Local Marketing Online: Part 10: Optimized Web Design

Posted on May 31, 2011

A successful local marketing campaign is designed not only to attract your targeted audience but to convert them to customers. At some point in the process all potential and existing customers will visit your website. It is the most powerful online representative of your business – your virtual sales force working for you 24/7/365 to provide information, answer questions, solve some problems, and sell. A professional website is designed to greet, inform, assist, educate and motivate targeted site visitors that:

You have what they need
You provide quality products, services, information, care
You are professional
You are a trusted provider
Your business is sound and going to still be there in a week, month, year, etc.
You are customer-centric and will serve them the way they expect and need
You can answer their questions/concerns to their satisfaction
You are their best choice

That is a lot to accomplish when you are not speaking directly with a person and responding to specific questions and concerns. But your website must accomplish these challenges to the satisfaction of every site visitor who is a potential customer.

In the simplest of terms, the goal of your website is two-fold:

Help existing and potential customers to get what they need from you by fulfilling the above listed items
Help the search engines to get their users what they need by making it easy for them to scan, index and serve your optimized web pages as the most relevant results corresponding to the terms searched (i.e.: help them to do what they do with the highest standard of quality)

An optimized website refers to more than just search engine optimization. Yes, you do need to ensure that your web pages have content highly focused on the terms for which you want them to be delivered in a search engine result. As I explained in Part 2: Search & Social Media, the search terms you select must be the result of your comprehensive keyword research and development because they will be the foundation upon which your online authority will be built across multiple online platforms. They must accurately correspond to your content as well as the language used by your targeted audience groups to search for what you offer.

To recap, search engines aggregate information about your company from a wide variety of online sources, including blogs, social media, web listings, and so forth, looking for a confirmation of your identity and authority for the terms represented by your content. The terms you use in your optimization campaign for your website will be the same ones you use to confirm your identity and authority elsewhere online. Why is this important? Consider the two-fold goal of your website. You are trying to help customers and the search engines get what they want from you. So you must optimize for both. It starts with keywords but it doesn’t end there. Keeping the expectations and needs of both targeted site visitors and the search engines in mind, you must also plan, develop, and implement:

Relevant, highly focused content including text, images, meta data, title tags, urls and hyperlinks (internal, external, anchor, inline, crosslinks with web pages on different sites, attachments)
Ease of access, ease of use including graphical interface, navigation structure, design and programming code
Intelligent architecture that allows for expansion and further optimization
Relationship with all relevant off-site content

Optimized web design may be the most important component of your local marketing campaign because it is your virtual office or showroom ultimately designed to convert your targeted site visitors.

Think of yor website as the house and your marketing efforts as invitations to the party you are having at your house.

It makes no sense to invite people until you are properly prepared.

Thank you for reading my Local Marketing Online series. My objective is to always provide you with practical, easy-to-follow business development tips. Please feel free to share any comments, questions, or experiences. And please share the posts with your friends and colleagues.

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Local Marketing Online: Part 9: Mobile Marketing

Posted on May 26, 2011

With the rise in the US mobile subscriber market to 234 million users and more than 69.5 million of them accessing the internet and other communication services via their Smartphones like iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices, mobile marketing has opened up local marketing opportunities for many businesses.

Mobile phones have become a way of life. There is actually about three times more mobile phone users now than there are internet users. According to comScore’s latest report on the US mobile subscriber market, almost 70% of US mobile subscribers use text messaging compared to the less than 40% using mobile browsers to search.

The point is that more and more people are relying on their mobile phones and other mobile devices to search, find, and communicate. Google is aware of this fact and has initiated a direct mail marketing campaign to tote the benefits of its local marketing programs such as AdWords on Google Maps and sponsored Boost ads highlighting an advertiser’s Google Profiles page in search results.

Whether it is tailored text messages triggered by user behavior or sponsored ads in one of the many search engine marketing programs, mobile marketing focuses on users who are currently in your city or region or are searching for information about your city or region. In effect, it’s like standing in front of your store and waving people to come in except that you already know they want what your offer and you can reach more of them.

Just as I discussed in Part 8: Pay Per Click Integration, before you initiate a mobile marketing campaign you need to have the other aspects of your local marketing campaign in place and ready to receive your targeted local audience. You must have at least begun to strategically develop your online identity and authority so that the information about your company and what it offers is readily available online to those who need more information, want to read a review to learn what others think about you, or visit your website first.

