Advertising on TV networks has always been a little complicated and expensive… it actually still is! It can be a long process that involves too many people… there are the people that put your ad together then there are the people who recommend the right places to air your TV ad and make those placements and book your TV spots.
Today, Google AdWords allows you to book your ads on TV networks all by yourself. Watch the video below to see how it works.
Mark Twain had an idea about copywriting when he said to “Kill all your darlings”, meaning say it straight and say it great. The same goes for creating copy that promotes your brand.
With all the media bombardment at every turn, you’ve probably seen it all – exaggerated headlines, over the top testimonials and claims. It might be effective in catching the attention of your customers but it’s a lousy way of building long-term patronage and partnerships. What happens when the hype is over?
Here are a few rules to follow when creating your content or copy:
1. Simple = Good
Simple is always better. It’s easier to remember and harder to miss. According to Luke Sullivan (Whipple, Squeeze This)
simple breaks through all the advertising clutter. So before you start writing, don’t forget to check your cliches at the door.
2. Numbers aren’t always great
Lose 10 pounds in 7 days or 10 Tips to A New You will grab a person’s interest but this will only lead to a one-time buy (hopefully).
When your customer snaps out of the starry-eyed high and find out your product doesn’t work then the numbers will definitely spell trouble for your business.
3. Most of the time, there’s never anything more
We’ve heard of this line and some people have even fallen for it once or twice. It goes more or less like “But wait, there’s more! If you call now, you get the Super Pro Ultraxxx for a very low, low price of $99.99.” Would you seriously consider buying the product? Or for those who were cuckolded, would you want to buy another one? I don’t think so.
According to Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner of Editorial Emergency “It’s not just a matter of making sales; it’s a matter of making lasting connections and establishing a brand that offers genuine value. And treating potential clients with respect. And sleeping at night”
The bottom line is: Don’t treat prospects like suckers born every minute. Write good copy and establish lasting relationships. Long-term clients build your brand so talk to them and communicate with them accordingly.
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Article by Guest Author: Carla Marie Adlawan
Carla Marie Adlawan, fresh from university with Business degree in hand, decided to jump into the world of advertising as a copywriter. Four years later, she’s still spitting copy at the same agency and from the same desk. She’s had years of experience working with local and multi-national clients spanning various industries from IT to F&B, Real Estate to Communications, Retail and Merchandising to Transportation and the Academe.
During her free time she prowls the streets to rid the city of crime, which is another term for freelance.
Visit her blog, Writings of a Street Rat.
If I were to pick one word and use that same word as the sole criteria and absolute basis for how well your website is ranked on Google, the word would be relevance. Relevance of a search term to content on a page; relevance as evidenced by link popularity of that page on other web pages on the same website or on other websites and corresponding click throughs from those links; relevance as manifested in behavior of visitors that land on that page; relevance as quantified by click throughs from a website’s search engine results page (SERP) listing. The latter two, has recently recently become even more important to SEO professionals with Google’s personalized search results feature that rolled out in December of 2009.
With Google personalized search, the search results (listings) you see on Google’s SERPs will show you websites that you have actually visited in the past and spent time on because Google has factored in your previous search behavior (your act of searching on Google, clicking a listing and spending time on certain websites, and how often you visit) into the way they rank pages on your search. Google does that automatically, even if you have not activated this feature, but you can actually get search results that does not take into consideration your previous search behavior by clicking the “view customizations link” on the SERP.
So if you are a website owner tracking your rankings or an SEO professional tracking rankings because it is a key metric to gauge results of your SEO activities, then your metrics are skewed or to a graver extent, inaccurate and misleading.
Google is watching what you click on in search results and learns that you like certain sites. For example, if you often search for specific keywords, and on the top 10 organic listings on the next page there is a web page ranked on the number 9 spot, if you click that site and visit that site regularly, or search for the same keywords later or search for related keywords and you end up visiting that same website, over time Google gives that site a boost in rankings, might end up being in the top 3 or even ranked number 1, because it starts to believe that you like that website. But the ranking boost it gets are only for your results you see on your browser, and not for all other searchers and users. In other words if the site is number 1 on the Google listings you see on your browser, it is not number 1 on other users’ browsers especially if those users have not had previous interaction with that website.
So if you are tracking your rankings, if done with the personalized search feature active, you will not get an accurate representation of what your rankings actually are in general for the city/country you are in.
There has also been a question of privacy, “is Google invading your privacy by watching what you are doing and taking note of your behavior on the websites you visit?”
More information about you is actually kept if you are logged into to your Google account while performing these searches, if logged out, there is only limited data that Google collects about you and your behavior, but still it is enough to change what you see on the results page. Below is a table that shows you what they gather if you are logged in or logged out.
So is personalized search bad?
In the aspect of tracking behavior I believe Google to be walking a thin line.. as the char above shows, it appears that by logging in to your Google account, Google takes this as a sign that you allow your behavior and identity to be monitored. But, has Google informed you about this?
