idaho

Promoting Your Website

M. Shifley Leave a comment

When you have a business, website promotion is essential to success. You want to get as many people looking at your website that you can. Without website traffic, it could lead to less customers and less sales. Websites are key to informing customers and non-customers about your company and product.

The first step in website promotion is to first get it listed on the main directories on the Internet. These directories include Yahoo and most importantly Google. The goal is to have your website be the first thing listed when someone searches for your product, something similar to your product or your company. Keywords play a big part, and if you pick the right keywords, it will rank higher on the search pages and be easier for customers to find the.

If this seems too risky, these directories also allow you to pay them so that your website will be guaranteed to be seen when using the selected keywords. However, it will be in a different part of the page then the search results. This is known as pay per click marketing, and you will have to pay the directory a fee every time someone clicks on that link.

You can also use current cutting edge methods to advertise your website. You can make podcasts and even YouTube videos. These essentially work like commercials, but are entirely free to put on the Internet.

Another step in website promotion is to actually tell people about it. Tell your friends, people you see on the street, anybody. This could have a chain effect and they could tell their friends which creates more traffic and hopefully more customers. Other ways to do this is visiting online communities and forums where your target customers visit and tell them about the website.

Having a website is essential to a business now, whether it’s a home business or a corporation. However, websites do not promote themselves, so you need to become aware of all the options available to you to create traffic. The more traffic you have, the more customers you will have.

There are also people like me that can do all of this for you. I can specifically focus on Internet marketing and know how to do everything that was mentioned in this article. You will have to pay people like me for these services, but it could be beneficial to deal with people who know what they are doing especially if you need to focus on your business or feel overwhelmed with promoting your website. If you have additional questions, please contact me and I will be more than happy to help. I can be reached at 208.598.0084 or matt.shifley@yahoo.com.

Online Marketing Tips for your Press Release

M. Shifley Leave a comment

When most people think of public relations, they understand it to be the act of relaying news to a media source via a press release. They believe once they submit a press release, that’s all they can do. They wait to see what the press release can do for them. Too many people submit a press release to a variety of news outlets-thinking they have a great story the media will pick up-but they hear nothing back.

Instead, they wait, and wait, and wait. Nothing happens. Ever since the first press release was published on October 30, 1906, public relations has been shaped and defined by more than a written release. Networking, relationship building, trustworthy practices, and brand presence are just a few additional elements that help define public relations.

Today, with a wide variety of news mediums to choose from, the public has spread itself across several channels. If you choose to convey your company message only through one medium, such print media, you may find the public is elsewhere and your efforts wasted.

If you’re not using online platforms to enhance your public relation efforts, then you’re missing an opportunity to expose your brand to the public, generate leads, increase sales, and boost credibility. Some of the most innovative and effective ways to reach your target market online include PR 2.0 and optimized press releases.

• PR 2.0: By definition, PR 2.0 is a social media press release. This newly developed public relations tool was born from the rise in social media popularity. As more and more people use flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Digg, they are more desensitized to newspapers and traditional media outlets. Because of this shift, using modern media forms, in addition to traditional forms, is the most effective way to get across time-sensitive news items related to your business. PR 2.0 incorporates a variety of interactive social media elements including video, Twitter pitches, share options, bookmarking capabilities, photos, slideshows, bulleted information, links to your website, blog, and social media sites, and contact options. Because social media press releases are viral, the audience base you can reach with it is infinite.

• Optimized Press Release: Also known as search engine optimization (SEO) PR, an optimized press release is search engine optimized to ensure it pulls up on search engine result pages. In other words, the optimized press release is written to incorporate important keywords that prospects may be using as search terms. One of the most popular places the public and even the media go for their daily news dish is the Internet. Google News, Yahoo! News, and Bing, to name a few.

If you post an optimized pr in popular search engines, you can be sure to get some hits off of it. Similar to a social media release, an optimized pr is viral and has the ability to reach a countless number of prospects.

It’s obvious the public relations model has shifted over the years, but public relations still, without a doubt, embodies the same principles it did over 100 years ago: provide the people and the press with truthful, accurate information that is both newsworthy and valuable.

If you have additional questions about how I can help your press release generate more leads and how important it is to helping your company receive more exposure online please contact me and I will be more than happy to help. I can be reached at 208.598.0084 or matt.shifley@yahoo.com.

