DISQUS

Hi Andrew

Good to meet you at the Wordpress get-together last night. For me, I guess I'm a "business blogger" - our website is one of our business' best marketing tools, and blogging is the best way to attract and engage our potential customers. But, as with the meeting last night, blogging has also become a way of meeting interesting people and making new friends!

Cheers, Jon

Thanks for the article, Michel, that's an excellent roundup.

One point re. the "duplicate content" thing. Make sure that you post an article to your own blog first, and that it has been indexed by the search engines (and then leave it a few days just to make sure), before you submit it elsewhere. That way Google knows that your site is the original source for the article.

Cheers, Jon

Happy Brithday Michel!

I turned 45 about a month ago... it just gets better! :-)

Cheers, Jon

Thanks Scott, that's a more interesting viewpoint than most of the articles I've read about Chrome.

Re. distribution - I wonder if Google will strike up deals to get Chrome pre-installed on new PCs (or on ISP setup disks). That seems to be the strategy they're pursuing in the mobile / cellphone market.

Cheers, Jon

From Jon's blog: Salon Promotions - Christmas retail product ideas

Must confess I hadn't even heard of Habari till I came across your blog (saw your sig on the Wordpress UK North mailing list).

Weighing up Drupal versus Wordpress for my next site, will have a look at Habari too

Cheers, Jon

Very useful article, thanks Michel

One thing I've found useful, under the heading of "How do they talk about it" is to spend time monitoring online forums, and other places where your potential customers hang out. It can also help in spotting "hungry crowds" before they show up in the keyword analysis tools.

Cheers, Jon

Thanks Jack, great to have all those resources listed in one post

For me, Technorati does well, despite a lot of criticism in the blogosphere recently. I've joined about 10 Blog/RSS directories but technorati sends most traffic and gives the most authorative backlinks (at the moment)

Cheers, Jon

<abbr>Jons last blog post..Your Salon Website - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics</abbr>

Thanks Jack, that's very useful to know

I only signed-up with FeedBurner about a month ago and am still trying to figure out what their stats mean! Maybe you could do a post on "How to interpret FeedBurner stats reports" ? :-)

Cheers, Jon

<abbr>Jons last blog post..Your Salon Website - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics</abbr>

You might want to check out the article "Don't let your CommentLuv be Stolen Away" which tells you how to adjust your FeedBurner settings so that CommentLuv links point direct to your blog, rather than to your FeedBurner account. It's at -

http://www.scratch99.com/2008/02/commentluv-ben...

HTH

Cheers, Jon

<abbr>Jons last blog post..Salons on TV - “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover” launches in USA</abbr>

Just a heads-up, John

The widget is not showing for me, either on this page, or in Google Reader. I'm using Firefox 2.0.1.6 (via broadband)

The bar at the bottom of my browser says "Transferring data from personalifemedia.com" - but it's been saying that for a couple of minutes

Cheers, Jon

Thanks Michel, that's very useful. I've read it 3 times and saved it to my desktop to read again!

Re. your White Paper on the Death of the Salesletter - I think articles like this are one of the reasons that those mega-scrolling salespages are getting less effective. There's more useful practical advice in this post than in many ebooks I've seen! I think the "anyone can do info-marketing" sector is shooting itself in the foot with all the low-quality copycat packages it is spawning - consumers are realising that, with a little searching, they can find better stuff (like this) for free

Cheers, Jon

Thanks Michel, that looks very useful.

I was wondering, have you, or any readers, found a plugin (or other way) to integrate Wordpress membership/registration (free or paid) with AWeber sign-up? So that the user just fills in one form and is seamlessly registered in WP and AWeber?

Thanks again, Jon

Hi Michel

Thanks for a very useful post (timely for me)... and thanks to the commenters who reminded me to revisit SPIN selling!

I don't know if you're familiar with NLP, there's a concept of "Towards Motivation" and "Away From Motivation" - where "Away from" is motivation to escape from something, "Towards" is motivation to achieve/get something.

When I'm coaching clients, highlighting the "Away from" is often a good way to help them take immediate action, but emphasising the "Towards motivation" tends to be more effective for long-term change in behaviour. "Away from" motivation tends to decrease as soon as the person starts moving away from the source of pain, whereas "Towards motivation" tends to increase as the person gets closer to the benefits they're seeking (excuse the generalisations).

Not sure if you can apply this to copywriting/selling, I guess it depends on what product/service you're selling, and what action you want the prospect to take?

Cheers, Jon

Thanks for a very interesting discussion. I've been Googling for a couple of days trying to find solutions! (I'm also looking at Drupal CMS, but again there doesn't seem to be a definitive solution for paid membership)

Just a note for the people who mentioned EasyPayPal. It now has a new site, and a recent release (22nd May 08) that may address some of the earlier problems - http://www.codeplex.com/easypaypal

Cheers, Jon