MARKET ME - Building A Business Web Presence That Works

Join me tomorrow for the first installation of this website tutorial. We'll be looking at the many facets of your website building strategy, learn the importance of social networking, devise an action plan for interlinking various options and begin to set up your business' automatic 24/7 Marketing Machine.

Take a few minutes and watch the videos below to learn about common web tools and how they are used. Familiarize yourself with the terms web marketers use to define the options we'll be working with and continue to bring your works in progress, like your sales script, to refinement. We have a lot of exciting things to do, so the more developed your definition of your business offering, the better. As always, have a great weekend and Cheers!

OK, so the last one was just for fun...after all, we are getting close to Halloween!

By now you should have your Google account for your business mail activated and opened up a Blogger account. If you've summoned the courage to activate your page, a big YIPPEE! going through the signup process and naming your blog. Bends the mind a bit, eh?

Our star runners already have a Blogger account, a business email account and a blog page ready to develop, so now's the time to go to work.Get a note pad and pencil. We're going to go fishing for your KEYWORDS.

I chose Google's Blogger to start you on your web marketing because its free, easier to use for the most part, is an established working system that's pretty flawless if somewhat more limited than a website you pay for privatizing your web site URL (web address) The possibilities in a Google-Yahoo marriage makes a web marketer's job even easier, allowing your website to be found on the two most popular search engines through the integration of Google's Blogger blogs and Google Search. SEO or search engine optimization is the practice of building a web page with information the search sites use to catagorize and show your web page results in the search page directories when an inquiry as made about a topic in SEARCH.

The Name of Your Web Page

Since you are setting up a site for your business, when guests arrive on your web page via your web address, they need to know they are in the right place. The Name of your business and your webpage name may not be the same, because similar names will have similar addresses. So the name of your webpage MUST be unique to be yours, alone. This may take a number of tries before finding a name that's not taken. So step One is to make sure the name you've chosen for your website is unique.

1.Check who may be using your chosen name first, by putting your business name in the search engine bar while on the internet, then looking at the results. If a local business within 50 miles of you is using the same name, you'll need to develop a different one to not risk losing customers to their site or purchasing from their business, thinking it's yours. The similarity also causes prospective customers confusion and frustration.

2. Now put in all search terms you might use if you wanted a find a business like yours, or a customer might type into search to look up the kind of things your business does.

3. Look through the first two pages of results for each term and take note of how these words are used in each listing. Don't forget to write these search terms down in a list on your paper. The search engine page will tell you how many results are found for each search term you enter. Also note the search engine...Bing? Yahoo? Google? and write the numbers found for each search term you've searched, on the list.

4. Let's look at the numbers for each search term. What term got the most results? Mark it with a big #1. What got the least results? Designate it last by putting this search term in parentheses.

5. For any term that gets no results or the wrong kinds of results, (like a porno site for a babysitting business term) cross it from the list- its not a term people would use when looking for your kind of business, anyway.

6. Now repeat the same process with your slogan or TAGLINE. Put your slogan in the search engine and again see what kind of results you get, how the words are used, and how many listings can be found using those terms.

7.Try to develop your slogan to have relevant meaning to your business by using words in the slogan that get search results to websites of businesses that are similar to the kind of business you have

Now you should have a list of search terms that are related to your business, a unique business name and a meaningful slogan. You also possess a set of keywords...search terms people use the most when looking for your business offering.

