Successful Marketing for your Online Business

When you are building an online business, use several methods of advertising to successfully market your business to people who are likely to be interested in it. Effective advertising contains content that is relevant, showcases your business’s best products and services, and presents an offer for the potential customer to act on right away. Use a combination of methods to get your name out, get previous customers to return for additional purchases, and convert new leads into customers.

Targeted Advertisements
Rather than focusing your marketing on general advertisements, use the targeted advertising systems on websites like Facebook and Google to reach customers who are most likely to buy your services or products. When you create an advertisement, the system allows you to select some key words or demographic features that will define who sees the advertisements. For example, on Facebook, you can target advertisements to people of a specific age, gender, location, or who have a particular interest listed on their profile. Google’s targeted advertisements are largely based on what a person searches for or what key words are in emails they send or receive. Because these advertisements are significantly more likely than regular ads to be seen by people who are interested, they are an effective way to generate business. People can click right over to your online business and buy something right away if they are interested.

Social Media Presence
Create a profile for your business on each of the major social media outlets. In particular, you should have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. On your Facebook page, post photos and videos to help potential customers get a better feel for what your business offers. Also include special coupons that people can only access if they “Like” your business page. Interact regularly by posting updates on your business page’s wall and responding to comments and questions that other Facebook users post to the wall. Use your Twitter account to distribute quick updates about specials to your followers. If they retweet these updates, their followers will see them as well, which can quickly get out news to people who have never heard of your business before.

Email Newsletters
One of the perks of an online business is that people are always just a few clicks away from buying your products. Draw your business to people’s attention regularly by sending out email newsletters with information about sales, new products or services, and useful information about using your products or services. Build a mailing list for your newsletter by gathering email addresses for past customers, including an area on your website where visitors can sign up for your newsletter and by purchasing leads from reputable sources. In each newsletter, include easy links to purchase featured products or services on your website. If you can get people to click through to your website at some point while reading the newsletter, they are likely to browse and may make a purchase.

Search Engine Optimization
When your website shows up in search results from search engines, this is effectively free advertising to highly interested individuals. Therefore, when building your website, focus some of your attention on search engine optimization. This is the practice of using keyword phrases in your website copy, headers, web addresses and page titles to make it more likely that the pages will show up in search results that use those keywords. Having other websites link to yours also increases its search rankings. If you have no experience in search engine optimization, hire a service to help set up your website to get as much traffic as possible.

Regular Blog Updates
Write a blog on your business’s website and update it regularly with posts that are relevant to the people who make up your primary client base. Rather than writing about your products in a promotional fashion, just write posts that provide valuable information that is of general interest to people who would buy your products or services. Of course, when it comes up naturally, you can mention products and services, but you should focus mainly on writing useful content. This will help your business website to show up more regularly in search results, get links from other blogs and to get return traffic from people who bookmark the blog and read it on a regular basis.

Sponsored Blog Posts
Most people read at least one or two blogs on a regular basis, and they usually trust the opinions of the blogger and are willing to take recommendations from the blogger. Therefore, one highly effective way to market your business is to have a blogger mention it in a post. Contact bloggers who write about topics related to the products and services you sell, or who you expect have readers who would be interested in your product, and ask them to write a sponsored post. This is one in which you provide the blogger with a free product or service, and in return, the blogger reviews it in a post dedicated solely to your business. The blogger also links to your online business so the readers can buy from you if the review gets them interested.

Business Cards
Even though your business is online, you should not neglect regular print-based business cards, which are still a highly effective way to get the word out about your business. In addition to carrying some with you at all time to give to anyone you meet who expresses an interest in your business, you should also give business cards to customers who buy from you. If you sell items that you ship to people, include a business card in each order so the person has a visual reminder of your business to find you again next time. You can even include an extra card so the person has another to pass along to a friend. Business cards can also help encourage word-of-mouth advertising that occurs when you or someone else gives your business card away.

How Content Marketing Defines Your Internet Niche

The Internet is designed to share information. It is used for education, advancing new ideas, expressing personal opinions, enhancing name brand recognition, and promoting the sale of products or services. Article marketing sites, also called article directories, help improve the efficiency of this communication process. They establish a number of dedicated marketing outlets. Each article directory provides a multitude of users with the opportunity to give free information in exchange for valid Internet backlinks.

When successfully applied, content marketing is an effective means for expanding your business outreach. It can attract qualified Internet leads, establish long-term customer communications, and be used to define your precise market niche. Companies and individuals post articles that are specific to a given industry or targeted market niche. When the content of the article successfully:

• Engages the desired reader base your company prospers
• Relays relevant information your name brand identity expands
• Establishes a sense of honest information exchange, you gain a reputation for providing expert advice in a given field.

