I write this at the risk of having someone going through my past posts — and calling me out. But, mea culpa. I don’t wanna be that guy anymore.

So I’m re-thinking my behavior and have identified (some) things I want to change…e,g,

• I refuse to spam-tweet.
• I refuse to post lame inspirational quotes.
• I refuse to line up a bunch of posts of OTHER people’s content via Hootsuite just to look ‘active.’
• I refuse to add to the glut of noise on the interweb or share something that isn’t fun, intelligent, or (hopefully) unique in its perspective,
• And most of all, I promise to listen.

Which brings me to my point.

Listening is the hardest thing, but perhaps the most important. It demonstrates an interest in other people and their point of view.  It not only offers you the opportunity to learn something new, it creates an environment of trust and friendship.

Think about it. Most of us sit in a conversation waiting for our turn to speak.  We’re all trying to make that point that causes people to say ‘hmmmmm, that’s smart.’  That warm wonderful feeling of social acceptance and recognition that we ALL crave. It’s important. And that’s the secret. When you’re able to give honest & sincere recognition that you’ve HEARD someone, they like it…and they can’t help but start to like you.  You’ve started building credibility and alignment with that person in a way that they will start to have interest in what you have to say.

So let me ask the question — when was the last time you went on Twitter to listen?

Dale Carnegie, made this point about the art of listening in his book ‘How to Win Friends & Influence People’. His teachings are as true now as they were when he first published them in 1937…maybe even more so.

I’ve copied some of the basic guidelines from the book below and on a quick scan, I think you’ll see how these can be easily applied to your online marketing efforts. You might even want to keep these handy as a reminder before hoping online to prepare you next post, tweet, or whatever.

Six Ways to Get People to Like You:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person’s name is, to him or her, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in the terms of the other person’s interest.
6. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking:

1. Avoid arguments.
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never tell someone that he or she is wrong.
3. If you’re wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Start with questions to which the other person will answer yes.
6. Let the other person do the talking.
7. Let the other person feel the idea is his/hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Sympathize with the other person.
10. Appeal to noble motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge; don’t talk negatively when a person is absent; talk only about the positive.

Using common sense and a little discipline you can successfully translate these practices to your online marketing presence whether in social media, on your corporate Web site, or any of your marketing communications.

It’s all about setting the right tone and creating a forum for engagement that will attract customers and grow your business.

If you do get the time, I encourage you to purchase the book, ‘How to Win Friends & Influence People’, or audiobook because I’ve found it to be a game changer both in my personal and professional life.

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. A quick overview of social media for business
2. About Sanctuary Media Group, Inc.
3. Sanctuary Media Group designs website for Ohio.com

I don’t know what that is and how it pertains to your business but you should start thinking about it. With everything from your website to how you design your proposals to how you run and market the business to the clients that you go after – Think Differently.

Example: I like the “clean” look in design. But to some people that might mean “bland” and boring. I’ve received many compliments on our existing site about how clean and nice it looks. How much they like it, etc. But does it make us stand out online? Hmmm…. not so sure about that.

So think about ways that you can stand out. If you send out a proposal maybe put it on colored paper. Chances are, most of the proposals will be on white and they’ll be boring. Don’t be obnoxious but try to do something to stand out. Maybe get some nice pre-printed stationary for your proposals – something that represents your business. There’s no guarantee that it will help but it sure will make your client consider which candidate is the more creative.

Need more ideas? Try these to get you started:

• Think of ways to get your site or business on news websites.
• Hold an original online contest.. Here’s a link to get you started with contests.
• Design your website so it’s completely different than your competition.
• Create a business card and email signature that is wacky and fun but still professional.
• Come up with a really creative (yet simple) slogan and put it everywhere.
• Separate yourself from your competition with awesome guarantees.
• Introduce yourself on your website with a video.
• Give your service away for free for a short time for email subscribers.
• Give website discounts. Look at your competition and beat their discounts.

Add this concept of “being different” to your company discussions ongoing and see what you can do to “stand out” more in everything that you do. ESPECIALLY ONLINE.

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. Be creative with what you’ve got
2. Internet Marketing
3. Effective Internet marketing in a nutshell (SEO Ranking factors)

We went to see Jim Kukral yesterday at the BizCamp event that we sponsored in Akron, Ohio on Thursday and Friday and let me say that he was inspiring. His approach was a butt-kicking, in-your-face wake-up call to ordinary, average and lazy business owners that they’ll never make it to great heights unless they become remarkable and stand out. You just have to find a way to stand out in the crowd against all the noise, static and attention deficient people in our society these days. It’s that simple. If you don’t, you’ll simply wither and die on the vine and be mowed over for the road that more dynamic businesses and individuals will travel.

