Buying Domain Names for Products and Brands

Internet Advertising that Works the TANKShould a local business buy a separate domain name for every product or brand they carry?

It would seem like a simple question. For most retailers this would be impractical if not impossible.

There are times when having multiple domain names is a really good idea.

If you are the creator/manufacturer/owner of a brand or product then by all means you should have that domain name for those items. Even if it means you own a lot of names.

Owning the domain name doesn’t mean you actually have to build the site–although you might want to. What it does do for  is prevent someone else from scooping up the website and stealing visitors. Whether it is a competitor or just someone looking to benefit from your marketing, you don’t want to lose that internet traffic.

Case in point, recently on the television show Shark Tank some entrepreneurs were encouraged to change the name of their product. Now, I disagreed with the advice they were given, but that is a different story. What was the real travesty was that they got all this great publicity from the television show–but never bought the domain name. Instead a couple other people did and got a lot of free traffic! Fortunately for these entrepreneurs the websites had no relation to their business at all so it was clear to anyone who landed there that there was a mistake.

You love your existing site and just want to create a new page for your product–that’s fine, but still plunk down the few dollars it will take to secure the name. Then have your webmaster redirect the new domain to point wherever you want it to…your existing home page, a new product page, whatever. You keep all the traffic and all your marketing efforts are for your benefit.

With a little planning your website doesn’t have to tank.

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Your Site Name

This is part 5 of a 6 part series on search tips for local businesses

Should Your Site Name be Your Business Name?

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Your site nameFor many businesses, they want their website name to be the same as their business name. And for many this makes sense. Especially if you are a big, well-known brand. Someone looking for a hardware store in your area may just type in the name of one of the big box stores rather than using keywords. In those instances have your site name (your URL) match your business name is important.

If you aren’t a big brand, you might consider using a keyword in your URL, possibly in conjunction with your business name. If your business is specific to a town then you may want to also consider using your town name in your site name. Both of these can help the search engines know what your business is about and where you are located.

When people search for a Mexican restaurant they may not include the town they are looking in. That’s okay, because the search engines are smart and know the IP address the search was made from—and the town that that IP address is located in. It isn’t perfect, but it means that they will tend to serve to the potential customers the Mexican restaurants nearer to them, not ones across the state or country.

By including your town in your URL you can help the search engines serve up your listing to people in your area.

One word of caution—if you have your town in your URL then you do not want to put your town in every page and description. Sometimes that can be misinterpreted by the search engines as “keyword stuffing”

OK, you want to build a brand and therefore you want to have a website with your name, not a keyword based URL. That’s okay. There are ways that you can have your cake and eat it too. By having two URLs you can take advantage of local search strategies and still build your brand and name recognition.

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Reviews

This is the final part of a 6 part series on search tips for local businesses

Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

Search Tips for Local Businesses: reviewsDid I mention reviews?

Reviews = “Social Proof” that your business is real. Positive reviews on a variety of sites, including Google+ are in important part of getting found online. If you think you are doing everything else right and you still are not ranking—take a good, hard look at your reviews.

Do you have reviews with stars? These are extremely powerful. You have to have 5 reviews at the time of this post in order for the stars to show up on Google. So if you don’t have stars, get more reviews. Ask your happy customers to review you on your Google+ page.

Make it easy for people to give you a review. Hand out a postcard or colorful piece of paper letting your customers know where to place a review. Be sure to list the sites that are popular in your area. If Yelp is big where you do business, be sure your Yelp site is up, accurate and give folks that link. Angie’s List big in your town—ditto. Facebook? Whatever service(s) your customers use the most, be sure they are active pages with accurate details, and have those links handy. Whether it is the biggest in the country is not the issue (other than Google—that ALWAYS makes a difference.)

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Content

This is part 4 of a 6 part series on search tips for local businesses

Provide Important Information, AKA “Content”

Search Tips for Local BusinessesWhen you are building your pages pay attention to both the content which is the information ON the page, and the tags and metadata—the information behind the scenes.

Even though some people will claim that the search engines don’t use keywords any longer, that is really a misinterpretation. It is true that keywords have been overused and abused, which has led to changes in how search engines work. But a keyword is at its most basic simply a word. It is a word, or group of words that people use when searching for your business. As long as people use words to search, then keywords will have a place in search engine algorithms.

Think about it this way. Twenty years ago if you wanted to find a place to have dinner you would grab the phone book and look under the restaurants section. “Restaurants” was your main keyword even back then, we just didn’t call it that!

Now, if you had a hankering for great chili rellenos, you would further refine your search and look for “Mexican Restaurants.”

Of course the phone book you grabbed was for your city or town, or neighborhood, right? You wouldn’t be looking in a San Francisco phone book and expect to find a great Mexican restaurant in Phoenix.

That is the importance of the information behind the scenes. By using metadata, tags, and even titling for your posts, pages, and images, you are helping the search engines determine which “phone book” your business belongs in.

Place your most important keyword, like Mexican restaurant, in your titles, images, and descriptions. When you are building your page content, you want it to sound natural, but you also have to create the right road signs so search engines can find you.

Some of your “road signs” will include links. These may be external links that take a reader to another site for additional information. You should also have internal links: links that go from one page of your website to another page on your website. Think of links as another way to help your readers (and the search engines) to find the information that is most important to them.

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Multiple Locations

This is part 3 of a 6 part series on search tips for local businesses

Multiple Locations, Multiple Pages

local business search tips for multiple locationsIf you have more than one office or storefront then you will want to create a webpage for each physical address. Depending on your business you may choose to have separate websites, but that may not be necessary, or even desirable.

Is each business a separate entity? Does each office service different cities or areas? Then you may want to have multiple websites.

On the other hand, it can be helpful if someone learns of your business from a friend or associate that they can discover you have multiple branches. They can then choose the location that is most convenient to their home and the one closes to their office. This can actually help you get more business than if each location had its own website.

Whether you have separate pages or entire sites is up to you, but either way be sure to have all the location information for your customers. Maps and photos of what the specific office looks like are a big help, too.

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Your Home Page

This is part 2 of a 6 part series

Your Front Door AKA Home Page

Search Tips for Local Business: Your Home PageWhen it comes to search tips for local business, your “home” page is vitally important when you are building your website. Compare it to your front door of your business. You can have a beautiful storefront, but if your number is not visible then important visitors won’t be able to find you. Sure your friends will know which door is yours, but how will the Fire or Police Departments find you?

Your entrance also gives other important data to people who stop by. You have signage that gives your name, your business hours, even a phone number so people can contact you. Either through your signage, or by peering through your window, potential customers can get an idea what your business is about and decide whether or not it is interesting enough for them to come in.

Your home page serves a similar function. It allows search engines to find you online, and that is how most potential customers will “happen by.” A good home page will let the customer know the most important part of your business, how to contact you, and when you are open. It will give people a peek into your store or office so they can determine if they want to enter.

Think about your home page like you were a potential customer. What information is most important to them? Is it easy for them to find it? Not everything has to be on that page—that would make for a cluttered page, but you want a customer to easily find how to get that information.

Social proof is an important part of marketing today. Make it easy for people to find your testimonials so they can see how wonderful other people think you are. Have you been in the news lately for a donation, a new service, or community involvement? Be sure links to these pages are up front and easy to find.

Search Tips for Local Businesses: Local Search Optimization

This is part 1 of a 6 part series

Local Search Optimization

local search marketing

Be sure your business is optimized for local search. It is important to note that this is different from traditional SEO practices. While having a website can be a great idea, it is not necessarily the first place you should start–even when talking about getting found online! (I know, sacrilege, right?)

What local search optimization does for you is it actually helps the search engines and your potential customers to fine you online. It also helps them to find what content is most important on your site, if you have one.

The first thing you must decide as a local business owner who wants to improve their local search rankings is what is most important for YOUR business. And that depends on the type of business you have. The needs of a retail shop will be different from those of a restaurant and those of a doctor, for example.

Most local businesses want more customers to come into their physical location. As one friend puts it, “boots in the door.” With that goal in mind, you want to focus your web presence on getting local search results.

If you don’t have a website yet, this is the ideal time to get it done right. A website is not just about looking good. It is about being found, and that requires the right structure. It takes some planning, but really is a pretty logical process. You can take this on yourself if you have or get the right training. Otherwise, hire someone who specializes in websites for local search results. This is a very important distinction to make when having your site built.

Already have a website? No worries. You can tweak what you already have to get found more easily by Google. If you don’t know how, give us or another local search company a call to improve your results.

The tools of the trade to get results: website structure, optimizing each page, using tags properly, and adding keywords, links, and metadata.

Social Proof is in the Pudding

Social proof is a common catch phrase these days, but what does it mean?

It is being suggested by many “experts” that social proof is something new, something that business people didn’t have to think about before.friends talking

Perhaps I just think of social proof more globally than some other internet consultants, but I think that idea is crazy. Social proof is not a new local business marketing concept at all, but how it works today is quite different from the past when it was neighbors talking over the fence or over a beer.

Businesses have always relied on social proof in one form or another. It is just that the form changes and now we have a convenient label for it.

Word of mouth advertising has long been the standard for social proof, and is most certainly not a contemporary construct. Businesses large and small have long known that if they can get their happy customers to tell other people about them and recommend them that it is the least expensive and most successful advertising campaign they have.

Social proof has always been about customers indicating their support for your business. That has not changed.

What has changed is HOW they demonstrate their support.

