 I have added a new service for Social Media promotions. Partnering with an extensive network of social media experts I can add this service at a relatively low cost. Here are the types of social media promotions that are offered:
With the integration of social search and social signals in the serps it is becoming more important to promote your products, services and brand on the major social networks. I love helping Local Businesses find new ways of increasing their bottom line. With Social Media and all the data-mining tools out you can market till your hearts content. I have allot of local businesses that follow me on the various Social Networks and they e-mail as well call me asking many questions from Marketing to SEO. Since I usually blog about my local market that I live in which is less competitive as its a small area, I would help out a Local follower and their business in a more populated area in a more competitive industry. One of my new Followers on Twitter is Jason Brusewitz @BranchOutShrubs and I immediately took a look at his website: http://www.branchoutshrub.com/ He is in the Shrub Trimming/Landscaping Business and it looks pretty competitive in his local market. He is on the Right Track Socially, However I do not see any link for Google+ or any +1 button. He has A Google+ Business page located here Branching Out. See my post on Increasing Citations using Social Analytics and Strategies on how to data-mine Google+ and Facebook. Increasing the Citations helps boost your local business rankings in the serps with Social Integration. I also recommend adding Authorship to help increase the CTR's and give more credibility. I'm going to use a couple of social data-mining tools (Followerwonk & All My Tweets) for the tools too help boost his bottom line by finding personal advocates that will spread the word socially and help his business out in the search rankings.Props out to Anthony Pensabene for showing me these tools in some of his guest articles on various blogs.  Landscaping Woodbury, MN Lets check out his rankings in Google. I chose "Landscaping Woodbury, MN" as its a more competitive search term and not as targeted as Shrub Trimming. You can see his business does not rank on the first page for the query at hand. I suggest Adding Geo-Tags to his website and pictures, also adding Alt-Image descriptions to every picture, I think I found 3 on his home-page that did not have any. Add a Video to YouTube and link it to home page as well upload it to your Google+ business page. Now that a little basic SEO is done, we can focus on data-mining to find personal advocates to spread the word and increase his links from social networks and websites to improve his local business ranking in the organic listings.  Followerwonk Map The first tool we are going to use is Followerwonk, this cool tool lets you analyze twitter Followers. Click on the tab for Analyze Followers and put in his Twitter handle. Next in the drop-down menu select "Analyze Their Followers" and give it a minute to populate all his followers. Since I'm looking for Local Advocates you can click on the Map and Zoom in to his local area and see who is following him. There is one Follower in St. Paul and two outside of Minneapolis. I click on the 2 and chose Tim Ryan @SeamusPicMcGee and clicked through to twitter.  Tim Ryan Twitter Page Tim Ryan has a website he can add a link too, He tweets allot and has a good amount of followers.  Tim Ryans All My Tweets Using AllMyTweets we can see Tim also Mentions @BranchOutShrub.You can search using Ctrl+F. I would Thank Tim for the Mention and ask him for a citation on Google+. Offer him some services at a discount, and he may just tweet about it again or share on other social networks. From here you can go back to Followerwonk and analyze his local followers and find ones that have the greatest clout and influence to spread the word. There is much more data you can dig into by using these tools. I would say a few times a week he should reach out to past clients and potential clients using these social tools to thank and ask them to spread the word. Social links will follow helping boost his rankings in as little 3-6 months possibly sooner.
