Business Archives - Page 41 of 52

The Value of Google Places for Local Business and Map Ranking Factors

So as search engine marketers, we all know the value of Google’s local 10 pack, 7 pack, 3 pack, whatever you want to call it. But just how valuable is it and what are the factors that search engines use to determine local ranking? This is all what we will talk about in today’s entry.

For those of you who may not know me yet, my name is Matt Parks. I’m an online marketing consultant who helps small, medium and even global companies build appropriate online marketing strategies and enhance their brand awareness through competitive traditional and non-traditional advertising techniques.

Now for what you’ve been waiting for… the good stuff…

So, you may ask… Just how valuable are the local map results for my company? Well there is no simple answer to that question. Each company should have a custom built strategy. For instance, if you own a local Thai restaurant and want to increase your daily foot traffic, local listings will greatly help your efforts. On the other hand, you own a specialty shoe store that does 100% of your business online, local listings are just not for you. Google and other search engines developed their local results pages to assist users in finding small business owners with brick and mortar shops, retail stores or restaurants, and get quick information about them – such as hours, short reviews and even menu items and sale dates.

So, we’ve whittled a few of you out of the mix now. What’s next? How do I get premium ranking with these listings?

Ahhhhh. So you want to know the magic trick huh? Well, first you need to have a listing. You can create one by logging into your Google account if you have one, and selecting the local business center icon under your settings. If you don’t have one there, just type into Google: “local business center” and follow the easy to use, step by step listing creation wizard. When creating your listing, it is very important to make sure all the information you provide is correct, including phone number and address as before you finish, you will be required to verify by telephone or snail mail that in fact the listing is yours. Now on to the pot of gold. Lets go over the top ten ranking factors for local listings…

1: GENERAL IMPORTANCE OF CLAIMING LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING – You have to have a listing first.

2: LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING ADDRESS IN CITY OF SEARCH – The closer you are to the IP, the better.

3: ASSOCIATING LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING WITH PROPER CATEGORIES – This is a must, create new categories if you need to, just don’t try and keyword stuff.

4: PRODUCT / SERVICE KEYWORD IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING TITLE – Use your correct full name, but add a keyword if it fits right. ie: Garden Palace – Chinese Restaurant

5: PROXIMITY OF ADDRESS TO CITY CENTROID – Don’t use a fake address, but if you are corporate, a UPS box (no P.O. box, only physical address) near the middle of town couldn’t hurt

6: PRODUCT/SERVICE KEYWORDS IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING DESCRIPTION – Keep it short and sweet.. Remember, you are trying to appeal to the user/searcher.

7: LOCATION KEYWORD IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING TITLE/DESCRIPTION – Garden Palace of Nashville – Chinese Restaurant

8: ASSOCIATING PHOTOS/VIDEOS WITH THE LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING – Not as important, but try and at least upload a logo.

9: PRODUCT / SERVICE IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING CUSTOM FIELDS – Undetermined how much this helps, but they are provided, so use them… But don’t OVERUSE them and stuff em’ full of keywords.

10: ASSOCIATING LOCAL AREA CODE AS PRIMARY LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING NUMBER – Local numbers perform much better, may not help with ranking, but it does with consumer trust.

An extra bonus: Make sure information in your listing is consistent across the board.. ie: YellowPages.com, CitySearch.com, etc. as Google uses these Data Sources to add trustworthiness to your listing and gives you ranking bonuses due to it being more “relevant”.

Well that’s about it.

How to Put Your Business in Google Maps

Marketing is an important part of business. The broader audience you can reach the better. There is basically a number of ways to do so, but not all of them are as effective as you thought they would be. For both online and offline businesses, marketing is fairly a challenge and it all comes down to what is being delivered, to who it is being delivered and how it is delivered.

People have become more dependent on the internet to find what they need.This applies on almost anything : from products, services, information, people, everything and anything. This would pretty much include finding companies and what they offer. And through the internet, marketing has reached levels and market niche that seemed to be impossible years back.

Different search engines and websites have developed and are now applying different methods to better serve both entrepreneurs and customers. Different online applications have made these methods of marketing and searching a very effective way of attracting new clients and returning customers.

One of the best and free options available is Google Maps. There are more people searching for businesses online than anywhere else and through Google Maps your business will be able to reach millions of Google Maps users, quickly and for free, specifically with Local Business Center. So it’s important to make sure your business listing can be easily found on Google and Google Maps. With the use of Local Business Center, it is easy to create a great listing; all it takes is just a few minutes and it doesn’t cost a thing.

With Local Business Center, you can control your listing and speak for yourself. If you already have a website, your business probably already appears on Google, but even if it does, you should still claim your listing and check to make sure its details are accurate and thorough. Your improvements will start appearing as soon as you verify them through the Local Business Center.

By doing so you can be sure that your business is properly represented and at the same time extends to markets which used to be beyond your reach. This article will help you in broadening your marketing with the use of Google Maps.

First, go to google.com. Then key in the type of business you are under or would want to be classified in. Sample would be typing in carpet cleaning St. Marys Georgia. The Google Maps Listing for this search will come up. And you can see that there are several businesses under this type listed ranked from one to 10 for the first page. This is where your business information will appear after getting it listed in Google Maps. Note that the Google Maps listing comes up on the first page, often as the #1 LOCAL listing in Google. This is like getting on the first page of your local yellow pages, for free!

Getting started, you can either go to the search area of Google and key in local business center. Click on the link that appears for this. Or you could go directly to the URL space and type in http://www.google.com/localbusinesscenter.

You can sign in with your Google Account if you already have one. If you don’t have a Google Account yet, start by creating your personal Google Account. Once you have provided your email and password and logged in click on Add new listing or business. From here a form should be filled up with your basic business details as you would like them to appear in the listing.

Upon doing so the map on the left will zoom into your location as you type in your address. You can move the marker if you like if Google’s best guess isn’t quite spot-on or not exactly where you think it should be.

After filling in the location details make sure to fill in your main phone number. Google will contact you through this number for verification. If you have a website address, key it in with http:// at the beginning. Then you should write a business description that emphasizes what your business is all about making your business unique or better than your competitors. This is a means by which you could be distinguished from the others and easily be found through specific keywords. Details of what your company provides, where the service area is and where it is close to or any landmarks that they could take note of would be very could inputs for the description. Then click next. On the following step select the listing or category that you want to claim (make sure it’s the most similar to your business). When done, click on the category of your choice. You can also add another category if you think that it could be part of another.

If your business is not on the listing or doesn’t match any listings, click the Add Category button at the bottom to create a new listing. Note: In the list of close matches, if the business name on a given listing is wrong but the address is right, click the Claim Listing or Category button and Google Maps will use your preferred name. However, if the address is wrong and you can’t receive mail sent to that address, you will not be able to verify your claim. In that case, you should click Add Category at the bottom of the list to create a new listing for your business.

Next step, include your hours of operation and payment options. This information is useful for both repeat and potential customers. Then you should add more details to make your business stand out. You can also add relevant information that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Information such as delivery zone, house specialties, return policy, or anything else that you would like to share. In marketing, you would want to catch the attention of as many potential customers as you can.

You can also add an image to help your listings stand out in Google Maps search results. You can use snapshots, logos and images. If you have videos on YouTube, you can place them directly in your listing as well.

Finally, verify your listing, if possible do it by phone. If you have easy access to the phone number on your listing, choose phone verification. You can either choose to be called now or in 5 minutes. Google will call you, and once you enter a Personal Identification Number (PIN), your listing will be immediately verified. A Thank You notice will appear in the window

If you are not near the phone or have a voicemail system, you should choose postcard verification. Google will send you a card with a PIN for you to enter before mailing it back. But it will take a coupe of weeks to complete.

You’ve successfully completed your Google Maps listing.

How Do I Get My Small Business Name to Rank #1?

This is a very common question I get all the time and if I was an SEO specialist looking to make a fast buck and not build valuable long lasting relationships, this avenue could quickly be taking advantage of. Watch out small business owners for SEO’s trying to win your business doing this very method! Making your small business name #1 in Google and other search engines is very easy to do unless your business name just happens to have a competitive term in it like, “Computer Store”. Most sites in the small business world have little to no competition in the search engines for their business name which makes it very simple to rank for. As a result of little to no competition in search engines, making some simple adjustments to your websites title tags, and scoring a local backlink or two will do the trick. Actually, most of the small business sites just need to adjust their title tag to make their business name show up #1.

I also want to stress that there is much more value in SEO then ranking #1 for your business name. Actually your business name will only be searched for by people looking for your business specifically. What brings additional value is when people search for industry related terms without your brand name in them and then that brings them to your website. That is search engine optimization.

The best return on your investment with search engine optimization is in finding a specialist that can see the whole picture and will focus on driving traffic to your site from your target audience with converting them to a sale in mind.

Getting your business name listed out on the web is important for brand awareness, but the question to ask is; other then the value of brand awareness, how much traffic and sales did getting my business name #1, drive to my website?

Quick tip: Although Google Local Listings is not organic in the context I am talking about here. I suggesting your company sign up for a Google Account and list your business name in Google Local Listings for additional search value.

Why I Love Using Door Hangers In My Mortgage Business

Everyday we go through 100’s of doors without even thinking about it. How would you like to be able to make people stop and take notice of your mortgage marketing message?

The answer is “Door Hangers” or if you prefer “Door Knob Hangers.”

If you’re like me, you probably love to close a mortgage using a low cost origination idea. Door hangers definitely fit in that category and are a great originating tool.

Here are a few of the advantages of using door hangers:

1. They’re inexpensive,

2. They’re easy to generate,

3. The response is almost immediate,

4. They help you establish a farming area,

5. They can be targeted to a specific market,

6. Somebody is going to get a lot of good exercise.

As noted above…There’s lots of very good reasons why you would want to work the door hanger idea into your marketing plan. But, here’s the most important reason of all: You’ll receive an immediate response using door hangers. If you’re new to the mortgage business…this is exactly what you want…you want prospects now…not next week, not next month, and certainly not next year.

If you’re an old hand with mortgages but experiencing a little lull in your business…this provides a quick jump-start to find some new prospects.

And, remember…this is low cost mortgage origination that you can do immediately. If you need business…and, won’t incorporate this idea…I really can’t help you…you have other issues that need to be addressed immediately.

I’m sure you realize that door hangers are meant to be used as one shot effort to gain prospects. There’s no follow-up because there’s no contact information. Only when your mortgage prospect calls you is this the beginning of any kind of two-way communication. Door hangers are meant to get your message out there quickly, efficiently, cheaply, and in great quantity.

So…your door hangers are delivered. What’s next and what can you expect?

First, you’ll hopefully get immediate calls. In fact, unless you’re prepared to gather information while you’re delivering; you may need to shut off your phone for an hour until it’s convenient for you to return the call.

Second, you may run across people willing to carry on a conversation with you right then and there. Just be prepared for that.

Third, the life span of your door hanger is short, usually, three or four days at the very most. This is an immediate response idea with no long term residual value.

Fourth, your response numbers will approximate the response rate of direct mail without the associated costs. Expect about a one to two percent response.

Fifth, you will get complaints. Don’t worry about it; just be aware you’ll get them. You’ll find they fall into two categories, both of which revolve around that little sign posted at the entrance of the complex where you placed your door hangers. It reads: “No Soliciting,” or something similar.

You may get a call from a resident that you are in fact soliciting. Apologize profusely and move on. Your response is: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend…I’ve done many refinances in the community and everyone is very well pleased…I do provide a valuable service for your community.”

If you just attacked a rental community…you will get a call from a not-so-happy Property Manager. If you don’t get that call; they’re not doing their job. So, expect the call and be prepared.

They will call you and threaten to contact either the Sheriff or the local Police. Here’s your response: “I’m sorry…I didn’t realize…it won’t happen again I can assure you.” Be humble and apologetic and diffuse the situation.

Just so you know…I not aware of any folks in the mortgage industry serving jail terms for violating that little posted sign. This is not an offense that puts you in mortgage jail, believe me.

In the case of a rental community, I usually wait a year and then do it again. You can always blame your staff (even though you don’t have one). the next time…but, chances are there will be a new Property Manager to holler at you instead. They turn-over at about the same rate that rental units do.

OK back to basics…Let’s pick a target for your door hangers. It may be a rental community, a residential area of single family homes, condos, or townhouses. Obviously, If your door hangers are geared towards rentals, your a theme can be “Renting is hazardous to their wealth,” or something similar to that.

For residences, a refinance flier with a free report is always a good choice. In both cases, give them a reason to call you now…give something that is free if they respond.

Personally, I prefer to deliver my door hangers to rental communities, townhouses and condos versus neighborhoods with single family homes. Why? Because, I can deliver a huge number of fliers in a very short period of time.

I also like to deliver them on Saturday morning. You can either count this as your exercise time or hire a couple of kids to place them on doors in a particular neighborhood. If you hire kids…do get the parents permission and supervise the placement of the door hangers.

You can buy blank door hangers that are already perforated and print them yourself. Here are a few sources you can review or use Google search if you prefer. You’ll have lots of choices.

paper.com/index.html – Use their search box and type in “door hangers.” Their 3-up door hanger on 8.5″ X 11″ comes in a 250 sheet pack (750 door hangers) for $33.08 plus S&H.

pcform.com/doorhanger.asp – Their 3-up in a 250 sheet pack (750 door hangers) is

priced at $45.00, 1500 door hangers for $72.00 etc.

kwiktickets.com/updh_3up1.html – Their 3-up package is 333 sheets per pack. 1 pack equals 1000 door hangers for $28.00. Available in white, green, blue or, yellow.

You can also make your own using a full page letter size flier.

First…layout a good flier on yellow letter size paper. Use the entire page. If you’re targeting a residential neighborhood…use a refinance theme like “Don’t Miss the Boat, Rates Have Never Been Lower.” If it’s a rental community…”Renting is Hazardous to Your Wealth” is a good one to use.

Second…let’s take that full page flier and turn it into a door hanger.

Fold the flier just as though you are going to put it in an envelope…in thirds. The secret here is to fold your flier with the printing on the outside so that even when it’s folded…the first third is visible and readable.

Third…while folded…punch a single centered hole in one end and loop a rubber band through it for hanging. You’re done…so simple…so quick…and, so very inexpensive. Now…Let’s get them delivered.

Keep this little origination gem in the back of your mind…there’s lots of door knobs out there that need door hangers.

Small Business SEO Tips and Tricks

Before getting into tips and tricks, here is some background information about SEO for small business owners.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a strategy in web development or design that usually includes post-design promotional activity intended to enhance recognition of a site by search engines. The goal is having your small business website appear on or close to page one in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the other major search engines. The result, especially being listed #1 on page one, may mean more traffic driven to your website with the ultimate goal of visitors converted to buying customers.

SEO may also mean a person, or Search Engine Optimizer, who is a direct employee or outside contractor with the responsibility of adjusting your small business website programming code, site content, and promotional activities to achieve page one with search engines. Like any profession, the performance level may vary widely from one to another.

Brick and mortar small business owners often launch a new website and expect the site to take over as the front line of marketing their product or service. This can be a mistake. Others just want to enhance their image by showing sophistication with a www domain that presents more content than will fit on a business card or brochure.

The first group wants traffic driven to their site, yet few small business owners truly understand Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, so some fall victim to persons offering SEO services for a fee. For the second group, just being online with a website that never changes meets their expectations, and they realize success depends on direct customer contact and marketing. A third group is similar to this last group, except they expect that just having a website will magically bring instant fortunes.

If you didn’t guess by now, there are no tricks to search engine optimization. Tips for SEO success should be based on proven techniques with long term positive results. Tricks that try to manipulate results by deceptive means, may succeed short term but will eventually fail.

Search engine algorithms for establishing ranking like Google’s PageRank are secret. The best one can do is guess how and why they change by tracking each quarterly update. Most watchers of PageRank, or PR for short, are trying to unravel what Google finds important and then manipulate their strategy to improve their ranking in search results. That could be a mistake. If adjusting strategy means manipulating what some think is important, too often they resort to deceptive means with short term gains.

I’ve written many times that deceptive practices will backfire. You will be punished. If you track PR, or follow the advice of SEO gurus, then you’ve heard the cliche “Content is King”. My position continues to be that the secret to search engine optimization is designing sites for visitors first, and then adding original quality content often to get noticed by people, and search engines.

“Content is King” needs to be changed to “Original Quality Content is King”. Traffic is meaningless if visitors don’t stick around long enough to be converted to paying customers. I believe that the tweaking of algorithms in 2007 and the downward shift in overall PR for so many sites is more than a temporary adjustment. Furthermore, I do not believe that Google is punishing website owners who provide original quality content. Instead, I believe that millions of websites set up and tweaked just to trick search engines are being caught and punished, and the PR scale in 2007 has shifted downward for quality site owners to fill in that void and redefine the PageRank range.

Small business website owners need to understand best practice SEO strategies. Here’s some search engine optimization advice that I published on my website in 2007. First is the main course from my menu to feed search engines that used an analogy comparing search engines to restaurants. Following that list are practices to avoid from that same article on my site.

Positive Search Engine Optimization practices to consider:

1. Keywords in the Page Title

2. Keywords in the H Tags

3. The Age of Your WWW Domain

4. The Size of Your Website

5. Backlinks (inbound links to your pages)

6. Keywords in Text Links

7. High Quality, Original Content

Negative or deceptive SEO practices you should avoid:

1. Do not have affiliate only advertising pages. You need original content.

2. Do not have over optimized pages. It won’t help SEO and may confuse your visitors.

3. Do not have link schemes, inbound or outbound. Deceptive practices will backfire.

4. Do not have identical content hosted on two separate domains (mirror sites).

5. Do not have plagiarized content. It is illegal, and search engines can tell.

6. Do not have foul language as in cursing, or content that is hateful or racist.

In conclusion, continue to evaluate your small business website strategy for SEO. Take advantage of the best practices and avoid the negative or deceptive methods, and you can succeed. The majority of small business entrepreneurs service a local market, so the ranking of your pages compared to the world could mean that very high PageRank is impossible. By following the tips given here, you may have enough to edge out your local competition, and that’s probably all that matters.

9 Compelling Business Benefits of Gmail Cloud Computing For All Your Office Productivity Needs

Deploying Google’s Gmail for my start-up internet marketing business has allowed minimal and secure IT administration of my 8 websites (28+ email accounts). Supporting a mixed operating environment which includes Microsoft, Ubuntu and MacOS, multiple browsers, and document file formats from Microsoft Office, Open Office is made possible and easier with an in-the-cloud computing environment like Gmail.

So why would you consider cloud computing like Google Mail for your business, especially an SME (small medium enterprise)?

In a two words – security and compliance. E-mail security, web security and message compliance are the underlying benefits to solid business reasons to have your mail and office documents served through Gmail.

Compliance to Security and Retention Requirements

Whether your organization is 1 person or thousands of people in size, you are faced with accounting, legal and government regulations and standards that dictate acceptable levels of IT security and records retention for all electronic files and e-mails. Gmail can help ensure compliancy plus provide you with real business benefits in streamlining your document and email management. Deploying Google Mail is just smart business. Some benefits include:

1) Organizing and Filing (Archiving) your email the anyway you want it.

Google uses labeling as a way to file and organize your emails. You can tag an email with multiple labels. For example, an email from your accountant with tax information could be label as “Corporate Taxes”, “Accountant”, “IRS”, “Revenue Canada”. Gone is the restriction of having to choose only one file folder to which you move an email.

2) Keeping Email conversations or threads linked together.

Appearing like cascading file folders, emails on the same topic (subject) will be kept together in your inbox or to the multiple archived labels you have assigned. No searching for the email trail or thread of emails about a particular subject. They are visually represented like a group of stacked file folders.

3) A free unlimited storage repository for all your email and messages forever!

At 7 gigabytes per gmail user account and growing as of August 2008, the Google mail tagline is ‘ you’ll never need to delete another message’.

Takin’ Care of Business, instead of computer or IT Administration

Reducing the time spent on administration of your computer storage, security, backup and recovery allows you to spend more time building your business. Manage all your email accounts entirely from within one or two Gmail addresses. Once set-up, Gmail offers this low administration environment.

4) No Mail is downloaded or stored on your server, desktop, laptop or PDA. This eliminates any stress or administration angst associated with:

– searching for emails stored and scattered across multiple client devices – some emails on your PC , some on your laptop, some on your PDA

– scheduling backups of your email, contact list and documents

– recovery (and loss) of email & documents due to client device loss, failure or theft

– expanding storage capacity due to continuing email and document growth and retention

– remote or mobile access for all your email, attachments and documents

– managing, consolidating and keeping intact multiple email addresses and personalities

– off-site backup of select files for SOHO or Small Businesses

Document creation, management and simple online collaboration

5) Use Gmail online Office Suite to create, manage, store your business documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Read and write Microsoft Office formatted documents as well as all the open document variants. Securely stored at Google, eliminate HDD file storage and backup. No more MS Office licensing fees to Microsoft.

6) Store images and pictures using Picasa Web Albums. Manage your images on your PC using FREE Picasa Software – crop, adjust, special effects.

7) online chat and messaging integrated, stored and managed just like your email.

Reducing the complex e-mail security threats to your corporate data

8) Google yet again has an very intelligent SPAM filter that checks each message content and therefore does not arbitrarily blacklist the email address, just the specific email due to content. No emails are downloaded to your PC or an office application; therefore, no waste of bandwidth or risk of infected emails on your hard drive.

9) Google’s anti-virus checking is also performed away from your computer. All attachments are checked at the Google server for viruses and, if infected, flagged/moved to SPAM right away. No infected e-mail ever arrives on your computer’s hard drive.

Traditional server or computer-based email systems download ALL your email, passing it through a spam/anti-virus filter on your computer. This is a waste of bandwidth usage (downloading spam email) and, even worse, exposes you to the additional risk of having spam and virus-infested e-mails get closer to your data files on your computer hard drives?

So why you need to seriously consider using Google Mail for all your office needs?

– Complete office mobility – via any browser, access to your email, documents, images, chat

– Access anywhere, anytime through any browser

– No backups required of email, office documents or contacts

– Manage multiple user profiles and email accounts in one convenient place

– Includes Anti-Spam and Anti-virus checking away from your PC, Laptop or Server

– Gmail Free Unlimited file space

– Next to No Mail Administration.

Gmail is the perfect Mobile Office Utility for Small Medium and Enterprise businesses. Google Mail Cloud Computing environment will allow you to focus on your business operations and growth. Implementing the Gmail in-the-cloud computing model for your email security and compliance makes a whole lot of sense.

Keep your head in the clouds!

The Nigeria New Country Code Domain Extension Dot NG Is A New Internet Business Boom

The Nigeria new domain Country code extension is a force to be reckoned with and there is no doubt about that, but the question that runs across my mind every time, is; will it be a blessing to this great country or another curse like the black gold or call it petroleum.

Nigeria Internet Registry Association has released .ng to further improve the usages of internet names. However, .ng is not restricted to Nigerians alone; the new Country Code that has just been released has been embraced by bing.com and Google and others to protect their brands, also embraced by some domain business gurus. The new extension is a new source of money income for Nigeria and those who have the ideas for domain business.

The extension will surely improve the economy of the country like that of petroleum, if taking into consideration some important factors as early as possible. .ng ccTLD is a second level extension that rings bell for every caliber of domain traders.

WHY is .NG A FORCE To BE RECKONED WITH?

Unlike.com.ng extension, .ng is far more virtuous for those who have the knowledge and foresight for domain business; this particular extension cut across all industries of mankind ever known in existence, like the king of domain extensions known as.com; the .ng enable one to get premium names that are no longer available when add .ng instead of.com; it also makes premium domains available when add .ng to some unavailable premium names that has to do with vowels; most generic words such as the following: ki.ng Instead of king.com also bi.ng instead of bing.com while gives ri.ng instead of ring.com.

As I am writing this message, most of the premium names with .ng extension have been registered or secured, because they are no longer available or been reserved by the Nigeria Internet Registry Association.

As of now within two months, some highly profile domains have been registered such as property.ng insurance.ng, banking.ng, banki.ng, mortgagi.ng, hosti.ng and so on. Also most of the premium short four letters are now rear like that of the.com extension i.e. sex.ng, etc. I am not very sure if USA.ng will be available now or soonest. The extension was just released on 16th April, 2013 and now in May, for one to get the highly profile generic is like passing through the needle eye.

The extension has to do with any industry be it law or whatever trade or business you can mention, you even need it more when you have the.com, so as to avoid some traffic or lost of customer to your competitors.

This is another source of making money for Nigeria as a nation and individuals if quickly invest in the right domains now before acquired by someone else; domain is far profitable in hard currency. Most of these domains are sure to cost millions of dollars in the nearest future.

I am now inviting business entrepreneurs to come and invest in this lucrative market before all the good ones are taken by others; though, domain business is highly investment in nature, but it appreciates in good time like the landed properties, it is unlike stock; domain is highly profitable if you can get good generic now and this is the actual time to invest real money in the business.

This is a business that brings wealth far better than stock exchange, every individual can buy/register any available short generic one word and highly profile domain in this new country code extension.

Lastly, I am writing this, to invite Nigerians to avoid loss of bulk of our internet fortune shares or opportunity to many readily learned individuals of other nations to come in at the right time to have their own share in the internet virtual property as early as possible.

How to Improve Your Business Online Reputation

Today, managing and improving your online reputation has become essential. This is due to the advent of Google Search and the ability of anyone to look for you online and find out information about your company and your personal life.

Even if there is something out there that you don’t want people to dwell on, you can make it better. It takes a little bit of work but it can be done. In fact, everyone who wants to be known online should be doing these things.

Monitor the Buzz

People are talking about you. You can use Google Alerts and other online apps to monitor your business name, personal name, product names and more to know what is being said about you online.

Listen to Your Customers

So many business owners conduct surveys, read their online buzz, check out rating sites and so forth but never really listen. It’s important to show your audience by your actions that you’re listening.

Respond Quickly

When a customer has an issue or complains about you online, always respond quickly to the complaint. Even on social media, if you don’t answer a complaint they’ll see you as providing poor customer service regardless of whether you planned to provide customer service there or not.

Remain Positive

No matter what a customer, client, or review says, it’s imperative that you never allow negativity to take over. Stay positive and try to read between the vitriol. A good tip is to copy and paste their complaint or reviews into a word document, then delete anything that takes away from the complaint. Then only answer to the complaint.

Apologize

Even though business owners know that sometimes customers are wrong, in public they are right. You must apologize to them in public and offer to make it better. It’s the only way that you can regain the confidence and trust of the public. Better yet, ask the customer what you can do to make it better and you might be surprised at how little it takes.

Solicit Reviews

When you send information to your buyers in a follow up, always ask for positive reviews and give them the link of the place you want the review to be posted. This will help increase the positive and counteract any negative reviews that might exist.

Avoid Making Social Media Mistakes

Sounds easier than done, but all this means is you need to think twice about anything you put on social media, positive or negative. Even innocent jokes can get you into trouble if you don’t know your audience well enough.

Don’t Neglect Your Accounts

Once you have a social media account, do not allow it to remain dormant. Keep it updated on a regular basis – at least once a week personally, and if you enact some smart automation it will appear that you’re more active.

Successful Online MLM Business Planning

If you want to have a successful online MLM business, you can immediately separate yourself from the crowd and increase your chances of success by simply creating a business plan. Now, if you’re like me, the thought of creating a plan sounds about as fun as drinking bleach. But I discovered a simple method of business planning that has made a major difference for me and my team. So how do you do it? It’s simple. Here are four steps to help you create a one page business plan that can make the difference between success and failure in your business. I recommend you create a new business plan every single month, analyzing the last one to see how it did, then creating a new one for the next month.

1. State your why. You have probably heard that in this game you have to have a strong why. One way I’ve heard it put is, “If your why doesn’t make you cry it’s not strong enough.” So why DO you want a successful online MLM business? Travel, a car you’re proud of, taking care of aging parents, putting kids through college, serving a mission for your church, changing your zip code” whatever it is for you, write it down.

2. Set your goals. I create a business plan at the beginning of every month, so I always set a monthly goal. Some months I set financial goals, other times goals for a certain number of recruits. This month for example my company has an incentive for everybody that recruits 10 or more people, so that’s my goal. Everybody’s goals are different and personal, the key is to have a goal and write it down!

3. List the prospecting method you are going to use, the system you need for that method, and your budget. For example, let’s say my budget for marketing this month is $200. I have three columns on my business planning worksheet, “Prospecting Method”, “System”, and “Budget”. Under the Prospecting Method column I might list E-mail marketing and Pay Per Click. The system I use for autoresponse marketing is My Direct Connections, an all in one marketing/ list management/ autoresponse tool. For Pay Per Click I might choose Google. Then I can set my budget for each one. My Direct Connections costs $39.95 a month, that leaves about $160, so I can spend $80 on autoresponder e-mail leads (I pay 3 cents for mine, so I’ll get about 2,666 leads), and $80 on PPC. I then have an area for tracking, simply titled “Results”, where I write down the results from each method. My goal is to spend $50 or less per sign up. Industry experts generally agree that if your marketing costs are below $50 per person you can create duplication and build a massive, successful downline.

4. Write out your follow up methods. You have probably heard the saying, “The fortune’s in the follow up.” Well, your business plan needs to list your follow up method. For me, I consider every single visitor to my web-site like a visitor to my store. Now, the reason I use the internet to prospect is because I don’t want to run out side my “store” yelling at passers by to come in and shop. That’s how MLM worked before the internet. I just want to talk to people that are interested, and have already been to my store. So once they come to my site, if they don’t join automatically, I list my follow up methods, in this case:

1. Send a personally written e-mail.

2. Send a personally written short autoresponse follow up campaign.

3. Introduce myself on the phone.

4. Send them a simple info package in the mail.

So the four steps to creating a simple business plan are:

1. Write down your Why.
2. Set monthly goals.
3. Choose a prospecting method, system, and budget, then track results.
4. State your follow up method.

This simple business plan, if followed, will result not just in personal success, but help you create duplication in your organization. And when somebody in my team is struggling, I simply ask them about their plan. They usually don’t have one, which is often why they are struggling. The people on my team that have a plan and are executing it aren’t having struggles in their business, they are having success!

Learn My Internet Business Top 5 Free Marketing Strategies

I would like to share with you mine My Internet Business free marketing strategies that are generating for me great results. There are many free marketing strategies online, most of them will require to put some effort and not necessary much skill.

Here are some top free advertising strategies:

Article Marketing – writing articles can be a great way to generate consistent traffic to your website. If you are able to write few articles per day you will see descent traffic. Before writing any article first make some research for some good keyword you will be optimizing to. Include this keyword in article title and few times in body. Remember also to share some valuable content, share some knowledge and experience. Make your article easy to read and understand, simple language is a key.
Video Marketing – popularity of videos on the internet is growing constantly. The leader of video sharing sites is of course YouTube. If you want to use full potential of videos post it to the top video sites, with most traffic. The main benefit of making video is branding yourself and marketing your program. People will know you better, you will build a relationship with them even though you didn’t spoke to them. I’m promoting My Internet Business on YouTube and get amazing traffic. Google is listing videos really high in result pages.
Forum Marketing – forums is another great place to branding yourself, making contacts and relationships and of course promoting your business. Under any post you can write own signature, few lines promoting your site. Remember to make your signature short and sweet, offer free report or training, encourage people to click in your sig. There are forums about every possible topic. It won’t be hard for you to find some descent forums, just use Google.
Classified Sites – it’s a great free marketing strategy because it’s the easiest way to promote your business. Look for top classified sites first like Craigslist, Backpage, Kijiji, USFreeAds and start posting your ads regularly. The headline of your ad is playing a key role of getting more traffic. Make your title creating curiosity to people. To really see some good traffic from classified sites you will have to post consistently many ads to many sites. I mostly focus on posting ads only on Craigslist. Conversion rates for My Internet Business are great. Each site will bring you a little traffic that’s why to see some significant results you will have to post your add massively.
Blogging – blogs can be a great sample of free advertising. Blogs are trendy right now, Google is giving high listing to them and people really enjoy reading them. To set up a blog you can go to Blogger and with a few clicks you will have it created. You can post in blogs your articles and optimize for specific keyword to get better listing. There are many blog directories and web directories where you can easily and for free get a lot of quality backlinks.

As you see there are many free marketing strategies to promote My Internet Business. You don’t need to spend a dime to make sales. Using each of these strategies and implementing in your business will give you massive exposure online and flow of fresh and targeted leads. I recommend to anyone who is beginner in internet marketing to start from free advertising to really understand marketing online.