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SEO Is Crucial. Make Sure You Can Afford It.

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Signing up for an SEO program is a long-term financial investment. Many small business owners mistakenly sign up for SEO services without considering that they’ll need to pay for several months of lead generation before they see a return on their investment. Instead, they rearrange their budget just enough to pay for the initial setup fee and the first month, hoping that will be enough to amplify their web presence. Unfortunately, that’s not the way SEO works.

SEO Is a Slow Build

SEO, especially for lead generation purposes, takes time. Business owners are typically looking at a baseline of three months before they can expect to see results. That’s why most online advertising experts recommend hiring a company that offers services on a monthly retainer, which means a business owner pays a monthly fee to have an SEO company perform regular site maintenance, analytics, call reports, keyword research, link building, and more. (This is the model that Prospect Genius follows.) But if you do opt for a monthly retainer, then you’ll need to plan for at least three months of payment before seeing any tangible improvement in your web presence.
Note: Sometimes, the process can take up to six months, depending on the condition of your web presence before you hire an SEO company. If you have mismatching information on business directories, social media pages, and Google+ listings, or you’ve previously participated in dubious or spam-like behavior, then three months may not be a sufficient timeline for resolving these problems and boosting your rankings.

Why Does SEO Take So Long?

Effective SEO requires repetition. Social media listings must be routinely populated with fresh content, press releases have to be syndicated, and directories must be updated as needed. However, not all of these tasks can be done at once. There’s a strategically tiered system of steps to be completed by your SEO specialist for optimal results, and proper spacing and timing of these tasks is essential. Once this foundation has been completely set, a few months have gone by.

Do Not Leave Your SEO Provider High and Dry

The initial setup period of your SEO campaign takes more than just your time—it also consumes the time and resources of your SEO provider. Signing up for your campaign is a tacit agreement that you’ll be patient for the first three months, and during that time, your SEO company is hard at work promoting your business. Make sure your budget allows for several months of payment. If you’re forced to quit early, all that work, and the money you’ve invested in it, is for naught.

Prospect Genius Has Options

If you have trouble predicting what your budget will look like through the next fiscal year, that doesn’t mean you must abstain from an SEO program entirely. Instead, you could opt for a service that sticks to the bare essentials or one that will give you a temporary push. At Prospect Genius, we’re addressing this need for options by rolling out a new selection of packages. From our lower cost Starter package to the bells and whistles of our Premium package, our offerings provide different types of service and kinds of online advertising at a range of price points.
Here’s a quick overview:

Starter—This basic, cost-effective package builds you a LeadTrax™ site and adds a Google+ Local listing on your behalf. There’s no off-page promotion included; we simply get your web presence up and running. This compares to many of the low-cost “lead generation” programs out there.
Core—This is our bread-and-butter SEO lead generation package. We build you a LeadTrax site and optimize it with plenty of off-page promotion, including social media, directory listings, a Google+ Local listing, and more.
Boost—This package is a targeted, three-month pay-per-click campaign that focuses on one of your major service offerings. It’s used in conjunction with our Core program to give your campaign a temporary boost, just like the name implies.
PPC—With a pay-per-click program, your site is displayed in sponsored ads on Google and other search engines. This can be a stand-alone package or it can be combined with Core in our Premium package.
Premium—This package brings you the best of SEO and the best of PPC, combining Core and PPC to augment your organic rankings with the help of sponsored ads. It’s like a permanent Boost to bring you high value today and in the future.

These packages are designed to provide you with an Internet marketing program that’s tailored to your budgetary needs. If you’re a business owner, you must have an online advertising strategy to succeed in today’s market, so make room for one in your budget, whatever it takes. You can’t afford not to. Just make sure that you’re able to afford the strategy you select—stretching your budget won’t get you very far if you can’t maintain your SEO program long term.

Make Your Presence Known: Get More Customer Reviews Online

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Day in and day out, you’re churning out terrific work for seemingly appreciative customers. You have no shortage of confidence in the quality of your services. So how come your online presence doesn’t reflect that? Why aren’t your company’s customer reviews pages brimming with five-star ratings?
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to perform dependable dryer repairs or to install central air systems flawlessly. You also have to get the word out about your satisfying work. That’s why getting online customer reviews for your company is now a critical part of promoting your business. When prospective customers find your company online, they want to see how previous customers fared before they make an investment.
As David Streitfeld of the New York Times wrote in a recent article, “If you provide a service or sell a product and you are not reviewed, you might as well not exist.”
It’s simple: If you want to attract more customers, you need to get more customer reviews. Here’s how.

1. Make it as easy as possible.

Most people are short on time and patience, so make it as convenient as possible for them to leave you a review. After all, they’re doing you a favor. Don’t make them search high and low for your Google+ listing or Facebook page. Instead, there are a few ways to streamline this process for your customers:

Use an on-page feedback feature (like the Prospect Genius one!). Chances are, your customers are already familiar with your company website, so they’ll be able to visit your page, submit a review, and disseminate it to other review sites in a few simple steps—all without having to navigate away from your page.
Add a QR code or shortened URL to your business card and other handouts. Customers can use their smartphone to scan the code, sending them straight to your website or Google+ listing. This removes the steps they would normally take to type your URL or find your listing elsewhere. Alternatively, if you use a shortened URL (from bit.ly, for example), they’ll be able to type it into their navigation bar without much confusion.
Send an e-mail with direct links to your preferred platforms (e.g. Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch). When you send a follow-up e-mail to a customer to ask how their experience with you went, include a link to one or more of your business listings. This way, the links are already provided, and all the customer has to do is click their mouse to get to a review page. Plus, if you want, you get to influence where the reviews are posted.

2. Ask directly.

Most customers aren’t going to take the initiative on their own, so if you want a review from them, you’ll have to ask. You can call them, e-mail them, ask in person, or even put a reminder at the bottom of their invoice. This can all be done once the job or transaction is complete. However, many business owners have actually seen an increase in reviews by asking for a review before the job even starts. For instance, if you’re an appliance repairman, you could say to the customer, “If you’re happy with our work at the end of the day, would you mind reviewing us on Facebook?” With the idea in their head early on, they’ll be more likely to pay attention to your work and write a more thorough review.
Bonus: Directly asking for reviews also emphasizes your concern for customer satisfaction. When you call or e-mail a customer to see how their experience was, it shows that you care about them even after they’ve paid you. This helps to ensure repeat customers.

3. Act quickly.

A customer is most likely to write you a review when the experience is fresh in their memory. If you wait even a couple of weeks after the house cleaning, car stereo installation, or gutter repair is complete, your customer might have already forgotten important details about the experience and therefore be reluctant to leave a review. Capitalize on their initial impressions and how they feel about the finished product before their enthusiasm wanes.

4. Offer incentives.

This tactic is pretty divisive, as many review sites forbid giving rewards or special treatment to customers who leave reviews. Sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and even Google all explicitly stipulate in their terms and conditions that they want honest, unbiased reviews that are free from any conflict of interest.
However, a major conflict of interest only seems likely if there’s a massive contest, prize, or future discount on the line. We recommend staying away from lavish incentives like that. Instead, you might consider offering a small, $5 coupon to the local coffee shop in return for a review (no matter what the review’s content). This gesture is enough to show that you value their feedback without it coming across as a bribe.

Two important notes when soliciting reviews:

Don’t ask customers to create new accounts (especially on Yelp) just to leave a review for you. Strict spam filters will peg the first few reviews from a brand-new account as spam until the user proves his or her legitimacy. In the meantime, their positive review of your company will probably be filtered out, rendering it invisible to others visiting your page. In short, it will be a waste of a good review.
Spread your reviews around. Don’t ask all of your customers to review you on Facebook, as that will leave your Yelp or Google+ listing totally useless to prospects who prefer those sites. Moreover, if you rely solely on one site, that leaves you completely at the mercy of that site. If there are any guideline changes or technical glitches, your listing could be ruined. So instead, give your customers options of where they can review you. Chances are, the reviews will stay pretty evenly distributed on their own. But if you do notice that one of your listings has significantly more reviews than the others, you can always stop asking for reviews on that particular site and let them pile up elsewhere.

Getting reviews isn’t easy, even when you’re consistently providing stellar customer service and results. But by using these fundamentals, you’ll be able to slowly and steadily pull in the quality customer reviews you want.

Keep Calm and Carry On: How to Respond to a Negative Review

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Customer reviews are a blessing and a curse. When you have countless satisfied customers leaving you glowing reviews on directories like Google+ Local, Yelp, Facebook, Angie’s List, CitySearch, and so on, your business gets a huge boost and your self-esteem soars. But as soon as you notice one negative review, a record scratches and the party stops. You can’t believe what you’re reading.
It’s upsetting to read negative things about your company, especially when you try so hard to satisfy every customer. Sometimes, after you’ve given it some thought, a complaint might be justified; other times, it feels like you’re dealing with an irrational individual who can’t be pleased. Whatever the case may be, don’t leave a negative customer review unanswered. Instead, take initiative and respond by following these steps.

1. Keep the Right Audience in Mind

Remember that prospective customers will be reading your response; it isn’t just for the one person who left the review. In fact, the person who left the review will probably never see your response! Prospective customers are doing their research, carefully reading about others’ experiences, and they’ll want to gain insight into how you treat your customers. Bearing that in mind, your response should address the issue at hand by explaining what went wrong and how similar problems will be prevented in the future. Prospects want to be sure that you’re aware of your weaknesses and that you’re actively working to mitigate them. Reading these points in your response will reiterate to them that you’re an honest, hardworking company.

2. Don’t Get Defensive

When dealing with a negative customer review, it’s best not to be reactive. As business owners, it’s easy to get defensive. A bitter response might be the first thing that comes to mind, especially if the reviewer included false information, but that’s not an effective course of action. Just take a few hours, maybe even a whole day, to gain some perspective and to form a rational rebuttal before you post anything online for public viewing.

3. Demonstrate Accountability

In your response, you should try to put your company in the most flattering light while still accepting responsibility for the customer’s unfavorable experience. Instead of merely explaining your side of the story, you should also present an idea for how you might fix the problem and use this as a learning experience. This demonstrates to prospective customers that you’re serious about providing top-quality work and customer satisfaction, and more importantly, that you’re always striving for improvement.

4. Just Respond

Don’t ignore a negative review. Any response is better than no response, with the exception of an aggressive, personal attack written in the heat of the moment. Given the current state of social media and the fact that everyone has a virtual megaphone now, a review that’s left uncontested could quickly spread beyond your Facebook page or Google+ listing. That’s the last thing you need. A quick response to the reviewer, and the wider public audience by extension, could keep a potential mess at bay.
For an entertaining look at some of the biggest social media splashes made by passionate customers, check out this slideshow from DailyFinance: “When Customer Service Goes Viral: The Good and the Bad.” As you can see, all it takes is one instance of poor service to create a public relations nightmare. In fact, public complaints against high-profile brands like United Airlines and FedEx have received hundreds of thousands of hits online! While local service providers like you are operating on a much smaller scale, you see the point: Word of mouth travels at the speed of light these days. Don’t let one rotten review spoil your whole clientele.

5. Counteract With More Positive Reviews

In addition to responding verbally, you can also respond by taking action. If you talk to your satisfied customers, you can collect a handful of more positive reviews that will push the negative one toward the bottom of your listing, thus minimizing any serious impact. In doing so, you’ll also make the negative review seem less glaring and more like a fluke. If prospective customers see just one bad review surrounded by numerous good ones, they’ll do the math.
For ideas on how to harvest those positive reviews from your customers, stay tuned for our next blog post at the beginning of October!

Unpacking the Phone Package

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

The success of our customers is what keeps us moving forward. Our ultimate goal is to make your phone ring with solid leads on the other line. If we aren’t doing that, then we aren’t doing our job.
However, sometimes a client’s lead generation campaign works almost too well, and they receive more calls than their initial phone package allows. That’s when we have to adjust a client’s phone package to accommodate more minutes on the phone with prospective customers. The majority of the time, that means a slight increase in our clients’ monthly fee. In this post, we’ll explain how the phone package works and why the fee is actually a win for you.

We Don’t Profit From the Higher Price

Why do our customers even have to pay for the phone package in the first place? Shouldn’t that be covered by our flat, monthly fee?
Our monthly fee is there to cover the cost of hosting your LeadTrax™ site, maintaining your web presence, and performing updates as needed. It also does cover the baseline costs for phone minutes, which is a universal expense for every company. Even Verizon and AT&T have to pay for line charges! Our CallTrax™ feature is driven by a company that specializes in call analytics for ad campaigns, and those services cost money. When we increase your phone package, we have to pay this call tracking company for more minutes. Therefore, when we charge you for additional minutes, we’re simply passing along the charge to you. Otherwise, we would be paying out of pocket to provide an additional service for you. The price is increased just enough to cover the extra cost to us.

The Phone Package Maintains Our Incentive

Having to pay out of pocket for all of your minutes would erase our incentive to keep your campaign running effectively. If our costs rose due to phone line charges and we didn’t pass them along, then we would have a distinct incentive to provide you with fewer calls so our margins wouldn’t shrink. But we don’t want to be handcuffed by a financial incentive to do less—it’s not in your best interests and it’s not why we got into this business. Essentially, we pass along these costs so we can continue to make your campaign as successful as possible.

It’s Part of Our Integrity Pledge

Every Prospect Genius employee vows to treat clients with the utmost respect and to value our clients’ interests over our own. That’s why, when we launch your LeadTrax site and campaign, we only charge you for the minimum phone package. Since there’s a growth period for your campaign, during which your web presence is still building and calls aren’t coming in as consistently yet, it simply wouldn’t be fair to charge you for a bigger phone package. Instead of making you pay for minutes that you aren’t going to use, we wait until valuable customer calls are coming in on a regular basis before signing you up for a larger package.
Remember: Every company in this business must pay phone line charges. No matter who you deal with, those minutes must be paid for. If an SEO company never raises their phone package price or never adjusts your bill to allow for more minutes, that means they’ve been unnecessarily charging you for the biggest package from the get-go.

Phone Package Breakdown

We determine which level of the phone package is applicable for you based on the number of minutes you use per month. Every new client starts at Level 0, which includes up to 100 minutes each month. For most clients, 100 minutes is ample to cover their monthly call volume for the life of the campaign. Moving forward, however, if minutes in excess of your current level are used, you are upgraded to the next level. Charges aren’t cumulative, though, and each charge increase isn’t very significant. For example, the first increase is just $9!
At the end of the day, we keep your best interests at heart. We only upgrade phone packages when absolutely necessary, and we’ll always notify you if there’s going to be a change to your bill. If you have any questions about our phone package or need additional clarification, please don’t hesitate to contact your campaign coordinator or account manager.

Why Changing Your Company Name Isn't Easy

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

It’s frustrating to hear that your plans to change your company name aren’t as feasible as you thought. We get it. But online advertisers aren’t just being uncooperative or lazy when they tell you that a company name change isn’t as easy as just switching the header on your website.
“Why,” you ask, “in the age of high-speed everything, does it take so much time and effort to make a simple change? Isn’t the Internet supposed to make life easier?”
The hard truth is that the Internet’s blessing is also its curse. The unlimited spread of data makes it that much harder to revise an established piece of information—in this case, your company name. Essentially, all of the work that your SEO company initially did when they launched your campaign will have to be redone with your new company name. That’s why we usually advise against name changes.

The Name-Change Process Is Neither Simple nor Quick

The name-change process is extensive, complicated, and unpredictable.
Let’s say the owner of Tony’s HVAC wants to change his business name to “Tony’s Heating and Air Conditioning.” The process doesn’t begin and end with editing their website. If Prospect Genius were their online advertiser, we would have to do the following in this exact order (and keep in mind, every Internet marketing team has its own unique way of dealing with a name change):

Revise their website from top to bottom
Edit their listings on all of the major search engines, like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (which often requires re-verification via postcard or phone)
Log in to client accounts on all of the popular business directories (such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Citysearch) and update the company’s info
Log on to all of their social media accounts and edit their name
Write and publish a press release announcing their name change
Wait for Google and other search engines to register the changes

Meanwhile, the owner of Tony’s HVAC would still have to update state licenses, signage, flyers, and so on. It’s an arduous process, to say the least.

Machines and Humans Think Differently

Online advertisers do all of that work because machines and humans see things very differently. Twenty years ago, if a new flyer read, “Tony’s Heating and Air Conditioning,” while their old phone book listing still said, “Tony’s HVAC,” locals would assume that these referred to the same company, especially if the same phone number were attached. Sadly, machines aren’t equipped with human intuition. On search engines, the two names would register as two very distinct entities and ruin all of the SEO work completed so far. That’s why all accounts must match and all changes must occur simultaneously.
In fact, Google has strict rules about mismatching information, down to spacing, capitalization, and punctuation, so you’ll need to be sure that your name is identical everywhere it appears. That takes a lot of time and an even greater amount of scrutiny, which is why it’s best left to a savvy expert.
That’s also why you’ll need to disclose whether you’re working with more than one SEO company or online advertiser at the same time. Since every instance of your name must be identical across the board, it’s imperative that all of your advertisers are on the same page.

Talk to Your SEO Company First

As you can see, changing your business name isn’t a decision you should make lightly. If you’re considering it, we advise you to discuss it with your web marketing professional first. They’ll be able to go over your advertising campaign’s performance, why you want to change your name, how extensive their name-change process will be, and how much it will cost. Changing your name may temporarily encumber your site’s performance while Google deciphers the changes, so they’ll generally help you decide whether the potential pros outweigh the cons.

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