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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 March 8-15.
10 Most Recent Articles
- Facebook Groups Revisited
- In Case You’re Wondering Why Larry Brauner Has Disappeared
- How to Cope with Google Friend Connect’s Untimely Demise
- 5 Web Strategies that Paid Off in 2011
- Facebook Smart Lists Work Around
- Why Facebook Smart Lists are Actually Dumb
- Where Your Web Strategy Ought to Begin
- Facebook Has Its Cake and Eats It
- 10 Tips for Inviting People to Facebook Events
- Fascinating Social Media and SEO Case Study
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Oct
12
Social Marketing Momentum
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Web Marketing | 14 Comments
In Social Marketing Leverage, I stated that the Internet gives us the ability to transfer information with relative ease and enables a great variety of online tools to provide us with a virtual type of leverage.In this article, I discuss another physical phenomenon, that of momentum, as it applies to the non-physical social marketing process.
Momentum is the impetus of an object or a process, its tendency to remain in motion. If you’ve ever skated or cross-country skied, you’ve enjoyed momentum or gliding.
When riding in a car or bus that stopped short, you were thwarted by momentum as the vehicle stopped, but you kept going.
Most of the time, we don’t want to lose momentum. We’ve worked up some speed, or we’re highly productive — and we want it to continue.
Losing Physical Momentum
In the physical world, these factors can cause us to lose our momentum:
- Collision - Its outcome is generally hard to predict and is often catastrophic.
- Friction - Air, water and even our own brakes slow us down or stop us completely.
- Turning - To avoid collision, negotiate speed bumps or alter our final destination, we must brake partially or completely to change our direction.
Losing Social Media Momentum
In our non-physical social marketing work, the same factors contribute to our loss of momentum and productivity:
- Collision - Hitting the proverbial brick wall. A major plan is flawed, we accidentally delete all of our Twitter followers, or our Facebook account is phished. My advice in Social Marketing Leverage to “develop good contingency plans for when Murphy’s Law does strike” applies here and to all aspects of our lives.
- Friction - Indecision, multitasking, working at home while the kids are seeking attention, working at the office while a co-worker in the next cubicle is blabbing, slow social networking sites, associates who don’t keep their word, etc. These all tend to slow us down.
- Turning - This is huge. Abandoning a blog, changing our branding strategy midstream and other false starts lead to directional changes that slow us down and cost both time and money.
Social Marketing Prescription
What is my prescription for preserving social marketing momentum?
Planning, focus and consistency.
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Tags: consistency, focus, Internet, Internet marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, social marketing, Web Marketing


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Sep
23
Social Marketing Leverage
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Web Marketing | 17 Comments
A lever gives us the ability or leverage to move heavy objects with relative ease. Metaphorically speaking, the same is true of any tool that can empower us to perform a function more effectively.The Internet gives us the ability to transfer information with relative ease, and it is also enables a great variety of online tools to provide us with virtual leverage.
Web-Based Tools
Here are six web-based tools that we’ve come to rely upon to save us time or money or to help us be more effective:
- Internet-based mail - e-mail, autoresponders and PDF Files
- Live communication - VOIP phone, chat and webinars
- Digital media - websites, blogs and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter
- Social networking sites - Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn, etc.
- Content sharing sites - YouTube, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, etc.
- Search engines - Google, Bing, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve had some experience with each of them, and this is a very partial list.
What Can Go Wrong
I probably don’t have to tell you that things don’t always go right. Here are the three obstacles that can most easily sidetrack you:
- Using the wrong tool - Download a large file using dial-up Internet, and by the time it finishes downloading, you’ll forget why to wanted it in the first place. Use a shabby autoresponder, and most of your e-mails will end up in recipients’ spam folders.
- Using the tool wrong - Social media tools and search engines have steep learning curves, and learning how to use them properly is typically a big undertaking. Misunderstand or misuse social media or SEO techniques, and your work can be set back by months.
- The tool breaks - Your Internet connection goes down for a week, your Facebook gets phished, or your blog gets corrupted. You’ll be pulling out your hair, unless of course you’re fortunate enough to be bald.
Many marketers contact me for help because they’ve been using the wrong tool or using the tool wrong.
An Ounce of Prevention
So — choose the right tools, learn to use your tools properly, and develop good contingency plans for when Murphy’s Law does strike — because it most certainly will, and at the worst possible moment.
What do you think?
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Tags: Internet, Internet marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, social marketing, Web Marketing


