It’s 13 December 2001. Five terrorists infiltrated the Indian parliament and opened fire. The attack led to the death of a dozen people.

But do you know how the terrorists managed to pass through the stringent security and infiltrate the Indian parliament?  They fooled the security by decorating their car to look like a government car. It had all the appropriate security passes and stickers. And the emergency siren and lightening on top of the car.

So when the security saw what looked like a government car, they didn’t check it as severely as they should have.

The Story of the Discount Coupon Fiasco

Robert Cialdini the psychologist talks about a marketing case study with a similar lesson. A tire company mailed out discount coupons for their tires. But due to a printing misprint, the coupons offered no discount at all! The tire company found this out a bit too late and were in a panic as to what to do.

Here is the surprising ending: the percentage of people who redeemed these zero discount coupons was the same as the percentage of people who had redeemed coupons with hefty discounts in the past. The response rates didn’t change!

People saw what looked like a discount coupon, saved it, and used it – even when it didn’t give a discount!

The Lesson: Fake it till you make it

The lesson to learn from these case studies is that: decisions are formed irrationally. And it is highly affected by relevant signs and symbols.

If you make sure that your website “looks” successful, then people who visit it will act as if the website is truly successful. And their actions will be affected accordingly.

Yes “fake it till you make it” is a good mantra to follow.

Reddit.com – which today is a huge website and receives more than a billion page views a month – started off faking it too. Their founders created various different usernames. And submitted cool links using different usernames (instead of submitting all the links from 1 admin account only).

This made the website look a lot more busier and popular than it really was. Which made a lot of visitors stay back. Building a community became easier.

“People will trust you if you appear to be worthy of their trust, not because you feel that you are trustworthy.” – Dr. Paddi Lund

So appear trustworthy. Appear stable and popular. And people will react positively to your website.

Action Summary:

• In the initial days, ask your friends to comment on your blog posts.
• Add security and social proof signs and symbols to your website.
• Add a 1-800 number to your contact details.
• Focus and add just one social media button to your website at a time. So that your audience does not get divided. And your numbers look higher.
• Act like an already popular website, and your readers will react accordingly.

No related posts.

# Signs That Influence People is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

Two friends are going through the jungle.  Suddenly they hear a tiger roar behind them. And they both start running.  One friend pauses and starts taking his shoes off.  The other friend asks him: “What are you doing?  Even if you remove your shoes, you won’t be able to out-run the tiger.”

The friend replies, “I don’t need to out-run the tiger, I just need to out-run you.”

The same applies for SEO.  You don’t need to beat every website ever made.  You just need to beat the websites in your field.

Step by Step Search Engine Optimization Strategy

1. Do keyword research. Figure out what keywords your audience uses to find your solution.
2. Create content for these keywords.
3. Find out the number and type of backlinks the top ranking pages have for each of these keywords.
4. Create a backlink strategy to beat them.

In the coming weeks, I’ll break own and provide details for each of the above 4 steps.  I’ll elaborate on exactly what tools and techniques to use to make this task easier and less time consuming.

But in the mean time, I would love to hear your questions that you may have on SEO.  So please ask your SEO questions in the comments.

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. The First Step to Recruiting Affiliates

# 4 Step SEO Strategy is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

So why hasn’t Google listened to their audience?

Because Google did conduct a test with a small group of people.  And it failed miserably.

Google VP Marissa Mayer once conducted a test where a group of people saw 30 results per page instead of the default 10.  But by tracking this group, she found that the revenue Google earned from them dropped by 20%.  Not only that, but the number of searches these people ran dropped by 20% too.  Overall traffic dropped by 20%.

When Marissa started digging in deeper to find the cause for this, she found an uncontrolled variable. The page with 10 results took .4 seconds to generate and load. The page with 30 results took .9 seconds.

The delay of half a second caused a 20% drop in searches and traffic.

Page Load Speed matters a lot online.

The slower your website load, the fewer pages your audience will read.  And the quicker they will leave.

