New FTC Rules and Guidelines – The Death of Affiliate Programs Has Been Exaggerated But Not By Much
I thought I was almost ready for the new FTC guidelines that go into effect on Dec. 1, 2009 until I listened to an interview between internet marketer, Jim Edwards, and Mr. Rich Cleveland, Assistant Deputy at the FTC.
After listening to it and taking notes, I realized that I needed to make more changes to my website if I wanted to stay off the FTC radar. And I needed to let you know about the highlights as well.
This article is about some of those changes and how they will affect coaches and consultants. It will also address some issues that weren’t covered or answered during my teleseminar in October on the new FTC Rules and Guidelines. In case you missed my FTC teleseminar, you can download the MP3 here: http://www.essdreamteam.com/ftc-offer.php.
This blog series will give you the highlights: Read the rest of this entry »
Websites for Coaches – The Cost of Doing It Yourself verses Hiring a Web Designer
Heather sends us this question following our recent SEO for Coaches class.
I designed my site on Homestead and am still working on it. Needless to say I do want to get a Wordpress.org based site because of what I’ve learned the last year. But after putting endless hours into the existing site, I haven’t been able to stomach yet the ambitious task of starting over.
I have an estimate from an agency to rebrand and redo my entire site & keywords on a wordpress.org site, but I’m comparing that cost to just doing it myself since I have a design background and I’m certain I could figure it out.
In the meantime, I wanted to ask if you are familiar with the Thesis WordPress theme? Is it the optimal one to choose for SEO?
Also, are you available for keyword consultation for my existing site in the interim & to implement them? Or in your opinion, is that just a waste of time and $ at this point?
Answer:
Heather, I haven’t worked with Thesis, but I’ve worked with similar type themes. It does appear to be an easy DIY solution and many of these themes do have plugins to help with SEO. And I’ve no doubt that you could figure it out and build one yourself. Obviously doing a site yourself seems like a smaller investment than hiring a professional web design company to do it for you.
But is it really? Read the rest of this entry »
New FTC Rules and Guidelines – When to Use “Material Connection” Disclosures
The FTC has announced some major changes to their advertising rules regarding testimonials and endorsements. And one of the biggest changes has to do with the importance of disclosing any “material connection” between the advertiser and the endorser.
In this article we’ll look at how this applies to coaches and consultants and give you a better understanding of what “Material Connection” means.
How Does This Apply to Coaches and Consultants?
To rephrase this in layman terms, you need to let people know of any relationship between you the coach or consultant (advertiser) and the person who gives you a testimony (endorser) about your services or programs. And the disclosure should be put with the testimonial, either within it or right below it.
New FTC Rules and Guidelines – The Problem with the New Testimonial Rules
One of the FTC examples covered during our recent teleseminar on the new FTC rules and guidelines concerned the new “expected results” guidelines for testimonials.
I thought the example read and discussed during the call was a good model. But it still leaves a lot of unanswered questions for some about what qualifies as “expected results.”
In this article, I’ll address one of those problems and suggest a couple of solutions, especially applicable for coaches and consultants.
The Issue
For those of you just joining us, the FTC says that ads must clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect when using the product or service.
The FTC example read is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
New FTC Rules and Guidelines – Why Do I Need Legal Statements On My Website?
Linda Joseph and I had an incredible teleseminar Thursday night about the new FTC rules and guidelines. If you were with us live on the call, you know that it was 1 hour packed with lots of strategies and tips to help you understand what the new rules were all about.
If you weren’t able to join us, you can still get your copy of the call recording here:
http://www.essdreamteam.com/ftc-offer.php
We invited you to email us your questions at the end of the call, and we’ve had great response. I’m sharing those questions with all of you through this blog so that everyone can benefit from the discussion. (Please note that there is no legal advice being dispensed on this website.)
One of the questions was, “Why do I need legal statements on my website?”
At the end of the teleseminar, I recommended a set of legal statements written by attorneys to help you stay compliant with the new FTC rules. Because of the new FTC rules, almost everyone will need to have certain disclaimers and disclosures on their website.
