Online coupons are hot, hot, hot for local businesses. Unfortunately, most businesses completely screw them up and leave a lot of money on the table.

I’m not just talking about the Living Social and Groupon type coupons. The results of any coupon done by a business whether online or in print can be improved dramatically if you put forth the tips that I’m going to share with you.

I recently wrote a short 5 page report about how to do online coupons the right way and you can download it for free at the link below. Please tell all your friends that run coupons about this report. They will love you for it!

Click here to download the report

How to do online coupons the right way is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Recently, I had some problems with a home improvement contractor who made some promises that he can’t keep. It’s gotten to the point where I am about to report it to the BBB and online sources. Right now, we are just threatening him as leverage.

However, I have not pulled the trigger on it just yet, because I know as an internet marketer how destructive that a pissed off customer can be. According to a recent marketing book by Pete Blackshaw, the average angry consumer tells 3000 people about their frustration with a company that does them wrong. If the pissed off consumer is technically savvy or an internet marketer, the danger is much much worse. I truly believe that a tech savvy consumer can completely destroy a small business that wrongs them in a matter of days.

While this is quite empowering as a consumer, as a business owner it’s downright scary. You work for years to build a business and someone can tear it down quickly. I know that most business owners do their best but sometimes things simply happen. Here are some tips to protect your online reputation.

1. Don’t let it happen. Well, that sounds obvious, but you would be amazed at how many businesses let complaints slide, or simply ignore them. Most people will complain to you and make threats before reporting it to BBB and online review sites. Take these complaints seriously.
2. Get good reviews. The best way to combat bad reviews is to have good reviews. Claim your profile at Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Thumbtack, Yelp, Judy’s Book, Yellow Book and the other places where reviews are done. Get your satisfied customers to post good reviews on your company. That way, if a bad review does slip in there, it will be negated by good reviews. By the way, Google does look at the reviews that your site has. A site with a lot of good reviews will get rewarded and placed higher in the search engines.
3. Respond immediately to any negative feedback. Sometimes things just happen and a bad review gets posted that you may not even be aware of until months later. Most review sites have a way to tell your side of the story on any bad feedback. It’s very important that you respond to any negative feedback immediately.
4. Set up Google Alerts and monitor your company. Google has a great tool called Google Alerts where you can monitor anything said about your company. You should set one up immediately on your company name and your personal name so you can be sure that your reputation is protected.

The best defense is a good offense. While I can’t protect you from negative feedback, I can help you set up those all important review site accounts which will help you rank higher on the search engines and will help you get positive customer feedback. Contact me today for the full details and a price quote.

Protecting Your Online Reputation is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Recently, I was at Canal Street Tavern in downtown Dayton for the Over the Rhine show. While standing in line, I was surprised at how many people were surfing online with their phones. It was a lot. Between sets, same thing, people browsing the internet on their cell phones. Even during the show, people couldn’t get off the smart phone!

The next day, Sunday, I looked at the cell phone ads in the newspaper. You may not have realized it yet, but Verizon, At&T and many other carriers are now GIVING AWAY smart phones just to get people to subscribe to the service.

Yes, that day has arrived! Smart phones aren’t just for tech geeks anymore. They are mainstream. However, the question remains…is your website keeping up with the technology?

Shockingly, I’m finding that for about 99% of the websites in the Dayton, Ohio market, that answer is a big NO. Most sites just have one version and that version is for computers. Smart phone users are unable to use many local websites or have to inconveniently scroll all around the site to use it. Do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of cell phone users going to your competition! You don’t want that to happen, do you?

That’s why, effective immediately, I am announcing that I am now offering mobile enabled websites as my next service offering. It’s very simple. I take your existing site and then make a second version of it that’s quick and easy to navigate on the cell phone. You will still just have one domain name because I will also install a redirect script that will take the user to the correct version. It’s a simple process to do, so I can get it done for you for a few hundred bucks.

Here are some before and after screenshots of CentervilleMassage.com. As you can see the difference is dramatic. It’s pretty obvious which one is easier to use on a smart phone.

CentervilleMassage.com regular version on a cell phone

CentervilleMassage.com cell phone version

I definitely think that this is something that everyone should take care of, but if you work in fields like real estate, towing, restaurants, locksmith or anywhere else where customers use a cell phone to contact you, then it’s absolutely essential that you get this done ASAP.

Anyway, if you are interested in mobilizing your website, give me a call or send me an email and I get you hooked up!

Man, Your Website Really Looks Like Sh** On The Smart Phone is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

    I’ve been hard at work lately updating my DaytonPulse.com website. I’m working on a full makeover and one of my goals lately has been identifying talented bloggers from the Dayton area to feature on the site. I’ll give you a cool little bio box after your post along with your photo. You can post as little or as much as you want to the site.

My plan is to have the site have several posts a day on it and make it a true hub for Dayton area small businesses. If you are interested, send me an email at cscarpero@gmail.com with some info about your blog. If you currently have a blog, I’ll make it super easy for you as I can just upload your RSS feed and have it auto update on the site.

Blogging Talent Wanted is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

The Dayton Ohio market presents a lot of choices for your web design needs. You can choose someone with a graphic design background, a programming background, you can attempt to build your own website or you can hire an internet marketer. Let’s look at each option.

One route that you can take in choosing a web designer is picking someone with a graphic design background. Graphic designers generally have an art degree from a school like the Ohio Institute of Photography and Technology. They will know Photoshop inside and out. They will also know everything about every font known to man. They will know about different colors and styles. However, the downside of hiring a graphic designer to build your website is that in many cases, they will not know how to get your website to the top of the search engines or more importantly how to turn your website into a money making machine. Their knowledge of SEO can be limited. Additionally, they may do things that are not ideal for your website like overusing graphics. Overuse of graphics can be a problem because Google cannot read graphics and using too many graphics can make your site rank lower.

Another option that you may be considering is hiring someone from a programming background. Programmers are sometimes self taught but often have degrees in computer science. Programmers are great if you want to get a specialized application made, but might not know how to make your website look good or how to get your website to rank highly.

You could also try to build a website yourself. This would certainly save you some money, but what’s your time worth? Do you really want to go through the frustration of learning how to build a website? There are many tactics that SEO experts know that the average person does not. Do you really want to take the time to learn all of these things just to build one website? Again, what’s your time really worth? Even worse, if you do certain things that Google doesn’t like, you could even get banned from Google and not have your website show up at all. Be careful.

Finally, the last and best option to consider when selecting a web designer is someone with an internet marketing background. Internet marketers sometimes have degrees in business and most often learned web design on their own and through forums.

Many internet marketers have done other things online, like affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is simply where someone sells a product or generates leads on behalf of a company on a commission basis. The best example of affiliate marketing is Amazon.com. Amazon has a program where you can sell an Amazon product on your website and Amazon will pay you a commission. Many other companies also have affiliate programs as well.

Internet marketers will look at your website and tell you how to get ranked higher. Internet marketers will keep one thing in the back of their mind: how can this website make more money? At the end of the day, that’s all any business owner wants: to get more phone calls do they can make more money. In nearly all cases, internet marketers are the best choice for your web design needs.

How To Select A Web Designer in Dayton Ohio is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Someone recently asked me about my opinion of Google's "Bad Neighborhood Penalty." It's an interesting topic that anyone who has a website needs to be aware of, so I'm going to share some thoughts about this topic.

First of all, what is a "bad neighborhood" in Google's eyes? Essentially a bad neighborhood is online junk. Some examples are: spam sites, porn, viagra sites, gambling, viruses, etc. You will certainly know it when you see it.

By trading links with these types of sites, Google may think that you endorse these types of activities and they may penalize you.

You may be thinking, "That's fine, I don't link to spammers or porn". True, but do you have a blog? If so, the spammers could post links to their site in your blog comments.

Now if a viagra link or two ends up in your comments, will your blog get banned? Probably not. But it certainly won't help your site. Your readers won't be impressed either.

If you are running WordPress, sometimes the plugin authors will place links to spam sites in your footer. It's sneaky and sometimes you won't notice it. I've had it happen to me and sure enough the site got penalized.

The other type of spam is when your site gets hacked. This can and certainly does happen. When there is a hack, your site could get penalized while the hack gets resolved. Luckily, sites will go back up in rankings once everything is fixed.

The other type of "bad neighborhood" is your inbound links. This area is a bit controversial in the SEO world. Some people say that you can get as many links as you want as fast as you want. Others claim that Google will penalize you for getting too many links too fast, especially if they are from websites with a less than stellar reputation.

I've personally found that I've not had any problems with getting links too fast. Worst case scenario, Google won't give me much credit for the links.

In summary, build quality links to your site and create outbound links to quality sites as well. Keep your site secure and always moderate your comments. If you use WordPress plugins, check your footer occasionally to make sure there aren't any strange links. Do these tips and you will be ok with Google.

Are You Linking To Bad Neighborhoods? is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Bob Goldberg from Food For Thought Marketing asked me an interesting question the other day. He asked me if he should be using affiliate links on his website. It's an interesting topic and a lot of business owners make mistakes in this area, so let me tell you what I think about this.

First of all, I need to explain to you what exactly an affiliate program is and how it works. An affiliate program is simply a referral program put in place by a website. The oldest and one of the best known affiliate programs is Amazon.com. Their program is simple. The affiliate links to an Amazon product using their special tracking links and if someone buys the product from the affiliate's link, then the affiliate gets paid an agreed upon percentage of the sales price.

In the 12 or so years since Amazon started their affiliate program, things have expanded quite a bit. Today, there is an affiliate program for just about everything.

Affiliate programs generally fall under these categories:

Pay per sale- the product sells, you get paid (like the Amazon program above)

Pay per click- Google Adsense is the best known in this category

Pay per lead (also known as Cost per Action or CPA)- Commonly used for insurance and home improvement

Where to find affiliate programs

Some websites like Google and Amazon have their own in house affiliate programs. Many other websites use a third party company called an affiliate network.

Here are a few well known affiliate networks out there (very partial list)

Commission Junction – Offers from well known Fortune 500 companies like VistaPrint and Monster.com.

Clickbank- Downloadable products, generally hot to books and software

Rextopia- A great place to find pay per lead offers like insurance and home improvement

How to take advantage of affiliate programs

Now that you have some understanding of what affiliate marketing is, should you use it on your website? Well, yes and no…

Let me explain. You should only use affiliate links if it adds value to your website and does not cause distractions. You should not use affiliate banners on your business website. Only use text links. Google Adsense is a bad idea in almost all cases as well.

However, if you are blogging and you happen to mention a product or service that you like and use, why not get paid for it? Just use a simple text link to the site you are recommending inside of your blog post.

Another area to make money with affiliate marketing is through your unqualified leads. For example, an insurance agent could send leads outside of his area to an insurance affiliate program. Other industries that have local territories like home improvement can also use affiliate programs to refer out non-local leads that would otherwise be dead leads.

You could also use affiliate programs for people that simply don't qualify or can't afford your product or service. An example of this is a mortgage broker recommending a credit repair book to someone who can't get a mortgage due to bad credit. The broker makes some money and the prospect is helped as well.

I hope you got some ideas from these tips and as always, feel free to post your comments below.

Should You Use Affiliate Links On Your Website? is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Recently, my friend Rob "The Genie" Toth posted an article called "14 Benefits of Facebook Fan Pages".  It fit so perfectly with my recent Facebook postings that I decided to repost it here. Enjoy!

Here are 14 BIG benefits for giving serious
attention to fanpages:

1) Facebook is THE MOST widely accepted social
network. Some of your friends will be on Twitter
or Linked In, or maybe a few out of date types
will still be on MySpace but even most of them also
have a Facebook account. It is by far the largest
web property on the net and certainly the largest,
busiest, fastest growing community.

2) Facebook is the new email. Email was a novelty
at some point. Now everyone has one. Similarly,
500+ mill*ion users are already on facebook.
And it will keep growing. Being on facebook is
becoming a non-negotiable. And having a FAN PAGE
is the most viral way to tap into that community.

3) Your Fan page also doubles as customer support.
It’s easy enough for someone to post a support
issue within your fanpage and the reply you or
your team posts is now available for everyone.

4) Social proof! Sure this actually works against
you when you first launch your fanpage… but
as you grow your audience (fans), a prospect can
see you have 1000, 5000, 20,000+ fans … that’s
built in social proof that indeed others are
paying attention to you and your business.

5) Search results. Go Google “is Google threatened
by Facebook” .. there’s a lot of talk of
increased time spent on facebook and increased
use of it as a search platform. I do the same thing.
I look for service providers by keyword within
facebook… and if I need a service for X and your
fanpage isn’t there, I’m not buying from you.

6) The Facebook Like plugin! Have you seen the
Like (thumbs up) icon? It can be added to your
blogs and pages for immediate exposure to
potentially thousands of users. You see when
someone has a facebook account and clicks the Like
plug-in button from your site, an update is posted
to their wall saying Firstname Lastname Likes “Your
Website Name Here” … but that update is then
published to their home page feed which ALL of
their friends see. So just one “thumbs up” click
could start a snowball of viral growth.

7) Your Fan Page also enjoys viral growth when
a fan mentions you with @_____, or when they
share any of your posts

Email communication. Having a tough time
building an email opt-in list that someone needs
to leave an email+name for?? What if all they
need to do is visit your FanPage, click the “Like”
button at the top and now you can send messages
to all of your fans. So you created a new communication
\channel. Not to mention anytime you post on
your fanpage wall, it will show up for them in
their homepage feed.

9) Traffic… many marketers will make the same
comparisons… a 10,000 Twitter following is
worth LESS than 500 fans on a fanpage. The viral
growth that 500 can give you and the higher
clickthrough rates you get (from a less cluttered
and more meaningful home page feed) makes FanPage
“fans” *MUCH* more valuable than just Twitter followers.

10) Community building: tap into the monster 500
mill community and create your own “Tribe”

11) Local leads gen: though facebook is obviously
international, you’ll find the majority of your
“fans” will be local area users because of how
facebook handles “networks”.

12) Branding: your name gets seen everytime
you (or your staff) leave a post… it publishes
to the “news feed” of your fans. Fantastic
viral exposure.

13) SEO: a backlink to your main site from facebook
ranks you even higher in the engines

14) Analytics: an optimized fan page comes
with a good amount of analytics tools for page
owners. You can really learn a lot about the
interactions and demographics of who is spending
time on your fan page. This bit of “market data”
is VERY valuable if you then apply it to the rest
of your marketing.

Source: Rob "The Genie" Toth's Blog

14 Benefits of Facebook Fan Pages is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Chuck Thokey from Bath Fitter shared this hilarious video with me on Facebook today. If you're in sales or have ever dealt with a salesperson, you can certainly relate….

How about a bettter solution? Build a website and a blog that provides real value and qualified prospects will call YOU. It's a lot less stressful!

What Not To Do In Sales is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Facebook Fan Pages are all the rage in local business marketing right now. If you are not building a following using Facebook, what are you waiting for? They are at 500 million users and growing!

However, there's a right way and a wrong way to use Facebook Fan Pages. Do it wrong and you will waste your time and your money.

If you have followed my other articles, I suggest that you have the basics out of the way before you tackle Facebook Fan Pages.

Those things are:

• Having a website with a  blog
• Having email lead capture systems set up

If you have the basics set up, it's a lot easier to keep up with your Facebook Fan Page. You can post to your blog and the link to that content will go right to Facebook (if you have it set up correctly.) Having a Fan Page that nobody sees isn't going to do you any good!

Next, you want to customize your Fan Page a bit. I like using the free FBML app that Facebook has. This allows FBML (Facebook's internal coding language) on the Fan Page so it looks a lot better.

You need to be encouraging your Fan Page visitors to "Like" your page. Studies have shown that putting an arrow pointing to your "Like" button will increase your "Likes" significantly.

You should also be using your Fan page to direct Fans to your email lead capture system. The best way to accomplish this is by giving away a free report related to your industry. If coupons are used in your business, they make a great incentive as well.

Once this is done, it's time to promote the page. The next step is to invite all your friends to check out your Fan Page. Here an article that shows how to invite all your friends at once to your Fan Page.

Once you have invited your friends, then its time to invite people you don't know to check out your Fan Page. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Link to it from your profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
• Link to it from your website or blog
• Advertise the Fan Page it on your business cards
• If you have a store, please a flyer at the cash register inviting people to the Fan Page
• Put your Fan Page link on your credit card receipts
• Buy advertising on Facebook to direct people to the Fan Page

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, you're right, it is. Ask us how we can help you today with your Facebook presence.

Building Your Facebook Fan Page The Right Way is a post from: Dayton SEO Services