My goal over the next 3 months is to quadruple the traffic to my website and blog to and to grow my list to at least 8,000 strong subscribers.

Hey ho Suzen!

Why, you might ask, am I focusing on growing my traffic to that extent? And is that even possible?

I believe yes, it’s possible. I am married to this goal with such zeal you will not be able to shake me. This past year I started out with a  measly little list of under 200 and am already up to almost 2500. That’s over 100% growth. I’ve been busy.  And it’s paying off.

Lets Grow Traffic to Your Website

So, back to the why. Here’s the skinny: a big old list of prospects, who have VOLUNTARILY given you their email addresses plus a boat load of traffic coming into a website is the #1 key to a successful business, whether that business is online or off. Not the only key mind you, but it is #1 in terms of priority.

There are multitudes of “traffic guru’s” out in the blogosphere, each offering their own ‘best’ website traffic strategies,  traffic courses, e- books, podcasts and video’s  geared to helping people grow their list and attract thousands of raving fans to said fans websites.

I’ll be focusing in on a few of the masters next week. All of these crazy ass experts…and they are most definitely experts, have grown their own lists to record numbers by focusing in and applying  a series of basic (but consistent) techniques that have overhauled their businesses and put them at the forefront of the blogosphere, positioning them as thought leaders. Dramatic, I know, but true.

Fact: the bigger the list the more opportunity to reach qualified, paying and eager clients who are looking for your services.

Fact: the more traffic coming into your website, the more traffic coming into your blog, the more possibilities of showing your visitors what you have to offer. (What do you have to offer by the way? ) That’s my next series so stay tuned.

So here’s my question to you:

What are your biggest business frustrations, and specifically your biggest ONLINE obstacles?  Lack of traffic? A list that goes out to your mother and brother?  Period? Don’t show up on a Google search? Can’t get any Facebook fans?

Share them with me down below, if you’d be so kind, as I’m planning a series now that will target different online obstacles each week with a video series I’m putting together and I want to make sure I’m targeting your issues specifically.

Also I’ll be sharing my list building progress weekly with you beginning June 1 so that you can follow along and grow with me. If you need more help, you’ll know where to find me.

Let’s do this together! Who’s with me? Rah?

“Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

Say what?

Abercrombie and Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries made this statement to Salon in 2006, so why it’s coming out now I don’t know, but I’m glad that at least it’s getting the press now that it deserved back then. Better late than never.

There are 2 sides to this one for sure, and anyone in a niche business will take 1 side or the other but I have to say, when I first read this article it hit me so hard I had a physical reaction. I felt sick. I posted an article someone shared with me on Facebook yesterday by a self -proclaimed former fat girl http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-taney-humphreys/a-message-to-abercrombies_b_3245941.html

Listen, I’m in marketing so believe me, I get the whole target market thing. I blog about it consistently, and have made several video’s on the need to differentiate and hone in on your target market, but in this case I’m drawin’ my line.

Teens are a particularly sensitive and vulnerable market- they ‘re either victimized from the outside because of their looks or their lack of fitting in, or are victims of their own crappy self-images.  Most of them have not yet become the superstars they will some day become, and Jeffries choice of words underscores the ugly money –driven society we have become, at the expense of those most vulnerable.

We need to have a kinder and gentler approach when we’re the big guy and Jeffries blew it on all fronts with this statement. We all know that he’s targeting the thin and beautiful, but you know what- it’s offensive. There are other stores who target towards particular kids niches as well- take Pac Sun- surfer/cool Cal chic, but guess what- their sizes range from XS to XL- still targeting, but not exclusionary. No one there is saying (I hope) “if you wear our clothes you make the brand look bad”.

Where is the human element here? I don’t mean to go all preachy on you, but  when do we stop being business people and start paying attention to hurtful, harmful sales tactics that only perpetuate bias and inequality to an especially vulnerable group?

This is also a good lesson for our kids, and an opportunity to help them stand up for what is right, whether or not it ultimately solves the problem or not. A little social consciousness never hurt anyone. My teenage daughter will never shop there again, and tweeted to her Twitter followers to join her in boycotting Abercrombie.

Call me idealistic, call me naive, call me hypocritical, call me late for supper- but I don’t give a rats’ ass. You have to start somewhere- otherwise we just become part of the problem.

I would LOVE your thoughts on this. I know I’m being controversial. Don’t be afraid to disagree with me, I don’t bite!

“This seems like a lot of work for God’s sake. I have a website.  I have a Facebook account. I send emails. I am a busy so and so. Why do I also need to be creating all this “content”?”

