Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts

Saturday, February 5, 2011

10 Marketing Strategies You Can Implement Today

If you run an online business, blog or website you know you need to be marketing. Maybe you aren’t sure where to start. These ten tips are things you can start implementing right away to grow your business and start getting the word out about your product or service. These tips should be used over and over to continually grow awareness of your blog/product or service. Use them weekly, but they are easy enough that you can start using them today.

1. Interact on related blogs & forums. Simply find blogs and forums that are in the same niche or category as your site and start interacting with people. You can leave comments, offer helpful advice and suggestions or just get to know people.

2. Write and distribute to article directories. Writing an informative article is something you can do today. There are many article directories that will allow you to post your article for free. Not only is this a way to give readers pertinent information but you also get a backlink in your bio or resource box.

3. Guest blog. You may not get a guest blogging spot today, but you can write the blog post and start contacting blog owners to see if they are interested.

4. Create a compelling email signature. You need to do this in your autoresponder signature as well as your personal email signature.

5. Create videos and put on Youtube. Videos are getting more popular every day. You can create several short videos, upload them to Youtube and then share the links with your readers, in your email signature, on Twitter and Facebook. Don’t like seeing yourself on screen? That’s not a problem, you can create Power Point Presentations for the visual and then read from a script so all that’s “seen” of you is your voice.

6. Write a review. You can write reviews on products you’ve tried, ebooks you’ve read, webinars, videos, books you’ve read, affiliate programs. The list is endless on things you can review to help your readers and give you exposure.

7. Tweet to your followers. You don’t have to get on Twitter every single day and bombard your followers with tweets, but you can use Twitter as a strategic source to build your following, set up your personal brand and reach out to others looking for your information.

8. Share your stuff on Facebook. You can set your blogs to post on Facebook through Networked Blogs, you can set up plugins that allow you and others to share your blog posts on social networks. Utitilize these tools for yourself too. Your readers aren’t the only ones who can use them–you can too.

9. Email your list. This one is pretty self explanatory, you can email your list once or twice a week with updates, promotions and other stuff. If you don’t have a list, start a list building campaign and start sending people to your opt-in page.

10. Create a free report. You can write up a report to give away that contains relevant information to your website, product or service. Brand it with your website address in the footer so people know where to go to find more information.

These are all pretty simple methods you can start doing immediately to grow traffic to your blog or website. Do you have any simple solutions not mentioned here that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Massive Growth at HostGator is Exciting to Watch

It’s always great to see awesome companies online succeed, especially ones that you have been working with for many years. The funny thing about online companies, is that they really don’t need to do “real world advertising”, since they can do it so cost effectively and well online. An extremely well known hosting company in the internet marketing space is HostGator, and not only do they host a great majority of affiliate related sites, but they also make affiliates a massive amount of money as well! Over $400,000 is paid out to Host Gator affiliates every month! How sick is that!?

Host Gator just sent out one of their monthly mailing and it had some pretty exciting highlights for the company, which saw explosive growth in 2010. Here are just a few of their company highlights.

HostGator in the News

In 2010, HostGator grew by over 2 MILLION domains! At the beginning of 2010, the company had 2.9 million domains, and are now at nearly 5 million domains. The company has also expanded to over 500 employees, along with 64 new reps to handle customer support. But even more fun and exciting is how HostGator is making a big name for themselves in the offline world… look out GoDaddy, here comes HostGator!

The latest additions to the HostGator branding and marketing campaigns include billboards, a real NASCAR sponsorship and even being seen in an EA Sports UFC video game. Will we soon see a new celebrity sponsor for HostGator next? HostGator doesn’t just spend mad cash on ad campaigns… they’ve also donated $100,000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund.

I’m glad to see HostGator doing so well. Not only do they host millions of web sites, but they have also made a ton of affiliates a TON of money over the years with their amazingly successful affiliate program, which is available through their in-house affiliate program and through Commission Junction.

