Awhile back I had the good fortune to meet John Ahlberg the CEO of Waident, a technology outsourcing and consulting firm with offices in Glen Ellyn, Chicago and Kansas City, KS at a business meeting. John is a great guy, runs a great company and is also the type of person who will “tell it like . . . → Read More: A Look into the Mind of Your Prospect]]>

Awhile back I had the good fortune to meet John Ahlberg the CEO of Waident, a technology outsourcing and consulting firm with offices in Glen Ellyn, Chicago and Kansas City, KS at a business meeting. John is a great guy, runs a great company and is also the type of person who will “tell it like it is”.

As we chatted, John began to recount his recently frustrating search for a Chiropractor to treat his ailing back.  Keep in mind, I had never met John before and here he was giving me this tremendous insight into the mind of the prototypical search engine user.

It looks something like this:

Consumer has a pain point (in this case the pain was REAL)–> Consumer goes to Search Engine–> Consumer enters phrase(s) he thinks will lead to pain relief.

And it takes place millions of times each and every day.

Well, needless to say I found John’s story rather compelling and asked him if he would mind sharing it with all of you.  He agreed and a few weeks later when our schedules meshed John called into our conference line and retold his story so all of you could benefit from it too.

Click on the “Play” link below, take notes and enjoy!

Isn’t it time you took control of your brand’s online effectiveness? Every day hundreds of thousands of people are looking for services just like yours online. Wouldn’t it be nice if they found you a little more often?

We’re FetchLocalCustomers and we can help. Call us today at 888-505-6162

"Don't Worry We Know All About SEO"

What shouldn’t they worry about? That the redesign would not adversely affect their search engine rankings.

Why shouldn’t they worry? Because they understood all about . . . → Read More: “Don’t Worry We’re Trained Professionals”]]>

That’s essentially the assurance our long-standing client was given by a web design firm who was hired to give our client’s site a new makeover.

"Don't Worry We Know All About SEO"

What shouldn’t they worry about? That the redesign would not adversely affect their search engine rankings.

Why shouldn’t they worry? Because they understood all about SEO and search marketing and would make the transition a seamless one.

Who suffered? The business owner.

How is it going to get fixed? FetchLocalCustomers is going to salvage what we can and start building authority again.

The “Silver Lining”

Thanks to nearly two years of authority building this particular client’s primary domain has so much authority that even though most of the topic specific pages have been erased from the index, at least the home page still shows up – not ideal, but far better than having no presence at all.

How the Transition Should Have Occured

The new web makeover could have truly been “seamless” had the new design firm followed the single most important rule in SEO – Never Ever change page URLs.

You see, there are two subtleties that most people don’t understand:

1. Search Engines do not rank websites, they rank web-pages
2. Off-site authority building is tied to a web-page’s URL

Therefore, to preserve the rankings of a site that has been benefiting from a highly engineered authority building process the redesign, above all else, must preserve the page URLs otherwise all that page-level authority is lost*. In this case that meant close to 2 years of authority building –  Ouch!

*Yes, you can try to salvage some of it through redirects, but this is far from ideal and questionably effective.

The really sad part is that both the original site and the subsequent redesign were built in WordPress and a new theme could have been built and uploaded to the existing WordPress CMS and none of this would have happened.

Meanwhile, the client will be seeing a drop in traffic and those who do find the site will be brought to the homepage (instead of a content page that matches what was searched for).

Translation – fewer leads, fewer appointment and fewer sales.

Hopefully, you now know enough to prevent this from happening to you. In fact, I would make it part of your written agreement with whoever is redesigning your site – NO CHANGING PAGE URLs!

Need help in this post Panda and Penguin jungle we’re living in? FetchLocalCustomers can help you tame these wild beasts and get you the traffic, visitors and conversions you need to pull away from the pack and put more money in your pocket. Give us a ring at 888-505-6162 and let’s chat.

The first “Panda” went after low value or “thin” content such as sites like eHow.com and livestrong.com that were continually clogging up search results with low value pages . . . → Read More: Pandas and Penguins Got Your Rankings Down?]]>

For the past year Google has been pushing through “Panda” updates to their ranking algorithm in order to clean up their search results and “provide a better user experience”.

The first “Panda” went after low value or “thin” content such as sites like eHow.com and livestrong.com that were continually clogging up search results with low value pages designed to simply sell advertising to those who clicked through in the hopes of getting valuable insights.

Here’s a good infographic that is fairly up to date:

Thanks for the Graphic SearchEngineLand

The most recent, but likely not the last Panda update was pushed thru on April 19th, 2012 and waddling in, hot on its heels was their newest update the Penguin

Enter the Penguin

While the rumors are still flying, it appears that the main focus of the Penguin update appears to have been to penalize sites who have been  ”over optimizing” in Google’s eyes as well as sites that contain, within the site itself, duplicate content.

Here are the complete Google Quality Guidelines:

Quality guidelines – specific guidelines

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Detailed Analysis of Penguin’s Over Optimization Penalty

Over the coming months, three things will undoubtedly be true.

1. We will all learn more insights into what makes Penguin tick
2. Google will roll-out additional versions of Penguin
3. FetchLocalCustomers will be on the case and making sure our clients not only survive, but thrive in the new reality!

For now, I have seen no better analysis of the Google Penguin Over-Optimization Penalty than what has been compiled by the good folks at micrositemasters.com.

What Does All This Mean to You?

Things are really heating up!  Now, more than ever you need to have a professional on-board to make sure that your online empire doesn’t run aground!  Isn’t it time you had a professional navigator on board? Call or email to learn what we can do to bring you those new customers you want and deserve!  888-505-6162

Well imagine my lack of surprise when I saw that the Pew Internet & American Life Project had conducted a poll and the results

Most . . . → Read More: No Surprise! Most People Dislike Google’s Personalized Results]]>

A while back in what has become one of our most popular posts (Customized Search Results – Local Business Owner Beware!) of all time I described the numerous drawbacks of Google’s personalized search.

Well imagine my lack of surprise when I saw that the Pew Internet & American Life Project had conducted a poll and the results

Most People Do Not Like Personalized Results!

showed that the overwhelming majority of search users are opposed to personalized search results.

I’ve excerpted the summary of these findings below for your convenience.

Most search users disapprove of personal information being collected for search results or for targeted advertising.

The Pew Internet & American Life survey in February 2012 included several questions probing how respondents feel about search engines and other websites collecting information about them and using it to either shape their search results or target advertising to them.  Clear majorities of internet and search users disapprove of these practices in all the contexts we probed.

Specifically, the survey posed the following choices to search engine users:

• 65% say… It’s a BAD thing if a search engine collected information about your searches and then used it to rank your future search results, because it may limit the information you get online and what search results you see
• 29% say… It’s a GOOD thing if a search engine collected information about your searches and then used it to rank your future search results, because it gives you results that are more relevant to you
• 73% say they would…NOT BE OKAY with a search engine keeping track of your searches and using that information to personalize your future search results because you feel it is an invasion of privacy
• 23% say they would…Be OKAY with a search engine keeping track of your searches and using that information to personalize your future search results, even if it means they are gathering information about you

All internet users were posed the following choice regarding targeted advertising:

• 68% say… I’m NOT OKAY with targeted advertising because I don’t like having my online behavior tracked and analyzed
• 28% say… I’m OKAY with targeted advertising because it means I see advertisements and get information about things I’m really interested in

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project, March 12, 2012

Can’t say that I’m at all surprised by this and hoping that Google provides a simple way to opt-out or toggle between “natural” and personalized results as a result of this study.  Their failure to heed the voice of their users could open the door for another search engine to successfully attack their dominant position.

Search marketing remains one of the most profitable applications of marketing dollars.  Do you have a solid plan in place? If not, give us a ring 888-505-6162 and we’ll be glad to help.  At FetchLocalCustomers we understand what you really want and how to get them!

Their brief titled Point-Know-Buy gives examples of exactly what we described in our late 2010 video “5 Mega-Trends in Consumer Behavior“. . . . → Read More: Trendwatch Catches Up with FetchLocalCustomers]]>

It’s always nice to have your thoughts and predictions supported by some big-time thinkers so when I opened my email this morning and found the latest trendwatching.com briefing it put a big smile on my face.

Their brief titled Point-Know-Buy gives examples of exactly what we described in our late 2010 video “5 Mega-Trends in Consumer Behavior“.  Smartphones are allowing consumers (your prospects) to access and act upon decision supporting information instantly.

As trendwatching.com explains it:

Smartphone-toting consumers are embracing a world in which they can find out about (if not buy) almost anything they encounter out in the real world, anytime. Learn from the brands already capitalizing on this trend, then get going!

Now, that consumers crave information is nothing new. Information and knowledge give consumers power, control and certainty (or at least the illusion thereof). Therefore they will forever be in demand by consumers searching for the best of the best. Equally important, the discovery aspect of information adds a fun factor too.

As you read their brief and look at all of the cool tools they highlight ask yourself “How can I make my site more engaging?” Video? QR Codes?

Remember, getting traffic to your site is just the first step.  The second step is to provide your prospect with the decision supporting information they need to feel comfortable taking the next step with you and ultimately moving along the buying continuum from “research to purchase”.

Of course, that’s exactly what we help our clients to do everyday, so if you need help getting your online marketing machine to go from seized up to running like a Swiss watch, just pick up the phone and call us at 888-505-6162.

Read On to Learn How!

our discussion she said something that I have heard on more than one occasion and it prompted me to write this post.

“So I have been doing some . . . → Read More: Customized Search Results – Local Business Owner Beware!]]>

So I got this phone call the other day from a delightful woman from the southern part of the United States.  Throughout the course of

Read On to Learn How!

our discussion she said something that I have heard on more than one occasion and it prompted me to write this post.

“So I have been doing some work on my site to get it to rank higher and I thought I was doing a great job because I was ranking at the top of the search results for almost everything.”

“But… (there is always a but)

then I was over at my sister’s house and I wanted to show her how well my site was doing and it was nowhere to be found”

“Do you know what happened?”

Well, I went on to explain how she has been misled by Google’s well intentioned “personalized” or “customized” search results. You see, unless you are VERY CAREFUL the results you see in your results pages are likely to be different than what everbody else sees.  The reason is that Google is trying to show you what it believes you want to see, or perhaps more accurately, they are trying to show you what they believe you will find most useful.  Sounds good, right?

The Danger of Customized Results for the Business Owner

Here’s the hitch for you as a business owner who is trying to assess and improve your sites commercial effectiveness. It is more than likely that the results you see when you “Google” things about your business are better than what they actually are!  This is especially likely if you have not purposefully told Google NOT to personalize your results.  Go here: Personalized Results in Google to learn how to do this.

Think about it…

Google wants to show you results that they think are important to you.  You think your website is important (and you visit it allthe time) therefore, your website ranks highly when you are using your own computer or when you are logged in to any Google property (Gmail, for example) no matter what computer you are using.

Makes it pretty difficult to know if you are seeing “real” results or whether you are seeing what Google THINKS you want to see, Eh?

The Quick Way to Get Pure Results

So, while you probably want to get rid of personalized results anyways because they’re just creepy, if you ever want to check to see what the real, pure, unadulterated search results are for any given term, all you need to do is this.

1. Conduct a Google Search Query
2. At the top of the page you will see a long gobbledygook URL similar to this…
3. https://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=gutter+cleaning+ames+
4. Now, refresh that search, but first append that long url with the “phrase” &pws=0
5. So that it now looks like this: https://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=gutter+cleaning+ames+&pws=0
6. The results you now see are the real deal!

Managing your business is hard enough without having to worry and consume your precious time and energy trying to figure out all of Google’s games, right?  That’s where FetchLocalCustomers can help.  We take care of everything you need to create a complete online marketing system from research, to site construction to content generation to the ongoing authority building it takes for you to WIN in the world of Search Marketing!

Give us a call at 888.505.6162 and let’s discuss your situation.  If we can help, great! If not, we’ll point you in the right direction to get you the results you need!

When it Comes to Generating $$ Local SEO is More Effective

effectiveness.

The first is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising which is primarily available to local businesses through the Adwords self-serve model or through one of the many resellers of . . . → Read More: Local SEO vs PPC and Why the FetchLocalCustomers Approach is Clearly Better]]>

To the uneducated and uninformed, there appear to be two valid approaches to gaining a high degree of online commercial

When it Comes to Generating $$ Local SEO is More Effective

effectiveness.

The first is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising which is primarily available to local businesses through the Adwords self-serve model or through one of the many resellers of Adwords out there (most notably Dex).

The second is by coupling high quality website content with organic search engine optimization – the preferred approach utilized by FetchLocalCustomers.

Let me pause here and stress two important statements mentioned above:

1. “To the uneducated and uninformed”
2. “the preferred approach”

Let me explain #1 above because this explanation will make #2 above crystal clear without spending pages and pages of explanation and comparison between the merits of SEO and PPC.

