Why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best option for most Small Businesses

What do you value most?

If you are a small business owner and you read beyond this paragraph, I’m going to share my inexorable logic why outsourcing inbound marketing is the best of all possible options to find new customers for your small business.

If you are a small business owner, what are the two things that you value most?

After speaking and working with many small business owners, and being a small business owner myself, I can tell you without a doubt, the two most valuable things you possess as a small business owner are (1) time and (2) money:

1. Time. There’s just not enough of it. It’s your most valuable resource. With it you create the 2nd most valuable thing which is:
2. Money. It’s scarce. If you invest it, there’s got to be a return on investment, period. The higher the better, so if you can measure it, and improve it, so much the better.

Time and money are your most valuable resources. And everybody wants what you’ve got. That is precisely why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best of possible options for you.

First, why outsourcing your marketing makes business sense

If you outsource your marketing, it saves you time. You don’t have to do it. If there’s a return on investment, and it helps you make more money, then you’d be foolish not to do it, right? You’re saving time and making money!

Second, out of all the marketing alternatives, why inbound marketing?

If you are looking for something you need, what do you turn to first? Do you go to the yellow pages? Or do you do a search using your favorite search engine? If you’re like most consumers and business buyers, you sit down at your computer, or use your smart phone, and search for what you’re looking for… and you ultimately find what you’re looking for (without the yellow pages).

And the companies who show up at the top of the rankings, and provide you the things you’re looking for? They’re practicing inbound marketing. With Inbound Marketing, you develop a web presence, and promote yourself online so that when your customers are looking for products or services that you offer, they  (1) find you and contact you first (2) you convert them into a customer, and you (3) measure the results.

Inbound Marketing: How it Works

Inbound Marketing uses the best practices in Web Design, SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media… and ROI Analytics:

• Web Design ~ WordPress Websites and Blogs that position you in your unique niche, and put you in the driver’s seat.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ~ Top search engine rankings for keyword phrases that drive targeted traffice to your website.
• Pay per Click Marketing ~ Pay per Click Marketing augments your organic SEO, and helps you focus on keyword groupings and landing pages that will help you convert traffic into inquiries and sales.
• Blogging ~ Timely and relevant information that positions you as an expert in your niche, so that when your prospects have a need they call you first.
• Social Media ~ Connect with People, Collect and share information that it useful to your prospects and customers, Use that information to inform your own Editorial Direction, and Create your own content. 
• Traditional and Online PR ~ Leverage content, events, accomplishments to gain back links from other influential websites, and also media hits with traditional journalists.
• ROI Analytics ~ Measure the effectivness of your marketing activities to see what’s working and what’s not working, and invest your dollars where you can achieve the greatest ROI.

The catch? It really works best if you are doing all of these things simultaneously. It doesn’t work if you just try one tactic here, another tactic there. You might get some results with one or two tactics, but to really make it work, it requires a commitment–and it’s a process, not an event. But you can execute an Inbound Marketing program very cost-effectively, and that leads me to why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is your best possible alternative.

Third, why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best option

What are your options?

1. Do it Yourself: Not an option. You have more important things to do with your time.
2. Use an In-house Resource: It’s expensive to hire a full-time person, and it might only get partly done because many different skills are required. To be effective, Inbound Marketing requires simultaneous execution of multiple tactics, and a sustained effort.
3. Outsourcing Inbound Marketing to a Competent 3rd Party who can handle it for you: It’ll get done and you can measure the ROI.

The great news? Inbound Marketing is very cost-effective. You can get a lot for a relatively small investment.

Conclusion: So now hopefully I’ve been able to present a logical argument why outsourcing your Marketing, if it’s producing a measurable return on investment, is a wise decision. And by implementing an Inbound Marketing Strategy, you’ll help you find your prospects and customers find you at precisely the most important moment: when they’re looking for you!

And that is how I arrive at my claim that Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best of all possible alternatives for your business. Because it’ll help you spend more of your time doing the things you need to do to take your business to the next level, and you’ll be making more money.

Pages related to Outsourcing Inbound Marketing :

• Ghost-Blogging and Blog Management
• Social Media Marketing

If you are looking for Outsourcing Inbound Marketing please contact me today.

Are you confused by all the Local Internet Marketing options? You are not alone…

Who's the trusted advisor?

The typical small business owner does not have the time or expertise to effectively manage all the Local Internet Marketing investment options.  

Not only are there more numerous–more complex directory relationships, but pace of the fragmentation in the marketplace is outpacing everyone’s attention span.        

How is a small business owner supposed to keep track of all the different ways to promote their business? Directories, Internet Yellow Pages, Search Engine Optimization, Pay per click Marketing, Blogging, Social Networking, Mobile Advertising, Hyperlocal Advertising Sites–as well as Web Design Issues, Marketing Experiments, ROI Analytics, and all the other time-consuming issues of running a Local Internet Marketing program.           

This is the primary reason so many 3rd-party providers have jumped into the Local Internet Marketing game over the past few years. There is a void to fill. And there’s a desire on the part of small business owners to hand off this business of Local Internet Marketing to a trusted advisor.          

Who ‘s the Local Internet Marketing Expert?

So who’s the expert in Local Internet Marketing? Your Web Design guy? The local SEO expert? How about the Local Phone Company? Your Local Newspaper? The Company that publishes your Tax Software? Because all of these people also claim to be your best Local Internet Marketing Expert.  If everyone is a Local Internet Marketing Expert, the problem is: “Who do you trust?”  

Whoever you choose to help you–here are a 7 Things Every Small Business Owner Should Do  to launch a Local Internet Marketing program, obtain greater visibility, and drive business through the door. I’m going to share some of the things I have done and that I do to help me drive business for myself, and hopefully by doing that, you’ll pick up an idea or two that will help you with your business. 

7 Ideas Every Small Business Owner Should Do to Achieve Success in Local Internet Marketing        

 1. Claim your Directory Listings  

Claim your listings

All of your contact information should be consistent on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Best of the Web, Yelp, and the Mobile Directories.  

At the very least, you should include your business name, address, phone number, your main keyphrases that someone would type in a search engine to find you, and include links back to your website or blog. Also make sure your Google Map is up-to-date. Luckily you can do this all in one place with a Universal Business Listing. 

2. Create a web presence  

A web presence is essential

 You can create a free website at WordPress.com. Or Weebly.com. Or even better, get a designer to create a self-hosted WordPress website with a pre-built theme customized to match your logo. You can take a pre-built them, make it your own, and have a website you can be proud of for a relatively small investment. While you’re at it, create a Facebook Page for your business, and a Company Profile on Linked-in, because these days they’re all connected. 

Even then, keep it simple. Regarding your website design, all people want to know is: “Who are you?” “What do you offer?” And “Why should I trust you?” Unless you have an ecommerce website and are selling lots of things online, or you’re selling something very complicated, a simple 5 page website plus a blog should suffice for most small businesses.  

Small Business Tip: If you already have a web presence, make sure that it’s easy to optimize your website to get traction with the search engines. Maybe you don’t need a new website, when a simple SEO Makeover with On-page Search Engine Optimization would suffice. If you want to add blogging capability, maybe it’s time for a do-over anyway. 

3. Create a Special Offer for New Customers  

Offers drive business

Restaurants regularly offer 50% off one item for new customers, or an appetizer for free with a minimum purchase. Hair stylists offer a free color with a hair style for new customers. Do you have an offer especially designed for new customers?  Use the offer in conjunction with a Groupon, or a FourSquare program. 

If you structure your offer correctly you should have no problem driving new customers through your door. Keeping your pipeline filled, and new customers are the lifeblood of any small business.  

4. Optimize your Website
One of the best ways to maximize the results of your Local Internet Marketing is by optimizing your website for local keywords, for example: Your Service > Your City, Region, State, Zip Code.  Also you can add a list of the local communities or municipalities in your service region at the footer of your website to drive additional local traffic. The trick to getting top spots in the search engines is to create pages with high keyword densities (the proportion of the number of times one keyword phrase is used to the total number of words in the page: 3-4% is a very good number to aim for). 

I have optimized my website, and in the image below, I’m showing you a top-view screen shot of my Google Analytics Web Statistics from the last 30 Days, so you can see how this is working for me, and how I use it.  

Use Web Stats to Measure your results

As you can see from my Web Stats, my main keyword phrases are: ”Direct Marketing Consultant” and “Small Business Marketing” in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. If you looked at the rest of my stats you’d see that I get small ”long tail” hits for every combination of those keywords, as well as some great traffic from some my more popular recent blog posts, like “How to Build a Great Website” and “How to Create a Better Linked-in Profile.”  