Second thing is, as a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultant, the biggest concern is keyword rankings of clients might not be credible or accurate, however this can be easily remedied by simply doing the search again without search customizations. Moreover with a better understanding of how personalized search works, SEOs can make adjustments in order to even leverage on personalized search that is active by default, and use that to get that a ranking boost for their websites. I know I have, but if asked how… I am afraid I rather keep this strategy to myself and not make it easily and publicly available.
Reference and Image Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-now-personalizes-everyones-search-results-31195
A lot of people get a little confused when it comes to branding, so I recorded this video on how to create an online branding strategy to help you put together a plan that will develop trust in your brand.. whether it is a product, service, company or simply your name; increase visibility on search engines and a corresponding increase in traffic from search engines; and finally increased visibility on other websites such as Web 2.0 and social sites plus an increase of referred traffic from these websites.
If you have comments or questions please use the comment form below. Please feel free to share, ReTweet or send this video to your friends who might find it helpful.
Traffic is the lifeblood of any website. No visitors, means no customers, no business. A lot of people talk about free traffic but there actually is no such thing as free traffic, as there is likely some sort of opportunity cost involved like paying someone to do your traffic generating tasks, and if you do it yourself your time is certainly worth something. You would be surprised how many people still believe that they can sit back and relax and wait for traffic to hit their websites after they are built. Does not happen that way. You would need to promote your website, just like you would promote a business.
There are many ways to get more visitors to your website but here is a list of the fastest and easiest ways and a brief description of each.
1. Email Signatures
If you have a business website, you should at least have an email signature that has a link to your website AND your unique selling proposition or any value statement that catches attention and prompts a reader to click the link to your website.
2. Social Networking and Social Media Accounts
If you have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube then you have the opportunity to tell people on your network about your website, product or services. However there is the right way and a wrong way to do that, and from what I have seen, a lot of people do it the wrong way.
Do not spam nor annoy people with messages that they are not interested in. The key to getting people to your website through social properties is to catch their attention by posting your own or sharing other people’s content such notes, articles, links, and videos that are of interest to people on your network. The key there is to first get their attention, then sustain their interest with whatever piece of content they are viewing, the longer they consume that content a desire in them brews, then make them take action by giving them an irresistible offer or incentive.
I always underscore the three key elements to a successful social marketing campaign:
- continuously grow your network
- keep posting content that people on your network will enjoy or find useful
- interact with people in your network in order to establish a rapport and build trust
You can send traffic to your website from social sites through the links that you include with the content that you publish.
3. Craigslist and Classified Ads Websites
If you are selling products or services and you cater to a local audience, Craigslist is a great way to be able to put those products and services in front of customers who are already looking for what you have to offer. In fact, Craigslist is a great way to quickly dispose of products or inventory that you do not want cluttering your shelves, because you want to make room for new stuff.
Craigslist allows you to post classified ads that contain links in the listing, links that readers click and are sent to wherever those links point.
4. Press Release Submission
If you own a business, you probably have sent out Press Releases to media outfits requesting that they get published or the story carried. You would probably see a lot of these on newspapers. The same thing works online, you submit a newsworthy story to Press Release websites that will publish and distribute your story to media outfits. There are free sites and paid sites that you can submit to and of course the paid sites offer some form of added value.
The traffic from Press Releases will come in three ways:
- people reading the Press Release on the PR sites where it is published click a link in that takes them to your website
- people subscribed via RSS feeds to these PR sites will receive notices of your new PR via email
- people reading news websites who carried your PR story click the link that takes them to your website
5. Email Marketing
If you are an existing business and have customers, leverage on existing customers by getting them on your mailing list. Satisfied customers often make repeat buys from a seller that has earned their trust. Again, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The wrong way would be to, not be in touch with your customer then suddenly send them a message that you have a sale. You would need to be in touch with your customer through email, immediately after they make a purchase and find out if they are satisfied with the transaction; keep in touch with them by providing them with useful information that would make them make the most out of the product they had purchased; then offer them special deals on related products. It is also important that you get their permission for you to send them email messages, and this is easily accomplished with many email marketing services such as , which I use and have used for several years now.
6. Article Marketing
This is one of the most effective means of getting traffic today. Simply put, it is the process of writing articles that are relevant to your prospective customers, articles they would find helpful or useful and would contain a call to action for them to click a link that is part of that article. You would need to submit that to article directories such as ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com.
The traffic you will receive come in the form of visitors reading that article published on those article directories and the traffic from websites that republish that article on their websites. Article directories allow other websites to republish articles as long as the links remain intact.
You can also publish these articles on high traffic social sites; blog sites like WordPress.com and Blogger.com; content sites like Hugpages.com and Squidoo.com. These sites have a huge number of pages and communities tagged or categorize according to topic or subject matter. Publish content on these sites and tag them with relevant keywords; words or phrases that best describe your content, the same words and phrase that people on these sites use on the website’s internal search engine in order to find your content.
