Paid Search. Are You Paying People When They Walk in the Door? Eric Patterson

I was talking to my brother the other night and somehow we got on the conversation of online advertising and not wasting money. Somewhere in the midst of this discussion I gave an example of making sure you are not paying for visits when a searcher is putting your business name in their search phrase. This is a waste of your money because the intended user already knows they want to go to your site and why not let them click the free organic link instead. In a very quick response he came b...

Fans do not mean Engagement but Engagement brings Fans Eric Patterson

In a bit of a sound-off I write about the misconception of fan and follower counts. Although the number of fans and followers directly correlates to your potential audience it does not mean you should focus your marketing and budget on getting the most fans. If you are a local based business then why would you really care about fans/followers that are not in your geographic region either. I have heard multiple times through the local back channels that local social media guys/gals are tell...

Why and What to Monitor in Social Media Eric Patterson

Social media has taken the business world by storm. We have now reached a point where it is not uncommon to be driving down the highway and catch a facebook reference on a local billboard. Being a business your main goal is to sell a product or service and social media gives you a new channel to find potential customers. To be honest, social media is very time consuming and we need to be able to determine if that time is worthwhile. Measuring your online work is one step that a lot of peo...

Are Local Reviews More Important then Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Eric Patterson

If you are a Google search user then you might have noticed a huge change in your results based on a local search. If you are a business that competes in the local market then your local listing placement is more important than your organic placement because the local listing is shown above an organic result. However, with Google’s new search result page for local searches, the importance of your local listing placement has just magnified.

Google’s old method of lis...