The Check-In Trend

What is this new trend for getting new customers? It’s all about location-based services at the moment. Many programs are now acting as check-ins which offer discounts with companies like Groupon, Facebook Places, and Foursquare. This is not what you should be focusing on right now. It is a great service if you offer goods that need to be purchased more than once, but I have a different perspective on what to do.

Google is obviously the most used search engine out there and you want to get your name on the first page right? SEO will help you do that for your web site, but what if you approached this a different way? Lately, Google’s search results have been bringing up local businesses under their Google Places program and are displayed on the first page. Why not attack this area instead of trying to get to page one with your web site? Places offers a free listing for you where you can display your name, address, logo, phone, hours, website, and so on. This is the new version of the Yellow Books, except this is free and people will actually see your listing.

So that is the background of what I am about to get into. The big secret is how to get noticed. If you are on Google Places, you are good to go and will be found, but that is not saying how well you will be ranked. The key is tagging your business with appropriate services and having quality reviews! When you edit your listing, there is a section where tagging is available. Google has just launched a new service this week called Hotpot, a more visual display for searching for places. It shows your location along with reviews and the information listed earlier. Most of our clients at Rainman are independent insurance salesmen so I will use an example based off of them. To be found on Places even better, they would require tags that display their services such as insurance, health insurance, coverage, and vehicle insurance. When people search for these terms, this company’s listing should be pulled up in the first page.

Every business should be on Google Places and there is no excuse why they shouldn’t. This will give your company a much better view without doing much SEO research. You just need basic keywords that are tagged to your place in order to be better searched for. Just think of the companies that have a listing but no description. How will someone be able to find you?

The Power of a Review

What do you do when you visit a region known for growing finicky Pinot Noir grapes? Well, we decided to go on a wine tour while we were in Hood River, Oregon.

But what do you do when there are so many wineries and limited time (as well as money)?
I decided to research the wineries using the Google Places application on my phone. I then narrowed down the wineries based on reviews.

There simply were too many wineries in the area so I had to use some criteria. I did not just look at the overall rating mind you. I took the time to read the reviews. I prefer to see what the reviewers had to say so I could determine if the review looked valid.

If a winery did not have a review, quite frankly I dismissed them because so many others did. I don't know if the wineries request reviews. None that we visited did so I assume the reviews were “volunteered.”

More and more people are seeking resources, products and services online. Don't dismiss the power of a review to lead someone to your door no matter your offering.

Oh, and by the way, we were not disappointed in any of the wineries we visited. I think the reviews served us well.

The New Face of Getting Customers

As the decline of yellow pages and newspaper go down, alternate forms of media sprout up. Times are changing and with the introduction of Web 2.0 (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) shouldn’t finding customers change too? With the decline in newspapers and other print, we must find new methods of finding customers other than that. This is where using such things as Facebook for businesses helps and is the future.

Referrals will always be king when it comes to leads but there needs to be other sources. According to most studies on Social Media Marketing, most companies should only use 7-8% of their current marketing budget on these sites combined. That is a very small percentage for how much is gained. Unless you’re a large company, just post and update everything yourself as it only takes a few minutes out of the day. Some of our companies that we have helped set up have already seen the benefits of social media and are getting referrals just because they’re on Facebook and post frequently. Twitter is also a great tool for any business, whether it’s insurance agents posting breaking weather news or a restaurant that has a last minute band playing there. Word spreads fast on Twitter and once a message picks up speed, it’s hard to miss it.

And then there’s the part about everything being free advertising. Like I said in my last post, Facebook pages are public and Google indexes them very fast. The more quality linkbacks you have to your site, the better ranked your website will be. Again just post quality content and the people will come.

