What’s the average site conversion rate for a typical merchant today? About 2.4%. That’s pretty depressing when you think about it.

That’s the Lead question and answer in this intriguing article on TheMultiChannelMerchant.com. If you aren’t sending the right message, you Small business (or any business) will suffer the consequences online.

This really well thought out article talks about visitor personality types and how they respond to your website architecture. Pretty great stuff!

Before you begin analyzing the effectiveness of your content, you need to understand your visitors’ frame of reference. Every visitor does things for specific reasons. These reasons translate into four distinct preferences that explain the how and why behind what people do.

Once you understand the four basic personality types — emotional, logical, fast-paced, and disciplined — you can build perspectives or snapshots that give you insight into how your customers might want to purchase your products. From there you can adjust your site design, content, and creatives.

Your visitors fall into certain profiles that give you a better understanding of who each group is and what their mode of behavior is going to be:

• Fast-paced or spontaneous visitors: Hip, stylish, and fun-loving, these people look for impulse buys and in-style products and services.
• Emotional visitors: These people think in terms of family and relationships, and will look for what everyone else is buying, or whatever will most help them be socially involved.
• Logical visitors: This group wants to drill down into the details of your products or services and compare and contrast options.
• Disciplined or competitive visitors: These folks know exactly what they want and are on your site only to get it in a quick, methodical, and straightforward way.

The article go deep into the idea of designing a site for different personalities. Have a good read here.

Once you understand the four basic personality types — emotional, logical, fast-paced, and disciplined — you can build perspectives or snapshots that give you insight into how your customers might want to purchase your products. From there you can adjust your site design, content, and creatives.

One of the most productive things you can do on Facebook is to create an event. The numbers of Facebookers taking advantage of this great marketing tool are increasing every month. Your event could be a live event (a Business or Small Business mixer, a networking event or Seminar, etc), a teleclass or tele-seminar or even a recorded presentation. By using the Events feature to it’s fullest you can connect with huge numbers of Facebook Users. To make your event a super success follow the 9 SIMPLE steps outlined below.

1. To set up an event, just go to your Facebook profile and click the link in the left hand navigation area that says “Events” (it’s just below the search bar in the “Applications” area). Next, look for the button on the right that reads, “Create an Event”. Click it and your good to go.
2. On this next page you get to name your event. This is probably your most important step. You want to make the name of your event create curiosity and interest. Be clever but not too clever. The name of your event should leverage your  expertise. People want to go to an event lead by an expert! Here’s your chance to be recognized as an expert which, in turn, breeds credibility amongst your Facebook peers.

   **One important note: Once you name an event, IT CANNOT BE CHANGED!

   If you are using a Facebook Event to introduce your Business, Small Business, product or service, you want to make  sure that you open your event to the entire Facebook community, you never want to limit the potential attendance.

3. List your Event Tagline, your Host’s name (that’s  you or one of your groups) and the type of event planned (you have choices like “Party”, “Causes”, “Education”  and “Meetings”). I like Education and/or Meetings.
4. Next you’re going to add the description of your event.

   The Event description is  also a very valuable bit  of real estate. You want to make it brief but full of the reasons why this event MUST BE ATTENDED! List the benefits for the attendees. There are 2 things you must accomplish in this brief event description:

   1. ETR - Stands for Earn The Right - who are you and why should I listen to you.
   2. WIIFM - “What’s In It For Me” - List the benefits for the attendees. You need to provide them  with all the compelling evidence needed for  them to attend YOUR event.

5. Make sure to fill out the rest of the required info on this page and click  the “Create Event” button.

   Note: If your event is a tele-class, tele-seminar or webinar, list that in the Location Field.

6. On the next page, you will (yes, WILL) add a picture for your Event. No one is going to take you seriously and attend your event if you don’t bother to add a picture. Ask yourself: Would you?”
7. You are given a lot of other options on this page. Most of the defaults are fine but I would disable “Photos” and “Videos”. There is no reason that I can think of to allow others to post pics or videos on your event page. We want to limit distractions.

   Do however, allow posted items. If you can get people engaged and talking on your Event page, you mission is nearly accomplished!

8. Once you have uploaded your Event Picture and selected the rest of the event settings, you are ready to “Save and Continue”. (The blue button on the bottom…)
9. The Final step is to invite ALL your friends. Make sure you send along a message and invite them to share this event with others.

That’s all there is to it. Now go have a successful event!

It appears that marketing professionals are increasingly spending their budgets on interactive platforms such as viral marketing and social media, new research shows.

Based on the survey results by the Online Marketing and Media Show (OMMS), marketers are no longer focusing their attention on traditional banner advertising but are spending more money on search, email and pay-per-click. (Go figure).

Marketing budgets (and we’re talking about traditional marketing arms, not internet marketers, per se) are increasing in the social media area. One third of poll respondants said that they planned to spend as much as 25% of their dollars (or euros) on online marketing and media this year - a 15 per cent increase from the predicted spend in 2007.

Now the survey didn’t reveal where they are spending their money, my gut tells mme that they are talking about Google adwords and YouTube…

All right, I have finally done it. In an effort to bring my clients great results, I have, for far too long, neglected this site. So, with a burst of energy, I did a major overhaul and full redesign.

I feel it is very representitive of my overall work and felt it was very important to showcase that work in a frame that did it justice.

I would appreciate any and all comments

Have a great day

Lennie

I am so happy to announce, that the FreeMarket Media Group e-book entitled “The WordPress Beginners Guide” is available. This e-book walks you step-by-step through everything you need to know about the WordPress blogging system.

Even if you’re not a beginner, this book is for you. Why? Because this book will walk you through everything WordPress’ completely revamped version 2.5 has to offer

There are a ton of content management systems out there but in my humble opinion WordPress has a leg up on the competition. On the Web you’ve always had really only two choices.

(A) Become a coder and build a website or (B) use a content management system like Joomla and become a coder. But now with WordPress version 2.5 you can manage everything on your website from one simple administration area. Can you send an e-mail? Then you can use WordPress.

In this guide, I will walk you step-by-step through everything WordPress has to offer. But that’s not all. I have also included a special section in this book called “the keyword primer”. With the keyword primer you will learn how to leverage the power of your WordPress blog to get killer search engine rankings.

Packed with over 60 pages of information, including pictures that cover every step in the process, you will learn to quickly master your WordPress blog.

Isn’t it time to ramp up your presence online? The new paradigm dictates that if you want to do business online, you need a blog! Common wisdom also dictates that if you have a job an hour from home and there is no public transportation, you need a car. But first you need to learn how to drive. Consider this your WordPress blog “driver’s education”.

The developers of the WordPress blog spent over six months completely redesigning and re-engineering WordPress. So, if you’re a beginner, and you need tools to get you started, then this book’s for you. If you’re familiar with Word press and want to make the jump to version 2.5, without the learning curve, then this book’s for you too.

Because I want you to have this book, I’m gonna make a special deal. Looking around the Internet I found an outdated WordPress e-book for $97 and I’m sure it’s still selling. I found another WordPress tutorial e-book, yes, this one is outdated to, but you can have for just $40.32. Well, that kind of sucks doesn’t it. Just what we all want to do, go out and buy a beat up used car for more money than the brand-new one. So here’s a special deal, I want you to have the shiny new car. $17! That’s right, only $17. And the best news, once you buy, you get to download this book immediately and get your WordPress blog working for you.

Huh?! If you haven’t ever heard this term before, you need to run (yes, run don’t walk) and by Seth Godin’s book, “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable”.

Imagine driving down a beautiful rural highway when suddenly you see the most extraordinary cow. He’s big, muscular, black and white (like most cows we see) - but he is truly remarkable, unlike any “normal” cow we’ve ever seen. Well, we take note. As we continue to drive we see a few more of these “remarkable” cows. As we see more and more of them, the become less remarkable until we no longer notice them at all.

No imagine that this cow is a bright shiny purple - I think it would be something that we’d  never forget. This is  exactly Seth’s idea.

I started thinking about Seth’s Purple Cow after reading his blog post titled “How to title stuff“.

