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Posts Tagged ‘Web Presence Optimization’

5 Local SEO Tips to Improve Your Online Marketing

Written on October 20th, 2010 by
Categories: Local SEO, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing
5 Local SEO Tips Improve Online Marketing

In SEO we trust

If your online marketing efforts are geared towards local business and driving targeted traffic from neighboring cities then local SEO is what you need to focus on. Local search engine optimization is the best form of online marketing for small business owners; it is quicker than nationwide SEO, less complicated and more useful for drawing local business. Below are 5 SEO tips that will help your company’s web presence and dominate the local search engine listings for the best strategic growth.

Complete your whole profile – when taking the time to list your business information to local web directories, search engines and business listings do not skimp out on the pictures and videos. As the saying goes, pictures say a thousand words. Interior and exterior pictures of your business help the consumer feel more comfortable about your listing but if you do not have current pictures available be sure to include basic web images that are targeted to your clients. The more complete the profile is with the proper media the better your listing will appear for the consumers eyes.

Be consistent across the web – make sure you do not get sloppy or lazy and post your business information incorrectly across the web. This includes your phone number, address and website address. The more consistent your profiles and listings are, the more points you get in the search engines listing algorithm.

Relevancy earns you extra – it is great to submit to all the search engines, business listings and directories but not all directories are created equal. It’s very important to only list your niche within directories that are relevant to your business. Industry specific websites and region specific directories help boost you within your industry and local area competition.

Do not argue customer reviews – remember, the customer is always right. The worst thing you could do when getting a bad revue is argue with the customer on the web. Not only does this bump the bad review to the top it can make you seem like you just like to argue or are an unfriendly person, even when you are not. First impressions on the web are important and anything but the best impression can drive the customer to your competition. If you give someone a reason to search for another solution, it’s as simple as clicking on another link.

Web presence determines reach – even though you are the largest manufacturer of your product or you can service cities and states for miles, on the web you are only as important as your web presence. Greed will get you nowhere if you are not an authority on the web. Search engines cannot see how much you spent on advertising offline last month, they do not know how respected you are in the community or how much you donated to charity last year unless that information is on the internet. When your web presence grows, so do your profits.

Online marketing is a profitable road to travel down but in order to reach your destination quicker you need to market correctly. These 5 local SEO tips will help your search engine marketing on the web skyrocket not only in impressions but in actions. Even if you are seen all across the web that does not mean people are taking the time to follow through with your company. A clean, professional and consistent web presence speaks loudly to prospecting customers.

Local SEO Technology Geolocation Marketing & Targeted Traffic

Geolocation Marketing Local SEO

Targeted Traffic comes from Geolocation Marketing

Do you know the difference between shopping and buying? Shopping means I don’t know what I want so I am looking around and weighing out my options. In other words I may waste your time having you answering my questions, showing me products or waiting for me to make my decision. Buying means I need a product or service, my money is in hand and all I want is a place to get it. Small business marketing can drive targeted traffic that is ready to make a purchase to your location through local SEO and geolocation.

Who wants to waste their time answering questions, showing products and waiting on someone for free? A prospective customer can end up never purchasing anything and all that time goes down the drain. Business owners want targeted traffic that is looking to make a purchase the same day, better yet that same hour. They are looking for customers that know which products and services they want who’s only need is a place to purchase them.

Iphones, Droids and Blackberrys all have a new technology called geolocation built in and more smartphones utilizing the technology are being released every other week. Applications provided by companies like Foursquare, YellowPages, Twitter, Facebook and others supply users with data through geolocation technology. Data such as which restaurants are nearby, how far away they are, reviews, products and services as well as their hours of operation but where do you suppose that data is generated from?

Businesses that have a strong web presence will benefit most from geolocation because the data provided is being pulled from around the internet. Since every application and device uses different ways of generating information about businesses it is a huge benefit to have your business information posted in as many places as possible. Not to mention that relevancy on the web is what drives your company to the top of the search engines.

Geolocation is new technology that will drive targeted traffic to your location if you are marketing correctly online. After all technology is the future of business and it is the future of marketing. If your internet marketing efforts are not geared towards location or mobile browsing then you will be missing out on a large market in the future. Local search engine optimization (SEO) will help you spread your company’s data across the internet so that applications can find it and display it to targeted traffic in your area.

