You are here: Home / Archives for 2011

Archives for 2011

September 23, 2011 by

How A Good Search Engine Marketing Service In Dallas Will Help You

What A Search Engine Marketing Service In Dallas Should Explain To You

Many local Dallas area business owners complain that they get calls, direct mail postcards, and other solicitations from people “promising to rank them number 1 on the search engines.”  These owners often complain that they don’t believe any of what is said, and they stick with (what they believe is) “tried and true” marketing in local Dallas area magazines, chamber of commerce meetings, and TV spots.  Sadly, these owners are mistaken because the internet marketing solicitations they receive are not “apples to apples” and, therefore, the owners get denied good, quick education on what the search engines can do for them.  Here is a quick list of what a good search engine marketing service in Dallas can provide.

First, you want to make sure that a good Dallas search engine marketing firm explains to you the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)!  Knowing the definitions of what you are being sold is the first step!

SEO refers to getting your website’s pages (not just your home page) to rank well in the search engines for keyword phrases which have actual quantified demand.  This latter part will be discussed in a moment.  SEM refers to getting your company’s name and/or message on the first page of the search engines for the same phrases, but this also includes getting your other web properties (e.g. business directory listings, YouTube channel or specific videos) to rank well in addition to getting listed on the Maps/Places listings.  SEM also includes the pay-per-click (PPC) placement for the same phrases.

The “takeaway” is that Search Engine Optimization is a sub-set of Search Engine Marketing, and many Dallas small business owners have not yet been properly educated on this difference.  No matter which Dallas online marketing firm or consultant you choose, please be sure to understand this difference!  Make sure that you are getting a good amount of value for your marketing budget.

Next, a good Dallas SEM service will help you with thorough keyword research.  This means getting you ranked for phrases which people actually type into the search engines with some sort of decent monthly volume (i.e. “Demand”).  From there, the firm should provide you with at least some form of figures on the competition against that demand (i.e. “Supply”).  This will help you to choose the specific phrases for which to optimize and create content; and you can further refine which phrases on which you will spend time and money to be indicative of a likely customer who will buy, join your e-mail newsletter, walk into your store, etc.

For example, if you are a plumber then you would love to rank # 1 in the search engines for “Dallas plumber”.  That phrase, however, might be too competitive for you to rank well based on your current content, number of people linking to you, and your budget.  Instead, you may wish to pursue ranking well for a phrase which still has some demand such as “24 hour plumber Dallas”.  If you rank well for that phrase, chances are that you are going to get some late night calls to fix the problem right away!

A good search engine marketing service in Dallas also will provide you with options so that you get a customized strategy.  For example, you may be sitting on some really helpful “how to” or “tips” videos you recorded last year but they are still applicable to the end viewer.  Your SEM firm can help you optimize your videos, your video channel, and the descriptions of your videos when you decide to upload them to a video-sharing site.  The SEM service can then help you optimize the video content for specific cities and towns and turn them into titles such as “Dallas Plumber Shows You How To Shut Off The Water In An Emergency.”

The next element of a helpful search engine marketing service in Dallas is to explain the benefits on-page and off-page optimization.  The “off page” component is the creation of helpful, quality content which is used to drive traffic to a web property you control (e.g. your home page, Facebook page, YouTube channel) to encourage the website visitor to take your desired “call to action” step.  You should be advised on how to change that destination page(s) including adding the keywords to the various “tags” on that destination page.  This is known as “on page SEO”.

Another trait of a helpful SEM firm is one which will help you understand that a website’s aesthetics (appearance) is NOT the “end all” when it comes to web marketing.  The appearance primarily affects what is known as “conversion rate”, and it is possible that a very pretty, fancy website actually could HURT your intended call to action.  This is because your DFW audience may expect content on a consistent basis.  If you invest most of your money on the website’s appearance, yet leave little for content generation then you may alienate your audience.

The “takeaway” is that you must get into the heads of your primary audiences, whether they are current customers or prospective customers.  Your SEM firm should explain ways in which you can better identify these elements if you are not yet familiar with them.

