Thursday, April 30, 2009

A visit to Twitter HQ in San Francisco





I am going to visit San Francisco soon. I wonder if they will let me inside at 539 Bryant St in San Francisco like they did for Kara ?

Click the link to see the video and Biz Stone up close!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid452319854?bctid=19464371001


Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and SEO Promotion


Some quick tips for Windows XP users





Want to change your Start Menu?


1. Right click a blank spot on the Start Menu.
2. Select Properties
3. Select "Start Menu" at the top
4. Check or uncheck the boxes as you see fit!






Want to rearrange your Desktop items?


1. Right click on an empty space on your desktop, highlight "Arrange Icons By"
2. make your choices!


How to clean up those Firefox cookies on your computer

1.) Open a new browser window
2.) Click on Tools
3.) Click on "Clear Private Data"
4.) Click on "cookies" and anything else you want to delete
5.) Click on OK in the "Clean Private Data Now"

These are direct links to the Windows help page:

Use a Web graphic for your desktop background

Speed up menu display

Manually put your computer into hibernation
Make it easier to pick up where you left off using your laptop, without shutting it down or draining the battery. Learn how to put your computer into hibernation.

Schedule a task to defragment drives
Is your computer getting slower? Your hard drive may need to be defragmented. Have Windows XP automatically do it once a week to keep your computer up to speed.

Add a shortcut to your desktop
Want a faster way to get to that file or folder? Create a shortcut on your desktop so you can access it quickly.

Create a personal screensaver using your photos
Make a screensaver you'll love with the digital photos on your computer. Windows XP makes it easy.

Add new programs to your All Programs menu alphabetically
If you're overwhelmed by the number of items listed on your All Programs menu, make it easier to find what you want by sorting them alphabetically.

Greg Cryns
All About Paso Robles

A few blogging guidelines from my experience





It's a good idea to read the terms and conditions of your blog host. Can you imagine getting ready to set up your next post and finding that your blog has been trashed? If you put your blog on your own website you will avoid a potential problem like that.






My recommendations:

Use pictures. People enjoy the reference point that pictures can provide.

Break up your text with shorter paragraphs, bullet points and other points of demacation.

You can end your post with a variation of "What do you think?" This may encourage people to comment. Be warned though, getting comments are like pulling hen's teeth. Maybe one in a hundred will comment.

Get to your point. Avoid inserting a lot of fluff to impress your readers or make your post look more substantial.

Post as often as time permits but be careful to make your posts worthwhile to your readers. Remember, your readers are golden. The reader is usually right. Keep saying that. ;)

Stay original. Don't copy ideas directly from other blogs. People will notice. Imitation is not flattery nor is it good for your blog health.

Make sure your post is correct. I've seen gurus post nonsense. Reread your post. Do more research if you are unsure of your statements.

Have fun because the chances of getting rich blogging are small to none.

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Online newsletters


Here is a guest post by one of the Internet's finest writers. There are many reasons to write fine articles than just to attract search engines to your website. Great articles will gain visitors on their own power.


Newsletter Publishers: The Redheaded Step Children Of Internet Marketing
Copyright (c) 2009 Bill Platt
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWriters.com


People who publish online newsletters, often referred to as
"ezines", have always played an important role in the growth of
the Internet economy. In fact, if you listen to any of the
Internet gurus, they are going to tell you time and again that
the most important thing you can do towards the success of your
online business is to build a list.

I think Titus Hoskins said it best when he said, "It is a well
known fact that the key to successful online marketing comes from
building a well targeted and responsive opt-in email list. This
is mainly because your online marketing success comes from
building relationships with a large subscriber base." Titus is
the owner of http://www.bizwaremagic.com/

Successful newsletter publishers have built profitable niche
businesses that represent the very specific needs of very
specific consumers in the marketplace. While it is true that some
newsletter publishers have subscribers that number in the
hundreds, those who have been building their newsletter for years
have a subscriber base ranging in the 10's to 100's of
thousands of subscribers.

Joel Christopher (http://www.masterlistbuilder.com) says, "It's
not just about building a list of names and emails, it's about
building relationships and connections." He also says that
newsletters are "not about huge numbers, it's about
conversions. Converting names and emails into prospects, then
into customers/clients, and finally into people who will promote
you."

