How to Make Money Online

What do I know?

Do a search for  web marketing and advertising  experts , and it looks like there are a lot more gurus telling you how to do it than there are people in fact doing it.  Internet marketing has become a cottage industry not unlike the millions of individuals who offered “Selling 101” tapes in the ‘70s . 

That being explained, I do not consider myself a guru.  I simply base what I know about Internet advertising and marketing on the past 16 years of trial and error, start and re-start, success and failures.  The  result of my knowledge has led to the  formation of a fantastically (and surprisingly) successful Local Search business. 

My work now is to aid local, small businesses to  maximize their internet  marketing efforts so as to handle expenditures while delivering quantifiable final results.  After working with literally thousands of small, local businesses I’ve been able to  build  a checklist of what definitely works – and what absolutely doesn’t.  Here is that checklist:

 Five Best Online Advertising and Marketing Techniques for Small, Local Businesses

1. Claim your “Maps” listings and make sure they are set up properly for maximum publicity - There are fundamentally three most important web-sites that present companies the chance to claim “local” listings: Google, Yahoo! and Bing. By claiming a listing and setting it up effectively and business can potentially gain more publicity locally than a 50-foot sign out front. We’ve worked with small business owners who continuously report that the Google  Places listing  itself is responsible for up to 50% of their new client contacts. Pretty powerful stuff from a totally free program.
2. Optimize your enterprise for local search – We’re not speaking about a business internet site here (we’ll get to that later in the list). We’re talking about  putting a company in the third-party directories, data centers and Internet Yellow Pages that routinely figure  heavily in the search engines.

The vast majority of ALL searches for anything start off in one spot – Google. With the fast growth of local elements in searches, this has provided easily the greatest chance for small organizations to make an impact.

Displaying on the first page of Google can be almost impossible on a small business budget when you look at the, for lack of a far better word, size of the Internet. Nevertheless, we can reduce the field substantially by concentrating exclusively on local. Type in a search for “business card printing” and Google  offers in excess of 21 million results. Add a local factor like “business card printing  Carrollton , TX” and the amount of results shrinks to a mere 125,000 or so. The task is far less intimidating now.

The method of optimizing a organization for local search requires a bit of understanding in terms of how the World-wide-web works, but it does not call for a degree from  Harvard One thing is for certain, a business would be better suited to have a specialised company do this for them, but – and this is crucial – the service should consist of a one-time setup and no monthly costs or contracts. Once the listings are in place there is very little a firm can do to further enhance them over time – if they are done appropriately to begin with.

3. Construct a website that is actually designed particularly for local exposure – Why is a website #3 on this list? Simple. A company web page is just one site and there surely is no guarantee that having a web page will lead to new  customers . Even so, if a business goes through the expense and time of making a internet site it is critical that they do it properly. Local SEO is not the same as traditional SEO despite what the  "experts" will try to sell...er…tell you. I’ve covered the techniques of local SEO in other articles or blog posts, so I’ll conserve the space here.

4. IF you have a internet site, spread the word. The web page address should be on every little thing created in conjunction with your organization. Your web address needs to be on every business card, sign, invoice, check, advertisement, and email that exists for your business.

This specific point may not appear very important, but think of it like this – if a consumer is referring you to someone do you think they are more likely to remember your web page or your phone number?

5.  Actively ask for online reviews for your company – Several local search algorithms, including Google’s, take testimonials into account. Sadly, only the top 2% of your happiest customers will leave a testimonial without being asked, but almost 100% of unhappy consumers will do the same. The only way to battle these stats is to solicit reviews from your customers. Offer them an incentive and make it effortless for them.

As part of our Optimized Local Search Services, we typically generate a document for display that lists the best websites that accept reviews that can impact a businesses search engine  performance . The approach works. The more reviews you solicit the more good testimonials you get. In many searches, businesses with reviews will show before businesses without. When a consumer visits your listing, they’ll be able to examine all the constructive testimonials and they are much more likely to call or visit your organization.

The review point may seem like an apparent matter, but quite frankly the vast majority of local business owners we work with do not entirely recognize the impact that it can have.

Feel free to contact me with your ideas.   As I acknowledged in the beginning, I’m not a guru .  I’m just someone who has tried  nearly everything …more than once.  Check out additional posts on our local search internet marketing site. Coming soon: Bottom 5 Online advertising and marketing methods for Small, Local Businesses.