We’ve all been there. You are about to walk out of the store, empty-handed, when the salesperson suddenly works their charm - turning your skepticism into a sale. Then you get home, look at your purchase and think: how on earth was I convinced so easily?

The art of persuasion might seem like an innate talent for the lucky, but any serious entrepreneur must hone this skill in order to find success, persuading others to invest, to support, to buy. So how do you convince more people to buy online? These three business experts reveal their secrets.

• Peter Shallard explains there is only one question you have to answer to make a successful pitch: “Why?”

• Brian Clark of Copyblogger explores some basic strategies to write more persuasively - including using story-telling, repetition, and comparisons.

• The Six Minutes Blog lists several tips to become a more persuasive speaker, as Andre Dlugan emphasizes the importance of being understood, logical, and real.

Incorporating these techniques into both your website and your everyday life won’t be an overnight solution, but they will challenge you to look at your message through a strategic and more effective lens - no matter the audience.

When are you at your most persuasive? What was the last time someone used these tactics successfully on you?

Over the last year we’ve written a few articles on running an online business (hopefully you’ve found some of them to be helpful!). We have also had a few terrific guest bloggers and reviewed some expert speakers. Because our customers often email us with similar questions - about SEO, paid search, and the like, we thought it would be helpful to compile some of this information in one place. You might want to bookmark this post for reference!

#10 How to Boost Holiday Sales

#9 How to Optimize Your Website for Local Search

#8 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Business Success

#7 10 Free Software Apps to Manage your Business and Cut Costs

#6 10 Website Mistakes to Avoid

#5 Thoughts on Customer Service with Shep Hyken

#4 3 Secrets to Getting More Customers

#3 Using Paid Search to Increase Your Traffic

#2 How to Build an Army of Brand Loyalists (guest blog by Jonathan Kay)

And presenting the #1 blogpost of the past year…. *drum roll*

Basics of Search Engine Optimization (John Lyotier of MarketingClinics.com)

**Bonus** 3 Ways to Convert Website Traffic into Customers

So your business sells widgets. At CityMax.com, we sell easy business websites (but you probably already knew that). The never-ending problem: no matter what we sell, there’s someone out there selling the same thing.

While competing on hard, fixed factors such as price and quality are natural tactics, why not compliment those efforts by exploring a different channel that opens up your market and enhances your positioning?

Creating a holiday is not an original concept - Hallmark wrote the book: whether through creating holidays (which they deny), or supporting existing ones to increase sales and branding. The global size of Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day are often attributed to their efforts. There is even a term, “Hallmark holiday” used to describe it – a sign of global success (despite the slightly negative inflection).

Case Study: At CityMax.com our goal is to help 1 million entrepreneurs succeed online. Our easy website builder is just one of those tools. Last year, in the middle of a discouraging recession, we decided that what small business owners needed was a little pick-me-up. We founded Canada’s first-ever Entrepreneur Spirit Day: A Celebration of Small Business – essentially a holiday for anyone in small business.

We put out an open invite to key influencers  to celebrate Entrepreneur Spirit Day at our headquarters, with an open bar, a live band and DJs. Hundreds of people showed up - CEOs, students, and politicians along with over $250 million worth of business represented. The event was event mentioned in our House of Commons (the Canadian version of the House of Representatives). This was an invaluable branding experience, and the recognition we have received shows it was well worth the small budget spent to put on the event.

You don’t have to throw a party, but ask yourself what your customer really wants or loves. Do you sell pet products? What about a creating a Dog Lover’s Day? Maybe you knit – why not a National Wool Sweater Day? It doesn’t take much to declare a holiday and tie in your business with a promotion.

You’re only limited by your imagination. With hard work and a bit of luck, your holiday might turn into something bigger.  Our buddies at Grasshopper expanded on the Entrepreneur Spirit Day idea and have ignited a national movement.

Here are a few ideas on how to start creating a holiday. What kinds of holidays could you create around your business? What would it be called?

It seems like you can’t go two seconds now without hearing someone recommend social media marketing for your business website. The friendly side of social media seems straight-forward to any entrepreneur: it’s fun, and you interact with your customers while receiving lovey-dovey feedback on how great your product is.

But what happens when people have some not-so-nice things to say about you online? For example, on Facebook?

You COULD delete negative posts on your Facebook page, but something like this might happen. In this case, Sarah Palin (while probably a little higher profile than most of us) unfortunately ran into an audience motivated to reveal EVERYTHING commentors posted on her page.

To be fair, several of the deleted comments were completely inappropriate - yet many of the deleted comments were simply polite disagreements. John Dickerson of Slate.com explores this in a post-deletion letter from Alfred Petross: “I just wish you would listen to me as a resident of the 3rd Congressional District. All I am doing is voicing my opinion and my posts keep getting deleted….” (These comments were then deleted.) “Having my posts deleted were extremely disappointing,” says Petross, who went on to post his letter to Palin on his Facebook page, “because I was under the impression that Sarah Palin was in fact a political activist who was all about hearing the opinions and voices of the constituents of the United States.”

