by Brandon Leibowitz
Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a huge market, especially for new companies that have not yet established themselves in the organic search engine rankings. The downside is that PPC can be quite an exhausting and overwhelming task when it is really broken down. For the most part you can enter your keywords and create ad variations, but there is so much more to PPC than just that.
In these tough times you want to make sure your bottom line is at optimal conditions, and PPC can assist in these goals. Specified will be some tips and tricks to help you increase conversions and reduce costs. In essence, you want to persuade the buyer that you have the highest quality item for the lowest price compared to the competition.
1. Research Competitors Ads
There is a wealth of free, valuable information out on the web waiting to be used. PPC ads are shown on most, if not all search engines and can give you some insight into how your competition is advertising and what ad text they are using. If you want to go deeper than this you can purchase tools that show you what your competitor’s keywords are, what they are bidding, their ad text, and much more. With this information you will have a good starting point for your PPC ads.
2. Explore Keyword Variations
It is imperative for any successful PPC campaign to search for keywords, look at competitor keywords, and use proper keyword matching. It is important to know what keyword matching is and understand the difference between broad, phrase, and exact keywords. Each has a different effect and using the wrong one can ruin your entire ad campaign. Broad match keywords allow your ad to show up on similar phrases and relevant variations. Phrase match keywords allow your ad to show up on searched that match the exact phrase exclusively. Exact match keywords means that your ad shows up for that exact phrase exclusively. Negative match keywords are used to prevent your ad from showing up on specific keywords.
3. Focus on Low Cost Keywords
Overpriced keywords can cause a leakage in your PPC marketing budget. If you sell a product or service with a low profit margin then you need to do everything in your power to avoid high cost keywords. You cannot afford to pay $1 per click when your profit margin is only $0.75. Some keywords can cost over $5 a click! You do not want to spend this much unless your profit margin is large enough and you know you can compete with the competition. For the rest of us internet advertisers we want to look for highly searched keywords that are not overly priced. This can be done by looking at the competition. Do a search for your keyword in your desired search engine and look at how many paid, or sponsored, listings appear. The fewer, the better off you are.
4. Avoid Hyper-Competitive Keywords
Keywords with a large search volume may be a viable keyword choice, but if the competition is too high it may not be the best choice, unless you have an extraordinary budget set in place. The greater the competition level for keywords, the more you will have to pay per click. There are tons, both free and paid that can show you a keywords competition level, monthly traffic, and cost per click. A reliable, free tool is Google’s keyword tool. It is an effective medium for discovering profitable keywords that have not been tapped into yet.
5. Make your Ads with Consumer Savings
People love to see words like sale, save discount, free, promo, buy 1 get 1 free, etc. when looking at paid search results. The more you use these words, the greater visibility your ad will have in the consumer’s eyes. The bigger the savings, the more likely you are to obtain a click through and ultimately a conversion. Make sure to include good values, low prices, and timely promotions in all your ad groups. This is especially if you have a product or service that is being marketed to highly price sensitive shoppers.
6. Be upfront with your Ads
I cannot stress this enough. This is the biggest mistake advertisers can make when placing participating in pay per click advertising. You do not want to lie, or fluff up your ads, in hopes of making more sales. This actually has the opposite effect, in which people will click through expecting what was outlined in the ad and come to see that it was false and misleading. This may get more clicks in organic rankings, but it will still result in an extraordinarily high bounce rate. They will leave the site in frustration that you mislead to them to your site, and you lost money for the cost of a click. Now image this happening on a daily basis for months at a time. How much wasted money can there be before someone steps in and says, “STOP, you are doing this in the complete wrong way!” You need to be upfront and honest to prevent excessive click from searchers expecting something else.
7. Make your Ad Groups Targeted to the Landing Page
To get the best quality score for your PPC ads you will want to make sure the keywords and the ad text relate to one another. You also want to make sure the landing page, where the searcher is taken when clicking on your link, is highly related to your keywords and ad text. This will get you the best results and ensure searchers do not get taken to the wrong page. Do not bunch all your campaigns together; rather separate them into appropriate categories. Then create pages on your website specifically designed for PPC users to land on. You should not send PPC ads to your home page, but rather have targeted landing pages specifically designed for each PPC campaign. These pages should have a call to action inducting the searcher to perform some sort of action that is beneficial to your business, whether it be a email address, or an actual sale. Your end goal is to have the user do something. This will reduce the bounce back rate and increase the chances of converting leads into sales.
8. Review and Analyze your Ads Performance Overtime
This seems obvious, but so many people do not take the time to sit down and really analyze each campaign to see what is succeeding and what is leaking money. Once this is discovered you will want to fix the problem ads and leave the successful ads be. This seems so obvious, but is not done often enough. I encourage reviewing your pay per click campaign once a day. If this is too much, then at least 2-3 times a week. This is your money and you do not want to see it wasted with no returns.
9. Refine your Ad groups to Focus on High Performers
After you have run your PPC campaigns for a few weeks you can analyze the results and see what the top performers and failures are. To make sure this is an accurate representation make sure to use many different ad variations and have them set to rotate evenly at first. This will give you an idea of what selling points are working and which are draining your funds. Look at cost per conversion and make sure this does not exceed your profit margin. If so stop the ad or make some major modifications to it. If an ad group has a low cost per conversion keep this running and let it rake in the money. Refining your ads should be done on a regular basis to avoid failing campaigns and focus more on successful campaigns.
10. Look at the Bottom line
Conversions are king for PPC, just like content is king for organic rankings. If you are doing all of the above and still are not converting sales then it may be time to take a step back and contact a professional to review your campaign and look for any flaws. If you do not have the budget to do this, then pause your ads and just focus on refining one at a time. This will ensure you do not use your entire budget and can spend more time figuring out why you are not succeeding. Once you figure out why one campaign is failing it is much easier to spot other trouble campaigns.
Brandon Leibowitz is a professional internet marketer. He has been involved in search engine optimization and marketing consulting with over five years of industry knowledge. Read news, tips, tricks, and anything else related to search engines in his SEO and SEM Blog. Get a FREE Website Quote!
Monday, June 29, 2009
10 Pay Per Click Steps to Reduce Costs and Increase Conversions using Google AdWords
by Brandon Leibowitz
Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a huge market, especially for new companies that have not yet established themselves in the organic search engine rankings. The downside is that PPC can be quite an exhausting and overwhelming task when it is really broken down. For the most part you can enter your keywords and create ad variations, but there is so much more to PPC than just that.
In these tough times you want to make sure your bottom line is at optimal conditions, and PPC can assist in these goals. Specified will be some tips and tricks to help you increase conversions and reduce costs. In essence, you want to persuade the buyer that you have the highest quality item for the lowest price compared to the competition.
1. Research Competitors Ads
There is a wealth of free, valuable information out on the web waiting to be used. PPC ads are shown on most, if not all search engines and can give you some insight into how your competition is advertising and what ad text they are using. If you want to go deeper than this you can purchase tools that show you what your competitor’s keywords are, what they are bidding, their ad text, and much more. With this information you will have a good starting point for your PPC ads.
