A few weeks back I discussed how you can recycle or revisit an old blog post topic when you’re short of ideas regarding what to write about. Well, another way to breathe new life into some of your old blog posts is to compile them into an e-book that you can distribute to get your name out there. Your e-book could take the form of a guide, a set of case studies or even a simple collection of your best posts.

Now, I don’t blame you for wondering what’s the point of republishing an exact copy of your blog posts when they are available anyway on your website. But would you hunt around a blog and sift through countless buried old posts to find the information you want if you could have it all presented to you in one handy package? People look for convenience - and if you are able to give it to them, that’s a feather in your cap. In fact, convenience is so valuable that it is not uncommon for e-books compiled from old blog posts to actually be sold for cash. What is important is that the information you include in your e-book is relevant and useful, rather than that you have not published it before.

Still, if you have a business and website to promote, you would generally be much better off encouraging people to share your e-book with their friends free of charge and benefit from the publicity this generates, rather than trying to make a quick buck by selling a few copies (be sure to include full contact details and a link to your site in a prominent place in your e-book).

Of course, not all your blog posts will be suitable e-book material. The best is to choose posts that are have lasting interest and appeal, so that your e-book won’t be outdated too quickly. For example, if you sell garden supplies and are blogging about gardening, blog posts on how to design a garden and care for different plants are obviously much better than posts about a new product launch or about what plants are in fashion this year.

Another thing is that you should find a clear focus for your e-book where possible. If you simply publish a collection of your best posts, as I mentioned earlier, they should at least have a common theme that strings them together. Of course, if you are a prolific blogger, writing many posts on a variety of topics, there is nothing to stop you from compiling several e-books to appeal to different sectors of your audience.

Finally, it could be a very good idea to consider what your e-book will be about before you even begin to write your blog posts. Write down what topics that you want to cover and use this to come up with a list of titles for the blog posts that you will write. Each topic can be spread over two or more posts if necessary. When you have worked your way through the list, all you have to do is edit your posts into book form and voilà!

Hopefully this new use for your blog posts will give you an added incentive to blog away, happy in the knowledge that you’ll eventually end up with a valuable free giveaway that you can use to promote your business!

photo credit: batintherain

Is your business trying to be all things to all people? If so, maybe it’s time you thought about finding your niche. You see, if you’re a generic company doing the same thing everyone else is doing, then why would anyone buy from you and not them? Probably it will boil down to a matter of price, and if you’re a small start-up trying to compete with the bulk-buying giants out there you stand no chance on that point either!

In an article Narrow Your Focus to Broaden Your Sales, Michel Fortin writes about an online carpet salesman who had little luck with his sales until he began to focus just on kid-themed carpets and his business took off. Think about it - there are loads of places you can buy a carpet from, but if you are looking for a kid’s carpet and there’s a specialist around, then it’s obvious which company you’re likely to buy from.

And that is the whole point of focusing on a niche market. A hundred years ago, you would have gone to the general store in the village and made do with their limited choice of general stuff. Today your customers can find a specialist online with a few mouse clicks and enjoy a wider choice and often a more knowledgeable service to boot. As Michel says:

“…if you try to copy your competition, or trying to promote your offering as one that’s better than your competition, like it or not you’re only reminding people of that which you are better: your competition!

It’s better to be different than it is to be better.”

It’s true that if you specialize, your target audience will be smaller, but they will be more qualified too, and so more likely to buy. What´s more, your competition will also be less, because, by narrowing your focus, you automatically rule out all the other Jacks of all trades you would otherwise be up against.

To find your niche, you need to identify your ideal customer and focus on tailoring your products/services and marketing specifically to that group. For example, if you sell jewelry, you could specialize in modern designs, or target a specific age group. If you offer consulting services, you could focus either on people with little experience or on experts, so that you can address them appropriately. This way the newbies won’t feel confused or the experts talked down to.