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Jul
12
8 Great Choices for SPAM Free Promotion
Filed Under Best of 2009, Blogging, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, SPAM, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 13 Comments

I’ve written about the problem of spam both offline and online at social networking sites in How Do You Like Your SPAM? and Why Do People SPAM?
With this article, I’m delivering on the promise I made last week to discuss marketing channels you can use to promote yourself or your business — without ever resorting to spam.
Legitimate promotion alternatives fall primarily into these basic categories:
- Advertising - Expect to pay — unless you prefer getting marginal results, running around town, lurking in parking lots and posing for security cameras, all while schlepping around stacks of flyers and carefully avoiding people you know. Online, free advertising attracts people without money and spammers, although you may get good results with Craigslist. Offline advertising includes newspapers, magazines, direct mail, radio, television, offline directory listings and billboards. Online advertising includes Pay Per Click, e-zines and online directory listings. I do not recommend using banner ads. Advertising ROI will depend on the net lifetime value of each acquisition or conversion and the cost of each acquisition.
- Press Releases - If your business is newsworthy, or if you can create a newsworthy event, then you may be able to get some free exposure. Your press release needs to be well written in a suitable format and distributed either offline, online or both.
- Speaking and Contributing Articles - It is an accepted practice to establish your reputation and generate leads by speaking at meetings or contributing articles to journals. Don’t expect to get paid anything until you become a recognized expert in your field.
- Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures - A business or list owner promotes your offer to his or her clients or e-mail list based on an agreement through which you both stand to gain. It’s not uncommon to give a joint venture partner all the profit from an initial product offering in exchange for helping you to add new contacts to your list.
- E-Mailing Your List - You can send relevant commercial messages to subscribers who previously opted into your database. Try to avoid using purchased lists. If you must, be sure you know with certainty that the subscribers agreed to receive offers from third parties. Be genuinely helpful and careful not to abuse your list.
- Search Engine Optimization - You’ll need a web site, and unless you’re an SEO maven, you’ll have to pay for SEO services. There’s more to doing effective search engine optimization than most people realize. However, SEO will be worth the trouble if it gets you ranked high up in the free organic search engine results that most searchers look at and care about.
- Social Media - Social marketing is similar in philosophy to speaking and article contribution mentioned above. You share online videos and articles to educate, inform and entertain people, and to build a relationship with them. If they want your product or service, they’ll be inclined to buy it from you, since they know you, and you’ve earned their respect. Your blog on a social networking site, a blogging community such as Blogger.com, or you own hosting, are good places to share your content. For ideal results, create and post new original content on a regular basis. If your content is geared toward your target market, then you’ll attract qualified customers to you and your site.
- Business and Social Networking - Networking is meeting new people and developing relationships with them. You can network at your local Small Business Association, Chamber of Commerce or BNI. I can go to Network Plus, a group in my area founded by Ted Fattoross. Online social networking is more convenient. You network from your computer at any of thousands of social networking sites. My favorites are Ning and Facebook. You build relationships by asking questions and getting to know people. Keep in mind that spamming doesn’t work at all, and exchanging business cards is no more than a cordial first step in starting a relationship.
I like the web marketing channels: my e-mail list, search engine optimization, social marketing and business networking. I coordinate them to benefit from the synergies between them.
Now it’s your turn.
Which methods do you use? Which ones are you hoping to use in the future? What challenges do you foresee?
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Tags: advertising, blog, Blogging, building a list, building relationships, Business Networking, Chamber of Commerce, Craigslist, List Building, Marketing, network plus, online marketing, online social networking, Search Engines, SEO, small business association, social marketing, Social Media, social media marketing, social networking, social networking sites, SPAM, Ted Fattoross, Web Marketing


