498 – QR codes, Flash Briefings and Google Oh My: Tom talks Ask Me a Question

Episode 498 – Ask Me A Question
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode four hundred and ninety eight of Screw the Commute podcast, I've got another ask me a question episode. Got to cover a lot of ground for you about your websites and free tools that'll help you do better. So we'll get to that in a minute. Hey, how'd you like me to send you big affiliate cheques? Well? Sign up for our affiliate program. Just email me for details at Tom@screwthecommute.com And I'll give you all the details on how you can make big commissions. Referring my products and services and some of them can be up to five thousand for one referral. How do you like that and everything in between all the way down to like eight dollars and fifty cents, which you can blow at Starbucks. So? So but if you do that a hundred times, that's eight hundred and fifty bucks that you can blow at Starbucks. So check it out at Tom@screwthecommute.com. Pick up a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. I've been giving this away and help, and lots and lots of people automate their business, saves you tons of money, saves you tons of time. It actually makes you money because you can grab customers because you respond so fast.

[00:01:43] So grab your copy, it's screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's screwthecommute.com/app, where you can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road. All right, we're still going strong. We just got another beautiful video testimonial about the program, the pilot program we're doing for persons with disabilities in my school. This one lady that's totally blind is already helping her husband. So online presence and she's only been in the program a month, and she's helping her husband's got a construction company website. So this is very powerful stuff. I'm really proud to be involved in this. So I'd love to have your help if you could check out our site. And of course, this will be in the show notes. So don't worry about writing it down. IMTCVA.org/disabilities and go up to the top of the page. Click on the Go Fund Me account. And hey, any little bit you can contribute really helps. Those people are so appreciative that you're helping them get an a skill that will really help them in their lives. These people have mobility and site problems and and we're really proud of this program. So give me a hand and and be real proud of it yourself.

[00:03:09] Ok, let's get to the main event, let's get to a bunch of questions I get. John Drebin Jr. The prolific speaker is asking me about QR codes last night, so I thought I'd put it in here. Well, QR codes are back. See, they QR codes are these. They're kind of square, but goofy looking. They're kind of a barcode, but they're not all straight lines. You've seen them maybe not know what they are. And they've been around a long time, but the thing is, you used to have to download an app on your cell phone to use them. So about a year and a half ago. The all the major cell phones have a built in QR code reader. You have it on your cell phone right now, maybe didn't even know it. So what you do is you take your car, you open your camera, you don't have to take a picture of anything. You just hold it up to the barcode and you'll get a little thing that pops up that you click on it. It'll take you wherever the barcode was going to take you, and you can print QR code readers if you want to make these for your own business. You can print them on things. People can actually hold up their cell phone to the screen of their computer and see a QR code of yours. It'll take them where they want to go.

[00:04:26] You can have color ones, you can get logos in there, you can get statistics, you know, they have paid QR code readers that are much more fancy. All you have to do is type in QR code program and you'll get buried with all these people trying to give you free ones. And I don't have any recommendations on which is better than the other, but you can try them out for free and see how you like them or the paid ones. You can have colored ones and they keep statistics on how many people clicked and all this stuff. So that's QR codes. All right, Flash briefing, somebody asked me about what's this thing Amazon's doing with flash briefings? Well, Amazon has these things called skills. I don't know why they're called skills, but I know I have about one hundred and eighty flash briefings up there, which are anywhere from one to three minute audio files. That for me, all I did was took my wake him up book and broke it up into just tons of little tips and then read them into my podcast software here and then loaded them up to Amazon. Now I'm going to have a link in the show notes to you have to be an Amazon developer. Don't worry about that. That's, you know, geeky speak and they do all kinds of things. But and I will say, you're probably going to need a geek to implement this unless you're a geek.

