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How do you know if your website is successful?

By Christian

I find it curious how some people choose to define success when it comes to web marketing. For example, I have one particular site in mind that many (if not most) traditional web marketers would define as a failure in many ways. It’s been up for over 4 years now, and I’ve never added any content to it. The bounce rate (people who hit the site and immediately leave) is high…over 60% last time I looked. After 4 years, it doesn’t rank very well for many keywords I would like. As if that’s not enough, traffic is low by many people’s standards. It gets fewer than 2,000 visitors per month.

Is my website a failure?

These are all metrics that most web marketers use for indicators of success, and by all counts this website pretty much sucks! But I consider it a success. Why? Because I spend no time on it and no money on it, yet it brings my team an average of $18k per month. How does that sound to you? I think that a pretty good return on investment, so I’m thinking I’ll leave this sucky website up for a little while longer 🙂

What metrics do YOU use to measure your site’s success?

What’s my point? Maybe all these metrics we use to measure “success” don’t mean nearly what we think they do. Maybe it doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, not if you’re converting at a high rate and earning a good return on your investment. Maybe it doesn’t matter whether you have 100 or 100,000 followers on Twitter. Maybe quality matters, not quantity. What do you think? Is it too simplistic to say this? I get lots of questions from clients that reveal their distress over things like not having more comments on their blog or not having as much traffic as they think they should have. First, we always have to address “why”? Why do you want these things in the first place? It’s crucial…

Therefore…

Are you working hard to build your follower count on Twitter? Why?

Are you spending a lot of time or money to get more traffic to your website? Why? If you’re not making a good return on the traffic you’re already getting, why do you think more traffic will help?

Let’s challenge ourselves to set worthwhile goals. Let’s go deeper than the superficial metrics we usually use. Numbers matter. They do, but context is everything. The number of people on your email list, for example, means nothing outside the context of your business plan. Do you have a written business plan? Does your business plan address your web marketing goals? Too many of us do not have these things in place, and without them, the traditional metrics we use to gauge success online don’t have any context.

I know marketers who did over $1M in business last year with a list of 500 or less. You can do it too. The tactics that will work for you are out there, but first you have to figure out your business. If you’re interested, fire me an email about my training solution called “Sales Funnel Mastery”. It addresses this exact thing for you. It gives you that context you need and puts everything into perspective for you, so you know exactly how to approach your business and get laser-targeted results.

Until we have that type of clarity in our business, none of the metrics we use to measure success mean anything.

How do I start showing up in Google?

By Christian

One of the questions I get most often from new bloggers is how to start ranking in Google for certain keywords. Fantastic! Step one is getting your site set up. Step two is where you begin the process of making things happen. Let’s talk a bit about SEO (search engine optimization), and if you have any questions, fire me an email or hit me up on Twitter. We’ll get you where you need to go.

Random doesn’t help

Importantly, it will benefit you greatly to be tactful in deciding what keywords you want to target. Most people don’t research keywords in advance, and it results in a lot of wasted effort. You can end up ranking for keywords that make sense but that don’t actually help your business.

Example: I just optimized a site for a client who is a real estate agent. Initially, she had wanted to rank for terms such as “real estate agent in lafayette indiana”. That makes sense, no? She’s an agent and wants to rank for that. Through research however, we ended up finding out that no one ever searches for the specific terms she had in mind. We could have easily gotten her site to rank well for those keywords, but who cares? She’d be #1 for a term that no one searches. It wouldn’t help her business at all to pursue those keywords.

So that’s the first big thing: do keyword research to ensure you’re targeting keywords that will bring you the type of traffic you’re looking for. Small little variations in a search term can have dramatically different results! For a video training session on keyword research, I recommend checking out this video I posted a while back. It has some great information on how to research what keywords you want to target.

How to execute

After you have keywords in place that you know are both relevant and helpful to your business, you can set out to rank for those keywords. It’s important to become familiar with SEO basics. One of the best articles I’ve read on basic search optimization for blogs is here.

This post is specifically for WordPress blogs, but the concepts are solid, and the basic principles are the same from one platform to the next. If you read this post, it will familiarize you with all you need to know to get started. I could rewrite the material here, but Glen did such a great job on his post that I pretty much consider it the best place to get started if you want to pursue search optimization on your own.

If you’re intimidated by the technical aspects of optimizing your blog, I assure you it’s not overly complicated. Once you learn the basic terms like “title tags”, “meta descriptions”, “link building”, etc, and learn how these things work together to make you rank well in search engines, it’s simply a matter of executing.

