Marketing For Power Packed Business Growth

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm having senior moments.

You know when you do/say/think/read/hear something you've already done/said/though/read/heard.

It happend to me again just now.

I was quietly reading yet more marketing stuff, specifically Seth Godin's interesting ebook on blogging: Who's There?

Seth identifies something I think many serial bloggers think.

As a blogger it's a feeling you always get because your stats don't identify indivduals. You don't really know who's reading your blog. Is it helping? Is it just plain annoying?

But anyway, I digress...

I was reading the ebook and suddenly realised I'd already read it, and quite recently too.

Once more it prompted me to promise myself to maintain my "E-books I've Read" Excel spreadsheet. A spreadsheet I set-up when I was doing a massive amount of online research into marketing in all its glory. Because even then (probably 10 years ago now) I had senior moments!

I talked about some of the countries my friendly readers are from.

Some are from the Friendly Isle itself - Barbados.

It got me thinking.

I love the place. Barbados gets five stars from me. It's also got an old friend from college there too.

But it's right it's friendly, the rum punch is great and the sun almost always seems to shine - even when it's raining!

But what I was thinking was ...

"Why does your average Bajan read a blog dedicated to helping businesses grow more powerfully?"

Of course it's obvious really Bajans compete in their own country, the Carribean, the USA and the rest of the world too. Why wouldn't they want to find snippets that'll help them get the edge?

So marketing Barbados style is actually the same marketing that applies across the world.

The point I'm making is that marketing is universal. The principles are universal. I know in the UK we often say American style marketing is too much for us. Is it though? Or is it just that we've not applied the right psycholgical principles when we write our copy?

In the end direct response marketing is measurable. So we know whether our copy works, or not. So we can easily test direct response against more "image-led" marketing.

Although personally I wouldn't want to test image-based marketing, unless I was Cocoa-Cola or Avis or British Airways. After all can you easily tie sales to an image-led campaign?

The Power Of Social Proof, getting testimonials - Conversion Chronicles: "HOW TO HARVEST TESTIMONIALS THAT WORK "

In my voyage across the Internet copywriting sea I come across some little concise gems of marketing wisdom.

Social proof is currently being talked about. Robert Cialdini who I've mentioned in a previous post speaks about it.

Basically it comes down to; "if some people are doing it it must be right to do it."

This is exactly where good testimonials can come into play.

They are social proof to say things like, "... yes I've used your product/service and it has helped me to generate 20% more sales this year". People think it worked for them so there's a good chance it will work for me too.

There is a test you can conduct for yourself on social proof right now.

Listen let me tell you a quick story.

There are a number of people that read this blog now. I'm also getting regular readers. In fact some come back to read even when I've not posted (usually on a Sunday). Some people actually spend more than 30 minutes reading the postings. Which by the way I hope doesn't mean my musings are too confusing!

Anyway you dear reader can come from almost anywhere in the World. I've readers from Australia, Barbados, China, Norway, New Zealand, the USA and the UK.

And those are just the countries I can remember without referring back through my logs.

I know the Internet is worldwide but you don't expect to be read by such a diverse body of people. It certainly makes you realise the Internet's power.

The point of the story is this though -- does that information make you feel that this blog is worth reading, or not?

Think about. If not what have I missed out?

What if I gave you a graphic from my last 100 visitors web stats?

Well here you go then (this shows the most recent 100 visitors to my blog) ...



Does that give you a warm comfortable feeling?

Interesting, and something you should consider including in your own marketing.

Do you think your web site home page is an opportunity to wax lyrical about how good you are at delivering your service or how your product is a world beater?

Maybe you'd draw my attention to your "About" or "Contact Us" page where you describe your team in exquisite detail.

Or perhaps its the page depth that you want to impress me with?

So what is the most important part of your web site?

It's the intention behind it. What is the one main thing you want it to achieve?

If you achieve that one main thing then your web site is exactly right and you can be justly proud of it.

But if it doesn't achieve your main aim and even though it may win design award piled on design award it's failed its job.

So how do you make sure that your web site does the job?

