Jun

27

Strategic Planning - Why it Works

Filed Under search engine marketing strategy | Leave a Comment

Something I notice all the time when I work with business owners is that they often don’t set aside enough strategic time because they’re too busy with day-to-day operations. Businesses should be engaging in creative planning on a regular basis to ensure survival and success.

I always encourage my clients to schedule time in their calendars for brainstorming or idea generation. These are not problem-solving sessions, or a time to address issues that have already presented themselves. This is specific time for fresh and innovative thinking about directions for the business.

I’ve said before that four is an ideal number for brainstorming. The power of four is one of those natural dynamics of synergies in teams that has a powerful affect on their effectiveness. In brainstorming and strategizing, it’s harder when one person tries to do it alone. With two people, you develop velocity in the communication. The addition of a third person adds mass. With a fourth person, you add volume.

If you already set aside strategic time every week, good for you. If you are like most, however, spending time contemplating the “big picture” each week might take some extra motivation, but they are well worth your time. Too often, business owners forget why they started their business in the first place, and where they see it going in the future.

Here are a few “big picture” questions to ask yourself:

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Business Purpose – what was your original purpose for building your business and how have things changed since you began. How do you plan on accomplishing what you set out to do?

Organization Goals – how do you see your business evolving? Have these goals been clearly communicated to your employees? Which industries does your organization currently serve and where might your reach be expanded in the future?

Strategies for Attaining Goals – which methods will you use to reach your targets? This part of your planning may change frequently.

Action Plans – state specific objectives for your company. These don’t need to be set in stone, but should be thought through with care.

Remember: Strategic planning is not only for large corporations that can afford the time and personnel to develop a sound plan; it is a matter of long-term survival for small businesses.

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A couple other thoughts on this from around the interweb…

 Companies Without Strategies Are Heading For Tragedies - Executives always have the excuse for not doing strategic planning. They reckon that things are changing so rapidly. It does not make sense to do ten or even five year planning as events will change and it is not possible to preempt …

Brainstorming Tips and Techniques – 6 Colored De Bono Hats - The hats can be used even by an individual brainstorming alone. If in a group members identify which hat they are wearing so as to feel free to speak their mind without worrying about offending anyone. …

Effective Brainstorming: 7 Tips To Brainstorm Better With Your Team

Source: brainstorming

Jun

24

Why A Business Blog Is So Important To Your Search Engine Marketing Efforts

Filed Under Online Advertising, ROI, SEM, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, content optimization, drive traffic, search engine marketing strategy, small business strategy, traffic conversion, traffic optimization | Leave a Comment

By: Michael Plante

Trust me on this point, if you trust me on nothing else: You will kick yourself later for not setting up a business blog now.

Why is this?

Simply put, a blog is THE way to get your site visited by search engine spiders quickly, which in turn gets not only your blog, but your entire business site indexed very quickly.  And the more effort you put into your blog, especially in the beginning, the more results you will ultimately see in regards to traffic.  Traffic converts to customers.  Customers convert to sales. 

Blogs are by design considered “spider food”.  When used correctly, the inherent design of a blog attracts all of the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.   You absolutely cannot go wrong when starting a business blog and using it to promote your business.

The strategy here is two-fold:  Get your links to your main money pages up on your blog through anchor text linking in the “links” section of your blog. These are static links and never go away. 

The other side of this is to post actual blog entries that highlight your services, and establish more anchor text links to those services (pages on your money site).   These posts are crawled by the SE spiders, and show up as posts in the search engine index.  As you get more comfortable with posting to your blog on a regular basis, you can set up additional posts for things such as discounts, special offers, etc.  There is no limit to what you can do to increase your business traffic conversion ratios with a blog.

When people search the internet, if they are using the keywords you establish, they will come up on these posts,  and hopefully, click on them to come back to your site.

Done right,  exploring and implementing this type of strategy is sure to pay off nicely in the longterm for your business site.   The links you establish will enable you to build higher rankings in the search engines,  and over time, will increase your traffic conversion rates.

Want to find out more about this strategy?  Contact Go Article Marketing LLC today for free information on how a business blog strategy can help your business compete effectively.

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