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Everyone is a bit skeptical of anything they read on the internet. I, for one, am leery of almost any claim or offer I come across. Therefore, while writing persuasive website content, I find it is important to think of what appears suspicious or convincing on the websites that I come across. Often, it is not just an enticing deal that will persuade a reader like myself on the internet. I will almost always look for some verification of authenticity. These are some of the things I look for:

Credible testimonials. Un-attributed or unrealistic testimonials often do the opposite of what they should do. A specific name or some other identifying blurb (hometown, occupation, etc) is reassuring. The best testimonial is a comment left by a user, complete with email address and contact information. On retail or auction sites where products are being sold, a testimonial from an actual user is much more persuasive, even if it is partially negative.

Balance Strengths and Weaknesses: You always want to write about your strengths. That’s a given. You need to tell the reader why, and how you will be the best provider they’ve ever had. However, everyone is saying that. Everyone claims to be the best and the brightest. So, to stand out, and make yourself sound legitimate, sometimes you might want to throw in a few of your weaknesses. Nothing that would scare off the customer, mind you, but do say what your minimal faults are. For example, if you are a realtor, tell them how you will look out for their best interests and work hard to find your client the best new home in City X. Then, maybe throw in something about how you are only licensed to practice in City X, so therefore you give that city and market your full attention. Or, throw in something about how you are a dedicated family man/woman and while you will work tirelessly for the client, you also find that a balanced personal and family life helps you serve your customers better. There is a fine line to walk here, so tread slowly and carefully and have a third-party review your claims.  

Guarantees. Although I have never actually asked for my money back from a product, it gives me a sense of security to know that there is little risk involved if I make a mistake. Most other customers feel the exact same way. Although they have no intention of actually getting a refund if the product doesn’t meet their expectations, they feel a company must be confident in their product to offer a money-back guarantee.

Legal Information. This should not be in the forefront of the content, but a visible link or fine print shows that a company is legitimate and responsible. Few people have the patience to actually read the legal information, but its absence is always jarring. Providing legal information is like offering a contract to a customer and without it, the transaction seems shady and unofficial.

Details, details, details. No one is going to buy a product or sign up for a service that is vague. It is important to repeat benefits and qualities, but it is doubly important to not limit the information to selling points. Often times, a product seems appealing but a customer has questions or worries about certain aspects. Few readers are willing to go to great lengths to contact a company with their questions before buying, rather they’ll just change their mind. Provide ready details for customers that might be interested. Include a Frequently Asked Questions section. Provide contact information, and of course reply promptly to any questions before a customer loses interest.

Dispel myths. Anticipate your customer’s doubts and allay their fears before they fully develop. A skeptical customer will be especially wary, but if you beat them to the punch they will be both impressed and comforted. Keep your finger on the pulse of current consumer scares and address these issues directly, rather than avoiding the topic. I.E. Assure a customer that their credit card information will be safe (give details why,) acknowledge scam artists on the internet and disassociate yourself from them, advertise a product as improved or renovated (if there were previous complaints about the product.)

In the age of identity theft, unfair business practices and general customer uneasiness, the majority of persuasiveness in web content is gaining trust and making a customer feel comfortable with their transaction. Think of what makes you feel secure, and give that to your readers and customers.

Author:  Devin Hansen: Owner of SEO Copywriters, an American company specializing in unique, quality content.

It all started when I chose to ’stumble upon’ my own article in my blog, Kolkata Musing. The article was a humorous post - Effect of worms and viruses - of just 16 words accompanied by a fun photo taken from Funlok that showed a skeleton of a computer mouse.

I didn’t plan the action. It was a Sunday, and so I thought let me give it a try. Earlier too I ’stumbled upon’ my articles in categories like Offbeat News but no noticeable traffic resulted.

The same was the trend when I tried my luck with other social biggies like Digg and ‘del.icio.us’ . Reason enough for me not to expect much when I made this new effort with StumbleUpon.

What happened then was simply delicious. Within 15 minutes of my posting in SU the first torrent of visitors started rushing to my site. This continued unabated for the next 2 hours.

Since I use PMetrics stats apart from MyBlogLog and Google Analytics, it has been easy to precisely track the onrush of visitors.

What did I find? Well, it proved to be a test of sorts for me using a raging social network site, and the results have been fascinating. Here are my findings recapitulating the events that ensued as the visitors came rushing in from StumbleUpon:

1. Not all categories attract instantaneous visitors, certainly not the ones like World News or Offbeat News unless the postings are truly eye-catching or jaw dropping. In welcome contrast categories like Humor or Bizarre or suchlike have comparatively high rate of success in SU. After this posting in Humor I did another in Bizarre with similar success.
2. Nothing can take away the importance of heading and description. Both should be such that there is an air of suspense in them prompting visitors to vigorously click the link to your site to find more.
3. The main action doesn’t last for more than a couple of hours, which conveys to me that as long as the story remains on the first page of StumbleUpon’ s related category, there will be a torrent of visitors. Thereafter it’s a steady trickle petering out gradually.
4. Most visitors don’t stay more than a minute. Perhaps that is perfectly in order because they come to a site they’ve never visited before, and do not find anything of more interest that can retain them longer. In all probability an overwhelming majority of these guests will never again put their feet in my site.
5. Do they click on other links, especially the ads when they are in my site? Sure they do, and for me that’s very important. I’ve the AdSense ads that when clicked fetch me money. After the initial stampede is over, I rush to check the AdSense figures.

   I first checked MyBlogLog stats and I found that in those 2 hours the AdSense CTR had been 11% of the page-views, which is pretty encouraging. Or is it?

   I rushed to AdSense figures and there alas only 2% conversion is shown. Which lead me to believe that Google doesn’t like sudden spurts in CTR and therefore filters out most of them.

6. Did I gain anything? My answer is nothing really. It’ll be too naive to imagine that those visitors who came hotfooted to my site from StumbleUpon and left equally hastily would come back again remembering what a great site they have been to.
7. Did I loose anything? Oh yes, the large volume of traffic gifted by SU ate away a good amount of my precious bandwidth.
8. Will I try it again? But of course I will if only to set adrenalin pumping through my body. Who knows some visitors just may come back for repeat visits..! No harm dreaming that, don’t you think? Provided of course SU doesn’t put a limit to stumbling upon my own articles.

Author:  Partha Bhattacharya specializes in content writing. This article on StumbleUpon traffic (http://www.words2content.com/ stumbleupon-traffic.html) is his one among many on content writing. His blog on search engine marketing (http://www.prioriti.in/blogs/) is a true help for small website owners.

Flash is a mighty web development tool undoubtedly. With Flash it becomes easier to offer a pleasing web experience to the web readers. Flash adds a lot of interactivity to your website and web applications. Moreover, Flash helps to achieve a better feel and look that most visitors get attracted to. In short, it adds the master touch to your website that you wanted to achieve for years!

On an attempt to integrate Flash with the three basic elements of Web: Content, Style and Behavior; we find that all these factors can be put together with Flash. Flash can create a long lasting visual impact, it can make lurkers participate and it can display content too. Then why Flash is not being used up to its potential? Why some people are so much rigid about not using Flash and some prefer it like anything? Let us listen to both the voices.

In general the world wide SEO lobby holds a negative feeling about Flash. SEO practitioners raise their eyebrow making multiple wrinkles over the forehead and question the readability of Flash Content by Search Engines. According to their school of thought most people search Internet for information. Search Engines index the content of websites and the content influence the ranking of a website in Search Engines to a great extent. Google LSI technique involves content too. Hence, if Search Engines cannot read the texts inside Flash how can Search Engines relate it to user queries?

There could be two types of remedies to get Flash read by Search Engines: either the webmasters implement certain techniques to feed the Flash Content to the Search Engines or, Search Engines take a step forward to read Flash Content. Let us first see what we can do to get Flash Content indexed by Google. Then we will explore what Search Engines have done or are doing for Flash?

Feed the Flash Content to Search Engine spiders:
If you are using <object> and <embed> tags to embed Flash movie on your website, you can use <noembed> tag to show the content of the Flash file to the users whose browsers do not have Flash plug-in installed and to Search Engines as well. If you are loading the Flash file through Javascript, use <noscript> tag to display the content. Alternatively, you can load the Flash file in a <div> and put the Content inside the div so that the text is displayed if Flash file does not load due to any reason.

However, for all the above cases one must show the same content, I repeat, the same content of that of the Flash file to Search Engines. Otherwise, it will be considered as a Black Hat SEO trick. swf2html application of Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK extracts content and links from Flash files. Using this you can get your Flash files translated in to HTML.

Proper use of Meta Tags:
This is important for all the websites; however, for Flash based sites Meta tags need special attention so that the theme of the page is rightly conveyed out to the Search Engines. Remember the pages built in Flash do not have the rich-content support that other HTML pages enjoy.

Sitemap:
If the whole website is built on Flash, it is better to have HTML based Sitemap page to ensure that Search Engine spiders easily crawl all the pages of your site. However, to get the advantages of internal links it is always suggested to have a text based breadcrumb navigation which is useful for the visitors too.

Let’s now explore what Search Engines have done or are doing for Flash?

New crawlers that read Flash files
Search Engines could not read Flash content and follow the embedded links in early days. However, the biggies have introduced new crawlers to extract content and link from Shockwave Files. It’s definitely a good news for Flash lovers, though it has certain limitations. You have to rely completely on the SWF-to-HTML conversion technique used by the Search Engines and you never know if it has any bug or not.

Moreover, not all the Search Engines have started using the technique. So if you depend completely on the Search Engines to read your Flash content, you may lose some potential customers you could get from small Search Engines which are popular locally. So take up all the steps you can to make your Flash site Search Engine friendly and useful for those whose browser does not support multimedia applications as well.

Brain Game
Now, I am sure, you are thinking that Flash is not that big No No your SEO guy has told you! There is no harm in using attractive Flash movies on your websites and make your visitors spellbound! However, as a matter of fact, Flash takes considerable time to load and people using dial up connection may not have the patience to wait that long. So you may end up losing some potential customers. And here comes the brain-game! You have to analyze the objective of your website carefully. If it is an information-based portal which belongs to a competitive niche, then it is good to go with conventional development process. However, to showcase your products, you may choose Flashy display. A blend of Flash and HTML can help you satisfy both your viewers and the Search Engines, but the Flash to HTML ratio is to be judged by you!

Author:  Saikat Sengupta has been involved in Online Marketing, User-friendly Content Development and Technical Writing for more than two years. He is also a part of Flash Charts and Flash Maps documentation team of InfoSoft Global (P) Ltd.

If you know even the basics of internet marketing, you in all probability already know the benefits of article marketing.  You are most likely aware that by submitting your article to various article submission sites, your articles may get high search engine rankings for certain keywords, and you know that since these articles have a direct link to your site, you improve your traffic.  You also probably already know that overtime, with frequent submissions, you will gain multiple backlinks to your site, thus improving your website’s search engine rankings.  And most importantly, you know that article marketing drives targeted traffic to your site.  So, if you already know all of this, why aren’t you doing it?

Many entrepreneurs simply don’t have enough time to sit and write articles on a regular basis, while others don’t feel the desire to write.  Some business owners feel that they can’t effectively convey their message in writing because they don’t have the skill.  Whatever your reasons, they are, quite frankly, not good enough.  The traffic that is gained by article marketing is the most valuable kind of traffic you can get.  The individuals who read your article are people who have searched for the topic that you have written about, and if they click your link, they are interested in what you have to say, or in a product or service you describe in your article.  This is a qualified customer who is much more likely to buy from you than someone who randomly clicks on your link from another source.

So, what can you do if you are one of those entrepreneurs that have the desire to write, but lack the confidence?  My first suggestion would be to try it.  You never know, you could unleash a hidden talent.  Doing some research will help you to gain confidence in your abilities.  Read books and articles on writing, and on how to write articles that drive targeted traffic to your website.  Of course, not everyone can write effectively, and if you discover you are in this category, or if you have no time or no will to write, you still don’t have to miss out on this opportunity.  Consider hiring someone to write for you.
Outsourcing will allow you to get your message out and gain the benefits of article marketing, while saving you the effort of actually composing the article yourself.  A ghostwriter will write articles for you, allowing your name to appear as the author.  The resource box will link back to your site and the ghostwriter’s name does not appear anywhere in the article.  Since you are paying for the writer’s service, these articles will belong to you, not the writer, so you can use and reuse them as you see fit.

Of course you are the expert in your field, not the writer, so it’s always most effective if you provide the points you want to make in the article and the way you want to convey your message.  You can simply write a brief point by point synopsis of what you want included in your article and give that to the writer, or provide him/her with a voice recording with your instructions.  If you don’t even want to be this involved in the process, you could also pay the writer to research the topic you would like to have written about and have the writer submit the articles to places online that your target market frequents.  You can hire a professional Writer, or a Virtual Assistant that offers ghostwriting services.  Some Virtual Assistants also offer internet research services and many are knowledgeable about the best places to submit articles online.

Before hiring anyone to carry out your writing for you, ask for samples of their work.  You don’t want to hire someone to write articles in your name when their writing style does not suit your personality, or if you simply don’t enjoy reading their work.

In short, just about anyone can use article marketing to increase their search engine rankings and drive qualified traffic to their website.  If writing is not your forte, you don’t have to miss out on this opportunity.  Hire someone to do your ghostwriting for you, be they a professional Writer or a Virtual Assistant.  Just be sure that you are hiring the right person for the job, and that you have them writing articles on the topics that your target market would read.  Not being a writer shouldn’t prevent you from taking advantage of opportunities to drive countless potential customers to your site.

Author:  Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.

The term ‘cognitive itch’ was first used by James Kellaris of the University of California to describe the experience of music that gets stuck in your head and you just can’t get rid of it. This same phenomenon can result from watching commercials, Web-videos and even full-featured multimedia websites.

According to Kellaris cognitive itch comes from the creative
implementation of

1. Simplicity
2. Incongruity
3. Repetition

The creation of cognitive itch is important because it is the underlying marketing goal of all serious advertising: advertising that aims at positioning a company’s identity and brand in the mind of the audience, as opposed to schlock sales promotions and used car sales gimmicks that have limited long term benefits. In essence cognitive itch is at the heart of what Web-marketers call stickiness: the elements of your website that get visitors to hang around long enough to absorb the full impact of your marketing message.

Cognitive Itch and Stickiness

In the battle to be noticed in a marketplace that is flooded with overwhelming content and competitive options, the ability to be noticed and remembered is becoming increasing difficult.

But if you develop your marketing strategies, websites, and advertising campaigns based on creating cognitive itch and stickiness then you will have increased your chances of making an impact.

Stickiness is of course the quality of your media to retain your audience long enough to receive your message. Attracting large numbers of visitors or viewers who instantly opt-out because they were mislead to your website or who find nothing relevant to their needs does not advance your marketing objectives.

Chip and Dan Heath in their book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” cite six principles of stickiness that overlap Kellaris’ elements of cognitive itch:

1. Simplicity
2. Unexpected
3. Concrete
4. Credibility
5. Emotion
6. Stories

The Cognitive Itch Approach to Presentation

Sometimes a simple change in approach can make all the difference in the world: instead of thinking of your website as a brochure, or an exercise in search engine optimization or database management; instead of thinking of your next advertising campaign as exercise in hyping your latest feature upgrade; start thinking of your website as a presentation, your opportunity to communicate ‘mano a mano’ with your audience.

Our approach to the problem of creating memorable material that gets stuck in a prospect’s mind demanding that they stick around long enough to get the message, and remember it long enough to act upon it, and perhaps pass it on to friends and colleagues combines the elements of cognitive itch with the principles of stickiness.

The Elements of Sticky Cognitive Itch

Stories: Putting Information In Context

Stories are the glue that provides people with the ability to retain information because that information is placed inside some meaningful context.

Politicians are the quintessential salesmen; they understand that the average voter is not going to follow a fact-filled justification for program initiatives, so instead they tell stories: health care policies are explained by illustrating how little Johnny, from Springfield, MA is going to be able to get his new heart, and that his mother will not have to work in the all-night laundry in horrendous heat and humidity to pay for the operation, all because of this politician’s new bill.

Stories are patterns of information constructed with a beginning, middle, and an end; and a good story, well delivered, provides the emotional satisfaction that fires the endorphins that make that message memorable.

Simplicity: Focus On A Single Message

Mixed and confusing messages are the death knell of any advertising whether it’s a Web-video or print ad campaign. No matter how much you want to cram every idea, concept, feature, or benefit into a presentation, resist.

The difference between being memorable and forgettable is your ability to discipline yourself to focus attention on the one thing that will capture people’s imagination.

Incongruity: Give Your Presentation A Twist

A rabbi, minister, and priest walk into a bar. They approach the bartender who looks at the three and says, “What is this, a joke?” - Place rim shot here.

The story above, based on Daniel H. Pink’s comments in the book ‘A Whole New Mind,’ is like any good story, it contains a twist, set-up by a familiar and seemingly obvious scenario.

All effective presentations, commercials, and Web-videos need a punch-line: some kind clever turn of events, something to excite the brain and force the old ‘noggin’ to do some work and unravel the twist, even if it’s purpose is as mundane as which laundry detergent or Web-hosting supplier to choose.

Sensory: Appeal to Sights and Sounds

Whether you are writing copy for your website or a script for your Web-audio or video, your prose need to deliver the sights and sounds that trigger memories. It is those recalled experiences that will be associated with your presentation and make it memorable.

Even the joke in the preceding section brings to mind the dress and manner of the priest, minister, and rabbi, as well as the ambiance of our favorite watering hole. No matter what method you use to deliver your message, copy, audio, or video, it must deliver the sights and sounds that make for a memorable encounter.

Rhyme, Rhythm and Repetition: A Pattern of Pleasure

Whether it’s the recipe for a Big Mac or the script for the haunting Lexus ‘Moments’ voice-over, the influence of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition cannot be underestimated.

The creation of an aural sensory experience that follows the psychological precepts of gestalt theorists, as much as any other communication mechanism, provides the cognitive itch all professional advertisers aim to achieve.

As much as we are emotional creatures we crave pattern, organization, order, and mnemonic reference in order to make sense out of our experiences.

The original ‘Moments’ commercial written by Glen Hunt turned a single word into an effective campaign, based on the creative use of rhyme, rhythm and repetition.

Moments: A Lexus Commercial written by Glen Hunt

“Moments
A Moment If You Please
Moments Can Be Short
Moments Can Be Long

There Are Moments Of Joy
Moments Of Sorrow
Moments Of Passion

Moments You’ll Never Forget
Moments You’ve Already Forgotten
Moments You Didn’t Get

There Are Awkward Moments
Senior Moments
Moments Of Truth
And Momentary Lapses In Judgment

People Who Ask For A Moment
Share A Moment
I Need A Moment
You Got A Moment?

Wait A Moment
You Can Take A Moment
Make A Moment
Spoil A Moment

And If All The Stars Line In The Right Moment,
That Moment Can Be Perfect

Moments Can Define You
Moments Can Delight You
And Moments Can Change Your Life

Here’s To The Moment
And Squeezing All You Can
Out Of Every Last Single One Of Them”

Credibility: Keep It Real, Be Believable

As much as American Idol’s Randy Jackson irritates me with his pandering, pseudo-hip street-speak, he does offer contestants one good piece of advice that all marketers should follow, “Keep It Real!”

If there is one thing that every Web-company needs to establish it’s credibility. No matter how much traffic you generate, with false promises, contrived promotions, or outlandish claims, it will all lead to naught, if you’ve failed to build trust and believability.

We spend a lot of time and effort in providing our audience with interesting material, most of which asks for nothing in return. We always provide a phone and contact name for any advertising, promotion, or website that we develop. We always answer emails and attempt to be helpful to inquiries even when we know nothing in the way of business will come of it.

Our philosophy is simple, we offer our audience marketing advise and creative services based on our experience, our unique point-of-view, and an unusual set of skills and expertise. It’s our way of creating credibility. Can you say the same?

Emotion: Elicit An Emotional Experience

Emotion has always got a bad rap when it comes to business. The nation’s business schools have perpetuated the myth of business as science with charts, spreadsheets, and statistical analysis.

The technical aspect of the Web has continued this fairy tale, but the fact is business, or at least the sales and marketing function, is all about eliciting emotional response through the implementation of psychological strategies in creative presentation.

The entertainment business is a prime example of how bean counters can destroy any business. No body really knows why some movies and some songs are hits and others are failures. There is no tried and true formula that producers can follow to guarantee a success; that is unless they can tap into the emotional needs of the audience. Find the emotional need in your audience and build a Web-marketing campaign around that need.

Author:  Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

When I started my online business in 1999, I had a website, but did very little with it, as it seemed impossible to get noticed by the search engines. My website simply served as my online brochure and I had no plan in place to drive any traffic there. Fast forward to 2007, and now almost all of my clients come to me from my website. In fact, my website has brought 5 clients to my door in the past week.

My website and my Internet marketing strategies do such a good job of promoting my business that when clients contact me, it’s usually to say, “I’ve been to your site and I’ve been reading the great info you provide.  I know you’re the one to help me.  When can we get started?”  Consequently, I’m rarely in the position of having to “sell” someone on the benefits they’ll gain by working with me, as my website takes care of most of that for me.  I think that’s very cool, as I absolutely hate trying to sell myself.

What can you do to make your website your client attraction magnet? There’s so much information out there about online marketing and so many directions from which to choose that it’s easy to become overwhelmed and confused  Whether you have a website and have been online for awhile or are just getting started on creating your Internet presence, here are the most important first 7 steps you can take to get more clients from Internet marketing and create your own client attraction magnet:

Domain that reflects your brand. 
The domain name from which you transact all of your online business should reflect your brand in some way.  You can accomplish this by purchasing a .com version of a domain name that is the same as the name of your business or by buying a domain containing keywords relevant to your business. Before buying your business domain, make a list of keywords that someone might use to find you online. This list could include your industry, your target market or niche, a problem your target market has, or a solution that you can offer.  If you’ve been in business for awhile, it may make most sense to simply stick with the business name you have been using rather than trying to rebrand your business online.  I highly recommend GoDaddy.com for all domain name purchases.

Basic website.
In order to have a website and email addresses from your chosen domain, you need to purchase a reliable hosting account for your website. At a minimum, the services that you’ll want in your hosting/design package include: hosting for 1 domain, 5 GB of space, 200 GB of monthly transfer volume (tied to how many visitors your site has), 10 email accounts, 10 MB storage per email account, 24/7 support, and basic website statistics.
Resource:  I highly recommend Aaces.com, HostMySite.com, and iPowerWeb.com for website hosting.

A very basic and attractive initial website of roughly 5 pages can be created by a web designer for as little as $350.  Or, if you prefer to do it yourself, you can purchase Frontpage, Dreamweaver , or download a free HTML editor, Nvu, at Nvu.com and either build your site from scratch or customize a pre-made template.  Another option is to use a hosting service that provides an online interface for website design, creation, and updates. This type of service enables anyone who’s familiar with Microsoft Word to log in and create content, add images, and add pages to their very own website. The major providers of this type of service include GoDaddy.com, Yahoo Small Business, and 1and1 Web Hosting.

As you think about your site design and navigation, determine the look and feel you want to convey on your site, and make your content persuasive. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve.

Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:

• Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
• Who is my target market? What are their problems?
• Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?

You’ve got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor’s attention. So, it’s imperative that your site speaks directly to your target market and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, like, and trust you and eventually buy from you. If you’re not clear and confuse them, they’ll be leave, so don’t let them be distracted by pretty bells and whistles on your site.  It’s the content, call to action, and ease of navigation that ultimately matters in site design.

Call to action
Present a clear call to action that is clearly shown on every page of your site. Your primary call to action should be getting the visitor’s name and primary email address by asking him subscribe to your ezine or by giving him access to a free information product like an ecourse, special report, audio/video recording, or ebook.
In order to do this, you need to purchase and learn to use email marketing software that helps you capture visitor contact information.  I highly recommend aWeber.com for this task, as it enables you to build, develop, and manage your online contact database.

Client-capturing device
The best way to obtain contact info from a visitor is to create an information product in which the content is so compelling that the visitor gladly parts with his/her name and primary email address to obtain the free giveaway. By giving you their contact information, they have become a warm lead and you can start to develop a relationship with them and begin to market to them.

The easiest way to create a client-capturing device is to simply make an electronic recording of you talking about a topic that helps your target market solve a problem, have the recording transcribed, edit it for readability and continuity, create a cover, save it as a PDF file, and you now have a client-capturing device you can give away.

Stay-in-touch mechanism
A regularly published ezine, or email newsletter, is one of the most effective ways you can keep in touch with your prospects. For the greatest success, publish your ezine consistently on a weekly basis.

Since you’re developing a relationship with your prospects, the best way for them to get to know you is to let your “voice” permeate your newsletter. Demonstrate your expertise in your ezine by writing articles addressing relevant issues of your target market and how they can resolve the issues.  Keep your newsletter short and to the point and create 3 columns for each issue — a personal welcome and insight from you, a main article that provides useful information for your readers, and an invitation to buy a product, buy your services, or attend an event.

Your first product
There are any number of types of information products you can sell online. The ones that are easiest to create and require little investment (other than your time to create them) are those sold as an electronic download.  The quicker you can develop your first product, the closer you are developing both an effective marketing funnel and multiple streams of income for your business.

Traffic generating strategies
Once you’ve built it, will they come? Only if you start to implement some traffic generating strategies. My favorite traffic generating strategy is article marketing, in which I write a new article each week and submit it to online article directories through my article submission service, SubmitYourArticle.com. I’ve had my articles reprinted on blogs, in ezines, in professional association newsletters, and in print magazines. After reading my article from one of these sources, the reader goes to my website, signs up for my client-capturing device, and then receives my weekly ezine that I use to develop a relationship with that reader, who has now become a prospective client/customer.

Other effective traffic generating strategies include pay-per-click advertising, being a guest on someone’s teleseminar, submitting online press releases, or creating a blog or a podcast.  You don’t have to do them all.  Just pick one and implement it consistently.

Follow and work this 7-step plan and experience first-hand the joy of getting more clients online.

Author:  Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

If you have a website and you aren’t worried about having solid, rich content, you are missing out on one of the best tools to create revenue that any website owner could have. Having a content-rich website is a must when it comes to making any money from the web these days; if you don’t have useful content on your site you don’t stand a chance to have solid revenue coming in from your site and who couldn’t use some extra money?

Article writing is one of the most solid ways of garnering traffic from the web. This can be done either by your hand or by hiring a ghostwriter to write the articles for you. This is more of an accepted practice than it seems, as not everybody has the ability to be a master writer and that is okay. After all, it is important to write articles because you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field and if your articles display a lack of writing ability that can definitely ruin your chances of being regarded as an expert.

Also, if you are going to have a content rich website that matters, you have to make sure that your writing is targeted toward a specific audience, and that it is that specific audience that is going to be going to and using your website. Create the type of website that your audience will want to bookmark. You can only do this by finding a niche and sticking to it, and catering either to a specific audience or everybody.

The only way that a person can create a content rich website is to do the research. Use research tools like overture to find out what keywords people are hitting up in search of information pertaining to your niche and make sure that you make use of the appropriate keywords when it comes to your content. Without keyword rich content, you can only hope that word of your site reaches the world by word of mouth, because when it comes time to use search engines most users will have no idea that you exist.

You can also drive traffic to your site by using the same search engine optimization techniques to create content for the article directories. Article directories are important because they gain valuable backlink traffic to your site, and people will move from the article to the site with ease. This is an excellent and cost effective way of helping to drive website traffic to your site, because most article directories are free and if you have time, there are tons and tons of directories that you can submit articles to. As a matter of fact, some services will even distribute your articles to the directories for you, so you won’t have to worry about having to go through the trouble.

No matter how you use your article content or whether you choose to do it yourself or hire a ghostwriter, there are certain things that a content rich website should and should not include in order to be the most effective for its intended use just as there is a certain way to go about it.

First of all, make sure to write in short, concise sentences that any reader can easily understand without having to decipher through a million and one punctuation marks. Use words that people all over can understand and try to keep it free of slang or words that only appeal to people from a certain area of the world or United States; unless they are pertinent to the particular audience you are looking to get the attention of.

Also, if you want to keep your reader moving through your article, be sure to write in short paragraphs of just a few sentences and include as many lists, headings, and bulleted points as you can; this gets the attention of the reader the most and makes your content jump out and matter.

Creating rich content for your website is what is going to matter in the end. Colorful pictures and a real purpose are great, but rich content that gets traffic is key to the success of any type of website out there. Be sure to make your content as rich as it can be, and you will find that you have more traffic than you ever thought possible.

Author:  Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.

I generally fall on the creative side of online marketing rather than the overly technical. I think it’s in part because of the “audience sense” I developed at WebProNews, where some days I was the editor of JavaProNews and others I had to write SEM content for our million or so subscribers. Give me your profitable keywords and I’m off thinking of articles, blog posts and email newsletters that will appeal to your target demographic. It’s because I’m so creative that I’ve always enjoyed my marketing conversations with my good friend, the uber-analytical, technical and data-driven Ben Wills.

It was Ben who introduced me to the back link analysis processes that have become the foundation for my content creation and link building efforts these days. This post is an outline of my methods for the more creative SEOs out there - the article marketers and bloggers seeking to build powerful, business sustaining links - who have perhaps overlooked some crucial publishers and communities to target with awesome content.

1. Know and Target Your Most Profitable Keywords
2. Conduct a Link Hub Research Dig
3. Sort By PR and Links Out (Co-Citations)
4. Determine Your Strategic Options: Social Media, Directories, Blogs, Publishers, Forums
5. 5 GO! GO! GO!

Know and Target Your 3 (for now) Most Profitable Keywords
This link building process begins - as your online marketing efforts always should - with your most profitable keywords. It’s likely that these are your most competitive keywords too - the words you used in your URL, the titles of your site pages and in the link text of the articles you’ve been writing and distributing and links and PPC ads you’ve been buying.

The process I outline here can certainly stretch to encompass ALL of your keywords, from the top of the big head to the very tippy-tip of your long tail. I’m not currently adept at managing and manipulating enormous amounts of data and for my purposes I find that limitations - like digging in on only a couple of the most important keywords - give me far more traction and forward momentum.

I say know and target 3 keywords because this will give you plenty of data to start a two-three week project at a couple hours or so a day. Target more if you want, but if you lean on the creative side like me it’s important to maintain momentum on projects. Aiming at just 3, or 2 or even 1, will simplify the process for your first run through and will get you to spend more time focusing on the important hub sites in the communities that influence rankings for your target keywords.

Conduct a Link Hub Research Dig
This is an exciting part for me because of the tool I use to support my dig. Nothing beats hands-on rankings investigations, but these won’t show you as efficiently whose links are actually affecting rankings right now.

I use a for-pay windows-based program for my hub/authority digs. Before plunking down your hard-earned cash for a hub finder I’d suggest working with Aaron Wall’s hub finder, currently housed on his LinkHounds site.

Hub Finder on LinkHounds

I’m not as familiar with Wall’s hub finder as the tool I use, but in conducting a search on his I found it did help identify the sites that link out to more than one of the top 10 sites for your search term.

It has several posted mirrors in case Wall’s has reached its maximum queries for the day (it uses Google’s API and is limited to 1,000 queries a day):
http://webseodesign.com/seo-tool-chest/hub-finder.php
http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/Hubfinder/hubfinder.php
http://www.cyclelicio.us/hubfinder/

When I search for hubs I “open up the flood gates” and investigate the maximum listings for my tool (top 30 sites for a term) and the minimum number of links to sites in the top 30 (which is 2). This means I’ve got tons of back link data for those top 30 sites and will see the hubs that helped these top sites achieve those rankings.

I’d suggest that you conduct as wide a search as possible at first with whatever tool you’re using. Over time you can narrow down your searches as you experiment to find that sweet spot for the term or niche you’re developing links in.

Sort By PR and Links Out (Co-Citations)
So once you’ve got 100, 200 or even 1,000 sites in your spread sheet you can start analyzing and organizing them.

First I list my sites by PR - though this metric alone is NOT an indicator of a good link - and then by number of “co-citations,” which is how many of the top 30 sites for my keyword this given site links to. All the sites that didn’t return PR get cut. Depending on how many sites I’m analyzing, sites with PRs of 1, 2, or even 3 get cut too. I can hear Mike Grehan slapping his forehead as I type these words, but hey. When you’re faced with analyzing 1,000 sites and you’re spending your clients’ money on your time you’ve got to draw lines using some kind of metric

That said, if there’s a site with an interesting URL that has a very low PR I will check it out. It could be a new community site or blog that could be valuable for link distribution, and often the fresher, newer sites are more likely to respond to your emails.

The other important metric of course is how many of the top sites each of these hub sites link to. If there’s a low-PR site that happens to link to a bunch of the top sites then there’s a reasonable chance that this site would be a good one to get a link from. Further, if we’re talking about an uncompetitive keyword then there’s more reason to throw the PR metric out the window as a starting guide.

Once you’ve trimmed the list at the bottom you can trim it at the top too by cutting out Google Answers and all the DMOZ clones out there. You’ll find lots of unreachable-for-now type of sites like CNN and others that you needn’t worry yourself with at this stage of the game. A link from a major site would be awesome, but for now you should focus on the easily attainable!

Determine Your Strategic Direction: Content Creation, Link Requests, Link Purchases, Content Distribution

By this time you should start seeing some interesting link possibilities emerge. For one thing social media sites will start to appear - you’ll start to see the ones that may have some bearing on the keyword(s) you’re trying to rank for. Give these their own list and make time to set up profiles in them and see about finding a few friends within them.

You’ll also see directories that appear to have bearing on the rankings for your keyword too. Mark these down as potential submission points and places to potentially buy a link. Some sites sell links and even regular banner ads. If it’s a niche site it could well be worth buying some actual advertising!

Finally, the blogs, forums and other relevant and influential content publishers will emerge, and these are the sites that I focus on with my creative efforts.

For me, the content sites, blogs and forums are a creative revelation on a number of different levels. As a writer these sites show me what kinds of content will earn me publication or links from their sites. They’re also a sneak peek at what kinds of content are most relevant to this demographic (as sliced by the target keyword). Whether I’m creating content and requesting links or creating content and requesting publication with link attribution, this list of sites helps me understand what kinds of content (how-tos, opinion, entertainment) work for this space.

Further, these hub sites are often focal points for communities, or are even forums themselves. This kind of a link dig is an awesome starting point for beginning your “conversation marketing” and community outreach because it reveals the influential community sites for a given keyword.

GO! GO! GO!
Write articles! Submit to publishers! Write tailored, custom link requests! Conduct interviews for targeted link exchanges! Buy links! Go! Go! Go!

It’s easy to get caught in the analysis paralysis of link digging. It’s exciting to find 100 potential sites to link to you. Excitement is great but I’ve had a hard time getting grocery stores to let me buy food with excitement alone. The point of this hub identification exercise is to better target your link building efforts on the sites that will make a difference to your rankings. Good luck, God bless, build links!

Author:  Garrett French currently creates link-building communication strategies for small and mid-sized companies - learn his strategies at http://www.GarrettFrench.com. Learn more about his authority link building program at Bold Interactive!

I don’t drink, although after a hard day it seems like it might be worth starting, but since I can’t stand the taste of the stuff, I generally just settle for drowning my troubles in a stiff diet soda. However if I were going to take up the evil spirits, I would start with Reyka Vodka, not because it’s better or worse than any other vodka, but because they have an extraordinary marketing campaign and an equally clever integrated website (http://www.reykavodka.com) with an enchanting if somewhat bizarre Icelandic spokeswoman. The video commercials for the campaign drew 20,000 views in the first three weeks after being posted on YouTube.

These Web-video commercials combine distinctive visuals with an eccentric brand spokesperson, and a series of hysterically funny scripts; granted they’re not for everyone, but if you like your marketing clever, funny, stylish, and effective, then there is a lot to learn from this campaign.

Lesson Number One: Different Is Good

On the Web different is not only good, it’s a necessity. There is no point in spending your hard earned money on advertising if you’re just going to say the same thing everybody else is saying. And if you absolutely, positively can’t come up with anything different to say, then you better find a different way to say it. Whether it’s what you say, or how you say it, different is the key to making an impact on the Web.

And don’t forget the advice of the big time Hollywood producers, “you’ve got to be different, but the same.” Make your video commercials familiar enough to be acceptable, but different enough to stand out. To paraphrase television producer/director Gary Marshall, “it’s great to be ‘out-there,’ just make sure there is somebody else out there with you.”

Lesson Number Two: Brands Need Personalities

One of the ways to be different is to give your company or brand a unique personality; make sure it’s a personality that not only resonates with your audience but one that fits your company’s inherent character. You may like, or alternatively hate, Wal-Mart and Microsoft, but no matter what they do or how they advertise, they are never going to be ‘cool.’ It’s just not them.

Not only can you not fake a personality, something you do at your own peril, but you should also make sure you don’t confuse you audience with multiple personalities. Years ago McDonald’s had a very distinct character, but their recent multi-targeted ad campaigns just seem to confuse their identity. You cannot please everybody and you cannot present multiple personalities or people will just ignore you.

And just because a big company’s sales go up doesn’t mean they’re doing the right thing. So if you want to emulate somebody, don’t follow the trends of the biggest spenders, they’re in a whole different league were money trumps everything, and success can be bought. If you’re a relatively small firm, you’ve got to be better; you’ve got to be clever and creative. Reyka Vodka doesn’t have the budget of their big competitors, but their marketing and video-based Web campaign is as good as it gets.

Lesson Number Three: Words Have Meaning

I often compare commercials to mini-movies and there is a lot that can be learned from knowing how to construct and tell a good marketing story. Often one of the least appreciated elements of storytelling is dialogue. This is due to the movie industry’s notion of ’show’em, don’t tell’em.’ In the movie business this is good advice; it may even be good advice in the business of making commercials, but if you’re a smaller company with a limited budget, ’showing’ can break the bank.

With the cost of location shooting, multiple sets and actors, and expensive exotic props and setups, cost can escalate fast. That puts a premium on keeping things simple. That said, if you’re going with the “talking head” style presentation make sure that the talking head reaches out and grabs your audience.

The Reyka commercials are an example of a talking head that is presented with flair and personality; and if you really want to see something that will knock you off your chair, check out the Wayspa.com commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WQuMmw-TAc); be warned that many will be offended but I guarantee you won’t forget them.

A great script delivered by a professional actor has more impact and cost less than any other video presentation method. Well-written dialogue captures attention; sets tone and mood; expands your audience’s knowledge of your product or service; presents a distinct personality with nuance and subtext; connects and motivates; and plays upon some area of inner prospect dissatisfaction.

Lesson Number Four: You Are, How You Say It

No body wants to watch a movie, television show or commercial with dialogue written the way real people talk. If you’ve ever sat in an over-crowded restaurant and listened to the conversation of the people at the table next to you, you understand what I am saying.

Real conversations are messy, people interrupt one another, they talk over each other, and they often speak in a kind of shorthand that outsiders find difficult if not impossible to follow. People often use filler in order to give themselves time to think and avoid uncomfortable silence; they talk a lot and say very little; they are in fact boring as hell.

And of course writing a meaningful, effective, commercial script is not the same as writing a business letter or brochure copy. You cannot get away with a list of bulleted points delivered by the company president who looks like he forgot to take the hanger out of his suit jacket before he put it on.

Commercial scripts are conversations with an audience, designed to deliver all the meaning, mood and personality a company has to offer based on a single concise message that will be remembered, and that impacts the audience beyond a mere recitation of facts, features, and presumed benefits.

Lesson Number Five: Keep the Message Simple

The best advertisements are the simplest; they are the easiest to understand and to remember. Web-video commercials that spew facts and figures and multiple benefits are blurry flashes of noise, instantly forgettable at best and irritating and counter-productive at worse. Audiences, no matter how interested, will generally only absorb one cogent thought from a marketing message.

With Geico, “it’s so easy a caveman can do it” delivered by the familiar angst ridden character that makes the message easy to remember and the spokesperson easy to relate to. Compare that to the Esurance cartoon commercials were the message gets lost in a dizzying display of irrelevant animation.

Lesson Number Six: Make the Messenger Relatable

Someone has to deliver your dialogue, whether by an on-screen actor or an off-screen voice-over. The more you can humanize your messenger, the more your audience will relate to him or her. We’ve all met guys like the caveman in the Geico commercials, but it’s pretty difficult to relate to the Esurance cartoon superhero that sells insurance. The Reyka Vodka lady is offbeat and funny while the characters in the Wayspa.com web-commercials are all like the guys you knew in high school. All these characters are exceedingly human all delivering simple concise ideas in clever, entertaining, and memorable messages. Keep the message simple and the messenger relatable.

Conclusion

Sometimes the hardest thing to be is simple. In the movie business there is something called a ‘high concept’ a one-line description that tells producers everything they need to know about a movie in order to grasp what it’s all about. If you’re looking to create a Web-video campaign for your company start with a ‘high concept’ and develop the rest using the lessons learned from the best.

Author:  Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Thousands Of Visitors And Other Fibs About Website Traffic - The 10 Worst Everyone talks about the BEST ways to create traffic but here are what have to be 10 of the absolute WORST ways to get real productive, targeted traffic to your website.

How do we know this?  We test website traffic programs and publish the facts in an online monthly report - so you don’t have to waste your time, or your money, on these losers.

First, put yourself in the shoes of someone looking for information about the products or services that you sell on your website.

Now be honest and ask yourself when was the last time you did any of the following to search for information on the Internet?

1. Sat down at your computer and really read all of that good old fashioned unsolicited spam email?
2. Joined a site that promised to send your email message for free … and you diligently read the hundreds of emails you received everyday from this same site?
3. Used a program like 101-website-traffic, 10 million hits, global blaster, your ad blaster, blaster this or blaster than, and you really made money from this traffic?
4. Joined a program where you have to click on ads for hours at a time … and you really clicked on all of those ads?  Really?  How many of those sites did you actually visit?
5. Signed up for a freebie that didn’t have anything to do with Internet marketing … and now your inbox is jammed with wonderful email offers that you always read for hours and hours?
6. You paid someone to submit your site to “5,000″ search engines … but now you realize that there aren’t even 500 good search engines on the Internet?
7. Used a free hosting company and loved all of the banner ads, at the top of your site, that you web host requires when your hosting is free.
8. Tried some keyword trickery like keyword “stacking”, “stuffing” or “hiding” and your site didn’t get banned by the search engine