The most successful businesspeople that I have researched for several of my books are truly competitive souls – sometimes to a fault. Their competitive spirit fuels and drives the way they think, the way they act, and certainly the way they react. To others, they may appear to be people with a high level of passion.
The most powerful characteristic I’ve noticed about the super-competitive is that they think longer and harder about their challenge. They are hyper-focused on what matters to get the win and care less about what they consider to be irrelevant details. And that focus may be precisely why they win more often.
If you ask them, most competitive souls I know will say that they are not reaching their potential – even if they’ve reached goals that others only dream of. Someone who is not driven by winning and greatness may feel they have reached their best or good enough. Competitive people can usually point to someone who is doing more, helping more, or winning more.
Competitiveness does not come from your boss telling you to work harder or try harder to win. Competitiveness is something self-imposed, powered by the comparison to others and the desire to be the best or number one. In some cases, people are born with this spirit, and in others, they develop it.
My son, since he was a little boy, has had a desire to win. He had to win in the game Candyland, be the first one in line for the bus every single day, the first one in the car, and the leader on our bike rides. Any normal situation was an opportunity for him to be first or win. Today he’s a teenage hockey player and his desire to win fires his play. Sometimes this fire looks ugly and can be viewed as overly emotional. There is no doubt that there is an ugly side to competition, but I do believe that competitiveness is not well-understood by those who are not nearly as concerned with winning.
So does competitiveness determine success? Not always, of course, but I would say competitiveness often determines success.
Where is your competitive spirit? Are you passionate? Do you want to be number one in your firm or your industry?
Some people have given up on the dream. Some never thought they could achieve it. Some are burnt out. Some are still working and fighting fueled by their competitive spirit. Where do you fall in line?
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Guest blog by Loic Jeanjean, Director of Sales and Web Marketing, at Advisor Websites.
Years of SEO collaboration with financial services professionals has taught me one thing: Link building has to be the most challenging part of internet marketing plans for financial advisors. Not only is it an intricate mechanism to understand, but also an even harder thing to do effectively.
Unlike creating content for websites, researching keywords, defining a social media plan and starting a blog, which can be achieved and controlled by any web savvy business owner, link building success is time consuming, depends on carefully crafted marketing plans and involves the participation of third party individuals that are out of one’s control.
Why do you need to build links?
It is inbound links (external websites linking to your site) that contribute the most to the increase in traffic and the success of your search engine optimization plan.
Good links?
For those who have been reading about link building, you’ve surely come across the following terms:
‘anchor text‘ or ‘authoritative site’
What do these words mean? Both contribute in the value and power of an inbound link, let’s see how:
- Anchor text – This is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. It can be optimized by displaying a keyword phrase, which will help your site to rank high when someone does a search for your keyword phrase in their preferred search engines. Financial Advisor Websites is an example of a good link, we want to rank high because this is what we specialize in.
- Authoritative sites – Search engines attribute a higher value to links coming from high authority / high trust domain such as DMOZ, Wikipedia, Yahoo! Directory etc. Therefore, the same link as above coming from a little known website would have less impact in our ranking than if it was coming from a popular website like Adobe.com or Cnet.com.
How can you get good links?
Let’s look into what makes a good link building strategy. First of all, we need to understand the different kind of links available and what are the different techniques and methods that we’ve seen succeeding.
Before we go further, you should have a tight keyword strategy defined; you should also have your website pages optimized with these keyword phrases and finally, you should know which pages need to rank high in the search engines.
Links that you can build yourself
As I mentioned before, there are 3 different kinds of links you can expect to build around your website. This first set requires little time investment and research.
These links can be built around online business directories where you can simply submit your domain url, company name, description of your business and sometimes a set of keywords. Some might charge a fee for submission or take some time to be approved. You should definitely submit your site to Yahoo! Directory, Aboutus.org, Dmoz, Joe Ant, Bestoftheweb just to name a few.
