Canadian Small Business Women

Connection, Synergy, Community

Top 5 Reasons why You should Blog for your Business

Jemi

Blogging has become a huge phenomenon in the online world. Anyone and everyone can start a blog. It’s easy and very inexpensive to start. All you need is a computer, the internet, and the time to put together a blog. As a business owner, you can stand out from your competitors by giving useful tools and great expertise to your customers at minimal cost to you. Here’s what blogs can do for you and your business:

  1. Open Communication between you and your customer: You are starting a conversation with your potential client. When they read and follow you, it gives them a direct insight to how you are as a business owner.
  2. Subscription list: If your readers enjoy your blog they can be notified directly via e-mail. This is an opportunity for you to create database for you to promote your services and products. Limit your e-mails to once a month or twice a month.
  3. Affiliate marketing: When you are receiving a large following of readers, you may want to consider using affiliate marketing into your blog. This will create another stream of passive income right into your bank account. Affiliate marketing are just like businesses advertising on your blog, when your readers click the ad from your blog, and a sale is made, you will get a portion of the sale!
  4. Higher rankings: Google analytics like to see different clicks going to and from your website. The more clicks coming to your blog from your social media sites, and vice versa, Google “bots” see it as a popular place to be and will rank your blog and website higher for FREE.
  5. Free publication: Having a blog puts you, as a business owner, on a different and personal expertise level than someone that is competition and not blogging. You never know who may be reading and following your blog that can create a whole new venture for you that will make you even more money!

Hope these tips will get your fire burning to write a blog. Even if the blog is just once a month to start, it will generate a following that will be expecting your great insight. Happy blogging!

Contact Jemi Echevarria by phone: (647)785-5851 or by e-mail:  jemiechevarria@gmail.com

3 Reasons Why Passion is Vital to Business Success

sandra

There are so many factors that contribute to our success in business or in any part of our lives really. The Internet is full of articles about the success factors for entrepreneurs, so why not add one more to the list? I believe that we have to love what we do. While there are always things we don’t like to do in our day-to-day tasks, there has to be a burning passion that drives us. Here are three reasons why I think that being passionate about your business is vital to its success:

  1. It fuels you through challenges. We hear so much about “knowing your why” and there’s a reason. You have to be aware of what drives you, what you’re working towards and why it’s important to you. When you don’t have clarity on these things, challenges and obstacles can really become a major distraction and take you off course. When you’re really passionate about what you do, quitting isn’t an option. The saying that “where there’s a will, there’s a way” is the truth. When you’re committed to your goals, the universe conspires with you to make them a reality.

 

  1. It takes selling out the sales process. Cold-calling does not excite me. I’m sure that there are lots of people who have no problem picking up the phone and making those calls, I’m not one of them. The exception to this is when I’m working on a project that I’m excited about where making calls to complete strangers is the only way it’s going to succeed. When we’re passionate about what we do, the people on the other end of the phone can hear it and they’ll want to be a part of it (some of them anyway). If you’re selling something that you don’t believe in, you’re going to have a difficult time.
  2. Life is good when you’re doing what you love! When you’re living on purpose and doing what you love, things start to flow much easier. Things that once seemed like the end of the world are no longer a big deal. Challenges and obstacles are seen as tests to our commitment rather than cruel punishment from universe. You know why you do what you do and it makes your hear sing. There are so many people out there that are living unfulfilled lives. They have dreams that they think can never be a reality. The fact that you have the opportunity to do what you love is a blessing, and you know it.

Passion is what keeps us going as entrepreneurs. It’s the fuel that drives us and our business. If you’re not passionate about what you do, you need to ask yourself why you’re doing it. If passion was what started it, then it’s just a matter of reconnecting with it. If you were never passionate about what you do, it’s time to figure out how to add passion to what you do or do something that you are really fired up about. If we want meaningful success in life, passion is a must-have.

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution.She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!

Connect:

www.embraceyourdestiny.ca

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook

www.twitter.com/sandradawes

If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead

selfy photo

I recently attended a meetup at Ryerson University, in their Transmedia Zone.  It was a fantastic evening of discussion and debate about content, media, and how the platforms we are using to communicate – social media, Youtube, The Internet itself – are changing our ideas around production and consumption of content, and even ownership of media.

One idea that came up was the idea that media, or content (we were primarily discussing video but it could as easily have been a discussion of any kind of media), is no longer something that we just consume.  It is something that we produce and in fact, it is a way we communicate as much as anything else.

We express our identities, our thoughts, and our ideas in media, as media.  We speak “video”.  And for those who don’t create their own, from scratch, we share what others have produced, as a kind of shorthand for what we want to say.  When I share a captioned photo on Facebook, or content created by a brand like Coke or Red Bull, I am speaking volumes about who I am, what “tribe” I belong to.

Where does content marketing fit in?

I stared to think about what role content marketing plays in this content-sharing-as-communication ecosystem, and why it is so important for business.  To define what I mean by content marketing, have a read of this article, or download a handy infographic here.  Content Marketing is a system in which a business uses content, not advertising, to generate and nurture leads for their business, build trust with their customers, and get found online.

I encounter an objection again and again when I work with clients who are-shall we say-not digital natives, when we get around to a content marketing discussion.  The objection goes something like this: “I am a private person; I don’t want to put myself out there in social media, or by blogging…I’m sure no one wants to hear what I had for lunch.  Plus, I am not willing to give away all my secrets in a blog!  If people want to get my help, they’ll have to hire me!”

That is kind of like moving to France and refusing to speak French.   Digital Media is communication tool, and content is a language that, as a business, you can’t NOT speak.  The best way to get your brand out there is to use media – video, photography, blogging, graphics – to communicate with your customers, and in fact to use media that they will want to share.  To use what Henry Jenkins calls “spreadable media”.

Henry Jenkins: Spreadable Media

This video, titled Spreadable content makes the consumer king, is an episode from Pull: How Technology is Changing the Conversation.  IT was produced by TVO and Q Media and it is taken from  a discussion I had with Jenkins in 2013.

Spreadable media is the best reason I can think of to generate content marketing for your business.  It is how you leverage your existing customers and followers as marketers, giving them the media they need to spread your message for you.

Jenkins also speaks in this interview about the new digital divide, that he calls the participation gap.  He talks about kids in schools who may not have access to skills and opportunities, but it just as effectively applies to business people who don’t have the skills, the training or worse, the willingness to participate in this new language of identity and brands, the language of content.

As Jenkins says: if it doesn’t spread, its dead.  Creating high value, sharable content that your customers can use is the best way to close that participation gap.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

Public Relations 101: What is it and what can it do for your business

CHuntly

Whether you are an entrepreneur looking to break into your industry or you are an established business of any size, your success is largely dependent on your reputation. Many different types of people can have an effect on your reputation such as customers, suppliers, employees and journalists. Their opinions of your business – good or bad – will affect the opinions of others.

Public Relations (PR) is part of your marketing strategy that focuses on managing your reputation through effective communication of your organizational message. It is the art of building and maintaining positive relationships and brand awareness in the public eye (AKA your target audience).

Simply put, PR is your strategy for getting your message – your story – out to your audiences. It is all about engaging your target audience(s) by connecting with them in some way. It should be complementary to your overall marketing and outreach strategies.

6 Key Factors of PR

  1. Media Relations: Building relationships with the media and other influencers with the goal of attaining editorial coverage (Not paid for). If you have ever read a story about one of your favourite brands, the latest celebrity gossip, or even a story about a politician, business owner, or prominent individual, chances are someone pitched that story angle to the media and they thought it was interesting enough to write about.
  2. Special Events/Experiential: Designed for both public and media outreach, these events usually have brand experience and/or informational components.
  3. Content Generation: Writing blogs and bylined articles both for your organization’s website as well as for other websites and publications is a great way to control your message.
  4. Industry/Competitive audits: Audits (research) will determine the best positioning for your organizational message in terms of making it stand out from your competitors.
  5. Crisis Strategies: As hard as you might try to maintain a positive image in the public eye, sometimes things go wrong. It could be a huge product recall, and it could be something as “small” as an internet troll leaving negative comments on your blogs. Having a crisis strategy in place before it happens is your best bet so you know exactly how to deal with it.
  6. Social Media: This is where there is a definite crossover with the rest of your marketing strategy. You need to make sure the messaging you are putting out on your social media channels fits with the rest of your outreach. It’s a great way to promote your story. It’s also a great way to showcase content across different mediums.

Why Your Business Needs PR

Your business would not go anywhere without some sort of customer, end user, network, or community of fans, which is why you need PR. You need to be able to reach them with your message.

PR helps your business to:

  • Connect with your target audience both through direct channels and infuencer touchpoints (working through people, media, and celebrities who influence your target audience).
  • Package your brand story for maximum effectiveness. A good PR strategy will create a foundation for your business to build its outreach and growth strategy.
  • Get your brand and organizational story in the public eye on your own terms (ie. You have some control of the messaging that is out there).
  • Define its voice. Your business is so much more than a brand name and a website. It has character, values, and purpose.
  • Utilize a variety of outreach channels so you can tailor your strategy to your budget and your organizational culture.

Maintaining a strong presence on multiple channels while reaching your target audience is priceless when it comes to building a business. Most people think the cost of running a successful PR strategy will be too much, but there are ways to work within any budget. Your reputation and business success depend on it.

Candace Huntly is the Founder and Principal at SongBird Marketing Communications, an agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making it unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/email/Website

Why you should not download a legal template from the Internet

Karima

As a Canadian entrepreneur and small business owner, chances are you’ve downloaded, at least once, a legal document from the Internet. Whether for an employment contract, a partnership agreement, a finder’s fee, a non-disclosure agreement, a final invoice letter or a general agreement, you’ve probably turned to the Internet in the hope that a free template would help you cut costs. After all, the terminology looks complex enough, so we may think the document will be good to use.

Here enters Randy Ai, an employment lawyer I met through my professional networking group. A couple of weeks later, we sat down to learn more about each other and our businesses. While we chatted – him about employment law and me about how social media can help businesses establish their online presence and grow – it became clear to me that we had great synergies. Most entrepreneurs and small business owners are always looking for ways to sustain our business while keeping costs down and stay profitable. The Internet and Google is where most of us turn for responses to our questions and for free documents. One of the topics Randy Ai and I tackled was how entrepreneurs and small businesses download legal templates from the Internet, and the cases he frequently sees in his practice. The conclusion is, “don’t cheap out on legal by downloading templates from the Internet”, and here is why.

The legal document you are downloading from the Internet contains irrelevant or too much information. Chances are that the template you found on the Internet is not customized to your business and situation. In addition, most templates are American or have an American focus, so they likely won’t be valid in Canada. The document may contain a high volume of extra noise that does not apply to your business situation and just adds irrelevant information. Unless you are legally trained, you don’t know how to separate the “junk” and the part of the contract that applies. As an example, the notion of Employment at will exists in most employment contract templates you’ll find online, but as this is an American concept, it can’t be enforced in Canada. Thus, you are exposing yourself and your business to liability and in case of dispute, you will have to hire a lawyer because part of the contract is invalid.

The legal document you are downloading from the Internet is missing key clauses. When you’re using a template off the Internet, these documents are not customized for your situation, as we’ve established. That means it puts you and your business at risk of liability. In case of a dispute, this sort of template is not tailored to your needs and you might as well have no agreement. Having missing information is as bad as having too little information or inadequate clauses that don’t protect you. When you are a business owner entering into a legally binding relationship with someone else, you need a solid contract that will take into account the types of issues that may take place.

The legal document you are using is easily attacked. A template downloaded from the Internet easily falls apart, since it was not drafted specifically for you and your business. A defense lawyer could easily attack the integrity of the document and compromise its validity in court. Furthermore, as the law changes frequently, a contract is not a static document. Thus, the downloaded template you’re using may be obsolete and no longer applicable. In addition, the wording alone can make your document unenforceable and easily attackable in case of a dispute. The judge can look at your document and decide it does not make sense. By using one of these documents, you’re exposing yourself to liability.

Now that I’ve explained why using a legal document from the Internet is useless at best and, at worse, dangerous for you and your business, there a few ways you can protect yourself and what you’re working so hard for:

1 – Legal fees are typically seen as a cost instead of an investment. Spending two to three hours with a lawyer can prevent you from being sued, being dragged to court or simply having to settle and pay someone large amounts of money. If you can’t afford to hire a lawyer, you still may seek some legal advice through Legal Aid or through the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Lawyer Referral Service.

2 – If you still decide to download the template, we advise you to send it to a lawyer for review. This may cut down on costs. The industry standard is that entrepreneurs and small business owners should spend 5 to 8 percent of their initial capital on legal fees. As Randy Ai says, “If you’re not going to spend any money towards setting up your business, you are not doing your job as an entrepreneur.”

3 – Another reason to seek legal advice is that it brings credibility to your business and sends a strong signal to your ecosystem that you are serious about your success.

As an entrepreneur, I am aware that setting up a business requires lots of hard work and dedication. But there are areas where you can’t cut corners. Randy emphasized that legal advice is one of the cornerstones to setting up a successful and sustainable business. For any legal advice related to employment law, connect with Randy Ai by email (Randy@Randyai.com) or by telephone (416-716-2256).

Karima-Catherine is the co-founder of Red Dot Digital, a digital agency that strives to deliver top-notch solutions to various clients.  Red Dot Digital drives real, meaningful, quantifiable business outcomes for companies. Karima-Catherine is also the co-moderator of #MMchat, a Twitter weekly forum which focuses on business, marketing and social media.  

Connect with Karima-Catherine:

karima@reddotdigital.net

Website, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest

Kelly Farrell: Canadian Small Business Woman of the Month of February

Kelly headshot (2)

Kelly Farrell is the Founder and Chief Facilitator of Teach Me Social, a visionary company that has a mission to empower small business entrepreneurs to take control of their own online presence and manage it in-house to maintain an authentic voice for their brand. Teach Me Social has been providing valuable Social Media and online marketing support to small business owners for 3 years now, while Kelly’s personal experience in the marketing and Social Media realm extends over 15 years.

Kelly has been teaching elementary school professionally for over 10 years, 7 of those have been teaching Middle School at Star Academy in Mississauga where she also manages the school’s online and community presence. Before teaching in Ontario, Kelly taught Grade One for 2 years at an International school in Colombia, South America, gaining an international perspective on curriculum, child development and early engagement in internet communication to keep in touch with family and friends back home!

