Coaching For Success
Encouraging Call-To-Action In Your Business Website
Sep 2nd
These are examples of the most commonly used colours for 'Call to Action' buttons
Internet business marketing is an effective but time consuming technique for online business promotion. Constant monitoring and improvement is required in your online promotional campaigns in order to ensure maximisation of your efforts and naturally you want to have a good return on your efforts and investments.
This can sometimes be easier said than done, however it is possible to achieve if you are able to convince your target audience to take some positive action following your ad campaign in Google, landing page promotion, or web squeeze promotion tactics on your main site. Today’s post discusses the importance of a ‘Call-to-Action’ function in your website to help you get results from your internet traffic.
Call-to-Action on your website
A good internet business website should have a clear objective and strategy for attracting prospective customers. All of the content should definitively be written and promoted with the intent of bringing customers to an end goal on your website.
Consider this, if you have spend time or money (in most case both) to obtain traffic and if you are able to drive traffic to your website, then you must want those visitors to take some action which not only will benefit them but you also.
It is amazing how such a small point can become such a major problem to many internet business online, who simple forget that a website in itself does not bring sales, nor does all the traffic generation in the world. Instead it is that definitive, quietly understated, subliminal call to action message embedded on your site that turns a website into an internet business website that does real business sales.
The action does not have to be drastic or flashy, it can be simply subscribing to your website, signing up, purchase via a button or it can just be the wording of your webcopy, in any case these things need to be your irrestible voice to a potential client. Your call to action should woo your potential customers by appealling to their personality, pain/ problem.
It should not be sales patter or business speak necessarily as many people find that off putting, but if it can get them identifying with your product or services as well as feeling an overwhelming need to take some action then you know you have done a good job.
Call to actions should always have a proper function for both your own business and that of your end purchaser, it is therefore important that each individual page of your site have a clear call to action function set out from the beginning.
How to approach call to action in content development
You should always atempt to boost any advertising you do with supporting content call to actions, even if you do not use ads you should ensure your web copy for each page uses them. This is a key mistake many companies make and it cost them dearly in lost revuenue.
Your homepage should be optimised to a single set of call to actions, do not try to have call to actions for lots of different products or services as this will only serve to negatively impact your efforts. Once you have decided what these are you need to write your webcopy from the perspective of your typical customer.
Do not assume anything in the copy, do not do a sales pitch allow the copy to be a thread with a sharp concise opening to capture attention and then unfold. Each paragraph should make a call to action statement toward the end goal and the final paragraph should be where you make your invisible close – call to action.
The keywords which a user will look for must be incorporated throughout the content on the page. Basic rules for Search Engine Optimisation should be used. If you have not researched your keywords properly then try Google’s keyword tool to help you.
You should also structure the information given on the website by strategically using navigation links from your homepage to redirect visitors to the page which is relevant to them. This redirect is indirectly a call to action as it is making your visitor get involved with your site by compelling them to click the link to get the right information. A call to action really only works if the potential customer is interacting with your internet business site and each page should have an objective which prompts users for further action.
Search engine techniques for Call-to-Action
An ‘action’ can be generated right from when a potential customer clicks a url and follows your webpage from a search engine result. The ‘description tag’ which describes your page in search engine results can be used to encourage click-throughs by using popular keywords in the description.
You can also put your special offers and unique selling proposition (USP) in your site page description tag which can be used to prompt potential customers to go for instant subscription or purchases that you may have discounted for example. If you use WordPress for your site this can also be done by using the excerpt displayed on the category pages.
Promotional tools and call-to-action
If you are doing article marketing you can get targeted traffic visits for your website. You can use a compelling call to action that directly relates to the individual article you have posted. The other option is to link to an internal (specific) page on your website that the reader would be most interested in related to the article (use a backlink) once back at your site on the specific page a full blown call to action can ensue on that landing page.
