Keyword Focus
November 23, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Notices
The Reason My Blog Posts Are Thinning Out On This Blog!
The more time I spend online and build blogs and websites the more and more I realize that this WHOLE game revolves around keywords.
I get lots of clients asking me to make them a blog or a CMS site for which they have grand designs of using as a platform to launch their online career and/or some latest product, gadget or service.
The startling thing is that they all have their focus in the same wrong places. What I mean is that they're invariably focused on design, trendy or cool sounding names, graphics, appearance, all kinds of blogging and site features including optin forms and newsletter blasting,.. BUT,.. they fail to focus on and give any kind of real attention to where their customers, clients and site visitors are going to come from.
WHAT ARE YOUR KEYWORDS FOLKS?
Unless you know from the outset what market you're competing in/for and what the specific keywords are that relate to your market, product or service then you're just wasting your time and your blog or site is going to be left to toss around like a cork on an open sea of competition.
Take this blog for instance,.. The Russ Rave,… it's a classic example. Sure I like my blog and I'm quite content with its appearance and layout and cool backend functions but what about traffic? I mean targeted traffic? This blog is so wide and diverse in its topics ranging from Copywriting and Internet Marketing, to WordPress themes, plugins, videos etc.
Whilst I get traffic across those areas its really spasmodic and hardly worthwhile. I mean, theses days the whole blogging scene is really streamlined and focused. Gone are the days when you could start a blog about "blogging" and expect to be successful,.. because you're competing with the Darren Rowse's, the Yara Staraks, the John Chows, The Gideon Shalwicks etc. And then there's the "make money online" niche (if it can still be called a "niche"… more like a monolithe!) In that niche you're up against the Frank Kerns, Mike Filsaimes, John Reeses, Lee McIntyres etc. So you have to be pretty dedicated and focused if that's going to be your ball game.
So,.. what I've decided to do is to dedicate myself and my time to breaking out into other more defined niches and create blogs specifically around that. It's not that I'm not interested in "making money online", its' just that my performance so far in that niche has been woeful (making the odd sale) but I do make money online by building blogs and CMS sites and selling associated services and products around that,- so that's where I'm going to really focus. It just makes sense really. So I'll have a blog for Wordpress and blog technical support and stuff, and a blog for website design, a blog for SEO etc etc. I'm actually working on them right now and spending a bit of time to get the keywords right so that I can highly for certain phrases that I know will get me some very targeted unique visitors who'll be looking for exactly the things I'm offering.
I'll be posting specific URL links later as my other blogs and sites evolve! <<< WATCH THIS SPACE >>>
In the meatime,.. this blog THE RUSSRAVE will stay active and published and will just be treated as my personal soapbox and "home" platform where I'll post stuff from time to time and just see how it evolves.
The reason I'm doing this is to be laser focused on promoting and marketing via keywords that are specific to the markets of which I'm interested in pursuing.
Please feel free to leave a comment if you wish.(we're CommentLuv enabled so you'll get a linkback to your blog)
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Giving Too Much Free Stuff Can be Bad For Your Business
September 26, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Newbie Help, internet marketing
I try to keep my subscriptions on other people’s lists to a minimum. For the simple reason that I like to remain as focussed as possible on objectives and tasks, and the thing is that getting inundated with emails that are all clambering for my attention isn’t a good thing.
Presently I have hundreds and hundreds of emails unopened in my inbox even though I had it down to under 10 just a couple of months ago. So although I intended to go through and read many of them I’ll now just be bulk deleting the majority simply because they’re probably no longer relevant.
But the thing I really wanted to talk about is when you get on someone’s list and that person or marketer is really worthwhile and has good content and good supportive material that you would find useful,.. but then they start sending you invitations to get even more free stuff (lots of it in fact is very good,..and surprising that such good bbooks and programsare actually free). The thing that I’m saying is negative is the fact that these freebie offers are coming in every 2 or 3 days (sometimes more) and what I’ve noticed is that many of the offers are enticements for me to sign up to a new list with which the original marketer is affiliated (that’s good for him because he gets the referal commission,.. many of which are ongoing under micro-continuity programs) but it just means that you start to get more and more emails from other marketers that eventually end up being so intense that you just have to opt out of a whole bunch of lists.
