Here are seven quick tips to help you improve your online presence.

1. If you have a section on your website or blog, called “news” either update it regularly or delete it.  When someone clicks on that page and sees that the last entry was 6 months ago, it hardly makes you or your business look dynamic.
2. Write the copy (wording) of your site exclusively for your target prospective clients and no one else.  If you are reading this, it’s almost certain that you are the owner of a business – that’s because you are the person I write for.  Everything I do here, is designed for you.  A message that is 100% relevant to a target group of people will generate massively better results, than a message that tries to be all things to all people.  If you want to work with your ideal type of clients, write just for them and stop trying to please everyone.
3. If you ask people to comment on your blog or email you, you owe it to them to reply (if a reply is necessary.)  I find it amazing that even the top social media gurus get this wrong.  They ask for comments and then ignore 75% of them.
4. Look before you link!  What do you think it says about you and your professionalism, if prospective clients visit your site and see that you link to sites that are unprofessional?  The power of association is incredible.  Show that you associate with great people and brands.
5. If you have a blog, it’s nice occasionally to tell your readers how great some other people or companies are.  Don’t just talk about yourself.  It shows confidence and class.  BTW: Most of the people I tell my readers about on my blog are fellow marketing guys; my supposed competition.  If they provide useful, valuable content, I want you to know about them!
6. On the subject of blogging, it’s not for everyone.  I find it amazing when I hear social media gurus telling everyone to get a blog.  Here’s the problem with that: Not everyone wants to write or enjoys writing.  If you don’t like writing or find it hard to come up with interesting ideas – leave it!  A poorly written blog that’s seldom updated, is not going to help you achieve anything.
7. If you make a claim on your site or social network, make sure you can back it up.  My friend Irene Koehler from almostsavvy.com met the top tech journalist and blogger Robert Scoble at an event in San Francisco last year.  She introduced herself to Robert, by saying that they had a mutual contact; Jim Connolly from the UK.  Scoble smiled, said yes and asked her to say “hi” to me.  Can you imagine how bad I would have looked, if I had told her we knew each other, and he told her that he’d never heard of me?  If we make a claim about who we know or what we have achieved, it better be true; because it’s never been easier to bust a fake!

So, what tip or tips would you like to add to that list?

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If you want to create stacks of leads, fill your client base or sell more widgets, you need to do the total opposite of what the vast majority of small businesses do online.  You need to be original.

That’s because there’s a serious problem with the generic, copycat approach to Internet marketing:

It doesn’t work!

It’s easy to see why so many people just copy the marketing they see on other sites.  After all, the ability to develop an effective Internet marketing strategy and write copy that compels people to take action, is very rare.  Knowing how to motivate someone to click your links, send you an email, subscribe to your newsletter, call you, visit you or buy from you is perhaps the rarest, most valuable skill in marketing today.

For example, I was called earlier this year by one of my readers, who is a marketing consultant.  He wanted to know if I would quickly review his blog, (quickly meant do it for free, apparently!)  I don’t work for free, but I did take a quick look at his blog out of curiosity. I was unable to figure out what his service was, let alone why anyone might need it.  His blog was packed with buzz-words, marketing bullshit and stacks of rambling, pedestrian copy that went nowhere.  In the time it took me to finish my coffee, I was able to spot well over a dozen, serious, marketing-related problems.  It was easy to see why he needed free advice!

Why your business needs its own Internet marketing strategy

So, this is the part of a blog post were an Internet marketing guru would give you a list of; “killer Internet marketing tactics that are guaranteed to work” – And that’s part of the problem.  Business owners are being told all the time that there’s a generic, one size fits all way to maximise the potential of their sites or blogs, when the reality is the complete opposite!

An effective Internet marketing strategy differs massively, from; industry to industry, country to country and business to business.  It needs to take many factors into account, like; the size of the business being marketed, what they want to achieve, where their prices or fees are pitched, who their target customer is and if they are selling business to business or business to consumer etc, etc.

It’s really important that you don’t make the same mistakes.  If YOU want YOUR blog or website to be a business generating machine, use an Internet marketing strategy that’s been developed for YOU and YOUR business, based on YOUR unique situation and YOUR unique goals.

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One of the fastest ways to massively improve your marketing results and sales figures, is to learn how other companies are already getting the kind of results that YOU want.  That’s what today’s quick marketing tip is all about!

