But how is direct response? Marketing different than that Good question, So direct response marketing is different because direct marketing You’re, just talking directly to the client like an e-mail But direct response, marketing you’re doing something to elicit a specific response from Your potential client, So what are some examples of this Say? For instance, you have a article that you put on Instagram and you’re, telling people about what you’re offering a service a product, and you tell them.
I want you to call now. Yeah They have to take a specific response in order to take part of it. Gotcha So when handled the correct Way it can be very beneficial and bring about some interesting results For one it takes out. All the intermediaries, It’s just between you and your customer – You don’t have to have the middle man. Second, it’s pretty cost effective. You don’t have to have Mass market saturation with traditional marketing methods And then the third, it’s also Measurable and trackable: Okay, You can see your ROI and then also it adheres.
To some good old-school marketing methods – and it doesn’t go with some of these trends that are flighty Gotcha so would an example, be I do an Instagram post Specifically, for let’s say a new backpack that I just came out with and then I have a link and They go and they buy that Exactly so in crafting your Direct response, marketing there’s a couple elements: That you want to have, For instance, the proposal Rather than thinking hey buy my product.
You actually want to go into some details, Especially like trial Period what the person is going to sign up for answering a lot of the questions that a person may have Gotcha so part of this proposal? Is you want to create some urgency? You want to give them all the information and kind of lead them down the funnel. Why is this important What are the details and, at the very end, maybe This is a trial period.
I see this a lot with webinars or different online courses. You know it’s a limited time offer within the next three days. This is introductory price and the price goes up right, so you’re always kind of leading Them down that funnel and giving that sense of Wow this is important. This is what I need and I can’t wait. I need to buy this now. You want that response. You want to make that person feel like they can’t miss out.
So let’s say that I’m An online business coach I’ve just opened up my Online one-on-one coaching and I’m going to let my Subscribers know about this, So one way that I could do This is through a webinar and I’ll. Let everyone know that hey one time only I’m doing this webinar, I’m going to give you five tips on how to crush it in social media. And this is the only day that I’m going to do it so I’m creating that urgency, so people will come they’ll sign up, Hey, I’m not telling These tips anywhere else.
This is the only place You’re going to find them, I’m never going to do a blog post about them. I’m never! You know. I’m Just really creating this, like you got ta, be there moment And for them to register. That would be the response that you want, Then, in the webinar at the end, I’m going to let them know Hey I’ve opened up my online coaching. I only have ten spots and you guys here. Reading this webinar are the first people you’re Going to get the first chance, so if you want to here’s, my Special introductory price, and after that, once I Hit those ten spots done So if my goal was to get ten new clients, this would be a great way.
To create that funnel, create that sense of urgency and hopefully be an effective way to Get those new clients. So today we talked about Direct response marketing and how it can bring you more customers. We would love to hear from You in the comments below what other topics would You like us to talk about And, of course, be sure to Like subscribe to our blog and hit that notification bell, so you’re always notified Of our next new article Until next time, this is The Journey
The small business marketing minute show the show that gives you the busy small business owner, simple, affordable and practical tips to grow your business and, of course, teaches you. The famous duct tape marketing system have some breaking news to report this week from the very key key and technical world of search engine, optimization, which I know is a topic that you all absolutely love being sarcastic.
Of course here. I know that the typical local small business owner does not want to think at all about search engine optimization, but unfortunately this is an area where what you don’t know can in fact hurt you – and this is the case with the news I have to report this Week last week, Google started rolling out a change that could potentially have some significant impact on some of you out there.
Most of you are probably familiar with the concept of when you, when you do a search for a local business. Some of the results that will come up on page one of the search results will be the map listings for the google maps, so you’ll see a list of businesses and you’ll have little icon next to them. That says, ABCD and E and so on and it well let some information about the business like their name and phone number, and if that business has any ratings, it will show their star rating there and the reviews and number of reviews and all that.
So in the world of SEO that we call these listings, that’s the seven pack, because there’s usually about five to seven businesses listed there well, starting last week that has changed. Google is now only going to list three businesses in that maps listing section. So what that means is that if your business was not in the top three of the listings that showed up in that seven pack, it won’t show up anymore now.
This doesn’t affect the rest of the organic listings for page one of the search results. So if the keyword that people were searching for is something that you show up for elsewhere on page one, that will still be there, but you just won’t be in the maps listing section unless you’re in that top three. So how do you get in the top? Three: well: it’s not really public information as part of Google’s super-secret algorithm, but some things that we know contribute to.
It are having lots of positive ratings and reviews on Google and having your Google+ page setup and claimed, and things like that. So definitely make sure you’re on top of those things now, along with the reduction of the maps listing from seven businesses to three businesses, there were a few other changes made as well. For one thing, the exact address of the business works removed from that first screen that you can see in the actual search results.
The phone numbers remove from that area, links to your Google+ page or remove from that area, and all this information is still available. But people have to actually click the listing, so one of those three businesses that’s listed in the Maps listening section actually have to click the listing in order to get all that additional information. It’s not entirely clear why Google is doing this in what direction they’re going here.
I’ve heard some people hypothesized that this might be a move towards making the maps listing a paid listing, in other words, where businesses might have to pay to show up in that maps. Listing section so maybe they’d be three businesses that are available for free and then additional businesses. If they’re not in that top three, maybe they have to pay to be there. That’s just a theory, I’m not sure if I agree with that theory or not, but it is a possibility.
So this is just something to keep an eye on and see how it starts affecting businesses. But the bottom line is that things change very quickly in the world of search engine optimization and, like I said at the top of the podcast, it is a situation, unfortunately we’re what you don’t know can hurt you and foremost local business owners there. Never even going to know that they’re being hurt so last spring when google rolled out the change to the algorithm that caused web sites that aren’t mobile friendly to get bumped way down in the search results.
