s better than never getting started it all. And if you let other people dictate timelines, that’s exactly what will happen.

5. Give ten times more than you take

You know you’re supposed to give before you get, right? But what you might not know is how much to give.

A lot of marketers mistakenly assume it’s a 1:1 ratio.

Before you ask for a link, you should give a link. Before you ask for promotion, you should give a promotion. Before you ask for a testimonial, you should do one thing that deserves a testimonial.

But that’s wrong. Smart marketers use a 10:1 ratio, and not just in action, but in value:

If you want 100 visitors, send them 1,000
If you want $1000 in product sales, sell $10,000 of their products first
If you want one testimonial, do ten different heroic acts of customer service worthy of a testimonial

This isn’t about “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” It’s about generosity so overwhelming they can’t say no.

Yes, it’s a lot of work, but that’s the price of influence.

6. Stand for something greater than yourself

Imagine there are two homeless guys standing on a street corner.

The first guy has a normal, run-of-the-mill sign saying, “Spare a few dollars? God bless you.” The second guy, on the other hand, has a much more unusual sign: “Can’t afford to feed my family, and it’s tearing me apart. Please help, so I can stop feeling like such an awful Dad.”

Which one would you be more likely to help? The second one, right?

Forget giving him a few bucks. With a sign like that, you’d take him to the grocery store and buy him $200 worth of groceries. I know I would.

That’s the power of standing for something bigger than yourself. It makes people care.

And it applies to everything:

Instead of writing yet another how-to post, take a stand on an important issue, arguing with both passion and unassailable logic
Instead of starting yet another me-too consulting business, create a movement, working tirelessly to change the lives of your customers
Instead of selling yet another step-by-step manual, sell a philosophy, filled with heroic examples to inspire your customers

Those are the types of things people want to talk about. They feel grateful just for having the chance to help you spread the word.

7. Be completely and utterly shameless

You want to know what separates a great marketer from a mediocre one?

Shamelessness.

I’m not referring to a lack of conscience, having a gregarious, extroverted personality, or any of the other ways we traditionally look at marketers. For the most part, those stereotypes are myths.

No, by shamelessness, I mean this:

An unshakable belief that what you are doing is good for the world and the willingness to do anything to bring it into being.

When you believe in your content, you don’t publish it and forget it. You promote it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, working tirelessly to spread the message to everyone who needs to hear it, and refusing to rest until they do.

When you believe in your product, you don’t balk at sales. You revel in it. Not because you’re greedy or desperate or egotistical, but because you know your product will help them, and so it’s your duty to get them to buy. Whatever it takes.

When you believe in your charity, you don’t beg for donations. You demand them. You grab people by the shoulders and look them in the eyes and tell them what you’re doing is changing the world, and it’s time for them to step up and do their part.

It’s not about money. It’s not about glory. It’s not even about legacy.

It’s about falling in love. It’s about being enchanted. It’s about seeing a vision so beautiful you can’t help but fight to make it real.

Do you have a vision like that? Something worth getting up every day and fighting for?

If you do, you can accomplish damn near anything.

And if you don’t, well …

What’s the point?

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger. If you’d like to learn what it really takes to become a popular blogger, check out his free videos on guest blogging.

Comments

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Why People Don’t Want the “Real” You

Posted on 10. Aug, 2011 by Brian Clark in Blog, Blog Psychology, content marketing, Copywriting, Email Marketing, Entrepreneurship, List Building, personal branding, persuasion, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

image of joy division lp cover

Everywhere you turn these days, you hear about authenticity.

They say you’ve got to be real in order to connect with today’s social media savvy audiences and consumers.

But it’s not necessarily true.

Go out and be “real” when you’re having a bad day, and people will quickly call you out for not reacting in the “right” way.

Or, cross a line with your audience that disturbs their expectations of you, and you’ll quickly find that people didn’t want that much of the “real you” after all.

And yet, it’s unavoidable — the world of marketing in general, and specifically online marketing, has heavily gravitated to a greater emphasis on an authentic human voice over canned messages and corporate speak.

So what’s going on with this authenticity stuff?

Glad you asked. Let me give you a bit of an offbeat example involving “authentic” t-shirts on the way to answering you.

The case of the vintage t-shirt

I’m a t-shirt guy.

I’m especially fond of cool t-shirts that I’ve owned forever — sometimes for decades — and they show it.

I’m proud of my SXSW Interactive shirt from 2000 even though it’s seen better days. And I was mortified when I had to replace my Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures t-shirt after it was “liberated” during a party I threw in law school, but what are you gonna do?

