Causing people to be attracted to you is about more than just working to making people like you. If you just want to know how to make friends then I recommend the book “How to Win Friends an Influence People”. However, marketing goes further than creating friendly relationships.

To create a relationship that will develop into a long lasting business relationship you need to create value and trust. The steps are simple and in fact natural. We just seem to forget these things when it comes to making money. All of a sudden making money clouds out the thoughts of creating trusting relationships, even though it would make us much more money in the long run.

The first step in establishing this type of trust is to simply give the people what they want. What are they searching for? What are their ultimate desires? Know the answers to these questions and provide the answers.

People search for things because they want answers or information. So why not give them the information they are searching for? This is what starts the trust process. Providing information, not advice, naturally draws people towards you and causes them to be interested in whatever you are involved in. Some people call this sellacation which simply means making sales through educating prospects. While this is a good approach it is incomplete.

You really want to create trust though education and charisma. Charisma can be a difficult one to convey over the Internet but it is very possible. With today’s Web 2.0, or more interactive internet, it has become easier to become a trusted virtual friend who provides valuable information.

Providing great information is great but having a video coupled with the information is ten times better. Videos allow for a quicker relationship building process. This simply means people trust you more quickly when they can see you talking and providing valuable information.

Information is king when it comes to creating a relationship online. Videos make this process much easier and quicker.

Let’s concentrate on providing the information. The videos will basically be repeating the information so they are not as difficult. Let’s say that someone is searching for “how to start a home based business”. Well, you will be right there to greet them with information on how to start a home based business. You will not initially tell them about your product, service, or business as this would cause immediate skepticism. You will simply provide helpful information and establish a trusting relationship in the beginning.

Worry not, as this strategy will pay long term dividends. Just provide the answers they are searching for. Create a website page or blog post. Create a video that can be uploaded in YouTube or any video service. Write an article that can be published on any of the many article directories.

You’ll be spreading helpful information all over the Internet related to your industry and naturally attracting business prospects. Even if you are just trying to create trust on your own website this method will work wonders. Have fun with it and help people.

There are few people who will buy from someone they don’t trust or don’t feel they know enough. We have all acted on advice from a trusted friend or family member before. We have also acted on information given by a reputable company or government agency. People almost always buy from people they trust and for good reason. The value of trust simply cannot be underestimated.

This is a new generation and the same ole sales tactics drive people away. This generation is more skeptical and analytical about almost anything. They take more time to think about decisions and wait until they feel comfortable with the person or company selling the product or service.

This principal is so powerful that it causes people to delay or forgo a decision that is obviously and logically the best decision they could make concerning a variety of life matters. You could even say that if trust is not present in a relationship or transaction then people in general will be predictably irrational no matter how obviously good a decision may be.

Emotions always take priority over intellect. Trust is rooted in intellect but is a stronger emotion. Not to get too deep into psychology here but it does help to understand your target market. All emotions stem from thoughts. So if your prospects are not having the right thoughts when they look at your information then they will not trust you.

On a side note, I want to mention that this is not about manipulation. This is simply about understanding people and giving them what they already want.

Human nature can be fascinating and if understood, increase your conversion rates and profitability. Large companies spend millions of dollars a year in market research to understand their market better and refine their advertising. These large companies understand that behavioral economics play a huge role in profits.

Anyway, back to the trust factor. Trust should be the number one thing you establish in the beginning. Delaying the urge to directly pitch someone on your product, service, or business opportunity will pay large dividends. The problem with most business owners is they can’t resist the urge to sell a prospect on something before they have established this trust. The result is they end up scaring most of their potential customers off who would have otherwise bought something.

A little knowledge and patience can go a long way to make you more money here. Understanding how to establish trust will make you rich. The best salesmen in the World understand the need for trust. However, you’re going to be establishing trust without actively selling anything. Your visitors will learn to trust you and sell themselves. Ultimately, you will become a trusted friend whose advice to purchase something is always taken seriously.

I’ll speak more on how to actually establish this type of trust in tomorrow’s training.

