Jackie says: I am delighted to have Kristen Wilson, owner of A Visual Business, as my guest blogger this week. One of the things that impresses me about Kristen is how well she communicates business issues. I’m sure you’ll agree!
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When looking at your business, there is really so much you need to think about, plan, prepare for and do that it’s so hard to remember to do it all let alone the time to it. Now that my business has been running for 3 years, I wonder how I did it all and managed to stay above water, but I think these 7 things have helped. Keep in mind, it’s not about just doing them once but to be sure you do them consistently. So here I want to share those 7 things with you and why these are essential.
Here are those 7 tasks.
Some of these tasks overlap a little but I didn’t want to bulk them together because each may start for you at a different stage in your business but they are ever so necessary. I understand that when starting a business, you can’t have everything all at one time, but you need to find a way to institute these somewhere in the beginning stages of your business.
I originally tried to put them in order but argued with myself repeatedly (yes, I do that often), so determine for yourself which is most important to do first — but I strongly encourage you to place a high value on all of these.
1. Website
When people hear about you, they are likely to do their research by going to your information resource, your website, so don’t skimp on your website with regards to who you are, what you offer and why you are different.
Think of your website as your online business card, providing information to people who know you, heard of you or found you online. You are providing them information about your services and products and additional value to them in the form of your regular blogs.
This is why it might also be a good idea to look into the little things when creating your website, like the title tags you use for your website. Navigation is such an important part of any website. You want to make sure anyone who comes across your site can get around to all the pages with ease.
If you are lucky, they already know how to find your website; if not, you are relying on search engines to help them find your website or for new people to discover you. Once your site is up and running, the use of keywords and tags will require search engine optimization.
2. SEO – maintenance
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a means to help you get found. The way you can have a more optimized website is by having keyword-rich content, and plenty of it; keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions; internal and externals links; and by naming and tagging your images, for starters. If you’re not sure whether or not your website is optimized to its full potential in this sense, you can use an SEO Checker to make sure. The higher up on search engine results pages you are, the more successful you’ll be in building your brand awareness.
It isn’t enough to have a website. You need to optimize it for your consumers, making it pretty (read: readable and user friendly), and for the search engines. If your website doesn’t have a lot of content, chances are you won’t get found by search engines, which also means that you won’t show up in search engine results pages for your products/services and/or industry specific keywords. Blogs are a great way to provide this. 
3. Blogging
Blogs are a way for you to give additional value to your consumers, and to educate them further about your products or services. It’s a great way to tell a story or share one part of a service or product you offer but in a more detailed way.
Blogs are also an easy way to put more content on your website, which is necessary for search engine optimization. The search engines will have an easier time finding your website when it contains more content explaining what your website is about. You want the search engines to find you so they can cache (store) your information and have it ready to provide your website to consumers when they search for your product/services on their search engine.
Lastly, blogs give you something to share in social media that drives consumers back to your website and speaks to the experience and knowledge you have about your products/services. Sure, you can share industry stuff from other sources on social media, but it’s nice to have your own content to share on social media.
4. Social media
Social media is a great way to begin to build and engage in relationships that you have online and in real life. You can reach a much bigger audience all at the same time on social media. Where else can you reach all of your fans and followers all at once, other than email marketing?
Social media is a great sounding board to provide value to your consumers, to help them understand your business, to find out their pains about your industry and to be there to help solve those pains. Keep in mind that many social media platforms have altered their algorithms so reduce the number of eyeballs that reach your content organically. It’s all about “pay to play” these days.
5. Email marketing
While your website provides the information and houses your value (products, services and blogs) and your social media shares that value and directs traffic back to your website, your email marketing list is gold.
You hope folks can find your website or remember your web address. You hope that your target market is online and looking when your social media posts appear in their timeline, IF they follow you.
The great thing about email marketing is that there is no hoping involved. Your regular emails show up IN your target market’s email inbox. You can’t get any closer to them short of having a personal conversation.
So, start now to build your email list by collecting their info on your website and in social media. Entice them to join by giving them something they need, like a discount, free product or download of tips.
6. Mentor/coach
Had you not known any of this, a business coach is your go-to for what to do, how to do it and leading you down the path to do these things — and the following up with these goals and making you accountable.
Sure, having a group of family or friends helping you along the way is great, too, but they don’t always have a vested interest or may have their own agenda for you. The cool thing about having a mentor or business coach is you set the path by making clear what your goals are and the two of you setting mini goals to get to that main goal.
Coaches are accountability partners who, if you have the right one, will tell you like it is. Sure, they don’t want to hurt your feelings, but they don’t have to live with you or love you and that’s why it’s best to have someone on the outside to be your accountability partner.
7. Analyze – rinse and repeat
Not everything we do is right or the right way. Not everything we do goes well and stays that way forever. Everything needs to be reviewed to see how it can be improved and done better. Sure, you may have found the best way to do X, but after a period of time, new ways can be discovered, new technology is developed or improvements to the process can be made.
So, always be evaluating your goals, your processes and everything you can in life and in business. By the way, coaches are great for this, too.
Bottom line
I hope that you understand the value of the above 7 essentials and have already embarked on getting them done, or have them started/going, for you and your business. Let me know if you have any questions or where you are at in this process in the comments below.
I am a guest blogger on Key Dynamic’s website, of which Jackie Harder is a super life and business coach, should you need anything additional there, please do let her know.
Should you have any questions about search engine optimization or other marketing needs, please don’t hesitate to contact me or head over to my website – A Visual Business.
~Kristen