For some time, we have been working on developing a set of task management software tools for our SEO Lab Professional customers. The idea is to allow online businesses to plan and excute their SEO and other marketing tasks quickly and easily from a single interface. 

This has now morphed into a  new project.

We will be launching a new website called Marketing ToDo within a few weeks.  It will include software tools and todo lists that will help you manage online and offline marketing tasks. 

The first set of tools will be for Mac OS X. We will expand it to include Windows, mobile and online versions almost immediately after. Some of these tools will be integrated into upcoming updates of  SEO Lab Mac and SEO Lab Professional.

Google Trends is a fabulous tool for researching national and international search trends. It lets you compare search popularity of different keywords, find seasonal trends and a lot more.

Depending on the state of the world, new search terms often enter the Google Trends chart. An interesting keyword phrase that entered Google Trends recently is …

Recession Marketing

The Google Keyword Tool can get us more useful data… Here are some of the top searches that involve recession and words like business or marketing.

How do you market during a recession?

The first and most important thing is not to panic. If the sales are down, it is time to sit down and analyze your products and / or services. Find ways to make your offers more attractive. You could offer special discounts or offer additional freebies. You could create product bundles and special offers. You could also use the time to improve your products so that you will be ready to reap the rewards when the recession is over. Some of your competitors may have even disappeared by then!

This is also the best time to boost your on-line marketing efforts. Use Google Keyword Tool in combination with Good Keywords v3 to find additional keywords and use them in your web pages (or do a Pay Per Click campaign). Good Keywords v3 is a freeware (there are no sign-ups required).

Here is a screen shot demo of Good keywords v3. You can also find additional on-line marketing strategy articles at SEOLab.

Typically the person wants to know how he can make make $MMMM in the next ‘N’ days using our software…

Click Here To Make Money?

Unfortunately, our software products do not have a button called "click here to make money"!

The reason for these emails is not hard to find. The Internet is full of sites promising quick money for a few hours of work each week. Many of them sell the "simple N step formula" (or whatever) to make you rich beyond your dreams in a few days!  All you need to do is buy the 78 page PDF ebook for $19.95!

Yes, it is possible to start and run a highly successful on-line business. But the sad truth is that majority of the people who try after reading these ebooks fail. This of course, makes it easy for the ebook sellers to sell even more PDF files!

If you want quick money right now…

• Find a job or if you already have one, find an extra part time job.
• Find something you can quickly sell (using eBay is also an option).
• Make a list of things you are good at. Offer your expertise to some one in your local area who may need it.
• If you have been frequenting any on-line forums, offer your expertise to the members of the forum. Do this carefully and only if the forum allows it. Many forums have an area where members can barter services.

On the other hand,

If you want to start an on-line business, do it for the long haul!

• Learn the basics – about the Internet, about websites, ecommerce and other related stuff. Do it even if you are not a techie. You don’t have to be an expert. All you need are the basics. It will come in handy very often.
• Decide on your product or service based on your core competence and abilities. Many "ebook experts" will advise you to pick your website subject based on niche keyword analysis and other "quick" step formulas. Don’t. Treat it as a proper business from the start and use your own observations, common sense and knowledge to decide what it should be about.  See "Internet Keyword Research – Are you putting the cart before the horse?"
• There are a number of ways to make money on-line. These range from selling a product or service directly, suggesting other people’s products and getting a commission (affiliate programs) or putting up advertisements on your web page and getting paid when people click on the advertisements.
• Use the web to learn more about the fields that interest you. Study the existing products and analyze the competition. You can even run trial advertisement campaigns on Google to study the market.
• Avoid any product or service that depends too much on a third party. There is nothing wrong about earning from Google AdSense, but don’t make it your only source of income. See How Vulnerable Is Your Internet Business?
• Do not jump into things you know nothing about unless you are a quick learner and can handle surprises. Some  people will advise you to sell software products after getting it developed at sites like Rentacoder. Again, nothing wrong with it, but don’t expect to get high quality software for $100! Most often, the support requirements will sink your software business in no time.
• Register a good domain name and create a website. Learn to manage the website yourself or hire some one to do it.
• There are ways to get that initial traffic to your website. Work on it and make your site grow.
• Constantly tweak and improve your products and services.

Are you into car rental business?

You should know everything you need to know about your customers – who are they? what do they look for? what are they most worried about while renting a car?

Once you learn everything there is to know, you will be able to provide solutions for existing problems and then to improve on those solutions.

Fortunately the Internet and the search engines make it very easy to research this and more. You can use Google to find your competitors, forums where your customers hang out, the problems they discuss, their opinions about your business and that of your competitors, etc.

Keyword Strategy Studio makes this process even simpler. Type in a keyword phrase and you quickly get all the top ranked sites for that keyword. Thisis what your potential customers also see when they do a search. Print out this list and then visit each of these sites. You can also right click from within the software to open the site in your default browser. Start using it today as a learning tool to find everything you want to know about your business.

• To improve your products and services and make them better than that of your competition
• To find your competition’s weak points and and exploit them
• To learn the way your competition operates so that you can always stay ahead of them.
• To generate your own ideas that are better.

Using Keyword Strategy Studio For Competition Research

When you do any keyword lookup using Keyword Strategy Studio, a list of top competing sites and top competing URLs are automatically generated. You can access these using the Competition and Top URLs tabs.

Right click on any of the URLs and select Open in Browser to view site in your default web browser.

Once you have your competition’s site open, first check if it really is a competing site. Many top ranking web pages will be Made For Adsense (MFA) sites created using automated software.

