How to cure keyword cannibalization and rank higher in Google
You’ve probably learned by experience that if you “spread yourself too thin” you become inefficient and ineffective. The same thing is true with keywords. If you are actively involved in content marketing and create blog posts on a regular schedule, you may find yourself going back to the same keyword over and over again. If you do this, you run the risk of spreading your “authority” on that keyword too thin. You will end up with a lot of pages that rank low on search engines rather than one page that ranks very high. Every time you post a new piece of content using the same keyword, you cannibalize the authority of that keyword on previously published posts. If you’re muttering “Uh-oh!” right now because you realize that you have inadvertently created this situation, don’t worry: it can be fixed. And, I’ll show you a way to fix it that will have added benefits beyond just improving your ability to rank higher in search results. This is one search engine optimization (SEO) tip that’s easy and everyone should do. The power of long-form content Let’s take a bicycle shop as an example. We’ll call our shop Wally’s Wheels. Wally’s Wheels has a blog that has been posting useful articles on how to get a mountain bike ready for competition. Wally has written about the best bikes for competitive mountain biking, the best accessories for competitive mountain biking, and the best ways to set up your bike for competitive mountain biking. He’s been writing 500-word articles around the keyword “competitive mountain biking” for the last couple of years and now has more than a dozen of these. Unfortunately, no single article ranks very high in search results. What should he do? Wally needs to take those articles and combine them into one article that might be as long as 5,000 words. He then needs to create easy navigation to that long and informative article. He’ll probably want to have it on the top level of his homepage navigation bar. Hub and spoke strategy From within that article, he can link out to other related keyword articles on his website. This is a “hub and spoke” strategy. You use a fairly general keyword for the hub and you link out to articles built around longer tailed keywords. Jimmy Daly has a succinct article on the topic over on his website. Further, once you’ve created this in-depth article, you can use it in other ways. Create a PDF with the content and use it as a free download. You can offer this free download from within the article itself – as in: For a PDF version of this article click here! – and you can also use it separately in pop ups and social media offers. In each case you exchange the free download for an email-list signup to help get your email marketing program running in high gear. Does this SEO strategy sound like it can give your keyword content marketing a shot in the arm? I think many small business owners will be able to use this. It doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s one of those projects where the end result is actually greater than the sum of each piece. There aren’t too many of those opportunities...
read more7 excellent branding opportunities you have right now
What do Wrigley Field, Trump Steaks, and NASCAR vehicles and drivers have in common? They are all examples of opportunity branding. The ballpark where the Chicago Cubs play got the name Wrigley Field way back in 1926 to honor the team’s owner, William Wrigley Jr. The fact that Wrigley also made the popular chewing gum elevated the ballpark to a powerful piece of outdoor opportunity branding. (I’m using the word “opportunity” in its most simple meaning here: Wrigley had the opportunity to name the ballpark and he took it.) Donald Trump had the opportunity to feature his steaks during a post-primary election press conference and he took it. And, NASCAR drivers and vehicles present many opportunities to sew on logos, glue on decals, and paint the names of brands. The lesson is that you should be as opportunistic as these people: Use every opportunity you have to feature your logo, your name, your social media, your phone number, or your website. Here are some common places you can put your brand today: Graphics. If you use graphics in your social media or content marketing – and you should – be sure that everything you publish is branded. Look at the art that accompanies this article, you’ll see a version of my brand. When this gets posted on Facebook and Twitter, that branding goes along for the ride. Packaging. Bags and shipping boxes should feature your brand and perhaps even contact information. Every package you receive from Amazon is an example of this strategy. If you can’t afford right now to print up new packaging or bags, get some nice rubber stamps made, grab a colorful inkpad and go to work. Email. Your logo and social media links should be included in every piece of email you send. A friend of mine was out with a real estate agent the other day and they were talking about social media. The realtor pulled up one of his emails, clicked on his Twitter handle, and told him, “You have one more Twitter follower.” Presentation materials. Whether you’re creating a PowerPoint presentation or pulling together a folder to promote your business, get your branding on everything. Further, for items such as PowerPoint presentations, make a template so everyone on your team can create good-looking slides with your brand. I would also include business cards, stationary, and any printed materials in this group. Drake Baer and Skye Gould have a great article over on Business Insider that breaks down business card design according to the main thing you want to accomplish with your card. Vehicles. If you have company vehicles, consider a “wrap” or sign painted on your door. The Outdoor Advertising Association of America says that a wrapped vehicle can create as many as 30,000 to 70,000 impressions a day. Clothing. If I say “khakis and a blue shirt,” what am I talking about? The ubiquitous “uniform” at Best Buy. Establishing a consistent look in your team is often a good idea and it can become an element in your brand identity. Giveaways. Other small items should feature your branding and contact information. If you’re B2B and you serve coffee to your clients, make sure it’s in a regular or travel mug with your logo on it. Promotional items can be used wisely...
