Marketing | Launch4Life

The Importance of SEO for Your Small Business

February 11, 2019 | Marketing

Pretty much everyone on the planet has heard of SEO. But, not everybody understands what SEO means, what’s involved, and how to get started. Even more critical, too many business owners don’t know the importance of SEO for promoting their products and services.

What Exactly is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is simply about driving more relevant traffic to your website. SEO involves making improvements to your website to help you achieve the best possible results in the organic search engines. The goal you’re targeting is to be listed on the first page of Google. The higher up the page you’re listed – the better.

When someone types their problem into Google, we want our website to be shown as the best solution. Unfortunately, getting to the top of the search engine results is easier said than done. After all, we’re competing with oodles of other businesses, all trying to do the same thing.

An Important Marketing Strategy

While SEO is just one part of a holistic marketing strategy, it’s very, very important. To be honest, I think it’s the most important.

When people are trying to learn something or buy a product/service, search engines are where they turn to. According to InternetLiveStats.com, “Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average, which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide.”

So, here’s the drill. Someone types what they’re looking for into Google. When the search results display, instead of clicking on the first item (which is typically an ad) most folks scroll right on past. It turns out the majority of searchers prefer the natural ranking websites listed on the first page. According to imFORZA.com, “70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.”

But here is what’s even more interesting. Apparently, the majority of Google searchers never make it beyond the first page. “75% of people don’t scroll further the first page.” (imFORMZA.com)

So what does this mean for you? Well, if your website is listed on page 2 of the search results, or worse, chances are nobody will find you.

There’s an old SEO joke:

Q: Where’s the best place to hide a dead body?

A: On the second page of Google.

Sand dunes in desert meant to look like what it's like to rank on page 2 of Google

Meanwhile… on the 2nd Page of Google.

Therefore, the higher you rank in the organic search results, the more traffic you can anticipate visiting your website. If you want people to find your website, you simply can’t afford to ignore SEO.

SEO is Cost Efficient

The good news about SEO is that it’s a cost-efficient marketing strategy. Since SEO focuses on organic search results, there’s nothing to buy. You never have to pay Google back for any search engine love they show you. Isn’t that a sweet deal!

When SEO is done correctly, it can deliver nonstop organic traffic to your website. If you were to purchase ads for that same traffic it would cost you big bucks. In addition, whenever you run ads, you quickly discover that as soon as you stop paying, you immediately lose your ranking. As you can see, buying ads is truly a “pay-to-play” marketing solution.

What’s especially appealing about SEO is that you can receive a steady stream of website visitors for years to come. Regardless of how old your website content is, if no other search result is better than yours, Google will continue to rank you at the top.

SEO Really Works

Despite how challenging SEO is, when it’s done correctly, it really does work. What’s critically important is that SEO offers a level playing field. It’s one of the few marketing strategies where the little guy can compete and win. This means you don’t have to be a major brand to grab your fair share of the market. Over and over again, we see small businesses outranking the big dogs.

SEO also has the potential to deliver consistent traffic to your website. Keep in mind, there will always be changes you’ll have to navigate. SEO is always changing because of the never-ending Google algorithm updates. However, what we need to remember is the majority of tweaks Google makes is in response to bad guys trying to game the system.

Google’s mission is to provide the user with the best search results. This means the search engine giant works hard to trip up the cheaters. Google simply wants to ensure their users find what they’re looking for. If you align your goals with Google, you’ll be just fine.

Your Competitors Are Ahead

The longer you delay getting involved in SEO, the more your competitors are getting ahead of you. They will continue to be in the lead until you decide to take the action needed to push them down in the search results.

However, you can learn a lot from competitors that are doing it right. Success leaves clues. Which means you can reverse engineer your competitor’s SEO secrets. Once you uncover the strategies they used to climb to the top of the search results, you can adopt those same techniques and take the lead. This form of competitive research is totally legitimate and fairly easy to put into practice.

SEO Increases Brand Awareness

Potential customers are more likely to know, like, and trust a business who ranks at the top of the Google search results. The higher your brand ranks, the more influence you’ll have. When people recognize your brand, you’ll have a greater chance of selling your product and/or services.

With all the competition jockeying for attention, it’s getting more difficult to be known for what you do. Therefore, you”ll gain a competitive edge when you are known for who you are. SEO is a great way for you to stand out from the crowd.

Can’t Google Just Figure It Out?

Okay, so hopefully I’ve convinced you to pay attention to this thing called SEO. But, I can already hear what you’re thinking, “Why do I have to do SEO? Can’t Google just figure it out?”

The short answer is no. Although search engines are very intelligent, they still can’t see and understand web pages the way we do. SEO is what’s needed to help search engines figure out what your web content is about and serve it up to your potential customers.

