“Find out what people want and sell it to them” is advice you’ll hear time and time again. Why? Because it generally works. After all, if someone wants breakfast cereal made out of toads and frogs and you’re the only one selling it, you can command your own price.

But what if there is massive competition in the toad and frog cereal niche? Then you’ve got to differentiate yourself. You’ve got to find a way to stand apart and above the others selling a very similar product.

Or you can go a different route, the way companies like Apple roll, and that’s to find out what people WILL want. You see, all of the greatest products were at one time non-existent. No one knew you could ride in cars and so they used horses and maybe buggies. Then along comes the car – something no one had seen before, and people quickly realized they wanted it. Decades later consumers didn’t know they wanted computers and the Internet. Nor did they know they wanted cell phones and then super sophisticated cell phones, but once they were introduced, people desperately wanted them.

So if you can find a want before it even exists, you’ve got no competition – at least for the first few weeks and even months.

And you can take this even one step further. It’s not just a matter of finding out what people will want, it’s also a matter of finding a way to offer it to them that takes the work out of it. Imagine if Apple sold its products as kits that had to be put together – would they sell as many phones and tablets as they do now? Doubtful.

There was a time when computers were basically sold as kits. You get the plans, you buy the parts, you put together your computer. So who had computers during this time? A relative handful of people who liked to tinker on electronics. It wasn’t until several years later when computers were sold ready-made that the market took off.

If we were looking at this as a tiered system, with each subsequent tier being preferable to the previous, then the first tier is the old standby of offering customers what they already want. The second tier is offering what they want before they even know they want it. And the third and final tier is to offer what they want before they know they want it, and take all of the work out of it for them.

Sell them the ready made solution where the only action they need to take is to make the decision to buy. Make them feel good for taking that action, like they made a real contribution to getting the solution you’re offering. In essence you’re giving them the satisfied feeling that they really accomplished something important when they hit that order button. But in fact YOU are doing the actual, real work, whatever that might be.

If you’re offering a revolutionary new WP theme, install it for them. If you’re offering a complete business solution, set the whole thing up for them. If you’re offering an irrigation system or an automobile makeover or even an exercise program, make them feel that all they have to do is make the decision. That’s it. Then you will do the rest.

Now of course you and I know that in many cases, they will have to do work. But that’s not something they want to think about during the sales process. In the example of the exercise program, all they have to do is show up and then you will guide them step-by-step. They don’t have to think about a thing, they just follow along. You’re making it appear as though you do the work, when in reality they are the ones actually working.

Is this deceptive? Not in the slightest. If you say you will build them a website and then you send them instructions on how to do it themselves, then of course that would be deceptive. But if you build the site for them and then they have to update it themselves, or if you show them exactly how to exercise but they have to actually move their own bodies, you truly are taking the lion’s share of the work of thinking out of it for them.

In the sales process when you are romancing the customer, it’s okay to make them feel 10 feet tall for simply “taking action.” And it’s also a very smart move to continue to congratulate them for their wise decision, since this will make for happy customers who don’t cancel.

Find out what people want, or better still, what they WILL want, and then remove the work as much as you can and you will have a winning business model.

Have you tried offline marketing yet? If not, why not?

Odds are you’re hesitant to offer offline services because you’re afraid of sounding less than super intelligent when talking to business owners. Maybe approaching them makes you nervous. Maybe you just don’t feel like enough of an expert.

Whatever the reason, take heart. Business owners are just people who need help, and you are there to do exactly that – help them. Treat them like they are your new friend and you can not only eventually turn them into clients, you can also keep them as clients for years and years to come.

Perform a service for them, no matter how small. Even if you only charge $100, that token amount is your foot in the door and a slam in the face to all other offline marketers. Now when someone approaches that business person about marketing, they will say, “No, I already have a guy/gal for that.” And once you earn their trust with that first small job, you can get bigger and bigger jobs from them in the future.

So how do you get your confidence up for that first phone call or in person meeting? How do you get yourself in the zone before you even pick up the phone or walk through the door? By talking to yourself or a friend. Literally.

