As consumers tighten their budgets and reevaluate spending during the Christmas season, it is important to sharpen your online marketing efforts.
Citations are used by search engines to calculate your ranking in listings when users search for products and services that are related to your niche. If your business lacks proper citations, your ranking and traffic would not reach their highest potential compared to using seo services melbourne to make it popular online.
In order to keep your business in the eye of potential customers, you should search the internet for citations, which list your business and information about it.
Citations are used to show that your business is valid, making them an important part of the algorithm Google uses to calculate your ranking. It’s easy to make a website and call yourself an expert in something, but citations are solid proof that your business is valuable and real.
If you’re a business in a small niche, Google is an excellent tool when there are valid citations of your business on the internet. If you’re in a niche with very little competition, it’s easier for your company to outrank others and show up in search results for users all over the world and within your community. A local business listing could greatly improve your visibility. You can check out some of these great citations building tools here.
By showing up on local blogs and listings, your business becomes more involved in the community. This improves local search engine rankings, essentially validating your authenticity to Google. When you show up on legitimate sites, such as in a local paper, it is difficult to dispute your validity. It also puts your name more into the mix and exposes your business to the community, which is great in the eyes of Google.
Consistency is one of your greatest assets when it comes to Google. If your business is consistent, such as keeping contact information the same, both Google and users that are searching for information will appreciate this. By staying consistent, you solidify your company’s standing and it’s easier for others to find you.
If the manpower that it takes to optimize the citations for your business seems like too much, you can count on a quality citation building service to improve SEO for your business and improve the visibility of your brand. To get more details about the SEO, visit seonexus. Search rankings rely on citations as well as other information on the internet to determine the legitimacy of your business, making it important to keep track of and manage your local business listing on a number of sites on the web, including places like the Chamber of Commerce.
Here are a few suggestions courtesy of John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing:
Direct Offers – Create offers that involve low-cost trials, free samples and valuable education-based information. Make an immediate response to these offers the sole reason your advertising exists.
Website – One of the most important things nowadays is having a good website for your business, because everything spread faster on the internet. Now, to write a interesting article is not always easy, you’ll need to learn how to paraphrase effectively with this amazing tool that will improve your writing skills.
Repackaging – Re-introduce your products with added features or services of value or do the same with your service offerings by packaging them in new and innovative ways. Increase the value of your products and services and spell the value out in terms that mean something to the prospect.
Referrals – Get out to your customers and start [talking] with them about ways to partner for referrals. Your customers know times are tough, too. [Communicate] with them and honestly explore ways to help them help you.
Strategic Partners – Now is the time to build your network of strategic referral partners. Start by referring business to trusted partners and make it a point to sit down with at least one current or potential strategic partner each week with the sole purpose of directly discussing ways to help each other grow.
Creative Thinking – Give your customers and vendors “reason why” thinking to encourage larger orders, better terms, guaranteed purchases, and loyalty clubs.
Magento offers native functionality that allows you to execute on many of John’s strategies:
- Flexible Coupons: create offers to get customers back in your store
- Email Newsletter Management: deliver the coupon via email
- Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts: increase order size by encouraging larger quantity purchases
- Bundled Products: repackage how you offer your products by bundling
- New Items Promotional Tool: highlight new products
- Up-sells in Shopping Cart: increase order size at time of purchase
- Cross-sells on Product Page: increase order size during shopping experience
- Send to a Friend: make it easy for a visitor to forward their wishlist to mom in time for Christmas
Ben Waugh says
Do you do blogroll exchanging? If you want to exchange links let me know.
Email me back if you’re interested.
Toni Anicic says
These are some great tips you gave us here. I think the key goal in these tough times should be to connect with your costumers and try to get a good word of mouth out there.
An e-mail newsletter is a great way to do just that. Especially if you provide them with some real content (if you don’t try to sell to them all the time).
joshcolter says
Great point, Toni! E-mail has about a $45 ROI for every $1 spent according to the DMA. It is a fantastic way to connect with customers and build relationships.
Last weekend I bought a mattress. I spent a couple of days trying to figure out why some mattresses cost $300 while others run $3k. The online stores that provided content shaped my thought process on what is important for the purchase. They added value to me in a non-salesy way and stood out from their competition.
Ultimately I bought a discounted mattress at a brick & mortar store because it was less expensive than comparable models online. I would have gladly opted into email newsletters from different mattress companies if they had offered frequent discounts or offers for signing up for a newsletter. Now I need a new pillow and maybe a new set of sheets. Why wouldn’t the same company drop me a note after the sale to say, “Hey, thanks for choosing us. Oh, by the way, we have pillows and sheets that match your exact mattress.” The customer acquisition cost disappears for them since they do not have to pay for keywords to get my pillow purchase (they should have my email from original purchase). And they could probably upsell me along with a lot of others to increase the lifetime value of their existing customers.