Seth has inspired me again today with his insight; thank you Seth Godin for your wisdom.

10,000 years ago, civilization forked. Farming was invented and the way many people spent their time was changed forever.

Clearly, farming is a very different activity from hunting. Farmers spend time sweating the details, worrying about the weather, making smart choices about seeds and breeding and working hard to avoid a bad crop. Hunters, on the other hand, have long periods of distracted noticing interrupted by brief moments of frenzied panic.

It's not crazy to imagine that some people are better at one activity than another. There might even be a gulf between people who are good at each of the two skills. Thom Hartmann has written extensively on this. He points out that medicating kids who might be better at hunting so that they can sit quietly in a school designed to teach farming doesn't make a lot of sense. 

A kid who has innate hunting skills is easily distracted, because noticing small movements in the brush is exactly what you'd need to do if you were hunting. Scan and scan and pounce. That same kid is able to drop everything and focus like a laser--for a while--if it's urgent. The farming kid, on the other hand, is particularly good at tilling the fields of endless homework problems, each a bit like the other. Just don't ask him to change gears instantly.

Marketers confuse the two groups. Are you selling a product that helps farmers... and hoping that hunters will buy it? How do you expect that people will discover your product, or believe that it will help them? The woman who reads each issue of Vogue, hurrying through the pages then clicking over to Zappos to overnight order the latest styles--she's hunting. Contrast this to the CTO who spends six months issuing RFPs to buy a PBX that was last updated three years ago... she's farming.

Both groups are worthy, both groups are profitable. But each group is very different from the other, and I think we need to consider teaching, hiring and marketing to these groups in completely different ways. I'm not sure if there's a genetic component or if this is merely a convenient grouping of people's personas. All I know is that it often explains a lot about behavior (including mine).

Some ways to think about this:

• George Clooney (in  Up in the Air) and James Bond are both fictional hunters. Give them a desk job and they freak out.
• Farmers don't dislike technology. They dislike failure. Technology that works is a boon.
• Hunters are in sync with Google, a hunting site, farmers like Facebook.
• When you promote a first-rate hunting salesperson to internal sales management, be prepared for failure.
• Farmers prefer productive meetings, hunters want to simply try stuff and see what happens.
• Warren Buffet is a farmer. So is Bill Gates. Richard Branson is a hunter.
• Hunters want a high-stakes mission, farmers want to avoid epic failure.
• Trade shows are designed to entrance hunters, yet all too often, the booths are staffed with farmers.
• The last hundred years of our economy favored smart farmers. It seems as though the next hundred are going to belong to the persistent hunters able to stick with it for the long haul.
• A hunter will often buy something merely because it is difficult to acquire.
• One of the paradoxes of venture capital is that it takes a hunter to get the investment and a farmer to patiently make the business work.
• A farmer often relies on other farmers in her peer group to be sure a purchase is riskless.

Who are you hiring? Competing against? Teaching? Living with?

Regards,
John Singh 

1.       Live every day to my highest potential.

2.       Maintain a super fit Health by exercising daily.

3.       Spoil my family and loved ones every day.

4.       Grow Macquarie IT to 50,000 registered customers.

5.       4 new online business additions to Macquarie Ventures.

6.       Maintain Adventure Sundays with activities such as Sailing, playing polo, flying, etc..

7.       2 Trips. Italy & Everest Base Camp trek.

8.       Maintain my daily journal - ‘Seeking Remarkable’.


John Singh
1/01/10 

I got this email today and it made me think...

Life always gives us warnings regarding what is to come and its often kind enough to gives us ample time to fix the things that are wrong.

Its time for you and me to think upon what is wrong in your our life or business which will cause an expiration to take place and its time to do something about it.

One friend I was talking to last week admitted to the fact that his terribly dietary habits will definitely cause him to have diabetes and other diseases within the next 10 years and he had accepted that fact and had decided not to do anything about it. Not deciding is also a form of a decision. Recognizing and not acting to improve is sheer laziness and foolishness but the most important thing is to 1st recognize what is wrong and then take active steps to improve it and fix it and leave yourself better than ever before.

We have an obligation towards continues improvement not deterioration, may it be our personal lives, our professional lives our the relationships that we maintain. 

Not living a life to your best ability is a sin and the only person that gets punished is you and you always have a choice. 

Go ahead and make your decision and choose between average or remarkable, the choice is yours and the consequences are also yours. 

Regards,
John Singh.

John Singh.

Hi Guys

7 years and 500 interviews later, one leading expert on the topic success shares what really leads to success, I have summarised them here:

1. PASSION (Successful people do it for LOVE not Money).

2. HARD WORK (Successful people have FUN in what they do and therefore do a lot of it).

3. BE GOOD (To be successful at something you need to be GOOD at it).

4. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE .

5.FOCUS (Successful people put all their focus on ONE thing and get dam good at it).