8. Now number these keywords in order of their popularity (search results) from the most results to the lowest

9. Pick two keywords out of the middle of the list of search terms. Use these two keywords in a sentence. Get your creativity flowing!. Then put the sentence in the search engine and see if the search results find businesses like yours. When the results are favorable, try different combinations of these words with your better-producing keywords...try again to make sentences using these keywords and combinations and test them in the search engine for results

10. Your goal is to come up with at least 10 sentences that use your keywords in different ways. You want these sentences to make sense, be relevant to you offering and tell something about your business

BOOGIE BIKES - today's bike store business sample

These are the terms bike-interested customers might put in the internet search engines to look for used bicycles in Anytown USA, the home of Boogie Bikes:

bike

bikes

bicycle

bicycles

boys bikes

girls bikes

kids bikes

new bikes

used bikes

bike repair

bike repairs

bicycle repairs

bicycle repair

mountain bikes

offroad bikes

touring bicycle

trick bike

dirt bike

used Schwinn bikes

used Schwinn bicycles

used Huffy bikes

used Huffy bicycles

The owner of BB came up with 22 search terms minimum (I know we can think of many more if we list bike brand variations our business deals with)

The owner of BB starts playing around with simple sentences -

Looking for a used bike? Boogie bikes has mountain, offroad, touring, trick and dirt bikes. We have boys and girls bikes to fit every budget.

The owner of BB used 11 keywords in just two sentences. A great start.

11. Once you have a couple of working sentences, begin to string those sentences together into a paragraph with other helpful information to develop the body content of the first page of your website.

Looking for a used bike? Chose a local bicycle mechanic with the knowledge and experience to provide GUARENTEED FUN-TO-OWN bicycles. Boogie Bikes on North 100 in Anytown has mountain, offroad, touring, trick and dirt bikes. We believe little details make the difference, so we offer boys and girls bikes to fit every budget.

12. Once you've found your winning keywords, make sure any other pages you add to your site also contain these keywords, so these webpages will also show up in search results, too.

Choose the sentence that gets the most results and start your webpage business message with that sentence. Search bots typically read the name, slogan (tagline) and first sentence from your webpage at minimum for its listing results

WHAT TO DO ABOUT SETTINGS

Make sure to click the settings box on your blog detail page to allow search engines to "crawl" your webpage. CRAWLING is what the webbot does when looking at your web page for search terms on your web page, via your keywords. Also make sure to check spelling carefully--people can't find you if your terms are not spelled to match what people put in the search bar!

Also make sure to use your best keywords/terms on the web page settings when asked for a description of the web page. Again, the web page description should be a sentence that makes sense and contains more than 18 and no more than 30 words. These are the keywords that point customers to your web listing. If you slop through this part, you will find few customers coming to your website, so practice diligence and develop a meaningful description.

When you write an article for your web page body copy, aim for a target of 400-600 words. 500 words is equal to one filled, typed page. Put the most exciting info about your offering first, then write lesser exciting info to finish with the least interesting facts. People will not exercise the patience to pour over a lot of typing to get to the important stuff on your page. So put the cool stuff up in glaring obviousness, first. Web visitors take 3-5 seconds to decide if they will stay on your page, so the more interesting the info, the longer they will stay to look around your site.

Pictures are important! If you have enough pictures about your offering, make a Power Point presentation with slides of your products.Make sure they are well-lit too, non-blurry pics.

Ideas of things to put in your body copy:

link to interesting news articles

put videos on the site or link to the videos

mention celebrities that have anything to do with your topic

mention clubs or organizations with newsworthy info relating to your topic

link to or mention weird news relating to your topic

tell jokes relating to your topic and make sure to give credit to the writer if it's not your joke

That's a lot of work, so we'll pause here to give you time to search out your keywords and develop your web page content. Next, we'll be working on developing your expertise ---the basis of your twitter feed. This is the next tool we'll use for keeping customers up to date on news about your business. So get to work, comment if you need help, and we'll see you tomorrow. Happy smiles and embrace a busy mind...Cheers!

http://www.TrueMarketingSuccess.com

While you are hammering out the details for the content that will fill the Home page on your website, remember that your site will be offering other pages of information as well, that readers can access from your Home page content. As Boogie Bikes develops his content in relation to bikes and appealing to his local market for bikes, he'll want to sprinkle his content with links to his other web pages as well. He can maintain the flow of his web pages by making pieces of his Home page content relate to what he posts on his blog and other pages.

