When people come to me who are having search engine ranking problems (pretty much everyone), they usually have major SEO issues to overcome before they can start ranking for their desired keywords. The good news is that there are a lot of little steps you can take (today) that will start getting your business in front of the right audiences online. One of the first things that I look for with a poor ranking site is how well it is ranking in local searches. This is a good indicator of whether or not the site owner has done anything to increase visibility in major search engines.

Online directories for your small business.

If you aren’t ranking in your own local searches then you have a problem. The problem is that you haven’t taken advantage of low hanging fruit. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo offer free, yes free listings for businesses. The sad truth is that most business owners already know this, but do nothing about it. Get your site listed! List it accurately, list it descriptively and list it completely. There is no excuse not to take advantages of these listings.

Local search is important because it is affordable. While ranking highly for a keyword like “car exhausts,” nationally might be out of your budget, you can certainly promote your muffler repair business locally (your town, city or zip code). Listings like Google and Yahoo will help your business show up in local searches. And since you’re new to internet marketing your site needs all the help it can get.

Low hanging fruit:

• Google Pages listing
• Yahoo Local listing
• Bing Local listing

I believe in taking any help we can get when it comes to ranking online. These listings are yours, they are free, and they aren’t helping your site until you take the time to claim them. Low hanging fruit is hard to come by, so don’t pass these listings up.

Paid Directories

Directories like Yellow Pages charge a yearly fee, but it is affordable and worth the money. If you’re serious about marketing your site, I suggest using a paid service like Universal Business Listings (ubl.org). UBL will distribute your website information across many sites like YellowPages and Yelp. They charge a yearly fee. This is important because search engines like Google use directory listings from Yelp, YellowPages and FourSquare.com to provide search results in local searches.

These directory listings and others like them will help your business become visible online. While you won’t be showing up number one on Google overnight, you will begin to show up in local searches and specialty searches-  you need that boost. Creating a Google+ profile is another way to help get your website noticed. Google displays Google+ results in SERPS from time to time, and the same is true for Twitter. These are low cost, low effort things you can do to start showing up in your local searches. 

Most of your local competitors are as clueless as you are, and that’s good for you. Start ranking for local searches and you’ll capture new leads that your competition won’t even realize they’re missing. Of course your ranking efforts don’t end here, so don’t become complacent. You need to increase your efforts if you want to succeed at marketing your business online. It’s a lot of hard work, but the rewards are substantial. Visit the rest of our blog for other tips and articles to help you market your business better online.

If you’re serious about getting your business listed, but are a little overwhelmed- give us a call we can set up all of your listings. If you have questions or comments please leave them below.

We are proud to announce that we’ll be offering video tutorials in April 2012! These tutorials are produced by us and will be available to all small business owners- for FREE!

Up-coming topics include:

• Setting a Facebook Page for your business.
• Setting up your business Twitter account.
• Setting up a Google+ Page for your business.
• Blogging using your WordPress site.
• Creating an effective call to action.

If you have a topic that you would like us to cover, leave us a comment below.

Building your website

Too many small businesses mistakenly assume or are led to believe that a super cool website will drive sales up and solve all of their problems. Guess what, this isn’t true. As with anything online marketing takes time and revisions. You need to see your website as a continually work in progress, not as a one time publication. And while online advertising is highly effective and efficient, it isn’t a “silver bullet.” So now that we’ve got that out of the way let’s look at some key components that your site will need to be successful.

Things to consider when building your website:

1. Blog: Does your site have a blog (in the site)? It better. A blog is no longer a luxury, it’s a powerful content building mechanism and audience connector. A great blog on your website will do more for your SEO and audience building efforts than most anything else out there. If your developer or designer doesn’t like this, fire them- they don’t know what they’re talking about. And if you don’t like to write- you need to learn to love it.
2. Get Social: Social media needs to be considered as very important part of your online presence. A few years ago people would ask me, “do I really need a Facebook account?” At the time the answer wasn’t so clear. Now, partially because search engines pick up on sharing and social media data, you can’t afford not to engage on social media sites for your business. People spend a lot of time using social media sites. Some as much as an hour or two per day. That’s a lot! These people share things that they like with the friends and others- making Facebook, Twitter and sites like Google+ essential for any business with a website and blog.
3. Sharing: I’ve spoken about integrating social media into your website. Perhaps even more important than your social sites themselves is making sharing easy for visitors to your site. I recommend having easy to use and simple sharing icons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and so on, that are available throughout your site. If someone comes to my blog and finds  a post they like, I want them to be able to share it with everyone in less than two clicks. Make sharing easy for your audience. If you have great content it is just a matter of time before your site will start driving organic traffic. Social media can be your best friend in this respect.
4. Landing Pages: If you’re going to be running pay per click (PPC) ads then you need to spend time and money on your landing pages. Any developer or designer worth their keep will understand how important landing pages are to PPC success. If your ads are targeted to people searching for “reflective dog collars” then make sure your landing page is about “reflective dog collars” and makes it really easy to buy them on that page. Most advertisers make the home page their landing page. This causes bounces (bounce=people leaving your site never to return because you didn’t provide them with what they were searching for), and that is a really bad thing.
5. Design vs. Purpose:  I’ve seen a lot of great sites over the years that had a great design, but that no one visited. These sites are pretty, forward thinking and really cool, but they don’t drive traffic or sales. Business owners get caught up with looking good and blow all of their budget on designs that don’t account for SEO, user experience or the call to action. The truth is people will visit these sites, but not take action. In my mind these are failures. I’m not saying a site has to be ugly to be good, but your goal isn’t to win an art project or to fund a designers dreams- it’s to make sales. To do that you need to consider layout, ease of use for visitors, SEO and the eventual call to action (a call to action tells visitors what to do. On a political site it might be “donate.” On a business site it might be “buy now.” For no-profits you’ll see things like “volunteer.”). Design and build around great content and simplicity- never build content and experience around design. That’s a sure fire way to fail.

Internet marketing involves a lot of hard work. While it is exciting, it isn’t for the weak of heart. I hope our blog posts help you better understand how online marketing works and the best practices out there, so that you can clarify your goals and move forward with confidence.

If you’d like me to write about a topic please suggest one, here. I am fueled by your suggestions. If you’d like to work with me I can be reached at stonewallmpr@gmail.com.

Beefing up your small business website.

1. Great content wins. Concentrate in writing great content that backs up what you say you are providing.
2. Fix your meta descriptions. Read my articles on meta tags and descriptions.
3. Make sure your site loads quickly. No excuses. If it’s not under six seconds it’s too slow.
4. Start a blog and make sure it’s on your website.
5. Write content for your readers. Don’t get caught up in writing for search engines.
6. Use social media. I don’t expect you to keep up with every new social media site (literally 100′s each month), but you do need to get into Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin. Pick a few core social media sites and work with them daily.
7. Use video and photos to add interest to your content, not to replace it.
8. Get analytics for your site. You need to collect data about your site. If you’re not you aren’t going to win. Use Google Analytics to get started.
9. Less is more. Cut out anything on your web pages that distract visitors from reading your content or that keeps them from taking action.
10. Make your content descriptive. People scan when reading. Make sure that titles and descriptions are clear and descriptive of what the content is going to be about.

I know this is a quick and dirty list, but I write about each of these topics in more detail. This is meant to get you started in the right direction.

A great CMS will make running your website easier and more efficient. Rather than having to go through your developer every time you want to add or change content on your site, you can change it yourself. Saving time and money. If your developer is honest they will try to use a CMS that is relatively easy for you to learn and use. After all, you aren’t made of money and paying a retainer for your developer gets pricey.

Content management systems are really important. Think about it, if adding, editing and changing out content on your website is a pain, you probably wont do it. A good CMS makes tasks like changing out text and photos pretty easy. We like WordPress because it is easy to use, familiar, cost effective and allows us to keep up with changes. Others will tell you that another CMS is the way to go. It’s really a matter of preference.

Below is a screen shot  I took of our CMS while I was creating this blog post.

This our Stonewall CMS for this blog post. We use WordPress because it's familiar and meets all of our SEO needs.

Things to look for when choosing a CMS:

• It needs to be SEO friendly.
• It needs to have blog and social media features available.
• Your CMS needs to make updating easy.
• Analytics tools are a must.

