Archives for 2019

June
24, 2019

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

As the owner of a small business website, you may find it hard getting your site noticed online when it’s up against the big guys, especially if you’re not an SEO master.

Related: How Real Marketers Create Backlinks That Matter

While you may know that you need  more backlinks pointing back to your website, actually figuring out how to get those links is another story.

Of course, creating great content like useful blog posts is a solid way to grow organic search traffic. But guest-posting content on other websites is just the tip of the iceberg of strategies to boost your rankings.

In fact there are other ways to get more backlinks for your small business website you may not have considered. Plus, with many of these tactics, there’s no need to bother with complicated SEO if that’s not your forte.

Here are those ways to get more backlinks for your small business website.

Create infographics.

Infographics are one of the most widely shared forms of content online. Not familiar with infographics? Infographics, Wikipedia says, are “graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.”

Because infographics are so easy to consume and so fun to look at, they get shared a lot on social media. Plus, other companies and bloggers in your niche/industry will add your infographic to their own content, linking back to your website. In fact, according to Hubspot, infographics can increase web traffic by up to 12 percent.

As an example, one of the most shared infographics online is this one from Nationwide Insurance (which a local pet store could easily replicate for a viral response online):

Image source: Infographic Design Team

You can create an infographic on pretty much any topic. Choose one related to your business that’s also interesting and entertaining to your target audience. No design skills? Don’t worry, there are a number of free online tools that make it easy to create an eye-catching infographic.

Related: How to Build SEO Backlinks: A Beginner’s Guide

Get media coverage.

Local media coverage is not only great for promotion and getting new customers through your doors, but it can help you get more quality backlinks for your small business website as well. For instance, if your business is participating in a local event or holding a giveaway, let local news outlets know about it. They might pick up the story for their websites and include a link back to your website.

Aside from sharing your company news, you can also do a little “newsjacking.” Newsjacking is when you seize breaking news opportunities to inject your own business story. For example, if there’s a record-setting snowstorm about to roll in, a local snow removal company might provide expert advice on the subject in a news article. So, start building relationships with the local media to get your business splashed all around the web.  

Offer a free online tool.

Another way to get a lot of backlinks and traffic to your website is by offering a free online tool.

For instance, CoSchedule offers a free headline analyzer targeted towards marketers and content creators.

 

Image source: CoSchedule

This tool is linked to in many articles about how to write better headlines. So, if you can create a free online tool on your own website, it could potentially get linked to in many related articles online as well.

Importantly, your online tool doesn’t have to be this complicated. If you own an accounting business, for example, you could offer a simple income tax calculator. Example: A fitness center could offer an online calorie counter. Tools like these will be extremely helpful to your target audience and get a lot of shares online.

Create content with customer data.

Data and statistics boost the credibility of blog posts, and many writers use them to strengthen their arguments. What if those many writers could use data provided by your business? That would get you a ton of potential backlinks. Don’t have any customer data? Create some!

You can easily create your own original research by surveying the people on your email marketing list. Choose a survey topic that is not only useful information for your audience, but relevant to your industry as well. You can present this original data in an infographic or a blog post or report that includes some easy-to-understand graphs and charts.

Related: 5 Tips for Getting High Quality Backlinks In 2016

Over to you

The topic of SEO can overwhelm many small business owners. But, with these easy and actionable tips for how to get more backlinks to your website, business owners can enjoy a boost in search engine rankings. The more users online that discover your business through these types of content, the more potential leads you’ll have.

June
21, 2019

10 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In 2007, Jeanine Blackwell stood at the gate, a “flight canceled” status flashing above her. “We can’t get you out for another three days,” the ticket agent said. Blackwell fought back tears as her world collapsed around her. A missed flight meant a missed school play, broken promises, and more time away from her children. As a mom to three daughters, she desperately needed to get home to New Orleans, but she couldn’t bargain with a Minnesota blizzard.

The cruel irony was Blackwell had built a successful consultancy helping Fortune 500 companies to afford her the freedom to be with her family. But the more her company grew, the more her time was consumed traveling to conferences and on-site meetings

After nights of sitting in a hotel room by herself, facetiming her kids and reading bedtime stories from miles away, the canceled flight felt like the last straw. “I will drive to another airport. I will pay for another ticket. I will do anything I need to do,” Blackwell insisted at the time.

Ultimately, the ticket agent realized Blackwell was not taking no for an answer and found her a seat on another airline. However, the flight home that day signified a much greater departure — one that would lead Blackwell to completely redesign her business model, quadruple her revenue, build a thriving online business, and create the life of true freedom she had always envisioned.

A full ride, then a lost scholarship.

“Finances were really tight in our family growing up,” explains Blackwell. When she won a full academic scholarship to a local university her senior year of high school, it was a game changer. “To my naive 17-year-old self, computers symbolized innovation and possibility.” She decided to major in computer science. A few weeks into programming classes, she was in trouble. “I quickly realized my brain doesn’t think in terms of black-and-white rules.”

Finances in Blackwell’s family were tight growing up. Winning a full academic scholarship presented a massive opportunity.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jeanine Blackwell

The first semester, Blackwell didn’t earn the minimum GPA necessary to keep her scholarship. “I still remember the shame of sitting down at our kitchen table to tell my dad,” she shares. To pay the tuition, she opted to work full time in retail at The Limited. She loaded up on class hours to graduate early (which she did, with honors) and changed her major to marketing and business management. “I missed out on a lot of things working 40 to 50 hours a week and going to school full time, but it taught me to work hard and the importance of focusing on your strengths.”

With this hard-won wisdom, Blackwell went into sales, where she excelled. She started at the Neill Corporation and rose up the ladder until she landed the role of Chief Learning Officer. There, she honed her coaching ability, hosted events, and launched corporate universities, which offered marketing strategies and training to corporations. While she loved her job, Blackwell felt a strong pull that there was something more for her — that she was here to do something that helped other people achieve their dreams.

So, with her experience and contacts, Blackwell started her own consulting company helping corporations build learning experiences; yet it wouldn’t be until years later that she’d learn to run her business on her own terms and create the freedom she imagined.

Marketing her time and losing her freedom.

Flash forward a few years. Blackwell’s consulting business was booming. She was leading million-dollar course launches for Fortune 500 clients all over the world. While this was rewarding, she was traveling nonstop. “It felt like I was on a plane every week.”

What Blackwell thought she always wanted, leaving the corporate world to run her own business, had turned into a nightmare. “There’s no worse feeling than having to pry your kid’s fingers from your shirt so you can head to the airport again to go do something that you don’t really want to do. I began consulting because I wanted the freedom to manage my time and do meaningful work, but the way I structured the business created just the opposite. I had created a business that could only grow with more of me involved.”

Blackwell knew all too well the tragedy a lack of choices could bring. Her creative father had worked a job he hated most of his life, only to pass away from a heart attack a few years after retiring. Overcome by grief and believing there was no other way out of her pain, her mother took her own life shortly afterwards. 

“Watching my parents feel like they had no choice and seeing how that impacted our whole family shaped who I am. It’s a big driver behind my mission to help entrepreneurs create the business and the life they want.”

Blackwell wasn’t about to let a perceived lack of choices shape her own future. She didn’t know how she could earn enough to provide for her family without losing quality time with them, but knew she had to figure it out. “Every time the flight home was delayed, it was all I could do not to have a breakdown in the airport.” When Blackwell finally did, it would lead to a breakthrough.

Sometimes you have to break down to break through.

Now in her 40s, Blackwell decided to restructure her business completely. “The challenge of pivoting a successful business is figuring out how to reinvent the business model while maintaining the revenue level you need to meet all your financial obligations for your family and your team,” she says. Faced with a daunting task, Blackwell did what she does best: she looked at all the possibilities.

In an airport restaurant, Blackwell sketched out a plan on a napkin. Her idea? Flip her funnel around so that she was no longer delivering all her programs and consulting in person and on-site. Instead, she could take her experience as a performance-based learning expert, marketing strategist, and sales leader and create an online course that enabled her to live the life she’d imagined and build a scalable business.

In her 40s, Blackwell restructured her business completely.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jeanine Blackwell

From her experience leading open-enrollment workshops, Blackwell already knew her ideal audience. “My favorite people to work with in these workshops were entrepreneurs sharing their expertise. There’s this sense they’re on a mission to get their work out in the world.” She decided to focus her course on helping other entrepreneurs share their expertise in a bigger way so they could live the lives they imagined.

Launching an online business in a few weeks.

Blackwell was racing against the clock. She turned down a large contract to focus on reinventing her business and needed to replace her revenue as soon as possible so that she didn’t let down her family or her team. In a matter of weeks, she built her first online course, applying the skills she’d acquired leading learning design and marketing launches for some of the best-known brands in the world.

The problem was, she didn’t have a massive audience of followers to sell it to. “I had no idea how we were going to fill the course,” she admits.

She’d already identified her audience, so she asked herself two questions: “Where are they hanging out online and how can I get in front of them?” She ran paid advertising on Facebook and other channels. “Any sales we made, we’d reinvest the next day into more paid traffic.”

In a matter of weeks, Blackwell had launched her first online course. “Enrollment closed at midnight, and I went to bed at about 9 p.m. I had a solid amount of students that were coming in, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is working. I can totally scale this moving forward.’”

What happened next was surreal. “I got up the next morning, sat in my favorite chair with my coffee, and opened my inbox. There was registration after registration after registration. I just kept scrolling,” shares Blackwell. At that moment, she knew everything had changed. “In just two weeks, I sold $90,000 of revenue in that course. It was a game changer because I realized I could do this over and over.”

Choosing option C.

Today, Blackwell runs a multiple seven-figure consulting business. More importantly, she’s found her freedom: she works in her zone of genius and doesn’t miss even one important moment with her family.

“Freedom means we can make choices in alignment with what is most important in our lives,” she says. “I’ve found my freedom. Now I’m on a mission to help others find theirs.”

With this intention in mind, Blackwell teaches her time-tried method to help entrepreneurs develop their own online courses, sell their expertise, and scale. She has helped hairdressers, artists, business coaches, psychologists, and other types of experts build multi six- and seven-figure businesses teaching what they know. For her work, Blackwell has been named one of the world’s top 40 business coaches by Warren Bennis’s Leadership Excellence magazine.

Finding her freedom, Blackwell is now on a mission to help others find theirs.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jeanine Blackwell

Reflecting on her career path, Blackwell shares a particularly poignant moment that bookended her journey. “I was watching a video about one of my clients and realized her story mirrored my own. She was a school psychologist who used to spend all her off hours writing reports and meeting with private clients to supplement her income. All the while, she felt like she was missing out on her two little girls’ childhoods. Now she’s created a six-figure business helping other school psychologists — and she has time for her family. When I heard her story, I realized … that was me a few years ago. I was that woman.”

Blackwell could be called a champion of free will. Her greatest wish is for others to become aware of all their choices — even ones that seem off the table. “Take a hard look at your passions and natural strengths. What options do you have that you’re not even considering?” Blackwell insists there are more than you can imagine, and the best time to get started is now.

To learn more about Jeanine and her Expert Experience Method™, click here to read her book, The Expert Called You: How 8 Experts Built a Business and Life They Love, Sharing What They Know (and How You Can, Too).

June
20, 2019

2 min read

The top-selling liquid egg in natural grocery stores is now made of plants, according to data shared by Just, the maker of plant-based mayonnaise, dressings and cookie dough.

According to SPINS data shared by the company, Just Egg made up for 40 percent of all dollars generated and 30 percent of all units sold in the natural channel’s liquid egg category. It’s also the second best-selling egg substitute in conventional grocery stores (Egg Beaters takes all the other spots at the top), according to IRI data.

Related: How Just’s Co-Founder Got More Than $200 Million From Investors (Podcast)

“This is happening because everyday consumers who don’t want to eat perfectly but want to eat a little better and a little healthier are buying Just Egg at their local grocery store or ordering it at their favorite restaurant,” the company’s co-founder and CEO, Josh Tetrick, told Entrepreneur. “That’s where the growth is, that’s where the impact is and that’s why I’m so humbled to see Just Egg taking off in such a short time.”

The company’s Just Egg, a convincing plant-based egg substitute made of mung beans, became available nationwide in Sprouts in March and Whole Foods in April.

The company, which was founded in 2011 by Tetrick and Josh Balk and has raised $220 million from investors to date, said that the amount of its product sold so far is comparable to 8.2 million chicken eggs. This week, the company was awarded a patent for Just Egg.

“The idea of finding a plant that scrambles like an egg was conjured up on a couch seven years ago,” Tetrick said. “To see where we are today — what my team has built — and to see that over 8 million of these plant-based equivalents have been sold already makes me incredibly proud.”