The Lesson: Deleting everything that doesn’t bring a sparkle to your eye might not be the best strategy.

Instead, take a hint from the United States Air Force - who are surprisingly on top of their social media game. Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker of Spin Sucks took a closer look at their tried and tested rules of engaging with responders. The Air Force even released their official flowchart cheat sheet!

Here are 3 key criteria the Air Force uses any social media response:
1) Transparency - disclose who you are, and your connection to the organization
2) Timeliness - take the time to create a well thought out response
3) Tone - respond in an manner that reflects appropriately on yourself and your business

For businesses, it’s completely normal for the social media honeymoon to end at some point. However, having a response strategy (including a couple of these tips) will hopefully prepare you for that day if it comes. Good luck!

You know all about the importance of organic search engine optimization, or SEO. Chances are you’ve read about how the right keywords and metatags can help boost your page’s ranking in Google. But did you know that Google Image search is also an excellent way to get your business noticed?

Simon Lewis of Vancouver-based 6S Marketing goes deeper to show how you can start ranking your images in Google. Ainslie Johnson explores what types of images your website should use, and what kinds of titles to keep them search-friendly for the Google bots. Finally, SEO World provides their Top 10 tips on Google image SEO.

Good luck and Happy Image SEO-ing!

This weekend the CityMax.com small business website builder team hit Canada’s largest social media and blogging conference six years running, Northern Voice (#nv10). There, we learned all about the changing face of media, how to shape our online voice, guerilla marketing and more. We brought along our @OfficeChicken to ruffle a few feathers, but he turned out to be a total ‘chick magnet’ (click here for more pics).

For those of you who couldn’t make it, renowned Vancouver blogger and social media expert Miss 604 documented both Day 1 and Day 2. Noted local academic Raul Pacheco-Vega (aka Hummingbird604) also live blogged a few of the sessions in great detail – including Googler Chris Messina’s keynote speech and Alexandra Samuel’s excellent talk on “Coping with Social Media.”

All in all it was an excellent weekend of learning and connecting! What’s the best conference you’ve been to lately and why?

Natalie Sisson is a Kiwi Entrepreneur and adventurer. As Founder of WomanzWorld.com, she is passionate about getting more women into business and helping aspiring entrepreneurs on their journey. Check out her most recent blog at Forbes!

Many small businesses are dabbling in Social Media to create more visibility for their brand, products and services. Some are even using it to generate leads and sales. If you’re not taking advantage of these amazing free tools to benefit your business yet, start here.

What exactly is Social Media?

It’s a phenomenon experiencing incredible growth and for that very reason alone you need to have a social media presence and strategy.

Here are examples of Social Media sites:

• Social Bookmarking. (Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Simpy) Interact by tagging websites and searching through websites bookmarked by other people.
• Social News. (Digg, Propeller, Reddit) Interact by voting for articles and commenting on them.
• Social Networking. (Facebook, Twitter, Last.FM) Interact by adding friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions.
• Social Photo and Video Sharing. (YouTube, Flickr) Interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions.
• Wikis. (Wikipedia, Wikia) Interact by adding articles and editing existing articles.

Basically any website that invites you to interact with the site and with other visitors falls into the definition of social media. Let’s get started!

Exercise 1: Laying the Foundation

Sure, you’ve hung out on Facebook®. Followed some folks on Twitter®. Made a bunch of connections on LinkedIn®. But now it’s time to make these networks work harder for you. These are the three most powerful social networks to be on both personally and professionally, so at the very least you should have set up a profile on them.

What you need for your profile:

1. Got a photo? Make sure people know you’re not a faceless business. Use this on every profile.
2. Make sure your profile represents your personal brand. If you haven’t already, create your personal paragraph that sums up who you are and why you’re awesome.
3. Include as much as you’re comfortable sharing about yourself. The more you add, the better these tools can help you connect. But remember there are some things colleagues and clients don’t need to know.
4. Include searchable keywords, but don’t get spammy. Think about words that you’re customers would use to search for you and your business and add 5-6 of these.
5. Keep it current. Update your profiles regularly. Set up a system to store your login information to refer to easily, plus bookmark each site on your browser (Firefox or Google Chrome are the best).

Exercise 2: Strengthen your Core

Kick off your new social media regimen by developing new habits and cleaning up your memberships:

• Make sure your Facebook®, LinkedIn® and Twitter® profiles are up to date. If you don’t have one then set one up today.
• Create a Google® public profile. This will give you access to alerts and rich information down the road. And your Google profile makes it easy for the public to search and find you. If you don’t already have one, start by opening a Google account.
• If you haven’t already set up a Google Alert for your name and your business at a minimum so you know where you’re being mentioned and featured on the web.
• Use the same name on each site to make yourself easier to find. For example I use NatalieSisson and WomanzWorld.

Put aside 30 minutes for each exercise this week and you’ll already be feeling great.

Best of luck in your quest for social media fitness!

Foursquare, if you haven’t yet heard, is the newest social media craze that is driving business revenue. Users “check in” with their phones at locations and businesses around town, and are subsequently earn points, “mayorships” and badges for their loyalty. It becomes a fun and competitive game that encourages people to try new places and revisit old favorites – while increasing repeat customers and branding.

Gabe Zichermann, of tech blog TechCrunch takes a look at how three other businesses (Facebook, FedEx, and Amazon) could incorporate more fun to encourage consumers to buy: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/27/facebook-fedex-amazon-fun/.

As a small business, what could you do to increase enjoyment for each of your customers’ experiences? Is it a free widget with their 10th purchase? Could you be using Foursquare or another “fun app” for your business?

That’s according to Brian Solis, renowned public relations expert and digital thought leader. In a recent blog post, Solis explains why most viral marketing attempts fail, through analysis social scientist Dan Zarrella’s work on why ideas spread and the seven types of “sharing motives.”

A few key takeaways:

• Identify and pre-seed your message with appropriate key influencers
• Some of the top emotions that motivate sharing are: Personal, Relevant, Timely, and Humor
• Define the action you are trying to provoke
• The ability to share with one-click essential to spreading your content/message
• Videos are much easier to spread on Facebook compared to Twitter

It’s not a short read, but definitely great food for thought as you market your small business. Read it once, chew on it awhile, then read it again!

Guest Post – Jonathan Kay is the Ambassador of Buzz at Grasshopper, a provider of virtual phone systems. He is extremely passionate about helping / meeting new entrepreneurs and always excited to learn about their unique journey. Find Jonathan on Twitter @GrasshopperBuzz or via email at jkay(at)grasshopper.com.

Having now lived through over a year of my first recession, I have learned a lot. Mistakes and tough times always seem to lead to opportunities and takeaways. The last year or two really taught me the importance of the customer, and the emphasis that needs to be placed on them. With entrepreneurs and small businesses looking for any way possible to save money, “Customer Acquisition Cost” has become an increasingly important metric. It’s simple… the less money it costs you to acquire a customer, the larger the profit margin.

This leads me to a real passion of mine: Brand Loyalists.

A brand loyalist isn’t just a happy user of your product/service: they yell from the roof tops about you, helping to market and sell your product! With all the social media channels available now, there are more and more people telling you what they need, and asking for advice. Having an Army of Brand Champions out there provides a powerful and unbiased sale that is impossible to reproduce. More so, real brand loyalists will spend the time to give you constructive, uncensored feedback. This will only help make your product/service stronger, and increase customer satisfaction in the long run.

Ok. So now you know how important brand loyalists are; the harsh reality is they are difficult to achieve. And, a simple discount or promotion code just won’t cut it. I have been fortunate early in my career to work with a handful of really successful and genuine entrepreneurs. This firsthand experience has helped me develop a certain level of expertise in this area, and below are some helpful tips I have learned along the way:

1. Add Value First
When a customer engages your brand and purchases your product/service they don’t expect you to add value above and beyond what they paid for. This creates an opportunity to WOW your customer and really exceed their expectations. Small efforts make a difference: engage new customers on Twitter and thank them, start discussions about your product, and if you or a colleague is traveling why not reach out to a few local customers and take them out to dinner or drinks. By engaging your customer right away you will make a connection they will never forget.

2. Listen. Then Listen Some More
Have you ever tried flat out asking your customers what they want? What they need? Simple…yes, but trust me it works. Why not just pick up the phone and ask them? It is important to remember that your customers drive the direction of your business. At Grasshopper, all managers call 5 new customers ever week. We ask how the setup process went, what we could be doing better, what we are missing, and how we could help? Listening is a powerful tool. By making people feel actively involved (not through boring surveys) in shaping important features/practices, you will build incredible brand loyalty.

3. Make a Human Connection
It’s important to let your customers know that you are more than just a brand - you are actually real people too. Make an effort from to have less formal conversations. A great example of this is our co-founder David Hauser (@dh). You will find him doing anything from thanking customers to talking about his Iron Man training.

4. Promote Your Customers
People never forget when you make a connection, or open a door for them. Make an effort to be constantly reaching out to your customer base, learn about them and their businesses. The more you know about your customers, the more likely you will be able to set them up with other customers who might be able to help each other out. That is a memorable connection. Here at Grasshopper we have gone as far as to set up a formal program: Tell Us Your Story. This gives our entrepreneurs an opportunity to tell us what makes them unique, and how they are changing the world. Not only do we promote them to the media, but now we also have real stories and examples of entrepreneurs living their passion. Actively trying to help your customers businesses grow is a definite way to create a brand loyalist.

5. Build a Culture of Responsibility
You need to empower your employees to help your customers (and not just your support team). There is no reason everyone should not be concerned with how your customers feel about your product/service. Make an effort to always follow up after resolving a customer issue, this will make people feel heard, appreciated, and create a loyalist for life.