Bad News – I’m Done With You
I am really sick of the reemergence of a barrage of emails lately quoting “bad news” as the subject line. I didn’t like it some months ago and I don’t like it now. It never fails that as soon as a new marketing gimmick is discovered people go wild practicing its use with absolutely no originality whatsoever. I get the same email promoting a product and the only differences amongst them is who sent it. It is the exact same email people!!
Does anyone think about the fact that their subscribers are on lists from other marketers promoting the same products? Obviously not. How many times can I get the same email talking about “my buddy (whose product is being promoted) told me….”? Oh and let’s not forget the other subject lines that keeps coming up too, “ooops….the server went down due to overwhelming response” or “sorry, wrong link”.
See these situations do happen from time to time. Yes I have had a server go down before and yes I have accidentally sent the wrong link. But people, if you have made it a habit that these circumstances happen to you only during the launch of a product you are promoting, then sooner or later your subscribers will be on to you.
There is only so much bad news, server down and broken links your subscribers can get before you will be seen as the boy who cried wolf one too many times. What this tells me is that you are following the crowd and really don’t have anything to offer me that I couldn’t get from someone else.
Think about it, if I really wanted the product, which person should I choose to buy from? You, you or you who have given me no way to distinguish you, you or you from the pack. So you know what I just did and will continue to do? Follow that little link down at the bottom of the email that says “unsubscribe”.
The lesson here is to be the icing on the cake, the cherry on the whip cream, the needle in the haystack, the black sheep in the herd or the pink elephant. You see that picture to the left? Study it. Absorb it. You have to distinguish yourself from everyone else if you want my money. You need to give me a compelling reason to choose your “buy me” link from the likes of others. You have to figure out how to market the same products and services as others do, but differently. You have to make this happen before you are grouped in a sea of people who all look alike, write alike and market alike….and who end up on the unsubscribed list.
Traffic Conversion-Understand Your Purpose
Getting lots of traffic to your website is an awesome thing. However, if you are getting traffic but no conversions it is time to rethink your strategy. This was brought to mind from a post I read about getting 30,000 plus unique visitors in one month. This was a project simply to determine if getting that many visitors could be accomplished. Well success came his way but not with the results you might think.
He got all that traffic and made $100 from adsense. But that’s okay because in the process he learned exactly what he needs to do drive that kind of traffic. What if you got that many visitors? What would 30,000 plus unique visitors do for you? If you don’t know the answer then you need to figure it out.
You need to know what your purpose is for getting any traffic? Is your purpose to grow your list, bum marketing, viral marketing, etc., you get the picture. After you decide what your purpose is, then you should target your keywords to suit your needs.
For example, if you were looking to grow your list for a niche in “dog grooming” you would target keywords such as “free dog grooming tips“, but if you were looking to make some money right now, you would target keywords such as “buy dog grooming accessories“. Get the difference?
If you received 30,000 visitors for the keywords “free dog grooming tips” and you were expecting to make some money, you would very disappointed. Those visitors would have come to your site for free tips, albeit some of these may convert to sales, but the vast majority may not. On the other hand, if someone is searching for the word “buy” with ANY keyword then they already have their wallet open and credit card in hand.
Link Building-Old Doesn’t Mean Obsolete
Link building is not difficult if you have some guidance. Best of all, link building is something you can do on your own without paying someone else costly fees. I absolutely love scouting out and researching information on the net. So when I came across some hot tips on link building I had to let you know.
66 ways to build links in 2007 may be considered somewhat old, but most of these tips still apply today in 2009. That’s why quality content, along with link building, should be key factors in your blog marketing strategy. If you didn’t have a clue before reading this article on how to effectively build links, after you read it you will have learned 66 ways. Select the tips that apply to your business model and start the process.
Okay?
Happy Link Building!
Learn Onsite Niche SEO From A Pro
For those of you who are new to SEO and niche marketing and have found it somewhat confusing – help is on the way. Learning how to do onsite SEO has just gotten much easier.
Sometimes you can read and read yet never quite catch the process for proper and optimum SEO, especially dealing with niche sites. Well, Courtney Tuttle from Court’s Internet Marketing School has put together an awesome visual aid to help you understand.
