Tips and Tricks – Internet Local Listings

11 Essential Tips for a Fantastic Facebook Page

May 21, 2015internetlocallistingsLeave a comment

Are you not seeing the engagement you’d like to on your Facebook page? Well, we have 11 tips to share with you that just might inspire you to try something new!

1. Stay on topic. Your company sells specific products and services. So when people find you on Facebook, they want to find out more about your current inventory, sales that you’re running, and any other pertinent company information. And that’s exactly what you should give them. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t write about silly things every once in a while or share other sites’ content (in fact, you should be doing these things as long as they align with your brand’s voice and image, because people like lighthearted things), but be sure that most updates capture/portray the essence of your company in a professional manner.

2. Upload photos and videos. Videos actually have a larger reach than photos right now, but only if they’re shared natively. (That is, uploaded to Facebook or shared from someone else’s page who has uploaded that video–not posted from YouTube or another video sharing site.) So obviously, whenever possible, it’s good to share a video. But what are you supposed to do if you don’t have any videos? Well, at the very least, include a photo with your update. Visual media, whether video or photo, is much more effective in reaching your audience than posting a simple text update. People are visual, and their eyes immediately go to colorful or interesting pictures. So make use of that!

3. Do not respond to things unprofessionally. There’s a time and a place getting irritated with people and it’s not when you’re on Facebook–especially if you run a business. If someone leaves a nasty comment, don’t panic. Try to determine the root of the issue–is it a customer who is angry because of poor service? You can try to politely offer a deal to make up for it. Is it someone who just wants to vent? Apologize for poor service and move on. Is it someone who is deliberately being abusive? Well, don’t vent back. Instead, let’s move on to number four to solve this one…

4. Don’t ignore trolls. But don’t feed them either. If they’re disruptive and being mean or callous to others, block them. Create a space your fans feel comfortable in. This is far more important than picking fights or letting your Facebook comments go completely uncontrolled. People don’t like hostile spaces, so moderate those comments and avoid that negativity altogether.

5. Share your company news with them. People love celebrating milestones with you and getting a peek at how things work within your company. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re an established company with lots of history, make it a point to include your customers in celebrating your milestones and you’ll see that you can build a more meaningful connection with them.

6. Do weekly events. People love participating in events, particularly if it involves a silly game. Things like “fill in the blank” or “caption this photo” work well (although with these, you’ll always have those unsavory comments to deal with), and some people enjoy it when you pose questions that they can answer (for example, if you shared a picture of your new product and asked people how they would use it). You can also have fans participate for a chance at being featured on your site, or you could have them leave promotional links of their own to foster sharing. There are tons of possibilities!

7. Offer giveaways. Sometimes people just want to win free things. Okay, a lot of times people just want to win free things. 😉 So when it fits into your budget, come up with a way to give your Facebook fans the chance to win something great. It keeps them coming back for more!

8. Post blog updates on Facebook. While it’s a good idea to set up your blog posts so that they’re automatically sent to your social media sites, you should always stagger the distribution. Why? Because when you send out one blog post and it hits Facebook, G+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and everywhere else at the same time, you’re not maximizing your reach. So when you set up your blog’s auto-posting features, just keep in mind that you might want to discover which times your social media fans are the most active, and schedule accordingly!

9. Trade likes–Don’t buy them. Some people buy “likes” so that their Facebook pages appear to be more popular than they really are. But when you really think about it, what good does this do you? You spend money to have fake fans interact with your page once and never return. You’d get more return on your investment if you took the time to cultivate a real community–even if it takes longer for your numbers to grow. One tactic that you might want to try is trading “likes”. Send out a message every once in a while asking to this. Or you could like someone else’s page and just drop them a note telling them you did so, and leave a link to your page in case they’re interested. Don’t be pushy about it–and if someone doesn’t return the like, that’s okay. You won’t always be successful in this tactic, but it can be a great way to meet some new fans!

10. Link to social media profiles. It sounds obvious, but there are too many people who forget to do this. If you have a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, then be sure to cross-link to those sites. For example, on Facebook, you should link not only to your website, but also to Twitter and LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, link to Facebook and Twitter. And so on. Sometimes people stumble upon your social media sites before your website, so it’s best to make sure that no matter where they land, they can connect with you anywhere on the web!

11. Experiment with advertising. Today, it’s almost essential that you advertise to get your Facebook page noticed. Because Facebook’s algorithm tends to favor posts with more engagement (and sponsored posts, of course), people often start paying to promote posts or ads in hopes that people will like them and click through to learn more. And that can be rough for smaller businesses that don’t have a lot of money for this kind of thing. But the good news is that you can actually set a budget as low as $5 a day to run ads, and you don’t have to run the ad every day. You could actually set aside a small budget of $100 a month and see improvements in your post engagement and clickthroughs to your site. It’s definitely worth experimenting with it!

Do you have any other tips for getting more out of your Facebook marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments!

Internet Local Listings is an internet advertising company in Santa Ana, CA, serving clients across the country with the best website marketing services available in the industry. Visit us here for more information, or give us a call at (888) 770-3950 to discover how we can help you be seen online.

5 SEO Tactics You Should Be Working On

May 6, 2015internetlocallistingsLeave a comment

1. A Great Website

So many businesses are focused on simply getting themselves online that they often forget about optimizing user experience. In fact, many small business owners aren’t really even that familiar with the concept of user experience, and instead put up a website without really considering anything beyond its mere existence in cyberspace.

So why is user experience is important? Well, for starters, someone who arrives at your webpage has a goal in mind. To better illustrate this example, let’s say you sell 100% vegan, organic, dye-free doggie beds. So when a visitor finds your website, they’re probably comparing prices for different brands of doggie beds, or are curious about yours in particular because they’re 100% vegan, organic, and dye-free. That makes sense, right?

So what happens, then, when your site is slow to load? What happens when a visitor can’t find ordering information or how to contact you with questions? Or worse, what if they encounter a bunch of broken links or images that won’t load?

They “bounce”. Bounce rate is how long it takes someone who has navigated to your page to leave. When bounce rate is high, that’s a bad thing. That means your users are having a poor experience and they want out of there as quickly as possible!

