Yes, as an inbound marketer, your blog content has to be amazing. However, even the best content can be hampered by bad design. As a business becoming a blogging machine, it is easy to focus 100% on content and ignore valuable design elements of your blog that can act as powerful boosters of traffic and leads of your business.

Think about it this way: Would you buy an expensive sports car and drive around with four flat tires? You’d still be able to go fast, but not nearly as fast as you could be. A clear, lead-focused blog design will help turbo-charge the results of your inbound marketing content.

So what does a great business blog look like? The design itself could be one of an infinite number of choices. However great business blog designs share common traits of success.

10 Traits of Perfectly Designed Business Blogs

1. A Call-to-Action in Every Blog Post – In a post about blog design, it would be simple for us to start out with some “fluffy” design advice. But that wouldn’t help your company’s bottom line, would it? Even if you stopped reading this post after this tip, you’d still leave with its most important takeaway. You MUST put a call-to-action in each of your blog posts. Yes, you should test the design and placement of your calls-to-action, but first and foremost, you need use them in your posts. This is one of the most powerful levers for transforming your blog into a well-designed lead generation machine.

2. Post Previews – Marketers must think like publishers. It’s easy to think of your blog as just a blog. Instead, you should think of it as a digital publication. Your blog is just like a trade magazine for your industry. One trait of magazines that people love is the table of contents that provide a preview for all of the articles in that issue. Instead of displaying your entire, most recent blog article on your blog’s homepage, display only an excerpt and an image from several of your most recent posts instead. This will allow visitors to scan some of your blog’s content and give them a choice of what to read first.

3. Clear Subscription Call-to-Action – Every visitor to your blog isn’t going to convert into a lead instantly. Some visitors will need to learn about your business over time. A way to help expedite this process is to get more visitors to subscribe to your blog via email or RSS. To do this, you need to have a clear call-to-action that encourages people to subscribe via either method. 

4. Clear Connection to the Core Business Website – Your blog isn’t an island. Instead, it is one part of a successful website. You blog design must make it clear and simple for a blog reader to get to key parts of your core website. It is great if you have awesome content, but it needs to be connected to your products or services to help move relevant visitors further along in the buying cycle. Have a clear blog navigation that connects to your website, and consider using some sidebar real estate to direct visitors to key website pages.

5. Limit Social Media Sharing Buttons – Too much of a good thing can be bad. Yes, you want people to share your blog posts, and having social sharing buttons on your blog is important. However, giving people too many sharing options is distracting. It actually causes users to become overwhelmed and subsequently take no action. Instead, limit the sharing buttons on your blog to only those networks that send traffic and leads to your business. If you don’t get any traffic from StumbleUpon, then why clutter your blog with its button?

6. Allow Simple Sorting of Content – Depending on how prolific of a writer you are and how long your business has been blogging, your blog design needs to make it easier for visitors to find older and relevant content. As a marketer, you have several design elements to help achieve this, including blog search, tagging, recommendation widgets, etc. As with social media sharing buttons, you don’t need to use all of these. Organize some user testing sessions to understand what people unfamiliar with your blog find to be the best methods for discovering past content.

7. Prominent Post Image Display – A great blog is visual. You shouldn’t knock readers over with block and blocks of text as soon as they arrive. Look at your blog design. How are you using images to draw in readers? There are many ways to showcase images from posts in the design of your blog. It can be as simple as an image next to an intro paragraph on your blog’s homepage or something far more customized. The important thing to remember is to not make assumptions on what your readers want. Again, conduct user tests to collect feedback and determine the best option for your audience instead.

8. Prominent Headline Formatting – In your blog design, make sure that your headline is formatted correctly. This means it needs to be the star of the show when it comes to the text on a page. Make sure it is significantly larger in font size than the body or subhead text on the page. This may seem like a small detail, but making your headers pop makes a huge difference!

9. Fast Page Load Times – Online readers are impatient. When they are looking for information, they want it NOW. If your blog post takes too long to load, then your visitor will bounce and go elsewhere. In order to prevent this issue, you need to test your blog’s load time. This free tool from Pindom will tell you how long it takes for your blog to load. Ideally, the load time for your blog would be under 2 seconds.

10. Clean Sidebar – A blog’s sidebar can easily become the junkyard of the page. It’s all too easy to keep cluttering a sidebar until it has a seemingly endless list of useless widgets. Look at the sidebar of your blog. Look at each widget or design aspect of that sidebar. Does it really serve a purpose? Is that individual element encouraging the behavior that you want your readers to take? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then delete it from your sidebar. It’s about time: De-clutter that blog sidebar and get users to take the actions you want.

What other blog design best practices would you add to this list?

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If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the new EJ step-by-step guide to set up a profitable website.

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Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Some are born famous, some achieve fame easily, and some work out how to make fame happen.

David Bowie’s career hit lightspeed when he became Ziggy Stardust, but it was anything but a fluke or an overnight success.

In the seventies, Ziggy was futuristic. We are now living in the future — where news guys tell us earth may well be dying, and our brains hurt like warehouses from information overload.

Back then, fame was for the chosen few. Now, it’s part of the job if you want to leverage the internet to find an audience for your art, subscribers for your blog or customers for your business.

