Category Archives: Blogging

More Ways To Get Traffic To Your Site

  By admin | May 14, 2012 - 8:14 pm | Blogging, Cool Tools
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Yesterday we covered five different ways to get traffic to your site.  Today here are five more ways.

Post consistently

When you post on you site consistently, it will lead to more people seeing the content that you make.  It doesn’t have to be daily, just consistently.  On one of our sites we post monthly to letting people know where we will be.  In addition you need to add information that is useful.

Current events

Don’t hesitate from posting about current events as this is what people will be searching for on a daily basis.  This information can be posted to Twitter or your blog.  Again, useful information keeps people coming back for more.

Get back links

Network with a lot of people and try to have them post links to your site to gain some traffic.  Adding information that people will want to link to adds  more traffic to your site.  In addition, add links to others site and helps them as well as you.

Offline promotion

Simply asking your friends and people you meet to visit your website is often an overlooked strategy.  This is where it’s nice to have your site on your business cards and other marketing materials.  You site is always open and available to provide information to your customers.

Include URL in signature

When you post on forums or in emails, it is a good idea to post your URL in your signature so that they will be sent to your site.

Try these quick ways to get traffic to your site and you will certainly see a big difference.  Again if you need help with any of these please contact me and I will be glad to help you get started.

To Your Success,

Deb Stowers

DKStowers.com

deb@dkstowers.com

Ways To Get Traffic To Your Site

  By admin | May 13, 2012 - 6:57 pm | Blogging, Cool Tools
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There are many different ways to get traffic to your site, and most don’t requires you to pay anything. More traffic means more people finding or forwarding your services to their friends and family.  Check out the great options to get more traffic below.

Share on Your Facebook Wall

As simple as this sounds it is a simple way to get instant traffic to your site.  It might not be lots of traffic until you get many people on your page, but it will expose folks to the things you are doing and get them to follow your activities.

Twitter Contest

If you can start a contest on Twitter this will definitely get some good attention towards your website with ReTweets.  If you are a local business offer a coupon or special offer if you come into your store to shop.   Same thing worked if you have an online store.

YouTube Video

Post videos and have them link back to your site.  This will add more sources of traffic and will also be a platform for viral video marketing.  Some great videos we have been considering is how to videos on gun cleaning or lessons for the horses.

Viral Video Marketing

If you are able to think of a unique and funny way to make a viral video, it will certainly be a great way to get instant traffic.  This can lead to millions of hits.  You can not force a video to be viral, but find something unique that you do and the possibilities are endless.

Optimize Your Site for Search Engines

If you optimize your website for search engines, you will be able  to gain more traffic from people searching those keywords.  This is a powerful tool and will lead to a lot of traffic.  There are many ways to do this and if you need help please contact me for assistance.

This is just a few of the methods to increase traffic.  We will continue this in the next post.

To Your Success,

Deb Stowers

DKStowers.com

deb@dkstowers.com

How To Start Your Own Newsletter

  By admin | April 26, 2012 - 9:23 pm | Blogging
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Having a newsletter is a great way to build your subscribers and potentially sell products to them in the future.  Let’s face it.  many of you are reading this from my newsletter.

Newsletters usually aren’t difficult to start up, as there are very few aspects that need to be completed. With just a few steps, you can be gaining plenty of subscribers within days.

How to start your own newsletter:

There are several different ways to provide our customers with a newsletter.  Some cost for companies to provide you with an emial marketing service while others are free.

Two of our businesses utilize Yahoo Groups and send out annoucemnet through the groups.  These is a great way for a small business to start with email marketing or newsletters.  Check out the Sierra Ranch, LLC webiste for the link.  You will need to have a Yahoo account.  This service allows people to add and remove themselves from your list or group.

There are companies like Aweber who can provide for you the service that you need for getting the perfect email marketing account.  Through Aweber, you can get your very own subscription form script, and it’s this script which you’ll place on your site to get people to type their names and email addresses inside of. 

We use Aweber and have an afflilate link at the bottom of the page to join them.  The great thing about using someone like Aweber is that all of our lists are at this one site.  We operate several newsletters from one account.  The account cost is based on size and we have not gotten over the minimum yet, but we are promoting very local businesses.

Before you place that script on your site, make sure that you create a really nice set of messages that you will automatically send out.  You can create around 10, 20, and even 50 different messages that you’d like to send out over a period of weeks or even months. We have done this with the HorseMatch.net site.  All the lessons are sent over several weeks. (And from looking at the site I can’t find the link for the lessons so will be updating this site very soon!)

You can create some nice offers, and then suddenly make sales day in and day out little by little.  To get the most amount of sales, try creating lots of offers after each email.  This will give you the chance to promote on nearly any email that is send out.

With our gun business we send out a newsletter once a month to let folks know what shows we will be attending.  This allows our customers to plan where they want to see us as we don’t have a store front other than the shows.  We also update them in the newsletter with new or different stock and other information about the business.

Newsletters are meant to mainly be helpful and informational, but there’s nothing wrong with making one to build your list as an local small business owner.  So, try joining Aweber or starting a Yahoo group to begin with, and then start adding more and more emails to potentially make more sales. 