2. Explore Keyword Variations
It is imperative for any successful PPC campaign to search for keywords, look at competitor keywords, and use proper keyword matching. It is important to know what keyword matching is and understand the difference between broad, phrase, and exact keywords. Each has a different effect and using the wrong one can ruin your entire ad campaign. Broad match keywords allow your ad to show up on similar phrases and relevant variations. Phrase match keywords allow your ad to show up on searched that match the exact phrase exclusively. Exact match keywords means that your ad shows up for that exact phrase exclusively. Negative match keywords are used to prevent your ad from showing up on specific keywords.
3. Focus on Low Cost Keywords
Overpriced keywords can cause a leakage in your PPC marketing budget. If you sell a product or service with a low profit margin then you need to do everything in your power to avoid high cost keywords. You cannot afford to pay $1 per click when your profit margin is only $0.75. Some keywords can cost over $5 a click! You do not want to spend this much unless your profit margin is large enough and you know you can compete with the competition. For the rest of us internet advertisers we want to look for highly searched keywords that are not overly priced. This can be done by looking at the competition. Do a search for your keyword in your desired search engine and look at how many paid, or sponsored, listings appear. The fewer, the better off you are.
4. Avoid Hyper-Competitive Keywords
Keywords with a large search volume may be a viable keyword choice, but if the competition is too high it may not be the best choice, unless you have an extraordinary budget set in place. The greater the competition level for keywords, the more you will have to pay per click. There are tons, both free and paid that can show you a keywords competition level, monthly traffic, and cost per click. A reliable, free tool is Google’s keyword tool. It is an effective medium for discovering profitable keywords that have not been tapped into yet.
5. Make your Ads with Consumer Savings
People love to see words like sale, save discount, free, promo, buy 1 get 1 free, etc. when looking at paid search results. The more you use these words, the greater visibility your ad will have in the consumer’s eyes. The bigger the savings, the more likely you are to obtain a click through and ultimately a conversion. Make sure to include good values, low prices, and timely promotions in all your ad groups. This is especially if you have a product or service that is being marketed to highly price sensitive shoppers.
6. Be upfront with your Ads
I cannot stress this enough. This is the biggest mistake advertisers can make when placing participating in pay per click advertising. You do not want to lie, or fluff up your ads, in hopes of making more sales. This actually has the opposite effect, in which people will click through expecting what was outlined in the ad and come to see that it was false and misleading. This may get more clicks in organic rankings, but it will still result in an extraordinarily high bounce rate. They will leave the site in frustration that you mislead to them to your site, and you lost money for the cost of a click. Now image this happening on a daily basis for months at a time. How much wasted money can there be before someone steps in and says, “STOP, you are doing this in the complete wrong way!” You need to be upfront and honest to prevent excessive click from searchers expecting something else.
7. Make your Ad Groups Targeted to the Landing Page
To get the best quality score for your PPC ads you will want to make sure the keywords and the ad text relate to one another. You also want to make sure the landing page, where the searcher is taken when clicking on your link, is highly related to your keywords and ad text. This will get you the best results and ensure searchers do not get taken to the wrong page. Do not bunch all your campaigns together; rather separate them into appropriate categories. Then create pages on your website specifically designed for PPC users to land on. You should not send PPC ads to your home page, but rather have targeted landing pages specifically designed for each PPC campaign. These pages should have a call to action inducting the searcher to perform some sort of action that is beneficial to your business, whether it be a email address, or an actual sale. Your end goal is to have the user do something. This will reduce the bounce back rate and increase the chances of converting leads into sales.
8. Review and Analyze your Ads Performance Overtime
This seems obvious, but so many people do not take the time to sit down and really analyze each campaign to see what is succeeding and what is leaking money. Once this is discovered you will want to fix the problem ads and leave the successful ads be. This seems so obvious, but is not done often enough. I encourage reviewing your pay per click campaign once a day. If this is too much, then at least 2-3 times a week. This is your money and you do not want to see it wasted with no returns.
9. Refine your Ad groups to Focus on High Performers
After you have run your PPC campaigns for a few weeks you can analyze the results and see what the top performers and failures are. To make sure this is an accurate representation make sure to use many different ad variations and have them set to rotate evenly at first. This will give you an idea of what selling points are working and which are draining your funds. Look at cost per conversion and make sure this does not exceed your profit margin. If so stop the ad or make some major modifications to it. If an ad group has a low cost per conversion keep this running and let it rake in the money. Refining your ads should be done on a regular basis to avoid failing campaigns and focus more on successful campaigns.
10. Look at the Bottom line
Conversions are king for PPC, just like content is king for organic rankings. If you are doing all of the above and still are not converting sales then it may be time to take a step back and contact a professional to review your campaign and look for any flaws. If you do not have the budget to do this, then pause your ads and just focus on refining one at a time. This will ensure you do not use your entire budget and can spend more time figuring out why you are not succeeding. Once you figure out why one campaign is failing it is much easier to spot other trouble campaigns.
Brandon Leibowitz is a professional internet marketer. He has been involved in search engine optimization and marketing consulting with over five years of industry knowledge. Read news, tips, tricks, and anything else related to search engines in his SEO and SEM Blog. Get a FREE Website Quote!
Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a huge market, especially for new companies that have not yet established themselves in the organic search engine rankings. The downside is that PPC can be quite an exhausting and overwhelming task when it is really broken down. For the most part you can enter your keywords and create ad variations, but there is so much more to PPC than just that.
In these tough times you want to make sure your bottom line is at optimal conditions, and PPC can assist in these goals. Specified will be some tips and tricks to help you increase conversions and reduce costs. In essence, you want to persuade the buyer that you have the highest quality item for the lowest price compared to the competition.
1. Research Competitors Ads
There is a wealth of free, valuable information out on the web waiting to be used. PPC ads are shown on most, if not all search engines and can give you some insight into how your competition is advertising and what ad text they are using. If you want to go deeper than this you can purchase tools that show you what your competitor’s keywords are, what they are bidding, their ad text, and much more. With this information you will have a good starting point for your PPC ads.
2. Explore Keyword Variations
It is imperative for any successful PPC campaign to search for keywords, look at competitor keywords, and use proper keyword matching. It is important to know what keyword matching is and understand the difference between broad, phrase, and exact keywords. Each has a different effect and using the wrong one can ruin your entire ad campaign. Broad match keywords allow your ad to show up on similar phrases and relevant variations. Phrase match keywords allow your ad to show up on searched that match the exact phrase exclusively. Exact match keywords means that your ad shows up for that exact phrase exclusively. Negative match keywords are used to prevent your ad from showing up on specific keywords.
