Tips and Tricks – Page 22

How to Slow Down in the Summer Without Losing Fall Business

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Summer is a time for family vacations, relaxing afternoons at the beach, and fun adventures with the kids. And when you own a business and make your own schedule, it’s easy to take as much time off as you want and enjoy every last ray of sunshine. However, if you plan to slow down during the summer months, you won’t be bringing in much revenue. That means you won’t want to be paying for things you don’t need, including certain online advertising services. At the same time, you don’t want to do anything that will jeopardize your business come fall.
Here are our recommendations for when you want to slow down in the summer and pick right back up once fall rolls around.

Do NOT Stop Your SEO

Even if you’re planning to take an entire month’s vacation, don’t stop your SEO. It’s not something you can just pause and resume. If you stop your SEO, all of your progress will be deconstructed and, when you want to restart your program, you’ll have to rebuild from the ground up. It may seem like you’re saving money by skipping a month’s payment, but you’ll actually cost yourself more money in the long run when your campaign loses momentum and you have to wait for it to ramp up again. If you want your fall season to start strong, you simply cannot afford to stop your campaign.
Look at it this way: If you were to go away for a month, would you sell your house and then re-purchase it when you returned? We’re betting no.

DO Pause Your PPC

While you can’t pause your SEO, you can feel free to have us pause your PPC campaign. Since you’re not going to be taking calls or booking jobs while you’re on vacation, there’s no need to pay for people to click on your ads. Once you’re back in the swing of things and ready to work, you can have our specialists resume your PPC campaign. The leads will start rolling in again in no time.
This doesn’t just apply to when you take an extended vacation, either. You can do this if you’re taking a weekend off or even if you’re just booked up for the next few days. We have a particularly astute client, Marvel Appliances Service in Miami, FL, who has this down to a science. He runs his PPC campaign during the week and then pauses it on the weekends when he’s all booked up and can’t handle any more calls. He saves money without sacrificing leads.
It’s kind of like turning off your air conditioning when you leave for the weekend.

DO Reroute Your Phone Number

Rerouting your phone number is super easy to do right from the Client Portal. If you’re spending quality time with your family at the beach one day, you can quickly set your calls to forward to e-mail or to a different phone number so that your cell phone isn’t ringing off the hook. Once you’re ready to take calls again, you can return to the Client Portal and set your phone number back the way it was. But don’t forget to follow up with all those calls you missed!
If you’ll be unavailable for an extended period of time, you can take this a step further by “renting” out your LeadTrax™ site to a local friend in the same industry as you. You would forward your incoming calls to their phone number, and they would pay you a small fee for those calls. It could be a great way to earn a little money while you’re away and help out a friend at the same time.

DO Change Your Voice Mail Greeting

Before you go on vacation for weeks at a time, be sure to change your voice mail greeting so your customers are aware of your availability. You can simply tell them the range of dates that you’ll be away and the date that you’ll be back in business. Giving them this information will ensure that they don’t feel ignored when their calls aren’t returned right away. If they’re existing, loyal customers, they’ll most likely wait for you to return. Prospects might even be willing to wait if they know you’re a reputable company and that you’re just on vacation for a short time.
This puts you in a great position for the fall because you won’t leave any former customers feeling spurned.

Remember to Follow Up

No matter what you decide to do while you’re away, following up with any missed calls is a must. Don’t make your prospects or current customers feel unimportant. The best way to ensure recurring business in the fall is to remind customers how much you value them. As soon as you get back from vacation, return their calls or reply to their e-mails and do your best to fit them into your schedule as soon as possible. While some of those leads might have moved on this time, they’ll remember your attentiveness and may very well call you again in the future.

Two Need-to-Know Changes That Will Impact Your Advertising Campaign for the Rest of 2015

Last Updated: June 18, 2015

Does it feel like we’re always trumpeting some game-changing update to the online advertising world? You’re not wrong. But that’s because the online advertising world is always changing. As consumer behavior evolves, so must advertising. In the last couple of years, the most dramatic change in consumer behavior has been the rapidly growing usage of mobile devices. Advertisers and search engines alike have had to make sweeping updates in order to account for the fact that, on the whole, more people are using mobile devices than personal computers. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the two biggest changes to watch out for in the second half of 2015 are both linked to the rise in mobile usage.
Here’s what you need to know to keep your advertising campaign on the right track through the end of the year.