Of course, your website and Internet marketing will be key to establishing your niche, and have to be specially designed and written to appeal to the people you are targeting. But once you have a niche in mind, connecting with your audience will be so much easier, simply because it will be easier to give them just what they are looking for, just the way they expect it!

photo credit: Fimb

When you think about what makes a great website, lots of things probably come to mind: engaging  design, strong branding, captivating images, a user-friendly layout… the list goes on. But if you’re like most people, one thing that you probably won’t think of is the copywriting - the actual text that has the vital job of conveying your message and persuading your visitors to take action and buy.

Most people will readily admit that they are no good at designing good-looking stuff in Photoshop, or at programming HTML, CSS and JavaScript, because the evidence is plainly there for all to see. But, since everyone can write, it is much harder to realize that you need the help of a professional copywriter to make the most of the text on your website, get your message across effectively and increase your chances of converting visitors into sales.

And selling is what copywriting is all about. When copywriter John E. Kennedy famously said, ‘Advertising is salesmanship in print’, he could just as well have said the same about the copywriting itself. This is the key point to keep in mind: just as you might not feel too confident about going from door to door selling some product or other, you will most probably need a writer to help with your website’s text. Otherwise, you are risking ending up with the equivalent of, ‘Hi! Er… do you want to buy an encyclopedia?’

And if you think that copywriting is an extra expense, just bear in mind that you should be able to recover those costs very quickly from the extra sales that good, persuasive writing will get you - which actually makes it an investment.

Among other things a professional copywriter can help you…

Write headlines that get visitors to read
Your website visitors are just as busy as you are and will most probably just skim through your website looking for something that catches their eye. That’s the unenviable job of your headlines and link text - to peak your visitors’ curiosity and make them want more. After all, what’s the use of having a website if people don’t read it?

Identify and promote your Unique Selling Proposition
You might have a strong competition offering the same things as you, but if you find a unique reason why people should buy from your company, you’re on to a winner. Your copywriter can help you identify your Unique Selling Proposition (that which makes you stand out of the crowd) and use it to persuade your reader to do business.

Find the best way to get your message across
There are so many ways to express what you want to say, but which one will work best? A professional copywriter will use a combination of experience, intuition and testing to find best words for converting web visits into sales.

Generate more sales
The above benefits of using a copywriter are all about helping you sell more. In addition, your copywriter will know how to build persuasive arguments, answer your visitors’ questions and foresee and allay their doubts and fears. This, combined with a strong call to action, will make a huge difference in your website’s conversions and in your bottom line!

So, as you plan your next website - or get down to revamping your old one - you should seriously consider getting a professional writer to take care of your web copy. Your web designer will probably be able to suggest a writer for you to use, or you may prefer to find your own. In either case, if you get your hands on an expert writer, it’s definitely going to be money well spent!

photo credit: gcoldironjr2003

When you’re starting out online and need to drive a good stream of traffic to your website or blog, the promise of instant, targeted advertising sounds like a dream come true. And if, as happens with pay-per-click advertising such as Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, you only pay when it works and people actually visit your website, this makes it all the more enticing. But is pay-per-click really worth it? Should you rush off and get your AdWords account? Let’s take a look.

As you may know, when running a pay-per-click campaign, you choose some search engine keywords related to your business, decide the maximum you are willing to pay for clicks from people searching for those keywords and write some ads that will show on the search engines. I’m greatly oversimplifying here, but that’s the basic picture.

Now, the key thing to keep in mind with pay-per-click (as with any advertising) is the bottom line - what is the return on investment you are able to get?

The first part of the equation is how much you need to spend to get visitors to your website. This cost will vary, depending on a number of things - mostly on the keywords you choose, but also on how well you manage your campaign (which is why if you do run PPC advertising, hiring an expert to do it for you will probably save you lots of money in the long run). With a well-run campaign, you will find that the average cost to get a visitor to your site (cost-per-click) will drop steadily as your campaign is tweaked and tuned for performance. In any case, after a few weeks - sometimes even days - of PPC advertising you will have a pretty good picture of what it is costing you.

So, on to the next step: how much are you earning from each click? Fortunately, in many cases this is easy to measure with utilities like Google Analytics that allow you to follow your clicks and track the actions (sales, enquiries, etc.) that they generate. The easiest scenario is if you sell directly off your website. For example, if you sell soft toys and make an average of $10 profit on each order from your PPC clients and pay an average of 20 cents per click, you can work out that you need to make a sale every 50 clicks to break even, and anything over and above that is positive ROI.

