The rules have changed and the challenge is greater—but so are the rewards…

Remember when a “local directory” was just the Yellow Pages?

No, not Yellowpages.com – I mean the actual book. You know – real paper, heavy as a sack of bricks, thrown down on your doorstep and cracked open to reveal a teeming mass of hundreds, if not thousands of local businesses.

Remember the shops vying for your attention with astonishing attempts at advertising alliteration – A-A-A Awesome Plumbing, AA A-1 Fabrics. AAA Absurd Business Name?

You get the idea.

For decades, that was the only game in town and the best-known “trick” to achieve local visibility and success in the eyes of Joe or Jane Doe in Yourtown, USA.

But the game has changed dramatically. When’s the last time you actually opened a phone book, much less received (or kept) one?

The effort to be front and center hasn’t stopped, but it has changed playing fields.

And it has new rules.

Online local search is the undisputed “Yellow Pages” of the day…on steroids. It includes yellowpages.com by the way, but they’re not the only game in town anymore, not by a long shot. Having a rewarding local search presence requires being listed correctly and consistently in every top directory out there, and then some.

And the days of winning by squeezing multiple AAA’s in the front of your business name are A-A-A thing of the past.

There are new tried-and-true methods that work even better than the old-school “tricks.” Use these to get a leg up on your competition.

How To Get Found By Local Customers

Wait. You haven’t heard of those? What about Factual? Infogroup?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone if you are drawing a blank. Those four not-so-household names are the vital “data aggregator” listings.

In a nutshell, aggregators are the hard working, behind-the-scenes data sources, in greater or lesser degree, for the “famous” directories everyone has heard of: Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yahoo Local, Google Maps and so on. Think of them as the unheralded publicists to the stars. Without them, the big companies would miss out and not know what you want them to know about your business.

Good. So it’s easy then, right? Just get listed in those few data aggregators and sit back and wait for the customers to find you and flood through your doors.

Ah, if only. It isn’t quite that simple. Let’s pull the curtain back a little further.

There are key rules to know and follow. Otherwise, you’ll be that unfortunate business that, in bygone days, missed the deadline to get in their Yellow Pages listing, making them invisible.

Here’s the must-know essentials

1. NAP time is vital

   NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. Your business name, address and phone must, must, must be consistent (did we mention must?) across every single listing.

   Why would it not be consistent? Well, your business has an online footprint already, probably within a week of your doors opening. If you’ve been around a while, you have a Jurassic-size footprint across the web – your Chamber of Commerce may have you listed, the Better Business Bureau and other “official” organizations likely list you online as well. Not to mention your address is on your website and can be “scraped” that way and listed by any such website, and it likely has.

   These potential inconsistencies can create online confusion you aren’t even aware exists. You’re official business name is “Alan and Sons Plumbing”, but it’s listed in one location as “Alan Johnson and Sons Plumbers” or “A.J. and Sons Plumbing and Repair” somewhere else. Those different results, and business owners are often as bewildered as anyone as to why they appear differently, can be viewed as different businesses within local search results.

   Have you changed names over the years, particularly during the “Internet Age”, aka the last 20 years? You are virtually guaranteed to have incorrect listings.

   The result of NAP inconsistencies is these data aggregators and other local search players will not see a unified, clean identity for your business. It looks unprofessional, in a word. As a result, they aren’t likely to “recommend” you to those doing local searches. At best your “online power” is being diluted. At worst, you aren’t showing up for some local searches at all. Instead, potential customers see the business “next door” who has everything properly set up.

   Don’t take it personal, they’re just computers. And it can be fixed so that they do YOUR bidding as well.

2. NAP corrections

   

   As a vital first step, you need to find all of the online directories where you are listed and ensure your listings are correct.

   This is often called an “audit” and “verification” step. It’s the first step we do with any local business clients. It includes “claiming” the listing, because as mentioned above, some of these directories find your business identity online from who-knows-where and use it to auto-create a listing for you. Take control back. You deserve it!

   What does this local search audit and verification accomplish?

   Inevitably we discover two things when completing the process:

   1. The business has odd variations scattered throughout its online listings. Anything from not having the proper street extension, to having an old phone number or a business name inconsistency.
      