What is SEM (Search Engine Marketing) & Web Presence Optimization

SEM Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing & Reputation Management

We all know of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, CitySearch, TripAdvisor, and so many more. SEM is the management of all of these Search Engines and Directories to insure all your company’s information is branded, relevant, correct, and has a unique eye appeal to attract prospects. In other words web presence optimization.

SEM is also the management of business’s online reputation, which consists of ratings, reviews, mentions, tweets, and comments. One bad review could send a business to the bottom of a popular search term for their industry, or a low rating may send a prospect to hit the back button and call a competitor. On the other hand, a great comment on Twitter may send you 100’s of new customers like word of mouth and this is why search engine marketing is so important.

When choosing an SEM company to handle your internet marketing and online web presence needs be sure of the following.
• that they have a reputation management system in place
• that they have the ability to monitor ratings, reviews, mentions, tweets, and comments across all Search Engines, Directories, and Social Media Sites
• that they themselves don’t have any bad ratings, reviews, mentions, tweets, and comments
• that they have test case scenarios for you to review their work
• that they are registered and in good standing with the Better Business Bureau
• and that they have done a good job branding and representing themselves

Search Engine Marketing is online advertising, web presence optimization and reputation management of a business in order to attract new prospects and increase profits. Therefore, whether you are small business needing local marketing or a large corporation with national goals your reputation is your business. Look to a professional Reputation Management company to engage your market and manage your web presence optimization for maximum profitability.

LocalSEOSites.com Case Study – Google Local Business Listings Local SEO

Written on September 13th, 2010 by
Categories: Google Local Optimization, Local SEO
Combined SEO Optimization

Local SEO before & after case study

Google marketing is the most well known form of internet marketing for a small business. It is the most used search engine in the world and is highly respected within its industry. Local SEO to improve rankings within the Google Local Business Listings is a fairly new art which has a lot of small business owners skeptical about the benefits it provides. Within this case study we show how a hair salon in Los Altos has increased its presence on Google maps in turn increasing the amount of activity generated from marketing on the most popular search engine available.

How many times your local listing is seen and how much action has been taken after being seen is displayed within the Google Places dashboard. Analytics provide data about the amount of consumers seeing and using the business listing from day to day and for which keywords. You can relate this data to a storefront, if more people are seeing your storefront then more people will take action and buy something.

In the example above before optimization the highest impressions for one day was below 60 and sometimes they would get near 0. Actions actually does hit 0 per day a number of times and even flattens out for a few days straight. We started optimization on July 29th as you can see from the huge increase at the end of the top month. After some Local SEO you can see the highest impressions per day has risen to 90 and never gets near the 0 mark. Actions are still hitting 0 on occasion but this is only the first month after optimization and as you can see there are quite a lot less flat areas. LocalSEOSites.com optimizes your profile to be seen for more keywords related to your business and the results are more traffic to your profile resulting in more action.

before optimization
To the left is a screenshot from before we started optimizing our hair salon located in Los Altos, Ca.

They were already getting some impressions from a couple of keywords and from those impressions some action was taken. There were 482 impressions but the top 5 keywords were only 300 or so of those impressions. The more keywords you show up on the first page for the more your business will be seen and action will be taken.

after SEO

The very next month from the day of optimization you notice a huge increase in our hair salons impressions. This is the benefit of local SEO for your Google Local Business Listing. Strategic keyword analysis provides your business with more keywords that drive customers. Even though we are competing with our own work towards the end of the first month, we were still able to increase impressions by %400 and actions by %300 in the second month.

Our hair salon client can now see a lot of traffic to their business from many different keywords but that is not all we do. Over time LocalSEOSites.com will grow their web presence so they will start to show up higher on the listings for major keywords. As they are submitted to directories and search engines as well as some social media optimization and local business listings optimization they will start to rank better and in the coming months we should see even more improvement.

Check back next month for another case study where we analyze our hair salon and another customer’s company for their growth from web presence optimization. To get updates sent directly to your email sign up for our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter for tweets with links to our updates.

How Local SEO Can Bring Customers to Your Small Business

Written on September 1st, 2010 by
Categories: Bing / Yahoo Local Optimization, Google Local Optimization, Local SEO
Google Local Business Center

Small business, big benefits – Local SEO

When is the last time you picked up a telephone book? Yellow pages are a thing of the past because customers don’t want to find you by flipping through pages of a book that is bigger than their computer and probably out of date by the time it is updated, printed and redistributed. You need an updated approach to your advertising and may need to have a consultation with an SEO company about your marketing.

Businesses trying to drum up customers locally need to keep in mind how useful internet marketing has become. Up to date information about local companies including phone number, email and location can be found instantly online. The results are ranked for consistency and can be found using local search engines like the Google Local Business Listings, but where does your small business rank on these listings?

Local SEO is optimization of your web presence to draw in customers from your area and the surrounding areas by appearing on the first page of the Google Maps and Business Listings. Along with Google you will also benefit from Bing, Yahoo and many more search engines.

Internet marketing has risen due to the fact that more people can access the web easily from their computers or phones. The sheer rise in searches every month is an indicator that people are using search engines for consumer purposes. Appearing at the top of the listings is how you get noticed by targeted consumers in your area.

That is how small businesses bring in customers from their area and the surrounding areas by marketing to targeted consumers through Local SEO. Owners familiar with search engine marketing could do their own web optimization but when your business is booming and clients are ready to purchase services or products don’t you think it would be more important to spend that time operating your company.

7 Ways Web Presence Optimization Can Generate Local Business

SEO grows your web presence

SEO grows your web presence

Technology is huge for advertising and the internet has become the marketing tool for every business small or large. Small business owners hear it all the time about how their web presence can attract local customers whether it is through their social networking, search engine marketing or a simple website. Customers and salesmen alike preach to Presidents and CEOs about their web presence, although salesmen will say a company could use some search engine optimization (SEO) and customers just want a way to find the products and services they’re looking for.

7 Ways Web Presence Optimization Can Draw Local Traffic
• easily found updated contact info including phone number and address
• directories and business pages for extra exposure opportunities
• new traffic from being on the first page of business listings
• the more you optimize the better you compete against other local business
• out of town customers from cell phone searches on the go
• word of mouth through social networking
• products, services and extra locations awareness

SEO experts know how important search engine marketing is for a small business because they see them turn into medium and large sized businesses all the time. When there is always up to date information about a company in many different places and an optimized web presence; prospective customers can find and contact them easily. Teamed up with directories and business pages putting their name out there for extra exposure any company can solidify its authority on the web.

Having a business listed is crucial to being found on the search engines but being on the first page of the Google local business listings is a great way of generating new local traffic. Being at the top of Google speaks loudly as your reputation. Once a company can be found on the top of the Google Maps listings they will draw in customers that are new to the area as well including new residents and people visiting or passing through.

With all the new traffic and by utilizing some of their previous clients a small business can gain new exposure through word of mouth by simply offering social networking options. When customers are given a way to easily spread the word they will, this is a simple way of branding local businesses.

These are just a few ways that having an optimized web presence can drum up new business locally. Every business owner knows the highest quality traffic comes from being at the top of Google though and there is always competition when trying to target consumers that are looking to buy. The number one way of keeping your web presence optimized is by having an expert from an SEO company take care of it for you while you take care of your business.

Local SEO, Optimization of your Small Business Web Presence Marketing

local SEO sites

Optimization of your web presence is Local SEO

Most small businesses have a small web presence but there are a lot of customers in their surrounding area that utilize the internet when finding local shops and services. Internet marketing has become the way of reaching these potential clients in their communities through social networking, the Google Local Business Center and search engine optimization.

Why Internet Marketing is the Best Local Advertising
• easier for customers to find your company
• up to date contact information
• more useful and widely used than yellow pages
• out of town visitors can find you quickly
• cheaper and more effective

When deciding to start optimizing within the Google local business listings it is important to consider consulting someone within search engine marketing industry. Most likely a local SEO company can offer search engine optimization services from an expert that is cheaper than spending the time to learn and execute a strategic internet marketing plan on your own.

A company whose web presence places them at the top of the Google local business listings knows that only a first page placement will get them high quality customer traffic. Small businesses that already have a web presence and show up on the local listings within Google maps and other search engines should consider their listing position when deciding to keep optimizing in house. SEO experts can have a small business listing to the first page within a month and as little as two weeks.

So whether you’re already doing local advertising through internet marketing or wanted to get started, consider utilizing an SEO company with an search engine marketing expert that can get you to the top of the local business listings quickly and maintain your web presence. Optimization is a never ending process with more companies competing for that top position every day it makes it harder and harder to keep up.