Top Posts - Recommended

My 7 Biggest Marketing Mistakes

By Christian

I’ve made tons of mistakes in marketing. These are the biggest:

Trying to help instead of focusing on the negative – I used to think that nice guys finish last. I was right. As it turns out, negativity pays when it comes to marketing! Make your headlines negative. Don’t focus on solutions. Focus on problems.
Trying to work with everyone who wants to work with me – It took me a long time to accept the fact that my target market is not everyone. Your target market also…is NOT everyone! As small business owners, learning to focus on a specific type of client or customer requires making some emotionally difficult decisions, but once you do things get so much easier, so much more profitable and so much more fun!
Too many calls to action – when it comes to marketing, we often try to sell too much. We want to tell everyone everything we do. In reality, our customers’ attention is a valuable commodity, so let’s treat it as such. Don’t expect your customer to care about everything you do. You’ve got their attention for a few seconds. Tell them one specific thing. Connect with them on one specific point, and build from there. Making fewer calls to action gets you a more meaningful result.
Not charging enough – I’ve raised my consulting fee several times, and business has not slowed. As it turns out, charging more (when you do it right) doesn’t cause you to lose business. It causes you to get better customers.
Holding back valuable information – I used to feel that I should share some ideas only with people who pay me. You know, leave the crappy ideas on my site for free, but give the GOOD stuff to paying clients. As soon as I started giving everything away, something funny happened…I started getting more orders.
Thinking quality content speaks for itself – as a blogger, I used to think great content was the key. All I needed to do was create great content for my blog and people would eventually catch on. Wrong. You need to spread the word. You need to market your blog. Great content is important. Marketing and networking are just as important.
Not selling products – the idea of putting a product together and selling it was always really intimidating to me, so I stuck with selling consulting. That’s fine, but consulting is always a trade of dollars for hours. Products are leveraged. Put the time in once, and then you can simply sell it over and over again. After I created my first product, I learned it’s really not that hard, and the benefits are huge.

These 7 mistakes have cost me a LOT of time and money. They are easily avoidable, so I’ve put a report together that addresses each one specifically. It’s free. If you’re a subscriber of Dangerous Tactics, you should already have received a copy. If not, please let me know, and I’ll make sure you get one. If you’re not a subscriber of Dangerous Tactics, head on over and grab a copy of My 7 Horrible Marketing Mistakes. I think you’ll dig it.

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!

[jwplayer config=”large” file=”https://vids.rworldproperties.com/install-themes.flv”]

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.

[jwplayer config=”large” file=”https://vids.rworldproperties.com/how-to-listen.flv”]