Is it a time issue? Is it a lack of skill? Is it budgetary constraints? What would help small businesses make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time if that hurdle didn't exist?
All of the above, and more.
Human beings tend to stick with what provides proven results. That means doing things the way they've always been done.
Small business owners, like everyone else, have "invisible scripts" that affect their decision making even if they're not aware of it. They probably have this script in the back of their minds that says, "Anything related to technology and online tools is going to be expensive."
In other words, it may not be a REAL budgetary, skill, or time constraint, but the perception that these factors prohibit online ventures. Plus, they don't really know where to start. They probably know that either they're going to have to learn (script: "I don't have time for that") or hire somebody on to manage it (script: "I can't afford to hire someone to manage an unproven tool"). Perception trumps reality every time.
Though new technology can save money and make tasks easier in the long run, and online ventures don't have to cost an arm and a leg, if the perception is that such things are going to be expensive with questionable ROI...
But it may also be more fundamental. Small business owners get a bright idea, or have a skill, and want to turn it into a business. They decide they need a website. Then, usually much to their distress, they discover that they will have to be in 2 businesses. One of them is the one they want to be in, and the other is something, that vaguely dawns on them, under the heading of internet marketing. They aren't sure where to turn. They don't know who to trust. They discover that if they don't get a grip on technology and marketing, they probably won't have a business.
Have you heard the expression, "surrounded by people and no one to talk to"? The whole 'technology and marketing' thing is so vast, with so much information, much of it conflicting, that they wind up frozen in place. They don't know where to turn, or what a reasonable first step might be.
We've spent years trying to crack the code on this. I think we learn a little more about it every day. When it comes to technology and marketing online I think small business owners need to first take a step backwards, back to the basics of marketing and planning. I'm a firm believer in setting goals first, then making a plan based on those goals, and then taking action.
Without knowing what they want to accomplish it's difficult to decide which tools to use. More web traffic? More sales? Make the phone ring? And it's hard to determine a budget for online marketing if you don't know why you're doing it.
That said, I think small business owners face one or all of the hurdles mentioned. Time, skill, money. As to what would help, once they've identified goals and challenges, it's easier to identify if they need to carve out time, learn new skills, or outsource everything. I don't think there is one size fits all solution, but if you've got one, I want to know!
Showing posts with label Online Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Online Marketing. Show all posts
Monday, July 16, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
How To Get Help Designing A Small Business Website
You have a small business and want to expand into the online world to help grow your presence and sales. You want potential customers to be able to find you on the web. You want current clientele to have something to come back to and refer their friends. You want to be able to show your wares, take orders online, explain who you are and what you do, show folks how to get to your location(s), or just have something that will generate buzz for the locals. Whatever the "why" is for you having a website doesn't really matter.
You might even already have a website but it's looking old and stale. You want to start all over with something that works better for today's online market.
The big question is this....
How do I do that?
In other words ... you know you want a business website. But .... you don't know what the next step is. Or the step after that. Or the step after that.
So how do you get started designing your dream small business website?
Can you do it yourself, or can someone do it for you if you tell them what you want?
The answer to those two questions is "yes" ... and "yes".
To get those questions answered ... and any other question you can think of ... there's a simple to use service perfect to help you navigate the maze of steps and potential confusion. They make it easy for you.
All you have to do is relax, and ask here:
How To Design A Small Business Website
The benefits to you of using this service are enormous...
* one-to-one human contact
* personal
* REAL
* no FAQ to read, you can ask ANYTHING
Again, just contact them here and ask whatever you like .... they'll help you design a small business website that really works to do what YOU want it to do:
Monday, April 23, 2012
Online Marketing For Small Business
As I've said many times, and feel like I need to reiterate, I would encourage you to take a good long look at your online marketing efforts that you are currently using. Really evaluate if your small business is getting the results you want, or if something needs to be changed or added.
One of the things to keep in mind is WHO are you marketing to, which should always be the forefront of your mind when you are considering a new marketing venture for your web sites.
In other words, if you were fishing, which of the two photos below would you hope would represent YOU after a day of fishing:
That is actually a pretty good analogy because if you only fish where the little ones are, all you're going to get is going to be sushi wannabe catches, but if you are looking for the BIG fish, you need to fish where the big catches hang out, and that is NOT in the local retention ponds or drainage ditches.
But don't spin your wheels on things you cannot control. Instead, focus and concentrate on the things you CAN control. That means fishing where the big fish are and using the bait that attracts the kind of fish you want to catch. That is done with KEYWORDS and BACKLINKS, both of why contribute heavily to the kind of bait you are using on your hooks and which waters your cast lands you in.
One of the inevitable truths of virtually ANYTHING you do, especially when it comes to producing revenue, is that:
"Hobby-sized efforts will produce hobby-sized income"
And it really can't be said more succinctly than that. So are you looking for hobby-sized income where all your efforts to do marketing effectively may gain you enough to buy a pack of gum at the end of the month, or are you serious about it where you are looking for income that can make your car payment, house payment, or fatten up your 401K at the end of the month, or even more?
