Google Local and Map have become a big influence on how people search and get results. We can demonstrate this by searching for ‘accountant’ and the search result returns a broad list of ‘accountants’, but perhaps too broad so we tend to search again by narrowing the result – adding a location to the search – ‘accountant in city’ and the results we see are now closer to home.

So it’s no surprise that Google should be taking a closer look at how we search and attempt to refine the process and provide a more meaningful search result by changing the Google Local search algorithm to make it easier for us to find what or who we are searching for locally.

Now we see searches that reference local business and all the relevant places in that location in a new clustered visual display located in the upper right corner of a search result page. The now familiar map displays each business with red lettered pins, and links to each business. And as you scroll down the page the Google Places Map will scroll with the page so that it is always visible.

In addition to the way we see businesses displayed on Google Places, a new product is being launched – Google Boost.

Google Boost is a Google AdWords product that allows local businesses to feature more prominently in local searches. It allows small to medium size businesses the ability to feature more highly in searches, and concentrates much more on the relevance and location of that business than ever before.

Now searchers will see sponsored location searches appear on the Google Places map as blue lettered pins and in search results with the blue marker pin next to the content description.

Search results for the ‘accountant in city’ will now appear first below sponsored listings and above organic listings. What this means is that results for a business in a location will now appear grouped with the other search results, making it much easier for searchers to find what they are looking for in a local area.

Google reports that Place Search results will begin appearing automatically when Google determines that you are looking for a ‘business in location’ search result.

Google also says “We’ve made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places. With Google Place Search, we’re dynamically connecting hundreds of millions of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations. We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don’t provide addresses and use different names.”

Google Places is being rolled out across the world and will be available everywhere, in 40 languages once complete. Google is hoping to provide a better, local search to users, while exploiting a different revenue stream. It’s also competing with Facebook Places which was launched a while ago. Facebook was able to use very targeted advertising to provide a similar service to its users.

Google should have the advantage here though, as most Facebook advertising is passive, appearing alongside the primary content. Google’s Place Search is active and should have the advantage when it comes to conversion.

Location-based services are seen as a growing market, with Facebook Places and location aware services like Foursquare enjoying significant growth since their inception. Placing Google Place Search alongside search results, Google can hedge its bets while not detracting from its standard offering.

From an SEO perspective Peter Bowen at First One On says, “One of the downsides to this new display of results is how it will affect businesses that previously enjoyed number one placements for ‘business in location’ or featured well alongside the old Google Map.”

“Now with the introduction of Google Place Search in results it is quite possible that businesses that had worked hard to get top placements on page one now find themselves listed on page two! Other businesses that did not even have a listing on the old Google Map are now being brought to the top of the search results based on the location of their business and business listing in Google Places.”

What this means is that in the long run it will be more difficult for businesses to rank at the top of a local search unless they realize that they will have to spend much more time and effort on local search engine optimization. Businesses that had previously enjoyed a prominent position on the old Google Map without a website, which was possible before, will now find it almost impossible to maintain a listing without a well developed and locally optimized website.

Businesses will now have to have a visible and physical location if they want to be listed in a local search. In the past, businesses could hide their physical location and yet still be found locally through their websites, but now consumers searching for a business in a location will be able to determine if they contact that business or not based on their location.

So as Google exposes competitors in searches, it is now revealing where those businesses are located – hopefully providing the consumer with more information before making a purchase decision.

You may ask yourself: “Is there any reason why I should add an opt-in link my emails when I’m already using a opt-in database?” This may seem like a rhetorical question, but in fact it’s not. If you want to seize every opportunity to continue building your customer database, there are two very good reasons why you should…

Reason one: your emails may get forwarded
When your readers forward your email messages — by using a “forward to a friend” link or by clicking the forward button in their email client — your message may end up in the inbox of a new potential customer. You can easily capture these potential new customers by making it easy for them to subscribe to your email campaigns. Is there a simpler way to build your customer database?

Reason two: your emails could be spread through social media
A combination of links to social media and an opt-in link in your email campaigns create the opportunity for your email messages to spread even further. If the online versions of your email messages get picked up by social media feeds like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, readers on those social networks can easily sign up to your email campaigns. And who knows: they may even become your new best customers.

Conclusion : make a habit of adding a simple opt-in link to every email you send. With today’s busy email traffic and social media activity, you’d be surprised how many new customers it could bring you.

Kirklees, for example, is an area that is home to a lot of online businesses that need this kind of service. The design of a web site is crucial in presenting your company’s brand to the internet public. Similar to a regular office, a company’s web site should be well-designed to coincide with your company identity, but at the same time keep you within your budget.

Companies based on the web have the idea that paying less for website design means that you’re getting bad service. This way of thinking could not be further from the truth. Many service providers employ professional and affordable website designers.

Kirklees is in one of the most populated ares in the UK, so finding good quality web designers should not be difficult at all. The question is, are you willing to entrust your business’s success with the thought in your head that cheap web design means bad output? You’ve got to let go of this idea before you can even begin to realize the many advantages of choosing a more affordable web design provider.

There are a number of advantages in finding a cheaper web design alternative. The most obvious one is the amount of money you will be saving. With the current global financial crisis still affecting businesses everywhere, any amount saved can certainly go a long way. There are many parts in the UK where you can find affordable website designers.

Kirklees can provide you with plenty of talented designers that are quite exceptional at what they do and won’t charge you too much for their services.

Affordable web design also generally means that you’re getting service from smaller operations or firms. This should be considered a good thing, as smaller web design groups are capable of providing services that are a lot more personal or dedicated.

There is more interaction between you and the designers, and you can more easily communicate exactly what you want done every step of the way. It is a lot more possible for clients to go one on one with smaller and more affordable website designers. Kirklees has a handful of smaller web design providers that offer their services at lower costs but provide good results.

Smaller and more affordable website design groups also offer more flexibility in different areas. You can customize the type of service you’re actually getting from smaller web design groups a lot more easily than with larger and more expensive firms.

Some large web design businesses will even require you to sign up for their hosting services before you can sign up just to have a web page designed. Some online businesses only need web designers or some other basic service for their brand. Smaller web design operations are flexible in such matters, and most will accommodate any project being offered, no matter how simple.

The bottom line is that you can also expect great service and output when choosing to get a package for affordable web design. Kirklees is one place many online businesses should start looking into when trying to find the best service they can get at the most affordable price range.

There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing.

1: Consistency

Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for so many businesses. We have worked with a long list of clients, big and small, that are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps lower the cost of marketing and increase the effectiveness of branding.

2: Planning

Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next major concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of small business marketing or any level of marketing, for that matter, and so many owners and even marketing managers plan poorly. Put the time into planning your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.

3: Strategy

Strategy immediately follows planning because your strategy is the foundation for the rest of your marketing activities. In the process of planning, you must develop your strategy: who you will target, how you will target them, and how will you keep them as a customer.

4: Target Market

Target market is also another key concept for small business marketing. Defining exactly who you are targeting allows small business owners to focus on specific customers and reduce marketing waste. A well-defined target market will make every other marketing concept so much easier to implement successfully.

5: Budget

Although it is listed at number 5, budgeting is important throughout the entire process. Creating a marketing budget is usually the hardest and most inaccurate part of small business marketing. Most small businesses owners lack a great deal of experience in marketing, so their budgets usually end up skewed. The most important part of this marketing concept is to actually establish a marketing budget. From there, you can worry about how to distribute your available funds.

6: Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is usually defined as product, pricing, place, and promotion. As a small business owner, you must specifically decide on your products (or services), the appropriate pricing, where and how you will distribute your products, and how will you let everyone know about you and your products.

7: Website

In today’s market, a business of any size must have a website. We all hate to see businesses that have a one page website with out-dated information. Customers, be it businesses or consumers, will search the web over 60% of the time before making any purchasing decisions. This marketing concept contains a slew of additional components, but you must at least develop a small web presence of some kind and keep it updated.

8: Branding

Many small businesses owners also neglect this concept. Small business marketing must focus on this marketing concept just as much as large corporations do. Branding consists of the pictures, logo, design scheme, layout, make up, and image of your products and even your company. Branding is how your customers perceive (please place a lot of emphasis on that word!) your products and company. Make sure to pay special attention to what kind of brand you are building through each step of your planning and implementation.

9: Promotion and Advertising

Promotion and advertising is a very complex marketing concept, but must be considered for any type of business and its products and services. Once you engage the previous 8 marketing concepts, you must finally let your target market know about you and your products. Proper promotion and advertising will result in effective brand recognition, and, ultimately, increased sales.

10: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The concept of customer relationship management has become a huge industry in the marketing world. There are many types of software and services offered to help businesses of any size handle their customer relationship management. Since there is so much available, usually for a large sum of money, small business owners usually look at this concept as something they are not big enough for or have enough money to implement. Don’t be fooled by the massive industry that has evolved from this concept. Maintaining proper customer relationship management is essential to creating loyal and consistent customers.

This list of marketing concepts should be examined, researched, planned, and implemented, especially by small businesses, in order to be successful. Also, your marketing doesn’t stop here. Each business is unique and will have additional components that must be considered, but this list will jump-start any marketing plan.

How to generate traffic using Twitter is something people have been trying to figure out since Twitter was first introduced. Most site owners wonder how much you can expect to do in 140 characters or less.

They were not wondering how to generate traffic using Twitter they were wondering if Twitter can really generate any traffic it at all.

The short answer is you can generate traffic using Twitter. In fact you may be surprised at how an effective Twitter marketing campaign can draw traffic and sales to your website.

What to Tweet

The first step in how to generate traffic using twitter is to first determine what you are going to tweet. What pearls of wisdom will you share with your Twitter followers? First and foremost, a word of warning – do not tweet endlessly about your products and services. If you do you will not have followers and you will gain very minimal traffic from Twitter.

Twitter marketing experts use the 80-20 rule when teaching clients how to generate traffic using Twitter. 80% of your postings should be useful information or entertaining to your followers. 20% at most should be direct attempts to sell or promote your products or services.

You can find virtually unlimited information to post on Twitter to help you fill the 80% of your posts that are not directly about your products and services. You can post links to amusing videos or blog postings that may interest your followers.

Your Promotional Tweets

The 20% of your tweets that will be direct promotions need to capture your followers’ interest in fewer than 140 characters. This may not be so easy but it is how to generate traffic using Twitter. If done properly you can make money on Twitter.

When you are creating the promotional tweets you want to entice your followers to read more. You do not have to say it all in one tweet. Do not try to close a sale in under 140 characters. Just give them enough information to want to click on the accompanying URL.

The key is you want your Twitter marketing to be catchy. You have 140 characters to get them to click on a link and go to your site. Your website is where you want to do your heavy sales pitch.

How Often do I Tweet?

You want to tweet at least several times per day. Staying active on Twitter is how you make money on Twitter. Establishing followers and giving them information, entertainment and promotions will help transform Twitter into a business source.

A good rule of thumb is to tweet at least five times per day. One tweet per hour would be great for a business. When you have more time you can put more tweets up. Try to remember the 80/20 rule so you are engaging in effective Twitter marketing so you can make money on Twitter.

A recent Think Vitamin blog post on ‘The Importance of Imagery in Web Design‘ got me thinking. While I agree with the author’s sentiment that may well remain ‘king’, it must be remembered that folks are far more fickle when reading their email than they are when purposefully browsing the web. According to a study that tracked users’ reading behavior, the average time allocated to an email after opening it was 51 seconds. Is that even enough time to read even a few paragraphs properly?

What I wanted to think about today is how much an HTML email newsletter conveys at a glance. If a picture is indeed a thousand words, are we using images to reinforce our message visually, or are we simply using them for decoration (or distraction)?

To counter the author’s example of a web site that lacks visual expression is this email design from ‘Seipp Wohnen‘. Notice how it instantly gives the reader a sense of context, regardless of what language it’s written in:

Now, I can’t read a word of German, but I can tell you in a moment that the above email would be relevant to me if I took an interest in furniture design. So, how about this newsletter for ‘Openluchttheater‘?

Again, this is an engaging email in which all imagery ties back to the artists, or the performing arts (a Dutch speaker kindly let me know that ‘Openluchttheater’ means ‘Open Air Theatre’…).

Both examples strike a healthy balance between content and imagery. But what makes these email newsletters particularly engaging is how visually accessible they are. Neither make any assumptions about what the reader knows about their brand and thankfully, both are easy on the eyes, too. Apple’s marketing emails also spring to mind.

So now, it’s over to you. Are the images in your email collaborating with your message, or just there to pretty things up? In a world of gaudy stock photos, how do you sell to your clients the importance of tactfully using imagery in your designs?

Customer relationship is actually about taking good care of customers and treating them with due respect. It is about providing them with products and services that would encourage them to make repeated transactions. It is also about giving them what they need based on their personal preference.

