Search industry experts weigh in with search predictions for 2010 to attain higher ranking and greater visibility for your business

One of the top questions facing marketers, entrepreneurs and web masters today is what specific strategies to watch out for to increase website traffic, conversions and relevancy when people search for their products or services online.

Here we’ve put together a list of leading industry experts offering their predictions on which areas of search you should be concentrating on in 2010 and why. Whether you’re a small business owner or managing the account of a Fortune 500 company, being aware of search predictions for the year will help you stay ahead of the curve, capitalize on major developing trends and tweak your business model accordingly for optimal results.

Introduction – the Current State of the Search Industry

Although the search industry has been around since 1993 when the world’s first web search engine was launched, it has exploded in growth only in the last decade or so.

Some facts to showcase important developing trends in the search industry:

• According to Pew Internet searching for information online is the second most popular online activity for the past 10 years; second only to email



• comScore says that over 25 billion search queries are generated monthly in North America alone with the bulk of the North American searches (63.0%) being handled by Google.
• Google remains the number one search engine of choice across the world.
• YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the US, usurping Yahoo’s place.
• Facebook services over one billion queries each month for its 400 million users worldwide.
• Over 50% of online users research a product or service online before deciding to buy it offline.
• Social networking accounts for 11% of time spent online by US users, making it one of the most engaging activities on the net.
• According to Nielsen, almost 50 million US mobile subscribers use their mobile phone to access the web each month.
• Some new categories that have been added to web search in recent times are real time search, mobile search and local search.
• The hunt for the best location-specific search is heating up, with the main contenders being Foursquare, Yelp, Facebook (in conjunction with EventBrite), Gowalla, Twitter and Booyah.
• On-page SEO factors like site speed will be incorporated into Google’s search strategy.
• Forrester Research estimates that 60% of American marketers will increase their online budgets by pulling money from traditional marketing expenses.
• Econsultancy and ExactTarget say that 24% of all marketing will be digital with 28% of firms shifting (not adding) budgets from traditional to online channels; of these 64% will increase SEO budgets, 51% will increase SEM budgets, and 70% will increase social media marketing budgets.
• E-Marketer, a digital marketing research firm, predicts that the search industry will grow exponentially in the areas of digital marketing and social media marketing in 2010 and beyond.

The Experts

Rand Fishkin – SEO Moz, CEO & Founder

Rand Fishkin is the CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz, a leader in the field of search engine optimization tools, resources & community.

Matt Cutts – Google, Head of Webspam

Matt Cutts is Google’s go-to guy for the public. He joined Google in January 2000 and is currently heading the Google Webspam team which handles search quality.

Aaron Wall – SEO Book

Aaron Wall is the CEO of SEOBook, a site that ranks #1 for the term “SEO training”. He is an expert search marketer offering tips, tools and strategies via his blog and training program.

Jill Whalen – High Rankings, CEO and Founder

Jill Whalen started her career in search in 1990 and founded High Rankings, a SEO firm, in 1995.

Danny Sullivan – Search Engine Land, Founder

Danny Sulivan is the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, a respected online website giving some of the best and most in-depth coverage of the search engine industry.

Steve Ballmer – Microsoft, CEO

Steve Ballmer has been Microsoft’s CEO since 2000. In 2009, he made his first ever CES (Consumer Electronics Show) keynote address since the departure of Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates.

Eric Schmidt – Google, CEO

Eric Schmidt joined Google as its CEO in 2001. Recruited by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Eric has helped turn Google into a global company.

Marissa Mayer – Google, VP of Search and User Experience

Marissa Mayer is currently the Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. She often speaks on behalf of the company, appearing in video interviews for the press.

Jeff Walters – Strategy Outfitters

Jeff Walters is a consultant at Strategy Outfitters and co-founder of two marketing firms, Clicksquared and Targetbase. His specialty is internet marketing and he advises businesses in brand building and marketing techniques.

Shashi Seth – Yahoo, Search Products

Shashi Seth has worked for several companies, working at AOL, eBay and Google before being appointed Sr. VP, Search Products at Yahoo.

The Predictions

General Search Industry

Search Engine Market Share

RAND FISHKIN believes that the search market will follow the 80/20 Pareto Principle with 80% of the data being controlled by 20% of the search engines. He gives his search engine predictions for 2010:

"The latest figures suggest that Google continues to slowly gain market share in the US, while Bing & Yahoo! compete for share that will eventually belong to them both (once the regulatory hurdles clear, which I think they will). I believe that a year from now, most webmasters will be looking at a scenario where … Binghoo! has ~25-28% market share, but those engines combine to send a little under 20% of all search traffic."

DANNY SULLIVAN seems to be psyched about Bing’s re-entry into search and believes it to be beneficial for healthy competition:

"The arrival of Bing last year really shook up some of the status quo. I feel like both Google and Bing are jumping to best each other, and that competition is great."

STEVE BALLMER, while hesitant to directly answer a question about whether Bing can be number one, does say that:

"There is no good answer to this question. If you say yes, you sound arrogant. If you say no, you sound like you have no faith. But a fair degree of realism is required. Even with Yahoo, we have a lot of work to do."

And where does Yahoo fit in the search game?

SHASHI SETH provides some perspective of Yahoo’s recent alliance with Microsoft:

"There is a great opportunity for us to change the game in search by focusing on the consumer experience and bringing things to the front end of search like real time information, shortcuts, vertical intent, query analysis, and suggestions. The deal could bring a lot of great things for us especially in focusing on the consumer experience."

Sticky Visitors

RAND FISHKIN is also excited about the user experience for both Google and Bing’s search engines and believes that they will try to keep more customers on their search sites and provide results directly on the SERPs instead of via links, thereby showing relevant results the first time round and reducing clicks away from the site.

"My perception is that the more the engines can apply “instant answers” to search queries, the more they will, and the less any other sites will see traffic from those queries. It’s a better user experience this way, and I’m certain it’s one of the biggest things that engenders loyalty and return queries – something both engines are desperately competing for."

Google’s Strategy for 2010

MATT CUTTS gives the example of Google Squared to talk about relevance and semantics in search:

"We are always looking for new types of data to search. Before Gmail came out, people didn’t really realize that email was incredibly useful to search, especially the more email that you have. We’ve had patent search, we’ve had book search, all of these are different types of data….So I would expect that we’ll continue to look for useful types of data to search."

MARISSA MAYER sees Google’s future search strategy expanding in four well-defined areas:

- modality (how do you search)
- media (more richness and interactivity, realtime content etc.)
- language (translation)
- personalizing search experience

Modes of communication are the different ways that you can access search, the most recent one to be unveiled by Google is Google Goggles, (see image) a service on Google’s smartphone Android which lets you take and use pictures of objects and places as search queries, delivering results about the snap.

Media search encompasses the search for images, video and other multimedia formats including real-time search streams such as those from Twitter updates.

Personalized search is about building to the specifications of each individual user. Says Marissa:

"Although we search the web right now, what we really want to do is search it as each individual user sees the web. We want Google to be the most accurate reference tool which allows people to search the web and each have an individual experience."

MATT CUTTS also believes in this universal search model, and gives an example by saying if someone were to search for "I have a dream", they should immediately get to see Dr. Martin Luther King’s video rather than just a transcript of the speech. He says search will be more personalized, so for instance if I type in "Saturn", my browser will know that I mean the car not the planet.

Local SEO Firms
JILL WHALEN believes that SEO outsourcing is a major developing trend:

"More companies interested in outsourcing their SEO are seeking out local SEO companies. We’ve definitely noticed this with clients and potential clients this year."

Vertical Search
DANNY SULLIVAN expects to have new vertical search engines emerge in 2010:

“If I were Google, I’d be worried about vertical searches…”

The Future of Search

In an interview with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, MARISSA MAYER dispelled the notion that search is 90% done

Google CEO, ERIC SCHMIDT joked how Google’s founders wanted a search engine that would connect directly to your brain to understand what information you wanted to find and emphasized that he sees Google moving “from words to meaning”, which in turns means more contextual search and more relevancy the first time round.

In the long run, he says that Google’s aim is to give you fewer search results (perhaps even just one result) that exactly answers your question.

What This Means for Your Business

Vertical search engines such as Monster.com for job-related searches and Ticketmaster for tickets, etc are hugely popular and gaining in strength because they solve a very specific problem and usually with better results. In the end they provide a better, more satisfying user experience then a generic Google search would.

Google, Bing, et all are considered horizontal search engines, since they’re mammoths and cover everything on the net, while vertical search engines (VSEs) are niche-based, targeted and ultimately more relevant.

However, in most cases, you need thee horizontal search engines to get to the VSEs so today’s savvy marketers will need to employ more of a funneling approach—search engines will attempt to channel visitors in the right direction to find what they’re looking for.

Business owners will also need to create data in various formats (video, images, text, etc) so that their data can be found easily across channels.

SEO, SEM and Internet Marketing

Personalized Paid Search

RAND FISHKIN believes that "personalized search is here for the long haul".

"If it’s proven that you can get organic benefits by attracting PPC clickthrough, this [personalized search] may be the new “paid inclusion” for 2010, and could drive bid prices up massively as companies compete not only for paid listing clicks, but for the chance to earn ‘organic’ positioning as well.

However, he believes that personalized search is not a game-changer.

Real-time Search
According to RAND FISHKIN real time search is not too useful in its current state:

"Google has always strived to keep up with the latest ways that content is being recommended and suggested. It’s how they determined popularity and relevance with PageRank and I think Twitter’s data is merely the next evolution."

SEO Spending
RAND FISHKIN believes that in 2010 "SEO spending will rise dramatically".

"SEO trails only social media and online video as places where marketers (not just search marketers, but ALL marketers) will be shifting dollars."

These detailed graphical results from Forrester Research show the level of investment in digital marketing.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Most people in the SEO field focus very heavily on rankings and traffic. RAND FISHKIN says he won’t personally ignore that but in addition he’d pay a lot of attention to CRO. SEOMoz “more than tripled revenues” using Conversion Rate Optimization.

"It’s crucial because this is something that you can completely control. I think this [conversion rate optimization] is still the most under-utilized and highest ROI activities in the marketing department, but more awareness is on its way."

He goes on to say: "CRO isn’t just about testing; it’s about building a process for improving conversion over time. Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this, yet few invest. I think 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value."

Social CRM
JEFF WALTERS while talking about the shift to digital marketing, says:

"Previously there were two legs for combining operation data of a business with the addressable data from multi-channel marketing and digital marketing…now there’s a third leg that’s emerged … that’s social media"

He goes on to say that social media needs to be understood from both the brand perspective as well as the customer perspective. Since social media has "shifted the power to the customer", the challenge for the brand marketer then becomes to link their customer’s social profiles and activities with the business’s transactional data in a way that customers then become Brand Ambassadors.

Customer Profit & Loss Statements
JEFF WALTERS also believes that businesses should maintain customer P&L statements in the same vein as financial statements. A customer P&L statement measures whether the investment in the customer (social media engagement and interaction) is worth the return (word of mouth, referral services, goodwill, etc) and whether the customer is a profitable long-term customer.

Site Speed
MATT CUTTS reiterates that “Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast."

"It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.&quot

What This Means for your Business
Online marketing is not just about selling a product or service online; it’s also about providing customers with information and value online so they can then make more informed purchases offline.

