Canadian Small Business Women

Connection, Synergy, Community

The importance of small businesses blogging

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When blogging made its first appearance in the late 90’s, it was mainly used by individuals wanting to express their thoughts and feels towards various topics. However, over the years blogging has evolved and is now used as a main tool for many businesses to express ideas, pass along valuable information and is a means of keeping connected with clients. Blogging is one of the biggest, easiest and not to mention free marketing strategies out there. Entrepreneurs, whether established or starting up, need to understand the importance and value of this tool.

What having a blog site can do for you:

  • Boost your websites search engine optimization (SEO): by posting blogs frequently, Google and other search engines will be able to use the important key words, which are plugged into your post and your appearance on the search engines result page will increase.
  • Causes traffic to your website: by linking your blog site to your business’s website, you will increase traffic flow, along with creating more awareness around your brand.
  • Establishing relationships: end your blog post with a question and get conversation going, create a section under your post for readers to leave a comment or additional feedback. Being able to review and respond to their comments will give you some insight as to what your customers are looking for from your business.
  • Connecting to the brand: most outbound marketing techniques do not allow you to show off your personal side, blogging gives you the opportunity to show your business’s true personality.
  • Free marketing: whether readers share your post on Facebook, tweet it or email your blog to a friend, this is helping create more buzz around your business.

 

Dwania is the Founder and Executive Director of Canadian Small Business Women Contact Canadian Small Business Women:

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How To Get Product Reviews

CHuntly

Are you ready to introduce your incredible product to the world? A great way to get the word out is via product reviews. While similar to an influencer strategy, there are few added audience tactics as well as a bit of a different approach in some cases.

Product reviews help you generate brand awareness, but they also help with SEO through the link back to your site included within the review. Links back to your site also help with general website traffic. If someone is interested in what they see, they will investigate more.

Here are 6 steps to a great product review strategy:

Step 1: Set a realistic timeline

It is unrealistic to throw together an outreach strategy like this in a day or two. It takes preparation and research. If you are launching a new business entirely, you will want to include this in your planning a few months in advance. If you get product reviews pre-launch, it can even drive interest for the official launch.

Step 2: Identify your target audience

If you are in business, whether you sell to other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C), you should know who your target audience is. You should be able to articulate who your ideal customer is according to purchase behaviour and demographics (age, gender, income, etc).

Step 3: Build your list of product reviewers

Once you know who will buy your product, you can start creating a list of product reviewers. While you could find general product review sites, these might not reach your intended target audience. To get the most return on your efforts, find niche review blogs and other businesses who might be interested in promoting your product.

You can either use a database like Cision to point you in the right direction or you can do your own research. In many cases, great blogs aren’t listed on databases because it can be hard for them to keep up with new bloggers. To search on Google you would enter terms like [Product X] review, [Product X] blog, product reviews, etc. (replace [Product X] with your type of product). You will have to do research for either option because you should get to know each product reviewer on your list before asking them for a review. You need to make sure it’s a good fit for your audience.

Step 4: Develop your pitch

Keep it short and to the point. In most cases, one short paragraph is all you need. You should identify yourself, identify your product, and ask if you can send them one to try out and review. Keep it personable – remember you are speaking to another person.

Step 5: Execute

You are ready to reach out! Make sure you have product in stock! When contacting each individual on your list, be sure to tailor the pitch to them. Don’t just insert their name and send the same thing to everyone. Mention a review of a similar product, or one that you really liked. Something to show you are genuinely interested in what they have to say.

Once a reviewer has agree to do a review, make sure you provide the information they will need:

  • Relevant links – social, website, product page, etc
  • Pricing info
  • Information on where to get the product
  • Hashtags

Track and share each product review on your social and other digital channels (ie. Set up an “in the media” page on your website).

Step 6: Involve your customers

The last aspect of your product review strategy is your customers! Start a loyalty program or run a contest that allows them to be your brand ambassadors. A happy customer will gladly talk about your product for you.

It takes a little bit of elbow grease, but with work you can make a product review strategy work for you.

