Local Business Marketing Consultant San Diego | Internet Marketing

Social media is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of marketing to ever hit the business world. Everywhere you look, you see something about Facebook or Twitter…

And now there’s a new social platform gaining a lot of attention from business marketers all over the world; Pinterest.

Although Pinterest may be the new kid on the block in terms of social media, it is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media platforms there is. In fact, recent studies have shown that Pinterest is the fastest growing social media platform to ever exist.

Yes, even faster than Facebook when you compare the age of the two. Pinterest is different than the other social media platforms due to the fact that it is focused primarily around posting high quality photos.

So, at first glance you may be a bit overwhelmed and unsure of what to do with this hot, new online marketing tool. How do you use it to its full advantage when it comes to attracting more local customers to your business?

Here are some tips to help get your business on those Pinterest boards:

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Click to Watch a Free Video that Reveals the 9 Easy Steps to Generate More Leads and Increase Sales for Any Small Business.

If your Internet marketing strategy is not generating the quality and quantity of leads you want and need, then stop doing it!

If it isn’t working now, it won’t be working next week, next month or next year. But don’t give up on Internet marketing!

Our “9 Steps to Local Business Marketing Success” strategy has helped our clients dominate page one of Google in as little as 30 days and it can help you too!

I encourage you to watch this 8 minute video which walks you through the 9 steps to local business marketing success.

Discover How to Drive More Traffic, Generate More Leads and Increase Sales – 8-Minute Video Shows You How

Do you get the feeling your website might be a little boring, do you need a Local Business Marketing Strategy? If people aren’t staying on the site and doing whatever it is you want them to do, this is probably the case. Let’s face it, these days we all have the attention span of a hamster. It’s not a good thing, but it’s the reality of the high-paced digital age we live in.

What it means for your business is that your website has to shout at visitors, grab them by the lapels, shake them like crazy, and not let go until their world has been thoroughly and utterly rocked.

Okay, it doesn’t have to be that intense. All it has to do is grab attention and keep it, and here’s how you do that.

Use This Local Business Marketing Strategy to Make It Clear

What is your website about and what does it offer? If this isn’t clear and obvious within about 5 seconds, you need to make it clearer (remember what I said about the hamster attention span).

The header and graphics should state clearly what this site is about. Use graphics that are related to your niche (look around at other sites to get ideas if you need to) and use the keywords you’re targeting in your page headers. There’s a good chance these are the terms they used to find the site, so let them know they’re on the right page.

Short and Sweet

Keep headlines and titles short and to the point. Make them attention-grabbing so that they’re virtually shouting at the visitor. A great way to do this is to make your header a question

‘Do you hate cleaning? Leave it to us at Such-and-Such Cleaners of Possum Holler, Missouri.’ When it asks a question like this, the visitor naturally feels like answering, ‘yes!’

Headers that make them curious are also great. ‘I was wasting hours cleaning my bathtub until I found this simple solution!’ Make them ask, ‘Wow, what could it be?’

Break up the Text

Use short paragraphs, short sentences and bullet points as a local business marketing strategy. Whatever you do, don’t make it one massive block of text or an endless sentence. It shouldn’t look like a page out of Dostoyevsky. Bullet points are great for outlining benefits or features in a way that’s easy to skim.

Easy on the Eyes

Keep graphics simple, and especially backgrounds. It’s okay to use a little bit of color or a simple pattern, but don’t make it busy or distracting. You want them to focus on the text and not get a headache trying to read it.

Spice It up with Video

It’s always good to put a simple video on your site. It can be a video offering helpful advice or introducing your physical business. People love to have something to watch, so give them the option of digesting your message that way as well as with text.

The most local business marketing strategy when designing a website is to ask yourself, ‘What do I want people to do here?’ Do you want them to call your 800 number? Or sign up for your email newsletter? Whatever it is, the whole site should lead them straight to that. It should be like a slide at the playground, and it ends right there at your phone number.

