Twitter Is A Broadcast Media - My Fellow Pundits Opinions Notwithstanding

"Engagement" on Twitter Is Oversold - News at 5

Don't shoot the messenger:  I'm not a Twitter fan.  I don't care about sports stars or celebrities at all.  I'm not particularly interested in engaging anyone 140 characters at a time.  I can use that many words just in an introduction. 

So, last week I went against all my favorite gurus, pundits, and experts.  I've avoided Twitter because every article I read says that to be successful on Twitter I need to be social.  "They" say I'll be tossed out on my ear if I just "broadcast" my opinions, headlines, product or service ads, or other snippets designed to get the Twitter consumer to read more at my blog or watch my video. 

I saddled up my Hootsuite automator, set up 50 tweets on my spreadsheet, and sent out those 50 tweets ever hour or so over 3 days.  I did this for 6 different blogs.  The most successful of the six, went from averaging 40 page views a day to over 100.  That blog had a best ever of around 125, and today had 300.  Nothing else was changed. 

Another blog was averaging around 40 also.  This one has gone to 80 average with peaks well over 100.  And so it went across all 6.  I added a 7th, and the results are the same. 

The Most Fascinating Thing About My Results

None of the Twitter accounts that I used have any followers.  Not -0- exactly, but 20 or 50 or 3.  In other words, these results are coming from the public; those who are catching these headlines on their own Hootsuite or other search facility.  The blog with the 300 page views today seems to have had one of the posts picked up and mentioned, thus the big boost. 

So, I guess I'm not offending anyone, since there are no followers to offend.  I have a name for this effect, and I suspect I'm not the only one doing it.  In fact, my own Twitter account has 1300 or so that I follow, and I get a constant stream of exactly the same kind of things I am sending out.  None of their headlines seem engaging in the least.  

I call this the "News at 5 effect."  The tweets I'm sending out are by and large informational, interesting, useful, and not salesy.  They point to the "right kind" of blog posts and videos that are designed to bring folks to the table because we have proven ourselves knowledgeable, friendly, and useful.  So they are like the teaser ad on TV which says there has been a nuclear explosion in Boise, News at 5. 

This then is a very valuable contribution by Twitter.  Now I am a Twitter fan.



### Do you need help with your online content, blogging, Tweeting, YouTube.  Give me a call and let's see if we are a match.  Randy Kirk 310-910-1848

My Los Angeles Mortgage Broker Thinks I'm a Genius - That's One!

Bill Rayman does mortgages in Los Angles

But the Same Client Wishes I Was a Genius on Mortgage Los Angeles, Too!

I am just a little guy.  Small time Randy.  Usually 20 - 25 clients at any given time.  And the largest is only $10m in sales.  Most are under $1m.  The goal of my tiny enterprise is to help each of them get their sales and profits increased to their hearts content, and I think I've done that for Bill Rayman. 

Bill is another little guy.  He does mortgages in Los Angeles.  He is an independent, but puts most of the loans through Mortgage Capital Partners.  He has one or two assistants, depending on the market at any given time.  But he is one of the busiest mortgage brokers in the Los Angeles office of Mortgage Capital Partners. 

Other than the fact that he is a brilliant guy, (degrees from Yale and Wharton Business), he would be the first to tell you that a bunch of his current success is due to his position on Google Places (aka Google Maps, Google+ Local).  He is number 2 on the general search for Mortgage Broker Los Angeles.  He sent me an email the other day to tell me that I was a genius.  Something about a major loan application that he picked up that day which came directly from that ranking on Google Places.

But try as I might, I haven't been such an amazing magician when it comes to the even more valuable mortgage Los Angeles.  Bill is currently ranked around 16 for that keyword and that has been the case for a long time.  So I thought I would do a little thinking out loud while I make a list for you of next steps to get this other keyword.

1.  Website - How is his website doing?  Not nearly as well as Places.  That is not unusual.  Google doesn't like to give prized positions to both your website and Places.  But I think the first thing I'm going to do is try and up the game on the website.  Better Title Tag.  More keywords on home page.  Maybe be sure that the primary keywords are linked to solid inside pages or blog posts. 

2.  Backlinks - Bill has been in the news a lot lately.  He was on a local radio show and Yahoo home interviewed him.  Maybe I can leverage those appearance into some guest blogging to create backlinks on high ranking and relevant blogs.  Keep in mind, they need to be relevant, not merely high ranking.  Zillow or Trulia would be good.

3.  Citations - I generally add about 10 citations a month.  Maybe the citations could be very pointedly relating to mortgages, as opposed to mortgage broker for the next couple of months. 

4.  Reviews - No question he needs more reviews on Google+.  I also think I will see if those reviewers could specifically say something like, "In Los Angeles, Mortgages were hard to get, but . . ."
5.  Don't - I want to make sure that nothing I do hurts that other ranking.  So only add to, don't subtract from any references to Mortgage Broker Los Angeles. 

There is my Todo list.  Would you have any thoughts to add to that?  I'm totally open for anything that might move this effort forward. 

Bill's website is http://mortgagehelplosangeles, and you can reach him at:

Bill Rayman brayman@mortgcap.com phone: 310-295-6213 fax: 310-481-2087
12400 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 900 Los Angeles, CA 90025 License #01780076

8 Basic Rules for Local SEO - Keywords and Backlinks for Miami Criminal Lawyer

Eric A. Kay, Criminal Attorney in Miami

Miami Criminal Lawyer Ranking Gives Local SEO Consultant Heart Burn

Do you just love a challenge?  I sometimes think that ranking Miami Criminal Lawyer for both the website and the Google Places listing might be the ultimate test of SEO smarts.  I recently built a website for one of my clients at http://attorneysMiami-Fl.com .  It isn't as old or as big or have as many backlinks as dozens of other Miami Criminal Attorneys, so I'm holding my breath waiting to see if I can move up in the ranks. 

Here are the basic rules I live by for writing online content in order to generated views and back links in 2013 that haven't changed:

Rule #1 - Headlines and content should be written for the viewer, not Google.
Rule #2 - Rewrite for back links without compromising the quality of the writing.

Both of these rules will please the Google Beast.  You must first feed it strong, healthy food, then you can add in the Extreme Moose Tracks.  For a while in 2010 - 2012, this was not necessarily the case.  You could write, "spell article by criminal lawyer in Miami attorney for criminal law around special patterns," and hyperlink Criminal Lawyer in Miami to their home page.  Then you would merely place this sentence in an article, press release, forum,  and/or "guest blog," and Google was giving the links credit.

But algorithm changes Panda, Penguin, and assorted others changed everything in early 2012, and today this same practice might actually cause the beast to eat you.  There are some new rules in 2013.

Rule #3 - Don't overuse the same exact keyword from the same source.   We used to believe that you just needed to keep the total use of a keywords under 5% of the total on the page (or some other percent depending on which guru you were reading).  Now you can lose the value of keywords or even get negative attention if the keyword is overused even in the same website or blog.

Rule #4 - Solve the overuse problem by using synonyms.  Google wants you to write naturally, and knows that good writers don't use the same words over and over.  A good writer will say that, "The Miami criminal lawyer was noted for having one the hat trick award while working for the Broward County Public Defender's office.  The Miami based Criminal Law Attorney now provides a website that gives South Florida residents a place where they can understand if and when the need an attorney for a traffic ticket, DUI, possession, or felony murder case.

Rule #5 - You will note in the above rule #4, that each link is to a different URL that the dealer hopes to help to rank.  In this case, one is to the website and the other is to the blog.  It would be easy to also point out that,"The Law Offices of Eric A. Kay, P.A.  has an active presence on Linkedin and provides updates to those who are connected on a regular basis.

Rule #6 - Google also knows that good writers will commonly provide a "natural" url instead of a hyperlink.  So they like to see variations in this theme as well.  "Another way that Miami criminal attorney, Eric Kay helps clients and potential clients is through an extensive blog designed to help consumers understand legal issues.  The blog is available at http://blog.attorneysmiami-fl.com

Rule #7 - I also changed the URL for this blog to have /Miami-criminal-lawyer appear first in the internal page portion of the URL.  Google looks at URL's, and believes that what you put in the URL is what is most important to you.

Rule #8 - I created a "Search Description" which is the equivalent in Blogger for the description tag.  This tag should be written as a teaser and have 140 characters or less.  

The blog post above provided my client with 5 back links to 4 different URL's with 3 different keywords.  And you'll also note that one of the links was in the H1 headline.  The article sounds perfectly normal, not jammed with inappropriate or weird sentences designed to merely spam.

What would you add to this analysis?  Are there other techniques that you are currently using to provide great content, but that also benefit your sites with links?

40 Marketing Fundamentals That Will Make You Successful

40 Free Chapters in New Marketing Book Available Now!

Following is the introduction to a book that I am writing online.  The first 40 chapters out of 101 are linked below.  By the time you've read those 40, I should have at least another 10 ready for you.  Subscribe so you are kept up to date.

 

The Top Ten Marketing Fundamentals According to the Serial Marketer

 

The Project

Several months ago I set out to create my seminal book up to this time.  In 1998 I updated When Friday Isn't Payday, a book that attempted to take a business owner or even a potential business owner through every phase of a start up or take over from the conception of the idea to the eventual sale or passing off to family or employees.

The book is available dirt cheap on Amazon used, or you can buy a brand spanking new copy for a little bit more money.  Heads up:  the internet portions are a bit outdated.  However, that means the other almost 300 pages are evergreen.  Warner Books believed in those 300 pages in 1993 and gave them new life in 2008.  Inc Magazine said it was one of the top three small business books published in 1993.  The new title is Running a 21st Century Small Business.  There are tons of reviews if you care to check it out.

In late 2011, I completed my 4th in a series of books for the bicycle industry, called Principles of Bicycle Retailing for the Internet Age.  There are only a few copies left at $50 each.  The content works for virtually any retailer.  You can buy that here.

Now I wanted to kick it up a notch.  I've started and owned or co-owned 33 businesses in a variety of industries.  But I don't want to bore you with all that.  If you're interested, check out my bio.  In the last five years I have worked with another 250 businesses for anywhere from a few months to the entire five years as a marketing consultant.  The die had been cast.

The seminal book is to be called something like 101 Marketing Fundamentals According to the Serial Entrepreneur.  The title is a work in progress, and if you are great at titles, give me your best idea in the comments.  I'll reward you with something if I use it.  No promises. It will be any more than a signed copy of the book.

Or books.  There is a chance I will release this as 5 books or 10 books.  Short eBooks covering various aspects of the marketing equations.  I have written 35 of the chapters and they are interspersed here in this blog.  I might take them down when I finish.  I might not.  Not sure.

I am in the process of rewriting the first ten chapters.  They are linked below.  Depending on what day you follow the links, you may get the first draft or the latest update.  But know this, it is all free, and no obligation.  I've been blessed in my life with great mentors and I'm happy to pass along any wisdom that I might have gained.  You may not think it is great wisdom.  Happy to have you express your opinion in the comments of any of these chapters.  I'm not nearly too old to learn.

So have at it.  Here are the first ten chapters.   And these are in order of importance.  After the first 10 chapters, the tend to fall in groups.

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The Top 10 Marketing Fundamentals According to the Serial Entrepreneur and Biz Book Author Randy Kirk

1.  Setting Goals Is The Number 1 Marketing Fundamental  by a Landslide  

2.  Strategies Are What Make Goals Come Alive
 
3.  Tactics Are the Third Leg in an effective Business Plan  

4.  What is Profit - How Do I Make More of That?

5.  Cost of Goods and Overhead Can Make or Break You  

6.  Nothing Happens Until Something Is Sold 

7.  Customer Service and the Ultimate Question  

8.  Business Reputation Online and Off  

9.  Hire, Train, and Motivate the Best People 

10.  The Quality Decision  

 

10 Marketing Secrets: How Do You Establish An Image For Your Small Business? Chapters 11-20

Let's all be honest.  We did not sit down when we started our small business and plan all the details of our image.  I have started 33 businesses, and I have not followed my own advice on this subject more than a few times.  You may have become very successful without paying attention to any, some, or all of the items on this list.  But I daresay that if you even scan over this list, you will agree that analyzing these items and proactively making decisions about the image issues listed will have a positive effect on your potential.

It is never too late.  You can start tomorrow.  Each of these items is linked to a blog post that gives the details for the headline. 


 11.   The Niche Your Company Occupies
 12.   The Branding of Your Company
 13.   The Territory Your Company Seeks to Sell Into
 14.   The Demographic of Your Client Base
 15.   The Expression of Your Personality as Projected onto Your Company
 16.   Your Logo, Colors, and Slogan and the Impression They Make
 17.   The Street View of Your Business
 18.   The Brands you Carry Effect Your Company Brand
 19.   Online Personality Commonly Doesn't Reflect Your Business
 20.   The Way You Answer the Phone Is Part of Marketing

 

Marketing Secrets Tutorials - Logistics Review - Key Stuff You Need to Properly Market Your Company in 2012.  Chapters 21 - 30

Marketing Secrets: The Fundamentals of Great Marketing

Take a quick test of your business leadership skills.  How do you come out on these four?

Thus far in our series of 101 Marketing Secrets from a Serial Entrepreneur, we have built the case for goals, strategies, tactics and seven of our top ten recommended logistical considerations. 

The seven logistical items we have covered thus far are linked below.  Are these elements controlling you or are you controlling them.  Are you proactively evaluating and planning for adequate provisions for the battle, or are you marching into war hoping you'll find ample supplies of critical materials, equipment, and other resources along the way?

21.  Having enough money matters!  A lot.
22.  Suppliers are more important than customers
23.  Lost our lease is more common that you think.  Facilities
24.  Employees are a necessary evil OR your key to long term success
25.  Time is relentless, unyielding, precious. Count it
26.  You and your employees have limited time and energy.  Plan accordingly
27.  Your family is a logistical consideration.  Unhappy families kill businesses
28.  If You Ain't Got No Axe, You Cain't Cut No Wood
29.  Empty Wagon or Museum? - Inventory Control
30.  Small Business Visibilty Has a Cost and a Benefit That Can be Measured

 

Referrals Beat Every Other Method as a Source for New Clients, and Excellent Quality Clients at That.  Chapters 31 -40

Chapter #31   I make my living helping small businesses figure out the best way to increase sales.   My services are much more necessary for helping with print, trade shows, packaging, new product development, blog, websites, videos, social media, and email than they are for the most effective tool in marketing for generating new business.  WOM - Word of Mouth.

However, I spend huge amounts of time convincing my clients to do the very things that will increase referrals.  You can read about them throughout this post and throughout this blog.

With #31 in the series we now move to building on that foundation with specific approaches to delivering phone calls, foot traffic, and online activity.  The goal will be to go from the most effective for the most businesses to the least effective.  Effectiveness would be defined as those things which provide the highest return on investment of time, energy, and cold, hard cash. 

There are certainly times when you will want to undertake marketing methods that have a low ROI, but still create absolutely certain results at appropriate times.  Sometimes the ROI is not easily identified, but can only be seen over a very long term.  For our purposes, we will look only at high, immediate, ROI as the criteria.

With that introduction, we return to the number one source of new business for almost any new business.  All the statistics show that at or above 50% of new customers are showing up at small businesses because of this factor.  My own conversations with 1000's of companies would show the same results.  Anywhere from 50% to almost 100% of new customers are derived from word of mouth (WOM).

The interesting thing about WOM is that most of the cost of traditional WOM is free.  WOM is most commonly driven by things like quality, customer service, and overall experience.  Achieving those three elements in a business may require the hiring of better people, training investment, use of better materials, and spending on fixtures and systems.  Almost anyone who has studied these kinds of business costs has come to the conclusion that the savings from scrap, obsolescence, rework, and lost customers alone pay for these expenses and more.  That they are also responsible for increasing sales and profits through WOM is basically icing on the cake.

    32.    Creating Effective Word of Mouth (WOM) About Your Customer Service Edge
    33.    Experiential Marketing
    34.    Amazing Products and Services?  Grade Yours!    
    35.    Amazing Follow Up.  Are Your Customers Out of Sight, Out of Mind?
    36.    Stay in Touch to Create Maximum Word of Mouth
    37.    Equipping Your Clients to Recommend You Can Increase Word of Mouth
    38.    Find the Influencers in Your Community to Spread Word of Mouth
    39.    7 Ways to Thank Those Who Send You Business to Build WOM
    40.    Do you Cultivate Customers, Clients, or Fans?

Virtually every company I have ever discussed marketing with will tell me one minute that WOM is the number one source of new clients, but then assume that the future will depend on the internet or some other factor.  My first thought is always, "how do we capitalize on what is already working."

Obviously, Word of Mouth is no longer only the traditional case of one person telling another in a face-to-face or telephone conversation.  There is now an entire industry based on internet reviews and social media that has pushed WOM into something quite different.  I will go out on a limb however, and even offer you the chance to tell me I'm all wet.  Traditional WOM can provide all the potential that it always has.  And if the company is doing what it should to create traditional WOM, the online version will do quite well, thank you very much.  Online WOM or WOMM will be discussed in future chapters.

*****If you are finding this information valuable, please tell your friends and associates who own small businesses.  Tweet about it, Facebook it, Linkedin it, Google+ it, and Put it up on Pinterest.

Chapters 41 - 50 should be coming to you by the end of June.  Maybe sooner.  The basic idea of the next 10 chapter is "Going Big."  Sometimes we get caught up in small time thinking.  These are larger, more aggressive, and more visible types of marketing effort.  The rough chapter titles for this section are:

41  Call a Huge Amount of Attention to Your Company (event, contest, scavenger hunt)

42  Go Where Your Customers Go 

43   Join Something.  Anything.  Ok.  Almost Anything

44   Do Something Wild and Crazy  (price, delivery, hours)

45   Give Away Gold Bars  (or something else valuable)

46  Make Your Mom Proud.  Become a Local Celebrity  (top execs or employees, too)

47  Make Your Dad Proud.   Become a Noted Expert    (top execs or employees, too)

48.  Make Everybody Proud.  Write a Book

49  Start A New Community Event

50  New Products, New Services, New Displays, New Ideas, New Categories

Linkedin In the News - Facebook for Professionals and Businesses

Linkedin Contacts and iPhone Contacts App Are Game Changers

I am a huge fan of Linkedin.  And I have reported here and elsewhere that it is the most critical social media channel for business owners, managers, and professionals.  I said that when they had 80,000,000 users, and again when they went public with 150,000,000 users (last year), and again when the hit 200,000,000 users, and who knows where they go from here.  They now have about 225,000,000 on board and with the news today about Contacts and Contacts iPhone App, the sky isn't the limit.  To infinity and beyond!

So what is the big deal about contacts.  We all have various kinds of address books, contact lists, etc., all over the place.  Well, this contact app goes a bit beyond any other.  Name, address, phone, company, email, website, picture.  All good.  Add resume, previous work history, notes, associations, summary of current company services, their connections, and so much more.

You can organize these connections by anything you care to.  "Linkedin!  Are you listening to me?  Please allow us to update to the news stream by groups like we can on Facebook and Google+.  This is a critical missing piece.  Correct it and you'll own the space for a decade."

Do you think I'm hyperventilating over nothing.  Check out these articles from today.

Nine Out of Ten Execs Use LinkedIn

Roughly nine out of ten (88%) business executives use LinkedIn “often” or “very often,” according to a survey of 139 suits by DHR International, a corporate headhunting and management consultancy, as reported by BusinessNewsDaily. What’s more, 73% said that LinkedIn is their favorite social network, leaving Facebook and Twitter in the dust.

In terms of frequency of use, 65% of suits surveyed said they use social media daily, while 27% said they use it on a weekly basis (and no more frequently). On average they spend between 30 minutes and an hour per week on social media, with a quarter saying they use it for between one to two hours and one in five using it more than two hours a week.

PC World had this:  Why it's time to take LinkedIn seriously

From my nearly 700 LinkedIn connections, I tapped a slew of entrepreneurs with more than 500 connections each about how they use the platform. The consensus: Time using LinkedIn is well-spent. Here’s what they said. 

"I use LinkedIn as my online Rolodex to keep track of my contacts and reconnect with old colleagues. Using the advanced search functionality I can find people with specific experience in a particular geographic area. This has helped me find vendors, strategic alliances, as well as suggest candidates for job openings… I like the recent ability to customize my profile layout, embedding the slideshare widget under appropriate positions."
—Felena Hanson, founder of the San Diego co-working space HeraHub
"LinkedIn is essential to my business. We use the information to determine how to target our business development efforts which increases our efficiency and reduces interruptions to contacts we might have contacted who weren't the right role. Because of LinkedIn we reach out and make the right offer to the right contact most of the time. This increases our sales and, we think, our reputation with our business partners."
—David Eads, founder of the Atlanta-based strategy consultancy Mobile Strategy Partners

You probably got an email from Linkedin today.  Follow the instructions.  Try it out.  If you didn't, maybe you don't have an account.  Get one.  Check out the articles elsewhere on this blog about Linkedin, and get a bunch of connections.   

If you need help getting set up and maximizing the opportunities on Linkedin, I'd be happy to help you through that process.  I have one opening for a client as of this date.  Call me.  Randy Kirk 310-910-1848 

5 Quick, but Fantastic Tips to Linkedin Success

How to Optimize Your Linkedin Profile and Generate Business Leads

We have done detailed tutorials on Linkedin over the past few months.  You can find those tutorials as follows:

Take Your Linked in Account to Stratospheric Levels of Profitability 

How to Set Up Your Profile on Linked in To Create Marketing Benefits for SMB

How to Get Recommendations on Linked In to Bolster Your Cred

How to Get 500+ Connections on Linkedin

How to get 100+ Relevant Connections on LinkedIn

Since then a number of tricks of the trade have come to my attention that were not included in the above:

1. You can add multiple videos, images, or reports to your profile and experience sections.  Go to your edit profile tab, and click on edit profile.  Scroll down to your summary and you will see the following look on your screen.  Next to the little blue pencil, you'll see an icon that defies an easy description.  However, if you click on it, you will get a request for a URL.  You can now add a URL for a YouTube video or other online image content
   
   
2.  You can add Links within your content on the summary or experience areas to your website, internal pages of your website, blogs, blog posts, more videos, online press releases, etc.  This makes a ton of sense. These Links can even be part of a call to action, such as directing the reader to a white paper or a sales funnel.
3. Add a call to action at the end of your summary and your most recent experience.  
4. Make sure you are showing your Twitter account.  When you create an update to the stream (which you should do daily or at least a few times a week) you can share with your Linkedin connections and automatically share with Twitter, too.
5. Include snippets of testimonials in your summary and experience.  Not everyone is going to read your glowing testimonials.  Use a strategic sentence from a review to prove your point.

5 Steps for Bicycle Shop SEO and Social Media to Create Increased Profits

Effective Use of Internet Marketing Can Dramatically Improve Bicycle Shop Sales and Profits

"I just don't have the time or the energy to stay on top of Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Linkedin.  I haven't ever seen a Pinterest site.  My kids talk about Instagram and Tumblr, but I have no idea how or why I should use them in my business.  Write a blog?  You must be kidding.  Do some videos?  I'm sure they are effective, but I wouldn't know where to start.  My SmartEtailing website seems just about right, and I do try to update it once a month or so.  SEO on the site?  No idea!"

Does that sound like your bike shop?  If yes, then you are not alone.  That is exactly how most bike shop owners view their internet marketing effort, assuming they think about it at all.  In fact, unless you are in the minority, you don't really spend much time thinking about other elements of marketing that have nothing to do with the internet like:

• Store signage
• Events
• Clinics and rides from the store
• Local advertising on radio, mail, newspapers, television
• Newsletters 

Fortunately, business has been ok during the recession for bike shops.  Some of your competition closed down.  That helped.  The gas prices have brought more folks through the door to try a bit more commuting.  And the middle-age white guy phenomenon has really been a help with larger ticket sales.

But you do have this nagging feeling.  What if gas prices stabilize or even come down?  Good for the country, but not so much for me.  What if those middle-age white guys find a new hobby?  What if a competitor opens up in my area and takes 20% or more of my business?

You Can Start to Build a Powerful Internet Presence Now to Create Long Term Business for Any Economy and any Competitive Problem

Step 1.  Create 5 YouTube Videos Per Month - It doesn't take more than 2 hours to shoot them, and another 5 hours to edit.  Set up an employee or a neighbor kid to do the editing.  This will be your foundation stone in the internet effort.

Step 2.  Set up a blog as a subdomain of your website.  I suggest you use Blogger, as it is much easier to use than WordPress.  Do three posts per week.  Use the videos as one of those three posts.  Embed the video and write a short paragraph or two to tease the video.  Write about simple repairs, new products, review a bike, advertise and promote services and deals.

Step 3.  Set up Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ and Pinterest accounts.  It should take you about 5 hours each to set these up and make them look nice.  Do you know someone who likes doing this sort of thing.  Pay them.  Promote your YouTube Videos and blog posts on these sites.  It will take you about 15 minutes a day to put something up on each site.

Step 4.  Gather thousands of emails.  Use every method you can think of to gather emails.  Send out one email blast per month or two or even three during Summer.  Promote your social media sites and talk about store events.  Have something on sale every month in the email blast. 

Step 5.  Set Your Store Up and Claim Your Listings Everywhere Online.  Google Place, Google+ Local, City Search, Yelp, Hot Frog, YellowPages.com, etc.  The details of how to do some of this can be found in my book, "Principles of Bicycle Retailing for the Internet Age."  You can find it at http://bikeshopowner.com for $49.95 or through J & B or the NBDA.

That's it.  At least for the Internet side.  Easy!  But I have one more secret to share with you.  This one is the most important of all.  You will be SHOCKED when I reveal the truth about your future internet effort.  Ready?   Scroll down.

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Your not going to do any of those.  Maybe Facebook.  But a year from now you'll be scratching your head thinking you put a lot of time into Facebook for no return.  You should do all of the above.  I can give you testimonial after testimonial of how this is working for bike shops.  I have bike shop clients who are getting 1000 unique visitors per day to their YouTube videos, 60 unique visitors per day to their blogs, and 100's of impressions per day on their Google Places.

Here is an alternative solution that you can try.  Hire Randy Kirk & Associates.  We'll do all of the above for you.  And bicycle industry clients get a special deal.  You see, we charge everyone else $975 a month for these services.  But I have a soft spot for the bike dealers.  I've made my living selling you guys for the last 40 years.  So, you get a deal.  Single shops are only $750 a month.

Call me right now!   310-910-1848.  You won't get a clerk or a salesman.  Just me.  I only work with a maximum of 10 bike dealers at a time.  Due to a financial setback unrelated to their business, one of my shops had to drop out.  They were ahead 12.5% year to date.  So I have an opening.  If I can't take you now, I can put you on a waiting list.  Don't wait.  Call now.  We still have time to impact the 2013 season.

P.S.  If your store is in trouble, or even if you aren't making at least $100,000 a year for yourself and your family, I can help.  I really like these types of situations and have helped several shops to solid profits above six figures.

Image, Title, Head Shot, Teaser - Social Media in A Nutshell

Setting Up the Perfect Social Media Post to Maximize Eyeballs and Clicks

Riveting, alluring, compelling images capture eyeballs

I asked my daughter, the artist, if she would send me the most alluring, riveting, eye catching image she could find or create.  I challenge you to come up with one that is any more likely to grab your eye than this one. 

I wanted such a shot to use as an example of how to get folks to pay attention to your social media content.  I could be wrong, but most folks who bother to put something up want others to read and comment.  Many want way more than that.  They want fans, connections, repins, and followers.  And then, of course, orders.

News Stream on LinkedIn - Images Are Critical

I post about 60 updates to LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter each week by hand.  Others on my team handle the Facebook, and Pinterest.  After several weeks of this daily exercise, I noted what maybe is obvious to everyone else, and just took me a little longer.  When scrolling down a news stream, I really notice cool pictures, I sometimes notice interest-grabbing headlines, and I occasionally stop because I recognize the face of someone whose content I like.  In that order.

As a writer, this really messed me up.  I want folks to notice my scintillating prose.  But as I learned the hard way many moons ago, sometimes you can't get an audience for the story if you don't have a great title.  And in the book and magazine business, you need to have a compelling image to go with the title.  So too in the social media sphere.

The issue doesn't stop with these news streams, either.  Look to the left and you will see that the most recent and most popular posts offerings all have thumbnail images to grab your attention.  Now look at the bottom of the post and recommended posts also have those thumbnails.  You want to use Pinterest or Google Images to increase your visibility even more.  Now your headline and teaser is of no help at all. 

So, the key take-away from all of this is that you should probably be spending more time selecting pictures for the top of the page on your blog or to capture attention if your are posting directly to the social media update.  However, the picture only stops the viewer, it doesn't create the action.  That is up to your headline and teaser. 

You may or may not be aware that I have another blog that is 100% devoted to content creation.  All kinds of content.  Find that blog at http://ContentMarketingforGoogle.blogspot.com

9 Quick Ways to Get Supended from Google Places, Maps, and Local

 Nine Black Hat Tricks that Google Knows All About

You Did What?!?

The phone rings.  I don't recognize the number.  Maybe a new potential client.

"Hi.  Is this Randy Kirk?"  (Of course it is.  I answer the phone)

"Sure is.  How can I help you."

"Well, I used to have this great ranking on Google Places, but now I seem to be gone completely."

"What kind of business are you in?"

"I'm a...fill in the blank...lawyer, carpet cleaner, locksmith, appliance repair, limo service, bail bondsman...and I used to have these seven locations...."

"Tell me about those locations."

Now you know how my day usually goes.  I am now in the unenviable position of telling someone that the gravy train has dried up.  The phone ain't gonna ring no more.  The free ride is over.

Here in detail are the nine most likely reasons that your phone stopped ringing and your Google Places, Google Maps, and Google+ Local is nowhere to be found.

• Don't know if this is #1 for Google, but it is for me.  Location.  You cannot
• Make up addresses
• Select any address at random
• Use a post office box
• Use a UPS box even if you call it suite #
• May or may not be able to use a virtual office or private mail box
• Fill out the form and say that folks come to meet with you even if you always go to them.  Google knows that no one visits a plumber or a house painter.
• Use a telephone number where Google can't get through to you.  They make random calls to try to establish that you are where you say you are.  
• Spam the name of your company.  You can probably get away with adding one descriptive word.  If you name is Sammy's, you can probably add Pizza.  Don't try for Sammy's Detroit Pizza unless that is the name of your company.
• Spam your description with all kinds of location based keywords.  
• Use the same telephone number for more than three locations or more than one business
• Have multiple listings for the same location of the same business - even if by mistake
• Have one name, address, and/or phone number on your Google listing and have a different name, address, and/or phone number on your website or other internet listings. 
• Pay for, solicit, and or spam your reviews.  

If you have done any of the above or are doing them now, and you haven't been suspended or even removed from Google, go straight to Vegas and play for the inside straight.  If you have been caught, and you need help getting out of the penalty box, give me a call.  If you would like to get your Google Places, Maps, and +Local sites set up perfectly and optimized to maximize the Google love, call me for that, too.  310-910-1848.  That will be me who answers the phone.

General Contractor SEO and Social Media in 2013

How to Double Your Sales Doing Custom Home Building and Remodeling Using Online Marketing

I removed the city, but it is a major metro

I got the call about 18 months ago from a contractor.  That would put us at about the 3rd quarter of 2011.  He had been in the general contracting business for 15 years at that point, and was really struggling.  He wanted me to help him with his internet presence.  Since that's what I do in the main, and he could almost afford my rates, we decided to see if we could build up his business. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, Mike was on the phone with me.  I asked him how 2013 was going.  He was trying to figure out how he could get it all done before 10:00 at night, just to turn around and be back at it at 6:00 in the morning.  His sales had doubled in 2012 over 2011 and his profits had tripled.  Now he was discussing the details with me of how he should take it to the next level. 

Take a look at his Google Places (Google+, Google Maps) rankings on some of his key words.  This might give you some idea of why he's doing so well. Did we get those numbers overnight.  No.  This is a competitive business in a competitive city.  Contractors are willing to spend to get good rankings.  But we did slowly but surely move this client into this position, and he is doing quite well. 

This blog has a couple of hundred posts and pages.  They tell you just exactly how to get the same results I did.  Some things are changing in a pretty major way, but you still fill out the basics the same way it is described here on this site.  Reviews still matter...a lot.  Citations are critical.  On page SEO on your website is critical.  Social media including Google+ is becoming more important by the day. 

Then there are another 96 or so important factors that aren't as important as these four.  I try to cover all of them and update you as much as I can here on this teaching site.  But there is a lot more to Mike's success than Google Places.

We created a great website for him, and a blog where we post three times per week.  Then there's his Linkedin site where we are working to get him at least 500 relevant connections.  We have shot a bunch of videos for him, and just recently set up a Pinterest site.  We also discuss traditional marketing ideas like local home shows, truck signage, fliers, customer service, networking in the community, and, oh yeah, who should he hire next to grow his business even more. 

If you think your contracting business could benefit from some of these kinds of efforts, give me a call.  310-910-1848.  Ask for Randy Kirk