It’s only going to get worse – as more and more people keep creating more and more content, the likelihood that someone is actually going to read what you’ve written is getting slimmer and slimmer. Still, we see top marketers say things Gary Vaynerchuk saying, “The more content I put out, the luckier I seem to get.”  And Bill Gates said, “Content is King.” It seems like all anyone talks about is content, content, and more content. You put out a ton of content, yet all you hear is crickets. As a result, you give up, and stop spending so much time creating content – you’ve got better things to do, right? If no one is reading your content (or watching it or listening to it), is it worth it? Should you keep going?

STOP!

Stop and consider why. Why are you putting out content in the first place? Then, take a look at the world’s top websites: Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, even your local news sites. What do they all have in common? They all produce a ton of content, and not just monthly, weekly, or even daily, but continuously. Every time you go to one of these sites, you are presented with new information. I recently did a survey to verify this.The results were not surprising, but hopefully they are enlightening to anyone who is running their own website as to why visitors go to a website in the first place, and why they return (or not).

In response to the question, “How often do you visit this site?” 84% of the respondents said they visited Facebook either more than once a day or several times per week. But business sites are visited “Never, Seldom, or Occasionally” a whopping 92% of the time.  So, it seems that sites which have more frequent content updates are visited more frequently.

To verify this, I then asked the question, “What are your reasons for returning to this site?” I included a choice for the obvious answers, such as “interact with friends on Facebook” or “buy something on Amazon.” But respondents could select multiple answers to this question. These answers were quite revealing: 42% said they go to Facebook for “latest information and updates” and 50% said they go to business sites for the same reason. 33% of people go to Facebook for “Personalized Content” and 25% go to business sites for the same reason. Even though people are visiting Facebook much more frequently than they are business sites, the reasons why people are returning to a site are essentially the same – they are looking for good, personalized content and updated information.

Content is important, but you are not getting any traction from your content – why and what can you do about it?

The first thing is to make sure that you […]

I had the honor of interviewing someone this past week who has been called the greatest sales trainer of his generation, Eric Lofholm (you can listen to the interview at https://gregjameson.com/eric-loftholm/). Eric is a master sales trainer who has helped over 10,000 students and has helped generate nearly $500 million in revenue in the last two decades. This interview got me thinking about how traditional sales techniques can be applied to typical shopping cart software. The anserlies in telling a compelling story. The story behind a product or service is the key factor in getting someone to resonate with your offering and to remember it. Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” The feelings that stories evoke is instrumental in making a sale, regardless of the method you use to tell the story. Here are some ways you can tell your story:

The long description of EVERY product or service you offer on your ecommerce website should tell a story. There are multiple ways to tell a story, called storypaths. This is a common example, called […]

This week I want to share with you some important lessons about creating content. As you know, I am a huge believer that you must create content for your website on a consistent basis, as this is one of the primary reasons why someone will return to your website over and over again on a regular basis. Whether it be Facebook, your favorite news site, or Amazon, all the major websites provide new content on a continual basis. You must do the same with your website.

But, you will argue, “I don’t have the time to do that.” Or, you might be thinking, “I don’t have that much to say.” Well, here’s the good news – you can simply get someone else to create your content for you. and you don’t have to hire them or pay them (they might even pay you!).  I recently had a company in Pakistan approach me if they could write a guest blog for my website. You can see the post here. Now I don’t just randomly allow anyone to post on my blog, but if the content is good and relevant, I figure it’s a win-win. I get free content and they get free exposure. In fact, the second lesson for this week is that they got a free link back to their website – they used the anchor text “web development firm in Pakastan,” with a link back to their website. What this means is that when Google looks at this post, and they see that link, Google assigns them 1 vote for that search phrase, moving them higher up in the search engines for that term.Here's the best part about getting others to contribute content to your website - they will now send traffic to you when they share it with their followers! Click To Tweet

But back to getting others to create content for you… Each week I also do a podcast where I interview someone and we talk about business. This week I interviewed John Lawson, one of the top 100 ecommerce influencers in the country. John gave me about an hour of his time and we recorded our conversation. I got some great content, both as audio and video, which I can use for a number of purposes. You will definitely want to check out this interview, especially if you are selling online. Here’s the best part: Both the company in Pakistan and John Lawson will now send traffic to my website as they share their “win” with their friends and followers.

How can you do this for your business? Start by […]

We all know that positive Google reviews can impact our business. More positive reviews means you can charge higher prices and you are more likely to get new customers, because everybody checks you out online before doing business with you, even if someone has recommended you. But how do you get more 5 star reviews without begging?

I tried finding a WordPress plugin that would do this, but the only ones I found were for displaying Google reviews on your website, not for collecting them. I watched this webinar yesterday by a colleague, Jack Jostes, that got me thinking about this. He basically said to make it easy for someone to leave you a review by allowing them to cut and paste their feedback into Google. I also listen to a podcast by my friend Alex Mandosian called “All Selling Aside.” At the end of each episode, Alex asks you to write down your biggest “Aha moment” and share it on iTunes for that single episode, not the podcast in general. In other words, he wants you to leave him a review. I also have customers who use third-party services like Wombly or MyTestimonialEngine to collect reviews, but these costs around $150 per month and still don’t generate that many reviews. Combining all of these thoughts, I put together a technique that I think can be really useful to anyone who has a blog, podcast, or ecommerce store. Let me explain…

The technique I’m going to describe is based on a WordPress website using the formidable Forms plugin, but the concept can be used regardless of the technology you are using. The first thing I did was to […]

Look, your website won’t bite, I promise! But you MUST take care of it and feed it new content on a regular and consistent basis, or it will not work for you.

Anyone who has ever heard me speak is aware of the conversation I have with my audience where I ask them a simple question, “If every time you went to Facebook, they showed you the exact same stuff that you haa seen before, how often would you go back?” Probably once at the most, then you’d move on to something more interesting and current. “So, what makes you think your website is any different?” News flash – it isn’t! If you are not consistently providing new content to your site, there is NO REASON for anyone to ever return to it. When you couple that with the fact that 98% of people leave a website without ever taking any action (including leaving their email address), is it any wonder that your site is not performing?

Your website needs new and engaging content if it’s going to draw visitors in and keep them coming back. What kind of content? Everything! Blog articles, product descriptions, photos, videos, lead magnets, and audio files. You need to treat your website like you would a new car.  Keep it clean, up to date, and in good working condition. It represents a significant investment into your brand.  And, it’s a small price to pay for your hardest working 24/7 customer service agent.

Ah, but I don’t have time. I don’t know how. I can’t afford a webmaster – look, I get it. I’ve heard all the excuses as to why you can’t take care of your own website, so I have decided to do something about it. I am in the process of creating a series of online self-paced video courses that teach you step-by-step exactly how to care and feed your website. each course will cover a different type of content. For example, there is an entire course just on how to create effective lead magnets. a lead magnet is where you create an irresistable offer in exchange for someone’s contact information, typically their email address. and just like every other form of content on your site, your lead magnet needs to change on a regular basis. So I am going to show you how to generate a dozen different types of lead magnets such as […]

A few updates that everyone should be aware of:

You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave – new privacy regulations coming your way from California.

Have you recovered from last spring’s GDPR adrenaline rush yet? Everybody in publishing was nervous about finding the right way to comply with new European privacy regulations. It did not seem like there was one clear path to compliance.

As much anxiety as GDPR regulations provoked, that may soon look like the good old days. At least in the EU, 27 countries came together with one edict. They also spent the time necessary to be smart and coherent, whether or not you agree with all the details.

Now California passed a privacy initiative you will be expected to follow starting Jan. 1, 2020. In many industries as goes California law, so go U.S. standards. This will be…Read The Rest of the Article.

Guest Blogging

Many online business owners know that they should be blogging and creating content on a regular basis, but they simply don’t have the bandwidth to do this. They would however, like to be able to write an article occasionally without having to maintain a blog on a regular basis. The answer is to become a guest blogger. Or perhaps a guest on a podcast. You contribute an article (or an interview) on another site, and get the benefit of creating backlinks to your own site. For example, last week, I featured a guest blog on my site, which you can see here: https://webstoresltd.com/2019/03/04/seo-factors-are-constantly-changing/. This blog post was written 100% by someone else, which meant that […]

You are going to want to read this, even if you don’t use Instagram. It can be used for seeing how your website looks and behaves on a mobile device that you don’t have. If you do use Instagram, this is going to save you a ton of time and frustration!

