SiteProNews |
- Local Business Online Visibility Tips – Use What You Do Every Day
- How to Get the Most Out of Your Email Marketing
- 6 Quick Ways to Stabilize Your Business with Multiple Revenue Streams
- SEO Lessons from Local Businesses
- 3 Onsite SEO Touchups – A SPN Exclusive Article
| Local Business Online Visibility Tips – Use What You Do Every Day Posted: 11 Nov 2011 09:50 AM PST 
Often, business owners think about being visible online as a way of reaching people whom you have had no contact with at all. That’s true in many cases. Sometimes, online visibility is as simple as making sure that people you interact with (even briefly) as part of your usual business routines are aware of your online presence. Not everyone wants to pick up the phone or call in to your premises to find out basic information like your opening hours or who to contact. Sometimes people just want to find out a bit more about you and your company. In this day and age of always being plugged in to the Internet, your website is the first point of call. That is especially true outside of usual business hours. Make it easy for those brief contacts to find you, don’t make them search when they don’t need to! Obvious isn’t it? Well maybe not. I have a mountain of business cards that have little more than an address, phone and email on them. Why force people’s hands and make them search for more information about you? Give them your online details upfront and include: * Your website address. QR Codes can be as simple as a vCard with all your contact details, including your address, phone, email and website to store directly on the phone. You can also redirect to your website, Facebook Page or even Google Places review page. The possibilities are almost endless. Invoices, receipts, compliment slips, info leaflets, headed notepaper… How many of these have your online details displayed? Again, do not just include your email address, but also your website and active social profiles too. 3. Your Vehicle You may not have the budget for a full designed vehicle wrap, but you can put your details on a decal or sunscreen strip. 4. Print Ads Whether it’s the local paper or Yellow Pages, always include your online details when you advertise. Make it effective by giving people a reason to visit your website – and capture their email address in return for your offer! 5. Promotional Gifts We’ve all done it at some point – trade shows, seminars, demonstration or open days give out what seems to be a ton of pens, badges, balloons, key rings, mugs – the whole she-bang all nicely printed with a business name. Make them work harder for you and at least include your website address too. The great thing about directing people back to your website is it can be easily tracked when you implement it correctly. You’ll get a good picture of where people have come from, what works and what doesn’t. Before you place the order to re-print your stationery or ads, think “online visibility” – your website is open 24/7 waiting for that 2am inspirational or emergency visit. Want to know more about getting the word out about your local business online? Help yourself to my “Getting Started Online” guides – they’re free => http://www.mylocalbusinessonline.co.uk/started-online Jan Kearney specializes in helping local businesses take advantage of the worldwide web to grow their business. You are invited to read Jan’s blog at http://www.mylocalbusinessonline.co.uk Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| How to Get the Most Out of Your Email Marketing Posted: 11 Nov 2011 09:41 AM PST 
Email marketing is a great, inexpensive way to keep in contact with the people on your list and to form and nurture a relationship with them. If you do this correctly, you will get more business than the Average Joe and you will not have to do anything else to get clients to buy. It is therefore important to set this up correctly. Once you have done this, you can pretty much just leave it. Then you can concentrate on building traffic to your website because the system to capture leads and nurture the relationship with them is done for you automatically. Here are a couple of ways you can improve your email marketing: First, you have to worry about your prospects opening your emails. If you are not yet tracking your email open rates, you need to start doing so straight away. You need a good email marketing provider like Aweber (or mailchimp if you are in New Zealand). Not using a provider will give you too much work, as well as the possibility of you getting banned by your Internet Service Provider for sending bulk mail. Bulk mail just ends up in the spam folder just because it is bulk mail. Once you have a provider, you can then set up your emails, set the frequency that they are sent as well as track the click through rates, open rates and bounce rates. You then have something to work from. Once you have this information you’ll want to improve your messages so that it doesn’t happen again. Here are some reasons why your emails may not get through to your prospects’ inbox: Spam Words Some words are triggers for the spam filter. These include: “special offer, free, discount, cheap, home business, %, work-from-home, limited time, click here, coupon”. The chance that your prospects are getting your emails if these words are present are slim. Spam filters are becoming more sophisticated, and your email can be removed before it even hits the inbox. A good email marketing provider like AWeber will be able to pick up if you have any spam words in your messages, and will alert you before you send them. Subject Lines The next thing you need to worry about is getting your readers to open your email. This should not be a problem if they signed up because they want to read what you have to say. However, if you have a boring headline they may want to skip reading it because they have many other emails or they are busy. Make sure they know it is from you, and have a proactive title so that they want to open it. If your emails are interesting, and give them more information related to the reason they signed up in the first place, they should look forward to it, and open it. Avoid subject lines that are full of hype or make outrageous claims. If it sounds unbelievable, you will lose credibility with your prospect. Make sure your subject lines are real, convincing and a bit mysterious. You need to put your name or your company name in the “from” field so that the prospect recognizes you. “Noreply” or “Systems” addresses are less likely to be opened. Make Sure You Send Relevant, Interesting And Valuable Content Make sure that the content of your email is valuable. When I sign up for something because I am interested in it and then get an email that says nothing or wastes my time, I unsubscribe on the spot. Most people will do the same. Make sure you deliver on the promise you gave when they signed up. You should only send your emails to those who asked for it. Don’t use lists from somewhere else that you bought or lists that are out dated. This will just invite complaints. Make sure your emails are interesting. Don’t copy from somewhere, be yourself. You should know how you are different from your competition. This will ensure that you stand out from the crowd. Your content should guide your customers toward a sale. Every email you write should help your prospect get answers to their problems, clarify their misconceptions on the subject, climb over stumbling blocks they may encounter, and help them arrive at your product or service, ready to buy. I use again the example of the nutritionist who uses a different illness in every email, usually related to the digestive system. She describes it in graphic detail so that you feel with the sufferer. Then she offers her special diet as a solution. In every email she also has a testimonial from someone who used to suffer this illness, but is now cured thanks to the diet. This is powerful stuff. Think of how you can offer your prospect a solution to their problem. Find all the problems, misconceptions, stumbling blocks and objections they may have and solve them one by one. Frequency If you send out emails daily, you will be seen as a severe nuisance before long. This will get your messages deleted or result in unsubscribes. On the other hand, waiting too long between emails will make your prospects forget you. I send one email per week with good content. This ensures a list that looks forward to my emails. The only way to know for sure would be to ask your prospects. Take a survey and find out. Adhering to these guidelines will ensure successful email marketing. Once this system is in place, you can concentrate on building traffic to your website. Article by Hannah Du Plessis. For more information on setting up a Lead Generation System for your Business visit Attraction Marketing today. http://masterattractionmarketing.net Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| 6 Quick Ways to Stabilize Your Business with Multiple Revenue Streams Posted: 11 Nov 2011 09:26 AM PST 
Where things become confusing for your prospective clients is if you have income streams that are all over the map and serve different target markets, like a career coach who buys, renovates, and flips homes on the side. It’s quite challenging to run a business like this because you’re actually running two different businesses in this example and the streams don’t relate well to each other at all. I recently experienced a situation where a career coach I’ve been following emailed his list about real estate development, which really annoyed me. I’m not interested in real estate development, nor do I expect to hear from that person on that topic. The easiest way to create multiple streams of revenue in a service business is to create off-shoots of what you’re already doing serving the same target market in your core business. This has been referred to as “going deep” with your customers and providing them with additional products and services rather than “going wide” into other markets. In this way, you can create a great client transition process that would provide multiple ways to serve the same clients. Believe me, it’s easier to continue to sell to people who’ve already purchased from you than to try and cultivate new clients. Here are 6 quick ways to stabilize your business with multiple streams of income: 1. Consulting/Coaching. Can you work with clients in a more in-depth fashion than you do currently? If so, you may want to add consulting or coaching to your income stream mix. Or, if you can help colleagues in the same industry grow their businesses, coaching or consulting in your own industry may provide the additional revenue stream you have been seeking. 2. Done for You Services. If you’re a coach or a consultant, adding done-for-you-services are a great option for members of your target market who don’t want any part of doing something themselves. So, if you’re a career coach who routinely helps clients polish their resumes, perhaps you could add a done-for-you resume service where you create a polished resume for your clients. 3. Affiliate Marketing. I love making money from recommending products and services that I already use in my business. This is an easy sale for me, as I’m an affiliate only for products and services that I have used or that have come highly recommended from a colleague that I respect. There’s nothing sweeter than getting my monthly PayPal notifications of payments from various affiliate 4. Membership/Continuity programs. If you have a great deal of content lying around in your hard drive, a membership site or continuity program may be in your future. This is an effective way to create a recurring stream of income in your business. 5. Teaching/Training/Speaking. Are others interested in learning the “how-to” of what you do? Then adding teaching, training, or speaking to your revenue stream in the form of teleclasses, live events, or webinars will add a healthy income stream to your business. 6. Information Products. Whether you have developed your own or sell PLR (Private Label Rights) products, the sale of information products can be a lucrative revenue addition to your business. Developing products that are sold at different price points serve as a reasonable price alternative to help your target market solve a problem if they aren’t able to hire you for 1:1 assistance. Take some time to determine how you can “go deep” with your target market and add additional revenue streams that complement what you’re already doing. You’ll soon discover a sense of relief to have the extra income should circumstances cause your income to drop in another part of your business. Article by Donna Gunter. Discover other unique ways to stop the client chase and create an online service business drives traffic to your web site with free instant access to this ebook, Turbocharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com You’ll get 7 proven internet marketing strategies that From Donna Gunter, the Internet Marketing Coach for Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| SEO Lessons from Local Businesses Posted: 11 Nov 2011 08:58 AM PST 
