Paul D. Guyon

Believer. Father. Implementalist.

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Lesson in Authenticity Found In a Tasty Veggie Sauce Recipe

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Low Fat White Sauce
Low Fat White Sauce

In my quest to eat a healthy dinner I made an important discovery that shed some light on why authenticity plays a significant role in search engine rankings and website conversions.

I was eating a healthy, low fat dinner of ham steak and rice and I decided to try those steaming veggies in a bag to go along with it.  You know, the kind you put in the microwave and they steam in their own bag?

Cooking in a bag in the microwave is very convenient, but the veggies were kind of bland.  I should have opted for the veggies with the cheese sauce but I didn’t like what the nutrition facts on the label said.  I am eating healthier now but I refuse to sacrifice good taste!  I would have loved a nice creamy white sauce to pour on them!

After dinner I checked online to see if I could find a healthy white sauce recipe for the rest of the steaming veggies I had on hand.  I went to my favorite search engine and using keyword variations of ‘low-fat white sauce’ found a recipe for an easy to make, low fat, white sauce that looked promising. I kept looking because, although it seemed easy to make, it didn’t seem savory enough and there were no reader reviews.

My Suspicions Confirmed!

What I eventually found confirmed my suspicions; I prefer the reading what others had to say about a recipe I have found in the search page results before I choose it!  This particular website featured 20 reader reviews that had experience with and recommended this recipe!

The other sites I found, including About.com, also featured reader reviews, but they didn’t have as many reviews or ‘votes’ for their similar recipes, even though I found a very simple recipe that I felt I could make I did not choose it because there were no recommendations!

I wondered how this could be applied to a site dedicated to say, financial services, insurance or engraved pens and even plumbers!  The discovery I made was simple…

Recommendations Affect Conversion!

Recipe sites abound online, I could have gone with the first one I found in the search engines, but, instinctively I kept searching until I could find a good RECOMMENDATION! That’s what made me choose this Low-Fat White Sauce recipe above all the others, which were similar in ingredients.

The site was easy to find based on simple keywords, which should be easy enough for any site owner (in theory).  What made this site appealing is that other people found its content useful and made a recommendation. 

Three Questions to Ask About Your Website

  1. Is your content reviewable or shareable? Do you encourage sharing it? 
  2. Do you have a mechanism in place so users can ask a question? Do you respond?  
  3. Can users rate your content and make recommendations, either by commenting or sharing? 

One key factor of authenticity is recommendation.  Incorporating the ability to recommend, share, comment and link into your content contributes to the usability and interaction with users which search engines now consider as part of their ranking algorithm.   Of course, there are other factors that contribute to authenticity, like credibility, which we will explore in future blog post. 

If you liked this article please speak your mind!  Leave a comment, link or share!  And, tell me how you are using authenticity on your blog or website.

Suggested reading from the 30 Day Blogging Challenge

Internet Business Success: Manage Your Time

If you wish to build a successful Internet business, you must manage your time effectively. When most people first start out, they are a one person business without much startup capital. If this is your case, you will need to do everything yourself until your business grows enough that you can outsource some of the tasks involved with your on-line business.

http://www.dwwdblog.com/internet-business-success-manage-your-time/

The BEST Permalink Structure for WordPress

The best permalink structure for WordPress is not what you think. If your permalink structure isn’t set up properly, you can either lose the SEO benefits from your backlinks, or you can cause your blog to slow to a crawl. Here’s what you need to do – now.

http://www.blogforfunandprofit.com/2012/wordpress-tips/the-best-permalink-structure-for-wordpress/

WHY AN AUTORESPONDER IS A ‘MUST HAVE’ IN YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS

A look at the benefits of adding an email auto responder to your online and/or offline business.

http://www.earlybirdmarketing.net/why-an-autoresponder-is-a-must-have-in-your-online-business

Ask Campaign Results: Reviewing the Results of an Actual Campaign

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Ask and you shall receiveOne of my consulting clients has a Michigan based, healthy living business.  We used the approach I outlined previously to survey his customers about their interest level in 5 different product categories he wants to develop.  The owner was very pleased with the initial results.  In todays post in want to share the results the results.