If you are in business online, then you really do need to stay compliant with the current rules and regulations. Otherwise you risk losing everything if the FTC comes after you with a lawsuit.
Even in a best case scenario where you didn’t do anything wrong, you’ll have to take hours of your time to deal with the FTC and possibly hire an attorney to represent you and your company.
Lead Generation – Make Your Offer Irresistible to Your Ideal Client
Is your website generating all the leads you can handle?
If not, you’ll want to have an opt-in box on your website that collects names and email addresses in exchange for a free offer, such as a report, checklist, or audio.
These opt-in boxes allow you to automate your lead generation so that you’re building a list of highly qualified prospects 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The large majority of websites online today don’t do this, or they don’t do it well. As a result, I often hear coaches and consultants say, “No one is signing up for my free offer. How can I build my list faster?”
In this lead generation article series, I want to give you several easy tips you can use to get more highly qualified prospects faster and easier.
In a previous article, I discussed the importance of clearly defining your ideal client.
The tip in this article follows up on that and focuses on the offer itself.
Tip - Make Your Offer Irresistible to Your Ideal Client
Lead Generation Tip – Know Your Ideal Client
Those of you who follow my blog and newsletter already know that I am a BIG proponent of collecting the names and email addresses of your website visitors. You get that information by making them an irresistible offer: a free report, checklist, audio, or video.
This lets you automate your lead generation process so that you’re building a list of highly qualified prospects 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The large majority of websites online today don’t do this, or they don’t do it well. As a result, I often hear coaches and consultants say, “No one is signing up for my free offer. What’s wrong? How can I build my list faster?”
In this series on lead generation, I’ll give you several easy tips you can use to get more highly qualified prospects faster and easier.
Tip - Know who your ideal client is.
Help! I Don’t Know What to Write - Part 4 of 4
Here we are in the final part of generating unlimited ideas and content for your article writing. As a service professional who is an expert in your field, you will love how easy this is to do and how powerful it is at helping you.
Step 3. Go deep like an ocean, not shallow like a pond.
Most people run out of things to write about because they keep their writing on a superficial level. After all, articles are only 300-800 words long. There’s only so much you can say on a subject with that kind of a limit.
The secret to always having something to write about is to go in-depth on a topic that is extremely narrow.
For example, you might write an article titled, “How to Organize Your Home in 15 Minutes A Day.” This would be a broad topic article that would give some general tips anyone could use.
On the other hand, if you were going to write in-depth, the article might have a title like “Organize Your Tool Box in 15 Minutes and Never Lose Another Tool Again.”
How many in-depth articles on home organization do you suppose an expert could write? Think about all the rooms in a home and the different closets, drawers, and furniture in each room. There are hundreds of articles on this topic alone.
Don’t be concerned about repetition. Why? Because what you see as repetition, others see as reinforcement.
Yes, they may go through the same steps whether they organize their bathroom drawer or kitchen drawer. But the items they organize in the drawer will be different.
The person who needs help won’t mind if some of the same information is in more than one article. In fact, they will appreciate it. Most people need repetition whenever learning a new topic or skill.
Look at the topic list you just created in step 2. Make a hierarchy list so you can clearly see the different levels of depth that you can write about. Using the above example, the list might look like this:
1. Organize home and yard
2. Organize home
3. Organize garage
4. Organize garage storage
5. Organize garage tool box
Think about how you can apply this to the topic list you just created in step 2 of this exercise. Start writing down ideas for your articles.
Here’s a tip. Don’t worry about coming up with catchy titles for the articles when making your list. That can be done later. For now, just make a list of all the in-depth topics you can discuss or questions you can easily answer.
And the next time you find yourself thinking, “Help! I Don’t Know What to Write,” just pull out your list and answer one of the questions. It’s that simple. When you finish the first list, do the exercise over again and start a new list.
If you’ve found this article helpful, please leave a comment and let me know. Or send a tweet and let others know as well.
