— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) August 13, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Thursday, August 11, 2016
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Custom Concrete Kitchen Countertops Utica NY | 315-520-9631 | Stoneworks Concrete Artisans https://t.co/UVoqoq12cK
Custom Concrete Kitchen Countertops Utica NY | 315-520-9631 | Stoneworks Concrete Artisans https://t.co/UVoqoq12cK
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) August 11, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
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https://t.co/fdjzPY3UR8 pic.twitter.com/Jh0E3tJbUm
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) August 10, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Saturday, July 30, 2016
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SEO Rochester NY: Service Areas - https://t.co/AWv4JEouvP
SEO Rochester NY: Service Areas - https://t.co/AWv4JEouvP
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 30, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
https://t.co/Uy8tprf8vy
Monday, July 25, 2016
Best Nightlife In Rochester NY
We discussed a broad range of options in our last article that detailed many of the attractions that Rochester has to offer. This article includes some of the top resources to find options for nightlife after a long day of seeing the sites!
There are numerous resources available that can be found online with a quick search. The first that caught my attention was a site with a page called Rochester nightlife: A guide to nightclubs, live music, theatre, and bars http://www.newyorkupstate.com/rochester/2015/04/rochester_nightlife_bars_restaurants_and_clubs.html
This is a fantastic list, complete with a brief overview of location and description of the club.
Rochester’s East End Life (http://rochesterseastend.com)
This website is a marketing promotion that is an excellent resource covering not only nightlife, bars, and restaurants but also arts and other events
Top 6 Rochester Locations by Review:
This section will include some of the top places when searched on Yelp. As mentioned in my last SEO post for Rochester NY, local reviews and feedback help to increase conversions. These locations have the best reviews to help you to make a decision.
The Skylark Lounge
Read Alyssa B.‘s review of Skylark Lounge on Yelp
Vertex Night Club
Read Andrew T.‘s review of Vertex Night Club on Yelp
Lux Lounge
Read Sweta K.‘s review of Lux on Yelp
Chesire
Read Austin R.‘s review of Cheshire on Yelp
Abilene Bar & Lounge
Read Paul R.‘s review of Abilene Bar & Lounge on Yelp
Bug Jar
Read Matthew D.‘s review of Bug Jar on Yelp
This post first appeared at Best Nightlife In Rochester NY to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from Simple But Well Marketing |(315) 292-3375 |Video, Social Media, Local Search Marketing http://www.simplebutwell.com/rochester/best-nightlife-rochester-ny/
Best Nightlife In Rochester NY https://t.co/7c44q6e0WI https://t.co/uKNIhCQP6P
Best Nightlife In Rochester NY https://t.co/7c44q6e0WI pic.twitter.com/uKNIhCQP6P
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 25, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Top Local SEO Stories of the Week https://t.co/errqR7sDzh
Top Local SEO Stories of the Week https://t.co/errqR7sDzh
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 24, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Top Local SEO Stories of the Week
This week there were numerous gems posted on the web in regards to SEO and internet marketing. In particular, I noticed a lot of information being posted in relation to local SEO efforts. Small business owners, this information is for you. Let’s get started.
The Complete Beginners Guide to Schema.org Markup
This article was found on Search Engine Watch, it contains a basic overview (for beginners) for implementing the use of structured data on your website. This is a chance for many local, small business owners to add in relevant data about their location and business information.
If you own a locally based business, ask your developer if you currently have schema on the site. If you can’t get a definitive answer or just aren’t sure, an alternative is to use this site and input your website URL.
Pro-tip: Take a look at your schema category, if it is listed as “local business” then you can definitely do better. Have a look at the options here and find the best fit for you.
Is Google Becoming More Hyperlocal?
The article points out recent changes that have been realized in numerous niches. Maps listings that once showed up to four pages of businesses are now being compressed to show only one page of options. My take on this, google is making a push for the first map pack spot to be a paid position. This forces many small businesses to either shit or get off the pot. If your business was listed and now currently doesn’t show up then your only option is to buy your way to the top and become caught up in ad spend and bidding wars.
What can you do?
Well, a local SEO campaign should be your first thought. If you see the value (or lack of value if you no longer show up) in having the top 3 spots in the map pack then you need to be pro-active in attaining and maintaining those rankings. An optimized Google My Business listing, optimized images, citations and relevant website pages are all a necessity. Throw in your social signals and unstructured citations as well. I really see the map pack rankings becoming the focus of lead generation for the feature. When combined with a PPC campaign, your business now stands a chance to be visible above the fold to potential clients and customers.
This information brings me to the last article which offers some incredible insights into local search.
