Building Your Online Credibility

08 May

I seem to on a reputation theme this week, for some reason.

When you’re trying to market a product or service, one of the key tools you have is the trust a prospective customer has in you. After all, if they trust your judgment, and you say that a product will help them, they’ll probably buy it.

Maintaining that trust depends on your own credibility. So today’s post is about building your own credibility.

Credibility and trust are subjective impressions that others form of you based on your actions. So we’ll focus on actions you can take that will lead others to think of you as more credible and trustworthy.

Be A Real Person

People trust people. Put some personal details on your site, and in your communications with others. Using your real name helps, but if you’re not comfortable with that, adopt an online name that at least sounds more real than typical screen names.

My level of trust in someone is always higher if they sign comments and forum posts with a name, rather than with keyword stuffing (e.g. “Make Money Online Blogging”). This has some pretty subtle ramifications…if a person is keyword stuffing blog comments, then they’re trying to gain every little advantage for themselves that they can. How do I know they won’t do the same in their dealings with me?

Be Reachable

Prospective customers must be able to reach you with questions and concerns. You’re most credible if you have a phone number where you can be reached. Most people wouldn’t want to provide their home phone number for online business dealings, which is understandable. But you can get a free Evoice.com voice mail number to use online. You’ll get an email anytime someone leaves you a voice mail at the number.

Receiving an email from someone and seeing that they’ve included a phone number in their signature for you to call if you need to builds credibility pretty quickly for me.

Choose What To Promote

Too many people trying to make money online these days pick products and programs to promote based on how much they think they can make from it. Not based on whether the product or program is any good.

You might gain a sale by promoting a product that isn’t any good, but you’ll lose credibility once the customer discovers that the product doesn’t live up to its claims.

Be Original

You’ll find a wealth of sample sales material with pretty much any product you choose to promote. Using it will hurt your credibility.

You’ll see this all the time with the “gurus”. A big product launch is coming, and every marketer with a big list sends nearly identical emails to their list (those emails having been provided by the owner of the product). About the third time you see that same email come by, I’ve pretty much decided that everyone who sent them is just out for a quick buck, and couldn’t even be bothered to give me their honest opinion of the product.

Those that do give me their honest opinion build credibility quickly with me.

Make Claims You Can Prove

How many websites have you seen where the site claims that you can make $10,000 a month by following three simple steps? Anyone who promotes sites with unreasonable claims instantly loses credibility.

If you’re promoting such a site, at least put a front end of your own on it that provides your honest opinion of the site, and provides claims you can prove. That way you keep some credibility by separating yourself from the hype.

Communicate

If you’re building a membership of some sort, communicate with your members regularly. Don’t just send them an email anytime you want them to spend some money on your behalf, keep them up to date with what’s going on in the group regularly. They’ll come to trust you more than if you only contact them asking for money.

Many people online seem to do fine without worrying about credibility, so maybe this is all way off base. But I know that I’d rather do business with someone I trust than not.

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Look Mom, No Ethics!

07 May

Posted by Jay as Internet Marketing

Reputation is a subject I return to over and over again.

There seem to be two broad categories of Internet Marketers. Those who simply copy what everyone else is doing, including heavy use of Fear Based Marketing, and those who make their own way. This post is mostly aimed at those who simply copy what everyone else is doing, such as including forum signatures with lines like, “Ask me how I make $5,000 per month”.

Online reputation is an interesting thing. Google someone’s name, and you’ll not only see what they’re up to lately, but you’ll see what they’ve been up to since they’ve been on the web. Online activity leaves traces that stay around for a long time.

What do you want your online activity to say about you?

I like to think of it in terms of my Mom, who started out on the Internet in her mid-60s. What will she find if she Googles my name, and would I be proud of it?

Too many people seem to think that entering into Internet Marketing means leaving who you are at the door. Don’t get me wrong, some people really are the sort who would scam others just to earn a buck. If that’s who you are, then go to it! The online trace is there for the world to see.

But if that isn’t who you are, do your online activities provide a fair picture of you? Or are you trying to copy what others are doing without regard to who you really are?

What would your Mom find out there with your name on it?

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Fear Based Marketing

06 May

Posted by Jay as Internet Marketing

So many of the Internet Marketing techniques that are promoted these days are fear based.

