You Talk the Talk, Now Walk the Walk

You’ve probably heard the clichés about the doctor who doesn’t take care of himself or the mechanic whose car is always in need of repair. And in the offline world, it usually isn’t as big of a big deal. If you really need heart surgery, chances are you won’t care if your cardiac specialist weighs 400lbs as long as he’s good at what he does. Online businesses aren’t the same. Whatever you claim as your specialty, it’s vitally important that you demonstrate your skill set in everything you do. Let’s look at what we’re talking about…

Below are screenshots from the pages of two graphic designers on Twitter. Both are plain. Both are unimpressive. Both are forgettable. They have a prime opportunity to show off what they can do as a designer, so why wouldn’t they take such an occasion to display their talents? Here’s the thing: a small percentage of your followers will ever click on the link to your website. But a much larger percentage will see your Twitter page. And not only will followers see your page, but if you really make the most of your Twitter canvas, you might end up on one of the many lists of cool Twitter pages, like this one. Of course, just because these two examples don’t have impressive Twitter backgrounds doesn’t mean they aren’t talented designers. They might be fantastic. The point is, they haven’t given us a reason to find out.

 

Here is another great example of a lost opportunity. The below screenshot is from an active web designer. Surprisingly, the portfolio for this designer reflects some real talent. But how many will ever click through to his portfolio after visiting his home page?

Unfortunately, this sort of thing isn’t uncommon – there’s the so-called social media expert who has few followers himself and almost never sends out a tweet. And the business coach who doesn’t have a business website.  Or how about the copy writer who has grammatical errors up and down her site? Often, these people are fully qualified to do what they say they do, but they blow it by missing the chance to demonstrate their genuine abilities and failing to optimize every opportunity.

So how do you avoid costly blunders that can detract from your talents and abilities? The key is to take a step back and look at your business from the perspective of your customers and potential customers. Look at everything your prospects might see. How might they first hear about you? It could be on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, or it could be through a search engine, or by going right to your home page. Check all of these sources with a fresh pair of eyes. If you were looking for someone doing what you do and didn’t know anything about their abilities, would each of these areas communicate your talents in the very best way possible? If not, step it up a notch and fully optimize them. Once they show your prospects and customers what you’re really capable of, then you’ll truly be walking the walk!

Drive Traffic with Comment Marketing

There’s a well-known statistic that says you need to get your message in front of your target audience seven times before they’ll take action. In the old days (10-15 years ago) that took a lot of time and money. To get someone to see or hear your brand on TV, radio, and in print for instance, you would have had to spend thousands of dollars and have only moderate confidence that you were reaching your intended market. In these days of social media and wide-spread blogging, there’s still a certain amount of uncertainty about what is most effective, but the nice part is that you can try several methods without spending a dime. And one method of driving traffic and increasing recognition that works for many is comment marketing.

Put simply, comment marketing is just commenting on other people’s blogs, forums, and news posts. It’s a great way to get your name out there, establish yourself as an expert, and begin to build relationships with other site owners. Of course to be effective, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, so here are some tips for maximizing your efforts:

1. Be careful. If it looks like you’re self-promoting in your comments, you’ll turn off the readers of the comment as well as the site owner. On most blogs you’ll be asked for your URL when you sign up as a commenter, and this will be linked to your name. Therefore, it’s not necessary to put your site address in your comments. In forums, you’re often able to create a signature with your URL in it, so the same rules apply. The only exception might be if the post is about something that is extremely relevant to a specific page on your site. Which brings us to the next tip…
2. Be relevant. Make sure that whatever you post is relevant to the topic you’re commenting on. If you have a blog about Wordpress themes, and the article is a review of the iPhone, just stick to your opinion about the iPhone. If you have no opinion about the iPhone, just say, “Great post. I didn’t know that about the iPhone. Cool.” If you say, “The iPhone is almost as cool as my newest WP theme. Check it out at http://….” it will be quite clear you’re just fishing for traffic.
3. Be polite. When commenting on someone else’s post, remember the Golden Rule. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want someone to post on your site. Feel free to give your opinion, even if it differs from what’s in the post you’re commenting about. Just make sure that you’re not slamming the author, the site, or the content. Remember, your goal is to get people clicking through to your site and make a good name for yourself, and people don’t want to deal with jerks.
   