If you want to perform better in Google but don’t want to mess with the techy stuff, fire me an email and I’ll do it for you. Or, you can grab a copy of the Simple SEO course. It’s a system which removes all the mystery from optimizing your blog, and it shows you exactly what to do step-by-step. If you want to do it yourself but don’t want to mess with months of wading through technical tutorials and go through the trial and error phase, the Simple SEO course is worth a look. I know a lot of you want to get better results with your blog but don’t necessarily have the cash laying around to hire a professional to do it for you. I put this course together as an awesome alternative to hiring me as a consultant. I think you’re really gonna like it 🙂

Focus on quality, sustainability and value. Those are what power a great blog. Google recognizes and grants authority to blogs that post consistently over time.

Basic SEO principles to consider

Post consistently: this doesn’t mean you have to post new content to your blog daily. Most people I work with are small business owners, and time is always a factor. There are still people out there preaching the old-school mentality of “more is better”. They will try to convince you that you need to write daily. It’s true that if you have more content, you have more that can rank in Google, but it’s essential to maintain your blog over the long haul. You already know that blogging is not a magic bullet, it’s a long term approach. So, do what’s sustainable. There are LOTS of very successful, profitable blogs that update weekly, some monthly. Is more better? Yes it can be…as long as you’re really going to keep it up. For most small business owners, I recommend once or twice a week. Focus on quality, sustainability and value. Those are what power a great blog. Google recognizes and grants authority to blogs that post consistently over time. If your stuff is good, people will read it, talk about it, link to it…Google is smart and takes all this into account.
Focus on quality: as trite as it may sound, quality really does matter. There’s an old saying in SEO that goes “search engines follow people”. Basically, focus on your readers. At the end of the day it’s not our job as bloggers to trick search engines into giving us some love. It’s the search engines’ job to provide relevant results for their users. So the best, most ultimate way to rank well in Google is to simple BE RELEVANT 🙂 Yes, there are technical considerations that will make your blog more accessible to search engines, get you indexed more quickly and build more authority, but I can’t stress this enough, so I’ll repeat it…if you are creating content that is relevant and helpful to your readers, it’s Google’s job to find you! That’s what it’s there for. If there’s a single thing that will do more good for you than anything else, that is it. Create awesome content that your readers love.
Ask for help: this doesn’t just refer to hiring me or someone else to work for you. It means asking your readers for what you want. If you want people to share your post on Twitter, ask them to do so, and make a Twitter icon easily available to them. If you want them to link to you, again…ask for it. Make it easy for them. Go so far as to provide the html, so all they have to do is copy and paste it into their site. Read my about page, and you’ll see I do this also. I ask visitors to link to me, and I put the code right there in the page, so all they have to do is copy and paste it. When people share your content with their people, it builds links to your site. It builds traffic to your site, and it spreads the word about what you’re doing. But people don’t always automatically do this; don’t be afraid to ask people for what you want. It goes a long way.
Learn your business: by running a blog, you’re taking an awesome, important step toward improving how you engage and interact with your customers and clients. Like anything, you get out what you put in. When you take on a new tool like this, it’s easy to feel like there’s too much to learn. This makes you want to just not mess with it. I encourage you wholeheartedly to continue the pursuit. It can take a little while to learn what you need to know. Don’t put the pressure on yourself to learn every single thing all at once. Learn a little bit at a time. This post all by itself links up resources for you that can easily keep you busy for a while. Don’t rush it; just do a little at a time. It pays off huge over time!

More SEO resources

In addition to the ViperChill article I linked up above, here are a few more resources I highly recommend if you’re interested in learning more about search optimization.

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity – this is a comprehensive, awesome resource addressing the important concept of link building.
SEO Basics – this is a great resource from Aaron Wall, covering the basics of SEO.
Google Keyword Tool – in the video I linked up above, I talk about using the Google Keyword Tool for keyword research. This is a link to the invaluable tool.

Have fun! As always…that’s one of the most crucial elements of successful business blogging. Take on new knowledge a bit at a time and have fun. Trust me, your readers know when you’re having fun (and when you’re not), and it makes a big difference. If you have any questions, hit me up.

Make Your New Blog Look Awesome Easily

By Christian

This video is part of the “How to Start a Blog” video training series for new business bloggers. If you like this video, you can see the first and second videos also. Please subscribe to get access to all 12 training videos at no cost 🙂

Today’s video goes over the important concept of making your business blog look awesome. No one wants to have their business blog like a piece of junk! Yes, if you want me to create a blog for you, I’m happy to do so. It’s not rocket science, but if you want to skip the learning curve altogether and just have me do it for you, then visit this page for details.

If you’re short on cash and/or want to spend some time on your own, then this video series will show you everything you need.

Questions? I’m here to help!

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How to Grow Your New Blog and Get all the Traffic You Need

By Christian

This is the second video in the “How to Start a Blog” video series for new business bloggers. If you want to fire your business blog off quickly and simply, this video blog training will show you everything you need to know to get great results with your business blog. If you want to check out the first video, it’s here. You can get the entire series by subscribing for free 🙂

Why am I giving away free video training instead of charging for it? A couple big reasons:

You’re awesome.
If you find the information I give for free to be helpful, the chances are better that you’ll feel comfortable buying consulting or products from me in the future.
If you like the video, I hope you’ll share it with your friends and coworkers. Win-win.