Candace Huntly is the Founder and Principal at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning 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 the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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Toronto Panel of Experts: Canadian Small Business Women of the Month of October 2015

Kelly Farrell, Arti Sharma, Dwainia Grey, Cheryl Rankin and Catherine McGillivray are five dynamic women who will round up our Panel of Experts this year at our Toronto

Expo.  These women are experts in their own right and have made themselves available to support aspiring entrepreneurs.  The topic of this year’s panel is Women in Business and Technology.  The Panel of Experts discussion will take place at The Atantis Pavilion on November 8th, 2015 from 12:30pm to 2pm.  Admission is absolutely free.  Find out about our ladies below and for how you can meet them and ask your questions, go to www.immigrantsmallbizexpo.ca

Panelist Kelly

Panelist Arti Panelist Cheryl Panelist DwainiaPanelist Catherine

Ottawa Panel of Experts: Canadian Small Business Woman of the Month of September 2015

Rima Aristocrat, Kelly Farrell, Catherine McGillivray, Praveeni Perera, Arti Sharma and Elcho Stewart are six dynamic women who will round up our Panel of Experts this year at our Ottawa Expo.  These women are experts in their own right and have made themselves available to support aspiring entrepreneurs.  The topic of this year’s panel is Women in Business, Technology and Healthcare.  The Panel of Experts discussion will take place at The Westin Ottawa on October 4th, 2015 from noon until 2pm.  Admission is absolutely free.  Find out about our ladies below and for how you can meet them and ask your questions, go to www.immigrantsmallbizexpo.ca

Panelists Elcho Panelists Kelly Panelists Rima Panelist Praveeni Panelists Catherine

Panelists Arti

The Importance of Research

Sheralyn

The importance of, and the reliance upon, good, old-fashioned research should never be underestimated.  Whether we grew up using the Dewey Decimal system and Encyclopedia Britannica or more recently, rely on “Dr. Google” and “Wikipedia” – the simple fact is, research can support your thesis, or give your website credibility and it fosters the viability of your business.  So whether you are creating a website, starting a new business, contributing to a magazine article or blog – make sure you do your research and always site your sources. It might sound kind of obvious but fewer and fewer people seem to be doing it these days.

In starting a new business venture research is critical. You are going to want to complete a market analysis, scout locations, survey your potential customer base and thoroughly investigate financing options.  Each of these steps requires research and further, requires you to produce written documentation that you can present to potential backers, even if that backer is your spouse or mother in law. Reliance upon cold, hard facts with supporting documentation is what’s needed when considering investing in business so the research step is important. Ensuring the use of credible sources while on your fact finding mission is also paramount.

When it comes to websites, often this is the first place your customer finds you. Websites with lots of “jazz, pizzazz and razzmatazz” will only take you so far if the product or service you are selling is represented inaccurately.  With websites, not only are you seeking accuracy in the description of your product or service, you also must ensure that whomever designs your site has also spent time researching SEO keywords for your industry, knows and understands the function of font and colour scheme to best attract the type of customer you seek and can provide you with information on where your website is likely to place in Google rankings. You better darn well hope they have also done their due diligence when it comes to logo design and other potentially proprietary information. I write website content for clients and a significant amount of my time should be spent on conducting research to ensure accuracy, avoid duplication and create content that both resonates and ranks.

If you are looking to drive traffic to your website and/or just have an interest in writing once again, whether blogging or submitting articles for publication, research to clarify content and guarantee accuracy is not just important but ethical too.  From a legal standpoint you want to be sure your claims about products are defensible and true and if you are writing about a person, quoting facts is the only feasible option. Writing an article or blog that compares two types of services, (perhaps comparing Naturopathic and Western medicine for example) requires extensive due diligence on the part of the author and research, verifying the accuracy of sources and interviewing key people in the field is what you MUST do. Too many irresponsible people with easy access to the Internet are presenting what amount to opinion pieces that have no solid foundation in fact.  Blogging for business is not the time to share your opinions.

It is incumbent upon us to be sure that whether we are offering information or searching for it, we take the time to verify its accuracy. If you are responsible for content, make sure it is well researched, accurate and sourced appropriately. If you are looking for information apply the same due diligence to your search.  Look for the source, is it credible? Apply the scientific principle – is it replicable? You probably want to place a higher degree of reliability upon a medical site hosted by the Mayo Clinic than one hosted by Facebook, curated by “Tom” and called “Free guide to pain free Home Dentistry!”   This might all seem like common sense but the unfortunate fact is common sense appears harder and harder to come by.  Our reliance upon the web to present factual and credible information and to discern fact from fiction has taken the place of the old-fashioned legwork that used to be involved in going to library, hauling out books and comparing their content or searching through microfiche for factual references in newspapers. I know I’m dating myself and I am not a Luddite “anti-internet” gal by any means. It’s pretty darn convenient. Just don’t forget that the old principles: research, accuracy, credibility, source citing….still apply!

As Owner and Principal partner of “Writing Right For You” Sheralyn is a Communications Strategist – working together with entrepreneurs to maximize profit through effective use of the written word. Looking for web content that works, blog articles that engage or communications strategies that help you get noticed?  Contact Sheralyn today. Sheralyn is also the mother of two children now entering the “terrible and terrific teens” and spends her free time volunteering for several non-profit organizations.

Sheralyn Roman B.A., B.Ed.

Writing Right For You

Communications Strategies that help you GET TO THE POINT!

416-420-9415 Cell/Business

writingrightforyou@gmail.com

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

Social Strategy SOS

SocialStrategy

In the third post in this series, I discussed why you need to consider your customers as “users” and how you go about creating a User Persona to help you target your Content Strategy to your ideal users. Over the next 3 weeks of this series, we’ll finish fleshing out the remaining pieces of the content strategy puzzle, and this week we’ll tackle what is possibly the most perplexing and time consuming part of your digital business: your Social Media Strategy.

Do I really HAVE to have a social media strategy?

Social strategy is complex: there are so many social networks, and sometimes it feels like there is a new one every day.  How does a business owner know which ones to pay attention to, and which ones to ignore?  Engaging in Social Media can be extremely time consuming with little visible return on investment: It can be difficult to clearly see how a social media strategy can help your business.

But social media can also be a virtual goldmine of new customers.  It can be a way that you can develop a relationship of trust with your customers, engage in customer service activities, and even recruit new employees. Social media is here to stay and it is an essential part of every business owner’s sales, marketing, and business development toolkit.   A smart, targeted social strategy can deliver brand awareness, new customers, and even conversions, but it is important to understand why you’re doing it and what exactly you should do, and this is unique to each and every business.

Conversion has changed – forever.

Think about how your customers convert nowadays.  It used to be that customers would become aware of your brand or product through a limited number of expensive and highly controlled channels: perhaps through a television, radio, or newspaper ad, or perhaps through word of mouth.  Their decision to buy was made primarily at point of purchase, that is, when they saw your product on the shelf in the store: the “first moment of truth”, as it was called in the traditional marketing model.

Google has recently described a new model that very accurately captures the new way consumers become aware of, and make decisions to purchase, products and services today, and they call it the Zero Moment of Truth.  The Zero Moment of Truth is all about digital discovery: the extensive searching, recommendation reading, and consulting with Facebook friends that we now engage in before making a purchasing decision.  For products and services big and small, we rarely convert until we have had at least 7 and sometimes as many as 17 digital “impressions” or touch points with a brand.

ZMOTequation

This Zero Moment of Truth is perhaps the most compelling reason that each and every brand, every business selling every product or service, needs to ensure that when the consumer is engaging in this foraging behaviour, that they are there, building trust and clocking impressions that may lead to conversion.  These impressions come from your business website and your social media activities, especially what people are saying with you and about you in social media.

There may be a small segment of the population that doesn’t use social media, but this is a rapidly shrinking segment.  The fastest growing segment of social users is adults 45-54, and more and more seniors come online every day.  In many ways, Social Media IS the Internet, and the Internet IS Social Media.  It’s difficult today to grow your business without a strategy that covers how, for whom, and how often you will engage your customers in the two-way conversation that Social media has to offer as a marketing tool.

So Many Platforms, So Little Time.

Scheduling tools like Hootsuite make it easy to track and control the frequency of your social media communications, and they make it easy to post the same content simultaneously to multiple social platforms.  But while it may be tempting to try and broadcast your messages to multiple platforms at once, it is rarely a good idea.  In his book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, Gary Vaynerchuck makes a strong argument that business owners should heed: not all social platforms are created equal.  The kind of storytelling that works really well on Facebook for a particular user will not work on Twitter, or Linked, In, or Pinterest, or….

Knowing which platforms to prioritise is perhaps the most difficult part of your social strategy but also the most critical.  You stand to lose a lot of precious time if you prioritise a platform that really doesn’t work for your business, and you can even erode or undermine your brand if you post something clearly inappropriate for that platform: so how does a savvy business owner choose?

There are three factors to consider:

1) What are the various social platforms “good at”?

2) Which of the social platforms do your users tend towards?

2) What is the nature of your business conversion funnel?

1) A Brief Primer on Social Media

There is much crossover between the various major social media platforms: all of them are, of course, social, meaning they are about engaging in a dialogue with others.  But because each one operates in a slightly different way with different rules of engagement, they require different kinds of Storytelling.

Twitter

  • Has over 230 million monthly active users
  • Twitter followers are 60% more likely to recommend you than a Facebook Liker
  • The average age of a Twitter user is much higher than Facebook, at 39 years
  • 70% of Twitter users expect to hear back from a brand, and 53% want that response within the hour
  • Twitter is good for establishing thought leadership, expertise, for sharing news, and for customer service and customer relationship management

Facebook

  • Facebook is the largest social platform in the world: if it were a country it would the third most populated, after only China and India
  • Facebook does have an influence on purchasing behaviour, even if not a direct one. Your Facebook fans are more likely to convert than non-fans.
  • Facebook is great for visibility in social search
  • Facebook is getting into the retail game with Facebook shops if you are selling a product
  • The new killer app on Facebook is the short video

YouTube

  • Has moved from being primarily a video search engine to a powerful social platform where many brands have been born and built. Khan academy, for example, and Justin Bieber.
  • Web videos are a great way to reach out to new and current customers and generate inbound links to your website
  • Because it is owned by Google, embedding YouTube videos on your website gives those pages a double-boost in Search Engine Optimisation

Google Plus

  • Great for local businesses, reviews, and Google search “juice”
  • Ties your business address into a Google Map and ties into other Google services

Linked In

  • The largest professional network, you must have a personal page on LinkedIn; it is far more common to connect with business contacts on LinkedIn than to keep a Rolodex or stack of business cards or emails.
  • Linked in generates 200% more leads than the other social networks

Pinterest

  • The fastest growing as of December 2012
  • Pinterest is very visual, about ‘things’, items they find interesting, but it works even for small businesses that aren’t visually stimulating.
  • Pinterest is good for referral traffic because the source of the pin is a link to your site, especially images you might be posting in your blogs. Even if you don’t maintain a page or presence on Pinterest, installing a “pin it” button on your website pages is a good idea

2) Where Are Your Users Hanging Out?

The short answer is, everywhere.  But you have to narrow that down a little to come up with a feasible strategy.  It’s important to note here that there are multiple social platforms not listed above, many of them attracting niche audiences where you might find a treasure trove of users interested in exactly what you have to offer.  This article outlines 60 niche social networks and it is worth doing a bit of digging to see if any of them resonate with your business goals.  Another tool that you can use is socialmention.com; social mention searches blogs and social networks for topics or brand mentions and can be a good way of finding out where conversations are taking place that align with the kinds of conversations you want to be having with your customers.  And social crawlytics at socialcrawlytics.com can be very insightful, generating a report that will tell you which pages of your website have been shared in social media, where they have been shared, and even by who.

3) What is the Nature of Your Conversion Funnel?

Typically, the more expensive the product or service, the more touch points the consumer will require before purchasing.  What are you selling, and how many touch point’s do you think your customers need before they buy?

Is your product or service more suited to an active discovery process or a passive discovery process?  For example, if I need an emergency plumbing repair I tend to engage in some very active discovery to find one.  I search Google and will probably call the first few service providers I see.  Social Media is better at passive discovery, at marketing products, services, and ideas that consumers don’t need right away or in an emergency.

Do you have a lot of competitors, so will need more touch points or more visibility in the market, or very few competitors?  Are you in the B2B or B2C market?

How much customer service does your product or service require?  And how much brand awareness do you already have in the market?
SocialStrategySOSWorksheetImage

Document the answers to these questions on this worksheet; by indicating on the sliders in the worksheet where your business lands on these various conversion factors will give you some pointers towards which platforms you might want to prioritise as well as the frequency of posting you might want to consider.  Note that the worksheet is more art than science and is intended only as a starting point: they only way to really get good at social media is by doing it, so start small, perhaps with your LinkedIn page, and build slowly using the worksheet as a guide.

The biggest question the Content Strategist has to answer is “Do I need a website AND a Social Strategy”?  The answer is yes, for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is the findability of your content in Search.  Next month, we’ll cover Search Engine Optimisation and Influencer Marketing, the two biggest ways you can make your website work for your business.

