But – when it comes to marketing your small business – there’s more you can do after you post on your small business blog. Use your Twitter account to let everyone know the topic of your latest post and offer a link so they can check it out! In just a few words, you can offer the main point of your post that will peak the interest of your Twitter followers. While every Twitter update should not be about your blog, it’s feasible that you can tweet twice (say that three times fast) about each blog post. That is if you’re doing regular tweets on other points of interest.

And, don’t forget to use your keywords in your tweet…because twitter is searchable! You had to know I’d say something about keywords, right? Twitter is just one more way you can promote your small business blogging efforts. So, blow your horn and tweet about your blog posts! It’s a sure way to have better results with your small business marketing.

Happy Blogging,
Coach Mavis

The first thing I thought of is P90X…for anyone familiar with Beach Body and their series of fitness programs, P90X is the amped up…or extreme…version of their already effective Power 90 tapes (due to the 90 minute workout sessions). It was created for people who had completed Power 90 but wanted more, wanted to go the next level to have even more success. P90X is extreme and it works – believe me – but only if you work it.

With that in mind I look at 20X as the year to take small business marketing to the next level. Sure you’ve been marketing your small business on the internet, but aren’t you ready for more success? Better results? Let’s take your small business marketing to the next level in 20X.

The best way to marketing your small business online is to develop proactive options you can control. In my only slightly biased opinion, that means small business blogging. Forget about waiting on someone else to build your online presences and drive your website further up in search results. Don’t rely on your sales team to do all the work either. Remember that P90X series only works if YOU do the work. It’s the same with blogging. It will only work if you work it. In other words…write lots of small business blogs using the right keywords. The more you blog, the better your online search results, the greater your visibility. More visibility leads to improved credibility and thereby greater profit.

Are you ready for greater online marketing results? Use the power of 20X and your small business blog to boost your business to the next level.

Not sure how to get started on your small business blog? Check out one of the Small Business Blogging Coaches Clinics.

If you’re a new small business and really need to build your brand…frequent blogging (with your keywords) is a cost-effective approach. Whether you’re driving traffic to your website or using your small business blog as your website (more on that in my next post), blogging puts you in the driver’s seat.  Marketing your small business means getting your message out there in front of your target market as many times as possible. That means winning the online search game. Translation: showing up on the first page of Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engine platform. The more control you have over that outcome, the more successful you’re going to be. That’s where small business blogging shines.

It’s really pretty simple. Search engines love content…new content that uses the same keywords and keyword phrases people are entering. If your small business blog uses those keywords and you’re blogging frequently, you place higher and higher on the search page results. Of course websites can use those same keywords, but once uploaded and online, websites tend to remain more static (or unchanged). Blogs on the other hand can be updated as often as you like, which makes them more fluid. Search engines assume more frequent content is more current and thereby a better fit for any given search results. So, they often place higher on the page than a website.

If you don’t yet have a blog, now is the time to get one set up. If you have questions on how to use your blog or keywords – or finding the right keywords for that matter – work with a small business blogging coach. This is someone who can guide you through the steps of setting up your blog, researching your keywords and developing a topic list. Yet, perhaps most important, a small business blogging coach can help you stay on track with your blogging to ensure you get the best results.

So, don’t just sit back and hope someone finds your website. Get out there and start marketing your small business through blogging. Forget waiting for your web developer to have time to upload a press release, post it on your small business blog. Read a great article that might be of interest to your target market? No place for that on your website, but you can talk about it on your small business blog. As long as you’re using your keywords, you can blog on almost anything and thereby drive your business ‘up the line’ on search engines. That means more customers find you and those customers are ready to do business!

Q: My main question is this:  If the real reason to write a blog is for SEO, then is it even necessary for anyone to even read your blog or to know that it exists?  

A: You write the blog for search engine optimization (SEO) so you get found on the Internet when someone is searching yes, that is step one. But once they find you, it’s better if they like what they see or you won’t get to step two which is getting them to your Web site (for step three which is buying from you).

Q: If I just posted a list of my keywords every couple of days, wouldn’t that have the same intended effect? 

A: If you were searching for a freelance copywriter on Google, and a link to my blog showed up in the search results so you clicked on that link thinking “oh, here’s a possible freelance copywriter” and when you got to the blog all you saw was freelance copywriter repeated a hundred times, you’d click the Back button so fast there’d be smoke.