3. Focus on Low Cost Keywords
Overpriced keywords can cause a leakage in your PPC marketing budget. If you sell a product or service with a low profit margin then you need to do everything in your power to avoid high cost keywords. You cannot afford to pay $1 per click when your profit margin is only $0.75. Some keywords can cost over $5 a click! You do not want to spend this much unless your profit margin is large enough and you know you can compete with the competition. For the rest of us internet advertisers we want to look for highly searched keywords that are not overly priced. This can be done by looking at the competition. Do a search for your keyword in your desired search engine and look at how many paid, or sponsored, listings appear. The fewer, the better off you are.
4. Avoid Hyper-Competitive Keywords
Keywords with a large search volume may be a viable keyword choice, but if the competition is too high it may not be the best choice, unless you have an extraordinary budget set in place. The greater the competition level for keywords, the more you will have to pay per click. There are tons, both free and paid that can show you a keywords competition level, monthly traffic, and cost per click. A reliable, free tool is Google’s keyword tool. It is an effective medium for discovering profitable keywords that have not been tapped into yet.
5. Make your Ads with Consumer Savings
People love to see words like sale, save discount, free, promo, buy 1 get 1 free, etc. when looking at paid search results. The more you use these words, the greater visibility your ad will have in the consumer’s eyes. The bigger the savings, the more likely you are to obtain a click through and ultimately a conversion. Make sure to include good values, low prices, and timely promotions in all your ad groups. This is especially if you have a product or service that is being marketed to highly price sensitive shoppers.
6. Be upfront with your Ads
I cannot stress this enough. This is the biggest mistake advertisers can make when placing participating in pay per click advertising. You do not want to lie, or fluff up your ads, in hopes of making more sales. This actually has the opposite effect, in which people will click through expecting what was outlined in the ad and come to see that it was false and misleading. This may get more clicks in organic rankings, but it will still result in an extraordinarily high bounce rate. They will leave the site in frustration that you mislead to them to your site, and you lost money for the cost of a click. Now image this happening on a daily basis for months at a time. How much wasted money can there be before someone steps in and says, “STOP, you are doing this in the complete wrong way!” You need to be upfront and honest to prevent excessive click from searchers expecting something else.
7. Make your Ad Groups Targeted to the Landing Page
To get the best quality score for your PPC ads you will want to make sure the keywords and the ad text relate to one another. You also want to make sure the landing page, where the searcher is taken when clicking on your link, is highly related to your keywords and ad text. This will get you the best results and ensure searchers do not get taken to the wrong page. Do not bunch all your campaigns together; rather separate them into appropriate categories. Then create pages on your website specifically designed for PPC users to land on. You should not send PPC ads to your home page, but rather have targeted landing pages specifically designed for each PPC campaign. These pages should have a call to action inducting the searcher to perform some sort of action that is beneficial to your business, whether it be a email address, or an actual sale. Your end goal is to have the user do something. This will reduce the bounce back rate and increase the chances of converting leads into sales.
8. Review and Analyze your Ads Performance Overtime
This seems obvious, but so many people do not take the time to sit down and really analyze each campaign to see what is succeeding and what is leaking money. Once this is discovered you will want to fix the problem ads and leave the successful ads be. This seems so obvious, but is not done often enough. I encourage reviewing your pay per click campaign once a day. If this is too much, then at least 2-3 times a week. This is your money and you do not want to see it wasted with no returns.
9. Refine your Ad groups to Focus on High Performers
After you have run your PPC campaigns for a few weeks you can analyze the results and see what the top performers and failures are. To make sure this is an accurate representation make sure to use many different ad variations and have them set to rotate evenly at first. This will give you an idea of what selling points are working and which are draining your funds. Look at cost per conversion and make sure this does not exceed your profit margin. If so stop the ad or make some major modifications to it. If an ad group has a low cost per conversion keep this running and let it rake in the money. Refining your ads should be done on a regular basis to avoid failing campaigns and focus more on successful campaigns.
10. Look at the Bottom line
Conversions are king for PPC, just like content is king for organic rankings. If you are doing all of the above and still are not converting sales then it may be time to take a step back and contact a professional to review your campaign and look for any flaws. If you do not have the budget to do this, then pause your ads and just focus on refining one at a time. This will ensure you do not use your entire budget and can spend more time figuring out why you are not succeeding. Once you figure out why one campaign is failing it is much easier to spot other trouble campaigns.
Brandon Leibowitz is a professional internet marketer. He has been involved in search engine optimization and marketing consulting with over five years of industry knowledge. Read news, tips, tricks, and anything else related to search engines in his SEO and SEM Blog. Get a FREE Website Quote!
Reducing the Risks of User-Generated Content
by Jeremy Gislason
User-generated content (or “Participatory Media” as some call it) can be a great way to boost the value of your website, and the traffic that’s driven to it. Many website owners have already found that developing online communities greatly increases their financial bottom lines. Sometimes, as has been the case with YouTube, user-generated content can even be a great business model in itself.
But user-generated content can also be a great source of risk and exposure. Again, there’s probably no better example of this than YouTube. YouTube was sued by the Viacom studio in 2007 for $1 billion in damages, for allegedly distributing Viacom’s copyrighted materials without permission.
If you understand the risks associated with user-generated content, you can take steps to reduce your exposure and protect your online assets, while at the same time increasing the value of your website.
What is User-Generated Content?
User-generated content is a broad term that includes any material that a website user posts on the website for others to see. This can include not only blog comments, but also pictures, videos, articles, or anything else that a user might post in a forum or bulletin board section of your website, or as part of their own personal profile on the website.
What are the Risks with User-Generated Content, and How Can I Address Them?
There are a number of legal issues that you will need to become familiar with if you permit or promote user-generated content on your website.
a. Intellectual property infringement. There are two primary types of intellectual property infringement issues that you should be aware of. The first is copyright infringement. Key elements of liability include knowledge of the infringing activity, inducing or contributing the improper conduct, and attaining a direct financial benefit in the infringing activity when you have the ability to supervise the direct infringer.
Copyright holders generally try to enforce their rights by means of “takedown notices” that are sent in accordance with the requirements a particular Federal law (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). You’ll have to decide what position to take once you receive takedown notices. Do you evaluate each and respond notice as you feel appropriate? Or do you simply honor all takedown notices immediately? It’s a balance between avoiding legal risk of a lawsuit by those who claim to hold a copyright to the material that someone else posted, versus possibly alienating your users if you aren’t giving any consideration to their “fair use” rights in that content.
Trademark law prevents the use of trademarks of others in a manner that creates a likelihood of confusion about the source of goods or services or in a manner that dilutes the value of the trademark. User-generated content sometimes falls afoul of trademark law.
b. Defamation. You should also be aware that there is potential liability for allowing users to post defamatory statements about others on your website. There is a Federal law (The Communications Decency Act) which can provide some protection against defamation claims based on what your users do on your website, but the scope of the protection is still somewhat uncertain, so you should not ignore the possibility of claims against you based on user generated content.
c. Obscenity and Child Pornography. The Federal laws that provide protections to website owners generally exclude protections for obscene materials that appear on such websites, even if the materials are posted by users themselves.
How Can I Reduce My Risks?
One common technique for a website operator to reduce their risks of legal liability for user generated content is to not actively monitor the user activities on the website. While this may seem counter-intuitive, the relevant Federal laws provide a greater degree of protection (through a so-called “safe harbor”) for passive web services that do not actively manage or supervise user content.
If your business model requires you to actively monitor user activity on your website, then you may wish to retain a third party to actually conduct the monitoring. The relationship with the third party should be properly structured as an independent contractor relationship, which will likely include giving the third party some degree of control over the user generated content, in order to avoid you being held liable for the third party’s actions.
You should also have a mechanism in place for promptly responding to legitimate complaints about user-generated content. These complaints may come from other users themselves (another reason to nurture your web-based communities; if the members are loyal to your website, they’ll be likely to flag any improper or possibly illegal user-generated content).
It is very risky to allow anonymous visitors to post content (particular pictures or video content). You should therefore plan to prepare and use comprehensive agreements that submitting users must agree to. At a minimum, these user agreements should state that users are prohibited from engaging in any conduct that is illegal or would give rise to any legal liabilities, or that otherwise interferes with the operations of the site. In order to qualify for the Federal law safe harbors, the agreement must also state that repeat offenders will have their website user accounts terminated.
Another solution may be to use a third party service for the user generated content. By this, we mean allowing users to post direct links to, or by using “plug-in” players for, videos that are hosted on YouTube, MetaCafe, Vimeo, or any of the other services available. You are less likely to receive the takedown notices – since the content isn’t actually hosted by your website, the notices would be sent to the entity actually providing the videos. But you also lose control over whether the videos are actually taken down, and you aren’t the sole source for that user generated content – people can also view it by going directly to the hosting entities website, and other people are likely to link directly to that other site as well. Again, it’s a balancing act between your business objectives and the legal risks.
Other Issues to Consider. Apart from the purely legal issues, if you make a strong push to user generated content then you’ll have to consider bandwidth issues as well. If there’s a chance that any particular post will generate a very large amount of traffic to your website, you should have a plan for what to do if the traffic crashes the server, or exceeds that bandwidth that you are paying your hosting company for. You may want to consider capping the amount each registered user can upload in a day or month.
The possibilities for user-generated content to boost your website are great, as are the risks. If you take steps to understand the legal issues and reduce your risks, then you be able to maximize your business gains while still protecting your online assets.
Discover how to protect yourself & your business from the devastating financial and security risks you face every day your website is online here: http://www.ProtectYourOnlineAssets.com
User-generated content (or “Participatory Media” as some call it) can be a great way to boost the value of your website, and the traffic that’s driven to it. Many website owners have already found that developing online communities greatly increases their financial bottom lines. Sometimes, as has been the case with YouTube, user-generated content can even be a great business model in itself.
But user-generated content can also be a great source of risk and exposure. Again, there’s probably no better example of this than YouTube. YouTube was sued by the Viacom studio in 2007 for $1 billion in damages, for allegedly distributing Viacom’s copyrighted materials without permission.
If you understand the risks associated with user-generated content, you can take steps to reduce your exposure and protect your online assets, while at the same time increasing the value of your website.
What is User-Generated Content?
User-generated content is a broad term that includes any material that a website user posts on the website for others to see. This can include not only blog comments, but also pictures, videos, articles, or anything else that a user might post in a forum or bulletin board section of your website, or as part of their own personal profile on the website.
What are the Risks with User-Generated Content, and How Can I Address Them?
There are a number of legal issues that you will need to become familiar with if you permit or promote user-generated content on your website.
a. Intellectual property infringement. There are two primary types of intellectual property infringement issues that you should be aware of. The first is copyright infringement. Key elements of liability include knowledge of the infringing activity, inducing or contributing the improper conduct, and attaining a direct financial benefit in the infringing activity when you have the ability to supervise the direct infringer.
Copyright holders generally try to enforce their rights by means of “takedown notices” that are sent in accordance with the requirements a particular Federal law (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). You’ll have to decide what position to take once you receive takedown notices. Do you evaluate each and respond notice as you feel appropriate? Or do you simply honor all takedown notices immediately? It’s a balance between avoiding legal risk of a lawsuit by those who claim to hold a copyright to the material that someone else posted, versus possibly alienating your users if you aren’t giving any consideration to their “fair use” rights in that content.
Trademark law prevents the use of trademarks of others in a manner that creates a likelihood of confusion about the source of goods or services or in a manner that dilutes the value of the trademark. User-generated content sometimes falls afoul of trademark law.
b. Defamation. You should also be aware that there is potential liability for allowing users to post defamatory statements about others on your website. There is a Federal law (The Communications Decency Act) which can provide some protection against defamation claims based on what your users do on your website, but the scope of the protection is still somewhat uncertain, so you should not ignore the possibility of claims against you based on user generated content.
c. Obscenity and Child Pornography. The Federal laws that provide protections to website owners generally exclude protections for obscene materials that appear on such websites, even if the materials are posted by users themselves.
How Can I Reduce My Risks?
One common technique for a website operator to reduce their risks of legal liability for user generated content is to not actively monitor the user activities on the website. While this may seem counter-intuitive, the relevant Federal laws provide a greater degree of protection (through a so-called “safe harbor”) for passive web services that do not actively manage or supervise user content.
If your business model requires you to actively monitor user activity on your website, then you may wish to retain a third party to actually conduct the monitoring. The relationship with the third party should be properly structured as an independent contractor relationship, which will likely include giving the third party some degree of control over the user generated content, in order to avoid you being held liable for the third party’s actions.
You should also have a mechanism in place for promptly responding to legitimate complaints about user-generated content. These complaints may come from other users themselves (another reason to nurture your web-based communities; if the members are loyal to your website, they’ll be likely to flag any improper or possibly illegal user-generated content).
It is very risky to allow anonymous visitors to post content (particular pictures or video content). You should therefore plan to prepare and use comprehensive agreements that submitting users must agree to. At a minimum, these user agreements should state that users are prohibited from engaging in any conduct that is illegal or would give rise to any legal liabilities, or that otherwise interferes with the operations of the site. In order to qualify for the Federal law safe harbors, the agreement must also state that repeat offenders will have their website user accounts terminated.
Another solution may be to use a third party service for the user generated content. By this, we mean allowing users to post direct links to, or by using “plug-in” players for, videos that are hosted on YouTube, MetaCafe, Vimeo, or any of the other services available. You are less likely to receive the takedown notices – since the content isn’t actually hosted by your website, the notices would be sent to the entity actually providing the videos. But you also lose control over whether the videos are actually taken down, and you aren’t the sole source for that user generated content – people can also view it by going directly to the hosting entities website, and other people are likely to link directly to that other site as well. Again, it’s a balancing act between your business objectives and the legal risks.
Other Issues to Consider. Apart from the purely legal issues, if you make a strong push to user generated content then you’ll have to consider bandwidth issues as well. If there’s a chance that any particular post will generate a very large amount of traffic to your website, you should have a plan for what to do if the traffic crashes the server, or exceeds that bandwidth that you are paying your hosting company for. You may want to consider capping the amount each registered user can upload in a day or month.
The possibilities for user-generated content to boost your website are great, as are the risks. If you take steps to understand the legal issues and reduce your risks, then you be able to maximize your business gains while still protecting your online assets.
Discover how to protect yourself & your business from the devastating financial and security risks you face every day your website is online here: http://www.ProtectYourOnlineAssets.com
Friday, June 26, 2009
YouTube Video Optimization for Search Engine optimization
by Brandon Leibowitz
YouTube has become a dominant force in on the web. According to comScore, in April of 2009 Americans watch over 16.8 billion videos up 16% from the previous month. YouTube videos are often showing up on Google natural search engine results surpassing the top spots. A YouTube video properly optimized can outrank sites such as Amazon and EBay. This is an internet marketer’s dream tool and it is so simple to use. This is why you must properly optimize your YouTube videos.
A good starting point for YouTube optimization is to make videos that are short, sweet, and straight to the point. People want instant gratification, not wanting to sit around watching a 30 minute video on how to use a cell phone headset. Videos should be kept to a few minutes to reduce production time, upload time, and download times. Have a script prepared so you do not mutter or stumble upon your words. Film the video in the highest quality format you can. Crisp, clean videos will receive more attention than grainy, hard to see videos. Do not make videos private and always allow for comments. This user interaction can help increase video views and move you up the YouTube video rankings. Using Annotations, text boxes in your video, can help deliver your message or promote your website or company. Make sure not too over use annotations as they can become annoying and distracting from your videos main purpose.
Since the search engine spiders cannot read or comprehend videos you must use the text fields to optimize your videos appropriately. This means doing keyword research and making sure your keywords appear in the title, description, and tags of your video is imperative to a successful YouTube marketing campaign. Maximize on the amount of text you can have in these fields. More text means a better chance of someone finding and clicking into your video. Make sure you use original titles and descriptions otherwise your video will get lost in the millions of videos with similar names. Original content is what YouTube wants to see. The more originality you add the better off you will be. You also want to have a user name with your brand or website name so it is easily remembered.
You have to put everything into perspective to increase views, as the average video only receives one hundred views annually. According to YouTube guidelines there are many factors that influence rankings and can help optimize your videos. These include the video title, the description, tags, incoming links, comments, subscribers, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, age of video, channel views, subscribers, views, and the number and quality of sites that host or point to your video. You want to interact on YouTube by watching other videos, commenting, subscribing, creating channels, and making friends. Interaction helps with the viral marketing, where one person tells another person about the video. This person tells five others and so on. Doing this will increase your video network and views. All these factor into ranking high for YouTube optimization.
If your video appears on an outside website you want to make sure that it is relevant and appropriate for your video. Each time your video is viewed from an outside source it still counts as a view, so keep posting your videos on blogs and other sites. Basically, you need links from outside pages leading to your YouTube videos. You want the links to have strong anchor text, meaning that the link leading to the video contains keywords related to your video.
To increase your videos views, subscriptions, and favorites you can send out an email blasts, place your video on your website and other websites, engage in the community, build a following, connect with other members, provide valuable content, participate in social networking sites. Basically the Web 2.0 created a heaven place for video sharing. Your ultimate goal should be to reach YouTube’s homepage under Spotlight, Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite Videos.
You can submit your video to the major video sites at once using programs such as Tube Mogul and Traffic Geyser. These software programs submit your video to all the major video sharing sites for you, saving time and energy. Simply enter the tile, description, and tags for your video and it will appear on all the major video sharing sites. They offer analytics and tracking for your videos in one place making it easy to analyze and tweak your videos.
The best analytics would have to be the one given to you for free, YouTube Insight. This will give you all the stats and detailed information you could ever ask for. With Insight you can see how many page views you have, how popular it is, where people found your video, what country people watching your video are from, what sections of your video are most watched and least watched, and so much more. This statistical data should help optimize your current video and plan for future videos. There are many articles written about YouTube Insight and how to take advantage of it. I suggest reading up on these.
There is a program called video tube automators, which is designed to build hundreds of YouTube accounts so you can view, comment, subscribe, and vote on your own videos. This run into the black hat area of marketing and is seen as spam. This is unethical and can get your account permanently banned from YouTube.
Monetizing your YouTube videos is quite easy. You can easily set up your Ad Sense account in accordance with YouTube so you can start receiving money every time an ad is clicked next to your video. The main source of income from YouTube comes from the fact that you can show product reviews and sell features that could not be described in words. Electronic gadgets are a perfect match for YouTube video reviews.
Brandon Leibowitz is a professional internet marketer. He has been involved in Search Engine Optimization and Marketingwith over five years of industry knowledge. Read news, tips, tricks, and anything else related to search engines in his SEO and SEM Blog.
YouTube has become a dominant force in on the web. According to comScore, in April of 2009 Americans watch over 16.8 billion videos up 16% from the previous month. YouTube videos are often showing up on Google natural search engine results surpassing the top spots. A YouTube video properly optimized can outrank sites such as Amazon and EBay. This is an internet marketer’s dream tool and it is so simple to use. This is why you must properly optimize your YouTube videos.
A good starting point for YouTube optimization is to make videos that are short, sweet, and straight to the point. People want instant gratification, not wanting to sit around watching a 30 minute video on how to use a cell phone headset. Videos should be kept to a few minutes to reduce production time, upload time, and download times. Have a script prepared so you do not mutter or stumble upon your words. Film the video in the highest quality format you can. Crisp, clean videos will receive more attention than grainy, hard to see videos. Do not make videos private and always allow for comments. This user interaction can help increase video views and move you up the YouTube video rankings. Using Annotations, text boxes in your video, can help deliver your message or promote your website or company. Make sure not too over use annotations as they can become annoying and distracting from your videos main purpose.
Since the search engine spiders cannot read or comprehend videos you must use the text fields to optimize your videos appropriately. This means doing keyword research and making sure your keywords appear in the title, description, and tags of your video is imperative to a successful YouTube marketing campaign. Maximize on the amount of text you can have in these fields. More text means a better chance of someone finding and clicking into your video. Make sure you use original titles and descriptions otherwise your video will get lost in the millions of videos with similar names. Original content is what YouTube wants to see. The more originality you add the better off you will be. You also want to have a user name with your brand or website name so it is easily remembered.
