The Book Every Business Owner Must Read

It's Time for Different

Various

• Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781990931734
• eBook ISBN:
  9781990931741
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

The time, for different, is now. Tap into the insights of our leading business minds and thought leaders and equip your business for a successful new way of doing business. The world of business is tough, especially today. We know that now is the time for exponential acceleration, adaptability, agility and adjusting, a time for resilience, perseverance and courage, where the frames of reference that so many of us have held onto for so long are simply no longer relevant. But you may be stuck. You may be frozen and fearful, and feeling panicked. You may be worried, and feel weary. Your vision may be blurred, and you may feel unsure of yourself, yet you have a business to run, and staff to look after. If you are feeling some, or perhaps all of these things, take a deep breath – help is at hand. With over forty chapters of wisdom, insights, experience, suggestions and advice from some of our leading business minds and thought leaders, you will find pure gems of information, ideas and solutions on each page of The Book Every Business Owner Must Read. Adapt, respond, and define your new ways of thinking to help you succeed. Get your pen and notebook ready, start reading and make notes and lists of what you can do, today, to not only survive, but thrive as a business.

THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH

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Mike Saunders

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Search engines are the ‘go-to’ destination for almost every question we have these days. They have become our source of general knowledge, entertainment, purchase information and celebrity gossip. We call this the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’ (ZMOT).

The Zero Moment of Truth, a term coined by Google in 2011, refers to the research which is conducted online about a product, organisation or service before taking any action. It’s this zero moment that drives the discovery of our businesses; it’s the single moment that we need to learn to leverage to build personal and business reputation.

Leveraging this moment has a lot to do with understanding search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing and online advertising channels to meet potential customers when they discover the need you can fulfil. It comes without saying that managing a robust online reputation means that you need to be able to meet your customers at that zero moment.

SEO then becomes one of your primary digital marketing activities.

Search Engine Optimisation is the fundamental art of setting up your online presence so that Google showcases you as a highly relevant result when a customer conducts an online search around your chosen topics of interest.

When Google views your content as relevant, it ranks you correctly in search results, driving more organic, relevant traffic to your website and online channels.

HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK

Search engines have two primary functions:

1.Search engines use automated software, known as robots (or spiders), to follow links on websites, collecting information and storing it in an extensive database.

2.When someone submits a query to a search engine, the search engine cross-checks the provided keywords against their index and presents ranked results according to what they deem the most relevant.

Algorithms are the recipes that search engines use to rank the content, and every search engine keeps their algorithm a tight secret. Search engines crawl your website by comparing your website’s content against the various recipes within their algorithm. Algorithms determine which websites to crawl; how often they are crawled and how many pages are fetched from each site.

The key to success in SEO is understanding the relationship between search engine algorithms and your website.

RELEVANCE, REFERRAL AND RECENT

Excellent search engine reputation is developed through relevant content that is recent and referred to by other web properties.

When developing your website content, bear these elements in mind. Focus first on creating relevant content for your customers. You can do this by understanding your searcher’s intent. Understanding your searcher’s intent will help you develop a list of keywords where you hope to become relevant.

A keyword can be either a single word or an entire phrase. ‘Shoe’ is a keyword, but so is ‘online shoe store’. Although ranking on the first page of a Google search for the query ‘shoe’ would generate high volumes of traffic, this is a highly competitive space – and there are many different reasons why a user would search for that specific term. Conversely, ranking for the phrase ‘online shoe store’ will send users to your website who are looking to purchase shoes online – making this an ideal keyword for an e-commerce platform.

Because of this behaviour, keyword strategy comes down to understanding your users and their search intentions.

SEARCHER INTENT

Understanding your keyword strategy comes down to understanding how users interact with search engines.

Search engine users have adapted a practice we call ‘query refinement’. Instead of typing ‘shoe’ into the search engine and scrolling through multiple pages to find a website relevant to our intention, we refine our search query until one of the results on the first page catches our eye. We might start with ‘shoe’, then refine it to ‘online shoe store’ and finally type ‘buy Nike shoes online’ before clicking a link at the top of the search engine results page.

Effective keyword strategy comes down to understanding what your users are typing into Google. In this case, you have three types of users:

1.Navigational users are people who are looking for web pages they know already exist. For example, the queries ‘Twitter login’ and ‘Amazon kitchen deals’ are both navigational queries.

2.Informational users are people who are looking for insight into products or services. ‘Top hotels in Dubai’ would be an example of this.

3.Commercial users have the intention of making a purchase and are looking for the best place to do so. ‘Book Singapore flights’ and ‘online shoe stores’ are examples of queries with commercial intent.

Now your job is relatively simple: create content that is relevant to the list of keywords you believe your customers will be searching.

Once your content is created, its relevancy should draw attention from web users who will link to it, share it on social networks and talk about it on their websites.

The referral element comes to play when people share, talk about and link to your content. The more people link to your content, the better. Think of every link as a vote of confidence in your content and business. Google will access the relevancy of your content, and then it will look at the number of links coming to your content. The more referral and relevance the higher in the rankings you’ll be placed in the search result.

Finally, no-one likes an out-of-date website, and Google feels the same. To the point that they won’t send people to websites that are out of date – why, because they are less relevant than up-to-date sites. In this c...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• IMPRINT PAGE
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY
• THE BIG RESET: REIMAGINING YOUR STRATEGY
• THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY – THEY DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY THERE
• CREATING A SMALL LIST OF BIG QUESTIONS
• MAKING THE MOST OF A CRISIS, KASINOMIC STYLE
• POINTS OF NO RETURN
• BRACING YOURSELF FOR THE STORM – YOUR MINDSET THROUGH THE CRISIS
• MINDSET, SHOES AND MYTHS
• YOU ARE ALL EXTREME ADVENTURERS
• PREPARING A PROFOUND PERSPECTIVE IN THE FACE OF A PANDEMIC
• WE THOUGHT WE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME UNTIL WE HAD NO CHOICE …
• STAYING SAFE, SANE AND SOLVENT
• WILL COVID-19 MAKE CONSCIOUSNESS CONTAGEOUS?
• REMARKABLE CREATIVITY FIRST
• THE FRAMEWORK
• DON’T STOP IN THE TIME OF CRISIS; KEEP GOING AND DO YOUR BEST WORK YET
• RISE, AND RISE AGAIN
• PEANUT BUTTER, INITIATIONS AND CRAZY TIMES
• WHAT IT IS TO BE A LEADER
• CONTROL YOUR THOUGHTS
• IT’S TIME TO BUILD A CURIOUS COMPANY
• BECOMING IN TIMES OF CRISIS
• LEVERAGING CRISIS FOR SUCCESS
• THE ØUTSIDERS APPROACH
• GET SHIT DONE
• HOW Cars.co.za USED THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC TO RECONNECT WITH STARTUP CULTURE
• CRISIS FATIGUE
• BUILDING A BUSINESS THAT IS LIFE PROFITABLE
• WORLDS APART: SOCIALLY DISTANT
• UNDERSTANDING SURPRISE WILL IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS’ CONTENT
• ARE YOU PART OF A BETA CULTURE?
• WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, ENTREPRENEURS GET GOING
• BUILDING AN EXPLODED RESOURCES LIST
• HYBRID VIGOUR – LIFE & BUSINESS AT THE INTERSECTIONS
• HOP OUT OF THE POT
• START WITH THE END IN MIND = SUCCESS
• ADAPTNATION
• TEN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES
• SCENARIO PLANNING AS A VITAL TOOL
• POSITION YOURSELF IN THE MARKET
• CLOSING THE DISTANCE BETWEEN REALISM AND OPTIMISM
• BE BRAVER THAN EVER
• A REAL CATALYST FOR GROWTH
• BUILDING AN OPPORTUNITY MATRIX
• THE POWER OF PERSEVERANCE: THE SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR’S SECRET WEAPON
• CONCEPT TO CREATION IN 48 HOURS – BUILDING AS YOU RUN
• ADOPT TECHNOLOGY TO LEAPFROG COVID-19
• ADAPTABILITY AND FINANCIAL RESILIENCE WILL DETERMINE THE SMALL BUSINESS WINNERS
• THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH
• APPRECIATIONS