Carmen Rane Hudson

The Fastest Way to Supercharge Local Small Business Marketing

May 30, 2013 by Carmen Rane Hudson

Many of our customers ask us how they can make their local small business marketing start working a lot faster. It’s natural that you’d want results yesterday, since you need new customers to keep your business going.

Hearing us tell you that “SEO is a slow, steady process” is probably not something you enjoy hearing. It’s true, but there are ways to make the process faster.

As Phil Rozek mentioned in one of his recent “Lightening Round Q&A on Local SEO” posts, your first concern should be to clean up your citations.

As you may have spotted in other posts, a citation occurs any time your business name, address, and phone number appear somewhere on the internet.

In order for a citation to count for you instead of against you, it has to be accurate. It also has to match your Google+ Local address exactly.

How exact is “exact?”

Let’s put it this way. If your legal address spells out the word “Street” and someone else’s uses “St.,” there’s a problem. And when someone uses “Road” or “Rd.” by mistake, Google questions it and trusts your business listing that much less.

Maybe someday Google will change this up, setting their algorithm to understand that Street and St. are the same thing. For now, it’s the way that Google discourages fraudulent, fake businesses from littering up a tool that’s currently working reasonably well for end-users.

The task that’s ahead is time-consuming. You need to check you citations and claim listings across multiple sources. Each of these tools will basically help you build a list of sites to tackle:

There really isn’t a good way to automate this process. You’ll just have to get in there and do it (or have it done for you).

The process can take hours, and there are lots of subtle ways to make mistakes. That’s why many people do opt to get professional help.

It’s kind of like being a contractor. Sure, there are resources that will show someone how to do their own roofing, but mistakes are costly and there are a whole lot of nuances that the DIY guy doesn’t know. In the end, the DIY guy knows he’ll probably actually save money (and time) by letting a pro handle the job.

It’s worth considering if speed is your concern. It’s also important to remember that the Top 7 local listings are all that Google is showing anymore, so if you don’t handle this issue then you might soon find yourself invisible online.

The 9 Keys to Good Small Business Website Development

May 29, 2013 by Carmen Rane Hudson

We get a lot of questions from business owners about what makes a good small business website. Development of a small business website is a pretty important thing to pay attention to since these days your website pretty much rests at the center of any good modern day marketing effort.

Every website is a little bit different. However, I can give you 9 design elements that will help you succeed.

1. WordPress Integration

WordPress is so SEO and user friendly that it barely makes sense not to use it. There are other content management platforms, but many of them are needlessly complicated and few are as easy to customize.

Ease of use and customization are important. Frankly, you’re already pressed for time. There’s no good reason to create a website that’s going to be a headache for you to update.

If you’re doing it yourself, most hosting services will let you install WordPress simply by clicking the appropriate link.

2. A Custom, Branded Theme

Free themes just aren’t going to cut it. You want a clean, attractive, personalized WordPrss theme that helps you communicate your business brand.

When you do this, you’ll get a real edge over the competition that helps you grow your business simply by making you look more interesting, professional, and credible.

Your website is the one place that customers will go to find you and evaluate your products or services. Spend the money.

3. A Unique Selling Proposition

You can add this on an “About Us” page or a “Why Us” page, but it needs to be there. And 91% of the words on that page need to be all about the customer’s needs and problems, not how great you are.

See my previous post about writing a good About Page if you’re not sure how to do this.

4. A Clean, Navigable Menu

Make your site easy to get around. Put a drop-down menu right at the top.

Make good use of sub-menus so that you’re not crowding up the page. Make sure that the menu includes the following items:

Your Home Page
Your Major Products or Services
Your Service Area (If Applicable)
Your Contact Information
Your Blog

What about testimonials? Some people put them on a separate tab, others feature them right on their home page so that people can see them right away.

5. A Blog

You need one.

It needs to be updated with relevant content at least twice a week. If you’re not sure what to put on your blog, see the following articles:

Each blog post should contain at least 250 words of relevant, readable, useful information that’s interesting to your customers. Think about what your customers ask you all the time – that stuff is a goldmine for potential blog post topics.

Photos and videos are a big plus whenever and wherever appropriate.

6. Social Sharing Buttons

Google is using all sorts of social indicators to determine how and where to rank content. That means you need to encourage your visitors to share your content.

You can do this by adding share buttons to your site. They don’t have to display the share count if you don’t want them to – there are plenty of buttons that are just sharing icons.

7. Local Keywords Whenever Appropriate

If you do business in a specific place (and most small businesses do) then you need to take every appropriate opportunity to work the names of that place into your website. This will help you draw visitors who are actually equipped to do business with you.

8. A Contact Form

A contact form will let you reach out to people who visit your website. It builds the bridge between passive readers and new customers.

Just make sure that you don’t overdo it with your contact form. If you do, you could lose sales.

9. A Footer with your Address On It

Make sure the address matches the one in Google+ Local exactly. That way you will naturally build citations with each and every web page you create, which will help you rank higher in local search results.

Get Help if You’re Overwhelmed

Reading this list might have given you an idea of just how much goes into professional internet marketing. If you’re still not sure what to do, we can help.

How to Grow a Small Business

May 28, 2013 by Carmen Rane Hudson

As I look around online I find a lot of questions about how to grow a small business. Some of those questions come from people whose businesses have stalled, and some come from new business owners. I’ve also seen the questions coming from people who are feeling squeezed by competitors and who really want a way to increase their market share.

Fortunately, meeting all of these goals isn’t as hard as most people think, especially not in the age of internet marketing. That is because most of the competition isn’t even using the tools that will help them grow, which means you’ve got a real chance of success the moment you take advantage of those tools for your own business.

Get a Website

It’s 2013. But over 50% of businesses out there still don’t have websites.

We work with a lot of contractors, and I’m sorry to say that among contractors the numbers are even worse. I’ve been helping a friend look for a few pros to work on her home recently, and I’ve been appalled at the results of my searches in her city.

Frankly, I can find 40 names but only 4 websites.

I pretty much won’t so much as call a business – any business – if they don’t have a website these days. That just tells me that your business is backwards and out of touch.

I know I’m not the only person who thinks this way.

Optimize Your Google+ Local Listings

We’re a local SEO company so of course we bang this drum all the time. However, most businesses are not doing a thing with their Google+ Local listings. I know this because several of the local businesses in the top 7 for any given category in some cities haven’t so much as claimed their listings.

This represents an enormous opportunity for you. If you do optimize our web pages you’ve got a good chance of snagging one of those Top 7 spots, showing up in the search results in a spot that customers really trust.

Build Relationships

Build relationships with your customers. Really take the time to take care of them.

Spend time with them. Answer their questions. Deliver great service.

These things aren’t hard, but most businesses don’t do them. Encountering someone who even does these basics, who is kind and knowledgeable, is even more rare.

So if you can go above and beyond the call of duty then you’re simply going to blow people away.

When you do this, something magical happens. These customers call you again and again, every time they need yo. They also tell their friends all about you. And yes, they sometimes even voluntarily think to leave online reviews.

There’s plenty of fast new technology to help you market your business. But getting a lasting edge still requires at least one slow-and-steady method: being one of the best at what you do.

This Combination Can’t Be Beat

Doing any one of these things is helpful. Doing all three of them together will really help your business reach its full potential.

Action Items:

Build a website if you don’t have one already.

Claim your Google+ Local listing.

Don’t have time, know-how, or desire to do this stuff? Call us at (800) 679-6005.

Home Improvement Marketing that Prevents You from Losing Bids to Lowballers

May 27, 2013 by Carmen Rane Hudson

If you’re in the home improvement business then you’ve felt the pain of losing a bid to a low-quality competitor whose only asset was their willingness to provide rock bottom prices. Fortunately, home improvement marketing can be planned in a way that allows you to maintain the integrity of your prices while still continuing to win business for your company.

The strategy addresses both your actual marketing and the sales process that the marketing initiates for you. It’s a very easy and inexpensive strategy to implement.

The idea is that we’re going to find a way to reach those customers for whom price is not the sole consideration when making a decision about your services. We want people who are more interested in quality and who have money to spend in order to get that quality.

You also need to make sure that you’re selling on that value, and not on the price. If you start selling on price alone then a race to the bottom is all that you’re going to have left.

Strategy #1: Adjust Your Website

Is your website a full blown authority site with tons of interesting blog posts addressing problems and questions that your target customer might have? Or is it a 5-page electronic brochure?

If it’s the latter it’s time to create a regular supply of helpful, friendly content.

The content that you put on your site only has to be related to what you do. I understand that, as, say, a person who replaces roof tiles that you might find it challenging to come up with vast quantities of cool stuff to say about, say, how homeowners can maintain their roof or tell if it needs replacing.

But you can expand. If customers want to know how to maintain their roof they might want to know about other aspects of home improvement and home maintenance as well.

A fence contractor can build goodwill by talking about rose bushes as well as fences. In fact, adding this extra content demonstrates that you care about the total package – all of the issues that a homeowner might care about – and that you’re not just looking for excuses to write “roof” or “fence” over and over on your site to impress the search engines.

Along the way you can also spend some time talking about what makes you different and better. For example, if you only use the finest wood to build fences instead of the cheap, low quality wood that your lowballing competitor likes to use, then you’ll give yourself a lot of opportunities to say so without attacking that competitor. A homeowner who is shopping around will take this into consideration when it contacts you for a bid.

Strategy #2: Adjust Your Presentation

The second part of this strategy happens when you actually get in front of a customer. Now you’re there to make the sale.

Make no mistake, going to deliver an estimate is an opportunity to actually make a sale. Don’t just run in, quote a figure and run out again.