Here are 7 tips to help you shine, based on the glittering example of Bowie’s space-age alter-ego.

1. Some rock stars are made, not born

Ziggy wasn’t Bowie’s first attempt at stardom. It wasn’t even his sixth.

Before he hit the big time, David Bowie had been knocking on fame’s door for a decade, as sax player and then singer with a succession of bands. At one stage he even gave up music in frustration and joined Lindsay Kemp’s mime troupe.

We know him as a legendary singer-songwriter-performer. But to begin with, neither his singing nor stage presence were particularly compelling. And he was anything but a natural songwriter:

I didn’t know how to write a song, I wasn’t particularly good at it. I forced myself to be a good songwriter, and I became a good songwriter. But I had no natural talents whatsoever. I made a job of work at getting good.

~ Bowie interviewed by Paul Du Noyer for MOJO

Takeaway: If you’re born with a fully-formed, effortless talent, good for you. But if not, don’t despair — apply yourself with passion, ingenuity and persistence and you may be surprised what you can achieve.

2. Be worldly and otherworldly

There’s a rich vein of fantasy running through Bowie’s early work, from the childhood whimsy of his first album, through the wide-eyed sci-fi of Space Oddity, the phantasmagoria of The Man Who Sold the World and the kookiness of Hunky Dory, to the alien persona of Ziggy himself.

Listen to his music, he sounds like a star-gazer.

But listen to those who knew and worked with the young Bowie, and recurring themes are his single-minded focus, ambition, work ethic, and an ability to turn on the charm for the right people at the right time.

Neither of these sides to his character would have been enough on its own. There are plenty of starry-eyed daydreamers who never get their work in front of an audience. And ambition is boring without the vision and talent to back it up.

It was Bowie’s ability to switch between the different facets of his character — characteristic of many outstanding creators — that made him more creative, productive, and successful than either the daydreamers or wannabe rock stars.

Takeaway: Don’t put yourself in a box. If you’re an ‘artistic’ type, don’t let it stop you learning professional skills — such as networking, marketing and presenting — that could help you realise your creative ambitions. And if you’re good at the business side of things but have never seen yourself as ‘creative’, give yourself permission to explore your weird side (I know you have one).

3. There’s more than one real you

Before he was Ziggy, he was Major Tom, David Bowie, Davie Jones, and originally David Jones.

Soon after Ziggy, he became Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, and The Thin White Duke in quick succession.

In hindsight, the transformations of the ‘chameleon of rock’ look brilliantly creative. But at the time he was taking a big risk. Authenticity was desperately important in late sixtes/early seventies rock (which was a bit of a challenge for white kids from Britain trying to follow in the footsteps of blues legends from the Mississippi Delta).

Bob Dylan spoke for many when he told Bowie bluntly at a party: “Glam rock isn’t real music.”

But authenticity isn’t about expressing a single “real you” — as if such a thing existed. You’re much more interesting than that. You have many different facets to your personality — each of which is a potential character with his or her own story to tell.

Bowie realised the artistic potential of authentic storytelling — focusing on one aspect of your personality (or company, or brand) that has particular appeal to your audience, and projecting it to them in vivid words, visuals and/or sounds.

Takeaway: Who can you be now? Is there a hidden facet of your character, company, or brand that you can usefully place center-stage? And is there another one that should be gracefully retired?

4. Talent borrows, genius steals

Ziggy was a magpie creation, assembled from rock’n’roll, science fiction, music hall, mime, kabuki, and multi-coloured pro-wrestling boots.

His next album, Aladdin Sane, incorporated Jazz piano, before he moved onto American funk and soul, and later the electronica of German ‘krautrock.’

Bob Dylan was missing the point when he said Bowie’s music wasn’t the “real” thing, as were those who looked down their noses at his “plastic soul.” Bowie himself seemed to deliberately court such criticism:

The only art I’ll ever study is stuff I can steal from. I do think my plagiarism is effective.

~ Bowie interviewed by Cameron Crowe, Playboy September 1976

What made Ziggy (and his other collage works) interesting wasn’t where the parts came from, but what he made of them — the original, flamboyant, creative twist he gave to his source materials, that made them unforgettably his.

Takeaway: Who are your heroes? What do you admire in them? What if you “stole” from them by taking some of their core principles (not their finished works!) and applied them to your own work. Don’t worry about being original — if you do it wholeheartedly, your originality will shine through, probably in ways you don’t realise.

5. Work with the best

Mick Ronson, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Freddie Mercury, Peter Frampton, Nile Rodgers, Brian Eno, and Bing Crosby — these are just some of the big names Bowie has shared a stage or recording studio with over the years.

Even when working with lesser-known musicians, he often gave them extraordinary freedom to express themselves in the studio, so that many of the albums with the name “David Bowie” on the sleeve incorporate the creative input of disparate talents.

Apart from improving the finished product, this kind of creative collaboration is a sign of confidence. Either Bowie wasn’t afraid of being upstaged, or he surrounded himself with stellar talent to keep himself on his toes.

Takeaway: Look at roles that need filling in your next project. Who would be the best — the very best — people you could think of to fill them? How could you persuade them to get on board?