Call-to-Action in ‘Newsletters’ or ‘Email’ refers to the response which you wring from your potential target audience. Their response can be in the form of feedback, an RSVP to any event or similar actions. The content in the message must explicitly mention what action you expect them to take i.e. ‘click here for your FREE report’.
As you can see from the above tips call to action’s are very important and should be an integral part of your internet business strategy. Online promotions follow a pull strategy by attracting customers to your products and inducing their desire to make a purchase. Desire is no good if it is not converted into action. A ‘Call-to-Action’ function is an explicit way of converting the desire of customers into final action and hence achieving the ultimate objective of generating sales for your internet business.
The Magic Of An Internet Business Coach
Sep 1st
Have you ever had a situation in which you felt yourself floundering and with no idea where to turn or what to do? Have you had problems at school and felt that if you could just get some help or advice you could overcome those seemingly insurmountable hurdles facing you? Have you been on a sports team that’s struggling and can’t seem to find a way to win no matter how hard they try?
If any of this sounds familiar, and your current struggles relate to trying to make your business successful online, then please read on.
The Magic Word
In most cases, the above problems can only be addressed and overcome through the magic of coaching. Let’s face it, nearly everything any of us does in our day-to-day lives we learned from a coach – initially our parents (who taught you your first words? how about right from wrong?, etc.), who taught us our initial life skills, but then the circle of influence is expanded to include teachers, tutors, professors, managers, etc.
It’s vital to get the coaching and training needed to succeed in any endeavour, but this applies especially to business. It’s a sad fact, but most businesses fail within the first 5 years of their existence. And, on the internet, the rate of attrition is even greater, so it’s even more important to get the help you need from a good internet business coach as soon as possible.
But, what qualifies an internet business coach as a “good” one?
Qualities Of A Good Internet Business Coach
There are many people and companies out there offering advice and assistance as so-called business coaches, but most of these are trying to foist their own agenda on you and are mainly interested in their bottom line, rather than yours. Don’t get me wrong – that’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of top notch internet coaches out there, but weeding out the good from the bad is a project in and of itself.
So, let’s look at the qualities that qualify somebody as a good internet business coach to help you reduce the amount of time you need to invest in finding one.
1. Customer Comes First
If you interview a coach and they only speak to you in technical terms, using internet marketing terminology (search engine optimisation, blogging, pay-per-click, video marketing, article marketing, etc.), and assuring you they’ll generate “x” number of leads for you, you should run the other way as fast as you can! Unless you’re very familiar with internet marketing and its terminology, all they’ll do is leave you confused, with more questions than you had initially and wondering if getting your business online is really such a good thing.
What a good business coach should do is not speak to you in processes but in results, detailing the value they can bring to you and your business in a value proposition that speaks to you in your language.
2. Results Not Processes
A good internet business coach should do a thorough analysis of your business and its current situation, both offline and, if applicable, online, interviewing you as to what you want from your business and where you’d like it to be. They should be able to come back to you with a set of recommendations and a clearly defined strategy that tells you exactly what you want and need to know, not what they want you to know.
What you need to know is the number of visitors you can expect to your site, how many of those will become leads, how many leads will become customers, the dollar value of a customer, and their value to your business over an extended period of time, along with their lifetime value, etc.
If you can see you’re going to get a positive return on your investment based on real, not imagined, statistics, then you’ll no doubt perceive that as a great value proposition and one that shows this coach has your bottom line in mind, and not theirs.
3. Readily Available
Your coach should also be your guide, your mentor and your partner with a vested interest in helping you achieve the kind of success you want and deserve. To that end, your coach should be readily available at all times to provide you with help and be able to offer solutions to your problems as you travel along your internet marketing journey together.
You should find out up front how accessible your potential coach will be so you’re not disappointed once your project gets underway. Any contract you enter into with a business coach should specify their availability for you and your business, and should be a condition of the viability of that contract.
In any endeavour, a great coach can make the difference between success and failure. Finding the right coach is vital, since your coach will be your partner and will have a vested interest in helping you succeed, because your success is their success. Armed with the above knowledge, you’ll be well on your way to selecting the perfect internet business coach for you and your business, so get your coach on your side and get ready to see your online business explode.
