If you are utilizing search engine optimization to promote your business, you have probably seen a change in your positioning within Google over the past several months, and more markedly in the past couple of weeks.
Google makes a significant number of adjustments to it’s ranking algorithm each year, in fact I just read that they made 516 small changes in 2010. Each year they tend to make a couple of major changes.
About a year ago they issued an algorithm change that emphasized the necessity of having really good content on your website to rank well. Poor content in their opinion was penalized, and many sites lost some of their ranking positions in Google as a result. This change was called “Panda”.
Just this month, May 2012, Google issued the “Penguin” algorithm change. This addressed what Google considered to be “spammy” links. If Google deemed your site to have to many “suspect” links coming into it, then you might have been penalized by Google.
If you have been impacted, it would be wise to take a patient approach to figuring out how to remedy your diminished rankings. The reason for doing so is that it is extremely difficult to identify whether Panda was the cause, Penguin was the cause, both were the cause, or neither one was the cause. Whatever you decided to do, or whatever your SEO suggests you do, do it slowly and cautiously.
Ironically, this latest change in Google has not extended to Bing and Yahoo. This is limited to Google at this point.
If you are unsure about what you need to do, I invite you to give me a call for a consultation. Having been active as a professional SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) over the past six-years, I will help you get a better idea of what you are facing, and how to go about correcting your issues. Whether we like it or not, Google has chosen to travel a path of their own choosing. It is at times like this that we have to adjust and move forward.
Here are a couple of links to articles that explain in further detail.
Search Engine Journal http://www.searchenginejournal.com/penguin-or-panda-how-to-determine-which-google-algorithm-update-impacted-your-website/43751/
SEOMOZ http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-penguin-update-whiteboard-friday
Each business owner has one or more products and/or services that they offer to potential customers and clients. And each business owner has a sales path or process to bring their potential customers and clients to a buying decision.
If you think about it closely, what we are in effect doing is helping the prospect travel down a “possibility – probablility – certainty” path.
Through the use of pain/pleasure and proof, we want the prospect to move from the possibility of buying from us, to entertaining the probability, or eventually helping them feel certainty about their decision to buy from us. Mastering this process is a direct contributor to success.
The initiation of this process involves recognizing if the prospect is in a mode of resistance, and creating an environment where they are fully engaged in order to begin hearing what you have to say.
Our upcoming free webinar addresses this issue in large part. The title of the webinar is “Debunking the Sales is a Numbers Game Lie.” This is where it all starts. I want to invite you to attend the webinar, and you can register at the following Go To Webinar link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/876378032
When you break down all the fluff, there are two ways to promote and market your business: dumber, slower, and expensive — or smarter, faster, and cheaper. – David Siteman Garland
Effective marketing produces lead generation, which gives you the best opportunity to produce sales. On the flip side crappy marketing just siphons off your money. The best way to evaluate your marketing over the past year is to look at your sales revenue numbers.
So for your revenue to increase through sales, you need to figure out how to effectively market. This is where the “two ways to promote and market your business” quoted above comes into play.
I believe that everyone would like to think that they are on the smarter, faster, and cheaper bus, but it might be hard to tell without an honest, outside evaluation. This is where an outside assessment can be helpful, and the reason why we offer free marketing discovery services. This is just one of the services we provide free for business owners.
Request your discovery sessions today. Send in the form on the contact us page and put “marketing discovery session” in the message field.
POWERUP Strategy is Coming!
“Knowledge is the engine that powers great decision making.”
“Rightly applied knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.”
Business owners are always looking for access to great information that will help them grow their business. Unfortunately, many times you have to wade through a massive amount of information to gather up the “golden nuggets” that have value to you.
POWERUP Strategy is being created to cut through the fluff, and deliver the critical information that you need as a business owner very quickly. Topics are selected carefully in order to deliver the most valuable information possible.
There will be three knowledge and informational tracks, and each will be incredibly valuable to business owners.
