Blog

What Keeps A Leader From Following

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:33:00 -0400

I like telling stories because it helps us all understand and remember a little better... Just a few years back when the economy was still going strong, we were producing over 350 house plans through my office per year.

Several of the builders we drew for seemed to have more issues than the rest, and because I hate problem areas, I worked hard at trying to find out why. Everyone of my employees just couldn't get every detail correct on these home builders plans, there was always something wrong, something they would complain to me about.

I am a nice guy, but if you are not pulling your weight, well, lets just say that I follow the three-strikes-and-your-out rule. But that wasn't it, it really wasn't the employees fault.

These two builders were always at the office over-shadowing the designers, dictating the design of the plans on CAD while my designer did as he was told.

However, what I concluded with, was that the follower mode kicks in when being lead by another. When the builder was leading the designer, the designer shut down his normal thinking skills of the big picture and all the details that go into the design, and focused completely on every word and detail the builder was communicating.

As people, we may find that if we can get someone else to do something for us, we do not need to use our minds, or work so hard. But I tell you, as marketers, if you are waiting for someone else to do something for you that you have not already learned, you will never use the full capacity of the brains God has given to you. You do yourself a disservice.

When you learned that 97% of all entrepreneurs fail, what was your response? What was your thoughts? My thought was how I might change that number, what could I do to help bring that number down. That is your job too with every new client you will work with.

If you ordered setup, or one of the packages to help you get started, we are going to setup your site and get your site working for you. However, this is going to trigger a response of non-thinking from you, and a mode of follower. You are waiting for the leader to do your work.

Don't get me wrong, that is what you are paying for. However, what I am also seeing is that when we are done, and your site is running, I am not seeing any continual growth. When a package is ordered, I am receiving more questions from the package purchasers because some are not reading any of my information, watching the videos, going through the Getting Started page because they think they do not need to, someone else is taking care of them.

I see others, and not just experienced marketers, but brand new marketers who do not have two pennies to rub together, give their all to making this work. I am impressed by these people that within days their sites are running with content. Diversity will always press a person to become more and to learn more. These people will become the leaders.

Again, we want to help, I am here to answer your questions, and every single one of you who have asked questions, have been getting answers. I am not always going to be long winded, that is what I am doing here. I want to help, but I want you to continue where we leave off. I want you to learn and move on, press forward.

I am purposely going to push you. I may not give you the full answer because I want you to think it through for yourself. If I help too much... "Steve, I am just not technical", then you will fail, I will loose a client, and the whole thing will be a waste of time and money for the both of us.

Those two builders were enabling me and my employees to fail because they were taking control - but I also let them. The result was that I ended up continually failing them. Kind of how the human brain works I guess. Don't let others lead you. Learn from them, study what they do, dig into their minds, but do not wait for them to tell you what to do next, don't ask either. You tell them what you are going to do next.

If you want to become a leader, then you will do it alone. That doesn't mean you will not have partnerships, contractors or employees, but it does mean that only you taking control of the next steps are going to exercise your brain in such a way that will make you a leader.

Steve Nyhof

You can delete this post and make your own

Testimonials are more than you may think!

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:35:00 -0500

For years I have written testimonials for about every product and service I have purchased or been involved with. Why? Because I’m a nice guy? Nope! I do it for me. Well, not completely. Writing a testimonial today can offer a way to brand yourself, and in many cases get a link back to your website.

But it is in how you write the testimonial that matters more. I have had several testimonials be placed at the top of the testimonial page of a number of company’s. You can do this by over doing it just a little, you know, really ham is up about the company!

At the same time, write it so that others that read it learn that you are someone they would like to know more about, or know more about what you do.

Which brings me to the next point, it is fine to drop a word or two about what you do…

“Your product has really helped the organization of my Internet business. Helping me focus more on offering greater value to my clients.”

That’s enough, make sure this is a small percent of your testimonial.

Make it long enough to impress the reader that you cared enough to share your heart. But not too long that they wont read it. And, break it up so it looks and reads well into one or two sentience paragraphs.

Lastly, don’t forget to sign it and add your website url. Say Thank You, do not say Thanks. Thanks is for takers – shifting eyes. Thank “You” is a giver – eye contact. People want to do business with a giver, not a taker.

Thank You,
Steve Nyhof
CEO; Steve Nyhof Enterprises, Inc.
http://Steve-Nyhof.com

You can delete this post and make your own

Best Practices for Title and Description Tags

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:34:00 -0500

Due to being busy I have never written on this topic in detail like I am going to do here. When I really cared, I would enter my title and descriptions very specifically... and for google. This is about character length and keywords and how they are displayed in google organic listings. Note I said displayed. This article is not focused on keywords as much as on display.

