I was just like all the other clueless nerdy webmasters.

I could whip up a website in no time at all.

I even used the vi editor (geeks will appreciate this) to whip up dynamic websites with massive backends before the days of WordPress.

Coding has always been FUN for me… Like I said, I’m a nerd!

Back in the early days of the Internet, all you needed was a working website to get clients.  You didn’t have to know anything about marketing.

NOT ANYMORE!

I didn’t understand marketing back then.  I was STUPID!

I cringe when I think about all the clients that passed on my service.

I started reading marketing books and talking with so called “experts” but nothing seemed to work.  I had to figure it out on my own.

Most website companies and webmasters still have no clue about marketing. Most of them know how to build a fancy looking website and they certainly know how to charge you outrageous amounts of money. They even know how to convince you that it is worth it with all of the bells and whistles they put on your site… But who gives a RIP how fancy your website is if it doesn’t generate leads, get clients, and make sales?

This is where all the other website companies and webmasters have absolutely NO CLUE.

I was the same way until I finally figured out online marketing. I’m not talking about all the latest “Website Marketing in a Box” products that all the so-called “Internet gurus” want to SELL you.

I’m also not talking about pushy selling or hyped sales pages.

I’m talking about the right way to market online.

It’s about giving your customers what THEY WANT!

I’m amazed at all of the latest whiz-bang websites I review that are clearly missing the boat and losing out on a lot of clients. If they only knew how to market to their target clients, they would be making sales.

Sure… You should have a good looking website, but that’s not enough…

Fancy looking websites don’t get customers.  Understanding your target customer and solving their problem does.

Is your website company or webmaster “stupid” when it comes to marketing?

Do you wish you were getting more leads and making more sales from your website?

Fill out the form at this link and I will review your website and let you know what can be done to get more leads and make more sales:

http://magratech.com/review-my-site/

I wasted way too much time by not marketing effectively.

I had to learn the hard way over several years…

Save time by taking advantage of my stupid mistakes by filling out this form:

http://magratech.com/review-my-site/

I don’t normally watch much TV since it sucks away too much of my valuable time.

However… I was walking through the living room the other day and my wife was watching Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice.

I caught the very tail end of it where they meet in the board room and after they discuss each team’s performance, Mr. Trump points at one of the members of the losing team and says those famous words…. “You’re Fired!”

Each team was given the task of creating a commercial for a chosen companies product line.

I don’t remember exactly what type of product it was.  But it doesn’t matter…  The mistake Donald Trump made would be wrong for any product.

The winning team’s video showed the product throughout the commercial.  Sometimes in the background and other times featured front and center.  The emphasis was on the product itself.

The losing team did not show the product until near the end of the commercial.

The amount of time the product was displayed in the commercial was the one thing that decided the winner and loser.

While seeing the product may help a little bit when it comes to branding, Donald Trump and the two teams on Celebrity Apprentice missed the point.  Their marketing was totally wrong when it comes to getting someone to buy a product.

People don’t want the product.  They want the RESULTS of the product.  - Tweet This Now

Think about it with me…

If you buy a stick of deodorant, you don’t really want the deodorant.  What you really want is to NOT STINK!

If you buy a book, you really don’t want the book.  In fact you probably don’t even want to read the book.  What you want is to know the information in the book… OR … you want the experience of the story as it unfolds.

When you buy the latest and greatest exercise bike, you don’t really want the bike.  You don’t even want to exercise.  What you really want is to be physically fit and look good.

On the Celebrity Apprentice as each team made their commercial, they should have focused on the customer’s results.

How are you marketing your products or service?

Are you spending all of your effort on features of your service instead of the results your clients are looking for?

Does your website have pages and pages explaining every nitty gritty detail about your product but virtually nothing about the benefits your clients will get?

It’s all about the results.

Your clients don’t really care about your product.  They want the results.

Most website designers have no idea how to make a website that gets clients and makes sales.  They just make a pretty site that costs you a lot of money.

If you want to me to help you get more clients and make more sales with a results focused website, fill out the form here:

http://magratech.com/get-started/

Putting an ad in the Yellow Pages use to be a way to get clients. Not any more…

Nobody uses the Yellow Pages any more… Unless they need a door stop.

So, how do you get traffic to your website to get new clients?

Is SEO the way to go?

What about Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube?

Should you buy ads on Google or other PPC networks?

So many choices…

It depends on your goals, how fast you want results, and the amount of time and money you want to invest.

Social media, paid advertising, and other back links are just the pathway to get people to your site. They are not ideal to convert someone into a client. That’s why you need your website as the hub – where you are in total control.

No matter which way you choose, you want your website to be the hub.  Every traffic source should lead your visitors to your website where you are in control. Once you have them on your site, you are in control of your marketing message. Then it is a matter of converting them into a client.

If you need help converting visitors into clients, we can take a look at your website and map out a custom plan for your website to save you time, get clients, and make sales.

