You've got a great website. Or great enough. If you leave it sitting on the web, will people find it?

There are more than 1 billion websites on the net and they are all fighting for attention. Does your target market know that your site is there?

Don't worry, there is actually plenty you can do to get your site out there and bring in visitors who search for your kind of products or services. It takes a bit of effort and a bit of time but generally costs nothing (unless you pay someone else to do it) and it works.

In our next two-hour training session on Wednesday 18th October, we'll work through techniques you can use to get the search engines sending you lots of lovely visitors and the right type of visitors at that. We'll look at the content on your website and at the technical stuff, to help you get started. The session is from 12.30-2.30 and costs 350kr.

Find out more here: http://www.writeindanderyd.com/getting-more-people-looking-at-your-website-seo.html

However, this isn’t the main reason we recommend blogging for small businesses. The main reason is that search engines LOVE blogs and treat them in a different way. Without a blog or news or whatever-you-want-to-call-it section - it is the technical part that matters - search engines see your website as a static brochure. Add in a blog and they pull up each and every one of your posts in the search results so you get a lot more space on the results page but also push down the competition, out of sight:

Blog posts are also the best thing to use to promote your business on social media. They work far better than writing plain old social media posts and send potential customers to your website, where they can find out more about you, your products and services and how to buy them.

• Using content marketing on social media to get clients

Wednesday 20th September - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)
Wednesday 11th October - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)
Wednesday 22nd November - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)

• Blogging for business (the how, why, where etc.)

Wednesday 13th September - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)
Wednesday 15th November - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)

• Website clinic - bring your website and questions

Wednesday 4th October - 12:30-2:30pm (2 spaces)

• Get more people looking at your site (doing Search Engine Optimisation)

Wednesday 18th October - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)

All the sessions are two hours long and cost 350kr in advance (preferably by SWISH).
For more information, click here or get in touch with us. If you want to join us but can't make the dates/times listed, let us know and we'll see what we can do.

We've had a wonderful first half of the year, training and debating with you guys about the latest and greatest marketing techniques for small businesses. We are now planning for the autumn and we would like to know - what marketing techniques do you want to know more about?

Please tell us what you would like us to run training sessions on in the autumn, either using the form here, commenting below or any other way you like. If you've taken a session or two with us, please do let us know how you thought it went. Feedback is always appreciated!

On that note, if anyone can find me a course on how to edit website code with a 2-year-old on my lap, I'll take it...

Having spent the last month running training sessions with you lovely lot, we've planned a whole lot more! You told us that you'd like a few hours working with us on your website, on email marketing, on building great collaborations and on blogging.  Someone also asked us for a session on running your own life but that is definitely 'outside our area of expertise' :)

For the topics that we do know about, we've just put together a schedule for the rest of the spring (yes, we decided that spring has actually started). Come and join us at our office in Danderyd if you would like to know lots about the following topics:

• Blogging for business (the how, why, where etc.)

Wed 10th May - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Wed 10th May - 8pm-10pm (5 spaces), Thur 18th May - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Thur 18th May - 8pm-10pm (5 spaces)

• The best method of marketing a small business - email

Thur 20th April - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Thur 20th April - 8-10pm (3 spaces), Thur 27th April - 8-10pm (4 spaces)

• Website clinic - bring your website and questions

Wed 26th April - 8-10pm (4 spaces), Thur 27th April - 12:30-2:30pm (3 spaces), Wed 3rd May - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Tue 23rd May - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Tue 23rd May - 8-10pm (4 spaces), Thur 8th June - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Thur 8th June - 8-10pm (4 spaces)

• Get more people looking at your site (doing Search Engine Optimisation)

Thur 4th May - 12:30-2:30pm (3 spaces), Thur 4th May - 8pm-10pm (2 spaces), Wed 17th May - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Wed 17th May - 8pm-10pm (5 spaces)

• Using content marketing on social media to get clients

Wed 19th April - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Wed 19th April - 8pm-10pm (3 spaces)

• Don't do it alone - develop successful collaborations

Wed 26th April - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)

All the sessions are two hours long and cost 250kr in advance (preferably by SWISH).
For more information, click here or get in touch with us. If you want to join us but can't make the dates listed, let us know and we'll see what we can do.

I had an amazing opportunity a few weeks ago to work with six small and hobby business owners on getting more clients using social media. Ahead of the next sessions that are tomorrow, I want to share with you some key ideas:

What do you think of this answer?

As a huge generalisation because, of course, all businesses are different, general marketing theory goes with the rule of seven – your message should be seen seven times before a potential customer will buy. Google apparently says this is now more like ten times because consumers use the internet to search for corroborating evidence that you and your product are as great as you say they are.

This means that your message needs to reach the SAME PERSON ten times. That every potential customer needs to see your message ten times. At least.

Whichever number you think truly fits your business and your target customers, it takes time and marketing energy to achieve that many contacts with each person.

What can you do about this?

The best way to skip a few of those contact steps is to talk to your potential clients – not AT them mind you but TO them. Pick a few and have a chat.

By starting a connection, you build a bridge between your business and your potential customer that hugely increases the likelihood that they make it through the seven, ten or even twenty contacts they need to go through to buy.

Yes, I am away that this takes time and energy. I know that, I do it for our businesses. That is how I know for sure that it works! You are in business for the long-haul, right?

How does this fit in with all the photos you are putting on Instagram, the blog posts that you are sure you are supposed to be writing, the Facebook page you have but isn’t doing a lot by itself? All of that comes under ‘content marketing’ – a very effective way of using social media BUT for it to work, you have to get people to look at your page/profile/posts…

Honestly, no, probably not. At least, not hanging out on your Facebook page waiting for you to post something. You have to go and find them.

We cover everything you need to know about ‘content marketing’ in our sessions starting next week (click here for details) – including what, how and when to post.
In the meantime, get talking. Or if you are stuck, join us at this session tomorrow!

Here is our eBook on the topic too, from our sister company, My Own Marketing Coach:

You told us that you'd like a few hours with us, working on getting clients by using social media. Repeatedly in some cases (you know who you are!). So, very happily, we are running two 2-hour sessions this coming Thursday in Danderyd.

You can expect the sessions to provide:

• an overview of the techniques and how they fit with the sales process (how people buy)
• a chance to work through the techniques on your own profiles, with your goal in mind, to get you started
• a discussion at the end to come up with actions specific to your goal that you can take next to get social media providing you with more clients

For more information, click here or get in touch with us. If you want to join us but can't make it this Thursday, let us know and we'll see what we can do.