KKom, Inc.

Serving Milwaukee's Web Marketing, Design, SEO, Social Media, Direct Mail and Color Printing needs for over 22 years

Content Strategy

How To Avoid Local SEO Problems Part 2: Your Website

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Let’s pick up where we left off in our last blog post How to Avoid Local SEO Problems Part 1: Business Plan and Location. Now we’ll move on to the big kahuna: the all-important website.

Whether you have one already, just started one recently, or are thinking about it now, here are some things to either fix or completely avoid, so you know you’re doing everything you can to ensure a good rank on search engines and that the right people will find you when they need you and your products or services!

Picking Your URL

This is an important step in your digital success. Pick the wrong thing, and it can limit your future unborn business ideas, or cause people to type it wrong and get lost or worse, find a competitor.

Just like with your business name, you wouldn’t want to choose a URL that limits you to either your local area, or one specific service. Now you can get creative and buy these types of URLs and forward them to your main site, but of course this will cost you a little bit for each one you want.

As well, “.com” is still the most recognized type of domain, so be careful if you choose something else like .us or .random. Choose the .com if at all possible. You can however buy the others as a safeguard, to ensure competitors don’t buy them and forward them to their own websites!

Multiple Websites

Some businesses with a few locations opt for having a separate website for each location. At first glance, this might seem like a good strategy for ranking in each local area. However, there are some downsides to this to consider:

  • Marketing budget spread too thin instead of focused on building one brand
  • Not enough content on each site and/or duplicate content (same or similar text on each site)
  • Confusion for Google rankings if the same name, address, or phone number appear on more than one website

Content Strategy

People are looking for local experts for whatever they’re looking to buy. They want to buy from the best source they can. So show off your expertise on your website. Share the knowledge you’ve accumulated over the last 10 or 20 years that would be relevant and helpful for your visitors. At the very minimum fill out a Home, About, Contact, Testimonials, and then a page for each main service or product you sell.

Website Contact Info

Do not leave potential customers without your contact info (or how to order products) within easy reach no matter where they are on your website. This means putting this info in the header or footer so it is automatically on every page. Make sure phone numbers are click-to-call enabled for mobile devices, and include a map and driving directions on your contact page  if you have a storefront.

Calls to Action (CTAs)

Any main page on your website without a call to action, means people will not have anything to do after they’re done browsing. People want to know what to do next, and without direction, they will leave. Tell them outright to fill out a form, call you, go to your event, buy your product, etc.

Avoid these problems and put systems in place that remind you of the best way to do things, to ensure your local business is ranking on Google where you want it to be.

B2B Branding: Developing a Brand Strategy

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As consumers, we have our own experiences with different brands…McDonald’s…Green Bay Packers…Toyota. The mention of a name, the smell of a french fry, the last game that caused a team not to go to the super bowl… all of these things bring thoughts to our minds – positive, negative, maybe a little of both, hunger, guilt…maybe no feelings at all, depending on how that brand’s target market matches up with your interests.

Be the Best In a Niche

Be the best at something. You will likely never be the best at everything, and if you want to offer many services or products, feel free, but focus a little more effort on something you know you can be the best at, with the mindset to be the best in the world while you’re at it. That product or service’s reputation will bring your company forward as a whole, based on the Halo Effect discovered by psychologist Edward Thorndike.

“Whilst the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one big thing” – Good to Great by Jim Collins. In an ancient Greek parable discussed in this book, the fox tries a different strategy each day to capture the hedgehog, but the hedgehog always does what he does best – defends himself perfectly.

Dividing your marketing budget across too many services and too many audiences will provide your company little to no progress in any direction at all, and this is unfortunately the path many failing businesses choose. No brand wants to be known as a “jack of all trades but a master of none” right? So first focus on where you know you have strength, build up that area’s visibility and reputation, then leverage that power later on to expand into more industries and relevant target audiences.

 

B2B Branding Strategies (also relevant to B2C)

Don’t just use social media. DOMINATE.

We’re aware of how important social media is for businesses today, but anyone and everyone builds a profile and posts once in awhile. The key, while it’s still in its early stages, is to become known as a leader in this space. Start a social media strategy and build on it as you go. See what your competitors and related businesses are posting, and what their audiences respond to; follow their followers, see what their lives are like. Social media and content go hand in hand….

Build a content strategy

Content is king, so it’s also fantastic to build out a content strategy, and share your epic content on social media. Everything ties together quite nicely if you do it right! Providing education or extra value to current and potential clients gives your business great bonus and trust points. Don’t forget to make sure you’re tracing out your company’s core values and brand message through all of this content consistently.

Hand-pick and land a few clients you’d be proud to have

A reputation can be built single-handedly by one or two really great clients or dramatic case studies. Of course, everyone wants these clients, but not many people plan on it ever happening (thus, it never does… don’t be like them! Have a few dream clients you really plan to get, sooner rather than later).

Develop a few industry experts that people know about

Similarly to a university with a Nobel Prize winning professor, having a known expert working for your company can do wonders for your reputation, like the Halo Effect mentioned earlier. Develop one or two employees who are motivated by this idea (and would like to be experts) and your brand will reap the rewards.

Do great projects with strategically chosen partners

This is not sponsorship. This is more than that, like conducting research with a university, or starting a new education program. These things should stay relevant to your goals, while providing value to others and showing your knowledge dominance in your industry.

If you’re looking for some professional services marketing, K-Kom has a vast portfolio of B2B marketing strategies and experience, so when you’re ready to take your business to the next level, we’ll be ready to become part of your team.