To increase your SEO, SEM and internet marketing efforts, you should:

- Utilize better conversion metrics such as tweak your landing page, convey pricing more clearly, have a better layout, intuitive navigation, write catchier headlines
- Have a strategy for measuring social earned-media goals (as opposed to paid media) and run estimates on what your fan base means for your sales and brand loyalty

Link Building

Tweets as Links
RAND FISHKIN is of the opinion that real time search will fade away or evolve into something more valuable in 2010. He believes that Google jumped the gun in announcing its collaboration with Twitter and the race to be the first to show real-time search but the results of that search stream are not valuable or relevant; rather they are ranked in chronological order with the last tweeted result displayed first.

He elaborates on his vision:

"I expect that algorithms/metrics like PageRank, TrustRank, etc. will find their way into how Google uses the real-time data. Today, SEOs want to turn tweets into links so they can get SEO benefit. My feeling is that tweets are going to carry their own weight in helping pages rank in the not-too-distant future."

He makes another interesting point regarding Twitter’s overwhelming weight in the web’s link graphs and says that "Twitter has been cannibalizing the web’s link graph“. Traditionally Google assigns relevance on it’s SERP via on-page optimization as well as incoming links – Twitter is shaking this up.

"A specific part of the web, namely, blogging, news reporting, sort of what’s fresh and what’s hot is getting much less attention from the blogosphere, social media sphere, forums than it used to and Twitter is getting a lot of that activity."

He gives an example of his interview receiving only a dozen or so links but thousands of tweets and reiterates that Google could be worried about the issue of core relevancy. If the way to find content changes from being through the link graph to the tweet graph or the Facebook status graph, then that "changes the playing field".

What This Means for your Business
Link builders must concern themselves with getting attention in the social media sphere and figure out strategies to get that attention. If you are a business owner or marketer, you should sign up for a variety of social media accounts (if you have not already done so) and start establishing a presence and growing your brand there.

Social Media

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is being hailed as the new SEO strategy, and there’s enough industry credence to this strategy for small and medium-sized business owners to sit up and take notice.

According to JILL WHALEN, businesses need to learn about the big bad scary world of social media pronto because:

"… Google’s index shows about 19,100,000 results for the phrase ’social media’ and approximately 1,630,000 Google results for ’social media marketing.’ It’s safe to conclude that social media and its use as an online marketing strategy are here to stay, and are growing by leaps and bounds. If you’re marketing websites, scary as it may sound, you need to learn about social media."

In a recent interview with UK’s Telegrapgh, MARISSA MAYER weighed in with social media analysis and talked about personalized social search:

"Understanding the social network structure and the permission rules around social networks status updates when they are not public – will really empower us in terms of search."

What This Mean for your Business
Business can and should ensure that they have an active an engaging social media profile on networks such as Facebook and Twitter or wherever they’re customers are likely to be found on the web.

It’s important for businesses to view social media strategy as part of their overall search optimization strategy, and not as something separate and distinct. eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, advises businesses that “"he voice of the consumer is only going to get louder and stronger. It will shape what social media is and what it will become. Not too long ago, a company might have made major changes to its products or services based on a few focus groups, some financial planning and a degree of gut instinct. Social media has already changed all that. And more changes will come."

This means that you need to pay attention to what people are saying about your business on social media channels and you need to start engaging with your customers and potential customers by listening to their problems and offering solutions that are in line with your offering.

You should also start identifying, tracking, reporting and analyzing social media goals – you can do that with tools like Klout, Social Mention, Twitter Grader and PostRank.

Local Search

According to AARON WALL of SEO Book:

"It’s quite clear that local SEO will be *one* of the places to be in 2010 and beyond."

And if you need some convincing, he provides some handy points to consider:

• Google’s interest in acquiring Yelp can be seen as a move for the search giant admitting to how important local search will be. Whether it wanted to snuff out the competition or make a strategic buy-out, the failed deal shows one thing: promise in the power of local search.
• Google offers a flat rate local AdWords pricing model for local businesses
• Local SEO strategy is sometimes equated with appearing in search results in Google’s 10 pack and maps – therefore it’s important to optimize your business for geographic location.

You know local search is important when RAND FISHKIN places it above real time and personalized search:

"Real time search and personalized search are nearly not as interesting as…(Google’s latest feature) Search Near Me"

He gives an example of a consumer using local search:

"You pull out your phone and you say I’m right here, now show me what’s around me (using) GPS co-ordinates that I can walk to in the next 3 blocks…And I think that’s going to have a massively dramatic impact on not just user behavior but consumer behavior, search behavior."

What This Means for your Business
Consider this: local online ad spending will increase from 12% in 2009 to 14% this year. Lisa Barone of outspoken Media has put together a great list of companies on the forefront providing local search data; amongst the contenders Twitter’s geo-location tags, Foursquare’s popular location check-in service, and Yelp’s geographical results.

Businesses should use Google AdWords: Keywords Tool to find out local search volume for the keyword phrases they’d like to rank for. Businesses can also use Google Trends, Google Insights, as well as AdWords campaigns to conduct research on local keywords and their effectiveness.

To ensure that your business is listed in Google’s local searches you can follow the 5 easy and free steps listed in the article. Just go to the Google Local Business Center and get started!

Of course, if you’re an Australian business then Start Local is here providing new, innovative ways to reach local customers as well. We’ve got a lot planned for 2010 as well to ensure that it’s easier for your potential customers to find you.

Consider looking into what other location based vertical search engines are appropriate in your industry. For instance, if you have a cafe then make sure you’re managing your business listing and reputation on appropriate cafe review sites.

Mobile Search

Mobile Search Maturity
MATT CUTTS, and indeed most of Google’s top management, are a huge proponent of the mobile revolution finally coming of age in 2010.

When Matt Cutts says "Mobile will be a big trend" people sit up and take notice. He goes on to say:

"And if you think about it, desktop computers might be, maybe a billion computers (whereas) cell phones are like 3 or 4 billion."

PPC Ads on Mobile

STEVE BALLMER further adds to the mobile discussion by talking about mobile advertising at SMXwest:

"Mobile queries are just going to keep going up and up and up. I’m not predicting we’ll see drop in the number from PCs, but we’ll see rise in total volumes. What that mix may be in 3-5 years from now is hard to predict. There will be a whole class of query for mobile specific."

Certain kinds of activities are supported more than others on a mobile platform: these include mobile banking and access to financial information as well as access to personalized and location-specific searches.

What This Means for your Business
Since most users search for location-specific information via their mobile phones, your first step is to ensure you’re listed in Google’s Local Business Center. Your next step as a small to medium-sized business is to ensure your website is optimized for viewing on a mobile unit or has a mobile-view option. If it’s appropriate in your line of business then you might need to chat to a web development firm and have this version available soon.

The mobile revolution is simple: mobile searches are just another (fast and convenient) way for users to find data about your business. As a business owner your priority is to ensure your potential customers have access to this data on their mobile phones.

Content Creation

Information Pollution
AARON WALL predicts that 2010 will be the year of "information pollution". He cites examples of Demand Studios as a content mill spewing what he calls “answer spam, scraper re-purposing spam, social media recycling tools, freelance articles for a nickel spam, machine spun articles that are textually unique, etc”

He predicts that content creators “will aim to monetize the long tail of search via freelance articles of varying quality”.

"If authors are going to get paid for performance on a freelance basis to churn out junk then they may as well spend a few months learning internet marketing, blogging, and Wordpress…if publishing is algorithm driven you don’t really need to work for someone else to make a few Dollars per article. It is VERY easy to beat that, so long as you are willing to wait 3 to 6 months for your payout."

He predicts that search results will be so polluted that:

- finding quality information will be harder
- paid niche content and private membership sites will gain popularity
- Google might be forced to change their “relevancy” algorithm

Duplicate Content is not Bad Per Se
JILL WHALEN talks about duplicate content:

"There’s no such thing as duplicate content penalty. Basically if you have two pieces of content with the same information but different URLs, chances are only one of those pages will show up in the search engine rankings for a certain keyword phrase. Doesn’t mean the other one’s penalized (or) that their site’s banned…it just means Google doesn’t want to show the same information twice in the listings."

Title Tags are Important
JILL WHALEN on title tags:

"It never ceases to amaze me that our title tag article typically receives only a third of the page views as the meta keyword article. It appears that a whole lot more education on that is still needed."

Keyword Density is going the Way of the Dinosaur
JILL WHALEN on keyword density:

"My hope is that this (lower page views for keyword density articles) means people are finally getting away from seeking out that secret-super-duper-all-encompassing keyword density formula or percentage that will magically put all their pages in the #1 spot."

Content is Still King
Well at least according to DANNY SULLIVAN that is. He predicts that quality content will reign supreme in 2010:

"I will say for search marketers, the way to win going forward in the long term will probably remain what it has been for the past 10 years – have outstanding content."

Paid Content
Asked by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch if Google would ever consider paying for content, MARISSA MAYER said:

"Difficult to say. We already help publishers with some of their monetization problems, just look at the 5 billion we paid out to publishers around the world thanks to Google AdSense. Also consider Analytics, which gives media companies certain insights, for free. We deliver technology solution that can help solve their problems."

What This Means for your Business
You should be striving to write quality content that is both search engine friendly and human-reader friendly. The smarter the search engines get, the better they are going to be at identifying and ranking excellent content.

Be sure to learn enough SEO to be able to optimize your content for the web, which is effectively about not getting things wrong as much as it’s about getting it right.

Conclusion – Top 10 Things to Watch for in 2010

According to the above experts, the top 10 areas to watch in the search industry for 2010 are:

1. Real time search
2. Personalized search
3. Local search and geo-targeting
4. Mobile search
5. Conversion rate optimization
6. Quality content
7. Social media optimization
8. Facebook & Twitter as Google challengers
9. Paid search
10. Universal search

A great succinct summary of the future of search and how you can prepare for it is available here from Charlene Li (Altimeter Group).

Conclusion – Top 10 Things to Act on in 2010

Based on the above analysis, the top 10 things businesses can do to increase visibility and rank in 2010 are:

1. Ensure excellent quality of website content that is optimized for search engines as well as human readers
2. Ensure a presence on vertical search engines by having appropriate (product and service) reviews and listings within your niche market
3. If appropriate, leverage listings on your local business directories
4. Get a mobile version of your website ready for users to access via their cell phones on-the-go
5. Put your content out in a variety of mediums (text, images, audio, video) to help you rank better for universal search results
6. Consider shifting your traditional marketing budget to online spending in targeted areas
7. Make a social profile on popular social networking sites where your customers are likely to hang out online
8. Start engaging with your customers one-on-one by listening to their concerns, praise, comments, problems and identifying how your business can help…preferably on Twitter
9. Measure, track and analyze social media goals for better targeting
10. Think about things you can do to improve your existing conversions (and SEO) such as site speed and conversion rate optimization which can cost little compared to benefits generated

Here’s the list of 127 tips. If you’ve got some great tips that aren’t here, feel free to add them into the comments!