How Does Internet Marketing Work?
Aug 31st
Internet marketing is a relatively new concept, which leaves many people scratching their heads as to just what exactly it is. And even those familiar with the term may not be aware of what’s involved and how it works. So, let’s see if we can shed some light onto something that’s become indispensible if you’re a business owner and want to get your business noticed on the internet.
The Basics
Boiled down to its bare essence, internet marketing is basically all about getting visitors (or traffic) to your web site, and, once they’re there, to generate enough interest for them to want to return to your site, or, better still, take some kind of positive action that results in a relationship being established between themselves and the web site, or business.
But, how exactly do you get to the point where you’re getting sufficient visitors who take the action you would like them to take? The devil is in the details as far as internet marketing is concerned, so let’s take a high-level view of the details to see what’s involved.
Internet Marketing Methodology
There are several internet marketing methodologies that can be followed, some of which can be applied simultaneously, but all of which share the common goals of driving traffic to your web site and converting that traffic into customers. These methodologies are:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Web Analytics
- SEO Web Design
- Online Branding
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation, or SEO as it’s commonly referred to, is the art of getting your web site set up so that it ranks well in the organic search results of the major search engines for specific keywords.
The first step of any good SEO campaign is to determine just who your target audience is and what they’re searching for. After all, if you don’t know who’s interested in what you have to offer, how are you ever going to get your web site in front of them? This involves using the right keywords strategically placed throughout your web site, with each page optimized for just one or two keywords.
Having selected your keywords, the next step is to create unique content based around those keywords. Bear in mind that search engines don’t rank web sites based on the site as a whole but based on the quality of unique content presented on individual pages.
The structure of your web site not only determines how easily your visitors can navigate around it, but also how easily search engines can find your site and index it. One thing you should definitely do is submit a sitemap, which represents an outline of your entire site.
Setting up a blog or forum on your site helps keep your content fresh, and, therefore, the search engines happy. It also helps establish your site as an authority in your particular field.
Finally, one of the most important factors in search engine optimisation is creating backlinks, or links from other authoritative sites back to your site. The number and quality of such links play a major part in the algorithms of all major search engines, and will reward your effort and attention.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Whereas the goal of search engine optimisation is to rank highly within organic search results for specific keywords at no cost, pay-per-click (PPC) involves paying for the placement of your site within the sponsored section of search engine results, while competing with other advertisers.
The difference between a visitor clicking on your site in the organic search engine results and clicking on your site in the sponsored results is that the former is free, whereas you pay for the latter, regardless of the outcome.
A combination of both SEO and PPC is recommended, but PPC should be approached initially with care and with a strict budget limit, since you’ll be charged for clicks in real time, so you must stay on top of your campaigns. PPC campaigns never sleep, and neither should you (well, maybe 40 winks here and there!)!
Web Analytics
Web analytics sounds a bit intimidating, but no need to panic – it’s not really that scary at all. It’s all about tracking all the activity connected with your web site, including traffic and user interaction, providing you with the ability to check the sources of traffic coming to your site and allowing you to improve your traffic generating strategies, including search engine optimisation, pay-per-click, etc.
As a result, you can tell which keywords are sending traffic to your site and which aren’t, and make adjustments accordingly. Analytics can also be used to set goals and track the results.
SEO Web Design
In the early days of the internet, you could almost throw together any old site and achieve a reasonable amount of success. Nowadays, not only have search engines become much more sophisticated, but so have users. As a result, much more care and attention needs to go into the design and construction of your web site to please both users and search engines.
- You must know who your target audience is and ensure your site is set up to cater to that audience
- Check the competition and what they’re doing and see if you can improve on it and/or offer something that makes you stand out
- Decide on an appropriate navigation strategy that will allow users to move freely and easily within your site, while ensuring the strategy also makes sense for the search engines (having a link that goes nowhere will bring the search engines to a screeching halt – not good!)