A well-travelled and well-read individual, Kelly is also an independent mother of an ambitious eight-year old daughter. As such, Kelly has a unique perspective to offer her clients, gaining participation and attention in her sessions by energizing participants and inspiring them to dive into the Social Media world while providing valuable skills, tips and strategies they can use to construct their online presence at their own pace.

Teach Me Social was launched in 2012, providing 1:1 tutorials and advice to small business owners to manage their social media on their own. The need for Kelly’s unique approach to teaching the ins and outs of Social Media was quickly evident and she began facilitating group workshops and seminars to a wide range of audiences. Teach Me Social continues to grow, offering small business owners a chance to understand and take ownership of their social media strategies, adding authenticity to their online presence.

 

Our Q & A with Kelly Farrell

 

*What inspires you?

I am inspired by the achievements of others. I love sharing in the success of others and revelling in the joy that achievement brings. I have always fed off the energy of others, and having a business where I constantly can help bring about growth and success for my clients energizes me to continue to do what I do.

*As a small business owner, what achievements make you most proud?

I am incredibly proud that my business has reached its 3 year anniversary! What began as a friendly endeavour to help fellow Mompreneurs gain control of their Social Media has bloomed into a unique approach to Social Media learning that has become sought after. Presenting at the Canadian Small Business Immigrant Women’s Expo was a huge milestone for me, as it was a diverse audience, full of new faces eager to learn and listen to what I had to say. I was humbled by the support and encouragement from the room full of passionate, driven business owners.

*What advice would you give to other aspiring small business owners?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help! It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a similar village to run your own business! I would never be where I am today without the valuable support and guidance from friends and family. Attending networking events has provided incalculable support and advice for growing my business and staying on track in a realistic, yet motivated way.

*What new things can we look forward to from your business in the upcoming year?

Teach Me Social will continue to bring cutting edge support and advice on Online Marketing and Social Media to small business owners in the form on group workshops, seminars and large group presentations. Stay tuned for announcements on a special “Boot Camp” style series of workshops coming in Spring 2015, with the possibility of online accessible workshops coming in the summer!

 

Connect with Kelly via Facebook, Twitter, Website, Instagram, Linkedin 

info@teachmesocial.ca or via phone at 647-894-3511

 

 

Where do content marketing ideas come from?

selfy photo

 

Most business people feel like surfing the internet these days is like trying to sip water from a firehose. It is overwhelming, and with so many businesses out there, online, your business can seem like a grain of sand on an endless beach.  How can a grain of sand stand out?  The simple answer is, Content Marketing.  What content to create is a harder question to answer.

In the last five instalments of this six part series I have walked you through the content strategy process which answers the questions:

1) Why does my business need to produce and publish useful, relevant content? Have a look at post number one, a content strategy primer, and post number two, which is all about getting started and defining your brand values.

2) Who do I target with this content (and where do I find them)? Have a look at post number three, which is all about understanding your target customers as users, and post number four, your social strategy SOS.

3) Where should I focus my efforts to get found? Have a read of Post Number 5, Getting Found by Search Engines.

Content Marketing is about using content to drive sales.  And if you do it right, it’s your best opportunity to stand out and make more money.  It is unqieuly suited to small business because smaller businesses are closer to their customers, with a greater ability often to engage in dialogue with customers and stay aligned with customer needs.  That dialogue is where you find out what content you should be producing.

Getting content ideas from your sales funnel

I never realsied, before becoming a business owner, that I would also need to be a salesperson.  But this is job number one for every small business owner, and content marketing is a great way to warm up your leads: it can help you to generate those leads in the first place and then move those leads down the sales funnel closer to purchase in a gentle, helpful, and purposeful way.

Your sales funnel is also a great place to look for content ideas.

Sales-Activity-Funnel

Are there places in your sales funnel, or in the greater value chain that surrounds your business, that your customers are getting “stuck”?  Understanding where your customers are stalled in the funnel is a good way to figure out what kind of content you need to produce and where you need to produce it.

 

When in doubt, ask!

In the Getting Found post in this series, we talked about the questions cusrtomers ask you as a great place to get keywords.  This is also a great plce for content ideas.  What questions do your customer ask you?  When you’re at conferences or other events where your customers congregate, what questions do you hear people asking speakers or other vendors?  As a speaker, I always ask my workshop attendees to tell me their biggest challenges, so I have fodder for blog posts, webinars, and podcasts in the future.

Interview your customers.  If you’re not sure what to ask them have a look at your value proposition and circle your assumptions, then validate those assumptions with your cusomters.  Google survey is a really easy tool, as is mailchimp for keeping email lists.  Use these tools to ask your customers what they need help with!

 

Quality trumps Quantity

And don’t panic if you don’t have a huge base to work with.  The Lean business development model recommends talking to 50 potential customers to find out if your business idea is solid.  User experience designers often only interview 6-10 ysers to find out if their ideas address user needs.  The average number of supporters it takes to fund a successful kickstarter camapign?  Only 100!

You don’t need a huge customer base to do well, if your customers love you.  How will they love you?  Deliver content with TNT: that generates Trust, that targets their Niche concerns, and that Teaches them something, that helps them

The same principle applies to your content: if all you can reasonably manage is one blog post a month, then write one a month, but make sure it is of the higest possible quality, and filled with TNT (Trust, Niche, Teach).   Conisistency also trumps quanitity: a regular monthly podcast is a better idea than a podcast published sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly, or sometimes not at all.

Consistency is important in the visual langauge you use as well: make sure you maintain a consistent use of your logo, the colours in your brand palette, and that the visual language in your photography and graphics aligns with your brand values and your user needs.

 

Build your editorial calendar

A mistake beginning publishers of content often make is basing their editorial calendar around generic, seasonal events.  Base your calendar on user needs, or events important in the lives of your customers.   In terms of frequency of different types of content, and keeping in mind the advice above (quality trumps quantity), an editorial publishing pattern that quickly build a great content library would be:

  • 1 blog post per week
  • 1 piece of feature content per month such as
    • ebook, whitepaper, or report
    • infographic
    • a webinar
    • a presentation, workshop, or speaking opportunity
  • 3-7 social posts per week

Your editorial calendar should capture the publishing pattern you choose and the topics you will focus on.

One advantage of building your library using the pattern above is that at the end of a year of publishing, you will have enough content to publish a book.   Self-publishing is a great way to get your content into the biggest search engine for experts in the world: Amazon.

Benefits, not features

Your content strategy is the backbone of your online communications whether you are able to content market or not.  If you don’t think your writing skills are up to par, hire a copywriter: your content strategy provides the guidelines they’ll need to review so they can write for your business.  And if in the end you decide that content marketing is not the most effective way for your business to get found, (see last month’s post for more details), sometimes being useful is all about using benefit-driven language in your communications rather than feature-driven language.   If you take nothing else away, remember “Benefits, not Features” as your guide when writing copy for your sales and product pages.

And, print out and post this handy infographic that sums up the content strategy process.

For more resources and information on Content Strategy and to download a detailed description of what content strategy entails, go to analyticalengine.ca/resources or download a Content Strategy Info graphic at http://bit.ly/1qY9tYp.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

SEO: Getting Found by Search Engines

SEOsweetspot

 

In the fourth post in this series, I described social strategy: which social platforms you may want to prioritise for your business, depending on your conversion funnel.  Over the next 2 months of this series, we’ll finish fleshing out the remaining pieces of the content strategy puzzle, and this month we’ll tackle a murky and mysterious area: search engine optimisation.

There are 6 basic ways to get your business found online, and while each one is important and some of them are closely connected, how you prioritize them and which one(s) you focus your time and money on depends on the way your target users are seeking your type of product or service, and the value of a conversion for your business.

 

The Six Basic Ways to Get Found

1) Directory Listings

2) Advertising (I’m referring to Google Adwords or Google display ads)

3) Having a Social Media Presence (covered in post 4)

4) Inbound Links

5) Content Marketing

6) Organic SEO or search engine optimisation

Organic SEO encompasses all of the other tactics to a greater or lesser degree, so it will be our focus for this article.  And organic SEO is almost synonymous with, or at least shares many tactics of, content strategy itself.  In fact, one of the primary reasons to have a good content strategy is so that your digital business will get found, because the bottom line is without content, you will not get found.

The intersection of organic SEO, content strategy, and usability or user experience design is a sweet spot where you will get found, get customers, and make money.  We’re going to talk a lot about the keyword aspect of organic search engine optimization because it is a great way to focus in on the words and phrases that will best target your users and help them to find you. Getting found using organic SEO is all about search engines like Google, so it’s worthwhile to describe very briefly how Google works.

 

How does google work?

Google’s mission statement is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.  In order to do this, they have what are called Search Spiders: these are little bits of computer code that “crawl” the Internet, scanning pages as they go.

Google has an algorithm that then ranks each and every page; giving it what Google calls “page rank”.  Page Rank is based on multiple factors that only Google really knows, but they are things like:

  • Does this read like real content or does it sound false or fake?
  • Are there certain words that are used enough times (2-7% of the time) so that we, the robotic spiders, can guess what this page is about?
  • Does anyone else on the Internet, especially sources that have a good page rank and therefore good reputation, link to this page?
  • Does this page load quickly?

Then, when a user searches for, say, “Content Strategy”, Google’s algorithm looks for all the pages that it ranked as top quality for the words “Content Strategy”, and it serves them up on the Search Engine Results Page or SERP.

The goal of getting found online is ultimately to be there on the first page of Google’s search results when people are searching for the kind of product or service you offer.  Very few people will ever look on the second page of Google, and in fact, very few people will ever venture beyond the first 3 results served.