[00:05:49] But basically, you just have to register there. You create all these audios. And now here's the crazy thing if you don't want to do it, you just upload the text and Alexa, the Amazon lady will read it for you. Now I want it to be more personal, so I recorded it myself, and then you got to load them up to something like Libsyn, like a podcast hosting service and boom, boom, boom. People can subscribe to them and get them every day from you and so forth. So. So anyway, that's what flash briefings are and just go and look for Amazon skills and you can hear other people's ones if you want to see exactly what I'm talking about. All right. Hey, Tom, some of my videos I've had up for a long time won't play anymore. What's what's up? Well, it's most likely you didn't give me enough information, but it's most likely that you didn't realize that flash. The browser kind of thing to play, to do all kinds of crazy stuff, that's not a good definition of flash, but anyway. Was discontinued back in January of this past year. So I'm suspecting that your videos were in Flash, and so you say, well, what do I do about it? Well, you have to have the flash video files and then I would just Google Flash video converter or get some video expert to, I mean, don't have to be an expert to do this, but to convert them to the modern MP4 format and put them back up and they'll play.

[00:07:32] So I'm suspecting that if they just quit and I mean, you may not even have noticed if you don't really look over your website that carefully over, you know, like we do. But I'm suspecting that that's it. If you have any more details that it's not that, then let me know and we'll we'll help you out.

[00:07:32] Ok, next thing, Tom, what is Coppa? Well, COPPA is stands for the Child Online Privacy Protection Act. Now, basically, what that means to you is you've got to be extremely careful if you are soliciting information from anybody under 13 years old. All right now, here's the thing. They they self claim whether they're 13 or not on most places. All right. So they could just be an eight year old lying. And eight year olds are very tech savvy nowadays, so. But but the thing is is if if it's obvious that you're targeting young people, boy, you better really get it an attorney or something because it's just and read the Copa Act Child Online Privacy Protection Act because you can't collect any personalized info, you can't let them comment on things. You can't make personalized ads, you know, the target any particular person and and even YouTube ask you if your ad is targeted towards children.

[00:09:09] So I don't know. It's a very risky market in my my opinion. Yeah, I know everybody wants to indoctrinate kids to buy their stuff for the rest of their life. But if somebody, if the wrong person comes after you, you could be a bad day for you. So anyway, it's the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, so be careful. Ok. Tom, I got a bad review. How big a deal is it? Our reviews? Well, I did a little research on this for you at the Ubel, and this has nothing to do with the, you know, the ride sharing thing. Uber reputation did a reputation management study and they studied sixty four thousand Google my business reviews. And later you hear this. They set a point, one increase in star ratings can mean up to twenty five percent more business. All right, that is really powerful. I never dreamed that that could be true and it's up to so they're not saying everybody's going to do. Twenty five percent more business. And also, they found that the businesses that answered more reviews, whether positive or negative, end up making more money. And in this one I did know is a four point nine or four point eight. Review. Overall, review rating makes more money than a 5.0, and the conventional wisdom here is that.

[00:10:46] People can't believe that you have a perfect rating. I mean, I fight this with podcast reviews because people like this podcast and a lot of them know me or they think they know me after hearing me for almost 500 episodes now. And so they they don't want to put a four point two or four star review or a three star review. So they put five star and so it looks like they're all fake, you know, so real reviews, people don't believe it, that you could, you know, that don't know. You can't believe that it could be five stars. So four point seven eight nine really make more money than 5.0. Now back to your question about your bad review. Uber also came in with some best practices for responding to negative reviews. So first thing is is I'm going to just read their tips be responsive and thoughtful, be kind. And here's the thing I would have said. If somebody is giving you a bad review. You know, before you get all defensive about it and I do, I get defensive about certain things when I know it's bogus. But think what could I have done better? What did I mess up? That the reason I got this bad review, so you got to you can't just all put it on the idiots and there's plenty of idiots out there. There's some listening to this show right now.