If you would like to see the statistics of how everything is ranked and success rates, visit The Social Media Examiner for their 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Tips on getting noticed by Google

Every small business wants to be searched for and find that they will come up #1 on searches. Chances are that will not happen unless you're searching for your company's name. So how do you improve your site to show Google that it is relevant enough to be at least on the first page? Here are a few tips:

1. Create content that people want.
• As simplistic as that sounds, not enough people follow this rule. Most now are building articles around certain keywords that get searched for in Google frequently. The truth is this works in a way but just writing about what you do will help send quality searchers to your site. You do not need to research keywords but rather write a decent sized blog or article and the guests will come.
2. Create a business page on Facebook
• Linkbacks are a big key on showing Google your web site is important and having a Facebook will help you do just that. Facebook is private meaning Google's crawler is not allowed to search through content; Facebook's business pages are different though in that they are public to everyone. Post frequently on there, have discussions, and especially link to articles and helpful items on your website every once in a while. No one likes force marketing so don't be pushy.
3. Do not pay for sponsored links
• Paying for sponsored links seems very enticing but they will not help you in the long run. These ads will have your site posted at the top if your keywords match but these links all have "nofollow" attached to them, meaning Google's crawler will not follow. This will not boost your page to #1 and will just waste your time.

Mobile Micro Site

Well, I got a little fun-time in front of the computer this weekend, which is when I make things that aren't strictly customer websites. Now, don't get me wrong, I like to make insurance company websites-- they are helpful for both insurance agents and their clients and our sites are looking pretty good these days.

But I do like to work on other things sometimes, just because, well-- it's fun. So I do some animation, or a bit of illustration for a site just because I like working out some skill or other.

This weekend, I finished up a nice looking micro-site that will work on cellphones.

If you have ever surfed to a site on a cell-phone browser and seen how different the web looks on such a tiny screen, you'll appreciate how cool it is to be able to have a secondary site available just for that particular kind of user. So I made a site that looks and feels a whole lot like an iPhone app. We can detect mobile browsers and send them there directly, so that the site automatically looks and feels like a custom phone application. It isn't the end-all and be-all of web design, but it is a nice touch that really adds some useful functionality to the site.

Right now, I only have the most basic site up, but it does have a pretty good interface. There isn't a whole lot of user interactivity in the site, either. And we don't have a price structure, so they aren't for sale quite yet. But it always feel nice to at least get to that first stage on a product and say: hey this part is -done-!

Mobile Optimized Sites

So we're working on a new concept here, mostly because I (John) am a big geek. I am wanting to offer iphone optimized content, but we're still a bit skeptical that we can do this in a cost effective manner.

On one hand, we would have to reup on some programming skills, and on the other hand app development takes lot of time for a very small market segment.

But we've discovered an idea we think will both be very useful for our clients and which is fairly easy to implement: cellphone browser optimized websites.

So I've cobbled together a nice beta version of a site, one that even looks like an iPhone app. It is way easy to update, thanks to the fact that I use a single file to hold all of the client specific text and only two graphics files for the branding.

So hopefully we'll have another pretty, cost-effective product for our client very soon!

Webmail or Mail Client?

 

There are two basic options when it comes to checking your email. You can either use a web browser or a program called an email client.

Which method will work best for you is a personal decision, but it is good to understand the difference between the two.

The easiest way to get going with email is to use webmail. You simply use your internet browser to open up a webpage that has your mail. If you are a Rainman.com customer, the address is http://webmail.yourDomainName.com.

You simply go to that web address, enter your email address as your username and put in your password, and you can check your emails, change your spam settings, write new emails, and so on. You can do pretty much anything email related at that site. Another big benefit is that you can can check your webmail from any computer that can access the internet.

By contrast, an "email client" is a program for you computer whose entire purpose is to check your email. Windows Vista comes with a built in program called Windows Mail, Mac OS X has a program called Mail. Windows 7 Live brings an email client to Windows 7.

Other options are free programs like Mozilla Thunderbird or Opera Mail. Personally, I use Outlook, which comes with MS Office.

These programs are on your personal computer, and you have to configure them to go out on the 'net, check your email account, and download your email. This might seem like a downside, but they are really great if you want to have a handy, local archive of your email. In my email directory, I have every email I have sent or received since late 2001 because I can backup email, transfer it between computers. Also, these programs usually allow a lot more organization of contacts, more integration with other programs (I send mass email blasts using MS Word and Outlook), and are generally easier to search and archive.

Which is best for you? I couldn't say, but it is a good idea to know your options when it comes to email.

Yellow Page Advertising

Most of what we do at Rainman.com is advertising for your site. Sure, we host your mail and put useful information on the internet, but when it comes down to it we are really one wing of your marketing strategy. Maybe you've added us as part of your marketing team, and you want to know how we feel you should adjust your other strategies to work with what we do. In article let's look at one facet of your advertising: your yellow page ad.

Your marketing -should- be a strategy. Those of you have been doing business for a while know this is a balancing act: spend too much and you're wasting cash, spend to little and no one knows you're there. Buy too many radio commercials on a top-40 radio station, and your target demographic of boomer males isn't going to hear your message.

And, of course, it is very difficult to measure the effects of advertising. Even on the web, we can count chow many times someone searched for your site and found it, but we can't tell the difference between a customer who actually came to your business and an old boyfriend finding your site on google.

So a lot of us just kind of buy and pray, and then guesstimate the effects of an advertising campaign.

While it might seem like we're just offering information via the web and social networking, the whole point of having a web presence is marketing. The exact same thing is true with Yellow-page ads: they seem like they are a directory of helpful information, but really they are ads for your business.

It really wouldn't be appropriate for us to give you direct advice, but we do have a couple of pro/cons to yellow pages advertising to help guide you in your thinking.

There are advantages to the yellow pages:

• They are print media: not everyone is on the web, fewer older folks do their shopping on the web, and not everyone always have access to the web. So yellow page ads are good for reaching folks who won't or can't be looking for your business on their computer or cellphone.
• They are established: they have been doing business a long time and have a good grasp on professional presentation. It is very easy to have a professional looking ad. Conversely, I have seen a lot of the existing sites of people coming onto our services, and it is very easy to have a dated and unprofessional looking web-presence.
• They are local: one of the best things about yellow page ads is that you know the advertisers are local. This is perhaps the single best recommendation for that advertising: generating locally relevant results for brick-and-mortar businesses is one of our primary goals as web advertisers, and is almost automatic for yellow page ads.

However, there are a lot of disadvantages:

• They are expensive: since they are put out in a very labor intensive way, specifically by delivering them in the form of giant, paper advertising flyers they charge a premium for their ad space.
• They are information-poor: even in a full-page ad, you can't fit anywhere near as much information as with a website.
• They lock you into a year-long campaign: you can't change the information once it is out there, and you can't adjust you advertising budget. Once you have bought that ad, it is there for a year and even if things like your budget or your location change you're not able to change that info.

Yellow page ads might still be a good thing for your business; that part of your advertising effort is something you'll have to decide. On our end, we can assure you of a couple of things:

• your business will be on Google places,
• when folks search the internet for your business or business like yours in your town, you will show up in google's maps,
• and your contact information such as your physical address and business phone number will be easy to find on your site and the internet

Personally, the only time I look at the yellow pages is when staying at a hotel and ordering takeout, but I am 32-year-old computer savvy gen-x-er. But my parents don't really use the phone book all that often, and people my grandparents age pretty much only use them to look up numbers they have forgotten. I wouldn't hesitate to put a yellow pages ad out for a pizzaria near an airport. I might hesitate to do the same for a small-town insurance agency.

You'll have to think about your business and your target customer and decide on how much money to put in which type of advertising. Maybe a full page ad would be a good thing, or maybe just your name, address, phone number and web address would be best.

The Legend of Kokopelli

Kokopelli was know to the Native Americans as a fertility god, prankster, story teller and healer. He dates back to over 3000 years ago, and can be found painted and carved into many rock walls in the south west.

There are many myths and stories about Kokopelli, some say he would appear at the end of winter and play his flute to welcome spring. Another story tells of villagers dancing and singing as Kokopelli played his flute and the next day the woman of the tribe would be pregnant.

What ever the true story may be, Kokopelli always brings dancing, music and prosperity to those around. We would like to be like Kokopelli and help bring propsperity into your business. Once you see that your business is growing and prospering, you might do a little dancing of your own!

Photo curtesy of www.tymooreart.com