Bad CMS:

• Require you to call your web developer for everything.
• Require you to know HTML to use it.
• Are difficult to learn and teach.
• Don’t allow you to easily manage your SEO settings.
• Don’t have analytics tools.

If you can relate to any of these issues it’s time to fire your web developer. That sounds harsh, I know, but you’re a small business. You don’t have a degree in coding and SEO. It’s important that your developer/designer understand what functionality you need for your site. While a good developer/designer will point these things out for you, you do need to take some initiative here. If you don’t you’ll end up being very disappointed.

We can help you create a online presence that is manageable and provides great ROI. Contact us today.

This talk is geared towards small businesses who are new to online marketing or have had little success marketing online. I’ll discuss blogging, social media, newsletters and how they all come together to create a powerful online presence.

I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow.

Contact Jake 

The EPEF is a co-effort by the Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan County Development Authorities. The EPEF exists to promote positive economic development and provides a professional forum where businesses throughout the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia can come together and network. The EPEF also provides free resources and support to small businesses in the area.

I’ll be speaking on Marketing as a Process. For most small business owners, online marketing has become a catalyst for fear and anxiety. These days you can see the fear coming over a small business owner when you mention online marketing. This is because of a poor understanding of how online marketing works and how it relates to local small businesses. I’ll show you how online marketing works at it’s most basic level. Once we’ve established an understanding of the basics, my hope is that you’ll be encouraged to start utilizing online marketing to help grow your business in these tough times.

I’ll be discussing:

• What online marketing is.
• How online marketing works.
• Setting goals for your online marketing campaign.

This will be a great opportunity for small business owners in the greater Martinsburg area to better understand what internet marketing is and what it means to their businesses. By clearing the waters and clarifying the goals, we can better market our businesses and our communities.

Speakers include Chris Livingston and Jake Johnson.

For more information on the EPEF and the March 1st speaking event, click here.

The stupidity includes:

• Going at PPC marketing on their own.
• Creating a Facebook Page when they never use it or even worse, they abuse it.
• Trying to build a website on their own.
• Throwing money at problems, believing it will magically make things better.
• Convincing themselves that they can do everything on their own.

The fatal attraction to PPC.

Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) is a true tool for the small business owner. It allows small businesses who haven’t developed a robust web presence to create new sales opportunities by reaching targeted users as those users are searching for specific products and services. If you didn’t already know- that is some pretty amazing stuff! The buzz kill here is that business owners drink the cool-aid believing that PPC will somehow solve all of their marketing and sales problems.

Small business owners that have a struggling website suddenly realize “hey, I need to get traffic to my site in order to create sales”. They quickly find out that this is much easier said than done. Since they haven’t done their homework they are immediately out of their realm of expertise. They don’t understand keywords, online copywriting or how people search for products and services online. This is a recipe for headaches.

After using their $75 Google Ad Words coupon, that they got out of a business magazine, they quickly set up an Ad Words account. They pick a few keywords, create an ad and get started. After a couple days the promotional money has been spent. They keep running the ads- increasing the daily spending. Before long they’ve spend $100 and have a few leads, but they don’t result in sales.

My point here is that PPC, while a great small business tool, is still something best left to professionals. At it’s basic level PPC requires experience to understand, navigate and strategize. On the high end, it takes market savvy and talent to research keywords and create viable sales opportunities. Ignoring the science and art behind successful PPC campaigns will cause you to loose money, fast. PPC is a great tool, but like any other tool, either learn how to use it or find a professional who can.

Facebook Page failures and other social media mistakes.

I’m sure you’ve “liked” a business page on Facebook that fits the scenario that I am about to describe. Maybe your local plumber or auto repair shop. The mindset of many of these small businesses is this: they say to themselves “hey, we need a Facebook Page for our business.” So they have the seventeen year old at the front desk, who is making a cool $7.25/hr set them up with an account. They make a few posts. They talk about how great they are, how they are the best at providing XYZ services or how they have the premier widgets in the area. They quickly neglect the page and after 20 “likes” or so they stop using their account. They angrily deem social media worthless. After all, they didn’t see any sales. There are literally thousands of businesses doing this very thing- don’t be one of them!

Social media is great for marketing- if you understand how to use it. There are do’s and don’ts in the social media game. Making mistakes on sites like Facebook will hurt, even damage your reputation. If you abuse the forum you’ll loose authority and miss out on sales opportunities. Drafting a written plan that outlines your strategy for using social media will greatly help you from making stupid mistakes.

Social media is no joke. You can build great relationships within your target audience, but you have to respect the forum. Learning how to use social media sites will ensure that your company is viewed as professional and cause people to “like”, “follow” or “tweet” about your business. Need a professional social media marketing director, click here. Yes, this is me gently suggesting to give us a call.

Do it yourself websites aren’t worth it.

I know you’ve seen them. The three step, easy as pie, do it yourself websites that you can have ready in minutes. Come on! You wouldn’t base your reputation and business on this kind of cheap and gimmicky stuff for anything else. So why would you let your online presence be based on a $19.99, five minute template?

Small businesses get suckered into some pretty stupid stuff. These cheap websites are at the top of the list. I personally know companies with four or five different websites floating around the internet. They got started on one of these “amazing deals”, realized it sucked, then moved on to another equally terrible site builder program only to give up again.

Websites are expensive. Yes, they are becoming more accessible and competitively priced, but they remain a serious investment for a small business. Different sites perform different roles. Websites designed from the ground up require a designer, developer and an online marketing strategist. Note: when a developer says they’ll design, build, maintain and market your site- BEWARE! There are some really talented people out there, but I suggest seeking out true professionals. Not jacks of all trades. These are the guys who will sell you the moon and leave you with a half rate site that has no traffic and no hope. A true professional will be upfront and won’t be afraid to shock you with price- if you’ve done your homework you won’t be shocked in the first place.

I rarely suggest a ground up build for my clients. Only for select projects will I recommend starting from scratch. With all of the talented designers offering beautiful and functioning themes and templates out there, why not save some money and use that money towards marketing later in the process? Saving money makes sense to me.

Do your homework. Try to learn some terms and key concepts about what it takes to build and manage a website. This will undoubtedly help you communicate with web professionals. It will also empower you to make informed decisions and cause you to rely less on the geeky guys ability to keep your head spinning- keep in mind all that jargon translates into a higher price tag.

Money can’t fix stupid.

Small business owners make a lot of stupid mistakes because they’re tired, worn out or just plain in over their head. Throwing money at problems won’t fix things. It will only cause you to loose more money and eventually lead to the failure of your business.

Staying in control of your marketing efforts starts with planning. Sit down and look at your finances. Create a reasonable budget and then proceed to create a marketing plan. In writing, detail what your sales goals are, what your sales needs are, who your target audience is and of course, create milestones so that you can track your progress. You can always change your plans, but as financial guru Dave Ramsey say’s “you have to have a plan before you can change it”. Create a written plan and give yourself a better chance of holding on to your money.

Getting over yourself.

Business owners are stubborn people. We work hard, wear many hats and we’re go getters. We simply think we know and can do it all. In reality we can’t. We have limits. Limits on our time, resources and even our knowledge. Understanding and accepting that other people know more than you do and are better equipped to accomplish tasks will save you time, money and produce higher quality results.

If you take anything about this article, please understand that there are incredibly talented people out their who can and want to help you succeed. Web designers, developers and marketing professionals who have the know-how and desire to help you thrive. By all means, be tight with your money. You have to be, but also know when to sub-contract work out. Believe me it will save you time, money and aggravation. Surround yourself with professionals that enhance what you do. It will transform the way you do business.

To talk to a marketing professional, click here.

Why you need it.

From a purely marketing perspective you need to pursue anything that can generate leads and sales while allowing you to control your budget. Social media fits the bill like no other. It’s the most cost effective and measurable way to generate leads and sales available to small business today. 

It’s affordable. Nearly any small business can create powerful social media profiles. Leading to new prospects and increased sales. Can’t afford a high-end website? No problem, you can have a Facebook. Social media offers budget minded small businesses a way in. A way that they can claim market share without shelling out big bucks to do so.

