Local Online Marketing » Selling web services

Getting local businesses better web visibility doesn’t have to be hard

Mike Cooch — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:23:57 +0000

One of the things that is clear from coaching people about how to help local, small businesses with their online marketing is that most people over-complicate what needs to be done.

The fact of the matter is that most small businesses have done next to nothing to give themselves a fighting chance online, so anything you do for them – even if not technically perfect according to the standards of the top SEM’s – will still most likely have great benefit.

What does this mean for the person just getting into the business of helping other businesses succeed online? TAKE ACTION! Apply what you are learning each day and you will see results. Don’t over-complicate things and seek perfection – neither in your understanding nor in your application of online marketing techniques – it does not exist.

The following is an excellent post from Hanan Lifshitz at Palore, that clearly demonstrates that most small, local businesses have done next to nothing to help themselves online, and that applying some basic concepts on their behalf will yield strong returns.

Mike

Small Businesses With Low Online Visibility Can Easily Improve

May 6, 2010 at 11:36am ET by Hanan Lifshitz

When you ask small business owners if they want their business ranked high on the Internet, nearly all answer in the affirmative. But how many of them invest in their online visibility?

To answer this question, we took a look at businesses in San Diego and calculated their visibility on search engines, directories and yellow pages sites. We discovered an interesting distribution between those with low, medium, and high online visibility.

The graph below depicts the online visibility of 194K San Diego small busineses:

As we see on the left side of the chart, the majority of businesses have low visibility. They may be listed on a few search engines and local directories, but otherwise make no investment in their online presence. To the right of the spike but still in the ‘low visibility’ group we see businesses that are making some amount of effort, such as claiming their listings or setting up a website.

The middle of the chart illustrates those businesses with decent visibility – they are listed in most places, and have taken additional steps such as optimizing their website and advertising online.

Only the minority, as shown on the right side of the chart, has excellent visibility – these businesses are at the top of the top. They invest serious dollars in effective PPC advertising, social media tools, video marketing, and are listed in the Google 7-pack for relevant keywords.

So what does ‘excellent online visibility’ mean in concrete terms? Take a look at Bill Howe Plumbing Inc.* who received a high visibility score on AmIVisible. This business owner has invested in nearly every possible avenue for his visibility.

He is listed on search engines and yellow pages sites, and has claimed these listings:

He advertises on Superpages, Yellowbook, and other sites:

He posted numerous videos on YouTube:

He created pages on Facebook and Twitter:

And on and on. This is about as good as it gets in the world of online visibility.

What this means for the average small business owner with low visibility is that there are easy, low-cost steps you can take to get ahead. A minor investment such as listing yourself better, optimizing your website, or spending a little in advertising can have a big impact. It’s the SMB’s with the lowest visibility that have the greatest opportunity for improvement.

By no means should all SMB’s try to be ‘the best’ –100% perfect visibility is a neither necessary nor attainable goal. The focus should be on breaking away from the low-end majority, keeping in mind that visibility is a relative and not an objective measurement.

It’s the businesses in the middle who are already investing something that face a bigger challenge. In order to be like Bill, it will require significantly more money and effort.

*Disclaimer: Bill Howe Plumbing Inc. is not a client of or in any way associated with AmIVisible. The business was randomly selected as an example of high online visibility for the purposes of this post.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Automatically create local online ads

Mike Cooch — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:19:30 +0000

It’s funny – behind all of the amazing technology and automation that makes internet marketing possible in the first place, the reality of good online marketing is that it requires a lot of manual effort. In order to be as productive as possible, it’s important that local online marketingpractitioners find tools that will help them cut down on the time required to build and maintain effective campaigns.

Building nice looking and effective ads can be a time-consuming pain in the neck, so any process or tool you can use to get them built out more quickly is worth taking a look at.

A new tool called PlaceLocal that automatically creates local ads was brought to my attention today. I haven’t tried it yet, but it seems to have some real potential, and gives me some interesting ideas. Check out the article I read at Springwise.com (you are reading Springwise, aren’t you!?).

Click here to go directly to the PlaceLocal website.

Mike

Lessons from the Borrell Local Online Advertising Conference

Kipp — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:39:49 +0000

I attended the Borrell Associates 2010 Local Online AdvertisingConference in NYC city last week. It was their first conference and they hit some rough patches, but generally it was a good conference and I definitely learned a lot.

Here are some high points:

Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle, gave a very open presentation about their business model, and had some very important lessons for anyone selling online marketing services to SMBs:

Don’t over-complicate your sales pitch! Keep it at the level of “we’ll make you more visible in the search engines and generate more leads for your business.” Anything more complicated and you will lost most SMB buyers with your jargon.
Pick a handful of verticals and really focus on selling and servicing them. You’ll develop expertise that will help you stand out.
Cold calling is their #1 sales technique. They close their deals over the phone, too!
Don’t limit yourself to Google when trying to generate leads for your clients. They place ads on 75 different sites.

Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia, is one sharp guy, and he gave a very interesting look into the future of local media and what it will take to be successful there:

You must be able to “sell sales” to be really successful. What he means is that selling visibility, clicks, traffic, or any other measure doesn’t equate long-term to SMBs; all they care about is more sales.
Location based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla will revolutionize local online marketing in ways we haven’t imagined yet.
Real time web services such as Twitter and Facebook Update will have more impact on local online advertising than search did.

And finally, some advice from a panel of professional advertising sales trainers, on specifically how to sell these services to SMBs:

Make your pitch very simple and with a single value proposition.
Sales reps that are dedicated to selling online advertising will be most successful.
Sell the value of being on the web first, then the value of your services in particular – many SMBs still aren’t convinced they should be on the web!
Offer 3 price points with an artificially limited inventory to apply pressure to the process.

Phew! That’s about 1/20th of the important notes I took at this conference. I’ll be sharing the rest with Everon Web Services Business Coaching Program members in the members’ site.

Mike