Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Top Misc Content on Internet

Top Misc Content on Internet

Effective Construction Resume Reflects Your Expertise

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

An effective construction resume should have all the keywords and key strengths that are an essential part of the construction field.

Instant Payday Loans Are Your Saviors at Times of Necessity

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Things to Consider Before Applying For a PayDay Loan.

Best Article Submission Tool - Read This First

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Acquiring the best article submission tool will definitely make the business obtain the online presence that they would like. Necessary elements that may be considered before selecting a tool for submission would be the relevance and ease, the articles being available, the amount of articles that could be submitted and their versions. In the end, it should be cautiously evaluated before a business decides to acquire one.

How to Manage Your Debts More Effectively This Year

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Make 2010 the year you really get a grip of your finances. The sense of relief and being in control will give you a huge boost and you can start to enjoy life again. Follow some of our top tips on getting your finances fully under control.

Green Jobs Mean Green Money and a Green Earth

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

You will only spend a few months or years earning your certification and/or associate's degree but the rewards will be for the long-term. This way, green jobs are yours for the taking, thanks to your educational advantage.

Get Your Green Jobs Today

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

In many ways, the move is reflective of the thrust towards combining the promotion of the economy with the protection of the environment. The reasons behind it may lean more towards the economy than the environment but we can only be thankful that, finally, something is being done for the green sector.

Eyes on the Green Dollars of Green Jobs

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Green jobs are better in many ways. You can keep your eyes on the green dollar while ensuring that you are doing more than your fair share in keeping Mother Earth as green as possible.

Defining Green Jobs

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Green jobs are in high demand nowadays. One will do well to take the opportunities in the field for the sake of their own pockets, the economy and the environment.

The Importance of Image Perception

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Image is a powerful word. What you want to project to others? How do you want others to judge you? What impression you want to leave behind? Who you are, what you do and how you look are factors combined together to form a professional look referred to as Image Perception.

Everything You Should Know About Closing

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

You need to know what to expect during the closing to be able to prepare for the costs you have to pay.

Resume Keywords - The Growing Importance of a Keyword Resume

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Resume keywords... who needs to worry about those little details? Only job seekers who want to be called in for interviews, says this former recruiter. His take on the growing importance of technical jargon, and why a keyword resume is the only resume that will work in today's job market.

Why Google AdWords Management

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

AdWords is a stepping stone for small businesses. If you have a business, use it or higher someone to do it for you and gain a competitive advantage.

Why Apartment Locators Don't Like Yieldstar

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Discusses the Yieldstar System many apartment companies are using today. Is it a wise choice?

Merchandising a Simple Point of View

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

In this article I want to try to make the term merchandising very understandable for every one. For those in the Marketing-Advertising-Business world it is going to be a very simple way to explain it but to every one else may be a good manner and approach in order to understand what is it and how it works.

Mortgage Debt Relief Assistance Services - Who Will Get Them?

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 09:00 PM PST

Obama's new administration is offering help to borrowers who can't meet their monthly payments. Billions of dollars are expected to relieve the misery of thousands of Americans.

Blog Content Writing

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 09:07 PM PST

A blog is a great tool that can be used to discuss about new happenings and news results that your company releases on a daily or weekly basis. It is where your visitors can view, read and partake in opinions that are discussed over the site. For this reason it is quintessential that you generate the perfect and appropriate content that is in relevance with the products or services that are on offer.

SEED.COM - Where Your Content Flourishes

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 07:35 PM PST

Web Content Tutorials Writing for the Web Tutorials, Articles Webpage Copy Writing - Web Site Resources, Website Tips - WebsiteTips.com

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 01:41 PM PST

On discovering content strategy : Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 09:59 AM PST

"If content is still king, Web content strategy is how kings are made." --Possibly the best line from any article I have read.

Scroll Magazine | It’s time for content strategy by Melissa Rach

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 08:14 AM PST

Website content writing tips that work

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 08:00 AM PST

Website content writing tips that work

Buy Website Content, Order Articles - Constant Content

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 07:00 AM PST

The Growing Market for SEO Outsourcing | SEO Outsourcing, Content ...

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 01:02 AM PST

The last release of July Online Work Index from the website ELANCE shows that more and more SEO job postings are being produced.

Stock and flow « Snarkmarket

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 10:04 PM PST

Website Copywriting | Web Content Services | Scribizzy

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 09:41 PM PST

The Art of Zen Copywriting for Bloggers

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 06:32 AM PST

image of zen rocks

If you’re like many bloggers, you have (or you’re thinking of developing) products and services to sell to your readers.

Your instinct might be to write the sort of hard sell copy you’ve seen so much of, because you will assume that’s what always works.

But will it? Maybe. Maybe not.