Use the Map in Followerwonk to target local followers and engage with them on all social platforms. Use AllMyTweets to search the tweets of followers if they have mentioned other services you may provide. Become the expert, share and re-share on Google + and other social networks, while staying in contact with your followers by engaging in a timely manner. I hoped this help a little in helping out your Bottom line, this is tested, tried and true!  Sports Bars Lake Havasu City, AZ Google+ Local I like to dig deep into any kind of Social Analytics to see how I can further market a local clients business or give some insights to a future client. We all know by now Google+ Local has a rating system depending on the reviews (Local Citations) and it helps with the display of Rankings and also helps drive foot traffic. For this little exercise I'm going to use Google+ Local as I have stated above already. This wonderful platform lets you drill down into niche markets and target potential clients, customers and followers. Lets start by opening up Google+ Local and Discover some Sports Bars Located in or near Lake Havasu City, AZ. This is football season and competing for those sports enthusiasts that like food & drink will help increase foot traffic and gain some much needed citations. For the Search Query I used "Sports Bars" and for the location I used "Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Now you can scroll down the list and check out to see how many reviews and what the overall score is for an establishment. I chose the one that came up in the first listing (Mad Dogs) as I have been there many times before at the Bullhead City, AZ location.  Donald Cook's Google+ Reviews After I clicked on mad dogs, I looked down to check out the reviewers and scroll over to see how many reviews that persona has given to local businesses. Donald Cook has rated the establishment Excellent and has 83 reviews. If I owned Mad Dogs I would extend a thank-you and maybe a coupon for maybe the next time he stops in, also I would ask him to check-in with FourSquare and let him get a deal on something every so often when he checks in. Now Donald has many reviews so we are interested in the ones he has written on for "bars". Type that in the query and Google+ drills down deeper to show you exactly what your looking for. Donald has many reviews on bars, 18 to be exact. This is the kind of data (analytics) that Businesses and Local marketers should be looking for and Google+ Local is a great platform for Social Marketing. Mad Dogs should use this data to increase the number of +1's by asking patrons for reviews if they liked the service and provide a link to their Google+ Local Business page or a QR Code they can scan with their mobile device that will take them right there or to their website. With Social Signals being integrated into the Organic Search results these citations on Google+ and Zagat are increasingly becoming more important especially according to the recent research on Mobile Search that says "64% of mobile restaurant searches convert within the hour".  Mad Dog's Facebook Plugin Facebook On Mad Dogs Bar & Grill Google+ page is a link to the business website. I check to see how the website is socially connected and noticed they have a big plugin for facebook with 345 likes. On the bottom of the page is a twitter and Google+ button. Facebook is a great place for Local Businesses to connect with their customers and I found one local patron (Sean kerns) that looks like a happy customer. Mad Dogs can ask him for a citation on Google+ and a Tweet since he already liked the business on Facebook. Sean Kerns has 451 friends and 99 Likes, you can drill down further to engage his friends by sorting through the ones that live in Lake Havasu and friend them, Facebook already lets them know that Sean Kerns likes the business. Facebook lets you sort through his friends by the city from the drop down list. Immediately you see Mallorie Baker holding a shot Glass and Tricia Rill Jandrew who is a Food & Beverage Manager. This is targeted data that Facebook allows marketers and Local Businesses to use in order to create a bigger fan base and increase foot traffic to brick and mortar establishments. You can use the same techniques on their profiles and search their posts to see if they have also frequented Mad Dogs or any other Sports Bar in Lake Havasu. Facebook already breaks the ice for you, now its up to you to offer coupons, Drink & Food Specials, deals etc... and hopefully, they will recommend, Like, Tweet, +1 and give a citation as well come in and visit your business increasing the bottom line. Bing has integrated Social Search with Foursquare and Facebook. This is another reason why businesses need to be socially active, writing posts, making comments, asking for citations etc.....  You can use these Social Networks to mine data for any business. The goal here is to create relationships, Increase Citations and foot or web traffic to your Local Business. The benefit of citations and social signals helps with an increase of organic rankings in local search and helps people find you in social applications for mobile devices. I recommend adding Google Authorship for Google+ and joining Bing's So.cl Network. The key is to share, Re-share, Comment, Circle, Like and +1 content that is directly correlated with your niche. Become the so called "expert" and you will see your rankings, relationships, citations and business increase across the web as well to your Local Business. Don't forget to sign up on FourSquare, its growing tremendously and allows businesses to offer coupons and discounts with check-Ins. Showcase your businesses products and services on Pinterest, you would be surprised how much traffic this social network is driving to websites and Local Businesses. There are many Social Networks out there. Here is a list of the ones I joined and try to stay active on, feel free to sign up, add me and more! FourSquare Google+ Manta So.cl Webmaster World Yammer Yelp Yahoo YouTube Zurker Any Comments or Suggestions? If you liked this post please share!
 Kaywa QR Code Generator I like QR codes and love them for marketing purposes. There are many QR code generators out there however I like Kaywa's QR Code Generator for the following reasons, they give you four options to generate QR codes for:
I thought of a few ideas for QR Codes and I listed them below with pictures and descriptions, I used this website as examples for the material just to show you some ideas for your local business. If you don't know what QR Codes are here is a description from Wikipedia: QR Codes.  QR Code for Business Cards QR codes for Business cards, what do you think? here is a sample business card I made up with Microsoft Office and included a QR code on it. If you have more services you want to display on front of your business card I would put it on the back right in the middle making it easy to scan for your mobile device. I like the idea of having QR codes on business cards for the reason is that usually your business card is given or taken on the go and anyone wanting to learn more about you or your business has the opportunity to learn more about you and your services on their own time.  QR Codes for Products and Services Qr codes for product information. You see these all over in magazines and other print publications, as you an see here I made up one for a digital product. There is so much more information that can be learned for potential or existing customers by adding QR codes to Flyers, Menus, handouts, magazines, newspapers etc.. QR codes can link to Digital Downloads on your website as well Apps in Google Play, Amazon, Apple, Slideshare and more. I think a good practice in adding QR codes for a product or service that links to a call of action like Buy now, or to capture a lead. Did you know that according to a recent survey 64% of Mobile Searches for the restaurant business converts within the hour! Optimizing your website for Local Business should include QR codes to maps so your customers can find your business resulting in more foot traffic to your brick & mortar.  QR codes for Socialization QR codes for Socialization. I think this is one of the most important pieces of advertising material you can have that you present to your customers. Google and Bing are including Social Signals from other websites as well as their own and displaying them in the organic search results.
Google is using Zagat, Bing is using Foursquare and Facebook for Social search integration. Social Signals are Citations(Reviews) Click Metrics(How Many Clicks) and Shares (Re-tweets, Re-pins) plus others like "Authorship". Including QR codes on your menus linked to Zagat, Google+ or Foursquare gives your customer the opportunity to check out more offers, coupons, discounts and even leave a review which counts towards higher rankings in the Organic results for local search. Foursquare now offers discounts for certain check-ins to local businesses. You can add a QR code to your flyer, menu etc.. for your customers to check-in and receive a discount or something free and maybe they will upload a tip and picture praising your local business and the exceptional service they received. Do you have more ideas for QR codes? Please leave a comment with your ideas or current tactics for marketing with QR codes. "By Shawn Lippert" Since I'm Irish I figure why not celebrate St. Patrick's day with a little data on this oh so important day! first I want you to see my T-Shirt I bought for only like $5.  St. Patrick's Day T-Shirt St. Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. St Patrick is credited with bringing christianity to Ireland. Corned Beef Corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick's Day dish. In 2009, roughly 26.1 billion pounds of beef and 2.3 billion pounds of cabbage were produced in the United States. Irish Americans Everybody knows about Pinterest by now. However there are certain things you can do to increse the traffic to your site using your pins. When I visit a site and see a infographic I pin it. I include a catching description of the pin and I also include my link to my website just below the description of the pin as a related link.Pinterest users that follow you or search for the same interests, will re-pin that infographic and included is your link in the description. Now that facebook has integrated Pinterest into the timeline, you can get more viral traffic from your url as the re-pins will show up on the Facebook profiles of whoever re-pinned the infographic you originally pinned or re-pinned. Don't forget about Twitter too! when your followers tweet or re-tweet your pins this also creates more traffic. If the infographic has a good title and description, you can add in the url to a certain page on that particular subject and reap the benefits of SEO by correlation.  