By writing down your main aim and have it on a piece of paper you can see when you look up from your steaming computer to take that welcome cup of coffee or wedge of pizza.

Yes, you can have other aims. But your main aim needs to be the focus for the site otherwise you can get sidetracked.

Maybe you're thinking what do aims look like?

"Easily read". Is my first thought. "Obvious", is my second.

So an aim such as:

"The main aim of this web site is to sell the book titled "How To Undertake Tasks successfully" to every visitor, whether they are new or returning and provided they haven't already bought the book".

Another could be:

"The main aim of this web site is to provide enough information for every visitor to be able to program in HTML using the "Simply" Text Editor.

Consider it the web site strategy.

How you fulfill that main aim or strategy is then down to which marketing tactics you employ.

Technorati : web site design, web site strategy
Del.icio.us : web site design, web site strategy
Ice Rocket : web site design, web site strategy
Flickr : web site design, web site strategy
Buzznet : web site design, web site strategy
43 Things : web site design, web site strategy

I love the headline for this site.

It really follows the "rules" for headlines:

1) Address your audience specifically if you can. In this case it's landlords.
2) Highlight a problem that your audience has. And here of course it's frustration with their property.
3) Don't go over 17 words. This headline comes in at a respectable 7.
4) Get your audience to qualify themselves, whether they need you or not. Having a question in the title does exactly that.

Finally, if you can get in a great sub-head that really compounds the pulling power of the piece. In this case it says

"Want to get out of the Landlord Rat Race?"

Well which frustrated Landlord wants to do that. Probably all of them!

But actually I like the way the business owner of this site has constructed his brochure too.

It leads with a fabulous headline:

"How To Stop Landlord Money Worries in 90 Days or Less ... Guaranteed"

It meets the headline rules we discussed previously.

Then he really hits home with the following great sub-head:

"Learn what 99% of ALL landlords don't know about how to build a Thriving Top Producing Rental Property"

Now if that sub-head can't draw landlords in further nothing will.

I know someone who's just started to concentrate on being a landlord, he used to use an agent. I'm sure he would be very interested in this site. Even though the site is based in the USA I suspect a lot of content can be adapted to the UK market. Or in fact any market that has landlords with a western lifestyle.

You've heard me wax lyrical about Gary Halbert before.

Well the latest letter he's posted on his site is very interesting.

It's all about risk reversal. Specifically Gary contends that if you say to a customer something like:

"send me a cheque but I wont cash it until you've been able to use the goods for 30 days. If at that point you're not satisfied send them back and we send you back your uncashed cheque and you'll owe us nothing."

Joe Karbo used it to sell "The Lazy Man's Way To Riches", Nightingale-Conant use it when you send for their audio sets and here in sunny Britain Paul Gorman used it to sell his own direct marketing book breathtakingly called "How to Out-sell, Out-market, Out-promote, Out-advertise, Everyone Else You Compete Against, Before They Even Know What Hit Them See "How To Outsell at Amazon (affiliate link).

I bought Paul and Joe's books exactly that way.

And the psychology was perfect.

I didn't know Paul Gorman from Adam at the time. But because he was removing the risk for me by holding my cheque for 30 days I sent off for the book.

It proved to be an enjoyable and useful read. Many of the strategies and tactics Paul covered I'd already been taught by Jay Abraham. But it was useful to get a different slant. As a result I didn't ask for my money back - so that worked.

Joe Karbo, exactly the same. Sent for the book. Found it interesting but not what I would have bought normally. Joe got to keep my cheque too.

Look at Gary's letter and see the maths that means holding a cheque or credit card details for 30 days is going to really help you sell more.

As well as writing a blog I write articles too.

The link shows 5 articles I've got with ezinearticles.com

Each article has links to my web site and to this blog.

That means as I write more and more articles the number of links to my website and blog increases.

As you know from a previous posting (way back in June 24th 2005) Google puts quite a weight on links into sites in their search alogrithm.

So as time goes by and I put more articles into directories the links should increase nicely.

