seo – Page 12

Prospect Genius Moves Offices, Expands to a Larger Facility

Last Updated: March 15, 2012

Business owners in New York’s Capital Region will soon be able to find the online advertising specialists at Prospect Genius in a whole new location. Starting in April, Prospect Genius will be moving its growing team into a newer, larger facility in Troy, NY. As a result, the team will be better equipped to provide a larger number of existing and future clients with effective search engine optimization (SEO) and lead generation.
Specializing in Internet marketing for local service providers in all different corners of the country, Prospect Genius has been headquartered at 105 Jordan Road in Troy since 2010. On April 1 of this year, the company’s main offices will relocate to 250 Jordan Road, where there will be ample space for Prospect Genius’s growing team. In fact, the new property will be more than three times the size of the former office, which means that it will be able to accommodate any further expansion on the part of the PG staff.
President Alex Pelli says, “The new space is larger, spankin’ new, and allows for future growth plans. We’re all very excited about the move.”
Prospect Genius has seen continued growth due to an ever-increasing number of local businesses that depend on web-based resources for visibility and accessibility. As online advertising becomes an invaluable aspect of business ownership, the demand for expert SEO services grows. According to a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center, more than 58% of American consumers use the Internet to research products and services before making a purchase. For that reason, the unique web marketing services that Prospect Genius provides are integral to the success of countless local businesses; the expansion of their team is a direct result.
Prospect Genius is an SEO company based out of Troy, NY. Established in 2007 as an online lead generation and advertising program for local service providers nationwide, Prospect Genius specializes in sending customers straight to businesses’ websites.

If Your Business Stalls, Call 41CALLS

Last Updated: November 11, 2011

As a new way to reach out to potential clients, Prospect Genius has just started up a new radio advertising campaign. Broadcast on 104.9 and 100.9 FM, this new radio ad focuses on drawing attention to our effective search engine optimization product. With a target audience of Capital District-area business owners, this ad is coming right into their work sites and service trucks to let them know about our ability to help them connect with new customers on the web.
Using the catchy phone number 518-41CALLS, this radio ad lets small business owners in our area know how to harness our effective online marketing program. Many companies like appliance repair pros and trash haulers are struggling to find new customers, especially in today’s tough economy. But that doesn’t mean those prospective customers aren’t out there! Our 41CALLS campaign is here to let these business owners know that we can help them find the job leads they need, simply by helping them achieve a more prominent Internet presence to reach out to the locals who are already looking for their services online.
If you’ve heard our 41CALLS radio ad, or you found out about Prospect Genius from a friend or other source, we’d love to let you know more about our program and how it can help you. Feel free to contact us today to learn how search engine optimization (SEO) can help your business.

Are Online Advertising Myths Causing You to Make Costly Mistakes?

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

We’ve talked about this issue a bit in past posts, but since this topic keeps coming up, it’s definitely worth reiterating how common mistakes can lead to some pretty major consequences. Since there is about a 50% chance you’re making at least one of these mistakes, please read this post carefully. Some of the consequences are severe, so it’s best to avoid them if you can. If you have any questions about these costly online advertising myths or how they can hurt you, don’t hesitate to call. The PG team is always happy to help!

Campaign Hopping Redux

We’ve previously mentioned why it’s not a good idea to bounce from one SEO campaign to the next every couple of months, but today we’re going to go a little more in depth about the potentially major damage to your business that this can cause.
When you move from one Internet advertising company to the next, hopping to a different one every few months, a trail of outdated information typically accumulates. In short order, you will have acquired a handful of addresses, eight or ten different phone numbers, and even a couple of variations on your company’s name.
That’s no big deal—everyone has old contact info and such on the web, right? Well, actually it is a pretty serious problem for your company, because when it comes to Google, it really is the difference between life and death!
Picture it as a courtroom. Your company is on trial, with Google as the judge and your SEO company as your lawyer. If you tell the judge eight or ten different stories, you’re probably headed nowhere but jail. If you have five different lawyers telling the judge multiple stories, you’re going to jail. On the other hand, if you consistently provide the judge with accurate, logical information with the help of a single expert lawyer, you’ll be able to go home to your kids at the end of the day.
You have to care about having conflicting info online because Google cares. You may not like it, but when it comes to search results, Google is the judge, jury, and executioner. If you don’t play by their rules, you’re, unfortunately, going to suffer the consequences.

Choose Your Online Advertisers Carefully

This is not to say you can only ever use one SEO company for all of your online advertising. But you do have to be careful about which companies you choose and which types of campaigns you’re running at the same time.
Let’s continue with the courtroom analogy from above: The U.S. legal system allows you to hire one lawyer while still using a co-counsel or two. That’s because they work together as one entity rather than separate bodies. In the same way, you can hire one SEO company (as your “lawyer”) to manage local and organic campaigns and still engage a different company (as “co-counsel”) to do a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign. Because the PPC campaign deals with the sponsored link sections of Google, there is very little overlap in the local/organics area and few, if any, conflicts will arise.
For more details on this topic, check out this earlier post.

Potential Consequences

However, if you’re working with several SEO companies, and they do give Google conflicting information, you’re setting yourself up for a wide range of problems and penalties. In most cases, when they come across different addresses, phone numbers, and other mismatched info for the same company, Google will decide that you’re a spammer and simply stop believing anything—and everything—you tell them. The outcome is a severe reduction in potential success any time you start an Internet advertising campaign with a new company.
If you’re even less fortunate, you may find yourself facing penalties from Google. Penalties can be tied to any of your identifying information, including your website address, phone number, physical address, company name, or a combination of these. That means your rankings could be capped at page 2, page 5, or even page 50, so you may as well kiss the prospect of a first-page ranking goodbye!
Now you may be thinking that your business will be okay as long as you don’t do anything wrong personally, but think again. As soon as any one of the companies you hired for Internet advertising acts against Google’s guidelines on your behalf, your company can be banned. And, sadly, this situation can be nearly impossible to fix, costing you significant time and money. Trust us—this is NOT something you want to happen to your business.
The moral of this story is that even the best SEO company can only swim upstream for so long. Before you’re going to have a chance at success with future campaigns, you must clean up the mess previous advertisers left behind on the web. And you’re not alone: More and more businesses are finding themselves dealing with this reality.

Watch Yourself!

The great news is that you don’t have to fall victim to this potentially devastating problem. The easiest way to avoid it, in fact, is just to do your homework!

Research every online advertiser you’re considering doing business with. Do a web search for the company’s name coupled with words like “scam,” “complaints,” or “reviews” to get a preliminary feel for whether they can be trusted.
Ask for references, and then make sure you actually call them. For a reputable company, it should be easy to provide four or five solid references for you to speak with. But you also have to take a moment to call the references and get their direct input. These folks are business owners just like you, and they’ll be your best resource for reliable information and an honest opinion about the SEO company you’re considering.
Keep tabs on your online footprint. As the owner of the business, you—and only you—are the one who can truly own up to this responsibility. By being an active participant in any online advertising campaign, you can stay on top of what information is being connected with your company on the web.

Get a WebFax™ Report

Prospect Genius has just started offering a new WebFax report service to help with the problems outlined above. In the same way most people wouldn’t buy a used car without seeing a report detailing the facts about the car, you won’t want to sign up for an online advertising campaign without a WebFax report about your company!
Our WebFax report will show you all of the different information that exists online for your business: phone numbers, addresses, company names, and websites. This can be the first step in eliminating current problems with your Internet advertising efforts, or it can simply help keep you aware of your online presence.
Take control by taking an active role in protecting your business and safeguarding the success of your online advertising—call us today to get your WebFax Report!

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 Mobile Revolution: Maximizing Your Website's Potential

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

The Future Is Mobile

Most business owners have caught up with the fact that optimizing their website for search is vital to the success of your company. However, now that advertising your business online has become the norm, the game has changed again. Getting to the top of Google/Yahoo!/Bing has long been the leading goal, but you might need to retool your web strategies as the playing field changes.
That’s because mobile search (using a cell phone browser to check out sites on the web) is becoming increasingly popular. Did you realize that approximately 50% of the cell phones sold in the U.S. are smart phones? This adds up to an Internet climate where ranking is no longer the only important thing. In light of the mobile revolution, it’s important to cater to prospective customers who are using mobile browsers, not just desktop computers.
Maybe you’re asking yourself why it matters how a prospective client gets to your website as long as they get there, right? The truth is that this is a rather critical issue, so let’s dig into it a little deeper…

Mobile vs. Desktop Browsing: What’s the Difference?

As you’re certainly aware, when you’re creating a standard website, you want it to be visually pleasing, simple to navigate, and fast to load. Those goals are the same when you’re considering web optimization for mobile devices, but how you achieve those ends can actually be VERY different. Consider this:

Mobile browsing takes place on cell phones and other mobile devices. That means screens are much, much, much smaller.
Phones also have limited power, usually just a fraction of the power a typical desktop has at its disposal.

These differences may not seem like that huge a deal, but they actual mean that mobile browsing is substantially different from standard web browsing. And if your site uses Flash or relies on tons of images, you’re probably in major trouble. That’s because most phones aren’t able to display Flash content at all, and images are generally quite slow to process on phones. In short, Flash and/or lots of images mean two things for mobile browsing and your site:

The content will either not display at all, or it will take so long to load that visitors will lose patience and go elsewhere—perhaps straight to a competitor’s site.
Search engines use load times as one of their factors when deciding results rankings, so slow loading = low rankings.

What to Do About It

If you’re wondering what to do about catching up with the mobile browsing revolution, take a deep breath. For those of you who are already Prospect Genius clients, you don’t have to do anything! The same proprietary content management system that runs your microsite also powers a mobile version that’s automatically optimized for search and mobile display.
For everyone else, there are some steps you can take to make your site more mobile friendly. Consider:

Using code to check the “User Agent String.” If it is reported as a mobile browser, that code can display a different version of the web page. Unless you’re a tech pro, you probably won’t want to tackle this on your own though…
Submitting a mobile sitemap to the major search engines. It’s typically best to never force the search engines to guess about anything, ever. Just come right out to the front and tell them all about the mobile version of your site.
Making sure excessive images don’t clog up the mobile version. Remove all images or, at the very least, switch to small image sizes so they load faster.
Utilizing obvious and simple navigational items. Remember, not all phones are touch screens, and many lack a mouse-like pointing device.
Making mobile pages extra narrow. People on older style phones have tiny screens, and even BlackBerries have a fairly small display. Don’t make people scroll horizontally AND vertically.

If you’re looking for more tips and tricks on mobile browsing and your website, check out this older, but still valid, blog post.
Have questions about this or any other SEO topic? Feel free to contact Prospect Genius to learn more. We’re available by phone at 800-689-1273 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 800-689-1273 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or you can e-mail our account managers at sales@prospectgenius.com. Additional info about our products, services, and online marketing is also available throughout our web site, so don’t forget to look around!

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Prospect Genius Moves Offices, Expands to a Larger Facility

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