Gaining Google’s trust and your SERP ranking through a solid link building strategy Recently, I’ve had some questions on linking and link building strategies come up. And it’s no wonder why. By getting pages to link back to your website and it’s pages or posts is one way to prove to Google that you are an authority on your selected topic. But there are nuances to creating a solid link building strategy and like any good thing, there is such a thing as too much. What is a link building strategy? If you aren’t a well known website, or have a large network of industry experts willing to link to your site, it might sound getting a series of links back to your site is impossible. It’s not, it just takes a bit of strategy. Step 1: Research…
Learning their likes and interests without directly engaging them. In a previous post, I discussed the importance and benefit of starting a dialogue with your customers in order to find out the types of content and topics that they want from you. In this post, I’m going to go over a few other ways that you can gain insights into the types of content in which they might be interested, to supplement when you cannot directly engage with your customers. I tend to recommend these two posts in tandem rather than stand alone advice, as they work well together and give you a well rounded understanding of what is interesting, relevant and meaningful in terms of how to build your content. Following Industry Trends The big names in your industry put a lot of time, effort and money into developing or determining what the next industry trend will…
Every brand, every entrepreneur has a story. How do you tell it? First let’s dive into what a brand story or brand narrative means. While these words might inspire thoughts of fiction, yours should be anything but. Your brand, your products and/or services exist in our world, they interact with your customers’ lives in one way or another. Your narrative or story is the way that you capture those interactions, and explain them to new and future customers. Let’s look at an example – the ever recognizable brand CocaCola. Their legacy product coke is a refreshing carbonated beverage best served cold. Coke is also full of sugar and acidic enough to take the rust off of metal so I’m told. Is that what they tell us through their branding? Absolutely not. Their current marketing initiatives, which all stem from their overarching brand…
Well, by asking them of course. As a small business, you interact with people on a daily basis. Whether they’ve come into your store, made an online purchase, or just connected with you on social media. All of these interactions are worth their weight in gold…well in today’s currency at least. But they can be even more valuable, if you use them to help gain information that will allow you to attract and convert additional customers. But what will they think? Sometimes we have this irrational fear that asking our customers questions, like what kind of content do you find relevant and meaningful in your life will make us look less professional. But think about it. When was the last time a brand actually asked you what they could do for you? When our opinion is valued, it creates a stronger connection, an increase…
And trying to do everything entrepreneurial by yourself. It takes a lot to run a business, from actually marketing and selling your products services, to the accounting, the marketing, etc. Often I see entrepreneurs trying to accomplish every aspect of their business on their own. This is a slippery slope that bottoms out in burn out. Why do we think we must do it all? There are people who have come before us, having done it all, and managed to somehow do it all successfully. This proof that one can possibly do it all by themselves, has led to a false expectation that in order to be an entrepreneur, we must do everything our business requires by ourselves. This isn’t true and for many, it isn’t healthy. For other business owners, this might stem from the notion that the journey of an entrepreneur is a solitary…
Is Content Marketing Right for Small Business Owners The answer is a resounding “Yes!”. Cell phones and other gadgets like those in home AI units from Amazon and Google have made talk to text searches sky rocket. Think about the last time that you were looking for a new place to eat, or a salon to get your nails done…did you whip out your cell phone and go straight to your search engine of choice? Chances are really good that you did. My husband and I do this all of the time, and it turns out that a lot of other people do too. How do you make sure that our business shows up in the results for these searches? By creating content of course! If you are creating content that is relevant to your customers searches, you will show up in their search results. It…
It’s Not You – It’s the Algorithms If you’re sharing relevant, and interesting or meaningful content, you should be getting the engagement that you want right? Not necessarily. Let’s take a look at why you might be missing out on some of the followers and engagements you need to move your business forward. Facebook, Instagram, and other social media websites have left their message board roots and grown smarter, forcing us social media managers to learn and become smarter too. If you have been having trouble acquiring new followers or engaging the ones that already follow your platforms, it could be the algorithms. Behind the Jargon. If you’ve been working on building your social media presence you have probably heard people talking about algorithms before. But what are they and why are they hard to understand? Great questions. Algorithms are…
While You Might Be on the Journey to Work for Yourself, You Don’t Have to Go It Alone. About five years ago, I started out on this crazy journey to become an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that I couldn’t keep working for terrible bosses and giving of myself in situations that were not replenishing me. I tried becoming an influencer and did pretty well, garnering over $5,000 in books and another $5,000 in yoga clothing and gear, in exchange for positive reviews. But I wasn’t able to monetize it and I didn’t see a sustainable career in it because it wasn’t me. I’m not saying that you can’t make a living through becoming a social media influencer, it just wasn’t the…
Without Paying for Ads While paying for Google Adwords, Facebook Ads and boosting posts can help get traffic to your website, it’s important to first invest the time to create relevant and interesting content for your current and potential customers on a consistent basis. Then when you pay to get visitors to your site, they’ll have something great to read. Paid traffic requires a strategy, the creation of ads, and the corresponding landing pages, plus methods of capturing information. This is often referred to as digital marketing. But there is another way to get visitors to your site without making an investment in digital marketing. It’s called content marketing, and it uses content, like blog posts to attract visitors to your site. These visitors are known as organic traffic. Think of them as visitors that stop by “naturally”. How does Content Marketing…
Partner with a web content specialist to create meaningful content and deliver it to your target market. With the plethora of easy to use content management systems (CMS), like WordPress, Wix, Shopify and countless others, almost anyone can build and manage their own website. This democratization of the internet has helped make being a small business, startup, entrepreneur, blogger or influencer a bit more attainable – as now you don’t have to pay a web design and development agency big bucks to carve out a small place on the internet. But, the benefits of being able to setup and manage your own website, to create your own content, have made the internet a crowded and clamorous environment. While the Googles of the world try to instill order and create organization, it can be difficult to reach your target audience, as they now have so many websites available to…