Internet Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

The Importance of a Good Call to Action

To be effective, your website must clearly state what action you want your visitors to take, whether it's buying a product in your online store, booking an appointment using your online appointment calendar, or something else which will turn them from viewers into customers. Your website needs to emphasize your goal and convince visitors to take your desired action.

Focus on Only One or Two Actions

In some cases you may have many actions that you want a user to take, but be cautious to not overwhelm your visitors - identify one or two important and distinct actions and make them the focus. The rest can simply be referenced in your content, for those users who take the time to read your site in more depth (a.k.a. the minority.) For the users who are landing on your site for the first time and are glancing around the page, be direct and clarify how each action is unique and which should be taken under what conditions. You essentially need to hold the user's hand and guide them around your site.

Selling Your Action

How do you sell your action to visitors and make them want to take it? Different techniques are appropriate depending on the type of action you're asking visitors to take. If your goal is to have users buy a product or service you should sell it to them directly - identify a problem and tell the user how your product or service fixes it and the benefits they will reap. Sometimes an incentive may be necessary to entice users into taking an action - a free entry into a gift draw, for example, or a t-shirt for donating a certain amount of money to your cause.

Making Your Button Juicy & Clickable

Once you have identified your call to action the next important step is to construct the visual element, whether it is a stylized button or a simple box of text. Four attributes to decide upon are size, position, color, and text. These attributes must all work together to communicate the action to the user.

1. Size - bigger is not always better, but in this case it usually is. Since you will only have a small number of actions, and since they're the most important aspect for your users to notice, it's ok for them to be the biggest things on the page. Having a large area for the user to click on also ensures that they won't get frustrated when they're ready to follow your action and click on the link.
   
2. Position - lead your visitor's eye to the link on which they should click and let it stand apart from the text by leaving plenty of white space around it. This ensures that the user will not only see the clickable area clearly but won't mistakenly click on an adjacent link.
   
3. Color - create a contrast between your site's regular color scheme and your call to action links. If most of your site is blue, use a red button - this makes it stand out from the rest of the page.
   
4. Text - the one attribute of a call to action element that ties the rest together is the actual text that the user will be reading. A prominent button is good, but the user will be lost without knowing exactly what happens when it's clicked upon. Surround the link with a large sentence or two about why they should be clicking, then have a couple of action words on the button itself, using urgent language, to convey what it does. "Donate Now", "Book Online", "Buy Now - Sale ends in September" are all examples of good call to action button text.

Finding a Home for Your Call to Action

Finally, once your well-thought-out call to action is ready to go, you should decide on what pages of your site are appropriate for it to appear. In most cases the answer is every page. You will usually have a sidebar next to the main content area where it can exist in almost the same spot on each page, reminding the user about the action while browsing your site and ensuring that they won't have to hunt for the button once they are ready to click.

A call to action is an important (perhaps the most important) aspect of your website and should be given careful thought. When a clear call to action is combined with techniques to bring visitors to your, it can make a significant difference in the amount of sales your website generated.

Want more tips? Check out: http://boagworld.com/design/10-techniques-for-an-effective-call-to-action

Many Clients have expressed interest in improving their rankings in the local results listing that often appears at the top of search results. An earlier post I wrote covered adding your website to the local results listing, and so this post will hopefully shed some light on improving your rankings. The things you can do break down into a couple different categories:

• Completing your Google Local Business Centre profile
• Getting your website listed and mentioned on other websites and directories

Completing Your Google Local Business Centre Profile

If you haven't already done so, the first step is to claim your website in Google's local business centre and complete the verification process. You'll then want to fill in as much of your profile as possible including adding photos/videos, selecting the appropriate categories, using keyword-rich description text and more. Be sure to ask your Clients to review your business under your local business centre listing too!

1-800 numbers are great, but your local business centre listing is not the place for them. It's important to use a phone number with a local area code in your local business centre listing as this is one of the factors Google checks. Also, ensure that your phone number on your profile matches your phone number on your website. If you have a Yellowpages listing, it should match there too!

To summarize the steps to completing your profile:

• Claim, verify and update your profile
• Upload photos and videos to your profile
• Request that your Clients complete reviews of your business under your listing

Getting Your Website Listed and Mentioned on Other Websites and Directories

Google will also comb through the web and keep track of mentions of your business on other websites and directories. These mentions will be listed under your local business listing. The more mentions in respectable places (spam sites won't count for much!) your business receives, the better your ranking will likely be.

Where are these places you might ask? Carrie Hill at SearchEngineLand.com has a great article on them and so I direct you to her article at http://searchengineland.com/secret-sauce-leverage-outside-listings-to-help-local-rankings-41905 for more detail. A few of the places she mentioned include:

• Flickr Galleries
• Youtube Channel
• BOTW.org
• Review Sites
• Craigs List
• User Content

I hope this is helpful in your ascent up the rankings. If you have any questions about improving your website's ranking in search engines, please feel free to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What's a Call to Action button?

