The Distribution Hub: Building Visibility Beyond Google

One of the biggest mistakes I see online is people trying to copy what everyone else does and wonder why they don't get the results. They jump from one thing to the next.

They start a website, launch a YouTube channel, open Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, email marketing, podcasts, and perhaps even a community platform. A few weeks later they are exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering why nothing seems to be working.

I used to do the same but I've learned that building visibility is much like building an investment portfolio. You don't throw everything into every opportunity at once. You start with a plan, test the waters, watch the results, and then put more effort into what is actually working. Build one step at a time before moving onto the next.

What works for one niche may not work for another.

Understanding Your Niche

My own business is in a unique position - a niche of its own. I'm often told by the so-called "gurus" to change it so it fits into an established niche but that would dilute what I do.

As a result I often find my business classified into industry sectors that have very little baring on what I do and are very competitive to the extent my business gets lost in the noise.

A talk with AI and marketing friends suggested that for my niche I could expect 1000 visitors, views, likes or follows to be seen as good. Not the numbers I was looking for to build my online business.

I realised I had to do something different to be visible online.

Researching What Others Do

I've spent nearly 2 years reseaching and testing. It involved

• Traditional Marketing Strategies including SEO, AEO, GEO and LLM. I spent hours every day creating website content that met all the recommended tactics. Rankings went up, algorithms changed rankings went down. I amend content to match new algorithms. Rankings went up, algorithms changed again and rankings went back down - it was time consuming and frustrating.
• Social Media Platforms - I learned the different nuances between each platform and started producing posts for each. Yes, I picked up a few extra followers and likes but nothing to shout out about.
• Pinterest - this was seen as the saviour for online content - reality check my pins attracted around 900 views per month. I was reaching the 1000 that everyone was saying was the limit but not going beyond it.
• YouTube - got some views on videos and was happy if a video got 100 views.

It seemed that both AI and Marketing Friends were right - 1000 was a good result to aim for.

The Change

As a coach, I found the business world has changed. AI can now deliver almost everything I teach but one message that kept coming back was that AI can't duplicate my experiences, knowledge, interpretations of future trends and investment strategies.

That meant changing the online perception of my business from corporate to personal branding.

Prior to the pandemic, my business model had been travelling the world, speaking at events and selling from the stage. It had been a personal brand wrapped in a corporate entity.

Now, to build my business online, I had to again step into the spotlight but with an online presence instead of a stage presence.

This lead me to research not just the "gurus" online but distribution and visibility and find out what they did.

What changed my whole concept was the Chinese Film Industry. Their actors work some of the longest hours in the industry, get the worse pay but are still some of the wealthiest actors in the world. It didn't add up until I studied their distribution system.

That lightbulb moment changed how I work online.

The Results So Far

So, from being warned only to expect numbers around 1000 the results for the past month are:

Pinterest - 15k monthly views with 9k engaged audience

YouTube - 19.8k views and viewing hours up.

Tiktok - only 3 weeks on TikTok and 5k views

Blog Site - 6.2k views

Podcast - downloads are up but there is no overall data available.

Email List - growing and 90% of sales still come from this source.

Social Media Platforms - followers growing and with the exception of Instagram (I haven't managed to master that one yet) all platforms have thousands of followers from 6k up to 11k.

Website - still dropping in numbers every time Google does an update but according to Google data for "my industry" I'm in the 50 - 75 percentile rating so above average visitors - not very exciting.

These stats have huge potential to grow over the coming months way beyond the 1000 limit everyone talked about. 10k - 20k is very possible and even higher over time.

The Distribution Hub

What I learnt from the Chinese Actors:

• They have little free time so every second has to count
• Build a distribution hub that covers multiple outlets with minimal effort - that's where AI comes in.
• Multiple touch points that move people through an ecosystem

So, I created a distribution hub. Instead of creating multiple pieces of content on different aspects of the business, I create one piece of content and distribute it in multiple formats. Each piece sitting in a different touch point within the ecosystem.

Work hours have dropped and results have increased. The Distribution Hub now reaches clients in 23 countries and growing and has opened up markets I couldn't previously access.

My message from this post is simple - there is lots of information available when you start an online business. But the best way to grow your business is research and then create your own strategy, test it and refine it until you get the results you want.

Be Your Own Distribution Hub and build visibility beyond Google.