Small Business Insight: I’m also getting a lot of unintended and undesired traffic for how to make an *c-h-e-a-p* (sic) small business website, because in my most popular recent blog post “How to create a great website,” I used the word *c-h-e-a-p* (sic) twice. So now I need to think about a way for me to rephrase that to take advantage of the current traffic, and instead of that undesirable word, use the word ”low budget,” which I could actually turn to my favor: small business owners who have a little bit of budget to create a website.  

5. Get Other Influential Sites to Link Back to Yours  
Your search ranking is determined not only by the web optimization and the quality of the content on your website, but also who links back to you. A great way to create back links is to sign up for local directories, to submit your blogs and articles to other influential websites (like Ezinearticles.com and Bizsugar.com), and to comment on other influential blogs in your area. You’ll see I’ve got some nice traffic coming from BizSugar.com, Linkedin.com, Smallbiztrends.com, and Twitter.com. It all adds up!   

Small Business Tip: Linked-in and Facebook are influential sites. Two great ways you can control getting other influential sites to link back to yours are by Optimizing your Linked in Profile and Gaining Likes on your Facebook Page for Business. 

6. Create a Small-budget Pay per click Marketing Campaign
Pay per click gives you additional insights into what’s working and what’s not working.  Start with $100 or $200 per month on Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, Microsoft Ad Center, and/or Facebook.  The trick to Pay per Click is to create a separate landing page for each logical grouping of keywords. The investment will quickly pay off (quickly meaning you can start gettting hits today). Pay per click Marketing is a great way to augment your organic (free) search traffic. 

Take advantage of all the PPC networks

7. Measure your results
Why is it that so few companies measure their results? WordPress.com Stats is Free. Google Analyticator is Free. My new favorite, Going up Web is also Free. Increasingly, your company website is the focal point through which you can measure the results of your marketing. Each of these tools provides great insights that will help you improve your traffic and your inquiries and sales.     

So that’s my bare bones strategy for Local Internet Marketing Success. Whomever you choose to work with to help you with your Local Internet Marketing, it’s going to require some real work, and if anyone tells you it’s easy, then maybe they’re not telling you the whole story. Every small business owner should be doing each of these things simultaneously, and doing them now! 

If you are a small business owner, and you do these 7 Easy Steps to Local Internet Marketing Success, chances are you’ll be happy you did. If you do, let me know how it works out! 

Pages related to Local Internet Marketing :    

• Hyper Local Internet Marketing
• How to Get Great Leads

If you need help with Local Internet Marketing please contact me today.

If you want to build a great website, how do you do it?

A horse designed by a committee is a camel

If you want to build a great website, the number one mistake most people make is not that they’re not thinking “big enough“.    

On the contrary, most mistakes occur because they’re not thinking “small enough“.    

To build a great website, it doesn’t take rocket science. But too often a great idea gets bogged down in committee, or shot down by an influential person with a different agenda–and it’s too bad because everyone suffers.    

The number one failure of most websites when you want to build a great website is a two-pronged failure: (1) failure to articulate the vision, and (2) failure to execute. That’s why I am a big advocate of web projects that are small and easy.    

To Build a Great Website, think Small and Easy

Small is understandable. Easy is doable. After you’ve had a success or two, then you build from there. First you build a great website - then you promote it (using SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media, PR) – and then you enjoy the results (and you keep working on improving).    

In the small and easy spirit of projects that are both understandable and doable. here are seven ideas that will help you build a great website that will yield many positive returns for your business or community.    

Seven Small and Easy Steps to Build a Great Website:

1. Put one person in charge. The project leader. This person can get the best thinking of the group, but create one “decider” who represents the voice of your company or community. In the words of David Ogilvy, “There is a reason there are no statues erected to committees.” Or “A horse designed by a committee is a camel.”    

2. Decide what you want it do do. Great websites seamlessly guide the user to to the intended objective, i.e. place a call, fill out a form, make a purchase. What’s the purpose of the website? What do you want it to do?    

3. Be helpful. Most websites say: “Hey there, look at me, aren’t I cool?” Instead you want your website to say: “Here’s what you were looking for…, here’s how I can help…, here’s how you can take the next step.” In other words, “How can I help?”    

4. Less is more. Mies Van Der Rohe created a whole branch of architecture based on this principle. Like Professor Strunk said: “Be Concise.” Use fewer words, fewer pages, less fine print. All people want to know is “Who are you? How can you help me (make more money, save money, and/or avoid pain), and “Why should I trust you?”    