That’s another great example of something like this, where a business might all of a sudden just stop getting as many leads from their website and not really know why. This is another thing that could lead to that kind of situation. So if you don’t have someone in your business, that’s at least keeping their ear to the ground and paying attention to things that are developing in the world of search engine optimization.
You really should be outsourcing that to someone in some capacity just so that you at least know what’s going on and can have someone taking care of that area of your business, because it’s just so so important these days to especially for a local business to be Able to be found in local search results for people who are searching for your type of business. So that’s all I’ve got for this week’s episode be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
So you get next episode as soon as it’s published, and I will see you next week. Are you looking for a step-by-step manual that teaches you how to create a lead generation system for your local business? If so, my new book entitled the small business owners guide to local lead generation might be the perfect resource for you. It teaches you about everything from direct mail and referral, marketing to website design and search engine optimization and much more, and it’s been endorsed by numerous top small business experts, including BNI founder dr.
Ivan meissner in freshbooks. Ceo mike mcdermott pick up your copy today at local lead gen book
If you own or manage a small business I’d like you to ask yourself following five questions. First, do you have trouble differentiating your business from your competition? Do you ever find yourself competing based on price alone, because of that fact second, do you ever feel like you’re moving from one marketing tactic to the next, without any strategy tying them together? Do you find it difficult to track the return on investment from the money you spend on marketing and advertising? Do you have trouble generating enough leads for your business or converting the leads you get into customers? Finally, when you examine all of the elements of your business’s online marketing, such as your website, social media presence, search engine, optimization email, marketing and online advertising, do you find that some of those elements are lacking or even non-existent? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your company might benefit from the unique marketing method I teach to small business owners.
The method is called duct tape, marketing because just like duct tape, it’s simple, affordable and most of all practical. This method has been used by thousands of small businesses all over the world, including my own, to great effect. In fact, it was so effective at growing my business that I decided to join the network of authorized duct tape, marketing consultant, so I could teach it to other business owners.
So what is the duct tape? Marketing method? It’s basically a seven step process for your business. That starts with the development of a marketing strategy then takes a systematic approach to developing a set of tactics that serve that strategy. The process addresses every element required in a well-run marketing system, including lead generation, lead conversion. In all the online marketing elements I mentioned previously, once a business completes, the seven step process will know exactly what their ideal customer looks like and where to find them.
They’ll know what their customers value about them that makes them different from the competition will know what marketing tactics to use to get the best return on investment and they’ll even have a marketing calendar so that they’ll know what tasks need to be done on a daily Weekly and monthly basis to run their new marketing system now, if this approach to marketing sounds like something that might benefit your business, here’s what I want you to do: first download and read our to ebooks about the seven steps to small business marketing success and creating A total online presence for your business then come back to our website and complete a signature brand audit, which is basically a questionnaire that allows us to evaluate your marketing as it stands right now, once you do that I’ll schedule, a free, 30 minute session with you To help you think, through how you can apply some of the duct tape marketing principles to your business.
This is not a sales presentation, there’s no obligation on your part whatsoever, and I guarantee that you’ll walk away with at least three ideas. You can take action on immediately to improve your marketing. Don’t miss this opportunity to get some valuable feedback about your marketing. Take action right now by downloading those ebooks and completing your signature brand audit or, if you’d like to keep learning stay tuned for the next article.
About the unique way that I define marketing you
Who is helping with your digital business footprint?
You know five or six years ago. It used to be enough just to have a website for your business, and you could treat it almost like an online brochure where you, just you know, put up your five pages about your location and your about Us page and a quick just description of your your Products and and sort of just left it at that that just doesn’t work anymore.
You need to have a living breathing online presence, not just on your website, but on your social media profiles on your blog, your podcast, your review sites, your ratings and review sites, and you want all these to be interacting with your website and with each other, and So that no matter where people go online to look for you you’re, going to show up if your head hasn’t started to explode at some point during this presentation.
This is usually when it happens, and I’m going to warn you. This can be very overwhelming, but the key is just to take it one step at a time and instead of throwing up your hands and I and giving up just to pick one or two things to get started and to take action on them. When I work with people and work with businesses to develop their total online presence, I actually use a year-long action plan to take them from Ground Zero.
All the way through having a complete marketing strategy or online marketing strategy for their business. So I’ll go ahead and share you share with you what that plan looks like, so you can start to use it on your own. The first thing you want to do is set up a what we call a lessening station. In other words, you want to follow other people’s blogs. You want to follow other people’s podcasts or listen to other people’s podcasts start following people on Twitter, and these can be your competitors or customers.
Experts in your industry or all of the above. You also want to start to do some basic keyword, research, in other words, looking into what terms people use when they search for your type of business online and when you get started. That’s really. All you want to do is just set up that listening station and read and observe for a a month or two just see what everybody else is doing. What they’re saying what they’re writing about what their podcasting about step two is to set up your content platform or, what’s also known as a website.
This is going to be the hub of your online presence and what all your the various folks come out of, and the spokes being your social media profiles and the ratings and reviews sites and and all of that, if you’re, not using the wordpress content management system. Right now to manage your website, I would highly recommend taking a good long look at moving your website to WordPress and if you haven’t set up your website yet you’re just getting started with that.
That process I’d highly recommend using WordPress to do that, actually teach it entire a seminar just on WordPress. So it’s it’s not a subject that I can cover really well here, but I will say that it started out as a blogging platform, but it is growing into much much more than that. It is now a very versatile and easy-to-use system for managing a small business website. It’s also a free by the way, at least through the the software is all you have to pay for is the web hosting so take take a good long look at using WordPress for your website.
Once we’ve got your website set up. You want to continue your keyword, research and begin to integrate those keywords into your website, and this process is what we call search engine optimization. It’s also a billion-dollar industry and a subject for a workshop in and of itself, but suffice it to say that there are ways when you set up your website and produce your content, that you can do it in a way that makes your website show up in Search results when, when people are searching for terms related to your industry and that’s something that you need to be doing, the next step in the total online presence action plan is to start doing some email marketing.
This is by far the most cost-effective way for a small business to communicate with with customers and one of the most cost effective marketing tactics that a small business can use. You can literally for twenty to thirty dollars a month, send thousand root, or even tens of thousands of emails to your customers or to prospective customers. You want to make sure you’re doing this legally. There is there’s laws like that: govern email, marketing that fall into that.
The can-spam act, one of the best ways to make sure that you are complying with the law, is to use an email service provider like aweber, constant contact, MailChimp or long list of other quality email service providers. These systems will also allow you to see who’s opening. Your emails, what links they clicked on in your emails at a long list of other analytics that you can use to to tweak and improve your marketing.
These systems also allow you to set up a series of autoresponders so that when someone is added to a particular email list, they automatically get a series of emails based out over time that you only have to write once and then just get sent automatically. So it’s a great time-saving tool after you’ve gotten your email marketing started and only after you’ve gotten your email marketing started. You want to begin to use your social media platforms.
Places like facebook, twitter, linkedin and google+ are where you need to get started. These are the sort of the big four and I would also add YouTube to that. As you might be aware, YouTube is actually owned by google. It is currently the second largest search engine on the internet, so there’s more people searching for things using YouTube, then with search engines like yahoo and being combined, so it’s definitely a place where you want to be showing up once you have your profile set up on These sites and have begun to build your list of followers you want to move on to online advertising and integrate that into your action plan.
Online advertising is by far the most trackable form of advertising that a small business or any type of business can use. You can actually see things like which adds people looked at which ads they, they clicked on. Imagine for a second going to your local newspaper and asking it if you could put an ad in the paper, but only actually pay for it. When somebody read to add the newspaper would laugh in your face, this is this is impossible right, well, online advertising actually does that with pay-per-click advertising.
You don’t pay one penny. Unless somebody actually clicks on the ad and gets to your website, you can define a budget that you want to use. Every month. You can target the ads to certain geographic areas. When we get into facebook advertising, it gets even more detailed and the types of demographics. You can target with your pay-per-click ads for your paper impression ads. In fact, I’ve even heard of people writing ads for facebook that we’re so targeting that only their family members could see them.
So it’s really got some great potential for some very highly targeted and trackable advertising once you’ve tested online advertising and integrated that into your action plan. The last piece of the puzzle is mobile. Marketing. You can do things like develop a mobile app for your business that people can put on their cell phones in some industries that might be more practical than others. But if you get a little creative, I think there’s some great potential there for ways that you can use a mobile app in your business.
We can also think about mobile marketing in terms of SMS messaging or text messaging. This is a great marketing tool for businesses like restaurants or other other businesses that get their customers back in the door on a regular basis. You can use it to send out alerts. Customer service alerts about sales that are going on, or deadlines that are coming up or specials that your customers might want to know about, and people can actually sign up for these alerts if they want to get them and unlike emails, which currently for a good email Campaign well written email campaign, open rates are going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty five to forty percent.
Typically, however, with text messaging rates, the open rates for those are upwards of ninety five percent. So when you stand out a text message, you can almost guarantee that it’s going to get read so this is this: is the online present action plan and again it’s a year-long process, so don’t let it get overwhelming. Take it one step at a time pick out. One or two pieces that you’re most comfortable with and start there and then just make it a regular part of your routine that you continue to work on.
There are a lot of tools out there that you can use to make this easier and I can list dozens of them, but just to to help you get started, I’m going to list a couple here that I think you should take a look at first. One is a tool called LastPass com. A lot of these other tools from about to mention require you to set up an account and have a username and password. What LastPass does is automatically generate a password for you and every time you go back to that site.
Automatically logs you in so you don’t have to remember all these different passwords and each password is completely unique and very secure. The tool called feedly.Com is something you should use to help you set up your listening station. This is a place. You can our service. You can use to subscribe to other people’s blogs and then go to this one website and read all the blogs in one place and scan through the headlines.
So you can see what content you might want to look at some more or share with your followers again. WordPress, an excellent tool for setting up your website and managing your content. If you’re not using it right now, go ahead and investigate what that might be able to do for you over 23,000 plugins available for WordPress to add functionality to a basic WordPress site, and most of them are free. Adwords is a tool used by out online advertisers from google for managing pay-per-click advertising campaigns, but it also has a great a keyword, research tool in there that you can use to help you with your keyword, research and setting up an account with AdWords is free.
You don’t actually have to pay for advertising or pay for access to that. So that’s probably something you should put in your toolbox. Another great tool for your listening station is mentioned net. This is a service that sends you an alert every time your brand is mentioned online or other terms from your industry that that you specify so you can set up alerts for your competitors for your brand for industry keywords and every time somebody mentioned sees it on A social media site, or in a blog or anywhere online you’re, going to get an alert, so you can keep track of who’s talking about your company and what they’re saying both good and bad.
So you can go out and respond to that. A tool called outs by food calm is one that I like to help research your competitors. You can actually go in and see what keywords your competitors are using on their website. That is getting them traffic. You can see if they’re doing any online advertising or not and what keywords are targeting for that advertising. If they are so it’s a great way of doing a little spying on the competition, then last but not least, a tool called marketing greater calm as a free tool that allows you to plug in your website or your competitors websites and get a grade that actually Tells you how you’re doing right now with your online marketing it.
You can do this as many times as you want. It’s completely free and it’s going to give you some specific action steps that they recommend you take to improve your website, so a very great free tool for you to help. Give you some ideas to get started and, like I said I could go on for quite some time: you’re just listing different tools to help you with your online action plan. But I would start with those that I mentioned there again pick one or two things that you’re going to start with and just keep coming back and building on this over time.
You
Who is helping with your digital business footprint?
I’ve, given you some fundamental principles of how to write good copy. Today, I’m going to share with you some techniques. For example, let’s begin by talking about the combination of features and benefits into what I call marketing statements when you do this, try as often as you can to lead with the benefit, because, after all, that’s what the prospect is really after the result that they can Get from buying your product and then you support the benefit with the feature that makes the benefit promise possible.
Second technique that I’d like to share with you right, 12 to 20 headlines for warm-up before you write the rest of your ad. Now don’t worry about the fact that can only use one of them in the ad itself. The words won’t go to waste. Nor will your effort, because you can use the headlines that you don’t use as the headline for subheadings and cross headings. There won’t be any waste, it’s a great exercise.
Technique number three use, adjectives: adverbs power, words and phrases to add punch to your copy, mmm and depth, and intrigue and excitement about the product. You’re representing technique number four, while you’re doing all that other stuff, don’t get all a D on me, use conversational language speaking. The first person use I and me instead of us and we and it and they, and in addition to that, speak in the vernacular of your audience, do they have a particular jargon, that’s unique to their industry or phrases to the type of person they are.
You want to speak the way they speak. Yo yo you get that y’all and now the next one keep words sentences and paragraphs short, but at the same time don’t fear long copy. Yes, you want the words, the sentences and the paragraphs to be short, but you’ve got to tell your whole sales story if you’re going to get them to take action. The more you well, the more you sell short word sentences in paragraphs, but make the copy exactly as it won’t as long as it needs to be, and then finally vary.
Your paragraph length, you can have one sentence paragraphs you could have paragraphs up to five lines, but never more than that. These are just some of the techniques we’ll have more in our next tips. But if you want to know more about copywriting, I suggest you get my copywriter checklist I’ll, give it to you free. All you have to do is click on the link in the dooblydoo and I’ll. Send it to you.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog share comment. Tell your friends all about it and we’ll see you next time with your 30 second marketer tip of the day you
Gaps that need to be filled and will also help you create the perfect road map to crush your competitors, An in-depth local SEO audit can cost Several hundred dollars, sometimes thousands if you Commission, an agency to Do it for you, But today I’m going to show you how to do a quick SEO.
Audit Yourself, so you can start improving your online presence straight away without Spending a dime I’ve even put together an SEO audit checklist, which includes a Ton of free tools and recommendations which you can download in the Description below so you can go through each step of the process for your own Business from the comfort of your home and at your own pace At the end of it, you’ll know exactly what you need to work on Hi there.
This is your first time, Here, welcome to the community. My name is Luc Durand, the founder of rankingacademy.Co.Uk, which I created to help local business owners like you, thrive, Online and run successful businesses If you want to join the thousands of people, Who are already part of this growing family? It’s simple and free. Just click. On the subscribe button and the Bell notification – and you will automatically Be alerted when I publish a new article If you’re ready, let’s jump in Google, my Business listing audit: Do you have a Google my business listing? I know this Sounds obvious for many of you, but they are tons of businesses out there who Have yet to claim their Google listing Like this one face: painting fairies, Google, my business is crucial to your online success and will have a major Influence on your overall online visibility, If you haven’t claimed your Listing yet do it now, if you don’t know how read my article, how to set up Google My business for best results.
If you have a listing and it is verified, it’s Important to get it right Here is what you need to look out for Business name Use the same business name that you would use in real life and that Is printed on any of your legal documentation or business cards? Do not Add any additional keywords in a hope: you will rank higher It’s against Google’s policy and you may get suspended, Address and phone number Make sure your address and phone number are accurate, get this wrong and you will Be in a world of pain, you will mislead Google and your customers too.
Business Categories Ensure you’ve selected the right primary category for your business. As it will influence your rankings enormously, This can sometimes be a Tough choice, dentist cosmetic dentist and dental clinic are three different. Categories so make sure you choose wisely Once you’re done with your Primary category, you can add secondary categories that apply to your business. Business hours Have you entered your business hours? If not make sure you do.
People look at this stuff, Don’t cheat and pretend you’re open when you’re not To avoid frustration and potential bad reviews, which leads me to my next point: Reviews Reviews are a major influence when it comes to rankings. It could make The difference between your competitors ranking and not you, How many do you have? How positive are they have you responded to all of them? You can encourage Customers to leave you more reviews with this nice little tool that will generate A link which will automatically trigger a Google my business review pop up and Ease the review process For more info on this just check my article on how to Collect reviews Website Link your Google, my business listing to your website.
If You haven’t done it yet FAQs. Have you added frequently asked Questions to your profile, FAQ will help people make informed decision about your Business People also use the FAQ option to ask about services you provide, which Can often generate fresh leads, so there are not to be ignored If you’re stuck About what to write in there here is a tool that might help answerthepublic.Com Throw a keyword in there and it will spit out a list of common questions.
You can use Photos. Photos are probably the best way of showcasing your Business and capturing attention so add some photos regularly. You can also add Articles and 360 panoramic views for better engagement. Google posts. Do you Publish any post, You can increase your visibility with Google posts Posts can Be used to provide an update about your business, promote a product, a service or An event They increase your listing prominence in search results, especially On mobile and are used automatically to answer FAQs in the FAQ section, Although they expire every 7 days, it’s a great feature, not Many businesses are using so make the most of it.
Business description. Have you Added a business description: if you haven’t time to start typing, You can add A description to tell customers a bit more about your business in up to 750 Characters: Google, my business, has more options available. Some of them industry specific, but if you can nail these down for now, you will Have a solid profile Time to move on to citations audit, If you don’t know what A citation is, it is a mention of your business in major directories and social Media platforms, which generally includes your business name, your business, address your business phone number and sometimes a link to your site like in this example.
On yell.Com, which is a major directory in the UK Having your business listed in These is the foundation of any local SEO strategy and is important for two Reasons these directories very often rank at the top of search engine results. For local searches, which may include your business and drive traffic to your Site but more importantly, it helps create trust and legitimacy with Google Who will be discovering your business across all these platforms, But for Google, to establish trust your business information needs to be accurate and Consistent everywhere your business is mentioned.
