It wasn’t long before the client started noting the “slow growth” of their pet keywords and wanted to know what else could be done about that. We started talking about Link Building and the investment needed in order to do it effectively. Unfortunately, all it came to was talk and no action.

Over the course of a year, we saw some very competitive terms move up in the rankings, but few hit the first page. With the budget we had, it was really an impressive feat. As the 12-month contract came to a close, the client again started talking about increasing their budget for the next year. We gave them a number of options, all significantly more expensive, but also options that we were confident would get results.

At this point the client also decided to shop around for some other SEO options. In that process, some of the communications were passed to me as an “FYI”. I found them fascinating. One response talked about how there was a problem with the implementation of the SEO if they were not getting rankings. Interesting theory, but quite a leap.

Our client used these emails to ask us to figure out why this other SEO thinks they should be performing better than they were. My response, each time, was to tell them that we also thought they should be doing better and that the new programs we outlined for them will deliver results more quickly than the current plan.

This happened several times over a few months. Each time we’d tell them that they chose a plan that they understood would have slower growth for the most competitive terms. Growth was happening, but the new options provide something more robust.

It basically comes down to what you can offer for the cost being paid. This is something that the SEO they were shopping around to just didn’t consider. Could the total campaign be more effective? Yes. Could it be more effective on the budget they were investing? Not so easily, and only with time.

I think the client realized this once they started getting quotes back that far exceeded any of the more expensive quotes we provided. Despite all the shopping around, our client ultimately stayed with us, as we weren’t “significantly” over their budget, and many of those they contacted were.

It’s nearly impossible to analyze the quality of the results of an SEO campaign without factoring in the budget. That’s not to say you can’t analyze work that has been done, you can. But, you can’t give an opinion as to how much SEO, Link Building, Social Media, etc. has been implemented unless you consider the monthly investment.

SEO results take big-mindedness and a willingness to budget what is needed to get the results you want. If you’re coming to an SEO with a limited budget, be willing to accept the fact that the results come with limitations. Lower budgets mean more time is needed to get results. In competitive fields, if you’re being outspent by your competition, a low budget may actually get you further behind.

That’s not to say budget is everything. In fact, in the wrong hands, big budgets can still be a waste of time, at best, and detrimental to your long-term success, at worst. But, in the right hands, a small budget can perform ok, a comfortable budget can get you some good results, and a large budget can dominate the SEO landscape.

So, stop thinking small when it comes to SEO. Think big, and do what it takes to make it big!

Comments

On top of all that, with all the noise and competition out there, you have to be marketing your business constantly and consistently. Because if you don’t, people are quickly going to forget all about you and what you do—if they ever even noticed you exist to start with. 

So forget sleeping more than four or five hours a night. Or taking even an afternoon off on the weekend. Unless you find a way to put your marketing on autopilot.

Because if you don’t keep marketing you don’t exist. And if you don’t take some tasks off your own plate you’re going to hit a plateau in your business and a wall in your life.

Luckily, there are three ways any overworked entrepreneur can put their marketing on autopilot…

1. Replicate Experienced marketers rarely reinvent the wheel. Instead they find ways to replicate and repurpose everything they know, do or create into different forms and formats. A web page can become three emails, a press release and a postcard mailing. Ezine articles can become blog posts, Tweets, link builders, the foundation of your next book and more.When you do this, you get more marketing done with less effort. Plus you easily create your own ebooks, books, audio products and more. Thus gaining expert status, some passive revenue, and more ways to get your name out there.
2. Automate If your business is on the Web—and if you have a Website, it is—you have to deal with everything from social networking to online sales, product delivery and follow-up processes. Plus all the marketing that goes with driving people to your site and turning them into subscriber, then a customer or client.Handling all this can be a full time job and then some. But if you’ve designed your Website properly it can handle all or most of the sales job for you.  Combine that with the latest widgets, email marketing, microblogging and blogging tools to automate much of your online marketing and sales follow up, and you save yourself tons of time and hard work.
3. Delegate Solo-entrepreneur is such a misleading title. Because no one can do it all alone anymore. That’s why you need to delegate. For a lot of small business owners, hiring an employee just isn’t in the budget. Instead the key is to outsource as much of your marketing as you can to your own team of experienced Virtual Assistants.These experienced assistants can set up all your online automation tools as well as handle much of what can’t be automated from their own home offices. Since they run Internet-based businesses they’re typically pretty savvy about the ways of the Web.That means you don’t have to teach them how to do something, you just need to explain what you want done.  And you can scale up and down as your business and budget demands.

