Archives for May 2018

LinkedIn has many marketing tools that can be used to grow your business. Using these tools to raise awareness for your business, its credibility, and its impact will put you on the path to building your brand in an organic way. Here is a brief guide on some of these tools and how they work.

LinkedIn Company Page

Catch the eye of your prospective customers with a Company Page. It should be a place where you can engage your target audience with things relevant to them such as links to your best white papers, e-books, case studies, how-to content and thought leadership content. Your Company Page should spread your company’s overall message by publishing content you know your target audience will want to see.

Showcase Pages

You love your business and think of many different parts of it as equally important in their own ways, but does your audience know that? Showcase pages are for creating a distinct platform for each aspect of your business that has its own message to share with its own target audience. By giving each part of your business its own distinct voice, you can extend your LinkedIn presence to reach the audience it needs to reach.

Long-form Posts

Should you go long on LinkedIn? The answer is yes! Publishing long-form content can position you as an expert and thought leader on the subject, giving your business credibility and authenticity. Another benefit to writing your own posts is giving a chance for like-minded professionals to interact and contribute while simultaneously spreading your message. If your post becomes a hot topic of discussion it will be a trending topic where it can be distributed and recommended to a much broader audience, giving you even further reach than before!

These tools and more are part of a larger LinkedIn toolbox that can help your business grow in an impactful way. Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more about how to use them!

Johnny Murray
ICU Marketing Associates

Do you recognize any of the following signs?

1. You’re not visible on search engines and if you are visible, no one clicks to visit your website.
2. If visitors do click through and visit your website, they leave almost immediately.
3. You’re getting clicks, and website visitors aren’t leaving your website, but they’re not buying anything!

Sound Familiar? I’m sure you’re asking, “What can I do?”

We can show you how. It’s all about understanding who your real customers are, their search behaviors, and the digital channels they use – and having the right product.

Luckily for us, Internet Marketing allows your potential customer to be matched with your
service to ensure that your product is the perfect one for them!

Here are additional tips:

1. Make sure you are doing SEO. This includes optimizing the titles and description of every page and optimizing your content to match the intent and context of the search.

2. It’s not just about getting potential customers to visit your website. You want them to become engaged with your content.

3. Your written content (the actual words/explanation/description of the product or service) is engaging, interesting. Relevant content will build trust and increase the probability of a visitor becoming a buyer.

So, know your audience, decide on your strategy and use the correct tactics. If you are unsure, seek advice. Shoot me us an email at johnny@johnnymurray.com.

Bounce Rate is a way to measure the success of your website. The ‘rate’ is the percentage of visitors who come to your site and then immediately leave (‘bounce’) instead of sticking around to view other pages.

Imagine having a storefront and measuring the number of people who come in, take one quick look around and immediately leave, versus the people who come in to browse for a bit and eventually end up buying something.

Your website’s bounce rate is a window into the effectiveness of your storefront to retain potential customers. Google Analytics is a great tool for seeing how many visitors have been to your website in the last 30 days, which pages they visited the most, and how long they spent on those pages.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you use Bounce Rates to improve your website and by extension, your business.

High Bounce Rate can highlight areas in need of improvement

You may notice that some pages have higher bounce rate than others, some with extremely high bounce rates that indicate little to no retention of traffic there. Use this as an opportunity to work on that page, and attract more visitors! Whether it be by updating it, improving the content, or perhaps assessing whether that page is really necessary.

A Low Bounce Rate means a quality entry page

Landing sites/entry pages are essential to maintaining a low bounce rate. They are your storefront – what draws the customers in! A low bounce rate on your entry page means that it is doing a good job of getting visitors to venture deeper into your site, getting them to view other pages and learn more about your business. Maintaining a quality entry page with relevant information, links to other pages, and pleasant aesthetics is key to making sure you are retaining visitors for as long as possible.

Bounce Rate should be relevant to your business’ objective

A high bounce rate on a particular page doesn’t always mean bad performance. Think about what pages on your site you want visitors to pay attention to the most. The goals of your business’ website should be in line with which pages you want to optimize for the lowest bounce rates.

Have more questions about how to use Bounce Rates to improve your website? Visit us at http://icumarketplace.com or drop us an inquiry at johnny@johnnymurray.com.

https://icumarketplace.com/1188-2/

Online reviews are crucial to managing your reputation, gaining trust and building confidence. Trust is a key element to gaining and maintaining customers.

Do you remember asking for a friend’s opinion about a product before deciding to buy? Didn’t you become more excited after hearing encouraging feedback?

