Millions Now Find Local Business on the Internet Even Though Yellow Pages Lie on a Shelf in a Closet
What keeps you awake at night, indigestion boiling up your esophagus, eyes open, staring at the ceiling? What do you secretly, ardently most desire? Is your business growing to satisfy all of your needs?Is your local business getting enough phone calls?With the radical changes in the economy and people moving away from Yellow Pages, newspaper ads and other old school advertising media, your customers are looking on the Internet for you. They search the Internet, and then they go down the street and buy what they want and need. If they don’t find your Local Business in their search, they are not buying from you.Times have changed, indeed. The Internet is still new; but, it is everywhere, and it is not going away anytime soon. The Internet has transformed our world, shrunk the whole world into a computer you hold in your hand, heretofore known as a cell phone. If you don’t get your business in position to be seen on that small screen, your customers are going someplace else.WARNING: Your customers are looking for you online right now!If your Local Business is found on the Internet, you can sell. If…Perhaps, a few statistics will shed light on this mystery:
Over 1 Billion local searches performed every month — growing over 50% a year
80% American consumers are using the Internet [2009]
80% of people first search online before making a purchase
97% Internet users use the Internet to shop [NPD Group]
90% Internet searches result in offline brick & mortar purchases [Comscore]
82% Internet searches result in calls & contact with businesses [Comscore]
74% Internet users perform local searches [Kelsey Group]
73% Internet searches are related to local content [Google]
66% Internet users use Internet for local searches [Comscore / TMP]
25% Internet searches have purely local commercial focus [ Kelsey / Bizrate]
Pepsi, FedEx pass on 2010 Super Bowl ads — shift ad dollars to new marketing efforts mostly online.What are your customers looking for?Old school marketing is still King. Times have changed, and media change, too. None of us alive today remember the King’s herald announcing news from the official scroll. Some of us recall barkers calling out theater or carnival sideshow attractions to passers-by. Most of us have bought something from a newspaper advertisement, or called to order something prompted by a Yellow Page spread.The Internet and computing devices are new media. Applying old school marketing principles to new media is a wise idea. That’s exactly what we are about to show you here.Can your customers find your Local Business on the Internet?Local Business Search ResultsDon’t worry — if you’re a Fortune Multi-National Conglomerate, you don’t need to appear in the Local Business Results.One of the best kept local Internet marketing secrets is the Google Local Business Center. Until your business is registered here, it cannot be found in the search results map. Google implemented this feature in early 2009, and it’s been evolving ever since. For those buying locally, however, this is the first thing most searchers see… and probably the first links on which they will click. Once here, not only are you at the top of Page One — look at that map! They now know where you are and how to get to you…If you’ve seen maps and GPS on cell phones, this is how your Local Business shows up on mobile devices. The Mobile Market is enormous and truly the wave of the future.Organic Search ResultsAdditionally, you need to be at the top of the normal, Organic Search Results, the traditional results area on the left, mostly below the Local Business Results. When your web page link is in the top six Organic Search Results — your Local Business has another clickable link on this first search page. Multiple clickable links on the first search page increases your odds that your customers will go to your web site… once there, we believe you can close them.Your Organic Search Results are a function of the quality & credibility of your Local Business presence on the Internet. You want all online roads leading back to you and your web site. There are virtually unlimited credible and respectable sources throughout the Internet, and from there nearly infinite routes back to your Local Business web site. Remember traditional referrals and testimonials from old school marketing? Referral links back to your web pages from everywhere on the Internet are testimonials to your Local Business relevance.The local business with the most links wins!Content Search ResultsFurthermore, your online content must also appear in the top search results! All content relevant to that search adds more links back to your Local Business on the first search page. You and your Local Business are going to be viewed as the top authority on all matters regarding this search. Google loves rich, relevant & rewarding online content!!!
Online Videos (YouTube.com)
Online Press Releases (PRweb.com)
Online Articles (EzineArticles.com)
Social Content Sites (Squidoo.com)
Online Classifieds (Craigslist.org)
Online Business Directories (MerchantCircle.com)
Online Review Sites (Kudzu.com)But, wait, there’s more! Pay-Per-Click (PPC)You want to be in the Pay-Per-Click and/or Sponsored Results up there in the top yellow box and down along the right side. Pay-Per-Click is Pay-As-You-Go — your ad only shows up when somebody searches for your specific key words. Your ad is only shown to your best customers who are searching specifically for what you have to offer. You set how much you are willing to pay, and you only pay when somebody clicks on your ad — the fully qualified buyer.So, the question is, How much is each fully qualified customer on your web site worth to you???Geo-Targeting Your AdsFurthermore, you can also target your ads to local customers in your area. By focusing on local customers, your ad is only seen locally. Locally seen ads are more likely to attract local customers, are cheaper for you, and you do not compete with companies on the other side of the world.For example, a consumer searches, “I need a plumber.” Google knows where the local plumbers are. When you only show your ad to people in your city for these “generic” keywords, you get cheaper clicks, targeted traffic and less competition.What if your web pages sit atop the search engine results?What if you are the #1 Authority online?Imagine what that will mean for your Local Business! How many more customers do you want coming to you every single day? every single week? every single month?What will it do for your Local Business when you have your online market domination plan in place?If you have a Yellow Pages ad, you are already spending marketing money. What is your return on that investment???Every search engine result page can present only the most relevant web pages that fit into the limited space on one page. Only an elite few Local Businesses can possibly be seen there.Do your own homework. Look for yourself. Do a search using keywords that your best customers will use to find your Local Business.Which Local Businesses are on the first search page? How many Local Businesses are on the first search page? Is that your biggest competitor there in A. or B. in the Local Business Results? Are your best customers going to your Competitors because they find them — NOT YOU — in the search results?As you see, nobody can possibly do a credible job placing more than six Local Businesses in your market on Google page one. Furthermore, when you consider your goal is to have multiple links to your Local Business on that same Google page one, you must carefully consider the sales hype of typical SEO geeks! There can be only one Number One — will it be you and your Local Business?
Ways to Organize a Multi-Family Vacation Travel Plan
Many a times it does happen that the family members are quite close to each other, yet due to various reasons such as careers, in-laws or personal preferences, it becomes difficult to find time to meet each other. The increasing busier lives of the people has made it extremely hard to make get together a reality and the rising cost for travel is also one of the major reasons for this. It is important to understand that once you are offered the chance of a family get together, you need to make the maximum use of this opportunity. All you require to achieve this is a little bit of upfront planning and then everything will fall into place.The best times to plan together a family travel plan is during Thanksgiving and the Fall and Winter breaks. Most of the commonly visited spots get filled up fast and when you are on a multifamily vacation, there is no doubt that there maybe more than a dozen participants and thus availability will pose as a big issue in such matters. Keeping in mind, all the problems and possibilities, the following tips have been put together to help you come out with the right multi-family vacation travel plan for you and your family. Make one person as the in charge of the vacation – This way one responsible person can coordinate different aspects of the family vacation with each other. While each of the members will be responsible for their own itineraries, but there will be one person who will look after the master schedule of the travel plan. In this manner, decisions can be made quickly without much delays and all the members will have a central point of contact which will reduce the confusion and malaise during vacation time.
Early decision on the dates, location and the venue is important – The part of deciding on the venue is the tough task as each of the members has their own likes and dislikes. Taking the opinion of the majority of the members is the best way of planning the trip. Also, each family member has their own budget restriction and thus putting together the family travel plan involves paying great attention to all these fine details.
Choosing the accommodations – Finalizing the kind of accommodations is extremely crucial in the travel plan. Depending on the average budget of each of the group members, you can either decide to go in for a villa rental or cruise or hotels and resorts.
Brainstorming The Ideas for Influencing Your Mobile App Audience
Once the app is downloaded, you have little time to take a sigh of relief, and then again start focusing on making things easier for the them till their goal is achieved.
According to the AppsFlyer, an app marketing company, the global uninstall rate for apps after 30 days is 28%. Entertainment apps are most frequently deleted, whereas apps based on Finance is least frequently deleted. No matter which app category you belong to, your strategy should be to remain in the mobile phones of users for a long time, and not just sit around but to fulfill your purpose as well.
If we analyze the encounters of users with an app step by step, it can help us unveil the critical factors that influence mobile app audiences, so that we can work upon those and achieve our purpose. Here are the details:
Step1. Finding Your App in Appstore
For this, we have to first find out what exactly users type to search an app. Based on a research, it has been found that 47% app users on iOS confirmed that they found the app through the App Store’s search engine and 53% app users on Android confirmed the same.
What have been their search queries? Interestingly, as the per the data provided by the TUNE research, 86% of the top 100 keywords were brands.With little scope for non-branded categories, most of the keywords were either of games of utility apps. Common keywords in the non branded category are: games, free games, VPN, calculator, music, photo editor, and weather.
Leaving brands aside, if we analyze the user-type of a Non-branded category, we will get two types of users:
1. Users are informed, and they know what they are search
2. Users are exploring possibilities, have no precise information in mind.
If you are a mobile app development company, targeting non-branded users, then your efforts must be directed to creating apps that compel these two types of users. To do so, we have to analyze once they are on an app store, what keywords they use to search. Regina Leuwer, with expertise in marketing & communications, bring some light to the subject. She reached out Sebastian Knopp, creator of app store search intelligence tool appkeywords, who shared with her the data of unique trending search phrases. And according to that data, in 2017, there were around 2,455 unique search phrases trending in the US.
Now, if we study these data to get information, we will find that name of the app is critical to attract the attention of the users.
If your app belongs to non-branded category, then make sure your app name is similar to the common search queries but also unique in comparison with your competitors. So that when your app name is flashed, they click it on to it, finding it purposeful and compelling both.
Step 2. Installation
Remember your users are on mobile devices has limited resources, from battery to storage and RAM to Internet. Everything is limited. So better create an application that is easy to download or say get downloaded with 5 minutes. One critical advice here:
1. Keep the application file size small.
If you are a developer, use APK Analyser to find out which part of the application is consuming maximum space. You can also reduce classes.dex file and res folder that contains images, raw files, and XML.
Step 3. Onboarding
After the user has successfully downloaded your mobile application, don’t leave anything on assumptions. Guide them properly. This you can do through an onboarding process, where users can learn the key functionality and where to begin with the mobile app. Below are the 3 things you need to keep in your mind when creating an onboarding process for your users.
Short and Crisp: The entire guidance of features and functions should be completed within few seconds, with easy options loud and clear option to skip.
Precise Information: Don’t introduce them to the app. They already know what they have downloaded. The objective to inform about the key functions and features.
Allow Users to Skip: Let the tech-savvy users skip the intro. Your app is to meet their requirement and not to have a friendly session.
Step 4. Purpose and UI
Here, the stage is set for your app and it is the golden chance for you to impress your users. What is needed here is the collaboration between purpose and UI of the app. It totally depends on the problem-solving capability and ease of use of the mobile app. Interface design plays the critical role, allowing the users to access features of the apps easily and quickly to perform the task for what they have downloaded the app. When it comes to interface design, make sure that the design is interactive and task-oriented. Here are some factors that you must take care off while creating mobile app interface:
1. Usability: The Mobile phone is an epitome of convenience and if your users find it difficult to use your app, then there is no way there are going to make the space for it in their mobile phones. From screen size to the color of the app, there are many factors that are equally critical and need attention.
2. Intuitive: To create an intuitive User Interface, you have to read the mind of the users, and develop a model based on that. The next should be precise, clear and ‘obvious’ in an interface.
3. Availability: Key features should be hidden in the drop down menu or even if so, it should be obvious for the user to look into the drop-down. An intricate work of design and research is required to make essential features available for the customers and they don’t need to navigate here and there.
If you need more help with the user-interface and innovative ideas for a mobile app, write to me [email protected] and I promise to get back to you with interesting mobile app designs.