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Online Advertising and the New Google

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

The New Google

In a past blog post, we looked the different parts of Google: maps, organics, and sponsored (pay per click). But since then, Google has changed its look—and its game. Now, when you search for a local company or service, the results display as a combination of the maps and organics, with a small map off to the right side that covers the sponsored results as you scroll down.
Here’s a short-and-sweet look at how things have changed: the new search results page is on the left, the old is on the right. You can see the sponsored results highlighted in yellow, the maps listings in pink, and the organic search results in green.

Advertising in the New Google

Now that Google has reorganized its search results, it may be time to freshen up your advertising strategies a bit. The SEO specialists at Prospect Genius have hypothesized—and observed to be true—that having both an optimized organic search result and an optimized map search result is advantageous. Moreover, having the two tied together (i.e. including your optimized website in your optimized maps listing) is even better. This way your site will show up prominently in Google whether a prospective customer is searching in Google Places or just in Google itself.

Keyword Stuffing: Fast Track to the Back

To put it simply, keyword stuffing your company’s name or location is the leading way to get yourself rejected from Google Places or Google Maps. And that’s a serious problem, because with Google’s new blend of the maps and organic results, a rejected listing could set back your organic placement as well. Remember, as we discussed in the previous post, Google’s spam department can inflict wholesale penalties across the board, no matter which area of Google they find that you’ve committed bad behavior in. Don’t forget, these “penalties” are more than just a slap on the wrist: punishment can even include completely banning your website from Google!
For example, this type of keyword stuffing can get you in major trouble with Google: say your company is called “Bob’s Services,” but you list your business on Google Places as “Bob’s Appliance HVAC Plumbing Heating Cooling and AC Services of Houston Plano Ft Worth and Sugarland.” This strategy is almost guaranteed to backfire. It certainly won’t fool Google and will definitely keep your listing from being activated.
Why? Because Google compares what you entered in your listing with the info it has in its database about Bob’s Services, essentially trying to verify what the real information about the company is. When the information in all of the other online directories lists the business as “Bob’s Services,” Google will see that the keyword stuffed name entered on Google Places is just that, bogus. And when it uncovers a spammer (keyword stuffer or other rule-breaker), Google flags the listing for manual review, by an actual person. The end result is generally a major penalty for your website, including consequences that can extend to both your paid ads and organic results, not just maps listings!
Think you’re safe just because you’ve never listed your business anywhere else on the web? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. The simple truth is that the Internet is one giant recycling center. Information on websites is routinely harvested (plagiarized) by automated programs and used on other sites. So even if you haven’t personally included your company in an Internet directory or anywhere else on the web, your info—including business address, name, and phone—is probably still out there somewhere. Additionally, a company you hired to promote your business may have created listings that you don’t know about. For example, your local yellow pages directory may have posted your information on its website as well as printed it in hard copy.
According to Google’s Guidelines, all of your business information must match (especially your business name and address) everywhere it appears on the web. This will gain you the best placement for your services once they are well optimized and help ensure that your listings won’t be rejected.

Be Proactive When Possible and Reactive When Necessary

Unsurprisingly, the best way to ensure you receive no penalties or rejections from Google is to do it right the first time! Of course, that isn’t always possible. Google’s guidelines do change and it’s easy to be unaware of some of the rules when you’re getting set up with Google. Or, if you made the mistake of working with an unscrupulous online advertiser, they may have engaged in underhanded practices on your behalf. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for these companies to take verboten shortcuts in the hopes that booming results the first month will get you to stay with their company in hopes of continued success…
However, the good news is that Prospect Genius offers Google listing optimization services to help your company maximize your Internet marketing success. Our professionals are experts at fixing prior bad behaviors, and we can help you clean up your listings for the best results. We’ll make certain they’re working for you, not against you!
To speak with a Prospect Genius team member about any of our programs (including maps and organics optimization), pick up the phone and give us a ring at (800) 689-1273 or visit our website (prospectgenius.com) to learn more.

Catch More Customers with Coupons

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Coupons Make You Money

It may seem a little backward, but adding a coupon to your website can actually help you make more money. You may be thinking, “Wait. How can I make more money if I’m offering customers a discount?” But the math really does work out. Sure, you will be collecting a little less money per customer, but enough individuals may like the gimmick to dramatically increase your customer base. That means if you’re charging each client a little bit less but you have 5 or 10 percent more customers, you’ll be making a lot more!
Adding a coupon to your microsite is also beneficial for advertising your services. Not only can the Prospect Genius SEO team publicize your coupon—and your company—on a whole new list of websites, we can leverage these sites to increase your microsite traffic. In short, we can maximize the benefit of a coupon to boost the number of calls and e-mails you get.
Here are a few coupon ideas to consider for your company (and why they’re a great option!)

  • 5% Off for Cash Payment: When customers pay in cash, you won’t have to pay the credit card fees you might otherwise have been charged. That means this discount doesn’t really cut into your profits: you’re simply passing the savings along to your customer and generating interest in your business at the same time.
  • 10% Off for Veterans, Active Members of the Armed Services, and/or Senior Citizens: Okay, so this coupon does mean you’ll lose out on 10% of your revenue, but many customers view senior/veteran discounts as a charitable donation for the people who have served our country. This generosity toward these highly esteemed groups can enhance a customer’s perception of your business and go a long way toward encouraging a prospective client to choose you over the competition.
  • 10% Off for Existing Customers: Every business owner knows finding new customers is far more expensive than keeping the customers you already have. This kind of coupon encourages your current customers to keep your number on hand—the more customers you retain, the fewer new customers you have to find, and the savings add up!

And remember, fancy graphics are good and fine, but coupons are more about the message than the picture. All you need to create an effective online coupon is the offer itself. If you want to dress it up, go for it, but the discount is all that really matters.

Great Promotions Are All About the Gimmick

Among the more successful promotions we’ve seen from local businesses was an offer from a bathroom remodeler. He advertised at $5,995 complete bath remodel: using a one-page list of specifications regarding fixtures, counters, and flooring, the customer could select upgrades beyond the $5,995 base price.
Two things made this idea so effective:

  1. It caught the customers’ attention. The advertised price for the bathroom remodel was so low that it jumped out at prospective clients.
  2. All of the options were laid out simply and clearly. Bathroom remodels can be daunting, complex projects, but by reducing it down to four or five packages, the buying process is simple rather than overwhelming. Limiting options also limits both cost and confusion, making it straightforward and hassle-free for the buyer.

We’ve seen tons of coupons and promotional gimmicks over our years in the advertising business, but here are a few of the more popular ones we’ve come across: A free GPS system with the purchase of more than $3,000 in flooring; and $500 off more than 3,000 square feet of flooring. Pairing up a specific dollar amount with a particular service or product can help snag a reader’s attention when we’re promoting your coupon, so be as exact as you can about the details. Generating interest in the coupon—and making your phones ring or e-mail in-box overflow—is what it’s all about.

Getting Started

Have a coupon or special discount you’d like us to promote for you? Just let our SEO pros know. If you’re already signed up with the PG lead generation program, there’s no charge for adding a coupon to your site. We’ll even help you brainstorm if you’re looking for coupon ideas! Take advantage of our experts by making us do more work for you: call (800) 689-1273 or e-mail customer.service@prospectgenius.com to get your coupon up and start reeling in the customers!

SEO Firm Creates Integrity Pledge to Emphasize Commitment to Honesty and Customer Success

Last Updated: January 7, 2011

Prospect Genius, a local online advertising company, is proud to announce their new employee integrity pledge program. This integrity pledge was created to articulate Prospect Genius’s long-standing commitment to supporting the success of local businesses as well as illustrate for their clients what sets PG apart from other, less scrupulous search engine optimization (SEO) marketing companies.
Alex Pelli, Prospect Genius president, states, “We always look out for our customers. Their success is our priority, and we make sure our entire team follows the search engine guidelines so our whole campaign is aboveboard. Our integrity is what sets us apart from black-hat companies that take businesses’ money and then destroy their website’s chances by breaking Google’s rules. Prospect Genius has always been dedicated to our customers, but we’ve recently developed an integrity pledge that communicates these values and commitments clearly for ourselves and for our clients.”
Internet advertising often gets a bad name due to the underhanded tactics of many online marketing companies. Known as “black-hat SEO,” many of these so-called web marketers use strategies that are clearly against the guidelines outlined by the major search engines like Google. These techniques can produce positive results in the short term, but when the search engines discover that these rules have been violated, they dole out hefty penalties. This puts a website at a major disadvantage, and, ultimately, businesses who advertise with companies that use these deceitful tactics are left worse off than when they started working with the black-hat SEO company.
On the other hand, white-hat SEO companies like Prospect Genius work within the strictures put in place by the search engines to provide local businesses with long-term solutions for online advertising and far better value for their marketing dollars. As Pelli comments, “Black hat can get a site to the top fast, but only for a day or a week until the penalties stomp on the site and send it way down the results, sometimes permanently. That’s why we do it right. Following Google’s rules, we take the approach of treating our customers like long-term business partners and make our goal their success both today and tomorrow. We’ll never promise our customers results we can’t produce, and we’ll go about building their SEO campaign in a way that can produce increasingly positive results over time. At Prospect Genius, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of quality and integrity to bring our customers the SEO experience they deserve.”
In recent weeks, all Prospect Genius employees have signed the new integrity pledge, committing themselves as individuals to following the rule of always putting the customer first. The full text of the integrity pledge can be found on their website, here: http://www.prospectgenius.com/integrity-pledge.
Prospect Genius is a local, online advertising company that uses SEO to connect clients with area customers searching for their services on the Internet.

The Mysteries of Online Advertising Explained

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

PPC or SEO: Which Is Best?

When it comes to advertising online, most small businesses realize they need to have a strong Internet presence. But with all of the different options—and acronyms—out there, it can be hard to determine which tactics will work best for your specific needs. Let us help clear up some of that alphabet soup confusion for you…

PPC = Pay Per Click

Unsurprisingly, this type of Internet advertising involves paid ads. These small ads appear on the top and/or side of the search engine results pages and contain a link to your website. That way, people can see the ad and then visit your site simply by clicking on the ad. Although a variety of factors can affect which place (1 through 10) your ad will occupy on the results page, it boils down to two main issues:

  1. How much are you willing to spend on each click? The more you pay per click, the higher your ad can be placed. If one of your competitors wants to pay more, they’re typically going to rank higher than you do.
  2. How closely does the topic of your website match the topic of the search? If, for example, your site is about plumbing services, but the search was for “wedding rings,” your website is not particularly relevant to the search performed. The more relevant your site is to the search, the lower the price per click…That makes relevancy extremely important for PPC campaigns.

SEO = Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization involves maximizing the relevance of your site content to the searches being performed. The good news is that you don’t have to pay for your placement like you do with PPC: That means all the traffic is FREE. But there is a catch. There are practically infinite factors controlling which sites are chosen for positions 1 through 10 in the middle of the search results page, and their order is all based on how much Google believes that your site is what the searcher is looking for. Because of this inherent complexity, most small business owners find the game of SEO to be even more overwhelming than PPC. It also takes considerable time and resources to optimize your site properly. In fact, simply optimizing your site often isn’t enough.

Nerd Alert! Here’s the Scoop…

SEO has two main parts:

  1. On-page optimization: This involves optimizing the content of your own site. Let’s not get into the gory details, but the basics include properly constructing the structure of the site, its navigational links, and its text.
  2. Off-page optimization: This involves maximizing how your site interacts with other websites.

Here’s where the nerdy part comes in: Google regards links to your site like votes. If person A links to person B’s website, person A must think that person B’s site is of some value. Creating that link functions like a vote, and according to Google more votes equal more value.
That’s the basics, but the reality of the situation is somewhat more complicated. Off-page optimization is all about increasing the number of quality links pointing to your site. The tricky part is that not all links count, and not all links are of the same value. Off-page optimization involves figuring out which links will help boost your website’s results ranking in the best way!

That’s Nice, But Which One Do I Pick?

Choosing between PPC and SEO depends a lot on your goals but also on your budget. Let’s look at it like opening a store in the real world: Do you want to quickly set up a kiosk in the mall to capitalize on holiday shoppers, or do you want a storefront that you can build value in over time?
Like the kiosk, PPC is the clear choice if you’re looking for immediate results. You can set it up, turn it on, and get traffic the next day. There are already shoppers in the mall (and on the web), so you just have to rent some space to get to them. The downside is that the kiosks tend to have high rent because they’re prime real estate. The same is true for PPC. The rates are high, and increasing all the time because more and more companies are using PPC and consequently bidding up the prices.
Opting to construct a storefront is more like SEO. You can leverage a storefront for years to come—you have control over your own space and your business will become more recognized and trusted as the years go by, just like with SEO. Although there are costs involved with building a store (or website) and getting people to visit it (online traffic), the long-term cost is far less than with PPC. It also becomes harder and harder to knock you out of your spot the longer you’re in business.

What This Means for Your Business

In an ideal world, you would have an unlimited budget for online advertising—and if you did, we would recommend that you do both SEO and PPC! This would ensure you get the best of both worlds. As the SEO ramps up, you can cut back on the PPC campaign: That way you get immediate results but also long-term stability.
However, most small businesses are operating on a limited Internet marketing budget. If that’s the case, we generally recommend SEO. That’s because SEO can be looked as more of an investment than an expense. The simple truth is that it is a more cost-effective strategy. Of course, it all depends on your goals, but most of our clients find they’re happy they went with our program over a PPC campaign. That’s generally because the cost is lower and the overall value just can’t be beaten by PPC.

Dip Your Toe in the Water

If you’re ready to try out a little of this SEO thing but don’t want to jump all the way in, Prospect Genius has a great way for you to sample it. Our Ad Blast program can promote your website in all sorts of local places online. We use this strategy for our Lead Generation customers, but we now offer it as a stand-alone service. For a low, one-time fee, we’ll generate a whole pile of links pointing back to your site. We leverage directories, newspapers, classified ads, online magazines, and a bunch of other site types to make your business more visible to people the web.
This program is especially effective if you have a seasonal special or sale that you want to advertise online. Give us a call (800-689-1273) if you’d like to learn more about how SEO, our Ad Blast campaign, and the PG team can help your business!
Prospect Genius has other services that can complement the Ad Blast program as well. For details, visit our website.

Block Phone Solicitors Once and For All

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Is your phone ringing off the hook? Are you frustrated that solicitors are tying up your line? Are you doubly sick of solicitors calling your cell phone? If you’re tired of the endless stream of telephone solicitations you’re receiving, Prospect Genius can help! We already block over 550 numbers for our customers, but if you’re receiving solicitations or other unwanted telephone calls through your metered number, we can make it stop. Just let us know right away, and we’ll block that number from calling you. And once we have it blocked, you won’t have to worry about being pestered by that solicitor ever again.
So don’t wait and let the annoyance mount! Call us at 1-800-689-1273 or send us a quick e-mail with the caller’s information, and we’ll get them blocked ASAP.

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