Should you decide to pursue online paid advertising, of which pay per click is only one method, then the Dallas SEM firm should explain your options.  For example, if you want to appeal to people in Frisco then you might consider a few things which a traditional SEO firm wouldn’t explain to you:

  • You have the ability on Google’s search network (ads which appear on Google.com) to restrict your ads to certain zip codes and a geographic radius around them
  • You can modify your ad to have the keyword in the ad
    • From there, you must send the “click traffic” to an optimized page for the same keyword.  If not, you risk incurring a form of “surcharge”
  • Google has a “display” or “content” network on which you can place your ads on websites OTHER than the Google.com search results
    • These can be targeted for specific keywords such as “Frisco TX” or specific websites which accept Google ads
  • You could skip the search engines entirely and pay for ads on sites which rank well in the search engines for the city-specific phrase
    • For example, you could buy ads on Frisco-online.com if you specifically want to target Frisco
  • You might be able to pay for certain advertising in your Google Places listing
  • You could pay for advertising on the Yahoo and Bing search engines, although their rules are slightly different than Google’s
  • You could pay for advertising on the lesser-used search engines, but the quality of traffic might be better.  This is a case-by-case basis

Finally, a good search engine marketing firm in Dallas will help you track results.  Whether it is something as basic of based on the improvement in your rankings all the way to advanced split-testing for landing pages, make sure that you get at least some form of measurable results.  In addition, do whatever you can to make sure that the SEM firm accounts for mobile phone usage in addition to desktop and laptop users.

I hope that all of these elements help you better choose a professional search engine marketing service in Dallas.  If you have any questions, or need clarification on anything presented, then you are welcome to contact me.  Thank you.

 

 

Filed Under: internet marketing, online marketing, search engine marketing, SEO Tagged With: , , , , ,
September 13, 2011 by

QR Codes For Dallas Fort Worth Businesses

QR Codes For Dallas Fort Worth Businesses

During the past few weeks at one of the local DFW chamber of commerce regular meetings, I kept getting asked about QR Codes.  These seem to be a source of confusion for many business owners, so I will help you clarify them and why they can be useful in multiple ways.

First, “QR” stands for “Quick Response.”  These two-dimensional (2D) bar code graphics allow someone with a 2D bar code reader on his/her mobile phone to scan the image and be taken to a number of different things on the internet.  These destinations can be:

  • Some page on your website (e.g. your home page, a contact page)
  • A third-party web property you control (e.g. your Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter page)
  • To your contact information in the form of a vCard or something similar
  • Your listing on Google Maps (or other search engine maps sites)
  • An article about your business on another website
  • A “check in” service like Foursquare.com
  • Multiple other destinations

For example, this QR code goes to my YouTube channel:

Dallas YouTube Marketing QR CodeThe big thing to remember about QR codes is that they simply act like a regular link on the internet; and that link can take someone in the physical world to any destination you wish online.  The best part is that you can enhance the visitor’s experience by customizing content to match the mindset of the visitor at the time of the scanning.

Here are some examples of how you, as the business executive, can utilize QR codes:

  • If you are at a business networking meeting, you can put a QR code on the back of your business card which gives helpful tips about your business.  This builds trust in you and your company
  • If you run a retail store then you can have your customers scan a QR code in order to leave a review on your Google Maps/Places listing or your Yahoo Local listing
  • Print advertising can have QR codes on them and give readers customized coupons or other incentives
  • T-shirts now can have QR codes on them.  This will help if you give them away at trade shows so that prospects can get helpful information about your business as it relates to the specific show
  • Chamber of commerce groups can put the codes on flyers at meetings.  The visitor can be taken to pages such as the calendar of events, messages from the chamber president, etc.

Have lots of flexibility with these codes, and there are other types of 2D bar codes for different uses.  Remember, that the QR code does NOT have to go directly to your home page.  Often, it is better if the code sends the visitor to something OTHER than your home page in order to enhance the visitor’s experience.  ALWAYS give value with your QR codes, and do what you can to add value to the visitor.

Finally, a great element about QR codes is that they have some tracking capabilities.  This now allows you to begin to track print advertising, billboard advertising, T-shirt giveaways, coffee mugs, and any other type of marketing you do in the physical world.  You can stick with those marketing efforts which produce results and cut back on those which do not work in your specific market.

