So here I share some of their Internet marketing predictions for 2012, along with my thoughts of what they mean to you, the small business owner (because after all, that’s really what you should care about.)

Google+ will continue to grow but…

Still haven’t tried Google+? You’re not alone. Many experts, like Susan Payton in a post on Small Business Trends  say it’s picking up momentum but is not even close to matching Facebook in terms of users.

What this means to you: Now that brands can have their own account, it’s really not something you can afford to ignore just yet. If you already have your bases covered on Facebook and Twitter and have built up followings, devote  time to Google+. (See its connection to SEO trends below.) But if you are new to social media, you are probably better off sticking with Facebook or Twitter for now (unless you know for sure your target audience is a Google+ audience – then focus your time there.)

Google appeared to make a much more public push for Google+ then it ever seemed to do for Google Buzz or Google Wave  (which while not exactly like Google+ were aimed at sharing content.) Both Google Buzz and Google Wave will be no more in 2012. So even Google can get it very very wrong. That is why you should be cautious before jumping wholesale onto the bandwagon.

However, Google is the reigning king of search engines and it is expected that Google+ will have impact on search rankings. So if you do nothing else with Google+, do add the Google+ button to your sites and blog posts. Doing this encourages your visitors to “plus one” something even if you aren’t active on the network.

Understanding “social search” and seeking to connect with influencers will gain in importance

Accoriding to Sam Fiorella in his post “Trend Currents: Social Media in 2012“, Social Search will make “Influencer Outreach” the No. 1 activity for brand marketers.

…search engines will push relevant content from our personal engagements, not our Web sites to the top of search results. ….the impact of Social Search will dramatically change the focus of marketing. It’s no longer about relevant content but identifying and influencing people that can help you to “ENGAGE” your target customers in social engagements.

While consistent sharing of content will get you more followers (see research by Dan Zarrella of Hubspot), Sam’s point dovetails with the idea that not all followers are equal. Some are more equal than others and you should find those that share, those that share a lot. Google and Bing are paying attention to the “sharegraph”, if you will, of content. So focus on sharing yes, but also focus on finding influencers to notice you.

Buzzword of 2012:  SoLoMo for “Social, Local, Mobile”

According to an article by Outspoken Media’s Lisa Barone, “The year 2011 saw a 400 percent increase in the number of mobile searches, with 74 percent of people using their mobile phones to search while running errands.”

What this means to you: All the experts say mobile is hot, this is the year of mobile, etc.. Okay, I think we’ve heard this one before, but this year, if you’re a business that depends on local customers, it’s time to take the prediction seriously. This can mean making sure you have a mobile app (especially if you are restaurant, nightclub or other entertainment venue), making sure you enable the mobile listing in your Bing Local account, and use check-in deals to encourage people to share where they are with their social networks.

And while you are getting your mobile on, you should be making sure your local listings are in order. Here at Juicy, we’ve seen clients make great strides in their business, simply by paying attention to their visibility on local listings. Ranking for local searches is only going to get more difficult, so jump on this now. It’s the easiest of all tactics to get started with in Internet Marketing.

So where does the social come in? The listings are one thing, but getting people to talk about you is something else. Reviews are one of the single biggest factors people use when making a buying decision. (Barone cites a Nielsen study that shows “that 63% of social media users list ‘consumer ratings’ as their preferred source for getting information about a business, product or service.”) Reviews are also a ranking factor for Google Places. Get customers to give you reviews.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) predictions

We all have our gurus and mine for SEO is Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz. I share with you 3 of his 8 Predictions for SEO in 2012:

Prediction 1:  SEO without social media will become a relic of the past

Prediction 2: Google will make it very hard to do great SEO without using Google+

SEO will rely even more heavily on social media signals. The integration of Facebook results in BING and (at one time Twitter in Google) was only the beginning. Google, with it’s 80% plus share of search traffic in the US, has made it clear that it will not only show you your own social network results in the total list of organic results, but will use the social cache of an item in its ranking algorithm. Many in the biz think this is Google’s way of pushing Google+.

What this means to you: If you are depending on search to deliver the goods in your internet marketing plan, you need to ramp up the social and get started with Google+, especially if you are in a market that is already highly active in social media – think restaurants, specialty/boutique stores, salons, gyms, etc. But as we mentioned above, don’t do this at the expense of Facebook and Twitter.

Prediction 3: Google Will Finally Take Stronger Action Against Manipulative Link Spam

Over 2011, a lot of sites lost rankings in Google because of what is known as “Panda updates” which are in simple terms changes to Google’s algorithms. The main target of these updates: sites that engage in link spam or low quality, junk links.

What this means to you: If someone comes a knockin’ saying they can get you to rank #1 for a highly competitive keyword in a few months, run. If someone says they can guarantee you 100 links to your site in a few days, run. Link building the right way, that is getting quality, relevant links is hard work. Relevant links from quality sites to your site is what you need, not links from pornography sites or “blogs” that are nothing more than spun articles in bad English. This has always been true. Now it’s just more true.

Okay here’s a few of my own (and even if they don’t come true, they are still good advice.)

Prediction #1: Small businesses and start-ups that talk to customers like they are people and not just the means to a “bottom line end,” will win customers over those businesses that stick to the old-school corporate-speak way of communication. If you are using words like “leverage,” “value proposition,” “world-class,” or “exceed expectations”—stop. If you have mission statements and a list of corporate values on your website, delete those pages. Seriously. With our new social media-ized culture, people feel a little more personal with the business they choose to work with. Be that personal business.

Prediction #2: Small businesses will get more used to using social media as a way to enhance, not replace regular networking. How many people do you network with on a regular basis that you are not LinkedIn to or following on Twitter? Small businesses need each other for referrals. That’s why you network. Why not extend that networking online? Why not form a small group of online network buddies where you are particularly attuned to sharing each others’ content? See where I’m going with this? (You can read more on this subject in Supercharge Your Business Development.)

Okay, now go out there and make 2012 a great year for your business!

So you have all of your business information listed online on multiple sites, consistently with the same info, right? Check to make sure. But you’re still not getting the people to come in droves like you were promised. What gives? Well, your listing might not be as “sexy” as another business’s—you’ve gotta use tricks to get the people to click on you and be intrigued enough to read about you. It’s the same as with an online dating profile: what separates a man from the 5 million others listed online? Picture? Bio? “Likes”? What will make someone choose you over another site with a flashier logo?

Don’t Miss an Opportunity to Stand Out

Your typical listing will offer fields like name, address, email, website, logo and a short bio. Now, you can’t make your address stick out, but if you use every field offered on each site your listing will look full and thus catch the eye of your customers. Don’t be afraid to post staff pics, as people like to see with whom they will be working. Google now has “Offers” as well as updates and reviews: make an offer, post an update and ask your clients for reviews, nicely (here’s how). A video will go a long way, not just with preference from Google, but from your existing and potential customers to see inside your operations and really know what they’re getting themselves into. Having a strong tagline will also help people remember your business as well as what you do: “Squeeze More Out of Your Website” is pretty action-oriented and let’s you know that we deal with optimizing your website for everything it’s worth.

Your business description should be the right mix of formal and informal to give the potential customer the idea that you know what you’re doing but also know how to talk to people and give them what they want. You want your page to be full and juicy (no pun intended) and the more valuable content, the better. We squeezed what we could out of our Google Place Page and although from the pictures it looks like one man and his harem, you get an inside look at what the team is about and (don’t lie) it makes you want to know more about us.

Good ‘Ol Facebook

Facebook is gaining more trust with business owners as gradually everyone builds themselves a Facebook Page for people to ‘like.’ These ‘likes’ are reviews for you and you should utilize this tool to the best of your ability (as previously mentioned); thus landing pages for business pages need to scream “pick me!” and demand the attention of our over-stimulated society.  All Facebook pages look the same, so use Facebook tabs to create a colorful, informative peak into your operations to entice people to go to your website. Don’t go overboard with it; you still want people to go to your actual website, so keep it simple and a little mysterious to draw the people in.

Don’t Lie And Stay Consistent

Overall, your information needs to be the same on every listing—especially your basic name, address, website—and you need to put info in every field that you can on every listing site. The more address citations your listing has, the more weight you have on Google. Pictures, videos, updates, offers and reviews weigh in heavily as well, so consider these things when you look at your Google Places profile. Don’t make up reviews just to have them or add services you don’t perform and especially don’t take credit for things you haven’t done. It takes time to build an online reputation, so just make sure you follow all of Google’s rules—they’ll suspend your listing in a heartbeat if you don’t!

As a business owner, I understand the value that traditional networking and personal relationships bring to the business development process. No less than half of our new clients at Juicy Results come from referrals form current clients and others in my professional network. I’ve been at it for over ten years!

One thing I’ve noticed in others is how they subconsciously separate their networking efforts from any kind of Internet marketing activities we introduce them to. One exception to this is how quickly everybody is racing to Facebook and LinkedIn to grow their contact list. But, as an isolated tactic, this alone isn’t going to supercharge your business development efforts; just lightly compliment them.

I want to inspire you to use a number of Internet marketing methods to truly supercharge your business development and personal networking with this post.

Make sure you have something to say

First things first: successfully translating networking activity—such as conferences, events, groups and just sitting down for coffee—into real business requires you to have a clear and compelling message about what you do. We’ve all met too many lawyers, too many financial planners and even too many whatever-you-do to remember much about you after just one meeting. However, a clear, differentiated message about what you do and why I should care is your silver bullet in winning referrals from your network.

This is so important that if you do not have your message crystallized, spend time doing it now rather than reading the rest of this article!

When people find you online, you need to make sure your message is front and center. That means your website, LinkedIn profile (both yours and your company’s) and all other trails that lead to you should be clear, consistent, professional and focused. People will Google you, so make sure you know what the first page of Google looks like when you put your name or company name in the search engines.

You must be managing your reputation online.

Reinforce your position with helpful content

Just like in-person networking, you want to add value before you try to ask for value. You can provide value to your contacts with relevant information and answers to their problems. Useful introductions and recommendations are another great way to add value to your network—more on that later.

To use the strategies in this article you need compelling content about your product, service, destination, company or whatever you are selling. This blog post is an example of useful marketing content, as are social media posts, YouTube videos, newsletters, website content—it all counts. Engage the people who stumble upon your profile or website and show them how you can help them or why they should visit or contact you.

And trust me, creating compelling content that will win you new customers isn’t as hard as you think. You just have to start. This content will serve you in all your Internet marketing activity (search engine optimization, social media, email, etc) in addition to your personal networking efforts.

There is one shortcut: while custom content that is specific to your business will be the most effective, many of the following strategies can work with links to well-selected content on the web written by others. You probably already have a number of PDFs or blog posts that you can share with your potential customers. Use ‘em!

Now that your Internet presence is in shape and you’ve got some content to work with, let’s discuss a few ways to get your message in front of new potential clients and partners to generate some real business.

High impact follow ups

My favorite way to integrate Internet marketing with networking is with a high impact, helpful follow up after any meeting.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re an attorney who specializes in estate planning. You have a great networking meeting with a financial planner and discuss how you might refer business to each other. During the meeting process you naturally educate each other on your backgrounds, services and opportunities to introduce clients to each other. One thing you might mention is that a perfect referral for you is someone who is about to have their first child because this is the time people might reflect on their living will and other affairs. Pretty typical networking conversation.

But, imagine if your follow up email to this financial planner included a simple, well designed checklist in PDF format called “Five Easy and Important Things to Secure Your Children’s Future.” At the bottom, of course, is a short line about who you are along with your contact info. Of course, the checklist would mention a few things that would benefit from estate planning. That is a powerful tool to solidify the referral opportunity and enable that financial planner to refer you lots of business.

Once you begin writing blog posts regularly, you’ll find an abundance of opportunities to send a relevant and useful piece of information to new contacts.

This solidifies everything you told them in person and will dramatically increase the chances that the person will remember you when a need arises. This is crucial when you meet a dozen or more people at a networking event. Remember your discussions, and select the right information to send them. Make sure to add them on LinkedIn, and follow up a week later and ask if the information was helpful.

Targeting the right people

For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when you mention networking online is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great way to connect and stay in touch with your professional network, but it’s an even greater way to meet new contacts online.

If you have a very specific client based on age, industry, position or location, you should take a look at the premium targeting tools on LinkedIn. You can generate lists of contacts and reach out. Notice that I say “reach out” and not spam—it’s an important differentiation.

Many times in business we’re looking for a specific business partnership with a key supplier, client, potential employer or employee. There is a good chance whomever you want to meet is on LinkedIn. Find that person’s profile via the search box and find your shared connections. You’re looking for a personal introduction here, by seeing who he/she knows that you may be able to contact via your network. This is a real life version of the Kevin Bacon game, but it works.

I like to write a very concise paragraph about why I need to meet this person and what I am hoping to accomplish. Keep that goal small, favoring a quick call or an email address over mentioning that you want them to hire you or do business with you. This makes it easy for your mutual contact to simply forward along that note with the introduction.

This potential contact will likely Google you or at least check out your profile, so be sure that you’ve done the above homework first!

After you finally get in touch with your target, remember to make a high impact follow up and add them directly to your network.

Imagine if you did this once per week? You’d develop a very powerful network of your own in no time.

Attracting the right people en masse

Attracting perfect customers online is all about content and, fortunately, you now have that. When people are searching for solutions to their problems or are interested in new things, they are hungry for information. They want to see photos and read reviews of that new restaurant in town before visiting or they want to see how an attorney might handle their business contract dispute before calling her.

When you think about it, this is what made the web so powerful in the early days. You could think of something to do or buy at 2am in the morning, log on and learn all about it (remember “logging on?”). This kind of instant access is something we completely take for granted today, but it’s center to the search process.

Remember that people use the Internet AND their personal and professional networks to find answers to their problems. Make sure all of these paths lead to you!

This is why you are going to spend time creating articles, videos and worksheets for potential customers. Then you’re going to broadcast them on your social media channels, in your newsletter and on your website. Make sure your family, friends, associates and networking partners are aware of this information, and ask them to share it as well. If it’s quality stuff, they’ll be proud to do so.

Occasionally, you may even post some of this professional content on your personal Facebook page to remind your friends and family what you do.

Remember to be strategic about what you share; it should be valuable to others and reinforce your areas of expertise. Nobody likes spam or noise.

If you do this consistently over time I guarantee perfect clients will find their way to your front door.

Adding value to your network

The result of your networking activity will be a large audience, each of which is an opportunity to connect on any given day. Review your LinkedIn or Facebook (or internal CRM) on a regular basis—daily if possible—and find someone you haven’t connected with in a while. Ask yourself: How can I help this person today?  Have you met someone recently whom you can refer to them? Maybe you can surprise this person by leaving a nice recommendation on their LinkedIn account or make a public Facebook update letting everyone know about their product or service. Trust me, this is a powerful gesture when it comes out of the blue and is sure to reengage that contact!

Starting today, review your list regularly and find long lost contacts to introduce to others, give business to or promote.

Remaining visible

The exciting and tricky thing about marketing is that you never know when someone can use your product service. It may be today, next week or seven years from now. This is why consistent, quality and regular contact with your network is important. The Internet has made this easier than ever. Here are ways to keep your message in front of your network:

• Email newsletter
• Facebook fan page and account
• LinkedIn updates
• Twitter
• Blog
• Press releases

You’re looking for the sweet spot: stay top of mind, but don’t over expose your network to the point where they tune you out. Find new and compelling ways to package your message.

Get Started!

Hopefully this article has inspired a mindset of blending your personal networking efforts with your Internet marketing. Here’s your action plan:

1) Crystallize your marketing message. Who are you, what do you do, who can you help and what is unique about you?
2) Standardize your web presence with that message.
3) Create or identify useful and relevant content for your market related to what you do.
4) Build your network online.
5) Get your network involved and share that valuable content.
6) Make meaningful connections with those contacts via phone or in-person and use high impact follow ups.
7) Reengage with long lost contacts regularly.
Stay in front of your network and keep your message front and center.

Let us know if you have additional networking ideas in the comments below.

But what if you have a restaurant and you want people to know that their friends don’t just “like” your place, but are actually eating there? That’s when that button turns into the  button and boom!…free word of mouth advertising via Facebook (as previously blogged by our founder and lead strategist Jeremy).  If a person has 500 friends and even a few of them have checked into the same place, it lends credence to the awesomeness of your business.

Say I want to check in to your establishment—well, um, it isn’t coming up on a nearby search. Why? Because you’ve got to have a place page for a customer to check in to your business—whether it is a restaurant or a doctor’s office (though probably not many people check into the gyno). It only takes one check-in to make sure you show up in a local search. You need to actually be at the location to create the place page, or have someone do it for you, then you edit the content and upload photos and give it pizazz. This feature works for you in a couple of ways: not only can people see their friends checking in to your place, but if they are nearby and searching for the place at which they want to check in, your listing will pop up as an option when they might not have otherwise known you existed.

Is this your business?

Once one person has “checked-in” and created your listing for you (or you did it yourself), you can go claim it and edit it to your heart’s desire. Then, once you’ve claimed and edited the pages you should merge them and make a giant, amazing super-listing. Then you’ll have all the likes and info from your original page and the check-ins from your place page. The pages can only be merged once you have claimed them as yours, so be sure to follow the claiming process carefully to get verified. You will need a business phone number that Facebook will use to call and verify your business.

I saved the best for last! Facebook has given you a way to give your customers kickbacks in the form of Facebook check-in deals, which are redeemed when a customer “checks in” to your establishment. When a person “searches nearby” for a business, a little yellow ticket will be next to the listing if a check-in deal is offered. Whether it is a free drink or some percentage off a service, you will keep regular customers happy and pique the interest of new customers.

Putting this on your website or even as a flyer in your storefront window will help you gain and keep customers. The first one of these bad boys I saw was taped to the back of a bathroom stall in a restaurant, but it definitely got my attention as a consumer and I checked in right away to get my deal. So make sure your pages and places are one and the same to avoid confusion, then get yourself a check-in deal to reel ‘em in and get yourself some free advertisement. And be sure to send us a link so we can reap the benefits —er, I mean post about your successes!

UPDATE! The Facebook for developer’s page will tell you that you go to Edit profile > Resources > Merge duplicates, but the merge option only shows up once you’ve claimed both pages, are an admin of both of them and the address and phone number match. When you’ve claimed them both you can merge them and Facebook will simply delete the duplicate listing with fewer ‘likes’. Check our page out!

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise. – Laurence J. Peter

That’s one of my favorite quotes to bring up when I am speaking with new entrepreneurs. I love the simplicity and brilliance of that formula and how it reminds us that not only do we need to be good at what we do, but we need a replenishable source of customers if we are to build a successful business.

For companies who have a product that customers are seeking out, there is no better source of those customers than search engine traffic. Google and the other search engines let you bid on keywords and ensure your ad appears in front of searchers looking for your products and services. Advertisers refer to this as demand fulfillment.

But many companies offer innovative products and services that consumers don’t know about; thus, they need to generate demand. TV and print advertising ruled this space for decades but, because of its price, it wasn’t very accessible to small businesses. Still, tens of thousands of enterprises have been built by gutsy entrepreneurs who invested in aggressive advertising.

Why Start With Facebook?

Online, the 300 pound gorilla in the demand generation space is Facebook. In April of 2011, Nielson reported that the average person in the US spent almost 6 and a half hours  on Facebook during the month.

If you’re looking for a cost effective way to generate demand for your business in a measurable way, I would suggest starting with Facebook advertising.

Facebook spells out a straight forward forumla for getting started on its website:
http://www.facebook.com/business/ads/

Plus, they have put together a rich guide on optimizing your ads here:
http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Optimization_Guide_FINAL.pdf

Pay attention to the ads you see when you use Facebook as well; it’s useful to think about the targeting the advertiser used to get that ad in front of you.

Because you can begin with any budget you choose, I like to recommend Facebook ads to small businesses who are looking for new customers online. Check it out!

No matter what business you are in, if you’re paying attention to current marketing trends, you know you need to create content—interesting, relevant, consistent content for your Internet marketing to be effective. But knowing and doing are two very different things.

Why You Need a Road Map for Content Creation

Does staring at a blank page or canvas make you nervous? Now what if someone carved up the blank page and said “Put something about “A” here, put something “blue” in that corner over there and something that relates to “C” at the bottom. Feel a little better? A little direction takes away much of the ambiguity that makes starting so stressful and inhibiting.

So why do so many of us marketers start content plans without the same kind of upfront direction? See if this sounds familiar: You are in a company meeting, talking about driving more traffic to your website. Someone says, “hey we should set up a blog. I hear that brings traffic.” Someone else says, “yeah, we could have a monthly e-newsletter too. I hear Super Company across town is having a lot of success doing that.”

Next a few dates are set for launching the blog or setting up the e-newsletter. Then what happens? The blog is ready for content but your organization isn’t ready to create that content. The email template is ready but the date for sending it out keeps getting pushed because no one has time to figure out what to put in the first email, or the second or third for that matter.

Why does this happen? Because there is no road map, no upfront direction that says “on this date we will release content about A, on this date, content about B, etc” It’s the blank slate staring everyone in the face, making us act like we’re all deers caught in the headlights.

How to Roll out Consistent Content for Results

Here are a few steps to help you get over that blank page “hump” and generate content on a consistent basis. Generating content once in awhile is not enough. You have to do it consistently to achieve any real marketing value from it.

Step 1: assess your abilities

Ask yourself (and your organization) the following questions:

1. Who can realistically be in charge of content creation for our organization? Who has the time available, the tenacity to follow a content calendar and the ability to manage themself and others to get it done.

2. Do we have  in house people who can write reasonably well on a regular basis or should we consider hiring an outside resource or two to help. You don’t need Pulitzer Prize winning writers; with the death of newspapers, there are plenty of great writers out there that can churn out short articles quickly for very reasonable rates.

3. Do we have the minimal equipment and talent to do video? If not, are we willing to hire someone to help? Again, videos don’t need to be something Steven Spielberg would be proud of, but there is a basic level of lighting and audio that makes a video watchable on YouTube. It’s that basic level you need to be sure you can handle or get help with.

4. Are we, as an organization, committed to creating content on a regular basis? Do we all know why we need to do this? What is the goal for creating the content? Website traffic? Higher search rankings? Increase your subscriber base? Whatever the goal is, make sure it’s front and center and everyone understands and is committed to it.

Step 2: brainstorm

Write down every possible idea you have ever had that you (or someone on your team can write about). Don’t edit yourself or others. Just get all the ideas down. Here are just a few high level thoughts to get you started:

• Solution to a problem that your customer/prospects face. Think in terms of “pain points” Here is a great list of for small business pain points
• Review a new tool/report/idea in your industry
• Curate (and annotate) a list of resources valuable to your customers/prospects
• Any content where you can have a title that starts with the “Top 5 ways to…” or the “10 best ways to …”
• Interview or highlight new or top customers
• Any theme that you can build a series of blog posts or videos around

Step 3: quantify + plan

Most of our clients start with a blog or newsletter. It’s best to start with one type of media, get it rolling and then branch out into something else. You can always re-purpose a piece of content posted in a blog for the newsletter or vice-versa.

So off the top of your head…how many blog posts per week can your organization really commit to (based on answers in step 1) or how often can you send out a newsletter (again based on answers in step 1.) Don’t only think in terms of actual work hours, but consider peoples’ “brain space”—what they can realistically focus on.

Now how much time is really needed to accomplish “x” number of blog posts or a monthly newsletter? Remember to include time for more brainstorming and for letting others know about your content. In fact, you should schedule time for brainstorming and researching on a regular basis.

Then outline a monthly and weekly plan, like the one below, to accomplish that quantity.

Click to Download Full Plan

This is an actual plan we gave to a client just beginning with content creation so it is very conservative in the amount of content created and shared.

Step 4: editorial calendar(s)

“Editorial calendar” is a term borrowed from the magazine/newspaper industry. The publications would use an editorial calendar to plan well in advance what their big stories or features would be. At a minimum, in the editorial calendar you match up specific pieces of content with a release date.

How detailed your own calendar is or is not will depend on your needs. You could do one for your blog and a separate one for a monthly newsletter.

Here are a few examples:

Newsletter Editorial Calendar

This is our own Juicy Results editorial calendar that we use to plan out our monthly e-newsletter. Download it and alter the format to your liking. (You can use Excel, Google Docs, Numbers, any application that will open a .csv spreadsheet.)  It’s not fancy, just functional. Of course you will probably have different content sections that you want to use.

Blog Editorial Calendar

This is a format we use for own blog. All data in the cells are fake, but you’ll get the idea. Note that we include all days of the week but we don’t plan copy for each day. When assessing our abilities (see step 1), we knew that would never happen. But we still leave the slots there so we can easily move items around, add something on the fly or simply be aware of special dates.

In the End…

Establish a schedule for your content output. Having the structure will make creating the content easier to accomplish and/or delegate.

Delivering on the Click

We find that landing pages designed to convert is the least understood aspect and most under used tool of internet marketing among our small business clientele. Business owners tend to get all excited about online advertising and using SEO to rank at the top of Google but then forget the most important part: what are you giving the visitor once they click on your ad or number one ranked listing for “xyz” keyword; what does the page that they land on say or offer.

Think about your own search experiences. Have you ever clicked on a tempting text ad, only to land on a page that at first glance has nothing to do with the ad, is overwhelming with choices or is just the company’s lackluster homepage? What did you do? You left.

Think about your own online advertising experiences. Have you ever spent money on banner ads or text ads, only to find that they did nothing to change your bottom line? How much time did you spend creating those ads? Now how much consideration were you giving to where you were sending people who clicked on those ads? Did you send them to your home page? Did you send them to a page that had MORE than what they were actually looking for?

Delivering on the click is known as post-click marketing. It’s what you get the visitor to do after you convince them to click. It’s what you do to get them to buy, signup, call—in other words, convert into a sale or a lead.

Learning from the Experts

At Juicy Results, we are very lucky to be just around the corner from one of the leading experts on post-click marketing and landing page conversion, Ion Interactive. Ion provides their customers with enterprise solutions to manage hundreds of landing pages and associated campaigns. So while they provide big company solutions, here is what you, the small business owner can learn from them:

Strategize First, Implement Second

Start with a strategy and think it through. What is your goal? Sales, leads, subscribers? Who are you trying to appeal to? Really think about who your ideal conversion is and plan for them. Remember you have limited time and budget…you can’t appeal to everyone under the sun. Focus on the audience that is most important to you at this time for this specific offer. You can always create additional landing pages to appeal to other segments.

Message Match: Make the Content Relevant

Does the landing page fulfill the promise made in the ads or social media links. Does the landing page’s overall message match the message in the ad or social media links?

This is one of the most important things to inspire trust in your visitor. If you tell them in the ad they are going to save $30/mo and then there is no mention of this savings on the landing page, you have not only lost them going any further, but you may have made them distrustful of you in the future.

Interestingly enough even large companies can get this wrong; but then they have pricey TV ad budgets and their household name status to fall back on.

Here are three ads and their associated landing pages for the search: “refinance mortgage”. Which would get you to take the next step?

Drawing the Visitor In: Make the Content Engaging

Message match is only the beginning. Now you must consider how to make what you have to offer so irresistible, that visitors will feel compelled to take the next step. What does a potential customer want to know? First of all they’ll want to know clearly what the product or service offer is. Be upfront. But then they will want to know why they should care. How is your offer different, why is this the offer for me, why do I need this. And finally, what is the next step and how committed am I by taking this step.

You can use a mix of text, images and video to communicate your message. Short videos can be extremely effective in answering “what am I getting?” and “why should I care?”

Gaining the Visitor’s Trust: Make Your Company and Offer Appear Authoritative

It’s important to provide signs of trustworthiness such as awards, testimonials, and trust marks that indicate good business practices or association with reputable organizations.

Provide quantitative claims with specific numbers when appropriate. Maintain key brand elements

Write your copy in a tone and style that will appear authoritative to the market you are targeting. It should be customer-centric and focus on the visitor and how you can help them. Hire a copy writer if necessary.

Moving Visitors Effortlessly Toward Their Objectives

Make it easy for your visitor to take the next step. If you have only one CTA (Call to Action), is it obvious? Does the visitor have a clear indication of what will happen once they click on it?

If you have more than one CTA, are they clearly differentiated? Can the user easily make a knowledgeable choice. If the decision becomes hard, prospects tend to leave.

Do you have too many choices on your page? Having more than one CTA is okay but if you have that and your site’s main menu and 2 videos, your visitor may get distracted and never return to the goal.

In the End…

Landing pages visitors are thankful for ultimately satisfy a need, either for information or action. You job as a marketer is to figure out how to make their needs dovetail nicely with your own.

Local searchers deserve pre-sale information

Just because you sell primarily to a locally-based audience doesn’t give you an excuse to have a horrible looking website. In fact, having a horrible one may hurt you more than not having one at all. Poorly designed websites can make you look less trustworthy.

Even local customers will do research before they hop in the car and come to your business. They’ll probably want to research and compare you to others before they even call you. If you’re anything like me, you’d probably call a vendor that had a yellow page ad before one that just had a listing. Why? Because you had more info about the company that had the ad.

The same thing goes for local seo listings. While some sites let you have tons of info, the big daddy of them all, Google Places is cutting back on the info it allows you to show. So think of a Google Places page as the plain vanilla yellow page listing and your website like a full page yellow page ad. (Okay there are reviews which yellow page ads don’t have, but stick with me here.)

A real world example

A few months back I needed a car detailer, specifically one that could get rid of hard water spots. Figuring I might have to actually leave my car at the detailer’s location, I wanted to find one close to where I work. So I turned to a Google Places search. Here are the companies I found among the top 5 local listings at the time:

Company A

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The main problem with Company A’s site is that it looks unfinished and therefore unprofessional, as if they don’t care. Plus the site has not been updated since 2009 so I may think they are no longer in business. Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to continuously update your site but if you’re not going to, then leave off the dates. Makes sense right?

Company B

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This site is much more professional than the one above. It has more of a traditional website (less blog-like) feel and tells me immediately how much I might pay. That’s what I’m looking for. But I’m also looking for information about hard water spot removal. So I go to click on “Menu Services” but it’s not clickable! None of the items in the top nav are clickable. What where they thinking?

Company C

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Click image to enlarge

This site has a professional feel. It’s clean (like I want my car to be); it feels like a reputable business. I don’t know for sure that it is; but if they company cares to be “dressed-well” on the web, it probably cares about its customers. There is lots of info, deals and pictures.

Okay, which one do you think I actually contacted? If you said Company C you would be correct. They had awesome reviews and that coupled with their professional online presence made me want to contact them, even though they were more expensive. Plus it was 10pm when I did my search so I had to email them to see if they could really take care of my problem. The next morning I had a reply and we emailed back and forth a few time as the service rep answered my questions about removing hard water deposits. He made me feel he knew what he was talking about. The company seemed big but personal.

Local SEO is about more than just the rankings

The take away is this: even if serve a very limited geographic area, people still want info on you before they visit you in person or pick up the phone. This is especially true if you are in a knowledge based profession such as medicine, insurance, accounting, legal or finance. You need a professional looking web presence, even if it’s just a few web pages, to answer people’s questions and make you look like the #1 expert even when you are listed fifth in the rankings.

Is your business geared towards local customers? If so, you may be late to the Internet marketing game because you’re not sure how to attract local customers online. This webinar will show you, the small business marketer, how to attract local customers to your website and physical business locations.

Smart business owners and marketers are abandoning the yellow pages and other traditional local advertising mediums in favor of local search and social media. Let us introduce you to the strategies and tactics you can use to fill your pipeline with local customers, even if you don’t have a website.

Our goal is to not only introduce you to these tactics, but show you how to successfully use them to grow your business. Right now, there are customers in your back yard looking for your products and services. Let us show you how to find them!

Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

• What is the difference between regular SEO and Local SEO?
• Slash your marketing budget and get more qualified local customers.
• Build a list of local customers and bring them back to do business with you over and over again.
• Understand the mindset of the local buyer so that they choose to do business with you.

Jeremy,
I wanted to send a note and say THANK YOU and IT WORKS!  Web presence!
I had a new client call and in the process of finding out how he found me he said, “I Googled career direction and your name came up all over the page.” Thank you for doing such a great job of sharing information and making it comfortable enough for even us non-techies to manage.
All the best,
Marla

Get Free Word of Mouth Advertising with Facebook Places

As we’ve mentioned, we think your business should be paying attention to Facebook, because that is where your customers are spending their time. This is especially true if your business is a physical establishment where people shop, dine, receive services or just hang out.

This is because of the social nature of Facebook Places, which allows any Facebook user to check into their current location and find others nearby. Each time they do, the location—which is often a business—is broadcast to all their friends. That’s free, third-party exposure for that business. Who doesn’t want more of that?

Users can comment on checkins, which can increase their visibility.

Even though the future of places is a little bit uncertain, we still think it’s something your small business should be aware of. It doesn’t take much time to set up, and the exposure can be huge.

First, you need to claim or add your place on Facebook. Once you’ve claimed the place, you can make all the edits you want to the page and add deals and even promote your place on Facebook.

Here are some ideas for promoting your Facebook Page to get the most out of your listing.

• Complete your listing and much as possible, including hours and a photo of your venue or a logo.
• Place signs within your business encouraging users to “check in.” Many bars or restaurants will offer a free beverage or discount if you show your server that you’ve checked in.
• Ask your employees to “check in” each day when they come to work.
• Add an advertising campaign on Facebook for your place. People will see the ad and “like” your place. Again, this action will broadcast your place to all of their friends.
• In the future, you will be able to add deals to your place based on location. This can attract walk-in traffic.

It’s never a good idea to pass on free exposure, especially when it’s so easy to get started. Juicy Results can help you set up your Facebook listing, along with your search engine listings, as part of our Local Juice product. Call us to learn more about it.