6. PUSH (Successful people push themselves mentally and physically).

7. SERVE (Successful people devote their life to Serving others things of value ).

8.IDEAS (Successful people have great IDEAS and know how to listen and observe, they are curious, they ask questions, they make connections and they make their Ideas come to Reality

John Singh

Claiming the concept of online retailing a waste of time Gerry Harvey challenged SmartCompany to name 10 Australian online retailers who are churning "real money". He gets back a fitting reply with not just the names but the facts as well. Deals Direct, Kogan Technologies, Zazz and RedBalloon share the podium with six others boasting of revenues in millions of dollars. And if the recent figures from IBISWorld are to be believed the retail world will witness a big leap in Australian online spending in the coming years. On being interviewed the veteran online retailers stress on the need to adopt the online model to survive in modern retailing. The common trait in all success online business is the same common trait in any successful business and that is HARD WORK. The people who run these top Australian online businesses share their thoughts on online retailing - what is so special about it that churns out that "real money".

Click here to read the complete article.

Online Marketing Overview: Where to Best Invest

“Whatever you think of and believe in, you will get it for sure”.

If you think you CAN, then indeed you CAN, in spite of whatever bad condition you are in at this moment. Make your dream a most attractive one so you are driven to make it happen, and you must have faith that God loves you as this child and he will see that the whole universe help you in reaching your dream.

Tips : If you are still discouraged to make any dream, try to read books or articles on motivation or stories of success, to listen to cassettes on motivation, to attend seminar held by motivators and make friend with positive thinking people.

Write down your dream as clearly as possible and imagine that the dream comes true and how good it feels. Make sure of some picture or photo if necessary. For example if you want to possess a luxurious car, get its picture, look at it and imagine you drive it to your fullest enjoyment. Get a brochure and you may even visit the car’s showroom and do some test drive.

Your dream must meet the criteria of SMART

SMART stands for :

- Specific : your dream should be able to be describe in details.
- Measurable : it should be able to precisely measured on basis of time, money, etc.
- Achievable : it should be something possible to achieve.
- Realistic : it should be of real nature, not pure imaginary.
- Time bound : it should be able to determined about the length of time it will take to achieve.

If your dream is already SMART, convince yourself through your sub consciousness, your bloodstream, your whole body cells, that you will definitely get what you dream of. You may apply affirmations on the strength of law of attraction.

Make a “Road Map”

Arrange small steps must take and interval targets you must achieve in every stage you must go through. If all those steps and targets have been properly arranged, it will form a “road-map” leading to your dream.

Decide what device or system or way you will employ to follow your “road-map”. Make sure it guarantees to carry you through each stage along the “road-map” and finally brings you to your dream’s fulfillment.

Change yourself attitude

Starting now, focus all your behavior, actions and thoughts on the scenario of following the “road-map” leading to your dream. Evaluate each action you are going to take : “Is it in accordance to the scenario?” If it is not, don’t do it. If it is, act at once. Make no compromise to any delay.

On your way to your goal, very likely you will suffer from lots of failures and disappointments, but in spite of them, you must manage to fulfill all that have been planned. Remember, no matter which sky-level you hang your dream on, you will undoubtly reach it. Lots of successful people all over the world have proved that. It needs one more person to affirm, and that person is YOU.

Throughout the life a person is pushed by the society to fit in any specific category, you are either STAND OUT or BORING, REMARKABLE or INVISIBLE.

Lots of preaching is showered on you for your betterment from your parents, your gurus or teachers, from your well wishers, from your partners, from your managers. Altogether, you get tired of it, here, is 10 easy step-to-step guides to make a change get noticed and become remarkable:

1. Remember, half-knowledge is dangerous. It takes you no where! At times, it may be beneficial but in a long run it will always prove to be disastrous. So, first tip is – be hundred percent committed towards your goal.

2. Becoming remarkable doesn’t mean what you feel about yourself. In fact, what others feel about you? If people are not passing comments, it means you are an average, and average is for losers.

3. There is a wide gap between being noticed and remarkable. An individual can get noticed by wearing hunky funky dresses; loud earring etc., but it won’t make him/her remarkable. 

4. Radicalism in the quest of becoming remarkable is not a crime. In fact, “passion for success” is intrinsic, world has several examples of “odd man out” people – only those individuals succeed or becomes remarkable who has zeal to be “face of the crowd” and not the crowd itself. Celebrities have fans, not because of their good look, but they are masterpiece. 

5. “When going gets tough, the tough gets going”, means remarkability lies in the character of a person. Those who are brave-hearted, determined, indomitable….they never give-up their mission incomplete, be whatsoever the consequences. In contrary, they spring into action against the challenges. 

6. Remember! Change is resisted by the society. Don’t get stuck by others behavior, even Copernicus was penalised for uttering unconventional concept on the solar system. It is inherent tendency of the people to accept changes, but after some time-gap. Nobody in this world can please everybody, so just get focused to your goal. Achievement is the only route that makes you remarkable.