This trick comes from entertainer Kyle Cease who accidentally discovered it on the way to an audition. Normally before an audition he would constantly worry about it. But this time he started talking to his friend about the upcoming audition as though it had already happened, like this: “Do you remember when I went into that audition and I just nailed it? I don’t know what happened but I got into a zone and I started feeling so good.”

By talking about it in past tense, he started feeling really good about it. The stress disappeared and he acted as though it was a done deal, as though the only possibility was nailing the audition, which he did.

Interestingly enough, I’ve been doing this for years without even realizing what I was doing or why I felt so confident in new situations. It took Kyle to point out that this technique isn’t well-known and needs to be shared.

Try this yourself. The next time you are stressed about something you’re about to do, talk out loud about how great it went, how you were positively on fire and totally nailed it, etc. It’s a simple trick that costs nothing but a few minutes of your time, but it can have a life changing impact.

This one technique will allow you to break through old comfort zones like you’re a superhero breaking the sound barrier. You’ll find you can do things and accomplish things you’d only dreamed about before.

Tony Robbins is fond of saying that “Success leaves clues,” and he’s right. Let’s look at how to use this to your advantage so that you can reverse engineer your way to success.

Say your goal is to make $10,000 a month with your online business, since that’s a very popular goal among Internet marketers.

How do you want to make that income? Perhaps you want to create and sell products in a particular niche, or list build, or do CPA, or build a membership site. Your first step is to decide what it is that you want to do and what niche you want to do it in.

I suggest running some numbers as well. For example, if you’re creating products then you need to sell 100+ $97 products a month to reach $10,000 a month. Or sell twice that many if you’re using affiliates and paying 50% commissions.

If you’ve got your niche selected but you don’t know what to do next, then your first step is to find every big marketer in that niche and get on their lists. See what they’re doing, what they’re saying, and especially what they’re selling. This should give you some terrific ideas in less than a week’s time. Write down all of your ideas, even the ones you think are silly or beyond your reach.

Now then, narrow your choices. Maybe you’ve decided to create a blog, build a list and sell affiliate products and your own membership site. Now you have a plan. You can get basic info from the Internet on starting your blog and list building to get you started.

Next, you’re going to analyze what your competitors are doing that’s working in terms of blogging, list building, selling affiliate products and running a membership site in your niche. This is information you won’t get out of any course. It’s been said that if you want to know the real secrets of what the best marketers do, then you should watch what they do rather than listen to what they say. That’s why you joined your competitors’ lists, to see how they’re doing what they’re doing.

Questions to research:

How are they getting traffic?
Where do they get their links?
Who are their affiliates?
What is their content strategy?
What is their unique selling point?
How do they structure their websites?
Who is their audience?
What is their website or product missing?
And so forth.

There are multiple tools online to help you do this which you can research on Google. This isn’t a tutorial I’m offering you here so much as a mindset:

Success is simple, because no matter what you want to accomplish, in most cases someone has already done it or something very close to it. You don’t need to reinvent anything, you just need to find out what they did and go do it yourself.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting you infringe upon any copyrights. Rather, I’m suggesting that there are no wheels that need reinventing. Furthermore, if someone else can do it, then you certainly can as well. You can outsource anything you cannot do and fill in the rest yourself.

And you don’t want to “copy” when it comes to content. Let’s say your entire strategy for earning $10,000 a month is to build a $97 membership site and keep it filled with 100+ members. Let’s also say that someone else in your niche is already doing that. Should you copy them? Not exactly. By all means use their methods for traffic and lead generation, since those are obviously working. But create your own brand, your own unique selling proposition and your own unique content. Furthermore, whatever it is they’re doing, you want to do it better in some way. This means delivering more results, or delivering those results in an easier way, or something that sets you apart and above the other membership site. This will make it easier to get and retain members.

Focus your efforts on taking care of your customers and you’ll find the money tends to take care of itself. As Zig Ziglar used to say, “When you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want.”