In Part 10 of the Local Marketing Online series I will talk about optimized website design and why it is central to your online local marketing strategy.

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Local Marketing Online: Part 8: Pay Per Click Integration

Posted on May 13, 2011

Contrary to misguided belief, pay per click is not a ‘get rich quick’ local marketing opportunity. That’s not to say you can’t make money but the first thing you need to understand about pay per click search engine marketing programs is that they must be properly set-up and managed for them to fulfill your revenue-generating ambitions and provide you with lasting return-on-investment.

In this part of the series I will explain how pay per click search engine marketing programs can be thoughtfully integrated into your overall strategy to provide you with impactful results that work together with all your online local marketing initiatives to develop opportunities.

Branding is a big part of local marketing. Whether you offer a product, service, or information, you need to develop and reinforce your brand in the local areas you serve so your targeted audience groups think of you when they need what you offer. Online branding means appearing in the top search engine results for the terms related to what you offer. Achieving top listing positions organically for those all-important terms takes time and an on-going commitment to the objective. Although pay per click search engine marketing programs, such as Google’s AdWords, will not directly affect your organic listing results or the development of your online authority, they do provide you with a quick way to get in front of your targeted audience groups while your organic ranking campaign is underway.

Let me give you an example. One of my clients is a local service provider serving several counties in the Carolinas. As part of an overall strategy that involved the launch of a newly designed optimized website, development of social media, claiming listings in Google Places and other web directories, generating online reviews, and a targeted email marketing campaign, we set-up and managed a pay per click AdWords campaign that focused on the principle services and products the company offers.

The objective of the campaign was two-fold: first to attract new customers to the targeted services and secondly, to reinforce and /or expand the reach of the brand. Organic listing results take time to develop but a well-managed AdWords campaign, for example, helps you to start building your targeted audience right away by providing you with a quick way to learn about and respond to their interest in what you offer.

A well-run pay per click search engine marketing campaign is like having a neon sign that flashes every time users search for what you offer. They may not respond to the ad immediately. But now they know you exist and they have your company name “branded” in their thoughts. Before they reach out to you they may try to find more information online about your company, such as a review on Angie’s List or a shopping site. They will likely visit your website and they may even hope to find information about you on third-party blogs or social media sites. You can start to see how having the other elements of your local marketing strategy in place before you initiate a pay per click campaign is critical to your overall success.

Pay per click search engine marketing programs work best when integrated with a local marketing strategy that covers all the bases concerning how and where potential new business acquires information about your company before deciding to do business with you. It all starts with branding – letting them know you exist and keeping you foremost in their thoughts. From there, you have to use the variety of platforms available to establish your identity and develop your online authority in order to reap the long-term benefits that help you to meet your revenue-generating goals over the long haul.

In Part 9 of the Local Marketing Online series I will talk about the significance of the rise in popularity of Smartphones and the opportunities provided by mobile marketing.

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Local Marketing Online: Part 7: Email Marketing

Posted on May 10, 2011

As part of your larger local marketing strategy, email marketing is a powerful and cost effective way to help you move your targeted recipients through the conversion process. In this part of the series I will show how to organize and manage your email marketing communications so that they work together with your social media, website, and other online initiatives to ensure you generate not just ‘Followers’ and ‘Friends’ but potential business.

The first step toward effective email communications is the ability to demonstrate to your targeted recipients that you understand what interests them. The more specific your understanding of their interests the better received your message will be. So the first order of business is:

Read what they write about: Whether you receive a direct communication via email, a post to your blog or social media site, or your read something they wrote on a Review site, or other third-party blog, website, or social media site, tracking what your targeted recipients write about online provides you with an understanding about what interests them right now. Begin by making a list of resources other than your own from where you will gather information about their current interests. These may include:

Twitter’s ‘Trends’
news outlets online
shopping and review sites
competitor online listing sites such as Google Places, Yahoo local and other such sites that allow for customers comments
and other places online where you know your targeted audience groups post comments and questions

Keep an active ear to the ground by monitoring these resources regularly, preferably daily, so you know the current interests you have to address in your email communications to get the attention of your targeted recipients.

Track online behavior: At your website, on your blogs, and even on your social media pages, it is important to track targeted user behavior because it provides you with ever more insight about what currently interests your targeted recipients. By now you should be seeing the theme: your communications have to be of interest to your recipients. You may want to empty your warehouse of the overstock of green galoshes but if you cannot effectively tie that objective to a conversation your targeted recipients are already having online then you are going to have a difficult time getting them to even read your email. This may take great creativity and ingenuity on your part but you have to connect your objective to that of your recipient to start them on the path to conversion.

Develop a Communications Strategy: For any email marketing campaign to be successful, you have to develop and follow a strategy that includes:

Audience segmentation (by interest)
Schedule of delivery: how many days or weeks will there be between emails
Targeted messages: a) communicate what you know interests to be b) make assumptions based on known interests to get recipient to make further considerations concerning your offer and c) ensure your recipients know what action you want them to take next
Strategic delivery of messages/response: know which message you will send first but be flexible about follow-up messages; you want every communication to be an appropriate and effective response that gets them to move through the buying cycle by tapping into a) their known interests first and b) their related interests based on your assumptions

The bottom line: use the information you learn from your website, social media pages, your blog and any other relevant online media where your targeted recipients post their thoughts, to let your audience know that you understand what interests them and can get them what they want. Find a way to join the conversation they are already having and use email marketing to keep that conversation going so that your ‘Friends’ and ‘Followers’ become your customers.

In Part 8 of the Local Marketing Online series I will talk about integrating pay per click advertising to generate business while you develop your organic listing strength.

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Local Marketing Online: Part 6: Share Content

Posted on May 5, 2011

In Part 5 of this series: City Sites, Reviews & Recommendations, I discussed the impact of customer reviews on your local marketing search results and your online authority. Just as reviews and ratings are a form of recommendation, sharing your optimized, highly focused and strategically developed content by posting it to other social media and networking sites also functions as a recommendation.

You will recall in Part 5 that I discussed the Facebook ‘Like’ button that allows users to share your content on Facebook with Friends in their social circle. There are similar tools that make it very easy for you and your targeted readers to share your content on a variety of social media platforms.

Share Buttons: There are many widgets and tools that you can have implemented on your web pages that allow you and your readers to do just as the tool implies: share your content with others by email or via a variety of popular social networking platforms. Two of the most commonly implemented tools are the ‘Share’ button developed and provided by AddToAny and the ‘ShareThis’ widget by ShareThis.com. Simply by clicking on the desired destination, such as Digg or StumbleUpon, for example, you or your readers can post the content directly to the other platform for others to interact with. Typically you or your readers must register with the destination social media site first before having access to post content. Once registered, a simple process of identification and classification of the type of content being posted is all that’s required to share it with others.

It is to your advantage to register with all the social media sites you feel are likely to reach your targeted audience groups so that you too have the opportunity to share your optimized, highly relevant content. You probably invested a lot of time and money to develop the content so why not get the most mileage out of it that you can. If you have prepared your content the right way by making it topical and ensuring it contains the search terms that are part of your authority building strategy, then it is likely to be found by your targeted audience groups on the other social platforms as well. The more your content is accessed, commented on, and shared, the greater your authority score and your chances of achieving top rankings for the terms important to your strategy.

Here are some social networking sites you should consider registering for:

Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Bebo
Google Buzz
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Orkut
Technorati Favorites
LinkedIn
DailyMe
FriendFeed

A lot of these sites have login associations with Facebook, Twitter, and a few other popular social networking sites. This allows you to use your already established login, say your Facebook login, to access some of these other platforms. One thing to keep in mind: it is important to separate your business and your social accounts so you can accurately monitor results. For example, if you use Twitter for yourself, either socially or professionally, then establish a separate account for your business to market and promote it. Be attentive when you are making posts that you post to the accounts associated with your business so you can develop Friends, Followers, and Subscribers that will help you to build your online authority and improve your search engine rankings.

Tweet: Exclusive to Twitter, the Tweet button can be implemented with your website, blog, and other social media content, allowing users to Tweet a link on their account to your content as well as make comments that are publicly viewable. The Tweet button also publicly displays the number of Tweets your content has received by other users. Many Twitter users have also linked their account with the professional networking platform LinkedIn, which means your content will appear on two platforms as a result of a single tweet.

Sharing content is a form of recommendation that works to build your online authority and improve your search listing results by demonstrating the interest others have in it.

In Part 7 of the Local Marketing Online series I will talk about email marketing and how you can strategically follow-up with reader interest to turn Followers into Customers.

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