Archive for the ‘Local Lure’ Category

Local Lure: Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

online social media imageDoes your organization depend on local customers? If so, attracting area customers is crucial to the continuing success of your organization. With Internet marketing, you have many opportunities to raise awareness of your business among customers in the markets you most want to target. In Local Lure, our new blog series about local SEO, we talk about the ways you can gear your marketing to bring in more locals.

Social media marketing offers a terrific opportunity for local businesses to connect with local customers. According to a recent Nielsen study, the typical Internet user spends an average of about 25 percent of their time online using social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook. In addition to making your business more visible to area customers, social media marketing can make it easier to keep customers up-to-date on the latest company news and even help improve your SEO. We recommend the following social media sites for building a local following:

Facebook

The most visited website on the Internet, people of all ages, races, ethnicities and income levels use Facebook to connect with others. Given its popularity, more and more businesses are finding that having a Facebook page is not only a good idea but a necessity. Offering a large toolbox of applications and features, it’s easy to create a customized Facebook page for your business to reach out to more locals.

Twitter

Much like Facebook, Twitter is on the rise with people of all walks of life. With a Twitter page, you can send out short updates to current and prospective customers in your area.

Yelp

Yelp, a user review and local search site, is popular with influential consumers, especially in major markets. Each month, more than 30 million users go to Yelp to find businesses in their area – from restaurants and shops to plumbers and lawyers. If your business is already listed on Yelp, go ahead and claim your listing to respond to customer reviews both publicly and privately, add bios and about us statements, photos and other informative content.

MerchantCircle

MerchantCircle is a social network for businesses. Through MerchantCircle, businesses can connect to area customers as well as other businesses. By claiming your MerchantCircle listing, businesses can customize their listing layout, add links to their website, blog and other social media sites and post pictures.

Groupon

Groupon features one-day-only specials (i.e. $50 for $100 worth of clothing) in each major market. In order to take advantage of that coupon, customers must purchase that coupon for its face value in advance. In addition to receiving money from promotions upfront, being featured on Groupon helps businesses of all sizes inform local customers about their business.

If you’d like to know more about how social media marketing can have a positive effect on your local business, contact us at CyberMark. We can create a custom social media strategy for your business that will help you reach more customers in your area – and beyond.

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Posted in Facebook, Groupon, Local Lure, Local SEO, MerchantCircle, Social Media, Twitter, Yelp | No Comments »

Wikipedia Introduces Article Assessment Feature

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Wikipedia logoOnline collective encyclopedia Wikipedia is testing an article assessment tool as part of its Public Policy Initiative to ensure higher quality site content. With the new feature, readers can rate articles on several criteria, including sourcing, completeness, neutrality and readability.

As Wikipedia wrote in its technical blog, “The goal of the project is to improve the quality of public policy-related articles. Comparing standard community self-assessment processes, opinion sought from external experts, and article feedback from readers (with the test tool) will help to provide the community with a better understanding of the strengths and limits of each system.”

The new article assessment tool became available to the public Wednesday on selected Wikipedia articles. No official word on if or when the developing tool will get a wider release.

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Posted in Local Lure, Social Media, Wikipedia | No Comments »

Local Lure: PPC Campaigns

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

local PPC imageDoes your organization depend on local customers? If so, attracting area customers is crucial to the continuing success of your organization. With Internet marketing, you have many opportunities to raise awareness of your business among customers in the markets you most want to target. In Local Lure, our new blog series about local SEO, we talk about the ways you can gear your marketing to bring in more locals.

For local businesses looking for a quick and effective way to attract area customers, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising offers a terrific solution, particularly when coupled with organic SEO tactics. PPC ads list almost immediately, drawing in potential customers while waiting for the effects of organic SEO to take hold. Also, the success (or lack thereof) of PPC ads can help you better determine which keywords are the most successful at pulling in customers.

To develop a successful PPC ad, you must use keyword phrases that are popular enough with searchers but specific enough to bring in targeted leads. Including regions you want to reach with your PPC ad helps strengthen your efforts to inform potential area customers about your organization. For example, say you operate a Greek restaurant in Phoenix. By using the keyword phrase “Phoenix Greek restaurant,” your ad will appear next to search results when people in the Phoenix area search for nearby Greek restaurants. If you decided to leave out the city name and just go with the phrase “Greek restaurant,” your ad will appear in search results all over the nation. However, with a phrase as general as Greek restaurant, your ad will be subject to considerably more competition and, therefore, likely to get pushed to the wayside.