- Which technology will you use to build your site? HTML? Flash? Ajax? PHP?
- Create high quality, informative content that establishes your site as a subject matter expert
- Test the site thoroughly, checking for ease of navigation and that all links work correctly
Online Branding
Building your brand has become one of the most important aspects of building a successful business, both offline and online. As far as online brand building is concerned, internet advertising plays a huge role. Again, this begins with knowing your target audience and determining their needs and desires.
Once you know what your audience is and that they need what you have to offer, your aim then must be to get your company and its name and everything connected with it in front of that audience by every means at your disposal, including your signature, web site, blog, logo, newsletter, etc.
Though it’s a very difficult goal to achieve, branding is regarded as one of the most important marketing strategies since it can be the thing that separates you from your competition and can turn a visitor into a customer. Everything a user sees that’s connected with your company should carry a stamp of quality that the user associates with your name, and thus your brand, ensuring they’ll remember you and your company and will come back to you again and again.
Whichever methodology, or methodologies, you choose to implement, the ultimate goal, when all said and done, is to get visitors to your site and convert them to customers who will hopefully return time and again, since that will be the measure of the success of any internet marketing methodology.
Choose the methodology that’s right for you, and get started on your journey to online success via internet marketing.
Show The World Who You Are With Video Marketing
Aug 30th
Video marketing is now one of the quickest and fastest ways to let potential clients and customers know who you are and what your business is about. It is also very cheap to produce and easy to upload to the web and in most cases has virtually an immediate impact on your websites traffic.
Did you know that up to 75% of Internet users prefer watching videos online to reading articles? In other words, all they need to know about you and your business can be summed up in a video presentation that gives your internet business all the jump-start it needs to keep them coming back for more. People talk about video marketing as an effective means to conveying your marketing personality and brand.
Videos work better more often than text because more people tend to respond better to visual representations. If you think about ads on your TV even though you may go and make a cup of tea through them the fact is 65 – 80% of people have full recall of an ad. The reason for this is simple – people’s attention spans are short, so are the ads. Generally speaking a TV ad is 30 secs – thats all the time any advertiser has to make an impression and get people to recall their product or service, this is all the time they have to turn a potential customer into a paying customer.
You as an internet business owner should be thinking the same, your video marketing campaigns should be , short, sharp and to the point if you want it to be remembered. if you cannot say it in a minute then you need to rethink your ad. On the internet a video can make the difference between being good and being great, being visible and being invisible.
Some internet business owners have beautiful text based sites which bring in customers no problem, others have not so good looking web sites that have video which bring in even more customers this is because the video made the difference. Search engines love videos and generally videos show higher in search engine results and online, visibility is everything.
Statistics Clearly Show A Rise in Internet Video Viewing - Image Courtesy of eMarketer.com
If a picture can tell a thousand words! Imagine how much more a video marketing your product or service can do for you. You can have spoken content in your video conveying your product or service, there can be inviting music in the background to give listeners a mood lift, you can showing your expertise in your field to selling your brand and most importantly you can use footage of your clients’ experience savouring your products or services. All this with just a one minute video clip!
A site that is text based relies on visitor’s attention being caught by visual images or by reading the text, which is no problem if you can get them to stop long enough. Any good internet marketer or internet consultant will tell you you have approximately three to five seconds to make an impact on your site opening or people will leave.
Now most business owners believe that putting a video online is difficult or has to be some work of art but this is really not the case and should not hinder any small business from using video, I mean it’s no big deal to grab your camcorder and film scenes of your business’ day to day natural life. This creates a wonderful effect of being right there, where all the action is taking place, just by viewing a presentation video.
How do you publish the video? – Simple! – There are many huge sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Livestream and Google Video where your infomercial can really stand out. You can use theme to your advantage by publishing your videos on multiple platforms which is a common strategy, as it increases your exposure seven-fold so you become highly visible and not only that!
