Get On Google- How to Add Your Business To Google Maps

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Here is a quick tutorial video that can help you add your business to Google Maps & get on Google for Free!

So first, type in your address into Google and it will show you the position marker on a map.

It should give you the option to add a place that is missing if you are not yet visible on Google, here you will want to fill in the relevant information like your website and name.

Once you have done that, there is a link asking “are you the business owner?” Click there.

Then you claim this Google Place.

Fill out the proper information and verifications. In the “Category” option – which is for search engine purposes – you want to think about what are people typing into Google that are going to be looking for what you offer.

You have to pick form the pre-populated category then hit continue. Follow the prompts.

Choose a verification mode and it will prompt you that it will not appear as verified until it is verified but it will be added.

Next you want to edit any information that may be missing and search engine optimize the area.

Click to enter your website and edit everything like hours of operation, photos etc. It is very, very important to fill in these fields as complete as possible.

Now, let’s focus on Introduction.

Here is where you want to add in links to your website in order to drive traffic back to your site and have it working as efficiently as possible for you. Here you can also add in as much information as you like.

Once you have completed that, go back and look over the page and double check in the future to make sure it has been verified.

After about two weeks, if this hasn’t been done, call Google directly and get your page verified!

Three Steps to Getting on Google

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

If you want your website to be noticed, you have to get on Google.

And if you want to get on Google, you have to make yourself as visible as possible to them and their web crawlers.

Then of course once you’re on, you’re going to want make sure you stay there.

Getting and staying on Google can be broken down into three easily remembered stages:

· Build (on-site SEO)

· Engage (off site SEO)

· Stay fresh (regular content)

Let’s elaborate and see what these points really entail.

Build – on-site SEO

Anyone who maintains their own website, be it for business or pleasure, should at least be aware that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a thing, even if they might not really understand it.

They also need to know that it comes in two flavours: on-site and off-site, and taking care of the on-site SEO while building your website is paramount if you want it to get on Google.

On-site SEO includes everything that your web design team can arrange for you, either behind the scenes or for public consumption; quality content with relevant keywords, page titles, Google text snippets, URLs, H1 or H2 headings, correctly tagged images, outbound links, and having a site map.

All of these will affect your Google rank, although some (content and titles) carry more weight than others (alt tags on images).

Engage – off-site SEO

As the name suggests, off-site SEO covers everything you can do in other places online to improve your own SEO and help you to get on Google.

One metric used by Google to measure your ranking is the quality of your inbound links; that is, links from other places directing people to your site.

The practice of link building has long been a big part of any SEO campaign, although the focus has now shifted to the subtly different but more interpersonal practice of link earning.

Advisable ways of earning the high quality links that help you to get on Google include reaching out to bloggers and asking them to link to your best content, or offer to write a guest post with a link back to your site.

Leaving useful, non-generic comments on relevant blog posts with a link back to your site also works, as does being active and respected on a forum that allows you to display your web address in your signature or in posts.

Building a community on social media is another great way to improve the engagement with your content, if you can encourage your audience to share it directly from your site.

Stay fresh – regular content

While on and off-site SEO practices help you to get on Google, the ubiquitous search engine also takes into account the freshness of your website and its content.

It makes sense; after all, Google wants you to keep using its service, so strives to give the most relevant, freshest results it can. Stale websites get punished by falling in the rankings.

Even if most of your website’s pages are static and don’t change, there are ways to maintain a steady stream of new content. The most common is a regular blog, with the opportunity for people to comment on the posts.

Depending on the nature of your site, running a forum is also a possibility and helps with the fresh posts and interaction that Google values so highly.

Get on Google, Stay on Google

Being found through organic search engine results is vital to your business, and that means one thing: you have to get on Google.

By following the three key stages of building, engaging and staying fresh, you’ll give yourself the best of chance of both getting and staying there.

The Importance of Good Pay Per Click Management

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Today we’re going to talk about best practices for Pay Per Click (PPC) management.

PPC is one of the most effective ways to generate new sales leads, if done right.

Image courtesy of Buzz Builder

Pay Per Click ads are those ‘Sponsored Links’ to appear at the top of your Google search..

If you were to click on one of them though, the company behind it would have to pay Google a pre-arranged price for bringing you to their site, even if you had no interest in what they were selling.

Hence, the importance of a diligent pay per click management strategy.

Well executed, ongoing pay per click management is imperative to the success of any PPC campaign, and can be broken down into three parts.

It has to be well planned, tracked and analyzed, and constantly evolved.

Planning a campaign

Fail to prepare, you know the rest.

When done well, PPC is a powerful way to bring targeted, high converting leads to a website.

When done badly, it can lead to the ads being ignored or, worse, the hemorrhaging of a company’s funds through uninterested people such as yourself clicking on them.

