Work Yourself Up!

Do You Need To Lose Weight? Your "Friend" Thinks So.

I got an email with the subject "Work Problem" today.

Check this out...

Hey, I hate to be the one but when people
continueto talk about your weight issue, 
we'll it just disgustsme. Whether you know 
it by now, people are always chattering 
about one another at work but you come up 
morethan enough. I wasn't the happiest or 
best fit up until a year ago or so but that 
changed. Thanks to my dam brother-in-law. 
Anyhow, it was for the best. What I am 
saying is you need to do something and I 
was saved a year ago and maybe I can make 
the same difference. Try this stuff out,
I took it on the idea it's just more junk 
but it worked great. I see more positive 
reviews on it nowadays and makes me feel 
even better. So, I am encouraging a change, 
not only in the chatter around here but in 
you personally.

-Anonymous for now 
(using an anonymous email website to send this btw)
When it helps/works just send a memo with the name "Angel"
in it. Then you can take me out to lunch to thank you.

This is genius.  I don't know how many people will fall for it, but it certainly gets those who are dealing with weight issues thinking about things. 

"Well, it sounds like spam, but what if it's real?"

I believe in "right livelihood" and honesty is important to me when selling something.  The concept of this email is something that can easily be incorporated into an upfront sales message though.  People do talk about other people and it's not always something positive.  Everybody knows this, but it's an emotional trigger that bringing up in your sales copy might just help you get the sale.

What is TrustRank and SandBox?

I have often seen Google’s TrustRank and Google’s Sandbox filters discussed in forums. But what are they and how can we manipulate these filters? Google is still pulling over 45 percent of the traffic from the search engines and therefore it is very important to rank well in Google. Being able to utilize TrustRank is a huge advantage for any Search Engine Optimizer.

First we need to define what these filters are:

Most people know of the sandbox but fewer are aware of the impact of TrustRank. The Google sandbox and the Google TrustRank are both software algorithms that tries to filter websites through a series of factors to either penalize a site or hopefully give it high rankings. One of the main factors for these two filters are; time.

Not being indexed by Google? How long have your site been operative? The age of your website and domain name both have huge influences on the rankings of your website Google. MSN seem to be following most of the Google algorithms as well, but whether or not they take the ago factor into consideration when ranking your website I have not seen any proof of. However, MSN and Yahoo generally show rankings much sooner then Google and will also normally give you higher ranking. Google’s algorithm also takes your link popularity into consideration when calculating your page rank and they tend to link organically grew inbound links.

Due to the Google Sandbox filter some say it is likely you will not see great results in google for about 8 months to a year after you have launched your site. However, I have seen quicker results and even if you get your sited indexed by google in a week, a day or even a few hours after launch, RANKINGS will not come for a long long time. When Google see that you are serious and your site have been online for a while it believes it can "trust you" may begin to rank better.

If we put websites into just two categories or "holding tanks" TrustRank would hold those who are trusted by Google and SandBox would be those sites that are either new or have been found unethical by Google.

One way to get "TrustRanked" by google is to only do ethical SEO practices that Google endorse and to only deal  with quality optimization and quality inbound links and most importantly; you must have patience. Google needs to get to know your website and trust it!

Search Engine Optimization for Beginners

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is the process of optimizing a website to achieve high rankings in the search engines. The way this is done is by optimizing your site for particular search terms or keyword phrases that are designed to give your site good rankings in MSN, Yahoo and hopefully in the mother of all modern search engines; GOOGLE! So… what does all this mean?

If you want to find something online I guess you go to Google or Yahoo and do a search, right? If so, you will expect to find something relevant to the search term you entered. To ensure that the results you get are as relevant as possible for the search term you entered the search engines have developed a lot of great algorithms to make sure only the most relevant results show up within the few first pages.

If you search for cars then you are not interested to find something about neither brownies nor boats. In for order for for instance Google to know what is relevant to your search they need to know which websites feature what you are looking for. When search engines index pages they store information about the pages in order to generate the most relevant results by using a combination of different ranking factors such  as page rank, link popularity, content and other off- and –on page optimization factors.

In order not only to get your website indexed but also ranking high for relevant search terms your mission is to build your pages so the search engines index your pages quickly and accurately. They key is to give the search engines what they are looking for and keep them happy by optimizing your pages according to the ideas or standards provided by i.e. Google. One of these “ideas” is to have a Google site map – or a google friendly xml site map – on your website. You must then create an account with Google and tell them where your xml site map is located. This way they can index your site quicker and currently it is crucial to rank well. Do this right and you will make Google happy, surfers are happy because they find what they are looking for and you will be happy because you will get free targeted traffic to your website :-)

To put it short there is one word that is crucial: Relevance. Don’t use black hat tricks to fool the search engines because these tricks will get your sites banned by google and the other search engines. Just give the surfers and Google what they are looking for and eventually you will rank well if you do things right.

Search Engine Optimization is so much more than just creating a few meta tags and submitting your URL to a few search engines. This maybe was all there was to it a few years back but things change and they change fast.

There are many more factors than the ones listed above that are playing major parts in ranking in the search engines but these were some of the most important ones.

Some other factors that play a major part in your sites rankings are inbound links and the rank of the sites that provide the links, listings by relevant directories, and of course the quality of the content on your own site

How well are you doing now?  See www.pageranksite.com to see.

Terrible Design, Good Content

So you think your site is fancy, huh? So might be… but how is that increasing your click through rates and sales? Never mind the experts, the teachers, competitors… They might want you to have a fancy website or your competitor may have a fancy website but  what is the real purpose of your web site? I guess it is making you money! In order to achieve that you need to focus on functionality rather than fancy graphics. Don't get lost in layers of pretty design or unnecessary technology. It might look fancy but it might just as well ruin your sales!

BAD VS GOOD Website.

So... what defines a really good web site? If you have ever been on a web site trying to find something that you were supposed to be able to find on that specific site and couldn't? Welcome to the club! In my opinion that would be the classic BAD website. It doesn't matter how pretty it is, how good the colour scheme is, how brilliant JavaScript codes you manage to create or how fancy buttons and flash things you can create if I cannot find what I am looking for.

So now we know what a bad website is, in my opinion. Let's find out what a good website is. Have you ever been on a site looking like it is was made by a 3rd. grader? Ugly fonts, crazy colors , plain links instead of pretty buttons and static banners instead of fancy flash animation? Many would call that a terrible website. And maybe I would too. However, let me ask you one thing: Did you find the information you were looking for? If you did, I would say it is a good web site. Ok. I don't mean that you should design ugly website. Absolutely not. An especially if you are selling something your website need to have a professional look, but just don't let the "fanciness" get in way of the real information - the actual reason why someone would visit your website in the first place.

In sum functionality is more important than looks. Ideally, your web site should be both functional and nice looking. All it takes is proper planning.

One easy way to avoid all the fancy stuff is by doing HTML coding by hand and not by using Dreamweaver, FrontPage etc. It will also make it a lot easier to clean the website sometime down the line and even make it easier to do SEO.

Conclusion:

Your goal should be to make clean and simple websites that is easy to use for the visitor and that deliver the content or service the website was intended to provide. 

PR Web - Worth the Cost?

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with PR Web's podcast service.  At the same time, I released a traditional press release via PR Web.  And now it's time to share the results...

The standard fee to release something via PR Web is $40.  The more you pay, the higher you'll be on their list of press releases.  I've been on PR Web for 3-4 years and had never really gone beyond $100 or so.  This time, I decided to see what would happen if I paid enough money to get the #1 spot on their front page.  The cost was $420, which doesn't include the $100 I paid to have them interview me for their podcast service.

Keep in mind that it's not always $420.  You may get the same spot for less, or it may cost you more.  I originally posted the release a few days ahead of time, so I had the #1 position for a little less, but as more and more companies came in with press releases for the date I wanted, I had to add a few bucks to keep my top position.

After two weeks, the results are...

118,357 Reads - This is how many times the press release was accessed from PRWeb.com and other distribution points where they have the ability to measure traffic. This number does not include the number of journalists who received the release via email. In addition, there are online distribution points which cannot be tracked. This number does include RSS measurements.

1,235 Pickups (Estimated) - This number estimates the number of times the press release was accessed by a consumer / media person. This does not tell how many times the story appears on other websites, blogs, or in the media. It simply attempts to estimate interest in the release.

6 Prints - This is the number of times that someone has printed the press release. This is measured by the number of times that the "printer friendly version" link is pressed. In reality, only a small percentage of users actually click this link before printing a release, so this number is probably worthless in getting an idea of how popular the release is.

1 Forward - This is the number of times that someone has forwarded the press release to a third party using the link on the press release.  Like the "print" number, I don't know that this matters much.

