SEO Hosting Blog

The best businesses have loyal customers who buy from them time and time again. Take a look at Apple. Apple customers are among the most loyal in the world. They line up every time Apple releases a new product. They put Apple bumper stickers on their cars. They show off their Apple gadgets to anyone who will listen. Wouldn’t you love to have loyal customers like that?

Growing a loyal customer base requires work, but it’s worth it. After all, it’s far more profitable for you to keep customers than to try to attract new ones.

Here are some things you can do to build a more loyal customer base.

• Build relationships with your customers—Stop thinking in terms of sales and start thinking in terms of relationships. Your sales philosophy needs to focus on relationship building. Your business can’t lose that personal touch. Take time to get to really know your clients, and keep in touch with them to make sure their needs are always being met.
• Position yourself as the expert in your niche—When customers trust you and view you as an expert, they’ll turn to you every time they need the services or products you offer. No matter what your niche, you need to be seen as an expert. If you sell bicycles, learn everything there is to know about bicycles and share that knowledge with your customers.
• Always deliver on your promises—Relationships are built on trust. If you routinely fail to live up to your promises, you’ll lose the trust of your customers, and the relationship will be damaged, usually beyond repair. It’s pretty simple. If you say you’re going to do something, do it.
• Give great service after the sale—Don’t ignore your customers after they’ve given you their money. Demonstrate your commitment to their satisfaction by providing them with great service after the sale. Follow up with them to make sure they’re happy with their purchase. If they contact you needing help after the sale, be quick to respond.
• Ask for feedback (and use it!)—Do you really know what your customers want? A lot of businesses think they know, but they’re usually wrong because they don’t actually listen to their customers. Always encourage your customers to provide you with honest feedback, and use that feedback to improve your offerings.

What’s your approach for building a loyal customer base? Share your tips by commenting below.

I’ve spent some time on this blog dispelling the myth that all clients are good clients. The truth is that not all customers are good for your business. A bad client can cost you time, resources, energy, sanity, and most importantly, money. That’s why I advocate firing your bad clients. Let them go. Think you can’t survive without their money? Fire them and spend that extra time working up a plan to attract A-list clients. Trust me, it will be worth it in the long run.

But how exactly do you fire a bad client? I’ve fired more than a few clients in my day, so I’ll share some tips with you based on my personal experiences.

• Stay calm and professional—There’s a good chance you might be pretty upset with your client. Maybe they’re way behind on paying you, or maybe they talk down to you and you’re tired of it. No matter what the situation, you have to be the professional. You can’t control how others behave, but you can control your behavior. You’re running a business, so you can’t treat this like a nasty breakup with a significant other. Professionalism is your main goal.
• Blame yourself—Ever heard the classic breakup line “It’s not you, it’s me”? You can use this approach when firing a client. Take the blame if you feel it will help diffuse the situation. Tell them you’re not the right person for the job. Tell them you’re booked up. You can find any number of ways to use the “it’s not you, it’s me” approach to firing a client.
• Suggest another service provider—One way to soften the blow of your breakup with the client is to refer them to someone else who can provide them with the services they need. This shows that you’re not holding a grudge and that you care about their future success and satisfaction.
• Raise your prices—A lot of bad clients are clients who don’t want to pay you what you’re worth. They’re constantly trying to haggle with you to get your prices down. You can usually get rid of price shoppers simply by raising your prices.
• Take care of any remaining loose ends—Before severing the relationship with your bad client, make sure you’ve taken care of any loose ends. If you still owe them work that they’ve paid for, finish the project.

Have you fired any bad clients? How did you do it? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

One of the toughest lessons I learned early on in running my own business is that you can never stop marketing yourself. It’s easy to get comfortable when everything is running smoothly with your company and you’re experiencing success, but things are constantly changing, so you have to keep marketing your company if you want to continue enjoying success.

It’s also easy to get so caught up in running your business that you forget to set aside time to promote it. You have to set aside time every single day for marketing your business. Your marketing is just as important as the work you’re doing for your clients, so don’t neglect it.

Here are some of the reasons you have to always be marketing your business, even when you’re experiencing success and don’t think you need to.

• Marketing takes time to work—The marketing you’re doing right now may take several months to start producing results. If you want to continue to enjoy the success you’re having now, you have to keep marketing your business aggressively so you’ll have a solid foundation for future success and growth.
• Just because business is good now doesn’t mean it always will be—In business, there are always highs and lows. Not to rain on your parade, but just because things are really great at this moment doesn’t mean that your business won’t slip into a valley a few months from now. That’s why you can’t get comfortable with your current success. You have to keep working to maintain it.
• It’s important to stay relevant—Consumers have shorter attention spans than ever before. If you suddenly stop marketing your business, you’ll disappear, and everyone will soon begin to forget about you. When that happens, your customer base will dissipate and your lack of relevance will kill your business.
• You have competition—Every business has competition. And if you want to keep your competitors from stealing your target customers, you have to aggressively promote your business and reach out to potential customers. Your competitors are marketing their companies, so you have to do it as well if you want to stay in the fight.
• Marketing isn’t a one-time task—Too many times, companies will do “a little marketing” and think that’s enough to help them grow and prosper. Marketing isn’t a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process. Every day, you need to be spending time building relationships with customers and prospects, finding new ways to generate leads, building your brand’s credibility and name recognition, and strategizing for future success.

Have you ever made the mistake of slacking off on your marketing? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

Press releases still serve a very important PR and marketing purpose. Whether you distribute them online or email them to reporters and bloggers, the goal is the same—to get your news read by as many people as possible.

In order to achieve this goal, you need to write better press releases, because the sad truth is most press releases just suck. Here are 4 ways you can write better press releases.

1. Find a unique angle—The average reporter is bombarded with press releases all day long. They’re probably receiving press releases from your competitors too. That means it’s crucial that you do something to make your press release stand out from the crowd. The same old, tired, straightforward press release about a bland topic no one outside of your company cares about just won’t cut it. You need to find a fresh approach to your stories to make them more relevant and more compelling.
2. Don’t write to the template—Nearly every press release looks the exact same. The headlines are the same, the opening paragraphs are the same, the buzzwords are the same, and the dull, lifeless quotes are the same. If you want to distribute a press release that gets noticed, you have to steer clear of the paint-by-numbers style of press release writing.
3. Know thy audience—Who is going to be reading your press release? Reporters? Buyers? Investors? Affiliates? Customers? Know your audience, and write your news in a way that appeals to their main interests.
4. Edit. Edit. Edit.—Too many press releases are filled with fluff. That is, they contain irrelevant, useless information that does nothing but boost the word count. Your readers, no matter who they are, are pressed for time. They just need the main points of your story quickly and clearly. Anything that doesn’t need to be in the press release should be cut out. Get rid of the buzzwords and industry jargon while you’re at it.

What press release writing tips would you add to this list? Share them by leaving a comment below.

Thanks to the SEO press release, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that press releases can actually be sent to reporters with the hope of getting media coverage for your company. For those of us who actually still send press releases to the media, it’s inevitable to run into situations where no one bites on your story. Understanding why your press releases are unsuccessful is important for helping you write better ones in the future.

Here are 4 possible reasons that a press release might not get picked up.

1. The headline failed to grab attention—Journalists are bombarded with press releases on a daily basis. The dirty little secret is that most press releases don’t even get read—they end up in the trash bin (virtual or real). Why is that? It’s because a lot of journalists glance at the headline to decide whether or not to continue reading. If the headline isn’t compelling, your story probably won’t get read. You really need to focus your efforts on writing clear, powerful headlines that grab the reader’s interest and force them to check out the rest of your press release.
2. It reads like an advertisement—You’re supposed to be sharing actual news, not just a thinly-veiled advertisement of your products and services. Unfortunately, the number of press releases that read like advertisements only seems to have increased thanks to shady online press release distribution websites.
3. Nobody outside of your company cares about the news—Most of the stuff that companies try to pass off as news is so trivial and boring that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at how pointless the press release is. For the most part, no one cares if you just launched a new blog, hired a new employee, or updated something minor on your website. Be honest with yourself when writing your press releases, asking “Who really cares?” If you don’t see anyone outside of your company giving a hoot about the story, best to bury it.
4. You sent it to the wrong people—Just like in all other aspects of marketing, the quality of your contact list matters quite a bit. If you don’t send your press releases to the reporters who would actually be interested in covering your story, you’re just wasting your time. Build a list of highly targeted reporters, and make sure you keep it updated as reporters are constantly being shifted in their assignments.

What are some other common reasons for ineffective press releases? Share your thoughts below by leaving a comment.