Whether you celebrate
Christmas or not, we wish you peace, happiness,
joy and all good things during this holiday
season.

Usually when people think of internet marketing and Google they think of people trying to make money. Few think of people trying to make presidents. That’s exactly what many 2008 presidential campaign websites are dedicated to doing as we quickly approach the season of debates and and never ending election commercials on TV.

The powerful Google boasts an astounding 64% of all searches done on the Internet as of March 2007(1). What does this mean for elections? It means that those who acknowledge the Internet’s importance and have the right internet marketing expertise working for them, can boost their campaign in a very big way.

Of course Google is not the only venue to increase ones voter base. Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com claim 34% of the U.S. searches together(1). As you can see Google wins.

Mastering the art of internet marketing in each of the major search engines will certainly bring in more votes in this internet age. However, optimizing a website for all major search engines is nearly impossible. As most individuals discover this frustration they decide to focus their energy and time on the one that will bring the most fruit, Google.

Doing generic searches in Google for terms such as “2008 elections” brings up top ten results with mostly social-input, social-network type sites which also shows the power of such e-venues. Get more specific in your search such as typing in the exact name of the candidate of interest and you’ll probably get that candidates official website as the number one result(hopefully for them). Of course this has a lot to do with Google’s link popularity factor since official sites attract a lot of people wanting to link to official candidate sites.

So do you think the candidates care about how their sites rank in Google? Of course they do. They would be silly not to. From an internet marketing perspective what can we learn from this? Run for president and your site will soar in the Google rankings. No really, link popularity is still very very important. There are other important factors of course but getting other sites to link to you will always trump most of them. These official campaign sites get so much attention and PR that their backlinks are constantly growing. Most of us can’t create that kind of buzz but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.

As Google has changed their algorithms it has become increasingly difficult to do anything but make a great site with great content and hope backlinks come naturally. Of course this doesn’t mean its time to freeze the SEO efforts. Look at it this way, these changes at Google are just weeding out the weak webmasters looking for quick and easy ways to rank well. They fall out easily while you’re still left working every day to create a valuable site that will gradually rise to its deserved position.

References:
1.http://www.hitwise.com/press-center/hitwiseHS2004/searchenginesmarch2007.php

My friend Brenda sent me this picture of her nieces. Brenda’s sister wrote the following about the picture: “So there I was . . . just relaxing in front of the T.V. When the kids yelled, ‘Hey Mom, come see the kittens.’”

Now if this isn’t a picture made for forwarded emails I don’t know what is. I have no doubt that this picture will still be circulating long after these girls are grown.

Editor’s Update: After doing a little research I found this picture on another website. In comparing these two pictures I noticed two things: 1) It is the exact same picture but in my picture there are more skunks and cheap life insurance; 2) The picture I received from my friend was rather large and I could see that the supposed skunk being held by the little girls had a kitten’s tail, not a skunks. Therefore, I must conclude that this is a photoshopped picture. Nonetheless, I think that the picture serves as a great demonstration for this post.

Believe it or not, the picture got me thinking about Internet marketing. Here you have two innocent girls believing they are holding and playing with kittens. Their naivety and innocence misleads them from the truth. This same mentality exists with those new to the world of marketing on the web.

I have met several people who spent thousands of dollars thinking they were getting the secret cheap car insurance sauce to Internet marketing. Instead all they got was a smelly skunk masquerading as a benign kitten. So, below I’ve decided to show the skunks for who they really:

Skunk 1: Web design and programming is expensive

This skunk usually gets most newbies. They feel that they need to spend thousands of dollars to have their website created or logo designed. Often people don’t know about resources which offer better quality for a fraction of the cost of what the skunks charge. Here are some websites I recommend:

• Elance.com for web design
• rentacoder.com for programming
• gotlogos.com for $25 logos

Skunk 2: Reading an eBook will bring you untold wealth.

