Finalizing Your Keyword Research

When you are putting the finishing touches on your keyword research list there are a few other things you should consider that may help you refine your focus even further. You know, all too well, that not all traffic is good traffic. The quality of the traffic you receive matters a great deal when it comes to making sales.

 Limiting your competition is one of the best ways to ensure that you are making the sales you've worked so hard to earn. Finding the right keywords makes this a lot more likely because it will not only draw in your target audience but will also limit the amount of websites you are competing with. It is much easier to find your way to the top of a list that has only 5,000 competing websites than it is to work your way to the top of the search engine rankings when there are 13,000,000.

You want to make sure that the pool of competition is as small as possible so that you can rise to the top rather than feeling like a fish trying to swim upstream against a Niagara Falls of competitors. So, how do you refine the focus and limit your competition? Instead of creating a website that is dedicated to ice cream makers, create one that is dedicated to the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment. By making this change you are still getting a topic that is fairly well searched BUT you are also reducing the competition from 1.5 million competing sites to just over 7,000. That is a HUGE difference. Even then though there are some that will argue that is unfavorable odds for competition and will require significant effort to optimize. How much work you are willing to put into the SEO process will determine whether or not this is a good keyword choice for you.

 At the end of the day, the less competition you have, the greater the likelihood that you will be able to rise to the top of the search engine rankings with consistent effort. The more competition you have, the more effort you will need to make for those favorable results. Use keyword research tools to help you find out how well searched a term is before deciding to use it on your site. Keep in mind that seasonal keywords are seasonal. If you want an accurate idea of what to expect it is a good idea to begin researching during the “off” seasons for these search terms. You should also be aware of the possibility of defining your keywords too narrowly.

The result for this would be heading to the top of the heap for keywords that get little or no traffic. If you have a site that offers a product or service that might appeal to local audience or international audiences be sure to include that in your optimization efforts also. For example, you could target the keyword “toys” and you would be competing with nearly 400 million websites. If you narrowed the focus to “toys made in America,” you would be refining your keyword competition to 13,000 sites. If you change it to “toys made in USA” you will have twice the competition of made in America but 5 times the search volume. Little things like this can make a world of difference when you are refining your keyword selection process.

How to Easily Sell Your Info Products Online

Once you have created your info product your next step is to get it ready for sale. Unfortunately this is the part that has a lot of marketers being thrown for a loop. Just how do you set up your product online, so that your customers can purchase and download it to their computers? It's actually not as difficult as it might sound.

Set Up Your Website

You should already have a website, but if not, now is the time to create one. It is easy to set up a Wordpress site with a free theme. Just search for e-commerce type themes. These are the ones that have a store front look to them.

Having a website provides you with a professional image and will show potential customers that you are serious about your business.

Selling with Paypal

If you have a Paypal account you can easily create a buy now button and add it to your website. There is no fee to open a Paypal account and to set up your buy buttons. When a customer does make a purchase Paypal will collect a small portion of the fee. This is based upon your monthly transactions and the costs are pretty minimal.

This is a great choice if you are just selling one or two products.

Shopping Cart

If you are planning on creating lots of info products you may want to use a shopping cart on your website. The advantages of a shopping cart is that it allows your customers to add a product to their online basket and continue shopping. When they are finished they can view their basket and checkout.

Another advantage is that you can offer coupons to your customers. This is a great way to run a quick sale or just offer incentives.

Some of the most popular shopping carts are:

Woo Commerce - this is a plugin that works on Wordpress. The basic plugin is free and then you can buy extensions which increase the functionality of your shopping cart.

Amember - this is another popular shopping cart and is particularly good for membership sites and for protecting your products download links. Amember can be integrated into Wordpress but is not plugin. The benefit of this is that it cannot be hacked into as easily as a Wordpress can be. It runs independently and ensures that you won't lose your files if anything does happen to your site.  The downside is that it is not free, but is a good choice if you want to present an easy to use download experience for your customers.

Shopify - is easy to use and to set up. Again it does come with fees attached to it.

Your web hosting company may also have shopping carts that you can use to sell your info products from. Just research what is available and try to choose a solution that provides you with lots of room for growth. 

10 Offline Tightwad Marketing Strategies to Help You Get More Clients

Several years ago, in response to client requests for no-cost or low-cost marketing techniques, I coined the term "tightwad marketing".  My definition of tightwad marketing is the art of doing more with less, or using your creativity instead of your checkbook to get the word out about your business.