Now then, don’t restrict your reverse engineering to your own niche. Many times you can gain valuable insights from other niches that translate nicely to yours. For example, you might be in the fashion niche and you see a financial membership that sends out a CD every month, or has a hotline, or somehow personalizes content for each member. Is this something you could do in your fashion membership? Perhaps you send out a CD of the latest styles and patterns. Or you have a fashion ‘hotline’ on your site that offers the latest fashion industry insider’s news. Or you have a feature that shows members how each new clothing line would look on their particular body build.

Mind you, I know nothing about fashion, in case you couldn’t guess. My fashion style is simple: If it’s comfortable and doesn’t make me look silly, I wear it. Perhaps there’s a need for a fashion website for people like me.

My whole point is this: Stop thinking you’ve got to start from scratch, or that every answer is hidden inside the latest marketing info product. The truth is you already have the capability to discover exactly what is working – because success leaves clues. All you have to do is play detective, follow the clues and get busy reverse engineering your own success story.

Every niche has its share of movers and shakers, including yours. So how do you get those big personalities to share your amazing content with their readers?

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First, you should have built a foundation of quality content. Have at least a half dozen posts on your blog, and make sure that each one of them is either chock full of well-written targeted content, or entertaining or both. No one with a reputation is going to send traffic to your site if they can’t vouch that it’s worth their audience’s time.

Now then – make a list of the interesting personalities, experts and big movers in your niche for a blog post you’re going to write. Include background information on them, accomplishments and why they’re important. If you like, rank them according to any criteria you choose – influence, charm, good looks – it’s your post so you can do it as you choose.

For example, depending on your niche, your post might be titled: The Top 50 Flower Bloggers or The Top 25 Movers and Shakers in Finance.

These lists of top people in a niche or industry make for extremely share-worthy content, but you’re going to take it one step further to ensure it gets passed around. Contact each person on the list and congratulate them for making it onto the list. Some of them are sure to tell their own readers about your article through social media and their own blogs and websites.

About ranking these experts – what if some of them are upset with you for not ranking them at the top? First, not everyone can be number 1 – it simply is not possible. Second, even if they are a bit miffed, you can use that to your advantage by gleaming additional blog posts and even publicity out of it. Third, you can write this post annually.

That way, next year those same people may have gone up in the ranking, in which case they are likely to brag about this to their audience. In fact those who are lower on the list may try to curry your favor, and those higher on the list may add you to their inner circle. Really, it’s a win-win no matter what happens, and in the process your content gets shared multiple times.

BONUS TIP: Now that you have the attention of the experts, choose a hot topic and ask them to weigh in. Even if you just get 2 or 3 to share their opinions, you’ll have another piece of great content that is likely to get shared throughout your industry.

BONUS TIP #2: Do a blog post on “What 22 Top ___ Say About ___.” This is easy and practically writes itself. Simply email the experts from your list of experts and ask them for a quote about a current topic or trend in your niche. Then compile their responses into an article or blog post. Be sure to let your contributors know when you make your post, so they can share the link with their audiences, too.

If you’re in the IM niche, you probably get the same emails I do asking: “I need to make money YESTERDAY, what do you recommend?”

Or maybe you need some extra money for a project you’re working on right now, or you’ve got an unexpected bill.

Here’s a method I sometimes suggest for earning a quick $500 or $1,000, and what people seem to like about it is how simple and straightforward it is.

Ask yourself what skills and knowledge you possess right now. Maybe you can write really well, or you’re good at building WordPress sites. Maybe you’re a graphic artist, or a photographer or videographer. Maybe you’ve got great people skills and you can act as an affiliate manager or set up joint ventures. Perhaps you can coach people on how to do something specific, or teach them how to find the perfect virtual assistant. I guarantee you have at least one skill or piece of knowledge that others are willing to pay for.

“But I don’t have a skill!” Really? Then you need to find dynamite outsourcers who do have skills you can market. You must find something that others are willing to pay for, and that’s usually a skill and sometimes simply a piece of very valuable knowledge.