More Copywriting Tips

M. Shifley Leave a comment

You must have heard different camps of copywriting experts giving their opinions on what killer copywriting really means and how it should be. While one camp believes in the dictum: Word is God, the other believes that just words won’t get you far. While writing a killer copy words are THE most important components to make your copy successful- the importance of color, pictures, graphics and imagery cannot be ruled out.

In this far evolving business revolution, killer sales copies must be equipped with design that speaks more than words. You may have a killer headline to grab the visitor’s attention but a drab web design would quickly dissipate that initial interest the viewer had shown and you’ll be back to square one.

Give your killer copy a much needed boost with a good website navigation system. Your navigation system must be consistent in every page of your website. If you are using four different links in four different pages, make sure that you post the links in the same position in all of the pages. This would make it easier for visitors to navigate through your site and use the links you provided. Instead of keeping your website plain and drab, use color coordination to make navigation through your site a pleasurable experience. But over use of color may just make your site look like an advertisement for children’s products. Unless you intentionally have kept it that way and unless you are really selling play dough or teddy bears, steer clear of making your website look like a potpourri of colors.

Never use shocking colors. They would just ‘shock’ visitors but not shock them enough into buying your product. High contrast colors are hard on the eyes. Avoid using such colors. It would be nice if you could create a logo for your company and put it on all the pages of your site. It would keep reminding your readers of your company’s name.

However, in a way, the word ‘killer’ is somewhat misleading. The Webster English Dictionary defines killer as: “to cause to be destroyed, to defeat or veto, to cause to cease operating…” Thus ‘killer’ copy therefore should mean a copy which is irresistible and extremely tempting. There are various web resources that teach you how to write killer copies. Some sites would ask you to purchase the access to such file by paying a onetime cost. This would be a good idea depending on the copywriting website and their author’s credibility.

If you have additional questions about copywriting and how important they are to helping your company get found online please contact me and I will be more than happy to help. I can be reached at 208.598.0084 or matt.shifley@yahoo.com for more information to discuss how I can help you or your company with its search engine optimization, online marketing, or copywriting needs.

Copywriting Tips

M. Shifley 1 Comment

Here’s a neat little copywriting secret you can use, immediately.

As if coming up with a headline isn’t difficult enough, for most people, sitting down and trying to come up with an opening of a sales letter or display ad, is like trying to figure out which way is north, when you’re standing smack dab in the middle of the desert at high noon.

I will fix this for you, forever, right now:

There are many approaches to coming up with an opening line, but no matter which one you take, you need to make sure you’re compelling … you can’t waste time on idle chit-chat … and you’d better be speaking directly to your marketplace with enthusiasm.

Today we’re going to talk about one way to come up with an opening line: by using a punchy introduction.

For example, something like “Today, I have some amazing news to share with you about lowering your blood pressure.”

Or, “Now there’s a way you can eliminate pet odor for good, without using ANY chemicals at all.”

And how about this old standby, which was taught to me when I was working with a previous employer: “If you are a cigar smoker, and you’d love to know how to save as much as 75% on all your new cigar purchases, then here’s something you MUST know:”

Now there are a few guidelines you’re going to want to pay close attention to when you’re doing this. One, you’ll notice I extended each of the base openings (“Today, I have some amazing news to share with you…”) to include a benefit.

You want to do this to capture your reader’s attention and to make sure they know something’s in it for them. Otherwise, you’re just being vague and hypey with no substance. That’s a HUGE turn-off, and no one’s going to pay attention to what you’re saying, if you do this.

Two, you want to say something that’s got energy and power. If you’re trying to get someone’s attention, nothing beats enthusiasm.

And three, another trick you may want to try is to add what I call a “bonding factor” in your opening. So for example, “Today, I have some amazing news to share with you about lowering your blood pressure,” can often be enhanced by saying something like, “If you are a woman over age 65, I have some amazing news to share with you about lowering your blood pressure.”

This adds depth to your relationship and makes your reader much more curious about what you’re about to tell them.

Now you have an inside secret to writing opening lines, so copywriting doesn’t have to be so difficult for you.

If you have additional questions about copywriting and how important they are to helping your company get found online please contact me and I will be more than happy to help. I can be reached at 208.598.0084 or matt.shifley@yahoo.com for more information to discuss how I can help you or your company with its search engine optimization, online marketing, or copywriting needs.