Catch Mike Filsaime as the Guest Expert for Episode 8 of The Next Internet Millionaire and watch the teams battle it out in creating a plan to gain 1 million new subscribers for Mike’s Instantbuzz.com

Popularity: 6% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]

As you probably would know, search engine optimization (SEO) is one tactic that you can adopt to drive organic traffic back to your websites. And with Google controlling more than 50% market share in terms of search usage, it is definitely good to have your website ranked high on the search engine results page (SERP). I have several niche websites ranked on the 1st page of Google for several keywords and the traffic has been constant and very rewarding.

For those of you who are involved in SEO for your websites, I’m pretty sure that you check your rankings on Google from time to time to gauge the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. However, if you are not based in the United States, you might actually be viewing wrong rankings on the SERPs. This is because whenever you perform a Google search, being the smarty pants that they are, they determine the location of your IP address and sort of gives you results that is based on where you are from. And this is regardless of whether you choose the option for the localized search, which in this instance would be Singapore (SG) for me since I am located in Singapore.

Just to illustrate my point. Look at the image file below. I played around a bit and optimized one of my blog posts for the keyword “blogrush review” using on-page optimization of keywords peppered here and there, alt tags and even the naming of image files to relate to the keywords and with some blog trackbacks and backlinks to add the extra oomph. So when I searched the keyword “blogrush review” on Google, it showed that I was ranked 2nd.

Well not exactly true, I will probably be ranked 2nd for fellow Singaporeans and the ranking might deviate a few places depending on the Google datacenter that the result is drawn from locally.

But to check the REAL search engine rankings for the keyword “blogrush review”, what you need to do is to check the keyword with this nifty Google SERP Checker tool at http://link.ezer.com/tools/google_serps_rank_checker.asp

What is does is that it gives you rankings and on the SERP world wide based on searches done outside your country. I tried searching the keyword “blogrush review” against my optimized page www.alvinhuang.com/blogrush-review/ and it shows that on the .com basis, its ranked 10th and not 2nd as what I had thought it to be.

So there, it’s a useful tool for measuring your Search Engine Rankings on Google if you are not located in the United States. The next time you get all happy because of your rankings on Google, be sure you check it with the Google SERP Checker first…

Popularity: 12% [?]

We all know that it is much more costly to gain a new customer than it is to gain repeat business from an existing customer. Therefore it makes much business sense to try our very best to retain our customers, keep them loyal to our brand (be it digital or physical products) and hope that they are Passionistas.

“Passionistas” are consumers who are passionate about certain issues more than the average consumer, and hence are willing to create and share content regarding their passions and the brands related with them.

So How Do We Target Passionistas?

Because Passionistas are more concerned and interested in the related issues or products, they are exposed to more information pertaining to your product category or industry. They are probably subscribed to various newsletters related to your industry and have bookmarked “go-to” websites that they frequent on a daily to weekly basis. Hence it is essential that you build back links from these “Authority” websites through text advertisements or banner advertisements so as to elevate the perception and branding of your online business.

It is obvious that “Authority” websites gain more recognition as venues of trusted information. To build a long term sustainable online business, it is advised that you add valuable content to your website on a constant basis. You can do that either by creating a blog or expanding the content pages within your website. In general portal based websites are more trusted compared to “sales page” websites that just seem out to make a quick buck. If the work involved is too intensive, the least you can do is to build a “portal” looking website that seems to be brimming full of information for the curious Passionista.

Example:
Centerpointe.com

Every link that they have is packed full of information and there is no lack of valuable information. They even kind of have a “sales page” webpage that is disguised in different formatting. While the conversion ratios (yet to be tested) might be lower than the typical sales page website, it is obvious that they are building a sustainable long term online business through brand building instead gunning for big short-term profits.

Creating Customer Evangelists

Hence it is no surprise that these “Passionistas” once converted, become “A” list customers for your business. This makes it much easier to nurture and convert them into customer evangelists for your business. Customer evangelists believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it. The customers become voluntary advocates, actively spreading the word on behalf of your business.

In the book, Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba outline six steps to creating customer evangelists:

1. Customer plus-delta (Continuously gather customer feedback)
2. Napsterize knowledge (Freely share your knowledge)
3. Build the buzz (Create intelligent word-of-mouth networks)
4. Create community (Encourage communities of customers to meet and share)
5. Make bite-size chunks (Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite)
6. Create a cause (Focus on making the world, or your industry, better)

I hope that you have found this 2 prong marketing strategy approach of securing and targeting Passionistas as your customers and converting them into customer evangelists useful for building a sustainable online business.

Read more about Passionistas’ at ‘Passionista’ Consumers Help Brands Harness Digital Media

Popularity: 11% [?]