HostGator Web Hosting Solutions – Save 20%

I have a few servers with HostGator and you should too! Web hosting plans start as low as $4.95 a month. Another excellent perk of hosting with HostGator is they have one click install software for many applications and programs like WordPress. If you are setting up a ton of mini sites or completely clueless when it comes to installing software, HostGator makes this extremely easy to setup. Use coupon code ZACJOHNSON to get your first month of only for only 1 penny!

Setup Your HostGator Account Now.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Understanding the Difference Between “Want” and “Want to Buy”

This guest post is by Ryan Barton of The Smart Marketing Blog.

As I was sitting at a café over breakfast, the couple nearby flipped through their Sunday paper. As I tend to do, I eavesdropped on their conversation.

“Will you look at that bedding? That’s wonderful!” “Oh my God, I’d die for those shoes.” “I love that movie, and it’s on sale!”

Aside from my habitual eavesdropping problem, the conversation’s simplification of the “want” impulse is vital to your online success.

Buying versus browsing

There’s a significant, actionable difference between admiration and buying intent.

The first is an attraction, a respect, a good feeling. “That car has beautiful lines.” “Wow, a front-facing camera and it supports Flash?” But regardless of all those positive thoughts, admiration lacks a fulfilled need.

The second says, “not only do I admire this service or product, but it’s exactly what I’m looking for.” “My New Year’s resolution was to focus on marketing, so this is perfect!” The product satisfies a real need—not a flighty want.

Earlier this year, Lemon and Raspberry subscribers said they’d absolutely love to win my ebook, Smart Marketing, during Amy‘s New Year’s blog party.

“Ooooh I’d LOVE to win this! I’m always up for some good marketing insight!!,”said one reader. Another agreed,“I would love to read this book. Maybe I can count it as one of the many books I resolve to read this year.”

That’s flattering; really, lots of kind words. Yet, after the contest ended and the book was awarded, some readers suddenly didn’t want the book; or, more accurately, they didn’t want to pay for it.

This is the “want” gap in action—the difference between liking a product and actually wanting to pay for it.

The “want” gap

Amy’s readers may have liked the idea of reading my book, but they didn’t realize a present need for it. It’s a great idea, and it’d be a nice addition to a library, but there wasn’t enough of an internal need to get them to pull out their wallets.

We see the same principle, but to a greater extent, with larger giveaways. Sure, I’ll take the car, the free cruise, the year’s supply of coffee—but I’m not going to pay for it.

Image by Austin Kleon

Friend and artist John T. Unger experienced something similar with a book of poetry he wrote; the “want” gap was later brilliantly illustrated by Austin Kleon.

John’s poems had a real, emotional impact on a reader; the reader admired the author. Yet all the admiration in the world couldn’t compete with the prospect’s lack of buying intent.

Asking the right question

Businesses tend to forecast and allocate advertising monies based on consumer feedback, which is unfortunately more “do you like?” than “will you buy?”

That’s what focus groups have become, haven’t they?

“Do you like this new and improved artisan sandwich? How ‘bout this car? Pretty isn’t it? Would you go on vacation with this airline?”

None of those questions ask, “would you buy?” And that’s the question that makes or breaks most launches.

Understanding this gap and how you can bridge it is your way to converting admiring prospects into paying, satisfied, and loyal customers.

How to bridge the “want” gap and boost sales

What you may not realize is that admiration is a big step forward in closing the sale. The prospect has already indicated they appreciate you and your product, but they don’t think they need it. That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck; you can fix this.

Here are five steps I use to effectively bridge the gap between admiration and convincing a prospect to buy.

1. Establish your authority

Chances are, before reading this article, you’d never heard my name. If you’re launching a product of your own, you may face the same challenge—obscurity.

If I had released my ebook under Darren’s name instead of my own, the sales would’ve been drastically different than my initial figures. Darren’s an established figure in the industry. Over 167,000 subscribers and 19,000 Facebook fans are testament to this. His community buys into his history of success. My own success isn’t global like Darren’s, but that doesn’t mean it’s not as relevant.

That’s why the endorsement of Hall of Fame speaker and bestselling author, Scott McKain, was so powerful. Scott had a lot ofkind words about my book—and his review told new prospects my book wasn’t a scam, it was real and unique, and they needed it.

That’s the power of word-of-mouth marketing. But it’s leveraging these words that helps you confirm legitimacy and close the sale.

2. Create value

It’s pompous to assume that because you have a product, it’ll be bought. Give prospects a reason to buy. What’s in it for them? Show them value and security in their purchase.

For my own book campaign, my value offering included free quarterly updates. Every quarter, I send my customers an updated digital file that highlights new industry trends and developments. This makes my ebook a living book—it doesn’t gather digital dust, it’s a constant resource.

Plus, it maintains my personal brand awareness among my clientele in a most personal manner.

I also went so far as to include a 100% results-and-satisfaction guarantee with every purchase. Yes, I’m that confident in my content. It works, so why wouldn’t I offer a guarantee?

And as for the prospect, why wouldn’t they buy? There’s absolutely zero risk in making the purchase. If they were apprehensive or worried they’d get burnt, this guarantee eliminates those fears. What’s more, I’ve never had a request for a refund—it’s a guarantee I’ve never been called on.

What type of value-added element can you include in your launch that convinces your prospect that they can’t afford to not buy from you? Can you offer a limited-time price reduction to create a sense of urgency? Or a creative incentive to reward multiple purchases?

3. Put their needs in lights

You launched your product for a reason: you recognized a demand, a need. So don’t be ashamed to tell your audience that you know it. Speak directly to them.

In my case, that meant telling small business owners and first-time entrepreneurs that I understand the daunting challenge they face in marketing themselves. What’s an effective strategy? What offers the greatest ROI? I know the thought of their business failing keeps them up at night. Moreover, I understand that heavy feeling—I’ve been there. And it’s difficult to navigate through new business decisions.

But simply telling prospects you understand their need isn’t enough. You also need to satisfy it. Which brings us to your solution. In my case, I hold the marketing road map to their success.

4. Spell out your solution

For my small business owner audience, it wasn’t enough to say, “Don’t worry about your business failing, I wrote a book on marketing.”

I needed to take a step back and detail the topics I’d covered—targeted marketing, brand differentiation, social media ethics, blogging, and so on—and explain how each topic plays into their success.

Andy Nulman uses the analogy of “virgin contact lenses” as a great way to remove yourself from something you’re deep into, to gain valuable perspective. You, yourself, are in-the-know. You understand what you offer, since you’re the product creator. But for the first-time prospect, you need to say exactly what you do. Assume nothing on their part. Look at your product the way a first-time prospect would, taking nothing for granted.

You’ve highlighted their need, and you’ve detailed exactly what you’re providing. Now, explicitly tell your prospects with confidence, “I am the solution. My product will fix your problem.”

5. Show them what others have

You’re at the mall; you’re hungry. You walk towards the food court, and as you get closer, you begin to smell the variety of foods. “What do I want? What am I in the mood for?” you ask yourself.

And as you arrive at the food court entrance, before you stand 15 different restaurant choices, people with trays of food rushing to and from tables. Your gaze moves across the large room, scanning the signs and lines of each of the restaurant choices. Asian food? Not bad. Pizza place: ghost town. Sandwiches … not really in the mood. But the burger joint is hoppin’.

Without saying a word, every person in each line is telling you their preference—the majority favored the burger over the pizza. And that makes you wonder, what is it about the burger that everybody loves so much? You don’t want to miss out on what the people in the burger line are enjoying. Now, your decision is made: burger it is.

In the digital food court, it’s similar; it’s the online equivalent of, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Show prospects how much your customer base supports you. Show them you’re popular, show them what other customers are buying and how they’re benefiting from it, and force the inactive community to buy in and be part of the “next big thing.”

The hype, the tangible energy in your community, your popularity—they’re all extremely powerful selling tools.

What people want

Your blog, your business, your campaign, your new product—should be less about what you think people want, and more about what your prospects will actually act on. Want to be profitable? Then that’s your focus: what people want.

Save yourself time and money. Understanding this “want” gap and bridging it—conquering it—improves your conversion rate, it motivates you through your new-found success, and it takes your efforts to a competing level.

How have you experienced the “want” gap in your blogging efforts? And how have you bridged it?

Ryan Barton is the author of the “Smart Marketing” eBook and he writes at The Smart Marketing Blog for Small Business Success; you can follow him on Twitter, where he shares entirely too much information. He wrote “Smart Marketing” with the intent that small businesses would glean insightful information and tangible marketing strategies so they too, could compete competitively with industry giants.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

How Will I Know if my Idea will be Profitable?

It is a great question, and one that many people starting companies forget to ask. After all, it doesn’t do you any good to sell a lot of units, or provide a wonderful service, if you lose money every time you do. That approach is, as they say, “not a sustainable business model.”

Having asked the question, the short answer is this: You can’t know with absolute certainty, before you begin.

The longer answer is while there is no guarantee, you certainly can take two steps to minimize your risks.

How? By acting as the most successful entrepreneurs do.

If all you did was read the popular press, you would think that serial entrepreneurs, that is those people who have started two or more successful companies, love risk. They swing for the fences at all times.

Nothing can be further from the truth. They are extremely risk adverse.

So, to make sure they don’t over-extend themselves, invariably:

1. They take small steps in the direction they want to go. They don’t make huge leaps. (And after they take that small step, they always pause to review what they have learned to make sure the next small step they take is a smart one.

2. They always bring along like-minded potential partners. Not only does this allow them to move faster, it spreads the risk.

Neither of these moves, of course, guarantees success. (Nothing can.) But should things not go as planned, you have minimized your risk which will allow you to try again.

This guest post was written by Len Schlesinger is President of Babson College, and formerly served as Chief Operating Officer for Limited Brands. With his new book, Action Trumps Everything, you can learn more about how to act like an entrepreneur, as well as how to use a new entrepreneurial formula called CreAction to work for your goals. Please visit www.actiontrumpseverything.com for a free copy of the book.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

How to Supercharge Your Blog

2010 is coming to an end and now is the time for bloggers to begin to have new plans for moving their blog ahead in the new year.

Many of us have invested a lot of effort into our blogs and we’re now reaping the rewards and many of us have wasted a lot of time doing things that contribute nothing to the success of our blog in the year 2010. It is time to revise your blogging plan and this article will be giving you some tips to supercharge your blog.

Focus on Your Content

Writing quality content is essential to your success as a blogger and there is no point in writing a post if it won’t have an impact on others. The more effort you put into your blog posts and the more impact it has on people’s lives the better results you will get from your blog.

When I was still a fairly new blogger, I was averaging 150 visitors a day and I wrote a guest post for a particular top blog. I didn’t focus on giving the best of my content and I believed traffic and marketing is all that matters. My guest post went live on that blog and I ended up having over 1000 visitors to my blog on the same day, fast forward to 3 days and you will hardly believe I went back to getting the same number of visitors I was getting before that particular guest post.

There is a great difference between getting traffic and making your traffic stick and as a blogger your main aim should be to get quality traffic that sticks – that can only be done by providing quality content.

Lead by Example

If you try to estimate the number of blogs we have online about how to make money blogging you will end up finding out that there are millions of them.

The truth is that very few of these bloggers truly make money online and this explains the reason why most of them find it very difficult to make money from their blogs.

There are a lot of hypes on the internet that people are tired of reading just any content; they want to read from someone who has been there.

The only way to successfully make money blogging is not only by blogging in the how to make money online niche, in fact, you will easily achieve success with other niches you’re more knowledgeable and passionate about.

If you’re yet to be making money online try to search within yourself to see what you’re more knowledgeable and successful at; focus on building a successful online business in this area before teaching people how to make money online.

A true blogger would lead by action and not by words. You should let people see clearly that you not only know what you’re saying but you’re getting results from it. This will give you more credibility and will make people trust anything you say, it will also make them willing to share your content while referring their friends and family members to your blog.

Promote! Promote! Promote!

It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable you are about a subject or how sticky the content you write is, people won’t know about you if you don’t market your blog.

While it is highly important to focus on giving the best of your content while at the same time building trust by making sure you’re successful at what you preach it is also highly important to spend more time and focus your efforts on marketing your blog.

Actually, doing the first two things will help your blog market itself but you need momentum to give your blog a head start. Once you have this momentum you will find everything very easy.

There are several ways to promote your blog, and below are 3 methods I’ve found great success with.

- Guest Blogging: Guest blogging is the process of writing for another blog in order to get the word out about your blog. There are several benefits of writing guest posts for other blogs but the two immediate benefits is that it helps you gain traffic and instant credibility. Other benefits such as link building follows.

Guest blogging is the main way I promoted my blog in 2010 and it has yielded far more results than I expected.

- Blog Commenting: Another great way to get the word out about your blog is by commenting on other blogs. Promoting your blog successfully through blog commenting is more about commenting smartly and not in the numbers. Look for the top blogs with the best posts and community in your niche, read their posts and make well-thought out, highly sensible comments and you’ll be amazed at the type of quality traffic you will get back to your blog.

- Collaboration: Collaborating with other bloggers is the best way to build a great community fast if you’re a new blogger. Do your best to network with other bloggers and make them see that you truly care about them, let them know you’re interested in collaborating with them and “carefully” outline what they’ll be gaining from it. Once you’ve gotten a reply from them and the post is live, try to notify them about it and tell them to share it – with time you will have built a great community.

Conclusion

Note that building a successful blog is not something that can be done in a day, many few drops of water make a ocean and the more you work on building your blog with combination of little efforts you will achieve success in due time.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Friday, December 24, 2010

Interview: Michael Mindes

Michael Mindes is the founder of Tasty Minstrel Games, a relatively new publisher of hobby board games. Despite primarily dealing with a physical product, Michael is actively marketing over the Internet. Michael especially likes email marketing, blogging, and generating organic results on Facebook, and has seen great success in these areas.

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been making money online?
I live in Tucson, Arizona and have been here for most of my 29 years of life. I am married and I have 3 children. During the day, I am a financial advisor/planner (no, you can’t hire me and I am not soliciting business) to pay the bills while I build up Tasty Minstrel Games.

I wouldn’t say I have been making any money online, but I have been actively gathering permission assets and building up authority in the board game publishing arena for about 15 months.

Do you have any experience with affiliate marketing? If so, to what extent?
My experience with affiliate marketing is very limited. Like many other people, I have read the blogs people like Shoemoney, John Chow, and Jonathan Volk for a long time. Like many of those people I gave affiliate marketing a try.

To me, affiliate marketing feels too much like being a transactional stock broker (which I opted not to be). Except that there are tons of people actively scouting and trying to take your best ideas. I would rather have a group of people trust me enough to take my recommendations.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
In life, I am most proud of my 7 years of happy marriage, my 3 kids, and Tasty Minstrel’s progress. In the realm of Internet marketing I am most proud of the following:
• Building a laser-targeted and responsive list of over 3,000 people.
• Having over a 9% conversion rate for people to buy out of my list.
• Building a network quickly within the board game industry.
• Doing all of the above in my spare time.

How did you become successful? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in the Internet? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I became successful as an online marketer by following through with the sales and trust building techniques that I learned by managing people’s life savings and constantly convincing them that their trust is well placed.

I chose to go into financial planning because I could go to work with my father, support my growing family, and have challenging and fulfilling work. I chose to publish board games, because I love games. Games are my absolute and fundamental passion in life.

Obviously any communication method as fast and inexpensive as the Internet will be incredibly powerful. But I did not really feel the scope of it, until I first started bribing people to join my email list. I gave away some games for free, and 545 people signed up for a chance to win in the first 7 days. That was with one forum post.

What do you think it takes to be successful?
Dedication, Honesty, Intelligence, Passion, OTHER PEOPLE (relationships are incredibly important)

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
Getting a shipment of 4,000 games with numerous manufacturing issues. It was significant effort to mitigate the damage, but sales were slower, product was lost, and hours have been spent sending out replacement parts.

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
See above. The initial response is detailed on my blog. Being as transparent as possible on my blog has led to a small army of people that are dedicated to defending Tasty Minstrel Games online, which is wonderful.

What is the future of marketing?
Being able to directly reach people that want to hear from you, and turning customers into evangelists. Building quality relationships over time and email marketing are the solution here.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
In the past I have been distracted by a number of things. Which is why I have so many free eBooks available, including an 80+ page eBook about relationship building strategy and email marketing. Right now I am just working on improving Tasty Minstrel.

Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
The pressures of having 100% commission based compensation and convincing people to have me advise them on investing their life savings makes you learn fast. When compared to bringing in a $1,000,000+ account, selling some $40 board games seems easy.

What are your greatest strengths?
My stunning good looks. After that, my ability to sell stuff and generate trust through honesty and transparency.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
Project management and slacking off. Thankfully, when running a business you can find people to fill in for your weaknesses.

What motivates you?
It will sound cheesy, but bringing families closer together through games. Oh, and providing for my wife and 3 children.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
Do it and do it now. How long does it take to send a 1-2 line email? Fill out an interview? Make a phone call? Each item takes very little time, and the aggregate of all those actions adds up to some amazing results.

For example, I let these interview questions sit for 20 days. I could have spent the 1 hour to answer the questions and been covered on a popular blog that much sooner.

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
My father. He taught me probably 80+% of what I need to know in sales and marketing (in life too). The rest I have learned through reading the thoughts of great minds, thinking, taking action, and remembering what works.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
I would like to be involved with publishing board games full-time. Providing modestly for my family and having extra money for emergencies is enough. If money was no object, I would be spending time with my family, playing games with my friends, and helping to change the world.

Where do you want to be ten years from now?
Alive and married to my wife is sufficient for my needs.

How do you like to spend your free time? What doe work-life balance mean to you?
I spend my free time working on building up Tasty Minstrel Games. Life is work, truly challenging and satisfying work is the basis of happiness.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
I would have started earlier. It would have been nice to realize I do not need an endorsement of any kind to start building a business or changing the world.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
Again, cheesy… But my greatest achievement in life is my successful marriage for 7 years and my 3 beautiful loving children. While I am sure I have unfulfilled dreams, it doesn’t matter because I have them. They are awesome.

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
I like to use Facebook as a natural funnel for Tasty Minstrel, so we have a page for the company and for every game that we publish.

http://www.twitter.com/michaelmindes
http://www.twitter.com/tastyminstrel
http://www.facebook.com/tastyminstrelgames
http://www.facebook.com/homesteaders
http://www.facebook.com/terraprime
http://www.facebook.com/trainofthoughtgame
http://www.facebook.com/playjab
http://www.facebook.com/belfort

Thursday, December 16, 2010

My Interview on ABC News

Once again, the power and exposure of having a blog pays off big time! Last week I was in New York City doing an interview with ABC Studios on how to make money blogging and how to help others get started. The interview went live on ABC NEWS Now and ABC VIDEO yesterday. You can watch the full interview below.

The main points discussed in the interview were how to start a blog, when to start monetizing and how to build an audience then start making real money with a blog. It doesn’t matter if you know anything about making money online or even how to make a web site, a blog can be thrown together within a few minutes and can easily be self taught with all of the resources available online. You wont make money right away by throwing a simple blog up on the web, but it will potentially get you started and on the path for a secondary income source. Taking your blog to the next level is where you will have to put in the major dedication and efforts.

Special thanks to Tory Johnson for the interview, everyone at ABC Studios and of course, all of my blog readers! It wouldn’t be possible without you. Thanks!

How to make cash on the multilingual web.

The internet offers a myriad of money-making opportunities for those with the guile and grit to make things happen. But in an increasingly competitive market, with literally billions of web-pages flooding the so-called cyber-highway, how can budding businesses and entrepreneurs get one-up and put themselves at a competitive advantage?

English and the Global Web

Well, the Web – by its very definition – is global. And that means anyone from Alabama to Albania can tap in and follow your every word online – but only if they can understand what you’re saying.

Language is one of the last remaining barriers in creating a truly global web. Many people may be deterred from looking beyond an English-speaking audience, by the simple fact that they don’t speak another tongue.

But even if you genuinely only want to target English-speaking audiences, there are measures you can put in place to ensure your website is as accessible as possible to English-speakers across the world.

For example, an internet user in London may not understand many colloquialisms and culture-specific references of a website in Louisiana. The point is, to ensure your website appeals to as broad a global demographic as possible, there are simple steps you can take to ensure the millions of internet users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all engaged by your online offering.

Simply put, you need to write with the world in mind.

And English, of course, is also one of the many official languages of India, spoken by a large proportion of the population.

With internet penetration in India at less than 10% of the population, it may seem foolish to even begin thinking about Indian audiences on the Web. But there is more than a billion people living in India, so even 8% amounts to about a hundred million people – roughly the same as Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands collectively.

Money talks...many languages!

But English will only get you so far on the Web. Only a quarter of the Earth’s population speak English…the vast majority of whom do so as a second language – Asia alone accounts for 40% of the world’s internet users. So by tapping into international markets online, you open yourself to over a billion more people.

How machines can help

If you happen to speak Spanish because your grandmother used to babysit you when you were a kid, then you should be in a pretty good position to offer bilingual versions of your blog/website. However, do you really have the time to translate all your text into another language? It can be time-consuming enough to write it in English in the first instance, without having to write it again.

Free translation tools such as Google Translate can actually be quite good for ‘general gist’ translations, and if you’re not too bothered about offering 100% grammatically correct text across multiple languages, this isn’t all that bad an option.

For this, you have two options. You can either pre-machine translate your text so that the text is good to go for anyone who happens upon your website from outside the English-speaking world; you can even set your site up so that it automatically detects the country of origin of the user, so your site defaults to the language of that country.

Or, you can install a widget on your site which enables users to translate the text with the click of a button – this gives added flexibility, given that many international visitors may speak English perfectly well and they may prefer to read your text in its original form.

To improve the likelihood of hitting a good machine translation, you need to think about how you write the English text. Machine translation tools such as Google Translate aren’t smart enough to understand jargon or colloquialisms – so you may want to avoid having a ‘swell’ time and perhaps consider having a ‘good’ time instead.

Also, English has a tendency to use many different words to depict the same notion. For example, ‘hound’, ‘mutt’ and ‘dog’ all mean the same thing, so you’re best sticking with the most obvious option if you want to hit a good machine translation. And verbs can often be used as nouns…even in the same sentence: “I’m going to race in a race”

You can construct your English text in such a way that it’s less likely to hit a bad machine translation: so a ‘one word, one meaning’ approach can definitely help you on your way to a new found wealth on the web, whilst avoiding slang will help too.

However, with machine translations, there is still likely to be some errors creeping in and it may not give you the creative flexibility you crave on your site. So you may want to consider pre-machine translating your text and then use a native translator to simply check/proofread it for accuracy and style. Or, if you happen to speak the target language, you can even do it yourself.

This helps maintain the creativity dexterity of your English-language blog, whilst also ensuring any colloquialisms are suitably localized for your target audience.

Multilingual SEO

Of course, the key to succeeding online lies in being visible. There’s no point having the world’s most attractive website in umpteen different languages, if nobody can find your site.

Multilingual SEO deserves an article to itself, so I’ll keep this brief. The one golden rule when optimizing your site for international markets is NEVER translate your keywords into other languages.

So, if you happen to rank highly for ‘Affiliate Marketing’ on Google.com, you’ll need to research the keywords from scratch to ensure you rank highly on Google.fr or Google.de for the equivalent term. A correct, dictionary translation may not be what people use to search online with locally, they may use synonyms, abbreviations, colloquialisms…any number of variations on what even a professional translator would consider to be an accurate adaption.

Good luck…now go forth and prosper!

About the Guest Author
Christian Arno is founder of international localization company Lingo24. With 130 full-time employees spanning three continents, and clients in over sixty countries, Lingo24 is on course for a turnover of $6m USD in 2010.

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