I was sketching out two marketing plans over the holidays for a couple of new clients and decided it was time to incorporate some of the research data/results I’ve collected during the latter part of 2011. Generally I’d spend more time testing things on my own sites first, but I’m confident enough with the results of basic testing that I’ve decided to put the ideas into live production.

There are two basic interrelated concepts that I’ve been working on – content length, and establishing ownership of new content in a way which minimizes the chance of your content being considered ‘dupe’ and increases your page authority and SERP’s.

The web is all about content, it’s basically one large article directory. The task for a search engine is to provide an efficient indexing system so we can connect with the information we are looking for in the fewest possible steps.

In the old days, when we bought our ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’, we’d flip to the front to find a broad index of content, then flip to the back to try and find a specific piece of content. It was and still is a pain trying to find something specific in a large hardcopy publication.

Obviously, search engines automate that task pretty well on the web by recording billions of documents and serving up the most relevant to our needs in a few milliseconds.

However, Google has taken it all a few steps further. With the advent of their Page Rank algorithm a few years back Google demonstrated its capacity for collecting multiple sources of information and building actionable data profiles. Google has since added to its profile arsenal by recording the specific surfing habits of its users and the websites on which they land. Combining the personal data it records about us with the data taken from a website (via analytics or just simply from standard Google searches), Google can now match us with content deemed even more relevant to our needs.

So Google has become a very intelligent content indexing system, delivering more and more ‘personalized’ results based on our surfing habits, our demographic and the performance of the websites to which we are referred.

Duplicate Content

It is no secret to any webmaster that one of the main technology hurdles for Google is duplicate content. But why should Google care about duplication if it’s large enough and fast enough to index pretty much everything on the web? Well, actually it isn’t (large enough or fast enough). And therein lies the problem.

Google needs to know the source of published content. As the author of a piece of content I should have precedence over everybody else who publishes it. Google needs to know who owns the content so it can give preference and prominence to the source and not to someone who has merely replicated it for their own self-interest or gain. It’s one of the most critical yardsticks that Google has to judge us by. If it gets the source wrong in its algorithm, all other measurements will result in a false or negatively weighted outcome. It can’t reward quality content fairly, if it doesn’t know who has authored it.

Unsurprisingly this isn’t something that we hear Google making a big deal about. Why? Because they don’t have and won’t ever have a perfect working solution. But it’s clear from some of the algorithm and policy changes during 2011 that Google is working hard to improve its chances of determining the true source of content.

The first step in a series of new steps was for Google to make a basic assumption about Article Directories. Article Directories contain a lot of content and fared well under the old system of ranking. We all know by now that some of the key directories, EzineArticles for example, have taken a major hit under Google’s new system of ranking. In a certain sense the hit has been more about sending a message than it has been about cleaning up the web of duplicate content. In a way Google has behaved like a newly elected Government. When you’re trying to introduce a new way of thinking, it sometimes helps to make a few high-profile personnel changes. So Google has basically announced to the world that duplicate content is on its radar – learn the new rules or face the axe.

When you look closely at the results of Panda it’s fairly easy to work backwards and reverse-engineer the thought processes involved. Article Directories contain primarily duplicate content, but not entirely, so Google must have factored other information into its decision to devalue AD’s. If you look at the whole scenario, it can give you valuable clues as to where things are headed. There are two clear problems with Article Directories and the type of content they provide a home for:

1 – Duplication. Clearly, people create content, often for their own sites, then use multiple article directories to re-publish that same content, either in an attempt to gain backlinks, attract direct traffic or appeal to niche re-publishers of content (syndicators). Either which way it is duplicated, and the Article Directories are the catalyst for making that happen.

When you look at everything else contained in an AD (all non-duplicate content), you see the second problem -

2 – Poor quality content. When you search an article directory for something unique, what you’ll often find is something that doesn’t read too well. In many cases that is because it has been mechanically spun from previous content. So in terms of value to the searcher, it’s even less useful than the original, which has already been tagged as a dupe.

So clearly the Article Directories, and the way in which they operate, are not going to garner sympathy from Google, who’ve taken on the task of improving the quality of the web.

So where does this leave us WRT content publishing? What are the rules and how do we play the game?

Google can’t announce the new rules yet, because they haven’t finished writing them. In a way Google is just like an intelligent marketer trying to optimize his own business. Google makes changes, tests the results, realigns its approach based on gathered data, then tests again. To stay at the top of its game, this process is perpetual – it has to be.

How does that affect you, or how will it? First off you must not hide behind ‘well it’s worked for me for the last 5 years so it must be OK’ or by sticking your head in the sand and doing nothing. iFrame cloaking, IP cloaking/switching, Xrummer backlinking, etc. all worked for a while. These were strategies that worked and have since been marginalized (or are far along that path) by the Google team. So you need to take a look at your approach to publishing content. Even if you don’t use article directories or don’t provide a mechanism for people to republish your content, the new rules are still going to affect you. The good news is that if you’re smart enough, some good opportunities will start to appear.

There’s a new system of ranking search results being worked out right now which combines Site Authority and Page Rank, along with the newly collected data that Google has at its disposal.

So how exactly does it work?

I’ll be going into detail of how you can structure your content to achieve what I term a ‘High Google Credít Score’ in part 2 of this article, to be published soon. Or visit my website at webdesigndoorcounty.co/spn.html and request part 2 via email.

About The Author
As an author and business owner with almost 14 years experience in the field of Internet Marketing, Carl Hruza has developed a number of successful web-based enterprises, and now makes his living by training other entrepreneurs to do the same. Learn more about the author at webdesigndoorcounty.co/spn.html.

What’s the number one thing you must have in order to grow a successful small business? It’s not clients or customers, though those are critically important.

It’s not effective marketing, though you absolutely need that too.

I’m talking about something far simpler. And I know I risk sounding like Master of the Obvious with this, but I’ve seen so many entrepreneurs struggle because they don’t have it…

What is this key to making money in your small business?

You have to have something to sell!

See, I told you it was obvious. But I’ve had more than one client come to me and say…

“Okay, I’ve built my new blog site, launched my brand and am trying to get out there and make connections. But so far I’ve spent a bunch of time and money and none is coming in.”

Oftentimes they really aren’t clear about what they’re selling. One person was offering the always too vague “coaching”… Another had spent all her time and money building a free membership site with no real idea of how to monetize it …

Yet another was trying to sell other, complimentary experts into becoming members of her site and program in exchange for marketing them online and getting them more exposure. The only problem? She didn’t have a list of people to expose these experts to. So she still really had nothing to sell.

If you’ve got nothing in particular to sell it’s hard to make any money.

The solution?

Create specific products and/or services that provide value now.

These could be ebooks, audio trainings, video tutorials, membership programs, coaching programs, consulting packages, done-for-you services, or a combination of any and all of the above.

The only criteria are:
Whatever you’re selling has to be something people want to buy
It has to be easy to understand what you’re selling, who it’s for and why they would want it (that’s the old “what’s in it for me” part)
It has to be sold in a way that makes it easy to buy
Of course, there is just a bit more to it than that.

But the most important thing is that you come up with something to sell that’s got tangible value and benefits, and provides a specific set of services and/or products for a specific price.

For example, selling coaching or consulting does not fit the bill here. However, selling a specific number of hours or sessions with a particular goal does. So selling marketing consulting is a no go, but selling a 6-hour Marketing Jumpstart program works. Throwing in a complimentary workbook makes it even better.

Make sense? If so, then take a look at what you’re offering and find ways to turn it into specific, value-packed products, services and programs.

About the Author:
Practical Marketing Expert and Business Lifestyle Architect Stacy Karacostas is on a mission to end Entrepreneurial Overwhelm and Marketing Madness! Discover how to grow your businesses with less effort-so you can help more people, make more money AND still have a life-by grabbing your copy of her FREE “Success without Shackles Starter Kit” at http://www.theunchainedentrepreneur.com.

When it comes to marketing blogs, we all know what the “authority” blogs are, right? After all, they’re hugely popular and many of us follow those blogs faithfully. Blogs like ProBlogger, DailyBlogTips, SearchEngineJournal, ShoeMoney, CopyBlogger, just to name a few. You know, the usual suspects.

But there are many other outstanding marketing blogs flying under the radar, whose marketing content is just as impressive, but perhaps not quite as well known to the average online marketer. I call these “the unusual suspects.” And since they may not be quite as well known, chances are, you probably aren’t familiar with them.

Following are 20 Little-Known Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading:

1. Content Marketing Today

When it comes to content marketing and content marketing strategies, I can say without the slightest bit of exaggeration, Newt Barrett’s Content Marketing Today blog is as good as it gets.

