David White Consulting

The one sure way to be successful is to help others - Let Me Help You

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SEO OR PPC?

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Is SEO or PPC even the right question?

Or should it be Google or Facebook? Neither is the right question. The right question is where are your clients and what motivates them to buy. This has little to do with the medium and everything to do with your business. Really – is online marketing suitable at all?

Since I set standards for SEO when I chaired the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Search Council (twice – once for the UK and secondly for Europe) I am often asked to advise of the SEO effectiveness of a website or asked about how to improve a Pay Per Click campaign.

As I have worked on thousands of campaigns over the years I can usually tell at a glance if the SEO is up to scratch, similarly with PPC. I am an expert in every sense in social media as well as Google.

The reality is that tuning SEO or PPC can make a huge difference for those who are already at the cutting edge – who already get a lot of business online – as they already know this is where the clients are – and they like to buy online – for everyone else we still need to establish what your clients really want.

Take a step back from SEO & PPC

I realise I may be putting you off search and some may click away in horror because I am not providing the service that is being asked of me.

Yet I have learned the hard truth to this many times over the years. I have been paid to optimise or to tune many a pay per click campaign – according to the clients wishes only to discover that the business that I have optimised cannot or will not make more sales as a result of being at the top of search.

So please, take a step back as there is preparation work to be done first and over the years I have devised a program that can get you there. It focuses on putting you at the heart of your clients world, to positioning you on the shoulders of giants and to ensuring that people in your market know you are the person to do business with. There is more to it, and you can read more about that here. Yet in essence that is the core of it, only then you might be ready to use search marketing.

What SEO really is.

Most people think that Search Engine Optimisation is all about adjusting meta tags and inserting keyword orientated content, that will help. However to be really on message you need to communicate with real clients not just search engines and in this you need to be both optimised and authentic.

It’s a tricky balance, yet it can be easily navigated and it can lead to a series of great benefits. The main benefit is to the benefit of your brand and to building your reputation. To get this right you need to follow a plan. I have outlined a simple, easy to follow plan you can follow here.

What PPC really is.

Pay per click is about the amplification of a campaign that already works. Not only that, it provides the ability to deliver on the changing nature of a sales campaign in minutes, at scale and to test and measure continuously, it is covered under a subject that I prefer to describe as Iterative Innovation TM.

Iterative Innovation TM is about testing, success and failure. You might find it odd to see failure from me, yet without failure we would have nothing to benchmark against and my idea of failure is when one test gets 5.2% compared to the another getting 4.5%, the first being the success, the second being the failure, but then is it? Is 4.5% in the specific circumstances the best we can get?

This relentless pursuit of success has led many of my clients to get great results. I even have a video of one client – who if you listen carefully, is casual and relaxed about admitting 500% Return On Investment (ROI), yet finds 1000% ROI a little too much and in the video explains why. Yet if you are in business, 1000% ROI and more really is the holy grail.

The Instant ‘Four Cornerstone Business Plan’

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Everyone I know wants more, more clients, more sales, more profit, more money, more happiness. Plus they want it all now! Is that unreasonable? Maybe, yet there is a way you can have it all and it is what I call the Four Cornerstone Business Plan.

This is simple – and fast, you can start this today – it costs largely nothing too. Yet it is not necessarily easy, it takes some work and you will want to put more and more time into it as you see it work out. I can assure you the only way you will succeed is if you do what most people fail to do: start and keep it up! This business plan is truly the Golden Gate to success!

The first cornerstone is all about learning to grow. 

By this I mean don’t just go and get new clients to grow. The fact is that most people are too busy doing what they are doing and satisfied with what they have, and that is the core reason why people don’t grow. There is more to this though.

Here’s what to do: You need to work out what to do, do it, and plan it so that you continue to do it and then keep it up – and for most this seems incredibly difficult to maintain. That is why the first cornerstone has to be: learn to grow. Growth is a skill you want to master. You learn it by doing it and then you keep on doing it!

The second cornerstone: create the scaffolding for growth.

Business needs support and you can’t expect anyone else to support your business but you. So your objective needs to build solid supports that will keep your business growing. Your solid support may be a system or a method for attracting and keeping new clients. Whatever it is whether it starts with facebook, linkedin or as a result of a referral network, you need to enshrine the process so that it becomes a machine. This is a subject I talk about often and have over the years created hundreds of machines.

The third cornerstone: your community.

As Sir Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants” You want to sit amongst a community of giants whenever possible, there are lots of ways you can do this and it is a lot easier to do then you think.

You can connect with social media or linkedin etc and that is a great start, it’s not the end. So following and connecting is a good first base, yet it’s a long way from the end game. That’s not to say you can’t have some good relationships though social media. You can. It is to say that there is a lot more to really connecting with people than that which is afforded by Social Media alone.

Work out who the leaders in your community really are and work out what you can do to work alongside them. How can you be seen with them, how can you tie them into what you do. I have hundreds and hundreds of ideas and methods that you can apply in the real world and online that will massively elevate your status quickly in this area alone.

The fourth cornerstone: helping others.

I spent over twenty years putting people to the top of search engines, and still do. There are plenty I know who help their clients achieve the peak of fitness, have the best investments, have the best diet and go on the best holidays. We all have areas that we excel at and one way or another can demonstrate the truth of it, yet few really celebrate this which is especially odd when we think that there are so many ways you can demonstrate the facts. Below is a video shot recently, just a few years ago.

Each of these areas can be developed on and worked on ad infinitum. I have even trademarked a term for it: Iterative Innovation TM. The worst thing in business is: to be boring. So you do need to work on these four areas and you need to do so in an interesting way. Fortunately I know how to do that.

I have some clients I coach for one hour a month. Each hour we spend is always focussed on one of the four areas listed above.

Which of these four areas can I coach you on? You will get a great return on your investment. Click here to find out more for free. Answer a couple of simple questions and lets set up a time for a quick chat. Our fundamental objective should always be to create positive transformation that produces wealth, abundance and satisfaction. Let’s make sure this happens for you.

I may be able to help you with website Issues. Pay Per Click / SEO / Facebook etc. Sales strategy and direction. Project management. Software development – especially Node/Javascript. Also process, project, sales and if I haven’t mentioned it often enough already, strategic development, team building, systems integration and maximising overall performance – in a wide range of industries. See my Linkedin Profile for more.

Finally, for a limited time I have an offer where we can work together for 50% less than usual. To find out more, set up a time for a quick chat.

How To Get More From What YOU Have

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Magical Thinking is a term that is not only used in Anthropology and Psychology, it is also found in business planning too.

The term refers to fictitious causal links between actions and events. In business you will hear it in an investment proposal when someone takes an existing market and starts the presentation with if all we did was get 1% of that… Two things, first who only wants 1% of anything? Second: 1% of a large established market is a huge and and almost impossible market share expectation without some kind of trial or proof of concept.

Warning – To What Effect?

However, sadly it also goes on in most businesses on a day to day business too, causing much trouble and strife. The well known management process is to apply pressure on the juniors that amount to impossible targets in impossible time periods.

It happens in sales and it happens in software development too. The problem is that the focus can become so concerning that so much much time is spent in worry mode, that it leaves little time for success and in this way magic thinking can really kill a business.

Often you can see from the outside when magic thinking is in play when staff are forever working long hours, with overtime and weekends stacking up, just to keep on top of things.

Eventually all those texts “one more thing to do, then I’ll be home” to loved ones require balancing and while an employer can grab time now, it must be, according to nature, balanced out at some point in the future. To what real effect?

Practice Pairing

Yet oddly businesses that practice pairing can often produce more when two people are working as a team, sharing one desk and one computer. Although hunter intuitive it means that the pair constantly check each others work.

Mistakes are quickly caught and losses quickly recovered. There is always greater understanding, two points of view, two sets of vested interests. Oddly enough, firms who try pairing report higher productivity and due to lower overtime, less cost, less burnout and a lot more happiness.

There are other ways to get more from what you have. I am in the middle of compiling a series of reports fro you that you can download here. I have just added a series of short thought provoking videos too. I will keep adding more reports to this list until there are 12, then you can expect me to start taking them away. Click here to see what is available right away.

What’s Next After GDPR?

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There is always more profit to be found when you are aware of people, products, process and practices. Increased profits and productivity are to be found in all of these four key areas that are present in all businesses. Those four words represent the path for the 99% of business owners who run good businesses to become great businesses.

The Case For B2C & B2B

Starting with People, most business owners lets say in retail don’t know who their customers are and simply presume that they are local, although they could be just passing by and from far away.

In non-retail: b2b, most business owners can tell you the address of their customers and what they might have invested in, this is because an invoice exists that provides key data.

However it is rare to be able to determine the why or how often a client makes an investment in the things you sell. Unless there is a product, process or practice in place to find out the business owner will rarely know this key information.

The Astonishing Truth

What is astonishing and something that I have always marvelled for years is that even those who do collect customer information, rarely do much with it.

When it comes to business growth I have always known that knowing the who, why and what is crucial. There is much value in this information and significant cost savings can be achieved.

With good information on your customers it becomes increasingly possible to spot who your best customers are and then a lot easier to go get more like them.

When you really know who you help and how you help them, you can focus your efforts on key areas and make more of what your customers want available to them, or better still custom deliver the goods and move into a premium priced space.

It’s A Process I Call “Who-ing”.

“Who-ing” directly affects the products that you sell in terms of how much, at what price point and at which volume.

Customer and prospect information takes the guesswork out of sales and prospecting. It will inform you of the products you should be selling and how to tailor the processes to employ and similarly you’ll find you will fine tune all your practices too. This all adds up to building a great reputation and great profits for you. Like a machine!

If you want to know more on this subject I have written a collection of free guides for you, the number of which are increasing every week. Hurry though as some or all of them will be locked behind doors in just a few weeks from now. Click here and choose one growth guide or more that suits you.

Are You The Chicken Or The Pig?

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Graham Arrowsmith a direct mail specialist gave me a few compliments the other day when he interviewed me for his The Next 100 Days podcast. We discussed a couple of stories about how it all was “back in the day” and took a few moments to reflect on what was actually done and what others might learn from it and could do for themselves.

You can eavesdrop on our conversation here, click to listen in.

Graham was very happy that I was able to tell personal stories as story telling is the key to real communication. It is how people tune in and learn – much better than simply a set of commands telling you what to do. So go listen in! Hows that for a command…

In all the projects I work on, the most important thing to understand is the story. When I meet clients they always tell me the story of their clients and it is really important information to know, as when the customer journey is told as a story we can emotionally connect and more easily understand and empathise.

Have you ever heard the fable of the chicken and the pig?

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.

The Chicken says: “Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!”

Pig replies: “Hm, maybe, what would we call it?”

The Chicken responds: “How about ‘ham-n-eggs’?”

The Pig thinks for a moment and says: “No thanks. I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

That folks, is where the rubber meats the road.

Are you committed in what you do or are you a chicken?

The good thing about taking action is that you get to choose the direction. So if you go left and realise you should have gone right, you can always reverse! If you never start you will never get to where you want to be, it’s always a good time to commit.

I did not exactly say all I wanted to say to Graham, yet I am happy with what I did say. I could have prevaricated, I could have blocked it, or as I have done, I let it go, happy with the outcome, knowing that there is more we could have discussed left for another day.

There will always be another opportunity and all will be good with the world. I know this as I am as committed as the pig – all in!

The question is will you be the chicken or the pig today?

Have a great day.

The Big Issues (that most like to keep a secret)

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The big issues with all businesses is either costs grow too quickly, they are pulled in too many directions, clients are too diverse, or, most commonly: you never seem to have enough clients. These are also the key reasons why no one seems to have enough time too. It’s time to solve this once and for all.

There are various reasons, yet it can always be pinned to just one thing.

I will reveal exactly what that one thing is tonight on this evenings popular early evening webinar. We start at 6pm. The Webinar is called The 12 ‘A’ List Secrets. Click here to register. We are running out of time and seats. Please register now.

Why Is It That So Many Miss This Out?

The thing is, everyone tells me they know the answer… Is it too simple, too obvious, or is it too complicated? Anyway, just about everyone misses this vital step – it’s step one! The most important step of all and it is why so many businesses fail. I hope to give you some insights into how you might solve this one big issue – tonight!

Too Controversial?

These are all big issues that are common to many business failures. They can all be solved with the one simple process I will cover on the webinar. The key issue that most seem to forget about is that your business is not determined by it’s clients, your business is determined by you. This is controversial: The client is always right… when you say so!

All liquidators agree it always comes down to the decision the business owner makes…

I hope to see you at 6pm today, this afternoon.
Click here to register. We are running out of time and seats. Please register now.

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