It’s always nice to have your thoughts and predictions supported by some big-time thinkers so when I opened my email this morning and found the latest trendwatching.com briefing it put a big smile on my face.
Their brief titled Point-Know-Buy gives examples of exactly what we described in our late 2010 video “5 Mega-Trends in Consumer Behavior“. Smartphones are allowing consumers (your prospects) to access and act upon decision supporting information instantly.
As trendwatching.com explains it:
Smartphone-toting consumers are embracing a world in which they can find out about (if not buy) almost anything they encounter out in the real world, anytime. Learn from the brands already capitalizing on this trend, then get going!
Now, that consumers crave information is nothing new. Information and knowledge give consumers power, control and certainty (or at least the illusion thereof). Therefore they will forever be in demand by consumers searching for the best of the best. Equally important, the discovery aspect of information adds a fun factor too.
As you read their brief and look at all of the cool tools they highlight ask yourself “How can I make my site more engaging?” Video? QR Codes?
Remember, getting traffic to your site is just the first step. The second step is to provide your prospect with the decision supporting information they need to feel comfortable taking the next step with you and ultimately moving along the buying continuum from “research to purchase”.
Of course, that’s exactly what we help our clients to do everyday, so if you need help getting your online marketing machine to go from seized up to running like a Swiss watch, just pick up the phone and call us at 888-505-6162.
So I got this phone call the other day from a delightful woman from the southern part of the United States. Throughout the course of
Read On to Learn How!
our discussion she said something that I have heard on more than one occasion and it prompted me to write this post.
“So I have been doing some work on my site to get it to rank higher and I thought I was doing a great job because I was ranking at the top of the search results for almost everything.”
“But… (there is always a but)
then I was over at my sister’s house and I wanted to show her how well my site was doing and it was nowhere to be found”
“Do you know what happened?”
Well, I went on to explain how she has been misled by Google’s well intentioned “personalized” or “customized” search results. You see, unless you are VERY CAREFUL the results you see in your results pages are likely to be different than what everbody else sees. The reason is that Google is trying to show you what it believes you want to see, or perhaps more accurately, they are trying to show you what they believe you will find most useful. Sounds good, right?
The Danger of Customized Results for the Business Owner
Here’s the hitch for you as a business owner who is trying to assess and improve your sites commercial effectiveness. It is more than likely that the results you see when you “Google” things about your business are better than what they actually are! This is especially likely if you have not purposefully told Google NOT to personalize your results. Go here: Personalized Results in Google to learn how to do this.
Think about it…
Google wants to show you results that they think are important to you. You think your website is important (and you visit it allthe time) therefore, your website ranks highly when you are using your own computer or when you are logged in to any Google property (Gmail, for example) no matter what computer you are using.
Makes it pretty difficult to know if you are seeing “real” results or whether you are seeing what Google THINKS you want to see, Eh?
The Quick Way to Get Pure Results
So, while you probably want to get rid of personalized results anyways because they’re just creepy, if you ever want to check to see what the real, pure, unadulterated search results are for any given term, all you need to do is this.
Conduct a Google Search Query
At the top of the page you will see a long gobbledygook URL similar to this…
Now, refresh that search, but first append that long url with the “phrase” &pws=0
So that it now looks like this: https://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=gutter+cleaning+ames+&pws=0
The results you now see are the real deal!
Managing your business is hard enough without having to worry and consume your precious time and energy trying to figure out all of Google’s games, right? That’s where FetchLocalCustomerscan help. We take care of everything you need to create a complete online marketing system from research, to site construction to content generation to the ongoing authority building it takes for you to WIN in the world of Search Marketing!
Give us a call at 888.505.6162 and let’s discuss your situation. If we can help, great! If not, we’ll point you in the right direction to get you the results you need!
To the uneducated and uninformed, there appear to be two valid approaches to gaining a high degree of online commercial
When it Comes to Generating $$ Local SEO is More Effective
effectiveness.
The first is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising which is primarily available to local businesses through the Adwords self-serve model or through one of the many resellers of Adwords out there (most notably Dex).
The second is by coupling high quality website content with organic search engine optimization – the preferred approach utilized by FetchLocalCustomers.
Let me pause here and stress two important statements mentioned above:
“To the uneducated and uninformed”
“the preferred approach”
Let me explain #1 above because this explanation will make #2 above crystal clear without spending pages and pages of explanation and comparison between the merits of SEO and PPC.
It’s all About Click-Through Rates
- Pay-Per-Click CTR
It is pretty well documented that the average click-through-rates (CTR) for Adwords advertisers is 2%. Now, by definition, the average suggests that some advertisers will do better than 2% and some will do worse. The reality for most local businesses is that CTRs are lower than 2%, but this reality is lost in the reports of what is average because of the spending distribution of Adwords advertising. As the folks at Kantar Media just reported, the top 20 Adwords advertisers accounted for an estimated $1.4 billion of Google’s $18 Billion search advertising in the same period (a whopping 7.3%). So in other words, the CTRs of these professionally managed accounts are skewing the average UP to 2%.
