Tag Archives: Marketing

How Much is a Facebook “Like” Worth to Your Business?

June 6, 2013

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There’s an enormous caveat to what I’m about to tell you. In the work we’re doing with clients for whom we manage social media, as well as in the training we do for business owners and their teams to manage their own social media, there’s one fact that we emphasize constantly:

In social media, the level of engagement is far more important than the number of fans or followers.

That said, a recent research study by Syncapse and Hostpex places an average value of $174 for each Facebook “fan” a business gathers. (Note: although term “fan” is outdated jargon in the world of Facebook, it’s being used as shorthand for “someone who has liked your page” here.)

How do they arrive at this number, you ask?

Syncapse: Value of a Facebook Fan 2013

Value of a Facebook Fan in 2013 Source: Syncapse

Well, the $174 figure is an average across a number of different brands and industries, and it’s calculated based upon a number of comparisons between fans and non-fans (those who have not liked a business’s Facebook page). After looking at spending, loyalty, likelihood that they would recommend the brand, satisfaction levels, acquisition cost and “affinity,” the research determined and placed a value on fans for each brand compared in the study.

It’s worth checking out the study itself (download it here) to review the metrics and get some idea about where your business would compare based upon the value of a fan for the brand/industry that most closely matches yours.

Regardless of where you land in terms of the value you place on each person who has “liked” your Facebook page, the most important takeaway from this study is this: the research proves that when you communicate regularly via social media, you influence the opinions and behaviors of your prospects and customers.

The key, as I mentioned at the top of this post, is that you treat your social media marketing/outreach as a method of engaging with people rather than broadcasting or advertising to them.

Do you want to learn more? Need help building engagement? Contact us here.

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How SEO Hasn’t Changed [Infographic]

December 7, 2012

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From the very moment we began providing training to business owners and marketing executives to help them understand how search engines work, we have preached a very simple message:

Create content that delivers value to people in your target market. And do it often.

I’m constantly amused by the SEO (search engine optimization) industry—when not infuriated by stories of ripoffs, that is. Everyone was in an uproar when Google’s Panda update came on the scene. When Penguin arrived, it was another round of insanity as SEO firms and marketing consultants began realizing that many of the gimmicky tricks they had used to artificially boost clients’ search rankings began to fall off. And then there’s the endless speculation about which black and white animal Google will name their next update after… <sigh>.

Ironically, nobody who was following our training was negatively affected by Google’s algorithm changes. Quite the opposite, many of our clients found themselves inexplicably rising in rankings for keywords they hadn’t targeted (more on that in a moment) and receiving even more traffic!

And while keywords and keyword research are important, our clients and students have always heard from me that keyword research is only the beginning of your effort. You will never imagine all the keywords that people will use to find your content, but if you create valuable content in a conversational style, you will accidentally use more of the terms that people will search on than you could ever do on purpose.

Our clients and students get some valuable coaching from us that helps them accomplish this, of course, but the foundation of the strategy is disarmingly simple.

As social media has become more and more important, we’ve gained all sorts of new metrics about what content is and isn’t valuable to our audiences. But aside from making adjustments based upon that new feedback loop, the advent of social media has only served to prove the merits of our strategy.

Meanwhile, SEO experts all over the world are discovering that they must now scramble to figure out how to deliver value and engage audience members since Google’s ability to measure those factors has improved. Today, I spotted a beautiful infographic put together by Fuzz One: The New Face of SEO: How SEO Has Changed. If you’ve been through our training, you’ll be amused as I was at how much energy they’re now recommending everyone to put into delivering value. Enjoy!

[Infographic] The New Face of SEO: How SEO Has Changed

The bottom line? While “SEO experts” scramble to adapt… everyone who has been delivering value by creating unique content that’s targeted to their desired audience can rest assured that your efforts will continue to be rewarded.

Need better performance from your marketing? Contact us to learn more about our strategic marketing assessment.

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Reason #237 for Marketing Strategy: the Elevator Pitch

October 22, 2012

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Elevator Pitch

Is this where you want to buy something?

