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By Admin, 11/27/2011 21:08

Google has long understood the relevance of a business’s location to commercially motivated searches, which is largely what prompted them to create the Places service. Google Places is effectively a business directory that has been integrated with the company’s popular Maps service.

In comparison to search engine optimisation, creating a Google Places search listing for your business is relatively simple, and doesn’t require much technical expertise. Unlike organic search, it is entirely dedicated to connecting consumers with nearby businesses, meaning that those listed on it don’t have to compete with non-commercial pages for relevance. Also, Places is distinct from search marketing services like AdWords in one very significant respect – it’s free.

Stake a claim

The first step in getting your business on Google Places is to simply go and claim its location.

“The quickest win, and I guess the easiest one for businesses to do themselves, would be to actually claim all their Google Places listings,” Brendan Tully, principle consultant at The Search Engine Shop.

Before claiming a listing, it’s a good idea to cast your eye over Google’s Places guidelines.

“Do not create multiple Google Places listings with the same information,” warns Nick Grinberg, co-director of Maps Gurus. “If you’ve got multiple locations, that’s fine, but if you’ve got one address, only register a single listing.”

A business specialising in a number of different areas, for example, would be ill-advised to create listings for each of its products or services, as doing so is against the Places guidelines. By the same token, it’s essential to only use contact information that is relevant to your physical offices or stores. For example, Google won’t place any value in a PO Box, so put your real address.

Given that Google draws information from third party sources like the Yellow Pages, your business may already have unclaimed, ‘place-holder’ listings on Places. For this reason, it’s wise to search Maps for variations on your business name and your own name, so that you can claim any pre-existing listings.

“Unclaimed listings can struggle to rank high in results,” claims Tully. “Often the act of just claiming a listing can double website traffic overnight.”

Once all relevant listings have been claimed and consolidated, it helps to have a clear idea of the kind of keywords the business wants to be ranked for.

“When you’re claiming a Google Places listing, it’s really important to know exactly what kind of key phrases you’d want it to come up for, and cater the listing around those phrases,” continues Tully. “It’s really important to do keyword research using tools such as the Google Adwords keyword research tool or Market Samurai.”

It’s also important to make sure the keywords you use on your website match, or at least are similar to, those you’re targeting with Places listings.

“Whenever you do a Google search, you’re actually clicking on titles on websites. It’s very important to Google that your titles have the correct keywords in them,”  says Andrew Clacy, marketing manager at Canvas Marketing. “If you’ve got a website, Google wants you to be uniform with the keywords. To get a higher ranking, you should have your Google Places words matching the keywords in the title of the website.”

Tell them everything

The next step is to fill the listing with information about the business. Google’s main objective is to present searchers with the most relevant results. The more content you fill your Places listing with, the more likely it is to be deemed relevant to a query.

“There’s roughly 30 or 40 different fields that you can fill out about your business inside Google Places; things like payment methods, opening hours, the locations you serve, and even fax numbers and email addresses,” says Tully. “All things equal, if you have filled out all the fields in your listing, and a competitor hasn’t, you will generally be ranked higher than them in Google Places.”

The content that a listing can accommodate extends well beyond your standard business information to include pictures, videos and testimonials. Tully notes that reviews are a particularly important component of a listing.

“Set up a business process to get regular customer reviews on your Places listing,” he suggests. “Reviews can mean the difference between not appearing and appearing in the number one spot. After you have five or more reviews, your listing will stand out amongst competitors, as Google shows review ratings next to your business listing.”

Canvas Marketing’s Clacy also makes note of a recently introduced feature that allows businesses to frame offers as a ‘coupon’ within their Places listing.

“That also helps your Google Places ranking, because you’re using more of the functions inside Google Places,” he says.

Citations

One of the most significant factors affecting organic search rankings is the number of incoming links a site receives. Google has identified this as a reasonable measure of how many people found that particular page relevant enough to share. The more links a page receives, the higher it ranks in search.

In place of incoming links, Google Places tends to favour businesses that have their contact details listed in the greatest volume on different sites throughout the internet.

“Google looks at the number of places on the web that are naming your business, address and phone number, and they’re called citations,” says Tully. “The more citations your business has, generally the higher ranked your Google Places listing will be.”

Citations are part of the reason Google places so much value in data from third party directories like the Yellow Pages. For the purposes of an improved Places ranking, it’s worthwhile for businesses to investigate being listed in review directories like Urban Spoon, True Local or Dentist.com.au, depending on what your business specialises in.

Given that it’s based on the most widely used global positioning service in the world, the potential reach of Places is considerably greater than a simple mobile search query. In the same way that the service collects information about businesses from third-party directories, many apps draw on the information collected in Places.

“There’s a lot of third party apps and directories that pull their data directly from Google,” notes Tully. “By getting a listing in Google Places, potentially, you could be showing up on tens or hundreds of different iPhone apps and directory-based search systems. It’s definitely something worth doing.”

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By Admin, 11/27/2011 21:05

A vast majority of your customers trust the opinions of their peers much more than anything you say.

This is why simply bombarding everyone with your marketing message doesn’t work anymore; you need to go social with video.

Social proof, like client testimonial videos, offers an amazing opportunity to grow your brand in a credible and authentic way.

Get it right

Most client testimonial clips are excruciating. They’re too long. They lack credibility. They look terrible. Or they simply miss the point.