You could check the Consistency and accuracy of your business information across the web, Manually, but to be honest with you, it is a very tedious exercise and can still Lead to errors Instead use a tool that will do the legwork for you in my Opinion bright, local is one of the best tools to just do that. You can create a free account for 14 days without using a credit card which Is more than enough time to check if your business is mentioned in all the Right places, and if there are any errors, You can even download a full citation.
Report and will also have access to tons of additional information once you’ve. Set up your profile, The next thing we’re going to check is: if your website is Responsive Checking, if your website is responsive, is just ensuring that your Website works on all types of devices and, more specifically, on mobile phones. When it comes to local search, most of your visitors will come across your site. Via a mobile phone, so if your website is not compatible, your business is really Going to suffer To quickly check if your website is adapted to multiple devices, Download this free, resizer app in Google Chrome then simulate your website view.
On the various devices available, The next thing we’re going to look at is Your home page Since the home page of your site is your most important page. It Deserves to be analyzed separately, as there are many things to take into Consideration To really maximize your SEO opportunities: this is what you Should check Is your title tag optimized and includes the keywords and the city Name, you are targeting.
Have you added a Meta Description to your page, compelling Enough, so that people will want to click on your listing in Google when they come Across your business is there a main title, also known as h1, which stands for Header, which also includes your main keyword and city name, Is there an Obvious call to action on the page, such as a phone number that is visible Without scrolling down Is the call to action visible on the mobile version of Your site, without scrolling down, is there enough content on your page? Think Of including your services and products, and whatever else you think, is relevant Are you linking to important sub pages from your home page, which you’d like Visitors to click to and Google to discover Do all your images have an alt Tag Are you talking about your location where your business operates? Have you embedded a Google map related to your business, so visitors can check Directions straight to you from your homepage: Does your page include your Name address and phone number, which is consistent with your Google, my business Listing Once you’ve completed all of the above, it’s time to analyze the rest of Your pages For this we’re going to use a tool which is going to speed up the Process enormously Go to ubersuggest.
Com And in the search box add your domain name. I am going to use the example of This dentist located in tampa florida Click on search. This will initially give You an overview of your website, which includes the number of organic keywords: You’re ranking for the estimated organic traffic and the number of links pointing To your site, On the left hand, side choose site audit at the bottom of the Menu and click on search to trigger an automatic scan of your site, which should Take up to three minutes Once completed, you should see a breakdown of errors.
Warnings and recommendations Click on the first box to bring up the full list. In there you will be able to uncover issues with your pages, such as duplicate, Meta title low word count and missing headers across your site and fix them If You are unfamiliar with the errors, highlighted just click on the. What is This and how do I fix it, which is very helpful Since this is an automated scan? It doesn’t include every recommendation so once you’ve fixed the highlighted issues, I recommend you also check the following items for all your pages: Include the main, targeted keywords you are trying to rank for with your page And the city name in your main title tag Include the main targeted keywords: you Are trying to rank for with your page and the city name in your main header? Make sure the keywords is different from the home page and unique for each page.
Ensure your content is well structured and includes subheadings Add keywords in your subheadings, which are related to the main keywords you are Targeting for these pages Look at this example, One heading includes fuse box. And the other consumer unit, which are closely related. Finally, don’t forget to Add alt tags to your images Time to now. Look at how well your business is ranking in Google When it comes to local search.
Your business is likely to show in two distinctive areas within Google, The First, one is in Google Maps with your Google, my business listing, which will Also include the map pack, The second one is what I call the more traditional Results which sit below the map pack, which is where your business website Will be listed, It’s important to know how well your business ranks and for What keywords so you can monitor if any of the improvements that you have Implemented have made a difference to your ranking Head back to ubersuggest And re-enter your domain name, if needed On the main screen, click on the organic Keywords tab: This will show you all the keywords your website is ranking for in the Traditional results, you can even export the results in Excel, save the data and Recheck a few weeks later, so you can compare rankings and check if you have Gained any positions, If you are not ranking for any keywords between Position 1 and 10: it means you’re not on the first page of Google for any Keywords, so there is a lot of work to do To make things simpler, moving forward.
I suggest you create a profile in ubersuggest for your website, which will Track your progress automatically, so you don’t have to keep downloading Excel. Spreadsheets and see in seconds, if your doing well or not Unfortunately, ubersuggest doesn’t track rankings for Google. My business listings In Google Maps, so it only gives you half of the picture To do this head over to a Site called localFalcon.
Com Local Falcon is a software that allows you to Track how well your Google, my business listings, ranks directly on Google Maps For a given keyword, I love this tool as it is very visual and you can instantly Get a feel of how well or badly your business is doing. Local Falcon is not a Free tool, however, you can create an account and run one free scan, which will Give you a good idea of how powerful this can be for your business.
Let me run Through an example with another dentist, called Denton dental located in Nashville USA, Once you’ve created an account click on scan on the main menu Start typing your business name in the business field. It should come up. Automatically, Please note that if you have decided to hide Your business address in your Google, my business listing you won’t be able to Run the scan Add the keyword you want to target.
In this instance, we’re going to use “ dentist Nashville” Choose the radius you want to target and then the distance Either in miles or in kilometers, Then select the grid size, Click on run, search, You will see dots showing where your business ranks and in what position. Based on your criterias, Any position beyond three means: your business is not Featured in the map pack, which really is where you want to be Clicking on the Dots will give you access to more details and check which businesses Rank above you and how far down you are on the list, Local Falcon stores all your scans, so you can easily compare them and Understand if you are making any progress over time Time to move on to our last item external links, External links, pointing To your site are one of the most important factors that will influence Your online visibility, In summary, the more quality links you have pointing to Your website, the more relevant it will appear to Google, who will reward you With higher rankings, But how strong is your link profile? To check this go back to ubersuggest.
Com once more and search for your Domain On the main screen check what your domain score is. This score is Calculated on the basis of external links pointing to your site, The lower the score, the weaker the site Run the same scan for your competitor’s Site and look at their domain scores If your score is lower than theirs is Because they have more valuable links pointing to their site than you do This Means there is a great chance you will be ranking lower than they are for the Keywords, you are targeting.
The solution. Try getting more web sites to link to Yours, If you don’t know where to start, you can spy on your competitors, links by Clicking on their domain score, This will show all the links pointing to their Site Just try to get the same links as they do. That’s it for today now it’s Your turn Download the SEO audit checklist and run through each item. One By one, I’ve made this very simple to use just put a cross in Yes or no box and it will change color automatically Once completed.
You will See how well or badly you’re doing just by looking at the overall color scheme, And which item you need to address based on priority Hope you liked the article if You have any comments or questions post them below and until next time, happy Marketing
Gaps that need to be filled and will also help you create the perfect road map to crush your competitors, An in-depth local SEO audit can cost Several hundred dollars, sometimes thousands if you Commission, an agency to Do it for you, But today I’m going to show you how to do a quick SEO.
Audit Yourself, so you can start improving your online presence straight away without Spending a dime I’ve even put together an SEO audit checklist, which includes a Ton of free tools and recommendations which you can download in the Description below so you can go through each step of the process for your own Business from the comfort of your home and at your own pace At the end of it, you’ll know exactly what you need to work on Hi there.
This is your first time, Here, welcome to the community. My name is Luc Durand, the founder of rankingacademy.Co.Uk, which I created to help local business owners like you, thrive, Online and run successful businesses If you want to join the thousands of people, Who are already part of this growing family? It’S simple and free. Just click. On the subscribe button and the Bell notification – and you will automatically Be alerted when I publish a new article If you’re ready, let’s jump in Google, my Business listing audit: Do you have a Google my business listing? I know this Sounds obvious for many of you, but they are tons of businesses out there who Have yet to claim their Google listing Like this one face: painting fairies, Google, my business is crucial to your online success and will have a major Influence on your overall online visibility, If you haven’t claimed your Listing yet do it now, if you don’t know how read my article, how to set up Google My business for best results.
If you have a listing and it is verified, it’s Important to get it right Here is what you need to look out for Business name Use the same business name that you would use in real life and that Is printed on any of your legal documentation or business cards? Do not Add any additional keywords in a hope: you will rank higher It’S against Google’s policy and you may get suspended, Address and phone number Make sure your address and phone number are accurate, get this wrong and you will Be in a world of pain, you will mislead Google and your customers too.
Business Categories Ensure you’ve selected the right primary category for your business. As it will influence your rankings enormously, This can sometimes be a Tough choice, dentist cosmetic dentist and dental clinic are three different. Categories so make sure you choose wisely Once you’re done with your Primary category, you can add secondary categories that apply to your business. Business hours Have you entered your business hours? If not make sure you do.
People look at this stuff, Don’t cheat and pretend you’re open when you’re not To avoid frustration and potential bad reviews, which leads me to my next point: Reviews Reviews are a major influence when it comes to rankings. It could make The difference between your competitors ranking and not you, How many do you have? How positive are they have you responded to all of them? You can encourage Customers to leave you more reviews with this nice little tool that will generate A link which will automatically trigger a Google my business review pop up and Ease the review process For more info on this just check my article on how to Collect reviews Website Link your Google, my business listing to your website.
If You haven’t done it yet FAQs. Have you added frequently asked Questions to your profile, FAQ will help people make informed decision about your Business People also use the FAQ option to ask about services you provide, which Can often generate fresh leads, so there are not to be ignored If you’re stuck About what to write in there here is a tool that might help answerthepublic.Com Throw a keyword in there and it will spit out a list of common questions.
You can use Photos. Photos are probably the best way of showcasing your Business and capturing attention so add some photos regularly. You can also add Articles and 360 panoramic views for better engagement. Google posts. Do you Publish any post, You can increase your visibility with Google posts Posts can Be used to provide an update about your business, promote a product, a service or An event They increase your listing prominence in search results, especially On mobile and are used automatically to answer FAQs in the FAQ section, Although they expire every 7 days, it’s a great feature, not Many businesses are using so make the most of it.
Business description. Have you Added a business description: if you haven’t time to start typing, You can add A description to tell customers a bit more about your business in up to 750 Characters: Google, my business, has more options available. Some of them industry specific, but if you can nail these down for now, you will Have a solid profile Time to move on to citations audit, If you don’t know what A citation is, it is a mention of your business in major directories and social Media platforms, which generally includes your business name, your business, address your business phone number and sometimes a link to your site like in this example.
On yell.Com, which is a major directory in the UK Having your business listed in These is the foundation of any local SEO strategy and is important for two Reasons these directories very often rank at the top of search engine results. For local searches, which may include your business and drive traffic to your Site but more importantly, it helps create trust and legitimacy with Google Who will be discovering your business across all these platforms, But for Google, to establish trust your business information needs to be accurate and Consistent everywhere your business is mentioned.
You could check the Consistency and accuracy of your business information across the web, Manually, but to be honest with you, it is a very tedious exercise and can still Lead to errors Instead use a tool that will do the legwork for you in my Opinion bright, local is one of the best tools to just do that. You can create a free account for 14 days without using a credit card which Is more than enough time to check if your business is mentioned in all the Right places, and if there are any errors, You can even download a full citation.
Report and will also have access to tons of additional information once you’ve. Set up your profile, The next thing we’re going to check is: if your website is Responsive Checking, if your website is responsive, is just ensuring that your Website works on all types of devices and, more specifically, on mobile phones. When it comes to local search, most of your visitors will come across your site. Via a mobile phone, so if your website is not compatible, your business is really Going to suffer To quickly check if your website is adapted to multiple devices, Download this free, resizer app in Google Chrome then simulate your website view.