So focus on creating a website that not only looks great and is filled with valuable information about your products and services, but also is:

Easy to navigate–menus located in clear spots, informative labeling for links.
Filled out completely–no “under construction” pages or broken links.
Structured in a way that visitors can easily parse–i.e., no blocks of text that go on and on and on; no images that take up half the screen; no unnecessary scrolling.
And a quick load time–in fact, studies cite a less than 3 second load time as being optimal. Yes, it’s that important.

2. Fresh, High-Quality Content

Content is king. You’ve heard it before, and unfortunately, we’re gonna trot it out for you again. Why? Because it’s still true.

Think about it: Would you rather go to a site that has content that is a) well written, informative, and answers any questions you might have? Or content that’s b) clearly hastily thrown together, written only for search engines, and basically just takes up space on the screen? Obviously you’re going to go with option a.

So then why would you even bother putting together shoddy content? Your visitors will hate it, which in turn, means search engines will hate it. Content for the sake of content isn’t helpful. Content for the sake of your visitors is.

What does all of this mean for you? It means that you should update your site regularly with only high-quality content. Make sure that your content is helpful to your visitors. If you get negative feedback, take that into consideration to improve your future content creation efforts. If you do all of this, you’re already steps ahead of the competition.

3. Social Media Presence

You’ve probably told by many sources (least of all, us) that you need to be on social media. And while some businesses can manage to be successful without a social media presence, they’re among the few and the lucky. Many older businesses in small towns often have enough clout to simply rely on word of mouth marketing. But if you’re not one of those old, established businesses, then you need to seriously evaluate why you should be creating social media accounts for your SEO and marketing strategies.

To start, you should pick a few platforms you feel comfortable on and that will benefit your brand the most. How do you know if a social media platform will work to your advantage?

Let’s go back to our doggie bed example. Obviously, pet owners will be the most likely people to buy your products. Pet owners enjoy looking at photos of cute animals and they also like talking about their pets. This makes our hypothetical business ideal for Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. These highly visual platforms will let you show off your product in a way that pet owners will relate to, and they’ll want to talk with others about their experiences with your product.

If you’re an HVAC company, though, you probably won’t have as much luck with Pinterest or Instagram. Rather, you might want to try Quora, where you can answer questions (people have lots of DIY questions that can be answered here for free), and you might want to put together YouTube tutorials detailing minor maintenance jobs your customers can do on their own time.

As you can see, a social media presence is important for most brands. But you have to choose platforms that actually benefit your brand, as well as make sure that you have enough time to maintain your updates. Nothing will grow stale faster than a dead Facebook page or YouTube channel. By connecting with your customers and marketing your work through social media, you’ll bring more traffic to your site and you’ll probably earn shares and links back to your articles in the long run.

4. Creating visual content.

So far, we’ve talked mostly about written content. And while blogs and informative product pages are all well and good, there’s a lot more link juice to be found in visual content.

Visual content includes videos, images/memes, and infographics, all of which are highly shareable. If you think about your own sharing tendencies, which are you most likely to send to your family and friends–a long, in-depth article about why vegan dog beds are the hottest thing right now, or a video showing a cute pup enjoying his new vegan dog bed? Probably the latter. And so it goes that your own customers will be more likely to share your articles and content if it is a visually-compelling piece.

If you’re not graphically inclined, that’s no problem. There are plenty of sites out there that help you design images and infographics for free. Try the following to start:

Canva.com (Social media graphics, posters, business cards, website design)
Piktochart.com (Infographics)
YouTube Online Editor (A YouTube account is free, as is their own native editor)
BufferApp’s Pablo Image Editor (Great for quote images)

5. Most recently–be mobile friendly.

Desktop searches are trending downward compared to mobile searches–in fact, mobile outpaces desktop in 10 countries, including the US, according to Google’s recent reports. Combine that with the mobile update that occurred April 21st of this year, and you can see why you should already be focusing on creating mobile-friendly websites. And if you aren’t focusing on mobile accessibility, then it’s time you do so.

It’s easy to make your site mobile friendly. Check out our article on preparing your site for the mobile update and see how you can ensure you’ll be in Google’s good graces. If you don’t do this, you’re going to be pushed off the search results pages for people who are using mobile devices to find what they need.

You might be thinking, “Well, I don’t think people will be finding me through any fancy kind of searches. I just use Google on my computer.” And while you might be doing that, that doesn’t mean others are. A lot of small businesses get web traffic through local mobile searches. It’s imperative that local businesses be accurately listed so that people who are looking for their products and services are able to locate them, no matter which devie they’re using. (And that’s what we specialize in, too!)

So it doesn’t matter whether you think your customers will be finding you on their desktops–because not all of them will be. Add tablets into the mix and you’ve got yourself several mobile devices to accommodate. Now you can see why it’s so important to be mobile-friendly!

Hopefully by focusing on these five SEO tactics, you can start to see some improvement in your rankings. Remember, SEO is a long-term investment, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But with perseverance and some smart strategies, you’ll soon see yourself improving your online presence.

15 Quick Tips to Boost Blog Traffic

April 22, 2015internetlocallistingsLeave a comment

1. Connect your profiles. Does your Twitter page have your website listed in the bio? Does your Facebook link to your blog? Does your blog have links to all your social media profiles clearly listed? Make it easy for people to connect with you on the platform of their choice, and make sure all platforms can clearly direct people to your blog. Voila! Easy traffic.

2. Set up a newsletter subscription. You might entice readers with a free PDF if they sign up for your email list, or you might offer a special 3-part course to help them learn more about the services you offer. You also might offer a coupon. Whatever you do, set up some kind of reward and get people to sign up for a subscription via newsletter. Of course, this means you’ll have to occasionally send out updates, but people who are willing to give you their email address are much more likely to return in the future and purchase your products, so it isn’t the same as blasting them unwarranted.

3. Offer RSS feed subscriptions or simple blog subscriptions. Not everyone wants to sign up for a newsletter. But many people will sign up to read new updates. So enable the widgets on WordPress for people to easily subscribe to your blog via email or RSS feed–if you don’t use WordPress, there are also options to do this in Blogger, as well as through your own website. (You’ll have to speak to your developer about this.)

4. Send out notifications of your updates on social media. So not only do you have to make sure your profiles connect to each other and that people can easily subscribe to your blog and social media, but you also have to make sure that you send out updates automatically about your brand new post. You can set it up in WordPress to publicize to your connected accounts as soon as a post goes live (and you can do so in Blogger as well).

5. Schedule posts ahead of time. Have a hectic life with not a lot of extra time to blog? Well, why not try scheduling posts ahead of time? If you have one day that you can dedicate to writing the next month’s posts, do it. Then schedule them to go live whenever you want. Your posts will go out reliably when you need them to, and you can focus on doing other things until you’re ready to write again.

6. Include links to your newsletter in your sidebars/widget areas. When you set up your blog, make sure sidebars, menus, and widget areas are full of great information–like how to connect with you on social media and how to sign up for your newsletter. Doing this is a great way to make sure that you stay in contact with your fans who really want to hear from you–they gave you their email, after all, so they’ll be eager to read what you send them!

7. Install Sniply and watch your clickthrough traffic grow. If you haven’t heard of Sniply, you’ll definitely want to check it out. How does it work? You can set it up so that, when a visitor clicks a link you provide (be it on your site or through social media), they’ll not only see the article you’re linking to, but they’ll also see a little bubble in the corner of their screen. This bubble includes a space to include a catchy, customizable call to action, as well as a button that links back to your blog.

So how is this beneficial to you? Well, when you link to a site other than your own (say, a blog you enjoy linking to), people who follow that link will see an opportunity to be led back to your site whenever they’re ready. So you’re promoting your work while promoting the work of others simultaneously. Pretty cool, huh?

8. Offer to do guest posts for other blogs in your niche. If you enjoy blogging (and presumably, you do!), you might want to branch out and offer your services to other bloggers. Now, this might seem counterproductive–when do you have the time to write for other sites, after all?–but it’s not. You can build relationships with other bloggers, who will then promote your work alongside their own. You can also earn links to your site by including them in your byline. All in all, guest blogging is an easy way to earn links and get clicks to your site.

9. Post comments on other blogs. If you’re not feeling up to offering a guest post, another great way to get involved with other blogs is to leave friendly comments on recent posts. Usually you’ll have to set up a profile to do so, which allows you to have a branded profile image as well as a link to your own site in one convenient spot. People can then visit you by following the links in your profile!

10. Join Google+ communities and offer blog posts where applicable. Same goes for Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, and Twitter tribes. By joining communities or special groups, you can find like-minded people who are likely to be interested in your products and services. They might even share your updates for you. Social media doesn’t have to be ultra-competitive–in fact, it can really be beneficial to make friends with those you’d normally consider your competitors.

11. Install an SEO plug-in if you use WordPress. Updating your posts to be within the guidelines and recommendations of the plugin will help you get a better chance of ranking in Google/Bing/Yahoo. The best part is that you don’t have to know anything about coding or analytics–you just have to be able to fill in boxes as the plug-in suggests. The plug-ins can be free (or you can pay if you’d like more options) and they’re quick and easy to install.

12. Use CoPromote, dlvr.it, or IFTTT formulas to disperse your posts automatically and at different times. Staggering updates is key. If you dump your links everywhere all at once, you don’t reach the widest audience. For example, you might try updating Twitter first, followed by Facebook at the most heavily-trafficked times. Do what fits best with your schedule.

13. Don’t forget to check statistics. Finding that one post is performing better than the others? Don’t be afraid to reshare it. As long as you’re not spamming the same link over and over, you should be fine! And no matter what, always remember to reshare posts again a few months down the road. You’re always gaining new fans and followers–give them a chance to read your best work, too!

14. Put a link to your blog in your email signature. Make sure you’re always just a click away. You can also include links to your social media profiles or include your cell or office number. This way, whenever you send an email to a customer, they’ll have an easy way of reaching you. And if you’re sending out those guest blogging requests, it’s also a great way to encourage prospective blogging partners to visit your social media profiles, too!

15. Install a mobile-responsive theme! Now that Google is including mobile-friendliness in its ranking algorithm, you’ll need to make sure your blog can be read by mobile devices. Install a theme that’s responsive (aka mobile-friendly) and you won’t have to worry about being pushed off the top page for mobile searches. That should help with blog traffic!

5 Ways to Reach More Fans on Facebook

April 15, 2015internetlocallistingsLeave a comment

Are your Facebook marketing strategies falling a little flat? Have you noticed that your pictures and quotes don’t seem to be reaching quite as many people as they used to? If so, you might want to re-evaluate your Facebook marketing strategy… and we’re here to give you a few helpful tips that yuo can start implementing right away.

Facebook is notorious for changing its algorithms, and people often don’t understand exactly why or how it’s changed–all they know is they’re seeing less engagement and fewer numbers for people reached. It’s frustrating and it’s time-consuming to try to alter your strategies, especially when you always seem to be a step behind because you’re not a professional marketer–you’re a small business owner, and you’re busy.

But if there’s one thing marketers can tell you, it’s that times change fast. Especially when it comes to social media. So how can you boost your engagement and reach more fans on Facebook right now? We have a few suggestions for you.

Video

Up until fairly recently, the tried-and-true way to reach the most people on Facebook was to post a picture and a link. You may have noticed, however, that this seems to have changed. In fact, photos are now one of the least effective ways to make sure fans see your content.

So what do you do instead? Well, video reaches more people than any other kind of post–but not just any video. The format has to be native, meaning you must actually upload the video to Facebook. Why is this? More than likely, Facebook is trying to keep you sharing videos using Facebook–not some other site. So even if you have a YouTube channel, it’s worth it to upload the videos separately to Facebook to get the most eyes on your content.

Quotes with photos

Although photos don’t have the reach they used to, people love sharing inspiring and motivating quotes. By placing the quote on an eye-catching image, you make it far more likely that someone will press “share”. So while the initial post might not reach as many people as, say, a video, if you get more engagement, you’ll get more shares and a bigger reach in the end.

Another thing about photos is that they have the potential to live on for quite some time. Because of the way the Facebook algorithm works, someone might not see your post right away, but it could pop up in their feed the next day. When they share it then, you’ll notice a spike in shares as their friends share it, and so on.

Don’t forget your CTA button

If you haven’t noticed the call-to-action button on Facebook yet, then you definitely need to take the time to check it out. It’s a new feature, but it’s a powerful one: By going into your settings, you can choose a call to action from a pre-set list (for example, “Shop Now”, “Learn More”, “Sign Up”, etc.) and direct people to the URL of your choice. Do you want to send them to a sales page? A landing page where they can sign up for a newsletter or free ebook? You can do any of that using this button.

The best part is that it appears right on your header image–it’s not hidden in some dark corner of your profile. After you have it set up, you can track clicks and change the CTA whenever you like. That way, if you find that it’s not working quite the way you had expected it to, all you have to do is change things around with a few clicks and you’re done.

Oh, and did we mention this is free? Because it is. There’s no reason NOT to use it.

Get used to reading negative feedback

It hurts us all. No one wants to go through their hard work and read bad things about themselves. Whether it’s your high school paper that your English teacher tore apart or your brand new website that cost you a pretty penny to develop, you’re going to get negative feedback on your projects, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it.

Now, that isn’t to say that every random complaint needs to be listened to or taken into consideration when you are planning your improvements. Some people just enjoy complaining about things no matter what. But if you notice some common themes–for example, people consistently unliking your Facebook page when you post irrelevant photos, or negative feedback on overly “salesy” posts–then you probably want to take those complaints into legitimate consideration as you plan your social media strategy.

When you listen to your fans like this, you not only give your audience what they really want, but you also grow as a businessperson. Constructive criticism might be hard to take, but if you can thicken your skin, you’re going to go a long way.

Don’t be afraid to change things up

If your marketing efforts are still falling flat, then don’t be afraid to change things up a bit! You can always do split A/B testing to see which campaigns perform better and adjust accordingly. Look at successful people in your industry and see how they garner engagement. There’s no rulebook here and there is no one magic trick that will work for everybody. But you’ll never know what works for you unless you try. So get creative, think outside the box, and change things up a bit until you come up with something that really makes your fans excited to interact with your business.

Are there any other tricks or tips that you use to get your fans more engaged on Facebook? If so, let us know in the comments!

5 Things You Can Do to Make Your Blog More SEO Friendly — in 30 Minutes or Less!

March 27, 2015internetlocallistings1 Comment

1. Install a responsive-design theme (Time: 7 minutes).

Look through your blogging platform’s pre-made themes and you can find responsive designs for free. If you want to have a little bit more choice, you can always pay a one-time fee to have access to a design that’s more customizable.

So how does a responsive design help with SEO? More and more people are searching the web through mobile devices nowadays–that includes phones and tablets. As this becomes more commonplace, Google is going to start valuing mobile-friendly sites more than those that don’t cater to all devices. Don’t be left behind–get on this now. It can be free, and seriously–7 minutes. You can do it in the time it takes you to take out the trash.

2. Make sure your URLs are easily indexable (Time: 3 minutes).

When you post a new article, does it show up looking something like this?

Myawesomeblog.com/?p=431

Yeah, that doesn’t really help the search engines find your site. Instead, go into your permalinks customization and make sure you choose something that enables you to format the title with keywords. Search engines love keywords, not random letters and numbers that tell them nothing of the page’s content.

(Note: on wordpress.com, your links should automatically be formatted correctly; on wordpress.org blogs, or self-hosted blogs, you can find the permalinks customization option under “settings.”)

3. Make your images SEO-friendly (Time: 10 minutes).

Well, to be honest, this depends on how many images you have on your blog. But if you have a reasonable amount, you can easily make this work in under 10 minutes.

Simply go to your media section (where you host your videos and images), and open up the editor. On wordpress, you can see all your media in one spot and you have the option to rename them, add links, and add something called an “alt tag”. That’s where the gold is.

Alt tags tell search engines what the picture is about. So if you go in and edit all your images’ alt tags, search engines will be able to associate them with your site and keywords.

For example, instead of leaving the alt tag of an image of a plumber working at a toilet blank, try writing a descriptive sentence like, well, “plumber working at a toilet”.

4. Install a plug-in that helps you stay on top of SEO best practices (Time: 5 minutes).

Yoast SEO and All-in-One SEO are the best choices. Yoast recently had a security issue, but they quickly worked to seal it back up, and everything is back to normal again.

These plug-ins can easily be installed on WordPress from here or here, or you can do a search for them yourself from the native WordPress dashboard. After they’re installed, you can then begin playing around with options and implementing strategies that will help your posts rank better in search engines–and the best part is, this can be free, or close to it.

5. Submit a fresh site map to Google (Time: 5 minutes).

You can do this manually, or by using the Google Webmaster Tools generator. Then you can submit your sitemap through Webmaster Tools yourself, and it’ll all work just fine. We promise.

Or, you can do it an easier way. With a WordPress blog, you install another plugin that’ll make this much more convenient.

Try something like Google XML Sitemaps, which you can download here for free. What this enables you to do is create a sitemap quickly and easily–and the plugin will submit it to Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. It notifies these popular search engines every time you update so that they can quickly index your work. Much, much easier than trying to do it yourself, right?

It Won’t Go Away! How to Repair Reputation Damage

March 25, 2015March 25, 2015internetlocallistingsLeave a comment

Whether you’ve gotten bad reviews or someone is out there writing negative blog posts about your company, one thing remains true: You want to prove that you’re one of the good guys. So what can you do when you’re being targeted with such awful press?

Your company’s reputation is important. And the good news is that it’s not impossible to repair your name. It takes time, effort, and a whole lot of dedication, but there is hope.

Here, we outline a few things you can do to begin the process.

1. Build positivity into your SEO efforts.

First and foremost, make sure that your company name is mentioned in every positive post. If positive reviews exist for you, make sure your company name is mentioned. (Sometimes, all this means is that you have to claim your listing on a directory site that allows reviews. If you need help with that, we suggest you read this post.) If a nice customer has written a review on your company elsewhere, make sure there is a link to your site or social media profiles. If for some reason they haven’t included it, just shoot them a nice email asking for them to help you out. This way, your name and your online presence become linked with positive words.

You can also check to see if your name is mentioned in the title tag of your pages. Do you have an “about” page that contains testimonials? Make sure that your webmaster–or whoever maintains the code portion of your site–links your company name with this page, and feature your best reviews here.

2. Set up your social media profiles to highlight your successes.

First and foremost, make sure you set up your social media profiles so that you get the most out of your SEO efforts. (Check out our guides on best practices for Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest!) Fill out your profiles completely. Choose a username that best matches your brand. Make sure a link to your site is clearly included in your profile, and use keywords that match your services when filling out your bio.

