Content marketing is a method used to get noticed online by your potential customers.  This infographic shows what’s at the heart of content marketing. Blogging, great content and social reach are the fundamentals for online success.

The stats are hard to ignore:

• Companies with blogs on their sites enjoy 55% more visitors
• Companies with blogs get 97% more inbound links
• Blogs give sites 97% more indexed pages
• 70% of consumers prefer to learn about companies from articles rather than ads

What do you think? We want to hear from you about your content marketing successes or suggestions.

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Google Places, which is part of Google Maps that offers FREE Local Business Listings, and if you haven’t done so yet, head over to Google Places and grab your local business listing today.

Why your business needs to claim its Google Places Page

While “googling” I’m sure you’ve noticed that Google tends to put Google Places results above other organic results. These are local business listings, but only businesses who have claimed their listing can show up in the results. Hey, it’s their search engine and they can do what they want. We just need to understand what the search gods want us to do and play by their rules to rank well.

Why do they serve Google Places pages before the other organic results? I suspect that was done in an effort to provide the searcher with more relevant results.  If you search for a “Dentist in Henderson, NV”, you are most likely interested where they are located, because you probably want a dentist that will be convenient to your place of work or home. So a local Google Places result is very relevant in that case.

Knowing this fact, creating a Google Places page has become online marketers go-to strategy for getting ranked higher in Google, and there is nothing wrong with that.  Businesses should look for any advantage to get noticed.  If you are not on Google Maps or in any of the other Local Business Listing Directories, then you are missing out big.

Benefits of claiming Google Places Page for your business

The big deal about creating a Google Places Page for your business, is that it sends a high quality link back to your website. And as you know, high quality link backs are like little votes for your website, which helps it rank higher. In addition, it tells Google to look around the world wide web and try to connect where else you, and your business, may have been listed and mentioned. People can leave comments and reviews about your business and share with their friends. That’s huge! Google does most of the work for you, so why wouldn’t you be part of it and best of all it’s free. Take the time and claim your listing or let us help you create you an optimized Local Business Listing.

However, claiming your Local Business Listing with Google Maps requires certain amount of strategy, especially when everyone, including your competitors are doing it. So there are some things you will need to keep in mind to try to get the most out of your business listing.

Google has recently made changes to their Business Listing Quality Guideline that basically completely changed the way Google Maps and Google Places pages are now function. I’ve listed some of what you need to look out for when creating your business listing here:

1. You need a real address

Most of the business listing directories require that you have a physical and verifiable address. P.O. Boxes are not physical addresses. But don’t fret you virtual business owners, there are ways around it. You could use your home address and hide it when displaying results, or get a mailbox for your business. That’s certainly cheaper than renting an office.

2. You need to be the owner or an authorized representative

To claim the Business Listing you need actually own the business or be an authorized representative of the business. Google will require verification. Which is great, since it means that there are little chance that someone else might claim your business and try to steal away customers.

3. Don’t keyword stuff your Business Name Listing

People try to cheat Google and keyword stuff their business name in hopes of ranking better. Well, Google is too smart for that. You’ll need to use your actual official business name and factual description.

4. Create ONE listing for each business location

Unless you have actual offices in multiple cities or multiple physical local locations, one listing is all you need. Trying to artificially create listings to cover all of your service area, while you actually have one physical address can get you unlisted from Google altogether and we certainly don’t want that.

5. Create ONE listing for all the specialties

Are you a doctor or a lawyer? You probably have several services that you offer.  One listing is sufficient to list all of your services.

6. Use your actual business phone number and business URL

Don’t get cute and create urls that redirect or forward to some special landing pages. This is a business listing, so you should use the shortest and most direct way for the customer to reach you. When listing your email address, use one that you don’t mind being public and shared out with the world.

7. Choose Categories that explain what your business IS not what it does

This one is important. Don’t try to keyword stuff here.  Enter or select categories that describe what your business is and not what it does. So for a Dentist you might want to select “Cosmetic Dentistry” not “teeth whitening”. A lawyer might select “estate planning attorney” category rather than “creating wills”. Google places gives you the ability to create your own category if there isn’t already one, but stay focused don’t try to create new categories if ones that are available will do just fine.

8. Use Additional fields to stand out

Google places allows for additional fields for description, photos, logos, videos, special offers

 9. Don’t list businesses that are under construction

If you’re just starting out and don’t have an address or your website is not ready, or you don’t have the products you claim to be selling, then don’t list it. Wait until you are all setup.