His latest book “Attention – This book will make you money” is a wake-up call to those who think hanging with the status quo and doing things the way it’s always been done will allow you to survive in this dog-eat-dog business world. Anita Campbell from SmallBizTrends.com was at our event and recently did a review of the book on her website too. Check it out for the full scoop.

The video of Jim that we filmed (because we were chased out of the building by a fire alarm) is a glimpse of Jim and how jazzed he is about the subject. He was in the zone so he just kept rollin’ right there on the sidewalk. Enjoy his energy and enthusiasm as you hear his wrap-up where he tells you that being remarkable is the only way you’re going to survive and get what you want. Maybe you might even have a chance to be great.

This year’s BizCamp is bigger and better.  It promises to have 100+ attendees who’ll have the opportunity to participate in 18 presentations and workshops over the course of the two day event.

Speakers include:

• Office Max Founder, Michael Feuer
• Small Business Trends‘ Anita Campbell
• Author and Online Marketing Expert, Jim Kukral
• International business coach, Diane Helbig of Seize the Day Coaching

We’ll be announcing more on that in the days & weeks to come – so stay tuned.

Early Bird Registration has started so please join us by securing your seat at this year’s event.

What is BizCamp?

BizCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.

It’s an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants. Sometimes referred to as an ‘un-conference’ it’s a break from the expensive, ‘pitch’-driven, cattle-herding events that have become all too common in the business world.

Rather – BizCamp is a participatory event.

Attendees help determine what presentations will be given — and even have the opportunity to present themselves. The presentations themselves are intimate affairs – small groups of 30-40 people. The sessions feature an open dialogue of questions, answers and -yes- even the occasional ‘I don’t know.’

Areas of Focus / Topic Discussions

• The Entrepreneurial Experience
• Marketing for Small Business
• Business Technology

Event Schedule:

We’ve lined up a great group of speakers – each an expert in their field. Your participation in the discussion before the event will help determine the specific hands on workshops, panel discussion, and presentation topics. As we’ve get closer to the event we’ll post out the final detailed schedule, but the framework of activities follows:
Thursday, August 19th

8am – 9am  – Registration – Coffee & Continental Breakfast

9am – 12:30 – Scheduled Speakers & Workshops

12:30-1:30pm – Catered Lunch (included with registration fee).

1:30 – 5pm – Scheduled Speakers

Friday, August 20th

8am – 9am  – Registration – Coffee & Continental Breakfast

9am – 12:00 Scheduled Speakers & Workshops

12:30-1:30pm – Catered Lunch (included with registration fee).

1:30 – 5pm – Scheduled Speakers

5:pm – 7pm – Happy Hour & Networking

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. About Sanctuary Media Group, Inc.
2. Sanctuary Media Group designs website for Ohio.com
3. A quick overview of social media for business

In addition to managing their web presence we’re also developing a custom web-based catalog that will contain all of their products. It will be searchable and updated regularly so make sure to stop on over to Maibach’s for all of your future furniture needs if you live in or around Northeast Ohio. You won’t find better higher quality furniture products, service or advice anywhere.

Make sure to check out their furniture blog, check out their Ohio furniture sales, clearance furniture and what’s new.

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. Internet Marketing
2. Effective Internet marketing in a nutshell (SEO Ranking factors)
3. Creative internet marketing

In the good ol’ days, any link to your site was a good link and traffic was traffic. We all thought that it would reward us somehow. Any link to your site definitely won’t hurt you but if your business is strictly local you ideally want high quality, targeted local traffic that generates results. What those results are depends on the site but regardless, the following techniques will surely help any site owner affordably jumpstart their local traffic and reap real results without spending thousands of dollars. The 20 items listed here are obviously not the only techniques, just some new (and different) ideas to add to your arsenal.

1. Partner with a high traffic, local site that’s ranked well and pay them a few bucks to link to you.
2. Get listed on local coupon sites and provide an offer.
3. Continue traditional business networking through chamber lunch groups and events.
4. Go to church and get involved. Meet people and tell them what you do. Possibly donate your time to build your network.
5. Get involved with local groups and charities. Donate or discount your business services for non-profits.
6. Ask partners and existing local clients for links from their site.
7. Give away content that’s locally targeted and allow unlimited resale and reprint rights (make sure to require your site link in the content!).
8. Research many low cost, local key-phrases on Google and target them in everything that you do on your site .
9. Post your business card in high traffic local establishments and gathering places like the YMCA.
10. Consider old fashioned “offline” advertising. Direct mail, affordable local print ads, church bulletins, etc.
11. Get listed in Google local, Yahoo local and other local specific directories.
12. Do a search for your local service with your area code and see if any free directories show up. Continue to do local searches with your zip code to look for free, local linking ideas .
13. Get listed on free Yellow Page sites.
14. Get linked from your Chamber of Commerce .
15. Search out local government and education sites that will link to you .
16. Contact local businesses and partner with them for links.
17. Run a pay-per-click campaign targeted to only your zip code .
18. Make sure that your business appears prominently when you search on Google maps and Mapquest .
19. Partner with other businesses and give commissions if they refer people to your site and make a sale.
20. Talk to everyone. Never miss an opportunity to grow your network which will increase traffic and sales over time. As they say, you get out of it what you put into it.

