With 1 in 5 search queries now being related to local terms, it is more important than ever to focus on optimizing your business for local search. At Sage Island we have been working with many of our SEO and PPC clients on boosting their local search presence. In researching tactics and best practices we came across a very informative article explaining how users search for local businesses. Here are a few interesting highlights to keep in mind when optimizing for local search.

Study Findings and Suggested Tips to Optimizing Your Local Listings:

Finding: 71% of searchers value the information contained in local search results. 60% of these searchers said that local listings with an image get their attention more than standard listings.

Tip: Make your local listing stand out from the crowd. After claiming your listings within Google Places, Yahoo and Bing local listings, you wil want to enhance it with a great looking photo.

Finding: 17% of searchers do not use local geo-modifiers when searching, with this percentage on the rise amoung younger searchers. While on the other hand, older searchers are more inclined to search using local modifiers – roughly 63%.

Tip: When targeting a younger audience, businesses should focus more on generic terms. When targeting older consumers, businesses should focus more on local modifiers within their search related terms.

Finding: 60% of local searchers add a city name to their search query. 42% of searchers choose to add a zip code.

Tip: Optimizing for town name and city name should deliver more traffic than ZIP code, but a well-rounded local SEO campaign should utilize both.

Optimizing your local listings ensures that potential customers find you using search and map functions within search engines. Doing this correctly will support your SEO marketing efforts, as well as increase your visibility and online reputation. For more information, check out Google, Yahoo and Bing Local Listings. If you have questions, or would like to discuss claiming and optimizing your local listings, we would be happy to help. Contact Sage Island today!

Since Google has introduced Realtime Search, it has become ever-so-important to understand social media feeds and the value behind posting on Twitter. Below are a few best practices that our team at Sage Island follows, that may be beneficial to your business as well.

1) Establish trust:

To be successful on Twitter, you have to build a reputation for being a trusted source. You must become your industries leading source for up-to-date and timely information. This will help you build a strong following on Twitter. You can establish this trust by referencing articles and links about the bigger picture as it relates to your business.

2) Link to your website:

Integrate your current Twitter URL into your website by placing a button or call to action on all pages within your website. When tweeting, provide back links that redirect to your site to help gain traffic to your site. Make sure that when promoting your company’s URL, that you have provided added value once they arrive. Both integrating your Twitter URL and linking to your site – will help drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines.

3) Be responsive and reward followers:

You won’t win over the twitter population if you only use twitter as a self-promoting platform. While providing one way marketing messages about your product is okay, it is preferred if you instead ask questions and engage followers in a more casual, conversational approach. Share other peoples content in order to let the “Twitter-sphere” know that you are participating in the conversation. Engaging followers, thanking followers for following and responding in real time will help you build your customer engagement.

4) Don’t forget about your keywords and character limit:

When possible, write keyword rich tweets. Beginning your tweets with a primary keyword will allow you to leverage the realtime and long-term index relevance across search engines. Also, make sure your tweet’s character limits allow for “retweetability.” It is best to keep your tweet under 120 characters in order for your followers to easily add your RT@name in front of their tweet.

5) Measure and monitor what people are saying:

Utilizing tools such as HootSuite and Radian6 will allow you to monitor, track and gain insights regarding your Twitter traffic. Similar to Google Analytics for your website, these sites provide data regarding your Twitter visits, demographics, referring site visits and specifics on individual tweets that you have sent.

Understanding these 5 Twitter tips is only the beginning. Knowing who to follow and the important hashtags for your industry are important as well. Keep your eyes out for more insightful Twitter and social media tips to come in the next week. If you have any questions, or want information regarding other social media opportunities, please contact Sage Island today.

According to Google, 20% of all searches are relative to location. In March alone, 14.3 Billion searches were conducted through Google, which means nearly 3 Billion search queries contained local terms.

With that said, it is important that your business take advantage of the opportunity to be listed within Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local Listings. Your local customers already search Google, Yahoo and Bing for the products and services that you offer. By creating local business listings within these three platforms, you can be confident that your business will be easily found online. These platforms will also complement your current search engine optimization strategies.

While each local listing platform is different, they all provide unique features that will allow you to add photos and videos, custom service categories, brands that you sell and coupon options that make your business stand out among your competitors.

More and more people are searching online for local businesses, so it is important that your company have a presence.

If you are looking for innovative ideas or have any questions, feel free to contact us today. At Sage Island, our goal is to help your business grow.

1. Create your blogging strategy. Every blog must begin with a plan. You should first define your blogging goals, whether it is for branding, product promotion, industry news, communication, or sales. In order to be successful, you must stay consistent with your goals throughout the life of your blog.

2. Use a variety of fresh content. It is crucial to keep your blog posts exciting. Include media in your posts to maintain your reader’s attention. Never just promote yourself. Write about what your viewers want to read.

3. Keep it short and to the point. Feel free to keep your blog posts around 200-250 words. These days’ people don’t have the time or the attention span to read a lengthy, drawn out blog post. Most of the time you can say exactly what you need to say in a simple and concise post.

4. Keywords, keywords, keywords! Always include important keywords in your post title, linked within the body of your text and in the tags of your post. Make sure to keep your tags under 10 so that you don’t clutter the subject matter. You can also add keywords within your image alt text to enhance your ranking within search engines. Using your most important keywords throughout your blog post will help tremendously with SEO.