Personally,.. I think that any marketer loses credibility and also reduces his or her own effectiveness by spreading themselves too thin over too many programs. Wouldn’t it be better to say focus on two (maximum 3) programs within a particular group that you really believe in and just totally focus on them. Write articels around them, blog about them, tweet about them, comment on them etc etc. That way you don’t end up aggravating people with endless offers with "this is the answer" connotation and thereby eventually lose credibility and just creat confusion (and mistrust?) in the eyes of your subscribers.
I’ll admit that I’ve personally been a bit slack in promoting what I believe are two of the very best programs for internet marketers to get involved with. These particular guys are the real deal when it comes to proving a track record of results that are totally free from all the typical guru hype and BS that abounds on the internet.
I’ll be featuring more about these two marketers shortly,.. but for now I just felt that I should make a point about being barraged by way too much free content. If you’ve got good free content to give to your list,.. then my recommendation is to limit it or drip-feed it to them so that it can be received fairly and given more serious attention too. I think we’re all getting a bit fed up of the "get in quickly" "this closes at midnight" "act before this dissapears",… I for one am just sick of seeing all of that even though it’s true that scarcity does motivate people to act,.. there are better ways of doing it.
Have a great day!
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Internet Marketing Momentum
August 14, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Momentum, internet marketing
I decided to do a search of some articles and blog posts that were focusing on Internet Marketing Momentum and I came across a few that were quite worthwhile.
In fact, a couple of them are very good and they do touch on other aspects of marketing success and promotion in general so I thought I’d share them with you here.
Please note that all links open up in this browser window (unless you right-click "open in new tab/window"), so you’ll have to use your browser’s "Back" button to return to this page 
The Pivotal Stage In The Rise of a Professional Blogger | John …
I figured, as I blog about valuable information like how to publish board games, Chinese manufacturing, blogging, and internet marketing will provide me with readers who will be prepared to buy my games. … A lot of momentum is required to launch a new business. And I remember John saying in an interview that I read, “previous experience plays a part.” How very true. For those who persevere during the darkest moments will come out the other side of the spectrum as a …
Internet Marketing Tips #4 – Gary Simpson
Alex Jeffreys Internet Marketing. … Meaning: Do nothing-nothing happens-Inertia becomes impossible to overcome. Must…watch…another…Oprah… So, the more action you put into something, you will experience not only a larger reaction, but the action itself gains more energy and momentum, the “snowball” effect, thus making all future actions easier to initiate and maintain. Class dismissed… Denis. Oh yea, may I mention (and link) to you and this page in my upcoming ebook, …
INTERNET BUSINESS REVENUE PRO: Using Momentum To The Advantage of …
‘Internet Business Revenue Pro dot blogspot dot com’ is the definitive network marketing and cyber business guide to the wonderful and wild web. This site uncovers the technical aspects of thriving in the world of online business, …
Building Marketing Momentum Without Social Media
Michael Stelzner is an experienced Internet marketer, but even he was surprised with the results from the marketing campaigns that he and his team implemented for their Social Media Success Summit . In the interview that follows, …
Hope you enjoyed the read,.. and if you’d like to open up any conversation around this topic or any of the articles just leave a comment and let’s get into it!
Until next time…. Cheers,..and have a great day!
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Copywriting Inspiration
July 30, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Copy Writing
Copywriting Inspiration
If you’re an experienced marketer online or offline you’ll be aware that copy writing is the most important ingredient when it comes to making sales and getting people involved with you product, service or cause.
At some stage you’ll probably need to attend to the task of creating copy and if you’re a relative beginner (especially to Internet marketing) then that prospect could be a daunting one for you even if you’ve previously had some experience with persuasive writing.
