But just recently I have noticed a vast increase in my inbox. It’s either for Viagra, to tell me the FBI has tracked me down to pay me several million dollars I’m apparently owed, or from SEO companies who claim to be able to get my website to rank for everything.
It’s this last bunch that prompted me to write this post.
Practically every day I get an unsolicited email from an SEO company who claims to be able to get me on the front page of Google for all my keywords.
As soon as they arrive I delete them but their sheer number got me thinking. Someone somewhere is probably falling for their hyped up patter – they must be because why else would they keep sending them?
Don’t fall for the con
Most of these emails will make huge claims about their SEO effectiveness.
Some of them will claim to be able to get great results for much less than you’re paying your present SEO Company.
But they all have one thing in common – they are unsolicited.
I don’t know about you but that’s not how I run my copywriting business. The people I email are either clients, people who have made contact with me to talk about my copywriting services, or people who have already opted in to receive my newsletter. The one thing I don’t do is randomly select email addresses and bombard them with sales emails.
These people are spammers, pure and simple, and on top of that they are most likely the type of SEOs who use black hat techniques.
Choose your SEO Company wisely
If you receive an email out of the blue from a company offering their SEO services, think very carefully before contacting them.
The best advice I can give to find a genuine SEO Company who really understands their subject and will only use white hat techniques, is do your research.
Ask other people you know and trust who they use for their SEO and what results they’ve had. Plus good SEO Companies should be more than happy to provide you with client recommendations.
Tread carefully, don’t believe the hype and don’t act on an unsolicited email.
The last thing you want to do is fall foul of Google – make sure your SEO Company understands the techniques and abides by the rules.
We’ve all seen them – videos that are produced by companies to market their products that go viral. They’re viewed thousands of times by people all over the world. People talk about them and share them through social media.
So how do they do it?
Why is it their video goes global but yours remains unloved on YouTube?
Stop marketing
“Stop marketing – are you serious?”
Yes I am.
Think of marketing as a whole rather than just relating to video marketing.
Do you like getting cold calls or unsolicited mail shots?
Probably not – and if you don’t why do you think your customers do?
Here’s a news flash for you, they don’t like it. They don’t like being disturbed during the day by a company they’ve never heard of before trying to sell them something. They don’t like having their inbox cluttered with unsolicited emails and they don’t like getting piles of junk mail.
They would rather you engaged them, got to know them, help them with advice and tips. They can then get to know you, get to like you and get to trust you. That’s when they may decide to do business with you.
OK, going back to video marketing, what do you think a successful video should be like?
A) One that harps on about your company all the time
B) One that makes an emotional connection with the viewer
It’s the emotional connection that will make people want to share your video. Here are a couple of examples of companies that used their videos in precisely that way. They are not blatant adverts – they offer the viewer entertainment and a few laughs which in turn made thousands of people share them offering the companies a perpetual marketing machine.
Samsung’s video which took a novel approach to promoting its LED TVs
Bensons for Beds unique way of promoting their products
T Mobile
A whole new way of thinking
Many companies go wrong because they continue to use the old fashioned advertisement within the new social media context.
Social media is all about engagement not direct selling.
When you use video marketing, Twitter, Facebook or any other social media platform you must learn to talk to people. Success in these new marketing arenas is all about engaging them, conversing with them, and building relationships.
Your videos shouldn’t be seen as TV adverts, they have to give the viewer something.
Plus, if you want people to share your video make it easy for them. Upload it to YouTube, provide a link to share. If you don’t what was the point in creating the video?
So next time you create a corporate video, forget the direct sell and your company and think about your viewer. Give them something they can engage with, enjoy and want to share with others. That’s when you’ll benefit from viral marketing.
Most people don’t like being sold to. A landing page is there to sell (or gather leads etc.) so you’ll have to work hard to gain your visitors’ trust.
There are three main ways you can do this:
1. Testimonials
The good old testimonial – what would we do without them?
People like to hear how other people felt about buying from you. They want to know if the product worked how the customer service was etc.
Ideally the testimonials you use on your landing page will be linked to the product or service it is offering. That way you can convey all its benefits in your copywriting and your testimonials can back it up with real examples from happy customers.
2. Trusted logos
Are you or your company a member of an industry regulatory body, local business group or do you have some sort of certification relating to your product/service?
If the answer is yes, add their logo to your landing page. This will help establish trust because you’ll be seen as a bona fide company.
3. Privacy policy
This is very important if you’re looking to capture email addresses on your landing page.
No one wants to sign up for something only to be bombarded by emails from third parties.
Make sure you either have a few sentences outlining your privacy policy or link to your privacy policy page within your main website. If you do the latter make sure the link opens the page in a new window because you don’t want them to leave your landing page.
These simple tips will help you gain the trust of your visitors. Do you do anything else? If so please share it by leaving a comment.
