Category: News

Why People Don’t Use the Yellow Pages Anymore

With most local business searches happening online through local search engines and local search directories, local search marketing and local search advertising are more important than ever. A huge part of local search optimization is the local search directory.There are now 100’s of places online to find local businesses, so knowing the best local directories for local search and how to submit to and get listed with all of these local search engines and directories is extremely important to today’s businesses. More and more people are using their cell phones and computers to find their local businesses. The big advantages to this over the yellow pages are the social reviews, more information, and quicker results.

Without a doubt Local Search will eventually replace the yellow pages. You can find the entire white and yellow pages online already. AT&T is beginning to eliminate their database of names and businesses and not even put them into their yellow pages anymore. They know that 86%+ (and growing) of people search the internet for local businesses today.

So, if you are a business still paying for advertising each year for your yellow pages ad, I would recommend shifting some of that money towards Local Search Optimization. There is just so much more bang for your buck today online. The cost to do local search pales in comparison to paying for offline medias, like the Yellow Pages. I’m not saying to stop advertising in the Yellow Pages altogether because some businesses still get clients from it, but that well is going to dry up FAST!! In order to flourish in this ultra competitive world of business, you need to be ahead of the curve and stay there…

Local Search is the future of searches on the internet and this has become even more evident because Google just a few weeks ago is making searches come up with more local results including the local business results and Google Maps. The other major search engines will shortly follow the same guidelines. It won’t be long until it becomes one of the only ways people are using to find their local businesses. This is where Local Search strategies help businesses to get noticed.

The businesses that take advantage of Local SEO before others will have a major competitive advantage. Businesses that don’t get online and optimize correctly can be missing out on a huge profit margin of the cheap cost to be on Local Searches.

Photos on Facebook Generate 53% More Response

There’s no doubt that we’re moving toward a more visual marketing world.  Potential clients often prefer consuming visual content to reading text. In fact, Facebook users are uploading 300 million photos to Facebook per day, up 20% from earlier this year. Even usage of the photo-sharing tool Instagram, purchased by Facebook in April of 2012, has increased 1,179% in six months.

But as a business, will catering to this new trend in visual content have a positive impact on crucial engagement via social media? Which includes Facebook Likes, comments, and potentially even link clicks to your website?

The Impact of Photos on Generating Facebook Engagement

A recent study revealed that photos on Facebook Pages received 53% more Likes than the average post. They also compared each businesses’ average comments-per-photo to their overall average comments-per-post and found that photo posts attracted 104% more comments than the average post!

This percentage difference is substantial, and it emphasizes a huge opportunity for businesses to use photos and videos as a means to increase Likes and comments, and thus there Facebook visibility. The more ”Likes” helps increase ranking inside of Facebook, which can then cause a page’s content to appear in News Feeds more often, increasing visibility and exposure.

Just take a look at how much more prominently photo posts are displayed on a Facebook Page compared to a link-based post that pulls in just a small thumbnail image. And as you can see, you can include links in photo posts, too:

 

photo vs link facebook posts resized 600

The Impact of Photos On Driving Clients To Your Website

It’s no wonder photo posts garner more attention from Facebook users! But at the end of the day, businesses care more about how their social network usage is affecting specific business goals (as they should!), such as generating clients from their website .  So, visuals can be used to increase website traffic as well.

Did you know that photo posts received 84% more link clicks than regular posts?? This shows that businesses who are using interesting images to their advantage can increase traffic to their websites — just as long as they remember to include links!

What This Means for Businesses?

1) It’s time to increase the amount of visuals in your Facebook posts.

 This means that you should be making a conscious effort to use high-quality, engaging images in the content you end up sharing on Facebook, including blog posts, website pages, etc. And feel free to get creative. Don’t be afraid to have fun with your photos!

2) Consider hiring a designer or visual content creator.

Visual skills are becoming incredibly crucial in the social world. If a new hire isn’t in your immediate future, perhaps invest in some design training for your team. You can always go to elance.com or fiverr.com and hire someone for really cheap to design things for you.

3) Don’t forget to include relevant links with your images.

Do you have a blog post, ebook, whitepaper, case study, or testimonial that is related to an image you’re posting to Facebook? Include a link to it in the image description. This will help ensure you’re driving solid traffic back to your website from your visual content efforts in social media.