Taking any one of these three steps is going to start freeing you up to do the things you do best and enjoy the most. And because your marketing is going to be happening consistently without you turning that crank, you can grow your business without being chained to it.

Want help figuring out what and how to best put your own marketing on autopilot? I currently have a couple of consulting slots open each month just for this.

Interested? Email your phone number, time zone, and time of day that works for you to stacy @ theunchainedentrepreneur.com (without the spaces). I’ll get back to you with a time we can chat, so I can learn more about your business and see if this is indeed a good fit for you.

Comments

1. Make sure your content is focused on your area of expertise

The more focused your content is, the easier you make it for people to position YOU in their mind, as the person they need to speak with or email, when it comes to whatever your area of expertise is.

Equally, the more focused your content is, the more likely you are to get targeted traffic from Google.  Google is always looking for the most relevant results.  A great way to show Google what your site is all about, is to provide lots of great focused content.  Speaking of Google…

2. Be as easy to find as possible

Learn the basics of good SEO (search engine optimisation.)  I recently wrote about Google’s free seo ebook, which covers a lot of the basics and tells you what Google is looking for, from your site. It’s well worth a read and it’s free, so check it out!

3. Be easy to contact

In order for you to be easy to contact, there are 2 things you need to consider.  The first and most obvious, is to give all your contact details on a dedicated contact page.  Equally important is the second element, which is for you to make it as comfortable as possible, for your readers to get in touch with you.  Let your readers know that you genuinely want to hear from them and that you welcome their emails or calls.

I always make it as clear as possible that I really love hearing from my readers and that they can ask me anything about my services, with zero obligation on their part.  Guess what?  I get emails every day from people all over the world.  These range from “thank you” emails, where my free advice has helped them, to inquiries regarding how we can work together on the development of their small business.

Be approachable, friendly and grateful!

4.  Give more than you think you should

Put your best foot forward on your site if you want to get more inquiries.  Many people offer just a diluted version of themselves online, because they fear that if they give too much away for free, they will get less paid work. 

That is the 180 degree, polar opposite of the truth!

The kind of people who are only interested in your free stuff, were never going to become a client.  Equally, the people who are actually looking for professional help are MORE likely to hire you, if you show them you know your subject, by providing genuinely useful information to them via your site, up front.

I have given away thousands of marketing and business development ideas via this site, yet my clients still called me to work with them.  Why?  Because they knew that there’s a massive difference between what they can achieve from reading my blog, and the kind of results they can enjoy with me mentoring them.

Of course, by giving better quality information, you also encourage more people to link to you and share your work with their friends on social networks.  That helps you grow a bigger, targeted readership and generate even more targeted inquiries.

Finally, make sure you ASK people to get in touch with you.  A simple call to action is often a great reminder that you are open for business and keen to help.

I also practice what I preach: So, if you would like to discover how I can help you, as your marketing and business development mentor, get in touch with me here. I look forward to hearing from you.

Comments

Using the free version of WordPress will allow you to perfect your writing style and also get you into the habit of blogging on a regular basis.

But if the blogging bug gets you and you want to monetize your blog and customize its look, you’re severely limited using the free WordPress.com version. Any advertising that might appear on your free WordPress blog is placed by WordPress themselves, so you won’t make any money, WordPress will.

And while they have hundreds of free themes to choose from, your selection is limited. You’re not able to add plugins (such as those for SEO or social bookmarking) and you have to purchase a yearly Custom CSS Upgrade if you want to change any of the coding of your chosen theme.

Making the Move

But all is not lost if you’ve started your blogging career using WordPress.com! If you’ve written some great articles and if you’ve gotten relevant comments and have some regular readers, you’ll want to keep that content and move it to your self-hosted blog.

The content will help you gain search engine traffic to your new blog (and your own domain) if you’ve used your keywords properly and the number of comments will show new readers that you have a following and that you know your stuff.

If you decide to move your free blog to WordPress.org, here are the first things you’ll need to do:

1. Purchase a domain name and hosting account. I recommend BlueHost, here’s why.
2. Install WordPress to your hosting account.

Now, log in to your Dashboard of your free WordPress.com blog. Scroll down the page and click on Tools – Export in the left column.

Do you want to export ALL your content? Only certain authors? Only certain dates? This next screen is where you can choose these options from the drop down boxes. Then click the Download Export File button.

Save the file so you can find it easily. I like to keep it on my desktop so I don’t have to search through a million folders when I need it.

Log in to your self-hosted WordPress dashboard and scroll down to find the Tools – Import link.

Choose WordPress at the bottom of the list.