7. Ever wondered! What actually remarkability mean? There were and are some great people who were pioneer of certain things, they were remarkable. They were pioneers of their field. Millions of people later on followed them, some even faired better. Becoming remarkable means - to be best in one’s field, set examples for others, create new milestones.
  
8. “There is always a silver lining even in a dark cloud”. Victory and defeat are two aspects of the same coin. In fact, the person who wins the battle of nerves is remarkable and self-controlled. Such people are not afraid of anything as they are more focused about their passion and dreams rather than problems. 

9. When you achieve the status of a remarkable person. Your life changes! People throng around you. Wants to know about you! Get affected by your opinion! But remember, they are short-lived, don’t let the wine soar-up to your head. It’s good to have a handful of devotees than large mild supporters.   

10. Incessant change is the law of nature, fame and fad passes with the time. So, don’t brood over the spilt milk, strive to achieve another. Constant achievement is the only way to maintain one’s status of being remarkable. Hit harder, all the time!             

Hey! Are you ready to become remarkable? What? Not ready yet!

Believe it or not! But it’s true. Almost everybody wants to make it big in life, but in reality few posses the guts to sail in the boat of constant fuss. If you want to achieve the pinnacle ….don‘t look for scapegoats…. Walk when others are tired. Just toil when other sleeps! Very few people have such indomitable features and that’s what makes them successful.

Think the best, leave the rest! Why is there a fear factor of failure in your mind? Muster all your energy and go for it. Mull on your areas of interest, work out a strategy and endeavor towards it. If you succeed its good, and if not - don’t worry, still there are people around you who will appreciate your efforts.

Now! Don’t wait for the time. Just get started, not today… but the moment you finish reading this article. Remember, procrastination is the biggest hurdle in becoming remarkable.

Tomorrow never comes.

Signing out.

John Singh.

Ever wondered what success is? I think Success is the culmination of a long cherished dream. It is not at all easy to define success in one line, there is no formula of success, had it been there everybody would have been successful. There are plenty of factors involved in success. There are some who are born in such an environment that nurtures success, some have the strong desire to achieve success, they turn the tide in their favor by their deeds.

It’s unbelievable but true! Warren Buffet works for only three hours a day, but he is among the wealthiest men on this planet.

Another dynamic and very successful personality is uncrowned king, Bill Gates.  He doesn’t possess any engineering or other higher degrees from any prestigious college like Cambridge or Oxford, but went on to establish one of the most prosperous corporate companies in the world, Microsoft.

Ronald Reagan was never interested in toiling hard but he was the man credited for the down fall of Communism.

Mother Teresa was an ordinary lady but she carved her name in the annals of world history by her pious deeds.  

Now question arises, what was the mantra of success for these iconic figures?   

There are several factors which have contributed to their success. Crystal clear objective, focused approach and determination to make it big in life are some of the major factors which are very crucial in success.   

Although humanity has progressed in leap and bounds but still it is plagued with enormous difficulties. There are plenty of works to be done and challenges to be meet.

You may wish you had few extra hours in your hand to fulfill your tight schedule and demands. Though, contemporary science has made a miraculous progress but still lots to be done. Just by clicking at the mouse one can straight away browse any subject on the net. Mobile cell in your hand keeps you in touch with your friends but who will find the solutions for other grievances. Probably we should start working hard, fast and more. Is this the solution? No! This can not be a solution.

Let’s discuss about a very popular theory which is as old as nature, but very much practical even today. It is an amasing theory which is not absolutely used pragmatically. We are talking about 80/20 Principle of success. This theory has been proved time and again through scientific research as well. Its importance can be seen in several corporate as well as social situations.      

According to this theory 80% of results, productivity or rewards are spawned by 20% of efforts. To be more precise, only few certain things are important for getting desired results others are just secondary. This 80/20 Principle is very popular among corporate philosophers and management gurus, reason being that it is straight away relevant to different corporate circumstances.

Perhaps, you have heard that 80% of profit of any concern generates from 20% of its customers, we can elaborate this sentence in another manner as well that 20% of staff of any concern spawns 80% of its productivity. Let’s understand this through following examples:                        

• 80% of the crimes are committed by 20% of thieves.
• 80% of car accidents are committed by 20% of drivers.
• 80% of resources are used by 20% of population of any community.

 If we consider our own personal lives, then we will find: 

• 20% of the time we spend in our office work relates to 80% of what we achieve.
• 20% of our clothes are worn 80% of the time.
• 20% of our home’s carpet gets 80% of the wear.   

 Above mentioned interesting statistics reveal the essence of this 80/20 Principle. This theory can bring dramatic change in our day-to-day lives as well, provided we are goal oriented and sincere in our approach. We should use most prolific 20% of our potential in every situation of our lives.  

Introspect yourself and recognise the things which are most vital to you and your life. Focus most of your potential and energy to such things. When you will understand this theory in totality then you will realise significant changes in your life; lesser time will bring more and qualitative results for you.  