You Don’t Have to Be a Rocket Scientist

Contrary to public opinion, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to do SEO. Instead, you just need to follow tried and true SEO strategies that improve your website for both people and the Google gods. If you’re willing to invest the time to learn the skills needed – you can do this.

Now of course, I don’t want to sugarcoat this and tell you SEO is a walk in the park. I’ll be the first to admit that SEO does have a lot of moving parts, can be super confusing, and will take longer than you think to master. However, once you finally do “get it”, you will feel empowered.

The Future of SEO is Bright

SEO is not going away anytime soon. Therefore it’s not too late to get in the game. As users continue to change their search habits, Google will need to make changes. This is especially true when it comes to new technologies, like voice search. However, no matter what the future holds, the fundamentals of SEO will stand the test of time.

Learning about SEO right now will help prepare you for the future. “The best time to get in the SEO game was years ago. The second best time is now.”

Jump Right In

There are lots of ways to learn about SEO. You can read books, take courses, or get a mentor (or two). While you can learn SEO on your own like we did, you’ll soon discover there’s a lot to learn. While there’s all sorts of great information on the internet, a lot of it is conflicting. As a result, it’s easy to go into SEO overwhelm.

This is probably why so many small businesses end up outsourcing their SEO to an agency. Unfortunately, hiring an agency to run your SEO marketing can be very risky. Not all agencies are created equal. Who can you trust? What are the risks involved? How do you afford the huge fees that good quality SEO requires?

Don't Outsource Your SEO Before You Read This Ebook To help you get a leg up, the Launch4Life team has put together a free ebook called: Don’t Outsource Your SEO Before You Read this Ebook. Inside, we outline what you need to consider before turning your SEO marketing over to the “experts”.

Our mission is to help small business owners do their own SEO marketing. Instead of doing your SEO for you, we provide DIY coaching. We help small businesses tackle their own SEO in baby steps.

If you built your own business, you’ve probably got the ability to be in charge of your own SEO.

And even if you do decide to hire an agency to handle your SEO, we can teach you the basics needed to feel confident overseeing the work of anyone you decide to hire.

So check out our free ebook and start your SEO journey. Let us help you discover why SEO is important for your business.

By Gillian Whitney

Communications Consultant

Launch4Life

gillian@launch4life.com

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Countdown For Next Year’s Business Planning

November 26, 2018 | Marketing

As we end the year, I always consider Thanksgiving as the beginning of my countdown. It is my favorite holiday of the year and I traditionally host a large group of family and friends, anywhere between 10 and 18. Yikes but so wonderful. But it is also starts the clock for the end of the year. Once the turkey leftovers are eaten, no matter what business I have been in, my clock is set to create next year’s business planning.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Business Planning Strategy

This is a fast and furious time to complete any last-minute goals and create new plans for the next year.

First up

is completing sales goals or as I call it “dialing for dollars”. Finding all those last-minute sales to finish off the year with a flourish. This may be why “Black Fridays” were created.

Second

is taking thoughtful time to create new business plans for the following year. From deciding to double down on what has worked well, or trashing something and starting anew. This is the time to rethink what worked well this year and what you need to change for next year.

Taking time to create your next year’s business plan is very critical. Without it, next year’s business can be set up for failure.
You have to do a thorough review of your present year’s plan and analyze what worked, what didn’t and map against current market trends and competition.
Technology changes. Social media platforms change. New programs are available. You have to incorporate into your future plans.
As your business evolves, you may need to purchase new software, hire staff, and take other steps that will impact your growth.
Very important and often overlooked is — you need to consider if you are doing what you love. If not, what can you change so you do?

Our Strategy:

For example, with us, we see the main focus of our business in three areas. We always examine each year by these three goals. #1 passion, #2 lifestyle choice, and #3 profitability. Not necessarily in that order, but all three key components need to be evident.

#1 Passion

We love coaching our clients. Besides seeing how our advice is making a difference in their business lives, we love the interaction. We love the creativity we can bring to the table to help someone transform their business to reach and exceed their own sales goals. Sometimes it is also about streamlining their marketing, so they have more quality time for their business and personal life. So, for us, we need to examine if we are working with the right clients and making the difference that we want to make. We want it to be a passionate experience.

#2 Lifestyle Choice

Our objective is to become digital marketing nomads. So, our processes and services we offer must be compatible with the lifestyle we are striving for. This is a big one for us. Each year, we have seen our business model change as we evolve to this lifestyle we envision.

If we don’t like what we are doing. If it is not creating passion for us every day, we want to rethink it. We both like to travel and enjoy our motto of “laptop will travel”, so having a business that is portable is paramount to us.