Whats more, these days – the search engines also take page load speeds into consideration while determining where to rank you in the search results.  Everything else being equal, a website that loads faster will out rank the one that takes a bit more time.

So how do you make your website load quicker?  There are a lot of simple and complex things you can do to optimize your website’s page load times.  But keeping the 80-20 Pareto principle in mind, here are 3 things that you can do for free to make 80% of difference.

3 easy things to do that will optimize your page load speeds

1. De-Clutter.

Clean up your website.  Delete elements not needed.  Only retain the absolute essential elements of your website.  You don’t need 20 different social media buttons.  You don’t need archives that go back 5 years.

Here is what you should do: implement an analytics tool that has the heatmap feature (such as CrazyEgg). And which shows what people click on on your webpage.  And get rid of the sections with low click through rates.

2. Optimize your image sizes.

Reduce the size of your images. So that they load quicker, and as a result – your page loads quicker too.

A good tool to do this is: smush.it. You can use smush.it to optimize multiple images together too. And best of all – it’s a free tool!

(If you use WordPress, you can use the smush.it for wordpress plugin too.)

3. Use caching.

If your website is powered by a content management system, you should use some sort of caching. With a content management system, your database is called every time a person visits your website – and your webpage is created on the fly. But if you use caching, your website will create the content only once instead of every time a new person visits your website. It really removes a bottleneck by creating static pages out of the content – and makes your website load a lot quicker.

(If you use WordPress, you could use the W3 total cache plugin.)

More page speed optimization tactics

These 3 solutions should play a lions share in optimizing your website loading time. But if you want to dig in even deeper, then here are 2 tools you can use:

1. YSlow plugin: http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/ (a plugin you’ll have to install to your browser)
2. Google Page speed online tool: http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/ (an online application)

No related posts.

# Google Research Results: Why adding a feature users demanded decreased their traffic is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

And recently he shocked them again by persuading the retail giant Wal-Mart to carry his product. The move is expected to generate sales of $15 million for young Thomas within a year.

Getting Wal-Mart to showcase a product is very hard, and each week hundreds of inventors and product manufacturers are turned down by Wal-Mart. So how did young Thomas manage to persuade Wal-Mart?

“I don’t know!” he says. “I made sixty one phone calls and one of them worked. I guess it was just sheer persistence.”

Action Summary:

• The trick to land the big fish is: be persistent.
• If you want the current industry leaders to endorse and promote you, you need to build the right mental attitude: don’t let No’s deter you.

No related posts.

# How To Get The Industry Leaders To Promote You is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

One day, an ant is thirsty. So she goes to a river for a drink. But unfortunately she falls in and is carried along by the stream.

Fortunately, a kind dove sees this. And throws a small branch of a tree to save the ant. The ant climbs onto the branch and makes it to the shore safe and sound.

Another time, the ant sees a hunter taking aim for the dove. So she stings him in the foot sharply. Makes him miss the mark.  And saves the dove.

Moral: Little friends may prove great friends.

Time and time again, I see this problem with bloggers. They only aim to network with the most successful folks in their industry. They will only comment on the top blogs. Or try to initiate a conversation with the most well known authority figures.  Or promote only the most popular posts on already popular blogs via twitter and facebook.

But they go unnoticed because the noise is tremendous. There are a 1001 others trying to do the same thing as them: trying to win the attention of the people at the peak.

The better thing to do is: be helpful to everyone. Popular as well as not so popular folks. Be like the wind – that sows the seeds everywhere. And not just in the flattest of plains. Because you never know which seed will grab the earth and grow its roots.

You never know which of your helpful actions will lead to massive and unequal reciprocation. Most likely, it’ll be the little guy who makes you famous. Who buys from you. Who talks about you relentlessly to their small but loyal readership. Who promotes you via various social media networks.

Action Summary:

• Be helpful to everyone. Don’t only focus on the top 20 or the top 100 most popular folks of your industry.
• Make it a point to comment on someones blog who rarely receives more than 1-2 comments.
• Send out an encouraging thank you letter appreciating someone who is not already famous.
• Promote a brilliant post by an unknown publisher.
• Connect two not already wildly popular people and see the synergy between them grow.