If you’ve done all of this, bravo! That’s a great start. Now make sure to update your profiles regularly and engage with fans on the sites. Promote your positivity and build a great relationship with your following, and you’ll be well on the road to fostering a community that will sing your praises–and send those negative reviews packing.

3. Try other forms of media to promote your cause.

So you’ve made sure your name is mentioned with every positive review. You’ve ensured your site is search-engine friendly and sings your praises. Your social media sites are ready to go.

And… you’re still not seeing much improvement.

Well, have you considered using alternative forms of media to promote yourself? Videos are a great way to bring attention to your company. They are also looked upon quite favorably in the search results. So why not create a series of positive videos and promote them under your company name? You could highlight some of your customers’ favorite products, conduct interviews with happy clients, or you could even put together a tutorial series. People love learning new things, and if you’re willing to put yourself out there, it casts you in a positive, helpful light!

4. Purchase a domain and promote it.

Alright, so you’ve tried all those things and you’re still feeling pretty down about the reviews you’re seeing.

Well, in this case, you could try registering a few more domains and building them out.

What do we mean by that?

Let’s say you own johnscarpetcleaning.com. But your problem is that this site is being targeted by negative reviews. You could also buy johnscarpetcleaning.net, johnscarpetcleaning.biz, etc. Why? Because when you include your company name is in the URL of your site, it helps you rank better.

Now, if you purchase these domains fresh out of the (virtual) box, you’re going to have a lot of work to do. It can take a long time for Google to recognize a new domain as reputable. But if you’re willing to put in the work over the course of a few months to a year, this can be an effective way to start pushing down those negative reviews in the results pages.

5. Respond to reviews where appropriate.

If you haven’t already, you should read up on why customer reviews are so important. If you have only one or two negative reviews and no positive ones, try asking your customers to review you. Offer an incentive for those who take the time to review you–a coupon or a discount work well. Be careful, though, not to make it look like a bribe, or this could backfire on you! You can encourage positive reviews by placing signs around your store or featuring a link prominently on your page.

Finally, respond to reviews when it’s appropriate. If someone gives you a positive review, thank them for their time and effort. If someone leaves a negative review, try to help them out–solve the problem if you can. This shows that you care and are willing to go the extra mile for your customers.

6. Do press releases periodically.

Have you done a press release before? If not, perhaps it’s time to consider doing one.

What exactly can press releases do for you?

While they’re not going to instantly rocket your name to the top of the search results, you will be able to build more links and positive press for your website. When you destribute a press release through the proper channels, multiple sites will post it and link back to you. Rarely, a major news outlet will link to you too! But the important thing is to just get your name out there and build traffic that you can then direct to your website.

7. Try a new social media campaign and get your best fans to participate.

Have you ever participated in a contest online? It can be really fun–and it makes you feel positively about the company that’s hosting the contest.

So who’s to say you can’t do the same? In order to build some positive feelings about your products and services, you can try hosting contests, giveaways, special events. Encourage people to sign up for a newsletter or subscribe to your blog. Offer coupons, free products, or a guest spot on your next big project. Anything you can think of that will make your fans feel like they’re a part of your success.

If you don’t have the knowledge, resources, or time to pull this off, you could simply try changing up your social media campaign. Inject some humor into your daily posts. Share inspiring stories and photos. These things don’t cost any money, and they can really help improve your image.

8. Get some positive PR by going on local media.

Do you have a local newspaper, radio station, or news network that features local businesses? If so, you might want to consider reaching out to them. Many smaller towns love doing segments on local businesses and will gladly help out.

Don’t have any content you can share? Try building some positive press by volunteering or appearing at fairs or conventions. Local news teams often make appearances here, and you might just find yourself a great platform on which you can promote your wonderful services.

9. Be patient, and continue on your course.

If all else fails, you need to remind yourself that these things take a lot of time and effort. You are doing the best you can, and while it’s not a fun process, it’s something that must be done for the good of your company. Everyone gets bad reviews, but small businesses in particular often suffer the most–just a few negative reviews can dissuade local customers from choosing you over your competitors. So keep a positive outlook on things and continue to build a good presence for your company, and it will pay off eventually!

5 Social Media Strategies to Break Through the Noise

March 11, 2015internetlocallistings1 Comment

It’s not easy trying to get your voice heard these days. You take to social media to amplify your reach. You write blog posts to entice your audience to come back for more. It seems like no matter what you do, there’s always something else you could be doing, and you only have so much time in your day.

So what if you could make your social media posts more effective without spending any extra time on them? What if you simply changed up your strategy a bit to allow room for some experimentation?

We’re betting that if you do this, you’ll be able to improve your engagement and get your voice heard.

So where do you start?

Regular Content Scheduling

First, if you aren’t already, make a regular schedule to update your social media. Whether you want to update a few times a week or multiple times a day, it’s important to remember that consistency is key. As you’re making your schedule, ask yourself:

Is this realistic? Will I be able to stick to this schedule?
Do I need help coming up with ideas or content? If so, can I afford to hire some help?
Will I be able to interact with customers or fans who respond to my posts? Do I need assistance with this?
In the event of a negative response to one of my posts, do I know how to handle it? Can I keep my cool?

If you think that you might need some help, set aside some money to do so. If you aren’t sure of how to respond to negative comments, you might want to look into an assistant who can do that for you. All in all, your schedule must be realistic, and if you find that you need some assistance, budget that into your social media strategy.

Some apps to help you keep your schedule in order:

Evernote
Tempo
OneNote
An old-fashioned, hand-written planner or calendar!

Apps to Help You Automate

cartoon-robot — Yep, automation means robots from the ’60s will do your work for you.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed with scheduling updates? Well, what if we told you that you don’t have to do every update manually? It’s true! There are plenty of applications on the market to help you get your posts out there.

Making your voice heard is already difficult. Being able to work on other projects while your social media is being managed is a great way to keep productive and still build your social media following–and it makes things a bit easier on the schedule (and budget) too.

