Google Places SEO Tips (Part Two)

April 18, 2011 By Don

Google Places SEO Tips (Part Two)

Towards the end of 2010, Google made a number of changes to the algorithm that determines the position of your Google Places listing. It used to be that businesses without websites ranked equally as well as those without, but this is no longer the case.

This is good news for all businesses who have a company website but not so good for those that don’t. While having a website for your business has always been a good idea, it’s become more vital as a result of this change.

Here are seven additional tips to help you improve your Google Places’ rankings:

Pay close attention to your “on page” Search Engine Optimization. This includes the keywords/keyword phrases you are targeting, all standard SEO practices, and ensuring that your business name, address and phone is listed exactly on your site as it is in your Google Places listing.
In addition to building backlinks to each page of your site, it’s also a good idea to build backlinks to your primary “citation” references (usually found on directory sites like Yelp, InsiderPages, CitySearch, etc.)
Build backlinks to your Google Places page itself. As most won’t do this, this will give you an added edge.
Do some social bookmarking of both the pages where your citation references are found as well as your Google Places listing itself.
Use a phone number with a local area code for your primary number. If you’re currently using a toll-free phone number, I recommend you get a local “virtual number” and use that instead. You can list your toll-free number as a secondary number.
Instead of uploading your images direct to your listing, choose to add them from the web. I recommend you upload your images to either Flickr or Panoramio and make sure to “geo tag” your images with your businesses’ address/location information.
As with your images, it’s wise to “geo tag” your videos as well. This causes your videos to play a dual role… they increase your ability to rank because you’ve chosen to add them to your listing and because they are now considered to be a citation as well.

In the end, optimizing your Google Places listing is very much like optimizing your website. Your goal should be to give as much helpful information as possible that will benefit those looking for a business like yours and to outperform your competition.

As it takes a significant amount of work to thoroughly optimize a Google Places listing, you will frequently find that your competitors are lacking in one or more of the areas mentioned in this article.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, marketing strategies, SEO-Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: Added Edge, Address Location, Algorithm, Area Code, Backlinks, Citation, Dual Role, Flickr, Google, Keyword Phrases, Local Area, Page Search Engine, Panoramio, Search Engine Optimization, Social Bookmarking, Toll Free Number, Toll Free Phone, Toll Free Phone Number, Virtual Number, Yelp

Google Places SEO Tips (Part One)

April 11, 2011 By Don

Google Places SEO Tips (Part One)

Through Google Places, formerly called Google Local, you have the ability to create a high-quality free listing for your business whether you currently have a website or not.

While it’s relatively easy to create the listing, it can be much more challenging to get your listing to appear on the first page for the keyword phrases you are targeting.

To that end, I offer the following seven tips:

1. Before creating (or claiming) your listing it is important that you do thorough research. You should know what keyword phrases you want to rank for and what your competition looks like for the terms you intend to target.

I recommend that you do not optimize your listing for any keyword phrase that does not currently have a Google Places listing associated with it. If you search Google for a phrase and don’t see a Google Places listing, it’s best to choose another phrase.

After you’ve come up with the keyword phrases you plan to target (I recommend 5) it’s wise to study your competitors listings to see whether their listings are complete. Have they filled in every field? What keywords are they targeting? Have they used their maximum allotment of photos and videos?

The answers to these questions will give you an idea as to whether you can expect to outrank one of the listings currently found on the first page.

2. Fill out every field completely.

There are approximately 20 fields to fill out when completing your Place Page listing. It is imperative that you fill out each and every field as the omission of even one can negatively affect the ranking of your Places Page.

3. Utilize every available category.

Google will suggest one category specific to your business and require you to use it. However, you can also add more categories and it is important to do so.

Using your keyword research, use your remaining keywords as the category names until you have used every additional category available to you.

4. You’re allotted ten photos — use ‘em.

It may seem basic, but it’s true. Each business owner is afforded the same opportunities when creating their Google Places listings but many don’t take advantage of them.

Google allows you to use up to ten photos and I encourage you to use every one of them. You can also enhance your optimization efforts by renaming your images to include your keyword phrases before uploading them.

5. You’re allotted five videos — use them too.

As it is a bit harder to create videos than photos, you’ll frequently find that your competitors fail to use their entire allotment.

However, you can create short “slideshow” type videos (which are merely a collection of photos put to motion) quite easily. If you search Google for the phrase, “slideshow maker,” you’ll find a number of tools that can help you make these types of videos online.

You’ll need to upload each video to YouTube.com before you can add it to your listing.

6. Understand citations and build as many of them as possible.

A citation occurs whenever an online reference is found for your business and services. In Google’s eyes, it’s a validation that your business truly exists and that it offers the type of services you list on your Places page.

It’s important that your citations closely match the information found on your Places page. You can create your own citations by submitting your information to a variety of online directories including Yellow Pages, Super Pages, CitySearch, Insider Pages, Yahoo Local, Localize and a number of others.

7. Get reviews and ratings.

Google will automatically display reviews it finds on sites like yelp.com, insiderpages.com and demandforce.com. Having a lot of positive reviews is not only helpful for your Google Places SEO, it can help you get business that might have gone to a competitor otherwise.

Ask your existing clientele to post a review of your business on the site of your choice and if necessary, offer them some form of bonus for completing the task.

If you spend the time to follow each of these seven tips, you’ll be well on your way to getting your Places page listed on the first page for a variety of terms.

Just like traditional SEO however, don’t make the mistake of neglecting your listing after completion. While you’ve completed the majority of the work, it’s wise to continually build new citations, get more reviews and ratings and respond publicly to the reviews you receive.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, marketing strategies, SEO-Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: Allotment, Category Names, Google, Keyword Phrase, Keyword Phrases, Keyword Research, Omission, Photos, Search Google, Search Phrase, SEO

Text Message Marketing Free Offer

April 3, 2011 By Don

mobile video for small business

Contact us today to sign up for a FREE Text Message Marketing Campaign

For a limited time we are offering a free text message marketing campaign to local businesses. There is no catch! We will set your business up with a unique KEYWORD to use and 250 text messages. This is a $150.00 value. Find out what all the BUZZ is about.

Filed Under: Featured Articles

Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid (Part Two)

March 29, 2011 By Don

Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid (Part Two)

While there are a variety of SEO mistakes to avoid, these three can be the difference between a nice surge in website traffic and having your website trapped in a virtual “black hole.”

1. Keyword stuffing

So, you’ve done your keyword research and have found three really great keyword phrases to optimize a page of your site for. You’ve added the phrases to your “meta page title” and plan to add them to your “meta keywords” list too.

While it can be tempting to add 1,001 keywords into this list, it’s the wrong thing to do. Generally, we think that “more is better” but it’s certainly not in this case.