4. Be useful. To establish yourself as an expert in a certain area, provide your expertise whenever possible. Again, it’s important to stay relevant to the post, but be sure to check other comments as well. If someone asks a question in a comment and you have a good answer, get it out there, even if their question is off topic. Just be sure to refer back to the original question so it’s clear you’re not putting irrelevant information out.
5. Be consistent. Comment marketing takes work. Posting every now and then on random sites isn’t going to get you the results you’re looking for. Find sites that have the same target audience as you, and comment often and early. Figure out when they typically post their new articles and try to be among the first to comment, as comments are typically listed oldest to newest. Of course for many blogs their posting isn’t on a regular schedule, but if you get on a schedule of checking the same sites regularly, you’ll do ok. For forums, you really have an opportunity to show your expertise. Look for questions posted relating to your business and provide thorough, useful answers, and ask your own questions as well. Opinion questions do well, and when you state your opinion and ask others for theirs, it puts you in a position of authority. Also, consider welcoming new forum members regularly, which helps to establish your status as well.

So there you have it – a few rules to help you become a comment-marketing pro. Some of our regular commenters are great at this stuff. What other tips do you have? Let us know in the comments below!

17 Videos to Help You Grow Your Business

The amount of free quality video content available on the Internet is truly phenomenal. Whatever you want to learn, there is almost certainly a video to teach you. The following videos are presented to help you market and grow your business, with some inspiration thrown in for good measure. Enjoy, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Hot Internet Marketing Strategy For Your Online Business – 9:10

Presented by MarketingTips.com, this is a great primer on opt-in email marketing. The video is a couple of years old, but it has just recently gained popularity, and it’s still full of relevant, useful information.

Social Media Marketing Facebook Tutorial – 6:02

There’s no denying that Facebook can be an effective tool for your business. But how do you use effectively? This very well-made video by KershMedia.co.uk uses some great examples and explanations to help get you on track to forming a Facebook strategy to help grow your business.

Video marketing tutorial: What is video marketing? – 7:37

The posters of each of the videos above is participating in video marketing. They’re doing so because it’s a great way to get the word out about your business, improve your SEO, and establish you as an authority in your field. This video gives you the rundown on what video marketing is all about.

How to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan – 5:38

If you’ve struggled with the marketing plan section of your business plan, this video from growthink.com is for you. The what, why, and how of marketing plans are covered, and each section of the marketing plan is detailed. An excellent resource to finally get your marketing plan in place.

**HOT** Facebook Marketing Strategy – 9:14

Confused about the dos and don’ts of Facebook? This high-quality video by Angela Giles explains it all. She offers great tips with examples, screen shots and other useful information. Don’t let Facebook continue to be a mystery. Watch this video and get the answers you need.

Setting Your Social Media Strategy – 1:00:18

Yes, this video is over an hour long – and yes, it’s worth your time. Presented by Salesforce.com, this video was made at Dreamforce 2009 just a few months ago, so the information is current and very relevant to your business.

Using Twitter Effectively for Marketing and Sales – 1:07:23

Another session from Dreamforce 2009, this one focuses on Twitter as a marketing tool. The panel, made up of representatives from Salesforce.com, Virgin America, and Twitter, is very helpful and of course extremely knowledgeable about this topic.

Become A Blogger: Darren Rowse Interview Part 1 – 9:42

(Part 2 – 9:40)

(Part 3 – 9:01)

(Part 4 – 5:34)

Whether you are or aren’t already successfully blogging this video set is a must if you have any interest in blogging at all. Presented by Gideon Shalwick of BecomeABlogger.com, these four videos make up an interview with Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net, considered by many to be the foremost authority on blogging.

Les Brown: 1 of 6 – 9:02

(2 of 6 – 9:31)

(3 of 6 – 8:44)

(4 of 6 – 8:34)

(5 of 6 – 8:16)

(6 of 6 – 3:56)

If you’re not familiar with Les Brown, you’re in for a treat. Les is one of the best motivational speakers out there. This set is from many years back but still very relevant, and truly inspirational. If you need a kick in the butt or a reason to believe in yourself, watch these videos, and learn to lift yourself to success!

