Thursday, September 6, 2007
Copyright (c) 2007 Jo Han Mok
Do you find it hard to create quality content for your site?
Quality content keeps the visitors reading and the more they read it, the more they'll trust you.
Getting people to trust you as an expert is something you should strive for. Being known and trusted as an expert has been known to increase your site's credibility, subscribers, and most importantly, sales.
However, banging your head on the wall and pulling out your hair is not going to help solve your problems on how to find quality content.
Here are the steps to make sure you never run out of ideas for you to write about:
1.Reminisce An Event
Flash back to an event you had attended quite some time ago. It can be a seminar, a competition or a workshop. Provide a review for the event you attended and what you've learnt from it. You can also put down your ideas of what you are going to do next now that you have learnt something new.
Make your article seem like it is a dialogue session between you and your vistor to make things seem more personal than uncomfortable.
2.Get Newsworthy
Read the news or any article in your local newspaper that you find interesting and relevant to talk about in your blog. Search in the various news websites such as CNN and Google to find your content. Find something in the news that is relevant to the business niche that you are in.
For example, if your site is about weight loss, you can talk about a new scientific breakthrough on how to lose weight. The news has tons of information about almost everything. Find them and write great content about it.
3.Acknowledge Your Reader's Comments
Encourage your readers to comment on your blog posts or to email you with questions that they want answers to. What you should do is to check your email and find out what are the common questions that your visitors ask, and you can then write a blog post about it to answer their questions. It's as simple as that!
4.Announcement
Create an announcement that will intrigue your readers. It can be an announcement about an upcoming seminar, a product launch or an event that you feel that your vistors should be a part of. When you're announcing something, make sure that you're announcing the event excitedly. It is a part of a psychological tactic to make your readers curious and continue to read on whatever it is you're blabbering about.
These four tactics can help you increase your level of ability to create content. So whatever writer's block you face, have faith in getting ways to get inspired to create good content for your visitors.
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Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code. Unlock the code for unlimited online profits for yourself by visiting his website today at: http://www.SuperFastProfit.com
Internet marketing is business, not just search engine algorithms
I find it amusing that the Internet marketing industry is so preoccupied with search engine algorithms (which, admittedly, are an important part of the online marketing world), but rarely give even lip service to other areas of business.
Not two weeks ago I had a chat with someone (an SEO) about some online media buying and although the figures made an infinite amount of sense (6 figure monthly page views – prime location banner purchase for less than £90 per month!), he said, “but there is no SEO value from the banner link” (it was JavaScript)! Astonished, I spent the next hour arguing the case for buying the coverage, but it would seem that the majority of SEOs just don’t see the value of applying traditional marketing techniques to the web – they just don’t “fit” into the SEO mindset.
What is really bizarre though is that while the optimisation industry doesn’t see the value in some less search engine focused marketing techniques, they will pay a veritable fortune for paid links. The likes of ReviewMe (http://www.reviewme.com) change up to $250 for a single “review” (which is SEO speak for a plain text link not so subtly hidden in a purpose written article). One text link. One! Not just that, but a single text link on a new page that has no PR (and will maybe only will ever receive minimal PR filtered through from other page links)!
For that $250 (around £150) there are so many different options you could aim for. While a lot won’t have any direct SEO benefit, we still need to consider traffic and branding benefits.
$250 would allow me to buy banner advertising on a niche site / forum / blog for a limited amount of time. Depending on the type of site and its subject area you could be looking at a decent amount of traffic, enquiries and exposure – certainly enough to justify the cost.
An alternative would be to spend the money on a directory listing on a site such as TheBestOf (http://www.thebestof.co.uk) - £10 per month for a year and you get a full page listing (written by your local contact), an audio advert where you can pitch your service, inclusion in a high traffic site and a direct (SEO friendly!) link back to your site. A link AND qualified traffic – that’s like SEO Christmas!
Online marketing professionals do focus on SEO a lot and that isn’t a bad thing – it just isn’t the only thing and you should be looking to spend your budget wisely and spread your marketing scope.
Using Pain or Pleasure in Your Marketing
One recent afternoon as I was driving around running errands, I tuned into a local radio station that was hosting a radio-thon to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. When the DJ said, "Think about what your healthy child is doing right now, playing, having a snack, whatever... and then think of the kids at St. Jude" - well, I couldn't pull over fast enough to whip out my wallet and cell phone.
Now, like you, I get a lot of solicitations either in the mail or even via email. Most of those get dumped in the trash or deleted. But what was different about this time? I mean, I literally stopped what I was doing (driving!) to pull over, take out my credit card, call the number, and make my contribution.
So, what made me not even hesitate? It was that deep FEELING of empathy for those kids and their parents, as well as an overwhelming FEELING of gratefulness for my own healthy child.
You see, as humans, we tend to seek pleasure and avoid pain. And you may be surprised to learn that we actually will do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure.
What that DJ said really got to me - it was incredibly painful for me to think of my own little girl ever being that sick. In order to avoid feeling that pain, I became a Partner in Hope and now make monthly contributions to St. Jude's.
The same holds true in your marketing. If you can touch upon your target market's pain, address what it is that they are most struggling with, and offer the solution to them - well, it's a winning formula every time.
To give you a specific example, when you're writing your sales pages, you want to state what problem your reader is struggling with and how your offering can solve it, right at the beginning.
One effective way of introducing your solution is by asking a question of your reader around what it's like to struggle with the problem your offering solves. If you can relate to your reader's frustration, pain, struggle, or challenge, you'll immediately establish a connection and they will want to know more about how you can solve their issue for them.
Touching on your prospect's pain and offering them relief by way of your solution is not manipulative. It's direct, honest and open. Your reader is at your website because they are looking for a solution. If you want to help them, then the only way to do that is to tell them that you understand their pain and that you offer the solution.
So, think about your prospects. Are they more likely to seek out your services or your products because they want to gain pleasure? Or is it because they want to solve their most pressing problems? Then weave your answer into your marketing messages.
� 2007 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com
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Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach�, founder of http://www.clientabundance.com/ , and creator of 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System�, teaches coaches, consultants, online entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.clientabundance.com/
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