Arkansas Internet Marketing and Arkansas Inbound Marketing Blog

When it comes to local businesses, ranking on Google Maps is essential to success. If a local business isn't showing up on Google Maps, they're likely missing out on potential customers, and their business could suffer as a result. But why is it that some local companies struggle to rank on Google Maps?

Unverified Google My Business

An unverified Google My Business listing means that the business hasn't been officially recognized by Google, which can lead to a lack of visibility in the search results. This is because Google only shows verified businesses in its search results, so an unverified listing will not appear in the results.

The first step to verifying your Google My Business listing is to create an account. You will need to provide basic information, including your business name, address, and phone number. Once you have created your account, you must verify your listing. This can be done through a phone call or a postcard sent to your business address. After completing the verification process, your listing will appear in Google's search results.

No Local Citations

Local citations are a critical factor in local search engine optimization (SEO) and help businesses to rank higher on Google Maps. Local citations refer to the mention of a business in an online directory, such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, or even a local newspaper. These citations help Google Maps to understand the relevance of a business for a particular search query, and as a result, the company appears higher in the local search rankings.

Unfortunately, many local businesses struggle to rank on Google Maps due to a lack of local citations. Without local citations, local businesses are not able to take advantage of the visibility that comes with a higher ranking on Google Maps.

The primary reason for the lack of local citations is that many local businesses are not actively engaging in local SEO. They are not taking the necessary steps to create and maintain a strong presence on local directories and platforms, which is essential for building local citations.

Furthermore, local businesses often do not have the resources or know-how to properly optimize their online presence and ensure that they are listed on the right local directories. Without the proper optimization, businesses can miss out on key local SEO opportunities that would help them to build local citations and improve their ranking on Google Maps.

Finally, many local businesses are unaware of the importance of local citations and their role in local SEO. Without the necessary knowledge and understanding, businesses cannot take the necessary steps to improve their local SEO and obtain the visibility they need to rank higher on Google Maps.

No Google Reviews

Google Reviews are an essential tool for local businesses looking to improve their ranking on Google Maps. As a business, having customer reviews on Google can help to boost your reputation and show potential customers that you are trustworthy. However, many local businesses struggle to gain Google Reviews, which can be detrimental to their ranking on Google Maps.

First and foremost, it is crucial to understand that Google Reviews are essential for local businesses. This is because Google takes into account the reviews when ranking local businesses on its Maps service. If you don't have any reviews or have a low number of reviews, it will be difficult to rank well on Google Maps.

Another reason your local business may struggle to rank on Google Maps is that you don't have a good reputation. If customers have had a negative experience with your business, they are unlikely to leave a positive review on Google. As such, ensuring that your customers are happy and that you provide them with the best possible service is vital.

Final Thoughts

Local businesses are struggling to rank on Google Maps due to various factors. To maximize visibility and rankings on Google Maps, local businesses should optimize their website with local keywords, obtain positive reviews, properly update business information, and leverage local directories. With the right strategy, local businesses can increase their visibility and gain the advantage of increased foot traffic and better brand recognition.

Improve your ranking on Google Maps with the help of Vertical Studio. We are a digital marketing company in Arkansas that helps our clients find the answers they need for their business by helping them ask the right questions. We make sure that our clients have the right strategy in place to take their business to the next level. Get in touch with us today!

AdWords and SEO are two of the most effective digital marketing strategies. Both are incredibly powerful tools, and when used together, they can be quite effective in driving traffic to your website and generating more sales. However, it can take time to determine which one is best for your business. In this article, we'll compare the two strategies and explain the advantages and disadvantages of each, so you can pick which one is best for your marketing efforts:

What Is Google AdWords?

AdWords is a paid advertising platform offered by Google, allowing businesses to create text, image, and video ads that appear in Google's search results and on other websites throughout the internet. AdWords allows businesses to target specific groups of people, choose specific keywords and phrases, and pay for each click on their ads. AdWords also offers reporting and analytics tools that allow businesses to track the results of their campaigns.

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO, is the optimization of websites and content for search engines like Google and Bing. SEO involves creating content relevant to your business and targeted keywords and ensuring that your website is optimized for search engines and users. SEO also involves making sure that your website is accessible to search engine crawlers, as well as optimizing your website's code and structure.

AdWords Vs. SEO

AdWords and SEO are two of the most popular methods of online marketing. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, and picking one over the other depends on the needs and goals of the business.

The main advantage of using AdWords is that it's a fast and effective way to get your message to your target audience. AdWords ads are targeted to specific keywords, so you can ensure that your ads are seen by potential customers actively looking for your products or services. AdWords is a pay-per-click (PPC) platform, so you only pay when someone opens your ad. This makes AdWords a cost-effective way to get your message out.