At times people wonder, if it is so much effective, then why it is not used worldwide, to accomplish success and meet challenges of the society. One of the reasons is that it is against the traditional norms of the society; moreover, we are deep rooted in 50/50 philosophy. We think that hard work will bring definite results for us.   

80/20 Principle is completely against this approach. According to this theory hard work is not always rewarded. There are some who have not worked hard at all, but went on to become very affluent multimillionaire. We have been brought up in an environment where we are supposed to put in around 8 hours in a day even when our most productive results are spawned in 2 hours or so.    

So, what is the bottom line? By identifying our goal and strengths and focusing on them, we can achieve success and bring diverse modifications in our lives.  

In modern life we are confronted with several demands and difficulties, by meticulously using 80/20 Principle we can find amicable solutions to all these problems.  

John Singh

It may be noted that the Pay Per Click or PPC program has proved to be the fasted growing online marketing channels and last year it comprised 80 per cent of all search engine marketing proceeds. Last year, copywriting for search engine marketing ads yielded more than $4 billion and this year it is estimated to be twice over. Hence, it is not surprising that the marketing managers all over the globe have been seeking proper and profitable direction and financial arrangements.

Funding Your PPC Campaigns

It has often been seen that any kind of financial planning for PPC programs is very tricky and complicated as this mode of online marketing depends on keyword tenders and these are always variable. Given the normal practice, costs of keywords go up in course of time. However, there are exceptions too and basically owing to drifting motivations, the prices of keywords witnessed a minor decline of three per cent from the Q4 of 2005 to Q1 of 2006.

There are many approaches to support PPC advertising and one of the policies is to transfer the expenditure of other channels of advertisement to this online promotional mode. In 2004, when marketing managers had just begun to comprehend the importance and effectiveness of PPC ads, but did not possess the requisite funds for this, they adopted the plan to transfer funds from other channels of promotion to PPC program. Another way to prepare your budget for PPC programs is to assess the share of profits received from your online activities and then accordingly plan the spending on this promotional mode. It is advisable to commence your PPC spending on these fundamentals and add to the spending from time to time as the revenues increase.

Incidentally, Google offers some help for people seeking guidance in this regard. It’s Budget Optimizer for AdWords has been found to facilitate advertisers obtain maximum digit of ticks or clicks feasible inside a particular financial plan, but it is not handy in getting positions for such ads. Frankly speaking, advertisers who opt for the Click Per Cost (CPC) program, have fixed funds to spend every month or desire to mechanize the CPC fine-tuning procedure may perhaps mull over the Budget Optimizer

Using Web Analytics

Nevertheless, all said and done, utilizing the services of Web analytics expertise is pertinent is assessing the efficiency of your advertisement as well as to reap data for utmost benefits from the promotional plans.

It is possible for one to pursue as well as return on ads spend (ROAS) as well as return on investments (ROI) on his PPC program that can provide the advertiser with a base for step by step increase in expenditure on this mode of advertisement. It is advisable to raise one’s advertisement expenditure on the basis of the ROI as it helps the advertiser to assess his revenue on specific keywords. On the other hand, the ROAS only offers the statistics on the entire financial credit. In addition, ROI is remarkable for distinguishing the revenue earned from each keyword. It provides a comprehensible picture of the keywords that cost more, but yield less revenue.

Here is some important advice for all eager to invest in PPC campaigns. In order to obtain the highest benefits, an advertiser requires modifying his programs from time to time. He needs to remove the keywords yielding less profit and adding up new ones in his list. It may be mentioned here that to be successful with the PPC program one need to be continuously experimenting with inspired ads and implement them effectively.

Getting Management Buy-In

Buy-ins by the senior management of a firm is another crucial aspect for creating an effective budget for PPC programs. However, it may be noted that this can be achieved most effectively by proffering data on the efficacy of PPC advertising as well as the manner in which the method can enhance trade and returns. It is a relatively easy method as PPC is not only liable, but also extensively utilized by both large and small advertisers. While continuous research and examining case studies are of great help in this endeavour, the advertiser can gain more by convincing one of his senior managers of his plans and the latter may help him to change the rest.   

A different, but effective method to engender buy-in is to assess the apparent losses an advertiser may have incurred through lost prospects, i.e. by not endowing in PPC programs. In order to gauge this, he may take help of the keyword research device. This will enable the advertiser to find out the number of searches of his firm’s tactical keyword phrase and then calculate the traffic of unique or targeted visitors to his site as well as the conversions he is missing out owing to his failure to register his company with the prominent search engines’ promoted schedule.

Having finalized the company’s spending on the PPC program, the advertiser should next decide on whether the campaign would be executed in-house or be outsourced to a search vendor.

Outsourcing PPC

Scheduling and then executing a PPC campaign is not only a complex process, but also an enduring one. Among other things, it requires tremendous exploration, creativity, creation of landing pages for the site, regular analysis as well as promotion optimization. It may be noted that PPC programs are dynamic and not static and hence once they are executed, continuous supervision and bid policy reviews become essential.

As all the PPC campaigns necessitate unvarying consideration, managing or monitoring numerous promotions and modifying proposal stratagem often become an encumbrance as the they pick up pace. Hence, as far as time and wherewithal are requisite, it is not always viable to deal with one’s own PPC promotions.

Nevertheless, in-house management of PPC campaigns too have their own benefits. In this case, the advertiser is able to understand the customer conduct as well as locate the keywords that lead to his website. It also enables him to gain experience and expertise to select a good vendor when the job becomes cumbersome for him.

Given the encumbrances related in managing PPC campaigns, it is always advisable to hire professional search engine vendors to handle these online promotions. According to Macquarie IT the internet marketing experts, PPC dealers and professionals are well-versed and better equipped to handle the tasks effectively. They are also more insistent while planning and revising tender stratagem that eventually lead to additional genuine clicks as well as high rate of conversions. So, it may be concluded that if an advertiser is still not spending on PPC campaigns he may be at peril of missing out on the increased revenues from search engine activities.

Keyword Use Factors

• Keyword Use in Title Tag - Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header
  
  
• Keyword Use in Body Text - Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page
  
  
• Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis) - Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords
  
  
• Keyword Use in H1 Tag - Creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase
  
  
• Keyword Use in Domain Name - Including the targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e. keyword.com
  
  
• Keyword Use in Page URL - Including target terms in the webpage URL
  
  
• Keyword Use in H2, H3, H(x) Tags - Placing targeted terms in the H2, H3 headline HTML tags
  
  
• Keyword Use in Alt Tags and Image Titles - Using target keywords inside alt HTML tags and img title tags
  
  
• Keyword Use in Bold/Strong Tags - Positioning keyword in HTML text with strong/bold attributes
  
  
• Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag - Utilising keywords in the meta description tag in a webpage's HTML header
  
  
• Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag - Utilising keywords in the meta keywords tag in a webpage's HTML header

Page Attributes

• Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure - Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page
  
  
• Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages - Do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?
  
  
• Age of Document - Older pages may be perceived as more authoritative while newer pages may be more temporally relevant
  
  
• Amount of Indexable Text Content - Refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page
  
  
• Quality of the Document Content (as measured algorithmically) - Assuming search engines can use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine the validity and value of content, this metric would provide some level of rating.
  
  
• Organisation/Hierarchy of Document Flow (i.e. broad > narrow) - The construction of document text flow - i.e. journalistic style generally dictates a detail-oriented introduction, a broad level overview of the issue and increasing specificity and detail as the article continues.
  
  
• Frequency of Updates to Page - The number and time frame of changes made to the document over time
  
  
• Number of Trailing Slashes (/) in URL - Accuracy of Spelling & Grammar. The literal correctness of spelling and grammar as related to the language of the document
  
  
• HTML Validation of Document (to W3C Standards) - Validation of HTML page code as per the W3C consortium, an authoritative body on the standards of web-compatible code

Site/Domain Attributes

• Global Link Popularity of Site - The overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web (both link quality and quantity)
  
  
• Age of Site - Not the date of original registration of the domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines (note that this can change if a domain switches ownership)
  
  
• Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site - The subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to the target page and the target keyword
  
  
• Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world
  
  
• Rate of New Inbound Links to Site - The frequency and timing of external sites linking in to the given domain
  
  
• Relevance of Site's Primary Subject Matter to Query - The topical relationships between the full content of a website and a user's given query
  
  
• Historical Performance of Site as Measured by Time Spent on Page, Clickthroughs from SERPs, Direct Visits, Bookmarks, etc.
  
  
• Metric of click-through-rate, time spent on a page/site, direct navigation via bookmarks, etc. that Google may be measuring through use of their toolbar, free wifi, Google analytics, etc. (note that this is purely speculation as Google has never publicly admitted to monitoring or recording this data)
  
  
• Manual Authority/Weight Given to Site by Google - Google is occasionally suspected or accused of applying manual manipulation to a domain or page (note that this factor refers specifically to positive ranking manipulation)
  
  
• TLD Extension of Site (edu, gov, us, ca, com, etc) - The top-level domain extension of the site. Note that some domains, such as .edu, .gov, .mil and others have restrictions on who may purchase them
  
  
• Rate of New Pages Added to Site - The amount & frequency of new, spiderable documents added to the domain over time
  
  
• Number of Queries for Site/Domain over Time - The frequency of searches for the domain name or the company/organisation's brand as measured through Google's search query logs
  
  
• Verification of Site with Google Webmaster Central
  
  
  

Inbound Link Attribute

• Anchor Text of Inbound Link

• Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
  
  
• Topical Relationship of Linking Page
  
  
• Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world
  
  
• Age of Link
  
  
• Topical Relationship of Linking Site
  
  
• Text Surrounding the Link
  
  
• Internal Link Popularity of Linking Page within Host Site/Domain
  
  
• Temporal Link Attributes (when in time the link was created/updated)
  
  
• Domain Extension of Linking Site (.com.au, edu, gov, com, ca, co.uk, etc)
  
  

·         PageRank of Linking Page






Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes

·         Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots

·         Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index

·         External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites

·         Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages

• Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming)
  
  
• Participation in Link Schemes or Actively Selling Links
  
  
• Very Slow Server Response Times
  
  
• Inbound Links from Spam Sites
  
  
• Low Levels of Visitors to the Site

So, what is this absolutely critical factor? Drumroll, please: YOUR TIME!