No related posts.

# Networking Lesson from an Ant and a Dove is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

Question: How often should you post on your blog? Once a week? Once a day?

How long should your feet be? As long as they need to be to touch the ground!

There is no real answer as to how often should you blog. Some top blogs publish 3-4 posts everyday. While others publish just one post a week. And both of them do well. You’ll need to find your own publishing frequency.

I know thats not what you wanted to hear. So hear are 4 guidelines and rules-of-thumb that can assist you…

1. How many clients will you require?

General rule of thumb: the more clients you require to earn a full time income from your blog, the more posts you’ll have to publish.

If you earn all your income from ad revenue alone, then you’ll need to blog more often – at least once a day – if not more than that. But if you are selling high end consulting from your blog and all you need is 20 clients a year, then you can get away with posting just twice a month!

2. How many times will you be promoting your products on the blog?

General rule of thumb: You can only publish a blatantly promotional post after 4 good quality posts. So if you need to promote your or some one else’s products once every week, than you should post 5 posts a week. If you can’t post more than once a week, you shouldn’t promote blatantly more than once a month!

The more you publish, the more you can plug your products.

Follow the 80:20 rule or else you’ll turn off your blog readers. 80% good content for 20% promotional content.

3. How much time do you have?

If you can’t manage to spend more than 1 hour a day on your blog, then you should not write more than 1-2 posts a week.

Because 60-80% of your time should go on your blog promotion. Not writing. So if you can only put in 5 hours a week, and it takes 1 hour to write a decent post, than follow a weekly publishing schedule.

4. How long are your blog posts?

The longer your blog posts – the less often you’ll have to publish. If you only publish 20-30 page detailed research article on your blog, people won’t mind if you can’t post more than once a month. But if you’re posting 100 word snippets, you better post something on your blog more than once a day.

No related posts.

# How Often Should You Blog? (4 Blog Frequency Guidelines) is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

During his Power Marketing workshops, he asks one question to his audience of 60 men and women: “How many of you could recruit 100 affiliates to your down line in the coming one week?”

No one raised their hands to show their “yae.”

So then Tom takes out his check book and his pen and then asks again: “How many of you could recruit 100 affiliates in the coming week if I made a check for $50,000 with your name on it right now?”

About half the audience raises their hands up!

In a mock tone, Tom asks his audience: “What has changed?”

Several answers come up from the audience. $50,000 is a lot of money. For some it meant a year’s income and they would do almost anything to achieve their goals if $50,000 was given to them right now.

Tom asks again:

• What caused you to go from
• I can’t
• to
• I can
• in less than a minute?

He receives a few more answers but none are acceptable. Finally Tom answers the question himself: Only one thing changed and that is your:

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Attitude!

Action Summary:

• Change your attitude and you’ll change your life. Start out with a can-do attitude and you’ll move mountains.
• Very rarely will you find anyone to pay $50,000 to you before you start out. You have to pay in advance to succeed in life. You have to sow the seeds before you can reap the benefits.
• I guarantee you this much: if you follow a good strategy, and invest your time and effort without making excuses – nothing will stop you from succeeding!
• Subscribe to SuccessNexus.com Advanced Internet Marketing Strategy’s RSS feed if you want to learn how to attract and recruit affiliates for your affiliate program.

No related posts.

# The First Step to Recruiting Affiliates is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

Dr. Leonard Bickman is the professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. He once hired a young chap to help in an experiment.

The young accomplice would dress up in different clothes, walk up to strangers on the street and ask them to comply with a request:

“You see that guy over there by the meter? He’s over-parked but doesn’t have any change. Give him a dime!

Dr. Bickman then observed in which conditions strangers fulfilled this request. And here is what he found:

1. 42% people fulfilled the request when the young accomplice was in normal street clothes.
2. 92% people fulfilled the request when the young accomplice was wearing a security guard’s uniform.

