We're back after a short Christmas break to continue the 'Behind the Business' series on Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website Owners.
In this episode, you'll hear from Nikki Jones from online book subscription business 'The Bookish Mindset' to talk all about what led this project management professional to launch an online subscription business during the recent pandemic.
We also delve into the day-to-day challenges of running a subscription business and I get the lowdown on what drives someone to want to start a business about their passion.
I also geeked out heavily with Nikki about books too which I hope you enjoy listening to as much as I did! if you're not a reader then maybe you feel like giving it a go after tuning in. I dare you!
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Follow Nikki on Instagram here: instagram.com/thebookishmindset
Check out the Bookish Mindset website here: www.thebookishmindset.com
Plus check out her book recommendations:
Back in 2020 Caroline Churchman worked at a care home and had dreams of taking her fitness business full-time.
By the end of the year, she had done exactly that and I was privileged to see this transition in her life as she had used the Supercharge Your Website Membership to build her website and launch online.
A year later I asked caroline to come onto the podcast and share with us how she did it and the challenges and rewards she has experienced since.
You'll hear the common story from this series about following your passion, how it's never too late no matter where you think you are in your life and the lessons she has learned about running a service-based business.
Find Caroline online here: https://www.healthandfitnesshive.co.uk
If we've learned anything from the past two years, it's that it's possible to move a business that required you to help people in-person fully online.
We have had the tools for a few years but the intent had never been there...until there was no other choice.
This is where this week's guest Emma Last, from Progressive Minds found herself at the start of 2020 as her coaching and training business was grounded as we all locked down.
In this episode of Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website Owners she shared how she moved the business online to begin The Human Reboot Movement and the challenges she overcame to do that.
We also chat about Emma's background in corporate training and what led to her becoming self employed in the first place.
You'll hear all about Emma's passion for helping women leaders find peace after burnout and what moving online with her coaching and courses has meant to her and the women that she helps.
If you have an in-person business and still can't figure out how to make it work online, you'll enjoy hearing about Emma's journey.
Find Emma online here:
Welcome to this episode of the podcast, which is part of a series we're running at the moment called 'Inside the Business, where I talk with business owners about their day to day challenges running a business in the online space.
Collette Stevenson from postgrid.com joins me for a second interview and you may remember her from a previous episode of the podcast where we chatted all about what makes a great website design.
Since then she has managed to launch a business called Postagrid that she had no plans to do when we last spoke so you'll hear all about the whirlwind year she has had getting it up and running.
When we chatted, she was just about to launch, so you'll hear all about what it's taken for Colette to get to that point plus a bit about her history as a reluctant entrepreneur!
As usual, make sure you subscribe and leave a review if you really liked the episode!
On this week's episode of 'Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website Owners' podcast, I'm continuing the series 'Inside the Business' by chatting to Joppe Coelingh Bennink.
He's managed to quit a corporate career and build up several product businesses all while becoming an expert on the platform that he built them on (Amazon).
Now an owner of his own Amazon marketing consultancy business, he's here to chat with us all about his own business growth. I also manage to get some really great hints and tips about growing a business on Amazon too for you eCommerce business owners out there.
You’ll hear about what it takes to find products that people want to buy and the challenges in using third-party platforms like Amazon to sell your stuff.
I hope you enjoy the episode – we’d be delighted to hear what you think in the comment below!
If you enjoyed the episode please don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review!
Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website Owners is back with a new series called "Behind the Business" where I chat with new and familiar faces in my community about what it's taken for them to grow their business online.
In this first episode of this 10-part series, I chat again with Sarah Latham, owner of Friends and Canine Dog Treats.
I first interviewed her when I launched this podcast back in late 2020 and she had just ditched her job to take the business full time.
It felt right to start this series with Sarah and check to see how her year has been. She has had so much success but also new lessons to learn and she lets us into what growing her business beyond the shaky start-up stage has been like.
