Welcome to Kent Marketing Information. This 100% free blog has been created to help businesses in Kent get online and grow their profits using the internet.
Many local people now use the internet to search for services rather than use the old outdated printed directories such as Yellow Pages, Thomson’s etc. If you don’t have an on-line presence you are in danger of missing out on potential customers that will be swallowed up by your competition.
The information and tips contained within this blog will hopefully show you the many ways you can advertise your business locally, and it’s probably easier than you think. Many campaigns, once they have been setup, require little or no effort to maintain.
Remember if someone is on-line searching for a local service that matches your particular business, they have a need that needs to be fulfilled. You need to ensure that your business is one of the first in line.
Oct 11
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Websites – Who needs ‘em!
Having talked in previous blogs about the fact that you can gain an online presence for your business without a website (via Google Places), it would be easy to think that you can do without.
After all, if you purchased the Local Place Profits system and are now showing up on the Google Places map for businesses in your area, that’s great. You will attract a large amount of traffic from local people searching for the services you provide.
It would be easy to think that because you are now getting business generated from your online presence, why bother with anything else.
Don’t Self Sabotage Your Google Places Listing
To fully maximise your Google Places listing and gain a spot in the magical top 7, you must ensure that you’re not self sabotaging your chances. Google constantly checks the internet for information and content for verification purposes. This is so Google can provide people who perform searches with up-to-date reliable information.
So, if Google Places has an entry for your business it will periodically check the information stored there against any other sites or locations where this information may also be found. This normally takes the shape of business listings directories and even your own website if you have one.
It compares company name, postal address, telephone number(s) and web address to ensure everything matches. If it does, then this is a positive for your business and will help move you up the Google Places rankings. If discrepancies are found however, then this will count against you and your Google Places listing may never be seen! It will also count against your website ranking as well, because information stored about your business will be deemed unreliable.
Creating Your Free Google Places Listing
Google Places is a superb way of obtaining and maintaining an on-line presence for your business whether you have a website or not. More people search for businesses online than anywhere else, so it’s important to make sure your business can be easily found. With a Google Places listing you can make your business visible on both Google.com and Google Maps and it doesn’t cost a thing.
With Google Places, the results of many local searches on Google will now display a Google Map on the right hand side. This map will show the area local to what Google deems as matching the search query. Displayed on the map will be the location of up to seven local businesses also matching the search criteria. So, if a potential customer searches for ‘Hairdressers in Tonbridge’, the results could show a map of the Tonbridge area with markers displaying the locations of seven local hairdressers. If the potential customer was then to click on any one of these markers, they would be provided with detailed information of that particular business.
This information can include details such as the full range of services provided, opening hours, pictures and videos of products and premises, payment options, car-parking, details of special offers, customer testimonials and much more. All of this can be very powerful in attracting new customers.
The process of claiming your Google Places listing is quite straightforward although there are a few provisos. Some of the pre-requisites are:
Use Google Places To Advertise Your Business For Free
Previously a person in Kent searching for “Italian Restaurants” might have gotten listings for businesses that were actually located in Southampton.
To rectify this, Google and other major search engines have been displaying certain search results with a bias towards local businesses and services. This is the easiest way for people who are performing searches to find out what’s actually in Kent rather than hundreds of miles away. As regards Google, this functionality of displaying businesses local to the person performing the search is administered and maintained by something called Google Places.
Google Places was designed to work with local business listings and display information for up to seven local businesses in many of its search results. For this reason, if you can manage to get your local business ranked into the top seven for your particular field, a Google Places listing can be priceless.
How Businesses In Kent Can Dramatically Lower Their Pay Per Click Costs
In this article I am going to teach you step-by-step how to lower the costs of
your Google Adwords marketing…whilst at the same time dominating your competition.
Google Adwords is an advertising program run by marketing giants’ Google.It allows you to place small classified adverts on the side of Google. These adverts get triggered by people searching for the keywords that you specify in Google.
How To Make Your Kent Based Web Site Convert Better – The Seven Rules…
One of the biggest mistakes businesses in Kent make when they
get their web site online is that they think that having a web site
is all they need to grow their business using the internet. I’m
afraid it is a little more difficult than that.
You see it’s no good having hundreds of visitors every single month
to your site if none of them turn into customers. Below are seven
‘conversion’ rules you can check out and see if your site adheres
to them. If not you might want to consider making sure your site
makes use of as many of the tips below as possible.