You see, the search engines are trying to index your web pages for terms relevant to your “on page” content. The better they do this, the more likely it is that the “internet surfer” will continue to use their search engine.

As a result, they will usually index your pages to appear for a handful of keyword phrases but they’re not going to index it for hundreds or thousands.

While there’s no exact value, the practice of using many “meta keywords” or repeating your keyword phrases many times in your “on page” content is considered “keyword stuffing.”

Keyword stuffing is frowned upon by the search engines as it appears you are trying to “game” the system. Instead of getting more traffic, you may actually find that your page gets de-indexed and removed from the search engines altogether.

2. Forgetting to add a “meta page description”

Often times, inexperienced webmasters forget to add appropriate “meta data” to each page. As most of this information is not displayed to human visitors, it’s easy to overlook.

It is vital, however, to add a unique “meta page description” to each page of your site and here’s why…

Google, and the other search engines, generally display the “meta page description” content (unless you have an Open Directory listing) as part of your search engine listing. It appears beneath the clickable link to your website.

If you forget to add a page description, the search engines will automatically grab a portion of text from your page and use it instead. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is.
Your page description text can help to improve your “on page” optimization, but only if it includes the 1-3 keyword phrases you are optimizing around.

It also acts as a mini advertisement and should do its best to entice a web “surfer” to click the link to visit YOUR site!
As there are generally ten “organic” search engine listings on any search results page, you must compete with the others and do your best to see that your listing stands out from the crowd.

Your page description content should be interesting to read and tell the reader what benefit(s) they’ll receive by visiting your site. If you accomplish this, you’ll likely get an increase in traffic and start to “steal” clicks from the other listings.

3. Forgetting to build any “anchor text” links

It’s important to optimize each page of your site around a handful of keyword phrases but the work doesn’t stop there!

While the search engines use many factors to determine where to “rank” each page in their indexes, none are more important than the presence of “anchor text” links pointing to your site.

Anchor text links (also called “text links,” “hypertext links,” “backlinks” etc.) are simply pieces of text that are linked to a particular page on your website. Each link is seen as a “vote” by the search engines and they use them to determine where to rank your page for the “linked” terms.

If the search engines don’t find any links, they make the assumption that no one really cares about the content found on your page. Of course, this assumption really isn’t fair as it takes some time for a brand new page to acquire links naturally but that is the assumption they make.

So in order to speed the process up and help the search engines index your pages for the keyword phrases you’ve chosen during research, you have to build some anchor text links yourself.
This can be accomplished a variety of ways but buying links, or building them through article marketing, video marketing or online press release submission are some of the fastest methods.

No one can guarantee your exact results but by avoiding these three “SEO mistakes,” you’ll set yourself apart from the masses. Doing so will give you a much better chance of getting your pages ranked on the first page for the terms you’re targeting.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, SEO-Search Engine Optimization

Mobile Marketing Guide For Small Business

March 27, 2011 By Don

Mobile and Smart Phones are here to stay!

They’ve gone from the brick-sized version that weighed as much, to the stylish, chic version that fits in any pocket and goes with you everywhere. You literally won’t leave home without it! In fact, you’ll turn around and go back home for it. Mobile phones are everywhere!

Mobile Marketing, a new marketing trend, is the result of the growth in the use of mobile phones and other mobile devices.

I’ve written this guide for the business owner who is ready to take advantage of this new marketing trend that is set to take off like a rocket. Mobile marketing is for the business owner who wants to be ahead of the trend – instead of trailing it long after it’s been around for years and used successfully by others.

If you own a salon, a coffee shop, an auto repair shop, a pizza shop or any other local business, you know that a regular paying customer is worth more to you than a customer you have to acquire. You may not, however, have any way of keeping track of your customers – who they are, how many of them you have, what they buy when they come in to your shop and therefore, you haven’t been marketing directly to them.

You do your marketing the old-fashioned shotgun way – blast the market with advertising, hoping you’re aiming at the right potential customers who need your product or service.

In this report, we’re going to focus on laser targeting your marketing to your local customer base in an affordable, very effective way – using mobile text message marketing.

We will cover the following topics:

Mobile devices

What mobile marketing is and what mobile marketing isn’t.

Trends in mobile marketing

Why you, as a business owner, should be very concerned about mobile marketing.

Who needs mobile marketing

Mobile friendly websites

Mobile marketing tools
- About 1.3 billion internet users use email.
- About 3 billion cell phone users use text messaging.
- By the end of 2010, 6.5 trillion text messages will have been sent.
- The global mobile advertising market will be valued at over $16 billion by 2011. Source: M:Metrics, Common Short Codes: Cracking the Mobile Marketing Code
- It is the only media that is truly personal and carried constantly.
- Mobile is the only media where each consumer can be identified individually – by their phone number – with a degree of accuracy not available with any other media.
- Mobile is the first and only media that is always on. Messages, news, and promotions are delivered instantly and can be accessed 24/7 by consumers.
- The mobile phone is the only media that is constantly with the owner.
- Mobile phones have built-in payment mechanisms. Click to Buy is HUGE!! You can’t run up to the movie screen to buy a shirt you want or click on your radio to buy the product being advertised. Even on the internet, you need to set up payment options such as PayPal.
- And the most incredible benefit of mobile is all this can be done without waiting – at that time of intense impulse! No need to power up the computer. No need to download the picture from the camera. No need to turn on the player and insert the DVD. No printing the coupon, cutting it out and walking it to the store. No waiting to go to the store to buy the book you want right now (thanks to Click to Buy). You can have it NOW!
- Travel
- Nonprofits
- Sports
- Legal
- Food and beverage
- Healthcare
- Education
- Consumer electronics
- Apparel and accessories
- Automotive
- Arts and entertainment
- Consumer packaged goods
- Education
- Financial Services
- Government
- Home furnishings
- Media/publishing
- Politics
- Real estate
- People use their mobile phones every day to search for information on businesses.
- Your website loads faster on the mobile phone when it is mobile friendly. People are usually in a hurry and not willing to wait for a website to load. They’d rather click off and find another site that loads faster.
- Your business information is easily visible to consumers in a mobile friendly website. You can display a “Click to Call” button or a “Click for Directions” button, a menu or simple, pertinent features of your business that are easily visible on a phone.
- Travelers use their mobile phones to find hotels, restaurants and other businesses when in different cities. You want your information to be readily available to those travelers.
- When you have two versions of your website, you can offer your information to two different sets of searchers – those on the road who are in a hurry and those who are sitting at home with time to do research.
- A mobile website gives you another site to market to search engines and directories, increasing your business’ rankings on the web.
- “Donate Now” button and link
- “Directions” link
- “Hour s & Admission” link
- “Contact” link
- Link to main website
- Links to current events and exhibits

What is a Mobile Device?

