Local Business and SEO: Start an SEO Marketing Campaign With Keyword Research - Marketing Tip no 009

 

Local business owners who succeed with SEO marketing can compete in an ever-changing marketplace, and can keep their businesses operating and thriving, even during challenging times like these.  
If you’re new to SEO, it is understandable that you’ll have a lot of questions.  
When we talk about how SEO works, there is a lot of ground to cover.  Like anything else, you’ve got to have a starting point.  

Keyword research is one of the most important aspects to using SEO within the framework of your business.
Here are three things that will make the process of keyword research geared toward eventual SEO marketing a lot easier.  
Don’t worry – once you get started, you’ll find it’s easier than you may think.
Tools Are Important!
Google’s Adwords for small businesses costs a little money, but is one of the easiest, most comprehensive tools you can use to research keywords.  
If you want to get your SEO marketing campaign up and running quickly, hiring an expert to do the research for you can take the frustration as well as most of the time out of the process.  
While you might feel tempted to do SEO marketing research all on your own using free tools, keep the fact that your time is valuable in mind, and weigh the costs of using that time to do your research versus using your time in a more profitable way.
Get In The Back Door
If your business is in a specific niche – let’s say, restaurants in Washington, DC, then you might have a tough time trying to outrank top competition.  
So, shoot for the back door.  
Use the fact that many consumers use misspelled words, and keep that in mind while you’re looking for the right keywords to use within your SEO marketing plan.  
In addition, think about using words that competitors might not have thought of, and think about using various combinations of keywords to help your local business rank better. 

Be Specific!
Combine keywords so your site is easy for search engines to find.  
Using our DC restaurant example, let’s say you offer sushi.  
Use combinations of the words “sushi”, “Washington”, and “DC” instead of just using the word “sushi” to try to rank.  

Test this out for yourself:  Type “sushi” into your search box, and look at what comes up.  
Next, type “sushi Washington”, and you’ll see some better results.  
Finally, type “sushi Washington DC” and you’ll see a comprehensive list of restaurants that rank for sushi in DC.  

Failing to be specific is a major waste of time and money, so don’t skip this step!
With just a little knowledge of your own, as well as a clear goal in mind and a smattering of professional assistance, you can conduct your research quickly and start optimizing – it’s money well spent, especially when you consider the fact that SEO marketing is one of the best ways to make your business, whatever it may be, better than ever.

 Browse our Digital Marketing Services at https://www.RedCowAdvertising.com/

Is Your Local Business The Right Fit For Facebook Marketing?

 

More people now visit Facebook on a daily basis than Google and business experts often extol the benefits of local businesses having a presence on the site. But for all its massive popularity, does Facebook work for every kind of small business? 

 

Obviously one size doesn’t fit all, so while some types of small businesses may thrive on Facebook, others may be need to rethink their strategy.

Small businesses that are a natural fit for Facebook.

Facebook marketing works well for business that are either very social in nature, thrive on community interaction, or offer entertainment value. This is because Facebook is primarily a social site where people connect with their friends. 

So here are some local businesses or organizations that will find Facebook beneficial:
• Hospitality businesses- coffee shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, vacation homes, food trucks, food and beverage brands
• Entertainment- bands, artists, stand-up comedians, actors, museums, opera houses, cinemas
• Sports- sports teams, sportsmen, sporting clubs
• Leisure- theme parks, social game clubs like bingo, bowling or chess clubs
• Community organizations- churches, religious groups, non-profits
All these type of businesses can easily create a local and national fanpage following and easily gain a lot of online exposure through their dedicated fans. They can create a lot of repeat business as people “like” their page or as fans check-in at their premises

Small businesses that may not be the best fit for Facebook and what they can do about it
Facebook marketing may not work too well for small businesses that deal with products or services that people don’t ordinarily get excited about. Hardly anyone really likes hospital visits or posts about their local plumber. Here are some businesses that fall into this category:
• Medical professions- dentists, hospitals, clinics, chiropractors, vets, funeral homes etc
• Financial- accountants, financial planners, insurance agents etc
• Blue collar professions- plumbers, electricians, builders, cleaners etc
• Legal- lawyers, detectives, police, criminal investigators etc

As you can see most “serious and respectable” professions fall in this category, but this doesn’t mean there is no place for them on Facebook. The greatest asset these small business owners have is their specialized expertise that they can use to become the go-to expert in a niche. They just need to find a creative way to offer their advice. 

For example,
• a tax accountant can create a page –“How to Legally pay less taxes”
•  a plumber can create a page about “The world’s dirtiest jobs”
• A detective can create a page about “How to know if your spouse is cheating on you”

These creative strategies address people’s natural need to know more, their need to do things faster or cheaper and other psychological emotions that are the basis of human social behavior.
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Converting Website Visitors To Customers: Persuasive Copy Counts!

 

When you first built your website, or had someone build it, you probably had high hopes.  After a while, you notice traffic starting to drop, so you decided that it was time to revamp your site and add some fresh content.  

The question is, how do you convert site visitors (traffic) to customers?  The answer, my friend, is with that good old sales trick: 

Persuasion.  
Effective Persuasion 101
Every page of your site, and every element of your site, needs to draw your visitor in.  You want to be intriguing, and you want to offer them something useful.  To do that, you need to do some very specific things.  

First, assume that your visitors are brand new. They don’t know anything about your business. It doesn’t matter if you own the most popular game in town.  You want new customers! 

Second, realize that people don’t read every single word you’ve penned.  They skim.  Make your site easy to navigate, or frustration will set in within seconds, and your visitors will leave.  Make the important stuff attractive.  Give visitors a reason to click, and don’t hide the good stuff beneath layers of fluff. 

Call To Action: Built in Persuasion
“Hard” calls to action tell visitors to do something.  Visitors are urged to click a link, or take action right away.  Avoid flashing red lights, or anything else that might annoy visitors – overkill just doesn’t work. 

“Soft” calls to action, like built in links that simply highlight interesting words, make your visitors curious.  It’s the old “What’s behind door number one?” routine all over again – they want to know, so they click.  

Keep the end goal in sight, all the time.  Your “contact us” form shouldn’t be hidden – it should be accessible from every part of your site.  Visitors won’t go out of their way to contact you if they can’t find it, and they definitely won’t convert if that’s the case. 

Make it Easy On Yourself
Luckily, you’re not in it alone.  There are plenty of excellent internet marketing companies that specialize in helping small businesses optimize their websites to get customers in the door.  So, keep doing what you do best, and let a professional handle the tough stuff.  You’ll be glad you did!

3 more ways Facebook can grow your local business - SEO tip

 

1.  Positions your business as an authority
This is definitely one way to brand your local business by positioning it as an authority in your niche. This especially works well with professionals who run their own businesses because of the specialized and in-depth knowledge you have about a particular industry or niche. 

Examples of such professionals can be accountants, financial planners, engineers, professors, doctors, lawyers, counseling psychologists, therapists, etc. Facebook can provide a great avenue to create a brand around your professional career and a way for people to get your expert advice online.

2. Increases sales leads
Most business owners often don’t understand how Facebook can generate more sales leads to their business, but there are some simple ways to do that.
• First of all you can offer coupons for free deals or knock-off sales. Actually Facebook provides the fastest way to communicate those special deals as you simply post a status update about the offer that shows up on all the news feeds of your fans who then pass it on virally to their friends.
•  Another way to generate more sales is to direct traffic to your online store that you may have on your website. Once again it is as simple as posting status updates with a link to your website page for a specific product.
•  Another way Facebook can increase your sales leads is that you can create events to be held at your local business and get people to register free to attend. You can then make back-end sales at the actual event.
• You can use Facebook Ads and geotarget them to show within the locale of your local business so that you can reach the local population closest to your offline store.


3. Gathers high quality testimonials
All copywriters agree that one of the secrets to high converting sales and marketing campaigns is to have testimonials because it is one of the best ways to convince prospects to do business with you. People prefer to do business with a local business that has many happy customers, so that they don’t feel like they are a guinea pig for your business to test products and services on. As a small business owner, you can easily get client testimonials from your business fanpage by getting in touch with fans who have written about a positive experience with your business on their post. More often than not, these testimonials are real and verifiable because they have the photo and name of the client and the client can be contacted freely by your prospects on Facebook.

4 possible ways Facebook can grow your local business when used correctly

 

1. Generates more traffic to your website
Once you have gathered fans onto your business fanpage, it is easy to direct them to your website. This is done by providing links to content that can only be found on your website such as articles or blog posts, entry forms, video’s, squeeze pages, etc. In addition by using keywords in your Facebook name, status updates and anchor text links, you build more backlinks to your website and improve its ranking on the search engines.

2. Generates more traffic to your offline store
You can drive traffic to your offline store by promoting coupons, sales deals, and events on your Facebook fanpage so that people have to come to your store to redeem those coupons or attend those events. Another way Facebook can bring more foot traffic to your store is through the “check-in” apps. These work in such a way that when a customer comes to your store, they send an update to all their friends on their social media network that they have checked in to your business. This provides free marketing for your business since your store will get free publicity.

3. Improves your repeat business
Facebook allows you to have a database of fans who will buy over and over again from you. Just like email lists have the ability to provide repeat business every time you send out an email, your local business fanpages is also made up people who have experienced interacting with your business either socially or commercially and who are likely to keep doing so.

4. Increases the number of referrals you receive
If your local business provides good quality products and services, then your fans will spread the good word about you to their network of friends. The quickest way they do this is by “liking” your page and this shows up on the newsfeeds of all their friends. This generates curiosity from their friends who want to find out which business their friends have just liked and this creates a ripple effect as more and more people get to know about your business all from one satisfied customer ‘liking’  your page.

5 Places on the Internet to Get New Ideas for Your Local Business: Part 1

 

The internet is a large goldmine of valuable information where you can get new ideas for your local business, but only if you know where to look for it. Here is a list of the top 9 places you can get new ideas to boost your local business.

1. News websites
News websites not only provide up-to-date breaking news, but a whole range of news articles on a wide variety of topics, niches and industries. They cover everything from politics, economics, environment, weather, industry and health to humor, lifestyle and entertainment. Try reading Yahoo.com, Huffington Post, CNN.com, Time.com and other major news sites.

2. Google Trends
This is the one of the most important tools on the internet that tells you what topics are being highly searched on, on any given day. As an astute local business owner, you can easily cash on hot trends that relate to your local business.

3. Google Shopping
If your local business deals mainly in products then this is the resource for you. This free tool gives you information on the most popular products in different categories that people are shopping for on Google. Armed with this knowledge you can modify your physical stock to conform to these demands and alter your online marketing strategy to tap into this market.

4. Business websites
There are many high-quality business websites that serve the needs of small and medium businesses. They have articles, stories, and resources that are tailored for local businesses that will not only educate you but also inspire you. They include sites such as Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com amongst many others.

5. Google insights
This free tool provides search trends across global geographical locations and time ranges. You can filter down the geographical location to the country, state, city and town. You can also discover the specific times within the week, month or year when searches are highest or lowest. You can also filter your results by category (e.g. automotive, food and drink, shopping, social media etc) and by search type (web, image, news and product search type).

5 Ideas To Help You Create Fresh Facebook Content

 

Almost all internet marketers agree that content is king. It’s what keeps people informed, entertained and coming back for more. It’s like food that feeds your fans keeping them happy and satisfied, catering to their peculiar tastes and hitting that sweet spot of need. 

But most local business owners balk at creating content- they either hate writing or can’t seem to generate ideas for content.

Here are some ideas to help you create great content:

Give the Facts
Look for facts that will educate your fans and then try and communicate it in a fascinating way. For example you can create a series of “did you know” articles or “world record” posts. Of course these facts should be relevant to your niche.

Tell A Story
Everybody loves a good story. Nothing rivets our attention like a well told story that’s relevant and entertaining. Look for stories about products and people in your niche. You can draw from current news stories like celebrities or viral YouTube videos or you can retell historical stories that will charm your readers.

What’s New?
People always what to be in the know about the latest gadget, invention, technology or update. So be on the lookout for the latest developments in your industry and use that as material for your content. One way to do this is to sign up to Google Alerts; it’s a service from Google that alerts you via email of the most up-to-date web and news content based on the topic you choose.

Create an Event Diary
This works especially well with the social nature of Facebook. Check the dates and venues for industry events that are happening both online and offline, then create a diary for the week or month and you’ll find your fans eager to receive the latest event list from your local business.

A must-have list
Every profession or trade has a must-have list of essential resources such as tools, ingredients, must-visit websites and blogs. As a local business owner, you can be creative and write different must-have lists after researching your niche. For example, a restaurant owner can create a table etiquette resource, a wine list or cutlery checklist. 

A gym owner can write on the essential things to have in your gym bag while a doctor can create a medical information check-list to have before going for surgery.