I was meeting with a prospective marketing client a few weeks ago who wanted to discuss search engine optimizing their existing website to work their way up to the top of Google.

We met for an hour or so to discuss strategy for achieving a higher placement in Google. Well, to make a long story short, I received an email about a week later thanking me for my time and telling me that they are going to rebuild their site with a do-it-yourself service and that “SEO comes with it.” SCREEEEECH….CRASH!

SEO comes with it? What does that mean?

Out of curiosity, I checked it out. “SEO comes with it,” in this case meant that you can edit the title of the website, the text of the website, and the tags and description for the website if you want.

The illusion is that if you build a website that comes with SEO, that the website will be optimized for you. Wrong! That’s like selling someone a car with no oil, no gas, no brake fluid, no transmission fluid, no coolant, and no battery, then advertising that it “comes with an engine.” There are some mechanical parts under the hood, but that car is going nowhere.

So, the new car owner spends the next 6-12 months beating their head against the steering wheel trying to figure out why this car that “comes with an engine” isn’t going anywhere.

Search engine optimization is a series of strategies used to help boost a website’s placement in the search engines, and it’s only as good as the marketer implementing those strategies. All search engine optimization is definitely not created equal. In fact, if done wrong, Google will penalize your website and kick you down even further.

To my prospective client’s credit, they did say that their SEO “will need a tune up after we are done.” So, they’re on the right track. However, I went ahead and looked at the code of several websites built using the do-it-yourself system. What did I find? About 9 out of ten had ZERO search engine optimization done and 1 had a weak attempt at search engine optimizing the site.

So when you read something like this on a DIY website builder sales page, “Optimized for the best SEO and results ranking,” which I just quoted from the Features section of a popular website builder, don’t believe the hype.

Want a pair of second eyes to look at you website SEO, visit my company site at www.integrityonlinemarketing.com and mention this post when calling or contacting us.

For those of you who know me personally, one of my marketing niches is stand up paddle surfing. I got hooked on the sport years ago and, out of the love I have for the sport, have been building the community ever since. I launched the first official publication on the sport, an online magazine named Stand Up Paddle Surfing Magazine (www.supsurfmag.com), co-founded a stand up paddle school on the North Shore of Oahu (www.rainbowwatersports.com), and on December 18, 2010 I published the first book on stand up paddling (www.standuppaddlebook.com).

The marketing for The Stand Up Paddle Book began long before the book was finished. And now, the launch of the book has gone perfectly! Want a peek into how I did it?

First, check out the website. Be sure to sign up to get the full table of contents so you can check out my autoresponder series.

Be sure to check out the easy affiliate program at the bottom of the website.

Next, go to Amazon.com to do a general search and book search for “stand up paddle”.

Then, go to Gooogle and search for the phrase – stand up paddle book. Last I counted, the book appeared 7 times on the first page of results.

Finally, after you order your copy of the book, be sure to check out the special offer in the back.

I wish I had time to share more, but I gotta’ run. More to come.

They have this virtual dressing room where you can dress up a model in a combination of shirts, sweaters, skirts, and shoes that the website has to offer. It’s awesome and done extremely well.

What’s the lesson to be learned? Interactivity and innovation. Is your website giving your visitors what they really want? For example, do French Connection website visitors want to read on and on about how cool and awesome the clothes are, or do they want to see what they look like on someone and make a buying decision?

I think you know the answer.

As the new year comes around, I challenge you to re-think the message of your website and do something innovative.

Everything!

The truth is both you and I would be hard pressed to find a small business owner or entrepreneur with a gut feeling that they really need to step up their online marketing either through website redesign, social media, email marketing, or one of the hundreds of other ways to market a business online. In fact, that person might be you.

So, what’s the hangup? Why don’t you get started?

The Question: What is keeping you from busting into the world of effectively marketing your business online?

The Answer: You don’t know what you want for breakfast?

That’s right, you don’t know what you want for breakfast.

Have you ever woken up in the morning, hungry, walked over to the cupboard, opened it up, stared at a box of cereal, closed the cupboard, and mumbled to yourself, “There’s nothing to eat for breakfast. I’ll wait for lunch,” then went to work hungry convinced what’s there isn’t worth it?

You were just staring at a box of cereal weren’t you? But what was the cereal? Super Duty Bran Flakes

So, why didn’t you eat the Super Duty Bran Flakes? You bought it didn’t you? You put it in your shopping cart and paid for it didn’t you?

In fact, didn’t you stand there staring at the cereals saying to yourself, “Yummy Fruity Pebbles? Super Duty Bran Flakes. Yummy Fruity Pebbles? Super Duty Bran Flakes. Yummy sweet sugary indulgent breakfast bliss? Dry raspy healthy bran breakfast hell?”

The problem was, you didn’t decide and commit to that decision. So you just picked the one on sale and now, a day later, you’re frustrated with yesterday’s attempt to buy cereal. So, that box of Super Duty Bran Flakes sits on the shelf long past its expiration date gathering cob webs in the back of the cupboard.

The same holds true for online marketing.

A business owner knows he or she needs to get a website and start marketing online. Unsure of whether the website should be lively and exciting or clean and simple, the business owner either blindly picks one or “plays it safe” with a boring generic website with the hopes that it will appeal to all audiences.

Well, that generic middle-of-the-road website doesn’t appeal to anyone, and what you’re left with is a website that sits on a virtual cupboard shelf gathering cobwebs while the business owner convinces himself that online marketing doesn’t work and isn’t worth it.

What’s the solution?

DEFINE YOUR TARGET MARKET AND TAKE ACTION!

When you were buying cereal, you didn’t commit and take action what you really wanted, so you just took what was on sale.

When you were starting to market online, you didn’t commit and take action to attract the customers you really wanted, so your generic website and marketing continues to pull in generic non-committed customers.

In the grocery store, had you committed fully to either Fruity Pebbles or Super Duty Bran Flakes, you would have open up the cupboard for breakfast knowing exactly what was in there, and ate a great breakfast.

In your online marketing, had you committed fully to build your website and develop your online marketing plan to attract your most valuable customers, you would open up your email every day knowing exactly what kind of business leads you are going to find in there, and have a great list of pre-qualified leads.

So what’s it going to be? Fruity Pebbles or Super Duty Bran Flakes?

It’s time to commit and give new focus to your online marketing efforts.

Have you  ever found yourself in this situation?

You are driving the car, your kids are being loud, or you’re in a noisy environment and your phone rings with an strange phone number. . . and you instantly freeze staring at your phone debating whether you should answer it and run the risk of a potential client or customer being turned off by the noise in the background, or let it go your your personal unprofessional voicemail and risk losing the sale. You don’t know.

If you have a virtual phone number, either a toll free number or a local number, that forwards to your cell phone or home phone, with caller ID you’ll know that it’s a business call coming through so you can get to a quiet place and take the call. Or, you can let the caller go to a professional voicemail recording for your business.

How helpful is a virtual phone number?

I have like 5 of them. That said, eVoice is now giving away 6 month free trials. I have honestly never seen an opportunity like this. I’ve seen free 14 day trials, and free 30 day trials, but free 6 month trials? Never.

If you think this might be a good tool for your business click the banner below to get the offer.

When it comes to marketing online, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, AOL, and others don’t care where you business is, how many employees you have, what your tax return was last year, or what you wear to “the office”, which for many businesses is little more than a leisurely stroll past the refrigerator for a cold drink then on to a laptop at the kitchen table. The job of the search engines is to deliver relevant information to those searching for it.

The real online marketing magic happens when you learn how to make your business the source of information that people are searching for.

Let’s go through a real life example. Suppose you have a small boutique in Hawaii on the North Shore of the island of Oahu that sells a variety of products. Where would you start marketing online? Well, first of all, with some research you learn that every month there are about 1,000 people around the world searching online for the exact phrase “gifts of Hawaii”. Next, you make some changes to your website so that it comes up at the top of Google when people search for “gifts of Hawaii”. Then, if your website is built to sell, you’ve tapped into a steady stream of customers.

This is a perfect example because the average business owner would not think that “gifts of Hawaii” is what people are actually searching for. Well, they are. And when that little Hawaiian boutique owner’s business starts showing up on the Google search engine when people search for “gifts of Hawaii”, the sales are poised to go up.

And for all those Hawaiian boutique owners that read my blog, “You’re welcome”. Happy marketing!

Here’s what Linda emailed me today, “Hi Nate: Thanks so much for the referral to Vistaprint. We just received our first order and they’re exactly the same as we’ve been ordering from our prior supplier – but at almost 25% of the price. Wow, that’s 75% off!!! We do a full bleed, glossy business card and are so sold on Vista Print that we’re now excited about having them print other marketing materials. – Linda”

We’ll here’s the unreal deal like I said, a FREE one!

Why would Vistaprint give away free customized business cards? It must be a trick right?

Nope. There’s no trick. You don’t have to order anything else. Just get your free cards. Vistaprint knows their cards are so good that, when the give away a free stack of them to business owners like Linda at Aloha Kine, they are confident that the business owner is going to be a new client for life. Was it worth giving away a free stack of cards? Absolutely.

I found the banner below and put it in this blog post so you can get your free cards.

Give ‘em a shot, it’s free.
On a side note, I honestly don’t know how long this offer is going to last but if the banner is still down there, click it and jump on the offer before Vistaprint takes it down. . . here it is ↓↓↓↓

So, the thought quickly permeates the entrepreneur and small business world that websites cost SO much money. Well, if your website isn’t making you sales, it could actually be costing you much more than you even paid to get it built in the first place. The real question is, “How much money is your website costing you?”

Let’s look at  a fictitious scenario that may be all too real for some of you. You may never look at your own website the same way again. Read at your own risk.

