We have delivered 8 simple internet marketing tips which can be used to generate leads for your business. These can be done by anyone and do not require a web design professional or digital marketing guru. It simply takes a few easy steps (8 to be exact), and maybe a little patience!
How To Claim Your Google Business Listing
1. Claim Your Google Places, Bing, & Yelp Listing
Claiming your business and setting up your corporate information on major search engines is the #1 ranking factor in local search engine optimization. On Google, Bing, & Yelp you have the ability to “claim” your business if it already exists. If you are creating a new business you can also simply add a new business. Google will likely send a postcard to your address (which is necessary) for final verification.
Once you are verified, you will be able to manage your services (most important), hours of operations, logo, company images, and respond to reviews. It’s recommended to upload photos of your work, office, employees, jobs, and other information that could be relevant to prospective customers.
To manage all of this in one place, there is a wonderful service called Yext. It’s a service we highly recommend here at Vertcy. Lastly, if you are in a specialty field of business you may want to consider a service such as Angie’s List, Houzz, Zillow, and other 3rd parties.
Social Media Management
2. Setup Facebook & Social Media Accounts
All business types should create social media accounts with Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, and even Snapchat. Not all of these will be utilized for social media advertising depending on the type of business you run. However, we do recommend all companies create at least Facebook and Linkedin accounts.
These accounts can be used to communicate with your customers in various ways. While you may not post messages or videos each day, it is an opportunity to build advertising audiences and promote company accomplishments.
3. Get Internet Reviews
After your search engine and social accounts are setup, its time to get reviews. You can kindly ask your customers for a review upon completion of a satisfied job. As you grow your reviews, your reputation will increase and will your sales.
Conversion Optimized Website Landing Page
4. Make A Conversion Optimized Website
Once users land on your website, they should be driven towards a goal. This is called conversion optimization. In ideal situation a user is asked to fill out a form, buy a product, or make a phone call. You should always have strong calls to action and messaging leading users to pick up the phone or give you their information.
5. Use SEO Optimization & Structured Content Creation
A website should have content that tells search engines what your business does and where it operates. If you are an insurance agency located in Hilton Head South Carolina, then your site should have pages dedicated to the various services you offer. It should also clearly state your working offices in Hilton Head and applicable surrounding towns and/or counties.
Example of Internet Marketing Content Creation
There are also numerous structural items that a professional SEO should assist with. Examples include:
- structured URLs
- title tags
- meta content
- sitemaps
- inter-linking
- photos
- videos
- and more
6. Develop Monthly Content Creation
This sounds daunting to most folks, but content creation, and writing a blog on a monthly basis can be one of the best ways to boost your search rankings. If you are a small business, it may not get read very much, I know, but it provides Google with new content, relevant to your business.
This content can be used to promote your business on Linkedin, Facebook, and also provide more valuable SEO keywords to your website.
7. Use Email Marketing For Who You Know
Each time that you receive a new contact or meet a new person, add their email and phone number to a database. This list can be anywhere: your phone, excel, gmail, or paper. Use this list to keep up with clients.
Email marketing is one of the most successful forms of branding and selling. Open rates for email are even high if the person reading it knows who you are.
Don’t be shy. Send an email to these folks one every three months. Tell them what you. Maybe what you need. You’ll be surprised as to the response.
8. Advertise
Quite simply… advertise in some way! I would suggest using a small monthly ppc advertising budgets and target keywords related to your business. You can do this locally on a very small budget. Using your Facebook fans and website pixel can also yield some cheap and amazing results.
If digital isn’t your thing, find a relevant paper, radio station, magazine, billboard, and get your name out there. There’s no way to sell your product or service if no one knows who you are!