The tips are broken up into:

• Article Marketing for SEO/SEM
• Blogging and SEO
• E-Mail Marketing for SEO/SEM/Sales
• More Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Webpage
• Get Your Audience Involved
• Social Media/Bookmarking/Internet Profiles
• Building Trust and Developing Credibility
• Branding and SEO
• Powerful SEO Tips and Tactics
• Site Design and Functionality
• Website Content and Sales

Article Marketing for SEO/SEM

1.Start article marketing: The word is out! If you want traffic, you must be article marketing. Place articles on article sites, (and every other legitimate website that will allow you to post an article with anchor text linking back to your website.) This is all the rage in gaining desirable placement in organic search results. Some article sites only allow anchor text links in the bio box below your article while others allow you to place your keyword anchor text in the article content (much better.) 15 exceptionally popular article sites we recommend submitting to include:

• ezinearticles.com
• goarticles.com
• buzzle.com
• articledashboard.com
• articlefeeder.com
• ultimatearticledirectory.com
• articles-heaven.com
• article-content-king.com
• articlesandauthors.com
• articleshmarticle.com
• articlenexus.com
• amazines.com
• populararticles.com
• ehow.com
• hubpages.com

Most of these sites allow anchor text either in the articles or bio boxes (check their rules).

2.Make effective use of article site bio or resource boxes: Many article posting sites have bio boxes. These are sometimes the only area in which you can inject anchor text and links. Many marketers only place a brief bio about themselves with a link to their website. Check and see how the bio or resource box appears on posted articles. Many times the box is not separated from the article and can look like the last paragraph of the article, as is the case on ezinearticles. If this is the case you can include the last paragraph of your article in the bio box and include your anchor text there. People have tendency to click on article anchor text far more than resource or bio box anchor text. This will increase the CTR (click through rate) of your articles. Note: If you do this, be sure your article will still meet minimum word count after you take away the last paragraph, as the text in the bio box usually does not count toward article word count.

3.Get quality articles: Cheap articles and poor content might get you a quick boost from the inbound links but in time, they will sink you. The search engines are only getting smarter as they scan content. Distribute only well written articles. There is a plethora of places you can find well written articles online. For instance you can use eLance or vWorker (formerly Rent a Coder) if you’d like people to bid for your work. These articles represent you and will be out there and visible for a long time as in “forever” so make sure they are of a quality you’re satisfied with.

4.You have to be consistent: Posting anchor text articles on websites once in awhile, works about as well as exercising only once in awhile. For an article marketing campaign to work, you need to be posting articles consistently. Every week is good and everyday is better. There are different ways to do this.

You’ve got the option of doing it all yourself. There is software out there that will help you (like Roboform and Unique Article Wizard) or websites that will do the submissions for you, such as Submit Your Article. Some of these options also help you modify the internal text of your article enough (without spamming) that it begins to get around the duplicate content penalties that Google imposes. Note that it *begins* to. You can count on Google getting smarter everyday and the best solution to that is to just distribute lots of really, really great articles.

Another option is to outsource the submission process on a project basis.

5.Repurpose your articles as fodder for social media sites: Use the content from your article-marketing campaign as posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter. You can use articles to create a “Tip of the Day” series, or post snippets from your articles to drive up your traffic on article marketing sites.

6.Post articles to as many quality article submission sites as possible: The key word here is quality, but if you want to get results from your article marketing campaign, you have to post to more than just one site. “Grade” article marketing sites based on the links they permit, their Alexa or Compete rank, the traffic they generate for your website, and their page rank. Any site that receives passing marks should be included in your campaign.

7.Write better headlines: The titles on your articles are the biggest factors in determining their popularity. Long titles that describe the benefits to the reader while incorporating target keywords work best. If you lack confidence in your ability to create killer headlines, take a cue from the pros. Study the most viewed articles in your target category and mimic the headlines used on these high-performing articles. The better the headline, the more they will get picked up, talked about and re-used.

8.Focus on one keyword or phrase: After you perform your keyword research, focus each of your web pages on one keyword or phrase. Your keyword or phrase should be in the page title and in the page content. The subject on the page should be relevant to the keyword. Then create articles with the keyword or phrase in the title, in the first paragraph of the article, and as the anchor text that links to your corresponding page. Although this is worth remembering, don’t sacrifice a really great title because you absolutely have to get a specific phrase into the title of the article. You’re better off having the keywords in there somewhere with a really great title.

9.Do a power keyword search: This free keyword search tool will generate all possible combinations of two separate lists of search phrases. Discover new phrases to promote your website. You can of course also use Google’s Keyword Tool. There is a great selection of both free and paid keyword and SEO research tools on Aaron Wall’s excellent blog, SEOBook.

10.Check the difficulty of keywords: This handy tool rates the estimated difficulty of ranking for any keyword or phrase. Additionally, you should be using your submitted articles to help you rank for long tail keywords. Sites like ezinearticles.com , goarticles.com and ehow.com rank almost effortlessly in google for long tail keywords due to their exceptional link popularity.

11.Don’t let article “duds” just sit in cyberspace collecting dust – make improvements and resubmit them. Most article submission sites will allow you to edit and resubmit existing articles. If you have articles sitting on submission sites that get very little attention, go back and modify them! You may be able to improve your link placement for higher clickthrough or give the article a better title.

12.Turn on AutoTweet and harness the power of Twitter: Some article marketing sites are now making it easier to promote your articles on the Web. Ezine, for example, recently unveiled it’s “autotweet” feature. Enable autotweet and your new articles will automatically be blasted out to your Twitter followers.

13.Increase the power of your article marketing campaign with hosted content: Also known as advertorials, hosted content is an article written to be displayed on another website with high page rank that is optimized for your target keywords. The article then contains powerful anchor text links back to the author’s website. Many website sell hosted content space, but some may be willing to post your work for free because they recognize the need for fresh, original articles.

Blogging and SEO

14.Be active in the blogosphere: Search for blogs that are relevant to your business and start blogging! Offer valuable comments and build a great reputation. Keep your purpose in mind each time you write and remember words can work for you or against you. Choose your words carefully and read them back to another person whenever possible to verify that you are communicating exactly what you want to say. What you write will be there forever. Link back to your website as a resource (not just pushing your business,) whenever possible. If you can use anchor text, do so.

15.Pick your username carefully when you comment. Some blogs allow anchor text in comment’s and many do not. Whenever possible use your brand name as your user name – these are often hyperlinks. You can also use target keywords as your user name to take advantage of the opportunity to create an anchor text link. Just don’t make it spammy. A username like “Buy_cheap_blue_sexy_lingerie” is not going to make you any friends (well at least not the right kind of friends…maybe….).

16.Drill deep into your niche: The blogosphere is becoming crowded these days. To stand out, you must excel within your specialty. Choose a niche within your field that isn’t already being cornered by other bloggers, and then dominate that area. You can stand out by being the expert, rather than another spectator trying to play in a crowded field. Become the go-to guy or gal for a specific area within your market.

17.Mix personal experiences with professional discussion on your blog: Don’t make your blog center solely on your business – show off your personality to readers. Don’t be so unprofessional as to damage your reputation, but it’s ok to let your hair down and share personal tidbits with readers from time to time.

18.Reference yourself: Don’t only link only to other people – link back to your own articles, posts, and entries to remind readers of your previous work. New visitors may be unfamiliar with previous posts, giving you a whole new audience with whom to share your thoughts. Linking to your articles from blogs is a great way to get them to rank for keywords.

19.Take a cue from talk show hosts and bring in guest bloggers: You don’t have to be the only voice on your blog. Ask other respected professionals in your field to make a cameo on your page and share their thoughts with your readers. Your guests won’t be able to resist plugging their gig on their own blog, so you’ll get free publicity in addition to the free content!

20.Submit your blog to blog directories. 28 popular ones are:

• bloghub
• blogfusion
• blogarama
• blogcatalog
• Blog.com
• Blogaz
• Blogbunch
• Blogburst
• Blogbib
• Blog-collector
• Blogs-collection
• Blog-directory
• Blogdir
• Blogdirectory001
• Bloggeries
• Blogfolders
• Bloggapedia
• Bloggerhq
• Blogexplosion
• Blogfinds
• SmallBusiness.com
• theblogresource
• theseoking
• TheVital
• Today
• Topblogarea
• Weblogs
• Webloogle

21.Ping the blog directories. By pinging blog directories when you add new posts, you will cause the search engine spiders to index your site more quickly. Use Technorati or another program to automatically ping the blog directories when you add new content to your blog.

22.Recognize your peers: Once a week, recognize a leader in your niche for his or her contributions to the field. Take a moment to share an insightful article or column or congratulate a peer for an award or achievement. The recipient of your praise will likely link back to the entry, and may even return the favor with similar recognition in the future. If you mention another website in one of your posts, flick them an email to let them know about it. If they like what they read, they may also reward you with a link back to your post.

23.Enter competition sites for your blog: Visit sites like the Bestest Blog of All Time and enroll as a Premium Blog. The Best Blog has a “random blog” feature that will deliver visitors to members, and awards “Bestest Blog of the Day” recognition to a lucky winner each day. Winners can expect a surge of traffic, thanks to the kudos from the Bestest Blog of All Time. If you’ve got a great design or something else that sticks out about your blog you can also submit it to other sites where you’ll be judged on design, content etc and when you win daily, monthly or annual awards you receive kudos and more visitors.

24.Get people to comment: Get people to comment and link to your blog. Conversion optimization will build your blog. Get more people to subscribe by e-mail or by RSS. Add a “if you like this post subscribe to our RSS feed!” You should also hit people up to subscribe when they have commented on your blog for the first time. Try the comment relish plug-in for Wordpress blogs or have a look at this list of useful comment plugins. I also like Disqus.

25.Change your comment link from “No comments ” to “No Comments yet, waiting for your thoughts!” This can usually be altered in the index.php template, under the comments_popup_link() (if you’re using Wordpress).

26.Follow your participants: When someone comments on your site go to their website and leave a positive or valuable comment in return. This helps to encourage the behaviour on your blog as well as adding valuable content and feedback to others in your chosen niche.

27.Comment on related blogs: To help rank for your keywords check out Google Blogsearch, and post great comments on the top site for your keywords. Don’t forge the “great” part. We’re not talking about spam here.

E-Mail Marketing for SEO/SEM/Sales

28.Collect your visitor’s e-mail addresses: The common wisdom is that most visitors require seven or more “touches” in order to become a paying customer. If you don’t gather your visitors’ e-mail addresses, you won’t be able to maintain that critical contact necessary to turn the visitor into a buyer. Put an opt-in form on every page of your website to collect visitors’ contact information. Then stay in touch with your subscribers through an e-mail newsletter that updates them on special offers, events, and information. Perform a survey and find out what websites your customers own. Offer everyone on your list with a relevant website a free article for their website with anchor text back to your website.

29.Give out a free eBook: Giving away a high quality eBook can get you noticed, develop back links, and add to your email list. Whether you ask people for their emails in order for them to download the book or you give it away as a way of increasing your reputation – this is a great strategy. Some examples of this technique are the excellent eBooks from Colin Wright on Personal Branding and How to Be Remarkable.

30. Setup and Auto-responder: If you want them to give you their email address then getting a great auto-responder is useful as it automates a lot of the repetitious emails. There are plenty of great auto responder companies like www.aweber.com/ , getareponse.com, sendfree.com, freeautobot.com, Adlandpro.com, or trafficwave.net .

31.Promote your eBook and get more subscribers for your newsletter: Write reviews about your book and post them on article marketing sites and wherever you can. Use relevant anchor text to link back to your page with the free eBook. Other sites will also often link to a free product page. If you don’t want to do it yourself then a one-time investment to have your eBook created is worth every cent.

