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Events @ GTS Blog

February 2009
GTS - Wendy Miller

Much has been written about advertising on the Internet, and using search engines to get customers to your website, but can those customers really find you in your town? An easy (and free) tool many business owners don’t take advantage of is the “local search” listing section of the major Search Engines.

What is local search? Simply put, local search is a listing within the search engine’s maps database for your business. It is important to note that local business listings are only valid for businesses that have a real physical location. “Virtual” or “mobile” locations are typically not allowed. Local business listings include the company’s name, address, phone number(s), website address, and even hours of business and services offered. And best of all, they are FREE!

As an added bonus, local listings are shown in the local business results section within the regular search engine results page. A Google “10-Box” local business results section is shown below, for the search “commercial roofing products” near Portland, Oregon.

TenBox.gif

Chances are, your company already has a local business listing on Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Live Search, even if you didn’t enter that information yourself. Here’s why: The major search engines take business information posted on other websites. Data from business review websites, like CitySearch.com, Yelp.com and MerchantCircle.comis imported by the search engines for this purpose as well.

In the example below, the local business listing was created from listings on Super Pages and Dex Knows, and has not been claimed or edited by the business owner. There are 8 additional web pages that mention the company (ABC Supply), and 2 pages of user-generated content, typically blog posts, that also reference the business somewhere online. This business has not received any reviews online, positive or negative.

ABC.gif

Some questions to consider about your local business listings:

·      Do they exist in the 3 major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN/Live)?

·      Is the information they contain correct and relevant to your business?

·      Have you claimed your business listing in each of the major engines?

Yes, all of the major engines allow, and actually prefer, business owners to claim their local listings. To quickly find out if your local business listings have been claimed, visit GetListed.org and enter your businesses name and zip code. GetListed.org even gives you easy links to claim your listing in each search engine.

Once you have submitted a claim request to each engine, the engines will verify that you are indeed the business owner by calling you or mailing you a letter with a unique code that must be entered into the listing. After you have verified your ownership and claimed the listing, you are free to edit your listing information. Here are some tips to consider when you do this:

·      Make your listings as accurate as possible.

·      Place your listing in as many appropriate categories or types as possible in each engine’s local business center.

·      Solicit positive reviews from customers! If a customer thanks you for doing a great job, ask them to review your business on Google, CitySearch, Yelp, or other review sites. A good idea would be to create postcards for your company, with the URLs to your local business listing, Yelp, CitySearch, etc…to make it easy for them to find you on those popular review sites.

Total number of reviews, as well as amount of additional user content and web pages helps the local listing to rise within the “10 Box” results section. Note that while negative reviews are not good for the company’s reputation, they do actually help the listing get better rankings in local search, and provide a way for the company to address customer issues publicly, which increases trust.

In review, it is very important to have a good local search strategy in place for your business. You can start by following the tips below:

1.    Go to GetListed.org and check your local listings.

2.    Claim each listing.

3.    Edit/update each listing.

4.    Solicit user feedback in the form of reviews and user generated content (blog posts, etc).

5.    Ensure your full business address is located on your website.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: ims, stats, blog, on-line, internet, marketing, search, website, advertising, internet_marketing_services
GTS - Mike Jones

I have been avoiding this....but, the Super Bowl is over (Go Steelers!).  The groundhog saw his shadow.  I need to accept that 2009 is here and make a New Year's resolution.  I'm not sure what is holding me back this year.  Maybe the uncertainty of what lies ahead in the economy, etc.  Regardless, 2008 is history and it is time to focus on overcoming what lies ahead to deliver a better performance than last year.

I have been speaking with a lot of our customers about this and I am finding out that I am not alone.  One thing is certain, all of us need to focus on actions that will enable our companies to emerge from this downturn stronger than the competition.  Most of my conversations have focused on conservation of cash or launching projects to improve productivity and reduce costs.  Some of our customers are investing heavily in marketing during this time in an effort to build their brand and pull in customers that can later become loyal advocates for their service.  These are the most interesting conversations given that many companies cut their marketing budgets to reduce expenses whenever times get tough.

These companies are focused on ROI for their marketing investment.  This is not the time to create a beautiful brochure that everyone likes unless it can be proven that it drives sales.  Many of these firms are shifting their marketing investments on-line so that they gain visibility into what drives new business and what does not.

