What do I get?

Every single person who visits your website or interacts with your business is asking this question. And most often, we’re answering them with, “if you do this you’ll get that.”

You find this way of thinking everywhere. Yet I say it goes against our true human nature. Yeah, sure, we want to rule and control our environment. But even that gets old. Think about the last argument you ‘won.’ Might have felt great for a little while, but didn’t you soon start to feel a bit empty inside, as though something got taken from you?

Now think of the last time you gave something to someone. Not just gave something, but gave them something they loved. Now go further in thinking about the last time you gave something to some that they loved openly without wanting or expecting anything in return – at all.

Didn’t that feel great? And do you remember how the feeling filled you up with excitement and warmth that stayed with you for a while?

That is THE secret to business success…giving. But not just giving, giving freely, openly without expecting anything in return. When you give like this, it’s like planting seeds fertile soil. With a little time, some sunshine and regular watering, that seed will product a tree that gives you fruit year in and year out.

So give. You’ll find it to be the most effective marketing approach you’ve ever used.

So, how do you give?

Yesterday I did one of my free 25-minute phone consultations with a prospective client. She is a communications expert who helps companies and organizations get the word out about what they do well. In some ways, she’s a marketing copy writer.

So we talked about her business and how she wants to use her website to take her business to the next level. Then I asked THE question…”What problems does your work solve for your clients.” Like many small business owners or service professionals, she told me about what she could DO for her clients, but nothing about the actual problems that she solved for them. I listened intently and said nothing more – coaching at that level is beyond our free consultation.
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Like anything involving business, a blog should be part of an overall web-based business strategy. It should serve a purpose and that purpose should be clearly defined and understood. Moreover, if a business decides to blog, they should learn a bit about how to best use engage the blogosphere.

Lee Goff from GetUWired asked the question a while back, do you need a blog? He wrote:

Many small businesses are finding that a business blog is the best way to both establish a web presence and disseminate information to clients, customers and employees. …The best small business marketing blog allows a company to handle all kinds of dynamic information exchange internally and with the public.

Now his writing is a little dry for my taste – and he never really answers the question – but it did get me thinking…why do small businesses and service-oriented professionals need to be blogging? What do they gain? And what are they missing out on if they don’t blog?

I’ve been building websites for almost a decade. But yet, I’m not simply a web designer any more.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I help service-oriented, small and independent businesses plan, develop, design, execute and grow their businesses using the web. I’ve also written about how I coach, mentor, consult with and educate my clients on the best web-based strategies for building and growing their businesses.

So then why Healthy WebDesign?

Well, that’s a great question. Basically, Healthy WebDesign developed from my desire to build better (healthier) websites in every way possible – from the coding and visual design to caring about the business needs of my clients. ‘Healthy’ became the metaphor for a simple, balanced and profitable approach to website development.
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Of anyone, I know that building a small, service-oriented business is hard work. I’ve had three businesses, including two very different approaches to web development, in the past nine years. All three have been service focused. Each has been successful. And all have required quite a bit of effort to plan, build and grow.

Of course, currently, I help small and independent professional businesses plan, develop, build and grow their business through the internet. I help my clients refocus their business objectives and marketing strategies to incorporate the web. Ideally, their websites and blogs become a hub for meeting and converting their target audience.

But here, many make a critical mistake. They think of their target audience (or target market) simply as a name for the group of people they’re trying to serve. In other words, they think of target audience as being a noun. If you remember your Schoolhouse Rock, “is a person, place or thing.” It simply names.

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I pose this question to every client I work with. Then I have them answer it. Most answers cover branding, marketing message, or conversion. Sometimes clients will tell me that their missions statement or tagline are the most important keys to their business success. All these are good answers. None of them are wrong.

Yet most of my clients miss the most obvious, fundamental answer. The one thing that is the foundation to successfully creating a brand, converting prospects and writing a tagline.

Setting Clear, Obtainable Goals, what I call What and How.

Ah, you say. Now it makes sense. Of course, you have to know what you’re trying to accomplish before attempting to accomplish it.