The math is simple. The Internet provides an abundance of free information. Prospective customers seek advice from trustworthy sources. Successful content marketing enables you to establish yourself and your business as an Internet authority in a given field of expertise. It works just as effectively as display ads or PPC, but the cost of playing is much less expensive.

Content Marketing Enhances the Power of Internet Selling

In a recent thread on how to be successful on the Internet, the author penned an eight-word answer: “Produce great stuff and sell it to people.” These words read slick, but they over simplify a very complex task. Unless you are marketing a self-promoting, self-selling product or service, you must engage in some manner of active product marketing.

Reliable business leads are not always easy to generate. The Internet is bloated with information, misinformation and overstuffed information. The competition comes and goes but it never dies. Internet selling may involve the most competitive arena the marketing world has ever faced.

Content marketing provides a cost-effective solution to the greater demands that Internet selling places on modern businesses.

The Concept Made Real: Using Content Marketing To Increase Your Business Leads and Your Internet Authority

Okay. You are now ready to use article marketing as a means of promoting your website or blog. Every content marketing strategy must be designed to meet two primary goals:

1. Targeted Traffic: Whether it relates to product sales, membership promotions, or content subscribers, you need traffic that will remain on your site, return to your site, and eventually become an income generating client in whatever format you have set as the focus.
2. Relevant Links: Article directories are designed to enable you to generate relevant links to your website. These matters pertain to search engine optimized (SEO) keywords. The purposes for search engine optimizing your content falls under a separate subheading of this document. For now, just remember that content marketing helps develop relevant backlinks to your website or blog.

Knowing the purpose of content posting is only half the battle. You must also understand the principles of how to produce content marketing that actually increases your business leads and your reputation as an Internet authority in a your given field of expertise. Furthermore, you must learn what it takes to bring your posted directory content to the top of the search engines. Here are some questions that will help you get started in the right direction:

• What is your area of expertise, your market niche?
• Who is your target market?
• What should be the primary topic for your articles?
• Is your target market large enough to support multiple subtopics?
• What are the subtopics that you might use for additional articles?
• Who is your primary competition?
• How well are they performing in the content marketing field?
• What is your competition doing right?
• What are they doing wrong?
• Which, if any, of your competitor’s articles are making it into the search engines?
• What keywords are they using?
• What synonyms and acronyms can be used to create the same keyword effect?
• What related keywords are producing desired search results through the inline search engines on various popular article directories?
• How much time are you willing to devote to writing and marketing your content?

The Value of Search Engine Optimized Article Content

Perhaps you know the ins and outs of your business niche better than most people know the details of a well-watched classic movie. You can write about it. You can talk about it. You can express the details in terms that most people don’t even understand. Now realize the insufficiency of knowledge alone.

Content marketing is not about being discovered. It is about pushing your content to the top of the information chain. For this, you must learn to utilize the power of search engine optimized keywords. This is a critical line to success. In order to establish your mark as an Internet authority in any field, Internet users must see and read your materials.

Here are a few basic SEO tips:

• Keyword Research: Start by learning how to identify the keywords or key phrases that specifically define the content of your articles and your website. Measure the competition for those keywords or key phrases. Now pick your battleground with care.
• Keyword Tools: These are the doorways into your keyword research. Many Internet vendors present an array of keyword tools, include detailed “how to use” instructions. Start with the Google Keyword Tool.
• Keyword Strategies: This ties into keyword research. The number of free materials available on the subject of keyword strategies exceeds counting. But if you intend to produce content marketing that works, be sure to read up on keyword strategies.

Content Marketing Increases Your Business Leads and Your Presence as an Internet Authority

The conclusion to this discussion is obvious. The online evidence speaks for itself. Content marketing is a powerful and aggressive means for increasing your business leads and establishing yourself as an Internet expert in your given market niche. Don’t pass up this avenue to success. Even if you must hire a ghostwriter to clean up your content and to distribute your image to the article marketing websites, go for it. Content marketing pays off.

5 Ways for Your Business to Mentor Young Women

Regardless of the size of your small business, there are many ways you can give back to the community by investing in the next generation of business leaders. Mentoring young women in the basics of business ownership, management and support roles increases the chance that they will want to go into business themselves. For many young women, the influence of a mentor will lead them to pursue options that they otherwise would not have seriously considered. Choose from several types of programs that will interest young women and get them involved in business.

After-School Programs

The hours after school is out are the perfect time to reach young women in middle school and high school. Many middle schools have an on-site after-school program for kids whose parents would prefer they stay at school instead of going to an empty house. You can usually contact the school and arrange to come to the school on a regular basis to lead sessions about business.

Community centers often have after-school programs as well, and they are always looking for volunteers to come help engage participants in the programs. You and other women who work at our business can set up days to volunteer at these programs and get to know the young women involved in them. If possible, try to work with them individually to get to know their unique interests and encourage them in the next steps they need to take to successfully pursue those interests.

High school students are often looking for ways to earn spending money after school, so one idea is to set up an after-school position at your small business. Hire a female student to come work for you for an hour or two every afternoon and learn about how a business operates. This type of job will be much more useful for her career development than working at a fast food restaurant or retail store would be.

Business Lunches with Young Professionals

As a seasoned businesswoman, you are in a position where many young female professionals look up to you because of your experience. Pass along what you have learned by setting up business lunches with young professionals. Identify promising young women who are just getting into the business world and choose one day each week when you can meet together over lunch.

At each lunch, talk with the woman about how her week has been going, what problems she has encountered and what she has been learning. Encourage her in skill development and as needed, help her brainstorm solutions to her work dilemmas. As it comes up, talk about her future career goals and help her come up with ways to gain the skills and experience she needs to meet those goals.

If the young woman is interested in starting her own small business, you can help her with developing a business plan, bit by bit, during these lunches. Don’t encourage her to jump into starting a business right away, but instead help her to genuinely think through the business plan and slowly develop the ideas that she needs to succeed. Help her identify potential weaknesses in her business idea and come up with solutions to these. In addition, give her practical advice that will be useful as she moves forward with the long process of launching a business.

Shadowing Opportunities

Young women who aren’t sure if they want to go into business benefit greatly from the opportunity to shadow a woman who is highly involved in business. Shadowing gives the young woman a chance to see what a few hours or a day on the job is like and to ask questions to learn more about getting into business and what a career as a businesswoman is like.

Set up shadowing appointments by contacting local schools and enlisting their help in identifying young women who might be interested in shadowing you or someone else in your business. You can start as early as high school, but focus primarily on young women who are in college or pursuing a master’s degree in business. Local community colleges, career schools and universities usually have career development offices that will be happy to work with you to recruit young women to come to your business for shadowing.

Once you have set up shadowing appointments, identify people in your small business who can effectively be shadowed. Choose people who have interesting jobs and who work on a variety of business-related tasks during a typical day. If you run the business yourself and don’t have any other staff, then obviously you will be the one being shadowed, but otherwise, choose people who are knowledgeable, friendly and who you think will be effective mentors.

During the shadowing, you or the other mentor should encourage the young woman to ask questions as she runs into things she isn’t familiar with. Ask her about her business interests as well, and if possible, tailor what you are doing that day to what she is interested in. The more interested she is, the more likely she will be to get something useful out of the shadowing experience.

Summer Internships

One of the best ways to mentor a young woman in a way that will truly impact her is to offer summer internships for women. Design one or more positions at your business that include tasks any young woman would be able to complete, and that increases in complexity as the summer goes on so your interns will be challenged. If possible, create a project that she can be working on somewhat independently throughout the summer that will give her the chance to practice high-level business skills, such as vision-casting, planning, and executing a project through to completion.

Recruit interns by advertising online or mentioning the opportunity to career counselors at high schools and colleges in your area. Many colleges have programs that allow students to earn college credit for successfully completing internships, which encourages young women to take the time to participate in the internship even though they aren’t getting paid.

Over the course of the internship, set aside time daily to instruct the intern about business and guide her into tasks that will give her practical skills in business. Tailor your internship to her skill levels and always have an eye toward directing her into greater understanding of the business world. Be flexible and willing to change the course of the internship as you identify her strengths and interests so she has the best experience possible and gains skills that will be relevant to her in the future.

Guest Speaking

If you need to recruit more young women to participate in the programs you have established, one of the best ways to do this is to set up speaking engagements. Call schools or community centers in your area and ask if you can come give a short talk about women in the business world. Don’t accept honorariums for these speaking engagements, but rather stipulate that you want to invite young women who attend to participate in one of your mentoring programs.

At each talk, discuss how you got involved in business, how it appeals to you, and what a typical day at work looks like for you. Talk about why it is important for women to be involved in business and what steps young women can take to learn more about business and get started on a career path. At this point, discuss the mentoring opportunities you are offering and invite young women who are interested in these to sign up.

Mentoring programs for young women can take a variety of forms, but the most important thing is to make a career in business seem exciting and attainable for each young woman, regardless of how old she is or what her interests and skills are at the time. As much as possible, tailor your programs to provide individualized mentoring for the young women involved. They will get the most out of it if you are speaking directly to their unique aptitudes. If you get nothing else across, at least make sure that you encourage the young woman that a career in business is not just for men.

Tips to Increase Your Business’ Presence In Local Internet Searches

Do you remember searching for a local business, service provider or product using the yellow pages? Today, those massive, unwieldy tomes — with their tiny font size and finger-staining ink — have gone the way of the recycle bin, replaced in large part by online local searches.

In fact, 97 percent of consumers search for local businesses online and 20 percent of all online searches are locally focused, according to Google. From restaurants to print shops, hair salons to IT companies, law firms to mortgage brokers, the more-than 50 million local businesses listed on sites such as Google Places receive millions of page views each day.

Even if your business is purely online, local search marking is important because:

• Your customers are performing local searches
• Even if you sell nationally, you are still a local business

When you’re optimizing your web presence for search engines, it’s much easier to achieve high search-result rankings when you’ve incorporated local search terms into your online marketing strategy. For instance, a search for “attorney” brings up almost 400 million results; add “Seattle” to the search, and the results narrow to 53 million. Add the term “west” and the results plummet to 2.5 million.

Even if you sell your product or service at a national level, consumers tend to search for businesses in a particular geographic area.

Smart phone and other mobile device users also represent a growing market of local-search based consumers. In January 2011 alone, more than 77.1 million consumers accessed local content on a mobile device, an increase of 34 percent from 2010. These statistics indicate that more than 33 percent of mobile subscribers are local content users, a number that will continue to increase in coming years.

If your business isn’t listed on local search sites, you’re missing out on customers — and not just any customers. As a group, local search users represent well-informed consumers that tend to spend more. A 2010 study by Forrester Research found that more than one-third of customers do research online before visiting a local business. This group tends to not only buy what they came for, but also to spend — on average — $154 more on other purchases, a market that reached $1 trillion in 2011.

Today, the Internet has replaced the phone book as the consumer’s search method of choice. In order to remain competitive, your business must increase its online presence on local search sites such as Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local and Best of the Web.

How Does Local Search Work?

Simply search for information that’s linked to a particular geographic location, like a street address, a city, a state, a postal code or even an IP — Internet Protocol — number. The four major search engines — Google, Bing, Ask and Yahoo! — all offer local search features as part of their general search, as well as through specialized platforms.

More frequently — and significantly for business owners — search engines automatically include local content in general search results, even if the user doesn’t specifically request it. This is known as organic search. For instance, a general Google search for “Chinese restaurant” will generally include local eateries among the top ranking results. Though it may seem as though Big Brother is watching, this personalized local content is the result of geo-location.

When search terms include location cues, such as a city name, search engines automatically return localized information, or a local search. To use search terms for a local search, just add geographic information to a general search, such as “yoga studio Atlanta.”

Localized sites allow search engines to take an educated guess as to where a user’s computer is located. Countries often have domain extensions at the end of their web addresses, such as google.se. In this case, the domain name extension — .se — suggests that the user is located in Sweden. Some sites are localized to even narrower geographic areas, allowing search engines to assess the computers’ locations with some accuracy — and provide relative local search results.

Every computer has its own IP address. When computers access the Internet, IP addresses provide servers with a specific location to send the data. IP numbers are affiliated with certain geographic regions, often cities or states. Though it’s not an exact science, geo-location technology is improving, making it easier for search engines to automatically provide local content to searchers – and more important for your business to be accessible for both general and local-search users.

Local vs. Organic Searches

Though major search engines automatically provide local search content as a part of general search results — also known as organic search — they draw information for local searches from another set of data, known as indexes. Local indexes represent another way for you to localize your web site and reach more customers. In order to rank highly in organic and local searches, it’s important to increase your business’ presence in both organic search indexes and local search indexes.

Increase Your Business Presence through Local Search Results

One of the most effective ways to increase your local business presence is by adding business listings to the local business directories that feed search indexes. When a consumer enters a location-based search, such as “pizza Manhattan,” search engines pull from local indexes to provide geographically specific results.

Though there are many local search engines on the web, the “big four” include Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local Search and Ask Local. Each has its own process, policies — and sometimes fees — for listing your business, but seven simple listing tips can help increase your business’s presence on local search. These include:

1. Including a local phone number
2. Including a local address
3. Optimizing the listing description with target keywords
4. Adding videos to the listing
5. Adding photographs to the listing
6. Completing every section in the listing in a consistent manner
7. Completing local business listings on multiple sites

Always use a local phone number rather than an 800 number or a call center number when listing your business on local search sites. Though the exact specifics of search engines’ algorithms, or the data they use to create ranked results, are closely guarded proprietary secrets, many industry experts — such as David Mihm of Local Search Ranking — include local area codes among the top ten most recommended factors to focus on when listing businesses on local search engines.

Specifically, the phone number you list on your “place page,” or local search listing, should have a local area code that corresponds to your business’s address. Consistency is also important; the phone number you use in business listings should match the phone number you use on your business’s web pages.

Similarly, your business listings should include a local address that matches the address you use on your web page. A physical local address ranked first in the Local Search Ranking list of factors to focus on; address consistency was ranked fifth. If your business is located in a suburb, this could negatively affect local search rankings; consider renting a mail box with a suite number in an urban core to use as a business address.

Some local listing sites allow you to add text, like descriptions of products or services, to your listing. Use this opportunity to optimize the listing description with target keywords. Add as much relevant text as you can to your listing; this not only gives search engines more chances to find search terms, but more text provides more searchable content, which may in itself raise your ranking.

If local listing sites allow you to upload video or photographs to the listing, as Google Places does, take full advantage of the opportunity. Videos and photographs on place pages both add more content to your listing and increase the probability that search engines will view your business as legitimate. Add as many relevant videos and photographs as you can. Photos can be of products, staff, your business’s location; anything relevant that increases the possibility that local search engines will pick your listing up and add it to their index.

It may seem basic, but it’s important to complete every section in the listing. Sections give you the chance to get as much relevant content out there as possible. Include information such as:

• History of your business, including the year it was established
• Description of your business
• Staff biographies, including languages they speak
• Lists of products — including brand names — or services you provide
• Descriptions of products and services you offer
• Operating hours
• Types of payment you accept
• Any other relevant information that will help search engines and consumers find your business

Be consistent when entering information; provide the same information in each listing you complete for your business. For example, if your street address is “1234 Main Street Suite 100,” always write it that way. Don’t change it to “1234 Main St. Ste. 100” or even “1234 Main Street #100.” When it comes to local search rankings, consistency adds legitimacy, leading to better results.

Finally, complete local business listings in multiple local search engine locations, including the big four — Google Places, Bing Business Portal, Yahoo! Local and Ask — as well as other important directories — such as Best of the Web, CitySearch and Yellow Pages — and review sites, such as Yelp and Urbanspoon.

The “Big 4” Local Search Engines

Each of the top four local search platforms has its own application policies and procedures. Some are free, while others charge a listing fee or upgraded services for a fee. The biggest, Google Places, offers free listings that include videos and photographs. Users must have a Google account to complete a listing and verify that the business is legitimate though a postcard send through the mail. You can list more than 10 businesses at a time using Google’s “bulk uploader” feature.

Yahoo! Local provides a basic listing service for free. Users must have a Yahoo! Account. If you want to add photos, business descriptions or tags, you must pay a monthly fee.

Bing Business Portal also offers a free listing service, including photographs and detailed business descriptions. Like Google Places, Bing verifies business legitimacy using the postal service or through your mobile phone.

Ask Local doesn’t operate its own local business index; rather, this search engine pulls data from CitySearch. In order to submit a listing, you must go through Universal Business Listing, a “point of entry” site that distributes listing information to search engines, online yellow pages, social networking sites, mobile apps, GPS navigation systems and 411 directory assistance. UBL charges a fee to create a listing.

Directories

The many directory sites on the web – such as Best of the Web, CitySearch, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Merchant Circle and Manta, just to name a few — all offer listing services for local businesses. While many are fed data by UBL, others – such as Think Local, Localeze and CitySquares rely on both user data and business owner input.

Spend the time to consistently and completely fill out a listing as many local directories as possible. You’ll be rewarded with more links back to your business’s web site. As an added benefit, the major search engines perceive many these directories as “trusted” sites, which may boost your site in the ranking algorithms.

Review Sites

When listing your business on local directory sites, don’t forget review sites, such as Yelp, Urbanspoon and Angie’s List. In fact, Local Search Ranking lists Yelp as the most influential review site in the U.S. Again, placing consistent, complete information is key to increasing your web presence. Getting great reviews also helps.

Increase Your Business Presence through Organic Search Results

Following these seven simple tips can help increase your business’s presence in organic search results. These include:

1. Adding your full address to each of your businesses’ web pages
2. Mentioning your city and zip code in your text
3. Including a list of all the areas or regions you are interested in doing business
4. Adding your city name to meta tags
5. Including your city and state in the link text when you link from other websites
6. Creating a separate Contact Us page for each location you have
7. Adding keywords to your contact pages

The first, and perhaps most important, step in increasing your ranking in organic searches is by adding your full address to every single one of your business’s web pages. Many businesses limit their contact information to a single “Contact Us” page. While this page is necessary for users, when search engines crawl the web looking for content to present in search results, they’re more likely to “notice” sites with information that appears more than once.