There are a number of ezine directories I use, but my favourite is probably ezinearticles.com. The reason is that I can see how many times my articles have been read and I like the clean site design too.

Easily?

Yes easily

I'm writing an ebook that's aimed at helping businesses succeed on the internet.

This ebook has the potential to help hundreds, maybe thousands of businesses on the web.

I'm going to write it. But it depends on you asking me a question that you wished you'd known about marketing or sales. I'll select the best questions and answer them in the book.

For those who have great tips they've tried and tested and succeeded with send them to me and I'll incorporate the best.

Everyone whose question or tip is used will be credited. And if you wish your web site address can be put against your name.

In addition you'll get a copy of the ebook.

So get head scratching and we'll see what we come up with together.

As I told you yesterday I attended a networking meeting where we heard a talk by Price Waterhouse Coopers.

The talk was on fraud.

I've seen fraud in action in several companies and I was impressed with the consultants down-to-earth approach and knowledge.

I particularly liked her summary of questions to ask yourself. Just so you can check whether you're about to be defrauded. So I asked her if I could see her summary.

She's kindly sent me the presentation and I'll set down the 6 questions she suggests:

1. Is fraud treated as a business risk in my company?
2. Do I know all the frauds that my business is exposed to in my industry?
3. If I find fraud do I have a prepared consistent policy to deal with it?
4. Does the staff know it is everyones responsibility to be aware of fraud: prevention and its detection?
5. Have we a damage reduction plan prepared and ready to go if fraud is detected?
6. Can the management information show fraudulent activity quickly?

Some of the signs to look out for if fraud is happening include:

• A member of staff not taking long holidays or sick - because "people will muck up the system"
• Costs going up but sales dipping
• An employee living beyond their means
• stock "shrinkage"
• overly complex accounts reconciliations

So there you go. Are you prepared?

Crayons teaching us about writing copy. Great stuff.

When you get to this article note you can move back through all the articles by looking for the link to the last article in it's assessment box. (You'll see what I mean when you get there).

In common with a few other direct marketeers I love Robert Cialdini's book "Influence: Science and Practice". So I'm really pleased that I tripped over this web site - didn't have a clue that he was on the web. Although I'm sure a search would probably have found it ...

Still there you go, it's in my favourites now.

Robert's Influence: Science and Practice book is one I really would suggest any business person buys. Certainly anyone who sells anything would benefit from it.

There are plenty of other books you can get but this particular one gets right down to research on how us humans react to marketing, life, emotions and events.

Interesting with a capital I.

Obviously Robert comes at this from an ethical viewpoint to persuade people as to the best thing to buy is yours. However, that's not to say you don't recognise parts in the book that could be used to manipulate your prospects - bad don't even think about it!

Check it out at my Amazon affiliate link

This article about Eugene Schwartz is the thing on the marketeter hall of fame web site at the moment.

But if you're interested in writing copy, or you want someone to write effective copy for you show them this article.

It's dynamite stuff. I knew most of it but it actually kept me rivetted when I should have been doing other things!

See what you think. I especially liked the fact that Eugene reckons that we have 3 monkey brains - nice idea.

I wrote this article about the one super success secret that people don't realise.

It's a shame because I was in the same boat. Fortunately I found the secret out and now I'm much better thank you.

Check it out, it's an article I've written that explains how little knowledge we really retain from trainings we attend and what you can do about it.

Isn't it interesting?

Sometimes your marketeer displays cobblers shoes syndrome.

As a case in point I went to a networking lunch meeting today.

We heard a great presentation from a Price Waterhouse Coopers all about fraud.

I then chatted, and I use the term advisedly, to just a few people. Two of whom were PWC people.

I'd made the classic mistake of having absolutely no objective for attending the meeting. So I didn't actually achieve anything either - other than a pleasant lunch.