Locate the xml file that you just EXPORTED and click the Upload File and Import button.

Now you can assign a new author for these posts, if you want. They can be linked to your current user name, another author’s user name, or you can create a new user name just for these posts. If you have photos attached to any of these imported posts, be sure to check the box that says Import Attachments. Otherwise the photos will NOT import.

And the last box you’ll see is the status box where you should see that the files were imported successfully.

If you have problems importing your files, check with your web host to see if they can do this for you. Sometimes, depending on how many files you have to import, you might exceed maximum file size limits. There’s no need to give up; simply check if they can import the files for you or if they can temporarily lift the maximum limit.

Honestly, it will take you longer to read this post about moving your content than it will take you to actually complete all the steps. Moving your content to a self-hosted WordPress blog is easy and will prevent you from losing valuable content. There’s really no need to reinvent the wheel when moving from a free blog to a self-hosted blog.

Comments

The questions and Pioneer Strategies’ responses are posted in the members-only section of the website, without revealing the identity or confidential information of the person who submitted the question.  Members have access to the site’s entire archive of tips and advice for the duration of their membership.

  “Unfortunately, many small businesses and entrepreneurs are unable to engage the services of a professional, experienced public relations counselor,” said Frank Williams, president of Pioneer Strategies.

“We created SmallBizPRTips.com to provide small business owners with affordable access to public relations advice and tips from a team of experienced professionals.”

The Asian contestant, Alex Wong, is a ballet dancer. Yet for his challenge, he had to do a hip-hop routine with all-star dancer hip-hop dancer Twitch. Something completely out of Alex’s comfort zone, but as you can see from the video and crowd/judges reaction, he nailed it. He took a chance, knew what had to be done, and nailed it.

Now think of you and your business, and how this can relate to you.

Comfort zones are funny things. On the one hand, they keep us safe because we don’t expect any surprised. On the other, they stunt our growth because they keep us safe.

Staying within our comfort zone means we don’t have to worry about taking chances; we’ve found our niche and success level and we’re happy to stick to it. That’s fine, and if you just need a certain level of success to achieve the results you first started your business for, then comfort zones will absolutely work for you.

But if you’re looking to really push your business buttons and stand out in your niche or industry, comfort zones will only take you so far. The real success only comes from taking risks.

Push yourself mentally and creatively. Look at everyday things and see how you can take that to the next level. See beyond the simple.

There’ll be a lot of stumbles along the way, and it won’t be easy to take off your comforter blanket and take the steps into new directions. But think of it this way – your customers aren’t standing still. They’re always looking for the best for them, not just the best full stop.

Comfort zones might make you the best; but they don’t necessarily make you the best for your customers. There’s a difference – step outside your zone and you’ll have a better view of what that is.

Comments

ComScore‘s most recent search engine ranking report offers new insight that will make us rethink how we publish content, increase its findability, and facilitate sharing.

In comparing February to January, Google remained on top with 65.4 percent of all core search activity. Yahoo followed with 17 percent and Microsoft ranked third with 11.3 percent.

Things become interesting when we analyze search queries as opposed to core search activity. The landscape broadens beyond traditional search.

Just behind Google, but ahead of Yahoo, YouTube ranks second for search inquiries overall. In 18th and 19th place, Facebook and MySpace also make appearances in the top 20 list respectively. Perhaps most intriguing is that neither Facebook nor MySpace offer true search functionality — but they still account for increasing search activity. Facebook is up 10 percent between January and February.

What does this all mean? As social networks gain in prominence, the amount of relevant information within each ecosystem increases in value and, as such, we deliberately seek content within the networks in which we engage.

It’s the Journey That’s Important, Not the Destination

Destination sites across the board are losing traffic and ultimately favor, simply because destinations are obsolete as intended or designed. The days of the traditional “start page” are coming to an end, only to be replaced with the “attention dashboard” — a dedicated application that aggregates the activity of those we follow in social networks into a series of digestible streams.

TweetDeck, PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic, HootSuite, Brizzly, and Facebook each represent a new generation of attention dashboards as they funnel social feeds into one clickable view. These streams look a lot like slot machines as information flies through dedicated columns, almost blurring the text beyond legibility. But this is where attention is focused and the content that appears within it represents the future of the information life cycle.

So how do we compete for attention if attention itself is learning how to adapt to a new media landscape?

Our job is to ensure that information travels outside of our domains and to the communities of interest in order to create a bridge back to our hub. And, content must adapt based on consumption and sharing patterns with our existing and potential stakeholders.