For the newsletter publisher, it is about giving readers what
they want and to win the loyalty of their readers for the years
to come.

Alexandria K. Brown, The Ezine Queen (http://www.ezinequeen.com/)
advises her clients, "By showcasing your knowledge and skills,
you will attract more and better clients and customers. You
don't have to go say you're an expert. Instead, your audience
will assume it." She also recommends, "What many folks don't
know is that THE easiest and most effective way to do all this is
to publish an e-mail newsletter or ezine."

As an advertiser, it makes a lot of sense to have your ads appear
in the newsletters that best serve your target market -
preferably in those newsletters that have a large subscriber base
of responsive readers.

Ironically, it was newsletter marketing that turned me on to the
potential of article marketing to promote my online endeavors.
Ten years ago, I had a newsletter of my own. In order to grow my
opt-in mailing list, I began doing advertising swaps with other
newsletter publishers - a process by which I ran an ad for the
other newsletter, and in turn they ran my ad in their newsletter.

As the result of those advertising swaps, I found that some
newsletters had a really responsive group of readers. I was so
impressed with the interest generated for my business in some
newsletters that I began to pay for advertising in those mailing
lists.

Angela Booth (http://www.hotwebcopy.com/newsletters.html) says,
"Once someone is on your ezine's subscriber list, you can
connect with them each week or each month. Since you need to have
several interactions (some authorities say up to seven times)
with a customer before they buy, an ezine gives you the ideal way
to build the customer relationship." Booth also pointed out that
"An ezine can be 'the lifeblood' of your business."

Yes, the money is in the list. And there is money not only for
the person, who owns the mailing list, but also the advertiser
who supports the publisher of the newsletter, and the persons who
are involved in contributing content to the newsletter.

I never fully appreciated that concept until March 6, 2000. That
is the day that my first "reprint article" was published in a
newsletter called Internet Day. It was a fairly substantial
publication, formerly operated by http://www.Internet.com. In
2000, Internet Day had over 150,000 subscribers. The response to
that article was huge. I signed on a boatload of new subscribers
to my newsletter, and I began to field questions from other
Internet marketers about their businesses.

Suddenly, I was considered an expert, and my advice was in
demand.

Between you and I, although the article was decent, it was not
exceptional, and I was not the guru that so many of Internet
Day's readers wanted to believe that I was.

But, Internet Day did teach me a very important lesson about the
value of writing reprint articles. When an article gets published
in a newsletter, it can drive a boatload of traffic to the
authors' website on the day of publication, and over the next
three days after publication.

In a recent article of his own, Willie Crawford
(http://timic.org/) explained, "I also understand that part of
my job as an ezine publisher is to serve as a filter. My
subscribers learn to expect quality from me, and will pay more
attention to future offers from me than they will from the
marketers who filled their hard drives with a bunch of useless
'fluff'."

When I sit down to write an article, I write that article with
the express intention of making sure it is good enough to be
considered by a publisher for his or her newsletter.

In my thinking, publication in a newsletter can be more important
than publication on a website, because it can literally put
thousands of readers on my website in a single day. Over my years
of writing articles, I have found that publication in a major
newsletter can very realistically send a wave of thousands of
targeted visitors to my website in just a few days - visitors who
are interested in buying what I sell.

It is true that like everyone else, I also want my articles to be
published on websites, so that I can get that all-important link
popularity from Google and to improve my websites' rankings in
Google's search results. But above links on websites, I want my
articles exposed to large newsletter audiences. I find that I
still get my articles published on websites, whether I write the
article with the intent of finding publication in newsletters or
not.

Did you realize that most newsletters are archived on the
Internet? So when published in a newsletter, not only do I get a
ton of traffic from the newsletter itself, but I also get links
from the newsletter's online archives, and I also get my
articles published on websites, whose webmasters tend to reprint
articles found in their favorite newsletters.

One example of someone who reprints articles found in her
favorite newsletters is Debbie Johnson
(http://friendfeed.com/debbiejohnson). Whenever she sees one of
my articles in a newsletter that she reads, she adds the article
to the forum at http://www.DreamTeamMoney.com. This results in my
article being read by hundreds, perhaps thousands of additional
people - people who may have not had the chance to see my
articles elsewhere.

Another example of someone who republishes articles they like,
after reading that article in a newsletter, is Flavio Bernardotti
from Alessandria, Italy. After reading one of my articles in a
popular newsletter, Flavio republished the article on his
Italian-speaking website
(http://www.bernardotti.it/portal/showthread.php?t=128997).

If you think for a minute that my article would have been
published on Debbie's or Flavio's forums if the article had not
been published in several large newsletters, then you are bound
to keep overlooking the real potential of publication in
newsletters.

This article has actually been inspired by a number of people,
with whom I have spoke with on the phone. Each wanted to know a
bit more about my business. And when I told them that our article
distribution service targets publication in newsletters and
websites, I was told that they did not care about publication in
newsletters. I was told by each person that his or her only
concern was links on websites to propel their websites rankings
in Google.

Every time I hear this from a potential client, my initial
thought is, "Oh, my mistake... I have mistakenly believed you
were in business to make money..."

To tell you the truth, I am floored when I hear people tell me
that newsletters don't matter... I have personally earned
hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising, as a result
of my articles appearing in newsletters over the years. And more
to the point of everyone reading this article, I have earned
hundreds of thousands of dollars in new sales, as a result of
being published in newsletters.

Yes, I do get links in websites also, and my websites generally
rank well in Google and other search engines for competitive
keywords. But my Google rankings are only part of the story...
Less than 10% of the 2.5 million page views on my website were
delivered by Google in 2008, and still, I received more than
200,000 visits to my website in 2008, as a result of the
thousands of top 10 and top 20 listings my websites possess in
Google.

The truth is that you can target newsletters with your articles,
and still achieve your search engine goals. But then again, if
you never write articles that newsletter publishers want to
publish, you will never know the power of newsletters for driving
traffic, sales and search engine rankings.

While newsletter publishers may be the redheaded stepchildren of
most Internet marketers, they are and will always be "my
favorite stepchildren".

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Platt has operated http://www.thePhantomWriters.com article
distribution service since 2001. Rather than to rely on article
directories, The Phantom Writers has been designed to send
articles to the newsletter publishers and webmasters who are most
likely to want to publish an article. A current customer recently
said, "I've used other article distribution sites, but your
distribution seems to yield a higher quality of publisher and a
higher volume." Learn more at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

20 Ways To Make $100 A Day Online

.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Twitter and Viral Marketing





This post is a 3-fer. Three for one.

I was wondering what to post today on this humble blog. Couldn't think of anything so I went to play on Twitter. (I do that a lot on Twitter - play. It's good for you!)

I saw
Ricci Neer's retweet post ( initiated by seanclaes , an interesting writer/photographer) about The Naked Accountant. Took a look and was impressed. In this video we have an accountant (how mundane?) talking about how a good accountant can make your life simpler and more enjoyable.






Now that is marketing! You can bet I will think of The Naked Accountant when I need accounting help in the future.

So, we have two benefits to show: 1) the power of Twitter to help us through our day; 2) the power of a viral video on YouTube; 3) introduction to Sean Claes.

Ain't life grand?

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and SEO Promotion
Nursing Programs Online

.


Sunday, April 19, 2009

Introducing LETRON, fabulous singer


20 Ways To Make $100 A Day Online


I am the proud papa to my daughter, LETRON, who made her first music video last week.

aka, Liana Piper Cryns is an rising star singer in Los Angeles

LETRON"S website:
http://www.myspace.com/lianapiper

Missing Johnny Carson


This video has nothing to do with buying or selling anything or about marketing.

It has a lot to do with enjoying life and humor. I miss Johnny.




Happy Sunday, 4/29/09

Thursday, April 16, 2009

SEO is just one piece of the online success puzzle





If you build a good website, one which provides your visitors with information they want to read or see in video, chances are that in time you will gain respect from the search engines and your rank will rise. You may even get some top rankings for some key phrases.

I advise my clients to obtain good basic SEO advice from experienced professionals. I also encourage my clients to use the existing resources of smart people within their company to do much of the legwork and continue the SEO work done by your professional advisor. Read more in this fine
Guest Post.