32.Create an e-mail eCourse. Some marketers are reaping in dollars and subscribers by using an eCourse as content for their e-mail newsletter campaign. Perry Marshall uses an excellent, popular 5-day eCourse on Google AdWords to attract subscribers and build his brand. Simply select a subject within your niche, and then develop a series of short how-to lessons for readers. Promote your eCourse by adding it to an eCourse directory.

33.Need more subscribers? Open comments on your page. Require users to sign up with a working e-mail address before they can post comments, and then add the names to your subscriber list (after asking them). Be sure to moderate your comments carefully – don’t let a reader post land you in hot water! The same idea works for user polls and surveys.

34.Host a contest and sign up entrants for your e-mail newsletter. Sponsor a caption contest, photo contest, or a random e-mail draw. Require an e-mail address in exchange for entry. Don’t forge the can-spam laws and always provide an unsubscribe option.

More Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Webpage

35.Use traffic exchanges: It’s true some traffic exchanges have gotten a bad rap and no longer have a huge impact on search engine results but this method can be a useful way to build traffic. Traffic exchanges can jumpstart traffic. Members visit other members’ websites, and everyone benefits. There are autosurf and manual methods. Manual methods require real people to visit sites. The main problem with traffic exchanges is that it might be difficult to find people in your niche and when people visit your site, they are often only going to be there for a split second so your landing page better have a great headline that grabs them and makes them stay longer. Sites like StumbleUpon have taken the original idea of a traffic exchange and made it more interesting and useful by providing a social media spin to it. If you’ve got a really interesting site, this will likely work well for you too.

36.Use press release power: Press releases will get your site into the search engines faster, build inbound links, spread your message, and bring you traffic. Learn how to write a killer press release. A press release that has been keyword optimized can get into Google news and boost your traffic. There are numerous free distribution services. While these will work, the paid services do get higher distribution and often better results. The other option you have (and which sites like AirBnB have used to achieve astonishing success) is to contact journalists yourself directly. There is an art to this but one way to do it is to piggy back onto other big newsworthy events in the local area that the press is already writing about. You can see how the AirBnB guys did it in this excellent interview with Andrew Warner from Mixergy.

37.Evaluate the free press release services. Press release distribution services range in price from free to several hundred dollars as with PRWeb. Some services do not allow links or anchor text in your press release. Use the services that submit to Google News. Use a service that works with news professionals.

38.Become a question and answer authority. Create a profile on sites like Yahoo! Answers and Wiki Answers and begin answering questions relating to your niche. Provide value-packed, high quality answers and include a link to your site as a reference. Becoming active in these popular Q and A communities will drive direct traffic and establish your reputation as an expert in your field. Bonus: Yahoo! Answers has a lot of clout with the search engines. Some answers, especially those with long tail keyword phrases, will rank in the search engine’s top 10 fast! Yahoo! Answers has millions of users and is a marketer’s dream. You can build a reputation as an expert in your niche. Answer questions relevant to your niche. Be original and offer your site as a reference when it applies.

39.Use coupons to promote your business and get links: Coupons can create inbound links to your website and coupon marketing attracts new visitors and turns them into customers. Coupons create motivation to buy and with a quick expiration a sense of urgency to buy NOW. Coupons create repeat business. When people feel they are getting a great deal they will come back to buy more. Make your coupons easy to read and understand with a time limit usually never more than a few weeks. Send coupons out to your mailing list of potential customers and get inbound links by posting your coupons on the big coupon collecting sites or any niche coupon sites for your market. See the top five coupon collecting sites: Coupons.com, CouponCabin.com, CouponMom.com and RetailMeNot.com.

40.Advertise in eZines: eZines (digital magazines or newsletters) exist in almost every niche market available. Most eZines have highly targeted subscriber lists, making them a prime target for effective advertising. You may even be able to get a free advertisement when you subscribe to an eZine – just ask before you sign up!

41.Install “tell a friend” scripts: Help your articles, media, and products go viral. The ‘Tell A Friend’ method is a great way for visitors to create an email and have it automatically sent to their friends informing them about product or your site. This is so simple to use yet also neglected. You can also use the ‘Tell a Friend’ method in ebooks, newsletters, and software.

Get Your Audience Involved

42.Ask for criticism on your website: Many website owners do not want to hear anything bad about their website. You need to hear from visitors about your website: what they like and what they don’t like. Some feedback will be hard to hear and there are caustic people, but when you get criticism do not kill the messenger. Boil down feedback to the issue, not the verbiage used. Add a site survey form to your website and make it visible and easy.

43.Allow others to post articles on your website: Keep a flow of fresh content posting on your website. This will be seen as favorable by the search engines increasing your page rank and keep visitors coming back. You can get free articles from many other relevant website owners by asking. Let some of them know you will allow original quality articles with anchor text links on your website. Allow only one link per article and reserve the right to reject any article that does not meet your standards.

44.RSS: Make sure your website has an RSS feed icon and link for people to subscribe and get notified of your new posts and updates.Don’t forget you can promote your RSS feed as well.

45.Hit the viral marketing jackpot: Create something digital worth seeing, knowing, hearing, or wanting that can become viral. Viral is anything that is passed between users of e-mail, social networking, twitter, community networks, and so on. For example, you could post or release a comical how-to video on YouTube. Start letting people know in your groups, on your e-mail subscriber list, and in articles with a link to the video. When people start sharing your link with others your video could become a sensation. Even if this takes a few months to catch on, the traffic can be immense. Viral media can include audio, videos, eBooks, reports, pictures, emails, programs, surveys or quizzes, and even URLs. One popular viral video was the dancing baby.

46.Have a logo contest: Develop a logo that is easily recognizable and memorable. A simple design is often more memorable. Think about Nike. To get logo ideas and entries from multiple graphic artists use a service like 99designs. You can create a logo contest and ask for entries. Then pick the top five contenders, place them on your website and have visitors vote on them to get feedback. This is also another great way to

Social Media/Bookmarking/Internet Profiles

47.Start social bookmarking and networking by creating profiles on the top bookmarking sites. Keep your profile active with fresh content. See Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, Twitter, and StumbleUpon. Social bookmarking sites have varied audiences so you will attract more visitors at relevant sites. Something else to keep in mind about these sites, particularly Digg, is that if you’ve created a really fantastic piece of writing then provide your users with a way to Digg the article easily so they can tell other people about it if they want to. This can help your article or post spread quickly.

48.Start a niche social network about your brand and products or services. You can get started immediately with Ning. Other social networking sites include Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, hi5, Orkut, PerfSpot, Yahoo! 360, Zorpia Netlog. If you are not aware of all the ways social marketing can be utilized for your business, see this great list of social media marketing examples to see how some of the big brands are doing it.

49.Start a Youtube channel: Put your expertise to work and create a five minute how to video and post it on Youtube. Mention your url for more information at the end of the video. If you don’t have a video editing and screen capture program you can get Camtasia for a free 30 day trial to see how it works.

50.Join chat rooms: Yes there are still chat rooms that can benefit your marketing efforts. These discussion groups are often niche focused and can bring you targeted traffic and you can connect with people in your field as well as customers. With effective chatting you can create some “buzz” about your product or brand. Similar to social media, make valid contributions and develop your reputation. Google Groups is a good example of a very active ‘chat room’ (that works via the Usenet protocol).

51.Do you Squidoo? Squidoo is a social media site with 1 million “lenses.” Creating a lense is free. This is one of the 300 most popular sites in the U.S. Use it to promote your website, products, services or brand. Join the community at www.squidoo.com

52.Build backlinks from Craigslist: Craigslist has clout and is spidered consistently by the search engines. Post an ad on Craigslist with your link. You can use anchor text or link to an image (embed the url in the picture) hosted on your site. Make sure you follow the guidelines of the site.

53.Why Wikipedia: While it’s true that Wikipedia uses a nofollow code for links, though an entry with information about you, your brand, or product, can get you traffic. Wikipedia entries are often quoted and links made to sites referenced on other sites. It can be tricky to get your link onto Wikipedia unless you’ve got a really authoritative site though! Make sure you don’t spam it. Think about if you were reading the page you’re looking to put your link on, would it benefit you if you were learning about whatever it might be?

54.Comment at forums: Interaction with peers and consumers can be a powerful marketing tool. Start commenting at forums. Search for relevant forums and offer valuable input. Your comments can appear virtually forever.

55.Create a Facebook Fan Page for your business or website: Facebook has created a special type of profile just for businesses and organizations. Use a fan page to stay in touch with customers, share special news and events, and brand your product or service. You can title your Fan Page with your business name, or use a fun name to get more attention. For example, if you run a website that sells coats, you could title your Fan Page “Kay’sCoats.com” or “Staying Warm in the Winter.” Set up a winning facebook page for your brand,

56.Be consistent with your social media user names: Repetition is the single fastest way to brand a product or company into someone’s mind. Whenever possible, make your user name or avatar on social media sites reflect your website domain name (minus the www and .com).

57.Get your brand on Twitter. Twitter is an optional choice for followers meaning anyone who follows your messages chose to do so. Make sure you think about what you are twittering to your followers. Follow Twitter etiquette. Twitter valuable information and links to blog posts. Twittering is a commitment. Don’t start unless you are going to consistently twitter. Plan your brand’s twitter voice and create a custom Twitter background for your profile.

58.Find out what people are saying about you: Listen in on live twitter conversations and find out what people are saying about your website, business, or brand. You don’t need an account to listen.

59.Tweet your way to the top: A Tweet is a Twitter post of 140 characters or less that can help you run a viral marketing campaign, make announcements, and build traffic. Make sure your posts are valuable and relevant.

60.Monitor your tweet activity with the free program called Tweetdeck. You won’t have to log into your Twitter profile and Tweetdeck has a “group” feature to categorize your followers making Twitter much easier to manage.

61.Use the Wordpress plugin “Twitter Tools“, and with the Twitter app in Facebook your blog posts will automatically update to Facebook.

62.Use viral plugins for Wordpress Viral traffic from Digg, Furl, and the dozens of other similar services are growing every day. If you’re a blogger using Wordpress you will definitely want to check out these viral plugins for increasing the traffic to your site.

63.Don’t be a bore – give your friends more! If you’re using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about your business, make sure you’re not boring readers to death with the same old tired sales pitch. Post interesting facts, tidbits, and other information for your followers and friends. Provide value to your network, or else they’ll seek information elsewhere. You can read about (or listen to) how Laura Fitton used Twitter to massively grow her reputation and business via Twitter at this Mixergy interview.

64.Use Twitter hashtags. Hashtags are an easy way to catalog and connect tweets on any topic. Users can locate tweets on a subject and filter out unwanted incidental tweets. Hashtags are common for event organizers to keeping tweets in continuous stream. A hashtag is added to a word such as: #hashtag.

65. Use Tweetgrid as a good search dashboard for twitter hashtags.

66.Figure out your social media ROI. Most marketers have no idea where to begin to try and even estimate their return on investment for social media. There are tools for obtaining statistics for direct mail, e-mail marketing, Adwords, Adsense, websites/landing pages, SEM, advertising, and more. Social media can be far more vague. Make a plan from the beginning by placing a dollar value on your timer and on how much time and money you will invest. See: Want to Figure Out Your Social Media ROI?,

67. For more social networking strategy have a look through The 22 Step Marketing Plan, and Social Networking Strategy.

Building Trust and Developing Credibility

Your SEO and traffic campaigns will be fruitless without a destination that is credible.

