1) Have a website. In the year 2011, it is not very difficult to create a website (or find someone who does for a relatively inexpensive price). Even if you own a business that requires people to physically walk in the door and do not sell products online, it’s a great way to let visitors know of what you offer and what makes you different. If anything, it will help potential customers find your physical location and your phone number.

2) Create a business listing on Yelp.com. Over the past few years, the Yelp community has grown tremendously and is a great source of generating new customers. Yelp is a review website where people can rate businesses and restaurants on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 5 being the highest. I have personally used Yelp to map the best restaurants to check out on vacation. Also, there is a Yelp app that people can download on their smartphones and find nearby businesses which helps get even more exposure for businesses. If you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to local search engine exposure, this is something that is a necessity that has been a game-changer for successful business owners.

3) Create a business listing on Google Places. With Google commanding about 65% of searches on the internet in the US, it makes sense to do stuff with the giant. Google Places is Google’s way of pushing relevant local results to the searcher. Creating a business listing here would ensure you’re in their system and gives you an opportunity to get visitors calling you.

If these 3 things are implemented, as a business owners, your chances of getting more exposure to people in your area will greatly increase over time!

The word ‘landing page’ is thrown around a lot in the internet marketing world. While it may seem like an easy concept to most in the industry, for those on the outside, it may just be another confusing term in this crazy internet world.

To be able to explain what a ‘landing page’ is, it’s useful go go even more basic and explain what a webpage is. Websites are very similar to magazines, newspapers, or books, in the way that they’re made up of several ‘pages’. The most popular form of this ‘page’ is the Homepage, meaning the center, or ‘front door’ to a website. For example, www.motoza.com is the homepage to our website. Any other section on the website is simply another ‘page’ inside the site. For example, if you were to imagine a website as a home, and you’re looking at a floorplan of the website, the ‘homepage’ would be the entrance/foyer, and other pages would be the living room, kitchen, laundry room, etc etc.

Each ‘page’ serves a specific purpose, whether it’s a contact page, an about page, a blog page, or a services page.

A ‘landing page’ is simply any page that can be used as an additional entrance to the website. It literally is a page, where a visitor can ‘land’ onto the website.

Technically, any page on your site, including your homepage, is a landing page. Someone could theoritcally go to your website by first visiting your ‘contact’ page, or your ‘about’ page. How well that page works in sparking interest in your visitors is what gauges how effective a landing page is.

A proper landing page is designed to be a main entry point to your website for a specific targeted audience.

The fact is, most homepages are terrible landing pages because they’re not designed for a specific audience and provide far too much distracting information. For example, most homepages will display all the links on the website, a mission statement, a news section, their product or service a long with a few testimonials.  However, if that website provides more than one service, people looking for a specific service may not find what they’re looking for and leave very quickly. Since it would be very difficult to design a homepage that caters to all services and their intended audience, it’s best to create separate landing pages for each service or offer you have.

A proper landing page should be very simple and have as little content as possible to gain the visitors attention. Studies show that the average web visitor spends around 5 seconds deciding whether he or she wants to continue on a website, so it’s important to capitalize on those few seconds by making your offering very clear.

If you design a landing page with a clear heading explaining the service/product/offer, have clear easy-to-follow bullet points, and a strong call-to-action (phone number, email submit, ‘buy now’ button) then you have a better chance or gaining that person’s interest.

A proper landing page will strip the page of any elements that do not contribute to the main goal of the page. Whether the landing page is geared towards having someone sign up to a newsletter, call about a product, or sign up for a promotion, everything on the page MUST push the visitor to keep going.

Landing pages are usually promoted through paid advertisements in areas where the traffic is likely to be very targeted. They should never be used as a way of capturing as much traffic as possible, instead they’re used to capture fewer, more qualified leads.

Take some time to look at your homepage, services and promotions. Decide which services are most popular with your clients, and develop landing pages highlighting the benefits and call-to-actions tailored for that targeted audience.

You deserve the best for your business. We’ve created an checklist to help you find the best online marketing firm for you. When you are talking to a prospective internet marketing firm, please keep this sheet in front of you, ask the questions below, and check “Yes” or “No” depending on the answers they give you.

Download a copy of the Internet Marketing Checklist by clicking here

1. Is the internet marketing consultant managing 5 clients or less?

In general, the more time an internet marketing consultant spends on a client, the better the results. Unfortunately, many consultants are overloaded with 20 or more clients at a time in order to keep profit margins up, leaving less creative time for you and leaving your business to inexperienced employees.

2. Does the internet marketing firm dedicate a substantial amount of time to research and development?

The internet is a rapidly changing environment where many opportunities can come and go in a blink of an eye. The top internet marketers research, adapt, prepare and set themselves up for success. Think many internet marketing firms do this for you? Wrong. Many use old, outdated processes that put you at risk of getting run over by your competitors.

3. Will the internet marketing firm create a customized campaign for your business?

No two online websites/businesses are the same, even within the same industry. A custom campaign would be one that shapes and pulls the ideal resources to make your online business a success. Many online marketing firms have a “one-size-fits-all” approach where a set of processes or tasks that apply to everyone will work for you. That means if you have a law firm website, they will use techniques that work for promoting real estate websites, but not necessarily for your website.

4. Does the internet marketing consultant have 3+ years of experience in the industry?

For those who claim they are “SEO Masters” or “Social Media Gurus”, be wary. There are a lot of people who think they are automatically online marketing experts because they marketed their low-priority blogs that no one cares about. Experience helps when it comes to knowing what to do next, discovering new ideas to help your online business grow, and getting things done.

5. Does the internet marketing firm charge more than $1,000/month?

So many business owners we’ve talked to always mention getting emails and seeing ads on Google offering guaranteed front-page rankings for a $99 flat fee. These simply don’t work and many are scams. Many successful internet marketing services are cost and labor intensive, requiring many hours and resources to make an online business work. Although the price does not necessarily reflect the quality of work, $1,000 per month is usually what is needed to cover the bare minimum in services for a successful online marketing campaign.

6. Will the internet marketing firm provide a detailed action plan or proposal?

Many internet marketing companies like to take your money first and then figure out what to do with your campaign. A website may not be ideal for internet marketing services and those business owners should not need to find that out after months of wasted time and spending thousands of dollars. A detailed action plan helps you get a better idea of what they’re going to do to make your business more successful.

7. Does the internet marketing company have staff dedicated to optimizing web conversions?

In general, optimizing web conversions is the art of testing and changing several elements on  your website (e.g. an image, a block of text) to see if the outcome would be different with the test case (i.e. more leads, sales). You can drive a million people to your website and end up with no one buying a thing. So many internet marketing firms focus on traffic, praying those visitors will give you more sales, but so few have the experience and resources to optimize those web conversions.

8. Will the internet marketing firm charge you extra for additional resources within the scope of your campaign?

These are the hidden fees of the internet marketing world and it should be a crime. Many firms like to suggest all these great ideas of improving your website, such as redesigning parts of your website or using software, but they’re likely to charge you a pretty penny for it or shoo you away with a referring 3rd party partner, leaving you to manage the work yourself.

9. Will the internet marketing company give you more time to focus on other important things?

Whether it’s more time to focus on growing your business in other areas or spending additional time with your family and friends, your internet marketing firm should you be freeing you from the burden of growing your online business. You’re minimally involved and don’t have to babysit your internet marketing firm. Simple as that.

10. Is the internet marketing consultant available 24 hours a day, 7 hours a week?

Many firms like to have your consultant available only during standard working hours, 9 am – 5 pm, Monday through Friday. After that, if you have any questions or concerns, you’re on your own, or you are talking to a “support specialist” located halfway around the world and has no clue what you’re talking about.

If the internet marketing company you are talking to answers “NO” to at least 1 of the questions, then they may not meet the high quality standards in order to successfully grow your business online. Call Motoza now at 1-855-9-MOTOZA and learn how we can help your business succeed!

We could all talk about how to triple the number of visitors through various online marketing sources or sending out more emails to prospects, but the best way to increase the number of conversions for your services or products is by providing tons of value. There’s nothing wrong with having thousands of visitors running across your website every day, but it’s how you optimize their experiences that make it worth your while. Many make the mistake of primarily focusing on driving boatloads of traffic and hoping a percentage take a particular action, whether it is a sale or an email opt-in. Sure, that will probably make you a quick buck, but you’re probably going to have to repeatedly find new prospects.

So what is the best way to maximize your online conversions?

Easy. Create a relationship with them and nurture them. Don’t consider your prospects as customers, but more as friends you want to help. If you think of it that way, you’re more likely to say “Hey, here’s a bunch of stuff you should check out, I think it will help you or your business and if you like it, send me some more money to help me out and I’ll make it worth your while” instead of shoving a bunch of stuff down their throats and hoping one will take the “bait”.

It takes a lot more work to develop and grow these relationships, but in the long run, you’ll be much more successful in your campaigns and your audience will put their trust in you. They won’t feel you are trying to scam them or use them. With their trust, you can continue to provide them with value and they will know whatever you deliver to them, it will be phenomenal and they can’t wait to get their hands on it.

So even if your prospects are online instead of in person or over the phone, make that effort because it’ll be a breath of fresh air to find someone online who actually wants to help.

Facebook and Twitter are currently the largest social media websites and they happen to be my favorite. There are many rules and etiquette you will eventually learn, but I’ve labeled the 3 most important rules in the social media world everyone should abide to (with most social media platforms):

1) Update regularly. People are following you or liking your fan page because they probably have some sort of interest in what you’re saying. The more times you can deliver fresh information to your fan base, the more likely they will recommend you to their followers/fans, creating a growing chain of readers waiting to hear from you.

2) Don’t spam your updates. With Rule #1 being said, nobody likes spam and in social media, it’s no different. Don’t post updates every 10 minutes with random crap. Many people will find you annoying and will unfriend and unfollow you. Keep it light initially and gauge your audience to see how frequently they’d like to hear from you. Start with 3 updates a day and increase that number, more when current events and news are hot.

3) Talk to your followers. Obviously, it’s nearly impossible to reply to every person who sends a message or posts a comment on your fan page, but do your best to make an effort and your following will love you for it. Customer services is key in social media and it shows you’re a human on the other end of the computer and they will look to you when it comes to a subject matter that you specialize in.

Social media isn’t difficult and it shouldn’t be. Follow these 3 rules and you’ll find a lot of people coming back to you.