Case study: 33% of local search business is from non-locals (and 7 tips for capturing that traffic)
Just like the title says, 33% of local search business is from non-locals. If you are a small business owner what does this mean for you? First, the tips that I gave based off the two previous articles are incredibly important if you want to generate new business from visitors. I will say that this is pretty specific to the business niche as it might not apply to all small businesses. Regardless, every small business should be implementing these strategies to increase conversions and improve their positions.
Knowing that 33% of local search is from out of town, you need to realize that they are going to be searching very broad terms. This kind of goes against the grain from the typical strategies of going after terms that are extremely targeted. Searches coming from people that aren’t familiar with the area might not know what to search to find you. A search for “best restaurant in your area” is much more likely to happen compared to “best thai food in your area that also serves craft beer”.
This study was eye opening because it confirmed much of what I already thought.
One local client told me you wouldn’t believe the number of people that come here from out of town. We ask them how they found us and they say “We found you on google”.
At this point, I feel that it goes without saying that these searches will be predominately mobile. That means your maps listing and PPC campaign should be the focus for those terms. That is half the battle, though, these people don’t know who you are and want a good experience. How do we convince them to show up to your restaurant? Reviews. If you don’t have a pro-active approach in attaining reviews (and managing harmful ones) then you won’t be converting this traffic.
Just a few things to consider after the information SEO Rochester NY published this week on the web, hopefully it helps.
This post first appeared at Top Local SEO Stories of the Week to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from Simple But Well Marketing |(315) 292-3375 |Video, Social Media, Local Search Marketing http://www.simplebutwell.com/services/search-engine-optimization/top-local-seo-stories-of-the-week/
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Six things to do in Rochester NY https://t.co/OlPZ98xDMo
Six things to do in Rochester NY https://t.co/OlPZ98xDMo
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 23, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Six things to do in Rochester NY
One of the great benefits of living in Western NY is the wide variety of things to do in the Rochester NY area. If you aren’t opposed to getting in a car and driving 3 hours in any direction your options improve dramatically. This blog post will cover some of the “must see” attractions that the area has to offer.
1. Letchworth State Park- If you are a fan of the outdoors: camping, hiking, fishing, and site seeing then this is a must do for the summer or fall. According to their website, “Swimming pools, fishing areas, hiking trails, hot air ballooning, whitewater rafting and canoeing by permit are just some of the additional attractions at Letchworth.”
There really is something for everyone in the “grand canyon of the east” for more information visit http://www.letchworthpark.com
2. Arts- For those of you that love the finer aspects of art and culture, time a visit for a Friday. Every first Friday of the month you can be treated to a monthly citywide gallery night that encourages collaboration between non-profit, university, and commercial art venues in Rochester, NY. http://www.firstfridayrochester.org
3. Seneca Park Zoo- Located at 2222 St. Paul Street Rochester, NY 14621 the zoo features a wide variety of animals from African Elephants and Lions to Asian Painted Frogs. Hours are from 10am to 5pm for a full and exciting day with some of the most interesting animals to watch and feed.
4. Thrill Seekers- Adrenaline junkies take note, Seabreeze Amusement Park will satisfy your need for speed. Featuring roller coasters, thrill rides, kiddie rides, and a water park to cool down. http://seabreeze.com
5. Sports- Whether you love to participate or simply watch athletics, Rochester offers numerous professional sports teams including the Rochester Red Wings (baseball), Rochester Rhinos (Soccer), Rochester Americans (hockey), Rochester Knighthawks (indoor lacrosse), Rochester RazorSharks (basketball), Western NY Flash (Women’s Soccer), and Rochester Rattlers (outdoor lacrosse).
6. Food and Drink- The close proximity to the Finger Lakes allows visitors to experience a broad range of wineries and unique food experiences. There are 5 major wine trails that allow enthusiasts to sample a variety of treats made from the grapes in the region. If wine isn’t your thing, there are also Finger Lakes Food Tours (http://www.flfoodtours.com) which offers
the perfect way to sample exceptionally good ‘offerings’ from area restaurants and specialty shops. You will learn about these remarkable chefs, and proprietors while we eavesdrop in on their stories including interesting tidbits of this city’s history, culture, and sights.
There is no shortage of events and attractions in the Rochester NY area. The one thing that you cannot claim is you are bored if visiting, these 6 ideas will get you started on a great experience and overview of the region!
