“Googling” Your Business & Yourself: Philadelphia Internet Marketing

Tips for Philadelphia Internet Marketing (Search Engine Marketing & More)
The term “Googling Yourself” refers to typing your name into a search engine to see what websites have you listed under, or other people with a similar name. The advantages to doing this aren’t only for novelty, however. You may find that you’re being talked about on a review website or someone has stolen your name and is posing as you.

Your business should periodically check to see what comes up under a search for it’s name as well as the names of important people in your company (Managers, Sales, Contractors). If you find something you don’t like, there is always the ability to approach the owner of the website to get it changed.

Some tips on “Googling Yourself”:

• Use quotation marks around your name (ex. “The Smith Company”), this will force a search engine to search for entries that have each word in the correct order. Regular searches are done in combination (ex. Company Smith The).

• Search out all the major engines, like Google , Yahoo, MSN & Ask as well as their Map features.

• Add the term ‘review’ to your company name.

• When you search Map features look and see if you have any reviews and a rating on your listing and if there is anything unfavorable approach the person or search engine to resolve the problem. Bad reviews stick around a long time on the internet.

If you have questions or want to contact us about our Philadelphia Internet Marketing (search engine marketing and more) contact Alex Seigfried at 215-825-6992 or seigfried.designs@gmail.com

Google Maps: Importance of Monitoring Your Companies Name

Tips for Philadelphia Internet Marketing (Search Engine Marketing & More)

Google Maps and Map Quest have allowed you to list your business on their public mapping system for a few years now. The basic theory being that when people are looking for directions they will also look for businesses. Recently the reverse theory has been put into place, that people looking for local businesses will need directions. And though the way these Mapping giants list you may still be confusing and ‘not quite there’, you can no longer afford NOT to be listed on these services.

Even more important than just being listed, every business needs to monitor it’s name every few months.

Why keep doing a search for my business, you ask?

Because when Google and Yahoo created the initial database of local businesses they took information from white pages, yellowpages and other local databases and SLAMMED them together without checking for accuracy. I’ve lost track of the number of businesses that have the wrong address, city, phone number or their ‘placement dot’ is two blocks from their current location. I still find them, three years later, because Google and Yahoo have not dedicated serious resources to fixing the problem.

Another Reason to keep checking your business’s listing/name.

Infospace, localsearch, superpages and a bevy of other ‘listing sites’ have been uploading company names and placing their website link on your company’s listing. If you’re a roofing contractor go search in your neighborhood for ‘roofing contractor’ and you may just find your company listed. It probably doesn’t have a specific address and if you look at the website link on the listing and click on it, you’ll find yourself transported to a website that is NOT YOUR OWN. This is called ‘Map Spam’ and it’s a technique that is running rampant throughout these two services.

THIS JUST IN! Google has announced that it’s going to open up its Google Map database to the general public for editing.

Pros: You can now edit and ad your listings without having to prove who you are with a post card or a phone call. Just use your Google account and start putting in your information and correcting it at will.

Cons: ANYONE can change your listing. Though Google promises strict monitoring of people abusing it’s system, it’s going to be nearly impossible for them to detect small infractions. If you have a less than savory competitor online he could go and change your address, phone or website link. One change isn’t going to send off any warning flags at Google HQ so careful monitoring of your ad is a must.

If you have questions or want to contact us about our Philadelphia Internet Marketing (search engine marketing and more) contact Alex Seigfried at 215-825-6992 or seigfried.designs@gmail.com

Yellowpages.com: Misinformation & Why Generalized Marketing Doesn’t Work

Tips for Philadelphia Internet Marketing (Search Engine Marketing & More)

Most small businesses have gotten the phone call, especially if you currently run traditional Yellowpage ads in ‘the book’. “Hey! We have this great new product, it’s called Yellowpages.com and it’s a MUST for your business to stay current online!” And then you see the price tag and say… “A bit pricey.” Or “A bit pricey… but I don’t know, I need to be online right, so OK.”

What Yellowpages.com is selling:

Ad space on their website (description, text, phone, website)
Tracking of Phone Calls and Website Visitors through your Ads on Yellowpages.com
Search Engine Advertising
Soon Mobile Search

What They Will Tell You:
We’re one of the top most visited websites on the internet. We’re a huge, financially solvent company, with a great success rate. You’ve trusted us for years!

What You’ll Spend:
Roughly $2K to $6K per month, depending on your plan. Customizable plans available.

Make an Informed Decision.

