How to engage customers with surveys

One of my favorite SEO gurus regularly encourages that we fish where the fish are, but how do you find the most fruitful hangout? You don’t need maps or hunting secrets – start by getting to know your current customers. After ad tracking shows how the client got to you and closing the sale tells you what the client needs, you’ve got to engage your customer.
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Email Marketing 101

In last week's blog post, Nikki talked about the importance of targeting your web traffic and measuring it with analytics and call tracking. Targeting traffic can be a time consuming and expensive endeavor, though, and not all SMBs find it within their reach. So, if you don't have the time to invest in organic optimization and/or the money to invest in PPC clicks, what can you do to drive higher levels of quality traffic to your website? Read more »

3 Key Steps to Promoting Your Company Online

So you have a website... now what? Many of our customers are small businesses just getting into the marketing game. Whether you are a seasoned professional or newbie, here are few tips to serve as a reminder or help you get started.

1. Target Your Buyers - The web is a vast expanse of information. The spray and pray approach will drive traffic to your site, but not the kind that converts into customers at a rate that is worth the effort. Know who your customers are, target where they hang out on the web. (FYI - It's not Facebook. Yes your customers hang out there, but so does everyone else. This is not where you should start.) The best way to target high intent (looking to buy) web surfers is through search engine marketing. Spend time defining and refining your keyword strategy and then spend some money on those keywords to drive buyers to your site.
2. Optimize Your Site - Now that you have defined your keywords you are willing to pay for, you should optimize your website for these keywords so that you start to rank for them organically. Not only should you invest in optimizing your site for search engine ranking, but you should optimize it to drive conversions as well. Can customers purchase online? Is your pricing clear? In this day and age, consumers are shopping online. They prefer to do research and make purchases online. Make it easy for them and they will buy!
3. Measure Your Results - I am as guilty of this as anyone. I get so caught up in the "doing" it is hard to find time to circle back and review the results. Must-haves when tracking marketing efforts: 

• Website analytics to gauge where visitors are coming from, what they are buying, what content they are interacting with the most, where they exit your site, etc. This information is invaluable when optimizing your site for conversions.
• Call tracking to tell you where customers are learning about your company. Customers either call or click when they want to learn more. Seeing where they come from when they click is covered above, but if they pick up the phone it's a mystery. Using unique phone numbers in your advertising can help tighten up the way you gauge response rates and calculate Return On Investment.

Happy marketing!

Lesser-Known Features That Drive BIG Value

Pricing is always a tricky subject, but we do our best to be very competitive with our pricing. We also develop many of our features around customers' requests. These lesser-known, FREE features drive a ton of value and help streamline your communications. 
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Does my e-business really need a phone number?

I'm addicted to online shopping. My e-wallet gets a major workout since I'm trying to plan a wedding on a budget. I know I'm not the first person to discover that e-commerce provides significant savings to consumers (and brides) looking for a bargain. I really struggle when I feel like I don't have a connection to a business or a product though and it can be frustrating to  have no way to test a product before I buy.

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