Tag: Marketing & SEO Tips for Business Owners

Marketing & SEO Tips for Business Owners

| September 17, 2017 | 0 Comments

Marketing & SEO Tips for Business Owners

In this SEO & Marketing Tips for Computer Businesses blog series, I will offer many tips for you to learn in small bites. In this series, I am going to make you think about your marketing in a whole different manner, maybe different than you are used to. I’m going to be brutally honest and tell it like it is and if you’re interested in doing your own marketing, follow along. It’s not hard, can be fun and watching the growth is the best part. I’ll start each tip/blog with a story and then move to the tip.

Blog #1 -my story and how I got started

I’m a small business owner and have done many advertising and marketing campaigns since 2007. Some paid off, some didn’t. I consider every endeavor a test, trial and learning lesson. Advertising is different than marketing, marketing in my opinion might not have instant results like an advertisement might have, but it has long term payoffs. Trust me, I have been conned too, been promised the world and paid for things I never should have. Some things I didn’t see an instant payoff and now regret getting out early. So many what if’s, should I have, what if I…..it’s not an exact science what will work for you.

As I create these marketing and SEO tip blogs you will learn what I have done to paid off for me. Here’s a bit about my story of how I began and how things are going still almost 10 years later.

I have been blogging since 2008, when I found my first WordPress site. A fellow blogger recommended I start blogging. Well I love talking and writing for me is just an extension of talking on the phone to a friend! Blogging was very natural for me.  In 2009, I had a friend move my blog on WordPress to my own website domain and my life completely changed. Why? Because the WordPress blog feature was very rich in search engines. I could also share my blogs to social media and it was on my own website. My old website that was just normal didn’t do anything for my business. Giving it the WordPress backend gave me opportunities to do many more things such as blogging and it was on my website, adding in forms, plug-ins, etc.  Almost 10 years later, I do all my own website /WordPress work, it’s not hard to learn if you want to learn.

Before I was blogging, I was doing newsletters. I didn’t have a lot of folks on my newsletter list. In fact, I only had about 40 when I started. I had only met those folks at networking events, invited them to LinkedIn and then added their emails to my newsletter, yep…without permission. Back then it was different. We were not inundated with emails and spam like we are now. I had a small following but what kept me engaged was telling a story 2x, I told a short story in the newsletter and then linked my blog to it.

For many years, all I knew what that I love writing and sharing the articles in my newsletters and on LinkedIn. Back then, Facebook didn’t really do well for marketing but LinkedIn did. In fact, I did so well just doing these 3 things together, it grew my business during a recession.

But things change and what changed for me was Google. By accident, I was blogging about one niche thing so much (Outlook of course) that people from outside of Minnesota were calling me to help them. I was on to something, blogging was getting me clients.

Since 2012, I have now been very consistent with my own marketing, while I still pay for an occasional ad on a website or try something new, I still do everything on my list below, all by myself and it’s mostly all free. I pay for my newsletters, my yearly podcasting fee’s. The rest is my own time and creating the content.

  • Blogging
  • Newsletters
  • Social media
  • SEO blogging
  • Error blogging
  • YouTube
  • Podcasting
  • Online Engagement with technicians and clients on LinkedIn

 

Let’s get started!

Tip #1 

First, let’s talk about the most important thing when you talk Marketing in any business…how much time do you want to put in? Do you want to learn how to do the marketing that I do and do it yourself? You will save a lot of money but you also have to learn to be consistent. I created and follow a “social media and marketing schedule” that I use as my daily to do list and it keeps me on my toes! If you read my list and thought, “oh, no I don’t want to do that” then doing marketing yourself is not the best option. For you it will require you to hire it out to another company. One of my final blogs will have a lot of information for hiring it out to other people. Lots of tips there and you will want to read my next blog about your budget.

Creating a blog post is not really that hard, even if you don’t like writing. Creating a newsletter is not hard either if you use a template (I use one). Podcasting is easy if you like talking, the rest is technically not hard to do either. Nothing is hard, it’s just learning how to do it and being consistent. In my blog series I will not go into deep training on each but offer the tips, so you can figure it out or hire me to help you learn it.

Here is a bit of homework for you while you wait for my next blog. Again, think about how much interest you have in learning new ideas, time you will need to put in get things going and being consistent. If you have no marketing budget and want to do it yourself, you will need to also schedule time for yourself to do it. It might be during your workday if you don’t work after 5:00, for you 24×7 folks it might be nights/weekends. For me, I just keep it rolling all the time, during my workday, nights, weekends. I write when I feel creative or get a good idea. Many good ideas come right from my own clients! I listen to them and they often tell me many interesting stories. I keep notes every day in a notepad and review those for blogs/newsletters, podcast ideas.

Final homework, review your current marketing. What are you doing now? Write a list of everything you are actively doing/paying for, etc. Also write a list of the past things you did- free or paid and then review those results. Also….go through your clients in the past month and see if you know how those folks found you. If you are not tracking that, NOW is the time! Start asking all new clients, “how did you hear of us” and in a month or so, you can create a spreadsheet and start seeing what is the common answer and you can work off that.

Blog #2. 

https://callthatgirl.biz/marketing-stack-and-budget-for-it-business-owners

To get it faster..

I will push the blogs out via my social media and in my newsletters.

Want to hire me to help?

As much as I love Outlook and Office 365 work, I love marketing and helping people as much as I can. Marketing and SEO blogging is second nature to me, so offering both feels very comfortable. I’m good with offering both on a ticket at the same time if you happen to need all my support, Outlook, Office 365 and Marketing coaching.

Contact me below to get more information.

 

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