Despite it’s popularity with younger generations, Instagram is a very limiting social media platform, especially for business. It does not allow you to share or schedule posts, and you can’t add links to a post (except for paid ads or stories if you have a business account with over 10,000 followers). While other social media platforms all work on a laptop, Instagram does not. You must use a cell phone to post anything, which is both cumbersome and annoying. But there is a solution! In today’s article I’m going to show you exactly how you can post to Instagram from your laptop.

Now some of you might be asking, why would you even want to do that? Instagram was designed as a phone app – the idea being that you would take a picture with your phone, then share it instantly to the social media network. But there are at least three very good reasons why your cell phone is not the best tool for the job.

There are at least three very good reasons why your cell phone is not the best tool for posting on Instagram: DSLR photos, editing, and typing. Click To Tweet

For many of us, we want to take professional level photos using a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera with high quality zoom lenses and optics. Once you take the photo, you have to edit them using a program like PhotoShop or PaintShopPro, upload them to the cloud, then download them to your phone before uploading them to Instagram. Or email them to yourself and retrieve your email on your phone. Either way, what a hassle! If you want to edit the photo, the tools for doing so are much better on a laptop. Creating a meme is hard enough, much less an infographic! And finally, once you upload the image to Instagram, typing in a description on a cellphone is not much fun if you have more to say than a short sentence or want to paste in something you’ve already written.

So, here is how you do it! […]

Long time readers of this blog know that I wrote the #1 best-selling book, “The Influencer Effect.” Since then, influencer marketing has become a “thing” (those two events are not necessarily related, as I don’t claim to be responsible for causing a change in the rise of influencer marketing). But influencers are not just someone with a large following, they are someone who do affect our actions.

I recently interviewed Tom Ross, the founder of DesignCuts.com for my podcast (listen to that interview at the 20MinutesofInfluence.com). Tom talks about how he used to have hundreds of thousands of viewers each month – but he wasn’t making any money. Like so many of us, he was chasing what he calls “vanity metrics.” this is a dangerous path for many of us. We all want more traffic to our websites. We want more people liking our social media posts. we want more followers. In fact, most influencer marketing platforms use these metrics to measure effectiveness of a marketing campaign. But those metrics don’t put money in your pocket. when it comes to influencer marketing there are really only 3 things that matter:

1.  Engagement
   Traffic and visibility are important, but you can buy advertisements to achieve those results. When working with influencers, you want an expert that actually causes change in the behavior of your customers. Sidney Pierucci, Founder of ESPLMedia, says “Because they are personally invested in their crafts, micro-influencers are trusted sources of recommendations for followers. The Game’ isn’t just getting eyeballs; but getting eyeballs that care!”Because they are personally invested in their crafts, micro-influencers are trusted sources of recommendations for followers. The Game’ isn’t just getting eyeballs; but getting eyeballs that care! - Sidney Pierucci Click To Tweet Engagement can include clicks to the website, likes, comments, video views, number of sales, repins on Pinterest, retweets on Twitter, and shares on Facebook, among other social interactions.But simply having a large number of followers or getting lots of traffic is not what is important – getting someone to take action is what matters.In my interview with Tom Ross, we talk about how you can accomplish this through your relationship with your customers, understanding your audience, and having a passion for what you are offering.

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2. Content
   Influencers are content creators. I read an article recently about the history of influencer marketing and they were trying to make the case that Aunt Jemimah, Santa Claus, and the Marlboro Man were early influencers. No they were not – those were corporate images that were drummed up for advertising purposes, but they were not content creators. An influencer is someone who […]

The WordPress development community has been anticipating this release for most of this past year. Some of us have installed pre-release versions of the software and have been testing it and learning it for months. Today (December 6), it was finally released to the public. You can read the details here: https://wordpress.org/support/wordpress-version/version-5-0/ The biggest change is in the editor, which now uses blocks to layout pages. I will be covering the use of this editor extensively in my upcoming online course coming out in late January. Yes, there will be a learning curve, but this release is going to allow WordPress to remain the dominant web development platform for years to come. If you are unsure of when is the right time to update to this latest version (especially since it is right before Christmas), let us help you! […]