If done badly, client testimonial videos can be damaging for your business. Here are some ways to make sure you get them right.

Don’t Bang On. Unless You’re A Drummer

The number one mistake is that the video is simply too long; 60-90 seconds is plenty to get the message across.

Your clients don’t need to explain how your product works; all they need to share is how what you did for them created a positive experience.

Lo Fi options

Lo Fi is occasionally good in music, but client testimonial videos are not the place to skimp.

If you film your clients under fluorescent light with a handheld flip camera, you make them look bad because the light and general look is very unflattering.

Especially female clients won’t appreciate that, even if they may not let you know.
Another negative aspect of the lo-fi approach is that it makes your brand look budget. That’s great if you offer a very low price, low value item, but not good if you offer a high value or B2B service or product.

Take your pick

Don’t ask your former business partner or brother in law to do a client testimonial. Most of your potential clients probably know who they are.

Authentic

Your testimonials need to be verifiable and honest. If viewers can’t see who’s talking (‘a happy client’, ‘Rob M. from Sydney’), they’re not going to buy into the message.

Don’t script testimonials; if you use phrases that sound like they’re straight out of your marketing material, you lose credibility.  Allow people to use their own language and anecdotes, but feel free to direct them in terms of being concise and relevant.

Critical mass

To be credible you need at least three testimonials. Use the various takes to get a number of people to tell one story. Don’t make 10 people repeat the same story about how great you are. Boring.

They’re not presenters

Authentic doesn’t mean badly presented. Make sure your clients get directed and coached so they feel comfortable.

Don’t make the clients present directly to camera; presenting something straight to camera is a real skill that needs training.  Instead, interview them so the testimonials are more like a conversation than a presentation.

Make sure your clients look at the interviewer when answering the questions; you’ll get answers with a better flow and a more conversational tone.

What if no-one wants to talk?

A lot of people are very reluctant to be on camera; some can’t be swayed at all.
Here are some ways to make sure it’s more appealing to take part.

Make the shoots as low impact as possible. Either a small team locally with limited equipment and set up time, or half an hour in a studio that they can walk into.

Use the footage if the clients talks about their businesses; it doesn’t hurt you to be generous.

Give them a way out; allow them the option to veto the clip if they’re not happy with how it turns out.

But stop short of bribery

Offering clients a financial incentive to take part may be tempting, but never ever go down that path. One post about that on Facebook or Twitter and you’re looking at some major brand damage.

I you can’t find three people who are enthusiastic about your product you probably need to improve your product.

Get to the point

A lot of client testimonials don’t offer a real insight in why it’s you they should choose.
I’ve seen client testimonials where someone describes the service like this; a building company turned up, did the job and the house is still standing.

That’s not a story; I may be naïve here, but I expect a building company to actually turn up when I pay them. What’s the story? What sets you apart?

Believe in your brand. Hallelujah!

Nothing beats social proof like client testimonials when you’re building a connection to existing and future clients; if you get these right, you’re really cooking with gas.

Happy shooting! Preferably with a camera please.

Robert Moorman is creative director at Hunting With Pixels, a strategic online video and social media production company.

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By Admin, 11/27/2011 20:59

According to Netcraft, there are over 266 million websites on the Internet. But there’s a huge difference between a really good website and a really bad one. Where do you sit on the scale? Whether you’re in the planning stages or about due for a review, take a look at our pick of the Top 10 common mistakes to avoid like the plague.

1. It’s not about you. Your website should be all about your customer – not how great you are and what you do. Talk to them in language they can relate to and engage them to the point you can sell to them. Always write the content with the good old WIIFM principle (What’s in it for me?) or put another way, ‘Why are you telling me this?’
2. Not capturing visitor details. Let’s face it – it’s hard work getting someone to visit your website, so don’t let them get away! You must have an opt-in on your home page to capture their contact details so you can stay in touch and build a relationship.
3. Too much flash. Your customers don’t want long load times, search engines don’t like it and neither do smartphones. Use flash moderately on your site or avoid it if you can.
4. Long gaps between updates. You need to regularly review and update your site to keep the content relevant, fresh and interesting for your customers.
5. No social media icons. Give customers a way to interact with you and get information on what you’re up to via social media. Make it easy for visitors to ‘like’ you and capture their information so you can grow your database by adding social media icons that are visible on your webiste.
6. Using stock photos. People do business with people. Your customers want to see who you are and it’s one of the best ways to build trust. Use real photos and be yourself.
7. Overdesigning and overcrowding. Think Apple – keep it simple and beautiful. The success of your website is in the planning. What will your customer want to use it for? Make it user friendly and easy to navigate.
8. Assuming your designer knows what you want. Think carefully and take the time to talk to your web designer in detail about what you want your website to do and look like now and in 5 years time. Although changes may occur organically, it’s important to think long term as it can be very costly to keep changing your website.
9. Not monitoring traffic. It’s key to have a good monitoring program so you can see if your website is actually working. What pages are most visited and how long do they stay? Find out how your website is performing and where you need to improve it.
10. Lack of a sound strategy and purpose. Why do you have a website? What is its purpose? If it’s not making you money then how are you going to recoup the time and money you have invested? Get clear on your purpose and keep it front of mind with everything you do.

At mySmartWebsite we are here to help small businesses become successful online by providing products and service that make the online experience painless. Feel free to contact us on 1300 652 266 to see how we can help you take your business to the next level.