The Emphasis on Mobile Will Affect Your Leads

Not only has Google begun evaluating the mobile-friendliness of every indexed webpage, but it also factors the level of mobile-friendliness into each page’s ranking on mobile search results. Essentially, this means your rankings will plummet in mobile search results if you don’t update the structure of your website and make it as mobile-friendly as possible.
Not worried about your mobile search rankings? Think your business will be fine without any leads from mobile users? Think again. In July 2014, the search industry discovered that Internet usage on mobile devices had surpassed Internet usage on personal desktop computers. Then, just last month, Google announced that this trend had affected search queries, as well: In the U.S. and other parts of the world, more Google search queries are occurring on smartphones and mobile devices than on desktops. In other words, if you’re not ranking in mobile search results, you’re missing out on over half of your target customers.

Facebook’s Gone Mobile, Too

Not only will your Google rankings drop if your site isn’t mobile friendly, but you’ll also alienate any prospects who come across your site by other means, like social media. Did you know that, in 2015, 87% of Facebook’s active monthly users accessed Facebook from their mobile devices? If you’re using Facebook to promote your business, this means many of your target customers will be connecting to your site from Facebook on their smartphones or tablets. But if your site won’t load or display correctly because it’s not optimized for mobile, then you’ll lose those customers who got frustrated and moved on.

Unique, Good-Quality Photos Are a Must-Have

Thanks to the prominence of mobile, photos on your Google listing went from being nice-to-haves to must-haves. This shift has as much to do with user experience as it does with search engine ranking.

Appeal to Real People

When people use their smartphones to search for local businesses, they’re usually doing so because they’re on the go and need to make a quick decision. Since mobile users don’t have lots of time or patience on their hands, you want to grab their attention right away. This is where photos come in. Adding catchy photos of your business logo, staff members, products, and/or services will signal to them right away that you’re a legitimate company. They’ll immediately get a sense of what your company is about without having to do too much reading or scrolling. Photos of real people and places speak louder than any description you could possibly write. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
This applies to more than just your Google listing, too. It applies to anywhere that your company can be found. Whether it’s on your own website, Facebook, Yelp, or another online directory, your content should be filled with compelling photos to boost your credibility.

Appeal to Search Bots

Photos appeal to the search bots, too. We’ve recently observed that our clients’ Google listings perform much better when they contain several unique, good-quality photos. That’s because Google’s algorithm has begun weighting photos more heavily, which is probably linked to its new focus on mobile search. As we explained above, photos make for a more mobile-friendly experience, and Google understands this. It wants to give its users the best search experience possible, so it’s prioritizing listings that have the highest appeal. So not only will photos improve your appearance to mobile users, but they will strengthen your search performance, as well.

How to Act

Thankfully, responding to these changes is simple and easy.

To Become Mobile Friendly…

Talk to your online advertising provider, or whoever designed your website, and find out if your site is already optimized for mobile. If it’s not, then you better take action quickly. Most providers and designers—legitimate ones, anyway—are equipped to make this upgrade relatively easily. It shouldn’t cost much time or money to make this very necessary upgrade to your template.

To Add Photos to Your Listings and Pages…

Again, talk to your online advertising provider (if you have one). Send in your own photos and have your advertiser upload them to your site and all of your listings. If you’re working with a provider, do not attempt to upload them to your Google listing on your own. (Google doesn’t like it when a listing is being managed from two disparate IP addresses.) However, if you’re doing all of your advertising on your own, then you’re obviously free to upload photos wherever and whenever you wish.
Remember: When we say “unique, good-quality photos,” we mean that literally. Using stock photos, despite their professional quality, will not do anything to sell your company. People can spot impersonal stock photos from a mile away. Sure, they’re better than no photos at all, but they won’t do much to improve your lead generation or credibility. You’re better off taking your own photos for free. With the high camera quality on smartphones these days, it’s not at all difficult to snap a high-resolution photo while you’re on the job. You have no excuses!

READ THIS: "4 Things Most Leaders Don't Know About SEO"

Last Updated: June 11, 2015

By now, you’ve heard of the term “search engine optimization” (SEO for short), and at least recognize that there’s a lot of significance behind it. However, according to a recent article on Search Engine Land, there’s still a lot about SEO that business owners don’t know.

