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The
IMC Insider
Helping Real People
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Editorial:
How to make the most of your time
By Derek Gehl
The other week we sent out a survey asking you, "What
are the top challenges you're facing with your Internet business RIGHT
NOW?"
A lot of you responded by saying you just can't find the time
to start your business -- or take it to the next level.
Hmm.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but if you don't actively MAKE
THE TIME to achieve your Internet business
goals, then you're never going to reach them.
So how do you do it? How do you find the time -- when you're already so busy
with everything else that's going on in your life?
Here's a hint: it's all about
how you SET YOUR GOALS.
The #1 reason people fail when they
try to start a business is because they have no clear direction.
They chase one idea after another with no clear path to success, and they
never
see anything through to completion.
(Sound familiar?)
But you'll NEVER achieve any level of success
if you spend your time going off in all directions, chasing every
single opportunity that comes your way.
On the other hand... if you set measurable goals with
specific timelines for yourself -- as well as carefully thought-out
action plans to help you hit those
goals -- you'll start seeing results right away. And you'll
achieve
success faster than you
would have thought possible.
So here it is: my recipe
for success, distilled into six simple steps. It's the exact same
goal-setting system I've used to get where I am today.
(And guess what: I went from a debt-ridden college grad with a useless
computer programming certificate to CEO of a $60-million company in just 6 years.
So this plan certainly worked for me!)
Step #1: Set your "Ultimate 3-5 Year Goals"
Ask yourself this: In 3-5 years, what do you want your
life to look
like? What do you want your finances to look like? What do you want
your business to look like?
Think big -- but stay within reason! Rome
wasn't built in a day... or in five years, for that matter.
Something else to remember: Your goals need to be measurable.
For example, rather than setting a goal like,
"I want to be rich!" -- come up with an actual dollar value. How much money do you
want your business to be making in 3-5 years' time? THAT'S the goal you
should be aiming for.
Step #2: Set your "Annual Goals"
Now that we know where we want to
be in the
3-5 years, we need to break it down into more manageable objectives.
Let's take a look at what you want to achieve in the upcoming year.
Ask yourself: "What do I need to
accomplish in
the next 365 days in order to achieve my ultimate 3-5 year goals?"
Write down as
many goals as possible. Chances are, you'll come up with a big list!
But when you're done, you need to pare it that list down to the top 5
"must-do"
items.
What are the top 5 things you absolutely MUST do in order to achieve
your ultimate goals? Once you've answered this question, you'll have
your
top five goals for the year.
Step #3: Set your "Quarterly Goals"
Those yearly goals seem pretty big, don't they? In order to achieve
them, you've got to break them down into more realistic milestones:
your quarterly goals.
This is something you should do every three months -- so if you're
working on a regular calendar
year, you should be setting new quarterly goals for yourself every
January, April,
July, and October.
At the beginning of each quarter, take a step back and look at how well
you managed to reach your
last quarterly goals. Based on that, decide what you need to
do
during the next three months to keep moving toward
those
annual goals.
Remember: Keep your goals specific and
measurable!
Step #4 - Set your "Monthly Goals"
Are you starting to see a pattern yet?
:-)
Now you need to determine the
top 5
goals you have to achieve every month in order to hit your quarterly
goals.
But do you stop here? Nope!
Step #5 - Set your "Weekly Goals"
Ask yourself: What are the top things that have to happen this week in
order for you to hit those monthly goals?
Don't limit yourself to five weekly goals. Sometimes you'll have fewer
than five -- sometimes you'll have more. When I set my own weekly
goals, I find there are numerous small tasks that need to be
accomplished -- or just a couple of big ones. But at the
start of each week, I always make sure I know what tasks are most
important.
Wait -- you're still not done!
Step #6 - Set your "Daily Goals"
Each morning -- before you even check
your email -- you need to create a list of
things that have to happen before you go to sleep that night.
Once
again, these tasks should be driving you toward your weekly goals.
It doesn't matter if you have
only an hour a
day to spend on your business. By setting goals and focusing
on the really important things you need to achieve, you'll be shocked
at how much you can
get accomplished in a really short period of time.
But the fact remains: you still need
to MAKE THE TIME.
Even if you're able to spend only two yours a week on
building or growing your business, it's better than nothing!
Once you have all your goals down on
paper, don't file them away in your desk somewhere! Make sure you can
see them in a number of different places.
Tack them to the wall of your office. Put them on your fridge... beside
your
TV...
even beside your toilet! (I do my best reading there anyway ;-)
You need that constant reminder.
Remember: the only person holding
you
accountable for hitting those goals is YOU.
So turn off your email, shut out
all distraction,
throw procrastination out the window, and start setting those goals
NOW. If you follow this system, I guarantee that 30 days from
now you'll surprise yourself at
how much progress you've made! |
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Your headline: The most important words you'll
ever write
By Ric Mazereeuw
Do you want to know the secret to selling things successfully online?
It's finding the RIGHT WORDS for the job.
Consider this: Most visitors take 10 seconds or less to
decide whether to stick
around or move on to the next site. Just 10 seconds -- that's all
the time you have to convince them YOUR site is where they want to be.
It doesn't matter how well-designed your site is... how high your
search engine ranking is... or how amazing your product is. If your
words don't grab your visitors and keep them glued to your site,
they're going to leave -- and probably never return.
Of all the words on your site, the most
important are
the ones in your HEADLINE.
Your headline is the first thing your visitors see. It
needs to capture their attention -- spark their curiosity--
and compel them to read further. And it has to do
it fast.
To guarantee YOUR headlines jump off the page and pull potential buyers
deeper into your site, always follow IMC's Top 5
"Unbreakable" Headline Rules:
Rule #1: RELATE A PROBLEM
Most visitors, when they come to your site, are looking for information
-- probably in relation to a problem they want to solve.
Maybe they're curious about local flight schools in their area.
Maybe they're searching for molded chrome fenders to put on a 1953
Chevy
Bel-Air. Or maybe they're trying to figure out how to "unshrink" wool
clothes that accidentally ended up in the dryer.
Whatever their problem is, relate to it. Show them YOU know what it's
all about. Demonstrate a clear and genuine understanding of their wants
and
needs -- and they'll be far more willing to buy from you.
Rule #2: PRESENT A SOLUTION
You've described a problem. Now you've got to solve it -- in a way that
creates a powerful image in the mind of your visitors.
Tell your visitors they're about to discover how to get the most
qualified flight instructors at the lowest price in town.
Describe how their new chrome fenders will help them outshine the
competition at the next state-wide car show.
Promise them their wife or
girlfriend will NEVER know her favorite sweater once shrank small
enough
to fit a chihuahua.
Get them to see the end result -- and you're more than halfway to
making the sale.
(NOTE: "How to..." and "Discover..." headlines are good at getting
people to imagine the end result.)
Rule #3:
FOCUS ON BENEFITS -- NOT FEATURES
People aren't so interested in what your product or service is. They want to know what it does.
Specifically, they
want to
know what it'll do for THEM.
Tell them they'll get the real "inside scoop" on the flight
school
scene -- because they'll be learning it from someone who's been a pilot
in the area for more than 30 years. (Provided that's true, of
course.)
Have them imagine the honks, smiles, and admiring glances their car
will get every time they drive it down the road.
Describe the relief they'll feel when they know they're back in their
wife or girlfriend's good books.
Remember the most important question that's on all of your visitors
minds -- "What's in it for ME?" -- and make sure you answer it.
Rule #4: SPEAK DIRECTLY TO YOUR VISITORS
Write your headlines as if you were talking to your favorite customer
-- someone you know very well. Make that person the focus of everything
you say.
Don't tell them how great your product is... Get them to picture how great their lives will be after they've used it.
Just make sure your words are genuine... and use the same kind of
language your potential buyers use.
(For example, if your business is designing sew-on patches for leather
biker jackets, you're NOT going to speak to your customers in the same
way as someone who sells quilting supplies!)
It's like this:
If your customers say "dude," you say "dude."
But if they're the kind of people who say "folks," then don't say dude -- or you're dead.
Rule #5: MAKE YOUR HEADLINES "POP"
Here's a rule we rarely tell anyone but our top customers: When it
comes to writing headlines, it's not just what you write -- it's how
you format it.
If you clump all the words together into a dense paragraph, like this
one, for example, in which I'm going to go on and on and use lots of
commas and incredibly unnecessary adverbs and adjectives and pile one
idea upon the next (and even include a parenthetical comment) until
you can't even remember how the sentence even started -- well, your
most important ideas will end up lost in the visual clutter.
BUT: if you limit yourself to just one
important idea per line
And use simple formatting tricks
Such as bolding and italics and ALL CAPS
... Then your readers can get your meaning in a single glance!
So those are IMC's "Top 5 Unbreakable Headline Rules"... keep them in
mind
when it's time to craft your next headline.
Just remember: Your headline can have a massive impact on your sales,
so you'll want
to spend lots of time on it.
We spend HOURS writing our headlines, and
we
often test four or five of them before we settle on one that works. But
that time is always well spent.
In fact, we once made one tiny
tweak to one of our headlines...
... And overnight our revenues jumped by
714%!
Once you've written a few different headlines, TEST THEM. Run
them for
a couple of weeks, then compare the results against other headlines.
Then, tweak them and test them again!
You may have to do this a few
times before you hit on one that pulls consistently... but it's
definitely worth the effort.
[Ed. note: Ric Mazereeuw is IMC's Director of Mentoring. To learn more about our Advanced Mentoring Program, click here.]
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Case Study: How to get a #1 ranking in Google -- in 6 DAYS
By
Mitch Tarr
Peter Cunningham recently launched a site selling a series of eBooks
about salt water aquariums. At the end of March, he came to the Internet Entrepreneur Club forum looking
for suggestions on how
to get more qualified
traffic to his new site.
Here are the traffic strategies he'd implemented up to that point -- in
Peter's own words:
"I have optimised the site as per the instructions at Search Marketing Lab, started submitting
articles, updating my blog, done a press
release, created a couple of viral books which are doing the rounds and
slowly started submitting to directories. I have also changed my
signature in some forums I am active in."
(I love this guy -- he's done a great job of learning the "IMC Way" and
putting all our favorite strategies into practice.)
One of our more advanced Club members advised Peter to put more effort
into his blog and focus on using it as a traffic source.
Andrew Mallory -- an IMC mentor and expert forum contributor --
seconded that suggestion. Here's what he told Peter to do:
- Keep blogging
- Make sure your blog is being "pinged"
- Submit your blog to blog directories
- Write articles that have your best keyword phrases as titles -- wait until they have been indexed by Google and
submit them to article sites
- Spread your signature block around
- Look for blogs that are in your niche. Comment on them.
- Look for forums that are in your niche. Ask and answer questions.
Let them know about your free guides and services, like your free
classifieds.
- Look for joint venture partners to leverage their reach and
cross-sell each other's products.
- Submit ads to free ad websites and advertise your free
classifieds!
Peter then asked for some input on how he could improve the look and
performance of his blog. One of our advanced members told him to write
his blog entries in a more personal tone. Andrew Mallory backed that up
by advising Peter to...
- Be more specific in his "Categories" section in the side bar -- e.g. say,:
"aquarium articles" instead of "articles" and use
benefits and keyphrases.
- Edit his HTML template to include meta tags,
if possible, so he could insert his top keyword phrases into them.
- Include keyword-rich tags with his images.
- Create a blog description that is keyword-rich and focuses on
what the chief benefits of reading the blog are.
- Include an opt-in offer on your blog.
- Start a campaign to get comments on your posts.
On April 4th, Peter wrote back. He thanked everyone for their
suggestions
and promised to put them into practice right away.
On April 9 -- just 5 days later -- Peter came back to the forum,
bursting with excitement...
In less than a week, he'd scored a first-page ranking in Google and Yahoo for
ALL of the keyword phrases he'd been targeting with his blog entries.
In some cases, he was in the #1 spot!
So it just goes to show you -- using a blog to get good search engine
rankings QUICKLY really does work.
To check out Peter's blog, click here.
To read the entire discussion thread and find out what else our advanced members and experts had to say about Peter's business-growing efforts, click
here.
(You’ll need to scroll UP from there to read the whole thread.)
[Note: Mitch Tarr is IMC's Vice President of Marketing. When he's not busy helping Derek run the show, you can find him hanging out and offering advice in The Internet Entrepreneur Club.]
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Ask the Expert: Meta tags, landing page relevance for PPC
By Nicole Ephgrave
For this issue's new "Ask the Expert" feature, we asked our
resident search
marketing expert Nicole Ephgrave to answer a couple of pressing search
marketing questions we recently received from customers -- one about using keyword meta tags in SEO and the
other about landing page relevance for PPC
marketing.
Read on to learn what Nicole has to say:
Question #1:
Hi Nicole! Is there a restriction on the number of keywords that you
can put into a keyword meta tag? If you use too many, do you get
penalized by the search engines?
Nicole:
The first thing to keep in mind is that your keyword meta
tag will NOT help propel your site to the top of the search
results — regardless of what keyword phrases you use in it.
Search engines used to look to keyword meta tags to get an
accurate picture of what a web page was about...
But because site owners caught on to this, and began to stuff their
keyword meta tags with keyword phrases for SEO purposes, the search
engines switched their algorithms to compensate. Now the search engines
pretty much ignore keyword meta tags.
However! While a well-written keyword meta tag won't necessarily help
you as far as SEO goes, a poorly written one can actually hinder
you!
If you stuff your keyword meta tag with keywords, or worse yet,
repeat your keywords over and over again, you could be penalized by the
search engines for "keyword spamming."
With this in mind, here are a few guidelines you should follow when
writing your keyword meta tag:
- Keep the length of your keyword meta tag to 150 characters or less
- Use the keyword phrases you've optimized your web page with ONCE
— ideally at the beginning of your tag — and do not repeat it
- In the rest of the tag, insert keyword phrases that are most
related to the keyword phrases you have optimized your site with
And in case you're wondering whether you should separate your
keyword phrases with commas or dashes... search engines generally
ignore these characters, so a simple space between your keyword phrases
will do just fine.
Question #2:
Nicole, I put up a site with a fiction novel written by my sister.
I pulled 967 keyword phrases out of Wordtracker that seemed relevant
— with high 24-hour and lower competing.
I wrote ads to the effect of "(Great Novel Name) it's Not — But A
Thriller" and clearly explained in my ad text what the offer was.
Google basically turned off all but 4 of the 967 keywords saying I
had to pay up to $5 or more per phrase — even my sister's name!! (OK,
she's out there, but she's not famous yet) — but I left the "content
ad" turned on.
In two weeks, there have been several hundred thousand impressions
and about 400 clicks (about $50 worth) with a 0.03% average
click-through rate — but all for content. There have only been 3 opt-in
sign-ups so far.
Is it worth it to just leave this up, pause it all and rewrite the
ads — or take the content stuff off?
Thanks!
Answer:
Hi there,
Google AdWords has a landing page quality bot, meaning they will
check your landing page for certain qualities to make sure it is
relevant and useful to a searcher clicking on your ad.
If the page does not meet the standards they will make your minimum
bid higher. You are much better getting 50 qualified customers where
your sister's book is exactly what they are looking for than 10,000
customers that are not qualified. I would go back and find some more
targeted keywords. That will help increase your conversion rate.
Or set up different keywords groups with each group relating to one
area and create different landing pages for each area related to the
group.
Hope that helps,
Nicole
[Ed note: You can read more of Nicole's search marketing tips on
her
blog or meet up with her in our exclusive "members-only" Search
Marketing Lab forum -- it's her favorite online hangout.]
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Meet
the IMC team of experts
Meet the IMC team of experts -- join us for an exclusive two-day "Wealth-Building Bootcamp" coming soon to a city near you!
For two full days in each of the cities listed below, my IMC team will speak live on stage, giving away the exact step-by-step blueprint you need to grow a lucrative Internet business...
... Using the most current, most advanced Internet marketing secrets, strategies, and technologies that we've used to generate over $60,000,000 in online sales.
Upcoming Bootcamps:
New York, NY -- April 21 & 22
(Click here for more details)
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Vancouver, BC -- April 28 & 29 (Click here for more details)
San Francisco, CA -- May 5 & 6 (Click here for more details)
Toronto, ON -- May 12 & 13 (Click here for more details)
Philadelphia, PA -- May 12 & 13 (Click here for more details)
To claim your tickets, click on the links above -- or call my team, who will be happy to answer any of your questions about these exclusive events -- at 1-800-595-9855. |
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Reprint
IMC's up-to-the-minute marketing advice on YOUR website
or blog -- free!
Click
here to find out how you can use our content
to help grow your business! |
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Do
you have a question for Derek Gehl?
Drop him a line at questionsforderek@marketingtips.com
-- and you might see your question answered in an upcoming
issue of The IMC Insider! |
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Do
you have an idea or comment you'd like to share with
the IMC community?
Leave a comment on Derek's blog: http://blog.marketingtips.com/derek/
And let's get the conversation started! |
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To
contact us...
If you have any questions, email info@marketingtips.com
If you would prefer to use postal mail,
please contact us at:
The Internet Marketing Center
Attn: Newsletter Subscription Dept.
1123 Fir Ave
Blaine, WA
98230 |
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