Source: linkedin.com via Shawn on Pinterest  I read a article the other day on WebProWorld about Pinterest and how they Monetize their site using SkimLinks, So I figured I would go over and check it out. What I found was a tool that can be very useful for generating revenue on sites without be intrusive to your users and comply with the FTC Affiliate Disclosure<---PDF. SkimLinks gives you a badge so you can dispaly the disclosure in a nice badge located below SkimLinks Monetizes your website by installing a small piece of JavaScript Code in the bottom of your Web page before the closing body tag </Body>. This enables all links and words on that page to be available through their affiliate network program. This JavaScript code leaves your existing Affiliate links intact, that is a huge plus because like me I do have other existing Affiliate Relationships I use to monetize this site with. SkimLink ToolsSkimLink offers a few Tools and If you have a site with existing products like a shopping site then their Search Widget tools will come in handy which Searches Ebay and Amazon and uses your affiliate link in all products. Give it a try in the widgets below. Search WidgetsURL Shortener Use the Skimlinks URL shortener to make money from links referenced outside your website, e.g. use it to make money from product recommendations in Twitter, Facebook, your email newsletters, RSS feed, even in print. If someone clicks on your shortened URL and makes a purchase, it generates a commission for you in the same way as Skimlinks does on your website. Amazon OverwriteWant to send all your pre-existing Amazon affiliate links through Skimlinks to take advantage of our aggregated reporting and payments? Now you can! Just enable this functionality for each domain you would like and Skimlinks will replace all the previously affiliated Amazon links in your content with your Skimlinks Amazon ID, saving you the time and effort of changing all those links yourself. Link API, Affiliate Link Generator, Build Affiliate Links Manually There are other ways to use the Skimlinks API aside from including our Javascript on your pages... You can harness the power of Skimlinks by building your links through your own application or website, or you can use the Skimlinks URL generator. SkimLinks Labs-SkimRSS and SkimLinks Wordpress Plugin SkimRSS is ideal for sites that publish their feed through feed managers like FeedBurner. All you have to do is change your feed address to go through our re-write server and your links will be automatically re-written. Best of all SkimRSS only re-writes your affiliatizable links. It will also use your custom subdomain if you have one. The Skimlinks WordPress Plugin works in exactly the same way as the Skimlinks JavaScript and it helps you easily monetize content by converting product links in your post into their equivalent affiliate links on-the-fly. SkimLink Referral ProgramSkimLinks allows you to get paid up to 12% commission (of Skimlinks earnings) for every site you refer to them for a whole year, from the day they log in. They offer you a few ways to refer people. Disclosure Badge Text Link On Non-Skimlinks enabled sites (such as Twitter, Facebook or newsletters) Referral Banners In closing, when you are accepted after you sign up you are automatically approved for all their affiliates in their network and you can earn up to 12% on all sales. Im giving it a go on this site and will keep you informed how it's going.
 Google Webmaster Tools has a nice tool that allows you to further optimize your top performing pages for better results in the organic listings.
Follow the Navigation in above title on your Google Webmaster Tools account. Webmaster Tools-->Your Site On The Web-->Search Queries-->Top Pages. Scroll down to where it shows the URL's of the top pages for your site. There will be a graph showing the Statistics for
You can then take some of those keywords and put them in your: Meta Tags, Head, Body and Footer to finish your keyword optimization for that page. I then made a categories and keyword text description bolding the main keyword or keyphrase for that page and used in the URL towards the bottom of the body section. Next I took those keywords and made backlinks from blogs,forums and Social Networks and started a mini link building strategy I always use. If you have a product or service you need conversions on, then I would suggest putting "Buy Now" in the Link URL or in the Code In Context and if you have a Local Business put in a map to your store location using Google Maps. In closing; webmaster tools has allot of features you can use to properly optimize using their tools, its just a matter of taking those tools and further analyzing their results for better analytics which in return helps you to better optimize each page for higher organic listings in the SERP'S.  ZoomSphere Social Trends Check out ZoomSphere and keep up with the latest trends on the Social Networks. ZoomSphere gives Charts and Graphs on the latest trending media in Social Networks. You can see from the picture to the left of the Google+ Trend showing the top trending topics on Google+
If you are a Internet Marketer that has anything to do with music or any of these top trends you can then search those on their respective social networks and buy some ads or drop your link in their with a comment. Sign up for a free account and fill out your profile and add a link to your site or social profile and you will Gain more followers and visitors from ZoomSphere! ZoomSphere has the following Social Networks you can keep up to the latest on: Google+ YouTube Other feature include adding "Streams" from your Facebook and Twitter accounts and "Mentions" where you can see in what posts you or your business name are mentioned. This feature is for good Brand Awareness. ZoomSphere is in Beta, I think it is a great site for the features mentioned above. With room to add more I'm sure this will be a great site for Internet Marketers and Companies to keep an eye on the lates Social Trends and their Brand Awareness . |
Local SEO Guy
Local Business Website Design, SEO and Internet Marketing Blog
By "Shawn Lippert" Social
Share!
Categories
All
Archives
December 2014
 |
|
RSS Feed