He gives us 3 ways:

1. Pick a completely descriptive, generic, boring name that precisely describes what’s inside. Like “Shredded Wheat” or “12 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog. This is the one  that Google likes. . .
2. Pick a more clever name that’s designed to entice the reader to read the subtitle, or the first few lines of your post. Your visitor likes this one. . .
3. Pick a name that gets talked about. To create a phrase that you hope will enter the vocabulary.

Now I usually try a combo of numbers 1 and 2, but number 3 is pretty powerful. Seth’s is famous for coing the “Purple Cow”.

Seth Says: Yes, that’s my strategy. My goal is to have people call something a Purple Cow or eviscerate the boss for suggesting yet another Meatball Sundae.

Yes, he coined the  term “Meatball Sundae”.

If  for some reason you don’t know about Seth Godin, you are doing yourself a disservice, seek him out, pay attention and learn.

Coming up with a clever title for something you are doing might be one way. Being innovative in the way you do business is something far more powerful!

In his book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, Seth Godin says that the key to success is to find a way to stand out–to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins. Godin himself may be the best example of how this theory works: The marketing expert is a demigod on the Web, a best-selling author, highly sought after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger. He is uniquely respected for his understanding of the Internet, and his essays and opinions are widely read and quoted online and off.”

Forbes.com

So what the hell is linkbaiting you ask. . .

Well, let me spell it out for you. Linkbaiting is a method to get other sites to link to your site. There are a lot of ways to do this including, giving away tools, having contests, being a really compelling blooger among others.

Darren Rowse gives us a pretty good list of linkbaiting techniques on Problogger.com.

In his list he includes some things like controversy and attack (to create controversy). Controversy maybe, but  if you are running a business site, the attack method may not be the best plan.

Zaadz is a social network like MySpace or Facebook. People can open an account, network with others, author blogs, add friends and lots of other things. What Zaadz does a little differently is that they put a new meaning on the word “Social” in the social networking world. Social in the sense that they care about our world and it’s people. Social in the sense that are care about the environment. The Zaadz community cares about the many cultures of the world. The mission of Zaadz is to make our world a better place in every sense and it’s motto is: “Zaadz: Connect. Grow. Inspire. Empower.”

Zaadz is an alternative to the usual Social Networking sites. They go so far to have a button on the bottom of every page proclaiming themselves “100% Organic”! You notice the differences immediately between Zaadz and sites like Care2 (another “green” site) and Friendster when you start the process of registering for a Zaadz account.

When you click “you! (join now)” link (there version of register for an account), you must in mind agree to the Zaadz principles. Zaadz principles are: Harmony, Integrity, Peace, Trust, Truth, Unity and Finally, Love. You agree to these principles by clicking each word in a series of circles that resembles a flower.

On this page they explain the reason why. They explain that they are different than most other online communities. They are committed to the principles inside the circles.

They ask tht before you join to take a moment and commit (by clicking the circles), to these principles. Once you do (after all they are all great concepts) you’re in.

So, is there a way to both serve this community and grow your business? You bet there is. Zaadz is the place to take advantage of the emerging green economy. Never has there been a place where so many socially conscious and active individuals meet and hang out in one place. The Green Economy, which I will here officially name Green 2.0, is growing by leaps and bounds. Some experts are predicting that the green economy will overshadow the dot com boom.

Here are 5 things you can do to guide these socially minded people to your business:

1. Create a Meaningful Profile - Just like the other social network sites (Friendster and Myspace for example) you first create a profile. The content you add to this profile is extremely important. Remember this is the first thing other members will see about you and your business. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Make your profile complete. Add a cool title for yourself. Hard to explain but they will give you some examples like (Philosopher or Thinker), just go with it. Add a good description about you and your services in the about me section. Remember be complete.

Add Some Friends - Like the other social networking sites, you can add friends. Click the “Zaadzsters” link and use the search feature to find people with a similar taste in music. By adding friends, you increase your reach. Remember the seven Zaadz principles, you are not here only to benefit yourself, you are here to share. By adding friends on Zaadz, you are connecting with many new people that have like interests, goals and dreams.