Q: Or, wouldn’t it make sense just to put a list of keyworks in the first paragraph of every post if I felt inclined to write something?

A: Small business blogging as Internet marketing works like this: You get found in the search engines by blogging frequently using keywords. But you get customers by being real, engaging, offering useful information, etc. You have to give people a reason to either stick around your blog or click through to your Web site.

Are you thinking about small business blogging for marketing your small business? Are you confused by how it works, what it does, and what the heck is SEO anyway? Attend one of our small business blogging clinics, or hire a small business blogging coach!

This time of year in the email marketing world, there’s loads going on as retailers bombard people with emails saying buy, save, shop now, free shipping, etc. You get the emails. You know what I’m talking about. And I wonder if getting all those additional emails makes small business owners start to wonder if they could do more with email…

 Email marketing and blogging are two different ways to do small business marketing. One involves pushing your message out to people who might not be interested. The other involves being found by people looking for what you’re selling. I as a Small Business Blogging Coach say if you’re going to do both, start with the blogging. Here’s one main reason why…

To succeed with email, you need a list. Email lists are painstaking to build. And you must obey certain laws about how names are added to your list and whom you email. I just saw an article today about a small business owner who threatened to fire employees if they didn’t collect a certain number of email addresses in a given period of time. Please note: That’s not how you build your list of email addresses!

Your list must focus on quality, not quantity, and that means it takes even longer to grow. Then you can market to those people, but it’s a limited number of people.

Compare that limitation to small business blogging as small business marketing. Blogging frequently with the right keywords can get you found by anybody, anywhere. You’re no longer limited by being able to collect someone’s email address. You’re no longer marketing to someone who doesn’t want to hear from you (typical of email marketing). You’re going to get found instead. And to get found, all you had to do was small business blogging.

Done often, done right, small business blogging can turn into your most important small business marketing tactic.

Without threatening your employees.

First let’s touch on the attitude of Thanksgiving. As small businesses, we’re very grateful for all our clients and customers. And, Thanksgiving is a perfect time to let them know that. Rather than the typical holiday greeting card, where you have to worry about whether you should say ‘Merry Christmas’, ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Seasons Greetings’, everyone appreciates ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ tidings. Plus, for a great small business marketing strategy your card or note will arrive early, before the onslaught of all the other companies, and therefore stand out. (Okay, so it’s a little late for the card, so tuck this idea away for next year).

Now when it comes to small business blogging, you can write about the things you are thankful for over the past year. It may be those customers who’ve stuck with through hard times, it may be how one of your vendors is giving back to their community or a local charity that’s truly making a difference this time of year. Your small business blog is your key resource for small business internet marketing and taking a moment to thank others helps build strong, trusting relationships with your customers and vendors.

Second, I want to talk about the actual Thanksgiving holiday and small business Internet marketing. A successful small business marketing strategy should, in some way, solve a problem for your potential customer. This Thanksgiving I realized how often people go to the Internet to search for answers. From pie recipes, to local activities, to how to survive a day with your family, people are looking for solutions on the Internet. Your small business blog can be that solution. Using your keywords (as always) you can blog about local or favorite recipes, fun things you know are going on in your area or whatever else comes to your mind. You’re getting you small business blogging done and having fun at the same time.

Okay, I realize it’s after Thanksgiving, but it’s not too late! This is the holiday season and all of the above applies through New Year’s Day. So use being thankful as a part of your small business marketing strategy – and start blogging today, because it’s the most affordable form (and be affordable I mean free) of small business Internet marketing.

Happy Holidays and Happy Blogging!

Armed with keywords and an SEO primer, a small business owner starts blogging!

As Mavis and I coached people through a small business blogging clinic last night, I was struck once again at how hard blogging can be to grasp as a concept. Not the small business Internet marketing aspect, but blogging itself. That’s due to several reasons. Probably the biggest is misconceptions about blogging. People either don’t know what it is, or they see it as a way to promote an agenda or themselves personally. As I hear so many times, “Isn’t blogging simply a way to put your opionions on the Internet?”

That’s how blogs started and you can still use them for that, but we encourage people to think of blogging as part of their small business marketing strategy. For us, the power of small business blogging comes from being able to use blogging as small business Internet marketing. In a nutshell, you blog using the key words and phrases that people are using to search the Internet, and you do so frequently. Then, when someone searches using those keywords, they find your blog and ultimately you and your small business.

So where do our attendees get hung up? On the sheer volume of information. We’re not just standing up there at the head of the room saying, “Now, let’s set up your blog!” No, we are teaching them about marketing by making them think about what their customers are really buying. We are teaching them about search engine optimization so they understand why they are blogging and what will happen if they blog correctly and often. We are doing keyword research with them, so they know which keywords they can and want to be found for. THEN we start setting up blogs and blogging. Whew! 

The blogging coaches in a lovely self portrait! Not! But we're happy coaches because our people are busy blogging, yay!

These small business blogging clinics are only four hours long. But they are crammed full of information. And it is completely new to most small business owners. Internet marketing is a world Coach Mavis and I are both really familiar with, especially the challenges around small business Internet marketing. But not the typical small business owner! That makes the clinics hard, but also rewarding. We have several times heard people go through “ah ha” moments as they got it, as they finally got small business blogging as a way to do small business Internet marketing.

Yes, it can be hard, but hey, if you wanted things easy, you never would have started your own small business!

If that’s the case, you need to move!

No, I don’t mean move your office. Move your scheduled blogging time. If getting your small business blogging done is a challenge, it may be when you’re trying to do it. So, move your small business blogging to another slot on your schedule. Give yourself the chance to start fresh, regroup and get back on track. Have you been trying to blog in the morning only to be interrupted by phone calls? Then try it as the last thing of the day. If you hope to get you small business blog posted on Fridays, only to end up scrambling to meet weekly deadlines; reschedule blog time mid-morning Wednesdays. You get the idea.

Moving usually makes us cringe a little at the thought of sorting, packing, boxing and toting. But when we move into a new place, we get to put everything just where we want it…that perfect spot. So, pack up your calendar and move things around. You’ll get more consistent blogging time, which means better marketing (online visibility and credibility) for your small business. Better marketing means more business. And, with enough new business you just might find yourself needing another move…to a bigger office!

Yes, you have to use your keywords, and they have to be the right keywords. Yes, small business blogging must happen with regular frequency. But once you look around and start seeing the stories all around you, the customers, the successes, the tips, the history, the dreams, the announcements, the staff, you’ll realize you do in fact have plenty to tell the world via your blog.

It’s not that potential customers are out there using the Internet to search for what you have to say, but they are searching to solve a problem. And if you have something to say AND you use your keywords they’re searching with AND you blog regularly so your blog shows up when people search, then having something to say matters, because it will get you excited about small business blogging. And it will get people excited about you when they find you!

Maybe we should sum up small business blogging as writing to tell meets writing to sell… Because every small business has plenty to say.

Market your small business with NO money

It’s hard for a new small business to gain a foothold in their industry. You spend a lot of time developing your new product, get it manufactured, set up online ordering through your website and then what? How are you marketing your small business? You could spend even more money on advertising in newspapers and magazines, but honestly? Unless you have capital for months of ongoing ads your ROI (return on investment) will be pretty low.  What if there were a way you could market your small business by building your visibility and credibility on the internet and ALL it would cost would be some of your time? Which, I bet, as you await those orders, you have too much of on your hands.

That’s what small business blogging can do for you. You invest a little time to hone in on your target market, research the right keywords and you start blogging away. The more you blog, the more your small business will turn up in online searches. The more your small business appears the more your target market gets to know and trust you. Then, guess what? They want to buy that product you sell from you! Not a bad ROI for 15 minutes a blog!

Not sure how to get started? Attend a small business blogging clinic to get started the right way. Coach Sharon and I (Coach Mavis) love helping new businesses tap into the ‘secret’ of blogging to build your business. We don’t just tell you why and how, you actually do the work and walk out of the clinic with your blog set up, research done and at least one blog posted. Then it’s just a matter of blogging frequently. By frequently, I mean at least three times a week. Want faster results? Blog more often. I realize that small business blogging may seem like a major time commitment, but three blogs a week only adds up to 45 minutes! Less than an hour a week and you can market your small business from obscurity to profitability.

For ideas on blog topics, steps to getting started and staying on track, check out our other posts. Here’s to your success!!