Keep an eye out for the awesome offers that will be available to you at our launch.
If you have attempted to check your Google rankings recently, and you are using one of many automated tools to do so, you probably have encountered a problem getting your ranking information.
It appears that Google has begun to crack down on bulk checking of SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions). This decision has affected a couple of the programs that I use to produce client reporting, which would not be an issue if you were checking a few rankings. When you are checking several hundred though, it creates quite a problem.
Yahoo and Bing are still allowing checks of this nature, so you can continue to use your software for checking positions in those search engines. There are a couple of options out there where it appears that they have an API that allows Google ranking checking, but the number of checks allowed are limited, and the price is pretty high for small agencies, and businesses.
What can be done is manual checking of course, but that eats up lots of time.
I will keep abreast of this situation and let you know what eventually shakes out. My cynical assumption is that Google is going to work out another way to monetize on their information, and SEOs and businesses will figure out how to adapt.
What is one of the primary advantages of “painting word pictures” when we communicate about products and services?
Painting word pictures impacts the intellect of course, but it also can powerfully touch the emotional part of our being. A person can know intellectually that a solution is viable, but many times that is not enough to close the business. Closing business will more often occur when they begin to internalize the solution emotionally. Stories that utilize great word pictures will take them to that place.
Make your stories come alive!
Just discovered Social Monkee, and I wanted to pass the good news to you. Link building is a very effective way to build the credibility of your site or blog with the search engines. This tool is FREE. You can submit one of your pages each day to 25 social sites for nothing more than a few minutes of your time. I love FREE!
The signup requires three pieces of information. Your name, email, and password. It is that simple. Give it a try yourself, and see what you think. The price is certainly right. Click on the banner below.
“ Why do people love to be surprised and delighted?”
As adults, we lives lives of predicability! Life becoming mundane is the unfortunate experience of a large percentage of our population. Anything that breaks through the constraints of that existence causes levels of euphoria.
Being surprised and delighted opens the skies for a brief period and allows the rays of wonder to peek through.
Tony Robbins teaches that one of the six basics needs is certainty. But interestingly, the flip side of that is also true. We have a basic need of uncertainty as well. This is where surprise becomes effective in a business or sales situation.
Think of how you might bring the element of surprise into your business dealings, and then evaluate the results. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Is the almost 100-year old way of chasing sales DOA (Dead on Arrival)? I was reading a article by Jeffrey Gitomer yesterday that asserted that this was indeed a fact. Truth be told, I agree with him, and have felt this way for over a year. If you intend to be a sales superstar in 2012, you are going to need to learn a new approach. You can continue in the old ways if you are content with the crumbs that will be left over by the master salesperson.
How can you tell if you are stuck in the past?
Do you ask yourself any of the following questions?
- How do I make a better cold call?
- How do I close a sale?
- How do I get to the decision maker?
If you answered yes to any of these, you are still using a deprecated form of salesmanship. Unfortunately you are beating your head against a wall, with very little hope of the success you are looking for and deserve.
Learn me ask you a series of better questions?
- How many Twitter followers do you have?
- Do you have an updated and informative Facebook page?
- Do you network on Linkedin?
- Do you know what your Social Promotion Score is?
- Are you involved in a significant way in your community?
The way to get in front of decision makers has changed for good. Cold calling may get you in front of a business owner occasionally, but if you analyze your performance with cold calling, you will begin to see that your conversion rate is at best quite anemic.
For better or worse, we live in an age where relationships and reputation rule the day in business. The world has turned social, and many of us didn’t notice. At least we didn’t notice right away. Now is the time for action!
I would be happy to get you a nudge in the right direction. Just use our contact form to let us know you would like to discuss selling in 2012.
The most popular activity on the Internet is search. Having said that, guess where people spend 45% of their time on the Internet …
Answer: Content Sites
If your business is represented online, that means you.
