317 - Should You Sell Your Business and Follow Your Passion?
Have you ever thought to yourself… Should I sell my business, pack everything up and just hit the road? Well I have found a guy that has done just that and is literally living the dream. He and his wife owned and ran a printing business for 12 years. They were in the daily grind, employing staff, constantly keeping the wheels turning to pay the bills. Then one day they decided to pack up, sell up and go on a 16 month road trip around this beautiful country with their two young children and you wouldn’t believe it… This trip spawned a whole new business.
In this fireside chat we cover:
- The motivation behind creating the documentary 'The Big Lap"
- How to create content even when you have no experience
- Content marketing on steroids
- How to use Facebook advertising to drive traffic to your website then sales
- Re-marketing on facebook
- Building a community
I also cover a marketing question from ME. I've been bugged by a particular SEO question for months. When you create a piece of content for your website you should write around a specific keyword or key phrase. As you know I cover a wide range of small business marketing topics on each and every episode so I'm often stumped as to what should be the 'focus keyword'. So I turned to SEO expert and past guest of the show Rand Fishkin from Moz.
*GEEK ALERT*
Here's Rand's response:
There's not much metadata required these days. The page title, meta description, and any schema markup (https://moz.com/learn/seo/schema-structured-data) that applies, and that's pretty much it. If you're looking for more on how on-page SEO works these days, check out https://moz.com/blog/on-page-seo-8-principles-whiteboard-friday
If your challenge is more choosing what to make the focus keywords, my advice would be to think about the problem the podcast/shownotes solve for people, and what folks might search for that would result in them being extremely happy to find that particular show. A tool like Keyword Explorer (from Moz) or Ubersuggest (which is free) might help, too.
Geek is Chic! If this makes no sense to you feel free to send this to your web developer to help you out.
EPISODE TIMELINE
01:03 Welcome & overview
02:40 Insights in to WebCentral
03:55 Time for a check-in on the week
05:41 Today’s guest introduction - Steven Baille of Expedition Australia
06:45 Interview with Steven Baille - Part 1
15:13 Insights in to Cornerstone Business Solutions
17:23 Interview with Steve & Natalie Warner - Part 2
38:45 My top 3 attention grabbers from my chat with XXX
40:30 SEO questions answered by Rand Fischkin from Moz
43:24 Listener feedback
46:06 Wrap-up and insights in to next week’s guests
EPISODE SPONSORS (PLEASE SUPPORT THEM)
WebCentral listener offer – Helping your website get found, fast.
Cornerstone Business Solutions
Reduce your business running cost by up to 90%
RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED
Steven's official website
Episode 262 with Rand Fishkin on SEO tips for small business
9 ways to improve your SEO from the Small Business Big Marketing Blog
Buy Timbo’s new marketing book The Boomerang Effect
MY TOP 3 MARKETING ATTENTION GRABBERS FROM THIS EPISODE
- Have the confidence to front some videos or audios for your business - Steve and his family fronted 200 hours of footage without any media training. I started this show without any interviewing experience. I talk about this in my book, plus there’s a chapter on video content ideas.
- Use original content as a way to get people inside your business (in Steve's case, his website). Focus on creating insanely helpful content and the clicks (and sales) will follow.
- Promote that content on Facebook - whether it be a boosted post or Facebook ads. This can be more effective than going for the direct sale.
OVER TO YOU …
What was your biggest marketing learning or ah-ha moment from this episode?
Leave your comment below.
My guest and I respond to each and every comment.
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/marketingpodcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.