Dwight M. Scott

I found it hard to believe at first too! Anyhow, Google and Yahoo both offer a local listing or directory for businesses, and the best part, its absolutely free! When you create a listing on Google and Yahoo Local, they have all your needs in mind. It will allow you practically create profile about your  business, all the way down to hours of operation and payments you accept. The listing or profile that you create will also give you a listing in their map service - if you put in an address of course. This a very useful and critical for small businesses with little to no start up capital. Your profile will also be crawled by search engines, giving you more impressions on the search engine results. Check out the link below for a tutorial on how to set up your profile on Google Local and Google Maps!

Set up your Google Local listing!

Enjoy!

So, you finished your website and wondering whats next? The one question that I am constantly getting asked is: “I have my website up now, but where do I go from here?” This is probably the most important question ever. Having a static website with no push or marketing behind it, just rendered itself as useless! Think about it for a second…the website and the presence it creates by itself is simply not enough. There are techniques you can do to jump start your web marketing efforts.

The best and probably the least expensive (because it’s free!) ways are placing your website on top search engines local listing. This will give you more impressions for your website, especially when searching for you locally. In conjunction with this, you should consider getting involved with a pay per click campaign. I recommend that you find your niche so you don’t waste ad dollars. I always tell my clients to let me install analytics on their site so we can see how their audience is reaching them. We then can strengthen the efforts that are already in place, as well as develop new innovative keywords and strategies for their audience to find them.

While pay per click campaigns and sponsored links will drive about 40% of your sites traffic, your organic efforts will take precedence with the remaining 60%. This is why it is imperative to correctly convey a clear message to your audience - allowing search engines to find you. The content that you generate as well as the frequency of it will determine how you rank in search engines.

Social media plays as a HUGE outlet for you to market and advertise you newly built website. Generate buzz and create a movement of followers for your website by taking advantage of the social media craze. These social sites such as youtube, facebook, twitter, digg, etc. are there for you to take advantage of. Use them to establish your business as trusted company by generating a following. This following will, in return continue to spread throughout their networks and create a whole viral campaign. Its too easy to get wrapped up in the social media world and post personal status updates that have no relevance - unless of course your website is personal. Instead post quality that your follows actually want to read and contains value. I recommend using social media to display a new post in a newsletter, events you will partake in, promotions, etc. This will return a much greater result than “Sitting at Wendy’s eating a hamburger”.

You have to be completely involved in every aspect of your website, especially if you want it to generate ad revenue. With this comes what I like to call “getting involved”. This simply means finding a more popular blog than yours at the time and commenting where their users can use your expertise. This is just another way to establish you as an expert. Guest blogging creates links that will link back to your website and ultimately putting you in more places! It’s that easy! Take advantage of the fact that some sites already have a wide range of readers, why not get them to visit your website while they are there?

First off, you should create a local company profile on both sites. Google and Yahoo are the top search enigines, so it is crucial that you do this step. Once you create a profile, generate a site map of your website. This means getting all the links within your site in an XML document. Now you ate prepared to submit your XML site map to both search engines. This will speed up the process of the search engines crawling or finding your website and it’s links, rather than on their own.

That was the easy part…lol! Now, there are certain meta tags you can use in the <head> of your site to help identify exactly what your website is and does. These meta tags also have keywords associate with them - this allows you to create keywords you think people will search in order to find your site. See the example below;

<meta name=”description” content=”Put Your Description Here!” />

**Note** Most search engines use a maximun of 160 characters, including spaces.

<meta name=”keywords” content=”Put Your Keywords Here!” />

**Note** Seperate keywords with a comma and try to use a maximum of 10

Once you do the basic optimizing of your site - you should notice a huge difference to how you show up in search results. I recommend that you install some kind of tracking  or analytics plugin on your site so you can see how people are finding you. That way you can strengthen and play off of what is already bringing you visits to your site. Check out Google Analytics - its the best, and its free!

The next thing that you can do is, enroll in a Pay Per Click campaign. Again, I recommend using Google’s, it has ample tracking stats as well as a feature to set your monthly budget. Once you do this and verify all your information with Google you will definitely get more impressions on the web. You only pay when some one clicks on your ad - that will show in the sponsor link section of Google.

If you follow these few inexpensive tips you will be driving traffic to your website in no time! Remember to constantly update your site with new content also. The more content that the search engines has to crawl the better. It will give you more impressions on the web.

During these rough times; because of the economy, companies are usually quick to do budget cuts. Most times I have found that companies cut their marketing and advertising budgets first. There is no better time to invest in a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaign like now. Get a jump start in your company’s marketing and advertising efforts while everyone else is cutting back.

The way the economy is right now, gives you the advantage to attack your target market harder than ever. SEO is one of the most inexpensive and easiest way ways to attract leads. SEO allows you to target more of your audience at once, unlike some other traditional forms of marketing and advertising. Companies cut their marketing budgets not realizing how much harm it’s really doing to their business. Taking advantage of an inexpensive way such as SEO is vital during these times.

SEO is more than just a bunch of keywords used to identify your company. It’s more of a formulated course of action used to define your company’s niche, ultimately generating leads, increasing revenue or productivity. This is now more than ever a time to rely on what your Trusted Web Expert can do for you.

I have ran across a few companies that want to make their website do more for them but do not have the resources to do so. I always give the same reply, “it doesn’t always take what you may think in order to achieve your company’s goals.” The web is packed full of useful and helpful information that will leverage your website.

One of my favorite tools to use is Google Analytics. This tool will allow you to track the stats of your website. With this analysis you and your web expert can devise of a plan that fits your needs and budget. Therefore, allowing you to find the market that is appropriate for your company. This will help gain awareness which brings leads and leads bring new clients.

Another way to ensure your website is achieving greatness is by placing your domain name on as many free online web directories as possible. This technique will give you more impressions on the web which will allow search engines to find you and/or your company easier. This may take some researching on to which directory to place your website on and will it be beneficial for you. However, this is a wonderful guerrilla marketing technique, which will cost you absolutely nothing but your time. Not to mention you will be able to apply this technique at your leisure.

Create a LinkedIn profile - This is another superb way to get noticed and gain valuable contacts for you and your company. LinkedIn is one of the largest FREE professional social networks. Do not just create a profile and not be active. Answer questions, ask questions and invite others to join your professional network. Take a peek at my LinkedIn profile. While you are there send me an invite and I’ll be sure to accept!

Choosing a domain name can be more crucial than what it seems. There is a lot more to consider now rather just buying a domain that is the name of your company. Find a alternative domain that emphasizes your niche.

Chances are that you will be speaking a great deal of your company name, so your audience will already know to go to yourcompanyname.com. Instead choose yourniche.com; increasing your marketing efforts. So, for instance if you were a roofing company based in Columbus, Ohio specializing in residential roofing, you might choose something like www.columbusresidentialroofing.com.

By you choosing an alternative domain name will help leverage your company and increase your search engine rankings. I know you are probably wondering, “How do I make sure my users see the same site without building the same site twice?” Aske your web consultant about JavaScript redirects or domain name forwarding.

This will help your company a lot in terms of SEO. Not to mention this a very inexpensive. The average domain costs $8-$10 per year and can be hosted with your same hosting company. To find if a domain name is available visit www.1and1.com or www.godaddy.com. These two sites make it easy to find a domain that is available. I would not recommend GoDaddy as a hosting choice though!