You have to put everything into perspective to increase views, as the average video only receives one hundred views annually. According to YouTube guidelines there are many factors that influence rankings and can help optimize your videos. These include the video title, the description, tags, incoming links, comments, subscribers, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, age of video, channel views, subscribers, views, and the number and quality of sites that host or point to your video. You want to interact on YouTube by watching other videos, commenting, subscribing, creating channels, and making friends. Interaction helps with the viral marketing, where one person tells another person about the video. This person tells five others and so on. Doing this will increase your video network and views. All these factor into ranking high for YouTube optimization.
If your video appears on an outside website you want to make sure that it is relevant and appropriate for your video. Each time your video is viewed from an outside source it still counts as a view, so keep posting your videos on blogs and other sites. Basically, you need links from outside pages leading to your YouTube videos. You want the links to have strong anchor text, meaning that the link leading to the video contains keywords related to your video.
To increase your videos views, subscriptions, and favorites you can send out an email blasts, place your video on your website and other websites, engage in the community, build a following, connect with other members, provide valuable content, participate in social networking sites. Basically the Web 2.0 created a heaven place for video sharing. Your ultimate goal should be to reach YouTube’s homepage under Spotlight, Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite Videos.
You can submit your video to the major video sites at once using programs such as Tube Mogul and Traffic Geyser. These software programs submit your video to all the major video sharing sites for you, saving time and energy. Simply enter the tile, description, and tags for your video and it will appear on all the major video sharing sites. They offer analytics and tracking for your videos in one place making it easy to analyze and tweak your videos.
The best analytics would have to be the one given to you for free, YouTube Insight. This will give you all the stats and detailed information you could ever ask for. With Insight you can see how many page views you have, how popular it is, where people found your video, what country people watching your video are from, what sections of your video are most watched and least watched, and so much more. This statistical data should help optimize your current video and plan for future videos. There are many articles written about YouTube Insight and how to take advantage of it. I suggest reading up on these.
There is a program called video tube automators, which is designed to build hundreds of YouTube accounts so you can view, comment, subscribe, and vote on your own videos. This run into the black hat area of marketing and is seen as spam. This is unethical and can get your account permanently banned from YouTube.
Monetizing your YouTube videos is quite easy. You can easily set up your Ad Sense account in accordance with YouTube so you can start receiving money every time an ad is clicked next to your video. The main source of income from YouTube comes from the fact that you can show product reviews and sell features that could not be described in words. Electronic gadgets are a perfect match for YouTube video reviews.
Brandon Leibowitz is a professional internet marketer. He has been involved in Search Engine Optimization and Marketingwith over five years of industry knowledge. Read news, tips, tricks, and anything else related to search engines in his SEO and SEM Blog.
Setting Up A Home Office. 10 Tips To Getting It Done Right The First Time
by Jeremy Gislason
Setting up a home office can be a tremendous challenge. How do you separate your work life from your home life when they occupy the same space? Here are 10 tips to create a home office designed for maximum productivity.
1. Know yourself.
Think about your perfect working conditions. Short of a lounge chair at the edge of the ocean on a warm sunny day, what do you see? Do you have a large conference table and plenty of room to spread out? Do you have a large recliner and a laptop desk? What are your ideal working conditions? Don’t just think about comfort. What conditions do you work best in? Is there music playing? Is there a phone in your office? What is on your desk? In and out boxes? Is there a place for everything or are you more of a scattered creative type? Do you have pictures? Plants? A fountain? The key is to envision your perfect productive space, not what you think should be your perfect productive space.
2. Don’t forget wall space.
What is on the walls of your office space right now? Are they blank? Are they covered with family photos? What about inspirational prints with motivational sayings? Do you have a large writing surface on your wall or a cork board? Planning boards are fantastic if you’re a visual person. You can use a whiteboard to draft the navigation of your website or create long range plans and a timeline. Corkboards are excellent for posting notes, tasks, and ideas you don’t want to lose.
What about shelving? Use your vertical space, your wall space, to optimize your home office. Shelves are an excellent way to store items you frequently need while saving space on your desk and conserving valuable floor space. An office that feels roomy and clutter free is often much more productive than an office that feels cluttered and disorganized.
3. Let there be light.
Natural light is best for productivity and feelings of well being. However, natural light isn’t always an option. Quite often home offices are built into the center of a home or worse…the basement. Uniform ambient light is better for productivity than task lighting and it is better on your eyes. For an expensive uniform lighting set up, consider natural spectrum fluorescent bulbs. They last a long time and are good for your mood and the environment.
In addition to natural light, it is helpful to have a bit of ventilation. If you can open a window from time to time and get some fresh air, by all means do! If there are no windows available in your home office, consider air purifiers, fans or some sort of ventilation system.
4. Don’t sit at the kitchen table!
Placing yourself right in the middle of the house and all of its activity is a certain time stealer. How can you avoid distractions from chores, people, pets, and folks knocking at your door trying to sell you magazines or financial services? While the kitchen table is great because it enables you to spread out and work in a comfortable location – there are probably plenty of windows and sunlight there too – there are no doors to keep out the distractions.
5. How much memory do you think you’ll need?
The basic rule of thumb when setting up a home office is to buy as large of a computer as you can afford. You might be surprised at how quickly your memory and storage will be used up. If you don’t buy a big enough computer, you’ll end up having to buy a new one anyway. If you already have a computer and a larger capacity computer isn’t in your budget, consider an external storage drive.
6. Backup regularly.
Speaking of external storage drives…it is imperative that you back your equipment up regularly. I know that backing up takes time, sometimes it feels like it takes forever; however it is critical to the future of your business and your sanity that you back up. Stop for a moment and consider what would happen if everything on your computer suddenly vanished.
For many, it might mean the end of their business, which is why it is critical that you not only back up regularly – weekly isn’t too frequent – you will also want to make sure your backup is working. Backup and then go through the process of retrieving your information to make sure your backup is working the way it is supposed to.
7. Set up your office to function smoothly.
This means comfortable equipment, and processes that make sense for you. Is your chair comfortable? How about your keyboard and your desk positioning? The more comfortable you are in your office, the more productive you’ll be. If your wrist is hurting and your back is stiff, you’re going to work slower and chances are you’re going to be distracted.
What about the system you have set up. Is everything you use frequently within easy reach? Is your phone close by? What about your files? Take a minute and look around your home office. Is it set up optimally for you?
8. Organization and storage.
Do you have a place for everything? Storage and organization is extremely important when creating your home office. If you skip this step you’ll spend much of your time trying to find things instead of getting them done. Create a paper organization and storage system – file cabinet. Also create an effective storage system on your computer. For paper files, it is recommended that you have a file for every bank account, taxes, receipts, expenses, payables, receivables, marketing and sub folders for each marketing project.
Also consider keeping your copywriting ideas in a file. On your computer the system will work much the same way. You’ll likely have major folders for each category and sub folders contained within. For example you might have a category labeled Marketing, and sub categories labeled SEO, PPC, Direct Mail etc…
9. Do you need an address?
When you have a home address, it is tempting to have your business address be the same. However, take a moment and step back. There are distinct advantages to having a separate business address. You are able to keep your home address private. You are able to separate your work from your home legally. Having a business address looks a little more professional than 1015 Butternut Circle on your business correspondence. Additionally, having to go pick up the mail gets you out of your house on a regular basis!