Let’s discuss amongst ourselves:

In order to make your medical practice or business stand out these days, you will need more than a website. You just do, even if it’s a beautiful one, and here’s the reason why: there are many of you out there, I’m sorry to say. There are many of me out there as well, if it makes you feel any better. So, what, in this new world of information/media blasting overload and intense competition, will make you and your business stand apart and get noticed? The number of business websites and blogs have more than quadrupled in the last 4 years. Getting noticed as the clear choice is getting harder and harder, unless you are in an industry with no competition.

So what sets you apart?

• Your reputation-hopefully a good one- for sure,
• The quality of your work or products,
• Yes, your great customer service, for sure.

But guess what? Your competition also has a great reputation, gets referrals and has great customer service. And they give full refunds, no questions asked. So. Back you are at square 1.

The businesses that are knocking it out of the park these days are the ones who are offering services that bridge gaps, like the urgent care center who, instead of competing with the hospital emergency room, compliments and works alongside it instead, to offer patient services that will free up the hospital to focus on the real emergencies, shorten the lines there and hence become a part of the community triage rather than the competition. It’s also the company that’s under promising and over delivering, giving extraordinary service, serving you efficiently, and accessibly. They’re also generous with their “stuff”. What “stuff” ?

Well let’s make a list; this is just a sampling:

• Urgent Care Centers who are reaching out to the community via real time health alerts on Facebook, email blasts, health education offered on their website, and a soon to come video blog, Dr. Brown’s Medical Minute
• Grocery and food specialty stores offering free samples
• Professional Service websites offering free/e-book/consultations/an analysis
• Service professionals offering free tutorials either through articles, blogs or video’s
• Companies offering discount coupons through services such as Groupon or Living Social
• Doctors offering free screenings at health and community expo’s
• Realtors offering a professionally packaged (free) Comparitive Market Analysis
• Attorneys offering a free consultation
• Online Book publishers or marketers offering a free chapter of their book
• Extended hours and efficient customer service with no red tape or tons of paperwork created to make you lose your mind
• The elimination of the doctor’s office “Window Nazi” (good riddance!)

And so on.

When the new guy comes to town and chooses to compliment existing services rather than compete, to reach out to the community rather than put up a bigger sign, chooses to hire a community outreach person to see how the community and surrounding businesses can work together rather than slash prices and undercut the neighboring prices, chooses to enhance the community rather than enhance their pockets, now THAT’s a differentiator that will prove to be a win-win for both the community, the patients and the practice.

Check out the amazing reception Doctors Express received from the Danbury Community the night of their recent grand opening. They are a clear example of a medical practice going above and beyond.

I’ve gone on for some time now on my man Derek Halpern. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to recreate the wheel.

Our methods align perfectly and he is the master of keepin’ it simple, so I thought, why re-create the wheel?  Check out his formula for creating the perfect blog post. With over 60,000 followers in less than 2 years, this guy knows a thing or two about creating traffic to your website. I bow down to him.

You can see me rant about him right here. You can also learn more about keeping people on your site once you’ve drawn them there by reviewing the 18 great tips to keep people on your website. These are time tested methods that work for both websites and blogs.

What has worked for you? Is it a constant enigma?

Let me know in the comments down below, and subscribe to my blog (down there too) for weekly targeted tips on how to increase traffic to your site , more online marketing tips, and the occasional rant…. all designed to help you work smart, not hard.

An old wise man once said:

‘To love is to suffer.

To avoid suffering one must not love.

But then one suffers from not loving.

Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer.

To suffer is to suffer.

To be happy is to love.

To be happy then is to suffer.

But suffering makes one unhappy.

Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness.

I hope you’re getting this down?’ -Woody Allen

Your online strategy does not have to cause suffering, over- angsting, overwhelm, neuroses, or extreme drama (like Woody seems to). KISS. Do I need to explain this acronym? If so, email me and I’ll let you in on it. Suzen@omaginarium.com.

No, we break it down, and then break it down some more. The simpler the better. That being said, no matter what your marketing strategy is, it will always need to contain the key elements discussed in my video “The Differentiator”, it must always be offering GREAT value…so that we all have a warm and fuzzy feeling when thinking about you, and it must, if using content marketing, which I urge you all to in one way, shape or form, make sure that content is catchy, different and rise above the others. It sounds hard, I know, but truly it need not be. Call me maybe.

The value of a great (or outrageous) headline should not be underestimated. You can’t imagine the amount of traffic this blog entitled “Chinese Man Sues Wife for being Ugly and Giving Birth to An Ugly Baby” garnered. I know…sounds like a sleazy National Enquirer tactic…but you know what? It was an actual headline and I used it to prove a point, having nothing to do with that creep of a guy who sued his poor wife. According to Google Analytics, I had the highest numbers with the lowest bounce rate in the history of my blogs.

