Grow From Here

One of my delights these days is HARO – Help a Reporter Out.

It was set up by Peter Shankman, and if you sign up, you get three emails a day full of queries from reporters who are looking for sources for stories.  It takes a minute to scan through & see if any of the requests for sources relate to your business or your field of expertise.

I also use it to find PR opportunities that may relate to my clients’ businesses.  Some days, there’s nothing in there at all that reminds me of any of our customers – other days I’ll send off 3 or 4 emails to different people from one HARO email.  One of our customers followed up on a PR opportunity I sent him, got invited to speak on a radio show, and even before the radio show, had landed a new client through the press release about the radio show!

So if you are looking for PR opportunities in a particular field, or you have clients who might be, and you can spend 5 minutes a day skimming through three emails, it’s a great opportunity – and it’s free.

Share your HARO success stories with us if you find it’s working for you!

Time Savers, Tips

There are lots of blogs out there about franchising & particularly about how to buy or select a franchise.  When I started looking for blogs for franchisors, I had a very hard time finding good blogs with valuable information specifically for franchisors.  I tried Google searches, etc and kept coming up with blogs for franchisees.

Thanks to Twitter, I have come across a number of blogs providing high value information specifically for franchisors.

Top Five Blogs for Franchisors

Note: these are listed alphabetically not in order of preference – they’re all worth following!

1.  “CrappyToGood” by Christian Faulconer.

Christian Faulconer is the CEO of Franchise Foundry which focuses on helping new concepts with high growth potential.  Christian provides business advice and talks about how to achieve growth through franchising.  Nice short posts, thought-provoking…

Sample posts:

• Trust is the New Competitive Advantage
• Failure Is Not An Option, It’s a Requirement

2.  “Expert Franchise Guide” by Shelley Pearson. 

Shelley Pearson is working to solve one of small business owners’ biggest operational obstacles: access to decisive, experienced and cost effective franchise business guidance.   Shelley is also the developer of the Expert Franchise Guide. She aims to develop a progressive network of ethical franchisors who work together to improve the industry’s best business practices.

Sample posts:

• Economy Slowing… Franchising Hotting Up
• Where Government can help small business

3.  “Franchise Essentials” by Paul Segreto.

Paul Segreto is the Founder and President of FranchisEssentials.  He is a franchising veteran – for over twenty years he has exclusively served the franchise industry as a consultant and coach, senior-level corporate executive, activist, multi-unit franchisee and area developer.  Paul has a great collection of resources and sources of information on his blog, as well as his useful and informed posts that cover a variety of viewpoints with dexterity.

Sample posts:

• Franchise Growth – Are Concessions and Discounts Necessary
• Franchise Success & Web 2.0 

4.  “Franchise King” by Joel Libava

Joel Libava is a franchise consultant, so you might think his blog would fall under the category I first mentioned – blogs for franchisees.  It does.  But his blog made this list because it also offers a wide variety of information that can be useful to franchisors.  Look especially for information on social media marketing and check out his business advice links.  Follow trends in franchising and keep a finger on the pulse of a wide variety of information.

Sample posts:

• Using Franchise Brokers and Consultants
  Do You Know Anybody That is Financially Stressed?  Here’s A Way To Help Them 

5.  GrowFromHere by Katryn Harris

No modesty here; this list is not complete without this blog itself!  Depending what you are looking for, you can find technology tips, business strategy posts, book reviews, and even some fun stuff…  Suggest new topics you would like to see anytime, and post a comment if you know other good blogs for franchisors.  Let’s grow the list!

Best Practices, Communication, Time Savers

There are lots of online technical tools out there. I’m not a fan of tools that just let me play with technology, but the ones that actually forward business purposes are the gems. One good one (and free) is the Press Release Grader from HubSpot. Improve the quality of Press Releases that you send out & make them more effective by getting direct useful feedback before you release them.

“HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score. This score is based upon basic factors from public relations experts including the language and content of the release, plus advanced factors from Internet marketing experts such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.” (from the Press release grader website).

To test the press release grader, I submitted a sample press release. The results were returned instantaneously, with a follow up email of the full report. The first screen returns a clear and concise analysis along with suggestions on how to improve the press release.

Main page

Some of the suggestions made on how to improve our press release were:

· The anchor text of the link did not seem to match any words in the page title of the target page. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), use keywords in the anchor text that describe the page being linked to

· Press releases should contain 3 or more links to get the maximum SEO benefit.

· A standard practice when authoring press releases is to include an About section at the bottom of the release. Following this convention makes it easier for those interested in information about the organization mentioned in the release to find it.

· For a press release to have maximum value from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, it should contain a hyperlink to the main website of the company.

· It is a standard practice of press releases to include special text at the end of the body of the release. This is usually ### (three pound signs) at the end of the text. This can be either ### or -30-. This special text is used by press release submission software to recognize where the official release ends.

· It is usually a good idea to get a link to your website earlier in the release than I had done in my sample

· (Love this one): This content contains 0 words that are considered gobbledygook (they are overused and lack specific meaning).

The report also offered two additional resources to assist with writing a press release: Which of these rookie mistakes are you making? and a link to join the Pro Marketers Group on LinkedIn

Even though my “grade” came back at a respectable 78/100, it is good to know which tweaks would make it even more effective. After all, the whole point of sending out press releases is to have them be noticed & generating PR for your business.  Five more minutes to know I’m not wasting my time sending it out is definitely a winner.

Past Technical Tips

Keyword Analysis Tool – Write Content that Works for You

Google Keywords Selector – Help the Right Customers Find You

Google Maps – Let Customers Find You

Google Alerts – Keep an eye on the Competition

Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Why Analyze Keywords

One of the first steps in Search Engine Optimization is determining what keywords people will be searching for to find your product.  Two weeks ago I wrote a post about using the Google Keyword Selector to get the right people finding your website – people who are actually looking for your products and services.   They’re the best ones to have coming to your site because they’re the most likely to actually buy from you.

The first step in helping these customers find you is determining what the right keywords are – what are your best customers actually searching for?  The second step is writing content that:

1. Provides value
2. Uses those keywords
3. Is unique

Writing Content that Provides Value

I am going to assume that you can write content that provides value.  If writing is not your strong point, I know a number of companies that have succesfully found either professional writers or students who are passionate about language or other types of communicators who can write up the information.  One company I know hired a great communicator/online networker and has established a place as an industry leader in their field in less than a year – huge ROI.  But that’s a topic for a different post…

Check Keyword Usage

Once you have the content that provides value, the next step is to see how it stacks up in terms of keyword usage & attracting the right traffic via search engines.  Always remember that you need to write the content for users, not search engines (and in fact, too high density can get penalized or be very hard to read).  But real language keyword density that makes sense and provides value is the lodestone you are aiming for.

A great tool for determine your keyword density (=how much you use your selected keywords) is E3 KWD Check - it’s a nifty little tool that you install on your computer.  You can then load into it web pages or local documents & it will tell you the keywords used in those web pages/documents, along with how many times each is found & what the keyword density and prominence of each keyword is.  Once you have a draft of the content, run it through E3 KWD Check & see whether the keywords you selected in step one are actually reflected in your content so they bring the right customers to your site.

Is Content Unique?

The unique factor is mainly a list of Do Not’s

• Do Not use content that has been posted elsewhere on the internet
• Do Not  post the same article/blog posting to multiple different blogs
• Do Not  copy someone else’s content
• Do Not post the same content multiple times throughout your site (you won’t actually get penalized for this, but the duplicate content will be ignored).

Or, to put it another way, do post original valuable content that was developed only for/by you.  The closer your site gets to being considered an ‘expert’ by Google, the more valuable the search engines perceive your content to be.

Helping The Right People Find You

As I said in my post on Tuesday, don’t make people think! 

Make it easy for them to find you when they are looking for what you offer.

Make it easy for them to buy from you.

Make it easy for them to keep coming back.

Then keep adding value and repeat.

Communication, Search Engine Optimization, Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Why Keywords?

The purpose of Search Engine Optimization is to have the right people find your website – people who are looking for your services or product.  Keywords are the words that people are likely to search on.  If you are have a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver, then maybe they will search on ‘Chinese Food Vancouver’ or ‘Chinese Restaurant Vancouver’.  If you sell franchises especially to new immigrants, then maybe they are searching on ‘Canadian Business Opportunities’ or ‘Franchise for Immigrants to Canada’.

Step One – Know Your Keywords

The first step in getting your site optimized is learning what your best prospects are actually searching on (as opposed to what you might think they are searching on).  How do you find this out?

1. Ask your current customers how they found you
2. Make a list of all the words that you think people might search on to find you
3. Put yourself in the headspace of a prospective customer and brainstorm what you would look for
4. Test & verify with Google’s Keywords Selector

Google Keyword Selector

You can find Google’s keyword selector at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.  Once you have your list of words that you think are likely the ones people are searching on, go here and type in the words that you think are the most likely.  The tool will show you how many people search on those keywords and suggest alternatives. 