If you think you have a found a competing site, it is time to dig a little more… Here are some of the things you can do…

• Use the web archive to learn more about the history of the site. When did they get started? How did the website look when they started?
• Use the Site Link Pop Meter or other on-line sites like Compete or Alexa to study their on line visibility
• Check their web pages. Do they make it easy for their customers? Is your website better? If not how can you improve?
• Do they have third party advertisements on their sites? What do that tell you?
• Do they have a blog? If yes, subscribe to their blog feeds. What do their blogs discuss? Do they allow blog comments? What do people comment on their blogs?  Do you have a business blog?
• Subscribe to their newsletters.
• Buy their products and study the way they handle the purchase process, post purchase handling, back end products, etc. How do you compare with them?
• Go to Google News and search for the competitors. Are they in the news?
• Do they have any recent press releases? Do you do PR?
• Are they hiring? What kind of Jobs are on offer? Job openings often reveal their future plans and directions.

Use any information you learn to make your own plans and improve your products.

Our upcoming Internet Strategy Studio software suite will help you organize and tabulate information such as the above.

How do you write good headlines?

The truth is, powerful headline creation ideas are all around you.  It is very easy to improve your existing headline to one that really works!

Before you decide to change your headline, you should

1. Determine the target market the headline is meant for.
2. Write down the most powerful benefit your product or service offers. Think your product has too many benefits? See the types of headlines below to decide which benefit should be highlighted in the headline.

Now use one of the following headline types.

Headlines that enumerate a list (People have an affinity to read lists!)

• Five ideas to improve your —-
• Top Ten Reasons To …
• Four Things You Absolutely Must Know To ….
• Ten  Reasons Why —-

Headlines that ask about a problem the reader will identify with

• Do you suffer from …?
• Are you threatened by …
• Do you often find yourself struggling …

Headlines that offer to teach you or make you an expert

• Learn How To …
• Discover The Top …
• A Guide To …
• Every Thing You Wanted To Know About …

Headlines that offer secrets

• They Tried To Ban This …
• Secrets Uncovered …
• Exposed For The First Time Ever …
• The Real Secrets To …
• The Ugly Truth Behind …

Headlines offering instant gratification

• Instantly Transform …
• Instant Strategies To Create …
• You Can Do This In Five Minutes …
• Get An Instant 35% Boost …

Headlines offering to simplify things

• Simple Ideas To …
• This is Not For The Experts …
• … For The Rest Of Us
• … Any One Can Do In Their Spare Time!

Headlines announcing something

• Releasing Shortly…
• Announcing The…
• Now Available For The First Time …
• Offer Closing Soon …

Headlines that offer a guarantee

• …. 100% Money Back!
• Guaranteed To …

Headlines that contain a testimonial

• I started using … The results have been fantastic …
• I could never believe …
• … Amazing! Thank You ….

Picture / Graphic Headline

Screen shot with a caption, Illustration etc. Use this if a picture is more likely to immediately grab the attention. However you will still need a compelling sub-heading or caption.

Headlines that shock

• No examples! Just read a tabloid!

More Headline Rules…

• Be specific and avoid generality. A headline that says some thing very general is not going to attract any one because they have seen it all before. There should always be a unique or specific benefit mentioned in the headline.
• A headline should make the reader want to continue. Create multiple headlines and do an A/B test to find the best one. Then create new ones and try to beat the old headline.

Coming Soon! Headline Generator and Swipe File Manager

We will be releasing a new software (stand alone, integrated into IM Toolpad and the upcoming Internet Strategy Studio) for creating good headlines. Watch this blog!

If 80% of the results come from 20% of your efforts, the secret to more productivity is simply doing more of the 20%. However to do that you probably need to identify and eliminate the unwanted 80% of the work.

Your Internet business strategy will be much more effective if you started thinking about your not to do list!

• Do you check your email every 5 minutes?
• Do you spend a lot of time at one or more Internet forums?
• Do you browse all over the net jumping from one site to next without completing the task you originally started out to do?
• Do you worry about things you just can’t control and in the process not do the things you have full control over?

The best way to achieve full use of your resources is to create and implement a clear "time+effort strategy". Formulate an email strategy, a web browsing strategy, a forum involvement (social) strategy and so on.

Your email strategy

Checking your email every few minutes is one of the best ways to not get things done. If you are doing an important task, just shut down that email client or email alert software. There is nothing worse than getting distracted in the middle of an important task.

Make a decision on how you will handle your emails and then stick to it. For example, you can check and reply to your emails every 8 or 12 hours. If you have to respond to urgent customer queries install a help desk software and hire some one to respond to customers.

Do not Multi-Task

While multi-tasking is alright for computers, it is not a good idea for humans. Just take the task that need to be done and do it fully. Then move on to the next.  Scientific studies have shown that an average person will take much more time if he or she switched between multiple tasks during the course of the day. Apparently the brain takes four times longer to recognize and process the things when you switch from one task to another.

So avoid trying to reply to an email, modifying that web page and typing up a blog entry all at the same time. just do one job at a time!

Going walk-about on the net!

This happens to almost every one. You start with deciding to lookup some thing and do a Google search. Reach a site, see some thing that looks interesting. You then go read that. Then see some thing else that catches you eye and before long you no longer remember what you started with!

Allot a fixed time every day/week for the idle browsing. If you have to do research on the net stick to what you really want to lookup. Nothing more, nothing less!

Make Your Not-To-Do List Today!

These are probably a small sample of things in the NOT-TO-DO list. Think about it and start not doing things today!