BB's first page will be his Blog page.This is actually the second page of his website. He hits "NewPage" on his Blogger post editing dashboard, names his blog post Saddle-Seat Spokes, then thinks of his options for material he can include on his Home page that links to his blog post page, which he'll be updating daily.

1. He can provide links to helpful info he's found on other sites that talk about bikes, or sells bike accessories, etc.

2. He can answer the common questions people usually ask when looking for a bike

3. He can talk about the common problems people have with bikes and what to do about them

4. He wants to develop his "mini-celebrity" by becoming the expert go-to guy on how to solve bike-related problems

So he decides, each month, to write blog posts relating to different styles of bikes. That's 12 styles. He'll focus on a different manufacturer each week. That'll be 4 manufacturers. Then he decides to write each day of the week about the 1.features and benefits of this particular bike, 2.the gear available, 3.the problems encountered with this bike, 4.a rundown of prices for the different models available and 5.retailers that carry this bike and their location links

He'll have to find a comfort level of how long each blog will be, how much time he can devote to writing the blog, or if he will have someone else write the content and post it for him. He'll also have time involved in researching the information about the models, manufacturers, prices, etc.and finding pictures to highlight his information.

Once BB has his first blog written, he'll want to go to Twitter and open up an account. Boogie Bike Spokes is the name he chooses for his feed and he drops business info and his Blogger URL for his bike shop on his Twitter profile. Other bike enthusiasts will happen along and "follow" him, but that's just the beginning. After every blog post, BB will want to shoot a tweet to his followers about the topic of the day's blog and links to his webpage. BB also needs to take the time to "follow" other tweeters that are into bikes, building his reputation as "the bike guy".

I know this is a lot of sometimes confusing information, and I apologize I cannot spend more time explaining the details of how to work with website technology and account stuff. Any questions you might have about these topics can be found in droves on YouTube. There's a lot of helpful professionals with detailed step-by-step instructions on their websites to also steer you through the many terms and workings of the web. It takes time, so don't be discouraged if you don't fly through this part without some degree of frustration. Tackle just a little every day and you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish!

How does one eat an elephant? A bite at a time...see you tomorrow. Cheers!

The third page of your website will be dedicated to answering questions about your business offering. In any business, you must hone your ability to answer a customer's questions about your offering to their satisfaction.This is your goal, in answering their questions: to walk them through the decision-making process that leads to a sale.

So let's start by making a list of pertinent topics about you business.

1. What product or services does your business offer?

You already have the answer to this if you have taken the time to write your definition and used it in setting up your web page. A lot of your main keywords will now be on the FAQ page through your description, enabling webbots to include this page in search results.

2. Why should the customer buy from you as opposed to your competition?

This is where you include the elements of you sales script. Make positive statements about how long you've been involved in your offering through citing experience, awards, number of customers, recognition in your field, media mentions and community or charity involvements. Cite personal research, development, or manufacturing facts too, if this is part of your involvement in your business and would set you apart from your competitors. Also mention any guarentees and warrenties under this topic. These guarentees and warrenties can even have their own pages if they are a main selling point, provided you insert links in your FAQ content to these pages.

3.Whether your offering is a product or a service, your main page and your product pages (or services pages), will cover the details of your offering. There will certainly be questions that come up in the mind of the customer as he reads your content.These are called "objections to the sale" if they go unanswered and cause the customer to go somewhere else. Plan for this as you are writing about the details of your individual products or services on their own pages, by addressing these common questions in your details.

If BB has a great bike with a recurring problem with the gear mechanism, he might mention the manufacturer's continuing issues with the gear mechanism while suggesting an aftermarket gear upgrade that eradicates the issue completely.

Objections are usually based on How much will it cost? What will it cost to maintain? How long will it last? By pre-conceiving the objections and answering questions to get the objections out of the way, you are eradicating roadblocks to the sale. Ideally, you want to answer as many questions as possible within your content so a FAQ page will be rarely used. Then all the customer is left to decide is WHEN WILL I BUY? and HOW WILL I PAY FOR THIS?