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. Promote your site locally with Google local
2. Wicked cool (and tricky) viral marketing ideas
3. Website Traffic Development

Let me just say that all of the tasks mentioned above are important, but they’re not the most important first step in an SEO campaign. Your first step should always be research. You may know it as keyword research, keyword discovery, key phrase selection or any number of different titles. What’s important is that you know that it’s the first – and most important step – before you do anything else.

Your first step

Keyword research should take place before you design your website. Ideally it should also take place before you choose your domain name and even before you decide on the type of business you’re going to start. This is especially true if you’re running a web-based business because up front research can show you if anyone is even interested in what you’re selling. You want a business, product or service that’s in demand and one that justifies your investment of time and money. The last thing you want is to build a beautiful website and invest heavily in SEO just to find out that nobody searches for what you’re selling. You might even find out that you’ve positioned your online business completely wrong for your target audience. Keyword research will save you from many hours of wasted time if you make the effort to do it right from the start.

Your tools

As a craftsman, the best thing you can invest in is your tools. The same thing goes for SEO and the tools and techniques that you use to do your keyword research are very important.

Keyword research tools come in many shapes and sizes. They can range in price from free to fairly pricey and we’ll start our discussion with the freely available resources. The most importing thing to note is that you choose a research tool that gives you real world data. Initially it’s not important that one tool uses a database of 100 gazillion words and the other only uses 10 million. You just need to know if your most important key phrases receive 1000 searches a month or 10. Our goal at this point is to determine which phrases typically trend higher than others or if they show up at all. Once you have this data you can consider if it makes sense for you to invest in a robust, subscription tool to gather more data.

Free Keyword Research Tools

To get started, there are many free research tools available to you. One of the most popular is provided by Google. The Google keyword tool is available to the public and it allows you to search and discover phrases related to your business or service. You can simply type in one word or a phrase and it will return a long winded suggestion of related keywords and phrases that is very useful. Along with the search phrases they show you an estimate of competition as related to their Google Adwords advertising program, average search volume and a quick glance at search trends for that keyword. (Note: This data is not shown by default so make sure to select “show all” in the drop down menu after your initial search.) After you’ve completed your search you can simply add your words to a list and save them for future reference. This is a great place to start when you’re first building a list of targeted words and phrases.

The last tool that I’m going to mention here is a tool provided by a fellow blogger. Take some time to visit Aaron Wall’s SEO Book website and specifically his free tool “The Keyword Tool“. Aaron’s keyword tool will give you basic results from Wordtracker as well as suggestions for keywords. Aaron’s tool is unique in that it also provides you many different ways to expand your research for free. Overall, a great place to start your research and continue reading as you learn SEO. Aaron typically deals with topics that are a little advanced for a beginner but his site is well respected and a place that you should visit as you continue to grow your knowledge of SEO. Just don’t forget your roots here at QuickstartSEO.com!

Also, don’t forget the traditional tools that we’ve used since grade school. Check out Thesaurus.com to make sure that you’ve covered all the important synonyms that you might have forgotten or overlooked. Thesaurus.com is available for free and you can use it till your heart’s content.

In the next installment we’ll discuss the next steps and options as you continue on your path of discovery.

photo credit: James Cridland

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. Keyword research for SEO and online marketing
2. What is a blog? Getting started with blogging
3. SEO friendly design: Part 2 – Organization and research

By properly crafting your press release you’ll gain attention from industry experts, bloggers and the press all while improving your visibility. As an added–and very important–bonus, the interest that you generate can prompt people to create a “buzz” about your event with real traffic and increase inbound links to your site. Usually these links are the coveted inline links from content (mixed into content) that are so hard to get these days. Inline links are highly valuable to an SEO campaign and highly respected by Google.

What’s really cool about press releases is that you can affordably distribute your release through many easy to use online services. There are even some free distribution services available. Even for the pay services though, the cost is minimal compared to paying for traffic by the click. Press release services offer distribution for one flat fee so it’s much easier to estimate your costs and budget. Plus you get the residual SEO benefits of permanent links back to your site if you craft a well written and effective release that gains the attention of influential people.

To start off I’ll give you a quick summary about how to properly craft a press release. There are many other great resources on the web that are specificaly targeted to writing press releases so I won’t go into great detail here. Then in my next post I’ll move on to our target subject: Press Releases for SEO.

The basics of crafting an effective press release:

Formatting a press release is not hard; what’s hard is writing one. Getting the attention of influential people is not an easy job. They’re usually busy, picky, overwhelmed by information and spam and they’ve generally “been around the block”. Which means that they’ve heard it all and probably written about it too. So your new press release might be big news to you, but to someone influential, it can be just another boring intrusion into their day.

So, how to you get there attention? Below is a top 10 list of best practices to get you started on the right track.

1) Start strong and summarize your news in the first paragraph. Use this to get the reader’s attention and to compel them to read on. Many services require you to submit a one paragraph summary anyway, so plan for this and make it good.

2) Make it newsworthy and relevant. As I mentioned previously, what’s important to you may not be importantly to others. Make sure your press release is presented in a way that makes it sound newsworthy and don’t bother writing a release if it’s not something that others would care about.

3) Keep it short and to the point. A good press release gets quickly to the meat of the story. It doesn’t use flowery language and drone on and on about every little detail. Grab your readers attention, give them what they need to know in plain language. Use just enough words to tell your story.

4) Don’t exaggerate. Just stick to the facts and be honest because it can only hurt your reputation to embellish the details.

5) Skip the industry jargon. Communicate your news by speaking plainly as if you were talking to someone who knows nothing about your line of business.

6) Use the right tone and avoid addressing your audience directly. This will make your press release sound like an advertisement instead of an important news story. Use active, not passive voice. Avoid using “I”, “we” and “you” outside a direct quotation. Keep the tone of your release all business too. Don’t go into too much personal or non-business related blabber. Most importantly, avoid using exclamation points!!!!! This is a great way to ruin your credibility.

7) Stick to the “approved format”. The standard structure of a press release includes the header, headline, dateline, body, boilerplate (who you are) and contact info. Press releases are written in block style, so no paragraph indentation is necessary. Also, NEVER submit a press release in all upper case letters. It will wind up in the trash or deleted because it’s hard to read.

Identify the problem and tell about the solution. Illustrate using real life examples how your business solved a big problem and use real life examples to communicate why you’re important and relevant. Essentially you need to tell them why this is news.

9) Pick your angle. Find a way to make your news release timely and relevant. Focus on your “hook“.

10) Use correct grammar and spelling. Not everyone is perfect (definitely myself included) but do your best to use proper grammar, punctuation and make sure to check your spelling. Do you know the difference between your and you’re or their and they’re? If not, then you should probably consult a professional before announcing something important to the world about your business. Your credibility is on the line.

For more information on hiring a professional to write your press release, contact myself or try Elance to interview professional writers from around the world.

photo credit: Kah Zanon.

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. How to write a great pay-per-click ad
2. Effective Internet marketing in a nutshell (SEO Ranking factors)

Here are the seven best reasons to use email marketing for your business today:

1. It’s really easy! Setting up an email marketing campaign doesn’t take years or twenty-seven board meetings. It is simple to do, especially if you have a little bit of expert advice and direction from a professional web marketing company.

2. It draws more web traffic. Unlike a regular mail marketing campaign, which might only draw a little bit of traffic to your website, an email marketing strategy will draw tons of traffic. This is mainly because you can embed links to your site in emails; if people just have to easily click on a link to get to your site instead of booting up the computer and typing in a link, they’re more likely to visit your website.

3. It keeps customers in the loop. Putting out monthly or weekly emails about specials and business updates is one of the best ways to keep customers coming back time after time. Instead of sending out expensive mail that will never get opened, you can send emails that customers can scan easily for current specials and discounts they’ll be more likely to use.

4. It’s cheap. With email marketing, you don’t have to pay for printing and postage, which means that it’s one of the cheapest ways to stay in contact with your customers.

5. It can be voluntary. Sometimes you just annoy people by sending unsolicited mail, but if you have a great website, you can allow people to sign up for your email newsletters and special offers. This is a great way to get advertising copy to the people who want it the most: customers who are already interested in what you have to offer or who have already used your products and services.

6. It’s fast. Sending an email takes almost no time at all. Of course, writing and proofing a professional-looking email letter can take some time, but it won’t take you any time at all to send out that email once you’ve got it finished. This means that your email campaign can be in potential customers’ inboxes in absolutely no time.

7. It builds relationships. Keeping in touch with customers and potential clients on a regular basis is the best way to do relational marketing. People love to feel connected to other people, and by sending out regular emails, your customers will feel connected to your business, which will draw them back time and again.

As you can see, there are tons of advantages to running an email campaign to market for your business. Just make sure that you hire professional web marketers who will be able to help you make your campaign more successful.

If you are looking for a company that can provide you with a great email marketing solution, manage and design your campaigns or somewhere in-between, check out Sanctuary Subscriber Manager email marketing service. It start at only $250/yr. with unlimited sending to your list.

Related Information and Blog Posts:

1. 8 things that should improve your email marketing this year
2. 16 ways to improve your email marketing this year
3. Email Marketing with Subscriber Manager

UPDATE: Here is the final design!

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