68.Use real testimonials: Testimonials are great but only if they are legitimate. And as there are now many testimonials on websites, many obviously fake, people have become suspect. Add testimonials to your site that include pictures, endorsements, video and links to your customer’s websites whenever possible.

69.Display your privacy policy in a prominent place: Internet users want to know that their information is secure when they visit a webpage. Post a clearly defined privacy policy where visitors can easily find it – and then abide by your promises! Do not sell, share, or otherwise jeopardize the personal information of your visitors, subscribers or customers.

70.Use trust seals on your website: Trust seals show your visitors you are legitimate, as long as the trust seals come from reliable sources such as the Better Business Bureau. These seals can be memberships, verifications, and industry relevant. Boost your credibility and professionalism.

71.Stay on top of your virtual presence: Set up Google Alerts to notify you when new information is posted about yourself or your website, business name, or products. You will receive instant e-mail notification anytime new information is posted on the Web using one of your alert phrases. Whatever information is posted out there, if you always respond to the material then you’ll have more of a say in resolving difficulties and people will see you as a proactive person in general.

72.Push unflattering information to a back page: If there is a particularly negative post that just cannot be addressed then do your best to push the information further back into the search engine results. For example, if an unhappy customer writes a scathing report on a site, there is often no way to get the information removed, even if the original poster agrees to take down their post. However, you can use social media profiles, articles, and other websites to push the negative info out of the first page of results and bury it further back where fewer people will see it. Of course, you’re better of trying to handle it directly first. If both of these techniques fail you can publicly respond to it on your website, telling your side of the story…assuming you’re in the right of course!

73.Get an endorsement: Get somebody known in your industry or otherwise well-known to endorse your product or service. Display their picture and endorsement text, audio, or a video on your website. By obtaining a celebrity’s contact information or agent’s name, you can make contact and request a celebrity endorsement. Most people have websites where you can make a request or you can contact associations such as the Screen Actors Guild for actors. Plan an angle about why that person would attract the celebrity to endorse your product. Point out how they will benefit from good publicity. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get a response. Be persistent and follow up. Branding is about delivering your business message clearly, connecting with people, making a memorable and favorable impression, motivating people to act and causing them to be loyal. Endorsements have a side effect of getting inbound links as people often link to celebrities wherever they appear on the web.

Branding and SEO

74.Check your brand availability before expanding your efforts: Find out how available your brand really is. Check your brand availability across the web using specialist sites and of course Google.

75.Branding with your new domain: The process of selecting a domain name involves a specific choice. You can use a keyword or phrase to assist your SEO efforts or a brand name that could be coined. Coined brand name examples are: Travelocity, Youtube, ebay, Facebook, and Myspace. If you already have a known coined brand name, the choice is easy. If you select a newly coined word for your brand, you will need to work to convey the meaning to the public and your market. Otherwise, you can use a term that is already being searched if you can find one available. For example: newtires.com, findnewtires.com, or newtireprices.com. The extension of .au (or your country specific domain) is also a consideration if you deal mainly with a local market. Search domain names: http://www.networksolutions.com http://www.melbourneit.com.au/

76.Own your brand: Domain names are cheap so you should own your entire brand. Buy your domain name with each extension including .com, .net, .info, .au .org, .biz etc. Close the door on your competition and keep your brand from being diluted.

77.Use a Favicon: Short for “favorite icon,” a favicon is the tiny icon used to represent your site in the browser’s URL bar. Favicons are also used in bookmark lists and on the tabs in your browser window. Create a favicon for your website that uses elements of your logo and brand to reinforce your image in visitors’ minds (and when they are looking through their hundreds of bookmarks for your site).

78.Brand outside the virtual world: Your branding efforts don’t have to be limited to the Internet. You can begin branding your website or business in the real world by incorporating your brand into everything you do. Put your URL and logo on your business cards, letterhead, envelopes, or even your stamps. Include something with your brand emblazoned on everything you send. Hand out stickers, buttons, bumper stickers, pens, magnets, mini calendars, can cozies, or other small trinkets with your logo and web address. You can even promote your site while sitting in traffic using an InfoWindow.

79.Use your e-mail address to your advantage: Your e-mail address can be one of your most valuable branding tools! Whenever possible, use an e-mail address associated with your website domain – pam@example.com. If you must use a free web-based e-mail on occasion, try to get a username that reflects your domain URL. People will usually take you more seriously if you’ve got an email address from your site.

80.Add your URL, tagline and slogan to your e-mail signature line: Don’t waste precious signature line space – use this real estate to brand your business. Every e-mail should include your web address, logo, tagline, and/or slogan.

81.Don’t forget the thank-you pages: Anytime a visitor completes a desired action on your page (i.e. makes a purchase, signs up for an e-mail newsletter, downloads a free product, etc.), they should be taken to a “thank you” page. The page should be relatively simple and uncluttered. Include a short thank you message, and display your logo and slogan prominently on the page. It can also be useful to let them know what step to take next. You’ve just had a visitor make some kind of commitment to you by filling in a form, odds are that they might make another one if it’s in their interest.

82.Be a drama queen for a day: Criticize the opinion of a well-known expert in your field, make a radical statement, or take the opposite side of the debate as the majority. There’s no need to be so controversial as to alienate everyone around you – a little drama goes a long way. Stirring up (harmless) controversy may lead to some negative attention, but the publicity might be worth the effort. Use with caution!

83.Pay attention to the “About Us” page: About us pages have been website staples for as long as the Internet has existed. Use the About Us page to provide important history on your business, contact information, and other relevant information. Instead of making the same generic About Us page that everyone else uses try something different.

84.Content thieves beware: Include a copyright statement at the bottom of every page of your website. Again, this is an opportunity to repeat your business name and brand it into the minds of your visitors. Post “Protected by Copyscape” banner on your website to let less than honest people know you will protect your content.

85.Rub shoulders (literally) with the big shots in your field: Attend conferences, conventions, and events relating to your niche. Go armed with a stack of branded business cards, and get ready to make conversation with the movers and shakers in your field. Many times companies give away special discounts and promotions for their services at these events, so you can brand your business and get free stuff at the same time. Visit their headquarters when possible. Post a story about your experience on your blog. An interesting story might get a links from the big guys (providing you send them a tip about your post.)

86.Sponsor a sports team: You don’t have to pay millions to have a stadium named after your business, but you can sponsor a local washers league, a children’s t-ball team, or a bowling team. Your business name and URL will be listed on the team’s T-shirts, in the published event results, and in advertising and marketing materials for the league. All the free offline promotion might be worth the minimal sponsorship costs…it depends on your customer market!

87.Give away free templates: Create (or pay for) templates for popular sites like eBay and MySpace and brand them with your site name and URL. When people use these templates, they’ll be advertising your brand for you and building inbound links back to your page. See sample creator sites: eBay templates, myspace layouts

88.Use a Gravatar: A Gravatar is an image or logo that people will recognize. Setting up a Gravatar is free, so get one now.

Powerful SEO Tips and Tactics

89.Know your SEO with Google’s Official Guide: If you are new to SEO this is the starter Google SEO Guide that will launch you into practice. If you are an old hand at SEO a review can be helpful. See 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

90.Thinking about using a system like Six Sigma for your SEO campaign: Six Sigma is a principle of business management strategy, that was created by Motorola, Inc. Six Sigma establishes a standard method of defining and analyzing problems. Find out how it can help to systematize your SEO.

91.See the SEO experts: Aaron Wall’s introduction to SEO is a great start. Aaron is a well known seasoned authority on SEO and you can become a member at his website; SEOBook: for extensive SEO information and tips. You might also like to check out SEOmoz, Matt Cutts (a search engineer from Google) and Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land

92.Dominate the top spots for your business name: Create profiles on social sites such as Squidoo, MySpace, BlogSpot, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and other popular domains. These profiles will quickly fill up the top spots on the search engine results page, allowing you to control the information other people see about your business. Use your url and keyword anchor text in your profiles.

93.Make sure your on-page SEO is done well: Although it’s more important to ensure that you’ve got your off-page SEO (the people who link to you) in place, you don’t want all that link juice which is being pointed at your site to go to waste. It’s vital to have your on0page SEO done well. There’s the short (but great) version or, if you’re really keen there’s the much longer version that delves into every little point.

94.Go local and get more links: Google your city name and the word directory (i.e. smalltown directory). Then e-mail the webmaster of each site that appears and request your site be included in the listings. You can also search for blogs, forums, discussion boards, and local websites dedicated to sharing community news and develop a presence on the sites you find. Again use your keyword anchor text in forums, blogs, comments, and bios whenever you can.

95.Consider Sponsorship: There might be causes online that you can sponsor. When you do sponsor a cause, consider asking them if they wouldn’t mind linking back to you as you should be proud of the sponsorship and, depending on the cause, they can generate a lot of traffic to their site which can then make its way to yours.

96.Check your page rank for specific keyword terms and how they change over time: There are numerous programs for free such as Rankchecker, that can do this.

97.Share the link love: Linking to other people’s content, blogs, and web pages is a win-win situation. Your readers will appreciate the helpful/funny/insightful information, search engines will like the outbound links, and the people you linked to might just link back.

98.See the number of back links your site has: At the Yahoo.com search bar enter: “linkdomain:www.yoursitehere.com”. You will be redirected to Yahoo’s “Site Explorer” where you should see two fields. One box should have your website’s total number of pages and the other box should have the back links or inbound links to your site. The linked sites will be listed below. Watch how this changes over time in relation to your rankings.

99.Make directory submissions: Directory submission still exists and still works because this builds inbound links, with multiple directory submissions your site will get indexed faster, and you will get instant traffic from some of the directories. Be careful with this and only submit to directories where you’d be happy having your link. There are plenty of bad quality directories out there.

100.Go for geographic success: Rank on Google Maps by putting your brand or name there. The better you rank within Google Maps for your category or location, the better the opportunity for traffic. Just create or log in to your Google account and go to the “Local Business Center.” You can choose the maps you want to edit and provide information about your business. Utilize keywords about your location, nearby landmarks, and products. You can use as many as five categories; so do it!

101.Target traffic from Bing: Microsoft’s heavily promoted Bing search engine is refining search engine optimization somewhat. Basic link building campaigns are not enough to compete for page rank on Bing as their spiders don’t have quite as much juice as Google’s. Your article titles should directly correspond your keyword subject and include outbound links on the page. Make sure that when you’re researching SEO, you don’t neglect Bing.

102.Power your SEO efforts with Twitter: Use Twitter in your search engine optimization efforts. Many web marketers have ignored twitter because of the site’s “no follow” links. However it can be used to generate more traffic for your site and improve your branding by getting your tweets at the top of Google searches. Try this:

Use your keywords repeatedly in your Tweets (two or three times naturally in text)

Put back links to your Twitter page in a couple of other places that Google knows, like your own site or other social bookmarking profiles or in articles. With good tweets you will gain a reputation as an expert and while the links do not send visitors straight to your website, you will get brand exposure that results in more traffic over the long run.

103.Post “linkbait” articles and watch the inbound links build: Great content always earns attention and directly after that, links. There are lots of great resources for writing good linkbait pieces.

