What types of actions can you take that can immediately help
turn your business around in even a slow economy?
Let's give you a list of things that are worth considering
to help you get you started and we'll start with some of the
very easiest things first. Your visibility amongst the
competition still remains one of the most important aspects
of "taking advantage." You must be easily found by
your searching audience (the ones who are interested in what
you offer.)
Second to being found by the most correct searchers, is
having the ability to have your audience of searchers take
some kind of action once they do find your products and
services. You need to be able to compel your visitors to
take some type of action. Pick up the phone and call, place
an order, sign up for a free report or even just ask a
question.
You want to create a your Web experience so that does the
following:
1. Your Web site attracts the best or most ideal
searching audiences. (ones who are seriously looking)
Needless to say, that if
nobody can ever find you on the Web, how will you ever do
any business?
Learn to explore all of the various avenues including search
engine optimization, viral marketing, article marketing,
social media, working with real world news, permission based
e-mail marketing, PPC (paid advertising) and other types of
marketing too. The key is to be able to attract your ideal
searching audience(s) and you'll do much better than just
having general traffic.
2. From an SEO perspective once found, your pages should
satisfy the reason why the visitor searched.
Try to look at ways of meeting the searchers expectations
first before you push your own interests. Are you offering
engaging content that satisfies the reason why they
searched? Remember that readers search the Internet often
based on the circumstances in their life. Learn to research
user behavior as well as keywords and you'll find all types
of ways to really be a resource to your readers.
3. It is wise to use your Web site for building long term
relationships (rather than one hit sales.)
Your online business is really no different than any other
real world business. There can be some exceptions in the
type of Web site you are operating, but remember that
building long term relationships means staying in touch with
your customers and offering ongoing assistance. It will
often result in long term business for you too if you look
after them well.
4. One of the smartest approaches is to look for other
businesses that compliment yours.
Work together, rather than on your own. Watch for
opportunities to joint venture.
Bringing complimentary services together can work extremely
well these days with the Web being more social than ever
before. There are some opportunities that may present
themselves that would be a natural fit, if you watch for
them. Try to choose people to work with that you get to know
and that you appreciate their own skills personally.
5. Look for ways to tie helpful new technology to old
fashioned customer service.
There are always new emerging technologies that with a
little thought can be adopted in interesting new ways, if
you are the creative type. Don't be afraid to test new ideas
and prove them first. For the most part, many people on the
Web seem to spend so much time watching their competitors
and trying to emulate what the competition is doing instead
of working towards new things that can set them apart from
their competition.
6. Use slower times - when business seems slower to
actively upgrade your skills.
If your business is slow in the spring, it's the perfect
time to invest in the latest skills and get up to date with
all of the latest new high performance SEO and writing
skills or whatever your business needs. Regardless of where
anyone stands in the scope of SEO or Internet Marketing,
there are always ways to improve, new strategies to learn.
One of the best things to learn is not just "how to
perform SEO" but also gain an understanding of the
"why factor." If you understand the
"why" of a process, you will not fall behind.
7. Apply the new skills that you learn - in stages.
Sometimes the smartest places to start is with fixing the
easiest problems first. I emphasize the point of working in
stages simply because it gets you making improvements to
your Web site's performance immediately. Sometimes people
will procrastinate on getting started - (perhaps simply
because there may seem like so many things they want to do.)
By looking at the a range of actions you can create your own
priority action plan. Sometimes little tiny changes can make
a huge difference. Working in stages can take away the
overwhelming feeling of "I have so much to do" and
will allow you to begin seeing improvements sometimes within
as little as a week.
8. Don't ever stop learning
Back in the age of the Baby Boomers, the approach to
education was more about going to school, learning a trade
and then basically you did that job until retirement.
Needless to say that these days, continued education is
essential if you want to stay up to date. In the SEO
Industry, we continually update our live SEO Mastery
Workshops and we are teaching many new topical sessions this
year than we were last year (and more to come) right within
local business communities across the United
States, Canada and Asia.
9. Benchmark Your Progress
How far have you come with your business? Remember that it's
important to look back and recognize that you have made some
achievements along the way. Unless you benchmark your
progress, how can you accurately measure how far you have
come or how much further you can take things. There are
windows of opportunity that belong first to those who are
thankful for what they have achieved. Learn to benchmark
your progress and celebrate your successes and your client
successes along the way. Recognizing your true rate of
progress is as essential as setting your goals. Believe it.
10. Monitor how you can use your time more wisely.
Everyone says they are busy. We are all much too busy. I
have too much to do and there is only 24 hours in a
day.
We live in an overly busy society but the truth is that if
you monitor your time, most people have time to do exactly
the things they choose to do. But not always what they'd
like to do.
We may make excuses for the things we really don't want to
do - but despite the pitch of never having enough time - the
truth is we all have the same amount of time. Everyone has
24 hours a day.
Here a few suggestions if you are running an online business
and feel like you need more time:
- Organize your days into
periods of "positive habit" rather than
"negative habit."
- Perhaps you want to add
new content to your Web site but never feel you have any
time to write.
SOLUTION: Schedule Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 2
hours of writing between 9AM and 11AM.
This means that for 6 hours a week you'll be focused on
creating that new content. No answering e-mail, no interruptions
or phone calls. Get organized and stay focused. Put away
anything that distracts you from being productive.
- Perhaps you want to work
on issues concerning your Web site to increase it's
performance.
Same solution - schedule time out for this to be done.
During your site upgrade time, shut off your e-mail,
stay focused. Do whatever it takes to have your time
organized.
- Examine your hours - can
anything be improved by time-shifting? For errands out
of the office can you reorganize to do a number of
things while you are out.
- Can you organize the days
of your week better?
- Assign certain large tasks
to certain days of the week - so you develop positive
multitasking habits.
- Examine and list all of
your non-favorite but important tasks
(that need to be done consistently to be successful -
and assign weekly or monthly time slots to them)
Example - Cold Calling, Bookkeeping, etc
- Look at ways to reduce
your time answering e-mail and fooling with Spam
- Avoid perfectionism. When
you focus on perfection, you will only end up skipping
them.
- If you didn’t do
something on time that you assigned yourself, try to
reschedule it instead of feeling guilty.
Feeling guilty is a waste of time.
- Try to avoid
thinking of work issues on weekends. You need some down
time.
Remember, that it sometimes
seems like years of work to better our daily habits, but
with a serious effort and 3 weeks of practice, you can make
changes that will stick with you. I'll close with a thought
for the day which is a quote from William Arthur Ward:
"Each of us will one day be judged by our standard of life -- not by our standard of living; by our measure of giving -- not by our measure of wealth; by our simple goodness -- not by our seeming
greatness."
William Arthur Ward quotes
(American dedicated scholar, author, editor, pastor and teacher)
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