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May
24
The use of the word holistic is a bit problematic, although it did catch your attention.Holistic emphasizes the importance of the whole and the interdependence of the parts. But is not each whole a part of a greater whole?
Web marketing is one part of the marketing function, as is offline marketing. The marketing function is one part of the business enterprise, as are finance, HR and MIS. And so on.
Therefore it seems that holism is relative and depends entirely upon one’s perspective.
Nevertheless, I emphasize the importance of web marketing as a whole and the interdependence of its parts which can include all of the following:
- needs assessment and planning
- competitive intelligence
- market segmentation and targeting
- positioning
- keyword research
- on-page and off-page SEO
- multimedia content development
- content management
- legal review
- web site design and programming
- search engine marketing
- database management and e-mail marketing
- social media policy and training
- social media optimization
- social networking community moderation
- reputation monitoring
- marketing analytics
- tracking of key performance indicators
That’s quite an impressive list, and it’s not necessarily complete.
As a whole, web marketing requires the expertise of generalists who have some knowledge of each of the many interdependent parts. Generalists can see the forest through the trees.
Each of the parts requires the services of specialists who possess a great depth of experience in their individual areas of specialty.
Being a generalist but having good experience in several key areas allows me to effectively wear more than one web marketing hat.
I stated in Web Developers Don’t Know Social Media that web developers know “how to build a website and how to create a web page that interacts effectively with visitors,” but that they “are neither experienced Internet marketers nor skilled copywriters.”
It’s equally true that copywriters know how to write effective copy, but they don’t know how to assess the competition nor how to compute marketing metrics.
Web marketing is a team effort. The team cannot succeed without its captain nor the captain without his or her team.
Choose a wise captain, and let your captain assemble your web marketing team.
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Tags: Marketing, SEO, target, Web Marketing


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Apr
26
Social Marketing Insight
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 11 Comments
Social media marketing requires a markedly different mindset than traditional print, broadcast and direct mail marketing — or even PPC or e-zine marketing that use online media.Marketing Paradigm Shift
Social marketing is not so much about lead development and customer acquisition as it is about brand development, relationship and community building.
Of course social marketers want to generate sales. That’s a given. However, the social marketing medium requires a new and more social approach to the whole marketing process.
Social Media Marketing Flow
Social marketing has its own characteristic flow. Strangers gradually become followers, friends and fans looking to engage with you.
They become increasingly receptive to your ideas and messages. Many eventually sell themselves on your products and services without your intervention. Others may require a little gentle persuasion.
Social media marketing is the art and science of using social media sites to create and nurture social marketing flow.
At the Core of Social Marketing
Social media sites offer the enabling technologies and infrastructure that define the social media marketing platform, but social marketing is centered around people, not around websites.
Furthermore, in social marketing it’s not companies but real people who communicate with people.
Personality, thought leadership, sensitivity, protocol and well-written content are social factors that foster relationship with your market and community participation. Think of social media marketing as charisma marketing.
A community in social media can be built around a blog, a group you start on a social site, or an independent online social network that you create.
The key is to use your personality and your content to give people in your target market compelling reasons to follow you online and to subscribe to your blogs or join your social networking sites.
Then you can speak to your new friends as a group as if they were sitting in your living room and leaning forward to make sure they catch your every word. You won’t need to use old media to yell.
Are you leaning forward?
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Tags: branding, Marketing, social marketing, social media marketing


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Apr
12

I’m not asking who owns social media content, although that’s an interesting question.
I am asking who’s responsible for your social media strategy and policy? Who determines your overall social media agenda?
If you’re on your own, and you’re promoting yourself, your ideas or your business, you presumably own your social media. The buck stops with you.
However, if you don’t don’t have a plan, perhaps your social media owns you. Your social media can own you whether you’re a one person show, or whether you’re a large enterprise employing many people.
Ownership is more than simply calling the shots. It’s setting objectives, formulating strategies, devising plans and implementing them. Neglect taking responsibility for these activities, and the likely outcome will be total chaos.
If you’re on your own, you now know that you must develop a sound plan, but what if you’re a large organization? Who will own social media in your organization? Who else will participate in social media?
Here are some possibilities:
- Marketing is a likely choice for social media ownership, since marketing typically owns traditional media and is the department most likely to turn social media into a money making proposition. In addition, social media is a good branding tool, and marketing ought to understand and own the branding process.
- Public Relations is another possibility, since PR regularly uses media to communicate with shareholders and the general public. In a business that does little marketing through media, such as one that sells only to government agencies, PR might be a good choice to guide social media strategy and policy.
- Human Resources can use social media to communicate with employees and must help enforce internal social media policy.
- Information Technology can use social media to collaborate and manage work flow. Moreover, social media use can expose the company network to additional risks. IT maintains network security and protects both the company and individual computer users from hackers, viruses and malware.
- Knowledge Management, and Engineering can use social media to compile knowledge, collaborate and manage work flow.
- Legal must help Marketing, PR and HR determine what they can and cannot say on websites and in other communications.
I’ve discussed the basic issues surrounding social media ownership. However, I’ve purposely ignored such factors as inexperience, skepticism, company politics, red tape, inertia, denial and whatever else may get in the way of implementing a successful social media plan.
An article that covered these issues in any detail would be too long and much too depressing for both of us, but please do read Top 10 Social Marketing Challenges.
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Tags: branding, Marketing, social marketing, Social Media, social media strategy


