heartharmony.com.au

You have all heard of the jokes that all start, “How many X does it take to change a lightbulb?” You can find whole websites dedicated to humble lightbulb humour.  We love them because we all know that generally it only ever takes one person with a step-ladder about 3 minutes to change a lightbulb – and it is the absurdity of all the alternatives that makes us laugh.

But what happens when things suddenly get serious? I drive a late model Camry and my front left indicator lightbulb blew on Saturday. So I pulled into the nearest car parts store, pulled out the manual and headed into the store to buy a bulb.

Wrong!  Apparently Camry in their design wisdom have placed this disposable piece of equipment in a way that can only be changed by a mechanic … in a service bay … with a hoist … and removing side panels of bodywork and other bits and pieces under the bonnet. And it only takes a minimum of 1 hour to do (all the while with labour costs ticking over).

Talking with the car parts guy, I have got off easy. There are some car designs where the lights are fully sealed units, so when a bulb blows you have to replace the whole light assembly.

Now is it me, or is this not a bit like having to remove the ceiling to replace a ceiling light.

Lightbulbs are by their very nature designed to blow. They will die … often. So what genius decided that good design meant putting a disposable item in a non-accessible place?

Ok – I’m heading off my soapbox now … But at least I know in reality how many people it takes to change a lightbulb – 2 mechanics, an apprentice, an admin to book me in, an admin to run up the invoice. Pity it’s no joke!

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer

Have you ever noticed that life runs in themes? That you get a run of a particular client or a particular problem? That you never get just one thing by itself – you get a whole bunch of somethings?

Well, that’s been particularly obvious to me this week. The theme for many of my clients and potential clients was “how to avoid having a hard conversation“.  They were trying to use emails, letters, marketing campaigns to solve things that would be much more effective through a single conversation.

Whether it was dealing with an employee who had stormed out of a workplace slamming the door behind them, to the search for new alliance partners for a business – it was all about avoiding the conversation. Yes, there were great justifications as to why they wanted to put words on a page. Yes, there was a lot of talking and trying to convince me of the rightness of not talking directly but sending a letter. And yes, there was final grudging acceptance of their fear in having the chat, and acceptance of strategies to actually have the hard conversations.

And what happened? Well at last count, most had screwed their courage to the sticking post and actually phoned or had the chat with the people they were worried about. And yes, it worked for them. They found the fear was always worse than the conversation they had. They got their desired outcomes.

And yes, I did do myself out of a pile of writing income. But … I also know that my job really is about getting results for my clients and we achieved that without the need to go into print.

So – next time you find yourself trying to justify sending an email or drowning someone in paper, ask yourself what you may be really afraid of.  Then have that hard conversation.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Brisbane Copywriter

If you have ever sold a home, you know there are a few rules of thumb that every real estate agent worth their commission will tell you. Before you list your home, tidy the gardens, fix things that are broken, think about a coat of paint inside, remove clutter so people can move around, keep the place tidy before inspections and generally make the place look nice so people can imagine themselves owning your home.

Any house that goes on the market with broken bits, that looks unkempt and messy always gets the label “Fixer upper” and always gets a lower sale price and takes longer to sell than one that looks picture perfect.

Your website is your online equivalent of your house. The only trouble is you permanently have an “Open House” and people wander through day and night at their whim. Not only that, your house seems to have permanent internet house guests dropping in, in the form of search engine spiders. People look at your place and make instant judgements about you and your business (and whether or not they will buy).

Often I get asked when businesses should on-page SEO their website. For me it’s like asking when should you prepare your house for inspection if you are on the market. If you have a website, you need the SEO on-page optimisation done as soon as you want to open for business.

All SEO on-page optimisation is doing is preparing your home in its best light – highlighting its best features and showing people who are most likely to buy the things they are most interested in buying.It helps your house get found and brings in the right sort of customers who are keen to buy.

Sure, you can pay for Adwords and other forms of search engine marketing and off-page link-building, but in my book that’s the equivalent of taking out expensive full page ads in the paper to advertise what is still a fixer-upper. You will get people through your place, but when they get there they will still be looking at a place not at its best.

So, today look at your website with the eyes of a real estate agent. How would the agent describe your site?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – SEO Copywriter

Note – Post has been updated – GrabOne is another site with a client friendly refund policy

In the last 12 months there has been a massive growth in group buying sites. You know the ones …  where businesses offer their goods or services at up to 90% off as a way to get new customers through the door. There is a veritable plethora of sites out there, all looking pretty much the same on the surface. So how do you choose a site to use?

