Onward SmallBiz - Your Business Strategy Behind Web 2.0

A few months ago I was interviewed by Mark Henricks for AT&T's Onward SmallBiz publication. Today I stumbled upon the article, so I thought I would share it with you at http://tinyurl.com/5zjuug.

I've done a few phone interviews for different publications and it's interesting to see how it translates into text. Kudos to Mark for capturing the essence of what I was trying to get at. My only beef is in the formatting of the article. What's with all the ????? ?

The only thing I would flip flop on is trying to pick one thing and do it well. While I still agree with this to an extent, I'm learning now that if you're going to dive into the world of marketing your business online, it's best to jump head first into a few things at the same time. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to blog, create videos, send out emails, and update your Twitter status and Facebook page. Web 2.0 is all about applications that can be used in harmony, so why not create a video and throw it up on YouTube, post it on your blog, share it with your Facebook friends, send out an email, and tweet about it?

You just have to be willing to hustle a little bit.

Internet Marketing Tips | Solve Problems & Answer Questions

One of the biggest reasons people use the Internet is to search out information. It could just be for curiosity’s sake, but most of the time people search for a solution to an existing problem or an answer to an existing question.

That’s where your focus needs to be if you’re a small business trying to use the Internet as a marketing tool. Answering the questions and solving the problems that people are seeking out. And the way you do this is through content creation.

If you don’t want to pay directly for every visitor coming into your site, you’re going to have to give people a reason to come visit you. If you’re a business, answering the questions that customers ask you every day is a good place to start. Think of the most common questions you get in your store every day. Turn the answers into videos, articles, blog posts, or whatever you want. Spread those answers around the web and brand them with your business info. Pretty soon every time someone has a question about something that you sell, you’ll be the one providing all the answers. And when you’re the one with all the answers, chances are pretty good that people will turn to you when it’s time to buy.

Use Content to Become the Expert in Your Area

Nobody likes a know-it-all…until they have a question. The Internet is a great platform to spread your knowledge and become known as the expert in whatever area of business you’re in.

I’ve used online video to build one of our small businesses – Sprinkler Daddy, and now more and more people are coming to us when they have questions. Some people just want to find their own solutions and have no intention to buy anything from you, but others are looking to find an expert in an area and have them solve their problems for them. With all the tools available on the web, it’s easier than ever to demonstrate to people that you know what you’re doing and you should be the one they look to as the expert who can provide what they’re looking for.

LRS Consulting is a marketing consulting company in Regina, SK that helps traditional small businesses around the world use the Internet to communicate with their customers and market their products and services – whether they sell anything online or not. If your business is looking to start selling things online, just wants to use it to communicate with your customers directly and more effectively, or want help getting people to your website, visit us at www.lrsconsulting.ca, email sean[at]lrsconsulting[dot]ca or call 306-757-2677.

How To Get Traffic To Your Website - Talking About The Two Types - Organic and Paid Traffic

There’s basically two ways to get traffic to your website – organically and paid.

Paid traffic is simple to explain. You spend money advertising your site, whether it be through Google Adwords, banner ads, or traditional advertising mediums like radio, television, billboards, flyers, brochures, etc. The problem with this model is that if you don’t convert those visitors into customers, you’ll be sunk in a big hurry.

Organic traffic is traffic that comes from any unpaid source. The most common form of organic traffic comes from the search engines, and more specifically Google. Other organic traffic can come from anywhere online that people can click on a link that points back to your site. Some examples would include videos like this one with a link in the description or appearing on the screen of the video. Articles, blog posts, comments on other blogs, and Squidoo lenses are other ways to get links pointing back to your site. These links will help build your rankings in the search engines, but they also provide more ways for people to find your site. For example, this video is being hosted in about a dozen different places online. That means that each video I create adds another 12 ways that someone can find out about my websites online.

Remember, traffic isn’t just a number. Traffic comes from actual people sitting down at their computers and finding your website as a result of some sort of search for information. The next step is providing those people with whatever it is they were searching for in the first place.

LRS Consulting is a marketing consulting company in Regina, SK that helps traditional small businesses around the world use the Internet to communicate with their customers and market their products and services – whether they sell anything online or not. If your business is looking to start selling things online, just wants to use it to communicate with your customers directly and more effectively, or want help getting people to your website, visit us at www.lrsconsulting.ca, email sean[at]lrsconsulting[dot]ca or call 306-757-2677.