5. Hire the best. Pay her, and let her do her job. There’s a lot that goes into a great website and great inbound marketing…  Ten mediocre web consultants you found on oDesk (a place to get really cheap talent) do not add up to one rock star. Hire the best, then go for a walk, or take a  yoga class. Relax. Just breathe.    

6. Don’t cut corners. Your website is a pivotal component of your business, perhaps the most important component of marketing your business. If you want to build a great website, you need to spend a little money. Low budget websites look, well…, low budget. Don’t cut corners. You’ll end up paying for it in others ways (like lost opportunities).    

7. Measure your results, and act on them. Edward Deming had the right idea: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. So use your own version of Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Gooogle Analytics is Free. WordPress Stats is Free. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. After you’ve measured, take the best and leave the rest. Measure it again, take the best and leave the rest. Rinse. Repeat.    

Yes, Mr. Schumacher, when you want to build a great swebsite, “small really is beautiful”.    

Of course it’s always possible that I left something out. If I did, your thoughts and comments on how to build a great website are always welcome. If you liked this post, please share it with your friends. Share  

Pages related to:  How to Build a Great Website 

• Professional Website Design and Development
• On-page Search Engine Optimization
• 7 Easy Steps to Successful Local Internet Marketing

Oh, one last thing, if you’d like some help to build a great website, please do not hesitate to contact me.

What are the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO?

Google wants to deliver what you're looking for

“If SEO works so well,” many of my clients ask me, “why I’m recommending the use of Blogs to drive traffic to their websites?”

In order to understand why Blogs are not only necessary, but they’re an essential part of driving traffic to your website, and why you’d want to know the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO, it’s  it’s important to take a step back and talk a minute about how Google develops the rules that determine how high our pages rank in the search engines.

The Google PageRank Algorithm

Several years ago,  few people really could imagine the explosion of social media engines like Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter.

Google did.

“The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.” ~ Google co-founder Larry Page 

When Google modified its Pagerank Algorithm to include backlinks, it was the beginning of the Social Media Revolution (or the revolution of user-generated content). Google dictated that it’s not only structure of your code on your pages that determines your page rank, but also how many influential websites link to yours…, in other words, your search engine visibility is determined not only by the quality of the content on your website, but by who is linking to you. 

This is why why Blogging is the new strategy to attain search engine visibility - and why it’s important to know the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO - because Blogging provides a platform to share your ideas, get others to connect with you, and if your ideas are good ones, they can share you ideas with others. So you’ve got one platform that facilitates all three actions of social media: (1) Connect (2) Collect and Share, and (3) Create.

Success breeds success. If your posts are popular and they follow the best practices in blogging for SEO, chances are they’ll also achieve greater search engine visibility.

Here are the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO

The page that does the best job with on-page optimization and has the most inbound relevant links will have the highest search ranking. Think of it from Google’s shoes… “Pagerank is based on relevant inbound links.” What does it mean? It means that Blogging combined with an SEO program is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website, and get your phones to ring.   

1. Focused Content ~ Create an editorial focus for your website. If your customers are small business owners, write only about things that are of interest to small business owners. Write about sales, marketing, managing people, managing your taxes, building your cadre of trusted advisors, etc.
2. Keyword Research ~ Research keyphrases to incorporate each page and post. And only use one keyphrase per page in the on-page optmization efforts (your title, in your text, and in your hyperlinks). The more specific you are the better. For example: you’ll have a much better chance achieving a top ranking for the search term: ”ISO 9001 Certification Requirements” than you will “ISO 9001″.  
3. Optimized Pages and Posts ~ Content should be relevant to a site’s core theme, products or services. Each page should be optimized around a specific keyword phrase to achieve a keyword density of at least 1% (meaning if your post is 450 words, you should use your keyword phrase at least 5 times). Make use of the keyword phrases in header tags (h1, h2, h3), use your keyword phrase in the “alt description” of the image on the page.
4. Provide Fresh Content ~ Fresh and updated content shows people there are signs of life on your website, and if you’re continually adding new pages to your website, that creates more new opportunities to gain traction with the search engines. 
5. Speed Page Delivery ~ Slow loading websites frustrate visitors. Frustrated visitors look elsewhere for their needs. They will either back click or close the search altogether and then visit your competition. You can get a CDN (Content Delivery Network) or there are plugins for Wordress like WP Super Cache on WordPress that speed page load times.
6. Be Selective About Outbound Links ~ High quality outbound links are links that are relevant to your website’s core theme, product or service. Even then use them selectively. Best Practices in Blogging for SEO means to add “ref=nofollow” to most outbound links.
7. Create Quality inbound links - Avoid ‘link farming’ at all costs. This practice can result in your website being penalized. The most effective and highest rated links are those that are created organically. Organic links are links contained in relevant articles, directories, industry specific websites, news distribution sites, and most importantly, people commenting on your blog posts. If you’re using WordPress for your Blogging Platform, use a plugin like Comment Luv to give your commentors the opportunity to create a relevant back link from your website. Also, you might consider distributing SEO and Social Media enhanced press releases from time to time, for example with PR Log, a free news distribution resource; this is an excellent method of obtaining additional high quality inbound links.