 

Keyword Optimisation: the basics

To drive traffic and develop a relationship of trust with your customers, you really must create relevant, helpful content.  But optimising that content for keywords is an important and useful practice, because it will increase your visibility in search and it will also help you focus your content.  What this means is that you need to choose a word or short phrase that represents what you believe your target users might be typing into Google’s search box when they are searching for your product or service.  You need to imagine what words THEY would use.  Then, you need to make sure that those words comprise 2-7% of the text on the page you are optimising.  Every page on your website should be optimised for one keyword (or keyword phrase); this keyword should appear in the URL for the page, the page title, in the body copy of the page, even in any image descriptions on the page.

There are lots of simple places to look to figure out what keywords you might use to focus on in your blog posts, landing pages, and product pages.

Look on competitor websites and see what kinds of words they are using to describe products and services similar to yours

Listen to your customers: what words do they use to describe their problems, their solutions, and their needs?

Type your ideas into Google and see what alternatives appear as you type

Look at the bottom of the SERP or search engine results page; you will see further variations there

Each page should also have 4-6 secondary keyword variations, so as you are doing this research, try to group keywords and phrases and their close variations together on a spreadsheet so you have lots of options when it comes time to write your blog posts, landing pages, or other site copy, and try to include location as keywords if your product or service is local.  Imagine your website as a series of landing pages: every product page, every post, should be created and written with keywords in mind.

Keyword optimisation is something you should do on your website even if you are not blogging!

 

Inbound links

When we talk about inbound links, it’s really important to distinguish these links from the links that you might put on your website, between pages or linking out to other websites.  When we say inbound links we’re not talking about the links ON your pages, we’re talking about the links TO your pages, FROM other websites

Inbound links are as important as keyword optimisation as far as helping your pages to rank well for Google.  They are especially important if your conversion funnel is more weighted towards passive discovery rather than active discovery and they are critically important if your service is consultation, thought leadership, expertise, or education.

The easiest way to get inbound links is to submit your site to directories; while some directories cost money and therefore give you what is called a “no follow” link, they are still really important if you are a very active discovery type of business or to build your credibility as might be the case, for example, with being listed by your community’s Better Business Bureau.

However, if you are more of a passive discovery business where customers require multiple touch points before they make a buying decision, you need to use content to generate trust and develop the relationship, much in the way a traditional salesperson might do.  This is where Content Marketing in the form of blogging, white papers, report, eBooks, videos, or info graphics can serve double duty.  They can be keyword optimised to drive organic search traffic, but they also provide you with key pieces of content that can be leveraged to obtain inbound links from Influencers.

Influencer ‘Backlinks’

What is the ecosystem surrounding your product or service, the community?  Who in that ecosystem influences your customers’ buying decisions?  Making contact with these bloggers or businesses online and making them aware of content you might have that might interest their users is a great way to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with them, one in which they might link to your valuable content, giving you a valuable inbound link or ‘backlink’, and you will have access to their audience and may drive some of that traffic to your site.

 

Advertising

Google adwords can be an extremely inexpensive way to catapult your website onto the front page of Google in the form of an ad.  Paying for advertising will not improve your website’s organic search ranking, but it will help you get your brand in front of consumers while you build your content marketing bench strength, and it is an excellent research tool, enabling you to really finesse your keywords and see very clearly what words to drive traffic and conversions.  You need to figure out the balance between advertising spend, which can be very low, and organic spend.  To do a good adwords campaign, you need continuity between your keywords, ads, and landing pages, so there is no way around having good, focused content on your website, but sometimes one really good ad & landing page can drive more traffic than a whole bunch of blog posts, so it can be a good idea to advertise early in your content marking lifecycle so you can drive immediate traffic while you build you bank of landing pages.

While there are no hard and fast rules, the 70/10/10/10 rule outlined in this chart can help you to prioritise your efforts:

MyFindabilityTacticsMatrix

On this chart, I’m assuming that active discovery means your users need very few touch points with your brand before they buy, whereas passive discovery means they need more touch points  before they buy.  If you need a refresher on active vs. passive discovery, have another read of last month’s post in this series.  You can use the chart above to prioritise you SEO efforts behind specific tactics that will make the biggest difference, the most efficiently.

 

What we haven’t covered

This series is about content strategy, but when it comes to very thorough SEO, there are issues that impact on your ability to get found that are more technical in nature.  The easiest and most important one to address is the speed of your webiste.  Your pages should never take more than a couple of seconds to load.  The bottom line for SEO is that if your site is reasonably fast and you have authentic, focused content, you have a great base on which to build your SEO.

Next month, the last in this series, we’ll cover Content itself: what are the options in how you can most effectively and inexpensively generate the kind of content marketing that will move your digital business into the spotlight.

