Picking search engine keywords
By · CommentsFor today’s online businesses, search engine visibility is a must. But how do you get yourself ranking well in the SERPs (search engine results pages)? One significant determining factor of search engines success is the ability to choose the right keywords. Ideally, you want keywords that have high demand and lower supply but many people don’t know how to go about finding those golden nuggets. Keyword research is one of the things most people are aware of but really don’t know why they’re supposed to do it or how to do it well.
Essentially, with keywords, you’re looking for the words or phrases that everyone is searching for and few websites are providing. It takes research, quite a lot of research, to find these terms but once you do, you’re on the way. Let’s look at how it’s done.
Step One. Choosing Your Basic Keywords
To start, choose a main topic your business is about. For example, if your business is about coffee makers then you’d start with that basic keyword. However, the keyword “coffee makers” is liable to be a very competitive keyword and if you’re just getting started in business, trying to optimise your site for it is like swimming upstream. It’s better, easier, and more profitable to optimize your site for more niche specific keywords like, Italian made coffee makers or single serving coffee makers.
Step Two. Finding Those Niche Specific Keywords With High Demand And Low Supply
Visit Google Adword’s keyword search tool here. Enter your keyword/keyword phrase here and you’ll see a list of possible keywords along with supply and demand data in the form of advertiser competition and approximate search volume.
The ideal is to see a low advertiser competition and a high search volume. That means many people are searching for your keywords but there aren’t many businesses targeting those keywords. Good demand and low supply.
Likewise, wordtracker.com, a subscription based service, will show you how many searches have been conducted for your keyword phrase, how many they predict, how many pages Google lists for that search term and a number called KEI or Keyword effectiveness indicator. The higher the KEI, the better. The higher the predict number, the better and the lower the Google number the better – combined they indicate high demand and low supply.
Once you have your list of keywords narrowed down to niche specific keywords with high demand and low supply, it’s time to make use of these keywords, write content utilising them, optimise your website for them and start driving traffic to your website in droves.
More on this in another post …
Growing your business with blogging
By · CommentsA lot of businesses could do with a boost these days, but don’t have a huge fund to invest in advertising or promotion. Blogging is a great way to grow your business, without the huge costs. It adds credibility to your business, helps brand you and your business and creates the kind of community and authenticity prospects are craving. People no longer care to do business with a nameless faceless entity; they want to know who they’re doing business with and what they’re about. A blog helps you accomplish this, thus building your awareness and customer base. Here are a few tips and strategies to use blogging to grow your business.
#1 Blogging is a fine balance of information and entertainment. On a business blog, often people do want to get to know you and your personality however only if it relates to helping them solve their problems. So too much information isn’t necessarily a good thing. For example, let’s say you have a niche specific coaching business and you coach stay at home mums who are trying to open their own business.
Your blog will ideally offer tips, strategies and advice on how to handle the struggles that those mums face. You can, and should, mix in stories that relate to the blog posts however, blogging about what you had for breakfast or how the date you went on last night didn’t go so well, isn’t relevant or helpful to your readers. So be personable and share stories as they relate to your business. Ask yourself if it benefits the reader, if it doesn’t, get rid of it.
#2 Blog frequently. A blog helps draw traffic because it’s updated frequently and thus can achieve a higher search engine ranking than your website. Yet if you only blog once a month not only are you short changing anyone who subscribed to your blog, you’re shortchanging yourself because the search engine results are going to suffer. The great thing about blogging is that you can write thirty posts in one sitting and then schedule them to be posted over the next thirty days; you don’t have to sit down every single day and write something. Find a posting schedule that works for you and also benefits your readers and the search engines, a minimum would be once a week.
#3 Be sure to link to your website. One of the advantages of a blog is that people often land there instead of your website, due to the search engine optimization features. If you want to drive traffic to your website home page, make sure there is at least one link to it.
#4 Have patience. It takes time to build up a following and for some it doesn’t really ever happen. Does that mean your blog isn’t working to help build your business? Absolutely not. Many people may read your blog posts without subscribing or commenting but if the information they found was helpful, they’ll be more likely to buy from you.
#5 Choose your blog host wisely. There are many free blogging hosts, wordpress, blogger, typepad and so on, but for a business blog you should really be hosting it on your own domain. Wordpress is free blogging software and offers a number of SEO features, tagging, analytics and so on, and is very easy to use.
Blogging helps you build your business in other not so obvious was as well. You’ll learn what your audience likes to read and comment on. You’ll also learn more about what their problems are and how you can solve them and thus build your business. All in all, blogging is an exceptional way to connect to your audience, build traffic, and sales.
Do you use email marketing?
By · CommentsMost businesses with an online presence use email to some extent every day. However, many are yet to realise the potential they have already available to them in the form of email marketing. Cheap and effective, email marketing is a brilliant way to keep your brand in the forefront of your client’s minds.
As well as sending out a regular newsletter, consider these tips for just some of the ways you can use email marketing to benefit and grow your business:
- New product launch: send an email a week or so before a new product is due, and then the day before, including a special offer or coupon.
- Put the information you have to good use, and send out birthday greetings to clients and customers
- Offer your list readers a small free gift or discount occasionally. This is an excellent way of rewarding customer loyalty and making sure they’ll stay subscribed to hear your other messages.
- Use your mailing list program to run a small mini course or answer common customer enquiries with autoresponders.
- Pay attention to your link click-throughs and rewards those who follow through with a discount or offer, such as free shipping.
- Pre-qualify your messages by using custom fields that apply to your business (for example: first name, state or color preference) to send out highly relevant emails, personalised, rather than sending the same generic message to everyone.
Make your email marketing messages brief, easy to read, personalised, and with a little bonus every now and then, and you’ll keep your customers reading.
Need to grow your business?
By · CommentsYour dream is coming true, you had the right idea… and the talent. But running a business takes many different skills and you’re not sure how go to the next level.
This year, I am speaking and a sponsor of the third annual Business Mums Conference, with the theme of Recharge Your Business. Di Padgett from You Are Special is the keynote speaker, and along with the other presenters, will give you practical information to help you get to the next level.
Networking opportunities, exciting workshops and practical information you can apply to your business right now.
The conference is June 20 and 21, 2009 at the Holmesglen Conference Centre in Melbourne, and if you come along let them know that Lucie from Oz-E-Wahm sent you.
Book now at www.businessmumsconference.com.au
If A Teen Can Do It….
By · CommentsSo Can A Mum.
Here’s an article that is a must read for some inspiration to keep you moving forward with your internet business. $8 bought her a dot com and now 3 years later her business grosses over 1 million, not bad for a teenager.
Read the full news story here >>>