Who cares if you list #1 in Google China, unless a Chinese traveler is visiting or does business in your geographic area.

Active Technologies has developed effective tools and techniques for driving targeted local traffic to your website or into your store.

Example 1:	Charleston has one of the finest music stores and they are only interested in local traffic. Their website and Search Engine Optimization successfully focuses on local musicians, new move-ins, students, and tourists.
Example 2:	A North-East Georgia Janitorial company services 4 Georgia and 2 South Carolina Counties. Their website and Search Engine Optimization targets businesses moving into their geographic area and companies that wish to change services.
Example 3:	A local office machine repair company in interested in any prospect that can be reached by service truck in 30 minutes.
Fact:	If your field of business is highly competitive, filled with giant global players, favorable organic global search engine ranking may be impossible and pay-per-click can prove extremely expensive.

 

By: (Scott Martin @ Kudzu) Having a website that is optimized for conversions is one of the most important factors for any B2B business hoping to attract customers online. Fortunately, you can improve your conversion rates with just a few simple steps. Here are five proven techniques you can implement today to improve your conversion rate.

1. Include a lead generation form on every page

With the continuing rise of email and other written forms of digital communications, many site visitors are more comfortable filling out a contact form than they are picking up the phone. This creates a win-win situation: you get contact information you can use to keep in touch with the visitor and they get more information about your company.

But remember, just because visitors are ready to learn more about your company doesn’t mean they are ready to share their life story. Keep your forms short. Name, phone number and email are typically all the information you should ask for. This is more than enough information for you to start a conversation with the visitor and to capture them as a lead.

2. Use as many calls to action (CTAs) as possible

Your site needs to actively invite visitors to participate. Don’t just list your phone number on the site, prompt the visitor on what action you want them to take.  For example, putting the words “call now” just before your phone number will increase the phone calls you receive from your website.

Be creative when thinking about your CTAs and how you want customers and prospective customers to interact with you.  Making your CTA more engaging and inviting will increase the effectiveness of your website.

Once you have varied CTAs on all the pages of the site, you’ll begin to see which are boasting high conversion rates and which are struggling. You can then experiment with changing the CTAs on specific pages to increase your conversion rates. For example, if one of your landing pages is performing very well and attracting tons of visitors but isn’t producing high conversion rates, switch your CTA with one that you know to be converting well.

3. Your telephone number is still the most important piece of information on your site

Despite the rise in written digital communication, the phone is still the fastest and most direct contact method. Be sure to include your phone number on every page of your website, and make sure it is easy to find. Including it both above and below the fold (the bottom of the screen when the page is scrolled all the way to the top) on every site page ensures visitors will see it. This also presents a great opportunity to include a CTA in the middle of your page.  With the rise in mobile use (i.e. smartphones and tablets), make sure your phone number is clickable (click to call) so the ease of making that phone call is fully optimized.

4. Make a video

Video is quickly becoming an integral part of digital marketing, and can be a great addition to a website that is optimized for conversions. The appeal is easy to see (literally): you can present your product or service more completely in a 30 second to two-minute video than you can in hundreds or thousands of words of copy.

Experiment with where video works best on your site, but the best place often is on your homepage above the fold. This captures attention immediately and can push interested customers to explore your site more.

5. Devote a dedicated page to each product or service you offer

Adding a dedicated page for each of your products or services has a couple of advantages. For one, you can use each page as a landing spot for a different organic search term, which can increase the overall amount of visitors to your site. Additionally, an in-depth page devoted to a single product or service will provide a place for future customers to delve into the specifics of your offerings.

Each page should include an explanation of the product or service, and it is a good idea to include a special offer related specifically to the product. Including a speed statement is also a great way to grab attention. This can include statements like “24/7 emergency service,” “same day service” and other similar copy. Finally, a statement about why you outshine and are different from your competition is a great way to give visitors that extra push to contact you.

While there are many ways to ensure your website is optimized for conversions, following these five tips will have you well on your way to a great website that brings the leads to you. Find out even more digital marketing tips at Kudzu’s Digital Solutions.

Organic Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of crafting or improving a website to increase search engine ranking, resulting in higher volumes of traffic to a web site. The assumption if that the higher a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. So effective SEO improves ranking for specific target audiences.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search engine algorithms work and what people search for when they want something. SEO efforts may involve website coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine programs from fully indexing your website. Other more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site.

To be affective, however, one must remember that if people don't see what they want and can easily take appropriate action, they will quickly move on to another site, leaving yours "in the dust" So websites must appeal both to search engine indexes and your web surfing audience. This requires a good Plan, Design, Implementation, Promotion, and Maintenance.

Pay per click (PPC) is paid advertising used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines where advertisers pay when a web surfer actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website. PPC works like an auction. Web advertisers bid on keywords that they believe their target market would type into the search bar when they are looking for products or services. When a user types a keyword query matching the advertiser's keyword list, the advertiser's ad may appear on the search results page. These ads are called "sponsored links" or "sponsored ads" and appear next to, and sometimes, above the natural or organic results on the page. The advertiser pays each time a user clicks on the ad.

Pay per click ads may also appear on content network websites. In this case, ad networks such as Google, Adsense, and Yahoo! Publisher Network, attempts to provide ads that are relevant to the content of the page where they appear, and no search function is involved.

Minimum PPC start at US $0.01 - US $0.50). However, bidding for popular keywords can cost much much more!

It is strongly recommended that websites utilize Organic SEO whether or not they play PPC for these reasons:

1. SEO appeals to a broad range of search engines whilst PPC is search engine specific.

2. If PPC crosses your bid threshold, SEO will insure a higher ranking in the search engines.

3. If you stop playing PPC, your website may still enjoy a high rank.