2. Brian Carroll’s B2B Lead Generation Blog

Brian Carroll’s blog focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing.

3. Peter Stone’s Copywriting Blog

Peter Stone is simply one of the finest copywriters on the planet…period. But be warned, this isn’t basic copywriting. These are sophisticated, highly advanced copywriting concepts, and as such may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

4. Chris Mole’s Media Blog

>From copywriting to website design, and everything in between, this blog covers it all.

5. Jeff Korhan Blog

Jeff Korhan’s New Media and Small Business Marketing Blog helps mainstream small businesses get practical results from their onlíne marketing.

6. Search Engine Guide

When it comes to knowledgeable, “on-the-money information” about search engine marketing, it’s hard to top these guys.

7. Unstuck Digital

Mike Tekula’s blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Lots of good SEO resources.

8. The Content Revolution Blog

Content Marketing strategist, Joe Pulizzi’s Junta42 brings clients and vendors together through its Content Vendor Matching Service.

9. Heidi Cohen

Actionable Marketing expert Heidi Cohen’s blog provides marketing related insights grounded in digital and direct marketing.

10. Web Ink Now

Author and Marketing Strategist David Meerman Scott’s blog specializes in marketing and leadership strategies.

11. Get More Clients Online

Donna Gunter, author of “Get More Clients Online: How to Get 95% of Your Clients from Internet Marketing,” helps introverted independent service professionals stop the client chase and create online businesses that drives clients to them.

12. Author Marketing Experts

If you’ve written a book or are in the process of writing one, Penny Sansevieri’s Author Marketing Experts blog is for you. This blog teaches authors how to get published, as well as other helpful book marketing tips.

13. Mark Widawer’s Traffic and Conversion Blog

This blog specializes in website traffic and conversions, as well as Internet marketing training and education.

14. Small Business Search Marketing Blog

Matt McGee’s Small Business Search Marketing Blog helps small businesses compéte and succeed online on their own terms (and budgets).

15. Church of the Customer Blog

Talk about a hidden gem. This outstanding blog specializes in word-of-mouth marketing and teaches you the art of getting your customers to be “evangelists” for your business.

16. PR Secrets Blog

Media Coach and Marketing Strategist, Susan Harrow teaches you how to get publicity for yourself in a dignified fashion, without selling your soul.

17. Pro Copy Tips Blog

Copywriter Dean Rieck’s Pro Copy Tips Blog gives you the tips, tools, resources, and inspiration to turn ordinary words into extraordinary success.

18. CK’s Blog

The initials “CK” stand for Christina Kerley, and her B2B blog helps guide marketers through strategy… social media marketing, mobile marketing… and whatever’s coming next.

19. Email Marketing Reports Blog

Mark Brownlow’s Email Marketing Reports Blog is a blog about email marketing advice, info and tips by – and nothing else! If the topic has anything at all to do with email marketing, this blog covers it and covers it well – probably better than just about anyone else.

20. Laurel Papworth Blog

Laurel Papworth’s Online Community News Blog subject matter focuses on social media and social media commentary.

Conclusion
Like I said in my opening, these blogs may not be quite as well known to the average online marketer. However, that shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning they’re not popular in their own right, and don’t have loyal followers. They are and they do. And if by chance, you’ve been fortunate enough to have already stumbled across one or more of these marketing gems…kudos to you!
And if you haven’t, you’re in for a real treat!

About The Author
David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful, free marketing tips to help grow your business! free-marketing-tips-blog.com

Microsoft is sharing some survey results from BIA/Kelsey about small businesses. The results were presented at the ILM West conference in San Francisco. The main takeaways are as follows:

Based on responses to the survey, local media spend in the US is forecasted to hit $149.4B in 2015 with $37.9B of that being online/digital.

Local search is forecasted to hit $9.1B by 2015 – up from $5.1B in 2010.

The percentage of ad budget spent online continues to sit around 25%.

Businesses that are between 4-6 years old spend 33% of their budget on online advertising.

Businesses that are less than 3 years old spend 38%.

40% have a Facebook page, 14% have a blog, 14% use twitter, and 10% have YouTube videos.

22% intend to create a YouTube video in the next 12 months!

Those siting the importance of online ratings and reviews rose from 42% to 54% since last year.

