Google+ Local and Your Company's Reputation.

Google recently launched Google+ Local, ditching the Google Places network for this new feature that is said to attract more local business owners. According to the search giant, the change is suppose to improve how people discover and share local businesses inside Google+. 

The change comes with Zagat reviews that will provide potential customers or clients with a better overview of the business. Zagat is an original provider of user-generated content, and they are known for supplying trusted and accurate restaurant ratings and curated restaurant reviews for thousands of restaurants worldwide. 

Click to read more ...

CRASH COURSE IN WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION.

Mother’s Day was last weekend and we have a story to tell you. Let’s take a glimpse at last Friday, but first, let’s pretend you own a small flower shop in the Greater Chicago Area.

There once was a man named Joe. Joe wanted to get something great for his mother on Mother’s Day, and he knows she loves flowers. Surprising, right? He goes to Google to search for a flower shop in his area. He searches for “flower shop chicago” and is displayed a multitude of paid and organic listings, but your shop wasn’t found on the first page of Google’s search results. Unfortunately, Joe decides to buy flowers from a shop called Flowerama because they we’re easily found on the first page of Google’s natural listings.

Click to read more ...

Blogging Effectively for Business.

If you’ve consumed any sort of media within the past decade, then you’re probably familiar with blogs. I decided to share some tips on how a blog can work for your business, ultimately capturing the attention and helping your customers interact with your business or service.

 Let’s start with some numbers. By 2013, 58% of the US internet population is projected to be reading blogs on a monthly basis. That’s a remarkable 128 million people. A blog is special because it’s a tool that has two distinct characteristics that allow you to easily, quickly, and effectively create and publish new content while allowing readers to leave feedback on that content, as well as react to feedback from other readers. Search engines such as Google love blogs because the content is always changing, rather than being static. Now, how could that impact your company?

Click to read more ...

The Thank You Economy.

I wanted to expand on the value of saying “thank you” from our previous blog post on Getting Customers to Write Reviews About You. I firmly believe that marketing in 2012 is like your typical visit to Fred’s Deli in the 1920’s. It’s small town rules. The Internet and all of its perks have given us the opportunity to make things right again. Its never been so easy to reach out to your customer, even if they live in Singapore.

Saying thank you started at a young age. It’s something our parents taught us because it’s good manners. It’s a way of being appreciative of something, and it means a lot to people, especially in business. For businesses, saying thank you is more important because it goes beyond manners and leaks into the highest form of thought, giving gratitude that is happiness doubled by wonder. It’s the last thing the customer hears from you, until the next time.

I’ve been interested in this concept for quite some time. Mainly because it’s proactive to the relationship between you and the customer. It’s playing offense but not on a massive scale, yet. Enter you customers main interests and an example:

Your in the business of selling t-shirts online. You have an active social media presence and follow most of your customers in this space. Frank is one of your best customers, with over 50 t-shirt orders to date. You know A LOT about Frank because of his Twitter feed. Frank is obsessed with Yadier Molina. You see multiple posts daily about Frank’s love for Yadi, and you leverage that. You decide to send Frank a signed Yadier Molina jersey (not a t-shirt) for free because he’s been such a great customer to you.

Click to read more ...

Getting Customers to Write Reviews About You.

How do I get customers to write online reviews about my product or service? The question has probably crossed your mind a few times, especially if your business is anywhere in the online environment. Today, we’ll dig a little deeper into the idea of reputation management, more specifically, the task of getting your customers to write about you on review sites, social media sites, and search engines.

Click to read more ...