Friday, February 14, 2014

Business Owner's Fantasy


If Only This Were True

Yes, it would be great if your product or service was the only one showing up. Now the reality: No matter what your business, you have competitors who are also vying to be seen by potential customers. 


Millions of searches are done everyday for a product or service (Tweet This)
, and the local business owner needs to be in the right position and page to take advantage of these searches.


So what is a small to medium sized business owner to do?

 Here are a few tips you can do today to increase your page and search rankings.
Google has a free service for local business owners - search Google for your company name and check to see if you  have a Places Listing.  If you don't have one, create one. If your company is listed; make sure it is verified. (I am always amazed how many companies have not done this). The Places listing will allow you to update your company information, choose business categories, upload images, and videos. Just by doing these things Google gives you street "cred".  Also spy a little on your competitors, you can see right away it they have not claimed their listing, which will give your a leg up on them in the Page Ranking War.

2. Website Analysis - Search Engine Optimization
Having a properly optimized website for the search engines(Google,Yahoo, Bing), is one key strategy business owners often neglect. This is how the search engines decide how to rank you based on what they find when those little "robots" of theirs starting running in the dark of night to find new content.
The "robots' are looking for content, keywords, descriptions,images,page titles,meta tags, and your location.

3.  Online Business Directories and Citations
There literally hundreds of online business directories and citation sites where you business can be listed. Doing this increases your changes of the search engines picking up your company as a true business entity. Here are a few to check out for yourself.

I hope this information will help you get started on moving your business forward. The internet is here to stay and if you are not on the highway involved in the traffic, know that your competitors are.

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Sunday, February 9, 2014

DIY and the Social Media Maze


Most local business owners are one-person shops. Tweet This

From opening to closing, from accounting to taxes, from supplies to merchandising; you do all of this because your budget contraints demand it.

The do-it-myself mindset is a necessity in today's world, you don't have money to throw around and waste on paying for services when you can do it yourself.


What about marketing? 

Do It Myself



Are you doing all the marketing needed to keep your business in front of new and current clients?

There's a range of options available since the day of the Yellow Pages and Direct Mailings.  Now there's the internet and all the different ways to market your business on the world wild web.

If you have a website - great -  that's the first step in being seen on the web. If you haven't made that dive yet, I encourage you to research and find the best hosting  and domain name company for your budget.

I personally recommend Go Daddy.com as almost everyone can afford $150.00 or less per year to have a website, domain name, and your own company email.


Now, let's go back to the Do It Myself Group

Yes, you can do all of the internet marketing, social media, and website setup yourself; the question is: Should You?

Here's a List of what you need if you are going to go it alone:

1. A website(please no flash only) properly configured for the         search engines

2. A range of keywords that describe your product or service.

3. Your Business submitted to all the top Online Business Directories

4. Your Business submitted to the top Search Engines (Google,Yahoo,Bing)

5. A Google+ Places Business Listing

6. Social Media Accounts (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, to name a few)
online marketing for the smb


This list is a great starting point, each one of these items will take a investment of your precious time if you are going to do it yourself.



The longer you wait, the greater the chance your competitors are moving ahead with using the power of the internet to expand and grow their businesses.




Please contact us if you decide you need assistance 

Local Business Consulting offers a free consultation and our paid services are designed to fit your  marketing budget.