There are many ways to reach your audience nowadays, but what makes you think they will want to listen? If you are selling the same products or service as the next guy – why are they going to pick you? We all have the right to speak, but we need to earn the right to be heard.

There are technical aspects that you can implement, link building, keyword research and so on – but once that traffic arrives – what have you got that will make them want to sit up and take notice?

The best way to build a relationship, whereby that customer wants to buy from you and only you – is to build it prior to their arrival on your money site.

In the world of business, it’s not always about undercutting the competition or hiring the best SEO contractors, it’s more about the core of what you and your business stand for. And by this I mean your values, integrity and commitment to the cause.

We all have a fundamental right to speak, sell, do business but that doesn’t mean anyone will want to listen, buy or connect with us. We need to earn that right by the way that we conduct ourselves.

Becoming an Expert in Your Field

if you want your audience to pay attention to you, then you need to become a proven expert in your field and there are many ways that you can do this. If you are a teacher in some shape or form, then you need to get out there and get your voice heard. Create lots of good material and start to build up a reputation as the ‘go-to’ person within your niche. Always give great value and consider the needs of your customer before your own.

This same concept can be used for any business model whether it’s marketing, selling, coaching and so on. You need to give proof that you are the expert before you climb onto the plinth and start preaching.

Here are some ways that you can start to let your expertise shine through;

• Don’t just get a blog – get a blog and add really incredible content. Write for your market and give them a reason to want to read what you have to say
• Start networking within your niche. networking can be a very powerful way to start getting your name recognised within your industry
• Consider talking at a conference or hold a few workshops or demo sessions
• Start creating videos and uploading them to YouTube. Use a video aggregator like Tubemogul to dispense your videos further afield
• Create some tutorials and add them to sites like eHow.com or tutorialized.com – you don’t need to be in the field of training to do this, you could be demonstrating a product
• Write articles about your subject and submit them to the big article marketing directories. There are many to choose from, but start with ezinearticles.com and then find some more that are tailored specifically to your niche – ie. Health – this has lots of article directories aimed specifically at this niche
• Create some screencasts using Powerpoint and upload to places like screencast.com
• Take some of your articles and upload to the pdf sharing site Scribd.com
• Create a weekly podcast and post it to your blog and to iTunes

What you are effectively doing here, is dominating your niche with your expertise. So whatever media your customer prefers, they will always be able to find you, your brillaint products, services, solutions and see the passion and the expertise that you have.

Now that they have found you, don’t disapoint at the last hurdle. Look after them, reinforce the idea that they made the right decision to choose you and always, always be better educated and more informed about your customers needs that the competitor.

Now you can climb onto that plinth and smile down at your audience!

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However, that’s for another post – there is something far more worrying about what I have found when checking out some of the blogs that have been brought to my attention.

I’ve been receiving many little notes that read ‘here’s my blog…but er…..it needs updating’.

Of course that’s understandable, we’re busy people but a blog isn’t something that should be relegated to your ‘to do’ list, it should be considered a fundamental part of your business.

Times are a changing folks and we need to change with them. Our blogs need to reflect us as a person, a way for our audience to connect with us before there is even a glimmer of a chance that they may become a potential customer.

If you are writing a blog, you need to be consistent and update it on a regular basis. As I’m sure you are aware, a blog is great for getting your info up and out into the search engines and a more personable way to connect with your customers about your company, products and services.
But if someone comes across your blog and finds that the last time it was updated was three months ago – what are the chances that they will click through to read more about your business?

Will your blog reflect the kind of person they want to deal with? An outdated blog will harm your business more than no blog at all – so take five minutes today to write a few lines on your blog, and then commit to doing it each week.

Let’s sum this up with an quick list of reasons of what could happen if you dont keep your blog updated;

1. You could be missing out on potential JV opportunities
2. Google will stop ranking your blog if you don’t keep it updated with regular content
3. You are under-utilizing one of the best communication channels that you have with potential customers
4. You’ll give out the wrong impression or vibe to your audience – a bit of a ‘hit n miss’ kinda biz
5. It won’t build trust and brand loyalty

Think of your blog as the doorway to your business, if it looks messy or unkept, will anyone want to come through to the next room and make themselves comfy or will they be aprehensive about what lays on the other side?

Stuck on what to write about? Bookmark my blog or sign up to my RSS feed as I will be back with a post choc full of ideas that you can use to generate content for your blog.

In the meantime let me know, in the comments below, if there are any other blog related worries you have and we can address those too

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Staying positive and focused about your business is the first step. Imagine you had to run a marathon and you are halfway through – you’re be knackered and feeling a bit crap (unless of course, you’re Paula Radcliffe).

At this point in the race, you start to question yourself and doubt whether you’ll ever cross the finish line.

“Why the hell did I start this?”

“I must be bloody mad”

“I’m not strong enough to do this”

“I think I should just turn back or give up”

It’s just the same as your working life, especially when you are building a business from scratch. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to just give up – but once you get past that halfway mark, something happens…

You are closer to the end than the beginning and a sense of camraderie starts to build amongst your fellow ‘athletes’. They encourage you and support you to complete the race and the finish line starts to loom into view.

The feeling you get at you cross the line, compared to the feeling you’d be stuck with if you gave up, is incredible and you’ll start to flip the coin and have more cash than month!

To achieve anything in life you have to have commitment to that goal or that purpose. If you know that you are going to be a success, then focus on that thought and don’t ever waver. Self-belief is a powerful thing.

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But when you are just starting out online it’s difficult to get testimonials as people want to see them before they trust you enough to buy – but of course without buyers, there are no testimonials, so what can you do?

Before we go on, let’s address the big ‘no-no’ and that is of course ‘The Fake Testimonial’ – makes me kinda shudder just writing it…
Please don’t ever be tempted to do this, it’s utterly wrong on so many levels and your professionalism will be called into question immediately. Rather than creating a positive vibe, you will be achieving nothing but negativity and mis-trust – but I’m sure that you would never consider something so loathsome, so how does a genuine person like you get some credibility?

The easiest and fastest method is to give away some of your stuff, so if it’s a service you offer you may have to approach some potential clients and ask if you could do some work for free. If they are happy with the results you can then ask them if they would like to put something in writing. If it’s a physical product, then you can do the same (depending on what you are selling of course).

Make sure that you have open lines of communication with any customers or clients because if someone does purchase a product or service from you it’s much easier if you can contact them and do a follow up. Try and survey some of your customers, ask them if there is anything that you could be doing better or if there is something in particular that stands out to them as excellent.

There are numerous places to ask for feedback depending on whether it’s a service or physical product that you are selling. A follow up email is great because you can word it so that you are asking the customer if they were happy with the experience they had shopping with you, you could perhaps offer an incentive of a discount if they would spend 2 minutes filling out a very short survey form. At the end of the form ask them if they mind if any of their responses are used as an on site testimonial.

You could also ask for opinions on products or services via your blog – just make sure that you have the authors permission to use their words on your site before re-publishing them.

But by far the best thing you can do is create brilliant stuff and present it in a professional way. If you do that then folks will buy without a testimonial and then will be only too happy to give one after. To have have someone email you and thank you for your brilliant service without you even asking is a great indication that you are on the way to great things!

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I’m sure most of us ‘Internet Marketers’ have experienced it in some way or another. It’s why we feel such a bond with our online peers, and why we often spend too much time on Social Networks. These people online ‘get you’, they understand the language you speak, the hopes, fears and aspirations you have and they don’t collapse into fits of laughter when you mention that you sent out a ‘Tweet’. (sigh).

I actually find it quite amusing that I mentioned Twitter over a year and a half ago (how time flies) and I got that look – the picture illustrates it well – and yet now, as Twitter becomes more mainstream with celebs jumping on the bandwagon, everyone suddenly seems to be a Twitter expert. Of course the same divide still exists on Twitter, just because some of your ‘real world’ friends jumped on Twitter, it doesn’t mean they’ll understand more than 50% of your tweets, infact I prefer it when my friends don’t follow me on Twitter as it takes too long to explain what a PDF report is or why I would recommend someone reads a list of SEO tips, sheesh that’s a minefield – SEO to a non Internet person!

I Have A Gift For You

As I started to ponder the divide, I thought more and more about what it involves – this running a business online malarkey, and I decided to map it out. You’ll be surprised when you see what’s involved but mainly you should be proud! If you even accomplish a small portion of what I have included within this report, then you deserve a pat on the back – you really do!

Within this free PDF (which you can grab by clicking on the icon below) is a mind map, if you haven’t seen a mind map before, you’re in for a treat. You will need to zoom in and move your cursor around to see all of the sections as mapping the life of a Work at Home Parent is no mean feat.

You’ll also have a handy reference for a ton of sites you will be able to use throughout your entrepreneurial adventures online, it’s packed full of golden nuggets of goodness. And not only does it contain a ton of great websites and resources, it also maps out SEO and Website Optimisation in an easy to understand and logical way.

Use it wisely and don’t understimate the power of the info contained inside, I can’t reach every parent or home busines online, but between us we can get hold of a fair few, so share it with other work at home parents by clicking on the Re-Tweet button at the top of this post – I’m pretty sure they’ll thank you for it! And – please leave me a comment and tell me if I’ve missed any great sites that you use, because I can easily and add them and I will credit it you in the pdf for the information!

Wishing you every success in your online business….

Work at Home Parents Guide and Resources

Click the PDF Icon for instant access – no need to sign up for anything, it’s yours to just grab! If you’d like to be kept updated on the latest news from the blog, then subscribe to my RSS Feed and you won’t miss a thing.

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So, to give you a little background; I have developed a training course primarily aimed at Work at Home Mums. I’m not segmenting myself off, as anyone is ‘allowed’ to join, but as I am a Work at Home Mum who’s been running various online businesses for the past few years, in addition to running a networking forum for WAHMs – it seemed appropriate to address the niche that I am personally familiar with.

I know how tough it is to get a business up and running and I’ve made a point of learning the technical aspects so that I could help others.

The course is designed to show women how to really maximise their online businesses using various mediums and tools. So we cover everything from SEO to Social Media Marketing.

So What? I Hear You Cry….

Well, for you to want to follow the story along, I needed to give you a bit of background info – and that was it. I hope that you’ll have an interest in this series as we look behind the scenes of building an online business and launching it.

I’m going to take you back to the beginning over the next few posts in this series but here is a video that I have produced to set the wheels of promotion in motion.

So anyway, below you will see the first draft of the video I am using. Now, bear in mind that the 3 mins or so of video below actually took a good few hours in the making, and that is something that we Mumpreneurs often fail to take into consideration. The bloody time it takes to achieve anything!!

Just to let you know, I’m not happy with this video. The reason is the mix of the poem and the music, you see, I feel that the poem isn’t read as a ‘poem’ when there is a distraction of music, and even though I have tried to keep the background music as low as possible – I’m starting to think that the poem needs to be read by a ‘human’.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts below – after you’ve watched it. Hopefully over the next few weeks, we’ll be able to tweak it into shape between us.

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It is said that a visitor to a website makes their mind up whether to stay within 3-5 seconds of landing on your site. This is the average time – some people will decide in a second.

So below are just 5 simple ways that you can ensure you don’t lose their attention before they’ve seen how great your site is:

1. Don’t Use Splash Pages A splash page is a front page that people see before they ‘enter’ your site. Fashionable for a while, it’s long been decided that they are detrimental to you holding your viewers attention. Pretty pages with flashing images that say ‘click here to enter’ can often lead to your visitor hitting their back button. These pages also can take time to load and it’s time your visitor is often not willing to give!

2. Keep the Banner Ads to a Minimum You want to make some money from your site but even the least web savvy people have trained themselves to gloss over banner ads. Blinking flashing images splashed all over your page is a turn off to visitors. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use any – but less can sometimes be more in term of revenue.  Try recommending services via affiliate links and give great value and content, this will reward you with higher payment returns.

3. Clear Navigation Make your site as simple to navigate as you possibly can. If it looks confusing then your visitors will be unsure about entering. If they find themselves lost in an array of sections with no navigation back to the home page they will be clicking out of your site rather than reading your info.

Keep your category menus to the left, where a customer expects to find them. Make sure that your categories are clearly separated and defined to prevent the customers eyes from glazing over. Drop down menus can work very well if they are kept simple – but don’t always work so well for SEO purposes, and too many menus with sub menus or not enough menus with clear navigational links can see your site sink without a trace. Go with the KISS method – Keep It Simple Stupid – works every time!

4. Think Twice About Using Music On Your Site This will depend on what kind of site you are running and what audience you are trying to appeal to. If you were an R&B music based site then your customers would likely appreciate hearing something along those lines.If you want your visitors to stay a long time then you might want to rethink this as the same tune over and over again can become annoying.

Yes, they can turn down the volume, but it’s far easier to click to a different site. If you are using music, have clear onsite controls where they can turn it down or off and please make sure that you have permission to use whatever music you play.

5. Provide Excellent Content This should go without saying but the only way you are ever going to get a loyal following of visitors and customers is if you provide excellent content. With so many websites and blogs popping up over the Internet every, single day, it’s almost impossible to create something that isn’t already being done somewhere else in some form of another.

What you can do though, is DO IT BETTER. There may be many sites on similar topics but there are very few who are doing it really well. Give your visitors great content and value and your site will rise above the rest.

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