A full page advertisement in one of our local magazines (we’re in West Virginia) runs about $1,400. You cannot track it, you cannot engage and you cannot create instant sales opportunities. They will tell you 20,000 prospects will see your page ad, but these aren’t targeted buyers, nor can you verify that these prospects have even flipped past your $1,400 page.

When it comes to low marketing budgets, social media is the first tool we pull out for our clients- because it works!

It’s everywhere! On phones, computers, tablets, television and even print ads. You need to engage your customers where they are- and they’re on Facebook, Twitter, Google+……. You get the picture. Never before could a small business hope to reach so many interested, passionate and engaged buyers. Your competition has already figured it out. What’s holding you back?

Finally, it’s credible. That’s right. Social media is credible. Good sites like Google+, Facebook and Twitter have made it possible for people to connect while cutting down on the spam. You can actually look people up and feel confident that they are what they claim to be. So what does this mean? It means you can create an online brand that is real. People connect to things they love, feel passionate about and trust. Gaining trust on sites like Facebook will allow you to grow a powerful brand that people recognize and trust. It’s word of mouth on steroids!  

Fired up! Great, we are here to help. Wan’t to engage your customers? We can have you up and running in no time. Contact us today.

A Call to Action (CTA) is a calculated and deliberate attempt on your part to direct the prospect or client to take action. This action could be donating, signing up or filling out a contact form. It need not be selling. The key is having a unified and simple CTA. Each and every page should have the same root message. Whether it’s call us or sign up, the customer should be encouraged to take action.

Not Having a CTA

Most, and I do mean the majority of websites, have no CTA or they have mixed ones. Sites that have three paragraphs of copy and then no call to action are the worst. People just leave and thats’s it. Did you really think they would call you based on you rambling? There’s no email, no contact form, no nothing. What is the prospect to do? Go to the contact page? Maybe in a place called perfect, but in the universe they leave the site and never return. This is why the CTA is so critical to a websites success.

Websites that have multiple CTA’s are just as bad, you know what I mean. Contact us, sign-up, buy now all on the same page. This is greedy and lazy. No one worth having as a customer will fall for this stuff. The ones that do will certainly be disappointed. Pick one message and stick to it. Don’t be greedy.

Determining your CTA

What do you provide? Can you sell your items online and ship? Do you need to speak with a prospect before they buy? Do you need to prove your expertise before a sale can be made? Knowing where you stand will greatly help you in deciding what the CTA for your site needs to be. If you are a tax professional, the newsletter or blog sign-up is a great call to action. Professionals need to prove their expertise. This works for lawyers, consultants and many other professional services. If you don’t sell products and you sell your abilities this is probably the way to go for you.

If you sell products, especially products online, you should try and get prospects to demo or purchase. I suggest keeping the product description short. Less than four sentences short, and make sure you have great photos. If you can’t take great photos use stock photography or hire a photographer who knows how to make products look good. Make the picture a link to buy. Make some of the wording a hyperlink to buy and of course make the purchase button or link as obvious as possible. You know they probably want your product. Why else would they be there? Make it easy for them to follow through. 

If you need to talk to the customer, particularly for large purchases, make a contact us form. Make it short: Name, Phone and Email. Don’t ask for their address unless you really need it to do business. Some service companies like landscapers need this information, but anything that asks too much will scare prospects off. They don’t want to commit and they don’t want to have junk mail coming their way either. Remember less is more when it comes to online forms. Be creative and test different approaches.

Do

• Make your CTA clear and simple.
• Make your pages flow. There shouldn’t be huge variations from page to page. Find your niche and hit it hard.
• Make sure every page has an obvious CTA.
• Track progress. Use Google Analytics to track time spent on the site and other critical information.

• Be pushy. Never upset the website experience to force your CTA. It should be natural.
• Never use pop-ups. I hate them, you hate them and so does everyone else. Pop-ups are spam, even if they are on your site.
• Use more than two CTA’s. It’s confusing and won’t help. Stick to one, you can always change it.
• Expect too much. Don’t expect prospects to fill out intrusive contact forms or commit on the spot.  Have modest expectations and be patient. Just make sure you follow up ASAP.

Need help creating a powerful CTA for your business? Click here.