Newsletters aren’t easy to do, but it can be hard to do at first. Just stick with it, and you’ll see your campaigns grow little by little.  If you need help starting a newsletter, please contact me. 

To Your Success,

Deb Stowers

DKStowers.com

deb@dkstowers.com

How To Get More Twitter Followers

  By admin | April 6, 2012 - 3:43 pm | Blogging, Cool Tools
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If you don’t already know just how important social networks are to small local businesses then it’s time to learn.  Twitter is a great site that ties all the bonds together.

Some people tend to overlook the importance of Twitter. A lot of people have been focused on Facebook and Twitter tends to be looked at as a lesser version of the website. However, if you are serious about taking your marketing strategies to a higher level, then it is a good idea to learn how to get more Twitter followers.

Twitter is all about being able to send a short message to all of your followers.  This can be a picture.  A link to an ad about your business. Or you can ties your Facebook, Foursquare or other accounts to twitter to let your customers know where you are or what you are doing.  It is a good idea to try and get as many followers as possible, but a focused list is better than growing a giant list.

To get more followers, you will simply need engage in your followers.  Have conversations with them about things in your feed.  This applys to all forms of social media.  Don’t just put things up, engage your customers.

Linking your account profiles to other websites will increase your presence.  Make sure all the accounts have the same name so that your customers can easiely find you on all the different formats.  We have done this with our businesses and have many different followers between all the sites. For example, your Facebook, YouTube and even LinkedIn profiles will have your Twitter name exposed so that you will be able to gain more followers.

One way to get followers is to ask friends and family to follow you.  One great way to grow followers is to find others in your community and follow them.  If they re-tweet your posts then you will grow followers in your area.  Some suggest “buying ” followers to make it look like you have a large group, but this eeems to defeat the purpose of growing a focused group.  Organically growing your followers is best.  And a great way to get more customers.

If you are serious about trying to get followers, you have to be patient as you will most likely not get a big boost of followers right away. With just a little patience, you will surely be able to gain more followers on Twitter.

If you need help with any of the suggestions you see here.  Please contact me.  I love helping small businesses grow.

To Your Success,

Deborah Stowers
DKStowers.com
dkstowers@gmail.com

Seven Ways To Get More Done

  By admin | March 19, 2012 - 6:08 pm | Blogging, Cool Tools
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There are many helpful tips out there to get more done in your day.  Below are seven that are used by lots of folks to effectively produce more.  What small business would not want that?

Organization

 If you are trying to get more things done, then organization should be the main thing that you should focus on. When you are organized, you will realize that things just seem to run smoother. Whether it is with your belongings or with your schedule, you will need to make sure that things are organized.

I find that when my office or work place is messy then it’s very hard to focus on the task at hand.  Work to declutter your desk.  Make it easier for others to help by having a dedicated inbox, signature box, and out box.  If there is one place for information it makes it much easier to find and process it.

Time Management

 When you manage your time correctly, you will surely get more things done. This means that you should make use of every hour of the day and try your best to stay productive at all times.

 There’s an old saying: Have a plan and work the plan.  Make a list of things that need to be accomplished.  There is a great reward in actually crossing things off the list.

Focus

 While you are working, you will need to remain focused at all times. Remember that you do not want to waste any time and it is important to try your best to not distracted by little things like the internet and other minor distractions.

 Sometimes this is the most difficult.  Most small businesses are very customer service oreinted.  While ansering every call is imposrtant, sometimes letting the asnwer machine pick up while you are brainstorming is not a bad thing.

 Nutrition

 You will need to understand that nutrition is something very crucial towards your focus throughout the day. An unhealthy diet will lead to an up and down day that will lead to less focus. If you are able to eat a healthy diet, you will see an increase in your focus.

 Nutrition also plays a great role in several of the items to come.  It affects sleep, energy, and helps you keep going.  Feed your body good food and plenty of exercise.

 Sleep

 Getting enough sleep is very important and 8 hours a day should be the minimum. If you happen to feel tired during the day, then a 15 minute nap will have you up and ready in no time.

 Studies have shown the we don’t get enough sleep.  You can’t have the needed energy and focus if you are tired. 

 Energy

You will be energetic after a short nap and you will be able to get this energy from caffeine. However, you do not want to take caffeine five hours before you sleep as it can stop you from getting a good night of sleep.

 Energy is best derived from the great nutrition.  Feed your body wonderful whole foods and see the difference in your energy levels.  Exercise also adds energy.   So go walk around the block and see what wonderful brainstorming  idea you come up with for the next big thing for your business.

 Taking a Break

 Sometimes working too hard can wear you down and so you will simply need to take a break to see more things get done in the future. Take a break and you will then be back to work with a new sense of motivation.

This can be that same walk around the block to get energy.  At our house it’s sometimes riding a Harley or a horse.  Short breaks can add that extra energy to get you through to that next big thing.

I hope you have enjoyed my insight to some things to make it easier to get things done.  If you have hints or tips, please leave them in the comments.  I would love to share them.

To Your Success,

Deborah Stowers
DKStowers.com
dkstowers@gmail.com