Archive for the ‘Online marketing’ Category

Any edge you can get to make your business stand out online – and in particular in Google – is a good thing. We recently set up a client to appear more prominently in Google Local Business Center and wanted to show you how easy it can be.

This image shows the results of searching for “employment law pasadena” on maps.google.com. Note the one that has a photo – that’s our client!

The first step of the procedure is to get a Google account. Like (almost) all things Google it is free. Once you have that and are logged in to Google you can go to www.google.com/lbc – this is the starting point for Local Business Center.

You can then find your business and add information, photos, hours of operation, etc. This additional content is what will set your business apart from others.

At that point it is only necessary to “claim” your business – Google will verify that you have the authority to enter information on that listing and then your updates will be visible to all.

See our short video here of some of the additional things you can enter in to LBC:

More companies are starting a blog and using it to stay in touch with their customers. Maybe you are one of those companies, or perhaps you are still taking a look at it or wondering what you would put in a blog.

Here are two terrific articles about business blogging. The author, Rebecca Lieb, is very well-known and respected in the social medial arena and her advice is always thoughtful, straightforward and useful.

Here are some of the things she addresses:

• Who should blog in your company?
• What does a blog have to do with getting found in the search engines?
• What should you blog about?
• How do you start blogging?

There’s lots more in the two articles – we hope you enjoy them and find them useful.

Business Blogging FAQs
Business Blogging FAQs, Continued

Email was one of the first Internet technologies to hit the mainstream. It is rare to find somebody these days that doesn’t have an email address. Email is fast, easy, and it helps people communicate.

Despite the advent of “social media” such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace, email is still very much with us. How about you? how much time do you spend reading/writing/deleting email each day compared to your time on a social media site?

One of the major advantages of email is that it “reaches out” to the person on the other end. With a website (or social media account) people generally have to actively go looking. But then they forget or get busy on other things. With email they don’t have to do anything more than open their email program and see what is in their inbox.

This guy got an email he liked.

Of course, spam became the fly in the ointment. It overloads your inbox. Some of it is disgusting, all of it is rude: spam makes people not want to read their email. And as a defense against spam email software companies have implemented filters to try to stem the tide.

So what is a legitimate business supposed to do?

The best advice we can give is: don’t stop! Email is still one of the most effective ways to reach your customers and prospective customers. It is fast, inexpensive, and when done right it will make your company more memorable (in a good way).

Here are our recommendations on how to stay in touch with an email marketing approach:

1. Go to the experts: Use one of the many email marketing companies that do this as a business – email is actually a very technical subject and when  you want to do broadcast email as a marketing effort then you need the experts to help you get your email looking good and actually delivered past all of the spam filters. Here are some of the top players in this arena:
   • MailChimp (this is the one we use)
   • ConstantContact
   • AWeber
   • iContact
   • Lyris
2. Get permission: If you have permission to email somebody then it is not spam (Unsolicited Commercial Email). It’s really that simple – if somebody has been a customer of yours in the past then they probably won’t mind hearing from you with an appropriate email. Any professional email service will also put an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the emails you send out so the recipient can “opt out” at any time. And make it one of your marketing activities to ask people to subscribe to your email list.
3. Make it relevant and useful: It’s about them, not you. Make your email interesting and something the recipient can use. Helpful tips, ways to use your product or service, ideas on how to improve their life or business will be appreciated. Special offers are often good news, but heavy sales pitches may not.
4. Rinse and repeat: Email marketing isn’t something you do whenever you remember to do it. Make a schedule and keep communicating. If you follow the rules above you’ll be emailing people who want to hear from you  and will trust you to send them something that will help them.

Even though email is an “old” technology now, it is just as relevant as another oldie-but-goodie, the telephone. Use email marketing correctly to keep yourself in front of your customers and you’ll both win.

(Photo courtesy of Dominic)

It started with websites – a new technology that allowed anybody with Internet access and a hosting account to publish information that the world could see – and see it instantly! No printing costs, no mailing costs. And that started only about 15 years ago.

They're listening

Then came blogs – an even simpler way to get your message online. An easy inteface to use to type in what you want to say – and people see it instantly.

But now that you’re a “writer” who is going to be “published”, what do you write? My mother would be the first one to tell you that I never wrote (snailmail) letters. She paid for me to phone home. Email has been a boon to both of us, but I still don’t usually sit down to write articles or get all chatty with emailing friends.

But I do enjoy what I do as a developer (programmer) with CityCenter. I enjoy learning about new online technologies and determining which ones look like they’ll be of the most benefit to our clients. We like to help our clients improve their websites and help their customers. So that’s what I write about in our blog.

Here is an article I read recently that really gave me some direction and ideas on how to make this blog worthy of reading: Use Blogs to Extend Social Reach, Drive Online Sales. It has some tremendous tips on wrting blog articles – I hope you find it useful!

(image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenniferdebeer/)

Blogs are now one of the most effective ways to get known on the Internet. They are easy to set up, give you an easy interface to upload content, and include other goodies (such as RSS or news feeds) at no extra charge. You can make them look how you want with free themes and add functionality with hundreds of plugins.

But where do you start? Here is an online slideshow from Compendium Blogware that explains “Writing the Perfect Blog Post”:

With these few simple rules you’ll be on your way to telling the world what you know and how your business can help them.