16 Jun

Local marketing

You are probably hearing a lot about online local marketing especially if you are a small business owner.  Almost every SEO / SEM company that calls you is trying to sell you on having a spot on page 1 or getting you more leads by offering some spin on online marketing.

1. What is online local marketing? Basically online local marketing is something that is employed by small local businesses.  It is focusing your efforts on prospective clients that are located in the area that the product or service is available.  For example if you are located in San Clemente, California and you are looking for carpet cleaning – you wouldn’t want to be presented with carpet cleaning companies located in San Jose, CA in your search results.  You would want to see a list of San Clemente carpet cleaners presented.

2. How to you target your local area? First you are going to want to list your business on Google +, Maps, Yelp, Foursquare, Yahoo, etc.  Most of them allow you to choose a service area.  When you list your service area, San Clemente, CA for example, you would then select how many miles from San Clemente that your business is available – 5 miles, 10 miles, 35 miles, etc.  So when someone types in Carpet Cleaning San Clemente only businesses that service San Clemente will show up in the search results.

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09 Jun

Mobile Apps and Marketing

When creating the perfect strategy for your online marketing campaign, it’s important to keep mobile users in mind. And in doing so, you have got to think about the option of a mobile app and if it is really beneficial to your marketing strategy or not.

So, some of the great things about a mobile app are that it:

  • Keeps you at users fingertips. Honestly, it’s very easy to just open up the phone and tap your app to use your service
  • Makes you easily found. Most people with smart phones down load apps, and use them daily. If you are in the app store and someone searches for an app that does what you do, you can see your customer base increase from those downloads
  • It allows consumers to use your service easier. If you are the type of business where people repeatedly use your service, such as frequently downloading information, etc, then having an app where they can easily do that just makes your service that much easier to use.

With all of that being said, a mobile app is definitely not for everyone and every business. In fact, there are many sites who just will not benefit at all from having a mobile app.

Before you consider anything at all about the potential of your business having an app, you are going to need to look at the cost. Building an outstanding app with plenty of features can be very costly. Plus, you have to maintain it. There are going to be upgrades, bug fixes, adding and deleting information, etc. It is a lot harder to maintain than a website.

Also, you need to think about the usefulness of an app for your type of business. If your app is basically just going to contain information such as a list of services and some special offers, then an app isn’t really for you.

Mobile apps are designed for services that are meant to be utilized fairly consistently and repetitively. Think of ordering pizza and other types of services like that. If your app is something they will only use every once in a great while, then it will be deleted. And you really don’t want that.

If your business is the kind that isn’t really going to be good for a mobile app, then just focus on creating a great mobile site. Honestly, for the majority of online businesses, just creating a spectacular mobile site is really the way to go.

In the end, it really is up to you and your business on if using a mobile app is the right way to go. In my personal opinion, I would definitely weigh the costs and if it is actually going to be beneficial to your business before handing over the money though.

17 May

A Short Term Strategy to Internet Marketing

After spending a great deal of time and effort on developing a website, many wonder where they should begin with Internet marketing. Site proprietors could be bombarded with pitches about advertising and it is difficult to iron out what must be done. In this short article, a short-term marketing method is talked about.

Short-term Marketing Strategy

download (5)The single finest short term marketing approach is pay-per-click marketing campaigns. A “PPC” project merely entails positioning advertising campaigns on the web pages of internet search engines. Essentially, you open an account with the PPCs, develop a checklist of key phrases and create advertisements for those keyword phrases. Both ideal PPC channels are Google Adwords and Overture.

Google Adwords allows you put ads on Google search engine result. Along with its very own search engine, Google additionally provides search engine result to AOL and various other websites. When you produce your advertisements, you can prefer to position your advertisements on “content” or “search” outcomes. Select only “search” results till you are sure the advertising campaign and also your site converts traffic into incomes.

Yahoo purchased Overture a couple of years ago for 1.8 billion bucks. Overture locates advertising campaigns on search results page for MSN and Yahoo to name a few. To construct your ads, you look for keyword phrases from a checklist supplied by the PPC and create individual ads. It can take a long time, yet it deserves it.

Which PPC is Ideal?

Both Google and Overture have major advantages. Google will send out more traffic to your website compared to Overture. Getting your advertisement before AOL users is specifically helpful due to the fact that AOL users are purchasers. For whatever reason, they simply appear to be much more open to acquiring what you’re marketing.

If Google is so wonderful, why use Overture? In lots of ways, Overture has serious benefits over Google Adwords. Among the largest benefits includes the dimension of ads.

To efficiently run a profitable Pay Per Click project, you should obtain the optimum bang for your buck. One approach for doing this is to certify your web traffic by explaining information in your description. If you just lug one model of a product, state that so money isn’t really squandered with individuals who are seeking a different vehicle clicking your advertisement. With Google, you only get two to three words in your title and 8 to 10 in your description.

PPC  marketing is a tremendous short-term marketing strategy for a number or factors. Initially, the advertising gets web traffic to your website quickly. Second, it allows you to examine the ability of your website to convert traffic into bucks. If conversions are low, you can modify the website and also get instant responses.

If its time to get working with your marketing, research the Pay Per Click opportunities. Google Adwords and Overture have a whole lot to provide.

08 Apr

Creating a Killer Ad

web_ad_marketing_for_north_american_marketsCopywriting is an important aspect in advertising of any kind of item. More so in today’s world. Whether it’s on-line advertising and marketing or offline marketing, a good ad could indicate the difference between success and failure of a product. The ideas discussed below will give an understanding to a write a good Advertisement.

Writing a powerful Ad is crucial to optimal sales. Just what is good copy writing? And how can you write a good Advertisement?. Allow us to look at some fundamentals of excellent copy writing.

Understand the Customer:

It is important to understand the intent of the client as well as his/her business background. A good understanding helps to locate more regarding the consumer’s target audience.

The Product:

Complete understanding of the item for composing a copy or ad is really essential from the advertising and marketing point of view. Inquiries like– What is the item, the benefits, the objectives, the target market, the medium of advertising, what the studies speak about, the cost and the area of advertising. All these factors are straight linked with the item and it’s marketing.

The target audience:

To recognize the target audience, it is vital to understand the product and which age group the item is being targeted at. As soon as the age group is limited, the following actions would be to comprehend the mind of that age, the region they come from, tastes, and likes and dislikes are some of the factors that should be thought about prior to creating a stylish ad.

As the claiming goes … A thousand words do not make as big of an effect as one deed. A badly composed Ad could possibly ruin a good product and a properly created copy could possibly send out the sub-par item sales skyrocketing.

The next time you create an Ad copy consider these aspects and you’ll copy up with a Killer Ad.

12 Jul

What is SMO?

Social media optimization (SMO) is a great way to reach your customers and help increase your online marketing presence. While this strategy is somewhat similar to search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, the two do differ in terms of the results that can be achieved through their respective use.

jcblocalmarketing

Social media optimization is becoming increasingly popular as more and more users join the social media community. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the options are continuing to grow on the social media platform. This opens up a realm of opportunity when it comes to marketing your business online.

The first rule to keep in mind with SMO is that users typically go to social media without having a certain desired outcome in mind. For example, a user on Facebook may be scrolling through their newsfeed looking at their friends’ posts, keeping an eye out for local news, etc. Users on these sites are looking for community, peruse content, and connect with other users and friends. Keeping this is mind can help you strategize your social media campaigns.

Establishing yourself as a credible source on social media will help your marketing grow through various platforms. Make sure you appear credible, without using raw data. No one on social media wants to look at a list of statistics to learn that you are an expert in your field. Instead, use more qualitative ways to develop authority, rather than quantitative.

A huge opportunity for lead generation in SMO is engagement with your audience. Encouraging your audience to not only visit your site, give you business, and become a loyal customer, but to also reach out to their friends and tell them about how great you are! You know your business and you know your potential. Let your customers help you promote your business. The more you encourage them to like, share, and post, the more leads you are likely to generate. Keeping up  to date on these sites can be time consuming, but the benefit that can be achieved is definitely worth your time and energy.

The bottom line of any SMO is knowing your platforms. Use only the social media sites that your ideal customer might be using. Don’t waste your resources, in regards to your finances and your time, if you know that a particular avenue may not result in any leads for your business. Knowing your market and your platforms in social media will be the key to your success in SMO. Make your presence known to your audience, and maintain your presence regularly so that your business and SMO continue to grow.

The benefits of SMO are exponential. Using this form of online marketing is a great way to keep your company in the mind of your customers. Knowing how to use this correctly can take you to great places.

10 Jun

Free and Paid Traffic

When talking of web traffic there are two main categories – free and paid.

  • What is free traffic – Free traffic is basically people who find your website organically.  Typically, when we think of organic leads or traffic, we think of search engines and ranking and SEO and keywords. This is definitely one way to look at free traffic. However, visitors can come from word of mouth or other websites that are linking to you or even videos.
  • What is paid traffic – Paid traffic is what you “pay” to get eyeballs to your site.  It could be ads or social media advertising. Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc all offer paid advertising that are targeted specifically to the a demographic that is interested in your goods or services.

I find it interesting that people refer to organic visits as free.  It takes a lot of time and money  to get those organic leads. Word of mouth is one thing, but ranking and getting people coming to your site because you are found in maps, or because you are on page 1 of Google certainly isn’t free. 

If you are focusing on free / organic traffic here are some tips:

  • Content – Your content need to be original, good quality and frequently updated.  Search engines and humans  alike will love your site.
  • Citations – Get your business listed on as many reputable places as you can. Yellow pages, chamber of commerce, Angie’s list, etc.
  • Social Sites – Get your business on Facebook, Yelp, Google for business, Twitter, Pinterest. Invite your friends and go viral. Build a huge network and target your followers and supports.
  • Links – Try to get links to point to your site that are in the same niche and that are respected by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
  • Mobile – Make sure your website is mobile friendly.  If it isn’t,  your site will be ranked lower than other sites that are mobile friendly. Check to see if your site is mobile friendly. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

No matter how you get visitors to your site, free or paid – it will be well worth your time and money.

09 Jun

Welcome to my newbie marketing blog

I have jumped back into marketing with both feet.  But, instead of going back to corporate I am doing it from my kitchen table – in between school drop off and pick up, after school activities, play dates and summer vacation.

I managed to make some money one the side while I studied and experimented with online marketing.

I am not a blogger. But, I decided to help other people along with helping myself.  If you are new to blogging or curious about marketing for your business. I hope to enlighten you.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Hope to see you back here soon.