3. Add an Event - Debuting your new Service? Build your own events page and invite all your new Zaadz friends. On this page you can add a link to your site and it even add a link to a Google Map. Marketing doesn’t get much easier (or more inexpensive!) than this.

4. Post a Blog - With your Zaadz account, you get a blog. Here is where you get to add really compelling and meaningful content overflowing with brilliant insight for your fellow community members. This doesn’t have to be directly about you or your business but rather about the bigger picture that your business products/services address. For example, if you are a Plummer, don’t write about what you offer, write about the importance of good plumbing and home care.

5. Join a Pod (Zaadz Group) - Browse Pods or use the Pod Tag feature to find a couple of pods that you fit into. Join and share your plans, your goals, your business with the other members. Share consciously, no one wants to be battered with a sales pitch on the first meeting. That’s not the goal here. The goal is to network with a group of like minded individuals, who, once you earn their trust, may very well become some of the best emissaries for you, your message and your products/services.

Since the beginning, Zaadz has been labeled with a “New Age” tag. In my opinion, this is not a bad thing. After all, we are in a New Age of Green and Social Consciousness marketing and business. Go Green 2.0.
———-
Lennie Appelquist is the Owner of FreeMarket Media Group. FreeMarket Media Group is dedicated to helping individuals and small businesses generate leads, convert those leads in customers/clients and build a web presence that works for them. We can show you how to make your online business profitable - IMMEDIATELY. Wanna open a FREE account on Zaadz? Click here to join me on Zaadz!

In March 2007, Google announce that they were “going greener”.  In his Ars Technica blog post, Nate Anderson wrote on March 29, 2007:

Google’s commitment to “green” means that the company sources carpet and sofas made without PVC, paints without volatile organic compounds, and cafeteria food from local growers. It’s not surprising, then, that they would roll out the largest commercial solar deployment in the US—a 1.6MW installation that covers most of the buildings at Google’s campus and extends even to shaded parking spaces. At the ETech conference in San Diego this week, Google’s Anthony Ravitz explained how Google did it, and why.

The move to solar made sense for Google, and not just “hippie Gaia-loving” sense. Ravitz said that Google will earn its investment back in 7.5 years, after which it will continue to enjoy inexpensive power for decades. With the company sprawled across a large campus of many low buildings, roof space was easily available. Solar also has the unique property of pumping out more energy when power is the most expensive—peak afternoon hours. When air conditioners across California kick into action on sunny days, Google generates the most power.

On November 28th, 2007, news comes out that Google is going into the green energy business.  Google has been pouring investment money into this sector. Besides investing in solar, wind and geothermal companies, Google will create its own research and development group “to look very aggressively at what we think are some promising technological pathways,” said Bill Weihl, Google’s green energy czar.

Google said that it’ll spend “tens of millions” to research clean-energy alternatives to coal-fired power plants and “hundreds of millions” to cut the costs of this power.

The goal is to produce 1 gigawatt of power from clean power sources - enough to light up a city the size of San Francisco - at a cost that’s the same as if the energy came from low-cost, high-polluting coal.

How soon? “Within years, not decades,” Google co-founder Larry Page wrote in a Web post.

Not much to do with marketing on the web, but good for the earth, don’t you think?

Where will you be on May 31st, June 1st and June 2nd?

I’ll be teaching a SELECT group of people the EXACT methods I’ve used to bring myself from a Vacuum Cleaner sales person to earning over $35,000,000 and I’ll add another $15,000,000 to that figure this YEAR ALONE!

Want to know how I do it? It’s not what you think!!!

Click This Link To Find Out…
http://www.freedomfactor.com

(more…)

You probably remember all the hype that flooded your in-box when StomperNet hit the scene 6 months ago. “StomperNet THIS.” “StomperNet THAT.” It was a feeding frenzy - email after email with claim after claim.

I mean, EVERY “Product Launch” these days promises some sort of Secret, or Competitive Edge, or Unfair Advantage. Those phrases are getting pretty tired. Tired, old, ugly, and annoying, actually. It got to be a little ridiculous.

Here’s what I think… (more…)