On the various devices available, The next thing we’re going to look at is Your home page Since the home page of your site is your most important page. It Deserves to be analyzed separately, as there are many things to take into Consideration To really maximize your SEO opportunities: this is what you Should check Is your title tag optimized and includes the keywords and the city Name, you are targeting.
Have you added a Meta Description to your page, compelling Enough, so that people will want to click on your listing in Google when they come Across your business is there a main title, also known as h1, which stands for Header, which also includes your main keyword and city name, Is there an Obvious call to action on the page, such as a phone number that is visible Without scrolling down Is the call to action visible on the mobile version of Your site, without scrolling down, is there enough content on your page? Think Of including your services and products, and whatever else you think, is relevant Are you linking to important sub pages from your home page, which you’d like Visitors to click to and Google to discover Do all your images have an alt Tag Are you talking about your location where your business operates? Have you embedded a Google map related to your business, so visitors can check Directions straight to you from your homepage: Does your page include your Name address and phone number, which is consistent with your Google, my business Listing Once you’ve completed all of the above, it’s time to analyze the rest of Your pages For this we’re going to use a tool which is going to speed up the Process enormously Go to ubersuggest.
Com And in the search box add your domain name. I am going to use the example of This dentist located in tampa florida Click on search. This will initially give You an overview of your website, which includes the number of organic keywords: You’Re ranking for the estimated organic traffic and the number of links pointing To your site, On the left hand, side choose site audit at the bottom of the Menu and click on search to trigger an automatic scan of your site, which should Take up to three minutes Once completed, you should see a breakdown of errors.
Warnings and recommendations Click on the first box to bring up the full list. In there you will be able to uncover issues with your pages, such as duplicate, Meta title low word count and missing headers across your site and fix them If You are unfamiliar with the errors, highlighted just click on the. What is This and how do I fix it, which is very helpful Since this is an automated scan? It doesn’t include every recommendation so once you’ve fixed the highlighted issues, I recommend you also check the following items for all your pages: Include the main, targeted keywords you are trying to rank for with your page And the city name in your main title tag Include the main targeted keywords: you Are trying to rank for with your page and the city name in your main header? Make sure the keywords is different from the home page and unique for each page.
Ensure your content is well structured and includes subheadings Add keywords in your subheadings, which are related to the main keywords you are Targeting for these pages Look at this example, One heading includes fuse box. And the other consumer unit, which are closely related. Finally, don’t forget to Add alt tags to your images Time to now. Look at how well your business is ranking in Google When it comes to local search.
Your business is likely to show in two distinctive areas within Google, The First, one is in Google Maps with your Google, my business listing, which will Also include the map pack, The second one is what I call the more traditional Results which sit below the map pack, which is where your business website Will be listed, It’s important to know how well your business ranks and for What keywords so you can monitor if any of the improvements that you have Implemented have made a difference to your ranking Head back to ubersuggest And re-enter your domain name, if needed On the main screen, click on the organic Keywords tab: This will show you all the keywords your website is ranking for in the Traditional results, you can even export the results in Excel, save the data and Recheck a few weeks later, so you can compare rankings and check if you have Gained any positions, If you are not ranking for any keywords between Position 1 and 10: it means you’re not on the first page of Google for any Keywords, so there is a lot of work to do To make things simpler, moving forward.
I suggest you create a profile in ubersuggest for your website, which will Track your progress automatically, so you don’t have to keep downloading Excel. Spreadsheets and see in seconds, if your doing well or not Unfortunately, ubersuggest doesn’t track rankings for Google. My business listings In Google Maps, so it only gives you half of the picture To do this head over to a Site called localFalcon.
Com Local Falcon is a software that allows you to Track how well your Google, my business listings, ranks directly on Google Maps For a given keyword, I love this tool as it is very visual and you can instantly Get a feel of how well or badly your business is doing. Local Falcon is not a Free tool, however, you can create an account and run one free scan, which will Give you a good idea of how powerful this can be for your business.
Let me run Through an example with another dentist, called Denton dental located in Nashville USA, Once you’ve created an account click on scan on the main menu Start typing your business name in the business field. It should come up. Automatically, Please note that if you have decided to hide Your business address in your Google, my business listing you won’t be able to Run the scan Add the keyword you want to target.
In this instance, we’re going to use “ dentist Nashville” Choose the radius you want to target and then the distance Either in miles or in kilometers, Then select the grid size, Click on run, search, You will see dots showing where your business ranks and in what position. Based on your criterias, Any position beyond three means: your business is not Featured in the map pack, which really is where you want to be Clicking on the Dots will give you access to more details and check which businesses Rank above you and how far down you are on the list, Local Falcon stores all your scans, so you can easily compare them and Understand if you are making any progress over time Time to move on to our last item external links, External links, pointing To your site are one of the most important factors that will influence Your online visibility, In summary, the more quality links you have pointing to Your website, the more relevant it will appear to Google, who will reward you With higher rankings, But how strong is your link profile? To check this go back to ubersuggest.
Com once more and search for your Domain On the main screen check what your domain score is. This score is Calculated on the basis of external links pointing to your site, The lower the score, the weaker the site Run the same scan for your competitor’s Site and look at their domain scores If your score is lower than theirs is Because they have more valuable links pointing to their site than you do This Means there is a great chance you will be ranking lower than they are for the Keywords, you are targeting.
The solution. Try getting more web sites to link to Yours, If you don’t know where to start, you can spy on your competitors, links by Clicking on their domain score, This will show all the links pointing to their Site Just try to get the same links as they do. That’S it for today now it’s Your turn Download the SEO audit checklist and run through each item. One By one, I’ve made this very simple to use just put a cross in Yes or no box and it will change color automatically Once completed.
You will See how well or badly you’re doing just by looking at the overall color scheme, And which item you need to address based on priority Hope you liked the article if You have any comments or questions post them below and until next time, happy Marketing
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So hey I’m Sam, and this is Emma. So I’m constantly knowing social media’s important and you need to be on it. Or your thought is I have to like. I have to comment. I have to constantly post Actually Emma. I know you’re the social media Queen here. So what is some of your Tips on saving time on social media, First and foremost start a social media content calendar.
This is a great way to help you plan ahead, also to help you get Creative with your posts, because it is all about quality, not quantity, So to improve the quality. If it you want to plan ahead, To get those holidays in there with some cool posts, Also think about it. This way you got Instagram Facebook Twitter. How often do you post I get that asked all the time And the worst thing you want to happen.
Is you wake up it’s Thursday and you Haven’T posted anything since last Thursday, So with Instagram, post At least once a week, But I recommend a couple times a week – Also take advantage of those Instagram stories’cause, that’s really to me easier to fit in because it’s more Raw unpolished content, So it’s a really great Way to some like behind the scenes, I know we’ve done it here on set And then for Facebook again post a couple of times a week And think about what photos, you can add, Show photos of your team Showcase.
Your expertise share something that’s entertaining and of value, Educate me and then Twitter. Now Twitter. You can get A little more frequent to stay on top of that newsfeed, So you can be posting every day Once a day, maybe twice a day and keep it short and sweet. Like me, And informative, I wasn’t going to say it And you might be thinking I’M a seasonal business, so I’m going to like take some time off with that social media calendar Eh wrong, Let’s say: you’re a hotel.
It’S the off season show me a picture of the beach Wish. You were here, Happy get excited about it. Take this and put it top of mind for your customers, your guests, so they don’t forget about you throughout the year Wow Emma! That’S all great and it’s Valuable information, However, I’m only one person And it feels like it’s a lot to do. Do you have any kind of Tips on how to kind of go about all that.
Yeah totally So I will bring up, Go Daddy, Social. We are a do it for you service, we’re on that team And we’ll take this Completely off your plate, After all, it’s a full time job So we’ll give you the Writers to handle all this, If you want to handle this on your own Rad, there’s hootsuite TweetDeck, those are scheduling apps, So that can help you to plan ahead and get that content. You know think about it ahead of time, Ready and it’ll post on your behalf.
In the future, I also recommend to Keep in mind, especially on social media, that you don’t always have to create original content, Which does take more time. You can also share content from relevant folks in your industry. So let’s say you have a restaurant and you read this great tweet from Bon Appetit. Oh, my gosh click retweet. There’S your content for the day and it’s super relevant to your audience.
Maybe some cool recipes and cooking tips, Or maybe you are a landscape artist and you read something about on homes and gardens or better homes, And you get excited about it. You’Re like this is something My audience will love Again: repost retweet And don’t forget user generated content. Your customers are already big fans of what you do. They might be taking photos of your food, your products capturing their experience.
With your services Pay attention to that when you’re mentioned and repurpose that Share it, retweet and That’S going to save you time, Just like the scheduling apps that I mentioned prior So I’m sensing a theme here that I don’t have to come up everything myself Exactly and that’s. What’S so cool about these Social media blogs They are very social and that, yes, it’s not always about You and it shouldn’t be Just dishing out your content, your expertise, sell, sell, sell.
You want to drive some Conversation and engagement with the help of your friends on social, Like other businesses in your industry, So I know one of my bad habits in the past is really just always being on social media. So do you have any kind? Of tips to kind of help with that Yes, you can definitely just set aside some time a window where you take that time to really focus on your social media content And also go and check out what other people are posting.
So you can get new followers. You can get eyes on your brand by just following, like minded people, And in addition to that, I’m a big fan of setting alerts and reminders. Oh yeah, I love to do whatever I can to declutter up here and take off my brain One less thing to think about. I am all for it. I live by my calendar, so I get that Yeah same You should see it mine’s color coded It’s ridiculous.
Oh mine’s bland So have an alert, Have a reminder and then, when that alert goes off this is your time to hone in and see you know who’s commenting on your post. Did you get any reviews And if you did take the Time to respond to those Read them and respond: In a personal manner, And any mentions that you have, Which I just talked about, User generated content: this is another great time to Check in setting that alert, like hey Sam, remember, see if Your customers are posting about you and, if so, acknowledge that, because this is clearly a Testimonial to your business, if they’re out there mentioning you Or taking photos of your services, your products Take advantage of it set an alert: Your users, your clients, your customers, they’re the best marketers for your business.
Another thing that I recommend for a good time saver is write out the copy before you post, So your caption. I see this all the time. With my influencer friends, They got that great shot, they’re ready to post that awesome photo on Instagram and then they’re Just hanging out stumped for words like Em Em Em. What do I say? I’M, like I don’t know, you’re putting me on the spot. So it’s something to Think and put time aside to put these captions, Maybe in a word doc, I often use my iPhone notes.
I see my influencer friends do the same So that way, they’re not rushed to come up with a witty creative caption. They have like this caption bank. If you will So you’re saying pretty much, you don’t have to do. Everything in the moment, You know you can plan it out Yeah and that actually brings up a good point. We’Re talking a lot about captions and having a caption bank if you will, But also have a photo Bank, so if you come across some compelling photos that you think you might use one day to represent your brand or Your team or your business store those in a place where You can easily access them And just put them out there.
It’S going to save you so much time versus that day, you’re coming in to the kitchen, You haven’t posted on Instagram in a week and you’re like already rushing to get the orders out, Be like oh team, get Together, we’re going to do a behind the scenes photo, It’s like no. This is our busiest time of the day. People need to be served. Customer service is still important, So get a photo bank it’ll save you time in the end, All right, that’s a wrap comment below with your Favorite time-saving tip And make sure that you, like this article, subscribe to our blog and ring that bell to make sure you’re notified when our brand new content comes out.
This is The Journey
Social media is a perfect way to get your message out to the masses and increase your search rankings.
Speaking of search engines. Do you have a webmaster running your website? There are sweet website design packages that will build a strong digital presence for your business. Check out the video below to see how much you could pay for a great website management package.
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