This post first appeared at Six things to do in Rochester NY to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from Simple But Well Marketing |(315) 292-3375 |Video, Social Media, Local Search Marketing http://www.simplebutwell.com/rochester/six-things-rochester-ny/
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
SEO Rochester NY: 6 Weeks To Improve Your Rankings #SEO #DigitalMarketing
SEO Rochester NY: 6 Weeks To Improve Your Rankings#SEO #DigitalMarketing
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 20, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
The Best Rochester NY SEO Services
Who offers the best SEO service for Rochester NY?
If you found this page then you obviously were searching for Rochester SEO services. You’ve come to the right place, Simple But Well Marketing Solutions offers small business digital marketing, SEO, website design and social media marketing to Rochester and it’s surrounding areas.
You might be surprised to find out that this post in itself is a case study in ranking for the following terms
Rochester SEO
SEO Rochester NY
SEO Rochester
web design Rochester
Rochester NY SEO
Rochester SEO company
Not into reading a huge wall of text? Check out our infographic
An overview of our SEO process for Rochester
We first start by finding targeted keywords that reflect buyer intent and will convert into leads and revenue for your business. How do we do this? We have more than a few strategies, we utilize Adwords data from the keyword planner, data from SEMrush, and third party keyword research software. After mining through our excel data and coming up with a comprehensive seed list of keywords, we begin to look at search intent.
In some instances, ranking broad variations of related terms to your business is a waste of time and resources. There might be terms with a bit less search volume but offer a much higher conversion rate. We uncover these terms by analyzing the PPC campaigns and SEO strategies of your competitors and the first page of Google. Think about it, if you competition is paying money for specific terms then they MUST be valuable. By analyzing your competition and reverse engineering their strategy we can then place our focus on improving what they have already set in place and outranking them.
Technical SEO and On-page Optimization
Once keyword research has been performed, we begin a technical site audit to uncover the on-page optimization errors that are currently holding your site back from ranking higher in the search engines. We take a look at
- site speed/load times
- title tags
- header tags
- meta descriptions
- alt text
- content optimization
- site structure
- schema
- google my business optimization
- over optimization errors
After identifying errors within your website, we fix the errors to ensure that the page is set up properly to be crawled by search engine crawlers. Once we know that your website can be found for the terms that your business needs to rank for we can then begin our link building program
Link building and Outreach
Our link building program starts with a data dump and analysis of both your backlink profile and anchor texts as well as the top 10 link profiles and anchor texts. Why so much data? Each niche is different but we are lucky that Google shows us exactly what types of links and ratios that it is giving preference to by the sites listed on the first page. We compare the top ranking sites with your own site and construct a strategy to improve your site authority and rankings accordingly.
The first step to any link building program is claiming all relevant social profiles and linking those associated profiles to each other and to your site. This is considered our “branding” link building. Why this step? Google LOVES brands and we need to show the crawlers that you have a brand and it should be viewed as authoritative.
We then take a look at your linkable assets and blog posts. Do you have amazing content? If you do, fantastic, we begin to reach out to sites that share a similar audience and pitch them on sharing your content.
Don’t have any linkable assets yet? No worries, we analyze the top shared and linked pieces of content in your industry and come up with something even more valuable. An example of that type of content is the infographic included within this post. We aim to create content that offers value and naturally generates links and shares. We don’t stop, though, we actively promote that content to ensure that it gets in front of the right audiences.
Other types of links we build
In addition to our authority pieces of content, we also build links from local sites. We reach out to local bloggers and businesses and build relationships in your area of Rochester to generate targeted links. Testing has shown us that to rank locally a website needs links from relevant local businesses. What types of links are these? They could be a guest post on a local blog, newspaper, press release or business to name a few. The whole point is that we need to show the search engines that you are related to the city that you work and service.
In addition to the links that we actively build, we are building internal links and relevance to the pages that we want to rank by optimizing our blog posts. Whenever a post is created, we include links to relevant pages to boost our own site authority. Here is an example
Check out all of our SEO related services here!
These posts include links to our social profiles, and are then syndicated across your branded networks for additional links from high authority domains.
What next?
We repeat the process, over and over. We analyze your site metrics, organic traffic, referral traffic, bounce rate and conversions and then do it all over again. By looking at the data we can identify new keywords to optimize for that might be easily ranked for once the on-page SEO has been complete. We continue to pump out awesome content and constantly improve our internal linking structure.