Search engines also take prominence, or the placement of terms, into account. Place your address near the top of the page — a highly prominent placement — rather than in the footer — low prominence — whenever possible.

Use your city and zip code in the body of text. Add city and zip codes to headers and accentuate them with bold font. This helps search engines to find and index your local data and incorporate it into organic search results.

If you do business in more than one place, make this clear. Add a footer or sidebar that lists cities or regions to each of your business’s web pages. Make this geographic data even more search-engine-friendly by linking each city or region name to a page that contains specific information about that area.

Search engines also examine your site’s meta tags. Add the name of your city to your title and description meta tags to help search engines locate your business. Prominence counts in meta tags, too; terms near the front of a tag receive more search-engine attention than terms near the end.

You probably already know that linking back to your businesses’ web site from other sites is a great way to drive traffic; this practice can also increase your search result rankings. When you link back to your business’s web page from other sites, include your city and state in the link text. This gives search engines yet another way to pinpoint your location.

Though it’s important to include your address on each page of your website, tweaking your Contact Us pages can also help search engines locate your business. Make sure to create a separate Contact Us page for each business address you have. For example, if you have offices in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, create a page for each address.

Finally, add keywords to your contact pages. Keywords help search engines find and index your site, resulting in higher rankings. Choosing the best keywords is important; start by performing a keyword analysis. Your web site’s hit logs — also called access logs — may show you the keywords that people used when they found your website from a list of search engine results. You can also use Google’s free keyword tool to find common searches related to certain keywords.

When selecting keywords, keep types of locations in mind. Depending on the type of business you have, consumers may search at the state, city or even neighborhood level. For instance, many consumers would search for a yoga studio at the neighborhood level — “yoga on 7th Street” — rather than at the state level. In contrast, other types of businesses may warrant a search at the city level — “civil attorney Boston” — or the state level — “car insurance Ohio.”

Create a list of the common keywords and work a few into the text on your “Contact Us” pages. Be careful when adding keywords, though; if density is too high, search engines may dismiss your site. Instead of packing your contact page with keywords, strive for natural-sounding usage.

In summary, with the phone book largely relegated to the recycle bin, more and more consumers are turning to online searching. If your online marketing plan doesn’t include local search strategies that influence the results of both local searches and organic searches, you’re missing out on a large customer base that’s only going to increase in coming years. Optimizing your web presence for local searches and completing multiple, consistent listings with local search sites, directories and review sites are activities well worth your time.Take advantage of these free and low-cost listing tools and techniques to increase your online presence — and grow your business.

Graham Shows How You Can Make It Happen

“The world is a collection of unlimited wealth and resources. Often, we limit our potential, moving in circles because of our fears. If we change our way of seeing the world, there is nothing we cannot achieve.”

When I heard Stedman Graham say this at this year’s Global Conference, the implications hit me like a ton of bricks.

Many people limit themselves because they are afraid, making it harder, if not impossible, to grow, both personally and professionally.

Ask yourself and be honest when answering, is something holding you and your business back?

This was just one nugget from Graham, but as the presentation went on there were even more, which really opened my eyes.

So while in Miami, I picked up a copy of his Best-Seller, You Can Make It Happen.

In You Can Make It Happen, Graham lays out his 9-step plan for success.

The book is straightforward and gets right to the heart of freeing yourself of doubt so you can achieve your full potential.

This book is a great way to lay the groundwork for whatever you want to achieve

Graham has been one of the United States’ most prominent business and community leaders over the last two decades.

He is the author of a number of best-selling books, in addition to You Can Make It Happen, the CEO of S. Graham & Associates, the founder of non-profit Athletes against Drugs. He is also well-known as Oprah Winfrey’s boyfriend.

If you only know of Graham from his relationship with Oprah, you are missing out on the teachings of one of the top motivators in the world and that was very clear to all in attendance just minutes into his presentation.

So click on the links above and pick up this important book today to learn how you can leave behind what has been holding you back.

Name Dropping Won’t Help Your Franchise Grow

There are literally hundreds of businesses named after the founder or owner but what if you buy into a franchise system that is tied to a particular person and something catastrophic, like a scandal or even a death, happens that negatively affects the way that person is viewed by the public?

A situation like this can be particularly damaging to a franchise that provides services that people trust and rely on. Recently there was a perfect example of what can happen to franchisees in this situation.

This May, Roni Deutch, a well-known tax attorney, abandoned her Roni Deutch Tax Center franchise due to legal problems, leaving dozens of franchisees in the lurch. These franchisees paid thousands of dollars in fees and royalties, only to be left with nothing to show for it.