So what mistakes are possible? Here's my own list of baddies, I'm sure more could be added:

1) No objective for attending the networking session
2) Meeting and staying with the same person at the session
3) Talking too much and not listening for how you can help the other person
4) Forgetting that a sale may be made not from the attendees but from someone they know
5) Not focusing on the person you're talking to and looking round the room
6) Taking too much time and not politely leaving to network with others
7) Being too shy to network with a bigwig
8) Trying to sell even though the person obviously doesn't want or need your offering
9) Not trying to find common ground
10) Arriving late and/or leaving early
11) Talking to your friends
12) Lying about achievements, offerings, resources - don't do it

There, that's better off my chest. I've made one or two of those myself. But hey I'm practising on being more perfect!

Ok Thanks Ross (Lambert from the Ventureforge.com) for these tips on why Internet businesses fail.

Although I think they apply to any business on or off line.

Basically it comes down to the following:


1) Unrealistic Expectations - Immediate success is unlikely, so persevere.

2) Lack of focus - Find a niche and don't follow the latest fads

3) Chasing Rabbit Trails - don't try every technique going at the expense of your time

4) Isolation - get feedback, otherwise how do you know if you're meeting customer wants

5) Too much expense and overhead - run lean, but not so lean you can't take opportunities

6) Insufficient tracking - don't know what's happening? You're going down the tubes

7) Lack of Knowledge - invest in yourself and/or other experts in areas you don't know. Otherwise you can't run your business.

Interestingly the blog tips highlighted by Darren at Problogger pretty much are what I was thinking.

Strangely enough this links back to what Jakob Nielsen has said. Strange because I'm on his mail list but didn't see this particular note.

Anyway the tip that really hit home for me was that I shouldn't really be using blogger to do my blog. Why? Because any traffic I'm getting is going to swell the ranks of blogger.com (ranks 39 as of last night).

I've been thinking of moving for some time. But I have two problems. One, is all my old posts. What on earth do I do with them?? The other is how do I blog using my own domain name at my site www.acornservice.com?

I can see this is going to call for some more research.

Ken Evoy's site answers that question by educating you in a very understated but useful way.

I've been using RSS for a while now.

I think most people who understand the implications of RSS are doing it too.

What are the implications?

Well think about all the milions of web sites on the Internet. Many don't ever get updated, their content remains the same. But you've read that site you don't really want to ever go back unless the content changes. And that change interests you.

RSS allows you to check without the hassle of surfing over to the site.

You can subscribe to content that looks as if it could be interesting and you get to test the authors information on a regular basis using the RSS feeds. If ultimately they're not interesting, delete it! You're in control. Now you need never visit the site again.

But if you find a little gem of a site, or a blog, you can subscribe and away you go.

I'm currently using Pluck which is an easy to use RSS reader that integrates easily into IE, Firefox and Mozilla. If you download it now (it's ... Fr.eee!) you can sign up for my blog (see the little orange XML button on the right there. One click and you can read my blog's new notes, usually most days at the moment.

This site is interesting because I bought the original incarnation of this software.

It's job is to suddenly appear for a split second on your screen and flash a subliminal message, you've set-up, on your PC screen.

It claims to resolve all sorts of issues, including everyone's worst nightmare "public speaking".

I don't know whether it works. But it was fun using it until my computer died last year and I lost the software.

My computer was a 2.2MHz machine so could pretty easily cope with the interruptions. But if you have anything slower I wouldn't know if it worked.

It appears to work on the well-known principles that the brain can actually pick up and process everything you see. I mean everything!

It doesn't matter for how little amount of time your eyes actually see it. Your conscious mind might struggle to read it but your sub-conscious will register and deal with it.

Interesting ...

This article is really quite funny.

Dead Horse Management is not a phrase I've heard before. Obviously it relates to "you can't flog a dead horse" but even so ...

THe nutshell of it is that you should realise that when your horse is dead (ie idea, approach, way of managing doesn't work) you should stop managing it. Otherwise you're a Dead Horse Manager.

I'm sure you've seen this in your working life. I certainly have. It seems particularly prevalent when a dynamic organisation takes over a more staid one.

The "We don't do it that way here" syndrome kicks in. But it maybe that way is a dead horse! And even the reason why they were taken over too.

So watch out for any dead horses, get off them quick.