Related Posts: http://www.simplebutwell.com/case-studies/seo-utica-ny-case-study/
Connect with us
This post first appeared at The Best Rochester NY SEO Services to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from Simple But Well Marketing |(315) 292-3375 |Video, Social Media, Local Search Marketing http://www.simplebutwell.com/services/search-engine-optimization/rochester-ny/
The Best Rochester NY SEO Services https://t.co/mtw17Tnf5R https://t.co/hn8KStrnfM
The Best Rochester NY SEO Services https://t.co/mtw17Tnf5R pic.twitter.com/hn8KStrnfM
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 20, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Thursday, July 14, 2016
SEO Utica NY Case Study Part 3: Updates
It’s been almost two weeks since I started my SEO case study targeting Utica NY for marketing related terms. Here is a progress update thus far. I think this is important because if you are following along or trying to rank your own small business in the SERPS you need to exercise a bit of patience. I equate SEO and Local SEO to cooking a steak.
Cooking a steak? You lost me
Yes, cooking a steak. This means that you need to start slow and see how things progress. Too little heat and you can always throw that bad boy back on the grill and get it up to temperature. If you go too hard, too fast then you essentially overcook the meat and it’s not coming back. The same thing happens when trying to rank properties with SEO.
Progress
Here is what has been done so far
- Live stream video embedded to pages on this site
- Video syndicated across social networks
- Google my maps embeds with video
- Posts syndicated across social networks
- Additional embeds on web2.0 properties
I basically covered all of that information in the videos here and here so you can check back if necessary. This post is not meant to be instructional but to show some results that are starting to trickle in. Instead of doing some still shots, I figured it would be better to be completely transparent and do this via a video (plus it’s just more fun that way!)
Without further ado here are the results
This post first appeared at SEO Utica NY Case Study Part 3: Updates to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from Simple But Well Marketing |(315) 292-3375 |Video, Social Media, Local Search Marketing http://www.simplebutwell.com/services/search-engine-optimization/seo-utica-ny-case-study-part-3-updates/
SEO Utica NY Case Study Part 3: Updates https://t.co/f2yQLErDrC
SEO Utica NY Case Study Part 3: Updates https://t.co/f2yQLErDrC
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 14, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Lots of #local SEO case studies underway....in fact, this is one in itself!
Lots of #local SEO case studies underway....in fact, this is one in itself!
— Steve Szeliga (@Steve_Szeliga) July 9, 2016
from Twitter https://twitter.com/Steve_Szeliga
Friday, July 8, 2016
Utica Inflatables
Utica Inflatables
717 Ravine Dr Utica, NY 13502
(315) 725-3827
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116145624983283656970/about
This post first appeared at Utica Inflatables to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from Simple But Well Marketing |(315) 292-3375 |Video, Social Media, Local Search Marketing http://www.simplebutwell.com/services/video-marketing/utica-inflatables/
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
SEO Services Utica NY Case Study Part 2
Part 2 of our SEO Utica NY Case Study
We are back at it today after seeing some great initial results yesterday. The goal today? We are generating some map embeds on web 2.0 properties and syndicating out our un-structed citation a bit more!
Where you can find us for SEO
Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
31 Higby Rd
Utica, NY 13501
(315) 292-3375
https://plus.google.com/+Simplebutwell/about
Simple But Well Marketing Solutions provides local seo services to small businesses. We strive to provide affordable, cost effective solutions to the online problems that you may face. We specialize in performing local seo, lead generation, on-page seo, link building, content syndication as well as consulting packages.
This post first appeared at SEO Services Utica NY Case Study Part 2 to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/seo-services-utica-ny-case-study-part-2/
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
SEO Utica NY Case Study
The results from our SEO Utica NY Case Study
Check this post out about digital marketing services in Utica NY here. We started out trying to rank for some local terms as a case study, the terms were
#internetmarketinguticany #seouticany #ppcuticany #websitedesignuticany #digitalmarketinguticany #digitalmarketingservicesuticany #internetmarketingservicesuticany
Here are the results after 30 minutes:
internetmarketinguticany- RANK = 0
internet marketing services utica ny – Rank =12
digital marketing utica ny Rank= #4
digital marketing services utica ny Rank= #1
This is not bad in terms of a case study.
EDIT: Please understand that I know this content is garbage! This in itself is part of a much larger case study.
This post first appeared at SEO Utica NY Case Study to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/seo-utica-ny-case-study/
Ranking for Digital Marketing in Utica NY
This is a case study involved in ranking a brand new page for the following terms:
| internet marketing utica ny |
| seo utica ny |
| ppc utica ny |
| website design utica ny |
| digital marketing utica ny |
| digital marketing services utica ny |
| internet marketing services utica ny |
The whole goal of this post is to actually see how quickly we can rank a brand new page for Utica NY related terms. The reason why I think this will rank is due to the fact that we are creating blog content for the sake of internal linking back to the page intended to rank. Also, we are utilizing the blog and it’s IFTTT network to syndicate this content out to our various branded properties to generate social signals. Here is a live view of exactly what we are doing
This case study is provided by Simple But Well Marketing Solutions:
Contact information:
Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
31 Higby Rd
Utica, NY 13501
(315) 292-3375
This post first appeared at Ranking for Digital Marketing in Utica NY to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/ranking-digital-marketing-utica-ny/
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Unlock More Business With Facebook Re-targeting
Small business owners, I feel your pain. Deciding what digital marketing strategy to pursue is confusing. I had a conversation last week with a friend asking advice.
