Archive for the ‘My Business’ Category
Celebrating 4 years as a full-time SEO / Web Copywriter and Consultant
It’s the 8th of the 8th – Content Writer’s business birthday!
I officially launched by copywriting and web/SEO consulting business on 08/08/08 so today it’s turning 4.
Triple W Communications Pty Ltd, which it’s a part of, is much older than that, but I started working for myself full-time on the 8th of August 2008.
Some stats and observations
In last year’s blog post celebrating my 3rd business birthday, I noted I had worked for 54 different clients that past year.
That stat has remained almost the same this year (August 2011 – August 2012). A quick count shows I’ve worked for 55 different clients, but it’s worth noting that I have had more repeat work from clients this year than in the year before.
Also, I feel I have been able to strike a better work-life balance in my fourth year. I’ve travelled more (yay!) and spent fewer weekends holed up in my office (yay again!).
Why I don’t want to grow my business bigger
We’ve all seen articles with headlines like this:
Top 5 Tips to Grow Your Business
or: Things to Consider when Growing Your Business
or: How to Grow Your Business and Dominate the World!
Twitter is usually filled with such headlines, linking to stories that promise to teach you how to make your business bigger.
Well, guess what? I’m not interested, thank you very much.
Bigger isn’t necessarily better.
I run a small business. It’s successful. I’m happy. My clients are happy. And I wouldn’t want to change a thing.
Here are some reasons why I prefer my business to stay small:
Celebrating another successful year in business
The 8th of the 8th marks the anniversary of my business: I officially started my SEO copywriting & web consultancy business on 08/08/2008. So today is Content Writer’s 3rd birthday.
My business has enjoyed steady success right from the start and I’m still really happy doing what I do. There has never been a moment that I have been without work – but luckily enough I have been able to take a few short breaks while putting new projects on hold for a while.
I have however also sacrificed quite a few evenings and weekends to work and my goal for year 4 is to plan my work better and not to agree to deadlines that are too tight, so that there is enough time to finish work during normal business hours.
Because my website continues to perform very well in search engines, more clients than I can take on find me via Google and I have never needed to advertise my business.
Some quick stats about Content Writer’s 3rd year in business:
Social Media Marketing Presentation – Available Online
I’m passionate about helping small business owners or employees improve the online presence of their business.
Social media marketing plays an increasingly large role in marketing your business online.
Unfortunately, there are still many people in business that don’t quite know where to start with Facebook, Twitter and other social media marketing channels. Or they’ve started and are stuck – not knowing how to make the most of social media for their business.
On 4 August 2011, I gave a presentation about social media marketing for businesses to about 100 women at an event organised by the Coffs Coast Business Women’s Network in Coffs Harbour NSW, Australia.
Helping Small Businesses Embrace Social Media
How often do you read or hear something like this: “Social media is a MUST for business these days.” Or: “Your business NEEDS to be on Twitter and Facebook!”
Hardly a day goes by without seeing another story about the importance of social media and the need for businesses to be active on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Almost all speakers at business networking events tell their audience they would be fools to ignore the power of social media. In fact, I went to an ETC Business Leaders event in Coffs Harbour just yesterday (17 May 2011) where David Koch (“Kochie”) reminded the more than 300 business people in the room they needed to be on Twitter and Facebook if they’re serious about their business.
And I agree. Most businesses can benefit greatly from social media interaction. But only if you know what you’re doing, otherwise it can be a waste of your time.
Guest Post on Canada’s largest Internet Marketing Blog
In March this year I was honoured to be invited to submit an article as a guest blogger to Canada’s largest internet marketing company, Search Engine People. My first guest post was published on Search Engine People’s high-profile blog on April 5th 2011 and has received some great responses.
The article identifies common website performance problems and gives a checklist of potential causes and solutions.
Read my guest post on the Search Engine People Blog here: Website Performance Troubleshooting Checklist.
Why would you write a guest post for someone else’s blog?
Having informative, well-written guest posts published on blogs of other websites or companies is a great way to:
New WordPress website with photo galleries for luxury homestead
My main occupation is web copywriter. Sometimes clients like me to do everything for them: create the website and do copywriting and SEO for it. I love doing those projects.
However, for this particular project, the brief was the other way around – all the content would be supplied, but could I create the website around it? Well, yes, I could. So I did.
I’ve found that WordPress has made the process of creating a good, user-friendly and search engine optimised website a whole lot easier. And I love handing a WordPress website over to clients because I know they’ll be able to add and change their content quite easily with WordPress as the CMS.
What’s wrong with my website?
Are you frustrated with your website and how it performs? You’re not alone. Many website owners (often people running a small business) are disappointed that their website isn’t very successful.
Even if your website was created by a professional web designer, there are still countless things that can be wrong with it. But perhaps they’re easily fixed – as long as you know what is actually causing the problems.
Let’s do some troubleshooting!
Here are some typical website problems with possible reasons & solutions: