A ton of searches are done locally these days – by that I mean people often search for a product or service within their local area.
So if they live in Sydney and they’re looking for a plumber, they’ll search for “plumber Sydney” rather than just “plumber”.
It’s very important to get yourself in front of these searchers and a very simple way to do this is to list your business with the Google Places (used to be called Google Local Business Centre).
It can significantly lift your profile and get you seen by lots more people interested in your business.
Results From Businesses Listed in Google Places
Video Explanation
Google has put together a neat little video explaining Google Places.
And Dan’s been appreciate of some information and inspiration I’ve given him over the years.
So yesterday Dan called in with a carton of beer and to say thanks.
Dan Has Tapped Into A Powerful Strategy
By calling in to say “Thanks for your help” Dan has tapped into 3 very powerful techniques.
1. Rewarded behaviour gets repeated.
2. People like people who like them – Dan’s demonstrated he likes me by giving me a gift and saying thanks. (He also said “Man, you are sooooo good looking Brendon! I wish I looked like you!” (Get in the line Dan, get in the line.))
People are more like to buy from people they like.
3. Social gifts (like beer) gets shared. By me being able to share the beer makes me feel good and most of that goodwill is attributed to Dan.
It also means his generosity gets mentioned by me a few times and that helps build his brand in my head.
Dan’s Nice Touch
Now, Dan knows I’m a Tasmanian lad.
He also knows (I presume) that Tasmania has the finest beer in the world (as well as food, women, cricket teams, actors, writers and more).
If It’s Tasmanian It’s Good
Basically, if it’s Tasmanian you can bet your ass it’s good!
So that’s why he bought me a carton of Boags finest.
And I noticed he bought the Tasmanian beer and assume he put some thought into it.
And $$$ too, because Boags Premium is one of the more expensive beers.
I like Dan’s style!
More positive brand building in my perception of Dan.
Smart Marketing
Saying “Thanks” can be one of the most effective marketing strategies you can implement.
But here’s the thing – you can’t say “Thanks” and give gifts as part of your marketing campaign because people will see it for what it is – a cynical grab for your business.
Give gifts and say “Thanks” because it’s just plain good manners.
Step 3 is where we actually do something with your web site.
Now is when I’d make sure the web site is set up to make it as easy as possible for Google to understand what your web site is about – this helps it to rank you for the terms people might search on to find a site like yours.
Whilst search engine optimisation is beyond the realms of this article, here are some very detailed posts and case studies I’ve written before that can give you a huge advantage:
I won’t go into too much detail about making your site right for the search engines (as I’ve covered most of it before and it would bore you to go over it again), but if you’re serious about your web site’s success then read the above Case Study and articles and do what they say.
Okay, you’ve launched your web site and set up Google Analytics on it.
Excellent, you’re all set to measure the effectiveness of what you’re about to do to market your web site.
Just what should you do first?
That’s easy – you need to make a plan.
Now the plan will vary from site to site. After all, if you have a massive online store selling niche expensive products, then your strategy will differ from the holiday resort.
Sure, there’ll be similarities, but some pretty marked differences in marketing actions.
Now I’ve done approximately 1,465,928 marketing plans in my time.
So set up your very simple Marketing Plan sheet using either a spreadsheet (Excel or the Google Documents Spreadsheet is what I usually use) and get ready because we’ll be adding actions to it from tomorrow.
It’s always exciting when you launch your new web site.
It’s shiny and new and you’re excited to have the chance to really impress your customers with the new style and information.
But you have 1 big problem: There are already millions of web sites also competing for your customer’s attention.
So what do you do? How can you compete with your brand, spanking new web site?
Over the next few weeks I’ll write a series of blog posts detailing what you can do to get your web site off to a great and sustainable start.
Step 1 for Brilliant Marketing of Your Web Site
This one is easy and it’s free.
As I often say with marketing, it’s a matter of finding what works best.
So your first step of any marketing campaign is to set up a way to measure the success or failure of any marketing strategies you try.
With your web site, a great way to do this is by inserting the statistics program Google Analytics onto your web site.
Google Analytics is a free, simple and very, very extensive program that can tell you just about everything about your web site visitors, where they come from and what they do once they’re on your site.
We’ve just launched a lovely new site for one of Australia’s leading brick, blocks and pavers companies.
ABC Brick Sales are very well known here in Queensland and Northern NSW for their major sponsorship of the Gold Coast Titans (a local sporting team).
I’ll run through a couple of the aspects of the design and why we’ve included them.
Let’s Start At The Top
Top colour: We use a blue gradient at the very top so that the contrast with the ABC Brick Sales logo is marked – this makes the logo stand out more.
You might also notice that the same sort of blue is used in the Titans logo. The contrast with the blue and the Titans logo isn’t so marked – thus the Titans logo tends to blend in more with the blue and doesn’t overtake the ABC logo for the eye’s attention.
There’s strong brand recognition of ABC Brick Sales in conjunction with the Titans, and the client (Andrew) wanted to show his support for the team – so both logos make it into the header.
Navigation: There are essentially 4 major influencing factors when buying bricks and pavers.
Price
Availability
Ease of delivery
Range
You’ll notice that the first 3 navigation elements are:
Price Guarantee
Convenient Locations
Easy Delivery
The product range is directly below the navigation at top left and the key message of the price guarantee (a major choice influence when buying) is cemented as one of 4 rolling images in the top middle of the page.
The key points of Huge Range, Lowest Prices and Convenient Location are mentioned once again the heading below the rolling graphics.
Key Messages x 3
So, whether you realise it or not, your exposed to the key messages ABC Brick Sales want to communicate 3 times on the home page.
Designing a web site isn’t about getting a pretty design. It’s about effective design that meets the goals you want it to reach.
Luke was interviewed as the termite inspections expert and had the opportunity to very professionally demonstrate his expertise during a 5 minute+ segment.
It’s All About Leveraging This Opportunity
Part of Luke’s challenge now is to leverage this segment as much as he possibly can.
He needs to use the segment to establish and/or confirm his expertise to his target market.
Here’s the Top 3 ways he can do this:
Insert the video onto his own sites
Get others to embed the video, comment on it
Mention the story in his next communication with his market
Leverage, leverage, leverage.
Making the most of what you have is smart marketing.
What can you do to leverage the benefit of what you have?
Below is my top 5 list on what you should be doing with your web site today to make it more successful tomorrow.
1. Install Google Analytics – gives brilliant data on your web site visitors.
You can only make the right future decisions based on past data, and that past data is great as a benchmark – Google Analytics is free and very easy to install.
For most web sites it would take 15 minutes.
2. Update your web site with fresh information.
Stale web sites are boring for everyone. Update it with useful and interesting information as much as possible.
3. Figure out what would be the absolute best term to get found for in Google.
Over the next few weeks I’ll write a series of blog posts detailing what you can do to get your web site off to a great and sustainable start.
