Big Foot Web Marketing

I just finished reading an excellent article on Copyblogger by Brian Clark , who’s writing style is breath of fresh air. He is straight to the point and an exceptional communicator.

In the article, Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter? Brian calls out the increasing trend to ignore the basic marketing tactic ” call to action” in favour of over used keywords in anchor text.

If your site is ranking well and visitors are not converting you have failed. If you have a blog set up to generate leads or get sale or to brand yourself and you are visitors leave your site with out buying something or signing up for anything or reading more of your posts than what’s the point?

The are many reason why a site doesn’t convert. It can be anything from poor site usability to bad copy writing. it may also be because you are not telling people what to do. sometimes you do have to tell them to “click here” !
” Sue’s Needlepoint newsletter” used as anchor text is different than ” Subscribe Up for Newsletter Now !” . Even CLICK HERE for my weekly newsletter might be better than both. I will often set up two ( or more) different pages and test the anchor text- which gets more clicks and what gets better conversion.

Examples of Call to Action Phrases to Use on Your Blog

– create a sense of urgency i.e email now! email today , subscribe now, click now, read now, register now, etc – offer incentive i.e. pay now and save, today’s coupon, subscribe and save, see this weeks specials, special offer here, “get free trial today” – create “exclusivity” i.e “become a member now and save” , “subscribe now and get…” ” subscribers receive free…” . ” free e-book when you register” and so on.

Link your call to action with your conversion goal. I hate the phrase “contact for more info” If you have a real estate site, don’t ask them to contact you for more information use “list your home today” or “get your free hotsheet here”.
If your conversion is to sell affiliate products your call to action should not be the passive ” get more info here” or just the title of book or product, try “order XYZ now” or ” Read first chapter of….. now” , etc

Lest you think knowing about this kind of stuff is “too advanced” its isn’t. To make get your business or monetized blog reach to the next level you must Always Be Closing. Using basic marketing technique your blog will make more money with the same effort.

When writing your blog- don’t get caught up in SEO tangle and start writing exclusively for search engines instead of people. You need to balance your SEO with good copy that works.

Read More About Call To Action and Conversion

Call To Action Buttons – Does Size Matter?

Is It Time to Talk More About Conversion? by Problogger

99% of Advertising Doesn’t Sell a Thing at Duct Tape Marketing

Design call-to-action statements that get results by Jim Kukral

Conversion Rate: What’s Your Website Tracking As A Conversion?

Tags: Blog for Money 101 Series, Internet Marketing and Blogs, Web Site Marketing by Lisa Stewart
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Wordpress is “famous” for their 5 minutes install. Does it really take 5 minutes? It can, Most times it really is that easy. The part most people will find the most challenging or intimidating is setting up the my SQL database. It sounds more complicated than it is.

After you have downloaded and unzipped wordpress set up your database . Each hosting company will all let you set up a new mySQL database a little bit differently but the end result is the same. You will have to go into admin or cpanel section of domain. Look for somethig that says “MSQL admin” or similar. You need to create a new data base. In some cases before you do that you set up a user name. it may be as easy as hitting button that says “new” and giving it a name.

If your host uses cpanel : Instructions for setting up mySQL data base with cpanel

GoDaddy: Set up ,ySQL database on Godaddy instructions

Bluehost : set up MySql database instructions

2.Open up wp-config-sample.php with a text editor like WordPad or similar and fill in your database connection details.

Look for the code below:

<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');    // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');     // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');    // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

and fill in from the information assigned your database. Be careful not to delete any quotes.

Save the file as wp-config.php.

Upload everything.

Upload the contents of the wordpress file on your PC to the root directory of your domain. Note- don’t just upload the folder- make sure in your pane view in ftp client you see all the word press files.
Where to upload on the server?
On some hosting companies they may have a folder called “www” all ready created. You can also create a folder and give it a name however make sure in your domain admin panel you change the destination. If all this sounds like too much- leave it and just upload.

If any of this seems overwhelming and you don’t understand- please feel free to contact me by email or in comments section. I may be able to walk you through it.

Open /wp-admin/install.php in your browser. This should setup the tables needed for your blog. If there is an error, double check your wp-config.php file, and try again.

Put your domain name in Address URL of your browser and add /wp-admin/install.php . even if you just put in your domain Wordpress is smart enough to automatically take you to install.
Give your blog a name and description- you can change later on Wordpress option so don’t stress about it.

If you are getting any error then 99.99% of the time is becasue you have made a mistake when inputting your database information. Go over it and try again.

You are done. Any questions or problems?

Tags: Blog for Money 101 Series by Lisa Stewart
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Steps To Installing WordPress Blog

First if you have not downloaded the latest version of Wordpress go do it now. Download Wordpress here

Get an FTP client. This is what is used to upload files ( like WordPress , themes, plugins, etc) to your server. You can also download files from your server as well as edit.

[Read more →]

Tags: Blog Start Up, Blog for Money 101 Series, Free Tools and Utilities by Lisa Stewart
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Choosing Domain Name and Finding a Web Host

I am going to assume you are using Wordpress blog. If you are going to do something different- i strongly advise that you change your mind. Wordpress is by far the best blogging platform available. It is free, easy to use and widely supported.

Dreamhosting : Use the Dreamhosting promo code 101010 when you sign up to get 0.10 discount which bring the cost down to .30 for 1 year subscription. BUT will cost [Read more →]

Tags: Blog Start Up, Blog for Money 101 Series, Blogs and Blogging, Internet Marketing and Blogs by Lisa Stewart
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