• ConnSearch — By far, the largest search engine for Connecticut.  This site, which operates like a directory is a little difficult for users to navigate, but does have the potential to drive a good amount of traffic to your site (and business) due to the very specific categories and towns within the directory.  The one major downfall is that the front page looks a bit spammy due to the advertisements.
• CT-Info — A great hyper local search engine for CT businesses, and the best part is that the listing is for free!  During the site registration process you have the opportunity to add one category (wish it was more, but this helps with overall organization for the site), site and business information, a description of no more than 200 characters, and what appears to be an unlimited number of keywords (don’t abuse this, though).
• CT Clix — In order to submit your site you need to be a member (and be approved by a moderator), but this is one hyper local search engine that has it all so take advantage.  The moderator assures me (as it should you) that the spam sites are not getting into this directory which makes the user experience significantly better (which consequently means more traffic for you).
• FindItInCT — One of the more modern looking layouts for the hyper local search engine market.  It is a bit tedious to submit your business information as the site requires you to become a member (which is free), then submit an e-mail, and then add your business information.  However, with the layout of the site I can see that the submission is well worth it (the traffic to your site).
• Fairfield County 411 — If your business is in (or near) Fairfield County, you need to take full advantage of this site.  It doesn’t have the greatest layout, but submitting a site/business is free and easy to accomplish.  Along with that, it has high rankings within the search results which is always good for your site as well (to have a backlink from a high PR site).
• Connecticut Yellow Pages — This is more of a generic Yellow Pages site, but has a great ability to drive traffic to your business (both foot traffic and web visitors).  With that said, it is a free registration with an outstanding list of towns (and their service providers) within Connecticut.

While search engine optimization continues to be a major discussion throughout every business in Connecticut, there are several opportunities that are missed.  One of the most important areas that gets overlooked on a fairly regular basis is the ability to list business information with local search engines and hyper local search engines (like the ones listed above).  Instead of missing the boat with this one, take the time and develop a stronger local search engine optimization campaign by adding (and/or updating) your site to these directories.  It is worth the time and the money (which they are all free!).

• Yelp – As one of the largest local search engines to date, this is an outstanding site for you to link to.  From user reviews to a full social network, Yelp boasts 31 million unique visitors each month.  The one downfall (or benefit depending on how you look at it) is that you have to become a member to submit your business listing.
• CitySearch – As a direct competitor to Yelp, CitySearch is another great local search engine for you to utilize.  Along with the ability to list your business via categories, there is a social networking factor where locals can vote on their favorite businesses per major category.
• MerchantCircle — The best (in my opinion) local search engine for smaller businesses.  One of the cool features this site provides is the quarterly Merchant Confidence Index (which is actually used by several nationally recognize media outlets).  The site combines the features of Yelp and CitySearch with the social networking capabilities of LinkedIn and Facebook.
• Local.com — With over 16 million businesses listed, local.com has become a fantastic local search engine.  A great feature of this site is the keyword DNA which better groups related businesses for each search inquiry.  Similar to other local search engine sites, you can send the listing to a mobile device as well.
• AllPages — A more basic local search engine that has a very simple design without the layout bells and whistles.  It does, however, boast a tremendous number of business listings throughout the directories.  The one downfall with this site is that it is difficult for visitors to find your business quickly as it is structured as a directory.
• InsiderPages — One of my favorite local search sites as it includes everything that we have talked about thus far, but it also has one of the most user friendly layouts available.  Another great aspect of this site is the ability to utilize your Facebook account as a login.
• MagicYellow — The new yellow pages of the internet.  Similar to AllPages, this site has a basic layout, but it is significantly easier to navigate than AllPages.  This is also a huge source of online traffic for a significant number of businesses to jump on the bandwagon and list your business.
• SuperPages — By far, the cleanest local search site.  It is, however, a little difficult for users to navigate if they aren’t familiar.  But, don’t let that detour you from gaining a link for your business since they drive more than 7 million unique visitors each month.
• TrueLocal — A local search site that takes a piece of Bing’s simplicity theory.  The home page is made up of two search boxes (one for category and the other for the city/town).  Overall, though, it is a phenomenal site to link to for your business.

For the most part, it is extremely simple for you to list your business throughout these major local search engines; not only will it help your local search ratings, but it will also significantly increase your online reputation and presence.

• Buying Backlinks — Lowering your online reputation, overall credibility of site content, pagerank, search-ability, and having the esteemed opportunity to be banned from a search engine is easily accomplished through buying backlinks.  You get quite a bit for your money with this one!
• Hangin’ With A Bad Crowd — The best thing that you can do when you search out sites to link to…find the worst reputations out there and establish a backlink on those sites.  Isn’t it your dream to be recognized as a bad site as well?  Your reputation will drop significantly down (or below theirs) which is exactly what you want, right?
• Get Those NoFollow or Low Pagerank Links — The quickest way to establish and maintain a low pagerank for your site is to have links pointing to your site with no value (NoFollow tags), or from other sites that have little to no pagerank (0 or 1 PR) themselves.  It is truly a great reward for all of your hard work to obtain all of those type of links; true quality!
• Link Outside The Box — Let’s say you blog in real estate; the better sites that you can link to (especially if you don’t want to help your own site) are ones that has nothing to do with real estate.  Think about the traffic and credibility you’ll have if all you do is link to sites with no relevance to yours.
• Just Put My URL — Smart SEO campaigns Leave out keywords for anchor text, and only use the site address.  It is the easiest way to add a link so don’t add the anchor text and definitely don’t add a title and/or link description if you want horrible search engine results.
• Quick Fixes — If you want backlinks, then go at it from a mass-production perspective.  Similar to a band-aid; just one quick step to get it done and over with.  In other words, collect as many links as you possibly can in the shortest time period possible.  This will give you the chance to remove your site index from search engines and can potentially get you banned as well.

Now, aside from all of the great ways to keep your website from being found, there are backlink strategies out there for those other people who want to increase their pagerank, online reputation, and search-ability.  However, do you have any other suggestions or comments on how to not build a strong backlink campaign?  If so, leave them in the comment section below!

*IMPACT has the ability to help you navigate and organize an effective backlink campaign that can significantly increase your search engine rankings and overall online reputation. Don’t hesitate to contact IMPACT today for more information

1. Stop Spamming — I know it doesn’t seem like it, but stop talking about your products in your blog posts or your social network updates.  Instead, share something that will improve their (your reader’s) lives.
2. Keep Things Transparent — Be as open and honest with your readers as possible.  In other words, if something good happens then share that experience, but also share the experience if something bad happens as well.
3. Consistency — The theory being that consistency shows commitment, and if you are committed to updating your readers then you are just as loyal to providing great service to your business customers.
4. Listen — Yes, it’s absolutely important to update your status, but also pay attention to what other people are doing out there.  They are your friends, colleagues, and competition.  So, make sure you provide feedback on their updates as well.
5. Bring Online to the Real World — Instead of keeping a relationship establishing on a social networking site online, bring it into the real world and establish a face to face relationship to strengthen the networking experience.
6. Respond — Similar to #4 (“Listen”), don’t worry about what you update so much as what/how you respond to the individuals you are following.
7. Opinion Oriented — Your social networking experience should simply be an extension or demonstration of your personality.  With that said, provide your opinion on topics to allow people an insight into your perspective.
8. Podcast — Updating your blog is great, but creating video content is even better.  Today is the age of online video, and you need to jump on the bandwagon sooner than later.
9. No Fluff – For the written articles that you create, refrain from using fluff content and go straight for high quality reading material.  Keep in mind that you want your readers to rave about what you write on a regular basis.
10. Spread the Success — Sounds somewhat contradictive, but it works; make your following more successful than you already are.  This will allow you to be recognized as an industry thought leader.
11. Tweet and Retweet — Just because you tweet once doesn’t mean that people were able to read that one tweet so give them a second (or third) opportunity.  The only caution would be to space it out a bit (a few hours, etc).
12. Plan — For every 1 minute of planning you save 10 minutes of execution.  So, map out where you are going to go, and hit it full speed.  This also helps you maintain consistency.
13. Love Not Lust — Remember that you are looking for a long term business relationship; not a one-buy stand.  So, take things slow and establish a strong relationship with your networking contacts.
14. Research — Ask and find out what social networks your current customers are utilizing.  Join those networks and expand from there.
15. Just Start — The toughest part about all of this is that you just have to take the first step and start!  You have what it takes to be a phenomenal online presence and a significant industry thought leader that improves the quality of life (and business) for all readers.