10. Modems, and phones, and faxes oh my.
Do you need all of these fixtures cluttering your office? There are numerous electronic devices available now like e-fax, wireless internet, and 800 numbers that are economical and can be forwarded to your cell phone eliminating the need for a separate office phone and line.
In fact, there are automated attendants that will answer your phone for you during your off hours, send them into your ‘business’ voice mail and actually email the message to you or forward it to your personal voice mail system. All for less than $20 a month.
When it comes to working out of a home office, you make the rules. What works for the masses in terms of organization, hours, processes and so on are not necessarily what will work for you. Develop a system that works for you and stick to it. When you design a system and space that work for you, and stick to it, your productivity will increase ten fold and so will your profits.
Jeremy Gislason is a leading expert on membership sites, marketing and online business. Check out the world's leading client and content management system to skyrocket your sales at http://www.memberspeed.com
Setting up a home office can be a tremendous challenge. How do you separate your work life from your home life when they occupy the same space? Here are 10 tips to create a home office designed for maximum productivity.
1. Know yourself.
Think about your perfect working conditions. Short of a lounge chair at the edge of the ocean on a warm sunny day, what do you see? Do you have a large conference table and plenty of room to spread out? Do you have a large recliner and a laptop desk? What are your ideal working conditions? Don’t just think about comfort. What conditions do you work best in? Is there music playing? Is there a phone in your office? What is on your desk? In and out boxes? Is there a place for everything or are you more of a scattered creative type? Do you have pictures? Plants? A fountain? The key is to envision your perfect productive space, not what you think should be your perfect productive space.
2. Don’t forget wall space.
What is on the walls of your office space right now? Are they blank? Are they covered with family photos? What about inspirational prints with motivational sayings? Do you have a large writing surface on your wall or a cork board? Planning boards are fantastic if you’re a visual person. You can use a whiteboard to draft the navigation of your website or create long range plans and a timeline. Corkboards are excellent for posting notes, tasks, and ideas you don’t want to lose.
What about shelving? Use your vertical space, your wall space, to optimize your home office. Shelves are an excellent way to store items you frequently need while saving space on your desk and conserving valuable floor space. An office that feels roomy and clutter free is often much more productive than an office that feels cluttered and disorganized.
3. Let there be light.
Natural light is best for productivity and feelings of well being. However, natural light isn’t always an option. Quite often home offices are built into the center of a home or worse…the basement. Uniform ambient light is better for productivity than task lighting and it is better on your eyes. For an expensive uniform lighting set up, consider natural spectrum fluorescent bulbs. They last a long time and are good for your mood and the environment.
In addition to natural light, it is helpful to have a bit of ventilation. If you can open a window from time to time and get some fresh air, by all means do! If there are no windows available in your home office, consider air purifiers, fans or some sort of ventilation system.
4. Don’t sit at the kitchen table!
Placing yourself right in the middle of the house and all of its activity is a certain time stealer. How can you avoid distractions from chores, people, pets, and folks knocking at your door trying to sell you magazines or financial services? While the kitchen table is great because it enables you to spread out and work in a comfortable location – there are probably plenty of windows and sunlight there too – there are no doors to keep out the distractions.
5. How much memory do you think you’ll need?
The basic rule of thumb when setting up a home office is to buy as large of a computer as you can afford. You might be surprised at how quickly your memory and storage will be used up. If you don’t buy a big enough computer, you’ll end up having to buy a new one anyway. If you already have a computer and a larger capacity computer isn’t in your budget, consider an external storage drive.
6. Backup regularly.
Speaking of external storage drives…it is imperative that you back your equipment up regularly. I know that backing up takes time, sometimes it feels like it takes forever; however it is critical to the future of your business and your sanity that you back up. Stop for a moment and consider what would happen if everything on your computer suddenly vanished.
For many, it might mean the end of their business, which is why it is critical that you not only back up regularly – weekly isn’t too frequent – you will also want to make sure your backup is working. Backup and then go through the process of retrieving your information to make sure your backup is working the way it is supposed to.
7. Set up your office to function smoothly.
This means comfortable equipment, and processes that make sense for you. Is your chair comfortable? How about your keyboard and your desk positioning? The more comfortable you are in your office, the more productive you’ll be. If your wrist is hurting and your back is stiff, you’re going to work slower and chances are you’re going to be distracted.
What about the system you have set up. Is everything you use frequently within easy reach? Is your phone close by? What about your files? Take a minute and look around your home office. Is it set up optimally for you?
8. Organization and storage.
Do you have a place for everything? Storage and organization is extremely important when creating your home office. If you skip this step you’ll spend much of your time trying to find things instead of getting them done. Create a paper organization and storage system – file cabinet. Also create an effective storage system on your computer. For paper files, it is recommended that you have a file for every bank account, taxes, receipts, expenses, payables, receivables, marketing and sub folders for each marketing project.
Also consider keeping your copywriting ideas in a file. On your computer the system will work much the same way. You’ll likely have major folders for each category and sub folders contained within. For example you might have a category labeled Marketing, and sub categories labeled SEO, PPC, Direct Mail etc…
9. Do you need an address?
When you have a home address, it is tempting to have your business address be the same. However, take a moment and step back. There are distinct advantages to having a separate business address. You are able to keep your home address private. You are able to separate your work from your home legally. Having a business address looks a little more professional than 1015 Butternut Circle on your business correspondence. Additionally, having to go pick up the mail gets you out of your house on a regular basis!
10. Modems, and phones, and faxes oh my.
Do you need all of these fixtures cluttering your office? There are numerous electronic devices available now like e-fax, wireless internet, and 800 numbers that are economical and can be forwarded to your cell phone eliminating the need for a separate office phone and line.
In fact, there are automated attendants that will answer your phone for you during your off hours, send them into your ‘business’ voice mail and actually email the message to you or forward it to your personal voice mail system. All for less than $20 a month.
When it comes to working out of a home office, you make the rules. What works for the masses in terms of organization, hours, processes and so on are not necessarily what will work for you. Develop a system that works for you and stick to it. When you design a system and space that work for you, and stick to it, your productivity will increase ten fold and so will your profits.
Jeremy Gislason is a leading expert on membership sites, marketing and online business. Check out the world's leading client and content management system to skyrocket your sales at http://www.memberspeed.com
Lessons from Scarlett: The Original Female Entrepreneur
by Alicia Forest
I think if you've been a survivor of any sort, you can relate to Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. Sure, she used her womanly wiles to get what she wanted, but hey... who hasn't? (And men, you've got 'wiles' of your own, so don't think you're off the hook.)
