In my many presentations to home stagers and other “main street’ businesses I stress the need to have an opt in device on their web sites to capture prospective customers information.

One of the biggest obstacles people seem to face is the idea that product creation is difficult.

I am starting a new series on Product Creation.  The bulk of the series will run on my http://MicroBusinessSpecialist.com/blog

But I will place pertinent articles here as well.

I encourage you to come back frequently or subscribe to my RSS feed to catch the series.

Technorati Tags: information product creation, product creation, information product, info product, info product creation, ethical bribes, opt in forms, email marketing

Technorati Tags: email marketing, ethical bribes, info product, info product creation, information product, information product creation, opt in forms, product creation

Whether you are making your pitch to a prospect to be their home stager in person, in a brochure, online or in a talk to a local Kiwanis club, you must communicate your entire pitch in the first 30 seconds or less.  Otherwise, you will lose a significant percentage of your prospects attention.

In 1986 Milo Frank wrote a short book called, “How to get your point across in 30 seconds or less.”

This idea applies to personal presentations, articles, speeches and other presentations.

That’s not to say everything needs be communicated in that 30 seconds, but the key concept, justification and call to action, can and should be.

Below this article you will find a link to Amazon where you can buy the book if you want to read his justification and suggested techniques to accomplish this seemingly extravagant goal.

I want you to consider applying the idea to all of  your promotional materials and to your stock presentation, starting today, because you need to if you are going to get your message across before your reader skips past your article and goes on to the next.

Already, 10-20% of the people who started to read this article have stopped and gone elsewhere. This is particularly easy to do online.

Even “hot” media like videos get clicked past at an alarmingly fast rate. Tube Mogul, the video service which makes its business by monitoring and quantifying video viewers behavior, indicates that fully 50% or more of video viewers click away from the average video within 30 seconds. Twelve percent are gone in the first ten seconds.

The attention span of the general public has been short for a long time. No wonder politics is done in 10 second sound bites. And that reality applies to you and your articles and even in person presentations as well.

That doesn’t mean you can’t take the time to develop your thoughts in detail. It just means that you need to grab their attention and tell them what you are going to tell them and what they should do about it in your introduction up front. And don’t be too disappointed if a lot of people don’t read your entire article, or skip past your website without reading it all.

Just imagine how many more have left the written word in the same amount of time compared to a video presentation. Now some of that is probably because the viewer discovered that the video was not relevant to their interests and or needs.

As such, maybe we shouldn’t get too upset that they left before we get around to our point. But it could be that they made a mistake. Had they waited they may have discovered our cleverly designed plot to draw them into our proposition was just what they needed. If only they would have waited to see or read our sales pitch and dynamite close.

If you really want your readers to get your point, make it upfront and quick. Elaborate and explain in depth later to those hangers on who are interested in more detail.

How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less

Technorati Tags: marketing tips, Milo Frank, presentations, speeches

I just created a new report to give away on my newest blog on Public Speaking. It’s called An Anatomy of a Speech.

One of the best ways to market yourself as a Homestager is by giving talks to local groups. The more you do so, the better and more comfortable you will become with the process. It will help you establish yourself as an expert, and gain you a lot of referral business over time.

In my report I provide some solid tips on how to go about writing a speech or business presentation. To help promote it I also created a new Flip camera video which is below.

I’ve recently become quite aware of the need to keep these videos short. This one is well under two minutes. I like my little Flip camera, even though it doesn’t like my “Es’s”

Some day I will upgrade, but for now it’s adequate. (at least I hope it is.)

Go to Top Public Speaking Tips to get your copy.

I have been preaching SEO for some time, in may various ebooks and tele-seminars. I have also posted a number of articles from my friend at Leads Leap.

This is link to the last episode of Lead Leaps  popular SEO tutorial series.

In this concluding chapter, they do a case study of a successful website that is doing very well in Google search results.

Read the case study now:

http://www.leadsleap.com/blog/seo-case-study-free-seo-tutorial-part-6/?r=earlnetwal

Technorati Tags: Case Study, leads leap, SEO

Below is a good article by Karen Schaefer. I particularly like the comment she makes about naming your company, which is particularly applicable if you want to be found online in a Google Search.  Her USP is also a key concept. You must have a great one that you can use to communicate with prospective buyers in an instant. There is no law against using hers for your own, but you may well be able to come up with a better one for yourself.

