Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Bring Your Website Back to Life

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You had the best of intentions when you started your website, but it is not getting many visitors and you haven’t touched it in months–or even years. It’s not hopeless! Here is what you can do to bring your website back to life and start generating traffic (and ultimately revenue) from your site.

Fix what’s broken. Check the navigation on your site. Do all of the links lead visitors to active pages? Run a link checker (such as the one at http://www.addme.com/link-checker.htm) to see if there are dead links on your site and fix any you find. Is your contact information correct? Is the copyright date current? Are you still promoting your “upcoming” October, 2008 event? Are there features on your site (e.g., audio or video, widgets, tools, etc.) that no longer work? Does your site have a Flash intro? (Lose it. Now. Really.) How long does it take your site to load? Visitors will not stick around waiting for a slow site. Before you do anything else, get your site up to date and working well.

Add content. When is the last time you added articles, news, event listings, press releases and other content? Uh, huh. I thought so. That is too long ago. Get a few things on the site immediately, and make a plan to continue adding new content at least every couple of weeks.

Get social. Attract visitors to your site by participating in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Social media is about creating relationships, not selling. However, when you engage with people who share your interests, many of them will visit your site to read your new articles and learn more about you. Bookmark your new (and best) stuff on sites such as Delicious.com, Digg.com and others.

Participate in forums where your target market hangs out. Network with people there. Remember, it’s not about selling, it is about creating relationships. Create a profile. Participate in discussions and be helpful to other members. Create a signature file that you use in your forum posts so that people who are impressed with your knowledge and sharing can visit your site.

Start an email list. When people come to your site, ask for an email address so that you can keep in touch with them. Offer tips, news and other information they want to receive. Let them know they will be the first to learn when you have new content on your site. Bribe them to sign up by offering a free ebook, audio program or other downloadable bonus. I use Aweber to manage my email lists.

Start a blog. One reason many people do not update their websites is that they can’t. A web designer set it up for them, and when they want to add or change anything, they have to get the designer to do it. With a blog, you can easily add content whenever you wish. Add a blog to your existing site, set up a blog on a separate site, or (in extreme cases) consider tossing out your current site and starting over with a blog. If you are truly intimidated by technology, you may want to hire someone to set up the blog. Once it is up and running, though, you can take over.

Keep the conversation going. Once you are actively participating in social networks, adding content to your site and/or blogging, keep doing it. Respond to comments on your blog. Send out news and information to your email list. (You can use the RSS feed from your website or blog to automatically generate a newsletter with Aweber.) Guest post on other blogs and invite other bloggers to post on yours. (Use http://BloggerLinkUp.com to find compatible bloggers.)

It won’t happen overnight, but you will see your site come back to life with more traffic than ever before.

Text Messaging Acronyms 101

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Confused by popular texting acronyms? There is a meaning to those jumbles of letters and numbers, and having the ability to decipher them is becoming more important every day.

Understanding what your teenager is texting—to you, about you or when she thinks you are not watching—can help you be more a part of her life. And texting is not just for teenagers any longer. The shorthand of texting has invaded everywhere from Twitter to email to what used to be formal business communications.

It is especially important to know the meaning of popular texting acronyms if you plan to use them, so you can be spared the embarrassment of inadvertent inappropriate texting—such as sending an acronym with a raunchy or insulting meaning to your boss. Or your grandmother, who is hip enough to know what it means.

Here are some of the most famous messaging sayings. [Read more…]

Get Linked In with LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is a social media website, like Facebook, MySpace and others.  However, LinkedIn focuses on the professional crowd.  It is designed to help you build a professional network to make connections that can grow your business.

Here’s how to make LinkedIn work for you.

Get started by registering with LinkedIn and making connections. You probably have an address book full of people.  Perhaps they are current or past customers, co-workers at corporate jobs, colleagues from professional associations and networking groups, or others with whom you have interacted during your career. LinkedIn enables you to connect with all of them. 

Being a part of this giant network helps to build awareness of your business.  As you link up with other professionals, they show you on their contact lists.  Now your business is exposed to all of the other people who are connected with those people. So right off, LinkedIn helps you boost exposure.

LinkedIn helps you build effective and profitable business relationships.  Connecting with your peers enhances your awareness of what other people in your field are doing.  Because you are now part of their network, you will be exposed to new opportunities.

LinkedIn also has a question and answer section where you can ask or answer questions. Not only can you get assistance from others with the challenges you face, you have the chance to demonstrate your skills and knowledge by helping others with their business dilemmas.  And that gives you and your business more credibility and authority, making you someone people will look to as an industry leader. 

Another feature of LinkedIn allows you to recommend and refer other professionals and to have them recommend and refer you.  People are much more likely to do business with someone who has been recommended by someone they already know and trust than with a total stranger.

According to LinkedIn:

* They have more than 43 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.

* A new member joins nearly every second

* About half of their members are located outside the United States.

* LinkedIn members include executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies

You can use LinkedIn to grow your business and make connections around the world.

The Math of Marketing

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mathTara Hunt recently wrote an interesting blog post about influencers and it got me thinking about how many businesses approach marketing and publicity. Marketing is a numbers game, but are you looking at the right numbers?

We all want to get the attention of the bloggers who have huge followings, have feature stories written about us in major publications, and be on Oprah’s show. Some people and companies direct all of their efforts toward those goals.

The problem is that everyone is trying to get the attention of the biggest media. That means that it is hard to get their attention and even harder to get them to cover you. However, there are lots of other media that would love to have your story. Would you rather have 1000 people read about you on a few blogs, or 0 people see you on Oprah? [Read more…]

Do You Make These Social Media Mistakes?

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pass-noteSocial media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and others, enable us to interact with people we know well and those we have never met IRL (In Real Life). My husband refers to my online friends as my “imaginary friends,” but I know more about my imaginary friends than he does about some of his “real life” friends.

If you feel isolated because you are working alone, social media sites can seem like a lifeline to other humans. They can also be a way to make connections with new customers, influencers and others who can help your business grow. Too often, though, I see people make simple mistakes that harm their reputations, rather than helping.

Here are some common errors and how you can avoid them. [Read more…]