On the other hand, SEO is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on improving a website's ranking on SERPs. SEO involves optimizing a website's content, structure, and code to appear higher on SERPs. Optimizing a website for SEO can take time and effort, but it's a long-term strategy that can yield results for years.

The advantage of SEO is that it can help you achieve higher rankings on SERPs without having to pay for ads. Additionally, SEO can help you establish credibility and trust with your target audience. As you improve your website's ranking, you'll also strengthen your brand's reputation as an authority in your industry.

When it comes to deciding between AdWords and SEO, it depends on your particular goals and needs.

Conclusion

Google AdWords and SEO are both viable marketing techniques for businesses. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and the best option for any particular business depends on their individual needs and goals. AdWords is a great option for businesses that want to quickly increase visibility and drive traffic, while SEO is a better option for businesses that want to build long-term value and brand loyalty. Ultimately, the key to success lies in understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each option and making an educated decision.

Vertical Studio offers AdWords and SEO services in Arkansas that can greatly benefit your business. Get in touch with Vertical Studio to find out what we can do for you!

Local SEO is the process of optimizing your business website for local search engine results. It helps build your online presence in local searches and drives more foot traffic to your business. As such, local SEO is a crucial part of any business’s overall digital marketing strategy. There are many reasons local SEO is important for businesses. Here are some of them that stand out:

People Are Using Local Keywords More Than Ever

When it comes to search engine optimization, local keywords are more important than ever. People are using their phones and other devices to search for local businesses more than ever before. As a result, it is essential to optimize your website for local keywords to ensure that you appear higher in local search engine results.

Local Searches Lead to Sales

Search engine optimization isn’t just about getting your website on the first page of search engine results; it’s also about getting the right people to your website. 

Local SEO helps ensure that the people who are searching for your business are the ones who are most likely to buy from you. This is because local searches are often more targeted and specific, which means that the people searching for your business are more likely to be interested in what you offer

Local SEO Puts Your Business Front and Center

Local SEO puts your business front and center in local search engine results. Optimizing your website for local keywords ensures that your business appears higher in local search engine results. This means that people searching for businesses like yours in your area will be more likely to find yours before they find your competitors.

Local SEO Will Give You A Competitive Edge

Local SEO will give you a competitive edge over your competitors. By ensuring that your business is optimized for local searches, you can ensure that your business is the one that people find when searching for businesses in your area. This means you will be able to capture more of the local market and get more customers.

 Local SEO Can Improve Customer Engagement And Loyalty 

Using local SEO strategies, businesses can improve customer engagement and loyalty by ensuring their business appears at the top of relevant searches in their geographic area. When potential customers see a business appear prominently on Google or other search engines such as Bing or Yahoo!, this increases trustworthiness and encourages them to take action with regards to visiting or contacting the company–which leads to greater customer loyalty over time!

The Bottomline

Local SEO is critical for businesses that want to be found by potential customers in their local area. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase visibility, generate leads, and increase conversions. With its ability to help businesses reach more qualified leads, optimize their website for local searches, and provide customers with accurate and up-to-date information. Local SEO is an invaluable tool for any business. Local SEO helps businesses to rank higher in search engine results, drive more website traffic, increase brand awareness and engagement, and ultimately boost sales and income. With the right strategy and implementation, Local SEO can be a powerful tool for any business looking to succeed in their local market.

Do you need local SEO services? Vertical Studio is an Arkansas-based internet marketing company. Let us help you bring the results you want for your business.

Content marketing is definitely king. Today's smart marketers don't waste time trying to trick their potential customers. Instead, they grab valuable attention fairly and squarely with engaging information and media.

An interesting, well-written blog has proven to be one of the most effective ways of creating the involved audiences that can most easily be turned into customers. Those who set out on the path of blogging for more leads, though, sometimes find that how to use a blog most effectively is not as clear as it might have seemed.

In fact, however, thinking strategically about your blogging activities is often all that is required to produce a payoff that will make the effort worthwhile. Blogging for business can be satisfying for just about any company, and we'll look at some of the most powerful concepts below.

Subscribers are Worth Their Weight in Gold. Mine More.

Search-engine-driven traffic is nice when you can get it. Blogging for business, though, just as often relies on subscriber lists to produce the lion's share of any particular post's audience. Those who actively express interest in your offerings, after all, are most likely to show up again when something new pops up. Furthermore, they are even more inclined than other readers to want to share what you have written, thereby helping with your marketing.

Surprisingly, though, many business bloggers are relatively hands-off about pumping up their subscriber counts. Some fear alienating visitors with overly aggressive appeals, and this is something that should certainly be avoided. Tasteful reminders that the option exists, though, aren't likely to turn anybody off and can be among the most productive changes you can make.

Think about boosting the prominence of any existing subscription links on your blog, then, especially if your analytics show that casual readers rarely convert into subscribers. A simple call to action that is positioned such that a satisfied reader of one blog post will happen upon it is often all that it takes to create a new subscriber.

Creating a standalone landing page that details the benefits of subscribing can be an excellent idea, too. Not only will visitors who arrived for other reasons run across and make use of it, the page can be prudently shared on social networks to great effect. Even adding a simple, low-key aside in unrelated emails can produce more subscribers for a blog, as well.

Make the Most of What You've Already Done

Blogging for business can lead to a focus on creating new posts, and steady activity is important. Once a blog grows to a certain size, though, it also pays to start thinking about how older work can be used to better effect.

As a content marketing effort evolves, for example, the keywords and topics of interest blog writers focus on will shift as well. One way of better leveraging older blog posts is to go back and update their titles to reflect any new emphasis. Far from detracting from the value of established assets, this gentle repositioning can give them fresh significance as new titles better show how they fit in with a company's current thrust. More concretely, they can also help boost search engine rankings as those new terms find their way onto older pages.

Don't stop at the titles, either. While it requires more time and commitment, updating the content of popular old posts can be especially worthwhile. Particularly for those posts that still draw steady streams of visitors, consider adding an addendum that reflects what has been learned since the original went up. Showing that kind of initiative impresses readers on a second level beyond that of the original post's worth, making their visits to your blog more satisfying.

Measure, Measure, Measure... and Adjust

Nothing beats hard numbers. Creating an interesting blog can feel like a fuzzy sort of undertaking, and there is an undeniably subjective element to the art. Even so, the effects can often be measured in clear-cut terms, and those who fail to do so are missing out.

One of the most profitable ways of working an analytical approach into your blogging is to study just how actionable your calls to action are. Every post you make should include an appeal designed to get readers to move further along in your lead generation process, since that is the main point of using a blog for business, but these entreaties are not all created alike.

Simple A-B testing systems can help you to figure out how to perform better in this respect, and this sort of investment pays twofold returns: First, it creates more leads in the short term and, second, it helps you hone your skills in ways that only reliable feedback can enable.

After gaining some confidence in your ability to provoke action from your readers, you can start looking for ways to apply your newfound powers elsewhere. Once again, older blog posts that continue to generate gratifying amounts of traffic can be spruced up with brand-new, more-effective calls to action. You can use your website's standard analytics reports to figure out where any other updates would be likely to produce the greatest effects, too.

Respect Your Own Efforts

One of the most important reasons for the power of high-quality blogging is the inherent authenticity and intimacy of the pursuit. Visitors who enjoy and benefit from what they read develop real, positive feelings for the businesses and people who create content for them.

Blogging for business differs from traditional marketing in some fundamental ways, then. Recognize and take possession of that fact and your blogging will benefit. Engage with readers who care enough to leave comments on your posts, and you will discover new avenues worth exploring in the future while inspiring more loyalty in your fans and creating new ones.

Banish the old-fashioned marketing mindset, then, that so often carries a whiff of shame about it. Create good content and share it proudly and do everything you can to make sure that anyone who might be interested finds out.

Digital marketing departments don't always get the credit that they are due. While the internet has made it easier to measure how well marketing is working for a business, it is still quite difficult to prove how valuable marketing is to the company overall. It can be especially hard to show marketing's worth to the CEO, board members and other executives. Using marketing metrics is a good way to show how useful marketing is. Metrics can also show exactly how much of the company's sales are due to the marketing department.

CEOs are taking more of an interest in marketing than ever before. They want to track the marketing department's progress and see how successful it is. It can be difficult to know what metrics the CEO and other top executives want to see. Choosing the best marketing metrics can be a challenging task. It is important to show how valuable the marketing department is, but it is also important to give accurate reports and data. It is vital that the CEO, CFO and board members be presented with information that is relevant to them.

Most people in charge just want to know how much things cost. They also want to know what the results were from previous efforts and expense. Top Marketing Metrics include how much marketing costs. This includes every cost related to the marketing department, including how much marketing employees are paid, general operating expenses and how much each marketing project costs. Some metrics are useful for deciding how to proceed with marketing projects and strategies. These include cost per page, cost per follower and cost per lead. This type of metric, however, might not be the best Marketing metrics for your CEO and other top executives.

The Most important marketing metrics will demonstrate how valuable the marketing department is to the success of the company. They will also show how much money marketing brings in and how it influences the business as a whole. There are several metrics that are particularly helpful when speaking with a CEO or members of the board. Including these is a good way to get the attention of executives and ensure that they know marketing's value.

• Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, is the total cost of the marketing and sales teams divided by how many new clients were acquired in a given period of time. These costs include salaries for department employees, advertising money, operating expenses, commissions and more. A high cost means that a company is spending a lot on each customer.
• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) vs goals is an important metric to monitor in case the marketing team has disappointing lead production. If a problem here is caught early, a team can look for new ways to find leads before they fall too far behind projections.
• Time to payback customer acquisition cost is how long is takes the company, in months, to recover the cost of attracting customers. This is less important for businesses where customers pay only once, particularly in advance. If clients have yearly or monthly fees, the time to payback should be less than a year. That means the company begins to earn money and profit from a new client within a year.
• Marketing percentage of CAC is how much of the customer acquisition cost goes toward marketing. If it goes up, sales might be low or too much might be spent on marketing. However, spending more on marketing and finding better leads can raise sales. For this reason, it is important to know the context and approach of marketing and sales strategies before deciding the if marketing percentage is too high.
• Leads over time is easy to track and analyze. A company should have more leads during each consecutive period. If leads go down, there could be problems with sales or marketing.
• Ratio of customer lifetime value (CLV) to CAC is only used for businesses where customers continue to pay fees or purchase goods. It compares the customer acquisition cost to how valuable a customer is currently. The ratio should usually be higher than three. If the ratio is too high, however, it means the company isn't growing fast enough. More money should then be spent on marketing or sales.
• Marketing originated customer percentage demonstrates how much business the marketing department brings in. It can also be shown with revenue instead of individual customers. Marketing influenced customer percentage includes any customer that marketing influenced.

It can be challenging to show how valuable marketing is to a company. Higher-level executives and board members are very concerned with how much things cost. They want to see that efforts and expenses pay off in the long run. Using the right metrics when presenting to CEOs and other executives can show marketing's full value to the company.

LinkedIn is a powerful business networking tool that can easily produce a new job or other opportunities. Most users, however, fail to make the most of the service because they don't put enough effort into crafting their profiles and otherwise making sure that they will stand out. As one now-successful user put it, "Setting up Linkedin for my business turned out to be more complex than the sign-up help had led me to believe." How to set up LinkedIn correctly and for the best possible results, though, is a fairly simple, straightforward process for those who keep in mind a few simple ideas.

Make Sure You Are Easy to Find

Headlines, summaries, job descriptions and skill listings should all, of course, be written in ways that will appeal to and impress those who actually read them. Relatively few LinkedIn users, though, think about how to use those and other parts of the profile for an equally important purpose: showing up in the service's search results when employers and others enter relevant keywords.

In the wider world of the Internet, this process is known as "search engine optimization," and it can be just as powerful and effective on LinkedIn as anywhere else. As part of basic LinkedIn setup, then, users should think about the search terms that others in their industry are likely to use when looking for new employees, contractors, or partners. Those two- and three-word terms can then naturally be worked into the aforementioned areas of the profile verbatim to produce a boost in visibility on the service. Making sure that profiles are 100% complete, too, is one of the more important steps for setting up linkedin, since every blank field is one that can't contribute to search performance.

Cultivate and Target Recommendations and Endorsements

As a fundamentally social service, LinkedIn emphasizes reputation and networking connections. New users to the service do well to actively seek out recommendations from existing ones, as these signs of approval give them immediate clout and legitimacy, in addition to making them easier to find through general searches. This early work, then, will pay great dividends over the long term.

The "endorsement" feature on LinkedIn was created in order to allow for a more casual and targeted sort of approval-granting, and collecting these can be a good way of backing up a list of claimed skills. On the other hand, many more advanced users also find it helpful to be selective in what they display in this respect. Hiding endorsements that don't mesh well with a candidate's current focus can be just as important as exhibiting others, as doing so can help to give more focus to a profile, making it more interesting to the desired kind of reader.

Do Not Neglect Your Company Page

Understandably, given the social thrust of the service, many novice LinkedIn users put far more effort into their personal profiles than their company pages, if they even acknowledge the latter at all. In fact, however, creating a strong, compelling company page is an important basic task, since that page reflects back on the operation's employees, providing further legitimacy and authority. As one owner of a smaller design firm said, "Setting up Linkedin for my business turned out to be just as important as working on my own profile."

Some of the same techniques that produce effective personal profiles can be used with company pages, too. Being mindful of keyword use, for example, can help to make a company page stand out more in searches, and cropping up more often in search results will allow a company page to lend even more shine to the profiles of owners and employees. Company pages also include powerful analytic tools that can be used to further tweak and refine their content, an opportunity that few can afford to overlook.

How to use LinkedIn with the greatest possible effectiveness, then, is more a matter of thinking strategically about each aspect of the service than any arcane techniques. Those who put in the time and effort invariably find that it is relatively easy to improve the results they see in noticeable and worthwhile ways.