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

What the Heck is SEO and Why Does It Apply To Me?

Malene Jorgensen

 

If you are a business owner with a website, you may have heard the words “search engine optimization” or SEO. Chances are that you ignored the words when you heard them, because you wanted to focus on your business, your own product development and making sales. And I don’t blame you. But SEO is something you should focus on if your business operates primarily online. If you have an e-commerce store, for example, search engine optimization is a must.

So, what is SEO?

When a person opens a browser and starts searching for something, the person will use certain keywords to find what they are looking for. If you have taken SEO into account when crafting your content, chances are that your website may show up on page one in Google, Bing or Yahoo. SEO is a term that describes various techniques to optimize your content for search engines.

You can’t just create a website and expect to be on the first page of search results, when you search for your website’s name. Unfortunately, you are competing with thousands of other websites with similar names, content, articles and so forth. You have to make your website original, unique and optimized. There are four major areas you can start focusing on right now; value, bounce rate, keywords and back-links.

One thing that search engines put weight on is value. In other words, the content on the website in question must provide valuable information for the readers. Value can include an interesting story, a captivating piece of journalism or an e-commerce store with products for sale. Even your product descriptions add value.

If your website isn’t offering anything of value or interest, people will quickly click back to the search to find another relevant site. When these users quickly bounce away from your page, Google will register the time spent on the site and compare it to the total amount of visitors. This percentage is called the bounce rate. If you have a high bounce rate, search engines may believe that you are misleading readers with your website, claiming you are offering certain content when you are not. You can track your bounce rate on individual pages and articles using Google Analytics.

To improve your bounce rate, you should write valuable content. This is why integrating a blog is so important. It will help give you exposure in search engines, which is an excellent form of marketing. A blog will also give you an opportunity to share value in other ways than just your products or services.

One way to improve your bounce rate is to use keywords to improve your exposure. If you are writing a travel blog about Florida and have a lengthy article about hotels, you want the phrase “Florida Hotels” to be 4 to 6 percent of your overall article – or other relevant key-phrases depending on your article direction. Because this phrase is a higher percentage than other phrases you may have used to craft your article, Google will pick up on this and rank it accordingly. If someone is searching “Florida Hotels,” chances are your site will rank well. Keep this in mind when crafting blog articles.

Lastly, you want to build up some back links organically. This goes back to the concept of value. If another website finds your content to be useful or valuable, they will link to your articles from their sites or social media accounts. This link is called a back-link; it links back to your website. The more back-links you have, the more search engines will think that your content is useful and valuable to people.

Unless you are writing on a very specific topic, you will have to put in hours of work to rank well in search engines. You are competing with websites that have been in search engines for years. But don’t put all of your energy into search engine optimization.

Yes, search engine optimization is important, but don’t think that adding 1000 back-links will secure you a top spot in Google. Since the beginning of 2011, Google has released 25 different algorithm changes that have had some major impacts on traffic for major websites. Back-links may be important in one update, but less important in another.

To ensure a great spot in Google, it really comes down to your readers. Make sure you are giving them valuable and usable information that is worth reading and exploring. Only then will you see the results that you have worked so hard to get.

Malene Jorgensen is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Jorgensen is passionate about online content, blogging, online business development and e-commerce. She owns an international media publishing company and a design studio. Jorgensen has written several books that are sold in over 50 countries. She is also obsessed with coffee and Twitter. You can reach Malene Jorgensen at Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram 

Dwainia Grey: Canadian Small Business Women of The Month of May 2014

Dwainia Grey

Dwainia Grey is the woman behind Awesome Biz Online and Supporting Small Biz.ca. Dwainia has over fourteen years experience in marketing / merchandising.

Since 2000, she has been helping small businesses develop business and marketing plans, as well as providing online marketing through web design, search engine optimization and social media.

Dwainia is dedicated to not only promoting what’s awesome and unique about your company but also helping you increase your sales with online marketing. Awesome Biz Online’s mission is to get every business online with custom websites and for every business to be found on the Internet via online marketing using such tools as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Management and Online Reputation Management.

Dwainia is an advocate for growth, personal growth and business growth and that is why she continuously looks for opportunities to learn and expand her business through customized solutions. By empowering herself she is able to help her clients succeed.

 

Our Q & A with Dwainia Grey

*What inspires you?

Helping and motivating others inspire me. What I do and my knowledge can make a difference for many small businesses. Being able to offer to help businesses inspires me to keep growing my business and helping others to succeed.

My son is also a big inspiration for me. As being a parent has driven my decision to become an entrepreneur.

 

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

As a small business owner seeing other businesses succeed because I assisted makes me most proud. Knowing that a business has become more successful due to my efforts is just AWESOME!

On a personal level I am very proud of being an entrepreneur for ten years. My business is continuously evolving an I am currently expanding into new directions with coaching, training and consulting.

I am very excited to teach the WordPress Bootcamp on June 8, 2014 at the Microsoft Store  at Square One, Mississagua.  I am also now officially open for online marketing consulting.
*What advice would you give to other aspiring small business owners?

I would tell other aspiring small business owners that owning a business is not easy. Be prepared to put in work and get your hustle on!  Stay true to your vision and don’t give up. Also be flexible – the vision you started with may not be the one you end up with but as long as it’s still yours and your passionate about it you can succeed.

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

In the coming year, I will be providing more WordPress and Social Media Workshops, 1-on-1 online marketing coaching, and online marketing business consulting. I  also plan to release more Do-It-Yourself (DIY) online marketing tutorials to help businesses.  The first one is available now forFacebook.

Dwainia Grey has been helping small business succeed for over 10 years and is proud to be a contributor at Canadian Small Business Women. You can contact Dwainia at:

 AwesomeBizOnline.com,Facebook/AwesomeBizOnline, Twitter/@DeathOfAWebsite, Google+/AwesomeBizOnline, Pinterest/AwesomeBizOnline, Youtube/AwesomeBizOnline  and LinkedIn

5 Steps to A Successful Blog in 2014

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Happy New Year! It’s 2014 and I’m sure you have already set your business objectives for the year. Have you set your blog objectives?

What do you plan to achieve with your blog this year? Many people forget that blogging is a marketing tool. As with any marketing tool you want to be able to see and measure results. You can do this by setting blog objectives.

Here are 5 tips to get you started.

 

1. How often do you want to blog?

If you have been blogging for a while now you have probably set a blogging schedule – daily (very ambitions), weekly, bi-weekly or monthly – or you blog whenever the mood strikes. A way to help with scheduling and planning blog post is to create an editorial calendar.  Your editorial calendar can be as basic or as complex as your business or personality. My editorial calendar is a spreadsheet that includes columns for topic, title, meta title, meta description, keywords, categories, call to action, and date posted.

Once you create your editorial calendar stick with it. It helps to keep you on track and makes you more aware that you have to set time aside on a regular basis to actually sit down and create a blog post. So your first objective is to create and stick to a blog schedule.

 

2.  Increase traffic

Search Engine Optimize each post to drive traffic. You can see from above that meta title, and description are a part of my blogging process and that is because I use my blog to increase traffic to my website. Every week I review analytics to monitor traffic, traffic source and keywords used. This helps me determine which blog posts are effective and helps me plan future posts. It also shows me keywords people use to find my site that I also use in planning. And finally it enables me to set targets based on similar posts.

Your second objective is to drive organic traffic using blog posts, which leads to the third objective driving social media traffic.

 

3. Increase Interaction

Social Media is a big part of marketing today and you want to use it to the fullest. After publishing a blog post the next step would be to post it on social media. Post to all social media accounts and use images to help it go viral. Not only do you want to increase traffic from social media you also want to increase interaction. To see a big jump on interaction you can add social media sharing buttons to your blog posts.

I use analytics with such tools as Hootsuite to see what blog posts are being shared, tweeted, commented on etc. I also look at which social media is driving the most traffic and interaction. These numbers help me to plan future blog posts as well tweaking my reposting to social media. I may repost a blog post with a different title, or image and measure the reaction.

Your third objective is to increase traffic and interaction through social media.

 

4. Drive Sales

Use your blog posts to increase sales. If you noticed above in my blog process I include a call to action because at the end of the day when blogging for your business you want to be able to increase business. Each blog post has an objective that I include in my call to action. The objective may be as simple to comment, share on social media, or a bit more specific such as download a free report or to buy something etc. Even if the call to action is as simple as to comment my ultimate goal is to gather leads and prospect to increase sales.

Not only should you use a call to action in your blog post, you should also be linking to your products and services when applicable.