Too many industry professionals try to change their customers and alter the behaviors of their visitors.  One of the most important things for you to realize: If you want to change the world, you need to start with your actions and what you do on a daily basis.  Become an inspiration to others within your immediate sphere of influence.  They will rave about you and your accomplishments and therefore will effect their sphere of influence.  Over time, you will have changed the world through merely altering what you do.

• Concise and Descriptive — With a title, make sure that you stay as descriptive as possible with regard to your content, but make sure that you use less than 60 characters.  It doesn’t seem like a lot to work with, but (from experience) it is absolutely achievable.
• Keyword Rich — As I mentioned above, the search engines significantly weigh the post title which means that you need to make the most of the 60 characters.  Utilize the primary keyword (or longtail keyword) within the post title to better direct search engines to your post/site.
• Sell Emotion — You have to understand that people want what other people have; it’s human nature to be curious about other people’s business (that’s why social networking sites work so well).  So, sell your titles to that emotional behavior: tell them you have a “secret” to get them to buy-in.
• Provide Numbers — While you are selling to your audience’s emotion, make sure that you also stay specific to numbers.  If you are writing about ways to increase site traffic, don’t title your post “Ways To Get More Traffic”.  Instead, utilize something like: “Increase Site Traffic By 75% In 2 Weeks”.  With this title, you are using keywords, it’s short and concise, you are selling the post on the emotional response of success, and you are being specific with numbers.

There are so many variations of titles in which you have the opportunity to choose.  Make sure that you think like a search engine visitor while you use keywords, maintain concise and descriptive verbiage, sell emotion, and provide specific numbers.  If you are able to utilize these simply secret steps, your blog titles will drive significantly more traffic to your site which will result in more successful marketing campaigns.

*IMPACT does provide blog maintenance services which can help you achieve better results within the search engines and social networking websites.  For more information don’t hesitate to contact IMPACT today!

For what it’s worth, location based marketing is one of the largest trends and will most likely be here to stay – especially with businesses trying to get into industry niches. With that said, the Facebook Places feature is currently on a full head of steam after its start as a smartphone/iPad application so here are a few reasons that you should register today:

1. Anyone can post content with regard to your place.  This is great, but if nobody claims your place there is nobody there to moderate that content.
2. Branding, branding, branding; you want to make sure that your brand stands out and delivers your message through your Facebook Place.
3. Jump on the wagon sooner than later! We always talk about different ways to market here on IMPACT, and this is one of those ways that includes the best type of marketing – peer marketing.  This means that your customers are marketing for you to their peers who are also part of your target audience…for free!

So, without further waiting, here is a quick video on how to control the settings for your Facebook Place. I look forward to hearing your comments and success stories with this location marketing!

Online Store On-Page SEO

On-page search engine optimization is one of two parts for your online store’s SEO campaign.  This is also the easier of the two to control and optimize.  Here are some simple steps that you can follow to help your on-page SEO:

• Keyword Placement — Make sure that when you update your site with a blog post, or add new products that you utilize the target keyword for that product (or post) within the title.  Be deliberate with the selection of words for the title and make every word count
• Product Descriptions — Take the extra few seconds and fill out the product description with keyword rich and quality content.  Be sure to make efficient use of each and every word as you (typically) only have 60 words/characters.
• Keyword Font Changes — As an additional idea for keywords, alter the text for the keywords.  For example, utilize bold or italicized font for the keywords.  You may also use underlined font as search engines find all three font changes easier.
• Fix Broken Links –Implement an efficient software or plugin that recognizes broken links and/or dead pages.  When you receive the alert of the broken link make sure you take the time to modify or move it.  Search engines do not look too kindly on broken links within a site.

Online Store Off-Page SEO

Even though this is the harder one of the two search engine optimization techniques for your online store, you have the ability to achieve the goals.  Well, what are those goals of off-page SEO? To build links pointing to your site from authority pages that relate to your products/services.  Here are some steps to follow to implement efficient link building for your online store:

• Start Small — When it comes to authority sites, you will (most likely) not be able to link up to the biggest and best within your first week open.  Instead, pick out local authority sites and start by concentrating on getting them to link to your site.  Make sure that you write down the sites that you will target, and work up to the larger sites.
• Write Articles for SEO — One of the great ways that you can increase the backlinks to your site is to write articles voluntarily for related sites (non-competing).  Within your articles you should organize a backlink within the content.  As a guest writer, the sites will appreciate the content and will most likely allow you the backlink.
• Blogs Within Your Store — Create and publish a blog within your site and/or online store.  This creates internal links which also help search engine optimization.  Another benefit is that your consistently updated blog will drive search engines to index your site more and more frequently.  Be predictable with your updates and include keyword anchored text.
• Link Up Social Networks — Even if you don’t understand the entire idea behind social networking platforms, it is very important and a great search engine optimization strategy to post links and site updates (with links) on social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook are two huge examples in today’s society).
• Directory Submission — One of the more popular posts that we published was the Top 50 Places to Submit Your Blog.  However, that post can also be utilized for your online store to capitalize on SEO for your online store.  Take the couple extra minutes and submit your site to directories.

Top Online Marketing Strategies for Your Online Store

Along with your ongoing online store search engine optimization, it is extremely important that you promote your online presence.  Without promoting/marketing your website to your current clients, friends, and family you will be spinning your wheels initially.  So, engage your current audience and create content that will have them raving about your online store.  Here are some of the top online marketing ideas for your online shopping cart:

• Links in Your Signature — Make sure that you place all of your links in your signature.  Well, let me rephrase that a little bit; put your online store’s link in your signature along with the links to your major social networking profile pages.
• Viral Marketing — Forward interesting information, news, photos, jokes, and/or crazy e-mails to your friends and family members.  If they like it, they will forward it on to other people and the cycle will continue. Again, though, make sure you put your links in your signature prior to sending out the e-mails.
• Niche Forums — Join, participate, and establish a reputation as a leader of your industry.  There are countless online forums for almost every industry out there so provide your expertise and write your content contributions to help your target audience.
• Consistent Usernames — Make sure that your username is consistent across the full spectrum of social networking sites.  This allows you to create and maintain your identity as well as build a tremendous reputation throughout the web.
• Utilize YouTube and UStream — Create and publish videos on your products and/or services through YouTube and UStream.  This is a great way to provide reviews and previews of your product menu, and to add to that you have the ability to share with the YouTube and Ustream audience as well as embed those videos on your site.
• Online Newsletters — Establish a monthly online newsletter for your audience.  Include things like product news, seasonal specials, discount codes, and more.  The trick to newsletters is to have the web visitor provide their e-mail and possibly their names so you have the opportunity to prospect them for future purchases.
• Membership Drives — Implement a membership (follower or fan) drive where you provide a free product to the first “x number” of members.  This will provide you with their contact information as well as give them a taste of what your company can do.
• Thank You Page — Include a “Thank You” page at the end of the checkout process, and add a discount code for an incentive to come back to your site and buy again.  It doesn’t have to be anything significant, but a small savings is better than no savings, right?
• Affiliate Program — Why do all the work yourself when you can get your friends and family involved with the selling.  You have the opportunity to provide them with a small incentive for directing traffic to your site.  In researching this a bit, the typical percentage for an affiliate program is 5% – 10% of the sale.

This should be enough to at least get your brainstorming started, and possibly start implementing these strategies to help your online store.  Remember that there are two separate ways to optimize your online store for search engines (on-page and off-page), and keep in mind that it’s still important for you to utilize online promotional strategies to get the word out as well.  With following these processes to improve the optimization of your online store, you should see a vast improvement.

Even though this concludes our online store series, we will be consistently updated our blog with information on e-commerce and online stores.  So, stay tuned to IMPACT’s blog and please let us know what you think in the comment section below!

