5 Step Plan to Local Search Success

As the web usage grows so the focus becomes more local. If your services are limited geographically, you need to pay attention to local search marketing opportunities. A number of networking sites like Foursquare and services such as Google Places exist to help connect local web traffic with businesses in their area.

If a search marketer offers the earth, be very wary, achieving top search result places should not be guaranteed. Instead, following genuine tried and tested techniques in identifying your business as local and relevant to searches will always be the best approach.

This article reviews a five step plan using some of the best practice techniques that will enable your business to win new customers locally.

1. Determine Your Locality
The first step in the plan is to identify your target audience; what is your geographic reach for example? Who is your ideal customer? If you are not sure where to start, you might like to see what you can learn from your competitors. In what way, if any, are they choosing to appeal to local internet users? Once completed, this step sets the foundation for your successful local search campaign.

2. Changing the Channels
Now you know where your target audience is, the next step is to identify the best channels – or websites – to attract them from. As well as obvious channels such as the search engines, this may also include banner advertisements, social networking (with increasing opportunities for local search), videos and more. At the same time as helping drive more website traffic, each channel will also increase your search engine visibility.

3. Get Personal
Take care that your marketing messages reflect something of your locality. The more relevant, or personal, the shopper feels you are being to them, the more likely you are to attract their attention – and their business.

This will also enable the search engines to successfully identify not only the relevancy of your services – but also your geography in relation to local searches.

4. It Was the Tortoise That Won
Be consistent and patient. Enough of the right techniques in the right places will win you the marketing ‘race’. Make sure your marketing plan incorporates a schedule of activities that matches your budget. A steady consistent approach will bear more long term search traffic than a short burst of misguided web marketing activity.

5. Test, Monitor, Tweak and Repeat
The last step in the plan is the testing and monitoring phase. It is only by monitoring the success of your results that you are able to improve and build on what you have accomplished. Identify how and when you will evaluate your local search marketing activities and re-tweak your plans accordingly.

Local search marketing does require an investment of time and money, but when done right, it will return your investment many times over. If you would like to get local search working for your business, please call 01454 261111.

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Why Video is Great For eCommerce

As internet technologies advance and bandwidth speeds are boosted, online shoppers’ expectations naturally increase. While this trend may be unstoppable, the golden rule ‘content is king’ (long live the king by the way) is still true, the consumption of that content however, is becoming steadily more sophisticated.

Text and images have a key role to play in getting your message across. Well crafted copy and good use of product pictures will always entice sales – but with video having an increasingly significant impact on internet activity, websites limited to static content may soon be in danger of being left behind.

Video integration is steadily being embraced as a solution for quickly and efficiently presenting sales and marketing messages. The use of videos has several advantages over conventional static websites.

Great For Product Presentation
A great sales pitch will not only consist of benefits, benefits, benefits, it will also include removing any perceived risk in making the purchase. With this in mind, good use of video footage can significantly enhance the sales message by:

• Presenting the benefits of the product in a multi-dimensional format
• Filming product demonstrations
• Enabling the retailer to connect with shoppers on a more personal level
• Showing product reviews and user reviews
• Helping address frequently asked questions & improve customer services

Great For Search Traffic
Video searches tend to bring in a lot more traffic than normal search engine activity. A number of search engines have modified their search results to include videos among their results. With this in mind, a well optimised video may have a better chance of showing up on the first page of search results for phrases that might be too competitive to achieve any other way.

Great For Engagement
With the right broadcasting platform, your video can be consumed anywhere users have an internet connection. The increasing use of smart phones (which make viewing video a breeze) means the potential audience is growing fast. This reinforces video as a great way to increase your reach and engage more customers as you roll out new offers, deals, competitions and more.

Great For Social Sharing
Some of the videos on YouTube have been incredibly popular, achieving audience sizes that big budget programme makers can only dream of – and often produced with little or no expense. While it is fair to say business to consumer video footage may not always be as sharable as ‘amateur’ footage, the opportunities for sharing – and going viral – are real.

With a little imagination and a half decent recording device, video is an ideal tool to enhance your eCommerce marketing activities – and doesn’t need to cost the earth. Key to its success, as with any marketing activity, is in the planning. If you would like to explore how video can enhance your online marketing strategy, please call 01454 261111.

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Social Media Spotlight: Tumblr

Tumblr.com is a new method of blogging similar to the likes of Twitter and WordPress. In fact, you could say it takes the best features from each and combines them by providing an attractive display, simply organised content and user friendly publishing tools.

While Tumblr does share similarities with other blogging platforms, it has many differences that set it apart from the “social media crowd”. A tumblr blog, or “tumblelog” uses short and minimalistic posts such as images or links to convey messages and thoughts in favour of the more conventional long winded editorial posts on other sites. Due to this approach, tumblr is widely known as a microblogger.

With its ease of use and extensive customisation options, many businesses have turned their sights to Tumblr as a way to promote their products and services. Tumblr provides businesses, large and small, a way to publish to and engage with their current audience.

Your Content, Your Way
Tumblr blogging grants users multiple features to set their content apart from other blogs across the web, making it more personalised in the process. Several types of posts are supported by tumblr, including:

• the typical text format
• photos are also supported and extremely popular
• quotes from different sources online, including other tumblelogs may be used
• links and Chat logs while similar to the text format are supported and presented in a more authentic manner
• other popular blog post formats are audio and video

Ease Of Use
Tumblr handles each supported format in a very efficient and simple manner. A tumble log owner has the option of texting blog updates from any mobile phone as well as through email.

Anything on the internet is up for grabs to post through the tumblrbookmarlet which allows the log owner to post anything they come across on the web. Instant messaging is another method to update a log by messaging Tumblrbot.

Impressively, one may even phone in to their Tumblr log and leave voice posts. In addition to these methods tumblr is connected through different social pathways and may be updated through things such as Facebook, Youtube, Digg, Twitter and other apps.

Right For You?
Tumblr allows for the tumblelog to become an extension of the owners brand through its extensive customisation processes. Its ease of use and plethora of supported formats ensures this – but is it the right social media platform for your business?

There is no doubt Tumblr provides another viable option for increasing your business reach and the sharing of content – but may not be for everyone.

While Tumblr’s simplicity and ease of use is one of its selling points, it could also be considered a disadvantage if your content requires more sophisticated publishing tools.

Before taking the plunge, it’s important to identify your objectives, the demographic of your intended audience and how publishing content to Tumblr fits into your existing social media activities.

In conclusion, Tumblr is clearly a social networking platform that is to be taken seriously – but may not be for everyone. If you would like to review the effectiveness of your social media plans, please call 01454 261111.

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