Finding Balance Between SEO and Non-SEO Traffic Generation
Copyright (c) 2009 Kurt D. Lynn
KLynn Inc
http://www.klynn.ca/

So much SEO.

You might think, from all the buzz about search engine
optimization - SEO - that it offers a cure for all the world's
business ills. Somehow, SEO has been propelled from the
backwaters of Internet geekdom into the forefront of modern
business marketing. For example, if Google's own search results
are any indication, the interest in SEO yields almost 50% of the
interest in general advertising. That level of interest seems way
out of proportion to the realities of business advertising.

So Why All The Hubbub?

The excitement seems to be around the notion that SEO means
"free advertising", that it means, if you do it right, millions
of people will be clicking through to your site willy-nilly
having found you on some search engine and then will immediately
do business with you. And behind all that excitement are
thousands of overnight SEO "experts" that, variously, all claim
to ... (pick one)

* Have SEO secrets that will help you get an unfair advantage
over the next guy;

* Guarantee you a first-page listing for an incredibly low
monthly rate;

* Provide hundreds of high page rank sites that will link to
your site;

* Give you 5/10/20 quick tips to immediately improve your
rankings;

* Tell you what Google/MSN/Yahoo doesn't want you to know about
SEO;

* Tell you that whatever SEO you're doing is all wrong; or

* Some other variant of the above.

To some extent, this notion of "free advertising" is not
altogether inaccurate. SEO can result in your site being found -
free of charge - and it can result in traffic to your site that
may, in fact, result in new business. But the reality of SEO is
not quite that simple.

SEO Is Far From "FREE".

SEO takes work... often, hard work. For those that aren't
familiar with what's involved in SEO, below is a list of some of
the typical activities that (as the CREST commercials used to
say) "when applied in a conscientious program of regular
professional care" will result in higher search engine rankings.

* Researching and selecting keywords that are truly relevant to
your desired audience;

* Researching competition for desired keywords;

* Researching and analyzing competitive websites;

* Re-writing and restructuring your website to address desired
keywords, to be more accessible by search engine "crawlers", to
appropriate label meta tags, headings, and inter-page links;

* Create a program to build links to your site from other sites
(directories, exchanged links,article marketing, etc.)

* Create a program to keep content on your site regularly
refreshed and synchronized with all the above.

* Regularly (daily or weekly) monitor all the search engines and
your competitors positions

SEO Is Not Easy.

Doesn't quite sound as easy as some people suggest does it?
That's because it's not. And it's all the more complicated
when you realize that every site on that first page, and on the
second and third, is trying to do the same thing - but against
you! You boost your rank above them. They go to work and boost
their site back above yours. And so on and so on... It's a war
and the SEO "experts" are the arms dealers.

Your Goals And Those Of The Search Engine May Be Different.

If you're going to pay good money for SEO, it may also be
worthwhile to keep in mind that search engines don't necessarily
have a goal of making you the most findable site on the web. The
bottom line for them is making sure that their users finds what
they are looking for. Satisfying that requirement may mean that
you don't and should not come up first. Google is the number one
search engine for a reason: Google users get results they want.
Those may not be the results you want.

Short Term and Long Term.

In the short run, there may be some serious benefits from
investing in SEO to boost your search engine rankings. In the
long run, however, there's probably not much you can do beyond a
certain point. Frankly, if you have a finite budget, altering the
basic nature of your site and trying to boost how valuable your
site is to others (as represented by links to your site) can only
be taken so far. After a point, the perfect market
characteristics of the search engine will prevail.

Balance SEO With Other Forms Of Traffic Generation.

What this means is: yes, do make sure you do the essential SEO
necessary to optimize your rankings in search engines. But do it
in the context of an overall marketing program. Definitely use
SEO to ensure that you get a fair and accurate appraisal by
search engines. But also invest in other non-SEO lead-generation
methods to bring traffic to your site and business to your table.