You can also create a company profile on most social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or social bookmarking websites. They are usually free and can allow your target audience to find you on their favorite social site.
If you or one of your employees is particularly good at writing articles, you should definitely submit relevant content in the form of articles, news and press releases to major syndication websites. At that stage, you might want to hire a PR or SEO firm to facilitate the process for you. If done the right way, this will increase your exposure and increase your ranking for the keywords contained in your content.
Links coming from your networking efforts
These links will demand a great deal of patience and will rely on your ability to build relationships. The idea behind it is to be invited as a guest article author. First, you will have to network, engage, and mingle with people interested in the same topics as you. It’s a bit like self promotion but with a twist: you need to provide value as an incentive for others to link back to you.
I recommend reading lots of blogs talking about your industry, learning about the author, then commenting on their articles and when the time is right, engaging them in a 1 on 1 communication via email or Twitter for example. The links you will get from these articles will greatly contribute to your ranking and will likely generate a good deal of targeted visits.
Links coming from others
At this stage, you should have built a group of people willing to follow you. This is where the fun begins. You will have to concentrate on creating great articles, valuable information and engaging content. Focus you attention on growing your network, building stronger relationships and nurturing these connections, good links will naturally come your way.
Bio
Loic is the Director of Sales and Web Marketing at Advisor Websites. In this role, he is responsible for growing the client base, managing the strategic partnerships and distribution channels, and improving the brand awareness, three areas that are critical for the growth of Advisor Websites.
He is a proud member of the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) and received his Inbound Marketing Certificate with honors.
Connect with Loic on Twitter: @jjloic or by email: loic@advisorwebsites.com
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When you are reading a study published by a technology company on what technology does to our kids – do you believe it? When you hear a financial advisor talk about how extraordinary their services are – do you believe it? If a restaurant owner says they have the best food in town – do you believe it?
Often, the message isn’t believable until someone who has experienced it first-hand speaks up. This is a significant reason that messaging the value of a firm can be off kilter. The business owner knows that their business is as they say, and they expect others to just believe.
However, the kind of faith that we may have in our own business, as well as personal or spiritual lives, can be virtually non-existent in business. That’s why marketing is often ineffective and the reason that referrals and word-of-mouth are on the other end of the spectrum and so highly effective. But how do we do it?
We first have to stop assuming that people will just believe us at face value. But if we can’t share how great the firm is and all of the value we provide through our marketing and messaging, who will? Unfortunately, in the financial services industry, the use of testimonials is not allowed so reviews and written comments from clients will not work. However, that doesn’t stop a referral campaign from working. If you want people to spread information about you, it is most effective when someone else has control of the message – not you. But therein lies the problem. If you provide just “good” service, no one talks. It is only when we provide terrible or extraordinary service that people will speak up about what you do.
When was the last time you changed up your client account review? Changed the order, changed the location, and most important, changed your verbiage. During the meeting, consider asking your client why they are working with you and what they like the most. Get them to start telling the story and ask them to share with others.
Sometimes the only believable voice is someone who has witnessed it first-hand – so ask those first-hand clients to share your story.
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Guest blog by Loic Jeanjean, Director of Sales and Web Marketing, at Advisor Websites.
When it comes to search engine optimization, having high quality unique content is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Not only will it benefit your website’s overall performance but also will showcase professionalism and provide valuable information to your visitors.
Latest studies suggest that Google top 10 websites have on average 943 words per page while Yahoo’s average words per page is 1305 (GoRank.com). This illustrates why businesses operating high performing websites consider rich and targeted content one of their top SEO priorities. This brings us to this conclusion:
“The richer your content, the higher your chances to improve your ranking on the search engines.”
Remember that your web copy has to be unique on every page. You might have some of your products that are really similar and think it’s okay to duplicate the content. Or perhaps your competitor (who is already ranking high on Google) has some great content that would fit nicely on your website. Either way, this would only hinder your changes to achieve your goals and could potentially damage your reputation with your clients.
It would be hard to highlight all of the good reasons why quality content is crucial in one article, so here are the top two:
Engage your visitors
You have probably heard this before, however I cannot stress this more. Great content is a vehicle for customer engagement. Whether you are running a blog, starting your social media campaign or looking to increase your website ranking, keep your readers/clients entertained, informed and at the center of your copy. By following this simple rule, you guarantee yourself great customer interaction, which will ultimately benefit your overall SEO results.
To read more about copywriting, you can visit ExcessVoice or CopyBlogger. Both websites have great articles, tip and resources for online copywriting and website content writing. You can also search for local workshops or if your budget allows it, hire a professional writer.
Get Quality Links
Inbound links are one of the most influential factors in search engine results and high ranking. This is particularly true when these links come from trusted and established websites. These are usually referred as authoritative domains, and Google or Yahoo will rank your pages really high if these domains link to your website.
How do you get these websites to link to your pages?
By making sure your content is engaging enough that your visitors feel it could be of value to others. Social media sites such as Digg, De.licio.us, Reddit, and Stumbleupon allow your audience to bookmark your pages, share them among their friends or submit excerpts to aggregator sites. These websites will syndicate your content and make it available to a massive pool of readers.
What are the results?
Your visitors are working for you, contributing to the optimization of your website and the increase of your products and services exposure.
Bio
Loic is the Director of Sales and Web Marketing at Advisor Websites. In this role, he is responsible for growing the client base, managing the strategic partnerships and distribution channels, and improving the brand awareness, three areas that are critical for the growth of Advisor Websites.
He is a proud member of the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) and received his Inbound Marketing Certificate with honors.
Connect with Loic on Twitter: @jjloic or by email: loic@advisorwebsites.com
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If your clients are not talking about how great you are – perhaps, just perhaps, they don’t recognize all that you do for them. If a client has been working with a financial advisor for a few years, do they recognize all the above and beyond activities that are being done for them or do they consider it just regular service? Do your clients know how unique you are compared to the competition? Do they have something interesting to tell their friends and colleagues about what you do?
I was on a flight to Atlanta earlier this week and the pilot came on the loudspeaker and told us all to look out the right side of the plane at the “absolutely magnificent view of the city of Atlanta tonight!” I fly a decent amount and have seen skylines of cities at night before and I downplayed the pilot’s comments. But, because of how excited he was and because he kept on talking about the view, I looked. He was right! The view really was magnificent on this night! Without the pilot saying something I would have glanced but not recognized the great view because it is almost commonplace for a regular traveler. Not this night, and not anymore for me. The pilot brought the magnificent view to my attention, and he was right.
How does this equate to business? In business, we often do the great job we’ve always been doing without boasting about it to the clients we serve. But it actually makes good sense to share what you do with clients every once in a while. They may start paying attention to how great you are … and maybe even tell others about it. As Bonnie Raitt said – we’ve got to “give ‘em something to talk about!” And sometimes that’s as easy as sharing with your clients what you have done and will be doing!
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Guest blog by Loic Jeanjean, Director of Sales and Web Marketing, at Advisor Websites.
Keywords placed and inserted within your website can greatly increase your ranking on search engines providing that you have brainstormed the phrases and placed them strategically on your site. In this article, you will find valuable resources to get you started on search engine optimization (SEO).
Density
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo! Or Bing use keyword density in order to attribute a theme to a website, categorize it and define the terms the site is relevant to. This is a crucial part of your SEO campaign as the perfect keyword density will greatly increase your site ability to rank higher and get better search engine positions. ”Keyword stuffing” is a common mistake and is against Google Webmaster Guidelines, it will result in your website getting flagged and removed from search engine results. The other side of the spectrum (low density) will hinder your chances to get the optimum benefit; therefore it is important to balance your keyword density correctly.
How to brainstorm for keywords
1. Concept
Start with thinking what your target market or subject matter is and/or what are the products and services you want to showcase. Select 3-5 main words that will represent your theme.
2. List combinations
Try to think what phrase or words your client could use to find information on your product/subject and write down as many combinations as possible. For the financial advisors out there, try “mutual funds”, “mutual fund returns” and “investment fund performance.” Bear in mind that not every phrase is going to rank high for your website due to the competition on some keywords, thus the importance of coming up with as many ideas as possible during the brainstorming process.
3. Check out your competitors
Enter your list of keywords and phrases in your preferred search engine and see if any of your competitors appear on the 1st result page under each of your search terms. This will give you a great idea on how easy or hard it will be for your site to rank high. This is also a great opportunity to use online tools (Compete – http://www.compete.com/, Semrush – http://www.semrush.com/, Google Search Insights – http://www.google.com/insights/search/#) to find out what other businesses are putting on their websites, learn more about your competition and discover other ways your clients might be finding the information they seek.
4. Choose unique phrases
To focus the results directly on your website, consider building unique phrases under the keywords you’ve decided to use. Try something like “learn about mutual funds dividend” or “get recommendations on mutual fund performance.” Your goal is to be as specific as possible and make sure that these phrases will be unique so that all that web traffic arrives on your site and not your competitor.
5. Useful Free Online Resources
Google Sets: automatically create sets of keywords from items in a set
Google Adwords Keyword Tool: use this tool to get new keywords ideas based on your phrases or website content (your competitor anyone?)
How to use your keywords
You’ve brainstormed for keywords, and now have a list of 15-20 phrases that should work great for your website. Now it is time to define where you will be inputting these.
There are quite a few different places that keywords can go on your page. The most common places are:
• In your page titles (each page should have a unique title)
• Within your copy content
• In the headlines and subheadings (h1, h2, etc.)
• In your links anchor text
• In your meta tags, meta keywords and meta description
• In your image alt tags
Try to diversify your action and place different keywords in each place and remember not to stuff them everywhere.
Bio
Loic is the Director of Sales and Web Marketing at Advisor Websites. In this role, he is responsible for growing the client base, managing the strategic partnerships and distribution channels, and improving the brand awareness, three areas that are critical for the growth of Advisor Websites.
He is a proud member of the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) and received his Inbound Marketing Certificate with honors.
Connect with Loic on Twitter: @jjloic or by email: loic@advisorwebsites.com
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Is it better to focus time and energy to get one project effectively generating leads and new business? Or will you see more results by dividing your time and energy switching between 10 different projects simultaneously to enhance your marketing?
Did you know that multitasking doesn’t actually work to increase your productivity? The more projects we start and the more marketing we throw out there – often the less productive it all becomes.
And with multitasking in general, the thought is that because we are so busy we almost have to do more than one thing at a time to accomplish the growing list of activities that pull on our limited time. The facts prove, however, that although we feel we are getting more done, we are actually causing ourselves more work. Here are a few studies that may surprise you about how multitasking actually has inverse effects on productivity (and even makes you less intelligent!)
When we multitask, (i.e. try to perform two or more related tasks at the same time or by alternating rapidly between them) errors greatly increase. That is according to a study done by David Meyer, the Director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan. The result is, according to this study, that it takes far longer to get the jobs done than if the tasks were done sequentially.
A Harvard Business Review post says that multitasking leads to as much as a 40% drop in productivity, increased stress, and a 10% drop in IQ (Bergman, 2010). Now that’s scary!
A 2009 study at Stanford, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at 100 students who multitask during the day with all their technology, the internet, school work, classes, etc. What they found was that the more the students multitasked, the worse they performed.
The attention span is 17 seconds today, and that means that no one is paying attention to anyone or anything for very long. Let’s bring focus back and I bet we will also see an increase in desired results – especially in our marketing. But it will not be an easy task since distraction and multitasking are standard operating procedure. What can you do to change it?
(I have to admit I did some multitasking while I wrote this blog. I’m working on focus too!)
