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How Hiring a Web Content Strategist Can Save You Money

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Ya gotta have a plan. You’ve gotta know where you are going and what you are going to find when you get there. It’s not enough to say “I want a web site.” You have to know exactly why you want a web site, who you are targeting, and what you want your web site to achieve for you. That’s why you hire a Web Content Strategist – that organizational and internet marketing specialist who can save you money by keeping you from making expensive mistakes.

Focus

As a Content Strategist, my most important role is to help my clients focus their business, specifically as it applies to how they want to put their web site to work for them. That’s why we start by defining the services page. It helps the client choose exactly what they want to offer and who they want to offer it to. This is the most important aspect of the work we do together. The majority of entrepreneurs have too many ideas and are trying to reach too large a target market. I help them focus their vision. I look for bundling and leveraging possibilities. I listen to their vision and help them tailor their choices to support it every step of the way.

Navigation

Creating a web site that is easy to navigate is vital. If people can’t easily find what they want, they will leave. My job as Content Strategist is to know all the best internet marketing options and help you select the navigation that most suits your products and services. Together we create a Site Map to guide us in the development of a profitable web presence.

Technical Tools

Because it is my area of expertise, I can anticipate what technical tools you need to put in your site at the very beginning – shopping cart, affiliate program, autoresponders, web host. Together we select the technical tools most suited to your personality, time, pocketbook, and inclination. I help you keep your eye on the future. And I help you think big.

Content Development

You have 7 seconds to capture their attention and you better get it right. That’s why a good Content Strategist will help you write the headlines, craft strong bullet points and organize the content of each sales page for the most profitable impact.

Product Development

A Content Strategist is full of creative ideas that can leverage what you already have, expand your thinking about what is possible, and give you concrete ideas to fill you marketing funnel with products that add to your expertise and credibility.

Holding your Vision

A good Content Strategist holds your vision, even as you sink into the morass of words and ideas and details that are part of the creative process. She keeps you on target, makes certain you consistently address your niche, strengthens your copy, maintains the tone of the site, and makes certain the readers’ experience will lead to a high conversion rate.

A Content Strategist Saves You Money

When you and your Content Strategist complete your work together, your web site content is ready for your web designer. She has helped you focus your intention, constantly make crucial choices, and helped you create impactful and relevant content. In doing so, you have eliminated the unnecessary, the irrelevant, and the no-longer useful before you made the mistake of putting them into practice and then find it necessary and expensive to eliminate them. A Content Strategist is mentor, advisor, resource, cheerleader and friend. Investing in an experienced Content Strategist assures that you get the most from your investment as you create a profitable presence on the internet.

Cara Lumen, The Vision Distiller , is a content strategist who helps you distill your vision into a specific and profitable course of action. Her specialty is content development, internet marketing, and signature product development. Through her Magnetic Marketing Method, Cara offers innovative, inexpensive, and impactful ideas for the pro-active entrepreneur. Learn how you can become a Success Magnet at www.caralumen.com

Do you have what it takes to make money as an affiliate?

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Too often people have the wrong idea about making money from affiliate marketing. The general impression is that all you have to do is sign up and the money will start pouring in. And it pops me right back to square one.

What are you passionate about?

The best businesses are built on our passion. When what we are passionate about is also something we are good at, that is a great way to make our income. We cannot just put up a sales page and expect things to happen. We cannot just choose a bunch of unrelated products and expect to sell them. Well, maybe some people can, but only a handful and that’s because they are already great marketers and simply like to sell.

You primarily sell to your list

New marketers seldom realize that you primarily sell to your list and if you don’t have a list, you’ll have a hard time selling anything. 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your prospects so a smart marketer spends the majority of her time attracting people to her list and cultivating a relationship with her present list and designing programs and services specifically for those prospects and their needs. These are people who know and trust you so that when you recommend a product or service, they can trust your word.

Are you a smart marketer?

You can’t be all things to all people; you’ll end up being nothing to everyone. You can’t write targeted copy, you can’t post on relevant blogs, you can’t even find your target audience unless you have identified them. And the smaller the better. Niches are riches. A smart marketer continues to identify and narrow her niche.

How affiliate marketing can work

My most lucrative affiliate associations are with products and services I use that would be helpful to my clients if they used them. For instance, because I coach people in content strategy for their web sites, I have an affiliate association with the shopping cart I recommend, the merchant account, the web hosting company, and the blog hosting company I use myself and can enthusiastically recommend. My clients come to me for internet marketing information. They do not expect or want me to try to sell them vitamins. Stick with what you yourself use. Stick with those programs that will bring value to your prospects Then you can genuinely share your enthusiasm and people will be attracted to what you have to offer. Keep your affiliate selections relevant to your target audience

Build your list

Back to square one. If you have a list, great. If you don’t, you need to build one. And it’s not just about having a list, it’s about having a pre-qualified list, people who see what you offer and give you permission to keep them posted on what you offer. That is done either through a web site with an opt in box or blog postings on a specific topic that builds your RSS feed list. Whichever you choose, you have to have one major topic and one target audience.

For instance, I can have a niche as a holistic health resource and find all sorts of affiliates to feature. I can have a niche as a marketing expert (I do) or a copy writer (I’m working on it) but each niche will draw a select audience and you want to be certain you focus your content and affiliate resources to their specific needs.

Have your own affiliate program

If you have active services and a number of products, it’s great to have your own affiliate program. However, like anything else in busyness, you need to support your affiliates with html banners and text links and suggested email copy and special promotions. You have to cultivate your relationship with your own affiliates just as you cultivate your prospects.

The resource page on my web site is filled with affiliate links. Sure I recommend things that don’t have an affiliate program, because I am in service to my web site visitors and want to give them as much value as I can. But when I can, it’s an affiliate link.

Follow your passion

I still think the desire to do something simply to earn money is a poor choice. People won’t buy just because you want to sell. They buy because they want it even more than they need it. They buy when you can get them caught up in your passion and excitement about the product or service they might purchase. Emotion sells. My suggestion for what it takes to earn money as an affiliate – follow your passion, stay in service and choose affiliate associates that fit your niche.

Cara Lumen, The Vision Distiller, helps you focus your passion and distill your vision into a specific and profitable course of action. Her specialty is internet marketing, content strategy, and signature product development. Through her Magnetic Marketing Method, Cara offers innovative, inexpensive, and impactful ideas for the pro-active entrepreneur. Learn how you can become a Success Magnet at www.caralumen.com

5 Ways to Tell If You Need a New Web Site

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I just recently created my fifth website in ten years. Why? Because it was time. I have changed and needed a new reflection on the internet. A new website gives you the opportunity to rethink, re-choose, reposition and rebrand. Here are some of the signs that it’s time for a new one

You aren’t getting the results you want

 

The first clue that you need a new web site is that you are not getting the results you want. People are coming to your site but not opting in. Your conversion rate is minimal. Not a good sign of success. Look at your cpanel webstats and see the pattern of the past year. Chart your growth. I keep a chart of my web stats and mark on it what marketing strategies I put in place during a particular month so I can see how effective it was or was not as the case may be.

You may need a new opt in, a new design, stronger keywords, and new sales pages— pretty much everything in order to get the results you deserve. A new web site lets you start fresh.

Is your web site getting the conversion rate you want?

Are you attracting the number of visitors to your site that you need to be successful?

Your niche has tightened and needs rebranding

 

This niche-tightening is an on-going process. We start out wanting to serve the world and, after time and sometimes trial and error, we figure out the type of people who need and want our services. As we do, we need to change our copy content and our product offering.

Several years I created a portal web site, which means people coming to my site had to make a choice on which of two websites they wanted to visit. One side was filled with philosophical and inspirational messages and the other was focused on internet marketing which also had some philosophy and inspiration but was definitely targeted for the pro-active internet marketer. You can imagine how different the copy and content was for each of those two sites. It was amazing what that simple change made in how differently I could interact with the visitors to each side. I even had two separate emagazines going. Sometimes a portal site is a great answer and sometimes it simply divides the visitors who come.

