Archives for December 2019

SEO is the process of improving the visibility (ranking) of a website on Google using Google-friendly elements and techniques.

Consider these facts:

1. Ninety-nine percent of customers looking for your services never scroll past the first page of search results. That means your business goal should be to appear on page one of the search results. That’s the aim of SEO.

2. Click-throughs to your business following natural searches (SEO) have a 14.6% buy rate vs. direct mail or print advertising which have a 1.7% close rate. You may wish to consider switching your spending!

3. Ninety-one percent of internet users who are looking for services to buy use natural search results. SEO!

4. Seventy-two percent of customers who did a local search for a business visited a store within 5 miles of their home. Do local customers see your business when they are looking for your service?

5. By the way… Google accounts for over 76% of all worldwide searches. So you have to be seen on Google!

Here’s more:

6. 58% of customers search for local businesses every day.

7. 89% search for local business at least once a week or more. Is your business address appearing in front of your local customers?

8. 86% of local customers look up a local business on Google maps. Are you listed there?

9. 76% of local searches result in a phone call.

10. A massive 72% of customers who did a local search for a business visited a store within 5 miles of their home.

If you are not using SEO and would like to learn more… feel free to contact us: johnny@johnnymurray.com.

Your website is a vital piece of your business, and we want you to have the most traffic possible going through it every day. That is why we put together these “Must-Haves” that you need to be checking on a regular basis in order to ensure you are gaining the most customers possible.

While working through this list we suggest pulling your website up next to this window so that you can properly analyze your site.

First, we will take a look at whether or not the website is correctly designed

Your website…

Must be user-friendly
Must set a clear path for customers to make a purchase
Must have trust signals
Name of the Business Owner
Address, Phone
Must have security
Use HTTPS or Secure Sockets Layer
Must have customer support contact information

Now let’s take a look at the answers that the customer is looking for when they get to your website. No matter what point the customer is in the buying process, they are going to have questions and concerns.

You need to have the answers to these questions readily available to them or they will quickly move on to another site that does.

Why should they buy from you?
What benefits your product/service will give to them?
What Features does it offer?
What are the technical details and specifications?
Where are the guides and tutorials?
Do you have any testimonials from real customers?

These are all things that you need to have on your website to ensure the steady flow of customers coming through your site. Even addressing one or two issues that you noticed while reviewing this list can have a major impact on the number of customers you see moving through your website.

If you need help redesigning your site, or creating a new one contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com

Is a low website conversion rate getting in the way of your business’s success? Here are 15 of our tips to optimize your conversion rate:

1. Find your value proposition. What is it that makes you different from your competitors? Why are you the best choice? Whatever it is, make it central.

2. Have a clear headline. Your headline is the first thing your customers will see on your landing page. Make sure it’s easy to understand and gets your point across.

3. Feature your phone number prominently. Make it easy to find and use a big font to let them know you are accessible.

4. Add a video. A 2-3 min video that explains benefits and features or shows your product in action will capture the attention of your site visitors.

5. Get rid of those cheesy stock photos. Stock photos may be high quality, but they look fake, damaging your credibility.

6. Reduce required form fields. Don’t make your customers put in any more information than the bare minimum of what you need to know. The less work they have to do, the more likely they are to do it.

7. Put your Call-to-Action (CTA) above the fold. Your site visitors should be able to see it without scrolling down.

8. Use a CTA button instead of a link. Text links can be hard to spot. Using a button makes your CTA stand out.

9. Use a contrasting color for your CTA button. Make your CTA button even more visible by choosing a color that contrasts with the rest of your website’s color scheme.

10. Utilize your CTA button’s text. Instead of a plain old “submit,” use your button text to tell your visitors what to expect after they click that button with text like “get started!”

11. Create urgency. Limited-time incentives give your customers a reason to take action now.

12. Display “real” testimonials. Show that your testimonials aren’t fake by using full names and pictures.

13. Display your award badges. Show off any honors you’ve gotten to add wow factor.

14. Add trust badges. Boast about the great reviews you’ve gotten on sites like Yelp, Facebook, or the Better Business Bureau.

15. Add a live chat feature. Live chat support adds value.

We understand that business owners like you are pressed for time. We’re here to help! Contact us today.

A Harvard Business Review Survey found that only 36% of organizations use some advanced tools and practices, but they are mostly underutilized or disconnected.

And that only 15% of companies use advanced marketing tools, analytics, and practices widely for more effective marketing and sales efforts.

Are you in the 15%, or are you having trouble integrating advanced marketing tools and practices to your business?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, at what extent do you use advanced tools to maximize your marketing?

Let us know. Shoot us an email 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.

Anyone in the marketing game can tell you that online ads can boost your business’ visibility. But if you’re new to online advertising, you might be wondering, which platform is right for you and your business? And, where should you start?

One strategy is to start with the heavy hitters. Google AdWords is the top dog in search advertising with 79.79% of the global desktop search engine market share, according to Net Market Share.

Another powerful option is social media advertising. Based on recent lead generation and conversion studies on social media advertising, Facebook is best if your business is B2C: business to end-consumers. As a bonus, there are over 2 billion monthly active Facebook users worldwide, so the odds of finding new customers through targeted ad campaigns are very good.

For the business to business type (B2B), LinkedIn is your best bet. As you may already know as a LinkedIn user, this platform has 500 million users across 200 countries, according to Fortune.

If you’ve already explored these options, don’t worry! There are many more to choose from, each with their own strengths. In addition to Facebook and LinkedIn, social media marketing options (which get your business in front of their impressive user bases) include Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

Search advertising platforms get your business priority placements whenever someone makes a search. While Google AdWords is the leader in search advertising, Bing Ads is also a strong option. The widely used pricing model in search advertising is CPC (cost-per-click), where you only pay when your ad gets clicked.

The third main type of platform is display advertising. Google’s DoubleClick Media and Yahoo’s BrightRoll are two of many that fall into this category which provides ad placements across their networks of publishers.

There are many options and variables to consider. Feeling overwhelmed? We can help! Contact us today.

Your website is your online shop window. It is the first impression you are giving to your new visitor regarding the credibility of your business. If a customer cannot navigate your website to find what they are looking for, they will have no faith in buying from you. You should want it to provide a good experience for your customers. Does it function correctly? Is anything broken? Have you checked lately?

1. What is your site speed? How long does it take for your website to load? If it takes too long, you may have just lost multiple visitors. If it’s not as quick as your competitors, you have just made a bad first impression.

2. Does the content on your site accurately describe what you are selling? This is not only important for your site visitors; even before anyone else sees it, Google has to value your website to ‘rank’ your business site in the search results.

3. Does your site work properly on mobile devices? Have you checked? If not, you are losing a lot of potential customers interested in your services.

4. Are parts of your site broken? Obsolete? What effect are these broken bits having on the overall performance of your site?

Want to find out what else may be improved? Hit me up at johnny@johnnymurray.com.

Many businesses seem not to be taking advantage of online word-of-mouth marketing.

In fact, some businesses don’t understand how it can be leveraged so that they can take advantage of the huge rewards it brings.

One thing to remember when it comes to word-of-mouth is that friends and family will believe what they hear from each other over any other form of advertising. Word-of-Mouth has moved to the digital realm.

Online review sites exist for a few reasons, but one of the most popular reasons is that these reviews attract a lot of attention to businesses they are written for, and people love to read reviews.

They especially like to find reviews on a business they are thinking about doing business with. And some businesses have taken advantage of this situation like Zappos.com.

Zappos decided to do something different than other big companies and instead of spending tons of money on advertising, they invested that money into creating an exceptional customer experience by having the best customer service they could offer.

The result has been nothing short of amazing as Zappos is well known for providing the best in customer service. The reviews they get drive their bottom line because those happy customers leave reviews, and those reviews get read by other prospects. Not to mention that this form of promotion costs less to manage than other forms of advertising.

If you want to learn how to take advantage of Digital Word-of-Mouth marketing, then contact ICU Marketing Associates at johnny@johnnymurray.com and we will show you how to get started building your company reputation in 5 easy steps.