First – I have no business link to any site I am about to mention (and after this post, I am very unlikely to have any connection in the future). I have purely used a few different sites as a customer.

So why do I say that Cudo in Australia is the only group buying site worth using? It all comes down to the terms & conditions … you know those things that no-one reads. We all just merrily click the “agree” button and hope all is well. But, when something goes wrong …

It all started about 6 months back when I bought a cleaning deal through one of the sites. Well the deal was on, but when it came to ring the company to book the service, the phone was always on answer saying how busy they were with the unexpected influx of people, so please leave a message. Needless to say repeated phone messages over a number of weeks were not answered, so I tried contact by email.  Repeated emails were also unanswered. I finally went back to the group site asking for a refund – after all I had paid them for a service that was not being provided. The site hummed and hawed – and pointed me to their site terms which suggested no refunds were payable unless the deal company was in receivership (until I mentioned the Department of Fair Trading … when suddenly a refund was paid).

The same week I bought the cleaning deal, I also bought a photo on canvas from a different deals site. This time I had an email to confirm it would be done within a fortnight … and then nothing. I chased it over 3 months … and still nothing except more promises to do it in the next fortnight. So, I went back and checked the terms of the deals site. This time the terms said no refunds no matter what. So I am now discussing the matter further with the deal business – using terms like “failure to supply”.

Now to be honest, yes … I should have pored over the T&C of each site before committing to purchase  – in as much the same way that all the people who were flooded in Brisbane should have read the T&Cs of their insurance policies. But silly me thought that they would all be pretty much the same, that refunds would be payable if the deal company didn’t supply the goods advertised. I was wrong.

So in the interests of my readers who may want to try group buying sites (and who also hate reading T&C’s) , I have stripped out the refund terms of some of the major & newer players.

Bizz Buzz

You understand and agree that Bizz Buzz Vouchers are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged or redeemed for cash. If any issues arise with the Merchant or the supply of the product/service, you should take up this issue directly with the Merchant. We are unable to assist you in resolving disputes with the Merchant.

We will refund the purchase price or exchange the Bizz Buzz Voucher where we have made a mistake

Scoopon

15.1. Scoopon vouchers are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged or redeemed for cash because you have changed your mind, are unable to use the Scoopon voucher or the Scoopon voucher has been damaged, lost or stolen.

15.2. Scoopon will refund the purchase price or exchange the Scoopon voucher where we have made a mistake; for example, the Scoopon voucher we issued is not for the product that was advertised.

Spreets

REFUNDS:  Except as required by law, a User is not entitled to a refund if the User simply changes their mind or makes a wrong decision. A User receives their voucher via email at midnight if the Deal they have purchased reaches its minimum number of buyers. If a User has any problems using their voucher at a business, they can contact support@spreets.com.

Jump On It

b) You will not be to entitled to any refund on the purchase price of an issued Voucher, except as required by law. However, Jump On It will provide a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee and refund the full purchase price of any Voucher, for any reason, within 30 days of purchase.

c) If for any reason you cannot redeem a Voucher (including but not limited to circumstances in which a Merchant goes out of business or ceases offering the service described in the Deal), Jump On It will provide a full refund if you request such a refund during the Voucher validity period.

Our Deal

31. We will however refund the price which you have paid for a voucher if:

1. we become aware that a Supplier has become bankrupt, started being wound up, entered into administration or had a receiver appointed to it after the start of the Advertising Period but before we transfer the purchase price which you have paid for a voucher to the Supplier;
2. we make a mistake, for example by issuing you a voucher which is incorrect.

Wimzy

Please choose carefully when purchasing from our merchants. We do not normally give refunds if you simply change your mind or make a wrong decision. You can choose between a refund, exchange or credit where goods are faulty, have been wrongly described, are different to the product purchased on the website or doesn’t do what it is supposed to do.

Deal Me

10. Changing your mind and refunds

10.1 Please choose carefully when purchasing a voucher because we do not normally give refunds if you simply change your mind or if you make a wrong decision. If you have any problems using your voucher at a business please contact support@dealme.com.au. It is the responsibility of the provider/supplier whether they issue a refund for a good or service.

Compare these to the refund policy of Cudo  & Grab One & the choice of which site to use suddenly becomes simple.

Grab One

Can I return my GrabOne Coupon?
Once you have purchased a deal you are committed to the transaction and your credit card will be charged immediately following confirmation of the deal. Except where we are required to under law or in relation to our GrabOne Promise, we do not give refunds or allow exchanges.

What if the business for my GrabOne Coupon closes down or does not honour my GrabOne Coupon?
If a business that is supposed to provide goods or services to you under a deal closes down, or if that business does not honour your GrabOne Coupon, we’ll make sure you get your money back. Please refer to the GrabOne Promise for the specific terms that apply.

Cudo

3.2 You will not be to entitled to any consideration, credit or full or partial refund on the purchase price of an issued Coupon, except as required by law.

Cudo’s Satisfaction Guarantee – Terms and Conditions

1. Cudo members may be entitled to receive a full cash refund (“Refund”) on the terms set out in these terms and conditions if that Cudo member is not satisfied with the quality of the goods and services received pursuant to a voucher he/she has purchased on the Cudo Website (“Voucher”) or is not satisfied that the goods or services provided by a merchant conformed with the terms and conditions for that offer.

2. A request for a Refund must be submitted via the form located on the contact page of the Cudo Website or via email to Cudo Customer Service (see contact us).

3. All Cudo members requesting a Refund will be required to provide a full account of their experience with the good and/or service and full particulars as to why they are not satisfied with the quality of the goods and services that are the subject of a Voucher and/or are not satisfied that the goods or services provided by a merchant conformed with the terms and conditions for that offer as published on the Voucher and/or the Cudo Website (“Particulars”). In addition to Particulars, Cudo members are encouraged to provide feedback on how Cudo can improve its services to members.

4. Cudo reserves the right to verify the validity and veracity of some or all of the Particulars at any time, including (but not limited to) by consulting with the relevant merchant responsible for fulfillment of the offer and/or by asking the Cudo member for additional information or documentation.

5. Where Cudo concludes that a complaint is invalid or that a Cudo member’s Particulars are misleading, incorrect and/or deceptive, Cudo reserves the right to refuse a Refund (in its sole discretion).

6. Where a Cudo member has previously received a Refund from Cudo (including pursuant to these terms and conditions), Cudo reserves the right to refuse a further request for a Refund made by that Cudo member (in its sole discretion).

7. The value of the Refund will be the same as the purchase amount of the corresponding Voucher. The Refund will be paid directly into the bank account which the Cudo member used to purchase the Voucher.

8. A Cudo Member may request a Refund up to thirty (30) days after the expiration date of the relevant Voucher (as published on the Voucher). After this time, a Refund may, or may not, be provided to the Cudo member at Cudo’s sole discretion.

9. Cudo reserves the right to resolve a Cudo member’s complaint and/or dissatisfaction with the goods and/or services provided by a merchant via other means prior to paying any Refund to that Cudo member, including (but not limited to) repairing or replacing any good and/or resupplying the relevant good or service that is the subject of the Voucher.

10. Any Refund provided to a Cudo member is in no way an admission of guilt or liability by or on behalf of Cudo or the admission of any other fact in connection with any act or omission which led to the request for a Refund being submitted by a Cudo member.

11. Cudo’s Satisfaction Guarantee policy may be amended or cancelled at Cudo’s sole discretion.

Who knew a refund policy could suddenly become a unique selling proposition?  Now … why on earth are Cudo keeping it secret and burying it in their T&Cs?

I’d love to hear your experience with group buying sites – both positive & negative.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer

Last year I joined the bi-focal brigade (or graduated lenses as they are euphemistically called). Yes, my years of peering into the depths of a flickering computer screen finally took their toll on my eyesight, and I needed different glasses. Now, theoretically I am supposed to be able to use the same glasses to see from close up to distance, yet what happened during the first few weeks of wearing them was that I looked like a bird with a nervous tic, as I bobbed my head around trying to find out the right position to see things at.

As the weeks progressed, I worked out where to hold my head and position my eyes for the regular things that I do, yet I found that I couldn’t use the lenses for close-up work such as threading needles or trying to assemble furniture from Ikea … when there is always at least one errant screw needing the position of an advanced yoga practitioner to tighten.

In those cases, it is too close for comfort, so I need to drop the glasses, readjust my eyes and take another look. When all else fails, I call on my kids and borrow their viewpoint (who then invariably point out an easier way of reaching that errant screw and knock over in 2 minutes something I had been struggling with for the odd hour or so).

Sort of like business really. When we start in business we bob around all over the place until we get into a comfort zone. Every now and then situations get in your face that force you to take a different perspective. At times you can find your own new perspective and at other times you need another set of eyes. Yet, how many of us stop and ask for that other set of eyes?

Who do you call on when you need another perspective of your business? Who do you talk with when you want to find other options?  At what point do you give up and ask someone for help? I’d love to hear what you do.

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Brisbane Copywriter

Online reputation management is something that all businesses that have an online presence need to be aware of – but most are not sure how to go about it.  Many businesses struggle with what to do when they get negative feedback about their business on the net. As it’s not my patch of expertise, I asked a colleague at Dejan SEO if they would write a guest blog post for me. Over to you Alex …

Your business reputation is something you heavily depend upon, especially if you have an online presence. Your brand can prosper or fail depending on the reputation you have.

If there are tons of bad reviews about your services or your products, people won’t buy them. If there are forum postings complaining about your customer service, people will stay away from you. And if there are comments in the social media from disgruntled employees, you will find less qualified applicants apply for your vacancies. But if you consider the opposite, a great number of positive reviews and comments, as well as a positive social buzz will land you more customers.

So, how should you implement an online reputation management strategy?

Monitoring Your Brand

The first step of any online reputation management strategy is to track your brand mentions across the web. You can either nominate one person in your company to do this or you can hire a reputation management company to do so on your behalf.

Start with monitoring real time searches and mentions in the social media, as these are where the most buzz about your business can be found. If people are going to talk about you online, they will do so in places such as Twitter, blogs, forums, consumer websites, review websites, article websites and video sites.

To find out what is being said, set up searches for the most important keywords about your business such as your brand name, trademark, competitors, key clients, known people from the company, your products, names of services and also various combinations of misspellings and abbreviations.

One way to track your brand mentions is to set up Google Alerts for real time searches, and for mentions in social media, one tool to use is Trackur.

Dealing with Negative Feedback

It is inevitable that tracking your brand mentions will turn up some negative feedback at times. It is simply part of doing business that you will have the odd unhappy customer. So what do you do when you find something negative about your business?

In online reputation management, you can do three main things when you find a negative feedback, comment, review or social mention.

• Push Down or Active Removal
• Respond
• SERP Covering (Search Engine Result Covering)

You need to select the strategy you will use, based on the situation, critic, location and nature of the feedback and the possible results of that feedback.

Push Down or Active Removal

Active removal is usually a straightforward action and is used when there is a simple untruth or false statement about your brand or product. In this situation, contact the webmaster of the site where the comment is posted, explain the error and ask them to remove the false statement. In many cases, you will get a speedy resolution of the issue.

However, there is also the possibility of your direct approach backfiring. You may find your request greeted with more negative comments on the site regarding the removal of the feedback, so  only use this approach in situations where obviously false and inaccurate information has been posted about your brand. This method works, but needs to be used with caution.

Pure negative feedback that has solid grounds needs a different strategy. And of course, there may be situations when you also need to explore your legal options.

Dealing with Google cache and removing that comment from the search engine results may need the more detailed experience of an external online reputation company to help you.

Response

The most logical way to deal with feedback is by responding to it. But before you write anything, think carefully about what you are going to say and the approach you are going to take.  One thing you don’t want to do is ignore the comment. If you do, chances are that another person will add to it, and another and another, and in no time it will turn into string of bad publicity for your business.

So how do you respond effectively?

1. Work out what the core problem was – was it bad service, a faulty product, miscommunication or something else? Think through how you could help the customer resolve the issue.
2. Let the customer know that you are willing to help, that you have heard and understood  their main concern and what you intend to do to resolve the issue. In some cases an explanation will help and in other situations you will need to find a personalized solution to the problem. Whatever you do, never attack the person as that will only inflame the situation.
3. Once you calm things down, make sure to honour your commitments to the person and keep the person fully informed of what will happen and when. In some cases there will be positive feedback posted immediately and in other situations, other people on the forum etc will chime in with their comments about your positive response.

Search Engine Covering

Where removal of the negative feedback can’t be done, and addressing the issue will not resolve the matter, you can resort to search engine covering.

The basic concept of SERP covering is to give the search engine more positive things to display in their results and bury the negative review down in other search engine results. You do this through using similar Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques to when you want to raise your business in the search engine rankings, so you may need a good PR person or the SEO knowledge on how to quickly add pages with positive feedback to outrank the negative ones.

So what works? The best results for search engine covering, comes from using a combination of positive PR and social media interaction.   In SEO, quality content ranks above everything else, so you could choose to promote an existing piece of content on your site or you can add new content.

Of course, a reasonable amount of positive social interaction about your business also helps with your search engine results. Search engine returns revolve around user interaction, so keeping in touch with your users is vital in online reputation management.

The thing to remember is that every business will have a few bad reviews every now and again.  What matters is how you handle these reviews, how fast you handle them and the overall reputation of your company. So make sure you actively work on your online reputation by engaging users and actively replying to feedback – both positive and negative.

Remember also, that online reputation management is now a core task for every business, and like any core task, you need to either delegate the task to one of your team, or outsource your online reputation management to an external online reputation management company in order to make sure the task is completed.

Alex Petrovic

Alex Petrovic, Advanced SEO strategist  – Dejan SEO company.
More information: Reputation Management
Personal twitter account: http://twitter.com/Alex_DejanSEO
Company twitter account: http://twitter.com/dejanseo

Humans are funny beasts. We focus on what’s important to us and can miss the most amazing things as this classic test on selective attention shows.

Now, if you have already seen that video or know about it, you need to see this one …

You see, people only pay attention to what’s important to them at the time … and miss the nuances. How can you grab their attention and make them pay attention to what’s important to you? One way is by doing something expected in an unexpected way – like this in-flight safety video.

And reach one to two three … break a pattern in your marketing today. And if you would like more information about Professors Simon’s research, take a look at Simon’s Lab.

Ingrid Cliff
We put your business into words
Heart Harmony – Brisbane Web Copywriter

Yesterday I was sent an email from a rather embarrassed colleague.

Why was she embarrassed? Well, she uses a company called Sendpepper to distribute her ezines, and it seems that back in February they changed their policy on “acceptable” emails.

They no longer deliver emails to generic addresses starting with info@, sales@, marketing@ mail@, support@, accounting@, or billing@.

And to add to the difficulties, they didn’t notify my colleague of the change in policy and it was only when people complained to her that they weren’t receiving their emails, that she tracked down the problem. So, over the weekend she was trying to get everyone with a generic email address to give her a non-generic email address, so she could continue send out her emails to them.

There’s a lot of issues to consider here. Yes, a lot of spam emails do come from generic email addresses. However, pretty much every business I know (both large and small), have tried to move away from personal to position-based emails, which means seamless continuity of service if the person leaves or goes on holidays.  And if you scan over any email marketing list, you will find at least 50-60% of email addresses falling into the generic category.

If suddenly 50-60% of your email list was not receiving your emails, what impact would that have on your business?

I’ve hit the net to do some research, and so far haven’t been able to find any company (other than Facebook) with similar limitations, but that isn’t to say that they aren’t on the way.  So, from a business perspective you have a few things to consider.

1. If you subscribe to an ezine that you particularly value (hint – Words from the Heart from Heart Harmony would fall into that category), you may want to consider changing your subscription from a generic email to a person based email.
2. Keep in touch with your ezine hosting company to monitor any changes in policy they may have.
3. Consider the new trend towards ezine subscriptions/ email list subscriptions occurring via a Facebook App rather than direct.

All part of the rich and interesting joys of running a business. And if you have heard of any other email hosting providers moving the same way as Sendpepper, drop me a note.

exuberantly yours

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Web Copywriter

PS:

Just been given the word that Mail Chimp, Benchmark email & i.send have the same policies relating to banning role based emails.

They do allow role based email individuals to subscribe to lists, they just will not allow bulk uploading of lists with role based emails. They are doing this as a way to reduce spam complaints, but is creating challenges for businesses uploading lists after tradeshows or other events.

Here’s the discussion on the Mail Chimp Blog, Benchmark Email and i.send.

The impact of these limits on role based email subscriptions are definitely a trend to watch if you are in email marketing.

Well, last week’s post about alternate ways to drive traffic to your site created a load of interest – particularly around Squidoo.

So what is Squidoo? Squidoo is a community website, started by Seth Godin and some others. People can create pages (called lenses) about single subjects of interest to them.  As a writer (or lensmaster), you can go as deep or as shallow as you like in terms of information – as long as each lens is a single subject.

I like to think about Squidoo as a sort of more fun version of Wikipedia. If you want to know how to create Star Wars birthday cakes – you will find a Squidoo page on it. If you want to learn more about Woodstock – someone has written a page about it.

There are 35 different category areas in Squidoo, of which business is only one category. In business, there are a range of sub-categories including marketing, small business, internet, real estate, employment amongst other things.

Creating a lens is simple. It is a content managed site, so you don’t even have to know HTML – just choose your modules and fill in the blanks.

My lens on Employee Performance Review Tips hovers consistently in the top 20 pages in the business category, so it seems to have captured the imagination of readers. A few people last week wanted to know how to write great Squidoo pages – so here are some of my tips of what works (and doesn’t work).

1. SEO – SEO – SEO. By this I mean, don’t start writing a lens until you know what people are looking for. I used my internet research skills to find out the most searched for keywords in my niche (and what people were looking for). It then made it easier for me to create my lens.  Of course I made sure my keywords were in my title and throughout my lens.
2. Solid content. Give useful & practical information – this is not the place to push a sale.
3. Pictures. Spice up your text with colourful royalty free images.
4. Link back to my blog. My Squidoo lens pulls in the RSS feed of my performance review blog – so it gives even more targeted information back to reader (while increasing traffic back to my blog).
5. Links to my products - I have links to all of my performance review products.
6. You Tube video – I found some funny You Tube videos about performance reviews. People love humour.
7. Humour. I added in more performance review humour with some performance review jokes that used to be passed around in HR circles.
8. A poll. I added in a poll. This does double duty for me – people love interacting, and it also gives me stats on the most common objections or problems people have with performance reviews (which helps me refine my product and my marketing).
9. Link to my Twitter feed. Another way to get people to interact.
10. Amazon books. These are books that I have read and loved. And a % of each sale comes back to me as an affiliate fee (and I also donate a % to Kiva). Yes, you can make money from Squidoo Lenses (although you will never replace your day job from these fees).
11. Reader thoughts.  People share their comments & thoughts about the lens.
12. Adsense. Another way to earn affiliate income.

The main takeaways from this post is to make sure your lens is optimised for search engines, has killer content as well as a bit of fun and interactivity to to. This is not the place to be stuffy and boring!

So what doesn’t work? If the topic is not a “hot topic” that people are interested in (and you haven’t done your SEO correctly), then you won’t be found and you won’t get the traffic. I have a few other lenses with mixed results. They do get some traffic, but these are not as popular traffic wise as my hot topic.

One of the good bits about Squidoo is the amazing amount of support out there to help you. There is an active forum as well as  Squid U – all designed to help you work out any tricky bits of code you want to insert, or learn the tricks of the trade.

And does Google like Squidoo?  Well in many cases new lenses are picked up by Google within 3 hours (which is another brilliant tip if you want your regular website found – create a lens that links back to your site). And if you look in search engine results – Squidoo is right up there (type in employee performance reviews into Google to see what I mean).

Happy lens creating!

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Web copywriter

Businesses that have websites, automatically think of being found in Google as the top way to attract new clients. But over the past few years, I have been watching the stats on my own site and have found some interesting shifts happening.

Yes, Google is still the number one way people find my Brisbane copywriting studio, but an extremely close second is through my Squidoo pages.

Squidoo.com is a free site where you share information about what you know. It is easy to put a page together about a topic (sort of like information scrap-booking), and provided your information is useful and low on the sell, people find your page (Squidoo ranks well on search engines) and then follow the links to find out more.  So how many people are we talking about?  Well my top Squidoo page averages around 3000 unique visitors per week, and well over half of them come back to my site for more information. Not a bad source of free traffic!

But Squidoo is not the only game in town.  I regularly submit the lead articles from my weekly newsletters to EzineArticles.com. My top article has had over 25,000 views since it went live (and yes, a large proportion of readers have clicked through on my resource link and come back to my website for more information).

You can also create a Hub Page, which is similar to Squidoo.  I haven’t found the Hub pages as brilliant as Squidoo in terms of traffic, but it is worth trying within your niche.

The trick is to regularly take a look at the analytic reports for your website, and see where your traffic is coming from. Also do some keyword research to find out what people are looking for in your niche – can you create a free or low cost product that has the information that people are searching for?

So, congratulations if you have a website … now think bigger than Google and see what else is out there to help drive traffic to your site.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – SEO Copywriter