I liken goal setting to traveling a long distance by car. For instance, let’s say I have a meeting with Steve Jobs at Apple. I live near Ann Arbor, Michigan and Apple’s located in Cupertino, California. I have time before my meeting next week, so I decide to drive my car across the country to the meeting – this is my what. As you can see form the map, Cupertino and Apple’s Headquarters is a long way from Ann Arbor – about 2400 miles (~ 3800 km).

Since I know my destination, I can begin planning my route. I see that when leaving my house I need to get on I-94 west and follow that expressway until it merges with I-80 West. I-80 will lead me all the way to California. Then I take a series of other highways and streets until I arrive at Apple’s Headquarters. This is the how.
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Yesterday I wrote about my experience with the 2000 Bloggers meme, in which I cited Tony Hung’s ‘2000 Bloggers’ is Over – An Exercise in Link ‘Building’ At Its Most Useless and Pathetic. My post and some great comments have created quite a buzz.
Now I don’t think that 2000 Bloggers, or any meme is pathetic, or even useless. But I do agree with some of Tony’s points. What I question is the point of using memes to inflate my Technorati ranking. I simplly don’t know what the point is.
If you read what Doug Karr wrote in 2000 Bloggers Gaming Technorati? Waaaaah!, you’ll see he’s not apologizing for how memes are helping grow his blog. He says memes are…

…absolutely no different from sharing your blogroll, trading links with someone, giving away merchandise for mentioning your blog, linkbaiting, “Make me a Technorati Favorite” button, ‘optimizing’ for search engines, Digging, …. or even BUYING your Technorati rank by advertising on other sites. John Chow, for example, continues to utilize any and all methods to give his rank a boost.
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A few weeks back I got into ‘the 2000 Bloggers.’ It sounded like a really neat idea to build some links and gain some traffic to my blog. And it worked, at least to some degree. Looking at my site stats in Google Analytics, it appears I have gained some traffic from the 2000 Bloggers.

But the place that it made the most impact was on my Technorati ranking. Every day I watched my ranking in Technorati change; and change a lot. Some days I’d jump 30,000 positions. It was amazing. And for a few weeks, I was quite excited. As of today, my ranking is somewhere around 26,000 – a long way from where I began four short weeks ago at 1,618,000.

At first, I didn’t put together that my jump in rankings had anything to do with the 2000 Bloggers. Every day I was writing posts and commenting on a number of other blogs. I figured my ranking was due to my efforts. Until one day early last week I looked more closely at who was linking to me. To my surprise, the great majority, more than 75%, were from the 2000 Bloggers.
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I love being inspired. This morning, I read Biana Babinsky’s post, Stop Cold Calling. In it, she offers a three step plan for those starting out with online marketing.

1. Define your target market
2. Create/revise your web site to make it an effective sales tool
3. Use online marketing techniques to drive your target market to your web site

These three steps are a really nice beginning. But if I’m a small business or independent service professional, you might be asking, “Aren’t I doing this already?”

It’s likely you’re not. The way to tell is to look at how your website came into existence.
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All right, the cat’s out of the bag. I am much more than just a website designer.

Healthy WebDesign is all about helping small business owners use the web to plan, develop, execute and grow their business. So yeah, I design the website. But I also help my clients get clear in their objectives and their target market. I help them position themselves in their niche and then show them how to use their websites to find clients and grow their business. That’s what this blog is all about (or at least that what it’s developing into).

Every client I have will eventually ask me if they should have a blog. My answer is always the same – “yes!” Then we talk about how blogging fits into their overall business plan. Some go forward and begin blogging. Other’s don’t.Personally, however, I think every small business and independent service professional should be blogging. They should be blogging with a clear purpose and specific goals in mind. They should take a little time to learn their way around the blogosphere. They should comment on other blogs and learn about feeds and feed readers. And they should learn how to use their blogs to network with other bloggers.

But the most important reason small business owners should be blogging is to help them refine how they write and speak about their business to their audience.
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