A mobile device is a wireless-enabled computing or communications device that will maintain its function while on the move. It travels with you anywhere you go.

Mobile devices include two basic types of devices: phones and non-phone mobile-enabled devices.

The feature phone is the basic mobile device we’re all familiar with. Feature phones make up about 75% of mobile phones and it is important to realize that. These phones are limited in their capabilities and therefore they place limits on the strategies that can be used to market to them. We can reach customers who carry feature phones using text messaging (SMS), multi-media messaging (MMS), voice and limited mobile internet.

The smartphone is a new device which combines the functionality of a phone with features we usually associate with a personal computer, such as the internet and email. Most of these phones also have a camera.

This is an exciting category to market to, but it’s important to remember that since smartphones represent only 25% of the market, feature phones are still the majority of phones being used. We want to remember the majority of phones have a more limited access when we create our marketing campaigns.

The connected device is the third category we want to know about. This device is not a phone and includes iPads, e-readers (Kindle, Nook) and portable gaming devices. We are able to market to these devices as well.

IDC.com – July 14, 2010- Smartphones, or Mobile devices, will soon become the dominant computing platform for humanity and supplant the PC.

What is Mobile Marketing?

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, mobile marketing is

“a set of practices that enable organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.”

Kim Dushinski, a mobile marketing expert, enhances this description:

“Mobile marketing is businesses COMMUNICATING with consumers on their mobile phones with their explicit permission at the right time, at the right place while providing relevant value.”

The key to both of these definitions is that businesses are communicating with consumers – this is not a one-way message or a push marketing campaign. You are inviting consumers to initiate contact with you by calling or texting you (known as “opting-in”), giving you permission to communicate with them.

You, in return, will be providing something of value to them. This may be based on the knowledge you’ve acquired about your customers and that is the exciting aspect of this type of marketing. Customers have requested your response and that response will be received with anticipation, often resulting in action.

A Word of Caution: Mobile Marketing is a NO SPAM Zone!

You do NOT want to send unwanted messages to anyone!

Mobile marketing is using mobile devices as the method to distribute your marketing message.

It is just one tool in your arsenal of marketing strategies.

While mobile marketing is a very powerful tool, it should be used in addition to the other marketing techniques you’re already using.

You never want to count on just one marketing strategy to get your message out.

Mobile Marketing Trends

Mobile marketing is experiencing tremendous growth globally. It is estimated that by 2012, 10 trillion text messages will be sent and delivered to mobile phones.

Mobile marketing is a very accepted marketing strategy in most parts of the world. Japan was one of the first countries to embrace it, with Europe and other areas following. The United States has been lagging behind and is just now starting to take a serious look at this strategy.

Why is mobile marketing so important to consider using? Statistics tell the story and you’ll be amazed!

As the world’s population approaches 7 billion, the number of cell phone subscriptions continues to grow and is expected to have reached 5 billion by the end of 2010. This is over 70% of the world’s population!

In the U.S. alone, over 250 million Americans carry mobile phones – more than 80% of the nation’s population. In fact, over 20% of U.S. households are “mobile only.”

Now, if you subtract the very young population and the very elderly population (who are not likely to use mobile phones) from the total population, you can see that almost everyone else has a mobile phone – everyone who has purchasing power. This is huge!

On the other hand, there are less than 2 billion internet users globally. Which size population would you rather aim your arrows at: 2 billion or 5 billion?

In some parts of the world, the mobile phone is the only connection to the rest of the world. There are few PCs and few land lines. Furthermore, with the onset of the smartphones, mobile phones are becoming the connection to the World Wide Web – like a computer carried by people everywhere they go.

So … what do all these numbers mean?

Basically, mobile phones are quickly becoming the preferred way to communicate with a consumer, over the personal computer.

Surveys show that email use on PCs is decreasing at the same time that text messaging on cell phones is increasing at a huge rate. Advertisers are recognizing this trend and are planning on putting more and more advertising dollars into the mobile market.

Mobile phones are here to stay. Mobile phone use is growing exponentially and is already bigger than PC use. Marketing to cell phone users, using different marketing tools, is definitely one of the keys to your future business growth.

Why Mobile Marketing is Important

Mobile is now considered the 7^th mass media – the other 6 being Print, Recordings, Cinema, Radio, Television and Internet. They are called mass media because they reach out and touch not only the elite but also the greater masses.

What’s so special about the mobile industry, the newest mass media?

It is the first mass media that is capable of doing everything the other six can do. We can read newspapers, watch movies, listen to music and watch TV shows on our smart phones. Yes, we can even surf the web on mobile devices.

More importantly, mobile phones have benefits that the other 6 media don’t have.

Mobile phones are not shared with others – even our spouses!

7 out of 10 people sleep with their phones within arm’s reach. And yes, I’m sure you’ve heard people speaking on their phones, even in public bathrooms. People have been known to return home to get their forgotten phones.

It is an incredibly intense relationship. You just don’t leave home without it!

Like the ringtone on your phone?

Click to Buy.

Like the book you see on your phone?

Click to Buy.

Pay for movie tickets, iTunes, insurance or pizza with your phone?

Click to Buy!!

Mobile is the newest mass media and it has the potential to become the most influential mass media of all time.

Okay. You’re convinced mobile marketing is important.

But how does mobile pertain to your business?

1. Well, if you’re experiencing a smaller marketing budget due to economic constraints, mobile marketing, done correctly, can be a more affordable and effective way to build your client base than traditional marketing. You’re smart to read this report and learn more about new marketing strategies.

You definitely want to consult a mobile marketing expert to help you with your advertising campaigns and your business’ mobile presence. They will help you avoid expensive mistakes and a steep learning curve.

2. It’s been found that all age categories are accessing emails through mobile phones in larger numbers. The problem is that emails are often considered to be spam and not all of them are opened.

On the other hand, click-through rates and conversion rates are significantly higher for text messages than emails and internet displays, despite the latter two having a larger piece of marketing budgets.

Even more significantly, “about 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of their delivery, and over 99% of all text messages are read by the recipient,” according to a whitepaper on conversational advertising by SinglePoint.

This data illustrates that text messaging through mobile phones is becoming the preferred way to reach customers. Text messages are opened and read almost 100% of the time.

Text messages don’t have to go through spam filters, they’re not ignored and they’re not automatically trashed. Text coupons can have a redemption rate of 10 -30% because they are always available on the phone, as opposed to email or paper coupons.

As a business owner, you are always striving to become aware of the newest marketing strategies you can use to grow your client base and increase sales. You want to stand out from the crowd.