It seems that there is a foul smell found on Internet that comes from all the self proclaimed marketing gurus/millionaires. Which of course, everyone of them provide their do-not-tell secrets to you in the form of an ebook. For $47.97 you can work at home equity loans making millions of dollars by marketing your website to billions of people. Believe me people, when I say this is a crock. Granted there are decent ebooks out there teaching valuable information on Internet marketing, but I firmly believe you will find equal, if not more valuable information, in the blogosphere. Case in point, my favorite blog DoshDosh.com, in my opinion provides more detailed information on being profitable with internet marketing than any ebook I have ever read. I recently found a great site called buymystupidebook.com, that shows just how foul of a smell over-hyped ebooks are.

Skunk 3: If you build it they will come

In the 1849 gold rush many people had the illusion that they only needed to get to California to lay their claim on the gold. This type of thinking has persisted into the Internet. So many people build their website or “make it to California” but don’t realize/want to do the work to get the gold. This skunk is so prevalent I feel many of us marketers sound like a broken record continually repeating the message of the importance of marketing. Building a website is only your first step in a long, long journey. We should change the Field of Dreams quote to say: “If you build it, than roll-up your sleeves and start working in getting them to come.”

Skunk 4: With a little marketing your website is going to be the next Google.

Folks, let’s face it, web marketing is not going to turn your idea into the next Google. No, instead you are going to need a lot of marketing, capital, people, time, and sometimes just plain dumb luck. Internet marketing is a valuable tool to help you grow your web dream, but there is something more important, and that is trust. Janet, my business partner, wrote a great post on the value of building trust. If your users don’t trust you, all the marketing in the world won’t help.

Skunk 5: There is a Holy Grail to web marketing.

Good Internet marketing is a combination of many things. In my beginning years on the web I always tried to find the Holy Grail in marketing. Some trick or tactic that I only had to do once and I would receive massive amounts of traffic. I spent a lot of money on this quest and ultimately learned that it is a myth. Be weary of the skunks who try to convince you otherwise. It’s a nice sentiment but very far from the truth.

Skunk 6: You need to implement everything in order for you to receive the most amount of traffic.

A lot of people get overwhelmed about all the things you need to do to be good at Internet marketing. However, there’s a growing trend in the blogosphere that I really like. It’s the thirty day challenge, and I believe Steve Pavlina’s blog is what made this concept really popular. Basically, you break down your end result goal—like ranking well—into thirty small attainable tasks. Then everyday for 30 days you work towards it. You can definitely do this same thing on a larger scale. Decide on what your marketing goals are and then break them down. Plan every day to do at least one thing towards this goal. I have a friend who faithfully did this and he now ranks in several top five spots in google for all the keywords he was trying to rank for. Persistence and consistency truly are the keys to being a successful marketer.

Skunk 7: You need an Internet marketing consultant.

For the sake of my profession I must state that Internet marketing consultants have their place. You cannot be the best at everything. Yet, if you are a boot strapping entrepreneur you can get your website to rank well and drive the needed traffic on your own. Word to the wise, it does take time, both learning and implementing, but in the end you can do it without using us fancy-pants consultants. To get you started I would recommend that you read the Hubspot blog. I’ve spoken with these guys and they really do know what they are talking about (also, check out their software it’s pretty cool). If you want to ignore my advice about ebooks than I would recommend Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. Aaron truly is a guru in this area—his book is good, but also expensive (but his blog is free).

Lately I have been pondering on the existence of Twitter. Truthfully, my first introduction to Twitter was quite pessimistic. I figured it to be the web’s version of reality television. It was just another tool that made it possible for us to follow people’s rather boring lives.

Several years ago this impression was identical to my feelings on blogging . It wasn’t until blogging stormed the business arena that I opened my eyes and mind to the unlimited possibilities. The geniuses of this mentality is also forming with Twitter. However, I don’t think currently Twitter has quite the luster that blogging has towards business and monetization.

Yet, I am certain that this will change and quickly. Below are five possible ways on how you can use Twitter for your own business. If anyone has actual stories of how they made money or used Twitter for their business please let me know. ~Paul W.

