Ideas for Business

Do you know what your goals are? Have you let Google know? You should.

Google Analytics allows you to establish goals for your website and will even measure your goals for you so you can determine how successful you are. If you need actionable data, you can get it by measuring your goals and using the information to make necessary changes regarding how you track and measure data and how you act on the data you track and measure.

Your sales funnel is an integral part of that process. By knowing how your traffic flow should result in a sale, you can place the proper metrics where they need to be in order to tell you where in the process you are not meeting your goals. Then you can take that information and make the necessary tweaks and changes to improve the sales process. But it all begins with tracking. Google Analytics is a great tool. You can learn more about setting goals through Google Analytics here.

Your URL is important for a number of reasons. Google algorithms change from day to day, but there are days where your URL can push you up in the rankings a few notches if it contains your primary keyword in it. There are times when it won’t. Overall, I’d say having your keyword in your URL is very important. It’s not a make-or-break it factor in rankings, but it can be a slight edge in the competitive dance if all else is equal between your site and your competition’s.

Nevertheless, your URL is important in other ways as well. It’s a great branding tool, for instance. In fact, you can brand your company with your website URL even without using a keyword. There are many examples of this:

• Flickr
• Google
• YouTube
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Digg

And that’s just to name a few!

If you mention the niche each of these companies exist within, you’ll no doubt think of these companies. Google = search engine, Flickr = photo sharing, YouTube = video sharing, Digg = social bookmarking, and MySpace and Facebook = social networking. The URL = the name brand. Powerful marketing!

This combination of URL importance is getting even better since Google is introducing a new feature into its Google Suggest tool. From Marketing Pilgrim:

Google’s also added navigational suggestions–so if you start typing the name of a company or brand, you’ll more likely see the actual URL appear in your suggested items.

What this means is that your URL could actually become a suggested destination or query result at Google for generic keywords that searchers type in. But for that to happen you have to establish yourself as an authority website in your niche. That means building unique and original content that increases your reputation in your niche. When you do that, you have a bigger edge and that edge is what it’s all about.

SiteProNews has an article about why Internet marketers fail online. Great article except that it’s mostly talking about Internet marketers who build landing pages, microsites, and other animals for AdSense or use other “traditional” Internet marketing strategies. Small businesses using online marketing techniques do things a little differently.

That’s why I decided to come up with my own list of 5 reasons small businesses fail when they go online to market their businesses. But for the sake of comparison, here’s the summary of why Internet marketers aren’t succeeding:

1. They are overwhelmed with information
2. Lack key marketing basics
3. Not much time or few resources
4. Don’t have the necessary skills
5. They lack persistence

But do these same afflictions affect small business owners online? Aside from key marketing basics, I’d say small business owners suffer from some of the same problems, but they aren’t necessarily causes of failure online. If so then they’d be causes of failure off line and if small businesses are failing off line they likely aren’t trying to build online variations of their businesses. Or shouldn’t be.

So how are small business owners marketing online different than Internet marketers? Here is the list of top 5 reasons I can think of:

1. No persistence - OK, let’s get this one of out of the way right now. In this regard, small business owners are like other Internet marketers. They give up too soon. The old adage “you can’t win if you quit” rings true. Stay in there! Be persistent.
2. Hung up on their budget - Small business owners have small budgets. The beauty of marketing online is that you don’t need a big budget, but many small business owners fail online because they’re hung up on their pocketbooks and cede to those with more money to throw. Be stealthy. You don’t have to be Bill Gates or Donald Trump.
3. Try to bite off more than they can chew - Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was your business. And your online business won’t be either. Take your time, learn the ropes, and don’t quit.
4. Analysis paralysis - You can analyze information all day long and get nowhere. Eventually, you’ve got to do something. Don’t let thinking get in the way of doing. You’re successful off line because you take action. Now, take action online.
5. They listen to Internet marketers - Just because someone calls himself an Internet marketer doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. There are a lot of strategies online to use. Some of them work, some of them don’t. But if you listen to the Internet marketers you could lose. Many of them fail because they’re trying all the wrong things any way. Instead, choose your guides carefully.

It’s not all about the money. And it’s not all about time. It’s about how effective you use both time and money (the little you do have) to reach the audience you want to reach. The most important thing is this: Be persistent!

This could be rather big for anyone working in SEO in Ireland. It doesn’t seem so long ago, but in fact I had to go back to November 2007 to find my post about Google Local Business Center including Ireland. Well it took a while for anything else to happen, but finally it appears that Ireland is getting local listings in the one box listing (if you’re interested in what the “one box” is here’s a post I wrote in January 2007 explaining the one box [where does the time go??]).

Cork Web Design Local One Box Listing

Earlier this morning I received an email from Simon at Cork Web Design telling me about this:

Google.ie [web design cork]

I’m seeing one box local results appearing for both ‘Web search’ and ‘pages from Ireland’. Now this really is a big deal - if you previously held onto a #1 position prepare to see search referrals take a nose dive, at least initially as the novelty factor gets people clicking on local results. Here’s a search for [web design wicklow]:

Google.ie (Web search) [web design wicklow]

The Impact of Local Listings in One Box?

So imagine for a moment that the exact match domain webdesignwicklow.ie has probably sat pretty at #1 for ever, receiving targeted referrals from Google. All of a sudden today three of their competitors now sit above them with a very strong piece of collateral (the map) to draw attention. It looks like maltron.ie, who are sitting at #4 in organic now has both the top local listing and their #4 position. Not only have the previous #1 lost relative position in the SERP, but some of their competitors now effectively have multiple listings, one of which sits atop the SERP.

How to get included?

If you read my post about Google Local Business Listings you can find out how to get your site onto the One Box local results map. I’ll actually have to do some digging to find out again how listings are ranked - I remember reading up about this, but it was almost 1.5 years back now.

What other SERPs are showing One Box Local Listings?

I only had a quick look around, so if you’ve seen the one box on your travels please let me know what keywords are triggering the maps. For now I’m confident that only lcoal search queries with a geographic modifier will bring up the local results (due to Ireland’s crappy IP address management).

Happy hunting on Local Search!

[Update] Obviously this still has a few kinks to be ironed out:

Clicking on the “More” link brings you to “web design near Wicklow, NB, Canada”

That’s surely a crappy user experience, and might mean that these local listings disappear quite soon… (hat tip to Jason)

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According to a Marketwire press release, Buzzillions is integrating Krillion real time search for local product location. A cool idea. Except that I can’t find it anywhere on their site.

For readers not familiar with either Buzzillions or Krillion, both websites are great opportunities for local retailers. Buzzillions is a product review site that is well trafficked and if you’re in retail you need to get familiar with product review sites because consumers use them and make buying decisions based on them. Krillion is a real time product search engine that allows consumers to find where a product is in stock at a local retailer. A great service to get to know if you are a local retailer. A partnership between these two companies would be a powerful partnership indeed.

Greg Sterling has some screenshots of the integration on his website, but I can’t seem to find it myself. On the screenshot you can see the Find Locally search box just below the Where To Buy box on the product page. When I visit Buzzillions, however, I don’t see it. I wonder if the service is in beta.