Well, mobile marketing is the newest marketing strategy that can help you stand out from the crowd.

It’s effective and affordable and it provides constant access to your customers because people always have their phones with them. You can also experience very quick results from your mobile advertising as opposed to having to wait for print advertising or other methods to reach your clients. In addition, these results can be trackable.

With mobile marketing, you can send messages about a sale to customers who have requested to be contacted about a particular product and when it goes on sale. You’re more likely to get a better ROI on that piece of advertising than if you mailed out a direct mail ad to a random selection of households.

According to Advertising Age,

“It’s clear that retailers that don’t embrace mobile phone technology in the coming year will be left behind, much as those retailers who sat on the sidelines in the early days of digital or social media are now playing catch up.”

Who Needs Mobile Marketing?

First, let me say that not every business needs mobile marketing. If you do not have an advertising budget that can handle experimentation losses from using a new technology you’re not familiar with, you do not need to be doing mobile marketing at this time.

On the other hand, if you engage the services of a mobile marketing expert who can help to mitigate any such potential losses, you should certainly consider using mobile marketing.

In addition, you should not consider using mobile marketing if your product or service focuses primarily on a target demographic that would not be using mobile phones.

Many businesses, however, do have products or services that are ideal candidates for marketing using mobile.

Retail, above and beyond, is the niche which benefits the most from mobile. Anyone with a retail business should definitely have a mobile friendly website and should take advantage of mobile advertising strategies or you’ll be behind the 8 ball.

The mobile marketing opportunities for a retail business are endless!

There are many other business niches which can benefit greatly from mobile marketing and they include, but are not limited to:

Imagine the benefits of offering coupons, recipes, surveys/feedback campaigns, fan clubs, loyalty clubs, movie times, ticket sales, class schedules, details of a property for sale, last minute travel deals, sales, store events, donation sites, emergency alerts, new publications by a favorite author or musician, health tips, carry-out or delivery ordering, theater locations.

Clearly, the list can go on and on. You can modify many of the offline promotions you are already doing to make them work on mobile. You can also create and execute new promotions that do not work offline. There are no limits to using your creativity with mobile marketing!

It’s beyond the scope of this guide to discuss in detail all the ways your business can market using mobile, but a mobile marketing consultant is able to help you plan your marketing campaigns.

It All Sounds Good – But Are They Using Mobile to Buy? (Show Me The Money!)

According to a report posted by eMarketer, mobile phone use related to buying activities increased significantly in 2010, with an even greater increase during the last quarter – the 2010 holiday shopping season.

Consumers not only checked their phones for coupons and sales, shared good deals with friends and did comparison shopping, but yes, they bought products using their phones.

Smartphone Activities Performed During the Holidays According to US Spmartphone Owners, Dec 2010

Source GfK Roper

Why You Need a Mobile Friendly Website

When you plan your mobile marketing campaigns, you will, at some point, be sending consumers to your website. If your website is not mobile friendly, consumers will not have a good experience and will leave your site.

Reasons why businesses need a mobile friendly website include:

By 2014, it is estimated that half of Americans’ web browsing will be done on their mobile devices. It is critical for you to make sure you have a mobile web presence and that your mobile websites are working properly. As a savvy business owner, you want to get the jump on your competitors and not wait till everyone is using mobile marketing.

Your potential customers expect you to have a mobile website:

“When asked whether they expect sites they visit frequently to provide a dedicated mobile version, a resounding 84 percent responded in the affirmative.” – iCrossing Study

You’ll want to engage the services of a mobile internet marketing consultant to help you do mobile search engine optimization for your mobile website. It doesn’t matter if you have a .com or a .mobi website. If it can’t be found – you’re losing customers.

The Tulsa Zoo website is an excellent example of all the features you can include in your mobile friendly website, in a clear, easy-to-read format.

Features included:

Mobile Friendly Websites

You know you need a mobile friendly website, but what exactly is a mobile friendly website?

A picture is worth a thousand words. See below.

.com website on a PC screen

.com

Non-mobile friendly websites present obstacles to a consumer who is searching for information about your business. The large PC sites require scrolling and a consumer is likely to scroll right past the information they’re looking for (phone numbers, addresses, etc.).

.com website on a mobile screen

.mobi

Mobile friendly websites present the information in a very clear, easy-to-navigate fashion with links to pertinent pages. There is a minimum of graphics and extensive information.

.mobi website on a mobile screen

Please Note: Less than 1% of .com, .net and .org sites are mobile web friendly. This means there’s a 99% chance your website isn’t mobile friendly!

A mobile marketing expert can help you create a mobile version of your current website.

Mobile Marketing Tools

Okay. It works. You think it’s worth considering using mobile marketing.

How do you do it?

First, you need to decide which strategy you’ll be using to get your message out and then you can craft your message to fit the strategy.

There are several mobile marketing strategies/tools you can use to reach your customers on their mobile devices and we’ll list them here. It’s beyond the scope of this report to go into extreme detail for each. Your mobile marketing consultant will be able to help you make the right choices for your business.

Text Messaging (SMS)

SMS stands for Short Message Service, also known as text messages. Most cell phones are capable of sending and receiving text messages. You’re limited to 140 characters and that is enough to get a short message out, link to a website or send out a coupon.

We’ve already talked about the great open rates and conversion rates for text messages. This is definitely one strategy you’ll want to keep in mind when setting up your mobile marketing campaigns.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)

In addition to sending text, you can also send audio, pictures and video in an MMS message. You can get quite creative here with your marketing message and distribute it easily through phones.

Mobile E-Mail

Despite the increase in popularity of text messaging, emails are still a great way to get a message out. You’ll observe people checking their emails all day long, in a variety of locations, because they have their mobile phones with them. This is an affordable and acceptable way to market via mobile.

Mobile Internet Sites

The increase in smartphones which have the ability to surf the web means that your website should be formatted to be mobile friendly. People on the go tend to search for basic information, such as phone numbers, addresses, and hours of operation. They’re trying to make quick decisions and do not usually have the time to read a complicated website when on the go. You need to make sure you have appropriate, easily findable information on your mobile friendly website.

Mobile Applications

Mobile applications are computer programs that are installed on mobile phones. They are used to provide capabilities, such as looking at a checking account balance or playing a game. Applications can also include your marketing message. They can be a great way to get your message out.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

With all the capabilities available on the mobile phones of today, we might forget that their primary purpose is to make and receive voice phone calls. IVR technology allows us to send and receive voice calls from people without having a live person answer the phone at your end.