Once you’ve identified your skill, set up a web page offering that skill for hire. A simple blog site will do, preferably on your own domain. Check out other similar websites to get ideas on how to set yours up.

Find blogs that are relevant to your skill and allow guest bloggers. For example, if you’re really good at writing engaging blog posts, find blogs about blogging. If you can troubleshoot antique engines over the phone, then find blogs about old cars. These blogs should have a bare minimum of 5,000 readers a month, and be sure they already allow guest posting.

Now write articles that provide awesome content for these blogs. Study each blog and write an article just for them that solves a problem or tells how to do something that is totally relevant to your particular skill. For example, if your skill is article writing, you’re going to tell them how to write the perfect article. If your skill is photographing products, then that’s what you’ll teach. Don’t worry about giving away all your secrets – some people would much rather hire a professional than do the work themselves. Link back to your website in the author’s box.

Don’t know if you spotted it, but there is a flaw in the steps above and here it is…

It can sometimes take WEEKS to get your guest blog post published. How do you speed up the process? One way is to link whatever you are writing about with something that is current in the news, preferably in the last 12 to 48 hours. You might need to get a little creative here but if you can pull it off then blog owners will be racing to publish your post. For example, if you’re a sales letter copywriter and the FTC just handed down new rules for what you can and cannot say in your sales copy, you’re golden.

Another trick for getting published quickly is to provide dynamite graphics, pictures or even infographics to go with your article. In fact, your infographic could even BE your article. And don’t forget to politely make a good case to the blog owners on why they should consider publishing your article as quickly as possible.

Continue writing articles and getting them published until the orders start coming in or your phone starts ringing.

The entire process could take as little as 48 hours or as long as 10 days, depending on how fast you get those first blog posts published.

Added benefit – you’ll make more business connections which can continue to benefit you in the future.

If you’re not outsourcing some of your work yet, you might be wondering what the benefits are. Obviously you’ll save time, but you’re trading money for the time saved.

So is it really worth it? Here are 7 benefits of outsourcing you may not have realized:

1. Not only are you saving time, but the time you save can be put to a higher use. For example, instead of spending time writing your next article, you could outsource the article creation to a professional and spend that time making contact with potential JV partners who will promote your products.

2. You don’t have to learn a new skill. If it’s a skill you’re going to rarely use anyway, or if it’s something that you simply have no interest in learning, you are much better off outsourcing it to a professional.

3. Even if you know how to perform the skill you’re thinking of outsourcing, there is a good chance someone else can do it better than you. Maybe a lot better. Do you really want to spend the next ‘x’ amount of your own hours to achieve mediocre results? Or do you want an amazing payoff that can only come from someone who skillfully performs that task every day of the week?

4. You can grow your business faster when you outsource. If you’re trying to do every task yourself, you can only grow as fast as you can work. But if you harness the skills of others, you can grow exponentially.

5. You can react to the market faster. Let’s say a new social media site hits the scene and you want to create a product that teaches people how to use it. If you do all the work yourself, it could take weeks. But if you outsource some of the work, you can have it done in days. Money loves speed.

6. Once you have a system that works, you can ramp it up on a large scale with outsourcing. For example, you’ve discovered the exact type of video to make to promote affiliate products and how to get it ranked high in Google. Now outsource the work to others and instead of creating and ranking two new videos a week, you can do 2 a day. Or even 10 a day.

7. You’ll be happier. By outsourcing all the tasks you either don’t enjoy or aren’t very good at, you can focus on the areas of your business that you truly enjoy. And when you enjoy your work, you will naturally tend to get more done and be more successful.

We are all familiar with social proof – placing positive testimonials on your sales pages and websites to show what others think of our products. However, there is a form of social proof used by many marketers that actually backfires and causes sales to drop dramatically, and it’s what they call “negative” social proof.

It works like this: You want to create a sense of urgency, so you say something like, “A lot of people have missed out on this, and you do NOT want to be one of them.” Or “Only a handful of people who read this letter will be smart enough to grab this offer before it’s too late.”

