Why Do an Audit? 

Is your local business falling short with its efforts to rank for those coveted local pack and map results on Google?

After the paid search ads, local packs are often the first thing potential customers see when they search for a product or service in a specified area. And this naturally means that not being visible on a local search result is a serious missed opportunity for your business.

If you’re still unsure about what Google’s local pack results are, we’ve included a screenshot below for the search term “furnace repair” to make you understand better.

3pack

Google’s search algorithm understands that the intent of my search query is to find a local business in my area. The local pack was developed in order to show the most relevant results for a particular user’s search, and there are essentially three main components that factor into these rankings: proximity, prominence, and relevance.

Fill out the form on the right and we will get started on your Audit Report.

Optimizing Your Google My Business Listing

Once you have your GMB listing setup you may be wondering what’s next?

Now, if you’ve not made any efforts to make sure that you show up in the local pack or as a GMB listing, worry not. Here are 5 quick steps so you can audit your Google My Business listing, compare yourself to top competitors, and make the necessary changes to attain those valuable local rankings.

There are a bunch of features within the GMB dashboard and a few ways you can optimize your GMB strategy to break into the top three results.

Here are five simple steps you can implement today.

1. 100% Business Information Accuracy

Your collective business details or NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number), need to be 100% accurate. This is vital as any inaccuracies here will impact your search results negatively.

Anywhere your business NAP details are listed online, you need to ensure they are accurate and match what you enter here in your GMB listing. This includes:

  • Your website
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Yelp!
  • Yellow Pages
  • Online directories
  • And any other website with your NAP details

Google is extremely strict when it comes to this. You’re registered business name has to be exactly the same on your Google My Business as it is everywhere else online.

Let’s say a company is registered under the name ‘Solar Suns’ and this is also how it appears on their website. However, for their GMB they decide to add some keywords ‘Solar Suns Commercial Solar Solutions’ or there is a typo ‘Solar Sun’s’. Both examples would result in Google penalizing Solar Suns in search results for inconsistency.  

Getting your contact details correct online is, of course, very important for your potential customers. If any of the details are incorrect you might miss out on connecting with them as they may not be able to call you, find you, or are left frustrated by inaccurate information.

2. Use the Google Posts feature

Google Posts are like social media posts or mini ads for your business that display on the local panel and on Google Maps. They can include a picture, call to action (CTA) button, and up to 300 words, as you can see below.

 
 
CTA Button on Google Posts
 
 
 

You can create Google Posts from within your GMB dashboard. Once you create a post, it will show up immediately and remain active for a week.

Google Posts can be used for:

  • Promoting events ― simply set up a post with all the details and add a link to your registration page
  • Have a specific sale or an awesome new product being launched? Create a post with all the details and high-quality images.
  • Extend the reach of your new blog post by including a short description and link
  • You can drive customers to your most important pages, or even allow them to book online through a well-written post

You have several call to action buttons to choose from ― learn more, sign up, reserve, get offer. and buy. This gives you a wide range of possibilities for driving traffic and leads to your website.

When creating your post it’s worth taking into consideration:

  • The maximum word count is 300, but try and keep it to 150-300 characters
  • Only the first 100 characters show up in search engine results, so make them count
  • Make sure the image you use is high-quality, ideally 750 x 750. and no smaller than 250 x 250
  • Use language that speaks directly to your customers, rather than industry jargon, and include a clear call to action  

3. Customers and Google My Business Love Reviews

Google encourages reviews and reviews encourage potential customers to act! Studies show that 85%  of customers read and trust online reviews.

Google My Business simplifies the review process by providing you with a link from your GMB dashboard, which you can send to customers asking them to leave a review. Although reviews will not directly impact your search results, they will play a role in potential customers choosing your business over your competitors’

 
 
Online review on laptop
 
 

Imagine you’re interested in converting to solar, but know very little about the industry. You might search for ‘the best solar companies in California’. Let’s say both ‘Solar Suns’ and ‘Golden State Solar’ come up in the GMB listings. If Solar Suns has over 300 good reviews and Golden State Solar has just seven, customers are much more likely to go with Solar Suns.

It’s important that when a customer does leave a review, that you reply to them, even if it’s just to say thank you.

If someone does leave you a bad review, this can be a blessing in disguise and provide you with an opportunity. Responding to negative reviews might help you to understand a potential business issue, and still encourage potential customers to choose your business when handled correctly. According to studies, 44.6% of customers will still use a business with a negative review if the business responded to it.  

Whether your business is left positive or negative reviews, responding to them all showcases an exceptional level of customer service.

4. Include Photos…and Videos

One of the first things potential customers will see is your profile picture. The goal of this picture is to encourage users to learn more about your business.

Whether it’s your logo or storefront ensure that the profile picture is high-quality, as it’s a representation of your business. According to studies. listings with a high-quality photo are twice as likely to be considered reputable and get 35% more clicks.

 
Example of clear logo
 
 

User-generated photos can be a great way to humanize your brand and create a sense of community. High-quality user-generated content creates interaction with your business and can provide you with plenty of content for your photo gallery.

Video is a relatively new feature and an exciting one. You can now add a 30-second video highlighting your company and what makes it unique straight into Google. However, Google does have guidelines to ensure your videos are directly related to your business location. This is can be a great opportunity to share your business story with potential customers.

5. Write Localized Content

Content is still one of the most important search engine ranking factors, as it provides value to users which is exactly what Google’s mission is.

Content is also a great strategy for increasing your brand awareness and authority. This can be done by providing local news, insights, events. or educational content.

For example, if your business is in the solar industry, partnering with a local school to provide educational information, insights, and possibly a competition for kids to enter, can increase your brand awareness.

Here’s How We Can Help…

Google My Business is the most valuable and cost-effective method of generating high-quality leads.

Investing your time into increasing your organic traffic through high-value keywords and optimizing your GMB listing can increase your brand awareness naturally.

Google My Business places all your vital business information in front of potential customers at the exact moment when they’re looking for your services. It’s powerful, impactful. and free.

Leaving your GMB listing unclaimed is allowing your competitors an opportunity to get ahead. At Fuseology Creative, our search-obsessed marketers have ranked clients in some of the most competitive spaces.

Our world-class growth marketing strategies help our clients generate new leads to such an extent, we have broken their systems

Get your free Fuseology Creative Agency growth audit today, and begin your journey to accelerated business growth and high-quality lead generation.

Brand Audits Help To Improve Your Online Business Strategies

Brand audit is an integral part of social media strategy. It helps you to understand the condition of your brand portfolio in the online world so that you can relate the financial performance of your brand. This analysis helps you to evaluate your site’s actual market position and awareness. It provides a clear snapshot of brand presentation and success of a site and reveals the true condition of your website.

Conducting a brand audit has become the foremost requirement in today’s competitive internet world. There are a large number of websites selling the same products and services and you need to make extra efforts to distinguish your website from the lot. Brand audits include analyzing the current position of your website while comparing to the competitor firms. Depending on the data of number of visitors, regular customers and processed sales, your share in the online market is revealed. This search helps to clear out the active users to your website and you will be in a position to better serve their needs and expectations.

Customer satisfaction and their opinions about your products are required to be known to better serve them in near future. By giving supreme importance to their expectations and reviews, you can distinguish your products from others. Brand audit allows you to avoid loss of loyal users to your website, due to their dissatisfaction, with some changes to the website. It also helps you analyse the key users in your field or industry and assists you in reaching out customers that are active in several social media channels such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google + and others.

We also perform Brand Audits, providing a report on how and where your brand is currently being discussed online. We can provide information about the ‘key online influencers’ in your field or topic area to assist you in reaching out to bloggers, tweeters or Instagram users who can help you push out your message.

There are several esteemed companies that help in improving the quality of your online presence. These companies have established a well known name in the industry for enhancing the social media presence of businesses. They perform full brand audits across the social web to clearly identify the risks and the opportunities. Their comprehensive and detailed report on how and where your brand is being discussed helps you to get an insight about the popularity of your brand on the internet.

4 Strategies For Startups to Build a Brand on an Appropriate Budget

4 Strategies For Startups to Build a Brand on an Appropriate Budget

As a startup, if you were to create a checklist of your primary objectives, it would probably read something like:

Develop products/services. Check.
Attract customers. Check.
Generate a positive cash flow. Check. Check.

If you were to continue, where would you put “build a brand” on the list? Somewhere after “when there’s time and money for it”?

If this sounds like your scenario, you’re not alone. Many CEOs of startups put off building their brand because they believe that it’s too complicated or too costly to accomplish at a time when they’re focused on getting products/services to market and turning a profit. If you subscribe to this logic, what do you think is going to draw your customers in?

Your brand is the foundation for your communication to your market. It impacts everything from building a customer base to attracting potential investors or other sources of startup capital. It’s a magnet to attract your ideal customers. The more clear and concise your brand is, the stronger the magnet you have to pull them in.

