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Articles by Beth Walker
How to find the best point-of-sale system to power your business
Listen to this story Loading audio file, please wait. Speed 1.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00 When the U.S. Mint stopped producing pennies last year, it confirmed an ongoing shift: consumers are far more likely to tap a smartphone than reach for spare change. By the end of the decade, 6 billion people worldwide are expected to use digital wallets, according to Juniper Research.
Steak Pie
Steak Pie This steak pie is my version of one made in a Scottish bakery in Pickering, Ontario. My husband says it's better! You could also add two calf kidneys (well washed and de-veined and cut into bite-sized pieces) to make steak and kidney pie! Submitted by JIMZGRL Updated on March 17, 2026
Batavia Boardwalk Shops open May 10 with 10 small businesses
Morbid Mementos offers all things strange and unusual, from home decor to jewelry to candles to ritual supplies. Courtesy of Morbid Mementos The 2024 season of the Batavia Boardwalk Shops begins on Friday, May 10. The shops are designed to support small businesses, create additional retail shopping, and to bring people to downtown Batavia to enjoy this unique destination as well as the rest of downtown.
Purpose: What does your business stand for?
In 1860, the Royal Society of Victoria organised an expedition to find a route from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Almost surprisingly, at the time, Melbourne was the second-largest city in the British Empire. Establishing a telegraph cable would give the city great economic benefits. With the single-minded purpose of establishing a telegraph cable to the rest of the world, the Society selected Robert Burke and William Wills to lead the expedition.
Shaping your business around customer experience
Learning how to be more customer-centric sounds good; however, based on the structure of your business, you may have some work to do. The list of potential opportunities to improve is long; however, this article's ideas are not complex. That’s because it’s meant to get you thinking and developing solutions specific to your business. • Listen to your customers: I’m not talking about satisfaction surveys or any other sophisticated approach to the problem.
What does quality mean to your customers?
Quality is an interesting word in business. We toss it around when discussing products, describing them as ‘high quality’ or lacking it altogether. But what is the meaning of quality? Where does quality fit in the context of customer experience? Well, I’m betting your definition of what quality means to your customers might differ from their version. For example, when you ask people what they want from a bank, they often say things like ‘security’, but they really want convenience.
Do you stick to the rules?
How do you handle an employee who oversteps the mark? GRAHAM JONES examines the science behind rule breaking and discusses committing ‘own goals’ in business. "Rules were made to be broken" – that's what my Dad told me when I was a child and I caught him doing something wrong. He would also tell me, "When I'm right, I'm right, but when I am wrong, I am right because I am your Dad." There was one set of rules for my father and one set of rules for me as his son.
Guest column: Teaching tomorrow’s business leaders to make an impact
The start of a new academic year is always so exciting. As first-year students settle in with their micro-fridges and extra-long twin linens, returning students reconnect with classmates across campus and online, it’s thrilling to see our new and returning students, staff and faculty, in person again. In the College of Business, we are especially excited about our vision that unites and energizes us all: Business for a Better World.
The Age of Individualism
Jewellery has long been used as a cultural signifier denoting status, mark, and even rank, and so in an age dominated by these appeals to individualism, it should come as no surprise that personalisation weighs heavily on the minds of consumers today.
Why Google My Business Insights Helps Local SEO
SEO best practices are woven into every aspect of a digital marketing strategy. To ensure that your ideal buyer finds your digital assets, it’s vital that you incorporate as many ranking factors as possible. When you need to incorporate a Local SEO strategy, into your best practices it’s vital to optimize your Google My Business page. One of the most helpful sections for fully optimizing a Google My Business page is the Insights section.
DIY Health & Beauty
These two apps help you decipher if your skin-care and beauty products are truly clean.
A Simplified Digital Marketing Strategy
When I tell people I work in digital marketing, they often respond by saying they don’t want to sell their products or services on social media. This reaction is understandable. These days social media isn’t always very kind, and the algorithms are unpredictable. It’s also why I like to say companies should use social media as the icing on a multi-layered cake when planning a well-rounded digital marketing strategy.
Helping Adult Children Pay Off Student Loans
Photo by unsplash.com/@amyshamblen Beth Walker As advisors, we often find ourselves in a “gatekeeper” role — reigning in expectations or doling out permission slips as it relates to our client’s financial wellbeing.
Does your store have ‘community charisma’?
Posted May 10, 2021 | By Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender Today’s consumers want to feel connected to the businesses they purchase from – and being part of the local community goes a long way towards earning their trust and con dence, write RICH KIZER and GEORGANNE BENDER. Much of our time each year is spent visiting retailers, interacting with shoppers, and perusing stores. In our 31 years together we’ve seen the good, the bad and the really ugly.
What is an Email Marketing Strategy?
An email marketing strategy is one tool in a complete digital marketing strategy. This tool’s goal includes sending emails to prospective and current customers at every stage of their buyer’s journey. There are many different types of emails that you may choose to implement. You may also want to include a few different types of email marketing strategies depending on your industry.
6 Content Marketing Strategies You Can't Ignore in 2021
One habit that isn’t changing anytime soon is that most people take time to research a company, product, or service on the internet before making a purchase. In 2020, Internet users rose an additional 7.4% to 321 million daily users. Digital marketing is a necessity for companies; your website is often your first opportunity to impress potential clients.
Set SMART Goals for Your Content Marketing Strategy
There are so many moving parts within a diverse digital marketing strategy; it’s easy to confuse what is impacting your marketing efforts and what wastes time and money. By tracking your marketing tasks individually and evaluating how everything works together, you will gain a clear picture of how to adjust your content marketing strategy to connect with your ideal buyer.
Overlooked Digital Marketing Strategies that Add Value
If you stick to one formula for all your digital marketing, you’re likely overlooking some significant opportunities to speak directly to your ideal buyer on your website, social media posts, and email marketing. Establishing yourself as an industry expert takes more effort than publishing one blog post on a subject. It requires you to think outside the box and look for opportunities to leverage creativity. As you build a library of content, you will eventually encounter a different challenge.
Building Community Online Without Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms have become such an integrated part of our everyday life that we sometimes forget Facebook and Twitter are businesses owned by other people who have established rules and regulations. Whether we read the agreement or only clicked the “I agree” box to get our profile set up, every user on each social media platform said we were willing to abide by the community standards established by the owners of the platform.
The Best Keyword Research Tools You May Not Be Using
Recent survey results from SEMrush reveal that 91% of marketers in 2020 are utilizing content strategies as part of their marketing efforts. The breakdown of the types of content that marketers prioritize shows blog posts continue to top the list with 86% of content strategies leveraging blogs. (source) To date, over 4 billion websites exist. Combine this with constantly changing search algorithms, and it’s understandable why it’s challenging for blog content to rank in search.
How Targeted Marketing Maximizes Your Marketing Budget
There are many products on the market that seem like they are the perfect addition for any home or office. It can be frustrating for a company when they work hard to create promotional blog posts, videos, infographics, and eBooks that don’t attract the right leads. The truth is, if you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no one. According to a 2020 survey from HubSpot completed by 3,400 marketers, 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing.
How to Leverage Facebook to Build Your Email List (Video)
Promoting businesses on social media these days is challenging. Every day your company competes with dozens of advertisements for your ideal buyer’s attention. You aren’t only competing against businesses within your industry but that of your persona’s other interests. Each niche area has multiple companies working to outrank each other and attract the attention of your target audience.
Are Your Beauty Products Really Clean?
DIY Health & Beauty Exercise Farmers Markets Food News Health Tips Healthy Travel Marketplace Sleep Tips Beth Walker PHOTO BY REBECCA CARIDAD WITH MANZANITA Q.How do I know if my beauty and skin-care products are actually clean? A. Consumers need to be cognizant that there are products claiming to be clean that, though nontoxic, are actually made with mostly synthetic ingredients.
Are Your Beauty Products Really Clean?
Q.How do I know if my beauty and skin-care products are actually clean? A. Consumers need to be cognizant that there are products claiming to be clean that, though nontoxic, are actually made with mostly synthetic ingredients. I recommend downloading Think Dirty – Shop Clean or the Environmental Working Group’s Healthy Living, two apps that can help decipher some of the common jargon. I would also recommend everyone swap out their SPF moisturizer for a clean one.
Tips to Optimize your Website to Rank in Mobile Search
There are very few things that we can state definitively when it comes to ranking in Search. This doesn’t mean we are uninformed. Google announced 200 ranking factors and continues to provide guidance on how to incorporate SEO best practices to rank in search. Of course, since everyone has access to the same information, this allows an equal opportunity for implementation. Sorting through the 200 ranking factors to determine the ones that apply to mobile search is important for several reasons.
Ultimate Guide to Optimizing Your Google My Business Listing
Developing a diverse Local SEO strategy for companies with brick and mortar addresses includes establishing and optimizing a Google Business Listing. This free marketing platform provides businesses with a variety of opportunities to connect potential customers to their products and services.
Automation Isn’t Enough for Social Marketing Anymore
It’s amazing how much has changed in the last twelve months with social media and at the same time how much is still the same. Soccer and politics still fill my newsfeed these days. It’s hard to hop on Facebook to promote the latest blog article and avoid the distraction of the latest video and photos of my adorable nieces. Because I know I’m likely to spend a few extra minutes clicking away, I will often delay posting promotional content until I have a larger window of time in my schedule.
Breaking the stigma surrounding menstruation
Christine Khamasi was 12 years old when she started her first period. Because she had no feminine hygiene products, she used some old rags, sewing them together to make reusable pads and hoping that they would last. They didn’t. “The old rags were no more, so no more school,” she said.
NAP, Citations, and Local SEO
It’s no secret that voice search is on the rise. Whether it’s “Hey Siri” or “Hey Google,” the ability to search the internet while driving or cooking is a convenience many people are happily embracing. It is crucial for marketers focusing on Local SEO to note this trend because voice search only serves up one or two results to the person searching. A typical visual search offers 8 to 10 options on the first page of Google search results. How much has voice search increased?
Networking and Local SEO
As a business owner you know there are many things you can hire a marketing agency to do for you. Everything from writing blog articles, creating images or videos, scheduling social media, writing emails, and even PPC services are easily delegated so you can focus on running your company. Does your website need its plugins updated? No worries, that is something your website maintenance plan covers. The one thing you can never delegate to your marketing agency or anyone else is in-person networking.
The Importance of Social Listening
When I graduated from college my dad took me car shopping. As we went through the Consumer Reports checklist of safest and most reliable cars, the salesman came around and jumped into a pitch about how the car I was sitting in was one of the most comfortable cars he’d ever driven. He pointed out the convenience of the interior layout and how, as a right-handed driver, he found this the best car to purchase.
7 Reasons Content Marketing is Overwhelming
When you are looking for ways to reduce company expenses, it’s tempting to cut business costs by doing your own marketing. The challenge is that as a business owner you likely already have way too much to balance. If you don’t have the time to market your company, you will find yourself feeling more overwhelmed by the extra tasks that you didn’t first anticipate. Great content marketing takes time and attention to detail as well as consistent execution.
Starting to Film More Video Content? 10 Natural Makeup Products and Tips You Need
These natural beauty products were editors' favorites. When you’ve finally made the leap to put yourself out there and film video and still photos, it can be tempting to put all of your focus on the content you’re creating—and consider your wardrobe, hair, and makeup an afterthought. Yet like it or not, how you look when you’re filmed can make a big difference when it comes to the quality of the final product and number of new followers you reach.
How Does Content Marketing Work?
When I joined the SMA Marketing team in 2016 I was clear I wanted to stay in my lane. I am a writer. I believe in the power of words for clear communication. More than that, I love to leverage the power of storytelling. The process of highlighting our client’s mission, values, strengths, services and products is new and different every time we begin creating an excellent piece of content marketing and I love it.
The 4 Best Traits of Content Marketers in 2019
The role of a Content Marketer is to plan, create, and share helpful and educational content with the goal of reaching ideal buyers at every stage of the buyer’s journey and beyond. This broad job description acknowledges there is no a one-size-fits-all strategy for content marketing in today’s competitive online world.
Vanoss Public School announces Title 1 and Title VI meeting
The Vanoss school district will hold a Title 1 and Title VI parent advisory meeting to review activities and expenditures under the Title I and Title VI programs. This meeting is open to the public and will begin at 5:30 p.m. March 28 in the elementary conference room.
The Role Content Marketing Plays Across all Channels
The role of content marketing is rapidly expanding. A recent study from Clutch found that 82% of people were influenced by content marketing to completed a purchased. Additionally, the team at Conductor’s recent research of 1000 consumers found that people were 131% more likely to buy from brands that educated them with content. Even more impressive, the study reveals content builds consumer trust and brand affinity grow over time.
Why SEO Should Be A Focus Of Any Content Strategy
As a small business owner, you are juggling too many balls to waste time on fruitless marketing efforts. Not only is it frustrating; it’s a waste of money. Whether you are promoting your company yourself or paying a marketer, if your content strategy does not include implementing SEO best practices your marketing efforts are equal to a that of a blindfolded juggler tossing objects into the air hoping they are caught by the next juggler without missing a beat.
Updating Outdated Blog Content without Harming SEO
With all the hard work that goes into creating excellent blog content, it’s important to make sure your posts are relevant for as long as possible. Creating evergreen content is one way to make sure your content stays relevant, but sometimes it’s helpful for SEO to have a post that highlights something happening at the moment. For example, this blog article title is Updating Outdated Blog Content without Harming SEO.
Crafting the Perfect Offer for Your Persona
We need more leads. We need better leads. We need clearer leads. Have you ever heard these statements from your sales team? We all know that attracting the right customer is a vital part of a company’s growth, but the theories and strategies about how to best execute lead generation are as varied as the products on the market. Inbound marketing begins with attracting the right customer at the right stage in their buyer’s journey.
Finding the Right Tone for Your Blog
Your website and blog are often the first opportunities you will have to connect with potential customers. Finding the right tone for your blog is an important part of developing a well-rounded content strategy because every piece of content that you publish is another chance to show your customers who you are, how you think, and how you conduct business. A great blog article also has the potential to connect with readers and establish you as an industry resource.
Key Benefits of Using In-House Writers vs. Freelancing Services
If you are familiar with the saying “content is king,” it likely doesn’t surprise you that creating digital content is one of the most costly and time-consuming areas for digital marketers and companies implementing a content marketing strategy. Blog articles, marketing emails, eBooks, white papers, and infographics are all great ways to drive traffic to your website, but it isn’t free even when you are doing everything yourself.
Cultivating an Online Community
The combination of constantly changing social media algorithms and social users seeking a more personal connection has created an opportunity many small businesses and industry experts are incorporating into their marketing tool belt. This tool is the development of an online community. Small businesses, third-party sellers, and niche writers can all utilize a strategy of going deeper with their audience to establish a space online where sellers and buyers have direct access to each other.
Write Better Faster Blog Content
If we only needed to string words together to write a blog post I would agree with the meme “being a writer is 3% hard work and 97% not getting distracted by the internet.” But as we all know, there is much more to developing excellent marketing content than avoiding distraction. But, just because something takes skill and focused time doesn’t mean it needs to take hours to accomplish. At SMA, we intentionally create content every day.
Guest Blogging: When and Why to Guest Post
While it may seem like a poor ROI on your time to create content for someone else’s website, writing a guest post can have several benefits when executed strategically. With a little bit of research, bloggers can leverage guest posting to expand their audience reach and increase their website’s backlinks. Guest posting is an effective technique to benefit both the website host and the contributor. Guest posting is one of the best ways to leverage digital media to expand your reach.
Essential Actions Create Outstanding Blog Content Consistently
One of the hardest things about having a blog for your company or niche’s website is trying to write an article when you don’t have much time or an inspiring topic. While the instinct may be to skip publishing, that’s not best for because frequency matters with posting. By utilizing a few strategies, you can successfully create outstanding blog content and stick to your publishing schedule. Anne Lamott is famous for promoting a bad first draft. Her point is that you need to get something on paper.
How to Find Your Niche as an Online Business Owner
Regardless of whether you pronounce it neesh or nitch, one thing is certain; the riches are in the niches. (Actually, that only sounds right if you pronounce it nitch.) In this article, I’ll guide you through the process of finding your niche as an online business owner. This will be most helpful for expert-based businesses, such as course creators, digital marketers, coaches, freelancers, virtual service providers, and bloggers.
Top Blog Posts your Blog Needs Now
Whether you have been blogging for years or are just getting started, it’s a good idea to take time to make sure you have developed a content strategy that offers your readers helpful content at every stage of their journey with you. If you haven’t taken the time to map out your ideal reader’s or buyer’s journey yet, I hope by the end of this post you will see how valuable it can be to do so.
Frustrated with Inconsistent Website Traffic? Try Blogging
The most frequent comment I receive from fellow bloggers is “Ugh! My numbers are dropping again!” It’s great to see so many people begin to take steps to understand and track their analytics with Google’s free tools, but I find that similar to stock market numbers, paying too much attention to your analytics isn’t always helpful.
Why (and How) to Prioritize Blogging
Building a business is hard work. There are hundreds of decisions to make every day. As the owner, you are the expert and final decision maker, but there is only so much time in each day. Prioritizing tasks is necessary, but when it comes to marketing are you focusing on the right things? If you aren’t blogging, then the answer is not likely. Logistically there are several ways a blog helps your customers find you through an internet search.
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