1. Apparel – Hats, t-shirts, badges, buttons, jackets, bags, and more! Your clients love to get free things so run a promotion that allows them to buy something from your physical store and receive free apparel.  Not only does this allow your current clients to realize you have an online store, but every time they wear your promotional material you have a walking billboard!
2. Banners – One of the most cost efficient methods of promoting something new (including your online store).  Hang a banner above your entrance, within the store, and right before the exit.  Overall, you want as much visibility possible for your customers to realize that you now are allowing them to shop online.
3. Promotional Materials — Similar to the apparel idea, you have the ability to customize pens, balloons, pencils, frisbees, and much more.  This, of course, tends to be more cost effective and the customers will always use a free pen.  So, with every purchase, provide a free promotional item that includes your sites address.
4. Shopping Bags — If your company puts a customer’s product in a bag after purchase, there is a great opportunity for you to print your site’s URL on the bag.
5. Postcards (or Greeting Cards) — You, most likely, have a contact list for your customers, right?  Utilize that list to send out postcards or greeting cards introducing your new online store.  This is an excellent way to promote that you now have the opportunity to shop online.
6. Catalogs – In the same thought of the postcards, you have the ability to send your current clients a detailed catalog of all your products (and cross-promote).  However, this also opens the door to run “internet specials” where they receive a certain discount (or discount code) for shopping online.
7. Internet Race — If you have an online cart that requires registration (I would highly suggest this), you also have the opportunity to run contests.  For example, you can provide free product to the first 10 members, 20 members, etc.  This helps you grow your site’s membership as well as increase client interest in your company.
8. Receipts — Put your online store’s address on the receipt.  You can also tie in a company survey with the online store so that you can get immediate feedback on your products and site layout.  As an incentive, provide a percentage discount for filling out the survey and visiting the site.
9. Flyers – Find other businesses that serve your target audience (non-competitors), and post a flyer on their bulletin board.  You are most likely appealing to some of your current clients, but you are also getting your name out to new customers as well.
10. Business Cards — Redesign your business cards to include (and emphasize) your online store.  As I have mentioned a few other times, you may want to include a discount code on the back of the card which can be used at any point with product from your online store.  Make sure you give them out at every purchase and you keep them readily available at your checkout (in your physical location).
11. Printed Material (Office Material) — With the amount that a typical company sends company letterhead, envelopes for invoices (and invoices themselves) you have to be able to take advantage of the face time and promote your online store’s address.  Put it on every piece of stationary.
12. Grand Online Store Opening — Host a networking event where you have a “grand opening” for your online store.  You can send invitations to your current customers as well as the Chamber of Commerce.  Have it catered and make sure you get as much contact information as possible.  In fact, take the opportunity to set up as many computers and provide a “register station”.  You can also run one night only specials for your site’s store and so much more!

The key to converting your foot traffic (from your physical location) to site traffic on your online store is promotion and marketing.  Take advantage of promotional materials, stationary, innovative and out of the box thinking, and make your current customers aware of your online presence.  Cross promote the online store with the physical location and run internet specials to also increase traffic.  Overall, the sky is the limit when it comes to an offline campaign for your online store, but it is up to you to take control of the campaign and truly make it work for your company.

*IMPACT has the ability to help you create offline marketing campaigns for your online store, and will work closely with you throughout the process.  If you are interested in a consultation please don’t hesitate to contact IMPACT today

• Electronic Cash (a.k.a. digital cash) — In order to utilize electronic cash, both the customer and the business need to have an account with the same bank/service.  In general, the customer would transfer real funds to be converted (by the service) into digital credits.  Those credits act as cash during a transaction and are electronically moved to the business’ account and subsequently to the business’ bank and into real funds.
• Electronic Checks — Even though electronic, these form of checks are similar to the checks that a customer writes to an other company.  The client fills out the pertinent check information which gets sent to the business.  Following the transfer of information, the business converts the information into a paper check.
• eCharge — This is an interesting alternative for business and consumers.  This allows clientele to apply their product payment to their telephone bill.  Truly a great way to help those customers that are not comfortable with submitting their credit card information.
• Non-E-Payments (a.k.a. traditional payments) — While the eCharge is an innovative way to take payment for products in the situation that customers are a little cautious with their credit card or check information, remember that you always want to have the option of traditional payment.  Provide contact information and processes for this form of payment to not exclude any potential sales.
• Credit and Debit Cards — Definitely the most popular forms of online payment.  This is also a payment option that requires you to have an internet merchant account (explained below), or go through a payment gateway for the transaction.