6. Leave them wanting more

Many people (including his backing band) were amazed when Bowie announced from the stage of the Hammersmith Odeon “this is the last show that we’ll ever do.” It looked like career suicide, not just the rock’n’roll variety.

But confident creators don’t worry where their next big idea will come from. They know there’s plenty more where the last one came from. And great showmen know when to leave the stage — with the audience clamoring for more.

Takeaway: Look at your biggest success to date. Does it still excite you, or is the magic starting to wane? Supposing you killed it off and started something new — where would you begin?

7. Always read the small print

Apart from his musical collaborators, Bowie’s drive for success was spearheaded by the man he believed was his business partner, Tony DeFries.

I say “believed” because the contract between the two men actually described Bowie as an “employee,” giving DeFries’ company, MainMan, ownership of his record masters and a percentage of royalties until 1982. Bowie was blissfully unaware of these conditions for several years, having either not read the contract or not grasped its implications.

When the situation was explained to him, he was horrified to discover that he did not in fact own 50% of MainMan, nor even the rights to his own music. Several years of legal wrangling ensued, and Bowie paid dearly for his naivety.

Later he would learn enough about the business side of things to effectively manage himself, negotiating his own signing to EMI in 1983 for a groundbreaking $ 17 million advance. Later still, he issued innovative “Bowie Bonds,” earning him $ 55 million in securities against his future royalties — a hefty chunk of which was used to buy back his music rights from DeFries.

Takeaway: Contracts and spreadsheets aren’t the most inspiring things in the world. But ignore them and you could end up living with terms that crush your creativity. Make it your business to understand your business — so you can make smart decisions that bring you the rewards you deserve.

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a coach for creative entrepreneurs. If you’d like to learn more about finding fame and fortune in the futuristic online world — from Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, Tony Clark, Jon Morrow and Mark McGuinness — click here for a preview of The Creative Entrepreneur Roadmap, the course they created together to help you do just that. Copyblogger Media is pleased to be a marketing partner for The Creative Entrepreneur Road Map

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What the heck is a flash mob? A flash mob is getting people to come together in a public space, surprising unsuspecting viewers with a choreographed performance/dance routine, and then walking away as if nothing happened. 

Flash mobs, when executed well, can be a great way to generate buzz, express your business’ creativity, and even garner some media attention and coverage. Want to inject some personality and creativity into your company’s marketing strategy? Consider orchestrating a flash mob! Last week, HubSpot employees did just that, dressing up in orange HubSpot track suits, sporting zombie makeup, and taking over the food court at the local mall to dance to the spooky Michael Jackson hit, “Thriller” in our very own Halloween flash mob. Here’s a step-by-step guide to planning and executing your own flash mob, using our own experience as an example.

Step 1: Be Creative

There’s nothing more exciting than watching or partaking in a surprise flash mob that interrupts people’s mundane daily routines. Flash mobs are a great way to stir up attention and create some buzz. Be creative, and think of ways to make your performance unique from previous flash mobs. There needs to be more to your flash mob than just a dance routine to make it stand out. Some flash mobs involve the performers’ hidden talents, some singing, theatrics, or getting hundreds of people to stand still for a few minutes. Your flash mob can be flashy, thought provoking, artistic, or even be used as an advertisement.

Step 2: Pick a Fun Tune

Pick a song that will catch everyone’s attention. Purchase a loud, portable stereo and cue up your upbeat dance song, classic throwback, or even a holiday related Christmas carol.

Step 3: Learn the Moves

Gather a group of your friends and/or coworkers who are willing to participate in the flash mob. Find someone who is an experienced dancer or choreographer who can breakdown the moves for everyone. Practice regularly. The key is to really perfect the routine if you want to impress onlookers.

Step 4: Choose a Date, Time, and Location

The best places for flash mobs are large, high-traffic public spaces where people wouldn’t expect something out of the ordinary. Whether you choose to target a local beach, a food court at the mall, or a train station, pick a day and time of the week during the location’s busiest hours.

Step 5: Surprise Everyone

An important thing to consider is that your performance needs to have the element of surprise. A well-executed flash mob performance should be kept secret up until the moment it begins. Catching your audience off guard is crucial. Make sure you video tape not just your performance, but also everyone’s reaction.

Step 6: Be a Cinematographer

Pack your cell phones and some HD video cameras, and capture some high quality video footage. A multi-camera shoot will provide sufficient coverage with wide shots, close-ups, and plenty of reaction shots of unsuspecting viewers. Make sure you have a camera operator that is part of the action and on the same level as the dancers. Have another camera operator shooting a wide/establishing shot from a higher angle looking down on the dancers. Your wide shot will show the scale of your flash mob. THE BIGGER, THE BETTER.

Step 7: Upload & Promote Your Masterpiece

Your flash mob may be over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t milk more from the performance. Edit and share your video on your website, blog, YouTube account, and Facebook page. Tweet links to the video or your post about it on your blog. You can still generate a ton of buzz from people who weren’t lucky enough to be present for the live showing. As we said before, staging a flash mob is a great way to generate brand exposure and a ton of buzz. Have fun with it! And check out the final product of our own flash mob below!

Are you yet motivated to organize your own flash mob?

