Month: October 2019

For most local service businesses (e.g., painters, plumbers, electricians, cleaners, etc.), getting found by high-quality prospects is the key to generating more leads and making more sales cost-effectively.

If you have been tracking your traffic sources or asking your customers how they found you, you’d probably notice that many leads came from online searches.

As such, dialing in your local SEO strategy is instrumental to getting found by more potential customers and generating more business:

• 46% of all Google searches are for local information.
• 97% of consumers learn more about a local company online than from anywhere else.
• 78% of location-based mobile searches result in an offline purchase.
• Local searches lead to purchases 28% of the time.
• 92% of searchers pick businesses that appear on the first page of local search results.

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One of the most effective ways of leveraging the power of local SEO is content marketing, which allows you to get found on local searches by prospects that are looking for the exact services you’re offering in your local area – in the right place and at the right time.

Here’s how to boost your local SEO with content marketing:

Optimize For Local Keywords

Start by researching relevant local keywords for which to optimize all of your online content, such as website copy, blog post, online profiles, etc.

You can use a variety of keyword research tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, to identify search terms that are relevant to your business and have high search volume in your target location(s).

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Also, look for locally-relevant phrases, events, news, or trending topics that are most likely used by your prospects in their searches. This will signal to Google that your website is relevant to users in your area and improve your SEO ranking.

Create Relevant and Helpful Content

High-quality content that’s useful to your target audience helps drive traffic and generate engagement, which can improve your SEO ranking. You should also publish fresh content regularly because it signals to search engines that your site is current and relevance.

Having to generate new content week after week may seem intimidating at first. However, if you keep your eyes peeled, there are great topic ideas everywhere you look:

• Trending or seasonal topics in your area that are related to your services.
• Your business’s participation in local events and activities.
• Commonly asked questions about your area of expertise, appropriated into content pieces.
• Write-up of customer case studies and interviews.
• Topics that are tangentially related to your business but frequently searched for by your ideal customers.

Structure Your Content For On-Site SEO

Great content won’t achieve the intended results if people aren’t reading it or search engines can’t index it. Here’s how to structure your content for both visitors and search engines:

• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly as more consumers are searching for local businesses on their smartphones and tablets.
• Incorporate local phrases and locations in your content to signal relevance to both readers and search engines.
• Format your content pieces so they’re easy to read on all devices. Also, ensure that all images and layouts are displayed correctly.
• Use schema markup, which is a global standard vocabulary used by search engines to understand website content.

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Implement a Local Link Building Strategy

Publishing a variety of content and sharing it on high-authority websites can build backlinks that will boost your SEO. This will also help you drive more traffic and gain exposure to new audiences. Here are a few ways to build backlinks:

• Implement a guest posting strategy to generate backlinks from local websites with audiences that overlap with your ideal customers.
• Identify local businesses that share your target market but aren’t direct competitors. You can guest post on each other’s site and/or cross-promote your content.
• Claim online local listings, such as Yelp and Google My Business, which allows you to post your links, share updates, boost your credibility, and reach more people.
• Participate in local online communities, such as Nextdoor, to share relevant content when appropriate.

Promote Your Content

The most successful content marketers spend 20% of their time producing content and 80% of their time promoting it. Having a content promotion strategy is the key driving traffic and boosting your website’s SEO. Here’s how to effectively distribute your content to a local audience:

• Share links to your content on your social media updates and use it as a starting point to engage your followers in a conversation.
• Add social sharing buttons on your website and ask your readers to share the content with their friends and neighbors.
• Join local groups on social media (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn) and share links to useful content on your website when appropriate.
• Seek out media opportunities on local news outlets. For example, by getting featured on local papers’ resident or business spotlights and include a link back to a relevant piece of content on your website.

Final Thoughts

Content marketing is one of the top strategies for improving your search engine ranking so more high-quality prospects can discover your business.

However, it’s not enough just to write something and hit publish. Since 95% of consumers only look at the first page of search results, it’s important that you also invest in the effort to optimize and promote your content so it gets a high ranking.

Although driving traffic is a key benefit of content marketing, don’t overlook the many other benefits of this strategy. A well-crafted piece of content can help you build trust and cultivate relationships with your audience while positioning your business as a relevant and helpful resource so you can stay top-of-mind.

In fact, the best content marketers focus on using content to drive engagement. When search engines see that your visitors are spending time on your website and returning for more information, your SEO ranking will improve automatically.

Every company or organization, small or large, rely on solid teams for a positive outcome. For great results, not only does it take good team players, but rather GREAT team players. This is ever more important for smaller companies or organizations. Being a great team player in a small office setting is crucial for the company’s success.