There is a saying that "the one thing that determines if you are a winner or a loser is whether or not you take action". Have you taken action? Have you taken positive action consistently? Or do you just THINK about things you could or should be doing every now and then but haven't implemented much of anything so far? Nothing happens if ACTION is not taken. Nothing.
So at the end of it, it comes down to which road you want to travel, where your options can be depicted as shown in the following picture:
Hey, we are ALL busy, no issues there, I've been a charter founding member of that club for many years. Spouse, kids, church, yard work, social commitments, so much more, I understand. But what do you do in your spare time? Or if you don't think you have spare time, where can you CREATE some spare time? Did you really need to watch NCIS or Glee last night when you know it's being recorded on your DVR anyway? Did you really need to spend 3 hours a few nights ago reading other people's posts on Facebook? Did you really need to spend a whole evening last week reorganizing your paper clip collection? You know what I'm saying, because if you examine the things you MUST get done (and YOU are in charge of defining "must"), I don't believe that you are busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. And as sobering as that might be, the choice of what you spend your time doing is entirely in your hands.
So again, keywords and backlinks.
Digging Into Keywords
You could be selling new Lexus cars for cheaper than dirt but if nobody knows about it, especially people who are actively LOOKING for a great price on a new Lexus, you could be GIVING them away and it would not make a difference. So how do you let people who are looking for what you have to offer that you have something they should stop and take a look at?
That is done via the right keywords, plain and simple. Simple? Yes simple when you consider where these people hang out and what they are searching for that you can easily get your web sites RANKED FOR in the search engines. In fact, that is simpler than you probably think. To avoid giving you the whole enchilada on a silver platter, I'm going to use the keyword of "dogs" but hopefully you can catch my drift here.
So you have a web site that is specifically geared towards "dog collars". You sell various different makes and models of dog collars and have super prices from the leading makers of dog collars. That's good, but at that point, how do you get the word out? So you add some content to your web page about dog collars and how great they are, taking care to use your keyword phrase in that content at the 2-3% level (to avoid venalities of "keyword stuffing") and you include include phrasing in that content to include what the search engines would see as "LSI" phrases, or "Latent Symantic Indexing", or in other words, things that may not specifically SAY "dog collars" but are known to be related to that topic. This is unique content you have written, not simply snarfed of someone else's page and pasted verbatim on your page. So when the search engine spiders come around and read your page, they understand what your site is all about.
But this is a huge market! How do you get your site ranked for dog collars so that your rank in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) isn't on page 2,763 which people will never find?
You dig deeper. You look for keywords for the dog collar industry where you may have 4000 competing pages instead of 40 million competing pages! For example, if I do a search in Google for "dog collars", I find that there are 9.1 million search results. Yowsers, how do you compete against that? So you revise your site to talk specifically (with content) about "red dog collars", because you see in a Google search that there are only 2.1 million results for the term "red dog collars". Ok, you've eliminated about 75% of your competition but that is still a pretty hefty number to compete against.
Dig deeper still. You add more content to your page to talk specifically about "golden retriever dog collars", because you note in a Google search for "golden retriever dog collars" that now you have only 215K competing pages. NOW we're getting somewhere with a term that is MUCH easier to rank for! You could dig even deeper and lessen that but you get the idea.
To find the real shoppers instead of the people just doing their college term paper on the topic of dog collars, maybe you want to check the results for "buy dog collars" or "install dog collars" or "discount dog collars" or "quality dog collars", etc. Yes, it's a bit of manual tabor with checking and re-checking, but at the same time, doing this research hasn't cost you a cent.
Let Google Help You
Did you know that Google is more than happy to help you? But did you also know that Google will give you exactly what you asked for and not provide insights into better ways to ask? Let me example.
A great place to go to get keyword/phrase information is Google itself. Hey, go right to the horse's mouth! But there are some things you need to know. First of all, the Google External Keyword URL is:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Bookmark that URL, put it on your browser favourites task bar, just keep track of it because this can be ONE (not the only) of your best friends. You can enter a keyword or phrase there and find out how many searches are done for it and how many competing pages you have for it, but like I said earlier, Google only provides answers what you ask, and there are some things Google won't tell you to get better results from this tool.
First of all, if you don't have Google account (like gmail), get one. (It's free). Then when you go to the URL above, click the "Log in" link in the upper right to log into your Google or Gmail account FIRST and THEN do your keyword research. Why? Two reasons: (1) if you are logged in, Google gives you more and allegedly better results. I haven't been able to confirm or deny that but several SEO experts have mentioned that, so since there is no harm in doing so, it is a good idea; and (2) after you enter your search phrase, if you are logged in, then Google won't ask you for the "captcha" before it works its magic, which is that funky phrase in graphics that you need to enter just right before Google will display any results.
The default, if you don't change it, is BROAD match. That means that Google will show results based on many variations of the search term you entered, many of which may have little to no bearing on the type of traffic you are really looking for. This can be changed on the left side of that page by clicking the search type box.