And once again, look at the free publicity I  just provided her. All because she wrote a good article. I am sure I will not be the only one reprinting this. This gives her traffic to her site, credibility and more.   You should be doing the same to promote your business.  -etn

How to Combine Creativity With Business
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Karen_S_Schaefer]Karen S Schaefer

The number one request that I get from all of my clients, whether they are from my Home Staging Training Company, Marketing and Networking Business, one of my Speaking Clients, all of them, are always looking for a way to be more creative, or at least add more creativity to their marketing efforts and effectively combine it with business. For some reason, we have been conditioned that the two don’t go together… but they MUST!

Over the years, people have constantly told me how “Creative or Imaginative” I am. Funny, I never thought of myself as such, but I am a self-professed dreamer, and I love letting my imagination run wild…which can be good, and of course, bad as well!

But, I think ultimately that you have to have a set foundation in every type of business, no matter what it is. You have to have a solid vision, a way to implement the plan or vision, have a strong team, a goal or intention and of course the marketing, direction and management to make it happen.

Rarely can this happen without a “Creative Department.” Most small businesses don’t have the luxury of an entire department, so it is up to YOU to be the Creative Leader of your Business, so that your Business is presented as a Creative, Productive, and Effective Company to your Client.

As Home Stagers, we all have a natural inclination toward creativity. Most of you explore that creativity each time you do a staging job. I know I do because it is almost a release for me. It is a creative outlet, a way to vent any frustration, and it also allows me to constantly flex my creativity muscle. I am able to in turn get better each time (and most importantly, offer more creative advice every time to my nationwide team of APSD Certified Home Stagers).

But, in business, we can’t simply be creative in what we do; we have to be creative in what we say and how we present ourselves and our services. In other words, your Marketing must be creative if you want to stand out from the crowd and catch the attention of your potential client.

That is why the first thing I always teach all of my clients is:

1) Name: What is the name of your company or Service? Does it say what you do and where you do it?
I know you are thinking, “Karen, to just say ‘Los Angeles Home Staging’ is boring. I want to say ‘A feather in your cap Sales.’”

Now, I would agree that the ‘Feather in your Cap’ is far more creative, but it does not tell me anything. When you come up with a name, people will search under categories, which is why, in this instance something “practical” comes in handy.

Even today, if I were naming my own Home Staging Company again, I would not name it Simple Appeal. I love the name, and it speaks to me, but for people that don’t know me, they are only going to search for Home Staging Services in Colorado-not Simple Appeal.

2) USP- Once you have figured out your name, now is your chance to be creative. A USP is a “Unique Selling Proposition.” Sometimes you can use this as a tag line, like I do, “Anybody can make your Property pretty, we make it Sell” or as a unique way to capture the attention of your customer. In other words, use your creativity, and figure out a way to say something about your service or business that makes you more compelling than any other person in your industry in the eyes of your client.

The best way to approach this, which you many already know if you follow me on Twitter, is to tell your client what they WANT to hear vs. what they NEED to hear. And say it in such a way that makes them think “I HAVE to have it!”

You can have so much fun with this and when you hit the nail on the head, your lead generation will explode. It is the perfect way to combine creativity with business.

3) Position- So, now you have a name that opens up the door for good and easy search criteria. You then have mustered up all of your creative resources and developed an extraordinary USP. So, you have burst open the door on your new lead generation. Now, you have to correctly and effectively position yourself in the market place so that you can convert those leads into sales, thus increasing your business’s bottom line.

My USP, “Anybody can make your House look Pretty, we make it Sell” is not only a great USP, but it also offers me great positioning in my market place. It is good marketing. The reason that I chose this USP is that I wanted to position myself in the market place as the Home Stager that actually knew how to stage a home so it would sell. I did not want to just be about decorating, accessorizing or rearranging…I wanted to be about results.

So, what you have to do… once again is be creative. What do you want to say about your business? And, how do you want them to envision you and your services?

All of these steps require creativity and with that, you will find that new doors will readily open for your business. The key to success is to combine your creativity with your business skills, because although they can each stand alone, the fact of the matter is that you could increase your business 10 fold over night by adding just one effective touch of creativity. And, let’s face the facts; it sure is whole lot more fun to be creative!

Keep in mind that creative marketing and positioning is just good business. So for those of you that immediately assume you are not good at business, by implementing the 3 steps above, you will now be 3 “business” steps ahead of any other Home Stager in your area.

In the future, I will offer a business program, but for now, follow the information above and you will be amazed at the results.