Let’s look at the larger trend in “vintage” t-shirts:

Group 1: People who have cool t-shirts that they bought way back when and now proudly wear as raggedy badges of hipster honor.
Group 2: People who shop in vintage clothing stores looking for old, ironic t-shirts, perhaps hoping to be viewed as members of Group 1, or at least … ironic.
Group 3: People who buy new reprints of older, popular t-shirts, and then buy other products to begin a rigorous process of making the t-shirt look old so they appear to be in Groups 1 or 2.
Group 4: People who go to Target to buy the same t-shirts as Group 3, except these shirts are pre-aged by the manufacturer, effectively commodifying Groups 1, 2, and 3.

Would you agree with me that Group 1 is the only “authentic” example, with each subsequent group diverting a step further away from authenticity?

And yet, people are spending good money for things that aren’t “real.” In fact, Groups 3 and 4 often spend more money to appear authentic than the people who actually qualify.

Is it really true that people want “real,” or could it be they want … something else?

Who’s your favorite person?

The problem with authenticity in marketing is age-old. And the emergence of social media has allowed people to forget Marketing 101, and go right back to egocentrism.

In other words, you’re focusing on your favorite person — yourself — instead of focusing on them, the people you’re trying to reach and influence.

Seth Godin famously said that authenticity in marketing is telling a story people want to hear, and then making the story a reality (or living the lie). He caught some flack for that, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.

And yet, even that’s confusing, because you start to think it’s your story that matters.

Your story absolutely matters, but only to the extent that it helps people tell the story they want to tell about themselves.

Why people buy things

Very few of the things we buy are truly necessary.

Everything else we buy is used as a way of telling the story of who we are, what we believe, and what we aspire to be.

So, in the t-shirt example, people will go to great lengths to engage in “inauthentic” commerce, because it helps them say something about themselves that’s desirable. It’s real to them, and that’s all that matters.

Am I telling you to be fake?

No, I’m telling you to get your head in the right place.

Focus on them.

Match them with aspects of yourself, your products, and your services. But never forget that you’re helping them tell their own stories as you create your own.

Create content, products, and services that assist in the narrative of life we all tell.

Help people tell the story of who they are, what they believe, and what they aspire to be.

That’s about as real as it gets.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger, CEO of Copyblogger Media, and a vintage t-shirt connoisseur. Get more from Brian on Google+.

Comments

Like your commentary about varying levels of authenticity. This … by Nichole L. Reber
I get a bit fuzzy about the differences in “realness” … by pam
It’s funny you mentioned the T-shirts as I belong to Group 1, I … by Daniël W. Crompton
[...] Why People Don’t Want the “Real” You [...] by Speedlink V30/2011, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Authorship Markup | Baguzajja[dot]Info
[...] marketers will tell you authenticity does not exist, that … by Coalition Marketing for the Common Good | Geoff Livingston's Blog
Plus 5 more…

3 Steps to Finding Your True Writing Voice

Posted on 09. Aug, 2011 by Cori Padgett in Blog, Blog Psychology, content marketing, conversion, Copywriting, editing, Email Marketing, Headlines, List Building, Paid Content, personal branding, persuasion, selling, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic

image of singer at the mic

As a professional copywriter, there’s one question that tends to pop up constantly from my readers and clients … “Can you teach me to write like you?”

My knee-jerk answer is usually something like, “Um. No. There is no other like me! I reign supreme! Me! Me! Me!”

OK, I’m not really that egocentric.

But I do typically respond with something along the lines of “I’d love to teach you how, but I don’t know how I do it … I just do it.” And then I run off to a dark corner somewhere to eat sweet potato French fries like they’re going outta style.

Writing meaningful, effective content day in and day out is difficult. To say the least.

I’ve thought a lot about how I get it done, and have come up 3 steps that serve me well, over and over again.

At least, it’s how I think I get it done

The holy grail for aspiring writers

I’ve struggled to convey just how I (and others I admire) actually write the way I do.

I’ve wanted to teach it in a way that you, the reader, can take and immediately implement on your own.

This is the one question that won’t. Stay. Down! Kinda like that game where you beat the hedgehog down and then an identical one pops up to take its place? Yeah. Like that.

It seems that in my rather meandering journey to becoming a ghostwriter-cum-blogger, I unexpectedly stumbled upon what seems to be the Holy Grail for many aspiring writers.

I’m talking about my voice.

It’s distinct. I like to think it’s funny and charming. I’ve been told it’s fairly no-bulls***.

Above all, it’s mine, oh mine, oh mine!

Regardless of where I guest blog, my voice is recognizable.

People read my stuff and they’re like “Hey … I know who this is!”

That happens even if readers don’t yet know that I am, in fact, the author. My friend Abby Kerr does this very well too.

You could say that that voice has now become part and parcel of my “brand”.

So, in the interest of fighting the good fight and teaching ya’ll something useful … I’ll now attempt to give you some pointers on how to unearth your own “voice” and write content that oozes your own flava.

In this process, you might even begin to find ways to brand yourself (so be ready!).

Here’s my 3 key steps to finding your voice and brand, mojo-writer style.

1. Speak your reader’s language

This may come as a surprise, but not everyone who reads your site is going to be a Harvard grad that speaks “ivy league” or whatever other language you specialize in.

Most folks reading online are reading at a grade school level.

That means all those big words you use are making people run screaming in the other direction.

It also means that cool industry lingo you’re so proud of throwing around is mostly falling on deaf ears.

Probably not what you intended to happen right?

When we write, we are creating content with a purpose. We want people to read it, to understand it, to enjoy it and absorb it.

Maybe we want them to take action — maybe we just want them to feel good after reading it.

They are only going to feel a whole lot of frustration if everything you say whips right over their head or they feel like you’re talking down to them because you can’t control your insane need to sound smarter than you probably are.

Not exactly warm and fuzzy advice, right?

Stop talking at your readers.

Stop talking over them.

Stop talking through them.

Talk to them, in simple lingo.

Write like you’re plopped down with them and sharing a cup of coffee and a bit of convo. My buddy SuiteJ pretty much nails this style and implements tip number 3 (we’ll get to it shortly) like gangbusters!

The result? You might be surprised at how many of them are willing to talk back with you.

2. Know why you are writing

All the writing skill in the world won’t do you any favors if you don’t know why you’re writing in the first place.

Lack of purpose is the death of success.

When you write something that has a clear cut purpose it’s reflected in a positive way. There is flow, there is rhythm and there is direction.

If you’re writing without a purpose, it’s kind of like doing one of those writing exercises where you just slap every thought that pops into your head onto paper.

Have you ever tried to read those things afterwards? Crikey, it gives me a headache just thinking about it.

If that’s what you’re serving up to your readers, you might as well be handing out free Tylenol in little blog goodie bags. At least that would be useful!

So if you want to nail down your own unique “voice” you need to start with purpose.

From purpose, passion is born.

From passion you are born, in all your unique glory.

Every piece of content you publish should have your name all over it, in more ways than one!

And that leads nicely into my last tip …

3. Brand it, baby

In addition to speaking your reader’s language and knowing why you’re writing in the first place, sprinkle your work liberally with your own little stamps of distinction.

For instance, people who read my content often recognize my voice simply because I use words like shite, or frack, or ya’ll. Or even crikey.

Maybe there are words you tend to gravitate towards on a regular basis, that perhaps not everyone uses.

Or, maybe you have some sort of signature “how ‘dee do” or “fare thee well” that you use regularly.

Maybe it’s not in the words you use specifically, but in the way you tie them together.

Perhaps you like to inject silly jokes or clichés in your content. (That’d be me!) Or maybe you’re madly uncomfortable with writing with a bit of humor and prefer to adopt a 100% serious tone. That’s still branding and it’s OK too (though it may not win you very many friends, just sayin’).

Regardless of which tic you like to tac, there are a variety of ways you can tweak your content and utilize your quirks, so that it reflects you and allows your “voice” to sparkle.

You just have to allow yourself to find them.

Any questions?

There now. I hope you found these three tips useful.

It’s hard sometimes to nail down how to find your “voice”.

The process is often different for everyone and some folks come by it more easily than others. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be learned though, and if it can be learned it can be taught!

Hopefully you’ve learned a little something here today and if you’ve got questions, please drop them in the comments below.

And, if you’d like more teaching, mayhap Brian and Sonia will invite me back sometime

Oh, and don’t forget folks … sharing is sexy! (No really, it is! I swear! Just ask Kristi!)

About the Author: Cori Padgett is a wildly hire-able freelance ‘ghost’ as well as the creative brains and dubious brawn behind her blog Big Girl Branding. If you’d like to harness her creative brains and dubious brawn to write for your blog, just stalk her on Twitter and ask. I’m “almost” sure she doesn’t bite. Well… like 95% sure.

Comments

Cori, So true. The one thing that many, if not most, writers … by Wyletter
Thank you Cori for your wisdom. Finding your voice is all part … by Donna Blevins
Hi Cori, Great article with solid tips. I’d know your voice … by Angela Artemis/Poweredbyintuition
I am just starting to get into the groove of writing and I have … by Craig_Os
I forget who linked me to this but I’m glad they did as I … by Yomar Lopez
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The Four “Productivity” Personality Types and How to Write for Each One

Posted on 03. Aug, 2011 by Kirsten Simmons in Blog, Blog Psychology, content marketing, conversion, Copywriting, Email Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Headlines, Landing Pages, List Building, Metrics, persuasion, productivity, selling, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Traffic

image of humphrey bogart as sam spade

If you’re a diligent researcher, you might think you know everything there is to possibly know about your prospect.

Deepest fears, pain points, income, business, marital status, family status. You might even know their hair and eye color.

If you’re writing to that person (and you really have those details correct), your copy will likely convert well.