Another type of search is PHRASE match. This will match the exact PHRASE that you entered as your search term and is the type of search that I personally do myself most of the time.
The last type is EXACT match, which means that. This is the most specific type of search and means that your specified search term MUST be contained within the results that come back. You will notice that there are significant discrepancies in the numbers coming back from each of these query types so it helps to understand what the different types mean.
After you get your results page, you probably want to filter it using the link on that page (only shown AFTER you've done a search) titled "Advanced Options and Filters". You should only be look at the US since almost all of our carriers need to have at least one circuit end in the US, even if they have international locations where they also want a circuit. You can also click the title of the Monthly Searches column to sort them in order by ascending or descending, since as they are initially displayed, there does not appear to be an order (as it relates to number of searches).
Many of the people that spend a lot of time doing keyword research correlate the Google keyword results with results from other programs that may also include Yahoo and Bing search volume numbers. There are many of them out there, too many to list, but one that I have used (they have a free version) is called Traffic Travis, which will also show the competitiveness of each keyword shown in the results in terms of your ability to rank well for that term based on the competition. The "Cadillac" of keyword research is arguably the Market Samurai software, which is not free but provides tremendous insight into keyword and each keyword's relative competition.
Implementation
So how do you utilize those holy grail keywords you were able to uncover? Go back to previous articles here at Small Business Resources Cafe about backlinks. Create a blog about them, which points to your small business site! You could create a Wordpress blog for free at wordpress.org -- in fact, create say 3 off them, one targeting red dog collars, one targeting labrador dog collars, and one targeting spiked dog collars, where each of them would point back to your main dog collars web site. Then create another set of blogs at blogger.com that targets blue dog collars, diamond dog collars and leather dog collars, again all pointing back to your main dog collar site.
What you've just done from the 6 blogs above is to create 6 different keywords, all of which provide a one-way link back to your main dog collar site. And it hasn't cost you a cent! Now rinse and repeat -- create blogs at some of the other "Web 2.0" sites like Tumblr, OnSugar, Zimbio, Gather, WorldVillage, Xanga. LiveJournal, Thoughts and/or so many more and target the heck out of keyword phrases that you want to rank for, because from EACH of these sites, you are creating a one-way link back to your main dog collar site.
Oh and by the way, do you have a Facebook account? Chances are high that you do. Is your small business site listed in your Facebook profile as one of your favorite sites? If not, it should be because Facebook links are valuable and noteworthy to the search engines.
Summary
I hope these articals are helpful to you, giving you ideas, generating some brain juice, or perhaps just providing a necessary kick in the pants. Maybe you are already more than happy with your level of income and getting more just means more headaches for you with your tax return and the IRS, in which case I salute and envy you.
There is a saying that I learned at the airport when I go out flying that says: "Never let your airplane get somewhere that your brain didn't get to about 5 minutes earlier". The words of wisdom there are that your brain needs to be at least 5 minutes ahead of the plane, and you need to be fully aware ("situational awareness") of where you are, where you are going, and how you are going to get there, having a viable and workable plan already in place. Waiting until you actually get there to figure it out is your worst possible option because you may actually be headed in the wrong direction, or when you DO get there, you are going to have other duties to contend with that you need to be prepared for.
The same is true of your marketing efforts. You need to be every bit as aware of where you want to get to as well as how you are going to get there. "More money" is not a sufficient direction, any more than "up" is sufficient when I am flying. Simply submitting your web site to the search engines is not sufficient to get you where you presumably want to go, especially since you are then competing with a SEVEN FIGURE number of people taking that same very lax approach.
One of the things to keep in mind is WHO are you marketing to, which should always be the forefront of your mind when you are considering a new marketing venture for your web sites.
In other words, if you were fishing, which of the two photos below would you hope would represent YOU after a day of fishing:
That is actually a pretty good analogy because if you only fish where the little ones are, all you're going to get is going to be sushi wannabe catches, but if you are looking for the BIG fish, you need to fish where the big catches hang out, and that is NOT in the local retention ponds or drainage ditches.
But don't spin your wheels on things you cannot control. Instead, focus and concentrate on the things you CAN control. That means fishing where the big fish are and using the bait that attracts the kind of fish you want to catch. That is done with KEYWORDS and BACKLINKS, both of why contribute heavily to the kind of bait you are using on your hooks and which waters your cast lands you in.
One of the inevitable truths of virtually ANYTHING you do, especially when it comes to producing revenue, is that:
And it really can't be said more succinctly than that. So are you looking for hobby-sized income where all your efforts to do marketing effectively may gain you enough to buy a pack of gum at the end of the month, or are you serious about it where you are looking for income that can make your car payment, house payment, or fatten up your 401K at the end of the month, or even more?
There is a saying that "the one thing that determines if you are a winner or a loser is whether or not you take action". Have you taken action? Have you taken positive action consistently? Or do you just THINK about things you could or should be doing every now and then but haven't implemented much of anything so far? Nothing happens if ACTION is not taken. Nothing.
