Karen Skidmore's Kick-Ass Blog | CanDoCanBe

Have you finished your website yet?

Websites are often something that sits on your to-do-list, waiting to be ticked off.

You spend a few sessions with a web designer or graphic designer, write your copy and get it published.  Tah-Dah! It's live. Your website is complete!

But actually your website work has only just begun.  A website is NOT something that just gets ticked off from your marketing list.  A website is actually an evolving tool which needs to be nurtured, cared for and grown to keep up with your business.

One of 1-2-1 clients was getting very frustrated with her new website the other week.  She had decided to set one up using www.mrsite.com [a great way of getting a very affordable, user-friendly website up and running very quickly].  But after a week of playing around with different templates and writing copy for her 5 pages, she was pulling her hair out.

I shouted "Move away from the website!!!"  It was time to take a break and stop trying to make it perfect.

My advice to her was to leave her website alone for a week and then come back to it for an hour or two every week over the next month or so. No more, no less.  The site was working, the right pages were up, people where able to book a place on the workshop she was launching - but to keep fiddling to make it perfect before "launching" was just driving her nuts!

You see, a website should never be finished.  When you run your own business, you are probably evolving and growing at a rate of knots.  You start working with clients you hadn't thought possible, you create products and partnerships you hadn't quite planned for.  You are being flexible to meet the needs and demands of your clients [or you should be!].

And your website has to reflect this.  It's not a corporate brochure that once printed, has to be thrown out when out of date.  It's moving and evolving marketing tool that you need to be reviewing at least once a month. 

Have you finished your website, yet?  Good - so you shouldn't have!

Doesn't blogging & social media take up so much time?

I was speaking at a networking lunch this week sharing some tips and ideas on how to use blogging in one's business.  And the same old question came up "But doesn't all that stuff take a lot your time?"

Let's get this straight. All marketing takes time!

Driving to a networking lunch, spending 2 hours eating, talking and sharing business ideas, driving back from to your office, following up any contacts you met and sending them the info you promised - this all takes time!

Is it time well spent?  Well, hopefully yes especially if you met some interesting new contacts and some of those new contacts told others about you and your business.  Networking is an incredibly effective marketing tool.

So, why wouldn't using tools like blogging, twitter, facebook and all the other social tools out there take time to use, too?

And if the time you spend on twitter, facebook and writing your blog is used effectively - it will be time well spent too!

PLUS! anything you do online has the added benefit of being there forever.  Blog posts, twitter links and facebook photos can be found today, tomorrow and forever more.  So, yes blogging and social media does take up your time but before you use a lack of time as an excuse not to use these tools in your business, ask yourself how effective your marketing time is at the moment?

Each business needs its own separate website

If you have already been trading for a while and have had a website up and running for a few years, it could be an easy option to use this existing website to market your new business.

However, it couldconfuse both your target customers and the search engines.

Just this morning, I had a call from a lady who has been running a successful wedding dress business for the past 20 years.  About a year ago she decided to go in to the new and upcoming market of selling prom dresses and she decided to continue to use the successful wedding dress website to "host" her prom dress collections.

However, she has already found that it is taking some time for her prom dress pages to be found high up on the old google search rankings.  And although her prom dress pages where well optimised with the targeted key word phrases, her home page was still obviously all about wedding dresses.

Creating new websites is no longer an expensive nor complicated process.  Using blogging technology, for example, allows you to create new websites for very little money or techy expertise.  And the great thing about using a blog to create your new website is that they will be found far quicker by the search engines because of the amount of content you can add.

So if you are planning on moving your business focus or intend to set up a couple of different businessses then always plan to create a separate website for each of your business focuses.

Great for the search engines and even better for your customers.

How to Choose an SEO Consultant

Knowing about how SEO (search engine optimisation) is one thing, but hiring an expert who can help you with SEO is another!  If it is an area that you don't much about (and to be honest, most of us feel this way about SEO don't we?), it can be pretty daunting finding someone who you feel you can trust and who won't rip you off.

But out-sourcing your SEO to an expert can be the best business decision you can make if you are serious about your online marketing strategy, and having had a coffee with Sam McArthur the other day, I thought you would be interested in her latest newsletter article:  How to choose an SEO Consultant.  Over to you, Sam.

For many small businesses starting out in search engine optimisation (SEO), one of the first things they look for is an SEO consultant who can help them decipher the jargon and understand how their website can rank highly in the search engines. However, as with any service, what an SEO consultant offers can vary hugely from one person to another, offering different promises and outcomes which can make the process of choosing the right person to work with quite difficult.

So what should you look out for when looking to choose someone to help you with your search engine optimisation?

1. Transparent Service:  Any consultant you hire, whether they’re offering search engine optimisation or even financial services, should be completely open about what they’re going to do for you. This is particularly important with SEO as it will involve your website which you own. You need to be told what kind of access they need to your website, what changes will be made, what the main processes involved are so that you know when you need to be involved. The process works two ways and your consultant should be working with you at each stage of the process they outline to you. They should not hide anything from you or refer to any ‘special’ techniques they claim to use.

2. Guarantees: No consultant worth bothering with will make guarantees as to rankings. No one can guarantee specific rankings in the search engines as the way that search engines rank sites is information that only the search engines themselves have. Absolutely no one else has this information, therefore no consultant can possibly make guarantees. Don’t touch anyone who guarantees rankings of any kind. I would even be dubious if you’re guaranteed specific traffic figures as no one can predict how many people will click on your listings from the search results.

3. Access to Your Website:  Any one optimising your website will need access to your site (to your web pages), unless you are competent at making changes to them yourself or you pass this onto your web developer. This is important as the optimisation involves making changes to your web pages. If any consultant says they don’t need access then you need to question this.

Some companies send traffic to sites via doorway pages hosted externally from a website and can literally turn traffic on and off, therefore when you decide you no longer want to work from them, your traffic stops overnight. This is one of the many cowboy tactics some search consultants use and we’ve written about some of these previously in Marketing Karma. Other tactics used could even lead to your site being banned from the search engines, so you need to make sure you’re crystal clear about what work will be done to your site (as in 1 above).

4. Relationship:  As with many companies you work with, you need to build a good working relationship. People buy from people so make sure you have a good rapport with whoever you choose. This can be particularly important if things don’t go as smoothly as planned, then any differences can be ironed out more amicably.

5. SEO Success:  Your consultant should talk about conversions through your site, return on investment and how much you’re making from your online marketing. If all your consultant is interested in is rankings, then avoid using them. Any consultant worth their salt will be interested in the return you’re getting from any campaign, advise on how you can make improvements to your website to encourage more conversions, even advise on how your online and offline fit together within your whole marketing mix. Don’t trust anyone who has no interest in this as rankings are no measure of success!

Finally, there’s no harm in asking for references and case studies of other companies the consultant has worked with. You can then get an idea of the results the consultant has gained for them. Also make sure you know what is required from you so that you understand the amount of input you're expected to contribute and that you can actually commit to your part of the process!

For more information on dodgy SEO tactics, download our white paper on Cheap SEO Services (in pdf format)

For more information about Sam and to sign up for her email newsletter visit her website:  www.forty-first.co.uk

How do you get people to follow you on twitter?

It seems my last blog post on twitter has inspired many of you to look at/revisit twitter and see it as a possible valuable tool for your business.

But one question I had when I first started and one that I know others have asked me since is “How do you get people to follow you on twitter?”

First of all, I don’t think you need to strive to “get” people to follow you.  Remember Twitter is permission based so if someone has enough of you, you’re gone and out of their twitter feed instantly.

Having only been on twitter for just over a month, I have already experienced the twitter spammers and they are certainly out to “get” followers.  So, go with the attitude of attracting rather than getting.

Now that we have re-framed the question to “How to attract people to me on Twitter?” here are some of the ways I have seen that worked for me and resulted in attracting 98 followers in 4 weeks (at the time of writing) which I am quite proud of really!

• Don’t go out and starting adding hundreds and thousands of people to your follow list expecting people to just reciprocate.  First of all, how can you really follow 1,698 people when you are new to twitter (of course if you are The Scobleizer, you can – he is now following 21,004 people with 34,554 followers!) and secondly, IMHO if you are following 1,698 people but only have 34 following back, it just gives an impression that you are out to twam (is that short for twitter spam?!)
• Do start conversations with people that you follow.  When someone replies to you, others in their tweeter feed will see your name & so may click through to see who they are following & having a conversation with.  And if you build up a good enough relationship with that person, they must give a “shout-out” to your name in their tweeter feed.
• Do have an interesting & informal profile but don’t put up your “corporate tagline” or be “overly-friendly”   Remember, Twitter is fun and engaging, so reflect your personality & be interesting.
• Do link your twitter feed to your website, blog or newsletter.  Download a twitter widget to your sites and it can be an easy way of signposting your subscribers to other parts of your business to your twitter feed.
• Don’t twitter crap! Your twitter feed is going to be THE attraction for people to follow. If your twitter feed is full of useless information, then people won’t follow you from what they see on your home page.  Give value, offer help & support and engage in the twitter conversation – There is just no need to twit about your cats every day (unless you are promoting an online club for cat owners, obviously )

I’m sure I will have plenty more to share with you over the coming months, so do make sure you subscribe to this blog feed (top right hand corner) or join me on twitter – my twit name is @CanDoCanBe.

And if anyone from Twitland out there can add to these pointers, please leave a comment. I know I have still much to learn!

Really simple guide on how to sell online

Just saw this pop in to my inbox today – it’s a link to a really simple guide on how to set up an e-commerce website and get selling online.  It’s courtesy of paypal but you don't need to sign up, leave your name or email address.

If you are just getting started and want to read through a brief 7 step plan, you can’t get any easier to follow than this one:

https://www.paypal-marketing.co.uk/merchantservices/ecommerce/

Anything you want to share?  Just leave a comment below with your links or recommended sites to visit to help you get selling online.

Does having more websites help increase your google rankings?

Got a question from someone who bought several of my teleforum audio downloads on internet marketing & websites:  “Does having more websites lift your profile on Google with SEO or doesn't it make any difference?”

Thought I would share my answer with you, too.

In answer to your question – no, the act of having more websites on the web does not increase your SEO directly. Each website is treated individually for its own SEO merits. (Links do help, but I want to keep things simple here)

However, having a website that is focused on one product/service/niche does tend to perform better from an SEO capacity because the SE’s will rank a site that focuses on a particular topic higher than a site that is full of different topics/key words.

Also, (and possibly the human element is more important than the SE element) a website that is focused on one product/service/niche does tend to perform better from a marketing and sales point of view. Confuse a potential customer with too much choice and the easiest answer for them is no and move on. 

I see it happen all the time when I give my 8 year old daughter £1 to spend on anything she wants in a toy shop and she then goes in to panic mood flitting from one shelf to the next wondering what she should be.  A very stressful shopping experience!  Give her a choice of between 3 toys – and its easy. Job done.

If it's quiet out there - make sure you are making a noise!

Someone in my facebook network messaged me yesterday saying that she was feeling a little nervous about how quiet it was out there and asked if I had any tips to get through it.  She runs her own recruitment business and was experiencing (in my words) the post-holiday slump.

After 11 years of experience in the recruitment industry before starting up in business for myself, I remember the times when business was quieter than normal.  It’s easy to get frustrated as well as a little nervous.

But my advice was to go out and make a noise!

This is not a time to sit at your desk, quietly watching your inbox or waiting for the phone to ring.  No siree! You have to go out and make business happen.

The easiest way to make your phone ring is to start ringing out.  If it’s quiet out there – make sure you are making a noise.

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What’s business like for you at present? Have you got any tips you would like to share how you get through the quiet times?  Leave a comment – it only takes a second.

Recommended website solutions for home businesses

“I'm just about to sort out websites/email etc and wondered if you have a particular online company you recommend? I don't need e-commerce and have looked at some artist photographer template sites but if you have one you have tried and tested I would rather go on recommendation?”

Answered this question for someone today and thought some of you may like the answer too

Personally I would go with a blog rather than a website – definitely the way to go.

Either use typepad as a hosted blogging platform or use wordpress.com and host it yourself.  Hosting it yourself is more powerful for SEO (search engine optimisation) but if you don’t want to faff around with uploading files to your web host, then typepad is brilliant. 

I run my blog here on typepad and my new email newsletter site on wordpress www.HowtodoEmailNewsletters.com.

If you do just want a basic template website then you can’t really go wrong with www.mrsite.co.uk.

Webhosting – I would recommend www.1and1.co.uk

I’ve also got a great audio download on low cost websites if you are interested – www.kick-assteleforums.com/lowcostwebsites.php

Checked your events page recently?

The biggest faux pas any one with a website can do is to ignore their events or latest news page.  And oops, I too made that mistake this week.

I was putting together my July Kick-Ass Teleforum (cool topic BTW – “Automating Your Marketing for Your Home Business” as requested by someone who answered my quick question last week) and as I was updating my Events and Forums page on my main website – AARRGH! – it still had my business forum dates from 2 months ago.  Duh!

For first time visitors, it can be the quickest exit off a website once they realise that someone’s latest news was from May– 2007!.  So if you haven’t done so recently, go check your events pages.  Because if you haven’t, your web visitors will surely be doing so.