It’s all About Click-Through Rates

- Pay-Per-Click CTR

It is pretty well documented that the average click-through-rates (CTR) for Adwords advertisers is 2%.  Now, by definition, the average suggests that some advertisers will do better than 2% and some will do worse. The reality for most local businesses is that CTRs are lower than 2%, but this reality is lost in the reports of what is average because of the spending distribution of  Adwords advertising.  As the folks at Kantar Media just reported, the top 20 Adwords advertisers accounted for an estimated $1.4 billion of Google’s $18 Billion search advertising in the same period (a whopping 7.3%). So in other words, the CTRs of these professionally managed accounts are skewing the average UP to 2%.

So, for arguments sake, let’s just say that you’re every bit as good as this skewed average and your campaign pulls a respectable 2%.

- Organic CTRs

It is also pretty well documented (I’ve seen no less than 3 separate studies) that organic click-through-rates follow a distribution that looks like this

#1 Position = 42.1% CTR

#2 Position = 11.9% CTR

#3 Position = 8.5% CTR

Or, in other words, if you hold the #1 Position in Google for your most important buying phrases you will welcome 21X more interested prospects to your site than if you run a well managed PPC campaign!

Now do you see why I described our approach as “the preferred approach”?

Well, hopefully this has helped you move beyond being “uneducated and uninformed”. Also, hopefully, it will help you resist the siren’s song of some of the PPC peddlers that are constantly hounding you and the rest of Main Street. The facts are clear.  You simply cannot get anywhere near the same amount of new customers from PPC as you can from a properly constructed local online marketing system that uses Local SEO as its traffic generation machine.

Want new customers? Call us at 888.505.6162 and let one of our friendly and knowledgeable business advocates help you determine if the FetchLocalCustomers approach is right for you.

Mobile Rocked Black Friday 2011

Sears Sees Double Digit Growth

The once stodgy old Sears has been . . . → Read More: Black Friday Mobile Update]]>

So as the major media heralds the record breaking Black Friday and Cyber Mondays of 2011 I thought I’d share some of the news coming out regarding the major role that mobile devices played in this year’s record breaking shopping spree.

Mobile Rocked Black Friday 2011

Sears Sees Double Digit Growth

The once stodgy old Sears has been pushing the mobile envelope for the past couple of years and this years Black Friday and Cyber Monday performance continued the trend.   MobileCommerceDaily’s entire interview with Sears Chief Marketing Officer, Michael Murray is worth the 5 minutes to read so I’ll just excerpt this piece which makes TOTAL sense…

Did any mobile services or activities stand out in terms of consumer engagement during the holiday weekend?
We continue to see really strong performance in our buy online and pick up in-store solutions.

We are seeing a strong performance for this service in mobile. If you can, on your mobile device, be able to identify a product, select that product and go from wherever you are to buy it in-store – we are seeing that connection become stronger for us.

This is creating customer ease, specifically around Black Friday. What’s easier than being able to buy on Thursday and make that shopping experience faster and easier on Black Friday.

News from PayPal and Ebay

According to PayPal this 2011′s Cyber Monday showed a 552% increase in mobile purchases vs. 2010

Ebay indicated that their top mobile categories (excluding automobiles) were:

• clothing, shoes and accessories
• computers and networking
• jewelry and watches
• collectibles and sporting goods.

Interesting Facts and Consumer Views

• According to the consumer behavior analysis firm Tealeaf “The big takeaway is that 41 percent of the consumers who tweeted about mobile shopping were frustrated,” said Geoff Galat, vice president of worldwide marketing.
• But not all mobile experiences are bad and perennial mobile good-guys Sears, Amazon and Dell had the highest-ranking mobile sites in terms of performance on Cyber Monday, according to Compuware, Detroit.

Typical complaints included:

• the inability to complete transactions
• poor search functionality
• inconsistencies between the online and mobile channels

And yet, their analysis of social media feeds such as Twitter showed that a large number of physical, in-stores shoppers were shopping on their mobile devices while standing in line!!

What’s your plan for mobile?

No matter what your business you need to make sure that you are delivering a positive mobile experience through your website and Apps so that you keep the customers engaged that you fought so hard to get in the first place.  In an age when your competitor is just one “back arrow” away, getting this right is extremely important!

Read more about the basics of local mobile marketing and don’t forget to download our free report!