Your fourth objective is to increase sales by having a blog post objective, a call to action and internal links to your products and services.

 

5. Measure Success

Based on the 4 main objectives above (feel free to add more to align with your business objectives), the next step is to measure success.

Take a look at last years numbers. What were your weekly, monthly, and quarterly organic traffic, what were the traffic sources, what was social media interaction and blog interaction like? For example one week of traffic I had 400 unique visits, 20% from Facebook, 20% from Twitter, 20% from other social media and the rest was organic. That week resulted in # of shares and retweets as well as # of comments on the social media and # of comments on the site. You also want to look at per post as well. So my best blog post had 400 unique visits, 20% from Facebook, etc and my worst blog post (in terms of numbers) had 100 unique visits, 0% from Facebook, etc.

Based on these numbers I will now set targets for 2014. I also look at my call to action, internal links and what sales I can attribute to each blog posts. I use tracking such as URL shortners in blog posts as well as just asking customers where did you hear about us? and why did you buy from us? to help attribute sales. I will also set leads, prospects and sales targets for my blog posts. I also try to figure what made my best post so successful and what I can do better based on my “worst” blog post.

Your fifth and final objective is to set goals and achieve them.

Start planning your 2014 blogging today and I hope you have a successful 2014.

 

Dwainia Grey is an online marketer at Awesome Biz Online. She creates
awesome websites and blogs for businesses as well as working with
companies to optimize their websites with Search Engine Optimization and
Social Media. She can be reached at Awesome Biz Online or by phone at 647-799-1090 x 104. You a can also follow her on Facebook to get the latest on online marketing.

10 Step Checklist to Quickly Optimize Your Blog Post

Dwainia

Over the last few months we looked at how to optimize your blog for business using social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and awesome content.  This month I have created a quick and simple checklist to help optimize your blog posts.

1. Does my post convey the objective of the blog post?

2. Do I have a clear call to action (telling readers what I want them to do after they read the post)?

Search Engine Optimization

3. Have I used my search engine optimization keyword in my blog post? Preferably in the title?

4. Have I tagged and categorized my post for search engine optimization using relevant keywords?

5. Have used relevant links internal and/or external?

6. Have I optimized my images for size and with alt and title tags?

Social Media

7. Is my blog post truly shareable?

Does my post provide useful or entertaining information that others will want to share?

8. Have I used media (an image or video) to enhance my post and to inspire sharing?

Facebook has 1.1 billion photos, Instagram has 100 million photos, Flickr has 87 million photos and Pinterest has 49 million photos!

9. Have I included share buttons with the post to encourage sharing?

10. Have I shared my post on all my social media profiles such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+?

When you complete your blog post use this handy checklist to ensure you have optimized your post and it’s ready to publish.

 

Dwainia Grey is an online marketer at Awesome Biz Online. She creates awesome websites and blogs for businesses as well as working with
companies to optimize their websites with Search Engine Optimization and Social Media. She can be reached at Awesome Biz Online or by phone at 647-799-1090 x 104. You a can also follow her on Facebook to get the latest on online marketing.

Optimize Your Blog Posts for Social Media

OYBFSM

Everyone wants to know how to use blog posts to drive traffic to their site, how to make their blog posts more viral. A key component is to social media optimize (SMO) your blog posts. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is optimizing your website and content to increase sharing on social media sites.

6 Steps To Social Media Optimize Your Blog Posts

 

1. Have Unique, Informative and Helpful Content.

Doesn’t matter what your industry is people want to know what your product or service can do for them – “How can I …”.  Write blog posts that showcase your benefits and answer questions.

2. Include Images in Your Post

It’s true an image is worth a thousand words and in this case maybe a thousand shares? On average images are 39% more likely to get more interaction on Facebook than regular text. Use relevant good quality images with each post.

3. Why Not Use Video?

Video marketing is the next big thing because it works. Posts with video attract 3 times more visitors and video is shared 12 times more on Facebook. Also using video increases your chance of page one listing on Google by 53%. How can you turn your blog post into a video?

4. Add Share Buttons to Your Website

Encourage interaction with social media share buttons. Ensure that your blog includes social media share buttons and the most popular areTwitter, Facebook, Google +1, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

5. Promote your Blog Posts

Don’t forget to posts your images, video and blog posts to your social media accounts.