Here are qualities which make a great team player:

1. Commitment – Good team players will make sure they are where they need to be when expected, but great team players will do this and take it one step further by contributing to the team as much as possible, whether it’s through helping out or making suggestions. Great team players give 110% commitment to the job, not just 100%.
2. Reliable & Responsible – A good team player will complete their tasks and prioritize accordingly. A great team player will complete their tasks, but with remaining time will assist the rest of the team in completing their tasks as well.
3. Listen – Listening to others’ questions and concerns, without interruptions, makes you a great team player. Respecting others’ ideas, and considering their views makes a good team a great team.
4. Inform – Keeping your team informed of opinions, ideas, changes, etc, makes a great team player. Yes, making yourself success is important, but you can’t achieve this without being a great team player.
5. Respect – You may not agree with other teammates’ ideas, or may not even like another teammate, but it is important to treat your colleagues, or teammates with respect. You receive respect when it is given.
6. Helpful – Yes, there are times when you have completed your tasks, or when you know how to do something but another teammate doesn’t. Whether in your job description or not, it is important to be willing to help your teammate. After all, you are working as a team, not yourself.
7. Optimism – Sometimes when you see struggles in the workforce or even your own personal struggles, it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Try to take a more optimistic approach to keep your teams’ spirits high as well. Just because of your struggles, don’t boggle the whole team down.
8. Participates​ – Great team players not only come to meetings on time, but they are active participants. They listen and speak up in discussions. They bring other issues or other feedback to the table.
9. Flexible​ – Teams deal with constant changes, whether its work-related or staff related. Great team players adapt to these ever-changing scenarios. They don’t complain about a new avenue being pursued, or about a new staff member. Great team players know how to compromise and adapt.
10. Error​ – Everyone makes mistakes. It’s human nature. But what makes a person stand out is when they own up to their mistakes. For example, if your approach in solving a problem was wrong, but another teammate’s was the better solution, own up to it and admit you were wrong and give your teammate credit for coming up with the better solution.Every person is of course human. Many times insecurity, jealousy, or old habits can interfere with teamwork, but ultimately it’s up to you to decide what kind of teammate you would like to be, a good team player, a great team player, or maybe not a team player at all.

One of the most important keys in SEO is to be sure your NAPW, name, address, phone number and website, are consistent across all online directories. Discrepancies in these would be reason for lower rankings.

Once you’ve verified consistency in NAPW across all channels, you should make sure your Google My Business listing is verified and fully optimized. 

To fully optimize your Google My Business listing:

1. Get your listing verified – Once your listing is created, be sure to request a postcard from Google, which will be sent out to you with a PIN code. Entering this code on your listing will verify it. 

1. Complete all pertinent fields – Be sure all the key fields are completed, accurately – Name, address, phone number, website, relevant category, and business hours. 

1. Service Area Business – For service area businesses where you serve customers at their location, be sure to set the address field appropriately and complete the areas served by listing all the towns or counties you serve. The address on the public listing will remain hidden and should display a service area served on the map.

4. Phone Number – Use a local phone number on the listing and not a toll-free number. 

5. Photos and Videos – Add high-quality photos of your work to highlight your business and make you stand out from your competition.

6. Posts – Add a post to make yourself more visible. A post may be a special you’re offering or a highlight of your business. A post will stay active for 7 days unless you specify an expiration date. Within the post, try to use a couple of keywords, and add a relevant, high-quality photo to it.

7. Short Name – Short names selected are useful so you can add your short name to your business card, making it easier for your customers to find you.

8. Holiday Hours – When possible, add special holiday business hours to your listing to keep it more accurate.

9. Description – Add a description of your business using keywords and telling you customers a little bit about yourself. You’re allowed 750 characters but only 250 show up in the knowledge panel, so make the first 250 count. 

10. Services – Specify the services you offer.

11. Reviews – Try to have your customer leave a review, and respond to the reviews you receive. If negative, respond professionally, trying to resolve your customer’s dissatisfaction. If positive, a simple thank you would suffice.

12. Q&A – Sometimes someone may ask you a question via your Google My Business listing. Be sure to answer these questions in a timely fashion, showing your customers you care.

All of these are great ways to fully optimize your Google My Business listing, but one of the most important things to remember once you’ve optimized it is to be sure not to violate any of Google’s policies, which would result in having your listing flagged or suspended, resulting in your listing being removed entirely. Refer to this link to ensure all of Google’s policies have been followed, https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en.

Are you investing in SEO and PPC ads to promote your local service business and drive traffic to your website? Are website visitors contacting you for a quote or engaging your services?

To make the most of your marketing dollars, you need to turn as many visitors into leads or customers by optimizing the webpage on which they land when they click through your online ads.

Otherwise, you’d be paying for the clicks with little to show for. Here’s where conversion rate optimization (CRO) can help you get the biggest bang for your bucks:

What’s Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?

CRO are tactics that encourage website visitors to take an action (e.g., request a quote, sign up for your email list) by designing and modifying certain elements of a webpage. Often, the goal is to turn visitors into leads or customers before they leave the website.

While CRO can be applied to every page on your website, dialing in the landing pages you use for PPC ads has the highest impact in converting online traffic into prospects and customers.

CRO helps you make the most of your existing website traffic sources so you can turn more visitors into customers without increasing your marketing budget.

How To Optimize Conversion On Your Landing Pages

By definition, landing pages are designed to elicit a specific action from visitors. They’re set up to minimize distraction by removing the standard navigation, simplifying footer information, and removing all hyperlinks except the call-to-action (CTA.)

Creating dedicated landing pages that match the messaging and offers on your PPC ads can help maximize results. Optimizing the conversion rate on these landing pages allows you to get the most out of your online ads.

Here’s how to make a landing page work harder for your local service business:

Hone In the Copy and Messaging

Most local business websites are rather generic – they have the essential information and are optimized for relevant keywords but fall short when it comes to making visitors feel that the content is speaking to their needs.

Here’s how to fine-tune your landing pages’ copy and messaging to increase conversion:

• Ensure that the messaging matches the copy on your ad. For example, if you’re promoting “20% off” in the ad, include the discount in the landing page copy.
• Mention specific information that’s relevant to the local market or conditions to highlight the relevance of your services.
• Write a distinctive title that’ll capture the attention of your visitors. Again, include local references if appropriate.
• Tell the visitors why they should respond to your CTA by highlighting the benefits of doing so.
• Be succinct – focus on the pain points and desired outcomes of the audience segment you’re targeting on your ads.
• Incorporate local and long-tail keywords in your copy to signal relevance to both search engines and the visitors.

Direct Attention To the CTA

The purpose of a landing page is to get as many visitors to take the desired action as possible and you can do so by directing attention to the CTA on the page.

Here’s how to make your CTA more appealing to visitors and entice them to respond:

Arrange the landing page’s content to follow the F- or Z-pattern, which is how most people’s eyes travel when reading a webpage. This will guide the readers from the title through the copy and to the CTA.

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• Use a heat map application to track how visitors interact with your landing page and place your CTA where their eyes naturally go.
• Use visual elements and images to direct visitors’ gaze to the CTA (e.g., a model looking at the direction of the CTA, a graphic that points toward the CTA.)
• Use CTA copy that’s relevant to the landing page message and make it action-oriented. For example, if your landing page is aimed at getting visitors to sign up for a video series on DYI house-painting, your CTA text could say, “Learn How To Paint Like a Pro Now.”
• Experiment with the size and color of the CTA button, which can have a significant impact on the conversion rate.
• • Place the CTA close to the top of the page to minimize scrolling. If you have a long landing page, put another CTA at the bottom so visitors don’t have to scroll back up.

  Optimize For Mobile Experience

  Did you know that 78% of mobile searches for local business information result in a purchase? In fact, mobile-friendliness is now the top priority for local businesses to convert online traffic into leads.

  Here’s how to optimize your landing page for mobile users:

  • Improve page load speed – a 1-second improvement can lead to a 27% increase in conversions! You can do so by using a mobile-first template, optimizing images, and making sure that the code is clean.
  • Include your phone number at the top of the page and add a tap-to-call feature to make it easy for prospects to get in touch.
  • Leverage geo-fencing technology to deliver the most appropriate content and auto-fill function to streamline form submission.
  • Ensure that the page is displayed properly on all browsers and devices. The fonts should be legible and the key information should be shown at the top of the page.
  • Reduce complexity in your CTA to make it easy to take action on the small screen. For example, request only the information you need immediately (e.g., an email address to download a lead magnet) – you can ask for more information later.
  • Remove intrusive pop-ups and interstitials that will not only cause visitors to leave the site but also impact your SEO ranking.

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Consider the Entire Customer Lifecycle

Your landing page is just one component in the buyer’s journey. You also need to consider what happens after visitors have taken the action on your landing page so they’d turn into customers:

• Set up a lead nurturing email sequence if you use the landing page to capture visitors’ email addresses.
• Contact prospects immediately if the CTA is to request a quote.
• Use a tracking phone number for each campaign to deliver a consistent experience (e.g., offering the same promotional package) when visitors call your business.
• Set up retargeting ads that match the messaging on the landing page to drive visitors that haven’t converted back to your website.

Get the Most Out of Your Online Marketing Budget

Conversion rate optimization strategies can help you increase ROI by making the most of your current market and existing traffic sources.

After you have implemented these CRO tactics for your landing pages, conduct A/B testing to find out what works and what doesn’t for your specific audience so you can fine-tune the copy, page design, and CTA.

Don’t forget to dial in other components of your online marketing strategy – from PPC ads and social media to online review and monthly analytics – so they work together synergistically to optimize results and maximize your marketing ROI.