Copy what works

The next time you read a piece of marketing, which inspires you to take some kind of positive action; to call a business, email a business, visit their store, click a link etc – keep a copy of it.  Ask your friends to do the same with any marketing material they read, which motivated them to take positive action too.

Collect these powerful marketing pieces and study them.  Look to see what it was that inspired you or your friends to take action.  This is a very fast way for you to identify the key elements required to make YOUR marketing messages more compelling!

Don’t forget to study everything.  Pay particular attention to the following:

• Was the headline (sometimes called a strapline) eye catching?
• What kind of words and phrases did they use in order to motivate you?
• Did they offer any guarantees?
• Was there a special offer included?
• Was there a ‘time sensitive’ element?
• Was the marketing message long or short and to the point?
• How easy did they make it for you to get in touch?
• Did the message come via a trusted source?
• Was there limited availability?
• Did it arrive at just the right time?
• Were there any testimonials or quotes from satisfied customers?

By studying what already works, you can develop massively more effective marketing for your own business.

If you found this quick marketing tip useful, remember to share it using the ‘share this’ button below!

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If you want to achieve great results with your online marketing, I believe you need to become a really good observer.  This means developing the ability to see what other people miss; to observe what someone is doing in order to get a result.

For example, I received an email recently from someone who made the links on his blog ‘do-follow‘.  He said he did this, after seeing me offer these ‘special links‘ here and the huge response it got.  He wanted to know why it hadn’t generated any extra traffic or comments to his blog when he added it there.

The bigger picture

A good observer would have seen the bigger picture.  For example, he would have checked jimsmarketingblog.com out on alexa.com or compete.com and seen that it already had a large readership. The readership of my blog did not just grow magically overnight, after that single post.

Secondly, a good observer would have seen that I have a great online network of people around me; via my newsletter subscribers, readers of my website and the 14,000 people I network with on twitter.  This means there was an existing marketplace for these special do-follow links before I decided to add them to jimsmarketingblog.com.

The point?

You can learn a lot more about how to market your blog or website, by observing what marketing professionals do; as well as reading what we write.  If you just read the posts, you are missing half the picture!

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Recently, I have started getting a lot of emails from people; asking me a version of the same great question.

Here’s the question:

Jim, I hear that you don’t use any form of paid advertising or link exchanges – yet your posts often get dozens and dozens of comments. According to alexa.com (or whoever), this new blog gets lots of traffic. How are you doing this?

So, what’s my ‘secret’ then?

My secret is simple. It’s all down to Equality and Attraction!

Equality

I provide marketing material for people just like me; small business owners and those who work in sales / marketing.  If I know what I am doing, you should fit into that group too.  We are all totally equal here.  I don’t buy into that Internet celebrity or marketing guru bullshit. I’m just a normal person who happens to run a successful marketing business. I have the marketing answers you need and I work hard to get as many of them to you, in as clear and interesting a way as possible.  I don’t have a tribe; I have a network of friends and great contacts.

This is a level playing field, where you and I are part of the same marketing community.

Guess what?  That means when you email me, I always email you back.  When you comment on this blog – if your comment requires or requests an answer, I give one, always.  If I like your work, your blog or your product, I promote it for free – you won’t even know most of the time, until you check your stats, sales (or Twitter follow numbers!)

My readers seem to like my guru-free approach to delivering the marketing information they need and helping them succeed.

As a result, you recommend this blog, my RSS feed and my newsletter to your contacts.

You are the reason a 3 month old blog is attracting so much attention. You are the reason I don’t need any paid advertising.  You are also the reason I continue to do this; even though I have been financially secure for life since I was 29 years old (I’m 43 now).

That’s despite starting off in life broke; with no connections, the son of immigrants and covered in scars and even a gunshot wound from a violent childhood in the slums. I’m proud to say that I earned my money selling millions of pounds and dollars worth of ‘goods and services’ – NOT selling books or seminars on ‘how to sell!‘

Although my primary focus is always on giving, I have already generated thousands of pounds / dollars worth of sales for my business, from this new blog.  I did over £7,500 worth of business from enquiries here in the first 10 days alone. If you have a website or blog and you would like to attract more business or leads, here’s how I do it.

Attraction

My work is all about attracting sales and enquiries -  not chasing them.

Why?

Simple – people hate being pestered by salespeople!  They hate being pursued by overzealous networkers (online and offline.)  They hate having unwanted advertising thrust upon them.

People LOVE to buy things but they HATE being sold to!

Here’s how people often get it wrong
This morning, I decided to help my Twitter followers build their follower numbers and get some traffic to their blogs.  I asked them to send me the URL of their blog.  Then, I sent another message out to around 4,500 people – with a link to all the blogs that had been sent to me.

What do you think happened?
Within minutes a couple of people decided to send THEIR blog over and over again; so their blog address appeared multiple times in the link I sent!  I received over a dozen messages from people telling me they had blocked these users and some had even advised their followers to block them as well.

That’s because people hate being pushed, pestered, chased or pursued.  Whenever someone tries to use these tactics to generate sales, they come up against resistance. What a hard way to generate new business!

People come to this blog looking for free marketing ideas, strategies and information.  They come here to connect with people and ask questions through the comments section.  So, that’s what I provide.  I don’t ‘push’ anything.  In fact, there is only ONE page on this entire blog where you can learn about my marketing services.

You attract sales, leads and referrals by being attractive.  In the online world, this means making your site or blog as valuable to your ideal profile of client / customer as possible.  You do this by focusing on delivering quality and quantity. It requires a mindset, where you are prepared to give high quality information away for free; not just the watered down free stuff you see on most websites or in free ebooks!

If you keep all the good stuff back for your paying clients, how is a prospective client going to know how brilliant you are?

You need to make your blog or website an Aladdin’s cave. This means, when your prospective clients or customers arrive, they need to believe they have just stumbled upon a goldmine of great information.

If you sell widgets, make YOUR site or blog THEE place to find out everything they need to know about widgets!  If you sell a service (like I do), use your blog or site to showcase your expertise. Show you really know your subject, answer people’s questions and position yourself in their mind as an expert in your field.

Of course, we are not only attracted to people, groups, blogs and sites that offer great value – we love to SHARE them with our friends and contacts too.

I always advise people to take a look at their marketing and decide if it is genuinely attractive to prospective clients / customers or not.  If you are not sure or you just want to make your marketing even more attractive, ask yourself the Aladdin’s cave question, which I touched upon earlier.

“Would someone visiting my website or blog immediately think they have just stumbled upon a goldmine of great information?”

If the answer is no, look for as many ways as possible to add massive value!

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If you want to lower your costs, increase your sales and boost your profits, you need to get the most from online marketing.  This post focuses on 2 forms of FREE online marketing, which you can use to achieve amazing results for your business; Blogging and Newsletters!

Online marketing is changing

Not that many years ago, online marketing reached a relatively small, fairly select group of people.  These were either technology enthusiasts, businesses run by technology enthusiasts or multinationals.  Because only certain groups of consumers and businesses used the Internet regularly, online marketing was of limited use to the average small business.

Of course today, that’s all changed! Almost everyone in a ‘developed’ country now has Internet access at home, work or both. This means it’s now possible for you to use online marketing to generate either sales or leads, for just about any kind of product or service.  It also means it has never been quicker, easier or less expensive to market your business!

Free online marketing

Right now, armed with nothing more than an Internet connection and a blog, you can generate leads or sales for your business for free.  Moreover, these can be highly targeted leads and highly profitable sales too.

Practising what you preach

I have not used any form of paid marketing for my business for years.

That’s right – 100% of my non-referred business comes from either my newsletter, my website or this blog!

All I have to do is make sure I give away as much valuable marketing information as possible, to as many small businesses as possible.  Then, when these small businesses want someone to help them market their products or services, they give me a call.  When they want their blog or website transformed into a goldmine, they already know my work and that I get results – so they get in touch!

Fast results?

Oh yes – You can see results in seconds! For example, once you build a list of newsletter subscribers or a group of regular blog readers, you can start generating either sales or leads, less than a minute after you send a message or post something to your blog!

Of course, most people with newsletters or blogs have very few readers. Just as with everything else, you need to do the right things, in the correct way, if you want to achieve the desired results.  That’s why it’s important that you spend a little time doing some research, before you start!

Blog marketing

There are lots of online networking sites and ‘social media’ tools you can use, to build up a targeted network of prospective clients or valuable contacts.  In fact, the number of websites offering these facilities is so vast, that it has become a problem in itself.

In my experience, the foundation of your free online marketing should be a blog.