Essentially, good human relation skills are a requirement for excellent and long term customer relationships. If you want to maintain good relations today, here are strategies you need to bank on:

Pay attention to your customers. If you want to succeed in today’s business, you need to give more attention to your customers and less on profit. Of course, profit is important, but customers are more important because without them how can you expect to get profit. A good practice to follow is to ask for feedback and suggestions from your customers to make them feel they are valued in your business.

Fulfill your promises. Anything you claim in your business brochures or posters must be realized. If you cannot deliver on your promises, all your efforts are useless. Keep in mind that focus has to be on the customers and not on the products. If you neglect on customers and don’t keep your promises, you are likely to lose customers. To keep your customers happy and loyal, you need to satisfy their needs and deliver on what you promised.

Offer rewards to customers. Offering rewards to loyal customers keep them interested in your business. This in turn increases your sales and boost customer loyalty. Giving customers a gift to show your appreciation for their continued patronage encourages them to come back. This then creates a more personal relationship between you and your customer as they feel important and well appreciated.

Provide attractive offers. One of the best ways to ensure customers come back to you is to offers them discounts, freebies, or rebates. Consider attaching discount coupons in your post cards or business brochure printing which they can tear off when availing of your products or services. This will greatly encourage them to keep coming back for better discounts on repeat purchases. Eventually, this process will create loyal customers to your business.

Don’t forget to thank your customers. A simple thank you card can go a long way. Sending them post cards or greeting cards after a successful sale will show them that you appreciate their patronage. These cards can also help you keep in touch with your customers to further boost loyalty and develop long term relationships.

Go beyond expectations. Customer loyalty is enhanced when you deliver services that are always above the norm. To do this, you need to set criteria that will serve as the base in finding ways to improve your offerings. Keep in mind that customers are drawn to businesses that offer exceptional product or service and treat them with respect and diligence. So don’t be afraid to go out of your way just to provide great products to your customers.

• Create content that sells
• Create a content map
• Optimize content for search
• Repurpose content
• Learn to succeed even in situations with little or no content

We need content for nurturing, as a lead solution, for lead scoring and risk mitigation. A lot of people don’t even consider the risk mitigation aspect – by publishing content and making people feel like your company is providing great information and is a leader, they’ll choose you. Without content, you’ll never even have the chance to be found.

What is content?

Content is not just white papers – it’s videos, it’s blog posts, it’s real-time updates, it’s FAQs. B2B businesses need to think beyond just white papers. Early when people are just learning about your product they are looking for different types of content. For example, early in the buying cycle they may find you through blog posts. Later on, they want demo videos or perhaps reinforcement about their decision from an analyst or third party. The bottom line: you need to carefully consider all the pieces of content you’ll need to create throughout the buying cycle. 6 rules of great content:

• Non-promotional
• Relevant to reader
• Closes a gap
• Well-written
• Relevant to your company
• Gives proof

And – equally important – don’t forget to promote. Good content is not enough – you should be using a mix of channels from email and social media to PR and search engine marketing to promote your content. You have to help it spread, good content isn’t going to get anywhere on its own. You have to do everything you can to put the right material in front of the right people at the right time.

Free your content

Many B2B marketers will only put content up behind a login form. But, you should actually use forms only when you really need them. Consider removing forms from early stage content in order to make it accessible and get others to share it. It’s so much more important early-stage content gets in the hands of everyone because even if it’s not directly applicable to them, they may share it with the right people at an organization.

Further, with forms use only what you really need on them – asking less is key to getting more form completes. Secret to testing with content: even though testing on the web is pretty easy, you still need to know exactly what you’re testing for.

Content mapping

Content mapping is a vital part of the process – consider segmenting content for different buying stages – early through late. Further, you also need to consider buying profiles when developing content, including industry, role, company size and geography. When you do map, keep the following in mind:

• Map your existing content
• Blank cells determine your content roadmap
• Short content is good and can be very effective, don’t always create long format content
• Test and optimize
• Start small, think big and adapt quickly
• Optimize for search
• Optimize your whole site categorically it for search.
• Instead of grouping by “video, article and white paper” group by specific keyword concept
• Optimize keywords in content, meta descriptions and title tag
• Ensure meta descriptions aren’t just for search engines, make them compelling so users actually click through

If you’re going to create content, it is imperative you optimize it so people actually see it. There’s no reason if you’re creating content online you shouldn’t consider search – it’s too important a channel to ignore.

Making content social

Add ratings, comments and ability to sort in order to let users decide the most popular content on your site. Further, ensure you have share and bookmarking options on all content (and to networks that matter to your users). Consider that social media is also more than just Twitter and Facebook. Find the areas that are most important to your brand in social channels and spend your time there. In many cases it may not be the most popular networks, especially if you are in more obscure categories.

Social sharing – customize your emails and landing pages so they have social options. If you’re driving a lot of push traffic to pages, do everything you can to increase organic traffic as well. Social validation – adds transparency and credibility for your brand. If people are saying good things, leverage them as social proof by re-using them in other marketing materials and making sure they are visibility to prospects. This can include quotes, endorsements, subscriber numbers, etc.

Social monitoring – start by monitoring the most popular social media sites, but figure out a way to monitor across platforms. Make the best use of alerts and be sure you keep queries running on the terms that matter.

Final takeaway – learn the three 3’s R’s of content optimization:

Reorganize – take old content and be sure it’s organized and categorized. If you remove a landing page, for example, be sure to redirect it (and use 301 redirects).

Rewrite – Rewrite content into different formats so you have maximum impact across channels. For example, a webinar becomes a SlideShare becomes a blog post. Optimize each for slight variations on the same topic.

Retire – when content is dated, be sure to archive but it does not need to be actively promoted any longer. Move on to creating additional fresh, relevant content.

Web Analytics is an excellent way to ensure your marketing efforts are not in vain. However, looking at Analytics without understanding user behavior may leave you treading water instead of creating a wake your competitors will fear.

One way to take your methods of measurement to the next level is to combine Analytics with User Experience (UX) information. What you stand to gain can be great whether you dip a toe or cannon ball into blended analytic waters.

To make sure you don’t sink, first understand that Analytics will tell you what’s happening on the site. User Experience Research then helps you understand why it’s happening by gaining insight into the behaviors and motivation of visitors.

When you combine both, you can start to understand the What and the Why of what’s happening on your website. This also allows any potential problems to float to the top more quickly, allowing you to see the problem you need to solve and what changes might do just that.

The following case study illustrates what you can find when you combine the power of Analytics and user behavior:

An insurance quoting website, which had a 14 page quote and purchase process was going through a website redesign and decided it was the perfect time to double check their form process.

The goal was to identify where in the funnel visitors were getting stuck and abandoning the process.

After understanding user experience and their reactions to what you are testing, the data should be compared to Analytics. Does Analytics show visitor ‘drop-off’ points in similar places as what was identified as confusing/irritating by the users?

To understand drop-off points and not spend time in lower-priority places, be sure to identify logical places for drop-off. In this example a make-sense drop off would be after the quote is delivered because you can expect that some visitors won’t like the quote they received and abandon to either get a different quote or purchase elsewhere.

Where you want to spend time is identifying the unexpected drop-offs. One such drop-off point for the health insurance quote form was the request for a social security number. Almost all users are cautious when giving such information online, but the problem in this particular case was that the information was asked for too early in the process before the person is invested.

As such, they identified an item to test. After placing the request for the social security number further into the funnel where the user was more invested and felt like it was OK to give their personal information, the abandonment rate decreased.

The next drop-off point was the question of where they attended college, which some – via the user experience testing – found offensive and/or didn’t understand how it was relevant to an insurance quote.

The Analytics confirmed this and showed a higher than normal drop-off rate at the point that question was asked in the funnel.

Ask yourself, why is this question part of the form? Is it necessary? If not, remove it and improve the percent of visitors who get further in the funnel and closer to a sale.

Start getting more out of your website by diving deeper into the following 6 areas using both Analytics and User Experience Data:

1. Landing Page Optimization

Analytics: Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate
UX: Why people convert.

2. Site Navigation

Analytics: Top Content
UX: How they get there

3. Form Completion

Analytics: Abandonment, Page reloads
UX: Specific Objections

4. Content

Analytics: Time Spent on page
UX: Is it engaging?

5. Testing

Analytics: A/B Testing
UX: What to Test

6. Terminology

Analytics: Search Logs
UX: How people use language – what is your target marking using to search for you

In the case that you need to dip your toes, go old-school and simply sit behind someone and watch them navigate your website. Where do they go first, second, third, what do they avoid? Ask them why. Some data is better than no data.