Similar to when the popular kids in high school got to choose their team members in gym class, Google Blogsearch leaves the weaklings and so-called losers behind. If your blog isn’t popular, it won’t be part of the elite blog group that is ranked by Google. In other words, your blog won’t be on page one of Google Blogsearch. It will be on page 570—or worse.

If you want to rank high on Google Blogsearch, it’s time to start playing Google’s game. It’s all about popularity when it comes to ranking high, and there are a lot of factors that determine your degree of popularity. But, how does one become so admired? You must prove to Google that your blog is high quality.

• Approach popular, like-minded bloggers, and ask if you could be a guest blogger: Google looks highly upon blogs mentioned on other blogs because it illustrates that your blog provides intellectual material that ignites curiosity and discussion in the online community. Aside from other blogs, if Google finds your blog’s URL on emails, chats, and social bookmarking sites, Google considers this a positive indicator that your blog is high quality.

• Attach the RSS feed widget to your blog: RSS feed stands for Really Simple Syndication, which is a file containing a brief amount of information—a headline and synopsis—and a link to the full content on the blog. Voluntary subscribers to specific blog RSS feed will receive this information through their RSS readers. Google can detect if your blog is high quality based on how many people subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed. In addition, Google can detect how many people visit your blog from their RSS readers and how many times they click through your blog. And, don’t try to trick Google by subscribing to your own blog numerous times. Google’s mind readers have already devised a way to detect this type of blog fraud!

Are you concerned about how customers perceive your brand image online? Perhaps your website currently isn’t a strong branding tool for you. If not, it should be.

Many businesses find that their message isn’t clear, effective, and targeted to their correct market. It can be extremely difficult for businesses to project an accurate message, encompassing a combination of their company’s products, beliefs, mission, and goals. The message is a mixture of several key elements, including effectively placing keywords to increase SEO, which makes the task of projecting company image quite precise and complicated.

Crafting your brand image online is an extremely important client attraction tool. With a result-driven business message, your targeted website visitors will understand the language and tone of the web copy, and the client will feel a stronger connection to your brand. Once this bond is established, the customers will be more inclined to take action and purchase from you.

The customer wants to feel compatible with all your company stands for. For example, if your brand image is high-end, a high-end client will be attracted and comfortable with this image and, in turn, will want to buy from you.

Since fashioning a company message online is both complex and important, it would be highly beneficial for your company to hire a professional copywriter.

A professional copywriter:
· Interviews the company to pull out key elements vital to the business message.
· Recognizes the company image and puts this image into the written word—the message.
· Creates well-crafted copy that speaks the language of the target market.
· Strategically places keywords to increase SEO.
· Facilitates a connection between the brand image and the client through the use of a creative tone in the copy.

If you’re uncomfortable with the message you’re sending potential customers online, it’s time to change this message and solidify a strong brand image.

Designing a company website requires some compromising. It involves the perfect balance between visually appealing and functional elements. It’s important that one element doesn’t dominate the other. This is where many companies go wrong.

Many times company websites are polluted with too much flash, pointless graphics, and unnecessary copy. The combination of these elements is a major risk factor for decreasing website SEO.

In order to ensure your website ranks #1 in search engines, you must adhere to some kind of compromise. Make sure your entire website isn’t in flash. Many people might think flash is more appealing—and it is at times—but it greatly reduces your SEO if overused. Flash limits the amount of copy you can have on your page. Great copy is your best chance at ranking #1 in search engines and should never be substituted for unnecessary elements.

Result-driven copy . . .
· Increases SEO with effective keywords placed throughout. It’s important that these keywords add to the message and mission of your company.
· Converts leads into sales and motivates visitors to take action on your website.
· Increases site traffic.
· Targets your company’s specific market and keeps them on your website.
· Works to reinforce your brand image. Compressed, informative, and concise web copy is easy to read, gets to the point, and expresses your brand image in merely a few sentences without compromising important details.

It’s important to hire a web designer and web copywriter who work toward expressing your brand image online. An excellent web designer will ensure your site is attractive and functional, while an effective web copywriter will guarantee your company message comes across accurately and thoroughly.

The functionality and visual elements of your website may require a slight compromise, but you shouldn’t compromise on a web copywriter and web designer who don’t understand your needs and message. Grow your business. Grow to success. Hire the right copywriter and web designer.

The main goal of your company’s website is to get your target client to take action. If your navigation is confusing, they won’t take action because they won’t know how to.

Caution: This is where many businesses lose their customers. Easy navigation is crucial. Eliminating any ambiguity about where to look for information within a site is important.

Web copy works with design to help promote navigation through the site. Your website should encourage visitors to click on certain links, such as contact information, newsletter subscription, and the company’s blog. It’s important to have well-written web copy to motivate viewers to further investigate your site.

The four main things to remember about navigation: Make it simple. Make it fast. Make it clear. Make it work.

In a nutshell, your customers shouldn’t have to make too many decisions on your website. Too many websites have extra links they don’t need. If you give too many choices, you overwhelm the visitor, and they get frustrated and click out of your site.

People who visit your site are busy and can become impatient if they have to search your entire site to find what they need. Chances are, they won’t stick around to do that. Visitors want to get to what they need quickly and easily. If you make it too difficult, they’re gone, and they’ll buy from your competition. The more copy and graphics you throw at them, the more confused they’ll be, and then you’ve lost them. Your site needs to have strong focus.

A year ago, many businesses could safely assume what worked for one successful business worked for all. This is not the case today.

Business practices and marketing strategies, which made a company successful last year, aren’t the same ones companies should implement today. It’s important to understand the pros and cons of this economic downturn and change the way you do business. It’s about marketing your company in a unique fashion and flipping past practices upside down.

The businesses succeeding during this time . . .

• Don’t simply follow trends—they’re ahead of the trends.
• Think outside the box.
• Educate themselves on the economy as a whole and in niche areas, not necessarily related to their industry.
• Analyze what other successful businesses are doing and put a unique spin on it.
• Acknowledge the negative aspects of this economy but do not dwell on them.
• Go the extra mile to discover what their competition isn’t doing.

Don’t let this recession frighten you into hiding. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get on top. Use your mind as your main tool and resource for creating a successful business during this time. This will help you exercise your creativity for the future benefits of your business.

Change the way you do business today, and succeed in this troubled economy. You won’t regret it.

The following article and excercise was taken (with permission) from Envision Lifeworks LLC, From Purpose to Profit Ezine, Issue 5 dated 1/22/09.

MINDSET WARMUP #2: U-TURN YOUR LIMITING BELIEFS

Find a time and place where you can quietly take 15 minutes to think and reflect. This exercise starts by stirring up some of the gunk that clogs your ability to thrive - your limiting beliefs.

Start by thinking of five beliefs that you live with that really hold you back. You can expand the number later, but five will help you get the idea. For example, as a Conscious Entrepreneur, you may sometimes find yourself yielding to limiting beliefs like:

·         “I have to work harder than I do now to increase my prosperity.”

·         “I can’t succeed because of this bad economy.”

·         “Clients will never pay me the fees that more successful providers command.”

·         “Who am I to be creating this business? People are going to see right through me and think I’m a fake.”

Can you remember having these or other beliefs with a similar tone of negativity? Don’t be hard on yourself if you have. You’re in good company! Even the most successful entrepreneurs combat the occasional encroachment of disempowering beliefs. But that said, don’t stay there. Your success will grow if you go on to the next steps below.
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Now we are going to turn this around. This year, and forever more, you are going to increasingly empower yourself by getting into the habit of doing two things.

1. Becoming actively aware of when you are yielding to beliefs that do not empower you. Awareness in itself is a big step forward, signaling that you are ready to grow beyond negative beliefs and into wonderful new territory.
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2. U-Turning the disempowering belief. You will do this by identifying an opposite, empowering belief that you will choose to enjoy in place of its negative opposite. Then, when you become aware of the negative belief trying to creep in, you will actively choose to think the positive replacement instead.

Here is how you might U-Turn the negative examples above:

Disempowering Belief: I have to work harder than I do now to increase my prosperity. U-Turn with Empowering Belief: Prosperity comes with ease when I yield to Spirit’s plan for my life.

Disempowering Belief: I can’t succeed because of this bad economy. Empowering Belief: Many entrepreneurs are thriving right now. I have chosen to grow and succeed along with them.

Disempowering Belief: Clients will never pay me the fees that more successful providers command. Empowering Belief: I provide great value to my clients and help improve their lives, and for that I deserve to be well-compensated.

Disempowering Belief: Who am I to be creating this business? People are going to see right through me and think I’m a fake. Empowering Belief:In building this business, I am being my most authentic self and using my genuine talents to succeed.

I know some will smirk and dismiss this approach as Pollyannaish or just a gimmick for “tricking” yourself into avoiding reality. I am not asking you to put on rose-colored glasses or deny physical realities like gravity and sunshine.

But your thoughts and your beliefs are a different matter. You have a choice. You have free will.

What I am suggesting is that you exercise this choice and take complete responsibility for your thoughts and beliefs.

We all go through life endowing our strongly-held beliefs with the sacred status of “the truth,” whether these “truths” serve us or not. But know this: beliefs that are founded on negative drivers, like fear and doubt, are just your ego’s attempt to protect you. Yes, your ego means well, but it will often do this by keeping you small with “truths” that prevent you playing big and making positive changes.

In choosing to U-Turn your limiting beliefs, you are exercising veto power over your ego and choosing to be and play bigger in life.

Each time you do this, you are choosing to grow and become stronger.

So try it!

Practice becoming aware of beliefs that don’t serve you, beliefs that just bring you down. Give yourself credit even if at first you get just that far. Then, practice taking a fast and sharp U-Turn on that stinkin’ thinkin’.  Peel some rubber as you turn your thoughts around to positive beliefs of your choosing. Then hit the pedal to the metal down the road of success and prosperity!

About the author:  Julio Blanco is a certified coach, veteran marketer, and conscious entrepreneur. As owner of Envision Lifeworks LLC, he champions other conscious entrepreneurs to align their business with their purpose and to achieve the abundance they desire on their own terms. He is the author of the from PURPOSE to PROFIT Ezine and serves clients through individual and group coaching, seminars, and public speaking. For more information, please visit www.EnvisionLifeworks.com.

Step 3 in atracting all the clients you want is…Understaing What Makes Your Company Unique. (Click here to read step 1 and step 2)

With so many companies offering similar services or products as you do, how do you stand out from the crowd? Once you identify your target market and know the benefit your company brings to them, then you need to show why potential clients should buy from you.

In order to do this, you need a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), a short statement explaining how your company or product differs from those of your competitors. Your USP informs prospective and current clients why your product or service is the best option.

Many businesses fail to establish a USP, just as they fail to pinpoint their target market. You must communicate a specific, compelling reason for customers to buy from you. Show them ways your company is different. Do you do something that goes over and beyond what your competitors do? Do you do things differently? Now, sit down and make a list of what makes your company unique.

While you’re making your list, brainstorm ways you can add more value to the product or service. For example, if you are a web designer, perhaps you could offer a free, 30-minute follow-up call to answer any questions customers have or to help brainstorm ways they can draw more site traffic. Offer this a month after the completion of the project. If you own a real estate firm, perhaps you could drive your clients around in a comfortable vehicle and offer snacks and drinks along the way.

Don’t forget to research the competition. Unless you know what else is out there, you cannot properly evaluate or showcase a USP.

Study the competition’s website and marketing materials, noting each company’s history and mission, product features and benefits, and target market. Why do customers buy from them and what does the market want that they do not or cannot provide? Note gaps in their product or service offerings. If you have difficulty clarifying benefits, list the features and why a prospect requires or desires them. Those reasons are benefits.

Your marketing copy has the power to bring you new customers and retain current ones. It connects you with your clients. Entices them to buy. Drives them to call you. Copy makes or breaks the sale.

Now is the time to revamp your marketing materials. It’s a must if you want to survive the economic crunch.

Step #1 was to reach your target market (if you haven’t read it, please click here)

Step 2: List the Features and the Benefits

Once you have clearly defined your target market, it’s important to identify how your product or service will benefit this group. And how you do this is to create a detailed list of features and benefits.

Your ideal customer want to know what’s in it for THEM. They don’t care about your process; they don’t care how long you’ve been doing what you’re doing. They care about how your service or product will make their lives better. Again, they want to know what’s in it for them.

Many companies make the mistake of telling the customer that they need a particular software or they need a spa package. This isn’t going to sell your software or your spa packages. People don’t buy based on what they need. They buy something because they want to. They buy based on emotion, then logically justify why they bought it. And the bottom line is people really need very little. They need the basics—food, shelter, water, love, oxygen. So if you are selling your book based on the idea that your target audience needs to buy your book—well, let’s face it, no one is going to die because they didn’t buy the book.

If you want people to purchase from you, then you need to give them what they want. How you do this is to entice them with the benefits. The benefits are the results they will get when they hire you as a coach or when they purchase your bath product. Will it save them more money or time, cost them less, or reduce their stress? 

Take out a sheet of paper for each service or product you sell. Make a list of the features of the product or service, and on the opposite side of the paper, list the benefits. I suggest creating bulleted lists and posting them in front of your computer when you begin writing your marketing copy. This will help you focus when creating a compelling marketing message.

• Have you considered reworking your marketing message to better reach and speak to your target audience?
• When was the last time you updated your website copy?
• Revised your services brochure?
• Revisited the email sales letters you regularly send?

If the answer is “It’s been a while” or “I don’t know,” then it’s time to give your marketing copy a makeover.

With the economic downturn, it’s important—now more than ever—to take a look at how you can improve your marketing message.

Why?

Your marketing copy has the power to bring you new customers and retain current ones. It connects you with your clients. Entices them to buy. Drives them to call you. Copy makes or breaks the sale.

Many companies are unaware their marketing message is driving customers away—both new and repeat business. If your current website copy or marketing materials aren’t bringing you the profits or the clients you want, the good news is that a change in your copy can drastically increase sales.

Step 1: Know Your Target Market

Before you write a word of marketing copy, you need to understand who will be buying from you. Knowing and understanding your target market is crucial for any company—from the one-person shop to the large corporation. Why? It’s simple. You can’t market effectively if you don’t know whom you are speaking to.

The key is to narrow down your target and get as specific as you can. There’s a big difference between the following:
a) My target audience is new mothers who want a career change; and
b) My target audience is new mothers in their late 30s who are interested in leaving their corporate jobs and starting their own businesses. They are married, most have master-level degrees, enjoy an active lifestyle, and are members of a gym.

Take this a step further and make a list of where your target market likes to shop and dine, what they do to relax, where they go for their information, what magazines they read on a regular basis. The more specific you get, the easier it will be to write marketing copy that will speak to and attract your target market. 

Stay tuned for Step #2 in the next blog post. If you can’t wait, check out www.webcopywritingqueen.com

Reaching your target market online ensures a steady flow of clients from different online sources. Making your business visible in numerous areas on the web increases the number of potential clients who will look at your site. This can eventually increase sales, skyrocket site traffic, and boost your conversion rates.  

Here are some ways to bring in targeted traffic to your website:

·       Posting online articles on directories, forums, and social bookmarking sites is a great way to present your business to your specific targeted market. These sites have categories where articles can be posted, allowing viewers to immediately click on categories related to their specific interests. For example, if you offer skin care services and write an article on revolutionized products, you would place it under its associated category and viewers interested in this category would be viewing your article. Right there, you’ve reached your target market.

·       Research the richest keywords for your website. For example, if you own a high-end day spa, it’s important to anticipate the most popular words your target market is using on search engines. This will allow you to increase your SEO (search engine optimization) and reach out to clients with a specific interest in your company and its offerings.

·       Comment on blogs and forums that relate to your industry. These comments can be chock-full of tips and information about your industry, while expressing your opinion in the blog or forum conversation. Know what kinds of blogs and forums would interest your target market and make frequent appearances on them to show you are interested in comments, news, and updates related to your area of work.