4. Link your questions and answers back to existing material you've already covered in your blogs. Obviously, the content must be written, so you can link to it, so blogging about the most common questions concerning your business makes ideal content for your first blog post.

5. Make sure in you FAQ pages to:

Answer questions one at a time

Be thorough in your answers

Link back to your blog posts or product pages that answer the questions

Link to outside websites that answer the question. It is recommended not to link to a competitor's site however, because you could be sending your prospect somewhere else to make their purchase

Don't overlook links to news articles, wikis, images, videos or non-competing blogs to help answer customer questions

That's enough to chew on for today. Join me tomorrow because it is a day for Contact! So join me then and enjoy your website building. Cheers!

Hopefully, your time working the dashboard of your Blogger pages has given you some familiarity with the tools to build your website, If not, here's some simple tips--

After logging into Blogger, you'll be on your account page that shows you the websites or "blogs" you have started.

If you want to post to your main page, clicking the NEW POST link will pop up the word processor to add new material to your front page.

If you want to add a new page like FAQs, PRODUCTS, or to make edits to one of your pages,(not your main page...you want that to remain the same, so once you set it up, don't add to it) click on the NEW POST button. This takes you to the main page word processor.

Above the left corner of the word processor are found the buttons NEW POST--EDIT POSTS--EDIT PAGES.

Click on EDIT PAGES and you will be taken to a panel that represents your additional pages.

Select the page and the EDIT button to add ocntent or make corrections to that page.

Start a new page and call it CONTACT US. This will be the page that allows prospective customers to take the next step in the buying relationship with you. If you are offering a service that they want, determine how you would prefer to handle the contact. I don't suggest placing your phone number on your site, unless you have an office system in place that constantly monitors the telephone. Answering machines will kill the sale at this point, so answer a phone with a live person, or don't use a phone number for a means of customer contact.

The next best option is to have them drop an email to you. However, placing your email on your webpage brings a lot of spam into your emailbox. If the customer's contact with you relies on them going to their email carrier and sending an inquiry off to you, they likely will not do it. So you want an easy tool for them to easily contact you.

There's a widget included in your account you can drop into your Blogger.page that's free to use and can help your customers tell YOU when they are available. Your customers can contact you with an inquiry that's delivered straight to your email, while providing you with their name, email, phone number and personal interest in your offering.

This widget is found when you click any GADGET box on the DESIGN page. Be warned, a widget or gadget will show up on ALL your pages as part of your website layout with Blogger.

Once you click a gadget box, a screen will pop up offering all sorts of neat widget things. If you have a product business, there is a checkout and store widget found in there, too.

Look for the widget APPOINTMENTS by clicking the link MORE, found in the left sidebar. Or you can put the term APPOINTMENTS in the widget search engine to find the widget.

Follow the instructions to set up the widget on your page, preview it, then publish it to make sure it is saved to the page

Go back to the DESIGN page where you can click-and-drag to move the gadget box to the best placement for your gadget in the sidebar. Otherwise, the widget won't show properly if it's in one of those little side-by-side gadget spaces.

When you preview your page prior to publishing it, look for the widget. It will have a message below the widget box that tells you to configure it, so by clicking on the message you can insert your busness info on the screens that pop up. You'll be ascertaining your working business hours at this point on the appointment widget. You'll also be opening a free account with the widget provider to register with the service, unless you ask for an upgrade that costs $$$ for their expanded services.

Always remember the desired result of having a web page for your business is to get a buying customer to purchase your product or service. They can't do that if they have no way to contact you, so setting up your contact method is serious business. Ask trusted friends to visit your web pages as you set them up to give you feed back. The pages need to get the point of your business across, be friendly and engaging to people looking for what you offer. Above all, they need to become a sturdy bridge between your customers and you.

Tomorrow we visit the methods of asking for a sale in your web content. So keep your nose to the wheel and we'll see you then. Every day is a NEW day! Cheers!