This is an important point and one that can’t be ignored. Social activity indicates that we are already moving away from the act of proactively traveling to traditional sites as a source of new content.

With the dawn of social media, the activity that brings social graphs and networks to life is quickly changing how we discover, learn and share and it is also forever reshaping the idea of online destinations as they exist today. It all comes down to attention and understanding where it’s focused and how it is tempted, lured, or distracted to click away from it.

The socialization of information is changing everything.

Connect with Attention Where Attention is Focused

Competing for attention is paramount. We lose most of the battles before they’re begun because we’re working against years of behavior that now represent the complete opposite of tomorrow’s consumption and sharing patterns.

Everything begins with identifying where attention is focused, combined with the new laws of attraction.

Gigya reviewed data from Compete from November 2009 and observed that some of the top media properties were already realizing a dominant effect in traffic from social networks. For example, USAToday receives upwards of 35 percent of its referral traffic from social networks and just over 6 percent from Google. People Magazine receives 23 percent of its referrals from social networks and 11 percent from Google. And, CNN earns 11 percent of its referral traffic from social versus 9 percent from Google.

Peer-to-peer activity strongly influences the resulting behavior of impressionable nodes defining social graphs, much in the same way we rely upon trusted referrals from our real life contacts. The more something appears within the attention dashboard, the more likely it is that someone will click through. In addition, the more intriguing it seems, or the stronger the reaction it engenders among peers, also increases its enchantment and thus beguiling spectators to willfully lunge towards a shared experience, most likely triggering a public response that continues the social effect.

Social Architecture and Connecting the Dots

Information is already socializing and changing the behavior for how people search, find, react, and curate. The difference between our present and future is defined by the roads and bridges we build between relevance and prevalence.

As content producers, our responsibility is to connect information and stories to existing and potential stakeholders. It’s also essential to package and optimize our content as social objects in order for them to work for us in our absence, when individuals actively seek content through contextual searches.

In part two, we’ll look at 11 steps for optimizing your brand for sharing and social search.

Comments

Ideally, the link profile of your site should indicate an entity that gives and receives links. The whole idea of a “web” indicates interconnected sites that reference each other. If your site receives links, but does not give any out, then it is going to resemble a dead end or a black hole. Even if your links are fairly unobtrusive, and go to informational sites (as opposed to competitor sites) you can create a more natural looking site profile as you build your link portfolio.

Lastly, it pays to avoid complex (or not so complex) interlinking to your own sites, or to “web rings” which all link to each other. In the eyes of a search engine algorithm, these relationships are easy to spot and can work against you. Your link building profile should make your site look like a great source of information that isn’t afraid to refer users to other sites for further study. As an added bonus, users tend to go back to websites that help them find what they’re looking for, and that goes right back into the directive to “build a site as if search engines did not exist.”

Comments

Measurement depends on setting goals, establishing benchmarks and then measuring progress toward the goal.  But is engagement too fuzzy a concept to be able to measure?

What exactly is this engagement thing we’re trying to achieve?  According to a post at eConsultancy.org you want people to

• make a noise.
• store and share things.
• love your website.
• visit more frequently
• refer your company to their friends.
• buy into your brand.
• and of course buy your products.

I’m not so sure about the make a noise one.  Any old noise is no good – they have to be saying good things about you to others.

What I do agree with wholeheartedly is that you have to give people a way to interact with you – online and offline.  There is overwhelming evidence that people want to contribute, they want to be involved.  They have opinions and ideas about your business.  Witness the success of Dell’s IdeaStorm  and MyStarbucks Idea.

And if you think it’s an odd notion that customers would want to have a say in your business, both these companies were featured in the Engagement study that showed that the most engaged companies in the US are also the ones that did the best financially through the recession.

So what activities count as engagement?  These 36 are from Chris Lake who is working on a new social commerce start up in the UK.

A list of social interaction metrics / KPIs

1. Alerts
2. Bookmarks (onsite, offsite)
3. Comments
4. Downloads
5. Alerts (register and response rates / by channel / CTR / post click activity)
6. Email subscriptions
7. Fans (become a fan of something / someone)
8. Favourites (add an item to favourites)
9. Feedback (via the site)
10. Followers (follow something / someone)
11. Forward to a friend
12. Groups (create / join / total number of groups / group activity)
13. Install widget (on a blog page, Facebook, etc)
14. Invite / Refer (a friend)
15. Key page activity (post-activity)
16. Love / Like this (a simpler form of rating something)
17. Messaging (onsite)
18. Personalization (pages, display, theme)
19. Posts
20. Profile (e.g. update avatar, bio, links, email, customisation, etc)
21. Print page
22. Ratings
23. Registered users (new / total / active / dormant / churn)
24. Report spam / abuse
25. Reviews
26. Settings
27. Social media sharing / participation (activity on key social media sites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc)
28. Tagging (user-generated metadata)
29. Testimonials
30. Time spent on key pages
31. Time spent on site (by source / by entry page)
32. Total contributors (and % active contributors)
33. Uploads (add an item, e.g. articles, links, images, videos)
34. Views (videos, ads, rich images)
35. Widgets (number of new widgets users / embedded widgets)
36. Wish lists (save an item to wish list)

