Building a Better Mousetrap - Perfecting Your Profit Funnel

"When Is The Right Time To Worry About Your Online Profit Funnel?"

If you're honest - its when the boss gets back from his business vacation. Lets face it. If its not your company or investment then getting something like an excellent online prospect funnel takes the back seat.

If you're REAL honest -- you probably need to build a better mouse trap. This is a very common problem to have in todays hectic world.

GREAT SEO = ONLINE TRAFFIC? ... RIGHT?
A common misconception is that a great SEO campaign is going to take care of all your listings and your online traffic. But the truth is that these two things are completely different disciplines. There are a combination of things that make them work. There are about 50 ways to do it wrong. When you deal with a committee or an organization there is a greater chance that this process will get screwed up. I don't mean to say that its corporate America that can get this wrong.

But this goes for any organization that lives to delegate things that are too important to hand off to an expert. Sometimes when you appeal to a mass ego and try to pacify the group by handing out very important elements of your campain --- in the hopes of keeping the peace -- you are burying your company in quicksand.

Great SEO is one element. Web traffic and how you get qualified prospects who do not put up ANY resistance to being contacted is a delicate art form. These are all OPT IN people of course and that is all part of the beauty. Now how you go about that requires a steady hand and a strong sense of knowing whats right.

Respect both components because you are going to need them.

Posted by Ted Cantu on OCT. 14, 2007 at 9:35 PM

Digital Web Video - When Dancing Bears Attack!

Green Screens And Web Video - A Match Made In Heaven
A few days ago we shot a green screen shot for financial planning legend, David Newby. He walked onto the web page via green screen and delivered his sales pitch for his live seminar in Mataki, Philippines on Oct. 16, 2007.

This was a great way to introduce new viewers to Newby's amazing services. The Dancing Bear - is a live full body shot that gets loaded onto your web page. This works preferably on a "squeeze page" that captures viewers email addresses and other vital customer information. This is a trend that has a lot of marketers taking notice.

This is a very popular way to get new customers and generate interest......

No Small Production
You must keep in mind that as you do your own green screen shots that there are a lot of steps in the process. The green screen has to be well lit. There are a number of quality soft lights and dimmers that need to light it fully to get an even tone. And by no means should you have sharp shadows or creases in the screen itself. These tend to create a visual disturbance and ruins the effect. The other thing you need to know is that these lights get VERY HOT. So hot in fact they can blow a fuse or even set your living room on fire.... no joke.

If you are going to run these type of lights you may have to hire a professional Gaffer. You can find these professional electricians on WWW.MANDY.COM. They are traditionally used for live video and film shoots. They can read the circuits through your shooting area and find out if you are in a danger or not of blowing a fuse or worse. These guys do not come cheap and they usually have a day rate. This is going to factored into your budget.

Professional lights for green screens are also very heavy. The ones we rented came straight from the days of Ed Sullivan and they were freakin heavy. They came packed in a giant scuff proof suitcase about the size of an Iron Maiden... no joke. This thing was like trying to lift a box full of cement cinder blocks. If you are trying to pull this off in a big city you are going to have problems. Think about getting a truck to unload this stuff at your shoot and make sure your building has freight elevators.

The tripods are also something you will have to contend with. These are not the Best Buy variety. Think along the lines of professional filmmakers variety. These extend to about 9 feet tall and can handle a 10 pound spot lights and diffusers.

CHROMA KEYS R US
As you can see in this clip I knocked the background out and made it all white. Of course you can run any kind of background behind your subject. That is the beauty of working with green screens. Your subject can be on the beach or in a busy city street. You can run video clips behind him or make him walk in a POWERPOINT environment where he becomes one with a presentation. Talk about geek heaven.

** Find out more about David Newby and his Financial Planning seminars, (and how he retired at age 32) at www.prosperouspinoy.com/makati.html

Posted by Ted Cantu on Oct. 13, 2007 at 9:46 PM

Digital Web Video - Defining Your Moment

The headline read as follows......

INTRODUCING: New, IPOD Web Video Commercials That Get You Instant TOP Level Web Traffic Rankings.... Guaranteed Or Its Free !!

The response was met with skepticism and disbelief. But the bottom line was absolutely true. While so many web services out there are promoting video email and singing its praises another revolution is taking off.... somewhat quietly. See, while the video email business is taking off there is another use for web video that nobody really thought of.

That is the MAGNETIC FACTOR of RSS and high level keywords that pull niche traffic. These are embedded right into the web video itself. From there it is uploaded into the web where it acts like a magnet pulling interested prospects from literally thin air.