A simple blog, if used correctly, can help you develop a massive community and allow you to showcase your talents to your prospective clients / customers.  It can help you find out about the needs of your marketplace and also develop a special relationship with thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of prospects.

Getting a blog

You can get yourself a free blog right now, from wordpress.com or blogger.com, and be blogging in minutes.  Each blog platform has pro’s and con’s.  I use a paid-for version of wordpress for this blog – you can see the benefits of a paid wordpress blog here.

However, before you invest your time starting a blog, make sure you get some advice from someone with a successful blog.  I recommend you take a look at Chris Brogan’s blog, which covers business blogging (and also other forms of social media.)  It’s a great resource and well worth a read.

Blog marketing is a massive subject and I can only scratch the surface in this post, but there’s going to be a LOT more information to come – So subscribe to my RSS feed, using the button on the top right of the page and make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Newsletters

By far, my biggest ‘network’ is the readership of my marketing newsletter.  The newsletter has been going for almost three years and has thousands of valued readers, spanning over 100 countries around the world.  Each newsletter is sent just a couple of times a month and contains an original marketing article (like this one).

I use the same principle to grow my newsletter, as I use to grow this blog.

I provide high value content, so people share it with their contacts. These contacts then subscribe and they share it with their contacts…

Which businesses can benefit from Newsletters & Blogs?

Any business, in any industry can benefit from a Newsletter and / or a blog.  That’s because the same process outlined above is universal.  Just make sure your blog or newsletter content is designed exclusively for YOUR target market.

In other words, if your business offers web design – write about great web design ideas, tips and tricks.  If your business offers insurance, write about how people can lower their premiums or get better cover or share some funny insurance stories.  If you are a coach or consultant, blog about your subject and give great tips and ideas to your readers. Most newsletters are little more than advertisements and because of this, people do not forward them on and they fail to grow.

Make sure you pump as much valuable information as possible into everything you write.  This showcases your talents, positions you as an expert and shows the real value of your products or your services.  It also makes choosing you as a provider almost risk-free to your readers.

Conclusion

I know people in just about every industry, who get the vast majority of their leads or sales through free online marketing.  I also get emails from people every day; who are wondering how to generate the leads or sales their business needs in order to survive.

If you want to know more, take a look at the free resources mentioned above and also check out the guides and articles in this blog.  You might also want to look that this, it’s all about how to build a successful newsletter.

If you have found this post useful or you have anything to add, please leave a comment and share your feedback with everyone!

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Marketing is all about developing trust.  This is why I am always totally amazed, when I see an apparently legitimate company, using the exact same ‘toilet paper web design’ as used by online criminals, scammers and con artists!

What is a ‘toilet paper web design’?

I coined the phrase ‘toilet paper web design’ a year ago.  It refers to that ugly, hard-sell design style, where web pages are fairly narrow BUT REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LONG!  They just roll on and on like a long narrow roll of toilet paper (hence the name!)

Usually, these over-long pages use lots of different font colours and font sizes, plus pictures of expensive cars, piles of money or sometimes both!  There’s way too much use of underlined words and highlighted text – they look like a total mess!  Some even show fake copies of financial records and fake testimonials about whatever scam they are trying to fool you into signing up for.

They then end with a super, limited offer; for you to get a ‘bundle’ worth 299.99, for just 24.99!  The bundle is either membership of something or a photoshop image of a box, which looks like a 1970′s soap powder box!

Legitimate businesses should use legitimate marketing!

When someone visits a website, they immediately form their all-important first impression of that website and the person or business behind it! If they see you using the same online marketing style as a scammer, you are really in trouble!  Your image will be warning them NOT to go within a mile of you – that’s not good for your marketing!

Unbelievably, some of the most common users of toilet paper web design are legitimate business coaches, trainers and consultants! This con artist template is fine for con artists.  However, if you have a legitimate business with a legitimate product or service, it’s crazy to try and emulate what criminals do.

Whenever I have spoken to legitimate businesses, who use the toilet paper web design approach, they always say they did it after either reading some ebook or after seeing a site that claimed to be successful, using the same approach.

An ebook can be written and posted to the Internet in minutes and a scammer will never admit their site is not working!  They usually have dozens of sites and rely on each one finding enough vulnerable people to make a small profit!

If you know a legitimate business that’s using this approach – point them to this article and help them avoid being wrongly associated with Internet scumbags!

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