I also mentioned that when it was handed over, my wife shed a tear.
Here's why.
Here on the Gold Coast on Australia Day (January 26) they have 2 Citizenship ceremonies.
One being at the CurrumbinRSL. After that Citizenship ceremony - where about 60 people took up Australian Citizenship in front of a crowd of 400, they present about 5 Citizenship Awards for people who have contributed greatly to the local community.
My great son Jack (left) was lucky enough to be nominated this year by his Scout Troop Leader in the Youth section.
Lucky To Have Great Role Models
A week before, my wife and I told him he'd been nominated - he does a fair bit of community and charity sort of work, as well as a range of other things.
We then went on to talk about why he'd been nominated and how lucky he was to have such positive role models in his life.
People like his grandparents, Scout leaders, sporting coaches, teachers and the like.
It's such a hugely important part of a kid's life - without strong role models you struggle with things.
Like I say on this page, something like 91% of 13,000 kids cited for a juvenile offence in a study do not have positive adult role models in their lives.
I told Jack that stat.
And The Winner Is.........................
Anyhow, Jack was nervously standing on the stage in front of 400 people when they opened that all important envelope and said "And the winner is...........................Jack Sinclair."
Jack stepped proudly forward and received the Award and an envelope from a true legend here in Australia - Mr Keith Payne.
Keith was the most highly decorated soldier to return from the Vietnam War where he earned a Victoria Cross (amongst many others).
He had the obligatory photos done and came over to join us - me, his mum and brother and sister.
"Here You Go Dad......."
Jack opened up the envelope and handed the contents over to me - a cheque for $250.
"Here you go Dad. You can have that for your ride - hopefully it will help kids who aren't as lucky as me."
That's when my wife shed a tear.
The Best Part Of That Story
The best part of all that is this bit:
Jack's been saving madly to buy himself the new bike he wants. That cheque would have given him enough to buy it. He's still saving.
Brendon
P.S: The other good part (the great part) is, of course, that this kid is my son. P.P.S: Jack also helped out the event by adding all of the content to the ride site we donated. He also updated the site each day of the ride from reports I phoned in.
Price is always a tricky one to mention on some web sites.
On this helicopter charter site, Andrew (the owner) and I decided not to mention price for the time being - we're thinking that someone might see the price of a charter or banner towing or whatever and then head over to the opposition and get a better price.
But another part of me thinks that - like Kerry's camper trailer web site - you should mention price. Because then you have a well-informed and qualified visitor should they contact you (and that can save you a lot of time).
But then again, maybe you should have the chance to talk benefits and features and lifestyle changes, etc and demonstrate the value of what you're offering.
The Truth In Testing
Of course, the truth/best answer can be found in testing. So that's what we do. Test with price, test without price. See what works best. Then use that.
Choice Influences On A Professional Financial Planning Firm
I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the navigation structure of a site we're doing for a Financial Planner in Brisbane.
Part of the process has been reading as much research as I can get my hands on regarding the choice influences of people selecting a Financial Planner.
It generally goes like this:
Rapport establish
Specialisation
Personal attention provided
Fee
So whilst fee isn't ranked in the top 3 reasons for selecting a Financial Planner like Scott, I'm still tempted to include something like "Fee" or maybe "Prices & Guarantees" as a top level navigation button.
What do you think? What would you like to see on a Financial Planner's web site?
If you're in the US, get a .com name, if you're in Australia get a .com.au domain name, if you're in the UK get a .co.uk name, if you're in New Zealand get a......you get the idea.
4. Get someone (like us, or your local programmer/web developer) to set it up for you. That'll cost anywhere from $100 to $500.
If you want the site theme altered with different colors and plugins (added stuff), add on a few hundred more.
That's it.
For well under $1,000 you have a fully functional, attractive web site that allows you to very easily update it from any computer with Internet access.
What Next?
Next is you learning how to use it if you have only a few computer skills (WordPress is very easy to use - give yourself an hour or 2 of fooling around with it).
If you don't have a clue, get us, or your local web developer to train you for a few hours on the basics of editing your web site.
Now start writing away.
Write stuff that is useful, entertaining and very regularly updated.
Then What?
Once you have mastered the basics, start to market your web site more aggressively:
On the weekend I tossed about 10 flyers from local real estate agents from my mailbox to my bin.
All of them were trying to grab my attention in some way - asking me to consider them (even though I'm not selling my house).
I got thinking - what a real estate agent should be doing is immersing him/herself in the local community. After all, they need to be perceived as experts of the community, knowledgeable about:
local prices,
local trends and
the local market.
So why don't real estate agents have blogs?
