LotusJump Blog

This week’s Jump OF The Week (JOTW) was submitted last week by Andrew, who wrote “You can never go wrong with the ShalerJump©” So here’s a Brian Shaler ShalerJump (with dudes from SocialMonk). Read more about the ShalerJump phenomenon here.

[Every Wednesday LotusJump highlights a Jump of the Week (JOTW). It can be any kind of jump (over tall things, in search engine rankings, through hoops of fire, whatever). Submit your favorite Jump via comment and we'll consider it for future Wednesday JOTW's!]

Today’s Tuesday tip comes to us from Lorrie Thomas:

If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else will!  Start a press page on your website, write and add frequent press releases about what is going on at your organization (events, current events, education, opinion) and send them to free wires to boost your search visibility and credibility.

Not only will you reap the benefits of consistently adding fresh content to your site (search engines like that!) but you’ll be giving your business the visibility that you’ll need to succeed!

Leave a comment with your tip and we’ll consider publishing it with a link to your website in future Tuesday Tip editions!

If you haven’t noticed, you can now update the keywords you’re targeting directly from your LotusJump account! To find it in your account, click the “settings” link.

Keep in mind that SEO is a long term project. If you change your focus too often, you won’t get anywhere. However, there are some cases where you should consider changing them, like:

1. You’re ranking well on them already
2. The traffic they drive doesn’t convert well
3. They’re too broad or too darn competitive

Some really exciting LotusJump features are in development, we’ll let you in on some of them next Monday!

Today we’re spotlighting the LotusJumper DocRocket, a writing and editing services company. Their network of over 200 freelance writers, researches, illustrators and editors work together to write and edit web content, books, articles, newsletters, stories, and e-books for a wide variety of clients.

We asked DocRocket what the inspiration was behind their company, this is what they had to say:

The inspiration behind DocRocket was the realization that web-based entrepreneurs have the business and marketing skills to produce great web sites, but often do not have the writing skill set required to produce excellent copy and content. That’s where we come in.

When asked what achievement they were most proud of, DockRocket said:

The achievement we’re most proud of is the creation of a flexible project management system that allows us to work with tiny web businesses who only need a few pages of content, all the way to enormous sites who need millions of words. We can provide both these extremes (and everyone in between) with quality customer service and the turnaround times and budget levels that our clients need. Our smallest established client is a gal in grad school who has us proofread her homework. Our largest client is a national distributor who we’ve written about 15,000 articles for.

We asked DocRocket why Internet marketing is so important for their company, this is what they had to say:

Internet marketing is important for our business because unlike copywriting shops that rely on a specific market segment or geographical area, we draw on a client pool that is global in scope. There’s just no way for us to promote DocRocket without the Internet.

We gave DocRocket a chance to give a “Creative Marketing Tip of the Day”, this is what they said:

Don’t forget the human touch. Autoresponders are great, PPC ads can pay off, etc - but having a human being who knows your business answering the phone is what puts clients in the “sold” column. I answer my own phone and talk directly (via email and telephone) with all our clients, so they know they’re dealing with me and not just an anonymous group of web writers.

Leave a comment if you think you’re worthy of a Friday spotlight, and tell us why!

[Every Wednesday LotusJump highlights a Jump of the Week (JOTW). It can be any kind of jump (over tall things, in search engine rankings, through hoops of fire, whatever). Submit your favorite Jump via comment and we'll consider it for future Wednesday JOTW's!]

People love to feel included. They love getting involved in what they’re passionate about. They love making a difference.

So if you’re looking to improve your business (and who isn’t), engage your customers. They obviously care about what your provide, or else they wouldn’t stick around. But here’s your chance to make them more happy and more loyal while improving your services as well. What you need to do is:

1. find out what they think you could do better
2. do it
3. let them know you’ve improved
4. sincerely thank them

So many businesses gather feedback, but forget to thank, congratulate and/or spotlight the customer(s) that helped them make the difference. If you include your clients in the development and ongoing improvement of your business, they will become fiercely loyal.

For more thoughts and ideas on this subject, pick up a copy of Seth Godin’s book Tribes. And if you’re interested in a cool service that helps you engage your customers with feedback, I just came across UserVoice. I’m looking into integrating UserVoice (or a similar tool developed inhouse) within the LotusJump application for users to help us improve the service we provide. But in the meantime if anyone has feedback, pelase send us an email to support [at] lotusjump [dot] com…we’re listening intently, I promise.