104.Read through Aaron Wall’s list: 101 Ways to build link popularity.

105.Make certain all the links on your site are functioning: Broken links will damage your clout with Google. Use a desktop based or link checking program to scan all the links on your page. Repair or remove any broken or outdated URLs.

Site Design and Functionality

106.Focus your website: When visitors arrive at your website they want to immediately see what they were searching for. Anyone arriving at your website should immediately see the purpose of your website. People are in a hurry, if you need a “skip this intro” option on your landing page you need to skip your site design and get rid of it. Keep your pages across your website uniform with the same template. Use your brand name and logo in the header of every page. When you practice SEO with a multiple page website, visitors will come in on every page. There should be an easy to spot “Home” link on every page.

107.Place important information “above the fold:” SEO is useless without an effective website. The expression above the fold is traditionally used to refer to newspapers, where important stories need to be displayed above the fold in order so that people can see the biggest stories when the paper is displayed in a coin operated machine. The same idea applies to websites. Put important content on the top section of your webpage so that users don’t have to scroll down to find it.

108.Check your site’s speed: Google has come out and said that page speed may feature in the rankings in the months to come so its time to think about page speed, not only from the perspective of your users, but also from an SEO perspective. There is plenty you can do to speed up the loading of your site. Run your site through a free speed check at GTMetrix as it uses Yahoo! YSlow and Google Page Speed to provide a simple method to find a few ways you might not have been aware of to quickly speed up your site.

109.Read Matt Cutts Google SEO blog: Matt Cutts is a Google software engineer and currently the head of Google’s Webspam team.

110.Add a sitemap to your website: The big three search engines now use a single sitemap format as the standard. Simply adding a sitemap to your page will increase your site’s page rank and improve your visitors’ ability to navigate around the page. Don’t forget to add your sitemap to Google’s Webmaster Tools. This helps Google find your sitemap.

111.Analyze your website’s meta tags: This tool will analyze your website’s meta tags. The keywords meta tag has almost no importance anymore (Google have said they don’t use it) however the description tag does still have some uses when other sites are referencing your site (Google included).

112.301 Redirects: Whenever you create a new URL structure for your site redirect the old URLs to the new ones. A 301 redirect tells search engines that the old page has moved to a new location. This will make sure that page will keep its position in the search indexes.

113.Tell your readers how to reach you: Post your contact information in a prominent, easy to find place on the page. Provide an e-mail address, physical address, and whenever possible, phone number to reach you. People trust websites more when they know a real human being is in charge. Making it easy for visitors and customers to get in touch will yield increased trust and credibility.

114.See how the search engines see your website: Spider your site with this free spider simulator.

115.Use professional podcasts: Add music to your own podcasts. Throwing some song from iTunes on your podcast is illegal. Get professional royalty free music. Opuzz.com The Music Bakery Premium Beat Podsafe Music Sound Dogs

116.Check the age of any domain: The age of a website is a major consideration for search engine page rank. See how Google has dated your website or any site.

117.Be consistent: Your website design should maintain consistency from page to page. Consistency breeds familiarity, and familiarity leads to trust. Present links, headlines, and other content in the same manner on each page. Your website should look like a collection of like pages, not a smattering of random sites.

118.A picture is worth 1000 words: Adding graphics, pictures, and other images to your website improves its aesthetic appeal and helps illustrate important points. If you don’t have your own images to upload, use professional stock photos sites to find the perfect picture for your page.

119.Pick a personality: You have nanoseconds to capture a visitor’s attention. You are competing with a zillion other websites to make an impression. Is your website making an impression? Do people remember who you are and return? Why? Your website needs a personality. Whether it’s serious, humorous, in your face, sexy, knowledgeable, sincere, rebellious, or thoughtful, your website should follow a particular pattern. Your brand should be associated with a personality. You don’t have to limit your personality. You can create pages with different aspects of your website’s personality. Make your brand’s personality fit your business type. For example, a website touting expert knowledge does not need to be cartoon graphics unless the target audience is children. Make your website stand out. Use catchy headlines, giveaways, lists, and graphics to get attention and leave people with the type of impression you want them to have about your brand. Your personality choice should be portrayed in your content, graphics, and format.

Website Content and Sales

120.Give your company a tagline: Your website should have a catchy and memorable tagline to accompany its logo and slogan. Hire a marketing company to develop the phrase for you, or create one yourself. You can use social media sites and surveys on your own site to poll your visitors about which tagline works best to describe your brand.

121.Proofread your pages: Nothing destroys a website’s credibility faster than typos, spelling mistakes, or grammatical errors. Be sure to scan your pages for errors, and then ask a friend to do the same. Two pairs of eyes are better than one! You can also ask for visitors to leave comments if they spot anything.

122.Use a CMS (Content Management System) on your website to post your articles and keep them organized and easily searchable. Wordpress is a free CMS / Blog tool that installs in minutes. With a little website building experience you can even incorporate a CMS into an HTML based website.

123.Add fresh content with comments: Your website needs fresh original content as often as possible, preferably daily, to keep visitors coming back and boost page rank. Get a program of fresh web content delivered to your website. Open your site for comments wherever possible. Most programs allow you to monitor comments so that you can filter out any unwanted text. You can also setup your CMS to automatically post new articles or content to your site that you’ve prepared earlier and then just scheduled for release. Wordpress has this option.

124.Add bloopers to your website: People love to laugh at the mistakes of others. A good blooper page can get attention. Bloopers can be text errors, video bloopers, audio mistakes, resume bloopers, or any humorous bloopers that are relevant to your business. Make your bloopers anonymous, your purpose is not to embarrass anyone.

125.Give your web pages keyword-rich titles: Don’t allow pages to be assigned random strings of numbers. Set your content management system to enable keyword page titles that describe the content on the page. For example, a new page about Twitter marketing secrets might get the name www.yourwebsite.com/twitter-marketing-secrets.

126.Learn to write for the Web. Web writing is different than other forms of writing due to the way this content is consumed. Most people “reading” webpages are really skimming them to identify the information they want on the page quickly. If you present your information in long, blocky paragraphs without breaks, readers will be unable to spot key points and information. Use lots of headlines, subheadlines, and bulleted lists to break up the page and emphasize important information on the page.

127.Make lists and publish them on your website: Lists are so popular there are websites dedicated to them. Add relevant lists to your site and market them. Need ideas? Toptenz.net, listverse.com, the-top-tens.com

Is there something we’re missing up there or some feedback you’d like to give us on this guide? Let us know in the comments!

There is a lot of competition online. If you want to move a product, you need to attract people to your website. Even when you attract traffic, only a few customers will buy. The Internet game is all about numbers; traffic numbers and conversion rate numbers.  Most every business owner with an online presence agrees with that. So why are so many companies working with the lowest single digit; one?

There are still millions of companies and website entrepreneurs selling a product or service with one website. As this business is all about numbers, companies have only a limited number of options.  They can create more websites selling the same products and services, however that time consuming and expensive process can backfire.  If you are selling anything on the Internet it’s time to increase the odds and take advantage of the numbers; think: affiliate marketing.

Affiliates promote your products and services for a commission. Customers still buy from you; however, your affiliates get a cut, which is generally a percentage of the sales price. The percentage is determined by you. Affiliates post a link in the form of text or a banner on their website with a tracking number or nickname assigned by a service such as:

• ClickBank (electronic delivery products such as e-books)
• Commission Monster (Australian Presence)
• Clix Galore (Australian Presence)
• DGM (Australian)
• Commission Junction (Global)

This service records visitors that come to your website from the affiliate site or link. When the visitors make a purchase, the affiliate tracking number or nickname is recorded and the affiliate is credited with the sale and paid the commission. These nicknames and tracking numbers are sometimes placed in cookies and good for a specific period such as 90 days.

Affiliates promote your products in all kinds of ways.

• They might have double opt-in email lists that enable them to conduct e-mail marketing campaigns to thousands of subscribers.
• They might have web sites of their own where they advertise your product with a link to your website.
• Affiliates sometimes place links in articles they have posted on the web (check out EzineArticles to see loads of examples of this).
• They might place pay per click ads directing traffic to you.  Many affiliates pay to advertise the products they sell – and you won’t have to spend a dime for the free publicity!

Clearly, affiliate marketing can dramatically increase your exposure and your revenue.

Starting an Affiliate Program

You can set up your own affiliate software on your website or join an affiliate association such as ClickBank, Commission Monster, DGM or another service. Most of these companies will handle your transactions and pay your affiliates for you.  Using an affiliate tracking program offers the least hassle but a higher price, whereas managing your own affiliate program will cost less but be more time consuming.

Whether you purchase and install affiliate-tracking software on your website or join an affiliate company, you will still need to attract affiliates.

Five Hot Tips to Attract More Affiliates

Make sure new affiliates are able to signup and gain access to useful selling tools directly from your website.  Include an affiliate page detailing the benefits of being an affiliate and potential income affiliates can earn selling your product.

Listing your product in the marketplace of the association you join, such as ClickBank, will make sure your product is available to affiliates yet does not necessarily recruit them. You need to contact potential affiliates and invite them to your opportunity.   Below are five tips for attracting affiliates.

1. Search the web for the affiliates selling your competitor’s products. Contact them; there is a good chance if a website is already drawing traffic with an interest in your industry they will welcome a chance to become an affiliate for your product.
2. Write and distribute a press release about your new affiliate opportunity.
3. Blog on affiliate blogs about your opportunity.
4. Find relevant content (article) web sites that are attracting your potential customers. Send them a letter about your opportunity and the potential revenue per product they could produce. Include a link to your sale page and affiliate page.
5. Approach relevant web sites that collect email addresses for a newsletter or whatever and might potentially have an extensive mailing list of prospects for your product.

Attract and Reward Super Affiliates to Skyrocket Your Sales

When you do get affiliates classify them by measure of sales produced.  Offer incentive programs for top affiliates. Power affiliates, also called joint venture partners, specialize in affiliate marketing and excel at driving traffic and sales to you your site. Power affiliates can significantly increase your sales. Create programs with lucrative rewards for these affiliates, then ask your top performers for testimonials you can post on your affiliate page to attract more affiliates.

Find out what your best affiliates are doing to sell your product. You can then send these suggestions out to your other affiliates and new affiliates. Most people will appreciate any good advice you can offer that will help them sell more of your products.

Treat Your Affiliates With Respect

Manage your affiliates as you would sales people. Give them the tools and product information they need to sell. Make sure you support your affiliates with banner ads about your product in a variety of sizes they can use on their websites.  As your affiliate network grows, create a special email or phone number specifically for affiliate support. Create an affiliate newsletter, conduct sales contests or offer special promotions.  You should also pay your affiliates well and pay them on time.

Most affiliates practice ethical marketing. If an affiliate markets your product in a way you do not approve of, you can usually stop them from promoting your products. If you find out an affiliate is sending out spam, cut them off. A bad reputation can make your good producing affiliates run. If you are using an affiliate service such as ClickBank, a complaint to them about any unethical practices by an affiliate, is often enough for them to block the affiliate from selling your product.

Affiliates can be your ticket to recognition, product awareness and profits. Attract good affiliates, treat them well and reap the benefits.

“This product is absolutely 300% money back guaranteed to help you and your family, heal you of ALL ailments, make you as wealthy as a king, give you eternal youth AND much more…

…or will it?”