You’ve set your blog site up, added in all the plug-ins you need and chosen a design that is perfect for you.
Writing your posts is coming fairly easy and you’ve had the odd comment left now and then but nothing to shout about.
But you begin to notice your stats. You only seem to be attracting a few readers, not the shed loads you’d envisaged when you started out. Not only that but numbers seem to be dwindling.
What’s going on?
You’ve got a problem, that’s what’s going on. Your readership is dropping and people who do find your blog are not staying.
The problem is you’re not being effective – your posts aren’t grabbing them anymore.
Learn to become effective
Lesson 1:
First off read one of your posts.
Forget the fact that you wrote it so you’re obviously going to think it’s brilliant. Is it speaking to you?
Are you talking to the reader or at them? Using ‘you’ and ‘your’ in your posts rather than ‘I’ and ‘we’, will make a huge difference. You’re immediately involving the reader in your post. You’re building rapport, drawing them in, gaining their trust.
Lesson 2:
What does your post look like?
Is it one solid block of text, or is it broken into small paragraphs and sub headings like this one?
No one wants to read something that looks like War and Peace. For a start, very few people like reading from a screen and so, if faced with a solid screen of text, won’t bother reading it.
Using features such as:
• Headings
• Sub headings
• Bulleted lists
• Images
Will add interest to your post and make it look more welcoming.
Lesson 3:
What happens when you get to the end of your posts?
Do you ask your reader to do anything? Or do you just let them wander off?
Adding a call to action makes a huge difference. It doesn’t have to make a sale, it could ask them to sign up to your newsletter or even leave a comment. Asking them to take an action is involving them in your blog – it shows that their opinion matters to you.
Lesson 4:
This is where your subject matter comes into play.
As you’ve probably guessed I’m a copywriter so when I started this blog I made the decision that all my posts would be related to copywriting, marketing and social media.
So when someone comes back to my blog they have a fair idea of the kind of information they’ll find here. If they want to find out about website copy or SEO, they know they can search for that term or check out my archive list and they’ll find the information they need.
My blog acts like a mini directory for all things copywriting and marketing.
But if you have posts covering all manner of subjects on your blog how are people going to know what they’ll find? Find your niche and stick with it – make yourself an authority in your own field and people will flock to you for your help and advice.
Lesson 5:
This one doesn’t have anything to do with your writing; it’s more concerned with the look of your blog.
Create something that’s multi coloured and full of ads and you’ll scare people away. Make yours a memorable brand by sticking with a couple of complimentary colours. It’ll become instantly recognisable so when your readers return it will be like slipping on a pair of comfortable slippers.
Blogging is a great way to help your SEO and to make a name for yourself on the internet.
Are you blogging regularly? Do you have a unique way of attracting visitors? Share your experiences by leaving a comment – go on, I’d love to hear what you have to say.
If you’re a business owner breaking into the world of Twitter you’ve probably set up your account, uploaded your avatar (using your photo), written your short bio and are now sitting in front of the screen scratching your head.
How do you go about using it as a business/social media platform?
Unless you want to land yourself the leading role in Spamalot don’t constantly bang on about business all the time.
Admittedly some of your offers will be useful to your followers but if you constantly tell people when you’re doing, how amazing your business is and what you’re selling they are going to get seriously cheesed off. The result will either be a lot of people hitting the unfollow button or a bunch of people that aren’t going to be interested in engaging with you.
So if you can’t use it for business bombardment what can you use it for?
Well, let’s get one thing straight, you can mention your business and tell people what you’re doing but just not all the time. Intersperse business tweets with personal reflections and comments. Twitter is all about building relationships and as such people need to get to know the real you. The only way that’s going to happen is by your personality shining through.
Have you gone pale at the thought of being ‘you’ online? That’s why I love Twitter so much. As a one-woman-band I think it’s really important that people get to know who I am. So my tweets usually consist of:
Links to my latest blog posts
Links to other things I found interesting
Inane ramblings (there’s a lot of those)
Copywriting/marketing tips
Retweeting other people’s tweets
Pleas for help
That last one highlights one of the major benefits of Twitter (certainly in my eyes). Since I’ve been tweeting I’ve had various IT issues and the such like which I’ve tweeted about only to have several knight’s in shining armour come to my rescue. And when you work alone that type if support is priceless.
Of course it has also proven very beneficial to me in finding new clients too. You can read all about that in Mark Shaw’s fantastic Twitter Your Business book (click on the image to go and take a look at it). At just £10 it’s a great investment to make sure you get the most out of Twitter – and before you ask, no, I’m not on commission!
If you need some help getting going follow me @sallyormond and I’ll follow back and give any help I can.
Twitter is full of great people so take the plunge and come and join us – you might enjoy it.
Junk email seems to be a part of life these days.
How do you feel when you search for something and find yourself on a landing page?