How many of these do you offer on your site?  How do you know which ones to add?

Go back to step one of your social media strategy and listen to the conversations – tap in to the needs, likes  and dislikes of your visitors and customers.  The days of deciding for others are long gone.  You have to give them the tools they need and want, not what you think is right for them.  Everything on this list won’t work for every site.

For example:  A company that is involved in bath and kitchen makeovers is currently looking at adding social interactivity to their website.  After taking the list of ideas the CEO has, and listening to his customers and visitors to the site, this is the proposed list

1. Register for Alerts by RSS feed – to get new content
2. Views (videos,  rich images, design concepts)
3. Use the design widget
4. Put the widget on their blog or Facebook, etc)
5. Feedback (via the site)
6. Email subscriptions
7. Favorites (add an item to favourites)
8. Feedback (via the site)
9. Forward to a friend
10. Invite / Refer (a friend)
11. Social media sharing / participation (activity on key social media sites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Digg, relevant design forums, blogs  etc)
12. Time spent on key pages
13. Time spent on site (by source / by entry page)

How are you keeping track of your engagement stats?

For search engine optimization tip 30, let’s talk a little bit about promoting those who link to you.

By now, you should have Google Alerts and Yahoo! Alerts set up for your company name, your URL, and keywords associated with your company, your brand, and your products. Setting up these types of alerts will keep you abreast of what’s going on online with your brand, your website, and your keywords (you’re emailed if something new comes up that matches your alert). If your web site is mentioned or you are notified by a Google Alert that you have a new link, then it’s important to take a look at it. And, if that link is a link from a blog, a news source, or another web site, then you should promote the page that is linking to you.

A web page that links to your web site is more powerful if it has links going to it. For example, if there’s a web page that links to your web site and it has 3 links to it from other web pages then it most likely will get indexed by the search engines and the link to your web site will be seen and given some “link credit” (the link at least will be given a chance to be given credit, and whether or not you get that link credit depends on other factors, like whether or not the link is a ‘no follow’ link, etc.). But what if you were to take the time to promote that page that is linking to you? What if the page that is linking to you has hundreds of links or maybe even thousands of links? That link to your web site would be more powerful.

There are several other reasons why you would want to promote web sites that link to you (or even those that mention your products or your company name). For example, what about reputation management? If a news article that mentions your company is positive: wouldn’t you want that news article to appear towards the top of the search results when someone searches for your company name? Even if that news article does not link to your web site, you may still want to take the time to promote it.

So, how do you promote an article or URL that links to your web site or mentions your company name? There are several ways, including:

- Submit the URL to Digg.com (although these are ‘nofollow’ links, you may get some publicity out of it)

- Submit the URL to Propeller.com. Note that Propeller.com does not make use of the ‘nofollow’ tag on links.

- Submit the URL to Reddit.com. Note that Reddit does not make use of the ‘nofollow’ tag on links.

- Submit the URL to Clipmarks.com. These are also ‘do follow’ links.

- Submit the URL that links to you to StumbleUpon.com. Add a review. Mention your company name in the review.

- Add an “in the news” web page to your web site. Link out to favorable mentions ‘in the news’ where a news source has metioned your company and/or linked to your web site.

- Tweet on Twitter.com about the article or new page that links to you. Don’t mention that they’re linking to you, but tell all your followers about the article or the page/URL that’s linking to you so that they can read it themselves.

- Tell your Facebook friends about the article or page that is linking to you. “

If you promote and tell your friends, your followers, and generally others about it, there is a good chance that you could start a ‘viral effect’ and get others to start talking about the article, blogging about the article, or even writing yet another article that then links to your web site.

By promoting those who link to your web site, you can help them out: and by doing that you’re telling the search engines that they need to go spider that URL and see the link to your web site. And by telling others about the URL that’s linking to your web site you’re starting the ‘viral effect’ that could then spur other articles and others to mention you, mention your company, or even link to you.

Comments