Good advice when you’re struggling to bring in more business.

Find something unusual that you can connect to your business and make it your trademark. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just something memorable that you can connect to your core business. Something that will make people laugh, or think, or something that just makes folks say “hmmmm”.

Whatever you choose to use, it just has to be something that will make folks remember you.

Here are a few examples I’ve seen here and there on the net:

• A commedienne named Rosalind who signs her written jokes and online posts <Rated *R>
• A programmer who always talks about his love for Pop-Tarts
• A computer technician (and fellow Trekkie) who mimics Scottie
• A gift basket seller who dresses in costumes to fit the theme of her baskets

It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be uniquely you!

Most digital camera pictures start out very large, both in dimensions and in file size. You can fix this easily with any image editor. The basic Windows program is called “Paint” and it does a nice job of resizing.

Click your “start” button then look under “programs”, then “accessories”. When you open the program click “file”, then “open”. You will get a box to search your computer for the picture you want. Select the image then click “open”.

Next, click “image” then select “stretch/skew”.  At the top of that box you will see choices for horizontal and vertical, both with percentages beside them. I usually start out with 75 or 80%, but if the picture is really huge (for example over 1200 pixels wide) you can use 50%.

Make sure you put the same figure in both boxes or else the picture will get distorted. If it’s still too big you can do the process again. And if you mess up you can click “edit” then “undo”.

When you finish, click “file” then either “save” to overwrite the file and keep the same name and location, or “save as” to give it a new name and/or location. Make sure photographs are saved in “jpeg” format. This is the box right under the name of the image in the save screen.

Simple, huh?

In most industries it takes a minimum of seven contacts with a prospect to turn them into a customer. Once they become a customer, it only takes one bad experience – or contact – to lose them forever.

Many business owners are not aware that everything you present represents a contact, or communication with your prospects. This includes your website, emails, network and forum posts, newsletters and articles.

You are being judged on these communications.

What you say and how you say it are very important for a variety of reasons:

1. Trust – if they can’t understand your message, they can’t trust it, or you.
2. Consistency – if you don’t have and stick to a plan, your credibility is nonexistent.
3. Perception – too many errors can make you look stupid, even when you know exactly what you’re doing.
4. Clarity – When your thoughts are clear to you, it’s that much easier to express them to others.

When you explore these issues you will not only discover why they are important, but how you can use them to improve your communications and your bottom line.

First, you have to define your success. Then you’ll know what results to work for. Success may mean increasing your traffic. Or getting more people to sign up for your newsletter. Or selling more products.

In fact, a successful business website will usually do all of these things, because that is the natural course of doing business on the internet.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Well, it is simple, but it’s not always easy. It takes a good plan and a lot of work and persistence. It also takes a particular set of skills and knowledge of online marketing.

You have to identify your ideal customers, find them, and give them a good reason to visit your site.

Once they’re on your site you not only have to give them the information they may be looking for, you also have to provide an incentive that’s makes them want to hear from you again.

Then you have to educate them and let them get to know and trust you. Once you’ve done that it will be much easier to make the sale.

Contact me today if you need help. I’d love to answer your questions and help you along the path to website success. (And if you’re in a hurry, ask me about my special half-price offer.)

Here are some tips to make sure your articles are as effective as possible:

1. First, pick the right topic. It should be something useful or interesting to your target market, but make sure it’s informing – not selling. List and how-to articles are good for this type of marketing because they are easy to read and understand.
2. Make sure you use relevant keywords and phrases, but be careful not to over-use them. Many directories will reject your article if they believe you’re “keyword stuffing”.
3. Find the best places to submit your articles. There are many popular general directories such as Articles Base and E-zine Articles that you should submit to. But you should also search for industry specific forums and directories to post to. Simply go to your favorite search engine and look for “my industry article directory”.
4. Write an effective author bio, also called your resource box. This is where you include a line or two about the best benefit people get from your business, your blog or website address, and a strong call to action.
5. Remember to track your results. Many of the directories will tell you how many times your article was viewed, and you’ll also want to know which directory (and which types of article) sends the most traffic back to your site.

One of the best ways to measure the impact of your efforts is to keep a close eye on your website’s statistics. But many folks don’t know exactly what all the categories mean. So here’s a quick explanation of the terms I get questioned about most often.

Views – measures how many times each individual page is requested or shown.

Unique visits – measures how many different computers (IP addresses) have been to your site.

Hits - measures how many times each separate file is requested or shown. If you use a lot of images, each page view would count as several hits. For example, if a page has 4 pictures and a video on it,  it would count as 6 (or more) hits – but only one visit or page view.

Visits – measures how many times your site has been visited. When compared to unique visits this shows how much repeat traffic you’re getting.

Spiders or bots – shows when and/or which of the search engines last “crawled” your site.

Top pages – shows which are the most popular pages on your site.

Entry and exit pages – show how many times a page was the first one visitors saw, and how many times it was the last one before leaving.

Search terms – tells the words or phrases that folks were searching on most often when they came to your site.

Next time, I’ll have some ideas on how to use this information.

There are good reasons to monitor your internet presence.

• Build up your “news” or press section
• Connect with your audience in their favorite places
• Fix problems or counter negative issues quickly
• Collect testimonials

There are several bookmarking and collection sites that will help you do this.

• Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
• Yahoo! Alerts – http://alerts.yahoo.com
• Social Mention – http://socialmention.com
• How Sociable - http://howsociable.com

I started thinking about this subject because of some posts on one of the networking sites I belong to. An individual posted a series of articles, calling herself an “expert” on a subject which, due to industry restrictions and secrecy, has no outside experts.

In addition, the articles themselves contained quite a bit of inaccurate information.

There are a lot of people (and subjects) like that these days. It seems there’s a new self-proclaimed guru every day. The trouble is most of them start with a core nugget of truth, then they add common theories and their own opinions until they come up with a system they can sell or use to promote their business.

 This is part of marketing: establish yourself as an expert in your industry. It’s good advice. If you really are knowledgeable. If you aren’t, it’s misleading and unethical.

So how do you know the difference? Usually it only takes a little investigation and a little common sense. For example, someone calling him or herself an expert in an industry they don’t actually work in is a clue. A website designer whose website is always broken? A copywriter whose articles are full of typos and lousy grammar? An artist with an ugly logo? Any situation like that should be an early warning sign.

But suppose it’s a subject that you aren’t familiar with? It’s easy enough to look it up, or ask someone else – preferably an actual expert. Look at the top websites on the subject to see if the advice matches up.

You won’t be fooled often if you take your time and let common sense guide you.

Prompt 23 is an especially fun one; make a wish!

When I was a teenager and going through some difficulties, my school couselor would often ask me what I would wish for if I had the proverbial three wishes. Back then it all seemed so simple. I would always answer that I only needed one wish: for everybody in the world to have all they needed and be happy. In my mind then, that meant that everybody would have all their wishes granted!

I suppose that now I should have a more practical view of real life. And in some ways that earlier wish seems simplistic and unrealistic. There are some people who never have “enough” and some who refuse to be happy. So as I grew older my wishes stayed generally the same became more specific.

My wish is that everyone could be well nourished and healthy. That no one would ever have to face the trials of inadequate shelter or ridicule because of physical style or circumstances. That everyone would experience the joy that comes from knowing and fulfilling a purpose. That we could all give and receive absolute and unconditional love.

Yeah, I know it’s a lot to ask. But at the same time, it’s really not so much: it’s not like I’m wishing for the impossible. I believe that these things are possible….