That’s exactly how online reviews work.

Let’s take a look at these statistics from BrightLocal:

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for a business if they’re asked to
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 54% of people will visit the website after reading positive reviews
• 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

Your potential customers are now checking what others say about your products or services before buying!

So you need to always provide a good experience, earn those positive reviews, get them published, and see more repeat and new sales coming to your business.

There are additional benefits to getting positive reviews and 5-star ratings:

Improved Organic and Local Rankings
Google gives priority to businesses with stellar reviews on rankings.

Increased Click-through Rate
Consumers will most likely click on a business with impressive reviews in the search results.

Create Consumer Loyalty
Your customers who take the time to leave a 5-star rating are far more likely to feel a certain bond with your business.

Let your Customers Do Your Marketing for You
Even just a handful of positive online business reviews are worth a great deal and can attract new customers to our business.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more about boosting your revenue with reviews.

LinkedIn has many marketing tools that can be used to grow your business. Using these tools to raise awareness for your business, its credibility, and its impact will put you on the path to building your brand in an organic way. Here is a brief guide on some of these tools and how they work.

LinkedIn Company Page

Catch the eye of your prospective customers with a Company Page. It should be a place where you can engage your target audience with things relevant to them such as links to your best white papers, e-books, case studies, how-to content and thought leadership content. Your Company Page should spread your company’s overall message by publishing content you know your target audience will want to see.

Showcase Pages

You love your business and think of many different parts of it as equally important in their own ways, but does your audience know that? Showcase pages are for creating a distinct platform for each aspect of your business that has its own message to share with its own target audience. By giving each part of your business its own distinct voice, you can extend your LinkedIn presence to reach the audience it needs to reach.

Long-form Posts

Should you go long on LinkedIn? The answer is yes! Publishing long-form content can position you as an expert and thought leader on the subject, giving your business credibility and authenticity. Another benefit to writing your own posts is giving a chance for like-minded professionals to interact and contribute while simultaneously spreading your message. If your post becomes a hot topic of discussion it will be a trending topic where it can be distributed and recommended to a much broader audience, giving you even further reach than before!

These tools and more are part of a larger LinkedIn toolbox that can help your business grow in an impactful way. Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more about how to use them!

Johnny Murray
ICU Marketing Associates

You do your best to give your customers great service, but does everyone else know that? Keeping up your business’ good reputation online is just as important as its credibility offline.

Here’s some things you can do to make sure the first thing customers see when they look up your business is a business worth visiting:

Make sure your business is listed – Whether it be on niche review sites like Angie’s List, CitySearch, or MerchantCircle, make sure your business is listed on easily accessible and popular review sites to make sure that your satisfied customers have a place to leave great reviews. Don’t miss out on a 5-star review just because your business wasn’t listed!

Ask for positive reviews – If you know you have satisfied customers on your hands point them to ways they can express that satisfaction. So earn those stars and raving reviews. Collect them and make sure that they’re published!

Google your business regularly – Do a regular google search of your business to get a sense of what customers see when they look you up. Do positive reviews show up first? Or does that one bad review from years ago dominate the results? Make sure to regularly keep up with your online reputation so you can quickly and effectively address any reviews that could potentially hurt your business.

Want to learn more about how to maintain your positive online reputation? Contact us.

It might surprise you to know that a lot of business owners don’t optimize their websites.

And when we talk about optimization, we are not just talking about the speed of your website, although that is a big factor when it comes to the impatience of today’s web surfer.

In fact, everything on websites and landing pages can be optimized and refined so that they will increase conversions.

Speed should be the first thing that you look at, although it is probably the easiest thing to fix if there is a problem. You’ve got 3-6 seconds before a user will think there is something wrong with the page, or maybe that the page is down. You probably understand this if you are looking for something and have landed on a slow loading page before.

The next thing to take into consideration with speed is the headline or the first thing that a visitor sees when they hit the website or landing page. Another 0-8 seconds and if you don’t have the right headline, that potential customer is gone and searching somewhere else. Split testing headlines should be on top of your list.

You should always be testing, and if you find a winner, you don’t stop there. Website owners that get twice the sales are always optimizing headlines and copy.

Other things that you can do is take a look at your copy or your sales pitch. Customizing your sales pitch can increase conversions because it gives your visitor a more personalized experience. Make sure you are offering unique value to that potential customer. Offer something of value right up front, don’t waste the visitors time. Time is valuable and many people have a shortage of time and don’t want to waste time looking for what they need.

