Helping local businesses through modern and effective marketing

Newcastle Marketing – The Future

The Newcastle marketing scene is currently in a state of transition as more business people become aware of the increasing numbers of people that are looking online for goods and services. Traditional forms of advertising are certainly not dead, but some of them are probably on life support as more and more people use online resources to find local products.

The Past

The Newcastle marketing scene has generally been based around businesses relying on various forms of offline advertising. For many, particularly those providing services, this was centred on advertising in the hard-copy Yellow Pages. Other forms included what is often known as “spray and pray” advertising which might have involved things like brochures, signs, handouts, newspapers ads, and sponsorships. Larger companies have also spent money on tv and radio advertising. All of these tactics have proven successful for a lot of people over a long period of time, although their cost effectiveness continues to be reduced.

The Future

The world has now changed. We might not like it, but we do have to accept it. The reality is that people are increasingly using search engines, and other online resources, to find information about all types of good and services in their local area.

Business people have traditionally been afraid of new technologies and sometimes aren’t even aware of how they relate to them. Rather than being worried though, business owners are now realising that this shift in consumer behaviour can actually be an opportunity. This is particularly so while potential still exists to get in position before the competition does. It is a relatively level playing field at the moment where smaller businesses can actually compete against those with bigger advertising budgets. It is also highly cost effective and provides long-term results which can be easily tracked.

The nature of how people find goods and services will continue to evolve. Search engines are already providing search results based on local data and are now even adjusting their search results based on the individual who performs the search. The massive rise of social media interaction, through sites such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, has changed the whole way that companies need to market themselves. Millions of people are using these sites everyday to look for more information about all kinds of good or services, including those in their local area. It is important to be aware of this if you want to your business to be found by potential clients in the years ahead.

Conclusion

If your potential customers have changed the way they search for good or services then you need to change with them. The Newcastle marketing landscape is evolving everyday. Try to see it as an opportunity to increase your business rather than something that you should fear or ignore.

Understanding Local Search

A lot of businesses aren’t aware of the importance of search engines as a way of producing long term traffic. They also aren’t aware of the changing landscape of how search engines work which has placed a greater emphasis on local and personalised search results. This change has implications for the way that businesses market online but it can also present opportunities for those that take advantage before their competitors.

People are probably now aware that Google is the most popular search engine used in nearly every country of the world. It handles more searches than all other search engines combined. As a result, it is vitally important to be aware of how Google operates and in particular how it determines it’s rankings. Where your website is located in the search results will have a significant impact on how many people see it (and therefore the potential number of customers that it can bring to you).

Google has continued to refine the way that it determines it’s results and is now placing greater emphasis on results that are personalised based on the location or preferences of the user. One of the ways that it does this is by now showing a list of seven “local business listings” above the normal search results when people search for something in a specific location. These “Top 7” businesses have their website address and phone number displayed. They are also shown on an adjacent map. These businesses are not sponsored listings, in fact they are taken by Google from their local business listings which are free to setup. Being one of these 7 businesses can obviously be a major competitive advantage and will provide more customers to your business or website.

Google does not fully disclose how it determines this Top 7 list, although the potential to make this list will depend on factors like:

• Accuracy and quality of information contained in your local listing
• Your physical location relative to the specific search location or town
• Customer review and ratings
• Your involvement or links with social media
• The current level of competition for your particular product or service
• How well optimised your website is
• Your organic search results

The importance of local search listings and results is still something that most businesses are not aware of. This is a shame really as the opportunity currently exists to take advantage of your competitors who might be slow to realise the significant increase in leads that could come from appearing in these local results. Make an effort to position your business now so that it can take advantage of the changing search landscape.

Why You Need An Effective Website

Whether you own a small or large business, you really need to make sure that you are accessible through the internet. If your business is not part of the world wide web then you are simply leaving potential profits behind. You might even be surprised at how much.

The internet is now the mechanism that most people use to search for products or services. So if your business offers any kind of service or product for sale you really need to be online otherwise you are allowing your competition to gain an advantage over you. Just getting your site to rank highly in the major search engines has the potential to significantly increase your base of customers and potential profits.

It’s also not that hard or expensive to get a website built and to develop your online presence. Even if you have a very limited budget, you can at least setup a basic one-page website that contains your business and contact details. For Australian businesses you might want to obtain your business name as a “com.au” domain name (i.e YourBusinessName.com.au). This will stop someone else potentially trying to buy it to sabotage your business or otherwise benefit from your good name. It is not expensive to get a simple website built and hosted for you. Once it is setup, you will want to include it in your promotional materials.

Although it isn’t too hard or expensive to setup a basic website, there are significant advantages in getting a more comprehensive and professional site developed that can work as a major profit producer for your business over the long term. A website that provides good information, and a good experience for your visitors, will be a great asset for many years to come.

Ideally you want to make sure that your website is as effective as possible so that it appeals to both search engines and your web visitors. You may want to make sure that your site:

• clearly explains what you actually can offer (with a focus on the benefits it will provide)
• displays your credibility and professionalism
• encourages them to take whatever action you want from them
• captures their email address so that you can follow them up with further information or offers

Once you have a website, you will want to make sure that people are seeing it. There are many ways to do this including free classified ads, social networking sites, link swapping, email marketing, paid advertising, article marketing and many more internet marketing approaches. You will also want to make sure that your site is optimised so that you give it the best possible chance to get high search engines rankings. The higher your search rankings, the more people that will visit your site.

The Importance of Internet Marketing

It is a simple fact that people are using the internet in ever-increasing numbers to search for products and services in their local area. The ratio of people searching on the internet, relative to those using traditional offline methods like Yellow Pages, is climbing at an amazing rate. In the US it is currently estimated that 84% of all searches are from people looking for local items or assistance. This number is not as high yet in Australia but the trend to similar levels is expected as the percentage of the population that are online continues to rise steadily. It is now common for children to use the internet from an early age and mobile phones with internet capability also continue to increase in popularity. All this points to the need to position your business online as soon as possible.

It is pretty simple really, if your website is not being seen in the top search results when somebody searches for something relating to your particular business, then one of your competitors probably will be. It means you are losing potential customers every day that this is happening. As a business owner or operator, it is likely that you don’t have time to do all the things needed like learn HTML code, study website design, search engine optimisation, set up Adwords campaigns, create Facebook fan pages, setup accounts at social networking sites, create original content , etc, etc. This is why it is appropriate to engage someone that is an internet marketing specialist to do this work for you. Even if you don’t understand any of the jargon relating to internet marketing, the key thing is to understand it’s importance to your business in both the short and long term.

If you want your business to move forward in these difficult economic times, then you should consider hiring someone that will provide you with a total online marketing solution. See if you can get a consultation and learn what they can offer to you so that you achieve your goals. They should be able to inform you about what actions can be undertaken to improve your exposure and generate more visitors to your website. They will show you how to optimise your site so that it gets better rankings in Google and the other major search engines. Taking action will mean that your business is well positioned to survive the current economic situation and to then thrive well into the future. Just look for people in your area that have expertise in internet marketing and that can provide you with a customised solution to have you moving forward.

What Is SEO and Why It’s Important

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a vital issue for any business that has an online presence. Business owners are now realising that there is a need to implement strategies to increase the potential of their websites. The current state of the economy has added even more strain on businesses to generate clients and to create websites that work effectively. SEO can be a little daunting at first, but it is worth trying to learn about the general concept as it is can be a sound asset for any business.

So what is SEO?

The term SEO is sometimes used a few different ways but generally it is used to describe the process of optimising a website to ensure that it gets displayed in the search results of the major search engines (like Google, Yahoo, and Bing). This relates to the situation when a person searches using a keyword phrase that relates to your website. So, for example, if you have a website for your Indian Restaurant in Newcastle, you would definitely want your website to be showing in the search results when people search using terms like “Indian restaurants in Newcastle” or anything similar to that.

If your website does not show up in the search results, then your competitors’ websites most likely will be. This means that you’re losing out on getting visitors to your site and therefore losing the potential to turn them into customers (and profits). You would effectively be leaving money on the table when such a large share of the market is now searching the internet to find products or services in their local area. You are basically handing over targeted traffic to your competitors if you are not being seen when people search for something that you can provide.

There are several different options if you want to be seen on the first page of the search results including paid advertising opportunities. However the preferred option is to rank in the search engines naturally or “organically” which removes the need to pay for any traffic to your site. This can provide a steady and consistent stream of highly targeted traffic to your website (as the people finding your site have actually searched for what you can provide). This should then provide more leads and eventually more clients for your business. So always keep in mind that traffic to your website means more potential income.

There are things that you can do so that optimise your website so that the search engines will rank it higher in their results. The search engines have a multitude of factors that they use to develop their rankings, but they can be summarised into 5 main areas:

1. site architecture
2. keywords
3. website accessibility
4. content
5. links from other websites

Making sure that you site is doing these things right can take a fair bit of time, effort, and expertise. This is why many businesses engage seo professionals to do this work for them. They are aware of the latest tools, techniques, and trends to ensure that your website is being seen by the people you want to see it.

Think of SEO as a long term investment that provides great results, a high return on investment, and long term benefits. Make the effort to optimise your website now and you will also be taking a giant step towards improving the chances of long term profitability for your business.

How SEO Can Help Your Business

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a term that is becoming increasingly well known by people involved in the business community. This is due to the fact that most people are now using the search engines to find required products and services rather than using traditional forms of advertising like hard-copy Yellow Pages. This has led to more demand for assistance with SEO as business owners have come to understand that they need to optimise their website before their competition does. Failure to undertake certain SEO tasks means that you are simply leaving money on the table so business owners are looking for professionals that can optimise their websites to ensure they are getting maximum return from their online investment.

The basic concept is relatively straightforward. Having an optimised website will mean that it will get ranked higher in the main search engines such as Google, MSN/Bing and Yahoo. So when someone uses these search engines by typing a keyword phrase that relates to your business, you want your site to be listed as high as possible in the results. For some businesses there might only be a few very specific keyword phrases while others might have any number of possible variations that might be relevant to what they have to offer. Just as an example, imagine what people might search for if they are looking to eat at a restaurant in Newcastle. They might type “restaurant in Newcastle”, “Newcastle restaurant”, “places to eat in Newcastle” or “restaurant review for Newcastle” and so on. There are also plural versions of different words, so people might use “restaurant” or “restaurants”. So, as you can see, there can be multiple different terms that people might use when they search for the same thing.

The first page of any search results will display the top 10 websites, even though there may be hundreds of thousands and even millions of pages of search results for a given keyword phrase. It is therefore important to get your website in the top 10, for keywords relevant to your business, if it is possible. This can be very difficult if there is a large amount of competition but it can be relatively easy for smaller or more localised markets.

To make sure that your site gets onto the first page of results, you can actually pay for your site to be displayed, in an advertisement format, next to the normal rankings list. For Google, this type of advertising is known as Adwords and basically involves paying a fee to Google for each time your ad is clicked on by someone. This overall process is known as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and can be a very effective approach to get traffic to your site if it is managed very carefully.

When people refer to SEO, they are normally talking about “natural” or “organic” SEO that refers to a website being optimised so that it is displayed in the natural search results. If your website is able to achieve a high ranking in Google for relevant keywords then you are greatly improving the chance of people visiting your site and hopefully becoming customers. This is why it is considered an excellent investment as it can provide visitors to your website for many years to come and you aren’t paying a cent for it. The people that come to your site are also what is known as “targeted traffic” which basically means that they are looking for exactly what you have to offer (and therefore more likely to take action).

A lot of larger companies invest millions of dollars into their SEO and online marketing efforts. However, for smaller businesses that operate in local markets, the cost of required SEO work is normally very affordable and much cheaper overall in producing long term results.

If you can secure a good search engine ranking and position your site overall in the search engines then you will see highly targeted traffic that will be at no cost to you. It will result in increased online exposure of your business and allow it to compete with other businesses that are competing in your market.

The Most Common Website Mistakes

Over the last decade or so, business owners have become increasingly aware of how important it is to have an online presence. This has resulted in most businesses deciding to get a website designed and setup. Unfortunately, very few business owners truly realised the potential that a website can provide in terms of promoting whatever product or service that they can provide. They also had no understanding of what needed to be done to their website so that it would actually be seen by anyone This has led to a lot of sites being setup that either don’t get seen or, if the do get seen, they simply don’t convert any visitors into customers.

The most common mistakes are:

Failure To Optimise For Search Engines

It is a sad fact that most business owners I speak to get a website built for them but then don’t understand why nobody visits it and why it isn’t producing profits. Having a website doesn’t mean that anyone will see it unless you are referring people to it (perhaps through promotional materials) or if people find it from using a search engine like Google when they are looking for what you can provide. The bad news is there are certain things that you have to do to get ranked highly by the search engines. There is good news too though because if you do those things that are required, then you can actually compete with any business regardless of their size or advertising budget.

Targeting The Wrong Keywords

Your website needs to be based around keywords that people might use when they search for your particular business. Ideally they should also be keywords that have a decent volume of traffic and aren’t too competitive. Consider targeting keyword phrases that are longer and more descriptive rather than ones that are overly generic.

Not Building A List

No matter what product or service your business provides, most visitors to your website won’t make an immediate buying decision. It will often taken them several visits or approaches before they decide to commit. This is why it’s important to obtain a visitor’s email address so that you can send them follow-up messages that might work to encourage them to purchase from you. The best way to get people to sign-up is by giving them something of value in return – this could be a free report, ebook, newsletter etc.

Ineffective Content or Sales Copy

The actual content or information on a website plays an important role in whether a visitor decides to take any action. Apart from clearly explaining the benefits of what you provide, you also need to include a clear “call to action” that tells your visitor what action you want them to complete. If you don’t include this, then it is most likely that your visitor will do nothing (except leave to look at another site). So make sure that you indicate what action you want your visitor to perform. This could be that you want them to buy something immediately or sign-up to receive a free report. Or perhaps you want them to contact you in some way for more information or maybe to complete a form of some type.

If you haven’t already requested it, make sure that you sign up to receive a copy of our free report called “The 7 Deadly Internet Marketing Mistakes That Most Business Owners Make”. It provides more information about the problems mentioned above and will give you advice about how to solve them.