But the good news, for your small business at least, is that there is a marketing tool that is still proving successful and generating high returns on investment. In fact, studies show that this particular tactic actually received an increase in 2009 marketing budgets.

And the better news is that this tool is rather easy to execute and it’s generally inexpensive. Many marketing experts claim it is the tool that produces the highest value for the dollar. This tool allows for fast message delivery and almost immediate tracking and in many instances, it can be entirely automated.

I’m referring to email marketing.

Email marketing allows you to create a bond with your existing customers and clients as well as develop a relationship with your prospects. While it’s not totally fool proof, it doesn’t require an enormous budget or extreme technical know how.

If you haven’t started an email marketing program for your small business, I highly, highly, highly (no, that’s not a typo, I really, really, really am a huge advocate of email marketing) encourage you to do so pronto!

One of the first decisions you’ll need to make when implementing your email marketing program is whether your email subscriber list will be opt-in or double opt-in. So, how do opt-in and double opt-in differ?

To give a very brief history… when email marketing first entered the scene, marketers would send messages to every email address they ever encountered. Every business card they ran across, every directory that sat on their shelves, every membership organization they joined – these all provided email addresses for their marketing lists.

Needless to say, the recipients of these email messages weren’t too pleased with this tactic, and so, to counteract the reputation of being spammers, email marketers developed opt-in marketing. As the name implies, opt-in email marketing means that the subscriber opted in, or consented to, receiving your email messages.

You can easily start your opt-in e-mail marketing strategy by first creating a database of customers that would agree to receive your e-mail notices. This can be done by asking prospects at the point of presentation (i.e. on your web site) if they would be interested in receiving e-mails to be notified of your future promotions, products, events, etc. Once your prospect says yes, you add his name and email address to your mailing list database, and the next time you send out your email promotion, he will receive your message.

Unfortunately, this tactic was soon abused. It was easy for web site visitors to submit fraudulent email addresses, or to jokingly sign their friends up for obviously unwanted mailing lists.

So the double opt-in mailing list was developed.

The double opt-in is an attempt to minimize fraud and erroneous email addresses. With double opt-in, your web site visitor enters his name and email address into your web site form; he will then receive an email message confirming that he gave you his email address. He will have to click a link within that email message in order to confirm his subscription – thus, opting into your list for the second time, or double opt-in.

There are pros and cons to both types of opt-in programs. With a single opt-in (your prospect gives you his email address only once), your mailing list will most definitely grow at a quicker rate. However, you are also likely to see more spam complaints (due to fraudulent email addresses), which can hurt your ability to send email messages in the future.

With a double opt-in program (your subscriber confirms his subscription for the second time), your list will grow slowly, since several of the new subscribers will not click the confirmation email link and thus will not be eligible to receive your future messages. However, you will receive less spam complaints, you will end up with a more responsive mailing list, and you will develop a better “sender reputation” which will improve your overall email delivery rate.

Before deciding on opt-in or double opt-in for your email marketing program, be sure to consult with your email service provider. Most providers enforce a strict opt-in rule, and several will allow only double opt-in email lists.

What do I recommend?

The email service provider that we have used for years, and continue to recommend to our clients, is 1Shopping Cart, which also operates under several trade names, such as Marketers Choice and 1Automation Wiz. If you’d like to see whether or not their program fits your needs, sign up for a free trial at www.Try1SC.com.

Of course, you can always outsource your web site analytics strategy and implementation, but if you’re on a tight budget, or if you just want to give it a shot yourself, you’ll need an understanding of web analytics in general as well as an understanding of your particular analytics software or service.

To effectively plan your web analytics implementation, first you must understand what analytics is. You must identify your overall business goals; you’ll need to understand the relevance of the information being supplied by your analytics program, and you’ll need to consult with the other members of your team to ensure that the information being provided is actually the information they need. And finally, after mapping out your specific inter-dependency requirements, defining your support framework and installing your tracking code, you’ll need to test your analytics implementation.

Don’t worry if that sounds a little complicated. We’ll take a look at each step individually.