The trouble with hard sell is that it’s overused, it can destroy your credibility, and many bloggers just don’t feel comfortable being so aggressive.

So what do you do?

I’d like to show you a different approach to selling that turns conventional wisdom on its head, replacing hard sell with a less aggressive and more natural way to write copy. We’ll call it Zen Copywriting.

The limitations of writing hard sell copy

Most of the techniques for hard sell copy come from the world of "direct response" marketing, which is the business I work in.

This sort of selling is often highly aggressive. We want to “capture” the attention of our audience, "push" their hot buttons, and “force” them to act immediately.

It’s a good approach. It’s based on sound behaviorist principles that do, in fact, work. We operate with the functional analogy that copy is a "sales person" speaking to prospective buyers. We want our sales person to coax, urge, persuade, and sell — just like someone going door-to-door.

However, this is only an analogy, a way of thinking about what we do. It is not reality.

Unlike face-to-face sales, words can’t force anybody to do anything. A car salesman can grab you by the lapel and sit you down in the vehicle he wants to sell. He can, to a certain extent, push you past many of your doubts and objections with an aggressive approach. But written words can’t be that forceful.

In copywriting, there is a line beyond which the aggressive approach cannot take you. When you reach this limit, it’s time to think of a different analogy.

Zen Copywriting: The “passive” approach to selling

Let’s reverse our typically aggressive thinking that casts us as the hunter and our prospects as the prey.

Instead of thinking “I’m going to capture a sale,” think “I’m going to remove the barriers to buying and allow people to follow their natural inclination to make purchases from me.”

No, I’m not wearing a tie-dyed shirt and hugging trees here. I’m just talking about understanding the modern consumer and writing copy in a way that’s more natural and appealing to a wider segment of your audience.

Consider a few basic principles:

Principle #1: Your readers WANT to buy from you. We live in a highly evolved consumer culture. Shopping and buying are the modern equivalent of the hunting and gathering of our ancestors. People don’t just buy necessities; the majority of purchases today are discretionary. Luxury cars, smart phones, designer clothing, gourmet food, books and magazines for every interest. People are in a daily frenzy to purchase products of every kind, including yours.

Principle #2: You CANNOT force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. No matter how good your copy might be, it is not endowed with magic powers. For all the huffing and puffing we copywriting gurus do about persuasive communication, the reality is that you can’t force a sale with words. The best you can hope for is to capitalize on an existing need or want and turn it into a buying action.

Principle #3: Selling does not require brilliant copywriting. (Don’t tell my clients this. It will be our little secret.) Since people are natural consumers, we don’t need clever ideas to sell them our products and services. They are actively looking for things to buy, because they want to solve problems and better themselves. Yes, there’s a certain amount of want-making you can do, but you’ll find much more success if you offer items for which there is an established need or want.

Principle #4: You must remove the barriers to buying. If we agree that people naturally consume, that you can’t force a sale, and that clever copy is not a requirement, we must ask ourselves why prospects accept one offer and reject another. What is stopping the natural inclination to buy? What are the barriers to buying? All things being equal, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that if we identify and remove these barriers, our sales will increase? When we take away all the reasons prospects have to say, “No,” what can prospects do but say, “Yes?”

Are you starting to feel excited? Can you see the possibilities here? Keep reading, I think you'll like this.

The benefits of Zen Copywriting

Going beyond the behaviorist approach of hard sell and adopting a barrier-removal mindset presents a host of benefits for the smart blogger writing copy:

  • You see your audience as real, individual people, not just faceless targets.
  • You start making a genuine effort to help people, rather than just sell stuff to them.
  • You decrease your reliance on random copywriting techniques.
  • You increase your chances of finding meaningful appeals that hit the real hot buttons.
  • You reduce the "perceived risk" your potential customers feel about buying from you.
  • You ensure more long term business by avoiding tricks and deceptive ploys.
  • You develop a more realistic, practical approach to writing and selling.
  • You have a better sense of when to follow copywriting rules, when to break them, and when to make up your own.

Overcoming the barriers to buying

The barriers to buying include everything — physical, emotional, intellectual, and financial — that may stand in the way of your prospective customers responding positively.

Your goal is to ask yourself questions about your copy to identify and remove every conceivable barrier so that absolutely nothing stops the sale.

The identification barrier

All of us have a certain image of ourselves which helps determine how we think and act. Does your copy make your prospect think, “Yes. A person like me would buy this” or maybe “I want to be like people who would buy this, so I’ll buy it, too”?

Does your copy clearly target the prospect you’re aiming for? Does your headline get the attention of your particular prospect? Is your message interesting to your prospect? Does your copy have a distinct personality to which your prospect can relate?

The clarity barrier

Don’t expect to sell something to someone who doesn’t understand what you’re selling or the benefits of accepting your offer.

Is your offer absolutely clear? Does your copy say what you really intend to say? Are all the details about your product or service fully understandable to your prospect? Is your copy easy to scan and easy to understand at a glance? Is it simple, straightforward, and to-the-point?

The product identity barrier

Your product or service should have a distinct identity.

Remove your product from your message and replace it with a competitor’s product. If your copy still makes sense, you have not established identity.

Do you provide a “big idea” for your product or service? Can your prospect instantly grasp your unique selling proposition? Have you proven your superiority? Have you turned all your features into benefits that are meaningful to your prospect?

The involvement barrier

Have you given your prospect a choice to make? Do you encourage involvement with a quiz or checklist? Do you ask your prospect to complete something (like an order form) to accept your offer? Have you offered your prospect something of true personal value? Do you use audio, video, photos, illustrations, or animations to help activate the senses?

The credibility barrier

You may be truthful, but does your prospect actually believe you? You can’t argue a prospect into trusting you. You must remove all doubt with tangible displays of credibility.

On what authority do you make your offer? Do you show how other people have used your product or service? Do you communicate your reputation without chest beating?

Can you show how there’s a trend for using your product? Do you provide testimonials from satisfied customers or experts? Have you featured your guarantee? Do you show who personally backs up the guarantee? Do you make clear any qualifications to your offer? Do you have teeny legal type that might arouse suspicion?

The immediacy barrier

Have you expressed why it’s so important to respond now rather than later? If your offer is really urgent, does your copy make it sound urgent?

Do you tell people what you want them to do in clear, specific terms? Have you painted a “word picture” of how your prospect will immediately benefit by responding? Do you have a deadline? Have you talked about the scarcity of your product (only 100 remaining)? Instead of punishing those who order late, can you reward those who order early?

The acceptability barrier

Have you put yourself into the shoes of your prospects to consider whether your offer is really acceptable to them? Have you made an appeal to your prospect’s emotional needs? Do you also make an appeal to logic? Is your product, offer, and overall presentation “likable?” Does the idea of responding make your prospect feel good?

Have you made an effort to show how desirable your offer is? Does your offer allow prospects to feel that responding is consistent with their self-image, goals, and past actions? Do you give prospects the logical justification they need to make a purchase?

The accessibility barrier

Is there any physical barrier your prospect must overcome to respond?

Is your order button easy to see? Does your web page load quickly? Is your site able to handle the traffic you expect to generate? Are you using popups, scripts, or animations that may cause problems with certain browsers? Are links obvious or do you confuse people with underlines that don’t link to anything? What can someone do if there’s a question about your offer or if something goes wrong?

With hard sell copywriting, you try to beat your prospective customers into submission with line after line of copy. With Zen Copywriting, you offer something of high quality that people want, then focus on making it so easy to buy that people can’t refuse.

Wearing a tie-dyed shirt while you’re writing your copy is optional.

To learn more about how to understand and write copy for today’s buyers, read A copywriter's guide to consumer psychology at Pro Copy Tips.

About the Author: Dean Rieck is one of America’s top freelance copywriters and publisher of the Direct Creative Blog and Pro Copy Tips, a blog that provides copywriting tips for smart copywriters.

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The Most Important Success Tip: Stop Lying Down with Dogs, Already

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 07:31 AM PST

image of sleeping puppy

I remember hearing a factoid a while back that said that your income is destined to become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

At the time, that bothered me. Outside of my family, I was hanging out with some folks who weren’t exactly rolling in dough. So to me, this factoid said:

  1. Dude, you’re going to be poor;
  2. Dude, if you want out, you’re going to have to ditch your friends and phony up to some rich people, which is lame; and
  3. Dude, if you do that, your new social circle probably won’t say “dude” at all.

But it got worse.

Your weight is destined to become the average of the five people you’re around most. Your habits (smoking, drinking, etc.) will correlate with those folks. Your level of marital satisfaction, of outside friendship, of ability to play the 1990s video game Street Fighter? All are tied to some degree to those of your peers.

I knew I was in trouble

The thing is, I’m a chameleon. I have a strong internal compass, but I also pick up external, cosmetic things from people very quickly, which is probably why I’m pretty good at building rapport.

I’ll eat dinner with Canadians and pick up their vocal inflections. I’ll have an Irish roommate for a weekend retreat and develop a Guinness habit.

So given that I had a lot of broke friends, what did that say about the forecast for my income?

The bad news about the factoid is that, from what I can tell, it seems to be totally true. If you only associate with, talk with, and think about interactions with losers, guess what you’re likely to become?

The familiar way of saying it is that If you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas.

