Archive for Local Business
Getting The Most Out Of Your Local Business Listing
Posted by: | CommentsOptimizing the following four sections will help you get the most out of your local business listing.
Images By: Bob Jagendorf – CC BY 2.0
- Your Business’s Name or Title
The name or title of your business is very important in helping your business rank effectively on local search engines. Maintaining a consistent business name or title everywhere your business is mentioned online is of absolute importance, as it helps search engines create connections and correlations between your local business listings, which, in turn, helps build trust and authority in the authenticity of your business. - Local Citations and Links
Major search engines discover your business online through 2 basic methods:
a. Crawling through links to your website found on other web pages and measuring on which sites those links are found.
b. Noting and connecting your business’s local citations and measuring on which sites those citations are found.
These two discovery criteria are extremely important factors used by search engines to determine how and where to rank your business. For argument’s sake, if you were to disregard all other ranking factors used by search engines, the following would be true …
The business with the highest number of local citations from quality websites and the most number of backlinks from quality websites, such as a local government or educational site, will out rank everyone else on local search engine results. Distributing your NAP (business name, address, and phone number) across as many quality sites as possible (while maintaining consistency with the way that information is displayed) will generate the most, high quality local citations for your business. - Categories
Most local business listing services will allow you to put your business into several pre-defined industry-type categories. This may, at first, seem like an unnecessary step, but understand that search engine’s main objective is to comprehend, index, and categorize your business listing correctly, so it appears appropriately in relevant search results. Further helping the search engines “pre-categorize” your business listing will only get you that much further ahead. - Customer Ratings and Reviews
Reviews and ratings are important for two reasons. Oftentimes, the reviews contain keywords, which describe your business. Since these reviews come through customers and not through your business, they are considered user generated content. User generated content plays its own role in helping your business listings rank well. Reviews and ratings also serve as testimonials created by your customers for future customers. People are much more likely to become your customer, once they have read a positive review about your business.
Local business listings are important in helping your business rank well on today’s locally focused search engines. Getting the most out of your business listing, by optimizing your business title, prolifically creating local citations, selecting categories, and encouraging customer reviews, will only help your business be successful online.
Clients That Cause Issues
Posted by: | CommentsThis may sound a bit weird (especially for a newbie freelancer) but if you’ve been doing freelancing for a while, you definitely know that there are clients that are not really worth it. This post explains what bad signs to keep in mind so that you can screen out all the “bad” clients out there. 
The Why
Before going into the details how to read the signs of a bad client, I’d like to touch on why you need to do that. The thing is that lousy clients will never be happy with your work. For starters, it’s just psychologically difficult to work with somebody who is never satisfied with whatever you do, even if you go the extra mile. Secondly, such a customer will never give you positive referrals or testimonials that you might use for getting more clients.
What’s more, you’ll have to basically force them to pay you what you agreed upon before. If you’re not one of those who enjoy harmful emotions, you don’t want to work with such customers. They’ll try to either postpone your payments or find a reason to pay you less than you agreed to work for in the beginning. As you can see, there’s enough why’s to make you really want to stay far away from such clients.
Warning Signs of a Bad Client
Having outlined why you need to be aware of the issues that a bad client can cause, I’ll give you an idea of what to keep a really weather eye on.
Not a Fan
If your customer does not really like what you did before (after checking your portfolio), it basically means that he does not trust you and your skills. In the first place, it’ll make it quite hard to agree on the prices that work for you and ensure that you can provide high-quality work. Such a client is basically a bargain hunter.
Unrealistic Expectations
You client may not understand how things work in your industry and ask you to do something that is either not really possible or at least not for that sort of money that he offers. As a professional, your duty is to explain it to your client that he wants something that is not actually doable in your circumstances. In case it’s just impossible because of the unavailability of that technology, you can just tell your customer what’s up. If his price is unrealistic, you still need to let him know why, but you also need to go into the details why it is so. Just explain what doing something he wants would involve and how that would influence the prices you’re going to have to charge. Your client will get your point if he’s a rational being. Should he not, it’s just not your client.
Overspecific
In case your client wants to discuss every single (however insignificant) aspect of your work, you need to stay alert. It’s a very bad sign, because such an approach from your client will slow down the project a great deal. Sometimes clients want you to explain just about everything that you do in terms of technology (how to create a contact form in PHP, etc). If it’s your case, just refer them to some web educational resource or just tell him or her that you’ll have to charge for educating him. Don’t get me wrong, a certain degree of education is a mandatory and integral thing when working with a customer, but that does not mean that you need to go really in-depth and share all your knowledge and teach him all the skills you know. There should be a limit.
Slow Thinker and Doer
From time to time, you may stumble upon customers who communicate in a really slow way. You send him an email message and he replies in like 3 days or a week. Should you be OK with that, then it’s perfect, but ,if you like to really focus on one thing for a long time span, you’re going to have issues with a slow client. The truth is, it actually makes sense to specify in your initial agreement how often you need to reply to each other’s messages.
The DIY Client
Though it’s sometimes perfectly OK to have total freedom at what you do with your client’s project, it’s not that positive in the long run. The thing is that even if your client tells you to do whatever you think best and just get back to him with a ready site or whatever you provide, it’s definitely gonna backfire down the road. That’s because once you send him a completed project, the client starts finding “issues” with something that you invested a whole lot of time and efforts into. The best way would be to break your project into logical milestones and just double-check with the client if everything goes well every time your reach a milestone. Thus you can be sure that you won’t have to redo everything from the gitgo.
The Bottom Line
As you could see for yourself, you absolutely need to read those bad signs, because doing so allows you to get rid of all the bad clients. That allows you to focus on the good ones and do more high-quality work for them. And it’s instead of proving something to your bad customer or just begging him to pay for the work that you actually did for him. Did you have a bad customer? What’s your experience?
Images By: Paul Cross – CC BY 2.0
Are You a Local Business Owner?
Posted by: | CommentsReading this post could be the most important 5 minutes a local business owner has spent in a very long time. I’m not the “dramatic type”, but I feel strongly that is a true statement.
For years, decades in fact, Yellow Page advertising has played a key role in a local business’ success. But all good things come to an end as they say.
We are seeing that end happening right now. Yellow Page usage goes down each year as more and more people rely on Google. I for one have not touched the Yellow Pages for quite some time. Why would I? Google offers more instant and much better results than thumbing through a “book”.
If your local business sells pizzas in Boise, do a search for “pizza in boise”.
If your local business sells plumbing services in Denver, search for “plumbers in Denver”
If your local business sells….well, you get the point.
Do a search for your product or service in your city. That’s called a “local search”.
How does your business rank?
Are you right there on the first page by the Google map AND down the page below in the regular listings?
If so, CONGRATULATIONS…for now anyway.
Because if you ARE listed well now, and you don’t know how it happened and you are not doing anything in order to STAY there…your competition will eventually replace your first page listings!
If you are not on the first page now, those competitors you see there now are STEALING business away from you as your read this.
Stressed About Building or Editing Your Web Site?
Posted by: | CommentsI can’t tell you how excited I am about a brand new tool that will change a whole lot of people’s lives!
If you are like most people, I bet you’ve said something like this way too often:
“How am I ever going to figure out this web design stuff?” or “If only I could get my site built, I could get on to the important parts…like earning some income with it!”
Don’t feel bad…you can’t believe how many other people have those same frustrations!
Your frustration is over with!
I now have an EASY method to create attractive AND search engine friendly web sites! …without knowing ANYTHING about HTML, Dreamweaver, NVU, or other web editors.
I have several videos here that show just how easy it is to create a great looking web site the search engines will LOVE!
Click Here For the Videos!
This 8 Letter Word Will BOOST Your Profits
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the most frustrating aspects of running any business is the perceived lack of time to complete everything on the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly “to-do” lists. Time management is at or near the top of the list of important business skills to master.
But let’s face it; you are JUST ONE PERSON and there really are only 24 hours in each day.
Therefore, the word-of-the-day is “DELEGATE”.
Delegation comes in many forms. If you have employees, delegating more duties and responsibilities to them would of course be your first option.
The second option would be hiring another employee to take up some slack or, if you are a one-man or one-woman show, hiring a part-time VA (virtual assistant) would be the place to begin delegating.
Words and thoughts are cheap of course. Talking about and understanding the need to delegate is one thing…acting on the process is quite another.
Why is the process of delegating so difficult for so many of us?
First, if a new VA or employee is required, you may be hesitant about committing the additional funds. If things are tight, the phrase “can’t afford it now” is often the reason used. In most cases, if outsourcing and delegation are being considered, the truth is probably, “you can’t afford NOT to do it now”. If done thoughtfully, a business will always benefit if its owner has more time to work ON his or her business instead of IN the business.
The second reason for failing to delegate is the “no one can do it as well as I do it” syndrome. It’s usually true…at least in our minds. VA’s should know they are NOT usually hired because a business owner believes someone else can do the job better. If that was true, 90% of outsourcing would cease to exist. (Sorry VA’s, but it is a fact.)