“Everyone here knows that we need to do something online for our business, we just don’t know what. The problem is that if we don’t take action then someone else will and we will get left further behind.”
The problem is that when you research various ways and strategies to drive traffic online to your business, you find conflicting information on the following
- Paid Traffic (ppc)
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
Now the question is “what is the best option?” or “what should I do?” My answer is whatever works. I have moved away from cornering myself as someone that performs only SEO because in some instances it just doesn’t get the job done.
While I won’t disagree that some strategies are better than others, the following article will show you exactly how we are driving targeted leads strictly with Facebook.
Does SEO work?
This actually started as a case study in SEO. I created a site to test out few theories that I had in regards to ranking lead generation sites quickly for clients. Actually, the intent was two-fold. I wanted to see exactly how long it would take me to rank a brand new site for Utica NY related terms as well as the costs to do so. I asked myself a few questions prior to starting out on this project
- How long would it take to rank in what I consider low volume/high competition keywords?
- Would the cost justify the project?
- How much traffic do these low search volume terms actually generate?
Ranking Results
It only took three months to rank page one for the terms that were selected as you can see below.
The problem was exactly what I thought though, despite the effort to rank there was very little traffic.
Despite a successful SEO campaign there was very little traffic to show for our hard work and I started to think that SEO might not even be a viable strategy for this market. You can see that until we starting tapping into an additional traffic source the website received 0 visits. Now before you jump to conclusions, I believe that SEO is always needed. We won’t take on an SEO campaign for less than $500/monthly so where does that leave a small business owner? The scale of the campaign costs needs to be proportionate to the revenue being brought in to a business. I don’t believe in offering services that make no sense to a business despite the feeling that they “need” them. The lack of traffic in this case was a problem and I wanted to come up with a solution.
This is exactly why I love lead generation as it puts the client’s money to work to get them more business. It is also the reason why SEO services can leave a bad taste in the mouth of many small business owners. You paid for what was a successful service, yet business revenue stayed the same. When purchasing a lead generation program, you are forcing us to problem solve and deliver results. If organic traffic won’t deliver the business then I needed to find another source. I thought to myself
Where does this audience hang out?
Utilizing social media traffic
I thought a lot about where my target audience spent most of their time online….the answer was Facebook. We already had the SEO part of the project covered. If someone was searching for the services that my lead generation site was going to offer they would have no trouble finding it. The problem was that there just weren’t enough people searching for those terms to make it a worthwhile strategy on it’s own. We needed to tap into a much larger source of traffic.
But I already have a Facebook page?
Interacting with your audience on Facebook is still important, but when most people think of social media marketing they think about how many “likes” or “shares” their posts get. This is NOT what we will be discussing. Instead, we will talk about utilizing the paid traffic that Facebook can provide to drive business.
Google Analytics
Your first step (if not already done) should be setting up google analytics with your website. You need the data to determine where your visitors are coming from and what they do once they reach the site. This guide will not cover how to do so, if you need help with that you can always contact me.
Step 1: Create Your Ad
Head over to canva.com and create a new graphic (Facebook ad)
Canva offers a great platform that will allow anyone to create graphics regardless of skill level. You can select icons, colors, upload images and drag and drop until you see fit.
Pro tip: One thing that is important when creating a Facebook ad that will be used for service types of lead generation is that you include your phone number on the ad. This can help you save bit of money on your campaign as people can clearly see your number without needing to click the ad to call you.
You will need to play with your ad graphic because Facebook has restrictions on the size of the phone number vs. the amount of text on the ad. Luckily, canva allows you to make adjustments with ease to existing saved graphics.
The ad should have a clear call to action and be “eye-catching”, other than that we are having good results with some of the ugliest ads you could imagine. Don’t spend too much time on the graphic design if you are doing this yourself, just put something together the best you can.
Step 2: The Facebook Campaign
We will be creating a campaign with the focus on driving traffic back to the lead generation website. This allows us to track our website conversions as well as re-target any traffic generated.
Start by selecting “create an ad” and then choose “send people to your website”.