Check out these resources to help automate your social media posts:

These vary in budget and in platform support–that is, some of the apps support only certain platforms, while others might support more. You’ll have to do research to see what works for you. But the best part of getting to know one of these automation apps is that once you start using them, you can reach your audience at the time of your choice. Do you want to schedule updates at 3 am to reach an overseas audience? You can do that. Do you want to have an update go out every morning at 10:00? You can do that, too. This is essential in expanding the reach of your posts. And, bonus–it’ll help you stick to that schedule mentioned above!

Studying Competition

How do you study your competition in sports? You research the team. You find out who the strong players are; you discover the weaknesses and exploit them. So it makes sense then, that when you’re marketing, you have a strategy in place so that you can outpace your competition.

For example, on Twitter, you can make a private list and add your competition to it. This way, they don’t know that you’re watching them, and you can see all their tweets in a special place so that unwanted tweets don’t clutter your screen. Pay special attention to what they tweet about that works so well. Which tweets get the most RTs? Which are not as successful?

On Facebook, try taking a peek at your competitors’ profiles and take note of the number of “likes” and “shares” on their posts. Do people seem to respond well? Which have positive comments and interactions? Which are ignored? Are there any that are not received well at all? These sorts of things are important.

Now, you’re not going to be able to replicate your competition’s results, obviously. But by doing just a bit of studying, you can spot trends that are easy to follow, and you can create that experience for your followers. You can also see what doesn’t work–specific topics, language, and photos simply do not do well on social media. Identify these things and steer clear of using them in your strategy!

Interacting with Industry Leaders

leadership-men — Following reputable sources in your industry isn’t enough. You have to engage with them!

This ties in with the above tip. Once you’ve identified your competition, you’re going to notice that certain companies are experiencing a lot more success than others. These are the people you want to interact with.

Now, it might sound counter-intuitive, but social media is a different game than your typical smear campaigns of the past. Connecting with industry leaders is a great way to get your voice heard. For example, imagine your company is selling personalized clothing for babies. You might want to find influential blogs dealing with parenthood, kids’ fashion, or even money-saving blogs for parents. Offer a free product in exchange for an honest review. Or you could offer to do a guest post informing the blog’s audience of the benefits of products like yours. You won’t be able to get your foot in the door unless you network with experts, so make sure you get to know people before asking for favors. If you do it right, you’ll get a lot of free press!

Honing In On Your Audience

target-audience — Finding your target audience is important. If you’re not getting results, maybe you need to reexamine your target demographic.

If you’ve tried all the above things and you’re still drowning in all the marketing noise, you might want to reexamine your audience.

Maybe you’re approaching things too broadly. For example, are you targeting “mothers” or “mothers who want to save money while working from home”? Are you targeting “pet owners” or “pet owners who want to feed their pets environmentally-friendly foods”? You can see the difference. By trying to appeal to too broad an audience, you might be shouting into a crowd, and no one is really hearing your voice. If you figure out which segment you really appeal to, you grab your audience’s attention more easily.

Alternatively, maybe you’re simply appealing to the wrong audience altogether. Maybe you originally started off blogging about personalized baby clothes, but now you’ve moved into tips on dressing your kids for less. Perhaps you need to shift your focus and rebrand your blog so that people know what you’re all about in the here and now–not what you were about two years ago.

So there you have it! These social media strategies should help you break through the noise out there. And we understand–there is a lot of it. As the internet becomes more sophisticated and more people bring their brands online, you’re only going to have more competition. By staying up-to-date and being willing to try new things, you can grow your audience and bring more customers to the table.

Good luck and happy marketing!

How to De-Clutter Your Blog

January 23, 2015internetlocallistingsLeave a comment

1. Choose a great theme or hire a developer to create one.

If you’re just using a basic theme, you might want to branch out into something different. WordPress provides a number of clean, sleek themes that will make any blog look 100 times more professional. You can do a live preview of a theme before you activate it to see if it fits your style. If you’re not falling in love with any of the free templates, you can always purchase one. While it’s not always a blogger’s top choice to pay for a theme, you can look at it this way: By purchasing a professional theme for $40 or so, you’re still paying way less than you would for a developer to completely redo your site.

If you’re not using WordPress, you might want to try this article. It features over 200 of the best free responsive themes for Blogger!

And finally, if you’re not keen on using any premade themes, hire a developer! You can find a lot of freelance workers on sites like elance.com or odesk.com.

2. Keep your tags clean and organized.

When you tag your posts, do you use any kind of system? Are there tags in your cloud that you rarely use? If you’re a blogger who has been working for a while, chances are that you’ve come up with quite a few colorful tags that you’ve used to categorize your posts. But honestly, it pays to go through and clean them up every once in a while. Try to keep common themes together–for example, graphic design, design freebies, design inspiration. If you have some random tags about a trip you took or something, go ahead and delete those. That way you keep everything neat and tidy.

3. Organize sidebars and advertisements.

If you’re a prolific blogger, you might find that your sidebars have become out of date. That’s normal, so don’t beat yourself up–but you should also clean it up for the sake of future visitors. Evaluate add-ons or advertisements and see if they still add value and are relevant. If not, get rid of them. It’s not only useless for your blogging business, but it’s also irritating for your visitors. If they take the time to read your blog, they trust your input. And when they click on broken links or advertisements that aren’t any good, they lose trust in your brand. Don’t let that happen!

4. Make sure your images are properly sized and aligned.

Did you know that your blog’s theme is designed to work with images of specific sizes? If you didn’t, now would be a good time to explore your theme’s settings and discover how your images will be most effectively displayed. Your blog theme should be responsive–that is, work on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, as well as desktops and laptops. So see which dimensions are recommended (you should be able to find information in your blog’s theme) and test it out on different screens to make sure they display properly across all devices.

5. Delete or fix old links.

There is nothing worse than getting really into reading a blog and being so excited to click through posts–only to find out that half of those links are dead. Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to go through and make sure all of your links are up to date. Sites close down. You may have moved your site and forgotten to change some of the old links. It’s okay, it happens to everyone. But make this a part of your regular blog maintenance schedule and you’ll be far less likely to receive a lot of complaints about it.

The good news is that WordPress users can find plug-ins that do this for them! Makes it a lot easier, doesn’t it?

6. Get rid of old plug-ins.

Do you have a lot of plug-ins installed that you don’t use? Are you cluttering up your sidebars with things that you could put elsewhere? Go through and get rid of them! Not only does this help increase your page load time (and studies show that a fast page load time is very important to retaining visitors), but it also makes it easier for visitors to find the links that truly matter. Check out this cool guide to get your WordPress database cleaned up efficiently.

7. Say buh-bye to old posts that offer irrelevant information.

Because we’re SEO people, we always do new posts when Google releases an update. But, as you probably already know, Google releases new updates preeeeetty often. So whenever a newer one comes out, our old posts become irrelevant. That means it’s time to take them out of scheduled post updates (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) No one wants to follow a link on social media, only to be led to something that is a complete waste of time.

If you like, you can also delete the posts from your blog altogether. For example, if your old post ends up ranking and people are getting incorrect information, you’re going to be dealing with some unhappy readers. To solve that dilemma, just unpublish the post or delete it.

Otherwise, another option could be to open up that article and insert a link to your new post. Now readers know where to go for the most accurate and up-to-date information!

8. Could you be using different fonts?

Take a good look at your blog. Do your eyes have any trouble adjusting to anything? Are your colors too bright against the background–or are they too close in hue and difficult to make out? The charts at Colorcombos.com can help you decide on an aesthetically-pleasing palette.

What about font size? Are your headers overwhelmingly large? Can you easily read the print in the body of your articles? If not, be sure to test out the font sizes on a few different screens. Keep in mind that some readers might have vision issues, so don’t make your fonts too small.

Finally, evaluate the font type. Do you have font styles that complement one another? Serifs pair well with san-serifs. Likewise, bold fonts pair well with scripts. Try I Font You for great combos!

9. Make sure your contact and about info is up-to-date.

When was the last time you updated your contact page? Has your email changed? Are you still available at the same phone number, address, or social media accounts? Double check to make sure that every bit of your contact info is correct so that your readers can contact you via the channel of their preference.

On your about page, make sure that your bio is up to date. Maybe you’ve had some important personal events happen over the last couple of years. Maybe you’ve changed jobs and have more experience to add to your bio. Make sure that your about page reflects just how awesome you are!

10. Connect social media accounts and get rid of old accounts that you no longer update.

Does your blog have the option to connect with you via social media? Whether you place widgets in the sidebars or design a floating bar with links to your social media profiles, you should always make it perfectly clear to your visitors that you’re on social media and you’re inviting them to connect with you.

If you’ve stopped using a social media network, delete that connection from your blog. It’s annoying to follow an author on Twitter, only to find out that they never tweet anymore!

Can you think of any other great tips for de-cluttering your blog? Let us know in the comments!

Back to Basics #30: Getting the Most Out of Pinterest

January 13, 2015internetlocallistings1 Comment

Completely Filling Out Your Business Profile

Before you do anything on Pinterest, make SURE that you have a business profile set up. If you have a personal profile, you won’t be able to access all the great bonuses like analytics. You can either set up a brand new business profile, or you can convert your personal profile to a business one. To learn how to set up a business account, go here.

Once you’ve set everything up, it’s time to fill out your profile. And one of the most important things to do when filling out your profile is to be thorough! Have you ever seen one of those Pinterest users with just a thumbtack for a picture? No one wants to interact with a brand that can’t even be bothered to put up a decent photo. Take the time to put up a profile picture and fill out your most important information: business name, a user name that reflects your business name, a little bit about you, your location, and your website. Make sure everything is consistent with your other social media profiles–if you’ve recently changed websites, make sure you update correctly. If you use a specific username on Twitter, you might want to consider using the same for Pinterest (both Twitter and Pinterest have limited characters for profile names). Put your most important keywords in your “about me” section. Finally, validate your site for analytics purposes. More on that below.

Validating Site for Analytics

One of Pinterest’s best business account features is analytics. By enabling analytics, you can gain valuable insight about which pins are driving the most traffic to your site. All it takes is a little bit of code, and you’re ready to start tracking. To validate your site, simply:

Go to Account Settings.
Scroll down to where you see the field to input your website. There should be a message next to it saying that your site needs validation.
You can then choose from one of two ways to validate your site: a meta tag or an HTML file. Depending on your level of skill with code or your hosting platform, you’ll want to pick the way you’re the most familiar with. If you have no idea what any of this means, contact your webmaster or visit Pinterest’s help center for tips and videos. There is another walk-through here.
Once you’ve completed the steps here, refresh the page and you can see whether it worked.
You’re finished!

To check up on analytics, simply go to the gear on the right-hand side of the page and select “Analytics”. From there, you can see which of your pins are performing the best, who visits your site, and more!

If you want to know more about using analytics, Pinterest has put together an in-depth PDF that covers the topic thoroughly. We highly suggest you check it out, since that’s well beyond the scope of this article.

Updating Strategically

Some people forget about Pinterest, only to remember later during the month and then frantically spend 3 hours pinning things. This might not seem like a terrible thing to do, but if you understand how Pinterest boards work, you’ll soon realize just how frustrating this is to your followers.

You see, when someone pins to a board, all of her followers will see the pin at the top of their feed. So imagine what it must be like to see a flood of 50+ pins in under an hour. You’re going to make some people very agitated, and as a result, they’re going to unfollow you very quickly. This is not a good way to go about using the social media platform!

Instead, take the time to learn when your clients are online and pinning. According to most studies, Pinterest users are active later at night (perhaps with a glass of wine in hand, browsing before bed?). Take advantage of this and add to your content a little bit every day during these hours. Your boards will grow slowly over time. Keep adding valuable content and you can be sure that you’ll gain followers!

Creating Boards for Multiple Things

So let’s say you’re an expert at knitting crazy hats. You’re going to want to pin articles about knitting, creating your own patterns, which kinds of yarn are best, and different ways to wear your hats. All kinds of craft-related things!

But while your focus should be on your main product, you should also make sure to pin other things, too. People like mindless entertainment, and they like knowing your brand is human. So go ahead and start a cute kitties board, or pin recipes you’d like to try. Have your boards reflect your own unique interests, and people will be more likely to stay interested in you.

Repinning After Some Time

So you pinned your blog post to a board three months ago. You’ve been adding to that board daily. What do you think the chances are that someone will find that pin? Not as high as if you repinned it, that’s for sure! Every once in a while, take the time to repin your posts so that they appear at the top of your followers’ feeds. You’ll get a bump in impressions and probably a few more pins and clicks, too!

