courtesy of Wikipedia

Not everyone can be on top of Google Search results. In fact only the lucky few can. But success isn’t found only on top. You just need to take a more Zen Punk approach to your marketing.

Madness About Harry

The final installment of the Harry Potter films hit theaters today. And yeah, I plan to see it. The book was incredible, so don’t just watch the movie.

I’ve often heard some of my writer friends say they wish they could get the same lucky break that author J.K. Rowling had. The classic rags to riches story. Well, bitches, it almost never happens that way.

Of course, the Rowlings and Tolkeins and (*shudder*) Stephenie Meyers of the writing world are the ones that get all the press. And there is a tendency to think that it’s the rule rather than the very rare exception that it is.

Everybody Wants to be On Top

The reason I bring this up isn’t to discourage my fellow writers from shooting for success and glory. Rather I am using this fact to illustrate a often ignored fact about search engine optimizers. And that fact is this: not everyone can get a top Google ranking. In fact, the ones that do are the very rare exception.

Let’s say you’re a sandwich shop located in Big City in the great state of Wherever. Your target market is probably local unless you’ve found a way to send your tasty morsels over the Wi-Fi (or some global distribution method).

So in your metro area, let’s say there are 3,000 sandwich shops. If someone searches Google for “sandwich shops, Big City, WR”, there will be a small map at the top of the results page with dots for various matches and then a list of matches. Only about a dozen or so will appear on the first page. What about the other 2,988 sandwich shops? Buried deep in the other pages.

The people on the first SEVERAL pages most likely hired a professional to optimize their website, have had their site up for several years, and are well connected to other sites on the web. So most of the shops on these first several pages have done everything they can possibly do and still only a fraction ended up on the first page. Not everybody can be on top.

Embrace the Kama Sutras of Marketing

So what can you do? Don’t let SEO be your only marketing strategy. By all means, hire a professional (me perhaps?) to optimize your site for search engines AND for people (since search engines don’t do any actual buying from you). But once that’s done, move on to other ways to reach your target audience.

What other ways? Try this: Let’s say you’re walking through a parking lot and you see a bumper sticker you really like. Write “I LOVE your bumper sticker” on the back of one of your business cards and stick it under the windshield wiper, note side up. You may find a kindred spirit who needs your product or service.

Want more? Read Guerilla Marketing books, any of Seth Godin’s books, Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment. These books are the Kama Sutras of marketing because it turns the tables all around.

Get your mind thinking about how to develop your brand, to develop relationships (even if you own a sandwich shop) with potential clients and how to deliver in such a way that gets people talking.

Be Willing to See Things Differently

Change how you think about marketing, about your business, your product/service and your customers. Do this and it won’t matter if you rank on page 157 of Google’s page results. Over time, generating business organically will improve your ranking.

Now go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow’s Part II and try not to cry like a 3-year-old when Harry dies. Just kidding! Harry doesn’t die. Or does he? I’m such a bitch!

Courtesy engrishfunny.failblog.org

“English is My Second Language, I Just Don’t Have A First One”

That’s what a friend of mine (in the publishing business, no less) once told me after sending me an email riddled with misspellings, bad grammar and sentences that were incomprehensible. I knew this person wasn’t stupid. But you’d never know it from that email.

Sure, we can blame it on the baffling incongruities of the English language, our over-dependence on spell-check apps and most recently on auto-correct features on our smartphones. But you don’t get to use those excuses with people who fail to do business with you after finding major typos in your online communications.

So the next time you have heavy-duty footwear on sale, don’t announce that all BOOBS are half off or your customers may wonder exactly what business you are in! Breast reduction? Post-mastectomy prosthesis? Or girly shows? Hard to know!
 

Look Before You Send

I think the biggest contributor to such awful online communication is our rush to hit the Send button. Just because your tweet is limited to 140 characters doesn’t mean you shouldn’t proofread it. After all, how long does it take to read your own tweet, for Heaven’s sake?

If it’s something a bit longer and more business-related, try and have an associate glance over it before you send. Even if you went to journalism school like I did (Go Dawgs! Sic ‘em! Woof! Woof! Woof!), you’d be amazed at how many mistakes we miss.

It’s not entirely our fault. Our brains have an auto-edit function that blinds us to errors in our own work that we would immediately spot in someone else’s.

Another person can also alert us to potential red flags regarding tone and message. You know that email to your now-ex-boss that you wish you’d never sent? If only, right?

If there is no one around to proofread your work, try reading it out loud or better yet, use a text-to-speech tool to read it aloud for you.

Ignorance of the Law (or the Rules of Grammar) is No Defense

As I mentioned, English is a very inconsistent, convoluted language and one that is constantly changing. It’s multi-cultural history (Indo-Germanic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, Swahili, etc.) has made for some very strange rules.

And our ever-evolving technology and popular culture continue to add words and push for grammatical and style changes.

But if you want to grow your organization online, you need to know how to communicate properly. So here are some tools that might help.

Style Guides: A style guide covers the rules of grammar and helps to create a consistent style for those gray areas. My favorite (in part because of my creative writing background) is the Chicago Manual of Style, but there’s also the Strunk & White’s classic Elements of Style and the AP Stylebook, among others.

Grammar Girl: Whether you purchase her books, listen to her free podcast or subscribe to her email list, you can no doubt benefit from the experience and knowledge of Mignon Fogerty and her associates. Not only is she informative, she’s also very entertaining. Check out her site at Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves: This is a great book from Lynne Truss on punctuation, and like Grammar Girl, quite entertaining. The title comes from a joke about pandas. If you want to hear the joke, read the book. And watch out for pandas, because we still have a right to arm bears in this country.

The Results Speak For Themselves

How much can poor English cost you? A recent BBC News article explains that we’re talking major moolah here.

A web designer is quoted as saying that in one case where a typo was discovered on a website, he “found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.” Wouldn’t mind doubling your revenue, I’ll bet.

So take time to proofread, use a buddy if possible, and learn proper English, whether it’s your first language or your twenty-third. Don’t give potential clients a reason to buy elsewhere.

Now what time are those high heel shows?