Take Full Advantage of What Prospect Genius Has to Offer

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

You’ve already taken the perfect first step in signing up for Prospect Genius’s online advertising services. But are you doing everything you can to optimize your campaign’s success? Work gets busy, and it’s easier to just leave your campaign in the hands of our specialists. While you can enjoy some success by doing that, you’ll get much more bang for your buck if you become an active participant in your campaign.
In this post, we’ll highlight some of the services and features available from Prospect Genius that you could be using right now to get the greatest return from your online advertising campaign.

Take Advantage of Included Features

The Client Portal is an invaluable tool, providing a handful of free features that can empower you to boost your LeadTrax™ site, manage your leads, and improve your business’s success.

Company blog and photo gallery — You can access both the blog and the photo gallery through the Client Portal to post fresh content on your LeadTrax site on your own. Write a quick blurb about a recent job in the blog, and add accompanying pictures in the gallery. It’s a great way to frequently populate your site with new content, which will boost its SEO value overall.
Call monitoring and recording — Through the Client Portal, you can listen to and record all of the phone calls on your CallTrax™ line. By going back and listening to how you handle customer calls, you’ll be able to improve customer service and make sure that you’re closing the most deals.
Call tracking — Our CallTrax feature displays all of the calls that come through your phone line. It’s especially useful because you can track calls by time and date, which means you can see any patterns in the time of day or day of the week when customers tend to call most often and prepare accordingly.
Advanced phone package — This upgrade enables you to add extensions to your CallTrax line. You can also set up special call routing, wherein one phone line will ring for a few seconds, and if the call isn’t answered, it will roll to the next line, and so on. This can help you make certain that your company never misses a lead.
Call forwarding — You can choose to have calls forwarded to your mobile phone when you’re out on the job so you don’t have to miss valuable leads.
E-mail harvesting — This feature enables you to retain customer e-mails that have been archived in the portal and build your own address list for the future.

Invest in Upgrades

If you really want to go the extra mile with your campaign, it can make sense for you to invest in one or two additional add-ons. While it will cost you a little extra, the results can provide great ROI.

Boost and PPC — Most customers know about our SEO lead generation service (our Core package), but did you know that we also offer two pay-per-click (PPC) advertising options? You can emphasize a particular service or promote seasonal offerings with our Boost package, while the PPC package offers long-term and larger-scale PPC advertising. PPC can help bring immediate results to enhance your SEO efforts.
Directory visibility — Directory listings increase your company’s visibility and boost your site’s online exposure. Our directory visibility package is available in three different levels, each designed to pack a specific punch. If you are already signed up for our Core or Premium package, then the first level (which includes up to 175 directories) has already been completed. However, you still have the option of adding levels 2 and 3 to gain access to even more valuable directories. If you are a customer using one of our other packages that doesn’t include directory visibility, you can add one, two, or all three levels to your existing services.
Press releases and AdBlasts — Have us draw additional attention to your site by syndicating a press release about a new service you’re offering or issuing an AdBlast to promote your seasonal discounts.

Even using just a few of these services can give your Prospect Genius campaign a big leg up. So call your campaign coordinator today to discuss your options and take even more control of your company’s future!

DIY and PPC Don't Mix

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

As a small business owner, you’re accustomed to a hands-on lifestyle, teaching yourself how to do things and taking pride in the results. That’s what leads many business owners to attempt their own online advertising, particularly their own pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Unfortunately, PPC is deceptively complicated, making it an expensive, time-consuming, and discouraging venture for most DIYers. For that reason, PPC is best left to the pros.

Stick to What You Do Best

Whether you’re an appliance repairman, electrician, or HVAC contractor, you’re a definitive expert in your field. But would you do your own company’s taxes? Perform your own office cleaning? Be your own attorney? Theoretically, you could do all of these tasks on your own, but it would take a substantial amount of time away from your job as you learned the ropes and stumbled your way through the process. And that doesn’t even guarantee satisfactory results! Doesn’t it make more sense to utilize the skills of a trained professional so you can focus on your own area of expertise?
On the flip side, would you recommend DIY furnace installation or panel upgrades to homeowners with no HVAC or electrical experience? Probably not. Why? Because some jobs are simply too advanced for anyone but an expert.

Online Advertising Is a Profession Like Any Other

If it makes sense to trust your company’s tax needs to an experienced accountant, then why shouldn’t you do the same for your PPC campaign? Internet advertising is no different from any other profession in terms of the training and experience it requires. Not only do online marketing professionals invest in the tools and resources required to do their jobs effectively, but they also devote the majority of their time to perfecting their strategies for optimal PPC campaigns. In the same way that accountants know the best way to work with QuickBooks, tax forms, tax codes, and so on, PPC advertisers know the ins and outs of ad groups, ad rotations, keywords, and bidding. A professional Internet marketing specialist can perform PPC advertising much more quickly and effectively than the average person.