Above all, measure the results of your SEO and non-SEO activities
carefully and frequently. When SEO reaches the point of
diminishing returns, cut the rate in which you invest in it and
boost your reliance on non-SEO marketing to reach your goals. In
the long run, traditional non-SEO marketing may just be the most
reliable and consistent way to boost traffic to your site.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Kurt D. Lynn has been a founder, cofounder, or senior executive
of half a dozen enterprises in both the U.S. and Canada.
Currently Kurt provides consulting and communication services
focused on the needs of emerging and growing businesses. His
consulting firm, KLynn Inc, offers an assortment of proven
services for the development of sound marketing strategies,
tactics, and project execution. His communication services,
while more diverse, are focused on optimizing sales and
marketing effectiveness: http://www.klynn.ca/


I add that social networking may be an important aspect of your online success. Article marketing could be another. Blogging yet another. There is much more you can do on your own to improve your targeted visitor count. Keep that in mind. You need targeted visitors, not plain vanilla visitors who leave as fast as the arrive to your website.

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and SEO Promotion
.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Power of Google: case study


20 Ways To Make $100 A Day Online

A month ago I received a very disconcerting email from Google.


I was told that someone had hacked into one of my websites and placed some malicious code on one or more of the pages of a profitable website I own. Google told me it would suspend the site from its directory for "at least 30 days."




I use the Firefox browser that somehow determines that there is a bad code problem with any web page I surf to. Before I made the change I went to my site and sure enough a warning box appeared on my browser window exclaiming that I could get into the site at my own peril.

The folks at Google were very understanding. They said it was understood that I was probably not to blame and I was advised to go through my site, page by page, to find and delete any suspicious code. I did this and I did find something on the main page. I wish I had examined the code more closely but I was so anxious to get rid of that warning box that I just erased that code snippet and uploaded the page to my server.

I did not contact Google. Maybe I should have, but I had a lot going on. I planned on contacting the company but I dropped the ball because I was very busy. Also, I was getting some traffic from Yahoo, MSN and a few other places.

Two days ago I noticed that this site was showing increased activity when I checked my Adsense report. I went to Google to find out if any pages had been re-indexed. (You can do this by typing in "site:(your site name)" into the Google search engine.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw that all the pages were re-indexed by Google. This leads me to the real reason I am writing this post, the power of Google.

Below is a graphic showing the number of unique visitors I had this month (4/09) from 4/6 through today 4/15. My site was re-indexed early on 4/12. The visitor count was 26 on 4/11 and 107 on 4/12. Keep in mind that this is a well established website, with decent PR. So, Google not only put it back on the Internet map, it brought it back with everything intact including my high placements for key words.

When Google came back into the picture for this website, I started getting more than six times the number of visitors I was getting with the other sources. This is the number I was getting before the site was removed from Google's index.

My sincere thanks to Google for keeping its word and for its great customer service team.
















Greg Cryns
Wahm Search Engine
.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Keyword Questions: google













I found this nice tool over at John Alexander's Wordtracker. It is called Keyword Questions.




You put a search word in and Keyword Questions spits out what it found in the search engines recently.

For example, I entered "google" and here are the top 30 results:

1 how does google maps work 269
2 how often is google earth updated 222
3 who invented google 187
4 how do you google someone's name 172
5 how do you google someone 112
6 who owns google 110
7 who created google 100
8 what happened to google 97
9 how do i google a person's name 93
10 how do i clear previous google searches 88
11 why is google not working 88
12 what is google finances 86
13 who started google 85
14 how many web pages is google currently searching 72
15 who founded google 61
16 how do i sign up for google mail 49
17 why is it called google 48
18 what happened to google today 44
19 how do i google myself 42
20 when did google become a company 42
21 what is google reader 41
22 how do you google yourself 38
23 how to google someone 34
24 how do i delete items from my google search bar 33
25 how do i google a person 32
26 how to google for people information 32
27 how do i google someone 32
28 how can i find my google stats 31
29 when did google stock go public 29
30 how to google a person 28

How does one google a person?

Greg Cryns

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Customer service: selling is not a bad word!



Twitter may or may not be all that it's cracked up to be, but I've made plenty of friends and discoveries during the past few months of highly active Twitter participation.

For instance, @RobbDrury responded to me by directing me to a customer service video. I almost did not click the link thinking it was just another sales pitch. I am glad I did finally click that link because I think we need to think of customer service no matter what level we achieve in a company.

