Should You Display Prices Online? (4 Tips Included)

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The online platform gives much stress to a marketing component: Price. The consumer is empowered more than ever and can search for the lowest prices in the comfort of his home.

This then raises a question to you, the internet businessman. Should you display the prices of your products and services online?

Here are my guidelines:

1. Understand that by putting a price, you are priming your web reader to go look for another site to compare your prices against his.
2. If you decide to put a price, ensure that you state accompanying benefits which are hard to imitate. Saying “Best deals in town” is just a matter of copy and paste. Stating your qualifications and track record is another thing altogether.
3. Ensure that when prices are stated, you also display mechanisms on the site which allow the reader to make payments without hassle. Provide information on the purchasing. The logic is that you’ve displayed the price, and you’re now attempting to sell your pricing via your smooth transaction processes too.
4. If you’re bold enough, display price list comparisons. Focus on the intangible services.

If you’re unsure of whether you should state your pricing, google up your competitors and see if they state their prices.

2 Golden Rules of Blog Post Titles

The look of the product is the first impression that the consumer will form, and can make the difference between getting attention in the first place to a sales purchase.

The main first impression of your blog is your article title, and not necessarily the look of your blog itself. This is because your blog is being promoted primarily via the pieces of text that make up the different titles of your different articles. You are trying your best to get attention via that one magic article, with all the right content, packaged with a super sticky title that search engines will love and that will ignite the reader’s curiosity, just enough for him to click to be directed to your blog.

Here are 2 golden rules for constructing successful titles for your blog posts:

1. Ensure consistency on uppercase and lowercase. If you choose to keep your titles in uppercase always, then do so always. If you want to keep the first letters of each word (encluding the minor words like “of”) in uppercase, then do so for all other articles too. Don’t mix and match too much unless really necessary. It’s like a shoe store that seems to be on sale always: you’d start to think their sales strategy is plain lousy. In the blogging case: sloppy.
2. Try your best to add numbers intro your titles. If that doesn’t fit the content, then try adding any of the 5Ws or 1H (What, When… How). If that’s not possible, then make your title hook with so much curiosity that the reader just has to click on it to find out what on earth it’s about. Use power words.
3. (Yes I know I said 2 rules): Make your title dynamic and part of your posting. Its most basic role is to encourage the reader to click and read the first sentence of the first paragraph. At the other end, its most innovative use is when it’s able to serve more than just a title; for example, when the title and blog contents combine to surprise and excite the reader, like this post and paragraph.

So those were the two golden rules, plus one bonus rule for blog titles. Do you remember any catchy blog titles you’ve seen before? Share with me here.

10 Tips to Add Personality to Your Blog

Branding is an integral part of any product. A dimension of branding is product personality. Simply put it, if you asked someone to imagine your product as a person, they could without much difficulty.

Your blog should have personality too. That’s one of the key differences of blogs and regular websites: the blog speaks with a certain ego.

With that, here are my 10 tips to add personality to your blog:

1. Have a colour scheme to your blog. Colours help to increase familiarity, and people tend to like things that are familiar to them more than unfamiliar stuffs.
2. Put a picture of your face on your blog. To your reader, it’s comforting to know that you’re human.
3. Put a tagline or slogan below the title. It’s like small talk after the big speech (title).
4. Have a style of writing that is not too formal and fits your blog culture too.
5. Encourage and respond to comments in the comments section. Engage in the commentary.
6. Use “I” when it becomes personal. Use “We” when you can share the success with your readers.
7. Add a graphic signature after each posting. Here’s a sample by lorelle: lorelle.wordpress.com
8. Relate your daily experiences in your blogs where possible. Readers love the ability to peek into your life sometimes.
9. Have humour. A little sarcasm once in awhile can do some magic.
10. Ensure that it’s easy to figure out how to contact you. My own standard is that it should take only 1 click to get to a page where I can reach you, regardless of which page I’m at. It’s like customer service: I want to be able to press zero and speak to the operator at every number option I land myself in.

Do you have your own tips on building personality for blogs? Share them with me here.