Get started now by filling out this form:

http://magratech.com/get-started/

Facebook has quietly made some HUGE changes to their guidelines for Facebook page cover image.

They use to be very restrictive and wouldn’t allow a lot of good marketing techniques.  Some of these strategies are what marketers label as “Calls to Action”…  In other words, telling your visitors what to do.  Things like, “Call Us Now!” or “Like Our Page” – These use to NOT be allowed by Facebook.  In fact, the old restrictions did not allow you to put a website URL, phone number, or even a price on the cover image.  It was very disappointing for businesses and marketing experts…

But now…  All of that has changed.

Facebook has updated their guidelines and now these specific restrictions are no longer listed in the guidelines.  The main restriction now is that the text on the image must take less than 20% of the space on the cover image.  Other than that, you can pretty much put whatever calls to action you want (within reason obviously).

Go ahead and add your website URL.

Put a big and bold price on the image.

Tell your visitors to “Call Us Now at XXX-YYY-ZZZZ”.

Stick an obnoxious and ginormous arrow pointing to your LIKE button and tell them to “Like Our Page”.

Now You are free to do so…  Happy Marketing!  It’s about time…

If you need help setting up your Facebook page cover image or need help saving time, getting clients, and making sales, fill this out:

http://magratech.com/get-started/

You might hate what I’m about to say.

What I am about to tell you to do USE to drive me CRAZY…  However, I finally cured myself…

I use to be an online marketing robot. I was a technical perfectionist in my writing. I thought I had to be exactly accurate in everything I wrote. What a waste of time! I was even boring a lot of my clients and prospects because of it.

Whether replying to a client’s email or writing a blog post, I would spend hours making sure my words were all technically correct and my grammer was so proper that the Queen of England would be proud.  Unless your product is a how to guide on technical writing or a training class for English literature, you don’t need to spend a lot of time on perfect spelling or grammer.

The bottom line is you should be YOU! With all of your normal human imperfections. Let your true self show through in your communication with clients and prospects.

Write like you talk. Write an email or blog post the same way you would talk to be over a casual lunch. Would you worry about saying “Uhm” a few times? Would you use words like “y’all” and “yep” in our conversation?  You betcha… (See, I did it right there…)

Being perfect is robotic and boring. There is no personality in perfect grammer. Don’t be like an online marketing robot. Be yourself and your personality will shine through – especially without “fake” perfect grammer.

If you want more marketing tips for online marketing, grab my 10 Website Marking Steps to Save Time, Get Clients, and Make Sales by filling out the form on the right for your FREE GIFT.

If you want me to take a look at your website and see how it can be improved, fill this out:

http://magratech.com/get-started/

Here we go again…

Yes…  I asked for it.  I deserve it.

Google made another major change to their social media site – Google Plus.

I have been wanting Google to change the size of their cover image for Google+ pages.  It was always too small to really get enough information for good business branding for my clients.  Facebook’s cover image was a much better size for branding.  Finally, Google listened to my plea.  However, they went above and beyond making it larger.  They made it, well, GINORMOUS!  (I have no idea if that’s how you spell ginormous – it’s not really a real word anyway – so we will go with that)…

The cover image size can now be up to 2120×1192!  That is a lot to work with and more work on the designer (a.k.a. ME) to make good use of all that real estate.

In addition, depending on the size of the browser viewing the Google+ page and the page being viewed, the size of the image that is displayed can vary.

Now, the profile image is a circle overlayed on top of the image on the left with additional text info overlaid to the right of the profile image.  There is a bit of a dark gradient overlaid behind the profile image and text to give more of a contrast to the image behind it.  This means the cover image needs to not have any important information behind this overlay – because it won’t be seen well and will look bad.

The top portion of the cover image will not be displayed unless the visitor scrolls up to the top of the page.  So, this is more branding real estate that is “wasted” since it won’t be seen most of the time.  This leaves a center section of the cover image that is great for business branding information and the rest of the image just needs to be background filler (without important branding information).

So, Google has listened to the cry.  However, it makes more work on the designer.

The Google update is another strong reminder as a business owner as to why it is so important to have your own website that you can totally control.  Your business website needs to be the “hub” of your brand.  Everything else should lead your customers and prospects to your website.

What if Google decides to put a bunch of your competitor’s ads at the top of your Google+ page?   What if Facebook does the same?

Is your business immune to these possibilities?  If you rely on social media without a website as your “hub”, you are at their mercy.

Do you need a website “hub” for your business?  Do you want to be immune to social media site changes and updates that are out of your control?  Do you want someone else to manage your online presence for you?

If you do, fill out this form:

http://magratech.com/get-started/

Are you struggling to get new clients? Are the bills eating you alive? Do you feel like your business is going in the wrong direction?

Maybe your website needs a makeover.

Have you ever watched an extreme home makeover show?  You know… Where they take a family that is struggling and in a few days they transform their house into a mansion with all the bells and whistles you can imagine.  It’s a little known fact than many of the families that get these extreme home makeovers end up in foreclosure years after living in the mansion of their dreams.  The fancy makeover didn’t help their situation.