How Much Is Your Time Worth?

When you try to do your own PPC advertising, you don’t just lose time—you also lose money. Many business owners think that they’re saving money by doing it themselves rather than hiring a professional, but in reality, that logic doesn’t quite pan out. Think about it: What would you charge a client as your hourly rate? Whether you realize it or not, that rate applies to any amount of time you spend on your company. Twelve hours spent learning about PPC are twelve hours that you aren’t getting paid for. Instead of reinventing the wheel for something that’s beyond your expertise, you could be making money on the job in your own specialized field.

PPC Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive

As we’ve pointed out, the reason why business owners spend so much time and energy learning about PPC is that they mistakenly think they’re saving money. That’s probably because they assume PPC is an expensive undertaking—and, depending on the marketing company they use, they could be right. You see, there’s a large number of advertising teams in the industry that offer deceptive pricing.
For one, they tie their PPC management fees to a client’s spending budget for clicks. As your spending budget goes up, so does your fee. But the truth is that PPC management costs are associated with ad rotation and testing, keyword management, and other tasks that have zero correlation with click budgets, so there’s no reason to also have to spend more for management because you’re willing to pay more for clicks. With this kind of pricing, you may wind up paying substantially more than you need to.
Second, many of these companies send you an invoice with just a total amount—not including any detailed information about the number of clicks you received or even how much money was spent on clicks. Since you have no way to tell how much was spent on clicks (vs. how much you were charged for management costs), there’s no way to determine return on investment or evaluate the success of your PPC campaign.
At Prospect Genius, we find these practices abhorrent. The time and resources required to manage a PPC campaign vary based on how many ad groups are involved, regardless of how much you’re spending on clicks, so the management fee should be related to the number of ad groups, not the spending budget. Furthermore, clients should never have to pay a bill if they don’t know exactly what they’re being charged for. That’s why Prospect Genius offers complete transparency: We charge one straightforward fee for management costs and keep your click spending completely separate. In fact, your click bills come directly from AdWords itself, so you know exactly where your money is going, how many clicks you’ve received, and how successful your PPC campaign is.

PPC Campaigns Are Not Like Oil Changes

You can’t just read a quick tutorial about PPC advertising and get optimal results from your campaign in less than an hour. Truly effective marketing takes significant time away from your own business, which, in turn, takes money out of your pocket. Instead, invest in Prospect Genius and pay highly affordable rates for results that allow you to focus 100% on your business.

Making SEO Work for You

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Double Trouble

When your sink is leaking, would you call in two different plumbers to fix the leak at the same time? Would you have two different dentists fill one cavity? Having two pros in to do the same job, at the same time, just doesn’t make much sense.
Of course, these are rather ridiculous examples, and you certainly wouldn’t follow through with either of these scenarios. However, many small companies do work with two separate SEO companies at the same time, hiring both to market the same business… The perception is that this commonplace tactic will help the company get ahead: Two is better than one, right? The truth is that working with two different SEO companies at the same time can be quite damaging. That’s because instead of helping each other out, the two companies are struggling for control of the SEO campaign, and your business ends up caught in between their tug-of-war. The end result is more often a penalty from Google or Bing for activity that looks like spam than it is successful SEO for your company.

The Tortoise Is Better Than the Hare

The reality is that slow and steady wins the race. If you choose to use SEO for your web marketing campaign, the smartest choice is to carefully select a single company to work with. Let them focus on optimization for three to six months, and THEN consider whether you’d like to try a different company.
During that first three to six months, do be involved in and aware of what’s going on with your SEO campaign, but don’t be obstructive or intrusive. SEO doesn’t happen overnight! Contrary to what your high-speed connection might have you believing, the Internet is actually a very slow entity. It reacts and adapts very slowly due to its sheer size and immensity. Google and Bing have to constantly sort through and analyze billions of pages of information to do their jobs effectively, so they may only get to your site every other month or so. Essentially, this means a change on your site that’s implemented today might not be seen for 30 or 60 days.
Because the Internet reacts slowly, SEO can also be a slow process. In order to do it right, small business owners need to realize that Google owns the ball, the bat, the gloves, and the ballpark: if the Internet is like a baseball league, you’ll have to play by Google’s rules if you ever want to see a good ranking for your site.

So, That Means I’m Stuck, Right?

Just because you need to give SEO time to work doesn’t mean you’re stuck with whatever company you choose from the get-go! If they’ve provided zero return on your investment over a six- to nine-month period, and you’ve provided all of the information and resources requested, it’s time to start looking for a replacement. After that much time, a lack of results means you may want to switch to a second SEO company.

Okay, What Should My Business Do?

If you want more than your current SEO campaign is providing, there are still a number of options that don’t include sabotaging yourself by bringing a competing SEO company on board. While you’re waiting those three to six months for your SEO program to develop more fully, you can also promote your business online by:

Using a pay-per-click campaign. PPC can be implemented on your own or with the help of a professional.
Hiring a lead generation program that works differently from an SEO provider. This might include companies similar to Service Magic or Yodle (this is not an endorsement). Each of these drives leads to your company in a way that may complement, not compete with, your SEO campaign.
Expanding your Facebook page and Twitter profile. Putting time and resources into these pages can help your Internet exposure. This type of work can be handled either by a professional or by business owners themselves.
Posting ads on Craigslist. This service is free and will take you just a few minutes.
Exploring the possibility of a radio ad that would promote your business name or website. This can set the stage for more web traffic and be a complement to the SEO work.
Putting a sign on your fleet truck(s) or other vehicles. Not having signs means you’re missing out on an important branding opportunity.

Giving your SEO campaign time to develop fully doesn’t mean you have to sit by the sidelines for months. However, trying the aforementioned options will almost always end better than trying to stack the deck by working with two different SEO companies at the same time–which nearly always backfires!
Have questions? The PG team would love to help. Feel free to contact our customer service professionals for more information.

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:

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.
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:

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.
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.

All that glitters is not gold-Make sure your advertising company is reputable

Last Updated: October 29, 2010

We all know that when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is! But somehow, small business owners sometimes forget to apply this logic to online advertising… The simple truth is that you make certain you’re getting value for your marketing dollars, it pays to ask questions when an online advertising company promises you the moon and the stars!
There are reputable advertising companies out there, but there are also a lot of snake oil salesmen, too. Making certain that you aren’t taken in by an unscrupulous online marketing company is a big deal, because in addition to failing to deliver results, these guys can inflict lasting damage on your company! Save yourself time, money, and frustration by asking a few questions when the deal seems too good to be true…
When a company makes you a promise such as “You’ll be #1 in Google!,” that’s when you need to start digging a little deeper. Depending on whether it’s a PPC (pay per click) or SEO (search engine optimization) campaign, there are some questions you should ask:
If it’s PPC advertising:

What search terms are being used?
Are they broad-match or exact-match terms?
What negative keywords are the advertisers using?
What geographic areas are being targeted?
How much of the money you send to the advertising company goes toward buying clicks, and how much goes toward managing the ad campaign?
Are you allowed access to see just how much money is being spent per click?

Pay Per Click advertising will get you in the “sponsored results” of the search results page, which are usually at the top or side. But while this will technically put you at the very top of a page, it can get rather expensive, fast. That’s because you have to pay for your spot. And to be on top, you have to be willing to pay the most per click. That means if your competitors are each paying $4 per click for a particular search term, you must be willing to pay more than $4 per click for the same term in order to beat them out. Keep in mind that’s per click, not per call. Statistically, it’s exceptional if you get 10% of site visitors to actually call you… Do the math, and that puts your cost per call at an astounding $400+. If you turn 50% of those calls into customers, you have to clear $900 in profit on every job just to break even on the advertising costs!
If it’s SEO advertising:

Who conducts the search, you or the advertising agent?
Since they could be different, whose results count?
Which search engine will be used to determine your ranking? Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, yellowpages.com, etc.?
Which keywords will be used to get the promised top ranking? How specific are they?
What geographic areas are being targeted?
How can the advertising agent ensure that you are going to have top rankings for a 20, 50, 100, 150 mile geographic radius?
Are there any guarantees that you WILL be #1? Can you verify this with the search engine company itself?

Search Engine Optimization will place your company in the maps and organic (below the maps) results. Since time and quality are the basis of your ranking—not the amount of money you spend—someone can’t just spend more money to get their listing on top of yours. While your site may not immediately appear at the top of the search results, once you do make it there, it will become harder and harder to knock you out of your spot!
SEO is the method that Prospect Genius uses, and our results speak for themselves. We’ve helped hundreds of local companies increase their online presence and connect with more prospective customers via the Internet. If you’re ready to learn more about how we can help you, contact one of our online, local advertising agents or visit our website today.

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All that glitters is not gold-Make sure your advertising company is reputable

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