So, for arguments sake, let’s just say that you’re every bit as good as this skewed average and your campaign pulls a respectable 2%.
- Organic CTRs
It is also pretty well documented (I’ve seen no less than 3 separate studies) that organic click-through-rates follow a distribution that looks like this
#1 Position = 42.1% CTR
#2 Position = 11.9% CTR
#3 Position = 8.5% CTR
Or, in other words, if you hold the #1 Position in Google for your most important buying phrases you will welcome 21X more interested prospects to your site than if you run a well managed PPC campaign!
Now do you see why I described our approach as “the preferred approach”?
Well, hopefully this has helped you move beyond being “uneducated and uninformed”. Also, hopefully, it will help you resist the siren’s song of some of the PPC peddlers that are constantly hounding you and the rest of Main Street. The facts are clear. You simply cannot get anywhere near the same amount of new customers from PPC as you can from a properly constructed local online marketing system that uses Local SEO as its traffic generation machine.
Want new customers? Call us at 888.505.6162 and let one of our friendly and knowledgeable business advocates help you determine if the FetchLocalCustomers approach is right for you.
So as the major media heralds the record breaking Black Friday and Cyber Mondays of 2011 I thought I’d share some of the news coming out regarding the major role that mobile devices played in this year’s record breaking shopping spree.
Mobile Rocked Black Friday 2011
Sears Sees Double Digit Growth
The once stodgy old Sears has been pushing the mobile envelope for the past couple of years and this years Black Friday and Cyber Monday performance continued the trend. MobileCommerceDaily’s entire interview with Sears Chief Marketing Officer, Michael Murray is worth the 5 minutes to read so I’ll just excerpt this piece which makes TOTAL sense…
Did any mobile services or activities stand out in terms of consumer engagement during the holiday weekend?
We continue to see really strong performance in our buy online and pick up in-store solutions.
We are seeing a strong performance for this service in mobile. If you can, on your mobile device, be able to identify a product, select that product and go from wherever you are to buy it in-store – we are seeing that connection become stronger for us.
This is creating customer ease, specifically around Black Friday. What’s easier than being able to buy on Thursday and make that shopping experience faster and easier on Black Friday.
News from PayPal and Ebay
According to PayPal this 2011′s Cyber Monday showed a 552% increase in mobile purchases vs. 2010
Ebay indicated that their top mobile categories (excluding automobiles) were:
clothing, shoes and accessories
computers and networking
jewelry and watches
collectibles and sporting goods.
Interesting Facts and Consumer Views
According to the consumer behavior analysis firm Tealeaf “The big takeaway is that 41 percent of the consumers who tweeted about mobile shopping were frustrated,” said Geoff Galat, vice president of worldwide marketing.
But not all mobile experiences are bad and perennial mobile good-guys Sears, Amazon and Dell had the highest-ranking mobile sites in terms of performance on Cyber Monday, according to Compuware, Detroit.
Typical complaints included:
the inability to complete transactions
poor search functionality
inconsistencies between the online and mobile channels
And yet, their analysis of social media feeds such as Twitter showed that a large number of physical, in-stores shoppers were shopping on their mobile devices while standing in line!!
What’s your plan for mobile?
No matter what your business you need to make sure that you are delivering a positive mobile experience through your website and Apps so that you keep the customers engaged that you fought so hard to get in the first place. In an age when your competitor is just one “back arrow” away, getting this right is extremely important!
Read more about the basics of local mobile marketing and don’t forget to download our free report!
Some really interesting data has just been released that shows an SEO based approach to lead generation has by far the greatest impact as compared to other web based approaches such as PPC and Social Media marketing.
SEO Is the Clear Winner. Just sayin... (Source - MarketingCharts.com)
Even Better for Business to Business (B2B)
What surprised me is that according to the survey (sample size = 500) an SEO based approach has a more pronounced impact on B2B firms than Business to Consumer (B2C) firms. While in our own client base we have seen a sharp rise in business to business activity, business to consumer businesses have always had an even more pronounced positive return. Wow!
Firms with Highest Growth Rates Leverage Online Lead Generation
In a separate study by Hinge Marketing those firms with the highest growth rates and highest profitability also had the highest percentage of leads coming from online. Certainly makes sense but the difference is so striking that I felt compelled to include the graphic here.
Growth Rate Correlates to Online Marketing (Source - MarketingCharts.com)
Traffic Still the Number 1 Indicator of Success
Every month we supply a report to our clients that show how they are ranking in the search engines and how many NEW visitors our efforts are bringing to them. We’ve settled on the NEW visitor metric because it is easy to measure with Google Analytics and directly shows the impact of the most important step in our process – getting new potential customers to our clients’ sites.