While it is the keywords that make a listing show up in the first place, it is what happens next that is also very important. Someone needs to notice your listing so it gets a click. Right! This is more important at this point than even your landing page because the google visitor is not there yet.

Step 1. Proper keywords and site prep to make your listing show up
Step 2. Proper setup of your title and description content to make someone click
Step 3. A landing page designed to get attention and generate leads

The Title Tag

The title tag is the content printed to the top left of your browser window, found on the browser tab, and more importantly, used by google to display your listing in the organic (left side of the google search engine) listings.

The title tag must be made up with your main keyword for your landing page PAGE. Each page can and should have it's own title tag.

What do you want your title to look like on the google listing? This is your listing, and it is FREE. You own it. You heard me right, you need to look at this as real estate on google, the most powerful piece of real estate in the world, and you can have a piece of it; but it will take time and effort to stake your claim.

There are several purpose types of title tags...

Internet Marketing Business by Steve Nyhof (keyword plus branding)
Internet marketing Business | Looking For Partners Now (keyword plus call to action)
Internet Marketing Business for New Marketers (keyword plus target)
Internet Marketing Business | What You Should Know (keyword plus interest)
Internet Marketing Business (keyword only - best for higher ranking)

None are right or wrong. The title should tell what your landing page is about. All titles here have the keywords in them and should when possible be the first words in the title. Your title tag should be 64 characters or less in length. Using more words does not also mean better click throughs, concentrate on catchy, exciting and interesting titles of any length.

When someone enters your keyword phrase into google, your keywords will be shown in bold. This will get the persons attention.

Internet marketing Business (this specific title only without other words will rank better with google)

In the source code your title look like this... <title>Internet Marketing Business</title>

The Description tag

You would think that if you just get at least your keyword once in the description you will be fine.

Being in the construction industry, I design all new homes for resale when ever possible. Seems kind of silly while drawing a plan to be built for a client that we would care at this time about it's resale value. On average, people move every five years - resale is important.

What does it mean to design for resale? Well, it must be both practical for living as it is attractive. In fact, how the house looks on the outside (curb appeal) may be the deciding factor if someone will be willing to walk through the door. Hmmm. Written well, curb appeal, enter the front door, click to my site. Do you see some similarities here?

If you are just as interested in getting someone through your front door of your "home for sale", as you are in getting someone to click on your listing, you will want to make sure you have an attractive house - I mean description.

An attractive description? What the! Calm down, this can be kind of fun if you spend a few more seconds thinking through what you want to say, and then in how you want to write it. Your description should be written in 150 characters or about 25 words.

This rule is not true to all search engines, nor is the length of the field. Remember, we want to be impressive on google first and so we must use google for our guidelines.

I have never read anything on this before, never really searched for it, but I have been doing this for several years. The length of the google description field is about 92 characters long before the remaining description wraps to the next line. Can we take advantage of this? I think so. You see, I like to place my keywords into my description two time when possible. And I like my keywords to begin on the left when ever possible.

Title and Description 1.
Learn more aboout my Internet Marketing Business
People looking for an Internet Marketing Business are looking to get into an Internet
Business to help them gain financial freedom

Title and Description 2.
Internet Marketing Business for New Marketers
Internet Marketing Business for new Marketers and anyone that is looking to get into an
Internet Marketing Business that will help them gain financial freedom

Which listing has more curb appeal - attracts you more than others? Number 2. without question! All I did was change a few words to say the same thing and got my keyword to wrap and show up as the first bold text on the second line as well.

I want to end this with a thought that fits here. When we grew up each of the brothers owned beautiful cars, GTO's, Grand Prix's, Cutless 442, and others. However, when people would see and comment on our cars they would say that they just somehow look cleaner, sharper, beautiful. Why? Because we always painted the under-body of the car frame and wheel wells black. We always carried black spray paint in our trunks and stayed up on this. You could have the most beautiful finish that sparkles in the sun, but if the under-body was a little tan from the road dirt, it just didn't hold a candle to our cars.

My point. Do everything right, think about everything you are doing. Always be able to have an answer as to why you did or did not do something. Chances are, the extra small what seems to be meaningless details, will in fact be the difference on someone clicking on your listing and not someone else's.

Please leave a comment

You can delete this post and make your own