Spend zero time stressing your low prices, too. Instead, you need to take the opportunity and the time to ask your prospective customer a lot of questions.

Your goal is to understand the customer’s situation and concerns. Then you can walk the homeowner through what you do, how you do it, and why it will solve the problem that they’re hoping to fix.

Once that’s done you can ask the customer if he or she has any other questions. Answer them thoroughly, demonstrating your care, concern, and expertise.

Really take the time to build that relationship and that trust. Then, when it’s all done, hand off the quote without any additional comment about the price and ask when your prospective customer would like to schedule the work.

Ask “when,” not “if.” If is a yes-no question.

In sales, you’ll find that a “yes-no” question is always answered with no, so avoid them. Just assume they want you.

If you want to take it a step further, suggest two open dates and see if the customer picks one. If so, then you’ve just written the other competitors out of the equation. You can wrap up any additional paperwork and be on your way, knowing you’ve made that sale.

Now of course, customers whose budget is smaller than your price are still going to go with a lower bid if they don’t have any other choice. But that’s okay. They were never really in your target market as you were looking for people who were capable of paying in the first place.

And those who can pay will want you. They’ll want you because the biggest fear a homeowner has is that you’re going to screw up the work and cost them more time and money than they’re prepared to lose.

If you take the time to work with the customer you’ll dispel those concerns. That means the customer will want you even if you’re the MOST expensive – especially if they’ve already spent time on your website being pre-sold on your services.

As you can see, the two strategies work hand in hand to win more bids for your home improvement business.

Action Items:

Begin blogging at least twice a week.

Change your sales approach whenever you’re in front of a customer.

Will You Lose Business By Giving Away Too Much Information on Your Contractor Website?

May 24, 2013 by Carmen Rane Hudson

When we’re setting up contractor websites and blogs we often post a lot of “how to” information. We often hear contractors expressing the concern that nobody will want to call them in if they know how to do these things themselves.

The fact is, you’re not going to lose any business that you wouldn’t have lost already, and you’re going to gain some business that you might not otherwise have had.

Let me explain. There are dedicated DIY people out there who don’t really want other people working on their home.

Those people are going to get that information from somewhere. And they’re probably going to do it themselves. You were never going to get their business for the simple thing you blogged about anyway.

However, these people are also usually smart enough to know when a job is beyond them. The guy or gal who will change his or her own light fixtures isn’t necessarily going to try to tackle his faulty electric wiring.

So when these type of people find a job that’s beyond them, they’re going to remember who gave them the great information about changing their light fixtures. They’re going to trust you more. You obviously know what you’re doing, and you’re secure enough to give valuable information away for free.

You’re obviously a helper, not a taker, and people need to know that before they’re going to trust you with larger issues in their home.

Then there’s the other type of person. This person wouldn’t touch a screwdriver if his or her life depended on it.

They don’t want to mess with their homes. They want experts to mess with their homes.

They see their home as a big investment and they’re willing to pay the right person to help them take care of that investment. They treat every project like that DIY person treats the big project.

However, they want to know they’re putting their home in the right hands. The fact that you’ll take the time to show them how to fix something is a huge confidence builder for them. It tells them that they’ve come to the right place.

Thus, they’ll pick up the phone and call you. And in both cases your business increases!

There’s also probably a 3rd case. That DIY person who is bad at it and whose spouse eventually gets fed up and calls you;) All of the above benefits still apply.

Never be afraid to share what you know on your website. You can never give away too much information and the more you share, the more your business will grow!

Are You Adding Enough Local Keywords to Your Contractor Website?

May 22, 2013 by Carmen Rane Hudson

There’s a big problem with the majority of SEO advice that’s out there, at least as far as it impacts the average contractor. Most of the advice is aimed at people who are trying to compete with other websites on a national, or even on a global scale.

But as a contractor, you really only need to market to a select group of people: the ones in your service area. While it might be a nice ego boost to have 30,000 readers for your landscaping blog it won’t be very helpful to you if most of those readers are coming in from other states.

The solution is to pay very close attention to adding local keywords to each and every blog post that you write.

Don’t get intimidated. Local keywords are just the names of the cities that you serve.

There are several ways to do this without sounding like a robot. One way would be to tie into local events or conditions somehow. For example, if you’re a gutter contractor, you may have a blog post that begins like this:

“Here in Minneapolis, we see a lot of homeowners with ice dams in their gutters.”

Another way is to focus in on local events for some of your blog posts. You are, after all, part of a community, and it’s not a bad idea to support that community.

A third way would be to create a little bio at the end of each blog post. These are nice because you can include a little call to action at the end of your bio without looking too sales-focused in your main post. Set it aside in italics, and write something like this:

We serve Coon Rapids, Anoka, Blaine, and the rest of the Minneapolis-St.Paul metro area. Call us today for a free estimate!

You can (and should) mix and match these efforts for best results. If you do, you will ensure that most of your readers will be in a position to act on your great information by calling you in for their next project!