Mastering Local SEO (Part 3) The Location

Online marketing is a confusing world. Those long hours of research aren’t even enough to get started.

Different authors say different things. Some tend to overthink.

Thanks to local SEO and the idea behind online marketing gets simpler and clearer. Local SEO puts emphasis on location.

Whatever marketing technique you use – either organic, social media or mobile – the primary goal is to direct your site closer to your audience.

How to Market Your Business Online?

Organic Local SEO refers to any techniques that you perform inside your website, which improve your rankings in search engines. Common practices of organic local SEO are:

Website SEO

This refers to your ability to create an internet and search engine friendly website. It generally requires technical knowledge on designing and coding.

Blogging

This refers to your ability to write and create contents. Each page of your website must contain quality visual contents that attract people and search engines.

Link building

Internal link building is the art of connecting pages inside your website. For example, your contact page links to your blog.

Social Media Local SEO refers to any techniques you perform in social media and review channels, which also improve your rankings in search engines. Common practices of social media local SEO include:

• Target your blog post to a specific state and city
• Update your Facebook page daily
• Participate in Q&A websites
• Update your Twitter regularly
• Conduct webinars in Google+
• Create your profile in review sites
• Update your Pinterest regularly
• Build your reputation in Linkedin Forums

Mobile Local SEO makes sure your website and all your social media channels work in smartphones and tablet computers.

WordPress provides premium and professional templates, which loads faster in desktops, laptops and mobile gadgets.

If you’re willing to spend more money, there are other local SEO practices you need to include as part of your campaign. These are:

• Signing-up to lead generation services like Thumbtack
• Offering loyalty cards to your customers who love to shop
• Setting-up a paid advertising program
• Offering daily deals
• Setting-up ads in text messages
• Setting-up ads in social media

How to Generate Leads in E-mail Marketing (Part 1)

Statistics says:

• 2.5 billion of people worldwide are e-mail users (Radicati Group, 2014).

• 88% of marketers consider e-mail marketing as the most effective lead generation (Circle Research, 2014).

• 72% of American adults send and receive e-mails using their smartphones (Forrester, 2014).

• Sending over 100,000 business e-mails per month yield 94% ROI (Marketing Sherpa, 2014).

Why E-Mail Marketing?

E-mail marketing becomes an integral part of Internet marketing, which strengthens your online reputation by sending transactional (automatic and real time mails sent to your inbox after opt-in such as thank you alert, download confirmation, password reset, purchase receipt, account update, invoice, etc.) and direct mails (newsletter and press release) to your leads, prospects and customers.

There are five advantages of e-mail marketing. One, it’s cheaper service compared to offline advertising. You can even use the service for free if you only have fifty or less subscribers. Second, the delivery rate is quick. Click the “send” button and you feel confident your new message is delivered in your customers’ inbox. Third, it encourages creativity. Creating e-mails for marketing requires you to plan and make your plans work (thorough discussion later). Fourth, an e-mail communicates effectively with readers and subscribers. Well-written direct mails sound like a request letter to a friend.

IMPORTANT TIP: Use your company’s name or your real name as the username but don’t use G-Mail, Yahoo or Outlook as your e-mail service. For example, info (at) reputationrockstar (dot) net looks more professional than reputationrockstar (at) gmail (dot) com. The former uses the info as its username while its e-mail service uses the website.

Lastly, e-mail marketing is measurable. You don’t get lost because paid autoresponders such as AWeber, Mail Chimp and Get Response provide analytics for performance tracking. You’ll see who open your mail, who read and click the links on your mail, who unsubscribe and who viewed but deleted it.

The E-Mail Marketing Funnel

Achieving success in e-mail marketing requires you to understand its funnel, which leads you in the right direction. To be continued…