6. Search Engine Optimization

Last but not least Social Media Optimization helps with Search Engine Optimization. Posting to social media helps get your blog posts indexed faster. Shares, likes and +1’s give signals to search engines helping to increase your ranking. And having your posts go viral may help to increase your in bound links.

 

Don’t forget to search engine optimize your posts.

Social Media is a great way to get your blog posts in front of potential clients. The key is to practice social media optimization on every blog posts.

Dwainia Grey is an online marketer at Awesome Biz Online. She creates
awesome websites and blogs for businesses as well as working with
companies to optimize their websites with Search Engine Optimization and
Social Media. She can be reached at Awesome Biz Online or by phone at 647-799-1090 x 104. You a can also follow her on Facebook to get the latest on online marketing.

 

Take Your Blog to the Next Level with SEO

TYBTTNLWS

How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Posts

Use your blog to rise to the top of search engines by creating blog posts based on your keywords.

1. Keyword Gold

Decide what keyword / keyword phrase you want to target for your blog post. Choose only one to focus on. Think of variations to use in your blog content.

2. Keyword Rich Title

Use the keyword in the headline. Make sure that your theme is using <h1> tags. Try to lead with your keyword. Also use a keyword variation in your meta-title tag.

Don’t forget to write an eye-catching keyword rich meta-description.

For this blog post:

<h1> Take Your Blog to the Next Level with SEO

<Meta Title> How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Posts

<Meta Description> 6 Steps to Increase Your SEO via Blogging

blogging-for-SEO-example

3. Keyword Rich Content

Use your keywords throughout your content but remember to not over saturate. When writing for SEO people forget they are writing for readers and it has to make sense. Also try to work your keyword into the first paragraph.

Please note you will be penalized if you over use keywords in your post.

4. Keyword Rich Categories

Your blog should have no more than 10 categories that are your main keywords. Each blog posts should have no more than three categories – one is better. Categories are a great way to classify and theme content.

 5. Keyword Rich Images

Use relevant images in your blog posts. Be sure to add your keyword variation to the <alt> tags while maintaining the description of the image.

6. Keyword Rich Links

Create relevant links internal (other blog posts on your site) and external (link to articles that compliment your blog or you have used as a source). Use keyword variation descriptors – instead of “click here” use “6 Steps to Optimizing Your Website for Search Engine Marketing”

You can easily see a rise in your content on search engines by creating blog posts based on your keywords. Remember to search engine optimize your blog posts with these 6 easy steps.

Dwainia Grey is an online marketer at Awesome Biz Online. She creates
awesome websites and blogs for businesses as well as working with
companies to optimize their websites with Search Engine Optimization and
Social Media. She can be reached at Awesome Biz Online or by phone at 647-799-1090 x 104. You a can also follow her on Facebook to get the latest on online marketing.

Make Your Website Work For You

MYWWFU

Having a website is not enough anymore. You want a website to increase leads and increase sales. On a periodic basis take stock of your website and start optimizing.

1. Optimize pages

Do all your pages have a call to action? Lead visitors to perform the actions you want. Are all your pages search engine optimized? Use keyword friendly URL’s and ensure you are using the right keywords on the page.  Do you have share buttons on your pages to increase engagement? Encourage visitors to share your content on their social media networks.

2. Optimize Content

What pages have the most traffic? How can you create related content?

What pages have the least traffic? How can you make it a traffic magnet?

What pages have high bounce rates? How can you make it more sticky?

3. Optimize Marketing

Are you running online and offline marketing campaigns? If not get started.

What campaigns are working? How can you duplicate the process?

What campaigns are not working? Do you need to scrap it or can you improve it?

The easiest way to keep content fresh and to regularly update your website is to blog. Awesome content will keep visitors coming back and frequent blog posts will keep search engines coming back.

Many people may let finding new content be a barrier to blogging. For some industries it may seem impossible. The easiest way to start blogging is to answer every question you have ever been asked by a client. Brainstorm every question you have been asked about your business, industry, products you use, your process, your services, your guarantee etc. and answer it. Create a blog post that answers each question.

Keep optimizing your pages and blogging and watch the leads and sales increase.

Dwainia Grey is an online marketer at Awesome Biz Online. She creates awesome websites and blogs for businesses as well as working with companies to optimize their websites with Search Engine Optimization and Social Media. She can be reached at Awesome Biz Online or by phone at 647-799-1090 x 104. You a can also follow her on Facebook to get the latest on online marketing.