by admin+ | Sep 2, 2013 | Uncategorized
WordPress, whilst initially built as a blogging platform, has become one of the most popular platforms for website Content Management systems. I am not going to share with you why WordPress in this article. That is an article for another day. The purpose of this article is to share with you 5 basic SEO tips to improve your SEO using WordPress. Download a Plugin to help manage the process of Basic SEO– WordPress Plugins make everything easier. A good WordPress plugin will simplify your SEO process and save you a lot of time. I recommend YOAST. Ensure META Tags are filled in appropriately – Google loves the META Tags. As they say “Meta tags are a great way for webmasters to provide search engines with information about their sites.” With META tags you can tell search engines what a page is about so they can rank them in search engines appropriately. Choose appropriate keywords and descriptions and you will boost your rankings. The plugin mentioned abovemakes it easy for you to update your META tags. You can do it as you are writing your posts and pages – there is no need to alter HTML code yourself Ensure an appropriate permalink structure – Permalinks, the link structure you use in the address bars is important. My personal recommendation is that you go with the structure Post Name – eg www.domainname.com/postname Ping site update services – You should share links to your articles. You should share with automatic ping services that you can default setup in WordPress. This can be done under Settings Share your content and build backlinks –...
by admin+ | Apr 14, 2013 | Sponsorship
Sporting teams or community organisations that want sponsorship need to become effective at selling. They don’t have a choice. Personally, I have seen sponsorship from both sides of the table – I have worked with committees looking at sponsorship and I’ve been involved in businesses sponsoring other organisations. This article is focussed at clubs and community groups looking at sponsorship. You need to remember that sponsorship is not a donation. Businesses that sponsor teams or community groups a return on investment. The first thing you need is the sponsor letter. Here are my tips for the sponsor letter first (as without the right sponsor letter your prospects won’t even get to reading the proposal. Ensure you have the right formatting – If your club or community group doesn’t have a letterhead you need to get one. You are suggesting a business proposition and a professional relationship – as such you need a professional appearance. Letterhead can be easily made in Microsoft Word – just put the logo in the top left corner and the contact details of your group in the top right corner. Remember, you are suggesting a formal business arrangement with a sponsorship proposal so you need to ensure that your proposal letter and document looks professional. The first paragraph should explain the purpose of the letter and proposal – Before you even get to telling your prospect about you or your organisation you need to tell them about what the letter is for and why they should keep reading. Remember, you always need to be answering the question “what’s in it for me?” Tell the prospect...
by admin+ | Feb 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
For many small business owners, their business marketing strategy is an afterthought – if there is a strategy in place at all. Marketing for these businesses is a haphazard approach at best – something that they do if they have the time between the day to day running of other aspects of their business. It shouldn’t be this way. Business marketing strategy, as a solution for driving sales, should be front and centre in all decision making processes. It should be front of mind and be considered before anything else in your business. Without a business marketing strategy you will unlikely find you get many leads and your business will struggle to thrive. Business Marketing Strategy – What to measure. Part of any business marketing strategy should be measuring and tracking results. Here are some of the things you should be measuring (at a very minimum.) No of leads generated and where they come from – Without leads, without someone interested in potentially buying your product or service, you won’t make any money. Any business marketing strategy should involve a number of different marketing channels and measuring the effectiveness of these channels. This means that your strategy should identify how many leads are generated and where they came from. You should then concentrate your efforts on those that generate you the most leads. Total qualified leads – A word of caution though. Not all leads are created equally. You need to qualify the leads that are generated and you should measure the total number of qualified leads you generate. Your business marketing strategy should also identify those marketing channels...
by admin+ | Feb 14, 2013 | Uncategorized
Network Marketing and MLM seem scary and put many people off. It’s true that MLM can have some negative connotations that arise from bad practitioners but this does not mean that all businesses cannot learn from successful Network Marketers. The best MLM networkers implement a number of lead generation techniques to successfully grow their business. they don’t rely on pressure selling to friends and family. Lead Generation Techniques that you can use starting today. Here are some of the lead generation techniques used by the successful entrepreneurs can learn from those who are excellent MLM practitioners in order to grow their own business: Create content and be an authority figure Cold-calling has lost its effectiveness as a lead generation technique. For many businesses it used to be the go to option as you could reach a number of prospects quite easily and cheaply without even leaving the office. It does still work as a lead generation technique but because it is overused now people are not as receptive to cold calling and telemarketing as they used to be. And why needs cold calling anyway? Chances are people are already looking for your product or service and you need to spend some time giving them a reason to choose you over your competitors. By creating content – whitepapers, ebooks etc – and writing articles for your local media or other authority sites you will begin to position yourself as an expert in your field. This means that your prospects will begin to trust you and, instead of selling to them, you will find that they come to you with their...
by admin+ | Jan 21, 2013 | Sponsorship
Many local sporting and community groups spend a lot of time wondering how to get sponsors. It’s an important consideration given that these groups often rely on the funding from sponsors for day to day running of their organisation. Before worrying about how to get sponsors, these groups would be better suited first learning about sponsorship. What is sponsorship? First things first, what is sponsorship not? Sponsorship is not a donation. If you are wondering how to get sponsors or how to keep sponsors this point could be a key factor. When you are worried about how to get sponsors you need to remember that you are not just looking for people to make a donation. (If you do just want donations be clear about this.) You are not just giving money to a sporting group, community group or event with the expectation of nothing in return. That is a donation. There’s nothing wrong with donating money to a sporting group or community group but this is not what sponsorship is. if you are seeking sponsors, you have to remember that a potential sponsor expects something in return. How to get sponsors may be as simple as changing your sponsorship prospectus to be more clear to potential sponsors about what they can gain from sponsoring your group. Remember to tailor your solution by explaining what is in it for them. Here are some details of what sponsorship is and what it entails. Sponsorship is an investment – When a business sponsors your group or event they are making an investment. Like all investors, when they put money in they...