Countdown timers, limited time offers, good for one-day-only, this video is being pulled soon, price increase tomorrow, etc. All these are basically ways to play upon a potential customer’s fear of missing out, to stimulate them into purchasing a product before they’re ready to do so.

Fear is also used as a way to suggest that, if you don’t purchase the product, all sorts of bad things will happen to you. You won’t make a million in 30 days, you won’t be able to quit your day job, people won’t like you, etc.

To a certain extent, this is unavoidable. If you present proof of success, many people will buy out of a fear that they cannot succeed without your help. But there’s a difference between fear coming up in people because of who they are, and a marketer deliberately instilling fear as a way to convert a potential customer.

What sort of marketer do you want to be? Sure, it’s effective to instill fear, in terms of selling products.

But most of the products bought out of fear go unused. How many Internet Marketing products have you bought that you never used, just because you felt you’d lose out if you didn’t buy them? How many ebooks are on your hard drive, filled with techniques you’ve never used?

Products that get used are ones bought from confidence. People who get to research the product, discuss it with others who have bought it, and come up with a plan for using it, tend to actually use the product. Those are also the products that will succeed for customers. At least that’s been my experience with Internet Marketing related products.

So what’s your measure of success as an online marketer? Is it how much you make, or how many of your customers succeed?

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Creative Use of Wordpress’ More Tag

05 May

Posted by Jay as Blogging

In Wordpress, you have the option to insert a more tag in your post. The effect of this is that anywhere the post appears other than the actual post page, the post content stops at that point with a link along the lines of “Click here to read more”.

I’ve always hated seeing that link. It’s a disservice to your readers to force them to make an extra click to read something. They’re already on your site, just give them the full text of the post. I generally don’t bother to click to read more, I just leave the site.

But, there’s always a way to use any technique that makes it not only useful, but enjoyable as well. I ran across this on a veterinary student’s blog, Nearly-Dr Ferox. That’s a link to his home page, if you scroll down you might see a post titled, X-ray challenge #1. Or not, if it’s scrolled off by now.

I don’t know if the use of the “click here to read more” was intentional in this case, because most of the posts have it, but in the X-ray challenge it works extremely well. He posts an X-ray, asks some questions about it, and then the link to read more. You’re left with the impression of a quiz…you actually want to look at the X-ray and see what you can find, and then you want to click the link to see the answers.

Just showing the answers without the link to read more wouldn’t have the same effect.

So while I’d previously thought I would never use the more tag in Wordpress, I now see that using it in a quiz or challenge sort of post enhances the user experience. Now I just have to come up with some quizzes or challenges!

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Advisory Panel Monthly Contest

02 May

Posted by Jay as Internet Marketing

The April contest at The Advisory Panel is over. If you missed out, though, the contest happens every month and rewards activity at the forum.

The winner each month receives their choice of one of the following packages. Each package has an approximate value of $100.

Site Promotion Package

A site review on my blog, a month long banner on my blog, an EzineArticle.com article or two promoting the site, and perhaps some sponsored reviews on other blogs in the same niche, some paid ad banners on other blogs, etc. Basically, anything that can be done to help improve traffic to the winner’s blog or web site is fair game.

Niche Blog Startup

A year’s worth of hosting for a new blog, keyword research to identify a profitable niche, complete setup of a Wordpress based blog, a custom header graphic, SEO optimized, personal mentoring, etc. At the end of the year the blog should be making enough profit to switch to paid hosting, and I’ll handle the technical end of the switch.

Blog Makeover

Working with the winner to figure out where they want to take their blog, identifying a theme that will help them get there, a custom header graphic, custom PHP/CSS work to make the theme do whatever extra they need, etc. If you have an existing blog that isn’t quite doing what you want, or looking as professional as you’d like, this is the package for you.

How Do You Win?

You win by being active on the Advisory Panel forum. Activity means logging in, posting, replying, rating threads, etc. Junk posts will be deleted, so spamming the forum just to show activity won’t help.

The winner in April won with approximately 2 posts made per day. That’s easily doable just by logging in and replying to posts where you have something to say, or making a post asking a question about something you’re having trouble accomplishing.

See you there!

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