Three things you might not have tried before

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

It’s great that you maybe have (or are thinking of having) a small business website to promote your product or service.  It’s very wise to have an online presence to increase your sales, authenticity and position in your niche and also get your marketing message and brand out there.

The idea: what can you do differently today?

Your site may have only just launched (or even been out for a while) and you are looking to increase traffic and conversions and want to achieve more with your website.  Firstly, you set your goals for your website (to drive people to purchase; or drive people to sign up to hear more news from you; or promote your latest book or whatever).  Next, you need to start getting your site infront of the relevant groups of people who will ultimately get you to those goals.

You’ve probably tried a load of things and not everything has worked.

Thinking back to Einstein, is there anything different you can do or start today (right now) that is achievable, measurable and worth your time? Is there anything you can do that you haven’t done before?

Remember: it’s good to step outside of your comfort zone at least once a day and try something new.

If it doesn’t work, then you can jump back into your comfort zone, lick your wounds and try something else tomorrow (which is just another “today”).

If you’re struggling for some inspiration (“I’ve tried everything Michael, nothing left to do”) then consider starting one of these today:

Try one of these today

Well, there are three things you might not have tried before.  Not all of these can be completed this afternoon but you can certainly get them completed in a set amount of time and to maximum efficiency.

1.  Give away something for free

You’ve often got to give out to receive something back, Instant Karma.  Apart from providing excellent value to customers (going beyond the sale: excellent customer service, discounts for later purchases, free check-ups or servicing etc) you can try giving away something free to non-customers (prospects) or just people you meet at events or read your website – before any sales have taken place.

This can include written stuff: mini e-books, reports, step-by-step guides, white papers

This can include physical stuff: software trials on CDs, printed materials of advice, free useful tools for jobs or products

This can include other non-tangible stuff: design, code, consulting, auditing, servicing

I’m not talking here about mouse mats with your logo on or pads of paper.  We’re talking about items of real value.  Things that improve people’s lives or small business.  Things that solve their problems.

If you are a software developer, you can develop a quick and easy tool people can download to make their life easier such as an accounting / debt buster calculator.  If you are a designer it could be design templates that you offer.  If you a consultant it could be a 1 hour free initial workshop to assess and advise on someone’s business processes.  If you are an accountant, you could look at how a prospective client could save money by offering a few quick and easy accounting tips on a couple of pages of A4 that people could down load from your website (with your contact details at the bottom of the page).

This kind of thing improves your reputation, increases the chance that someone will give you a call, and also almost guarantees that people will turn ionto advocats of your business as you are willing to help them solve a problem and they will talk about you to others whether they become your customer or not.

2.  Write for other people

You don’t necessarily need to be a great writer to do this one.  You could write on other people’s blogs, blogs in your niche or industry, in magazines that your ideal clients read, newspaper editorials…

Guest blogging is really a popular way of getting your name out there, some link juice and love and also traffic to your site.

Go ahead, make a list of 3-5 popular sites or blogs that operate in your niche.  See if they write regularly on their sites.  Then, email them with an idea for an article and see if they would be willing to publish it for you in return for a link back to your site and mini-bio on yourself or your business.

You’ll be surprised how many positive results you get.  People are always looking out for help with writing and adding great and valuable content to their sites for their readers and should bite your hand off.

If not, try another 3-5 until one bites.

Quick tips:

1. Write for humans and not search engines or it will sound like robot speak.
2. Don’t talk about yourself too much.
3. Focus on providing real and valuable content to your readers and practical tips they can follow.
4. Don’t use this to constantly mention or “sell” your product.  You’ll build trust with valuable content and readers will click on your link in the bio and come and see what you have to offer as they’ll see you as an expert in this particular field.
5. Lastly, don’t post the same content to several sites – this dilutes the value of the article and bad for your SEO score and for building trust with the authors of these external sites – it’s just bad form to copy & past around

3. Give work to other people

You know what your time is worth (or should do) in terms of a monetary value or per hour rate.  So, then why not outsource tasks to other people to help you achieve more?

Outsource doesn’t necessarily mean overseas if you don’t want to go that way.  You can hire people in your own country who would like to help you complete small tasks to improve your business.  Common things to outsource can be things you could do but don’t have the time to do; or things that you can’t do and need some more expertise.

Typically, simple or admin based tasks will be lower than your hourly rate and will allow you to maximize your time.  For example, if your hourly rate is $25 per hour and you hire someone to do some tasks that would normally take you or them 3 hours and they complete them for you at $5 per hour, then it’s just cost you $15, and saved you two and half hours to do other things as it only took 30 minutes to write the job spec for them to complete the tasks.

Tasks could include:

• writing articles on other sites to improve your SEO
• keyword research
• link building activities
• market research
• data input…

…And so on. Things that you just don’t have the time for or just don’t want to do and would like some external help.

Good sites for these activities are odesk.com, elance.com and peopleperhour.com

Things that you can’t do and need some more specific expertise can cost more and may sometimes be over your hourly rate (lawyers for example in most cases) but are worth the cost for their expertise, quality and because you are paying for all the time they have taken to acquire those skills.  If you set about to go and complete the same task it may take you weeks and $500 is worth more to you than a few weeks away from your business trying to learn how to code a website for example.

Tasks include:

• graphic design
• web design
• accounting
• legal advice
• consulting

————

Now, go and create something for free to give away, write on an external site and hire someone to do a task.

Choose one to do today, and then set time aside over the next week or so to complete the rest and see if the traffic to your site (and ultimately your conversions) improve and you start to see a benefit to your small business by trying something different.

I’m trying these and so far, the results are looking good. Don’t be afraid to try something new just because you’ll get different results. Don’t be afraid of the unknown.

Go on, try something different today for you and your small business.

What will you try? Let everyone know below.

Photo by visualpanic