The first step is understanding analytics. Web analytics is all about trend analysis and customer insight and not simply a tool for presenting financial sales reports. A web analytics tool enables you to see and monitor trends such as customer preferences, patterns, search phrases, traffic sources, etc. Analytics also allow you to monitor how the changes you make on your site can affect these key customer metrics.

One step I often see small businesses skipping when choosing an analytics package is the identification of their goals. It’s important that you keep your overall business and web site goals in mind in order to ensure that the analytics solution you choose actually addresses these goals. If your goal is to expand through multiple channels, you’ll want to make sure your analytics program thoroughly tracks traffic sources and allows you to segment visitors by specific sources. If your main objective is to improve your e-commerce, you’ll need to find an analytics solution that integrates with your shopping cart program. Create a list of major business goals and put them in priority order; then refer to this list when reviewing different analytics packages.

When reviewing the many analytics packages that are available, you’ll want to see a sample report or dataset so you can make sure that the data produced by the program is actually relevant to your business and your goals. There is no sense in producing a multitude of data that is irrelevant and useless in making profit-producing decisions.

Analytics reports can quickly become overwhelming and very time consuming. I’ve worked with small business owners who have gobs and gobs of analytics data, but they never refer to it because they just don’t understand what they’re looking at. To avoid falling into this trap, take a look at sample reports before choosing an analytics program, and opt for something easy to read with a minimalist presentation. Understanding your business goals will be a great help when outlining the information you need to see in your analytics reports. Remember, to understand the relevance of your data, you must know your priorities such as enhancing page commitments, minimizing bounce rates, and optimizing conversion rates. Don’t overload yourself with too much data; it will just cloud your decision-making capabilities.

You’ll also want to consult your team members and map out your inter-dependency requirements. If your “IT Guy” is in charge of your ad network, let him take a look at a sample report before deciding on an analytics solution. Find out what type of tracking information your affiliate manager needs. Or your accountant. Or your web designer. These team members will all require different types of information, and many analytics programs allow you to customize reports to meet individual needs. Remember, because analytics can get overwhelming, you’ll only want to supply the individual with the data he will actually need to make business decisions.

When reviewing available analytics options, be sure to check the program requirements. You don’t want to fall in love with a program that requires a Unix server if your site resides on a Windows platform. If you’re looking at a hosted service, make sure the fees fit into your monthly budget. If you’re reviewing a self-hosted package, check out the installation instructions. Does it look like something you can handle? Does it require a lot of ongoing tweaking and maintenance? Will you have to read binary code to decipher the reports?

Finally, you’ll need to spend some time testing your analytics implementation after it’s been installed. Several analytics programs allow you to set a “testing mode”; others allow you to block certain IP addresses or certain traffic sources. Know your testing options before installation, and know your support options should the testing phase fail to produce the data you’d expect.

And now the fun begins. Once you’ve chosen your analytics program, decided on your reporting structure, installed the code and completed the testing phase, your ongoing task will be to review the data and use the insights to improve your business and increase your revenue. After all, that’s really the overall goal of web site analytics in the first place.

I know several marketers who have replaced their email marketing with their Twitter feed. Personally, I wouldn’t suggest anything as drastic as that, but I do recommend that you supplement your current marketing efforts with your Twitter Tweets.

If you’re just breaking into Twitter, or still considering using it, you might not realize how easy it is to incorporate Twitter into your overall web 2.0 marketing plan. Here are a few tools that even newbies can use:

1. TwitThis and TweetThis
By far, my favorite Twitter tools are TwitThis and TweetThis. These are “plug and play” services that you can integrate into your web pages or blog posts. They give your readers an easy way to post your article or information to their own Twitter feed.

These are both great tools to increase your website traffic and to increase your Twitter subscribers.

2. Twitter Widget
The easiest way to merge Twitter with your website is through the conventional Twitter widget. While it might be a little boring, the simple cut-and-paste code allows even the most non-technical website owner to pull his Tweets into his website. If you want your site visitors to become your Twitter followers, this is the quickest and easiest way to get started.

3. Twitter Tools
I love Twitter Tools for its automation capabilities. Whenever we add a post to our blog, the link gets automatically added to our Twitter stream. Twitter Tools has several other features that we’re currently not utilizing, but you might be interested in its ability to create a digest of your day’s Tweets, create blog posts from your Tweets, send Tweets from your web site’s sidebar, and more.