In many other cases, the situation may not be so clear cut - for example, you might only be able to directly measure the number of enquiries you get on your contact form. Even so, you can generally still work out how many enquiries it takes you to make X amount of profit and judge the effectiveness of your pay-per-click campaign based on that. Of course, there could also be outcomes of a click, such as a phone or e-mail enquiry, that are impossible to measure automatically, and you should also keep these in mind when judging the benefits of your pay-per-click campaign.

Once you have all the information, you can decide if Pay-Per-Click cuts it for you or not. If your PPC advertising is leaving you in the red, you can obviously ditch it, but you can also try and optimize your PPC campaign so you spend less for each visitor you get, and you can improve your website so that it converts better, meaning more people who visit actually buy. If you’re getting a positive ROI, the decision to keep your PPC campaign is easier, but you still should make sure that both your campaign and your website are working at maximum efficiency, so you make the most of your efforts.

What I’m saying here is that with Pay-Per-Click, you often won’t know if it’s worth it unless you try, although some cases are more clear cut, but the good news is that even a modest trial budget is generally enough to test the waters. If you decide to go for it, the overhead of using an expert Pay-Per-Click manager who has the skills and insight to fine-tune your campaign is money well spent in the same way that it makes sense to get a professional mechanic to tweak your sports car’s engine.

Having said all that, do keep in mind that if your website is going to be around for the long term, even a successful Pay Per Click campaign is not a substitute for good SEO. In fact the two should ideally be run together initially and once the SEO takes effect, your PPC budget can be retained if it is generating you extra business, or redirected to focus on keywords not fully covered by your SEO, or even stopped altogether.

New York - May 20, 2008. This morning, digital music service Napster, Inc. made a splash with their new MP3 download store, being touted at the world’s biggest, with over 6 million songs. Posing a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes, songs from all major music labels, as well as independent labels, will be available to users in a format compatible with most digital media devices–including the Apple iPod and iPhone.

Who can forget the Napster that made headlines in the late 1990s and early 2000s when they were sued by heavy metal band Metallica and A&M Records, among others, for copyright infringement. That’s all in the past, though. Most recently, Napster has peddled a monthly subscription service for access to its streaming music, none of which could be transfered to portable devices.

Pulling out all the stops to compete with iTunes, Napster has made all of their downloads DRM-free, which means they will be of higher quality and can be used with any device (not just limited to the iPod). All Napster MP3s (99 cents each and $9.95 per album) will be automatically synced into your iTunes library. How do you like them apples?

The Ultimate Networking Site

New to a city? Salesman looking for business? Lonely? Got a peculiar fetish? Whatever you are looking for, www.Meetup.com likely has it. I first discovered Meetup.com when I was in Denver. My purpose was two-fold:

1. I was new to the area, new to an industry, was in sales, and needed a source of prospects
2. My wife had no family, friends, or support network

So, I turned to Meetup.com as my source of social and professional networking.  You will find everything from people interested in bicycling to coffee to wine to divorce to business to knitting to parenting to spanking. 

• Photoshop Geek?   Go to meetup.com
• Need a spanking?  Go to meetup.com
• Looking for play dates for your kid?   Go to meetup.com
• Want to hook-up with other wine lover?       Go to meetup.com
• Thinking about starting a business?      Go to meetup.com
• New to a city?      Go to meetup.com

Whatever you are looking for, likely, you will find it at www.Meetup.com.  It takes social networking to a physical level where you can actually meet real, live, people in person and press the flesh.

photo credit: avlxyz

Have you ever thought about why competing restaurants tend to group together on the food court at the shopping mall? Or why so many businesses actually have to fight to pay through the nose for their little bit of mall space?

The answer is simply because that’s where their customers are. Businesses that shy away from such popular spaces as malls and high streets and try to go it alone generally have it harder to attract customers and often need to fork out much more in advertising to keep their boat afloat.

Think about it: you’re much more likely to pick a restaurant in the food court than one that’s on its own. Thing is, being around your competitors is generally good for your business.