You must make sure that you have the type of content on your site that meets the needs of those who find you. What kinds of questions are your prospects likely to ask? What would satisfy them to the point of making contact with you, or buying your products? The challenge is to find out how to answer those questions 24/7/365.
Being found + Appropriate content = New Business
I discovered a great video on YouTube that shows clearly how new technologies and social media innovations is altering the media landscape. It is very informative and enjoyable to watch.
In what ways do you think this will impact your business or industry over the next couple of years. Begin to envision how these technologies can be put to use for business growth.
It bears being repetitive that the reason a business would engage in any marketing endeavor is to make a reasonable return on investment with that particular marketing campaign.
The reason that I mention this is that many business owners approach marketing from an expense mentality, and I think I can give us business owners a break for thinking that way. Why? I believe it is because many marketing campaigns have not brought a sizable ROI. Or if they have, it has not been quantifiable. That is case in point for the sentiment that “perception is reality” for many people.
Being “burned” in the past makes us hesitant to move forward aggressively with new initiatives. We need “proof” that this can, and will, work for us.
No form of marketing is infallible. There have even been a couple of instances where we have not been able to bring a significant ROI for our clients through Internet Marketing. But the majority of our clients have seen good money back beyond what they have invested with us.
Marketing is essential for business growth. So no matter which form of marketing you decide to deploy, I want to share with you a few characteristics in both the marketing and in you, the business owner, that are weaved into the majority of our success stories.
- Engage in marketing efforts that can be closely tracked. It must have some form of analytics that show you clearly what is happening with the campaign.
- Choose marketing endeavors that target your audience as closely as possible.
- Have clarity in your mind regarding what call to action you want your prospective customer / client to commit to.
- Be prepared to commit for a sufficient amount of time in order to evaluate whether the campaign is working.
Venturing back into the murkiness of marketing waters can be a bit scary and intimidating. Peel back the curtain of uncertainty and move forward with resolve. If you don’t, others in your industry will. It is your opportunity to “beat them to the punch.”
I’ve been reminded this past week of how important organic SEO, (search engine optimization), is to a marketing plan, whether for a business, church, or non-profit. Most organizations want to be found by those needing their product or service.
If the purpose of marketing is to be found by those needing what you have, or what you do, then the first commandment of that process is to do it at the lowest possible investment that will get the job done.
This is where organic SEO can give you the advantage. Unlike PPC, or paid search marketing, where you pay an amount to a search engine for each instance where a person clicks on the link of your ad to be directed into your site, organic SEO positions you in an area where it does not cost you anything to receive a click into your site.
Organic SEO is so important to your business that it is hard to overstate that fact.
Do you feel that Internet marketing, and in particular SEO is beyond your budget?
I propose that there is a strong consensus among business owners that Internet marketing is essential to growth. In fact for some it may be essential for business survival. There is a difference between knowing that something is needed, and knowing what is best for their business, in their industry.
A key Internet marketing tool that can benefit almost any business is SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It primarily relates to being discovered in the organic section of a search results page. See below for an example.
Business owners have a better understanding of the process and implementation of SEO today than even a few years ago. Thankfully we are past the period in time where business owners thought what we did was associated with some sort of voodoo ritual.
The key to being able to deploy this type of work for small to medium sized businesses, (SEO), is often contingent on whether it fits into their marketing budget. Despite the fact that well performed Internet marketing is a revenue generator, many business owners still approach this form of marketing from the perspective that this is an expense. Fair enough. I can go with that up to a point.
Search Engine Optimization can be affordable. With the right research, the right approach, and the right implementation, it is possible to turn the corner on profitability on any sized plan.
If you started reading this with the impression that SEO was beyond your budget as a small or medium sized business, I want you to “refresh” your thinking.
Driving Web visitors to a business web site has grown to be a fairly well proven technological procedure that performs very well. This does not mean that the process will be easy, but that we know enough regarding how it operates to do a credible job of delivering precise traffic in the right direction.