Mobile Social Media

Social media has been a driving force in the growth of smart phones. It’s very easy for folks to participate in social media conversations throughout the day using their phones. You can take advantage of this trend by incorporating a mobile social media strategy in your marketing.

Mobile Advertising

Mobile phones present a great opportunity to advertise to a broad potential customer base, in addition to your targeted customer base. Google, recognizing the importance of the mobile industry, recently bought AdMob, a mobile advertising platform. You know if Google thinks it’s important, we should also pay attention.

Mobile advertising involves placing ads in mobile applications, on websites, and in text messages, to name a few.

Mobile Commerce

It is possible to arrange for an immediate purchase of not only digital downloadable products, but also of retail products using your mobile phone. Your mobile phone can literally be used as a digital wallet using bar code scanners and mobile point of sale systems. You’ll want to consider setting up a mobile commerce program, if you sell any products which can be downloaded or shipped out.

Proximity Marketing

Mobile phones are capable of showing the exact geo-location of the person using the phone. This capability can be used to target buyers in specific geographic locations with messages appropriate to their location (e.g. mall stores offering coupons to mall shoppers or restaurants texting a 2 for 1 dinner special to those in their vicinity). This type of marketing is receiving attention because of the potential for timing the promotions as needed (e.g. slow day for a restaurant or clearance sale in a store).

The geo-location capabilities of phones are a great reason to focus on local internet marketing for your business. You definitely want your mobile website to be found when consumers are searching for a local business to go to. You also want to invite consumers to communicate with you, when they find your website because of your great local web presence.

A local internet marketing consultant can help you with your local internet marketing program.

Mobile-Enabled Traditional Media

Mobile marketing can only be done with the express permission of your customer. You can use traditional media to invite them to opt-in to your list. An example of this would be a sign in your store window or near the cash register inviting the customer to text to a number which will respond with a coupon code or scan a QR code which will take them to a web page where they can opt-in.

QR Codes

QR Codes will be explained in the next section.

QR Codes

QR Codes are a great mobile tool to use and they deserve some explanation.

The QR Code is a barcode that was developed in Japan and is commonly used in much of the world.

QR stands for Quick Response.

If you have a QR scanner on your smartphone, you can scan the code on this page.

The difference between a regular barcode and the QR code is that the QR Code stores data which can be read digitally. The QR code is read by scanners in stores or using the camera and a QR code reader (available free) which are installed on your smartphone.

A QR Code can be used to provide a link to a web page, a coupon or details on a new product and can be printed on anything – even t-shirts! The uses for a QR Code are endless.

QR Codes are used extensively outside of the U.S. and are beginning to catch on here, too. I’m already seeing them in print advertising in magazines, on store windows, in some directories and on other websites. You can add them to any print advertising such as business cards, to videos, and to anything else you can think of. When scanned, it will provide a text message, take someone directly to your website or link to whatever else you decide to send them to.

In Japan, McDonald’s includes QR codes on their product packaging (Happy Meal boxes, sandwich wrappers). Magazines are incorporating QR codes into their print advertising. Can you think of how you might use a QR Code?

You can download your Google Places QR Code from your Google Places Dashboard. The Google Places QR Code links to your Places listing, which provides important information about your business.

Someone who is familiar with QR Codes will appreciate using them. If someone is not familiar with QR Codes, they’ll ask about them when they’re in your store – opening up lines of communication.

QR Codes are a great tool for inviting a consumer to opt-in to your list, in exchange for something of value (coupon, sales events, link to a download).

You’ll be seeing more and more QR Codes and you’ll be using them yourself in your mobile marketing campaigns.

Summary

Mobile is the newest mass media with the greatest capabilities and greatest marketing potential for the business community. Mobile phone use is growing at a rapid pace and this growth reflects a growing customer base which a business can potentially tap into.

If you can imagine what it was like back when TV was infringing on radio and the explosion that resulted from that, you’ll realize that mobile is infringing on the internet and there is an explosion coming from that.

Are you ready for the mobile explosion?

There are two things you can do right now to make your business mobile.

1. Create a mobile friendly website. 25% of the population has a smartphone and they can access your website.

2. Start a text message marketing program. The majority of people have mobile phones which can receive text messages. This is a direct, personal and cost-effective way to communicate with consumers.

There are several inexpensive text message marketing plans available to small business owners, some starting as low as $10 a month.

You want to be careful to provide value to your customers when you text them. As easily as they opted-in, consumers can opt-out by texting STOP if they feel your text message are spam.

Text message marketing is an incredible marketing opportunity for small businesses. If you can type, you can send a text message.

The mobile industry, as a whole, is not understood by many and is in a constant state of change. Considering the multitude of marketing tools available in mobile, as a business owner, you need to seriously consider using experts in the mobile marketing field to make the best use of your marketing dollars and time.

Don’t wait till it’s too late! Go Mobile Now!

Business Marketing Ally is happy to meet with
you to discuss your mobile internet marketing needs.

Or scan our QR code below and capture our contact information instantly

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Mobile Marketing

Facebook Success For Small Business

March 27, 2011 By Don

Small Business Marketing Success with Facebook Pages

What Is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking site where people connect with friends, family, and others with common interests. Anyone 13 years old and older with a valid email address can join Facebook for free. Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can connect with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and “like pages”.

Facebook is rapidly becoming the social networking place for businesses with well over 500 million registered users. According to Social Media Today as of April 2010, it is estimated that 41.6% of the U.S. population has a Facebook account. That’s just the US alone. Compile those numbers with the rest of the world and for you that means information can be shared virally around the world in a very short period of time.

How To Set Up

If you don’t already have a Facebook account, just simply go to http://www.facebook.com/ and provide your full name, email address, desired password, gender, and date of birth. Use your personal information (not a business name) here. I’ll show you how to create your business Fan Page in the next part.

Features

Facebook has a number of features with which users may use to interact with others.

The Wall

The Wall is a space on every user’s profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. Users can also attach links to their wall.

Pokes

Pokes allow users to send a virtual “poke” to each other. You can poke your friends to say hello. When you poke someone, they will receive a poke alert on their home page. They can then the “Remove Poke” or “Poke Back.”

Photos

Users can upload an unlimited amount of albums and photos. Facebook does restrict the number of photos per album to 200, but you can have as many albums as you wish.

You can upload 100 photos into the Mobile Uploads album. If you add more than 100, a second album is automatically created.

Status

The Status feature allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions. Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user’s profile can also view that user’s Wall.

News Feed

A News Feed feature appears on every user’s homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user’s friends.

What are Facebook Pages?

According to Facebook, “Pages were created when we noticed that people were trying to connect with brands and famous artists in ways that didn’t quite work on Facebook…Not only can you connect with your favorite artists and businesses, but now you also can show your friends what you care about and recommend by adding Pages to your personal profile.”