(I spent 30 minutes searching for a local agents blog in vain.)
Excellent Way To Demonstrate Expertise
A blog would be a perfect way to demonstrate their expertise, to communicate with their local audience and to have themselves perceived as an expert.
And when it comes to selling/buying a house, you want the expert who has the local knowledge, contacts and information.
So why don't real estate agents have blogs? After all, they're well aware that people search online for houses and information (and even buy online).
How To Get A Date 101 - With Dr Brendon, Your Loooove Doctor
We have just signed up to complete a web site for a dating agency - as part of the process I've been reading up on what influences people's choice decisions when they visit dating sites.
For men, a woman's looks are of paramount importance
The richer a man is, the more emails he receives
For men, being short is a disadvantage
For women, being overweight is a disadvantage
Like...duh!
It's always an interesting one in marketing - you know and I know how people think (after all, we're all people (most of us anyway!)).
Difficult To Say That Nicely
But it's often difficult to come right out and say stuff like "Men judge women almost solely by their looks when they first meet - in the vast majority of cases."
You have to be nicer about saying that otherwise you risk incurring the wrath of a noisy group of people calling you a pig.
And it's the same with web sites to an extent. In many niches, it's been found time and again that the web design will impact with seconds on how that company is perceived.
You see, you have to look good to be trusted. Then you have to consolidate that position with the right information - i.e your sparkling personality/your relevant web site information.
But Then There's This
If I write the truth - guys generally don't like fat girls and girls are much more likely to find a guy attractive if he has lots of money - is that wrong?
From a marketing perspective, no.
From a factual perspective, no.
From a politically correct, let's not hurt any one's feelings perspective, yes.
Here's the important bit - it all depends on context and how you've branded yourself.
If you're know as a loud-mouth, attention seeker (yes Donald Trump, I'm talking about you!) then you'd get away with it.
If you were a judge sitting on a sex-discrimination case, then there might be a lot of attention paid to what you've said.
Thanks For These Donations - And I Received My Biggest Donation So Far
It's Australia Day here in the land of Oz and that means a holiday.
It's a perfect day, blue skies and a kind sun warming everyone - we've already been to the beach a couple of times today and had a few swims in the pool.
But I've snuck back into the office to take care of a few things and found a couple of donations from some readers - so just a quick post to extend my appreciation.
How To Eat Like A Pig & Lose 2 Kgs! I Call It The "Stupid Diet"!
This morning I cycled 100+ km (62 miles). This is what I learnt.
1. A $15,000 bike still needs a fit rider (my bike, bless her old heart, is a 12 year old Avanti- the old girl cost me $1,200 back in 94 and still chugs along just fine).
At the risk of sounding like an ad, the Avanti is a great bike that has been incredibly durable and has worked beautifully over many thousands of kilometres.
# 1: Even if you have the right equipment you still need the knowledge and/or skills to make it work. Just because I have a nice computer doesn't mean I'm good at computer programming (but Anthony is!)
# 2: Without the right information and resources you cannot effectively reach your goals. I obviously need education on sports nutrition - before I either fade away to nothing or collapse from dehydration.
This is because I know there will be people searching for "banner towing gold coast" or "gold coast banner towing" on the search engines. And our client wants to get found when that term is typed in.
And me using that as the heading - and in title tags, meta descriptions, sub-heading, body copy and more -means that the ABC Heli site is more likely to display as a result for a relevant search.
And that equals more visitors, which in turn will means more sales.
Web Content Needs To Be Targeted
Whilst the brochure was a useful piece of information to have, web content needs to be unique and targeted to what people are searching for.
By the time the keyword research is done, copy edited, titles tags and meta descriptions added, you can safely add an additional 1/2 hour per page even when you do have the content already written (except for the keyword targeting).
So the next time your designer is a little slow with editing content, you know why. He's just doing a good job - and that takes time!
I'm doing some link analysis of some sites at the moment - that is, I'm trying to ascertain the value to client sites of links coming in from other web sites.
And by 'value' I mean the advantage the link gives to my client in terms of:
increased search engine ranking
increased visibility/branding
increased visitor numbers
What I'm seeing is that links from pages with:
a heap of content (400 words minimum) on the topic of what my client's site is about
not many other links coming from the page carrying the link
not many other links going out from the site with the page with the link to my clients site
are far more valuable than links from pages with not much content and that have tons of links leaving the page or the site.
Now, the above won't be any great surprise to search engine experts. But most people aren't search engine experts.
The tip: try and get links to your web site from sites that don't have a lot of outbound links.
And because the content of the page is relevant, it might even pay to write an article with a link or 2 over to your site and offer it to the web site you'd like a link from.
Protection From Spam - There Has To Be A Better Way
Yesterday I joined up a client to Flickr. Which meant I had to create a Yahoo ID for them.
With these sort of forms the site often uses a CAPTCHA - this helps determine if the user is human or not.
Basically that means an image is displayed with numbers or characters slightly difficult to read. The thinking being that humans can read it, and computers can't (not yet anyway).
You type in what you see and proceed through.
And thus the web site avoids the form being filled in a million times a day by a spam bot.
I Got This Correct!
This is the image I had to deal with yesterday. Amazingly to my old eyes, I got it right first go!
But it is just too hard I reckon.
The Best Idea I've Heard For CAPTCHA Images
The best idea I've heard for CAPTCHA files is from Seth Godin. He suggested that instead of images like the one above, the site should get sponsorship from businesses and display their logo as the image.
Not a bad idea - good image for the CAPTCHA, the company gets some exposure and the costs are minimal.
I think the education system in Tasmania needs an overhaul.
After all, I only got a 'C' for writing in Grade 1 when I attended Campbell St Primary back in 1972.
And now I've just been told by the publishers of The Web Design Business Kit that the last month's sales in the US were triple the previous months.
Man, if I didn't already have a massive ego I could get an (even) bigger head!
Check out the Kit if you run or intend to run a web design/development firm.
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: The big head comment reminds me of the time a Nursing Sister told my wife that she needed to take our son Harry to the Doctor because he had "quite a large head."
My wife's reply was "He's fine - have you seen his father's head?!"
I spoke with a person yesterday about a new web site for their business.
One of the recommendations I made was for a blog - that is, a site where they update with news and information on a regular basis.
Like I do here.
I was just reading Scott Adam's (the creator of Dilbert fame) excellent blog and saw where he says it takes him 2 hours a day for his blogging.
Whilst I don't that long to blog here each day - may well explain why Scott Adam's is a lot funnier than me - it still takes some time.
The Anatomy Of A Blog Post
Thinking of what to write - sometimes this bit is easy, sometimes it takes a bit of thinking
Doing some research - can be anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour
Finding links to make the post more interesting, relevant and/or useful (took me 5 minutes to find the Dilbert graphic above, read the conditions of use to make sure I was doing the right thing, save the image and then upload to this post)
Finding and/or buying relevant graphics (I buy lots of my graphics from istockphoto.com for about a buck each)
Logging in to the software
Writing the post and uploading it
Why A Blog Can Be So Valuable
It's a fair bit of work. This post alone has taken me just on 25 minutes.
But blogging works well for a lot of business because it personalises your web site. And when people know a bit about you they build a bit of trust in you. And people buy from those they trust.
Then there's the other angle that by sharing experience, expertise and just generally helping out - how I hope I do a bit - readers lives are just that little bit better.
This is a good thing for me, because now I can choose a few different categories, tag my blog posts and then I'll stick the categories on the side of the site and when you click a category you'll see all the posts associated with that category.
For instance, I just tagged a blog from May 12, 2006 with 'search engine promotion'. I'll tag this post with 'search engine promotion' too.
And there are a couple of posts from January 11 this year tagged with 'search engine promotion'.
Then if you click the 'search engine promotion' tag at the bottom of this post, you should then see this blog post, the ones from January 11 this year and the one from May 12 last year
Making it easy for you to find exactly what you're looking for.
Cheers
Brendon
P.S; All I have to do now is select the categories to use and then go through and tag 1,147 old blogs!
One of the things I do with my kids is go camping. As I've gotten a bit older I've started looking at the more comfortable alternatives for resting this old body - camper trailers are one thing I've looked at. I love the idea of just grabbing all the camping gear in one place and going - I went and visited the camper trailers place just outside Brisbane today and they look pretty good. Easy to set up and it looks great to have everything in one place.
I got talking to Kerry who owns the place, and makes the trailers with his son Cameron.
As I always do I asked some marketing questions and Kerry mentioned that he's absolutely convinced that their off road trailers are the best value for money in Australia, bar none.
But like a lot of businesses, Ozzie don't get the opportunity to hammer that point home.
"On an “apples for apples” comparison with any other recognised brand of camper trailer we guarantee to always beat their advertised or quoted price on a brand new unit."
A better heading for this business (and this same principle could be applied to a lot of businesses) might be one of these 3:
We guarantee to always beat competitors advertised or quoted price on a new Camper Trailer
Ozzie Off-Road - Lowest Prices Guaranteed
How To Buy The Best Value Camper Trailer In Australia - Guaranteed!
I like that last one the most. A simple change to the web site can express the very important point of difference and help customers make a good decision.
Can you do the same thing in your business or on your web site?
Here's what I say - presentation is incredibly important. First impressions count for so much. Stan didn't make a great first impression and the perception of his company would suffer because of that.
It's about how he looks, how he moves, how he speaks, how he dresses. It's everything about him.
How To Get A Brochure Designed & Written In 24 Hours
Here's the power of relationships at work.
A client asked us yesterday to go from zero to a completed brochure by today. We accepted the gig because we've worked with him for years and he knows us well.
We asked our graphic artist to do the design. He did because we've worked with him for years and he knows us well.
We've just finished the brochure.
When you develop the right relationships over time, you can get stuff done that would normally take a lot longer (when I worked for a huge public company it took me 6 months to do the same sort of brochure that we did today.)
Why You Need To Be Right At The Top Of Search Engines
I see this all the time. If I have a client in the office and they're doing a search for something, they almost never look beyond the top 3 or 4 results that the search engine provides.
They'll just move onto a different search term.
People Usually Look At The First 3 Or 4 Search Results
A small Microsoft Research study (pdf file) found that "no matter what result they eventually clicked on, our participantsPublish usually looked at the first 3 or 4 search results. When they clicked on the first or second result, they still looked at the first 4 results."
The Frustrating Thing For Vitamin Sellers, Pharmacies, Etc
Because of the huge amount of spam thrown at pharmacy web sites - I blame Viagra for it all (!) - it must be very frustrating for companies with quality vitamins and vitamin supplement sites trying to get noticed amongst all the clutter.
After all, a dietary supplement site will probably be lumped in with all the dodgy weight loss sites no matter how good the web site is.
And the example site - Pure Prescriptions - is an excellent web site with an enormous amount of information. But with crazy amounts of money being made with sites like Viagra sellers, then it becomes very difficult to get a quality site seen (because the marketing dollars aren't able to be spent).
You see, the people who have donated thus far are people I 'know' - all from being online. These people either read this blogs, are people I email chat with on a regular basis or who I know offline.
But do you see how I 'know' every one?
It All Comes Back To Networking
It all comes back to networking. Check out the excellent Never Eat Alone blog here for networking tips.
Business is like life - we're all much more likely to deal with people we know and like.
People we feel some connection with.
So if you're in business, get your butt out and about in the places where you'd meet/find the sort of people who would become your clients.
Don't sit in front of your computer all day writing blogs................................oh goodness.
Notice the title at the top of the screen is "Tailored Info - Thousands of web marketing and strategy posts and articles: Affiliate Marketing Info"
The Title Is The Most Important Part
Although I made the title of the post Affiliate Marketing Info, the blogger software makes the title of the page my default title (Tailored Info - Thousands of web marketing and strategy posts and articles) and then adds the title of the blog post (Affiliate Marketing Info) on the end.
What that does is basically reduce that page's attractiveness for search engines for people searching for "affiliate marketing".
And that's because the search engine looks at the title and sees this:
Tailored Info - Thousands of web marketing and strategy posts and articles: Affiliate Marketing Info
and notes that just 2 out of 14 words are relevant for someone searching for "affiliate marketing".
If the title of the page was "Affiliate Marketing Info" then the search engine would see that title as far more relevant to a searcher than the longer one and the post would be a decent boost in the search engine rankings for someone searching for "affiliate marketing".
The Reason I Can't Test This Out
And the reason I can't test this out and quantify the results with this site is because I haven't figured out how to alter the titles the way I need to.
(I've tried a couple of time but just wipe the blog - oooooops!)
What Was I Thinking - The Worst Advertisement In History
This wasn't a time to open the champagne.
You do live and learn in business, but the question I have to ask is "What the hell was I thinking?!!"
Here's an ad I ran in a major newspaper a few years back:
======================================
New Website Exposes Best Business Money-Making Secrets…Bar None!
Note: This website is 100% FREE. It does not have annoying pop ups, banner ads or anything you have to buy. It has incredible information. And lots of it.
Following is just a small sample of the hot information you’ll find:
Why a Web Designer should never develop your website!
10 steps to success – how a landscaper went from toil to triumph!
Why you should pay someone $10,000 for 5 minutes work!
How one of our websites made a fortune in just 2 hours – and how it continues to make big money each and every day!
How to sell anything to anyone……and have them come back for more!
Why service firms usually completely muck up their marketing!
How to kick start HUGE, HUGE sales with free publicity!
How to win prestigious awards!
Why you should love complaining customers!
The amazing money-making power of a $200 piece of software – no business should be without it!
Why your marketing should be as cheap as chips!
Much, much more!
If you want pretty pictures, don’t visit. If you want boring content, don’t visit. If you want typical business clichés, don’t visit.
This site is by people who know what they are talking about. Real marketing experts. Real Internet experts. Visit now for real information.
www.tailored.com.au
======================================
The only thing I didn't do - and I should have - was say "By the way, I'm a complete idiot."
That ad cost me $2,000+.
The return was $0.
Plus I wasted about 10 hours dealing with people who weren't the sort of customers I wanted.
Business Isn't About Getting Customers
Business isn't about getting customers. Business is about getting the right customers for your business.
And this type of ad didn't attract the sort of customers we wanted.
What works for us in attracting the right customers is our current customers talking to their friends. And that doesn't cost us $2,000.
I have been emailing a guy today who is looking at taking up affiliate marketing.
I've quoted him a few bucks for a few hours consulting and part of that is pointing him to to the right people to get no bullshit information from.
One Of The Right People
Fraser has an Affiliate Marketing Blog which is offering some great info. Fraser is a guy who I've had email conversations with in the past and he's a no-nonsense solid guy with great info.
And Fraser has been kind enough to sponsor my 1,000 km bike ride with a $30 donation.
The Results Of 5 Hours Work On Search Engine Rankings
On the left hand side of the columns beneath is the search engine rankings of a client's top 7 keywords before we started work on improving their rankings.
In the right hand column is the rankings 3 weeks later - after just 5 hours work from us.
Whilst these rankings changes are pretty remarkable, I stick it up here as an example of the impact of knowing what you're doing.
And yes, the keywords are quite competitive - up to 80,000+ searches per month on some of them. The client's web site visitor numbers have, not surprisingly, exploded.
I was talking about how you grab the readers attention. And how to hold that attention to lead to you're your point.
We talked about how people scan rather than read.
We talked about how to use make sections stand out with:
subheadings,
bold,
italics,
bullet points,
numbered lists,
images and more
I said to Laura, "I'll show you an example."
So I came here - to this page you're reading now.
And then I looked at what I write and saw that it's actually not too bad. Except for sometimes starting sentences with "And" ;o)
Sometimes I Get It Right
I do sometimes get it right.
I do grab attention with decent headings.
I do carry a theme through (But I do tend to crap on sometimes!).
I do use all those literary tools of the trade I was telling my Laura about.
I'm actually not too bad at this writing caper.
I Have This Theory.....
I have this theory on people who are good at stuff - whether it's sport or singing or writing or whatever.
My theory is this: Whatever comes easily to people is not seen by them as worthy of praise or valuable.
It -by "it" I mean whatever it is they're good at - means very little to them. They don't see what they do as anything other than very, very ordinary.
So whatever it is you do well - web design, marketing, parenting, bricklaying, whatever - isn't easy for others.
If you're in business selling it, don't be afraid to charge more.
If it's not something you sell (like parenting.....although perhaps kids should pay good parents??!), then accept the lavish praise that should come your way.
And no. I haven't written this post to let you know we'll be increasing our prices for copywriting - although that's not a bad idea!
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: In case you're wondering, I don't have my proofreader proof these blog posts. Whilst I understand the importance of not having typos, a big part of the blog is I write it and post it.
If I had to wait a day or 2 for it to be proofed it would lose its relevance.
I recently emailed a distributor of a product to ask for their terms and conditions on buying their product - I was going to sell the product via an online store.
They told me they didn't want to sell me the product because they don't want to upset their offline retailers. Their 'policy' is that to be a retailer of their product you had to have a bricks and mortar store.
I have no idea why.
They Just Don't Get It
Some people simply don't get how powerful the Internet can be. They don't understand that having an online retailer can blow their sales through the roof.
I guess people are just limited by what they don't understand.
It's easier to say "No" they to get in and learn about something new.
From what I could gather during our conversation, our initial sales projections would have made us their biggest retailer (by double).
And Mark Bridgeman in the UK has tossed in $30 US. Mark is a London PHP Developer who said "No problems fella! I think I owe you a little after all the advice from your blog the last few years :)"
The Nigerian scam is where you receive an email saying it's from someone whose rich father/mother/aunt/uncle/whatever has died and left $10 million or so in a bank account in a foreign country.
If you can help the person get it out of the country you'll get 20%!
It's an old, old scam where they suck you in with that promise and then there are various hitchs along the way where you need to pay $1,000 here to have the money released, $6,000 there for something else and on it goes.
It's such an obvious scam that it's hard to believe that people actually fall for it. But they do. Millions and millions and millions of dollars.
My great son Jack (left) was lucky enough to be nominated this year by his Scout Troop Leader in the Youth section.