Surprised? Did you think I'd say advanced keyword research, SEO copywriting, multivariate landing page testing or viral video production?

If you want to avoid spending a lot of money designing or redesigning a website that won't help you generate much more business than your existing one, you should ask a series of questions when interviewing potential employees or firms who you might hire to help you.

If you're a small or mid-sized business and you truly want to turn your website into a lead generation machine, there's basically 3 techniques available to you:

·                                 Search Engine Optimization

·                                 Pay Per Click Advertising

·                                 Blogging & Social Media Marketing

It's almost impossible to completely outsource these activities to a firm that does not know your business, market, customer and products intimately. In other words, people within your company are going to need to be intimately involved in the process of online marketing. So, the first question that I get asked form an intelligent customer is, "What will you need from me in order to successfully increase the number of leads our website generates month over month?"

A website design and development firm is typically going to just say, "We need content, colors and artwork." Wrong! Don't hire these guys. 

Here's the right answer: YOUR TIME!

Why time? The internet isn't like traditional advertising where you hire a designer to produce an ad and you pay a media company to get the ad in front of eyeballs. 

"But, what will I be spending time doing?", you ask. Let's take a look at each of the internet marketing techniques above.

Search Engine Optimization Requires Your Time!

Most people still think SEO is something their web designer does once. Companies that commit to doing ongoing SEO reap ongoing rewards. To do SEO successfully, you should continuously do 3 things: 1) find more keywords that will bring you relevant traffic 2) create more content focussed on those keywords 3) build links that support ranking higher for those keywords in search results. Who knows your business, your customers, your market, the problems you solve, the solutions you provide - better than anyone else? Hopefully you.

Aren't you the best one to find the keywords your prospects would type at google? Aren't you the best one to produce content that's relevant to your prospects?

If you haven't done link building beyond directory submissions, you won't understand this. But doing link building well requires your time too. Trust me. If anyone says that they'll get you 100 new links per month and they don't ask you for press release ideas, article ideas and a list of the leading bloggers, forums and trade publications in your industry, do not hire them.

Pay per Click Advertising Requires Your Time Too!

This one doesn't take a lot of time. But, the time you spend managing your search engine pay per click advertising campaigns is critical if you want the best possible ROI. PPC advertising is probably the most efficient form of advertising ever created. But, it's not efficient unless you spend time constantly improving its efficiency. If you're new to this, you should read this primer on running ppc campaigns. Suffice to say, I probably speak to atleast one prospective HubSpot client each week who has no idea what the ROI on their ppc spend is. Some of them even spend 10s of thousands of dollars per month.

Would you hire a salesperon and not monitor how much profitable revenue they produce? Would you not tell them what an ideal prospect looks like before they start making calls? Would you let them guess what a good positioning statement should be when they get in front of a prospect? Would you not train them on what problems your product solves and what questions to ask? Would you not help them devise a presentation to a prospect? If all these things sound silly, why isn't it silly to let someone who doesn't know your product, service or market as intimately as you do... pick keywords to bid on, write ad copy, design landing pages, monitor conversion rates and measure ROI?

Blogging and Social Media Marketing Requires A Lot of Your Time!

This should be obvious. In fact, the most common reason businesses don't start a blog is because they "don't have the time" to regularly write on it.

If you do make the really really really smart decision to start a business blog, you should find a company to help you that truly has experience writing their own successful blog. Blogging for business isn't really something you can advise someone to do without doing it yourself first. Too many marketing professionals think blogging is the same as writing press releases or articles. It's not. It's about hosting a dynamic conversation with your market. It requires a mix of writing, sales, networking and marketing skills if it's going to be done successfully. Not to mention the importance of knowing a lot about your business and the challenges that your customers face. 

As far as social media marketing goes, I'm not sure how you'd even begin to outsource that completely. The value of sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Twitter is that you can connect and interact with prospects and clients. All of your sales people and marketing people - heck.. all of your employees - should be actively engaging with the market through these sites. Outsourcing this would be like outsourcing sales.

Measuring Results and Improving ROI Requires Your Time!

We haven't even talked about how blogging and social media marketing can support search engine optimization. We haven't talked about how you can use PPC advertising to refine your SEO keyword strategy in order to maximize conversion rates from both.

There's a lot to internet marketing that requires your time. If you want to do it successfully, you should seek professional help to get you focussed on the right stuff first and make sure you don't make mistakes and waste your time.

But it should be obvious now, I hope, that it'll also be a fairly significant investment of your time to pull off successfully.