Seth Godin’s post from today reinforces yet again the need for you to strategically and intentionally design your business’s “message”:

If your elevator pitch is a hyper-compressed two-minute overview of your hopes, dreams and the thing you’ve been building for the last three years, you’re doing everyone a disservice. I’ll never be able to see the future through your eyes this quickly, and worse, if you’ve told me what I need to know to be able to easily say no, I’ll say no.

As usual, he manages to say an enormous amount in just a few sentences. And although the Girl Scouts may disagree, the bottom line from Seth is:

“No one ever bought anything on an elevator.”

What are you trying to accomplish with your message?

 

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Time to Update Those Copyright Notices!

January 2, 2012

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Out with the Old!

Out with the Old!

Have you changed the copyright notice at the bottom of your website? Now’s the time to do it! After all… nothing says, “we aren’t paying attention” like last year’s date (or worse: an even earlier year!) being displayed on a website through mid-June (or whenever it is we happen to catch it).

So… in addition to all the other calendar-changing exercises — remembering to write 2012 on your checks, ditching last year’s desk blotter, swapping the wall calendar, etc — make sure you check out your websites. And no fair looking at ours… we haven’t finished getting to them all yet! (What do you think reminded me to write this?!)

Also… if you have multiple Content Management Systems (CMSs), don’t forget to look at those. Check your shopping cart, blog, membership website, etc. to see if they have their own footers.

How to Always Have a Current Copyright Notice on Your WordPress Site

If you’re running WordPress, your footer content is controlled by your theme. Some theme designers provide a place in an “Options” panel for you to manually update the text displayed in your footer and/or copyright notice. That’s nice & handy, but you still have to remember to fix it.

Here’s a quick & dirty way to “set it and forget it” so you don’t have to remember to check again next year at this time.

    1. Go to Appearance » Editor from the left-hand menus in your WordPress admin
    2. Find the file that controls your footer in the list of files on the right-hand side of your screen. 99% of the time it will be a file called footer.php (if not, check your theme’s support site)
    3. Click on the file’s name  to open it in the editor.
    4. Do yourself a favor: highlight the entire file and copy/paste it into a text editor (think Notepad here, not Word). This gives you a backup of the code in case you bump something and break it.
    5. Find the code that outputs your copyright notice. It should be easy to recognize. Here’s a hint: the HTML code for the copyright symbol is usually displayed like this:  &amp;
    6. Replace it with something like this: Copyright &copy; 2006 - <?php echo date('Y') ?>
    7. Click the “Update file” button to save it.
    8. Go check out your site!

Obviously, you can adjust as needed. The code I showed above is the actual code we’re using on our Nourish The Dream site, which we founded in 2006. You may want to use a different date structure, but that PHP code is what causes your theme to always show the current year (assuming your web hosting provider has the server configured correctly!)

Questions? Ask ‘em in the comments area below!

Happy New Year!

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Convert Your Facebook Profile into a Business Page

November 8, 2011

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Turn Those Facebook Friends into Likes

Convert Your Facebook "Profile" into a "Page for Your Business

Almost every time I speak to an audience of business owners, there’s at least one in the crowd. Someone (or their nephew) created a Facebook “profile” for their business instead of a business “page.”

What’s the difference?

A Facebook “Profile” (soon to be called a “timeline”) has a first and last name, and can send and receive “Friend” requests.

A Facebook “Page” (formerly called a “fan page”) has a business (or organization) name, and other Facebook users can “Like” it.

We’ve all seen it… you log into Facebook and you have a friend request from someone whose first name is “Bob’s” and whose last name is “AutoRepair.” Maybe you did it… you have a personal Facebook account and you’re trying to use it for business purposes.

Well… if that’s you, I’ve got some good news for you. You can migrate your Facebook “profile” into a business “page” and successfully maintain all those relationships you’ve built. We’ll talk about how in a sec… but first…

Why Should I Migrate My Facebook “Profile” into a “Page?”

First, you should only do this if you have a Facebook “profile” (see above) that is really & truly for a business or organization (or public figure — more on that later) rather than for an individual.

But you should do it if that’s the case… and you should do it immediately! Why? Because Facebook will delete the account without warning. It is a violation of the Facebook Terms. And Facebook isn’t obligated to give you any advance notice… when they discover the account (and they will) or it gets reported (think competitors here), it’s all over. All those relationships you built… all the hours you spent sending and responding to friend requests… all the time you’ve spent adding links, posting photos, sharing content, writing notes, commenting on others’ posts, etc… all gone.

To my knowledge, no one has ever successfully appealed the deletion of a Facebook account. You simply get to start over… from scratch.

Now… just because you’ve gotten away with it for a while doesn’t mean anything. Most of the business owners I run into stumbled into this situation quite by accident or without knowledge. And so you may not have realized you were violating the terms (you did read those, right?). And so many businesses got away with this for so long that they felt no need to do anything about it when they discovered the problem. But Facebook has been improving their detection tools, and their ability to discover fraudulent “profiles” has improved dramatically.

Here’s the Good News

Previously, your only option was to create a Facebook “page” for your business, and then invite the “friends” of your “profile” to “become a fan” or “like” the new page. This was time-consuming, tedious, and not always very successful. Some people would “like” the new page right away… others would be confused… it was bad.

Now, however, Facebook has a migration tool to convert your “profile” into a “page.” This is great news for any businesses who want to keep all the relationships they’ve built. But there are some potential “gotchas” along the way (in other words… read everything here before you proceed!!) First, here’s how it works:

  1. You follow the link to the migration tool, which works almost identically to the “Create a Page” function. This means you need to choose what type of page you’re creating, complete all the necessary details, etc.
  2. Facebook migrates your “profile photo” and all your “friends” to the new page. The “friends” become people who have “liked” your new page.
  3. Your “profile” and all its other content (past posts, messages, admin privileges for other pages and groups, etc.) gets deleted permanently.
  4. You continue to login to Facebook with the same email address and password.

Important Steps to Take Before You Migrate

Obviously, you’ll want to proceed with caution. While it’s great news that you get to keep those “friends” (as “likes”), you don’t want to accidentally lock yourself out of other pages or otherwise lose important stuff related to your Facebook account.

So… do this first:

  1. Set up a new Facebook “profile” (if you don’t already have one) for yourself personally. If you already have one, make sure you can successfully log in to it!
  2. Add your new/other Facebook “profile” as an admin on any Facebook “pages” or “groups” that you have either created or have admin privileges for. If you don’t do this, you will permanently lose access to these pages and/or groups!
  3. Download a file from Facebook containing all the information from the “profile” you are migrating to a “page.” This way, all your old messages and any other content you’ve uploaded, shared or otherwise created on Facebook will be backed up to your computer before it gets permanently deleted from Facebook.

Once you’ve done the above, then you begin the migration process with the Facebook migration tool. Proceed with caution: Facebook has an “appeal” process for people who perform this step accidentally and then wish to reverse it. But I wouldn’t bank on that actually working.

Feel free to post your questions here (below). Additionally, Facebook has created some helpful resources about migrating your “profile” to a “page” that are worth checking out.

For Public Figures: Authors, Speakers, TV Personalities, etc.

Facebook: Create a Public Figure Page

Building a Large Following Associated with your Personal Name? Create a Public Figure Page on Facebook.

Occasionally when I speak about social media strategies for business, we have someone in the audience who has hit the 5,000 “friend” limit on Facebook. We also occasionally do consulting for authors, speakers, television personalities and others who have large followings who have had this happen or are well on their way.

If you intend to gain a large following associated with your personal name, you should consider creating a “Public Figure” Facebook page. A few important reasons why:

  • This allows you to maintain a “private” personal Facebook profile with a smaller number of “friends” with whom you can share personally, interact, etc., while maintaining a distinct persona from the “public-facing” version of your social media self.
  • You will not hit the 5,000 “friend” maximum. Brands on Facebook are carrying tens of millions of “likes” without being capped. This means you can keep growing your following without limitations.
  • Facebook actually becomes more useful and meaningful when it isn’t cluttered with posts from people you don’t really know very well.

If you do maintain both, there’s no reason why you can’t use both to promote your new stuff… but just keep in mind some people will choose to “unfriend” or “unlike” one version or the other of you on Facebook (maybe both) if they’re seeing too much content from you. This is normal. But of course… if you’re delivering great value on Facebook, this won’t be concern!

