Small Business Newsletter

Welcome to the Small Business Newsletter. I hope your business is doing well. In this edition we have a tip on the importance of maintaining your website, also the term of the week is about landing pages (website).

We also have a great story from one of our customers SEIA VIC who had it’s annual conference in Ballarat.

Tip of the week!

Website maintenance: Time to clean up your site

Keeping your website and content up-to-date is important: not only do your visitors like that, but search engines do too!

So, how do you keep your website fresh and clean? Here are a few pointers:

Update or delete? Decide what you want to do with your old content;
Check and fix 404 error pages and broken links;
Fix and prevent duplicate content;
Make sure to keep your content fresh.

Marketing term of the week!

A good example of a landing page is when you have posted something on social media you can link that post to your blog page (landing page). It will bring people to your website.

You can find out more terms here…

Landing page – (Website)

A Landing page is a page on your website that a visitor can go to that has more information about what you are advertising or writing about.

A good example of a landing page is when you have posted something on social media you can link that post to your blog page (landing page). It will bring people to your website.

You can find out more terms here…

What our customers are doing

At Assertive Marketing we deal with small business all of the time. So we just thought we would show you some of the content that some of our small business clients are doing.

The Solar Energy Installers Association
of Victoria

On May 5th and 6th SEIA VIC had it’s annual conference in Ballarat. This conference was one of the first in Victoria to be held in person and not on Zoom or a webinar. This years conference theme was “Taking Care of Business” Practical Solutions to Survive in Solar.

The quality of speakers and sponsors were outstanding with industry bodies such as NECA, The CEC, Worksafe Victoria as well as Solar Victoria. There were also special training sessions conducted by Selectronic with PowerPlus Energy and DPA Solar with Victron Energy.

A lot of work went into the conference not only by the Assertive Marketing team but also the SEIA Vic committee (special thanks to Wendy Reilly).

But the real kudos goes out to the Solar Installers who take a couple days away from their business to participate and make this conference one of the better ones in Australia. Thank you for your time and involvement in our Association.

Now that this year is all done and dusted we look forward to a bigger and better conference next year.

I hope this helps you with your marketing.

Until next time

The team at Assertive Marketing

What you should be doing to get through COVID-19

We are all being affected by COVID-19. Business may be slowing down and who knows what is ahead. But here is one thing I do know! We need to be prepared for what happens at the other end. This crisis will end because we all know that Australians will get through anything that the world will throw at us. It’s just who we are. So, what you do right now will determine what happens to your business when things start getting back to normal.

Marketing during covid-19

Here’s what you should be doing.

Don’t stop your marketing Activities

If you are still running your business and are still doing some marketing do not stop it! When it’s all over the last thing you want to be doing is having to start it all up again from scratch. You have been doing a lot of hard work to get customers to notice you and be at the forefront of their purchasing minds don’t let it go!

Increase what you are doing online

If you are still putting things online this is the time to increase what you are doing. As people work from home, we have noticed that more people are posting things online. So, if your message pre-crisis was getting say 20% of the views it now will most likely go down to 10%. This is because there is simply more things being posted and are now cluttering up everyone’s feed. If you were doing say 2 posts a week you now need to increase this to one every day even more.

Hit it hard!

A lot of people think that they are annoying people by what and how much their business posts online. You are not! I repeat you are not annoying anyone! What you are doing is increasing your chances of being seen. If your friend says “gees you post too much” just take them as a friend and not a potential buyer. A potential buyer needs to see your business through the clutter of everything else. The way to get through that clutter is by relevance, consistency, and now volume.

Start some activities

If you aren’t doing any marketing, you need to start it now. I’m not talking advertising that costs too much and things may be tight. I’m talking being on social media and getting your business in front of potential customers. People need to be aware of you for when they are ready to buy.

Be seen!

By following these simple steps, you will ensure that your potential to getting noticed will increase. And you want to be in the forefront of people’s minds when they are ready to buy!

So, in summary here’s my suggestion. Increase your activity to get more business now and when the crisis is over. There is no point in being subtle and waiting for the customers to come to you and the end of it all. The more active you are the more people see your product. That means:

More posts online
More content to give your potential audience help
Start to get noticed

Good luck with all of your endeavours keep safe and let’s build Australia again!

Marketing is Changing

What is Content Marketing?

With the internet the consumer now has control. Most consumers will research a product before they will even think of contacting you. There is advertising but this becomes expensive and is short term. Now there is an intelligent way of getting your brand known and recognized for the longer term. It’s called Content Marketing. It’s a way of selling without using ads. It is more about giving valuable information to someone who would be interested.

Watch the video to understand how!

Here’s how it works.

You create videos, blogs, and other material that solves a potential customer’s problem.
Let’s say you make a product that helps someone to do organise their storage and reduce clutter. Instead of just talking about your product, your content should be about ways to help someone reduce the clutter.

In this way, someone who wants to find out how to “organise their space” will see your content online and get value from it.