      One client was literally “off the map” – Google had their map listing about 40 miles away from their actual office. Another had two listings everywhere – their old business name and their new one. The result was that people searching for these businesses couldn’t find them, both online and in the real world.
   2. The next discovery we make is the one you want – once those elements are corrected, the business improves its local search positioning and visibility, often dramatically.*
      
      * Inevitable disclaimer: This is particularly true if the business was not doing well, e.g. far down the local search results. Also, we’d be remiss to not point out that results are often significantly improved with additional marketing basics such as a properly built website and other local search content set up…why yes, that was an impeccable segue.

What Else To Know About Local Search

Well, there’s plenty, but without the NAP steps done above, the rest is like trying to get a car rolling without an engine. You might be able to push and shove it a few feet online, but soon enough you’ll watch competitors with everything in place race by you.

So in brief, what makes a well-oiled winning local marketing machine?

One that has a powerful engine AND great aerodynamics, a turbo booster and sweet racing stripes to boot.

Start your engines with:

1. website: solidly built, well-structured with core on-page search factors
2. site content: relevant, quality local-oriented
3. business address: your addresses properly listed on your site (there is behind-the-scenes code for your website that helps “identify” and “locate” your business for search engines the right way),
4. consistent NAP: having consistent NAP on the key directories. Having above and beyond the number of “standard” listings, especially if you are in a specialized profession, e.g. dental, medical, legal, etc.
5. reviews: getting reviews on the key review portals (Yelp, Facebook, Google+ and specialty sites as applicable like Houzz), and
6. social: active social profiles and activity which we include to being “locally” social such as interacting with local relevant blogs/channels.

Yes that can be a bit overwhelming, and isn’t done in a weekend to be sure. When your preferred game is running your business, helping your customers and delivering a great product or service it’s wise to bring in hired experts.

That’s where local search experts (ahem) can save you hours of confusion or added errors damaging your local presence.

The game WE love to play is to get your great product, service and business more visible. To stay on top of the “tricks” and “secrets” and have businesses reap the rewards. (The tricks and secrets are also known as hard work and paying attention.)

We’ve successfully raised client’s online search position from essentially invisible to top of the stack.

And all without renaming their business to “AAA Absolute Best Company.”

So if you are looking to be found by customers searching for what you have to offer, consider the local search basics above. And if you need professional expertise, just let us know on our contact page.

Read Article #1 in The Rules of Marketing Series: 3 Branding Rules To Maximize Your Marketing Spend

UPDATE: This post was originally written in 2013, but the latest news from Google makes mobile websites more vital today and in the future. Google has announced that starting April 21, 2015, new mobile friendly search rules will start rolling out. If a website is mobile-friendly, it will appear higher in mobile searches. Wondering if your site is “mobile friendly”? Check it here using Google’s own tool.

Bottom line: if your website is not mobile friendly…mobile searchers won’t even be given a chance to find you.

Originally published: August 2013

According to a 2012 Pew Research report, 55% of cell phone users use their phones to go online. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s that low. [Note as of mid-2013 it is in fact higher–up to 63% per Pew. The next released results will undoubtedly be higher still.]

Given that millions of Americans are browsing the web on their phone, tablet or other portable devices, is your business website accessible in an easy-to-use format? Put another way, does your business have a “mobile responsive” website?

A mobile responsive website simply means one that is designed to give mobile visitors the optimum experience on their phone or tablet. For a well-known example, the Boston Globe redesigned their site to be mobile responsive. It automatically adjusts to fit the viewing device, be it an iPhone or Nexus tablet.

A surprising number of businesses, big and small, still present mobile visitors with their full-size website, alienating visitors right off the bat and inducing squinting, pinching, zooming or worse – grumbling, muttering and leaving.

Does making a website mobile friendly make a difference in business?

To answer this, we’ll pull back the curtain and reveal one client’s story: A local dental clinic approached us in mid-2012. They had a static non-responsive website they hated. It was ugly, it didn’t convert visitors to new patients and, to make matters worse, was being managed by a company that was not responsive to their needs.

Needless to say, the site was as unresponsive as their existing marketing company. So we got to work—meeting with the client, agreeing on goals and implementing the strategies to achieve them, such as content marketing, press releases and pay-per-click ad management.

But first and foremost, the action we took was immediately making their new website mobile responsive. This included putting their phone number and location prominently at the top of their website, which gave mobile visitors a fast and easy way to contact them and make appointments. We also started a targeted mobile ad campaign.

The results, in a word, have been explosive:

• Mobile traffic to their site has gone from 38% of total traffic to nearly 78%. The site’s overall traffic, fueled by content marketing strategies, has increased by 128%
• Because their mobile website was set up to capture these visitors and turn them into patients, calls into their office have increased a staggering 176%

Know Thyself…or Find Someone Who Does

Know where your potential customers are.

Know how they can find you.

Know how to present and market your online presence so they can easily connect with you.

Contact us and we’ll do all of that for you. Reach us at 888-788-5124 or fill out the form here.

I had the pleasure today of attending the SXSWedu screening of the inspiring film Big Dream, a documentary that tells the intimate stories of seven young women who are breaking barriers as they follow their passion in science, technology, engineering, and math—the acronymically named STEM fields.

Being a technology company, we were extremely proud to be associated with this film and the Big Dream Movement, headed up by Microsoft and Iron Way Films, the production company behind the documentary.

We contributed in our own way by designing and developing the Big Dream Movement website and it has been both gratifying and exciting to watch this cause continue to expand and generate the widespread support it deserves.

The film itself is fantastic. Each woman’s story is told through a combination of first person webcam-style footage, day-in-the-life shots filmed by the production team of Kelly Cox and Lucas Longacre of Iron Way Films, and interviews done with the women, their friends and families.

The result is an inside, very personal look at how these young women are striving to establish themselves in male-dominated industries.

Each of the women are shown overcoming significant obstacles, and not just dealing with gender stereotypes, as they move closer to their own particular big dream.

And they are big. From “starting a female revolution and changing the face of computer science forever” to “winning the Noble Prize before the age of 30” — none of these young women are assuming timid roles in society.

If you know of anyone who wishes to inspire women to pursue their dreams in the STEM fields, encourage them to visit the Big Dream Movement website and request a screening. There are also numerous resources and partners there that can help someone interested to further their study and future.

From a personal viewpoint, the film doesn’t just inspire girls…I left the theater with just as much enthusiasm and renewed commitment for using the incredible technology available today to reach others and improve their lives.

Additional resources:

Big Dream Movement website

Some businessmen and marketers proclaimed the final offensive play by Seattle a “calculated gamble” by a coach known to roll the dice. But it wasn’t a gamble. It was walking away from the poker table with a great hand just seconds away from the jackpot.

And it was an example of how not to operate in business and marketing.

The Summary

To set the scene, the Seattle Seahawks were one yard away from rare back-to-back Super Bowl victories – a mere 25 seconds from finishing a competitive and compelling game. The coaching staff decided to throw a high-risk pass for that one yard and all the glory. The play resulted in a New England interception, and the game was lost.

A Deeper Look

A few people (not many) piped up in defense of the decision, arguing that Seattle’s coach, Pete Carroll is a gambler, and it just didn’t pay off this time and that football coaches, like CEOs, make quick decisions and sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.

Taking calculated risks is one thing. But in this case, it wasn’t playing the odds at all. It was folding in poker with two pocket aces and a great chance at success. Put another way, Seattle had two incredible assets – a literal beast of a player in Marshawn Lynch and – just as important, key knowledge of their opponent’s weakness.

Lynch, one of the all-time great power running backs, is known to either knock down or drag along 250 pound professional athletes trying to stop him. A lot. Tacklers have been alleged to actually get out of his way or avoid tackling him. His nickname is “Beast Mode.” That moniker is not typically given to those who go down lightly. Oh, and his runs have actually caused fan celebrations to register on seismographs…so there’s that.

Just as compelling is this little factoid – New England has a terrible “power” run defense. Dead last in fact during the year. When opposing teams have only needed a couple yards, they’ve usually succeeded. Their pass defense is quite good.

So when Seattle receiver Jevon Kearse made that phenomenal catch (despite great pass defense), and Marshawn Lynch powered his way down to the one-yard line on the very next play…the outcome seemed inevitable. Give it to your best player again, and let him take it home.

But a fateful decision intervened.

Don’t Ignore The Obvious

In sports, business, marketing, checkers and every other endeavor under the sun, knowing your, and the opponents’, strengths and weaknesses is paramount. It can be the difference between properly calculating your efforts and making a gross error that leaves you, and in this case millions of others, wondering “wait, what just happened?”

We see it ourselves every day with businesses that come to us with inconsistent, or non-existent, marketing. It’s inconsistent from not acquiring enough data or acting on incorrect data. It’s non-existent out of uncertainty or misguided thoughts that marketing isn’t needed.

It’s why a marketer’s first step is (or should be) research. What is the client doing now? What have they done before? What worked? What didn’t? And dozens of other points. Test. Monitor. We also educate our clients on it so they know why we do it. We go in fast and fix what is broken, such as local search and local directory listings – and get results quickly. We see what’s working and we strengthen it.

Professional marketers first work to know the client and exactly what they need, then integrate that into their existing knowledge.

Know thyself is a common refrain, but it is not even half the battle. Know thy opponent and know thy situation, and make your business and marketing efforts that much more certain.

Bottom line: don’t gamble with your business.

Earlier this year, Google’s head of webspam, Matt Cutts, suggested that a secure, encrypted site was an important consideration for website owners in 2014.

A secure site, if you are uncertain on that, means that the owner of the website is verified and the information given to the site is encrypted, as explained below. There are various types of encryption with various acronyms that we’ll leave alone for now so that we don’t go down that rabbit-hole of epic web-geekery and potential confusion. Instead we’ll focus on those two important characteristics of website security:

1. If your site is secure, the content is encrypted, meaning that others can’t “eavesdrop” and see what information you are sending to a website or what it is sending to you. Think of a bank website or ecommerce checkout process. The information, like credit card numbers, used in those sites is essentially scrambled and made into gibberish while it’s moving around, then unscrambled for you. Very Tom Clancy, I know.
2. As well, a secure website means your site is verified, or authenticated. This means that your browser is told “Yes, the www.example.com website really does belong to ‘Example Corporation'” Sort of like a celebrity being “verified” as a real celebrity on Twitter. The obvious advantage there is that it keeps someone from posing as an official website in order to get your information.

When implemented, a secure website results in sites that look like the homepage of Google when you look at the website address bar. It shows “https://www.google.com” instead of just “http://www.google.com”. The difference is that ‘s’ which stands for, you guessed it, the security component and shows that is installed and in effect on that website.

Up until recently, security was primarily used for ecommerce sites or applications that asked for your personal or financial information: credit card numbers, personal identifying information and the like. You’ve seen and certainly used sites that were secure and encrypyted for good reason, such as your bank or credit card site or a checkout process on Amazon or other online retailer.

But with the announcement in March, it became clear that the future of the web was that all websites would best be set up with web security firmly in place.

That Future Is Now

Today, the Google Webmaster Blog released news that https was not just recommended, but that in fact it would be used as a ranking signal. A ranking signal simply means it’s one of the dozens and dozens of factors that the Google search system takes into account when deciding which websites come up first after someone does an online search.

While they state that “fewer than 1%” of search queries are affected, they also state that they may “decide to strengthen” it. Not surprising, since Google is known for changing their ranking factors every so often.

So What’s It All Mean?

Because it is a factor we have begun transitioning clients (and ourselves!) to secure https-based versions of their websites, starting with research into how to do this with no disruptions. Some marketers or website developers have already said, “It isn’t a make or break component. Just relax, or ‘wait and see’.” They ignore however, at their own or their client’s peril, that it IS a component, with an official statement stating so. We utilize and continuously work to improve as many ranking elements as we can—factors such as quality content, site structure, attractive design, website speed and many more—so there’s no reason not to incorporate this as well to offer the best value to our clients.

Most importantly, secure websites increase trust in those websites by their users. This then improves their user experience, making them, our clients and us happier. Hard to argue with that.

One thing to keep in mind, in case you’re wondering: this does not mean websites are hack-proof. It means that with security and https enabled, information is not able to be viewed easily by 3rd parties. If someone really wants to hack into your website and disrupt it, they probably can. That said, we also employ significant security measures on our sites, and have for some time, including constant website monitoring and making daily website backups so that even if a site is hacked, it can be restored quickly.

So if you are wondering how to set up your own online presence the right way, with demonstrable marketing results to boot, give us a call or drop us a line and well be happy to help you out.

Business must move fast to stay alive and flourish, but apparently some companies and website developers think that “Speed Kills.”

On the “Information Superhighway” speed is akin to prompt customer service, and if your website is slow, your potential customers are waiting…waiting…WAITI…oh, look at that, they got sick of it and just left.

The result? Your business lost a customer and lost money.

So how does one determine what is considered “fast” for a website? One obvious measure is simply how fast does the website load.

That is, once a visitor clicks a search result link or types in your site address, how many seconds (or milliseconds) does it take for them to see your beautiful website on the screen.

So, how fast is “fast?”

Several studies have been done on a typical internet user’s expectations for load time, as well as at what point do they get tired of waiting and click away. Conclusion? Patience is not much of a virtue when browsing.

In one survey, 50% of online travel shoppers expected a site to load in 2 seconds or less.

57% of these shoppers will abandon a site if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds.

This survey was done on a couple thousand travel shoppers. Regardless of their browsing purpose, I’m sure these web users didn’t suddenly develop more patience when going to any other website in any other industry. Take a look at your own browsing habits. When a site takes 5, 6, 7 seconds or more what’s your reaction? If you’re one of the rare patient people in the world, you may wait.

Indications are that most people do not. After all, there are millions of other options out there.

Even if some of your potential customers are waiting, your website loading speed is of the essence to maximize the number of conversions and customers you could be acquiring.

Just as in a “brick and mortar” shop, online ease-of-access is vital. Have you ever made a trip to a traditional store only to go elsewhere because you simply couldn’t get there due to horrible traffic, terrible parking or worse, the store was unexpectedly closed?

The same applies to a business website. This “need for speed” trend is only increasing with the rise of mobile Internet use. Slower mobile connection speeds create a greater need for speed-optimized websites.

Conclusion

If your online presence is too difficult to reach, your customers will find another business.

Don’t let them!

• Invest in web hosting that is fast.
• Don’t bloat your sites with unnecessary graphics, heavy images or outdated animations.
• Make it an attractive site, sure, but first emphasize making it fast and giving users clear options when the site loads, particularly for the rising number of mobile users.

I’ve seen dozens of “beautiful showcase” websites that take 10 seconds or MORE to load. Only my curiosity kept me around to even see the “beautiful” website. Website visitors won’t be that masochistic.

So don’t waste money on inefficient bells and whistles. Invest in the basics of your website user experience. Contact us if you have any questions. We can help make sure your site isn’t clogging the fast lane!

The key to generating the “more” factor for your business – more leads, more business, more revenues – by getting the “word” out is to know exactly who your audience is and how to connect with that audience.

You are dead in the water if you are in the dark about your target market. Assuming you understand your market and its characteristics, you can go to work on a few simple inexpensive actions that will build and help sustain your business.

What “word” describes your reputation?
The word that gets out on the street had better be that you are “likeable”. Yes, after all, your customers and clients had better like you and your product or service.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you known as trustworthy & friendly?
• Do you stand behind your product?
• Do you give excellent customer service?
• Are you personal in your approach?
• Are you responsive to customer feedback?
• Do you ask for a referral from a satisfied customer?

If you can answer “yes” to them all, then you are on the road to getting results from the “word” that is getting out about your company by turning your customers into referral partners.

What type of activities are likely to spread by “word” of mouth
Ask yourself these questions: (these are only a few possibilities)

• Do you hold webinars or seminars on educational topics?
• Do you attend networking events?
• Do you give your product or service away?(either as a door prize or in a limited time only campaign)
• Are you volunteering for a non-profit board or activity?
• Can you sponsor an event that supports a charity or good cause?
• Do you send out press releases when you do any of the above?

If you are doing any of the above, you can create an inexpensive word of mouth campaign for yourself to help your “likeability” quotient and promote yourself at the same time to create a reputation.

Watch for more simple and inexpensive Target Public Marketing Tips in the weeks and months to come! If you are struggling to find your target market, reach your target market or create your compelling message to your target market, give TPM a call or send an email to begin that journey to marketing certainty!

Don’t forget to leave a comment…we like to hear from you!

How do B2B marketers create the right content for their audience?  What’s the best social channel mix to reach audiences? Which metrics should social media marketers be measuring rather than “likes”?  Lithium’s Director of Content Strategy, Bonnie Thomas, has some answers.

To read the article in full, click on the link below:

Talking Content Strategy with Lithium’s Bonnie Thomas

A recent study by MarketingProfs shows just how far content marketing has come.  The survey asked B2B firms about how they’re using content marketing and their intentions over the next 12 months.  Take a look at the slideshare for some of these insights.

To read the article in full, click on the link below:

B2B Content Marketing: What to Expect in 2014

Why should customers and prospects care about what you have to say?  Everywhere your customers look, they are being bombarded with sales messaging.  You need to be their go-to informational resource.  But how do you create content that moves your customers and prospects to take action?  Here are six principles that should be core to your content marketing strategy.

To read the article in full, click on the link below:

6 Content Marketing Principles Every Business Needs to Follow