To your greatest joy,

Karen Schaefer

Founder, APSD

Your Worldwide Leader in Home Staging Training

By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, you can learn more about [http://www.apsdmembers.com/membership.html]home staging, [http://www.apsdmembers.com/homestager/directoffer.html]marketing houses and selling houses quickly.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Combine-Creativity-With-Business&id=3571566] How to Combine Creativity With Business

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, Company Name, USP

I’ve covered much of this material one way or another in the past, but my friend Ken Koh of Leadleap fame has added another posting in his ongoing series on getting people to find your web site.

http://www.leadsleap.com/blog/how-to-seo-a-website-from-scratch-free-seo-tutorial-part-4/?r=earlnetwal

It’s surprising how many home stagers and others think that they can just put up a web site or have one put up for them, and expect to get traffic and jobs from that alone.

You need to get you page set up right, with both on and off page tactics to raise your web sites visibility online.

I recently read a Blog Post on Leads Leap discussing the value of back links. I’ve preached on this topic before, but thought it might be worthwhile to share another person’s take.

The Power of SEO Backlinks: A Classic Example

Technorati Tags: back links, backlinks, leads leap

Have you been listening in?

Last night was the second session of the League of Extraordinary Minds, and what a great two hours it was.

While you as a home stager might not think that the internationally famous panelists that are participating in the program have anything to offer a small business like yours, you would be wrong.

I took a ton of notes last night, and got a lot of actionable ideas in the process. One I will share with you today is the understanding that people buy emotionally, and that they are motivated more by fear of loss than by hope of gain.

As an example a person is far more likely to take action to avoid suffering a $20 loss than they would be to gain $20.

What this may mean to a home stager, is that your clients are more likely to respond to a pitch that focuses on their risk of having to pay double mortgage payments, than they are to the hope of getting a higher price from a well staged home.

They may similarly respond to a pitch that details all the work they will have to do by themselves and the drudgery entailed rather than to the freedom they may enjoy by letting you do it for them.

That doesn’t mean the positive doesn’t matter, but rather that the loss elements are more effective in selling your services.

Now there was a lot more that I pulled out of last night, but I thought I would share that one.  It’s up to you to think about how you could apply that knowledge in your own interactions with prospects.

Replays of the League of Extraordinary Minds sessions are not available, as they are being turned into paid products.  But you are able to sign up and listen in to the remaining sessions for free, if you register at League of Extraordinary Minds. The next session is at 8PM, your time, next Thursday, no matter where in the world you are.

I encourage you to register and to listen in.  There have been two sessions so far and 7 to go. The first two have been very powerful, and have lead me to make several changes to the way I do things.  I am confident that you too will find value in each of them as well.

Push the Arrow to Hear the 1 hour 2 minute presentation.
Internet Marketing 101 for Main Street Businesses

Last week I did an hour long presentation for Allegra Dioguardi’s new home staging curriculum.   Staging Training by Design

In it I covered three different major topics. The first section dealt with some basic decisions most people make before they have enough information to do well. That includes picking their url, web host and decision as to whether to have a blog or web site.

The second topic covered includes a discussion of how to make your web site more search engine friendly and also how to generate back links need to raise your standing in the search engines.

The third section, dealt with how to get more of the people that find your web site to do something.

These are topics I’ve dealt with before, here and in my two eBooks.  My challenge was to condense all the information into a single 60 minute presentation. Turns out I ran about 2 minutes long.

But if I say so myself, I did a pretty good job of covering all the major points you should be aware of when setting up your internet marketing campaign for your business.

Now while I would advocate that most people should learn how to manage and run their own web sites, the reality is that most will not. Therefore I discussed these topics so that people would know what they wanted to accomplish, so that they would be better equipped to tell their computer people what they wanted, and why.

Thus while the conversation was directed to home stagers specifically, the comments apply to almost any locally based business wishing to attract more customers by internet marketing.

In support of the audio, I have created a resource page of links and resources.  It is pretty rudimentary at the moment, but I will be developing it as time goes on.

Resource Page

Technorati Tags: Internet marketing, Must Know Internet Marketing Concepts

Allegra Dioguardi, Interior Designer and president of Styled and Sold Home Staging is now offering training and mentoring for aspiring and seasoned Home Stagers alike.

http://www.stagingtrainingbydesign.com

Allegra is a Parsons School of Design graduate. And her sense of design is the missing element in many home stager’s education. It’s one thing to declutter and establish some focal points, it’s another to tie everything together with a sense of style.

Allegra has had decades of experience that predates the home staging revolution. She has worked and taught many people how to stage model homes, long before the term Home Staging was coined.

She has invited me to prepare a module as part of her course on websites and search engine optimization. I am looking forward to it. It will give me another chance to distill the essence of my two eBooks, Why Most Small Business Web Sites Stink, and Main Street Climbs to the Top of the Search Engines.

I anticipate that I will revamp both my WART Analysis and Market Maker programs in advance of the course presentation. My goal will be to provide affordable support and training for Home Stagers who want to take a hands on approach to controlling their web sites.