Over 50% are buying online advertising on their own – though sometimes with assistance.Something else that is striking, in terms of ad spend, is the ratio of spend on print vs mobile. This is something highlighted in an eMarketer study, as reported by Josh Wolford at WebProNews. He writes:

About the Author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network. Subscribe to SmallBusinessNewz RSS Feeds.

Most of the time when I write an article, I share my own personal marketing experiences, viewpoints and opinions – my OWN marketing tips as it were. Today, I’m going to change things up a little and share with you some of the best marketing tips of other successful marketers.

I compiled these remarkable marketing gems from the thousands and thousands of quality blog posts, articles, newsletters and interviews I’ve had the pleasure of reading over the years. The hard part was narrowing my list down to only 20. I could easily have listed 100. Oh well, perhaps I’ll write a sequel or two or three… Enjoy!

- Tim Berry, Planning Startups Stories – “One of the most expensive myths in marketing is that lower price produces higher volume. That might be true for coal or gasoline, but not for most businesses. Lower price means, well, ask yourself: do you always eat at the lowest price restaurant? Purchase the lowest príce clothes? Do you drive the lowest priced car? Pricing is your best statement of value.”

- Drew McClellan, Drew’s Marketing Minute – “Do Less. One of the most tempting aspects of marketing is the veritable smorgasbord of different marketing tactics that you can toss into a marketing plan. It’s almost overwhelming.

Many marketing professionals make the very understandable mistake of believing that more is better. But they’re wrong.

You will be vastly more successful if you do less, but do it better. Pick 3-4 marketing tactics that you think are really going to be valued by your audience and drive the behavior/action you’re looking for. Then, figure out how you can do them in an extraordinary way.

100% consistency. 100% relevancy. Do less. But do them better.”

- Siamak Taghaddos, Grasshopper.com – “People don’t like to be sold. If they did, they would spend all their free time in car dealerships. Instead, people want to be informed, they want to be educated. You’ll find your best customers are those you educate about your product or service and who then decide to purchase it because it is a good fit for them.

Prospects who buy your product/service but are not educated about your offering will be disappointed. They will not be return customers. Worse, they will tell others how they got ‘sold’ by you. In the Internet age, this can quickly be very destructive to your business.”

- John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing – “Become a journalist – no, I’m not really suggesting that you join the staff of some publication, but the acceptance of new media tools like blogs and podcasts has turned the marketing tables – so take advantage of the allure of a reporter and start a blog and podcast and request interviews with industry leaders, community leaders, authors and maybe even your biggest prospects. Instead of asking for a meeting to demonstrate your product, ask to feature your prospect in your next blog or podcast episode. You will automatically change your status in their eyes, enhance your role as an expert and create great content for your marketing materials.”

- Scott Shane, Author of Illusions of Entrepreneurship – “The data shows that most entrepreneurs compete on price, but doing this leads companies to perform worse. New companies are better off competing on service, quality or some other dimension.” (Source of above tips: SmallBizTrends.com)

- Adam Urbanski, TheMarketingMentors.com – “Most people like to overcomplicate things and then they become overwhelmed by too much information and the complexity of what they are trying to create. My advice to all my clients and to everybody reading this is this: map out a simple action plan and work diligently to implement it.

My favorite saying to all my students is this: If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly to start with! It’s implementation over perfection!”

- Michel Fortin, MichelFortin.com – “Time and time again, I’ve told many aspiring copywriters and marketers that a USP is what distinguishes you from the pack. It increases perceived value, expertise, and credibility – without needing to state it outright.

Just by being 10% different, unique, original, or special is enough to make you stand out like a sore thumb in an overcrowded, hypercompetitive marketplace.”

- Robert Fitzpatrick, FalseProfits.com – “This research has shown that the ?LM business model, as it is practiced by most companies, is a marketplace hoax. In those cases, the business is primarily a scheme to continuously enroll distributors and little product is ever retailed to consumers who are not also enrolled as distributors.

Financially, the odds for an individual to achieve financial success under those circumstances rival the odds of winning at the tables in Las Vegas.”

- Jim Connolly, JimsMarketingBlog.com – “You cannot promise the marketplace a high quality service and yet charge a bargain-basement fee! If you do, you will send people a mixed-message, and it will lose you business every time.

Everybody knows that quality doesn’t ever comes cheap – that if something looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true! Make your services as valuable to the marketplace as possible and then charge accordingly.”