Let’s assume there is a job that needs delegated and it’s true that no one can do it as well as you do it. So what?
The 80/20 rule comes into play here. 20% of your time produces 80% of your income. That 20% is VERY important time spent. Delegating more of the 80% means you can spend more time on the profitable 20%. The purpose of any business is to make profit. Get over the fact that your delegated tasks may not be done EXACTLY like you would do them! Resisting delegation is costing you money!
Some of your daily time, such as creating a new marketing campaign, can be worth many thousands of dollars per hour of time worked. Other tasks you spend your time on may not be worth more than minimum wage. Take a hard and honest look at your daily routine and see what needs to happen in order for you to spend more time on the thousand-dollar per hour tasks!
Do You Work “In” or “on” Your Business?
Posted by: | CommentsMost business owners are too busy working “in” their business to have any time to work “on” their business. (That’s one of my favorite Dan Kennedy quotes by the way.)
The vast majority of small business owners find themselves simply maintaining the status quo of just keeping the doors open. Most believe they are doing their part to help the business by eliminating a paid employee position. The result of that thinking keeps their business at its current dead-end.
Think Out of Your Box!
But when a business owner UNDERSTANDS how important working ON their business is instead of in it, great things can happen! The following is a perfect example:
I visited my son last week who had just returned from a trip to Oklahoma City (about 150 miles a way from his home) . On his refrigerator were a letter and a coupon from a BBQ place in OKC I’d not heard of. I asked him about it and he told me he had just gone there last week and the food was GREAT. He said they just faxed him this coupon and the next time he was in the city he was going back for sure.
Now THAT is what I’m talking about! When’s the last time you got a fax from a restaurant you liked? He said the cashier asked him for his business card so he’d be eligible for special offers.
What a deal! He had the coupons there front and center on his fridge for him to remember and others, like me, might see them too.
See how simple that was? The restaurant gained a returning customer and a new customer because the owner had time to implement this simple little program instead of spending time cooking or doing the dishes.
There are a hundred little things like this a business can do to set themselves apart and give them a edge on the competition (whose owners are mostly working IN the business).
No matter what business you are in, keep tabs on your time spent working in or on your business. Only with enough time on the former will your business grow and prosper.
What? You say you don’t have enough time to work “on” your business? Ah, the proverbial Catch 22 I guess it is. Just remember that a few of your competitors have learned the trick of breaking that cycle. In order to keep up, you have to learn it too!
Your Business’ Most Important Number
Posted by: | CommentsWhether your business is online or off, the most important number you need to know is what a new customer’s lifetime value is to your business.
If you spend X amount of money on marketing…PayPerClick, SEO Consulting, PayPerClick, radio or TV time, etc. you simply can’t base your decision for spending marketing dollars on how many initial sales come in.
Here’s what I mean:
Say you have an ice cream shop and you spend $500 on a marketing campaign one month. The campaign brings in a new set of 100 customers who each spend an average of $3.00. That’s $300 earned on the $500 marketing investment.
A short-sighted business owner sees a “loss” of $200. But in reality, 25 of those 100 new customers will return…over and over again in the coming year(s). The lifetime value of each of those 25 new customers could be many hundreds of dollars!
The short-sighted owner vows never again to “waste” his money like that. Imagine the money being left on the table with that type of thinking.
If the market was large enough, just think of the profits that shop owner could be reaping in a few years if they consistently had those types of returns on $500 marketing investments! I for one would be HAPPY to “lose” $200 in trade for those new, long-term customers!
Now think about your own business and what the real value is for gaining a new customer. Only then can you make effective decisions about how and where to spend your maketing dollars.
Some Thoughts About Offering “Special Discounts”
Posted by: | CommentsAs a consumer, I absolutely HATE it when a business attracts my attention with a special offer…and then there is fine print I have to process.
I wish they all knew about K.I.S.S Why not just Keep It Simple?
Here’s just one example of what I mean:
I was in the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant. They had a special fish sandwich for $2.39…sounded pretty good. Then I noticed the fine print, “offer good with purchase of a medium drink and one side”.
Say WHAT??
Now I was forced to do some quick math to see if their “special” really had a special price compared to their “combo meal”.
I realize their strategy is to catch folks off-guard with the low price offer…and it may work. But I don’t like it and I bet a lot of other people feel as I do.
Don’t do this to your customers.
They’ll appreciate a simple, “here’s what you get…here’s how much it costs” special.
Is “Focus” Still a Problem?
Posted by: | CommentsSeveral days ago I attended our monthly GKIC local meeting. A few members of the group, along with my wife and me, also remain afterwards for the afternoon MasterMind meeting.
I can’t tell you how much we have learned by attending both groups; I very highly suggest attending your local GKIC local group meetings…no matter what business you are in.
By the way, GKIC stands for Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle. I have a page here with more details about Kennedy style marketing if you are interested.
Anyway, in the MasterMind meeting we all take turns updating the group with what we are doing and any problems we are encountering and then get feedback. This month the common theme was “focus”. It seems that every member this time had too many irons in the fire, too many ideas, too many things on their to-do list, just too too much of everything going on.
We all agreed it was obvious the key was focus. We all KNEW that already. Relentless Focused Action has been my mantra for years as many of you well know. Still, here was a group of very successful business owners who also know the importance of focus…but there we sat…all falling into the same trap of losing focus.
The point I want to make here is that “focus” is not an easy thing to keep. It’s something that must be tweaked on a daily and sometimes even an hourly basis.
If your gut tells you your to-do list is too long, here’s a simple method for getting things back into alignment:
Write EVERYTHING down in one place. You should have ONLY ONE list written down in ONE place. Next quickly prioritize them from most to least important (pretty easy to do really). Now start at the top and decide if you will perform that task or delegate it (to an employee or a VA). Go one by one down the list until you feel certain you have dealt with as many as you can in the next few days or weeks. Make a NEW list with just those items you plan to work with NOW. Set the other list aside and stop looking/thinking about it.
Hammer out those items on your top priority list one by one. When everything on the list is crossed off, go back to the other list…wash, rinse and repeat.
Whether you are a stay-at-home-mom trying to start a small Internet business or you are the owner of a multi-million dollar brick and mortar business, this plan works!
Again, these three words WILL make all the difference: Relentless Focused Action
Local Search: Ignorance is Not Bliss
Posted by: | CommentsThey say all is fair in love and war…you can add business onto that list too I suppose. No one ever said that life or business was fair or was even supposed to be. Local search marketing is a perfect example. I’ll use Minnie as my hypothetical for the example.
Click Here for a Detailed Post About Local Search Marketing
Minnie has been doing nails in the same city in the same location for over 10 years. She is quite good at what she does and has a very good business head on her shoulders…in most ways. She has a huge following of satisfied and repeat customers. Her business has never been better even though the economy has hammered many. In fact, new clients continued streaming in at higher and higher rates – life is good.
She has maintained the same quarter-page Yellow Page ad for the past 8 years without changes. “Why change something when all is going so well?” Minnie asks her Yellow Pages rep each year.
Here is what Minnie does not know:
Here success with Yellow Pages goes down each year as its usage goes down as more and more folks use the Internet to find what they need. Of course she has no idea how effective her phone book ads are because she has never tracked any of her advertising to determine ROI.
If she DID ask every new customer how they found her, she would find that over half of them are coming to her via the Internet. Actually, a search for “nail salons” in her city results in Google showing her business in the number 5 position in the local listings area (right by the Google map on the first page of that search).
Being listed on the 1st page of local business listings in Google is AWESOME for any business. But sadly, Minnie had no idea how or why she was listed there. Google just liked her shop she guessed.
A few months later, after years of steady new business, she noticed the calls from new customers dropped dramatically. The change seemed almost overnight in fact. After several more months of thinking it was just a “slump”, she began to panic a bit and do some checking on things. She discovered her local listing on Google was gone from the first page. In fact, it was only in the third position on the SECOND page! She had no idea why Google “had done that to her”. She wondered how important that listing had been for her….hmmm.
Nothing is fair in life or business. Google does not rank based on their “emotions”. Competitors are always circling.
Here’s what happened. A few of Minnie’s competitors took notice of her and the other lucky souls who dominated the first page for that category of local listings. THEY knew how valuable that position was even though Minnie did not.
They began hammering away at the process of moving up in rankings. They did all the right things to prove their listing worthy of the first page. They got reviews on a steady basis, they added video, pictures and coupons to their listing to not only attract new customers but to add to the listings’ “time on page” which Google watches, they worked very hard at getting off-page references to their listings, and they build a killer website fully SEO’d and got it ranking well in the organic results.
A few of those competitors “stole” Minnie’s first page position from her…all’s fair in love and business.
Is it all over for Minnie? Of course not! All she has to do is learn local search marketing as her competitors did…and then get to work implementing and making her business and it’s listing more relevant in Google’s eyes. Just a few minutes a week of focused action could quite possible make all the difference in the world for her business.
