The Simple Solution

Get Listed, Get Links and Get Reviews With Yelp.com

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:08:58 +0000

As you may know from previous posts on my other sites, I’m a big fan of getting your small business listed in as many local search directories as possible on the web.

That’s simply because consumers now search for EVERYTHING online, and business owners who aren’t savvy to this trend (or sadly believe people under 50 still use the yellow pages) are missing out on customers because of it.

Not to mention, getting listed in local directories gives you extra links back to your site and takes up more real estate in Google, both which are great for SEO and standing out in an oversaturated market.

So with that said, one of the most popular local directories right now is yelp.com. Yelp.com provides hyperlocal results for people actively looking for services in their immediate area. The site also allows consumers to leave reviews of your services—which can quickly help you stand out (for the better I hope) in the crowd.

Fortunately, getting your business listed on yelp is free and can be done in 3 easy steps. They are as follows:

1. Get Started

Simply click here to get started on yelp.com’s business page. The screen should look like the one below:

2. Find your business

Enter the name of your company and city to “claim” your business. If your business can not be found by yelp, you’ll come to the screen below and have the ability to create your own business profile:

3. Complete your company profile

Simply fill out as much information that you can regarding your business. Once you’ve done that, check your email address, confirm your listing and you’re firm will be live on yelp!

As a bonus (and for even better results), ask a few happy clients to leave a detailed review about their experience working with you. You’ll also want to make the review process as easy as possible for your clients, which means giving them the direct link to your profile page and offering a “gift of thanks” (i.e. a gift card, discount on future services, etc) as an incentive for following through with your request.

That’s it! Now go claim your business and get listed on yelp.com!

Online Business Manager and small business marketing expert, Laura Lee Sparks, is one of the most authoritative and well respected voices on outsourcing, small business/online marketing and virtual assisting for lawyers on the web. Her advice and marketing campaigns have helped numerous entrepreneurs reach and surpass the million-dollar mark in their businesses numerous times thanks to her straight-forward advice and ability to make direct response marketing principles easy to understand and implement. For further information on outsourcing and implementation programs or to contact Laura Lee and the Simple Solution team directly, please email help@legalmarketingmaven.com

Virtual Outsourcing Tip: S.M.A.R.T. Delegation – My Twist

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:49:24 +0000

Virtual outsourcing and delegation is the key to your freedom, yet so many times, we just ask for help, but don’t let go enough to realize the freedom that the delegation can truly bring. Instead we do the complete opposite of delegating and we micro manage, causing even more stress to ourselves and our team.

Here are a few tips on SMART Delegation that will help you with the process of letting go and will help your team successfully complete the projects that you delegate.

S – Specify – Specify the end result that you want. Give the details and scope of the project and let your team member know exactly what you want at the end and why. By giving these details, you team member is going to understand exactly what they need to do and the reasons that it is important.

M – Milestones – Have some built in milestones so that you are comfortable that the project is staying on track. Again, this should not be at every turn (micromanagement) but at predefined times during the scope of the project. Let the team member control the progress of the project with a clear expectation that the milestones must be met.

A – Answer – Make yourself available to answer questions as they arise. If the team member has questions, answer the questions as fully as possible and explain your reasons. Many times if a team member asks a question; and then is explained “why” they may develop a better solution or way to approach the tasks necessary to complete the project.

R – Realistic – Make sure the scope and milestones of the project are realistic. Never set a team member up for failure. Ask for feedback during the initial delegation of the task and during milestone meetings.

T – Thanks – Show your appreciation. This is so often overlooked, but I can promise you that when you show your appreciation to your team members when they manage a project and meet a deadline, they will be much more inclined to do it over and over again! A simple “Thank You” goes a lot further than you think.

Do you have other tips that have helped you delegate projects? Leave your comments!

Image courtesy of Flickr

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Online Business Manager and law firm marketing expert, Laura Lee Sparks, is one of the most authoritative and well respected voices on attorney outsourcing, internet marketing and being a virtual assistant for professionals on the web. Her advice and internet marketing campaigns have helped many well-known professionals reach and surpass the million-dollar mark in their businesses numerous times thanks to her straight-forward advice and ability to make online marketing principles easy to understand and implement. For further information on virtual outsourcing and online marketing programs or to contact Laura Lee directly, please email support@thesimplesolution.com

How to Create a YouTube Channel As Part of Your Overall Internet Marketing Strategy

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:29:27 +0000

For business owners seeking to market their practice through social media and search engine optimization (SEO), creating a YouTube channel is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get started.

Brief YouTube videos are sort of like mini-commercials for your business– without the $50,000 price tag that comes with TV advertising. They allow you to create a personal and visual connection with potential clients as you show off your personality, expertise or educate the public on a particular area of interest.

Similarly, YouTube videos can also help with your SEO campaign, as Google continues to add more videos directly above the regular search results. And while having YouTube videos may not directly bring in clients, seeing your video next to a pay-per-click ad or a few organic search listings helps further dominate the page and reinforce your branding efforts.

So How Do I Get Started?

Setting up a YouTube channel for your busines is easy and requires approximately 10 minutes of your time. To get started, go to the YouTube homepage and click “Sign Up” in the upper right hand corner, as the arrow shows below:

You will then be taken to a page where it asks you to create a username and password for the account. Fill out the prompts as directed and confirm your registration via email when you are done.

The link to confirm your registration via email will take you back to the main page, where you can then click on your username at the top right hand side of the page. You should end up at the page below that gives you the option to click the “Edit Channel” button:

Click on the “Edit Channel” button and you’ll be taken to a page that allows you to enter some vital information about your firm.

Optimize Your Page Wisely

When entering a title and description for your business, remember to keep good SEO practices in mind. The keywords you use in this section will determine how you are found by clients or by search engines that display videos before their rankings.

Therefore, use the most specific and keyword rich description as humanly possible. If you’re not sure what I mean by this, see the example i’ve created below for someone in the legal industry:

In addition to optimizing videos, you can also use the links on the left to organize the placement of your videos or customize the background colors on the channel page itself.

When you’re finally done customizing, save the information and start uploading videos by clicking the yellow “upload” button at the top right side of the page.

It’s really that easy! Now relax, have fun and start creating videos as part of your overall Internet marketing strategy.

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Online Marketing Tip: Stay On Top of Industry Chatter With Google Alerts

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:21:49 +0000

For any entrepreneur or professional starting to dabble in the world of online marketing and blogging, Google Alerts is an invaluable tool for keeping up with industry chatter.

Basically, this program allows Google to “alert” you any time a particular word or phrase is mentioned on the web or in the blogosphere.

I’m going to explain how to set this up in a minute, but first lets discuss some useful and practical ways to leverage Google Alerts for your business.

First and foremost, Google Alerts is great reputation management tool. Online professionals and brick-and-morter owners alike should always set up an alert with their company name and name of each employee to monitor what people are saying online regarding your business or or personal brand.

Google Alerts is also a great way to keep up on breaking news within your particular industry– which is of course a great way to come up with relevant blog topics that draw traffic from your “ideal clients” searching for answers/ help in that particular area.

So now that we’ve discussed some of the ways to properly use Google Alerts, the following is a brief tutorial on how to get set up.

Step 1: Log into your Google Account. Do this by going to http://www.google.comand signing in at the top right hand side of the page. If you don’t have a Google account, you will need to create one to sign up for Google Alerts.

Step 2:Once you login, click on “Alerts” under “My Products” on the main dashboard.

Step 3:Enter your desired term in the “search term” box. Then choose how often you want to receive the notifications (once a day, as it happens, etc) and make sure the alert will be delivered to the proper gmail address. *Note: use quotation marks on your alerts to keep specific words together– such as “medical malpractice” in the image shown below

Step 4: Hit “create alert” and you’re all done! Now just sit back and wait for the notifications to start hitting your inbox!

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Are You Maximizing Your Most Valuable Small Business Marketing Resource?

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:14:18 +0000

What does small business marketing mean to you?

Is it buying a full-page spread in a glossy, high profile magazine?

Maybe it’s starting a blog and hoping someone, somewhere will come and read your posts?

Whatever “small business marketing” means to you, if your campaign does not include the intentional gathering and centralization your email contact list, you are missing out on one of the cheapest and MOST EFFECTIVE ways to generate referrals and additional revenue sources to your company.

Think about it. The contacts on your email list are people you already have a relationship with. Chances are, they aren’t going to delete your emails as “spam” as though you were a stranger. Instead, a client or former client will generally open your email to see what you have to say.

So now that you have their full attention, you can use this opportunity to build relationships, educate your clients on areas of business that pertain to them, or send out friendly reminders that you and your team are always willing to help meet their individual needs/ fix problems wherever they arise.

It’s also a great opportunity to ask for referrals from friends and family if the client has been satisfied with your work as an business owner/ company.

But most importantly, email marketing provides that constant contact that you may not be able to achieve during office hours with your client. It keeps you involved in their life and in their face, without sacrificing countless hours of your time as a busy professional.

So hopefully by now you realize why the contact list is an “overlooked goldmine” when it comes to generating referrals and repeat clients.

What you may not know is how to get started, or how to centralize your email list so you aren’t manually adding your contacts one by one in Outlook, etc.

In my experience, one of the best (and low-cost) programs to assist with your email marketing campaign is A-Weber. Not only does A-Weber allow you to centralize your contacts in one database (as well as individual groups), but it also helps you create an opt-in mailing campaigns to reduce the chance that your emails get marked as spam (and hence face the threat of landing on an email blacklist).

Yet for those that want to go one step further and use the list to promote products, services, etc., I recommend using a fully integrated program such as Infusion that offers shopping cart solutions, individual and group email history, fax and voice broadcasting, sale tracking, web forms, etc. all in this one platform.

But whatever program you chose, I encourage you to make a serious effort to not only collect email addresses for each and every client that walks in the door/ contacts you online, but to also centralize your contacts into one of these programs to fully maximize your successes in an email marketing campaign.

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Internet Marketing Tip: Quick Ways to Ensure Your Copy is Not Being Plagiarized

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:15:52 +0000

For all you internet marketers and small business bloggers out there, I just wanted to post a brief update reminding you just how important checking your work for “content scraping” is.

This has been happening a lot lately in the cyber world, but I was really inspired to write on this after my friend and renowned Virginia personal injury lawyer, Ben Glass, had content directly stolen off his website by another Personal Injury attorney. You can read more about the unauthorized use of Ben Glass’s legal marketing and informational materials here.

Whether you write your own web copy/ marketing materials or you may pay someone a nice fee to do it for you, I’m sure you don’t want someone else reaping the benefits of your work.

So to ensure other people aren’t using your content, I recommend you visit www.copyscape.com every now and again and test out some “unique” phrases from your work. You can also use http://www.fairshare.cc to ensure your blog copy is not published illegally by someone else.

Either way, be proactive with your web copy and assign someone in your office the task of keeping tabs on this. When you stop someone from making money with your copy, you’ll be glad you took the time to do this.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

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Free Internet Marketing Resource: Setting up a Google Profile

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:07:45 +0000

If you’ve ever tried Googling yourself and find that a bunch of other people share your name and it’s hard to distinguish yourself on the web, you’ll want to get a Google Profile set up ASAP!

Essentially, your Google Profile will show up in the search results when someone looks for you by name. However, the profile contains more detailed information about your background, current location, alternate names, etc. so people can distinguish you from the other people that pop up on the same page.

For example, a Google search of an attorney friend of mine from New Jersey by the name of “Joel Schwartz, esq.” pulls up a personal injury attorney from Boston AND an estate planning attorney in Ohio.

I hope you can see how a potential client who’s not too tech savvy may end up calling the wrong attorney looking for his services because he shares the same name of someone else in his immediate practice area!

And of course that’s never a good thing.

Yet with a Google Profile, you can avoid this problem by distinguishing yourself on the web, while also adding a few links back to your site- which is an added benefit for SEO purposes and your current link building strategy.

Likewise, having a Google Profile set up gives you yet another spot on the first page of Google—which means your “importance factor” goes up and there’s less room for the competition on page 1!

Not to mention, setting up a Google Profile is so simple and literally takes 5 minutes—so there’s no reason not to do it. Just go here and start filling in your personal information. You can even include an image or a branded logo for your firm to further distinguish yourself from neighboring competition.

Then give it a few hours and your profile should be showing on the first page of Google when you search for your name.

It’s that easy! Now go do it!

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Is there a Plan Behind Your Internet Marketing Efforts? If Not, You’re Wasting a Ton of Cash!

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:40:24 +0000

In this economy, online marketing is a given. You must be spending money on email marketing, internet marketing or direct marketing campaigns to get your name out there or you’ll fall prey to your market-savvy competition.

Yet if you’re marketing without a PLAN, I can guarantee you are wasting a ton of cash on your efforts.

Why?

Because a marketing plan is the only way to ensure you are strategic in your objectives and actually get a return on your money at the end of the year.

They also help you to see and monitor your day-to-day marketing goals so you can quickly ditch a plan that isn’t resonating with your target audience.

Plus your marketing plan allows you to see what tasks or goals can be handled in-house with your team and what needs to be outsourced to effectively get the job done.

Finally, your marketing plan shows you months in advance what you’ll need to create products or campaigns that WORK rather than throwing money at “trendy” or run-of the mill campaigns and merely hoping they stick.

And while I’m not going to cover the nitty- gritty of creating a great online marketing plan, here are a few attributes to let you know if you’re on the right track:

Your online marketing plan will tie into your overall business objectives- If your goal is to make 6 or 7-figures of revenue this year, your marketing plan should pin-point exactly how many leads you need to attract (and convert) to reach that dollar amount. It should also track your marketing budget dollar- for-dollar to ensure your campaigns are contributing to that goal and not detracting from it at the end of the year.
Your marketing plan should communicate your objectives to your entire team and pull them into the process- Great companies ensure everyone is on board when it comes to marketing. Everyone has a task and key piece of the puzzle to implement. Your marketing plan, then, will give your staff the clear guidance and instruction they need to ensure your plans are being carried out and reaching your target market accordingly.
Your plan will help you stay on track and manage objectives- It’s so easy to get off track when a semi-good online marketing plan brings a few customers into the pipeline. Yet before you know it, that short burst of clients WILL dry up and you’ll be at square one all over again in your marketing efforts. Instead, resolve to keep your appointment book full at all times by creating a plan that keeps you on track and makes sure your campaigns go off each month without a hitch.

Of course, if you are totally overwhelmed with the thought of creating a marketing plan for your company or really aren’t sure where to start, please email me at help@legalmarketingmaven.com for a boost in the right direction!

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Business Owners: Get More Mileage Out Of Your Social Media

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:32:17 +0000

While scrolling through my twitter stream last week, I noticed many small business owners and professionals posting the entire link to their blogs, articles and seminars instead of using a link shortening service such as budurl.com.

And while posting direct links is fine for beginners, entrepreneurs who are serious about using social networking sites to interact with their community and share content should NEVER post a direct link from this point forward.

The reason for this is twofold:

1. When you shorten your links through sites like budurl, bit.ly or owl.y (just to name a few), you are able to track on your dashboard just how many people are clicking your links; and

2. The pre-shortened URL makes it easier for people to “re-tweet” or share your content with others.

As you can probably guess by reading number one, the tracking feature is very important in that it allows you to monitor just how popular or intriguing your content is to others. On the other hand, if you keep posting links and no one is clicking, I can promise you there is something wrong with your overall social media strategy.

Alternatively, if you are posting long links right into the content box and allowing twitter to shorten it for you (which usually looks like the first half of the link followed by a …..), when other people try to post or “re-tweet” your link in their own stream, the link is usually broken or it no longer fits within the 140 character limit.

And speaking from experience, if I have to play around with someone’s link to make it fit within 140 characters, it better be the best article I ever read. Otherwise, I’ll pass. I can promise you that thousands of other people feel the same way too, so it’s worth it for you to pre-shorten your links and get that content spreading like wildfire!

So take five minutes today sign up for a link shortening site like budurl.com. It’s free, it’s simple and it’s a hugely important step in making sure you get the most out of your business’ social media strategy.

Image courtesy of Flickr

Online Business Manager and law firm marketing expert, Laura Lee Sparks, is one of the most authoritative and well respected voices on attorney outsourcing, internet marketing and being a virtual assistant for professionals on the web. Her advice and internet marketing campaigns have helped many well-known professionals reach and surpass the million-dollar mark in their businesses thanks to her straight-forward advice and ability to make online marketing principles easy to understand and implement. For further information on virtual outsourcing and online marketing programs or to contact Laura Lee directly, please email support@thesimplesolution.com

SEO for Online Business Owners: 5 Ways to Improve Your Performance in Search Marketing

Fri, 29 May 2009 01:21:36 +0000

Understanding the Basics of SEO

So you have a website for your online business. Great!

The next step is making sure people can FIND your website by implementing some basic Search Engine Optimization or SEO tricks.

Now before you get scared of this “techy jargon,” realize that SEO is not rocket science. To prove this, I am going to list 5 simple steps that YOU can do immediately to help your site perform better in the search engines:

1. Figure out what your “keywords” are.

A keyword is a word or phrase that people might type in Google to find your business. An example of this may be “estate planning lawyer California” or “creating a will in NJ”. If a potential client types these phrases in Google and the words don’t appear on your site, you will not be listed in the search results.

So, to make sure you can be found when clients set out for your services, you’ll need to figure out exactly WHAT these people are searching for and re-write your web pages accordingly.

One of the easiest ways to find out what people are searching for is to use the free keyword tool in Google Adwords.

To get started, simply type in what you THINK people are looking for in your area.

Maybe you type in “internet marketing for doctors” and immediately notice that more people are searching for “better online visibility for doctors”. You’ll then make a list of what’s actually being searched and keep handy it for the next step.

2. Change your web pages to reflect your keyword research.

Once you know what people are searching for in your practice area, you’ll need to change (or have your webmaster change) the content on your pages accordingly.

That may mean changing page titles, subheadings and content to include the keywords you found during your research. So for example, a subheading that previously read “Contact Us” should be changed to something keyword friendly like “Contact a New York Small Business Marketing Expert Today!”.

You’ll also want to change the text used to describe the links on the page. For example, a link that previously looked like this—click here should be changed to include your keywords like click here for articles from our GA estate planning attorneys.

3. Grow inbound links through commenting on blogs.

One of the easiest ways to grow inbound links to your site is by leaving comments on other people’s blogs using your URL.

Inbound links are important because the search engines view them as a vote of popularity. So for every link you get, the more popular you appear and the quicker you rise in the rankings.

Again, SEO is not rocket science. You or a staff member should commit to leaving 5 comments a day on other peoples blogs that allow you to put a URL after your name. So as you check the news for the day and like a story, leave a comment. Use your link. This is doubly effective if you start commenting/interacting where your potential clients hang out on the web.

4. Commit to Article Marketing

Article marketing is another great way to increase inbound links and appear more in search. There are HUNDREDS of free article marketing sites (such as ezinearticles.com, etc.) that will allow you to submit articles on any topic with a link back to your site in the resource box.

Ideally, you or someone from your firm or company should be writing and submitting articles to article marketing sites at least once a week. Try to write the article with your keywords in mind and shoot to use those terms naturally at least 3-5 times in the text (especially in the title and sub-headings).

5. Tap Into Local Search

In a nutshell, local listings are powered by separate search engines and often show up next a map before any of the regular listings on Google.

Therefore, ranking well in local search is a great way to get your site on the first page of Google while your waiting to see results from the strategies listed above.

Now Get Started!

And there you have it: 5 simple steps that YOU can take as a online business owner to optimize your website. Of course, if you are in a really competitive industry or a town saturated with providers, you may want to consider a professional company to take your marketing campaign to the next level (email me at lauralee@thesimplesoultionva.com) if you need help finding a trusted resource).

But in the meantime, these steps will give you a marketing edge over the rest of your competition in the area of search engine optimization.

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