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June 10, 2016 by

Google My Maps Marketing And SEO Strategy

Benefits Of Using Google My Maps

One of the more unique tools offered by Google in recent months is its new “My Maps” functionality.   The ability to use for real world marketing, online marketing, SEO, boosting your YouTube videos, boosting awareness of your website’s (or other web property’s) images, inner pages and posts, and “Tier 2” link building is impressive.

 

What Is “My Maps”?

Unlike regular Google Maps, which promotes specific locations such as your corporate headquarters or store locations, this tool enables you to make an indefinite number of “maps” which you can customize and use to show the public several aspects of your business.   For example, you can create a custom My Maps map of:

  • Cities where your customers or clients are located anywhere around the world
  • Specific locations where you may have been a public speaker
  • Locations where you have been an exhibitor at trade shows
  • Event venues where you have performed or had your products (or services) used
  • Any other way you can think of displaying relevant geographic information in a visual manner rather than a simple list

 

Why Should I Consider Using This My Maps Method?  What Benefit Can It Give Me To Make My Phone Ring Or Otherwise Grow My Business?

These are great questions!

Since this is a Google-owned property, which you can access using your Google account that you likely already use for YouTube/Gmail/Docs/Blogger (Blogspot) blogs/etc., you will easily be able to create many of these maps.  The benefits are many, including the flexibility to highlight subsets of your business such as “Client Locations In 2015” (and you can do another My Map for a previous year like 2014) or some of the benefits mentioned earlier.

In terms of online marketing and SEO benefits, you surprisingly can get more benefit out of these My Maps than you may realize.  Here are some specific things you can do with these Maps:

  • Most people don’t know that these My Maps can rank on their own in the search engines, much like a YouTube video can rank on its own.  Be sure to do proper keyword research and put the keywords in the correct My Maps fields
  • In the description field include your business “NAP” (for citations) and your phone number, if appropriate
  • In the description field link to your website, your social media properties, and any other web properties that make sense to promote (e.g. a press release distribution account central location, YouTube channel, guest post that features your business favorably, etc.)
  • Embed optimized YouTube videos in the specific map marker locations to help with local SEO for videos
  • Embed optimized (including geo-tagged) images in specific map marker locations
  • Link to inner pages on your website (or other web properties) which are relevant to the geographic area defined by the map marker
  • Much more

 

What To Do With These My Maps Once They Are Created?

You can do several things with these custom My Maps, both with the direct link and using iFrame embed code.  You can:

  • Embed the My Maps iFrame code on your website, blog or other primary web property
  • Share the link to the My Maps URL on your social media properties
  • Share the link in any e-mail newsletter you have
  • Make a QR code to the specific URL and share the code on print materials at trade shows, business cards, or other marketing done in the real world
  • Have the iFrame code get embedded on third-party web properties to send traffic to the My Maps page
  • Many other ways to market the link to the My Maps page (URL)

 

If you would like help on creating, marketing, getting search engine marketing benefits, or getting real world benefits from these custom Google My Maps then you are welcome to contact us.   We can help you gain more exposure to the My Map as well as promote your website and other web properties.

 

Examples Of These My Maps

Here is an example of a My Map for an optometrist in Dallas who wanted to promote the neighboring businesses near his office location:

 

Here is an interior designer based in Dallas, listing the nearby cities and suburbs where she has clients:

 

 

Here is a DFW real estate agent who lists some North Texas new neighborhoods where the home builders are offering incentives for prospective home buyers:

 

Here is a Map of client location history for a defense attorney who specializes in health care fraud cases such as those pertaining the False Claims Act, CLIA, Medicaid billing, anti-kickback and similar medical industry situations:

 

Here is a My Map featuring some of the locations of a commercial modular construction manufacturing company’s recently completed projects across the United States:

 

And here is a ranch and farm real estate broker’s My Maps listing of counties and towns featuring recently sold ranches and agricultural properties in Texas and Oklahoma:

Filed Under: Backlinks, image marketing, lead generation, link building, local marketing, Mobile, my maps, QR code, SEO, video optimization, youtube Tagged With: ,
September 13, 2011 by

QR Codes For Dallas Fort Worth Businesses

QR Codes For Dallas Fort Worth Businesses

During the past few weeks at one of the local DFW chamber of commerce regular meetings, I kept getting asked about QR Codes.  These seem to be a source of confusion for many business owners, so I will help you clarify them and why they can be useful in multiple ways.

First, “QR” stands for “Quick Response.”  These two-dimensional (2D) bar code graphics allow someone with a 2D bar code reader on his/her mobile phone to scan the image and be taken to a number of different things on the internet.  These destinations can be:

  • Some page on your website (e.g. your home page, a contact page)
  • A third-party web property you control (e.g. your Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter page)
  • To your contact information in the form of a vCard or something similar
  • Your listing on Google Maps (or other search engine maps sites)
  • An article about your business on another website
  • A “check in” service like Foursquare.com
  • Multiple other destinations

For example, this QR code goes to my YouTube channel:

Dallas YouTube Marketing QR CodeThe big thing to remember about QR codes is that they simply act like a regular link on the internet; and that link can take someone in the physical world to any destination you wish online.  The best part is that you can enhance the visitor’s experience by customizing content to match the mindset of the visitor at the time of the scanning.

Here are some examples of how you, as the business executive, can utilize QR codes:

  • If you are at a business networking meeting, you can put a QR code on the back of your business card which gives helpful tips about your business.  This builds trust in you and your company
  • If you run a retail store then you can have your customers scan a QR code in order to leave a review on your Google Maps/Places listing or your Yahoo Local listing
  • Print advertising can have QR codes on them and give readers customized coupons or other incentives
  • T-shirts now can have QR codes on them.  This will help if you give them away at trade shows so that prospects can get helpful information about your business as it relates to the specific show
  • Chamber of commerce groups can put the codes on flyers at meetings.  The visitor can be taken to pages such as the calendar of events, messages from the chamber president, etc.

Have lots of flexibility with these codes, and there are other types of 2D bar codes for different uses.  Remember, that the QR code does NOT have to go directly to your home page.  Often, it is better if the code sends the visitor to something OTHER than your home page in order to enhance the visitor’s experience.  ALWAYS give value with your QR codes, and do what you can to add value to the visitor.

Finally, a great element about QR codes is that they have some tracking capabilities.  This now allows you to begin to track print advertising, billboard advertising, T-shirt giveaways, coffee mugs, and any other type of marketing you do in the physical world.  You can stick with those marketing efforts which produce results and cut back on those which do not work in your specific market.

If you need any help with customizing a QR code strategy for your specific business then please contact me to set a time to talk.  I hope that this quick article helps you better understand the merits of QR codes and how they may help you achieve specific goals for your business.

Filed Under: Mobile, QR code Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
March 26, 2011 by

Local Businesses Accepting PayPal From Mobile Phone Users

Here is a recent article about mobile payments being made with greater regularity:  http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2011/03/23/paypal-processing-more-than-6-billion-per-day-in-mobile-transactions.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

One of the emerging trends which can help local small businesses gain more revenue is the ability to accept forms of payment which are:

  • trusted by the customer
  • easy for the customer
  • are “synthetic currency” to the customer, therefore increasing the likelihood of a larger-than-normal purchase or willingness to accept additional up-sells at the time of purchase

 

An easy way in which a local small business, including everything from a local pizza restaurant to a local boutique clothing store to a local sports team, can increase its revenues is to accept PayPal.  This is especially true if the end customer tends to have a balance on PayPal, thereby increasing the likelihood of the money being spent.  This is because, at the time of purchase, the transaction is not being made either in cash or with a credit card; and this likens the transaction more toward how an adult views his/her balance in a casino with the chips.  At the time of the transaction, the customer may be willing to spend more because it is not something which seems to “feel like” real money is being spent.

Consider the following example if you owned a local pizza shop:

  • Teenagers want to eat pizza.  This is about as obvious an example of a “hungry market” as I could select!
  • Teenagers need money from Mom and Dad, so they ask for money to spend on a Friday night
  • Mom and Dad don’t want their child wasting money or spending it on items which are deemed inappropriate
  • Mom and Dad also wish to teach the teenager about spending habits, so they want to track where their “hard earned money” goes
  • Mom and Dad put $25 on the teenager’s PayPal account so that Mom & Dad can track the spending
  • Teenager has a Smart Phone or other mobile phone with internet capability
  • Teenager goes with his/her friends to the pizza place which accepts the PayPal
  • Teenager uses phone to buy pizza, via PayPal
  • Teenager may buy an extra slice or a drink for his/her friend because the other friend doesn’t have money that particular Friday night
  • Mom & Dad consider pizza purchases an “appropriate” purchase when tracking the spending

Obviously, the local business owner and management have to consider a few factors:

  • Making sure that the business is comfortable with PayPal’s transaction rates & fees
  • Making sure that the business is comfortable with PayPal’s chargeback rates, the overall terms & conditions, etc.
  • Training staff to confirm that PayPal transaction, indeed, did put money in the business’ account
  • Having a system in place to take PayPal transaction data to integrate into the business’ bookkeeping and accounting & tax systems

 

One extra benefit to this is that local nonprofit organizations can accept donations in the same way.  By accepting mobile phone donations on PayPal at the time the people are in a “giving mindset”, the organization can increase on-the-spot donations.  Assuming that prospective donors have a positive balance on their PayPal accounts, this should enable organizations to actually begin to get tangible results (in terms of donations) from all of the live events which they attend.  These could include Chamber of Commerce events, live events put on by the organization, booths set up at local fairs and festivals, etc.

Each business will have to weigh the pros and cons of whether or not to accept any form of digital currency & transaction services (PayPal included) in its business going forward.  To being the process of determining whether or not it makes sense for you then click the link below and then click the “Business” tab.  From there you can get information pricing, having a “virtual terminal”, and more:

 

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.

 

Filed Under: Local Business Revenues, Mobile Tagged With: , , , , ,