Even if I DO manage to get this concept across, I STILL have a doozy of a time helping people “see the light” in terms of proper keywords, links, and a smart design structure.

For a long time, I’ve thought that I could help people better understand and apply the concept of narrowing their niche, if I wrote a comprehensive, step by step guide covering the how-tos of marketing on the web.

I’ve been putting off writing this danged book. I just don’t have TIME to write a book! But thankfully, someone else has written it so that I don’t have to. His name is Ben Fitts and he’s been marketing on the web for many years. He recently finished Nichework Marketing and I read it and nodded my head in satisfied agreement the whole way through. “YES! Ben said what I was trying to say, and he even went ahead and gave the HOW-TO.”

You should read Ben’s book if:

You type in (what you believe to be) the main keyword for your “industry” (what you DO) - and your site is nowhere near the top of the list (and you’ve had a website for years).

You STILL don’t really “get” what it means to choose your keywords or optimize your site.

Your website or blog includes a list of keywords like “author, creative, customer service, Pennsylvania.” I see this everywhere and it’s just the wrong way to do it. These types of keywords are TOO GENERIC and will NEVER get your business noticed!

You are a “DO IT YOURSELF” internet marketer and you’d really like to get the REAL inside scoop on how to drive targeted traffic (and not what some schlub has been telling you to get you all confused so you’ll pay him to do it for you).

(Targeted traffic… you hear those words so frequently, what’s that even MEAN? It means your site brings in visitors who are READY TO BUY what you sell.)

Enough of me trying to explain what Ben articulates so perfectly with his ebook, NicheWork Marketing.

Grab your copy today and FINALLY begin to understand what this “web marketing” thing is all about!

The whole point in having a website is to be FOUND by those who are ALREADY LOOKING for what you’ve got. Webmasters don’t create sites to be “pretty” (although an attractively designed website is NEVER a bad thing!). We create them:

1. to drive traffic TO the pages from Google and the other search engines, and
2. to use cues such as “sign up now!” or “become a member” as a means of corralling in a continuous stream of leads.

A huge part of marketing your website is picking ONE key search term and then optimizing your site for that term. If your webmaster initially does a good job of building and search optimizing your basic site of, say, 8 or 10 pages, you’ll probably soon be seeing yourself coming up on page 7 for your main search term.

In order to bring your site up to Page 1 for that search term, this is what you’d have to do over time:

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So far, so good, Dartmouth. But I do have one question.

Anyone have any idea what the below sentence is supposed to say?

-Don’t let the extra study that you may find necessary interfere with your recreation hours take time from unscheduled hours.

Or is that two sentences?

Yes, even impressive American learning institutions need proofreaders.

But now the question is: did the person who wrote this copy mean to be funny - or was this the sentiment of the day? It’s hard to know what people were thinking during my Grandma’s era, and what might have passed for humor back then. The tone of this seems rather dramatic, if you ask me. I’m sure today’s leading insurance companies would approve.

So what new type of insurance might be the next step for the next generation of families? How about pet insurance? People are fairly mad about their pets - in fact, I like my pet more than most people! And with dog and cat food companies being responsible for thousands of pet deaths due to their questionable ingredients… I’d say we’ve got ourselves a market here.

Insurance… the biggest scam on the planet. “Here… pay us money *just in case* anything happens. But if nothing happens… we still get to keep your money!”

Burns my brisket, it does.

I was flattered to receive the invitation, and thought it was a highly functional way for this company to maximize their outsourcing potential. Let me describe to you how they’ve organized their internal database:

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I’m more of a marketing realist myself. As much as they might like to, most of my clients just don’t have the bandwidth to give their readers “everything and a bag of chips.” For those with limited resources, budgets, time and energy, it might be a more practical idea to focus on one, or the other - product, or service, for the time being.

So let me ask you: are you a product man, or a service gal?

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What makes an ad work? What in an ad gets someone to contact me, or better yet what is the formula to writing ads since I will have to continually be changing them to stay fresh?

Yes, there’s a formula, although those who have been writing copy for a long time don’t necessarily have to run through this checklist. They just end up writing “standard ad copy” automatically. It’s not unlike riding a bike or doing the dishes - after you get good at it, you just don’t need to think about the steps anymore.

Okay, so here’s my response to the question.

In ad copywriting, many follow what’s known as the AIDA formula - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. This is the short explanation of how it goes.

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Many marketing, copywriting and sales experts will tell you that your marketing copy should talk to your customer as opposed to talking about yourself. They insist that the copy you employ be directed at the customer by using the word “you” throughout. (They call this the second person perspective.)

However, many people feel that using the you approach is too salesman like, and unprofessional. They prefer to talk about their company, their accomplishments and themselves. Copy written in this manner uses the word “we” (or I) over and again (the first person perspective).

So which way is right?

Here’s an argument for using you in your copy. Suppose you’re on a date and the person you’re with won’t stop talking about himself or herself. All night it’s, “I did this and I do that.”

It’s great to hear entertaining stories - but the person on the listening end is bound to feel excluded after a while.

The same idea applies to marketing copy. People want to feel like they’re part of a conversation as opposed to being talked AT. Not to mention - “you” puts the focus on the reader and engages him in the discussion.

But what about the idea that using “you” makes your copy sound too much like a sales pitch?

It’s true that “you” is one of the most powerful words you can use in sales copy, which is why it’s so effective, and used so often. So it’s no wonder that people who want to avoid sounding like a salesperson take the high road, so to speak, and avoid using “you” in their marketing copy.

However, when you think about it, using an exclusive “we” approach comes with its own negative stigma. It can be seen as arrogance - or worse - inadequacy. “I can’t offer anything to you, and I’m not interested in you - so I’ll just talk about myself.”

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Maybe you’ll be sitting on a comfortable retirement fund one day. Maybe you’ll decide that it’s time to do something completely different.

Maybe (and this is something nobody likes to think about, but it’s reality)… a physical condition or illness will prevent you from managing your business with the same passion and vitality that you are today.

What will you do? You’ve had years to build a presence and get a momentum going. We’re talking about hundreds, maybe thousands, of carefully tended professional relationships, founded in mutual trust. Scores of customers who rely on YOU, nobody else but YOU, to fulfill a specific need for them.

What do you do with all that steam that it took you years and maybe even decades to build up? Do you just open the release valve, take down the shingle and bow out of the scene for good?

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