Well today was an interesting blogging journey.

the first thing that caught my eye was this piece on coaching and mentoring in Business Week.

It wasn't about marketing, simply about a business disaster averted.

Bottom line. Get a coach or mentor who you're comfortable with and whose advice you can follow.

The big thing about a coach is that they can't do the work for you (hmm. Actually not totally true because I've dived in and helped people with their copy before now).

Anyway, the point is this...

Coaches hold you responsible. They'll listen to your reasons (excuses usually) and gently, or not depending, help you to reach the best course of action.

I'm lucky both my brothers are in business too so we all help/coach/mentor each other.

So I'm for coaches, although I do hate the quasi-psychiatric approaches I've heard from some. Please don't do it near me it makes me want to throw up.

Psychiatric-style Coaches "Get real! You're talking to real people".

Anyway. So I read to the end of this blog and noticed the first comment from SR suggesting I look at SixDisciplines Blog.

So I dutifully cruised over. Great, my kind of blog - stuffed with quotes from people who, usually, have been there.

When I returned to the article I read through the other comments and one by stone caught me eye. It went

" It is wonderful and fruitful to learn something from a mentor's experience. However, past is past, now is now, and future is future. Entrepreneur must have his owm thinking and action"

Which I thought was a bit weird and obvious. An entrepreneur by that very label is not a sheep and they can't be told what to do they will always check, re-check and argue if they disagree. Because, guess what? It's their money on the line - nobody else's.

So for the entreprenur who thinks for themselves and is willing to challenge what a coach says but as the same is also willing to try what is suggested coaching will work. So as I said coaches are useful and as we increasingly specalise in business vital.

People often say that a press release is a waste of time because they never get used.

I disagree. For two reasons:

1) targetted press releases get your name known to your target journalists
2) journalists always need news to fill otherwise blank pages.

That means that as a journalist becomes comfortable with what you're saying they're more willing to listen to news items or come to you for your views. Because you've proven that you're not just some nut who can string together some words.

The plain fact is that without press releases some trade magazines would be running on empty.

Now notice that I say targetted news releases. Releases that are simply created and sprayed around at any media that's there is unlikely to get coverage.

It's better to write a core release and adapt it to the readers of the target media.

That said, I mentioned that I was going to blog on PR to an ex-coachee (Mathew, Hi Mathew - he's my solitary blog reader!). And in the same breath I talked about Prweb.com.

It's a global press release web site. Simply browsing all its press releases would keep you there for a few months.

It has a free account where you can release your press releases to. There are also upgrades (that you pay for) which give you progressively better exposure. The press releases are available pretty much world wide. Although obviously there's a lot of American stuff there.

There are other sites that offer free press releases. One such site is www.prfree.com. The difference about this site is that it uses a wire service too.

Take a look, these are just two of the services available for getting your message out.

And do also look at targetting your press releases.

Angela has a take on copy editing I agree with.

It's certainly good for the soul to take copy editing. It is more difficult although clients think they should pay less "...Because it's already done bar the shouting".

That argument/discussion/point of view is an interesting one. The only thing I'd say there is ... If it's working why employ me?

Like Angela I do actually enjoy copy editing. It's great to take someone else's words and change/polish/rewrite them to pull more sales, generate more leads or qualify more prospects.

Sometimes like Angela I get a piece to edit that just can't be saved. If you find several of these ten worst things in any copy you get to edit seriously consider asking if you can lay down a completely new set of golden strands of copy that will please your prospects eye, gladden his heart and he'll lighten his purse for you.

So what are these 'top ten worst things to copy edit'?

