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Every small business online quickly discovers that you need to have traffic to make any website or blog successful.  Just as quickly, you’ll discover that traffic is an elusive thing to find.  Traffic, traffic, traffic. The fact: building traffic to a website or blog takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. Even if you find the perfect keyword that has no competition so you’re on the first page of Google for that keyword, chances are it only gets a few hundred hits per month, if that. So unless you have the resources of Fort Knox at your disposal, you can’t effectively buy clicks for keywords that get thousand and thousands of clicks per day, especially if your site is not already highly ranked by Google.

What if they were all on their way to your website?!

Building traffic to any small business website or blog is a result of cumulative efforts. Traffic at first will be a trickle. The trick is to create a plan to exponentially expand your reach so that each effort builds on the next. Here are several proven no- or low-cost traffic-building strategies that should be in the marketing mix of every internet marketer.

First of all, make sure your website URL is connected with websites that get lots and lots of traffic. If there are ways to have direct links on your site to Amazon or eBay, do it. Even if the connection is tenuous at the beginning, it will help increase your visibility in the search engines.  Google ranks websites according to how “relevant” they think your site is.  Lots of links to and from your site or blog make it look more important.

Also, take advantage of the link and content opportunities available at sites like Squidoo or HubPages. Create a lens or a hub complementing your product or service and make sure your URL is either in the text (conservatively, of course, no spam), and in your signature and profile. Then promote these pages. Theses sites are highly ranked by Google, so if you can rise to the top in these formats, you will increase your own site’s relevance.

Write articles and submit to multiple directories, making sure your URL is in your author resource box.  Definitely get some articles in Ezinearticles.com, as it’s the biggest and Google loves articles accepted there. Different readers prefer different directories, so make sure you spread your work around. Go a step further and submit your articles to sites like Digg, Reddit, De.li.cious, Stumbleupon, and similar bookmarking sites. Again, traffic is a result of exposure so do whatever you can to get your links in front of eyeballs.

Learn how to use some of the social bookmarking and networking sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.  Participate in forums, making sure you include your URL in your signature and profile. The more comments you make, the more the URL to your small business website or blog will be seen.

Make sure your small business site is listed in directories. There are thousands and thousands of directories. You can manually submit to several hundreds, or pay a service to submit for you.  I have been using TrafficBug.com lately, and I must say, the results have been impressive.  If you do it yourself, just make sure you submit your sites to categories that make sense.  How many newbie website or blog owners forget to even register with Yahoo?  It’s the simplest thing.  Just go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit and put in your URL.  It may take a few weeks to register, but doing that simple, 20-second submit will leapfrog your site over thousands of others that are waiting to be “found” by Yahoo.  Raise your hand, tell Yahoo you’re there and ready for business.

Never forget Google Adwords, as it can be very effective, though costly if you use the wrong keywords. But also consider advertising directly on Yahoo search marketing or even Microsoft AdCenter. These provide a great deal of traffic and are typically less competitive and less expensive than Google.  Personally, every head-to-head test I have run so far between Google and Yahoo, Yahoo has won every time as far as quality clicks for less money.

Just keep working on each of these traffic-building strategies and traffic will begin to build to your small business website or blog. The more traffic, the more eyeballs, the more Success. Just keep at it and you will succeed.

If you need help developing a traffic-building strategy for your small business website or blog, please let me know.  I would be glad to map out a step-by-step plan to build traffic and get the results you want.  I want you to reach your Success Point.

Continue reading »]]> Does your computer do this to you?  I woke up this morning, all rarin’ to go, ready to finish up some market research I owe a client on, of all things, reikki for animals (this is the small business she wants to start and by golly, I think there may be a market for it — who knew?!) and when I fired up the computer, I saw the dreaded “Do not turn off your computer. Installing update 1 of 13.”   Ugh.

My first reaction was “Oh no, what a waste of time.  There’s nothing wrong with my computer. It’s running fine the way it is.”  But then I recalled a conversation I had just this past Tuesday with my good friend Tony.  So I sat back, had a third cup of coffee and said “Okay, it’s needed.  So go ahead baby, update.”

Tony has been in business for himself, quite successfully I might add, for about 12 years.  He has a law degree, an MBA, and is a CPA.  He specializes in auditing the financial records of mid-size to large companies, often when the company is preparing for a merger or sale or restructuring.  I’ve known him for several years and he was on my “get in touch with” list.  So we were talking and he was complaining about how business has just dried up this past year.  He has laid off a couple accountants and is afraid he’ll have to close his doors.  This economy, oh dear, it’s ruining everything.

