Author Archives: Trevor Dumbleton

Making Yourself Clear on Your Website

Clarity helps: people need to know what to do. Life’s too short to read the instruction manual on everything we encounter – even if you could find where the instruction manual has been hidden because although one’s been created, no-one ever really reads it.

Websites are no exception to this.

If a website is too confusing, you’re more likely to click the “back” button than you are to spend time working out what to do next.

New websites are especially bad at making themselves clear – the team are so engrossed in their concept and think that everyone will “get” what they’re offering just from a few icons and maybe a 30 second video.

I encountered more than one site like that when I was looking for a podcast platform. The sites maybe told me that I could upload an audio (d’oh!) and after that I was expected to sign up. Often without a hint of pricing or the different offerings.

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Doing the Same Thing and Getting Different Results

In theory, doing the same thing and expecting different results is silly.

There’s a quote (often wrongly attributed to Benjamin Franklin) that says doing that is the definition of insanity.

But the rate things change on the internet it’s often the case that something you did last week or last year gets totally different results even if you’re doing the same thing as you’ve always done.

For instance, if you’re still using MySpace rather than Facebook your audience will have dropped along with the relative usage of the sites.

And if you’re unfortunate enough to be a website designer then you’ll know that you haven’t changed your code but the browser you’re using has done so and your nicely designed page is now broken. You’ve done the same things you’ve always done but you’ve got different results and maybe even a few sleepless nights whilst you fix stuff that shouldn’t need fixing.

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Using a Pattern Interrupt to Reboot Your Mind and Get Unstuck

Our minds follow patterns and use short cuts all the time. Otherwise we’d have to re-learn what doors and other things were each time we encountered one. And we’d have to go back to our text books to find out how grammar worked every time we spoke. Which, on second thought, could be useful for some people online but that’s another discussion entirely.

Pattern interrupts help us reboot our mind when we need to.

In much the same way as Windows needs rebooting to clear the junk out of its storage that’s been left lying around by programs like Firefox that habitually leak into its memory as well as other processes that should have ended but are still running. Our minds do the same thing.

Usually “what if” questions for all sorts of possible outcomes that could happen but almost certainly won’t.

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Podcast: How to Promote a Band Online

This post wasn’t planned. If you’d asked me this time yesterday if I’d be talking about how to promote a band online, I’d have shrugged off the idea.

But then something changed.

I recently bought a product about using Soundcloud for podcasting and there was a follow-up Google Hangout that I joined.

I thought the Hangout was going to be Justin talking about how to use Soundcloud. And it kind-of was. But it also turned into an interview which – as you can see from the video – I wasn’t exactly prepared for (not that I’d use a makeup artist but the webcam wasn’t fantastically set up either.

But one thing led to another and Justin asked how I’d promote a band…

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Long Tail Keywords vs LSI Keywords: What’s the Difference?

Buzzwords are used everywhere in almost every market.

In internet marketing, long tail keywords and LSI keywords are mentioned lots and are often used interchangeably.

But what’s the difference between them?

And – always assuming there is a difference – does it matter?

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Do You Need an Internet Marketing Coach?

The question of whether or not you need an internet marketing coach gets raised all the time.

Maybe you do.

Maybe you don’t.

Much depends on where you are with your internet marketing.

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Are You an Unpaid Intern in Your Internet Marketing Business?

An internship is on the job training – it used to be called work experience when I was younger.

The logic behind being an intern is that you get the necessary experience in whatever (usually white collar) job you’ve got the internship in and can then use that experience to get a paid job in the future.

Some internships are paid but a lot aren’t.

If you’re paying out more for your internet marketing than you’re bringing in. Or if you’re getting paid well below the minimum wage for your internet marketing endeavours then, at best, you’re an intern in your own business.

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How to Promote your Local Business for Free

Promoting your local business doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.

In fact, some of the best ways to promote your business are free or cheap because they don’t scream “advert” to your potential customers.

With a bit of spare time you can use these ways to promote for free – set aside a bit of time each business day to do this and you’ll start to get more leads and enquiries from the internet.

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How to Overcome Internet Marketing Information Overload

It’s easy to reach overload levels with internet marketing.

Everyone expects you to join their list and buy their products.

The products themselves are often big – PDFs that are anything from a handful of pages through to 100’s of pages; audios and videos (one “small” product I bought the other day had 18, admittedly short, audios and videos); hour-long webinars; weekly or monthly training.

Then there are the emails you receive, the forums you read and other sources of information.

It doesn’t leave much time to do the internet marketing that actually stands a chance of earning you some cash.

So how can you overcome internet marketing information overload?

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Are You a Perpetual Student in Your Internet Marketing?

A perpetual student is someone who’s forever learning but rarely (if ever) putting their learning into practice.

Perpetual students are everywhere: our education system encourages it with ever higher qualifications and the daunting prospect of leaving college and having to get a real job.

But it’s not just higher education that attracts people who’d prefer to be learning more about things – so that when they do finally start they get it right – than actually doing them.

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