Category Archives: Small Business

Digital Akron This Afternoon at 4:00

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dital-akron

Did you know today is Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday?

As most of you know, this is the second biggest holiday for Christians after Christmas.

Because of that I thought we might look at organizations that give back to the community. Non-profits and that sort of thing.

If you are a non-profit this month’s session is dedicated to you: for being really great to your community.

We can look at any kind of Web marketing to help you with your mission of awesomeness.

Digital Akron is the last Thursday of every month… which is today.

It’s from 4:00-5:30 pm.

We provide snacks and drinks.

Just come to:

15 Broad St.
Akron Ohio

We’d love to see you here.

You are welcome to show up. But if you would register that would be great. You can register here:

Digital Akron Monthly Event

Also, I might attempt to live stream the show on my USTREAM channel here:

Sage Lewis on USTREAM

I’ll put out a notification on Twitter if it’s going to happen here: http://www.twitter.com/sagerock

The Top 10 Things You Should Know About SEO For Your Small Business

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With any kind of luck I’ll be live streaming this session from 6:30-8:30pm Eastern time, Thursday, March 21 on Ustream.

I did! I did get to stream it!

If you didn’t make it to the Hudson Library and need an SEO refresher, you might give these videos a look:

hudson-library

I’m speaking as part of the Hudson Library speaker series they do.

This has become a very well regarded series in our region. They always have really cool people speaking.

I’ve been lucky to be part of the series 3 times now.

Tonight, I’m doing a presentation on: The top 10 things you should know about SEO for your small business.

I’m seriously considering doing a live stream of the session from my phone on my Ustream channel. The biggest issue with that is what kind of Verizon service they have there. If I can get a solid 4G signal I might just try it.

If I stream it live I’ll post the link to the live session at the top of this blog post and I’ll tweet it out.

This is a two hour session. So getting to 10 points in two hours makes for a bit of a whirlwind. But it should also make it pretty fun.

I thought I’d wet your whistle for the event by listing the top 10 of these points.

I’m pretty much just going to bullet point them here. But we’ll go into more detail of each at the event.

OK. Here you go the top 10 things your small business should know about about SEO:

  1.  SEO has never, in the history of SEO, been harder for small businesses. Google would rather rank a large brand or a big publisher. Just type in your major key phrases and see if this isn’t true for you. But there are things you can do. Read on…
  2. For your first line of key phrase research defense: Use the Google and YouTube suggested search listings. And also use Google’s Related searches at the bottom of the search results page. Like these:
    Youtube suggested search

    Youtube suggested search

    Google Suggested Search

    Google Suggested Search

    Google Related Searches

    Google Related Searches

  3. Use YouTube! This is the absolute best way to break into the search results at Google and YouTube. Google loves Youtube and still loves the small guy for video.
  4. Don’t give up on optimizing your content. Use your targeted key phrase in 3 primary places:
    * Your page title.
    * Your body content.
    * Link text (anchor text) from other pages back to the page you are optimizing.
    If you do those things you are ahead of the vast majority of people.
  5. Create content people want to talk about. Content that people share in social media, comment on and link to is going to be content that ranks well. You just have to be brilliant, that’s all :)
  6. Claim and optimize your Local Listing on Google Places for Business
    Google Places for Business

    Google Places for Business

    This is the most important thing you can do in local search.

  7. Claim and optimize your Yelp listing. These listings appear in Bing Local search results.
    Claim Your Business Listing On Yelp

    Claim Your Business Listing On Yelp

    Bing uses Yelp for its local listings. So having a good local listing at Yelp is going to help you on Bing.

8. Understand why people buy things. If you understand why they buy, you can understand what will motivate people to think you have compelling content. Read this article: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2118094/makes-people-reasons

9. Use Slideshare to get ideas for content. There’s a ton of great content over there… probably in your industry. You can use those presentations as inspiration for content for your site.

10. Write in-depth, long, thoughtful articles. Google is looking for the most relevant content. That is usually the most thorough article. “How to” articles are great. You probably will have better luck creating one great article a month versus 20 quick articles.

So there you have it: The Top 10 Things You Should Know About SEO For Your Small Business.

How Ecommerce Startups Are Marrying Content & Commerce

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I’ve been yelling about businesses needing to become publishers.

Unless you’re a big brand, it’s going to be the only way to get into Google’s organic results.

Please read this and check out the example businesses:

How Ecommerce Startups Are Marrying Content & Commerce

When Will I Learn

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when-will-I-learn

It’s now noon on Monday and I haven’t put out my blog post for the day.

And last week I made a weak attempt of trying to build a discussion around my one post on WebComm.

It’s happening again.

And it happens cycle after cycle in this business. I repeat the same thing over and over and over again.

We get busy and I start producing.

I spent the morning in a very interesting client meeting. 8am-11:00am on Monday morning.

I loved it and I think I contributed to the discussion. But that’s the problem.

I love it, people ask me to do it. I feel guilty saying no. And so I end up producing.

I get caught up in production and I stop marketing. Or I get caught up in sales and I stop marketing.

Sales and production are roads that come to an end. They are key to the overall process. But they stop growth.

Even working on closing a sale is a time when I’m not getting more people into the sales funnel.

You would think I would learn. But I repeat this time and time again.

I think it’s mostly because we get busy and I see other people getting slammed with work. If I don’t help I look like a selfish, lazy person. That’s how I imagine internal people think of me in those times of production need.

From noon until I quit working today is the end of my marketing time.

I’m teaching all day tomorrow and I’m traveling the rest of the week. Marketing will become an aside project that maybe will get done. And at best will be done with little thought (aren’t you excited to read the rest of the week’s blog posts).

This is my major fault in business. I blame all business stagnation and failings on this one aspect. I quit marketing because we get busy and I start producing. It’s the #1 mistake of our business and I repeat over and over again.

But at least I am aware of it. Every business cycle I try to deal with it. I try to make it a little better than the last time. Maybe this cycle I’ll finally figure it out. But I’m not off to a great start. That said, I’ve really focused on making blogging a major priority so I’ve built some systems to make it easier to keep up with.

I bring this up because I wonder if you know what your great weaknesses are. Do you know what is holding you back? From making your life or your business better?

If you are up for it I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

 

The Restless Tiger

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One of the benefits to heavy drinking was that I would subject myself to a regular self inflicted flu-like conditions. Hangovers are hell. I was usually out of commission the entire next day. Week after week after week.

But at least it kept me occupied.

I’m going on 10 years of not drinking. I feel so much better. I highly doubt I’ll ever go back.

The amount of kinetic energy I have these days is palpable.

I’m always looking for the next “thing.”

I have significantly more energy than I ever used to.

It makes me look for something to fill my time, to give me a buzz.

The Tire King across the street is for sale. The Seniors Helping Seniors franchise interests me. DogVacay.com is a concept I’d like to pursue.

This is the entrepreneur’s curse. I’m not the only one to feel this way. I know many entrepreneurs who feel the same way I do. Starting things gets in your blood. The new project is so compelling. Most entrepreneurs need the fix. The new business.

But the ennui, the restlessness, it weakens you. It diversifies your attention. It steals your persistence.

That becomes the serial entrepreneur’s greatest threat. Boredom.

But we know this: Everything succumbs to persistence.

Discipline and dedication are the keys to the entrepreneur’s success.

Don’t walk away. Don’t get distracted. Keep your focus.

Do what you have to do to stay in the game you’re in.

Change roles. Set high goals. Expand your market. Just don’t leave.

And if things become too unbearable figure out how you can sell. Don’t walk away until you get something for your effort.

I know it’s hard. I know you don’t want to be where you are anymore. And I know you are the kind of person that takes big, drastic actions. Just don’t walk away.

I see people do it all the time. Get something for your efforts. There are plenty of other people who don’t like the “thrill” of starting something new.

You can give them what you love and they hate.

Just don’t walk away.