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I hear this often from new small business owners. I’ve opened my business, launched my new website to support it and — crickets! So here are some of the most important factors in getting seen and gaining traction for your new business. The reality is that most local small businesses are competing in a parity product or service environment. And while it’s undeniably important to have a unique selling proposition or a point of differentiation, to get a foothold you need to excel in three key areas — credibility, visibility and reputation.  Credibility can be built by having a clear, coherent, brand presentation and message that gives the impression that you’re a serious business that has it together. As an outgrowth of that, having clear, concise helpful information on your website that makes it easy for the user to learn what they need to know and navigate to what they want to learn about you leaves a great impression that can reflect what kind of business they may be dealing with.  Visibility for a small business is simpler in a way, and that’s all about local SEO. Any hope for a small business to gain a foothold starts there. Most people are going to find you through your Google business listing.  The last piece in reputation, and that mostly boils down to garnering positive reviews on your Google listing and your website. And the way you build those reviews circles back to visibility and local SEO.  If you’re a new or existing local business looking to get a foothold, contact us to get started.  ...

I don’t mean this to sound flippant, but it’s actually that simple. And this simple effort is the single most effective thing you can do to improve your Google local listings position in search results and on the map. So the question is, how to ask? Here are a few ideas. 1. Share the link — Google provides you with a link that you can send to people via text or email. To find the link, search for your business on Google and look for your result to the right. If you’ve claimed your business it should say “You Manage this Business Profile” (if you haven’t give us a call at 904-744-8877 and we’ll walk you through it).  Scroll down to where your reviews are highlighted and you’ll see a button that says Get More Reviews. Click on it and you’ll see a link that you can cut and paste, as well as buttons for sharing the link on Facebook, Whats App and email. 2. Put a review link on your website — If you haven’t done so already, it can be a very effective local SEO tactic to plug your Google reviews into a page on your website (WordPress in particular has some excellent and easy-to-use plugins for doing this). In that same section, create a button using your Google review link for people to leave their own review. This is a perfect dynamic as people love to check out what other people are saying. 3. Conduct email followups or a followup survey — It’s always a good idea to follow up with a customer after an interaction to gauge their experience, see if they need anything else or ask if there was anything you could’ve done better. You can include the link in your communications and on a more formal or group basis, you can create a simple customer satisfaction survey (SurveyMonkey has a free version that does just fine for small surveys). I would also encourage you to not be shy about asking for feedback because you’re afraid of a negative reaction. There’s always value in what you learn and the more responses the better. 4. Create collateral with a QR code link — If you’re...

This topic came up in an online business networking thread and also with other local business owners that I’ve spoken with, and it’s no surprise. Not only is generating leads and business an enduring concern for all businesses everywhere, but this time of year — with school back in session and money drying up — is when a lot of businesses start to feel the pinch of slowing activity.  Part of the context of the thread was frustration with the effectiveness of organic search and the lack of other affordable options, so here was my response to the group: If you’re looking for organic results in general search you can forget it. If you’re a local business then your goal should be placement on the Map in Google local search results. The holy grail is the “three pack” in the map section at the top of the search results page or at least the top six slots on the map itself when someone clicks over to it. If I don’t get my clients into those spots I’m not doing my job and I tell all of my clients that the place to start is with local search. That means optimizing your website for local search, setting up your Google business listing properly (and being active with it) and getting reviews.  Once that foundation is established then you can build on it. Paid search targeted locally can be very cost-effective. Building an existing customer contact list can work wonders in developing loyalty, repeat business and getting referrals. Expanding out from there, highly targeted direct marketing, judicious use of display advertising, events and promotions can extend your reach but before you go there, I would make sure you have local search strength and ongoing contact with existing customers nailed first.  So there’s a pretty solid tool kit to help you in times of plenty and famine. Give us a call at 904-744-8877 and let us help you get the customers and leads you...

Yes these American holidays can be real confusing, especially between now and Labor Day Weekend (a topic of a similar post here). The common thread of course is some kind of patriotic feeling, flags, barbeques and yes, mattress sales.  So if you’re communicating as a business, does it really matter if you thank the troops for their service on Memorial Day as if it were Veteran’s Day or theme your promotions as if the last Monday in May was the Fourth of July? I think it does. Clarity in your messaging says a lot about your business and the thought you put into what you do and how you serve your customers. So if Memorial Day is about remembering service men and women that made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, then when if you want to reference the holiday, then that’s what you talk about. Thanking current men and women in the military for their service is muddled messaging. As is Happy Memorial Day; that’s like saying happy memorial service. Unless of course you’re in the mattress business. Then you know what to talk...

I tried to avoid slipping into a New Year’s resolution theme with this because a) it’s been done to death and b) we all know what happens to New Year’s resolutions by February. Still the start of the calendar year is always a great time to refocus on what you need to do to be successful and grow your business in 2023. So here are a few tips: 1. Turbocharge local search   You’ll notice that I don’t use passive words like position, setup or even optimize. If you’re a local public-facing business with a physical location and you don’t do this, you might as well skip the rest of this post and save yourself some time. Quite simply, Google is where the vast majority of people go (usually on their phones) to find a business near them that has what they need. The local results that are returned are essentially the map results and being in the top three (the “three pack”) is the holy grail, the top five fairly solid, the top ten, minimal and anything below that you can forget about it. So you need to claim your free Google My Business listing if you haven’t already done so, make sure your business category and other information is correct, populate your listing with information that points to the key products and services that you provide, post to your listing often with updates and offers, and get reviews, lots of them. Reviews are going to be the single most important factor that will separate you from the pack, so beg, plead, cajole, harass, stalk — whatever you have to do to get them. Just don’t try to pay for them, that is majorly against the rules. 2. Fine-tune your website   And I’m not talking about adding cool new graphics or changing to a slick new theme. Your website is linked directly to your local search performance above, as Google views one as amplifying the other. So your website needs to have markers that point to your location and content that supports the products and services that you have on your My Business listing. Other important adjustments you can make are having a blog on your site...