Often when businesses take time to set a plan for their SEO and search engine marketing, they focus more on the “what” and not on the “why”. It’s tempting to utilize “what” is the latest in search engine ranking techniques and social media channels, but these are secondary to understanding “why” customers are searching for the products and services they need. Without understanding the “why”, your business can spend time and money only to miss opportunities to connect with profitable customers.

The Pareto Principle

You may be familiar with the Pareto principle, aka the 80 / 20 rule. Developed by a business-management consultant and named after an Italian economist, the principle evolved into a common business rule of thumb that basically states 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customers.

Not All Customers Are Good Customers

When it comes to profitability, the numbers can be even more skewed. Case in point, Robert S. Kaplan, a professor at Harvard Business School, released a study “A Balanced Scorecard Approach To Measure Customer Profitability”. In it, he states, “… 15 percent to 20 percent of the customers generate 100 percent (or more) if the profits. In this case, the most profitable 40 percent of customers generate 130 percent of annual profits; the middle 55 percent of customers break even, and the least profitable 5 percent of customers incur losses equal to 30 percent of annual profits.”

Market Research Makes the Difference

Customers and markets are constantly evolving. New needs or wants arise. New products, solutions and competitors enter the market. How are you staying in tune with “why” your customers make the buying decisions they do? Knowing their “why” affects everything from the products and services you choose to develop, the prices you charge, the marketing message your deliver, the marketing channels you use to reach them, and the keywords that will get you ranked when they go searching.

If you need help with your market research to improve your SEO and search engine marketing, contact me at SmallBizMedia.tv. I’m here to help.

All the Best,

Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

While there is a multitude or ways to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and market your solopreneur business on the Internet, it’s often easier to tackle and improve a select few to get results instead of struggling with many. By the time you study up on the “right” way to optimize your efforts according to the rules of the algorithms of the search engines and start implementing, they come out with a new update that makes what you’ve learned obsolete. And, of course, you’re trying to run your business all the while. Who has the time, right?

Here are 3 things you can start doing that will have a positive impact on your site’s SEO and take limited effort:

1. Enter your meta descriptions, keywords and images descriptions.
When I research competing sites for a customer and look at their meta description and keywords, I’m amazed at the number of sites that haven’t taken the time to complete this basic step. Entering in the data is simple. The same holds true for entering in keyword rich descriptions to any images you upload to your site. Doing the research to determine the best keywords and writing an impactful description take some more effort, but are still necessary.

There are tools you can use (both free and paid) to determine the number of searches performed globally and locally to help you select the most appropriate phrases for your target market. Google offers a free keyword tool. When you select your phrases consider if you will use the same phrases in pay per click (PPC) advertising. If so, depending on your marketing budget, you may want to select some keywords that get a good number of searches, but have lower ad competition so you don’t end up blowing your entire PPC budget on a few click throughs. This can also help you quickly elevate your organic links to page 1 of the major search engines quicker than the keywords that have high competition.

When selecting your keywords, think like a customer, not a salesperson. How do your ideal customers talk? What phrases are they likely to use? If you’re an affiliate offering extended auto warranties, does your market search by “extended auto warranties” or by “tired of paying for auto repair bills”?

2. Update your copy.
The search engine algorithms love updated content. Plus, if you haven’t updated your copy in a while, it is healthy to review your content to make sure that it is consistent with your current market focus and value added benefits. Besides, no one wants to come back repeatedly to a page that has the same old information. Show your market that your site is a living, breathing, leading-edge, benefits-adding resource. When you’re updating your copy, make sure you include the keywords from your research. Adding them to the backend of your site is great, but you need to include them in your copy, too.

3. Start blogging.
Blogging is one of the best, if not the best way, to add fresh content to your site on a regular basis. There are a couple of rules you should follow when doing so. First, be consistent: consistent with quality, content, keywords, and frequency. Second, ultimately your blog posts need to benefit your ideal customers first and not the search engine algorithms. If you were to write a post stuffed with keywords to try and get the attention of the search engines, you will look like a cheap trickster who doesn’t care about his customers. Plus, the search engine algorithms have gotten wise to this tactic and now penalize those who engage in it. Ultimately, you want to add value to your target market.

If you’re ready to write, but question content and frequency, here are some basic rules. Blog at least once a week. If you can blog every day, even better. You can keep your blog posts between 300 to 700 words. Set up a Google Gmail account if you don’t have one already and set your Alerts in your Settings so you have articles and other content of interest forwarded by Google to your Gmail. Then simply take the content as inspiration and re-write it in your own words.

If you don’t feel comfortable expressing your inner author, or if you simply don’t have the time as a solopreneur, you have some options. You can hire a copywriter, hire a SEO / SEM company that offers blog posts as part of their service, purchase private label rights (PLR) articles for your industry and make some minor modifications to include your own spin and call to action, or record videos and add in some description to the copy of the post with some keyword content. Some people will even write a transcript of their videos within the body of their email post.

All the Best,

Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

Running a solopreneur business takes a significant investment of time (and, in some cases, money). And since your time is precious, you need to invest it wisely. If you were to take an honest assessment of your weekly activities, how much time do you spend on research? If you’re like most solopreneurs, your answer is probably, “Not much.”

Research doesn’t rank high on the sexy scale as compared to profit. However, without research, don’t expect a strong ROI on your advance of time and money. All business is a gamble. However, with the proper research, you can minimize your risk, maximize your opportunities for profits, and expedite your success.

By performing your research and analyzing the data, you will have a clearer picture of the lay of the land before you journey forth in pursuit of profits. How can performing market research and reviewing the data benefit your business? Let me answer this question with a few more questions.

Who are your ideal customers … those who you don’t have to hard sell, just simply put your offer in front of them and they can’t wait to buy?

Where do you need to market your business to access the biggest pool of prospects?

What language do you need to use in your marketing to get their attention and get them to take action quickly?

What products and services do you need to create or how do you need modify your current offerings to increase your revenues and your net profit?

How can you get your current customers to buy more, more frequently, and buy more profitable products and services?

Who are your primary competitors and why would your ideal customers choose your offerings over theirs?

Who are potential joint venture partners and other market influencers whom you can connect with to increase your business quicker than operating as a solopreneur?

You spent a significant amount of money and / or time on your marketing campaigns. How are they performing? Why did they work? Why didn’t they work? How should you modify them to increase your results?

Just think of what your business would look like if you had accurate, detailed answers to all of these questions. Running a solopreneur business is like being on a treasure hunt … every day. Imagine if you had the treasure map just how quickly you could find the gold and get on with hunting other treasure.

What’s more, once you have these answers, your marketing research and analysis efforts aren’t over. You need to perform it at regular intervals on an ongoing basis. Markets change. Customer habits and opinions change. Marketing opportunities change. Just look at the explosion of social networks. New competitors enter the market. Current competitors change their marketing message and offerings. The questions to the test change and so do the answers. Without performing your market research, you can make educated decisions on out-dated information leading you to steer your business off course. Confusion, frustration, and a lack of motivation start to set in.

So if you don’t want to take the slow, wandering, profit-depleting approach of hoping to find your market’s sweet spot, contact me. Research is one of my specialties.

All the Best,

Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

Sounds like a bold title, doesn’t it? Is this just catchy copy or is it truly possible that there are just seven essential actions solopreneurs master for breakthrough success?


The truth is many of these top small business pros worked very hard to get where they are today. Their success didn’t happen overnight. The honest ones will tell you that they struggled and made mistakes along the way. Some big mistakes. Costly mistakes. I sure have. More than once … and in multiple industries.


These are all talented people that have the entrepreneurial DNA, but before they achieved their breakthrough success, they had certain patterns or habits that kept them just on the other side of success. They fought through frustration, confusion, procrastination, small results and some degree of self-doubt … all at a cost of tremendous effort, personal pride, loss of money and cashing in a few favors with the people that supported them most.


Does this sound like your current situation?


If so, we want to help you.


My Small Biz Break partner, Maria, and I are hosting a live webinar on Tuesday March 1^st at 2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST titled, “Discover the 7 Essentials for Going from Cruise Control to Crushing It in Your Business”. In this no-cost webinar, we’ll talk about the seven key actions that successful entrepreneurs mastered for breakthrough success.


You’ll discover the primary secrets of:

1. How to change your thinking to achieve bigger results

2. How to avoid procrastination, a lack of confidence and burn out while keeping focused on specific actions to achieve your desired success

3. How to attract more of the right customers

4. How to avoid multiple false starts

5. How to replace your busy work with results producing action

6. How to rally others to your cause to achieve greater success faster

… and …

7. How you can capitalize on your current achievements for greater future success


We don’t believe in taking up your time with fluff and only talking about theories. We are committed to introducing you to new ideas so you can see new possibilities. We will discuss why they’re important and we back that with practical, how-to steps so you can start taking action right away.


The first action you need to take is to register for this event. At the bottom of our Small Biz Break Events page, you will see a registration form. When you sign in your name and email address, not only will you reserve one of the limited spots to:


1. Our live 60-minute free webinar on Tuesday, March 1^st

… but for a limited number of take-action entrepreneurs who register early, we will give a complementary bonus  …

2. A one-on-one 30-minute private strategy session. We are only offering this for a limited number of people, so take action now before the other action-oriented entrepreneurs beat you to it!


We’re excited to get the opportunity to help your business reach its full potential!


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide

I’m bringing back up this post that I wrote roughly a year and a half ago. It isn’t laziness. I’m reposting the message here because in helping out solopreneurs lately, I’ve noticed that many who are in the startup phase or launching a new product have their PR strategy backwards.
 
For a frame of reference , when I wrote this original post, it was September 2009. And now, on with the post …


Let’s see, the calendar says that today is the 12^th of September which means …… that’s right, were about two weeks away from retailers putting the marketing and PR (press release) push on their holiday specials. And by holidays, I mean Christmas.


I have to admit it drives me nuts to see the Christmas banners up before the end of October. Not that I have anything against Christmas; I just like to enjoy my holidays one at a time. Forget Halloween, and although meaningful in intent, Thanksgiving, usually doesn’t give the shops much to be thankful for. And if your are of a different religious persuasion, the retailers lump in your holy celebration to cash in on Christmas.


I understand why they do it. And you need to learn from this annual strategy. The big day in the retail world as we all know is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. As a matter of fact, Google shared some recent statistics regarding holiday shopping:

• 44% of shoppers have already started their holiday shopping and researching

• Over a third of recent polled respondents said they have already begun making holiday purchases

So what does this have to do with teaching you about planning out your PR campaign? Most businesses that I’ve worked with and consulted send out press release and began their marketing blitz AFTER they release a new product or service.


This puts them way behind the game. Why? Can you imagine if Best Buy, Macy’s, Kohl’s, or Toys “R” Us, waited until Black Friday to first announce the special deals that they have that day?


Consumers, by that time, have either spent a portion of their holiday budget and are waiting at 4:00 AM in front of one their competitor’s shops ready for the running of the bulls to elbow, shove, stomp and kick their way to grabbing the deals that they saw in the papers weeks or months before.


So as you are preparing your next product or service, start pinging your market with PRs prior to your release date. This will give your consumer base the opportunity to send in their questions giving you excellent feedback for fine-tuning your finished product, take pre-orders if possible, spread the word to others that they know may be interested in your product, and allow your customers to allocate their cash for buying your product instead of purchasing an alternative from a competitor.


A key component in sending out your PRs prior to your actual release date is that you need to make sure that you stick to your release date. Black Friday is a firm day. If the retailers advertise ahead of time that they are going to run specials that day, they had better be ready with plenty of their advertised discounted inventory or face extreme negative backlash.


Yes, KFC survived when they had Oprah hand out millions of meal deal coupons for their new grilled chicken, but most locations couldn’t keep up with demand – so they had to hand out coupons to come back at a later date. But, they’re KFC. If they anger 10% of their customer base – although significant in numbers, they can still survive. As a solopreneur, if you lose 10% of your customer base, it could have devastating effects.


So the next time that you are planning a new product or service, keep these key points in mind:

1. Send out your PRs prior to your release date
2. Allow customers to ask questions helping you fine-tune your final revision
3. Word of mouth is still the #1 form of advertising – the sooner your customer base knows, the sooner they can start spreading the word, helping to build your demand
4. Take pre-orders where possible – it can help fund your development phase – or at least have them hold off from buying a competing product
5. Stick to your release date

Sending out your PRs once you have your product or service ready to sell puts you way behind the game. Get the word out ahead of time so you can start taking orders on Day 1.


All the Best,


Doug Dolan
The Solopreneur’s Guide