If you need any help with customizing a QR code strategy for your specific business then please contact me to set a time to talk.  I hope that this quick article helps you better understand the merits of QR codes and how they may help you achieve specific goals for your business.

Filed Under: Mobile, QR code Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
August 30, 2011 by

Big Picture Of Online Marketing For Local Small Businesses

On the new FAQ page, I recently added an article for local small business owners and how they can better understand the “big picture” of online and internet marketing.  They article covers four major topics:

You are welcome to contact me with your questions and how internet marketing might benefit you in your specific situation.  Also, feel free to send me your online marketing-related challenges so that I can take the answers for future questions on the FAQ page

Filed Under: internet marketing, online marketing Tagged With: , , ,
August 26, 2011 by

Intelligent Internet Marketing For Plano Texas and The Nearby Cities

When A Plano Business Executive or Owner Needs Internet Marketing

If you own or manage a business in Plano Texas, or the nearby communities of McKinney, Allen, Frisco, Richardson, or Carrollton then there are several ways you can use intelligent internet marketing and other online marketing techniques to help your business.  While most internet marketing firms will focus on using internet marketing for lead generation, there are several other benefits.

These benefits include:

  • Helping your retail location get more customers by having clear driving directions
  • Asking your current customers to leave positive reviews on various local web properties including Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Merchant Circle and more
  • Split testing your website (e.g. A/B split testing) to improve conversion rates
  • Surveying your current and previous customers to improve your value and build goodwill
  • New revenue models by offering upsells to your own products and services, or recommending third-party products and services which you endorse to your current clients/customers as well as first-time website visitors
  • Online reputation monitoring and refuting negative reviews
  • Staying on top of industry trends and breaking news
  • Increasing prospective customer, and current customer, contact lists to increase your business’ valuation
  • Allowing your employees a creative outlet to promote the company by respectful and value-added use of social media properties
  • Competition research
  • Reducing current marketing costs including online and television, radio, print, and live event
  • Marketing your open-to-the-public live events better and giving attendees a reason to become “fans” of your business
  • Marketing to your strengths such as your voice (podcasts and online radio), camera presence and charisma (typical video marketing), creativity (entertaining videos and unique social media strategy), writing (article marketing and blogging), etc.

This is just a short list of the benefits which any internet marketing firm serving Plano, McKinney, Allen, Frisco, and other North Dallas businesses should emphasize.  While it is always terrific to rank # 1 in the search engines for a particular keyword phrase (e.g. “Plano pizza restaurant”), online marketing can offer any local business owner so much more.

The “take away” from this blog post is to ask any person who offers some form of Plano internet marketing (SEO, pay-per-click, video creation, video optimization, etc.) to talk with you about YOUR specific challenges.  If the person cannot customize something to your specific situation then consider moving onto the next professional.  Before you hire anybody, or do the actions yourself, be VERY CLEAR on the reasons why you are pursuing a specific internet marketing strategy.

Please refrain from getting caught up in a particular strategy specific to a specific website.  Even though “advanced Facebook marketing” may sound appealing, if you do not know what you are doing – and do not have the time nor inclination to play the rules of helpful social media etiquette – then stay away from such a strategy even if your best friend is doing well with it.  Remember that all of this, no matter how dynamic and unique, should be designed to address your specific short-term situation as well as giving you a platform to expand into the mid-term.

Feel free to contact me with your questions about your specific situation.  You also are welcome to look at the FAQ for common questions which I, and other internet marketing professionals, tend to get on a consistent basis.

Thank you, and I hope that this blog post will help you get a better understanding of how to view internet and online marketing for any business in Plano and the nearby communities.

Filed Under: internet marketing, online marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
August 9, 2011 by

Public Relations And Crisis Communications For Small Businesses

I often get asked how to announce new products, services, locations, and other “awareness” type of online marketing questions.  While Facebook and Twitter are good starts, they are nowhere near the complete picture, especially if you are looking for long-lasting links to your website and other web properties.  Knowing how to leverage online public relations is a smart way to build your business and awareness of any new benefits to your prospective and current customers.