Deutch began her franchise in 2008 as an attempt to capitalize on the, once positive, name recognition that she’d built through her more than 20 years as a tax attorney.

Deutch also used television advertising that was seen around the United States for the better part of a decade, using her name to help build that recognition and her brand, which must have seemed enticing to the people who joined her franchise system.

But, clearly Deutch was not in a position to create and build a franchise system the right way.

So what can we learn from this story?

First, if you are going to become part of a personality’s franchise, be sure you are going with a franchise you, and your customers, can trust.

Don’t just rely on name recognition and hope the franchise is run correctly. Talk to other franchisees and see what they have to say about the leadership and system of the franchise.

Finally, remember that one of the best indicators of success for a franchise is how long they’ve been around.

If it’s only been a few years and the name of the company is the name of the founder, you might be dealing with a vanity project rather than a proven system that works, so take your time, do your research and pick a franchise with a name that isn’t tied into the roller coaster life of one individual.

How Can We Develop More Women Leaders?

There is far more opportunity in the world today for women than there was a generation ago, but there is still a long way to go until men and women are truly equal at the top of the business world.

The equality that women have found in most aspects of life seems to end at the boardroom. Women are increasingly making up a larger percentage of the work force and are more likely to graduate from college, but the same percentage, if not less, are reaching the upper echelon in terms of their careers.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave an interesting speech on the topic in December 2010 at that year’s TED Conference and she offered some things women can do to reach their career potential.

I saw the speech again recently and I felt what she had to say about women reaching their potential was interesting.

Too often women are dismissive of their own successes and abilities and, as she says, “No one gets to the corner office by underestimating their abilities.”

By underestimating their own abilities, many women fail to “Sit at the table,” as Sandberg puts it, and aren’t taken seriously when it comes to leadership and decision making.

This becomes even more interesting when we consider that, while success and likability correlate positively for men, they negatively correlate for women. As one writer on the topic put it, in our culture, good girls are taught to be nice, while good boys are simply taught to be good.

In the competitive world of business, nice just doesn’t always equate to capable or successful or to a leader. And when you combine the cultural undertones of what makes a “good boy” versus what makes a “good girl” with the difficult choices many women have to make when it comes to the balance between work and personal life, it’s easy to see why so many women choose to leave the playing field rather than compete with men.

So how do we change this scenario?

First, as the working force changes to more and more women, there is little doubt that new companies and corporate cultures will emerge that focus more on the woman entrepreneur, her skills, talents and aptitudes and how she works.

Secondly, as women we have to take a role in changing the culture itself. As a CEO myself, I feel it’s very important to empower the women who work for me to reach their full potential and grow.

Finally, we have to teach the next generation of women that being nice isn’t the same as being good and there will be times when difficult choices have to be made between your cultural identity and delivering on your potential, and that’s it’s okay to choose the later.

Is information that I find on the internet (by Googling) reliable?

The internet can be a fantastic source of high quality information, but it is also a place where anyone can say anything they choose about any subject.

There is no fact-checking for blog posts, and the ignorant and uninformed have the same right to speak their mind as the world’s experts, on any topic. Even competitors can easily pose anonymously as either disgruntled coach or a client. So use a little common sense. If you want the most reliable information, it is all at your disposal at the ActionCOACH website, the International Franchising Association website or any of the National Franchising websites.

In most of the developed nations in which we operate – franchising is heavily regulated. Which means that we have fully disclose on all the numbers and legal proceedings (existing and pending) on our business. Even though less than 20% of franchisors put in an earnings claim in their disclosure document – we do.

Our business has been around since 1993, and operates today in 34 countries. Every year – we are named in the Franchise Business Review Franchise 50 – 50 franchise concepts that rank high in franchisee satisfaction.

Our company gives back in a profound and lasting way to the Small to Medium Sized business community and their communities at large. This is best shown by three (of many examples). 1) The Indonesian government created an award and gave it to ActionCOACH for their contribution to entrepreneurialism and growth in their country.  2) Coaching for a Cause (our pro bono coaching program to charities around the world) in its first year (during an economic recession) helped non-profits raise an 2.5 million in charitable contributions through coaching them. Coaching has a compound effect, you cannot unlearn what you learn through coaching. So these non-profits have been taught “how to fish” rather than “given a fish” and will continue to apply lessons  learned via coaching year on year. 3) In Florida USA, a year-long study of businesses being coached by ActionCOACH showed an average $7.50 profit return for every $1 invested in 12 months.