Have any questions? I’m here to help.

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Essential First Steps for a New Business Blog

By Christian

I put out a video series for beginning business bloggers recently that has received a lot of great feedback from readers. This was originally put out on my last blog “Next Level Blogger”, but since a lot of my clients and readers are new to blogging, I want to share some of the key videos from this series with you here.

If you like this video and want to see the entire series, please subscribe, and I’ll make sure you get all 12 videos. It’s several hours of video training, and I’m not charging for it, because before you hire me to help you take your business marketing to the next level, I want you to be able to judge for yourself if I have valuable ideas to share with you.

If you have any questions, let me know!

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The biggest myth of “making money online”

By Christian

disappointed — I don't mean to disappoint, but there are some "internet marketing" myths that really need to be cleared up 🙂

Do you want to “make money online”? Do you want to “make money blogging”? Do you want to “build an internet business”? Well, forget about it. This article describes why the whole “make money online” thing is completely misunderstood by most business owners!

I’ve spent some time thinking about the whole “internet business” thing lately, and this is part of what originally caused me to start this Dangerous Tactics blog. I’ve read articles recently like this one from David Risley, where he talks about his feelings on why some people make money online…and why most people don’t. Derek Jensen unloads on us here on why people need to stop talking about how to make money online. Sonia Simone has also shared some awesome thoughts with us about why you can’t make money blogging…ironically enough, her post appears on one of the most profitable blogs in existence. Bottom line, the internet is a misunderstood place. It’s a new frontier, and there’s a lot of opportunity here, but let’s not lose track of what the internet is…and what it is not.

The biggest myth of “making money online” is that the internet has somehow changed how business works. It hasn’t. Here’s the truth:

The internet is a place, not a tactic. The internet has changed HOW people buy, not WHY they buy.

On the surface, this may seem like a minor difference, but the difference has massive ramifications. If you take some time to absorb this truth, it will affect how you approach your business on many levels. It will make you more profitable, because you’ll realize all the flash-bang, snazzy products and courses on “how to make money online” are built on a false premise. They are built on the premise that the internet is some magical place that YOU don’t understand. And of course once you “get it”, you’ll be able to “leverage the internet” and make millions.

How to really make money online

To be completely fair, there ARE some things you need to learn about marketing online. There’s some jargon and some moderately techy stuff that you need to learn, but once you “get it”, you’ll realize the internet is just another place where people hang out. You’ll realize that technology has changed…quite a bit. But people…haven’t changed a bit. Most of us are a bit crazy, mixed up, emotional, awesome, a lot of fun…and we buy LOTS of stuff, spend TONS of money on things, and we buy things for the EXACT same reasons as we did a million years ago.

This is what we need to learn how to do: we need to learn dangerous ninja selling tactics, so we can be highly effective and sell lots of our stuff. And yes, we’re going to do it online. We’re going to run blogs and squeeze pages, and we’re going to build email lists and sell things on the internet, and I’m going to show you how to do it. But we’re NOT building an “internet business”. We’re building a “real” business. Does that make sense?

Real Tactics for Selling to Real People

On this blog I share with you many of the ways I’ve made money…both online and offline for the past decade or so. The tactics are solid. They work on the internet. They work off the internet too. How could it be the case that these tactics are so powerful? One reason: people buy for the same reasons, both online and offline. At the end of the day, you’re either running a real business or you’re not.

If you’re running a real business, you will make money. If you’re not, you can use all the blog formulas, make money online formulas, launch formulas or any other type of formulas, and it won’t matter. Formulas don’t make money. Businesses make money.

Now you can choose to market your business online, and that would be a smart decision, seeing as how so many people are here. But don’t think of your business as an “internet business”, and don’t think of your marketing as “internet marketing”. It’s business. And it’s marketing. Just plain old business and marketing.

Screw the internet

The internet could implode tomorrow, and I’d still be rockin, because I don’t run an internet business. I run a business that I happen to market exclusively online right now. If something happened to the interwebz, I would just change my marketing plan. Problem solved. I bet the chances are good that you want that type of flexibility and security in your business as well, no?

If you think of yourself as an “internet entrepreneur” or a “social media marketer” or whatever, then go visit your local shopping mall and try to find a business that considers itself a “mall business”. Try to find a “how to launch a mall business” ebook somewhere. Yeah. Just because a business is located at the mall doesn’t mean it’s a “mall business”, and just because your business is engaged primarily in marketing online shouldn’t define you either. Most internet-based businesses have a LOT more in common with their brick and mortar counterparts than they realize. Figure out your business, and I bet you will see you’re not an “internet entrepreneur” after all. You’re simply an entrepreneur. That’s pretty liberating, no?