The problem is, you’re indicating that a lot of people are not buying the product. And since people tend to look to others for indications of what to do, this kind of social proof will actually encourage prospects to follow the lead of the majority and not make the purchase.

If you read the book Yes!, you’ll see Robert Cialdini’s experiment where he measured the effects of signs posted in the Arizona Petrified Forest to prevent theft of petrified wood. They tested 3 different signs, and the one that included negative social proof actually INCREASED theft.

The sign read, “Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, destroying the natural state of the Petrified Forest.” This sign actually TRIPLED the amount of theft because it demonstrated to readers that other people were already stealing, thereby making it seem alright for them to steal as well.

Here are more examples of negative social proof:

“This year Americans will produce more litter and pollution than ever before.” Potential result in thinking: It’s okay to litter, everybody’s doing it.

“35% of sexually active teens do not always use condoms.” Potential result in thinking: I don’t have to use a condom if I don’t feel like it.

“4 years ago, over 22 million single women did not vote.” Potential result in thinking: They didn’t bother to vote, why should I?

“50% of women report being harassed in the workplace.” Potential result in thinking: Lots of other men are doing it, I’ll do it too.

However well intentioned those messages may be, as you can see they are likely to have the exact opposite effect than what was intended.

So for example, if you’re marketing something to enhance the security of a WordPress blog, do not say “80% of WordPress owners unintentionally leave their websites wide open to hacking.” If you’re selling an SEO product, do not say “90% of website owners do no SEO whatsoever.”

If you’re selling a diet product, do not say “90% of overweight people will never lose the excess weight.” And if you’re selling a dating product for people over 40, do not say “Most single people over 40 have given up looking for their ideal mate.”

How can you avoid negative social proof? Don’t focus on how common the undesirable behavior is. Instead, show that it is rare and practiced only by social outcasts. Emphasize (where appropriate) that the behavior is:

– Illegal
– Subject to penalties
– Immoral
– Reprehensible
– Irresponsible
– Stupid
– Outdated and no longer acceptable
– (And best of all) Universally scorned.

By doing this, you can make negative social proof work for you rather than against you.

You might want to look over any sales material you have, and make sure you haven’t inadvertently used negative social proof. Just because 80% of marketers have unintentionally used it at least once doesn’t mean you should. 😉

And if you didn’t catch that last bit of negative social proof, you might want to reread this article again.

The New Year is upon us – time to talk about your goals, right? Goals are important, yes… But I’d like to focus for a moment on one of the real drivers that will allow you to achieve all of your 2019 ambitions, whatever they might be: Keeping Your Brain Happy so it can help you to accomplish your tasks and see your intentions through to success.

We all know what it’s like to try to try to work when our brain is in a fog or just doesn’t want to cooperate with us. We feel like we can’t get it in gear, like everything takes too long and the end result is sadly lacking.

Just like any other part of the body, brains can get tired. Suffering from cerebral fatigue results in a lack of new ideas, poor thinking, lousy problem solving and can even be a cause of depression.

Here then are 12 tips to keep your brain refreshed, energized and happy:

1. Mix it up. It’s just common sense that if you spend hour after hour on the same task, you’re going to get burned out. So instead of writing articles for 8 hours straight, try writing articles for 2 hours, researching your next product for an hour, returning emails for an hour, etc.

2. Don’t multitask important stuff. Sure, you can listen to the radio while you’re doing the dishes, but that’s because neither one requires your full attention. When doing something important like learning a new skill from a webinar or working on your next product, don’t be checking email or the score of the game. By not multitasking you’ll accomplish more in less time, and your quality of work will be better, too.

3. Stand up and move around. If you can, get one of those standing work desks and use it at least half the time. If you alternate between standing and sitting you’ll find that you’re more alert and your brain works better.

4. Take a quick break every 20 minutes or so. 20 minute “bursts” of work followed by 2-3 minutes of non-work can make you productive and keep you and your brain energized. BEST: Do something physical on these short breaks like push-ups, sit-ups or deep knee bends.

