Women Entrepreneurs: Do You Like What Ideal Clients See When They Google You?

I wish I could tell you differently, but marketing to reach ideal clients is simply a fact of life when you’re an entrepreneur.

Did you know that a whopping 79% of entrepreneurs wish they had more help with marketing? (Source)

I meet tons of purpose driven women business owners (who madly love what they do) and grapple with marketing and promoting themselves.

My favorite mantra is:

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Don’t love marketing your business? You’re not marketing: You’re educating potential clients by helping them solve (small) problems and pain points. #womenentrepreneurs #marketingtips” quote=”Don’t love marketing your business? You’re not marketing: You’re educating potential clients by helping them solve (small) problems and pain points.”]

Do you fall in this camp?

You love your work because you’re a genius at it
You shine at helping ideal clients solve problems once and for all
Everyday you pinch yourself that you get to be your own boss

Your reality is, you’d be thrilled to never have to do marketing again. Does that about sum it up? Aha—you’re in wonderful company!

[bctt tweet=”Marketing is your Swiss Army Knife to help potential clients begin to know, like and trust you.” username=”ConnectUrGenius”] (When I need to open a wine bottle away from home, the Swiss thingy is super handy.)

The next dilemma I hear from women entrepreneurs (who’d rather have a root canal than ‘do marketing’) is that they can’t figure out what to talk about when it comes to doing marketing tasks, like:

Putting fresh content on their website
Blogging
Creating videos to attract potential clients
Writing articles for their profile on LinkedIn, other websites, publications
Coming up with topics for email newsletters to their list

If it’s time that you figured out what to write-blog-video-email, post-on-social-media, I’m a happy camper that you’re here! Keep reading.

Here’s Where Your Online Presence Counts

As an entrepreneur who is likely a team-of-one, connecting your skills with your clients’ pain points and problems is job #1.

Let’s walk in your clients’ shoes for a moment.

What do you do when you’re looking for a new: yoga place, banker, web designer, or accountant? When you’re looking for services and products for your business or your family, you want someone that you know-like-and-trust.

First, you ask friends and colleagues. After that, once you get a name or two, you type them into a search engine.

Even when a friend recommends someone to you, you immediately search for them online right? Exactly. I do too! It’s how we get to know people now. (Thank you, Google.)

I instantly ‘Google’ someone who’s been recommended to me. I want to see what they’re about before I decide to contact them.

When friends and partners recommend you, the person that needs your products or services is going to search your name (business name) online too.

What will your potential client see when they plug your name into Google? They’ll see whatever the search engine finds for your name or your business name. They see your Internet presence. Or your online presence.

What’s Your ‘Online Presence’ and why do you care?

I like the definition of online presence from website design company, Interactive Palette: The basic definition of an online presence is this: the collective existence of a company or individual that can be found online via an online search.

Technically speaking, if you have a website, you have an online presence.

Or if you are a member of an association that has a member directory listing online, you have an online presence.

Or if you have a Facebook account, you have an online presence.

At the end of the day, your online presence is every link to information about you (or that you published) that potential customers find when they ‘Google’ you.

When they search for your business online, it’s all the results that the search engine finds. Your online presence is made up of:

Your business website or blog
Information about you on web-based directories of organizations you belong to
Your social media profiles/activity: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google+, etc.
Online sites where you publish articles: LinkedIn, blogs, online magazines, news sites, and association / industry sites…
Websites that host your videos: YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, and others
Sites that host your podcasts. Or podcasts you’re interviewed on: iTunes, Stitch Radio, BlogTalk radio, and tons of others
Content that you publish on sites owned by others: industry sites, news sites, major blogs in your field, etc.

After Google-ing yourself, if you’re not happy with results here are steps you can take to change how you show up to your audience.

5 Simple Ways to Connect Your Genius and Reach Perfect Clients

Perfect clients: people you love serving, who love your work, and get stellar results with your programs or products.

#1: Communicate your truest message on every page of your website. Your website is your online storefront (office). It’s your brand. Make sure each image, word, video represents the best of you and your work. Infuse your passion into each page describing how you help, the kinds of problems and pain points you solve, who you help…and so much more.

Go through your website the way a prospect would.
Make sure your home page, service description pages, blog, and about page sound they way you’d speak to a potential client that you meet in person.
Do they reflect your why, the reason you do the work you do?
Can a web visitor grasp your basic message?
Is each page of your website content up-to-date and timely?

#2. Keep your social media profiles up-to-date. I can’t stress this enough. You don’t have to be a social media maven or post 10 times daily. It is hugely important that you keep your profiles current.

Does each social profile represent who you are (today)?
Do your brand, your message, your voice, and passion come across clearly?
Can the web visitor understand the kinds of customers you serve?
Is it clear how you help clients solve problems and fix pain points?

LinkedIn and Twitter are Google favorites! When someone searches online for you, these two social profiles generally appear near the top of the page.

Stay on top of results that come up when your business name is searched. Google yourself often!

Don’t let your social profiles look like desert islands! Avoid having potential clients visit one of your social profiles that haven’t been updated in months! Decide on the posting frequency you’re comfortable with and be consistent.

#3: Create and publish new content on your website once a week. Your fresh content signals to search engines that your website is reputable, credible, and being taking care of. Create a new blog post (or video) weekly! It lets your audience of future clients know that you’re committed to your business and the people you help.

There are a gazillion benefits to blogging. Here are seven top advantages. You can:

Get your message out each time you create a blog. Have a plan
Squeeze extra mileage from blog posts by sending them to your email list subscribers
Lead folks to your website by linking to your blogs from your social media profiles
Share excerpts from your blog posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more
Email blog links to potential clients when they ask you a question that you’ve written about
Give potential customers the opportunity to comment on your blog or contact you
Dazzle future and current clients with YOUR unique approach to fixing problems
(Bonus) Don’t love writing? Record videos and post on your blog. Livestream from Facebook or Instagram

#4: Brainstorm at least 20 topics for your blog. Do a quick brain-dump. List every kind of question, problem, and pain point your clients have. The beauty of brainstorming a bunch of ideas at once is that you don’t have to tax your mind deciding what to blog about weekly.

Give yourself the gift of an hour to scribble down ideas, problems, questions, and how-tos that your audience cares about. Make it deeply personal, specific to your dream clients. What that means is, avoid being ‘generic’ with your content titles.

#5) Publish ‘should ask’ questions and answers on your site. What’s a ‘should ask question’? These are questions your clients never think to ask when they’re looking to buy products and services like yours.

Should ask questions are the ‘gotchas’ in your field. You can be a hero to your audience because few experts share this type of ‘insider information’.

This is your opportunity to demonstrate your special genius gifts, so you can build the know-like-trust factor with future clients.

Final Thoughts

This would be a huge mistake, don’t simply pour your precious time and money into a website and then sit back and wait for prospects to find you. You want to promote your website by being active on social media.

You want to show up online by sharing your one-of-a-kind knowledge.

For example, let your audience know who you are by blogging, recording videos, and social media posting about your passion. Why you love what you do. Take every possible chance to educate potential clients with your message. Share your excitement for your work and how you make it easy for people who don’t have your genius skills, to solve pain points.

Why? Because your content and message attracts potential buyers: videos, blogs, articles, images, customer success stories, social media posts and more. Educational content helps people who need your help, but don’t know you yet, begin to know, like and trust you.

Especially when you write, video and post on social media exactly as you would if you were talking to them in person. Pack your personality, passion, excitement and purpose into all of your content! It’s your message; share it powerfully.

Above all, make publishing juicy content online that captures your potential clients’ attention a priority. You’ve worked too hard to get where you are. You love what you do! Don’t let the people who need your help the most, miss out on finding you!

Now, are you ready to reach more of your perfect clients? Is it time you got a handle on how to connect with the clients who get the best results from your work? Great—I have just the Guide for you! Please click here to join my list community and get your free copy of my guide “7 Critical Mistakes Women Entrepreneurs Make That Keep Them from Connecting with Ideal Clients (And How to Fix Them)”

This Guide shows you how to get razor sharp clarity about 7 key aspects of marketing your business. Including the type of customers or clients you want to serve so you can create the business and life you want.

Be Unstoppable!

~~ Cynthia