If that's the case, it's only natural that you should ask your potential help, "How are we going to measure internet marketing success?" 

Answer: You'll need the right online marketing analytics tools to measure what marketing activities, keywords, social media activities, ppc campaigns - actually generate new business. You'll, of course, need some time to evalute your success periodically, so you can constantly improve your internet marketing results. 

"So, How Much Time Will I Need?"

That'd be the appropriate question for you to ask after the company you're interviewing tells you that "time" is the most important criteria to your soon-to-be-realized internet marketing success. 

If they answer right away, don't hire them.

Unfortunately, there's no standard answer to "how much time you'll need".

To generate leads from the internet marketing techniques listed above, there's a lot of factors that go into figuring "how hard" it'll be. Anyone that actually has experience doing these things successfully would do keyword and competitive research to determine how much time investment and time lapse will be necessary before any amount of success is achieved.

A safe answer is, "The more time you put it into, the more business you'll get from it." 

Last thing I would encourage you to think about is that even time can be outsourced now. If you think that you can not hire a company or an individual to think the way you do you are absolutely wrong. Surely you may be an expert in your business but in reality thousands of other people are also experts in your business and perhaps some of them have a stronger knowledge base and expertise than you do. So don’t you think it would be wiser to outsource your work to those people that can work under your guidance, may it be writing your blog articles or doing the daily directory submissions or link building.

We do live in an OUTSOURCED world and the 4 hour work day is definitely a reality today, but the only difference in the 4 hour workday today and 10 years ago is the level of impact that you can have and the amount of contribution you can make in 4 hours today using the power of the technologies and outsourcing your entire multimillion dollar corporation to competent partners and all that in just 4 hours a day; ten years ago it would have taken you 3 years to do what you can do in 4 hours today. Now that is the real power of the internet.



John Singh

PS. Remember the 80/20 Rule

1.      If your Advertising isn’t working – STOP IT!
Let’s start with the simple stuff. If you are running advertising that is not working, please stop it!

I know it sounds obvious but here’s what often happens: People run advertising because they feel they ought to. They’re not really sure if it’s working but they are hesitant to stop it because it may be one of their main forms of marketing.

By the end of this report you will have enough information to ensure that you are never in that position again. You will either be running great ads that produce great results, or you will be spending your marketing money elsewhere.

2.      Only use Direct Response Advertising
There are two types of advertising – direct response advertising and brand advertising.

Understanding the distinction between the two will immediately save you a fortune.

Brand advertising is used by companies like Coca Cola and the large car manufacturers to build and increase awareness of their brand. Unless you have huge amounts of money which you are happy to lose, you should avoid brand advertising at all costs. For a small business it is a complete waste of money.

The only type of advertising you ever want to consider is direct response advertising. The only purpose of direct response advertising is to produce a clear response.

The type of response may vary depending on the type of business you are in and your overall marketing strategy. You may want the response to be an immediate purchase. You may want the response to be for someone to contact you to ask for a brochure.

The great thing about direct response advertising is that you can instantly tell whether it is working (see the next point) It either produces a response or it doesn’t. One of the reasons that most small business advertising does not work is that it’s a combination of half hearted direct response and highly ineffective brand advertising.

Fortunately, you now know the difference. In the land of the small or medium business, direct response is King!

3.      Testing and Measuring
It is absolutely essential that you test and measure all of your advertising.

If we are going to engage in direct response advertising we obviously need to be able to measure that response, otherwise we are not going to know if the ad is working.

At the very least we need to know how many people responded, how many of them were converted to a sale and what that is worth to you. Then you need to compare that figure to the cost of the ad and you can immediately work out how profitable the ad was, or whether you should stop running it.

So many businesses just allocate a certain mount of money to an advertising budget, spend the money every year…and they’ve only got a vague sense of whether the ads are working are not. This is crazy. If your ads are working, you want to roll them out on a larger scale. If they’re not, STOP and use the money on one of the dozens of other marketing strategies that can bring you a 100 or 200 or 300% return on your investments.

You will obviously need some sort of system for asking people who contact you for the first time where they heard about you. If you have a larger business, you may even want to set up a separate phone line with a number that only appears in your ad. If you’re directing people to a website, you may want to set up a special web page that also only appears in your ad. This will ensure that you can clearly identify when people are responding to your advertising.

4.      Your Headline is the most important part of your Ad
In the ad itself the most important element is the headline. The headline is either the heading that goes at the top of the ad or if there’s no heading it’s the first words of the ad. The headline needs to grab peoples’ attention. One change in a headline can produce a 50-100% increase in response.

One of the biggest challenge that any advertiser faces is getting people to read their ad – let alone for the ad to produce a result. So the main purpose of the headline is not to sell your product – it’s just to get people to read your ad.

The headline should be about your readers – not about you. If your headline has the name of your business in it, you are probably losing out. Imagine you owned a company selling fire alarms. Which of these headlines do you think would be most likely to get the reader’s attention:

Simpson Fire Alarms - Your Guarantee of Safety

  OR

Is your Family's Life worth the price of a round of Drinks?