David Carleton is a San Diego Local Business Marketing Consultant who specializes in showing small business owners how to spend less and get more from their marketing and advertising using low cost strategies in local business marketing, lead generation and conversion, Internet marketing and social media. To download a copy of the free report, “7 Steps to Website Success”, go to http://LocalBusinessMarketingSuccess.com

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Topic: Local Business Marketing Strategy

These days, it’s all about local search. In fact, Google says that as much as 20% of all searches are local! This means that people in your area are looking for your products and services on Google Places, and you’d better be listed there.

In fact, you might be listed already and not even know it.

Anyone can list a business on Google Places and it can start getting reviews.

If you haven’t done so already, you need to get onto the site and claim your listing. This puts you in control of the information there. You can also add open hours, photos, videos, coupons, products, services, and more.

Claiming Your Listing

If you don’t have a Google account already, make one. You’ll need this in order to manage your listings. To create a Google ID, all you need is an email address and a password.

You can do it here – google.com/places– or do it when you find your business listed on Google Places (it’ll walk you through the steps).

After you finish making your Google ID, click where it says ‘list your business.’ When you enter your phone number here, it’ll try to find your business and auto-fill the rest of the information.

You can also find your business by searching on Google Maps, since Places and Maps are integrated. Once you find it, click on the business name. On the top right-hand part of the screen, you’ll see a link that says ‘business owner?’ Click that and you’re ready to fill out your business’s information.

After you’ve filled it out, it’ll ask you to verify that you’re the owner. You can do this by either phone or mailing address. I recommend doing it by phone because if you choose mail, they have to send you a postcard and this takes time. If you choose the phone method, they’ll call you with a PIN number.

Optimizing Your Google Places Listing

The same basic rules of SEO apply when you fill out your business’s information. Just like your website, use your well-chosen keywords throughout, but don’t stuff. Use them naturally wherever possible.

The name of your listing should match your business’s name. Don’t try to stuff the name with keywords. This is against Google’s TOS and even if they don’t catch you, it won’t work because their algorithms are smart.

However, you can include geographic information in your business name, and this gives you an SEO boost. For example, something like ‘Sunshine Cleaners of Phoenix’ is perfectly okay.

One of the biggest SEO mistakes businesses make is that they don’t fill out the information completely. Completeness is a major part of the search engine algorithm, so make sure everything is fully filled out. Incomplete listings don’t show up in search results.

Finally, spice your listing up with photos and videos. This will make it stand out from all the others. You can upload up to 5 videos and 10 photos. For your videos, upload them to YouTube as well with backlinks. This will give your listing some Google love and traffic leads.

And one more thing – do all of this soon! The number of local searches and businesses listed on Google Places is growing in leaps and bounds. If you get your listing up soon, you can dominate your keywords before the competition does.

David Carleton is a San Diego Local Business Marketing Consultant who specializes in showing small business owners how to spend less and get more from their marketing and advertising using low cost strategies in local business marketing, lead generation and conversion, Internet marketing and social media. To download a copy of the free report, “7 Steps to Website Success”, go to http://LocalBusinessMarketingSuccess.com

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Discover the secrets that many small business owners are using to thrive even in the recession. Download your free report – “7 Steps to Local Business Marketing Success” Go to: http://LocalBusinessMarketingSuccess.com

With the arrival of sites such as Kudzu and Yelp, internet users are now able to search for local businesses and find out whether other people liked them or not. People can post reviews about your business, and might be doing so at this moment—and their reviews might be influencing others. Here are some tips to keep in mind.

Get there first.
Create a profile for yourself. Make it as complete as you can, and don’t forget to add a photo. A photo can personalize a profile like nothing else. Make sure to sign up for as many sites as possible.

Be aware.
It’s a sad fact that many of your reviews will come from those who had a great experience with you or a terrible experience with you. Those who had a terrible experience are amped up and looking for someone to commiserate with. Don’t worry. Some of the local review sites offer businesses a chance to tell their side of the story.

Keep in mind that these reviews can show up in Google maps results, so work diligently to get a nice balance of reviews on the sites.

Ask Customers for Help.
Most of your customers like you. You do a good job for them, give them a great product or service, and they are pleased. They might be willing to give you a good review if you ask them since they might not be aware of these sites in the first place. Give your customers a chance to show their appreciation for your hard work. These positive reviews will lead others to your door.

If you need help getting started with local business review sites or aren’t sure how to go about it, there is help for you just Click Here

David Carleton is a San Diego Local Business Marketing Consultant who specializes in showing small business owners how to spend less and get more from their marketing and advertising using low cost strategies in local business marketing, lead generation and conversion, Internet marketing and social media. To download a copy of the free report, “7 Steps to Website Success”, go to http://LocalBusinessMarketingSuccess.com

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By Dr. Michael R. Mantell

Back in 1988, I wrote a book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: P.S. It’s All Small Stuff. What I didn’t realize then was that—while I was right for creating a calm, peaceful, healthy life—NOT sweating the small stuff was wrong for creating a business.  Read on and see what I mean.

If Ken Blanchard, author and business consultant, belonged to your gym, would he be able to call your customer service program an exemplary model that creates what he calls raving fans?

Do you know what I mean by your customer service program?  Do you know what raving fans are? Do we need to talk about the lifeblood of your club, gym, or spa?

It’s good, old-fashioned customer service and yes, in today’s competitive fitness world, with every imaginable alternative—from free outdoor boot camps, to no-contract, no-commitment, low-cost slimmed-down gyms, to free classes at fitness clothing stores—it’s time to do more than just put a smile on front desk personnel, which is there until you turn away.

Consistency, answering the phone, being a great communicator, doing your fitness research, and even tracking the success of Groupon sales may all be necessary, but they are not sufficient when it comes to putting on the full-court press in terms of powerful, business-growing know-how-WOW.

It’s been said that a good salesperson can sell someone a gym membership, but it’s the quality of every detail, every nuance, every repair in your club that sends your members home feeling thrilled—chatting and posting about how great their gym is, and coming back as raving fans with friends to join their gym.

How do the top-tier pros do it? How do they form these business-boosting relationships? Here is what I’ve found that they do: they sweat the small stuff!

1. Never ever be satisfied with “customer satisfaction.”  If they are satisfied, then you don’t be.  Think instead, “they are just satisfied.” To leap ahead of your competition, you want them to be “ravingly satisfied” and entirely devoted to your gym and the services you offer.  Only by over-offering will this happen.

2. Make your entire focus on your guests—oops, I mean members.  In fact, find out what your members focus on and make their focus your driving force—one that you never ever take your mind off of. Don’t rely on anything short of a well-communicated system and a rock-solid “member is king” organizational culture to insure this unrelenting focus, so that every member of your staff is passionate about “the king’s focus” as well.

3. Ignore the unmistakable power of perception at your own business peril.  If you aren’t obsessed with the smallest details of your gym, someone else reading this will be obsessed with the smallest details of his/her gym. And guess where your guests—ugh, there I go again, I mean members—will be working out next week?  Stained carpet? Burnt out light bulb? Exercise machine computer display acting weird? Toilet not working properly? Weights left lying around instead of properly stacked? Sloppy counter? Old, torn magazines strewn around?  Trainers not consistent in delivering a message of friendliness?

These telltale signs of “broken windows” are everywhere except at the finest gyms. If you read this and feel defensive, annoyed, bothered that you have to pay attention to “silly details” and pesky, complaining, unhappy, or “just satisfied” members, I suggest the fitness industry will leave you in its dust. If all you care about is sales numbers, you are a relic.

To become a raving fan of your own gym, fix every “broken window” you can find every day, sweat the small stuff, and you’ll watch not only the numbers grow but the spirit of your gym grow as well.

Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., earned his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania after completing his M.S. degree in clinical psychology at Hahnemnann Medical College where he wrote his thesis on the psychological aspects of obesity. He is a writer, speaker, and fitness expert for the American Council on Exercise (ACE), and a regular contributor to the “San Diego Fitness Psychology” column for The Sporting Club in La Jolla, California, where he is a member of the Sports Medicine Team, specializing in fitness psychology.