You'll hear about the Challenges with running product business during the pandemic and Brexit, the decisions about how big to scale and we also chat about the day to day stuff too.
I hope you enjoy the episode - we'd be delighted to hear what you think in the comment below!
Back in 2018, I knew I wanted to help teach small businesses and not build websites for a living, and I happened on a course that showed me how to create a course.
During that process met my friend Cat Archer Underwood, known back then as The Brandologist.
Cat was aiming to try and do the same mass reach of her branding services to small businesses and as I was with website owners and although have gone down slightly different paths, our big goals have remained the same of wanting to help educate.
However, over the past few years, we have both "pivoted" in our businesses.
In business-speak "pivot" often means to change the direction of a business when you realize what you're doing isn't meeting the needs of the market.
I stopped trying to push a marketing course I had my heart set on selling and Cat did the same as a branding consultant and become a course creator instead.
In this episode, we talk about what pivoting means to us and when it might be best to persevere rather than pivot in a business.
If you are wondering whether to continue down a particular path trying to reach a certain audience or pushing a certain product or service in your own business right now, this might be the conversation you need to hear!
You can follow Cat here on Instagram where she's most active:
https://www.instagram.com/thebrandologist.co/
See Cat's newest offer, Expand Your Brand:
https://www.thebrandologist.co/expand-your-brand
On this week's episode I'm talking to Dr Hannah Gibson, former biologist turned website copywriting expert to geke out on what makes copy convert and how website owners can go about writing their own sales copy.
We talk about knowing your ideal clients inside out, how to research what they really think and then how to use that info to feed into the word your write to sell to them.
Hannah runs a monthly free webinar helping business owners write better copy.
Sign up to her next free masterclass here: https://hannahgibson.kartra.com/page/Masterclass
In this episode of the podcast, I'm talking about how to manage "the juggle" during the summer holidays - the pressure of running your business while the kids are around.
I'm fairly new to all this as it's only the 2nd summer holiday I've had to deal with and certainly don't have all of the answers, so I reached out to various members of my audience to find out how they do it.
You'll hear about what I'm doing this summer plus thought-provoking responses from the contributors.
Even if you don't have kids, you'll get an insight into how I'm running my business over the next 6 weeks and if you do, you'll pick up plenty of tips and tricks plus hopefully make yourself feel that little bit better that we're all in this together!
Thanks to the following people for their input:
Carol Fare: https://carolfare.co.uk/
Sally Tyson: https://saladbomb.co.uk/
Sarah Gigg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gigg-87b42697/
Maria O'Reilly: https://mariajordanoreilly.com/
Sally Farrant: https://www.businessgrowthbynumbers.com/
Kat Mckay: https://bamboobeautiful.uk/
If you enjoyed the episode please don't forget to subscribe and leave a review!
In this week's episode of Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website owners, I have a chat with Rochelle Dallas from Course You Can about how to get started with creating an online course.
Rochelle is a Business Transformation Coach and mentors businesses specifically on how to create an online course.
With the summer coming up, it might seem like a good time for you to do this for your business as online courses are so hot right now!
You could potentially turn the expertise and knowledge you already offer in your "done for you" or service-based business into something that can be recorded, packaged and sold.
If you are a product business, you'll also benefit from giving this episode a listen as Rochelle is convinced she can help find a course idea for any business, in any industry!
Rochelle can be found online at:
https://www.courseyoucan.co.uk/
Join here next free Masterclass here: https://rochelledallas.lpages.co/masterclass/
https://www.instagram.com/rochelledallas.coaching
Back in 2020, I managed to get my website hacked and taken over after leaving it vulnerable.
Despite working in tech for well over 20 years, even I got caught out!
The shame!
In this episode, I want to pass on how it happened and how I could have prevented it with the hope that you can learn from my mistakes!
WHAT YOU’LL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE:
Do you have an email list that's just sitting there?
You're too scared to email your subscribers in case they unsubscribe.
Maybe you have no idea what to say?