So at the end of it, it comes down to which road you want to travel, where your options can be depicted as shown in the following picture:
Hey, we are ALL busy, no issues there, I've been a charter founding member of that club for many years. Spouse, kids, church, yard work, social commitments, so much more, I understand. But what do you do in your spare time? Or if you don't think you have spare time, where can you CREATE some spare time? Did you really need to watch NCIS or Glee last night when you know it's being recorded on your DVR anyway? Did you really need to spend 3 hours a few nights ago reading other people's posts on Facebook? Did you really need to spend a whole evening last week reorganizing your paper clip collection? You know what I'm saying, because if you examine the things you MUST get done (and YOU are in charge of defining "must"), I don't believe that you are busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. And as sobering as that might be, the choice of what you spend your time doing is entirely in your hands.
So again, keywords and backlinks.
Digging Into Keywords
You could be selling new Lexus cars for cheaper than dirt but if nobody knows about it, especially people who are actively LOOKING for a great price on a new Lexus, you could be GIVING them away and it would not make a difference. So how do you let people who are looking for what you have to offer that you have something they should stop and take a look at?
That is done via the right keywords, plain and simple. Simple? Yes simple when you consider where these people hang out and what they are searching for that you can easily get your web sites RANKED FOR in the search engines. In fact, that is simpler than you probably think. To avoid giving you the whole enchilada on a silver platter, I'm going to use the keyword of "dogs" but hopefully you can catch my drift here.
So you have a web site that is specifically geared towards "dog collars". You sell various different makes and models of dog collars and have super prices from the leading makers of dog collars. That's good, but at that point, how do you get the word out? So you add some content to your web page about dog collars and how great they are, taking care to use your keyword phrase in that content at the 2-3% level (to avoid venalities of "keyword stuffing") and you include include phrasing in that content to include what the search engines would see as "LSI" phrases, or "Latent Symantic Indexing", or in other words, things that may not specifically SAY "dog collars" but are known to be related to that topic. This is unique content you have written, not simply snarfed of someone else's page and pasted verbatim on your page. So when the search engine spiders come around and read your page, they understand what your site is all about.
But this is a huge market! How do you get your site ranked for dog collars so that your rank in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) isn't on page 2,763 which people will never find?
You dig deeper. You look for keywords for the dog collar industry where you may have 4000 competing pages instead of 40 million competing pages! For example, if I do a search in Google for "dog collars", I find that there are 9.1 million search results. Yowsers, how do you compete against that? So you revise your site to talk specifically (with content) about "red dog collars", because you see in a Google search that there are only 2.1 million results for the term "red dog collars". Ok, you've eliminated about 75% of your competition but that is still a pretty hefty number to compete against.
Dig deeper still. You add more content to your page to talk specifically about "golden retriever dog collars", because you note in a Google search for "golden retriever dog collars" that now you have only 215K competing pages. NOW we're getting somewhere with a term that is MUCH easier to rank for! You could dig even deeper and lessen that but you get the idea.
To find the real shoppers instead of the people just doing their college term paper on the topic of dog collars, maybe you want to check the results for "buy dog collars" or "install dog collars" or "discount dog collars" or "quality dog collars", etc. Yes, it's a bit of manual tabor with checking and re-checking, but at the same time, doing this research hasn't cost you a cent.
Let Google Help You
Did you know that Google is more than happy to help you? But did you also know that Google will give you exactly what you asked for and not provide insights into better ways to ask? Let me example.
A great place to go to get keyword/phrase information is Google itself. Hey, go right to the horse's mouth! But there are some things you need to know. First of all, the Google External Keyword URL is:
Bookmark that URL, put it on your browser favourites task bar, just keep track of it because this can be ONE (not the only) of your best friends. You can enter a keyword or phrase there and find out how many searches are done for it and how many competing pages you have for it, but like I said earlier, Google only provides answers what you ask, and there are some things Google won't tell you to get better results from this tool.
First of all, if you don't have Google account (like gmail), get one. (It's free). Then when you go to the URL above, click the "Log in" link in the upper right to log into your Google or Gmail account FIRST and THEN do your keyword research. Why? Two reasons: (1) if you are logged in, Google gives you more and allegedly better results. I haven't been able to confirm or deny that but several SEO experts have mentioned that, so since there is no harm in doing so, it is a good idea; and (2) after you enter your search phrase, if you are logged in, then Google won't ask you for the "captcha" before it works its magic, which is that funky phrase in graphics that you need to enter just right before Google will display any results.
The default, if you don't change it, is BROAD match. That means that Google will show results based on many variations of the search term you entered, many of which may have little to no bearing on the type of traffic you are really looking for. This can be changed on the left side of that page by clicking the search type box.
Another type of search is PHRASE match. This will match the exact PHRASE that you entered as your search term and is the type of search that I personally do myself most of the time.