In addition, your localized PPC ad will reach more local searchers regardless of whether or not they include specific geographic information in their search queries. In order to produce more relevant search results for users, Google gleams users’ location through their IP addresses to present searchers with local ads related to their searches. For example, if someone in Phoenix searches for “Greek restaurant,” your “Phoenix Greek restaurant” ad would show up in search results.

CyberMark can help you create and execute winning PPC ads for major search engines on local as well as national levels. We can recommend keyword phrases to use to bring in the most targeted leads to your organization. We’ll also monitor and analyze the effectiveness of your campaigns and make the necessary adjustments.

Contact Lisa DeVoe, our CPC manager, to discuss in detail how a local PPC campaign can positively impact your business.

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Posted in Local Lure, Local SEO, PPC | No Comments »

Local Lure: Google Places

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Does your organization depend on local customers? If so, attracting area customers is crucial to the continuing success of your organization. With Internet marketing, you have many opportunities to raise awareness of your business among customers in the markets you most want to target. In Local Lure, our new blog series about local SEO, we talk about the ways you can gear your marketing to bring in more locals.

One of our first recommendations to local businesses looking to gain the attention of area customers is to add or claim their business’ Google Places listing. Previously known as Google Local, Google Places displays local business search results in Google Maps, representing each business with a red icon. By clicking on an icon, users can view more information about a business, from street addresses and phone numbers to customer reviews and coupons, on their Google Places listing. Google Places listings provide a valuable opportunity for local businesses to let prospective customers know about their business.

Google Places listing

CyberMark International's Google Place listing

Once you have added or claimed your Google Places listing by going through a short verification process, be sure to fill out your listing with as much information as possible. The more information you provide in your Google Places listing, the simpler you make it for potentially interested customers to find out about your business. You can add the following information to your Google Places listing:

  • Company name
  • Address (your business’ physical address or service area)
  • Phone number
  • Website
  • Up to 5 categories that describe your business
  • Hours of operation
  • Payment options
  • Up to 10 photos or images that depict your business
  • Up to 5 of your company’s YouTube videos
  • Coupons for your business
  • Custom fields such as “Cuisine” or “Nearby Attractions”

As with Google.com search, Google Maps ranks Google Places listings by using an algorithm. This algorithm considers many factors, including how many reviews a business has received. Although Google Places displays reviews from third-party websites such as Insider Pages, UrbanSpoon and Zagat, you can help your Google Place listing rank higher by encouraging your customers to post a review of your business in Google Maps. You can do this by including a link to your Place listing on your website or your e-mail newsletter and simply asking customers to describe their experience with your business.

At CyberMark, we would be happy to help you add or claim your Google Places listing(s). As Google Places experts, we can help you avoid penalties setting up your Google Places profile improperly. Just contact us, and we’ll help you build a Google Places listing that will get you noticed among area customers.

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Posted in Google, Local Lure, Local SEO | No Comments »

Local Lure: Regional Pages and Websites

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Regional pages and websites imageDoes your organization depend on local customers? If so, attracting area customers is crucial to the continuing success of your organization. With Internet marketing, you have many opportunities to raise awareness of your business among customers in the markets you most want to target. In Local Lure, our new blog series about local SEO, we talk about the ways you can gear your marketing to bring in more locals.

Regional pages, web pages geared toward certain cities, neighborhoods or other significant areas to your organization, are a great way to gain the attention of more locals searching for products and services related to what your business offers. A regional page includes region-specific text to increase the odds of your website appearing in localized search results. For example, if you owned a dry-cleaning business in Los Angeles, you would want a Los Angeles web page with phrases such as “Los Angeles dry cleaning services” or “L.A. dry cleaner.”

We recommend adding regional pages for each area you want to target. In this example, we would also recommend adding regional pages for major cities close to Los Angeles, including West Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank, Culver City and Santa Monica in efforts to attract the attention of potential dry cleaning customers there as well.

If you’re looking for an aggressive way to market to a particular area, you could even add a regional website, an entire website geared toward a certain city, neighborhood, state or region.

At CyberMark, we can advise you on adding regional pages and websites, as well as other ways to boost your local SEO. Our staff will work with you to determine which markets you most want to target, and our text writers can develop compelling and informative region-specific text. To find out more about how regional pages and websites can positively affect your business, contact us.

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Posted in Local Lure, Local SEO | No Comments »