When Scarlett tore down her mother's green velvet drapes to make the dress that ultimately saved Tara from the tax collectors, it was 'necessity is the mother of invention' in action. It's sheer ingenuity to look at those curtains, one of the only things left by the Yankees, and see a fancy dress that could be the solution to her problem.
Scarlett was smart, savvy and had the spitfire spirit of her successful entreprenuerial-minded immigrant father. Over and over, Scarlett relies on her wits to maneuver her way out of predicament after predicament. And maybe some of her actions weren't those of a lady playing nice (like marrying her sister's beau) - but to her, the end result always justified her behavior. She took care of herself and her 'folk' with no apologies - and she made riches from it.
So, how does Scarlett's smart and savvy personality relate to your business?
Your biggest client decides to quit working with you, for no apparent reason, leaving you with a huge income hole to fill. Your shopping cart bills your customers three times for a single purchase. Your virtual assistant decides to fly off for a spur-of-the-moment week away, leaving you with hours of admin nightmare to deal with.
There isn't a businessowner around who hasn't been surprised by these or similar challenges once they've been in business for awhile.
Yes, it would be nice to be prepared for all of our worst-case-scenarios with back-up procedures and the like, but please... especially if you're the creative/idea type - who's going to deal with all that detail for the 'just in cases'? Not me...
When Scarlett turned that green velvet from drapery to dress, my heroine didn't know she was carrying out a perfect example of exactly how to zig-zag your way very quickly from problem to solution:
Here's how:
1. She stayed focused
Scarlett didn't let herself get all spun up about only having one dirty dress to wear, picking cotton herself, or having no food to eat during the war that was going on around her. What she did was stay focused on the task at hand: saving Tara.
All the decisions she made and actions she took came from focusing on that single goal.
2. She quickly shifted priorities when necessary
Scarlett's mantra of "I can't think about that now. I'll think about it tomorrow" kept her focused and on task, and allowed her to shift her priorities when necessary.
3. She was willing to fail quickly
Scarlett made a decision and took action. If things didn't work out the way she wanted them to, she took stock, made another decision quickly, and took action again. By being willing to fail quickly, instead of trying to figure out and manage all the potential pitfalls beforehand, she was able to rebuild her life on her terms much more quickly.
4. She was open to receiving
So maybe marrying two gentlemen she wasn't in love with for all the wrong reasons doesn't speak well of her heart, but Scarlett saw both marriages as a solution to a current predicament.
She wanted to stay close to Ashley Wilkes so she married his brother-in-law. She wanted $300 to pay the taxes on Tara to keep it, so she married her sister's beau to get it. She wanted the store and mill to make more money, so she did business with those who were willing and able to pay, even if it was with the Yankees and carpetbaggers.
5. She didn't let anyone stop her
Whenever Mammy protested Scarlett's plans, Scarlett persisted. When her sisters protested her behavior with her gentleman callers, she persisted. When she wanted to hire convicts as laborers for the mill, and both the men in her life told her it was wrong, she did it anyway.
If you know that a solution you've figured out is right for you, don't let anyone talk you out of it. Even if it doesn't work out, at least you know you stuck to your guns and your integrity to yourself is intact.
And lest you think I'm blind to some of the deeper layers of Miss Scarlett, let me assure you that no one is more satisfied than I when Rhett tells her, "Frankly, my darling, I don't give a damn."
And yet you can't argue with her results.
Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach(TM) teaches self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create wild abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com
I think if you've been a survivor of any sort, you can relate to Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. Sure, she used her womanly wiles to get what she wanted, but hey... who hasn't? (And men, you've got 'wiles' of your own, so don't think you're off the hook.)
When Scarlett tore down her mother's green velvet drapes to make the dress that ultimately saved Tara from the tax collectors, it was 'necessity is the mother of invention' in action. It's sheer ingenuity to look at those curtains, one of the only things left by the Yankees, and see a fancy dress that could be the solution to her problem.
Scarlett was smart, savvy and had the spitfire spirit of her successful entreprenuerial-minded immigrant father. Over and over, Scarlett relies on her wits to maneuver her way out of predicament after predicament. And maybe some of her actions weren't those of a lady playing nice (like marrying her sister's beau) - but to her, the end result always justified her behavior. She took care of herself and her 'folk' with no apologies - and she made riches from it.
So, how does Scarlett's smart and savvy personality relate to your business?
Your biggest client decides to quit working with you, for no apparent reason, leaving you with a huge income hole to fill. Your shopping cart bills your customers three times for a single purchase. Your virtual assistant decides to fly off for a spur-of-the-moment week away, leaving you with hours of admin nightmare to deal with.
There isn't a businessowner around who hasn't been surprised by these or similar challenges once they've been in business for awhile.
Yes, it would be nice to be prepared for all of our worst-case-scenarios with back-up procedures and the like, but please... especially if you're the creative/idea type - who's going to deal with all that detail for the 'just in cases'? Not me...
When Scarlett turned that green velvet from drapery to dress, my heroine didn't know she was carrying out a perfect example of exactly how to zig-zag your way very quickly from problem to solution:
Here's how:
1. She stayed focused
Scarlett didn't let herself get all spun up about only having one dirty dress to wear, picking cotton herself, or having no food to eat during the war that was going on around her. What she did was stay focused on the task at hand: saving Tara.
All the decisions she made and actions she took came from focusing on that single goal.
2. She quickly shifted priorities when necessary
Scarlett's mantra of "I can't think about that now. I'll think about it tomorrow" kept her focused and on task, and allowed her to shift her priorities when necessary.
3. She was willing to fail quickly
Scarlett made a decision and took action. If things didn't work out the way she wanted them to, she took stock, made another decision quickly, and took action again. By being willing to fail quickly, instead of trying to figure out and manage all the potential pitfalls beforehand, she was able to rebuild her life on her terms much more quickly.
4. She was open to receiving
So maybe marrying two gentlemen she wasn't in love with for all the wrong reasons doesn't speak well of her heart, but Scarlett saw both marriages as a solution to a current predicament.
She wanted to stay close to Ashley Wilkes so she married his brother-in-law. She wanted $300 to pay the taxes on Tara to keep it, so she married her sister's beau to get it. She wanted the store and mill to make more money, so she did business with those who were willing and able to pay, even if it was with the Yankees and carpetbaggers.
5. She didn't let anyone stop her
Whenever Mammy protested Scarlett's plans, Scarlett persisted. When her sisters protested her behavior with her gentleman callers, she persisted. When she wanted to hire convicts as laborers for the mill, and both the men in her life told her it was wrong, she did it anyway.
If you know that a solution you've figured out is right for you, don't let anyone talk you out of it. Even if it doesn't work out, at least you know you stuck to your guns and your integrity to yourself is intact.
And lest you think I'm blind to some of the deeper layers of Miss Scarlett, let me assure you that no one is more satisfied than I when Rhett tells her, "Frankly, my darling, I don't give a damn."
And yet you can't argue with her results.
Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach(TM) teaches self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create wild abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com
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