Offering something for free is another way to optimize for conversions, especially if you are getting their email in the process. There is almost no better way to get someone interested in what they are looking for than to offer them part of the solution for free, and then ask them what email you can send their free information to. Make that offer limited so they realize it’s not going to be around forever.

Optimization could also include features such as live chat. Live chat is great because if a customer doesn’t see something, and they see a chat box, they are more likely to try and ask about what they are looking for using a chat feature.

Exit overlays should be your last ditch effort to get the customers attention. Again, by telling a potential customer something like ‘Wait, don’t leave empty-handed, let us give you ‘insert product name’ for free just for visiting. You would be surprised how many conversions this will likely bring you.

This is just a small sample of some of the things you can do to optimize your website and landing pages for increased conversions.

If you would like to learn how to increase conversions for your website or landing pages, contact me at
johnny@johnnymurray.com

Online reviews are crucial to managing your reputation, gaining trust and building confidence. Trust is a key element to gaining and maintaining customers.

Do you remember asking for a friend’s opinion about a product before deciding to buy? Didn’t you become more excited after hearing encouraging feedback?

That’s exactly how online reviews work.

Let’s take a look at these statistics from BrightLocal:

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for a business if they’re asked to
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 54% of people will visit the website after reading positive reviews
• 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

Your potential customers are now checking what others say about your products or services before buying!

So you need to always provide a good experience, earn those positive reviews, get them published, and see more repeat and new sales coming to your business.

There are additional benefits to getting positive reviews and 5-star ratings:

Improved Organic and Local Rankings
Google gives priority to businesses with stellar reviews on rankings.

Increased Click-through Rate
Consumers will most likely click on a business with impressive reviews in the search results.

Create Consumer Loyalty
Your customers who take the time to leave a 5-star rating are far more likely to feel a certain bond with your business.

Let your Customers Do Your Marketing for You
Even just a handful of positive online business reviews are worth a great deal and can attract new customers to our business.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more about boosting your revenue with reviews.

Make your business visible online, and you will get a larger share of customers.

Operating a small and local business doesn’t mean you cannot increase your customers and scale.

Get a Website. Don’t you have a website yet? Where have you been all this time? From plumbers to dentists, the local handyman to big engineering firms – they have websites. Your website will be your 24/7 storefront.

Make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. You are increasingly using your mobile phone when searching for a product or service, right?

Get some Traffic with SEO. Many of your potential customers probably do not know that your business exists. However, when they go to Google searching for a product or service they need, which you offer, and finds you because you’re doing SEO — then bingo!

Make sure that your SEO is well-planned with a comprehensive blueprint to ensure ROI.

Get on Social Media. Many more of your potential customers may find you in social media. When a recent customer following you in social media likes or shares an article, a photo, or a video you posted, then that post will be visible to their friends – who might as well try out your product or service.

Become active on at least 4 social media channels. Your potential customers are actively using more than one.

Capture and Nurture. Capture your leads through an opt-in form on your website and nurture them through email marketing.

Be on top of mind all the time to your potential customers by constantly communicating with them through email. Once they need something you offer, boom, you got a customer.

There you have it. 4 simple steps.

Follow me, and we’ll guide you along the way. Contact Johnny Murray at johnny@johnnymurray.com.

If your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign isn’t going as well as you’d hoped for, you may not have the right SEO service provider for your business.

Choosing an SEO provider should be done carefully to ensure the long-term success of your campaign, website, and business. It’s important to find a provider that not only has a strategy but who utilizes a strategy that is specific to the needs and goals of your business rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

The SEO industry is constantly changing. What works today may not work six months from now. Finding a provider who customizes their services for your business will ensure that you won’t get left behind.

Here are 3 key things that the best SEO providers do for the businesses they serve.

1. Top providers perform SEO audits. SEO audits document baseline performance and analyze the impact and quality of previous work to ensure continued success.

2. Good providers provide SEO blueprints. SEO Blueprints lay out a comprehensive plan designed specifically for your business. They establish benchmarks and goals, integrate a budget, provide SEO strategy recommendations, and provide a backup plan in case things don’t go as well as they should.

3. The best providers maintain ongoing SEO monitoring and consultation. Providing ongoing monitoring and consultation ensures that your campaign is performing successfully and that you are seeing the desired results.

Here at ICU Marketing Associates, we do all three. Contact us to learn more, or leave a comment or questions below. Our experts are here to help you!