However, don’t sell your brand short by thinking it’s just a logo. While a brand does include a logo, it also contains these other touch points:

  • Name
  • Tagline
  • Website
  • Products/services
  • Social media profiles
  • Brochures
  • Signage
  • People
  • Business cards
  • And more

It is inclusive of all experiences your market has with your business.

With so many possible branding options, you’re probably wondering how much this will cost you. Fortunately, there are options that can fit in with a startup budget.

1. Engage in social media campaigns.

If you had an opportunity to step into a room full of ideal customers, listen in on their conversations, and build a relationship with them, would you? Of course you would. This is the basic premise behind participating in social media. From Facebook, to Twitter, to YouTube, LinkedIn and a host of other platforms, you can engage groups of prospects in conversation. While we don’t subscribe to the notion that social media is a free form of marketing, it can be very cost effective as compared to other strategies. You’ll have an investment of time and money, the balance of which depends upon what you plan to do on your own versus outsourcing to a social media management firm so you can focus on your core competencies.

Once you create your profiles, you will need to remain consistent in your efforts to draw people to your profiles, incentivize them to become followers, and engage in your conversations. Start with your customers and other people from your industry that you have a relationship with. Create a contest or a drawing to get them active on your site. It’s far easier to generate activity with people who know and like you than it is with complete strangers, especially for a startup. Once you get this first round of people active on your site, you can use some cost effective ads or another contest to attract their friends, and grow your following from there. Consistency and quality of conversation is key.

2. Build a relationship with the press.

Imagine the positive impact your business would experience if you had top newspapers, trade rags, blogs, radio programs and TV shows interviewing you or singing your praises. It’s possible, but it does take some work. First, you need to connect with credible sources that hold influence over a sizable population of your ideal customers. Second, review the stories or other content they produce. What topics do they focus on? What tone do they use –professional, personable? Do you see opportunities where a story about your business or your expertise may be of interest to their audience? Third, find out who is producing the content. You’re going to be seeking editors, writers, producers, and top bloggers.

Once you have a list of names and contact information, you can start reaching out to them. Before you do though, it’s a wise idea to consume some of the content they produce and following them on social media. You will get a better sense of who they are and what’s important to them. This will help you hone your personal messages when you submit story ideas and press releases. Don’t get discouraged if they don’t contact you after your first correspondence. They may not have seen it. Your story idea may not have been right for them. However, if you come back once a week or every other week with a fresh idea that’s on target for their market, you will get their attention. Just always remember that when you’re pitching an idea or submitting other news about your startup, don’t lose sight of what’s in it for them and their audience.

3. Manage a focused SEO strategy.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. When people enter in certain keywords to the search engines, they get a list of ads and organic links to choose from. SEO helps put your links or your ads to the top of the list. So if you recently launched your accounting practice in Towson, MD, and people are searching by “accountants in towson md”, they will find you instead of your competition.

Start by creating a list of keyword phrases that you think people will use to find solutions to the problems that you provide. Typically, most people don’t enter in single word phrases. If you were looking to buy a car, you wouldn’t enter in the phrase “car”. You might enter in phrases like “used cars” or “car dealerships” along with the city and state where you live.

Once you have your list, you will need to do research to see what kind of search volume your initial list of phrases has and what other content the SERPs display using the same phrases. After you fine tune your list, modify the copy on your website and in the backend of your site to match your list. You will use these same phrases in blog or article posts to your site and on your social media profiles. There are a host of other on-the-page and off-the-page SEO elements; however, you can get started with these basics.

4. Position your business as the expert.

People are always looking for ways to make their lives easier or to improve their performance at work. This has them constantly scanning for new solutions to what they believe may be holding them back. If you can bring a fresh perspective to the market with valuable information, you can grow a following and tie in the benefits of the three previous strategies.

So how can you step into the spotlight as an expert? Start by creating some kind of moniker for your marketing and public relations purposes. If you’re a copywriter, you may call yourself “The Word Doctor”. Second, be authentic and connect with your customers on their level. Be personable and share your story to show your human side. Third, create an ongoing series of content that you syndicate to the press, on your blog, on your social media profiles, and through other media channels. From there, you can build online communities focused on your area of expertise. You can do this using social media, it can tie in your SEO strategies, and you can invite people from the press to come on as guest experts or for an interview.