On your website, you are constantly making requests of people.

• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Subscribe to the newsletter
• Post a comment
• Share a post with friends via twitter and facebook
• Buy from us
• Buy from us again

But how are you dressing your website up when you’re making these requests?  Does it look like an authority website?  Or does it look like something an amateur has designed?  Because whether you like it or not, your design has a huge impact on whether your readers listen to you or not.

A good design can double your conversion rates. And that is why, it pays to invest in a good web design.

(How do you like the new SuccessNexus.com redesign?)

No related posts.

# Why Good Design Matters is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

• Some of them ask for a free or discounted copy of the product so that they can review it.
• Others send in their sob story of how they are down on their luck and can’t afford the full price.
• Yet others send in a note saying that the exchange rate in their country is not favorable and could the prices be reduced for them.

If you sell any product or service online, you’ll receive such requests too.  So should you honour these requests?  And give out discounts?

I’ll let J.Paul Getty answer the question…

“I have 14 other grandchildren.  And if I pay one penny now, then I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” - J. Paul Getty, explaining his refusal to pay a ransom.

Discounting your products never leads to any good.

If your buyers who’ve paid full price hear that you’ve discounted the product for someone else, they feel let down.

If your prospects hear that you do bargain and give discounts, a lot of them will hound you for a discount too – before buying from you. Which means support nightmare.  Discounting is unscalable.  And hence, you can’t grow your venture if you discount your products for a few people.

So Should You Ever Discount Your Products?

Sure.

• You should discount it during the pre-selling period.  Reward people to buy your product before it is released.
• You should discount it if the product is seasonal and you have to get rid of the inventory so that you can make space for new products. (Example: discounting a Christmas special product on January 5th…)

But other than that, discounting rarely makes sense.

A lot of folks discount products to boost sales during slow months. But thats a bad idea because it makes the old buyers realize that they received a sour deal. A better idea to boost sales during slow times is to give away special valuable bonuses.  (These bonuses can be sent to the old buyers to – as a “gift.”)

Action Summary:

• When folks ask for a discount, tell them a flat No – no matter what their reason.

No related posts.

# Should You Discount Your Prices? is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.

The blogger behind the site has no concrete marketing plan in mind. They spend a lot of time on thinking about the content. But not enough time on how to promote their blog.

Do you know what the #2 reason for a blog dying off is?

Its completely opposite to the number 1 reason of stagnation. The blogger aims to high. They dream of getting featured in the NY Times or on Fox News. And when they just see 10 RSS subscribers in the first month instead of their expected 2000, they start losing hope.  And they soon give up.

(Disclosure: I’ve let websites die before because of both the above reasons.)

Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, an industry leading blog or website isn’t built over a day either.  It needs time and concentrated persistent effort.

We will deal with the #1 reason of website death some other day. Today, we’ll deal with the #2 reason.

The Walmart Strategy to Blog Marketing

In the 1960s and 1970s, companies like KMart were focusing on creating mega super stores near metropolitan cities. But Sam Walton had other ideas. Instead of opening his Walmart stores in big cities, he started focusing on opening his stores in small towns with populations of just 8,000 to 10,000 people!

People in the supermarket industry didn’t pay attention to Sam Walton for the longest time because they couldn’t see why anyone would want to open a store in a town with population of 7,000 instead of in a town with population of 7 million people.  But Sam Walton realized that in towns with low population, there is very little competition. And so, he built his Walmart empire with a store in a small town after another small town.

Action Summary:

• Aim for achievable goals. An entire empire can be built with achieving smaller goals consistently.
• Before aiming for NY Times, aim for getting publicity from smaller blogs and newsletters.  Smaller news outlets can be very very lucrative too.

Further Reading:

• How to build up a strong steady online business

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. Why Should You Read This Blog?

# The Walmart Strategy to Blog Marketing is a post from Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies blog. If you want to learn how to scale your online business painlessly and become an influential authority in your industry, you should go visit it.