10 minute marketing action

4 Proven Online Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business


Building it is not enough - if you want business to arrive, you'll need some proven online marketing strategies to drive it. Here are four to start Read more

4 Simple Ways to Increase Leads On Your WordPress Website


If you want to increase leads on your WordPress website, there's some work involved, but it will repay you with increased rankings on Google, which means increased visits and revenues Read more

Shared Hosting and IP-Based Spam Lists


Shared hosting is inexpensive for small companies starting out on the web, but it has its risks and downsides. Getting blacklisted can be very bad for Read more

A Friday Story, and Blocking Spam


Have you heard the Friday Story? It's about what happens when you consistently give something for free - and every business owner needs to think about it. We talk about blocking spam Read more

Article Keyword Research - Going Where The Traffic Is


Do your Article Keyword Research before you start writing blog posts, and your website traffic will improve fast. It's fast, easy, and it pays Read more

WordPress - Disable Comments


If you find yourself frustrated by spam and searching for wordpress disable comments or turn off comments wordpress, we're happy to help. The Quick Answer To How To Disable Comments In WordPress Log in and go to Settings, Discussion. Uncheck "Allow people Read more

Why I Unfollowed 855 People On Twitter Today

Posted on by Karilee in Social Media 21 Comments

I just spent about twenty minutes using a free online tool called ManageFlitter to Unfollow 855 people on Twitter.

Unfollowing_Twitter_Inactives

Unfollowing Twitter Inactives

It easily picked out the Inactives, the folks I Follow who aren’t active on Twitter and haven’t Tweeted in over a month. These are the people I Unfollowed. Many of them had been inactive for eight months or more. Read more


Selling To People Who Want To Buy

Posted on by Karilee in Small Business Marketing 2 Comments

So You Sell Stuff…

You sell products.  Or services. And you’d like to sell more, to people who want to buy them. Seems like you’d want to let them know what you sell, particularly in the place that most buyers look first.

Start With Search. Most Buyers Do.

Electric_lawn_mower

Image via Wikipedia

Imagine the perspective of a potential customer, who wants to buy a product or service. If you wanted to buy a product or service, and you didn’t know where to get it, you’d probably start with a web search. Go do one. Notice what you type in as you search. Is it a brand you’re looking for? Is it a phrase describing benefits? Do a local search if that’s appropriate. See if you can find three companies that offer it on the first page of Google (or your favorite search engine).

“Huh?”, you say. “Of course I can!” But for many items purchased regularly, even those that cost hundreds of dollars, you’ll still struggle to find a seller who wants your money.

For example, let’s say I want to buy a lawn mower, and I don’t know what brand. I could search for lawn mower vancouver. Read more


WordPress Search Engine Optimization – Two Tips

Posted on by Karilee in Search Engine Optimization 3 Comments

If you’re a regular reader here, you probably either have a WordPress website, or plan to build one. I’ve made no secret of my belief that at this time, WordPress is simply the best tool for building a website for almost every small business. One of the reasons for that is that WordPress is structured to be easy for search engine robots to navigate. Also, when you create posts and pages, WordPress makes it really easy for you to take the right steps for search engine optimization (SEO).

Search Engine Optimization in Pages

Let’s review some of those steps today, to make sure you’re taking advantage of what WordPress can easily do to help your search engine optimization.

When you create a page in WordPress, the title of the page becomes part of your site navigation – your main menu. This means that it becomes an “anchor text link”, which is a valuable search engine optimization resource. An anchor text link is a link where you click on text and are taken to a webpage. You’re not clicking on the address of the page itself, you’re clicking on text which contains the address. Google and other search engines really like anchor text links, because they help clarify what the page is about.

Marketing Coach <– Example of an anchor text link

http://outcomemarketing.com/marketing-coach <– example of a link with no anchor text Read more


Testimonials are Powerful Tools

Posted on by Karilee in Small Business Marketing 11 Comments

Testimonials Are Necessary

Testimonials are not only powerful marketing tools, they’re necessary ones. Testimonials are reassuring social proof that your business and your services deliver on their promises.

Gather Ye Rosebuds

Every satisfied client is an opportunity for a new testimonial. Ideally, you want to get those on letterhead at least – letterhead is much more powerful than plain text. Video testimonials are also very powerful, and even short audio clips can help drive your business. A Flip camera (or even your smartphone!) is a great tool for grabbing fast video testimonials. Read more


What I Do For You

Posted on by Karilee in Small Business Marketing 9 Comments

Naomi Dunford of Ittybiz just posted a game about making sure your readers understand your business. Since Naomi’s posting for the second time on this topic, and she’s brilliant at helping tiny businesses get less tiny, let’s play her game. What you need to do is copy the following questions into a document, and then <drumroll> answer them. Then, for big bonus points, make sure your website answers them!

What’s your game? What do you do?

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan? Read more


How To Get UNfollowed On Twitter

Posted on by Karilee in Social Media 9 Comments

Since I was sitting here updating some of my workshop materials for my Social Media and Networking Power Workshop, I thought I’d share some sure-fire techniques for losing the followers you already have on Twitter.

Unrelentingly Try To Sell Junk

This is a sure-fired technique that will drive anyone who actually reads your Twitter stream away. Sure, sell me products you produce, or really use yourself, in extreme moderation. But don’t link-spam me with every affiliate offer you can find out there on Commission Junction or Clickbank. There’s nothing wrong with some of the products sold there, don’t get me wrong. But if your Tweets consist primarily of links to products you know nothing about, I’ll unfollow you in a flash. Ugh.

Post Nothing But Links

You know, I’m grateful for someone who posts a link to a high-quality article in a niche that interests me. Some people do this very well. Then there are those of you who discover how to connect keyword-driven RSS feeds to your Twitter stream, blasting lists of crap at me that you’ve never read. Guess what? It’s possible to tell the difference. Read more


3 Ways to Market in Under 10 Minutes

Posted on by Karilee in Weekly Marketing Tips 13 Comments

Are You REALLY Marketing Enough?

The first challenge for my clients in our Weekly Marketing Mastermind Group Coaching is to realize what they’re really getting done in terms of their small business marketing. Action matters, not plans. Most people underestimate what they can accomplish in the long term and overestimate what they can do in the short term. Here are two questions to get you started:

  • How much time do you spend on marketing in your business, on average, every day?
  • How much time do you think your business needs you to spend on marketing every day?

A Tiny Marketing Action Has Big Impact Over Time

Marketing Actions - Like Water on Rock

 

Over time, taking a very small marketing action consistently will add up. Creating the habit of taking action on your marketing every day is of huge benefit to growing your business.

Think of water wearing away rock – a drip system of tiny actions can add hugely to your marketing impact over time. Read more