5. Engage your senses. Use some peppermint or orange oil to wake you up. Make your work space interesting to look at with thought-provoking art. Use colored paper and pens. Get a worry stone or some kind of object you like to hold and pick this up for tactile stimulation when you’re thinking through a problem.

6. Relax for 10 minutes every 90 – 120 minutes. Take 10 minutes off to meditate, walk around the block or work on a puzzle. Your brain will love this.

7. Work when your brain wants to work. Everyone has their own circadian rhythm. Some people are morning people, others are night owls, and many fall in between. Find out what time of day is your most productive and then schedule that time for your most intense and important work.

8. Prioritize. Work on your most important task first, when your brain is at its freshest. Getting this task done first will also give you a much needed feeling of accomplishment and free you up to focus on smaller goals and tasks.

9. Work less, play more. Seriously, if you’re working 100 hours a week then I suspect you’re only doing 50 hours worth of work. Think about it – how much of your time is truly devoted to working, and how much is devoted to “getting ready to work?” Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by emails, games, news, weather, etc.

Instead focus yourself on getting your tasks done as quickly as possible, and then leave your computer, leave your office and go do something totally unrelated to work. While you are out “playing” your brain will be rejuvenating. One unexpected benefit to this is you’ll find your brain becomes more creative and a much better problem solver when it gets periods of rest, relaxation and diversion from work.

10. Take a weekly vacation. No, I’m not kidding. Getting away once a week does wonders for every part of you, especially your brain. And you don’t have to leave your area to take a vacation. Go someplace locally you’ve never been to, take a class, go to events, spend the day walking downtown or in the woods, etc.

Is the weather terrible and you don’t want to leave home? Then grab that book you’ve got of nature photographs or travel shots and sit in a comfortable chair and transport yourself to the exotic places you see in the photos. In terms of benefits to the brain, it’s almost as good as being there.

11. Exercise. I’m not going to tell you all the reasons why you should exercise here – you probably already know them. And one of the biggest reasons is because when you exercise, your brain works better. You think better and more clearly. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if people who regularly exercise improve their IQ scores – it’s already been proven to increase memory and comprehension.

12. Feed your brain. Good nutrition is vital to your brain’s well being. If you’re eating processed foods or junk foods, you’re starving your brain. If you’re eating things like fresh fruits and vegetables and fish, then you’re feeding your brain. Don’t believe me? Cut out all junk food and processed food for one week. Add in fish oils or fish, along with plenty of veggies and some fruits. See if you don’t notice a massive difference in both the way you feel and how well your brain functions.

Be good to your brain and it will help you reach your goals this year, and beyond!

Can you really get 50,000 visitors to your blog in 30 days or less… and do it without lists, without JV partners, without name recognition and without advertising?

Jane Smarts was a brand new blogger who knew she would have to do something different to get visitors to his brand new blog.

And to put this in perspective in case you’re not a blogger yet, getting 50,000 visitors in your very first month is akin to winning the lottery – it rarely happens and when it does it can pay off big.

So what did she do? We broke his methods into these steps:

1. Choose a niche you’re passionate about. Jane chose corporate consulting because it’s closest to her heart, and it’s also what her company does.

2. Make some quick posts so it appears as though your blog has been around for awhile. Jane already had 10 or 15 posts from previous work that she could immediately publish. Hopefully you already have some content written, whether it’s articles, an ebook, etc.

Break whatever you have down into blog posts and post them. If you don’t have content already written, it’s up to you whether or not you take this step. By having content already on your blog it appears as though you’ve been doing it for a while, but posting inferior content that you rushed to write is never helpful if someone should actually want to read it.

3. Do your research. Jane researched what kind of blog posts take off in her niche, and which get the most shares on social media. Her research showed that she needed to write really long posts – between 2200 and 3000 words, and she needed to use mixed media that included bullet points, video, images, sub headlines, etc. Her research also showed that “how to” posts or posts that people can apply to get results were the most popular.

4. Apply what you learn. Once she did her research, Jane knew just what to do and she did it.

5. Think about distribution. You can write your posts according to what your research finds works best, but that still won’t initially get your article in front of people. Even the most shared blog posts in the world have to first be seen before they are shared, and if you have no traffic to begin with, you’ve got to find it.

What Jane did was tailor her first post specifically to the audience of a social news website that she read everyday. By tailoring it to that specific audience, there was an excellent chance they would appreciate it and share it.

6. Write amazing content. Jane spent 3-4 days writing her initial post. That’s right… 3-4 DAYS, not hours. Make your content great.

7. Use what contacts you have. Don’t have any? Get some. Jane started the ball rolling by having a handful of friends give her post a bump so that people would begin checking it out. The post was good, it took off, the rest was history.

8. Capture email addresses and ask for social shares. Be sure to place your opt-in box on every page, both in the right hand column and again at the end of the article. And ask your readers – if they found your post helpful – to share it via social media.

9. Rinse and repeat. Jane found a formula that worked, so she did it again and again, each time focusing and targeting her newest blog post to a very specific distribution channel.

You might not hit the 50,000 mark your first month, but if you follow these steps you could very well hit it within 2 to 3 months, even in a smaller niche. Imagine if you capture just 10% of that traffic – that’s an email list of 5,000 who you can now invite directly to every new blog post you make. Not a bad way to get your blog rolling…

Yes, people come for the content, but first you’ve got to attract them with the image. After all, images are the first thing people notice about your page or post.

The right image can grab attention and create intrigue, mystery, curiosity and a host of other emotions that wrap their tendrils around your visitor and glue them to your writing. As an added benefit, the better your image is at capturing attention, the less important your headline becomes. A great image with a mediocre headline will almost always lure the visitor into reading your content, while a sub par headline on its own seldom will.

What can you do to maximize the effect images have on your visitor? Here are 10 keys:

1. Use at least one image per post. Every post should have an image of its own above the fold. And if your post is long, consider adding images into the middle as well to break up your post. These will provide welcome breaks to your readers, as well as enticing scanners to stop and read your content.

2. Look for images that work on a gut level. If your post is about how to prevent a house fire, you might be tempted to post an image of a building on fire. But how much more captivating would it be to have an image of someone experiencing loss – even without a single charred remain in the background? Look for images that play on the emotions, rather than ones that simply illustrate your story.

3. Use faces. Studies show that readers pause longer on an image that shows at least one face. If you don’t use faces, then look for something provocative or downright spectacular – something that makes the viewer stop in her tracks and want to know more.

4. Use images in your RSS feed. Just like blog posts, an image can make the difference between your writing being read or ignored. Think of the image combined with the headline as your book cover, and your post as the contents. People do judge books by their covers, and they do the same when looking through their feeds.

5. Take the time to get it right. Grabbing the first interesting image you see is seldom a recipe for stopping Internet traffic. If you need to spend as much time sourcing an image as you do writing the post, then do it. It’s worth the extra effort.

Consider purchasing your images. You can almost always find far better images when you’re willing to pay a little bit to use them, and the selection is far more vast and interesting as well. Keep in mind – a bland as toast image could actually HURT your chance to get your post read. Spend a buck or two and get something that leaps off the page and into your reader’s imagination.

If money is tight, there is a third option, and that’s using creative commons photos. They’re free to use but you MUST give the proper attribution to the photographer. For example, you can start a search for creative commons images here: https://search.creativecommons.org

6. Just do it. Adding images might sound too simple, but the fact is that it will almost certainly increase the time visitors spend on your site.

7. Consider taking and using your own photos. If you’re a shutterbug, by all means get busy. Using your own photos will personalize your website that much more, as well as building a deeper connection with your audience.

8. Build an entire post around pictures. With the advent of social media, you can now get traffic simply for having great images. So why not try a post that’s image dense, such as the most romantic places in your country, or the funniest photos ever, etc.

9. Don’t forget to add alt tags to your images. This can help you to rank higher in the search engines, bringing you more traffic.

10. Have fun. Not only is reading an article that contains images more interesting for the reader – it’s also more fun for the author to put together.