In his article, “4 Things Most Leaders Don’t Understand About SEO,” columnist Trond Lyngbø describes a major problem with business owners and SEO—mainly that they perceive SEO as a quick fix, an add-on, instead of the holistic approach to online marketing that it should be.
Here are the five most significant points from Lyngbø’s article:

SEO should be incorporated into every aspect of your marketing, including PPC.
Before you can begin creating optimized content, you must do your due-diligence and research your audience’s needs and interests. This way, you can attract your ideal prospects. Then, once they’ve visited your website, your content will demonstrate an understanding of why they need your product or service. This is what will grow your conversion rate.
In order to optimize your content and get the highest click-through rate, your company’s branding (i.e. messaging) must connect with what your prospects want to hear. In your advertising, you should be offering answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. Lyngbø writes, “Your story becomes more interesting when you talk about what they are already interested in.”
But SEO means more than just targeting the right keywords and content. It also means structuring your website so that the code is search engine friendly, pages load efficiently, navigation is easy, and internal links are sound.
However, SEO is not a cure-all. You must have a good product at the center of your marketing. That’s not only because you want your customers to spread the good word, but also because customer reviews will soon become a crucial ranking factor: “[Google] wants its users to keep coming back, so it will ultimately strive to suggest only high quality products and services which their users will love.”

Read the full article for further details, and feel free to check out additional columns by Trond Lyngbø on Search Engine Land.

Have You Outgrown Your Current Advertising Package?

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

There’s a common misconception floating around that the only way to change the direction of your advertising is to change advertisers.
Many clients don’t realize that it’s simple and easy to transition to a different advertising package within the Prospect Genius program. Instead, they uproot their entire campaign and start over from scratch, costing themselves a lot of time, money, and aggravation in the process. Completely changing providers when you want to move your advertising in a new direction is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Why abandon your investment and start over the hard way when it’s much easier, faster, and more economical to use the services that are already available to you?
A lot of hardship can be avoided if you just talk to us about your new direction. Our experts can craft a whole new solution for you by adding or subtracting elements of your current program, thus helping you leverage the investment you’ve already made. Even if it turns out that you do have to take your business to a new provider, we can at least help make your transition smoother and less damaging. But either way, if you don’t let us guide you, you risk doing irreparable damage to your web presence and campaign.

Reasons for Switching Packages

There are countless reasons for wanting to make a change to your advertising package. Hopefully, your reasons have to do with the growth of your company and the new direction in which you’re headed.
For example, let’s say you first signed up with us in 2011. Back then, all we offered was SEO-based lead generation, which we now call our Core program. After four years of seeing steady SEO results, you now feel like your advertising has become static. You want to give your campaign a little shot in the arm by promoting seasonal specials. Why not add on our PPC package for a couple of months? Our content specialists could handle your paid advertising for a short time while maintaining your SEO, and then we could help you decide whether you should stick with it or change to something else.
Or, instead, let’s say you had your own website when you first enrolled in our PPC program and have enjoyed a significant amount of growth since then. Now you want to focus on growing your brand. In this case, adding our Remarketing service would be a great solution because it would enable us to use your existing PPC campaign to create broader brand awareness for your company.
Or maybe you were a fledgling business owner without the slightest hint of a web presence when you first signed up for our Core program. Now, you want to move past the modest LeadTrax™ site we built you and hire an expensive, professional designer to create a flashy site that reflects how far you’ve come. You could absolutely do that without having to sever ties with us. When you switch to our B.Y.O.S. (Bring Your Own Site) package, we would simply start performing SEO for your new-and-improved site, instead.
There are dozens more examples, but you get the idea: Switching programs is great for virtually any client, as long as it’s in the interest of growing or expanding your campaign.

How to Switch Packages

It may not seem like it, but this is the easy part. As we mentioned above, all you have to do is talk to us. If you’re feeling like your campaign is in need of a shakeup, let us know. At the end of the day, we want you to have the campaign that satisfies you the most. When you talk to us about your vision for your advertising’s future, we’ll apply our expertise and come up with a solution that will make your vision a reality.
If you want to stick with a holistic marketing package, you can choose between Starter, Core, and Premium. Moving from one to another is easy. Otherwise, if you just want to build on your existing advertising package, these are your add-on options:
Mountaineering Route. Goal Achievement Concept. Vector

Social Media Services
Local Search Services
Paid Search Services
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Remarketing

Alternative Options

What happens if you speak with us about your goals and we both realize that our partnership is no longer a good fit? Well, by letting us in on the discussion, you’ve at least made it possible for us to advise you and make sure you move in the right direction. We can make your transition to a new company as painless as possible, using products like CleanSlate to minimize the damage to your SEO.
Transitioning will be much smoother when you keep us in the loop. It’s in our best interest, as well as yours, to make sure everyone leaves the partnership on a pleasant note.

Conclusion: Keep an Ongoing Discussion

Communicating with us about your changing needs is vital to your marketing success. Whether you end up staying with us or moving on, it’s essential that you keep us informed and allow us to guide you in the right direction. Don’t make the mistake of making a hasty decision without an expert opinion. The future of your business is too valuable.

Top 3 Behaviors That Will Hurt Your Web Presence

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

At Prospect Genius, we’ve spent years and years perfecting our online advertising services and adapting them to meet Google’s changing standards. We do this so we can provide the most effective advertising possible and produce satisfying results. However, our efforts can only take a client so far if that client is doing things that are inadvertently sabotaging their online advertising campaign and web presence.
Man With Computer
To keep your campaign successful, stay on Google’s good side by avoiding these three behaviors at all costs.

1. Duplicating Content

Having duplicate content on your website is a major crime in Google’s world. If your site contains content that’s been copyrighted to another company, you have duplicate content. This is in direct violation of Google’s guidelines. Google’s bots are constantly indexing and scanning through webpages, and sooner or later, they’ll detect that your content is identical to someone else’s. When they do, Google will decide which page is the original source; the other page, presumed plagiarized, will be removed from Google’s index, never to be shown to users.
So while it may seem like you’re taking a shortcut by “borrowing” someone else’s content—or content that was written by an advertiser like Prospect Genius—you’re actually creating a situation where the duplicated pages will never rank for any search. Obviously, this will do serious damage to your web presence in the long run.

2. Using Fake Addresses

Some business owners think they can get away with using a fake address on their Google My Business listing. In doing so, real businesses are trying to put themselves in prime locations for local SEO, while shady businesses without a physical location are making up addresses out of thin air to seem legitimate. Regardless of your motivation, if you use a fake address on your Google My Business listing, you will be caught.
That’s because Google has a variety of tools, including cars and satellites, used to verify that businesses are actually located where they claim to be. When Google discovers that your business is not at the location listed, you’ll be slapped with a hefty penalty. Your listing will plummet in ranking or it might be suspended completely.
It’s a much safer bet to just stick with your real address. In fact, in 95% of cases, business owners will get good rankings just by following the rules. That means using a fake address is not only risky, but it’s also unnecessary.

3. Hiding Information

Some business owners have a tendency to hold their cards close to their chests. They’ve learned from years of competition that they don’t want people having access to sensitive information about their businesses. Fair enough—but this behavior does not mesh well with Prospect Genius’s online advertising services.
When you hire us and don’t give us a full history of your web presence or you lock us out of key resources like your Google My Business listing, you’re stunting your own advertising efforts. We not only need to make sure your Google listing is working in harmony with the other work you’re paying us to do, but we also need to know where else your business is listed and what types of behaviors you’ve engaged in previously. For example, if you have a history of bending, breaking, or ignoring Google’s policies, or you worked with a different advertiser before hiring us, we need to know. If there’s something in your history that you don’t tell us, then we might end up making matters worse by spreading conflicting information about your business. (And as you know, Google despises conflicting information.)
When you hide this kind of crucial information from us, it’s like hiding the level from your kitchen renovation contractor. Sure, they’ll be able to get the job done without it, but all of your cabinets are going to be wonky and crooked, and your kitchen might end up being unusable. You’re essentially hiring someone to do a job for you and then taking away their ability to do that job effectively. Simply put, you’re wasting your own money.

Conclusion: Don’t Lie

That’s the general rule when you want to stay out of trouble online. Don’t lie to Google. Don’t lie to your advertiser. Don’t lie to your customers. Just don’t do it. It may seem like a simple white lie, but Google’s punishments don’t always fit the crime. You have no way of predicting or controlling the consequences. Google might delete all of your reviews, penalize your rankings, suspend your listing, or even mark your business as “closed.” The potential consequences simply aren’t worth the gamble. Help yourself and your web presence by remaining honest at all times.

Prospect Genius

Two Need-to-Know Changes That Will Impact Your Advertising Campaign for the Rest of 2015

The Emphasis on Mobile Will Affect Your Leads

Facebook’s Gone Mobile, Too

Unique, Good-Quality Photos Are a Must-Have

Appeal to Real People

Appeal to Search Bots

How to Act

To Become Mobile Friendly…

To Add Photos to Your Listings and Pages…

READ THIS: "4 Things Most Leaders Don't Know About SEO"

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