He appropriately named it Place Your Keyword Here. You can easily figure out exactly where to place your keywords because he is using actual blog posts to show you how. You can’t get any easier than that.
Another Google Smackdown?
Michael Martine of Remarkablogger is a tad bit ticked off with Google and giving them a slap back before the next smackdown. The latest change over with feedburner has caused some of his clients major problems, like loosing business and loosing subscribers. He recalled how Google has changed their algorithms in the past, taken accounts offline and destroyed entire businesses.
He wants no part of this and has decided to rethink his heavy use of Google services. In his words he is going to “de-Google-fy his life”.
Michael brings up some valid points such as a lack of customer service from Google and sketchy help pages. But some of his readers are expressing a slightly different train of thought about this issue because these services are free. Nevertheless, it is a hot topic worth checking out….
Here’s a few more thoughts on other Google Smackdowns:
Is Google Being “Evil”? Plans to Annihilate their Analytics …
Is Google Being Evil? Plans to Annihilate their Analytics Competition with Ajax? The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs …
Google AJAX Search Results = Death To Search Term Tracking?
Buzz has been growing over the past 4-5 days about what appears to be a new Google search results test that, if widely implemented, might spell doom for SEO rank…
Google Smackdown & aimClear Blog (Kinda) » aimClear Search …
aimClear Blog’s homepage Toolbar PR ticked from PR5 to PR4 overnight. Also, TB PR seems to be distributed with more power & deeper within the blog. Imagine that…
What’s the Next Google Smackdown? | Vertical Measures
We all know it is coming. We all wait with great anticipation. We all hope it doesn’t hit someone we know. And we can all guess at who it is going.
What Will *Really* Break If Google Switches To AJAX…? – Online
On Friday I wrote a piece on how it looked like Google was testing AJAX results in the main serps. Some discussion followed as to whether, if this change were to become a widespread permanent one, …
Increase Your Productivity By Finding Your Peak Time
If you think that by sitting down and writing a to-do list, and that this alone can increase your productivity, you might be setting yourself up for failure. You can have all the to do lists in the world, but if you don’t feel like doing them, they won’t get done.
Everyone has different times of the day when they are at peak performance. So if you schedule your to-do list around these times, more than likely you will have a very productive day.
Most people don’t do this. They create a to-do list that doesn’t take into consideration the ups and downs they are going to have throughout the day.
For example, after eating a fulfilling lunch, and I mean those carbs or huge meals, people may tend to get sleepy because of that sugar rush. And we all know what happens after the sugar rush…you crash so hard that you can’t even keep your eyes open.
Here’s another example…
Many people wake up in the morning and jump right out of bed ready to take on the world. But by the afternoon are probably struggling to pay attention. By the evening they are totally zonked out.
I am the epitome of a “night owl.” I don’t get into the groove until the afternoon. So in the evening I have a surge of energy and am very productive. I find that it is almost impossible for me to be productive during the day. I am sluggish and my attention span can sometimes be that of a gnat 
Your Greatest Productive Time
I’m sure you know what times of day are your peak time when you are most alert, focused and productive. What you should do is schedule your to-do list around these peak times. As a matter of fact, schedule the difficult stuff during these period because you will be more likely to finish the job.
If you don’t know what time of the day you feel best, then just journal how you feel for about a week or so. Once you figure out what your peak times are, and schedule your tasks around those times, you will see that your productivity will skyrocket.
Tips To Speed Up A Slow Loading Blog Or Website
Is your blog or website loading slowly lately? Here are a few tips to help speed up your load time:
Deactivate any unused plugins. Some plugins call for resources outside of your blog, which slows it down. So if you don’t need a plugin, just deactivate it.
Display images from your server only. If you are loading images from an outside source, try to get the images loaded on your server. Blogs have a library that you can store your images in for faster retrieval. If you are using a html website instead of a blog, just store your images in a directory on your server.
Javascript Applications such as Google Friends Connect, MyBlogLog, etc. that send out for resources can slow you down. You don’t have to remove these services, just be aware of the possibility that they can make your blog load slowly.
Using affiliate banners hosted on the affiliate site can slow down your loading time. See if you can put the images on your server instead.
Try testing out these tips one at a time to see how faster your blog or website loads. These are easy to do, behind the scenes, actions that won’t affect the functionality of your blog.