12 No-Cost Tools to Help Improve Your SEO

Even to some who have been online for years, SEO can be somewhat of a mystery. While there are a lot of differing opinions on the techniques that are the most effective for getting your site to the top of the search engines, there’s no doubt that a key factor in your success is being able to effectively access and analyze data. Below are 12 free web-based tools to help you in your SEO efforts:

Keyword Mutation Detection Tool We all strive for our sites to look professional and for our writing to be grammar and spelling error-free, but if you can find a way to incorporate some strategic misspellings into your page, it can pay off. This tool will give you common “mutations” of your key words, including misspellings as well as correctly spelled variations. For example, enter “entrepreneur” and you’ll get: entrepreneurs, entreprenur, and entreprenuer. As these are all commonly entered search terms, there’s an opportunity to capitalize on the mistakes people make when searching.

Term Extractor From SEOmoz, which offers quite a few helpful tools, this one will analyze your pages and determine which search terms it looks like you’re trying to target. It’s a valuable tool, especially if the resulting report shows you’re optimized for terms other than what you had hoped!

Wordtracker Suggestion Tool Enter a keyword into this simple tool, and it will provide you with a list of up to 100 suggested search terms that include your keyword. The nice thing about this tool is that it also provides the number of searches performed for each phrase, so you can target those most likely to drive more traffic.

Keyword Difficulty Check Want to see how hard you’re going to have to work to get on the first page of search results for your keywords? This tool is for you. Just enter the word or phrase you want it to check, and you’ll get a percentage of difficulty result. For example, if you want to be on the first search results page for the word “blog”, you’re looking at a 93.48% (out of 100%) difficulty ranking. Want to be right up toward the top for “sesquipedalian armadillo” though? You’ve got a great chance at just 22.91% difficulty!

Term Target Grader You might not have been an A student in school, but now you can get A’s where it really counts. Enter your URL and targeted keyword or phrase into this tool, and you’ll get a letter grade reflective of how your page actually targets your desired keyword, along with a detailed report. The only catch: unless you’re a premium member of SEOmoz, you’ll only get one of these reports every 24 hours.

Keyword Group Detection Tool Another tool from Microsoft’s adCenter Labs, this one “helps you find groups of words from the pool of online queries that are related or similar to keywords that you enter.” In other words, you enter a keyword you want to optimize for, and it will give you common search words and phrases relating to that keyword for which you might also want to optimize. It’s a good way to get your creativity going when planning your SEO.

SEO Browser is a tool that allows you to see your site as the search engines see it. Offering both basic and advanced modes for free, the resulting report generated by SEO Browser gives you a clear view of your site content, including meta data, text-to-page weight ratio, number of internal and external links, and tons more, all on one page. This allows you to easily identify problems and ways you can improve your site.

Keyword Tracking with Backlink Tracker Meant to be used over time, this very cool free tool tracks your search engine placement (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) for specified keywords over time. This tool also checks search engines for the number of backlinks to your page over time. You’ll need to sign up for a free account and place a PHP script on your server for it all to work. The detailed charts and reports you get make it worth the effort.

SEOToolSet offers several tools, from the not-so-useful source code viewer (your browser does that), to the very cool Competition Research Tool, which analyses your site and finds and compares it with your competitors based on your chosen key words. They’ve also got a keyword tool that returns results detailing demographics (gender and age statistics), click-through rates, and the CPC average for the major engines.

SEO Scores This tool gives you a ton of information about your site. Broken into four sections, the data is well organized and very useful. The areas analyzed are: 1. On-page SEO, which includes metadata, image summary, W3C validation, more; 2. Off-page SEO, including domain information, Google rank, backlinks, last Google crawl date, and traffic rank; 3. Blogosphere, which just tells you if your key words appear in your blog, and your Technorati ranking; and 4. Social Mediasphere, giving you del.icio.us bookmarks and a Digg submission summary.

Google Keyword Tool Meant for Google Adwords users, this simple keyword tool provides local and global search volume numbers for the keywords and phrases you enter, as well as about 150 related terms. It also supplies suggested terms and allows you to export the reports to a text or csv (for Excel) file. There are also some dropdowns with additional options, most of which are specific to those using Adwords.

Reciprocal Link Checker Want to see if people are placing the reciprocal links they promised? This tool does just that. Enter your site and multiple reciprocal sites, and you’ll get a report showing how many (if any) links on their sites point back to you. While this particular tool does not tell you which page(s) on the reciprocal sites are linking to you, it does save the time of hunting for your links on their sites.

These twelve tools should begin to get you the information you need to help improve your SEO. There are, of course, other tools out there. Which ones have you found useful? Be sure to share your experience in the comments below.

