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Are You Spending More Time Figuring Out The Internet Than You Are Following Up On Leads You Get From The Internet?

By Christian

There are virtually infinite ways to run a business. And there are virtually infinite ways you can market yourself on the interwebz. Which one is best?

Answer: the one you’ll commit to mastering.

Any toolset and approach you use has pros and cons. I humbly submit my own strategy for your consideration:

Set up a WordPress blog.
Share ideas on blog regularly. Except for when I sketch out and take a break for a few months here and there. I share ideas when I have ideas to share. I don’t force it.
Regularly ask people to get on my email list. Give them cool free stuff to trick them into signing up. Very sneaky.
Regularly stay in contact with subscribers. Tell them about new content on blog. Regularly ask them to buy stuff also. I tend to stick to a 7:1 ratio or thereabouts. That is to say, 7 free articles:1 offer.
Share blog content across social media channels.
Advertise my business using print and PPC. Drive traffic to landing pages.

This is literally all I’ve done for years. Will you get great results immediately? Of course you already know the answer to that question.

You’ll need to work at it, just like you needed to learn how a computer works, how to use your smartphone or any other tool. And the more you work at it, the better results you’ll get. There’s a learning curve, but it’s a very worthwhile one.

This is what we do as business owners. We invest in worthwhile things. It’s how we grow.

Your blog is your new smart phone. Trust me, it’s the direction marketing is going.

Do you have questions? Of course you do! You’re likely new to a couple of the techniques on this list. Always feel free to shoot me any questions you have. You’ll hear back from me. Your feedback inspires every post I write here. Thank you for that 🙂

Small Business Search Engine Optimization (Free Strategy)

By Christian

Hey all. I’ve gone on record many times, talking about how I don’t do keyword research. I don’t do hardly any traditional SEO work at all. Yet getting traffic from Google and other search engines has never been an issue.

We’ve generated over 40k leads, millions of visitors and first page visibility on major search engines all without spending a dime or hardly any time on SEO. So what gives? I outlined this very briefly at a recent talk in front of a group of top Realtors in Indianapolis recently, and it was really well-received. So I decided to put it out publicly.

If you want to download the exact small business SEO strategy I use, you can grab it for free. Here it is:

Small business SEO strategy

Don’t worry…if you’re already on the email list, you’re gonna get it. C’mon you should know by now I’m not gonna leave you hanging 🙂

Of course, if you aren’t on the email list yet, then just put your email in the form on that page so I know where to send your report. As always, if you have any questions I’m at your service.

Why I forgot about SEO years ago

By Christian

Technology is always changing. Search engines update their algorithms all the time. We all know this. But for some reason the small business community is still talking about SEO strategies that haven’t been updated in almost 10 years. This is a tragic loss of time and productivity in my experience.

There’s nothing I hate worse than wasting time. Wasting money on the other hand can definitely be fun. But wasting it on SEO? C’mon, you can come up with something more fun than that, right? 🙂

Let’s be clear. In the internet world, 1-2 years is all it takes to be left in the dust if you don’t keep up with all the changes. 5 years ago is ancient history. Most SEO companies haven’t updated their approach in even longer.

There are quality SEO firms out there, don’t get me wrong. And there’s a time and place to hire them. But if you’re a locally-based small business owner (you know…someone who reads this blog, and the type of client we work with), most are nothing more than a money grab. Case in point, I abandoned all SEO efforts years ago. I get more traffic from search than ever, all without spending a single dollar or a single ounce of effort on SEO.

How is it possible?

One thing we seem to have forgotten is that Google and other search engines WANT to find you. It’s what they were literally built to do. But somehow the SEO industry has tricked us into thinking we need to trick the search engines in order to get ranked.

It’s not true. Never has been.

In the next post, I’ll share my personal ninja evil genius mastermind SEO strategy. It’s earned my company all the search traffic we need for over 3 years running now, without spending any mental energy or any money at all. Not even a dime. Not even a minute.

Make sure you’re on the email list, and stop out for that one. If you have any SEO-specific question, hit me up and I’ll do my best to address your concerns in the next article. Have fun and talk more soon 🙂

Why Industry Conferences Are So Crucial

By Christian

3 Most Common Lead Generation Mistakes on Small Business Websites

By Christian

Since I run a web marketing company, I get the opportunity to work on lots of websites and spend time learning how to tweak and improve them. After doing this for years now, I’ve learned there are just some trends that need pointed out.

By all means, this is not a comprehensive list. But if you want your website to get more leads and sales, it’s definitely worth taking note of this short list. These are the 3 biggest mistakes I see small business owners making with their websites every day:

Mistaking SEO for Lead Generation

There seems to be an idea out there that the main thing we should all focus on is SEO. Well, I’d have to agree that search engine optimization is important. Especially for small businesses. But if lead generation is your goal, it’s most definitely only part of the equation.

I’ve often asked clients “if you’re not getting any leads from the traffic you have now, what makes you think twice as much traffic is gonna help that much?”

Bottom line, you need visitors. Of course. But your website also needs to convert. If you are not getting a high conversion rate (20%+) from your landing pages, then you’re wasting any additional money you spend on SEO or advertising.

Just do the math. If you’re a business owner, do you really want twice as much traffic? Or is your REAL goal twice as many leads? If lead generation is the goal, then you can do that two ways…

Double the amount of traffic you get, while keeping conversions the same
Double the conversions you get, while keeping traffic the same

Just so you know, #2 is usually significantly less expensive, quicker and offers a much more sustainable return on investment. So instead of hiring an SEO firm to drive more traffic, simply optimize your site’s landing pages. Something to consider 🙂

Adding More and More Features and Tools

One thing I seem small business owners doing with their websites is adding more and more little widgets and tools. Common choices are:

Calculators
Calendars
Newsfeeds
Automated blogging tools
Tag clouds (eeckkk!)
Etc

Everyone likes the idea of a feature-rich website. So what the heck could be wrong with adding more features? Nothing at all is wrong with it. It’s just that when it comes to lead generation, it’s not gonna help much.

This is one of the profound ways the internet has changed. Visitors just aren’t impressed with little gadgets and tools anymore. What works better? Provide content that solves their problems, and give them a compelling reason to sign up for your email list. This is the brutally simple fundamental that most people still seem to be missing. It really is that easy.

By installing fancy tools, you’re just making your website look more and more like everyone else’s. When it comes to lead generation, this is the opposite effect than what you’re going for.

Failure to Use Lots (and lots) of Landing Pages

The fact is that landing pages work. I would not be able to claim the conversion rates I do if it weren’t for the use of landing pages. Even though the concept is not new by any means, it seems to be a concept that has still failed to proliferate into the small business world.

A landing page is simply a single page on your website built for one single purpose…conversion. You can build a page to generate phone calls, email signups, purchases, whatever you want. But a landing page has a single focus. No distractions. It’s optimized to do just one single thing…get the conversion.

Small business websites typically have one or two calls to action. Most commonly a small box in their sidebar that says something like “sign up for our newsletter”. Not very compelling. Would YOU sign up for a newsletter like that? Probably not. So it’s not too big a surprise that no one else is signing up either.

So as it happens, landing pages are a crucial element to any lead generation strategy. Offer your visitors compelling reasons to buy from you, sign up for your newsletter, get a free report or video, call your office for a free consult, etc. The possibilities are endless, but the point is that landing pages are the primary vehicle for generating leads and sales from your website.

So if you want more leads from your website, make sure you focus on these three things first:

Forget SEO for a little while. Get focused on optimizing your website for lead gen. Make sure you’re converting an impressive number of visitors into leads first. From there, increasing traffic to your site is gold. Until you have your site optimized for lead generation, everything else is a waste of time.
Drop the idea of adding any more features or tools to your website. Focus on creating content that solves your prospects’ problems. And come up with compelling reasons they should sign up for your newsletter, contact you and buy from you.
Take the ideas you come up with from #2, and create landing pages on your website. Each landing page offers one simple, compelling reason to sign up for your email list (or whatever your call to action is). It’s not uncommon for a successful small business website to have 20, 30, 40 or more landing pages, all generating leads consistently every day.

After you learn the basics of how to generate leads from your website, everything else about marketing your business on the web gets a lot easier.

How do you design an effective landing page? How do you get traffic to your landing pages? How do you measure results? All good ideas for future posts, no? Maybe not? Let me know what you think. For realz…use the contact form on this page and let me know what you think, yo. Or else I may end up covering stuff that’s helpful for other people but not you. Speak up and let me know what questions you have, and we’ll see about getting you some answers. Peace.

The Best Marketing Tools In The World Will Do You No Good

By Christian

The best marketing tools in the world do you no good…if you don’t use them. There’s such a thing as getting better tools and furthering your education. There’s also such a thing as procrastination. Become intimately familiar with the difference.

It pays to work on yourself. And it pays to use the right tools for the job. But it also pays to just roll up your sleeves and get to work. I’ve been doing this long enough to see clients come and go over the years. They move from one “marketing system” to the next, trying to find the one that “works”. I’ve even had some go full circle. They’ll try 10 different website providers, come to me for a year or so and leave, off on their continued search for the holy grail. Then a couple years later, they’re back. Still searching. It’s such a shame.

Here’s the deal guys. What you have now…works. The stuff I sell also works. I honestly believe what I do is better, and I’m happy to give you my spiel any time. You know that. But it’s only better in certain ways. And it only works if you use it. Suffice to say there are pros and cons to everything.

Marketing has been around for as long as commerce has existed. And for as long as marketing has been around, there have been people getting rich and others trying to figure out the “secret” to what works. Guess what. The most successful marketers aren’t trying to find the secret. They know there isn’t one. They use a simple formula. If you want to call it a damn secret, then fine 🙂 Bottom line, here it is:

Learn Shit → Do Shit → Rinse and Repeat

In other words, successful marketers do these things:

They don’t forget about STEP TWO (do shit)
They put things into action.
They get in gear.
They don’t stay locked in learning mode.
They know that no system works if you don’t work the system.
They don’t buy stuff and let it sit on the shelf. They put it to work.
When stuff doesn’t work out or when they make mistakes, they just pick the pieces up and keep going. That’s the ultimate learning process.
They’re not afraid to make mistakes.
They don’t LIKE making mistakes, but they’re willing to do so.
They know the alternative to making mistakes and experiencing failures is a process of always nitpicking things, mitigating in a futile attempt to keep themselves from failing. Failure is in reality, the best teacher of all.

A bit of a rant today? Possibly 🙂 It’s something that has been coming up a lot in consulting lately, and anytime I see a trend I want to address it on the blog. No consultant, no marketing strategy or magic silver bullet shiny tool-of-the-month can ever work for us if we’re not willing to roll our sleeves up and get to work.

Thx Ben Garney for the rocking picture today 🙂