Leveraging the Power of Free Advertising

1. How to make it easy for you customers to find and research you and your services! Leveraging the Power of Free Advertising

2. There are two types of advertising: • Paid – Primary focus is Return on Investment (ROI) • Free - The primary cost is your time **We will focus on some of the Free advertising channels you can leverage starting today!

3. The Internet is a Powerful Tool: • What happened to the Yellow Pages? • Do people carry around phonebooks? • Are there payphones with the phonebook attached to it? • Today we use search engines to find EVERYTHING! • “If you can’t find it by the third page of Google, it doesn’t exist.” • You need to have a web presence because it’s what your CUSTOMERS expect! • It will help customers find and research you!

4. Your Strategy is Very Important: • You MUST come up in search engines when people do a direct search for you and your services! • (Ex. a Google search for your name and service) • Claim your services in online directories (Yelp, Google, Yahoo-local, etc) • Set up your profiles on social sites (Facebook & LinkedIn) • You WANT to come up in search engines when people do a generic search. • (Ex. A Google search for real estate agents in your area.) • This is harder to do, but with the right approach you can. • 1. Have a website • 2. Claim your listings • 3. Encourage customers to give reviews on your claimed listings

5. Example of a claimed listing:

6. Google- Local Having reviews is the key difference in positioning and ranking

7. Facebook – News Feed Don’t lose listings to a competitor simply because your friend didn’t know that you were in the business!

8. Questions? Concerns. Comments.

9. Listing sites to consider: • Top Website for Claiming Your Business Listing:(These are all free and important) • Localezehttp://webapp.localeze.com/extranet/createaccount.aspx to sign up.Certify and manage your Local Search presence across the Web. • Yelphttp://www.yelp.com/ Search for your listing and click Edit Business Listing • Google Placeshttp://places.google.com/business Log in to your Google account or create one to claim your business listing. • Yahoo Localhttp://local.yahoo.com/ Search for your business. Then click Edit Info. Log in to your Yahoo account or create one. Basic listing is free. • Bing Localhttps://ssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx • City Searchhttp://www.citysearch.com/ Search for your business. Click the Own This Business? link. • Yellow Pages http://www.yellowpages.com/ Search for your business, click the Add or edit this business information link, then click the Are you a Representative of this Business? Go to the Business Representative "Improve this Listing" form. • Yellow Pages listing will also get your information on Buzz.com. Buzz is new and there's no way yet to directly manage your business Buzz account. The info is taken from Yellow Pages website. • Local.comhttp://www.local.com/ Search for your business. Look for the big Is This Your Listing? Claim it and promote your business. Click the Claim My Listing button. This takes you to the free account sign-up. • Best of the Web Localhttp://local.botw.org/helpcenter/jumpstartproduct.aspx • Super Pageshttp://www.supermedia.com/spportal/quickbpflow.do • Insider Pageshttp://www.insiderpages.com/ Search for your business. Then click the Claim Business link. • HotFroghttp://www.hotfrog.com/ Search for your business. Find Is This Your Business? Update Now. Create an account to manage your listing. • infoUSAhttp://www.expressupdateusa.com/home.aspx

10. How to claim your business/ services: • Go to the websites found on the previous slide and create an account • Proceed to fill in the information related to your business and submit it • Keep and excel file of the website and the username and password used to access it • Verify your listing • See example on next slide • Often these channels will want you to verify your listing by mailing you a post card with a “Code” to the address you listed

11. Google – Places Example Search for you business: Fill out your information:

12. Verify Your Listing – The Final Step • Go back to the website and log in • Enter the verification code • And you’re done!

13. Encourage customers to write reviews: • Do you provide great service? Encourage your customers to talk about it online. • The power of reviews is increasing. • People do business with people they know, like, and trust. • Customer reviews help customers feel like the know you before you ever meet. • How do you ask for a review? • Have a conversation about it • Send them an email with links to your claimed listings

14. Examples of the type of conversation you can have: • We hope you enjoyed our Next Step course as well as our 63-hour Pre-License course • After class you will receive an email with links to our various claimed listings • If you feel we deserve 5 stars for our programs, will you take a few minutes to rate and review us? • Your feedback helps both Gold Coast Schools, as well as future students who are researching us online.

15. Example of the email:

16. STOP!!!! • Don’t write fake reviews, or get everyone you know to write reviews about you • If all reviews come from the same IP Address (the same house or business) it will be Blacklisted • Don’t have everyone you know write a review in a short period of time, especially after you just claimed your listings. • Anything that doesn’t appear natural will get your listings penalized and unlisted.

17. Summary: • The internet is here to stay • Web strategy is important, but it doesn’t always have to be expensive and overwhelming • With a few simple and free things, you could be driving additional traffic to your services • Leverage the free tools that search engines make available to you • MAKE IT EASY FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU!!!