Wherever you are in your web-building project, just remember you are developing a sales presentation. This is a presentation that allows the customer to:

1.speak to you,

2.get to know you,

3.develop an affection for you,

4.learn to trust you and eventually

5.decide to purchase from you...

Now, there's a reason I numbered that last statement. Essentially, I want you to see the heart of the appeal you must establish with TOTAL STRANGERS. This appeal comes to them via the words you use to describe your business, your offerings and your service.

The way we use words to convey our ideas will come through in the content we place on our webpages.

Using those 5 points taken from the opening statement, let's work on making your words focus less on you by writing your content from the customer's point of view.

Point 1 - Speak to the Customer

If you want to get inside the prospect's head so you can speak to their need, think of 10 reasons people would not buy your product or service. These are objections already pre-built into the prospect's mind for why they won't buy a product or service. Once you have a list of reasons WHY they wouldn't buy, come up with creative ways to show them how those things are no longer issues when working with your business. Speak to them on their level and see the circumstance from their veiwpoint.

Boogie Bikes (our sample webpage) or BB, as I call him, lists 5 reasons people would not buy bikes.

1. no interest in bikes

2. no ability to ride a bike

3. no place to ride a bike

4. not enough money for a bike

5. no place to store a bike

Now BB lists 5 reasons customers would not buy bikes from him.

1. his business is too far away from the customer's home

2. his prices are too high

3. his inventory is too limited

4. his reputation

5. complaints

When you are writing content for your web pages, keep this list of reasons in reach and address these concerns in your writing. When you do this, you are addressing Point 2...giving your prospective customers a chance to know you as a living, breathing and concerned businessman.

Customers can also develop an affection for you (Point 3) when your site contains little snippets of your personality. People typically write like they talk. That part of your personality will come through. Add a photo of a fishing trip, a favorite pet, a joke, a recipe, or a cartoon to your website...you'll find all these little things impress others with images about your basic character. This gives the potential customer the opportunity to "get a feel" for the kind of person you are, and if you can be trusted.

When your character hits on the same cylinders with the prospect's character, rapport is built. This rapport helps build the trust (Point 4) in you to deliver them a product or service of greater value than their investment.

That brings us to Point 5 - Why they'll decide to purchase from you

Come up with 10 ways to ask a customer to purchase from you. Do you say "buy this" or "purchase this"? "Buy my stuff" or "Gimmee money for this"? No. You give them reasons why RIGHT NOW is the perfect time to buy.

BB includes in his Product pages, a SALE announcement ( an ad with a 20% off sale sign in it) and announces a deadline for how long the sale will last. BB gives the 20% discount as his reason, RIGHT NOW is the time to buy. He also shares with prospects that the beginning of a new model year is the RIGHT TIME to buy the previous year's models. Around Christmas, it'll be the RIGHT TIME to buy for holiday gifts. BB develops his business integrity when he incorporates everything on his web pages into his little bike shop as well.

Other mental exercises for developing sales content in your web pages:

give 10 reasons why prospects should purchase from you

develop 10 places within your web pages that ask prospects to take action

explain to the prospect when objections are good reasons

That's a wrap on our topic, today. As we go into the weekend, those of you in the Northeast, get your snowboots out. Halloween looks to be a bit cool and wet for you. You in the sunny state of Florida, send a collective puff of that warmth this way.

Tomorrow will be a new day for all of us, so until then, Cheers!

This is the end of this installment of MARKET ME for developing your web pages with Blogger. On Monday, we look at promoting products with your Blogger site and how to set up your service pages to get those appointments. Take the weekend to catch up and tweak the pages you already have in place. Everyone have a spooktacular Halloween, and we'll see you again on Monday. Just come to this page and find the link to the newest MARKET ME 24/7- FOR SALE BY ENTREPRENEUR. See you then...Cheers!

http://mladygrimm.hubpages.com/hub/MARKET-ME-FOR-SALE-BY-ENTREPRENEUR