I will use this preparation process to devise the easiest way to train home stagers to get more people to see their web sites, and then to get more of the people that do see them to actually do something.

In the meanwhile, I am very interested in hearing from you. What issues do you have with your web site that I can help you with?

What lessons have you learned that should be shared with other home stagers in the area of web site, and email marketing?

For More Information on Allegra’s Classes go to: Home Staging Training

Technorati Tags: Allegra, Allegra Dioguardi, Home Staging Training, Market Maker, WART Analysis

Hearing the word spyware tends to evoke an image of popups for most internet users. It would probably surprise most to learn that almost every internet user has at least some spyware or adware on their computer. The reason for this is that these parasites can hide in parts of the computer that you can’t normally access.

The biggest problem with these parasites is that most users don’t know just how dangerous they can actually be. Sure they cause your computer to slow down (a lot), install things you don’t want, and more, but they also do much worse things. Having spyware or adware on your computer compromises your privacy to a very dangerous level.

How often do you enter personal information on the internet? For most people, this will be very often. Many of these parasites will track everywhere that you go on the internet and report it back to it’s creator. It doesn’t stop at that though. Not only will it track everywhere you go, but it will track everything you type and click at these locations as well.

What this means is that if you enter sensitive data such as your social security number, credit card number, bank password, or anything else of that nature, a stranger also has that information. To make matters even worse, this information is often sold to even more people; this means that hundreds of people could have access to all of your personal information.

If you want to keep your privacy on the internet, you’ll need to rid yourself of any spyware and adware that inhabits your computer. There is a free report named “Adware Removal” which outlines everything that spyware and adware do, as well as how to get rid of it. Remember, the report is completely free and definitely worth a read.

Click Here To Dowload Your Free Spyware Removal Report

Technorati Tags: adware, adware removal, spyware, spyware removal

Yesterday we talked a bit about the “Inspection” blog post. Today we will cover “Insights” and the “Index” type of post.

2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.

Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.

For a home stager, it could be on Where to store valuables during a house showing, or How to dress up your front door.

If you put you mind to it you could probably generate a list of 50 such tips in no time. Write the titles down, and use them for infill when you are busy.

The third I is for “Index” which is just another word for a list.

Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information.

You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Things to Do Before a Showing.” The possibilities are endless.

How about a list of things to do, room by room? Or perhaps a list of X things to pack away before you begin to stage their house.

Technorati Tags: Homestaging Tips, Tips, What to write

Five Different “Kinds” Of Blog Posts

Blog posts come in many different forms and lengths. If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. Creating different types of blog posts will help to keep your audience interested. It will also keep you from getting bored with your blog.

Blogging can be done as an adjunct to your business, to help attract customers or it can be a sideline of your business designed to generate revenue, as well as attract customers to your Home Staging enterprise.

If you are going to invest time and effort on your blog, why not use it as a profit center as well?

The five types of blog post are the
1. The INSPECTION Blog Post.
2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.
3. The INDEX Blog Post.
4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post.
5. The INSTRUCTION Blog Post.

1. The INSPECTION Blog Post.

Review blog posts can help you monetize your blog. You “inspect” – take a closer look at – a product. When you review a product and include an affiliate link, you’ll make a commission off of each sale generated with your affiliate link.  Review blog posts should go over some of the major plusses and minuses of the product. Even if you loved the product, you should keep your review balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.

What type of a product could you as a home stager comment on?  How about paints, cleaning products, furniture stores, etc.

While there is no reason why you couldn’t do a blog on any vendor you choose to without compensation, why not find a product that has an “Affiliate Program” and join it.

One of the easiest ways to identify such products is to join one of the major affiliate market places like Commission Junction.  It’s free to join, and once you do, you will be able to search from thousands of vendors to find products relevant to Home Staging that you could review and comment on.

Such recommendations, if done honestly and forthrightly will be well received by your readers, and could potentially add a new revenue source to your business.  Not a bad idea to market yourself and make money at the same time.

To learn more about commission junction go to www.cj.com.

In the next couple of days I will go into more detail on this and the other four types of blog posts.  By combining these ideas you can add a lot of reader interest in your blogs.

2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.

Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.

3. The INDEX Blog Post.

Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information. You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Sales Letter.” The possibilities are endless.

4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post.

Although these require a bit of preparation, they can be very valuable to your blog. You can interview someone in your niche and share the results of the interview with your blog readers. This will not only help provide valuable content for your blog, but you can also get more traffic to your blog. Likely, the person who you are interviewing will publicize the event on their blog and around the ‘net which will bring more traffic back to you.

5. The INSTRUCTION Blog Post.

Like quick tips, how to posts help you provide valuable information to your readers. However, unlike quick tips, these posts go into detail on a certain topic. Some how to posts are even separated out into two or three part courses. For ideas on what to create how to posts about, look at the most frequently asked questions in your niche and develop posts around those topics.

You’ve made major progress when you take care of your on page SEO issues.

Your page factors again are your title tags, keywords and description in the hidden meta tag area, and use of H1 tag, and appropriate keyword usage on your page and at least 425 or more words of text on you landing page.

For some people that will by itself be enough to get your site to the first page.

For others, in more competitive markets it won’t be enough all by itself. For example one of my most recent clients Ann Alderson from Tampa is trying to do business in a market that has almost as many home stagers as it does Realtors.  Well maybe not, but it seems the various schools are having frequent classes in the area resulting in a lot of competition, especially for web site ranking.

In today’s economy the various schools are having a hay day, as more and more people are looking for supplemental income.  And that means more competition for you.  And more web sites trying to climb to the top of the search engines.

In Ann’s case we were able to raise her from somewhere in the deep dregs of page 23 or so to #35 overall just by making changes to her onpage factors.

Her site is located at Home Staging South Tampa which is a good example of an anchor text using her keywords of Home Staging and Tampa. (And she just got another backlink)

She uses GoDaddy as her web hosting service. It took them 3-4 days to turn around and do what she wanted, but it did have an immediate effect.

But it’s not good enough by itself in her case and perhaps in yours as well.

That’s why you need to pay attention to the off page factors. And they come down to one phrase. BackLinks, Backlinks, Backlinks to paraphrase our Realtor friends.

Your first step should be to set up an account and post on Active Rain. By putting a link to your web site on your posts, you will create your first back link.  Now ideally this should be an anchor link as I have explained in past posts.

But while Active Rain is a great site, you need to get links from many different locations.

My next set of recommendations is to set up an account at Squidoo and Hub Pages.  www.Squidoo.com and www.hubpages.com.  Just signing up and creating a profile will give you a backlink if you include you web site in your profile. But what really counts is when you set up a page on their sites.

These need not be works of art. They don’t need to be long. They should be about Home Staging in your town.  And your town name and home staging should be in the title.  You have two possible audiences, Realtors and homeowners.

Make two pages to start. One for home owners and one for Realtors.

Do it first on Squidoo.  Write a lens on the Top Three Things a Minneapolis Home Owner Needs to Know about Home Staging.

Then do it.  If  you want make it the top 5 or 7. Feel free to buy my guide on Squidoo Basics if you need help, although they have tutorials on both sites.

Then publish your first Squidoo lens, and immediately start another.

Write a lens on the Top Three Things a Minneapolis Realtor needs to know about Home Staging. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to get one done in 30 minutes, but plan on spend a couple hours the first time.

Make sure both of them have a link back to your web site.  If you have a separate page on your web site for Realtors, make sure your Lens on Realtors links back to that page.

Once you have these two lens done, go to Hub Pages.  If you’re lazy, use the same text all over again but put the three hints in a different order. Ideally you would reword the entire thing.

The more effort you put into these the better. But you are better off with many short Squidoo lens and Hub Pages than with one or two comprehensive ones.

There are three reasons why you are doing this.

First, they will give you added stature and credibility. Second, these Squidoo lens and Hub Pages sometimes get higher rankings than your web site intially, so it’s quite possible they may get to the top of the search engines before your main site does. That means real potential customers who may never have heard of Squidoo or Hub Pages may find them and you.  The third reason is that the backlinks from these sites carry more weight than many other sources of backlinks. So you want to get them set up for you as soon as possible.

Once you are done with these, you may want to switch to article marketing.

The Good part of article marketing is that your articles can become viral. Once you publish them, they can be posted to hundreds of different blogs each of which will create a backlink to your site.

Most will be from smaller sites, without as much clout as Squidoo or Hub Pages, which is why we start with them. But in the long run, the article marketing effort is what will not only move you to the top of your local search engine results, it will keep you there.

With all the newbies entering the market, that’s one idea you may well want to consider.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, hub pages, squidoo

When you repost a blog post or active rain post on an article directory like www.ezinearticles.com you are allowed to attach a resource box to the bottom of your article. Anyone can republish your article for free if they agree to include your resource box.

When preparing your resource box, you are generally allowed two links that you can direct as you choose. It’s important to use anchor text for these links based on the keyword you want your destination site(s) to rank for.

Particularly if your goal is to build your search engine standing as well as generate traffic.

Anchor text is simple html code that creates a hyper link to the web site you want people to go, while displaying your anchor text. Your anchor text should be the keyword you want your site to rank for.

One of my newest clients is a home stager in Tampa Florida. The keyword she wants to rank high on for her business is “Home Staging” and “Tampa” or “Home staging in Tampa”

So to maximize the value of her resource box I advised her to use the following statement:

Ann Alderson is an expert at <* href=”http://stagingsouthtampa.com”>Home Staging in the South Tampa region. You can get more information on home staging on her blog about <* href=”http://blog.stagingsouthtampa.com”> house staging tips.

[Insert a letter "a" where the * are to appear as

When placed in html code it reads as follows: Ann Alderson is an expert at Home Staging in the South Tampa region. You can get more information on home staging on her blog about house staging tips.

In this case, we used the second anchor text to use an alternate keyword, “house staging” and sent traffic to her blog. This creates a back link to an internal part of her site which improves its standing in Google’s eyes. Google likes links to internal pages as it shows there is interest in more than the front page of the site.

As we’ve discussed before, the three main reasons to do article marketing is to establish yourself as an expert in your field, drive traffic to your site and build back links to raise your standing in the search engines.

In Ann’s case, the articles may help establish her credentials and even send a few people from Tampa to her web site. But most people who see her articles will be far from her marketplace.

More important to her is the knowledge that the Google bots and other search bots will find her site and rank it for the keywords she wants her site known for: home staging and house staging and Tampa.

Most of her competitors are not doing this, and as a result in the relatively near term, she should rise from her current relative obscurity in a highly competitive local market to the first page of the listings. In time with additional articles and other postings she may even win the coveted top spot.

That is the power of Article Marketing and the proper use of anchor text and keywords in your resource box.

If you want to learn the fundamentals of internet marketing, but didn’t know where to look, you’re going to love this.

One of the internet’s best trainers of online marketing has redirected his business and rather than selling single courses has set up a “one-stop resource center.”

I have to tell you this is a great opportunity. I have taken well over a half dozen individual courses from Bob the Teacher, happily paying hundreds of dollars for some. Most of them are now available to you for just $47 a month as a member of the Internet Marketing Success Library.

Internet Marketing Success Library

As I said, I’ve personally learned from Bob The Teacher in the past, and I’m always impressed with how organized and methodical his training courses are.

They’re step-by-step video and audio courses that cover EVERYTHING you need to know about things like:

- website management
- traffic
- autoresponders
- list building
- technical know-how
- Twitter and Facebook
- information product creation
- affiliate marketing
- and a lot more.

And while not all of the courses are critical for a home staging business, many of them are. These are the fundamentals taught by a former high school science teacher who knows how to make everything clear and complete, even for newbies.

If you have ever thought about learning more in the way of internet basics this is your golden opportunity. Join and take one, two, three or more courses in your first month and quit if you want. Or continue on and take additional courses.

If you enjoy learning how the internet works and/or are interested in developing your personal or business skills online, this is a superb deal.

I specifically recommend you put discover cpanel and discover auto responders at the top of your list. But there is so much more that could benefit you and your business.

Now much of these courses are aimed at people who are looking to develop an online business. But don’t let that dissuade you.  While your primary business is hands on in your clients homes, you need to learn how to use the internet to maximize your marketing.

Click on the banner and check this out. You must keep learning if you are going to be successful in the long run. In today’s world, like it or not that means getting comfortable with the internet.  You won’t find a better teacher, not even me.

Black Hat and Gray Hat

There are a lot of businesses that have developed around helping people get to the top of the search engines. For popular mass market products and high margin items the competition to gain top billing in organic search has lead to intense competition. This has resulted in constant innovation, and many efforts to out smart Google and the other search engines.

At one time, just getting your meta tags right was enough. Then keyword stuffing came into vogue with some Viagra sites repeating their selected keyword hundreds of times. That’s why you now want to use your keyword from 1-4% of the time today. The search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to keep ahead of the Black Hatters, who try to game the system.

Today with the emphasis on back links, there are black hat and less offensive but still “gray hat” techniques used by some to cheat there way to the top. These include various services that can get you thousands of back links for a fee, or article spinners that use software to automatically rewrite you articles so they appear to be different. And many more.

Most main street businesses don’t need to use black or gray hat techniques to get to the top of the search engines in their local areas. While these techniques can work for a while, they are almost always shut down by changes by the search engines. That’s because the goal of the search engine is to be as useful as possible for the searcher. If they offer up an article that is clearly pigeon English, they loose face, and eventually market share.