1. Communication Stream - This probably seems the most obvious. Twitter by nature is a communication stream. I could see businesses using Twitter to keep customers informed about the latest happenings of the company. I also read that Scoble “tweeted” the OpenSocial press conference yesterday. Talk about getting the news real time!

2. Marketing tool - Yet another fairly obvious suggestion. Twitter would be great in sending out affiliate links and product announcements. If you have a strong enough following you could even use Twitter to do a site or product launch. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see companies paying twitterers (I think that word works) who have large networks to make company announcements for them.

3. People Pinging - Blogging software was developed with a built in ping system. Every time you write a post your software sends out a ping to inform the search engines of new content. I use this same concept with Twitter, but I ping people. In fact, until recently this was the only thing I used Twitter for. People pinging also works really well when you want people to digg or bookmark your posts. I’ve received the most diggs when I have invited those following me on Twitter to read and digg my post. (Take a look at TwitterPoster.com to begin to understand the power of people pinging)

4. Forward Tweets - This idea I stole from the forwarded emails that propagate throughout the web. Think of something cool and then twitter your friends asking them to twitter their friends and so on and so on. You might not get the reach of a forwarded email but there is no doubt you could drive some real traffic if your idea is unique enough.

5. Mass Journalism - Michael Krigsman has a post about the secret OpenSocial press conference between Scoble and his 7,000 users on Twitter. Scoble didn’t just share what was going on with the press conference, he relayed questions from his Twitter network to the Google executives. Now that is power! Twitter has and will continue to revolutionize journalism. No longer is the press an exclusive “good old boys’ club.”

To follow me on Twitter visit twitter.com/PaulWilson. Happy Twittering!

I just posted on Guy Kawasaki and how he feels picked on with the blogosphere. While I was looking for a picture of Guy for my last post I came across something very interesting.

As you see below there are three pictures of Guy. However, if you look closely to the first two pictures you will see that they are actually the same. In exhibit (1) is the “Guy” you meet in person, and exhibit (2) is the “Guy” you meet on the web with the cheap auto insurance. It’s obvious that someone had a fun time photoshopping Guy. I made an exhibit (3) to reveal all the cyber changes Guy has undergone.

I noticed that the picture displayed on Guy’s blog is the photoshopped version. It kind of reminds me of the Dove Campaign.  ~Paul W.

Exhibit (1) - The Real Guy

Exhibit (2) - The Web Guy

Exhibit (3) - The Changes

1. Removal of freckles
2. Whitening of smile
3. Clearer eyes
4. Removal of lines

P.S. This isn’t a mean spirited post by any means especially not about life insurnce. I just found it amusing how we will go to great lengths to not look like our true selves.

Yesterday I went to hear Guy Kawasaki speak in Salt Lake City. It is the first time I’ve heard him speak, and I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation—even with all the microphone technical difficulties.

While we were waiting for the presentation to start two guys behind me were talking about an easy way to crack an iPhone. If you go to www.JailBreakMe.com on your iPhone the website will instantly hack the phone and open up the network. I have yet to be an adapter to the iPhone but that advice was well worth the $10 I payed for the conference (not to mention Guy’s fun presentation).

I was going to give you my notes on Guy’s power point but you can get the whole presentation by emailing mary-louise at garage.com. Plus, if you want to know about the books he recommended you can go to my business partner’s blog and see Guy’s suggestions.

The one thing I want to comment on is Guy’s perception of the blogosphere. You could tell he is a bit bitter. He has recently launched a service called Truemors.com. When he launched it he received heavy criticism from bloggers due to the people who spammed his network. What Guy took from this experience was that all bloggers were either 16 year old boys or 45 year old men who both lived with their parents.

This is obviously a bitter perspective mingled with Guy’s sense of humor. I honestly think Guy should use this jaded thinking and turn it into a marketing ploy. He should write an article about the blogosphere comprising of nothing but insecure men who sit at home in their underwear criticizing innovative thinkers. I am sure if this is done right he could use the same medium he despises and perpetuate his ideas through the web.

