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Three Persuasive Language Techniques

Guest post by: Shaun Belding

Article Overview: People often mistake 'persuasiveness' with either speaking more loudly or more passionately. Tone and volume certainly play a role in the impact of the things you say - sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but the most effective way to improve your persuasiveness is to employ some simple, but powerful language strategies.

Three Persuasive Language Techniques

People often mistake 'persuasiveness' with either speaking more loudly or more passionately. Tone and volume certainly play a role in the impact of the things you say - sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but the most effective way to improve your persuasiveness is to employ some simple, but powerful language strategies. Here are three that we should all have in our toolbox: Answer a Question with a Question

As a general rule, the person who is asking the questions is controlling a conversation. And there is a direct relationship between conversation control and the ability to persuade. Whenever someone asks you a question they take control of the conversation, which can often (but not always) work against you. Answering a question with a (related) question can re-establish control, and ensure that the conversation is heading in the direction you want. So, for example, if you have a customer who asks, "What are the features of this product?" you can answer with, "It has a great many features - what were you looking for this product to do?" When the customer answers your question, you now know what features will be of greatest value to him.

Speak in Sandwiches

The best way to present negative information or a difference of opinion is to use good-stuff - bad-stuff - good-stuff language sandwiches. Say, for example, a coworker or boss has an opinion that you don't entirely agree with. You could say, "I don't entirely agree with that," which is pretty much guaranteed to make her a little defensive. A better approach would be, "Susan, that's a good idea (Good Stuff). If we modified it a little to address these X issues (Bad Stuff), I think it can really work. I think you've really almost nailed it (Good Stuff)..." With this approach, Susan will be less defensive, and more receptive to your ideas.

Shut up

The best conversation technique anyone can master is the art of shutting up. The value of your opinions and the things you have to say increases proportionately to the length of time you've spent listening to people.

Have fun!

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Article Tags: business, language strategies, language techniques, persuasive language, persuasiveness, self improvement, workplace



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Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":1jr37kqx]There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash[/quote:1jr37kqx] Hi Jeff, Thanks for adding to the list. I have one question, though. How would one implement Session IDs for a URL, and what benefit would come from doing so?
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":1a8vvwse]There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash[/quote:1a8vvwse] I wouldn't think of "relying on keyword metatags", "using lots of javascript", and "implementing your site in Flash" as bad/black hat...just ineffective. The search engines don't pay much attention to keyword metatags, and using javascript/flash just means the search engines can't "read" it (so if your menu is javascript, for instance, the search engine won't see any keywords you might have in there.)
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