First of all, here is a summary of how we prepared for the survey.

Summary of Survey Preparation

  1. Create survey form. Use Google Docs for the survey form because it is one of the fastest and easiest to implement.
  2. Survey question: “Which of these are you interested in most”?
  3. There are 5 possible answers to the question, we asked customers to rank their level of interest in each category, from a range of 1-5, 1 being little or no interest and 5 being high interest.
  4. Email promotion
    • We sent 2641 emails on the first day of the campaign
    • We sent a follow up email to the same list 3 days later
    • We received 341 response or about 13%
  5. Here are the summary results (hint: Click to enlarge image)
Ask Campaign Survey Results click to enlarge
Ask Campaign Survey Results

Understanding the Results

We looked for patterns in the data by sorting the data in different ways to see any patterns emerge.  Since our detailed results contained each respondent’s ‘vote’ so we noticed each was interested in multiple categories.  There was strong interest in healthy living and living longer.  Most had interest in saving money.  Losing weight was not as much an issue as expected.  Interest in join health was more than expected.  And we knew there is interest in recipes and cookbooks, but people seem more interested in the other categories.

Here is a summary of understanding 

  1. Survey confirmed customers are interested in healthy living and living longer
  2. Majority are interested in discounts and coupons.
  3. Less interest in weight loss than expected
  4. More interest in joint health than expected
  5. A general interest in Recipes, cookbooks and cooking related information

Developing an Action Plan to Profit from the Results

Based on what we found, possible actions are:

  1. Offer a buyers’ club offering discounts and access to recipes, cookbooks and cooking related information for a annual or monthly fee
  2. Continue sending the weekly healthy living ezine and add more information on lifelong pursuits to live a longer life
  3. Offer a product or training  program on healthy living and living a longer life
  4. Look for a partner to expand on the weight loss product line already being offered
  5. Research solutions to offer a joint health product, and partner with an expert to create an information product on the topic

Unexpected Hidden Benefit

As you can see from the results, asking your customers what they are interested in is a very powerful tool to growing your business.  There are many other questions you can ask.  Next steps are to drill a little deeper.   My client didn’t expect one of the results of the survey and that is he now has a list of emails he can contact that are specifically interested in one topic more than another.

He can now follow up and further define his product offering by subsequent surveys as well as target them for new promotions geared to their interests.

Ask and You Shall Recieve is indeed the most powerful question you can ask your customers.  I will check in again in the future to share more results.

Suggested Reading from the 30 Day Blogging Challenge

NLP 101: 500 channels – all on at once

A little imagery to bring home the difference between
communicating incongruently and communicating congruently — and why
you want congruence (hint: it’s the good feelings!).

http://nlpmonthly.com/nlp-training/nlp-101-500-channels-all-on-at-once/

Thought Plantation-Sow your First seed for Wealth and Happiness

This Post ” Thought Plantation-Sow your First seed for Wealth and happiness” discuss about the basic principle for fixing our mindset to achieve our goals and their purposes.

http://innerbreakthrough.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/thought-plantation-sow-your-first-seed-for-wealth-and-happiness/

WordPress Installation: Security Risks Using Auto Installers

When installing WordPress, auto installer scripts such as Fantastico are a snap to use, but create security holes that leave your blog wide open to hackers. Here’s why you should never use Fantastico, SimpleScripts, and other auto installers with WordPress intallations.

http://www.blogforfunandprofit.com/2012/wordpress/wordpress-installation-security-risks-using-auto-installers/

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Paul Guyon is the former Chief Information Officer of a $53M international logistics firm, DSI.  Today he teaches small business owners how to create and implement systems and technology that enables ordinary people to produce extraordinary results.  Mr. Guyon’s clients have managed up to $13 million in business with a department of just five people. He invented a new market category to … More...

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