read moreMake Entrepreneurship Day more than a note on your calendar
November is Entrepreneurship Month, the third Tuesday of the month is Entrepreneurship Day, and Entrepreneurship Day caps off Global Entrepreneurship week. It’s a slightly odd situation: Although a day, a week, and a month are dedicated to entrepreneurship, actual business starts are down, and they have been trending down for many years. In fact, closures are more numerous than openings in the U.S. today. That is not the path we want to be on if we honestly desire to boost middle-class income and give our fellow Americans a path out of poverty. Use Entrepreneurship Day to evaluate your relationship to entrepreneurship and take action: If you’re a business owner feeling the pressures of your position, remind yourself why you decided to start your business and renew your commitment to your vision. If you need some inspiration, grab a biography of a successful entrepreneur. If you’re successful, look for an entrepreneur you can help, either through angel funding, advice, or better yet: both. If you’re established and growing, start an internship program and show young men and women that they can make their dreams a reality. If you’re a local business owner, bring together other business owners in your community and find ways you can cooperate to make all of your businesses stronger. The media love to publicize problems businesses have. When the economy goes south, we hear about the closures. When a business has an accident or mishap of some kind, the local TV crews are there reporting on it. Whenever a business is featured in a Hollywood movie, it is virtually always in a negative light. When you add all of those things up, we shouldn’t be surprised that business openings are down. Take this day, this week and this month and let your community know that being in business is a good thing. You provide jobs. You provide stability. You pump money into the community. You provide benefits. You support local charities and youth...
read moreTake our quiz if you dare: Measure your knowledge and commitment
Ready to take a stab at a few questions? Try these: When did crowdfunding start to get popular for business startups and expansions? How long have marketers been working with live video streaming? When was Pinterest started? When did Facebook start reaching out to small business owners for advertising? When did Google start publishing local guides? The answer to all of these questions is the same: Not that long ago! No matter what kind of business you have, I am certain that a few of the topics I addressed in those questions are relevant to your business. There’s one thing I want you to understand from this little exercise: As a small business owner, you can’t stop learning and evolving. Let me share a little life lesson that I believe applies to your leadership in business. I’ve watched people as they hit their retirement years. Some of them keep up with the changes in society, such as new technologies, and some don’t. The retirees who refuse to learn the new ways of doing things eventually get to a place where they can’t accomplish what they need to do in order to live. To the rest of the world, these people slowly become “incompetent.” I’ll give you a quick example. It’s a little old, but it’s true. I knew a man who was successful in business. He retired to Florida after having lived his entire life in the Northeast. First, things were quite different in Florida, and it took a while to adjust. He had always made his bank deposits by going inside the branch and working with a teller. There came a time when his new branch in Florida essentially closed and he was forced to bank via an ATM. It was completely foreign to him. He was always a person-to-person guy and had a very difficult time adjusting to the change. Although he had an ATM card for years, he never used it for banking. This simple thing confused him and made him seem a little “out of it” to those around him. The same thing can happen in business. If you don’t keep up with developments, business will leave you behind. Because of this, I believe that perhaps the single most important quality you need as a business owner is the willingness to commit to life-long learning and evolving. There are many ways to do this. Your local SBDC always has something going on. You can follow business news and advice on the Internet. You can bring younger people onto your team and learn from them. You can grab a good business book (check out this list by David Burkus) and read a chapter every night. The means isn’t as important as the commitment. So, as Nike says, just do...
read moreThis week in small business: Insurance, Indigenous entrepreneurs, Instagram and more
We start off this week’s collection of curated content with – believe it or not – looking at a couple of online tools that take put convenience back into buying insurance. We also point you to some very fascinating and useful articles – including one about some Indigenous women entrepreneurs in Australia. Leadership, management, and productivity I give a detailed review of a useful new small business health insurance website in this article I wrote for UnitedHealthcare. And speaking of insurance, need help untangling the small business web of insurance coverage? This free online tool will prove to be a major help. Christine D’Mello shows how innovating your way through a small budget can lead to huge returns. Angel investor Janet Kraus explains why hearing a potential customer say “no” can lead you to making better business decisions. Wonder how women in business operated back in the early 20th century when it was even more of a man’s world? This article will give you some important insights. Just as interesting is this story on some very resourceful Indigenous women entrepreneurs in Australia. Survival isn’t easy for a small business, so these five financial survival tips could prove very useful to your future. Marketing and sales Need even more online marketing tips and advice? Check out the 10 experts mentioned in this Fox News article. Aja Frost delivers a step-by-step guide to optimizing each part of a sales email. Outlined here are the important metrics of social media that should always tracked and measured for marketing success. Is your Twitter marketing strategy stuck in 2015? Here are five features you may be lacking. Can’t get your Instagram marketing off the ground? Be inspired by the creativity of these 25 fantastic brands. That old thing called outbound marketing still works. Here’s why. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation If you’re organizing a startup or would like to work for one, this piece in Fortune offers a good perspective. Don’t want to completely ditch your day job? Here’s how you can be a part-time entrepreneur. If you understand why entrepreneurs struggle to scale their businesses, it will give you a better chance at success. The word itself – DevOps – is a little obscure. It represents “development and operations and here’s what every entrepreneur needs to know about it. Politics, government, and the economy Presidential candidates take notice (please!): Regulations are suffocating small...
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