Check Pin Details

Have you ever pinned someone’s pin and found that the link is broken or that it’s misleading? It happens to everyone. But the best way to avoid these things is to simply take a second to check that the link works before you repin it. If the incorrect info is listed in the pin description, take fifteen seconds to attribute it to the correct source. After all, would you want someone doing this to your work? Probably not. Spread the love and you’ll not only benefit from a better board, but you’re being helpful to the person who wrote the content as well as to your followers.

Place a Widget on Your Site

By placing a widget on your site, people will know immediately that you’re on Pinterest. You can design anything from a simple button to a gorgeous board showcasing your pins. Then any visitor can click to follow you and take a look at your content. If you choose the type of widget that showcases your boards, all of your most recent pins will show up, helping you to get the impressions and repins you want! Check out Pinterest’s widget builder here to get started.

Back to Basics #29: Getting the Most out of Facebook

December 16, 2014December 16, 2014internetlocallistings1 Comment

So you’ve made your Facebook page. You’re doing your best to make sure people “like” you and share your content with their friends. But are you doing everything you can to get the most out of Facebook? If you feel like you’re not getting the results you want, then perhaps your strategy could use a little tweaking. Well, we’ve got some good news for you: There are some simple tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your Facebook page.

Read on to find out more!

Make a page, not a profile.

A common mistake many first-time Facebook businesses make is that they create a profile instead of a page. A profile is a personal way of connecting with others on Facebook. It’s what you use to connect with your family and friends—so chances are, you probably already have a personal profile, and you don’t want to use that same page for your business.

So for the purpose of marketing your business, you’ll need to make a page. You can verify your business’s location, and then invite friends and family to “like” it. Now anyone who likes you will be able to see your updates and be able to post on your wall, but they won’t have to send a friend request to connect with you. And that’s pretty important. Keeping your personal life separate from your business is essential to your success on Facebook.

Fill out all of your information.

This is similar to what we told you about getting the most out of your Twitter account, but the same goes for Facebook (and any other social media platform for that matter). An incomplete profile makes you look not only unprofessional, but it also sets people on edge—they become concerned that you may be a spammer or bot. Spare them the pain of having to figure out whether your page is the real deal or not by filling out all your information. You’ll be better off in the long run.

Update regularly.

If you don’t update regularly, fans won’t like your page. And even if they do, you’re not going to get much out of it: the purpose of Facebook is to be able to drive traffic to your website and get your statuses/articles/photos/etc shared with the wider community. Whether you decide to update three times a week or twice a day, you’ll be much better off if you choose to stick with a regular schedule.

Now, another important part of scheduling updates is making sure that you’re not scheduling too often. If you post ten times a day, people will quickly grow tired of your updates. Unless you run a news source (such as an online mag or newspaper), you can probably cool it and update at most two times a day.

Finally, you might have heard not to post the same content more than once—but we promise that it’s okay to repost your old updates every once in a while! The Facebook news feed moves quickly, so there’s a good chance your updates are only being seen by about 16% of your fans. Now, this isn’t to say you should post the same updates every day—you could try sharing a fresh blog post once right after it goes up, then once a week later, then maybe once a month after that. It’s all up to you how you choose to build your schedule, but keeping these key tips in mind should help give you some basic guidelines for resharing your content.

Respond to fans.

When you start building your fanbase, you’ll also begin to get interactions from fans. They’ll want to chime in on your updates, give opinions, or give your business a review. Some might send messages asking about your company’s products and services. It is your obligation as a business owner to respond to these fans.

Whether the feedback is positive or negative, taking the time to interact with your fans will only help make your company more appealing. If someone asks a question, answer. If someone comments on a photo, “like” the comment or respond. If someone has something negative to say about the business or leaves a bad review, politely respond and try to address the problem as if you received the complaint in your store. However, if someone is using inflammatory language, it’s wise to not engage with them. Getting rid of offensive language is something that many of your fans will appreciate, so feel free to hide or delete those types of comments. They don’t accomplish anything productive anyway.

Join groups

Joining groups on Facebook is something that a lot of professionals under-utilize. By joining a group, you can discuss things with other business owners or potential customers. It’s a great place to promote your work without feeling like you’re overdoing it or impinging on other peoples’ online space.

Additionally, you can create your own group and invite potential customers and other influential people to join. By doing this, you can showcase your products and expertise in your field or industry. Groups are an easy way for people to participate in discussions if they want—or, alternatively,they might just want to read what you have to say. That’s fine, too!

So how do you get people to join you in your own group? You can drive people to the group through your mailing list by placing a link in the emails, place links on your page, and post about it through your other social media accounts. Once the community starts growing, you can ask people to share and invite friends!

Share content from other pages

Part of the effectiveness of Facebook comes from connecting with other, like-minded companies. As with Twitter, you might think it’s strange to promote the content of a “competing” company, but it’s actually better to forge an alliance with them than it is to talk in an echo chamber about your own services.

What we mean by this is that by connecting with well-known and influential people in your industry, you can gain great insight into what works to engage fans and what doesn’t. If the company is adept with social media, you’ll find their updates to be helpful and positive to share on your page, too. Now you might be thinking that by placing their content on your page, you will drive traffic off your site, but here’s the key: By posting relevant, interesting content, people will enjoy what they’re reading, which will keep them coming back for more. Plus, they’ll still engage on your page too—there’s nothing stopping anyone from leaving a comment on anything you post, even if it’s an update from someone else’s page!

Use apps to redirect traffic

Did you know that you can install apps on Facebook to redirect visitors to your site? You can also install apps to allow your visitors to find you on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media platforms, as well as review sites such as Yelp. Whether you’re active on multiple social media sites or only a few, it’s nice to be able to show visitors that you are available to follow elsewhere. You can install the apps with a few clicks and they’ll appear along the side of your page where your information and photos are.

These are just a few ways to get more out of your Facebook page. Of course there are many more ways that you can enhance your experience: Pay for ads, link to your Facebook page across all platforms, include it in your email signature, place signs in your business asking people to “like” you on Facebook, and more.

If you have any other suggestions for us, leave them in the comments below! There are many ways to get more out of your social media—many creative ways and even risky, boundary-pushing ways to go about it. It’s all dependent on what’s right for you!