Even though the saying, “If you build it they will come” worked for Kevin Costner’s character in the movie, “Field of Dreams”, life doesn't often imitate art. Usually the first thing that pops into someone’s mind when they think about marketing is, “I've got to place an ad.” Place a few ads and soon your marketing budget has totally dried up. Statistics say that someone must see your ad six times in the same publication before thinking of using your business. If it’s a weekly or monthly publication, that could be six weeks to six months down the road, and you can't afford to wait that long!

In order for the public to find your field of dreams, here are ten inexpensive ways to get started:

1. Define your USP--­your Unique Selling Proposition--­and use it in everything that you do.  Make sure your customer knows what it is that you do that is unique to you and your business.  Don't make them struggle to answer the question of why they should do business with you instead of your competitor.

2. Create joint ventures with other businesses that complement yours.  For example, if you’re a real estate agent, team up with a cleaning service, an interior decorator, and a personal chef to offer a nice packaged deal to a new home buyer.

3. Stress the benefits of what you do, not the product or service.  There’s a great story that’s passed around about the world’s most successful insurance salesman, who, when asked what he did for a living, responded, “I buy life assurance.”  Most people responded, “What do you mean?” to which he replied, “I buy life assurance for my clients at the best possible price.  Would you like me to buy some for you?”   Make your potential customer think, “I've got to get that!”

4.  Become newsworthy!  Send out media releases to announce a new service or product or sponsorship of a charity event.  Create an event or a special day.  Link what you do to an existing trend or news event.  Talk about your personal story in the business, i.e. if you went broke and bounded back, started to create one product and ended up with another, etc.  Issue an award or give something away.  Conduct a survey and report the results.  Write a letter to the editor.

5.  Talk to your customers.  Call 5 previous customers and find out what they liked and didn't like about their dealings with you, and how you might better serve them in the future. Have them write testimonials that you can use.  Ask and reward them for referrals.

6.  Love what you do and become a model of what you’re selling. If you don't absolutely love what you do and feel passionate about it, your customers are going to see right through you and not be convinced to buy what you are offering. For example, if you’re a car mechanic and your shop sits on a parking lot full of clunkers that don't run, why would anyone hire you to repair their car? Or, if you’re a landscaper and your lawn is full of weeds and crabgrass, who wants to hire you to beautify their yard? If you don't truly feel passionate about your business and become a living model of that business to everyone you meet, then find another business!

7.  Network, network, network!  Join organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce, professional groups, civic groups, etc. and any type of organization to which your target market might belong.  Attend community events like business open-houses or neighborhood picnics. Sales master Joe Girard lives by his “Law of 250”, which states that everyone knows about 250 people well enough to invite to their wedding or to be in attendance at their funeral.  Lesson:  Perhaps the person you’re speaking with isn’t interested in what you offer, but there’s a good chance s/he knows someone who is­250 of them!

8.  Use attention-getting devices -- make yourself visible.  Always have business cards on hand to distribute.  Have a t-shirt personalized with your business name and wear it when you run errands.  Wear an outfit or uniform that shows the world who you are.  UPS has taken their identity as seen in their brown trucks and uniforms and embraced it with the tag line in their current commercials, "What can brown do for you?"

9. Talk and teach.  Approach local organizations about being a guest speaker at their next meeting.  Give a workshop that is open to public and is low-cost/no-cost for participants and discuss a particular aspect of your business, or demonstrate what you do.  Offer them valuable information, but leave them hungry for more.  For example, a financial planner might offer a free seminar called, “Planning for Retirement as a Thirty-something” or a bank loan officer might offer a workshop in conjunction with a real estate agency called, “Everything a First-Time Homebuyer Needs to Know But is Too Scared to Ask.”  Or, work with your local college or recreation department and get paid to teach what you know.

10.    Implement 5 a day.  Make a list of all the creative ways you can market your business, and implement 5 of them per day.

Remember, in Tightwad Marketing, you’re limited only by your imagination!

Using Advertising in Email Marketing

The subject of whether or not it is acceptable to use advertising in email marketing is hotly debated with some Internet marketers being strongly in favor of placing advertisements in email marketing while others are strongly against the use of advertisements in email marketing. Still others take a more neutral stance and are not either firmly for or against the use of advertising in email marketing. This article will take a look at both sides of the argument and allow the reader to formulate his own opinions on whether or not this subject is worthwhile.

