A short recap of the ladder of influence.

The first step was normal everyday guys, the next step someone you know and the third step was an expert.

The next step in the ladder is the celebrity. A celebrity is a person everyone knows. If a celebrity says he prefers widget a instead of widget b he has even more influence than an expert. This is probably the main reason you see so many celebrities used in promotions. It is tempting to dismiss this but it has been proven in many a/b tests both in direct marketing and internet marketing. You do not appoint yourself a celebrity but generally appointed by media. Note that you can be a celebrity in one niche but a total nobody in another.

The final level and the person with the most influence is a celebrity expert. This would be for example Tiger Woods promoting a golf club. He is a golf expert and he is a celebrity.

So what are the practical implications on internet marketing?

The number one point to note is that you can quite easily climb from the first to the third step on the ladder. Instead of trying to get people to sell people right away, try to be their friend and get to know them. Once you know them you will have a much easier task selling. You should also appoint yourself an expert in your subject matter. Write about the subject, give value, be an expert. Write reports, write a book.

It is easy to get locked into the thinking that you are not an expert because there are people better than you. There are always going to be someone better than you. The only thing that really matters is how much you know in relation to someone else. If the gap is large enough you are an expert to them.

When you are a buyer it is also good to know about the ladder of influence. Are you spending too much money buying internet marketing reports?

Finally here is a quote from Dan Kennedy “Be the Wizard; Beware of the wizard”.

If you want practical tips on getting traffic to your site feel free to subscribe to my web traffic newsletter. It’s free and you will get a new idea everyday to get more visitors to your site, the rest is up to you.

Dan is one of the top copywriters in the world and a genius at direct marketing.

One of the interesting things Dan teaches is how people are influenced.

Direct marketing is all about influence. What applies in direct marketing often transfers to internet marketing. For example You can have targeted visitors in internet marketing just as with direct marketing and you can measure your success with relative ease.

When you are trying to influence someone your relation to the person makes all the difference. Your relation to the person you are trying to influencing determines your credibility.

Here are the five main categories of credibility.

When you meet a person who doesn’t know you, you will by default have low credibility. The person has no reason to trust you. If you are trying to sell a widget to this person you will have a hard time.

If you are friend with the person you are trying to influence you will have a little more influence. For example; imagine that you tell a friend to buy the widget because you like it. In this case you leave a much greater impact than if a random person did the same. The chance your friend will buy the widget is much greater.

If you are considered an expert you will have even greater influence. Say you bough a book about widgets and the author of the book told you to buy widget a. Note that you often can and should appoint yourself an expert. There is no authority appointing experts, you have to appoint yourself and provide proof that you are an expert.

Read tomorrows post to learn about the next two steps in the ladder of influence. I will also tell you why this is important for you and how you can use this knowledge.

This is not my first web site and it always takes a few weeks or months to do all that is important. And even if you do everything right it will take time for the site to draw visitors and build organic search engine traffic.

I personally try to focus on getting content up on the site first. If it turns out I really don’t like the subject I have to write about it is much easier to close down a site with few visitors. Not that it is hard to take down a site with many visitors, but, once you have it rolling it feels like a waste.

Today I will try to point out a few things I have not had the time to fix yet on this site. I hope to get around to it soon. If you read this entry much later than when it was published I hope all of it is fixed.

I hope you can go through the list and hopefully find some things you have missed as well and if you find more things I should do please comment.

All these small things work to improve the credibility of your site, important if you want people to buy from your site or give you their email.

A personal about page

Write in a personal voice in the about page. Explain what the site is about, what people will get out of it.

Add contact information to the site

Contact information is important for credibility, especially if you are selling from your site. In this blog I am not really selling things just hoping to get peoples email and give them my free daily traffic tips.

Add photo on the about page

A photo makes a site more personal. I have avoided to put any photos on my sites since I have not thought it relevant before. But it adds credibility and It should be there.

Write and publish a privacy policy

A privacy policy should tell people what they can expect from your site. There are many examples on the net and I should have one as well. I have no intention of selling contact information and I should make that clear.

Write and publish a security policy

This one is important when you are selling things from your site. Again, I don’t sell from this site but wanted to mention it here anyway.