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Online Directories, SEO and Getting Found

When your business is part of the construction industry, you’ve got to be visible in directories. For many years, visibility meant advertising in the yellow pages. Depending on your trade, i.e. plumbing or electrical, yellow pages were your most expensive form of advertising. Online directories are the equivalent of the yellow pages. With 1,000s of [...]

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Picking Your Email Newsletter Service

We’ve all been using email for years and take it for granted, and now the big decision is whether you want to handle your email on your smart phone. Business owners also have to decide when they’re ready to invest in an eNewsletter (also called an eZine) to stay in touch with their customers. This [...]

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Common Photo Problems & How to Fix Them

As home professionals, one of our best marketing tools is a digital camera. Much of our work is illustrated best with photographs and like every other skill, it takes practice to learn the best techniques. Photography is an art and we’re never going to compete with a professional photographer who you should use for high [...]

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Writing for Business: Can You Tell a Story?

Writing about your business involves many things. Most people, when I suggest they write an article, say I can’t write. If you can tell a story, then you can write! My goal is to show why you are more qualified to tell your story than anyone else. I totally understand why you think you can’t [...]

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Keyword Research: Using Google’s Keyword Tool

Keyword research is key to making sure your content gets found by people looking for your products and services. Your information may be great but it won’t help people if they can’t find it. Search engines help people find you online. You get found when you’re visible on page one of search results. Your page [...]

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Mirror, Mirror … Who Do Your Customers See?

First impressions matter a lot. They say people form first impressions in about 3 seconds. Unfortunately this means people form their impressions based on how you look, a huge challenge when you’re nervous. Let’s look at the tools we have for making a first impression. Your hair styled or do you need a haircut? Dressed [...]

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Eye Tracking: What Are People Reading

Eye tracking is a technique used to analyze the effectiveness of your marketing information. Web analytics tells you where people came from when visiting your web site, how long someone stayed on your site and the average number of pages visited. Eye tracking gives you insight into the content on a page that people actually [...]

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Do-It-Yourself Do’s and Don’ts

To everyone who wants to do it themselves, I applaud you. When I started building the Association of Home Professionals and the Association of Women Home Owners, it was my goal to provide training and tools to help others learn how to do their own marketing. It wasn’t until I got started that I came [...]

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Business Directory Overload: How Many? Which Ones? Help!

There are hundreds of online directories and more popping up every week! Home professionals get unsolicited emails weekly recommending another directory. We occasionally notice a new directory when checking  google advertising placement for one of our targeted keywords and realize there’s a new player in our space and their listing is higher than mine? The [...]

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Writing Online & Organizing Your Ideas

Writing online is very different from writing an essay in school. You might have a great idea or an interesting story but if you don’t package it correctly, people won’t find it or they won’t read it, i.e. think of the books you’ve scanned at the library or the websites you’ve visited but left before [...]

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