This may sound a little too far fetched to seem realistic but that is exactly whats happening. The beauty of this operation is that there is a lot of great potential for web sites that are not popping up on the search engines. This set up allows you to become somewhat of a household name. Your web pages start to pop up in the high levels of Google. This is phenomenon.

BROADCAST FROM THE MOON
I just picked up this 20' Green Screen from an online vendor. I tried to buy one from a local place here in Michigan to support local business. But nobody ever heard of a green screen. The local camera and video places had no idea what I was talking about. So out of frustration I went online and got the one I wanted.

Thanks to chroma key I can knock the background out. My subjects in the video can literally be anyplace -- even the moon if I so choose. This type of arrangement is outrageous. There are no limits to what we can do with this technology.

Imagine being inside the CNN newsroom. How about a cartoon background. Maybe you always dreamed of giving your infomercial from the sunny beaches of Southern Florida. Or perhaps you wanted to do your broadcast from Times Square. Now you can do all that. Its entirely possible.

THE SECRET IS IN THE LIGHTING
You have to know a thing or two about lighting this type of set up. You cannot just throw hard light on your subject as it will make dark shadows which are hard to eliminate with chroma key. Then there is the issue of how many lights you want to use . Studio lights are what you want to stick with. There are some that go soft and some that are spotlight like in nature.

The green screen must be evenly lit for best effect.

WHAT MAKES THIS SO DIFFERENT FROM OTHER VIDEO?
When web video is handled with RSS and SEO your clients come looking for you. The other thing that we never expected was that search engines actually love this stuff. Days after we uploaded our footage we popped up in a lot of other directories. Now we didn't place our stuff in there it just happend to get picked up and distributed. This was pretty interesting.

It didn't just stop there. Our clips started to get watched and passed on to different blogs. You see when the code is created in Google or Youtube.com other people can copy it and place it in the blogs, web pages and so on. There are a lot of places where your clips can pop up. You just sit back and watch your star rise.

To be continued.....

Posted by Ted Cantu on Oct. 12, 2007 at 6:53 PM.

SEO FIRMS ARE A JOKE!

Man, I gotta lay it on the line.

I was cruising through Google to see where my company popped up and I found something that outraged me to no end. Sure, I'm on the first page for my SEO Firm but thats not whats bugging me. There are a lot of "fly by the night" SEO firms that sprung up out of the woodwork like cockroaches. I have no idea where these firms come from....

Well, hold that thought, I may have some idea....

Let me show you how you can be a REAL SEO FIRM TOO.....
http://www.dreamweavertemplates.com/

Plunk down 60 bucks and get a template and PRESTO! You're an instant SEO firm. Forget certification, forget battle scars, forget time in the field, hell you don't even need to have stepped into a real advertising marketing firm... You're nothing but a scam artist.. ya dig?

And that is precisely what is happening. The other thing about this type of company is that anyone can approach the game this way with no experience. Get a PPC account and all of a sudden you can get a piece of the market share.

For a while anyways....

But can you do this?
http://1seomichigan.com/seo_michigan.html

You see, after my recent trip to New York City I learned something. I found out from top sources that I am in a league of my own. I was the only one on the scene who was knocking out 8 out of the TOP TEN searches in just about every category I got my mitts on. And the kicker was that I was doing this legitimately. Sure, I got a lot of criticism and even a little hate mail. But who cares. I'm a success. I'll take some slander.

Thats what happens when you get to the top.

And getting there takes a lot of hard work. So when I see these firms pop up with no credibility, proof, or clout or credentials I shake my head in disbelief.

When did this become, "THE IN" thing to do? I never knew being a SEO techno geek was so popular. There is only one difference with all this hypey nonsense.

I make this look good.

Posted by Ted Cantu on Oct. 11, 2007 at 9:54 PM

Perfecting Your Online Digital Life !!

Click here to get your own player.


Posted by Ted Cantu, creator of http://www.911copywriters.com and posted this at 4:17 AM, Oct. 4, 2007

TRUTH TO A MAGIC SALES COPY FORMULA?

IS THERE A REAL MAGIC FORMULA?
In print its anything goes. There is no wrong or right really as long as you get in front of the right type of people. This can definately change though when you deal with an online audience. At that point you will have to be very precise and careful about how you approach your subject. There really is a specific number ratio that you will want to stick with when you create online content for your audiences.

But to say that keywords only need to exist in your body copy is a severe understatement. There are many other places on your site where this numbers formula need to apply. You must be strategic about how you place these so that you not only stay relevant but also beat out your competitors.

How Would You Like To Attract More Customers Online?
A lot of industries are not flexing enough marketing muscle when it comes to online advertisements. Short, cute and quaint sales copy with a phone number slapped on is not enough to garner enough attention. You will need to get in front of more people by being REVEALING, RIVETING, AND BOMBASTIC.

AVOIDING THE TROUBLE SPOTS
There still are a lot of reports of rip off SEO firms that fly by the seat of their pants and get a lot of business by ripping off as many people as possible. This includes such unsavory tactics as cramming keywords into javacript navigations, doorway pages that are litered with keyword spamming, and the all time favorite of mindless link exchanges, (some valid, some not).

A NEW KIND OF GAME
Imagine if you were in a casino and had an unlimited amount of chips! The more you lost the more chips you can use at the gaming table. Would you or would you not stay at the table as long as possible until you scored a win?

Your Keywords are the chips in this online game! In fact, it is a drastic understatement that the very keywords that you use in your web pages are going to propel you to wealth, glory and fame. But only if you use them wisely.....

A few years back in Chicago we had a very unsettling habit of building monstrous web sites with astronomical costs and rely on outdoor advertisements to get them seen. In fact, the problem grew to be such a problem that very few of these sites actually saw the light of day.

Want to take a guess as to when this occured?

Was it.... 1991? 1990?

It was 1997, in fact this was just ten years ago when all this money wasting occured. You had to look at a subway or bus and write the web site address written down and then go home and try to find it online. Search engine technology hadn't really raised its head just yet. So to survive in this turbulent time we had to figure out a way to connect the people to the sites.

In short, a lot of money was wasted.

This is why getting the formula and applying it to your sites is absolutely critical. In fact, its the only game you should be concerning yourself with. This is a very powerful way to get more visibility. Now, being visible is good but you also want to get the right type of people to come to your site. And to do that will take a little effort on your part.

1. Think of who you want coming to your site
2. What is your dream customer?
3. What kind of groups do you want visiting your online space?
4. What kind of money return are you looking to make online?

** We wrote an article on niche traffic just recently.
Cantu explains niche traffic and web hits

Posted by Ted Cantu on Oct. 4, 2007 at 9:48 PM and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com

Stop Waiting To Be DEFINED - Avoid The Inevitable

No matter what cause you choose to side up with you will be faced with critics. This is for anyone in the arts, music, programmers and anyone with a free thought. There are those who take action and live in a state of " CAN DO " and those who sit on the sidelines and kick their heels into the dirt and live to criticize.

THE PROBLEM WITH ONLINE MARKETING
There is no one good way to get to an online destination. There are many ways to achieve the goal. In fact, getting top rankings may include blowing a fortune on pay per click. But more commonly there is a more schematic power structure that you must be aware of. Taking something as complex as online marketing to a corporate level is dangerous ground. It is here where doing simple calculated steps can get tripled, and quadrupled into repetitive costly steps that prove ones worth..... hence, the EGO.

But lets be perfectly frank here. This is where "individual achievement" can fall into the picture. This is where promotions are created and where one can earn the corner office. This often takes place in a marketing production agency but what about the investing client? He/She is often taken for a ride - promised the moon and is quite literally left stranded there to fend for oneself.

There are lots of tools being asked for in a typical SEO job description. If you look closely list at the growing criteria for these positions you will notice one disturbing thing. No two SEO job descriptions are alike. And why is that?

1. There are too many 3rd party software packages that can do the job
2. There are too many combinations that may or may not work
3. Depending on the team, it is left up to trial and error
4. The sales copy used is too dry and is not niche market focussed

The end result is questionable results. The end of a SEO job shouldn't be an open ended question. It should have results built in that can be identifiable.

HOW DO WE GET 8 OUT OF 10 TOP SPOTS?
The last thing you will want to do is wait around to be defined by a studio. You want your product in front of the right people. You have to have this type of perception online as well as offline. It is amazing to me how many companies ignore both facets of this very critical fact. There are too many things that can go wrong when you ignore your niche market.

Most notably....

** The wrong type of traffic shows up
** They do not have an inclination to buy anything
** They have stumbled upon you -- often, not sure why

Your ROI will suffer.

Keep in mind too that when you get a web marketing campaign kicked off and you hire a firm you are taking on THEIR culture. They may be a bit fuzzy on the edges and may not be able to deliver something that is best suited for you. This could be due to the fact that they are swamped with too much work to deliver a high quality customized job.

** And any combination of 3rd party software will deliver you questionable results.
But most importantly not every studio works the same exact way.

But here is the most important rule of them all.... KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE.

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 3, 2007 at 10:13 PM