In fact, I will say that the most successful companies these days are those that understand that everyone in the company needs to be an evangelist for that company. Achievable? Probably not, but we can hope that a large percentage of our fellow employees will be evangelists. Why? Because if the company succeeds, I succeed. If you say that making money to put food on your table is not your idea of success, well, then you are lying. That may not define "success" but then we are discussing nuances of a word.

Back to Twitter, I ask people if they want to exchange "business cards" through Twitter. See, I think everyone on Twitter is in business even if they are not selling things. But we all are at least selling ourselves in one way or another. We need to get away from the idea that "selling" is a bad word.

Watch this video sent Robb Drury to see what I mean.







photo by jennifer könig


Greg Cryns

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Court rules trademarked keywords cannot be used by third parties in Adwords



In a reversal of the smaller court decision in
Rescuecom v. Google for Google, the appellate court ruled in favor of Rescuecom.

This decision, though regional, will have national impact on the use of Google Adwords.

The ruling prohibits the use of trademarked keywords even in ad titles as well as in the ad text in the landing page.


The intent of the law is to prevent confusion by consumers.
Read a good summary of this important case at Search Engine Land.

Greg Cryns

The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

.

Colbert interviews Twitter's Biz Stone

This is very funny, even if you like Twitter. ;)





Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

.


Monday, April 6, 2009

Twitter maintenance message





Did you every see this Twitter note before? I saw it today at about 2PM Pacific time.



















Greg Cryns

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English

There are lots of mispronounced words. This listing is both educational and fun. Do you spot any of your own mispronounced words here?

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English

Greg Cryns

Wahm Search Engine
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

.

Copywriting: 100 Most Often Misspelled Words in English

Everyone makes spelling errors. But in a world where you are judged by your first impression, you certainly want to show off your intelligence.

Read through the list of misspelled words in English. See if this helps.

100 Most Often Mispelled Misspelled Words in English

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion
Wahm Search Engine - affordable advertising
.


Sunday, April 5, 2009

Google cache- what is it?




When you do a Google search for just about anything, you will see the word "cached" on the bottom line of the search result (SERP).





What does this mean?

Googleguide.com (not associate with Google) explains it this way: "Google takes a snapshot of each page it examines and caches (stores) that version as a back-up. The cached version is what Google uses to judge if a page is a good match for your query."

Google saves the cached page with the date saved at the top of the browser window. So, if the result is not what you were looking for the page may have been changed since the day Google cached it. You can see what the page looked like when Google cached it.

You can also use the Way Back Machine to see what a page looked like before Google started caching the pages. I will always appreciate the Way Back Machine because more than once I've deleted important pages on my websites. They could only be recovered there.

So, if you were thinking that the Google cache was a bad place like Purgatory or the infamous Google sandbox, so rest easier.

In fact, it has been suggested that the cached date of the page may be more important than the vaunted "Page Rank" of that page. Think about it. If you see a recent date on the cache page it means that Google spent the time to visit it recently. This impliesmore trust in the site and page. [I did some checking with my own sites and I see that most were cached during the past week whether I changed those pages or any other pages in the site or not. So, I do not think this idea is valid.]

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo website design and promotion

.

12 Seconds offers value to social networkers





Have you discovered 12 Seconds yet?

12 Seconds is a fast rising social network featuring very short videos (12 second max length) from anyone who wants to post one (within reason with the usual caveats).



The most important aspect of 12 Seconds to me is how easy it is to put a video on my website or blog. Uploading to YouTube can be a drag.

Other uses may be simply to put a message out to the social networks, send a link to grandpa, research topics and keywords.

Just for grins and giggles check out The Girls of 12 Seconds .

Here is an example of how one fellow uses 12 Seconds to promote his newsletter:




Welcoming You to my Twitter page on 12seconds.tv



Here is Cate Sevilla showing her business card



Business Cards! on 12seconds.tv



Dave Saunders talks about his Webinar



Just finished tonight's webinar on 12seconds.tv



The uses for 12 Seconds are as big as your imagination.


Photo by Chad Arizona


Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Web Design and Website Promotions
.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Sales Letters: How long is too long?

Guest post

Hey! Why the Long Sales Pages?
Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Mark Silver
Heart Of Business
http://www.heartofbusiness.com/


So, you get one of those emails from someone whose business you
kinda like. And it's got some enticing little message in it- so
you click to take a look at the offer.

And suddenly you find yourself in highlighter land. Broad streaks
of yellow, lots of exclamation points, and pages and pages of
words making all kinds of claims and promises. And when you
scroll allllllll the way down to the bottom, there isn't even a
price. You need to click on an 'order now' button before they
even tell you the price.

Steaming, you swear by all that is holy that you will never, ever
subject your customers to that kind of nonsense.

So when you go to sell your own offer, say for instance a
seminar, you write up a simple, clear paragraph or two about it,
add few bullet points, and an understated offer. And hardly
anyone responds. Oy!

Do you have to be hyper-hypey to get customers?

Let's get clear: these sales pages are there to do one thing...
and it's not selling. Nope, they aren't selling. So, what are
those pages doing?

Those pages are holding a conversation with the reader. What
conversation? The same conversation you would hold if you were
trying to fill a seminar, and someone who was interested called
you to ask about it.

I've had plenty of those conversations, and I bet you have, too.
How long are you on the phone? Twenty minutes? Thirty minutes? An
hour?

Time flies when you're connecting heart-to-heart.

Have you ever read Shakespeare?

Remember studying plays in grade school? Your middle school Arts
and Literature teacher Mr. Snyder tells you, "Read through page
61 of Romeo and Juliet for Monday." And the class groans- 61
pages by Monday!

Yup, 61 pages. The first half of the book.

How long is 61 pages?

I believe it takes about two or three hours to play out Romeo and
Juliet on the stage. The Folger Shakespeare Library edition is
245 pages, but every other page has historical notes. So we'll
just count half. 122 pages.

Let's be generous, and say 122 pages in three hours. 40 pages an
hour. 20 pages in thirty minutes.

How long was your sales page again? Three paragraphs and five
bullet points? Well, you've just had the equivalent of a
45-second conversation with your reader.

"Uh, yeah, I've got 45-seconds to tell you about the seminar,
and then I gotta go."

Not very generous or helpful to your caller, eh?

You can still put away the yellow highlighters.

No, you don't have to write pages and pages of fluff, full of
hype and yellow highlighters. But, you have to give me, your
potential customer, more than 45 seconds.

How much more? Here are a few pointers:

Keys to Writing Your Offer

* Find the questions.

In the Opening the Moneyflow class, one of my clients took thirty
seconds to describe an upcoming seminar- and then the other class
members let loose. Question after question after concern after
concern. Many of which my client hadn't considered before.

Describe your offer, in less than a minute, to people in your
target market, and then ask for any and all questions that come
up, no matter how oddball. The answers to all of those questions
need to be woven into your offer description.

* Make the concrete very clear.

There are logistical facts about your offer- price, what's
included, location, time, quantity, materials, etc, etc. Put all
of those in a box that is very easy to find and read. And put
them at the bottom.

Because the written format is static, it's hard to present the
information in one way that everyone is going to like. If you put
the information at the top, it's like putting a big price
sticker over something, so they can't even see what it is. You
have to peel back the price before you even know what you're
looking at- that's not really fair to either party.

If the information is in the middle- it can be hard to find. So
put it at the end- easily accessible, right out in the open, but
not in the way.

* Start with empathy.

Before you get into describing your offer, and the benefits, use
a paragraph or so at the beginning to create empathy for the
problem that your offer solves. For instance, if you help people
who have chronic pain, spend a few sentences describing what
it's like to live with chronic pain, so your readers feel seen
and understood.

Then they'll have more space to hear what you want to tell them
about it.

These are just a few pieces that can help your offers connect
more strongly to your readers. Find successful sales pages from
people you respect, and print them out. Study them carefully. See
if you can find 10 or 20 things that you notice about those
pages.

And give it a shot yourself. Don't be afraid to wander into
having a longer page, knowing that the people who really need
what you are offering WANT the information, and may read it
word-for-word several times.

The best to you and your business,

Mark Silver

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Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your
Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your
Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line.
He has helped hundreds of small business owners around
the globe succeed in business without losing their
hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online:
http://www.heartofbusiness.com

Greg Cryns
Website Design and SEO - The Mighty Mo
.