There are some Internet marketers who are strongly in favor of the use of advertisements in emails distributed for marketing purposes. Those who favor the use of advertisements view the sale of advertising space on email marketing materials such as emails or e-newsletters as a way to generate profit from the email marketing itself. They also believe this tactic puts less pressure on the Internet marketer to meet the expectations of the members of the email distribution list because the emails are already generating a profit even if they do not entice the email recipients to make a purchase.

Those who are firmly against the use of advertising in email marketing feel as though this makes the advertisements seem more like spam and less like marketing materials or useful information. Those on this side of the fence feel as though any advertisement in an email marketing campaign should be subtle advertising for the products and services offered by the distributor of the email and not advertisements for businesses who have paid for an advertising spot on the email. They believe the original emails are acceptable but additions to them are spam.

Still others are someone in between on the debate regarding whether or not advertising in email marketing is acceptable. In most cases these individuals believe it is acceptable for there to be advertising as long as it does not overshadow the original intent of the email. This middle of the road concept implies the Internet marketers are not firmly for or against the concept of placing advertisements on emails distributed fro marketing purposes.

The information in this article is rather vague by intention because it leaves more of an opportunity for the reader to form his own opinion. This is important because the subject is largely a matter of personal preference. Each reader must decide for himself whether or not he agrees with one side or the other or chooses to take a middle of the road stance. The opinions of readers of this article may be influenced by whether or not they are considered to be marketers or consumers.

This is significant because it can impact the preferences. For example consumers may be less likely to appreciate advertisements in emails intended for marketing purposes because they feel it distracts from the original products. However, marketers may be more apt to be accepting of advertising because they can understand the financial gain which is possible. When evaluating opinions about the use of advertising, it is important to note whether or not the individual offering the opinion is involved in advertising. It might be more worthwhile to seek out opinions from consumers only as they are more likely to share the beliefs of your potential customers.

Writing Benefit-Driven Web Copy – 4 Steps to More Sales

You've identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers?

Recently I wrote an article explaining how to identify the benefits you offer your customers (http://www.divinewrite.com/benefits.htm). That article challenged business owners and marketing managers to think in terms of benefits rather than features when writing their web copy.

What the article didn’t discuss was how to actually write the web copy once they had identified their benefits. That’s what this article is about. (It even gives you a couple of templates you can use to make your job a whole lot easier!)

As a website copywriter, many of the projects I undertake are completely new websites. The client has some general ideas about what they’d like to convey, but they need someone who can fine-tune their message, and create web copy (and a web structure) which engages their readers. As a result, over the years I’ve developed a process for doing this effectively. There are four main steps:

1) Identify benefits

2) Identify how you deliver these benefits

3) Prioritise your benefits

4) Write the content

Although this article touches on step 1, it’s mostly about steps 2, 3, and 4.

STEP 1 – IDENTIFY YOUR BENEFITS

Branding aside, most websites are about selling. Customers don’t want to know what you can do; they want to know what you can do for THEM. That means the first question you should ask is, “What benefits do I offer my customers?” This is usually the first step toward identifying the key message to be conveyed.

That’s not to say that your website shouldn’t describe your products and services. You just need to make sure it describes them in terms of benefits to your customer.

But benefits identification is outside the scope of this article. If you’d like to find out more about how to engage your customer with benefits, go to http://www.divinewrite.com/benefits.htm.

STEP 2 – IDENTIFY HOW YOU DELIVER THESE BENEFITS

Of course, you can’t just claim to deliver benefits and stop at that. You need to support that claim. On your website, you’re going to need to convince your audience that you actually do deliver these benefits. Anyone can say they deliver benefits, but few can say it persuasively.

From step 1 you’ll have a list of benefits. Now you need to think about how you deliver each benefit in that list. This is where you start talking about features – price, product highlights, distribution channel, competitor weaknesses, external factors, USPs, etc. It’s helpful if you draw up a table with one column for benefits and one for the features which deliver those benefits. (Click http://www.divinewrite.com/downloads/benefitsfeatures.doc to download an example Benefits-Features table – 20KB.)

You’ll probably find this process much easier than identifying benefits. In fact, you’ve probably got most of this information written down already… somewhere. If not, chances are you uncovered a good portion of it when you were brainstorming for benefits.

TIP: If you’re having trouble identifying supporting features, before filling out the table, try listing everything you can think of which relates to what you do and how you do it. Don’t worry about the order. Just braindump onto a piece of paper, a whiteboard, a Word document, anywhere… Don’t leave anything out, even if it seems unimportant. (You’d be surprised how important even the most insignificant details can become once you start assigning them to benefits.) If you start getting lost, think back to the question you’re trying to answer: How do you deliver your list of benefits to your customer? Once you’ve done your braindump, read through it and decide which specific benefit each feature delivers.

STEP 3 – PRIORITISE YOUR BENEFITS

Now that you’ve identified all the things you COULD say, it’s time to figure out what you SHOULD say and where you should say it. This is where your benefits-features table comes into play. Read through your list of benefits and prioritise them according to how compelling they will be to your reader.

The reason for this? Priority determines prominence. The most compelling benefits will need to be prominent on your site.

TIP: Be aware that your list may include some benefits which everyone in your business category could claim. In other words, they’re not just specific to your company, but apply to the type of service you offer. For example, if you sell a Content Management System (CMS) for website creation, you may list “Greater control for marketing managers” and “Less expense updating content” as benefits. Every CMS vendor could claim these benefits, so you’ll need to question their importance. Will they differentiate you from your competitors. Generic benefits can be useful if none of your competitors are using them, or if you feel you need to educate your market a bit before launching into company-specific benefits.

STEP 4 – WRITE YOUR CONTENT

So now you know what you’d like to say, it’s time to decide how to say it. This is about three things:

i) Subject – What is the subject of your site; features or benefits?

ii) Structure – How do you structure your site such that your customers will read your most compelling benefits?

iii) Words – What words should you use to best engage your audience (and the search engines)?

The remainder of this article is dedicated to Subject and Structure. For further discussion of Words, see http://www.divinewrite.com/webwriting.htm and http://www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm).

Subject

What is the subject of your site; features or benefits? The answer to this question lies in audience identification. If your audience knows a bit about the type of product or service you’re selling, lead with features (e.g. processor speed, turnaround time, uptime, expertise, educational qualifications, wide product range, etc.). But make sure you talk about their benefits, and make sure the features offering the most important benefits are the most prominent.

Here’s a simplified example…

“Cool Widgets offers:

-- Standard Operating Environment – Significantly reducing the complexity of your IT infrastructure

-- System upgrades which are less expensive to license – Providing excellent TCO reductions”

In cases where you’re selling to an audience who knows very little about your product or service, lead with benefits (e.g. if you’re selling something technical to a non-technical audience).

Here’s the same simplified example, reversed for a novice audience…

“Cool Widgets offers:

-- Reduced complexity of IT infrastructure – We can implement a Standard Operating Environment for your organisation

-- Reduced TCO – We can upgrade your IT to systems which are less expensive to license”

Structure

How do you structure your site such that your customers will be sure to read your most compelling benefits? The answer is, keep it short ‘n sweet. And make it scannable. This doesn’t mean you have to cut features or benefits. You just have to structure your site to accommodate your message.

While every site is different, as a rule of thumb it’s a good idea to introduce your main features and benefits on your home page. Summarise them – preferably using bullet points, but at the very least, clearly highlight them so that your audience can scan-read (e.g. bold, underline, colour, link).

Then link from each summarised feature or benefit to a detailed description. Try to keep each page to approximately 200-400 words. You may need several pages to detail all your features and benefits. (Click http://www.divinewrite.com/downloads/pagestructure.doc to download a page structure template – 29KB.)

TIP: In cases where you need to introduce features and benefits which are generic to your field (rather than specific to your offering), your home page is generally the best place to do it. From there, you can lead to a second page summarising the specific features and benefits of your offering.

Conclusion

Web copy is about far more than just clever words. It’s essential that you identify the benefits you offer your customer, and that you can convince your customer you actually deliver those benefits.

I hope that the guidance and tools provided in this article will help you on your way to engaging web copy which converts to sales.

Happy writing!

www.harrisonkenyon.com

Creating Email Lists for Marketing Campaigns

If you plan to do some Internet marketing to promote your business endeavors, you should seriously consider email marketing as at least one tier of your Internet marketing campaign. Many business owners shy away from email marketing because they believe all email marketing campaigns are purely spam. However, this is not true and not partaking in this type of marketing can cause your business to lose out on a great deal of business. By not appealing to potential customers via email, your business may lose a great deal of business to competitors who are using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world. However, the first step of an email marketing campaign should be creating an email distribution list. This article will discuss some popular options for doing this and should help to the reader to learn more about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to email marketing.

