When marketing your business, you must continually keep with all things digital marketing including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). There is simply soooooo much contradictory information out there about SEO. It is hard to find the truth and what really works.

This week Kalena, who heads up Search Engine College, has written a piece about SEO after receiving several question submissions from webmasters who were struggling to optimise their sites.

Kalena has created simple steps as a series of 10 weekly articles outlining how to improve the search engine visibility of your site straight away. I like the diet analogy.

Kalena has provided a terrific deep dive curriculum on and has a broader understanding of related information than any other practitioner. Click here to use my affiliate link.

image via flickr by aussiegall

Despite all the talk about having a niche, many businesses still operate without one. Your must have something that sets you apart from anyone else either in product, distribution or promotion at all times. Doing this type of regular activity, protects your business from competing on price.

Now do not over think this. It does not have to be a new invention. It can simply be a new feature added to one of your current offerings. This is strategy to the core!

So below are three methods of uncovering your niche:

1. Call your top 6 clients.

They know what they want and need. Take detailed notes during the conversations and follow up on a least one idea that comes out in the conversation within a month. Keep the client involved in the progress too!

2. Do a ‘documented’ competitive analysis.

In a 3 column table, the headings should read ‘Unique Differences’ /’Risk Low -1 High -5′/ ‘Action’. List your competitors unique differences, the level of risk to your business and the actions you will take to combat them. Do a separate table for each client and review for possible feature combinations and brainstorm.

3. Compare against leaders in other industries.

If you are an IT company compare your product offering to a business in the restaurant industry or any category killer for that matter. It sounds odd, but list out all of your product or services for both you and them next to each other. You will be surprised how quickly a new offering idea can come to you and how creatively satisfying this can be.

Do this every quarter or half year and also pop it in your business plan.

If this is the first time you have done this, it will be a much needed reality check. I get to do this for clients all the time and it is quite scary how long they operate without a niche and wonder why is always comes down to price.

It is also advisable to have somebody outside of your business do this on your behalf and provide a report back to you. Business ‘owners’ and ‘founders’ in particular make ill judgements about the products or services and they never know that they are doing it

Put simply, Australian site Source Bottle is an online service that connects journalists and writers with ‘sources’. Pollen Marketing has also integrated Source Bottle into a number of marketing strategies over the last 8 months with some great results. This can form the most cost effective part of your marketing mix, yet can have the most impact.

So what are some of the top ways we have used Source Bottle?

1.Line up key speaking or article writing gigs to expose your personal brand. This is the best way to position your personal brand or company as a trusted advisor and thought leaders in your industry or niche.

2. Find opportunities to promote your product – There is a call out for this sort of thing everyday fro numerous campaigns or events. This is the perfect way to get your product into the hands of a very targeted audience.

3. Build traffic to your website – Find a number of like minded people that can contribute articles or blogs to your website and bring traffic your way.

4. Research a topic of interest – Line up an interview and get personal account. This holds water over your typical marketing garble.

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If you asked me, I would have to say I agree. If I lost my phone, I am sure I would cry. I am convinced, if I lost my car on the other hand, I would just call RACV and move on.

So why the relationship with our phones? I think it is because of our unique personalisation’s. My music library, my unique combination of apps, my conversations, maps etc. Some will say it is our connection with the world. Maybe I agree a little with that too.

I know people that express themsleves through their cars. As a result they only take them out on weekend drives, won’t park them at a train station or shopping centre. This defies the purpose they were built for.

It is a perfect little gadget that holds snapshots (be it literal) of our lives and has changed the way we live them.

Interesting enough, when you put in Age 45-54, Australian Male – 62% are Spectators . When you change that to female, it drops by almost 10%.

Tool Keys -
•For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides) or read Chapter 3 of Groundswell.

•Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

•The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

•The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

I am about to go through a fifth acquisition with one of my clients. There is a lot to get through and surprising there isn’t a lot out there as far as check lists to make sure you are covering off everything that bares your brand. I have put together this list including social media channels below.

Always take into consideration fonts, typestyles and colour schemes. I am even thinking reception area chairs but that maybe slight over kill. New start ups can use this list for planning too!

This is also an opportunity to reintroduce yourself to your clients via a letter or video blog on the latest your team are cooking up. Empty space on anything is another chance to tell your story.

Here goes:

Product overviews, On Hold Message, Foyer, Signage, Business cards & letterhead, with compliments slips, Envelopes Note pads Fax Sheets, Internal Memos, Microsoft Office templates: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Report Templates Proposal format, Purchase orders, Invoices, Returns, Contracts, Employment application, Product spec sheets Customer case studies, White papers, Executive briefs, Product catalogues, Stockholder communications, Product packages, Product labels, Shopping bags, Shipping cartons, Point-of-sale materials, In-store displays, CD and DVD case and labels, Customer magazine, Employee magazine Business partner/Dealer magazine, Decals on glass, Posters, Boardroom, Annual reports, Promotional brochures & flyer’s, Direct mailers & postcards, Advertisements, Sales kits Gift tags, Presentations/pitch books, Presentation folders, Media Kits, Press Releases, Package Inserts, Websites, Blogs, Business vehicles, Uniforms Trade show booths & banners,Voicemail greetings – Mobile & Desk Phones, Yellow Page ads, Website URL’s, E-Books, Banner Advertising, Autoresponder emails Directory listings (online + offline) , Emails addresses, Email signatures, Viral Marketing, Email newsletter, text message reminders, Pay-per-click ads, Google Adwords, Intranet, CRM E-commerce site, Branded Merchandise, Facebook Fan Page, UStream, Linkedin, Twitter account including background, film watermarks, branded YouTube channel, PodCast channel on iTunes –Stop me now! phew!

Have I missed anything off?? Please list it below.

I would also love to hear of examples of acquisition announcements or re-branding events that you have seen that got your attention and worked!

From the moment I started reading this book I was impacted. It was actually very difficult to read in that it truly challenged my thinking. Godin’s book Tribes went there but he really has nailed it this time round. Where is there? Challenging the status quo, being remarkable – be a renaissance.

The word’s of my high school vice principal the day I dropped out of specialist maths class came back to me. If only I had a little Seth in my pocket that day. My favorite subject in school was learning about the Industrial Revolution, so it was stunning to read Godin’s take on it’s full circle.

To be honest this isn’t a book everybody could stomach but everyone should read it. Yeah marketers and business people will read this, but anyone from school teachers to artist to preachers could lean on these principles.