Want to learn more? We’ve created the Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit to help equip business people like you with winning strategies for growing your business in the 21st Century. Check it out today!

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Free Stuff on National Coffee Day!

September 29, 2011

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Cappuccino with Sprinkles Photo: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/LotusHeadToday is National Coffee Day. I still haven’t figured out whose idea that was, but hey… I’m all for celebrating! Especially the beverage that I spend so much of my time with, and even attribute some of my business success to!

Why do I attribute some of my business success to it, you ask? Well… aside from keeping me awake so I can be productive, I frequently use an example from Starbucks when speaking to audiences and training small business leaders to get better results from their marketing.

With the Starbucks example, we are essentially trying to help business owners and those responsible for their marketing to understand this: people aren’t buying what you think you’re selling. Starbucks roasts coffee beans purchased from growers all over the world and sells them primarily by making drinks out of them in their local retail stores. What business is Starbucks in?

a. Coffee

b. Beverages

c. Legal Addictive Stimulants

d. Entertainment

Obviously, if Starbucks answered “A: Coffee” then they would probably have to sell for the lowest price possible. They would compete against anyone and everyone selling coffee. But Starbucks is most famously selling something more. There’s a full discussion of that over here.

Let’s Get to the Free Stuff

That illustration on coffee has helped a lot of business leaders grapple with and ultimately answer the question, “What are you really selling?” And when they realize that they’re selling something different than what their marketing has historically focused on, they realize they need help. That’s what has been great for me because that’s when they realize they need training on how to reach out and get new customers in the 21st Century.

That’s where the free stuff comes in. We’re launching a brand new training course that will begin next week. It’s called “The Secrets of Search Engine Rankings for CEOs, Owners & Executives.” If you’ve ever wondered why your business does or doesn’t show up at the top of page 1 in the Google search results, then this training is for you.

Here are some of the questions we’ll be answering:

  • How does Google decide which websites to show on top of page 1?
  • How can I find my website’s position if it’s not readily visible on a particular search?
  • Do I really have to pay someone to be on top of the search engines or can we get there ourselves?
  • What can I do to make sure that my site is moving up?
  • How can I make sure I’m not getting ripped off with Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) services?

This training will happen over the course of 3 LIVE webinars. Each will last approximately 1 hour. Here’s the deal: we will be recording this to produce a brand new product that will sell for $97.

I’d like to give you the opportunity to be in on this product absolutely free. Here’s how it works: anyone who purchases our Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit by Friday at 5pm Eastern will automatically be registered to attend the 3 live training sessions absolutely free! This is a priceless bonus! By attending some (or all) of the webinars live, you’ll have the opportunity to get your questions answered live during the training. People who only catch the recordings after the fact will obviously not be able to do that. So this a huge added value!

Check out all the details for the Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit here.

What Others Are Saying About “The Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit”

Sonya ThompsonFrom December, 2010:
“A quick note to let you know how valuable your training has been to me! It has already helped me identify several key areas that need my attention to cause my business to flourish like I want it to. I am nowhere near finished the training but I have already identified and implemented some of the ‘techniques,’ as I interact with my customers. The results have been phenomenal! I have already made my money back with the orders I have captured as a result of your training.” (emphasis added)

From March, 2011:
“I wanted to thank you again for the services you provide through Epiphany. I have moved up to the first page of the Google search engine in as little as 3 months! One month ago I secured a $40,000+ contract with a vending manufacturer who found my company on Google. I was also recently contacted by another manufacturer who wants to send us all of his business … and yes he found us on the front page of Google. Don’t stop what you are doing. You are truly a blessing to the business community!” (emphasis added)

Sonya L. Thompson
First Choice Locators & Vending SVC LLC
Minneola, FL

I look forward to “seeing” you on next week’s training webinars! Be sure to purchase by tomorrow (Friday, September 30th) at 5pm Eastern in order to get in on “The Secrets of Search Engine Rankings for CEOs, Owners & Executives” absolutely free!

Happy Coffee Day!

Photo: LotusHead

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TimThumb WordPress: How to Fix the TimThumb.php Vulnerability in Your WordPress Theme

August 18, 2011

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This morning, I woke up to dozens of e-mails from my websites notifying me about issues. Worst of all, however, was the notification from MediaTemple: we’ve disabled your hosting account because your website is serving as a relay for spam e-mails. Yuck.

Immediately, my mind went to the TimThumb.php issue that was discovered a couple of weeks ago and reported widely throughout the WordPress community, perhaps most notably by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg.

Sure enough, a quick check of the files via FTP revealed that the script had been compromised and other files uploaded to the site. It took only a moment to fix, and big kudos to the MediaTemple support department for the quick response. We were back online within 20 minutes.

Obviously, I knew exactly how to fix the issue. If you are like many people operating self-hosted WordPress sites, then you may not have a clue what to do. I’ll provide some step-by-step instructions below, but this video gets the point across very quickly.

Is Your Site Affected?

As I pointed out in the video clip, not every WordPress site has this vulnerability. The TimThumb.php script is mostly used in more advanced WordPress themes that have features related to dynamically resizing images. The script itself is freely available and can be used by anyone on any website thanks to its GPL 2.0 licensing. How can you tell if your site uses it?

  • Look for a file in your WordPress theme’s folder called timthumb.php. If it’s there, you need to fix it.
  • All WooThemes utilize the script, although as I pointed out in the video clip they have renamed the file itself to “thumb.php.” WooThemes has created a fix for the issue by moving the thumb.php into their “framework” and allowing you to update the framework to the latest version. Be warned, however, that using this “easy fix” may also break other functions on your site, depending upon what has changed in the Woo framework since your website was built and launched.

How to Replace timthumb.php in Your WordPress Theme

The easiest, safest and fastest way to eliminate this vulnerability to your website without risking breaking other functions is to follow the instructions I outlined in the video clip:

  1. Download the latest version of TimThumb from its Google Project site.
  2. Connect to your web server via FTP. In the video clip, I used the free Filezilla client, but any FTP software will do the trick. You may need to obtain the FTP hostname, username and password from your web hosting provider if you don’t already have it handy. You can usually find it by logging into your web hosting control panel. Contact your hosting provider if you get stuck on this.
  3. Navigate to the affected file. Locate your WordPress installation on your website, then look inside the wp-content folder. From there, go to the themes folder, then locate the name of the folder for the theme you are currently using. It’s a good idea to go ahead and fix any unused themes you have uploaded as well. If you are using a theme from WooThemes, the file is called thumb.php.
  4. Delete the file. I actually tend to rename things rather than deleting them. This is a good idea if you’re not sure that you have the right file, since you can always rename it back to the correct file name if you need to put it back.
  5. Upload the new version. Keep in mind that the actual name of the file needs to match the name of the one you deleted. In most cases, the file will just be called timthumb.php and will be fine when you upload it. If you have a WooTheme, make sure to rename it to thumb.php.
  6. Test. Usually, just refreshing whatever page on your site uses the script will tell you if it’s working. For Woo Themes that use sliders on the home page, just refresh the home page. Every theme will be different, however, so click around and make sure you refresh as you do so you can be sure everything went according to plan.

Have You Backed Up and Upgraded Your WordPress Site Lately?

If you’re like a lot of people, you’ve been ignoring that “WordPress 3.2.1 is available! Please update now.” notification. And actually, it’s not always a bad idea to wait a little while before upgrading WordPress.

But… if you haven’t backed up your site lately, then you could find yourself in a bad situation when a hack like this or some other catastrophe occurs (e.g. web server failure, hosting company outage, etc…)

This is why we are offering a complete WordPress backup and upgrade service. We will:

  • Perform a complete backup of your WordPress database and files, including all plugins and themes
  • Upgrade the WordPress core to the latest version.
  • Upgrade your plugins & themes (where applicable), fixing any issues that may arise
  • Back it all up again.

You simply provide us with your hosting information… we take care of the rest! Your backup will be stored on your webserver and made available for you to download to another computer for safekeeping. And when we’re finished, your site will be running the latest version of WordPress with up-to-date plugins and themes! And all the for the low one-time fee of $97. Get Started Now.

WordPress Backup & Upgrade Service

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Help Boost Your Google Places Listing in Search Rankings

July 21, 2011

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Google Places Listings in Search Results

Google Places Listings in Search Results

While Google Places is most important if you’re serving one or more local markets, every business should have (and use!) at least one listing on Google Places. If you don’t have yours set up yet, these instructions will help you get started.

One you have your listing, however, how do you make sure it has good positioning in the search results?

Like any web property, your Google Places listing will improve in the search rankings when there are links to it. Any link will do, but an “anchor text” link will be even more effective. The secret of finding the URL (or address to link to) for your Google Places page is coming up in a minute. But first…

What is an “Anchor Text” Link?

Here’s a quick primer on the 2 basic types of links you can create (or receive) on the web. To illustrate, I’m going to refer to the product we recently released: The Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit in a Box …Without the Box!

I could send you to go look at this product on the web by providing a link directly to its address:

http://www.epiphanymarketing.com/the-ultimate-small-business-growth-kit-in-a-box-without-the-box/

Now… that’s an effective link (please feel free to share it with anyone & everyone!), but it’s a little lengthy and not very pretty… wouldn’t you agree?

A more appealing way to create the link is to use “anchor text.” Anchor text is the term for the word or phrase that is linked to content on the web. In the link above, there is no anchor text (OK… technically there is, but it’s identical to the URL so we won’t count it).

In the case of our product, a phrase that could be used to describe our kit might be:

incredibly valuable real-world marketing training

(Yes… I’m biased, but that doesn’t make me wrong!)

So here’s what a link might look like using anchor text: Please check out our incredibly valuable real-world marketing training for the 21st Century Small Business.

When you’re creating (or receiving) links on the web, the links will be of more value if they are anchor text links. The key is: the anchor text should be the phrase you’d like to see your content rank well on in the search results.

In other words, if I got more links just like the one above, I might expect the page containing our training program to rank well in Google search results for the phrase “incredibly valuable real-world marketing training.”

So… if you have a pest control business in Topeka, then you might want your Google Places page to rank well on the phrase “pest control Topeka.” In that case, you’d want other websites to link to your Google Places page using that phrase as the anchor text. Make sense?

How to Find the Real URL for Your Google Places Page

This is a little bit tricky. In most cases, when you visit your Google Places page, you’re actually going to be arriving on the page from a Google search. So… if you copy/paste the URL (or even use the “link” tool that Google provides you on the page), you’re going to have a really long URL that contains a whole bunch of data… including the specific search term you used. This won’t help you very much. So here’s the trick to it:

Search for your business on the map by going here.

Once you see the listing for your business… right-click on the link and choose “Open Link in New Window” or “Open Link in New Tab.” In most modern browsers, you should see one or both of those choices. The page that opens (in the new window or new tab) will have a URL that looks something like this:

Example: Google Places URL

In our case, http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=17650561483947767278&q=blablablablablablabla with a whole bunch of characters and stuff afterward.

The key is to highlight everything starting from the “http” on the left all the way through the series of numbers that comes after “cid” on the right. Stop when you see the ampersand (“&”) character. Like this:

Google Places URL - Highlighted

That means for us, I’m grabbing this: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=17650561483947767278

If the anchor text for us is “small business marketing strategists,” then here’s what a link would look like: small business marketing strategists. In the case of one of our good friends here in town, it might be acupuncture Sarasota.

This little-known secret about the actual URL for your Google Places page can be incredibly helpful… we’ll talk more about this in a future update! Feel free to post your questions in the comments.

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Promoting Your Brick & Mortar Business Online

June 30, 2011

3 Comments

According to Google:

97% of consumers search for local businesses online.

If you don’t have a solid plan for creating visibility for your business, those people looking for your products and services will find someone else instead of you.

So what can you do that doesn’t cost a fortune?

Many businesses that we work with are surprised to find out that a great many of the most effective tools you can use today to get visibility for your business are free! Some of the others are either relatively inexpensive or can be set up in a way that you’re only paying when you’re getting results.

Here’s a Great Example of Something You Can Do for Free

You have probably noticed by now that in the last year or so, Google began rolling out a change to the way local search results work. Instead of having a separate map showing up on the results page, the map listings have been merged with organic search results on many local searches.

Local Search with Merged ResultsFor example, in the picture here, I’ve run a search for a car wash in the city where we’re located. Google tries to show me relevant results from organic search as always.

What’s different now is that they are also giving me the locations of some of these businesses using the map on the right and “pins” with corresponding letters in the search results. We’ll refer to these as the “merged” listings, because the results are based on 2 things:

  • the natural organic position of the website corresponding to the business on the map (based on relevance to my search terms)
  • the rank of the map listing for the business based upon a variety of factors (including proximity, keywords, reviews, and more)

What makes this different is that you need to pay attention to your map listing because it is now affecting the rank of your website! Google may have already placed your business on the map using information they’ve gathered from other sources. If you haven’t already done so, it’s a good idea to claim your listing so that you can correct any inaccurate information and also provide additional details to help make the listing more relevant.

Here’s what to do:

1. Find your business listing on the map by searching for it at www.google.com/maps

Find Your Business on Google Maps

2. If you find it there, click on the name of your business in the list on the left side of the map view.

Click on Your Business Name

3. Click “Edit This Place” on the right-hand side above the map

Click 'Edit This Place'

If you don’t find your business already listed, then go here:

www.google.com/local/add

Either way, from there you’ll need to login to your Google account or create a Google account. Then you can follow the instructions to edit the information in your listing.

The steps above don’t cost you anything, take only a few minutes, and can make a big difference in your visibility.

The frustrating thing is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And where do you turn for good solid information about what you can be doing to gain visibility through:

  • search engine rankings
  • Facebook, Twitter & social media
  • mobile geo-targeted services like Foursquare, Facebook Places and even Google Maps
  • and other means?

Well… we’re here for you. In fact, that’s why we created this webinar taking place today at 1pm Eastern (replay available here). In fact, on the webinar we’ll be showing additional free options for promoting your business as well as some important strategy to increase your effectiveness! There are still a few spots left so you may still be able to get in if you register right away. Everyone who attends will be automatically entered into a drawing for $100 in free Google advertising!

This event is absolutely free. We do these from time to time because it’s a great way to introduce you to the small business marketing training programs we offer. There are no obligations and no strings attached, so register right now watch the replay so you don’t miss out on this valuable information!

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Free Webinar: The Latest Tools for Attracting Local Customers

June 27, 2011

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Free Webinar June 30th: The Latest Tools for Attracting Local Customers

Free Webinar June 30th: The Latest Tools for Attracting Local Customers

Do you sell your products & services to one or more specific local markets?

Have you convinced yourself that internet marketing doesn’t apply to your business because you serve a local audience?

Are you confused by all of the latest options available to get the word out?

Maybe you’ve wondered about:

  • How Google “Places” (map listings) affect your Search Engine Rankings
  • How to make Facebook work for your business
  • How “Check-ins” via geo-social networks like Foursquare and Facebook Places can help you get more business
  • How to deal with negative online reviews about your business

We’ve had so many business owners ask us these and other questions related to the unique challenges & opportunities available for getting more businesses in a local market, that we’ve put together a special free webinar this Thursday at 1pm Eastern replay here.

Who Should Attend?

If you own or manage one or more of these types of businesses:

  • retail businesses of any kind (with brick & mortar locations)
  • contractors & consumer services (plumbers, electricians, pest control etc.)
  • medical practices
  • even local B2B businesses

this event is for you. And best of all, we’re giving away this valuable information absolutely free!

In fact, we’ll have one of our existing clients live on the call so we can show you exactly what techniques you can use today to get results!

Space is extremely limited, so you’re going to want to RSVP early to make sure you have a spot check out the replay here.

All you need to attend is your computer (and a phone if your computer doesn’t have speakers). Reserve your spot right away! I’m looking forward to “seeing” you Thursday! 

The replay of this event will be available for a limited time. Be sure to watch it soon… we’ll be taking it down without notice. Hope you enjoy it!

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