In addition, I often get asked about what to do if something goes wrong and public perception swings against the business.  I will cover online reputation management for small businesses in greater detail elsewhere on this site, but crisis communications management is something every small business executive should understand, even if only minimally.

This link will take you to a short report (under 10 pages) helping you on both topics, and it is free to download with no need to give your e-mail address or join a social network page.  If you like it then you are free to distribute the report (or link) to anyone you wish:

Filed Under: public relations, reputation Tagged With: , , , , ,
May 28, 2011 by

YouTube Marketing and Optimization In Dallas

One of the most overlooked areas I see when helping local businesses in the Dallas, Plano, Fort Worth, McKinney, Frisco, and Arlington Texas areas is marketing their businesses through a video-sharing site such as YouTube.  While many businesses like focusing on pure SEO, e-mail marketing, and social media marketing on sites like Facebook and Twitter they neglect the one medium which can be used to enhance their efforts on all of those area:  video marketing, optimization, and syndication.

After talking with many business owners they appear to be scared to go on video, and they personally do not like the “Talking Head” videos they see all the time.  They also feel that video is costly and will produce a ROI for their efforts.  This is the furthest thing from the truth!

Remember that the job of a video on a site outside of your own website (such as YouTube) has one goal:  to “warm up” (“pre-frame”) the viewer to take the desired call-to-action you want.  If you want people to show up at your store then you must build trust in the video in order to entice people to show up at your store.  If you want someone to join a mailing list after clicking a link in the description field then you must build enough trust and incentive for the viewer to click that link.  Again, it is about making sure that the video always is adding value and building trust in your brand, expertise, and whatever else you want to promote!

This means that your videos, in order to build trust, do not have to feature you at all!  They can be:

  • Screen capture (walk-through) videos
  • Testimonial videos
  • Feature a spokesperson
  • Feature customers or employees showing the benefits of your products or services
  • Animation-type videos
  • Narrated slide show videos
  • Music slide show videos
  • Any other type of video which adds value and gives the viewer incentive to take the desired call-to-action

One of the biggest problems I have faced when dealing with business owners in the Dallas area is that they get entirely wrapped up in the “content” of their videos… and they forget the “structure” of why the video is being made in the first place!  That is to get the viewer to take the intended call-to-action.  Instead, many owners get excited about the “cool graphics” and production quality of the videos they have created.  When I ask them about how excited they are regarding the “structure” (system) to give those videos exposure then I usually get a blank stare.

If you are a business owner reading this then please remember that the “structure” you need to give your videos exposure is the TOP priority.  While great video content is terrific, and good quality videos will be shared (hopefully) with others who may be qualified prospects, you need to have a method in place to give your videos exposure.  The following four topics will give any business owner an edge in marketing your videos which are hosted on YouTube or anywhere else on the internet:

  • Video Optimization — Do your keyword research here!  Determine what people are seeking in Google and the other search engines as well as within YouTube itself.  There are 4 ways to optimize ANY video in YouTube; and there are additional features within the uploading process which can give you the ability to “leap frog” your competition, especially for a local keyword such as “Dallas Texas pizza”.  Also, determine if your YouTube channel is properly optimized.  If not, it could hurt your chances of gaining more exposure
  • Video marketing — Do you have a plan of driving quality links and traffic to both your videos AND your channel?  Remember that a television station’s goal is to gain as many viewers as possible, and they do this by promoting both their shows as well as their station’s identity.  You should follow this same process by driving quality traffic to your channel and your videos from sites outside of the video-sharing website.  For example, create a helpful article which gets syndicated through article directories AND also has the link in the resource (bio) box sending traffic to your video or channel.  In the worst case scenario, do you have a plan to buy cheap traffic which is at least somewhat qualified through Google’s Display Network Pay-Per-Click system?  This can boost your view count and help you leap frog your competition if you know what you are doing
  • Video Syndidcation — Do you, as the business owner or executive, have a plan to take full advantage of “syndication” tools?  For example, what are you doing with the RSS feed for your video site’s channel?  Are you embedding the video inside upcoming press releases, assuming that the video is relevant?  Do you have a social bookmark network created or outsourced so that very quickly you can have links being shared to the new content?  Do you have a blog created, with its own syndication capabilities, and a video sitemap so that you can get possible search engine exposure for your video?  Do you have a large e-mailing list to whom you can send the video, assuming that it provides value for the majority of your list?  If you do not have any of these then you are missing on a tremendous opportunity to syndicate your quality videos for little to no cost
  • Internal Viral Video Marketing Tools — The preceding three topics assumed that you never used the video-sharing site like a social network.  You, however, can gain tremendous traffic if you make the time investment to use YouTube as a social network for your video marketing efforts.  You can comment on people’s videos, gain subscribers and friends, leave video responses, create Playlists, and much more.  All of these are designed to give value the YouTube community, and you can generate a loyal following if you offer value in your videos AND in your interaction with your fans and subscribers

Finally, remember that good videos can be shared in several places.  You can share them on Facebook, Twitter, and niche-specific forums and social networks.  You also can e-mail the video link to your lists; and you can embed the video on blogs and Web 2.0 pages you control.

To reiterate, please consider investing time, money, and resources in video marketing.  The flexibility, ability to quickly gain a following, and ability to gain first page exposure in sites such as YouTube and Google are so powerful that it now must be a part of your marketing planning.  The flexibility allows you to reach multiple goals (social proof of your expertise, enhancing leads, new product awareness, etc.) very quickly and in a cost-effective manner.  These fundamentals apply for any video marketing efforts whether you are trying to reach a national audience or just a local one such as marketing your videos to those just in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

If you need any help with any of the areas of video marketing, optimization, syndication, or viral marketing then you are welcome to contact me.  Thank you for your attention and you are welcome to share this with any friends or colleagues you believe could benefit from the information.

Filed Under: video marketing, video optimization, video syndication
April 10, 2011 by

Staying On Top Of Your Online Reputation

If you own or manage any business, one which sells locally or nationally, then you likely are concerned about your reputation on the internet.  Many business owners, however, have no idea of how to monitor their online reputations and those of their competitors.  They often resort to the “ostrich” method, even when there is a serious reputation situation which warrants the executive’s undivided attention.

There are a few you things which you, the business owner, can do in order to begin to monitor your reputation both in the search engines and on the social media properties:

  • Set up Google Alerts.  You will want to set up Alerts for your business name, the names of your owners and executives, the names of key employees, any brands you own and/or product names, and generic keywords about your industry
  • You will want to search for the same things on Twitter and capture the RSS feeds for each search string.  Enter those RSS feeds into a RSS reader so that you can monitor things being said about your reputation in real-time
  • Go to any forums which serve your industry and/or region of the country.  Enter the previously-mentioned items in the search field (you may have to join first) and determine what is being said about you.  From there, set up alerts and/or get RSS feeds for the search strings in order to monitor what is being said about your reputation
  • If your business has a listing on Google Places (and many of you do already without even realizing it!!) then periodically check your Google Places listing for the reviews.  Note that Google scrapes/aggregates reviews from other sites like Yelp, Insider Pages, etc.  Follow the process to deal with negative reviews AND have a process in place to reward/thank those who left you positive reviews.  Remember that online reputation management is also about monitoring the GOOD things said about you!
  • Should a crisis situation be happening, or about to happen, then be sure to have some form of crisis public relations plan in place.  If you do not have one in place then please contact me
  • It can be difficult to monitor the recent influx of online reputation vehicles now in the hands of the consumers.  People can “Like” your page on Facebook, “Retweet” or “@” mention you on Twitter, “Check In” on FourSquare.com, etc.  You need a way to monitor all of that information in order to gain feedback, reward loyal customers, handle negative reviews, and determine which promotions/marketing efforts seem to resonate best with your customers and prospective customers

 

For local businesses, they may require the extra step of monitoring their reputations in multiple locations.  As an example, let’s assume that you operate a used car lot on the border of Dallas and Plano Texas.  Talk about an industry which has to closely monitor a negative reputation!!

The business owner would create Alerts, Twitter search/RSS strings, and all of the other items for both cities.  Since people in the area tend to search (and comment) with either “Plano” or “Dallas” – but not both at the same time – then the online reputation management process would have to be replicated for each town/city.  You also may consider doing so for “County”-related phrases.  These, of course, are all in addition to the names of your executives, products, business name, etc.

There are even more advanced things you can do to monitor and/or protect your online reputation.  If you have a concern about online reputation management and wish to have customized strategies in place – as well as a “done for you” service to handle it – then please contact me.  Additional tools are available to help you monitor what is being said online, and they can be customized to deal with businesses which operate primarily on the local level.

If you want an all-in-one reputation monitoring software which you manage yourself then you are welcome to check out this link below:

Monitor all reviews, mentions, ratings and listings about your business at LocationMonitor.com.

 

In all, monitoring and managing your online reputation is something which is worth implementing soon.  The costs are low (or even non-existent), you can monitor both the good and bad things being said about your business, and it can give you a competitive edge due to your competition’s unwillingness to implement such measures.

Filed Under: reputation, Tips Tagged With: , , , , ,
March 28, 2011 by

Why Backlinks Are Important To Dallas and Fort Worth Businesses

Having helped many businesses in the Dallas and Fort Worth area over the past 3 years, I have noticed that most of local businesses do not know what a “back link” is; and they have no idea why it is important.  With the recent Google updates (Feb/March 2011), the search engines are doing what they can to make sure that they give their users the results which they believe are the most:

  • Trustworthy
  • Authoritative
  • Relevant

Why do they do this?  Because the major search engines are all significant properties of publicly-traded companies… and they don’t want their users going anywhere else!!  They want you to trust each implicitly, so that at some point you will click on one of the ads somewhere in their network of web tools & properties.  This is how they can justify spending millions of dollars to develop algorithms and tools which they can give away for free.

With that understanding, and assuming that you know that “X” number of people use a tool like Google to search for a particular phrase (i.e. “keyword”) each month, then the next step is to play by their rules in order to be considered the most Trustworthy, Authoritative, and Relevant result which is given “free exposure” on the search engine results page (SERP).  This is how you get free, qualified traffic without having to buy it on their respective paid advertising networks (e.g. Google AdWords, etc.).

Since Google, at the time of this post, has the largest percentage of search engine users then focus on what it takes to “play nice” by their terms so that you increase the odds of getting first-page exposure for a keyword phrase which:

  • has quantifiable monthly number of searches (i.e. “demand”)
  • has relatively low competition for the phrase, on a number of levels (i.e. “supply”)
  • is indicative of someone who is ready to engage with your business or the business you are promoting (e.g. “Emergency City Plumber” is a phrase indicating that people need plumbing help and are probably willing to pay to solve the problem quickly!)

In traditional business terms, think of such a keyword phrase as an “under-served market.”  There is demand, and the supply meeting that demand is low and probably under-delivering.  The art of “keyword research” and “keyword competition analysis” comes into play here; and whenever you pay for those services you should be able to gain insights into your market which you never knew previously.

Assuming that you have found several keyword phrases which meet those parameters, then you need to optimize the content you control for those phrases.  The “content you control” could be:

  • all of the pages on your website
  • your YouTube channel
  • your Facebook business page
  • a profile on a local forum on which you participate
  • your LinkedIn profile
  • “web 2.0” pages you create
  • online press releases
  • business directory listings (e.g. Superpages.com free listings or a Dallas-specific online business directory)
  • etc.

These properties can be optimized for local keyword phrases (e.g. “Emergency City Plumber”) or for national (non-geographic-specific) keyword phrases if you sell nationally (e.g. “online plumbing supplies”).  Now that the online web property content you control is optimized “on page”, the next step is to optimize the “off page” content.

In the ideal scenario, every business and prospective customer would link to your web properties – with the keyword phrases you desire in the text of the link – from all sorts of places online.  You would love to have the Chamber of Commerce link to your main website with the keyword phrase of your choice in the text.  Then you would love to have 2000 people on a popular local (or national) forum posting your link on that forum plus dozens of related ones.  Finally, you would love to have thousands of people share links to your YouTube videos from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and dozens of blogs.

If this were to happen then you, likely, would dominate the search engines for that keyword.  This is because you would have optimized content on the page to which thousands of people would be “endorsing” with their links to it.  Even better, instead of just “http://www. whatever…”, these people would be using your desired keywords in the actual text of the link (called “anchor text”).  This would be phenomenal!