Web Traffic and Lead Quality Rule (Source - MarketingCharts.com)
Final Word
Just keep in mind that SEO by itself is not a panacea, it is simply a tool in a larger process. Unless a complete online marketing process is being applied, SEO can do more damage than good. The last thing your company needs is a bunch of unqualified leads tying up salespeople and customer service folks. So, please choose your online marketing partners carefully and beware of emails and voicebroadcasts from people you never heard of that sound too good to be true. They probably are!
QR codes continue to be one of the best ways of bridging the printed and digital. Here at FetchLocalCustomers we have been getting more and more requests to create custom QR codes for clients for use in printed collateral.
Make Your Business Card Useful
Business cards continue to be the most popular way to transfer contact information. But, let’s face it, in the world of digital they do nothing but create needless data entry tasks. A QR code customized to deliver your contact information in one “snap” of a smartphone scanner and whooosh, your contact information is instantly added to your new networking buddy’s contact system.
Try it Yourself
More Uses Too Of Course
Recently Starbucks has been back on the bandwagon using QR codes to promote their new fall coffee line and their mobile app which has been allowing mobile phone payments for quite awhile now. Pizza king Papa John has been using QR codes on pizza boxes to tell the Papa John story and deepen the brand to customer relationship.
How Will You Use QR Codes?
The reasons and techniques for using QR codes to bridge the digital divide are only limited by your imagination. If you find yourself in need of a QR code strategy or just a custom QR code itself, use the contact information in the QR code above to reach out to us and get the FetchLocalCustomers team working for you!
So few business people, web designers and people in general understand how search engines such as Google work, I find myself constantly in the role of educator. Thankfully, I love to educate, teach and explain things. The problem I find is that when I try to explain the details of how a search engine such as Google decides who gets displayed at the top, I find that I lose people.
Lately, I’ve changed my approach to clearing up the search mystery. I’ve taken to telling the following story and I am pleased to report that everyone get’s it! I hope this helps clear things up for you!
Starbucks, Doctors and How Google Works
Imagine it’s 3:30 in the afternoon and you find yourself needing that little extra jolt to get you through your afternoon and the upcoming evening’s networking event.
You pull into your local Starbucks and seeing that there is a huge line at the drive-through you get out of your car and walk inside. Unfortunately, you realize that the line inside is also moving pretty slowly so you whip out your smart phone, check your mail, look at Facebook and STILL the line is not moving.
Enter Doctor #1
"I'm a Geriatric Doctor"
At this point you begin taking notice of your fellow patrons and think “well my sales coach is always preaching to me about the 3 foot rule” so you catch the eye of the gentleman in front of you in line and you say “So, when you aren’t standing in line growing old, what do you do for a living?”
He replies “I’m a Doctor.” For the next minute or two he tells you he’s a general practitioner who specializes in geriatrics (old folks), where his office is located and other tidbits. He seems credible, seems to know what he is talking about but quite frankly you have NO way of knowing if he really is a Doctor or not!
Search Lesson 1 – The Doctor’s story is analagous to a website. As a website owner you can tell any story you want on your website but Google, Yahoo and BING have no way to know from your site alone whether or not your story is true.
Enter Doctor #2
"Hey Dr. Jones..."
Thankfully the line is moving again! You are just 3 people away from getting that shot of afternoon motivation you originally came for! You continue to exchange pleasantries with the your new Doctor friend when all of the sudden a second person who actually looks like a Doctor comes in the door and greets your Doctor friend. They talk shop about a recent referral your Doctor friend made to Doctor #2.
Search Lesson #2 This second Doctor is analagous to a “relevant back link”. If you had any doubts as to whether or not your new friend really is a Doctor, having this independent verification has helped remove it. In the eyes of the search engines, having a totally separate, relevant site reference your website helps them to believe that your website is telling the truth.
Enter A Group of Senior Citizens
Hi Dr. Jones!
At this point your Doctor friend has paid and you’ve placed your order! As he turns to leave he hands you a business card and you say goodbye. You then notice that a shuttle bus from a local retirement complex has arrived and a half dozen older men and women shuffle in. Each of them says “Hi Doctor Jones” as the Doctor walks out the door. You have no idea who these people are, but now with 7 separate, independent verifications you have no doubts that the person you spoke to is really a Doctor.
Search Lesson #3 These 6 senior citizen are analagous to “back links” from non-relevant sites. Google, Yahoo and BING looks for these types of verifying links to help them understand whether or not your site is being truthful and to help them identify how popular your site is and how much of an authority it is.
1 Week Later
You find yourself talking to a friend who mentions that her Mom is looking for a new Doctor. It seems her old Doctor has retired and moved to Florida. She mentions that she is looking for a geriatric specialist. You tell her that you just met a really nice geriatric specialist named Dr. Jones and you pass along his contact information.