Why is making the right promise to your customers’ so important? How do you walk that line between a great promise and straight hype?

Let’s have a look at some ideas that can help you craft a truly seductive, yet innocent promise.

Why is the promise so important anyway?

Marketing consultants often speak of the “risk aversion” of the average consumer—that is, consumers demand to know they are receiving a quality product (or service.)  The goal as an advertiser or marketer is to allay consumer fears of an inferior product by making buyers feel confident about their purchases, and they often do this through testimonials and money-back guarantees.

These methods of reducing a consumer’s sense of risk are becoming less effective today.

The reasons are fairly straightforward:

• Everybody is in the same game.  If everyone is offering a money-back guarantee or a litany of testimonials, there is little to differentiate one company from another and both methods lose value.
• Consumers are wising up.  Again, with every business in the risk aversion game, the bar is rising.
• Many methods are just too easy to fake. Testimonials, for example, are a dime a dozen: ask your aunt, two friends, and a co-worker for a testimonial, and you have a “user testimonials” page for your web site.  Consumers are now much less likely to trust testimonials unless they are proven to be from unbiased sources (of course there are also ways to do testimonials better).
• Consumer expectations are already low.  According to The Loyalty Engagement Index published by Brand Keys (New York, USA), consumer expectations have tailed off after rising steadily for a decade.  “Consumers are more realistic,” says Brand Keys president Robert Passikoff, “their desires are now based on experience rather than expectation.”

These four elements make for a marketing morass.  If consumer expectations for products and services are low, and their defences are up for common risk-aversion tactics, there is little room for assuring customers that their dollars will be well spent.

The Solution: A Straightforward Promise

Strategies for enticing risk adverse customers should enter early into all marketing decisions.  At their core, these strategies are about making a straightforward promise.  Such promises are specific, tied to pedigree, aimed at reasonable goals, and distinguishable from those of the competition.

Specificity

Specificity is still the number one way to make a promise or an offer credible.  Specific details not only signal to the customer that your company has expertise in an industry, they also mould expectations around credible, testable actions.

For example, suppose your company owns and operates a chain of luxury hotels.  What sorts of things might your company offer in its advertising materials?  Luxury accommodations?  A good night’s rest?  V.I.P. treatment?

Here is what goes through the mind of the consumer when seeing these promises:

• You offer luxury accommodations?  Such as?  Does that mean a comfortable bed?  Large rooms?  Intimate rooms?  Good room service?  What sorts of “luxuries” should I expect this time?
• You promise a good night’s sleep?  How will that differ from any other hotel?  Are there sound-proof walls?  Adjustable heating and cooling?  One-thousand thread count Egyptian cotton bed sheets?
• You guarantee a V.I.P. treatment?  What can I expect with that?  Does this treatment include concierge service, free show tickets or something more?  Do I have access to clean, useful facilities? Which ones?

The list could go on; the main point is that vague promises do little to conjure a clear picture of what you are offering. Everyone defines “luxuries” differently.  Painting a clear picture of the experience your customers will have is one of the best ways to build an expectation and get customers to sign on the dotted line.

Specific offers also give consumers a metric for determining whether or not your company has delivered on the promise.  In other words, specific details need to focus on credible, testable actions.  So what are these actions?  Here are some examples:

• FedEx guarantees that packages will arrive on-time using their online tracking system and overnight flights, which are quicker than trucks.  Consumers can go to FedEx’s website and see whether or not the delivery has been made, and on time.
• Tip Top Bakeries offer a line of “Soft and Smooth” bread, specifically marketed to kids (who tend to dislike large grainy bits in their bread).  Not only does Tip Top explain the process, the adverts describe the specific texture that their Soft and Smooth bread has.  One need only eat the bread to see if the promise has been delivered.

When a consumer encounters a promise, they must know exactly what to look for, and when.  Without these concrete details, consumers are at a loss as to how to evaluate the promise—and thus are less likely to buy.

Pedigree

We have all heard about “guilt by association,” but credibility by association is also a powerful tool in overcoming risk aversion.  If customers come to trust a particular brand, they will trust other brands associated with the primary brand.  If they come to trust a source of information, that source can lend credibility to a product.

For example, Dunlop tires is excellent at using the “pedigree” of their products.  Several well-known luxury car brands use Dunlop tires, and the company makes a big deal out of this fact.  If Dunlop tires are good enough for BMW and Bentley, surely they are good enough for any consumer.

Dunlop is also ingrained into the racing world—a fact that is plastered on their web sites.  If drivers trust Dunlop tires for their high performance vehicles, the message is clear: these tires will hold up under any conditions that the average driver would throw at them.

Are Dunlop tires really that much better than other tire brands out there?  They could well be.  The point is that, unless one is an expert on car tires, there is no way of knowing what a good tire is, or what to expect from one other than a problem free existence.  And so most promises made about tires will fall on deaf ears unless there is some way to link that promise to a credible source.  Dunlop has realized this and capitalized on their pedigree.

Aim… Not so High

We’ve all met that salesperson that promises the world in order to make a sale (much to the chagrin of production types).  Now it is true that making promises is one way to keep the customer at the table, if not close the sale but here’s the problem: counteracting the effect of one disgruntled customer takes about ten satisfied customers.

There’s truth in the saying that, “A satisfied customer tells ten friends; a dissatisfied customer posts to one hundred strangers on the Internet.”  If you continually make great sounding promises, eventually you will miss one of your obligations and that one dissatisfied customer will negate all of your hard work.  Better to lose five prospects than irritate one paying customer.

So what should a more “reasonable” promise look like?  Your promise will depend on your industry, your business model, and your current management situation; however, there are a few guidelines for shaping reasonable sounding offers:

• Avoid superlatives.  Sure, your product might be the fastest, smartest, cheapest, or sleekest model on the market today, yet no one is at the top of the game forever.  Instead, tie the description of your item to specific, testable details as described above.  Example: don’t advertise a car that gets the best fuel economy in its class.  Advertise the actual liters per 100 kilometers and tell customers how much money is saved, on average, by driving a car with that rating.
• Use descriptive terms that invoke a picture or an experience.  For example, don’t say that your scotch is “heavenly” or “smooth” (an overused term).  Mention the drink’s smoky taste, bright clear color, and warm finish.
• Think mundane.  Not every bite of chocolate, or ride to the supermarket, or interaction with a computer, will be a transcendent experience.  Consumers want to know the “little things” that will make their lives easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable.  Which would you believe more: an advert for chocolate that delivered a heavenly experience, or one that promised a little personal enjoyment in your otherwise hectic world?
• Only promise what you can offer now—or what you can offer with just a little extra effort.  A printing company that typically does runs of 10,000 pieces should not be making offers to do runs of a million pieces (unless their operations just happened to multiply in size overnight).  This bit of advice is hardest for marketers to follow… but limiting one’s promises is crucial for effective delivery.  Remember, there is no harm in saying, “We cannot do that at present, but perhaps we can get your business in the future!”

In short, don’t make your promise too outlandish.  By just *meeting* the promise you’re making, you will find that you don’t have a disgruntled customer. On the other hand, by exceeding the promise you’re making you’ll have a very, very happy customer.

Keep Tabs and Fill Holes

Capitalize on what the competition is missing.  If you sell laundry detergent and your main competitor promises the cleanest wash, offer the gentlest wash, or the quickest wash (if these can accurately describe your product).  If the hotel down the street promises luxury workspaces for business clientele, offer efficient workspaces for business clientele.  In other words, distinguish your brands from the competition and try to fill an unmet need or “hole” in the market. Be the Number #1 in your industry by defining your own niche. So, for example, you are the first business to offer efficient workspaces for business clientele in the CBD.

Of course, distinguishing your brand might be difficult if you are locked into promoting a product that already exists.  Take the laundry detergent example: you will not be able to brand yourself as the gentlest laundry detergent if, in fact, your detergent is nothing of the sort.

The way to get around this difficulty is to explore your product with new eyes, looking for small “value added” features that might make your product stand out.  For example, while looking at (or using) your product, ask yourself:

• Is this easy to use?  Easier, in fact, than the competition?
• Is the product conveniently sized?  Will it fit in a pocket, briefcase, car trunk, living room, or whichever appropriate space?
• How does the product actually look?  What are the visual differences between your product and the competitions’?  Are those differences pleasing?
• Same questions go for the other senses: how does the product feel?  Sound? Smell?  Taste? Do not rule out any of the senses, or any details you capture with them.
• Is there anything special about the way your product was made?  Does the product go through rigorous testing?  Quality control?  Are they made using green methods?  Fair trade labor?  Well paid citizens?  Local companies?
• If your product is meant for extended use, does the material hold up well?  Is there a lot of maintenance required, or not?  Is it easy to repair?  Are the parts easy to remove for cleaning/ repair/ inspection by the consumer?
• How will the average person use the product?  What motions will they actually carry out?  What can they ignore, and what will “pop out” at them when the use your product?

To give you an example of how this questioning should go, let’s talk about the travel coffee mug on the sink in the kitchen (to be honest, the owner picked this item up in a little corner store over in the States for cheap).  What is so good about this mug that he still uses it?

For one thing, the mug is tapered, which means that the bottom fits nicely into his car’s cup holder.  The mug is also short, which makes getting it into the office dishwasher easy.  The bottom comes off, which makes cleaning the mug relatively easy.  The top has no moving parts, which means that there is less to break or go wrong.  Most importantly, the mug does a fine job of keeping hot liquids moderately warm as he drives to work.

There are dozens of ideas that come to mind with just this simple mug.  How might marketing materials for this line of mugs be built around the features just mentioned?  Do those features offer benefits that the competition cannot match?  I leave the answers to these questions to you as an exercise.

The main idea is that the promises you incorporate into your marketing materials should capitalize on benefits that your products already offer—and that your competition does not.  Making a promise that no one else is currently making is a lot easier than making a promise that everyone else is making.

Beyond Promises?

Once your marketing efforts are centered around a promise, what next?  Are testimonials and money-back guarantees moderately helpful?  Should your website have a page dedicated to customer reviews?

Is a promise enough?

The answer to the last question is both yes and no.  The promise should be the centerpiece of your risk aversion strategies, and should mold any other tactics you might use.  Without a credible promise, your business’s offer will be lack-lustre.

Then again, stopping with a simple promise will not work for every business and industry.  A promise of an intricate, blended flavour that burns right down to your belly might do for a vodka brand… but a promise of prompt and thorough teeth cleaning would probably not win many people to a new dentist’s office.  Finding the balance will require some experimentation (and a good look at the current market).

Most importantly, you will need to put yourself in the shoes of the average person seeing your marketing materials for the first time.  Is your company different?  Do your testimonials look faked?  Are your promises vague, or filled with “hype”? Do you buy, use, and enjoy your product?

Remember: An easy way to have happy customers and repeat sales is to under promise and over deliver.

Here are some extra resources if you’re looking for more information on creating a promise or unique value proposition for your business:

• How to Increase the Value of Your Business
• What is the Value Proposition?

If you want to chat about your promise or ideas for your promise, feel free to post it in the comments below.

Word of mouth marketing is SO important that I thought it might be good to have a chat about how we can help to maximise this via some simple online methods. I think this is going to be much more fun if we use something as an example…so how about dental practices?