Converting Internet Traffic into a lead, or sale, still has quite a bit of art, as well as scientific discipline in the mix. One of the speediest means to improved revenue is a higher “conversion rate” on the traffic arriving on your site.
Of course, the very best of both worlds would certainly be increased Web traffic conversion, and greater targeted traffic as emphasized below.
The optimum method to accomplish this lofty objective is through a four-step process that leads to great success.
- You have to “Measure” – or define your objectives so that you can determine performance. If you don’t understand your target, how in the world are you going to recognize if you have hit it?
- You then want to “Experiment”. If you keep trying to get varied results while using the exact same techniques, you will never get to the place desired.
- “Test”. Sort of sounds like a bad word that flashes you back to your school days. You have to have the feedback which testing provides. Absolutely nothing else will be able to take the place of testing.
- Someone needs to keep his or her big baby blues on the winning prize, or be “Monitoring” the process at all times.
Imagine that you are converting at a 2% higher rate than what you are presently experiencing. That would make a great impact on the bottom line.
In order for your company to effectively compete in today’s business world, you need to have a stellar Internet presence. Even so, just having a website isn’t enough. Your website has to rank nicely inside the search engines so potential consumers can discover you. In order for that to happen, you need to become an expert in world-wide-web promoting, or hire a professional services Search Engine Optimization firm.
There are numerous advantages to hiring an SEO Company instead of trying to market your web business yourself. For one thing, learning net marketing and advertising is a big expense in time. You have to do it properly in order to beat out your competition. There are several techniques to learn and several of them are learned through trial and error, which keeps you from achieving your goals as quickly as possible.
The time you invest in understanding about online promoting could be better spent in building your company and taking care of your customers. You can leave the management of the site to an experienced company that will get improved effects much quicker than you could do personally.
Knowledge can mean the difference between success and failure for your Internet site. That’s the main reason why you should hire professional help instead of trying to understand online promoting well enough to produce it yourself. Things change fast on the Internet. What works today may possibly be outdated by the time you learn it. It takes a huge commitment of time and interest to stay abreast with the latest on net advertising and marketing trends.
Marketing a website on the Internet is not as easy as it might seem. That’s due primarily to the fact that there is so much competition. You’ll find hundreds if not thousands of other websites, which are trying to get ranked for many of the same keywords that you need to use. The corporations that utilize the most skilled net marketing experts are the ones that will secure those coveted, best search engine results listings.
If you leave net advertising and marketing up to chance your competition might trounce you.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a very powerful marketing tool that has the ability to bring a significant amount of increased revenue to a business. PPC done well should follow a 5-step plan for maximum effectiveness.
Step 1: Create an informative webpage
- Ensure there is a call-to-action on the pages that traffic is directed towards
Step 2: Generate a list of keywords
- Keywords that potential buyers would search
- Identify your negative keyword list
- Identify broad and exact match phrases
Step 3: Build your campaign
- Research bid prices on Google
- Write your Google AdWords advertisements
Step 4: Monitor your results
- Split test ads against each other to achieve higher click through rates
Step 5: Improve your performance
- Rewrite ads to improve click through rates
- Optimize landing pages to improve conversion rates
- Improve your ROI by adjusting bid prices
Social Media Portals have pretty well defined “personalities”. What you might find appropriate for one could be received unfavorably by another, especially in a business environment.
Let’s take a quick look at a description for four of the most popular portals.
Twitter:
- 140 spaces for your message
- Rapid fire postings. It’s like being at a party where everyone talks, and few listen
- Loves talking about self
Linked In:
- All business
- Organized like a Rolodex
- Odd habit of playing keep-away with member to member connecting
Facebook:
- Friendly
- Loves to connect to past friends
- Loves games
MySpace:
- Selfish
- Lacks moral continuity
- Loves music and videos
The median age of the users are 31 for Twitter, 40 for LinkedIn, 26 for Facebook, and 27 for MySpace.