Pages have two walls. The first one is where the Page owner writes. The second one is just for fans to write their own messages. Just like your personal Facebook profile, Pages have tabs that reveal more information about your business.

Pages can create content that comes from the Page itself, rather than be linked to your personal profile. The Page is seen as an individual “person”, just like a corporation is seen as one offline.

Pages are also indexed by the search engines (such as Google), but your personal profile and groups are not.

Updates to your Fan Page instantly appear in your Fans’ “updates” box.

Connect with People

Each day more than 20 million Facebook users connect with Facebook Pages. In fact, Alexa.com ranks Facebook 2^nd to Google. By establishing your business presence on Facebook Pages you will reach and connect with local Facebook users in your area, and make natural and real connections through a social network that is based on sharing information with close friends, family and acquaintances.

Simply put, Facebook Pages is the profile page for organizations, businesses, celebrities and bands, and is intended to be a place to publicly and officially broadcast useful information to fans. On the other hand, a regular profile page, or user account, is intended to represent one individual, who, more often than not, privately connects with friends and family to share information.

The Facebook Wall is where you spread your message and communicate with your fans about your business by making periodic updates. The shared content appears on the Wall of all your Facebook Page fans, and potentially their friends. Just think about it, an average Facebook member has over 130 friends. With just one single update, members can share your business link with their friends, and those 130 friends can recommend your business to their 130 friends. In a very short amount of time, your business could become viral.

Facebook differs from more traditional promotional avenues in that it’s not as straight forward as paying for advertisement flyers, business signs or a listing in a local directory.

To succeed with Facebook Pages, more time must be devoted, but the return on investment can be significant. In a study done by Rice University for a café called Dessert Gallery, a statistically significant number of Facebook fans responded to a survey which revealed that Dessert Gallery’s presence on Facebook increased their customer loyalty and earnings.

In fact, those surveyed were more likely to recommend Dessert Gallery to friends, spend more money each time they visited, and visit more frequently. A measure of this kind of success is possible to achieve for almost all small businesses that are willing to dedicate time and resources to building their fan base on Facebook and start an honest real-time conversation about their brand.

Getting Started with Facebook Pages

You need to have an account on Facebook in order to create a Facebook page. Your Facebook page will be tied to your personal profile as the admin of your Facebook page, but only you and Facebook will know the connection exists.

You can have an unlimited number of Facebook pages, with an unlimited number of fans.

Facebook Pages are public—anyone can find and view your page whether they are logged into Facebook or not.

All content posted on your Facebook page gets indexed on Google and other search engines.

You can add applications to your page, including your own custom content—video, rich text, graphics, opt-in box and more.

You can add additional admins (highly recommended). All admins have equal rights to administer your page, including adding and removing other admins so be careful who you choose.

Questions to Consider

Before spending several hours a day on designing your small business Facebook Page consider the following and strategize accordingly: What is your objective? Is it getting more customers in the door? Building awareness around your brand? Or creating a space to communicate and provide customer service? Think about these questions before you begin.

Make sure that the niche or business you choose is active and people are searching for your choice of business. You can search the hot trends in Click Bank, Amazon, and Yahoo. Use the main keyword in the title for your Fan Page and in your profile. Pick your Facebook Page name carefully as this cannot be changed at a later date. Use Google Keyword Tool to find additional keywords to use. The name you choose will be part of your unique URL.

Once you’re clear on the purpose of your Facebook page, the design needs to reflect that. For example, if your purpose is to build your email list. You’ll need to feature at least one opt-in box.

Create your profile and build your page

If you already have a profile, go to www.facebook.com/pages to start creating your page. If you don’t have a profile click the Create a Page link to create your profile and page at the same time.

You will be given the choice of creating a Facebook Page for a local business, brand or public person. Once you select to create a local business page, a drop-down menu will give you the option to define your line of business. Choose from Health and Beauty, Café, Professional Services and many more.

Add content

Now that you have registered your page it is time to start adding content about your business. Begin by uploading an image. This should be your logo or an image representative of your business. The image will be displayed as a thumbnail, so make sure the size does not exceed 4MB.

Secondly describe you business for the info tab. Include contact information, hours and website if you have one. Keep it short and informational and try to include some of the keywords of your industry. A tightly keyword focused Fan Page will get you indexed by the search engines quickly.

All Facebook Pages have the tabs: Wall and Info. You can move tabs, remove them, add new ones, and select which tab you want visitors to see when they first visit your page. This is important.

As Facebook is a social medium, visitors expect content to be updated on a regular basis. Take a hint from some of the big brands and use interactivity like encouraging fans to post photos of themselves visiting your business or using your product and reward the best one with a free sample or 2 for 1 deal. The Photo tab is already part of the standard setup making it an easy option.

Add Social Plugins

If your business has its own website there are many Facebook plugins available to promote your Facebook Page outside the Facebook network. The most useful of the Facebook standard plugins are the Like Box and Like Button. The code is generated with the click of a button and can easily be pasted into the code of your website.

The Like Button allows users share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like Button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your website.

The Like Box is similar, but contains more information such as a snapshot of fans who like your Facebook Page and recent post from your status updates.

Both of these plugins may only be useful if you have a website which is regularly updated, such as a blog.

Invite fans

Your first fan has to come from somewhere, so start by liking your own page and invite your Facebook friends to do the same. You may have an existing list of contacts from your business that you will want to invite. You can upload this list and tell your customers about your fan page. To invite fans outside of Facebook, click the Import Contact button and use your username and password credentials to get contact from web based email clients such as Yahoo!, Gmail and Hotmail. It is also possible to import desktop email client contacts from programs such as Outlook, Entourage and Mac OS X Address Book.

Write on the Wall

The Wall is where your status updates are displayed. If you are just getting started marketing your local business through Facebook Pages this is a good choice for default landing page for visitors as the content is easily updated with blurbs, deals, specials and photos.

The posts on the Wall are in chronological order, with the newest displayed at the top and fans can comment on each update which is then displayed on their own profile pages. Be inspired by Sprinkles Cupcakes who uses their status update to reveal a secret password which allows the first 50 visitors a free cupcake that day.

By updating your News Feed with status updates your fans will see your messages displayed in their News Feed which may in turn be visible to their friends if they like or comment on your status update.

Promote your Fan Page on your Website

If you have your own website created, you can use the “Promote this Page on Your Website” link to generate the code needed to add the “Like” box to your business website. The box will link them directly to your Facebook Fan Page.