Continue to follow the prompts until you have the option to set your audience. This will be the first situation that people can make a mistake with a paid campaign. You want highly targeted traffic rather than a broad range of people visiting your site. Why? Because we are spending money every time someone clicks an ad to visit the site. Facebook allows us to select a very targeted demographic and location to serve up our ads.
Pro tip: The first step is to delete the “united states” location and type in your specific location that you utilize to offer services. In our example we are targeting Utica, NY.
After narrowing down your target location you also have more options including
- Age
- Interests
- Gender
- Language
Depending on your business, this can be extremely beneficial to zero in on the exact people you want to turn into customers. For our example, we served ads to men and women aged 25-65 in Utica NY.
Your next step is to choose a daily budget. This comes down to what you are comfortable with, we kept the budget to under $10.00 a day (300/month) to test the strategy out. I would recommend something close to that to start so that you can get enough data to show if this is a viable option for your business.
Upload your ad
Follow through the rest of the prompts (Facebook is very helpful with setting up an ad) and you will arrive at the page where you actually build out the ad.
Choose the “single image or video in your ads” and click the “images” option under “media”. Here is your chance to upload the image that you created in canva earlier. Add your website URL as well as the information that the ads manager requests you to ad and once set place your order.
You will now be driving traffic to your website via your Facebook ad!
Step 3: Re-targeting Your Traffic
This is where the magic happens and the reason why this strategy is so effective. You now should have a steady flow of traffic from Facebook to your business website. You should also have clear calls to action on your site (visible phone number, email form to submit for a quote etc..) and goals set up within google analytics to track that behavior.
You are going to create a Facebook pixel and install into your website code by following this guide here. Facebook explains it in great detail through that link so there is no need to regurgitate the information.
What is re-targeting?
We are going to create a targeted audience of people that have only visited our lead generation website and serve specific ads to them. Why is this effective? Things happen, people get side tracked for different reasons or might just be in different spots in the sales cycle. For whatever reason, a person was interested enough in our business service and took a look at our website. Maybe they weren’t ready to call yet or wanted to check out the competition. Whatever the reason, we now have their information and they can’t get away.
Create a new ad in canva that says something like “Hey….were you looking for (enter your service)?” and give them your phone number to call. As these potential customers browse Facebook or instagram they will see your new ad. They’ve checked out the website and are already familiar with what you do, now we are strengthening our brand and building more trust and contact points. If that website visitor hasn’t gone with someone else for your service then you stand a pretty good chance of having them contact you now through retargeting. Here is how to set it up.
Create a custom audience
Click on the create a custom audience link and you will be taken to this window
Here you will select “website traffic” and create the Facebook pixel. Follow the prompts on how to install the pixel and reference the link posted above for help. When all is said and done, you can now target only the people that have visited your website to see a new ad. You will need to go through build another ad set to serve only this audience, just follow the same procedure as listed above to create the new ad.
Disclaimer: This is a general overview on how to utilize re-targeting to continually serve ads. If you have specific goals in place on your site (only email submits, purchases etc.) then you can strictly target people that have visited. For our unique situation, we only targeted those that visited the site previously and kept things broad in that sense. For the sake of this article, this is the easiest way to set everything up for a beginner.
Let’s see the results
In the last 30 days (at the time of writing this) we generated over 20 targeted phone calls for our small area. This shows that Facebook is the most valuable source of traffic for the campaign and the highest converting.
What about the costs?
We are also utilizing a PPC campaign in addition to SEO for this project. Our average CPC with PPC is around $3.00 per click from google ads. The Facebook traffic for both the re-targeting campaign and initial ad campaign are between .19- .40 per click. This is much cheaper than a traditional PPC campaign and is converting at a higher rate. The overall ad spend at the time of this article is just over $200.00 to send over 20 leads that generate above $3000.00 per sale to the client.
Final thoughts
There are many variations that can be done using Facebook re-targeting to drive additional traffic and increase conversions. For our project, we just weren’t generating enough organic traffic to get conversions. If your website is generating traffic (which you would know through google analytics data) then you could easily skip the first part of this guide and pay only for the retargeted ads to save money from your budget.
This post first appeared at Unlock More Business With Facebook Re-targeting to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/unlock-more-business-with-facebook-re-targeting/
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
TUGTSBMS Part 3: Local SEO/Google Maps
In part 2 of our “The Ultimate Guide To Small Business Marketing Strategies” we discussed social media strategies. More specifically, how to automate social media. Part 1 detailed how most small businesses can set up a decent wordpress site so that it stands a chance to rank in the SERPS for their services when potential clients/customers search. The third installation of our guide completes the trifecta so to speak for an online presence. Today, we discuss setting up your “google my business” page and optimizing correctly.