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Guest blog by Loic Jeanjean, Director of Sales and Web Marketing, at Advisor Websites
A blog is a tool designed to build community around your unique skills, ideas and areas of expertise. It’s a place where you can showcase your personality, passions, interests, and allow your visitors/clients to share your stories onto their social networks. Give you access to 10,0000+ of potential readers!
In order to succeed, one advisor must have a desire to build a community of readers and ambassadors, a compelling story to share and a commitment to educate its visitors.
Here are 10 tips to get you started and stay motivated:
- Talk to your compliance team and find out what you can or cannot do while blogging. (remember that archiving your content is a must)
- Plan out a solid content strategy (unique and valuable content that speaks to your target market)
- Be passionate. Nobody talks about boring businesses
- Focus on content that is actionable (i.e how to’s) Your client want to be educated and learn something new
- Encourage conversation by responding to every comment, good or bad
- Empower your readers to share your articles on social media (use social media buttons like Share on Facebook, Tweet this etc.. or “subscribe by email” widgets)
- Promote it constantly using social media
- Be consistent and update frequently (at least once a week). Businesses that blog at least 20 times per month generate 5 times more traffic than those that blog fewer than 4 times per month (HubSpot study)
- Have a solid SEO strategy (research which keywords are important to target, focus on long tail keyword phrases, which are less competitive)
- Review your analytics and write content accordingly (learn what content people respond to)
Blogging is arguably one of the most powerful tool available to financial advisors to differentiate themselves from the noise and build their own community of qualified prospects.
Bio
Loic is the Director of Sales and Web Marketing at Advisor Websites. In this role, he is responsible for growing the client base, managing the strategic partnerships and distribution channels, and improving the brand awareness, three areas that are critical for the growth of Advisor Websites.
He is a proud member of the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) and received his Inbound Marketing Certificate with honors.
Connect with Loic on Twitter: @jjloic or by email: loic@advisorwebsites.com
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“Likes” are the new referrals. If you have 100+ people who “like” your Facebook business page, it adds credibility to your firm. In fact, your “likes” are similar to a testimonial, endorsement, and even a referral. If someone thinks enough of you to connect with you, they are also telling others how they feel – at least on the surface. Conversely, if you have 2 people who “like” you it tells a different story and may have an inverse effect on your credibility.
So, while you are scheduling out your content calendar for all of the valuable posts you will disseminate on social media, determine how you will first get followers to read the posts. There are some simple ways to begin building your audience quickly. Develop a campaign through Facebook‘s Build Audience tab. Send an email out to your connections, clients and alliances telling them about your page and the value they will receive if they connect. In other words… tell people!
Your followers will not only be able to enjoy your posts, they will give you credibility amongst those who are searching for you or your company. It‘s a win-win – “like” it or not!
To connect with Red Zone Marketing’s Facebook page filled with weekly posts on what’s working in marketing: http://www.facebook.com/rzmarketing.
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TSA seems to follow, not lead. When going through airport security, the entire dance the TSA makes passengers go through seems to be a reaction to the actions of someone in the past. They may be looking at what is happening next, but most of their efforts don’t appear very proactive in protecting us.
Shoes come off because of a shoe bomber. Liquids must be in 3 oz containers and stuffed into a 1 quart clear, plastic bag because of explosive fluids one person carried. It makes sense why they would take protective measures to try and prevent these situations from happening again, but from the outside, they sure don’t look like they are leading.
Being in the lead is what will catapult us to the next level. Being in the lead may be the one thing we can do to protect us from our competitors who also want to be in the lead. Thinking outside the box of “business as usual,” I believe, is the quickest path to helping us prepare for what is next. What are the new ways you will conduct business this year? Will you introduce a new product, a new service model, or develop a dramatically improved web presence?
The TSA may be leading in ways that we don’t know – but they are not necessarily a progressive, service-oriented business we want to emulate. To lead or to follow? It is much easier to follow. It is groundbreaking to lead.
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