Get Leads Make Sales

Do customers really use the internet when they are looking for local providers of products and services? The answer is yes. Lots of my clients have started using local internet marketing and it’s doing great things for their businesses. However, there are many local businesses who still have not begun to use local internet marketing, I would advise them to do so and quickly. Local internet marketing is effective and offers a great ROI. Here’s just two reasons why:

1. Targeting potential customers at the point of purchase: Much like the Yellow Pages (remember those?), people look online for a product or service when they are in need of it. These are consumers who are ready to buy and as such are a great audience to reach. This is highly targeted marketing, unlike less cost effective methods such as newspaper advertisements.

2. Weak competition: Many local businesses use standard offline advertising strategies such as the Yellow Pages, but they don’t have an effective online presence. Whereas in the Yellow Pages, you’re surrounded by your competition, you have far fewer competitors online. Fewer competitors means higher conversion rates and lower marketing costs. In other words, online marketing represents a good arbitrage opportunity for local businesses.

Local internet marketing is actually pretty simple. Your website is (or should be) sales-oriented. The task at hand is then to get people to your website, targeted traffic which will translate into higher sales. And as a local business, your target market is the people in your own community.

Here are five of what I see as the best ways to drive local traffic to your site. Some may work better for you than others; I’d recommend trying all of them and finding out which works best for your business.

Strategy #1: Google Adwords

Google Adwords is an essential part of internet marketing, It is easy to use, cost effective and can be used to highly target your prospective customers. Here are a few guidelines for building effective local campaigns with AdWords.

1. Compile lists of keywords including your targeted geographical area.

2. Create ads which make a point of mentioning your location.

3. Track conversions

4. Test different ads against each other

5. Test some generic search phrases too

Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization for Targeted Local Search Phrases

1. Target your search phrase carefully

The first rule of SEO is that you can’t be everything to all people. By focussing on one key phrase you’ll give yourself a much better chance of getting high rankings for that phrase. Lack of focus is the enemy.

To decide which keyword or phrase to focus on, have a look at the conversion rates which your AdWords campaigns are earning you. Take the most effective word or phrase and target this phrase. You can also try this formula as a default and usually works well:

[your location] + [your industry name]

2. Put your key search phrase in your homepage title tags.

Title tags include the text which shows up in that blue bar at the very top of your browser windows. Search engines use these tags as part of their formula for determining page rankings. Keep your title tags concise.

3. Build some backlinks.

These are links from other sites to your own. Having a large number of backlinks tells search engines that your site is popular, which is a factor in determining page rankings.

Here are some simple guidelines for building backlinks to your website:

Get your website listed in as many directories as possible. Do link exchanges with other websites. Write articles about your industry and submit them to directories, you can link these articles back to your site. Start a blog and link it to your website. You can also buy backlinks from sites like www.text-link-ads.com.

IMPORTANT: If possible, you want the text of incoming links to contain the keywords for which you want to rank well.

4. Use your keywords in your website content

Again, this can get very technical, but you’ll do fairly well just by including your keywords throughout your website content in a natural way (DON’T overdo it). If possible, use your keywords in the headline and in the first paragraph of text, then here and there throughout the content.

Strategy #3: Other Pay-Per-Click Search Engines

If you’re already getting good results from Google AdWords, you can try out using some other PPC services such as Overture and Sensis (Australia). You probably won’t get the same kind of results, but these services can offer a positive ROI.

Strategy #4: Yellow Pages Online

This may work differently for you if you’re outside of Australia, but the Online Yellow Pages in my experience is more effective than the print edition, in fact, as much as ten times higher ROI in some cases! This may not work equally well for every business; but if your client value ratio is high ($500 or more in sales/per new client), then Yellow Pages online may work well for you.

Strategy #5: Integrate your offline marketing promotions

The URL of your site should be included on your business cards, signage and advertising. While this won’t necessarily get a lot of leads for your business, you can increase traffic by showcasing your website in your marketing materials. You can offer a freebie like a report or a whitepaper to induce people to visit your site.

Tags: direct response, internet marketing, Lead Generation, sales leads

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 5:48 am and is filed under Lead Generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.