One of the newest vocabulary terms coined by the ever growing internet marketing structure is the “nicheverse.” It brings to light how audiences on the web are becoming more and more stratified as people are more able to easily find very precisely the product or service for which they are looking.
Common marketing knowledge has always been to market specifically to a target market, with the Pareto principle (the 80 / 20 rule) in full effect. However, businesses could get away with a bad or unfocused marketing campaign in the age of brick and mortar.
Today, there are simply too many choices. A business can have the greatest product, and because of the pure volume of product out there, without a focused marketing structure, the business will drown in a sea of obscurity.
It is especially important in an online campaign to have your search engine optimization campaign directed at your local community. For St. Louis business, there should be St. Louis SEO. Proper St. Louis SEO will be seen by local consumers as content specifically for St. Louis, which they are more likely to support. Other advantages of St. Louis SEO include:
St. Louis SEO gives a business a nicheverse
St. Louis SEO can be easily found by local media for free publicity
St. Louis SEO will create partnerships with other SEO St Louis businesses
St. Louis SEO keeps competition away by only marketing in areas likely to sell
St. Louis SEO increases marketing efficiency by utilizing the 80 / 20 rule
The SEO St Louis needs can also help make your business more cost effective. As SEO St Louis for your business grows, your keywords will naturally become more long tail and tailored to the local market. The SEO St Louis will be looking for is not the SEO that other communities will be looking for, so SEO St Louis will also increase the effectiveness of the online marketing campaign.
SEO St Louis will bring a niche oriented market looking to buy, and will increase conversion rates on your web site. SEO St Louis will definitely help your business achieve the results you are looking for, and SEO St Louis will help bolster the local community so that you will be seen as a local expert in your field.
The Big Yellow Trailer team wanted to have a Facebook and website presence online that would allow them to promote their branding and services to a wide range of potential customers.
When educating customers about online marketing, one of the points we make with them is there is never a guarantee on showing up on the first page of search engines for the keywords they want to rank for.
We caution strongly against any company with a promise for these top spots. This being said LocalTek has approximately a 99% success ratio when it comes to local search engine optimization. This means our customers get found when people search their mobile phone or computer for local businesses.
For successful companies in search engine optimization it is not just a one time effort to optimize a website to be found online. A page can be ranked in the top spots as little as hours or as long as months to years depending on the competition for the keywords desired.
The science behind why this happens is based on Google. The Google search engine has approximately 200 different factors in their algorithm on which a page earns its rank, the algorithm can change daily which means NO web or SEO company can guarantee how a website can rank months out or even day to day depending on the topic. But they can work to do things in a way that has shown consistent results for their customers, with over 350 customers Localtek has that data to show what works for our customers over the long term.
Once a page is ranked for the desired terms it is critical the customer understands that SEO is not a one- time fix but an ongoing process. An important note to customers is that the possibility of losing top rankings after time is not usually a blunder made by the SEO company.
Updating the website regularly with new and relevant content and tweaking keywords are all an ongoing process to maintain rankings. If these things are going to be either a time, interest, or knowledge challenge to the customer LocalTek has a package which includes a regular SEO maintenance review of the customers’ website varying from monthly to yearly depending on the customer’s goals.
There is one for sure fact to keep in mind if you are considering building your online presence for your business. If you don’t have a web presence it is certain your competitors will be showing up in the top rankings without you. So your first step is to either start your plan to be found online or plan to update your web presence that may be out of date if it was built several years back.
Do you want the people looking for your business online to find you WITH your competition..or not at all? If they have their online marketing already in progress now is the time step up your campaign or you will be missing out on hundreds or thousands of people they are currently reaching in your same target market.
Having a local search engine optimized website is not something to wait on, chances are if you had a website built by a typical web development or marketing company they did not focus on what really matters, getting business to your door. If it seems overwhelming let us help with the maintenance and the development to make sure your customers find your business online.
Recently we had a customer, 214 Liquor in Farmington, MO, after 10 years of waiting, decide to get their business found online. As in many cases this was a customer who had planned on having a website for the past 10 years and also understood why Facebook and other social media tools could be valuable but was concerned about how much time it would take to get started.