And the same applies to the online world. Savvy Internet marketers know how to embrace their competition and contribute to each other’s success. They are not afraid to blog about each other, link to each other, or post comments on each other’s websites. They know that together, they can be stronger than those who try to go it alone.

There are two ways to go about this online: forging explicit alliances, and tacitly embracing your competition and leaving the rest to karma.

I scratch your back…

Your alliance with other online businesses, even competitors, can take any depth you are comfortable with - anything from simply exchanging links on your blog to actually promoting each other’s products on your own website. Yes, you heard right!

You may be familiar with Amazon.com listing used copies of the books they sell at a cheaper price, but British online store Play.com have taken this concept one giant step further.

Take a look at this New & Used listing for a sailing book and see how Play.com offers you the chance to buy it from several of their competitors. One is actually priced cheaper, but Play still get a cut if you buy. Even when many of the alternatives are cheaper, it still benefits Play.com if you buy through them. And besides, this business model lets Play.com list thousands of books that they doesn’t even have in their inventory. Sure, Play.com’s competitors profit too, but where do you think customers are likely to go if they want the best choice and cheapest prices every time?

Remember, even if you are No. 1 in Google for all your search terms (a veritable holy grail), searchers still see nine other competitors of yours and will probably visit many of their sites anyway. So you might as well be benefiting from sending traffic to each other or getting a commission on sales.

Do your own thing - some will follow

If you’re still starting out, it might be that much harder to approach one of your main competitors and hope to strike a deal if you don’t have much to bring to the table. But you can still take the first step and link to them, post your comments and generally do your thing, and hopefully some of that will come around back to you soon enough. Besides, commenting on other blogs often lets you link back to your site, so there’s a great potential immediate benefit in that too.

Also, by linking to other websites, you establish yours as a resource that people will want to refer back to in the future, and some of that traffic will rub onto you in the form of business.

Still, your long term strategy probably ought to be to break the ice with your competition, even by communication though blog comments, and lay the ground for more concrete collaboration in the future. It could very well be the edge you need to prosper in the social Internet of the future.

EDIT: By a small coincidence, Seth Godin just wrote that working with the competition is a good for business and ‘Hoarding attention is a no-win strategy‘.

Hurling Stick, The Bird Watcher

inQbation™ and Brian Evans, creator of The Bird Watcher and The Hurling Stick, are thrilled to announce the launch of Drago Vista Productions.

Sources and References

IMDB: Brian Evans
IMDB: The Hurling Stick

NEW YORK - 15 May 2008. I’ve only got one thing to say … remember on January 10, 2000 just as we were sliding into a major recession when the first Internet bubble burst? AOL announced plans to buy Time Warner for $350 billion. Fast forward 8 1/2 years as we head into a second major recession and the second Internet bubble burst, CBS announces plans to buy CNET for an overpriced $1.8 billion. By the way, most of you are too young to remember, or smoked too much pot and have lost your short-term memory, but there was a housing recession from about 1989 to 1996 where the average price of homes dropped year after year after year after year. I remember because I bought a house in 1989 and sold it almost 10 years later for the exact same price I paid for it. So, for those of you who think the real estate market has bottomed out in 2008 and is on its way back up next year, I’ve got some news for you.

Grow traffic when friends connect on your site

This is Google’s introduction to Google™ Friend Connect. Google™ is actually trying to help you drive traffic to your site in ways other than AdWords™.

Google™ Friend Connect is a technology that allows you to turn any website into a social networking site where visitors who are attracted to a site can interact with other visitors who are attracted to the same site.

So, what are the implications of this innovation?

1. Social networkings sites like Facebook and MySpace may lose some of their appeal
2. It lowers the barrier to entry for social networking sites, which costs tens of $1,000 to build
3. It allows raving fans to rave together
4. It allows disgruntled fans to collectively voice their opinions (until the website owner removes it)
5. It reinforces the concept of web 2.0 user generate content
6. It takes social networking to a whole new level

Google™ Friend Connect is not even released in beta version yet. But, they are taking applications for early adopters who want to jump on the Google™ Friend Connect bandwagon.