Next time we will take a look at the message types that each portal specializes in.
I was reading a Dave Ramsey book and I came across the statement, “Even a turkey can fly in a tornado.” He likened it to people doing all kinds of crazy things with money when the economy was good, but not realizing that they were being unwise and risk taking with their money.
Your marketing plan has to work in a good or bad economy to be sound. That got me to thinking about how we business owners handle our “marketing money” in both types of economies.
I have seen money spent on some pretty crazy stuff. Expensive marketing endeavors that you can’t even track to see if it is successful outside of the cash register ringing. And even then you don’t know the source of the revenue.
The highest priority KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for marketing is ROI (Return on Investment). If you put $5.00 in to marketing, you want to earn $20.00 in return. That is a great goal. Just like your retirement planning, you want to make a sound marketing investment.
Let me quote Dave a bit further in his book, “Just because you see a turkey flying in a tornado doesn’t mean turkeys can fly.” Making wise marketing choices can keep you firmly grounded in the good as well as the bad times.
1) Lack of Systematic Approach
Best practices and experience matters. Replicating results requires having put a system in place that will behave and perform as expected. The right procedure will make the tweaking required for each campaign speedy and require fewer iterations to dial it in.
2) Wrong Market Focus
Choosing the wrong market is one of the primary reasons for a lack of results. Make sure you work with someone who can identify your target demographics, and who performs the kind of keyword research that finds the “windows of opportunity”.
3) Poor Design Quality of your System
The first thing to look for is a system. The second, even more important criteria is that the system be designed appropriately. Is the blend of marketing tools appropriate? Is micro-testing being conducted to protect your investment during the testing stage?
4) Lack of Frequency of Contact
Multiple touches are invariably required to achieve the highest conversion rate. Does the system have built in tools to put those additional touches on the prospect? What happens after the lead is received?
Not every marketing endeavor delivers a good ROI (Return on Investment). Improve your odds of getting right by avoiding these four marketing killers.
I heard this statement on an instructional video and it was an eye-opener, even for an experienced SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) like me. I’ve recognized that in years past SEO was science and art. Ever increasingly SEO has become a science. It is possible now to know exactly what needs to be done to create a first page listing.
It is amazing what some of the tools we use tell us now. As we examine the sites that have the top 10 listings for a phrase, we can examine exactly why they are there. With that knowledge we can make a determination on what it will take exactly to compete in that market. Sometimes we even determine that it isn’t worth the effort for that phrase and look for a better one in which to penetrate that market.
The purpose of search engine optimization, (SEO), is to position keywords that are appropriate for your business on a search results pages that will give your company exposure to those who want to buy your “stuff”.
We call the process of this type of work SEO positioning or SEO placement.
SEO positioning is critical for marketing success. I have yet to come across a company, or organization that has all the leads or business that it wants. Customer acquisition continues to be a priority for every business.
Selecting the right words to be found on is absolutely essential. The selection should take into account your target market demographics, how people search for your type of products or service, how often a term is searched, as well as the competitive levels of the words and phrases. Otherwise you are putting a blindfold on and throwing darts at a board with no frame of reference.
SEO positioning can put you in a position to be found by those who need YOU! It is a powerful tactic that is being taken advantage of by millions … yet there is still plenty of room for your company to capitalize on SEO placement.
Bing, the Microsoft-owned internet search engine, is teaming up with Facebook in an effort to steal market share from Google, the 900-pound gorilla in search.
Now when you type in a keyword phrase like “Secretariat the movie” in Bing, you might see a link to actress Diane Lane’s Facebook user profile. You also might see pictures of your Facebook friends who have “liked” the movie on the social media site. Yahoo, the No. 2-ranked search engine, utilizes Bing’s search technology and is also incorporating Facebook features into its search results.