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I was reading Jonathan Fields’ new book Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance this weekend, and one of the insights that struck me the most was his breakdown of the two types of creativity.

Because analogies help us learn, and because Firefly is the best show that has ever been on television, I’m going to call the two types of creativity Mal Reynolds creativity (insight, vision, and brave new ideas) and Zoe Washburne creativity (actually getting something done).

If you’re not a Firefly fan, don’t worry, because these archetypes are present in just about any epic story you can imagine. They’re also present in your business right now.

You can call them Kirk and Spock creativity, Jobs and Wozniak creativity, or Phineas and Ferb creativity.

Essentially, part of the creative process involves having brilliant vision and breakthrough insights. And part involves refining, expanding, and producing that vision — in other words, actually buckling down and making something.

One of these probably comes easier to you than the other, but chances are that you’re going to need to be able to handle both, at least at first. So let’s talk about how to do that a little less painfully.

Mal Reynolds creativity

The Firefly character Captain Mal Reynolds is the archetype of creative leadership.

He’s brave. He’s smart. He can sum up a tricky situation in an instant, knowing when to fight off the bad guys and when to turn tail and run.

Mal is a classic entrepreneurial leader. (And a classic action hero.) He comes up with the plan that’s so crazy it just might work, and his crew works together to make it happen.

Mal is perceptive, decisive, romantic (despite every attempt to be cynical), impractical, impulsive, and brilliant.

You’ll find Captain Mal creatives at the top of virtually every really cool company. For real life Captain Mals, look to Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and David Ogilvy.

The idea terrorist

But this type of creativity has a dark side. In Jonathan’s book, he talks about being an “idea terrorist” in his own companies.

Every two seconds, I’d have a new idea about what we were going to do, how we’d define the brand, whom we’d serve, what kind of lighting we’d have, the type of music we’d create, the people we’d hire, what they’d wear, the tiles in the bathrooms.

It’s impossible to execute when you’re facing a firehose of ideas. And whether you have staff or you’re on your own, you’ll burn your organization out if you try.

Part of the difficulty of the creative process is to sift through the thousand possible wonderful ideas, and find one to execute on.

It may not be “the” right idea. It probably won’t be. It just has to be a right idea.

Zoe Washburne creativity

Zoe Washburne is Mal’s second in command. She’s a well-trained soldier, intensely practical, and steeped in tactics and strategy. She’s also brave and smart, but her skill lies in following orders.

Zoe makes things happen.

Some people don’t recognize Zoe’s style as being creative, but it is. It’s the Zoes of the world who literally create something, by taking ideas and vision and applying “REP” (refining, expansion, process) to them.

Zoe is pragmatic, tactical, effective, skilled, energetic, and realistic. She neither makes nor accepts excuses. For real-life Zoes, see Paul Allen, Derek Halpern, and Warren Buffett.

If nothing is created, there is no creativity

Part of what makes a creative life (and every bootstrap business is a creative project) so hard is that Captain Mals are the ones who tend to be drawn to this kind of life, but then we have to turn ourselves into Zoes to actually build something.

We have to write the content. We have to get the site built. We have to figure out the shopping cart. We have to record the audio, build the slide show, write the sales page.

Vision is nothing without execution — which is why so many brilliant visionaries have a history of being shot down by “practical” thinkers before they finally make their mark.

What to do if you’re a Mal

If you’re a Mal and you don’t have a Zoe yet, you’ll need to be able to uncover your pragmatic side, at least until you can create enough success to build an organization.

The first thing you should do is pick up Jonathan’s book, because he has a lot of practical ideas about how Mals can adapt from pure thinkers to doers.

It’s very likely that you’ll take the lead on creating your content — at least until you can communicate your vision to a few Zoes who can create it for you. So construct rituals that let your brain know it’s time to be productive.

Work in focused bursts, giving yourself recovery time to recharge your creative batteries.

You’ll also want to draw clear boundaries between your “insight time” and “implementation time.” There’s a time to dream and a time to write, and you need to define which is which.

When you’re in productive mode, look for clear, step by step instruction for how to do the task you’ve assigned yourself. Keep yourself on track with roadmaps, checklists, or other linear tools that let you know you’ve done all the steps.

If you’re a Zoe

If you’re more a Zoe than a Mal, you may not think of yourself as creative at all.

Realize that your implementation of an idea is one of the most valuable forms of creativity. Ideas are cheap; implementation is priceless, so don’t sell yourself short.

Your insights may not immediately brand you as a “thought leader,” but if you focus relentlessly on what your audience wants and needs, you’ll find you can go surprisingly far.

Zoe isn’t showy like Mal is, but she has a strong, appealing personality. And you do too — so don’t be afraid to let that shine through in your content. Because you’re a Zoe, you’ll be less tempted to showboat or turn your content into an ego-fest — and your readers will be grateful for it.

You may decide you feel more comfortable joining forces with a visionary. If so, you won’t have much trouble finding brilliant minds who can’t seem to get anything done.

Again, don’t undermine yourself — your skill set is rare and valuable, so don’t think of yourself as the hired help. Instead, consider yourself the valued producer who can harness the creative “talent” and make things happen.

And don’t assume you’ll never have a breakthrough insight of your own. Look for proven ways to generate more insights — by approaching a crossroads topic, by applying an old insight to a new market, or simply by giving yourself some creative downtime for new ideas to bubble up. Again, Jonathan’s book has a lot of ideas for you.

If you’re in the teaching business

(And by “the teaching business,” I mean content marketing, online education, or any form of sales … as well as a host of other ways the digital age has made us both teachers and students.)

As we all remember from grade school, really great teachers are creative … and they respect the creativity and individuality of their students.

Your Mal students already have the vision and the drive, but when it’s time for them to put the details together, they need help. Give them lots of step-by-step tutorials. Even better, give them checklists and manuals they can hand off to someone else when they finally give up trying to do it all alone.

Your Zoe students know how to work and they know how to make things happen, but they may not have confidence that they can create something really new. Give them reassurance, frameworks for creativity, and tools to develop their ideas from blah to breakthrough.

Best of all is if you can create an environment in which your Zoes and Mals can interact, ask each other questions, brainstorm, and possibly team up to form amazing partnerships.

Make your students and customer Big Damn Heroes, and they’ll love you forever.

How about you?

All of us have a mix of creative strengths, but we usually lean toward one side of the spectrum or another. Are you a Mal or a Zoe, or a different type altogether?

Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is CMO of Copyblogger Media and co-creator of Teaching Sells.

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• What Bestselling Fiction Can Teach You About Writing Better Landing Pages
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• The Art of Irresistible Copywriting

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On Stranger Tides is just one more in the long line of big budget Hollywood movies. Or is it?

Actually, it happens to be just another movie that Johnny Depp refused to appear in for anything short of $ 42,000,000.

He charges that amount because the movie can’t exist with out him.

Johnny’s the star of the show. Pirates of the Caribbean without Captain Jack Sparrow is like an ice cream sundae with no ice cream.

But if Johnny Depp didn’t act in movies — if he were a regular job-holding guy from Kentucky — nobody would care about him. Nobody would pay him.

That could easily have happened, you know.

John Christopher Depp is a high-school dropout from Lexington, Kentucky. He once made a (sort of) living as a ballpoint pen salesman. My cousin swears she once spotted him years ago in a local WalMart.

He was unshaved. His clothes were old and torn. He looked like a hippie. Reclusive. Possibly homeless.

That doesn’t match his public image, does it?

We’re used to seeing Johnny Depp behind four millimeters of stage makeup, in hand-tailored black tie, and signing $ 42 million Hollywood film contracts.

How does he do it?

How does a normal guy become an A-list star — attracting a raving following and getting paid to do what he loves?

The answer is simpler than you might think.

Johnny Depp knows his audience

On Stranger Tides isn’t about entertaining Johnny.

It’s about entertaining his audience. Johnny isn’t messing around trying to collect his thoughts or share breaking news in pirate technology.

No, he’s giving his audience the content they’re looking for. He’s connecting and delivering.

Here’s what Johnny Depp means to your blog

You’re actually in the entertainment business.

Every byte of data you blast onto the web is a piece of your movie.

Each time you publish a post, you’re broadcasting a scene — a link in the chain — that brings your film to the next level.

It takes work. Some days you feel like retreating to your little hometown …

But remember, when the camera’s running, you have to connect.

It takes focus

You aren’t doing this to become a better writer, even if that’s a sneaky side effect.

You aren’t doing it for the fame or money — though money facilitates the journey.

You aren’t doing it just for you — though you absolutely love what you’re doing.

The moment you focus on those things, you lose your touch.

Like an major league baseball player at bat, your eyes are glued to the ball. You ignore everything else, and you aim for a grand slam.

Prepare your script to match your audience’s deepest desires. Peek around the curtain and listen to the gossip. The tools are before you, pleading to be used.

Get your act together, then freaking deliver.

Like it or not, here they come.

Just ask Johnny Depp.

About the Author: Martyn Chamberlin is a Web designer and copywriter from Two Hour Blogger. He’s also a proud user of the Genesis Framework, and when you see his site, you’ll probably know why.

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Posted by robmillard

Do you like this post? Yes No

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Well, why not?

They are the problem, right?

Here you are with a blog or a product or a charity you believe will change the world, and yet no matter how excited you are about the possibilities, no matter how much faith you have in yourself, you can’t help being worried:

• If you ask a popular blogger for a link, will you get a reply?
• If you ask a partner to email a product offer to their list, will they agree?
• If you ask a friend for a donation, will they write you a check?

You don’t know. You can’t know. And it bothers you.

Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just close your eyes, pop over into their mind, and seize control?

Yeah. Too bad it’s not possible …

Or is it?

A Brief Introduction to Mind Control

As it happens, mind control is possible. Sort of.

No, you can’t turn your customers, partners, and in-laws into mindless zombies, but you can influence them.

In fact, there’s a science to it.

Back in the 1980s, a researcher by the name of Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. He outlined different principles scientifically proven to influence people, as well as suggestions for how to do it.

Since then, it’s become maybe the most important book in the field of marketing. If you haven’t read it, you should, as well as the sequel.

Here’s the bad news:

Mind control isn’t about magic powers, arcane arts, or even shaving your head and gallivanting around in a wheelchair (although, I’ve been tempted). The truth is it’s about something that makes a lot of people squeamish: marketing.

