Blog – Page 46

Avoid the Land Mine of Conflicting Information

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Conflicting information is a hidden land mine that business owners step on repeatedly.
We’ve talked at length about how the success of a campaign is a result of synergy—all aspects of your online presence working together to generate greater results—but this synergy can be inverted, as well. If there are aspects of your campaign that don’t match or work together, your entire online presence will sink. Small mistakes like spelling errors and mismatching addresses on different listings may not seem like major offenses, but the synergistic effect of these mistakes could spell disaster for your Prospect Genius campaign and online presence as a whole.
In this post, we’ll outline some common causes of conflicting information and what you can do to avoid it.

Did Your Company Recently Move?

A recent relocation or change of address is a frequent reason for conflicting information. When your business moves (whether physically or just on paper), traces of your previous address and/or phone number could remain on old directory listings—some of which you might not even be aware of. Unless these traces are cleaned up, your online presence will be haunted by the conflicting information floating around the web.

Did You Recently Switch From a Different Advertiser?

If you worked with another online advertiser before hiring Prospect Genius, then you might have some old, conflicting information out there. This happens pretty frequently with our clients. Usually, when you quit working with an advertising company, they’ll just leave all of your old information up without giving you any resources for cleaning it up (e.g. names of directories that you’re listed on, login information for those accounts, etc.). If any of that information is outdated or incorrect, it’ll follow your company until you take the right steps to fix it.

Have You Not Been 100% Honest With Us?

This is a big one. Sometimes, clients are reluctant to tell us that they used to work with a different advertiser or that they previously made mistakes with their marketing efforts. Whether it’s because they’re embarrassed or don’t want to upset us, we’re not sure. But the truth is, we don’t care about the past—we only care about the future and how we can make yours as successful as possible. That means we need to know the whole truth about your past activity so we can take the necessary steps to clean up any messes that could come back to bite you.

How to Clean It Up

In your line of work, you may be familiar with the concept of a little elbow grease being the only fix for most common problems, like appliance malfunctions, plumbing leaks, and drafty windows. You just have to buck up and fix them with your own two hands. It’s the same for the problem of conflicting information. The only solution is for one of the Internet marketing specialists at Prospect Genius to manually find and delete or correct all of the conflicting pieces of information out there about your company. It takes some time, but it’s the only way.
Thankfully, we offer two different tools that are designed to streamline this cleanup process as much as possible: WebFax^® and CleanSlate. A WebFax report will find and flag any potential problems; then, with our CleanSlate program, our specialists will fix all of those issues and wipe the slate clean.
Think of using CleanSlate like getting your tires changed. You don’t have to do it very often, but the need for it does grow over time. While the signs of wear and tear aren’t always obvious, if you fail to change your tires at all, your vehicle will have serious performance issues down the road. Similarly, if you never use CleanSlate (especially after relocating or switching advertisers), you can expect lots of difficulty finding traction in the local search sphere. It may only be a one-time chore over the life span of your campaign, but it’s absolutely essential if you want to stay on track.

How to Keep It Neat

Once you’ve cleaned up your messy information, it’s crucial to maintain that tidiness. That means you must refrain from going into your Google listing (or any other listing) on your own and changing bits and pieces after we’ve already worked on it. If you need to change something, let us know. That way, we can make sure all of your listings are changed uniformly across the board.
As we said above, if all the parts of your campaign aren’t working in sync, the whole thing can come crumbling down.

Why You Must Give Your SEO Campaign Time

Last Updated: October 15, 2015

How long do you plan to keep your company in business? For the vast majority of business owners, the answer is something longer than 90 days. Why, then, are many business owners so reluctant to invest in online advertising for the long haul? If you want a long-lasting web presence that gets stronger and stronger as time goes on, then you must be patient as SEO builds. An SEO program may try your patience for the first 90 days, but the long-term ROI will be worth the wait.

Here’s why SEO requires your patience, and how your patience will pay off.

SEO = Building a Reputation

Why does SEO take at least three months to start generating results? It’s because SEO involves so much more than just building a website. As we’ve noted previously, SEO requires lots of repetition as you build your website’s reputation and establish its credibility with Google. This includes submitting your site to multiple tiers of directories in stages, updating your social media profile regularly, and performing other tasks that build your backlinks.
If you look at starting a new SEO campaign like starting a new business, it might make more sense: Opening a physical storefront is only the first step. You then have to get the word out about your business by announcing your arrival on the scene. You need to bring attention to your new business by holding a grand opening, sharing the news on Facebook, handing out business cards… Whatever it takes to get people to notice you. Then you can start expecting customers to roll in. It’s the same with an SEO campaign. Your advertiser needs to spend time putting your name online and demonstrating your legitimacy to Google before you can expect your phone to start ringing.
When all is said and done, the whole “grand opening” process for SEO campaigns usually takes at least three months.

Be the Tortoise, Not the Hare

While SEO may take a while to gain traction, it’s the only form of online advertising proven to go the distance. As your campaign gains momentum, its performance will grow until it doesn’t even resemble what it was like in those first few months.
To use another analogy, building an SEO campaign can be compared to building a house. During the initial stages of construction, you’ll have a fine-looking house from the outside, with four walls, a roof, and some windows. But when you open the door, you’ll see that the house is still uninhabitable, as the plumbing and electricity still need to be installed and the interior needs to be furnished.
Quitting your SEO campaign after the first four weeks because your website has been launched “without results” would be like deciding to move in to this uninhabitable house because it looks finished from the outside. You would soon realize you made a huge mistake by rushing it. However, if you’re patient for a few more weeks, you’ll have a cozy, fully functional home.
In the same way, if you stick it out with your SEO company for a little bit longer, you’ll have a high-performing advertising campaign that can start to generate leads from all different corners of the web. Best of all, once your site has established a solid reputation with Google, it’ll only require regular monitoring and occasional maintenance to keep going strong.

Stick With One SEO Provider

Whatever you do, don’t start working with another advertiser during this three-month waiting period in the hopes that it will speed up your wait time. It won’t. In fact, it could actually make you wait twice as long, considering the damage it would do to your Quality Score on Google. You’d make your advertiser’s job harder while making your campaign’s performance worse.

Make the Commitment. It’s Worth It.

When you put in the time and allow your SEO campaign to gain traction, you’ll be rewarded with prominence in local search results and a steady increase in leads. As time goes on and your website’s value becomes clearer to Google, your campaign’s performance will improve even more. Provided that your advertiser isn’t doing anything shady—like creating fake map listings or copying the same content for all of their sites—you should give your advertiser at least 90 days to work their magic. You’ll be glad you did.

Does Your Mobile Site Give Users What They Want?

Last Updated: October 12, 2015

By now, you fully understand that having a mobile website is essential to your local search success. However, do you know what your mobile site should look like or what kinds of features it should have? In more general terms, do you know what mobile users want from your site?

As reported by Adam Stetzer of Search Engine Watch, the experts at HubShout recently did a study in which they polled 450 mobile users about their mobile-browsing habits. Their intent was to find out exactly what consumers are looking for in a mobile site.
Their findings were not shocking. According to the study, 94% of mobile users have used their phones to search for local businesses at some point. Of those people, 61% search for local businesses frequently or daily. Obviously, this proves what we and every other online marketer have been saying for the past couple of years: Mobile search optimization is crucial for local businesses.
But we already know this. Those stats are just the jumping-off point to demonstrate the large number of customers you would be neglecting if you didn’t incorporate the following pieces of information:

93% of users use a smartphone, which means drop-down menus and click-to-call capabilities are significant.
88% of users want to see business hours displayed clearly.
85% of users want to see a phone number clearly (with a click-to-call option being a plus).
82% of users want to see an address and/or driving directions easily.
70% of users want to see product pricing.
67% of users want to see a product/service menu.

As you can see, mobile users aren’t looking for a flashy presentation. They just want to find your company’s basic information quickly and easily (i.e. without much navigation). This is because mobile users are performing local searches on the go more often than not.
If mobile users don’t see the info they need right away or get annoyed because they have to zoom in to read text, they’re likely to navigate back to the search page and look for another site. So if your mobile site doesn’t meet the above criteria, you could be driving your customers straight to the competition.
Check out the full article over on Search Engine Watch to see all of the study’s findings and corresponding charts.

Top 5 Online Advertising Mistakes That Will Waste Your Money

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Make sure you’re getting your money’s worth from Prospect Genius. Avoid these online advertising mistakes that are almost guaranteed to ruin your campaign and wash your money down the drain.

5. Hiring Another SEO Company at the Same Time

Many business owners mistakenly believe that hiring an additional SEO company will double their results. In reality, it does the opposite. If you’re already working with us, hiring another SEO company will actually work against our efforts and damage your web presence.
That’s due to a number of reasons. First, we’ve spent years developing and perfecting our lead generation strategies, which are rigidly structured to ensure consistent results. However, since every company has its own unique approach to SEO, the other company’s work may get in our way and potentially counteract our efforts. Second, working with two companies could jeopardize your standing with Google, a far graver consequence. When Google detects multiple account managers updating your listing from disparate IP addresses, it will flag your listing. From there, your listing could be penalized or suspended. Recovering from either of those actions is a long, costly process.
Finally, it’s important to know that there is only a finite number of valuable resources available for optimization. If you have more than one company trying to use those resources, it becomes a battle. Not having access to all of the resources they need will significantly weaken each campaign. Plus, with two companies battling each other and adding different sets of information, you’ll end up flagged by Google for conflicting information.
In short, hiring a second SEO company is a surefire way to damage your campaign—not to mention a huge waste of money. Read more about the dangers of working with multiple SEO companies in our blog post, “For SEO Companies, Two’s a Crowd.”

4. Not Knowing What You Want

We may be online advertising “geniuses,” but we aren’t fortunetellers. We can’t predict what you’ll want in the future—only you can do that. When you sign up with us, make sure you have an idea of what you want for the long term. This is the only way we can tailor our services to your needs. Keep an open dialogue with us about what you want out of your campaign so we can deliver the most satisfying experience possible.
For example, we’ve had clients in the past who decided during their Core campaigns that they actually wanted to focus on their own, preexisting sites rather than their LeadTrax™ sites. If we had known this upfront, we would have been able to save time, money, and hassle for both parties by using our B.Y.O.S. (Bring Your Own Site) package, instead.
If you don’t know what you want out of your Prospect Genius campaign in the long run, you’ll end up spending an unnecessary amount of time and money on a campaign that doesn’t quite suit your needs.

3. Not Answering Your Phone When Customers Call

This one is pretty straightforward. If you’re not going to answer your phone when customers call you for your services, then why are you paying us to connect you with these customers? You may be shocked to discover how infrequently some of our clients answer their phones. These clients are essentially throwing away their money because they’re paying us for a lead generation program and then ignoring the leads that are being generated. This is especially true for PPC clients who are literally paying for each person who clicks on their ad and visits their site.
If you’re having trouble answering the phone, use the Client Portal to reroute your LeadTrax number to your mobile phone or any other phone that you can actually answer with some frequency. For more tips on reducing missed calls, check out “Do You Have a Plan for Handling Missed Calls?” and “You Might Be Paying Your Advertiser for Nothing.”

2. Not Communicating With Us

Having an open line of communication between us is vital to the success of your campaign. Whether it’s turning in your Google PIN as soon as you receive it, responding to our e-mail inquiries in a timely manner, or giving us pertinent company details for your LeadTrax site content, we need you to actively communicate with us. Otherwise, we won’t be able to advertise your business to the best of our abilities.
For example, if you fail to tell us that Google sent you a verification PIN via postcard, we’ll just be stuck in limbo waiting to move forward with your Google listing. If you don’t answer the phone or call us back when we have a question about your company, we won’t be able to finish creating your LeadTrax site. If you don’t give us the full picture of what your business does and how it works, then your site won’t be very accurate. All of these ultimately lead to an unsatisfying campaign.
The bottom line is this: If you don’t actively communicate with us, we won’t be able to do our job effectively. And when we can’t be effective, you’re wasting your money.

1. Leaving Conflicting Information on the Web

Having inconsistent or conflicting information about your business all over the web is the quickest way to drive your campaign into the ground. This often results from working with a second advertising company and not realizing that they created duplicate listings with slightly varied information. However, it can also result from something simpler, like a recent address change or name change. Regardless of what caused the information inconsistency, no amount of SEO wizardry will be successful until all of your online information matches.
To get the most out of your investment in lead generation services, you’ll need to have a clean, consistent online footprint. We recommend a WebFax^® report to check the status of your online information and CleanSlate to fix any problems that come to light in the report. If you don’t take action to clean up your mismatching information, all of our lead generation efforts will be for naught.

Help Us Help You

Thankfully, all of these online advertising mistakes are easily avoidable. We don’t expect you to be super-savvy with technology or knowledgeable about Google’s best practices. All we ask is that you are completely forthcoming and honest with us so that we can do what we do best: send leads straight to you.
There’s no such thing as a perfect campaign, but if you’re able to avoid these destructive online advertising mistakes, you can at least know that you’re doing your part to make your campaign as successful as possible.
Questions or concerns? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at your earliest convenience.

Has Google's Security Gone Too Far?

Last Updated: September 17, 2015

Surprise, surprise: Google is making life more difficult for local business owners and online advertisers. This time, the problems have to do with Google’s new security measures, which have become markedly stricter in the last year. While tightening security is a good idea in theory, it’s been extremely problematic in execution, as it has created quite a mess for the many business owners who share access to their Google My Business accounts with their advertisers.
Here’s what you need to know about Google’s security pain points so you can avoid being locked out of your account and keep your advertising on track.

Claiming Your Listing Is a Pain

If you are the owner of your Google My Business listing, then you don’t have to worry about trying to claim it. You can easily make your online advertiser the manager of your listing. However, many Google My Business accounts are created by a hired SEO company or online advertiser; when you stop working with that company, they abandon your listing without giving you back ownership. That company still technically owns your listing, but now you don’t have access to it because you don’t know the log-in information.
Trying to claim these types of listings has always been challenging, but Google has made it even more difficult recently. When you (or a new advertiser) try to claim your listing, Google will first contact the current owner of that page. However, since the current owner is your former SEO company that no longer cares about your business, it’s unlikely to respond to Google’s request. Your listing will be stuck in limbo for at least 1-2 weeks while Google waits for a response from the owner. If there’s no response after a few weeks, Google will give you the option to claim your listing yourself by phone or e-mail—but this will only work if you have a corporate e-mail domain. If this doesn’t work, you may have to create an entirely new listing from scratch and start over.

Solution

You can avoid these delays by requesting your Google My Business account information as soon as you stop working with an online advertising provider. You may also want to consider creating an e-mail address on your company’s website domain.

Good Luck Logging In to Your Own Account

“But if I know my username and password, shouldn’t I be in the clear?” Technically, yes. However, you may still run into problems logging in if you don’t regularly visit your account. Google takes any significant absence (we haven’t pinpointed the exact time period yet, but it seems to be at least several months) as a sign that your account has been compromised. As a result, Google will grill you with hyper-specific security questions to make sure it’s really you signing in. This may also happen if you forget your password or try logging in from a new device or physical location.
Some of these questions include:

On what date did you create this account?
What other Google apps and products do you use?
What is the date when you first started using these products?

In many cases, Google may also ask you for your mobile phone number so it can text a PIN to you, which you will then have to verify manually. Of course, because the vast majority of users won’t be able to recall the exact day and month that they created their accounts, the authentication process can get complicated and frustrating very quickly.

Solution

Be sure to log in to your Google My Business account on a regular basis (at least once per month). Not only will this prevent Google from thinking your account’s been compromised, but it will also help you remember your username and password. You can also turn off your two-step authentication process (which is an optional user setting) so that you aren’t prompted to verify your account every time you sign in from a new device or location.

Your Advertising Could Take a Hit

When Google’s security measures present these kinds of problems, your advertising efforts will suffer greatly. If you’ve hired an online advertiser, they won’t be able to claim your listing and, therefore, won’t be able to optimize your local search performance. Not only will they not be able to do their job, but they could potentially get blocked from your listing altogether if they try accessing it without the proper credentials. Even if you’re performing your own advertising, you won’t be able to do much if you can’t log in to your own account.
Here’s the bottom line: If you can’t log in to Google, you can’t manage your listing. If you can’t manage your listing, you can’t keep it updated to ensure it matches all of your other online content. If your Google listing doesn’t match your online content, your local search performance will take a serious hit.

Prospect Genius

Why You Must Give Your SEO Campaign Time

SEO = Building a Reputation

Be the Tortoise, Not the Hare

Stick With One SEO Provider

Make the Commitment. It’s Worth It.

Does Your Mobile Site Give Users What They Want?

Has Google's Security Gone Too Far?

Claiming Your Listing Is a Pain

Solution

Good Luck Logging In to Your Own Account

Solution

Your Advertising Could Take a Hit

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