If you follow these 7 Best Practices in Blogging for SEO – you’ll get a lot more quality inbound traffic, and the next things you’ll want to start working on are reducing your bounce rates (people visiting your site and leaving because you  aren’t giving them what they want), and increasing your conversion rates (registrations, downloads, requests for more information). 

If you need any help increasing your search engine visibility with Best Practices in Blogging for SEO, please contact me today.

How do you Create a Better Linked-in Profile?

While Linked-in is acknowledged as the premier business-oriented social networking site, many people look at it as a simple online CV or resume.     

But Linked-in is greatly underrated as a place to showcase your talents, grow your capabilities, and develop new business opportunities.  It is certainly worth your time to build a better-Linked-in Profile.   

I know for a fact that many Human Resource Professionals use Linked-in to help find and screen candidates. If you’re a job seeker, your should optimize your Linked-in Profile–just in case someone is looking for someone like you at this very moment.  If you’re a manager or an executive, you should take time to create a Better Linked-in Profile–to put your best foot forward.     

I realize there are many blog posts out there about how to Build a Better Linked-in Profile, but I put together the 5 main things that I do whenever I update someone’s Linked-in Profile. These 5 things will help you (1) connect with others and let them connect with you (2) collect and share information that’s important to you, and (3) to showcase your own content that positions you as the expert, so that when a client or prospect has a need they call you first.     

5 Easy Tips to Create a Better Linked-in Profile

 1.Clean up your URL with your name. When you first create your Linked-in Profile, it gives you a URL that ends with Gobbledygook. You should change this to something shorter. My LinkedIn profile URL is http://www.linkedin.com/in/lesproctor. It’s a much easier on the eyes, and looks nicer when you email it to people.     

2. Add your Twitter Account. In case you missed it, Twitter is going mainstream. And your microblog posts (or “tweets”), can now show up on the status update at the very top of your Linked-in Profile page. You can see a post that I put up entitled “An Open Mind is Good for the Bottom Line.”  These status updates are important because they illustrate to people visiting your website that you are active, and that “the lights are on and someone’s home.”     

Les Proctor's Linked-in Profile

3.Add Anchor Text to your Website Links. You can add up to 3 links on your profile to your website, or different pages on the same website; these links pass Linked-in’s SEO authority to your website, so you should take advantage of them. Customize the text on the links, so that the search engines understand more about the content of pages they link to.     

In my case I’ve added 3 Links to different pages of my website: (1) Direct Marketing 2.0 Blog, (2) Results Marketing Services, and a (3) Free Website Analysis.  

Adding Applications to your Linked-in Profile

You can add all kinds of really cool applications to your Linked in Profile. Your Creative Portfolio, Polls, Events, Your Reading, a Blog, and more. In my case I’ve added my Reading List and my WordPress Website Blog.      

4. Add your reading List. What people read tells a lot about who they are. By adding my reading list this I am giving you a sneak peek at the books in my library. Art, books, culture…, these are the things that bind us all together.     

Les Proctor's Linked-in Reading List by Amazon.com

 5. Add a Blog. In this case, my website is developed on WordPress, which is the most popular web publishing platform around. By adding my Blog, I’m publishing my 4 latest Blog posts, so people can see what I’ve been writing about lately.     

Direct Marketing 2.0 Blog

I know there are many others things you can do to create a better Linked-in Profile, but these are the areas where I consistently see an opportunity for improvement. I’m sure I’ve left something out.     