If you need assistance performing a brand audit and developing your marketing budget to create additional strategies for building your budget, go to our Contact Us page or call us at 360-602-2655

Consultants of Brand

Consultants of Brand – Fuseology Creative

To maintain a properbrand of one’s company is important which helps to maximize customers and also help in proper presentation of their business in various fields. Brand consultants are employed by brand consultancies to evaluate and analyzebrand identity, strategy and performance of their client’s products. When a company is failing to pack, brandconsultants help to breathe new life into it. They provide a fresh perspective of a company’s brand and implementbranding solutions for their clients.

Brand consultants should have marketing strategy as a part of their responsibility and they should achieve a goal. Any business requires positive visions and a brandconsultant should have simple, relevant and fresh designs to come up for. The collection of these will serve for future marketing which build confidence for marketing impact. A brandconsultant uses online marketing for their campaigns through social media sites which are easier to reach the farthest point. They should be smart in a way that they can put up correct words to be used in this aim for organization structure. The followers can be increased to their network and some become their customers. A brandconsultant understands every detail in the business type which he is working that will clearly appear in the professional logos.

A brandconsultant will develop a brandplan that will drive the brandstrategy both externally and internally. They will address all key elements of thebrand from the recruitment advertising to customer departments and their ability to represent thebrand to sale and more. They will work to find the best resources to use to get the organization onbrand. A brandconsultant will carry out an audit for industry, business, systems, processes and stakeholders to find the best way. Branding is a strategic institutional initiative which will have C level involvement in the development of the brandwhere it must be in the hands of executive management.

A marketing bachelor’s degree program should be completed to attain the entry level work. Course work must have finance, communications and sales strategies. The positions of work as brandconsultant may have product manager, sales, brandassistant and account manager of advertising. A marketing master’s degree program is common for professionals to develop their work experience. Brand consultants provide solutions, analyses and marketing expertise to help companies to sell their products. They develop and help new and old products and influence of marketing from design and messaging to public relations. They collect data and perform market research to find out business trends, competition and product value.

To make one’s business more popular, he needs to create a professionally designed business identity. Corporate identity is publicly called as corporate identity design which is the process of creating brandimages in the form of business card, logo, business stationary, letter heads and many more. Corporate identity design is also known as corporate stationary design, brandimage design or identity design. It is a creative process as the brandimage defines entire business.

Combat Internet Fraud With Online Brand Protection Solution

Combat Internet Fraud With Online Brand Protection Solution

Today the economy is an advanced one and is in a constant stage of evolution. Developments with internet have made it possible for the users to opt for the quick search methods for their needed goods and services. As a result a user shopping online is able to compare the prices at a faster pace than he could have done otherwise. However, with these advancements there are also certain drawbacks. With the online trade and eCommerce boom, there has been an increase in the counterfeit products and online fraud that in turn has spoiled enterprise reputation and brand image.

Companies Affected by Online Fraud

The presence of the counterfeit products and grey market has affected the corporate brand image of numerous enterprises. The segments affected most include corporate enterprises, manufacturers of luxury goods and pharmaceuticals, organizations that specialize in the high-tech industry and many others. The way the counterfeit products reach the mass is through the online shopping sites that sell duplicate goods and products online at a discounted price. As the products reach the audience at large and they figure out that the quality or performance is not up to the mark, the original brand image gets tarnished.

Previously enterprises and organizations used to secure their brand image by utilizing the search engine alerts on the main brands. It is essential that companies invest in proper online brand protection software as well as counterfeit detection applications. Effective brand protection software must comprise of programs that would thoroughly monitor all internet activity. At the same time, it should help in monitoring the website listings and help in prioritizing the collected information into actionable information and structured inputs that would in turn lead to proactive management.

Today there are service providers offering innovative online brand protection and anti-counterfeiting solutions. Notable service providers offering end-to-end brand protection solutions comprise the three essential steps as listed below:-

  • They help in identification by automatically monitoring the internet activity, audit trial of web portal listing, prioritizing, and analysis of collected inputs into actionable inputs

  • The investigation is carried on with the help of custody documentation, test buys, and company investigations

  • The actions are implemented with the help of automated action shut down, offering assistance for criminal and civil litigation and automated creation of the C&D letters

Furthermore, the service providers make used of the cyber analysts reports and dashboards in order to identify the seller portfolio. Comprehensive referral packages and investigative workflow tools are put to use in order to implement automatic auction shutdowns and creation of automatic C&D letters. Simultaneously, the brand protection software helps the users to globally monitor on a regular basis for any untoward activity.