Now that we have talked about the various methods of how you can accept payment, we need to clarify internet merchant accounts and the charges that are affiliated with them.  Here is a top 10 list of merchant account providers as well as a brief description of the account and charges:

1. CCBill — This service is great as there are no setup fees, and the transaction fees vary based on the volume per accounting period.  According to their website, the charges never amount to more than 13.5% for hosting clients or 14.5% for non-hosting clients.
2. CCNow — Solely for businesses that ship physical products there are no setup fees.  There is a flat rate of 9% per transaction between January and October, and 8% for November and December.
3. Google Checkout — One of the up and coming third party merchant systems primarily used for products even though it can be used for services as well.  The fees are relatively nominal at a range of 1.9% to 2.9% + $.30  per transaction.  The range is determined based on the volume of sales for that month; the more you have purchased the less percentage you pay.
4. PayPal — Similar setup to Google Checkout with the same (exact) fees for transactions.  This has been voted as one of the best merchant account providers available.
5. ProPay — One of the newest kids on the block in comparison to the rest.  It is rumored to rival PayPal with the ease of setup and maintenance.  With regard to fees, there is a #34.95 annual fee along with a 3.5% + $.35 transaction fee.  The major downfall with this account provider is that you have to pay for an upgraded account to accept American Express and/or Discover cards.

So, in conclusion, when you decide to build your online store you need to understand that there are various ways to accept payment for your products and/or services.  The best suggestion that we can provide is to ease the buying process for your clientele by offering as many types of payment options.  This means that you should include electronic (or digital) cash transactions, electronic checks, an innovative payment option that lets you charge the customer’s telephone account (eCharge), traditional payment sources, and credit/debit cards.  Of course with these options, you also have to select an internet merchant account provider that best fits your company.  If this seems like a lot to take in all at once please don’t hesitate to contact IMPACT today and we will help you explore the options of an online store.

1. Creating the Customer — First and foremost, once a visitor clicks onto your site, it is your job to ensure that they become a buyer.  In order to accomplish this (as we discussed previously), you provide easy to find information and products, and user friendly shopping cart tools.  Conversion is key so focus on cross promotion and content.  This step is priority as you cannot move onto step 2 until you have visitor buy-in.
2. Clicking on the Cart — After you have converted the visitor into a buyer, they will transfer their desired products to their online shopping cart either through a click and drag feature, mini-cart feature, or full-page cart.  Depending on the features of the cart the total amount due to the business will be tallied, the shipping will be calculated, and other information can potentially be displayed.  In order to get people to step 3, you must be able to make the “checkout” button prominent within the cart or on the header of the site.
3. Check Out with Their Check Book (or Credit Card or Electronic Money) – When the client is done shopping on your site, they will click the “checkout” button (the one that is easy to find, right?) which will bring them to an order processing page or process.  During this process, they will have the opportunity to choose a payment method of  a cash model, check model, or credit model of payment*.  A cash model is done via creating electronic money or tokens through a bank (similar to PayPal).  The check model is where the client submits a virtual/digital check for payment.  The credit model is where the customer inputs credit card information.  Step 4 comes very simply when the customer clicks the “submit order” button.
4. Translating the Transaction — When the client submits the order, the information gets sent to the business instantly.  The sent information generates a customer invoice which the consumer must then approve and confirm the final order.  If a credit card or check is used for payment,the following happens: (1) The business then generates an authorization request for your credit card and sends it to their’ bank.  (2) Their bank sends the authorization to the acquiring service (internet merchant account provider) who gets the authorization from the customer’s bank which (in turn) gets sent back to the business’ bank and payment is made.  Let’s take a quick show of hands of who knew there was that much involved?  Now, with PayPal (or similar service) there is a direct transaction to the business’ bank.
5. Direct or Indirect…That is the Question — Now, if you, as the business, are a direct retailer once you get the payment you have the ability to organize the shipping and get the client the product.  However, if you must order product through a vendor, you must place the order with the vendor who can either directly ship to the client or ship to you who then ships to the client.  My suggestion, if you must go through a vendor is to have them directly ship to the client on behalf of your company.

Overall, it is not a difficult process from either the buyer’s or seller’s point of view, but the primary difference between an online store and a physical storefront is the process of shipping.  Remember that conversion of your site visitors is key to increasing productivity, and capitalize on shopping cart features that ease the process of online shopping for your customers.  And, as always, feel free to leave your comments and/or questions below!  We’d love to help you figure out your online store and increase your online productivity today.

*An Internet Merchant Account is needed for credit card and check transactions