Today your customers are online every day. They get most of their information from the internet, more than the television or radio, more than print publications. And this trend continues to accelerate as we are seeing the millennials and younger folks ever more tied to their electronic devices.

Whether shopping locally or buying something across the globe, more and more people are relying on the internet to gather information before making a purchase.

Social proof has always been part of that research process, it is just easier to get these days. You no longer have to talk to lots of different people to learn their opinions and experiences–it is all there online.

What is social proof in current terms then? It is how your business is supported online. This can be done by customers posting a review on Yelp, Angie’s List, or any number of other review sites. It can be comments left on your blog or your Facebook or G+ page. It can even be that someone links to your business website on their blog or Facebook page, or that someone shares a post that you have written.social media icons

How do you get more social proof for you business?

Excuse me for stating the obvious, but you have to get social. Nope, you don’t have to do it all. Unless you have a lot more time on your hands then most business owners I know, you can’t anyway.

Learn a little bit about the various types of social media and pick one, give it a go and see if you like it. I’m a firm believer that if you enjoy it, you will have better results. If you find you aren’t enjoying it, you can try a different avenue.

If you are a visual person or you have a visual type business, then Pinterest might be a good choice for you. If you naturally talk in sound bites, you might try Twitter. If you are in a B2B field, or are looking for professional connections, check out LinkedIn. Facebook is gaining ground on the major search engines and gives businesses some more flexibility in their posts and pages. These are just a few of the many options that are available to your local business.

There is no one best social media, one that works for every single business in every single market. Find where your customers are online and start there. Then dive into that online “pudding” and get some social proof.

Internet Tips for Your Local Business Photos

paparazziPosting photographs online of your the work you do is a great idea.

But can it help you with getting more customers?

Yes, if done properly.

Here are some internet tips for using photos for your local business.

Use Original Photos

In other words, don’t use stock photos or rely on photos from “corporate” if you are part of a chain. Sure, include pictures of products as part of the items that you offer at your store–and those can be stock images–but be sure to include pics of your crew making a local delivery, a happy customer making a purchase (with their permission, of course), and even the items in your storefront or showroom.

Titles & Tags

Title and tag the photos to include what work was done and what City it is in. So if you delivered a new stove to Greeley, you want to be sure to label the photo something like “Greeley stove delivery.”

Spread the Wealth

Put your photos on all your different web properties. That means you should upload them to your website, your Facebook page, Google+ page, Twitter account, LinkedIn, and any review sites that you have built out such as Yelp and Angie’s List.

Tell the Story

Sure pictures are worth 1000 words…but be sure to include the words. Tell a little bit of the story of your business. Let potential customers get to know you and the work you do.

Mix it Up

When you are posting those images around the web be sure to use different wording. If you use the same titles and stories on all the sites you are at risk as being seen as posting “duplicate content” which can ding your results!

Be Real, Be You

Whenever you post photos or stories about your business, make sure it is accurate. Don’t try to be someone you are not. Let your personality come through. You want customers who will resonate with you, your staff, your products and services. That won’t be everyone–and that’s okay. Remember, there’s plenty to go around as long as we aren’t a bunch of Stepford Wives!

All Work Makes Johnny a Dull Local Business Owner

fishingGo ahead and have some fun with some of your photos. Maybe you want to add shots from your company picnic or customer appreciation day–that’s cool. You can also include photos from things outside of work that you don’t mind making public. Do you love going hiking in the mountains? Does going fishing give you the peace of mind to be a better lawyer? Do you like restoring old cars? Are you an animal lover with a goofy dog or cat? Posting a picture that has nothing to do with work once in a while is just fine. People want to do work with those they know, like and trust. Don’t be afraid to let them know you–at work and away from the shop.

Are Citations Important for Local Business Success Online?

The short answer to the question, “Are citations important for my local business?” is yes, if you want to have success online.

local business online success

What exactly is a citation?

A citation is when your business name, address, and phone number appears on another site on the internet. There does not have to be any other information about your business to qualify as a citation, but there are many other sites that will give more complete details about your business.

In order for your local business success online to happen consistency is crucial. It is vital that your citations be consistent in the information that they have about your business. Inconsistencies, even minor ones can have an adverse affect on your online success.

There are literally thousands of places where you can have a citation for your business. Opinions differ on whether or not you need to try to go after them all, which is an on-going task as sites come and go. Sometimes it depends on your business, your location, your service area, and the competition that you have online. Like most things, there isn’t a “one size fits all” answer.

If you have a presence online and you are not having success with getting customers through the internet, one place to look is at your citations. If you are not sure how to do that, or if you do not have the time or inclination to spend the time on the computer adding hundreds of citations it is time to call in a professional.

Contact Internet Advertising That Works and we can help get your online citations in line and more customers to your local business.