Tested Facebook Strategies for Small Businesses

Build Relationships with Your Fans

Part of the challenge of being a local business on Facebook is that your potential fans are not going to be located just anywhere. This means you may never have anywhere near the same number of fans as a large national chain or brand. Make this work to your advantage. Take the time to communicate and build a relationship with your fans as they join your page by sending them individual thank-you notes. A loyal fan becomes a customer forever. Each new fan should be considered a business lead, start the dialogue, build a good connection and chances are your lead will tell their friends.

Encourage People to Become Fans

Local businesses are brick and mortar type companies and can find creative ways to take advantage of foot traffic to promote their Facebook Page. Restaurants and cafés can print a “Follow us on Facebook” line one their menus and take-out slips. A flyer by the cash register can encourage people to become fans to receive special deals and discounts. In addition, a link to your Facebook page can be printed on receipts, business cards and more.

If you have a website or a blog, be sure to link to your Facebook page from there. Add your Facebook URL to your email signature, and send out a blast to your Twitter followers. Mention your Facebook page to your family and friends too. Once you have used Facebook for a while you may want to consider buying advertising on Facebook to direct people to your page. Before you do this, make sure you have a solid product that’s frequently updated, so people visiting are more inclined to become fans.

Buy Advertising

Always make sure that if you are spending money on Facebook advertising you are investing in your long term goal. Test ads with a limited budget and make note of performance and improvements. Once you are able to see some return on investment, increase your advertising budget.

Advertisements can be targeted by State, City, demographics and even place of work. You do not want current fans or people who will not be interested in your business clicking on your ads. You can target people who are not connected to something and get very specific on the target options. For each target you choose, Facebook will display an estimated number of users who will see the ad.

Choose you daily budget and run time starting off with a low sum like $5.00-10.00 per day. You can also control when and where your ads appear. Once your budget for the day runs out, your ad will not appear.

Take care to write an engaging and informative ad that answers the question “Why should I become a fan of this business?” Be sure to include an image in your ad. Also try running multiple ads with different key phrases, styles and target options to compare the results and get laser focused on your traffic. Another option is to link the ad to your website where fans can fill out an opt-in form to receive more information from your business.

Poll Your Fans

Facebook has an application that allows you to easily create polls to add to your fan page. Ask your fans. Everyone loves to take polls. This information can help you figure out what kind of updates to include on your page, and it will make your fans feel like they make a difference to your business.

Use Coupons and other Incentives

Now that you’ve worked on getting Facebook users to like your Facebook Page and started building a relationship with them you will need to focus on getting those fans to make purchases. Exclusive deals for Facebook fans like in the example of Sprinkles Cupcakes allow y our business to accurately record the return on investment when fans are converted into buying customers. Coupons can be printable graphic ads, a phrase or password or a special deal mentioned in a status update. Encourage your fans to watch your fan page updates for your Fan Exclusive deals.

You may also want to offer deals for referring a friend where a chosen fan gets special treatment when new customers say “I’m a friend of so-and-so”.

Post Behind-the-Scenes Updates

Connect with your fans by occasionally posting status updates that are not promotional or “news worthy”. These kinds of messages offer an additional level of interactivity and may yield many responses which in turn allow your fans to see you as a trusted local business source. If you have a mobile device with Facebook enabled this can be done instantly and while out and about running your business.

Another tactic is to ask questions from your fans such as favorite paint color for living room, hair up or down for weddings or which holiday treat they can’t live without.

Use Different Types of Media

You’ll want to keep your fans interacting with your page. Include links to interesting sites and blog posts related to your type of business. Find YouTube videos that are closely associated with your business too.

Be sure to include pictures of events your business hosts or participates, load the photos to your fan page and encourage fans to tag themselves. This pushes out into their wall and friends’ News Feeds, providing valuable (free!) exposure.

Create a compelling video that explains exactly a) what your fan page is about, b) who it’s for and c) why they should become members.

Invite people to join via SMS. Your fans can join your fan page via text message! You’ll need to get your first 25 fans and secure your username. Then, to join your fan page, Facebook users just send a text message to 32665 (FBOOK) with the words “fan yourusername” OR “like yourusername” (without the quotes).

Additional Social Marketing

There are several different social networking sites besides Facebook that you can use to link back to your Fan Page. Inside social networking sites like MySpace, hi5, Linkedin, to name a few of the popular ones, include your Fan Page link inside your Profile.

Link your Twitter account to your Facebook fan page and automatically post your Facebook content to Twitter. You can edit what gets posted, choosing from Status Updates, Photos, Links, Notes and Events.

You can submit articles to places like ezinearticles, Squidoo and HubPages and link back to your Facebook Fan Page or to your website for fans to opt-in to receive a free report that is pertinent to the article. Marketing with articles is one of the best ways to get indexed by the search engines.

Visit blogs and forums that are associated with your business Fan Page, or niche. Post helpful and useful information and link back to your Facebook Fan Page. Use your keywords as much as possible. You can also outsource article writing by using Elance or Odesk.

Drive Traffic to Your Fan Page

Aside from inviting your friends, family, and customer email contacts, you can also generate traffic to your Fan Page. Fiverr.com is a site where people offer various services for only $5 per gig, including services offering Facebook “invites”. Under the “Social Marketing” category you can find services you can use to generate lots of fans in a very short period of time.

CPA Offers

Fan Pages can also be used to promote CPA offers. Fans can simply enter their email address or zip code and you get paid. Be sure to include a welcome landing page and have several “call to action” points, and include the link to your CPA offer. You’ll need to create your Fan Page, find a CPA offer, increase your invites by using a service like Fiverr, and include your CPA affiliate link on your Fan Page as a status update and on the Info tab so others can see it.

Facebook Apps for Small Businesses

Facebook offers many apps for your Fan Pages that you can use to make your Page unique and interactive. Below are a few that small businesses may find handy.

Capture Statistics

The first listing is not really an app, but an integrated feature of Facebook Pages located on the left hand side. The snapshot, visible only to admins of the page, reveals key information, and can be expanded to give a detailed view of how people are interacting with your page. A rating on the quality of your post is determined by how it drives interaction by users. A great tool to perfect messages and hone in on what creates a reaction from your fans.

Promotions

To make special offers and promotions even easier sign up for an account at Wildfire App. The easy-to-use software provides formats designs for coupons and give-aways, and can be distributed across multiple social networking sites.

Poll

Again, one of Facebook’s integrated apps. The poll functions lets you write your question and enter your choices. For example: What do you think of our new meatball sub? It’s meatilisious, Easy on the sauce, heavy on the meatballs, or I’m a vegetarian. You can find the poll function on the settings page. A poll is a casual way to get valuable information from your fans about a new product or your business in general.

Social RSS

This app allows you to add your RSS feed to a dedicated tab on your Fan Page. It will post an excerpt of your blog on your Page automatically. Below the excerpt will be a link that says “Read More Stories” and another one that says “Subscribe to stories from this page.” Fans will be directed to your blog and have a chance to subscribe.

Static FBML

This application allows you to add HTML to your Fan Page. You can then create a persuasive landing page with videos and graphics. If you have a CPA offer with a nice landing page, then plug in the landing page to your web editor and link it to your CPA offer. You can also embed videos to your landing page (i.e., YouTube videos). This app also allows you to add opt in boxes to your Fan Page. Just grab the code from your auto-responder and paste it into your Fan Page html code.

Create a Nice looking URL for your Fan Page

You can set your own URL by going to www.facebook.com/username and change the long URL Facebook gives you to something more professional looking and easy to remember. You must have 25 fans to get your own username. Use a keyword or keyphrase that is relevant to your niche. Remember, you will not be able to change it in the future.

Facebook Pages Success Stories

SteelMaster, a company that makes steel buildings found surprising success on Facebook. Their unique approach was posting photographs of customers steel buildings. SteelMaster’s buildings are designed for a broad range of commercial and residential applications. By posting photos of client’s buildings the clients Facebook friends with similar needs became interested.

Little Partners produces a safe, adjustable children’s step stool, the Learning Tower, which brings toddlers to countertop height. They achieved success by targeting moms who said they like cooking on the Facebook profile through paid advertising.

Butter Lane is a cupcake bakery who has mastered social media advertising. By using Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and Groupon they have managed to reach a large targeted audience who are more than happy to spend their money on their baked goods. Co-owner Maria Baugh stresses that their success is based on perfecting their products and delivering excellent customer service, both online and off,

Conclusion

Facebook is a valuable and powerful social media marketing tool for small businesses in almost any field. Securing an online presence, especially if you do not have a website is crucial in order to receive feedback from customers and partners. Remember Facebook Pages is a public, but casual place to promote your business and join in a dialogue with your fans. Start slow and build as the momentum allows you.

This Small Business Tip is brought to you by:

Business Marketing Ally

If you have any questions about the tips and resources that you read about in this short report or if you would like speak more about your Facebook, Social Media or Local Internet Marketing Strategy please do not hesitate to contact me.

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Internet Marketing For Small Business, Local Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Clickable Banners For Backpage

February 17, 2011 By Don

Clickable Ads Work!

We produce clickable ads for businesses that advertise on Backpage and Craigslist. Clickable ads produce results by making your offer look more professional.

Here is an Example

Your Ad Will Stand Out

Contact Us Today To See How We Can help Your Business!

Filed Under: Featured Articles

QR Codes On Good Morning America

February 4, 2011 By Don

Filed Under: Featured Articles, marketing campaign, marketing strategies Tagged With: Good Morning America, QR Codes

Internet Marketing For Small Business

April 17, 2010 By Don

With small business marketing and the internet the first thing a business will need is a well optimized website. Internet marketing for small business relies on a marketing plan and the website is the foundation of the plan. The website must be optimized for related keywords or phrases someone would use to find a business with. For some businesses a new website may be needed or an existing website will need to be tweaked.

If a website is more than a few years old it will definitely need some updating. With today’s web savvy population an outdated site will stand out for all the wrong reasons. With small business marketing the website is the first point of contact. The website or technically the web page, has to have a compelling message to grab the attention of the visitor. A website will have a half a second or less to say “HEY, LOOK HERE” (shouting intended).

Internet marketing for small business if done well can reward the business owner with an almost unlimited supply of new customers. If the search engines find a webpage with relevant content for a search term then the website that that page is on can gain first page placement in the search engine. The first page can receive over 90% of the search traffic for a term or keyword. We’ll talk about keywords more in a minute. The thing is, a website can dominate one page with more than one listing while showing up for multiple phrases on multiple pages. Depending on the term or keyword, there can be hundreds if not thousands of inquires for the term or phrase.

If you are a small business owner and you are not sure about your site talk to a SEM (search engine marketing) specialist not a website designer and here is why. Building a website is a technical function and a skilled designer can knock out a site pretty quick these days. Designers are now hiring SEM specialists to enhance their client’s web marketing needs. This is not to say that all designers don’t understand marketing or optimizing a website. You just want to make sure of the direction of YOUR marketing before designing the site

The SEM specialist will take the time to learn about you and your business in order to come up with a marketing plan that, number one fits a budget and is workable. A search marketing campaign follows a plan and the plan should have a way to measure the results. The technical function of building a site should come only after a solid course of action has been determined. The marketing plan can be put together in a few days after an initial meeting with a SEM specialist.

The SEM marketer needs to research your business to find a list of keywords that your best customer would use to find you on the internet. After a discussion with you and a review of the potential of the keywords, is when the website would be looked at. The Website should have one goal only and that is to compel visitors to take an action. The action can be as simple as to leave an e-mail address while requesting more information, make a purchase, book an appointment or call the business direct. Any one of these actions is called a conversion. Conversions are the goal.

When looking for someone or a company to work with on SEM for your business you will also hear about SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you look up SEO or SEM at Wikipedia you’ll get similar definitions. Suffice to say Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization go hand in hand. In this article I’m addressing natural or organic traffic, there is a lot more that the SEO/SEM specialist will take into consideration when organizing a plan for a business. SEM and SEO best practices overlap.

To get started marketing your business on the internet get a hold of a SEM/SEO specialist. And I also want to mention that you shouldn’t get too hung up about speaking to someone that says they are a specialist for your industry. Smart businesses look outside their industry for ideas and inspiration all the time. With SEO and SEM you are looking for someone that understands what it takes to get a website to the top of the search engines. Looking at a specialist that only works within one industry may result in a myopic solution. The search engines reward uniqueness, this is one time when doing what everyone else in your industry is doing may not be the right thing for your business future.

Filed Under: Featured Articles

Increasing Your search Engine Rankings

March 29, 2010 By Don

A high search engine ranking for your website is essential that if you to get the most you can out of your website.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through the main search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase.

The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the amount of traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.

We like to start with a few simple items on your pages, then make some small adjustments, and most likely we’ll see some improvement to rankings.

The first item to examine is the title bar on your homepage. The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six to seven words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to put under the microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords – the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, want your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. Meta tags is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.

We look at the source code to check this. If you would like to find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you can access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source.” This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page.

If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, once again you’ll want to ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.

The last issue we come to is link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website. Whatever you do don’t sign up for a linking program that promises hundreds or thousands of links for a cheap price. Those types of programs can hurt your search rankings beyond belief.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. If you are not comfortable with some of the processes we’ve discussed then contact us to review your site for you. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.

Filed Under: Featured Articles

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