4. Twitter Buttons
If you don’t like the fact that Twitter Widget adds all your Tweets to your web sites (after all, what’s the point in Tweeting your latest blog post on your blog?) consider adding a Twitter Button instead. Again, it’s cut-and-paste, so even a novice can create a button from the many templates    available. When you add the button to your    website, your site visitors can click the link and    be immediately taken to your Twitter stream.

New Twitter tools and services are entering the marketplace every day. These are just a few to get you started integrating Twitter into your marketing quickly and easily. If you have other easy-to-use Twitter tools that you’d like to share, drop me an email. I’d love to hear about what you’re using and how you’re marketing your business with Twitter.

And while you’re at it, why not come follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/KarenScharf

If you’re not quite seeing a 4,300% return on your email marketing investment, why not consider one or more of these kick-starts:

Take Advantage of Personalization

If you’re using an email service provider, you should already have an abundance of personalization options. And if you’re trying to do email marketing the old-fashioned way, there are several software options that will allow you to merge database fields into your message.

If you’ve never taken advantage of personalization through data merge, give it a try. But be careful to avoid over-personalization as it can come across as spammy, and even trigger a few spam filters. You want to be sincere and natural. Look beyond merely dropping in a first name here and there. What other information do you have that can be incorporated into your message, such as city name, business name, employee size, recent purchases, buying patterns, motivating factors etc.

And when you’re ready to take your personalization to the next level, consider adding personalized URL marketing to the mix.

Move Into Segmentation

Segmentation is where the real ROI comes in. Most small business owners take their entire mailing list and send the exact same message to each and every person on that list. But if you’re running a buy-one-get-one-free special on Blue Widgets, do you really want to send that message to customers who just purchased blue widgets last week? Or if you’re adding marriage counseling to your list of services, do you want to notify your clients who recently went through a divorce? You get the picture.

By segmenting your list, or breaking it down into smaller lists, you can send relevant messages to your prospects and clients. You’ll see your open rates and response rates soar. Segmentation and relevance go an extremely long way in building trust, loyalty and, in the end, your bottom line. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Chances are, you already know more about your clients and prospects than you realize. It’s just a matter of coordinating your point of sale information with your email database.

Improve Utilization of Your Transactional Messaging

This continues to be an area that many small businesses drop the ball in, mostly because it’s so easy to do. Transactional email messages get opened at a higher rate, they get read more thoroughly, they get clicked on more often, and they are not subject to can-spam laws. And since you’re already sending them, you might as well make the best of them.

Transactional messages are any messages sent in regard to a customer or prospect transaction, such as:

• order confirmations
• customer service messages
• information request messages
• service confirmations
• shipment notifications
• reservation confirmations
• e-tickets
• inventory updates
• invoices
• payment notifications

The problem is, for many small businesses these messages are automated by the email service or the ordering system or the point of sale software. Many small business owners don’t even know what their transactional messages say. They’re sort of “out of sight, out of mind”.

But your transactional messages are worth paying attention to. Because they do get read from top to bottom, you’ve got a great opportunity to add a relevant promotional message. Are you sending an order confirmation for a red whachamajiggy? Why not add a promotion for the whachamajiggy carrying case? If you’re emailing an out-of-stock notice on Software 3.0, you can add a promotion for Software 3.4.

There are a few rules you must adhere to if you want your transactional messages to fly under the can-spam radar:

• Your transactional information must be the main objective of the email message.
• The transactional data must appear at the beginning of the message.
• At least 80% of the message must be comprised of transactional data.

(Remember, just because your transactional messages are not subject to can-spam laws does not mean your recipients can’t report you as a spammer to their ISP. Don’t get carried away with the transactional message/promotional mix.)

Look Into Email List Append

This one is a tricky one, and I only recommend it as a very last resort. And for full disclosure, I have never utilized this tactic for either myself or for any Modern Image Communications clients, so I’m not speaking from experience here.

There are companies (if you search for “email append” you’ll find tons of them) that will take your current client or prospect mailing list and match it up with a database of known email addresses. They’ll add the email addresses to your mailing list and return the completed list to you, usually as a Microsoft Excel or .CSV document.