The thing to bear in mind is that sales copy is simply “salesmanship in print”. That fact and statement has been echoed by all of the talented and great copy writers in existence but the thing is to understand what salesmanship is and how the approach to selling and the whole sales process changes from one industry to another as well as changing between peer groups and generation demographics.
It seems that the days of “hard sell” (pushy style) are all but behind us even though I’ve seen a recent wave of subtle hard sell messages online where the “fear”, “scarcity”, and “inadequacy” factor have been played on, and in some cases I believe too much so.
These days, people seem to respond far more positively to being sold to “softly” or in fact not “sold” to at all but “helped” to make investment choices that benefit them richly. For sure consumers are smarter and more discerning than ever and when you combine that with the fact that the lingering thought of recession, foreclosure sales and corporate downsizing, it just makes the task of facilitating sales more challenging than it’s ever been.
I draw my inspiration and copy writing ability from my past sales experience which included a stretch selling life assurance and investment products, door to door (where the first 15 words and 7 seconds either made you or broke you) as well as some media advertising and direct sales,- so I have a slight head start on the task. Having said that, I still like to carefully analyze good sales copy and try to break it down into demonstrable chunks which I can emulate here and there.
However, rather than sitting blank minded and frustrated at an empty word-doc, I often like to take inspiration from reading some good articles on copywriting and sales. That most often leads me either to Seth Godin’s blog or to Michel Fortin’s blog. I’ve found both of them to be excellent sources of information, tips, resources and inspiration. I was actually looking over a few of Michel Fortin’s articles last night and I realized that one of the reasons why he enjoys such favorable notoriety as a copy writing authority (apart from being naturally gifted in that regard) is because his blog has been going for years and as a result there are literally hundreds of articles from which you can draw a lot of information. I usually rock on over to his site and type in a search for some particular topic and most often I get a choice of several really terrific articles that I can find some useful tips or pointers from. I haven’t written this to win any favor or secure any financial reward from Michel at all,.. I just genuinely feel that the guy really has his finger on the pulse of what’s currently happening with copywriting and as such is a resource to avail myself of. One of the things about my blog is that I like to focus on pointing people in directions that I feel could help, and in the area of copy writing Michel Fortin is certainly one of them!
I’ll be regularly adding articles to this category so you can bookmark it, or subscribe to RSS or newsletter located at the top of the page.
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The Momentum Forces
July 19, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Momentum
Momentum is an awesome and formiddable thing,- harness it and you’ll be 
unstoppable, but be at the effect of it and it’s like trying to shake the weight of the world from your shoulders.
How does this relate to Internet Marketing? Whether your focus is on the "IM" "niche" or whether you’re marketing to some other specialist niche,.. you first have to consider "momentum". Get it working for you otherwise by default it will start working against you. Let’s take the Internet Marketing niche (in which we could include any kind of professional online consultancy, whether that be in email etiquette or SEO management or whatever).
When you first decide to commit to this aspect of the online marketing realm then you’re approaching it as a relative novice who is about to embark upon a steep learning curve (the steeper the better actually!). It doesn’t matter whether you’re already successful offline in the same or a related field such as corporate consultancy, marketing, selling, success coaching, wedding planning or cake decorating,.. the fact is that the Internet is a whole different ballgame and the moment you stick your toe in the water you’ll start to get sucked into the Inertia and momentum of the Internet because whether you like it or not the fact is that the Internet and online marketing (in virtually every single niche you can think of ) is already charging along at an enormous rate of knots and therefore if you don’t recognize or understand the dynamics of the momentum of that then you’re likely to get swept away in the undertow of that mighty wave and get dumped very heavily on the sandy shores of disappointment and frustration despite the stellar effort and enthusiasm that you started with. On the other hand, if you go into it with a firm strategy and adequate knowledge and are willing to perform daily tasks that will be VERY difficult to stick to then you can succeed.
So,.. what are some of the ways in which you can get the power of momentum working for you when you’re actually setting off from a standing start?
I can list just a few here, although there are many more than I’m listing here (some of which we’ll visit in later articles).
- Get yourself on top of your task management (some people refer to this as "time management" but I don’t like that term because it infers that we "mere mortals" can control or manage time,…which of course we cannot (although many scientists have tried to figure that out including Einstein). However, we can control the way in which we manage our tasks and control our own behaviors and set patterns of productivity. I’ll confess right here and now and say that this is not one of my strong areas and I tend to let distractions and procrastination creep in too often, but in knowing that I do implement some systems and use some software that helps me greatly, one such product which is really quite brilliant and so easy to use allows me to set tasks and then to assign time quadrants for each of the tasks. I then just activate that task when I’m ready to get the task done and I stick with it until its completed while the software and the timer keeps me focused on the outcome being delivered on time. Then, upon completion a report is recorded and I can review these reports at the end of the day to see how objective I was in (A) allocation of adequate time for the task,. and (B) getting the task completed as specified. It really does help. I’ll be featuring this product very soon as soon as I write a proper review.
- Identify your daily goals and split them up task by task BEFORE you start the day. If you wait until your day gets rolling then you’ll find that by the time you’ve checked your emails and clicked a couple of "must see now" links that you’ve already wasted the first couple of hours,… and if you’re working on your Internet projects in your spare time (say after dinner of an evening) it can be 11pm before you realize that you’ve done zip and just added further weight to the tide of inertia puching against you. I like to write down the following day’s tasks the evening before,.. just take 15 minutes to really focus on what’s important and then stick to that list in the morning and you’ll find it really helps a lot and motivates you further because you can see results happening!
- Getting a mentor, accountability partner, or facilitator to work with. This is a really powerful way to get the momentum forces working for you because you’re immediately harnessing the experiences and skills of another person that’s working with you to keep you on track and help you avoid mistakes, pitfalls, and all kinds of results producing negative thoughts and emotions. However, just be careful that if you are hiring a "mentor" or whatever, that you know that the person can really help you and that the objectives of the engagement are put in writing before you start,. like having a working agreement that you can keep referencing against. If you can’t afford a mentor to personally work with (usually a mentor will cost you anywhere from $100 per month to $1,000,.. many of which are very worthwhile,..but some are absolutely useless,.. or worse…they can be damaging) there are alternatives you can employ. If you can’t afford to hire a mentor of be a part of a mentoring program (where the mentor works with a small group of say 20 people) then you can assign yourself one or two "guru mentors" for FREE. Yep,.. I said the "F" word… "free". How to do this,…. There are many really worthwhile gurus out there that have fantastic programs and write a lot of articles, e-reports and videos to help people achieve certain objectives (usually centered around IM success). Most of this content that is FREE,.. is really great and very worthwhile and powerful if applied properly. Of course the "guru" is enticing his "free" content followers with enough excellent content to convince them that their (the "guru’s") programs and products are worth subscribing to,- which in such cases of excellent free content,. the paid subscription is much more powerful again and can be the difference between mediocre achievement and remarkable permanent success. The key here to bear in mind is to NOT make the huge mistake of subscribing to 3, 4, 5 or more free programs because you’ll just get buried in information overload and conflicting methods and processes that can either really slow you down or stop you due to frustration and lack of focus. My advice is to select ONE guru (two at most) and stick with his or her free program until you’ve really got the most out of it. Follow all the information and read all of the content and watch all of the videos and then take notes and apply what you’ve learnt. If you do that you’ll find that it can really help you to move forward and clear up your focus. Once you’ve arrived at that point you’ll then be in a much more commanding position to make an objective choice about committing to some payment based course, but at least this time you’ll be able to justify $197 to $997 as being a sound and practical investment rather than a fear based emotional reaction to the need to advance too quickly. I’ll be featuring some of the free content programs and courses in m review pages shortly, so stay tuned or subscribe to this article via RSS feed.