The Truth about Marketing

The core of marketing isn’t customer profiling or market segmentation or any of the other complicated nonsense taught in most business schools.

It’s infinitely simpler than that, and it can be encapsulated in one word:

Yes.

You ask a blogger for a link, and they say, “Yes.” You ask a partner to promote your product, and they say, “Yes.” You ask a customer for a testimonial, and they say, “Yes.”

If you get enough yeses, your blog/business/charity succeeds. If you don’t, it fails. It’s so simple, and yet so few of us really understand how to do it.

The good news?

You can learn.

What follows is a marketer’s guide to mind control. Use these seven strategies wisely.

1. Do all the thinking for them

The worst mistake you can make when asking anyone for anything is telling them to “Think it over.”

Here’s why: people already have too much to think about.

Between their jobs, their family, and their own hobbies and friends, their mind is already stuffed, like a suitcase bulging at the sides. Add one more sock, and the whole thing will explode.

To avoid it, they “forget” about things that aren’t very important to them, or if they do think about you, they don’t think very hard. It’s not because they are lazy or stupid. They’re just busy, and you’re probably not very high up the priority list.

And so the best strategy is to not ask them to think.

Do it for them.

• Instead of expecting them to see how your blog post will benefit their audience, explain it, and offer examples of similar posts that have done well in the past
• Instead of asking them to host a webinar for you, setup the webinar, landing pages, and emails yourself, and send them as part of your pitch
• Instead of begging a customer to write a testimonial from scratch, send them a dozen different examples to use as a guide

Be specific. Explain your reasoning. Offer proof. Tell them what to do next and why.

If you do it right, it won’t feel like asking at all. It’ll be more like advising.

And they’ll say yes. Not because of magical powers of persuasion, but because you’ve thought through everything, and it’s a no-brainer.

2. Start an avalanche

Creating a successful marketing campaign is a lot like starting an avalanche.

First, you climb up the mountain, and then you find the biggest boulder at the top, and then you sweat and grunt and strain to push the boulder over, and then you sit down and watch happily as the boulder goes crashing into other boulders, eventually bringing the whole side of the mountain down.

The lesson?

The first big yes is a pain in the butt to get, but if you get it from the right person, then getting all of the subsequent yeses is easy.

For example:

• Getting a popular blogger to tweet your post is hard, but once they do, dozens or maybe even hundreds of people will retweet them
• Convincing a leader in your niche to promote your product is tough, but once they do, everyone else will want to promote it too
• Persuading a celebrity customer to give you a testimonial can be tough, but once you do, sales skyrocket, and getting further testimonials is easy

Of course, a lot of marketers recommend taking the opposite approach.

They tell you to start from the bottom and work your way up because it’s easier.

But really, it’s just an illusion. Yes, pushing over a small rock is easier than pushing over a boulder, but the boulder is a lot more likely to cause an avalanche. So while it’s more work in the beginning to get top people to help you, it’s actually less work in the long run, and the results are far, far greater.

3. Ask for an inch, take a mile

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile,” right?

It’s supposed to be derogatory. It’s supposed to be a warning against appeasement. It’s supposed to protect you against getting taken advantage of.

But it’s also great marketing.

Whenever you’re asking for anything, never start by asking for everything upfront. Instead, start small. Make it easy to get started. Reduce the risk if it flops. Let them see the results for themselves.

And when it goes well, ask for more. And more. And more.

You might think that’s unethical, but if everything is going well, why not push for more? It’s not manipulation. It’s common sense.

For instance:

It’s not psychological trickery or anything like that. It’s smart business. No one likes to risk everything upfront, and by offering progressive levels of commitment, your chances of getting them to say yes go through the roof.

4. Always have a real deadline

The keyword is “real.”

All of us have had salesmen tell us, “Well, you’d better get back to me fast, because I have three more prospects coming this afternoon, and I don’t know how long it’ll last.” It’s BS, of course.

There are no clients, and there is no urgency. The salesman is just so desperate he’s willing to lie, not only costing him your trust, but probably the sale too.

And it’s not just salesmen.

How many times have other people handed you completely artificial deadlines, thinking it will motivate you to act? Our teachers do it, our bosses do it, our family does it, and without thinking about it, you’ve probably done it too.

Stop.

Not only is it ineffective, but it’s totally unnecessary. Real urgency is easy to create. With a little thought, you can build it into your marketing. For example:

• Instead of leaving a free report on your blog forever, tell everyone it will only be available for seven days, and then you’re going to start charging $ 7 for it. Not only will you get a lot more downloads, but other bloggers will be a lot more likely to promote it during the window
• Instead of letting JV partners dictate when they will promote your product, schedule a launch, announce it to your list, and then forward partners the announcement, inviting them to participate
• Instead of asking customers for testimonials whenever they get around to it, show them the timeline for an upcoming launch, including a specific date to send out testimonials. You need it by then, or you won’t be able to include it

Will some of them bow out, saying they are too busy right now, and they’ll catch you next time?

Sure, but it’s better than never getting started it all. And if you let other people dictate timelines, that’s exactly what will happen.

5. Give ten times more than you take

You know you’re supposed to give before you get, right? But what you might not know is how much to give.