Depending on the service you choose, there are several different ways of paying for this service. First, the company might charge a flat fee no matter what the outcome is. While your up front investment is relatively low, the results aren’t guaranteed and you may receive your mailing list back in the exact same condition it was in originally.

Some companies charge per record updated. If you send them a mailing list of 5,000 names, and they are only able to match 250 email addresses, your overall fee is minimal. And, obviously, if they able to match up 4,854 names, you end up paying more.

And a few companies offer “guaranteed email addresses” meaning the email addresses are 100% up to date and accurate. Taking them up on their guarantee can be a little time consuming. You must send out an email message rather quickly after getting your list – usually within 10 days. And you must send back your bounce records to show exactly which email addresses bounced and why they bounced.

Keep in mind, these are the actual bounce records that are returned from the recipients’ email servers. This does not refer to the bounce report you receive from your email service provider (such as 1Shopping Cart or Constant Contact) saying X number of email messages bounced. So, if you’re less than technical or if you don’t send any email messages outside of your ESP, this may not be the best option for you.

If you do decide to go the Email Append route, be very careful about what you do with these newly acquired email addresses. I do not recommend that you automatically add these addresses to your newsletter list or start barraging these people with marketing messages. To avoid spam complaints, a simple email message inviting them to join your mailing list or downloading a free report is usually all you can get away with.

It’s true that email marketing provides one of the highest returns on marketing dollars. If you haven’t experienced those sky-high returns yet, try employing one or more of these practices and you’ll see your ROI increasing in no time.

Sidenote: if you want more information of can-spam compliance, donwload my free checklist right here:

http://www.modernimage.com/freereports/canspam.htm

Easily put, let’s say that your blog is like a coffee shop, and your blog subscribers then are the repeat customers who keep coming back on a regular basis. In business terms, your customers are what keeps your business up and running. If you don’t have customers, you might as well close shop. With a brick and mortar business, you certainly wouldn’t turn down the occasional customer, the casual guy who just comes in once a year, or the straggler who came in off the street, who’s never been there before and will more than likely never return. But it’s the repeat customer, the guy who comes in week in and week out, just like clock work… that’s the guy who keep you afloat. He’s the one you can count on for steady revenues.

The same holds true for your blog. Sure, it’s nice to have readers who find your blog accidentally; the ones who clicked a link from another website, not really sure what to expect. Or the reader who is looking for something very particular and found your blog in Google. These one-time readers are nice, but it’s your regular readers, the ones who subscribe so they don’t miss a single post, the ones who respect what you have to say and what you are able to teach… those are the readers you really want. They are the ones you’re posting for any way, aren’t they?

So, how do you increase blog subscribers to keep your blog running? Here are 7 easy steps for getting more blog subscribers – most of which can be implemented immediately.

1.    Make sure your readers know that you welcome their subscription. Place your subscription box in a strategic area where your readers can easily spot it. Consider adding the subscription box to the bottom of each of your blog posts. Include a warm and welcoming message to encourage subscribers and let them know you are interested in a relationship.

2.    Be a guest contributor or blogger on someone else’s blog. A reference to your blog with a brief description at the end of your post is a great way for increasing your blog traffic and subscribers. Just inform the blog owner of your plans before you start posting. And make sure that the content you will be posting is original content which cannot be found in your blog.

3.    Stay within your chosen niche. Do not stray away from your typical topic. A highly specialized, unique topic generally works best. Your readers will come back to your blog because you will be regarded as the authority on the topic.

4.    Consider offering a freebie such as an e-book, special report, an audio series or an e-course to your website visitors if they sign up as blog subscribers. Use a technique similar to the freebie offer for newsletter subscribers. (I’ll be doing a Twitter series on offering freebies in just a few days. Be sure to follow me on Twitter to learn more http://twitter.com/KarenScharf )

5.    Create a landing page whose primary purpose is to drive blog subscribers. Again, this is similar to the techniques used to increase email subscribers. This strategy can be used with your AdWords campaigns or with joint venture partners.

