The correct answer is you.

You are the only person on earth who is able to deliver your own business networking success. Here’s why…

• You’re the only one who can choose to put you on training courses in business networking
• You’re the only one who can choose whether or not join a networking group
• You’re the only one with the power to allow other people to build a strong business relationships with you

It’s never the group, society, the economy, the media, illegal immigrants – or any of the million other factors that people love to throw into the excuse pot.

It’s always been about you, baby! And it always will.

And ultimately, SEO ought to be (but often isn’t) about making money by generating targeted traffic to a website.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that SEO is essentially useless as a marketing tool if the focus is merely to get a site’s homepage to the top of Google. SEO must be seen from a strategic perspective, rather than as an end in itself. And for the most part, SEO professionals have absolutely no idea where SEO fits into the overall marketing mix. The plain fact is, most SEO professionals have an IT rather than a marketing background.

A business owner must take a different view. His/her business plan will set an objective for the year, and it’s essential that s/he consider how SEO might contribute to that plan.

It’s simply not good enough to say SEO will generate X amount of traffic to the site, and we’ll make Y amount of money as a result. A far better approach is to consider the content on a website, and see whether or not its actually worth generating search engine traffic for it.

For example, I recently met a business owner with a 4 page website. The pages were…

1. Homepage
2. About us
3. Contact us
4. Links (a page of links to other businesses)

The owner of this site wanted me to get him to the top of Google. On examining his site it was immediately clear there was nothing likely to get visitors to pick up the phone and call the business.

I asked him how many visitors he got to the site currently. He didn’t know, but thought it might be a couple of hundred a month. I asked why he thought that. He said it was just a feeling.

I asked him how many calls he got from his site each day. He had no idea. I asked him when he last got a call from the website. He couldn’t remember.

This business owner has a general idea that getting to the top of Google must be a good thing. It isn’t. What’s the point of spending all that money for a site that is essentially guaranteed to fail as a marketing tool?

What’s required at this point is a Website Marketing Plan. This looks at the site as a contributor to the business, and will deem it to be one of the following…

1. A sales channel
2. A generator of leads

Once that has been established, content must be created that supports the site’s key objective (sales or leads). That content will normally be designed with SEO in mind. It’s not good enough to simply add a shopping cart, and then hope for the best.

In particular, certain pages on the site should be created to receive visitors generated by specific search terms. These are essentially landing pages designed to be attractive to search engine bots.

If it’s a sales site, they may also have to function as gateways to specific products or services. If it’s a lead generation site, they may also have to include a compelling offer and a call to action.

This type of content can’t be created by regular SEO guys. Neither is a web designer up to the task. It takes a unique talent to design this type of content – someone with both SEO and marketing expertise.

Once the content is in place, link building can begin. In this case, deep linking is required. That is, links are created to pages within a site rather than the homepage. Click here to see an example of a deep link.

The important points to know about deep linking are…

• The site’s homepage may also require link building to increase its credibility. This credibility can then flow to key pages within the site
• Many directories don’t allow links to any page other than a site’s homepage
• Google tends to prefer a site’s homepage. It may be necessary to generate more links than would otherwise be required
• Pages within a site that gain credibility with search engines (e.g. PageRank in Google) usually help the overall site gain credibility
• Internal and external contextual links are especially useful when it comes to deep linking

1. What kind of work do you do?
2. How did you get started in _____?
3. How does the recession impact on your business?

Another great question you can ask is “What do you like best about what you do?”

This invites the other person to talk about their business. And it can help get past an awkward pause. For example, imagine this conversation…

Hi, I’m Wayne

Hello Wayne, I’m Sandy

What do you do Sandy?

I’m a wedding planner

Oh, ummm…how interesting…

If I’m not personally interested in weddings, the conversation may not flow as freely as I’d like.

This is where the question “What do you like best about what you do?” comes into its own.

It gives the other person an opportunity to tell me what interests him/her about their business. And it gives me the chance to look for networking opportunities.

For example, the other person may tell you about the silly things their clients do and how they love to fix things. This might remind me of a friend in exactly that situation.

It gives me the chance to set up a referral, and that in turn gives me an excuse to call back.

One way to generate more referrals is to attend business networking events and keep your ears open for opportunities. For example, you might ask questions like these…

1. What kind of work do you do?
2. How did you get started in _____?
3. How does the recession impact on your business?

If you get a glib or one-word answer to that last question, simply follow with “Oh, how come?”

These questions invite the other person to talk. And give you the chance to listen for opportunities.

There is no specific goal here, other than to get the conversation started.

By listening to the other person, more questions will suggest themselves. And you may uncover an opportunity for someone you know.

He wrote to every one of his clients – today I guess we’d email them – and told them he knew highly skilled and reliable professionals in a number of different fields.

He then listed the different fields.

He told his clients to contact him if they ever needed anybody in one of these fields.

As you might expect, his clients began to view him as the go to guy when they needed to find a good quality professional or tradesman.

It worked the other way too. The people on the receiving end of his referrals were delighted, and sought to return the favour.

There’s no reason at all why we can’t do this within our chapter, and each become the “go to” person for our own network of friends, colleagues, clients and suppliers.

Put another way – follow up fast. The longer you leave it, the colder the opportunity gets. And like a yummy steak pie, opportunities are much better when they’re hot!

I’d also add that it’s important to report back to the person who gave you the referral. It’s polite, of course. But also gives you the opportunity to shape future referrals from that person.

If the person referred to you wasn’t exactly what you’re looking for, let the referrer know. And explain what you are looking for, and give pointers about how to uncover the right kind of referral.

In networking – and especially within well structured networking groups – you get to meet a lot of new people. That gives you a lot of opportunities to form new business relationships.

With a new relationship, somebody has to be the first person to give something. And as you can’t control the other party, that person has to be you.

If you’ve just met somebody it may not be appropriate to give a referral, so you might start thinking about giving something else.

It might be notice of an upcoming event you know the person will find useful. It might be free advice or information. It might even be a free taste of your product or service.

Whatever it is, there must be some value attached to it. I’m not talking about unreasonable value. Just enough so the other person recognises it as a selfless act on your part.

Most of the world’s population feel compelled to reciprocate when given something they find valuable. And this helps to get the relationship started.

What about those who simply take and take and take? Forget about them. They’re few in number.

There’s no point keeping score. If you find you’re doing all the giving, and you’re not happy about it, move on.

• I will meet one new potential client per week
• I will attend 3 extra networking events per month
• I will earn an extra £2,000 from networking this month

The above list contains examples. You should create a single specific networking goal of your own.

As soon as you’ve settled on a special goal, work out what you have to do to achieve it in the time you set. Then add that activity to your diary. For example…

• I will meet one new potential client per week
• To achieve this I will sub one additional BNI Chapter per week
• When visiting the Chapter I will arrange a one-to-one with at least one person in these industries…
  • Marketing consultant
  • Web designer
  • Social Media Marketing consultant
  • SEO expert
  • IT Support person
• To achieve this I will also ask for highly specific referrals in my own BNI Chapter, such as people in specific companies I’d like to do business with

The above is an example only. You should pick occupations likely to generate relevant business or referrals for you. This highly targeted approach works because it’s clear what a person has to do to achieve his/her goal.

At the end of the time period you set, check your results and see whether or not you achieved your goal. If you did achieve it, either set a new goal or keep doing that activity.

If you didn’t achieve your goal you can change the…

• Goal itself
• The amount or nature of the activity
• Both of the above

This approach works best for your business when you select an income-based goal. You may wish to start with an easier goal, such as a certain number of new introductions. But I recommend you plan to move to an income-based goal. Here’s why…

An income-based goal forces you to think more deeply about the activity you’re doing, and how to maximise the use of your time. This has the power to greatly increase the amount of money you make from business networking.

• Knows someone who…
• Knows someone who…
• Knows someone who…
• Knows someone who…
• Knows someone who…

…knows the President of the United States.

The “6 Degrees of Separation” myth is based on an experiment conducted in the 50s and 60s.

The resulting number 6 was true for just under 1/3rd of the participants. It wasn’t true for more than 2/3rds of the participants. What’s more, the experiment was limited in scope to the United States – around 5% of the world’s population.

What the experiment showed wasn’t that we’re all connected. It showed that some people are well connected.

If you want to be in the 1/3rd that are well connected, it’s going to take knowledge, training, practise and action.

In my view, it starts with working out who you’d most like to meet. As soon as you know where you want to get to, you can start working on how. One of the best ways is to join a networking organisation such as BNI, BRX, NRG or similar.