Do you have any other tips you’d like to add? Don’t be shy post your comments.

Please contact us if you need help with:

• creating or reviewing your business listing
• maintaining your business listings
• submitting your business listing to other major business listing directories

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The point cannot be overstated, more than 90% of internet users search for products and services online before buying. If they can’t verify your company online via your business website, they most likely will not buy from you.  So whether you are B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer) type of business, your marketing plan should include an online presence strategy to reach your buyers.

It’s crazy to realize that despite all of the recent advances in technology, the enormous success of eCommerce and the penetration of broadband internet connections into homes, businesses, on smartphones and tablets and even on TVs, still up to 40% of small to medium sized businesses still don’t have a website (based on a survey by 1&1 Internet). Your business website is your storefront and should not replaced by other forms of online presence such as creating a profile on a social networking website. Some businesses are taking the route of engaging on networking websites as a substitute for building a website, but this strategy is wrong. A comprehensive business marketing plan should include social networking  as a part of an overall online presence strategy to supplement your business website – not to replace it.

A static website is not enough

Many of you may be thinking or saying to yourself, “I have a business website but it’s not doing anything for me“.  I’m here to tell you that having a business-card static website is certainly not enough, and if your business website looks like a business card, chances are you’re not seeing any benefits. Fancy graphics and paid advertising may look nice but they will also not give you the results your business needs.

Today’s business websites should do much more than just show off your logo and list your basic services or profile your employees. An effective website that can actually produce results for your business needs to be interactive and perform several functions.

Your business website needs to:

• Attract your visitors
• Educate and inform them
• Convince them
• Convert them

An integration of interactive features can accomplish all that. As you create or update your marketing plan to include a business website design or redesign to improve your online presence you need to consider including features such as search, social networking, compelling content, blogging, ecommerce, ability to post comments or ratings and much more.

Why are websites changing?

The reason today’s business websites are changing is because the technology used to access the internet has changed and the behavior of the online consumer has changed. The consumer, your customer or buyer, wants and needs to feel as though they are in control of the online experience.  Your marketing plan should reflect this change and reflect that the consumer wants to be informed and educated by your online presence, not advertised to.

That is why dynamic and changing website content, such as blogging, podcasts, social networking, etc., have become such an integral part of the business website experience. Users have the ability to reach your website in a multitude of ways and they want to experience content – that is they are looking for your message – in a variety of contexts.  Effective business websites, as a part of a complete online presence strategy in any marketing plan, should embrace these concepts and setup processes to match what their customers are looking for.

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The official campaign though is said to be JCPenny’s new pricing strategy. Attempting to make the sales and the couponing rage less complicated, JCPenny is committed to proving prices that are “fair and square”.  This fair and square idea is being played up in the logo design itself, while the colors and placement of the blue square is clearly pushing the ‘Americana’ idea.

This is JPC’s 3rd logo design in 3 years. Generally speaking, frequent image change can not only confuse the consumer but also act against and loose brand familiarity.

Why did JCP rebrand?

It seems that last year after spending over $1billion in marketing efforts to promote their 590 different sales, the company did not see any significant revenue increase. Therefore, in an effort to increase sales and lower marketing costs, the company came up with their new “Fair and Square Pricing”. The company is betting that simplifying the pricing structure will greatly improve the customer experience in the retail store and serve to restore the customer’s trust in the JC Penney name and in the end increase overall revenue.

JCP will be eliminating clearance sales and moving into a three-tier pricing system. In addition, they are said to be simplifying the pricing for regular items. For example, you will no longer see $19.99 tags and rather have simple $20 tags.

Other major stores like Walmart are already experimenting with simple pricing, but we have not seen a company-wide change like this, so It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Take-away for businesses

• Unless you have millions dedicated to your marketing, you should probably pick your business image and stick with it.
• Try to create a loyal following and update your brand only if it’s going to help your message better resonate with the consumer.
• Know what that message and make it as clear as possible.
• As to pricing, many experts have different opinions. You need to figure out what works for your business. Experiment, survey your customers, analyze your competition and don’t be afraid to take a risk.

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On January 10^th, 2012, Google quietly launched their latest search algorithm update. They called it “Search plus your World”. In the ever changing world of the Internet and ever growing social and personalized direction of the individual websites for a better user experience, Google is now serving up more personalized results.

Google has been at the forefront of the Internet revolution and we often look to them to give us a glimpse of the wave of the future.  There has been, however, a lot of outcry and mixed buzz from the public over this change.  On one hand, people saying that they don’t want personalized results, and on the other they are upset that Twitter and Facebook aren’t as prominent in the results as Google+.  Well, it’s is Google’s domain, so why wouldn’t they promote their own social media channels.

In the end, the public will have their say, so I’m not here to postulate weather this is a good change or a bad one. For now, Google search, which has over 65% of market share in search engine industry has implemented this change and it’s important to understand how this change will affect the ranking and visibility of your business site.

What the new Google search change means to businesses?

For one, your business needs to be on Google+.  Google+ is a social network for sharing your ideas, links and photos with particular groups of people. It features group chat and video chat  but its mainly for connecting with people who share similar interests.  If you don’t have a Google+ account for your business, get one and fast. It’s easy to setup and you will guarantee yourself a relevant search result in the Google world.

Second, with this change, Google is telling us that the way of the future is much more socially centered than ever before. Why? For the simple fact that almost 150million of US Internet users already spend most of their time on social media networks like Twitter and Facebook (source: eMarketer).  It’s just what’s happening and if you’re not there, then you’re missing out on potential customers.

Thirdly, you’re expected to share everything on the social sites, especially Google+. You are expected to promote yourself, promote your business, your ideas interest and direction.  Make sure everything you post is SEO optimized.

Lastly, Keep building relationships and keep creating content that will make people notice it.

What is a Personalized Result?

Google is obviously very fond of  personalized results. They changed their entire algorithm to accommodate it.

Personalized result is content served up from social networks. Specifically concentrating on your personal and business connections as directed by your Google+ circles, your Facebook Friends, your Tweeter followers, etc.

According to Google’s Official blog on the topic, the idea is to

1. Provide Personal Results “which enable you to find information just for you […] both your own and those shared specifically with you”
2. “Enable you to immediately find people you’re close to  or might be interested in following”
3. “Help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to specific topic”

What if you don’t like the new personalized results?

Google has basically split the search into ‘personal’ and ‘global’.  Head over to the right hand side of the search result page where you will see two buttons.  Select the button for the type of results you like to see.

What do you think about these new changes? Have you seen the difference in your search results?

Does your company need help with Social Media, SEO, visibility? Or maybe you just need more information on how to improve your business online presence? Contact us or request a free, no obligation quote.

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1. A new home page

YouTube has now made it easier to follow Channels.  When you log in, it will automatically show you the channels you’ve selected to follow and what’s even better is that you can completely customize your channel line-up. I mean – who needs TV!

2. Integrated sharing

Easier than before you can now link your YouTube account to Google+, duh, I mean about time, since Google owns them.  You can also now link up to Facebook and see what your friends are sharing.

Finally they realizing that people use facebook more than ever before and want an easy way to share what they find and are interested in what friends are looking at.

3. Overall Design

YouTube has also caught up with the times and updated their overall look.  No more clunky looking home pages with hidden features.  They now offer Channel templates to meed the needs and wants of the users.

Need to know more? Checkout their instructional manual at YouTube-New.

How can TheStartCompany help:

Are you a business looking to get more involved in the Social Arena? Not sure where to start? How much will it cost? What to do first?

Give us a call. We’ll walk you through it step by step. We believe in FREE information. No strings, so Contact Us Today!

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An infographic from KISSmetrics via SocialTimes gives us a look into The Science of Social Timing.

Here are a few key takeaways from the Science of Social Timing infographic:

• The best time to tweet is 5PM ET
• 1 to 4 tweets per hour is ideal
• The best days to tweet are midweek and on the weekends
• The best day to share on Facebook is Saturday
• The best time to share on Facebook is Noon ET

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Many website owners confuse the difference between a hit to the web server or impressions and a visitor to your web site. Obviously business owners shouldn’t care how many times the web server is pinged – when the only metric that really counts is the number of actual visitors that will convert to customers.

A number of ‘hits‘ or an ‘impressions‘ is simply a number of times a specific page from your website has shown up on a search result page.  A number of ‘visit‘ is how many times the searcher has actually clicked on the link from the search page to see your page.  Therefore a single visit to a web page may register as dozens of ‘hits’ even though viewers may have seen your page only once.

Website Analytic Tools

Web traffic analysis programs like Google Analytics are perfect for understanding the effectiveness of your website. Not only will most webstats programs show you the difference between hits and visitors but they can also show you the number of unique visitors that visit your site.   Together with online sales metrics these stats can give you a lot of information about, when, and how customers interact with your website.

But don’t stop at Hit vs. Visits. With a full complement of web stats that are reviewed on a regular basis you can understand the behavior of visitors on your website, where they were referred from, what keywords got them to your website and much more.  These insights should be used to tweak your website’s content and design on a regular basis.
Careful focus on the correct web metrics will improve the effectiveness of your website and increase the number of actual visitors who are converted into paying customers.

Your Action Items

1. Check if you have a Website Stat tool or system on your website
2. If you don’t already have one, get one.  A good FREE choice is Google Analytics
3. Make an entry on your calendar to regularly check your stats

For more help on how to read and understand your stats, or for help with setting up stats on your website, please Contact Us.

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Your point, once you get someone to your blog, is not for them to read the post (well… not necessarily) but to convert them to a customer, unless you are in the business of blogging or online journalism, of course.  As a business owner your goal is to convert someone who visits your site to a customer, not to blog for blogging sake

These days every business has millions of competitors and an average reader spends only few seconds scanning the results to find what they want.  You need to show up at the top of the relevant search results and your title needs to be compelling enough for the reader to click on it.  Here’s how to do it:

1. Shorter the better – whether they see your title at your blog site, in your e-newsletter, in an RSS feed or in search engine search results, titles need to grab a person’s attention.  If your title wraps or is too long it may get glossed over and you will miss any chance of conversion.
2. Use Keywords – Titles should never be abstract.  If you make the reader guess what the blog is all about, you will have already lost the majority.  Search engines also look for key words, if your post is about APPLES, the word ‘apples’ should be in the title if you ever want to be found, or have your blog read by someone interested in apples.
3. Use a List – This one is more for people than search engines, but people love lists.  Give them 8 things they can do today, or 4 ways to make something better and they will click more often to see your wisdom.  And because you will also use keywords to describe what your list is about the search engines will love you too.
4. Make it relevant to the content – your title should reflect what the user will see.  Search engines no longer get fooled by attention grabbing titles that are completely unrelated to the content within. Unless the goal is to get traffic for traffic’s sake, it is useless to trick people into opening your blog, if they don’t find what they want when they get there, you are not going to get the conversion anyway.
5. Personalize (you, for you) – speak to your customer. Given the choice between opening and generic information article “latest news about the conflict in Egypt” or a personalized information article “6 events happening in Egypt that you need to know” people will opt for the more personalized approach to delivering content.

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Search engines and search engine robots follow a set of programmed rules that a website structure and design needs to follow for optimum results and visibility. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an integral component of web design — one should not be done without the other. The artfulness of webdesign and SEO is in striking a balance between trying to appeal to search engines and human readers at the same time.

Perhaps the best place to start is a list of what not to do when designing a website.

List of SEO and website design mistakes to avoid:

1. Full flash sites

Flash website may be impactful and pretty, however the search engines have a hard time indexing these sites and flash websites may become completely invisible. In addition, the hottest tech toys on the market right now, iPad and iPhone can’t resolve flash, so you might miss out on an entire group of readers and potential customers. An option could be to either have only part of your site in flash or have an alternate HTML version of your site.

2. Splash or Enter Now page

When the internet was young things like ‘flaming logos’ and ‘enter now’ pages were neat.  However, splash pages serve no purpose and the use of them should be avoided at all cost.  The fewer barriers you place between you and your customers, the better.  Your website should convey your message quickly and efficiently and not require users to click around to get to the good stuff.

3. Non specific page titles across the site

Are your all your pages identical? Then why would you have the same title on all your pages. A page URL title is designed to describe the topic of the page. This is useful for both the reader and the search engines, so both can know what the page is about.

4. No headings

A simple and great trick for improving your SEO is the proper use of heading tags (such as <H1>, <H2>, etc).  Not only does it  organize your page for an easy read by a human viewer, but the structure also helps the search engine robots understand the content and identify whats important about the content.

5. No content or stale pages

You want more traffic? Start writing. Yes, content is  (still) KING. Get a blog –  it’s simple to put together and it instantly adds fresh content to your website. It’s interesting to me that with wide popularity of blogs, people are still very resistant to the idea of blog for their own site.  If you’re still not sure about the idea, just think about your own search habits. Which pages and websites do you find more appealing,  static info or pages or blogs that specifically answer your search questions?

There of course many do’s and don’ts when it comes to website design and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). These are just a few of what I would consider big ones and a great place to start.

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