Another example I can give of seeking out and assigning yourself a free mentor is in my own case where I’m very interested in successful copy writing. I’ve written many things and have created some very good sales and landing pages,..BUT,.. I certainly do not consider myself a guru and I always review and analyze other expertly written pieces of copy and research cutting edge techniques that are know to be getting good conversion results. I have several sources for this purpose and constantly use Google search to help me find new things, however, the main copy writing guru that I constantly refer to is Michel Fortin. I frequent his blog several times a week and I’m a member of his mailing list,… and that’s another thing,- his emails are great and always loaded with great free value and references. Now I don’t wish to present myself as a Michel Fortin freeloader,- and in fact I so far have never spent a dollar with him, but there’s a distinct probability that one day I will buy something from him or via one of his site links (if not, I really should start hitting his "tipping jar" because I really do appreciate availaing myself of his "free" mentoring support). One final and important codacil to that remark is that it only becomes "mentoring" material if you take it seriously and respectfully and then apply it,.. otherwise you may as well add it to the volumes of other free info gathering digital dust on your computer’s hard drive!
Cheers,
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Newbie Help at Hand
July 19, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Newbie Help
Recently I’ve been reading a lot of blog post comments in which newbies are crying out for real help because they’re getting sick and tired of being fed all the high promising BS crap that’s been fed (and continues to be fed) to them which promise the world and then delivers nothing but frustration and disappointment not too mention even more debits on their already overburdened credit cards. I recalled myself how difficult it was just 3 short years ago to get my head around all of the issues and opportunities. Especially the basic stuff like using ftp, edit html, creating a web page, a landing page, a blog, a video etc. Now all of that is so second nature to me and I can virtually do it all in my sleep. That led me to thinking about how much I could help so many newbies get on top of this whole internet marketing and Web2.0 craziness that seems to change weekly and is so hard at times to keep up with.
I’ve already set up a tech-help department "WP-TechPlus" which provides regular hands free monthly support for anyone running a WordPress blog, and there may be many readers that could find such a service very worthwhile. However, they’ll be other readers that either can’t afford that kind of service and would prefer to do it themselves if possible.To that end I’d invite anyone with a question or problem regarding WordPress or even standard html pages, ftp, mySQL or anything of relevance to speak up and ask for assistance. I may later on start a forum for that purpose, but for now you can either leave a comment under this article or submit a message via the contact form on our Contact page (see link in footer).
Apart from that, I’ll be featuring more articles and information on anything that I feel could be worthwhile for newbies to be considering in order to get ahead and make a success of their Internet efforts.
As mentioned earlier in this article, there are a lot of programs and products on the market and continualy being released that are just completely useless and will do little more than waste your time and your money but on the other hand there are some programs and products that are excellent and will definately get you the results you desire when you apply the methods and principles. I’ll be dedicating a seperate page to review products and programs that I consider to be really worthwhile so that readers can get an insider view of what they’re all about, including the positives and the negatives from an objective perspective. I won’t be reviewing anything that I think is a waste of time,.. and I’ll be up front and tell you that I won’t be reviewing anything that I am not an affiliate of or that I haven’t already bought myself. One thing I can promise you is that I absolutely WILL NOT EVER review or promote any product or program that I don’t believe in or that I think is just garbage presented in fancy e-covers and flashy sales pages. So,.. yes I will make money from purchases made via my links on reviews made, but I will NEVER promote anything just for the sake of an affiliate commission or because the product is "high ticket" and offers the juciest pay outs,… such as is found with many $997 and $1997 products (most of which are complete garbage!).
One thing I will be doing with my reviews and product recommedations will be to provide readers with a special incentive to use my links to access the products and programs by way of giving something of extra value myself,..I’m not sure exactly what those incentives will be but they will be worthwhile and hopefully considered as being irresistable offers!
I’m looking forward to helping all IM newbies, newcomers and freshmen as much as possible with future content and support. In the meantime, if you have a question (I don’t care how trivial or "stupid" it may seem) just drop me a line,… you’ll find I’m a very approachable guy and I will always give you a reply!
Cheers,… and here’s to your unbounding success!
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