Please let me know what *you do* to build a better Linked-in Profile. And, if you liked this post, please share it with your friends. Share

If you’d like me to help you Build a Better Linked-in Profile or a Social Media Marketing Program, please contact me today.

What is Lean Marketing, exactly?

Improve your marketing

Everyone’s looking for results. 

Is there a sure-way method to find them?  

Yes–if you take the time to measure your results, which many companies are simply too busy to do.  

“You can’t improve what you  can’t measure.” 

Many companies think they’re practicing “Direct Marketing” without taking the time to measure and report the results… they enjoy the results, but they don’t try to figure out how they could do better. 

Like Direct Marketing, Lean Marketing is targeted, personalized, measurable, but most importantly, it’s improveable.  

As consumers, and as business managers, we’ve all seen successful examples of Direct Marketing. You go to your mailbox, open your mail, and there’s a letter that stands out — it comes from a real person directly to you with an offer designed to delight you and make you want to respond.  

As marketers, if you use Direct Marketing regularly, you know that for every $1.00 you spend you can get $20.00 back, or $24.63, or whatever. Predictable return on investment helps you with your budgeting, your cash management, and your profitability.  

Lean Marketing is Continual Improvement applied to Marketing

Lean Marketing is Direct Marketing with a commitment towards improvement, i.e. it’s Quality Management or Continual Improvement applied to Marketing, which can be illustrated by the PDCA Cycle that was popularized by Edward Deming, who is widely recognized as the forefather of improving design (and thus service), product quality, testing, and sales.  

The PDCA cycle is designed to be used as a dynamic model. The completion of one turn of the cycle flows into the beginning of the next, creating a “virtuous circle of continual improvement”. The process can always be reanalyzed and a new test of improvement can begin.   

1.  PLAN: Establish the processes needed to achieve an acceptable response rate and a cost-per-acquistion of new customer. 
2. DO: Implement the processes 
3. CHECK: Monitor and measure the processes and report the results 
4. ACT: Take action to test new ideas and maintain and continually improve the response rate and the cost-per-acquistion of new customer. 

By testing new ideas, i.e., New offers, new creative strategies, new package formats, you’ll continue to make improvements… and in the process you’ll acquire new customers, sell them more, get them to refer others to you, and ultimately you’ll be a stronger and more profitable company.  

By monitoring and measuring the processes and reporting the results, you’re able to quickly see what’s working and what’s not working, which will then allow you to align your budget with achieving your company’s strategic objectives.  

And that is why Lean Marketing is so powerful.  

Lead Marketing is Direct Marketing the way it’s meant to be practiced.

Pages related to Lean Marketing :

• Direct Marketing 2.0 applies the principles of quality management to your marketing so you can measure and improve your ROI

If you’re looking for a consultant who can help you implement Lean Marketing in your operations please contact me.

What are the Best Practices of Business Blogging?

Blogging is communicating

Blogging can be a great way to leverage social media to  position yourself as an expert–the “go-to” resource whenever someone has a problem you can solve, but to blog effectively you should follow the best practices of business blogging.

I know that a lot has been written on this subject, but I’m putting up what I consider the top 5 Best Practices of Business Blogging for your review–if you feel I’ve missed something or I’m off the mark, please let me know!

The 5 Best Practices of Business Blogging

1. Write with a specific audience in mind — Who is your audience? As you’re writing, pretend like they’re sitting down right next to you. What is going to get their attention? What can you write about that’s going to help them solve the problem that’s been keeping them awake at night?
2. Focus on the content and help your readers solve a real problem–Chances are, you know how to help your customers solve a real problem, or else you wouldn’t be in business. Your article (or blog post) should fulfill a real need, or else it is not relevant.
3. Be educational not promotional–Blogging is not broadcasting, so educate your readers, don’t pander to them. This is your chance to show them you know what you’re talking about… by helping them solve a real problem you are establishing yourself as an expert, and you increase the likelihood that when they have a need they’ll call you first.
4. Write for readability–”Pretend like I’m in 8th grade“–that’s what one of my old bosses used to say. You impress people the most when you get your message across. In most cases, your writing should be made to be simple so that your readers follow you, and understand what you’re writing about. Write in plain english and avoid foreign languages and jargon. (This post was written at an 8th grade level--which means that most 13 and 14 year olds can understand it–you can check your own readability at http://www.read-able.com)
5. Create ways for your readers to engage with you–Comment forms, polls, social media buttons, live chat buttons encourage your readers to interact with you. Your objective shouldn’t be to get a purchase right now at this moment–but rather interaction, engagement, and feedback. Engagement deepens relationships.

When you boil it down to its very essence, Blogging is just another way to communicate–a very powerful way, because like all “real” communication– it’s a two-way street, an opportunity to engage and build relationships with others–by commenting on blog posts you can show off your active listening skills, and offer value to the conversation.

Make your content so good that people want to share it

If Social Media is about (1) connecting with others (2) collecting  information that’s important to you, then blogging is about making your content relevant so good that your readers will want to collect it and share it with their connections, friends, and followers. If you follow these 5 Best Practices for Business Blogging, your content will be so good they’ll want to share it with their friends.

So those are my 5 Best Practices of Business Blogging, and I’m sticking to them! I’m sure there are other best practices out there, so if you have any you’d like to share please “make my day!”

Oh, and if you ever need a hand setting up a WordPress Website, or implementing the Best Practices of Business Blogging, please contact me.

Could you benefit from a Website Makeover? Or should you just start over?

Does your website need to go?

When you discover you’ve made a bad hire, you usually don’t hesitate to fire the person–or to provide coaching and training to fix the problem(s), so that your employee is a happy, productive, contributing member of the team.  

The same should be true of an unproductive website. You should assess your website so that you can determine whether you can fix it with a Website Makeover — or junk it, and start over.  

Your website represents you. Some might even say, it is you. A finely tuned website could be working for you around the clock–helping spread the word about what you do, how you do it better than anyone, and creating opportunities with customers and prospects who need your products or services.  

I realize that others have put together lists of factors that create a productive website, but I put this list together specifically for small business owners to help them determine if they could benefit from a Website Makeover. If I’ve forgotten anything please feel free to add yours in the comment form!  

7 Factors to Determine Whether a Website Makeover would work for you:

1. Code/structure: Is the website coded properly to build keyword densities for the main key phrases on each page?
2. Backwards Links–Do other influential websites link back to yours? Along with the code and structure, this is the #1 factor that influences your search engine visibility. 
3. Usability–Does your website follow accepted conventions of usability? Is it easy to use? Can the website be viewed in all browsers? Are there any bottlenecks or broken links? Or information that needs to be updated?
4. Identity/positioning–Does your website accurately capture your identity and position you as a leader in your field? Does it accurately and positively reflect you and your business?
5. Content–Does your website offer fresh, relevant content to engage your readers? Does it speak directly to your customers and prospects and accurately communicate what you can do to help them?
6. Capture/convert–Is your objective to generate inquiries, leads, or sales? Does your website help you achieve your objective? Does it have web forms, invitations to chat, and/or social media buttons? Do you offer an e-book or something else of value to get prospects to sign up for your newsletter?
7. Measure–Are you using Google Analytics, WP Stats, or something else to measure your success? You can’t improve what you can’t measure.

Do a Website Assessment

One of the best ways to assess where your website is in relation to other websites is the Website Grader, a free tool from HubSpot that provides an Internet Marketing Report for your website. It tells you how well your website is working… if it’s getting traffic, if it has SEO problems, how popular is it in social media… it’ll give you a step-by-step guide to fix it so you can start getting more inbound traffic. [This website scored a 97.8 of 100].  

How does your website rank? Is it time to give your website the Pink Slip, or can you fix it up with a Website Makeover so it’s working for you? What do you need to do to fix it up?  

No matter how good your website is, there is always room for improvement.

If you need help either analyzing your website, fixing up your current website with a Website Makeover, or building a new website, please contact me.

Why do I love Infusionsoft CRM? Let me count the ways…

Direct Marketing 2.0

Infusionsoft CRM is simply the most powerful CRM/Marketing Automation tool for small business. There’s nothing better.

It’s like Salesforce.com + ExactTarget + 1ShoppingCart all-in-one.

And for two seats at $299/month, plus $59/month per additional seat, the price cannot be beat.  

Infusionsoft CRM offers you more

You will not find a better all-in-one CRM/Marketing Automation System.  It includes:  (1) CRM (2) Autoresponders (3) Web forms (4) Order forms (5) Sales force automation (6) Shopping cart (7) Affiliate marketing management, and (8) lots, lots more, and what’s best, you can get it all without spending tens of thousands of dollars, or cobbling together other systems that do parts of what Infusionsoft can do (like Salesforce.com + ExactTarget + 1ShoppingCart, which you’d probably spend 5 figures putting it all together anyway).