Business Growth, Communication, Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Trends help determine new ways to add value

A couple of years ago, I heard Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon Athletica, talk about the importance to him of keeping up with the latest trends.  He spends a significant amount of time scanning magazines, newsletters, news sources and talking with people just to keep up with what the next social trends are that will affect his company.

As a franchisor or CEO, knowing what is coming brings up opportunities and highlights potential threats, and may give you new ideas for what your customers will be looking for.  Continually finding new ways to add value is an important part of entrepreneurial innovation.

Managing the Information

Technology changes fast, business changes fast, and consumer patterns shift and change.  There’s a lot of information to keep up with, and no time to do it (whose to-do list gets shorter each day instead of longer?).

I manage the information flow in two ways; first, keep a general eye on what’s going on and use resources that send me summaries and synopses that I can skim, and second, ruthlessly jetisson anything that doesn’t fit with my top priorities at the moment.  I used to be afraid that I wouldn’t find something again if I needed it, but now I only pay attention to the information that is relevant to what I’m working on.  Send me a great article on clean energy trends, and I’m afraid that after the initial skimming it gets rapidlly dropped.  But send me a good article on franchise growth by building stronger relationships with franchisors, and I will read it carefully, follow up on any links, see whether it would be useful to my customers, and then keep it on file as a great business resource.  The key is not what’s new and exciting, but what may affect my business, my customers, my industry.  To know that, I have to see what is happening that’s new and exciting.  Fortunately, there are lots of great tools and sites that will send me this information regularly in a nicely condensed format.

Great Trend Watching Time Saving Resources

Trendwatching – http://trendwatching.com/ - sign up for their regular monthly newsletter and get briefs on the latest trends sent to your inbox.

Springwise – http://www.springwise.com/ - trends by industry and offers a regular weekly newsletter about interesting trends

Trend Spotting – http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog

Google trends – http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends - see what people are searching for on a daily basis

Google alerts - get information related to new information online about what matters to your business.

Best Practices, Business Growth, Time Savers

Will You Be Found?

Do your locations show up when customers search in your area?  One easy way to let customers come to you is to make sure your company shows up on Google Maps. 

Spend 10 minutes and claim your business, put in basic company information and then site back and watch.  Even better, add coupons or get your customers to write reviews.  Make it easy for potential customers to know what you do and how good you are.  For franchisors, you can even manage multiple locations through the Local Business Center.

Getting Set Up

1. Go to Google Maps & type in your company address
2. Click on the letter for your location
3. Click on ‘Claim your business’ and put in the information requested
4. Add your hours of operation, company description, website and other relevant information.
5. Google will add links to web pages that mention your company

 Advanced Options

You can invite your customers to write reviews of your company – just ask them to search on your company & then click on the ‘Write a review’ at the top left-hand side.

Add coupons by going to www.google.com/local/add (where you can also manage information about multiple business locations).  There is no charge to set these up.  Consumers then see your special offers and can download them, print them off, and bring them in to your location to redeem.  Another easy component to a comprehensive online advertising strategy…

Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Google Alerts – What Are They?

Google Alerts are one of those nice little Google offerings that is super easy to set up and lets you automatically keep up to date on information online that may be important to you.  You can create Google Alerts on any topic that is valuable to your business and get instant, daily or weekly updates.  For example, I get Alerts on ‘franchise software’ since anything that relates to both franchises and software may be of interest to me.  They come in as small daily digests that I can skim.

A Competitive Edge

As a franchisor, or a rapid growth entrepreneur, you need to know what’s going on in your market.   You also need to know what’s being said about your company and products in the online world.  And you need to do all this without a large time investment.  Google Alerts let you keep in touch either by email or via RSS feeds, and setting them up is a matter of minutes.

Set up a Google Alert

 To set up a Google Alert, just go to www.google.com/alerts and type in the terms you are interested in,  what type of information you want to know about (I recommend Comprehensive, but you can limit your alerts to the web only, to video only, to news only, to blogs only or to Google groups only), how often you want to receive the alert, and your email address.

Next,  go to your email, and confirm the alert (Google sends an email with a link that you can click on for confirmation).

That’s it – you’re all set & good to go, and every day (or week) you’ll get a great digest of what has been happening online related to your chosen topic, with links so that if any of them are valuable to you, you can go directly to the original article.

Franchise, Technology, Time Savers, Tips