The Opportunity Podcast

Andrea Barnhill is the Co-Founder and Director of Operations at Socratik, an SEO agency aiming to execute customized SEO strategies that boost ROI for mid to enterprise-sized businesses. Andrea is an expert in radical SEO transformation and helps businesses create a framework for exponential growth. In this episode of The Opportunity Podcast, Andrea shares with us how to create a site that climbs the SERPs, even in competitive niches, and the SEO roadmap she uses to influence her clients’ bottom lines.

Ecommerce entrepreneurship comes with its ups and downs, but once you’ve discovered the keys to success, growth is all about execution. Ronnie Teja’s unique founder story shows how you don’t have to have a background in online business to become an ecommerce entrepreneur, but what it does take is determination, flexibility, and a drive to build something great. The founder of Branzio Watches and ecommerce entrepreneur joins us on The Opportunity Podcast to discuss how the challenges of launching his online business set him up for future success and the lessons he’s learned in his journey so far. Ronnie also shares what’s needed to scale your online business successfully and the best way to expand an existing portfolio.

Is great customer service the secret to growing your business? Rising customer acquisition costs mean securing happy, returning customers is more crucial than ever. A key player in retaining customers and transforming them from one-time buyers into brand fans is customer service. In this episode of The Opportunity Podcast, we’re joined by Nicole Baqai to discuss how to create customer service experiences that translate into business results. Nicole is the Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager at Gorgias, a full suite customer service solution for eCommerce entrepreneurs, and shares some keen insights into the relationship between customer service and generating more sales and greater ROI. She also talks about optimizing, automating, and personalizing your communication to make customer service your greatest marketing tactic.

When an ecommerce platform is packed with giants, how do the small businesses stand out? Amazon is filled with copycat competition from players big and small. Between that and the limited options for creating a unique brand experience, it may seem like an impossible task to capture and retain customer attention. Michael (Mike) Begg is the Co-Founder, CMO, and Chief Strategist of AMZ Advisers. As a former Amazon seller, Mike experienced first-hand the frustrations that come with maximizing brand awareness on a platform crammed with competition. Now, Mike helps ecommerce businesses develop Amazon-specific marketing strategies to dominate their category and bring in the maximum amount of revenue possible. In this episode of The Opportunity Podcast, Mike shares his knowledge and experience for exploding your Amazon presence, making the most of each sale, and the techniques he uses within his own company to scale online sales of ecommerce brands selling through Amazon.

Starting your first niche site is one thing – buying, growing, and flipping an empire of sites is another. So how do you scale and sell a portfolio of niche sites? Shawna Newman is an SEO expert with nearly 20 years of experience acquiring and scaling niche sites. She is one of the most seasoned SEO professionals in the industry, known for her unique testing methods and extensive year-long case studies. She is also the founder of Skipblast, where she shares her key findings from her SEO and business research. Shawna joined us on this episode of The Opportunity Podcast to discuss her methods for building a niche site portfolio, what to look out for when buying and selling sites, how to scale newly acquired sites, and much, much more.

Affiliate sites are a fantastic way to boost your passive income, but how do you start and scale an affiliate site from nothing? Doug Cunnington is an expert affiliate marketer and the founder of Niche Site Project, where he empowers people with systems and templates to create and scale their own affiliate sites. He is also the host of The Doug Show and a self-titled YouTube channel where he talks about his affiliate marketing journey so far. In this episode, Doug shares a behind-the-scenes look into what works and what doesn’t in affiliate marketing. He talks candidly about the Amazon affiliate program, when and how to scale an affiliate marketing business, and his top tips for driving traffic to your site.

How important is SEO to your business? Great SEO is a primary factor in many online businesses’ success. But approaching it for the first time can feel like a minefield. Between out-of-date information and seemingly constant changes to Google’s algorithm, you may think SEO is an impossible game to win. But Kyle Roof knows it’s far from that. In fact, the SEO guru has obtained a US patent proving exactly how you can manipulate SEO to rank on search engines. Kyle is the lead SEO at High Voltage SEO, Founder of PageOptimizer Pro, Co-founder & SEO Instructor at Internet Marketing Gold (IMG), speaker, trainer, and all-around hub of SEO knowledge. He joined The Opportunity Podcast to dispel some of the common myths and misconceptions about SEO practices and the Google algorithm, and reveals what site owners should be doing to improve their SEO and outperform their competition.

What’s your end goal with your ecommerce business? When you first start your business, it’s unlikely that you’re already thinking about selling it. However, the earlier you start to think about a potential exit the more likely you'll walk away with a life-changing sum. Think about all of the opportunities you could have if you doubled your windfall with a simple exit planning strategy in place early on. Jason Wong, Managing Partner of Wonghaus Ventures and an ecommerce business entrepreneur, recommends preparing your business for exit early to help facilitate a smoother, more lucrative sale. He shares his tips and advice for ecommerce entrepreneurs thinking about making an exit in the near future, and how business owners can utilize an exit planning strategy to increase the expected listing price from small changes implemented in the early stages of operations.

Copy is your ecommerce brand’s most powerful device. When written effectively, copy can move people to action and impact your business in transformative ways. But how do you write compelling copy that converts? Emma Schermer Tamir is the CEO and Co-founder of Marketing by Emma, an agency providing copywriting and listing optimization services for ecommerce businesses and Amazon sellers. We invited Emma to join us in this episode of The Opportunity Podcast to discuss how brands can create ecommerce listings that stand out from the ever-increasing crowd and establish long-lasting customer connections. This episode is packed with helpful, actionable advice about writing copy that converts, creating more positive customer experiences, and how to avoid common ecommerce copy mistakes.

What really goes into building a sustainable brand? When Martin Johnston decided to take his years of experience working with giants in the retail and ecommerce space and start from scratch, he knew exactly what practices he wanted to replicate. And what ones he didn’t. Martin is the Co-founder of Crafted Society, a luxury ecommerce brand dedicated to the transparent and sustainable production of handmade artisan goods. He joined this episode of The Opportunity Podcast to share what it takes to follow the road less traveled and craft a purpose-driven brand. He also reveals the story behind the innovative DTC subscription model that’s elevating Crafted Society’s partnerships. Sit back, grab a coffee, and get ready to learn how you can craft your own purpose driven ecommerce brand in this weeks episode.