This morning I read an excerpt from a book  on 2 guys who opened a hot dog place in New York City’s East Village. Over 60 various styles of hot dogs are served at this place-dogs with eggs and cheese, hot dog fritters, hot dog parmesan (I don’t know if these last 2 are for real; I made them up for effect), but apparently the place was tres popular there for a while. But then, like so many entrepreneurs, that wasn’t enough. They needed more, and traffic was beginning to wane in the dog shop.

So what did these two smart hipsters do? Well, sitting in the back of the restaurant, there happened to be an old Clark Kent style phone booth, and within the phone booth, an authentic, old fashioned, stick your finger in the hole and rotate clockwise dial, which, if one were so inclined to do so, on the other end of the line a voice would miraculously come on and ask you if you wanted to make a reservation.

Make a what? To whom? This made no sense. You’re already in the restaurant. Then this voice would continue to ask a couple of questions about your plans. The last thing you heard the voice say is “Shhhh….don’t tell anyone about this, ok?”, and the next thing you know, the back of the booth opens up, just like Alice’s rabbit hole, to reveal a cool hipster bar scene behind that booth, that no longer serves up hot dogs, but rather, in a speak easy, cool and sexy space, now is offering, well I don’t know, frankly what they’re offering because I haven’t yet read the book, just the excerpt. But I will, and report back. Don’t want to recommend anything I haven’t read.

The point here is that these 2 guys were thinking out of the box. Way out of the box. Who would not be talking about this crazy experience now, what with the mystery voice in the booth warning you NOT to talk about it.

Marketing brilliance!

Here it is in a nutshell: keep it simple, but do something extraordinary. Give people an experience they would not be getting at your competitors. It may take creativity, sure, but it does NOT have to be complicated.

Sorry Woody.

What’s your differentiator?

Question:

• How many times have you woken up frustrated because you know you should have more business?

• You are working like a dog, doing all the things you’re supposed to be doing, and yet sales are not where they should be?

• You’re spinning your wheels, have listened to dozens of guru’s and yet still, nothing changes.

• Your online marketing strategy is NO strategy. You just throw stuff out there when you can.

And you need it to change. You need it to change right now.

We all feel this same sense of urgency in the spring. Spring is the season of renewal, of change, of growth. Your bottom line is not where it should be and you know your marketing needs a clear strong strategy and a powerful boost and you’ve tried it all

I so know this feeling. Have so been there, until I figured it out. It took a lot of bumps, and false starts…just like you, but I am now in a position to pay it back, to help you get to where you need to be, for 2013 and beyond.

I’m here to help wade through the muck of marketing shiny objects to pump you through to the other side.

In the name of spring, I’ve taken my  online marketing consulting, mentoring and mastermind programs to the next level and have created 3 totally customized programs for you to choose from, with spring special prices.

No free video to lure you in and then pounce on you. Shooting straight from the hip here. No one can do it alone- not me, not my own amazing mentors, and not you.

We all need support and guidance. Invest in yourself.

Consulting, Mentoring and Mastermind Groups:

You know what you want but you can’t seem to make it happen. You know the services that you   need, or at least you think you do. But do you? Really?

What is going to help you be more efficient, save time and grow your business?  Weekly chunks of direction to help you target your marketing demons in the most efficient ways.  Here’s the skinny:

On Site Website and Marketing Consulting For you and/or your team:

For the business owner who wants to learn how to do it themselves, a series of 6 one hour weekly sessions strategizing key components of how to maximize your exposure by optimizing your existing website.

Workshops include focus on the following Optimization components:

• Goal setting: initial strategy session where we hone in on your marketing and growth goals
• Complete initial website and online marketing analysis and audit of what is currently being done to maximize exposure
• Backlinking, Keyword, tag and basic SEO structural Workshop
• Content and offsite Marketing Workshop
• Social Media/Email marketing Workshop
• Blogging for traffic Workshop

$130 per Session, billed monthly. Must book a minimum of 6 sessions. Book 12 sessions and receive 20% discount off package. Technical work provided is billed on an hourly basis at $75 per hour.  Through this Friday April 12,  at midnight only

One on One Mentoring Sessions:

Individual coaching where we work together twice per month to build on your marketing plan and execute. I teach you how to be hands on and offer resources for tasks beyond your scope. Cost: $130 per session, billed monthly. Minimum of 6 coaching sessions, custom created with mutually agreed upon timelines. Book 12 sessions and receive 20% discount on package. Through this Friday, April 12, Only, $110 per session

Mastermind Group:

SPACE IS LIMITED TO ENSURE ENOUGH TIME FOR EVERYONE !! Beginning Monday May 6: A 6 month bi-weekly intensive  Mastermind group – 90 minute sessions, focusing on a different key area each month.

