What Does It Take To Make Your Website Successful?

This is a question that has undoubtedly crossed the mind of every business owner. You can’t just build it and forget about it, not if you want results.

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.)

Posted in Business Growth, Marketing, Website Success | Leave a comment

Article Marketing Tips

Do you need more people visiting your website? Article marketing is an excellent way to bring in more of the right kind of visitors.

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.
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Count It Up

The last few issues of my newsletter (sign up for it to the right) have been about SEO – search engine optimization methods for getting higher page rank, more traffic and better search engine results.

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.

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Who’s Talking About You?

Do you keep up with yourself online? Do you know how?

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.

Posted in Business Growth, Focus, Marketing | 2 Comments

How To Choose The Right How-to

How do you sort through various business advice? With the Internet, there’s no shortage of folks willing to give their opinions on most subjects. The problem is there are a lot of myths, misinformation and just plain crap floating around.

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.

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Day 23 – Make A Wish

We’re up to number 23 in the 30 days of blogging, and although I have missed some days this has still been the best thing that could ever happen to this journal.

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….

Posted in Change, Following Your Dreams | 4 Comments

Day 21 – Changes

Number 21 in the 30 days of blogging is to notice what’s changing as we post during this project.

Other than the obvious change of making more posts, I wasn’t sure if anything had changed. I find that it’s definitely easier to post when there is a set topic or question to answer. And thinking about some of the prompts has given me ideas about how to include a broader range of subjects within my theme.

This can only mean good things for my business and my mission.

Thanks Susan!

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Day 20 – Memories

I missed a few days in the 30 days of blogging, but the nice thing about this project is that it’s so easy to jump back in. :)

Prompt 20 is to share a childhood memory.

When thinking about what would make a good recollection to share here, I reminded myself that the topic of this blog is wealth creation. That led to thoughts of Carolina Florist, the business my grandparents owned.

“The Shop” as we called it was one of my favorite places to be and there are so many fond memories to recall.

  • Grandpa’s whispery whistle as he worked, creating his beautiful arrangements
  • Grandma V teaching me how to update customer files when payments came in
  • Watering and dusting the potted plants and “dish gardens” kept in the window displays
  • Making endless boquets and corsages for Mother’s day, and hundreds of palm crosses for Easter
  • The elation when after countless tries, I finally learned to make a bow-ribbon pompom

It was a good place and a good way to learn about business and money and independence. I wish I had recognized at the time just how extraordinary it was.

Posted in Business Growth, Finances, Following Your Dreams, Money and Wealth | 1 Comment

Day 17 – Who Is Here

Prompt 17 in 30 days of blogging is to visit one of the other participants and tell something about her.

I picked Heidi Caswell, who I first met on the Ryze network. I have long admired Heidi for her sense of balance in raising a large family and running a successful business at the same time.

Connect Simply is the name of her website, and a philosophy that many would do well to take to heart. She gets to the point and tells it without trying to make things more complicated than they need to be. How refreshing!

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Day 15 – Music

We’re halfway through the 30 days of blogging - time flies when you’re having fun. :)

Topic 15, music, is an especially good subject, and one of my favorite things. Friends know one of my personal mantras: “books and music are essential to life”. Just recently I discovered how important music really is not just as background to life, but to my business.

Recently I’ve noticed that writing has become more difficult; it’s harder to begin, harder to find topics, harder to achieve that flow. Since coming to take care of and live with my dad, I had assumed that my much altered living situation was the culprit.

But when I visited for a couple of days with an old friend a few months ago, I remembered something. I always used to write with music playing but that hasn’t been the case here.

Sitting alone at my friend’s kitchen table sipping a drink and with his stereo on, I wrote more in an afternoon that I had in 3 months. I’m positive that being able to relax with some music was the reason.

There is no particular link I can give as my selections are fairly inclusive; I don’t care for heavy metal and I’m partial to old soul, but I like almost everything – from country to classical.

What music inspires you?

Posted in Business Growth, Self Care | 1 Comment