Dentists will provide us with a great example but of course word of mouth marketing is very important for almost all other types of businesses as well.

Traditionally, dental practices have been a “word of mouth” industry: people refer friends and family members to their trusted dentists, who in turn refer other friends and family members.  The process is often slow and based entirely around customer loyalty (and connections).

The face of dental marketing has changed with the advent of the Internet, however.  Now clients can go to the web and research dozens of dentists at a time online.  Web savvy clients not only have access to information about a practice’s location and credentials; they also have access to reviews from current clients.

While the web might seem like a simple extension of the traditional “word of mouth” network, the truth is that internet marketing is a much sharper tool—and one that can cut both ways.

No News Is Bad News

The main reason dentists need to enhance their online marketing is that clients are hungry for unbiased information about dentistry practices.  If they cannot find such information, they will often assume the worst.  This means that a dentist today must work hard to have an online presence and present information to potential clients.  Fortunately, this process need not be time consuming (or budget consuming).

The First Step: Have a Web Site and Attract Traffic

The first step to an informative online presence is the creation of a web site for your practice.  Although you can create one yourself, a professionally created site will be well worth the advertising dollars.  Your web site should have the following key pieces of information:

• Your location and hours of operation
• Additional contact information (email, phone, fax)
• A brief piece about your credentials
• Areas in which you specialise
• Some idea of your pricing schedule
• Insurance accepted

These five elements are the bare minimum that potential clients will want to see.  In order to establish trust and get customers in the door, however, you should also consider the following:

• A professional, personal photo of yourself. People feel more comfortable knowing who they will be interacting with on the visit or call.
• Photos of your satisfied clients. A logo, or a picture of a building, is nice… but nothing adds a personal touch better than pictures of real customers.
• Customer testimonials. Testimonials help assure customers that you have a thriving, customer oriented practice.  Testimonials work especially well when paired with the above-mentioned photos of satisfied clients.
• Reviews. Why not let patients put their own reviews of your practice online?  The perceived candid and unbiased nature of such reviews make them twice as valuable as testimonials (which people immediately assume are hand picked).  There are several software packages that allow your customers to place reviews on your web site (such as Review Foundry) while still giving you transparent control over what review what will be posted on your website before it goes live. You can also have a chat with your web design about adding the functionality in for a fee.
• Titles and headlines that advertise your strengths. Everyone knows what a dentist does.  What your potential clients want to know is: are you the dentist for them? Emphasize those areas of dentistry you are most competent at.  For example, are you especially good with kids?  Do you do reconstructive work?  Are you known for being gentle?  Do you take all types of insurance?  Do you lecture at a University? (This last one shows that you are familiar with the latest techniques and technology).

Remember that geography is just one consideration in the minds of potential customers.  Those potential customers are looking for a dentist to fill their precise needs.  Your website should show how you, personally, solve dentistry problems for a segment of the population.

One last consideration for your web site: keep your site updated and dynamic.  Web sites that are updated often get better rankings with search engines such as Google.  A good way to keep fresh content on your site is to incorporate a dentistry blog on your site (this works especially well in conjunction with a newsletter—see below).  You can also use a blog to drive traffic to your site by building links: both links to important dental information, and links from affiliates and databases.  The more your site is linked with useful information, the higher the visibility your site will have on search engines.

If you’re having to go through a web designer for every little update, consider asking your developer to put in a CMS such as the free, open source CMS Made Simple.

The Second Step: Hit the Review Sites

Well you’re here at Start Local right? This is a great place to start. Ensure that you add your practice to the site and then link to your business profile from your website. Encourage your satisfied customers to follow the link from your website and leave a recommendation for you here at Start Local. These are looked at by visitors as being much more unbiased than reviews that appear on your own website.

In fact it’s important to make sure that you are listed in all the major sites that offer reviewing capabilities for your city (although of course you’re always going to want to make your first stop Start Local! )

If you’re worried about getting negative reviews then make sure you read about how the individual sites handle negative reviews (if they allow them, which Start Local does not – you can read about how we handle voting, business reviews and recommendations here). and what your recourse is.

If the site does allow negative reviews then ensure that there is a way for you to respond to each one. This is important as it shows customers how you handle your brand management. We all get stuff wrong from time to time however if new customers can see that you are willing to go the extra mile to put things right then that will help.

It’s a good idea to make one site your focus when getting reviews (so that you can ask your customers to all go to one place) however if you want to have a look around here’s a couple of other Australian business directories you could choose to use for managing reviews.

• dLook (reviews supplied by Rave About It)
• True Local

The Third Step: Email Newsletters

Retaining a current client requires about one-fifth of the cost of recruiting a new client.  Still, retention requires a personal touch that goes beyond a smile and a comfortable waiting room.

Consider collecting the email addresses of your clients and sending out a monthly (or quarterly) email newsletter.  (Don’t forget to let your clients “opt out” if they wish!).

Email newsletters are free and provide an opportunity to provide information to your clients.  As to the content of a newsletter, consider providing:

• Short pieces on the latest dental technology
• Advice for parents on healthy dental practices
• “Questions to ask your dentist”
• Answers to frequently asked questions
• “Weird” dental news and stories

Even if an email newsletter does not get read, such contact (if it’s *good* contact) shows your clients that you are watching out for their health and well-being.

Not sure about how to navigate all the spam regulations, email servers and HTML newsletters? You could consider hiring a third party to manage it for you however just remember that costs and service vary widely.

The Fourth Step: Use Social Networks

More and more, people are getting advice and recommendations from their peers and co-workers on social networking sites.  Start a profile on the most common ones (Facebook and LinkedIn, for example).  Do not make the profile personal—focus instead on providing information about your practice (all of the guidelines for information on your web site also hold for information on your profiles).

Once you have established some profiles, make as many contacts as you can and expand your network, starting first with your best clients.  Don’t forget to add links to your web site and/or blog!

Another good way to expand your network is to become an official “expert” on industry matters.  You can sign up for a number of services that put you in touch with journalists, writers, and with the population at large.  Some sites include:

• Find an Expert (http://www.findanexpertonline.com)
• Experts.com (http://www.experts.com)
• The Sources Directory (http://www.sources.com)
• Yearbook of Experts online (http://www.expertclick.com)

You need not be an expert in every aspect of dentistry—simply find a small niche in which you would be considered an expert.  A dentist with a knack for getting chewing gum out of dental work would be invaluable to some segment of the population!

Summary: Information Drives Business

Dentistry is not just a practice; dentistry is a specialisation, and as such clients are looking for a specialist that can provide them with relevant information.  Whether that information relates to your practices or dental health in general, failing to provide such information with your online presence signals a lack of professionalism to the pool of your potential clients.

Do you have some suggestions as to how this could be applied to your own business’s industry? Add a comment and start a discussion!

Every business owner has “perfect” customers.  These are the clients for whom your business seems to have been created.  A perfect customer’s expectations are in line with your level of service, they have the means to pay for your products, and they refer other “perfect” clients. Customers like this are a business owner’s dream to serve.  What if you could attract more of these coveted customers?

You can!  One of the best things you can do for your business is to define your ideal customer by creating a perfect customer profile.  Then, once you’ve defined your perfect customer, you can tailor your marketing efforts to attracting this unique client community.

Working to attract more ideal customers to do business with is a great way to increase your revenue without expending more time or funding.  Serving an ideal customer base is working “smarter” not harder.  You are able to accomplish more things (and make more money) with less effort when you are serving people who actually want and need your services.  Another great benefit of catering to an ideal customer base is that like attracts like.  Your ideal customers will tend to socialise and work with others like them.  When you cater to and satisfy your ideal customers, you’ll get more referrals and leads to other customers who fit your ideal customer profile.

What is an “Ideal Customer”?

The ideal customer is one who is perfectly suited to your product or service. What does an ideal customer look like?  That depends on the company.  Every business has a unique ideal client population that must be identified and attracted.

Sample Ideal Customer Profile

For example, a financial adviser’s ideal customer might be a person who:

• Earns an income of $150,000 or more per year
• Has the means to invest at least $75,000 per year
• Likes to make smart financial decisions with the guidance of a professional
• Prefers a hands-off approach to daily financial decisions (read: isn’t calling with every shift in the stock market)
• Has defined specific goals and dreams for his personal and professional life
• Understands what it will take to reach his goals and is willing to do what it takes to get there
• Trusts the adviser’s opinions and advice
• Will not second guess the adviser’s advice after reading or hearing “expert” advice
• Is well connected within the community
• Is willing to refer friends and family who fit the business’ ideal customer profile
• Respects and treats members of the team with dignity
• Is committed to following through with his promises
• Has a sense of humor and is pleasant to work with
• Understands the importance of charitable contributions and giving back to the community

As you can see in the sample profile for a financial adviser’s ideal customer, a business owner’s ideal customer profile should include specific information about the customer’s ability to pay and service preferences. The ideal client profile should also include information about a perfect client’s character and personal preferences.

For some industries, an ideal customer profile might include things like age, gender or marital status.  Obviously, a dating service for singles is best suited for people who are not married while a babysitting service is only appropriate for people who have (or are responsible for) kids.  Describe your ideal customer as completely as possible in order to get the best results.

Developing Your Ideal Client Profile

To create a profile of your business’ best customers, you need to know your client base.  Who does your business best serve? In order to attract better business, you need to know who your ideal customer is, what they want, and why they come (or will come) to you.

The following questions will help you paint a picture of the perfect customer and help you identify how to find more customers who fit the description.  It helps to answer these questions about an existing client who your business serves well.

• What does my best client normally buy?
• What character traits or qualities does my ideal client have?
• How much does my ideal client make?
• What motivates him to purchase my product?
• Is he the decision maker or does he rely on someone else’s opinion to make decisions?
• Why does my best customer keep returning to my business? (What does he like best about my company?)
• What do I like best about this client?

Attracting More Ideal Clients

Developing a written ideal customer profile is essential to improving the success of your company.  The first step to getting what you want is defining it.  Once you’ve created the ideal customer profile, you can go about coming up with ways to attract more customers that fit the profile.  Answer the following questions about an existing customer who fits your ideal customer profile.

• How did my existing ideal clients find my business?
• When does my best customer normally do his shopping/purchase my services? (What time of the day/week/year?)
• How does he get his information?
• What kinds of habits does my best customer have?
• What kinds of promotions or incentives would entice this customer to shop with me (or buy more from me?)
• How could I better serve this customer?

Using this information, you can reach out to people who would fit well with your ideal client population.  Do your grocery shopping where ideal clients shop.  Socialize in the same circles.  Advertise in trade magazines that you believe would be of interest to your ideal clients. Do whatever you can to connect with and attract the perfect customer population for your business.

Another great way to attract more ideal clients is to share your perfect customer wish list with others.  Explain to your current customers (who fit the ideal client profile) that you are looking for referrals and that you would appreciate any help they can provide.  Many of your clients will be thrilled to help you by directing you toward new leads and suggesting your services to their friends and family (after all, they are your perfect customers for a reason).  You can also talk to your friends, family and colleagues about your ideal client profile and ask that they refer anyone who fits the profile to you for a consultation.

By getting to know your ideal client and considering how you can best attract more “perfect” customers, you’ll uncover more opportunities to expand your ideal client base and grow your business.

Some other useful resources in relation to identifying the ideal clients:

• How to Identify Your Ideal Customer
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