Keep Your Business’ Remarkable Reputation Online and Get More Customers

positive online reputation

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?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Whoa! 10 Easy Ways to Boost Your Business on Social Media

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Boost your business on social media!

Having social media accounts for your business is critical in this digital age. But are you getting the most out of them? Social media marketing works best when people are engaging with your business.

Here are our top 10 no-sweat tips to get more engagement for your business on social media.

1. Use attention-grabbing headlines. Why did you decide to read this article? It probably had something to do with the headline. Headlines that start with an exclamation, or “How to…” or “# Ways to…” or that ask a question that your customers might ask themselves tend to get the clicks you’re looking for.

2. Use images, animated gifs, and memes. Posts with visuals perform better, period. Memes and gifs can also bring humor into the mix and increase the chance that your audience will share your content.

3. Create and share videos. Over 100 million hours of videos are watched on social media every day. Get your piece of the pie!

4. Don’t only post your own content. Curate and share content made by others that you think your followers will enjoy. That way, with less work, you get more content and your audience gets added value.

5. Post more often. Making frequent posts boosts your organic growth.

6. Share an excellent piece of content more than once. That’s right: it’s okay to post the same material multiple times if you vary the accompanying message, and it can get you up to 31.5 times the number of click-throughs as posting once.

7. Use hashtags. They can double your #engagement rate!

8. Tag people and businesses you quote or reference. When you tag someone, like a guest blogger, they usually respond or repost, getting you more exposure.

9. Optimize your posting times. Schedule your social media messages to post at peak times to increase your reach.

10. Recycle your evergreen content. Some content doesn’t have an expiration date. If it’s timeless, share it again later!

We know that as a business owner, you’re busy. If you don’t have time to beef up your social media marketing, we can help!

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Is Your Business Website Fully Optimized for the User Experience?

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If your company or business website hasn’t been updated, or there are no plans to update it, you should change that strategy.

User behavior is continuously evolving, and one of the most significant changes is that more people are using their smartphone devices every day.

If you have ever used your phone to browse websites online, you may have noticed that some websites are nearly impossible to read or navigate. The reason for this is because most websites are built from a perspective that someone on a computer will visit the site. The way users access a website has already changed drastically.

But design evolution isn’t only about having your website viewable on a mobile device. User optimization encompasses a lot of different factors. Some changes that have happened over the past couple of years include websites having fewer menu options, getting rid of the menu grid or ‘hamburger’ as it’s come to be known, getting rid of bad stock images, and moving the website to a more minimalistic design.

The majority of these changes came from designers and developers constantly redesigning and changing UX (user experience) elements to see how those new designs and changes worked. Big companies such as IKEA have moved to a more minimal design with fewer menu options making it easier for their visitors to quickly find what they need. But this optimization shouldn’t end there.

The future will likely bring more design trends making it easier for visitors to get what they are looking for quickly. After all, a good user experience drives conversions.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using? We can do an evaluation and get your website fully optimized.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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SEO Campaign Not Working? 3 Things Your SEO Provider Should be Doing for Your Business

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If your search engine optimization 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.

At Agapi Marketing & Consulting Ltd., we do all three.  Our experts are here to help you!

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Welcome a Grimace with a Smile

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Social media allows so much information to be at our fingertips.

It allows business owners to connect with potential customers in new and exciting ways.

It also gives customers new ways to reach out and share their opinions, and it is inevitable that sometimes those opinions will be negative.

We want to make sure you know just what to do with the inevitable happens so that your customers keep coming back.

The first thing to do when you see a negative review is to take a step back. Never respond in the heat of the moment. Never indulge in an angry flash. Compose yourself and address the review in a cool, calm and collected manner.

Also, work to identify authentic bad reviews from those who are just “trolling” looking to waste your time. If a review is unnecessarily inflammatory, profanity-laden or unintelligible, odds are the reviewer is just targeting you for argument sake. In these situations, the best thing to do is just step back and let it go.

Once you’ve identified true reviews, start by acknowledging the mistake and apologizing. Sometimes a simple sorry is all the reviewer needs to hear. At the end of the day, consumers want to know they matter and that they are not just another number. Demonstrate this with a polite and sincere apology.

Even if it wasn’t your mistake, it doesn’t hurt to say that you feel sorry about the misunderstanding or bad experience.

Next, see if you can make it right. Is there something that can be done to fix it? If not, offer other perks or benefits, such as free shipping or a discount in the future. Also, make sure you’ve identified an accountability process to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Finally, thank the customer for taking time to leave feedback. Feedback gives you the tools you need to improve to become a better business.

Addressing bad PR is easier when you have our marketing team on your side.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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How Optimizing Your Websites and Landing Pages Will Increase Conversions

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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.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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How to Drive More Foot Traffic to Your Local Business with an Online Presence

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There are many things you can do to get more foot traffic to your door.

One of the things that’s surprising is that many local physical businesses don’t have, or don’t think they need, local SEO such as getting listed on major local business listings.

Not having some type of online presence is a big mistake for companies. Take into consideration that more people are closely connected to their mobile devices more than ever.

People use their smartphones to do everything from ordering pizza, to finding out who has the best price on the car part they suddenly need. And while this is just a small example, you may or may not be surprised that many people go online to check to see if a business has what they need, what the prices are, if they are currently open.

They do these things before deciding to drop by a store!

There are many things that a local physical business can start doing besides having a website online so that they can be found easily by new prospective customers. Getting yourself listed on Google My Business is free, and the page is likely to get indexed very quickly since it is Google.

The next best thing to do is get listed on local directories and review sites. Many people are using these sites to check business reviews and will be able to find your business quickly.

Some other things that you want to be sure to do are building links from local news sources, establishing partnerships with other businesses and of course, utilizing search engine optimization using locally targeted keywords which very well could be easy to rank for.

If all this sounds great to you, and you need more information on how to get started, then know that we can help you get your business in the important places that matter most and help increase your foot traffic.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Reputation Marketing and How It Can Affect Your Business

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Creating and maintaining a positive reputation for your business is vital.

And it’s an important aspect in creating a loyal customer base while building your brand.

No major successful or popular brand started out and became successful with a negative reputation. In fact, the reputation of a business has been proven to have a significant influence on customer loyalty, satisfaction, and trust.

Customer retention is something that the majority of big and successful companies thrive on. Customers that are happy are more likely to be return customers who spend more money, and in turn, tell their friends and family about their experience.

Having a reputation marketing strategy in place should be the first thing your company focuses on when building your reputation.

More and more businesses are encouraging their customers to go online and post reviews about their experiences. There are many big review sites out there and the data you get from them can be invaluable to your reputation marketing campaign.

Managing these review sites builds trust and authority for your brand and shows your transparency and accountability. Getting feedback about your business and your brand provides you with valuable insights on where your business is falling short, and how you can improve. Even good feedback can be improved on.

Believe it or not, there are many companies that have failed due to having a bad reputation, and either not knowing, or not doing anything about it until it was too late.

On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that companies with a good reputation financially outperformed companies with bad reputations in every way.

With a good reputation marketing strategy in hand, your business will benefit from higher brand equity, exponential growth, and a flood of loyal customers with increased customer lifetime value worth 10 times as much as their first purchase.

Don’t wait. Take control of your reputation marketing strategy today, and get started building your businesses trust, brand, and reputation today.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Online Ad Pricing Models: Which is Best for Your Business?

ad pricing model

What ad pricing model is best for your business?

Digital advertising has been proven to be an effective tactic to increase your business’s visibility, traffic and sales. And there are many different digital advertising pricing models to choose from.

Here are 6:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC) – you pay for every click
2. Cost-per-mille (CPM) – you pay for every thousand ad impressions
3. Cost-per-mille-views (CPMV) – you pay for 1,000 viewed only ad impressions
4. Cost-per-interaction (CPI) – you pay when a user interacts with your ad, such as installing an app
5. Cost-per-lead (CPL) – you pay based on leads acquired
6. Cost-per-action (CPA) – you pay for a defined action, such as a user buying your product

Cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-mille (CPM) are the most common models, and an increased focus on performance-based advertising has increased the popularity of cost-per-action (CPA) and cost-per-lead (CPL) models, but they may or may not be the right fit for your business.

It’s important to evaluate which model is best for your business. Each type has different strengths, some of which may align better with your business’s goals. It may be useful to consider what growth stage your business is currently in, as well as where you want to go. And, of course, consider which is the best platform to use based on your business’s unique needs and goals.

At Agapi Marketing & Consulting Ltd., we can help you answer these questions, find the pricing model and online advertising strategies that work best for you, and more.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Search Engine Optimization: Are You Gaining as Much as You’re Putting In?

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Are you getting a return on investment (ROI) on your search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns?

You’re not alone if you’re not sure how to answer that question. Indeed, 40% of marketers say proving the ROI of their marketing activities is their biggest marketing challenge according to HubSpot.

But measuring the ROI of your SEO efforts is possible, and we’re here to help you do just that.

Here are 3 things that need to be in place in order to calculate ROI:

1. The right attribution model. Attribution models are the basis for allocating credit to each marketing channel. There is no right or wrong attribution model. Each one is different and comes with its own strengths. We’ll help you find the model that’s the best fit for your business.

2. Google Search Console and Google Analytics. You may already have these tools in place for your website(s), and if so, that’s a great start. GSC is a key SEO tool for capturing and understanding website metrics. And the data from Google Analytics (GA) or a comparable website analytics package is crucial for understanding ROI.

3. Marketing automation and CRM. These tools supplement website analytics data by providing data on individual buyers. This helps you ascertain the lifetime value of individual customers, which in turn help you determine the lifetime value of a particular marketing channel.

At Agapi Marketing & Consulting Ltd., we understand that business owners like you don’t have the time to do all of this. We can help you get these important tracking tools in place.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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