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Mar
22
Web Developers Don’t Know Social Media
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines | 15 Comments

A web developer knows how to build a website and how to create a web page that interacts effectively with visitors. Web developers can often organize information and design web sites with great visual appeal.
Generally speaking however, web developers are neither experienced Internet marketers nor skilled copywriters. They specialize in following, tweaking and implementing the specifications provided to them by small business owners and corporate marketing departments. A web developer is a technician skilled at converting a set of instructions into an interactive web site.
Launching and promoting a web site and building an Internet presence require more than a development effort. Here are eight other elements that will likely figure into your online presence:
- Your niche and perhaps micro-niche - What specific need or needs will your products or services fill?
- Positioning and branding - What distinguishes you from your competition? How can you position your brand so that it’s at the top of it’s own category?
- Targeting - Who will use your brand and how can you connect with them online and offline?
- Your keywords - What terms are people searching for that are relevant to your brand and which are the best ones to compete for?
- Content - What do you say on your site? How do you communicate your ideas, and how do you weave in the keywords indicated by your keyword research?
- Contextual linking - Creating meaningful hyperlinks within your site content that help the reader and the search engines.
- Link building - Getting the best sites to link back to you and other SEO strategies to attract search visitors and drive referrals to your website. Listing your site in appropriate directories. Submitting your site and content to social bookmarking sites, and writing press releases and articles that will also link back to you.
- Web promotion and list building - Leveraging video sites, social networking sites, e-zines and PPC ads to drive even more people to visit and register at your website or your blog.
To build a successful web presence requires a team of marketing, design and development professionals to tend to each aspect of your online campaign. In many organizations, some people will assume several roles.
If you’re a small business owner, I recommend that you let a marketing consultant bring together and manage the expertise and skill sets that will be required.
If you have more time to invest than money, Site Build It! is an inexpensive option. You learn each phase as you go and are guided step-by-step through your project.
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Tags: branding, Internet marketing, Internet presence, keyword research, Marketing, Search Engines, SEO, Site Build IT!, Social Media, web development, Web Marketing


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Feb
23
Social Media Targeting for People and Businesses
Filed Under Best of 2009, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Targeting | 14 Comments
Marketing is often as important to people as it is to businesses.People seeking jobs, marriage partners or buyers for their personal property all need to target and reach out to their respective markets.
Social Media is Very Accessible
Old media such as TV, radio, print, mail — and even online advertising — tend to be very costly and are used most effectively by big corporations and by savvy direct marketers.
However, the new media such as blogging, video, online social networking and social bookmarking cost little or nothing to use and are as accessible to people and small businesses as they are to big corporations and direct marketers.
Ineffective Use of Social Media
The low out-of-pocket cost of the new media entices people and businesses to waste time and energy by using social media marketing more haphazardly and less rigorously than they would use more expensive old media marketing channels.
Many marketers further compound the problem by bringing to social media old media advertising and prospecting paradigms rather than a new media attracting, socializing and educating paradigms.
Marketers need to learn how to focus their social media efforts by applying rigorous standards and analytics to new media marketing campaigns.
Reaching the Right Audience
One way to focus your social media effort is through targeting. Simply put, targeting means reaching the right people, the people who can benefit from you, your product or your service.
Market segmentation is a form of targeting research that studies the characteristics and desires of different population segments. I assume for now that you know — at least approximately — whom you wish to target, and that you want to be able to tackle the how part of the problem.
Competitive Intelligence
Professional marketers, especially direct marketers, study what their competition is — and is not — doing in great detail. They may also try to understand why the competition is doing what it does, and if a campaign is used over and over, they’ll will assume that the campaign is profitable.
Watch your competitors and you’ll learn how they position themselves, what they write about, what keywords they optimize, where they bookmark their content, what tags they use, and much more.
Competitive intelligence applies equally to old and new media marketing.
Top Targeting Strategies
Here are my favorite targeting strategies:
- Develop good content that is context sensitive, communicates who you are, what you do and how you might be different — all without reading like a sales letter.
- Do keyword research, so that while you write for people, you can also help the search engines, as much of your traffic will come from search engines, especially form Google.
- Fish where the fish are. Choose social networking sites that you believe attract the people you are looking to attract. If you find your competitors there, that can be a good thing. It indicates that your target audience is also there. Hopefully your content positions you in a way that you’ll stand out from the competition or address a need that they do not.
- Cast a wide net. Don’t prejudge too much. Err on the side of targeting too inclusively rather than too exclusively. Participate on a variety of sites and expose as many people as possible to both you and your message. If you know me, you know that I pursue this strategy on Twitter, LinkedIn and Ning social networks.
- Let people decide for themselves how relevant your content is and whether or not you might be able to help them. That’s an key element of both attraction and social marketing.
- Don’t spread yourself too thin. Read The 80/20 Rule and Social Media. Cast a wide net but not too wide.
- Get personal. Even if you’re a business, people will want to relate to you as a person. In social media you are an integral part of your brand.
- Experiment and be ready to adapt and make changes as you go. Marketers know that they’re not likely to get it right the first time, so consider everything you do to be a work in progress.
- Establish an ongoing social media presence. Be persistent. Timing is extremely important. Even if somebody is the right person, the time might be wrong for him or her. You will make a sale if you’re there when the time is right.
- Use old media to supplement and complement your new media. Just because you use social media, you need not abandon any old media marketing that’s working for you.
- Seek help if you don’t have all the expertise or writing skills you need to succeed. That help might include advice, project management or outsourcing.
This list is not intended to be complete. However, it should give you plenty of food for thought.
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Tags: branding, keyword research, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, social media marketing, Strategies, target, Targeting