I couldn’t resist putting on my small business consultant hat, so I asked him what marketing he was doing to find new clients.

Well, he buys lists of the CEOs and CFOs of companies over a certain size and mails them a direct mail package.   He used to have a salesperson on staff fulltime who would follow up with those companies with face-to-face appointments, but his salesperson resigned last Spring and he hasn’t found a replacement yet.  So he calls, or one of the other accountants calls, when they can.  Does he go to networking events?  No, between his daughter’s soccer and his church choir practice, and his school district’s elimination of busing, he just doesn’t have time. Again, his salesperson was the one who always did that.

As a friend, I tried to gently point out that he needed to get a salesperson on board right away, that this was not something that could wait.  He said he couldn’t afford to hire anyone right now, especially since he had just let two accountants go, both of whom were both fairly long-term employees.  It didn’t feel right to hire someone new.

I wanted to be helpful, so I asked him if he was using LinkedIn.  He had heard about it, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  He thinks his previous salesperson was on LinkedIn, but he wasn’t sure.  Twitter?  No, he doesn’t really understand how it works.  Facebook?  That’s something kids do.  Blog?  He’s not a writer.  Every suggestion I threw out was met with resistance.

His marketing methods have provided a decent living for his family and his employees for twelve years.  In his mind, the thing that is making all the difference this year versus previous years is the global economy.  His small business is a victim of circumstance.  Success will return once the economy bounces back.

Will it?

Just like my first reaction this morning was “ugh, who needs this, what a waste of time,” I now realize that his reaction to my suggestions were actually exactly the same.  Just like me and my computer, his small business needs a system update, but he doesn’t see it.

Whether he realizes it or not, he is relying on old, tired marketing techniques.  Sure, they can work but to really perform at an optimal level, he needs to embrace new marketing methods.  Becoming a successful small business in today’s market requires a different set of tools in the marketing toolbox.  And the fact that he could leverage a network like LinkedIn and maybe achieve similar or even better results than he is currently getting from those lists and direct mail packages at almost no out-of-pocket costs … but I couldn’t convince him.

He thinks his system is running fine.  No update needed.

I offered to put together a plan for him, to introduce him to the world of Web 2.0, but he declined.  He can’t afford me right now, he says. I know where he’s at.  How many times have I hit the “remind me later” option when presented with an opportunity to update?  But eventually, either I accidentally hit the button the computer cleverly puts in the path of my cursor or I get so tired of seeing the notice that I give in and say, “Okay, update now.”

So I guess I’ll have to keep on him for a little while.

If your marketing is not performing like it used to, perhaps you need a system update, too.  Just like a computer, if you keep putting off update after update after update, eventually your computer will just stop functioning altogether, and so will your marketing.  You don’t want to wait until your small business has ground to a complete halt before you take action.

If you need a fresh set of eyes to look at your current process and made suggestions on how to improve your performance, let me know.  I would be glad to help your small business reach it’s Success Point.

See you soon.

Continue reading »]]> One of the most effective marketing strategies that has been practiced by successful small businesses for decades is the marketing funnel.  Online, the funnel takes on an even more vital role as it can quickly separate the tire-kickers from the true prospective customers.

Now, let me just say right here at the beginning: a marketing funnel is not a beginner strategy.  It is definitely a more sophisticated marketing technique then, say, yellow page ads or article marketing or blogging or passing out business cards at a networking event.  But it is a technique grounded in sound marketing principles and it can certainly achieve outstanding results for almost any small business.

The idea of a marketing funnel is to create a process whereby a prospect is asked to perform tasks in an order that increasingly measures their interest.  As each task is presented, more and more will drop out until only the most qualified and interested prospects make it to the end.  By then, the marketer knows that the customer is interested in what he or she is selling.  The small business owner can then develop that relationship and provide the services that customer needs with confidence that they are really interested and able to purchase what the small business is selling.

Though it works quite well offline, I’m going to walk you through the online process today.  Typically, an online marketer starts a funnel by creating what is known as a one-shot landing page.   These pages are usually incentivized by some sort of free downloadable report that relate to the real product being sold, but the entire purpose of the site is to capture the name and email of a potential customer.  There are no links, there is no “about us” page, nothing but the single-minded purpose of getting an email address from every site visitor.  Once the visitor enters his or her information, they are in the marketing funnel.

The potential customers are now in the marketer’s database.  Many online marketers use an auto-responder systems or database management software, so the next step the prospective client has to take is to “confirm” their interest in receiving marketing information from the small business.  After they have opted-in, they are given their free product.

The free product needs to be of good quality and reflective of the image the small business wants to convey.  It should provide some valuable content, but not give away the farm, so to speak.  Somewhere in the free report, either in the waning pages of the free product itself or via a follow-up email campaign, the prospect will be asked to visit a fully-functional, sales-oriented website to check out a “starter” version of whatever the small business owner is selling.  Many prospects will never go to that full website.  If all they are looking for is free information, they got it and the small business owner spent virtually no time, money, or effort in dealing with them.  If their needs change in the future, they have the report with the small business owner’s contact information so they could return in the future.  However, if the customer visits the full website and buys the starter product, then they have proven to the marketer that they are willing to spend money on this type of product.  Ta-dah!  A hot prospect.  They will then be presented with an opportunity to upgrade to the full version or be presented with several add-on products that will give them (and the marketer, don’t forget) even better results.

The marketer now has whittled his initial site visitors into four categories:  the tire-kickers who filled in the landing page form, but never opted-in; the curious who got their free report but didn’t buy anything; the interested who purchased the first product; and the committed, who purchased the full product or upgrade.  There is no reason to follow-up with the tire-kickers beyond maybe one cursory, “Hey, we didn’t get your confirmation.  Your free information is waiting. Confirm today.”  Minimal follow-up, maybe just three to five emails, will be sent to the curious.  But the interested and committed buyers will get the small business owner’s full attention in terms of support, follow-up, and relationship-building.

Marketing funnels work.  If you are using a marketing funnel in your business, I would love to hear how it works for you.  Please leave a comment so we can all learn from your success!

If your small business needs help in setting up a marketing funnel for your small business, I would be more than glad to assist you in developing your landing page, your starter product, and your follow-up email campaigns.

Continue reading »]]> Success takes action.  Sometimes it is simply that easy.  If you want to be successful at building a small business,  you have to beat the paralysis of analysis and do something.  I met with two small business owners and their staff about a year ago who were struggling with knowing what do to next.  They were not seeing the revenue they needed and were caught in that old paralysis of analysis on which way to take their business.  They didn’t want a long-term coaching relationship, they just needed some help coming up with ways to increase sales without increasing expenses.  So I offered to lead a brainstorming session for them.  I started with a presentation on  “10 Problem-Solving Ideas for Any Small Business” or something like that.  I got a call from someone in that group earlier this week and I’m happy to report that their business is doing really well.  They have some new staff members on board, and they’ve asked me if I could re-send them my hand-outs.  So I pulled out that file and as I reviewed it, I thought, “Hey, there’s some good ideas here.”  So now I’m sharing some of those ideas with you.

As I remember it, the biggest discussion generator I put up on the screen was, “Pretend you know exactly what you should do next, and do that.”  Some people scoffed at first, but it actually got this group off-center and the ideas started flowing.  The point is: Don’t stand in your own way.  Even if you take the “wrong” action, just by doing something, a dynamic or two will change and the solution will become clearer.  No problem in business is ever un-solvable.  Now, I’m not saying that you will always like the outcome, but a solution always exists.  It just sometimes takes a little creativity to get there.

Attack with Hummus

The biggest laugh came from the slide entitled “Attack with Hummus.” I don’t know about you, but I was a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan.  And one of my favorite moments in that series was a scene where the gang was sitting in the library talking about how to kill the monster du jour and someone suggested something and Buffy said, “That’s the dumbest idea ever,” to which one of the characters replied (it’s the actor Seth Green, but I can’t remember his character’s name at the moment), “Well, we could throw hummus at him.”  The room goes dead silent for a moment, then Buffy says, “I stand corrected.”  That moment stuck in my head.  If you are at a loss about how to solve a business problem, start with impractical or foolish solutions and figure out why those wouldn’t work.  I always start with “attack with hummus” and move on from there.  The practical, sensible solutions will become more obvious the sillier you get.  For instance, it would be foolish to send your past-due clients an envelope filled with hummus instead of their monthly invoice that apparently just gets ignored, but is there something else you could put in the envelope that would make it memorable and not just “another” bill?   How do you get their attention?  Put some thought into it and you’ll probably come up with a good idea.

Another idea is to pretend that a fairy godmother magically appeared, waved a wand, and poof! problem solved.  What would change?  Make a list of all the ways in which your situation would change once the problem is solved.  Then work backwards to see how you can go from success to the struggles you are having now.  Often, when you look at a business problem backward, you’ll see the path it takes to get it done.

What would he do?

If you’re still struggling with coming up with possible solutions, imagine how someone in a totally different profession would handle the same kind of problem.  If professional football team faced the same kind of problem as your small business, what would they do?  They would shake up the roster, get a new coach, practice new plays, study more film.  Have you taken those kinds of steps? Or if you stranded on an island with the cast of Lost and they had to solve this problem, what would they do?  Take yourself mentally out of your current environment and see what ideas pop up.  It often works.

And finally, when you come up with a possible solution, don’t stop there.  Come up with another idea, then another.  Often, it’s the third or fourth idea you have that is actually the best solution.  And just knowing that you have more than one option to try to solve a business problem will give you the confidence to try your first choice solution.

If your small business is stuck in a rut or has a problem that you are just not able to solve, when all else fails, get on the phone or send an email and ask someone for help.  A small business consultant like me can sometimes see a situation with fresh eyes and because I have a different knowledge set, I may present a different solution.

I would be glad to help you.  After all, I want all small business owners to reach their Success Point.

See you soon.

Continue reading »]]> Admit it.  When you first thought about starting a small business of your own,you got really excited.  You were going to set the world on fire.  But then you spent WAY too much time surfing the web, reading sales letters that go on and on, pulling out your credit card to buy this and to buy that.  You probably attended a couple seminars, maybe some webinars.  You even thought you’d check out those books from the library on how to start X business.  But the books went half-read, if you had time to touch them at all.  As soon as the file for the “solution” was downloaded, you were looking at a new email promotion, wondering if THIS new program being touted is the one you should buy.  It all sounds so good.

Before you know it, your credit card is maxed, your hard drive is running out of storage space, you have saved so many videos your computer has slowed to a crawl, your spare room is filled with books and 3-ring binders and gadgets, and you still don’t know where to start.  Your dreams of success are beginning to fade. You’re beginning to think that maybe running a small business is not for you.

You are experiencing the Paralysis of Analysis.   Many people go through it.  They get excited about an idea for a moment, but they get stuck implementing.  So you move on to the next idea.  Many would-be small business owners jump from business concept to business concept, trying to find a perfect solution to an imperfect problem.

Stop.

You can’t spend your entire life in learning mode if you want to be successful.  You have to act.  You have to take the plunge and actually do something with the information you acquire.

The best suggestion I can give you if you find yourself in a paralysis of analysis situation is to pick one business concept and then work out a clear, step-by-step plan based on what has worked for others, and follow it.  Starting a small business is a lot like baking a chocolate cake.  If you have a recipe to follow, you can be pretty sure your end result will be a chocolate cake.  If you don’t have a recipe and you are not a baker, you may end up with a chocolate mess that in no way resembles a cake because you neglected to add some key ingredient, like flour or an egg.  We want your small business to end up looking and acting like a successful small business.  Sure, you might make a mistake.  It may come out a little dry, or undercooked the first time around, but you’ll be so much closer to your goal.  Try something.  Don’t sit on the sidelines any longer.  Take action.

Following a proven plan will cut your learning curve and get those first customers in your door faster. Do exactly what others have done to create their business success, and you, too, can see your bank account grow.

When you are first getting started with any small business, granted, you have to spend some time learning.  But there is so much to learn, especially if you don’t know how to manage a small business, you can easily become overwhelmed.  But when you have a plan set out for you to follow, with a specific task or set of tasks for each day, you don’t get overwhelmed.  You overcome the paralysis of analysis.  You can actually move forward and get results.

The clearer the plan and the more thorough the plan, the better your results will be.  You want a plan that teaches you the basics.  If the plan introduces you to valuable resources, like software programs which help you automate your growing business, or area professionals who can provide the support and services you need, so much the better.

That’s where a small business consultant like Success Point Consulting, who specializes in getting small businesses like yours up and running, can help.  I provide a 12-week Fast-Start Program especially designed for small business owners who are just getting started and want someone to help them jumpstart the process.  I will work with you to set out a weekly or daily plan to develop your business concept, conduct market research, write a business plan, create a strategic marketing plan, and set the wheels in motion to getting your small business to its success point.

Like everything in life that’s worth doing, you have to invest a lot of your time and effort at the beginning. But success is worth it.

Here’s to your success!