For more resources and information on Content Strategy and to download a detailed description of what content strategy entails, go to analyticalengine.ca/resources or download a Content Strategy Info graphic at http://bit.ly/1qY9tYp.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

Spam Compliance from a Tech Perspective

Laura Bungarz

I’m sure you’ve been hearing a lot about the change in Canada’s anti-spam laws that is taking place on July 1st.  It’s been on my mind and I’ve been seeing a lot of meetings and blog posts about it.  I wanted to come at it from a different angle though, the techy side.  What does all this mean for your mailing list in terms of the software you’re using to manage it?  Do you have to change anything?  Do you need to switch providers?

In terms of providers, if you’re using one of the major ones such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Mad Mimi or Infusionsoft (plus many others), the short answer is no, you don’t have to change.  All major providers are already compliant with these new laws.

They will all offer at least the option of the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email or newsletter.  Now would be a good time to make sure that the option is actually on and working properly.  Send yourself a fake newsletter to test this if you’re worried.

They will all give you the ability to add a checkbox to your web form that basically asks the user to agree to be signed up to said newsletter.  Turn the default checkmark off.  This option should be unchecked when the newsletter goes out.  This might require making changes to your forms, but it certainly won’t require a change in providers.

I have seen some Canadian companies going as far as to send out a newsletter asking existing subscribers to re-subscribe and anybody that is not interested to use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.  Again, this is no harder than sending out a newsletter linking to a form that the user fills in and having that form add the user to a separate list that you would begin using on July 1st.  There is nothing really technical about this process.  All major providers will allow multiple lists.  Simply create a new form and a new list and off you go.

The other piece you need to do is make sure that your business contact information is visible somewhere in the newsletter, for most of us that will either be in the header or in the footer.  You should include your business name, an email address and some other method of contact either via snail mail or phone.  There should be a clear form of contact for your subscribers.  From a technical perspective, this might mean editing your header or footer to display the new information.  It should be easy to modify your newsletter template to include this information if it’s not already there.

Your newsletter provider will automatically be tracking the exact time and date of the sign up to your list.  You will also be able to see the IP address from which they signed up.  It will be important from now on to keep that information and export it with your list information any time you switch providers or make changes.  This information is generally exported in CSV format which is easily opened and edited in Excel.

If you’re adding people to your list from your storefront and they aren’t necessarily signing up electronically, make sure you keep that information as well.  The form they fill in needs to clearly state they are agreeing to receive your newsletter and it will also need to show the date and time the form was filled in.  Either file the form away or scan it and store it electronically and then manually add the person to your list.

From a technical perspective for a small business owner that’s using something like Mailchimp, this shouldn’t be a difficult process.  The tools for compliance are readily available and the changes that are required are fairly minor.  Certainly for a major company with a huge marketing department, this may prove to be a challenge.  But I suspect most of the rest of us can handle this without any major difficulties.
Still need help?  Contact me using the information below.

Laura Bungarz Computer Training
212-207 Fort Street
Winnipeg, MB R3C 1E2
(204) 421-6679
Laura@Laurabungarz.ca
www.LauraBungarz.ca

Buying A New Computer?

Laura Bungarz

So it’s time for a new computer is it? That can be a very challenging experience. What’s the difference between the $399 model and the $799 model? Why should I buy this one and not that one? What was the sales guy talking about?  Lots of questions, lots of decisions. But I’m here to help. Here are some simple questions to ask yourself that will narrow down your decision.

1. What am I going to use it for?
Internet? Email? Videos? Music? Just word processing? Games? The more media types you use (videos, music, games) the more power you’re going to need. Generally the low end models of computers aren’t designed to run online games and store your top 500 favourite movies of all time. They also aren’t meant to stream large quantities of video. Don’t get me wrong, they will do one here and there but it probably won’t have enough power for a movie buff.

2. What’s my budget?
$400 or $1500? There’s a big difference in price and features between a $400 computer on sale at your local computer shop machine and the $1500 top of the line model that does everything but the dishes. You can narrow the list down considerably just by deciding how much to spend.

3. How much do I need to spend to get what I want?
The gap between what you need to spend to get what you want and what you actually have to spend may be wide.  Think about what you can live with for now and what you really have to have.  Many computers, particularly desktop computers, are upgradeable.  You can buy more parts as the budget allows for it.  Things like video cards, sound cards, RAM and storage are easy to add after the fact.  Look for a computer that gives you the room to grow that you need but that still fits within your budget.

4. Laptop or Desktop?
Laptops and desktops these days are mostly equal in terms of power. Technology has advanced enough now that we can squish all of that power into a machine that’s rather small.
There are lots of pros and cons between laptops and desktops, but speed and power aren’t on that list anymore. Decide whether or not you might need to be portable and go from there.
Portability doesn’t always affect the price either. It depends on what brand you choose and how much power you actually need.
Within that you also need to decide how much room to grow you want to have. Laptops don’t allow for the same amount of part changing that desktops provide. Is this something you intend to trade up in the next couple of years or do you want to keep this machine for a while and would like to be able to add a bigger hard drive, a new video card or increase the memory?
Laptops also tend to be disposable.  Once they break they are done.  They aren’t easily fixed and are often more expensive to fix if you decide to go this route.  This is an important consideration for those that may want to keep their computer for more than a couple of years.