On-Site and Off-Site Authority
Hopefully my explanation above clears up just how the search engines work. You need to make sure that your website is designed to sell, has good content and has been fully optimized. If you get these “on-site factors” right you will tell the best story possible to the search engines. Most experts agree that getting this right will account for 10 -30% of your site’s ability to rank highly.
The remaining 70 -90% of your site’s ability to rank comes from consistently building your site’s “off-site” authority. The more consistently you gain “votes of confidence” the more likely you are to be the #1 ranking site for your most important buying phrases.
At FetchLocalCustomers we conduct research, craft content, build websites that are designed to sell and are fully optimized to tell your story in as a compelling fashion as possible to both your human visitors and the search engines. We can also work our magic with your existing site. In fact, nearly half our clients use sites that we did not design!
Our systematic and professional authority building program drives your website to the top of the search engines, consistently building authority and popularity using totally “white hat” methods.
The result is a flood of highly targeted and qualified new customers. That’s why we say that “We Do What Our Name Says”.
So pick up the phone and call 888-505-6162. Let’s talk about your particular situation and see if we can help you get the new customers that you deserve!
Scott Metcalfe, Featured Speaker at QBPro Fall Summit
When the Chicago QuickBooks Pro Advisors wanted someone to speak at their group’s day long summit on the topic of online lead generation for professional services Scott Metcalfe of FetchLocalCustomers was the logical choice.
The event, held on September 22nd 2011, attracted more than 50 professionals from around the Chicago area making it the largest of it’s kind in the region.
Scott’s presentation “Getting the Cloud to Rain Prospects” was right in step with the conference’s theme of accounting and bookkeeping moving from paper to desktop to the cloud.
Welcome Trusted Business Advisors
Another major theme of the conference was the idea that accounting and bookkeeping professionals need to move beyond the functional services they provide their clients and into the role of Trusted Business Advisor.
To that end we are pleased to announce our Trusted Business Advisor partnership program. This program allows professional business advisors such as accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers to offer FetchLocalCustomers services to their clients at a 10% discount.
One of our many areas of expertise is working to improve the rankings and conversions of Franchisee sites or “sitelets”. Often these sites are highly structured and inflexible, making our job even more difficult than normal.
Recently, we have been doing a considerable amount of work with Sandler Training franchisees around the country and it was during one of these many conversations that the invitation to speak to the good folks of Orange County, CA happened.
Throughout the course of the show, the host Will Crist and I looked at the role the Internet can and should play in terms of lead generation for sales driven organizations.
So… grab a cup of coffee, sit back and take some notes as you listen to this lively discussion!
If you are one of the tens-of-thousands of franchise owners around the country who is frustrated by the lack of leads being generated by your site or sitelet, please give us a call. No guarantees, but we just may be able to help you get your site producing the leads and those new sales you want and deserve! 888-505-6162
SEO Phone ScamProbably just like you I often find myself on the receiving end of emails, voice broadcasts and cold-calls from scammers who claim something like “Hi, we’re with Google and we can get you on the first page…..”
It’s gotten so bad that when a real Google rep called us last month to discuss one of their new Adwords programs the first thing the poor guy had to say was “Really, I’m not kidding, I really am with Google!”
So… I couldn’t resist sharing this recording that we got at the FetchLocalCustomers office last night. Please take a listen and then I’ll point out why this is a scam and how you can protect yourself from these types of charlatans.
What’s Wrong With This Scam
1. Google, Yahoo and BING do not use or need “data providers”. They fill their search results with all the pages that their spiders deem worthy 24x7x365. I suppose by the most loose definition, I suppose you, me and anyone else who ever posts a web page is a “data provider”
2. The suggestion that the caller is somehow associated with Google, Yahoo or BING is an outright misrepresentation. It’s interesting that “Phil” didn’t name a Company (I didn’t bother to call Phil back). But… in the past when I have called back or “pressed 1″ and learned the company name a quick Google search yielded hundreds of scam complaints.
The fact of the matter is that you can’t “buy” one of the top organic spots in the major search engines. You can work hard to optimize your site or hire experts like us who work hard for you and that can lead to top positioning but you can’t swipe a credit card and outright purchase a spot.
Think about it. If that were true the search engines would instantly be discredited, people would stop using them and all of their paid advertisers (think AdWords) would stop paying them billions of dollars! That is NOT going to happen!
So beware of the scammers who call you claiming to be part of the Big 3 and promising to sell you a top spot.
And, if you are interested in really getting new customers from a world-class online presence, by all means give us a call at 888-505-6162. The call is free, our advice is invaluable and we might just determine together that our service has a good fit for your business.
Call us at: 888.505.6162
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