Content Crooner

photo credit: Let Ideas Compete

Whether you’re excited about your product, or your budget is running out and you need quick sales, it’s crucial that you maintain patience in your online marketing and advertising. Don’t push the sale! An overtly hard sell is a very easy way to disengage prospects. Instead, calmly lead them to the sale. Not only does this provide your prospects with a comfortable sales environment, it also creates anticipation: a leading sales booster.

Lucrative Learning Centers

A rising trend in today’s websites is the addition of a learning center. These are virtual libraries found within a company’s primary website, offering a range of useful articles. This is different from a blog in that the learning center pages are static and each page features a single article or resource. Think of something more wiki style.

First, if you provide useful information to your site visitors you will set yourself up as an authority as well as show them that you’re all about helping them, not getting into their wallets as quickly as possible.

Second, since more and more people continue to use the Internet as a research tool, your learning center will give people the opportunity to find useful information and you will keep them on your site! One of the hardest goals to accomplish in online marketing is driving people to your website. It’s an awful thing for any business to see that they actually got a prospect to visit their site only to lose them due to a lack of information. Never let a prospect slip through the cracks—provide a warm sales environment through information and value that persuades them to stay.

• Don’t assume they’ll know what to do with your website: “For more information you may also browse our learning center to make sure you get the best solution for your particular needs.” (Hyperlink “learning center” to give them the most direct path to what they’re looking for. And make sure you provide a solid point or two as to why visiting your learning center will benefit them; information that solves their problems and meets their needs.)

SEO Tips

Tip 1)

Once you establish an individual page for your learning center, make sure the URL (Web address) reads as a title, not some alien language. Search engines crawl URL’s as well, and you need to take advantage of every opportunity possible to give your business a page-rank boost. Keywords in your URL create an additional blip on search engine radars.

• http://blog.contentcrooner.com/2010/05/how-to-make-viral-marketing-work-for-your-business.html
  • “Your purpose is clear—I’ll list you further up in my results,” says the Search Engine.

• CompanyX.com/index.php?option=com_rsform&Itemid=62
  • “I’m going to keep searching ‘cause I don’t know what you’re about,” says the Search Engine.

Tip 2)

Create a title-based  domain URL and stick with it! Another very important factor in search engine ranking algorithms is the age of a domain and its corresponding URL. The older the domain or URL the better since search engines try to weed out fly-by-night website and older sites automatically prove a certain degree of legitimacy. If you continue to change your URL’s you’ll waste any aging you built up and the search engines will view your page like a newborn instead of a wise old guru.

Hold Your Prospect’s Hand, but Don’t Drag Them

Unless you’re selling OxiClean, you don’t need to yell at your prospects, expounding the benefits of your product or service with a steady, obnoxious stream of features and benefits. Instead, point out that you have a learning center or general information pages and they’ll buy from you because you set up a relaxed, informative sales environment.

To your success,

Andrew Rossillo

Andrew Rossillo is Content Crooner’s Marketing Blogger and Staff Writer. He’s ready to put his years of copywriting and online marketing experience to work for your business—he’ll help you get noticed!