Is Google nervous about Facebook moving onto its turf? Maybe. Then again, maybe not: depending on who you ask, the internet search giant still carries from 66% to 80% of all global search traffic. Bing? From 6%-11%. So the third-ranked search engine still has a long way to go.
What does this mean for internet marketers and their clients? It’s time to refocus on your corporate and personal Facebook pages –they just might be getting listed in Bing!
Some people think that when they invest in a company to do SEO for their business, that they should see results immediately.
Search engine optimization rarely works that quickly.
You must use patience as SEO work is being done on the backside of your website. It can takes months to process everything as the links should be added slowly for maximum effectiveness. SEO Companies add hundreds of back-links to your website and over a period of time these back-links have a profound effect on increasing your website visibility.
Being patient will bring forth the desired results.
We live in tough economic times, and the challenges before us are difficult, but certainly not insurmountable. As business owners, we are constantly on the lookout for those things that will either make our business function easier, wring more profit out of our efforts, or both. That is the beauty of the free enterprise system. Our success, or failure, is within our ability to control.
Business has changed
Much has changed in the way that business markets. What an understatement, and the changes are coming at greater frequency. A high percentage of business owners now believe that marketing their products and services is absolutely essential, but the problem still remains regarding determining who they should turn to for help.
FIRST: The first step should be to look for someone who will sit down with you and ask the right questions in order to understand your challenges and desires. A “cookie cutter” approach does not work well with any type of marketing.
SECOND: After the needs are fully addressed, look for someone who will give you options. You should be able to step into a plan that fits your needs, as well as your marketing investment budget.
THIRD: Marketing on the Internet in particular is changing rapidly, so finally, you should look for someone who will stay with you, in effect partnering with you for your success.
They’ve Changed the Local Game with “Place Search”
Just when we were getting comfortable with local search, Google flipped everything on its head with the launch of their Place Search feature. This new kind of local search organizes information around specific locations making it easier for users to compare places and decide where to go.
If you’ve conducted a local search within the last week or so, you will have noticed a number of changes to the results page, including the following:
- Elimination of the 7-Pack Google Map listing
- Ranking algorithm for local listings has been updated
- Google Places pages have greater visibility
- Local results with more information (ie: 3rd party review sites)
- Information is grouped to make it easier to digest and compare
- New link for “Places” in the left-hand panel of the search results page so you can switch to these results whenever you want
- Google map now on the right side above the paid search listings, which scrolls as you scroll down the page
Google is building in web intelligence! A Google Place Search result will begin appearing automatically on Google when they predict you’re looking for local information. Their goal is make it faster and easier for searchers to find the local information they are looking for that will ultimately help them decide where they want to go.
What Can You Do to Stay Competitive?
10 Guidelines to Optimize Your Google Place Listing
Its now more important than ever for businesses to claim their Google Place, complete their company
profile and ensure they have a well-optimized site with relevant, localized content to ensure strong visibility. Here are 10 things you can do to optimize your Google Place listing.
- Make sure you select relevant Place categories
- Use long and short tail keywords and avoid duplication
- Create customized fields and complete business descriptions using relevant keywords
- Integrate photos and videos into your listing
- Fill out every applicable field possible, including hours of operation, payment methods and your service area
- Use Google Places Posts to keep information current
- Encourage online customer reviews
- Respond to reviews through Google Places
- Make sure your Google Places flag is in the correct spot on the map
- Add coupons and experiment with Google Tags
Maximum revenue generation is a combination of having qualified leads to work, and a highly effective sales team to close business.
Lead Generation and Sales
Great lead generation without highly trained salespeople creates a massive dent in your ROI for marketing dollars spent. Having great salespeople with no leads to work will create a frustrating environment for the sales team.
Do you need help in one, or possibly both of these areas? I can help you get the assistance you need for both areas in a one-stop environment. A coordination of your lead generation, and then follow up on the sales piece through a great sales system that is workable for any skill level within your sales team.
Higher quality sales leads, fed to increasingly more effective salespeople is a fantastic recipe for business growth.