Why do I need Google My Business?
So far, we have discussed two strategies (read: services) that online marketing agencies can sell you. If you have been beat over the head with numbers and fees and you are struggling to find the value in “local SEO” then let me break it down for you. Google My Business is your best bet to generate quality leads for your business. Creating and ranking in the local 3 pack puts your phone number in front of potential clients and customers that is the closest option above the fold aside from paid ads.
The local 3 pack also provides a great option for a mobile user to call your business with one click, the ease of use allows for customers to easily contact you when a problem arises.
For the duration of this guide we will refer to Google my business as “GMB” for short.
2016 Local SEO Guide Directions (Not in PDF form)
Step 1.
Go to http://www.google.com/mybusiness to set up your business profile.
You will now search for your business name in the search bar. If your business isn’t already listed you can select the option to input your business information, which will look like this
Something important when adding your business information is the box at the bottom
If your business is doesn’t have a physical location (usually service niches) OR you don’t want customers to know your local (home office) address. This is important because the information will be listed in the 3 pack when you rank.
Regardless of when you input this information, you will need to fill out the business information completely.
Follow the prompts and request the post card to be sent to your address provided.
Important Tips-
Remember your exact address that you input. This sounds silly but we are talking about the differences between using “street” and “st” or “road” and “rd”.
You will also need to enter a physical location regardless of whether or not you want customers to visit you at that location. In order to prevent people from SPAMMING with lead generation businesses that rank and generate leads solely from the 3 pack, Google requires you to verify your business through the use of a mailed postcard. If you can’t receive mail then you cannot verify the business. In this instance, just use your home address or an office that receives mail.
If you have a special instance that you are not in that physical location and need additional options to get the GMB verified then email me at sszeliga@simplebutwell.com and I will walk you through those options.
Step 2. Build Out Your Business Profile
You will now be taken to your very own GMB page and be able to add important information related to your business. The page will look like this
Click the “edit” button on the top right to start to add your information.
Add your website info
In the contact information section you will have the option to add your website. I would highly recommend that you get a website if you do not already have one. It doesn’t have to be special or expensive but you need someplace to help optimize this listing. Your website allows you to write additional content in regards to other services that you might provide that you can’t add to the “category” section
Add your introduction
The introduction allows you to add some content based on the services that you provide. Here is an example that can give you some ideas
I like to list the services that are provided as well as utilizing keywords that a potential customer/client might be searching for when looking for help. I would highly recommend doing some keyword research before this point to understand what types of keywords are generating search volumes that could help to add new clients to your business.
Step 3. Adding Photos
This is probably the most time consuming step but also one of the most important. You can and should be uploading photos of yourself in this section
The first section allows you to upload an identity photo and a logo if you have one. After uploading those photos, you will add photos of you providing services at work. These DO NOT need to be actual photos of yourself, but if you have them and are a legitimate business there is no reason why they shouldn’t be uploaded.
Important- these photos need to be uploaded from your computer Don’t have photos? Here is how we can get around that problem.
We use https://pixabay.com and create a free account. You are looking for photos that require no attribute and are free to use
Do a search for whatever business services that you provide and find a photo. In this case, I searched for “seo”.
Save and Rename Your Images with Keywords
After downloading the photo, I will rename the file to include keywords of the services that I provide as well as the location. This is important as you can also utilize these photos for your website. I usually will name them as {Service + Location} such as seen above.
You could also save some images that include your brand name in the file Ex. Simple But Well Marketing Solutions Seo Utica
Because you need to add multiple photos/images I would save them as a mixture of each technique.
Step 4. Optimizing and Geo Tagging Photos
This step will require you to go to your Google+ page rather than the GMB page so open another tab and then go to Google+
You are looking for the photos section; the photos that have been uploaded should appear in this section
Click on the photo and you will have some options to edit.
On the right hand side you can add captions as well as locations. I like to add a small caption containing keywords that the business would target.
The next step is to geo target your photos so that they are more specific to your location. Click on “add a location”
Enter your location and then selection “drop a place mark” and the “save”. You will now see the location with coordinates instead of the “add a location” tag.
The final step is to add a comment at the very bottom in the box. I usually will add a small comment that includes the keywords we have been optimizing the page around.
Repeat this process with all of the photos that you upload, continue to geo target them as well as add new keywords related to services that your business provides
Final thoughts and tips
I can’t stress enough how important it is note the EXACT address that you use for your GMB page. Be sure to add at least three photos for each category that the GMB page suggests. This is usually only a problem for non-legitimate businesses, take the time to take some pictures and add some trust behind your business. If you are a local lead generation business then you will need to take the additional steps that I suggested and find related photos online, download, rename and then geo-tag them to the correct locations.