Just a random thought. Anyway, if someone wanted to actually be nice to Guy they could write a Wikipedia page on him. I am astounded that there isn’t one.

What is SEO Friday?

I spent a little time this morning going through an ebook written in 2002. The main premise of the ebook was a list of 100 websites that you probably didn’t know about but should. I went through all 100 sites and learned that over half the sites no longer existed. It was sad too, many of the sites had great ideas. Yet, alas, the abandon dreams that have littered the Internet over the last five years is vast.

This morning’s surfing adventures helped me realize the importance of SEO Friday. Five years ago SEO was quite different than what we have today. Many of the black hat tactics of today were gaining serious momentum and popularity not to long ago (cloaking comes to mind).

I know the tools and tips I share with you in this post and others will most likely be worthless in a matter of a year (possible months). Therefore, I hope this little weekly post will help you keep up with the trends of today, and show you what to toss from the hype of yesterday. Again, if you know any free SEO tools, tips, or websites let me know and I will share some anchored link love Ü. ~Paul W.

Google vs Yahoo - I actually am surprised that this is the first time I’ve highlighted anything from www.SEOChat.com. I honestly don’t know any SEO website that offers more free tools than these guys. Here’s a tool that I really like of theirs. Basically, what it does is offer you a visual on how keywords rank with Google and Yahoo. They do a good job connecting the dots . Anchored Text: SEO Tools

Keyword Research - I know that I have inundated you with keyword research tools. I also know that I have shared quite a bit of Aaron Wall’s tools. However, when a tool is this good it must be shared. I actually found it after my business partner installed a firefox plugin on my laptop that shows you what people are paying for PPC. That’s another really cool tool but I don’t know where you go to download it (you want to help us out here Janet). Anchored Text: SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

SEO Tools - I almost didn’t add this tool to the today’s list, due to the excessive ad clutter all over the website. However, they had so many simple but useful tools that it’s worth going to the site and blocking out the page garbage (tip: all tools are found beneath the fold). Anchored Text: SEO Tools

URL Rewriting - Another great tool from webconfs. This tool helps you convert dynamic URLs into static looking html URLs. There takes some tweaking to your linux server, but this really could be useful to some sites. Anchored Text: Create Search Engine Friendly URLs

Page Analysis - This webpage analyzer reads the page you specify, and then put it through a few basic tests to see if the page qualifies as ’search-engine-friendly’ for the keyword phrase specified. This is a real simple test, but often I will over look the simple stuff when optimizing my sites. Anchored Text: Webmaster Toolkit

Bonus
Cheap Logos - This isn’t a SEO or Internet marketing tool, but I found this site when I was going through the 100 domains this morning. This site does logos for $25, and I thought I was getting a good deal for $40 a logo! Anchored Text: Custom Logo Designs

Recently a company contacted me about my consulting services. After talking with the president of the company I realized that the this business was doomed to stay as a small business. The main problem was that the company didn’t understand the concept of calculated risk.

After working for years with small businesses I’ve learned several things that stop businesses from growing. I once heard a millionaire state that if you are not growing you are dying.

So how do you keep your company growing? Great question, and the right answer would be continual sales and marketing. I know that this seems basic, but it surprises me how many companies don’t realize that these two elements are the blood of the company.

Since I specifically specialize on marketing I see how a lot of small businesses royally mess this up. Case in point would be this company. They are willing to spend a great amount of money on furnishing an office that no one comes to, but struggle paying $200 for a press release. To me the press release is an investment and the furniture is a waste.

I also see the type of company that is too concerned about their finances to spend money on marketing. This in my opinion just perpetuates the problem of staying a small company. Granted, I am well aware that you can do a lot of marketing without money, but this can carry you only so far.

Sometimes, small businesses owners should pull out a personal loan to help him or her with their future goals. Again, it is a lot easier to do this if you look at the personal loan as an investment and not a debt. If your marketing is done correctly you should turn a decent profit. However, this is rarely achieved if you don’t take the plunge!

Well, that’s it for my ranting. Success generally comes to those who are truly willing to sacrifice in the beginning.