Kip the Carpet Cleaner – Kip owns a new small carpet cleaning business. In fact, he bought the best carpet cleaning equipment there was to offer. At first he operated off of word of mouth referrals and did a darn good job. However, after he had cleaned all of his friends and family’s carpets, his well of business leads was almost dried up. So, he decided to look into getting website. His brother-in-law once built a little website for his son’s karate team, and said he’d do it for him cheap. Cheap is what Kip wanted. After all a good businessman gets things cheap right? So, he pays his brother-in-law a couple hundred bucks, and gets his website . . . 4 months later. While he was waiting for his site, Kip had to get a part-time job at the grocery store to make ends meet. Hey, that’s okay, we have to do what we can while we’re building our businesses, right? When he finally got the site, it was nothing special, and looked like those free ones you get with some hosting plans. In fact, it might have been just that, but Kip couldn’t tell, but he paid for it. Well, when Kip got his website, nothing changed. The site was boring, it wasn’t search engine optimized so nobody ever found his business online, and those who he gave his business card to, with his web address on it, went to his website and quickly left, not impressed by his online business-front. Kip kept working at the grocery store and still has some nice carpet cleaning machines out in his shed.

Randy the Rug Magician – Randy also started a carpet cleaning business. Although his equipment wasn’t best money could buy, it was good enough for the average carpet, and he would respectfully decline jobs that he knew he couldn’t handle. Randy had decided to invest his money into a marketing plan that included a professional website that cost him 4x what Kip paid for his. Randy’s plan was to focus on marketing so that he could get a steady stream of customers that would help him pay for the top of the line equipment he desired. So, while Kip was waiting on his brother-in-law to do his website for 4 months, Randy got his professional website in 2 weeks, and started marketing it online immediately. His website was professional, search engine optimized, and built to convert visitors into customers. In fact, when you went online to Google.com and searched for “AnyTownUsa carpet cleaning”, his website came up on the first page of the results. When potential customers went browsing for the right company, Randy’s professional website told his clients that he really knew his stuff and would do a great job. The result, Randy had steady flow of business from his investment in a quality website that was search engine optimized and built to convert visitors into buyers. He quickly was able to upgrade his carpet cleaning machines, and then franchised his operation to neighboring towns.

What does, Kip’s website cost him? Well, it cost him his business.
What does Randy’s website cost him? Absolutely nothing. It’s a money-making lead-generating asset.

What is your website costing you?

Ready to make a change? I can help. Visit my company website here.

You wouldn’t believe how many turn-key websites are lying around just waiting to be marketed online. Why don’t I market them myself? I simply don’t have the time. My attention right now is on my private marketing  and web design clients, and I don’t have time to market other websites. So, rather than letting them collect dust, if you want them, they’re yours. And I’m selling them off cheap!

How can learn what they are and get one?

You have to be on my Entrepreneur Hot List!

Last year, I launched the Entrepreneur Hot List and registration was open for only about a week before I closed it. It’s an exclusive list and has been closed ever since, until today!

Today I am opening up registration for the Entrepreneur Hot List, and for a limited time membership is FREE for my blog readers and those subscribed to my newsletter.

How can you join?

Go to www.entrepreneurhotlist.com.

If registration is still open and FREE, you’ll be able to sign up right there and get on the list.

Now, I have to get back to packing up these businesses for you!

Peace. . . I’m back to work.

We’ve been growing an email list for about a week now and the results have been fantastic. We’re now moving into the next stage of the pre-launch and expect his list to continue to grow in the coming weeks. For those interested, here’s the squeeze page we built that is pulling about a 50% opt-in rate!

That’s right! Almost 50%…. a full 1/2 of all visitors are opting in to the page! How? And extremely targeted launch with a intricately crafted squeeze page.

We started the pre-launch about a week ago at midnight, and by 8:30 in the morning I got a call from Scott, in awe with the response we got in such a short period of time. He sent me an email that said, “Is this for real!?” I replied, “Yes, it’s for real. . . and we’re just getting started.”

Is a 50% opt-in rate possible? Yes! I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the campaign. And for those who want to see the squeeze page, go to www.racehawaiistandup.com/powerglider.

Here’s the proof. The /powerglider/ page is the squeeze page. The only way to get to the preview page is to enter your name and email address and opt-in. Notice 444 views of the squeeze page and 213 views of the preview page. Almost 50%. . . Sweet!!! And the numbers are excellent for the niche market we’re targeting after the first phase of online marketing. I just rolled out phase 2 today, and we have about 5 more pushes before the pre-launch is completely on autopilot.

Here’s a letter I recently received from Scott of Race Hawaii. . .

“If you have a product that needs to be introduced or brought to the market, and your website brought to the forefront of the search engines, I’d like to recommend Nate Burgoyne or Integrity Online Marketing.

I am aware a lot of people are good at web design and are capable in this generation of electronic expertise. Nate not only stands head and shoulders above computer literate web mastering and design competitors, but brings a special talent with the written word to describe and capture the essence of the product.

This has proven invaluable for me in making a new patent pending product known.

Nate and his business relationships fire on all cylinders because he is smart, he listens, and then he creates what is needed.”
Scott Bucknell
RACE HAWAII