SEO - What is it, how to do it and how your content should be structured.: Recent Episodes
Andre Alford
Making sure that your business is optimised for digital search often makes the difference between that business thriving or dying. You want your ideal potential customers to find you in the digital world right? Then you will need to get your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as best as it can be. The good news is that you are largely in control in how easily search engines like Google can find you for certain keywords and phrases.
Do you feel your customer?
Can you imagine the challenges they face, the mental journey that has lead them to you and what in the future could lead them away from you?
There is a reason why many of us have empathy and that is because it helps us in social situations. We can tailor our words and actions in real time by picking up subtle clues about how they are been received at the other end. It is therefore a bit of an understatement in how useful this same skill is when it comes to selling.
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What a good question. In short, it is when the lack of internal skills and resources is holding your business back from having a higher share of your available market. Correspondingly, you don’t need a marketing agency if you have skills and resources available in-house, reached market share saturation or don’t want to reach market share saturation any time soon.
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Sometimes it is useful to look at nature to see how it succeeds in a competitive world. One where the resources are limited, random events can mess up your plans and the sun does not always shine.
It helps that nature does not have a plan. Instead is does extremely well with just a process and a trial and error approach. Take the humble dandelion. Definitely a weed to many, it doesn’t have a 3 or 5 year plan to take over your garden. Instead it has a process that cumulates with fluffy white seeds being blown into your garden. Some of these seeds will find a habitable niche or indeed your whole lawn to germinate and take off.
Could your business benefit by copying nature? In several important ways, yes. A weed can
- Thrive really well in a locations you hadn’t considered as a possibility
- Grow where nothing else can.
- Spread with minimal effort
Let the weeds grow no matter where they are
Perhaps some of your profits are coming from unexpected sources or you are seeing potential in areas outside your original business plan. Resist the urge to ignore those unexpected areas to your business. Instead, nurture these new business sources, update your business plan to include them if that make you feel any better. These new, unexpected areas of business could themselves lead on to much greater things. After all one dandelion growing between two patio slabs is just a gust of wind away from a fertile lawn.
Have you left the competition behind?
Sometimes a weed can supress or stop other plants from growing. Have you discover a new market or produced a new product that doesn’t have any competition or even more tantalising, pushed out the current incumbent? It could be you are on to something here. Perhaps your value offering or messaging is better than the competition or that you are the first on the scene.
Write a business process rather than a plan
That’s right, tear up your plan! What you need is a business process. How can your business emulate seeds blowing in the wind? How can it support business growth no matter where it is coming from? Are you ready for a bit of trial and error? Make sure your business process includes the follow steps:
- Keep your senses primed for any information about sales from unexpected sources.
- Don’t dismiss miscellaneous revenue sources as too small to nurture, they could lead on to better things.
- Correct negative talk, or the suppression of experimental ideas.
- Be open minded as to what your business might become, don’t be held hostage by previous dreams.
Do you have the time and resources to grow like a weed?
As a small business owner, you may of course not have the time or resources to developing a business process. This is where My Marketing Dept comes into its own as we will organically grow your business through operational marketing. We will help you develop sustainable growth using all the tools in the marketing shed, leaving no stone unturned in the process. Book a exploratory 1-2-1 zoom call today.
This will be the only podcast I record that will share the same title as a classic novel. However, the topic is important as it is your capability to be earnest with your customers that will make or break your business.
What does Ernest mean?According to the dictionary it means serious and zealous in intention, purpose, or effort: an earnest worker. showing depth and sincerity of feeling: earnest words; an earnest entreaty. seriously important; demanding or receiving serious attention. noun. seriousness and zealousness: to speak in earnest.
Why is this important to me?Simply because the result of being earnest with your customer is the creation of trust. It demonstrates that you respect them. Your service or product may be mission critical to your customer. Your customer may be coming to you from a desperate place. You have a responsibility to deliver, to help them and to be dependable.
The importance of customer trustWithout trust your business in doomed to fail. Trust is a insidious thing. It can start to wain long before your customer abandons you or before you detect it fading. It is hard to measure and difficult to put a value to. But once it has gone it is very difficult to get back, especially for individual customers.
Episode 3 explores a marketing thought experiment that will help you gain perspective on how you can grow your business.
Most of us have heard of content marketing, but what actually is it and how does it boost sales. Some businesses take this very seriously and have a whole team of content writers, what do they know that the rest don’t. Take a deep breath and join me as we take a deep dive into the ocean of content.
What is content marketing? Content marketing is any regular activity that produces words, graphics, images, sounds or videos. For it to be effective it must closely mirror what your potential customers are searching for. Once found it must be sufficiently interesting, informative, educational, funny or illicit such an emotional response as for the reader to either visit your website, bookmark the content or for the experience to count as a brand touchpoint.
More... https://mymarketingdept.co.uk/2022/11/23/what-is-content-marketing-and-how-does-it-work/
Making sure that your business is optimised for digital search often makes the difference between that business thriving or dying. You want your ideal potential customers to find you in the digital world right? Then you will need to get your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as best as it can be. The good news is that you are largely in control in how easily search engines like Google can find you for certain keywords and phrases.
Your business website
You have control over everything on your website. You can ensure that your blogs answer questions, problems, reviews and comparisons that your potential customers want to know the answer to. You can ensure that once the visitor is on your website that the other pages will help steer them to complete your call to action. You can ensure that all the images have good descriptive alt tags for the search engines to pick up and that all your content is key word optimised.
Backlinks to your website
Google algorithms love nothing more than high quality backlinks coming from high authority, subject focused websites, to your website. You can play an important role in enabling these backlinks. Through the submission of educational and informative editorials, business directory sign ups, digital sponsorships, social media posts and industry awards you can cultivate a network of permeant backlinks to your website.
If you want someone else to do this for you
We understand. You have better things to do with your time. Why not head over to My Marketing Dept and check us out. Alternatively, book a zoom call and let's get the ball rolling.