Here is a quick testimonial about local search and social media from the customer:
After a Localtek Account Manager met with the customer they decided it was time to move based on the continued growth of people searching locally for businesses in Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Also, with over 500 million users on Facebook it was clear there would be a way to tap into the social networking world to promote their products and specials directly to those who were interested.
The preliminary results have been very exciting for the customer and proves that people are looking for your business and the longer you wait to do local search engine optimization on your web presence the more customers that will be missed.
The customer has received calls from customers who have searched and now found their website searching for the town and products the customer offers. Along with this daily there are several visitors who specifically searched for the business name. The question is before the website was there where did they go? Likely to a directory that provided little to no information on the businesses services and products.
Also, after less than 3 days they have 70+ Facebook fans with that growing everyday. With continued marketing of their website and Facebook page they will continue to grow this very targeted base of customers and interested readers.
People are searching on mobile phones, laptops, and social media sites for your business. Are you being found for all the search keywords your business needs?
Whether you are looking for ways to promote a new small business website or a major web development project it is important to find ways to promote the site, although search engines and targeted PPC advertising help drive traffic it is very important, especially for local small businesses to promote their sites on a day to day basis as their storefront on the Internet.
Too many times I have met with a business owner and they talk about having a website but then talk about how it has never had any traffic. In other words it was a neat thing to have but they never thought of it as a way to connect with customers or promote their business.
Here are a few ways to promote your online presence with offline methods:
Business Cards – Plain and simple, the standard business card is a standard in business. If you do not have your website listed on the business card you are missing one of the most effective ways to promote your site. I have seen this too many times, someone has a website but you look at their card and sure enough it is not there. Having your domain name in your email address is not enough, make it clear where to go to find your business online.
Take Out Menus - If you are a restaurant do not miss the chance to promote your website on your take home menus or even on your table menus. If you are a business in the area of a restaurant that has take home menus ask if you can buy space on their take home menus for your logo and website. It works, people take these home and stick them on their fridge and see it everyday.
T-Shirts - If you happen to have a business where a uniform is used or have had T-shirts printed up for various reasons make sure you stick your website on it, I have seen people have their phone numbers, addresses, hours, basically everything you can think of on it except for their domain name. A large portion of people focus on remembering the website name these days not the phone number. They can get the contact info from the website.
Billboards – Same as above, more people are looking for the website to go to more so than a phone number these days. A person I spoke to just tonight who is a very non-tech person said he even realized today that he realized it is now the FIRST thing he looks for and never pays attention to a phone number any more on a billboard. If you have a website and have bought billboard advertising do not miss the chance to promote your online billboard (website).
Newspaper and Radio Ads – Lets face it print media is dying a slow (but quickly turning to fast) death so why miss the chance to promote your online presence if you are still advertising in print media. You know people are heading online, make sure they know where to find you there. If you are advertising on radio same thing goes, people are tuning out ads more and more on radio, make sure you get in your website name so they know where to find your online presence, they are more likely to remember that than just about anything else that you may say.
Magnets – Want to keep your logo and site name in front of people hand out refrigerator magnets in your place of business. People use these to hold up pictures, menus, etc so it is a constant reminder when they go to the fridge.
Letterhead – Many small businesses still use letterhead to send business letters or promotional letters on a daily basis. Take advantage of this to get your website in front of the customers or partners you are promoting your message to with your offline paper mailings.
Car Stickers -Window stickers are a great way to get a site and logo in front of people, I see these daily and they are very cost effective to get printed up. Why not get your site name in front of everyone while you are running to get groceries are heading out on a sales call.
Banners – This is something I have used personally, I see many small businesses on a day to day basis that have banners in front of their place of business or in targeted highly visible locations in their area. Most are missing this chance to promote the place people can go to find out more about them, their website.
Team Sponsorships – For years one of the ways local businesses have shown their support for a community has been to sponsor a little league team or maybe the all star soccer team in their area. Think of the value you can get if you give more than just your business name on the jersey and instead put your site name. People are watching their children run around the field for hours at a time, why not keep your site name in front of them.
Need help getting your website found? Call Localtek at 800 647 2909
Our customer, Blakes BBQ House, in Desloge, MO has been a great success story. The owner, Tim White, has been in the restaurant business for many years and has much experience in promoting local restaurants.
With the growth in local search and the need for local search optimization Tim understood the importance of making sure his business was found online when people did a local search for his business and talks here of the results:
