Doing your Homework

You thought that homework stopped when you graduated from school. In the world of business, you never stop learning if you want to go as far as the road will take you. To that end, it is time to do a little homework for your content – keyword research.

Now, you don’t have to be stellar at research in order to get this done and get it done right. Keyword research is finding the words that will rank your content and your website head and shoulders above the rest. Are you ready? Let’s begin.

Conducting Keyword Research

There are a few things that you can do:

1.     Create a list of words. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What words would you input to find you? Write down as many as you can. Better yet, record them in an electronic spreadsheet for easier editing later. Choose single words and multiple word phrases.

2.     Ask your customers. You already have some customers. Survey them to find out how they found you. If it was through an Internet search ask what words they used. It seems too easy, but most business owners overlook such a resource because they don’t ask the right questions.

3.     Use keyword software tools. These tools can be very helpful once you have your list of possible keywords. The software will let you know a variety of things about your keywords and whether they are good enough to reach your target audience.

4.     Analyze the data. From your list, whittle down to just the keywords that are likely to get you what you want. Then, rank those keywords in order of best to worst.

5.     Try out those keywords. Don’t use all of them at one time, but keep track of which ones you use and for how long. Using website management tools you can find out how much traffic and conversion (how many people used your keyword content as a means to do something – click, sign up, or buy) rates changed.

So, are you ready? You obviously already use content, but maybe it isn’t working well enough. There are always ways to make it better and keywords are one of those ways.

How do you create a successful business? Through change, that’s how. One way to make a change is by getting organized. Streamline your way to bigger profits with a little business tidying up.

Organization is not a fun thing to do, but it is necessary to keep your business ship running smoothly. Some view it as grunt work – shuffling papers, creating databases, setting up calendars. It is all the reason why some businesses fail while others succeed.

When business is riding high, there is very little time to attend to the organization of things. You say that you will get to it, but never do. There are simply not enough hours in the day. So, you manage with the organizational structure (or the lack thereof) that you have until you can do better.

Even if you aren’t organized now and are going through a high in your business and can’t find the time to get that way, don’t give up. You can still put your business in tip top shape. Here’s one way. Periods of slow sales are the perfect time to get a workable organization going within your business. Think of it this way: You can find several ways to save and make money through this process. So, instead of feeling sorry for yourself or fretting about the drop in sales, get up and get moving.

Maintaining a positive attitude helps you to see this time in your business career as an opportunity. People are more cautious about buying. If they buy, there needs to be a compelling argument behind the product. Getting all your ducks in a row, so to speak, can help you meet that need.

Whatever articles you write, always have an engaging headline. Include the same keywords that you use on your website. Articles that include steps or processes catch a reader’s eye. Why? They usually include bulleted points or numbered steps which are easy to skim or read quickly. Reader’s like to get their information in as useful a format as possible.

Use keywords throughout the article. For an article of 400-500 words, a particular keyword can be mentioned about six or seven times to be effective and not considered “keyword stuffing.” For maximum effect, if you have more than one keyword you want to use, write a separate article for each.

Submit your content to popular article directories. Some people may have their favorite sites like About.com or Ezinearticles.com to find helpful information. There they can search within the site to find helpful articles. If you are there with your expertise in the form of submitted articles, they will find you. Once they have some information from you they can use and trust, the chances of them following through to your website to learn more increase.

Use your bio box. This is one of the most helpful tools for free website promotion when writing and submitting articles to directories. Here, you have a chance to tell others what you want them to know about you and your business. And, you can include links to your website here for readers to follow.

Even with audio and video showing up more and more, written content is still royalty on the Internet. Drive traffic your way by submitting quality content to popular article directories, along with those other types of content for maximum exposure.

A couple of things to always keep in mind, when using Facebook as an advertising campaign platform…

People use Facebook basically to pass the time. It’s where they hang out between appointments; when there’s nothing to do; when they’re bored, depressed or just not in the mood for work; or when they need a little online “reward”, after completing a ton of homework or a boring project. As a result, if you do create an ad for popular escapist or entertainment categories, you’re right on the money with Facebook user interest level, and you may get a lot of clicks. But, as always, there’s no guarantee that your ROI (return on investment) is going to be worth the money you invested in the ad. Only a trial run and testing will tell.

The Most Important Element

When people are wandering around Facebook, they don’t really want to leave it to visit yours – and not all of them know about right-clicking to open your ad in a new tab. Consider sending them to your specially-created, interactive Facebook page instead – that way, they’re not so likely to regard your ad as an intrusion.

But the real solution to making sure you have a winning ad campaign? Thorough market research, of course!  Find out if anyone is actually spending money in that niche. (There are a lot of specialty niches – especially within the hobby category – with high interest but almost zero spending!)  And then find out who is doing the spending.

What about you? Have you tried Facebook ads yet?

Here are a few e-books to help you get a winning Facebook ad: Facebook Ads for Entrepreneurs

In tradition of Mention Monday, here are great people to follow on Twitter:

@business_sms – Mobile Marketing popularity is increasing.

@tech_bits – For the Techie in me, it’s important to stay on top of the latest technology news.

@breatheagain-This should be self explanatory. Breathe Again is a great magazine created to inspire Women Entrepreneurs.