A lot of marketers mistakenly assume it’s a 1:1 ratio.

Before you ask for a link, you should give a link. Before you ask for promotion, you should give a promotion. Before you ask for a testimonial, you should do one thing that deserves a testimonial.

But that’s wrong. Smart marketers use a 10:1 ratio, and not just in action, but in value:

• If you want 100 visitors, send them 1,000
• If you want $ 1000 in product sales, sell $ 10,000 of their products first
• If you want one testimonial, do ten different heroic acts of customer service worthy of a testimonial

This isn’t about “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” It’s about generosity so overwhelming they can’t say no.

Yes, it’s a lot of work, but that’s the price of influence.

6. Stand for something greater than yourself

Imagine there are two homeless guys standing on a street corner.

The first guy has a normal, run-of-the-mill sign saying, “Spare a few dollars? God bless you.” The second guy, on the other hand, has a much more unusual sign: “Can’t afford to feed my family, and it’s tearing me apart. Please help, so I can stop feeling like such an awful Dad.”

Which one would you be more likely to help? The second one, right?

Forget giving him a few bucks. With a sign like that, you’d take him to the grocery store and buy him $ 200 worth of groceries. I know I would.

That’s the power of standing for something bigger than yourself. It makes people care.

And it applies to everything:

• Instead of writing yet another how-to post, take a stand on an important issue, arguing with both passion and unassailable logic
• Instead of starting yet another me-too consulting business, create a movement, working tirelessly to change the lives of your customers
• Instead of selling yet another step-by-step manual, sell a philosophy, filled with heroic examples to inspire your customers

Those are the types of things people want to talk about. They feel grateful just for having the chance to help you spread the word.

7. Be completely and utterly shameless

You want to know what separates a great marketer from a mediocre one?

Shamelessness.

I’m not referring to a lack of conscience, having a gregarious, extroverted personality, or any of the other ways we traditionally look at marketers. For the most part, those stereotypes are myths.

No, by shamelessness, I mean this:

An unshakable belief that what you are doing is good for the world and the willingness to do anything to bring it into being.

When you believe in your content, you don’t publish it and forget it. You promote it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, working tirelessly to spread the message to everyone who needs to hear it, and refusing to rest until they do.

When you believe in your product, you don’t balk at sales. You revel in it. Not because you’re greedy or desperate or egotistical, but because you know your product will help them, and so it’s your duty to get them to buy. Whatever it takes.

When you believe in your charity, you don’t beg for donations. You demand them. You grab people by the shoulders and look them in the eyes and tell them what you’re doing is changing the world, and it’s time for them to step up and do their part.

It’s not about money. It’s not about glory. It’s not even about legacy.

It’s about falling in love. It’s about being enchanted. It’s about seeing a vision so beautiful you can’t help but fight to make it real.

Do you have a vision like that? Something worth getting up every day and fighting for?

If you do, you can accomplish damn near anything.

And if you don’t, well …

What’s the point?

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger. If you’d like to learn what it really takes to become a popular blogger, check out his free videos on guest blogging.

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• By: Reading Roundup: Mind control, Psychology & Special Sauce | Blue Kite Marketing by Reading Roundup: Mind control, Psychology & Special Sauce | Blue Kite Marketing
• right. also show them what they need and why they need it. so … by Roshan
• the best post in this blog so far… by kyveli kardasi
• Brilliant post! I think I am going to need to re-evaulate my … by Nicholas J. Grobler
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• Plus 5 more…

Further Reading

• How to Build a First-Class Email List in 30 Days — from Scratch
• 3 Steps to Finding Your True Writing Voice
• 3 Simple Techniques to Getting Your Message Seen, Heard and Out There into The World

Copyblogger

SEO Book.com

My fourth article on EJ, and the love I have been receiving from this community is amazing. I feel really welcomed, so thanks to you all. I wish I could meet you in person and thank you personally. I hope one day I will.

Enough of the pep talk Aziz, time to get down to the meat!

Today I have something different for you. This is going to create tangible, solid results for you once you implement the steps in order. It’s fast and simple. I am really looking forward to making this post holy smokes viral, and I need your help. Make sure you tweet, like, share, email, knock on doors, email and shout out loud about this post because I know you will get the results as promised: Rank on top of the LinkedIn search within 10 minutes, guaranteed.

width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YiNy0_F4r0Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

Why LinkedIn?

id="more-7270">We all know that Google is the most searched website on earth, but not many of us know that YouTube is in second place followed by Yahoo and Bing. Interesting fact, right?

Google has changed the way search works and now users assume to find stuff using the search feature on any website they visit. href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn, being the 16th most visited website on earth ( href="http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/linkedin.com/">according to Alexa), gets millions of searches every single month. The majority of these searches are made to find people. Users look to form partnerships, find vendors, customers, employees, employers and more.

The searches are being made every day. Are you showing up there when users are in the peak state of finding someone for their needs?

In the next 15 minutes, (5 minutes reading + 10 minutes implementing) you will show up on that results page for the keyword of your choice.

Note: I am using Craig Bass, a videographer, who is also a friend of mine, as an example in this post to rank him on top of LinkedIn search.