The good news

But the good news is that you don’t have to ditch your old buddies and suck up to Mr. and Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island.

And the ultra good news is that you can aspire to associate with “successful” people instead of narrowing the focus to “rich” people. And a lot of successful people say “Dude,” like, ALL THE TIME.

Who’s in your pack?

The truth is that we humans are pack animals, and the need for acceptance and love is hard-wired deep in our brains. People like people that they resemble, so getting that acceptance and love almost always means practicing some degree — at least on a subconscious level — of conformity.

If you skip a night at the bar to work on a new book, you’ll lose some love. If you’re eating an apple while your buddies are eating Buffalo wings, they’re going to goof on you.

It’s not a question of whether you can shrug it off or convince yourself that it doesn’t mean anything. This is primal stuff, and it will work its way down to your core in time.

So yeah, if you want to become more successful and your current group is a bunch of do-nothings, your best chance of making something of your life comes from changing your peers.

I know how this looks

I know it looks like I’m saying you have to throw away people who have been in your life forever — to ignore Cousin Cletus, who you love even though has no current job, car, or front teeth.

I know it feels phony. I know many of you reading this are resisting the notion, thinking that you’ll be a stand-up person by staying in your current peer group and simply rising above their expectations.

I also know that many of you are bursting with counter-examples — stories of people who came out of the ghetto and made it big.

So to address some of that, let me borrow from Tony Robbins.

Love your family and friends. But choose your peer group.

Tony’s modification of the factoid is, in my opinion, right on the money. Instead of just talking about who you hang out with, Tony’s version of the rule is:

Most people’s lives are a direct reflection of the expectations of their peer group.

Tony’s definition of a peer is someone you respect, and whose approval is very important to you. And, if you’re paying close attention, you’ll note that this definition has nothing to do with who you are actually around for most of the day.

You can choose peers from anywhere — regardless of whether you spend much time with them — as long as it's their expectations that you’re always trying to meet.

You can also have dysfunctional relatives and sloppy friends, and choose not to hold them as peers. (But be careful, because it’s hard to spend a lot of time with someone and not accidentally seek their approval.)

You can even choose peers from among people you don’t actually know

See, peers aren’t like Facebook friends. Peers don’t necessarily have to accept your peer request.

Going back to Tony Robbins, Tony has said that he used to hold mental mastermind meetings with the people he admired most. One of the people he mentions “meeting with” regularly was activist and natural healing guru Norman Cousins.

So, because Cousins was (in Tony's active imagination) a peer, Tony was always asking himself, “What would Norman think of this?” And when Tony “met” with his group, “mental Norman” would tell him what he thought.

I’m not saying you have to get all New-Age self-helpy. I’m just saying that you don’t need to limit yourself to peers within your immediate social circle.

Who are the people you respect most? And what if you did things with the intention of gaining their approval instead of Cousin Cletus’s?

Supercharging peer relationships

In an ideal world, those of us who dig Albert Einstein would have a cup of coffee with him regularly and chat about our goals and desires. But Albert’s dead, so a real-life interaction would actually be somewhat uninspiring.

But this is the age of the internet, and there are plenty of accessible live peer candidates out there, just a few clicks away.

So as a compromise between hanging with Cousin Cletus and creating wacky mental mastermind groups, you could try some of the following:

  • Find blogs, forums, and online social communities filled with people whose expectations you’d like to meet, and hang out there.
  • Find a coach or mentor. Paying for coaching is a great way to care if you meet the coach’s expectations.
  • Work with someone who pushes you. Several people I interact with are constantly asking me to do things I don’t yet know how to do, and it forces me to stretch.
  • Read any and all material you can find that exemplifies the life you’d like to live.
  • Join a membership site that surrounds you with mentors and solid peers.
  • Compete. I have a friendly competition with a buddy to see who can earn the most money. He’s been handing my ass to me for years, but I’m finally surpassing him.

If you do this for awhile, a funny thing will happen. You’ll find that the five people you actually do interact with most often will be your five best peers, give or take.

And while you’ll still think Cousin Cletus is awesome, you’ll likely find you’re less interested in hanging out with him 24/7, regardless of whether you can resist his sloth and plentiful nachos.

Looking for a vibrant group of smart, like-minded peers and mentors who can help you reach your goals? Sign up for the free Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter. In the next few weeks, we'll be announcing a brand-new tribe for online entrepreneurs. And our newsletter subscribers will be the very first to learn about it.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant honestly didn’t write this to post in order to get new consulting work, but nonetheless recognizes a good pitching opportunity when he sees one. So, you can check out Johnny’s coaching services. Or maybe just follow him on Twitter if the idea of having him as a full-on peer scares you a little.

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