1. Which items on your “To-Do List” make money? Take your weekly to-do list and see which items actually make money for your business and which are just the regular tasks associated with a business. Re-organize your priorities so the money making tasks are first and take up the majority of your time.
Unless you work for Google, do SEO, or are really on top of your marketing, you probably haven’t heard of Panda. It’s the most recent evolution of the Google web crawlers—those things that decide where your website is going to show up in a search. Learning just a little about these changes can give you a huge advantage over your competition.
How will understanding Panda give me an advantage?
You’ll have a better idea of who to hire for your online marketing and SEO
You’ll know when they are marketing the right way online, and when they are still using strategies based on older optimization models (which are no longer as effective).
And for those with a limited budget, you will be able to do more of your marketing and optimization in-house the right way, saving a whole lot of money.
These are super simple and really work, but many small businesses get cold feet when it comes to actually executing these proven tactics.
1. Do the opposite of your competition – Do you want to be your competition or do you want to beat your competition? Standing out is essential but the temptation to simply copy can be overwhelming. If you are copying others the best your marketing can ever hope for is a tie, more likely you’ll be seen as a generic Johnny-come-lately. Instead think of a way to do the opposite type of marketing in order to put your business in direct opposition. With great messaging this will boost your branding and sales much faster than the copy-and-paste approach.
1. Where is my business right now? – Not your address. Write down and date all of the things that make up your business including processes, systems within your business, results, numbers, etc. Make it detailed. It could be two or three pages long or even longer depending on the size and how detailed you get. While going through each aspect of your business, make notes about what could be improved.
Customers don’t care if a business is number one… no really they don’t. In fact a large part of the U.S. psych is dedicated to rooting for the underdog, so if anything being number 1 is a negative in the eyes of most consumers. So why is so much time and effort dedicated to being “Number 1!” Good question. It sounds good right? Number one car seller. Number one plumber. Number one dog walker. And certainly there is a large portion of the general population impressed by it. It’s just that there are a whole lot more people not impressed by it. (more…)
You may have noticed the importance of social media within many popular search results. For nearly any search at least one social media site will likely be on the first page.
It goes beyond that however, because not only are the social media sites showing up way at the top, they are also helping other things show up way at the top… Like your business website maybe.