Now and again, I run across an individual business owner who is quick to say that SEO is absolutely worthless. When confronted with such an absolute statement, I like to press for details. It has been my experience that people who speak in negative absolutes will have a horror story to share. In this article, I am going to detail some of the stories I’ve heard, which frequently tells more about some of the people in our industry, than it does about the effectiveness of search engine marketing. Problem Number 1 – “I rank number one in Google, and yet, I have never earned a dime from my website…” When I first heard this story, I was very surprised. After all, if your SEO company did good keyword research, there is no reason why you should not be getting traffic and a few sales from a top ranking in Google. I pressed for more details. I learned that the company who built the website also did the search engine optimization. It only took a couple of minutes to learn that the website design company optimized this fellow’s website for the name of his company. There was no other optimization performed on that website. Lesson 1 – It is rather pointless to optimize a website for the name of the company. The only consumers who will be searching for the name of your company are existing customers. But, if your company is unknown to the general public, then the people who would like to buy your products or services will not be able to find you among your competitors. If you sell widgets in Tulsa Oklahoma, your future customers will be typing “Tulsa Oklahoma widgets” into their favorite search engines, trying to find your business. And if your prospective customers cannot find your business, your business does not exist in their minds. Problem #2 – “I had a company build a website for my business, but I have never received a single customer for my business, through my website…” Are you sure? Asking this question is not meant to offend you, but rather to get more details as to how you track incoming business. If you are the average off-line business owner, who has built a website to promote an off-line business, chances are real good that you probably have never received a single customer from your website. However, if your website does not request your prospective customers to let you know how they found out about your business, then chances are that people who did find you through your website would never tell you that. If more than one person answers the phone at your business, chances are just as good that someone may have mentioned finding you on a website, but no one conveyed that information to you. In your business, you should have systems in place to track and record where new customers have found your business. To do otherwise is like driving your car in the fast lane during rush-hour traffic with a blindfold over your eyes. Lesson 2 – If you are not asking your customers how they found your business, you will never know what kind of advertising is producing profits for your business, and which advertising is sucking the wind out of your business. Problem #3 – “I spend a great deal of money on PPC listings (pay-per-click) to get my business in front of search engine What keywords were you trying to rank for in the search engines? “Travel. I have a travel business based in Oklahoma City OK that caters to business professionals…” Have you ever noticed the caliber of companies who rank on page 1 in Google for the keyword: travel? Those are companies who spend millions of dollars per year to market their businesses online and off-line. Do you have a marketing budget that will allow you to effectively compete with Travelocity, Expedia or Priceline? Besides that, where do the majority of your customers work and reside? “Oklahoma City of course.” If that is the case, why would you spend your limited marketing budget to target consumers who would never buy from you, because they are outside your local marketing area? “I never really thought about it in that way…” Most of your competitors are making the same mistakes that you are. That is to your advantage, because when you start to market your business in a more realistic and cost-effective manner, then you will be able to compete with your competitors, while spending far less money than your competitors are spending. Lesson 3 - If you operate a local or regional business, do yourself a favor, and stop trying to compete in the national marketplace. Final Thoughts… Listed inside this article are three lessons that could potentially help your off-line business to find new customers and to generate new sales, as a result of your online advertising. Depending on the average ticket price of purchases in your store or service business, how much could an extra 20, 50 or 100 new customers bring into your business each month? You do the math. You could spend the next ten years learning what we have learned to maximize the effectiveness of your online advertising… Or you could employ us to work on your behalf to support your local business in your local marketplace. More consumers are ignoring their phone books and searching for products and services online. If you don’t want to compete for those consumers, your competitors will thank you. We primarily provide Local SEO Services to businesses in Oklahoma and Texas. But we are happy to serve any brick-and-mortar business in the United States. Author: Trey McMartin. http://MysticMountainMedia.com/ Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| 3 Onsite SEO Touchups – A SPN Exclusive Article Posted: 10 Nov 2011 09:00 PM PST 
Replace Old Whitepapers With Updated Versions All industries change with time, some just evolve faster than others. If you want your website to become a trusted source of information for your target audience, you have got to make sure you are giving them the most up-to-date and relevant information at all times. That’s simple enough to do on a business blog; as long as you are publishing new content on a regular basis, the blog will stay fresh and useful. However, many site owners forget to treat their website’s resource section with the same care. As part of a well-rounded content marketing strategy, you should be creating whitepapers, articles, videos and other forms of informational content for your target audience. However, these whitepapers/ articles are not forever current. As your industry evolves the information in them becomes obsolete. Unlike your business blog, which may get updated every day with the latest and greatest industry news, these whitepapers can sit for years on your site, waiting to be downloaded. When was the last time you read through those whitepapers? How much of that information is still applicable today? Writing an entirely new whitepaper is going to take a lot of time, research and effort. If you just can’t fit that into your schedule, why not just update your existing whitepapers? Some of the core information might still be relevant, but you can add or delete sections as needed. You can re-promote them as your 2012 version and give them a second chance at life! Every page of your website has the potential to be a landing page for a visitor. This is because the search engines rank individual pages, not websites as a whole. It’s important to conduct keyword research on a page-by-page basis for that exact reason. The keywords you select should be an accurate reflection of each page of content. Many websites fail to convert because they target the wrong keywords, meaning they attract the wrong visitor. Using your website’s analytics, determine which pages of your site are under-performing in terms of converting. Reread the content with fresh eyes and make sure the keywords you are targeting make sense. Did you miss the mark the first time around? The more you know about your target audience the more you can understand their intent when searching. For instance, “BPM” could mean “beats per minute” or it could mean “business process management.” The same search phrase is applicable in multiple situations! Is your website taking that into account? It could also mean you missed out on important keyword variations your target audience is using. For instance, I run a SEO company. It could also be called a SEO firm, SEO agency, search engine optimization company, SEO services firm and so forth. People are going to search for the same thing using different terms. If your website only focuses on one of these variations, you’re alienating a large segment of your target audience. Incorporate New Call-To-Actions You have to make it very clear to visitors to your site about what you want them to do. Should they call your office? Fill out a lead form? Download a free trial? Spell it out for them and then repeat those call-to-actions throughout your site. Every visitor to your site is going to have different motivations driving them, so you can try to appeal to those motivations by incorporating different call-to-actions throughout your site. For instance, an e-commerce site could use call-to-actions like “Buy now and guaranteed delivery in 3 days” to appeal to last minutes shoppers or “Spend $50 today and receive 10% back as a gift card for future purchases” to go after shoppers looking for a deal. The goal is all the same, to get shoppers to buy now, but each call-to-action focuses on a specific benefit that appeals to particular shoppers. Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing, a SEO services and social media marketing company based in Boston, MA. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis share his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers. Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
When you think about online visibility for your local business it’s so easy to get wrapped up and overloaded with what you should be doing on the internet to promote your website. Yet, small changes to your every day business routine can make a big difference.
One of the main reasons small businesses fail is that they don’t follow up with their leads. Usually it takes up to seven contacts with a prospect before they are ready to buy. Most people give up after one or two contacts. If you are not doing your follow up you, are leaving money on the table. Staying in touch with your prospects builds trust and keeps you fresh in their minds so that when they are ready to buy, they’ll come to you.
The old adage, “Don’t put all of your eggs into one basket,” is especially true in today’s economic climate for any business. Just as you would never let all of your income be derived from one or two clients, creating a diversified business where you have multiple streams of income is the key to success with an online service business. If one income stream tapers off for a time, you are adequately covered by the others. I have been doing this very successfully in my business for the last 8 years.
More than once in the six years that I have been providing SEO services for websites, I have had the opportunity to discuss with individual business owners their search engine optimization needs.
“SEO is never done” is a phrase that is thrown around a lot, mostly because it’s true! However, when most people talk about the continuation of a SEO campaign, they are usually referring to offsite link building. SEO is about more than developing inbound links! Without a well optimized link to send traffic to, all your hard work offsite is just going to waste. Don’t let your onsite SEO go years before you revisit it. Here are 3 quick onsite SEO touchups you can do today to make sure your site is in top SEO shape:| You are subscribed to email updates from SiteProNews Recent Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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