However, I recently took a hard look at the productive and not-so-productive areas of my business and saw that even though the philosophical side was an area of service that was true to my heart, it was not at all lucrative. So, I took a deep breath, released the purely philosophical side that wasn’t profitable and designed a new website focused on the pro-active internet entrepreneur. The results were immediate as I focused my business in a much more targeted way.

Does your present web site address your most targeted niche?

Your services and products need repositioning

 

What do you want to offer? What do you no longer want to offer? List your income streams in lucrative order, then look at your web site and see if you are indeed promoting what people are seeking from you. I can’t tell you the number of times I added specialized coaching packages in my previous site and what a relief it was to narrow myself to a more clearly defined niche. My clients helped me reposition myself as The Vision Distiller because that is what they kept asking me to help them do.

I know I learn more every year, which means I organically have more to offer. Creating a new web site gave me time to rethink and re-choose. Once I narrowed my niche and dropped one of my websites, I also dropped some products from service. If I choose to promote them again I know now that I will have a separate website with a new name just for that target market.

What products or services are providing income and which ones are simply taking up space?

How can you promote the ones that are working in a more unique and innovative manner?

You are smarter and wiser now

 

Creating a new web site is about dressing properly for the occasion. You have changed since you designed your last site. What image do you want to project? Is it more professional? More casual? Harder sell? Softer sell?

Every new sales page I write is stronger and clearer than the one before. It’s because I keep learning how to make choices and define my offering. I know more and can put it to work for both me and my clients.

Another benefit of creating a new web site is that you have the opportunity to rethink your navigation, add that media page you are now ready for, change your content strategy and strengthen your copy. You get to re-package and re-position your products and services.

How have you changed since your last web site and what do you need to upgrade, clarify, release, or improve?

You have more to offer

 

As entrepreneurs we continually have great ideas and the more we act on them the more diversified we become. However, stop and see how your business would benefit from having more than one web site. For instance, I coach people in web site content, information product development and internet marketing skills. At the moment they are all on one site. What if I created an entire site only about information product development rather than just devoting one page on my present site? It would have different keywords, more targeted articles, and it would address different needs than people who come to my site for content development and internet marketing. Perhaps you want to think it terms of two websites.
How can you combine or leverage or repositions your existing products and services on a new web site.

Take a long hard look

 

Get your stats out, look over your income streams; look in your heart to see what you love to do and what you are doing because you think you should. Make a list of what people are asking you to provide for them, in service and in products. Notice how your business has changed. Do you need a new shopping cart or opt in offering? How can you bundle your products for great effectiveness. How effective is your affiliate program? Do you even have one?

Then get professional help

 

Invest in some content strategy coaching to help you sort out and focus your site map and offerings. A professional can help you focus your vision into a profitable internet presence. Hire a professional web designer to capture your essence in design. And get a copy writing coach to help you create the most compelling copy you can manage.
Make this next web site the best ever!

Cara Lumen, The Vision Distiller, helps you distill your vision into a specific and profitable course of action. Her specialty is internet marketing, content strategy, copy writing, and signature product development. Through her Magnetic Marketing Method, Cara offers innovative, inexpensive, and impactful ideas for the pro-active entrepreneur. Learn how you can become a Success Magnet at www.caralumen.com

The Leaf at My Feet

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It lay there as a sign to me—the large green leaf. Larger than any leaf I had seen. “It’s a sign,” I thought. I love signs.

I looked up to find its origin and every tree around me was bare. Not a leaf left. I looked back at my “sign” and asked myself, “What does this mean?”

It’s nearing the end of a year, a time when I look at where I’ve been and where I want to go. I had just journaled the realization that what I needed to do was to shift my consciousness to make my business grow and my life richer. But to what? Always the question.

I think it has to do with my sense of personal value (or lack of it) and my trust that whatever shows up I can do. I get to play with people who are playing much bigger than I am and in the process add value to what they are doing. I get to trust my talent and my skill and believe it when people tell me how good I am at what I do. I get to seek out others and suggest a collaboration. I get to expect more.

“This leaf is telling me to play bigger,” I thought. “This leaf is telling me to drop any fears or apprehension about moving into new venues. This leaf is telling me to have a bigger vision and to believe in it.”