Press release marketing places your business and your brand front and center in the media, which can be a powerful way to get a ton of exposure, and more traffic and links to your site.

With local business marketing, you want to catch the attention of the media to get publicity for your events, openings and announcements, and press releases are the best Never has the power of the media been more far reaching than today.

The 24-hour news cycle is in full-effect on air and on the Internet. On social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.com, news and information travels fast and can be shared instantaneously.

With the popularity of mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads and mobile devices, the world has become even smaller because of this ubiquitous technology.

With all of this instantaneous access to news and information and the barrage of advertising messages that your customers and prospective customers see each day you’ve got to get you message out there and you’ve got to stand head and shoulders above the noise in order to get noticed. Getting mentioned in the media is the best way to accomplish that.

When you submit a press or media release it can potentially be seen by hundreds of reporters and media outlets. If you get mentioned or interviewed you can enjoy the immediate benefit of this in the form of more traffic and leads and people coming through your doors, but you can continue to get mileage from it in the future as you quote your appearance in all of your marketing materials.

How powerful would it be to be able to say that you were quoted in a newspaper article, or appeared on a national TV program. The only way those reporters and producers would become aware of you is if you submit a press release.

Public relations involves making yourself a resource for reporters, editors or producers. You have to remember that these individuals are important in press release marketing. You have to be able to show these individuals that you’re worthy of good publicity.

An effective press release must have all the pertinent information about your business up front. You’re going to need to grab people’s attention quickly with a powerful, compelling headline.

When people read on, they should be able to get information they need about your company in the opening paragraph.

Press releases about your brand have to be well written and distributed professionally as well. Just like with strategies of blogging and article writing, you have to make sure the press release is keyword rich.

If they’re placed in the right place, there’s a greater possibility for readers to turn into visitors to your site.

The Internet never sleeps. In order to get the most out of your marketing efforts make sure that press release marketing is part of your local business marketing mix.

When you are ready to get a professionally written press release for your upcoming event, launch or opening, Be sure to visit,http://budurl.com/PRMarketing where they can help put your business on the map and get you exposure in the 24-hour news cycle that can send you a ton of traffic and exposure.

To Your Continued Success,

Keywords are vital to your online success. Your goal is to organically (naturally) rank high in Google in and other search engines, so you need to implement certain SEO (search engine optimization) strategies and keywords will play an important role in those.

When you conduct keyword research, you’re doing it to learn how your prospective customer is utilizing search engines to find the information or products that they want. You then take the words (and phrases) and use them on your site, to ensure it’s relevant for your target audience.

In the old days, keywords could be stuffed and hidden all over a website to trick search engines into helping a site rank high. Now that they’ve caught on, you have to use them with a more whitehat approach or risk getting de-indexed in Google and other search giants.

Where do your keywords generally need to be? Don’t discount Meta tags in your HTML code. These are still important, but they may not be the most important tactic to use anymore.

Keyword placement depends on what type of page you’re building. If it’s a web 2.0 property such as a Squidoo lens, Hub Page or Google Knol, then you want a keyword in the URL that you register, in the titles, subtitles and content that you write, and also in any tagging space they give you the opportunity to fill in.

If you’re making a blog post on your blog, then the keyword should be in the URL, too. But you may have to check to ensure that your blog template is using this strategy. Under settings and then permalinks, you’ll be able to set your preferences.

For instance, many blogs default to give your post a number like this: http://www.yourblogname.com/?p=123. You’ll need to choose custom structure and enter this code: /%postname%.html – this will make your blog post URL appear with the title of the post, where your keywords will be, like this: http://www.yourblogname.com/title-of-blog-post

Use keywords within all of your content, especially the first paragraph and preferably in the first sentence, so that the initial snippet Google shows has your keyword included (it will appear bold if the person searching uses this exact keyword in their search).

Experts disagree about what density you have in regards to keywords. Some say 2% and others go as high as 10%. What you really need to do is write both human visitors and search engine spiders alike. That means enough keywords so that the searchbots see your content’s relevancy and not so many that it turns off your reader because it reads awkwardly.