Michael Cheney - behind the I.M. curtain

It’s about an inch across by half an inch tall.  It’s quite innocuous and yet this silent killer reaps havoc every second of every day on your efforts to build your online empire.

What is it?

The DELETE key!

There comes a time in your efforts to market your website that you realise that it’s no longer enough to tell your family and friends to visit your website - you need to get some people who will pay you in cash rather than compliments.  You need to start approaching other website owners and start building an online network of contacts.

This is a crucial step to achieving online success.  I once read a quote that applied at the time to conventional ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses but it just as pertinent if not more so for online businesses:

"You will not be successful by being a cave dweller."

Kind of obvious but there are so many business owners that are cave dwellers.  Sitting in their offices staring at the phone day after day wondering why no new prospects ever phone them up.  You have to stand up, open the door and get out into the world and shout from the rooftops about your business.  If you’re online you need to do the same for your website.

One of the best ways to do this is to establish reciprocal links with other relevant websites.  But this is where Public Enemy No. 1 comes in - if you don’t know how to bypass it all your efforts to contact the website owners and establish links with them will be in vain.

Those nasty spam monsters that roam the web harvesting email addresses from all web pages and then bombarding them with member enlargement hormones and get rich quick schemes have made it hard for you. 

If you decide to try and email a website owner using the email address they make publicly available on their website you’re already fighting an uphill battle.  That email address is likely to be going through some form of spam filtering and if your email subject to this person has even a whiff of canned ham about it you’ll be in that Trash Can quicker than you can say "$1million Ebay secrets".

So, what’s the answer?

Well, for starters - don’t be tempted to use software to do your links work for you.  People like people.  Not robots.  Do your own dirty work.  Also - try and find the name of the website owner and use that in your email to them.

One of the best ways to overcome the dreaded Delete Key when you are contacting website owners though is to use their online contact form.  When they receive an email via the form they have on their website they know that a real, living, actual human being has filled it in and not some spam monster - hence - they’re more likely to read it.

Good luck!

I had some great emails waiting for me in my Inbox today.

The first was from Jay Conrad Levinson - Author of the best-selling marketing series in the world (ever!) "Guerilla Marketing".  He had this to say about The Website Marketing Bible:

“High five Mike! Your bible is superb! The world needs to read it and learn from it. Good going!” - Jay Conrad Levinson

You can learn more about Jay and his work here:
http://www.gmarketing.com

I also received an email from Al Ries, the best-selling Author of "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” and "Marketing Warfare". Here’s what he had to say:

“I thought your book was terrific. Loaded with helpful information. I particularly liked the emphasis you place on "interactivity" and the need for constant updating.” - Al Ries

You can find out more about Al here:
http://www.ries.com

These guys are both heavyweights in the world of marketing so it was brilliant to get this feedback from them.  They are long-established authors so it was great to know they valued the book.

The ‘Bible’ release is really gathering momentum now and in the next few days I will be issuing an announcement to the media about the book as well. Exciting times!

www.chipotle.com

Good? Bad? Designed by the criminally insane? 

All of the above?

Just thought I would share folks.  Here to serve, as always.

I was speaking to someone today that expressed doubts about having the dreaded "external links" on their website.

Stop the press!  The Internet is all about being INTER-connected with others via a NETwork, go figure!

Okay - so nobody likes to have screeds of links on their website directing people to competitors but it doesn’t have to be like this people!  There is another way!

I think people get so caught up in the fear of linking to other people because they are always thinking of this game from their point of view instead of from someone else’s.

Hey - if everyone adopted the policy of not having links to other websites on their own site we wouldn’t have an Internet at all - just billions of lonely, isolated and sad islands of web-wasteland rolling across the ether…  just the thought of it sends shivers down my spine!

So come one - snap out of it and get your head around the fact that establishing links with relevant, high-quality, non-competing websites is a crucial part of building your online empire..

Yes - with nothing but a ‘tippety-tap’ from my keyboard I’m squeezing out my first blog..

I have finally given in to the tidal wave of public pressure and joined Bloggers’ Anonymous!

WARNING!!

My mind is a weird and wonderful place and when nobody else will listen to me - you are going to cop for it by tuning in here.

Got some time to spare? Why not while away those hours at work with this nifty game:

www.boringboringboring.com