Getting back on the horse with email marketing is something I'm always trying to get website owners to think about as it's so easy to neglect your email list when there are so many other things to do.
If this sounds like you, then you're going to love this episode.
I managed to bag an interview with Troy Ericson, known as the ‘Email Paramedic’ for his ability to revive his clients' dead email lists and turn them into revenue streams of $100k+ per month.
He has some of the most creative techniques and tactics for reviving subscribers to engage I've seen in a while and he reveals a few during the episode that will bring your email list back to life in a heartbeat.
Expect hints and tips on how to get your emails opened...
What to do when someone unsubscribes..
Being compliant with regulations...
Plus why competitor research is a good thing.
You can find Troy and his lead magnets at the following links:
An SEO audit is the process of determining how well your website complies with best practises to rank high for keywords and keyphrases on search engine results pages.
It's the first stage in finding out what you need to do to get your website seen by your users using search and also by Google and co.
In this post I'll show you how to do an SEO audit of your website and how this will help you gain more organic search visitors.
We'll cover the tools you need to use and things to watch out for when reading the data that will have the most impact on improving your standing in search results pages.
Tools mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to the best bits from the first day of the Supercharge Your Website Challenge.
This week we’re bringing you an exclusive look at what we chat about in the evening live Q&A sessions every day for five days.
It's the final day of the Challenge and we're helping our Superchargers understand how to build their website authority by getting other websites to link back to them (otherwise known as "backlinks").
I talk about why this important plus reveal some sneaky tactics to inspire you to get started.
It's the last day of the Challenge and I hope you have enjoyed the series!
Be sure to reach out and let us know what you think!
The Challenge will be back in a new format in September!
Useful links:
https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/
Welcome to the best bits from the first day of the Supercharge Your Website Challenge.
This week we're bringing you an exclusive look at what we chat about in the evening live Q&A sessions every day for five days.
Today it's Day 04 and we look at how your website is viewed by Google and whether you rank for your own business name...or not.
It's a simple exercise and gives you an idea of whether you need to do much work to be even seen on the first page of search results for something that is quite often assumed.
I also cover info about some useful tools you can use to research keywords and how your website performs on search engines plus cover my own 3-prongs approach to developing an SEO strategy.
Useful links:
https://keywordseverywhere.com
https://search.google.com/search-console
https://www.google.com/business/
See you back for the best bits of Day 05 (the final day!) tomorrow!
Welcome to the best bits from the first day of the Supercharge Your Website Challenge.
This week we’re bringing you an exclusive look at what we chat about in the evening live Q&A sessions every day for five days.
It's Day 03 and today we go BIG reviewing the structure of your entire website!
We help you look at whether you have too many pages or not enough based on what you have learned about your ideal customer over the past couple of days.
Sites we looked at during the session include:
Welcome to the best bits from the first day of the Supercharge Your Website Challenge.
This week we’re bringing you an exclusive look at what we chat about in the evening live Q&A sessions every day for five days.
Today it’s Day 02 and looking at whether you're actually selling from your homepage and making it clear how your ideal customer can do business with you.
I cover what makes a great call-to-action whether your are product website or a service-based website.
Sites we looked at during the session to give you:
https://silverfinchjewelrydesign.com
https://www.healthandfitnesshive.co.uk
https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com
Tools:
See you back for the best bits of Day 03 tomorrow!
Welcome to the best bits from the first day of the Supercharge Your Website Challenge.
This week we're bringing you an exclusive look at what we chat about in the evening live Q&A sessions every day for five days.
Today it's Day 01 and we're focusing on the Challengers' ideal customers and the problems that they solve for them.
I'll cover some useful takes on how you can stand out from a business marketplace to get the attention of your ideal customer and why it's so important to do that.
I also cover info about some useful tools you can use to learn a bit more about your ideal customer too including:
https://business.facebook.com/insights
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library
https://keywordseverywhere.com
See you back for the best bits of Day 02 tomorrow!
This week on Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website Owners, we're going for a trip down memory lane back to the year 2019.
Over the past 2 years, I have helped hundreds of business owners build their own WordPress website using my WordPress website build 'bootcamp' course.
It's my step-by-step methodology for building client websites that take students through how to buy hosting, a domain name, get WordPress set-up and then build their site using an easy-to-follow page builder plugin.
The course, now know as The Website Builder, is one of the things I am most proud of because I know what impact it can have on a business owner thinking "can I make money online?"
Some of my first students have gone on to have massive success with their websites since then like Sarah from Friends and Canines Dog Treats, and Sonya from The Brighton Ballet School.
Their websites act as the chief marketing and sales tool in their businesses, being home to their business information and a place where their ideal customers can pay for the products or services.
During the initial round of the course, they got full-on hand-holding and support to get their websites live and now they're shining examples to other members in my paid Membership group with what they can achieve, as both managed to survive the pandemic and make money during that time.
You'll hear all about why I created the course and what it was like for business owners taking part.
Along the way you'll learn about the step-by-step process that I teach and pick up whether you could build your own WordPress website too.
In this episode I refer to the following sites:
Friends and Canines Dog Treats: https://friendsandcanines.co.uk/
The Brighton Ballet School: https://brightonballetschool.co.uk/
To join for one month and get access to the Website Builder course is just £79 per month.
Once you've joined you get so much more than lessons on how to build a website and drive traffic to it (although that is pretty awesome).
One member said, "it’s not the kind of group that you join to learn “something” and leave. There’s always something new to learn, grow and stretch those boundaries to create an even better business."
If you've read enough and want to see what it's all about, then head to the link below to sign up:
SIGN UP HERE:
https://superchargeyourwebsite.com/membership-sign-up/
We'll close this early access on Friday 21st May, so grab the opportunity now while you can.
Welcome to this episode of the Online Marketing Basics for Busy Website owners, where I talk to a selection of business owners about how they manage time in their business.
Time management has always been something that I've been interested in working as a digital project manager in my corporate past.
I managed teams of designers, developers, copywriters, marketeers, all to create and deliver a project on a particular date and within budget.
Understanding how long tasks will take to complete was something I had to continually study and review as team members dealt with tasks and the time it takes to do them differently.
You can't just sit down and say to someone, okay, go and do these things off you go because there's a psychology behind understanding what the task is and how long it's going to take.
I know a lot of my designer and creative colleagues were always really frustrated when the client would ask them to come up with something creative in 24 hours.
You can't just ask someone on the spot to come up with something creative.
There's a process, the right energy and the right environment to spur creativity and motivation on.
Not much has changed in the world pf project management since then. My new clients - small business owners - have the same challenges as my team did back then except they're doing all of the things in their business including website management and marketing.
How much time does it take to do all of those things and what's the priority?
How can small business owners ensure that they spend the time on the right things?
I ask a selection of business owners to give us their insight in this episode as well as outlining my own techniques.
You're going to get some hints, tips, and gold that you can take away that will help you understand how you can prioritize the things that you're doing in your business, manage your time better, and actually want to do the tasks that you need to do.
In this episode you'll hear from:
Tina Lancaster, Handheld Marketing: https://handheldmarketing.co.uk/
Caroline Churchman, Health and Fitness Hive: https://www.healthandfitnesshive.co.uk/
Paul Green, The Cockpit Method: https://www.thecockpitmethod.com/
Dr Paula Redmond, Psychologist: https://drpaularedmond.com/
Rachel Larkin, NutriBalance: https://nutribalanceuk.com/
Carol Fare, Marriage Counsellor: https://carolfare.co.uk/
Dr. Louise Tondeur, Author of '
A Small Steps Guide to Goal-Setting and Time Management: https://www.louisetondeur.co.uk/
Kate Stewart, Factory Floor Jewellery: https://factoryfloorjewels.com/