I continued my walk, admiring the leaf in my hand. It was a spring green although I knew it was actually a dying green. And it certainly was big. There was not a tree in sight that could have produced it.

And then I saw them. A half dozen more of these very large green leaves, larger than the one I held in my hand, all scattered in a cluster on the ground. I picked up two of the largest ones and looked around to see where they could have come from. And then I saw it—a tree in the back yard of a neighbor, hidden from view by a tall fence. And I thought, “What tall fence am I hiding behind? If this leaf is a sign of my huge talent, from what have I constructed the fence that hides it from view?”

Fear? Uncertainty? I want to tear down that fence. I want to take my large talents and spread them all over the neighborhood – all over the world, in fact. I want other seekers to find my large green leaf and get the message – everything is possible. We live in a world of infinite possibilities. We are given gifts that only we can give to another. We must get to work. We must play big. We must live our vision.

And so, my friends, this story is my large green leaf to you. In the coming year, let’s both come out from behind the fence and spread our gigantic talents throughout the world.

Have a great Winter Solstice!

Cara Lumen, The Vision Distiller, helps you distill your vision into a specific and profitable course of action. Her specialty is internet marketing, content strategy, and signature product development. Through her Magnetic Marketing Method, Cara offers innovative, inexpensive, and impactful ideas for the pro-active entrepreneur. Learn how you can become a Success Magnet at www.caralumen.com

What’s in Your Shopping Cart?

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There are certain things that absolutely must be first class – they are so important to your business that you only want to do them once and have them last a lifetime.

I help entrepreneurs establish a profitable presence on the internet and I know that everything to do with building the foundation of your business requires the best – the best quality – the best service – the best features. You want that foundation to grow with you, to get as big as you ever dream of being. Your shopping cart is one of those foundational building blocks that must do it all right out of the starting gate. And this one will: http://tinyurl.com/cpltx

Taking Money Online

That’s a given, That’s what shopping carts do. This one will calculate shipping, handling recurring payments, figure the tax and send the client to the autoresponder or thank you page of your choice. All shopping carts need a partner to actually process the money and I recommend this one http://tinyurl.com/yy6cg4. They seamlessly work with your shopping cart and deposit the money in your account every evening!

Signing up prospects

If you don’t have an opt in box on your site, you’re dead in the water. The whole point of a web site is to capture names so you can build trust. Besides delivering products automatically online, this is the most valuable use of a high quality shopping cart.

Managing your prospects

However, a good shopping cart does more than “manage” your prospects, it offers you opportunities to build a relationship with them, to build trust, the foundation of all business transactions. That means autoresponders, that wonderful system that lets you automatically send a pre-written email over a period of time to your prospects. Write your autoresponder series once and it begins its greeting the minute a new prospect signs up.

Broadcasting and E-magazines

As you continue to build trust you will be broadcasting e-magazines and special offers. A high quality shopping cart allows you to send to special lists, so you can target your offers.

Digital Delivery

This was key for me since I have so many e-books. All I do is upload my digital product and the cart gives purchasers a key and 24 hours to download.

Ad Tracking

A high quality shopping cart offers you ad tracking, that wonderful technique that allows you to test headlines and copy and see what is working the best.

Affiliate Program

Of course you should have your own affiliate program, and a high quality shopping cart has one built in. You can get help selling your products and services simply by setting up marketing tools within the cart and inviting people to become an affiliate. Then watch for massive passive income!

Lay a strong foundation

I know that I am using the most powerful shopping cart possible. I know that however big my business grows it can handle it. I know that the face I present to my prospects through my shopping cart is the highest quality and thoroughly professional. My foundation is in good hands. To explore this marvel of a shopping cart go to http://tinyurl.com/cpltx

Cara Lumen, MA, The Vision Distiller, helps you explore your infinite possibilities for success and take your vision to the world. Her specialty is internet marketing and signature product development. Using her Magnetic Marketing Method she  helps you create a profitable presence on the internet with a minimum investment by using time, energy, information, and imagination. Learn how you can become a Success Magnet at www.caralumen.com