Getting to the top of a Google search pages is an important objective for any company that is serious about selling their products and services. It makes no difference if you sell online or not. People have to know that you exist before they can purchase from you.
There are proven activities that a skillful marketer will engage to make that happen, but I believe true success starts before those activities even begin. Careful and methodical research is the key to success.
- What are people searching for,
- how are they searching,
- does the phrases match your target demographic,
- does the phrase have commercial intent?
Those are all fundamental questions that must be asked, and answered before any activity begins. Then you have to examine the competitive landscape. Is it even possible to get on the first page based on existing competition?
How much money is your website making you? I have people tell me that their website is only a static brochure, as if that is some kind of excuse for the fact that their internet presence is an expense instead of an asset. Cough Cough
How much money is your website making you?
I have had people tell me that their web presence was not meant to create revenue generation.
Wrong! You website is all about revenue generation. If your website does not add to the company bottom-line, you need to “deep-six” the site. Let it die peacefully. Don’t continue “fooling” yourself into thinking that this is acceptable.
On the other hand, it is okay if your website has not generated revenue … as long as you plan to correct this situation post-haste. Fortunes are being made online by those that leverage it in the right ways. Consult with an internet expert. Find out what the windows of opportunity consist of. Take action. Commit to being successful.
Don’t ever accept an excuse for the fact that your website is not generating wealth for you. Pretty soon you will have a great answer to someone when they ask you:
How much money is your website making you?
Almost without exception, marketing professionals recognize the importance of interacting with customers and prospects in the web and social space. Providing a way to get in front of what is being said about an organization is increasingly more important for both the negative, and positive, that will arise. Being discovered through search has always been a key component of profitability on the web as well.
In the past, it was necessary to “cobble” the tools together from various sources to put a plan together that embraced all three approaches. Then you had to evaluate success through separate tools as well.
Not anymore …
There are systems that integrates not only the above mentioned tools, but even more, like mobile display, executive level reporting, as well as call tracking.
We push to refine the processes for our clients in order for them to receive a significant ROI on their marketing efforts.
The way it was …
Traditionally, a company would work diligently to get a website ranked for search, and the end-result would be a way to find one website, which has worked for many years.
We can show you how to build a comprehensive “web presence” that includes 50 or more ways to be discovered. We can now cast a much larger net on behalf of our clients. It is all about putting the odds and percentages in your favor.
Growing a business is hard work. Don’t consciously make it any harder on you than it needs to be. Put more content, in more places on the web, and you will end up with more customers.
70% of what you see and hear is retained. This statistic should impact everything we do within our businesses. Sales, marketing, training, culture development, etc.
Video fills this need perfectly. Video can be created for internal, as well as external markets.
Marketing: Optimized videos on video streaming sites can rev up your lead generation.
Sales: Video can be used effectively during sales presentations.
Training: Video can greatly enhance, as well as reinforce training processes.
Video can help business owners achieve their goals in a shorter time frame. We all have a need to communicate more effectively, and when we do so, we accomplish more in a shorter period of time.
The Google Maps team recently released an article that explains the changes to Google Place Pages. The biggest change is that review snippets from other web sources have now been removed. Ratings and reviews can only come from other Google users now. If you ask a client to give you a review, ask them to do it through a Google account.
You can read The Ongoing Evolution of Place Pages through this link.
The world of business has changed significantly in the face of declining markets and as a result, almost all businesses need to adapt. What does this mean exactly? With declining markets you will need to make sure that you, as a business owner make use of circles that will expose your business to the largest number of potential clients within your geographic reach. While doing business online and even cutting back might not sound incredibly appealing, it will help to keep you above water and pull you through this trying time as you struggle to survive.
Not all businesses are struggling though, but most are doing an exemplary job of carving out a portion of their target market through effective marketing. The most important criteria is being able to track your marketing performance, which gives you the ability to make adjustments very quickly.