The last type is EXACT match, which means that. This is the most specific type of search and means that your specified search term MUST be contained within the results that come back. You will notice that there are significant discrepancies in the numbers coming back from each of these query types so it helps to understand what the different types mean.
After you get your results page, you probably want to filter it using the link on that page (only shown AFTER you've done a search) titled "Advanced Options and Filters". You should only be look at the US since almost all of our carriers need to have at least one circuit end in the US, even if they have international locations where they also want a circuit. You can also click the title of the Monthly Searches column to sort them in order by ascending or descending, since as they are initially displayed, there does not appear to be an order (as it relates to number of searches).
Many of the people that spend a lot of time doing keyword research correlate the Google keyword results with results from other programs that may also include Yahoo and Bing search volume numbers. There are many of them out there, too many to list, but one that I have used (they have a free version) is called Traffic Travis, which will also show the competitiveness of each keyword shown in the results in terms of your ability to rank well for that term based on the competition. The "Cadillac" of keyword research is arguably the Market Samurai software, which is not free but provides tremendous insight into keyword and each keyword's relative competition.
Implementation
So how do you utilize those holy grail keywords you were able to uncover? Go back to previous articles here at Small Business Resources Cafe about backlinks. Create a blog about them, which points to your small business site! You could create a Wordpress blog for free at wordpress.org -- in fact, create say 3 off them, one targeting red dog collars, one targeting labrador dog collars, and one targeting spiked dog collars, where each of them would point back to your main dog collars web site. Then create another set of blogs at blogger.com that targets blue dog collars, diamond dog collars and leather dog collars, again all pointing back to your main dog collar site.
What you've just done from the 6 blogs above is to create 6 different keywords, all of which provide a one-way link back to your main dog collar site. And it hasn't cost you a cent! Now rinse and repeat -- create blogs at some of the other "Web 2.0" sites like Tumblr, OnSugar, Zimbio, Gather, WorldVillage, Xanga. LiveJournal, Thoughts and/or so many more and target the heck out of keyword phrases that you want to rank for, because from EACH of these sites, you are creating a one-way link back to your main dog collar site.
Oh and by the way, do you have a Facebook account? Chances are high that you do. Is your small business site listed in your Facebook profile as one of your favorite sites? If not, it should be because Facebook links are valuable and noteworthy to the search engines.
Summary
I hope these articals are helpful to you, giving you ideas, generating some brain juice, or perhaps just providing a necessary kick in the pants. Maybe you are already more than happy with your level of income and getting more just means more headaches for you with your tax return and the IRS, in which case I salute and envy you.
There is a saying that I learned at the airport when I go out flying that says: "Never let your airplane get somewhere that your brain didn't get to about 5 minutes earlier". The words of wisdom there are that your brain needs to be at least 5 minutes ahead of the plane, and you need to be fully aware ("situational awareness") of where you are, where you are going, and how you are going to get there, having a viable and workable plan already in place. Waiting until you actually get there to figure it out is your worst possible option because you may actually be headed in the wrong direction, or when you DO get there, you are going to have other duties to contend with that you need to be prepared for.
The same is true of your marketing efforts. You need to be every bit as aware of where you want to get to as well as how you are going to get there. "More money" is not a sufficient direction, any more than "up" is sufficient when I am flying. Simply submitting your web site to the search engines is not sufficient to get you where you presumably want to go, especially since you are then competing with a SEVEN FIGURE number of people taking that same very lax approach.
Monday, April 2, 2012
How A Small Business Should Approach Internet Marketing
Online marketing can be a very confusing and challenging topic for small business owners. Many don't understand why it's important or why they need any thing other than a website.
A small business should always take the time to learn about their target market. By understanding your target market you can better predict where you will be spending the majority of your time online. Then, once youe have that figured out you always like to start with a blog and a single social media network. You get your small business on a schedule, usually producing one article a week and on the same day each week. The content you produce is always educational, never a selling piece. Then you focus on one network to get more comfortable with social media and in a habit of using the network on a daily basis. Once you start to see the results of your efforts you expand onto another social media site and increase the number of articles produced a week.
This approach works very well as it helps ease your small business into the world of social media. Others have tried the approach of getting onto all of the networks as well and just find that it's too time consuming and overwhelming so they get off line as quickly as they got in.
In short .... networking is the answer. View your network like a wheel. The hub is your core content (web site, blog, books, articles, useful materials). The spokes leading from the hub are the tools you use to network your content that are linked to your hub.
Your contacts are the engines that power the wheel on the spokes of your hub.
Under this operating philosophy there are no limits to connections, members, friends, tweets and news feeds.
The real limiting factor is the quality of the core content. It is the fuel that feeds your engines and powers your wheel.
There is a very detailed guide to Internet marketing that literally spells out everything you should be doing with step by step instructions for the non-marketer. It's called "The NOOB Guide to Online Marketing". It is, by far, the best resource to get you up and running that I have come across. Just go step by step and you should be all set!