Good pay per click management starts in the planning.

Keyword research is arduous, but essential. Bidding the right amount for each keyword is crucial.

Organizing keywords into different campaigns and groups helps to keep things organized.

Identifying your target audience and their search habits is critical.

Not having optimized landing pages for conversions would render the whole thing pointless.

Tracking a campaign

Pay per click management doesn’t end once the campaign is underway. In fact, it’s only just begun.

The first part of your ongoing management, tracking your traffic through a token on your landing page URL tells you which ads are working and which aren’t, and gives useful insight into who you are attracting.

Your traffic needs to be more quality than quantity.

People who are already searching for your product, who are from your target area, who stick around on your site instead of bouncing straight off, who maybe even convert to a sale, and perhaps ultimately become a repeat customer are your personal goldmine.

Constantly analyzing your traffic will help determine how close you are to striking it rich.

Evolving your PPC campaign

The second ongoing part of your pay per click management, after collating enough data, is to modify, evolve and optimize your campaign accordingly. This is done through continuous and regular analysis of the information at hand.

Once you know what keywords are working, you can push them. Any expensive keywords that aren’t converting, you can stop using. Add new ones to test in their place. If long tail keywords are bringing more success, bid for more of those. They are cheaper anyway.

If people are bouncing from your landing site, modify it. Even split testing a few different designs can prove useful.

Try using different ads to direct people to different parts of your sales funnel; an educational PDF should lead to the top, while a coupon will go directly to the sales page.

Good pay per click management

Search engines reward intelligent, well targeted campaigns by charging less per click, and only good pay per click management can take you to that stage.

Overnight success stories are years in the making, but planning, tracking and evolving your campaign will see you on the right track.

Crafting a Practical SEO Strategy

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Laurel Lindsay

Every business owner should know something about search engine optimization (SEO), even if it’s just the name.

But not everybody knows where to start when it comes to crafting a practical and effective SEO strategy.

Any SEO strategy hoping to succeed begins way before the website design has even started and never really ends.

Here are 3 practical steps to crafting an SEO strategy:

SEO Strategy Step 1: Know your objectives, know your audience

Before you begin planning your SEO strategy, you need to really define what you’re trying to achieve with your website.

What is the real objective of your site? What do you want your website visitors to do once you have them there?

Once you know this, you need to identify who your audience is going to be in order to know how to entice them. What do they do? What do they like? What don’t they like? How old are they? Where are they located? Where do they hang out online?

With this information gathered, you can combine it with your primary objective to come up with a secondary one: getting these people to visit your site.

SEO Strategy Step 2: On and off-site SEO

The single most important part of your on-site SEO is going to be the quality of your content, and you will live or die by the keywords used in that.

They are going to have to be relevant to how your target audience will find you, relevant to your site itself, and with a high enough search volume to make it worthwhile to use the keywords.

Much of the rest of your on-site SEO strategy is going to follow the same formula that everyone does: making sure every title, page, image, URL, text snippet, and anything else is optimized for your target audience to find you.

Where you will need to get a little creative is with the off-site SEO strategy.

This is all about getting the word out and earning the links back.

Contacting and building relationships with peers, commenting on relevant blog posts and forums, offering guest blogs on authority sites in return for links back to your own, and having a high quality social media presence are all ways to improve your off-site SEO.

The fun part is identifying what is likely to work and what isn’t. Which authority sites are receptive to guest bloggers? Which have the more open-minded audience, willing to give somewhere new a minute or two of their time?

Is the older, recipe and interior decoration Pinterest crowd better for your niche or the younger coffee shop hipsters on Instagram?

SEO Strategy Step 3: Monitoring and tracking your engagement

So having made sure all of the above has been carried out to the absolute best it could have been, you’ve now got traffic coming out of your ears.

Or maybe just a steady trickle.

Either way, you need to know where your traffic is coming from and what it’s doing on your site. Using Google Analytics lets you monitor all of this information, providing great insight into where you can still improve. And you can always improve.

Monitoring how changes affect your site, utilizing split testing techniques, and keeping an eye on what the more successful of your competitors are doing right is all part of an ongoing SEO strategy too.

From before the beginning to the end that never comes

A great SEO strategy treats a website like a mother does a baby.

Really.

The planning begins well before the birth, and the care and attention never ends.

5 Steps to Creating a Successful Online Contest

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Brooke Boser

For brands that live online, creating an online contest is a great way to drive awareness and engagement. It’s a way to create fun, anticipation, and community among your followers. It is also a great way to garner loyalty and insights. However, running an online contest shouldn’t just be about a “Like to win” or “Tweet to win” approach. It should be a well thought-out, valuable experience for everyone.

That is why we have come up with 5 steps that you can take to ensure your online contest runs smoothly and creates a great experience within your community.

Create a Unique Website or Landing Page

Being able to direct your followers to a location on your website where they can enter your contest is important. This space should be eye-catching, it should include a call-to-action with an ‘Enter Contest’ button, and it should include the Rules & Regulations of the contest. This is where you will drive traffic for people to sign up to your contest. Make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

State your Intentions Clearly

People need to understand why they are entering your contest, so take the time to explain this to them. What will they win? What is the purpose? What are you trying to achieve? What is the end goal? Explaining this to people will help them understand and will encourage them to be on-board.

Create a Video or Image to Introduce your Contest

Once the landing page is created you will want to then create a video or image that you can share to promote your contest. If you create a video, you should aim for it to be around 2 minutes in length. If you create an image, make sure several versions are created in order to optimize the image dimensions for each social media channel or advertising platform.

Drive Interest on Social Media

Most companies will have a social media community that they will want to leverage for their contest. Use these communities to create buzz and to encourage followers to enter the contest or tell others about it. You can even use a unique hashtag to track conversation about your contest. Whatever you do, make this fun for your followers. Encourage them to participate, and then engage with them when they do.

Leverage your Email List

Whether you use Mailchimp or some other bulk email service, make sure you share this contest with your email subscribers. These are the folks who value your insight the most, and should almost be given the first chance to enter. Once again, make sure you use a combination of graphics and clear intention to share your message, and make sure your readers know “what’s in it for them”.

Final Word

When running an online contest remember that you have already gained the trust of your followers by having them be part of your community. The point of an online contest is to have fun and create camaraderie, to show your community your human side. So have a good time with it, but make sure you pay attention to the details. In the end, it’s the little things that count.

The 3 Keys to Succeeding on Google Adwords

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Brooke Boser

There are so many different layers to Google AdWords that at times it can be overwhelming. That is why today I come bearing good news! The key to Google AdWords is not actually within Google AdWords, but is a combination of 3 elements that you can brainstorm even before you log in to the advertising platform.

The 3 keys that I have promised work very closely together. Like any team, on their own they can only do so much, but by working together they are able to form a cohesive unit that brings success to your online campaign.

Let’s break these 3 keys down:

1) Know What Your Customers Are Looking For

An internet search can be entered in many different ways. It can be a full question (Where do I find a red widget?). It can be a partial phrase or question (red widget Calgary). Or it can be an audio question (Hey Suri, where can I find a red widget in Calgary?).

Whatever form these queries come in, you have to know what people are looking for and the keywords they are using to find it. Only then can you start to build your Ads and Keywords to take advantage of this search traffic.

Action – Take a piece of paper and a pen and brainstorm what product or service you a trying to sell and all of the different ways people may search for you online.

2) Create an Ad That Grabs Their Attention

You have a limited amount of characters on a search ad to grab people’s attention and entice them to click on your ad. That’s why you need to come up with a compelling headline that first makes people notice (Max: 25 characters), then follow that up with ad text that let’s people know that you can help them with their question or problem (Line 1: 35 characters. Line 2: 35 characters). Doing this is no small task, but once you get the hang of it you will be able to model other ads off this first one.

Action: Without logging into AdWords, sit down with another piece of paper and brainstorm eye-catching headlines and supporting text that will entice people to click on your ads.

3) Create a Landing Page That Solves a Problem

A lot of people create ads on AdWords that direct traffic back to their homepage. The fact of the matter is that the homepage is the last place you should be directing traffic.

People use Google Search to find answers to their questions or problems. Your ad should first tell people that you have the answer, and your landing page should then give them the answer.

Take the above example. If someone is searching for ‘red widget Calgary’ and they click on your ad, they should be taken to a landing page on your website that is specific to red widgets. If they are taken to a general widget page, or a page for yellow widgets, it’s more than likely that they will hit the back button and be counted as a ‘bounce’ in your analytics.

Action: Once your products & services are identified, work with your web development team to create eye-popping landing pages that will let visitors know that they have come to the right place.

Now Go Ahead and Log In to Google AdWords

Now that you have put some thought and action into these 3 elements of creating your ad you can now log in to Google AdWords. While you still have to learn to navigate through the tool, having the pre-work done will now make the process much clearer and easier to apply.

Products & Services = Campaigns & Ad Groups
Headlines & Ad Text = Ads
Landing Page = Ad URL
Search Terms = Keywords

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Comprehensive Guide To Using Google Hangouts On Air for Your Video Marketing

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Laurel Lindsay

Video marketing is the most powerful & effective tool for marketing your business.

If you want to improve your visibility, credibility and sales lead generation than you need to start video marketing.

This article will show you, step by step, how to start video marketing without buying a ton of expensive equipment or taking courses on videography.

How to use Google Hangouts on Air as an easy solution to video marketing for business.

What is Google Hangouts on Air?

Part of the functionality offered with a Google + or YouTube account, a Hangout on Air is basically an online video meeting / chat tool.

The difference from other tools, for example Skype, are many. The biggest difference is that you can add up to 8 participants for free, the “events” are broadcast live and can be promoted in advance, and there are all sorts of cool graphics that can be added to user’s profiles to enhance the experience.

In short, Hangouts on Air enable you to start your own media platform from which you can create your own messaging.

What are the benefits to using Hangouts on Air for your Video Marketing?

Hangouts on Air automatically upload and are saved to your YouTube account.

Benefits:

1. Exposure: Provides you with content on the second biggest search engine in the world.
2. Search Marketing: Shows activity on your Google plus account- which factors in heavily to your search engine ranking, or where your business shows up on search results on Google Itself.
3. Content Creation: Gives you neat multimedia content to post to your website or social media.
4. Connect with your audience: You reap the benefits of video marketing by creating a deeper connection with your future customers; video is the next best thing to meeting in person
5. Go Viral: You’re providing easy to digest, shareable content that your future customers are more prone to engage with and share with their networks.

Great, I am sold! How do I get started?

Prepare for your first Google Hangout on Air: Get Your Account Set Up

1. Get a google account if you don’t have one already.

2. Go to YouTube.com and click on your picture, and then Creator Studio

3. Click on Videos on the left hand side, and then Live events.

4. Click on Start a live event- and verify your account if it isn’t already.

5. Click on Broadcast Live and download the Google Hangout Plugin if you haven’t already

6. Invite your interviewee or hangout partner

7. Have fun! Play with the Hangouts Tool Box and other functions on the left side of the dashboard.

Being Interviewed on Video? Here’s what you need to know.

Web Cam: Be sure to be in front of a device with video streaming capability. Laptops, Tablets and Phones typically have built-in webcams. Ideally you would use your Laptop.

Get the Plugin: Download the Google Hangout Plugin here: Get the Google Hangout Plugin – run and instal it on your computer.

Sign up for a gmail address: if you don’t have one already, get one and send this to the person interviewing you.

Lighting & Sound: find a quiet spot that is well lit- but be sure any windows are facing you so we can see your face.

Internet Connection: If possible, connect to the internet with a wired connection and close any running programs besides Google Hangouts

Microphone: Test your built in microphone before your interview. You may need to use a headset (most headphones come with a built in microphone.)

Eye Contact: It feels weird initially, but make sure you’re looking directly into the camera. If you have any notes prepared post them as close to your camera as you can.

Camera positioning: Make sure your entire head is visible and the camera angle is straight on. Lower your chair if need be to avoid the “looking up your nose” angle.

Relax! The audience wants to see the real you. You don’t need to be nervous. Foibles and speech habits are endearing to your viewers, and help them to feel like they know, like and trust you.

Did you find this guide on Video marketing helpful?

Let me know how you did in the comments below, and don’t forget to share this with your network 🙂

A Busy Person’s Shortcut To Marketing Yourself On Twitter

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Stacy Luck

Today lets talk about how to use Twitter to get more credibility exposure and lead generation for your business.

If you are like most small business owners, you are avoiding Twitter because you just don’t see the point! It’s actually really, really simple, which is why most people find it complicated.

But, more importantly it’s an effective way of boosting your visibility and credibility by getting you exposure to your future customers.

Step One: just create a Twitter account.

Step Two: Hashtags

Figure out how to use Hashtags, the pound symbol – the number sign, #.

What that does is connote a key word or topic. Make sure in your profile you are using hashtags to describe what you do. Use your city or a keyword like #pizzadelivery, #vaccummrepair.

That means when people are searching users with those hashtags, your profile will show up!

Step Three: Work your contacts

Once you sign up, make sure you add people you are already know and start following people you like and business’s that you frequent and start engaging with them.

Step Four: Engage in Conversation

Re-tweeting those people and business’s you follows tweets.

It’s a really great way to get their attention and let them know that you are out there because everybody appreciates free publicity and if you are engaging and promoting that business and those people, they will take notice and at least thank you for that. That’s how you start to engage on Twitter.

Step Five: Grow Your Network

You can also search other users by hashtags as well and you can start to follow people in your target market like in your city or people who are talking about the things that you provide solutions for.

Step Six: Get More Visibility

Those are a couple ways you can start using Twitter to generate a bit more exposure for your business and start engaging with your target audience and community at large.

Don’t forget to post your Twitter link on your website, your email signature, and any other promotional materials you may already have.

Best of luck and if you found this valuable please share and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel!