Internet Marketing Services
Hop in and let’s go. Or you can scroll on down the page and take a looksee at what Revved Business brandishes to local business owners. We’ve got a solid track record of internet marketing success and plenty of race fans that will back up our gusto. No problemo. This ain’t some let’s meet so I can show you my boring PowerPoint slides about why we are great and why you should hire us. Nope. We roll in a different style all together… Give us 1,800 seconds to drop some rhyme and reason for your local business. Then we’ll see if our people jibe with your people… capiche?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Good ole SEO. It ain’t what it used to be. People changing the color of the font to white to match backgrounds so you didn’t see the tons of so called keywords… Now a days, it’s black hat, white hat, gray hat… whatever. We have a saying in Texas “all hat, no cattle” and it’s what many of these so-called “SEO experts” are. We don’t make cheap promises of getting a #1 ranking on Google like you get solicitor calls for, probably every week… We provide results and that means your phone ringing and cash a ching chinging. You get our drift?
These ain’t the 90s anymore, pal – search engines haven’t just been about ‘finding stuff’ for a while. You might be the kind of person who doesn’t care about other people’s opinion, or you might be one that always worries what others will say – whichever you are, Google’s ‘opinion’ is one you can’t afford to ignore if your income is in any way related to the internet.
What’s that? You have a real-world business that’s only connected to the internet through your informative website? There’s no such thing as ‘only’ when talking about the web anymore, either. These days, whether you like it or not, the internet is right up there with the most important factors that decide how well your business runs.
Let’s say your business is polished on all fronts and is running smoothly, with sales that are ‘okay’. Now imagine you get cited by a couple of big blogs, you get a dozen positive reviews on Yelp, locals with lots of Twitter followers are endorsing you… Suddenly, you’re facing hundreds of new leads, all primed for conversion.
While the things I mentioned might be difficult or impossible to obtain in a short period of time, there’s something you can start working on right away and experience discernible results – search engine optimization (SEO).
Interestingly enough, for a long-time gig, search engine optimization can have some immediate benefits for businesses who have never tackled search engines. Regardless of how well you rank, I bet we can provide you with some internet marketing services that will make the phones ring more often.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing can give your local business an extra shot of gusto. Getting your business supercharged isn’t just pulling in for a 15-minute oil change. You’ve got to let the local business mechanics hop under the hood and give it a look over. But while you’re waiting, SEM is a brilliant way to start cranking the RPMs and seeing what truly is possible… Once you do have your business performing on the track and hitting the competition hard, you might decide to put the full pedal down and dominate both paid and organic listings…
Haven’t you ever found yourself wishing you could skip all the extensive and at-times incredibly boring SEO work and jump straight to some ranking? Well… do you have a friend or few with high-profile sites that can direct traffic to your site? If not, don’t feel down just yet – search engines know your pain, and are willing to help… once you show them some money.
Google, as well as Bing and Yahoo, offer business owners a chance to have a top spot when certain search results are linked, above even the first-ranked organic sites. What’s the catch? Well, there isn’t one in the strictest sense – you’ll just have to give them a little bit of your profit, even if your local business hasn’t actually profited just yet.
That’s right: the money for advertising is paid before you actually see any results. As soon as someone clicks on your Google ad, you’re charged the agreed-upon amount no matter what the person does. They could permanently disconnect from the internet immediately upon visiting your website, and you’d still pay the money.
Yet tens if not hundreds of thousands of business owners choose to deal with this and take the drawbacks in stride. Why? Well, there isn’t really any alternative to being Google’s top dog on the search pages of your choosing.
That being said, we always advise people that taking on all the different internet marketing services are very complex and NOT to jump into search engine marketing without a plan – intuition and a gut feeling won’t cut it here. You’ll need someone with experience reaching a variety of audiences, and Revved will get the job done. Don’t jump into the great unknown on your own – we’ll show you the road to some serious search engine marketing.
Social Media Management
We know. You tried setting up your business Twitter account, Facebook fan page, LinkedIn business profile… and nothing but crickets. It’s a big digital ocean of crazy stuff going on out there. And it can get overwhelmingly complicated fast. Like forget it fast. But hold on there trigger… Revved can get your local business tuned up with social media and you’ll be dancing circles around your competition in no time.
These days, you’ll be rightly surprised if someone asks you how many friends you have. These days you’re more likely to hear the real question: “How many Twitter followers do you have?” Social media has taken the world by storm, and many find it’s become a matter of adapting or perishing – much more so in the business world than on a personal level.
So how do you get into it, especially if you haven’t signed up yet or were hoping to follow a more traditional business model? Well, unlike most things in today’s world, signing up for a Facebook or Twitter account is free; it’s also fairly quick and straightforward. The problem can often be where to go from there.
On Twitter even more so than on Facebook, you might find yourself struggling to establish yourself with your audience. The term ‘target audience’ gets thrown a lot in entrepreneurship. It can mean your clientele or even those above you in the workplace hierarchy. If you’re reading this, you’re probably the owner or at least co-owner of a local business, meaning your target audience will be everyday people belonging to a ‘niche’ to whom you want to sell your products and services.
This is where social media management becomes an important aspect of your different internet marketing services. Rather than trying to cast a wide net, you laser target your social media marketing message to the exact people who are interested in your products and services. Identifying this ‘niche’ or audience is a key step when looking to spread your brand on social media: your target might be single moms, male teenagers, politicians, tin foil hat-wearers… I’m not just here to help you with technical stuff – I can also help you find the exact type of people you need to connect with in order to boost your earnings and expand your local business over time.
Reputation Management
Why isn’t anyone giving my business any reviews? Have you asked? Is a good place to start followed by have you given them a reason to… We’ve found that many, if not most, local business owners simply don’t ask for their customers to provide reviews. Getting reviews is a bigger factor than most business owners realize… Until we show them the stats. What? Next is managing your business’ reputation and making sure that any negative reviews are dealt with quickly. What negative reviews… here take a look.
Make no mistake about it – reputation can make or break your business. Think of bad rep as a contagion – it spreads as fast, and will be equally damaging to you and your products or services. Unfortunately, there’s no magical cure you can take once you got some bad rep, but don’t despair! I can help you get your business back on track by employing the years of experience and know-how I gained in this biz.
Our pal Ben Franklin said it best: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” That hardly sounds fair, does it? You can work on gaining people’s trust for years and have all those efforts undermined by a couple of incidents. And your potential customers are looking at reviews to decide whether or not to do business with your local business. That’s just how much technology has changed our culture. No longer is it just word of mouth… they are searching for reviews on Google, Yelp, Angie’s list and a whole host of other websites.
You can’t afford a hands-off approach here – reputation management is key – you need to be in control of your business’ rep, good and bad. That’s going to mean work and making use of the good ole “customer is always right” adage. Minimize any disputes you have with customers and avoid making them feel they’re in the wrong. That way, the few hard cases hell-bent on giving you a bad name will get lost in the masses of pleased clients.
That’s all well and nice, but what if you already have some negative rep going on? Is there hope? You bet there is, with the right approach. You won’t be able to handle it alone, however – I’ll be the guy in the hazmat suit quarantining the dissatisfaction and showing you how to nurture your business back to health.
Local Search Marketing
I actually have to submit my local business information to search engines and business directories? Yep. And you actually have to claim them too. So many local business listings are sitting out there on the digital web just waiting and waiting and waiting for their owner to claim them and utilize them to let more potential customers know they are in business. You are in business to make money, right?
Think about this: how are locals really finding out about your business (provided they’re not driving or walking past it)? NAP Citations. Your name, address and phone number for your business. One of the cornerstones of building a business up these days involves the oft-grueling process of adding relevant information to as many sites as you can.
You start from the big search engines’ local listings pages (Google and Bing), and move to the hundreds of other business directories and niche-specific sites. If you’re running a bed & breakfast in a small community, a TripAdvisor listing is how anyone passing through is going to find out about your place. Of course, you’ll also have to deal with customer feedback on these sites, but that’s a whole other can of worms. Once you’re on the basic sites, it’s time to leave your signature wherever possible. Think of it like graffiti, except it’s legal and it helps people find their service they need. Well, I guess it’s not all that similar to graffiti then, but you get my point.