The NOOB Guide to Online Marketing
A small business should always take the time to learn about their target market. By understanding your target market you can better predict where you will be spending the majority of your time online. Then, once youe have that figured out you always like to start with a blog and a single social media network. You get your small business on a schedule, usually producing one article a week and on the same day each week. The content you produce is always educational, never a selling piece. Then you focus on one network to get more comfortable with social media and in a habit of using the network on a daily basis. Once you start to see the results of your efforts you expand onto another social media site and increase the number of articles produced a week.
This approach works very well as it helps ease your small business into the world of social media. Others have tried the approach of getting onto all of the networks as well and just find that it's too time consuming and overwhelming so they get off line as quickly as they got in.
In short .... networking is the answer. View your network like a wheel. The hub is your core content (web site, blog, books, articles, useful materials). The spokes leading from the hub are the tools you use to network your content that are linked to your hub.
Your contacts are the engines that power the wheel on the spokes of your hub.
Under this operating philosophy there are no limits to connections, members, friends, tweets and news feeds.
The real limiting factor is the quality of the core content. It is the fuel that feeds your engines and powers your wheel.
There is a very detailed guide to Internet marketing that literally spells out everything you should be doing with step by step instructions for the non-marketer. It's called "The NOOB Guide to Online Marketing". It is, by far, the best resource to get you up and running that I have come across. Just go step by step and you should be all set!
The NOOB Guide to Online Marketing
Friday, June 17, 2011
I told them why they should buy but nobody bought-Why?
What you think folks want and the reasons you offer to attract paying customers are often incorrect and unfortunately fail in its objective because of those assumptions you have made.
Missing this mark is preventable as is getting it right very probable with a little up front homework. You can, with a few easy steps and ways of thinking get your messaging right so it does connect with and gain customers.
Try these steps and ways of thinking so you can,when reaching out, get paying Customers
1. People do things for their reason's not yours
If you have not done the in depth homework to see how a target audience thinks, what it cares about and how to link what you want to what they want so joining in makes sense, you probably will be disappointed in your results.
2. Its hard to “hear” folks with a background in messaging and connecting for getting results trying to tell you that.
That's because your Belief in your direction is so strong in you that you think that everyone will agree and want to join in. You get blinded by that belief and it prevents you from being objective about how best to get followers and participants.
Even hearing the communication "experts" saying things like "folks just do not care about that" referring to your pet project, being so caught up in the value of your idea, you resist their expert advice.
Its just too hard on you and your deep seeded beliefs, values to accept what they say.
3. You can not just wish things into reality
If the audience has or sees no real buy in nor reason that, to them, resonates and says "that's me-that's exactly what I need to do and I am doing it" your message and recruiting efforts will fail.
There's just to many "you need to do this" messages bombarding us so its critical that you do what is suggested in this step in the way you reach out to folks.
4. Looking at our core traits and what we are really good at, we should see what we are good at and not good at and accept it. Then farm out what we are not good at to someone who is.
If we are not marketing types and we want our idea to connect, get the marketing type to figure out how to do that.
5. Its not ego, its pragmatism that should govern how you and your strengths and weaknesses are played out in trying to make something happen.
Why go it alone when you don't have to?
Why risk failure trying to do what you know you are not good at, especially something as important as gaining willing participants?
This is especially true when you want to influence people, their thoughts, manage your messaging so you do gain traction for your idea or project amongst the many different types of audiences out there.
Knowing precisely how to do this with differing approaches that resonate with differing target audiences is how you get to "yes, that's exactly what I need and I want to do it" from the members of the target audiences you have identified as folks who could benefit from participating.
If you are not good at that, be brutally honest and let someone who is great at that help you by doing that part for you.
Failure is a learning experience but you can, especially if you want to create active participation in something, avoid failure if you can adopt the thinking of what's been suggested here in this post.
And remember very simple but useful way of thinking as you try to go and gain joiners and participants:
- 1."People do things for their reason's not yours
- 2. Imagine the prospect or target audience has a sign on their forehead that says so what!" ( copywrite-Neil Licht, Axioms for success in selling, motivating and getting to yes)
Living those two axioms when charting connecting, influencing and getting participants goes a long way to realizing success for gaining acceptance of your idea,event It goes a long way for you in getting folks to participate and willingly join in with your "vision" and, for their reasons, not yours, make it theirs as well.
For more insights from colleagues and others just like you who "sit in your seat" Please join into the discussion and group on this site called "acquiring Paying Customers" 
and lets share thoughts on how to do this in the face of our on line, web and social media "everything's a commodity" sourcing mentality.
Regards, Neil Licht. CEO Hereweare, Chief Advisor Acquiring Paying Customers group
Web Page http://www.wix.com/ndlicht/hereweare
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The 3 Top Steps to Starting a Truly Successful Business
You want your new business to be successful? Of course ..... so here's 3 tips to set you on the right course.
1 - Plan Out Your Goals ..... If you are still in the initial stages of determining what things you should know about starting a business, then you will need to be sure to write out your financial and business goals. Make a timeline as well for when you hope to achieve them. Why do you want to start a business and what do you hope to accomplish? Do you want something hands-on that will require your presence in order to run smoothly? Or are you hoping for something more automated to allow a more flexible schedule for travelling and family time?
2 - Choose Amazing Mentors ..... The second most important thing you should know about starting a business is to secure a mentor who can help coach and guide you towards success in your chosen field. The most successful people in business have all made it a point to surround themselves with many people .... and at least one close mentor who can be a positive influence and show them the ropes. You can learn from their failures and triumphs and have a huge advantage in your own personal journey towards business ownership!
3 - Study Online Marketing ..... Possibly the most important of the things you should know about starting a business, is that in this day in age, almost everything is done online. Most of the world tends to shop, socialize, communicate and do business online. So whether you intend on owning a bricks and mortar business or something using the power of the internet, you will need to understand how to market your business online.
Unfortunately some people think that having a website will be enough when it comes to building an online presence. But when you consider the sheer enormity of the world wide web, you need to understand that just having a website without putting any real time into properly marketing and advertising your business online to drive people to your websites, you'll likely just float around the internet and never be found. So it is crucial that you enroll in an online marketing and mentoring school with the ability to train you in the important skills of online branding and internet marketing.
1 - Plan Out Your Goals ..... If you are still in the initial stages of determining what things you should know about starting a business, then you will need to be sure to write out your financial and business goals. Make a timeline as well for when you hope to achieve them. Why do you want to start a business and what do you hope to accomplish? Do you want something hands-on that will require your presence in order to run smoothly? Or are you hoping for something more automated to allow a more flexible schedule for travelling and family time?
2 - Choose Amazing Mentors ..... The second most important thing you should know about starting a business is to secure a mentor who can help coach and guide you towards success in your chosen field. The most successful people in business have all made it a point to surround themselves with many people .... and at least one close mentor who can be a positive influence and show them the ropes. You can learn from their failures and triumphs and have a huge advantage in your own personal journey towards business ownership!
3 - Study Online Marketing ..... Possibly the most important of the things you should know about starting a business, is that in this day in age, almost everything is done online. Most of the world tends to shop, socialize, communicate and do business online. So whether you intend on owning a bricks and mortar business or something using the power of the internet, you will need to understand how to market your business online.
Unfortunately some people think that having a website will be enough when it comes to building an online presence. But when you consider the sheer enormity of the world wide web, you need to understand that just having a website without putting any real time into properly marketing and advertising your business online to drive people to your websites, you'll likely just float around the internet and never be found. So it is crucial that you enroll in an online marketing and mentoring school with the ability to train you in the important skills of online branding and internet marketing.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Small Business Resources - 9 Tips For Online Success
This contribution is from Jen Woglom Ohs of Boomerang Websites. The article outlines tips for online success specifically geared towards small businesses. There are resources listed here at Small Business Resources cafe to accomplish much of what Jen recommends. For example .... professional website design and website hosting.
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I hear every excuse from small businesses as to why they aren’t online. Many find the process too daunting or too expensive to even try. And unfortunately, many of those that are online aren’t utilizing all the tools available to find any real benefits. The truth is, having an online presence is no longer expensive, time-consuming or too difficult for you and your business to do. It does, however, require a little planning and foresight. So, to help get you going, we’ve put together 9 tips to help ensure your success online.
9. Get a professional design.
Template sites are a quick and easy way to get online and announce to the world that you’re an amateur. If you want to be taken seriously by colleagues, clients and potential customers, you need to take your brand seriously. This includes your website. A professional, original design will not only set you apart from the competition but will also convey a persona of professionalism to everyone that visits.
8. Get a real email address.
Even more so than a template site, an email address from yahoo.com or comcast.net does not make a good first impression. We like to call businesses without a real email address the “hobby businesses.” The impression is that they are secondary income for some guy who’s bored at his current job but doesn’t believe in himself enough to make the jump. Essentially, you look like you don’t even take your own business seriously, so why should anyone else?
7. Invest in good hosting
Reliable hosting is essential. If your website is constantly going down it will hurt your business. Not just because you miss out on those that would have been visiting, but mainly because it kills your search engine ranking. If the big search engines (google, yahoo and msn) see that your site experiences outages regularly, they will purposefully push you down in rankings because they see you as unreliable to send visitors to. That means fewer visitors even when it’s up.
6. Keep content up-to-date.
Keeping online content up-to-date is essential for a number of reasons. One, people are more interested in new information rather than the same old stuff you always have up. Two, updating online content helps your search engine ranking. Three, it’s so easy you have no excuse not to. No re-printing, no added expenses, just get online and keep visitors and readers abreast of what’s going on. In the end, they feel included and you keep them interested.
5. Invest in online advertising
It’s the most inexpensive media out there these days and over 80% of the population is using it. The main question is how. As with most things, knowing what’s available to you is half the battle. The easiest solutions to get going quickly are, in our opinion, pay-per-click advertising and email marketing. For more information check out our Adwords info sheet and our Email Marketing info sheet.