If you’re looking for a CRM or Marketing Automation System for your Small Business, but haven’t been able to decide which one is best for you, here are 5 good reasons to get off the fence:

5 Reasons to Get Off the Fence and Choose Infusionsoft CRM

Here are 5 really cool, unique features that should make you want to sign up for Infusionsoft CRM today:

1. Tags – Known as “custom taxonomies” or “tags”, these became popular with WordPress, and “Tag Clouds”, this is an alternate method of classifying information so it can be easily found, and it’s also great for segmenting your list “to get the right message to the right person at the right time.”
2. Marketing/Action Sequences – You can easily add/change a record’s status based on actions/ conditions, or example: A prospect buys “Product B” from you, you can change the record’s status from prospect to client, add a tag indicating that they’ve purchased “Product B”, and initiate the “Upsell marketing sequence of emails for Product B.”
3. Trackable Links – You can send an email with a link that says “Yes, have someone call me!”, and if someone someone click the link you can start an action sequence, for example, create a task, and assign it round-robin for a salesperson to follow up, followed up by another specialized sequence of emails.
4. Infusionsoft API – Infusionsoft CRM is one of the very few systems that allows you to tap directly into your database via an API, which gives you virtually unlimited ability to tie it into your operations.
5. Subscriptions and Recurring Payments – You can create order forms that accept credit cards and spread payments out over a period of time ”just like a big company.”  After you’ve sold something, you can concentrate on delivering the goods–as far as getting paid is concerned you can “set it and forget it.”

Ultimately, the biggest reason why small business owners love Infusionsoft (and why I love it) is because it helps them make more money, while at the same time increasing their productivity so they don’t have to add more staff. Which means greater profitability–more money to the bottom line.

The Infusionsoft organization and culture is really a wonder to behold; and everyone–the upper management down to the troops working the line–should be praised for the culture they’ve created. They practice what they preach and are absolutely committed to customer delight. As the company who was first-to-market in the Marketing Automation Category, Infusionsoft is on an upwards trajectory, and are continually coming up with product enhancements that make the system easier to use and manage.

Does the Shopping Cart need some work? Admittedly. But the product management team is working on it. You’ve heard it here, and I guarantee they won’t disappoint.

Right now Infusionsoft is running the Double Your Sales Guarantee with a Free Trial. Simply click here to do it now.

And if you’re looking for someone to help you implement Infusionsoft CRM, please contact me today.

Why WordPress is the Best Choice for Small Business Owners and Big Company Websites alike

Wordpress is awesome

I love WordPress, and other small business owners and marketers should love it, too. Over the past three years, it has become my web design platform of choice.

“Why?” You might ask….

Simply because a WordPress website can do everything an old-fashioned website can do, and about 100 times more.

10 Reasons Why WordPress is the Best

Here are ten excellent reasons why WordPress is the Best platform for web design, blogging, social media — whatever. If you are looking for a website, you should choose a WordPress as your publishing platform, period:

1. Easy to use – If you can operate Microsoft Word, you can probably use WordPress.
2. Flexible – Wordpess themes can be easy to modify, and hundreds of plugins and widgets make it easy to customize your website/blog.
3. Full-fledged content management system — although it’s thought of as a blogging platform, it’s really so much more.
4. No software required – Do you have a mini laptop and wireless connection? Blog from the airport in between planes.
5. Design it once and forget it — and you can blog to your heart’s content for years without ever going out of style. 
6. Easily add an e-commerce – it’s easy to accept credit cards via Google Checkout, Paypal, or accept credit cards via Authorize.net
7. Completely customize your site –  start with a theme like Hybrid or Flexibility and modify the theme so it’s uniquely yours.
8. Achieve top search engine visiblity — optimize it for search engines and get your prospects to call you when they have a need. 
9. Get social / learn more about your customers and prospects – because a blog is designed to be more interactive than a static website, and can integrate with Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter.
10. Trick it out – with Hundreds and hundreds of plugins to customize the functionality of your website/blog so that it fits your unique needs! Plugins are truly one of the reasons Why WordPress is the Best.

These are 10 excellent reasons Why WordPress is the Best. Not to mention that it’s cheaper, easier to implement, and easier to maintain.

If you are still not convinced Why WordPress is the Best, and looking for even more reasons, I’d be happy to oblige, please contact me today.