People are attracted to video it is natural for most people to be pulled by things that stimulate the senses, in the case of video marketing it is sight , sound, and mental perception. Video marketing can keep your customers informed and ensures potential customers see you in a better light.
Only you can make your internet business a marketing success, you need to add video marketing to your arsenal and get your company more visible to grab those clients. Are You Ready? Get set… GO and try it out!
6 Great Ways Get More Traffic To Your Internet Business Website
Aug 28th
Use These 6 Methods To Get Targeted Traffic
Getting traffic is always a difficult process for an Internet business especially if your new online or been around for a while but struggling. The constant reminder by many internet gurus and Internet marketing service companies that you must have a mailing list compounds this. So what do you do if you are newbies, have no mailing list or are not so new and simply struggling? This post gives you six great ways to get targeted traffic to website.
1. Submit your sites to directories and create links from high PR sites back to yours!
Submitting your site to directories is not as difficult as it may seem. The best way to go about it is to search for your keyword followed by directories, once you have a list of possible sites to help you get targeted traffic, get yourself listed on resource pages for your niche. Try to be creative about each entry, before submitting write out at least five different ways to describe your business inclusive of your main keywords in less than 160 characters.
Use a variety of links to point to your site do not just use the main page, link to your services and products as well, this helps promote all pages, it does take longer to get higher PR ranks but it will be worth it in the long run. Look at creative ways to get traffic by maybe posting links to services or selling your services through websites like eBay or Craigslist or giving valuable information to help get an entry in Wikipedia.
2. Social and Business Networking
Get your Internet business set up correctly on popular social and business networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace etc. Set up your profile so it is appealing to potential customers and for viral word of mouth; use images of products or services where you can in your profile. Try to be proactive on your networks post blog entries or tweet at the very least 3 – 4 times a week.
Look for people within your niche area to network with and with whom you can discuss current topics in your field and listen to feedback, which is useful to improve your offering. It is not difficult to grow your network, and people who are interested in your products and services will find you a lot easier.
3. Search Engine Marketing
Do some reading on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) use it to optimise your Internet business website to the fullest you can. If you really feel that SEO is all way above your head, you have not got the time or you are just not inclined to do it then go hire a good Internet marketing service or Internet consultant to help you get targeted traffic.
4. Article Marketing
Article marketing can really make a difference to how well your site does and how much targeted traffic you can generate. Good copy in itself is a great attracter of visitors. Sit down and write 3 – 4 good articles relating to your niche and also to the purpose of your website, write from your own experience do not try to be all fancy and over authoritative, natural articles with personality always win the day.
At the bottom of each article add a brief bio about yourself and add a link to your website at the end of the article. Once you have done that submit each of the 3 -4 articles to various article directories like ezine or articlebase and also as a guest poster to webmasters of other sites within your niche that rank well for your keywords.
5. Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo answers is a great way to get on the map, simply go to http://answers.yahoo.com and find questions related to your niche, then try to post sensible and legitimate answer to questions posted, you can include your internet business web link as the resource or reference your URL in your answer. This is a great way to show you are an expert in your niche and by contributing to the Yahoo Answers community you can interest potential customers about your products and services.
6. Forum Marketing
Last but not least do some forum marketing. Go to any search engine and type in your keyword+forum. If you have a property related site, for example, do a for the words property forum. Choose the top 3 forums in your niche and join them. Set up a profile and ensure you do a signature file, if these are allowed making sure you add your Internet business site URL or the URL to a product or service that that particular forum discusses.
Start by post an introduction and then constructively become active by posting sensible replies to at least one thread on each of the 3 forums, if you can give it the time try to do this once a day or at least 3 times a week. This will help you gain exposure, get targeted traffic and this will peak people’s interest in your website.
These 6 ways should help you to gain more targeted traffic and should be used in a cycle do not just use them once and then forget, these are rinse and repeat actions that if used properly can continue to drive traffic to your internet business website on a consistent bases allowing you to gain maximum exposure to any potential customers.