The LinkedIn Algorithim

LinkedIn’s search algorithm is not that sophisticated. Unlike Google, LinkedIn search only displays results from within its own website.

Following are the factors that determine who ranks on top of the search results in LinkedIn:

1. Job History /> LinkedIn looks at a user’s current and past title at his employing company. The more times that title occurs, the ranking goes up for that keyword.
2. Headline /> The engine also looks at the profile headline and sees if the keyword appears there.
3. Name /> If a user has “Video Editor” or “Craig Video Editor” as his name, this person will get the highest ranking. Unfortunately, such an account has a high potential of being banned because “Craig Video Editor” is a fake name. Secondly, it’s bad practice from a usability standpoint. Definitely not recommended to put the keyword as a name.
4. Connections /> Search results in LinkedIn are personalized to the person searching. Results are shown only of those people who are within one’s network. The broader your network, the more people will be able to see your profile in their search results. /> ( href="http://daystodomination.com/contact/">Contact me if you want to learn how to grow your network.)

Now I will show you a crazy way of ranking on top of LinkedIn search by optimizing your Job History.

Step 1: Keyword Preparation

You need two inputs to rank for any keyword you desire:

List A. Key phrase

Compile a list of keywords you wish to rank for:

• Ideally, these keywords should be professions that LinkedIn users are looking for
• Your list should be short and focused, 5-10 keywords

i.e. /> Video Editor /> Video Production /> Multimedia Production /> Videographer /> Small Business Marketing

We see above that the the term “Video” is repetitive in the term “Video Editor” and “Video Production”, hence we will remove the term “video” from one of the spots.

Here is the new list:

Video Editor /> style="text-decoration: line-through;">Video Production /> Multimedia Production /> Videographer /> Small Business Marketing

And now we see that the term “Production” is repetitive, so we will remove the term “Production” from the list.

Here is the newer list:

Video Editor /> style="text-decoration: line-through;">Video Production /> Multimedia Production /> Videographer /> Small Business Marketing

This list is more focused than the original list. Although the keyword, “Video Production” has been removed from the list of keywords, Craig will still rank for this keyword since the word “Video” and “Production” are mentioned in the list. Interesting, right!

Now make the list of keywords comma separated:

Video Editor, Multimedia Production, Videographer, Small Business Marketing

List B. Clients/Projects

Compile a list of past clients, companies and projects you have worked for:

• The bigger this list, the stronger and higher your rankings
• Ideally, list 10 projects. For competitive keywords this list could be bigger

i.e. These are the list of companies Craig has worked for:

(If you do not have a huge list, you could list your project names here.)

Labelle Catering /> Party Time Productions /> La Grange Crane /> Herigage House Florist /> Little Company of Mar /> The One & Only Novel /> Synergy Virids /> Anderson & Boback /> Big Top /> Home Helpers /> Shelf Butler /> Premier Garage /> Accretive Health /> A Place to Bark Animal Rescue /> Dennis Cook /> H Foundation

If you were not an employee of these companies, put the name of your company in front of your clients/projects list in the following fashion:

(Craig is a co-founder of Motion Source)

Motion Source | Client Labelle Catering /> Motion Source | Client Party Time Productions /> Motion Source | Client La Grange Crane /> Motion Source | Client Herigage House Florist /> Motion Source | Client Little Company of Mar /> Motion Source | Client The One & Only Novel /> Motion Source | Client Synergy Virids /> Motion Source | Client Anderson & Boback /> Motion Source | Client Big Top /> Motion Source | Client Home Helpers /> Motion Source | Client Shelf Butler /> Motion Source | Client Premier Garage /> Motion Source | Client Accretive Health /> Motion Source | Client A Place to Bark Animal Rescue /> Motion Source | Client Dennis Cook /> Motion Source | Client H Foundation

Step 2: Enter The Projects

Now we will enter your projects in a specific fashion in your LinkedIn Profile.

On LinkedIn:

• Go to Profile> Edit Profile
• Click Add a Current Position OR Add a Past Position (Both work)

href="http://cdn.entrepreneurs-journey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LinkedInEnterTheProjects.png"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7459" title="LinkedInEnterTheProjects" src="http://cdn.entrepreneurs-journey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LinkedInEnterTheProjects.png" alt="" width="560" height="307" />

Your List A. will work as the Title, and Your List B will be the Company Name.

• Enter one of your projects from List B as “Company Name”
• Enter your key phrase from List A as your “Title”
• Enter the Time Period when you did this project (Make sure you enter some of your projects that you are CURRENTLY working on. LinkedIn will list them as current in your profile which helps in ranking)
• Description is not required

href="http://cdn.entrepreneurs-journey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LinkedInEnterTheProjects2.png"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7460" title="LinkedInEnterTheProjects2" src="http://cdn.entrepreneurs-journey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LinkedInEnterTheProjects2.png" alt="" width="560" height="333" />

Repeat this step for all the projects from List B.

Results – Ranked #1

Here are Craig’s rankings for the keywords:

#1 Video Editor /> #1 Multimedia Production /> #1 Videographer /> #1 Small Business Marketing /> #6 Video Production

Impressive, right?

I hope this tutorial has inspired you to take action. No action no results.

Aziz Ali

/>

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