[00:12:15] You know, so. So you can't put it all on them. You need to look inside and see what's whatever you're doing. It's wrong. But anyway, you can explain what has changed, what you're doing to fix whatever problem that happened to them. Don't take it personal. It says, do apologize and do something nice for them, and I'm throwing in one extra one that's worked great for me over many years. I ask people and we don't mess up too often I got to tell you, but I asked people, What could I do to make it right? And sometimes I'm almost like Nordstrom's. You know, I had nothing to do with the problem. Somebody doesn't know how to download a PDF file, and they're bitching at me because they bought an e-book and they don't know, have any idea what they're doing. And so they're yelling at me about it. Well, so I still apologize. Oh, I'm sorry, you had all that trouble, and now you're delayed getting your book and everything. What can I do to make it right for you? And then you just shut up. And I tell you what, in the 44 years I've been in formal business long before the internet started. Not one person has asked for more than I was willing to give them. People in general are fair in these in these professional markets anyway. And and so that's a good thing to say. What can I do to make it right and then just shut up? And if you do get something outrageous, you know, you have to respond that, oh boy, we can't do that, but here's something I can do for you.

[00:13:46] You know, so you've got to really take care of people because those reviews are really, really something and you should be doing it anyway, taking care of people. Ok, Tom, I heard some guru talking about mobile first indexing. I didn't really understand what the heck he was talking about. Well, it's pretty. It's not real complicated. It's, you know, a lot of these gurus or tech people, you know, make things more complicated and what they need to be. But basically, mobile first indexing is that Google came out and said, we're going to use the mobile version of your site to rank you. In the search results. Rather than your desktop version and you say, well, what does that mean to me, I mean, you know, I got a responsive site. Well, you better make sure it's really responsive and it really takes care of mobile users because way more people do their searches on cell phones and tablets now. So Google is pretty much telling you that's the thing about Google. They'll tell you what you should do. I mean, they don't tell you everything, all their secrets, but they pretty much tell you what they like about sites and what they don't.

[00:15:01] And if you ignore it, well, it's at your own peril. You know, people waste so much money on SEO or search engine optimization from people that you know, like, you know, we use this term a lot. You can swing a dead cat and run into an SEO person, you know, so. So they just know more than you and they may not be. They really that good, but you don't know any better. So be careful. I mean, I've heard. Uh, I haven't heard hardly any stories in my whole career, twenty seven years, and I was really great at Echo until I gave up on it because it just wasn't worth it anymore. But I've heard a million stories of people losing money on SEO and not getting the results and almost zero stories on people that got great results. All right. So I'm just telling you, that's been my experience and the SEO people hate me over it, but and I have them on the show occasionally and see what they have to say. And and some of them are pretty darn competent. But the you know, there's just to me, there's better ways with paid advertising where you can turn it on and off and and you get instant results rather than waiting, you know, the SEO people. It's easy for them to sell you stuff. They say, Well, you know, it does take a while and of course, you know, it takes a while.

[00:16:19] So they say it could be three to six months before we see some real results here. Well, by that time, you've spent a fortune. And then if you don't see results, it's like, Oh, well, will you have to keep trying, you know? You know, so pay, you could you could have had a million dollars in revenue, but from paid traffic, then maybe spent ten thousand dollars. All right. And have it like in the next month or so. So I mean, I'm exaggerating. I mean, that's certainly possible for bigger companies. But but the thing is is I like that control and speed rather than, oh, it could work in about six months. That's what I don't like about it. But anyway, mobile first indexing means you're there going on the mobile version of your site, so that's where you need to concentrate your efforts. Ok, and speaking of Google liking stuff, I had a question I put next to this one because it's kind of related is Tom. What's the Google search console? Well, it's used to be called Google Webmaster Tools. Ok, but you can sign up for this. It's all free and it gives you all kinds of stuff that Google likes and doesn't like about your site. It'll it'll give you reports on the incoming links to your site and the outgoing links to your site and and the top pages that people like in your site.

[00:17:45] And the top sites that are linking to you. And it'll talk all about the mobile usability, which I just mentioned mobile first indexing. So you're crazy if you don't sign up for that for free and you're not going to understand everything about it. But if you just get a couple tips for free with Google telling you what they like and don't like about your site, how stupid are you if you don't take advantage of that? You know you kill yourself to put a website up, and you and I hear him crying the blues all the time when they call me o Tom. I'm just not getting any success online. Well, you don't know what the hell you're doing. That's why you didn't have any good training. You think you can do your business and then leave all your web presence to other people. Well, no, you're just ridiculous. They'll take you for a ride, though you'll cost you a fortune, and the results, chances are, will be dismal. All right. So you have to be involved and understand what's going on, and then you can farm it out to a lot of young people. And I hate the age discriminate, but there's not too many old farts that are as good as the young people when it comes to this stuff. So sign up for Google search console. Put your website in there and and you know you're going to have to put a little code on your site so that they connect and see what your site's all about.

[00:19:08] But any geek can do that for, you know, two minutes, you know, so. So that's that. All right, next thing before I tell you the next thing, this is called buying keywords. Oh, I really want to remind you about this program, I have to help persons with disabilities. I mean, you know, most people that don't have disabilities have gotten a a hand dealt to them way, way better than these other folks that that, you know, if I want to go to seven 11, I can jump in the car. The whole trip is I'm there and back in 15 minutes, but it might take a person with mobility problems an hour just to get ready to get in a car to go if they can even see to drive it, which some of our students can't say so. So it really would be a great thing to help these people out. And that's what I'm doing in this pilot program. The idea is I'm going to put five people through our school, give them a highly in-demand skill, internet and digital marketing for small business and big business, too. And. And or get them their own business. They could be freelancers doing all kinds of stuff remotely so they don't have to travel.

[00:20:23] And then when I proved the concept, then I took a grant writing course and I'm rolling this out really big to bring in lots of money and help lots of people. So. So I really need your help to move this forward. We have a Go Fund Me account. If you go to Imtech VA mortgage disabilities, that's plural. Go up to the top of the page. Click on the Go Fund Me account. You'll see some of the people already in the program and how it's going, whereby about I think about twenty five percent towards our goal to put five people through. So give me a hand on that. All right, so the last thing is, is buying type keywords now. The person asking this question, I believe, totally misconstrued. What they heard are they they were exposed to and they thought, I'll just ask Tom what this means. So a lot of people might think that when you talk about buying keywords that you're talking about paying so that that keyword is yours. All right. And not that that hasn't happened in the past. I don't never, never really took off. Some search engines were were selling you the keywords, and it was like an auction bidding process. So it kind of still is involved in the in pay per click ads. You know, you're buying certain keywords and the more you bid, the higher you get up and you know, all that stuff.

[00:21:51] But that's not really what I suspect was being talked about. What I suspect was being talked about are buying type keywords, which means what are the key words people using that indicate that they are ready to buy? That's what we're talking about here, so I could have a key word public speaking tips. Ok. But. And that's a keyword phrase we would call when I say key words, I'm talking about keywords and keyword phrases, which are multiple words. So public speaking tips would be a keyword phrase, and I use it all kinds of places. Absolutely. But a keyword phrase that says. What's the best public speaking book to purchase, OK, now you get the idea that person is ready to buy a public speaking book. So of course, I want to sell them, wake them up, either the digital or the physical. We don't even have many of the physical ones left in stock. So. The the idea is, is the type of keywords is are telling you that the person is ready to buy. Now there's going to be less searches for those kinds. But would you rather have a thousand searches on a keyword that people are just farting around or a hundred keywords that they say, I got money? My wallet's out. I'm going to give it to you if you give me the product. All right. That's that's what we're talking about here.

[00:23:29] So there's less searches, but they're clearly ready to buy. So examples, and I'm just going to use X whatever the product is. Where to buy X? Where can I buy X? Where can you buy X? All right. By X. X for sale, X for sale online, X for sale near me, who sells X, see all of those are buying. Type keywords that indicate the person is ready to go. They don't want to fool around. They want to give you money and get the product and get the use of it. So. So those are buying type keywords. You're not buying keywords like you would in a pay per click search engine. You're using keywords and keyword phrases that indicate the person is ready to buy. So you want to put these in your site strategically, and that's part that's really valuable. Seo If you locate these words using the keyword tools, my first episode and episode one 30 talks about keywords, so go back and listen to them, but then look. Use the tools that I talk about to find the words that say, Hey, people are ready to buy my product. I need to incorporate these phrases into my site. Ok, that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. We will catch you on the next episode and watch out for a big sale coming up on episode five hundred, where we're going to have a very interesting replay on episode five hundred coming up soon. All right, we'll catch you later.

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