Be adventurous with your headlines. Test different versions to see what works best. There are no rules – except what works.

5.      Remember AIDA
There’s a classic formula used by advertisers and it’s well worth remembering. The formula is AIDA. This stands for

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

If you follow this formula in every ad that you write, you will greatly increase your chances of success.

Attention – the first thing your ad needs to do is grab the reader’s attention. You achieve this with your headline.

Interest – once you’ve got their attention, you need to create an interest in your product or service.

Desire – There is a big difference between being interested in a product or service and desiring it. You need to convert the reader’s interest into a strong desire for what you are offering.

Action - Even if someone desires what you have, it is not enough until they take action. At the end of the ad you need a call to action. Tell people exactly what they need to do to follow through and make it easy for them to do so.

6.      Benefits, Benefits, Benefits
One of the principles that should drive all of your marketing is communicating the benefits of your product or service.

The copy of your ad needs to be a personal communication to the individual reading it. And it needs to be about them. It needs to address their needs, desires and fears and it needs to constantly communicate the benefits of what you are offering.

Nobody will buy anything from you until they have explicitly understood how they will benefit from what you have to offer. So here’s a useful tip. When you’ve written your ad, imagine stepping into the shoes of your prospective customer. From this perspective does the add fully convey what those benefits are? If not go back and fine tune the ad until it feels right.

7.      Don’t Advertise on a Left Hand Page
This one piece of knowledge can turn an unsuccessful ad campaign into a successful one. This has been tested again and again. When you read a publication, your eyes are drawn to the right hand page as you flick through so statistically, more people will see your ad if it’s on the right hand page.

If you look at the big national magazines and newspapers, you will see that most of the large advertisers are on the right hand pages. The few that appear on the left hand pages will be paying less because their advertising agencies know that less people will see the ad.

When you book your ad space, tell them you want it on a right hand page. Very few people in your position ask for this, so the publication will normally oblige. If they tell you they can’t guarantee it – tell them you’ll advertise in a future edition when they can guarantee it. You’ll soon discover how obliging they can be!

8.      Never pay the full rate for advertising
Apart from knowing that you want your ad on a right hand page, the person selling you the advertising needs to know very early on that you have absolutely no intention of paying the full rate.

Most advertising rate cards are far too high and you can always negotiate. If you’re a small business remember that large companies who use ad agencies are buying based on the readership or audience levels rather than the rate card - so haggle and negotiate. If you can pay 20 or 30% less for your ads it can turn an unprofitable ad into a successful one.

Here’s another handy little trick to pay less for your advertising. The closer to the deadline you can book your ad, the better. Sales teams work towards targets and as the deadline approaches they get more desperate to fill the ad space. They become far more open to negotiation.

9.      Don’t Follow the Competition
One of the biggest mistakes people make is advertising in publications just because their competitors are in them. Don’t for a minute think that all your competitors are there because their ads are producing great results. They’re more likely to be there because everyone else is and most of them wont have a clue whether their ads are working.

In fact, this is a well known sales trick used by the people selling ad space. If they can get one or two of your competitors to advertise, they can call you up and tell you how you’ll lose out if you don’t advertise too. What they fail to mention is that your competitors probably never test their advertising, often haven’t got a clue how to market and are only advertising because they think you will. This is a highly effective way to sustain the advertising industry. It’s not a great way for you to run your business.

10.  Don’t buy into the myth that Advertising is essential for your Business Success
Now that I’ve shared some of the strategies for making your advertising work for you – I’ll let you into a secret. I’m not a huge fan of advertising for small businesses. If you can get it right it works brilliantly – but generally, advertising is one of the least effective ways to grow a business.

There seems to be a cultural myth that to run a successful business, you must advertise. Whoever came up with that one is the same person who said that if you get a university degree you’re guaranteed a great, fulfilling career.

Advertising is just one of many marketing options that you have. But you really shouldn’t be dependent on it. In fact, here’s a strategy I use with my clients which is really powerful:

When I work with a client, one of my goals is to get them to the point where they have so much great marketing going on it makes little difference to their business if they stop advertising.

Why do I do this? Because quite honestly I’ve seen more business owners pull their hair out through advertising problems than anything else. Ultimately, my work isn’t about marketing. It’s about Freedom. It’s about giving business owners the freedom that comes from having a successful and profitable business which is supported by multiple pillars of marketing.

It’s hard to be free when the future of your business involves trying to get a couple of ads to work in a crappy local newspaper.

So start to think out of the box. Ideally, you should be using a combination of up to at least ten other marketing strategies to grow you business. They include (but are not limited to). 

·         Telephone Marketing

·         Direct Mail

·         Internet

·         Email marketing

·         Direct Sales

·         PR (Why spend money on advertising when PR gives you coverage for free)

·         Strategic Alliances

·         Lead Response Marketing

·         A multi level Referral system

John Singh.