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Dec
21
Brand Yourself and Market on Twitter
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Books, Home Based Business, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter | 41 Comments

What is Twitter?
Twitter may very well be the hottest online social media venue today. It’s a social network, micro-blog, instant messenger, mobile communications tool and giant party — all rolled into one site.
Twitter is a great branding and marketing resource with the potential to reach thousands of people. I myself am a very enthusiastic Twitter user.
Originally Twitter entries were status updates that answered the simple question, “What are you doing?”
Twitter has evolved over time, and members now post all sorts of short messages which we affectionately refer to as “tweets”.
How short is short?
There is a strict 140 character limit so members can tweet via text messaging wherever they happen to be at the time.
If you’re on Twitter and want people to “follow you”, write a comment below explaining briefly why you like Twitter and including your Twitter link.
Twitter Training
I found a three-hour course that fully answers the question, “What is Twitter?” and goes step-by-step through complete Twitter setup and usage.
There are also extensive interviews with Warren Whitlock and Deborah Micek, authors of Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online
, who provide many useful Twitter tips.
Affiliate University
The Twitter course is being offered by Affiliate University as a free sample of their social and search engine marketing training which was designed primarily for novice Internet marketers and more seasoned marketers who want to increase their skill set.
Affiliate marketing, referring customers to others’ websites in order to earn commissions, is a great way to develop multiple income streams, create passive residual income, and generate leads for nearly any type of business from mortgages and real estate to network marketing.
It isn’t very difficult to get started in affiliate marketing. Having your own website isn’t required, but if you have a website or blog, that’s a big plus.
Affiliate University teaches the necessary concepts and techniques in a structured and easy to follow format.
Founder Bill Hibbler is a successful Internet marketer and an excellent instructor. Bill along with Joe Vitale is co-author of Meet and Grow Rich: How to Easily Create and Operate Your Own “Mastermind” Group for Health, Wealth, and More
.
If you have experience with affiliate marketing, feel free to write a comment below and share your experiences.
In any case, enjoy the Twitter Course. It’s excellent, and there aren’t any strings attached.
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Tags: Affiliate University, Bill Hibbler, branding, Instant Messenger, Marketing, mobile technology, social networking, Twitter, What is Twitter


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Nov
23
Intriguing Small Business Marketing Idea
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy | 12 Comments