5. Remember to link. Try to find a place to link to the pages with important information on your site, such as your homepage or contact page. If you would like to expand on ideas, you can offer links to other posts that you have written that may support the content of your post. Internal linking is always a good thing. It is also good to cite the authors of any source of information you have used. Those links are greatly appreciated, and will eventually be paid back to you.

6. Communicate with your readers. Add a poll or a survey to your site to find out exactly what it is your viewers like to read. This will help you determine the right content to provide and will encourage readers to not only interact with you, but with each other.

7. Always respond to comments. Your readers will most likely have something to say about the content you post. Make sure to answer their questions, give additional insight or information and provide any additional resources they may need.

8. Find the right schedule. Make sure to post in a routine manner; never too often and not too sporadic. You will quickly find out which time of day and days of the week get the most hits by looking at your site analytics and demographics.

9. Never ignore the numbers. Take advantage of analytics, it will provide you with all of the insight you’re ever going to need. You can track every visit from hundreds of different angles. It will be the best source for learning who your viewers are.

10. Maximize all social media resources. Promote your blog posts on all of your social media channels. This will spread your content and reinforce the information you are trying to share. It also makes it easier for people to find your site.

ASD Trade Show was established in 1961. They are one of the nation’s largest merchandise trade events in the industry, with over 3000 exhibitors and 45,000 retailers from all over the world, held in March & August. ASD Las Vegas showcases 4 major verticals—Gift & Toy, Jewelry, Style/Beauty, and Value & Variety. The Show runs February 27-March 2, 2010 at the Sands Expo Center. Sage Island’s CEO Mike Duncan will be giving two one hour seminars on Monday, Feb. 28th and Tuesday, March 1st. For more info on ASD Trade show visit their website at www.asdonline.com.

Mike is scheduled to speak on Feb. 28 and March 1st. His seminar “Strengthening Your Web Site’s Presence through an Integrated Marketing Plan” will teach business owners the tactics behind growing an online brand.

Check out the seminar schedule.

Strengthening Your Website through an Integrated Marketing Plan
Your website is a critical component of your business. At a time when online competition has never been so fierce, it’s crucial to ensure that qualified traffic is coming to your site. This seminar, presented my Mike Duncan, CEO of Sage Island addresses the necessity of a well designed, innovative website, and how to properly market it through a hands on approach of planning, analysis, and optimization. Mike speaks to the art of SEO and PPC tactics, successful eCommerce strategies, and how to properly utilize social media platforms to drive results and maximize your bottom line.

Quick Response or QR codes are bridging the gap between offline and online media. As more and more people integrate their smartphones into their daily life, it is only natural that businesses understand the importance of QR codes and how to use them effectively. Sage Island considers QR codes an important tool in our integrated marketing process, and have compiled some tips for how to use them successfully.

First, what is a QR code?

A  QR code is essentially a special barcode that you scan with your smartphone which allows you to access many types of information including web addresses, personal and professional contact information (vCard), product and service information and almost any other type of data.

QR codes provide an essential connection between print media and interactive media in a matter of seconds. With a QR code scanner app installed on your phone, you simply point your camera at the code to find out more information or even compare like products.

Here are some tips for creating QR codes that work.

There are many QR code generators found online. Be sure to use a code generator that links directly to your service, not through theirs. To find this out, simply scan the produced code.

Make them readable. Choose a QR code size that is appropriate for your medium. For print, you will need to use a larger size which will produce a higher resolution. For web, use a size that can allows you to scan without encountering errors.

You will get better performance if the QR code is placed on a white background and displayed straight up and down.

Keep the information you’re encoding as concise as possible. The greater the amount of data, the higher the level of error correction, or ECL, will be needed.

Make your content valuable! Point viewers to a landing page or set of information that relates directly to your call-to-action. This could include:

• Product details
• A coupon or special offer
• A YouTube video link
• A Facebook, Twitter, MySpace Page
• Event details
• White Papers and more!

How can your business use QR codes?

There are numerous ways in which your business can benefit by using QR Codes. They work best when added to business cards, conference badges, product packaging and any form of marketing material.

If you are new to QR Codes, or looking for innovative ideas, our expert designers, programmers and marketers are here to help you with your next project. Contact us to move your business to a new level of success.

ASD Trade Show was established in 1961. They are one of the nation’s largest merchandise trade events in the industry, with over 3000 exhibitors and 45,000 retailers from all over the world, held in March & August. ASD Las Vegas showcases 4 major verticals—Gift & Toy, Jewelry, Style/Beauty, and Value & Variety. The Show runs February 27-March 2, 2010 at the Sands Expo Center. Sage Island’s CEO Mike Duncan will be giving two one hour seminars on Monday, Feb. 28th and Tuesday, March 1st. For more info on ASD Trade show visit their website at www.asdonline.com.

Mike is scheduled to speak on Feb. 28 and March 1st. His seminar “Strengthening Your Web Site’s Presence through an Integrated Marketing Plan” will teach business owners the tactics behind growing an online brand.

Strengthening Your Website through an Integrated Marketing Plan
Your website is a critical component of your business. At a time when online competition has never been so fierce, it’s crucial to ensure that qualified traffic is coming to your site. This seminar, presented my Mike Duncan, CEO of Sage Island addresses the necessity of a well designed, innovative website, and how to properly market it through a hands on approach of planning, analysis, and optimization. Mike speaks to the art of SEO and PPC tactics, successful eCommerce strategies, and how to properly utilize social media platforms to drive results and maximize your bottom line.