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.

The Role of Business Coaching in the Success of Your Business

Many beginning entrepreneurs and established businesspeople underestimate the challenges of owning and operating a small business. The success of your business depends on having a sound business plan, financial know-how, a strong marketing strategy, sales acumen, management abilities, and a variety of other skills that take time to develop.

Acquiring these skills and coping with the demands of a growing business can be overwhelming. A business coach helps you at every stage of the business process to evaluate performance and provide feedback. Whether you are just formulating a business plan or looking for strategies to improve the performance of your established business, a business mentor can provide advice and specific techniques to make your business a success.

Who Needs a Business Coach?

Some business owners make the mistake of assuming a business coach is only for someone with no practical experience in the business world. In fact, any person who owns or plans to start a business can benefit from a business coach’s expertise. Even a seasoned business-person may benefit from advice about creating achievable long term goals or expanding her product into a new market. In an interview with “Fortune” magazine, Eric Schmidt, former CEO and current executive chairman of Google, said the best piece of advice he received was to find a business coach. Schmidt noted that “the coach doesn’t have to play the sport as well as you. They have to watch you and get you to be your best.” Finding a business coach is not a sign of weakness; rather, it is an acknowledgement that having an extra set of eyes on your work will enhance your business acumen and potential for success.

Isn’t ‘Business Coach’ Just Another Word for Consultant?

Corporations often hire external consultants to improve management practices, boost efficiency, analyze financial prospects, or assess market position. A business consultant offers experience in a specific area of expertise, helping your company become more efficient or creating an action plan to solve a problem. A business coach, on the other hand, works with your company at a more global level. Rather than attacking a specific problem, a business coach looks at your business as a whole and makes recommendations to optimize performance. A coach helps you build upon your business’ strengths and brainstorm ideas to address weaknesses. This holistic approach gives you a fresh perspective on your business, allowing you to maximize its potential and improve your business skills.

How Can a Business Coach Help an Entrepreneur with Limited Experience?

Approximately half of small businesses fail within the first five years, according to research from the Small Business Association. No matter how compelling your product or idea, you need a feasible business plan to achieve success. A business coach helps you develop your novel idea or product into a sustainable business plan. Your mentor will work with you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your proposed plan. For example, have you identified the target market for your business? What share of the target market do you expect to gain? How many months or years to you expect it will take for your company to turn a profit? Does your business comply with federal, state, and municipal regulations? What is the organizational structure of your business?

After coaching you through the sometimes confusing process of drafting a business plan and setting achievable goals, your business coach will remain at your side to help you make important decisions. You can consult your coach about accounting practices, advertising strategies, operational challenges, staffing and management decisions, and unexpected events. Your coach will help you stay focused on strengthening your business skills and growing your business without losing sight of your long-term goals.

How Can a Business Coach Help My Established Business?

Whether you have an established business that has faltered because of the economic downturn or a thriving company that is expanding into new markets, a business coach can be an asset to an experienced businessperson. Because you have mastered many basic business strategies, your coach will focus on pushing you to maximize your company’s potential. Your coach may encourage you to stay motivated by setting ambitious goals for growth or coming up with new ideas to enhance your product. In addition to assessing your areas of strength, your coach may identify areas in which your business does not run efficiently or could use additional personnel to improve performance. By acting as a second set of eyes on your work, your mentor can ensure that you make sound business choices and make steady progress toward your goals. A good coach also looks out for your personal well-being by keeping you focused on work/life balance when the stresses of your job become overwhelming.

Business Coaching As A Long-Term Investment

When you are anxiously waiting for your business to turn a profit or eyeing your accounts, the temptation to pinch pennies may set in. Some business owners consider business coaching a luxury that they cannot afford. By failing to take advantage of a business coach’s services, you may miss a valuable opportunity to invest in your own success. Rather than viewing your business coach as an unnecessary expense, think of him as an investment that will continue to generate dividends for years to come. By spending money up front for the expertise of a business coach, you may prevent costly errors and find ways to maximize the growth of your business. Hiring a strong business coach results in a mutually beneficial relationship that allows you to achieve your goals and ensures the success of your small business.

Another CEO Blog?

Right!

So … you may not know me right now, but I’m hoping over the next weeks, months (and years!) we’ll start to develop a rapport about business, women in leadership, franchising and business coaching – the latter being the business I’ve promoted, strategically planned and led for the past five years.

I’m a huge fan and proponent of online media, web marketing, business and personal blogs and the like, so this seems to me the ideal medium to communicate and share with others my thoughts and perspectives … in a forum outside ActionCOACH’s more conventional forms of media.

So why another CEO blog?

A few things here I suppose …

First, I’m a relatively young Australian woman heading an organization that was previously led by the person who founded the company … so I think I have a somewhat unique and interesting perspective on business, leadership and how to aspire to a leadership position – and actually get there.

Second, I lead a very unique organization that is built around a very different idea about how business does – and should – work.

These ideas have not only helped me coach our network to greater success, they also help more than 15,000 businesses every week all over the world get more profits, more time for those company owners and better team members to help build better companies.

Third, I rose to the rank of CEO from the marketing department, a path that is a bit different from someone who spent their formative years in finance or operations.

Because of this, I think I have a different perspective on how a marketing “world view” in business is actually better and more oriented toward growth for an organization than one based on finance or operations.

I also think I have some different ideas on how marketing can drive both finance and operations better than those areas can drive marketing … (but, we can have some good back and forth on that one …)!

Fourth, I believe that profit is not only the most important thing in business, but it’s the only reason to be in business … and I can say right off the bat you will not hear many CEO’s make such a blatant statement about the need and value of profit, but after “being in the trenches” of small business for a number of years, nothing is more important (yet misunderstood) than the role of profit in business.

One of the things we pride ourselves on at ActionCOACH (and the main difference between our company and a conventional consulting company) is that we focus on business growth and profit as the ONLY way to grow a company, versus cutting expenses to the bone.

You can only ever cut so many expenses before you affect performance … but once you know “how” to grow your sales and profit margins, the sky really is the limit – for any business on the planet.

Finally, I don’t only believe … but I know as an absolute fact … that small-and-medium sized business is the driving engine and force of economic growth in any economy.

This is even true in heavily regulated and highly top-down oriented economies (Mexico being one example), where small business and the profit incentive is the only factor standing between a recession and complete economic collapse.

I think this is because there are certain people in any culture or marketplace (read:  small business owners and entrepreneurs) who have an innate (or yes, even learned) need to succeed … fueled by a desire and drive to produce a profit and the aspiration to build a better lifestyle for themselves and others.

This need that is found in a few benefits many … even those who are more comfortable with stability and “security” … and who are content just to have a job or live pay check-to-pay check (either in the public or private sector).

The dividends small business pays are incalculable … not only to owners of small business but to communities and countries in terms of employment, innovation … and yes, even taxes and other benefits (even health care!).

But that’s a rant (or a topic!) for another day … or week … and just one of the many I hope to explore through this blog and interaction with you.

It’s been an incredible journey to this point … and I hope you’ll join me as I share my thoughts on a very exciting world of global small business and a future that will prove very interesting for all of us …

Jodie Shaw
ActionCOACH CEO, USA and Canada