1) Don’t Listen to Your Mother

Mom was always a fan of telling me that little girls should be seen and not heard. In a world of web-centric marketing this will kill a campaign. So little boys and girls, stand up and be heard. Be vocal. Use your podcast, blog, and by all means hop on over to social networking sites and be heard there too!

2) Don’t Languish in Obscurity

If you’re site isn’t getting noticed by people who can make a difference (i.e. buy your book and/or product), what’s the point? Driving traffic to a website that isn’t converting is like sending buyers to a fabulous store and locking all the inventory in the basement. If you aren’t sure if your site is converting have your web host give you access to your Urchin or C-Panel information. This may take a bit deciphering at first, but once you learn how to reach these reports you’ll unlock some very important information. Namely how many people are visiting your site, how long they’re staying and (gasp) which of your pages within your site is propelling them to the competition.

3) Emphasize Your Personality

The Internet has forced all of us online gurus to become more personal. By this I mean offering insight into all things related to our topic (both good and bad). Gone is the formal corporate jargon, in it’s place is a blog that lifts the curtain, a podcast that shares some additional insight and a web site that screams personality. If your website is bla, your sales will reflect this. Get spunky if it’s appropriate to your topic but by all means, get personal. Don’t have a blog yet? I want you to stop reading this immediately and go to www.wordpress.org and start one.

4) Be Helpful or Be Gone

Have you ever noticed that the sites you keep coming back to are the ones that offer help, insight, encouragement, or important advice you simply can’t be without? Well your site should do the same. Be helpful till it hurts. Why? Because anyone can get one visitor to their site, getting them to come back is an entirely different thing altogether. Give them a reason to return by offering them something they want. For some markets it might even be giving them humor. If humor’s what they want then by all means that’s what you should do.

5) Content Rules

In the world of Web 2.0 and all things Internet content is really king. By “content” I mean don’t have a site that’s flat or doesn’t give potential buyers a reason to poke around. Get a blog, podcast and include a section on your site that offers the opportunity for readers to look through your articles (you can also post these on your blog).

If you have a book video add that to your site as well. And speaking of web sites… is your easy to navigate? If it’s not all the content in the world won’t help you. This isn’t a trip to Oz, people actually want to find their way back and unless there’s a helpful scarecrow along the way to show them how find what they need, it’s likely they’ll end up on someone else’s site instead.

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