#3 Profitability

Obviously, we need to eat and pay our airplane bills, so we must generate a certain income. We need to be sure that our services reflect the amount of time and expense we put into them. Where we can leverage courses or group sessions to offset the time we spend on personal coaching is important.

Ideas for Your Business Planning

So, if our business doesn’t support those three focuses, things have to change. Each year we make new tweaks to support our goals. With that in mind, we have decided this year that we will need to overhaul our services. We will be narrowing our focus on particular marketing strategies and to a specific audience. This requires offering specific services with a narrower people niche. We will be focused on a more process driven structured approach. This will allow us to provide support on a deeper level with those that are the right candidates for our services. It also requires adding new staff.

With that in mind, we have been strategizing and making adjustments to reflect our new goals. We are making updates to our website with a new message, creating a new lead magnet, etc. to reach our specific avatar.

If you have not thought about the pros and cons of your business and where it is going for next year, I highly suggest you do some soul searching like we did.

Take a look at your goals. Does your business support you the way you want it to?
Are you having fun?
What changes may you need to create to have a powerful successful new year.
Does your messaging need to change?
Do you need to change or add new services?
Is your website out of date?
Are you attracting the right audience?
Have you thought about how to incorporate SEO next year?
Will you need to make a financial investment in your business?
Determine what new skills and specific courses may be required.

We are on the countdown for next year’s business planning. So should you be on a countdown. We all have one month left to kick off for next year’s success. Let’s go.

If you liked this blog post we encourage you to read this related post: 13 Principles for Achieving Success in Life

By Janet Elie

Internet Marketing Specialist

Launch4Life

janet@launch4life.com

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Is Email List Building Still Relevant?

October 29, 2018 | Marketing

You may be wondering if email list building is still an effective marketing strategy to reach your target market? The short answer is yes.

In March 2018, the Radicati Group estimated the number of email accounts worldwide to be 3.8 billion. Even more interesting is the number of consumer and business emails sent per day is more than 281 billion. Wow! That sure is a lot of email.

Smart Phones Rock

No matter the age of your target market, email marketing is still the best method to stay in touch with your customers. Of particular interest, is the increase in mobile users. Of the 1 billion Gmail users, 75% of them are now using smart phones to check their email inbox.

Business professionals can no longer afford to ignore mobile email marketing. If you are not formatting your emails to look good on a smart phone, you are making a big mistake. If your email subscribers have difficulty reading your emails – they will just hit the DELETE button.

Which email would you rather read?

Always remember to check how your
font size displays on mobile.

Email Marketing vs Social Media

You may be wondering how email compares to social media? It turns out that most people consider email to be more important. While you can go a few days without checking Facebook or Twitter, most people are checking their email inbox several times a day.

Did you know recently that Google pulled the plug on Google+, a direct competitor to Facebook? As a result of a security breach, the folks at Google decided it was easier to dump the not so popular platform. For anyone who had developed a large social following, in one fell swoop they will lose a means of communicating with their audience.

This is why we always say that social media platforms are like building a house on rented land. Your access to that audience is only possible as long the platform exists.

The best feature of email marketing is that regardless of which program you use, you own your list of subscribers. You can take that list of contacts and export from one program and import it to another.

Don’t Resist the List

When we first launched our business, we did so much homework. We met with business coaches, devised a marketing plan, completed entrepreneurial courses, attended various marketing workshops and seminars, participated in countless webinars, and read a ton of books.

We learned that building an email list of all your existing and prospective customers is critical to building your business. Sounds like great advice, but who had time for that? Not us.

Instead, we focused all of our time on building the infrastructure of our business. There was so much to do when we were launching. Incorporate our business. Set up a bank account. Build a website. Set up social media platforms. Create all the products and services we planned to market.

Once we realized that resisting the list was hurting our marketing efforts, we called a major timeout. Instead of resisting the list – we embraced the list. We learned all about the different email marketing programs out there to determine which one worked best for us. While I am glad that we finally made the decision to bite the bullet and learn all about email marketing, I just wish we had started earlier.

Building your list should be at the top of your To Do list. Instead of focusing on WHAT products or services you are going to package/sell, it’s better to think about WHO you want to sell to and HOW you’ll communicate with them on a consistent basis. Set a goal to learn the basics of email marketing first and then follow up with a plan on how email marketing can work for you.

For anyone that has already launched your business, it’s imperative to know it’s never too late to build an email list. Start today, right where you are. The important thing is to just – start.

If you’d like some tips on how to build an email list, I encourage you to check out: How To Create a Killer Email List From Thin Air. In this beginner’s guide, internet marketing guru, Neil Patel, provides tips on how to build your email list from scratch.