4. Keep in contact online.
There are many ways to stay top of mind online. From email marketing to blogs to podcasts and streaming video. Take what you do best, find a way to get it online and share it with the world. Oh, and keep in mind that free information is a wonderful way to keep their attention.
3. Track and optimize.
Stay on top of what’s working by tracking and measuring everything you do online. You can track everything from who is visiting your site to how they interact with it and even how your online campaigns are doing. Use the information to talk more about what people are interested in on your website, on your blog or in your marketing and advertising campaigns.
2. Keep the user/reader in mind.
This goes for ease of use as well as copywriting when creating a website. Making information easy to find on your site is key but also keep in mind how you’re presenting the information. Are there graphics or illustrations to help drive the point home? Do you bury your strong selling points deep in the 3rd paragraph on the 4th page? Think KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Just like with offline marketing materials and advertisements, your website and online ads should spell out to users why they should use you and it should be easy to use. Sure origami is fun, but don’t expect anyone to fold your site into a crane to reach your message.
1. Focus your messaging
Everything you do online should have a reason behind it. Each reason should have an objective attached to it. Thus, everything online should be focused on that objective. If your site has no objective purpose, it will do nothing for you. On the other hand, if your site’s objective is to get visitors to call and your messaging focuses on that, the calls will start to come in. Bottom line, think of what you want to accomplish and then decide how to best do it. Most things in life actually work best this way.
==================
I hear every excuse from small businesses as to why they aren’t online. Many find the process too daunting or too expensive to even try. And unfortunately, many of those that are online aren’t utilizing all the tools available to find any real benefits. The truth is, having an online presence is no longer expensive, time-consuming or too difficult for you and your business to do. It does, however, require a little planning and foresight. So, to help get you going, we’ve put together 9 tips to help ensure your success online.
9. Get a professional design.
Template sites are a quick and easy way to get online and announce to the world that you’re an amateur. If you want to be taken seriously by colleagues, clients and potential customers, you need to take your brand seriously. This includes your website. A professional, original design will not only set you apart from the competition but will also convey a persona of professionalism to everyone that visits.
8. Get a real email address.
Even more so than a template site, an email address from yahoo.com or comcast.net does not make a good first impression. We like to call businesses without a real email address the “hobby businesses.” The impression is that they are secondary income for some guy who’s bored at his current job but doesn’t believe in himself enough to make the jump. Essentially, you look like you don’t even take your own business seriously, so why should anyone else?
7. Invest in good hosting
Reliable hosting is essential. If your website is constantly going down it will hurt your business. Not just because you miss out on those that would have been visiting, but mainly because it kills your search engine ranking. If the big search engines (google, yahoo and msn) see that your site experiences outages regularly, they will purposefully push you down in rankings because they see you as unreliable to send visitors to. That means fewer visitors even when it’s up.
6. Keep content up-to-date.
Keeping online content up-to-date is essential for a number of reasons. One, people are more interested in new information rather than the same old stuff you always have up. Two, updating online content helps your search engine ranking. Three, it’s so easy you have no excuse not to. No re-printing, no added expenses, just get online and keep visitors and readers abreast of what’s going on. In the end, they feel included and you keep them interested.
5. Invest in online advertising
It’s the most inexpensive media out there these days and over 80% of the population is using it. The main question is how. As with most things, knowing what’s available to you is half the battle. The easiest solutions to get going quickly are, in our opinion, pay-per-click advertising and email marketing. For more information check out our Adwords info sheet and our Email Marketing info sheet.
4. Keep in contact online.
There are many ways to stay top of mind online. From email marketing to blogs to podcasts and streaming video. Take what you do best, find a way to get it online and share it with the world. Oh, and keep in mind that free information is a wonderful way to keep their attention.
3. Track and optimize.
Stay on top of what’s working by tracking and measuring everything you do online. You can track everything from who is visiting your site to how they interact with it and even how your online campaigns are doing. Use the information to talk more about what people are interested in on your website, on your blog or in your marketing and advertising campaigns.
2. Keep the user/reader in mind.
This goes for ease of use as well as copywriting when creating a website. Making information easy to find on your site is key but also keep in mind how you’re presenting the information. Are there graphics or illustrations to help drive the point home? Do you bury your strong selling points deep in the 3rd paragraph on the 4th page? Think KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Just like with offline marketing materials and advertisements, your website and online ads should spell out to users why they should use you and it should be easy to use. Sure origami is fun, but don’t expect anyone to fold your site into a crane to reach your message.
1. Focus your messaging
Everything you do online should have a reason behind it. Each reason should have an objective attached to it. Thus, everything online should be focused on that objective. If your site has no objective purpose, it will do nothing for you. On the other hand, if your site’s objective is to get visitors to call and your messaging focuses on that, the calls will start to come in. Bottom line, think of what you want to accomplish and then decide how to best do it. Most things in life actually work best this way.
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