Your small business blog’s organization and design
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Sep 29, 2008
Attention small business owners! Here are two great reads when considering your blog’s design and organization:
“One of the biggest challenges of Web design is making sure that a new customer immediately grasps that she’s in the right place. You offer what she’s looking for. You solve problems she has. Your customers look like her. And all of this is instantly communicated by your graphics. Which probably means your site looks more like Google and less like MSN, because only robots can assimilate that much information at a glance and glean anything useful from it.” Keep reading… (YML ProStaffer Sonia Simone, of Remarkable communication)
In The Elements of Business Writing, Gary Blake and Robert Bly cover principles of organizational order:
- Location: Use geography to create an order. For example, in a post on a travel blog, begin with where a country is on the globe, then cover the country’s geography, then focus on major cities, and finally, focus on one city.
- Alphabetically: Great way to do a list without appearing to give preference to any single item.
- Chronologically: When telling a story, tell the events in chronological order. Never assume your readers know times and dates, always tell them.
- Problem/Solution: This is a basis for much sales-oriented writing, and with good reason. It’s highly logical and effective.
- Inverted Pyramid: Journalistic style where the lead sentence explains all pertinent points. Each sentence after explains more and more detail about these points. Who, what, when, where, and how are explained.
- Deductive order: Start with a general statement and work into specifics that support the conclusion of the general statement.
- Inductive order: Start with specific statements and build them into a general conclusion.
- List: What this post is you’re reading now. Usually headlines for these posts use a number, such as 5, 7, or 10.
- Priority sequence: Rank recommendations, problems, or other items from most important to least important.
Also - it is important to define what the objective(s) of your blog is and know how to measure whether or not it’s meeting that objective. For example, is the ultimate point of your blog to increase sales in your business? Make sure you’ve clearly defined that and are organizing your blog around that objective.
Not sure what the point of your blog is or should be? Buzzgain.com has done much of the work for you by listing out 20 blogging objecitves and how to measure the results. If you’re unsure what the main point of your blog is, it will likely read like you are usure what the point is and certainly won’t accomplish much. Not to mention that it will be dificult to measure it’s effectiveness, an extremily important component to creating a successful business.
Blogging in small business
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Sep 29, 2008
If you are in business today, any business really, but especially a small business, we hope you realize the importance of blogging. If not, perhaps these two articles will convince you.
From Produce Marketing Offers Sophisticated SEO Techniques for Small Businesses:
A blog can be a very useful tool because it serves as a vehicle for consumers to put forth their opinions as well as a means for the website to boost its content and keyword density. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo crave new and fresh content and therefore love blogs because of the constant addition of trendy information, since blog entries are typically related to the latest buzz.
From How to Blog Your Way to Small-Business Success - US News and World Report:
Only about 41 percent (of small business owners) have their own interactive websites…..
a blog gives a small-business owner the ability to show up much higher in the Google rankings than any kind of static website,” says John Jantsch, a blogger since 2002 and author of the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.
Getting Google hits can be a marketing plan in and of itself, simply because so many potential customers turn to Google before anything else when looking for a service. “Small businesses are starting to understand that people don’t come to your main Web page. They ask Google,” says Chris Brogan, who has blogged since 1999. His blog, about social media and business, is in blog tracker’s Technorati top 200 on the Web.
Four tips when creating your blog:
1) Be a reader of blogs.
2) Don’t stress about it too much.
3) Don’t do adspeak.
4) Tell a story without ranting.
In fact, blogging might be one of the best things you can do when starting a small business, or when determining effective marketing strategies in your small business.
Not sure what to write about? Reac Chris Brogan’s excellent post titled:
50 Blog Topics Marketers Could Write For Their Companies
Right now might be the best time to start a small business.
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Sep 29, 2008
And, if the economy gets worse, it might be an even better time to start a successful business.
Check out this post from Seth Godin’s blog:
“Inc. magazine reports that a huge percentage of companies in this year’s Inc. 500 were founded within months of 9/11.: Talk about uncertain times. But uncertain times, frozen liquidity, political change and poor astrological forecasts (not to mention chicken entrails) all lead to less competition, more available talent and a do-or-die attitude that causes real change to happen…….If I wasn’t already running my own business, today is the day I’d start one.”
