Make your Website Work For You!

Create an Architecture for a Content Rich Site

You are going to be writing many, many pages for your website. So the first thing you need do is create a structure for the pages you will be writing. The diagram of a website's architecture looks very much like a family tree. At the top is a single page, the home page. Linked directly from the home page are the second level pages. These are typically the principal categories of the website. Beneath each of these main category pages are the third-level pages.

Ask yourself how many second and third level pages should there be? There are no rules, but you might want to start out aiming for the home page, ten second level pages and ten third level pages for each of the second level pages. That gives you 111 pages in total. And that's about right, because 100 pages is pretty much the minimum number of pages for a content-based website that makes a good passive income.

If that sounds like a lot, don't worry. You don't have to write them all at once. Just work out a structure that makes it easy for your readers to find all the information they want.

Write Useful, Informative Content

Once you have a clean, well organized structure for your site and you know which phrases to use to best optimize each page, it is time to start writing for your readers. While search engine optimization is essential when you want a ton of traffic, your site will ultimately thrive or fail depending on the quality of your content. Make sure that every page is useful and informative. Write in a way that addresses people's interests and concerns and answers their most frequent questions.

Special Quote #9

I missed 100% of the shots I didn’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

How Many Touches

The key to success in marketing is to choose a niche market and then dominate it by using repetitive marketing. What I mean by repetitive marketing is marketing to both your customers and the prospects in your niche market over and over...forever. This keeps your company fresh in the minds of your customers and prospects.

Here is sample marketing campaign a client used over a 1-year time period to absolutely dominate their market:

18 mailings (direct mail - sales letters/promos)
4 personal calls from their sales associate
4 Telephone Voice Broadcasts
52 weekly emails

That is a total of 78 contacts (also known as "touches") per year to each prospect and customer. And, each prospect and customer is being contacted using 3 different marketing channels - direct mail, the telephone, and email. Very, very smart!

If you want to dominate your marketplace, the way to do it is with repetitive marketing. If you are only contacting your customers and prospects a few times per year, you are going to get killed by your competitors. Make it a rule that you should contact every customer and prospect in your database a minimum of once per month and contact them using different channels such as direct mail, phone calls, email, faxes, thank you notes, etc. If you do this, you will quickly dominate your marketplace and have very loyal customers.

Special Quote #8

The Company That Doesn't Stay In Touch Is Forgotten When Someone Is Ready To Buy.

Growing you Mailing List

Social media sites offer exciting new ways to showcase your newsletter content and invite people to sign up for your email list. But it’s not about adding your voice just for the sake of increasing exposure. It is about making new connections.The key is demonstrating that you have valuable content to share with new subscribers and then turning those connections into customer relationships — and additions to your mailing list.

Innovate ... Conceptualize your Business Future

For your next innovation meeting, consider putting down the PowerPoint and picking up some markers instead. Rather than simply discussing the future of your company, invite your team to draw it out.

Give everyone in your meeting a large piece of paper and spread out some fun crafting supplies around the room—markers, crayons, magazines, anything that might help participants visualize the future of your company.

Next, ask people to draw your company in the year 2020. Don’t get into too many specifics; the beauty of this exercise is in everyone’s unique interpretation of the challenge. Give participants 15-25 minutes to complete their artwork, and then ask everyone to share their creations with the rest of the group. What does your company look like 11 years from now? Who are its customers? Where is it located? Who are its competitors? What does it do?

Once everyone has shared their creations, you’ll have a better understanding of how your team views the future of your company, and you can begin to discuss how to get there. Most importantly, you’ll have given everyone an opportunity to voice not just their short-term goals, but their long-term vision.

How To Use Social Media For Branding

Branding is all about going beyond simply selling to your audience. Branding involves an emotional connection between a company and its key stakeholders, including customers and employees. For a small business, branding is ultra important when you consider local competition

Here are different ways companies can extend brand attributes via social media:

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace - Social networking and relationship building

Flickr - Photo sharing with others

YouTube - Sharing videos

Stumble, Digg, Del.icio.us - Social bookmarking pages and online information

LinkedIn - Professional networking

The first step in developing this deep emotional connection is identifying with your customer what it is that they like above and beyond just having a good price (you’re lying if you say price never plays a role in your shopping decision). Social media lets you reach out to your audience on a one-by-one basis to deeply understand what motivates their behavior.

Excerpt from - How To Use Social Media For Branding