7. Forum Posting
Forums or online bulletin boards are online communities where you can find people of similar interests. You would need to join forums where your target customers are found and contribute in threads or discussions, providing useful content that will help resolve any of their issues or problems. Make sure to include a link on your website on your forum signature, with your unique selling proposition or a value statement.
8. Yahoo and Help Sites Posting
A few years ago, a friend of mine laughed at the idea of going to Yahoo Answers and answering questions, she found it silly. Well, the fact of the matter is, Yahoo answers has proven to be a good source of traffic. All you have to do is find answers that you can provide good answers to, and if you can use your website as a reference to those answers or an added resource you can post that link in your answer.
9. Blog Commenting
Blog commenting today is often referred to as blog spam, since a lot of people simply leave brief non helpful comments at the end of blog posts, just so they can get a link from that blog post. The right way to do it, is contribute to the discussion, add something helpful or useful to the blog post so that the owner will allow your comment to remain and you keep that link.
Traffic from blog comment links will come in the form of readers who found your comments useful.
10. Integration Marketing
Integration marketing is a term I heard being used by Kim Roach, but this is nothing new. A lot of companies have partnerships and co branding activities. This method of increasing traffic is simply the act of finding related businesses that you can partner with, and put your product in their sales process.
In business partnerships, you can for instance be a contract plumber who gets business from an architect, who hires you to take care of plumbing for a house the architect is building. In the virtual world, you can be an elearning software vendor who ties up with a human resource and training consultant who sells training DVDs online, and when DVD buyers check out, the buyer is given a one time offer where they can try your elearning system for free and a link where they can claim that offer. Another example that has more of a direct impact on sales rather than traffic is, you can be a seller of cellular phone skins and accessories who ties up with a cell phone retailer, and in the check out process when a customer buys a phone from that retailer, the customer will be shown your skins and cell phone accessories at discounted prices.
All the strategies above are FREE methods, but again.. they are not exactly free because your time has a price to it, right? I believe time is precious and certainly not free. If you don’t do it yourself, you can hire someone to do all that for you.
There are people and companies who create multiple fake FB accounts and build up the friend networks on those accounts for the purpose of selling a product or service, promoting something like a website, or simply selling the FB account. That said, always be sure to check who adds you on Facebook unless this is not important to you. If you accept just about any friend request, you run the risk of having your personal information exposed, and can get yourself spammed with ads.
Here are some guidelines below… but a disclaimer, these are my own, and might not work for you..
1. Check Pictures
If a person sending you a friend request does not have his or her own face on it, or might have other people’s pictures like an actress/actor, a dog… think twice before immediately accepting the request, and do a little investigating.
There are some Facebook accounts however, who have a complete set of photos of the same person but are still bogus.. photos are typically ripped from an unsuspecting user of another network like Friendster or Multiply and used on the fake account.
2. Check the friend request sender’s account profile for comments of other people on their pictures, and see if it appears like these comments are genuine interactions between people who actually know each other, that means that person actually exists.
3. Check the person’s wall and see if anyone has tagged them in pictures, notes or status messages .. if that person is tagged on photos of other people that is a good sign that the person is real and that Facebook account is legit. Look for posts on the wall that reveal a person’s personality, likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests. These are easily spotted in the form of photos and videos of that person, notes, and believable status updates.
4. Check the friend request sender’s wall for posted messages from other people and actual interactions.. if all you see are ..”added…”, “liked”, or “is now friends with”.. it is very likely this account is just being used to build up a network of people in order to market something to and is not owned by an actual person
5. Finally, do a search on Google for the person’s name. If they indeed exist there is a chance that their name is mentioned on some web page somewhere that has been indexed on Google.
Again, I believe it is important to check the add requests you get, because you could be allowing access to private information such as an email address, phone numbers and other personal information that might be taken advantage of by shady individuals. You could also be setting yourself up to get annoying advertising messages. Or worse, your identity get’s stolen and your pictures get used to create a fake personality/account on Facebook or another social networking site.
Here’s one more thing to think about. If you need visitors to send to an offer or to a website… or if you have a business that needs customers.. and you have 10 FB accounts each with 1000 people, you have a total network of 10,000 people. If you post a status message with a link to a website you want to promote, even if 10% of people click the link, that there is instantly 1000 visitors. Imagine if you post at least 5 status messages a day with a link. If your click through rate (CTR) is consistently 10%, then you are able to drive 5000 people everyday to any site of your choosing.
We know Facebook is profitable, and that is due to the website’s high traffic and usage by its members. But you probably would have never guessed it was profitable for some in this manner… people and companies whose business is creating and developing social networking accounts, who get paid to build it from the ground up, and even auction accounts with thousands of friends for thousands of dollars.
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