Ultra successful Information Marketing Guru, Dan Kennedy would agree. He started an information marketing business at a time when the economy was poor and charged more than anyone thought anyone would pay. Incidently, it was also a time when no one else dared start a business like his which automatically made him top dog. And, he ended up with a very successful businesss.
When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. If you are in the mortgage industry right now, and can find a way to survive while everyone else jumps ship, it makes sense that you will be the one to not just survive, but thrive. You will be forced to do things a bit differently. You will be forced to find the next great idea. You will be forced to become a better at marketing your business. You will become strong and come out on top, the proud owner of a very successful business.
If your small business is experiencing a dip, direct attention to your marketing
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Sep 29, 2008
Jassen Bowman, in his article, The Fundamental Role of Marketing In Business, writes that, “More often than not, marketing is a back seat, tertiary thought that comes after their product/service and daily operations, if it’s even that high of a priority.” He goes on to say that, “….marketing encompasses all the activities that seek to identify what consumers want and how to promote and deliver those goods and services.”
Let me restate that: Here’s what marketing in business does - it identifies what consumers want and then acts as the conduit for which they find what they want and purchase it, equallaing sales in your business and ultimatly the acheivement of a successful business.
If that’s not all important when things are slow or difficult, or when you are just starting a small business, I don’t know what is.
If you are to survive your Dip, you must work to acquire good marketing skills. In fact, when business is slow, working on improving your marketing is the absolute best thing to do. Marty Foley identifies being skilled at marketing as as one of the most important skills an entrepreneur can have. In fact, when it comes to the success of your business, marketing is everything.
As Marty Foley writes, “The world can not and will not beat a path to your door to buy your “better mouse trap” if the world doesn’t know about it. Regardless of what business you’re in, marketing is the tool used to present the solutions that your products and services offer to the rest of the world.”
Well said.
I have found that many small business owners have a hard time making the time to work on increasing their marketing skills. There is too much “work” to do.
Our best small business advice is this: Acquiring knowledge about how to reach your customers is the most important work you can do if you don’t have enough buying customers!
Make a commitment to expanding your marketing ability. Read, test, try, join a mastermind group, find a mentor, whatever. But learn and act, and learn some more. Your successful business depends on it.
Being committed, consistent and patient marketing your small business
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Sep 29, 2008
Marketing Guru Seth Godin wrote in his blog the other day about the importance of being “irrationally committed” to your business as an entrepreneur. I can’t think of better words to describe the level of persistence needed to get through the inevitable discouragement, overwhelm, bad decisions and sheer frustration that can come with starting, marketing and growing a successful business.
Entrepreneurs, being the big idea people that we are, are attracted (perhaps addicted) to the rush and the thrill and the risk of starting a small business. We have lots of great ideas, and often vast amounts of energy to throw behind turning those ideas into action. However, no matter how great the idea is, it’s the level of persistence (commitment, consistency and patience) that will determine whether or not we end up with a successful business.
In Seth Godin’s book, The Dip, he describes that inevitable point that every business owner comes to, where the business you began with great gusto and excitement becomes really, really hard.
I have often described starting a small business and marketing a small business as pushing a boulder up hill. You know that once you get to the top you will be just fine. It’s getting to the top without getting squashed that’s the problem. If you’re nodding your head in agreement right now because that’s exactly how you feel, Seth would say (and does say in his book) that it’s decision time. You must decide not whether you can push your boulder to the top of the mountain, but whether or not there is a top of the mountain.
The difficulty of the present moment is either:
1. A necessary step that will push you to learn, refine, and sharpen so that when you get to the top of the mountain you are highly competitive, competent and strong, and highly likely to have and maintain a successful business.
2. A never ending, exhausting journey in which you will eventually wear out and be crushed.
Which do you think describes your present moment?
If you’re unsure, you need to read Seth’s book. If your answer is #2, get out now. Guiltlessly. You need a new business plan. That is the wise and very, very smart choice. If your answer is #1, the most important asset you have is your level of irrational commitment (persistence) that will set you apart from everyone else and ensure your long term small business success. Right now, your ability to stay focused and motivated is all important.