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began to blog. I had lots of great reasons for blogging, so I just got started and hoped for the best.
As Mike Litman says, “You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going.”
I did do some keyword research before choosing a main topic and a domain name. I chose as my main keywords online social networking and made them the name of my blog.
In hindsight I see that I could have easily taken on keywords that were more competitive. Fortunately I realized before too long that I could venture off topic and rank well in the search engines on keywords other than my primary ones.
Content Attracts Traffic
Online marketing begins with content and traffic. A site needs to communicate with and pre-sell visitors and then ultimately monetize, i.e. sell them, and content is the catalyst.
One article I wrote about the Spider Web Marketing System has attracted more than 4,000 visits and one on Ad Surf Daily more than 5,000. The content in these two blog posts plus the content in the many comments they received drove them to the top of the search engines.
Overall my blog has received about 12,000 visits from approximately 5,000 keyword combinations making me a big believer in the power of content to draw substantial search engine traffic.
Blogs Are Problematic
Blogs are great for ongoing conversation with readers. However, their reverse chronological orientation makes it easy for visitors to access only the newest content. Older content becomes obscured. Bloggers attempt to compensate with extensive cataloging and liberal use of cross-linking — look at my blog’s sidebars — but this problem is never totally mitigated.
Traditional websites on the other hand are great for organizing and presenting large amounts of information. Their hierarchical orientation aided by site maps and cross-linking make it easy for visitors to access the most important and relevant content.
The Best of Both Worlds
The best way to market is to build a conventional website with a blog embedded in the site to communicate with visitors and customers.
This marketing idea works equally well for small businesses and large ones. I will be taking this direction for myself as I continue to develop my own web presence.
Conceptual and Technical Challenges
Starting a blog is easy in many ways. Blogger, for example, allows a novice to get up and going in a jiffy. Simply create an account, choose a theme and start writing. That’s it.
Building a marketing website is much more involved, both conceptually and technically, creating a major obstacle for the typical entrepreneur.
Faced with this obstacle most small business owners either
- do nothing
- opt for a simplistic small business website that resembles a big business card
- rent of buy an expensive template to build a second-rate small business website that doesn’t get any traffic
- hire an expensive web developer to build their second-rates mall business website for them
If they’re lucky they find somebody good, but the average web developer doesn’t understand marketing. I’m sure that what I’m saying will ring true for some readers.
My Recent Discovery
What we’re discussing isn’t new to me. I’ve been thinking about regular websites vis-à-vis blogs and conceptual and technical issues surrounding them for a number of months.
This past week I happened to listen to a conference call introducing a service that I knew existed but that had never managed to grab my attention. I listened for nearly 90 minutes as Ken Evoy explained how he arrived at his Internet business solution, Site Build It!, how it worked and why. He dealt with the blog vs. build issue as well. I was impressed by what I heard.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
- Site Build It! costs $299 per year — everything included. No high price template. No expensive consultant.
- SBI! makes online business do-able by hiding all the technical issues and structuring the conceptual ones. The process is simplified to such a degree that success (i.e. profits, not the mere presence of a website) can be achieved — with serious effort — even by a motivated beginner. The 80/20 Rule still applies — of course — but why shouldn’t the lives of the 20% be made easier?
- Online profits require more than just having an online business card or a collection of Web pages. The SBI! service appears to include the tools and the proven process required to build a long-term, profitable e-business.
- SBI! is more than just a “site builder.” There’s no need to worry about separate hosting, a separate keyword research tool, integrating autoresponders, etc.
- There’s also no need to know anything upfront about building a website. The tedious, “under-the-hood” stuff is handled automatically.
- The SBI! service helps clients to design a profitable business, before they jump into building their sites. For beginners, the learning curve will be shorter and they bypass show-stopping errors.
- The Action Guide presents a step-by-step process in both written and video formats. The most successful site owners are the ones who follow the guide and don’t get sidetracked. They don’t have to guess at what to do next, since the guided approach helps them reach their goals. Continuous mentoring via the Action Guide and online help is always available.
- A keyword brainstorming and research tool helps verify that a site concept has acceptable profit potential, saving site owners from making a common fatal error. The SBI! service helps to find topics related to the site owner’s niche that will pull in traffic and generate income.
- SBI! provides fully customizable, easy-to-use templates (this page shows a range of styles).
- The SBI! service includes domain name analysis, optimization, and registration, as well as fast and reliable website hosting.
- Unlimited customer support and forums that are supposedly friendly and helpful are major selling points for me personally.
- There’s a no-risk, 30-day money back guarantee.
In Conclusion
I can see the Site Build It! service helping both existing small business owners and would-be entrepreneurs reach their online marketing objectives. My only caveat is that sufficient internal motivation is a necessary prerequisite for success.
If you find that building your website is not “your cup of tea”, please get help or exercise the 30-day refund option. Don’t waste your money.
Now it’s your turn. Feel free to share your small business website experiences.
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Tags: 80 20 Rule, blog, Blogging, Ken Evoy, keyword research, keywords, Marketing, mentoring, mike litman, Site Build IT!, small business ideas, small business marketing, small business website, starting a small business, Web Hosting, You don’t have to get it right


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