They are as follows, and in no particular order, really:

1) No offer - I'm always amazed that if you're taking the trouble to catch someone's notice you don't reward them for paying attention with an attractive offer.
2) No headline - amazingly common. I've been told it's a business letter so must look professional. What do you want professional lack of sales?
3) No emotion in the piece - it makes me so mad when I see staid, run of the mill writing for a business that's got something great to offer their market.
4) A letter that doesn't tell the whole story and answer the questions
5) The wrong tone to a piece
6) no sub headings - you're going to miss the scanners - like I know I do with blog readers. I may try sub heads soon.
7) Complete fabrication, or just plain unvarnished lies, or unsubstantiated 'facts' from dubious sources
8) All about how great the company is who's sending the copy
9) Logo taking up a great chunk of real estate on an ad (yellow pages or newsprint) or on direct mail, even mini-sites
10) No PS - come one you always need a PS, otherwise you could miss the opportunity to catch those who only look at headline, signature and PS.

Sometimes you can rescue copy and it's a rewarding feeling when you can do that. Especially if it's the business owner. Because what they write almost always comes from the heart - the exact right place to write copy from.

Jim Edwards writes about the dark side of blogs in this article.

As I say in his comments section: "It really is 'buyer beware' when reading blogs. But actually, although blogs are much more immediate than web sites I think web sites are also something to beware of."

But really it's much more than even that. It comes down to how you build trust with people you've never even seen.

As we all know giving ebooks, e-courses and other services helps people to understand how you operate and come to trust you a bit more than the average man in the street.

Certainly there's no doubt that if you take someone's ezine to read or a long term blog (more than 6 months with many postings) you're going to begin to understand how they think.

Look at me as an example here. You may not know me from Adam. But I'm sure you've got your own opinion on me. It's human nature. I've got a number of returning readers to this blog which is pleasant.

But that is likely to mean they're looking for similar items of interest that I do. It doesn't mean they like me. But it does mean they're interested in what I say and/or the things I point out, or maybe opine over.

This web site gives you 10 tips to beat writers block.

I actually found it quite thought provoking. Particularly as over the last few days I've taken part in two very interesting surveys.

I'm also thinking about doing my own survey (at www.webmonkey.com).

I've already pretty much roughed it out. When it's finished I'll put a link to it from this blog.

Anyway, back to business...

Jakob Nielsen who is probably regarded as the father of usability has highlighted Microsoft's move away from the GUI we know to a much more interesting way of interacting with Office.

It looks as though you're going to be able to review how your document looks by flipping through what sounds as though they're style sheets that change your documents look there and then.

As Jakob says it's not WYSIWYG. He does suggest another name for it. But I think I'd like to see it in action to know whether it's as radical as it sounds.

This is interesting.

I hadn't realised but Joel has been using his blog in the same way many marketeers use/used to use email.

His emails now contain a single entry to his blog which makes an offer of some sort.

The email says go to http://www.SuccessAccess.com/blog which is then directed to the blog from Joel's web site.

It does mean that Joel can easily make his offers, give some testimonials and other stuff without having to muck around with loading up web site content.

Do I think it's a good idea?

Well...

Joel's been doing it for what looks like about a year so it's obviously working. Then again Joel has a very large list so that helps anyway.

As to whether I think it's a good idea.

Yes. It is.

But I'd be interested to know what all the 'typical' bloggers think of it.

Does it break the bloggers 'code'?

I love this idea. Thanks to Joan Stewart from the The Publicity Hound for drawing my attention to it.

An award for The "Photos that Ought to be Outlawed Permanently." Otherwise known as the POOP awards.

They've included the normal suspects of rubbish photos and the comments include my favourite: You have a VIP looking glassily at the camera as they appear to dig a hole.

I must hold my hand up here though. I've been very guilty. back when I did a newsletter for the ICI WINGS project I put a photograph of the team in looking as though they'd been frozen in time.

There was no drama, no emotion.

I think we need to institute another award - DRIP or "Drama Really In the Photo". The criteria for this prestigious award being those photos that manage to move away from corporate dullness and bring some romance/drama/comedy/horror into our corporate world.

Like it says in the comments to the POOP posting. Please, no more comedy big scissors, or for that matter huge cardboard bank cheques.

I'm off now to think of my first DRIP candidate...

Robert Craven has a great little article explaining his 16 immutable marketing laws.

As human beings we seem to like lists. I know I'm always attracted by them. Think of Jay Abraham's book Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-think, Out-perform and Out-earn the Competition (affiliate link to Amazon).