To maximize your reach, try to cover both sites pertaining to your local area and those covering your specific industry. That way, you won’t just be on the radar of locals looking for the type of service you provide – you might also get some non-locals looking for a great product, provided you’re offering one.
Local search marketing is a critical part of your local business’ internet marketing services strategy. Don’t prevent yourself from gathering leads by having insufficient or out-of-date citations. Clean up those weeds across the web that have been leading clients to ghost town, and place your signature on plenty of sites that matter, big or small.
Pay Per Click Online Advertising (PPC)
Tired of all the ads that appear when you are trying to do a search online? Maybe all the Facebook ads when all you want to do is see what your friends are up to? Well get used to it, the ads aren’t going away. But guess what? The ads aren’t going away… And people, and more specifically, your potential customers will click on them. Good for you and your local business. See, it’s not really that annoying anymore, is it?
Starting a PPC advertising campaign marks a special time in the life of every business owner. It’s a coming-of-age thing, like getting your first car or graduating. And like having your driving instructor yell at you or studying until 3 a.m., coming up with the right campaign to spread your product can be stressful. It’s usually a trial-and-error mode of operation, meaning you can probably count on it being both a financial and an emotional strain.
When my clients want to advertise using a pay per click or cost per impression (PPC/CPI) method, we always warn them about the ‘risks’ involved: there’s no guarantee you’ll get conversions and sales, but there’s a guarantee you’ll spend money in the process. In Facebook’s case, there isn’t even a guarantee you’ll get traffic to your site – although you usually will, with the right knowledge and some positive mantras.
Many business owners will look at the money they are spending on internet marketing services as a cost rather than an investment. But how is this an investment? Local business owners are paying to gather data. Data that can help them take their business to the next level, if they analyze and use the data properly. That is where Revved can turn what you used to percieve as a cost into an investment that will ultimately grow your business.
For all the seemingly negative things I seem to be saying about Google and Facebooks ads, you’ll probably find either one – if not both – to be your best option at some point during your career as an entrepreneur. There’s a lot of people who got ‘burned’ by advertising on one of these two sites, or at least they say so: usually it was a case of throwing too much money away instead of hiring someone who can help them have a successful advertising run (ahem!)
With your business and my knowledge of how search engines and Bejeweled-enthusiasts work, we’re going to create a campaign that’s going to give your site some much-needed traffic and hopefully land you a few quality clients that will make the whole venture worth your while many times over.
Website Design
Enough already. I don’t know how I’m going to run my business and do all these internet marketing services. We know. That’s why Revved handles all the “stuff” for you while you do your thang. No reason to get overwhelmed or panic. We got your back. Websites are our forte and we can whip yours into racing shape in no time. That free website that was a good idea 10 years ago isn’t going to cut the mustard, just the cheese. So give us a call and we’ll dish out some legit mobile-friendly crowd pleasing design to get your biz rolling.
Have you ever been to an establishment or a similar business location whose interior made you wish you were elsewhere? Bad smells, bad sights, broken things and an owner trying to put on a brave face? Think about how big of a difference a slick interior would have made. You would have felt as if you were dealing with professionals, huh?
Well, I’ve got news for you: today your website now acts as your business headquarters! It’s time to stop thinking of your site as an afterthought – it’s instrumental to attracting new customers. Gone are the days when your businessname.freehosting.com website would have cut it. Now, more than ever, customers are judging your entire business based on how your site looks AND how well it works. Your competitors know it, and they’re looking for every advantage they can get; this includes paying their web designers through a hose so they cook up the flashiest, meanest-looking lead conversion machine out there.
Time to retire your website’s ‘little business that could’ look and give it a new style, but don’t forget to make it work! Some general things your website needs, in no particular order of appearance:
- Visual website design that represents the way you want to run your business. Some business owners prefer to come off as serious and professional; others like interacting with users on a more personal level.
- Search engines are your friends – help them index and rank your site by adjusting your code accordingly.
- Don’t forget mobile! Like it or not, mobile devices are how masses of users will be getting to your site. Get with the times and optimize away.