The same can be true of websites.  Simply having a pretty website with all the bells and whistled doesn’t increase revenue.

Most business websites are built by webmasters that are technical gurus but have no idea about building a website that actually brings in new business.  Without these 5 website makeover rules, your business can face certain death.

Here are 5 website makeover rules that can turn your business into a thriving revenue machine…

1. Stand Out

Emphasize why you are different.  Not why you are the same as everybody else.

2. Quickly grab attention and show how you can remove their pain

Visitors will instantaneously leave your site and go to a competitor site if you don’t agitate their pain quickly.

3. Show your value

Show why your product or service is better than everyone else’s.  Over deliver.  Give them a lot of reasons to choose you over your competition.

4. Capture the lead

Get their information.  Sometimes it is not enough to just have a contact us form or telephone number.  You need to get their email address so you can follow up with them and start building a relationship with them so when they are ready to buy, you are the first place they go.

5. Follow up

When you get their contact information, you need to follow up with them.  If you never follow up, you will never make the sale.  I’ts all about the relationship with your list.

Follow these 5 website makeover rules and avoid certain death of your business.

If you want a website makeover to implement these 5 steps and get clients and make sales, fill out this form:

http://magratech.com/get-started

I went to a local cupcake shop a few days ago to buy my wife some fancy gourmet cupcakes. After I selected several for my wife, I thought about getting a couple for myself to enjoy.

I asked for a discount on a second cupcake for half price after buying one (and the other half dozen that I already picked out).  The owner said they would not discount the second cupcake. So, getting any additional cupcakes was out of the question.

Paying 50 cents for cupcakes at my kid’s school bake sales is one thing – but $3!

$3 per cupcake in my book is way too much. 50 cents is more than enough for me to pay per cupcake.

I wanted to HAVE the cupcakes. I just didn’t want to BUY the cupcakes.

My “pain” threshold was 50 cents. Some people may have a “pain” threshold of 3 dollars. Others may not think twice about paying $10 per cupcake. The point is that there is a “pain” involved in spending money. You could even call it a “fear”.

How are you promoting your product or service on your website?

What is your focus?

If you are focusing on the product or service, you could be missing out on sales.  You need to be focusing on getting the customer to overcome their “fear” of paying for your product.

If their desire to have the benefits of your product or service overcomes their pain of paying for it, they will be ready to purchase.

Do you remember your first crush? Your first Sweetheart? Your first love?

Remember how excited you were? How you couldn’t think about anything else? Nothing would stop you from seeing that special someone…

Did you have a similar feeling when you started your business and launched your website? You felt like you had “arrived” and you were going to be the next big Internet success story and nothing was going to stop you…

How did that work out for you?

What happened?

You lost your excitement… You lost your motivation… You lost your drive…

It happens all the time. I’ve been there a few times myself.

It’s not a fun place… Sometimes you don’t even realize you are there…

Sometimes all it takes is a little jolt to get you going again.

Are you out of love with your website? Has it become stale and out of date over the past few months or years?

Maybe you just need a fresh overhaul of your website and some social media integration.

Social media can give you a jolt of energy every day when your clients are communicating with you on a regular basis. It is the fuel that businesses thrive on. After all, they are the reason you are in business… You give them what they want and they pay you. If you want to know what they want (and what they will pay you for), you need to be engaged with them and get their feedback.  They will let you know what they want. All you have to do is give it to them…

Listen to your clients… Engage them… If you do, you will regain your excitement, motivation, and drive…

Do you ever wonder how to effectively use Twitter hashtags to market your business better?  I’m sure you’ve seen them.  They are everywhere on Twitter.  They look something like this:

#AmericanIdol

#MagratechSale

Think of hashtags like a keyword that can be searched on to quickly find tweets related to a specific topic.

While they originated in Twitter, they are starting to become prevalent on other social media sites.

Hashtags can be very useful for promoting your business by using a unique hashtag in your tweets.  For instance, I could use #MagratechSale if we wanted to tweet about a sale we were having.  Then, anyone could search on that tag to see all tweets about it.

You can create and use any hashtag you want.  You don’t have to do anything special to “create” one.  All you do it type it in somewhere in your tweet.  You will want to use a unique one for specific things you are promoting for your business if you want to spread the word through your followers.  However, another big advantage of hashtags is that you can piggy-back off of other popular ones that are already being used.

Let’s say you were selling small business consulting services.  When you tweet about it, you could add the hashtag #SmallBusiness, #Consulting, or both.  Then, anyone that is following these hashtags or does a search on them will see your public tweet in their feed (even if they are not following you).  Do not to spam any particular popular hashtag – you can quickly get a bad reputation and do more harm that good to your business.

Hashtags can be used in very creative ways and can be very beneficial to any business that uses them properly to promote their business.