Tag Archives: internet marketing strategies

By Kim Chhang, Marketing

Over the years, online marketing has evolved and now offers many options for generating publicity for local businesses. The online image or “reputation” of a business is increasingly influenced by real customers via online reviews and ratings. This transition from promoting your own business to having others promote for you can generate a positive online reputation for your business if you manage it correctly. Today, potential customers will often make their final purchase decisions based on business reviews, as it reflects a better idea of what to expect. With this development, consider three ways in which business reviews can benefit your online marketing strategy. It is important to keep these concepts in mind when using the Internet as an advertising channel.

#1 – Business Reviews are Publicly Listed in Search Results

When strong competition is prevalent, your business should stand out as much as possible. Due to Internet search advancements, your business can now be seen directly linked to your ratings and reviews in search listings. Websites such as Yelp, Rate it All, and CitySearch display star ratings and comments provided by the public about your business. Other online directories, such as Superpages and MerchantCircle, also list your profile information and reviews on their site; allowing anyone to view the comments. Both positive and negative reviews are publicly viewed.

#2 – Business Reviews Improve Online Exposure

Reviews increase exposure and awareness for your business. For instance, a search on Google for Belmont Pets & LaunderPet, Long Beach, CA shows a Yelp listing as the third highest search result, with 42 reviews and a 4 ½ star rating for this business.

To the viewer, this business may seem very appealing. This business listing is more likely to be featured in search results and have improved visibility on search results due to the high activity of reviews and ratings. As more and more people click to the business and read the reviews, the business gains online popularity.

Google and other search engines monitor every search (impression) and click-through rate (CTR). As a result, these search engines interpret the results and provide the rankings for each business available. A lower CTR decreases your business ranking relative to other businesses, while a high CTR improves the chances of being listed near the top of the search results. The higher your search ranking, the more customers will find your business online.

#3 – Encouraging Business Reviews from Customers Will Increase Business

With business reviews, you have the opportunity to further promote your business and increase the amount of links to your website or online profile. Customers who post positive reviews will help develop your customer base. On the other hand, having too many negative reviews can have the opposite effect. Therefore, encouraging customers with positive experiences to post reviews is beneficial to your business.

It is easy to generate business reviews. The simplest way is to staple a business review card to every receipt that is handed out. Visit www.GetBusinessReviews.com, for useful information and free postcards provided by Local Splash. The site includes popular business review websites and free, downloadable business review postcards. On the card, customers will receive instructions to post comments and rate their experiences on specific business review sites. As an extra incentive, you can provide customers with a discount or reward for taking time to write a review. The extra incentive can make a big difference in getting more reviews and growing your business!

By Laure Muller

Chances are that if you run a business of any sizefrom a plumbing company in Louisiana to a limo service in New York City- you’ve considered executing a Pay-Per-Click campaign. And it’s no wonder – PPC is one of the best ways to get your business out there and on users’ screens!

If you run a successful Pay-Per-Click campaign, you can:

1. Be found online instantly!

2. Increase your sales and find hot leads!

But again, that only works if you know how to launch the right kind of Pay-Per-Click campaign – with the right tools, brains, and strategy to get the job done right!

“What exactly is PPC?”

Pay-Per-Click, or PPC, is one of the easiest ways to advertise your online business. It goes like this: when someone searches for a related keyword to your business on a major search engine, your ad will appear at the very top or on the right side of the results page. These ads are generally called “sponsored links”.

The most important thing about PPC is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You can set up a maximum daily budget, meaning you decide how much you want to spend on your PPC advertising!

Ideally, PPC campaigns offer:

1) Immediate online visibility;

2) Flexibility in budgeting and planning. (You can turn the campaign on/off whenever you like.);

3) Maximally targeted audience reception – allowing you to choose who sees your ads, when, where, and how often.

It takes less than a day to create a PPC advertising campaign. Once active, your ad will appear in less than 5 minutes on the Internet! Compare that to traditional advertising, with its long delays between concept and execution.

“Why is it important for me to run a PPC campaign?”

You are a local business and you want to be found online by clients/customers around your targeted area, right? PPC will make it happen! It’s all about targeted execution: using a PPC campaign, you can specify either a geographic perimeter or a radius (10, 20, 30 miles or more stemming from your physical business address) in which your ads will show.

Also, be reassured that PPC advertising will not require any changes to your Web site. In fact, even if you do not have a website, a PPC campaign is still possible because of very affordable landing page options provided by SEM companies.

Besides instant results, PPC advertising allows for great flexibility. You can modify your account at any time, adjust your budget instantly, change your targeted geography, determine exact hours in ad scheduling (24/7, only from 8am to 5pm, etc.), and much more. The power to craft a campaign specifically for your business needs is what makes PPC such a powerful marketing venue for your enterprise!

“This sounds great! Now, how do I start a PPC campaign?”

Our service, Local Splash, is a turnkey solution for executing an effective PPC campaign for your business. Our PPC experts use specific PPC tools to carefully select the best-performing and the most relevant keywords for your company.

Our team is Google Ads Qualified: that means that according to Google, our team graduated “summa cum laude” in crafting effective PPC campaigns using Google’s powerful services!

Our expert team will manage your PPC campaign from top-to-bottom; they’ll find the best keywords to bid on and determine the exact keywords that people would type in search engines to find you.  We will create pertinent and compelling ads for you. We’ll also build a user-friendly, marketing-savvy, keyword-rich, and totally optimized landing page for your company that displays all of your business and contact information!

We will help you determine the best daily budget for your campaign and rest assured that we will not go over it. If you don’t want to spend more than $10/day, fine! We will set $10 as your maximum daily budget in our system and you will not be billed over this amount, we guarantee it!

Once your LocalSplash account has been created, you will be able to instantly access and manage your PPC data- including the number of times your ad was displayed, clicks your ad received and the average position of your ads. Additionally, we will show you precisely what keywords drove traffic to your Web site!

At Local Splash, we have copywriters specialized in PPC ad copy and the best experts to create and manage your PPC account!

A successful PPC push can mean major momentum for your business – so why not rely on an expert team with a proven track record of successful campaigns? Don’t go it alone: give us a call and turn clicks into revenue today!