6.    Feature a podcast that is related to the subject matter of your blog. Have it listed in different podcasting directories and get it into i-Tunes. Never forget to mention your blog in every single episode and discuss the different benefits of subscribing. Another great way of promoting your blog is landing some interviews with prominent players in your niche. Aside from increasing your presence online, you are creating content that can be used as part of your special gift or “ethical bribe” for new blog subscribers.

7.    And just like driving traffic to your website, be proactive by participating in forums relevant or important to your niche. Creating informative posts will get you noticed and most likely, people will take interest in you and what your blog have to offer. Add your blog subscription form to your signature file or resource box.

But the most important tactic for increasing blog subscribers is to produce relevant, timely content on a regular basis. Once you get in that habit, I guarantee you that you will see your number of blog subscribers grow.

And while I’m always sad to see the Summer go, I love this time of year because it’s a great time to start preparing your 2010 marketing plan. But before you do that, you’ll need to evaluate which of your 2009 marketing strategies worked and which were not effective. Since email marketing is one of the best marketing strategies for increasing your online presence, you should be constantly evaluating it and making any and all improvements.

As a guide, I am sharing with you how I personally assess the effectiveness of our email marketing strategy. You can use this as a reference to evaluate your own email marketing campaigns for the last quarter of the year. It is an easy to follow guide that will help you improve the effectiveness of your email marketing within your 2010 marketing plan.

The first thing you must do is identify the overall goal of the email marketing campaign you launched. What did it specifically focus on? What was your overriding objective? Branding? Relationship building? Direct Sales? Did you have secondary goals? Were you able to reach the statistics that you targeted? By pinpointing the overall goal, you will know which metrics to focus on in measuring the effectiveness of your email marketing.

If you decide that you weren’t too successful in reaching your goal, evaluate the different aspects of your email marketing campaign and identify the areas where you had difficulties. Review the metrics of your email marketing campaign. Dig deep to determine the reason behind your results, whether they were positive or negative.

List all the techniques you used to increase your subscriber list. Assess each of them to find out which was the most and least effective. Decide if the most time consuming technique is still worth your time and effort to implement. From the list, scratch out those ineffective list-growth programs you have used. No sense in adding ineffective techniques to your 2010 marketing plan.

Evaluate your current subscriber list and see how you can make it more personalized and how you can tweak your content to make it more relevant. Do you need additional information on your readers? Will you to implement a reader survey, or can you scrape together insights by simply looking at your email statistics and web analytics? How can you divide your mailing list to take advantage of this new information? Segmentation, personalization and relevance will be the keys to successful and effective email campaigns for next year.

Assess the content of the email messages you have sent out up to this point and see if they have been consistently relevant to your readers’ needs. Analyze the email content that you have been sending out on an individual basis. Appraise the schedule you have for sending out useful content-driven messages. Were you consistent in following your schedule accurately? Are you going to follow the same schedule or modify it? A consistent sending schedule has a great impact on your email delivery rates and open rates. If you’ve been unhappy with your delivery and/or open rates for 2009, be diligent with your sending schedule in 2010.

Compare all of your individual email marketing campaigns against each other. Pay attention to which of them turned in the best and the worst results. Know the reason behind each result and learn from it. Isolate each component of your email message – the subject line, the headline, the calls to action, the html, the images, the personalization, the relevance, the segmentation, etc. Determine which elements need to be modified to improve your results in 2010.

Check on your delivery rates for the past email marketing campaigns. How do your open rates compare with the standards for your industry? Identify the areas that could have caused any delivery problems. Was it technical issues? Spam Rejections? Develop a plan to improve your delivery rates for your future email marketing campaigns.

And finally, ensure that you have been compliant with the CAN-Spam guidelines throughout your entire email marketing campaign. Verify that your SPF record is up to date and that your domain name keys are set correctly. (If you need a little refresher on CAN-Spam compliance, grab a copy of my Free CAN-Spam checklist right here: http://www.modernimage.com/freereports/canspam.htm )

After evaluating your 2009 email marketing program, you should have all the information you need to create and execute an effective email marketing strategy for 2010. And if you’re disappointed after reviewing your 2009 statistics, don’t think of it as a failure; think of it as an awesome learning opportunity that provides an incredible chance to improve.

Keep in mind, adding your name to the author tag is not a magic bullet and will not improve your ranking for any other keywords. But, if you’re a service provider, it is a quick and easy way to improve the rankings for your own name should your prospects Google you before deciding to hire you.

But sometimes we get so mired in trying to figure out the technical aspects that we forget that email marketing is, at its heart, marketing. And the most important aspects of marketing have nothing to do with technology at all.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to present a surefire, non-technical way to improve the results you’re getting from your email marketing efforts:

Make sure your target market knows exactly who it is.

We all know how critical it is that we, as marketers, are 110% crystal clear about who our target market is. But the problem with email is that just about anyone can end up on your list. I call it “list creep”, and no, I don’t mean you end up with creeps on your mailing list. It simply means that your subscribers eventually start to spill out of the boundaries you’ve identified as your perfect target market.

For instance, let’s say you have a lead generation device entitled “4 Easiest Ways to Identify the Best Color for Your Office” because you’re trying to target small business owners who would like to redecorate. But a doctor who works at a large trauma hospital downloads the report because he wants to make sure he’s using colors that will sooth his patients in his doctor’s office. And Sam who owns the local handyman service downloads the report because he has a client who will be turning their fourth bedroom into a home office. And the school guidance counselor heard that a blue office can give kids test anxiety, so she downloads the report. Now you have at least 3 subscribers who don’t exactly fit your target market.

While, on the surface, it doesn’t seem like a major problem – after all, sending email is practically free so it’s not really costing you any extra to have them on your list – there might actually be repercussions in the long run.

First, we’ve already illustrated how your readers are filtering your message through their own level of knowledge. The doctor assumed “office” meant doctor’s office and the handyman assumed “home office”. It’s a natural occurrence, we all do it on a regular basis. So when your follow up messages and newsletters arrive, they too will be read and understood through those same filters.

So these “creepy subscribers” will go on reading your messages through their own filters. But eventually, somewhere along the line, things will stop making sense for them. It will soon become apparent that your message isn’t meant for them.

If you’re lucky, they’ll just stop opening your messages. But then your open rate will drop and your statistics will be all askew. And you’ll think there’s something wrong with your message or your marketing because you see your numbers falling. So you’ll make some adjustments that may or not be relevant. You’ll run some split tests. You’ll spend time and effort and money trying to improve your email marketing.

And if you’re unlucky they’ll get tired of seeing your messages in their in box and they’ll report you as a spammer. Now you’ve got the whole issue of delivery and ISP relations to deal with (which is a topic for another day).

But what you don’t see is that your marketing was just fine for the people who really mattered. Your “real” target market was opening your message at their standard rate. They were opening and clicking and interacting just as they always did.

And now you’re really not quite sure exactly where your email marketing efforts stand.

We can all avoid this situation simply by being clear about who we serve in all of marketing messages. Instead of focusing on growing a bigger list and acquiring more names, we need to focus on growing relevant lists with targeted names.

Now I’m not suggesting that you deny anyone the chance to download your free report. But I do think it’s a good idea, in all of your follow up efforts, to be clear about who you are trying to reach. As we create our email marketing pieces, we tend to assume that our message is going out to readers who have been on our list for years, who are familiar with our business, who know exactly what we do. But the fact is, our lists are churning everyday. Everyday we’re losing and adding subscribers. At any point in time, there is probably someone reading our email message who really has no idea who we are or what we do.

A simple blurb in your email message such as “We provide remodeling services to small businesses in the Detroit area” will allow your untargeted readers to quickly unsubscribe. You’ll end up with a cleaner, more targeted mailing list – albeit smaller. And a more targeted list allows you to more accurately measure and test your marketing efforts.

Remember, in email marketing, it’s not the size of the list that counts, it’s the responsiveness.

That’s because using testimonials can help ease your prospect’s mind and reduce her buying resistance. Because testimonials are so tremendously influential, as marketers, you and I should never produce one single piece of marketing collateral without including testimonials.

But I believe testimonials are even more essential on your web pages.

That’s because the web can be such an impersonal selling environment. Your web visitors have their “scam radar” at high alert. They don’t trust much of what you say – but they will trust what others say. So start adding testimonials to each and every one of your web pages today.