“The idea is to create a web page that encourages visitors to spend as much time as possible on it”

As promised in last weeks blog on the ongoing Organic Traffic Vs. Pay-Per Click debate,  once you have people on your blog, how do you keep them there? Here are some key design tips that make a big difference in keeping people on and interacting with your blog or website:

• Provide direct, concise, clear and very useful content.  In other words, the type of information that can’t be found elsewhere.

• Right out of the gate, make your intro sentences short and powerful. It’s been proven that people tend to read on if the first few sentences grab them. In order for that to happen sentences need to grab you- in a short and sweet way.  Here’s a good example; one of my most popular and shared blogs on

Losing Or Creating A Great Customer

Onwards:

• Write an engaging introduction.

• Use a direct language that is easy to read.

• Use meaningful titles and subtitles. They should be brief and convey a summary of the section.

• Keep paragraphs short, and use simple sentence structure. Breaking a long paragraph into several smaller sections invites the viewer in to read.

• Make your page more scan-friendly. Large blocks of dense text intimidate the visitor. This is important, as this is what people do now-they scan.

• Make your content into a story format. Or fun. Or funny. Or fresh. Or confrontational. Or all of the above. The trick is to make it stand out.

• Check for grammar. Misspellings and poorly constructed sentences communicate the wrong message and detract from your expert status.

• Make your content visually pleasing. Aesthetics and style are so important in engaging the reader into understanding the subject of your web page.

• Pick a relevant and enticing intro picture. It’s the first thing people see.

Use consistent formatting. Choose a pattern of spacing, an order of information presentation or a format of highlighting and be consistent throughout. See how this stands out? Awkward.

• Use contrasting colors. Text is easier to read when font and background color are in high contrast. Low contrast irritates the reader and causes eye fatigue.

• Use bullets and numbered lists. They help get the readers attention. Witness:
• Highlight, underline or bold important keywords or phrases.

• Use plenty of white space. Thoughtful use of empty space helps the visitor’s eyes to focus on the important information.

• Add links to other relevant blogs that people who are reading this blog would be interested in such as

How to Create A Monetized Blog

These design tips will make a difference in how long folks stay engaged. Of course you should be asking for engagement, for comments, and for them to DO SOMETHING, somewhere within the content of your blog. Involve the reader. Add call-to-action modules such as an opt-in box,  poll, quiz, comment or guest book. Make it easy for them to navigate your site and find those things rather than having to search for them.  Your call to action shouldn’t be your best kept secret.

Call it “Law of Attraction”, call it fate. This morning just before gearing up to upload my new video I was putzing around listening to a podcast of my newest  online obsession and hero Derek Halpern. He motivates me and gets me going like no one else these days. This was his 2nd in what’s turned out to be a hugely successful podcast series- and how does he open? RIGHT after his short intro -to himself- he points out that every week of this podcast he will have a different intro. Why? Because it differentiates him. It makes him stand out from all the rest of the podcasters jumping on the i tunes podcast bandwagon.

Ka-boom! This is what I’m talkin’ about:

I hate paying for things that I could be getting for free. I’ve even been known to cut my own hair, much to my kids chagrin. And so it’s only fitting that I devote a vast amount of my workday and passions to the ever exciting, ever evolving, ever challenging game of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Wow. I really do need to get a life.

A short tutorial to the various methods of leading traffic to your website:

Plan A)

Paid traffic

This is exactly what it sounds like. You will pay Google by bidding on the keywords you would like to “rank for” in a search, and whomever pays the higher price will end up closest to the top of the grayed in area’s along the very top of a Google search or down the right sidebar. The more competitive, or searched for keyword, the more you are going to pay to be placed up towards the top of the search engine. It’s called a whole slew of things, so you might recognize it as SEM (Search Engine Marketing), PPC (Pay per click), Paid Search, etc. Whatever, it’s all the same thing.

This is not a terrible strategy, but it should never be your sole strategy. I always encourage adding this later on an as needed basis, after plan B, which we will get to, has been implemented.  Alternately, it can be used to jump start a new site until the organic techniques have started to kick in. PPC can be a good addition to an online strategy for sure, but paid ads alone are only as good as the time which you are paying for them. They’re not going to sustain your presence on page 1 if nothing else is implemented. In other words if you are relying solely on paid ads and have not laid an integrated marketing foundation, the minute you stop paying for your ads, you can say adieu to your search engine visibility, and hello to page 12…you’re presence will dry up faster than Kim Kardashian  and Kris Humphries marriage.

No, what makes much more sense is

Plan B)

Organic traffic

A joint study conducted by Group M out of the UK and Nielsen reports that other than commercial searches, 94% of total search engine clicks go to organic results, with just 6% of click share left for paid search ads.

Most search queries are not commercial (people looking to buy something) or transactional in nature. Most search queries are informational or navigational. It’s difficult to find exact figures on what percentage of search queries are commercial – partly because deriving intent from a search query alone is always something of a guessing game. However, one survey found that about 25% (1 in 4) of search queries are navigational, i.e. people who want to find a specific website, or service, while 68% (over 2/3) are informational, i.e. people who just want general information on a topic. That only leaves 7% of searches with commercial intent, i.e. people who want to buy something.

Here’s a picture of what most search queries look like by playing with Google Insights for Search. For example, in the last 90 days, the top 10 search terms in the US were:

1. facebook
2. you
3. google
4. youtube
5. yahoo
6. craigslist
7. lyrics
8. weather
9. games
10. news

Here you can see that the top 6 are clearly navigational. (“you” is very likely people who just don’t finish typing “youtube” because the instant results load first). The last four are very broad informational queries. The only one that could potentially be considered commercial is “games.”

The crafty and consistent techniques you are going to implement on a regular basis- the on site keyword research and placement, the addition of fresh content, on-site linking, meta , alt and title tagging as well as the off site work of creating social media buzz, blog commenting, strategic linking, local search and map placements, bookmarking and directory placements will all, if implemented correctly get you and keep you where you want to be on the search engines, plus they are sustainable as compared to ppc.  And they’re free.

Is it tricky? Hell yeah.

Is it a guarantee? Hell no.

But will it work ? Yes sir.  You just can’t get lazy.

Online marketing, like all marketing, is an integrated effort, there is no doubt. No one technique, no magic bullet will keep you front and center in peoples minds other than consistent efforts, doing quality, over the top work, and branding.  It sounds exhausting, I know, but once you’re there on page one it’s a wonderful pay off. Now you need to keep people there. Next blog. Then convert that traffic to business. 2 blogs down. Someone might need to remind me!

One of the best projects I’ve worked on in a long time is a client opening up a new urgent care center in Danbury. My job is to help him maximize his online exposure and create the online buzz that the center will need to drive traffic not just to his website but through his door. Way overdue, this center is the first urgent care walk-in clinic Danbury has seen. It is a long overdue and welcome sight and is deserving of a big, warm welcome.

How can I create maximum buzz for Doctors Express Danbury? I love a good challenge. I’m lucky, first of all, to be working with a business guy, someone who gets that you can no longer just build it and expect people to beat a path to your doorway. The days of doctor’s reputations and neighbor –to- neighbor word of mouth referrals are petering. The Field of Dreams vision of build it and they will come are way done. These are ‘dreams’ and nothing more. Today we are finding doctors, like new restaurants, like hotels, like books, online. We are judging, often pre-judging them online and we are certainly more in control of their successes or failures than ever before.

That being said, advances in apps and online awareness are opening the doors to all kinds of possibilities for doctors and healthcare providers especially, and you will see them being applied at Doctors Express.  Awareness is key.  It’s not called urgent care for nothing. Quick, targeted service and information is what people are hungry for, what they’ve become used to and what an Urgent Care center aims to deliver.

You’ll be seeing super cool services such as

• Real time community health alerts (The flu is coming! the flu is coming!)communicated the community you via email, Twitter and Facebook.
• Healthcare Education, available services, and informational video’s on their Youtube channel and website, so that folks can not only get to know the medical director but can get comfortable with him as well prior to meeting him, a meet and greet with the staff and more fun video’s which will unroll over the next year.
• Occasional service specials on services like camp physicals, blood pressure screenings, flu shots, and more, again, brought to you via online newsletters, email blasts, Facebook and Twitter
• Downloadable forms that can be filled out at home which will cut wait time in half

The way that healthcare is being delivered today is changing. Its’ ability to reach out to you is easier than ever before and important to strive for, so that the services you receive are efficient, portable and most of all effective. Interaction and connection is encouraged. If you are engaged with your healthcare providers, trust is formed and then a relationship. And that’s how you stay sticky.

Take note, other service industries, and get on board. You too can use the tools available to you to engage, grow your traffic and build your community cred.