In the long run, you will earn your top listing by providing useful information to your prospective customers in as many venues as possible like your web page, Squidoo, Hub pages, and through blogging and article marketing.

These approaches will work now and for the long haul. The sooner you build a base of such useful content, the sooner you will gain an insurmountable lead over your competitors.

Right now, even at this seemingly late date in the evolution of the internet, in most industries, including home staging, your competitors are asleep at the switch. You have a temporary advantage if you are the first mover in your industry, in your marketplace.

But this Blog and the ebook I am preparing based on the lessons I’ve discussed of the past several week will begin to reach out beyond the internet marketing world into main street. You may already be behind. If so it’s all the more important that you develop a plan of action. Beware of those who will try to sell you black hat and gray hat solutions. While they may work for a while, they won’t in the long run.

One final comment on the subject. Many firms will try to sell you a package of services that include getting you listed on the “Directories.” This used to be important, but is not anywhere near as important today. If you set up a back link from a Squidoo Lens to your website, Google will find you. In fact if you merely tweet a reference to your website on Twitter, Google will find your site.

Their search bots are all over these services and once the see the link to your site they will find you. In my opinion, there is no reason to pay for such services.

Technorati Tags: back links, Black Hat, Gray Hat, Meta Tags, Search Engines

Our recent series that started out as an investigation into how to get your business web site to the top of the local search engine rankings has brought us to the topic of article marketing.

This is an important topic on its own. So much so that I have started a new web site dedicated to the topic called Article Marketing Hints.

Actually the web site is http://ArticleMarketingHint.com because someone beat me to the punch and grabbed the url with the extra s on the end.

My most recent post there discusses 6 tips for writing better articles. I encourage you to stop on over and read the article.  I will continue to develop that site with more and more articles on article writing.

Note that I created two back links above. One as anchor text and the other as a straight url, so you would know how to get to the site. I used the plural in the anchor text as I want to be found when people use both the singular and the plural forms.

When you go to the site you will see an eBook for sale in the right sidebar.  If you were to look at the offer by clicking on the image of the book, you will discover that I am offering a bonus video series with the book. This series offers some excellent tips on how to write effective articles in an easy to follow video format.

It’s very well done and useful for newbie and intermediate article marketers.  I know I learned a trick or two.

The ebook is written by Mike Steup.  Mike is one of the young up and comers in the internet marketing arena. He shares a number of insights that will certainly help you get going on the right track as you begin to promote your business with internet marketing.

Technorati Tags: anchor text, Article Marketing Hints, ArticleMarketingHint, back links

Internet Article Marketing

Distilling Fine Articles from the

Fruits of Your Mind

You have decided to use the power of internet article marketing to draw eyes and back links to your web site. Good idea. Article marketing can be a very effective tool to accomplish both objectives. But where do you start?

Good Question.

Just as a distillery needs to first gather grapes and then run them though a series of steps before turning them into a fine brandy, you must first gather your ideas, before you write your article.

Before you begin

Whether you are brewing a single article or a series of them, the prerequisite is deciding what your topic is, and understanding why you are writing.

Your writing will enjoy greater clarity of purpose when each article has a clear singular keyword or phrase. Whether writing one or multiple articles it’s best to identify each of your keyword phrases in advance before you begin. They will help you form your thoughts, and may encourage you to explore nuances you may have otherwise ignored.

When writing an internet marketing article, your objective is to get eyes and or back links to your site. To do that, you need to get accepted into an internet article directory and then get noticed and republished by ezine editors before you’ll get read by end users. That’s a lot of different audiences. While you know what’s in it for you, begin the writing process thinking about what’s in it for your ultimate reader as well.

Now that you are clear on your topic and why you are writing, you are ready to begin the next phase.

Brainstorming

As you mull over your keyword and topic, ideas will come to you. That’s the main benefit of the prior exercise. Once your conscious mind is clear on the task at hand, so too is the subconscious. It will send you flashes of brilliance that may surprise you.

You want to capture those ideas. Even the bad ones, but search out the brilliant ones. Bad ideas can morph into good ones. Don’t judge, record. Write them down. Use whatever system that works for you. Long hand, computer, voice recorder, whatever.

Think about possible titles. What would grab people’s attention? Remind yourself of your readers. Who are they? Why would they want to read your article? What do they want to know?

What is the essential one element of your article? If it had to be just one sentence, what would it be? What are the key facts you want to share? Write them down, or list where you will look them up.

What will your call to action be? What do you want them to actually do when they are done reading your article? How are you going to get them to do it? What are you going to tell them that will make a difference in their lives?