After these steps have been completed you will simply wait for the post card to arrive and follow the steps listed to verify the business. Congratulations, you now have a live GMB listing that is crucial to generating more leads for your local business.
This post first appeared at TUGTSBMS Part 3: Local SEO/Google Maps to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/tugtsbms-part-3-local-seogoogle-maps/
Thursday, May 19, 2016
TUGTSBM Part 2: Social Media
In the first part of this multi-part series we covered setting up a website for your small business and how to optimize it correctly to get a head start in ranking your services in the organic results. Part two will discuss social media strategies for a small business owner with an emphasis on time constraints.
I don’t have time to post on Facebook, twitter etc…
You are right, if you own a small business then it’s safe to say you should be focused on one thing and one thing only and that is running your business. In most cases, that is why small business owners neglect to set up a website as well. They just don’t have the time to effectively market their business and end up trying to decide which avenue to pursue; social media or a website.
The bad news
Unfortunately, as I move farther away from strictly focusing on SEO and more towards a holistic approach to marketing it has become apparent that you can’t ignore either. You potential customers/clients/audience all hangout in different areas and you need to be in those areas as well to get noticed. Sure, you can run a successful business from word of mouth (and I know someone who has with using zero marketing) but in 2016 and beyond if you don’t attempt to have a presence online then you can bet that your competitors area. If this happens, you are leaving money on the table.
The good news
We have been using a system that works to simplify the process of social media marketing and it is easily something a small business owner (or us) can set up. It’s nothing new, but recently has had a push to implement and we jumped on the bandwagon. After testing and tracking, the SEO benefits are huge as is the presence that you business builds online.
Enter the IFTTT network
IFTTT stands for “if this then that” and is a completely free service for anyone to use. We haven’t even begun to scratch the service on the uses of IFTTT for a small business and that’s ok, for today we will cover the most simple use possible.
Step 1: Claim all your social profiles
A good start is to set up all your social profiles
- google+
- blogger
- wordpress.com
- tumblr
- youtube (connected to google+ and blogger
- about.me
All these pages should have your logo, business information and anything else relevant that a potential customer would be interested in learning about you. We won’t be using these pages to update the world on what you had for breakfast the previous day so keep that in mind.
Step 2: Interlink the profiles
Almost all of these web2.0 and social profiles allow you to add additional links. Add as many as possible for each profile, in the event that you can only add one link then utilize your business website.
Step 3: Create your IFTTT account and add recipes
Once you enter IFTTT.com then you will create your first recipe. Essentially what you do is create an action and then a re-action (IF THIS THEN THAT). Your first step will be to grab your attribution link from your wordpress RSS feed (of your business website).
It’s safe to say that most people are using the Yoast SEO plugin, in the advanced settings you will find the RSS tab. Edit that tab as shown to include a link back to your website as seen.
Once this is set up properly we have taken care of duplicate content issues on the web. The attribution link basically says
Here is some content, I didn’t write it I got it from here
and provides a link back to your website. As you can see, this will allow you to begin to build back links back to your site from your social properties. This is something that can help build brand relevance and pad your anchor text when building back links.
Create your first recipe
Click on the “this” clickable link and it will bring you to an option where you can enter a trigger channel. Enter “feed” and then click the RSS icon
Choose the option “new feed item” and then enter your website feed url. In most cases, this will be your domain.com/feed and then select “create trigger”
After this you will have a selection of web 2.0 properties that you can select. I go alphabetically down the list starting with blogger
Find the blogger icon (the orange one with the “B”) and select it and click “create a new post”
This will bring you to the options for creating a post
Note: I usually will delete the link to IFTT in the body as well as the IFTTT in “labels”
after you have done this, create the recipe and repeat for all other social profiles that you have created.
What have we done here?
Essentially we are managing the content posted on your branded properties through one channel, your RSS blog feed. What this means is that anything posted to the blog will get syndicated with your attribution link back to your blog site.
This alleviates the headache of posting separately to your social media accounts and builds your presence online. In order to get the most out of this system you really need to focus on creating good content for your audience and show your authority.
Final thoughts
After setting up your social properties you can focus on providing relevant information to your audience. While this method won’t increase likes or build followers directly, it is a step in the right direction for most small business owners.
This post first appeared at TUGTSBM Part 2: Social Media to learn more Simple But Well Marketing Solutions
from http://www.simplebutwell.com/tugtsbm-part-2-social-media/
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