Once you have made the decision to start using email marketing to promote your business you are likely facing the dilemma of compiling an email distribution list. This is essentially a list of email addresses to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials. One common way to gain a list of email addresses is to purchase a list from distributors. However, this method is not very effective at all and we do not recommend it. The problem with purchasing an email list if you have no way of knowing whether or not the members of the list would have any interest at all in your products or services. This is very important because while you want to reach a large audience with your email marketing you also want this audience to be members of your overall target audience.

When you purchase an email list you may be sending your email messages to some users who might be interested but this is largely coincidental and is not likely to be well received because the message was not solicited. Internet users are very quick to delete materials they believe to be spam without even opening or reading the emails. In fact some Internet service providers include spam filters which may automatically delete your emails if your messages are deemed to be spam. These filters run complex algorithms on the subject heading and content of the message to determine whether or not it is spam and are quite adept at weeding out spam. Therefore you run the risk of having your email marketing effort turn out to be a complete waste if the majority of recipients never even read or receive the message.  

A far better way to create an email distribution list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested potential customers to register with your website to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services as well as other information which might be of interest to them. This provides you with a database of email addresses from current customers as well as potential customers who have a genuine interest in your products and services and who are interested in learning more about these products and services.  

Once you have a list of interested customers or potential customers you can send emails or create e-newsletter for distribution to the members of your email list. These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services. This information will be valued by the readers and may help to persuade them to try your products and services. You might also want to include useful links to either your website as well as other websites which may be of interest to your readers. Your content should also contain a portion which urges the reader to take a specific action such as making a purchase or at least investigating a product further.

If you want to learn how to market your business like a digital professional visit www.harrisonkenyon.com for more informatonhttp://www.harrisonkenyon.com

Developing a System for Keyword Research in 3 Easy Steps

It is well worth your time and effort to develop a winning system for keyword research. One popular system that is used by many to narrow down and refine keyword research is a three step system that involves using various online tools to assist in the process. The three step process may seem complicated at first glance but is rather ingenious when it comes to developing profitable keywords within a narrowly defined niche.

  Step 1 Use the Google Keyword Sandbox to generate keywords.

  Step 2 Enter those keywords into the SEO Book Tool for search engine marketing in order to learn how many people are searching for those keywords.

  Step 3 Search for the keywords you are considering on Google. This will give you the opportunity not only to see how many sites you will be competing against but also the chance to take a look at what the competition is offering their visitors, the products they are promoting, and whether or not you believe you can do better.

 The overall goal, of course, is to have keywords that are often searched but offer less competition. This is the key to converting your traffic into sales and the goal of most Internet marketers. There are simpler methods for achieving the same goal but most of those cost money.

As far as utilizing free methods, this three step process is the best one available at the moment and easy to use once you get the hang of it. Even if this strategy isn't one that you are interested in implementing for your business plan you need to develop some strategy that works for you. Failing to do so will leave you without a reliable method for testing keywords, tracking the results, and discovering whether or not some keywords are performing better than others.

It will also cost you a great deal of time focusing on campaigns that offer too much competition or are receiving too few searches. Either possibility results in fewer sales and far less profit. Even after you've made the effort to find the keywords that seem perfect you need to measure your efforts carefully in order to determine which keywords are actually converting into sales. Once you find out which keywords are most profitable you can launch more campaigns that drive traffic searching for those keywords to your website(s).

 You will learn over time that those who are searching for specific keywords are more likely to convert into actual sales than those that type in others. It's important to learn to identify the buyers from the casual surfers or information seekers and learn to tailor your marketing campaigns to attract those vitally important buyers. This is something that will come in time and by paying close attention to where your keywords are leading your visitors and which keywords are taking them there. Putting the three steps mentioned above to work for you while performing keyword research is a great start.


You can take the first step to learning how to market your business like a professional digital marketer, imagine the money you save and the sales you will make when you get your business in front of all the right people from the comfort of your own desk and in your control.

Do not hesitate visit Harrison Kenyon Marketing now for more details.

 wwww.harrisonkenyon.com