If you don’t have any customer testimonials yet, just follow these easy steps to start using them as soon as possible:

1. Develop a system for collecting testimonials. A simple web form should work well in most situations. Don’t forget to ask for your customer’s full name and get permission to publish the testimonial.
2. Request a testimonial immediately after the sale. This will have two benefits. First, the details of your service will still be fresh in your customer’s mind. Second, buyer’s remorse and refund requests will be reduced once the client has “taken a stand” for your service.
3. Be specific with your request. Instead of simply asking, “What did you think of our service?” you should say, “Brenda can you write down a quick sentence or two about how we cleaned your carpet and put all the furniture back in place when we were done?”
4. Ask your customer to provide a description of his problem before he used your product or service. This helps your prospect identify with the customer giving a testimonial, and also helps aggravate the pain the prospect is experiencing.
5. Use a picture of your customer whenever possible. Either snap the photo yourself with your digital camera or ask your client to email you a digital image. This will make it easy for you to incorporate the photo in your web page.

Once you’ve collected your customer testimonials, be sure to include them on as many web pages as possible. After that, you can also:

• Put all your testimonials into a free report and use it as a lead generator.
• Put audio versions of the testimonials onto a CD that you can send to new prospects.
• Put your clients’ testimonials on a DVD and play the video in your waiting room. This is especially effective if you have testimonials about products or services that many of your customers aren’t aware that you offer. This makes great covert “advertising”.
• Add a corresponding testimonial to all of your advertising. If you are creating a coupon for a free piece of pie with any meal, include a testimonial praising you for your fresh, home baked pies.
• Instead of a corresponding testimonial, try a complimentary testimonial in your advertising. If you’re advertising an oil change special, include testimonials about your tire rotation service.

And remember, the clients who give you testimonials are your best and most loyal customers, so be sure to reward them properly. You might need to get creative with your reward system so it doesn’t appear as if you’re buying testimonials, but a little extra special treatment will definitely be worth it.

But you need to make sure that you’re studying current information. That’s because the search engines changes their algorithms on a regular basis and if you’re using outdated information you might be doing more damage than good.

A few years ago, entrepreneurs wanting to optimize their own web pages were taught to fill their pages with their keywords. No matter what. Just throw the keywords in whilly-nilly, and as long as the words appeared a certain percentage of the time, it didn’t really matter whether they made sense or not.

If your keyword appeared over and over again in your web page, the search engines awarded you a lot of points. The web page that had the highest frequency of a particular keyword was awarded the most points and would appear first in the search engines.

But this system left a lot of room for abuse. Spammers quickly learned that they could stuff a web page with highly sought-after keywords and easily benefit from all that free traffic. In no time at all, the search engines were returning irrelevant results. The programmers knew that something had to change, or web surfers would no longer use their search engine.

So they changed their algorithms. Several times. And then a few more times.

And it is now much more important to write your web page copy in a natural manner, so your human visitors will understand what you’re talking about. After all, it’s your human visitors who are reading your text. It’s your human visitors who are buying your products. It’s your human visitors who are becoming your clients.

But there is actually more to it than that. Writing naturally is more than just being altruistic and acknowledging that your website visitors are actually living, breathing, human beings. Writing for human IS writing for the search engines.

That’s because the search engines have gotten smarter. Really smart. (Almost scary smart.) They now actually have the ability to distinguish between natural, human language and keyword-stuffed or machine-generated language. They can utilize latent semantic indexing to determine whether the surrounding text is legitimately discussing the keywords in question.

So be careful with your keywords. Don’t force them to appear a certain number of times, resulting in an unnatural flow of your web copy. Write your text naturally, so it reads just like you would talk.

And use complimentary keywords. If your web page is about German Shepherds, be sure to include the words “dog” and “puppy” and other equivalent words. Read your text out loud. If it doesn’t sound like you would say it, rewrite it.

The good news is, this is a win-win-win situation. You will find it is actually easier to write your web copy when you write in a natural manner. The search engines will be able to return relevant results. And your web visitors will find the content and information they are actually looking for, rather than a spammy, keyword-stuffed web page.

Oh yeah, you’ll probably make more sales too.