Small Business Internet Marketing Blog
Our Job Is To Empower You With The Knowledge And Tools To Make You Findable Online In Order To Get Your Phone Ringing Off The Hook Or Get Hordes Of Potential Customers Through The Door!
Asking The Right Questions Before Building A Local Website
Oct 6th
Before you talk about building a local website, virtually all your online advertising tactics – your pay-per-click (PPC) and banner ads, your local listings, your Facebook pages, and whatever else – either link directly to or at least feature a link to your site. Smart Internet users expect this.
They expect to be whisked to your URL to read more about your business, to find contact information, and to take advantage of special offers – something that enables them to take some form of action or in some other way, engage with your business.
Again before we talk about building a local website we need to resolve one pivotal question. Is it better to build your site or get professional help?
Unlike building, say, a go cart for your child, building a local website involves enough moving parts and pieces that completely doing it yourself is only one of three options – plus a fourth approach that is not DIY (do it yourself) at all. We will explain before we list them, what a few of those parts and pieces are:
The Template: This is the basis, or the foundation that your website is built upon. Most of these templates are pre-designed, but you can customize in anyway you like. What needs to be done is just add content.
To be honest a template is just a kind of frame. The elements of a website, such as copy, logos, graphics and so on, are placed in different inner frames as desired. These internal spaces can usually be expanded and contracted to fit the stuff that goes in them. When building a local website, the designer could well be you. Who wants a big central area for the body copy. Done. Then three smaller spaces where pictures or illustrations will go. Got it. Then narrower, horizontal spaces at the top and bottom of the page for the logo, contact information, and legal disclaimers..
Updating the material when building a local website is generally a lot easier than holding the aforementioned gremlins at bay – which is a good thing because updating a website is something that is done periodically, no matter how well the the site is running. The prices and policies change just as the business’s product line. On the technical side, sites have to be able to respond to improvements that search engines make in their own mechanics; plus, new engines may appear on the scene to which a site has to be made compatible.
Most of the time you need to just freshen the site with new graphics to keep it looking as current as your competitor’s sites. If you choose to update the site, pick a vendor that has easy-to-use editing tools so that you can update your site as quickly and easily as you can update your Facebook page.
So when it comes to building a local website, a local business owner often can do these maintenance and updating jobs, but making even a simple update incorrectly might break the whole site. Here again, the best advice may be to put an expert at the helm
The Key To Online Advertising Success – Building A Great Website
Oct 5th
Online advertising success starts with the old saying, “The eyes are the windows of the soul”? Your website is the first thing they see when they connect with you. First impression matters.
Your website is the primary fulfillment vehicle for all your online advertising success because it is where people come to find out more about your products or services, sign up for your newsletter etc. Your site is where you begin then continue to convert prospects into customers.
If your site is effective, you are a winner, if it is not, you will waste money on your entire online advertising success program.
Think of your website and the mid point between your advertising and your front door. Your website has to be good enough to get prospects to pick up the phone and call you. Or perhaps get out of their chairs and into their cars and come to your place of business.
If your online advertising success is done properly, your website establishes your business’s credibility and allows your prospects to gather information about you. This information should be as good as if your best sales person gave a face to face sales presentation, except with a website it is available 24/7.
Local Lead Nuturing – When Does It Make Sense?
Oct 4th
Local lead nuturing is the process of creating relationships with prospects that are qualified. Then grow them into buyers at some stage. Those leads need a little TLC. That or just throwing them away.
At what time does local lead nuturingmake sense?
When a big ticket item is being sold. As always the bigger the ticket item the longer it takes for the prospective buyer to hand over the cash.
When repeat business is the strongest driving force of your sales. In other words, when you have actual buyers in hand, you want to build relationships with them so that they become repeat buyers. When your email list opt-in grows. Figure out a way to do local lead nuturing on a large scale that will increase your chance of increasing your sales..
Here is an example of a local lead nuturing program that’s designed to instill trust in your business and position you as the best and most expert in your niche.
Day 1: Prospects opt-in on your website for you to contact them.
Day 2: You then email a welcome message to these prospects.
Day 28: You email them a recent customer success story.
Day 42: You email them a recent article that would interest them, that you found on the web, its an article that puts a product or service like yours in a good light.
Day 63: You email them a “hi, how are things with you” message.
Day 80: You email them a discount offer on an item you sell or a service you render.
Day 85: The prospect calls you: Hey presto! You have a qualified lead.
“Wow,” you say, “That’s a long stretch of local lead nuturing.” None of the steps are really difficult if you think about it. Over time you will have everything in the can, except the customers success story and internet article..
And the time frame for the local lead nuturing stage depending on the value of the sale. If you are selling a bicycle the stage will be shorter. If you are sell an RV, this stage could easily run a lot longer.
Local Lead Capture And It’s Importance To Small Businesses
Sep 30th
Local lead capture usually happens at the same time as or right after local lead generation and before local lead nuturing. You are using local online advertising prospects respond to.
If you don’t get their contact information via their responses, find a way to get it. This is called the capture phase and then you can go onto nurture them. Local lead capture can be produced via phone, or increasingly via Web site.. So you don’t necessarily need to set up a website to capture leads..
You can set up a page that appears when a potential customer clicks your online ad or link to your business that they find on a search engine.
Now that you have captured the client’s information it is time to follow up. You can safely assume that people who just gave you their information expect to hear from you. What are you waiting for – make contact.
People who have opted into your database with their names and email are high quality leads. They are your birds in hand. This is the power of local lead capture.