Sadly, this isn’t going to happen for most businesses on either a local or national level.

This is the reason WHY you need back links.  Backlinking is a process of building links to your web content (the properties you control) which builds trust, authority, and relevance in the eyes of the search engine “robots” AS WELL AS the end user who may see the link.  The more “back links” which the search engines see pointing to your web properties, especially more than just the home page of your website, then the more “votes” you get.

But there is a catch.

It is not simply a matter of overall “votes”.  Like high school popularity, the algorithms also factor in the “quality” of those votes.  Like in high school, if you want to be deemed “popular” then it is better to get the “endorsement” of the 5 most popular kids than 50 endorsements from the lesser-popular kids.  What the search engines want to see, in addition to relevant content which is trustworthy, is:

  • Links to your web properties from a variety of types of content, not just social media
  • Links to your web properties from sources which the search engines ALREADY DEEM TRUSTWORTHY.  For example, a link from the Chamber of Commerce is good because the Chamber’s website (usually) is deemed a trustworthy site; and the search engines know that it is tough for someone to get a link on that site due to the need for human approval (endorsement) to put the link on the site
  • Content which has your link IN the main content, rather than just the sidebar or footer.  Even though sidebar & footer links are helpful, having a link in the main content is indicative of an outside side endorsing (voting for) you
  • Links from different I.P. addresses.  This reduces the likelihood that you set up a “link farm” to be self-serving.  It is deemed “untrustworthy” by the search engines when you have the majority of the links from one or two I.P. addresses… and they all point to a site on the same I.P. address!
  • A mixture of “do follow” and “no follow” tags
  • Links to promote your content on a staggered schedule.  This looks natural to the search engines, instead of 50 links appearing to your site every Monday morning!
  • Content, with your links in it, which appears to be shared freely by others because the content is good.  This is why “how to” and “tips” articles, videos, and podcasts get good rankings.  Free content that has your link in it, which is not riddled with “hard sell” messages (at least 90% good, useful content), and which gets passed around and posted on various blogs, social media pages, and forums is considered more “trustworthy and authoritative” then other types of content
  • Content, ideally, that is unique.  The search engines do what they can to reward the original creator of unique content, even if it later gets passed around
  • Content which has a mixture of straight URL’s (http://www.whatever.com) and those with the keyword phrases as the text for the link.  Again, that is called “anchor text”
  • Coming in the second half of 2011, content which appears to be shared, re-tweeted, or otherwise passed around on social media sites.  The sharing component makes the content with your links embedded in it deemed more “trustworthy”

As an example, let’s say that you are a pizza shop in North Dallas.  You have enough time to set up your website once, make one small blog post a week, and offer daily specials on Facebook and Twitter.  You also have a few links from the organizations for which you pay each month/year, such as the chamber of commerce and some sort of Texas pizza association (assuming there is such a thing!).

How on earth would you get links to help you beat out the competition for terms like “North Dallas pizza” and “North Dallas pizza restaurant”?!?

Assuming that your website, Google Places/Maps, Facebook business page, and YouTube channel are optimized properly then you will need backlinks to promote these pages.  These would come from a variety of places on the internet to help you take good content in your head, factual information about your business (e.g. address, phone number, and website), and currently-produced photos and videos which can be re-packaged to give value to the end user who sees your information for the first time.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of places to put the following content somewhere online for your business, in this case the pizza restaurant:

  • Helpful information (e.g. learning the types of specialty pizzas)
  • Your current pizza coupons
  • Your business address and phone number on GPS, mobile, and 411 directories to help people find your restaurant
  • Photos from the restaurant’s most recent event
  • Videos derived from those photos
  • Reviews from happy customers to appear on your Google Places/Maps listing
  • Local business directories
  • Press releases

Virtually all of these third-party places online can contain a back link to a page your website.

Hopefully you can understand the value that a firm or service that offers intelligent backlinking for your business.  No matter whether you do it yourself or hire someone, be sure to develop links based on the factors I mentioned earlier.  Hopefully the links are made intelligently and any helpful content (e.g. tips and helpful videos) are quality enough to offer the viewers a reason to share the content.

Thank you for reading this far!  Good luck with your business and future links.

Filed Under: Backlinks, SEO, Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
March 26, 2011 by

Local Businesses Accepting PayPal From Mobile Phone Users

Here is a recent article about mobile payments being made with greater regularity:  http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2011/03/23/paypal-processing-more-than-6-billion-per-day-in-mobile-transactions.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

One of the emerging trends which can help local small businesses gain more revenue is the ability to accept forms of payment which are:

  • trusted by the customer
  • easy for the customer
  • are “synthetic currency” to the customer, therefore increasing the likelihood of a larger-than-normal purchase or willingness to accept additional up-sells at the time of purchase

 

An easy way in which a local small business, including everything from a local pizza restaurant to a local boutique clothing store to a local sports team, can increase its revenues is to accept PayPal.  This is especially true if the end customer tends to have a balance on PayPal, thereby increasing the likelihood of the money being spent.  This is because, at the time of purchase, the transaction is not being made either in cash or with a credit card; and this likens the transaction more toward how an adult views his/her balance in a casino with the chips.  At the time of the transaction, the customer may be willing to spend more because it is not something which seems to “feel like” real money is being spent.

Consider the following example if you owned a local pizza shop:

  • Teenagers want to eat pizza.  This is about as obvious an example of a “hungry market” as I could select!
  • Teenagers need money from Mom and Dad, so they ask for money to spend on a Friday night
  • Mom and Dad don’t want their child wasting money or spending it on items which are deemed inappropriate
  • Mom and Dad also wish to teach the teenager about spending habits, so they want to track where their “hard earned money” goes
  • Mom and Dad put $25 on the teenager’s PayPal account so that Mom & Dad can track the spending
  • Teenager has a Smart Phone or other mobile phone with internet capability
  • Teenager goes with his/her friends to the pizza place which accepts the PayPal
  • Teenager uses phone to buy pizza, via PayPal
  • Teenager may buy an extra slice or a drink for his/her friend because the other friend doesn’t have money that particular Friday night
  • Mom & Dad consider pizza purchases an “appropriate” purchase when tracking the spending

Obviously, the local business owner and management have to consider a few factors:

  • Making sure that the business is comfortable with PayPal’s transaction rates & fees
  • Making sure that the business is comfortable with PayPal’s chargeback rates, the overall terms & conditions, etc.
  • Training staff to confirm that PayPal transaction, indeed, did put money in the business’ account
  • Having a system in place to take PayPal transaction data to integrate into the business’ bookkeeping and accounting & tax systems

 

One extra benefit to this is that local nonprofit organizations can accept donations in the same way.  By accepting mobile phone donations on PayPal at the time the people are in a “giving mindset”, the organization can increase on-the-spot donations.  Assuming that prospective donors have a positive balance on their PayPal accounts, this should enable organizations to actually begin to get tangible results (in terms of donations) from all of the live events which they attend.  These could include Chamber of Commerce events, live events put on by the organization, booths set up at local fairs and festivals, etc.

Each business will have to weigh the pros and cons of whether or not to accept any form of digital currency & transaction services (PayPal included) in its business going forward.  To being the process of determining whether or not it makes sense for you then click the link below and then click the “Business” tab.  From there you can get information pricing, having a “virtual terminal”, and more:

 

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.

 

Filed Under: Local Business Revenues, Mobile Tagged With: , , , , ,
February 19, 2011 by

Local Small Business Online Marketing Typical Conversation

Here is a short animated video describing a typical conversation between a local small business owner who is confused and frustrated with not getting enough new customers, but he is also confused about the basics of internet and online marketing.  An internet marketing consultant answers his typical questions on a “birds eye view” level and addresses some of his biggest challenges about increasing the size of his business.

The video touches on search engine optimization, search engine marketing, video marketing, online paid advertising, online event marketing, and much more.  If you have any questions then feel free to contact MoreThanSEO.com through the Contact form; and you are welcome to share this post (or the actual YouTube video) through e-mail, your social network friends lists, LinkedIn, or by any other means which you communicate with friends who are owners of local businesses.

Filed Under: Tips, videos Tagged With: , , , , ,
Next Page »