- Jill Koenig, GoalGuru.com – “If you want to create massive changes in your life, you must arrange and design your life so that your Goals and Dreams are at the Forefront of your day, instead of them being an afterthought.”

- Tinu Abayomi-Paul, FreeTrafficTip.com – “Search engine traffic is fantastic when you can get it. But don’t rely on search engines alone for traffic to your site. If you added just one more traffic tactic that gets you as much traffic as you get from search engines, you’ve doubled your traffic. And if sales go up at the same rate, you’ve doubled your incóme too.”

- Chris Knight, Ezine Articles Blog – “Set your goals higher than you think you can achieve and then don’t worry about the ‘how you’ll achieve it’… Whatever you think most about expands. If you’re committed, you’ll find a way to pull off the results you’re seeking.”

- Matt Shobe, MattShobe.com – “Find and surround yourself with smart people you like and who complement your strengths, and good things will follow. I think this holds true whether you’re just starting out in an internship or summer job, an entrepreneur with a few partners, or a senior executive of a major corporation.”

- Michael Fleischner, MarketingScoop.com – “Marketing is everything and everything is marketing! The key to a successful marketing campaign, business, or even career, is knowing that you are always communicating. This is not to say that you have to be overly cautious, but rather think about the implication of your messaging.”

About The Author
David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful, free marketing tips to help grow your business! free-marketing-tips-blog.com

There are a zillion ways to use video for business, varying from stylish, high-priced ad crusade commercials to complex landing page pieces designed to pull someone into a purchase. What are the greatest types of video for Small Business owners that can be created cost-effectively and published quickly and produce leads? Here are the Elite Eight.

Introductory Clip

Well-known and regularly underused, the video Intro to the Business is a brief, 5 minute or less (2-3 works well) homepage introduction that tells who you are, what you do and why customers should care. This can be done using a narrative in a commercial replete with lots of motion shots of the shop floor, the office, and merchandise; a talking head of the CEO to a blank camera; or use the 3rd party perspective of an authentic Video interview (see below) Business FAQ.

Development costs can range from free (CEO riffing into a webcam) through a few hundred dollars to thousands for a videographer shot commercial. Google doesn’t care; either will index well given the suitable keyword tags. The question you have to answer is, what is going to be quickly informative, entertaining, and referable (as in Re-tweeted).

Product Demonstration

Specific to demonstrable products, especially ones that move, like machines, toys, electronic devices, and, considering the medium, software. These again shouldn’t run on too long but may be longer than an introductory commercial. A software-based demo may take up to 8 minutes, but you should be able to say it in less time than that. When it comes to demos, sometimes less is more. Most often either a narrative led demo showing strictly merchandise or a spokesperson paced demo (think QVC or Home Shopping Channel) works the best. Just make sure to show the BEST features of your product and explain repeatedly (3x) how this addresses a problem for your prospects.

Professional Abilities

This is very similar to a product demo and works best for suppliers, specifically those in developed countries, trying to demonstrate their superior technology will in reality cost less money or provide better quality merchandise for a customer engaging them with a contract for ongoing services. Machine shops and laser houses love this stuff, showing programmed machinery cutting steel while a guy with a hardhat and safety specs controls the process. This can run 5-10 minutes tops. The key here is, make sure that your ability really is something unique (as in a True Competitive Advantage that others don’t have) and that your video captures its uniqueness.

Company Headlines

This is more of a tug on the heartstrings video that spotlights either what your company has achieved that is noteworthy or what your employees have done for your company. If it’s about the business, it MUST be legitimized by 3rd party reference, as in an accolade won from a prominent registrar (Best in Class, Malcolm Baldridge quality), a status obtained (ISO 9001 certification, etc.) or a cat saved from a tree on the news. When discussing employees, the old Employee of the Month style headline adds a nice human element and speaks to what your company values in its people, and that can make a big difference to prospects with the same value system. For these types of videos, keep them brief (2-4 minutes) and keep them current, particularly for the employee notoriety videos. An Employee of the Month surmises that next month, we’ll see a new one.

Video Landing Page Combination

I could write pages on this one and to be truthful, I’m not a professional at it, but I am sure you’ve experienced pages that have these videos. These are designed to be easy for the vendor of a product or service, meaning, don’t call me, take the action explained on the video. That means enter your email address to get something for FRÉE for agreement to market to you, or sign up for the thing (whatever it is) immediately! Just like text-only sales landing pages, these are long-form videos, with Squeeze Pages (get the email address) videos stretching from 3-7 minutes, and Sales Pages running all the way up to 30 minutes (that is too long in my view, with 10-12 being enough). The most important stuff here: limit options to only this with no other on-page interruptions and make multiple calls to action to the viewer.

Vlog Posts

All about providing info this one is. It comes in the form of a training video, which is conveniently done for things like software applications using screen capture software, or talking head telling something she knows, and often is the Expert Interview (I’ve done a bunch of these in my blog, see sample). The goal is expert positioning for your company while providing real value for the view. These videos can run from 5-30 minutes or longer (think of a book author interview), but I prefer to keep them between 7 and 15 minutes (YouTube has a 15 minute max until you are a recurring video poster). Tickets to success are to limit the subject matter to prevent rambling, don’t provide fluff with a sales pitch to get more, and add some written text fore and aft of the video to set it up and summarize.

Testimonials and Case Studies

Very self-explanatory here, this is 3rd party Reliability Building 101. Take the same things that marketers value about written examples and testimonials and put them on steroids. This definitely MUST be a person unrelated to the business telling about what the company did for him or her, and it can NOT be anonymous (just like those absurd fake reviews you see, “JL from Tampa says …”). Use foresight if the person doing the talking is not good on camera. It shouldn’t make a difference but it does. He doesn’t need to be Ben Affleck, but he can’t be a stiff either. These run no more than 3 minutes in length and follow my rules for great reviews. Quality can’t be weak, but a webcam with reasonable quality can be used effectively, as the subject matter of the person’s referral is the principal piece.

Video Interview

I saved this for last and, as you probably know by now, Smart Company Growth does these in packages for the right type of clients. Video interviews work well for any company that wants to put a human face on its brand, so consider if that is you. They work extremely well when your organization has these three aspects:

1. No physical product – Right for consultants, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, IT people and anyone else offering professional services. You sell intellectual property and that is difficult to show by showing a video shot of your report (although you can show results charts, but the people who can use this method the most, financial advisors, usually have rules stopping it).

2. Trust is the key to business – Same group, right? If you’re an attorney, how can you start to break the trust hurdle down without ever meeting someone? Show some face time with the 3rd party legitimacy that comes from being interviewed.

3. Sameness in Brand - If you look at your rivals’ websites and they look like yours does – competent yet non-distinguishable – you’re a good prospect for a video interview to set yourself apart. Once more, this is why professional service companies fall so nicely into video interview candidates.

About The Author
Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness. He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop. Get your Free LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now.

One of the things that distinguishes me in the world of social media blogging is that I am old … at least old enough to remember how things used to be before we were digitally tracked, sliced, diced, priced, immersed, consumed, and tethered to these social platforms.

I was working in sales and marketing before Facebook … before email … even before computers. And you know it wasn’t THAT long ago that business relationships were built through a firm handshake, a trusting friendship, mutually-shared experiences, and trust.

And then, sometime in the late 1990s, your company probably took all its order forms, sales brochures, and customer service policies to a strange person called a web developer and said, “turn this into a website.”

We could have hardly realized it at the time but we were creating a layer of digital distance between ourselves and our customers that would only become more tangled as layer upon layer of technology was wedged between us. And it was a one-way ticket.

Sure, it was efficient. Administrative costs went down and customers had the convenience of placing orders through our new machines at any time of day or night.

And yet, something was missing. The soul of business was reduced to computer keystrokes.

I thought a lot about this as I was writing my upcoming book. As I was working on it, I had a chance to ask Dr. Robert Cialdini, the celebrated author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (and one of my academic heroes!), what he thought it took to stand out in this increasingly bloodless, dense, and competitive digital world.

His reply was simple.

“Be more human.”

Doesn’t that seem ironic?

Being human, simply being ourselves, can create competitive advantage!

“One of the things I advise when I’m consulting in corporate environments is to accentuate certain features that may be deemed attractive and include them in personal bios — the about us categories and so on,” Dr. Cialdini told me. ”We should be including hobbies and how many kids we have, whether we’re hockey fans or runners, and so on so people can register a connection that they wouldn’t necessarily get online, but is typical of face-to-face contacts. Why not infuse those online contacts with the type of information that humanizes them more and leads to cooperation and rapport?”

Dr. Cialdini pointed to research at Stanford that revealed the importance of human connection:

“Participants were told they were going to negotiate through a problem as part of an exercise, but they were told that if no agreement could be reached, both sides would lose and neither side would receive credit for even in the exercise. When they had participants only negotiate via e-mail, 30 percent of the negotiations remained dead-locked and people walked away with nothing.

“However, in the instances where they had the participants exchange some personal information about themselves via e-mail prior to the negotiations the dead-locks dropped to 6 percent. So the general human tendency is to respond positively when we know something about them, when we see something similar to us, when we see humanizing features of that person’s persona available to us. Those things still work – even over the Internet or e-mail — but we have to do something to infuse those technologies with the same sort of information we might get in face-to-face interactions.”

Behind the Twitter avatars and Facebook updates, the text messages and the Skype conferences, people are the same. They still want to be acknowledged. They want to be heard. They want to cut through that digital distance and get to know you as a person.

Personally, I often struggle with infusing a whole lot of personal stuff into my content, but I do recognize the power of that. How are you doing it? Any ideas or best practices you would like to share?

Check out {grow} for more articles by Mark Schaefer.

About the Author:
Executive Director Mark Schaefer has 28 years of global sales and marketing experience and advanced degrees in business and applied behavioral sciences. He is an award-winning business writer, university lecturer and innovator, receiving seven international patents for new product ideas with Fortune 100 companies. He teaches at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville and serves as an adjunct professor of marketing at Rutgers University. http://www.businessesgrow.com

The Internet Can Help You Offline Too!

The internet is a modern day essential for hospitality businesses of all niches and sizes. Without a website, or even social presence, you risk losing out on a large amount of business, as well as excellent marketing opportunities.

Businesses within the hospitality industry benefit from the fact that travel websites are aplenty, so there’s a chance your small business may have been reviewed on a travel site. If you don’t have your own website however, your competitors have a better chance of succeeding by attracting new visitors and exposing their business to a wider audience.

If you’re unsure how the internet could help your business to excel, then read on for some tips on how to utilise the internet to your advantage.

Track your Competitors

The internet is an excellent way to track exactly what marketing campaigns your competitors are running and even how successful they are. If you find that your sales for one month drop, investigate if any of your main competitors were advertising deals or hosting an event. This could help you to account for anomalous months and see how your competition succeeded. Although copying them isn’t the best idea, use their idea as a creative starting point and do it better!

Analysing your competitors’ websites can help you to identify areas for improvement. Where do they appear in Google for “your business field + local area”? If they rank higher than you in Google they’re likely to receive more new visitors. If you have any problems with the structure of your site make sure you resolve them as they can prevent you from ranking highly.

Get Involved with a Community

Online communities are a great way to add credibility to your small business and help it to grow. Blogging can be an excellent way to gather a readership with a large interest in what your business provides. Blogs are usually (although not exclusively) part of your main website, so the more readers you establish the more traffic your website will receive.

Before beginning a blog, establish exactly who your audience is; if you’re unsure, then this can be done by creating a customer survey. For example, if you’re the owner of a small guesthouse in the countryside, you may find the majority of your customers are hikers – so your blog should aim to capture their imagination.

Although some businesses use blogs to post solely about the business they own, that’s probably not the most interesting read for their target audience. Posts like “The 5 Best Hidden Walking Routes in XXX” are far more likely to appeal to your intended audience. This can help to reel in new visitors for your site and if you gain a loyal readership, start a new community.

Once your blog has gained popularity, you can post the occasional sales post that will be of interest for your readers. This could inform them of special events you’re hosting or discounts on your offering. You could also gather more readers by offering anyone who subscribes to your blog a one-time 10% discount off your services; this could help to boost sales and the popularity of your website.

Don’t forget to share every blog post through your social channels; if the content’s interesting, people will share it too! A great blog post could gain hundreds of shares, which would be great exposure for your website.

Also, interact with your followers and fans on their level. If you’re a restaurant owner, status updates similar to “what’s your favourite night cap?” will usually spark a flow of conversation. Engaging with your customers in an informal manner can make your small business seem a whole lot more interesting and can even create a community with your business being the common interest.

Using the internet isn’t just about making money online, it can also significantly help your business offline. Deals and discounts which are well marketed can see your customer numbers rocket. Although “making it” online won’t happen overnight, investing the time and effort to develop a credible online presence can significantly help you to grow in the long run.

About the author:
Written by Stephanie Staszko on behalf of Branded Bathrooms who retail vanity units and bathroom suites, perfect for businesses within the hospitality industry.

The ability, some might say attempt, to multitask is a curse of sorts. While working on ten things at once may seem efficient, each of those things gets roughly 10% of our greatness while we’re doing it.

That may actually be fine for, say, deleting emails, but is that enough for writing a note to a client, creating an action plan for a product launch or determining the fee you plan to charge for a project? Probably not.

Attention is one of our scarcest resources these days and guarding it in a way that allows us to work with intention requires the ability to remain present and mindful in the midst of the storm raging all around us. (Otherwise known as your business)

In fact, it not only requires us to be as present as possible for the daily tasks we tackle, it also requires us to be continually mindful of where we are going and why we are going there and that requires a process of its own.

Planned Mindfulness

It’s one thing to conduct annual strategic planning sessions and quite another to live the intention of those sessions after the white boards are erased.

I believe that you need to create a daily routine that involves revisiting your greatest goals and objectives and developing what I’ve come to call a passion mantra that upon seeing, hearing or reading energizes you and snaps you back into a state of mindfulness.

Creating your passion mantra may require time sitting and writing about what matters most to you, what drives you, what motivates you, what scares you and what excites you, but if you can create a simple statement that helps hold you accountable for what you intend to do, you’ll have a tool that consistently inspires right action and keeps you out of the act of wallowing in self-pity and doubt.

I’ve shared my own personal passion mantra before and I’ll share it here, but know that these are merely words and their real power if the feeling I attach to them.

My mantra is: My life is an amazing adventure; my business is an amazing adventure.

Witness Your Thoughts

Another habit that you may need to form in order to work steadily towards the intention of your business is to actually start to pay attention to your thoughts and reactions throughout the day.

Frankly, this can be exhausting work, but if you can begin to step back and analyze how your mind unconsciously processes everything that happens throughout the day, you might start to get a glimpse into some of the negative and limiting ways we view things as either good or bad.

The problem with most of reactions to things is they don’t always serve our overall objectives. If your intention is to be a business that provides incredible value by helping your customers achieve their goals, you’ll find that giving more than you take is the surest path to success. However, if your first thought in most relationships is what’s in it for me, or I’ve got to watch my back, you’ve got some powerful forces working against you.

How we view things is simply a choice, but that choice can become so ingrained that we no longer even make it, it simply occurs out of habit. When we start to slow down and observe these choices as they are happening, we gain the power to make or not make them in accordance with our driving intention.

Present Actfullness

Our intentions drive our thoughts and our thoughts form our actions. That’s what makes planning, goal setting and mindful thinking so powerful. However, there are armies lined up and waiting to derail you from your path to success – some come in the form of your own thoughts and others come in the form of an evil printer that won’t work as advertised.

In addition to witnessing how your thoughts create and form your reality, you must develop habits that help you change your physical state and bring it intentionally into being present along with your thoughts.

This is the easy part. Develop routines that require you to stop your work hourly and do ten pushups or take a lap around your office building. Fill up a jug of water and empty it hourly. Take a fifteen-minute afternoon nap. Write a handwritten thank you note several times a day.

What you do physically isn’t as important as the act of stopping and bringing your awareness back into the room by removing your attention from all the tasking at hand. I find that the simplest of planned physical mindfulness, even intentional breathing has the power to center me.

Present for Customers

So, really the point of all of this mindfulness is to help you build a better business that delivers value to world and less stress to you in the process, but the practical side is that it will allow you to be present for your customers and that will pay off immediately.

We all like to think we have our customers needs and desires in mind at all times, but quite often we get caught up in attempts to appear to have all the answers, in stating our case rather than listening, or in feigning care when our real motivation is the sale.

You can’t be fully present in every client interaction, but occasionally, maybe systematically, you need to look your clients in the eye, in a way that lets them feel you are listening, and ask them how you could help them more – and then shut up and listen without judgment. My guess is you will find this incredibly rewarding.

Present for Staff

In the midst of the day-to-day rush of projects, tasks, questions and actions the real development of the people that work all around you can get lost.

About the Author:
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, award winning social media publisher and author Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System and Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network that trains and licenses small business marketing consultants around the world.