It's made up from a list of 21 things you must do to get business. And a great read by the way!

Anyway, getting back to Robert's article.

I particularly like the Law of The Kiss. It's simplicity itself. Keep It Simple Stupid!

Basically Robert argues, and I agree, that marketing doesn't need to be complex. In fact complexity can obscure the message.

Much of my time as a copywriting coach is spent simplifying client's copy.

I must admit quite a bit is also spent wrestling to get more "unprofessional" emotion in too.

Another bit of Robert's article relates to Questions. Is a question important?

Let me come back to the answer to that in a moment.

Now. Think about it.

You're wondering what the answer is aren't you? Or you've probably aready answered it in your head.

The answer is that questions are vitally important.

When you write copy you need to make sure that you answer all the questions your prospect has. And make sure that the answers don't generate a "so what". Because a "so what" usually stops your prospect reading and off they go to look elsewhere for what you could've sold them.

So do you think questions are important?

I've been a subscriber to usability guru Jakob Nielsen's "Alertbox" for a few years now.

I always love it when he comes up with the top 10 worst web design mistakes.

What baffles me is that people continue to make them.

Why?

Although to be honest he does make one or two points that have me reaching for that web site correction fluid.

Interestingly pop-ups died some time ago but have come back because someone has managed to make them resistant to the current crop of pop-up blockers. They've not been included in this list - just mentioned as the most hateful advertising of all time.

Also they're being used slightly differently now. Marketeers are reporting increased sales because of them. So the people who are buying are finding them useful. All the other poor surfers are just put off by them.

One of my bugbears - poor font use - is at number one.

The one I find most annoying is at number 10. It's when you click on something and nothing happens. As Jakob says you're not sure if you did something wrong. It happened to me yesterday I clicked on a map site to enlarge a route map - nothing happened. So I spent the next 5 minutes trying to find out what was wrong!

Anyway, all in all these design mistakes get you thinking and if it leads to better web sites all the better.

I've borrowed and changed the headline. It's a quote from Max Boyce's song about that great Welsh rugby player Barry John.

It just seemed to fit the piece from grokdotcom.com

At first I was reading about scenarios and thinking I'd lost the will to live.

Then hey presto a little nugget presented itself half way down the page.

The team had been asked if they could recommend any good online copywriters. They said no but then listed the criteria so you'd recognise them.

Hurrah. The answer to a client's dreams surely?

Yes and No.

Let me explain...

Every copywriter would say that they fulfil those criteria. I certainly would.

I mean we're all these:

1) creative.
2) intelligent
3) empathizers
4) well-read
5) good listeners
6) organized
7) deadline-oriented
8) client managers
9) simple communicators
10) consistent
11) humble
12) web-savvy
13) themselves writers

I'm assuming that grokdotcom also fulfil their own criteria.

Interestingly enough I had a conversation with an expert Internet user who wasn't persuaded by long copy pages (as against shot copy). Yet grokdotcom.com has long copy.

Hmm.

The only things I'd add as extras are:

14) interested
15) entertaining

Loyal followers of this blog may recollect that I've written an ebook. A number of people have received it.

I asked a few about it and as one they all said pretty much the same thing. "It looks great. I'm going to read it tonight/this weekend/tomorrow".

Now I know the stuff I've put into that ebook will help any business.

So why haven't they read it?

If I look at my own ebook directory it fairly bulges with ebooks. Both paid for and not!

Have I read them all?

Simply no. There's not enough time in a year to read all the ebooks that purport to solve your life, career, business and relationship problems.

What I've started doing is skimming one a day. If the writer is interesting I keep going. If not I chuck (delete) the ebook.

Is it the best way to do things?

Yes. Because I've also noted that the same topics get covered by different authors.

Eventually I'll find an author who writes the way I like to read.

Maybe my own writing style needs to be friendlier, More inclusive, less inclusive, grammatically correct?

Who knows.

I'll keep writing and the readers who like my style will like my book and profit from it. Good luck to you whoever you are!