WSI Net Advantage

Localizing your web content can gain you visits and leads. Businesses prefer to do business with other business people they can meet if necessary.

Here are the Top 5 Ways to drive local lead opportunties from your website:

1. "Localize" your web pages with the names of cities you serve.
2. Include examples of your clients' cities in your Portfolio pages
3. Add city names to testimonials
4. Include city names in your page names
5. Check your listing on Google and Yahoo Local
6. Set aside a pay per click budget
7. Be sure to include YOUR OWN city location on very page!

If you are located near any cities or population centers, why not ensure you can generate leads in your own back yard?!

I read this morning that the market analysts are fearful about online advertising spending and its impact on stocks like Yahoo.

If your company is considering cutting back on Internet ads and website development, ask yourself these questions:

- How else will my prospective clients find me?
- What are those sources going to cost?
- Can I measure response?
- Am I sure I am connected to the right audience when they are ready to buy?
- Have I done all I can to improve my website to improve its conversions?

If your goal for finding customers is to get their attention when they are ready to buy...what better way than advertising on keyphrases that they use!

Consider paring down your keyphrases from "anything related to my business" and apply those funds to keyphrases about "searches when people are ready to buy".

Track your leads, look at traffic on your website, try new messages, ad,s offers and calls to action.

When times get tough, it is easy to cut back on advertising and think you are "saving money". It is more important, however, to be sure you have done all you can to be sure your advertising is working for you - so you can keep making money.

So, you've generated traffic to your website through search-engine optimization, pay-per-click, and smart marketing. That's the first step -- but where does a strong business go from there?

The answer is simple: once someone comes to your website, content is king. That means that if you don't have strong, well-written, and focused web content, you could lose your viewer in the time it takes to click the Back button.

What does your content need to deliver? On its most basic form, it has to present you as a professional. That means that spelling errors, grammar goofs, and poor syntax are immediate red flags. At the very least, this is an absolute must-fix problem, and it's something that plagues more small businesses than you'd think!

Another area to worry about is format. Remember, the human eye tends to read a computer monitor different from the printed word. So if you have something that works effectively on a printed brochure, there's no guarantee that it'll grab the attention of someone surfing the web.
Big blocks of text can quickly fall to the wayside as web surfers tend to scan the information on screen until they latch on to a specific message -- in most cases, only then will they actually read things line by line. Give it a try -- go to your favorite business, sports, or news website like you normally would and take note of how you read the headlines and blurbs. Chances are, you'll find your eyes bouncing from place to place.

But how do you format something to optimally structure it? That's an in-depth discussion we'll tackle on a later post.

Finally, your content must have a focused, consistent message. This is a basic marketing principle but it applies even more so in the case of web content. Because you can have web surfers land in just about any page on your site depending what led them there, you never know what order they'll view pages in. This dynamic target makes consistency absolutely critical, not only for brand representation but for the purposes of giving your customer the information they want. In other words, if a customer sees mixed messages across different web pages, they won't have that gut feeling of certainty -- and that's a quick way to lose a potential customer.

Start with quality, structure, and consistency.

Though there's a lot more to creating truly effective web content, those three keys are the foundations for any good website.

I teach Internet Marketing at Silicon Valley SCORE (SVScore.org) and participate in seminars and round tables at other small business venues.

I find many small business owners try to jump into the exciting world of Web 2.0 before understanding the basics of getting started with Web 1.0. There is certainly a place in this world for new businesses using the networking and communications capabilities used in the Web 2.0 world.

However, until you take the time to clearly inform your visitor the most important aspects of your business, the time, effort and expense to bring the interactivity of Web 2.0 is most likely wasted.

For business owners getting started (or restarted) on the web, remember the four basic reasons why people come to your site:

1. Learn what you do
2. Learn where you do it
3. Decide if you can do what they need you to do (here might be a good place to describe how well you do it!)
and then, the biggie...
4. How to contact you!

And in a few seconds, they will make their decision (#3)....

Does your site communicate these items. And is it clear to them about #4?

Many, many sites we review for businesses FAIL on items 1-4.

Make sure your site is successful here on Web 1.0 before you take the leap of faith to Web 2.0.

The office can get a bit quiet, the radio playing the same songs over and again, and the CD's start sounding a bit old. Try Radio Paradise for an enjoyable, ecclectic selection of music that you can play all day and not hear the same song...I can't recall hearing any repeats.

What does this have to do with Internet Marketing? A lot! By providing good service, they not only have a new listener, but I am telling you! Maybe you will try them out!

And the search engines like quality, relevant incoming links...they just got one of those too.

How can you do the same for your Internet Marketing message?

WSI Net Advantage is proud to announce that one of our designs - Arborwell Arborist and Professional Tree Services - received a National Tree Care Industry Award by the Tree Care Association (TCA) for the development of the Arborwell.com website.

"As part of Arborwell's overall marketing strategy, Arborwell.com was created to provide a central
site that customers and prospects can come to schedule appointments, apply for employment as
well as provide meaningful information to care for the health safety and beauty of trees," commented
Peter Sortwell, President of Arborwell. "Our branding, marketing along with our web
presence has come a long way since our initial site was rolled out in 2002. Our focus on search
engine optimization and web advertising we believe is one of the many reasons have been experiencing our growth in the Greater Sacramento."

We are proud of our relationship with Arborwell.com. Contact WSI Internet Consulting to see how we can help you achieve similar results.

I have been pondering how best to proceed with my blog ideas. I feel that if anyone is going to read it, I would need to give them a good reason why! There is a lot of useless information on the web (no news in that statement) and I do not want my blog to get become useless blather. Nor do I want it to be a site for shilling of products or services.

I know I do want it to become a source of information for my clients. Given the fact that my services to help them improve their visibility to be found on the web, and then successfully create a conversion (call, buy, email, download), it makes sense to keep the blog as a source to inform. Ideally over time, we'll create a blog that becomes a resource to review information, ask questions, and keep informed.

I also want it to be a service for incoming links. A blog is an excellent source of incoming links. On more popular blog sites, a mention in a blog of a particular product or service could create tons of traffic for that site. For my part, even adding a quality, relevant incoming link to my clients' and partners' websites can only help (so long as I keep to my editorial standards).

Most of all, I want to make the blog a place that a reader wants to come back to. And if that reader finds it interesting enough to hire WSI to help them with their internet marketing, then all the better.

What are the goals for your business blog?

• Sell or Shill?


• Inform or Entertain?


• Provide a service to your clients?


• Develop new customers?

To succeed at Internet Marketing, blogs and articles provide great ways to introduce new information online. Search engines and searchers are always looking for new content and interesting topics. As blog entries get entered regularly, search engine spiders start to pick up you are adding new data online and will visit you with a little more frequency.

Over time, especially if you advertise your blog or include reference to it in your emails and link to it clearly from your site, visitors may start coming back and actually reading what you write!

Remember that a search engine has never bought anything, so write your comments to your visitors. They are your bread and butter.

The hardest part (even for me) is to think of a new topic every few days. Here is a simple worksheet to help you get started - 50 Blog Ideas Worksheet. It provides you with a spot for up to 50 ideas! In my lectures and seminars, I only recommend blogging IF you fill out 25 spots. It prevents brain-freeze, also known as writer's block!

Until next time...