Go ahead and check it out and leave a comment if you are so inclined. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkSxn99uc4E

Thxs

I highly recommend this for all my friends and clients while the FREE offer remains.

Go ahead and take advantage of this limited time offer.

• New & Recurring Customers
• Search Engine Visibility

This is an IMPORTANT CONCEPT! Too often companies spend a significant amount of money on having a website built only to have it gather dust and disappear into the abyss.

There are two main reasons this occurs:

1. New competitors entering the internet. Dilution
2. The search engine (SE) placement of your website is based on the frequency of visits, among other factors. If your website doesn’t have a continual stream of new content, the search engines have no reason to visit.

A blog (a contraction of the term “web log“)[1] is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

A blog is a container for all types of different content separated into categories and tags. It allows a single piece of content to appear to a search engine multiple times. Hence, multiple instances indexed by the search engines.

Simply put, an article about a special for a new product sold in your local store can appear as:

• product + location (i.e., widgets roseville)
• product + special (discount widgets)
• product + manufacturer (manufacturer widget)
• product (widget)
• etc.

The point here is, one article (post) turns into 4 different search results.

This concept is the reason websites built like company brochures are DEAD. Blogging is a very powerful method to insure your website remains current and on top of the search engine results.

Some ideas for content for your website are:

• New products
• Safety tips
• Industry news
• Partner news
• Community events
• Completed projects
• Case studies
• Before and after’s
• Client testimonials
• Top 10 Questions (FAQ’s)
• A detailed explanation of a question
• How To Guides
• Helpful advice
• Daily Specials
• Customer of the Month
• Safety recalls
• etc.

The rest of this article will explain adding content to your WordPress enabled website. If you don’t have a WordPress or similar website, you might want to read my article “The WordPress Revolution for Small Business Owners.” Another great resource – How To Create Content For Your Website is FREE to download and provides 4 things you should know.

Static versus Dynamic Content

Most websites are a combination of static and dynamic information. Static information rarely changes. Examples of static content are: About Us, Contact Info, Services, and more. Dynamic information is constantly changing: specials, events, testimonials, projects, etc.

WordPress Pages & Posts

In WordPress, static content is handled in the Pages component. Pages are typically used in your website’s main navigation or tabs.

Dynamic information in WordPress is administered vial the Post interface. This is the blogging component of WordPress. Unlike pages, posts are displayed in the main navigation as a single tab. To navigate the blog, an additional navigation structure of categories is used.

Depending on your website’s setup, your blog tab can be named as Blog, Articles, News for a few. The navigation of your blog will typically be shown in the sidebar of your website and not in the main navigation.

“To add content to your website via the blog you will use Posts”

Key Elements of a Post

To be effective, a post must contain:

• your primary keywords (search term)
• location
• 2 – 3 paragraphs
• a picture
• multiple categories
• and, a Call To Action

Steps To Writing a Post

1. Create the Headline – The headline must include your keywords! It must be interesting. Must draw attention from your audience.Some examples…
   10 Things You Should Know About _________
   New __________ installed in __________ Home
   Incredible Savings On _____________
   _____________ Supports Our _____________ Community
   While Supplies Last __________, On Sale Now
2. Write a couple of paragraphs about your main topic, headline. Remember, short and sweet, 3-5 sentences per paragraph.
3. Finish the post with another paragraph summarizing the topic and include a CALL TO ACTION.

Pretty simple stuff!

I can’t emphasize enough, the most important part of anything you put on your website…

A CALL TO ACTION!

A call to action is what you would like your visitors to do next. This could be a:

• Call for an appointment
• Schedule an estimate
• Sign up for a newsletter
• Print a coupon
• refer your company, etc.

We have discussed the importance of having fresh content for your website, and the differences between static and dynamic content. In WordPress, Pages are static and Posts are the dynamic component to your website. Creating content to post should take no more than 15 minutes of your time. The rewards for your efforts will be increased search engine visibility and new traffic to your website.

How to post to your website is revealed in a quick video HomeBuildR.Net/Videos If you like what you have read, leave a comment below or share with your friends. Please don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. It’s free and a great resource.

Just added: Free Downloadable Guide – How To Create Content For Your Website

What is Social Media?

Social media essentially is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online. Most social media services encourage discussion, feedback, voting, comments, and sharing of information from all interested parties.

It’s more of a two-way conversation, rather than a one-way broadcast like traditional media. Another unique aspect of social media is the idea of staying connected or linked to other sites, resources, and people. – Ron Jones, SearchEngineWatch.com

Why do you care?

FaceBook is the internet’s number one most visited website, exceeding Google Search. It’s rapid growth is explosive. Started in 2004 in a dorm room at Harvard, it was a way for a group of college kids to interact. Today, FaceBook is the definition of how customers are interacting with companies. It’s real time, and social. Companies can no longer dismiss it as just another time suck! Yes, I did say that Let’s face it, we all want results without wasting our time. How would you like to grow your business like this?

FaceBook allows people to connect with friends and associates on a professional and personal level.
On a personal level, you create a profile for all to see for the purposes of:

• sharing with family and friends*
• with members of special interest groups
  (small business owners, religious, hobby, sports, political, etc.)

This information can be shared with a select group of friends or everyone who stumbles upon your profile.
On a professional level, FaceBook is used to promote your company. Through advertisements, company updates, photos of your work and ongoing conversations to your connected fans.** Most importantly, it’s a tool to drive visitors to your company’s website.

3 Major Componets of FaceBook

Personal Profile – Your FaceBook Account
Groups - Network of like minded individuals sharing a common interest
Pages – Your company’s profile.

Implementation

1. Setup a FaceBook account
   • Personal email and password
   • Add a photo of yourself
   • A brief bio
   • Add info about where you went to school, your work, hobbies, etc.
   • Do you want to share this information publically or privately?
   • Do you want to be updated via email, text messaging, or when you are online?
   • Send out invites to people in your address book.
2. Setup a FaceBook Page
   • Create a business profile complete with logos, photos, contact information, etc.
   • Invite all who will help you to spread the word about your company.
   • Invite customers and associates to interact with your company by offering special discounts, event invitations, cross promotions, etc.
     Cross promotions – is a non traditional approach to expanding your company’s reach. As an example, let’s say you have a favorite hair salon or barber you frequent. Tell your friends and colleagues about their wonderful service. In turn, they will do the same.
3. Connect with Groups
   • Join other groups, this can be both professional and personal.
Note: This is not necessary to get started.

Conclusion

It’s time to embrace social media as a means to gain credibility and authority for you and your business. With active participation, you will be able to promote your company and gain new customers. Additionally, you will be able to increase your sales to existing customers by offering additional products and services that they might be aware you offer. Lastly, you will be able to expand your network to industries and other companies who’s customers would benefit from your products and services.

WARNING: Don’t let this scare you, by thinking it will take time away from your busy schedule. There are tools available to integrate with your company’s website and cell phone to make this as painless and non-techie as possible.

FaceBook is a necessary ingredient to business survival. Having a business website will not get you customers without promotion.

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Download your FREE copy of 3 Components of FaceBook mind map (Adobe pdf).

Unlike the thousands of other website out there, this series of articles will give you a layman’s overview of traffic generating principals without getting too technical. Working with contractors, I try to encapsulate information regarding online marketing, simplifing it to easily understood discussions and checklists.

What are some of the sources for you website to gain new visitors?

By clicking on the image, it will open to a larger view that is easier to read. At the end of this brief article, you can download a copy in Adobe Acrobat’s pdf format.

In this example, the shaded area is what we are all used to when it comes to marketing our small businesses. If you continue to market your company with only these, you won’t be as successful. To survive in business today, one must embrace all of the tools in our online toolbox.

In the next article. Small Business Owner’s Overview of FaceBook, we will start introducing you to individual items shown in the chart above.  Real world examples and simple steps to increasing your online presence and gaining new customers.

Signup with your email to be updated when new articles are posted and a lot of FREE Tools. If you think other friends and associates will gain valuable insights on marketing, please let them know about us.

Download your copy of the Website Traffic blueprint. FREE – no signups required. (Requires Adobe Reader)

The combination of various factors attribute to your website’s decreased visibility.

• Fresh content
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Saturation

While these terms may seem “Greek” to most small business owners, once explained they are really quite simple to comprehend.

To understand, you must first have an idea of the basic concept of how customers find your company on the internet. One of these methods is called Direct Traffic. This is where one of your customers enters your website into the address bar of their browser.

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to related resources. Wikipedia
Common Browsers – Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, Blackberry

A second method of web site traffic is Referring Sites. A good example, is any internet Yellow Page site. A customer will search for your company and will be directed back to your website via a link.
And the third most common way is via the search engines, Organic. This method by far has the greatest potential for new clients. The 5 biggest search engines are (listed by percentage of users): Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, & AOL.

To rank highly on these sites, a website must be optimized. Optimization in a nutshell, is the process of catering your web pages’s information for it to be found vial the search terms commonly used by your audience (clients).
Books are written on just this topic alone. Let me give you a quick example. If you were selling “spark plugs”, a web page devoted to spark plugs would have to compete with all the major brands – Bosch, Champion, AC Delco, etc. That is only the beginning! Add to that, all of the major auto parts stores – Napa, Kraegen, Pep Boys, etc. The likelihood that your website will be on page one of the search engines is ZERO!
On the other hand, if you had a page that discussed the benefits of “Bosch BMW Spark Plugs” your chances of ranking increase. Taken one step further, what if you had a page listing all of your brands and wrote specifically about “Spark Plugs in Reno Nevada”? A number one page ranking for consumers looking to purchase a spark plug in Reno, NV would now be within reach. (This practice of targeting longer phrases to drive traffic is commonly referred to Longtail Marketing)

Search Engine Optimization allows your potential clients to find you.

Another factor that has been responsible for decreased traffic to your website is saturation. The percentage of your competitors with websites has been exponentially increasing. Added to this is the number of competitors who were once called associates. Many companies struggling to survive have added services and products that were once outsourced to companies like your own.

Critical Things You Must Do To Generate Traffic To Your Website

1. Provide Fresh Content - Every time you update your website, the search engines have a reason to come back and visit. With increased visits, you will have more pages from your website listed on the search engines. Quick question, how likely will your website be found if you are only listed once for a given search term? Versus, having 10 or more pages for an equivalent search?
   Contractors and other small businesses that work with a consistent flow of new clients have an easy means of adding multiple pages for a given search. This is accomplished by blogging or discussing a completed job in one or two paragraphs. You can read more about this tactic in the article WordPress Revolution for Small Business Owners.
   To emphasize my point, let’s just say you bought a brand new home. You move in and do nothing! The landscape quickly overgrows, the dirt and debris accumulate and very quickly your new home looks like manure.
   Are you expecting different results with your website?
2. Authority - To gain the status of an authority in any market, there must be others willing to recommend and promote your products and services. Newspaper articles, television appearances, referrals and the likes, help establish you and/or your company as an authority.
In today’s market we can not overlook the authority given by user review (Yelp, Angies List, Google reviews, etc.) and social media site (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Take a moment to look at any local search business listing on Google. Those companies with the most user reviews, consistently rank the highest (are displayed at the top of the list.)
3. Get your site listed!

When working with clients, I have found many to have a pretty website that is showing up on one of the major search engines, but not the others. What about all of those other potential clients that aren’t using the search engine that your website is listed?

And that is just a start! You need to have your company listed in not just the search engines, but social media sites, internet yellow directories, business directories, and with mobile search GPS and local directories.

Why is this important? Imagine for a moment, you have a stunning billboard offering a $100 dollars to anyone that calls. You’d be overwhelmed with phone calls! But is that really true? What if your billboard was on some dusty one lane road in the middle of the Arizona desert?

Same scenario, you now have 50 of the same billboards in all 50 of the top cities in the US (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, …) What do you think your phone traffic will be like now?

Listing your company and website in multiple locations in the internet is like having those 50 billboards!
The downside, is this can be time consuming and expensive to accomplish. I know too well the time it takes to just list in one directory. For me, it takes about 5 minutes per site. And I have all the tools to get it done quickly via copy and paste, etc.

Good news, you can accomplish this yourself with patience and time. Or you can have our construction marketing agency do the work for you for an incredibly low price.
Enough of the self promotion…

Let’s recap: Your website’s traffic is constantly being eroded by increased number of competitors (Saturation)
More importantly, smarter competitors who understand the value and necessity of a holistic approach to on and off line marketing.

3 of the most important things you can do to ensure your website is being found by your potential clients

• Update your site often
• Capture reviews from your clients
• List your website in as many quality locations as possible
  WARNING: If you are selling water heaters, listing your site on a kitchen gadget sales page, won’t get you noticed BUT it will hurt you.

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There has been a recent trend with all of the major search engines, that you need to take advantage of now. That trend is local search. Going back as recently as 8 months ago, when searching for your company on the internet, a person would have to enter your company’s name and city in the search box. What if the customer knew you were a general contractor, but forgot your company’s name. The same sort of search would be made “general contractor sacramento”.

Local search has changed!

Today, search engines have gotten smarter. To find a roofer in your locality, all one would have to do is enter the term “roofer” and depending where the client was located Google will display a map with 10 options. That too has changed, Google has upped the ante to include just 7 possible choices. This has made it critical to for you to ensure your presence, otherwise you’ll get lost.

I’ve written before about local search, social media and website optimization as sorely needed tools for any business looking to get found on the internet.

Well today, I have good news! You don’t have to spend a fortune to accomplish high rankings in local search. Frankly, most company’s offering similar services are newbies in local search and charge “big bucks” for their website optimization services. That would be great, if you are looking for top rankings in a broad market. What I mean by that, is getting ranked highly for the term electrical contractor means you would have to compete with all of the contractor directories and national organizations.

What’s missing is a laser targeted placement in your local hometown, listing your company and your specialty. And come to think of it, wouldn’t it be nice if you were a dentist, let’s say, and you were listed in the top spot for “emergency tooth replacement”. We all know not many people are searching for that particular service, but when they do, they are willing to pay a premium if your comapny could be found. The same analogy could be used with a roofer, “emergency roof replacement”.  This is where a targeted local search campaign can reward your company with bushels of money!

Until now, if you wanted to take the time to list your company with 40 or more website directories and yellow page sites, you would have to spend a minimum of 10 hours! I know this to be true, because this is one of the most important ways to get your company listed and ranked highly with search engines. Using this strategy alone has quadrupled or more the number of visitors to my clients’ websites. The downside has always been the time it took to get listed.

The good news is, after spending numerous hours of submitting and systematizing my work for my clients, I have been able to offer an affordable option. Starting today, for an annual fee of just $199 I can have your company listed in all of the major search engines and over 40 internet directory and mobile search sites.

So where will my company get listed?

LOCAL SEARCH / MOBILE

Yahoo! • MSN / Live.com • Google • AOL • Citysearch • YellowPages.com • SuperPages • WhitePages • Yelp • Local.com • Quebecor/canoe inc. • InfoSpace/Idearc • Ask • BlackBerry/RIM • infoUSA • Express Update • Acxiom • Dex • iBegin • Insider Pages • OpenList • Yellow Book • Yellow Page City • Yelp • Disney • Topix • VP.com • Zingy • Deep Data • AllPages • LocalMatters • BeanPool • HelloMetro • OneCallNow • Search Iniatives • Switchboard.com • Electronic Directories (Yellow Pages, Inc.)

GPS Navigation / Mapping

MapQuest • OnStar • tomtom • Lowarnce • TeleAtlas • DigiWalker • ALK • ViaMichelin • Zenrin

411

LSSI • INFONXX • V-enable • TellMe

Some list, eh?

I don’t want to turn this blog into a sales page, if you would like to do this yourself, I just provided a great list of websites to go to and sign up and submit your company. If you would like to have our company submit for you, then you’ll have to visit our client services website by clicking here!

In the meantime, I hope this helps to understanding how you can get your business found on the internet. Please feel free to leave us your comments. If you would like to speak to me personally, click the “Call Me Now” button on the right hand side of the page and I will be happy to speak with you.

77 FREE SEO Tips to help you get more traffic to your website.

Over the years I have been exposed to many great resources of information on driving traffic to your website. Most of the time you have to pay for an ebook or membership in some club to this information. Well, I stumbled into this ebook that has many great ideas to get you thinking about new ways to get traffic to your website.

Some of these tips are simple and others are more advanced. Never take information like this as a “step by step” guide or must do. I recommend using this as a tool for getting new ideas for your website.

Download 77 Ways To Get Traffic Link

I wish all of you a successful and prosperous New Year.

David

Whether you have a website or not. You are on the internet! Homeowners are increasingly turning to the internet for advice and reviews. Websites like Yelp, Angie’s List, Merchant Circle, Facebook and Twitter have become rich sources of information.

I don’t know about you, but when was the last time you flipped open the yellow pages? For me, unless I have seen of, or heard of, a particular company in my area, it is rare for me to get a number from the book.

Most consumers these days without the advice of family and friends, turn towards the internet as their primary source for research.

Which brings me back to the websites like Yelp and the others. These websites have one thing in common, they provide consumer reviews for restaurants, companies and service providers.

The chances are your construction company has a listing and you may have reviews.

Without getting into a lot of techie mumbo jumbo, you need to take the following 5 Simple Steps. In future articles, I will explain for you the merits of each service and how best to position your company.

1. Get a Gmail Account
   Gmail is a web based email service that you can sign up for free! With a Gmail account you will have access to
   • Google’s Local Business Center – Local Directory and Map functions for local searches
   • Analytics – Provides valuable information on your website’s traffic
   • and more
2. Take Charge of Your Company’s Listing on YelpYelp is rapidly becoming the premier source for user reviews and business listings on the internet.With a Yelp Business Owner’s Account, you can upload photos and logos, highlight featured services that your company provides and other useful information for your clients.A powerful feature for you, the business owner, is you can see how many times potential customers are viewing your listing.
3. MerchantCircle Provides a free listing for business owners. Here you can edit your business listing to show hours of operation, highlight services and offer coupon specials.
4. InsiderPages Simply put, another business directory with user reviews. But what I really like about this service is you can solicit, even bribe your customers into giving you a review. Unlike most review/directory sites like Yelp, who frowns on solicited reviews. InsiderPages encourages it!
5. Capture Your Twitter Username Twitter has had explosive growth even to the point that advertisers poke fun at the cliche type messages people post (called Tweets.) Well I’m not going to tell you to start Tweeting your diet. I will tell you, Twitter has an important business aspect which I will delve into in a future post. Realize too, companies like Milwaukee Tool, Porter Cable, Greenlee and others all have Twitter accounts. The important thing right now is to at least capture your username before you lose it forever.

So there you have it. 5 Simple Steps to promote your business on the internet.

Be sure to sign up for our updates in the top right hand corner of our website. We will be actively posting similar articles to help you gain more customers. In addition to the articles, we are in the process of creating step by step videos to walk you through the steps we recommend.

The last thing I want to do is overwhelm you in the techie mumbo jumbo. You will be able to accomplish these steps and many more without the need to spend the Big Bucks to have someone else do it for you. In the end, for a little bit of time and effort, you to can be well on your way to having more customers and money in your pocket.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Vogel, founder of HomeBuildR, helps Residential Contractors and Small Business Owners attract more clients. Be sure to sign up for email updates and lots of free tools for your business.

NOTE: Are you looking for fresh content for your ezine or website? Feel free to reprint this article as long as it’s kept intact and unaltered (including the “about the author” info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint or link to david@homebuildr.net