Based on what I have learned from these companies I offer you the following 5 possible New Year resolutions in case you are like me, still struggling to pick one:

1.     I will establish an on-line presence – This is at least half the battle.  Establish a budget, allocate the funds, define your site's business objectives, and dedicate the people necessary to make it happen.

2.     I will engage and delight those who visit my website – Each customer’s experience should lead them down a path. A path that ends in a sale. Based on your knowledge of your target customer, what content will keep their eyes glued to your site?  What will make them take that next step towards the sale.  In the autoglass market GTS tool www.glassquoter.com has proven to be a viable interactive solution for on-line consumers.

3.    I will capitalize on my company's reputation – Your customers are conserving cash just like you for fear of what the future may hold. They can’t afford to spend money with a company that they do not trust. Capitalize on your good reputation and community involvement in your marketing messages. Activate your loyal customers and word-of-mouth recommendations with an e-mail campaign, on-line blog or customer review section on your website.

4.     I will fail quickly – Because web marketing is real-time it provides an inexpensive way to experiment and come up with creative ways to close business. You can quickly implement a new tactic or promotion and see results. If an idea is successful immediately test a slight variation of the idea to see if you can outdo the last one. If something is going to fail, do it quickly and then move on.  It is all about ROI and continuously improving to drive better results.

5.     I will seek expert advice – This is not a sales pitch!  Your budget can be wiped out quickly if you don't know what you are doing.  Expert advice is available for free on the Internet if you have the time to do the research.  Or, find someone with digital marketing as their core competency.  This will let you focus on your business while they help you bring on-line buyers to your company's doorstep.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: advertising, internet_marketing_services, on-line, marketing, internet, website
GTS - Technical Support

http://www.gtscommunity.com/portal/images/external/cp_logo.png http://www.gtscommunity.com/portal/images/external/cp_opportunity.png

 

In some ways it seems like a full year has passed since we started the Community Portal.  In other ways it seems like only a couple months.  Either way, the calendar says six. So I thought this would be a good time to review the CP and see where we are.

 

STATS

Here are some stats.  Some are fantastic, and others we hope to improve on.


Over 75% of our customers have registered. We are very pleased with this.  For ANY company to have signed up 75% of their customer base is incredible.  I saw some research (sorry, I can't find it now to link to it) that showed that most companies with a social media offering have less than 100 registrants.  We have blown that out of the water.

 

"Sure," you may say, "that is only because of NAGS."  Actually, the need for customers to download NAGS definitely helps but it isn't only NAGS.  I just went and looked and we had 24 customers sign in to the CP yesterday alone.  This tells me that customers are using it.  For almost all content, customers don't need to sign in so there is a lot more usage than just those 24. Also, last September (during the last NAGS update) we had 1683 unique visitors to the Community Portal.  In January, the next NAGS month, we had 2530 unique visitors.  That is a 67% increase over the last NAGS month.  Wow!

 

So we know that it is being used for more than just NAGS.  But what are our customers using it for? The two most popular informational sites (which means not the home page or community home pages and excluding the NAGS page) are the Not authorized to view the specified document 2408 and the Tips and Tricks Video Series.  Close behind that is a document that Kay created: "Steps to take if Quickbooks Freezes (Hangs) on Launch" document.  The most popular community page (besides the home page) is the Training Community with the Glass Software Community close behind.  So, are customers learning from the Community Portal?  Given the number of those going to these pages and how long they are staying on the page we conclude that they are. This is EXACTLY what we were hoping for!  The more we can educate our customers the better success they will have and the happier they will be!

 

Discussions are not being utilized as we had hoped, but still we knew it would be slow at the beginning.  Customers are starting between 9 & 20 discussions a month.  Not too bad.  We would like to see this increase, however.  When Discussions are used all customers get the benefit of learning what one person learns.  Instead of a phone conversation, it is opened up to everyone to comment, add their own unique perspectives and learn from each other.

 

In Review

 

The Community Portal is  working and working well!  Has everything been perfect?  No.  We knew we would need to continually tweak it and learn as we go.  That is to be expected with a new system (technologically and logistically) and the fact that the whole social media industry is in its infancy - there are not a lot of best practices out there.  This is new to everyone.  But we are having successes and seeing the results we would like to see and are pleased with the progress.

 

Do you have any other suggestions on how to make the Community Portal work better for you?  Please leave us your feedback in the comments below.

Thanks for making the Community Portal such a success!
0 Comments Permalink Tags: community_portal, stats, discussions

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