Wharton SEO Blog

A lot blogs start out fine. They have a particular expertise (lets say candle making) and they want to tell you about it. Then something funny happens. They get carried away and want to tell you about everything – the weather, what flowers are blooming, what they had for supper last night, their favorite restaurant and the list goes on and on and on.

When I went to their blog , I just wanted to know about candle making. What happened? A blog about everything is a blog about . . . NOTHING! Stick to the point and readers will have a much better chance of getting the point.

Christi Wharton
www.whartonmarketing.biz

3 Reasons Giving Knowledge Away Grows Your Business

Afraid your competition will learn your “secrets”? Afraid your customers will learn too much about what you do and be tempted to do it themselves? Get over it. If your competition doesn’t do what you are doing already, you’re already ahead of them; and if you customers wanted to do it themselves, they wouldn’t have you do it for them anyway. Here are 3 reasons to “give” away knowledge to help your business.

1. It establishes you as the “expert” and gives you credibility. If people see you really know what you are doing, they know they can trust you.
2. You will earn interest in what you are doing. When people see you are good at what you do (remember you’re the expert), they will be interested in what you are up to next.
3. You will gain customers. Customers want to patronize businesses and services that are the best at what they do and are confident enough in their abilities to “give” knowledge away.

Try it. Maybe just a little at first until you are comfortable with it and see what happens.

-Christi Wharton, Wharton Website Design & Marketing

Okay, you’ve got this great website. It is optimized in every way for your market. But your sales aren’t going up! Why??? Here are some suggestions that may help. They may seem like plain common sense, but sometimes common sense isn’t always that common.

1. Answer your email! Do you have a plan for checking and answering your emails promptly? I recently checked with a client to see how many responses he was getting from his website. He didn’t really know because they never checks the email for his website. Sure enough, there were at least a dozen good leads in his email that were lost simply because no one checked.
2. Answer your phone! If you can’t answer your phone, make sure someone does that is knowledgeable about your products and services and can help whomever calls. If someone takes the time and trouble to call you and doesn’t get a person who can help them, they will go somewhere else.
3. Follow up on 1 and 2. If someone asks for a brochure, send it to them. If they ask for a price, give it to them. Make it easy for your customers to do business with you and guess what – they probably will.

-Christi Wharton, Wharton Website Design and Marketing

It is really distressing to see small businesses that have great products or services fail to make it because they can’t seem to compete in a “superstore” world. They fail to realize how the Internet can help level the playing field for them.

How many times have you seen a business go online to order office supplies or computers and printer parts instead of getting in their car and going to a local small business? They go online because it is easy. Shouldn’t the local small business make it just as easy?

Recently a local business selling herbs and essential oils went out of business. A lot of people in our small town didn’t really know what this business offered. Many locals read newspapers online, so they don’t see all of the print ads. They switch channels on the TV when commercials come on, so they don’t see TV commercials.

When studies show that most people look online when they are looking for a product or service, why don’t small businesses, which offer great services and unique products, understand that they need to be there when people come looking for them? We started our business to help small businesses take advantage of the Internet and its opportunity to help their businesses succeed.

Obviously, just putting up a website isn’t enough. A website has to be nurtured and promoted. I’ve seen people put up a website then sit back and wait for their business to take off. When it doesn’t, they wonder why. The reason is they needed someone to help them with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), producing a content rich website and other Internet marketing concepts.

There is so much information in cyberspace about this, but small businesses often don’t have the time to research the concepts or the expertise to implement them. They specialize in their own business not the internet.

That is where we, and companies like us, can help because we specialize in helping small businesses with their online marketing. Always staying on top of the latest in SEO techniques, pay-per-click, blog marketing and all the rest that goes into Internet marketing, we have helped many small businesses and look forward to helping many more!