If there's one question I ask my Clients over and over again it would be this: what action do you need your visitors to take on your website in order for you to make money? These actions include:

• buying something
• signing up for a newsletter
• becoming a member
• making a donation
• and lots more.

How do visitors take those actions on your website? By clicking your Call to Action buttons - whether it be a "Buy Now" button or "Subscribe" button doesn't matter.

Several factors influence whether your visitors will act when you tell them to. These factors include your sales copy, the target audience, the nature and quality of your offer, visitors' perceptions of the economy and how clickable your Call to Action buttons are. A very simple way you can boost conversion (percentage of your visitors that take action) on your website is to make sure you're large, colorful, contrasting buttons.

What makes a good button you ask?

Here's a few features of a good button:

• Color: should be bright and contrasting. For example, on an orange website you could use green buttons - avoid buttons in colors adjacent to orange on the color wheel like yellow or red.
• Location: visitors shouldn't need to scroll to find your Buy Now button. You need to make it easy for your visitors. Put the button in an obvious location on your page.
• Language: use action verbs like Buy Now, Signup, Download, Subscribe, etc. In the book Call to Action by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, they also mention the need to reduce friction and increase urgency. For example, if a visitor is considered about privacy then telling that visitor you won't share their contact information can reduce friction. Similarly, reminding visitors near a Buy Now button that you have an amazing moneyback guarantee policy can reduce friction too. Limited time offers are a great way to increase urgency.
• Size does matter: the larger the button, the easier it is to see and click. You want your visitors to click it right?
• Margins: don't crowd the most important graphic on your website. Give your Call to Action button some room, and let it do its job.

Call to action button showcase

Check out some great buttons at leemunroe.com. Scroll down to the "Showcase of good examples of Call to Action buttons".

Once your website is optimized for your keywords, getting links from relevant, high-ranking, quality websites is the next step in dominating search results.

Why's that you may ask? Because the more websites that link to your website, the more credible search engines assume your website must be. Of course, the websites that link to your website have to themselves be credible!

I was watching the clip below over at Web Marketing Today. In it, Aaron Wall from SEO Book (an excellent resources website containing lots of useful SEO tools) explains seven ways you can get people to link to your website.

Here's the seven ways he mentioned in the clip:

1. Offer discounts or coupons as benefits to non-profits.
2. Write original, useful content in a blog on your domain.
3. Redirect affiliate links using 301 redirects.
4. Have a contest where people vote on something they're passionate about.
5. Use offline networking opportunities.
6. Write guest columns or articles.
7. Attract journalists who may cite you on a topic.

If you've done a search on Google for a particular service in Toronto, you may have "Local Business Results" at the top of the search results:

Wouldn't it be nice if your business was listed on here to? (for the appropriate search of course)

Not only is getting your business listed on Google's Local Business Center free, but the "Local Business Results" appear above the normal search listing! There is one slight potential drawback: the map centers in the center of a city. Businesses located on the edges of a city may get reduced exposure.

Sound good? Simply follow the steps below to list your business:

Step 1: Go to Google's Local Business Center website and login or create an account as necessary. After you're logged in, click the button labeled “Add New Business”.

Note: if you don't see the “Add new business” button, click the link “Add new listing”. You'll see "Add new listing" rather than "Add new business" if you've already created a Google Local Business Center account in the past with your email address.

Step 2: Enter your business's basic information.

You'll notice once you've added your address the map on the right will zoom to your location. Click next when you're ready to proceed.

Step 3 (Optional): If your listing already exists, you may see the screen listed below. Click “Claim Listing”. This will allow you to change the listing details.

You may now edit your listing information or suspend the listing.

Step 4: Enter detailed information about your business including your businesses category, services or products offered (using either the Categories or Additional Details areas), hours of operation, accepted payment methods, your logo under the Photos section and more. You may also associate a video with your listing if you've uploaded a video about your business to Youtube.

Step 5:After submitting your business information, Google will now ask you to verify your listing. You have three options:

• phone
• sms
• mail (snail mail)

I find the phone option to be the easiest and most convenient.

Step 6: Using the phone option, Google will call you using an automated message service. You have the option of being called now or in five minutes. Click whatever option suits you. Google will then display a PIN (personal identification number) on screen. You will be asked to enter that PIN on your phone's touchtone pad when Google calls. If you selected “Call Me Now”, you may expect to be called very promptly – usually within 10 seconds. Answer the phone, push 1 and then enter your PIN followed by the pound sign (#).

Step 7: Congratulations! Upon successful completion of the call, your business should be listed on Google Maps within 1 business day.