149 PDF Downloads - The number of times the release was downloaded as a PDF document.

Was it worth it?  I did a lot of things to promote my book, so it's hard to say exactly what worked and what didn't, but it's worth noting that the sales rank on Amazon was between 3000-5000 within a few hours.  I also added over 2000 people to my Law of Attraction website, which gave away a download of the book for free.

Not as good as I'd like, but enough to take care of money I spent on it.

And keep in mind that it's not over...  Just a couple of days ago, my publicist got a call from reporter who wanted to interview me, which was directly related to this promotion.  And people are still reprinting the press release and linking to my site.

So overall, it was a great experience.  But will I do it again?  Probably not at this level.

My advice, especially if you're on a budget, is that you put your press release on PR Web, but only for the $40 level or whatever it costs you to get them to submit to Google and other news services.  This is a good start and will give you momentum you can work from.  I'm not convinced paying 10x the money for what is basically the same service (with the exception of your listing order) is worth it.  Although I did make my money back, I certainly didn't see 10x the results.

Worst Commercial Ever?

"Worst Commercial Ever" is how the video below is listed on YouTube.  I disagree.  In fact, I think it's one of the better commercials I've seen lately.

Sure, the production quality sucks and the guy isn't going to land a recording contract any time soon, but thing thing does a great job of featuring the products being sold and doing it in a memorable way. 

The purpose of a commercial is to sell things...and I think this one does a fine job.  My only complaint about it is that there is a lot of "wasted space."  The dance in the middle is overkill...  He could have said everything he said in 30 seconds with no problem. 

Designing Your Marketing Website

Using graphics when constructing a website is something every webmaster like to do. However, images can make your website load slowly and actually turn people away. A website should load within 5 seconds, if not you will lose many visitors. You see, most people still connect to the internet via modems and regular phone lines so design your website for these people by avoid using large pictures.
So how can you create a good looking website with nice images and aesthetic quality without making it load too slow?

If it is possible try to avoid using large pictures that delay the uploading of your web page. If you have to use large pictures, try to use a graphic optimizing tool to reduce the weight of the picture(s). There are a lot of great optimizers available and the best ones can cut the weight of your graphics with as much as 50%. Some cost money and some are free to use and whatever you choose what is important is that it does not noticeable decrease the quality of the images. To find free optimizers try a search in Google for “graphic optimizers+free”.  Some optimizers will slice your images into smaller pieces and put it back in place on your website. This will not be viewable for the visitor but will decrease loading time a lot if you have many big images.

Your website MUST load in 5 Seconds Or Less

Surveys proves that if a web page takes more than 5 seconds to load you will lose visitors and sales as at least 1/3 of your visitors will click away and maybe end up on  a competitors’ website. You DON’T want that!

Thumbnails

If you need to have a lot of single pictures on your website it can be a good idea to use thumbnails. If done wisely, you will avoid long frustrating loading time.

So you think your website looks dull without all the flashy images? Remember that if you may have cable connections for your Internet access most people world wide  still connect to the internet on dial up connections.

Thumbnail Size?

How important is the size of the thumbnails? You can put as many thumbnails on your website as you like and any they can have any size you like. But be aware of the so-called “recall factor.” Recall…what? Ok. I’ll try not too be too tech-nerdy now…

A study done by the The University of Calgary showed that thumbnails should have a  size of 120 x 90 to get the greatest recall results. This is simply because it matches the screen resolution in proportions (640 x 480, 800 x 600, etc) and offered the optimal size in previewing web sites. The 120 x 90 pixels images also offered the best size in usability and download time.

Images are great for your site and you should by no means avoid using them. They give your website colour and a greater look if done correctly. However, do not overdo it.  Design your web pages with your visitors and their Internet capabilities in mind. If your pages takes ages to load then you can expect to lose customers / visitors. Consider optimizing your images instead by using the options that I discussed above. I guess it will improve your clickthrough statistics.

PETA's Viral Marketing Campaign

Somebody just sent this to me.  I think it's a great example of marketing, not only in the fact that it's viral, but it uses "delayed gratification" to get you to hear the entire message.

Unfortunately, after the spokesmodel is done talking, the video takes a turn for the worst by showing graphic images of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses.  Of course, what's in the video is what happens to these animals...

So how to you get a message like this across?  On one hand, for PETA, it's important that people know how animals are treated, but on the other hand, will these "extreme" images cause people to turn off the video and ignore the message completely?

Your thoughts?

Watch more PETA videos at PETATV.com.

How to Sell Digital Goods via Ebay

There has been a lot of talk in the online marketing world about Ebay lately.  And with good reason...  Not only is it a great way to generate leads, selling digital products via Ebay is also almost totally automated. There is no upfront cost for the services you'll need to do this, and all fees you'll pay will be based on a percentage of sales.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it...

What you'll need:

1. Ebay Account (Get a Free Account with Now)
2. Paypal Business/Premiere Level Account (Get a Free Paypal Account Now)
3. Payloadz Account (Get a Free Account Now)

Step-by-Step Process:

I'm going to assume you already know how to fill in the forms to get your accounts at Ebay, Paypal, and Payloadz setup.  Note that your Ebay, Paypal, and Payloads email address need to be the same.

And once you've done that...

1. Log in to your Payloadz account, look under "account" (at the top), and get the URL of your "IPN Link."  It will look something like http://www.payloadz.com/pay/index.asp?Id=xxxxx.

2. Visit your "Instant Payment Notification Preferences" at Paypal.  It needs to be set to ON and you'll add the URL that you received in step one.

That's it for Paypal...

3. Visit Payloadz and upload the product you want to sell.  Make sure the title also works for the auction you want to list, as this will need to be an exact match for Payloadz to deliver your goods instantly.  Copy this item name into your clipboard.

4. Log into Ebay and create a listing.  The listing title needs to be what's in your clipboard, assuming you followed step 3 and have the Payloadz item you want to sell in there. ;)  If not, you can type out the action title, but make sure it's exactly the same as name of the Payloadz item you want to sell.

6. Specify your auction as a digital item and fill out the information requested.  File format, operating system, required software, etc.

7. You want to sell your goods instantly and you don't want the auction to end as soon as one is sold, so the auction should be fixed price and the quantity of items should be more than one.  To do this, set the payment option to "require immediate payment via Paypal" and set the quantity so that it won't run out.

8. http://payloadz.com/d1/lookup.asp is your file delivery location.

9. Submit the listing.

If all goes well, and it should, your auction will appear within a couple of minutes.  When somebody buys what you're selling, they'll pay via Paypal, be taken to a page which links the "file delivery location," and be able to look up the order via the auction/payment information.  The file will be available via a web page instantly and they'll also get an email which gives the URL of that page, in the event that they missed it the first time around.

As this strategy for selling is almost hands free, it's a great way to add another stream of income to your business as well as add to your mailing list.  The hardest part is setting up your listing for the first time.  Once that's done, you simply "relist" the action when it's over, and you're back in business.

Show’em Your Face!

A user friendly and good looking website is one of the many keys to success. You could have the best product in the whole world and the website may have excellent SEO, but a terrible looking and poorly designed website will not maximize the potential of your website. This article will hopefully give you at least one way to make your website more “people-friendly.”

First of all; K.I.S.S. KISS?? Yeah… Keep It Smart & Simple. Use a limited number of colors  to make your website  easy to look at. A lot of flashy colors  may look cool to you, but most likely it will only irritate your visitors. Also remember that a huge part of people today, still, are on low bandwidth connections and flashy things may make your website loading too slow for them = lost visitor and lost sales…

Another important aspect of your design, especially for sales letters, is to give your website a “face.” Simply put a picture of a human on your website. Even a small one will do and it doesn’t have to be your or someone you know. Smiling faces always attract people.

Humans are social beings and for some strange reason do we like to see other humans faces. If you are stuck in front of your computer all day long you may feel lonely and especially if you are working from home in front of a pc it can become rather impersonal and “cold” sometimes. There are e-mails, msn, forum posts etc and we do interact with other people like never before but the true warmth of another human being is missing. Faces can repair a at least a little bit of this feeling. A smiling face, or your face on a sales letter does not only give a more human touch to your website but it also gives a lot more credibility. And credibility equals sales!

Also, putting a smiling pretty face on your contact page is always a good start as this will make the visitors feel they are actually contacting a real person and not just sending an e-mail into cyberspace. And if you use testimonials get a photo to go a long with their recommendations. Remember, though, to NEVER use false testimonials or pictures of “fake” people on your website as this in fact is illegal.

If you for some reason do not want to share your own face on the net, you can find some great, relevant, faces at www.freestockimages.net. Also search for “royalty free photos” or similar in Google and many good websites will show up in the results.

All website owners, including you,  have got the ability to put pictures onto their web pages. There is no reason not use such a powerful tool that not only will increase sales but also increase the actual look and feel of your website. All research proves that humans like to interact with other humans, so make sure you put pictures onto your websites like I’ve explained in this article and you may find your visitors will most likely stay a little bit longer on your site.