This process can take days or 30 minutes. The results will vary by the amount of time you can devote. If you can, daydream about your topic while driving or doing other work. Your subconscious can be a powerful tool. What every time you have, use it to enlarge your topic.

In the next step, you are going to tie it down and begin to do some pruning.

The Outline.

We’ve all been taught the writing outline format since grade school. They are easy. You already know the main parts to your article. It will have a title, an introduction, a body and a close. And in the case of internet article marketing it will also have a resource box.

See, you are half done already. While it may vary, let’s assume there are three main points to the body.

• Title
• Introduction
• Body
o A
o B
o C
• Close
• Resource Box

Review your brainstorming notes. Pick the three most important ideas that must be in the body. If you have more that three, which can be grouped together?

If you absolutely cannot fit everything into three groups, add or subtract. It’s your article. By trying to nestle ideas into groups, you define the essence of your article.

You then assign an order within and among the groups in your outline. Once that’s done, you’re done with the outline. You can always add more, but at this point, you have captured and ordered the essence of your thoughts. If this were a book, rather than an article you would perhaps need to get more detailed. But it’s not, so it’s time to write that first draft.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, Article writing, back links, outlines, SEO

Do Your Internet Marketing Articles Meet this 5 Question Test?

If you ignore the five essentials to effective internet marketing article writing, you may as well not waste your time. Article writing is a powerful tool. When done well, it will attract a lot of eyes and back links to your web site. Do it poorly, and your results will be meager.

1. Does your title attract the right reader’s attention?

Ideally, it should let the “right” readers know the information in the article is for them, and it should intrigue them to at least take a look. The goal of a headline or title is to get the reader to read the first line. If they don’t, your article fails its purpose.

Specifically, you want to catch your ideal prospects attention. A too cute title may catch a lot of attention, but if the people attracted aren’t candidates for what you are selling, in the final analysis you are just wasting their time. So while you want to be provocative, focus on that which would be appropriate for your specific audience.

Once you have them reading your first line, make sure it’s powerful enough to carry them into the first whole paragraph and beyond.

2. Is your article properly focused?

A good internet marketing article is succinctly focused on one topic. That topic may have multiple parts, but they are all specifically tied to one idea. As internet marketers, that idea should be a single Keyword or Keyword Phrase.

People will search for articles in article directories by keyword, and so you want them to be able to find your article. When they publish your article, you want to get back links to your web site based on that keyword. Thus it is imperative that you decide specifically which keyword you are trying to rank for, before you write the first word.

It goes without saying that the keyword and the article should be directly related to the site you are referring people to, or again you would be wasting everyone’s time.

3. Have you effectively used your keywords?

If possible you should include your keyword in your title. This will resonate with people who are searching for articles on your keyword. But don’t force it. Your primary objective is to get people to read your article. Including the keyword is a distinct plus, but not mandatory.

You want to use the keywords as often as possible within the article, but again don’t overdo it. Too many internet marketing articles are overstuffed with the keywords to the point that they don’t read well. So rather than trying to meet some artificial keyword density, concentrate on writing a readable article but do try to use your keywords wherever appropriate.

4. Is your content worth reading?

Provide your readers with value. If an internet marketing article is to get picked up and republished elsewhere, it will be because it caught an editor’s eye and delivered content worth sharing with their readers.

People respond well to facts, figures and statistics as long as they are not overwhelming. Anecdotes and stories that make a point enliven articles. Rather than adding a lot of adjectives to an article, focus on your verbs. Active verbs and a positive message are always welcome.

5. Does your resource box deliver?

The goal of an internet marketing article is to drive people and robots to your website. Your resource box is therefore critical to the success of your article. If you are not allowed to include anchor text in the article itself, it is essential that you do so in the resource box. Repeat your keyword and link it to your target site. But do so creatively.

As much as possible, develop your resource box as a continuation of your article. If it flows as thought it were a continuation of the article above it, a larger portion of your readers will read it as well. And then be sure to include a call to action. Let your readers know what step you want them to take.

If you have been able to hold their attention from start to finish of the article, it is only logical that they will want to follow on to the next step, by visiting your web site, blog or take whatever additional step you desire.

If you write your internet marketing articles with these five questions in mind, you will be rewarded with lots of traffic and back links to your web sites.

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[Below is a sample of a resource box I will be testing when I post this article on the article directories.]

To learn more ideas and tips on how to ensure your internet marketing articles grab tons of new traffic and backlinks to your sites go to http://ArticleMarketingHint.com. The author Earl Netwal also publishes a blog for small business people called http://MicroBusinessSpecialist.com/blog

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, back links, internet marketing articles, resource box, traffic