What you might not know about is a secret weapon you can add into the mix that, if used correctly, can skyrocket your conversions through the roof.

Do you know your prospect’s productivity personality? No? That’s all right, not many do. And that’s precisely why this knowledge can give you an unfair advantage as a marketer.

There are four basic personality types that profoundly affect human preferences regarding organization, time management, and productivity strategies.

If you know the personality type of your ideal customer, you can make your copy speak to them on every possible level, from the problems you’ll solve to how you’ll go about solving them.

Let’s take a look at all four, and how to write for each of them …

1. The Fantastical type

The Fantastical personality type is energized by wrestling with problems and coming up with creative solutions.

They learn best by doing, and they have a tendency to lose track of time when they’re caught up in an interesting project.

The most distinctive mark of a Fantastical, though, is that they need to have all the pieces of a project in front of them, otherwise they’ll forget it exists.

My Fantastical business partner goes so far as to refuse to use the produce drawers in her refrigerator because otherwise she’ll forget she bought the fruits and vegetables!

Fantasticals want more than just a plug and play product.

When writing to Fantasticals, make sure you assure them that they’ll get full explanations of all the actions suggested in your product, and then tell them how they’ll solve their problems and learn by doing.

Once you’ve closed the sale, keep up the Fantastical copy by making sure your product dishes out the background theory and information, because your Fantastical customers will want to know all the details.

2. The Structural type

Structural types are natural organizers (and, not coincidentally, are the authors of 99% of the productivity books on the market).

A Structural thrives in a calm, structured environment and doesn’t do well with uncertainty or surprise.

The Structural is the one everyone turns to when there’s an event to be planned, a schedule to be created or a pile of files to be organized.

They can typically pull off feats of organization that amaze lesser mortals, but take away their planner and to-do list and they’re lost.

Therefore, your copy needs to tell a Structural prospect exactly what to expect and what format you’ll be presenting it in.

You also need to explain why your product is better to solve their problem than any other product out there.

And don’t forget to provide testimonials, because a Structural will be reluctant to try it without some evidence that it actually works.

Including clear steps and checklists in your product (and your pre-launch content) will help Structurals to implement your ideas, and trust your word.

3. The Environmental type

Environmentals are all about connections and people.

They care that everyone around them is happy, healthy, comfortable and has what they need.

The Environmental type thrives on human interaction, and has been known to miss meetings and appointments because they were deep in conversation with a friend or coworker who needed a hand.

A strong Environmental type will even go so far as to save anything that might be of use to someone someday — like my grandmother, who ran the string that bound the Thanksgiving turkey through the dishwasher each year and tucked it safely away into a drawer (we did actually find a use for them one year, thus vindicating Oma for everything she’d ever saved).

So, in your copy, make sure you emphasize the personal attention Environmentals will receive as they go through your product.

If you’ve included forums, tell them all about the great interaction you’re expecting and the support networks of peers that they’ll have a chance to contribute to.

The icing on the cake would be to mention all the people the Environmental customer would be able to help after they finish your product — thereby selling the outcome rather than the tool.

4. The Analytical type

Analyticals are success-driven, goal-oriented individuals.

They work well with summaries and numbers, and they don’t have patience for anything that appears unnecessarily elaborate or potentially ineffective.

An Analytical is gifted with the ability to see the big picture and plan accordingly, but their ability to track the smaller details isn’t particularly strong.

It’s not that they aren’t capable of doing so. They just don’t view the financial paperwork or files to be essential to the big picture in their head.

Copy for Analyticals needs to be precise.

Don’t beat around the bush; condense your benefits into concise points and tell your prospect exactly what you’re solving and how you’ll go about doing it.

Extra bonus points if you can fit it into a chart or graph that can be understood in seconds — Analyticals are all about understanding valuable information quickly and effectively.

Many Analyticals have assistants or informal helpers, so structure your product with the understanding that your Analytical customer may not be the one handling the minor aspects.

If you can communicate all this succinctly in your sales copy, you’ll have a great shot at winning the business of your Analytical customer.

Why write for personality types?

By writing to your prospect’s personality, you can connect with them on a level that everyone in the marketplace ignores.

You can also structure your product offering to suit the style of the primary type in your audience, thus increasing the chances that they’ll be able to implement it effectively.

Writing to your audience’s personality allows you to accurately cater to them from pitch to result, giving you more money in your pocket and a cadre of fans raving about how awesome your product is.

There’s no marketing strategy that’s more effective than that!

About the Author: Kirsten Simmons is an author, a coach, and the creator of the Personalized Productivity program that uses your personality to create your ideal productivity system. She’s a Fantastical (in case you were wondering), and she’s also a full time grad student studying mathematical models of epidemics. Come take the personality quiz to discover your type, or connect on twitter @kirstenasimmons.

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