Early this week I submitted a proposal (among several others) to a prospect interested in our web site development. Shortly after I sent the proposal the prospect emailed me and asked me to further articulate what I mean in the proposal by suggesting to incorporate strong call-to-action techniques on all site pages. I thanked the prospect and suggested the answer is clearly articulated in a previous post on my blog: “what’s your call to action” and I then suggested they might find several other articles on my web site and blog to be of value:
How the 3 strikes rule applies to your web strategy
The importance of web site evolution
Blogging in the new year

So what are some simple and basic ideas of marketing your blog?
1. Include it in your email signature file.
2. Print it on your business card.
3. Verbally mention it in your discussions and presentations.
4. Mention it when writing your articles.
5. Leverage in your emails especially using my idea above of driving direct value to your current and future clients.

This prospect is not a dear new client.

A question was asked on one of the online forums we implemented and I help moderate: “How often does one need to add a new entry to a blog? How long or short should a typical entry be?” Here is my answer:

This is one of the topics I study, track, research, write about, consult others and help develop. So let me share my bias with you.

I am writing an article for my blog with the title of: “The slow death of blogs” and please don’t misunderstand me, blogs are a powerful business tools and are here to stay and evolve. I am referring to individuals that were convinced by someone or thought it is a good idea to start a blog. But they rarely post on it. Not only is it a poor reflection on them but it is also a sad underutilization and a waste of this powerful tool. Their blogs are doomed by google and more importantly by their possible readers and will eventually close down – It’s only a matter of time. Unfortunately, some are members of this forum and some I personally reached out to and recommended they start posting on their own blog. Well guess what, they did for a short while and then stopped. They may get their last minute of fame and get featured in my article.

So if you are thinking of starting a blog here are some pointers:

1. Minimum 3 posts per week but if you missed a week here and there, not a big deal.


2. Length of each post from one sentence to an article length (1.5 page) although I recommend you keep it short and with bullet points. Write effectively and don’t over think this point.


3. You can always break your posts into sections or to be continued which may create anticipation.


4. The key is INTERESTING and VALUABLE stuff. But you already knew that I am sure.


5. The other key is that there is much more to putting together a successful blog than just starting to blog.


6. A blog is a tool for rapid publishing giving 100% of the control to the author of the blog enabling you to basically fire your web master (well not quite but almost.)


7. Finally, the power in creating a rich experience for the user is by combining text, images, audio Podcasts and videos on your blog. See Alan Weiss for a great example of a fascinating blog. Mine is another of course.

There are other members on the forum that have interesting blogs. Ed Poll, Aviv Shahar, Dan Coughlin, Pam Harper and Michael Harrison among others.

Here are some articles I wrote that you may find of value before you make your final decision:

Blogging in the new year
How to make your blog posts more interesting
The importance of web site evolution
How to improve your marketing exposure

My colleague, Dan Janal, runs a great operation with his company PRLEADS. His company focuses on helping individuals get quoted in top-notch publications. I know many people that use Dan’s company and get great results and are quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Business Week to just name a few. I met Dan and he does run a great operation that provides terrific value.

Some time ago, Dan started a new blog by the name of: Cool Book of the Day, which actually is a great idea, allowing authors to feature their books. However, I have two key issues with this blog:

The first is Dan’s decision to use Google ads in an attempt to possibly make money. Please look at the first two screen shots (click on the images to enlarge) and tell me how are ads about losing belly fat, quitting your job, and pushing hard the love button, help in establish strong business credibility about the book, the author or Dan’s blog. I believe it ruins everyone’s credibility. Realize that the two screen are capturing the same identical blog page but demonstrate how Google controls changing these ads at different times.

(First google ad)

(Same screen a couple of seconds later with a different google ad)

I read blogs using a blog reader, which allows me to review multiple blogs instantaneously to quickly pick and choose the entry I may be interested in reading. It also saves me the time it would otherwise take to visit each blog in order to check if any of them has anything new to read. The concept has been there for a while and it uses RSS technology, but that is for another article. The reader I happen to use is the popular Google reader. Take a look at the screen shot below, which shows the same identical blog above through my Google Reader. Notice that it does NOT show the Google Ads. This is a huge consideration if you are thinking of utilizing Google Ads in your blog.

(Same screen of above blog page displayed in Google Reader

The second issue I have is more about the content. It seems to me that the author of each book had to simply answer several questions about their book rather than Dan interviewing them and writing his own review. But that would probably take some work.

Finally, his blog uses the Amazon affiliate program. This means that you are able to click on a book, which will then take you directly to the proper Amazon page. If you are then interested in ordering it online, the blog owner (most likely Dan) will earn some dollars. I do not have a key issue with this concept since I do the same on my own blog. The difference is that I believe you need to have a disclaimer about this in order to create credibility. Mine is at the bottom of the “About Chad Barr” page, which states that I will donate 100% of the affiliate program income to my favorite charities.

This article is intended to demonstrate how some decisions have the potential to ruin your credibility utilizing the wrong Internet tools and concepts.

We are working on a client project that involves two people in my organization, the client and another business partner. In order to improve communication and make sure all people involved are in the loop, I requested we all hit “reply all” when responding to emails. Doing so is not just common sense but also good business practice. Well, you guessed right. On numerous occasions both the client and the business partner did not choose to “reply all” and hit the “reply” button only, which would then reply only to the sender and not the others involved. There are of course occasions when this is necessary, especially when you want to reply to the sender, keep it confidential and prevent others from seeing it. But this was not the case here.

An oversight? Perhaps. But if you are not paying attention to important requests that affect proper communication and project success, you are increasing the chances of communication breakdowns and failures. I realize we all may suffer from dementia at times but the fact from my experience is that this situation is ubiquitously common.

The exception to this rule is when someone, erroneously or not, decides to include me and other recipients in their distribution list. Unless the content contains an error that needs to be pointed out, or all recipients need to know that I should not be included in future email updates, I simply hit the “reply” (to sender only) and ask the sender to keep me out (opt-out) of their distribution list.

Since I hopefully got you reading this far and since I know you would agree with me that we all get tremendous amount of emails and spam let me also suggest the following:

1. Reduce the number of emails you are sending and replying to.


2. Keep your email pithy.


3. No email jokes please. Let me share with you that I either delete them without reading or reply to sender with a request to stop sending them to me. This is an example where I choose not to hit “reply all” since I want to reduce the chances of others I do not know on the distribution list deciding to become my “friend” and add me to their distribution list.


4. Which brings me to the last point. When sending an email to people who do not know each other and unless previously agreed by all as expected, use the blind copy (bcc) option when sending your email. This way you are not revealing email addresses of people who would rather remain anonymous. I am one of these people.

Did I follow my rule number 2 of being pithy? Well, this is not an email and you decide.

This was my rant for the day and I do feel better now … I think.

I know that I keep talking about delivering genuine value through your blog. But how do you make your text come to life? Simple. Incorporate picture images, audio and video in your posts and throughout your blog. I visit too many blogs where the author did not realize this simple rule. Unless the message strongly captures my attention, I find most blogs to be quite boring.

When talking with one of our new web clients today, he said that he really likes the way I utilize pictures and videos on my blog. Another colleague emailed me a copy of his blog to comment on. It was painful. Not a picture in sight, just text upon text.

Think about powerful papers and online publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. Both, among many others, are loaded with outstanding text content accompanied by pictures, audios and videos.

So add some sizzle to your blog and remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. It will break up the monotony of your blog and will make it by far more interesting and unique.

Now where is that picture I wanted to place here?