Set and Accomplish Your Goals: 5 Easy Steps

In business and in life, we all need goals if we want to be any better off than we are right now. There are a million different methods for setting and accomplishing goals, which is great, as not every method works for everyone. The following five step process is easy to implement and will help many get from here to there whatever your goals may be.

1. Get some clarity
To be effective, goals must be clear, concise, specific, and measurable. Be very clear on what you want to accomplish, the date by which you will complete the goal, and how you’ll know you’ve accomplished it. It isn’t enough to say, “I want to have the ‘go-to’ blog about do-it-yourself web deisgn.” How will you know you’ve accomplished that goal? More importantly, what does it really mean to have the ‘go-to blog?’ A more effective goal would be, “By May 1, 2010, my blog will be first in the Google search results for the term ‘DIY web design.’” Of course it’s also important that your specific goal is realistic. If you’ve just started a blog on Internet marketing and want it to be 1st in the search results within 30 days, you might need to reassess. The key is to have a crystal clear picture of what you want and by when you want it. Put that down on paper, then go to step 2.

2. Break it down
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! For every major goal, there are almost always smaller goals that must be met first. For example, you’ve got to get to 10,000 RSS subscribers before you hit 40,000. If your goal is to bank $50,000 by October 1st, figure out when it will be realistic to have reached $40,000, $25,000, and $10,000. Set those dates and shoot for each one, with the larger goal always in your mind, but with the “sub-goal” as your short range target and primary focus, until it’s hit - then celebrate, and move to the next one. This technique helps to keep you from being overwhelmed with huge goals. If your goal is $1 million in sales in three years, and the most you’ve made to date is $800, there will be a part of your mind saying, “A million dollars is so much money. How will I ever do that?” Breaking your huge goal into smaller goals helps your mind accept the possibilities, and it will help you stay on track too.

3. Cross the bridges - before you get to them
No matter what goal you set for yourself or your business, there are bound to be challenges and obstacles along the way. If not, your goal isn’t big enough. While you can’t plan for every possible contingency, you can probably foresee the most likely complications that might prevent or at least slow your progress. Working through the “what-ifs” now will make them much easier to overcome when they actually do occur. Let’s say you write a blog on extreme mountain-biking, and you have a goal to reach 20,000 subscribers by August of this year. You’ve been injured before, and know that it’s not uncommon for those in your sport to be knocked out of commission every now and then. If you want to reach your goal, you’ve got to post relevant, interesting articles often, so what happens if you break both wrists and aren’t able to type for weeks or months? Having considered and planned for that possibility, you have a reserve of several articles on the ready. Because you want your posts to be timely, you also decide to begin right now forming relationships with other bloggers in your arena and asking them to occasionally guest blog. Now, if you do need to be away, you won’t be panicking about losing readers while you’re recovering from your injuries.

4. Aaaand… Action!
It’s been said that a goal without a plan is just a dream. In breaking down your goal and planning for contingencies, you have formed a plan that will carry you from where you are to where you want to be. Now, all that’s left is taking the necessary actions to get you to your goal. For this, it might be helpful to take step 2, and break your goals down even further. Ask yourself, “What actions do I need to take each day that will get me closer to my goal?” Taking action daily toward accomplishing your goals will keep you focused on the goal as well as on those smaller goals that will get you to the big one. Don’t let a day pass where you don’t take some step, no matter how small, toward your objective.

5. Assess as you progress
As you move toward your goals, it is important to check to see if you’re on the right track. If you were traveling from Los Angeles to New York by car, you wouldn’t consider taking the trip without a map. In goal achievement, your plan is your map. But you don’t just look at your map before leaving Los Angeles and then put it away. You must check it periodically to make sure you’re still headed in the right direction. It’s just as important to assess your progress toward your goals. This can be accomplished a number of ways. One way that works well for many is with a wall calendar. If your goal is based on a number (subscribers, money earned, search ranking, etc.) write where you are each day on your calendar. This will go a long way to helping you stay focused and on track. You might also notice trends that you can manage to, or a need to adjust either your goal or your methods of reaching it. And if you find you’re lost, don’t be afraid to ask for directions!

As Brian Tracy puts it, “Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.” Whether you use this process or something else, the important thing is that you set goals for yourself and for your business. Share your thoughts in the comments. Which methods do you use to set or track your goals?

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