How Employing The Services Of An SEO Consultant Can Win You More Local Custom

If attracting more local customers to your business is important to you, then an SEO consultant could help you achieve your goals faster than you might think.

Let’s say you’re running the type of business where local custom is vital to you. In fact, it’s the lifeblood of your business – because 100 per cent of your custom comes from within a five-mile radius of where you are based.

To illustrate the point, let’s say you run your own driving school based in Newbury. You need your driving school to feature in the top search engine results for driving schools in Newbury. So whenever someone types: “driving schools Newbury”, into their search box, you want your company to come out top of the pile (or at least on Google’s first page).


We know for a fact that most people who conduct global searches won’t venture past the first two pages of search results. In a local context, however, being returned among the top 10 results is even more crucial.

If our driving school business does not appear on the first page of Google (i.e. the first 10 search listings) when a potential customer types in “driving schools Newbury”, then more than likely, business which could have gone to our driving instructor will go to somebody else.

Of course there are many other considerations with keywords too. A person wanting to learn to drive might not use our standard search term. She might use: “learn to drive Newbury”, “driving instructors Newbury”, or “pass my theory test Newbury”. We are assuming in all cases that the location will be an essential part of the search term as anyone wanting to learn to drive will want a service which is local.

It’s vital that our business owner thinks like a customer rather than a business owner. So what steps can our driving instructor reasonably take to ensure that his driving school business can compete with his local rivals?
Find out what keywords/ search terms his customers use most frequently.

Use Google’s Keyword Tool or Wordtracker which offers a 7-day free trial (great for determining long-tail keywords strategies).
Using these specific keywords and search term suggestions push his website up the rankings.

One of the benefits of ranking highly in the search engines for local companies is that those people searching for your product or service are more likely to be ‘primed to buy’ than those who search globally. People who search globally could be looking for information or making price comparisons, but those who actually enter a specific location can be considered ‘qualified buyers’.

It’s well worth spending time researching your customers’ online behaviour patterns so you can plan your marketing strategies accordingly. Don’t they say that “time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted?”

If you’d like some assistance with SEO techniques that will help more customers find you rather than your competitors, you can trust an experienced SEO consultant to drive your website into pole position.

How Creating A Compelling ‘Vision Statement’ Can Benefit Small Business Marketing

We’re not Virgin or Coca-Cola, why would we need a vision statement?”

“Vision statements . . . mission statements . . . aren’t they just whimsical phrases big companies put out to impress investors?”

“I’ve got a small business which employs five people . . . a vision statement seems, well, a tad fanciful.”

Fine. Having a vision statement is of course entirely optional, though it can be just as helpful for the sole trader as the multinational concern.

A vision statement can be both aspirational and inspirational. It will be at the heart of your small business marketing strategy.

So what is the difference between a mission statement and our vision statement?

Mission Statement: Defines what’s wrong with the world and how you intend to fix it.

Vision Statement: How the world looks after you’ve fixed it.

For example:

Microsoft: “To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.”

Google: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Harley-Davidson: “We fulfil dreams inspired by the many roads of the world by providing remarkable motorcycles and extraordinary experiences. We fuel the passion for freedom in our customers to express their own identity.”

The best vision statements are truly personal to a business rather than generic.

To begin to define your own vision statement for your business think about your ‘brand story’ to date. What are your hopes and dreams for your business? How might you articulate your vision in one or two concise sentences?

Once you have created your vision statement, share it with everyone connected to you: management, associates, team members, investors, customers, suppliers and include it on your website, blog and other marketing materials. You can also build it into your email signature and company newsletter if you have one.

If you would like some help with creating a knockout vision statement that truly represents your brand, your friendly business marketing specialist will be delighted to sit down with you and create something uniquely memorable.

It’s quite likely also that if you’ve been in business for some while that the vision statement you started out with will have changed over time. So don’t be afraid to revise an outdated vision statement so that you are working to a vision which accurately reflects your business today.

To sum up, a vision statement isn’t just for big household brands. It can be a useful working tool for keeping your business and marketing plans firmly on track . . . the beating heart of your brand in action.

Article Directories and Publishing Articles

As part of a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, many companies go down the route of writing articles to publish online. The theory is that unique, interesting content can draw visitors to your site along with boosting the site’s ranking on search engine results pages. In fact, article publishing is held in such esteem that any SEO company you enlist the help of will likely suggest it as an integral part of your optimisation process.
              
The dilemma for many companies is whether to publish the articles on their own site or use dedicated article directory websites.

The benefit of using an article directory is that your quality articles will be exposed to a large audience; potentially far larger than your company’s site currently reaches. The general idea of the directories is that website owners publish content for others to use and copy. It is usually free or at least cheap to publish the articles and in return you receive links back to your website.

On the other hand there are some potential drawbacks. Firstly, if you publish a top notch article through an article site, the majority of internet traffic it generates will be for the article directory site itself. Readers of the article are much more likely to link the content with your company if it is published on your own website.

Moreover, the users of your website will actually have to navigate away from your site to read the article.

Finally, anyone that links to that article from their own site will only be improving the search engine ranking of the article directory and not your site!

So is there any point in using article directories at all then?

In a nutshell, yes there is. Despite the potential drawbacks, if you submit content sensibly there is no reason you cannot benefit from submitting your articles to online directories.

Firstly, keep the best content for yourself, particularly if it is likely to generate incoming links. Post your good content on article directories and never publish anything that has been copied or is poorly written.

In addition, check that the article directory you are using includes a link back to your own site somewhere in the article. This way there is at least a chance that your articles will generate traffic towards your website.

Finally, do not publish individual articles in more than once place as search engines tend to use only one version in their rankings. If someone copies your article then fine, do not lose any sleep over this. Reposting your own content though is a waste of your time.

To conclude, article directories can certainly be used as part of an SEO strategy if treated with caution and care. For a full SEO package, consider enlisting the help of an SEO company or talk to leading marketing companies who will be able to draw up a comprehensive plan to increase your search engine ranking. Meanwhile, if you are looking for somewhere to start, article directories like Ezine Articles and Buzzle are widely regarded as two of the best.

Social Media Advertising – Which Sites Should I Target?

With millions internet users of all ages logging onto social network sites every single day, it is no wonder that social media advertising has exploded over the last few years. It can form an integral part of any business’ marketing strategy and be an extremely cost effective way to sell your brand and image to a mass audience. The question is then, which sites should a company target?

In short, the answer is that it entirely depends on the type of company, its target audience and the style of advert it wishes to run. Internet marketing companies often specialise in social media advertising and to make the most out of the tool you may want to consider enlisting their help. Meanwhile, here are some of the most popular social networking sites and why they might be suitable for your company’s advertising campaign.

Facebook

The largest social networking site on the internet is Facebook, boasting over 900 million active members worldwide. Its users range from as young as 13 years old to over 100, meaning almost every possible demographic is represented on the site.

The adverts are either based on a cost per impression basis or cost per click, meaning you can choose to improve your company’s brand awareness or increase sales. There is also a tool to control how much you spend on advertising each day, meaning you can carefully monitor your budget and how effective the advert is.

One of the beauties of Facebook is that adverts can be tailored to specifically target an individual audience as niche as the football team they support. Also, by building up a community around your business page, you can quickly develop a completely free fan base with whom to share your company’s good news, promotions and special offers.

Youtube

 Youtube is another fantastic place to advertise your business. Uploading videos is completely free whilst the cost of monitoring them can be carefully managed. Anyone on the internet can watch your videos making the potential audience gigantic.

The site offer a service called ‘TrueView’ that, coupled with Google’s Adwords system, means you can specifically target an audience with your videos and advertisements. The TrueView tool means you only pay for the videos that are watched by your specified target audience!

By regularly uploading advertisements, press releases and other videos from your company to YouTube you can quickly establish a following. If a video becomes popular, users will quickly share it across the internet meaning it will be seen by millions of viewers in a matter of days or even hours.

LinkedIn

Finally, LinkedIn is a social networking site aimed at professionals and those seeking professional positions within a whole host of different industries. It is much more suited for more serious advertising campaigns although, with 150 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is still home to a huge number of potential target audiences.

Companies also use the site to advertise job vacancies due to the nature of its demographic. Nevertheless, it can be an excellent place to commercially advertise your brand or product.

Once again, advertising can be paid for on a cost per click or cost per impression basis.

These are just three of the many social networking sites around and an internet marketing strategy should certainly at least entertain the idea of advertising in at least one or two of these locations.

If you are aiming for a comprehensive marketing package, establishing a relationship with one of the internet marketing companies around is certainly the best way to go. Be sure to ask them about their social media policies before you sign up.