The devil’s in the marketing details. Seth Godin’s blog provides an excellent template on how to create a rabid fanbase, leverage Social Media effectively, and sell your ebooks. In this post, I’m going to show you some of the small ways he does this. If you implement these correctly, your blog will see more traffic, more customers, and more sales.

Why Read Seth Godin?

According to Ad Age, Seth ranks number one on their Power 150 web marketing blogs. If he’s having a down day, he may fall all the way to number two. Don’t worry. Check back in a few hours. He’s probably number one again.

You can learn a lot by monitoring Seth. You don’t have to agree with him. But sit back, watch what he does and take notes.

Take Twitter, for example.

Seth Godin doesn’t use Twitter. And promises he never will. Yet, few of us get tweeted as often as Seth.

Ok he does. Well, kinda. He links his blog to his Twitter. When he hits publish on his blog – which is every day without fail – a tweet gets sent out.

His 45,486 followers take over from there.

What’s the trick?

Here’s a clue.

‘You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. ~Zig Ziglar

1. Write For Humans

Why?

Seth’s site is designed to be read.

It has:

• No irritating popups asking you to sign for a newsletter.
• No Flash intros that waste your time.
• No plug-ins that must be installed.
• No distracting banner ads.
• No videos.
• No frequent changes to the site design to keep things ‘fresh’.

KISS is the mantra.

Instead…

• You, the reader, are the most important person on the site.
• The site is designed to make it easy for you to read.
• It would be hard to design a site that was more user-friendly.
• It loads very fast, which Google loves. Google gives you brownie points for a fast-loading site.

2. Catchy Headlines

Look at these titles. You want to read them, right? Seth knows how to write great hooks. Short titles that pull you in, generate curiosity and make you want to read more.

• Sell the problem. No business buys a solution for a problem they don’t have.
• Every activity worth doing has a learning curve.
• Build in virality.
• Subscriptions beat one-off sales.
• Treat different customers differently.

3. Short Blog Post Titles

A second thing about his blog post titles. He keeps them short. Often two or three words.

Why so short?

A few reasons. One is that it makes them easier to share, another is that they’re easier to retweet (long titles may get chopped off when others add their comments) and they look great when compiled into a book.

The word count is low, sometimes less than a hundred words. But, like all great writers, he can condense his material into a few paragraphs.

Here’s an experiment.

Read through his articles and see what you can remove without affecting the meaning. Not much, is there?

Seth is also a great marketer. He packages his content so it’s easy to adapt to other media. For example, most of the posts in ‘Small is the New Big’ came from his website.

And how can you not like a book called, All Marketers Are Liars?

4. Create Remarkable Content

When you make yourself unique – and do something successful – others take note.

The web is full of imitators, wannabees and copycats. When you do something a little different that works, others want to look. If you do it very well, you become the template for others to follow.

For example?

Look at Leo Babauta. His ‘zen’ blog has launched a thousand websites that ape his minimal, simple values.

Seth has spawned his imitators.

Few, in any, produce content as intriguing, confident and sharable as he does.

5. The Cult of Seth

The fact the he doesn’t use twitter AND promises us that he never will encourages other to carry the flame for him.

Seth has a rabid fan base. Most will tweet and re-tweet his posts even BEFORE they’ve read them.

Because Seth can’t (or won’t) they spread the word for him.

6. Create a Rabid Fanbase

His followers are fanatic about Seth.

Don’t believe me?

If you feel brave, make a comment that doesn’t support the word of Seth or dares to challenge it. In Linchpin, he talks about the Lizard Brain.

I’ve read comments about the Lizard Brain in other blogs. Some folks seem to take it literally as though it’s a fact. Try explaining to them that there is no Lizard Brain.

Be prepared for some very negative comments.

7. Think Like a Newspaper & Write Daily

Seth writes a new blog post every day.

His blog is like a newspaper. New day, new edition. And the quality is very high. No filler. No fluff.

Fans check in first thing every morning to get the skinny…. and then start tweeting.

His site shows the number of tweets and shares. This encourages readers to find the most popular articles and spend more time on the site.

8. Focus on Words, Not Images

Breaking all SEO rules, Seth rarely uses images to jazz up his articles. He wastes no time on eye candy or visual cliches. The focus is on words.

9. Feed Google

and because he posts every day, Google rates the site higher than his competitors. Google has always favored sites that post regularly. This year it announced that its algorithm was updated to favor/reward etc sites that produce content more frequently.

10. Break Social Media Rules

The irony is that Seth doesn’t interact with his community. He doesn’t reply to comments on his blog – you can’t even leave comments – and his Facebook page has little interaction that I can see.

Somehow this encourages others to:

• Speak on his behalf and spread the word.
• Defend any criticism of his writings.
• Interpret his material so others sees what he really means. How accurate they are is open to debate.

The point is that all this creates buzz.

More buzz, more sales!

11. Multiple Calls to Action

Call to Action means getting the reader to do something, such as subscribing to a newsletter, joining your Facebook Fan page or increasing your sales. The site makes this very easy to:

• Buy the books
• Read the articles
• Share the love

It’s simple. And it works.

Over to you.

What’s the one thing you’ve learnt from Seth that makes him stand out? And how have you adapted it into your marketing strategy?

Note: This article first appeared on Bloggertone as How Seth Godin Turns Browsers To Buyers

If you want to see great web copy, read Andrew Chen. I’m going to show you his top 15 posts from last year. What do you see? The headlines are very compelling; smart little nuggets that draw you in. The secret is how he combines several copywriting techniques so well. It looks seamless. And that’s what makes it so great.

What Andrew Chen Can Teach You About Writing Killer Headlines

Let’s look at the first seven. Remember, Andrew writes about business models, design and metrics. Not very sexy. But, armed with the right attitude…

1. How to create a profitable Freemium startup (spreadsheet model included!)

Includes Freemium (good keyword) and adds the spreadsheet teaser. How many headlines have you seen include offers in brackets?

2. Built to Fail: How companies like Google, IDEO, and 37signals build failure-tolerant systems for anything!

Nice twist on Built to Last, the best-seller business book.

3. Free to Freemium: 5 lessons learned from YouSendIt.com

Squeezes two killer keywords, uses a number to grab attention, lessons learned implies that there will be some benefit for you the reader into the same headline

4. Product design debt versus Technical debt

Product design Technical debt. Four short words, nice and punchy.

5. Friends versus Followers: Twitter’s elegant design for grouping contacts

Do you see a pattern emerging here? Andrew counterbalances popular keywords (Twitter) against Friends and Followers. Also, ‘versus’ implies conflict or tension. A nice way to stir the reader’s emotions.

6. 5 warning signs: Does A/B testing lead to crappy products?

Crappy isn’t seen in too many headlines. When’s the last time you saw it?

7. Freemium business model case study: AdultFriendFinder ARPU, churn, and conversion rates

The 7^th most popular article has 13 words, including several acronyms, all flying in the face of convention wisdom.

FYI Andrew is here http://andrewchenblog.com/2010/01/03/top-posts-for-2009-freemium-design-and-metrics/

Those are the first seven on his list. Here’s the rest.

8. Which startup’s collapse will end the Web 2.0 era?

9. 2009 conference schedule for the digital media industry

10. Does every startup need a Steve Jobs?

My Fav!

11. Why low-fidelity prototyping kicks butt for customer-driven design

12. What if interviews poorly predict job performance? What if dating poorly predicts marital happiness?

13. How to calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups relying on freemium, subscription, or virtual items biz models

14. 5 crucial stages in designing your viral loop

15. Age (and ARPPU) ain’t nothing but a number: Data on how age impacts social gaming monetization

Over to you

What do you think of these headings? It’s not PC, it’s not the ‘correct’ way – but I think it works?

Does it work for you?