The Numbers Scam:
Yellowpages.com is the 16^th most visited website in America, but it’s unlikely you’re selling to ‘America’. It’s much more likely that you’re selling to one to five counties around your business. It’s much more likely you’re selling to a particular demographic of that small region. The questions you have to ask is how does Yellowpages.com stack up regionally? In places like NYC or Seattle you’ve got many affluent tech savvy people who are looking for your services online. But in places like Wilmington DE or central PA there isn’t enough traffic to make it worth the price tag.

Tracking & Search Engine Advertising:
I handled a Yellowpages.com account for two years and ran a Custom Pay-Per-Click campaign of my own against it. To contrast and compare how I stacked up against a gigantic corporation I placed tracking scripts on every page of my clients website to see who was coming, where they were coming from and what they did when they got there.

• Yellowpages.com ran ads on their website and ads on search engines.
• I ran ads on search engines only.

The results were staggering, Yellowpages provided a meager 3-10 sales leads through their website ads and less than 12 leads via search engines. I provided 30-80 sales leads just using search engines. Obviously something was very wrong with Yellowpages.com’s marketing strategy. I contacted my rep and brought the numbers to his attention, he not only didn’t believe it he quoted me inflated sales leads done by ‘his own team’. Now a program doesn’t lie, especially Google Analytics which is a third party provider which I have no access to ‘fudging numbers’. After I pointed this out he provided me the correct numbers but only after a 2 hour phone conference and several follow up calls.

In summary it’s abundantly clear to me that Yellowpages.com is using a very generic and generalized method of advertising local businesses. The problem with this is that unlike success with National Models where vast numbers of a demographic are spread out over the whole country, these ‘cookie cutter’ methods can’t compete on a local scale. A unique, carefully crafted marketing strategy will always be more effective because local businesses are unique to their regions themselves. You’re not a Starbucks, you’re an independent, locally grown entity that can’t be placed into the same crate as everyone else.

If you have questions or want to contact us about our Philadelphia Internet Marketing (search engine marketing and more) contact Alex Seigfried at 215-825-6992 or seigfried.designs@gmail.com

Mobile Search: The Hype vs. Reality

Tips for Philadelphia Internet Marketing (Search Engine Marketing & More)

You may have been approached by now or at least heard of ‘Mobile Search’ by reading about it in the newspaper. Basically this is about Ads served up to your cell phone, after you sign up for the service, on various topics. It’s a huge buzz term in the internet marketing community that has to be taken with a grain of salt.

The successful companies are providing daily weather reports, bible passages, traffic updates and stock alerts to your phone laden with a businesses name, website and contact information.

The unsuccessful companies go out of business rather quickly when the realize that people will never sign up for their cell phones to be receivers of car stereo ads, home improvement seminars and your personal blog entry.

As this technology progresses I’ve been monitoring how well Mobile Search integrates into cell phone culture. A large scale push by Yellowpages.com (an AT&T subsidiary) is being rolled out to get advertisers to offer this service to their customers. Since they have money to throw in the garbage, they can do this without worrying about whether the demand will meet the supply (see unsuccessful companies, above). What you as a business should be aware of is that Yellowpages.com is charging you to have the mobile ad service. So it doesn’t matter to them how well those ads perform or whether the very model will be considered as vile spam by your trusted customers (who you just gave their cell phone numbers away to a Megacorp).

Problems With Mobile Search:

1) It will be a cold day in hell before I sign up to have my local plumber spam my cell phone.

2) Ad formats are not standardized across all cell phones, so your ads won’t display at all or won’t display properly.

3) Ads on phones that aren’t Iphone look terrible and are about as eye catching as a cinder block.

Future Benefits of Mobile Search:

1) You can provide nominal information that people will actually want, like weather or traffic alerts and have your name emblazoned next to each ad “Brought to you by (Insert Company Here).”

2) As cell phone technology improves people will begin to use this service more widely, making Mobile Search a cost effective advertising medium. Iphone users are the prime beneficiaries of Mobile Advertising because their phone acts like a browser on your computer, allowing for more detailed and ‘pretty’ information.

In summary, this technology is ‘not quite there yet’ but keep it in mind a few years down the road.

If you have questions or want to contact us about our Philadelphia Internet Marketing (search engine marketing and more) contact Alex Seigfried at 215-825-6992 or seigfried.designs@gmail.com

Introduction to SD's Trend Watch

This will be a new feature on the Seigfried Designs website where recent Trends, Tips and News from the Internet will be discussed. Expect to find commentary on the usefulness of online tools for local businesses as well as links to full articles from the industry.

Keep stopping in for new articles every week.