5. What did the sales guy mean when he said…?
Yep, computer sales people can be worse than car salesmen at using all that fancy terminology to talk you into buying something you don’t really need.  Here are the big things to think about.

  1. 1.    RAM (Memory):  Get at least 4 GB if not more.  That’s standard these days and it will last you a while.  Extra is cheap to buy and install.  Don’t get talked into a more powerful computer when you can buy a stick of RAM for $40.
  2. 2.    Hard Drive space:  If you’re like me a 500 GB hard drive is impossible to fill, but for some of you that take a lot of pictures or download music or videos, you’ll eat through a 500 GB hard drive in no time.  If the computer with the bigger hard drive is too expensive, think about external storage.  External hard drives are under $150 now.  It’s definitely cheaper than upgrading the computer solely for the space.
  3. 3.    Video and Sound:  Onboard video and sound (as it’s called), is just video and sound that is built into the motherboard.  It’s good, basic quality video and sound for not a lot of money.  If you want amazing graphics or professional quality sound, spend the extra money to buy yourself a video card or sound card.  The computer tech at your local shop can install it for you.
    Laptop users remember that you probably can’t add a sound or video card to your computer.  You have to get a laptop with that already in place.  You can upgrade hard drives and RAM however.

There you go.  Whether it’s a Christmas present for someone you love or a new computer for business, there are lots of things to think about when buying a new computer.

I am Laura Bungarz, owner of Laura Bungarz Computer Training which I started in January of 2012.  I am a certified teacher and English as an Additional Language instructor in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  I specialize in helping women small business owners who are terrified of technology but know they need to learn.  Teaching, computers and helping people are my three favourite things to do and I get to combine them every day in my business helping other women succeed in their businesses.

Contact Laura:
Laura Bungarz Computer Training
212-207 Fort Street
Winnipeg, MB R3C 1E2
Laura@Laurabungarz.ca
www.LauraBungarz.ca

Developing Social Media Real Estate Online

Kerry George (1)

Developing social media platforms is just like developing real estate along the supernet highway. Like real estate these properties require purchasing, upgrading, maintenance and a plan for long term occupation. When real estate is left unattended vagrants, bugs, rodents and other undesirables move in. Social media also can have people making undesirable posts on your page or have others talking about you in platforms that you did not even know existed. Imagine if you went to Las Vegas and saw your name in lights advertising you doing something embarrassing or worse.

You have a name, a reputation, and a business to develop and to protect. Not participating does not mean that developments are not going on without your knowledge. The best protection is to be engaged and aware. Just like owning real estate, absent renters may be surprised by developments they are unaware of.

When potential clients check out your website their next step is often to check out you. Have you googled your own name? What is found there? That is a whole page that should be all about you. That is a page of real estate that you can easily own. The pieces of content should reflect your story. The pictures should be photos of you. Your LinkedIn profile should be top and center. Your Twitter handle should come up next. Your Facebook profile should be there and your blog should have several places on page 1, 2 and 3.

All you need to do to make this happen is simply make it happen. If you do not have the time, then hire someone to make it happen. It is too important to ignore for your long term success. It is like leaving property without occupants if you do not.

  1. Develop profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter first. If your market is on Pinterest and Google+ then do those as well, but definitely get the main three done. Fill in all of the blanks and make the profiles interesting.
  2. Use your photos on everything. Brand you to your business. Name your photos your name when you save them on your computer and add the alt tags or keyword tags to your photos whenever you can. Some branding experts say to use the same photo but we have found that using different photos causes people to recognize you better in public and makes them more familiar with you and that produces more business.
  3. Start a blog. A blog that is attached to your WordPress website will help you get more traffic to your site but it also features you as an industry leader. Then you start showing up on page 1 of Google as an expert when your name is searched and sometimes for other subjects as well.
  4. Consistency is key. Start a Hootsuite account and automate Twitter and LinkedIn to post interesting statements, good questions, and great tips 4 times a day. Facebook should change a post about twice a week to keep people interested. Consistency is like property management. You need to be sure the plumbing is running right and that the grass got mowed so everything is spiffy when guests pop by to have a look at your property. Automating can help you be consistent when you are busy. In an hour you can put together the main posts for the next month. Then you can be spontaneous when there is something special going on as well.

Buy your property, own your property and care for your property. Be an engaged property owner for better results and create more interest from those rushing by on the internet highway!

Kerry George is the owner of the Canadian Imperial Business Network which is currently the largest business network in Alberta and rapidly expanding across the country. She is a serial entrepreneur/author and speaker with a zest for life and a passion to help others succeed in increasing their potential and their bottom line. Kerry has several publications and blogs that you can follow and welcomes most interaction online.

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