Problem – Solution – Trust

What happens is when that person gets value from your content, they will start to trust your brand. It’s like you are the expert in the area and you are there to help them. Over time they will start to get more value out of your content. So, when they are ready to buy, they know who to go to. You!
They will also start to become your biggest fans and pass the word on to their friends. It works on this simple concept. People want solutions to their problems.

Start Solving Problems

So, start solving problems. That way you will gain an audience that values what you do and more importantly trusts you.

What are Keywords

Keywords are one of the most important attributes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Simply put, being found on Google. They are placed on the front and back of your web pages. So, what are keywords? They are the phrases that a website uses to give search engines such as Google information about what your page is about. Google will then match a website’s keywords with the terms and words that people are searching for.

Terms and phrases

When someone uses Google, they will enter some search terms. Google will then match them to a website that has these or similar terms. So, it is a matching process. Although this is a simplified explanation, there is so much more to SEO.

How it works

To make it simple on this webpage we have used the term “what are keywords” as this is the keywords we are optimising for. We have put this term in certain places on the page and tried not to overuse the term as Google will see through that. When someone Googles this term or words similar, if we have done all of the other things needed, we will be given a high rank on Google.

Other issues relating to keyword SEO

The link or URL of the page should have these terms in them. The information should be about the keywords. And it also helps to link this page to other pages on the website that have similar information. For example, we also have a page that talks about how to link your website pages to gain better search engine optimisation. When you read this page, you will understand more about the intricacies of SEO.

Need help being found on Google?

If you need help being found on Google just talk to us as we can help out.

How to link your website pages to gain better Search Engine Optimisation

Linking pages on your website is a great way to increase your ranking with Google and other search engines. The best way of doing this is by using the keywords used for the page as links to the connecting page. That means with every link there should be an accompanying keyword or key term. We all know about keywords on your pages and what they will do for Google search rankings. Read more about them in this article What are keywords?

Using keyword and internal links

When creating content for your website it is good to reference other pages on your website. Google loves it and will rank you higher in searches. This is simply linking relevant information to each other. So when designing the structure of your pages especially with content marketing here are things to consider.

What is your page content about

Let’s say on a web page you are writing about solving an issue (an issue related to customers in your industry) with a product of yours (the product that can solve this issue). Try the following:

Here’s how it’s done

In the first paragraph of this story, I talked about keywords and I used the line “Read more about them in this article What are keywords?.” The relating page is called “what are keywords”. The full URL or link of this page is www.assertivemarketing.com.au/what-are-keywords. The words on this page are the same as the Link “What are keywords” this has now tied the term and the page giving more value to the term. When you click on this term you will go to the other relating page about keywords. On that page, you will see a corresponding link back to this page. Thus the 2 topics are related and linked. Google will like this and rank the pages higher.

A better way to promote your business on Social Media

This is an issue that I come across all the time. Most small businesses are busy with their day to day activities and will find it hard to promote themselves.

So, I just wanted to touch on how you can promote your business in a more efficient manner.

One of the easiest ways to promote yourself is on social media.

This seems like a normal process of getting noticed it is actually part of a growing trend in the marketing industry. This trend is called Content Marketing.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. It is different from the advertising model where a business will pay for specifically written ads, Content marketing is about building an online interest from a potential customer.

However, a lot of solar businesses are simply just putting their installs online hoping for someone to notice. This is ok as at least it is doing something but there is an easier way. Here are some steps I suggest you take.

Have a plan

One of the most important elements of social media or content marketing is consistency. By having a plan to follow you can keep the consistency that is so important. In this plan answer the following:

What do you want to achieve?

More sales, better brand recognition? By answering this question, you can work out what content you will need to produce.

Who do you want to target?

Is it a commercial business or the consumer market?

What are your strengths?

What are you good at? What makes you more profitable? There is no point in getting a project where you will not make money. If you are building a business, it is better to get the jobs that work for you. Find out what they are.

What problem are you solving?

Now that you have worked out what is best for your business your target audience will become clearer. This audience must have a problem to solve. You start with a problem your customers or potential customers may face. Then you solve that problem. If you are helping them out and if you are true to what you say they will start to trust you.

The type of posts

As mentioned earlier you are now no longer posting about your installs and how great you are. You are posting about a problem you have solved. Sure, you can use the pictures and videos, but the message has changed. Something like Customer “A” wanted to solve a particular problem, you solved the problem with a product that you sell or make. They now have a better… You get the picture.

Lead them to your website

Your website is the only digital asset that you own. Social media platforms are not yours and are therefore shared by everyone even your competitors. Your post should lead the audience to find out more on your website. The story that you have written must be posted on your website. What is put on social media is a snippet, a picture and link that goes back to your website. From here you can own the customer and give them an experience that is truly yours.

Being found on Google searches

This strategy even works with website optimisation (or being found on Google). People will search for that problem, if you answer it then Google will give you a higher ranking. They will find your story (that is posted on your website) and click on it to find out more.

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