Is Your Website Congruent with the Quality of Products and Services You Provide?

Doug Carter of Carter International Training & Development, Inc. is one of those rare people that pretty much everyone he comes in contact with walks away thinking, “Wow!  That guy’s the real deal.”  In fact, he’s known as one of the most powerful interactive trainers around, with corporations such as Allstate, Fidelity and Americomm, and powerful entities such as Tony Robbins, Bill Bachrach and Michael Gerber raving about him.

So why did Doug come to Prime Concepts Group?  Well, his marketing brand  – particularly his website — wasn’t aligned with his high level of expertise.  In fact, there was no way anyone visiting his website would have any idea that Doug has so much to offer individuals and corporations looking to increase sales, efficiency and profitability.

That’s where we came in.

The first step was restructuring the navigation of Doug’s website for better usability, including creating several funnels to the most important information.  Next, we revamped Doug’s content (the written portions of his website), which was accomplished through a few conversations with Doug (he pretty much wrote all the content himself!)

Third, our creative design team gave Doug’s website a completely new look, capturing the profound impact Doug makes on his clients through powerful imagery.  Finally, our web development team put it all together, resulting in what you now see at www.DougCarter.com.

Check out Doug’s website and let us know what you think!  Is there something you could do to better align your marketing brand with your level of expertise?  If you’d like a complimentary critique, give us a call directly at (316) 942-1111 and mention this blog post.

Thousands of people have their personal information stolen online every day, and most never even know it – until it’s too late. In fact, identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States. It’s that time of the year where millions of people are shopping online, and in doing so, are putting their personal information at risk. Are you at risk?

Below are five simple tips for protecting yourself online against identity theft, costly data breaches and legal liabilities:

1. Use a Unique Password for Everything

Chances are you’ve done some online shopping recently, which means your personal information is now in more online databases than before. It also means your personal information is at more of a risk of falling into the hands of people you’d rather it not. When you’re shopping online, most retailers ask you to create a free account that you can use when you return to shop again. The problem is, most people use the same passwords for all of their online accounts – whether it is sites they shop on, community sites, social media sites, email, etc. Hackers know this, and they love it. If your personal information is leaked anywhere, they can match your email address and password everywhere online – not just the place it was leaked from.

2. Change Your Passwords for 2012

Make it a point to change your passwords before the end of the year. You should have a different password for everything you use – but definitely your email, online banking, mobile service providers, blog, social media. If you use a unique password for all of your online accounts, you can limit the risk you face if (and when) your personal information is leaked online.

3. Make Your Passwords Longer

When you create an account online, you’re probably assuming that the password you’re entering is being kept secure by the company you’re giving it to. Most likely it is (or they think it is), but even encrypted passwords can be cracked using a rainbow table. Words from the dictionary can easily be cracked, and even using passwords with punctuation isn’t that secure.

But if you use a unique passphrase instead of a common word, then the chance of the password being cracked is much more unlikely. An example of this would be “remember to clean up list of to-dos by end of day Friday.” I could put that phrase on a sticky note on my computer or in a Word document so I’d know what my password is, but to somebody else it just looks like a reminder I’ve made for myself.

4. Make Sure Your Webite is Updated

If you have a website or blog, you need to be sure it’s updated. There are thousands of websites using old scripts that have huge security vulnerabilities in them. Hackers will go from site to site quickly testing vulnerabilities with scripts (like SQL injection), and Google makes it easy to find them.

If your website is using an old script, check to see if there is an update available. WordPress is an incredibly popular tool for running blogs and websites, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve logged into a WordPress installation only to find it’s been over a year (sometimes years) since it was updated. WordPress and other scripts release updates for a reason – usually because there are security flaws that have been fixed! If you’re not sure what you’re dealing with, shoot us an email and we can take a look.

If you do end up in a situation when your site has been hacked, make sure you find out how it happened and fix it immediately. Actually, we had a situation where a website had been hacked and we found out who did it – so we reached out to the hacker and worked with him to resolve the vulnerability.

5. Use Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

If you’re collecting information from visitors to your website, it’s important to have these documents available. In the event a hacker is able to steal personal information you’re storing, your Terms of Use and Privacy Policy documents can save you from too much liability. The bottom line, though, is to protect yourself by making sure information is collected in a secure manner.

Do you have any tips or suggestions for staying safe online? Have you ever had your personal information stolen or been a victim of identity theft? Share your comments below, and please pass this information along. Suggest to your relatives and friends over the holidays that they should spend a few minutes updating their passwords heading into 2012 and why.

Here are a couple of other resources to help prevent identity theft and your business network.  We’ve worked with both of them and they are the best. John Silo, Identity Theft Expert www.ThinkLikeaSpy.com and Mike Foster, Network Security Specialist www.FosterInstitute.com

Don’t Get Seduced by the Dark Side… Keep it Simple.

I’m referring to the dark side force of social media that keeps you up at night worrying about growing your business and leveraging the superpower of social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Are you listening, responding and engaging your target market?

What are people saying about your brand, your products and services?   Are you paying attention? Have you claimed your business listings on Yelp.com?  What about the other opinion and ratings websites?  Do you have filters set up using www.Hootsuite.com to monitor keyword topics from Twitter?  You can use social media websites to listen to the buzz in the market place as it relates to your industry, the competition, your prospects wants, needs & desires, and your products and services.

Social Media offers so many benefits, but it can be a huge waste of time without the right plan and actions steps.

Understand that your website and social media websites are just communication tools. The purpose of communication is the response it elicits. Are your social media efforts eliciting the responses needed to connect and engage your prospects?

If not, we can help.  Prime Concepts offers social media networking action plans and a host of other social media marketing services, including customized branded backgrounds for YouTube, and Twitter, integrated Facebook Pages that capture “likes” and encourage interaction.  We can help you transform your LinkedIn Profile and LinkedIn company branded pages too.  LinkedIn is often overlooked, but it’s designed for business networking. It’s amazing for research, connecting to people you don’t know through those that you do know, and much, much more.

Get the inside scoop on LinkedIn at one of our other websites… www.LinkedStrategies.com   It has a free LinkedIn Quickstart Guide and a few other resources. Check it out.

Be cautious of those so-called social media experts who claim they know everything. 

No one does and those mediums are changing all of the time. It’s crazy how many people have jumped on the bandwagon to offer social media advice, how-to products, and services. Many don’t have a clue about customer engagement, value propositions, and using these sites for business.  Make sure you do your research first, check their testimonials and case studies to ensure they know what they’re doing or hire a company like Prime Concepts that understands how to find, attract and keep your customers.

To help us stay current on the every-changing world of social media and inbound marketing we’ve partnered with Hubspot.  Now we’re providing our clients with the exact systems to leverage and monetize all of their inbound marketing efforts.   This is a “done-for-you” type system that will produce amazing results for you and your business.  Remember, each social media website has specific advantages and not all of them may be applicable for your particular business.

Don’t make it harder than it has to be. 

Make a spreadsheet of all of your websites and social media websites, including user names, emails used for the accounts and the passwords associated with each login. Do I really need to tell you to keep this file password protected or encrypted and in a safe place?  Keeping it organized and in one place makes it easy for you to manage and helps you when you’re ready to integrated modules, add-ins, programs and plugins, from site to site.

Have you established the performance benchmarks for your social media efforts?  It’s not about the quantity, it’s about the quality.  For social proof, having thousands of fans looks good, but who cares if they aren’t engaged or helping you grow your business.   Are you just tossing crap up against the social media wall to see what sticks or do you have a plan?   Sure, by now you’ve most likely set up a few profiles, but can you trace any leads or new business from social media websites?  We certainly can… and not because we’re so special, but because we understand how to match the right marketing message with the specific medium.  The better the match… the better the results. It really is that simple.

In summary, social media has a ton to offer your business and doesn’t have to be nightmare.

Use it to monitor your brand, get top search engine rankings, lead generation, customer service, damage control, inbound marketing, connect with new prospects, engage your customer base, and generate sales. 

What’s your biggest question related to social media? Post your question below and we’ll respond here and on future posts.

One of the top questions I get asked is, “How do we get higher rankings in the search engines?”

There are many factors involved, but having a large amount of relevant website content about your products, services and solutions is one key.  The more fresh content you have related to the main search terms and stages of the buying processes you’ve identified, the more likely the search engines are to raise your rankings.

You should also consider your keyword placement and keyword density on the body of your web pages.  Think specific keyword phrases– not “keywords.”  Why?  Due to the extreme amount of competition for general terms in the search engines, you stand a far better chance to rank well for specific phrases where there is less competition.

Check out some of these tips for using keyword phrases:

1.)  Work Through Elements

Search engines completely ignore elements like punctuation and line breaks, so you can too.  If you have a three word key-phrase, there’s no reason you can’t end one sentence with the first two keywords and then start the following sentence with the last keyword.  Work through elements and get noticed by the search engines.

2.)  Form Quotes from “Personal” Key-Phrases

Incorporate quotes in the first person into your content since many people search in the first person.  For example, if you offer leadership training like our recent client, Greg Schinkel of Unique Training and Development, you could say something like, “Many managers wonder, ‘How can I engage and motivate my employees?’”  When someone types this question into a search engine, you have a good shot at getting them to your site!

3.)  Include Opposite Key-Phrases

So what if a really good key-phrase you’ve found doesn’t apply to your business?  How can you incorporate these into your content?  Find a legitimate way to use the key-phrase—even if it’s a page telling a client why the key-phrase is a bad idea or doesn’t apply to your business.

4.)  Add Other Words

So maybe you’ve tried to incorporate key-phrases into your content but it just ended up sounding clunky and uncomfortable.  The solution is to add other words to the beginning or end of the key-phrase.

For example, one of our recent clients, Agadia, offers “prior authorization software” for healthcare management.  Using “prior authorization software” repeatedly is no good.  Instead, they can incorporate other words before the phrase, like “web-based” and “feature-rich.” Or, they can incorporate other words after their phrase, like “solution.”

5.)  Consider “Stop” Words in Choppy Phrases

If the key-phrase you need to use isn’t complete or wouldn’t make sense in a sentence, consider adding “stop” words.  “Stop” words are words like “of,” “the,” “a,” and “for” that the search engines weed out anyway.

But what if your website has already been built and you don’t have a new website planned anytime soon?  You can still incorporate keywords and keyword phrases into articles, newsletters and blog posts you put on the web.

For more Internet marketing techniques to help you increase search engine rankings and generate more traffic to your site, check out the “Internet Profit Kit for Information Marketers: 101 Proven Tactics & Tools You Can Use to Build Your Business.” Visit http://www.internetprofitkit.com for details.

Do Your Marketing Materials, Website and Social Media Match Your Brand’s Promise?

I was talking to a prospect today raving about how he’s built his business through mainly referrals… but now his business has slowed and he wants help.

One look at his website and social media profiles and it was clear why referrals are what has driven his business… because his other promotional efforts lack his brand’s promise.

By that, I mean., they are old, outdated, confusing, lack style, have poor marketing messages and simply don’t communicate the quality or value that his business truly offers.

In short, they are “sales prevention tools” getting in the way of attracting and converting prospects into long-term clients and customers.  They are certainly costing him thousands of dollars in lost sales.

Does that scenario sound familiar? Want to know how to solve these problems?

Here’s your action step:

1. Go look at your website through the eyes of your prospects and ask yourself, “Would I do business with this company?”  Can you easily understand what problems your organization helps to solve or what desires your business fulfills?

2. Next, look at your social media profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube and see if there is a communication disconnect.  Do you have keyword-rich, benefit-driven descriptions that will engage your target prospects to connect with you?  Here is a link to a free replay of webinar on Social Influence. Watch the Video now.

3. Finally, look at your other promotional and sales efforts to ensure that they are congruent with the quality and value you offer. They should be in alignment and be tools that help you find, attract and keep your customers.  If you would like a critique or hot seat to evaluate and improve your results, just let us know…

4. Enter your biggest marketing challenge in the comments below for a chance to win an IPAD.  Answers and winners will show up in future posts.