ActionCOACH is the only coaching company who guarantees your coaching will be self-funding on or before the seventeenth week. If you really want to know about a company – you need to look at the source of the information. Is it reliable? We welcome you (in fact we insist) that you speak to our coaches and our clients. Only then will you be able to determine what a company and its people is really like.

So if the information is not true, why don’t you defend yourself in the blogs or forums?

In some instances we do, albeit not publicly.

To understand why we choose not to – you might want to read our 14 Points of Culture – especially our Communication point to understand why.

Business coaching and the essence of our company is about growth, forward thinking and positivity. What is truly unique about our business is our culture and the people. We have a belief that action truly speaks louder than words. So rather than spend time on the fruitless endeavor of convincing anonymous haters and cyber-bullies – we created a forum for people to ask questions of our Founder, Brad Sugars directly. We have regular webinars with our coaches so people can find out direct. You can even find many of us on Social Media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn including executives.

Our CEOs will speak direct to any person interested in becoming a coach or being coached who may have concerns. Unlike the anonymous posters – we are not hiding. We figured if intelligent and genuine people were truly concerned with anything they read online – they would ask us and our team so they can come up with their own opinion.

Just Because Google Suggests It Doesn’t Mean It’s True- 12 Examples

When you begin typing a phrase into Google, the suggest feature may offer some that are downright funny.

Here are 12 real examples of Google suggestions, which should make it clear that just because Google suggests it, that doesn’t mean it’s true.

1

Google might be making us stupid (many of us have lost our research skills thanks to it) but one things I know for sure is that Google is not God.

By the way, it’s not a number either.

2

“I am extremely terrified of Chinese people” is one of the five most popular suggestions. At least the phrase makes sense grammatically. Three of these five responses don’t.

Must be an “I am error.”

3

While I don’t pretend to be a theologian or know the bible inside and out, I’m pretty sure Jesus can’t fly, nor has he ever used a microwave to heat up a burrito.

4

Yes, we Aussies are many things, but can’t any positive adjectives pop up in this search? Okay, we are hot, but bad losers!?

5

“What kind of bike did you get for your birthday, Johnny?”
“I got the new Barack Obama 1500 series.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s better than my old bike, but I don’t know if it’s as cool as the Barack Obama Cactus I got last year.”

6

I’m confused… which one is it, alive, dead, not dead or still alive?

Google, you’re supposed to make my life easier but I feel myself getting stupider!

(Oh wait, that’s a different search)

7

I thought an apple a day kept the doctor away, but now I learn an Apple is overrated.

Or maybe they aren’t talking about the fruit!

8

I think I first learned about people that like to tape their thumb to their hand on a television show about strange addictions.

9

So there are only four more important questions we should be asking Google than “why are flamingos pink?”

I’ll be honest, I don’t care why they’re pink, but all of a sudden I’m curious as to why manhole covers are round.

10

Huh? What does this mean? Is it like playing “Dark Side of the Moon” backwards? I’m a bit scared.

11

If a tree falls on a woman in a trailer at lunch period in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

12

Blogging can be stupid, but it’s not for dorks, unless you’re writing a blog about dorks themselves. And Blogging is certainly not dead or dying. It’s a vitally important tool to use when growing your business.

You Are the Chips You Eat

Building the business you want comes down to finding your perfect customers and to find the perfect customers, you have to target your marketing correctly.

It’s kind of like potato chips.

No matter where you are or what you call them, people like potato chips, as they are called in America, or crisps as they are called in other parts of the world.

While people from virtually every culture love the crisp, salty treats, that’s where the similarities end. If you travel the world, you’ll notice how the popularity of flavors vary, depending on the nation.

For instance, squid flavored chips that are popular in Japan would be a very hard sell in the United States, while the ever-popular sour cream and onion variety favored in The States probably wouldn’t have the same affect on Spaniards who prefer ham-flavored chips.

The fact that everyone likes chips, but each culture, and even in some cases, each region of the same countries prefer and buy different flavors, is a pretty interesting scenario when you look at it through the scope of marketing.

One of the basic principles of good business is sell what people want to buy.

After all, I know very few Americans that are looking for those Mint Laccha chips that are so popular in India.

Targeting the correct audience with an offer they are interested in means you’re well on your way to developing a customer base that is a powerful resource for your business.

When you look at marketing critically, you see that many businesses produce marketing that is akin to selling Spicy Rice Cake chips in Texas or Marmite-flavored chips in Thailand.

In other words, their offer isn’t matching their target.

If the market isn’t selling what you’re buying, it could be you don’t understand the flavor your local market craves and you have to take the time to learn.

Start by writing down who your ideal customer is, what they do, where they live, why they will buy from you and any other factor that makes them your theoretical ideal. From there, develop offers in your marketing that match their tastes.