It was great when one of the participants in my recent speaking engagement in Rhode Island, came to me after my presentation and reminded me that I did not mention a concept that resonated with him when he heard me speak last year. So here is the concept and thanks for the reminder:

Imagine visiting a web site or a blog for the first time, finding it interesting and book marking it for future visits. Then, on your future and subsequent visits, nothing has changed, no new content, nada. How many times would you keep on visiting this site before giving up? I say probably no more than three times.

To further illustrate my point, here is one final story that happened to me just recently: I am quite busy helping my clients leverage software, technology and the Internet to grow their business. Busy enough that I somewhat neglected to frequently update my own blog. When talking recently with one of my colleagues and discussing a point I wrote about on my blog, he went to my blog to check out my point and then said: “oh wow, I see that you are now posting much more than ever before, I will now then subscribe to your blog.”

And by the way, the same logic applies when subscribing to receive the content of other Blogs posts via RSS feed. How long before you remove the feed from your reader if no new posts have been entered?

I suggest you get into the discipline of posting interesting new content, at least once a month on your site and at least three times a week on your blog.

(Note: My definition of RSS technology – It enables people on the web to subscribe and automatically receive content from all the sites they are interested in. They may read, listen or view text, audio or video content immediately when it is published on the various sites. This eliminates the need to manually and separately visit all these sites to see if new content has been published.)

I am here at Rhode Island where I will be presenting today “How to Leverage The Internet for Improved Success in Your Business” to the attendees of the Million Dollar Consulting College, held by Dr. Alan Weiss of the Summit Consulting Group.

While chatting last night with several of the college participants, I came to realize that most entrepreneurs do not recognize the awesome power of progress and evolution, especially when it comes to their own web site. By that I mean, the commitment to the continuous addition of valuable content, products and services to your site and your business. I am referring to content such as:

Articles

White papers

Checklists

Surveys

Special Reports

Case Studies

Products

Services

Workshops

Collaboration and research papers or digital recordings

Audio and video recordings of your own wisdom, interviews with your clients or other experts in your field

As well as the possible implementation of:

Successful Newsletter Strategy and user registration

Blog

Online Community

So think about fast-forwarding 24 months from now. Your evolved web site now has at least 24 more articles, 4 checklists, 6 booklets, 4 Teleconferences, 2 workshops, 2 e-Books, 800 new registrations to your newsletter, and 20 new clients’ testimonials. Get the point?

What would possibly then be the impact on your business if you did that?

For evolution to take its place and be most effective, the best time to start is right now.

One of the successful concepts of Internet marketing is called Viral Marketing. This concept helps spread an idea very quickly among its recipients.

One example of the success of this concept is with singer Marie Digby. She video recorded several famous songs and uploaded them onto YouTube. When visitors searched for the song by the original artist they also found her videos, which quickly brought her fame and the signing to produce a new album.

Seth Godin also talks about this concept in a couple of his blog entries:

“What makes an idea viral?”

and

“Is viral marketing the same as word of mouth?”

A study conducted by Outsell Inc., a market researcher in Burlingame, and reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, reveals a huge fraud charging customers for erroneous clicks. Here’s an alarming summary of the finding as published in the original article:

Clicks believed by advertisers to be fraudulent: 14.6 percent

Money paid by advertisers for bogus clicks: $800 million (2005)

Advertisers who said they were victims of click fraud: 75 percent

Advertisers who said they reduced click-based advertising or plan to: 37 percent

Revenue lost by Google, Yahoo and other Web sites, as a result: $500 million

Advertisers who request refunds because of fraud: 7 percent

Average refund: $9,507

Source: Outsell Inc.

This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle. Click Here to read original article.

According to Stephen Farthing, instructor at the Univ. of Arts in London, (reported in the wsj) the average time a gallery visitor spends in front of a painting is no more than two or three seconds.

As I so often speak about when delivering my speeches, the majority of web visitors spend only few seconds on your home page. These visitors would only spend more time if you successfully and quickly grabbed their attention with points of interest and valuable content and products.

Read my current month article: “Is this your site I’ve just seen driving by?
Why most web sites reject their visitors”